Growing a coffee brand is one thing. Growing a coffee brand that New Yorkers trust with their time is another. In this episode of Give an Ovation, Gregory Zamfotis, founder and CEO of Gregorys Coffee, joins Zack to talk about expansion, speed, product decisions, and why people are at the center of everything. From his dad’s sandwich shop in a New Jersey mall to a national partnership with Craveworthy Brands, Greg shares how he keeps the guest experience front and center as the brand scales.

Franchising with Craveworthy Brands (02:01)

Greg walks through why Gregorys chose franchising as the lever for growth after partnering with Simon Property Group to convert legacy mall locations.

“We knew once we opened these stores we were going to want to open plenty more after that. It became very obvious that franchising would be the preferred way to grow.”

Convenience Without Compromise (07:25)

Coming from busy New York lunch spots, Greg builds Gregorys around quality at speed, not one or the other.

“Why does a customer have to sacrifice just because they are getting something quicker? We put systems in place so we can deliver super high quality in the fastest amount of time possible.”

Saying Goodbye to the Donuts (11:52)

Greg explains the hard call to retire three of their top selling donuts, all based on his father’s original recipes, in order to move baking into the stores.

“We felt like this was going to be a huge upgrade. Now when you get a croissant at 7 a.m., it was baked 30 or 45 minutes ago.”

People Before Everything Else (15:25)

Greg shares the story of Cindy, a DC team member whose care shows in every pastry case she touches, and why he pushed for her growth even when she doubted herself.

“I would never ask anybody to do anything I would not do myself. It comes back to the people you serve with, shoulder to shoulder.”

Why Feedback Matters, Even When It Hurts (20:15)

From the first Yelp review to modern guest feedback tools, Greg stays close to what guests are actually saying.

“Better to know than to have the blind spot. If you do not really know how your customers are seeing you, then you are just flying blind.”

If you want a playbook on building a coffee brand that respects both the product and the clock, this episode is worth a listen.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-zamfotis-65589112/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/gregorys-coffee/

https://gregoryscoffee.com/

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

 

Transcript

00:00:00:05 – 00:00:24:23

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 get 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 exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

00:00:24:24 – 00:00:48:21

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation. Up.com. And today I have the man, the myth, the logo. Greg. Them photos of Gregory’s coffee. They are just blowing up all over the country. New York City based coffee brand. If you’re in New York, you know Gregory’s and now they’re in malls and different locations all around the country. So, Greg, thanks for joining us on Given Ovation.

00:00:48:21 – 00:00:49:19

Zack Oates

How are you?

00:00:49:21 – 00:00:53:14

Gregory Zamfotis

Hey, happy to be here. And yeah, doing great. Thanks for that intro.

00:00:53:16 – 00:01:13:00

Zack Oates

Well, and we have been working together for almost four years now. So this podcast is a long time coming, but I’m such a big fan of what you’ve built and what you’re building. And, recently acquired partnered with crave worthy. It’s a pretty big deal. How has that been?

00:01:13:02 – 00:01:36:24

Gregory Zamfotis

That’s been a journey. Like everything I do, it’s always interesting. So as you mentioned, we’ve grown substantially over the last couple of years. We worked on the strategic partnership with Simon Property Group, which was sort of the real kickoff to that, where we converted a number of Starbucks in their properties to Gregory’s. They just happened to be around the country where our whole store base was based in the sort of the New York and DC metro markets.

00:01:37:01 – 00:02:01:15

Gregory Zamfotis

So it was something different for us. So we’re now in Florida, Nashville, Phoenix, California, Tacoma. Some really cool markets. So we knew going into it that once we opened these stores, we’re going to want to open plenty more after that and fill in these markets with more traditional groceries, not just sort of mall property locations. So the thought was, are we going to grow these corporate or where are we going, our franchise?

00:02:01:15 – 00:02:29:02

Gregory Zamfotis

That sort of became very obvious to us very quickly that franchising would be the preferred way to grow, just because we want to get density in these markets much quicker and crave worthy is a group that had been interested in partnering with Gregory’s for a long time. The timing wasn’t quite right until more recently when we said, you know, we’re ready to do this, and they bring tons of prowess when it comes to leveraging franchising as a lever to grow.

00:02:29:04 – 00:02:38:20

Gregory Zamfotis

So we came together and they’re helping us do that now. So we’re kicking off that process and hope to be franchising in 2026.

00:02:38:22 – 00:02:59:02

Zack Oates

That’s awesome. And you know I’ve got a lot of respect for Matthew Skyy and what he’s built over there. And he’s had such a incredible career and it’s amazing what he’s done because he and I are like almost the same age and I feel like he’s lived like three lives. So it’s great to see that. Now, by the way, are you originally from Jersey?

00:02:59:04 – 00:03:05:24

Gregory Zamfotis

Marginally from Brooklyn. But then I moved to new Jersey, like I was like 10 or 11 years old, so.

00:03:06:01 – 00:03:13:04

Zack Oates

Okay, well, just because the way you said mall sounded very Jersey, a little less New York. And so, you know, my father had.

00:03:13:04 – 00:03:30:18

Gregory Zamfotis

A sandwich shop in a mall in new Jersey. And that’s where I really, you know, while I worked for him my whole life, were really sort of cut my teeth and is in high school is when I started working most of my weekends and breaks for my dad at his place in a food court in the Freehold Raceway Mall in New Jersey.

00:03:30:23 – 00:03:31:04

Gregory Zamfotis

So.

00:03:31:04 – 00:03:39:20

Zack Oates

Okay. Yeah. So is that where you learned your love for Cinnabon as well? Because I feel like that was back in the day when Cinnabon and Chick fil A were just like mall spots.

00:03:39:22 – 00:03:52:15

Gregory Zamfotis

Yeah, yeah. Cinnabon was was huge. Auntie Anne’s pretzels. You find them in many mall properties for sure. We used to like a Nathan’s hot dogs next to us. Sbarro pizza, all the hits. Everybody was in there.

00:03:52:17 – 00:04:12:14

Zack Oates

Yeah, I love that. Now, one thing that I really want to clear up for our listeners, if you look up and by the way, Gregorys Coffee is one of the few stickers that I actually have on my laptop because it’s such a cool logo and it really is if you’ve never seen it yet to look it up, especially if you can watch the clip of Greg here, because it really is him.

00:04:12:14 – 00:04:22:09

Zack Oates

It’s like his glasses and his hair. And what happens, Greg, when you want to like, change your style up, what happens when you want a new hairdo?

00:04:22:11 – 00:04:33:07

Gregory Zamfotis

Oh man. You know, I get this question a lot. So unsurprisingly, I have more than one pair of glasses. They just tend to be thick rim. The shape has changed over the years.

00:04:33:09 – 00:04:34:14

Zack Oates

My hair.

00:04:34:16 – 00:04:47:23

Gregory Zamfotis

I guess the main thing is just. I hope I don’t go bald, because I think that’s where the problem comes in right now. As long as it’s kind of like up there doing some bit of a mess, then it kind of ties in. So I am a little bit pigeonholed, but it’s been working for me for a while.

00:04:48:00 – 00:05:07:12

Zack Oates

Yeah. Well, obviously so good for you on that one. And the other thing I want to clear up though, is there is and this is something that we always train our people on when they start up at ovation. And if they’re going to be working with you, there is no apostrophe. This is the plural of Gregory’s. There are a lot of Gregory’s.

00:05:07:12 – 00:05:10:00

Zack Oates

It’s not his coffee shop. Right?

00:05:10:02 – 00:05:23:21

Gregory Zamfotis

It’s not mine. It’s yours. That’s part of it. The other part was we just liked that looked. It looked better without the apology. When we were building our first sign in 2006. Right. Starbucks doesn’t have an apology, right? That’s named after Starbuck from Moby Dick. So.

00:05:23:22 – 00:05:26:14

Zack Oates

Oh, I actually didn’t even know that.

00:05:26:16 – 00:05:30:12

Gregory Zamfotis

Yeah. Come on, man. Starbuck, I guess who’s the first mate in Moby Dick?

00:05:30:17 – 00:05:39:12

Zack Oates

Oh, my gosh. I’ve read two books about Starbuck, so I never even like either I missed it in those books or they didn’t talk to me. Don’t. Well, it’s why the mermaid.

00:05:39:12 – 00:05:48:12

Gregory Zamfotis

You know, the mermaid. The novel thing, it’s all from Moby Dick originally, but you don’t really talk about it that much. But that’s part of the launch, I guess.

00:05:48:14 – 00:06:05:23

Zack Oates

Okay. Because as I was prepping for this podcast, I wanted to make sure that listeners knew that there was no apostrophe because I was a hot, deep, clean man. Yeah. And he does. I mean, the logo looks really slick, and I think I like having that apostrophe in there. We just like, kind of like, throw it off.

00:06:06:00 – 00:06:26:19

Gregory Zamfotis

Yeah. The grammar heads out there are never going to be happy with the decision, but make it work. It’s like, you know, the famous place, the ear in lower Manhattan. It’s like it was a neon or a sign that weirdly said bar. But part of the be like broke off. So it looked more like ear. So they just started calling themselves ear in just because the sign got messed up there.

00:06:26:19 – 00:06:30:02

Gregory Zamfotis

Yeah. Instead of changing the sign, we’ll just change the name.

00:06:30:04 – 00:06:48:06

Zack Oates

Sure. There we go. You know, some things change organically. Some things never change. Like you got to make swirlies. Oh, yeah. Mean, that’s a pretty dark. Yeah, exactly. Light or dark? For those of you who don’t drink alcohol, if you asked for nonalcoholic beer there and they say light or dark, they’re not asking you what kind of nonalcoholic beer you want.

00:06:48:06 – 00:07:06:08

Zack Oates

I unfortunately had the experience of asking for nonalcoholic beer, and they brought me a real beer, and I quickly realized it. But then when I asked for, he’s like, well, what do you want, a soda? And I was like, yeah, I’d love would it? So they brought me out a lukewarm can, a ginger ale that he cleaned with his t shirt and then put on the counter.

00:07:06:08 – 00:07:25:13

Zack Oates

So anyway, if you’re in New York and after you get some coffee, you want a beer? McSorley, this is great if you don’t drink. A mixer is not great, but it’s still historic. So let’s talk about that whole vibe. The whole guest experience. What do you think, Greg is one of the most important aspects of guest experience nowadays.

00:07:25:15 – 00:07:52:02

Gregory Zamfotis

Some things never change. I think it’s sort of respecting the guests, their time, why they’re there, and then sort of solving backwards for it. Right? Like, what do we have to do to meet the customer where they’re at? I was raised in a food and service family. Right. My father had fast casual concepts in New York City my entire life, and it was drilled into me from a very, very young age that we needed to crush the lunch rush.

00:07:52:02 – 00:08:08:02

Gregory Zamfotis

That’s how you made your money back in the day. I still do in many restaurants in New York City, but the only way you’re going to do that is you got to be fast. You have to be really great product, great service. Your restaurant has to be clean. You have to do all those things in a really busy setting because again, that was what that customer wanted.

00:08:08:02 – 00:08:34:18

Gregory Zamfotis

The lunch customer in the busy parts of New York City, those are the elements that are super important to them. If you could do all those things well, you’ll tend to have a great business. So that always sort of resonated with me and stuck, which is why when we launched Gregory’s, our point of view is different than a lot of the other specialty coffee concepts out there, because everybody was just honed in hardcore on quality and products, which is right, and they should do that.

00:08:34:22 – 00:08:54:10

Gregory Zamfotis

We do that too, but they sort of turned a blind eye to a lot of other things that I think people really value in their experience. No matter who we talk to or what surveys we do, convenience is almost always at the top of folks list when it comes to coffee. It might not always be their first preferential item, but it’s always an important factor.

00:08:54:10 – 00:09:19:04

Gregory Zamfotis

Access to the location speed. Now we know. Obviously drive thrus are popular for a reason. The most convenient thing you don’t have to get out of a car. So we said, well, why can’t we do both? Why don’t we focus on throughput but also not sacrifice quality? So that was our point of view 20 years ago. And that’s remains our point of view today, is why does a customer have to sacrifice just because they’re getting something quicker, right.

00:09:19:04 – 00:09:48:03

Gregory Zamfotis

So we put systems in place. We use tools. We train our people. We do all these things to ensure we can deliver super high quality in the fastest amount of time possible. Not everybody is actually looking to rush. We don’t want to rush them. But I would always say why not give that time back to somebody? So if they say, hey, I don’t mind if I get my product in 2 or 3 minutes or 7 or 8 minutes, but if they can get it quicker and then they could choose what they want to do with those extra minutes, they could stay, have their coffee hang out, they could get on their way and going.

00:09:48:03 – 00:10:05:14

Gregory Zamfotis

But I never want the people to say, well, there’s a flaw, right? It’s always going to be ten, 15 minutes to get my products, whether I’m coming in rush or non rush, because I would think about it. Well, if I’ve got a lunch break 30 minutes, by the time I get out of the office or whatever I’m doing, I get to where I need to go.

00:10:05:16 – 00:10:24:21

Gregory Zamfotis

If it’s going to take 15 or 20 minutes to get my product, and then I have to turn around and go, all of a sudden that kind of eats up my entire ability to take my break. I’m not going to come back to this place anymore. So I’m saying, why don’t I try and execute at a higher level than what other folks were doing, specifically those that were focused on quality and solving for it that way?

00:10:24:21 – 00:10:42:07

Gregory Zamfotis

Because again, I’m looking at what do I want again? There’s also maybe another element to this is selling to myself and making sure whatever I’m doing or we’re doing as a company resonates with me as well. I like I value my time. I am the classic New Yorker. I look in and I see a busy line at a place.

00:10:42:07 – 00:11:00:24

Gregory Zamfotis

If I don’t feel confident they can move a line, I just I don’t do it. I’m not the guy that waits in long lines or 45 minutes for a slice of pizza, or just I’ll never do it. So I don’t want to be turning off customers that are like me, let’s say like, oh, I wouldn’t. I want to feel like I’m going to be serviced in a relatively reasonable amount of time.

00:11:01:05 – 00:11:08:17

Gregory Zamfotis

You know, it doesn’t have to be instant, but it also doesn’t have to feel like you’re watching paint dry, which is what it could feel like sometimes waiting in some of these lines.

00:11:08:19 – 00:11:36:01

Zack Oates

And I think that you have such an interesting balance. There’s a story that I have told dozens of times. I’ve told your story dozens of times. I’d love to hear it from you, but it to me shows such a discipline and it shows that you really care about the guest experience more so. And like, you have this balancing act of like, okay, I want to create efficiencies to create a great guest experience, but that means I’m going to have to sacrifice something else.

00:11:36:03 – 00:11:52:16

Zack Oates

And I’d love for you to talk through how you thought about getting rid of the donuts, because this, to me was so powerful, because I know how special that recipe was to you and your family. And so, yeah. Do you want to tell us that story?

00:11:52:18 – 00:12:18:11

Gregory Zamfotis

Yeah. For sure. That’s certainly not the only time we’ve had to make a decision like this. So we have a central commissary where we prepare, roast our coffee. Also word for pair, most of our foods. And for the majority of the time here at Gregory’s, every single baked good was made from scratch, baked fresh at that commissary overnight and then delivered to our cafes, our stores to be used in the morning.

00:12:18:13 – 00:12:42:04

Gregory Zamfotis

One of the results of Covid was we had to think through production, make use of our space. But also we’re growing is becoming harder and harder for that facility to make products, all those products every single day. But one of our most popular, a number of our most popular pastry items were our donuts. We had a classic sour dough glazed donut, a whole wheat chai donut, and an apple fritter.

00:12:42:06 – 00:13:04:15

Gregory Zamfotis

So we had those three donuts, which were probably three of our top five selling bakery items. All three were recipes from my father’s first business. He dropped out of Brooklyn College in the 70s to take over the donut shop he was running in South Brooklyn. So again, these are 55 year old recipes that he always loved, and we started using them at Gregory’s at some point, and people loved them.

00:13:04:15 – 00:13:19:20

Gregory Zamfotis

They stood the test of time. But the problem was, once we decided we wanted to move the baking and production in store as opposed to the commissary, we could no longer do donuts, donuts or fried, right? So at least the way that we were doing them, we weren’t going to put fryers and hoods in all of our stores.

00:13:19:23 – 00:13:39:24

Gregory Zamfotis

We had ovens, convection oven so we could bake off fresh. So we felt like this was going to be a huge upgrade for our guests by being able to deliver an even fresher product. So while we were still making the products from scratch, baking it in our own facility were still baked at a remote facility and it was probably 12 to 18 hours before.

00:13:39:24 – 00:13:58:03

Gregory Zamfotis

Whereas now when you get a croissant at Gregory’s at 7 a.m., it was baked 30, 45 minutes ago. Right. It’s a fresh product. So it was a hard decision to say, well, we got to eliminate some of our customer’s favorite items. But, you know, we truly believed in the decision that we were going to elevate the experience for the guests.

00:13:58:08 – 00:14:14:19

Gregory Zamfotis

They would appreciate the fact that they were getting of truly fresh made product. They were happy to see it. The ovens were right behind the pace. Your case, they’re watching that product coming out. Honestly, the smell too, like you can’t get away from you. Open the oven door when you’re baking fresh croissants or fresh chocolate chip cookies. I mean, it’s intoxicating.

00:14:14:19 – 00:14:37:18

Gregory Zamfotis

So it was another side benefit of having that in the store. But we thought that while the customers might bristle at this overall it was going to be a better experience, better product and a better overall target for what the customers think were going for, which was how can we make our bakery program rise closer to the level of our coffee program, which we felt was elite?

00:14:37:18 – 00:14:51:16

Gregory Zamfotis

Amazing people love it, but obviously they’re watching us make that product right on the spot. So we want to do that with the baked goods too. So unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to those donuts. The recipes are still there. We can use them maybe at some point, but right now that’s not in the cards.

00:14:51:18 – 00:15:16:08

Zack Oates

That discipline of taking that family recipe that meant a lot to you. And, you know, you could have sat there and argued like, no, this is Gregory’s coffee. Like, this is part of our DNA. But Gregory isn’t the part of the DNA. It’s the guest experience that’s part of the DNA. And I love that you were able to kind of pull out your desires and your want and put the guest first.

00:15:16:14 – 00:15:25:06

Zack Oates

And that really, I think, shines through. Like when you when you go to a Gregory’s coffee, like it shows that the guest experience is paramount.

00:15:25:08 – 00:15:46:21

Gregory Zamfotis

Yeah, that’s 100% true. I just had this sort of reminder yesterday about how much people matter. Not just our guests, but our team. I was in our DC and one of my favorite team members of all time, team member named Cindy. She’s one of our team leaders down one of our DC locations. And it’s like, again, talk about baked goods.

00:15:46:23 – 00:16:05:09

Gregory Zamfotis

Any time I’m at a store that Cindy is at, the pastry case is undeniably perfect. I couldn’t set it up better myself, and she truly gets it and cares. We’ve putting that little extra love as to how you’re baking like you could bake. It’s like, hey, 20 minutes is the recommended time for these cookies. Make sure you take it out.

00:16:05:11 – 00:16:21:02

Gregory Zamfotis

Then there’s also people that say like, well, I want to check in. I’m not going to take it out. So 20 minutes and 30s because I don’t see the proper amount of browning and the texture isn’t right. Like she truly gets it. And cares. And it’s like something about her little touch. But again, that comes back to she cares.

00:16:21:02 – 00:16:40:14

Gregory Zamfotis

She’s just such a good person. She’s a native Spanish speaker and she always struggled early on speaking English, so she never felt like she could move up at Gregory’s or any other business because of her limitations with the language. But I had told her supervisor that I’m like, you know, I don’t even care about that. This is a person you need to reward.

00:16:40:14 – 00:16:57:08

Gregory Zamfotis

She works so hard. She is honestly a bright light anytime. I mean, she’s maybe not the most confident English speaker, but she definitely can communicate effectively with our team and with guests. And she’s never let me down ever. So again, we continue to move her up. We got to see her yesterday chat a little bit again, like clockwork.

00:16:57:08 – 00:17:16:11

Gregory Zamfotis

I go in the pastry case looks absolutely perfect and she’s just rocking and rolling. So I believed in her, even when maybe she didn’t believe in herself. And that’s also just something that, for me is just how we think about this business. It comes back to the people, not just the people we serve, but the people we serve with alongside with shoulder to shoulder.

00:17:16:13 – 00:17:33:13

Gregory Zamfotis

And for me, I never put anything beneath me. You’ll see me plunging toilets. You’ll see me sweeping and mopping. You probably see me behind the bar because I just love making coffee, so I can’t help myself sometimes to my own detriment. If I’m dressed nicely. I have a meeting. I have to meet with a lawyer. For whatever reason.

00:17:33:13 – 00:17:53:16

Gregory Zamfotis

I have to wear a white shirt and a tie, and I might wind up getting a splattered espresso on me because I was behind the bar for 20 minutes helping the team out, or just something that I can’t help myself. I just genuinely love the product. I love serving the guests, being shoulder to shoulder with our team, and whether it’s doing any of those things or if something just needs to get done.

00:17:53:18 – 00:18:09:02

Gregory Zamfotis

I wouldn’t ask anybody to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. I think my team truly believes that because I show them that every single day. So that’s sort of the kind of organization I always wanted to set up and how I want the people to feel. So you’re not just going to see me sitting on the side counting money.

00:18:09:02 – 00:18:24:00

Gregory Zamfotis

You’re not paying attention to folks like, I really want to be rubbing shoulders and digging in with the team. And it sort of creates that culture of that’s how we think about the world. We want to help each other. It tends to lead to better experiences for the guests that you are not, you know, have to tell them, treat that person right.

00:18:24:00 – 00:18:39:15

Gregory Zamfotis

But people tend to do those things when they’re in a great culture or great environment and they feel good, right? If they’re feeling that they’re beaten down, or that kind of supervisor or a boss who doesn’t make them feel good or yelling, they’re not going to then turn around to be smiling and giving the best experience to you guys because they don’t want to be there.

00:18:39:21 – 00:18:57:04

Gregory Zamfotis

I still would love to figure out how to be doing like daily and scores with our team. So like, how do they feel when they come in the shift to how they feel when they leave the shift and really see how are we meeting them where they’re at? Right. Like it’s just as important for me to serve our guests as to, like, make our team feel they’re great and enjoying the time on the shift.

00:18:57:04 – 00:19:14:00

Gregory Zamfotis

If they start the shift at a nine and leave it a six, that something’s wrong. Like, what did we do with something one off happen with a guest? Or is it something that we’re doing that’s not making their experience with us positive? So these are some of the things I think about do. Again, I know you’re into the data and all that stuff too, and certainly with customer sentiment.

00:19:14:00 – 00:19:22:24

Gregory Zamfotis

But team sentiment is something that I think is almost as important because they go hand in hand. You can’t have a great customer service of your team, isn’t it?

00:19:23:01 – 00:19:41:08

Zack Oates

Well, we should talk about that. Great, because I’d love to even just like, run an experiment with you on leveraging, because we have a kiosk survey as well that we don’t normally use for front of house anymore, but something that we should definitely try in the back of house. I mean, I know that you guys are the reason that we have a call to tech solution.

00:19:41:08 – 00:20:00:17

Zack Oates

I mean, we met with you three years ago, right about a year after you guys started working with us, and we’re like, hey, we’re thinking about doing something different with our phones. And so we built that together. And it’s been an amazing solution and solving a lot of problems. And over the years, I think you guys have been instrumental in providing a lot of feedback and just really appreciate your partnership.

00:20:00:17 – 00:20:07:20

Zack Oates

And talking about getting in the weeds. I mean, like usually at your size, there’s a lot of CEOs that don’t really care about the guest feedback.

00:20:07:20 – 00:20:10:12

Gregory Zamfotis

I read those things. I care about this stuff. Yeah.

00:20:10:14 – 00:20:15:10

Zack Oates

So I’d love for you to just tell me, like, how has it been helpful for you to kind of keep a pulse on things?

00:20:15:12 – 00:20:33:19

Gregory Zamfotis

I mean, it’s just exactly that. I actually read the emails. I actually read the feedback. It’s important to me to understand what’s working and what’s not. Nobody likes to read bad reviews, right? It doesn’t help. That doesn’t make you feel good, but better to know than to have the blind spot, right? Like, just say like, well, what are we going to do about this?

00:20:33:20 – 00:20:59:23

Gregory Zamfotis

It’s like a secret shopper report to understand what are the guest saying? And I remember way back in the day when Yelp was first starting out and reviews, you know, online reviews and really exist. I remember the first time I got a review posted on Yelp about our first store. It might have been a three star review because I think the something was like the guest was upset that there was crumbs on the table when they got there, and I remember trying to reach out to up to like, take this thing down.

00:20:59:23 – 00:21:13:17

Gregory Zamfotis

Like, I don’t know why this why are there things about posted about my business that I have no say in or like and I do is new at that. I was like 20 years ago. It didn’t exist. And like, no, sorry, we can’t take it down. And then I sort of realized what it was, which is sort of like a window into the store.

00:21:13:17 – 00:21:29:05

Gregory Zamfotis

And yes, every not every person is going to be giving a fully accurate or whatever descriptions, their own personal experience. But that person felt that kind of way. So it drove them to leave a review. So it should just sort of drive us to be better at what we do, to sort of make less reasons for somebody to not want to leave a five star review.

00:21:29:05 – 00:21:57:22

Gregory Zamfotis

Right? So that’s the goal. And getting more data points, more information just helps us strengthen and become a better company, a better service model, better team. So for a lot of things, we don’t have the data, we don’t have the information. It’s hard to understand where the opportunity is, but using a tool like ovation, having those insights come in so frequently across the portfolio, you can dive in and truly get a sense of what’s going on.

00:21:57:24 – 00:22:17:15

Gregory Zamfotis

Again, as you scale to it’s another challenge. You have 1 or 2 stores, maybe you might not realize how much you’re missing, but you might have a pretty good sense of what’s going on just by being in the store or the restaurant all those hours and paying close attention to how things are feeling, even though sometimes, again, as you know, customers don’t always say it, they might write it to you, but they wouldn’t tell you to your face.

00:22:17:17 – 00:22:39:14

Gregory Zamfotis

But as you scale, it becomes much harder. And that’s what I found as we started going from two, three, five, ten stores, it was impossible for me to really understand how the customers were feeling across the portfolio. So to have this at your disposal is sort of the non-negotiable at this point. It’s like if you don’t really know how your customers are seeing you, then you’re just flying blind.

00:22:39:20 – 00:23:03:18

Gregory Zamfotis

Yeah, you might be doing well, and I’ve spoken to other operators or restaurant groups that are doing well, but there’s certainly opportunities or things that could be better. And I think that’s what I’ve seen. There’s maybe my one of the bigger lessons I learned was over the years, you can’t ever relax because things change or things change quickly and you don’t want to be caught flat footed because like, we had some stores that were killing it so busy.

00:23:03:18 – 00:23:16:05

Gregory Zamfotis

But in the back of my mind, I always knew there was something with the leader. Maybe it wasn’t as strong as I would have hoped. There was issues at the store, but I didn’t really want to mess with it because the store was doing so well. But the real reason probably was the fact that it was a great location.

00:23:16:05 – 00:23:33:12

Gregory Zamfotis

There wasn’t as much competition around, so we had this sort of like monopoly situation going on where there was nowhere else to go. And the minute a competitor opened nearby, like, like things just dropped because we just weren’t strong enough or operating at the level that I know we should have. So I never want to have that happen again.

00:23:33:12 – 00:23:59:18

Gregory Zamfotis

I’m so like, you know, now when there’s smoke, you got to make sure there’s no fire. So whether it’s poor reviews or some slippage on KPIs or whatever, it is a negative sentiment. Let’s just try and get that out as quickly as possible because you never know, right? Like things might be great today, but things change in a blink and you don’t want to be caught not being resilient enough or able to withstand challenges for either macro economic challenges or direct threats.

00:23:59:18 – 00:24:22:03

Gregory Zamfotis

Right? People are ruthless, right? I have a coffee shop competitors that like out of a whole city, however many tens, hundreds of thousands of locations like they’ll open up next door to you, they just don’t care. But again, I would also say that only tends to happen if people perceive you as not so strong. I wouldn’t open up the next to somebody if I thought they were great operation to them, like, well, why would I do that?

00:24:22:03 – 00:24:38:16

Gregory Zamfotis

But so if I’m ever perceived to be weak, that’s another thing to say. Like, well, why would this company come near me? They see an opportunity because I think they could take my market share. So from a competitive standpoint is how do I continue to build a moat or how do I make people say, like, I don’t want to go anywhere near a Gregory’s because they’re doing such a great job, right?

00:24:38:16 – 00:24:54:12

Gregory Zamfotis

So you have to have that mentality too. And like all these things like, you know, iron sharpens iron, right? Like, you know, by taking the hard feedback, take a deep look at what’s going well, but also like an even deeper look at what’s not going well. And how do you tighten that up and make sure there’s visibility and options.

00:24:54:12 – 00:24:56:02

Gregory Zamfotis

A great tool to be able to do that?

00:24:56:04 – 00:25:20:23

Zack Oates

Well, appreciate that, because I think that like it is sometimes hard to eat crow and it’s tough to sit there and like read some of the feedback that’s negative. Realizing that it’s a much smaller percentage of the total feedback, but that negative feedback is stuff that needs to get take action on right now. Right. And that’s why, you know, when we send the the daily weekly emails, we like to remind people of, hey, here’s how many positive surveys you got as well.

00:25:21:00 – 00:25:39:08

Zack Oates

But I think at the end of the day, it’s like yesterday, for example, I’m counting my calories right now and last night as I was going to bed, I had three, like gummy bears, New York, peppermint Patty, and I didn’t put those in my calorie tracker. But guess what? It doesn’t change the truth. It doesn’t matter. They’re still data shows.

00:25:39:08 – 00:25:50:23

Zack Oates

Yeah, right. It’s like the truth is the truth. And so to your point, it’s much better to know what’s going on so you can act on it as opposed to hoping that it’s not happening.

00:25:51:03 – 00:26:07:19

Gregory Zamfotis

It’s being honest with yourself. Right. You’re not doing yourself any favors by not seeing the truth. Right. So whether it’s putting the accurate things in because then when you look back like, oh yeah, I only I did, I was on track like, no you were I deviated and I’m sort of the cheating. Right. So you know, if I’m only looking at the positive reviews, what how am I going to learn?

00:26:07:19 – 00:26:17:08

Gregory Zamfotis

How am I going to get better? Right. That’s that’s just not how how I would approach it or how others. I would recommend taking that free feedback as much as you can and using it as a tool to improve.

00:26:17:08 – 00:26:22:00

Zack Oates

I love that. Well, Greg, how can people find and follow you and Gregory’s coffee?

00:26:22:05 – 00:26:47:07

Gregory Zamfotis

So Gregory’s coffee, you could find it pretty simple. Gregory’s coffee.com are handles at Gregory’s Coffee on all the channels. Again, no apostrophe. So at Gregory’s Coffee, on all those TikTok Instagram x, I guess you call now Facebook, etc.. Me personally, you could find me my first name and my last name at Gregory’s am Fotis. I’m probably most, although I’m not very active on on on many of the channels.

00:26:47:11 – 00:27:06:17

Gregory Zamfotis

Starting to become a little bit more LinkedIn, Instagram X so I’m on Twitter. I mean, I’m on TikTok. I just haven’t posted or done anything just yet, but I’m there and should probably be on Substack soon, so you could probably find me there too. But yeah, maybe Instagram is the most likely place to find me right now that I’m actually doing so.

00:27:06:19 – 00:27:16:09

Zack Oates

I’m loving it. Well, Greg, despite being the logo for always putting the guest above yourself, today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us and giving ovation.

00:27:16:11 – 00:27:18:19

Gregory Zamfotis

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

00:27:18:21 – 00:27:41:07

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 Ofcom.