Josh Boshard, COO of Savory Fund, shares how his background in tech and franchising shapes the way he builds scalable restaurant brands. From empowering teams with data to creating unforgettable first impressions, Josh outlines how momentum and execution drive long-term guest loyalty.

From Tech to Hospitality (01:12)

Josh explains how his experience in tech influences operations at scale.

“It’s all about experience—whether for the guest or the employee—and the only way I know how to scale that is with tech.”

Franchisee to Franchisor (02:53)

Josh reflects on how his perspective changed from franchisee to investor.

“Now we’re the ones that have to deliver, and that mindset shift pushes constant progression.”

The Role of Momentum (05:54)

Why guest experience starts the moment someone walks in the door.

“The most important part of guest experience is momentum. If the greeting is awkward or slow, you’ve already lost.”

Scaling With Founders (04:45)

Savory’s growth strategy relies on founders who know their brands best.

“Partnering with founders is our secret sauce—they know what the experience should feel like.”

Data That Drives Action (10:07)

Josh breaks down how feedback loops and A/B testing drive brand-wide improvements.

“We compare brands, stacks, and tactics to find what actually moves the needle.”

Fixing Guest Experience Issues in Real Time (14:07)

How they use insights to identify trends and improve leadership.

“We saw managers leaving early, and Ovation data helped us pinpoint that and fix it fast.”

Empowering, Not Policing, Teams (15:55)

Feedback is used to uplift—not punish—employees.

“We use data to get our teams to the next level. It’s a partnership, not a crackdown.”

Recognizing Hospitality Icons (17:25)

Josh gives an ovation to Chef Joey Maggiore of The Maggiore Group.

“Everything he builds is larger than life—and deeply personal.”

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshboshard/

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

https://www.instagram.com/savoryfund/

https://www.savoryfund.com/

Transcript

00:00:00:06 – 00:00:22:23

Zack Oates

Welcome to give an Ovation the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zach Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover their strategies and tactics to help you create a five star guest experience. This podcast is sponsored by ovation. The operations and guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants. It gives you all the insights you need without annoying your guests with all the questions.

00:00:22:23 – 00:00:38:01

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And today we have someone who is not just an expert in the industry, but a hero of hair. The COO of the Savory Fund, Josh Bouchard. Welcome to the podcast, man.

00:00:38:03 – 00:00:39:22

Josh Boshard

Zach, so nice to be on.

00:00:39:24 – 00:00:57:03

Zack Oates

And this is so funny because those who listen to this podcast might be thinking, wait, hasn’t Josh been on? It’s like, yeah, I’ve talked about Josh on the podcast, and Josh and I have talked so much that we were at RLC recently, and I was like, hey, you get a t shirt because you were on the podcast and he’s like, I haven’t been on the podcast.

00:00:57:03 – 00:01:12:14

Zack Oates

I was like, there’s no possible way that you haven’t been on the podcast already because I just get the privilege to talk to you quite a bit. And so I feel like I’m always infused with your wisdom, which is one of the benefits of this podcast. But I’m grateful that you’re finally here. Josh.

00:01:12:16 – 00:01:25:21

Josh Boshard

I am the most patient person I’ve just been waiting and I finally got this invite. I’m so excited. So this is like the pinnacle of my career being on ovations.

00:01:25:23 – 00:01:53:11

Zack Oates

Yeah, the pinnacle of a quite illustrious career. I mean, you’ve done some incredible things and you don’t have the traditional restaurant operations background. You actually come from a tech background, well, and exotic cars, but you also have this insurance background, tech background. I would love to get your thoughts on what from your tech background, do you think has helped you be successful as the COO of Savory Fund?

00:01:53:13 – 00:02:26:04

Josh Boshard

You know, what’s interesting is we’re always trying to create that experience, whether it’s for the customer or for the guest or for our employees. It’s all about that experience. And the only way that I know how to do that with scale and number of stores is with tech. And so you take really good products and you build the infrastructure that allows for your employees to succeed, from sourcing onboarding to compliance, but then enabling them to just be next level with our guests.

00:02:26:06 – 00:02:45:12

Zack Oates

And when you look at next level, how do you constantly push your team to get to that next level? Because a lot of times you create great experiences. The brands you have are incredible. You buy brands and you invest in brands that have this seedling and have something that’s already going on, and you take that to the next level.

00:02:45:14 – 00:02:53:03

Zack Oates

But how do you constantly push to that next, the next and next? And is that exhausting or is that exciting?

00:02:53:05 – 00:03:15:12

Josh Boshard

Now, for me, I’m a developer, I’m a maximizer. And in those two things there’s always opportunity for improvement. So as we started our career here in in restaurant, we were franchisees. And a lot of people started that way. And so as franchisees are saying, I wish the franchisor would do this. And if they only did this, we could be that much better.

00:03:15:14 – 00:03:42:07

Josh Boshard

Well, we made that shift to the savory Fund, and we started partnering with founders, and then we started hearing from them their expectations. And now we’ve added this franchise or vertical to savory, where we actually have to put our, make it happen on our side. And that’s an interesting place to be, because now we’re saying we should be doing this because our franchisees expect that.

00:03:42:09 – 00:03:47:06

Josh Boshard

So there’s never a stopping part at savory. It’s always progression.

00:03:47:08 – 00:04:13:09

Zack Oates

And when you look at that progression, what are some things that you do in terms of. And the reason I want to really dig into this is because you guys really do push the envelope and constantly look for new ways to make things better. Is there like a meeting that you have like an innovation meeting? Is there a philosophy, a question that you ask to help spark and push that things to progress forward?

00:04:13:11 – 00:04:21:08

Zack Oates

How would someone take that piece of your culture and say, like, I want to do that in my restaurant? What would you recommend to them?

00:04:21:10 – 00:04:45:09

Josh Boshard

I think for us, partnering with founders who created these brands is a huge piece to what we do. And so if you listen to those partners who say we have to have a surfboard that’s touched Hawaiian waters that we buy from a shop in Hawaii, because that’s a part of the experience. That’s something that I could never, never put in a motos.

00:04:45:09 – 00:04:55:09

Josh Boshard

Right. For instance, that’s something that I can never say. I’ve never even been to Hawaii. So someone who you and know, isn’t it crazy?

00:04:55:11 – 00:04:56:17

Zack Oates

Seriously?

00:04:56:19 – 00:05:20:21

Josh Boshard

Yeah. Seriously. Never been to Hawaii. We go to Mexico. My wife’s from Florida, and so we go to a all the time. That’s where we go, but never Hawaii. I’m patiently waiting. Here we go. It is about those founders who care about their brand more than anyone else. And that here there’s a secret sauce at savory. And when we partner with those founders, they tell us what needs to happen.

00:05:20:22 – 00:05:29:03

Josh Boshard

They tell us the experience that needs to be there. And then we just go find great tech. We find partners in the industry to go make that happen.

00:05:29:05 – 00:05:54:13

Zack Oates

And that’s something where you’ve always done a good job of making sure that the technology does not get in the way of the employees and the guests, but making sure that it enhances the employee and the guest experience. And so I’d love to understand, as you’re thinking about the moves that you make and the guest experience, what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays?

00:05:54:15 – 00:06:06:21

Josh Boshard

The most important part of guest experiences momentum. And I’ll tell you why. When I went skydiving for the first time, I realized something unexpected. The most terrifying part of skydiving was messing.

00:06:06:21 – 00:06:07:21

Zack Oates

Up the freefall.

00:06:07:23 – 00:06:33:15

Josh Boshard

No. Yeah. That’s true. It’s. Yeah. You wear helmets, you get. No. But it wasn’t. A freefall is actually standing at the edge of the door has. Oh, yeah. Right. So once you jump, momentum takes over every second after that feels natural. It feels exhilarating. Right. And free. It’s the same. And our guest experience today. So the hardest part isn’t serving the food or delivering the service.

00:06:33:17 – 00:06:54:03

Josh Boshard

It’s getting the experience started with energy. And you do this really well, Zak. But you have to have clarity. You have to have connection. It’s the greeting out the door. Or if that’s awkward or slow, you’ve lost all the momentum. Not going to have that customer experience. But if you start strong starts with a smile. It starts with that first welcome.

00:06:54:05 – 00:06:59:10

Josh Boshard

You create that momentum that carries that experience forward in a positive way.

00:06:59:12 – 00:07:23:22

Zack Oates

That’s awesome, because is totally right that when you are looking at what we need to do to get things started, when you walk in the door and you’re greeted by someone, it will affect how you are. Like I always had a we had a group of friends and every time that somebody would walk into our apartment, we would all applaud and we just like we literally gave them an ovation.

00:07:23:24 – 00:07:44:15

Zack Oates

It was just so fun because they would come in and it was just like it would change the day during Covid for like the first six months of Covid, whenever I got in a meeting with someone, I would start the meeting off by like chanting their name like Josh, Josh, Josh, Josh just because I knew that everyone was having a tough time.

00:07:44:15 – 00:08:03:07

Zack Oates

Everyone. And to just have like even though is a little tacky, to have that little bump of energy like feels good. And if you walk into a place and they’re like, Welcome to Mars and it feels inauthentic, it’s almost worse than not saying anything right? Oh, that’s gotta go for it.

00:08:03:09 – 00:08:22:01

Josh Boshard

Yeah. If you ever walk into a restaurant and there’s no music, you’re like, what is off you? So I’m not doing something. And that makes the big difference. So in that if you’re creating that with the energy and the positivity and the momentum on that side of things with your employees, you’re winning.

00:08:22:03 – 00:08:38:00

Zack Oates

That is such a unique answer. It makes so much sense. I think a lot of that starts with your pre shift meeting. Doing that is a great way to get people excited and get them pumped up. I remember when I did Summer sales before we went out. Did you ever do summer sales? The door to door knocking I didn’t, you know, good for you.

00:08:38:00 – 00:08:39:10

Zack Oates

That’s because you probably loved.

00:08:39:12 – 00:08:40:23

Josh Boshard

Insurance and that was.

00:08:41:00 – 00:08:41:09

Zack Oates

Not the.

00:08:41:09 – 00:08:43:21

Josh Boshard

Way to go.

00:08:43:22 – 00:09:08:04

Zack Oates

Well. Well, it led you to Andrew, which is great. Right? But before you go out there and get door slammed in your face and get yelled at, all day, we had a meeting and we would, like, chant and pump each other up. And again, it was a little bit tacky, but it was so good to have that start to the day and then use that as it got depleted throughout the rest of the day from getting yelled at.

00:09:08:04 – 00:09:36:20

Zack Oates

So what an interesting concept of momentum and think about that guest walking in for the first time. And what do they feel before they get the food, before they really experience the service? Right. And that’s really momentum. I love that now, you’ve done a lot of things because the Savory Fund, you guys have a dozen brands now you’re building a restaurant empire.

00:09:36:20 – 00:09:47:01

Zack Oates

I mean like it’s crazy. And so you’ve obviously implemented a lot of tactics with a lot of different brands. What are some tactics that you would use to improve the guest experience nowadays?

00:09:47:03 – 00:10:07:18

Josh Boshard

It’s interesting. Zach, in our acquisition model, we’re acquiring brands. We’re meeting with tons of of restaurants who are trying to figure out the next steps. And when they come on to the savory platform, we partner with them. We actually keep their tech stack in place, and then we’re AB testing their tech stack with our savory playbook of it.

00:10:07:20 – 00:10:37:04

Josh Boshard

And then we’re seeing, okay, does this work versus this? Could we be leading edge or bleeding edge with their technology because it’s brand new, but is it scalable. And so we start thinking things in a very different way than most people, because we can ab test against all the systems out there. And last year I had with all the acquisitions, I’m seeing everything out there, and it gets me to a point where it makes me look good just because we’re trying and testing and seeing.

00:10:37:06 – 00:11:03:21

Josh Boshard

So I do have to say, if I’m looking at something that’s going to improve the guest experience iteration, and I don’t mean that to be a plug, but I have to say, I think I’m a power user in the system, and I see things very differently than a lot of people. We have eight brands that are on ovation, and I compare and contrast every single one of those brands in the platform, and I’m looking at things that are making a difference at our brands.

00:11:03:21 – 00:11:32:24

Josh Boshard

It is pretty interesting for me to see how versions change our business. When you look at someone like 0313, that influence ended ovation, and they went from a 4.1 to a 4.7 in Google rating. That’s what everyone wants in the restaurant industry. And then the biggest part there is the number of guests saved. That’s huge for us. And so if you look at even via stats, they’re saving 11 guests per location every month.

00:11:33:03 – 00:12:01:11

Josh Boshard

Wow. I mean, that’s mind blowing. And so for me, as I dive into the systems that we use, I start pulling out and seeing patterns. And so like a pattern for me is number of guest feedback that comes in at those day parts. And I’m saying, are we executing in the morning versus afternoon versus evening? And what do we need to do to shift so that we can have consistent feedback in positive ways?

00:12:01:13 – 00:12:09:06

Josh Boshard

Or let’s go fix the feedback that’s coming in where we see it. Right. So it’s just an interesting place for me.

00:12:09:08 – 00:12:27:10

Zack Oates

Wow. I mean, well, first of all, thank you. I mean like you’ve encapsulated what the dream is of someone to like take this data and then take action on it. And yeah, there’s going to be some great benefits to what happens with things like your Google score. But I always say we’re not here to make bad restaurants good.

00:12:27:10 – 00:12:53:08

Zack Oates

We’re here to make great restaurants better. And I think that, yeah, what a great restaurant takes is it takes people that care. It takes people that are willing to swing the hammer, and it takes people that are willing to look at the nail. Right. Because if you’re not going to look because there are people, you know, what are the things that we find is like at the pizza expo, whenever we go there, that is the place more than any other place that I hear.

00:12:53:10 – 00:13:10:09

Zack Oates

I don’t even care what they’re saying. I’m not. I don’t want to look. I don’t want to look. I don’t care what they say. And like, if they don’t like my pizza, go someplace else. Screw all the reviews. And there are people like that. They don’t even want to look at what needs to get fixed. But you’re not building a one off.

00:13:10:15 – 00:13:25:02

Zack Oates

You’re building numerous brands across the country. Now, with franchising. And like, you have to understand what’s actually going on at your individual locations and how to fix that and then do the work to fix it.

00:13:25:04 – 00:13:46:09

Josh Boshard

If you’re not looking at how fast your team is responding to customer feedback and the specifics to go orders, if you’re missing it every time on, I don’t know, tableware or whatever it is, or making sure that they get every single item and you’re not going back and fixing those things, you’re just letting cells walk out the door.

00:13:46:11 – 00:13:59:00

Josh Boshard

So for us, that’s the piece where we have to get so detailed and dialed in on all the data and then execute on that. When you see something, say something. When you see something, do something right.

00:13:59:02 – 00:14:07:16

Zack Oates

Are there any like specific changes that you could point to and say like, oh, we didn’t know about that. And then once we heard about it, we made this change.

00:14:07:18 – 00:14:11:22

Josh Boshard

When you look at what’s most important in negative reviews, most.

00:14:11:22 – 00:14:12:05

Zack Oates

Of your.

00:14:12:05 – 00:14:48:18

Josh Boshard

Reviews are food and service, right? And so if you’re focusing on those, the service to me is the most important in the review process. As customers come back to you. And just a piece that came up this week when we have managers who are leaving early and leaving the stores kind of leaderless, that’s a problem, obviously. And you see sales dip when you have a system like ovation that can tell you that, and then you can take action on that to go back to your jams, because a lot of times you don’t hear what’s happening in the store level.

00:14:48:20 – 00:15:03:13

Josh Boshard

And so when you start seeing those metrics, then you can actually take action and go, oh, okay. Now we need to be looking at clock in and clock outs and let’s see how much time they’re actually spending there. So that was just one example of how we used it.

00:15:03:15 – 00:15:26:22

Zack Oates

That’s really interesting because when you have 120% employee turnover and 80% manager turnover, it’s really hard to run a business when you don’t have all of that information in real time. And you got to make sure that the tools aren’t there to get people in trouble. The tools are there to help them improve and help you have the visibility.

00:15:26:22 – 00:15:33:10

Zack Oates

So at the end of the day, we’re all working towards the same thing, which is a better guest experience.

00:15:33:12 – 00:15:55:11

Josh Boshard

We don’t use the data to be punitive. We use the data to go back and benefit our employees to get them to the next level. If you’re doing it that way, you’re in a winning position, and when you take that approach, you’ve all of a sudden created this partnership with your employees where they’re saying, okay, you’re giving me things to help my business run better.

00:15:55:15 – 00:16:06:13

Josh Boshard

Sales increase, which makes labor easier, that you’re actually helping improve their life. When you spot those trends, those pieces that you need to be fixing in your restaurants.

00:16:06:15 – 00:16:28:10

Zack Oates

I love that because it’s so much more than just a single point of data. And I think this is one of the benefits about hearing from a lot of your guests is that you can differentiate between a one off that just needs an apology, needs to handle something, but it was just like a totally random thing that is not a systemic issue.

00:16:28:12 – 00:16:54:15

Zack Oates

And what are the consistent problems that are bubbling up? And you need to treat those two things differently. But to start, you need to treat them the same, which is like understand that that individual guest needs to feel heard and seen, but then understand that. Don’t fixate on the one loud person. Understand what are the things that need to be improved generally, at each location, down to the employee and the manager.

00:16:54:15 – 00:17:13:10

Zack Oates

And I think it’s awesome that you’re taking that data and really doing things with it to improve. And it shows. I mean, your scores are phenomenal innovation. Your response rates are amazing people. As I said, it’s obvious that you’ve created a culture where it’s cool to care. As we’ll get there, I would say.

00:17:13:12 – 00:17:16:23

Josh Boshard

I’m going to steal that one. Cool the care. That’s that’s what we want to be.

00:17:17:00 – 00:17:25:09

Zack Oates

Yeah. Now, knowing all the people that you know, I want you to think about who is someone that deserves an ovation, who is someone that we should be following.

00:17:25:11 – 00:17:51:16

Josh Boshard

Hands down ovation goes to chef Julie McGeary. So and the reason I say that is yes he’s our partner. And in Sicilian butcher. And that brand is phenomenal. It’s blowing up. It’s doing great things. But Joey is a creator and it’s so hard to build brands. It’s so hard to build something around that brand. And he’s done a really good job with the Mexicano Kitchen.

00:17:51:18 – 00:18:18:22

Josh Boshard

Everything that he builds is, is actually it’s like larger than life, but it’s still incredibly personal. It’s personal to him. He talks about his family. His families are in the restaurant they’re eating. They’re weekly. He knows how to invest in people, into the culture, into the community. He’s building restaurants, right. And it’s fun being a partner with someone like that, because we can add some of our secret sauce on scale and growth and out of heritage markets and what we’re doing.

00:18:18:24 – 00:18:29:11

Josh Boshard

But we hold on to him being that like foundation. So in that sense of hospitality, the way that he thinks about it. Guest. Not only show up, but they remember the experience.

00:18:29:13 – 00:18:43:24

Zack Oates

I love that because the remembering of it, right. That’s the impression flavor profiles fade. But man, how you feel that sticks with you. I love that. And Josh, how do people find and follow you in the Savory Fund?

00:18:44:01 – 00:19:05:23

Josh Boshard

Okay, so we have a couple different ways. Restaurants allergy. We do a conference every single year. It’s our way to give back to aspiring entrepreneurs, those who are building their restaurants. So it’s for restaurants for 2 to 20 units. And it’s a day of action packed. Just feedback how to hire, how to fire someone. I mean, it’s just tactical.

00:19:06:00 – 00:19:07:20

Josh Boshard

So come see us at restaurants.

00:19:07:22 – 00:19:15:11

Zack Oates

And by the way, I do have to say I have consistently heard from restaurants that is the best conference of the entire year.

00:19:15:13 – 00:19:24:10

Josh Boshard

So what that that’s coming from the bean to every conference. That’s like, what makes this thing heard.

00:19:24:12 – 00:19:55:07

Zack Oates

Yes. But vendors, if any vendors are listening it is a non sponsored vendor not allowed conference. This is straight restaurants and just learning and you with your peers. It’s unlike any conference there is because every other conference is trying to make a ton of money. Restaurants is there to teach you to network to learn. It really is I mean like huge plug just for the fact that I have so many people that speak so incredibly highly of restaurants and so from the industry.

00:19:55:07 – 00:19:56:21

Zack Oates

Thank you for doing it.

00:19:56:23 – 00:20:03:09

Josh Boshard

Oh, that’s really nice. Then you can find me on LinkedIn and then, go to our website, Savory fund.com, see what we’re all about.

00:20:03:11 – 00:20:12:16

Zack Oates

And if someone is interested in learning if they’re kind of in the savory, fun, sweet spot, what does Savory Fund tend to invest in and acquire?

00:20:12:18 – 00:20:29:07

Josh Boshard

We want an established brand five years, five units is our sweet spot, but we’ve been outside of that, and we want someone who’s passionate about their brand and wants to grow it, but needs capital, needs structure, needs, contracts, needs the expertise to help them get to the next level.

00:20:29:09 – 00:20:40:05

Zack Oates

Awesome. Well Josh, for helping us push to the next level and for reminding us that skydiving is really just one scary step. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us. Give an ovation.

00:20:40:07 – 00:20:41:14

Josh Boshard

Lezak.

00:20:41:16 – 00:21:04:03

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.