Adam Sanders, CFO of Killer Burger, approaches restaurant leadership from a different angle than most operators. With a background in finance, mergers and acquisitions, and technology, he views hospitality through both a strategic and operational lens. In this conversation with Zack Oates, Adam explains how guest experience data often predicts future profitability long before it appears in financial reports.

Why Guest Experience Predicts Profitability (07:23)

“If I could look at just the review ratings by store, I can tell you which stores are more profitable.”

Adam explains how stores with stronger reviews, better accuracy, and smoother operations consistently outperform financially. For him, guest sentiment and profitability are directly connected.

Welcoming Guests Matters More Than Ever (04:06)

“People want to feel like they’re welcome.”

Adam discusses how hospitality has evolved post-COVID and why even quick guest interactions can create long-term loyalty in fast casual dining.

Balancing Speed and Accuracy (11:45)

“Everyone will be patient if it’s a minute or two longer for us to check everything.”

The conversation explores why rushing orders often hurts the guest experience more than slightly longer wait times.

Designing the Menu Around Guest Behavior (08:45)

“We’re working on trying to meet the guests where they want to be met.”

Adam shares how Killer Burger is simplifying menu navigation and investing in kiosks to create a smoother ordering process for guests.

Building a Better Off-Premise Experience (10:29)

“We designed a lot of stuff specifically for delivery.”

With more than half of sales happening outside the restaurant, Adam explains how packaging and menu choices are tailored to maintain food quality during delivery.

Who Deserves an Ovation? (15:23)

“There’s no shortage of people who are really good people who want to help others.”

Adam gives recognition to Mark Hatch, Carolyn Gatignol, and Jeff Chandler for their leadership and willingness to support others in the restaurant industry.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcharlessanders/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/killerburger/

https://www.instagram.com/killerburger/?hl=en

https://killerburger.com/

Transcript

00:00:00:07 – 00:00:25:06

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 AI feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what’s actually happening in your restaurants and exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

00:00:25:07 – 00:00:57:03

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation. Upcoming. And today, we have someone who. I’m so excited to have this conversation because I was just talking to Adam about how he has a very unique background. A lot of times in the restaurant space, you come from an operations role, and there’s a few who come from the marketing role. There are very few CEOs that come from a finance and technology background, and that’s exactly what Adam Sanders, the CEO of Killer Burger, is.

00:00:57:03 – 00:01:07:14

Zack Oates

And he’s got such interesting insights. Every time I talk to him, I’m impressed with how he views the industry and the guest and building a brand. So, Adam, welcome to the podcast.

00:01:07:19 – 00:01:10:20

Adam Sanders

Yeah, thanks. I really appreciate you having me on. Looking forward to this.

00:01:10:21 – 00:01:31:14

Zack Oates

So first of all, I want to get your take on this journey from finance and tech to then the CEO role. I mean, why do you think there’s not too many people that have done that transition? And what real lessons are you taking from your finance and technology background into the CEO role?

00:01:31:16 – 00:01:49:21

Adam Sanders

Yeah, when you think about finance, I mean, especially from a big perspective, people tend to get pigeonholed in their area, right? And they look at, I’m just going to look at the numbers and do that and not learn what’s around the numbers. So much where I’ve always been more of a strategy type of focus. Numbers in the past matter, but the only matter for what we can tell the story in the future, right.

00:01:49:22 – 00:02:07:09

Adam Sanders

And how we can change results. So I did M&A consulting for ten years, bought some brands, worked for huge companies as part of it. You know in a we always look and say, well what is the future going to be if we make these transactions and we do this, do this deal, what is it going to drive going forward?

00:02:07:09 – 00:02:31:02

Adam Sanders

And I think that gave me a unique perspective as far as how we look at the business, because I only care about what happened in the future. How do we take what we know from the finance, the results and try to drive better results in the future? And then when you look at especially like the industry today and like issues we have as Killer Burger, I think the finance background has helped me a lot, where I’ve had to deal with companies where like profitability really matters.

00:02:31:02 – 00:02:41:02

Adam Sanders

We don’t have a huge amount of big VC fund behind us and this and that. So we have to be able to manage cash and grow responsibly, but also be able to try to put money back towards the guest.

00:02:41:04 – 00:03:06:15

Zack Oates

And what do you think about if you were to go and take over a brand today? And in this environment where margins are getting crunched and you look at we haven’t even been hit really with the gas prices increase yet, we know those were coming and so that’s going to be another hit to the margin. What advice would you give to restaurant operators who are maybe not as financially savvy as you are?

00:03:06:16 – 00:03:21:18

Adam Sanders

I think the biggest thing is just listen to what your guests are saying and be able to invest back in that area, right? We all know that margins are going to get tighter and it’s going to continue to get tougher, but being able to put the dollars back to the items that actually matter is what we have to all focus on, right?

00:03:21:19 – 00:03:39:03

Adam Sanders

So when we look at our guests and I said I can put more money towards, you know, finance roles or other solutions that maybe help around the edges, but I need more money back towards the bringing guests in the door or giving them a better experience when they’re there. So they want to come back. I mean, we all know it’s much cheaper to get a guess has been coming in than to get a new one.

00:03:39:03 – 00:03:41:01

Adam Sanders

So just trying to keep driving that money.

00:03:41:01 – 00:03:49:21

Zack Oates

And it’s so powerful to think about that. And when you look at where to invest, what are some things that you think are most important about the guest experience nowadays?

00:03:49:23 – 00:04:06:10

Adam Sanders

I feel like it’s changed even for our brand, where if you go several years ago, the guest experience was just about how you came in and interacted with them. I mean, now, especially after Covid, people want they want to feel like they’re welcome, right? They want to feel like they’re invited into your place. And this is a part of it.

00:04:06:11 – 00:04:21:15

Adam Sanders

And that’s different for every person. I mean, for some person, it might just be they go to your kiosk and they do it and they’re welcome that way because they don’t really want to talk to you, but they want to feel like they’re still accepted there. Nothing drive me crazier than when I go into one of our restaurants, and I see our team not acknowledge the guests there.

00:04:21:17 – 00:04:37:21

Adam Sanders

They just want to say, just say there. Welcome. Talk to him. Like interact. Ask him how they’re doing. Like, we’re a fast casual business. The whole interaction isn’t isn’t a difficult one. It’s helped make sure they understand our menu. They get the order, then you check on them once or twice, make sure it’s right. It’s not hard, but it’s still gets overlooked.

00:04:37:21 – 00:04:45:00

Adam Sanders

So I think it’s that simple words. You try to meet that guess where they want to be met, and just welcome them and let them know that you appreciate the chose or business.

00:04:45:00 – 00:04:58:14

Zack Oates

And that to me, if you look at that connection, that 1 to 1, the hand-to-hand combat, I think that’s where it gets really tricky. Because how do you keep your employees excited about that and believing that that’s a good thing?

00:04:58:16 – 00:05:16:15

Adam Sanders

That’s the toughest part of the job, right? Is having your team that wants to interact with the guests. Do the right. Get the right people there. I mean, it starts with one putting the people who naturally want to be in that situation, putting them in the right spots. I mean, if the person is great on grill, that’s fantastic, but that person may not be the person that should be in the front of the house talking to everybody.

00:05:16:16 – 00:05:33:08

Adam Sanders

And that person that indicates in the front of the house is great as well. And then second, giving that person like giving them some things just to say, right. It’s so often we go up to the table and say, how is everything right. Like, wow, yeah, good. Walk away. And it’s like, well, does that really accomplish anything? Right?

00:05:33:09 – 00:05:46:14

Adam Sanders

I like to go to our guests and ask, what burger did you get? Because it gets them interacting a little bit. Right. Because we do very indulgent, over-the-top burgers. And if someone goes, oh, I got the purest, I’m like, that’s great. Glad you like you next time. Let us take a good shot at one of our special burgers.

00:05:46:15 – 00:06:01:15

Adam Sanders

You know that you really want. Let us give you the peanut butter pickle bacon burger, the Jose Mendoza. What kind of flavors do you like? It gets them talking a little more, and you pretty quickly can understand within like 10s. That person wants to talk to you more and opens up. Or if they just want to say, hey, it’s good and we can walk away.

00:06:01:15 – 00:06:15:20

Adam Sanders

Because again, either is fine, but I’ll get in conversations where sometimes it’s 15 minutes right there talking to someone, and they want to know all about all our burgers and how they come to this point. And what other things are we trying? You know, I think those are the type of interactions that gets the guests to come back, not just how are.

00:06:15:20 – 00:06:31:20

Zack Oates

You doing, but Adam, from a finance perspective, I mean, I’m looking at 15 minutes and you just said, right, let’s multiply out the GM salary. Let’s look at the hourly rate of that. That’s a really expensive conversation. How could you financially justify that?

00:06:31:20 – 00:06:47:05

Adam Sanders

That’s going to be your exception. Right. But if you’re willing to be out there and spend the time when that person is there, because there’s there’s always times when you’re not going to have it and there’s times when there’s plenty of people there and they have it. I mean, for me, it’s easy. I don’t have other role when I go into a restaurant other than just to check on the team and check on the guest.

00:06:47:06 – 00:07:07:00

Adam Sanders

Right when our people above store level go in, they can do the same thing as well, right? You have more interaction from a GM. It’s obviously significantly harder. But there’s, you know, shoulder times when it’s not quite as busy. But even if it’s you just go for a two minutes and have that interaction and talk to them. Bring that guest back over and over is worth so much more than they’re going to tell their friends, and it’s going to drive more revenue.

00:07:07:01 – 00:07:23:01

Adam Sanders

I mean, it’s hard to get guests. There’s transactions are down across the industry. When you look at it. I think bringing a guest in is hard. It’s everyone knows from inflation over the last several years how much people’s pocketbooks have been hurt. We have to really value every one of those guests that come in and make sure we give them the right experience.

00:07:23:03 – 00:07:44:04

Zack Oates

I love that because one of the things that I hear you saying, and something that I’ve seen in our data, is that the pal tells you where you’re at and the guest experience tells you where you’re going. And if you are failing in your guest experience today in 3 to 4 months, your revenue is going to see it.

00:07:44:04 – 00:08:03:10

Zack Oates

And a lot of times we sit there and we’re like, why is our revenue down? Let’s like call marketing. Our loyalty program isn’t working. This, this, this, this. And at the end of the day, it’s exactly what you’re talking about. Our team isn’t having that connection with the guest. They’re treating it like I am in. I am out and I am like, do not care.

00:08:03:13 – 00:08:10:02

Zack Oates

But if you care, that’s when they come back. That’s when they’re okay spending their hard earned money with you.

00:08:10:04 – 00:08:11:11

Adam Sanders

Yeah. We think about them as.

00:08:11:11 – 00:08:30:24

Adam Sanders

These two separate items like profitability on one side in this experience and review on the other. But like I could look at just the review, the ratings by store. And I can tell you which stores are more profitable. I mean, you don’t even have to show me the pal. It’s that clear in our data where you start looking across and saying, these stores have good have good reviews, they have good ticket times, their accuracy is good.

00:08:30:24 – 00:08:38:02

Adam Sanders

I can tell they have better profitability. And it just is that simple. Do the little things right and it’ll lead to the better. Bottom line.

00:08:38:03 – 00:08:45:03

Zack Oates

I love that. What a powerful statement. Now as you think about some tactics to improve the guest experience, any that you can share. Yeah.

00:08:45:03 – 00:09:02:15

Adam Sanders

So we’re working on trying to meet the guests where they want to be met. Right. So traditionally you always came in, you just ordered our counter and we had not even a menu board up in front of you. We had like a hand-held menu, which we have ten indulgent burgers, four chicken sandwiches. Like, you have to read a lot to get to that point, right?

00:09:02:16 – 00:09:27:19

Adam Sanders

So we’re trying to structure the menu board so it gets much simpler to get to. If I like something spicy, I can pretty quickly pick out that’s a spicy one. If I want the peanut butter pickle, bacon burger or something sweet, I can pick that up faster. I’d love to get the kiosks, honestly, because I think the flow for a guest is much, much better on a kiosk where I can see pictures, I can kind of I can help navigate the experience better on a kiosk than I can with a person up front, or even more so reading a menu board.

00:09:27:20 – 00:09:31:11

Zack Oates

Are there any kiosk companies that you’ve seen that you’ve been impressed with?

00:09:31:13 – 00:09:32:12

Adam Sanders

We use toasts.

00:09:32:12 – 00:09:49:04

Adam Sanders

Kiosk solution. Right now we’re very new in it. It seems to be working pretty good. I’ve seen a few other ones and like does a really good job. Doesn’t chicken salad chick a while back and like they were good. Who else is? I can’t think the name of the brand. Chop shop there. Yes. They’re fantastic. Yeah. Probably more orders, right?

00:09:49:05 – 00:10:09:01

Zack Oates

You know, I do a lot of work with bike kiosks, and it’s been really impressive to see what they can do. And, and. Yeah, I think the nice thing about that is to your point about meeting the guests where they’re at. Not every guest wants that experience. But then you could have it when you do. Now, what percentage are you a dine in versus outside the four walls?

00:10:09:03 – 00:10:11:22

Zack Oates

If you look at your pickup delivery in three PD.

00:10:12:02 – 00:10:22:10

Adam Sanders

45% of our foods eaten within our four walls and 55% is outside of it, of that, like 30% like third party. And then I guess what’s at 25 is take out that kind of stuff.

00:10:22:16 – 00:10:29:16

Zack Oates

Got it. Are you working to push more people to order first party or to order dine in, or is it kind of like you’re fine? However.

00:10:29:17 – 00:10:50:17

Adam Sanders

It’s always my preference to come or eat inside the restaurant, right? That is the killer burger experience. You’re going to get the warmest food. You’re going to get our atmosphere. We want to create this oasis, which is separate from your daily life. And you don’t get that if you go somewhere else. That being said, like I owe some a realist and I realize people are busy and I think DoorDash and UberEats customers are more their customer than our customer at this point.

00:10:50:18 – 00:11:00:13

Adam Sanders

Lots of ways. So I want to be there to meet them in, give them that experience the best we can. We designed a lot of stuff for under packaging and like you and our food choices with our fries stays crispy.

00:11:00:14 – 00:11:03:16

Zack Oates

Wait, how do you do that? What magic are you using? Adam.

00:11:03:17 – 00:11:20:01

Adam Sanders

It’s not a fresh cut fry. It’s a rice code of rice flour coated fries. So it gets cold still, but it is still crispy half an hour later. I mean, it’s, wow, a good product, right? So it’s stuff like that that we think about specifically for delivery or eating outside our walls so that it still works good as well.

00:11:20:02 – 00:11:30:06

Adam Sanders

Right? And we’re trying to do as much as we can. It’s like, do I care? I mean, a little bit. Obviously I’d love him to be inside, eat in the restaurant, but also just be realistic about what people’s options are.

00:11:30:11 – 00:11:45:20

Zack Oates

Yeah. And any tips in terms of especially with such a big to go, I’m assuming a lot of people will swing by and pick up as well. Right. We have a lot of customers who a lot of restaurants who will do that, and there’s always issues there. Anything that you find to improve the pickup experience?

00:11:45:24 – 00:12:00:01

Adam Sanders

Just have the team slow down a little bit. Make sure you get it right. I mean, it’s people get frustrated if they have to wait a long time, but like taking the extra 30s to look through the bag and make sure the items are there, the sausage, or that they ask for that kind of stuff. It’s the number one complaint we get a number of complaint anyone gets.

00:12:00:01 – 00:12:15:02

Adam Sanders

I think it’s accuracy. And I mean, what’s more frustrating? You give a place a shot, you go and order something and you don’t even get what you order paid for. I mean, that’s the worst experience you can have, right? That’s just tells you, like, just make sure we get it right. First of all, I mean, everyone will be patient if it’s a minute or two longer for us to check everything.

00:12:15:05 – 00:12:35:20

Zack Oates

I love that, and I totally agree. I think some of the best brands that I’m working with, and I don’t want to share who because there’s some secrets here, but they actually are deprived and speed of service complaints and they’re saying, hey, I’m okay with some speed of service complaints, right? We’ve got a standard. It’s not three minutes, but it’s not 15 minutes.

00:12:35:21 – 00:12:53:07

Zack Oates

Right. And they work on setting that expectation because their focus is accuracy. To your point, if it’s really good food and it’s exactly how I wanted it, a minute late isn’t going to kill me. But if I get it and it’s wrong, that is going to kill me.

00:12:53:09 – 00:13:02:24

Adam Sanders

Yeah. And so when I first started here, our speed of service ticket on, it was like 15 minutes. I mean, it was unacceptable, right? For a burger place, no one goes in thinking they have 15 minutes to wait for food.

00:13:03:00 – 00:13:05:18

Zack Oates

Yeah. I mean, I wait for 15 minutes at Chili’s, right?

00:13:05:21 – 00:13:22:13

Adam Sanders

Yeah, exactly. That’s that’s what you think. So we got down to our average ticket times eight ish minutes at this point, right? We got it down to about six. I found out like that’s actually problematic as well because people hadn’t got their drinks. They hadn’t sat down yet. They were just getting settled in. And we’re putting food on top of them and they’re just not quite ready yet.

00:13:22:14 – 00:13:38:20

Adam Sanders

Also, we make every single thing fresh to order. We don’t drop fries until it’s order. I guess nothing’s hot held in our restaurant, right? I don’t want people to think that that’s the case when it’s just not so, because we can do something in about six minutes, that doesn’t mean it’s the right time. It’s finding that right time for the guesses.

00:13:38:20 – 00:13:44:21

Adam Sanders

Somewhere between 6 and 8 is there. But if you brought out food out in three minutes, it doesn’t do our guests any good in our situation.

00:13:44:22 – 00:14:15:22

Zack Oates

That’s such an interesting insight, because I remember when I started my first company, it was a gifting company where I developed an algorithm to translate social media data into gift recommendations, and we had it so fast that it would like you click it and boom, gift ideas would show up and people were like they were skeptical. And so we actually put in a fake buffer of five seconds because we wanted them to think that, like, things are actually going on right now, and it created a much better experience by waiting.

00:14:15:22 – 00:14:27:15

Zack Oates

And I had never, ever, in the internet seen people want to put in more buffer time as opposed to making something faster, but it created a better guest experience.

00:14:27:17 – 00:14:38:10

Adam Sanders

Yeah. I mean, for us, so much is about differentiation to you, right? I mean, there’s lots and lots of burger places. You mentioned Chili’s, but on the other side is obviously all the QSR places. I need to make sure we are differentiated from those.

00:14:38:11 – 00:14:54:12

Zack Oates

Yeah. Well, and I think your brand, your menu, how you’re running things, how you treat the guest is just what a I mean, pun intended. What a killer way to run a business. And I just love seeing that now. Adam, how can people find and follow you in Killer Burger?

00:14:54:14 – 00:15:13:06

Adam Sanders

So Killer burger is the easiest way. Real slow. On Instagram. We have killer burger handle. We have Killer Burger Texas for our Texas stores trying to do regional stuff there differently. You can find me on LinkedIn Adam Sanders pretty easy. But yeah, always happy to talk to people. And you know, look more there. I’m not super active on social media, but our team certainly is.

00:15:13:10 – 00:15:23:16

Zack Oates

And Adam, how can people you know I know, you know, a lot of people in this industry, you’ve been around for a while who’s someone that we should be following? Who’s someone that you think deserves an ovation?

00:15:23:18 – 00:15:41:18

Adam Sanders

There’s a handful of people here. I mean, it’s one thing in the industry, there’s no shortage of people who are really good people who want to help others. There’s like. And I really appreciate, like Mark hatching Carolyn Gath again and what they do with the nest groups. I mean, that’s probably the single most helpful thing that I have in the industry is other CEOs to talk to about what’s working.

00:15:41:18 – 00:15:58:20

Adam Sanders

And that’s all because Mark and Carolyn set that up on top of that. I mean, like other people that talk to me. Jeff Chandler, the CEO, great guy. I mean, like, wasn’t half a competitor, right? But always had operations and gives me insights and like I really appreciate his leadership. So that’s the one. The industry just has great people across it.

00:15:58:21 – 00:16:16:24

Zack Oates

They do. And Jeff is just such a good guy. And Mark and Carolyn, I mean just can’t speak highly enough of them. So those are some well-deserved shout outs there. Well, Adam, for today, for reminding us that doing the little things right and the rest will follow. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us and give an ovation.

00:16:17:03 – 00:16:19:03

Adam Sanders

Thank you. I hate you.

00:16:19:05 – 00:16:40:21

Zack Oates

Thanks for joining us today. If you liked 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.