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History
I started in the food industry at age 14, working at D.W. Spuds and Co. in the Towne East mall in Wichita, KS. Due to some attrition and my own hard work, I was named the assistant manager while still only 14 years old. As assistant manager, I took inventories, ordered food, settled cash drawers, made deposits, and created schedules. It was a great learning experience to start a long food service career.
During my early teen years, I worked at Taco Bell and Spangles quick service restaurants. Not glorious work, but good experience none the less. I was introduced to organized systems of operation, and got my first peek at what it takes to operate a major chain. I learned every position in a quick service restaurant, from dishwasher to cook, cashier and shift supervisor.
At 18 years, I started work at Crestview Country Club. In my 7 years at Crestview, I built my ideals of service and food quality, started designing menus and honed my skills creating organizational tools and pricing food and beverages.
Shortly before my 25th birthday, I was approached by a previous co-worker to partner in Midwest Hospitality Group, a startup food service management company whose first account was the Coffeyville Country Club in Coffeyville, KS. I was offered a sweat equity partnership paid for by creating the systems and tools used to manage the country club food service. I also acted as General Manager of the club.
After Coffeyville, I was hired by Compass Group, a Fortune 500 contract management food service company that does over $8 billion per year in sales. For Compass’s higher education division, Chartwells, I worked as a travelling “fix it” manager. It was my job to travel around Kansas to take over troubled accounts where managers were either fired or quit, turn them profitable, and help train new managers to take the accounts over. I was successful at turning every unprofitable college food service I entered into a money making operation. This experience enforced to me the importance of very detailed management and training systems. I also gained valuable experience working with popular chain operations within the food courts of some of these colleges.
In 1999, I began participating in the discussion forums on Foodservice.com. My experience with Chartwells and prior, and the training I received allowed me to help many restaurant owners that participated in the discussion forums. After building a reputation for giving great advice, I started receiving requests from restaurant owners to help them create the same type of management systems in their restaurants I used to turn around Chartwells college operations. This began my career in restaurant consulting.
In 2001, I moved to Wichita to be closer to my family. I was offered a food and beverage manager position at the Wichita Country Club, the oldest country club west of the Mississippi. Around this time I was also approached by RestaurantOwner.com to help answer restaurant owner questions in their discussion forums. I continued my consulting work while further honing my management skills, graphic design skills, and perfecting my gross profit pricing model at the Wichita Country Club. I remained at the Wichita Country Club for 3 years until leaving to focus on my consulting work.
Since 2001, I have continued help restaurant owners and create new management tools, spreadsheets, manuals, menus and more. I have designed several concepts for owners. I sell some of my tools in my webstore at www.bodellconsulting.com/webstore.html. I also write articles and publish them on a blog at http://blog.bodellconsulting.com. My articles have been used on Foodservice.com, RestaurantReport.com, several other websites, and by print publications.
In 2007, I started a concept of my own in Wichita, KS. Friend that Cooks Home Chef Service is a personal chef service that now operates in Wichita and Kansas City. We send personal chefs to the homes of our customers on a weekly basis to shop, cook, clean up and stock their refrigerators with fresh gourmet meals they can reheat in 4 minutes or less. Friend that Cooks adheres to the same conceptual rules I teach to restaurants. The concept is simple, offers a lot of value, and most importantly, it creates a strong emotional bond with our customers through our effective use of a unique selling point that is based on one emotion, “friendship”. Friend that Cooks also allows me a testing ground for recipes I use for restaurants I consult for.
Publications and Interviews
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Convenience Store Decisions Magazine, current issue - http://www.csdecisions.com/article/8950
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This Week In Small Business blog - http://thisweekinsmallbusiness.com/?p=35
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Next Course Magazine, Gordon Food Service
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Sysco Food Service news letter
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The Chef’s Commandments, Pineapple Publishing - http://www.amazon.com/Chefs-Commandments-Profitability-Maintaining-Profit-Driven/dp/0982266022/
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National Restaurant Association article interview by Paul Moomaw
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Evancarmichael.com - http://www.evancarmichael.com/Franchises/2748/summary.php
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Foodservice.com - http://www.foodservice.com/articles/results.cfm?CTID=1&AuthorID=147323
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RestaurantReport.com - http://restaurantreport.com/departments/biz_restaurant-food-menu-pricing.html
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RestaurantRevolution.com - http://www.restaurantrevolution.com/food-pricing-for-your-restaurant/
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OwnRestaurantBusiness.com - http://www.ownrestaurantbusiness.com/2008/12/who-is-target-market-for-your.html
On the Web
www.bodellconsulting.com
http://blog.bodellconsulting.com
www.friendthatcooks.com
http://www.fohboh.com/profile/BrandonODell
http://www.foodservice.com/profile/brandon/
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandon-o-dell/9/520/638
http://companies.to/odellrestaurantconsulting
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