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
Healthy Eats, Happy Guests: Darden Coors on Salad Collective's Success
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In this episode of Give an Ovation, host Zack Oates sits down with Darden Coors, the CEO of Salad Collective. With over a decade of experience, Darden has been a driving force behind better-for-you fast-casual brands like Mad Greens, Snappy Salads, and Tokyo Joe's. As a fifth-generation Coors and a former lawyer, Darden shares her unique insights on building a successful restaurant brand, the importance of guest experience, and how to balance cautious legal strategies with entrepreneurial spirit.
Thanks, Darden!
Industry Expert Shares Guest Experience Secrets
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 . And today we have Darden Kors , the CEO of Salad Collective , where she's been for about 10 years maybe over 10 years now and Salad Collective is a umbrella of a better for you fast , casual with mad greens , snappy salads , tokyo Joes , and unless you've been at a conference and had the privilege of meeting her and hearing her , you might not know her .
Speaker 1She keeps a pretty low profile but , as I told her before this call , she is a total rock star with decades of experience in food and Bev . And a little bit about her . She's a recovering lawyer , which is glad that you took off the CEO hat . And while she's not fifth generation Darden , which is glad that you took off the lawyer hat , put on the CEO hat . And while she's not fifth generation Darden , she is fifth generation Coors . So , darden Coors , welcome to the podcast . How are you ?
Speaker 2Thanks , zach , I'm great Happy to be here .
Speaker 1Yeah , this is a long time coming . We've been friends at the trade show circuit for a long time . Yes , and anyway , that's pretty interesting . My father is like a C-list celebrity in very , very small circles in North New Jersey of people who , like the Giants in the early 90s , People know my dad . Outside of that , nobody really knows my name but Coors . Everybody knows Coors but not everybody knows that you're fifth generation Coors . That's like a pretty interesting fun fact .
Speaker 2It is , of course , you know I had nothing to do with it which is also fun . But yeah , we just celebrated in our family's 150th anniversary beer business and we live in a little sleepy town in Golden , colorado , and kind of love it here and the family's not super attention grabbing kind of people . So we just sort of live our lives and do our thing and strong work ethic , and so I was drilled into me and I got to work and work hard and prove yourself , and so that's what I've tried to do .
Speaker 1Well , I just get to where you've been .
Speaker 1What's pretty incredible is that you are someone who , in terms of like work ethic and I mean you are there , you're working the shows , you're on the floor , you're helping to grow these brands and got your law degree , you have put in the work yourself , like you are far from someone expecting that silver spoon , like you're out there digging , and I think that's really cool because there's a couple of routes that you could have gone .
Speaker 1And it's really impressive that until I did your bio , I had no idea . I just was so impressed with you as a leader and with the things that you've done . And then it's really cool to go back and to be like , wow , and she didn't have to . She could have like the ridden coattails and you chose not to , which is awesome . So anyway , darden , if I was impressed with you before this , super impressed now , and you've been able to see a lot of different brands in your career , and especially from the legal standpoint , one thing I'm really curious about is like what do you see ? What are some mistakes that brands make early on that it might be hard to unwind later ?
Speaker 2Well , I think probably all made them . You try to balance , I think , especially when you're trying to grow and you're a young brand , trying to balance entering a market with available real estate , and so you kind of have to decide okay , I want an area manager , so I need at least three to five or six restaurants . And so I would say that's when I've seen , repeated in some of the brands that we've bought or some of the ones that we've done ourselves , where you're kind of anxious to get going and you're not patient about the right real estate . From a legal perspective , I probably approach things so much more cautiously than your typical entrepreneur and I think in some ways that's helped me and in some ways that's hurt me . I think I really admire the guys who just make a decision to go and if we have to change our mind later , we can , and I don't think I get .
Speaker 1If we get sued , oh well .
Speaker 2I have two kinds of rules for my team and one of them is I don't want to be sued . We have prominent name to people might decide is worth trying to go after . So we're very conservative on employment stuff and we try to live by the example of treat everybody well , not just your customers but your vendors and your landlords and the whole gamut . So just trying to be a really good corporate citizen as well as following all the legal rules the best we can . So there's a lot of them out there and they keep changing , so hard to keep up .
Speaker 1That's tough . So do you find ? Because I feel like often , lawyers . I'm from a family of attorneys , just to be clear . My father was an attorney , my grandfather was an attorney , uncles , cousins , and when I look at what lawyers tend to be like , it's usually a default to no and at Ovation we have a value of default to how , which is like , how are we going to do this and let's default to how , but I feel like lawyers have that default to no , which is why I don't feel like I meet a lot of entrepreneurial lawyers , because pretty much Darden , it's you and Lauren Fernandez of Full Course are the only people that I could think of that are both lawyers and entrepreneurs . How do you get outside of that ? Your training , to be like that conservative , say no training that lawyers tend to have no-transcript .
Speaker 2Here's why I advise you not to do it . But here's the consequence if you do and try to always come up with a different solution Like , okay , I know you want to do it that way , I know you want to tie these two products together and that's a violation of antitrust . But if you do this , there's a different way to approach it . Maybe you don't need what you think you need , but what you're trying to accomplish is a sale , right ? How do we get the sale that you want ?
Speaker 2I've tried to , I think throughout my legal career , be more of a yes person or more of a . That depends . It depends , if we do it this way , yes . If we do it that way , probably no . I think that's really helped . Coming from a family that values entrepreneurship , I've always wanted to , but it's not sort of my natural tendency . So I've had to push myself and grow and I'm kind of one of those people who always likes to learn and do new things . And I got an opportunity and my family believed in me and I think the confidence of them and my ability to manage a P&L instead of just a legal department budget has kind of helped push me over the edge , I guess .
Speaker 1That's awesome
Enhancing Guest Experience in Restaurants
Speaker 1. And let's dive into the main point of the podcast , which is the guest experience , because all of this boils down to the mistakes , the legal , the rushing into it . Why does it work ? Why does it not work ? And it's always because either it's a bad guest experience or it creates enough friction in the guest experience that people will fail , and those are the reasons that most businesses don't work out . But , on the flip side , when they do work out , every single business that works out has a guest experience that people feel like they're getting their money's worth from . No one's going to walk into a McDonald's and be like , wow , what a great experience , but I will go in there , buy a couple of kids meals and my kids get to play and that's the job to be done , that's the experience that I'm paying for and that's what I get so consistently . What do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays ?
Speaker 2Oh , I think it kind of depends on the brand and what they're trying to deliver . I think McDonald's you're getting hot food the same at every single McDonald's regardless of where in the country you are , and that is impressive and valuable to the guest . I think these days the guest really is valuing customization and sort of that personalized experience , whether that's the greeter remembering your name or your order , and I get that all the time . I have my regular order . I walk in the door and they're name or your order , and I get that all the time . I have my regular order . I walk in the door and they're like the usual and thanks , Maria , it's awesome to see you again . And those kind of moments really just keep driving guests back . So I think it's the consistent quality food which I think these days is kind of taken for granted .
Speaker 2Right , If you don't even have that and you're really not even in the game , and then what do you do else ? That makes this a place I want to come back to and I want to feel comfortable If I'm the person who doesn't want to talk to anyone and you appreciate that and you acknowledge that and you're just okay . Here's the thing I'm going to ask you . The minimal amount of questions get you on your way . That's great customer service is . And what good customer service is , on a broad base of what customers need and want .
Speaker 1And when you're there at Salad Collective , what are some tactics that you've used to improve that guest experience ?
Speaker 2We've really tried to educate our team , think it comes down to like , if someone comes in or a place where people come for some healthy options , they might be needing gluten-free or sugar-free , or they just want to cut down on the amount of fat or have more protein . So educating and having tools available for our team as well as our guests , on being able to give them the experience that they want from a food perspective and that lends itself to the interaction with the guests and the guests saying I've never eaten here before but I don't like spinach , help me and someone will help them through that . Or I've never eaten a vegetable , help me , do you like ranch dressing ? So we can get you some vegetables . I think it's really just . It starts with the education and then the foundation of happy employees . So the culture so you got to have the employees understand your food what you're offering is , but also be happy to come to work every day so that when they're portraying their experience to the guest , that it comes through , that they're smiling and that they're happy .
Speaker 2And everyone has a bad day every now and then , but for most of the part , if you like , working with the team . So we have spent a lot of time on culture and our little madness matters . Uvu is sort of one of our things , and that translates to the guest too . Like the guest might have an allergy that's like cucumbers , which isn't a very common one . Instead of being like , oh , that's weird , your interaction with our people should be wow , great . Well , we can take those off easily . Would you like chickpeas instead ? Or something Making it really smooth , making people feel weird about their little individual needs or wants , and having a great experience , and then , of course , having the food taste great .
Speaker 1So that's a little of our philosophy . I love , by the way , that your end result is oh yeah , and the food needs to taste good , because so many people they get obsessive over the food and they forget about the other stuff and it doesn't matter about what the food is like if the other stuff isn't there . Very true , and I think that if you have that mentality of and , by the way , the food is awesome , then everything else works out . But you can't start with our food is awesome and everything else will just kind of figure itself out . Just like Steve Jobs said , the idea is the easy part , the execution is the hard part .
Speaker 1It's like in a restaurant the food is the idea , in a way , and everything else needs to deliver that food in a way that creates a great guest experience . And I love that you talk about the employees as well , because you are only as good as your last experience at a brand and the guest experience can never be elevated over the employee experience . If the employees are not having a great time , they cannot consistently provide the guests with a great time . Now there may be yeah , sure , I could be in a bad mood and fake it for a table , but you need to enjoy doing what you're doing and feel like you're cared about . In order to care and I think that's something that I love how your focus was around the employees , the guests and , by the way , the food needs to be good .
Speaker 2Yes , I think it's true . If you're coming in , you're having experience with a guest . I mean , certainly there's concepts where you're interacting with a kiosk or something . We don't have those yet in any of ours . I know some guests would love to order that way , so I think we'll have to figure that out . But if your employees in the building aren't happy , they don't want to come to work . There's tension with the management , it's sort of that . Focus on hiring the right people . You can train someone how to chop a cucumber correctly . You can't really train Unless there's an allergy .
Speaker 2Unless I have an allergy . But there's love , you know .
Speaker 1I don't know ?
Speaker 2Yes , definitely not . You can't really train smile like a smiley personality . We try to hire the personality who's willing to learn some of the skills and I think that helps , at least in the right positions of those people , to really help provide the whole message that we want , which is this is a great place to come . You're welcome here , you'll get exactly what you want and it's going to be amazing and it's going to be healthy , but it's also going to taste great and you're going to want to come back .
Speaker 1And I think that's something that's so important , as you're looking at that employee experience and how do you hire the right person . It's so damaging to hire the wrong person , because what happens when someone is having a bad day ? The negative review that comes out does not say Darden wasn't smiling . They say this brand has bad service , right , and because every employee is an extension of the brand , I think that's so important to think about those individuals . And , speaking of individuals , you know a lot of people in this industry and you've been on tons of panels with some great people . Who is someone that deserves an ovation ? Who's someone that we should be following in the restaurant industry ?
Speaker 2Oh , there's so many people who are doing it really well right now . What comes to mind first , which is not an industry person ? I've been on some great panels with some great people you know Shake Shack and all sorts of awesome people that are worth following . Simon Sinek is sort of my sort of latest guy that I like to follow about his philosophy around sort of the long game and circling back to sort of this family thing of we've been in business for a long time trying to take the long-term approach to restaurant business and what the why is and all of that . So not an industry guy , but maybe somebody outside the industry that's providing some really interesting insight into what should be , maybe , modern leadership philosophies .
Speaker 1Love that . Yeah , simon Sinek . He's got some great stuff . I love his books . I've read numerous of them and especially , I think , his landmark one of Start With why is really critical . So , darden , where can people go to learn more ? I know you don't post a ton on social media , so where can people go to learn about your brands and if you're interested in franchising them ?
Speaker 2Sure , I'm not on social media a lot , but my team is , so you can go to madgreenscom or snappysaladscom or tokyojoescom . We're actively franchising the Mad Greens brand right now and they're on Instagram and Facebook and all the usual spaces . Some TikTok . Now we're doing some fun little videos , which is great .
Speaker 1Can we see some dancing Darden ?
Speaker 2No , but we're moving a lot of our training to videos , so there might be like a welcome thing for me eventually , but I'm learning to like my face more . I'm a behind the scenes lawyer Kind of I'm learning this being in front of the camera and microphone a little bit more . So thanks for this opportunity to grow and push myself .
Speaker 1Well , you're doing great , darden , and not just on this podcast , but in business and at the shows and on the panels , and you're a great person who's building some great value . So thanks for all that you do , darden , and for showing us that lawyers can say yes . Today's ovation goes to you , darden . Thank you for joining us on Give an Ovation .
Speaker 2Thanks , zach , this has been great . I appreciate it .
Speaker 1Awesome . 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 .