Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to a live edition of Give an Ovation. I'm your host, zach Oates, and I bring on experts to talk about strategies and tactics you can use to create a five-star experience in your restaurant, and this podcast is powered by Ovation, an operations and guest recovery platform for multi-unit restaurants, where you can get all the answers without harassing your guests. With all the questions, learn more at OvationUpcom. And I am really excited because in this edition we're here at RLC and even though Rob and I Rob Erman, president of MoBetas we're in the same state, we hardly get a chance to see each other. I'm on the road You're opening up so many locations, got so much going on, so thanks for taking some time to chat with us today, man.

Speaker 2: 0:43

You bet my pleasure. We love ovation of what you guys do for our business, and so I always happen to sit down with you and chat.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Well, I love Mo Betta's, even before we work together, because it's great food. If you haven't tried Mo Betta's, it is like a fast, casual Hawaiian food that makes you feel good and it's one of those places you go in and it's got a great vibe. People can come in and try to replicate food, but you can't go in and replicate the vibe. And then I love how you guys have incorporated so much from the founder's childhood even in the decor and the history on the walls and the vibe of it. Talk to me about what the feeling of Mo Betters is.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Yeah, Well, I mean, first off, it starts with Aloha and we couldn't be any luckier than the team that we get to hire that believes in that mission. And our mission is be Aloha. And so it's really this emphasis of so many people think Aloha is saying hello and goodbye, and really I'd say Aloha is much more I'd put it more closely defined as loved. And so even if you go to Hawaii, you'll see these road signs where, if you don't get it, you're like why does it say drive with Aloha? I don't get it. But it's this sentiment of just how do we share that love and that compassion, that joy with our customers? And in fact, we talked to our team members this week.

Speaker 2: 1:53

We're going to be out in Burleson, Texas, opening up a new location. We'll do what we call culture night, coming up on Wednesday, and one of always do is I quiz the team and I'm like okay, when somebody walks in the door, do you shout aloha at every customer? And of course, usually the team. They're brand new. They're like yeah, of course we do. We're like no, you actually don't. Aloha is a feeling, it's a vibe. So should you warmly greet every customer with aloha? Absolutely, If it feels appropriate to say aloha, you go for it. But aloha isn't about saying it, it's about doing it, being it what you do. So I'm glad you feel it, but that's our intention of the restaurant, and then the food really is just the vehicle by which we get to share that aloha.

Speaker 1: 2:30

What is your favorite thing about us to eat?

Speaker 2: 2:33

Oh, it changes, but I'll tell you what. My most favorite which is a bit of a guilty pleasure is our katsu chicken. I was just going to say that, but you've got, so got to drizzle it with our spicy mayo, which is kind of this creamy spicy sauce, and then you add our Yobo sauce, which is like a hot teriyaki, so you get this creamy, sweet spicy mix on top of the fried Katsu chicken. It is as Kimo says. It'll change your life. So, it's pretty freaking good.

Speaker 1: 2:59

But your Katsu sauce, too, is like Delicious. It's so good and I love to put that on the mac salad.

Speaker 2: 3:05

okay, that's one of my jams is just you drizzle it on the mac salad and I eat that with yeah if you haven't tried, like the combo I just said, that we put on the katsu, put that on the mac salad, or even put the yobo on your rice. Uh-huh, if you like spicy.

Speaker 1: 3:17

If you don't like spicy, then back away so if you like spicy yobo amazing, it's a spicy teriyaki. Yeah, okay, I haven't even like I haven't even seen that, cause I go into Mobetta's and I'm like I know what I want. It's just a matter of how big. How much do I want?

Speaker 2: 3:32

Yeah Well, I think we're naive sometimes when we think that our customers just kind of figure it out. So we've had some scientists and things. We're actually putting our sauces on our menu Cause we've had that realization of so many people come into like I love the katsu sauce or I love the teriyaki sauce. They don't even realize we have these other flavor options and so, but I tell you, spicy mayo, yobo sauce, it's a little bit too good.

Speaker 1: 3:52

So I think that's very interesting though, because thinking about it from the consumer perspective, it's oftentimes challenging. I mean, like, for example, me at Ovation. I'm like, well, guess feedback and customer experience is so important? Yes, it is, but I also know that you running a large brand. You've got 20 vendor partners that you're working with. You've got hundreds of people you're working with. There's so many things You're not thinking about the day-to-day of what is the ovation score this afternoon. Those are more like high level things that help you stay on track, but so, too, with a brand, like realizing that, yeah, you sit in the boardroom and you think of these other sauces. You go in the test kitchen, you try these things out, but at the end of the day, the consumer needs to know about it. Yeah, and it's more than just a one time push lto or sign up there. It's like it.

Speaker 2: 4:43

It's the training, it's a whole 360 view and look, I think that's where our team talks about it. Like, I don't enjoy sitting in our office. I love our team at the support center. They're amazing, but they all know and I've said this to them before like the real magic happens in the restaurants and I think sometimes you've got to bring in the restaurants, you've got to get behind the line and serve customers, hear what they're saying, see what they're saying. And to that point, of these sauces, it's one of those where you're in there and you're like, oh, have you ever tried this sauce? And so many of them have not. And you're like, okay, wait a minute, we have a problem. We have this great product that we just aren't marketing well enough. Now let's go back to the support center. It's like, okay, we got a little problem to solve, let's go solve it. But you don't figure that out sitting in an office. You figure that out in the restaurant.

Speaker 1: 5:30

Right and talking to your team and making sure that you're not only getting feedback from your guests. But okay, team, what do you think? What are some ideas, what are you feeling? What are you seeing, because that's often where the best ideas come from yeah, team members who are doing it every single day and they're seeing the problems and they're hearing these consistent issues, absolutely so. One of the things that's fascinating about MoBeta is you guys have gone through two transactions. Yes, right, that is everything.

Speaker 2: 5:57

Yeah, you're right, 2017, the Savory Fund. It was called Four Foods Group back then. Yes, Savory Fund invested in and partnered with Kimo and Kalani Mac and really that journey like at that point they had six restaurants in 2017. I was fortunate enough to join in 2021 when we had 22 restaurants, still with the Savory Fund and really with a mission to continue that growth but to also professionalize our team and get it ready for another equity transaction. And so then, yeah, actually this last October, we completed another equity transaction with some awesome new partners of ours Blue Marlin Partners and Tribe Capital.

Speaker 2: 6:30

Savory is still part of the partnership and involved and we love them to death, but super excited about Blue Marlin and Tribe and what they're now bringing to the table to help just continue, fuel our growth. We're going to open up store 62. I mentioned we're going to Burleson store 62. I'm lucky enough, by the time I hit my fourth anniversary in July, we'll have tripled the size of the brand with 66 units. So pretty, pretty fun journey thus far and we're not done, we're just getting started.

Speaker 1: 6:53

When you're looking at that journey and, going from, you said 20, how many? 22 when I started, 22 when you started and 60 plus in two transactions. How do you keep the culture? And, quite frankly, like, how do you keep the food quality? Because I feel like that's something that's really challenging to do as you grow and scale and you're able to keep the culture. And as investors come in, they want you to find more affordable options to lower the costs and things like that.

Speaker 2: 7:23

Our partners want value creation and my job is to make sure we show them that the value of this brand comes from the two things that you just said. One is the value of this brand comes from our culture. It's not easy. It's not easy. We have to think about it daily, constantly trying to find ways to make sure that our founders are connecting with our teams and that we're living our values, by the way, and reinforcing them and connecting them. And again, it also happens in the restaurants. I can't live the culture and share the culture by sitting in office. We've got to be out in the restaurant, so important to me that we have FaceTime with the teams and we're just constantly thinking about how do we reinforce what we're doing and, by the way, evolving, because our culture is different when we were back at six units from what it is now at almost 62 units Not in a bad way, but you get bigger. You have to evolve and make sure you reinforce for folks that we're a growth brand and this is exciting and we get to spread Aloha across the United States. What's better than that?

Speaker 2: 8:16

But then the food quality, as you said, is important also, and I think for us, our secret to that success is the simplicity of it.

Speaker 2: 8:23

We make a few products really really well and we focus on that often to make sure that we continue that quality high and even going through COVID and these weird crazy chicken things that happened the last couple of years, we've taken some moments.

Speaker 2: 8:36

We've said, look, we're not going to sacrifice quality just to make sure we hit our margins. Luckily, we manage the business. I think well enough that we can take a few of those risks and take a little bit of pain over time and come out brighter on the other side. But making sure that we make the best teriyaki chicken, the best teriyaki steak possible, and not just keep adding and innovating and adding things to the menu, I think helps us. In fact our chief operating officer, john Conine, was telling me I didn't get to sit in on it, but somebody from the recent Chili's success was sharing that they actually scaled back their menu and were not focused on just adding and innovating products, because they realized that by doubling down on simplicity it meant they were more consistent, they executed better food and delivered and that's what customers wanted and they kept coming back.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Yeah, if you double down on half as many products, you have a four times better experience, and I think that is so true. I mean, look at Dave's Hot Chicken. How many things I mean I've gone to the back of. Look at the SKUs in the back of Dave's Hot Chicken. I went down to one of their locations. Dave's Hot Chicken, I went down to one of their locations. They have a whole room that was full of empty space. That's what it was full of, and that room normally would be full of ingredients after ingredients, after ingredients, and they have these. When they do retrofits, they'll have these big fridges that will have like one quarter of it used for product. Yeah, because it's just a matter of you simplify. You have a simple menu like what you guys do, yeah, and then you can work on like okay, let's tweak things. We all know that rice is hard to keep fresh. You know rice?

Speaker 1: 10:08

to make not mushy or crunchy absolutely it's very easy to dry out and so the fact is so good you could now focus on. You got two types of rice.

Speaker 2: 10:16

You're not dealing with all these different types of bases to deal with, but we have some amazing grillers and some amazing prep folks, and those are really the outside of our GM. That's the most important role, those two roles, and individuals, if you will. If we can get those right, the rest of the team just has to know how to put the plate together.

Speaker 2: 10:33

Yeah, and so we can focus a lot of the training on prep and on grilling, and then the training for our frontline. Going back to the point of Aloha is they can spend a lot more time focused on how they're interacting with the customer, not wait, I've got to remember this sandwich.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Yeah, yeah, seven to three minutes. Put the katsu on the scale and let's see. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:52

Here's a scoop of rice. Here's a scoop of mac. Here's the proteins. Close the plate, hand it off to the customer, make sure they're smiling as they walk out and away we go.

Speaker 1: 11:06

But I know that you do a great job in training because not only are you in the back end system when you look at speed of response, you guys are in the very top of being quick to respond to the guests but I've also been on the receiving end of that, where I ordered a dish and I got a side salad. And that's one of those things where in expo, it's easy to forget because it's not there hot, you got to keep it cold and so it's easy to forget one of those things. So I forgot the salad. I got the survey how was everything? I said, hey, you forgot my salad.

Speaker 2: 11:33

Boom, literally within five minutes I got a $5 off coupon with an apology from the GM and like, even though I know that that's how it's supposed to work, like I designed it that way, but yeah as I said, that's one of the beauties of the platform is it helps our teams connect, our GMs in particular, connect back with the customers very quickly as long as they're on it and then paying attention, right, but that's and I can't but like.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Ovation is a tool. It takes someone who either uses the tool well and it takes someone who's training someone to care about using the tool well. So I think that's.

Speaker 2: 12:06

Tammy Mack, who's the wife of one of our panelists, Kimo like she really established our training protocols and cares clearly so much about our culture and our of Aloha that she started it off and had all that training. And then actually Malia Dalton, our current director of op services, which is training and new store opens and things. She's just carried that torch on and it's every training we have is really focused on that. How do we deliver on the customer experience and deliver that Aloha that we're trying to provide and you don't get your salad? We got to make it right, we got to fix that and we won't get a perfect every time, but that's the goal.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Well, and the great thing is, even as a customer like seeing that and seeing that response and knowing that a GM actually did that I have a lot more trust in the brand, that I can order and if something isn't right, it'll be made right. Yeah, and I think that's really powerful and that builds loyalty. Yeah, and it forgives stuff like yeah, okay, I know, yeah, they missed the salad, but In fact they're on it, which is great.

Speaker 2: 13:01

It's almost like you want to screw up sometimes just to fix it for the customer so that they know that you're there for them. Not that we really want to make intentional mistakes, but it's kind of that funny quandary of you get more loyalty out of solving problems than somebody who just never has a problem.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Oh, 100%. Actually like 24 times more loyalty. We found that when you look at a recovered guest, they're actually worth 24 times more than the average guest based on. They come in four times more often. They come in four and a half times more frequently. They spend $5 more and they're 12 times more likely to leave you a five-star or a heel, which is pretty powerful. And actually we did come to think of it. We did that study with MoBettis. Yeah, I believe so study with MoBettis and yeah, it was like we looked at 150,000 customers over 18 months and it was just impressive to see that value that's created. And as we look at kind of overall the guest experience, what's your guest experience philosophy? How do you really think about what's the most important aspect of guest experience?

Speaker 2: 13:59

I think it's really consistency. At the end of the day, Customers want to know they're going to come in, get greeted the same way, get treated the same way and that plate's got to be the same every time. And there can be little nuances, but for the most part, consistency, I think, is the most important thing. Not a consistently bad experience, of course, but a consistently good, solid experience, I think, is better than these swings of sometimes have an amazing experience and sometimes it's horrible. Like just have a consistently good experience and you're going to drive loyalty. If you can have good experience combined with some amazing experiences from time to time, even better.

Speaker 1: 14:32

Yeah, I love that. And then let's say, a brand is growing. They're at 10, 20 locations, dreaming of getting to the 60 locations, like you guys are going to. What would you recommend for them? What are some tactics that they should be thinking about to improve the guest experience?

Speaker 2: 14:45

Focus on the fundamentals. I think we have a joke. I think my team probably makes fun of me for saying it, but you don't have to get cute as long as you execute. And so it's like just focus on those basics of preparing the food right, serving it with a smile, getting it out in a timely manner. Don't try to come up with all these different ways to be everything for everyone as well. I think you've got to know who your brand is and be that. Don't try to be like oh, there's this hot new trend and we've got to add this to the menu and has nothing to do with what we're doing. You're just going to add complexity and make it harder for your team to execute because you're trying to do this cute little idea that you think is going to get an extra customer or two.

Speaker 1: 15:19

That's a great point. Just talking to jim's jim uh biddicks, and so I'm just thinking about dave's hot chicken. But, like you know, looking at their milkshakes, their customer, their franchisees, were like we need milkshakes and so and they wanted to do like the mix-ins, but they're like it's too huge. So they came up with the idea of just like top loaded. Right, so make the milkshake and instead of mixing it up, just call it top loaded and now make it a strength and and I think that that's something where it's powerful to test things out. But I love that idea of keep it simple, make sure that it's not like overly complex and make sure because the more complex it is, the less consistent it will be.

Speaker 2: 15:55

Yeah Well, I think you have to also accept you may not always be right. We tried this thing, these hurricane fries. They were delicious as could be, but all of a sudden we're frying fries and we've got to hold them and you've got to top them. They were, I think, a phenomenal product but overly complex and our customers, they weren't getting them consistently, so they weren't really selling that well and it was like, just because I loved them and some other people loved them, they didn't fit the menu. So let's get rid of that and let's just focus on let's focus on the corn. We'll have another new idea of some new product that we've got a really revolutionary thing we're testing right now steamed vegetables. Ooh, right, but it's like sometimes the simplest things are the things that people want and, lo and behold, we've got it in one store right now, but we're selling a lot more steamed vegetables than we ever did. These awesome tasting hurricane?

Speaker 1: 16:38

Yeah, because I think about like kind of like the that fast, casual people are looking for better for you solutions. And if I can get mac salad or rice and get steamed vegetables and sub one of those out, yeah, I want to feel a little less guilty yeah, like I love our mac salad, but it may not be the thing I feel good eating every day.

Speaker 2: 16:58

So sometimes I'm gonna get mac salad and have that treat, and sometimes I'm gonna exactly swap it out.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Sometimes I deserve 450 calories it.

Speaker 2: 17:05

Let's not talk about the calories. It's just it's calorie, it's just all goodness, it's just all goodness.

Speaker 1: 17:09

So you know a lot of people in the industry. Who's someone that we should be following, who deserves an ovation? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:14

You know lately who's been really awesome for us Brock Weeks and his team over at Savos. Those guys, they have some AI modeling they're playing with and working with and for us, the way that our lines work. You pay at the end. So you walk up, you order your plate, we make your plate, you go to the end, you pay. Well, I mentioned like customer experience is so important. We're trying to revolutionize.

Speaker 2: 17:33

How do we get the data that tells us how long it takes to get through our line? You're in peak lunch rush Maybe. It's taking five or six minutes. We really want it to be much less than that. And they've got some camera technology they're partnering with us on to figure out like, okay, what does that actual line speed work like and how can we evaluate and then say, okay, here's a bottleneck and here's a bottleneck. How do we coach and teach the team how to redeploy in this way? So pretty cool to just see the excitement they have around it with it and the partnership. It's early days, we'll see how it keeps going, but those guys have just been I talk about sharing aloha. They've been sharing the aloha with us and working with us, try to solve this line speed understanding just like drive-through. We've all got loop timers. Yeah, that's all figured out. I don't think I'm gonna dig up the floors and put loop timers in the restaurant, but these, this camera technology is pretty cool yeah, he was telling me all about that and just so impressive.

Speaker 1: 18:20

so if you're not familiar with Savvy, go check them out. It's wait, what's the spelling of it? Is it S-A-V-I, s-a-v-i?

Speaker 2: 18:29

I think their website's like getsavvycom, yeah, super impressive.

Speaker 1: 18:32

That's why I'm giving him such a plug, and the team is great, so how do people find and follow you and MoBettas?

Speaker 2: 18:37

Don't worry about me. You can find us at MoBetas on Instagram or wwwmobetascom or all the socials that way. But yeah, love this brand and it's all about growing, growing.

Speaker 1: 18:47

Amen. Well, rob, for bringing us Aloha and for making things not just a little bit good, but for MoBetas. Today's Ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us. Appreciate it, sir. Thank you.

Speaker 3: 18:56

Thanks for joining us today. If you like 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.