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
From Food Truck To Food Phenom with Andrew Dana
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In this episode of Give an Ovation, we welcome Andrew Dana, founder of Call Your Mother Deli and Timber Pizza Company. Andrew’s journey from the corporate world to building thriving restaurant brands is a testament to passion, perseverance, and a deep commitment to creating unforgettable guest experiences.
Zack and Andrew discuss:
- The transition from corporate life to launching a food business
- How authenticity and community drive brand success
- The key elements of delivering a memorable guest experience
- Why employee happiness is crucial for customer satisfaction
- The strategies behind scaling without losing brand identity
Tune in to hear how Andrew’s bold moves and dedication to hospitality have turned his dream into a growing culinary empire!
Thanks, Andrew!
Creating Five-Star Guest Experiences
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 . Today I'm so excited because we have someone that Amir of South Block mentioned on his podcast saying something that just is doing some great things . I went and I checked him out and just rock star of a background . So excited to chat with Andrew Dana , founder of Call your Mother Deli , timber Pizza Company . Now , andrew , welcome to the podcast man . Thank you , thank you , pleasure to be here . Shout out to Amir that's the homie . Amen . Now you've got an interesting background , andrew .
Speaker 1I want to dive into this because it's like I look at your career before restaurants and it was like five months here , eight months here , five months here . Is this kind of like ? I felt that early 20 angst of like , oh , I just don't want to do this . And then you hit restaurants and here we are , 11 years later . You started Timber Pizza Company first and then Call your Mother Deli , which is a Jew-ish deli yourself in those first few jobs and what was the difference when you got into restaurants ? Because the jobs that you had ? I guess you did have a two-year stint somewhere , but it seemed like at least from looking at your LinkedIn , it's like I'm doing jobs . Everyone told me that I should be doing so . Yeah , tell me about that .
Speaker 2Yeah , I mean it's super cliche , but I just hadn't found a passion right and I had the privilege of going to a really good high school .
Speaker 2I went to a good college . I went to Fordham for grad school and part of it is , I think when you go to good schools it almost like narrows your perspective of what you think you can do , because everybody's going into these like certain channels , everybody's training to be a lawyer , I was getting my MBA and everybody was going into finance and so you almost feel like pigeonholed to have to do something that everybody else is doing . And I don't think I really had the confidence to go like branch out and chase my dreams which , for whatever reason , had always been restaurants . Like even since high school I've been saying I just want to open a pizza restaurant , but felt sort of the societal pressure and the school pressure to sort of chase these more traditional career paths . So I was just sort of going through the motions right and was finding joy in life and everything except for work , really living for the weekend to be super cliche And- .
Speaker 1Because I mean , you don't go into like quarter million dollars in school debt to like deliver pizzas , right yeah ?
Speaker 2for sure . My capstone project for my MBA program was a pizza restaurant and the teacher was like I think you came to the wrong school , man .
Speaker 2I was like yeah , I think I may have as well . But then I was working for this company , everfi , and I was making really good money and climbing the corporate ladder but just hated it . And so it was one night it was March , it was when it was still getting dark at 5 pm and I was just sitting at my desk . It sucks , I was just sitting at my desk , this sucks . I was like I'm just going to start a pizza business and I didn't really have the skills or the wherewithal to like start a proper business and I was like what's a way to start this in a bite-sized chunk and started Timber Pizza as a food truck in 2014 . Having never made pizza , having never run a business , just sort of was like all right , let's just run through the freaking wall and figure this out and hit the ground running and just outgrinded everybody and that led to the first Timber 2016 , led to Call your Mother 2018 , and here we are .
Speaker 2What did your family think when you started the food truck ? They thought I was batshit crazy , for sure , but they were super like my dad . Part of the reason I opened Call your Mother is my dad had always dreamed of opening a Jewish deli , and so I think , While he thought the idea was batshit crazy and I was in student debt and all that , he was also stoked because he was like oh , this is sort of like living my dreams . Once they got over the initial shock that I was giving up my six-figure job to make $12,000 the first year and live in my friend's basement , then they became supportive .
Speaker 1Yeah , oh , that's awesome . And obviously you got to do this with an eye to the guest , right . Like , obviously everything starts with a guest , and especially with , like , call your Mother Deli . It's like you started with a very catchy name Where'd that name come from ?
Speaker 2And then I want to dive into the guest experience , yeah , so like I can sort of picture the end restaurant before I come up with the name . So with Timber Pizza , like I kept saying it like summer camp in the Adirondacks , and so I was thinking like what would like a summer camp in the Adirondacks be , and so came up with Timber whatever . And then for Call your Mother . A lot of my Jewish deli experience growing up was visiting my grandparents in South Florida , and so I wanted it to be bright , pops of pink and teal and super playful . And so I was just like it's got to be something sort of funny and catchy and like Jew-ish . And so one night I was with my friends and we were like what's something funny ? Our Jewish moms or grandmothers would have yelled at us and my friend's sister said call your mother . I said , oh my God , that's it . It's funny , it's catchy and it's so classically Jewish , but it also spans all cultures , right , like my wife and business partners from Argentina , and her mom loves it . So stamp , here we are .
Speaker 1I love that I can go back . I went to Newark Academy in Jersey and we got off all the Jewish holidays . It was right across the street from Kushner Academy and like , yeah , I mean I could think of going over to my friend's houses in there . They'll get home and the first thing that grandma would say is did you call your mother to tell ?
Speaker 2her that you're home .
Speaker 1You know , she says , they'll get home , and the first thing the grandma would say is did you call your mother to tell that you're ?
Speaker 2home . She says you should eat something . Put some meat on your bones .
Speaker 1Yeah , those are the other ideas for the restaurant names . Yeah , oh , I like that . So , thinking about the guest experience , because obviously you've curated this from a great vision into a restaurant , what do you think are some of the most important aspects of guest experience ?
Speaker 2I mean to even go back a step further . This is part of why I was attracted to the restaurant industry is so I got my MBA in marketing and so much of it is like fluff and bullshit . And there's something so real about restaurants Like either you go and have a good enough experience and good enough food where you want to come back or you don't . Like maybe you can get somebody to come for one time on marketing and fluff , but to like create that real sort of like long-term customer , it has to be real and like authentic , and so from day one in all of our restaurants we call them gfe's now great , effing experiences . And you know , in this day and age you can get anything delivered to your couch , like if you're going to go out . Like you want to have an experience .
Elevating Guest Experiences Through Culture
Speaker 2An experience can mean a five-star with multiple courses , or it can mean the person taking your order at the register is like really happy and asks you how your day is like , makes really great suggestions of what you should order and when your order is right . Like you get it with a huge smile and the playlist is on point nostalgic to when you were in high school and the volume's perfect , and so we constantly hammer home these GFEs , and it's just about always going above and beyond and creating memorable moments , and that can be everything from seeing somebody's little down to blessing them with a cookie , to making a cute drawing on the coffee cup that has your name on it when you get it . So it's just these little magical moments that make it a true experience .
Speaker 1I love that , Andrew , and when I go and do seminars about guest experience , one of the things that we always talk about is that the little things matter , because you could fake the big things right . I can do like some big apology and like give you $20 for free , Drawing a face on the coffee cup . It's like those little things matter . My kids , when we're leaving Costco , they look forward to what face the person's going to draw on the receipt . It's a little thing but it means a lot because you can't fake those little things .
Speaker 2Amen , no , amen . And when I opened Timber Pizza , part of the training was we would draw a pizza and call it the five-star experience . And it has eight slices and food is only one of them .
Speaker 2Right , Like everybody thinks like oh , your food is great , like it's enough , but food is only one of the eight slices and then it's . How was like ? After you take your order , does the person totally set expectations of when the food's going to come out , so you're not like left questioning anything . So it's the whole pie . It's the little things that add up .
Speaker 1And how many across the two brands ? How many locations trucks like where are you guys at ?
Speaker 2Yes , we have 16 Call your Mothers and we have six Timber Pizza companies .
Speaker 1How have you kept that culture as you've grown ?
Speaker 2Yeah , part of it is like when we can promote from within and so like , call your mother , for instance a lot of our people have been with us from day one and we're in the first store and have grown into bigger and sort of bolder positions .
Speaker 2So the guy who runs our social media and marketing was a food runner in the first store and just like the DNA of the brand is pulsing through his veins and vice versa , right Like he's rubbed off on the brand , and so I think it's really important to like have those culture carriers which , from day one , I told people don't look at this as a restaurant , look at this as a startup where you can really build a career .
Speaker 2And so that's been like a lot of the driving force behind why we want to grow is to create the opportunities that we promised for people .
Speaker 2So a lot of and then two is just like not resting on your laurels , is like making sure your staff is having a great experience , because the only way that customers are going to have a great experience is if your staff has a great experience , and that's from everything from onboarding to training to does the employee of the month get a dope present to yesterday we had our holiday party and raffling off , you know , big screen TVs and iPads , and one person won a thousand dollars cash . And it's like this event every year , like the staff's so pumped for , and so it's just like the core of everything is your staff , and so the better sort of you can make your staff feel it's this cycle that just feeds off of itself . Then they really give an F , and then they're better with the customers and the customers tip more , and then they make more money and then they're more stoked to work there and boom , boom , boom , boom , boom , boom , boom boom boom .
Speaker 1I love that , because the guest experience cannot exceed the employee experience . And so having that culture , having that love , having that vibe works really really well . Love hearing that .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's not just GFEs for the customers , it's GFEs for the staff too .
Speaker 1Yeah , there you go . I love that . I mean , obviously , I think you're just kind of going into some of those tactics of making sure that the employees have a great experience . But what other tactics are you using to improve the guest experience ? And , by the way , I do think that a giant holiday party like that is a great tactic to improve the guest experience because , again , it's like culture building . So I love that . But anyway , go ahead . What are some tactics that you've used to improve the guest experience .
Speaker 2I mean there's like the nitty gritty stuff , right , where it's like no order should ever take more than 10 minutes and we're like hammering that home , just so people are always getting what they want , and like we're always hammering home consistency on food and things . And so there's like the day to day nuts and bolts . But none of that's sexy , right . We always try and do sort of super shiny , creative menu changes every couple months , which is just to keep things fresh and top of mind . But really for the guest experience , like we're pretty basic , it really is just GFEs all day long , and so it's remembering guest names , it's remembering that kid's name and what's their favorite order . So it's like it's with Call your Mother . We have 16 locations , but at our core we want to be your neighborhood bagel shop , and what would that mom and pop neighborhood bagel shop be like ? And that's our northern star . So it's remembering names . It's picking people up with little freebies here and there , and so we really empower our staff to like you never have to ask a manager to give away a sandwich or a cookie . You never have to like ask a manager to rush an order to get somebody to do what they want . You never have to like ask a manager to rush an order to get somebody to do what they want . So really empower the staff to just constantly be picking up guests and sort of like looking for those little edges to make their experience better .
Speaker 2No-transcript . And so , whether that's a cookie for somebody who looks sad , or whether that's a cool sticker that we have for a kid who's in the store , or we encourage our staff to like listen to what the customers are saying . So if in line they're between two sandwiches and they're dining in and they get one , like hit them with the second one . If it's their first visit , right . And so you say , hey , I heard you wanted to try this one too . Like this one's on us this time and they're saying , whoa shit , they were listening , I got to try this extra sandwich . And then you have a repeat customer . So really empowering the staff to like it's easy to say it's just cookie giveaways , but it's like more than that it listening to what they like the customer's telling you they want and then sort of fulfilling that .
Speaker 1So are there any good questions that you ask in the interview process to suss out Is this person going to be a good fit ?
Speaker 2The number one question is why do you like being around people ? Because , oh interesting , we need people , people right , who like love being around people , people interacting , talking , and so that answer is super telling because a you've all worked that shift where , like , there's the one staff member who's sort of like grouchy and sort of like rubs off on the rest of the staff . So you want a team that like likes being around each other , loves interacting , and then that energy becomes infectious and it spills into the guests . So why do you like being around people is probably the most important question we like to ask Love that .
Speaker 1Now speaking of people , Andrew obviously 11 years in this industry who is someone that deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry .
Speaker 2Yeah , I want to give a shout out . I've known this guy since I was a kid and that's not why he's getting the ovation . It's Nick Wiseman . He's the owner of Little Sesame . So Little Sesame is a . They have one restaurant , but then they also do CPG Hummus nationwide in Whole Foods and across the country in a bunch of grocery stores . And they started as a restaurant and I think Nick is just a great example of constantly reinventing yourself , constantly sort of looking for angles to make your business sort of more scalable and better angles to make your business sort of more scalable and better . They're great in their community . The way they source their food is top notch . They work directly with their farmers , they're always sort of building up their community and they make the best hummus in the game . So shout out McWiseman , little Sesame .
Speaker 1I love that . And where do people go to find and follow you and your brands ?
Speaker 2We're on Instagram Call your mother deli . I believe is the handle Callyourmotherdelicom . That's pretty much it . Get on our email list . We're fun , we're cool . Check us out on Instagram email list and come through all the shops . Look on the website . We're in DC and Denver right now . Oh , DC and Denver . When are you coming to Utah ? Honestly , it's on the short list , so watch out . I think that there's like one Jewish deli in Salt Lake . It's a natural next junk from Denver , so watch out that we're coming .
Speaker 1Here we go . I'm ready for it . Well , andrew , for giving us a reminder to care about each other and to call our mothers , today's ovation goes to you . Thank you so much for joining us on Give an Ovation . Thanks , man Pleasure , Thanks , pleasure .