Zack Oates chats with James Bonanno, founder and CEO of Upstream Hospitality Group, the force behind Tap Room, Bango Bowls, and other vibrant concepts redefining guest experience across New York. James shares how operational excellence, leadership, and culture fuel hospitality that flows upstream.

Operations Drive Marketing (02:07)

James emphasizes that great marketing means nothing without great operations.

“If we’re not nailing the guest experience, we’re just spinning our wheels.”

Leadership Sets the Tone (03:38)

Every restaurant’s success starts with its general manager.

“An underperforming store almost always traces back to the leader.”

The Upstream Mentality (05:55)

James explains how his group’s name reflects their culture of relentless improvement.

“We want people who fight the current—those in the top 5% pushing upstream.”

Developing True Leaders (08:26)

He highlights how leadership training and AI tools empower growth.

“You’re managing if a dishwasher shows up. You’re leading if you develop them into a line cook.”

Recovering Guests in Real Time (10:06)

With Ovation, James’s team resolves issues instantly and earns loyalty.

“Guests think they’re emailing corporate, but our managers text back in 20 minutes.”

Turning Feedback into Action (12:08)

Guest data drives real operational changes and design improvements.

“Ovation helped us pinpoint an order accuracy issue that led us to redesign a kitchen layout.”

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bonanno-a5a665103/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/upstream-hospitality-group/

https://upstreamhospitality.com/blog/tap-room-featured-on-owners-operators/

Transcript

00:00:00:04 – 00:00:24:09

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 restaurant. Learn what is actually happening in your restaurant from your office or home.

00:00:24:14 – 00:00:50:00

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And today I’m excited! We have a friend, someone who is a amazing speaker, amazing businessman James Bonanno. He is the founder and CEO of Upstream Hospitality Group. I mean he is got Tap Room Bango Bowls. He’s got some cool seasonal restaurants that where they import palm trees and just like, create such a vibe.

00:00:50:02 – 00:00:52:00

Zack Oates

James, welcome to the podcast, man.

00:00:52:02 – 00:01:00:10

James Bonnano

Zach what’s up buddy? Thanks for having me. And thanks for the intro. And yeah, lets listeners know based out of Long Island, New York and excited to be on here. So thanks.

00:01:00:12 – 00:01:16:15

Zack Oates

Yeah. And I’ve had the privilege of going in there a while and going into your restaurants and like, you’ve got such great operations like you’ve just got to nail down. But before we get into operations, I do you have a serious question for you. What is the weirdest way people have mispronounced your last name?

00:01:16:17 – 00:01:22:22

James Bonnano

Banana obviously is a easy one, but no, it’s honestly not that too frequent.

00:01:22:24 – 00:01:27:15

Zack Oates

That if we quick once you give it two looks, you’re like, oh that’s not banana.

00:01:27:15 – 00:01:29:08

James Bonnano

That’s. Yeah, exactly.

00:01:29:10 – 00:01:51:10

Zack Oates

Well very cool. I’m just excited to chat because one of the things that we talk about a lot is from a marketing perspective, if you don’t have your operations buttoned up, what actually happens is you are paying for people to come in and have a one star experience. Once they have that experience, they share it online because they’re three times more likely to share negative in a positive.

00:01:51:12 – 00:02:07:07

Zack Oates

So you may actually be marketing spending dollars to lose money because you’re going to lose 26 guests for every negative experience you have. And so talk to me about the importance of operations to you and how that relates to the guest experience, in your opinion.

00:02:07:07 – 00:02:28:15

James Bonnano

Yeah, sure. I mean, my director marketing says it all the time. You know, we can have all this crazy marketing and local style marketing in the community in these segmentations and driving frequency and foot traffic. But if we’re not nailing the operations and the guest experience, then it’s all for nothing. And we’re spinning our wheels here. So the guest experience is the biggest piece of the puzzle here for sure.

00:02:28:17 – 00:02:45:09

Zack Oates

And what do you look out to when you’re thinking about the guest experience and you’re thinking about the operations aspect of it? If you were to go in and let’s say that you buy a ten location restaurant tomorrow, what are some of the low hanging fruit that you would go to to look at? Hey, is this brand doing well or not?

00:02:45:09 – 00:02:47:14

Zack Oates

And what can we do to improve it?

00:02:47:16 – 00:03:14:08

James Bonnano

Well, if I were to buy a ten year chain, that’s a good question. If I had not knowing the chain and being, let’s say at a market, I mean, similar to any guest, right? Like I’m going to go online and look at their online reputation and kind of figure out, is there recurring themes in this place, maybe have great food, but just missing on service or the missing on cleanliness or what’s making that brand miss on their promise to their guests?

00:03:14:08 – 00:03:38:13

James Bonnano

So I think looking at the guest experience, I mean, for me, operating a little over 20 something restaurants and I can have all SOPs and training, it’s all about the leader in the restaurant. It’s all about the GM in the restaurant who is setting the tone for that store. And you can see it within a brand, under performing store, within that brand.

00:03:38:15 – 00:03:59:16

James Bonnano

A lot of times it traces back to that leader of the store. So they’re the ones that are setting the tone of the culture in the store, which when the rest of the team in that store, they’re going to permeate just how that person is leading the store. If there’s drama, if there’s clutter, if there’s harassment, or people aren’t just enjoying their time being there, that’s going to permeate to the guests.

00:03:59:16 – 00:04:21:20

James Bonnano

So I think having the right GM’s, we’re putting a lot of focus and attention to make sure we have the right leaders in the stores, making sure we’re hiring a players because, I mean, every step of that guest experience, whether they’re calling the store or approaching the store, the ambiance of the store, the temperature, the lighting, our tap on brand sports is very important to us.

00:04:21:20 – 00:04:32:06

James Bonnano

So as their sport games throughout the week, if we don’t have the right game on, we can have the best food in the world. But if we don’t have the right game on, that’s a poor guest experience, right?

00:04:32:06 – 00:04:38:14

Zack Oates

Yeah. I mean, if the Giants are playing the Niners and you got on the Eagles, there is game. That one’s going to care.

00:04:38:16 – 00:04:47:20

James Bonnano

Being a diehard Giants fan they’re on tonight. Maybe they would rather if they’re not being honest. Yeah it’s been a tough it’s been a tough road the past 10 or 15 years that.

00:04:48:00 – 00:05:06:22

Zack Oates

I’m going to hang out with a former giant legend tonight. Actually a man that you met, he’s flying out here to Utah. So anyway, but I think that looking at this, one of the things that we’ve always said in this podcast, and we’ve heard it numerous times and it’s said all over the place, but it’s so true. The guest experience cannot exceed the employee experience.

00:05:06:24 – 00:05:26:13

Zack Oates

And the number one factor of is that employee, happy or not, is based on do they have the tools, the training, the support to be successful. And if you’re giving it to them, they’re going to be happy. And I love how you said we got to bring in a players. I’d love to get your thoughts on this, because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on what an A player is.

00:05:26:15 – 00:05:32:01

Zack Oates

What do you look for in an A player? How do you know if someone is in a play if they got it or not?

00:05:32:03 – 00:05:55:15

James Bonnano

Sure. You know, I just think our hospitality group is Upstream Hospitality, right. So the name where that comes from is we’re looking for people who don’t want to be average or don’t want to settle and kind of go take the easy road and go downstream. But we want people to be great and we want them to fight the current, and we want them to be in that top 5%, the top 1%.

00:05:55:15 – 00:06:26:23

James Bonnano

So like, that’s going to take you to fight upstream. That’s where our whole hospitality group name came from is. We’re looking to find leaders and people in this organization who want that upstream mentality to fight upstream. So we’re just looking for people who are willing to put in that extra effort. We’ll show you the functional tools of your job to do your job, but having that mentality where you’re willing to put in that extra effort, that’s harder to teach, that’s something that comes from within them.

00:06:27:00 – 00:06:48:04

Zack Oates

And one of the things that I 100% agree and I love that, and one of the things I’ve seen is that the way that you can tell is I feel like you look at a players and every a player that I know is trying to become an A-plus player. They’re always trying to do things different. B players are usually okay being B players.

00:06:48:04 – 00:07:06:09

Zack Oates

You may have a few that you can coach up to being a player, but a lot of them are just like they’re okay being a B player, the C players. The problem is they think they’re already A+ players. And when you think about that, it’s like you look for those telltale signs of what are they doing to improve from an engineering standpoint.

00:07:06:09 – 00:07:20:16

Zack Oates

When I find engineers that I’m like, hey, what do you do on the weekends? And they’re like, oh, man, I coded up this thing that was looking at this or I’m, I’m vibe coding with. I test that out. Those are a players because they’re trying to sharpen the saw all the time.

00:07:20:22 – 00:07:42:24

James Bonnano

Totally on their own time. They’re home and they’re trying to learn how to take that next step. And I love some of our team members say, hey, you know, I’ve been you mentioned I, I’ve been messing with AI and they’re exactly what you said. They’re sharpening their tools because their DNA is a player’s. They’re trying to progress. And when we’re a growth company and growing, we need leaders to grow with us.

00:07:42:24 – 00:07:46:13

James Bonnano

Right. So just love people want to put that effort in.

00:07:46:15 – 00:08:04:20

Zack Oates

So in your interview process is highly recommend. Like asking about that, asking about what else they do to unwind. What are they reading? What are they listening to? What are they doing to try to expand the horizons? I think that’s so important. And what are some tactics that you’ve used to improve the guest experience?

00:08:04:22 – 00:08:26:09

James Bonnano

Sure. I think we’ll going into speaking about having the right leaders is are we developing those leaders? What are we doing to assist and supplement them, to sharpen their tools? And just even recently, in a couple of weeks, we have really kind of dove into, I mean, just AI and what it can spit out and save so much time.

00:08:26:09 – 00:08:46:05

James Bonnano

We’ve really been developing more curriculum trainings, having them look at different styles of leadership and giving examples of, hey, if you’re a manager, if a dishwasher shows up but you’re a leader if you’re developing them to become a lean cook, right? So I.

00:08:46:05 – 00:08:47:17

Zack Oates

Love that you like a totally.

00:08:47:17 – 00:09:09:15

James Bonnano

Different statement that it’s like, hey, you know, you’re kind of just going through the motions of managing your store if you’re doing XYZ. But to become a leader and progress and take that next step, here are some things you could be doing that helps develop you as well as your people. So, you know, to answer your question, I is helping a lot.

00:09:09:17 – 00:09:34:06

Zack Oates

And that’s something that we’ve been really excited about it ovations. Like we’ve put out a lot of stuff with AI, but I think the future is becoming crazy. I mean, we’re working with some of the foremost experts on AI and building out these incredible tools, and it is mind blowing what is going to become so normal over the next couple of years.

00:09:34:08 – 00:09:54:18

James Bonnano

Yes. I mean, I couldn’t agree more with you. Like all this stuff, even today. I was just thinking a year ago people would these very low level things if they have oh, this is how we’re using AI. And now it’s like that’s just common practice in so many people’s lives and it’s just progressing them. And it’s just exciting to see kind of where it’s all leading to.

00:09:54:20 – 00:10:06:14

Zack Oates

Yeah, and we’re really excited to be launching some new stuff and excited to share that with you. But right now you guys are using ovations. I’d love to get your feedback. We’re a feedback company. What do you think about ovation? How is ovation helpful for you?

00:10:06:16 – 00:10:27:09

James Bonnano

Huge huge tool. Not just saying that I’ve been a huge fan. You’ve known that. I’ve told other brands about it as a multi-unit operator, and when you have a few stores, you inevitably have your hand on the pulse. When you start getting to your fifth store. 10 to 15 store 20 store, 25th store, I personally physically can’t be in all the stores.

00:10:27:09 – 00:11:04:17

James Bonnano

I can personally see every guest experience because it’s just not possible. So to have a tool like ovation where in real time I’m getting real time feedback and it’s giving me insight in not that it’s just a problem, but a platform that gives me the ability to kind of hone in on different areas of the guest experience, whether it’s cleanliness in a store or food quality, order, accuracy, all those different things allows my above store operators to be able to really get in there, assist the stores for me to have a pulse of what’s going on, and then for us to have the ability to recover that gas instantly when at the end of the

00:11:04:17 – 00:11:24:19

James Bonnano

day, the guest, in my opinion, feels like they’re really like sending the email to corporate headquarters. But in reality is our management is texting them back within 20 minutes. I mean, that type of service is just incredible. So I just love seeing all the guests we recover when we have a situation. So it’s been a great.

00:11:24:21 – 00:11:44:05

Zack Oates

And you and your team are just so on it. And it’s crazy to see when you have that fast response time, just the amount of loyalty that that builds with the guests to know that they’re cared about, they’re seen, they’re known. And then all of a sudden it’s not tap room, but it’s like, oh, this is like, this is my spot.

00:11:44:07 – 00:11:47:07

Zack Oates

This is where the manager texted me, I like I got it in.

00:11:47:13 – 00:12:01:13

James Bonnano

I someone comes in the day and someone just said the fact that you care to respond and responded that quickly. Thank you I know stuff happens. You got a guest for life. I’m like, oh wow, amazing, right? Like that’s what the tool supposed to do. And it does. It’s awesome.

00:12:01:15 – 00:12:07:23

Zack Oates

I love that. And are there any like operational things that you’ve changed as a result of the feedback that you’ve received?

00:12:08:00 – 00:12:33:08

James Bonnano

Sure. Yeah. I mean, you talk about it kind of highlighting order accuracy in a world where delivery take out, it just grows every single year. When I’m able to kind of pinpoint one store that might have an order accuracy problem, then it allows me to go in there and see kind of what’s happening, whether it’s a team member related or they’re kind of just following a different process, or maybe even their, kitchen layout.

00:12:33:08 – 00:12:47:22

James Bonnano

We kind of did tweak a kitchen layout just because there the amount of takeout really spiked, and they were just having trouble with the physical space, which is causing inaccuracies during peak periods. So it allows us to catch things quicker.

00:12:47:24 – 00:13:09:07

Zack Oates

And that’s something where again, it is amazing to be able to recover guests. And so proud of the team and everyone that we’ve been able to work with. We’ve crossed the threshold of a million guests, recovered a million people who had an unhappy experience, were able to get a response from someone using ovation and come back in verified, spend that money.

00:13:09:09 – 00:13:37:21

Zack Oates

And that’s amazing. But it’s only just scratching the surface. Our vision is we want to save 100 million guests and elevate this entire industry, but we only do it in partnership with people who care because we talked about sharpening the salt earlier. We’re sore, but it takes people like you who truly care about the guest experience, who truly want to make it better and are trying to make a mark in helping people’s day get better and building that community.

00:13:37:21 – 00:13:47:06

Zack Oates

That that’s what elevates everything. And so just it’s an honor to be partnered with you, James, and I’m grateful that we’re learning a lot from you using the tool now.

00:13:47:06 – 00:13:53:15

James Bonnano

It’s been a great tool. It’s helped build our business, and I’m grateful for that. So thank you.

00:13:53:17 – 00:13:58:05

Zack Oates

Well, James, who is someone that deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry.

00:13:58:07 – 00:14:14:14

James Bonnano

Which is a great local brand here on the island in Queens, New York called French Workshop. Their, French bakery just putting out there. They’re part of a much larger international group, but they put out an incredible product and something you should check out next time you’re.

00:14:14:16 – 00:14:20:24

Zack Oates

Oh, wow, this place looks boujee. Look it. Oh, they got you didn’t tell me they had desserts there too.

00:14:21:02 – 00:14:21:24

James Bonnano

Oh it’s. Yes.

00:14:22:02 – 00:14:32:08

Zack Oates

Okay. And look at those macaroons. I’m so about this place. Oh my gosh, I’m just. All right I’m going to spend the next like ten minutes just.

00:14:32:10 – 00:14:34:01

James Bonnano

Yeah. They’re looking at me. Okay.

00:14:34:01 – 00:14:54:02

Zack Oates

I, saving this spot. And by the way, for all listeners, whenever you hear of a location like that, make sure to save that location. Go to Google Maps and click Save and say, James Banana told me to come here because then next time that you go anywhere around Queens, you could see that place and be like, oh yeah, let’s go here.

00:14:54:07 – 00:15:09:04

Zack Oates

Anyway, just something that I do because I get so many restaurant recommendations and I don’t usually do this, James. But I also want to throw out a ovation at Kathleen Wood, who the first time that we met in 3D, that was at your place at her conference, right?

00:15:09:06 – 00:15:28:07

James Bonnano

Yeah. I mean, I think we might have met a conference or two, but as far as the first time you came into one of our restaurants was at a, event she was hosting, and we’ve been working with Kathleen for it’s actually five years. It was fall of, Covid 2020 then. Amazing experience. Can’t say anything more cause I’ve been highly anyone I’ve ever done business with.

00:15:28:07 – 00:15:32:12

James Bonnano

She’s been an amazing asset working with us. So grateful for her, too.

00:15:32:14 – 00:15:38:11

Zack Oates

Yeah, absolutely. Well, James, where can people go to find and follow you and your bevy of brands?

00:15:38:11 – 00:15:46:00

James Bonnano

So of course, LinkedIn. But for the brands upstream, NJ.com for tap room, specifically tap room of Nico.

00:15:46:02 – 00:15:53:19

Zack Oates

Well, James, for showing us that hospitality is something that is worth swimming upstream for. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Giving Ovation.

00:15:53:21 – 00:15:55:09

James Bonnano

Awesome. Thanks very much, Zach.

00:15:55:11 – 00:16:17:24

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.