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
Fan-first Fun: The Savannah Bananas' Playbook with Emily Cole
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Today we're joined by Emily Cole, the visionary owner of the viral sensation, the Savannah Bananas. Emily shares her journey of transforming the traditional baseball experience into a lively, fun-filled event that captivates fans of all ages. From introducing all-you-can-eat tickets to choreographed player entrances, Emily discusses the innovative strategies that set the Savannah Bananas apart in the sports world.
Restaurant owners will gain valuable insights into adopting a fan-first mentality, the importance of constant innovation, and how embracing uniqueness can drive a brand to success. Tune in to discover how Emily Cole is redefining baseball and creating unforgettable experiences for her fans.
Revolutionizing the Guest Experience in Hospitality
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 , an operations and guest recovery platform for multi-unit restaurants that gives all the answers without annoying guests . With all the questions . Learn more at OvationUpcom . With all the questions . Learn more at OvationUpcom . Today , I am so excited because we have Emily Cole with us , the owner of the wildly successful and incredibly viral Savannah Bananas . And I'm so excited because , as I was telling Emily right before we hit record that I am not a baseball fan and I love what you're doing with baseball and how you're having such a totally different mentality of every single facet of the journey along the way . Anyway , I'm so excited to have you on the podcast , emily .
Speaker 2Yes , thank you , that's exactly what we stand for doing things differently . So happy to be here and talk to you about that sort of thing too .
Speaker 1So talk to me about , because , really , what it sounds like from everything that I've read and from all the about that sort of thing too . So talk to me about , because , really , what it sounds like from everything that I've read and from all the videos that I've seen , it seems like you guys were like these aliens from another world that came down and like your planet was just like a planet of fun . You came down and you saw this sport that , in my opinion , is a little bit boring , and you're like how do we infuse some of our culture from this planet of fun into this game ? Is that kind of what it feels like ?
Speaker 2A fun way for it to happen , but honestly , it's just been a slow evolution over , really the past two decades . So my husband played ball . He was a D1 athlete . I started working in the industry right out of college and we both just saw the problems with the game .
Speaker 2There are a lot of great parts , but there are also a lot of slow parts . And then if you look at things like little league numbers dropping at the rate that they're dropping across the country , you can see the writing on the wall . You can see the future in that our attention spans are getting shorter as a society . Kids want to have more fun while they're playing sports and not have this rigid , more authentic game that we've had in the past , and so , yeah , all of those things combined really spurred us to just start trying more fun things . This was definitely not an overnight thing , but over the last two decades we've kind of sprinkled more and more and more fun into it , and now it is , of course , evolved into basically a full-blown circus , with a competitive sport , of course , still going on in the background .
Speaker 1So how do you do that ? How do you not take away from the competitive nature of a sporting event ?
Speaker 2Well , that's one of the things that we've really wanted to stay true to , and we have a lot of admiration for the Globetrotters . But one of the things that they did is you could go into the show every night and you know exactly what's going to happen . We said , okay , we want to create that sort of fun experience , but we want to stay true to the competition , the athleticism Every night , what happens on the diamond , the things that are going on between the lines that is true competition . We do not script any of that .
Speaker 2What we do script is everything outside of that that we can control the sounds , the emotions , the smells , everything else that's going to take a part of in your mind , everything else that's going to go on in your experience in that night . We will try to script , but the game itself is not going to be scripted .
Speaker 1Now you have made a lot of changes to the game , even from the way the game is played , but even in the stands , how people buy concessions . Talk to me a little bit about that .
Speaker 2Yeah , when we first started out , we really wanted to put ourselves in our fans' shoes , and so one of the first things that we said was what are the frustrations for fans when you go to an event , when you go to a concert , when you go to a sporting event , what are the frustrations ? And the first thing that we all commented on was being nickel and dimed . You pull in , you pay parking , then you walk in the gates . You pay for your ticket , then you walk up and you buy a $10 beer and a $9 hot dog and an $8 hamburger and you're nickel and dime all throughout the night . You get to the end of the night .
Speaker 1This doesn't sound like nickel and dime . That sounds like a dollar and five dollars , right ?
Speaker 2True , a dollar and five dollars right , true , true , yeah , you get to the end and you've spent hundreds .
Speaker 2If you take a family of four or six , that was one of the first things that we attacked was saying , hey , how do we take this frustration and eliminate it ?
Speaker 2We take a lot of inspiration from the cruise industry and from resorts , and the idea of the all-inclusive ticket was born about 10 years ago , and so we rolled that out in Savannah when we first launched , and really what we wanted to do was just make it a more fans first experience for people . We wanted people to come in to this environment , to this experience , and not feel like they were pulling their wallet out all night . Now in Savannah , included in your ticket are all you can eat hamburgers , hot dogs , chicken sandwiches , chips , cookies and all of your non-alcoholic drinks . Your kids can go up to the concession stands and get another soda without you having to pull out a $10 bill and hand it to them and send them off . And that was really one of the main things that we wanted to focus on was taking care of our fans , not nickeling diming them and kind of flipping that experience that's the norm for sporting events on its head .
Speaker 1I mean , the reason it's the norm is because , one , it's a captive audience , so the market tells you you should be gouging them . But two , because it's expensive to run those stadiums , it's expensive to run those events . How do you do that ? You're losing out on millions of dollars of revenue every year by not gouging your customers . So , like , how do you still stay in business ?
Speaker 2A hundred percent , I will say they're very thin margins . But beyond that , our motto , our philosophy , our mindset , everything is going to come back to putting the fans first and we believe if we take care of them , they will be around for the long haul . These fans are coming to our games . They feel like they're getting the value they are . They're having an incredible value for a $25 or $35 ticket , whatever it is that they're spending , having that their ticket and all their food is included . They're having that wow experience and they're loving us .
Speaker 2They're falling in love with us . I believe we all believe as a company here that they are now more aligned with us . For the future , they're going to be the ones buying merchandise . They're going to be the ones who want to come back for another event . This is no longer something that you can only save up to and go to once a year , because it's not , it's affordable and there's value there . And the fans are continuing to come back and they are truly becoming these hardcore fans who will stick with us through thick and thin , and we believe that that's more important than having larger margins up front is to have these longer fans for a longer period of time .
Speaker 1You got to have some margin , because my question is how many top hats ?
Speaker 2do you guys have ?
Speaker 1in your wardrobe .
Speaker 2We have a lot of top hats . Actually , the company who he used to get them from went out of business and so now he's at this new company and he only ordered them in increments of 72 . Our last shipment 72 yellow top hats . So we do some fun things with them , we give them away , we do a lot with charities and nonprofits , but we still have a large surplus of yellow top hats .
Speaker 1Oh my goodness . Well , if there is one in the back , know that I know a guy who would love to buy one . Now , in doing this , I'm sure there's been a lot of experimentation , a lot of like ideas that came across the table . What's ? A couple ideas that didn't make the cut , that you were like this is not going to be received well , or maybe something you tried and then you're like that just didn't work out . Are there any ? Because it seems like all of your ideas are so fun and they all seem to work , but there's got to be some that push the envelope too far .
Speaker 2There are hundreds that fail . It's funny . We talk about this actually all the time because we believe that if you have a failure that's great . If you don't have failures it's because you're playing it too safe . We are constantly trying to push the envelope and toe the line and do things that might not work out , just because we know we will learn from it . I'll stick with the whole food theme here .
Speaker 2One of our biggest failures was that we held a Thanksgiving game one year .
Speaker 2We called it Fansgiving , and this day was going to be all about the fans , of course , but we were also going to pay tribute to where the idea and the holiday of Thanksgiving came from . We actually decided to starve our fans for 77 minutes , whatever the amount of days it was to take the pilgrimage on the ships , like on the Bayflower , to come over to America . We took that number and we made it into minutes , and for that amount of minutes we did not serve food and drink at the ballpark and once that minute was up , all the concession stands open . Well , it was the colossal failure , of course , because you're basically starving people for like an hour and a half and then everybody can go eat . It was just mayhem , but we thought it would be creative . We were throwing rations of bread , so we were throwing like loaves of bread out into the crowd because we thought that would be similar to what happened on the ships coming over . But ultimately not one of our best promotions and something that we don't talk about often because it did not succeed .
Speaker 1But I love that you tried it . That is so cool . Was that your idea ?
Speaker 2I don't know Probably originally . A lot of mine do end up failing , so I'll take that one .
Fostering Creativity in Workplace Culture
Speaker 1I love that you have this fans first mentality , and what do you think is one of the most important aspects of the fan experience ?
Speaker 2We are constantly pushing ourselves to be different , to stand out , and I think that that's what it is . I think the uniqueness of fans or customers or guests , I think the uniqueness of their experience is what is going to differentiate a company from all of the others . There are a million places to go to eat . There are a million places to go vacation , to spend your entertainment dollars . If you can stand out and stay in somebody's mind and memory because of the uniqueness of the experience , I think that is what's going to win . We are constantly going all in on standing out , being different , creating an experience that is so memorable and over the top that you just can't compare it to anything else and it will truly stick out in somebody's mind .
Speaker 1I love that because it really is what is going to spark a conversation , what's going to get them to really think about it . James Walker he used to run Nathan's Hot Dogs and one of the things that he always says is it should be craveable , memorable and Instagrammable . I think that's such a good mentality to go about , and you guys have done that , not just for Instagram , but for the media . I mean , you guys are blowing up everywhere . Why do you think that is ? Why are so many people talking about the Savannah Bananas and why is ESPN covering you guys so much ? And it's happened in the last couple years that I've seen this . All of a sudden , you went from like oh , that's really cool , to now it's like you guys are everywhere .
Speaker 2Again , I think , just standing out and being different . There are so many teams out there that are doing essentially the same thing and they're having the same kind of giveaways and the same promotions and the same firework shows , and that works to an extent . But again , as a society , our attention spans are shortening . We can get whatever we want from an entertainment standpoint at a quick swipe on our phones and these devices that are all around us . We are constantly trying to come up with ways that we can stand out and be different . So a lot of that is just taking whatever is normal and doing the exact opposite . It is not normal for professional athletes to have choreographed songs and dances as they walk up to hit . That's not normal . So we do things like that . We go all in on the things that are completely abnormal and by doing that it sticks out . We are told from a young age to stay within the lines , to be like everybody else , to fit in , to not stand up and raise our voice , and so we are kind of this young trailblazing group .
Speaker 1That's like we believe the opposite .
Speaker 2Let's jump outside of the lines , let's color really loud , let's have our owner dress in a yellow tuxedo , let's be crazy and different and wild and be true to who we are . And there are people in the world who are craving that . There are people who want that permission to stand out , to be different , to shout from the rooftops their identity . I believe that that is what our company and our organization is allowing people to do . We are kind of that voice that's saying it's okay to be different , it's okay to be an athlete and not take ourselves too seriously . So I'm going to lip sync this crazy Celine Dion song and put it all over the internet and have people make fun of me . We're doing those things and giving people permission to do something that's different , and I think the world needs that those things and giving people permission to do something that's different , and I think the world needs that .
Speaker 1And one thing I think a lot of people forget is that professional athletes my father , as a lot of people know . He was in the NFL for 14 years and the goofiness that goes on in the locker room and off the field was just like putting ketchup in each other's shoes and like pulling pranks constantly on each other and after practice . I can't tell you how many tape ball fights I've been involved in and it's like there's so much fun . That's had off in the locker room with camaraderie , and I love that you've brought that out onto the field and made sure that . Yeah , people shouldn't take themselves too seriously , but I think at the end of the day , you do have a business to run . How do you manage employees when the constant mantra is around like , hey , let's have fun , let's do things different . It's like , okay , but that's inappropriate . How do you set boundaries with your employees when you're managing such a fun culture ?
Speaker 2Yeah , this question comes up all the time . People always ask me how does everybody get bought in , how does everybody stay on an appropriate level ? And I think it starts way back before I could ever come in and trust them with our kids . I trust them with our brand .
Speaker 2There is such an intentional process here for the people who we're onboarding . It's a very long onboarding process I mean months for the players too . There are thousands of people who are trying to play on our teams and we are very intentional about the few that we select to bring in . I think it starts very early on by being so specific about the type of human being that we want to bring into this organization . Of course , there's orientations and there are ongoing learning labs that we do together and idea paloozas , where we come up with ideas together and we grow as a team and we do reading , book clubs and we share podcasts . So we are constantly growing together .
Speaker 2But if you don't have the right people on the bus to begin with , it's going to be a much harder uphill battle to get those people up to where you want them to be . Our whole people department , our people operations department , is just so good and so intentional on bringing in the right people that we don't have to do as much work later on or go around behind people and worry about things or clean up PR messes . Of course , inevitably something might happen at some point , but we've got about two 300 people on a roster at all times here between players , staff , interns and fortunately we really are the one big happy family that you see online because we are so careful and intentional by surrounding ourselves and only inviting into this special circle the right people who want to be here for the right reasons .
Speaker 1Love that . You said a word there that I want to double click on . What is an idea , palooza ?
Speaker 2Ideas are one of the most important parts of our culture and if we do not continue to reinvent , we believe that we could fizzle out . It is the ideas and the pushing ourselves every single night that is going to have fans continuing coming back for more . We never want somebody to say , oh , I've already seen that show , I don't need to go back . Every single night . At every single game , we have at least 15 things on our script that we have never tried before , and the idea behind that is because we want to continually reinvent who we are . We want to continually show our fans something that we've never even seen before . We might run it in rehearsals that afternoon , but it's never been done in front of a live audience , and that stuff it's very hard to continue to come up with . I mean at least 15 new things every single night , plus what you see from an online content standpoint . In order to continually feed that idea funnel , we have to sit down and generate ideas .
Speaker 2One of the things that my husband , jesse , says is that the ideas that we have , it's like a muscle . You have to work it . It's not like you can just wake up and have a list of a hundred ideas that are great . You have to work that idea muscle . And so , month after month , year after year , we're sitting down in what we call idea paloozas , where it's a safe zone . We come with a theme or two themes and anybody can just throw out anything , and then we massage each other's ideas and we turn it into something . It might fail , it might be awesome , but we have to work together as a group to work that idea muscle and come up with new things every day , every week , every month , to continue pushing what we're performing for our fans .
Speaker 1Wow , 15 new ideas every single game . Holy cow , that is so cool , emily , I love that idea . And how many people are invited to these ?
Speaker 2I'd include everybody . We have a very good creative and marketing and entertainment department and so from the outside everybody thinks that's all who comes up with it . But we've really tried to expand over the last couple of years . So the players , for example , will have idea paloozas where they about player walk-ups or we're just going to talk about celebration , so when we score , we're just going to talk about that moment . Right now they come with these kind of guardrails of what they're going to stay within and they just spitball ideas and they talk about it . And so now that we're including the players or you're including the ticket team people who might not necessarily be involved always in the marketing we're bringing them and we're allowing them to share their ideas and of course , that makes it better for an organization . You've got 200 people thinking of ideas . You're going to come up with better things than just the same 20 guys doing it every week . We're trying to evolve that and invite new people into these Idea Paloozas every time we have them .
Speaker 1And how many people come to these Idea Paloozas .
Speaker 2It depends . Everyone's different . Sometimes it'll be a full staff , sometimes it'll be a full team , sometimes it's just smaller subgroups of like five or 10 . We try to switch it up and you get different outcomes from each group , and that's the beauty of it is that you never know what's going to come out of one of these , so it could be impromptu or it could be something that's on the schedule for a month .
Speaker 1And why do you feel like the buckets , the guardrails are important ?
Speaker 2Well , we've done them before without that and sometimes it just took us way off course . Like with anything in life , if you have a goal , if you have a vision that collectively , as a group , you're all looking at the same thing , you're probably going to get there faster than if it's just a wide open space . Then you say , hey , you can go anywhere . We try to at least give some sort of guardrails . It doesn't narrow them down too much , but at least it helps us all stay on the same page .
Speaker 1I love that . That is like one of the coolest ideas . I love that you call it an idea palooza . It just makes it so fun . Now , Emily , obviously you're in the industry , you're an influencer , but who's someone that you feel like we should be following ? Who's somebody that deserves an ovation ?
Speaker 2We get a lot of inspiration from the cruise industry .
Speaker 2I don't know if this is a topic that gets talked about a lot , but the similarities between cruising and sports is actually pretty large , to the point where we're actually doing a private cruise this fall for 2000 of our fans .
Speaker 2We've chartered a ship and we are doing banana land at sea because we see so many similarities between the cruise industry and us and , of course , the bananas even more so , because we got this all you can eat model for our food from the cruise industry .
Speaker 2If you've ever been on a cruise , you pay for your cabin and you get on the ship and you can go eat whenever you want at whatever restaurant you want for the entire week and it doesn't feel like you're getting nickel and dimed . You feel like you have entertainment everywhere you look , you can be on your own schedule , but there's also itineraries of things planned for you if you want . And so there are so many similarities for the sports world and the cruise industry and we believe , because we've studied this so much , that there are a lot of unsung heroes on the cruise industry . A lot of those chefs and mixologists and hospitality hosts are some of the best in the world that we've ever seen , and so we think that that's kind of this undercover hidden gem in the hospitality world that we learn a lot from .
Speaker 1Love that and that requires now in my notes I'm going to put down that I need to go do some research , because I love cruises and you know what ? My favorite cruise line is Carnival . Actually , I have to say that's the only cruise line I've ever done . I've done five cruises with them because I love the fun aspect of things and anyway , I've never brought a kid on a cruise because it's just too much fun . But , emily , where can people go to learn more about the savannah bananas or about following some of your musings ?
Speaker 2yeah , well , fortunately , we've grown tremendously online , so a quick search of the savannah bananas or the party animals is our second team . Quick search on any social media or internet will find us , and YouTube has been one of our biggest growth . People like seeing the videos of what we do , so our YouTube and TikTok , of course , are really big , and then I'm just Emily Cole on any of the socials as well .
Speaker 1Awesome . Well , for knocking it out of the park with fun . Today's ovation goes to you . Thank you for joining us on Give an Ovation , emily .
Speaker 2Thanks for having me .
Speaker 1Thanks 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 .