Speaker 1: 0:00

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 all the answers without annoying guests with all the questions. Learn more at OvationUpcom. And today we have Sharif Mityas, who is the CEO of Bricks Holdings, which now has eight brands, but who knows what they'll have tomorrow? Maybe nine, maybe 10, but brands like Friendly's, clean Juice, humble, donut Co, red Mango, pizza, jukebox, orange Leaf, super Salad, smoothie Factory and Kitchen. And I believe I got them all right, sharif. I think you did, yes, well, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:48

Thanks for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me on, Zach.

Speaker 1: 0:51

So, as you're looking at these brands and in the not too distant past, you recently acquired Clean Juice to join the Bricks family what do you look for to say this is a great brand.

Speaker 2: 1:04

We look for three things. One is obviously the product right. The product's got to be good. You can have all the bells and whistles you want in the world, but if your food or your beverage or whatever you're serving guests isn't good, it's pointless, right? And so we look for brands that have really good food and beverage craveable things on the menu. The second thing we look for is that guest connection right. Do they have followers? Do they have people passionate about the brand?

Speaker 2: 1:29

There was this, and Clean Juice is a great example. It's only got 80 stores. They have 800,000 followers on social media, right? So there's this passion for the brand, for organic, certified organic product across the country and people just love Clean Juice. We kind of like to say Clean Juice is not a brand, it's a movement, and that really kind of said wow, there's something here that we can really build upon. And the third thing we look at, because we're a franchisor, is the franchisees right. Are they engaged? Are they passionate about the brands? Are they in there, working, wanting to grow, wanting to build this great brand? And to a person, all the franchisees we talked to during due diligence man, they just love Clean Juice. They all have a special story on why they joined it, what makes them stick with it, and for us that was a three legs of the stool. That made it a no brainer for us.

Speaker 1: 2:19

And does Bricks exit restaurants as well, because I feel like Bricks has been growing restaurants for a while.

Speaker 2: 2:24

We have. We have only shed one brand so far and that was a little pizza concept. It was actually a franchisee that wanted to take it and build it on their own. We're like great, take it. We know it's in good hands. It's from someone that's operated a couple of these stores and we were happy to kind of move that brand along to in a different direction. But yeah, at this point we're looking to grow. We've got two or three things that we're looking at right now actually for our next acquisition, and for us it's all about growth.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Love that, and it's not just growth in terms of brands, but it's also growth in terms of innovation. I mean, you were voted one of the most innovative leaders in the restaurant industry, and one of the things is your focus on the guest and your focus on their experience, and so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what do you think the most important aspect of guest experiences nowadays.

Speaker 2: 3:14

That's a great question. I think it comes down to occasion, which is one of the things that people tend to forget. How you need to create the right experience is completely dependent on am I about to spend an hour and a half in a restaurant sitting down with my family, or do I want to grab and go something and I need to go through the drive-through? I'm ordering ahead and that's the occasion that I want to in the same week. Right, but how you treat them has to be occasion specific. And so when they're coming in and sitting down with their family, with their friends, and they're willing to spend X number of dollars and X amount of their time, you've got to make it special in all the right ways. Right, you got to personalize that experience. You got to understand that hospitality is king. Right, it can't just be good food, it can't be just good service. The music just can't be the same, the right volume. All the pieces of the pie have to make that right, have to make that work. And then there's still a speed option to that right.

Speaker 2: 4:13

The worst complaint you can have as a sit-down restaurant is you're sitting there, you're done, you want to leave and you're waiting for the check. So those little components can kill you when you've done everything else right, but if you miss one piece of the puzzle, that affects the entire experience. So to me you got to look at the totality of that guest journey. When they're with you by occasion, when you're going through a drive-through, it's speed, it's order, accuracy. It's still pleasant, still hospitality, still service with a smile. But all those pieces have to be wrapped around speed and I got what I ordered at a good value. But to us it's no one thing right, because you can be a star in one thing and you all have had experiences man, the food was great, but I had to wait a half an hour to get my check. Or the service was great, but the food came out cold.

Speaker 2: 4:58

All the pieces have to work and the second piece to that is it has to be consistent to drive true loyalty. I'm not talking you pay people off to be loyal to you with discounts and coupons. True loyalty where people are going to drive by a competitor to come to you. Every experience they have with you has to be consistently good. When you build that up over time, you can have a mistake, you can have a bump in the road, if you solve it quickly, if you rectify it quickly. But if you miss in your first one, two, three times with a guest, there's too many options. They're going to go somewhere else. You have to have it all together. You have to have it consistent.

Speaker 1: 5:33

A hundred percent, one of the keynotes that I do. I talk about the ladder of loyalty and how the bottom it's about convenience. It's like is the expectation going to exceed the effort required, either with the money, the time, the drive, the whatever? And then, once you get past convenience, then it's about consistency, because if I don't know what I'm going to expect at that restaurant, then I don't want to spend my money where I don't know what I'm going to get. And then the highest rung is about connection right when Sharif comes into my restaurant and I know who he is and I help him feel like he's part of the family, even if it's digitally, just to know that he's seen, he's heard that goes a long way, a hundred percent agree.

Speaker 2: 6:16

And that's that last piece, obviously the hardest, especially in big chains with scale and lots of people coming in right. If you're an independent, you own one restaurant, you know your regulars easier. When you've got 300 restaurants, 3,000 restaurants, that's where technology is really going to come in play, right. So we're testing things like an earpiece in our hostess's ear right and then, based on the cell phone of the guest, when they walk in, it alerts the host or hostess on who that person is. Now imagine knowing who's coming in, knowing their favorite drink, knowing maybe it was their birthday last week. Now, maybe when you walk in, I greet you by name Zach, god, it's so great to have you back. I know we have your favorite drink waiting for you at your table and we're so sorry we missed your birthday last week. The first piece of cake's on us. Now imagine how you just feel walking into that. Right, you're like warm from cheers, you're a VIP and with the technology that is not a fantasy land scenario. We can do that stuff today.

Speaker 1: 7:16

That's incredible, and it's trying out stuff like that and realizing that, as we talk about so often, don't let technology get in the way, but make it pave the way so your employees can do what they do best, which is help that guest feel hospitality right 100% To us.

Speaker 2: 7:36

everything about technology, especially AI, and people like, oh, it's going to replace my job, replace this, it's enhancing. It should only enhance our servers, our team members, our back of house staff, our GMs. Right, it's the opportunity to be better with the use of technology, not to replace people.

Speaker 1: 7:53

Amen, and I love that idea of earpiece technology. I think that's really powerful. Any other tactics that you've done or are doing testing out to improve the guest experience?

Speaker 2: 8:04

Yeah. So there's a lot more that we're trying to do inside, obviously the four walls, that again, that personalization piece that you got to where we're starting to do things, where we can even start thinking about personalizing menu items, right. So there's certain things where we know certain guests like certain things may be spicier or a different flavor or not. So to us menus in the future are going to become more and more personalized. There'll be a base of what you offer. But then, basically, how do you start personalizing?

Speaker 2: 8:35

It's taking the secret menu and amplifying it. So I know I can get this at my restaurant. It's not on the menu, they make it for me, but we've got like three or four variations. So it's not technically just for you, it's for a whole bunch of customers. But it feels like it's for you because you can tailor certain dishes and certain flavor profiles, make them a little different, and you start to figure out who likes what. That's really powerful, right, because now you're not. I order my own stuff here, they know me. Right, I can get what I want here. You regular customers have to order off the regular menu, but everyone feels special. And so it's taking this personalization which was really started in marketing. Right. You started personalizing emails and text messages and now it's making it actually personalized in food or in drink. That's the next level.

Speaker 1: 9:23

I love that because I'm thinking about, like, when I go into a local pizza place here and I go in and I say I want my pizza pepperoni and banana peppers, light cheese, heavy sauce slightly underdone, right, right and then what I do is I look in the back because I actually know who's good at making that and who's bad at making that, and so if they're good, I go up and I make a point of being like you got a complicated order coming up and they're like I got you, but you know, it's something where, like I know that they know how to make it well and I think that's really powerful.

Speaker 2: 10:00

Yeah, I think the more we can personalize the experience, I think the more you're going to win, right Cause then people feel that connection to you as a brand, they feel that you're taking care of me. Right, I'm not just another guest, I'm not just another cog, not just another receipt. Right, you're valuing me personally.

Speaker 1: 10:17

That's going to be the separation, in my opinion, between winners and losers in the future that personalization, while it's hard to do and the operations mind in both of us is being like, no, we can't personalize, oh my gosh the complexity. But having that option just makes it feel so much more of that connection like we were talking about, and I love that concept and instantly helping people feel like regulars and having those notes so, regardless of who's there, you could do that. Love that. Now I know that Friendly's is obviously a near and dear brand to me. I have on my backdrop right there I keep a fribble cup. Where'd that go?

Speaker 2: 11:01

Oh, oh my gosh, it's there yeah it's there.

Speaker 1: 11:03

There it is, and thank you, by the way, for sending that on. I want to let viewers know I've got my Fribble Cup back here that I did not steal from a Friendly's. I got it sent to me. But it was the first place I worked and it introduced me to hospitality and it was really cool coming full circle and now working with Friendly's at Ovation. I'd love to just get like your high level take of how has Ovation been helpful to Friendly's?

Speaker 2: 11:26

Friendly's, I'd say has gone through a step change improvement because of Ovation, I could not sing its praises more. And I'm not trying to suck up to you, zach. As you know, I'm pretty hard on my technology vendors very hard, and some of them listening to this will attest to that because I expect the technology to do what it's supposed to do right, and some of those times that it doesn't. But in this case, not only is it doing what it's supposed to do, but it's actually driving action. It's not just driving data right Information.

Speaker 2: 11:57

All my GMs, all my franchise owners actually use the data and respond and save guests and collect trend information on what's working, what's not, what needs to be solved. Is it a certain date, part or time of day or server that needs additional training? It's getting to the specifics of actually improving not just the four walls from an operations perspective, but our sales. I mean it's driving guest frequency because we're getting better and we're seeing it in our scores and we're seeing it in what our guests are telling us through the platform and through the public platforms, the Googles and the Alps of the world. I got to tell you I hated our past feedback process. I used to get two, maybe three kind of quality feedback per store per month. Think of that. Two to three per store per month. Now I'm getting like 30 per store per day. It is a step change difference and again our franchisees love it. I can't tell you how many owners and GMs just love this platform. It is the best thing we have ever put in.

Speaker 1: 12:59

Wow, I was expecting you to just be like, yeah, it's been good for us. So I appreciate that, sharif, a hundred percent it's been good for us. So I appreciate that, sharif A hundred percent.

Speaker 2: 13:05

It's been amazing.

Speaker 1: 13:06

And, as I tell all the people that I chat with, that use Ovation is like we're a feedback company and if there's ever anything that you see that you want to see better, we're all ears because we love feedback and you'll hear from me Good and, as we know, like and as you've tested to, you got to find the problems so you can fix the problems Right, and the harder you make it to hear about it, the harder it is to solve.

Speaker 1: 13:38

A hundred percent it makes it so easy and the ability to really again respond in real time. You for that. I know that you have had such a great career in this industry and you know so many people, but I'd love to hear who is someone or a brand that deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry. Who's someone that we should be following?

Speaker 2: 13:52

Boy, we run in a lot of the same circles so you know a lot of the technology guys we use and the Beals of the world at Lunchbox and friend Phil Crawford at Adyen and what those guys are doing in the restaurant space outstanding. But I'm actually going to keep it closer to home in terms of my shout out and not many people know but the president of Bricks Brands is Dawn Petit and Dawn actually started with Friendly's and she started with Friendly's before you, Zach. She's on her 44th year with the brand and now she runs all the brands. For me, as my head of operations and president, very involved in kind of the women in restaurant initiatives, and she's my right hand I couldn't do this without her and I'm just a public shout out to Dawn Petit.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Well, if she was part of making Friendly's what it is, then she absolutely deserves that. So love that. And Sharif, where can people go to follow Bricks?

Speaker 2: 14:45

or you. I'm on LinkedIn. Bricks Holdings is on LinkedIn. We're obviously that's more on the corporate holding company side. All our brands are on Instagram and LinkedIn and TikTok and Facebook. So thefriendliescom, obviously, our Red Mango, orange Leaf, clean Juice, super Salad Pizza, jude Box, humble humble donuts all of them available online.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Awesome, Well Sharif, for helping us focus on building more than an experience, but a movement. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you so much for joining us on Give an Ovation and looking forward to hanging out with you in person.

Speaker 2: 15:19

Perfect Thanks, Zach. Talk to you soon. Thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 1: 15:23

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.