Give an Ovation has reached episode 75!

Give an Ovation was started to help give insights from restaurant leaders to restaurant leaders to help navigate the unknown and nature of a pandemic. It has evolved into a hospitality network of operators and owners sharing their secrets to success. We are thankful to all, founders, CEOs, VPs, brand managers, and more, who have joined us on the podcast up to this point.

Over the last 25 episodes, the focus has shifted from helping your restaurant survive the pandemic to managing your restaurant in hospitality. We have focused on everything from seizing the moments for guest recovery to creating new and innovative ideas to keep customers loyal to your business, now is the time to try new things!

“There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of great ideas. Not one single idea is going to make or break your restaurant,” Tom McNeill of FamilyMeal.com.

Restaurants have an opportunity during this time to change the name of the game. More and more people are choosing delivery through 3rd-parties, but restaurants need to take responsibility for their brand now and turn those 3rd-party customers into 1st-party customers.

“This is a prime opportunity with all the 3rd party delivery, online ordering. Restaurants now have access to that data,” Kevin Tinsley, Marketing Expert.

With unknowns, quarantines, and social distancing people have more time on their hands than ever before. Social media is at its height and restaurant owners need to be taking advantage of that.

“Social media is where everyone is hanging out these days, it’s what everyone is on when they are doing anything mindless. They are on social media, and so that’s where their eyes are. People aren’t watching commercials anymore, everyone’s skipping through them, everyone can fast forward, they are on their phones. They are on social media,” Olivia Gochnour of Utah Grubs.

So, with the end in mind, we wanted to express gratitude to all those who helped make Give an Ovation possible and–with your help (share it, listen to it, be on it, etc)–it will continue to be a source to help tens of thousands of restaurants!

Feel free to watch this 4 minute video above or read through the quotes below!

Quotes from Restaurant Owners

In case you missed the first 50 episodes, click here to watch!

51. Paula Grassell, MOD, Starbucks, REI, “The rules are changing every day and you have to evolve and adjust accordingly, and that’s hard. And as an operator you have to like, every day, figure out like, okay, what’s the hot topic today? And how am I going to solve that?”

52. Skip Kimpel, 4R Restaurant Group, “I don’t believe IT should be just a supportive service of an organization. I do believe it belongs as part of a revenue center…IT is driving the restaurant and hospitality industry like it’s never been driven before.”

53. Wing Lam, Wahoo’s Fish Taco, “So my job, first and foremost, is to pivot, and stop doing events and promotions and all that, and try to find a way to, you know, keep my employees working.”

54. Scott Wiener, Scott’s Pizza Tours, “The same way that on a pizza tour I want you to understand what’s going on in the life of the owner and of the pizza maker, that’s as important as the food because you don’t go to a restaurant to eat. You go to a restaurant to feel good.”

55. Wilson K. Lee, WilsonKLee.com & 720 Sweets & Etc., “It’s always about the perception – people eat with their eyes…Even if you’re super clean in your back of the house, and your kitchen, and everything, but if you don’t showcase it, then that really defeats the purpose. Doesn’t matter how clean your place is.”

56. Tracey Matney, Restaurant Victory, “The one thing is that you need to have a database of your customers to reach out to and market to them. If you don’t do that, then you’re just gonna be posting and hoping that people come into your restaurant.”

57. Collin Wallace, Zero Store Front, “I think number one is communication. Just talking to their customers. I mean it’s amazing how much ground you can cover just by giving people context.”

58. Michale Rolland, LoDel.com, “Don’t look at delivery as an evil part of the business. Look at it as there’s a way to profit and make it a great pillar of your ongoing business and it allows you to build up more market share and a customer base.”

59. John DiLoreto, FlipDish, “And sometimes by just looking a little bit in the past to similar industries, we can potentially learn how we may be able to make the right decisions to help power our future in the restaurant industry.”

60. Ian Christopher, Galley Solutions, “If you’re not an agile, technology-enabled business, it’s gonna be really difficult for you to survive in the future because data is becoming sort of the connectivity of this eco-system now.”

61. TJ Schier, Which Wich & Smart Restaurant Group, “The great brands out there have had a very forward-thinking, off-premise strategy. They’ve shifted a lot to digital so that the customer can trust that everything’s contactless and frictionless.”

62. Tom McNeill, FamilyMeal.com, “There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of great ideas. Not one single idea is going to make or break your restaurant.”

62. Peter Venti, FamilyMeal.com, “There’s never been a bigger tolerance out there for restaurants to try new things…food critics have been silenced.”

63. Mark Kelnhofer, Return on Ingredients, “If we have an opportunity to cut costs, we should do it. As long as it doesn’t affect quality or consistency – that’s the key.”

64. CJ Ramirez, Dog Haus & The Aboslute Brands, “It’s whatever we can do, and we’re constantly listening and trying to put our best foot forward, I think is the best thing to say.”

65. Avi Goren, Marqii, “Hey – be a human. Remember to be a human. Right? Ask: ‘do you have a couple minutes, is this a good time?’ Just remember to be a human. I feel like so many people forget that.”

66. Jordan Mellul, Qwick, “Just because it’s not familiar, and just because it’s not comfortable immediately, and not something that’s been done in the past doesn’t mean that early adopters and forward thinkers can’t kind of start to see the value in it and the benefits.”

67. Charley Donaldson, Donation Scout, “Community involvement, being a good community citizen – that’s ablsolutely something that should be in your playbook if it’s not now. And it’s a lot easier than people think.”

68. Kevin Tinsley, Marketing Expert, “This is a prime opportunity with all the 3rd party delivery, online ordering. Restaurants now have access to that data.”

69. Devon Harris, Keep on Pushing & Founding Member Jamacian Bobsled Team, “Failure isn’t fatal…we fail all the time and it’s actually a very necessary part of success.”

70. Gonca Esendemir, Flatbread Grill, “There is no compromising on quality anymore. You can’t be mediocre and survive.”

71. Christopher Sebes, Results Thru Strategy, “Success will come to the people who really care. Who care about the quality of food, who care about the service, who care about the value proposition that a restaurant’s offering.”

72. Jen Kern, Qu POS, “If you don’t have something like that that’s helping you transfer all of that data between all of your partners and systems, you’re missing out on that one view.”

73. Olivia Gochnour, @UtahGrubs, “Social media is where everyone is hanging out these days, it’s what everyone is on when they are doing anything mindless. They are on social media, and so that’s where their eyes are. People aren’t watching commercials anymore, everyone’s skipping through them, everyone can fast forward, they are on their phones. They are on social media.”

74. Sam Oches, Food News Media, QSR, FSR “The way that so many restaurants have pivoted and grown and adapted in these last 8 or 9 months has just completely set them up for success.”

75. Kevin Seo, FoodFest Live, “Restaurants utilize their social media as what people used to utilize as maybe like a billboard or a business card. That’s just not enough.”