Sean Willard

You know that I want to know how you came to do this job. So please tell me that story.
So, I started as a host. I was cleaning the menus because that was my job. And I noticed a few spelling errors on the menu. I pointed them out to the owner, and he said to me, “We’re restaurateurs. We’re not English majors.” And they saw that I was detail-oriented, so they asked if I wanted to do accounts payable. This was in the mid-2000s, and they were still using paper and pencil. I don’t want to discredit them because they are fantastic businessmen, but I came in and said, “Hey, we can digitize this.” They asked me to change the menu, update it for new pricing. And I said, “Great. Uh, what are our costs?” And they said, “Well, we don’t have those,” you know? So that was the beginning of my working with the executive chef to cost out the menu. His name is Fernando, still has his restaurant in New Jersey. We were partners at the opening. The landlord for the restaurant told me about the hotel school at Cornell University. I’d never heard about it before, and it hit right at home for me. And I got to spend two and a half years there. After that, one of my professors introduced me to Gregg Rapp. And Gregg Rapp had been engineering menus for 33 years. We got to work together for five and a half years. We had a small two-person shop. He was the main show, and I was behind the scenes doing the data analysis. And, you know, I’d join him on our larger projects.

Who are… obviously, I know who your clients are. They’re restaurants and restaurant groups. But why do they seek you out?
They bring us on when they know that there’s change that has to happen. So, when I create a menu, I want it to answer 85 to 90 percent of a guest’s questions. The one that I was really proud of, it’s called Bob’s on the Rocks. They are a seasonal restaurant. The issue they had was, they were too busy, and we created a handheld menu for them that people could pick up in the parking lot. So, we were able to capture their attention for a little bit longer. And as a menu engineer, what I try to do is look for ancillary sales. So, we know you’re going to come and have an entrée. Here, it was fish and chips, but for those chips, can I get you to trade up to spicy chicken poutine, onion rings, or a side salad? That was a big difference-maker for them. Because we knew we had people’s time and attention, we told the story about the business of very fresh seafood. And then we added the tagline “Fish and chips, worth the trip.” You are making an intentional visit to Bob’s on the Rocks.