Damian Otero is the CEO of Real Tacos, authentic Mexican street food based out of Atlanta. The chefs at Real Tacos strive to recreate the characteristics of tacos from various regions of Mexico using the freshest cuts of meat and cooking with ingredients sourced only from there. As CEO, Damian focuses largely on improving operations with an emphasis on hospitality and tech.

Here are a few highlights from this episode:

What is the most important aspect of the guest experience?

“Building out your technology. A lot of the old school restaurants are not trying to add technology, and it’s gonna hurt them. Your server shouldn’t be waiting in line for 2 min to use a computer because you have one POS for a large restaurant. It might not look beautiful, but I think every server should have a tablet so enable efficiency.

. . . If you’re going to be very old school and not willing to adapt then the newer technologies are eventually going to eat you alive.”

What are some successful tactics you’ve seen or tried lately?

“Get ahead of the game and begin marketing even before you open your establishment to the public. Say you are opening a restaurant 3 months from now, you can begin marketing using google listing, yelp, etc. to get your name and brand out there.”

Who deserves an Ovation in the restaurant industry?

Eric from Restaurant Unstoppable!

“Restaurant Unstoppable is a podcast and there’s so many great episodes and so many things you can learn. you can literally take away something from each interview that he does“