Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Give an Ovation, the restaurant guest experience podcast. I'm your host, zach Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover real strategies and actionable tactics to help you create a five-star guest experience. This podcast is powered by Ovation, the feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. It gives you the insights you need without annoying your guests with endless questions. Learn more at OvationUpcom. And today I am so excited to have Jeff from Jeff's Bagel Run. Jeff started Jeff's Bagel Run actually after losing his job. His wife wanted him to have a hobby and he started a bagel shop. And now, jeff, you're up to how many locations?

Speaker 2: 0:43

It's a love story, zach. It's truly a love story. We have 12 locations now we have four out of state, so we started in Orlando Florida, we have eight here in Orlando Florida and then four out of state. We're opening our next number, 13, opens later this month in Charleston, south Carolina. Super exciting.

Speaker 1: 0:59

Man. That is amazing and I'm a huge fan. And, by the way, for those who can't tell or for those who aren't familiar with the background noise, that means you probably are on the wrong podcast, because this is a restaurant podcast and what you hear in the background is the beautiful sound of restaurants. Jeff is in a restaurant right now because he's launching one of his specials. Tell me about how this came to be, this pimento cream cheese idea.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Oh yeah, I love, I love this cream cheese. It's so good. So last year we were watching just kind of the cultural moment that the Masters Dolph tournament was having and then it spilled right into Kentucky Derby weekend and this like springtime especially springtime in the south into Kentucky Derby weekend and this, like springtime especially springtime in the South is all about good food, better weather, and we were like we have to do this next year. So we tested, we R&D all season long trying to get the right cream cheese. I need pills of pimento cream cheese. I have some.

Speaker 2: 1:58

We just did a whole activation this morning and a photo shoot. But like, check this out, Look at these, how amazing is this that looks amazing. I mean pimento cream cheese is. It's different. It's got that whipped airiness that like a nice whipped cream cheese has. So it's not as like runny and dippy as a typical pimento. But this is really just coming from like living in the south for a long time now as a Northeastern transplant, you adopt things and things become part of kind of your own culture. And pimento cream cheese is just like. It's so good, it's spicy, it's cheesy, it's delicious.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Well, I'm excited because I wish I were down there to try it right now. Well, I wish I was in Florida for a bunch of reasons, but I wish I was down there to try it, because the only time I get pimento cheese up here in Utah is when Chick Fil A runs their like pimento cheese sandwich. Yeah, my dad grew up in Georgia so he's a big pimento cheese fan. But the texture I can't do it. So I wish I could be down there to try that, because that sounds exactly like what I would like the flavor, but with a cream cheese texture. And I love that you're doing stuff like this. I love that you're trying it, that you're adapting to the local environment and really trying to create a unique guest experience and so using like the pimento cheese as a case study, because I just love that. But talk to me about your overall philosophy about guest experience.

Speaker 2: 3:22

Yeah, so when we started, we sold from our home. We were a cottage food operation and the guest experience was truly one-on-one. We're exchanging DMs and Instagram and Facebook. We're making phone calls to make sure we have orders right, so it was very much a one-to-one transaction that just lives in the store. Today we take the customer in front of us. We make sure that that experience is hospitable. We want to create not just good, and this is where I think it's different. There's good customer service and then there's hospitality. They're two different things.

Speaker 2: 3:51

And so we try to live in a world of hospitality and we filter that through our three brand promises. We talk about these internally, we don't post them anywhere, but it's bake fresh, bring joy, build community. So everything we do in the store is filtered through that promise to ourselves, to our customers. And fake fresh, that's an easy one, right. Everything is created fresh, scratch made products in-house every day. The bring joy component this is the one where our teams get to come to life with our customers in store. And so, whether it's a can't decide between two cream cheeses, hey, just have both. Spill your coffee on the way out. Here's another one. Just simple things, because when you come into a bagel shop it's really about happiness, and I mean, who doesn't love a good bagel? There should be no sadness in a bagel shop whatsoever.

Speaker 1: 4:45

And I think that when you look at, as I look at bagels and I look at what we're growing up and what that meant to me, especially growing up in New Jersey, bagels were just like a staple. It was like Friday pizza and Saturday bagels. It was just something that you did and nowadays, especially where I'm at here in Utah, it's hard to get that same experience of, like your local bagel shop and out here there's chain bagel places which are fine, but having that local bagel shop and out here there's chain bagel places which are fine, but having that local bagel shop and being able to maintain that as you're growing to 12 locations. How have you done?

Speaker 2: 5:12

that. So I think the key to be staying local as you get bigger is connecting with your community and our general managers, our franchisees they are invested in their communities, they live in their communities. They live in their communities, they work in their community, obviously, and so their goal is to connect with people in their community. So customers that come in remember their name, remember their order when they switch their order. There's a guy that comes in and say his nickname Even in his mobile app.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Now he identifies himself as Salt Alex Because he heard us calling that one time when he walked in. We're like Salt Alex because we he heard us call him that one time when he walked in. We're like Salt Alex and because Salt puts his bagel every single day, he ordered a Salt bagel. That's what he got Every time he walked in Salt bagel, salt bagel, salt bagel and so now he was like Salt Alex. We'd see him walking up and it's like hey, salt Alex, and he thought it was funny. So that's how he even identifies himself and his mobile orders now, and that connection with the people becomes so valuable and I think that's how you start to make something big feel small.

Speaker 1: 6:10

That is so important because I talked to my my CEO coach showed me about when she was living in Brooklyn. There was a bagel shop, or sorry. There was a coffee shop that was great and it was 30 seconds closer to her apartment. And in the opposite direction there is a coffee shop that was good, but it was 30 seconds closer to her apartment. And in the opposite direction there is a coffee shop that was good, but it was 30 seconds further away from her apartment. And she says, which one did I go to? And I'm like, well, obviously the one that was closer and better. And she goes. I went to the one where they knew my name and she would go to the one.

Speaker 1: 6:41

It wasn't a bad coffee shop, it was still good, but they would say her name when she walked in. And that's the difference between giving someone good service is giving them the right food at the right time. Hospitality is how you feel about that, right? I think Will Gadara might've said something about that, and I think that that's the whole concept and I love that you are encouraging your staff to do that as you're growing to 13 locations, because normally that stops at location two when Jeff stops coming into Jeff's Bagel Run, right 100%.

Speaker 2: 7:14

And as we train teams in new stores, whether it's here in the Central Florida area or out of state, we try to infuse that level of energy. We kind of joke like everyone can be Jeff, every single person can be me. Now, you're not me, it's obvious, right, but you can be me. You can do the same things that I do or the same things that Danielle does. So, danielle, I have the privilege of being her husband. She's the reason the bagel exists. I made it for her, so she's our partner in this business. She runs all the operations and, like, we just built this brand and this business on the idea of taking care of people, bringing joy to the life that they're in. And if you just stick with that, regardless of what level of like if you're a dishwasher, if you're a barista, if you're the general manager, the franchise owner, if you're me, it doesn't matter how can I bring you joy today?

Speaker 1: 8:04

Yeah, I love that, because don't we all have that little missing center sometimes that we just need to fill it with some joy, and pimento cream cheese is the case maybe.

Speaker 2: 8:15

Yeah, fill it with lots of pimento cream cheese.

Speaker 1: 8:17

So what are some tactics as you're looking at scaling your brand and scaling this hospitality first approach? What are some tactics you use to improve the guest experience?

Speaker 2: 8:29

So I think the first thing that we do in every store is train our teams really well. It doesn't matter if we have a pimento cream cheese limited time offer. If the team doesn't know what it is, how it's made, why we're doing it, what it's about, then they're unable to tell that story to the guest. So training your team, first and foremost, and making sure that they feel empowered to provide that level of service and hospitality to the guest, is what makes the biggest difference. That's the first thing we do. All of our team members get as much training as they need coaching, feedback in the moment, and that helps them feel good about what they're doing selling, promoting and then it comes out to the team. So the second thing that we do is I mentioned it's kind of like part of the first one we empower the team. The team has to feel like they have ownership of the experience that's happening right in front of them. So there should be no reason for them to say, no, we're a bagel shop, right? I mean bagels, cream cheese, coffee.

Speaker 2: 9:28

None of this is rocket science, it's all really simple. It's hard work. Making scratch dough every day is hard work. Working in a kitchen with two 500 degree ovens is hot hard work. You know it's not easy work, but it's simple. So if we just strip it down to the most simple, like what can I get you, how can I serve you? It just takes everything away. We give the team the power to do that.

Speaker 1: 9:48

What are some of the weirdest things that team members have told you that guests have asked for?

Speaker 2: 9:52

There's nothing really bizarre. It's just like the fact that people have the level of comfort and feel like they can ask for it. To me, I think that's like the part that's bizarre, because I think in so many places that you go to today, you kind of think like, oh man, I wish I should get a sandwich without pickles. I don't want to ask, I don't want to bother them, because the team looks like foot off right. Like if you walk up to the counter you're like have a special order. You're like, oh, I can just peel the pickles off myself, so you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Like you walk up to that counter and you can tell that the person there doesn't want to be there oh yes, and you worry because it's like okay, if I ask them for a special order, are they going to spit in my pickle, like I mean, what are they going to do?

Speaker 2: 10:25

like yeah I'm just coming in to try to get a bagel and cream cheese or whatever I want. I want my coffee. I'm not trying to make your life or your day any more difficult. So I think, having that this side approach of it and so customers will ask for weird things. They'll ask for extra pumps of syrup after we've already placed the order and, like you know, try to get a couple extra pumps of something. Or they'll say, oh, I actually wanted a splash of milk more, like there's.

Speaker 2: 10:47

There's little tiny requests, but everything in like a bagel shop is just so easy to execute on and take care of in that guest needs right then and there that we just do it. I worked in retail for a long time and I did some retail sales and I did some other types of sales and you always try to get to yes, right, like. The goal in sales is like, how do we get to yes, how do we get to yes? So we just try to teach the teams ways to like get to this yes for the customer. There hasn't been any crazy requests that are beyond our well, that's not true. We do get people ask us all the time to toast bagels and we don't have a toaster. In our stores you bake fresh all morning long, so it's like hot comes out of the oven. So you can't get a toasted bagel at Jeff's Bagel Run, so that's the only thing I can't do for you.

Speaker 1: 11:25

So no way no toaster in a bagel shop which is pretty standard old school bagel shop style.

Speaker 1: 11:33

Yeah, but I'm just saying the bagel shops that I go to. I mean like everyone that I go to, like Jersey Boy Bagels, morristown, new Jersey. That's what I grew up on. Every weekend going there I get my Taylor ham and egg and cheese and I get my cinnamon raisin and cream cheese. But I would always get my cinnamon raisin bagel toasted just so that it would like I wanted it really to melt that cream cheese down, but no for sure I love that. You don't have it. That's confidence of saying like we're that fresh.

Speaker 2: 12:08

And I think that's exactly it, because fresh baked bagels don't need to be toasted. I can remember growing up in Point Pleasant Beach, tom's River, and then I spent some of my more formative years in South Florida. But like you'd go to a bagel shop and they'd have all the bagels for the entire day sitting on the rack. When did they get made? At 2am, probably, yeah, yeah, 100%, that's exactly right. If you walked in at 9.30, that bagel's already seven hours old and it's starting to get hard and we need to toast it. You need to bring it back to life. But we built a system internally that allows our bagels to come out of the oven all morning long. I'm sitting right across from my ovens right now in my shop and there's fresh bagels in the oven. We're recording this 1151. So there's fresh bagels coming out at noon. We close in two hours.

Speaker 1: 12:44

Jeff, come to Utah, we need you here. I will keep you in business.

Speaker 2: 12:49

Yes.

Speaker 1: 12:52

That's exactly. Oh my gosh, I literally want to get on a plane right now, jeff and come down there to Jeff's Bagels.

Speaker 2: 12:59

I mean, do part two of this podcast live? It'd be so awesome.

Speaker 1: 13:02

Yes, I just want just nice, fluffy, warm. Because, for example, there was a place I lived in Dallas and there was a grocery store right down the street from us. And when do people bake bread? Well, everyone knows that you wake up at some unholy hour and you start baking bread in the morning, but the thing is we don't live in the Middle Ages anymore. People don't get bread first thing in the morning. That's not how it works. When do you need bread? When you eat bread as an American family, you eat it with dinner, right.

Speaker 1: 13:36

So what this grocery store did is they baked all of their bread in the evenings and afternoons, and so every day I would come home from work and I would swing by this grocery store and I would get bread. That was so hot, jeff, when I cut it at home. Once I brought it home and I cut it, I had to use a towel to hold the bread because it was that hot, right. But I love that you're doing things in how the guests would like it, because when someone comes in for lunch, they still want a hot bagel. I don't want a stale bagel when I come in for lunch, and I love that you're doing that, man, and I think that any listener right now can take this principle and look at their guest experience and think how do I bake bagels fresh out of the oven two hours before closing, metaphorically speaking, because that is truly putting the guest first.

Speaker 2: 14:31

And that's powerful, jeff. I love that man. Thank you. Yeah, we think it's a big differentiator in what we're doing and we really believe in it. I mean, opening a restaurant's a big investment. To buy a $300 commercial toaster wouldn't be like the straw that broke the camel's back. But we believe in our product and we believe in the experience it creates for the customer and for our guests. That it's more important.

Speaker 1: 14:46

I got to break it to you though, jeff. If you ever sell to PE, you know the very first thing they're doing is they're putting toasters in your stores so like don't sell, don't sell out.

Speaker 2: 14:56

Hopefully we build a good enough business case that they're like oh wow, look at that, they're doing a run, a great business without a toast.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Well, I'm going to say if you do sell, please sell to someone that's cool, like savory brand that lets like the restaurants keep their soul. So anyway, no doubt. Well, Jeff, I know it's kind of interesting because you're not new in the industry, but you don't have like a 30 year background in the industry. So I'd love to hear this answer who do you follow? Who do you think deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry?

Speaker 2: 15:31

Who do you learn from? That's a great question, because the one thing that I have found in this, my short time being in the restaurant industry, is that people actually want to help you. It doesn't feel that way, but they really do. I think there's like we all have tough skin because we work long, hard hours, whether it's super early in the morning or super late at night. We are gritty, we're working hard, but there's kindness. There is a real kindness within the restaurant industry and a willingness to lift people up and support them.

Speaker 2: 15:53

And so the first person that I looked at and this is a very local small business here in the Orlando area, but it's a company called DG Donuts.

Speaker 2: 16:00

They have a single donut shop and they started very similarly to how I did. They were making donuts in their own kitchen, selling at farmer's markets, and they opened a breaking mortar and they grew their business and they were incredibly helpful to me in understanding how to get started. And then, once I got started, there was an outpouring of support from local restaurateurs, from people who ran bakeries and taco stands or whatever it was, to offer help and say, hey, have you thought about this? Or when you're approaching this? And so I have this amazing contact list in my phone of local business owners that are just really truly friends now, who I can pick up the phone and answer a question or just like kind of vent sometimes, because when you're starting something, when you're an entrepreneur, when you're starting something, when you're entrepreneur, when you're alone, you're very lonely, you're alone, it's just you yeah danielle and I can bounce ideas off each other, but like we're just commiserating together and so it's nice sometimes to call someone up and say, hey, what would you do?

Speaker 2: 16:59

how did you get cogs in control? Or hey, I had this customer experience and it kind of went sell, what would you do? Having that a group of people to call and find that like support network has been invaluable 100.

Speaker 2: 17:11

I love that man, so anyone in particular that we should any like social channels that we should follow oh man, I definitely think you should like so locally here in the central florida area you should shout out dg donuts, amanda and dave over there are. And then my friends at Hunger Street Tacos Joe Creech and his wife and brother own it and just phenomenal people Like, really grounded in hospitality, grounded in serving their community, and they've been just incredible supports to me.

Speaker 1: 17:40

Awesome. I love that. Well, Jeff, how do people find and follow you?

Speaker 2: 17:43

and Jeff's Bagel Run. So at Jeff'sagel Run, everywhere you name the platform. That's where we exist, that's how we show up, so please follow us there. Jeffspagelruncom is a great resource. You can also download our mobile app. We have a really awesome mobile app available in the Google Play Store also in the Apple Play Store. And do you ever post on social? So I do post a little bit personally on my social. Jeff Ferrera, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm a little bit more active personally on LinkedIn, but I still run the social media account for Jeff's Bagel Run. So if you DM there, I will hit it. I have some help now. I have some help. I have a social media manager who supports us, but I still run the social. That is awesome man.

Speaker 1: 18:24

Well, jeff, for giving pimento cheese the facelift it needed. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Give an.

Speaker 2: 18:31

Ovation, it was great. Thanks for having me, zach. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 18:35

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.