Zack Oates sits down with Eric Knott, CEO of Tiki Taco and former leader at PDQ and Outback. Eric shares how to bring big-brand discipline to an emerging concept, make guest feedback your operating system, and why every GM should be the “mayor” of a five-mile radius.

From Behemoth to Boutique (01:39)

Eric’s throughline from Outback → PDQ → Tiki Taco: community focus, guest obsession, quality food, and strong systems.

“We formalized SOPs, recipe management, checklists, and brought in tech to automate and react faster.”

Make the GM the Mayor (03:44)

Local ownership wins.

“Draw a five-mile circle around the store and own it—schools, churches, small businesses should know your name.”

Connection Over Perfection (04:33)

Use feedback to acknowledge, recover, and improve.

“People want to feel heard. Consistency is the goal—and when we miss, we fix it fast.”

Close the Loop in Real Time (06:05)

Ovation enables speedy, human recovery.

“DMs reply by text within minutes—AI drafts, humans personalize. Guests feel a real person behind the brand.”

Let Data Rewrite the Menu (07:03)

Guest signals drive R&D and product mix decisions.

“We pulled a grilled fish taco after repeated feedback. If an item is under ~3–4% mix, fix it or remove it.”

Value Has Shifted (10:33)

With prices converging across QSR, fast casual, and casual dining, ingredients and in-store prep matter more than ever.

“If I’m going to pay $10–$12+, I want real food made in-house—not prepackaged shortcuts.”

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-knott-96504973/

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

https://www.tikitaco.com/

Transcript

00:00:00:07 – 00:00:24:06

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 get to chat with an industry expert 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 restaurants and how to improve without just a long survey.

00:00:24:12 – 00:00:48:18

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And today we have someone who is not just a partner of ours, but someone who’s we’ve worked with them for a few years now across two different brands. He was CEO of PDQ. You could check out his previous podcast on that. Now for almost a year and a half, he’s been the CEO of Tiki Taco, which is a super cool brand with super cool.

00:00:48:23 – 00:00:51:12

Eric Knott

Oh, look at that swag.

00:00:51:15 – 00:00:59:16

Zack Oates

And I just took a sip from my tiki taco koozie anyway. And he’s just an awesome guy. Eric not. Welcome to the podcast again.

00:00:59:18 – 00:01:05:16

Eric Knott

Thanks for having me. I’m surprised you actually asked me to come back. And,

00:01:05:18 – 00:01:11:01

Zack Oates

I mean, it took 100 episodes to convince you, but we finally got you back.

00:01:11:03 – 00:01:12:13

Eric Knott

For having me excited.

00:01:12:19 – 00:01:32:24

Zack Oates

So, Eric, I want to talk about this because you’ve had such an interesting journey. And like, the last three brands you’ve worked with out back and we’re grateful to be able to work with them and have them as a partner as well. And PD. Q grateful to have them. And now, Tiki Taco, you’ve gone from a just giant brand to a medium size brand to a small brand.

00:01:33:05 – 00:01:39:11

Zack Oates

Talk to me about that journey. What are some common threads that you’ve seen across those brands, and what are some differences?

00:01:39:13 – 00:02:05:01

Eric Knott

Yes, I mean, the Outback days is kind of where I cut my teeth in the restaurant business. So I worked my way through that system over 12 years, and a lot of really good things happen at Outback Community. They’re huge on community, huge on guests focus, huge on quality food. And what I say is they were the behemoth that had structure, they had organization and they had systems.

00:02:05:01 – 00:02:37:21

Eric Knott

And so I think those five things is what I pulled from Outback going into PDQ. And I was at PDQ store one, so we grew that from 1 to 70, about eight years or so. And those same principles we brought with us now some big corporation, corporate office didn’t put those together. We had to do that in the early days with training outlines and how we’re going to take care of the guest experience, how we’re going to maintain the quality food, how we’re going to be really deep rooted in the communities that we serve.

00:02:37:23 – 00:03:01:23

Eric Knott

And so it was a basic principle at PDQ. And when I joined Tiki, we had three restaurants already open and they had a lot of the same DNA already. Bill just didn’t have it formalized. So we started with standard operating procedures, putting together recipe management deal and then checklists here and there. And then we brought on a bunch of technology.

00:03:01:23 – 00:03:19:20

Eric Knott

Innovation was my first call actually when I came over to Tiki, because I think it’s the most important thing outside of your team members to understand what your guest is saying, whether that be good, bad, ugly, you may not want to hear it. Sometimes you may not agree with it sometimes, but it’s still from their perspective, it’s how they interact with your brand.

00:03:19:20 – 00:03:44:21

Eric Knott

So year and a half later, we brought on a lot of technology, mostly so we can automate, get answers quickly and then react even faster. But we’ve built the same type of structured quality. Food is is very important to us. The guest experience is very important to us. We have systems and a foundation in each restaurant. I like to say to the operators they need to be the mayor of that restaurant.

00:03:44:21 – 00:04:05:21

Eric Knott

So draw a big circle around five miles around the store and they should own every business, every church, every little league school. Everybody should know their name. Of course, they’re going to associate it with Tiki Taco, but I want them to come to the restaurant more to see Zach or to see Eric rather. I mean, of course, to test to be great too, but that personalized level.

00:04:05:21 – 00:04:33:11

Zack Oates

So I love that because that connection is so critical. And I tell restaurant tours all the time when you and I speak a lot of conferences together. But one of the things I always talk about is it’s not about perfection, it’s about connection. It’s about making sure that they know that they’ve got someone that they can turn to when something goes wrong, and that they can have that trust, that it will be made right and they can have that trust that it’s going to be a consistent experience.

00:04:33:11 – 00:04:51:06

Zack Oates

But if not, someone’s going to come in and save the day. And if it’s a consistent problem, they’re going to fix the issue, right? Because like you said, you don’t always agree with them. And sometimes you have those guests that you just need to hear and you just need to help them feel heard. And then you have those guest that you’re like, you know what?

00:04:51:06 – 00:04:55:22

Zack Oates

I’ve been hearing this a few times and so we need to change something operationally.

00:04:56:02 – 00:05:10:06

Eric Knott

Yeah. I mean, I think the difference between what we’re trying to create is an emotional connection with the guests that they feel good about trading service for the money out of their pocket or their credit card or however they pay. But at the end of the day, I think you’re spot on. I think that.

00:05:10:08 – 00:05:14:03

Zack Oates

Oh, actually, our motivation spot on. A great also a great company.

00:05:14:04 – 00:05:15:00

Eric Knott

You know, they are.

00:05:15:00 – 00:05:15:22

Zack Oates

I’m kidding.

00:05:15:24 – 00:05:43:13

Eric Knott

So far, I think that what you were trying to say, you had it right. And people want to know that they’re acknowledged, they want to know that they’ve been heard. And that could be a good, bad or ugly situation. Most of the time you hope that it’s a good situation. But we are humans and we try and set up structure to follow this, this and this to make sure that the ground beef gets tasted or that passed or get tasted or carnitas or whatever the case may be.

00:05:43:15 – 00:06:05:10

Eric Knott

But sometimes the reality of being imperfect is that you miss something or you make a mistake, and then if you catch a piece of the recipe incorrect from piece of guest feedback they hit you with, you can go correct that issue on site. And we rely on with ovation. We rely on our DMs to handle all of the comment to a comment from the survey.

00:06:05:12 – 00:06:23:07

Eric Knott

And we do that again intentionally, because we want that guest to know who Zach is, that there’s a voice behind it. And listen, I mean, the reality is, is like the I features awesome. But my DMs have fun with it. They let the AI create it and then they’ll put stuff in there. Like I just saw one yesterday.

00:06:23:07 – 00:06:40:17

Eric Knott

It was so funny. It was a good experience and he used the AI to write it, but at the end he put something personalized and said, by the way, this is not a bot like making it fun, like having fun with it, but essentially it’s very easy for them. You know, especially it’s text message based through the app.

00:06:40:17 – 00:06:57:16

Eric Knott

They enjoy it and I enjoy being able to see how the restaurants are performing, what the guests are saying and try and use that. Put that into my arsenal. Would you say making decisions on whatever it might be, whether a food item could be a beverage experience, whatever the case may be?

00:06:57:18 – 00:07:03:07

Zack Oates

And are there any changes that you’ve made at, Tiki Taco because of the feedback that you received through ovation?

00:07:03:09 – 00:07:21:21

Eric Knott

Yeah, there’s plenty. The big ones, though, we had in my, I guess, my first couple months, we had a bunch of comments about our grilled fish taco and they were nice. They were nasty, but it was just like, we’ve had the carnitas, we’ve had the chicken, we’ve had the the chicken tinga. We’ve had the pastor. They’re so awesome.

00:07:21:21 – 00:07:39:23

Eric Knott

But this grilled fish is just like, it’s not great, you know? So we actually ended up removing the grilled fish from the menu completely. Oh, wow. Because we didn’t want to sell a substandard product. Now we’re we’re back on the grind of R&D and getting that right, because I think having that for the guests, especially those trying to be healthy, is a good avenue.

00:07:39:23 – 00:07:43:06

Eric Knott

But you know, from us, if it’s not right, we don’t we don’t want to serve it well.

00:07:43:06 – 00:08:02:23

Zack Oates

And then by the way, as you’re testing it out, you should use a long form server that you can get specific feedback about that menu item. Because I think it’s critical that as you’re doing altos, as you’re doing like testing new menu items, you’re not always going to get feedback about that specific thing. Because if a guest has feedback, they’re going to tell you what it is and it’s pretty open ended.

00:08:03:00 – 00:08:14:08

Zack Oates

But then you could double click into that to understand. All right. What do you think about this? Do you like it do you not. Should we keep it on the menu. And so you can get a good flavor for what the guests are thinking about it too?

00:08:14:10 – 00:08:26:11

Eric Knott

Yeah, it’s a great idea. I mean, we we probably are about a month away. We’ve got a lot of growth happening at the moment. We’re spread it, but we do have it on probably end of Q4. But yeah, we’ll definitely look into let’s keep.

00:08:26:11 – 00:08:41:10

Zack Oates

In touch on that. I’d love to see that journey because I think that’s and that’s one of the things that I’ve always respected about you, Eric, because you’re not someone who. All right, let’s take it off the menu. That failed. But it’s like, no, let’s let’s take it off the menu and circle back to that. And let’s try that in a different way.

00:08:41:10 – 00:08:57:22

Zack Oates

And because you have this operational mindset where you’re like, we want this on the menu, let’s figure out a way to make it work. But you also know how to prioritize. And to say this is something we have to punt on for the next couple quarters because we got bigger fish to fry, so to speak, or to grill.

00:08:57:24 – 00:09:27:22

Eric Knott

Oh yeah. Well, I think it’s important, especially like we’re an emerging brand, right. So we’re a very small team. And prioritizing what everyone’s workflow looks like is important. So we can do it the right way. But the other thing too is someone taught me, I don’t remember, I probably should, but on time ago about product mix and what what sells on your menu and what the guest, you know, how the guest behavior works and basically, if something’s selling less than 3 or 4% on your menu, it either sucks or people don’t want it.

00:09:27:24 – 00:09:48:17

Eric Knott

So either fix it and sell more or just take it off. So I try to stay. We have, quarterly with Vicki and it’s very easy, not as a name drop, but it’s very easy to look at product mix and what’s selling what’s not. So if something starts to sell more or starts to sell less. So we do that every quarter and we go down the entire menu basically.

00:09:48:17 – 00:10:07:17

Eric Knott

Okay, there’s something need to be looked at. We need to work on something. What’s the guest transitioning from this to that. And it’s more you know, I think from a pride aspect, we all probably want to do things our way or our flavors or what we think. But at the end of the day, it’s like, well, I’m not serving well.

00:10:07:17 – 00:10:20:12

Eric Knott

I do eat in the restaurants pretty much every day, but I’m not paying right every single day. So let’s listen to the people that are paying to eat at your restaurants and see what they want, and then try and meet them in between somewhere.

00:10:20:14 – 00:10:33:18

Zack Oates

And as you’re kind of looking at this guest journey, what do you think has changed over the last few years? Is there anything that has significantly changed? Do you feel like the guest is still the guest and stays the guest?

00:10:33:20 – 00:10:59:12

Eric Knott

No. This is something I’ve been thinking about for probably at least a year or two. I think that before Covid, the value prop perception, however you want to phrase it was that everyone felt good about exchanging whatever dollar amount eight, nine, ten, 12, $13 for a high quality meal that was somewhat made at that location. Covid hits. Everybody felt the pressure.

00:10:59:14 – 00:11:18:15

Eric Knott

As a restaurant business, we start making what I would say, bad decisions, bringing in premade or frozen items or whatever the case may be. And we get out of Covid, we got labor shortages. Everybody keeps understanding that they’re going to have to pay more for this food, even though it might not be the best for them. And now that’s over.

00:11:18:15 – 00:11:37:12

Eric Knott

We’re five years past, and what people now are saying is everyone’s had inflation and raise their menu price so much that it’s all basically the same QSR and fast casual. I’m going to go to five Guys and spend $30 for lunch for two of us. I’m going to go to McDonald’s, and you’re probably going to still spend 20 to $25.

00:11:37:12 – 00:11:59:04

Eric Knott

So there’s not much of a difference in price. But my expectation now is that if I’m going to go out, I want to feel good about what I’m eating. I want to know that majority of that is real food that’s made in the restaurants, and they want to feel good about exchanging that price point with somebody for something that’s not frozen or prepackaged or pre-made somewhere else.

00:11:59:06 – 00:12:12:18

Eric Knott

And I think it’s going to continue to shift, because the expectation now is that I have to come out of my pocket, probably with no less than 10 to $12 for a meal, whether that be lunch or dinner. Now, not talking casual dining and fine dining.

00:12:12:18 – 00:12:33:13

Zack Oates

That’s although I will say like I just know the name drop on the other side. But like, I went to Chili’s recently and I spent less money there. Well, in terms of like McDonald’s, Five Guys, Chili’s, they really were all within like a $7 spread of what it cost to eat for two people to eat, even with the tip of Chili’s.

00:12:33:13 – 00:12:50:24

Zack Oates

And so like, I was really surprised that I was able to do that because, again, I’ve always thought of like that casual dining as just, okay, that’s when we go for dinner, when we want to spend more money, not the case anymore, which means there’s a lot more competition for restaurant tours.

00:12:51:01 – 00:13:21:07

Eric Knott

The water is getting very muddy. Yes. On how to separate from QSR, fast casual, even casual dining. And it’s because everyone’s starting to shift the casual dining consumers are getting higher price point. People want to shift down people that are paying more on the SR side, so they want better experiences. And so it’s getting very muddy between, I would say, the lower end of casual dining and the higher end of QSR.

00:13:21:09 – 00:13:22:16

Eric Knott

It’s very muddy.

00:13:22:18 – 00:13:42:00

Zack Oates

Which means the name of the game is. Once you kind of love that concept, that philosophy of you need to be the mayor of your five miles. And once people know about you, the name of the game is retention. Because if you are only bringing back 30% of your customers, you cannot win. In this environment, it’s too hard.

00:13:42:01 – 00:14:06:07

Zack Oates

The margins are too thin, it’s too expensive to get someone to switch and to try you over the other restaurant that’s somewhat similar to you down the street, but they haven’t put in the work to do the hand-to-hand combat to win you as an individual. And maybe last things, I know we’re running out of time here, but that concept of the individual, we were just talking about that before we started, about how somebody walked into the store.

00:14:06:09 – 00:14:19:09

Zack Oates

You took the time to talk to them, and that resulted in some incredible catering orders for you. And now it’s critical that you treat everyone as if they had that kind of a number above their head.

00:14:19:11 – 00:14:33:16

Eric Knott

Yeah, it’s I mean, the most important part is you never know. And I continue to get humbled on a daily basis. I was talking to a guy about three weeks ago, and between you and I looked like he didn’t have a home to live in.

00:14:33:18 – 00:14:35:00

Zack Oates

I won’t tell anyone. Yeah.

00:14:35:00 – 00:14:56:10

Eric Knott

I start talking to a guy and he owns like half of the city’s property here in Kansas City. So talk about like, a humbling experience. And thank God I just see people as people. I mean, so I was chatting this guy up and 30 minutes later he comes inside the restaurant, has lunch, and we get to know each other and come to find out, like I said, he owns half of the part of the.

00:14:56:10 – 00:14:58:20

Eric Knott

It’s called the crossroads here and can see.

00:14:58:22 – 00:15:18:16

Zack Oates

And that’s the thing is, like, you never know. It never hurts to be kind. And sometimes it’ll be life changing and incredibly helpful. I met someone, I was at a trade show walking around, and I’m just like, okay, I’m going to do one more loop at this afterparty. It was like 1130 and I was like, going to bed.

00:15:18:18 – 00:15:42:13

Zack Oates

And I’m like, see these two guys talking? Walk up to them, start talking to them, and it turns out they have a pretty big restaurant brand. They signed up and they’ve actually invested more than $2 million into ovation. Right. So it’s just one of those things where it was like really amazing, like one of our great customer turned into a great investor and those are the types of things like, you never know.

00:15:42:15 – 00:15:44:05

Zack Oates

And so be kind.

00:15:44:07 – 00:15:47:10

Eric Knott

Yeah. That’s the moral of the story, right? Is just kind.

00:15:47:12 – 00:15:52:15

Zack Oates

Anyway, Eric, I know we’re out of time here. Who’s someone that deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry?

00:15:52:17 – 00:16:01:17

Eric Knott

Okay, this is going to sound crazy because of my past life, but I recently had an experience that I have to tell you about. I promise I’ll be fast. And it’s Chick-Fil-A.

00:16:01:19 – 00:16:03:05

Zack Oates

Oh.

00:16:03:07 – 00:16:33:07

Eric Knott

I went and met the franchisee of the Chick-Fil-A near the new restaurant they were opening just to. Hey, welcome to the neighborhood. Let’s chat it up. We had about 30 minute conversation over coffee. Fast forward six months later, I get a handwritten card in the mail congratulating me on my one year anniversary in Kansas City. He took the time from that conversation over coffee to remember when I started with Tiki and he handwrote a letter and not a letter, but a like a note card about how successful we’re going to be.

00:16:33:07 – 00:16:37:10

Eric Knott

So nice to meet you. Hope to see you soon. Congratulations on one year!

00:16:37:12 – 00:16:39:22

Zack Oates

Wow, dude, that is so cool.

00:16:39:24 – 00:16:50:23

Eric Knott

I mean, just unbelievable. And it just challenges me. Really. That’s all that did was like, this guy’s incredible, but it challenges me to continue to think like that, think like that about every interaction.

00:16:51:00 – 00:16:53:01

Zack Oates

And you know what? That was probably his pleasure to do it.

00:16:53:01 – 00:16:55:02

Eric Knott

So good.

00:16:55:02 – 00:17:02:23

Zack Oates

One. Good one. Well, Eric, before we get to the final part of the podcast, how do people find and follow you and tiki taka.

00:17:03:00 – 00:17:15:01

Eric Knott

So tiki taka icon tiki tacos are hashtag pretty much everywhere except TikTok’s Tiki taco cake. And then if you want mine, it’s Eric, Dot, and LinkedIn. You can find me. I’m pretty active.

00:17:15:02 – 00:17:25:01

Zack Oates

Awesome. All right, Eric. Well, Eric, for bringing us a second spoonful of wisdom from your ocean of experience. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you so much for joining us and giving ovation.

00:17:25:03 – 00:17:26:20

Eric Knott

Thanks. I appreciate it.

00:17:26:22 – 00:17:49:09

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.