Lawrence Longo, founder of Off the Menu and driving force behind brands like Prince Street Pizza, Irv’s Burgers, and The Bar Next Door, joins Give an Ovation to share how simplicity, craveability, and real hospitality create lasting guest loyalty. With a deep passion for food and people, Lawrence explains why staying true to quality and connection beats chasing trends every time.

Building Brands Around Craveability (3:20)

“If you have one craveable item, guests will keep coming back.” – Lawrence Longo

Lawrence shares how success starts with simplicity—focusing on one standout product that keeps guests hooked and coming back for more.

The Secret to Managing Multiple Brands (2:30)

“Keep it simple, do a few things really well.” – Lawrence Longo

Managing multiple brands doesn’t mean doing more—it means focusing on great teams, great culture, and nailing the basics over and over again.

Turning Passion Into Hospitality (9:54)

“If you don’t love it, it’s a miserable experience.” – Lawrence Longo

Lawrence talks about why genuine passion is critical in hospitality, and how caring about people—not just products—sets great brands apart.

Digital Convenience Meets Human Touch (10:45)

“Digital integration is critical—but hospitality is still king.” – Lawrence Longo

While digital tools are important, Lawrence explains that true connection and hospitality can’t be replaced, even as guest expectations evolve.

Quality Beats Copycats Every Time (13:10)

“You can copy the look—but not the feeling.” – Lawrence Longo

Lawrence shares why competitors might imitate the surface, but the true magic of a brand lies in the consistency, quality, and emotional connection that can’t be faked.

Who Deserves an Ovation? (13:51)

Lawrence gives a shoutout to Preston Lee and the 30% Rule for helping restaurants deliver better front-of-house hospitality through powerful team training.

Links

https://www.instagram.com/bigshot/

https://www.instagram.com/princestreetpizza/

https://www.instagram.com/irvsburgers/

https://www.instagram.com/thebarnextdoor/

Transcription

00:00:00:05 – 00:00:23:01

Zack Oates

Welcome to Give an Ovation the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Jack Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover real strategies and actionable 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. It gives you the insights you need without annoying your guests with endless questions.

00:00:23:01 – 00:00:45:16

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And today I am so excited! I have someone who is just. I mean, as someone with the last name Oates calling someone a serial entrepreneur is is a real thing. And so I am excited to welcome Lawrence Longo on. He is the you ready for this? Founder and CEO of Off the Menu. CEO of Prince Street Pizza, CEO of serves burgers and a very busy man.

00:00:45:21 – 00:00:47:20

Zack Oates

Lawrence, welcome to the podcast.

00:00:47:22 – 00:00:49:06

Lawrence Longo

Thanks for having me, Zach.

00:00:49:08 – 00:01:00:22

Zack Oates

So first of all, where do you get all these hours in a day to be CEO of three companies and you do speaking and marketing and podcasting. Like how do you have time to do all this?

00:01:00:24 – 00:01:20:09

Lawrence Longo

It’s a great team around me. Hopefully, you know, I’m hiring all the right people to help us handle the canoe, to get us from where we need to go. I think I love what I do so it doesn’t feel like work. So the only thing that I want to get away from my work for is my family, and maybe to play hockey once in a while.

00:01:20:11 – 00:01:22:03

Lawrence Longo

So what I talk is and.

00:01:22:08 – 00:01:25:15

Zack Oates

I see all those hockey sticks behind you love that I’ve had.

00:01:25:17 – 00:01:44:12

Lawrence Longo

But it’s like I tell everybody in the food business is that if you’re in it to make a quick buck, you’re in the wrong business. Truly, truly, you need to love what you’re doing in order to be successful. And I think that’s and just have a passion for people, have a passion for food and just doing things right.

00:01:44:13 – 00:01:57:04

Lawrence Longo

I’m proud of the product of everything I do. I’m proud of the brands, so it makes it easy. I hate that part of it just because I love it so much. If you don’t love it, it’s probably a miserable experience.

00:01:57:04 – 00:02:14:14

Zack Oates

Well, okay, but you have got some pretty different things that you’re doing. So. And by the way, I didn’t even mention all the stuff you’re doing. You’ve got even other projects you’re doing. I saw that you just an award recently about one of the top bars in America.

00:02:14:16 – 00:02:19:07

Lawrence Longo

Yeah, yeah. Bar next door was one of the 50 best bars in North America.

00:02:19:09 – 00:02:30:06

Zack Oates

Man. That’s wild. So what’s the secret to success in terms of how do you do so many things? Well, when people struggle often to just do one of those things. Well, I.

00:02:30:06 – 00:02:51:06

Lawrence Longo

Think keeping things simple. Any of the businesses that I run, I’m not trying to do too much. We’re keeping it simple. The bar next door is just a neighborhood bar with high end craft cocktails. I had a location beside Prince Street and I was like, what works best beside a pizzeria? Well, it’s either ice cream or a bar.

00:02:51:06 – 00:03:20:02

Lawrence Longo

So I opened up a bar on the side of it, and the idea was just create that third place, that place where you go before drinks, you go after work, you go after dinner. It’s a place where hopefully the bartenders know your name, they know your drink, and it’s a place that you can go regularly to. Nothing too trendy, nothing that’s going to be like the flavor of the week and just really great customer service and really great product.

00:03:20:04 – 00:03:27:06

Lawrence Longo

I tell everybody, if you have one thing on your menu that’s craveable that people will keep coming back every week for it.

00:03:27:10 – 00:03:50:22

Zack Oates

Oh yeah. I mean, there’s a restaurant down the street and they have this dish that is unreal, like 11 out of ten. And the other dishes they have are great too. Like, it’s an overall great restaurant, but that one dish is so memorable and it’s so craveable that I love going back to that place as long as I can get a reservation, because it’s always booked up.

00:03:50:22 – 00:04:03:06

Zack Oates

But I mean, like, it’s just like here in Utah. Michael McHenry just does a great job building restaurants that have cool brands, cool vibes, and super memorable food.

00:04:03:08 – 00:04:10:13

Lawrence Longo

Yeah. That’s it. You keep it simple. You do those things right. And with a craveable product, you should be successful.

00:04:10:15 – 00:04:37:11

Zack Oates

Now, obviously, all of this boils down to like the guest experience. And I want to get to that. But before that, I want you to tell me a little bit about Off the menu, because this is something that is a little outside the norm of a food entree, restaurant tour. And that’s why I think in your LinkedIn, I believe you call yourself a food entrepreneur, not a restaurant tour, which I find interesting, but tell me a little bit about Off the menu and how that started.

00:04:37:13 – 00:05:04:21

Lawrence Longo

Yeah, off the menu. So my background was in movies and television and content, really comic books, graphic novels, children’s storybooks and just really like content is king type of mentality. And I created a show called Off the Menu. Never made it to air. I sold it a few times, but I realized just because, like in my content days, is that you really had to own the IP if you wanted to own the series or own the show.

00:05:04:21 – 00:05:26:03

Lawrence Longo

And so what I did was I created an app called Off the Menu, and what I did was I sourced all the secret menu items at all the restaurants across North America that had secret menu items, and I emailed it to like 25 of my friends being like, hey, I just created an app. It was when everybody was like, creating apps, right?

00:05:26:03 – 00:05:44:18

Lawrence Longo

But I just wanted to do it because I love food so much and I want to, like, create this world of off the menu. And I launched the app and it got a crazy amount of downloads. Now I’m an app entrepreneur, but I raised a little bit of money and quickly ran out of money. I was like, oh shit, what do I have to do?

00:05:44:18 – 00:06:07:02

Lawrence Longo

Well, you have to have a real business. You can’t just source secret menu items. And what problem are you solving? And what I realized was restaurants closed down, 60% of restaurants are closed within the first two years or first 12 months. And then 80% of restaurants are closed within the first five years. So basically 80% of people get in the restaurant business aren’t even making their money back.

00:06:07:04 – 00:06:31:01

Lawrence Longo

And I was like, well, how can I solve that problem through secret menu items? And what I realized was surface secret menu items drove foot traffic into the restaurants. It created a viral social kind of marketing, and those are things that could help restaurants survive. When I first tried to, I was like, okay, well, I’m going to charge restaurants to be on the app.

00:06:31:03 – 00:06:52:03

Lawrence Longo

All the restaurants were like, we’re not paying you. You got can you prove that you’re going to have this foot traffic? So I flipped it and I was like, you know what? What? I’m going to do is I’m going to charge your customers $20 a month. And what they’re going to get is they’re going to get one free secret menu item every day at a restaurant in their area.

00:06:52:03 – 00:06:57:19

Lawrence Longo

So instead of having an app that curated all the secret menu items, I turned it into a food club.

00:06:57:21 – 00:06:59:09

Zack Oates

Oh very cool.

00:06:59:11 – 00:07:18:18

Lawrence Longo

Learning my mistakes now was like I didn’t need to do every single day somebody got a free item. I should have just focused on one restaurant, one item and drove all the traffic there. But at off the menus peak, I had over 4000 users in LA and it was a real busy. I wasn’t raising money, it was a business that was running itself.

00:07:18:18 – 00:07:44:07

Lawrence Longo

But what happened was I needed to figure out customer acquisition strategy and how do I get people on the app. And one of the things was through experiences, and I created this event called the Burger Showdown, which was a live event in 2017 or 18. And I had like Marshmello and Shay Mitchell and Tommy Lee create their own burgers and then bring them to this festival.

00:07:44:13 – 00:08:04:14

Lawrence Longo

And then all the people that came to the festival get to try these burgers. And I did it for the LA times. And then in 2018, I did a Prince Street pizza, pop up. I ask the owners of Prince Louis Pizza if I could do a National Pizza Day, bring Prince Street to L.A. and that kind of like was gangbusters.

00:08:04:15 – 00:08:26:21

Lawrence Longo

300 people waiting in line for, oh my gosh, in the form rain. And I had like probably 200 sign ups on to the app that week. It was like, oh, wow. This is really more importantly, is like, people love this product. Yeah, people really are dying for this square Sicilian pizza with these cupping curl pepperonis in the spicy sauce.

00:08:26:23 – 00:08:50:03

Lawrence Longo

And then after that I did Tender Fest at Griffin Tender Festival. But with that I realized, whoa, this craveable product. Everything I learned from off the menu of like, why restaurants fail, what drives, what makes us, successful product. I felt like Prince Street had all those things. So I ask that I opened one up in LA, opened one up in LA, and the same thing.

00:08:50:03 – 00:09:14:00

Lawrence Longo

I had lines in two zip codes, and it was really exciting. And I didn’t put an investment into burgers. Never Say Die, which was the first LA Smashburger that since pretty much all of America’s kind of tried to copy. But burgers never say Die was the first, like authentic, really cool hype. Smashburger. Yeah, in Los Angeles. That’s kind of how it all started with the experiences.

00:09:14:00 – 00:09:20:05

Lawrence Longo

And then since later I created the whole Krabby Patty collab experience for SpongeBob SquarePants.

00:09:20:07 – 00:09:22:09

Zack Oates

And that’s how I saw it. That is so cool, man.

00:09:22:12 – 00:09:38:14

Lawrence Longo

Yeah. So I think just knowing what’s cool, having a good palate. I love food, and I guess I know what’s good and what the average person’s going to crave. In a way. I think if anything, I was strong at anything that would probably be at sea.

00:09:38:14 – 00:09:54:13

Zack Oates

I think that is is so cool because at the end of the day, like we said, it’s the guest experience. And so as you’re looking at all these varied experiences from events to restaurants to apps, what do you think is the most important aspect of the guest experience or the customer experience?

00:09:54:15 – 00:10:20:13

Lawrence Longo

Authenticity and quality, I would say, is vague and then the can speed and ease, right? Like the convenience of what I’m doing. And then really at the end of the day, we do say service, but it’s really hospitality. I mean, if you’re servicing, it’s a transaction. If you’re giving hospitality, you really like the customer really feels like they care about the business, cares about the customer.

00:10:20:13 – 00:10:45:00

Lawrence Longo

Yes. So I think I feel like that’s the big thing is really that human connection. And then obviously with the world we live in now is just the digital integration from whether that’s mobile ordering or our loyalty program. It’s having a seamless like digital integration is something I’m not necessarily great at right now, but we strive to every day to get better.

00:10:45:02 – 00:11:16:00

Lawrence Longo

I know it’s a part of the the culture, the food culture. Gen Z doesn’t need the human connection because they’re like this all the time. So but first I was like, no kiosks, no kiosks, no way. And then you’re thinking to yourself, well, if that kiosk experience is exciting and is good, maybe it’s not that bad. And I hate to say that, but, you know, when I saw Shake Shack and the guy I look up to, Danny Meyer doing kiosks, you’re like, okay, maybe we got to think twice about kiosks in the restaurant.

00:11:16:06 – 00:11:35:02

Zack Oates

Well, because honestly, it’s like, and I’ll, I rarely do this, but I think that maybe you’d agree with me. I’d like to push back a little bit against Gen Z. Don’t need connection. I think that they’re in their phones because they’re looking for connection. I just think how they get connection is different than prior generations because they grew up with so much technology.

00:11:35:04 – 00:12:03:04

Zack Oates

They get connection through a text message. They get connection through that response back and forth and through like the personalization. And so I think that it’s different than how you and I grew up of looking someone in the eye, shaking the hand. And when we were kids, the only way that I could get people’s phone numbers is I had a little digital card, and it was like I could type in people’s names and phone numbers, and they could store 250 names and phone numbers.

00:12:03:10 – 00:12:13:02

Zack Oates

And that was my cell phone. And then I would use that to go and call my friends. Right. But we didn’t have the technology. And so it was so much more about the face to face stuff. Right?

00:12:13:04 – 00:12:14:23

Lawrence Longo

Absolutely, absolutely.

00:12:15:00 – 00:12:21:21

Zack Oates

And I love what you’re saying though about like that convenience factor. Because if you don’t have that, people aren’t even going to try you out. Right.

00:12:21:23 – 00:12:38:14

Lawrence Longo

Exactly. I mean, or they’re going to try you at once and they’re going to get frustrated and then they’re not going to come back. Yeah. Unless your food is so good that like the soup Nazi. Oh, yeah. You know, your food is so good and you can treat people like shit. They’ll still come back and you go to.

00:12:38:14 – 00:12:42:23

Zack Oates

I guess chances are that’s probably not your restaurant, right? If you’re listening to that.

00:12:42:24 – 00:13:10:16

Lawrence Longo

Play, definitely not. I mean, especially with competition out there, it’s like people secret recipes aren’t so secret anymore because somebody gets a recipe, go to a lab to figure out exactly how you made it and make it themselves. So people copy all day long. People are copying that are spicy spring pizza opening up. I’m opening up an herbs in Planet Hollywood, and there’s a I’m not going to name the pizzeria right beside it, but it’s literally the exact rip off of Prince Repeats.

00:13:10:16 – 00:13:14:09

Lawrence Longo

That was a different name. I was like, Holy and I. So I ordered the pizza.

00:13:14:11 – 00:13:17:08

Zack Oates

Pizza?

00:13:17:10 – 00:13:34:14

Lawrence Longo

So funny as like, well, the sauce isn’t good. It’s not cooked through like Prince Street’s. They’re not using the Greek cheese, the pepperoni. It’s a rip off, but it’s not the same pepperoni. They’re not cutting it the same. So all the little things that they’re doing, the copy are totally off, which makes it not like it doesn’t hit you.

00:13:34:14 – 00:13:42:12

Lawrence Longo

It’s not like a punch in the face. Oh, wow. That’s an amazing slice. But even if you have a great product that you have to have great hospitality.

00:13:42:14 – 00:13:51:04

Zack Oates

100% love that. Now, Lawrence, I know you know a lot of people in the industry who’s someone that we should be following, who’s someone that deserves innovation.

00:13:51:06 – 00:14:23:14

Lawrence Longo

Yeah, especially for this podcast. I’m going to give an ovation to Preston Lee. And he has, a company called the 30% rule, which I’ve hired, and he helps me with all of my front of house hospitality and really training, almost training the staff between the trainers, because that’s the most important thing. Yeah. Is who’s training your staff and like, how are you training them to train your staff and you continually train and retrain.

00:14:23:16 – 00:14:46:15

Lawrence Longo

That for me is guy, I’d like to give a shout out to Preston Lee. The 30% rule. Every restaurant is got to be taking their front of house seriously. It’s the first touchpoint of the restaurant before they even get the food. Hello. How are you? Welcome to ers. Welcome to Prince Street. Welcome to wherever restaurant you are having that connects be Moe’s.

00:14:46:17 – 00:14:52:18

Lawrence Longo

Welcome to Moe’s. Whatever. He helps restaurants do that. So that’s my shout out.

00:14:52:18 – 00:14:57:16

Zack Oates

Awesome. And now Lawrence, where can people go to find and follow you and your brand’s?

00:14:57:18 – 00:15:16:21

Lawrence Longo

So me personally is that big shot big show T and just so you know, I got that Instagram may not because of how it sounds. It’s more it was when I first joined Instagram it was filter app for photos. So I was going to take the big shot.

00:15:16:23 – 00:15:28:14

Zack Oates

No way. You legit have big shot. That is your legit Instagram. Yeah, that is nuts. Well, I am adding one to your 23,700 followers.

00:15:28:17 – 00:15:35:14

Lawrence Longo

And I’m not awesome on Instagram personally. Like I’m not. And then Prince Street pizza ers burgers.

00:15:35:16 – 00:15:37:24

Zack Oates

Barnett underscore.

00:15:38:01 – 00:15:46:00

Lawrence Longo

Underscore and then a new one on the other side of Prince Street in West Hollywood is going to be opening an ice cream shop called Hall Pass Ice Cream.

00:15:46:02 – 00:15:50:17

Zack Oates

Oh, nice. Yeah. Well, I don’t forget about Sparky’s Sports Bar.

00:15:50:19 – 00:16:03:24

Lawrence Longo

Oh, Sparky sports bar in Malibu. That’s right. And you forget. I love it because we’re redoing our liquor license and everything. It’s been closed for a couple months, and Malibu has been an absolute disaster.

00:16:03:24 – 00:16:20:23

Zack Oates

Oh, yeah. Jeez, I love that you got that much stuff going on there, Lawrence. Man, I’m so grateful you came on the podcast and Lawrence for showing us that you actually can’t find 30 hours in the day. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you so much for joining us and giving ovation.

00:16:21:03 – 00:16:23:15

Lawrence Longo

Thanks so much for having me. This is great.

00:16:23:17 – 00:16:46:04

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.