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
How Genuine Hospitality and Guest Engagement Drive Restaurant Success with Julie Zucker
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Zack welcomes Julie Zucker, CMO and Partner at Branded Strategic Hospitality and producer of the Hospitality Hangout podcast. With years of experience in restaurant marketing and guest experience, Julie shares invaluable insights into building genuine guest connections, leveraging technology, and fostering a hospitality-driven culture.
Zack and Julie discuss:
- The power of personalized guest interactions
- How technology enhances hospitality without replacing it
- The role of staff engagement in brand growth
- Why guest feedback is crucial for restaurant success
- Julie’s journey from restaurant marketing to industry leadership
Follow Julie and Branded Strategic Hospitality:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-zucker-41895b2/
https://brandedstrategic.com/
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 someone who's not just a friend but
Introduction to Guest Experience in Restaurants
Speaker 1someone who's been a mentor and just an incredible human bringing this industry up , and she is the tide that lifts all boats . I feel like she's a CMO and partner at Branded Strategic Hospitality and the chief party planner , and she also manages the Hospitality Hangout podcast . But , julie , welcome to the podcast .
Speaker 2Thank you , Zach . I'm so honored to be here and when you texted me say , Julie , we got to get you on I was super excited . As you mentioned , I produce the Hospitality Hangout podcast , so I'm usually behind the scenes booking guests , writing scripts , doing post-production . So to have the opportunity to be on camera with someone like yourself , who is a friend and a partner , it means a lot .
Speaker 2So thrilled to be here , and I'm also a huge fan of your podcast and what gets me every time and I've told you this before is I get a ton of emails . Everyone gets a ton of emails . Your emails get my attention and I'm like , hopefully that's emailing me and I love the way you recap your episodes and I still listen to them because you're giving me enough to be like , okay , I know what I'm about to listen to , but you didn't give me everything that I really want to take a listen .
Speaker 1Yeah , well , that's the goal , right ? It's like let's give them a little bit , so that way , if they want to read the email and still get some points out of it , that's great . I don't want you to have to listen to the podcast and by the time they get to work , the podcast is wrapped up . So that's the goal here . Now , julie , you know everyone in this industry . I mean , everyone knows you . You know everyone , and you're not just coming at this from a non-restaurant perspective , because in the branded portfolio there are restaurants . You work with those restaurants as well . If you were to sit down with a growing brand and they said Julie , what are some things that I should look at to make sure that I'm growing my brand correctly ? What would you have them focus on ?
Speaker 2Great question and I do want to take a one before I answer that question . To sidebar , a lot of people don't realize this about me is that I started off my time at branded I've been here , which just celebrated 13 years . I ran all of our marketing for all of our restaurants before branded hospitality ventures , when we were just branded restaurants . So I did transition alongside Chatsy and Jimmy . And now I remember when we were conceptualizing branded and building out the company , I built the first website and Jimmy was standing over my shoulder with Chatsy at his desk and we were coming up with our tagline . So branded really does mean so much for me because I've grown with it .
Speaker 2But back to my restaurant days . I literally started off . I was in charge of all marketing for all of our New York City restaurants and that also was at the time when we started tech implementation . So I also was in charge of making sure , when we added new technologies , that our managers knew about it , our servers knew about it and also Zach . One of the first things I always did when I started was reviews . So I personally responded to every single review .
Speaker 2that came into our restaurants , and I think that there was a few platforms that aggregated them and you could respond in one place . But no , why would I make my life easier ?
Speaker 1I literally would go into .
Speaker 2Yelp and respond directly in Yelp , and go into Google and respond directly in Google . We use a service called Rewards Network . So I really strongly have always believed in customer communication and feedback . So I kind of then going back to your question of me , I really think that's the most important thing , that any restaurant operator I don't care what size you are you could be a one location , small one , you could be multi-unit , you can be franchised If you are not communicating with your guests , then what are you doing ?
Speaker 2That is the key to success , right ? Because we don't open up restaurants to serve our family . Well , we do serve our family and our friends and our other employees and staff , but we do it for our customers who become our guests . So if you're not getting feedback in the right ways and being able to not only get that feedback but not take it personally and use it to customize your experience and help your experience going forward , I think that's the one thing . Of course there's good food . Of course there's good service , right . But how are you going to know that the good food and good service if someone isn't going to tell you ?
Speaker 1Yeah , and I think that , as you look at this , one of the things that you do so well is just caring about the individual people , and when you look at hospitality , it is a hand-to-hand combat event . It is not something that you're speaking to a big audience of people , but it's a thousand micro moments and you have to make sure when I'm making a cake , for example .
Speaker 2Chocolate or vanilla .
Speaker 1Oh , neither I'm like a banana cake kind of guy . I know , I know it's weird . I love banana cake and it's my favorite cake . So anyway , as I'm making the banana cake , my wife is like you're like so OCD with the frosting . I was like , yes , but I know that people are going to come over , we're going to give them that cake and I want every single bite to like . Make sure that they know that I cared about every single bite and that's how it is in the restaurant industry . When I worked in restaurants , it was about the individuals there and if you're not ready to do hand-to-hand combat , it's probably not a good place for you to be right .
Speaker 2Yeah , I was always sharing this story when I can . It was my first job that I ever had . I worked as a waitress at a Hilton in my town . They had a patio , bar and grill in the summertime and either it was locals who would come and , instead of belonging to a country club , or , if you didn't have a pool , you could belong to the Hilton pool . I was an outdoor pool server and I was 16 years old and I was on the younger end of all the servers there . But I remember being called into the corporate Hilton manager's office and being accused of stealing tips because they could not , for the life of them , understand how I was getting double , triple the amount of tips than any other server working there .
Speaker 2And first of all , 16 year old Julie was like oh my God , what's happening right now ? But then also and I do think that what makes me me and I don't want to look at it as a bad trait , but a good trait is I'm a little ignorant in the fact that I always look in the positives . For everybody and in every situation something bad may happen and I'm going to be glass half full , that like , well , maybe something was this or something was happening there , but it was an outdoor pool , it was hot out . I , before I even go to any table , would just show up with ice waters , because if you're at a hot pool , the first thing you want is water .
Speaker 2I'd also remember the regulars' names . I'd remember facts about their children , facts about their families , and I would also talk to them and make myself a real human . And I think that's kind of when you humanize the experience . I think that was my first realizing that internally I'm built with hospitality in me and , as a server , seeing that I was able to spread my gregarity and my love of this industry to our customers really helped . And no , I wasn't stealing tips . And , yes , they understood and I didn't get in trouble . But uh , you know , now everyone knows why it was a better day .
Speaker 1Well , but that is so awesome because that's the heart of what we're talking about . And the question is then how do you translate that into your guests ? Right Cause , it's into your staff , because it's so hard when you know that it's you were born with it . You were born with hospitality . When an owner walks into a restaurant , they care so much about what's going on and about every single guest . How do you translate that into the staff ? And that's one of the things where we found that technology comes into play so well , because I'll talk to businesses who they're using Ovation , for example , and I'll see them at a conference and they'll say the good thing is I don't need to worry about how my guest is being treated , because I know that if anything goes wrong , that they can just communicate with me and I can handle it right off the bat . So it's nice to have that and to leverage technology not to replace that feeling , but to enhance it and to scale it right .
Speaker 2Yeah , and I think a lot of the onus is on the managers . Back to my marketing days at the restaurant . So I remember I could come up with the most creative LTO . I can come up with creative , awesome , fun campaigns to get new customers , whether marketing , in-house , they're influencers . But if I didn't get my staff on board , I'm not in all six restaurants at all . Six times I'm sitting in a corporate office and they're like who's this girl that pops her head in an hour a day , right , you have to earn respect of your employees , and it was the same thing as I would go spend time at each of our stores .
Speaker 2I learned Spanish so I could speak to our kitchen staff , which was a part of my language .
Speaker 2You know it was kitchen Spanish . I learned kitchen Spanish , so don't go crazy on me , but either way , again , it was getting to know them , finding out do they have children ? What sports team do they like ? Talking to the servers , because then if they look at me like somebody who wants to get to know them , right , and that's what we want to do with our customers too People just want to feel seen , right , and in order for your customers to be seen , you have to see your staff and it starts at the top . And if you're trickling down and you're saying to your staff members and getting to know them , and when you have a conversation with someone , right , and let's just say you and I are talking and I'm telling you , zach , I really love your hat , that is the greatest hat .
Speaker 2Tell me more about that hat right , then when you're going to someone , right , then when you're going to someone , maybe that sticks in your head that day . And then maybe you're talking to someone and you notice something about them and you're like , oh you know , Julie , I really love that necklace . It's a really fabulous necklace and it trickles down , so it's almost in . You know , you're a parent , I'm a parent . It's kind of like not do what I say , but do as I am , or do as I act , not do what I say . But I think that goes towards whether we're training our staff or whether we're interacting with our customers .
Speaker 1Yeah , because at the end of the day , we are in a human industry .
Speaker 1Oh yeah , and it's easy to forget that because , hey , people coming in , they're churning in , churning out , churning in , churning out , flip a table , like , turn the table , like let's go , let's go , let's go , but at the end of the make sure it's good all along the way . I went to this restaurant the other day . I was seated quickly , a server came up , brought me drinks , great refills all the way through and they brought me my check and it was in the nastiest , rattiest , broken apart bill presenter , and I'm like how do you nail everything and miss this ? Because it just like left me with such a weird taste in my mouth of like I don't want to touch this . It was disgusting , but that's the thing . It's like you got to look at every single point along the way and the guest experience is so ubiquitous nowadays , so I'd love to get your take on what do you think the most important aspect of guest experience is ?
Speaker 2I really am going to go back to the human connection , especially in a time where restaurants really are becoming so automated Not all of them . I think that there's a place for automation and then there's a place for fine dining . Some in between that will mix both . But I think what you were saying is , as humans , we have questions and we want to know things and we want to learn things and we want to experience things . So when you walk into a store , let's just say you're going shopping and there's somebody greeting you at the door , and if somebody's saying to you , can I help you ? And you know , maybe you know what you want , but you don't need help . But then you're shopping , you're like , oh wait , I do need help . You're like , oh wait , I do need help . And you're like , oh , somebody asked if they could help me , right ? I think it's the same thing in a restaurant , I think , if you find yourself approachable and you can walk in and you know that there's somebody there for you who can always help you out in whatever you need , whether it's a menu or whether your kid just spilled an entire thing of water all over themselves in the middle of the restaurant talking for a friend , of course , knowing that it's okay that I just went to a restaurant and my three-year-old spilled an entire glass of water on himself and Everyone was so welcoming and kind . It's like , don't worry , let us help you . To me that helps your experience as a human right , because things happen and , like you said , you had the greatest experience , but then the check came . That's human error , right . What manager missed that right ? What server didn't think to notice that ? And I'll say one other thing too . So when you'll go to a restaurant or you'll go to an office and I think I first saw this in office where there was a sign on the bathroom that it was like treat this bathroom like it was your own . If you drop a tissue at home , are you going to pick it up or are you going to leave it there ? Right , and I think there's this age old which is dirtier ? Women's rooms or men's rooms ? Right , and I think like women's , because there's just like toilet paper all over the floor because nobody wants to touch it . Women's , because there's just like toilet paper all over the floor because nobody wants to touch it . But when you're going back to the human experience , those are little things that make us feel comfortable . If you go into a restroom and you notice that there's been care brought to it , and then you're a server and you walk into a restaurant and you're even using the bathroom , you notice it's dirty , do you as a server just say , whatever , it's a bathroom , I'm not touching that , or do you find the proper person in your restaurant who is responsible for cleaning it up ? A funny sidebar on that .
Speaker 2I was at a birthday party with my son . I took him to the bathroom this is my older son and there was no hand towels and there was no soap left . So we were in the bathroom . I had a sanitizer in my bag , but then I walked out and I went to the manager and I said hey , just letting you know you have no towels or you have no hand soap . He looks at me . He's like you know you're the first person who's ever said that to me or told me when we're out of something . He's like do you work in hospitality ? I'm like well , what the heck do I do so ?
Speaker 2it was really interesting that he knew that , because none of their own staff thought to think about it . But here was someone who came in who happened to work in hospitality . They were the one who noticed it .
Speaker 1And that is so key of helping your team realize that they're a partner in this and helping them feel like there's some ownership in this for them , because it's really a reflection of them as well . And yeah , now , obviously , julie , like I said , you know everyone , so I would love to hear of who is someone in the restaurant industry that you feel deserves an ovation .
Speaker 2Who's someone that we need to be following . Can I make it two related people ?
Speaker 1Yes , you can For you . Yes .
Speaker 2For me . For me , yes , I want to give an ovation to Danny Klein and Satine Donner . I'm not sure exactly when this podcast is releasing , but next week is the Women in Restaurant Leadership Conference in Nashville . The two of them have really put together an incredible opportunity to highlight and give an ovation to the women in the food service industry who really , whether they're behind the scenes , whether they're in front of the scenes , whether they're early in their career , late in their career , anywhere in between , you've really given us this opportunity to connect with each other and kind of taking down the barriers and taking down the walls of this person does this . This person works here and they're bringing us together and form this community where what we say matters and we can all relate to each other . So the two of them , super duper , huge ovation for putting together this community , supporting us and including us . Our voices matter with them and I think that's really important to me .
Speaker 1And Nashville , by the way , has one of my favorite restaurants in the world .
Speaker 2Nashville's that favorite restaurants . I'm trying to guess . I'm trying to guess . Give me a clue .
Speaker 1Well , it's not barbecue . I know you love .
Speaker 2Perry's Steakhouse .
Speaker 1I do love Perry's . Oh my gosh .
Speaker 2And you love the pork chop at Perry's .
Speaker 1Oh my gosh , look at this . How do you remember this stuff , julia ? It's unreal .
Speaker 2I remember a lot of things about it . I think one of my special powers is I remember small details about people .
Speaker 1That's really cool . I mean , I appreciate you remembering that . But this one is . It's called St Vito's Focaccia Ria , it's right . By the Peg Leg Porker in Nashville they have this focaccia dough topped with cup and char pepperonis and hot honey with some breadcrumbs . It is unbelievable . And they have a spaghetti pomodoro . I love spaghetti pomodoro . Yeah , I mean , I've never Spaghetti pomodoro .
Speaker 2It's like , yeah , okay , cool Spaghetti yeah , don't underestimate a really good spaghetti pomodoro .
Speaker 1This is one of the best I've ever had in my life . Wow , Probably I can't think of anyone where I've had it better .
Speaker 2I love focaccia bread . By the way , I make really good focaccia bread . Fun fact about Julie for all holidays I make a special holiday themed focaccia . No way I do a stuffing style focaccia . I actually take the ingredients and stuffing and bake it into the bread and then over the holidays my family we're Jewish , but we also celebrate Christmas I make a focaccia Christmas tree . Really cool . There will be heart-shaped focaccias for Valentine's Day tomorrow , so I go all in on focaccia . So you're speaking my language .
Speaker 1Okay . Well , next time we see each other you're in Jersey . I go to Jersey all the time . Next time I'm there , I'm going to Thanks for calling me .
Speaker 2Thanks for calling me . We do have a Jersey connection . Fun fact , my cousin was Zach's phys ed teacher .
Speaker 1Yeah , phys ed teacher in high school . Yep , I went through all the awkward conversations right there with your cousin . My cousin . Well , Julie , how do people find and follow you and Branded ?
Speaker 2Branded . Our biggest social channel is LinkedIn . You can look us up Branded Hospitality . I am Julie Zucker on LinkedIn , also my personal account if you want to get personal . I am Pressworthy Eats on Instagram . I post a lot of pictures of my kids and the food I eat and photos of Zach and I at conferences . Our selfies Zach and I at conferences . Our selfies Zach and I . Like who takes more selfies , me or you ? I ? Take more groupies yeah , because you're taller , it's a good angle .
Speaker 1Yeah , long arms . God bless me with a selfie stick .
Speaker 2Yeah , other than brandedstrategiccom , and also speaking of podcasts , hospitality Hangout , that's our podcast .
Speaker 1And it's a great podcast . I've had the privilege of being on it a couple of times on the road , and you put on a great show there and make sure that the guys stay focused . So good job Well , julie , for reminding us all about the humanity of hospitality and that the coolest borough in New York City really is Jersey . Today's ovation goes to you . Thank you for joining us on Give an Ovation .
Speaker 2All right , thanks , zach .
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 .