This is a transcript of the Spur of the Moment episode “Food is fun with Adam Schlegel.” It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

Adam Schlegel: Food is fun. I will go into a restaurant, a busy restaurant, and it’s vibrant and it’s fun, and it’s hard to replicate in a lot of other industries. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Welcome to Spur of the Moment, the podcast of Colorado State University’s Spur Campus in Denver, Colorado. 

Adam Schlegel: And so I think that there’s actually a lot of opportunities in our industry where we’re moving because people are more aware of where their food is coming from, of what it actually is doing to our bodies, and we actually still just don’t have enough of those options out there. 

Jocelyn Hittle: On this podcast, we talk with experts in food, water, health and sustainability and learn about their current work and their career journeys. I am Jocelyn Hittle, associate Vice Chancellor of the CSU Spur campus, and I’m joined today by Adam Schlegel, CEO of Cumulus, at et cetera, the consulting company focused on food, beverage, agriculture, and sustainability. Welcome Adam. 

Adam Schlegel: Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

Jocelyn Hittle: So I’m going to give a little bit of your bio. Adam is a Denver native, a graduate of Denver University, and he started his career in finance. But in 2006, Adam and his brother John founded Snooze Am Eatery, a consortium of breakfast and lunch restaurants throughout the Western us and a place that I have been to many times. Adam now sits on this news board of directors and is focused on the community and sustainability programs across the restaurant group, which continues to grow. From 2013 to 2015, he served as the executive director of Eat Denver, a Denver based nonprofit focused on education, community, and advocacy for locally owned restaurants. As I mentioned, Adam now serves as CEO of Cumulus, et cetera, a consulting company which is focused on food, beverage, ag and sustainability. And through this work, he co-founded Chuk Charcoal Chicken, is working on the Sun Valley public market and continues to support Snooze a eatery. We are happy to have Adam with us today to talk a little bit about his work. So maybe we can start with your work now. What’s a typical day in the life if there is one? 

Adam Schlegel: Not typical, especially now my family’s in a transition mode, getting ready to move back to Australia where we’ve lived a number of times. So right now I’m in a lot of winding down mode and trying to set up anything that I might’ve started that’s continuing for success. I’d say previous and when I was not in movement mode, not many of my days were similar, especially I am more or less doing consulting, and I think I’ve always thought of myself as a consultant in a way. And with that, what I love about it is you’re always learning new things, you’re always being challenged, you’re always in front of new projects, you’re always in front of new people. There’s just new challenges. And because of that, each day and each circumstances is different. So on a typical week, I’ll spend at least two of my days at ch and that is working with the leadership team, with the managers, with staff, and it goes from the consortium of how do you actually make a restaurant work in this society anymore to food innovations, to service standards, to all of those gamuts. 

Adam Schlegel: Then maybe I’ll switch my hat. I help my brother at his winery called Atmo. There I usually wear a lot more of a flake of financial and strategy hat and how do we help mold that? I’ve got a good friend of mine who has a beauty concept called Alchemy Face Bar. I’ll go spend a day with her and doing the same thing. It’s an amazing concept. She’s trying to grow. We’ve been fortunate to grow snooze when my brother and I were running it. So I have a little bit of knowledge on how to do that, and then the days just magically go. I have been spending a lot of time on various boards throughout the city and state, so whether it was actual board meetings or meeting with directors or strategizing or going to different meetings, I wasn’t really in one place very much and I was mobile all the time and luckily everybody allowed me to wear shorts and flip flops to everywhere I went. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Sounds 

Adam Schlegel: All right. So it was kind of fun managed chaos. 

Jocelyn Hittle: So the life of a consultant cam look like that. It doesn’t always look like that. Lucky for you that it looked like that, pretty diverse, lots of different types of businesses, but they were and are sort of in the food system in the restaurant and culinary world. Can you say a little bit more about that? What drew you to that? What are some of the skills that you brought to that particular sector? 

Adam Schlegel: Yeah, I’d say what drew me to it was my brother. My previous life when I left college, I went and worked for KPMG. I was a consultant, we were consulting on telecommunications projects. So I was fortunate to travel kind of all over the world doing a lot of those projects. I can’t really say my heart and passion was into it, but I learned a ton. I worked with a very diverse group and just amazing, brilliant thinkers everywhere, meeting new challenges and projects, but I wasn’t fulfilled and I wasn’t necessarily thinking that snooze would be my fulfillment. It really actually was an opportunity to help my brother realize his dream that he’s always had. I said, yep, I’m burned out with my job. I’m happy to quit. I’ll help you wherever you need. If you need a barista or a cook, I can build a website, whatever. 

Adam Schlegel: I think it was like three or four months actually into the restaurant space that I started to get the bug that sometimes happens in our industry. I think for me what really kind of caught the bug was that I felt it was like a little bit of a nascent industry and having come from technologies and systems and development and growth, I found a place where I felt like I could utilize those skills towards something that I was really passionate about. And in particular, sustainability has always been something I’ve loved and sought after, but didn’t really know or know where to step my foot into it. And when I got into the rest industry, I really realized how detrimental that industry can and still is, and that’s where I really found my opportunity of figuring out how I can create some change in that. 

Jocelyn Hittle: So let’s dive in a little bit deeper on that sustainability piece in the restaurant industry. I mean, there may be some obvious things that come to a listener’s mind around how the restaurant industry can have an environmental impact or a sustainability impact, but what are some of maybe the less obvious ones or the ones that, what are the biggest levers that restaurants can pull that make a difference? 

Adam Schlegel: Yeah, I think for many people in sustainability, if you didn’t study it or know, it can actually just be such an audacious, gigantic concept, you don’t really know where to start. So there was actually a group of us restaurateurs who were interested in it. We helped form something that was called Eat Greener Denver later was actually one of the helpful catalysts for the green business certification program for the city. And we would get together on a monthly brainstorm session. One of the things that we pulled from it, and I still love it, it hasn’t caught on the way I think it should, is that we actually just built out something called the 12 Months of Green. And it was trying to identify each month a different area that you could focus on, whether it was the Buser or the CEO, and just say it’s December, everybody’s using lights. 

Adam Schlegel: Let’s figure out lighting. What can you do? Can you put on sensors? Can you change the LEDs? How do you think through that month? Hopefully you’ve established a habit, you’ve made some forward progress and then roll into January and then maybe we’re focusing on recycling or compost or energy or water. Restaurants for their size are the largest users of water waste and energy. And so how can you tap into each one of those elements beyond arguably the most important one, which is food and where we get it from and how it’s sourced and how we treat everyone that does it and what we put into our bodies and ultimately our guests bodies. And I think it’s just such a fascinating onion to start unpeeling. And the more that you I got into it, the more I was just in awe of what happens and what could happen. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Yes. And of course one has to use an onion metaphor, a food metaphor to talk about sustainability. Got it. Got it. Must is the best one. So within the sustainability world, of course, their environmental impact is what a lot of people think of first, but there’s obviously other components to it, social, economic, and when it comes to restaurants, perhaps the things that the pandemic did for us was shine a light on the food industry and restaurant workers and their lifestyles. And so maybe could you say a little bit about on the environmental side, there are some things that restaurants can do? What about on the social side? 

Adam Schlegel: Yeah, I think on the social side is still I think a great awakening for our industry. I think it was an opportunity, we all really had to look ourselves in the mirror and try to understand why nobody was coming back, what was the situation? And you could only bemoan and cry for so long and blame a certain youth or generation before it had to move on to something a little bit more paramount. 

Jocelyn Hittle:  And you mean why employees were not coming back after the 

Adam Schlegel: Pandemic? Yeah. Why employees were not coming back. And so I don’t think anybody’s necessarily figured it out. I think that if anything, there’s a future generation that’s going to continue to move towards it. I think one thing that was also positive about Covid is that people started to understand a little bit more about the economics of food, the economics of business, how hard it is. We’ve been running chook for almost five years at virtually. We’re a nonprofit at this point in time, and it’s not because we don’t pay our staff well or it’s not because we’re stuffing things away. It’s just such a competitive business. There are a tremendous amount of governmental hurdles that are inflicted on this and it’s, it’s just a hard business. Inflation was there, everything was there. So all of those things. It’s hard when you started pre covid and you were playing with one game and then the entire board shuffled. And that’s part of being, I guess an entrepreneur is you’re always changing and evolving. 

Jocelyn Hittle: So if you were talking to a high school aged student who was maybe thinking about what their career path might look like and understanding the restaurant and culinary world the way you do, what are some of the careers that they might not be thinking about? Or if you could say a few things to convince ’em to enter into the restaurant and culinary world, what would you say? 

Adam Schlegel: I think the exciting part that I’ve found about this industry, and I came from a finance and marketing degree and I spent years in corporate America consulting. I have loved the ability to create change. I’ve loved the dynamic fast moving culture, the ability to dig deeper onto so many subjects that the end of the day really matter to me. What we put into our bodies truly matters. The fact that restaurants are the third or fifth largest employer in the entire country and how do you continue to shape that, I think is really exciting. I think the fact that you do get to work with such a diverse group of people and that there’s no, I think this is almost true for just about any degree, but there’s no perfect degree to get into restaurants. They all actually really apply. And from a finance guy to a liberal arts major, to a number of other folks, you can utilize those skills. 

Adam Schlegel: And it’s actually been really fun both in snooze and in Chuck of having people that have worked in sustainability and saying, this is actually a really great place for you to use your degree because this company cares and they also want to get better. And so I’m not the answer on how it gets better vastly more than I do. So help us figure out this solution because we’re creating a movement that can actually have a profound impact. And food is fun, and it can be, it’s really, it’s hard to say that after three years, but I will go into a restaurant, a busy restaurant, and it’s vibrant and it’s fun, and that’s hard to replicate in a lot of other industries. 

Jocelyn Hittle:  Food is absolutely fun. No question. And to your point, I mean there are lots of different entry points and there are lots of different skill sets that you need in the restaurant and culinary world health or if you’re interested in impact, you can have health impact, sustainability, impact, economic impact, local neighborhood impact, all of those things. I’m not even listing all of them. 

Adam Schlegel: And I mean, again, it’s really one of the reasons that Alex and I created Chuck was my wife and I spend most of our weekends driving around the city and state with our kids at soccer tournaments and games. And there’s one restaurant that I feel comfortable bringing them to that’s Chipotle. It generally is I don’t want to feed my kids a lot of the food that they’re forced to eat. And so for us it was just like, why can’t real food, good food, delicious food, that’s healthy, but a kid doesn’t have to know that and that’s affordable. Why can’t that be more of the norm? And so I think that there’s actually a lot of opportunities in our industry where we’re moving. People are more aware of where their food is coming from, of what it actually is doing to our bodies. And we actually still just don’t have enough of those options out there. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Yep. Say more about Chuck. Tell us a little bit about it. What’s the ethos? You touched on it a little 

Adam Schlegel: Bit. Yeah, so Chuck, my wife and I went with our two boys to Australia back in 2013, 14. My wife’s Australian. We moved back here and my wife, maybe she doesn’t like me saying this anymore, it’s been so hard, but she’s like, we miss our local chicken shop. And there are local chicken shops throughout Australia, they’re in neighborhoods. You won’t find ’em in the CBDs area, but they’re where real people live. And for us it was like that savior, it’s running late. I need something healthy, delicious, affordable to bring home to my family. We weren’t able to cook dinner tonight and we could just go to these chicken shops and it was sourced, right? And it tastes delicious. And so when we moved back to the states we’re like, we missed just that simple notion of doing it. I worked with Alex Del, who’s James Beard Award-winning chef, amazing person here who also does a lot of work in the food system. And we have both felt that our ability to make change in our society is through restaurants. And so the idea of Chuck came along really because we felt like we could be a better steward for our environment, for the food system. We could be better employers. We are a certified B corporation, not only holding those ideals that constantly challenges us to actually become better restaurateurs and also hopefully solidifies how we’re governed and act for many years going forward, especially as I head off to Australia. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Great, thank you. Thanks for giving us a little bit more background there. So a couple rapid fire questions for you just about your work life. So in recent years, what are some of the things that you had to do as a consultant that you discovered that you really disliked, like a task or a duty that you had to do that you really hated? 

Adam Schlegel: Hated? I am not good as an accountant. I’ve learned, and it took me a while, and most people still don’t know what the difference is between finance and accounting. They’re very different. I am more of a finance person. It was explained to me, well, I think once finance looks forward and accounting looks backwards, I’m not the best at those high details that precision. I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of creativity in the work that I do. And I found that, and as a consultant, it’s also, it’s hard. You have to build a second or third skin because your recommendation may very easily not be followed. And so you just have to accept that you put your best foot forward and that not everybody’s going to take you up on it. And even if you know it’s right, it’s not ultimately yours to run with. That’s always a little bit hard to steer someone where you think is the right direction to see it go in the opposite direction. Yeah, 

Jocelyn Hittle: I can imagine. 

Adam Schlegel: But that’s also apparent. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Fair enough. It’s good experience for parenting. Absolutely. What about a task that you thought you would not like but turned out to be surprisingly fun? 

Adam Schlegel: I think not as much in the consult. It’s a little bit in the consulting side. So for too many years I tried to develop this project called the Sun Valley Public Market or the Denver Public Market, another three hour ade I could go on. What I ended up really enjoying about that was the connections and the team that we were able to create. I found myself surrounded by extraordinary minds well beyond anything that I could have ever thought or brought together, but with this conjoining vision, able to coalesce and build just this dynamic team. I like my alone time. I’m a runner. And to be in that thing, and I was actually really amazed at just how energizing and exciting that was. The more amazing people that were jumping on board, including yourself, Jocelyn. I mean we talked for many, many, many times over many years about this and the pros and cons and what it could do, but just that whole experience though it never came to fruition. Hopefully someday it may was like a profound learning opportunity for me. 

Jocelyn Hittle: So another rapid fire question for you. When you come up against a challenge or a problem you can’t solve, who do you call? 

Adam Schlegel: I call any and everyone. I’ve been really fortunate over the years to make a lot of different connections with folks from a lot of different facets. So if I have an organizational, how do I run my restaurant question? I’ll call David Bergon, who’s the Snooze CEO? Or if I have an investment question for one of our myriad things, I’ll actually call the original investors into snooze. I have a marketing question, I call this guy named Dan Fogarty, who’s the smartest human being on the planet. I think I’m really, really fortunate to just have made a lot of good inroads with folks over the years. We’ve had a lot of good connections and so I’m really not shy at all. And I think I’ve had to learn that a lot over the years to feel brave, to feel like I’m not asking too much to know that I’m contributing. 

Adam Schlegel: But I think collectively that’s just been allowing so many great things to happen. There’s a gal named Dana Falk Query and she helps run the big red F organization, one of the best minds and hearts I’ve met. And so if it’s something like how do we get more restaurant industry workers to vote, that’s my conduit or call or a guy named Juan Padre who runs Creative Concepts I think it is, and one of the smartest minds in the restaurant industry, and we’ll talk about service charges and tip wages and Michelin stars and all of those things. I don’t have generally one person I’ll call, but the gamut of questions is wide and each person receives my call. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Well, and I think there’s a lot in what you just said. One is having a network of people who have areas of expertise that don’t overlap with yours is incredibly valuable, particularly in a line of work like yours. And the imposter syndrome piece is woven in there that do I have standing to call these people? Right? A 

Adam Schlegel: Hundred percent. And that takes time. It does to do it, but I’ve always been amazed at how much people are willing to share if you just go out there and do it. And it’s not always just your teacher. I mean you find that certainly when you’re in school. But beyond that, people like to tell their story. People like to tell what they’ve learned. And if you come at it with genuine curiosity and open mind, you generally find that people are really excited to do it. I spend so many hours of my week talking to folks to do it because I need that energy sometimes too, of seeing the entrepreneur and the enthusiasm and the new ideas. It takes a little bit of brevity, but it’ll pay off in space. 

Jocelyn Hittle: And you have been working in this space for a long, so of course people know that you have contributed, take your call, they want to share what they’ve learned. And then it sounds like you’re doing the same for your younger folks who are coming up as well. 

Adam Schlegel: Yeah, I think again, it’s one of the most rewarding things. Elizabeth Nicholson, she was our hostess at Chuck when we first opened up and is actually now the CEO. And it’s so awesome to see her development and her growth and to have helped steer that. And then conversely, see someone that came from a different industry was in the nonprofit space and is now in this industry. And her take on a problem can be vastly different than my take, which might just be traditional and she’s easily as right as I am on various things, there’s fundamental things that I’ll just know that she’s got to learn. There’s approaches to service and staff and how do you build that future culture that I mumble on and she’s actively figuring out those things. So again, it’s exciting to learn. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Are there some moments that you feel, so we’ve been talking about moments where you feel like you are still learning and the people that you reach out to learn from. Are there moments where you feel, I’ve got this dialed in, I’m in my sweet spot? What’s happening in those moments for you professionally? 

Adam Schlegel: I think I’m generally good at puzzles, not like chess, but strategy puzzles. I feel like I’ve been given a good gift to just kind of put some of those elements and pieces together. And so if we’re looking at about it definitely can be things around growth. That to me was something I really enjoyed at snoo, took a lot of pride in and we’ve done a fair amount of growth at Chuck and I’ve actually probably learned more from missteps than anything on that. To me, that’s something I feel really comfortable advising, especially young entrepreneurs who want to take on the next steps and figuring out and trying to just lessen the pain because it’s hard to do it, but there are better quicker routes that can be done. Those are probably the easiest areas. Or if I need to build a quick budget and forecast, I still really like Excel. I’m still pretty good at it. 

Jocelyn Hittle:  That’s finance. Everyone budget is forward looking. 

Adam Schlegel: Yeah, Excel’s the best. Go learn Excel. 

Jocelyn Hittle:  Okay. It’ll never go away. So I was going to say, as you’re thinking about the things that you share with young entrepreneurs around growth, are there at the risk of sharing secrets, business trade secrets, are there a couple of things that you tend to share with people who are looking to grow? 

Adam Schlegel: I was talking to a friend just this morning who’s looking at some very aggressive growth and there’s one of my mentors and this guy named Mark Saper with Snooze early on and he just said, Hey, speed kills. And that notion of you’re excited and maybe you just got some money or people are asking you for money or anything like that, but building a culture is really what makes longevity happen. And it’s really hard to do that when there’s so many new people and there’s so many new elements and you’re pulled in so many different ways. So that notion, even though it’s so exciting, is to really be cognizant of how fast you want things to go. Also, there’s one of our board members who was a very high up exec at snoo, and again, I went to our board meetings at Sno less and less to contribute because they started to really not care what I had to say. 

Adam Schlegel: So for me it was just more learning what it was. And I do remember one of our board members saying, if you do the Kings work or you take the King’s coin, you do the king’s work. And I have to mention that to every person who’s looking at new investors and saying, you really have to be thoughtful not on if this is a good person and if you’re going to get along together, but also your motive for why you started your business is a different motive for why this person started their business and their business is to return capital and that is going to be their number one goal. And it’s often a conflict because entrepreneurs, yes, they want to make money, but more than anything, I feel like they’ve just got this burning desire that the world is missing something and the world is not as complete if that didn’t happen. And that is not a financial decision and it shouldn’t be because most of these decisions are wrong, but there’s just that natural conflict and trying to bridge that gap requires a lot of thinking through. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Sure. And that tension exists in any industry where you have entrepreneurs and investors, right? 

Adam Schlegel: A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean it is kind of rare to see someone make that leap across the cataclysm to understanding how that’s being done. And thank God that there are, because keeping that ethos of why that business is special still generally lies within that brain and soul, but it is a tough balance to figure out. 

Jocelyn Hittle: So if you were not doing the work you’re doing now, or maybe this is a forward looking question and I don’t know it as you are looking to transition to Australia, what would you be doing if you weren’t doing this work? 

Adam Schlegel: Well, I think about this a lot because I’m moving to Australia without a job. And so I can honestly say I don’t fully know, but I feel like especially over this past three years, it’s been harder and harder to really dive into things like sustainability in the food system that I felt like I almost had the luxury of spending time on because things were working and you knew how the train was going and it’s just been derailed. And so that’s kind of taken a lot of that focus off of it. I know in particular Australia has a lot of mindset and concepts on sustainability and where it can go and the food system and it’s an island and where does everything come from? And it’s kind of exciting. So I’m really excited to be a part of that. I’ve also always loved education and the teaching aspect and have often thought about jumping into that foray and how can I help mentor future students or entrepreneurs beyond the way and kind of moving in that direction. But I’m pretty open and my two boys are the most important thing for me. So if I get to go be a soccer coach in Australia, then I’m winning. 

Jocelyn Hittle: It sounds okay to me. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. First spur of the moment. Question for you. Vegemite thoughts? 

Adam Schlegel: It’s disgusting. It really is. It’s rough, it’s really disgusting, but it’s fascinating to have two little boys, 11 and 12. And my oldest one is more American. I feel like he’s got weight, he’s got a lot of emotion as Americans do and doesn’t like Vegemite. And my youngest is a lot more even keel and loves Vegemite. And of course my wife loves Vegemite. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Alright, so as you know, one of the roles that we are interested in having the Spur campus to play is introducing young people to careers they might not have considered. And we’ve hit on a little bit of your history as we’ve talked about your current work. So let’s just rewind a little. So you went from starting a local restaurant with your brother to expanding that business line pretty dramatically and also working on supporting local restaurants and advocating for local restaurants. So tell us a little bit about what that growth was like for you as a founder or co-founder, you and your brother together, and what was most challenging and most rewarding. I mean you’ve talked about really liking this growth period, but what was it like the first time? 

Adam Schlegel: Yeah, the most rewarding thing was opening up a new restaurant, finding people that actually got it, that understood what you were. I have this discussion with a lot of folks when they are thinking about bringing on a director of something or ops or anything. And it always sounds so scary to me. It’s like until you meet the person and then it’s just like, oh my God, the world just got so much better. I’m going to be so much. It’s all just gravy now. So opening up the new restaurants and finding these people, I remember meeting Deb Ryan who I think was the unofficial mayor of Fort Collins and when we opened up that store that was our third restaurant and met her, it was like what seemed like so far away Fort Collins and how are we ever going to do this to suddenly this is going to be magic. 

Adam Schlegel: And then you went up there and the team that was created, you’re just like, this is it. This is incredible feeling and doing the same thing in San Diego and working with a guy named Robert Butterfield who was my brother’s boss for a number of years and the icon of restaurant industry and he joined our team. That was an incredible experience. The low parts and the hard parts are just when things don’t go to plan, which is all the time, and this is real money and real jobs and real things that happen. And so Covid, as most restaurateurs will say, I think it’s March 17th, might be 18th, it was one of those days. It was just like that was the darkest hardest day and we had to let go of over half of our staff and snooze was in those same boats. And those are the hard moments is when you really get kicked in the teeth and you’re left being like, I don’t really have the answers for this right now. And entrepreneurial road with snooze. I think my brother’s idea was very innovative and hadn’t been seen and there was a lot of tailwinds that really just helped us do it. And I think Chuck, which I love and I think is amazing, has just had the battle that a lot of other restaurants have had this time and honestly it’s just made it harder to thrive in this industry right now. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Well, and I think it’s interesting to think about the, you said it’s hard to get kicked in the teeth and to not know what the answers are. And I think the pandemic did that to a lot of sectors, some more than others. Obviously the transition to sending your office home to work from their desks versus what laying off half your staff is significantly different experience and moment. And I would say the fact that so many people who are in leadership positions across a variety of different sectors had to say, I don’t know, maybe has opened up a new era of admitting that we’re all trying to figure this out as we go. And there are frequently going to be things that come up that we’ve never done before. 

Adam Schlegel: I hope not frequently or to this level and degree, but I think that a hundred percent you’re right that these things are going to come constantly up. Sustainability is a great notion where the first time around when we brought in new investors, they actually were just like, why do you have a director of sustainability? Nobody knows what this is. We’re going to get killed by the media because people are going to come out and say this is wrong. And we dug in because we really believed and knew about it. And then fast forward five years, we had a new group of investors and one of their leading questions was, what are you doing about sustainability? How does your company go forward and think about this? So I think just that evolution in turn is kind of always persistent. It’s exciting and scary and it takes a lot of determination. I mean, I think I’ve really understood the power and the need for the entrepreneurial enthusiasm because you constantly are told, no, this is not going to work, this is not going to do it. And you somehow have to find this brevity and this manic desire to still continue and make these things work. And it’s thrilling and it’s exhausting and scary all at the same time. But I don’t know, like you said, what industry doesn’t have that and what’s not dealt with that. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, and I certainly hope that there isn’t something at the scale and significance of what we all just went through that does this to us. Again, I guess more what I’m getting at is that I think it is an opportunity for everyone to say, Hey, we all collectively face things that we don’t know how to address that we haven’t seen before. And the ability to sort of do what you were describing when we first started talking, calling all of these different people who might be able to help advise and to make the next decision. I think there’s the sense that their people in leadership positions know the answers every time. And that is never certainly not the case, that they know the answers every time. Maybe it is something that someone has done before, but in a lot of cases it’s not. And so what does that problem solving look like and how can we be more honest about the fact that it’s a collective thing, that it’s frequently that the best decisions are made with a lot of voices in the room. And so that’s more what I was getting at. Not that we’re all expecting to get kicked in the teeth quite as hard as we just were. Let’s 

Adam Schlegel: Hope not. No, I agree. And I think that there’s a lot, it’s hard to sometimes see just the entrepreneur that’s young, that has no experience, that just is dead set that everything they’re doing is right and the entire world before them is wrong. And it’s like there’s plenty of lessons. But I remember going to a restaurant conference, very large conference with CEOs of the largest Fortune 100 companies out there and just looking around and being like, none of you know what to do right now. I have as much knowledge as the CEO of Darden at this moment in time because we’re all just trying to figure out, figure it 

Jocelyn Hittle: Out 

Adam Schlegel: Something new. But it is also that collaborative time because at the end of the day, we actually all want our industry to survive. We actually truly believe that it’s a vital part of culture and who we are. And so we all try to figure it out and share practices. And if you don’t have that one magic bullet or leader that can do it, at least you’ve got a couple of really great minds that are working towards a problem. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Yep. Ideally. Yep. So speaking of great minds, were there any thinking back over the course of your career, any teachers, bosses, mentors, collaborators that were particularly influential? 

Adam Schlegel: There’s so many to do it. It’s funny. I wouldn’t, and this is not disregard for my teachers. I’ve had lovely teachers. I found a lot more experience and impact in the actual work world. My brother actually was a phenomenal teacher for me, just never being in this industry at all and learning hospitality and what it truly means. And my partner, Alex, is a genius with food. And so his ability to understand that and create that has been wonderful. I think of a lady named Sue Powers who I spent a lot of time with trying to develop the Sun Valley public market. And again, I often laughed, I’m like, why does this lady even let me in the room to talk, let alone help try to lead this project? And just her tenacity and belief is so inspiring and incredible. So I can go on and on and on. I think I’ve really evolved my mindset over time of probably being that young person who thought I knew all the right things to actually realizing I know very little, but I can bring a lot of good people together with a notion and actually drive things forward. 

Jocelyn Hittle: So you may have just answered my next question a little, sorry, but if you were going to, that’s quite all right. You can give a different answer if you want then we get to, if you were to give your 15-year-old self advice or your 25-year-old self, what would you say or abstract it? Don’t make it yourself, make it a current 15 or 25-year-old? 

Adam Schlegel: I’d say that two things. One is to travel. That has always been a hope of mine and I was very fortunate to do it and I implore anybody anywhere to do it. Like I grew up in Littleton, Colorado and I feel like you can easily continue to have the mindset of a small town. And the first time I stepped abroad, the first time I lived abroad, the first time I worked abroad, all of these moments are just mind changing. You just can’t look at the same problem with the same lens anymore because suddenly you have more experience to understand and view how things go. So travel, travel, travel, however you can, it’s very different than vacation. Still can be enjoyable but can also be hard. And then I wish I would’ve taken more classes and lessons on things. The funny one I always think about is surfing. 

Adam Schlegel: I left my consulting job the first time around and moved to Costa Rica because I was going to go learn how to surf and I’m like, it would’ve been just so much more enjoyable if I would’ve just taken a week worth of lessons and done that. Whether it’s golf, whether it’s gardening, whether it’s surfing, whether it’s how to build a spreadsheet, whether it’s how to do any of these things. Like if you want to become good at something, then you need to give yourself the tools to start off on the right foot. Otherwise it’s such an uphill battle. You got to put in the time. If you ever want to become proficient at anything but there’s teachers and lessons out there for a reason and really take advantage of that, it’s just going to accelerate where you go. 

Jocelyn Hittle: And YouTube only counts a little in some of these spaces. It can you a lot. It’s pretty remarkable what you can learn on YouTube. But having an actual teacher is next level. 

Adam Schlegel: I would say experience ties both of those things. And so experiential learning, to me, I think it’s funny when people say I’m a book learner or no, I have to actually, I am a visual or I’m like, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t learn when they are actually in the moment. We would teach people about sustainability at snooze all the time, but it was when we brought them to the compost facility and the recycling facility and they saw all of these things in action that it clicks. I love to read, don’t really like YouTube and I’m not that kind of learner, but at the end of the day, I now know that if I want to learn how to garden, I actually need someone to show me how to do it the proper way and that I’m not going to do it from a book or YouTube. I’ve looked at all of ’em and I still suck at it. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Me too. I’m a terrible gardener. And of course it’s music to my ears to hear you say that taking some classes and doing experiential learning is something that you would recommend because of course that’s a lot of what CSU does for lifelong learners. A lot of our extension programs, master gardeners for example, probably I ought to avail myself of the fact that there are people who really know what they’re doing in the next office over that I should go and talk to so that I can get better at gardening because I’m pretty bad. And Spur, of course, is really focused on experiential learning and being able to talk to the professionals and to watch ’em do what they’re doing, but also get your hands dirty. So alright, one more spur of the moment. Question for you. So I know you are about to move to Australia, where would you be moving if not there? 

Adam Schlegel: I would really love to live in London. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Sounds okay. Yeah. What about London? 

Adam Schlegel: My family loves football. I love the history. I love meandering down. Whether it’s the alleyways or just doing Johns through the countryside I think is just fascinating. I’ve been fortunate to live in a lot of different countries and Australia and Southeast Asia and Central America. I don’t know, I think it’s such an unfamiliar, yet comfortable, wonderful way to explore and it’s just stunning. And then secretly maybe I’m hoping that my kids will get selected for some sort of Premier League team to try out for. That’s probably the biggest 

Jocelyn Hittle: Reason. Understood, understood. Okay. You, is your family a Ted Lasso fan, you guys? Ted Lasso 

Adam Schlegel: Fans? I think we watched the final about 12 times. Oh my gosh. And I think my son and I did the math the other day and we’re like, we can actually watch every season on the flight over from Australia and we’ll be able to watch all three seasons. Are you a fan? Love it. Yeah, it’s 

Jocelyn Hittle: Amazing. Can’t get enough of that show. It’s almost television perfection. So where can people find more information about your work? Where would you point them? 

Adam Schlegel: I would hope that you’d go hungry and maybe go to one of our restaurants. I think that would be the best way. Oftentimes I hear a lot of people say they don’t hear a lot about our sustainability efforts in those restaurants. And to that I would say hopefully talk to our staff about that because to us that’s how we feel like we can educate the most. There 

Jocelyn Hittle: You go. We’ll put the websites for Snooze and Chuck in the show notes as well, if anyone wants to see if there is a snooze near them. So one last question for you that is a little bit of a leading question for myself also, just to have this information for me. Other than your own restaurants, favorite restaurants in Denver? 

Adam Schlegel: Can’t answer that question. 

Jocelyn Hittle: Can’t do it. An occupational hazard. 

Adam Schlegel: I feel like there’s too many, so there’s too many. I’ll say the amazing restaurant I went to this morning that I’ve never been to was Bonfire Burritos. I think everybody’s been to it already. I’m just a newcomer. It’s in Golden. Check it out. Amazing. Amazing breakfast burritos. And because Australia really does not have that type of cuisine, I’m both filling up on it as much as I can. And also wondering if I open up a restaurant again in Australia. 

Jocelyn Hittle: There you go. That makes a lot of sense. Good, Bon. Fair enough. That’s very good. Fair enough. I just want to thank Adam Schlegel for joining us again today on Spur of the Moment. Thanks so much for your time. 

Adam Schlegel: I appreciate it. Thanks Jocelyn. Having 

Jocelyn Hittle: You bet. The CSU Spur of the Moment Podcast is produced by Kevin Samuelson and our theme music is by kea. Please visit the show notes for links mentioned in this episode. We hope you’ll join us in two weeks for the next episode. Until then, be well.