Rock My Restaurant

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy'' and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy'' chat with Chris Campbell, CEO at Review Trackers to explore the importance of restaurant reviews.  

Campbell founded Review Trackers over ten years ago and helps over fifty thousand restaurants in thirty-five countries track and manage their customer feedback from websites like Google, Facebook, and Tripadvisor.  

When asked about what he thinks of restaurant operators that don’t pay attention to customer reviews, Campbell says “operators are crazy, if you think about things that can influence your business and have major ripple effects, reviews is one of the biggest things.” Adding “Ninety-one percent of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.” 

Campbell was asked in reference to Yelp and according to Review Trackers, where a majority of reviews are coming from today, he shares that it depends on the market you are in, but adds the reality is Google is winning. Campbell says, Google, Facebook, and Tripadvisor, all just growing multiples faster then Yelp. “Ninety Five percent of people start their search on Google,” says Campbell. You can listen to Campbell address Yelp’s importance in today's competitive review platforms on this podcast. 

In regards to sales, when Campbell was asked how reviews and responding reviews help search engine optimization, he says that reviews are the leading factor in influencing how you appear on a google map ranking. Adding reviews is the thing that influences your ranking the most. 

To hear Campbell’s advice for restaurant operators that don't have a review tracking system in place and how you can start making your business better, tune in to this episode of Hospitality Hangout. 

Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators. And to keep listening, check out The Hospitality Hangout podcast on iTunes!

This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Tom Pickett, Chief Revenue Officer at DoorDash, to explore delivery and virtual cloud kitchens. 

Pickett is responsible for building out restaurant partnerships from big chains to mom and pops helping them become successful. Pickett says, “for the last year and a half we really have been working very closely with merchants to help them navigate the challenges of the pandemic.” He adds a stat saying that restaurants that have been on DoorDash are eight times more likely to still be around today than those not on DoorDash. 

In terms of what DoorDash is seeing, Pickett says, “a big acceleration in delivery, delivery has become a more prominent part of business and they find the most successful are treating it like a new line of business.” Another highlight is the operations experience of getting delivery in and out of your restaurants and Dashers love to go to the restaurants that are efficient and get them out of there quickly because they are able to make more money when operators are moving out deliveries.

Pickett talks about Storefront, a DoorDash product that takes their online ordering capability and makes it available for restaurants for free to put on their own website. 

Underutilized kitchen capacity is a great opportunity for virtual brands and the cloud kitchen space. Pickett says that virtual brands and kitchens are a way to expand in a very cost effective way, using the power of delivery platforms. Delivery is at the center of these and DoorDash works very closely as a consultant for restaurants. 

To learn more about all of the new partnership programs, daily payouts for merchants, and DashPass, a subscription program for consumers, tune into this episode. 

Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators. And keep listening, check out The Hospitality Hangout podcast on Spotify!

This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Paul Allen, President and Cofounder at NextBite, to explore delivery only brands for restaurants across the country and how they can add value for these operators.

Allen breaks down Ordermark and NextBite saying they are obsessed with developing technology and brands to help restaurants thrive, and that is their focus. He adds, what makes the company distinct from ghost kitchen and commissary model businesses is that NextBite exists solely to help existing restaurants.

Allen discusses the differences in working with traditional and non traditional kitchens in reference to celebrities versus chefs. NextBite focuses on authenticity, brand authenticity and says that the celebrities need to be committed to the success of the brand, be involved, and care about the food. “It really has to be a partnership and there has to be something genuine beyond it when it comes to a celebrity,” says Allen. He adds, “that you can’t replace a restaurant that has built a reputation over the years with a new celebrity brand.”

When Allen was asked how NextBite addresses marketing the brands, he talks about it being stage dependent and how it changes as the brands grow. He says, the secret sauce for NextBite exists in the technology, the operations, and its relations to marketing.

Hear what Allen has to say about operations, training, supply chain, and technology being the meat and potatoes that drive efficiency and profitability. Plus, why data operations and technology drive marketing efficiency.

Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators. And to keep listening, check out The Hospitality Hangout podcast on Spotify!

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” chat with Marty Hahnfeld, Chief Customer Officer at Olo, to explore the future of delivery.

“The things that are happening within our business right now happened a decade ago in the hotel industry,” says Hahnfeld, and the industry felt like they needed to deliver without understanding all of their options to have food delivered, letting an oversized number of consumers shift off direct business and shift off to the market places, adds Hahnfeld.

Hahnfeld says, for any brand that doesn’t invest in serving their loyal customers directly, it could be rough days. Citing two-thirds of all restaurant transactions are consumed off premise, of that two-thirds only sixteen percent of those transactions are delivery.

When discussing what types of things an operator can do to make sure they are set up correctly, Hahnfeld talks about what Olo can offer. He shares how Olo’s platform has a solution called Expo, a tablet-based software focused on enhancing the front-of-house workflow in restaurants.

Hahnfeld talks about how Olo addresses deliveries in regards to urban vs. suburban markets, and says suburban delivery has been proven to work, although there is a cost problem, investments will continue to improve handoff and delivery. Olo focuses on their platform supporting delivery long term and Hahnfeld gives his take on ghost kitchens, virtual kitchens, delivery kitchens, and the idea of restaurants aggregating.

To hear about Olo’s success and it’s process of going public, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout. Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators.

This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.

In this episode of the twelve-part Accelerate series for the Takeout, Delivery, and Catering podcast series, host Sam Stanovich and guest host Kathleen Wood chat with Atul Sood, the chief business officer of Kitchen United, to explore successfully creating and implementing a growth strategy in the restaurant and hospitality industry.

“We focused the business quickly on restaurants… and then we realized we needed to have a facility for onsite ordering,” says Sood. “We’ve gone from there to having six sites, and we’ll be opening another twelve to fourteen sites this year.”

Founded in 2017, Kitchen United was designed to support restaurant takeout, delivery, and catering via dark kitchens. The GV-backed startup has helped countless restaurants expand their consumer base for off-premise dining.

“You only staff the cooks. We take care of everything else: cleaning, sanitation, running of food to the delivery driver or customer, manning the front of house, receiving food products, managing technology, managing the co-marketing,” adds Sood. “It’s really a CapEx, time, and labor-light way to expand.”

Listen to the episode to learn more about Kitchen United’s expansion plans!

In the latest episode of the Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Tom Recine, the founder of Recine Hospitality, to explore the latest innovations in point of sales tech.

“It’s not just a restaurant, it’s an experience,” says Recine. “And that’s what you have to create these days to attract attention. No one wants the same-old same-old.”

Recine was a partner and the chief operating officer for Sugar Factory for eight years. While there, he helped build the business and craft a strategy that emphasized the restaurant’s unique experience of candy, excitement, celebrities, and fun drinks. According to Recine, Sugar Factory was ranked the number one venue in the world for social media posts.

Recine recently developed a new cash register system inspired by ATMs. Called the automated till register (ATR), the register has no drawer that opens or closes. Transactions are fully automated and closed from the moment they are initiated.

“At the point you put the cash in, it’s deposited to your bank. No employee or manager will have to touch it,” adds Recine. “It’s a simple idea that’s never been done before. I truly believe cash drawers as you see them now will be replaced forever.”

Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators. And to keep listening, check out The Hospitality Hangout podcast on Spotify!

This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.

In the latest episode of the Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Brandon Barton, the chief executive officer of Bite, to explore digital hospitality and improving the online ordering process.

“We see an incredible amount of information that we’re helping restaurants to take and learn about their guests, and then personalize ordering experiences for them,” says Barton. “There’s more visibility into what options you have when you get to a restaurant before you get there. Now, you can give people digital experiences in-store or at home—and what’s going to flip here is the concept of hospitality.”

Bite offers restaurateurs solutions for making their restaurants better. It is an omni-channel digital ordering platform for restaurants, providing restaurants with every digital ordering channel they can have: websites, apps, contactless ordering, kiosks, QR codes, curbside pickup, and even drive-thrus.

“Take labor out of the equation when it comes to the order. Every single person knows how to order food digitally. Let’s just let people do it—in the lobby, at home, or in the restaurant,” adds Barton. “If you want us to know who you are, and you want us to use that data, we’re more than happy to provide you with a better guest experience.”

Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators. And to keep listening, check out The Hospitality Hangout podcast on Spotify!

This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.

In the first episode of the new 12-part Accelerate series for the Takeout, Delivery, and Catering podcast series, host Sam Stanovich and guest host Kathleen Wood explore how owners, leaders, and operators can effectively accelerate their business in a post-pandemic world to push for more success, more profits, and more opportunities to rebuild the industry.

“Operators are busier than ever. There’s pent-up demand in the marketplace and a huge lack of labor,” says Stanovich. “If we’re not being strategic, and if we’re not getting ready, we can’t accelerate our business to where the most amount of profit is because we’re being reactionary versus proactive in our business.”

Despite appearances, the industry is moving at a rapid pace. With the pressure of the labor shortage, the pressure of supply changes, and new competitors entering the marketplace, many formerly successful businesses will be left behind if they don’t start investing in and accelerating their business now.

One group that businesses need to start investing in is Gen Z—the 72 million people born between 2000 and 2015. “These Gen Zs are digital natives. Everything about their world is technologically infused,” notes Wood. “COVID really brought their voices to the forefront. These Gen Z are becoming our customers and our workforce… and they are driving all of us to be more flexible, agile and technologically advanced.”

Listen to the episode to learn more about embracing the uncertain future of the industry amidst the ongoing pandemic, and successfully implementing new, relevant technology!

In the latest episode of the Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Zachary Goldstein, the chief executive officer and founder of Thanx, to explore marketing and elevating the digital experience for consumers.

“Generic, unpersonalized guest engagement just doesn’t cut it anymore,” says Goldstein. “You’ve got to know who your guests are, you’ve got to give them an easy sweep of digital tools to make those purchases, and you need to treat them personally using the data you have to give them a reason to return. And that’s what we do at Thanx.”

Thanx specializes in supplying best-in-class guest engagement technology for brick-and-mortar brands. For Thanx, the goal is to make the consumer digital experience accurate, efficient, and truly seamless.

“Digital sales are rapidly becoming the lifeblood of the industry,” adds Goldstein. “Ease of use for the customer always wins. Placing an order online or from an app or phone is just easier… we’re going to see the mass majority of sales move to digital.”

Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators. And to keep listening, check out The Hospitality Hangout podcast on Spotify!

This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.

In the latest episode of the Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Joshua Sharkey, the founder and chief executive officer of meez, to explore an exciting new tech solution for chefs.

“The genesis of meez was the result of something terrible… I lost my [cooking] notebook,” says Sharkey. “As chefs, we don’t have the time to adopt these technologies that aren’t built to how we’re used to doing things. When I first created meez, it sucked. Chefs told me everything that sucked about it—and that was one of the most valuable things we had that first year before we launched.”

Meez is a professional recipe tool created by and for professional chefs. Chefs can use the operating system to upload their recipes and access them via an interactive database. Meez allows chefs to organize the recipes, determine costs, connect to their inventory, and much more.

“Everything we design is from the vantage of: how is this actually going to work in the kitchen? How is the chef going to hold this? Where is this thing going to live?” notes Sharkey. “That’s the most important part of the product: it has to be something that’s really easy or the chef won’t use it because they don’t have time.”

Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators. And to keep listening, check out The Hospitality Hangout podcast on Spotify!

This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.