Oliver Barwin, CEO of Bushfire Kitchen, joins Give an Ovation to share how he helped transform his family’s restaurant brand into a rapidly growing force focused on hospitality, healthy food, and operational excellence. After taking the reins during the early days of the pandemic, Oliver explains how a full tech overhaul and a guest-first culture helped Bushfire triple in size and build lasting loyalty.

From Wall Street to Hospitality (0:19)

“We needed someone to step in—and family comes first.” – Oliver Barwin

Oliver shares how his finance background equipped him to help his family’s restaurant business grow with fresh eyes and a strategic approach.

Finding Opportunity in Crisis (2:01)

“With crisis brings opportunity.” – Oliver Barwin

Oliver explains how COVID forced a full reexamination of operations, creating a stronger foundation for future expansion.

Rebuilding Bushfire’s Tech Stack (3:28)

“We ripped everything out and rebuilt with scalability in mind.” – Oliver Barwin

Oliver discusses the technology investments, like Toast POS and real-time guest feedback systems, that allowed Bushfire Kitchen to scale quickly.

The Power of Guest Experience (7:04)

“You can have the best food in the world, but without hospitality, you’re nothing.” – Oliver Barwin

From table touches to clean stores, Oliver highlights why authentic hospitality is just as important as great food.

Turning Guest Feedback Into Growth (8:55)

“When we get something wrong, we make it right—and fast.” – Oliver Barwin

Oliver shares how fast responses and service recovery help Bushfire convert mistakes into opportunities for guest loyalty.

Who Deserves an Ovation? (16:38)

Oliver gives a shoutout to Jim Balis for his mentorship and insights into scaling restaurant brands successfully.

Links:

https://bushfirekitchen.com/

https://www.instagram.com/bushfirekitchen/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/bushfire-kitchen/

Transcript

00:00:00:04 – 00:00:11:13

Zack Oates

Welcome to a live version of Giving Ovation. We are here in 3D. This is not a zoom virtual background. I’m here with Oliver Barwin, CEO, of which Bach is. How are.

00:00:11:13 – 00:00:12:17

Oliver Barwin

You? Good. Thanks for having.

00:00:12:17 – 00:00:18:21

Zack Oates

Me. Super excited to talk. Tell me about the start of all this. How did you get into hospitality?

00:00:19:02 – 00:00:41:02

Oliver Barwin

Yeah. So my prior life prior to restaurants is actually in New York. And working investment banking on Wall Street. Our family’s been in the consumer space for my entire life. So back in 2020, I decided to make the switch, take over the business. My father was running at the time, and we really took the opportunity to, take this to the next level.

00:00:41:05 – 00:00:54:11

Oliver Barwin

And so brought in institutional capital to kind of help us expedite that growth. And, you know, under my leadership, we essentially it ended up tripling. But then the next 12 months from where we started and then sky’s the limit beyond that.

00:00:54:13 – 00:00:56:13

Zack Oates

And tell you about the name where the name come from.

00:00:56:18 – 00:01:17:06

Oliver Barwin

First for our kitchen. You know, our family’s originally Australian. Oh really? Yeah. So some of the bushfire menu was developed. You know, we’re based on some of the concepts that we found that we really loved in Australia growing up. Yeah. And you know, bushfire was was very much an Australian name for bushfire. So that’s why a lot of people get those to mix with us.

00:01:17:08 – 00:01:22:21

Oliver Barwin

And yeah, I was kind of a Genesis or Chilean roots and some of the menu was influenced by that kind of culture.

00:01:22:23 – 00:01:40:19

Zack Oates

So what was it that made you go from the finance banking side to food? I mean, like it seems like those are two just polar opposites. One is just give me spreadsheets, give me the numbers. The other one is like, let’s, you know, it’s people, it’s connection. It’s all about the hospitality. How do you make that switch?

00:01:40:20 – 00:02:01:03

Oliver Barwin

Yeah. So, you know, unfortunately my father was sick at the time, so he was kind of the point where I needed someone to step in. I joined February 2020, which is a very interesting time. No joined the industry. So it was the week prior to our governor shutting down restaurants in California. And that was my own. So it’s really a unique time to join.

00:02:01:04 – 00:02:06:06

Zack Oates

So March 1st of 2020. Were you just like, oh, what did I do?

00:02:06:08 – 00:02:28:21

Oliver Barwin

Oh yeah. It was, you know, but ultimately our, you know, our belief both family and business is family comes first. Yeah. That’s part of our mission, our statement, our values. So we practice that. So we kind of have to make it happen. Really. You know Covid obviously everyone those first six months was really rocky and scary. But yeah, ultimately with crisis brings opportunity.

00:02:28:23 – 00:02:38:11

Oliver Barwin

And that’s what we took. I found that opportunity to really look at our business from a fresh pair of eyes and really make change and be able to drive the business forward and reach new heights.

00:02:38:13 – 00:02:51:18

Zack Oates

So you get through Covid, which is sometime happened over the next three years, right? You get through Covid and what was it that got you to say, yeah, let’s go into growth mode now. Let’s like keep going.

00:02:51:20 – 00:03:13:12

Oliver Barwin

So our brand, you know, we’ve been successful just through good food and. Right. Yeah. No marketing. It was just cleaning the basics. Food, hospitality. You know, if you had those two things right, you could have something special. So I really believe in the brand. I think we were always out of the times in terms of kind of our menu, culinary forward approach, and really providing a better for you product.

00:03:13:14 – 00:03:28:21

Oliver Barwin

So that’s what it started with. And then ultimately coming in with a fresh pair of eyes and really looking at the systems, the tech stack, the infrastructure to support that growth was really important. And that was that’s what we built. We pretty much started the whole tech when I was joined. They ripped everything out.

00:03:28:21 – 00:03:34:11

Zack Oates

That was the technology changed from when you started to to the.

00:03:34:11 – 00:03:55:24

Oliver Barwin

100%? We don’t. I guess when I joined, we not a single thing left. No. So it was a full rebuild and it was. We built it with the vision to be able to scale. You know, I was even though it at the time was only 3 or 4 units when I had initially joined, we had much bigger plan for the future, and it was about building a tech stack that was integrated.

00:03:56:01 – 00:04:20:11

Oliver Barwin

Systems could talk to one another, like at scale. That’s what we did. So one of obviously our key partners, we use toast for POS online ordering, three party integrations, CMO marketing. So it’s been a huge player for us. And then we use a program called Chaubey, which is a data warehouse analytics tool, which essentially allows us to kind of take all of our data and put it into one place rate, cut it and make sense of it.

00:04:20:18 – 00:04:32:24

Oliver Barwin

And provide not only from finance side, but also our operators in real time insights into their performance, not only on a piano, but also operational KPIs, guest feedback, kind of full view view lens of the business.

00:04:33:01 – 00:04:39:13

Zack Oates

When you look at your tech vendors. What was the hardest thing to replace and what was easiest thing? Yeah.

00:04:39:15 – 00:04:46:17

Oliver Barwin

For us is task switching costs. We wrote out there were no kids when I joined that was something that we really thought was important to the brand. What were.

00:04:46:17 – 00:04:47:02

Zack Oates

They doing?

00:04:47:05 – 00:05:08:13

Oliver Barwin

Old school tickets. Now we’re like, you know, we’ll pay as long expo tickets on kitchen printers. Yeah, but yeah, I was old school. The pens. So yeah, we were on Clover at the time, which I remember we had, I’d get probably five calls a day with some issue, some take us way and we just realized it’s time to rip it all out.

00:05:08:18 – 00:05:23:19

Oliver Barwin

Starting from scratch. We put in CD’s. We just had an all in one solution that can integrate with a bunch of other great software providers and everything in one place. Yeah, and that was just key for us. And it made once we got that a lot of work to get it rolled out, but once it’s going.

00:05:23:19 – 00:05:24:21

Zack Oates

So the pain was worth.

00:05:24:21 – 00:05:29:08

Oliver Barwin

It. It runs smooth, you know, not don’t get a single call okay.

00:05:29:10 – 00:05:32:21

Zack Oates

That’s awesome. What were some of the easier things to get going.

00:05:32:23 – 00:05:34:05

Oliver Barwin

Can you guys credit ovation.

00:05:34:09 – 00:05:34:23

Zack Oates

For jeez.

00:05:34:23 – 00:05:53:02

Oliver Barwin

Was an easy one. Prior to that we were using just toasts. I guess feedback solution, which was really simple. Just thumbs up, thumbs down, but really wasn’t giving us actual insights into our performance. Menu I was a big believer in text first, we liked a lot of the other solutions that are mostly email driven and the new age.

00:05:53:02 – 00:06:09:03

Oliver Barwin

We felt like texting was the place we wanted to be aligned with, and we felt like the open rates and the amount of feedback you get through that is significantly better than email. So that was a big part of it. And the rollout, you know, was seamless. So we saw we use it today at every one of our stores, and we integrate all of that data.

00:06:09:03 – 00:06:15:14

Oliver Barwin

We got back with our data warehouse to be. Yeah, to be able to get, you know, real time insights into what’s going on.

00:06:15:16 – 00:06:31:24

Zack Oates

That is amazing that you’re actually like using that data and aggregating that data, because I think a lot of times we love to partner with people. We have an API, we want people to pull that data in to other sources. A lot of people just don’t do that, or a lot of people like we pull in a lot of data.

00:06:32:01 – 00:06:51:24

Zack Oates

Some other vendors don’t want to share that, you know. Right. And so our philosophy is it’s not our data. It’s not me sharing that data with someone else is your data is your guest. And I think that that’s an important factor to make sure that when you’re working with vendors, understand what is their data philosophy and how do they connect with you.

00:06:51:24 – 00:07:04:04

Zack Oates

But all of this at the end, like the data is great, the finance is great. But like at the end of the day, it’s about the guest experience. Right. So I let’s understand what do you think are some of the most important aspects of guest experience nowadays?

00:07:04:04 – 00:07:21:11

Oliver Barwin

Yeah. So I think there’s multi facets. The rest of us just change so much with on premise, off premise. It really depends what you’re looking at. But I think the start is just the guest experience, right. Yeah. Walking in the little things it’s what do you see. Is the restaurant clean? Do I walk in. Do they welcome in the little things and do I do I get table touch?

00:07:21:11 – 00:07:36:07

Oliver Barwin

Should they check on me. So it’s really the it’s the culture a little things that takes time to build and create a welcoming atmosphere and give a reason to come back. Yeah, we have the best food in the world, but if you don’t have the service and the hospitality, it’s we’re nothing. Yeah. So that’s really been important to us.

00:07:36:07 – 00:07:53:12

Oliver Barwin

And ovation allows us to kind of measure some of that. So for example ovation we’re allowed we’re able to tag all of our reviews. Source to a source. Right. So table tennis for example. So every one of our restaurants, every single table is a QR code to scan. We feed back and then we can tie that back to the source.

00:07:53:17 – 00:08:13:14

Oliver Barwin

So what we do with our jobs is we actually give them goals. So let’s get 20 table tennis reviews a week to really push them to table touch and really interact with the guests and kind of try to gather feedback and gather information and kind of ensure that our actions align with what we’re kind of seeing on the back end.

00:08:13:16 – 00:08:19:05

Zack Oates

Interesting. So dear GM, like have a script like where they go up and actually like say, oh.

00:08:19:05 – 00:08:35:00

Oliver Barwin

Hey, yeah, I mean we table touching is part of the industry, right? So we want to make sure that everything’s right and kind of treat the guests perfectly and make sure that a great experience. And then if they do have a great experience, let’s just say that one extra question. You know, if you have a second, could you take a time to get like your card to leave us a review?

00:08:35:02 – 00:08:55:11

Oliver Barwin

Yeah. And most of the guests that a good experience. They’re more than happy to do that. And obviously that it’s we’ve seen a really nice increase in our public reviews of Yelp and Google scores since we went Live Nation. We’ve seen those go up. There’s obviously those five star ones. We’re directing straight to there, and it’s made a huge impact to the business beyond just in-store hospitality.

00:08:55:11 – 00:09:14:07

Oliver Barwin

It’s all about creating the an easy, seamless experience for the guests. So we look at throughput. It’s, you know, once you walk in the door how quick. Because we’re fast cars right? So how quickly can I order sit down and get my food. So and that starts with the general menu, the restaurant design, making sure that our soda machine is after where you pay so that there’s no bottlenecks.

00:09:14:07 – 00:09:39:08

Oliver Barwin

So we look at, yeah, the whole guest experience, what as they walk into the door is really important to us. And then also from an online perspective, having a really great online ordering solution is critical. And we think to ourselves, really good job with that. And then beyond that we’re using what’s called smart quote and trust, which is essentially an AI powered order coach tool, which essentially takes into account the kitchen’s capacity and how busy they are at the time of that order.

00:09:39:10 – 00:09:46:18

Oliver Barwin

To provide a more accurate order. Ready? Time for the guest. And that’s something we measure in terms of our percent on time or late.

00:09:46:20 – 00:10:04:10

Zack Oates

Yeah, because that’s one of the things is a lot of times as we kind of look at the back end system and as we’re looking at who is responding and what’s the feedback, one of the big things that we hear is service was slow and people will often push back and they’ll be like, well, our service wasn’t slow.

00:10:04:10 – 00:10:30:13

Zack Oates

And I’m like, okay, but your guest thought that it was. And so we try to understand why do they think it is? And as we dive into that data, one of the most common complaints about order with slow is because the order wasn’t ready when it got when someone went to go pick it up. Right. And if I go to the store and I order ahead and I get there and at the order ready time and the food hasn’t even started to get cooked, I’m like, why did I order ahead?

00:10:30:15 – 00:10:44:12

Zack Oates

I could have just showed up and just ordered with everybody elements, and I took the time to order it, and it creates a really negative guest experience. And so we always recommend being especially if you have something like, would you call it was the toast feature.

00:10:44:12 – 00:10:45:12

Oliver Barwin

Smart quote, smart.

00:10:45:12 – 00:11:05:12

Zack Oates

Quote. That’s awesome. If you don’t have that, you have a little extra buffalo, right? Because especially if you’re online ordering system allows you to say during like the lunch or dinner rush, give yourself a little more time because that creates such a negative experience and very consistently will get you negative reviews.

00:11:05:12 – 00:11:21:10

Oliver Barwin

So we also we’re using areas all of our restaurants. So we also text the guest when our order is actually ready with instructions on where to go. And then we also sometimes link to the feedback so they have it all in one place. Orders ready now the guy was it gives the link.

00:11:21:12 – 00:11:38:14

Zack Oates

So feedback. I love that you send that link with it because then if they get their food and there’s something wrong right there, you forgot to do it. Because we try to basically mimic a table touch which is 20, 25 minutes and then say, hey, how was everything? But if there’s something missing, they want to tell somebody about it, right?

00:11:38:14 – 00:11:45:20

Zack Oates

That. Yeah. And so I think that’s really cool, I like that. Any tactics that you’ve seen to be really effective to improve the guest experience?

00:11:45:22 – 00:12:05:08

Oliver Barwin

Yeah. I mean I think a lot of it is. Yeah. They said like systems throughput and speed of service communication to the guests and just really setting up the at full a great experience from start to finish of the order. And then, you know, what we do is we’re really focused on where we get something wrong. We want to have 100%.

00:12:05:09 – 00:12:23:17

Oliver Barwin

No one can be hundred percent or we get something wrong. We make sure to make it right and quickly. So we actually measure through ovation our response time to guests complaints and make sure that we resolve everything within ideally 12 hours. Yeah. And giving them promos, gift cards or promo codes to be able to come back and try us again and give us another chance.

00:12:23:19 – 00:12:32:05

Oliver Barwin

Because once those guests, they don’t have a good experience, the likelihood of them coming back is very, very low. Yeah, but if they give you that opportunity with that feedback, you have to take it.

00:12:32:07 – 00:13:02:16

Zack Oates

And I think that that apology is something that’s so powerful because data shows that a guest who had a negative experience and proper service recovery is actually worth 24 times more than your average guest. Yeah. And so to have that ability to create raving fans from mistakes is huge, because you could do the same thing, right? For example, there’s a pizza place by me and I went there for years, and one day I went in there and the ranch dressing or the creamy Italian dressing, which I really like, was so runny.

00:13:02:16 – 00:13:22:15

Zack Oates

It was just kind of like gross. It was like really watery. I literally didn’t go back there for two years. I’ve been going there for seven years, and they had nailed it every time. But what happened was I didn’t have a way to share with anyone. To me, it was like, oh, maybe they changed the recipe. I didn’t talk to anyone there because I was in a meeting, the rush, and it wasn’t like I was offended or mad.

00:13:22:16 – 00:13:42:00

Zack Oates

It was just that when I thought about that restaurant, I thought about like that runny dressing. And then I was like, well, maybe you will try something else. A lot of other places have opened up, so it took me two years to get around to getting that restaurant back in my rotation because of one tiny little mistake. And guess what happened when I went back there two years later?

00:13:42:02 – 00:14:04:21

Zack Oates

It must have just been an off day because the dressing was exactly how it was before, right? But I think they like having that low effort way of a guest just to reach out. And had they been able to say, we’re so sorry we had a new person making it, that’s not what we’re trying to do. I would have never had a break from that restaurant, and they would have had my business for another two years now.

00:14:04:21 – 00:14:21:03

Zack Oates

Luckily they’re great. They’re awesome. I’m back with them. I go there a couple times a year. But yeah, like that is so important to make sure that you’re not only hearing what’s going on, that you’re saying that consistent, but that you apologize when things don’t go right.

00:14:21:07 – 00:14:37:08

Oliver Barwin

But our guests, you know, they’ve said it. They couldn’t believe that someone actually reached out to make it right. That’s a foreign concept. A lot of guests, they’re not used to restaurants really texting them and going above and beyond to get to the bottom of what the issue was and making sure it’s resolved. And they feel good about it.

00:14:37:12 – 00:14:59:16

Zack Oates

Which is great, though, because the bar is set really low in the hospitality industry, ironically. Right. Do you think it’s hospitality? But at the end of the day, when you have 120% employee turnover, an 80% manager turnover, and like it’s just hard to get people that really buy in in the moment. Right. And so the tech is there to not to replace them but to enhance what they do.

00:14:59:16 – 00:15:11:00

Oliver Barwin

And that’s how we look at it. Yes. Yeah. Giving our operators the tools, the resources and the data to be able to do their job and then have the insights to understand where are we doing well or do we do better?

00:15:11:02 – 00:15:25:21

Zack Oates

Okay. Let’s say you were starting a new restaurant today, right? Brand new bushfire. Farragut Scott just got sold for $1 billion. And what do you do next? What do you feel like is the concept that would do well in today’s environment?

00:15:25:23 – 00:15:59:20

Oliver Barwin

We were big believers and better for you products. You see, there’s an overall push to make America healthy. And I think there’s also this situation where with the economy that, you know, there is lower consumer confidence and questions, higher people, one value offer. And so I think, you know, I probably potentially look at, you know, a healthy kind of fast casual concept, a lower price point that’s really smaller menu, easy to execute, easy to scale, but still providing the same flavor, quality and healthy food to communities kind of across the nation.

00:15:59:22 – 00:16:20:15

Oliver Barwin

That’s really what. But somebody like bushfire, we’ve been able to be successful in very different demographics markets, and we can be successful in the coastal California as well as Inland Empire. Yeah, which is not many brands that have been able to kind of do both. So we’re really about any brand I do in the future would be about being able to have a broad reach.

00:16:20:17 – 00:16:31:14

Oliver Barwin

I’ve done some triathlon for everyone and really kind of be a very value offering to the guests. They feel like that they’re good. Bang for the buck, eat healthy. Quick, easy.

00:16:31:16 – 00:16:38:02

Zack Oates

Okay, you know, a lot of people in the industry who is someone that deserves an ovation, who’s someone that we all should be following?

00:16:38:04 – 00:16:43:01

Oliver Barwin

I think Jim Bayless, who spoke today at our concerts and he’s a great, great operator, a great investor.

00:16:43:01 – 00:16:56:17

Zack Oates

Speaking of a billion, he is no longer with sizzling platter, but he’s the one who helped grow them to the point that they were able to sell for $1 billion, which anytime you create something that sells for something with a B in it, that’s impressive.

00:16:56:17 – 00:17:05:23

Oliver Barwin

Yeah. And he’s been, you know, a great mentor to me was very involved in bushfire in our growth. And yeah, I have a lot of respect for Jim. And I think a lot of people will learn a lot of things from him.

00:17:05:23 – 00:17:12:05

Zack Oates

Yeah. Jim Bayless and 100% great shout out. And how do people find and follow you in bushfire Instagram.

00:17:12:06 – 00:17:21:14

Oliver Barwin

The best way we’re at Bushfire Kitchen our website Bushfire kitchen.com. And then you know for business and growth news we’re on LinkedIn and that’s the best way to keep on top of awesome.

00:17:21:20 – 00:17:26:21

Zack Oates

Well for giving us a little bit of a Down Under up north. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us to give an ovation.

00:17:26:21 – 00:17:27:02

Oliver Barwin

Thanks.

00:17:27:02 – 00:17:50:13

Zack Oates

That 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.