Champions of Food, Service and Quality

by Chris Becicka

Paul Khoury founder of PB&J Restaurant.

So there I wasn’t. I wasn’t eating the “signature” porkchop at Grand Street Café; nor the 16 ounce rib eye with a red wine reduction and shiitake butter at Yahooz in Leawood; nor the pan-roasted chicken with crispy potatoes at Yia Yia’s at 119th and Roe. No, I wasn’t even snarfing down the giant “bleu ribbon” burger nor fabulous onion rings at Red Robin’s on 135th and Antioch. Instead, I was just talking and not eating with Paul Khoury and Bill Crooks, founders of the local, homegrown restaurant group of PB&J Restaurants, Inc.

Back in 2002, I wrote an Ingram’s article highlighting how much restaurants contributed to all the charities in Kansas City. I specifically mentioned these two men and their company, who’d recently been voted “Restauranteurs of the Year” by the Missouri Restaurant Association, due to their contributions to the community and the industry.

“We do this because we grew up here,” says Khoury. “We feel we need to help our community.” Their list is long—from the Arthritis Foundation to Children’s Mercy to Rockhurst to the American Royal—and many more.

But it’s one thing to contribute over $100,000 a year to charities; it’s another to truly believe your 1,000 employees have given you the wherewithal to do that. Employee focus really does permeate what they say and do. Their extensive training indicates that; their broad benefits package which includes the much-ballyhooed free Harley Davidson motorcycle to 15-year employees—they’re giving away five of those these year—says that. The fact that national chains try to “steal” their employees, sometimes blatantly, indicates that, too.

What Khoury and Crooks seem to have managed to do so well is to develop a true culture that, no matter the concept of their 13 restaurants, the attitudes of staff are unified. Key in that culture is their idea that patrons’ expectations must be exceeded. That has become a cliché of course, but when you hear the stories about racing down the street to get a certain cigar, or getting sushi delivered that day for a panicked Wichita transportation executive who called in the morning with the news that their Yia Yia’s renown corn-fed Kansas beef wasn’t going to suffice for his Japanese guest that night, or sprinting for a vanilla-chocolate yogurt swirl when a guest jokingly dismissed dessert because he said that’s all he really wanted, then you know these folks have created an atmosphere that pays attention to the customer.

A second persistent notion is the idea that if they focus on making the employees happy next, then their bottom line would naturally increase. Their web site says there are four rules for employees: Do what’s right. Do your best. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Have FUN!!! It sounds simple; it’s not. But they do it.

The challenge, says Crooks, is to give great quality in everything you do, including bringing in local produce and meat as often as you can. To “differentiate us from the chains, we will continue to use local providers. We find the best local producers of pork and cattle. We make everything ourselves in our kitchens. It all makes that difference that our customers rely on.”

They and their restaurants have received lots of awards, from consumers’ “best of...” votes to entrepreneurial awards to James Beard invitations. Their restaurants have been featured nationally despite Khoury’s chagrin that, nationally, Kansas City too often is seen as just barbeque and steaks when “we’re so much more!” People in four states eat in their restaurants because they know they can get exactly what they want, no matter what the menu says.

Khoury and Crooks may have succeeded by looking ahead for the next concept, but they always build the base on delicious food and exceptional service. They’ve added all the rest—and have become champions in the process.