Happy September Ramily,

In my youth, the month of September started with angst which emanated from the pressures and stress of starting school. I did not necessarily enjoy school so I guess that is why I felt that way. It is funny though how powerful emotions can be as years later I still get a bit anxious as the summer draws to an end. The power of emotions………

Hey, we have a number of things happening right now so here we go. Yesterday Banger sent out our new Happy Hour Menu. Making a splashing debut is our new Personal Size Beer-Crust Pizza. We are really excited to be able to introduce our awesome pizza to our Happy Hour guests. New also on the Happy Hour Menu is Tempura Green Beans and Crispy Calamari. Both are tasty but I must tell you that I did not eat dinner after the afternoon Calamari tasting – too full. One more item, in Meridian, Kent, Medford, and Salem we are testing the Tater Tot Tower – this is a bomb of deliciousness. Thank you to our culinary team for driving this bus.

Also new on the food front is our Weekend Features. It is rare that I pass up a breakfast burrito and our All-Day Breakfast Burrito is killer. The over-easy eggs take this tasty treat off the chart. I know our guests will love our new Morning Glory Pizza. Pizza for breakfast? Come on who does not love that? Back by popular demand, we have our BLD (Breakfast Lunch Dinner) Burger. Yep, three-day parts in every bite.

Next to the Happy Hour Menu in our Drink Menu, we have our new Fall Classic Cocktails. How about a Starburst Margarita with el Jimador Tequila, Chambord, lemon, lime, orange, pineapple & cranberry juice or maybe a Kickin’ Mango Mule with New Amsterdam Vodka, lime, fresh jalapeno, and mango? These are just a couple of new refreshing treats. Many thanks to our beverage team for their creativity.

One store left and we will be 100% on pizza. Weekly sales have been just over 1,500 pies on average excluding happy hour. We are seeing increased pizza sales on to-go which is nice. I fully expect our weekly pizza sales to keep growing. We have a large investment in our pizza program so please keep your ovens sparkly clean. Each culinary team was given a cleaning tutorial during installation. You can always refer to your pizza station book for cleaning details too.

My favorite seasonal beer Ofest taps on September 19th. Anticipation!

As a kid I rode dirt bikes occasionally; my parents were not too keen on motorcycles. In adulthood, I bought my first road bike in 2002. The bike in the Hopper Chopper giveaway is (soon to be “was”) mine. A winner was just selected at random. Congratulations to Lake Stevens guest Zachary Jones. He will soon be riding a beautiful Harley Davidson VROD. When I and John Morse phoned him on 9/1/22 with the news the first words out of his mouth were, “no f-ing way!”. Zach said he went to the Ram every day for 46 straight days to try and win the bike. Robert Zimmer of Salem/Wilsonville wins Burgers for a Year and Medford guest Kim Rose-Young wins a 2023 Mug Club. Congratulation to our winners and thank you to all who participated. This promotion generated very valuable traffic for us which John Morse will recap for you soon. Thank you all for your support.

Per John’s recent email, “Pick-a-Winner” has become “Beat the Bartender”. This is a fun event and a great format for our teams and guests. Game On!

As I close out this message, please remember to open doors, smile, make eye contact and say “thank you” to our guests and our fellow team members. Drop those rocks and boulders. Do something unexpected and special for our guests and team members. Thank you.

In September we say thank you to our fellow team members celebrating significant anniversaries with the Ram: Jennifer Hunt (26 years), Tim Moore (10 years), Karlie-Jean Schmidkofer (6 years), Helen Ledger (5 years), Sulma Gomez Martinez (5 years), Courtney Casey (9 years), Antonio Magallanes Davalos (5 years), Patricia An Agustin T (9 years), Joshua Smith (9 years), Ronis Zumba Jacobo (9 years), James Campolo (6 years), Maria Zolotsev (6 years), Benjamin Garcia-Cantoran (6 years), Nathan Williamson (10 years) and Banger Smith (16 years). Thank you all very much!

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”

` Vince Lombardi

Hello Ramily –

Welcome August.  This month I want to talk about Gracious Hospitality.  The foundation of a great restaurant company is how they make their guests and team members feel. 

• At the Ram we open doors for our guests.
• At the Ram we greet our guests with smiles and eye contact.
• At the Ram our uniforms are clean and sharp.
• At the Ram we have our game on every day, every shift.
• At the Ram we catch our fellow team members doing the right thing and praise them.
• At the Ram we make our team members and guests smile every day, every shift.
• At the Ram we do unexpected, memorable things for our guests and fellow team members.
• At the Ram we give our guests reasons to return.
• At the Ram we use our menu knowledge to help our guests make choices they will love and that will grow our sales.
• At the Ram we say “thank you” to our guests and teammates.

Gracious Hospitality is easy.  It just takes commitment and practice.  The results are immediately apparent and plentiful.  What will you do to make your guests and team members feel special?  What little pieces of emotions (rocks) will you drop on our guests and team members?  What big pieces of emotion (boulders) will you drop on our guests and team members? 

This month we express our gratitude to the following team members who are celebrating significant anniversaries with the Ram in August:  Kira Conner (18 years), Bryan McInturff (8 years), Jerry Brownell (9 years), Chelsey Iliff (6 years), Barbara Zieseniss (24 years), Jimmy Hunter (7 years), James Wayne (5 years), Lexi Miller (6 years), Megan Miller (7 years) and Brian Sykes (7 years).  Thank you all very much.

On a final note, please help me in wishing Chef James Cassidy a Happy 60^th Birthday.  Cheer James!

The value of our lives is not determined by what we do for ourselves.  The value of our lives is determined by what we do for others.

` Simon Sinek

Ramily,

June is here – hard to believe. In Lakewood, Washington we have had just a few nice weather days this spring which leaves us looking forward to a great summer beginning June 21st.

Right before summer begins, we will celebrate Father’s Day on June 19th. We will promote this special day, as we have others recently, with our successful “Steak Combo Specials” along with our tasty, frosty craft beer and the US Open golf tournament on TV.

Speaking of tasty beer, I was talking with our beer guru, Dave Leonard, yesterday and we are both amazed at the continued popularity of IPAs. When The Ram began brewing beer in 1995 “hoppy” beers were non-existent. Our lineup then included Blonde Ale, Buttface Amber, Black Cat Honey Stout, Big Red Ale, and Blewsberry which was a blueberry-infused blonde. Around 1999 we gravitated Big Red to Big Red IPA and then later added 71 Pale Ale. Today, a brewery cannot have too many IPAs it seems. One of the constants in the brewery world is definitely “change”.

Last month I mentioned our coming, new menu. Washington and Oregon will see this tasty, new gem arrive on June 15th and June 22nd is the welcome date in Idaho. Thank you to the entire menu team for their valuable contributions. Over the years, I have seen more new menus than I can count and this one had more thoughtful input and smart engineering than I can recall.

Get ready for the Big Bike Summer Giveaway. Our marketing geniuses will come up with a better name than that. I am not going to be a spoiler here. More to come on the details from John and Austin but we have a great promotion planned to grow guest counts and drive Loyalty Club sign-ups.

During the month of June, we say “thank you” to the following team members who celebrate significant anniversaries with the Ram: Noelle Downey (7 years), Jess Burthorn (10 years), Gina Kessner (32 years), Tia Erickson (12 years), Hannah Unger (6 years), Shawna Woods (7 years), Christopher Lam (6 years), Alicia Medina-Azpeitia (15 years), Ty Tran (5 years), and Kelly Van Matre (10 years). Thank you very much!

“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”

` Eleanor Roosevelt

Happy May, Ramily.

I hope all of the mothers on our team had a great Mother’s Day. We saw very nice sales on our Two-Course Steak Specials for Mother’s Day weekend and look forward to continuing to offer this spectacular offering to our guests again.

Cincopatas is awesome. A loud shout out to our brewing team for this tasty treat. This beer is great. The artwork is eye-catching. The cans and growlers are perfect for the season as the weather gets nice. So, who is going to win the Cinco can sales contests? Dave Leonard will be sending out current sales results any day.

I want to give a big high five to our culinary teams. I have been fortunate to enjoy many meals in our restaurants recently and the quality of the food is impressive. The speed at which our food is being delivered is very impressive as well. Thank you all very much.

This past week we have had two culinary meetings at the Home Office. Operations, marketing, culinary, menu department, and even the brewing team contributed. The first meeting centered mostly around the menu. I mentioned speed above and that was one of the topics addressed – as it always is. Since launching our new lunch specials menu we have known that Father Sanducci Sandwich is a time-consuming product to prepare. Our Kent Ram leader, Jen Borchers, was on the call and mentioned that many of her team members order and sell the sandwich as a wrap which is easier and faster to prepare than the sandwich. Absolute brilliance! This is the kind of feedback that we crave. Big thanks to Jen and the Kent team. Many more examples like this came from our meeting such as cross utilizing ingredients, reducing the steps and stations involved in cooking items, removing or replacing items that do not sell well, addressing product costs, and finally, everything we can do to maintain attractive, competitive pricing. This process is continual so please share your thoughts.

As the sun comes out please make sure our patios are sparkling, landscaping is buffed out, and weed-free.

During the month of May, we express sincere gratitude to the following team members who celebrate significant anniversaries with the Ram: Lisa Goulart (17 years), Josh Labberton (17 years), John Laudenglos (12 years), Floro Palacios Gomez (10 years), Treana Calhoun (7 years), Nicole Danielson (7 years), Josh Arceneaux (10 years), Mark Grimes (14 years), Thomas Farrell (7 years), Christopher Jarvis (7 years) and Jesus Alfaro Garcia (9 years). Thank you all very much.

Below is one of my favorite quotes that I have shared previously.

Game On! Make ‘em Smile! Reasons to Return!

“Spectacular achievement is always preceded by spectacular preparation.”

~ Dr. Robert Schuller

Hello Ramily –

We have a multitude of happenings at the Ram right now that I want to touch on.  Our new lunch menu is out and after a few days, the top three sellers thus far are the Ram Turkey Club, All American Burger with Cheese, and our Beer Battered Fish Sandwich.  Many thanks to all who had a hand in developing these tasty lunch options.  As our new lunch menu hits the tables, we wrapped another successful BURGERAMA LTO.  The top-selling burgers and their restaurant of inspiration were:

1. Some Like It Hot Burger (Medford)
2. Nashville Honey-Hot Chicken Sandwich (Wilsonville)
3. Chicken Fried Steak Burger (Megan Miller Home Office)
4. Tickle Me Pink Salmon Sandwich (Boise)

 The great Ram Pizza rollout continues.  We expect another batch of ovens to arrive towards the end of this month (yes deliveries have been pinched by supply chain opportunities) and will update all regarding installation dates as soon as we know. 

On the beer front, we have a number of frosty, satisfying seasonal drafts on tap which compliment a beautiful canning run of Big Dread and Cinqopatas.  Congratulations to our top Clearwater Kolsch and Udder Chaos salespeople: 

1. Jacob Trujillo – Issaquah is the grand champion with 210 cans (8.75 cases) sold – $100 
2. Lindsey Liles – Puyallup with 173 cans (7.2 cases) sold – $50 
3. Jessica Snow – Issaquah with 160 (6.6 cases) sold – $50 
4. Alexis Overly – Lakewood with 154 (6.4 cases) sold – $50 

Game On!  Dave Leonard is drafting a new sales contest for Big Dread and Cinqo – details from Dave coming soon. 

 Additional beverage news – we are adding our El Jimador Margarita to Happy Hour for $6.00.  Top Box will be taking over as our house wine.  This product won our blind taste test and its freshness is preserved in the unique packaging. 

Since the beginning of the year, we have had a number of significant Ram anniversaries.  Many thanks to following team members for all they do for the Ram:  Raul Ramirez (14 years), Tiffany Clark (10 years), Lenka Downs (8 years), Juan Tovar (5 years), Hannah Weathers (8 years), Laura Davalos Anguiano (6 years), Amy Westerhausen (14 years), Renee Sather (10 years), Thomas Morrella (9 years), Laura Torres Aguirre (9 years), Nicole Danielson (6 years), Kevin Martinez (36 years), Michael McNees (10 years), Alfonso Ruiz Garcia (10 years), Miguel Solano Cobian (10 years), Ramiro Mendiola Hernandez (9 years), Katherine Rosenthal (8 years), Carlos Gutierrez (8 years), Ricky Wilson (6 years), Frank Parascondola (5 years), Diane Williams (12 years), Jesus Alfraro Garcia (8 years), Thomas Farrell (6 years), Christopher Javris (6 years), Lisa Goulart (16 years), Josh Labberton (16 years), John Laudenglos (11 years), Floro Pacios Gomez (9 years), Treana Calhoun (6 years), Joshua Arceneaux (9 years), Scott Hull (6 years), Mark Grimes (13 years), Anna Hernandez (5 years), Jason Scalice (6 years) and Patrick Baker (10 years). 

“When building a team, always look for people who love to win.  If you can’t find any of those, search for people who hate to lose.”

~ Ross Perot