Chris Schultz, CEO of Voodoo Doughnut, joins Give an Ovation to share how the brand’s offbeat charm is backed by serious culture, systems, and heart. With decades of leadership experience, Chris reveals how staying weird, empowering teams, and embracing feedback has helped Voodoo grow without losing its soul.

Leading With Culture and Heart (2:10)

“We lead with culture, and the rest follows.” – Chris Schultz

Chris explains why a strong internal culture is the heartbeat of guest experience. At Voodoo, everything starts with empowering people—when team members feel connected and supported, guests feel it too.

Scaling the Brand Without Losing the Magic (4:32)

“We don’t want to feel like a chain—we want to feel like an experience.” – Chris Schultz

As Voodoo grows, maintaining its quirky, rebellious vibe is key. Chris shares how intentional design, storytelling, and a sense of humor help preserve the magic at every location.

When Mistakes Create Loyalty (6:45)

“We had a NyQuil doughnut once… yeah, that didn’t last long.” – Chris Schultz

From wild ideas to failed flavors, Chris reflects on how embracing missteps builds authenticity. Even the wallpaper in their HQ features donut fails—turning errors into shared stories that fuel the brand.

Guest Experience Is a Feeling (9:05)

“It’s not about being fast—it’s about making people feel something.” – Chris Schultz

Speed matters, but Chris emphasizes that emotional connection is what guests remember. Whether it’s a conversation or a smile, real engagement wins over robotic service every time.

Insights From the Front Line (11:40)

“Our people tell us what’s working—and what’s not.” – Chris Schultz

Chris explains how feedback, both internal and external, guides decisions. Voodoo’s leaders stay close to operations and rely on team insights to adjust, evolve, and improve.

Who Deserves an Ovation? (15:10)

Chris gives an ovation to his entire team at Voodoo Doughnut, celebrating their creativity, hustle, and passion for delivering a memorable experience—one donut at a time.

Transcript

00:00:00:03 – 00:00:21:11

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast, where I talk to industry experts to get their strategies and tactics you can use to create a five star guest experience. This podcast is sponsored by ovation, an operations and guest recovery platform for multi-unit restaurants that gives all the answers without annoying guests. With all the questions.

00:00:21:11 – 00:00:42:01

Zack Oates

And today we have Chris Schultz on the podcast with us. He is the CEO at Voodoo Donuts, but he is no noob to the restaurant industry. He’s been at Starbucks 13 years, made nine years. I mean, he has got experience and he’s been CEO of voodoo for over seven years now. You hit your seven year anniversary recently, right?

00:00:42:02 – 00:00:50:05

Chris Schultz

Yeah, he kind of just flew by. But yeah, seven, almost eight years now coming up on eight years here at Z2. So it’s been the kind of world when.

00:00:50:07 – 00:01:22:13

Zack Oates

That’s awesome and you’re doing some amazing things. You have such a you’re at the helm of such a cool brand. And one of the things that I kind of want to unpack is a little bit of the secret sauce here. And right before the podcast, we were showing off our respective hats and you showed me a hat. Tell me the story of this, because I feel like this encapsulates so much of why voodoo is doing so well and, yeah, why you’re constantly trying new things and how you celebrate that.

00:01:22:14 – 00:01:33:17

Chris Schultz

Yeah. So I’m a consumer just like everybody else. You’re consumer are all consumers, right? And you go to brands and you see what they do well, and then you shamelessly steal as best you can, right? You’re like, how do we make it our own?

00:01:33:17 – 00:01:37:12

Zack Oates

That’s called RF which is right. Rob and duplicate.

00:01:37:14 – 00:01:57:12

Chris Schultz

Exactly. And I was at a concept there in Salt Lake, and they had put up all their one star Yelp reviews on wallpaper in their bathroom. This place is horrible. The food’s terrible. And I was like, okay, they’re accepting the fact that this is what it is. And so I came back to my team and challenge challenging like, what can we do that remix that.

00:01:57:14 – 00:02:08:16

Chris Schultz

So we had Rudy try a lot of donuts. Not all work. We’re kind of famously known for doing a NyQuil donut. Back in the day. We put NyQuil on a donut. We put that Bismol on a donut.

00:02:08:18 – 00:02:10:06

Zack Oates

Like real NyQuil and Pepto-Bismol.

00:02:10:06 – 00:02:31:14

Chris Schultz

Oh, do you not know this story? So back in the day, the founders actually made a NyQuil donut. So they put NyQuil in the frosty, and then you would get a shot glass full of NyQuil along with the donut, and they sold it for a day. And the FDA came in and said, hey, just a heads up. That little thing on the side of the bottle is a warning.

00:02:31:16 – 00:02:46:21

Chris Schultz

You cannot put medicine in food. You can’t do that. And the founders, being marketers, they were they went to the local paper and said, hey, the FDA, the man’s trying to stop us, right? We’re just this little donut shop in Portland, and they got a ton of press from it.

00:02:46:23 – 00:02:47:10

Zack Oates

Oh, man, a.

00:02:47:10 – 00:03:07:10

Chris Schultz

Ton of press. And suddenly death of bismol donuts. We did. We? There’s an oyster house right next to our first store. They would run over and get a fresh oyster every time someone ordered oyster donut. We’ve done a salmon donut. We’ve just thought of it. In the most recent we did a serrated donut. It was maple glazed with sriracha on the top and fresh ground one, and we put cilantro on.

00:03:07:10 – 00:03:12:14

Chris Schultz

It historically goes around for 20 some price and but we do a.

00:03:12:14 – 00:03:13:19

Zack Oates

Lot of don’t get it. Why?

00:03:13:19 – 00:03:32:10

Chris Schultz

Yeah I know some work and some don’t. But what we did was we ended up making our on wall paper with all of our donut failures. Everything that you would imagine just didn’t work. So now in most of our stores, there’s a wall somewhere with this wall paper, with all these crazy donuts that you’re like, that can’t be a dollar.

00:03:32:10 – 00:03:45:22

Chris Schultz

Yeah, we tried those. And so we’re tried. We have a hack that actually has all the donuts on them. All the different donuts. We put on a donut, we put salmon on a donut. We’ve tried everything. You name it, we try one.

00:03:45:22 – 00:03:50:08

Zack Oates

Why do you do that? And two, I want to make a point about the failure, which I think is amazing.

00:03:50:10 – 00:03:54:15

Chris Schultz

The question is why not right? I think I think when you put limitations on yourself.

00:03:54:20 – 00:03:57:01

Zack Oates

Why not put NyQuil on a donut? Well, yeah.

00:03:57:07 – 00:04:17:07

Chris Schultz

Well, you know, like I said, I think there are extremes, there are curves. And we’ve jumped a few curves, but we’re unapologetically ourselves. We don’t apologize for much here. Yeah. Or The Dollop is, let’s just be honest. We feed people and we feed them really good donuts. And why not have some fun with it? And I think a lot of people have kind of attracted behind us.

00:04:17:12 – 00:04:36:02

Chris Schultz

Think of some of these ice cream shops that have turkey gravy, ice cream and all those things that think about a ten years ago, you would have been like, what? Ben and Jerry’s kind of started it, but all these unique donut shops or ice cream shops are now doing it. I like to think we’re in the forefront of that NyQuil fight a little bit far, but pushing the envelope a little bit.

00:04:36:04 – 00:04:39:02

Zack Oates

Yeah, you got to push the envelope to know when it’s going to open.

00:04:39:02 – 00:04:59:08

Chris Schultz

Yeah, and someone will tell us it’s too far, as the FDA did for us, but it’s just part of having fun and part of innovation and part of not taking yourself too seriously, really kind of enjoying the journey. It’s fun for our team. It’s fun for our customers. It gives them something to talk about. And again, if you’re not family, you’re not trying.

00:04:59:10 – 00:05:23:08

Zack Oates

And it’s such a powerful tool to encourage your team to fail and, you know, just fail within boundaries. And in the case of NyQuil, to fail really quickly and then stop it. But those are things that I think are so powerful when you’re able to teach them that, hey, failure is okay, what’s not okay is not trying new things.

00:05:23:10 – 00:05:39:06

Chris Schultz

One of the messages I tell my team every once in a while, I’m not saying, what were you thinking? You’re not thinking or not? Oh, you’re just not thinking enough. And so we challenge our Samaritans. We challenge everybody in the building that is everyone. So our presence. And what are you thinking? What were you thinking? You’re not thinking.

00:05:39:06 – 00:05:57:07

Chris Schultz

And us? You’re not. We’re people serving people, right? We’re in the restaurant business and everyone has their own ideas. And again, bring them the lights, let them breathe. We have some great donuts that our marketing team. And then our HR team, and they come up with really good ideas are like, well, let’s try it, let’s taste it. Let’s see what happens.

00:05:57:07 – 00:06:07:01

Chris Schultz

So innovation doesn’t just come from one person or from one idea, right? I think in the restaurant business, you have to be willing to listen to everybody, including our customers.

00:06:07:05 – 00:06:13:17

Zack Oates

Yeah. There we go. Powerful lesson. So let’s talk about those customers. What do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays?

00:06:13:17 – 00:06:32:00

Chris Schultz

Chris I think that today in today’s world, right, the guest experience are becoming more and more important, right? I mean, we talked about we went through Covid. I think a lot of people thought, boy, you know, ghost kitchens and walk up windows and drive thrus and all those things were going to be that was going to be our new the way we’re going to live our lives in the restaurant business.

00:06:32:01 – 00:06:39:12

Zack Oates

By the way, thank you for not saying the new. And it’s like, what? Like, oh my God. Yeah. If I hear that word one more time. Yeah.

00:06:39:18 – 00:06:58:16

Chris Schultz

And I think we all thought that was going to be the, the world. And I think with the reality is we all learned it’s not the end of the world. Right. That’s not the way it’s going. It’s back about engagement. And engagement can also happen to drive. Food can happen to walk up window. It can happen. And then pick up all that can happen in those experiences as well.

00:06:58:18 – 00:07:17:18

Chris Schultz

And we forgot, I think at some point in time that we’re still humans. We like the human connection. We like the human experience. I was just reading that an interesting quote that came out of Brett at Carver, and he said 64% of his customers want human engagement. They require human engage. It just came out yesterday. I was like, well, that’s really interesting, right?

00:07:17:18 – 00:07:42:00

Chris Schultz

Where he’s done a study where a big portion of his customers still want the engagement. They don’t want to talk to kiosk, they want to engage. And so for us, I think the important part of value, especially for us, is it’s about the experience. Many times you got a video on word long line, so no doubt about it, we drive long lines and if you’re going to say the lines for 30 minutes, you better get engaged when you walk in the door and engage.

00:07:42:00 – 00:07:59:21

Chris Schultz

It comes from everything from not just the counter person, right? The music, the lighting, everything. It feels that it’s going on inside that store. So for us, it’s all about that engagement right now. Right? Is you want to take an hour ordering a dozen donuts? Take an hour, take an hour. You deserve it. Take as long as you want.

00:07:59:23 – 00:08:02:19

Chris Schultz

We don’t have timers. I don’t track ticket times.

00:08:03:00 – 00:08:04:01

Zack Oates

Oh, really?

00:08:04:03 – 00:08:22:24

Chris Schultz

Yeah. And maybe I should, right? Maybe I’m crazy. But remember, I came from a world of ticket times. Starbucks ticket times, right? My pizza ticket timed. How fast could be with people through and not make it just a transaction. Well, that’s a happy balance, right? And voodoo. I never wanted to be a transaction. I want it to be as fast or slow as you want it to be.

00:08:22:24 – 00:08:40:01

Chris Schultz

And so that’s how I think the new consumer is going. And I think we’re all starting to recognize that, you know, more and more and more. And it’s not just about I want to work on my phone. I want to really quick some customers do. We have to we have to gap to those customers. But there’s a whole part of those customers who still want someone to say hello and goodbye.

00:08:40:03 – 00:08:57:14

Zack Oates

I can’t agree with you more. Chris and longtime listeners will be able to recite this with me, but I really do believe that there’s three cons when it comes to loyalty. There’s the convenience which is going to get him in. There’s the consistency, which is going to get him back, and there’s the connection which is going to keep him for a lifetime.

00:08:57:16 – 00:09:27:01

Zack Oates

And if you’re in that consistency, which is, by the way, darn hard to be fully consistent, if you’re there, you’re still replaceable. You’re still just one mistake away from getting out of the rotation for a year. But if you have that connection, that mistake is forgiven so much faster because they know that that brand cares about them. And if they know that you care about them, they’re going to care so much more about you.

00:09:27:07 – 00:09:31:12

Zack Oates

If you don’t care about them, they will care a lot less about you.

00:09:31:14 – 00:09:46:15

Chris Schultz

Yeah, I think so. The reality of it is we’re all now watching our dollars when we spend them. And so that connection becomes even more important now than it ever was. And the best message I’ve heard is they said I went to we had a great time. I said, what did you get? And they’re like, I don’t even know the dance I got.

00:09:46:17 – 00:10:01:24

Chris Schultz

I don’t remember, but I remember I had a lot of fun and to me that’s a win, right? That’s a win. We never could tell you about the Great Bacon Maple Bar in May, but tell me about the experience you had. I’m much more excited when you tell me. I went. I had a great time.

00:10:02:01 – 00:10:24:16

Zack Oates

Yeah, because think about this, right? How many places sell donuts? Can someone go into a voodoo donut and make a bootleg copy of your maple bacon bar? Yeah, sure they can. Yes, there’s maple bacon bars, right? The question is, why do people wait when there’s 20 donut shops within a 15 minute drive that I can get my donuts?

00:10:24:16 – 00:10:33:10

Zack Oates

Come back to Voodoo Donuts because convenience is superseded by consistency and connection.

00:10:33:12 – 00:10:47:20

Chris Schultz

I agree. I mean, we’re blessed and we have many stores where there’s long lines to get in, and it’ll be 30 minutes, 40 minutes to get in to get it done. That when I first started visiting voodoo, as with mom, I was like, why am I standing in line for 30 minutes to get a donut? I’m in the restaurant business.

00:10:47:22 – 00:11:05:13

Chris Schultz

It better be good. And then I went in and again, it. I think it’s all encompassing. It’s not only the experience of the person on the counter, but is the music. Right? Right. Doing these are songs for me to look at. Do I feel it right? There’s an element that I stole from our I work for at Starbucks for the walls talk right where the walls tell you.

00:11:05:13 – 00:11:21:04

Chris Schultz

When you walk in a place and you go to someone’s house. And it could be an old friend. You walk in, you’re like, oh, there’s something going on here. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something going on. Or you walk in someone’s home or car and there’s something good going on. You’re like, oh man, I feel it.

00:11:21:06 – 00:11:36:22

Chris Schultz

And so we talk a lot about that with our teams as one of the walls tell you when you walk in a store. And then what would consumers say when they walk in? Do they feel like good things are happening? It’s just a vibe I think you get and it’s hard to do, but when it happens, it’s just magic.

00:11:36:24 – 00:12:00:16

Zack Oates

I love that and I think about it too. A lot of times if there’s places where there’s going to be weights, right? Because consumers, by the way, just to be very clear, consumers do complain about weight, but a lot less often than you think. If you look at the data of weight times, where the biggest frustration is, is with pickup or with delivery.

00:12:00:18 – 00:12:27:24

Zack Oates

And when they say I waited too long for my food with their meaning is I ordered my food. You said it would be to my door in 30 minutes and it didn’t get here until 50 minutes. Or you said my order be ready at 1:00 and I showed up at 1:00 and it wasn’t ready until 115. That 15 minutes of unexpected is so much worse than 30 minutes of waiting in line expecting it.

00:12:28:01 – 00:12:46:13

Chris Schultz

That’s interesting. And as you said that, I’m kind of nodding my head because it’s exactly what we find is that exact message, which is, yes, we’d all love for you to come in our stores for we can control from start to finish. We all would love that. The reality is, that’s not the world we’re in. We’re just not in that world.

00:12:46:15 – 00:13:05:07

Chris Schultz

All of us. I think cumulatively in the restaurant business, have to accept that. And how do we do a better job of that, and then how do we recover that? Guess when things are great, right? I mean, I think you guys do a great job of helping companies like ours do that. How do you recover that customer when they’re waiting 30 minutes for their donuts?

00:13:05:07 – 00:13:10:05

Chris Schultz

And it takes an hour, and now they’re angry and they’re not sure to be angry at.

00:13:10:07 – 00:13:15:09

Zack Oates

Exactly who takes the blame. The logo on the box, of course.

00:13:15:09 – 00:13:31:10

Chris Schultz

Of course, because I’m a consumer. And what happens to me, I feel that same thing and I know how it works. So that’s like going to a movie and watching me knowing how the movie, the magic in the movies being doing disappoint you. Like, I know all the magic. I mean, I know what to expect, but you’re absolutely right.

00:13:31:16 – 00:13:49:00

Chris Schultz

And, you know, I think, you know, is like, what you’re doing today with ovation are allowing us to be able to capture those customers that have a bad experience and catch them quickly right before they can go off and tell, you know, neighbors at the soccer tournament, hey, I just ordered from here, and it was not very good.

00:13:49:02 – 00:14:18:20

Zack Oates

Well, because a human who feels like they have not that they didn’t get what they paid for, especially in the current environment, people are okay paying more. They’re not okay paying more and not getting what they paid for. That’s the danger. And so if you can capture that guest and make sure that they feel heard, you can either control that narrative with them and that conversation, or they will go feel heard someplace else.

00:14:18:20 – 00:14:29:18

Zack Oates

And if they want to feel heard on Yelp, it’s their prerogative. If they want to feel heard at a soccer tournament, that’s their choice. But if you could get in front of that, you can have a much more productive conversation.

00:14:29:20 – 00:14:56:11

Chris Schultz

Absolutely. It’s the key. It’s the absolute key. And listen, I’d love to be able to capture every customer that has a bad experience of me personally speak to them. It’s not the reality of the world we’re living in. And again, you guys, innovation can help us do just that is how do we know when having said that experience and now we get ahead of it, the customer that I lay awake at night and think about are the ones who don’t say anything, just have a bad trade to walk away and don’t come back.

00:14:56:13 – 00:15:02:23

Zack Oates

And Chris, do you want to know why they don’t say anything? You as a customer, why don’t you say things every time you have a bad experience?

00:15:03:00 – 00:15:19:03

Chris Schultz

If you ask my wife, she’ll tell you, because I always have a bad experience. Because there’s always something. I think you’re better, right? And she’s tired of hearing me complain, but there’s not an outlet for it. Right. And I think it’s just going to fall on deaf ears. I’ve already spent my time waiting for the product. I’ve already paid for it.

00:15:19:05 – 00:15:24:03

Chris Schultz

Now you wanted to go above and beyond. It has to be convenient for me to do otherwise I’m not doing it.

00:15:24:05 – 00:15:39:15

Zack Oates

And again, that’s where every business decision starts with that first kind of convenience. It’s a transaction. Me giving Voodoo Donuts feedback is a transaction. You are asking me for something and I don’t know what I’m going to get for it.

00:15:39:16 – 00:15:43:03

Chris Schultz

You can know exactly. Yeah, I know 100%.

00:15:43:05 – 00:15:49:13

Zack Oates

I know we’re coming up on time here, Chris. We didn’t even get to talk about some tactics, but I know we got to have you back on the podcast.

00:15:49:15 – 00:15:50:16

Chris Schultz

That’s nice. That’s very.

00:15:50:16 – 00:15:58:19

Zack Oates

Kind. You’ve got too much good experience to share it all in one podcast. So let’s have you back on for part two, Chris. All right.

00:15:58:21 – 00:15:59:17

Chris Schultz

You got it.

00:15:59:19 – 00:16:07:01

Zack Oates

But I do have a couple more questions. Who deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry? Who is someone that we should be following?

00:16:07:03 – 00:16:28:23

Chris Schultz

Allison I think Shana and Andrew Smith are doing an amazing job with the savvy group. I mean, just an amazing job, right? Every brand’s important and every brand feels uniquely different. And that’s hard when you have a stable of brands. Yeah, right. Because you start to feel the same experience in a stable of brands, and not to beat down some of our big boys and co-branding their big boys.

00:16:28:23 – 00:16:48:00

Chris Schultz

Right? I don’t want ice cream and chicken at the same shop or taco and chicken. I’m sorry. Let’s just do something well and do it really good. And I think the folks over at savory and in, again, Andrew and Sean, of being the lead of that have done an amazing job with helping bring bringing brands life, helping them grow so they deserve an ovation from mighty.

00:16:48:00 – 00:16:49:12

Chris Schultz

They’re just doing an amazing job.

00:16:49:17 – 00:17:01:13

Zack Oates

Well, I was hanging out with Shauna last week. I mean, they’re such a cool group and I learned from them every time I talk to them. In fact, when I used to have long hair, Andrew actually taught me how to do my hair.

00:17:01:15 – 00:17:10:24

Chris Schultz

I don’t have that problem, but yeah, I don’t. I don’t need to talk to you about that. But yeah, I know that they’re doing it. And if those that don’t know the brands and the savvy group is just doing a great job.

00:17:11:01 – 00:17:16:24

Zack Oates

Yeah. Amen. Chris, where can people go to follow and find Voodoo Donuts and you.

00:17:17:01 – 00:17:39:09

Chris Schultz

Yeah. So Voodoo donut.com on Instagram. We have about 260,000 followers, believe or not. Hello donut shop out of Portland. Those are the two places to find us. And for me, I don’t have a big social following. I know everyone tells me I’m crazy, but yeah, I, I very simply, as I tell everybody, I’m just Chris and Voodoo donut.com and people can email me anytime, anywhere.

00:17:39:09 – 00:17:50:13

Chris Schultz

I always respond, but yeah, I don’t have a big social following. They tell me about face to radio, so I’m just gonna I just kind of, you know, I think it should fall in line with social media as well. Yeah.

00:17:50:18 – 00:17:58:06

Zack Oates

Oh, and for those of you who aren’t familiar with the brand Voodoo Donuts, they spelled donuts the original way, which is dog.

00:17:58:08 – 00:18:02:13

Chris Schultz

Yeah, well, you real dough. You have to have dough to make a donut.

00:18:02:15 – 00:18:05:02

Zack Oates

Yeah, it’s. You don’t do no nuts. You knead the dough.

00:18:05:04 – 00:18:07:01

Chris Schultz

Yeah, yeah. So. Yeah, yeah.

00:18:07:03 – 00:18:18:12

Zack Oates

So just so everyone’s aware of how to do that, but go check them out. And Chris, for teaching us the magic of voodoo Donuts. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us and giving ovation.

00:18:18:14 – 00:18:19:21

Chris Schultz

Thanks, Zach.

00:18:19:23 – 00:18:42:11

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 ABC.com.