Jeff Galletly, Chairman and CEO of Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, joins Zack Oates to share how the brand is scaling across both restaurants and retail while staying focused on what matters most. With experience spanning Pepsi, private equity, and major restaurant brands, Jeff brings a unique perspective on building a modern food business.

Restaurants as the “Front Porch” (02:10)

“These are true restaurant quality dumplings.”

Jeff explains that even as the brand expands into retail, the restaurant remains the core of the business. It is where guests first experience the product and where the brand earns trust.

Fixing the Foundation First (04:50)

“Our Google rating was a 3.85.”

Jeff shares how the team focused heavily on improving food, operations, and systems to raise guest satisfaction. That work led to a significant increase in ratings across the system.

Balancing CPG and Restaurants (06:50)

“It comes down to occasion.”

Rather than competing, Jeff describes how retail and restaurants serve different use cases. Guests may discover the brand in stores but still seek the full experience in person.

Consistency Across Every Channel (10:45)

“Quality control is imperative.”

From in-store dining to frozen products, Jeff emphasizes the importance of delivering a consistent experience. Every touchpoint must reflect the same level of quality.

It All Comes Back to the Food (13:20)

“At the end of the day, we’re a food business.”

Jeff keeps it simple. No matter how strong the brand or strategy, success depends on serving food people genuinely love. Everything else supports that core idea.

This conversation highlights a clear takeaway. Growth strategies, channels, and innovation matter, but none of it works without a strong foundation. For Jeff, that foundation is simple: great food, executed consistently, across every experience.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-galletly-792b523/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/brooklyndumplingshop/about/

https://www.brooklyndumplingshop.com/

Transcript

00:00:00:06 – 00:00:25:14

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation at the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zack Oates, and each week I get to chat with industry experts 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 exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

00:00:25:20 – 00:00:52:17

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And this podcast today has been. I feel like years in the making. I met Jeff Galletly who’s the chairman and CEO of Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, a few years ago and was super impressed because he was at RBI for years doing both domestic and international with coffee with burgers. He was with private equity. He has with Pepsi, with Pepsi lighting.

00:00:52:18 – 00:01:11:16

Zack Oates

He has had such an interesting career. And Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is doing some fascinating things, both in the retail booming as well as CPG. And so I had to invite him on. And Jeff, I know it’s hard to spill all the secrets in 18 minutes, but we’re going to try to get as many from them as we can.

00:01:11:16 – 00:01:13:00

Zack Oates

So how are you today?

00:01:13:02 – 00:01:16:24

Jeff Galletly

Amazing. Thank you so much, Zach, for the lovely introduction and for having me on.

00:01:17:01 – 00:01:26:17

Zack Oates

Awesome. Well, I’m super excited for people who aren’t as familiar with Brooklyn Dumpling Shop. Do you want to give us a little taste on what’s going on? And again, touch on the retail in the CPG.

00:01:26:19 – 00:01:49:22

Jeff Galletly

Brooklyn zombie shop companies only just about four and a half years old. The first location opened in May 2021. Since then, we’ve grown to 22 operating locations now coast to coast. We got New York, Jersey, Philly, Miami, Dallas. We got nine open in Western Canada and a lot more on the way. So we started and reborn as a restaurant company over the past couple of years.

00:01:49:23 – 00:02:22:13

Jeff Galletly

We have been also building out consumer products. So we have a regional density strategy here in Northeast. We’re in places like Walmart and Shoprite. Stew Leonard’s, a few other local retailers. We actually have a few more coming online over the next couple of months. So that CPG business kind of growing out from there. I actually got on board here back in the end of 2023, when we got some investment from Kevin O’Leary and a core group of investors that comes from Kevin Syed, a guy by the name of Matt Higgins, who runs a fund called RC ventures that were a part of their portfolio.

00:02:22:15 – 00:02:39:21

Jeff Galletly

And from there, that’s where I got on board in June 2024. We’ve grown about five x in that time period. And, hopefully, you know, folks having come across us will either open a restaurant near them soon or at least be in their frozen aisle in the not so distant future.

00:02:39:23 – 00:02:47:22

Zack Oates

Awesome. Like that though, Jeff. How do you split your time between the traditional restaurant and CPG?

00:02:47:24 – 00:03:05:22

Jeff Galletly

Yeah, I think it’s probably fair to say I have at least maybe two full time jobs. The brand is the same. The products are similar in terms of the core products, but ultimately very different go to market strategies. And so, you know, kind of doubling up on a lot of things. But the way that we view this is, you know, first and foremost we are a restaurant company.

00:03:05:22 – 00:03:30:00

Jeff Galletly

These are true restaurant quality dumplings that we serve on the CPGs side. But the restaurants are the front porch of the business to the single greatest billboard that we can have. And we have four corporate stores. The balance or franchise or license. And so we want to be, best in class franchisor, and licensed partner to those partners who have chosen to invest their capital and time with us.

00:03:30:00 – 00:03:57:13

Jeff Galletly

And so we take that very seriously, treat their capital very preciously, and want to make sure that that’s which is the most visible thing that we have, is firing on all cylinders where executing with phenomenal guest experience, every guest every time, and that we build the brand that way. And then if you can’t make it through Brooklyn’s Optic Shop or we don’t have one in where you live, you can order us at your local grocery store or online here pretty soon.

00:03:57:15 – 00:04:08:17

Jeff Galletly

And that’s something we’re really excited about. But everything we do, it starts as a restaurant business, and then make sure that we bring that restaurant quality to us wherever we show up.

00:04:08:19 – 00:04:28:10

Zack Oates

And when you think about the guest experience, because, I mean, you come in, you dine in versus you get to go versus you get delivered. I mean, like, it’s hard enough for restaurants to figure those things out. And now you’re throwing in grocery and like shipping and I guess soon shipping nationwide, right?

00:04:28:12 – 00:04:53:22

Jeff Galletly

Yeah. Yeah, we’ve already done a lot, actually with Kevin O’Leary on QVC. So, you know, folks could could order it on QVC now kind of wherever you are. But that’s the thing. It’s quality control is imperative. We’ve made huge strides in the business. You know, just very candidly, when I got on board here, even our restaurants, you know, we focus on Google rating as the main entry point for a lot of people into our brands, Google work and shop.

00:04:53:23 – 00:05:17:09

Jeff Galletly

Obviously, there’s other means that people come to us, but if you start there, our Google rating was a 3.85 as a system across the restaurants that we had opened back in Jan 2024 cumulatively. So even including all those were finished March at about a 4.31, based on a trailing 90 basis. Trailing 90 days, we’re at about a 4.8 for our entire system.

00:05:17:11 – 00:05:36:06

Jeff Galletly

So we’ve really made huge progress there, and it took a lot of work, right? We changed a lot of our food, our menu, our operating model, our tech stack, pretty much everything that you could change got changed and upgraded and evolved quite a bit from when we were much more nascent as a brand to now. But that’s what people see and that’s what matters.

00:05:36:06 – 00:05:54:12

Jeff Galletly

And so you’re right to think, okay, how do we then translate something like that into the grocery aisle. And, you know, it starts with having great packaging that’s going to catch someone’s eye. They pull us off. They bring us home. That moment of truth, a crypto product to try it, making sure that we have the highest quality products.

00:05:54:14 – 00:06:11:14

Jeff Galletly

We actually did quite a bit of work there, you know, don’t need to get into so much of the specifics, but things like of a dumpling like dough to filling ratio and the flavor profiles and the protein content and going all natural and doing all those things to make sure that we were showing up on the shelf in a really strong right.

00:06:11:16 – 00:06:19:18

Jeff Galletly

And so we made great progress there. And, we know people love our food. Our job is to get it to them as efficiently and profitably as we can.

00:06:19:20 – 00:06:42:12

Zack Oates

Now, this is something that’s really interesting thinking about, because you’re obviously trying to own your do a great job in the franchise space, and you’re also trying to do a great job in the retail space. Do those things ever compete? Like if I’m a franchisee and I’m looking to open up some locations and you’re like, oh, hey, by the way, good news, we’re going to be in the grocery store down the street from you.

00:06:42:12 – 00:06:49:07

Zack Oates

And I’m like, wait a second. Like, is there any fear about that cannibalization or what what advice would you give to people who are thinking about that?

00:06:49:11 – 00:07:11:19

Jeff Galletly

Great question. In a prior life, I came from a business that had both CPG and restaurants, and we actually did an analysis, and we found that the zip codes where we had the highest CPG sales were also the zip codes of our highest sales restaurants. And so ultimately, it comes down to occasion. Right. And what’s the occasion that we’re satisfying?

00:07:11:19 – 00:07:40:10

Jeff Galletly

Interesting. The dumpling category categories growing quite a bit right now. We run the frozen side. Other folks are doing, some interesting things. Ultimately, the way I view this as a you’re satisfying an occasion with a customer, somebody who wants to go to the restaurant, have us prepare it in, you know, an expert way for them. That convenience now from the restaurant, they might choose to dine in an increasing amount of our sales or coming from third party delivery or in particular, catering.

00:07:40:12 – 00:08:02:04

Jeff Galletly

So we’re satisfying those different occasions that kind of at home, you know, after school or late night occasion where you’re pulling something out of the freezer, bit of a different occasion, obviously different price point and the way I’d think about this is so small today as a brand. There’s infinite runway for more penetration and having the brand show up in more places.

00:08:02:06 – 00:08:32:21

Jeff Galletly

An ultimately, you know, synergistically working to both drive more awareness. Oh my God, these restaurant quality dumplings. Right. I can get in my freezer aisle. That’s amazing. We can satisfy those occasions. And then of course with that growth comes economies of scale purchasing power, cost implications. So we do it all really synergistically on the brand side, on the business side, and ultimately believe that, you know, our franchisees and other folks understand that as well and are excited about the brand showing up more places.

00:08:32:21 – 00:08:38:10

Jeff Galletly

And we’re really excited with progress are made and a few big announcements coming in the not so distant future.

00:08:38:13 – 00:08:57:00

Zack Oates

That’s awesome, because as you actually didn’t know about that with the CPG and how that would sell it more, but I think that makes sense because I mean, like, I’m going to the grocery aisle and I see your restaurant brand in there. Number one, I’m going to trust because I’ve seen them. Right. So I’m going to trust it like, oh, this is probably going to be pretty good.

00:08:57:00 – 00:09:35:19

Zack Oates

If they could open up their own restaurant. And then when I go to the restaurant, like I love being able to see there’s more things on the menu that you can’t get in the grocery store. And so it kind of has that combo of fact, which I think is awesome. And on the flip side, if you don’t have other good stuff in the restaurant, then it’s tough because I look at there are some places where they sell the ability to make like their best thing in the grocery store, and now I don’t go to those restaurants as often because the restaurant itself, it’s like, I would go for that one thing that they sell, and

00:09:35:19 – 00:10:04:02

Zack Oates

now I can get it in the grocery store. I don’t go to Nathan’s hot dogs, for example, because if I want a Nathan’s hot dog, it’s not going to be that different if I go in versus if I get it. I don’t go to Red lobster as often now. They started selling the box in store, right. But I think it’s because, Jeff, you have spent such a profound amount of time building out the dining experience, and that’s go experience and allowing people to have more than just that one thing.

00:10:04:08 – 00:10:08:02

Zack Oates

You get the whole meal, you get the whole experience which draws people in. Right.

00:10:08:08 – 00:10:28:09

Jeff Galletly

And that for us, we’re Brooklyn’s epic shop bites bowls, boba on the restaurant side. So a dumplings, a delicious bite or a bite. Now you can get our version of a sandwich in a bow bar and you can then make it a meal with sides or boba. And we also have some incredible fast casual quality bowls that people love.

00:10:28:09 – 00:10:49:05

Jeff Galletly

So book a shot, bites, bowls, boba. And we’re not obviously doing that in the frozen. We’ve also done a lot to change our operating model. And before people who heard about Pokemon Shop from years ago, they think about this thing that we call the Automat. It’s basically a locker system that, you know, heating or cool the food would sit in while you wait to come pick it up.

00:10:49:07 – 00:11:11:04

Jeff Galletly

We’ve actually kind of moved away from that and focus a lot more on really high quality hospitality. Now, guest experience, being really inviting to and warm to folks who walk into our door and is a new brand in so many of these places. Be able to educate guests, walk into our menu, call our fan favorites. We just launched a really big partnership with the mega influencer Keith.

00:11:11:04 – 00:11:34:18

Jeff Galletly

We now the first thing you’ll see is, you know, our Keith Lee Keith’s the menu Keith favorites. Before, it would’ve been really hard to add that interaction because there was this physical piece of machinery that was blocking it. Now it’s not just having great food, but also great hospitality. A really warm, inviting experience for folks that want to dine in with us and that also you can’t really recreate.

00:11:34:20 – 00:11:59:22

Jeff Galletly

But to your point, it kind of builds the overall brand, narrative and story around what conducted shop and how people think about it and the affinity that they have for it. And so, you know, if you think about today, okay, 22 restaurant locations, we’re in about a thousand retail doors now. I think both of those numbers could multiply really significantly before there ever be any type of kind of competition.

00:11:59:22 – 00:12:18:24

Jeff Galletly

And I think again, it’s satisfying. Need states and occasions of consumer demand and we think that they work really synergistically. So for all those reasons we’re really excited about it. I think our franchise community is really excited about it because it’s good for the brand. And I would say if we’re not on that shelf, they’re going to grab somebody else, right?

00:12:18:24 – 00:12:27:07

Jeff Galletly

And they can get someone else’s product there. So it may as well be ours. And we might, as a company, as a system, be participating in the benefits of that.

00:12:27:09 – 00:12:33:08

Zack Oates

I’m excited for it to hit Utah stores, man. That’s what I need. Jeff. I need some Brooklyn dumpling shop out here. Yeah.

00:12:33:08 – 00:12:40:15

Jeff Galletly

So 30 potential Utah franchisees listening. We’ve got a great story to tell. We’ve got an incredible product, and we’d love to speak with you.

00:12:40:17 – 00:13:16:10

Zack Oates

Yeah. There you go. So thinking about the guest experience, what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays. And this is I’m fascinated to get your take on this because again, your career spans from the CPG with Pepsi to the private equity to the giant stores, your giant brands, and now this growing brand and CPG and, you know, dining third party to go like you see the guest experience like the maybe 1% of 1% of restaurant operators has seen.

00:13:16:12 – 00:13:20:13

Zack Oates

So talk to us about what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience?

00:13:20:18 – 00:13:43:05

Jeff Galletly

It’s kind of a big lead up for what I think is going to be a very not profound statement, which is, at the end of the day, we’re a food business. It has to be the food you have to serve, great food that people want. And we could build like a whole apparatus around that, around service modes and convenience price points and all that.

00:13:43:07 – 00:13:59:03

Jeff Galletly

And there’s a value for money equation that we think about a lot that factors in all those things. And what’s the value going to the guest or to the consumer. But at the end of the day, it’s got to be about the food. We have to have food that people love. And so that’s why I kind of going back to first principles.

00:13:59:05 – 00:14:31:11

Jeff Galletly

When I came over here, everything was about the food, getting the food to consistent, high quality, excellent that people really love. And so that’s where we spent the majority of our time and effort in the beginning. And I think with that now we have a great products and we’ve done other work on that, the overall system to make sure that we’re firing on all cylinders when it comes to convenience and, you know, the basics of the operating model when it comes to order accuracy and food quality and friendliness and speed of service and all that.

00:14:31:11 – 00:14:41:24

Jeff Galletly

So we’ve made progress on all those fronts. But at the end of the day, it’s about great food people love, and that’s ultimately what we want to be most known for and what people think about when they think about our brand.

00:14:42:01 – 00:15:06:16

Zack Oates

I mean, actually, I do think that’s pretty profound, Jeff, because, you know, I’ve had almost 500 people on here and the number of people who will say that we’ll talk about the food is the most important part is surprisingly low, because I think that there’s so many things to worry about. But at the end of the day, it’s like, why does that one location, taco place do $5 million a year?

00:15:06:18 – 00:15:13:21

Zack Oates

It’s because the food is that good. It’s not because they have great marketing. Everything else can be forgiven when the food is that good.

00:15:13:23 – 00:15:34:00

Jeff Galletly

I agree with that totally. And I think there’s examples of this out in the market. If you think about like, what are brands who are brands that that we admire, that we aspire to be? You know, we think about brands like chick fil A or In and Out or Raising Cane’s, you know, they’re not necessarily the fastest. They don’t necessarily have that.

00:15:34:02 – 00:15:50:05

Jeff Galletly

There’s not necessarily on other things. But like in Italy, people love their food and they love the price point, which they’re paying for that food. And they like kind of the overall experience around it. And so as we think about who do we want to be as we grow up, there’s a lot of brands that we look to that I think can nail that, that equation.

00:15:50:05 – 00:16:08:20

Jeff Galletly

But that day, people love their food and they want to go eat it. And to your point, I think they’re probably willing to forgive or slightly overcome certain things to an extent within reason. And we want to be good across the board. But it all starts with the food, and that’s what matters most. Of course, now it’s like, okay, what are accuracy, right?

00:16:08:22 – 00:16:28:23

Jeff Galletly

The food that I ordered, did I actually get that. Like food quality was a need to standard. And so for us we’ve done a lot of work on things like SOPs, training and all that to make sure that we can consistently execute the food to make sure speed of service. You know, people, we’re a fast casual brand. They don’t necessarily want to wait around forever.

00:16:28:23 – 00:16:43:06

Jeff Galletly

So we’ve made a lot of progress on all those. And in spite of the other day, it’s about great food. Get it to people and charge them a price that they feel good about to build that loyalty and frequency, and make sure that we don’t have a leaky bucket of people coming in that never return.

00:16:43:08 – 00:17:01:03

Zack Oates

And I love that because as you’re talking about your team and it’s like, okay, we’ve got a huge line of people, what do we do? Do we focus on speed or do we focus on food quality? It’s like the number one thing is food. People can forgive it if it’s a little bit later than they were expecting. If the food is right.

00:17:01:03 – 00:17:20:04

Zack Oates

But if you’re going to pump out the wrong type of food or inconsistent food, that’s unforgivable. And so I think that’s a great it lets people when you put the food first, it lets them realize the other things can fall in line. And actually we have customers who there’s a hard to argue that Dave’s Hot Chicken isn’t doing pretty well.

00:17:20:06 – 00:17:40:04

Zack Oates

And what’s interesting is like speed of service is not one of their metrics that they track because they’re like, I want it to be right. I don’t want to rush my team. I want it to be right. And I think that the goal is obviously both. Yeah, but I think it’s amazing that if you have to choose, what do you put first?

00:17:40:04 – 00:17:59:21

Jeff Galletly

Yeah, I mean like as a metric we do track speed of service because I think we were so high in the beginning. We were at closer to like nine minutes as a system. Now we’ve gotten our average ticket time down to about six minutes, which I think is like a reasonable amount of time. Not we’re not like pounding the drum that we got to be at 3 minutes or 4 minutes, right?

00:17:59:21 – 00:18:14:20

Jeff Galletly

Yeah, yeah. So the speed of sort of standard of about five minutes. 30s. So the system average is still above that. So we still want to move people in that direction, but we don’t want to do it at the expense of everything else. Right. And so it was like kind of we were at a really, really high place.

00:18:14:21 – 00:18:24:19

Jeff Galletly

Let’s move that. That’s more and reason got a little bit more ready to go. But if we can get there and then fire on all cylinders and everything else, we feel like that’s a really good place to be. I love it, Jeff.

00:18:24:19 – 00:18:37:03

Zack Oates

I feel like we have just barely dipped this dumpling in the soy sauce of wisdom, but I do. We do need to wrap up here, so I want to understand who is someone in the restaurant industry that you think we should follow? Who deserves an ovation?

00:18:37:05 – 00:18:39:05

Jeff Galletly

Speaking of brains that I admire.

00:18:39:07 – 00:19:04:14

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation at the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zach Oates, and each week I get to chat with industry experts 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 restaurant and exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

00:19:04:20 – 00:19:31:18

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation. Up.com. And this podcast today has been, I feel like, years in the making. I met Jeff Galette, who’s the chairman and CEO of Brooklyn Dumpling Shop a few years ago and was super impressed because he was at RBI for years doing both domestic and international with coffee with burgers. He was with private equity. He has with Pepsi, with Pepsi lighting.

00:19:31:19 – 00:19:50:17

Zack Oates

He has had such an interesting career. And Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is doing some fascinating things, both in the retail boom as well as CPG. And so I had to invite him on. And Jeff, I know it’s hard to spill all the secrets in 18 minutes, but we’re going to try to get as many from them as we can.

00:19:50:17 – 00:19:52:00

Zack Oates

So how are you today?

00:19:52:02 – 00:19:55:24

Jeff Galletly

Amazing. Thank you so much, Zach, for the lovely introduction and for having me on.

00:19:56:01 – 00:20:05:17

Zack Oates

Awesome. Well, I’m super excited for people who aren’t as familiar with Brooklyn Dumpling Shop. Do you want to give us a little taste on what’s going on? And again, touch on the retail in the CPG.

00:20:05:19 – 00:20:27:15

Jeff Galletly

Brooklyn zombie shop companies only just about four and a half years old. The first location opened in May 2021. Since then, we’ve grown to 22 operating locations now coast to coast. We got New York, Jersey, Philly, Miami, Dallas. We got nine open in Western Canada and a lot more on the way. So we started and reborn as a restaurant company.

00:20:27:17 – 00:20:42:12

Jeff Galletly

Over the past couple of years, we have been also building out consumer products. So we have a regional density strategy here in the northeast. We’re in places like Walmart and Shoprite, Stu Leonard’s, a few other local retailers. We actually have a few more coming online over the next couple of months.