A Toast to the 10/4 Rule, Reliability, and Being Present with Brian Pearson from Mendocino Farms

Mendocino Farms is a growing fast-casual concept focusing on salads and sandwiches with locations in California, Washington, and Texas. The health-conscious and chef-driven menu boasts a bright and airy space and celebrates quality ingredients and new flavors, with new product launches three times a year. 

Toast works to create technology to help restaurants thrive, and the “Toast to…” series celebrates the great people who help power restaurants and great hospitality experiences every day. We sat down with Mendocino Farms’ Chief Technology Officer, Brian Pearson, to talk about his career in restaurant IT, what makes Mendocino Farms stand out, and how technology can enhance hospitality.

In 1999, I got an opportunity to join Cheesecake Factory in an entry-level IT role, and since then I’ve continued to grow my career and work in other great concepts. I went to Ruby’s Diner and was a director there for a while and then I went to BJ’s and led the IT team for about a decade. Next, I did a restaurant startup with BJ’s founders and worked on the world’s first iPad-based POS system. I left there, did some consulting for a while, and then ended up making my way to Mendocino Farms.

That’s quite the journey! Tell us more about Mendocino Farms. What makes it so special?

Mendocino Farms is one of my favorite brands that I’ve ever worked for. The ethos of the brand is hyperfocused on hospitality, serving a very high-quality chef-driven menu that focuses on new and innovative flavors, providing our team members with a positive experience, and having a gorgeous facility. I’m excited to be part of our growth here at Mendo.

Mendocino Farms is ingredient-driven, focused on high-quality, whole, from-the-earth ingredients so that you can Eat Happy, our tagline and our way of life. We have no preservatives in our product and we source each ingredient from companies that have to be in alignment with our standards. 

We also work on the menu 44 weeks out of the year so we’re always innovating our offerings. We do three major product launches annually, where we bring out new chef-driven menu items with unique flavors.

Let’s dive more into hospitality. How does Mendocino Farms practice hospitality?

One of my favorite of our guiding principles is our “10/4” rule. At 10 feet, you acknowledge people, and at four feet you engage them. I think the 10/4 rule speaks a lot to what our brand is, because we’re intentional about our hospitality, intentional about seeing people out in the world. I just love it! When I walk into an elevator I say “good morning,” “good afternoon,” or “good evening” to people, and because Mendo was that way when I got here, I just feel such an affinity to it.

When you think about bringing a new technology into a concept, what’s top of mind for you?

The reason I got into tech 25 years ago was to make our operators' lives easier. That’s our gift, right? We bring a system in that it makes their lives easier. This allows the team to better facilitate a service experience, whether that’s with a guest or a team member. That’s the lens through which I look through bringing any technology into our business. How is it going to make their lives easier and more effective?

For example, when sales start to drop at 7 p.m., 85% of the time, they continue to drop. So our operators can schedule with that knowledge that our tech gives them. The restaurant industry is a very low-margin business. To excel here, you always have to think about how many new food items you have to sell to buy that new technology thing you want to put in place. I try to make their lives easier and help them keep as much of the treasure that they’ve earned as possible.

I think we have to represent our brand's technology with the same intention we put into the rest of the business. . When you come into Mendo, you think it’s delightful because the facility is clean, the team members smile at you, they point you in the right direction, and show concern for you. I think we have to reflect all of those things in our technology properties that touch both our guests and our team members.

Let’s switch gears a little bit. What does an average day look like for you?

In the restaurant industry, there’s no average day. I always look at the news in the morning because I like to know what’s going on in the world around me and if there’s something interesting to follow. I always check out Reddit, Google News, Futurism, Mashable, and Ars Technica.

I drink some tea and head off to meetings. Our executive group meets regularly to dive into the business and understand if there are changes going on or something to keep an eye on. We recently onboarded a product manager, who I meet with regularly, and I must say they really help you understand features, reporting, and product life cycles. 

What’s the hardest part of your job? What’s the most rewarding part?

The hardest part is herding cats. It’s seeing strays, metaphorically speaking, out of the pack and bringing them back in. I have a very team-first orientation and my team feels like we move forward as one. But as soon as you go outside of that team, you really have to focus on keeping everyone going in the same direction. 

The most rewarding part is when you roll out a big enterprise solution, like Toast, and nobody really notices. It doesn’t change their lives for the negative—it just enhances. That sort of thing on an enterprise scale is so incredibly rewarding. I should also say that I feel rewarded when my team feels success. I don’t know if that sounds cheesy, but that is something that I really find rewarding. 

What advice do you have for other aspiring CTOs—or someone who wants to be Brian Pearson when they grow up?

Be as present as possible in every conversation. Whether it’s with your boss, or a team member, a guest, or a restaurant manager, be as present as possible and really listen to what they’re saying instead of trying to craft a response. If you can do that, and if you’re a student of the world around you, then you have an opportunity to put pieces together that others may not be able to do on their own. When you can start solving big problems and communicate those solutions well, that gives you the opportunity to step into a leadership position.

At Toast, it’s our mission to help restaurants thrive — what does “thriving” mean to you? What does a thriving restaurant look like?

A thriving restaurant has positive traffic—more people are coming in than are not coming back. A thriving restaurant has a successful team where they have the tools they need to perform their jobs, the team understands hospitality, and they align with the mission. That means expectations are clear, and everyone has the same set of expectations. Those are key elements.

Obviously a restaurant has a couple of things that have to be true. It has to be clean, you have to be hospitable, and you have to have a product that is compelling. If you have those elements, and the team is clear on expectations and they’re executing to standards, that leads to a successful restaurant.

In the context of Toast, it is one of the most, if not the most, important tool sets that we provide to our teams to be able to execute their jobs, and reliability is of the utmost importance. User experience matters too, and I think Toast as a wonderful user experience, but at the end of the day it has to be reliable. And so far, Toast’s reliability has been off the charts. Before Toast, there wasn’t a week that went by where we didn’t have some sort of POS outage. 

I’ve got to add—unprompted in my last IT team meeting, the team said that “all those Toast account managers really keep us on our toes. They are the best vendor we have on the technology side.” I didn’t ask them that, they just shared it unprompted. That’s really hard to earn and very high praise for your team.

Who in the industry would you like to toast? 

I’ll give a toast to our CEO, Kevin Miles. Kevin pulls on a thread—if you bring him some piece of information, he’ll pull the thread until the sweater is gone. I really value the respectful way he challenges us. He’s also supported the team in making the decisions we need to make so we can build a better technology platform at Mendo. 

What are you toasting with today?

A hot, grande soy latte.

This interview was edited for space and clarity.

Brian Pearson is the Chief Technology Officer at Mendocino Farms. To learn more about the restaurant, you can visit their website, or follow them on Instagram.