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
Reimagining the Future of Food with Benjamin Kaplan
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Have you ever wondered how plant based food can serve the growing global demand for burgers? Join Zack Oates as he sits down with Benjamin Kaplan, co-founder and CEO of Plant Burger, who shares his fascinating journey into the world of plant-based cuisine. From his personal switch to a flexitarian diet to the creation of Plant Burger, a food haven designed for all food enthusiasts irrespective of their dietary preferences, Benjamin’s story is both intriguing and inspiring.
On this episode, you'll learn from Benjamin about:
- Accuracy and taste
- Importance of an omnichannel presence
- What it means to be plant based
- More
Thanks, Benjamin!
Plant Burger
Speaker 1Welcome to another edition of Give An Ovation the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast , a show where we talk to multi-unit brands and 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 , SMS-based real-time guest feedback platform that helps restaurants measure and improve their guest experience . Now today's guest is Mr Benjamin Kaplan , co-founder and CEO of Plant Burger , and I asked him a really interesting question at the start of this podcast , because Plant Burger is a really cool brand New York City-based vegan restaurant , and I said , hey , Benjamin , off the record , you eat meat though , right ? And then he went into this beautiful segment about his journey and Plant Burger journey into the world of vegan . So let's cut away to that real quick .
Speaker 2Yeah , and on the record , I'm a full-on flexitarian . I think I've been . What's exciting about this concept and me being a part of it is like growing into a plant-forward eater , because I'm growing this company and this brand , so it's been self-fulfilling for me in a way , and I love eating . I love it is my joy factor , and anything else I do is in an attempt to be able to enjoy great meals at the end of the day . And so what this has done is allowed me to open up my consciousness frankly to a stakeholder I've been unconscious to , which is our planet , and really understand how my choices personally impact that stakeholder too . And that's just fulfilling , that's meaningful right , when you can sort of bring yourself to see something greater than yourself .
Speaker 1So and welcome back again . Now , that was beautiful , benjamin . I really appreciated you sharing your story with us and tell us a little bit . You told us a little bit about you . Tell us a little more about Plant Burger .
Speaker 2Yeah , well , I'll answer that question just one time a little bit differently , which is would you trust that I tell you that Plant Burger has some of the tastiest burgers in the world , if I didn't eat me ?
Speaker 1That's a really good point .
Speaker 2Hadn't experienced at some point in my life , because , truly , I don't eat other cheeseburgers very often anymore , if at all , because I just love our Plant Burgers as much as I do and it's fulfilling all of my needs and burger cravings and all of that .
Speaker 1So and , by the way , yeah , as someone who has eaten at Plant Burger many times and for those of you who follow me on Instagram know that I eat a lot of meat it was phenomenal . It was so good . I remember I did it real the first time I had Plant Burger , because I just wanted to get my reaction . The first time I had it , I was shocked at how good it was , and I know that we're talking a lot about the meats , but I gotta throw some love to your milkshakes , man .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , no , of course , that's the entry point .
Speaker 1Yeah , because for me , not only I eat meat , but I'm hyper allergic to milk , and so if you want a good alternative to a milkshake that isn't gonna leave you feeling like , oh , I just had like a mouthful of grass , Go for the milkshakes and stay for the burgers .
Speaker 2Awesome , awesome . I'll take that for sure . And you know , I think you've helped sort of define what is plant burger and how is plant burger in what you just said , which is like we're the burger place for everyone really , and for all those people who you know have a reason to say no , because I'm lactose intolerant but I really like eating milkshakes with my burgers , or I'm Halal or Kosher or I have a dietary restriction . I'm trying to avoid soy . You know , my doctor told me to eat less red meat . We're just there to give you that experience and that craving and that's what we set out to do .
Speaker 2So a quick origin story . I mean , really , plant burger was an idea at first and it was an idea based on the emergence of like these iterative meat innovations . Right , they were starting to come on the market . They were not available in retail in any like major capacity . I tasted one in my role as working for Chef Barber Lynch . It was an impossible meat like little tiny patty sample that was first to sort of market . And at the same time , my co-founder , plant Burger Spike , was establishing the same , similar relationship with Beyond Meat .
Speaker 2Just a curious chef like trying new things in the supply chain and ultimately , you know , plant burger is a long-term solution to what I consider as a math problem here , which is , you know , we have a lot of people on this planet who like eating burgers , who enjoy that experience . If anything , the trend is continuing in that direction . More people are gaining more wealth than able to accommodate more meat in their diet and more meat cravings in their diet . And so when we're looking at 10 billion people and the cravings for burgers at that scale , we don't have the land , we don't have the resources to put towards growing that much beef to satisfy that demand . And so there's got to be some of these alternative solutions and certainly , like a ton of plant-based meat companies , come on the marketplace to try and solve for that .
Speaker 2But the focus , I think , has been too much on what is the functional value of doing that right , because a lot of consumers that's not your reason . You're not a part of that conversation , you don't want to be a part of that conversation , you don't find yourself needing to be a part of that conversation , and so for us , we just want to have a burger conversation with you , and that's what plant burger is all about is like we don't know why you may find us . We don't know what that entry point might be , but we know that from a broad perspective , we can service everybody . We can really be that burger craving for anyone and it's because of the choice to be plant-based that that exists . And ultimately , again like our impact proposition and our future thinking , is about sustaining a business long term and how can we , in 25 years from now , have a brand that is global ? And if that's done through a iterative product that people really love and adore and universally want , then that'll be great .
Speaker 1I love that , and the whole concept that you're building a true generational brand , means that you have to be founded and so ingrained with the guest experience . And so what do you think , Benjamin , is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays ?
Speaker 2Yeah , from a purely ops perspective and from my concept specifically , I think accuracy and taste are the most important parts of the guest experience . I put accuracy up there because I think when people get what they paid for and feel that they get what they paid for and so I brought in that word accuracy to be the experience people were imagining getting is what they get and then taste , and when it comes to food , it's always going to be the number one KPC . Those are the low hanging fruit , I think , for the consumer today , the most important piece for us to pay attention to is restaurant tours of the guest experience is we live in an omnichannel world . We are all omnichannel .
Speaker 2I've got a phone that's literally buzzing next to me right now while I'm talking to you and there's a TV on in the background and sometimes all those things might be saying the same thing to me or oftentimes they're saying different things to me . We live in an omnichannel world . Our brains are wired for it . We as restaurants cannot resist that and continue to be a legacy product where we expect people to walk in our doors have the experience that they had 10 years ago . That means our brand as a restaurant needs to be present in an omnichannel world , and so I think that's the piece of the guest experience that's really imperative that we're focused on right now at Plant Burger .
Accuracy and Guest Experience Importance
Speaker 1When you talk about the food , the taste and the accuracy . I think it's really interesting because if you look at the top reasons for negative reviews , in order , it's number one food , number two service , number three value , number four accuracy . Those are from the highest all negative reviews . Volume wise , top is food , then service and value , then accuracy . The angriest reviews come from accuracy , the second angriest come from service and then food and then value . That whole concept of accuracy I think oftentimes gets brushed under the rug because it's only 6% of complaints are about accuracy but it produces the angriest guests . I'm sure you could think of many experiences , benjamin . Everything was right , but maybe you missed the fries and it was like all hell's fury breaks loose .
Speaker 2Well , of course and frankly I don't know that you could consciously track the sentiment or , from a data-driven standpoint , be able to do this , but if you went back and interviewed all those food complaints , all those service complaints and whatever . The third one was there was a chance that there was something of value . There was a chance that something didn't meet expectations and that there was prescribed expectations and it didn't meet it . Accuracy , not only that's off that fire , but then it's like , okay , what was wrong with my food , what was wrong with my service , what was wrong with my value ? Of course , it's going to be a piece of an inaccurate experience . Accuracy , again , to me , is what's the brand promise and what are we delivering on ? That order on Uber , eats is a contract .
Speaker 2It's a contract with the guests to create a pure experience that honors it , and we have to do it . That's why I would say it's as part of the guest experience . Especially today , I think there's so much optionality that guests are going to go find somebody who matches that brand promise and that contract with delivery .
Speaker 1I love that concept . It is anytime you place an order . Oh , that's so beautiful , benjamin , it is . It's a contract , isn't it ? And how do you feel when someone betrays and violates that contract ? You're pissed . How would you feel if Cisco or US Foods , instead of delivering you a thousand heads , a hundred heads of cabbage , brought you two right ? How would you feel ? And that's exactly how the guests feel . That's a great point . I love that . I'm gonna start using that , benjamin .
Speaker 2I'll give you credit , though I'll give you credit . Well , I'll pass on the credit because it's from an operator of mine who's a brilliant guest service manager named Roman and he works out of our New York and our Philly stores and he puts that importance on every single order and he really thinks about it from a fulfillment perspective and that's where he trains that contracting and that's a really important place to do it right . The context of that fulfillment and handoff person , especially in our business when it's Omni Channel and mostly off-premise , it's just where we meet the guest expectations .
Speaker 1So and by the way , again to my reference point .
Speaker 2Like the second , you breach a contract . That's when everybody goes back to the contracts and they're like well , what else did they do ? What else did they do wrong ?
Speaker 1That's a good point . You get real critical on that really quickly . What's a tactic that you've used to improve the guest experience at Plant Burger ?
Speaker 2Yeah . So , like recently , we've been , you know , highly focused on , again , sort of the tactical components of things . And I'll put it in technology terms and say , you know , we've really been focused on cleaning up our UI . But that is , you know , the in-person experience , the kiosk experience , the digital ordering experience , the , you know , traction and conversion experience from an ad to our ordering or from an ad to , like , where we want you to land . So we've been really looking at , like , how do we optimize , remove friction points and , you know , create sort of a more unified UI across all of our different channels , cause I think that's another place where we sort of , you know , we built these different channel experiences over time and gotten better as we did it , but didn't go backwards necessarily . So that's been something that's really important to us . You know , from a sort of taking inventory of our UI across every single guest journey .
Speaker 2Separately , I've been working with some great founders on a .
Speaker 2They have a product called Go Go Guest , but it's really a data platform with a lot of different kind of action ability components around it , and Jessica and Chris and I have been working on a really like hyper express commerce experience , so from the call to action to the payment page , basically , and nothing in between , but really driven by data . So you , zac Oates , are not going to receive the anything in terms of an optionality of experience , but you're going to receive what we believe is the highest affinity for purchase experience . And if you want to abandon the experience and go shop on our , you know , normal shopping cart , great , that's not a bad thing for us either . But I think the focus I have and the testing that I'm doing is like how hyper efficient can we really be in the personalization space ? And like how accurate can we get with that ? So how accurate can I get it ? Estimating what you want without you knowing you want it , sending it to you when I think you want it and you acting on that experience ?
Speaker 1Yeah , that's the Holy Grail , right , that's where we're trying to get to , so I'm really excited to see that . And if there's anything that we could do innovation to be helpful with , that , we'd love to , and you know looking what are you gonna do ?
Speaker 2We're going to use custom questions to analyze that experience , so you're already helping .
Speaker 1Good , good Well , and speaking of which I'd love to get your thoughts on , like how has Ovation been helpful
Success and Value in Restaurant Operations
Speaker 1for you ? We've been working together for a while and one of the cool things is you guys . When we look at our average restaurant across the board , you guys are three to four points higher than our average restaurant in terms of guest satisfaction , and your online reviews are crushing them , and you guys are at a 4.7 on Google . So just curious what's been your experience with working with Ovation ? How's that been helpful for you ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I mean I said it to you before and I'll say it again I think Ovation is one of the two tools in our tool belt that has built from a place of complete operationalization . That's not a word , but you focus so much on making sure this was going to be a useful product upfront that you created a tool that , like , we can't help but love to use and I'll give credit to seven shifts as another tool that our second tool in our two belt and I'll say we have about , you know , 25 tools and I won't name the ones who may not be fully sort of there from an operational perspective but that that primary focus on making sure the product was usable , first and foremost , and highly adoptable across a multi unit company with lots of different skill sets , and I mean that has been sort of everything in the results Therefore speak for themselves , because what you're doing is automating a business process and helping create a business process .
Speaker 2That's so imperative to getting good online reviews , that's so imperative to creating loyalty and creating a new metric of the new metric of our world , which is , you know , guest lifetime value . Right , and so if we stop just looking at same store sales , which just focuses on are we driving traffic , and we start looking at guest lifetime value as a metric we want to increase over time . What are the tactics , what are the tools that we need in place to get there ? And managing guest feedback in an automated and a serviceable and an operationalized way is imperative to that goal . So I don't know , I think that was sort of a 50,000 foot viewpoint on Ovation , but I love all the new features . I think what you guys are doing is building towards that end , building towards that truth , which is like we're not going to build anything that we don't think is highly adoptable and highly usable by the team .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I think that's . I appreciate that , ben , because when I'm looking at what we want to do , one of our values at Ovation is to build value , and my whole concept is , if we're not building value , I don't want to do it right and that's not keep in mind . That's not just build value . The way that we have it is build value for each other , for customers and for the industry . Right , it's like this podcast is an example of one that it fits squarely in there , because whether or not we're getting new customers from this , these conversations are so helpful to restaurant operators and to hear different people's perspectives and what's going on . And so , anyway , I appreciate you calling that out because building value is so essential in hearing that just makes me , makes me giddy . So thanks , man .
Speaker 2No , and I think why we , why we connect right , we're two founders of different ultimate brands or products , and I think why we connect in a way , is what you just said , which is you know you're you're building what you're building to to do better by certain stakeholders that you care about , that you really personally want to see succeed and you care about , and so you know that is everything we're trying to do at plant burger ultimately is is you know , again , be conscious to all the stakeholders in the room in a 360 way . It's our team , it's our guests , are investors , it's the planets , the communities we serve . How can we do better by them , how can we build value by them ? And so , yeah , that's that's why our products work together well too .
Speaker 1Beautiful man and who's someone in the restaurant industry that deserves an ovation , who's someone that we should be following .
Speaker 2Yeah , no , that's a great question . I mean I'll throw it to . Can I have two ? Yes , we'll give you two , I'll give . I've had like two answers for every question , sorry .
Speaker 2So first I'll throw it to my partner , my co-founder , Spike Mendelsen , who is a world-class chef you know incredible background but more importantly , somebody who's taught me the skill of curiosity and relentless curiosity , and I think that is the way that he's really driven his career as far as it's gone .
Speaker 2And he has resisted kind of taking the classic post-top chef pathway , I think , and he's done it at the expense of sort of building a personal brand for himself that is nationally known . And he's done it with because he's such an innate and innately curious person that he's gotten himself involved in the plant-based movement in DC food policy , in international food security aid and care in CPG and how chefs can really apply their skill sets to CPG . Eat the change and just iced tea that he's launched . And I respect his authenticity to that curiosity in himself when , again , a lot of different pathways were sort of already carved in front of him for what success looked like , and instead of choosing what one of those and having it move him away from his authenticity , you really chose curiosity and I learned that from him . And secondly , I'll bring it back to the restaurant tech space and I guess a little bit , our accounting team and they're led by a guy named Scott Gilman over at Dine Technology- we love Scott Gilman .
Speaker 2Yeah , an invaluable ad value resource to the industry , to our company , for sure . And again , he's a like-minded guy when it comes to ensuring that everything he's doing is able to be absorbed by the operation and creates value , and he's built a team to service that he's chosen Restaurant 365 as a platform to expand upon and I think he's done an amazing job really creating an amazing ad value to our industry .
Speaker 1Dude , two great call-outs , and I love that phrase relentless curiosity . Whoo , that's a good one , that's .
Speaker 2Spike so .
Speaker 1Love that .
Speaker 2For better or worse .
Speaker 1So Ben , how do people find more about Plant Burger ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so we are 14 locations DC , maryland , virginia , philadelphia , new York and Boston . So if you're in our markets , obviously look us up , come find us and have a great burger experience if you're craving one , and then follow us for sure on Instagram at plnt-plant-burger , and you can follow me at simplyben365 , which is my new Instagram handle that my wife is helping me manage and build a face behind the curtain here at Plant Burger .
Speaker 1Simplyben365 . Yes , sir , Great Following it . Well , Ben , for showing us that sometimes it can be easy and delicious to be green . But today's Ovation goes to you . Thank you so much for joining us on Give an Ovation .
Speaker 2Thanks , zach , appreciate it .
Speaker 1Thanks for joining us today . If you liked this episode , leave us a review on Apple Podcast 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 .