Scott Shotter, Chief Restaurant Officer at Teriyaki Madness, joins Zack Oates to share lessons from decades of experience leading brands like Moe’s, Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, and Condado Tacos. The conversation focuses on what separates good restaurant concepts from truly memorable ones.

Find and Protect Your Brand DNA (01:40)

“You got to dig down to what the DNA is and identify it.”

Scott explains that every strong brand already has something unique. The challenge is recognizing it, defining it, and building systems that protect it as the brand grows.

Don’t Overthink It (03:15)

“It’s probably in there already. It just needs to be unearthed.”

Many brands search for a breakthrough idea when the answer is already happening inside their restaurants. Observing top-performing teams often reveals the behaviors worth scaling.

Simplicity Creates Better Experiences (05:20)

“If you try to be great at everything, you’re going to be mediocre at everything.”

Scott highlights the importance of narrowing focus. Brands that simplify their menu and operations create space for employees to deliver genuine hospitality.

Hospitality Is Still Human (05:45)

“It’s as simple as a smile and a welcome.”

Despite technology and automation, the fundamentals remain unchanged. Eye contact, listening, and authenticity continue to define great guest experiences.

Experience Goes Beyond the Food (08:40)

“Brands right now are deciding to create things that are beyond the food.”

From unique service models to immersive environments, the most successful brands design experiences that guests remember long after the meal ends.

Bring Guests Back Into the Restaurant (10:20)

“We’ve gotten so transactional.”

Scott points out that the industry has shifted toward convenience, often at the cost of connection. The opportunity now is to reintroduce hospitality and create reasons for guests to return in person.

This conversation is a reminder that great brands are not built through complexity. They are built through clarity, consistency, and a relentless focus on the guest.

Links:

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

https://www.linkedin.com/company/teriyaki-madness/about/

http://www.teriyakimadness.com/

Transcript

00:00:00:09 – 00:00:25:23

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zack 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 AI feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what’s actually happening in your restaurants and exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

00:00:25:24 – 00:00:52:03

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And today we have a legend of the industry. I mean, this guy, he’s been VP of Ops at Moe’s CEO, Backyard Burgers, president Condado Tacos, CEO Fuzzy’s and now the chief restaurant officer at Teriyaki Madness. He’s had an amazing career doing some incredible things. Talk about someone who understands the guest, the experience, the operations.

00:00:52:05 – 00:00:55:09

Zack Oates

Scott Shotter, welcome to the podcast.

00:00:55:11 – 00:01:05:20

Scott Shotter

That’s a the better introduction than my mom could have done I love that. Yeah I appreciate it. Yeah, it’s been a great ride. Great brands. I’ve worked with and look forward to sharing whatever I can provide.

00:01:05:24 – 00:01:34:14

Zack Oates

Yeah. So as I look at your experience, one of the things that’s exciting is the fact that you’ve been at some really iconic brands, and as you’re coming in there to take over, I think about like, Fuzzy’s, right. You go down in Dallas area especially. I mean, they’re all over the place, but it’s like it is religious. And how do you get in there and maintain the soul while improving what needs to get improved?

00:01:34:16 – 00:01:52:17

Scott Shotter

Yeah. You got to dig down to what the DNA is and identify it. When I started with Fuzzy’s, they had a passionate group already in place, and it’s really just harnessing that energy. And then codifying it into some sort of mission statement. In this case, it was make every day badass. And that was our mantra, right? That was.

00:01:52:17 – 00:02:11:03

Scott Shotter

And so how do you do that in a restaurant? Well, it’s really about bringing the right energy. It’s about being informational at every interaction and motivational every interaction. So if we did that with our franchisees or franchisees would do that with their employees. The employees would do that with their guests. So that’s how making every day a badass is.

00:02:11:03 – 00:02:28:01

Scott Shotter

It comes to life. It’s. And as you grow right, you hold on to that culture. You hold on to that DNA. And when franchisees come in, you got to select them to make sure that they can be badass and they understand what it is. And we did that at Moe’s, where, you know, obviously the iconic welcome to Moe’s.

00:02:28:01 – 00:02:29:18

Zack Oates

Right. Welcome the most. Yeah. Right.

00:02:29:21 – 00:02:52:24

Scott Shotter

Right. I still do it every time. Sometimes it was a verbal handshake with the guests walking into the guest, into the restaurant, and we were able to hold on to that from 200 all the way to 700 plus stores, because people believed in what people believe in something, and you hold on to it. It could be very simple, but it creates the DNA within the restaurant that you can build on tacos.

00:02:53:01 – 00:03:11:01

Zack Oates

And what would you say to a brand who’s like, oh man, I get you, Scott. Like, that’s powerful, but I don’t know if I have something that juicy or that salient. Like, I don’t quite know what my DNA is like. Well, what would you recommend to those brands who maybe have some good product? They’ve got a good team, but they’re not quite sure.

00:03:11:01 – 00:03:13:05

Zack Oates

How do you gel behind? One thing?

00:03:13:05 – 00:03:37:02

Scott Shotter

I think everyone tries to look for that thing, right? That welcome to my house or that greeting. It’s probably in there already. It just needs to be on Earth and getting the team together just to understand what that is. It could be a simple idea during that brainstorming session, but it can come to life once you get branding behind it and you get the marketing team behind it, and then operation starts creating some training materials around it.

00:03:37:05 – 00:04:03:03

Scott Shotter

So what could be a small little greeting like a Welcome to Moe’s, right turns into this iconic cult like thing just because somebody says, hey, I think maybe we should just say hello to everybody when they walk in. Hey, great idea. So I think when you search too much, right, you’ve missed this result. You’ve overlooked the result. It’s usually right in front of you, particularly if you’re a brand that has great food already and great people.

00:04:03:05 – 00:04:05:10

Scott Shotter

It’s somewhere in there. Dig it out.

00:04:05:12 – 00:04:37:14

Zack Oates

And I think that great food and great people is so key, because when you think about great people, part of this is finding out what is someone who’s a great person doing. And then I love your word of codify that, right? Like figure out what are they doing? Because a lot of times what I found is that there are people who are doing things that are so on brand that you may not know about, but if you see that there’s a place it has amazing reviews, better than other locations, like jump in there and find out why.

00:04:37:14 – 00:04:47:13

Zack Oates

Right. And I think that that there’s to your point of like don’t search too hard for it because it’s probably already happening, but it’s just not universal, right? Yeah.

00:04:47:19 – 00:05:06:10

Scott Shotter

And I think great brands do that. To put a word behind it. It’s just how do you be genuine. Right. How as an employee, a teammate, whatever manager. How do you be genuine in giving hospitality to the guests? Right. It’s as simple as a smile and a welcome. It’s eye contact. It’s knowing your craft right. Knowing your product.

00:05:06:12 – 00:05:27:08

Scott Shotter

It’s given appreciation. So when you look at these brands across that we love writing those experiences. Yeah, the food was great. But that person that interaction was one on one. And they didn’t say all the crazy marketing stuff. Right. Or, you know, go through their speech. Right? All they did was really just listen, made eye contact and smile.

00:05:27:08 – 00:05:48:06

Scott Shotter

And if we can get that right, we love brands that do that. And those are usually the brands that have simplicity within their operation. So let’s use a couple of brands that we all are cult like. We love chick fil A. Raising Cane’s in and out. What do they do? They only do this much on the menu, but they do it really, really well.

00:05:48:08 – 00:06:08:02

Scott Shotter

And so simplicity allows you to be your employees, to be genuine and actually have the time to do the things that we really care about, not necessarily what the brand wants to do or marketing wants to say, or, you know, the trainers want you to do. And it’s so hard right now because we have so many revenue streams coming in.

00:06:08:02 – 00:06:27:00

Scott Shotter

Right? You got the person that’s standing at the counter or sitting at the table that you have to take care of. But now you also got third party deliveries and they got the printer spitting out tickets. Right. You also have apps, you have app ordering, you have pickup windows. Now you have drive thru so that one can that one employee app or thing.

00:06:27:00 – 00:06:47:16

Scott Shotter

Right. They don’t make unicorns like that anymore. They can do all these things all at once. So brands have to be deliberate in making sure that they’re creating jobs that their employees can do. And I’ll tie that into a book, a great book by, Francis Free. It’s called Uncommon Service, and I read it maybe over ten years ago.

00:06:47:16 – 00:07:04:15

Scott Shotter

And it’s a it’s a fantastic book, but it breaks down uncommon service breaks down to four elements. Brands have to decide what they’re going to be great at and what they’re not going to be great at, purposely not be great at. Right. And so that’s a how do you not be great at everything? Well, if you try to be great at everything, you’re going to be mediocre at everything.

00:07:04:19 – 00:07:27:11

Scott Shotter

So lesson one you can’t be great at everything. Brands need to choose what they’re going to be great at all. Right? Second one is someone has to pay for it. So if you’re going to have really high quality food, you’re probably not going to be the low cost provider. Right. Or the lowest price point. If you want to have great service, you may have to give way on the real estate or the square footage.

00:07:27:11 – 00:07:47:14

Scott Shotter

Right? So something has to give. Third element is it’s not your employees fault. I kind of talked about that earlier. Create jobs for the employees. You have, not the employees you wish you had. Again, a reference, a reference to unicorns is not that many out there that could do everything. And then lastly, train your guests. Starbucks is a great example of how they’ve trained us.

00:07:47:16 – 00:08:07:11

Scott Shotter

How to place an order. Kiosks are now taking that place, so it all kind of breaks down to brands need to decide to create a model to allow your employees to be genuine and to actually execute what they’re doing. And from that, you get cult like brands that I mentioned earlier. So you have to be deliberate in doing that.

00:08:07:11 – 00:08:15:10

Scott Shotter

And just not let the brand just create things on top of the of of a good thing that you have to make everything mediocre.

00:08:15:12 – 00:08:37:21

Zack Oates

I love that, I think that’s such great advice. Super powerful. And when I look at what we’re looking to do with all of this, right, why do you do all of those things? It’s to create a better guest experience. And so what do you think, Scott? I mean, you’ve again, such an amazing career already in this space. What do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience?

00:08:38:02 – 00:09:14:24

Scott Shotter

Yeah, it’s in the word. It’s in that sense experiential, right? Brands right now are deciding to create things that are beyond the food and beyond the square footage. Right. And so we talked about Moe’s. We had our verbal handshake, Condado Tacos, which you you mentioned that I had the fortune to work with. They in their interior, they had local or artists come in and do a complete customization of the interior and graffiti and artwork, and there’s a story about the local town or the city that they live in, or the local legends, and it’s all on the walls.

00:09:14:24 – 00:09:35:01

Scott Shotter

So when you’re sitting there eating your taco eating and drinking margarita, you’re also just looking at this landscape of beautiful artwork that with every visit you’re seeing something just a little different, like a little Easter egg here, a little Easter egg there. So they did a great job with the environment to make it an experience. And at Fuzzy’s I mentioned, you know, make every day badass.

00:09:35:03 – 00:09:57:16

Scott Shotter

But we also had a different service model where you would pick up the food right from the window, almost like you’re going to a food truck, right? And picking up the tacos out of the food truck. So just a little difference. And brands that can do that and include that experience while growing and holding on to some of that DNA, those are the ones that are going to succeed in the long term.

00:09:57:18 – 00:10:07:17

Scott Shotter

And I think brands today have to we’ve gotten so transactional right. The pandemic has kind of driven us. I’m so sorry to keep using the pandemic, but the remnants are still here.

00:10:07:18 – 00:10:09:10

Zack Oates

Sorry you never heard of it. What is that? Yeah.

00:10:09:10 – 00:10:34:21

Scott Shotter

You know, it’s this thing back a couple years ago, so everything was transactional, right? You order on the app, you maybe go into the restaurant, you put your arm in, you grab your bag, you go, all right. And we’ve not really lost that. It’s not really gone away. So brands are starting to break. Need to break through again deliberately to get that experience again back into the dining room where the food is more profitable for the owner, as well as cheaper for the guest.

00:10:35:02 – 00:10:50:08

Scott Shotter

Right? Instead of paying whatever you’re paying to our third party aggregators, which are great, and we love them because there’s a need for them. But how do we get folks back into the restaurant where the experience is there, where we can actually showcase some guest service?

00:10:50:10 – 00:11:08:22

Zack Oates

I love that, and if you do have a high off prem percentage, I think it’s around like, what can you do to make that more personal? What can you do to show that guests that you care and convert them to order first party or to dine in next time? And I think that there’s a lot of people say, oh man, that’s not possible.

00:11:08:22 – 00:11:31:05

Zack Oates

Like, you can’t do that. I mean, our data shows otherwise. Our data shows that you can have that hospitality off prem, that you could invite people in, and it actually works to convert people from three PD to first party or to on prem. And you just need to be able to have the right flow to do that and realize every single bag needs to have some kind of a bag stuffer.

00:11:31:07 – 00:11:50:09

Zack Oates

And if you are putting your menu in there to say, order from us next time, that is the wrong time to be pitching ordering again because they haven’t even eat your food yet. They’re opening the bag and you’re telling them it’s like texting someone on the way to pick them up for a first date and saying, when do you want to schedule a second?

00:11:50:09 – 00:11:52:21

Zack Oates

And it’s like a tornado. Like, cool.

00:11:52:23 – 00:11:58:17

Scott Shotter

Right? Right. Yeah, yeah. So maybe we have to we have to painted on the bottom of our bowls or something. Yeah. Right, right.

00:11:58:17 – 00:12:02:06

Zack Oates

I just but you’re hungry for more. But you’re right.

00:12:02:06 – 00:12:21:18

Scott Shotter

Every every in-store guest should we should push them to a catering event. Every catering should get us in-store. Every third party delivery should get us back into the restaurant. Right. So there’s this remnants, right? This is these things that you have to leave behind. Easter eggs. Right. To try to get them back into your restaurant to enjoy them one more time.

00:12:21:18 – 00:12:32:20

Scott Shotter

So it is it’s tricky finding the right way of doing that, either through bounce backs or stickers or whatever. I think we’re still trying to get that right. Yeah, because we’re up against the behemoth.

00:12:32:22 – 00:12:49:08

Zack Oates

Yeah, and we’re up against a tough economy right now. We’re up against people who don’t want to spend as much when they eat out. You know, you have this tightening of the budget, no exempt cocktail that is getting people to eat out less and eat less when they eat out. So it’s like we got to fight back against that.

00:12:49:08 – 00:12:56:13

Zack Oates

And I think that what you talk about with being genuine and actually caring about the guests, that’s one of the ways that you do it. Yeah.

00:12:56:13 – 00:13:19:13

Scott Shotter

I mean, we’ve lost that connection and we’re we’re a social animal, right? We’re that’s who we are. We’re a pack animal. We love that interaction. And eating is emotional. Dining is emotional community. We need to continue exploring the expansion of that or the regaining of or recapturing of that again. And we got to do that through experience and just being ourselves and welcoming.

00:13:19:13 – 00:13:29:08

Zack Oates

So yeah, love that. So Scott, what are some I mean, I know you’ve already shared some, but any other ideas or any other tactics that you would recommend to restaurants to improve the guest experience?

00:13:29:10 – 00:13:42:21

Scott Shotter

Yeah, I came on board to recommend this six months ago, and they introduced and we introduced a video mystery shop, which is, you know, so mystery Shop, everyone says, oh boy, mystery shop, right. You know.

00:13:42:23 – 00:13:45:00

Zack Oates

Who do you guys use? Give me shout at anyone.

00:13:45:00 – 00:13:45:08

Scott Shotter

Yeah.

00:13:45:09 – 00:13:57:15

Zack Oates

It’s, RPG. Yeah. Reality based group. Yeah, yeah. Love those guys. They’re doing some awesome stuff. Oh, there they are. Yeah, they they it just gives such a great insight. And I love their game film anyway. Yeah. Going to the.

00:13:57:15 – 00:14:16:00

Scott Shotter

Game felt great. Great. It’s. And you love this first person perspective a walk in the restaurant right. Because in the past right. You get reviews, you get surveys, you get mystery shops. And the operators are always like, well, you know, I had a bad day or he said, she said, or whatever here. This is just right in front of you, right?

00:14:16:00 – 00:14:47:03

Scott Shotter

First person’s perspective of the entire visit. And you see the opportunities. You see the awkward silences of the person standing in front of the guest, not saying awed or not smiling or missed opportunity to suggest something right? Or ask them if they wanted a beverage or, you know, something as simple as that. So you see all the opportunities, but what you also see are the superstars that go unrecognized on a daily basis, because they just when someone walks in, they blossom, right?

00:14:47:03 – 00:15:07:05

Scott Shotter

And they’re in their element and they smile. And but the managers or the owners, you know, we don’t always see that. Maybe we get somebody pulls aside and say, hey, that person’s really cool. Hold on to that one. Give them a raise or whatever. But here the owner has the opportunity to celebrate that person because it’s on game film and they can show their employees.

00:15:07:05 – 00:15:31:15

Scott Shotter

And so what we’re seeing is franchisees are really embracing it. And then also using this for recognition, right? It could be used for other trainings and so forth. But we’re seeing great impact for it. We just started it. We can’t wait to keep it going. But definitely that first person perspective really just shuts down the or any other arguments other than, hey, you know what, I could do better next time, right?

00:15:31:15 – 00:15:32:22

Scott Shotter

Yeah. And that’s what I.

00:15:32:22 – 00:15:52:20

Zack Oates

Love that because they are great company. I know that we work with them with, Dave’s Hot Chicken. I know that they’re someone who a great brand, obviously, that no one could deny $1 billion, but it’s because they really care about the guests and they care about that experience, and they love getting the feedback from a wide variety of guests.

00:15:52:20 – 00:15:58:11

Zack Oates

But it’s also around, how do you actually see that? And that first person is just so powerful, so awesome.

00:15:58:11 – 00:15:58:22

Scott Shotter

It is.

00:15:59:01 – 00:16:05:06

Zack Oates

So Scott, who is someone in the industry that deserves an ovation, who’s someone that we should be following?

00:16:05:08 – 00:16:26:21

Scott Shotter

I’ve got a coming in to say I had an idea of a brand, but I, you know, I’m going to go back to France is Free and she’s a professor at Harvard Business School. She’s wrote a couple of books since Uncommon Service about service that I think everyone should take a look at. So I’m going to give her a shout out, because when I saw her, we were at War Capital and they had a all of the brands came together food and beverage.

00:16:26:23 – 00:16:44:13

Scott Shotter

They also had, you know, nursery schools and so forth. We all came together and she presented and it was absolutely jaw dropping. It was everyone in the room was just like, what? What did she just say? But what? So I’m going to give her a shout out. She’s made an impact on my life. I’m going to be gluttonous and I’m going to give a shout out to a brand.

00:16:44:13 – 00:16:49:21

Scott Shotter

Right. South block is the name of it, and it’s an RC and smoothie.

00:16:49:23 – 00:16:53:21

Zack Oates

Based out of DC you got here. Marianne, he’s the bomb.

00:16:53:23 – 00:16:54:02

Scott Shotter

Yeah.

00:16:54:03 – 00:16:56:14

Zack Oates

I love amazing, amazing company.

00:16:56:14 – 00:17:11:24

Scott Shotter

Food is great. Such passion for the foods and employee knowledge about the food as well. It’s supported by savory brand now a savory fun now, which only does great things for brands. So I can’t wait to see what he does. And they do because I’m rooting for him.

00:17:12:01 – 00:17:30:20

Zack Oates

I mean, yeah, when you look at that team of Shawna, Andrew, Clay, Dover now and Amir like that, I mean, it’s hard not to imagine South Block not just blowing up globally. So I’m excited about that. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Scott, how did people find and follow you and Teriyaki Madness?

00:17:30:22 – 00:17:48:23

Scott Shotter

Yeah. Teriyaki madness. Well, as you know, visit Teriyaki man. This.com, we could be found on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram. We have a great social presence. We have a lot of fun with the brand. So it’s a lot of fun on our social pages. Follow them there. I’m more of a hermit when it comes to social media, so you don’t have to follow me.

00:17:48:23 – 00:17:53:17

Scott Shotter

I don’t do anything exciting, so nothing to share there. But I encourage everybody to go check out the.

00:17:53:17 – 00:17:55:08

Zack Oates

Madness at Teriyaki Madness.

00:17:55:08 – 00:17:57:04

Scott Shotter

Absolutely on this folks.

00:17:57:06 – 00:18:05:17

Zack Oates

Well, Scott, for showing us that the best secret ingredient out there is genuine hospitality. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Giving Ovation.

00:18:05:23 – 00:18:07:06

Scott Shotter

Thank you Zach.

00:18:07:08 – 00:18:29:20

Zack Oates

Thanks for joining us today. If you liked 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.