Today, we're thrilled to welcome Tom Gordon, CEO of Slim Chickens. With nearly 22 years at the helm, Tom has been instrumental in transforming Slim Chickens into a beloved brand known for its innovative LTOs and consistently delicious offerings. We discuss how Tom balances staying true to the core menu while continuously introducing exciting new options. He shares his philosophy on creating a frictionless guest experience, from the moment customers drive onto the lot to the time they leave.
Today, we're thrilled to welcome Tom Gordon, CEO of Slim Chickens. With nearly 22 years at the helm, Tom has been instrumental in transforming Slim Chickens into a beloved brand known for its innovative LTOs and consistently delicious offerings. We discuss how Tom balances staying true to the core menu while continuously introducing exciting new options. He shares his philosophy on creating a frictionless guest experience, from the moment customers drive onto the lot to the time they leave.
Thanks, Tom!
Speaker 1:
Welcome 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, an operations and guest recovery platform for multi-unit restaurants that gives you all the answers without annoying guests with all the questions. Learn more at OvationUpcom. And today I'm so excited we have a guest that I met years ago randomly at a trade show. We happened to be sitting at the same table. This wasn't even at the trade show, this was kind of like backstage, where we were both like sitting down doing some work and we started to chat and struck up a conversation. And we've just seen each other at almost every trade show since then. He is on stage. He is a prolific thought leader and a great leader in the space in general. His name is Tom Gordon, the CEO of Slim Chickens, where he's been for almost 22 years, which is crazy.
Speaker 2:
Long time. Good to see you again.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, likewise, tom. So first of all, slim Chickens. You are doing some great things. You're pushing the envelope You're always coming out with. Your LTOs are great. Your product is amazing. How do you stay both consistent and innovative? You are an operator's operator, but when it comes to the innovation, being there for 22 years, how do you not just do the same thing over and over again? How do you get out of that rut?
Speaker 2:
That's a good question. I think that you first have to start with. As we grow, everything on the menu is new. In any town USA where the store goes in that's never been there before. So the core still works.
Speaker 2:
We believe we talk about the core and market the core, but then around the core, meaning customizable dipping sauces, new dipping sauces, new sandwiches, different wraps. We do two or three LTOs every year, usually around quarter breaks and just trying to give someone like me. We isolate our products all the time me, but I still eat our products all the time. If I just wanted something a little different than my normal Slim's meal, five tenders, maybe it's a sandwich that day and some specific sandwich that you have to wait for or you haven't seen as often, you might try and you can talk about the metrics and the marketing and how it drives more guests to the doors.
Speaker 2:
But I think generally if you stick to the premise that if you can give something great to the guest additionally than the normal menu, you're going to win because you're taking care of the guest and you're going to get trial because it's interesting and your reputation is good and the product is generally good. For us it's like the guest is number one Take care of the guest, give them options and make sure they're happy. And two, that should track and follow metrics to sales and comps, traffic and things we all have to talk about in the business line of restaurants, which is different than the hospitality line of restaurants.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I love that you talk about the guest experience, because that's where the buck stops with the guest. The buck starts with the guest. The whole buck in between is about the guest right. What do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience?
Speaker 2:
What we talk about is you have to own the experience. I mean you have to own it from the time they drive on the lot to the time they leave. And that means what do they see when they drive on the lot? How does the restaurant look? Cleanliness, trash, people, is there a drive-through? Are we friendly and fast? And I think generally we do well.
Speaker 2:
All across the United States and across the world where we operate, we fall down and we have to deal with it all the time, which is your business. You have to manage the hopefully very outlying failures around guest experience in a way that makes them want to come back. But you can't fool a guest. It can't be tricked. You can't substitute subpar quality products. You don't want to be in a position where a guest says I just stopped going there and I don't really know why, because you changed something. I mean that's death. We believe guests first take care of the guest. Honesty and integrity is the only currency any of us have anyway. So we extend that out through our restaurants and make sure that the guest knows what we have is what they expect, and we just try to innovate and maneuver and work off that.
Speaker 1:
I love that when you think about the guest first and I like how you're thinking about like that repeat guest and stick to your core. Don't mess up what people love so much. But, yeah, adding that exploration, adding that thing that's going to intrigue them enough to come back maybe a couple months earlier. Right, spend a little bit more to try something else out. That mindset is what propels brands forward. And you guys, over the last two years I mean you've had such a steady growth and it's one of those things that it's not like you're signing up, it's not like you're tripling your brand in a year, but you're sticking to those fundamentals, which is seeing your and your location counts are proving it. People are adding these locations. You're having good growth and every time I go into a Slim's it's like I see a lot of smiles and a lot of people and that's what's great when you're talking around the guest experience and you're thinking about that. Are there any tactics that you've used lately to improve the guest experience at Slim's?
Speaker 2:
Tactically. There's the stuff inside the restaurants table touches, refill drinks, make sure everything's right. I mean, there's stuff you got to do. But we also think about, and we try to train GMs and team members about, the holistic guest experience. The word we use is we want the experience to be frictionless. We want a frictionless guest experience meaning it's easy for them to choose to come back. It's not going to be hard I got my kids in the back and still get to the drive-thru or get inside and it's not going to be long, painful, drawn out, unexpected it's the same. It's consistent, it's friendly, it's quick and it's frictionless. It's easy. We want it to be easy for folks to choose us. Personally, I believe if you want something to happen, you got to say it out loud and go for it, and so we want to have a frictionless guest experience to take care of the guests that believe in us, and that's a principle that we try to push out through all restaurants.
Speaker 1:
And as you look at the frictionless, I mean you guys have almost 200 locations now.
Speaker 2:
We're up to 268. Oh, wow, okay, 250. 51 of those being the UK.
Speaker 1:
Got it, got it. Okay, that makes sense, because I was like I had that 200 number in my head, a little over 200 in the US. Cool, when you think about frictionless, how does location, the actual physical location of the restaurant, how does that play into the success of the restaurant? Is that still, even with online ordering and stuff like that? Is that still an important factor, do you think?
Speaker 2:
I think it's critical factor. The cardinal rule of real estate is being visible but unaccessible, and we still see sites that come through that were like you can't get in there, you can't get in there, it just doesn't work. Accessibility is just as important as visibility. You got to be able to get in and we've learned the lesson, unfortunately, more than once, where a real estate agent will say, hey, no, this is a back road, the community knows how to use it, which is always wrong. So you've got to make sure it's accessible and visible. And then, finally, the lot is user-friendly. You can maneuver a suburban full of kids just to be able to get around the lot and get to the drive-thru, be able to reverse without any more trouble than would be anywhere else.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think that is so important because I think so often nowadays. Like you, I've been in the restaurant industry for a long time. I grew up in it and I think that somewhere over the last few years, since COVID, you just hear a lot less about location because your online location having good ratings, having a frictionless ordering experience, is so critical. But the fundamentals still hold true. It's just, and the digital frictionless, like you, still need a good location and I think oftentimes I see especially brands that are trying to grow really quickly they'll get substandard locations and then struggle through it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think locations is still key and especially if you intend to have a drive-through retail presence, dining room presence, it has to be accessible. It has to be where people want to be. We're not any different than anybody else. The newer, shinier, sexier trade areas where people want to go shop is where we need to be. But, as you mentioned, the digital experience too, the layer for us that we've seen, which we try to focus on, is it's got to also be frictionless for the uber drivers and the doordash drivers.
Speaker 2:
It's got to be easy for them, not just for our guests but their guests too. It's going to be easy to see the order get the right drinks, get the stuff walk out. Make it easy for the guys who are delivering our product to get it out quick and fast. And that's been a whole since covid, as mentioned. That's been a real change, is making it easy for those guys because that's such a growing piece of the business.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and as you're looking at the future of restaurants, you've seen a lot ups and downs and waves. What advice would you give for growing restaurants at this point? What things should they really be watching out for?
Speaker 2:
I think that you can easily sort of drown in labor and food costs these days. Both are expensive, both are up. Everybody's fighting it and I've been doing this for 20 plus years. You talk about labor every year, but it has taken a more significant jump in the last four years than it did the previous 10. So it's a big inflationary pressure around labor. But in terms of how we manage through that, for anybody who has products and the idea and the story about a restaurant, I mean the products are where you begin and we all know you've gone to a dirty restaurant or a slow restaurant, but you go because the food's amazing. Now, I don't want to be dirty or slow, but people will do it. The product is the key and if the product's the key, then you can build on that and make sure that you do the mathematical metrics and the labor and the food costs and the computations and calculations that make you profit. But if you don't have the product, sell it, and a product that guests want to buy, that's where you go straight.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, love that Well, tom, who is someone who deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry? Is there anyone that you follow that we should be following as well?
Speaker 2:
I think you probably follow more people than.
Speaker 1:
I do.
Speaker 2:
There are those that I think do a great job. I mean the team at Chipotle. Their digital program is awesome and amazing. They do a great job in the restaurants as well. I've been fortunate enough to get to know Howard Schultz a little bit and his Starbucks as an industry leader in digital and drive-through, and emulating drive-through, speed and efficiency and mobile wallet stuff is something that we try to do all the time. That's not headline news.
Speaker 2:
Everybody loves those companies, and so do I, and I have a lot of respect and admiration for those who continue to elevate and evolve the guest experience and make it easy, make it frictionless. Those brands do that well. I think Sonic's done a good job converting to the more digital screens and their pull-up bays. Those guys have done a good job converting more of the old-school traditional pull-up and get a burger to hey, does it work on your phone or you pay them through the app and through the digital screens. I think they're doing a good job and I try to be a student and one who learns from every brand out there. We say around here all the time that no one has the market corner on good ideas, and I think that we try to take advantage of at least paying attention to and learning from those who do it best.
Speaker 1:
Well, you're not only a prolific student, but you're a great teacher. Where can people go to learn more? If I want to hear more of Tom's musings, or if I want to learn more about Slim Chickens, where do I go?
Speaker 2:
Well, slimchickenscom is always certainly available. There is a franchising at SlimChickenscom, which is an email that prospective franchisees use often. It goes to my sales team, but the website's great. The website has some testimonials, some videos, some videos of Greg Smart and I my founding partner and I, who we do some stuff for the training videos and try to help the new folks come in. Those are the best places to see us. We're, of course, active across every social media spectrum. You can think of TikTok and Facebook and Instagram and all that stuff, and our UK partners have a great Instagram presence. They got a really good, funny team over there that does so. You get to see a lot of both if you look on Instagram Awesome.
Speaker 1:
Tom, for making it so hard for us to stay slim with your delicious chicken. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on. Give an Ovation. All right, thanks, enjoyed it Awesome. 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 OvationUpcom.
