Pete Mora, founder of Fajita Pete’s, joins Give an Ovation to share how he turned a traditional Tex-Mex restaurant into a fast-growing, catering-first concept. From crafting tables in his garage to leading a multi-unit brand, Pete unpacks the journey of simplifying operations while scaling guest loyalty. He explains why hospitality, not square footage, is the key to success—and how caring at every touchpoint builds lasting relationships.

Catering as a Core Business (2:15)

“We’re a catering company that happens to do some dine-in and some delivery.” – Pete Mora

Pete breaks down how shifting from full-service to catering-first unlocked a new level of operational efficiency and profitability for his brand.

Using Hospitality to Drive Loyalty (6:45)

“It’s the little things—like a follow-up email or free meal for the person placing the order—that make the biggest difference.” – Pete Mora

From handwritten notes to individual meals for catering coordinators, Pete explains how going the extra mile creates guests for life.

Technology That Feels Human (7:10)

“The only thing I can guarantee is that we’ll mess up again—but we’ll care again too.” – Pete Mora

Pete shares how Ovation helps Fajita Pete’s respond instantly to feedback and recreate that lost “table touch” in an off-premise model.

Turning Small Spaces into Big Wins (9:00)

“Most of our stores have 2 to 4 tables, and we use those as a chance to win new catering clients.” – Pete Mora

Pete outlines how their tiny dining rooms serve as intentional showrooms to convert walk-ins into long-term corporate catering partners.

Scaling Culture Through Leadership (14:00)

“You can have the best systems, but if you hire the wrong person, none of it matters.” – Pete Mora

Pete emphasizes the importance of hiring and leadership at the store level to maintain culture and consistency as the brand grows.

Who Deserves an Ovation? (16:00)

“Anyone who teaches leadership and helps hourly employees grow. If leadership can be taught, those people make your store better.” – Pete Mora

Pete gives a shoutout to those helping to elevate the next generation of restaurant leaders from the ground up.

Thanks, Pete!

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-pete-mora-605a37228/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/fajita-pete’s/

https://www.instagram.com/fajitapetes/

Transcript

00:00:00:03 – 00:00:24:10

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of 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 powered by ovation, the feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. It gives you all the insights you need with none of the annoying surveys for your guests.

00:00:24:11 – 00:00:42:10

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And today we have a friend of mine. We’ve been working together for quite some time now. He’s got an amazing brand, amazing story. Pete Mora, the founder of the award winning and mouthwatering fajita pizza. Pete, welcome to the show, man. How are you?

00:00:42:12 – 00:00:43:17

Pete Mora

Very good. Thank you for having me.

00:00:43:20 – 00:01:00:18

Zack Oates

It’s an honor to meet you. I’ve been following your brand digitally, and it’s really cool to see how much people love what you do. And they love this style. Tell me about it, though, because it’s not your typical what you think of as like your typical taco shop. It’s not a regular Mexican restaurant.

00:01:00:20 – 00:01:24:21

Pete Mora

No. Definitely not. I think it’s a hybrid. It all stemmed from my very first restaurant that had 60 tables, full service, typical mom and pop neighborhood Tex-Mex joint right? Open that right when I was out of college and I did that for six years while I was there, I learned a lot of the stuff in the restaurant business that I love, and a lot of the stuff that makes it difficult as well.

00:01:24:23 – 00:01:49:01

Pete Mora

Luckily, I was 23 and I knew absolutely everything as every 22 year old does. So we battled through it, learn how to develop catering business. And that’s where the idea for Fajita Pizza came in. Once I started catering, I said, man, I’m selling more before I opened the restaurant than my lunch shift, and I don’t have to worry about 60 300ft² and 20 some odd employees per shift.

00:01:49:03 – 00:02:13:15

Pete Mora

So that kind of got my gears turning. And I developed the idea of fajita pizza, which is basically pick up delivery in catering. And it’s a very simple menu, which led to a simple equipment package, which led to my first shop being 1200 square feet, and I took it average. So that’s kind of how it all started. It stemmed from full service to this quick QSR type model.

00:02:13:17 – 00:02:19:24

Zack Oates

If you were to go back and kind of do it over again, what would you change about the first location?

00:02:20:01 – 00:02:29:13

Pete Mora

I would have gone to law school. Well. I know the first location was available, which is the first thing. Right?

00:02:29:15 – 00:02:30:03

Zack Oates

Oh, interest.

00:02:30:03 – 00:02:48:19

Pete Mora

Two years old. You don’t have a lot of stuff going on. I had the support of my family, which was energy, very little capital. So we had to go find an abandoned restaurant that had a lease available until way or a lease. So that was kind of the first step. And the idea was restaurants let you know really quick if you’re going to make it or not.

00:02:48:21 – 00:03:13:09

Pete Mora

So my mother said we didn’t come all the way from Colombia to fill out applications. So go figure out if you’re going to make it in this world. And if you don’t, you’re 23. You’re out of college. You’ll be fine. So it was a combination of the grit of wanting to get into your own business. The pasta I created in the restaurant and service industry, waiting tables through college, and then just the availability of the spot.

00:03:13:11 – 00:03:39:24

Pete Mora

I mean, the first eight months was just repainting the place, making all the tables in our garage with my father and figuring out where to get use table legs to get started. And it’s a typical walk uphill both ways. In the freezing snow of Houston, Texas. Right? So it’s the typical story, but that was kind of the origin of is that the availability and figuring out what to do with the opportunities available.

00:03:39:24 – 00:03:42:11

Pete Mora

And that’s kind of how far ahead a pizza came about too.

00:03:42:13 – 00:03:49:00

Zack Oates

So you still have catering is a big part of what you do, right? What percentage of your revenue is catering versus 30?

00:03:49:02 – 00:04:13:15

Pete Mora

About 30% brand wide is catering. Wow. Which is huge. You know, it sets up your PNL really well. Most of the orders are at least 24 hours in advance, so it’s a really nice part of the model. The hard part is getting catering is a relationship business. So the runway, there’s a little longer. So you need the interaction with the guests from your what we call retail or nighttime business or lunchtime business.

00:04:13:17 – 00:04:26:23

Pete Mora

And then that’s kind of how you develop the catering. Now with third party vendors, it’s a little easier to get into offices than they used to be back in the day. Yeah, when I started. But it’s definitely rewarding once you get that catering to the right levels.

00:04:27:00 – 00:04:36:10

Zack Oates

And what tips would you have of people who are. Because obviously catering right now is something that everyone’s talking about. Everyone’s thinking about. How do you look at catering?

00:04:36:12 – 00:04:52:04

Pete Mora

When people walk into Fajita Pete’s, they say, where’s the rest of your restaurant? You know, that’s the typical thing. I say, okay, let me tell you, if you’ve never been here, I’ve been waiting for you for 17 years. But we’re a catering company that happens to do some dine in and some delivery. I think you have to lead with that.

00:04:52:04 – 00:05:17:15

Pete Mora

And and that was a big shift coming from the full service restaurant. People saw me as a restaurant that did some catering. And then once I packaged that into the small square footage and kind of looked like a taco shop, people said, oh, that’s a catering company that does some delivery and that and something changing the guest mind and and then catering just shot up after that, I guess with my footprint, I have the luxury of being able to go catering first and work off of that.

00:05:17:17 – 00:05:44:13

Zack Oates

I think that’s so awesome because there’s actually a restaurant here in Utah, and they’re only open like a few hours a week, but they’re a catering company and they do these giant catering orders. They have one location, but I mean, you are in line from 11 a.m. until they close at like 3 p.m.. I have never been there without a line, but it’s a catering company and everyone knows them as the catering company.

00:05:44:15 – 00:05:55:20

Zack Oates

And so I think that’s a really interesting tactic when you do your lunch orders and stuff like that, do you put in any fliers or notices about catering or how else do you get people to know about catering we’ve.

00:05:55:20 – 00:06:15:02

Pete Mora

Developed over the years? I mean, first it was walking into offices and getting kicked out by security. You walk in and you give out little coins that said, hey, free appetizer for pizza and stuff like that. Now it’s evolved to yes, definitely. Every catering needs to have a box with your logo on it when you walk up the elevator, because everybody in the elevator is going to tell you, oh, I’m gonna follow you.

00:06:15:02 – 00:06:27:13

Pete Mora

Where are you going? Right. So then you have to have a car to get them. Yeah, you have to have a car to give them right then with say, hey, you don’t have to follow me. Just don’t be weird. Just go to my restaurant for a free lunch and get to know what we are all about.

00:06:27:15 – 00:06:28:11

Zack Oates

That’s awesome.

00:06:28:11 – 00:06:46:18

Pete Mora

You have to work all those angles. And on our website, our marketing team has done a great job of capturing data, retargeting people that abandon our carts. Maybe. So a lot of people just pray shop. We get a notification when you’re shopping on my site. If you leave, say, hey, there was a partial order. Somebody looked at this, is this.

00:06:46:18 – 00:07:07:16

Pete Mora

So we reply, hey, if there’s something that wasn’t clear on our website, we’d love to serve you. Please let us know if you have additional questions. So little ways. Now with technology, it’s a lot easier to reengage with people. Create that, repeat customer. You have 3060 day dormant customer campaigns. You have a lot of ways to do outreach to people now that you didn’t in the past because we’re busy.

00:07:07:16 – 00:07:26:20

Pete Mora

I mean, we’re running restaurants. And I think really the most important thing when I started my story with the full service and I like ovation, is you have to give them you have to when you get back from your catering, maybe at 3 p.m. once the lunch rush is over, you say, hey Debbie, thank you so much for trusting us with your lunch today.

00:07:27:00 – 00:07:36:13

Pete Mora

I just want to check that everything was amazing. Please let us know if you have any comments or when we can be a service in the near future. That’s it. That little email is so important.

00:07:36:15 – 00:07:54:03

Zack Oates

I love that and I love the whole concept of hospitality, especially when you can’t see the whites of their eyes where you can’t watch them eat your food. It’s so important to do that. And by the way, your website not only has a lot of stuff on there when it comes to catering, but you’ve got some great merch.

00:07:54:03 – 00:08:16:24

Zack Oates

I love these tank tops. It’s a hot case of summer, and I think that with catering, one of the things that we found is that it’s not only about getting people to eat your food at the catering event, but getting them to place an order with you. And so one of the things that we found to be really successful is we set up a QR code, and it’s basically like our third party conversion flow.

00:08:16:24 – 00:08:41:21

Zack Oates

So it was catering provided by. How was your experience to question or how do you enjoy the food? Two questions to get $5 off your next order with us. And what’s cool about that is and you’re not only getting people to eat your food, but then you’re giving them a coupon to come in and order themselves and collecting more of that customer data of the people who are trying your food is just magical.

00:08:41:21 – 00:08:53:02

Zack Oates

Now, one of the things that you where we were talking about before we hit record was you have a little bit of a dining room, but there’s only like a few seats. Tell me how you utilize that, because I think that’s really smart.

00:08:53:03 – 00:09:07:20

Pete Mora

Yeah, most stores have 2 to 4 tables, and the way I like to use that is, first of all, some people that work around your stores just want to get away from the office for 30 minutes, come in and eat. And that’s an opportunity right there to say, hey, where do you work? If you can get your office, how can I blah blah blah blah blah.

00:09:07:20 – 00:09:24:15

Pete Mora

We cater. Here you go. Right. Great service. That’s our very limited chance at hospitality. Another way is you have people that are shopping like I said earlier on your site, that maybe they were trying or calling and asking questions and you say, hey, before I quote you, if you don’t like the food, what’s the point? Come on the end to the shop.

00:09:24:15 – 00:09:40:24

Pete Mora

I’ll treat you to fajitas for two four, bring whoever the other decisionmakers are, and then that way you get to show them and earn that confidence. Because I think catering is a relationship business and it’s a trust. So you have to earn that. And then from then, then the sale becomes super easy. You don’t I mean, they’re going to order after that.

00:09:41:01 – 00:09:45:09

Pete Mora

So I think it’s really kind of a presentation the showroom if you will.

00:09:45:11 – 00:09:52:22

Zack Oates

And what do you do to increase repeat orders. So let’s say someone you know, someone who places a catering order, how do you remind them to order again?

00:09:52:24 – 00:10:11:10

Pete Mora

Well, we have constant outreach to them. We have a few emails per month. And then the people because catering we do a lot of corporate catering. So maybe people don’t order every week. Some do. Some pharmaceutical reps are different than office admins, but if there’s dormant for 30 days, they get another little touch point, 60 days they get another one.

00:10:11:15 – 00:10:28:05

Pete Mora

There’s some customers that only order once a year, but they order for 800 people when they do so it’s just a different way to get in touch with them. Also, what’s in the bar? I mean, this is completely erratic, right? We don’t I send a gift card to the person placing the order because with the note that says, hey, you’re always feeding other people.

00:10:28:05 – 00:10:47:23

Pete Mora

Here’s a gift card for you to feed you and your family. Come by the shop and pick up fajitas for 4 or 5. He does for six, whatever they give him 100 $200 gift card, whatever it is. Because I think that’s lost in that. When I used to do the catering myself, I always noticed that the person placing the order never went in the room where the food was, you know, because they were doing the corporate catering.

00:10:48:00 – 00:11:04:02

Pete Mora

So then you could do little things like bring a individual meal for them, even though they ordered fajitas for 30 guys, what takes the heat is for 30 and then one on the side. So here you go. I know those guys that don’t like to share. They might take a while. I want you to get your food hot and then you give them their own meal at that time.

00:11:04:04 – 00:11:19:10

Zack Oates

Wow. One of the things we always talk about at ovation is that the little things matter because they are the little things. We can fake the big things, but you can’t fake the little things. You can’t fake the really caring right?

00:11:19:12 – 00:11:39:03

Pete Mora

Yeah. Genuine moments are so important, even for the valet, a security guard who wants to kick you out of the line when you’re trying to deliver, say, bring them two tacos, rice and beans. Case on a drink? Yeah, here you go. But. And that’s it. I mean, next time he’ll say, hey, you got 15 minutes to go up there.

00:11:39:05 – 00:12:10:17

Pete Mora

Little things like that. When you walk into these huge buildings, the garden nobody looks at, drop them off. Chips and queso. Hey, man, here’s a snack. Quesadilla. You know what I mean? Those little things that you would do for your guests that come in regularly. And I think that’s the advantage of coming from full service is when we tell our people, even though we only interact with guests 40s we preach 40s of hospitality in the stores that get that, the franchisees that get that, you can tell in their repeat business and order volume.

00:12:10:17 – 00:12:29:13

Pete Mora

Right. So it’s just about getting in. And that’s where I like ovation, because when we were waiting tables, somebody was mad. You could tell they were mad and they could yell at you immediately, which is what you want with ovation. And we’re 98% to go. Let’s say I have a delivery at night three blocks away from one of my stores.

00:12:29:15 – 00:12:48:01

Pete Mora

Man, these guys suck. They forgot they’re my queso. And you get it immediately. You get a ticket number, you pick up, the manager gets it immediately. You calls it. Oh my God, I take that order myself. My apologies. The case was on its way in a couple brownies. So sorry about that. That right there is a table touch that we used to get in full service that we don’t get anymore.

00:12:48:03 – 00:13:05:14

Pete Mora

But through this, people get to see that because people are working. And I tell them, hey, the only thing I can guarantee is we’re going to mess up again because we’re human, but we’re gonna care again. People won’t be too upset that you mess up. They’ll be upset if you mess up and then you ignore them. That’s just double loss.

00:13:05:14 – 00:13:24:14

Zack Oates

Yeah. And I think it’s so powerful that the real key ingredient of success with ovation is people who care. You have to care about the guest experience. You have to care about the guest. And if you do about each individual guest, then yeah, a tool is going to be great. But if you don’t want to use it, it’s not going to matter.

00:13:24:16 – 00:13:25:22

Pete Mora

We preach response times.

00:13:26:01 – 00:13:27:08

Zack Oates

Response times. Yes.

00:13:27:08 – 00:13:45:08

Pete Mora

Because I mean, I don’t want you to. Hey, you forgot my case of two days later. Oh yeah. My bad. Here’s $5 off. Now just ignore me at that point. Don’t even talk to me. It’s got to be instant and overwhelming that you show that you care. A KPI is a response. Times innovation. Sports is part of our KPIs when we do store visits.

00:13:45:10 – 00:14:07:23

Pete Mora

And to your point about caring, that’s what I told the gentleman that helped us write the operations manual. When you’re starting the franchising process and it’s hundreds of pages in digital and this I said, you could have saved me so much time if on the second line it just said, do not read further if you don’t give it them, because if you don’t give them these next hundred pages will mean nothing.

00:14:08:04 – 00:14:11:10

Pete Mora

They will just be words on paper if you don’t give a damn.

00:14:11:12 – 00:14:31:00

Zack Oates

Amen. Which is why we always preach at ovation to do good and eat well, right? It’s like you got to do good. You got to help your guest feel like they matter. And if you really care about them, they’re not just going to be fulfilled, they’re going to be fulfilled. And that’s what this is all about. That’s the reason that people get into this.

00:14:31:02 – 00:14:54:01

Zack Oates

But my last big salient question here, Pete, is I get that you have this magic about you and that you get it, and you love people and you care about people. My question is, how do you scale that and not just scale that with corporate locations, but you’re scaling this with franchises. How do you do it?

00:14:54:03 – 00:15:13:21

Pete Mora

If I knew that answer, I would be the one with the cool podcast equipment right now. I think it’s like marketing. It’s like every marketer tells you they have this silver bullet and there’s not. If they had the silver bullet for marketing, they’d be retired 30 years ago. It’s consistency. It’s caring. It’s trying to make care a process.

00:15:14:01 – 00:15:32:10

Pete Mora

Right. Trying to instill that in every part of the process. And I think like anything else in the restaurant business or HR or related businesses, 85% of your problems are solved at the hiring table. If you hire the right person, then that’s a huge part of it. If you hire the wrong person, you can have the best systems and they won’t matter.

00:15:32:12 – 00:15:44:03

Pete Mora

There’s nothing better for the crops than the farmers own two feet type of mentality, right? So whoever’s on there in that store has to have that presence. It’s about leadership at the store level that will push that through.

00:15:44:05 – 00:15:59:14

Zack Oates

Then I feel like there have been so many one liners here. I don’t know how we’re even going to edit this down to a single clip, but I’m so glad that we can have the whole podcast here. Last question, Pete, who deserves an ovation, who’s someone in the restaurant industry that we should be following?

00:15:59:16 – 00:16:26:04

Pete Mora

I try to stay away from food critics. I think anybody that’s preaching employee improvement, I think somebody that really provides a path for your employees to grow, I think to go along with the fact that that we need people that care. I think a big part of that is providing the store level, hourly employees a path that they feel like they have in their own hands, training, set goals, and that develops a thing where they won’t have turnover.

00:16:26:08 – 00:16:48:13

Pete Mora

I think somebody that really teaches that can help you learn leadership. At the manager level, we’re growing company and we have the C-suite and the CEO and the CEO. And at the end of the day, the most important seat is the cooks. The more people that you have training your people and rolling them in your idea. I think anybody that teaches that type of leadership, if leadership can be taught, that’s the big debate, right?

00:16:48:15 – 00:16:51:01

Pete Mora

Is somebody that will make your store better.

00:16:51:03 – 00:16:54:20

Zack Oates

I love that, Pete. How do people find you and Fajita Pete’s.

00:16:54:22 – 00:17:17:07

Pete Mora

Fajita Pete’s dot com baby? I think we have social media. We have other stuff like that. I don’t know if you could tell you haven’t known me long enough, but I’m a simple man. I named the company Fajita Pete’s because I’m Pete myself a it so we do have all those cool social media and LinkedIn pages, but the best thing you can do is go buy a store, try the fajitas, and, get to know the truth.

00:17:17:09 – 00:17:26:14

Zack Oates

Love that. Well, Pete, for serving up a masterclass on caring with a side of catering. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us and give giving ovation.

00:17:26:16 – 00:17:28:06

Pete Mora

Thank you brother. Keep doing what you do. It helps a.

00:17:28:06 – 00:17:52:07

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.