Barry McGowan, CEO of Fogo de Chão, joins Give an Ovation to reflect on his 40-year restaurant journey—from washing dishes to leading a global brand. With decades of hands-on experience, Barry shares why hospitality is a lifelong passion and how he continues to drive innovation, scalability, and people-first culture across 100+ locations worldwide.

A Lifelong Hospitality Career (00:00)

Barry started his career in the dish room and worked his way through every level of restaurant operations.

“Food brings us together. It transcends culture and language.”

How the Industry is Evolving (02:14)

Barry sees a positive shift happening across hospitality: a return to consumer-first models and meaningful competition.

“We’re living in a renaissance. Every segment is trying to get better—and that’s good for everyone.”

Redefining Value (03:30)

At Fogo de Chão, value isn’t just about price. It’s about quality, variety, and the guest’s ability to customize their experience.

“Value is relative to the occasion. We deliver more experience for the same or better price.”

Scaling Guest Experience with People (07:50)

Even with technology, Barry believes the guest experience hinges on one thing: people. That’s why Fogo invests heavily in training, retention, and tenure.

“Technology should remove friction—not replace hospitality.”

Culture as Competitive Advantage (09:27)

Fogo prioritizes internal development and has a talent pipeline that’s three years ahead of its site pipeline.

“Mentorship is how you scale culture.”

Tactical Advice for Operators (13:00)

Barry’s advice? Go back to fundamentals. Hire for values. Invest in internal growth. And stay disciplined as you scale.

“If you’re just hiring to fill roles, it’s not sustainable. Culture has to come first.”

Shoutouts and Emerging Trends (16:14)

Barry gives ovations to groups helping transform hospitality—Savory Fund, Emerging Fund, and SBE’s Jack Gibbons—who are scaling founder-led concepts with vision.

Links:

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

https://www.linkedin.com/company/fogo-de-sh-aun/

https://www.instagram.com/fogo/

https://fogodechao.com/

Transcript

00:00:00:04 – 00:00:22:08

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zach 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 year restaurants. Get the insights you need to improve without an annoying survey for your guests.

00:00:22:09 – 00:00:42:12

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And today we have a legend of the industry Barry McGowan, the CEO of Fogo to Chao for the last 12 years and a 40 year incredible career in restaurants from the bottom to the top and all around the globe. This guy did not start off as CEO. He started off as work in the restaurants.

00:00:42:12 – 00:00:43:11

Zack Oates

Is that right, Barry?

00:00:43:13 – 00:00:49:00

Barry McGowan

That’s correct. That’s correct. This room to the CEO. Those stories. Definitely. My whole life.

00:00:49:02 – 00:01:01:12

Zack Oates

So tell me about this story, man. How do you get from dishes to CEO? And quite frankly, being the CEO myself now, I kind of feel like it’s like going back to the dishes, you know what I mean? Like.

00:01:01:14 – 00:01:22:11

Barry McGowan

It is it’s full circle. That’s a great thing. Look, I’ve been in industry my whole life. There’s nothing else I’d rather do to me. Hospitality and food transcends culture. Language. Food brings us together. It’s my passion for it. It’s also, I would say it’s being around people who I would say all of us in our industry are, different, unique, very diverse.

00:01:22:11 – 00:01:42:05

Barry McGowan

Most of us, nobody else would hire. So we settled in the restaurant business and we get together. I mean, we just seem to make it work. This eclectic group of people in hospitality. And, it’s, again, I would say universal across the globe. That’s why I think hospitality is global in nature. It’s not regional or local. You can be local, but act very local.

00:01:42:05 – 00:02:01:21

Barry McGowan

But the industry itself is, as we learned in Covid, without it, the world is soulless. So I love this and never going to retire someday. Not be a CEO. But when I leave here, I’ll just keep investing in great, great restaurants, great, great hospitality. So, Zach, I appreciate your show sharing people inside of a great industry that’s never going to go away.

00:02:01:23 – 00:02:14:13

Barry McGowan

We are transforming continually. And I’d say today you and I are living at a time this industry is going to immense transformation. Yeah. And I would say renaissance in a good way. I’m really excited about what’s going on in the industry.

00:02:14:13 – 00:02:20:14

Zack Oates

So what are some of the movements that you feel like restaurants should really be dialed into?

00:02:20:16 – 00:02:42:19

Barry McGowan

I think what I love, it’s going back to what the consumer wants. I mean, I think we went to a style of we became so processed, driven that price process earnings that we forgot, well, what does customer want? So I think competition helps reinvigorate that. I think new models have helped disrupt it with fast casual now eclipsing fast food, actually bringing quality back.

00:02:42:21 – 00:03:03:14

Barry McGowan

So all those things are going back to the essence of the consumer. So I think that whole re going around the loop, coming back to what’s most important, consumer, your demographic, your location and ultimately how to differentiate and give value for what you’re offering. So I think that those staples have never gone away. I love that our industry industries right back where the consumer wants us.

00:03:03:16 – 00:03:27:24

Barry McGowan

So I tell everybody that’s when our industry gets healthier and stronger, not when a few are winning or the customer, the consumer’s not winning. They have to settle for things. So now with so much more choice, so much more convenience, even your show, everything you’re talking about, how to drive a five store experience. I love that every segment our industry is thinking about how to make it better, and I think when the consumer wins again, it creates more opportunity for us.

00:03:27:24 – 00:03:29:24

Barry McGowan

So really excited at the time.

00:03:30:01 – 00:03:48:04

Zack Oates

So as you look at used the word value, which is a pretty hot button topic right now, a lot of people are talking about value. What does that mean? What are consumers looking for? How do you look at value as a brand where you’re not like a four day a week type? You don’t stop in and spend $5 few times a week.

00:03:48:06 – 00:04:00:18

Zack Oates

It’s a celebration. It’s a business lunch. It’s a date night. You don’t have a cheap experience. They’re a good a chow. I’m interested in how you look at the word value in what you do.

00:04:00:20 – 00:04:22:20

Barry McGowan

Yeah, it’s all relative. The experience. And I would say, look, I define it so the seven days a week because it’s so good, so diverse and reality. We have a $10 billion burger that’s half pound fresh ground to an $18 market table. All you can experience to the highest indulgent Wagyu 465. So depending on your occasion, we have a price point for everyone at any time.

00:04:22:20 – 00:04:43:21

Barry McGowan

And we give the same level of service and we usually offer a lot more of value for your money in terms of optionality, the ability to customize in the moment. And I would say price value always comes down to it all together. Your environment, you’re in, the restaurant service, the quality of ingredient. And I would say the differential we have is the idea to accommodate every diatribe in the moment.

00:04:43:23 – 00:05:04:00

Barry McGowan

So the pure idea of customization in the moment is where consumers want to be. Sometimes you just don’t know you’re hungry. You sit down and then the idea comes to our menu is really a guide on how to dine. So while you’re sitting there, you can discover trying new things and it’s not going to change your price. Not many restaurants you can go say, I’ll try the lamb chops.

00:05:04:02 – 00:05:24:15

Barry McGowan

Hey, tell you what, I’ll love some ribeye. Yeah, let me have a piece of that. Whatever. Center cut pork chop. So those things are I think are what unique to an art are unique to us. But I’d even say our strength is the gathering, the celebration. So we know. But what we love. Over the last ten years with innovation, we brought it up to a weekday lunch.

00:05:24:17 – 00:05:55:07

Barry McGowan

It’s fast, immediate, totally customizable. And I would say the reason why I joined Vogue 12 years ago is our menu is whole food, nutrient dense items, so it’s not manufactured. You get to customize in the moment. So all that variability is been in the trends for 15 years. But the model itself we’ve just taken and now we continue to innovate around that to make sure that we create occasions for you, regardless the diatribe or the health that view on whole food non processed.

00:05:55:07 – 00:06:21:19

Barry McGowan

But we’ve been there for 45 years. So good news is the consumer’s catching up with our model. The demographics are driving it which is fantastic. So I would say value is all in the equation of your occasion. And how do I give you more experience, more quality in price? I would say our industry learned a valuable lesson. We’ve taken 2.5% price on average for the last ten years while maintaining margin.

00:06:21:21 – 00:06:36:14

Barry McGowan

Very hard to do, but our model gives us the flexibility to do that. And reason we say that is we want to make sure keep price value strong relative to peers, and make sure that we continue to add more value to the guests, to the experience. I give you an example.

00:06:36:14 – 00:06:42:10

Zack Oates

By the way. So just to be clear, you’ve taken price 2.5% a year for the last 18 years on it on average.

00:06:42:13 – 00:07:01:17

Barry McGowan

Wow. Last ten years. So we really created a long term pricing strategy. Now we’ve had times where gone up as high as three and a half, but we’ve rolled off on average per year. We’re averaging about two and a half last five years probably 2.8. All we’re saying is we’re very, very cautious on price. Price is easy if you’re doing well.

00:07:01:17 – 00:07:23:20

Barry McGowan

By the way our traffic’s positive ten year. So we didn’t say that was excuse to take more price. We figured out how do we give them more value for the experience. Because we took price. We added candy bacon free, we had a grilled cheese, and now we got to honey in addition to what we do. So there’s those little extra some sounds or we call them extra special indulgent piece that’s included.

00:07:23:22 – 00:07:39:12

Barry McGowan

Start to add further value for no extra cost. And that’s the way we see pricing should be always insanely the guest. Operationally, we work harder on inputs the way we can serve, dine, and execute so the guest gets the value down. Oh, that makes sense.

00:07:39:15 – 00:07:50:10

Zack Oates

I love that. I think always having a guest first mentality is just so powerful. And speaking of that, what do you think are the most important aspects of guest experience nowadays?

00:07:50:12 – 00:08:11:05

Barry McGowan

The most important aspect, regardless, I think talk a lot about technology is really the human capital, the personal and emotional engage. Mosier consumer. If you’re relying on driving consumer engagement just through your phone and through technology, I don’t think our industry goes there. I think we talk too much about it. I think we got to push it forward to say, why am I doing it?

00:08:11:05 – 00:08:32:17

Barry McGowan

How do I remove friction so that I’m really connecting with my guest? So I think ultimately your culture is with your the tip of the spear with your people. You’re not scaling your culture and every day. And I love your opening five star terms. Literally. It’s been our initiative for the last eight years. Five star service, by the way, we’re on our fifth year.

00:08:32:17 – 00:08:59:01

Barry McGowan

Really program five star, and we see our star rating going up every year. So I loved that whole intro. It’s a pursuit. Excellence is a pursuit. You never right, right. So I think you’ve got to have technology. You’ve got to be smart planning. But all our programing around that technology is better selection, better training tools. I’ll say this engaging our team to basically engage the guest and curate what the guest wants.

00:08:59:03 – 00:09:27:08

Barry McGowan

That piece is the ultimate piece of, I think, the most important to drive a guest experience. And I do I say this brand’s 45 year old brand. We’ve had operators, analysts for over 35 years, our area director level team, they’ve been with us over 22.5. Wow. Years. And then our GM’s have ten years of tenure. So that tenure passion and we call it mentorship to scale culture is really what’s most important to us.

00:09:27:10 – 00:09:46:06

Barry McGowan

Our talent pipeline is three years ahead of our growth pipeline, meaning site pipeline. So we’re always focusing on people, and then we’ll find a great site and transform it. But we want to put great people in there and keep growing a culture. That’s, I think, how you deliver on the hospitality and the I would say your product side.

00:09:46:08 – 00:10:02:23

Barry McGowan

So that’s where we continue to say is our competitive advantage. We’re not we haven’t cheated that. And we have great owners that have always supported those efforts. Bain capital has been tremendous in those. The support of us and working with us continue to focus more on how we can do it better, which is which is great.

00:10:03:00 – 00:10:30:21

Zack Oates

I love that, and having investors who believe in that vision is so important, because you don’t want to get caught behind a group that is just trying to gouge, gouge, gouge, and it’s dangerous. I mean, you look at so many restaurants who were taken over by the wrong P groups and what happened. I mean, you could look at these textbook cases of Red Lobster and Friendly’s and these places where they lost the sight of the vision because they were focused more on the profits.

00:10:30:21 – 00:10:52:09

Zack Oates

And in the case what they were doing is that, you know, you can’t take price and reduce quality and service and culture and expect it to work. It doesn’t work. And we can all sit here in the boardroom and I’m a podcast and talk about that and think about it. But man, it’s tough when you got people that are got their red hot pokers and the pride in you along.

00:10:52:09 – 00:10:54:12

Zack Oates

It’s a challenging environment.

00:10:54:14 – 00:11:16:20

Barry McGowan

I would say. Zach, you said something. Look, I even say it’s not private equity. It’s management. Somewhere in there. I think private equity is the oil in engine. They do a great job. In fact, our industry wouldn’t be this transformative without private equity. And so I always tell friends, so you just got to make sure the leadership team and this is why go back to bringing people from within, developing leaders always for the next level.

00:11:16:22 – 00:11:37:11

Barry McGowan

I’ve been developed by some of the best in industry, Doug Brooks, just great people at Break International. I grew up in a great platform of people that had my best interests in mind, and that’s all I as a leader today. Replicating is the idea of people first. How do you prepare people for the next level? How do you scale culture appropriately so that somebody in the boardroom says, you can’t do that?

00:11:37:11 – 00:11:58:05

Barry McGowan

And here’s why it’s not worth it. Let’s do this. So you got to offer alternatives. And I think private equity, if anything good private equity knows that private. Who doesn’t know the difference. Learning today is there’s so much evidence out there of how to do it the wrong way. The playbook. And this is why I’d say we’re going through a renaissance, meaning there is tons of private equity in our space.

00:11:58:05 – 00:12:23:10

Barry McGowan

More coming. You see it at different levels that are breaking out with new brands, new ideas. So I think I would say I love your statement. It really has to go down. Ultimately, the management has to own it, the ownership. If you got a great team in there, it will basically follow the lead of the ownership. I think we just got to keep developing and maturing our next generation of leadership, our industry, to make it better.

00:12:23:12 – 00:12:51:08

Barry McGowan

That’s what I hope our industry keeps doing and I see a lot of it happening with my peer groups. I see it in the new, exciting concepts coming along and to me there’s so much fun, so many great things. By the way, not just in the US, right of privilege. We have restaurants all around the world. I mean, the stuff that’s going on in Riyadh and food and stuff that’s going to leave South America, Asia, really great stuff happening that I think our is getting more exciting about them.

00:12:51:08 – 00:12:51:15

Barry McGowan

All that.

00:12:51:15 – 00:13:00:07

Zack Oates

So yeah, that is really exciting. Well, any tactics that you would recommend to restaurants to try to improve the guest experience?

00:13:00:09 – 00:13:20:24

Barry McGowan

You bet. Well, I think tactically you talk, we talk technology, but I think tactically go back to the beginning. Your process of it’s going to sound really fundamental, but it is fundamentals. You know, you’re hiring, defining your culture and what values work best, and then hiring people for values, being really clear about their paths and really investing heavily there.

00:13:21:00 – 00:13:41:24

Barry McGowan

That’s ultimately what you want an experience is going to all determine. There we said cliche it. There’s no way around it if you’re just hiring to fill a role and you’re growing fast and opening restaurants and you haven’t done that, then I’m telling you it’s not sustainable. It’s harder and you can’t keep up with it. And by the way, it’s not easy for any group that tries to do it invest.

00:13:41:24 – 00:14:00:08

Barry McGowan

It’s just it’s almost a fixed cost. You just got to keep leaning in on that and you got to really have a view of your talent has to come from within. Where are you going to dilute your culture? It’s not rocket science. It’s just really hard, and it’s hard and it takes a long time. But we’re a 45 year old brand and proves it can happen.

00:14:00:08 – 00:14:22:19

Barry McGowan

By the way, Texas Roadhouse has done it beautifully and shown the way the roadies that culture is powerful. Good example. Look at Chili’s 50 year anniversary. I’m an old chili ed, by the way. I ran into Doug Brooks and he said 50 years and around the best year. Spent some time with Kevin. I’m so proud of that team because that tells me, and it proves to everybody the industry’s not broken.

00:14:22:21 – 00:14:44:00

Barry McGowan

You just got to choose to do it right, and the consumer and your team has to win. But Chili’s, Texas Roadhouse, great culture. And then no, there’s so many independents coming up doing the same thing that right now we’re small brand. Well, any three restaurants in America 106 global. But we’re excited about those bigger brands that have proven the way and shown us the way to do it.

00:14:44:04 – 00:14:45:21

Barry McGowan

And that’s what we’re excited about.

00:14:45:21 – 00:14:54:16

Zack Oates

So and people in hospitality, it’s like a lot of people say you can’t scale hospitality. And we always say there’s no other option, right? Right.

00:14:54:18 – 00:15:16:20

Barry McGowan

There’s Darden has done it. I give another example Darden Multiplatform doing it really well. Gosh Brinker eat brinker cheesecake. So we have plenty of examples of everybody doing it right and scaling it well yeah. When you don’t. What I love is that we just convert those sites into Fogo and other new brands. So that’s the idea. So that’s the beautiful part of the industry.

00:15:16:20 – 00:15:37:05

Barry McGowan

We’re not going away, we’re just getting better. And if you don’t show up and you don’t do those things, and somebody and I share with our team, look, we don’t do it right. Somebody is going to convert our boxes. So let’s keep long. Let’s focus on doing it right and thinking long term. But I would say that our industry doesn’t get enough credit for we always talk about the old class or the next generation.

00:15:37:05 – 00:16:01:04

Barry McGowan

Go but look at the stars. Look at the big Chili’s is something that scream about, say, look when you do it right, what? How the where the consumer wants to be. Look at what Texas Roadhouse keeps doing. So those there’s a lot of bright line again point the Darden cake. There’s so many great legacy brands that are reinvigorating their brand reinvesting on the things that matter most and driving great guest experience love.

00:16:01:05 – 00:16:05:17

Barry McGowan

Segmentation of the consumer is what keeps changing. And that’s the exciting part.

00:16:05:19 – 00:16:14:21

Zack Oates

Now, very obviously you’ve had an incredible career. You know, a lot of people who are some people that deserve some shout outs, who deserves an ovation, who’s someone that we should be following?

00:16:14:21 – 00:16:35:16

Barry McGowan

Oh gosh, there’s too many. But here’s three is you asked me this question. Three come to mind. And probably because maybe it’s on the private investment side, because investing in our industry is crucial to scaling it and transforming it. But who comes to mind is savory and or in China? Smith they’re taking new concepts on founder, founder, operated, led and helping.

00:16:35:16 – 00:17:02:02

Barry McGowan

And I would say partnering with founders to scale cool ideas. There’s really exciting stuff on their platform. Emerging sign technology meets hospitality that’s next generation. These guys are everything. These guys are investing are fun hospitality. And I would say long invest me investing. And one of my favorite people in the world is Jack Gibbons from SMB society. So Jack is just a a, you know, creator.

00:17:02:04 – 00:17:22:13

Barry McGowan

Great hospitality and he’s unafraid. So you think about those three folks, those three platforms, those three groups, they’re just doing great stuff. And by the way, this as you know, nothing’s new. So ovation to them because everything they’re trying and doing with we’re all learning from and by the way which just makes it better. It’s pretty exciting. That’s where I go back to Renaissance.

00:17:22:15 – 00:17:31:11

Barry McGowan

That’s where the tip of the spear, where all that’s happening and all those are scalable ideas, if done properly. And those three groups, I think, focus on the scalable piece really well.

00:17:31:11 – 00:17:50:22

Zack Oates

So yeah, absolutely. And especially it’s been amazing. Those brands that you mentioned, it’s been amazing working with them and seeing them from side to side and seeing what their guests are saying about them. It’s not just on the outside, they’re doing cool stuff. I can tell you from looking at their data on the back end, use innovation. They’re doing some amazing things.

00:17:50:22 – 00:17:57:22

Zack Oates

So love those three. Shout outs there. Now where can people go to find and follow you and Fogo de Chao?

00:17:57:24 – 00:18:15:16

Barry McGowan

Well so goal.com pretty simple. Fogo.com number Fogo is fire so our fire campaign. You can look up Sir Fergus fire. It’s not just you know the fire emoji whenever you see it. That’s. Just remember Fogo. That’s it. So that where we’re fire. I’m just on LinkedIn. But again fogo.com is how you can reach us.

00:18:15:18 – 00:18:24:10

Zack Oates

Awesome. Well Berry for reminding us how to take a great local experience global. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you so much for joining us and giving ovation.

00:18:24:12 – 00:18:27:00

Barry McGowan

And appreciate all you do for our industry. Thank you.

00:18:27:02 – 00:18:49:14

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 up.com.