Chris Gannon, founder and CEO of Bolay, joins Zack Oates to reflect on building a restaurant brand that has successfully grown past the ten year mark. With more than 20 locations and a strong presence in the better for you category, Chris shares lessons on leadership, culture, and creating meaningful guest experiences.

Reflecting on a 10 Year Journey (02:17)

“It wasn’t until last week when we hit ten years that I was like wow, we made it.”

Chris shares how reaching the ten year milestone created a rare moment of reflection. After navigating major industry challenges, the focus shifted from growth alone to recognizing the impact on employees, partners, and communities.

Honoring the Value of Every Guest (06:58)

“They’re giving us their hard earned money.”

Chris emphasizes that every transaction represents real effort from the guest. This mindset creates a culture of gratitude where teams are trained to treat each interaction with respect and intention.

Hiring for Energy and Attitude (08:06)

“You want to select people that are fun to be around.”

In a fast paced environment, personality matters as much as skill. Chris explains that hiring the right people sets the foundation for guest experience, especially in high pressure kitchen environments.

Building Culture Through Recognition (09:40)

“It forces me to look for great behaviors.”

Bolay reinforces culture through structured recognition. Leaders actively search for positive actions and celebrate them across the company, turning appreciation into a daily habit.

Breaking the Script with Human Interaction (12:08)

“It’s two human beings interacting.”

Rather than robotic service, Chris encourages authentic interactions. Simple moments like jokes or genuine conversation help break tension and create memorable guest experiences.

Learning from the Best in the Industry (16:40)

“When you focus on details like that, you win.”

Chris points to brands like Chick-fil-A as examples of operational excellence. Their focus on consistency and small details reinforces the importance of discipline at scale.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-gannon-82b106190/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/bolayrestaurant/about/

https://www.bolay.com/

Transcript

00:00:00:09 – 00:00:24:00

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give An Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zack Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover their strategies and tactics to help you create a five star guest experience. This podcast is powered by ovation, the feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what’s actually happening in your restaurant and exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

00:00:24:01 – 00:00:46:01

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation. Up.com. And today I have someone who is. I would consider him a friend and a mentor. He is the founder and CEO of Bulla, a brand that has recently crossed its 10th birthday, which the percentage of restaurant brands that do that are just so minuscule. And we’re not talking about a one location cafe down the street.

00:00:46:01 – 00:01:11:10

Zack Oates

They have over 20 locations around the south. It’s an amazing brand. I’ve had the privilege to go there. It’s very healthy. Good for you. Good feeling. You get fed. You feel good. The brand in color is just on fire. It’s such an amazing place to go. Go check out Bowl. And Chris Gammon has a really interesting background because and I’m sure that at some point this will come up.

00:01:11:10 – 00:01:31:07

Zack Oates

But he’s picked up a lot of lessons from his dad, Tim Gannon, who’s one of the founders of Outback and the inventor of the Bloomin Onion. But as I said, he’s really paved his own path. Chris actually spent years as a professional polo player. Fun fact about Chris. And, he was the second youngest. Correct me if I’m wrong here.

00:01:31:09 – 00:01:37:21

Zack Oates

Second youngest polo player to win the U.S. Open Polo Championship. Did I get all that right, Chris?

00:01:37:23 – 00:01:48:22

Chris Gannon

Pretty much. There’s a whole lot else in there, too. But I think you’re hired to be our marketing and my personal, motivator every day to make me just wake up and go crush the world. So thank you for that intro.

00:01:48:24 – 00:01:54:11

Zack Oates

It’s easy. All you gotta do is just read a couple of the highlights of the accomplishments of what you’re doing.

00:01:54:13 – 00:02:17:03

Chris Gannon

Yeah. I think when you said Zach hit, hit home pretty heavy. You know, everybody knows getting into any business, starting any business and scratches is such a daunting challenge, so rewarding. And when you’re in it, you don’t really ever stop and smell the roses. And we never really did. There’s a couple moments, and it wasn’t until last week when we hit ten years that I was like, wow, we made it!

00:02:17:04 – 00:02:39:00

Chris Gannon

And we made it to ten years. And through all the ups and downs of the four headed horsemen, I call it Covey. Great resignation, supply chain crisis, inflation, all that fun, but really reflected back on how many people we were able to serve. Where are we staying? True to that, what we set out to do. How many team members have we gotten to hire and give their first job to you?

00:02:39:05 – 00:03:00:06

Chris Gannon

How many people have promoted within our system? How many vendor partners have made wonderful money along the journey? Right. Everybody’s got to make money along the journey. How many school donations we’ve given to how many cheery organizations we’ve supported. And you look back at the ten years of doing that. You’re like, wow, we’ve been able to accomplish so much.

00:03:00:06 – 00:03:14:10

Chris Gannon

Now, obviously we think we should be quadruple where we’re at, but that’s the entrepreneur in us. The winner. But it was a hot. It was a great moment just to stop and smell the broccoli if you will. Yeah. Yeah. And and reflect on on what we accomplished. So. Yeah.

00:03:14:12 – 00:03:32:24

Zack Oates

Well and it’s of smelling broccoli. I mean, every moment that you have where you can look back and reflect, it’s bittersweet because entrepreneurs and, you know, you and I have hung out enough that I know that you and I are kind of cut from the same cloth when it comes to it’s hard for us to celebrate because we always think that we should be further than we are.

00:03:33:05 – 00:03:56:02

Zack Oates

And so it’s like, yeah, good job we did XYZ, but we should have done that a long time ago, right? And it’s one of those things where we actually have our third values. We have six values innovation and value. Number three is celebrate. And it’s the only value with a punctuation mark. And it’s an exclamation mark. So every other value is A23 word value.

00:03:56:04 – 00:04:32:21

Zack Oates

And then value number three is just celebrate exclamation mark. Because I think at some point you really have to stop, you have to punctuate it. You got to celebrate because it’s hard and like it’s hard when your backyard is on fire. And our job as leaders is to make sure those fires don’t get to the house. But that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate the stuff going on in the front yard and the stuff that’s going on in the house, and like, there’s good things happening and we can’t just focus on where we should have done things better, because there’s a lot of really good things that the team has done.

00:04:32:21 – 00:04:33:17

Zack Oates

Right.

00:04:33:19 – 00:04:50:05

Chris Gannon

I probably need to go see a therapist for that one. But yes, I agree, it’s hard. It’s the hardest. It is the most challenging thing to do. And I think it’s just yeah, it’s what you and I just what you just said and putting it in a core value, putting it in something that says and it’s repeated is how it stays alive.

00:04:50:05 – 00:04:52:15

Chris Gannon

And you take a moment to reflect on the journey.

00:04:52:17 – 00:05:11:18

Zack Oates

Yeah. Now, I will say that is probably one of the values I struggle the most with because again, you’re always wanting to push to the next thing. But one of the things that I feel like has been a huge win for you is just the guest experience, and being able to go into a bowl, it literally just like feels fresh.

00:05:11:18 – 00:05:20:20

Zack Oates

And so talk to me about the guest experience. What are some of the principles that you’ve used to guide creating and growing, both when it comes to the guest experience?

00:05:20:22 – 00:05:38:04

Chris Gannon

This is the hardest part where we started with where we grew, where we had some bumps in the road, and now we’re getting back on. I feel like it’s life, right? Or the journey. Get on that horse. I was a ball. Players I know that get bucked off. You got to get back on the horse, stay on horse and ride.

00:05:38:04 – 00:05:56:18

Chris Gannon

Even better. It’s the same thing of climbing a mountain right away. Knows it’s just not the straight shot up to the top and all the bumps and ravines on the way up you learn something from. But to specifically answer your question, we are a walk the line concept where you build the bull. So every interaction with a team member is very short.

00:05:56:20 – 00:06:21:10

Chris Gannon

It’s very ten 20s so how do you do it? But it’s the little details. It’s the guest experience making sure that we’re smiling, that we’re interacting, that we’re recognizing that we have a first guest in the restaurant, and we’re recognizing that it’s somebody that has a welcome patch from a hospital that majority of the time, if they’ve got a welcome back from the hospital, they’re probably going through something not fun.

00:06:21:12 – 00:06:40:18

Chris Gannon

And so we might buy the bull that day and recognize that we thank all of our first responders when they come through the line to really show appreciation. And I think when you teach the team members about how important appreciation is, and that one of the things that we really pride ourselves on is today. Now more than ever, people have the ability to choose to go to a thousand different restaurants.

00:06:40:19 – 00:07:01:18

Chris Gannon

They’re just going to, you know, one, two, three PD apps in order. So if they choose to come to ballet, let’s be honored and humbled every day. And that’s hard to do, but really celebrate that they chose us, right? Picked us. Hey, we’re the little guys picked us and and realized and we told time someone’s coming in. They give us their hard earned money that they worked.

00:07:01:20 – 00:07:15:19

Chris Gannon

Sometimes our meals can get up there where they’re working more. It’s more per hour than the meal, right? So we see like, hey, we’re taking someone’s hour of work away that they paid for, so we better honor that.

00:07:15:21 – 00:07:49:02

Zack Oates

I love that concept, that gratitude and that appreciation because, I mean, everyone wants to feel appreciated. And when you feel important, I love what you’re talking about with things like the smile that showing the appreciation, giving your team the autonomy to take that extra step. And also it’s about like the consistency. If I order a 15, 16, $17 bowl and I’m getting extra protein and I get the stuff and I get the ball and it’s like, all wrong, man, that’s a great way to get a really upset guest.

00:07:49:02 – 00:08:06:08

Zack Oates

Right. And so that consistency I think is also key. And I know you and I have talked about this, but like, what do you do when you focusing on the employee experience and the training of them. How do you go about knowing what are you going to train your team on, and how do you make sure that that sticks?

00:08:06:10 – 00:08:21:05

Chris Gannon

Well, first and foremost, it starts with who we select, right? If you’re if you’re in the interview process and you have a team member that doesn’t smile, I say quite simply, our leaders. You want to select people that are fun. You want to be around, and that you can see you’re going to be in a very high pressure situation.

00:08:21:07 – 00:08:39:22

Chris Gannon

And, you know, think about it. In 1000 square foot kitchen, give or take 1500, you got 11, 12 or 15 people all working each other. Hot area steam knives, guests coming in. If you’re going to be in that kind of situation, I want you want to be around somebody like, we’ll start with that. Yeah. You like? Yeah. All right.

00:08:39:22 – 00:09:02:20

Chris Gannon

Then you work your way back. And do they possess all the core values in selecting them, going through our core values, our mission, our purpose. Just talk to them about that. Tell me who you are and then tell me how these core values reflect you. Because of you. You know, with our core values teamwork, excellence, integrity, stewardship. And we want a few people to be their best and provide genuine experiences of positive experiences, genuine hospitality.

00:09:02:22 – 00:09:24:04

Chris Gannon

You don’t want to do those things. Then there’s great. You’ll be successful somewhere else, but you just won’t be successful at ballet. So it starts with that. And then it starts with repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, and then celebration. Right? Celebrate great performance, great success. The mini celebrations, recognition and I think is a big one part of our four hours of a great experience.

00:09:24:04 – 00:09:40:11

Chris Gannon

So recognition is a big one that we really pride ourselves on. And we start that at the support center every week when we start the meeting or Monday huddle, we go around the room. We all tell a positive story from either a guest or a team member, and we nominate them. That goes in the weekly brew, which goes out to the entire company.

00:09:40:11 – 00:10:00:00

Chris Gannon

So Jack could say, you’re the head cashier, one of our restaurants. I’d say, you know, Zach, I saw him go above and beyond. So I’m purposefully looking all week long. It’s forcing me to look for great behaviors all week long to then publicly celebrate our people. And it’s something that we’ve stuck with. And I don’t think we’ve ever kind of gone from it’s been great.

00:10:00:02 – 00:10:18:18

Zack Oates

I love that we do something similar to ovation. We call it given Ovation. So everyone’s got a $20 bonus each month that they have to give to somebody else, and it’s for living one of the ovation values. And then we get a chance to when we have time. We talked. We read them all in the all hands. Otherwise we just read a couple of them and then post them in slack.

00:10:18:18 – 00:10:39:07

Zack Oates

Because I do think that recognition again, like the importance, the gratitude, the pausing, all those things are so key in order to not just grow a restaurant, but grow a culture. And I think that you’ve done a really good job about that, because what you’re saying is more than just lip service going in there. That’s been my experience in both, is that that is the friendly fun.

00:10:39:09 – 00:10:53:19

Zack Oates

You have a lot of woo people that winning others over, of people who are just able to make those real quick connections. And I think that’s key. So only hiring the right people. Are there any other tips or tactics that you found that improve the guest experience?

00:10:53:21 – 00:11:17:23

Chris Gannon

Yeah, we’ve done some role playing in the restaurants and we video the team members doing some role playing back and guest experience. And it’s interesting to see yourself back and have the coaching moment of saying, do you really think that you’re smiling? Do you really think you’re warm and welcoming? And for someone to see themselves like, oh wait, no, I got opportunity or hey, let’s use this to really focus on how we can get better.

00:11:18:00 – 00:11:18:21

Chris Gannon

But Chris, that’s so.

00:11:18:21 – 00:11:22:09

Zack Oates

Awkward talking to you. You’re you’re actually you really do film.

00:11:22:11 – 00:11:23:17

Chris Gannon

Yeah. They film me.

00:11:23:17 – 00:11:32:10

Zack Oates

No way. Wow. So how did you get over the initial awkwardness of that filming of, like, how did you set the expectations that now this is what we do?

00:11:32:12 – 00:11:50:16

Chris Gannon

I do it myself, I lead, I just jump in film myself. So many times you’re like, that is awkward. But you do it right. I remember the first, you know, it’s so funny. I reminded myself when I was younger in the restaurant business, and it was so nerve wracking, and go to speak to guest the first time. You know, I’m a pretty out going out there person, but, you know, when you’re just not comfortable.

00:11:50:16 – 00:12:08:17

Chris Gannon

Aids is business. I’m supposed to be you know what? What is? Hey, no, those are human beings. I’m a human being. I’m just going to talk to you. And so I’ll even have some team members that are super shy and nervous, and I’ll just jump out of line and obviously watch this. I start making jokes with the guest, and I would give the team like, let’s see, it’s a human being on the other side.

00:12:08:17 – 00:12:28:04

Chris Gannon

And the guest last I laugh, team member laughs. And we just now broken down that awkward barrier and everybody’s having fun. And you realize like, hey, this is what this meant to be. It is not supposed to be this robotic eye. Whatever experience, this is two human beings interacting. And what kind of interaction can we make with the positive we were talking about today?

00:12:28:04 – 00:12:47:04

Chris Gannon

Just how important a smile is and the chemical reaction you get from a smile versus, you know, you yawn at somebody, what do you get back? I yawn, you smile somebody, you get a smile back. Now I got to be smile and get each other happy. And so it’s those little things. And I think it’s like everything we try to remind the team in the most polite way is in.

00:12:47:04 – 00:13:01:00

Chris Gannon

And I find myself there, too, even on, you know, zoom meetings. The resting, we call they are b f the resting bitch face. Right. But you don’t realize we’re just focused on thinking they don’t realize what your face looks like. You. That’s not an approachable person.

00:13:01:02 – 00:13:02:05

Zack Oates

Yeah, yeah.

00:13:02:07 – 00:13:07:17

Chris Gannon

You never know. With those big smiles and zag walks in a room with his bright shirts and lights up the room, you know? Yeah.

00:13:07:19 – 00:13:23:03

Zack Oates

Oh, yeah, I actually I picked this shirt out for you. I was like, what’s my most Florida shirt I could wear today? And so anyway, you got, you got what am I, Miami chic shirts? I love that though. I think that that is I haven’t thought about that, about how a smile is just as contagious as a yawn, if not more so.

00:13:23:08 – 00:13:26:17

Zack Oates

I think that’s a really great philosophy to have.

00:13:26:19 – 00:13:33:15

Chris Gannon

You can’t chemical reaction making two people happy at the same time. I smile you I’m I’m making myself. You smile back at me. You just made me happy.

00:13:33:17 – 00:13:39:17

Zack Oates

Yeah. Love it. Now to put you on the spot a little bit. How is ovation been helpful for you?

00:13:39:19 – 00:13:44:16

Chris Gannon

You know, at some, I’ve been wanting to set up a zoom call with you to talk about and really?

00:13:44:18 – 00:13:45:05

Zack Oates

Oh.

00:13:45:07 – 00:14:05:08

Chris Gannon

Oh, amazing. I can’t swear it’s enough. You know, you have all your venture partners. I think the value for what you charge, I would say you could charge a bit more for the service and the technology it provides is spot on. It keeps it simple. US leaders, you know, I think about the other day, we’re a small organization, but we’re big two, we’re not mom and pop.

00:14:05:10 – 00:14:45:24

Chris Gannon

What is it like to be at the helm of a massive national brand? And how are these leaders doing a great job of truly listening, and not just the loud voices? And I think as leaders, we are our number one job as chief of executive officers or even leaders in any company or chief listening officers, first and foremost, listening to our team, listening to our guest, and really understanding that sentiment across all aspects in ovation provides that, along with boots on the ground, good old fashioned talking to the consumer and then the guests and the feedback and but just I think the true challenge that we all face is how do you take all those

00:14:46:05 – 00:15:06:22

Chris Gannon

data points and voices and create a story from that? And I think that’s where the true leadership genius comes from, is being able to dissect all those voices and make the right decisions from all those voices and oil. I tell you, we get it. We strive for perfection all the time, but it is the opportunity and challenge within organization.

00:15:06:24 – 00:15:26:11

Zack Oates

Well, and I think that by virtue of the fact that you’re responding to the guests, that you care about the guests, that you really are listening, because listening is a two way street. And if someone shares with you something and you respond back to them, that creates that relationship in that connection, that is building something that goes beyond just a recovered guest.

00:15:26:11 – 00:15:47:01

Zack Oates

Stephen, but is building that connection where the next time that they’re thinking, oh, I need to cater something, I’m calling bowling, the next time they’re like, hey, we need you a family dinner. I’m going to bowl, right? Because they know that you’ve got their back. And I think that’s really powerful. Now, Chris, who is someone in the restaurant industry who deserves an ovation, who’s someone that we should be following.

00:15:47:03 – 00:16:06:01

Chris Gannon

I will tell you, first and foremost, I’m going to blanket that statement with a quick, easy one. All of the better for you brands. And it raises, oh, who’s your direct competitor? All the better for you brands that are coming emerging. Because I truly believe that the old fast food brands had their place in our journey in American culinary.

00:16:06:03 – 00:16:21:06

Chris Gannon

But I truly believe, I don’t know if that should be in the future with how the food has gone and direction, and I truly believe, even though our direct competitors, I look at all of the better for you brands of what we’re trying to bring the market and better for you eating everybody’s two different levels, but bringing that.

00:16:21:06 – 00:16:44:20

Chris Gannon

So I say really follow all the better for your brands and Clean Bowl first and foremost. Always been a huge fan of chick fil A. They’re the gold standard in our brand. The way they operate, the way they execute constantly innovating as big as they are, the team, the experience. Everybody wants to throw rocks at them just because they’re on top of the world and top of their game, but I just celebrate them, try to learn from them.

00:16:44:22 – 00:17:10:13

Chris Gannon

And true, with Kathy to Dan, Kathy, now to Andrew, Kathy, their leadership in ten years through family lineage, they do the tribute to the true believers. You know everything that the team members, they select the speed of service, the consistency in the product. And you look at other emerging brands that are sexier and hitting their ground. Yeah, but you look at a brand that’s just been on top of their game for so long.

00:17:10:15 – 00:17:25:14

Chris Gannon

I don’t know, they’re the Michael Jordan, in my opinion, of the restaurant business. And I think that I’m blessed to get to know them and understand them and try to emulate aspects of their excellence. I mean, they just they they operate on another level and we can get there. We’re going to keep working at it, though.

00:17:25:16 – 00:17:42:00

Zack Oates

I mean, shoot, you want to talk about consistency? I have never been into a chick fil A and had a even okay experience. Like it is been great every single time and it is mind boggling.

00:17:42:06 – 00:17:59:14

Chris Gannon

So they’re not even they have inspections on whether or not to serve the small little in pieces of the French fry and the French fry. They get judged on if there’s grease too much grease on the outside of the wrappers. I mean, when you focus on details like that, you win.

00:17:59:16 – 00:18:09:20

Zack Oates

Wow. Gees. Well, may we all be chick fil A is. This is a dream, right? Yeah. Well, Chris, speaking of following bowl, how do people find it? Follow bowl.

00:18:10:01 – 00:18:27:01

Chris Gannon

And you best is bowling on Instagram obviously follow our journey I’m on there as well. Chief Chris cannot bowl a chief now because of chief executive. The chief because I was chief CEO at Florida State University, which a lot of people don’t know, got to represent him in pageantry, obviously, LinkedIn and possibly keep up with all the messages.

00:18:27:01 – 00:18:42:06

Chris Gannon

But I try to get back to everybody. I used to be in sales, so I have a guilty heart of getting back to me where sales people trying to sell something. But I have respect for people trying to sell a product where I’m trying to sell products. So we’re all trying to sell something out there. So I have respect for people in that aspect.

00:18:42:06 – 00:18:46:15

Chris Gannon

But trying to balance time as well. Yeah. Yeah.

00:18:46:17 – 00:18:56:06

Zack Oates

Awesome. Well, Chris, for helping us recognize the importance of recognition and for putting celebration central to our brand. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on it.

00:18:56:06 – 00:18:59:02

Chris Gannon

Ovation I love it. Thank you.

00:18:59:04 – 00:19:21:17

Zack Oates

Thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen. We’re all about feedback here. Again, this episode was sponsored by ovation, a two question, SMS based, actionable guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants. If you’d like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience, visit us at ovation up.com.