Two-and-a-half years ago, CFO Tony Querciagrossa began a discussion with Dale Schwartz, founder of Pinstripes, that would eventually lead to Querciagrossa joining the experiential dining up-and-comer as CFO. Turn back the clock a little, and you would see that Pinstripes, aiming for a traditional IPO, had engaged Goldman Sachs to solidify its path toward benefiting from a permanent capital structure. However, the emergence of the omicron variant of you-know-what disrupted these plans, placing the firm’s IPO on hold as uncertainty loomed.
Read MoreDespite the sudden challenges, Pinstripes pivoted swiftly to seize the opportunity presented by a changing financial landscape. Enter Banyan, a SPAC deeply invested in the industry and eager to collaborate. Querciagrossa joined the company just as the Banyan team was finalizing their business combination agreement—which would mark a pivotal moment in Pinstripes’s trajectory. With momentum building, Querciagrossa stepped into his role as CFO during the second phase of Banyan’s road show, where discussions revolved around securing vital capital for the company’s future.
For the sake of perspective, it may be informative to note that Querciagrossa’s journey had begun at GE, where he honed his skills as a proactive finance executive amidst a culture that encouraged strategic thinking over reactive responses and prepared him well for his critical juncture with Pinstripes. His experience in navigating complex financial landscapes and fostering growth in dynamic environments would serve as a foundation for his leadership role at his new firm. Embracing the challenges presented by the SPAC route, Querciagrossa tells us, he nonetheless was fortunate to be able to achieve the the agility and foresight necessary to navigate turbulent market conditions and steer Pinstripes toward its next phase of growth.
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CFOTL: Tell us about Pinstripes .… what does this company do, and what are its offerings today?
Querciagrossa: We’re best-in-class as what you might call an “eatertainment” destination. We lead with food and beverage, so we have a phenomenal foods kitchen with recipes from scratch and so on, but we also have timeless entertainment with activities like bowling and bocce—although we’re very much not like a bowling alley with food, but quite the opposite. We provide a very unique, high-quality experience that has been growing quite a lot.
CFOTL: What might surprise folks a little bit to know is how a one-time GE auditor came to have an entrepreneurial itch—if you will allow me to characterize it as that. But when you reflect on your career path, do you feel that it has been a little bit more adventurous than most? Or would you put this another way, if at all?
Read MoreQuerciagrossa: From a finance perspective, I have come from manufacturing and distribution, where your customers and partners are obviously B2B. Still, you always want to understand the experience of the consumer. At Pinstripes, this is on steroids. We always say that the last 10 feet is the hardest, so we are always making sure that this execution is really tight. It’s really important to us that we check through and analyze the reviews from and digital touchpoints that we have with our customers. We’re now considering launching a loyalty program, which would be another way to relate.
To me, coming out of the manufacturing and distribution world, one thing that popped out immediately was that the amount of labor in your business is fundamentally different in different places. In manufacturing, there might be a 10% to 15% load elsewhere, while here it might be 30% to 40%., depending on product. It can be much less in some cases, of course. But this is a very important dynamic around what matters, so it’s very important to have great visibility into how many people are working, and when, and coupling this insight with how to implement the most effective service.
What I quickly honed in on was that we needed to win, every day, from the perspective not only of service and delivery but also of labor efficiency. The daily management of businesses that start or reopen every day, 360 days a year, is critical—and especially from a lean perspective, which is very popular. “Lean” has so much relevance in a business like ours, so I’ve taken to deploying a lot of what I’ve learned about manufacturing, distribution, and daily management in our business. We look at just a few KPIs, as well as what has cleverly been monikered the “bowler,” a term from the manufacturing world that is an ironically good fit for us, given that we are into bowling and bocce. We look at this every day. It’s great here, and I look for our finance function to help us to become even greater. jb.
“Patience is a virtue, and less is sometimes more. Don’t be afraid to wait to let a situation or opportunity come to you. Speak your mind and be vocal, but remember to be an active listener and hear all arguments before making decisions or sharing a firm point of view.” –Tony Querciagrossa, CFO, Pinstripes
Pinstripes | www.pinstripes.com | Northbrook, IL