Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast with Zack Oates
Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast is your backstage pass to the minds of hospitality leaders, innovators, and operators who are redefining what it means to serve. Hosted by Zack Oates, founder of Ovation, each episode dives into real-world tactics and inspiring stories from restaurant pros who know how to create five-star guest experiences—both in-store and off-premise.
From fast casual to fine dining, catering to curbside, learn how to drive loyalty, empower your staff, and deliver hospitality that hits home. Whether you're a restaurant owner, operator, marketer, or tech partner, this podcast will leave you with practical insights and plenty of reasons to celebrate and Give an Ovation.
Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast with Zack Oates
Navigating a Lifetime of Achievement in the Food Industry With Carin Stutz
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Prepare to be enlightened by Carin Stutz, a hospitality giant whose restaurant industry experience serves as the backbone of today's conversation. Her tenure at the helm of industry giants like Wendy's and Applebee's has made her a veritable oracle of career wisdom. For anyone dreaming of a hospitality career that leaves a lasting impact, Carin’s insights into operational finesse are a feast of knowledge you won't want to miss.
On this episode, you'll learn from Carin about:
- Self advocacy
- Operational strategy
- International and franchise experience
- Guest acquisition to retention
- More!
Thanks, Carin!
Successful Restaurant Industry Career Advice
Speaker 1Welcome to another edition of Give An 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 , a two-question guest feedback platform that gives multi-unit restaurants all the answers without annoying their guests with all the questions . Learn more at ovationupcom . And today we are bringing on one of the icons of the industry , someone who I've looked up to for a long time , someone that I just had the privilege of having dinner with her a couple of weeks ago at a trade show .
Speaker 1I don't remember what one it was , karen , because who knows what trade show I'm at in which week , but , karen Stutz , you know hospitality , karen , I mean oh , I do . Yeah , I mean looking at your resume . I mean , for those who don't know Karen Stutz , I mean VP Wendy's , evp Applebee's , president Brinker , ceo Cozy , president McAllister's , deli's COO , red Robin , ceo Native Foods . Now on boards of people like Western Illinois , kurosushi , hawaiian brothers , lunchbox and others I mean , before this call , she goes , I am busier now with all these boards than I ever was before . Yeah , how's retirement treatment , karen ?
Speaker 2You know it's hard to turn it off , zach , when you work in an industry . You know and again , thanks for having me on the podcast , you know , celebrating 50 years in the industry and thank you for making me feel relevant , although I have to say that I've been a student of the business , I continue to listen to , you know , podcasts , read everything I can about the industry because it's changing so rapidly . But what you stand for at Ovation right and all about making sure that we're delivering the guests' experience and really understanding if we are and the nuances that we're missing you guys are on the right track there . That has never changed in 50 years , right ? So I think you're doing important work and you're making it easier than ever for the operator to connect with the guests . So congrats on what you've come up with too .
Speaker 1Well , coming from you , that is a huge compliment . So thank you , karen . You know one of the I don't know if you know Blaine Hearst . He's someone that also came on the podcast , someone I've been really impressed with , former CEO of Panera , and he taught me the whole model . He was the one that kind of put me onto this model of the . In your life you have three main stages . You have the learn stage , the earn stage and the return stage , and you are handedly in this return stage , as evidenced by all these boards . But walk me back to the learn stage of your career . Let's say Karen in the return stage is talking to Karen in the learn stage . What advice would you give to her ?
Speaker 2Oh , that's so great . Great question . And yes , I know , blaine , I was so lucky to be part of the inaugural group of with the Hall of Fame winners in 2022 . Blaine , myself and and Carl from Fizzoli's we were all Carl Howard , we were all inducted at the same time . So , first of all , I agree that man is nothing but first class and his stories can bring you to tears . So , yeah , I and I say something similar I said am I learning years , my earn years and I'm in my give back years ?
Speaker 2You know , and I think , if I , if I look back on on those earlier years , I guess a couple of things that that I've always talked about you know from from a career standpoint . Number one be an advocate for yourself . You know , if you think that you're going to advance your career , keep your head down and someone will notice it's simply not how the game is played . You have to be able to step up , you have to be able to speak about what you want and you have to be willing to hear real feedback and understand the gaps that that are necessary for you to improve on to get to that next position . So , number one , I always say you know , looking back , I should have been a stronger advocate for myself .
Speaker 2Number two I always talk about financial skills and especially with women's act . A lot of times we're a little bit more intimidated to talk about , you know , the financials and the numbers , because I think people think we're going to bring the soft skills to the table . We're nurturing or moms . You know those type of things , and , yes , we do , and so sometimes we miss out on the hard things . I spend more time coaching and teaching the financial skills More than ever before , I will tell you . That opens doors . That got me a seat at the table when I realized that I probably knew more than most people sitting at the table , and I think that's a value that I bring to the board . I actually read the financial statements and anything they send me line by line , and I come very , very well prepared .
Speaker 2And then , thirdly , I would just simply say is use your network . You know , especially the field operators like myself . You know , a lot of times you aren't in the office , you aren't where the decisions are being made , and as an operator , you grow up in the business . I often say is they really use me for my hands , not for my mind ? You know they always say oh , operators , don't be at Mavericks , don't go out and try to do anything different . You follow the corporate procedures when most of the time you look at it and look I know there are any operators listening that grew up in field from operations that got a list of procedures for like an LTO or something . I know there's not one of us that could have never once said seriously , who thought of that ? When's the last time they were in a restaurant , right ?
Speaker 2And it's so frustrating to see that kind of work come down when nobody has any insight into how that's going to affect your day to day operations and set your operators up to fail . So you know , I think for me it's that network , and I realized that staying out in the field . And , if I can tell you one more quick story , one of my mentors , luke Hossack , when I was working for Applebee's , I went to him and I said hey , I'd like to put my name in for the you know , the EVP , coo position . By the time I was a senior vice president running company operations and and he said , oh , that's interesting . Now , that's not the response you're looking for . Yeah , so then , ultimately , he just said well , let me ask you a couple of questions . And as I was thinking about it , he said so who's going to be in the room when the decision is made ? Right , because you'll think about promotions . You know , how does somebody get that promotion ? And I'm like well , you , you seven guys that are on the senior team .
Speaker 2And he said how many of them do you think are going to support you ? And I said well , I would guess all of them . And I'm thinking of all the things that I was able to accomplish in the past year . And he said , okay , let me ask you this then when is the last time any of them came to you just to seek out any information or any insights on any project they were working on ? And I'm like none . And he goes well , let me ask you that in reverse how many times have you gone to any of them to seek out any information or insights on something that you're working on ? And of course , my mind goes . You know , hey , I'm in the field . Blah , blah , blah . You know really didn't have any relevance whatsoever and , honestly , he had to say none . And he said , okay , let me ask you that question again Since you have no relationships or no network with anybody in that room , how many of them are going to support you ? Wow , and I had to change my answer from 7 to 0 .
Speaker 2And then I had to go in and actually use that network and work with them and talk about it . It was some of the richest dialogue that I ever had , and what I found out was a lot of people work in the corporate office . They're a little uncomfortable actually coming into our realm , into the operations . If you haven't worked in a restaurant before , you know , to me it's like I can't think of anything . I'd rather do you know , and I'm comfortable in front of the house , back of the house , wherever , but a lot of people aren't comfortable there . So it really opened a lot of doors and , yes , I ultimately got promoted . But you know , those are the big three things that I always say . If I looked back at my career , I'd have done better . An advocate for myself , learn financial skills sooner and use your network both in and outside the organization .
Speaker 1Yeah , now , with that story that you were talking about , did it take you another year before you got that promotion , or were you able to quickly jump in and get the promotion then , when you ?
Speaker 2were more of it . You know it probably took me a good probably six months or so . You know we weren't necessarily in a hurry and I was the internal candidate , so ultimately I prevailed . But you know , it's great learning lesson for me and I think you know a lot of operators . Even I always say gosh , why didn't I ever pick the restaurant closest to the headquarters ? Right ? I think that so many times . So those are the people that have the most visibility , highest risk , highest reward .
Financial Skills for a Successful Career
Speaker 1Yeah , that makes so much sense and I've never thought of it that way , but it's so true Like if you just want to do good work and keep your heads down , keep your head down . Maybe you get noticed , maybe you don't , but you should take control of your career and make sure that people are seeing , not in a way that you're trying to be showy or flashy , but in a way that you're building value for the organization . You're making your you know your uppers lives easier . That's really what it comes down to . I love that .
Speaker 1It's almost as if you've had a lot of time to think about this through a successful career and the financial skills , karen , I think that is so smart . I remember I got my MBA and as part of that and then I went to PwC , did management consulting , but really getting my financial chops and understanding how finances work , how do you build models ? What goes into the P&L ? It really it really makes you a more powerful business leader , because business decisions are based off of what are in those financials and if those are foreign to you , then you have a ceiling right in terms of how far you can go .
Speaker 2Yeah , so true . And then back in , especially if you're in operations . You mentioned the P&L . Right , we learned the P&L . We don't relearn a lot of the other statements . Right , we don't learn the balance sheet necessarily or a statement of cash flow . And it's so interesting . If you don't use the language , it sometimes can be really intimidating as well . There's a young man named Greg Franke and I .
Speaker 2We started a finance club when I was with Applebee's , kind of started with the premise of building a lemonade stand and kind of learning all the financial tools . But then it really got to the point where we would pick the company once every couple of weeks whether it was you know Darden or Pepsi or you know any of our competitors and we would go through their . You had to go through their financial statements and then you had to come with an answer . If you were the CEO or CFO , what would you do with the cash ? Now , that's a little bit different , higher level thinking .
Speaker 2Right , am I going to buy shares ? Am I hopefully going to grow my , grow my business ? Right , you know a lot of different things that you can do . Am I going to pay down debt ? But it made you think differently about the business and that you're sitting in that top C versus just trying to get by running the day to day business . And we had some great conversations and learned a heck of a lot by just going through the financial statements and asking ourselves questions , and that was always interesting to follow up , you know , two or three months later after their earnings call , to find out if we were actually right .
Speaker 1That's smart . I love that idea and just having that ability , you know , doing something like that , that's extracurricular . I mean , one of our values at Ovation is to build value for each other , our customers and the industry , and that's such a great example of how you could build value for each other in the organization . That , you know , doesn't necessarily mean that people are going to stay at that specific brand , but like you've gone on to do incredible things , but it's a matter of you .
Speaker 1You lift where you stand , right as a famous quote , famous religious quote , and I think that when you lift where you stand and you can just improve things and build value wherever you are and then make sure that you're networking with the right people to you know , let it be seen , but let it be seen in light of the company , not in light of you know , karen or Zach . And when you can do that , then I think people can . People want to support you , they want to get behind you , they want to see you succeed right .
Speaker 2Sure , I'm always leery of the operator that builds loyalty to themselves versus the brand , because how are you gonna have that success once you leave ? Once you leave an organization , you hope that that brand continues to flourish right , and so I love that . I'll probably steal that from you , by the way .
Speaker 1I love that . So , switching to talking about the guest here , what do you think is one of the most important aspects of guest experience nowadays ?
Speaker 2Boy , I'll tell you what I . You can answer that a lot of different ways . I don't think there's any right answer , so I can only answer , necessarily , what I think is important to me and most of our guests . I'm probably gonna either zero in somewhere on convenience or , you know , still speed , and I think you know time is so important in today's life more than ever , and I'm gonna kind of zero in on that , I think for a lot of different
Improve Guest Experience, Simplify Operations
Speaker 2reasons .
Speaker 2I'm mentoring an individual right now that has a bowl concept . Right , there's a lot of them out there Rice Bowl , in fact . Now I'm on the board with Hawaiian Rose and wow , take a look at that brand , zach . It is super interesting . They have really simplified operations in a way that I have never seen before . It's just powerful . But so I went in there and you know I said , hey , can I run a shift and work a shift with you all ? Now , the person that was building the bowl next to me , right , certainly certainly beat me by by a good six seconds or so . They built that bowl in nine seconds .
Speaker 1Oh my gosh Nine .
Speaker 2So it was done at the window before the guests could even pull up . Right , they've got a 25 second drive-through . I mean , what they're doing is just incredible . Now this other person that I'm talking to builds a bowl somewhere . They started when the guests order , so you're gonna get it somewhere from 10 to 16 minutes . Where are you going ? Right , 25 seconds , or am I going to wait 10 to 16 minutes ?
Speaker 2right , not even , not even a question , that's where I think you have to start thinking about what is important to the guests , right , and I love the fact that you know that's cooked to order , that it's fresh food . But I look back . You talk about our early days . One of my first jobs was Wendy's , right out of school , right , and even back then , where we did , we cooked to order . But you were a staging . We used to call the three stages raw , rare and ready , right , so you have three stages of meat , so that was coming off the grill right away , trying to forecast how much business you were gonna have , and I think that's the secret . Hawaiian brews are constantly forecasting , constantly . You know cooking behind the scenes to put fresh product that they're ready to deliver to the guests , and so I think when I'm looking at what's important to the guests , I think they're doing a pretty impressive job and probably the sales from one bull company to the other is probably three times greater .
Speaker 1Wow , and that is such a great concept because we always talk about the ladder of loyalty on this podcast , where it starts off the very bottom rung . That'll get people in , you know , one , two times . That's convenience , right . But then you take up to that level of consistency . That'll get people in a few times . But then , if you wanna get people in a lifetime , it's about connection . So that convenience , consistency , connection , but that convenience , I think you're right , it's like the . That is so important .
Speaker 2It's a party pillar , yeah .
Speaker 1Exactly , you can't get anywhere else if you don't have that convenience down .
Speaker 1And that can mean location , that can mean speed , that can mean , you know , efficiency , that your online ordering experience like there's a lot of things that go into that . But totally , if I go there and I know that , hey , this place that you can go get good food really quickly like it encourages me to go there because I wanna have . I go to lunch , because I wanna have conversation and food right , yeah , conversation and food . And or if I'm on the way home , I wanna be able to pick something up . Call my wife , be like hey , do you wanna ? You know you want me to pick something up instead of you cooking dinner tonight . And she's like yeah , I don't wanna sit there and wait half an hour where I could be hanging with my family . You know I want that quick . So , anyway , I love that . I think that's a great , great idea . What's a tactic , karen , that you've seen either in Recently in the boards that you're on , or you know personally in your experience ? What's a tactic you've seen that you've used to improve the guest experience ?
Speaker 2Well , I , you know , obviously , again , I have my operators had on all the time . So whenever I see anything or someone roll something out whether it's marketing , ceo or you know any other department I always say can you make that bullseye bigger ? That's always my first , first line that I'll say to them , and what I simply mean by that , zach , is , is how can we make that bullseye big enough that our operators have the opportunity to get right every time ? Right , you make it so difficult , like I remember we were gonna roll to a lunch program . I once had Applebee's and you know the idea was to move pretty quickly .
Speaker 2Well , you start looking at it . You're thinking , wait , this is gonna , I have to get something from every four stations in the restaurant , right , I mean , and from the kitchen trying to pull all that together . I can do it in two if let's , let's , let's think that through , right . I think there's just different ways to to think about that . I can talk about a time when I was at Brinker and the CEO was insistent that we do tacos , four tacos . Each taco had about four to five ingredients plus a sauce , and you could customize and get all four tacos differently . Right Now , like I said , I'm pretty darn fast behind the line and I worked on those tacos as fast as I could .
Speaker 2My best time was two minutes and 46 seconds right , pathetic . And so so you start thinking about things like that . Is that setting up the operator for success ? Because now you're talking about hand time ? So when I designed something for the restaurant , am I designing something that I want my operator to make 60 60 meals , or am I trying to get one person make 25 meals ? Right ? And when you're talking , you know , fast , casual , or where you're talking Qsr , you're not designing something for one person to make only 25 entrees , right ? When I just talked before about nine seconds , right , you can kind of start yeah , see the difference , but it really any concept .
Speaker 2I work . If I'm making sandwiches or whatever . Look , I know I can get those done in 25 , 30 seconds . But the problem with these tacos not only did take me two minutes and 46 seconds . By the time I was ready to send out to the guests they're already cold , so now they're sending them back . So those type of things drive me crazy when we don't really think about the impact of the operator . So I'm gonna look at things like again is you know hand time ? That's really good . Can I get some of the assembly done in production in the morning ? So ? So now I can assemble and get that to the guests quickly .
Speaker 2I look at the menu size .
Speaker 2If I want my operators to be really good at something , if I'm only making it two or three times a week , it you know , with somebody with a hundred menu items , I always say that's what I call the 10% rule by 400 guests today , 10% , 40 menu items , because that way I'm gonna get enough repetition that I'm gonna be able to make something and do it relatively well every single time .
Speaker 2And so I think , if we think about you know , put yourself in the in the shoes of your cooks in the background . That's why you see a lot of restaurants really stumble when they say , oh , we'll do brunch on the weekends , right , wow , it can be really a disaster because they just don't have . They just don't have the day-to-day knowledge and the skills to be able to pull things off like that quickly . So I guess I'm always from my point of view , I'm always looking at really from an operations perspective . Technology is a whole nother story . Obviously . I think we've all tried to simplify and try to figure out , and I think the question you have to ask is how much is the guest willing to do by themselves and still pay for it ? And I think that's changed quite a bit .
Speaker 1I mean , I think that if you look at the story they have the stories now of I just talked to someone who went to an airport , self-ordered a kiosk , got his own food it was from like a personal machine and they asked for a tip . It's like there wasn't a human there . He literally went over and he got the item and he scanned it and he typed it in and he paid for it and they said would you like to give a tip ?
Speaker 2Actually , I know who you're talking about . I think you're talking about Sam Ocast .
Speaker 2Yes , I am , I heard on your podcast and he talked about that as well and I think he talked about it on one of his speeches as well . But look , there is tip fatigue out there more than ever right now . So but we made that mistake at Red Robin , I think . At the time our CEO felt that casual dining was dead , so to speak , and I think she tried to push as much as she could off to the guest . And I would say the burgers are kind of a commodity business . If I'm gonna go through a drive-through , great . If I'm going to willing to walk up to the counter in order to fast casual experience , great . But when I come to a casual dining , I've made the decision I'm gonna sit down and you're gonna wait on me . Well , when you start and a lot of people you saw that was really a great concept for families . I you know booths were popular . You got young ones right . I got young great kids . Get them in the booth . I sit on the end . I got them locked in .
Speaker 2So , now , every time you gotta get up and make your drink or get your shake , or go get your fry refill and do all that by yourself , or go pour your own beer , now what are you gonna do with your kids ? Right , it was an ultimate failure of you know , trying to try to figure out . You know , can technology or can anything change that experience ? So I think what I just kind of come down to is what is the guest , what does the guest really want ? And that's what you have to find . What are my expectations ? What do I think your brand promises ? And darn it , I better deliver it every time you come in .
Speaker 1Amen . Now who is someone ? Obviously , you know just about everyone in this industry . Who's someone that deserves an ovation , who's someone that we should be following ?
Speaker 2Well , you know , look , I think we all love Jeff Alexander right now . He's just such a great guy and such an innovator . I feel like I knew him when you know way , way , way back when , when a lady named Suzanne Starring introduced him to me when I moved back to Chicago . We met at a Starbucks and just really hit it off . He's such a great guy , but I think everybody follows him , so maybe let's throw out Scott Ford . We just talked about Hawaiian Bros and he really does a lot of cool things on LinkedIn .
Speaker 2I think if you look at his profile you know they talk about Ohana , which is family , and they have such an incredible culture there . Even every single employee takes the culture index survey and you really get to know some insights about yourself and how you're going to work well with others and it's really pretty powerful . But he'll have leadership lessons from books that he's read . He'll have celebrations from different team members and they're just really genuine and heartwarming , but the wrap up every Friday it seems like we've got dad jokes . My husband is the worst . I always say worst . He thinks he's the best at telling dad jokes , but and I think he's got them all . But if you just look , every Friday they have a list of dad jokes out there too . That just wraps up the week with a lot of fun .
Speaker 2So take a look at Scott Ford , the CEO of Hawaiian Bros .
Speaker 1Yeah , and super impressive . I met him at RFDC last year and just what an impressive guy . He has the energy , he has that charisma . Really cool to see him working . So for our listeners , check out Karen Stutz on LinkedIn . She posts occasionally . She's a great . She's a great follow C-A-R-I-N-S-T-U-T-Z . And so , karen , for not just being in the Fast Casual Hall of Fame , but for being in my personal Hall of Fame , today's Ovation goes to you . Thank you for joining us on Given Ovation .
Speaker 2Thanks , Zach , you're the best .
Speaker 1Thanks for joining us today . If you liked this episode , leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and 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 ovationupcom .