announcer: "Undercover Boss" is back.
- Here's Bobby!
- Oh, my... [laughter]
- Whoa. This is ten times harder than the boardroom.
Go. Ohh.
- This is a disaster.
I would never have found out if I wasn't undercover.
announcer: The most devastating economic crisis
for a generation has been tough on American business
and even tougher on America's workforce.
- We all had to take salary cuts.
- How many firemen you think you down?
- 15 just because of the pandemic.
announcer: So there's never been a more important time
to go undercover.
This season...
- Wah!
- The toughest challenges...
- This has gotta be the worst job in the restaurant.
- It is.
announcer: The biggest shocks...
- I need to rethink everything that we're doing.
- You broke so many rules.
announcer: And the most dramatic
life-changing rewards...
- I mean, that's--that's the greatest thing
you could ever do for me, man.
announcer: In "Undercover Boss" history.
- I need to break cover right now and shut this down.
[dramatic music]
announcer: Tonight... - The pancakes are burning.
announcer: The chief people officer
of a much-loved restaurant chain
steps away from his corporate comforts...
- Oh, my... announcer: To go undercover,
alongside employees on the front line.
- Give me the next one.
- Ay-yi-yi. It's hot back here.
announcer: He'll see how his decisions behind the scenes...
- I had to make a choice to lay off 50% of our staff.
announcer: Are affecting those on the shop floor.
- We gotta, like, keep moving it.
Just--there's just not enough workers.
- That's my fault.
- Ooh. - Oh, dear.
- Sorry.
announcer: He'll uncover surprising secrets...
- This is not gonna work. Waste of time.
announcer: And alarming flaws...
- I'm sorry. We're just trying to fix it.
- It's ridiculous.
announcer: Before transforming lives forever.
- Thank you. Thank you. A million times, thank you.
announcer: All this next on "Undercover Boss."
- Oh! Let's just say that I miss my office job right now.
[rock music]
♪
My name is Warren Boone.
I'm the chief people officer for Coco's.
Coco's is a restaurant chain serving all-American food
combined with a bakery famous for its pies.
We sell over 300,000 pies every year.
That's our primary signature item.
Good recipes, good people equal good pies.
As chief people officer I'm responsible for everything
that has to do with the people,
from hiring to firing to training.
And what I love about our company
is that we have team members
that have stayed for the long-term, 30-plus years.
Well, Coco's started back in 1948.
It was originally called the Snack Shop.
There was a man named John McIntosh
who bought the Snack Shop and expanded it,
and then after a period of time
ended up changing the name over to Coco's,
and continued to build the brand out from there.
- So come into Coco's and win.
[upbeat music]
announcer: At the height of its popularity in the 1990s,
Coco's had over 300 restaurants, 10,000 employees,
and an annual revenue of $550 million.
But over the next 20 years,
a decline in casual dining hit the company hard
resulting in the closure of 90% of their restaurants.
- Hey, everybody.
In 2018 a new company,
Shari's Management Corporation,
took over with a plan to modernize
to attract a younger generation of customers.
But in March 2020...
disaster struck.
I came on board with Coco's in the middle of the pandemic.
It was a challenging time to join a company for sure.
I had to make a choice to lay off 50% of our staff.
It was an extremely difficult decision.
Very stressful.
And our company has suffered a lot since then
as we just tried to stay alive
as people have had to work harder, work longer,
do jobs that they didn't do before.
Coming out of COVID, as we started to open up
we've reached back out to the team members
to get them back into the restaurants.
And what we found is that not all of them
are willing to come back.
They've found other opportunities.
And simply put, if we don't have great team members,
the company won't survive,
resulting in us shitting the doors.
And I'm not gonna let that happen on my watch.
[upbeat music]
- Do you think people are gonna recognize you?
- I don't think anybody will recognize me.
They're gonna think I'm Brad Bonzer,
an outdoor trail guide from western Colorado.
[dramatic music]
As chief people officer
it's important that I go undercover,
because I was forced to make difficult decisions
on staffing in the restaurants.
I need to be able to see firsthand
what our employees are dealing with now,
and how we can make things better for them.
I believe we can take this brand out of the danger zone
and on to the next level.
♪
- What do we think?
all: Oh!
- Look at the hair! - Oh, my...
- No one is gonna recognize you.
- Okay.
- Oh, I'll close my eyes for a minute.
I love you.
- Our employees will think they're on a documentary
about starting over in a new career,
and they have no idea it's "Undercover Boss."
- Make us proud. - Bye.
- Bye-bye.
I need to go undercover now and tackle our problems
before it's too late.
Our company's survival is at stake.
[upbeat music]
♪
When it comes to making sure that our guests
are getting the best possible experiences,
it all comes down to our servers.
I expect our servers to provide great personal,
warm service, but I've had to make
some tough decisions on staffing...
- I've been good. How about you?
- Leaving restaurants potentially understaffed.
So today I'm working with Amanda,
who is a server at our San Pedro location,
'cause I want to find out firsthand how some of
my choices have affected her life and the business.
♪
[quirky music]
♪
- Hello. Welcome.
- I'm here to see Amanda. - That's me.
- Oh. I'm Brad.
- Oh, nice to meet you. - Yeah.
- Amanda. - Nice to meet you. Yes.
- Okay. I believe I'm gonna be training you today.
I have a uniform for you that we can put on.
Let me grab it for you really quick.
[upbeat music]
♪
Are you ready to start, Brad?
- All right. - All right.
We're gonna go ahead and go over here to 24.
Gonna show you how we'll take their order.
Are we all ready to order over here, folks?
- Can I have the toast and jam, please?
- Would you like sourdough, whole wheat, or rye?
- Sourdough.
- I'll get the fresh strawberry waffle.
- You got it.
- How long have you worked here?
- I've worked here for almost three years.
- Three years?
- So what did you do before this?
- I had a business where I took different groups of people
to climb mountains,
and now I'm getting an opportunity
to take a look at different career possibilities.
When Amanda asked me about my past my heart started racing.
Fortunately, I think I got away with it.
- Okay. We got a new table on 23.
- So I'm very relieved.
Hello. Welcome to Coco's.
Amanda immediately put me to work.
- I'm gonna go ahead and get your Club 55 sirloin steak.
- I'll have the country fried steak.
- Of course you can.
At this point, I feel like I'm pretty comfortable.
The lady ordered a 55 sirloin.
- Oh, sirloin? You have to ask, how does she like it cooked?
Also, for the country fried steak,
did he want the dinner or the breakfast one?
- I think I messed up every single person's order.
I'm so sorry. I should have asked you a few more questions.
So, ma'am, on the 55 sirloin, how would you like that cooked?
- Medium rare.
- And then, sir, you had the country fried steak.
- Yes.
- Is that the breakfast or the dinner version?
- Dinner. - Dinner version?
I think I've got it covered.
He wants the country fried steak, the dinner version.
- The Club 55 or the regular? - Oh.
- I think he needs to learn the menu more.
He just needs a little bit more training.
- Okay. So sorry. One more question.
Would you like the Club 55 country fried steak?
- No, no, no, the other... - All right. I got it. Thanks.
I had to go back to that table
I think three times to get it right.
- Maybe you want to get a tray for this.
- Okay. And I was thinking, great,
this is a great way to start the shift.
[together] Oh!
- Sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
- You're good. Accidents happen.
- I just dropped a tray of drinks.
It was completely stressful.
And I was just totally embarrassed.
- It happens to everyone, you know?
It's nothing to be embarrassed about. It happens.
But I know exactly how he felt, because, like,
I know when I first did it, it was--it was probably, like,
the worst thing that could have happened to me.
- Turkey avocado croissant.
- But I can show you how we put it in the system.
- Okay. - They had the Senior
Stack Combo, which is right here.
We're gonna go ahead and send that in.
- Send. Okay.
- We're gonna make sure our ticket goes through,
because there's been times that my ticket was lost,
and my food never came out.
- Okay. - Okay.
Sometimes it'll come up over here.
So we just gotta make sure
that our ticket gets to the cooks.
- Amanda's teaching me to put in an order
into the point-of-sale system, but as soon as we hit send,
she is searching for where her ticket is.
- Here's our ticket right here. It wasn't sent to the cooks.
- But the ticket isn't supposed to come out over there, right?
- It's not. It's supposed to come out over there.
Sometimes the system isn't working,
so we give it to them.
- Amanda has enough on her plate.
She doesn't need to be chasing down where her ticket went.
- You want some more coffee over here?
- And why would our food orders not go directly to the kitchen?
That doesn't make any sense.
Are you all ready to pay?
- Yes. Thank you.
So we have $10 on gift cards. - Okay.
- We're gonna swipe our cards on here.
And I don't know why it didn't go through.
- It didn't go through? - And see, this is tricky.
Our system sometimes is tricky.
- We're trying to cash out a check right now,
and it seems like the system
is not taking the gift cards correctly.
- Larry, I swiped both of these cards right here,
but it's not popping up on the system.
- I'm confused too.
- The manager doesn't know how to do it.
Amanda's struggling with it.
Guests are waiting there for their change.
- So do they owe $6.88?
- It's been ten minutes, and it's still not done.
- That shouldn't be like that.
- But then we also had another table that we needed
to provide service for that we weren't.
- We're trying to fix your check right now.
We're fixing it.
- This is a total breakdown,
and I'm this close to breaking cover
and telling the manager, "Comp the check.
Let the guests go."
It's inexcusable.
[dramatic music]
- I don't know why it didn't go through.
- I'm in San Pedro, California,
working undercover with server Amanda,
and we've got unhappy customers,
because we can't even process a payment.
- We're trying to fix it. I'm sorry.
We'll--we'll have it for you right now.
- I'm this close to breaking cover
and just telling the guests,
"Go ahead and leave. We're so sorry.
And we're gonna comp your check."
- So we're all good? - There it is.
- Okay, we got it solved.
- Clearly our point-of-sale system
has significant problems.
- There's still money on this.
I don't--there was no need for the change.
- And it needs to be fixed.
[upbeat music]
- So now I'm gonna go ahead
and show you how we do the dishes.
- Oh, we're gonna do dishes? - We're gonna do dishes. Yeah.
- At this time right now we don't have a dishwasher,
so as a server we do it all. - Okay.
- So I'll show you this way to the dishwashing station.
- The restaurant was busy,
so if your primary job is providing guests service,
yet the circumstances of the restaurant
are pulling you away from providing guest service,
there's something really wrong here.
- As you can see, we have a lot of dishes.
- Wow. - It's a lot.
- Now I'm seeing firsthand the repercussions
of the staffing cuts I've made.
Just grab this and just--
- Just start off by doing the bowls.
We rinse them out.
♪
- Yes.
- The little ones? Here's some right here.
- It's really hard work back there.
- We need more plates.
- The team members are coming in,
and they were yelling for dishes.
- We gotta, like, keep moving it.
- And then just when I think I'm making progress
more dishes arrive.
Like, why is it that you have to wash dishes
on the same shifts that you're serving?
- I think it's just there's just not enough workers.
- Not enough workers? - Mm-hmm.
We're understaffed at the moment.
So I'm hoping that that changes,
'cause I want to go back to my old shift.
- What was your old shift?
- 9:00 to the latest maybe 2:00.
Now I come at, like, 1:30 and I leave at closing.
So it's my whole day right there.
- And that's not as good.
- It's not. I can't really spend time
with my family anymore, which is something.
You know, like, I take the time with my mom very precious.
- Right. Why is that?
- Well, my mom has cancer.
I provide for her and everything, so...
- You provide for your momma? - I do. I provide for my mom.
She's not able to work because of her cancer.
It's very hard on her body.
- So you're working for two.
- Yes. - Wow.
- Me and my mom.
- Amanda has a big heart.
She wants to take care of her mother.
And she's working to support them both.
So how's your mom doing?
- She's pretty much taking it day-by-day.
It's a terminal cancer.
- Oh. - She's 50 years old, you know?
- Just makes me so sad for her.
It's just bringing life into focus.
- I'm gonna go ahead and clock out.
I have a bus to catch.
- Do you need a ride? - If you can do that...
- Yeah. Yeah. - That would be very kind.
- If it's okay with you, I'd be happy to.
Do you have a car?
- At the moment, I don't have a car.
No. I have to rely on others
to take my mom to her appointments and everything.
It's hard. I hate to ask others.
This is our building, so this should be fine right here.
- You think it would be okay if I meet your mom?
- Yes. Of course. She'd like to meet you.
- I would be honored to meet her.
- Mom.
- Yes? - This is Brad, Mom.
This is who I was training today.
- Hey. - Nice to meet you.
- It's so nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
Hope you had a good day today.
Go ahead and have a seat.
What do you think about being a server?
- I think it's a lot harder job than people think it is.
And Amanda is very good. She's so super talented.
- I'm glad she turned out the way she did.
She takes care of me now for the last few years.
- She's pretty amazing.
- I'm sorry. I just get emotional.
- It's okay.
- It's just been really hard. - It's okay.
- I should be taking care of her.
- I really didn't expect this journey
to be hard like this.
I expected to try
to figure out ways in which I can help our team members
in their employment experiences.
Bye, Lisa. - Bye-bye. Nice to meet you.
- Amanda has made me see
that it's more than just about business.
It's about people. And it's about their needs.
And I'm in a fortunate position where I can help,
so I'm really glad
that I'm getting to meet these team members.
[gentle piano music]
[upbeat music]
♪
What keeps me up at night as the chief people officer
is making sure that we have the talent that we need,
and how do we keep them?
So I'm at the Redlands location today,
and I'm working with Ramon, who is a baker for us.
Ramon has been with us for 35 years.
I'm fairly new to the company, so it's a great opportunity
for me to learn about our culture
and why our people choose Coco's as their career.
[quirky music]
♪
Hi. Ramon? - Hi.
- I'm Brad. - Nice to meet you.
- I'm gonna be your trainer.
I'm gonna train you how to do pies.
Coco's is famous for pies.
We are going to start doing strawberry cheese pie.
- Pies are the cornerstone product of our menu.
- I'm gonna show you how to put
the whipped cream on top of the pie, okay?
- Okay.
So I want to see the magic
that goes in to preparing our pies today.
- Then I turn my pie around and do the other half.
See? - Yeah.
- Just like that. - Okay.
- Try that on that pie.
- However, if you ask my wife,
I'm the worst baker probably on the planet.
- Okay. Go. You are doing it right.
- This is--this is a lot harder than I thought it was.
- Right now Brad is very slow.
- Oh, I messed up there. I messed up.
- And he's a little bit clumsy.
But it is because it is his first time doing it.
♪
- Big difference. - What do you think?
They look alike.
- Eh, kinda. [laughs]
For Ramon to do it so well and so quick,
he really is great at his job.
♪
- Okay, lemon meringue. - Lemon meringue.
- Oh, oh.
Since lemon meringue pies are a signature item on our menu,
I'm looking forward to finding out
how they're prepared by Ramon.
- We need egg whites.
- Egg whites. - 21 ounces.
- These are egg whites? - 2 cups. Yes.
Add this to the bowl.
Okay. Now we have to wait.
- So we wait for the meringue.
- We have to wait for a long, long time.
- Oh, really?
- Because before, you put the egg whites right here,
and maybe, like, two, three minutes it will rise.
- Just comes up.
- Because that was with good product.
It is not good anymore.
- Those cartons of egg whites aren't very good?
- Not as good as they were before.
- I'm a little perplexed.
Why do we stock an egg white product that doesn't rise?
Do you tell the manager if it's not very good?
- Yeah, they know. - They know?
- We have been complaining to the managers for a long time,
but they are not changing their product.
Maybe it is because these may be cheaper.
- Ramon's clearly raising an alarm about these issue,
but it seems like nobody's listening.
- I don't think it's gonna work.
It's not gonna be good.
- Yeah. - We need to start over again.
We just have to throw that away.
Waste of product, waste of time.
And we are gonna try again.
- I'm absolutely shocked.
Going undercover I expected to see how our pies were made,
not discover that they can't be made.
It's not raising at all. - It's not rising at all.
- If our signature dishes are off the menu,
we lose customers.
- It looks like this is not gonna work.
- Yeah. Bakery is in our name. How is this not a priority?
- I don't think we're gonna make any lemon meringue today.
- It's ridiculous.
[dramatic music]
- I'm undercover in Redlands, California...
- It's not gonna work. And we are gonna try again.
- Where an issue with some of our ingredients
is preventing Ramon from making
one of our most popular pies.
- It is too watery.
'Cause the egg whites is not good.
- If Coco's Bakery Restaurant doesn't have lemon
meringue pies to offer our guests
because of decisions made by the purchasing team,
then we're already failing.
- I don't think we're gonna make any lemon meringue today.
- Okay.
I want to speak with our heads of operations
about this, because I'm gonna fix this.
[upbeat music]
- Go as fast as you can. Okay?
- Ramon, you're a pretty good trainer.
What has kept you at Coco's?
- I guess it is because I like this place.
But I don't make money right here.
- Really?
- It blows my mind how somebody with all these skills,
has been with us 35 years, is only making minimum wage.
- How about taking a break? - Okay.
He's making as much now
as a new employee straight off the street.
That makes no sense at all.
[gentle music]
Do you think Coco's will ever pay you more than--
- No, I don't think so.
The supervisors told the company--for a long time,
they came to the store and said,
"Okay, guys, I'm gonna give you a raise."
And they gave us $1. - Right.
- So $11 an hour. - Right.
- And then I remember one of the managers said,
"I'm gonna give you a raise."
And I signed all the papers, and then they closed the store,
and they sent me to Sun City and I asked them,
"Hey, I was going to get any raise?"
The manager right there she told me,
"I don't know nothing about that."
So they never did it.
- Ramon has given so much to Coco's
after all these years.
Thanks so much, Ramon.
- No problem. - At the same time
hasn't received raises. It's important for our company,
and it's personally important to me
that our people are respected and valued.
And it feels like we really dropped the ball with Ramon.
♪
[upbeat music]
♪
Today I'm on my way to our Anaheim location.
This location is unique,
because it's so close to Disneyland.
So I'm really excited to find out what this restaurant
does to tap into that potential business.
I'm looking forward to working with Tom today,
who is a shift lead.
Wow, the restaurant looks busy. This is very promising.
♪
- Hi. Welcome to Coco's.
- Hi. I'm trying to meet Tom. I'm guessing you might be him.
- Oh. I definitely would be. I'm Tom. Nice to meet you.
- So nice to meet you. I'm Brad. Yeah.
- Perfect.
First of all, we're gonna get a uniform for you.
- Okay.
- Part of being a shift lead is kind of keeping your eyes
all over the place.
You gotta check the kitchen. You gotta check the front.
You gotta check with the servers.
So whatever I'm needed is where I go.
- Okay.
As a shift lead, you have to step into
multiple positions at different times.
- Going to table three.
- And it looks like Tom is up for the job.
So you jump in and cook too?
- I do. Yes. - Wow.
♪
- We're gonna start on the pancakes.
- Pancakes.
- So you're just gonna grab this right here.
One. Two.
Okay, so next, want some eggs over here.
- So easy.
- Super easy. Perfect.
So now you're gonna be cooking.
- I'm gonna cook?
- You're gonna cook. Two pancakes.
- Okay. - Over-medium eggs.
- Uh, all right. Um...eggs.
I got--I gotta get some eggs.
- Brad, you gotta move a little bit quicker than that.
You gotta crack them a little bit faster than that, buddy.
- Okay. Okay. Oh, my pancakes.
- How are those pancakes?
- Aww, this one looks mashed.
- You're gonna need to redo them.
I want to see perfect pancakes.
Brad definitely got a little stressed out in the kitchen.
And those pancakes...
- That's terrible.
- Gonna have to redo the pancakes.
That wasn't good at all.
Come on; these other cooks have made three orders
by the time that you haven't even finished this one.
- Oh. Jeez.
- We got a table waiting. Can we get an order out soon?
- I never thought pancakes were difficult to make.
- Those are probably burnt now.
- You're right. - Boy, was I wrong.
- Let's just let a cook take care of it right now.
- Yes. Thank you. - Whoa. Oh, almost lost it.
- These people have been waiting awhile.
Something unique that this Coco's does
that I'm not sure if any other Coco's do,
we do delivery to the hotel next door.
- So the guests
in the hotel call here for, like, their "room service"?
- Mm-hmm. - Oh.
- Yeah. - That's pretty cool.
- Do you want to try taking this call?
- Sure. Thank you for calling Coco's.
This is Brad. How can I help you?
The Anaheim location has taken advantage
of a really unique business opportunity.
- I'd like to make an order for two apple pies.
- Yeah, for sure we can do that.
It's a terrific idea,
and it's a way for us to be able to attract
even more guests into our restaurants with our food.
This morning I saw all those guests in there,
and I'm thinking, "The business is doing all right."
- I will say I think that there's a couple things
that we could definitely work on,
like our social media presence. It'd be nice if we could,
you know, do a little bit more with it
and, you know, be a little bit more active.
And, you know, we're trying to bring in a younger generation
of a people into Coco's.
But unfortunately, the Coco's Twitter
only has 148 followers or something like that.
- Interesting.
This is ridiculous.
And I'm embarrassed for the company.
- Even their very first post there,
"Wishing everyone a day full of dad-ventures."
- Father's Day was a while ago, wasn't it?
- Yep.
- When our last social media post is a holiday
that's past a couple of weeks ago,
it shows that we're not on top of it.
Those posts are stale.
- Hello, sir. Did you order? - Yes, sir, I did.
- All right.
So I need to find out what's going on.
It's not acceptable.
[upbeat music]
Feel like I can drink, like, a gallon of water right now.
- I know. - You do this all the time.
You're on your feet the whole time.
- I'm so used to, like, stress. Between work and home life
and stuff like that, like, I'm so used to it.
- Do you have family?
- Unfortunately, I've lost both my mother, my father,
and I just lost my stepmother a couple months ago.
- Oh, wow. - So...
- Were you really close with your stepmother?
- Very close. - Yeah.
- She had dementia. - Right.
- And then I ended up moving in for three years.
- Wow. Can't imagine the challenge of that.
I worked with Tom all day. He has such a great attitude.
Would never have guessed that he just lost his stepmother.
I mean, it really says a lot about his character.
So where are you living now?
- I still live in the same place.
- Where your step-stepmother was?
- Mm-hmm. - Okay.
- Yeah. - Do you own that house?
- It was in my stepmom's name,
but now that she's passed, I could be kicked out
and told to go find somewhere else to live.
- That sort of instability has gotta be really difficult.
You're here working.
You're--you're still trying to earn a living.
- You know, the thing is, though, is,
I love this company,
so I just want to just keep climbing
and keep climbing and keep climbing
and just--I just want to go as far as I can, you know.
- Yeah.
I'm leaving here today feeling, I guess, mixed.
I'm very happy that we have Tom working for us.
Thank you. - You're very welcome.
Take care. - I appreciate everything.
Thanks.
But he gave me a lot to think about.
Great social media marketing
can put our business on the map.
And I see our competitors out there
doing a lot of different innovative things,
so we need
our marketing department to perform at that level.
[gentle music]
♪
[dramatic music]
[upbeat music]
♪
- I'm on my way to our Laguna Hills location.
This location is one of the best restaurants
in the company.
It's profitable, does great in sales.
Today I'm working with the general manager there.
His name is Art. The general manager position
is the most important position in the company.
- Thank you. Thank you.
- Art's responsible for everything
within the restaurant
from managing the profit and loss
to making great guest experiences happen.
And I want to find out,
what is he doing that is making this restaurant so successful?
♪
I'm ready to get going. Brad is on the scene.
[quirky music]
♪
- Hello, sir. How are you?
- Good. Brad. Nice to meet.
- Brad. - Yeah.
- Nice to meet you.
- Good. - My name is Art.
I'm the general manager for this restaurant.
- Art. - Are you ready to go?
- I'm ready to go. - Coming through this way.
Now we're gonna do the first job.
All right, Mr. Brad. So our delivery truck is here.
- Right.
- So we gonna put away our deliveries.
So this one, you give it to me.
- Okay. - Jalapeños. Give me that one.
- Jalapeños.
- Jalapeños goes right here. Give me the next one.
- Romaine. - Romaine lettuce.
Give me that romaine. Next one. Give me carrots.
- The pace that Art keeps up
makes it like a cardio exercise.
- Vanilla filling goes right here.
Follow me with this.
- Art is like a drill sergeant.
- Brad, I know your first day, but you need to go fast.
- He's like, "Pick up the pace. Pick up the pace."
- Next.
♪
- Do you put away the truck every week?
- I do every week.
I have 73 employee before pandemic.
For right now, I have only for 27.
- Oh, wow. - So yes.
- He's short-staffed,
and I couldn't help but think that that's my fault.
Do you make a bonus, like, every quarter?
- I don't make any because of the whole pandemic.
- You're working this hard
even though you're not getting a bonus.
- That's right. You do things from your heart.
It's not about, oh, how much I'm making,
and I'm gonna make the bonus or not.
- When I see somebody like Art, who's passionate about
what he does, and the leadership example he gives
in the restaurant, really admirable.
- So now is the time to clean the restroom.
- What?
- We need to clean the restroom.
- Clean the restroom? - Yes.
- All right, let's-- - Here you go. Your tools.
- Okay. - Okay. Here we are.
Let's come in.
- So this is--this is part of a general manager's job?
- This is a part of the general manager's job.
- Wow. 'Cause it's gotta get done.
- Yes, get done. - It's gotta get done. Okay.
- Yes. - When I made the decision
to cut staff, as the chief people officer,
I don't know if I expected the general manager
to be cleaning the restrooms.
I thought it was real fitting
that I had an opportunity to do it myself.
Okay. So where do I start?
- You need to clean the urinal. - Clean the urinal?
- Yes. - Okay.
- And then need to come to the restroom.
Then I come back and check on you,
make sure nice and beautiful.
- In my normal life, I never clean a toilet.
All right, time to clean the urinal.
Oh, jeez.
I have no idea if I'm even using this brush right.
How do you use this thing?
[quirky music]
♪
Oh.
It's nuts.
Oh, my goodness.
The smell coming from the toilet was terrible.
I gagged.
Ugh.
I can't believe Art does this. Guy deserved a medal.
Let's just say that I miss my office job right now.
- Mr. Brad?
- Yes. - How you doing?
Did you pick it up this one? - Yes.
- Beautiful. So just wipe it down.
As soon as you left
and customer walked in, look at this.
- Beautiful. - Now ready to use.
If Brad really want to be a Coco's manager,
he have to get hands dirty sometimes.
♪
- All right, Art. Tell me a little bit about you.
- I'm working for Coco's for last 20 years.
- That's amazing.
- I came in 1990 from Bangladesh.
Then I start working for Hilton.
- Really? - I started as a busboy.
And then I found Coco's job 1996.
- You are dedicated to what you do, that's for sure.
- I work up until close, which is 8:00 to 8:00.
Work seven days a week.
- Wow.
- Last ten years, I don't take a vacation.
- Ten--no vacation in ten years.
- No vacation in last ten years.
- This blows my mind. Makes me hurt for him
to not have that sort of a break.
Do you still have family in Bangladesh?
- Yes, I do. I have six brothers in there.
- Six brothers. Wow.
- Six brothers. - Amazing.
- And one sister.
- Do they ever come out to see you?
- Actually, no, it's very expensive.
Yeah.
- Art hasn't seen his family for over a decade.
I couldn't imagine going so long without seeing family,
so I'm really hoping that I can help him
get to see his family soon.
- And let's go, we clean outside. Okay?
- Let's do it. Let's clean outside.
- Let's go.
- I'm inspired but what I saw with Art today.
Do you like working for Coco's?
- Yeah. I take pride what I do. I love it.
- But it really hit home. He's understaffed.
Some of the decisions that I'm making are decisions
that are affecting him.
And now I'm walking away with a lot to think about.
Thanks so much. - Thank you so much.
- Appreciate it. Yeah.
- Bye, Brad.
[light music]
- This undercover experience changed me as a leader
to be significantly more empathic.
I was reminded of how important honoring people is
and how far we've fallen from that.
I'm responsible as well as my partners
on our executive team.
So I'm going to get right to work fixing the things
I saw while undercover.
[dramatic music]
Today all of the employees have been invited
to the set of the fake documentary.
- We did a training with this guy.
He did a really bad job in the kitchen.
- They think they are filming the final interviews.
- I think Brad is all right.
- He was cool. He was really cool.
- And they have no idea this is "Undercover Boss."
♪
[quirky music]
♪
You recognize me?
- Are you Brad? - [laughs]
- No.
- I'm actually not Brad.
- That was fake hair?
- It was. - Okay.
- My name is Warren Boone.
I'm the chief people officer for Coco's.
- Oh, wow.
- And you're on "Undercover Boss."
- Holy crap.
[laughter]
announcer: Coming up...
- So that's--that's amazing.
announcer: The boss changes lives forever.
- Very much in shock. This doesn't happen to us.
[dramatic music]
- Now, one of the things that really impressed me
about you, Art,
is that you committed to working 8:00 to 8:00...
- Yes.
- Seven days a week during the pandemic.
- I've been working, like, open to close.
- And you did that with no expectation of getting a bonus.
- No, I was not expecting anything.
- So what I'd like to do is invest almost a million dollars
into the bonus program. And your personal bonus
should work out to at least $10,000 a year.
- This is too much. This is really great.
Thank you so, so much.
- How long has it been since you visited
your extended family in Bangladesh?
- Ten years.
- It's been a long time, huh? - It's long time.
I want to take my daughters to know their cousins,
and I cannot wait to see my siblings.
FaceTime is not enough.
I want the feeling when I hug them.
- I want to give you something back,
a reward for all of your hard work and loyalty.
We are gonna give you $10,000
so you can take your family to Bangladesh.
- Wow. Now, I almost cry. I don't know what to tell you.
That would be great. That will be beautiful.
And my wife and kids will enjoy it.
Thank you, sir.
I'm very happy.
This is a really, really good feeling,
which is you cannot express with words.
- Tom, working with you I had the feeling that the cooks
wanted me out of that kitchen.
- You are very correct. - [laughs]
Well, one of the things that impressed me about you is,
you had a lot of different ideas.
And you had some
legitimate criticisms about our social media.
- I don't think we have enough engagement,
in my personal opinion, with our clientele.
- What I'd like to do is to set up a meeting
between you and our director of marketing...
- Oh, wow. - To brainstorm ideas.
- That would be perfect. That would be awesome.
I would really, really enjoy that.
- Well, one of the things that you had expressed
is a desire to move up. Is that right?
- Mm-hmm.
- Well, Tom, I would agree with you.
I think that you do a terrific job as a shift lead,
and we want to give you that opportunity to grow.
- Well, thank you. - And so as soon
as an assistant general manager position
comes available in your area, that job is yours.
- Wow. Yeah.
I would--I'd definitely like that. That sounds amazing.
- Our assistant general managers
make up to $5,000 annually in bonus.
- A bonus? Thank you.
Thank you. A million times thank you.
And I really would really appreciate the opportunity.
- So one of the things that you shared with me
was about your stepmother.
- Well, she--about four years ago,
she got diagnosed with dementia.
And I ended up moving in for three years.
Unfortunately, she ended up passing away.
- Oh.
- This just happened not too long ago,
so I'm still--still recovering from that.
- From what I understand,
when your stepmother passed away,
it affected your housing situation.
- To make a long story short, not even, like, a month
after she's passed--I could end up
getting kicked out, which could happen at any time.
- Well, I'm not okay with you being homeless.
So what we'd like to do
is be able to provide for you $10,000...
- Oh, crap.
- To assist your housing situation.
Does that provide a good safety net for you?
- Yes. That's--that's...
yes, that would be amazing.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you for everything you've done.
And I can't wait to see what happens next for you.
Thanks, Tom. - Thank you.
I feel great about my future. I feel like,
honestly, I can take on the world right now.
- Working with you, Ramon,
I could see you were a master baker.
- I'm proud of what I do, and I try to always do my best.
- Pie is the signature product for Coco's,
and you didn't have the right supplies to do your job.
- Yeah.
- So I want to go back to my team and fill them in
on everything we're getting wrong in our kitchens.
- That sounds like music to my ears.
Thank you.
- One of the other things about you that really
impressed me, Ramon,
is that you've worked with the company for over 35 years.
- Oh, yes.
- Do you think that Coco's cares as much about you
as you care about Coco's?
- No, I don't think so.
- So, Ramon, I want to--I want to personally apologize to you.
I'm really sorry over the years
that you were overlooked.
And what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna raise your hourly rate
to the highest end
that we pay bakers in the company.
It's what you deserve.
- I know that that money is gonna make a difference,
a big difference in my life.
- It will get better, 'cause we're not done yet.
What I'm gonna do is put $15,000
into a retirement account to help you when you retire.
- Amazing. I think nothing is going to happen,
nothing it going to change in my life,
but this is going to better my life. Thank you.
- Well, thank you. Thank you, Ramon.
Thank you for everything you've done.
- I just don't have the right words.
But...but it feels great to be recognized.
- Amanda, I gotta tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed
working with you on that day.
And you exemplify exactly what we're looking for...
- Thank you. - In a Coco's employee.
- I take my job really seriously.
You know, it's just who I am.
- One of the things that you brought to my attention
was the register.
There's an issue with the tickets
for the orders not getting to the kitchen.
- It's stressful, 'cause, you know, especially
when it's busy, you gotta go make sure
your ticket gets to the cooks,
like, physically give them to--it to them.
- The other thing was, when we were trying
to tender the gift cards... - Oh yes.
- We had guests that were waiting.
- Waiting. - There are definitely
some challenges with that register system.
- Yes. - And we need to fix
our glitches right now.
So we plan to invest upwards of almost a half
a million dollars to replace the system for you
and for the rest of our team members.
- That would be amazing. That would be--
that would--that would-- I know that would help
all of us a lot. Thank you.
- You invited me into your home to meet your mother.
It was by far the most moving day
that I've had through this journey.
She's not very well, is she?
- No, she's not. I wish she could get better,
but, you know, there's no cure for what she has.
It's hard to watch her go through the things
that she's went through.
It's hard. She's my best friend.
That's--that's all I have, so it's hard.
[gentle piano music]
Because I don't know what I would do without her.
Sorry.
- It's okay. It's okay.
When we were talking,
I found out that you take the bus to--to work,
and I just couldn't help but think,
how does that affect your ability
to take care of your mom
and get her to appointments and that sort of thing?
- Yeah.
- So I'm gonna give you $20,000
to put towards a new car.
♪
- Thank you. That means a lot to both of us.
I know she'd be hugging you right now if she was here
and thanking you, I know, already.
She'd be crying with me. Hey, Mom.
- Hey, babe. - Guess what.
I was on "Undercover Boss," and so are you.
- No way! - Yes.
He's giving me $20,000 for a new car for us,
so I can take you to your appointments.
- My god. That's so wonderful. Very much in shock.
This doesn't happen to us. I'm so proud of you.
- Thank you, Mom.
- I love you more than you'll ever know.
- I love you too.
- Going undercover has given me the ability
to find out a lot of information,
and now I feel armed with enough
to be able to make a difference for our company.
Now that I've worked with many of these team members,
I feel like I have much more empathy towards them
and will be thinking more about them
when I make decisions that are gonna impact them.
♪
I'm leaving here knowing we've got work to do.
Coco's has not turned the corner yet,
but I think I'm not equipped to fight for its survival.
♪