Sebastian Stahl, former hospitality operator and now founder of Breadth, joins Give an Ovation to share why strong marketing starts with systems—not shiny trends. As the host of Restaurant Leaders Unplugged, Sebastian brings both practical insight and operational depth to the conversation, emphasizing that every guest experience is shaped by what happens behind the scenes. From staffing to training to messaging, Sebastian breaks down how structure creates consistency—and why that consistency builds trust.

Systems Over Shiny Objects (2:00)

“TikTok is just a channel. Without systems, it doesn’t matter.” – Sebastian Stahl

Sebastian shares why most operators jump too quickly into new marketing platforms without first building a solid foundation. Marketing, he argues, should be driven by structure—not impulse.

Why Planning Beats Reacting (3:25)

“You’re always going to fall to the level of your systems.” – Sebastian Stahl

Most small operators run last-minute campaigns with no strategy. Sebastian explains how a monthly marketing calendar and consistent promotions create reliability—and results.

The Real Role of Technology (5:05)

“Tech should enhance hospitality, not replace it.” – Sebastian Stahl

Technology can either elevate or interfere with the guest experience. Sebastian emphasizes using tools that support the team and amplify guest connection, not distract from it.

Consistency Across Touchpoints (10:15)

“Every guest touchpoint—call, text, website, staff—must deliver the same message.” – Sebastian Stahl

From hostess scripts to automated emails, Sebastian explains how guest perception is shaped long before anyone takes a seat. Every point of contact matters.

Your Team Is the Brand (11:45)

“They don’t say ‘That server was bad.’ They say, ‘That restaurant sucked.’” – Sebastian Stahl

Hiring aligned team members is critical, not just for service—but for brand integrity. Sebastian talks about how marketing and HR are more connected than most think.

Who Deserves an Ovation? (13:11)

Sebastian gives an ovation to David Scott Peters and Arjun Singh—two leaders in the restaurant space who have inspired him through both strategy and storytelling.

Transcript

00:00:00:05 – 00:00:21:15

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast, where I talk to industry experts to get their strategies and tactics you can use to create a five star guest experience. This podcast is sponsored by ovation, an operations and guest recovery platform for multi-unit restaurants that gives all the answers without annoying guests. With all the questions.

00:00:21:16 – 00:00:40:15

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. And today’s guest is Sebastian Starr, a former hospitality leader, now founder and CEO of breadth, where he helps restaurants with data driven marketing. And he is also an author and podcast host of Restaurant Leaders Unplugged. Welcome to the show, Sebastian. How are you, man?

00:00:40:17 – 00:00:42:22

Sebastian Stahl

Hey, Zach. Thank you man, I appreciate it.

00:00:42:24 – 00:01:00:04

Zack Oates

You have such a great podcast, one that I look up to, and I’m so honored to have you on this podcast. And I’m trying to put my best foot forward here, because I know you got some real notes. I feel like I’m just dancing in the club and I got a professional dancer here with me. So anyway, I’m excited to chat, man.

00:01:00:06 – 00:01:01:07

Sebastian Stahl

Let’s do it.

00:01:01:09 – 00:01:12:09

Zack Oates

So talk to me a little bit about breadth. And one of the things that I would love to get your thoughts on are what do you see a lot of restaurant brands getting wrong when it comes to marketing.

00:01:12:11 – 00:01:32:04

Sebastian Stahl

So Zach, I mean, there’s the basics, right? More than anything, it depends on the size, of course, of operators, but usually small operators. The problem is that they just don’t have a plan. There’s no structure. They’re just kind of winging marketing with whatever they have. Like there’s any emails, there’s maybe collecting some customer data there, maybe have some promotions going on just because they come up with it.

00:01:32:04 – 00:01:47:06

Sebastian Stahl

But it’s just very disorganized and there’s no structure. And I understand because it can get busy once you’re operating and there’s a you don’t have a marketing team or anybody is helping you, you really don’t have the time. So you’re just kind of juggling and just putting things together as you go. And then you plan late, right? They say they’re doing something for Valentine’s or Mother’s Day or whatever it is.

00:01:47:08 – 00:02:06:08

Sebastian Stahl

They’re planning way late, and they’re just going out with what they can and they’re just expecting for that to work. So the thing is, and this like everything in the restaurant business, so it’s systems, you’re going to fall below the level of your systems. So if you don’t build those then you’re not going to be able to get marketing right.

00:02:06:08 – 00:02:07:22

Sebastian Stahl

And it’s not that complicated.

00:02:07:24 – 00:02:22:00

Zack Oates

That’s really interesting. So systems you rarely hear someone who talks about marketing also talking about systems isn’t marketing the fun thing in systems the boring thing, like why is a marketing guy talking about systems?

00:02:22:02 – 00:02:46:24

Sebastian Stahl

Yeah, yeah. Because it’s everything’s out. Because everything out there, man. They get all the shiny stuff, right? TikTok, whatever platform comes out, is a channel. That’s all that is. So if you don’t have the right structure and systems in place, you’re not even going to know how to leverage that sound properly. So it’s about building something, right? Again, a structure where you can say, okay, this is where my restaurant is at right now.

00:02:47:00 – 00:03:03:22

Sebastian Stahl

These are the opportunities. Let’s see if it’s going to be one of my deep parts, if it’s going to be private events, if it’s going to be what revenue center? Is there an opportunity for my type of content in my restaurant? So once you identify that, okay, now let’s build a plan that’s going to address those opportunities that I fight.

00:03:03:24 – 00:03:20:01

Sebastian Stahl

And it’s going to vary, of course, by concept because a fast casual is going to be very different than a service restaurant. So once you do that okay, how are we going to address this? Okay. We need to generate, let’s say more private of at least four full service restaurant. Hey we need to really do our holiday promotions, execute them really well.

00:03:20:04 – 00:03:36:12

Sebastian Stahl

We have a great chef. The menu this all these things. So once you start putting all those things together then you can create a plan and you can create now a calendar of the things you’re going to be doing every single month. Because really aggressive marketing is about having always an excuse to bring people back and talking to them, engaging with them.

00:03:36:12 – 00:03:54:06

Sebastian Stahl

That’s what we’re doing here. So once you have that in place now, okay, how am I going to communicate these things to my audience? So you need to first, of course, define your audience. You need to leverage all your customer database, right. If you’re collecting data, it’s not you need to go back to step one with this. Collect all your customer data.

00:03:54:11 – 00:04:00:07

Zack Oates

Right. Step zero. Right. It’s almost like you didn’t customer data before. You even need like food. You know.

00:04:00:10 – 00:04:16:05

Sebastian Stahl

100% exactly. I know you’re all about customer data. So like that’s the name of the game. So again going back to systems you had, you need a system to gather customer data. Now once you have that then it was okay. What channels am I going to use to communicate this. Do I have a customer database? Okay. Email. Great.

00:04:16:07 – 00:04:36:12

Sebastian Stahl

I could use a data also for retargeting for frats. Okay, my Google listing my website. I need to be in all these different channels where people are seeing my stuff basically, and send all their messaging. It needs to be coherent, it needs to be cohesive. It needs to be the same messaging for every channel. It’s not that complex, but again, it just requires planning.

00:04:36:12 – 00:04:38:19

Sebastian Stahl

And then yeah, systems.

00:04:38:21 – 00:05:02:11

Zack Oates

I love that because systems are so key. And at the end of the day, when we look at everything we do in restaurants, from the systems we put in to the team to the ingredients that we choose, it’s all about creating a great guest experience. And so I’d love to dive into that a little bit with you, Sebastian, as you’re looking at the guest experience in restaurants, what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays?

00:05:02:13 – 00:05:24:02

Sebastian Stahl

Listen, I think it still goes back to the same thing as it always meant. We’re in the hospitality business and the people business, so it’s about being present with your guests, learning about your guests, understanding your guests. Right. So we can provide the best guest experience it has. You know, I’ve been in the restaurant business. I was in a restaurant for a really long time.

00:05:24:04 – 00:05:46:08

Sebastian Stahl

Yeah. So it’s about for seeing again those needs and meeting them. You can have great food, a great place, right? A beautiful restaurant, but everything that really creates a guest experience is that personal touch. Now technology, we’re going to get into that. Of course, even you need to leverage it now so you can create the best possible guest experience.

00:05:46:10 – 00:06:08:22

Sebastian Stahl

And I think those two can coexist personal touch and technology. So you can even provide a much better guest experience. And I know that’s what you guys are about as well. So I would say it’s the basics hospitality, understanding that you’re building relationships with people. It’s not just about a transaction. And I know that can be challenging when you have a full restaurant, right?

00:06:09:00 – 00:06:19:20

Sebastian Stahl

You might be short staff or whatever it is. But again, going back to the systems, if you’ve developed them properly, then you can provide the proper guest experience. When people go, you know, visit you at the restaurant.

00:06:19:22 – 00:06:41:16

Zack Oates

Even if it’s tough, even if it’s tough to train on that, even if it’s tough to implement some of these things when you can understand who is your guest and why are they coming in. So when you can start with the desire of the guest, and then you create that thing that’s going to fulfill that. And a lot of times what people are doing is they want to feel heard, they want to feel seen.

00:06:41:21 – 00:07:00:15

Zack Oates

We’ll be there. Talks about that all the time is helping your guest feel seen. And that’s what hospitality really is. And technology can either be there to distract your team and distract your guest, or they could be there to enhance the team and the guest experience.

00:07:00:17 – 00:07:21:04

Sebastian Stahl

That was running restaurants. Again, it’s about building those relationships. Every guest that came to our restaurant, I was appreciative of them because it’s about appreciating that they’re coming to see you among all these other options that they have, and they’re coming to check you out. They’re recurring guests even more so because now I was like to thank you for coming to see you again.

00:07:21:09 – 00:07:38:22

Sebastian Stahl

Yes, we’re providing an amazing experience, but you’re choosing to see you, to go see you, right, to spend money at your restaurant. So it’s really about acknowledging that. So of course, you as the owner can go and talk to any guest and you can do that really quickly. Right? Because as, as owners, like we just know how to connect with the guests.

00:07:38:22 – 00:07:42:03

Sebastian Stahl

But how do you train your team to do the same?

00:07:42:05 – 00:07:45:07

Zack Oates

Yes, exactly. How do you scale that?

00:07:45:09 – 00:08:04:03

Sebastian Stahl

I think that goes back to hiring is just finding the people that are in line with your values and who you are as a person and as a concept. So then it’s going to be much easier for them to deliver on your promise and deliver that guest experience.

00:08:04:05 – 00:08:32:05

Zack Oates

Yeah. And I think that that’s what it really comes down to, is so many times on these podcast where we’re over 350 episodes in, and so often we talk about the people because we understand you got to hire the right people. It is too expensive to hire the wrong person. So if you’re choosing between a maybe good fit and no one pick, no one because no one is better than the wrong one.

00:08:32:07 – 00:08:57:22

Zack Oates

And I think that’s something that in restaurants and in life and in business in general, the customer experience can never exceed the employee experience. And that employee experience, it doesn’t mean that that’s a bad employee. It just might mean this is not a good fit for them. And so it’s about having that visibility to understand and that vision of it’s okay if you don’t hire this person, it’s okay.

00:08:58:03 – 00:09:10:01

Zack Oates

In fact, to go an extra month without a hire because hiring the wrong person, it’s too expensive. It creates really negative guest experiences and it hurts the team morale.

00:09:10:03 – 00:09:22:11

Sebastian Stahl

100%. And if you want to circle it back to marketing, your team is a representation of your brand. Any experience that they have with anybody from your team, they’re going to associate it immediately with your brand. So I really.

00:09:22:13 – 00:09:23:13

Zack Oates

Like 3% that.

00:09:23:13 – 00:09:29:21

Sebastian Stahl

Servers suck. No, they’re going to say that restaurant sucked. Their service sucked.

00:09:29:23 – 00:09:49:15

Zack Oates

Yes, exactly. It tarnishes way too much. And so thinking about this and thinking about the marketing and the systems and the people and all of this boils down to the guest experience. What are some tactics that you would use? So what are some things that restaurant operators that are listening right now can walk away and say, oh, that’s something I could do.

00:09:49:17 – 00:10:11:10

Sebastian Stahl

So it’s developing a system because the guest experience is going to be affected in every single touchpoint, not just in the four walls, but also through any contact that you have, any touchpoint that you have with them. So may that be through somebody calling the restaurant and asking a question about whatever, try to or just trying to make a reservation and listen.

00:10:11:10 – 00:10:27:04

Sebastian Stahl

You don’t know how many times we’ve ran campaigns for clients and for some restaurants, and they would have the say for Mother’s Day, and they had a special whatever it is they came up with. And people would call and the hostess would answer and we would record the call. So we know we can track the guest experience. We’re we’re listening into what’s happening.

00:10:27:06 – 00:10:49:21

Sebastian Stahl

And it’s like, sorry, what menu, what is it? And they wouldn’t even know. So that already messed up the whole guest experience right there. It’s mapping out all your customer touchpoints and making sure that all of these are coherent and that everybody that has a contact with a guest is on the same page. Now that’s a text message and automation.

00:10:49:23 – 00:11:10:11

Sebastian Stahl

Same thing. If that’s somebody’s responding, a community manager responding to your social media comments, same deal. If it’s somebody replying to your guest feedback, same thing. There needs to be a process in place for every single touchpoint in the restaurant and outside the restaurant with all your guests, right? Or even potential guests.

00:11:10:13 – 00:11:31:19

Zack Oates

I love it because the worst time to train your staff is when they go back to the manager and say, a customer said this, what does that mean, right? It’s like it seems so obvious. But again, to your point, and this is why I love that you started with systems. If you don’t have a good system for training your team for getting that communication out there, it’s impossible.

00:11:31:19 – 00:11:39:10

Zack Oates

There’s too much of a game of telephone is if you get it from the top all the way down to the bottom, but you have to streamline that.

00:11:39:12 – 00:12:16:03

Sebastian Stahl

Again, it’s SOPs, right? Developed a piece for every single touchpoint. And so everybody knows what they need to do and say, hire the right people, of course, that they can do and say the right things. And so everybody knows what to do it. Every touchpoint. Yeah, yeah. And if it’s going to be all the other touchpoints that are not somebody actually interacting with them, if it’s your website, if it’s your private events page that they have all the information that they need, if it’s a whatever it is, everything needs to have a process, a system and a way of consistently be able to respond to your guests in the right way.

00:12:16:05 – 00:12:35:15

Zack Oates

This is just, masterclass right now listening to you in terms of how do think about marketing and it not just being this creative, fluffy thing because you’re coming at this as a restaurant operator, like you’ve done this, you’ve been there. You’re not just speaking at this from a theoretical, hey, I got my degree in marketing and here’s what we should do.

00:12:35:15 – 00:12:59:04

Zack Oates

But like, you’ve run restaurants before. And that’s why I think that when you think about a restaurant, a restaurant really is 90% operations and 10% marketing. If you were going to bucketed into those two things because it’s good, you can cover the most creative campaigns. But if people aren’t executing on it consistently to meet the expectations of the guest, you won’t be around for long.

00:12:59:04 – 00:13:11:13

Zack Oates

So I think this has been awesome. That was Sebastian wrapping up here. You know, so many people in this industry still having a great career who’s someone that we should be following, who’s someone that deserves an ovation.

00:13:11:15 – 00:13:18:17

Sebastian Stahl

I would say there’s a couple of people that I really like in the industry and that I do follow. David Scott Peters is one. He’s a restaurant coach and I think he’s fantastic.

00:13:18:22 – 00:13:24:16

Zack Oates

DSP is the man. I just hung out with him last week in Vegas. He’s just so cool. So she is.

00:13:24:16 – 00:13:48:02

Sebastian Stahl

Very he is super sharp. And then there’s another great guy we interview actually on our podcast. His name is Arjun Singh and he goes beyond just restaurant branding. His deal is branding. His life story is spectacular. He went through I think 23 surgeries, beat cancer like all these things. Oh my. So his wisdom beyond marketing, beyond strategy and branding is something else.

00:13:48:04 – 00:13:49:07

Zack Oates

What’s his name again?

00:13:49:09 – 00:14:02:22

Sebastian Stahl

Arjun. Arjun. They even made a movie out of his life. It’s called out. His name is Arjun Singh. Yeah. So check him out. I will definitely have him on your podcast if you can because you’re going to really enjoy that conversation. I did a.

00:14:02:22 – 00:14:05:08

Zack Oates

Lot from Zen Mango. Yep. Okay.

00:14:05:08 – 00:14:28:03

Sebastian Stahl

He used to be VP of and Papa John’s at some point. So he was up in the corporate ladder at some point with big restaurant chains, and then he founded his own company. There’s a whole story behind that, and there’s a story he wrote, also a book he wrote about experience with his daughter and how he helped them see that he was not being present in her life and showed him that he was just so focused on climbing up the corporate ladder.

00:14:28:03 – 00:14:34:14

Sebastian Stahl

So he really changed his whole philosophy. And it was just a beautiful story, man. So definitely recommend to talk to him.

00:14:34:14 – 00:14:42:13

Zack Oates

Well, I’m excited to go chat with him because we got our MBA from the same place. We both went to BYU to get an MBA so small world here.

00:14:42:15 – 00:14:43:17

Sebastian Stahl

Yeah, yeah.

00:14:43:17 – 00:14:52:08

Zack Oates

Awesome. And now Sebastian, where can people go find and follow you and where could they find your podcast? It’s the Restaurant Leaders Unplugged podcast.

00:14:52:12 – 00:15:09:08

Sebastian Stahl

Yeah, recently. Do some blogs. You can look it up and anywhere YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever, any of those channels is there. And then you can find us if you need help with the marketing for yours and building your systems and structure and execution, you can find us on Breath marketing.com. And that’s it.

00:15:09:08 – 00:15:19:24

Zack Oates

Zach. Awesome. Well, Sebastian, for helping us stay plugged in to Restaurant Leaders with your Restaurant Leaders Unplugged podcast. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you so much for joining us and giving ovation.

00:15:20:02 – 00:15:21:20

Sebastian Stahl

Thanks, I appreciate it.

00:15:21:22 – 00:15:44:10

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.