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
Setting the Table for Success in Brand Expansion With Troy Hooper
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Join us as we sit down with Troy Hooper, CEO of Hot Pallet America, the parent company of dining phenomenon, Pepper Lunch, and dive into the unique experience that sets them apart. Troy shares not only the intriguing locations of these restaurants but also his perspective on how to stand out in the food industry through exceptional hospitality, regardless of the restaurant type.
On this episode, you'll learn from Troy about:
- Setting clear expectations for customers
- Pursuit of Feedback
- Innovative approach to international brands
- More!
Thanks, Troy!
Guest Experience Strategies for Pepper Lunch
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 SMS-based real-time guest feedback platform that helps restaurants measure and improve their guest experience . Learn more at ovationupcom . And today's guest is the one and only Troy Hooper , the CEO of Hot Pallet America , the parent company of a lot of really cool restaurants , the flagship one being Pepper Lunch that has over 500 locations in 15 countries . He's an amazing speaker . He's a great restaurant tour . He's a phenomenal friend . Troy , thanks for joining me on Give An Ovation . Man . Zach , thanks for having me , my friend . So tell me a little about Pepper Lunch . I am so excited to try it . I think I've got a trip to Vegas planned where I'm gonna go give it a shot , because I keep on seeing people try it out . It looks amazing . For people who aren't familiar with it , give us a little flavor of what it is .
Speaker 2Yeah , so it's a Japanese DIY teppanyaki . It's a hot plate concept , really , at the end of the day , if you imagine what a fajita is to a Mexican cuisine . This is a Japanese version of that , where we super heat an iron plate and we put all of your raw ingredients , including rice and vegetables and sauces and spices and whatever proteins or not proteins of your choice you want , on a very hot plate 500 degrees , sizzling hot iron plate that we bring out to you at the table set in front of you and then you sizzle it your way . So it's a experiential , fast , casual which really it's in its own category of its own . There's really nothing else like it out there .
Speaker 1And so it's kind of like a , if you imagine , like a Mongolian grill concept that's but brought to you . Does the ? I think I was wondering .
Speaker 2Yeah , I mean yakitori or Korean barbecue a lot of people are familiar with . Yeah , those have like the cooking implement built in the table and you actually cook over the on the table . We've actually made that more modular . We actually the plate itself is the cooking implement because we super heat the plate to 500 degrees .
Speaker 1And how long does it take for that plate to cool down ? Like , for example , if I want seconds or thirds , do I have to ? I go up and I order a second dish , right ?
Speaker 2So , yeah , so it's fast , casual , right ? So you order it at a kiosk or a counter and then we bring the food to you . It's one plate at a time , it's a one plate experience , right ? So it's one full meal on this 12 inch round plate , and so it's not a buffet or kind of a all you can eat , like those concepts can be . You order beef , pepper , rice , you order salmon , teriyaki , and that's your dish , it's your entree , and it just comes out to you all at once on one plate , and so if you are hungry after that which very few people still are you could order another plate , but you're gonna pay for that is . Look , we say you can get in and out in 20 minutes for $20 . So we're the convenient and cost effective version of many of these experiential casual dining experiences that are full service . Usually we are the fast , casual order to kiosk or cashier counter service type model .
Speaker 1Super cool and you're . I know you're expanding really quickly , but where can people go and find pepper lunch like well ?
Speaker 2Yeah , every Asian nation except for Mongolia , but we're coming soon . We're in Australia , we're in the island of Blonde , which is a US territory , and then we're in Vancouver , bc . In Canada and we'll be expanding there next year . And In the United States , the continental United States . We've got three stores in Southern California in Irvine , which is Orange County , california , arteja , which is the Cerritos or South LA area , and Alhambra , which is right next to Pasadena . For reference , we've got our Las Vegas store , which is on Spring Mountain Road it's out on Chinatown there , which is very familiar to a lot of people who go out there . I know , you know where the tiki bar across the street is , with our friend Mehdi taking us there .
Speaker 1Ralph , there was a .
Speaker 2Shanghai Plaza , which is the number one Plaza for Chinatown out there , and then we're in Houston , in Chinatown as well . So five US locations in the continental US today , but , like you said , we are about to expand pretty rapidly .
Speaker 1Okay , I just marked you down so that way , next time I go out there , I've got you saved it . And , by the way , for those people who aren't aware of how to do this , if you go to Google Maps and you select a location , scroll over to there's a , there's a save button and then you click save and that way you can go and try . You know , when you get to that city , you could remember what are the places that you wanted to try .
Speaker 2So I've seen this hack and I keep forgetting to do it . Thanks for reminding me .
Speaker 1Oh , yeah , I have . You know , I've got like a dozen places in Vegas that I have . I have tagged but and you're right near , yeah , you're right near some . That is such a good complex , there's some really good , yeah , there's spots right there . So let's talk about the guest experience joy , because You've worked with a lot of restaurants . You've worked with some some some really high-end places as well , and it's it's cool to see this new experiential , fast , casual Spot that you're working with now . What is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I think it's . It's differentiating yourself with some form of hospitality . You know , as all concepts you know QSR and fast casual and many casual concepts are evolving to a have less employees because of the labor market struggles and and pressures and Price . You know hourly rates going up dramatically . You know it's hard to find people and it's hard to afford to pay extra people . So you know how do you maintain and enhance your hospitality , the true hospitality that we all mean to do , and QSR and fast casual has kind of always been a challenge . But all you have to do is look at what you know , brands like , as we all get tired of saying , chick-fil-a right , or even in an album .
Speaker 1Oh , I haven't heard of them recently .
Speaker 2Yeah , but what do you do ? What can you do , right ? And so what we're actually doing at Pepper Lunch is we're actually eliminating the cashier terminal . We're taking the cashier from behind the counter and putting them in front of the counter . You we're going to be moving to using kiosk . But instead of making that kiosk this autonomous , impersonal , go do it yourself experience , we're actually going to enhance it by having what we call a hospitality host .
Speaker 2Shout out one , sean Walsh . First time I heard that five years ago , I had no idea what that meant , but that Sean calling that , I think in his restaurant . But we're going to bring that person out front and we're going to greet our guests . We're going to sort of segment our guests by whether they've been here before or not and whether there's like some guidance in ordering or not . And folks that come to our restaurants for the first or second time usually need a fair bit of guidance and explanation . And although the menu is very simple , it's eight categories it's teriyaki and curry and steaks and salad . You know it's it's it sort of takes a minute to be introduced to it , but we want to get sort of a hands on , side by side , personalized experience to help you do what we call DIY teppanyaki . Do it your way , how do you ? How do you do that ? So we're going to make the kiosk experience a very high quality , self driven visual experience that's easy to navigate . We're also going to make sure that you have a human standing there to a greet you and and welcome you back , or welcome you for the first time , and help guide you through the ordering experience and then at the table . We do this already , but we're definitely going to be enhancing our table side hospitality .
Speaker 2When we bring you a plate , we want to know whether you've been here before or you'd like some instruction , which is kind of say , you know , we'd love to show you how to sizzle it your way and we'll tell you about the table sauces . We'll tell you how to kind of navigate the plate , because if you're depending on what protein you have , you want to sort of flip the meats over without mixing them in the rice . Yet there's this secret little gem in the middle of the rice we call garlic paste , which is a garlic and pepper margarine . You want to get that all incorporated because that really is the flavor and the moisturizing of the rice and the vegetables . So you know it's not complicated , but we want to . We want to help you , we want to make sure you have the best experience , and so we spend some time at the table just introducing you to how to do this and have fun with it .
Speaker 2It's extremely visual , by the way . It's all senses , right . You hear the sizzle before it gets to the table . You see the steam before it gets to the table . As soon as it gets to the table , it's gorgeous . You know very high quality , colorful food and there's an effervescence . The odors are right in your face instantly with that steaming sizzling . And then , if you're adding a sauce to this thing , man , there's this lava bubble and this new set of sights , sound and flavor . That goes on .
Speaker 2And then it's very , very hot so you know , even touch it's very , very hot . And if you watch Sean's video , when he came to Irvine recently with me , it took him a . It took him a minute or two to be able to take that first bite , because it does stay pretty warm . You mentioned earlier how long does that sucker stay hot ? That plate is 500 degrees when it hits the table and it's over 200 to 240 degrees for about 20 to 30 minutes . So it stays warm . Everybody of your food is nice and hot .
Speaker 1Oh my God , dude Troy , I'm getting hungry just hearing about this man . You got to come out to Utah . That's going to be a . That's a really cool . That's a really cool experience . I'm stoked to try it .
Speaker 2Well , you know , I was just in Utah . Wink Wink , just saw you the other day . I actually came in a little early to have some early conversations with some folks , so oh , there we go . Utah is raising their hand and saying we think we might need a pepper lunch up here .
Speaker 1Well , whoever you were talking to , if you're listening to this , I would say please , you have at least one customer and I'm a hungry fella .
Speaker 2So you'll get some money out of me . You've got a few friends in Utah , right , Zach ? You could probably yeah you kidding me ?
Speaker 1This would be in my grams , like on the , on the reg . So talk to me about a tactic that you've used to to improve the guest experience .
Speaker 2Yeah , you know , the main tactic is to constantly remind our staff that this is not a transaction . We are not feeding people . We are giving them a true experience and we do that . We do have that conversation regularly . We have some phenomenal , especially in our US stores , but this is true for on a global scale , this is a brand that has a lot of pride and our employees take a lot of pride in their work and in the experience they're delivering and in the legacy of the brand .
Speaker 2You know we've been around 30 years , which most people don't realize , and so there is a history there . We have a lot of longtime employees in the US our average employees over two and a half years , so we have great retention . We have several managers who've been with us since day one five , five and a half years here in the US and so that that pride and love and longevity of leadership translates , and so we are constantly reminding our employees of the importance of the experience and not dropping a plate and walking away right , coming back and offering a refill , taking time with guests at the ordering .
Maximizing Guest Experience and Utilizing Feedback
Speaker 2We allow ourselves to have a line . We're going to let you stand in line for three to five or seven minutes because we're going to make sure that every guest at the ordering experience gets informed , so they get what they want . They actually get to build this thing the way they want .
Speaker 2We're not a build your own bowl or down the line chipotle or something like that . But we do have some options and we want to make sure you know what they are and you get to get the meal you're looking for and it's going to be in that flavor palette profile that you want . So that's sort of really old school and kind of not really exciting , I know . But if you don't keep your eye on the ball it becomes a commodity and you become just another place to grab food for 20 bucks and 20 minutes . We want to be convenient , we want to be fast , we want to be hot , we want to be fresh . We really really want to make sure you maximize the value of your experience with us .
Speaker 1And I think what I'm hearing a lot about and this is so true in life , in restaurants , in business it's about the expectations , right , how do you set the right expectations and then how do you make sure those expectations have been met . And I think that , especially with a newer concept like this because I've never even I don't think there's another concept I've ever heard of like this in the States it's like it makes a lot of sense that you would spend the time and effort to go through and setting the right expectations . I think that's key . I think that's awesome .
Speaker 2And , zach , I know you love technology . I'm going to shout out a tool we're using , because one of the ways that we're managing this and monitoring how we're performing is a product called Freets and it's just the modern day secret shopper . Right , we're having educated consumers do long form surveys very different from what you do , because what you do and what Ovation does is a whole different aspect . Right , it's a different way of engaging the customer and having a relationship , building a community relationship with that customer . I love what Ovation does .
Speaker 2We're really excited about partnering with Ovation , but we use a long form secret shopper at scale program that allows us to get constant feedback and but also curate the feedback , ask specific questions how are we doing on bathroom cleanliness or how are we doing on speed to table Like really specific questions that these folks can take the time and fill out , because we've rewarded them , we've paid them to do that .
Speaker 2But the idea is that we want that feedback and we've told our staff from before we even got involved in any kind of survey programs . Listen , we want to know because we want you to know , we want you to want to know and if you know what's going well and that's reinforcing and what needs some touches and opportunities and maybe rethink and retooling them , how we do things . These are , these tools are going to elevate that information so we can make those changes . So , whether it's telling us in the moment , allowing our manager to communicate directly by text with a customer and obviously ask for reviews and stop bad reviews and solve the problem , or it's this long-term , at-scale survey program that allows us greater and deeper insights over time , we want to know how we're doing and if you don't ask the guest , you'll never know Right by the time you find out it's probably a bad thing .
Speaker 1Exactly .
Speaker 2But we've turned it on its head . It's not a slap on the hand , it's not a way to discipline our team whatsoever . We've put it in an extremely positive light . When you get these pieces of information , from whichever outlet we provide them to you from , we want you to use that to improve the experience for not only the employees , but the guests and the overall community . That's what we're doing to focus on constantly being aware and improved .
Speaker 1Love that . Who's someone that deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry . Who's someone we should be following ?
Speaker 2There's so many great folks and you and I share a lot of friends in this industry . I've gotten to spend a little extra time with Sam Stanovich from Big Chicken over the last few months . He was gracious and invited me and my family to a grand opening and we met Shaq and it was a lot of fun . But I got to see firsthand , boy , the amount of work that goes into . What he does is not only developing and building relationships with franchisees , but he's really out in the community , building relationships in the community , being an ambassador for the brand . Everywhere he goes I don't hear a lot of folks Pat and Sam on the back , but , boy , he deserves it . I just wanted to shout out Sam for all the great work he does , not only for Big Chicken but for our industry . He's a great connector and he's always thinking about how he can bring value to every one of his friends and colleagues in the industry . I thought he deserved a big one , Amen .
Speaker 1I love Sam . I love what he's about . I love who he is . His family is phenomenal Him and Josh and Anna and the whole crew over there , and I guess Shaq too , but the mics and I mean it's just such an impressive crew . Who's over there , and Barry Rogers just the whole crew is a really great phenomenal team and I'm really excited about what they're doing and it's been fun to partner with them . So , Troy , if we want to learn more about Pepper Lunch or Troy Hooper , where do we go ?
Speaker 2Pepperlunchrestaurantscom . Pepperlunchrestaurantspluralcom on your favorite social media . Follow the company page on LinkedIn . Lots of great updates always there . The website has news and blogs and excuse me articles , and it's constantly being updated in general about our new locations coming soon and innovations of the menu . Of course , all the great things you need to know at Pepperlunchrestaurantscom .
Speaker 1Well , troy Hooper , for being the perfect blend of the fun of Troy Bolton and the consistency of a hula hooper . 10 days Ovation goes to you . Thanks for joining us and give an Ovation , troy .
Speaker 2Thanks , zach , great to be with you .
Speaker 1Thanks for joining us today . If you like 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 .