Welcome And Guest Introductions

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Zach Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover their strategies and 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. Learn what's actually happening in your restaurants and exactly how to improve while driving revenue. Learn more at ovationup.com. Now grab a seat and buckle up because we got a twofer today. We got Matt Calabries, a lifelong hospitality tech genius who apparently likes to flirt with finance, although we don't want to tell his full-time job that. So three years ago, he took over as a CEO of Stonefire Grill because he wanted a challenge. Because that sounds a VP of ops. That's too easy. Anyway, David and Matt, welcome to the podcast, fellas. Thank you, Zach. Thanks very much, Alex. So for those who aren't familiar with Stonefire, who haven't had the privilege to go and try it out, can you give us a little bit of a flavor of what is Stonefire? All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Look, uh 26-year-old brand now, founded in 2000. We are mostly from scratch. We specialize in proteins, tri-tip chicken, ribs, but we've got an extensive line of salads, pizzas, pastas. We really pursue catering. Catering is more than 20% of our business. Our team, we talked about how great our teams are. Catering is just phenomenal for us, and we have fantastic teams. We just this last week fed 5,500 people in 45 minutes flat. So that's that's the power of our catering. And um what do you do?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Just like throw hamburgers out into like a big audience?

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Like that's crazy. No, this is this is full setup, buffets, and we're serving it. Event that we do each and every year, uh at Grace Church up in Sunland, and they bring in 5,500 religious leaders from all over the world, and every single year we feed them. They're a great partner to us, and it's one of those things where we could do 10 more of these. We just love doing them. I call ourselves premium fast casual because we've got large expansive restaurants, big dining areas. So with our partner toast, we have handhelds where we can sell beer and our, I call it world famous carrot cake and cheesecake to our guests and you know, an additional appetizer, whatever it is, but we will grab plates for you. We we just have a very expanded service level, kind of hospitality level and fast casual.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

And what was it that kind of drew you over to Stonefire? Because I mean, obviously, you seemed like looking at your LinkedIn, it seemed like things are pretty comfortable. I mean, like almost, like I said, almost 23 years at BJ's, you kind of I guess you were in your routine and like you could have probably had the rest of your great career there. What was it that attracted you to come over to Stonefire?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Well, you're you're 100% right. BJ's is an incredible company and they gave me so many tools and I worked with so many amazing people. And yeah, it actually there was no sense for me to leave. But when I got the call and I was a fan of Stonefire, was a guest of Stonefire. Amazingly enough, we at BJ's, there's a Stonefire very close to us, so we would cater Stonefire on a regular basis. Literally, the weekend before I got the call about the opportunity, I was at a friend's house and it was his wife's 40th birthday, and he had catered Stonefire Grill. So it just it was, and like I said, it just being over here at Stonefire, it reminds me of I got to BJ's when there was 15 restaurants, so it reminds me of BJ's at that size. We have 13 at Stonefire. So it just seemed like a wonderful opportunity. I've never looked back, you know. I think one of the one of the first people I met was Matt. Again, what you said about his finance and his tech career, and that's how it was sold to me. That he well, he used to run finance for the company, but then we hired a new CFO and we moved him over to tech. And quite honestly, he is one of the best executives that I've ever worked with because of the fact that he has that multi-level experience. Like he understands both sides of it. So he is a tech geek, but he also is incredible in finance.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

And Matt, I think that in case uh you're not able to walk out of your office after this, not only I do I think that you know, seeing this great finance background, tech background, but you have a really solid understanding of the guest experience and like seems like you put the guest first in everything. And so I'd love to get your take on the guest experience and and what do you think is important about that? And both from looking at your background and understanding finance, tech, and the guest experience.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Yeah, absolutely. And and Dave, thank you for the very kind words there as well. Um and and now it's on record, Matt. Now it's officially on record. Exactly. Yeah, a lot to live up to now. But yeah, I mean, I started my career in operations since I was 15. I've been front of house, busser, barback, worked in kitchens, worked in management. So when I, you know, when I was graduating college, my main goal was I'm getting out of restaurants. You know, I'm gonna go get a you know, a career. And I was fortunate enough to have a great, a great leader who kept me in the restaurant space, moved me into finance and accounting, and it's been you know, I I couldn't imagine ever doing anything else. I think where everything's going right now, especially in technology, people are used to having what they want now, everything. You know, media is consumed in small bites, everything is I've I've got everything I need in, you know, in a device in my pocket. And I think as I look at the guest experience, I never want to replace the human interaction. Technology does not, you know, is not here to replace what our teams are doing in the restaurants. It's there to, it's there to enhance. And I think, you know, kind of boil it down. It's really about meeting the guests where they are. You know, how do guests want to interact with Stonefire Grill? How do they want to order? How do they want to leave us feedback? Um, how do they want to, you know, how do they want to communicate with us? And you know, given our business that they've talked about, where we are more off-premise than we are on premise, though we do have large dining rooms, like we have, you know, we have three main components dine-in, take out, catering. Fourth would be you know, our third-party delivery is really looking at, you know, if a guest wants to place an order online, uh, if they want to call us and place an order. I was surprised the last time I looked it up. We still have in some restaurants 50% of our takeout orders are still phoned into our restaurants. Uh no way.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

So if you know we're looking at kiosks this year, which, you know, I would say maybe a little bit behind on the kiosk front, but we are, you know, we are getting some into a couple restaurants this year to test out. But my goal is always I don't want to pigeonhole guests into one or two ways of of interacting with stone fire. It's we want to be available to however the guest chooses to want to interact with us.

Ordering Channels And Kiosk Testing

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah, and I think that that's and and by the way, now things make a lot of sense that you actually came from the operations because I would love the SOP for your hair. You've got to have some kind of something that you've got pinned up on your wall. But I think that that is so important to think about because we think about that often about the guest channel and how do you optimize every guest channel to be a good experience? And it's easy to think about optimizing the in-store experience, but with your brand being so off-prem, obviously you have to think about that. What advice would you give to people who are saying, hey, like good for you guys, we're 80%, 90% dying in, but I can't afford to focus on that other 10% who like they're not in the restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

What would you say to them, David? I would say you have to. I would say that they're, you know, again, what Matt said, we want to meet our guests however they want to use us. When I brought up kiosk, some people thought, oh, we're gonna cut labor. And I'm like, no, I want the kiosk there so that if a guest wants to use it, they can use it. You know, some 25 or 30 year old or 40-year-old is gonna just walk over and punch in the kiosk. There are people that want to go up and interact and they just want to place an order like that. We, as Matt says, we want to meet the guests where they want to be. So I would say explore every channel possible because you're missing an opportunity. If you're focused on the only thing that you do, and this is kind of always how we've done it, yeah, you're gonna you're gonna fall behind. You've got to look outward and just go and really understand your guest and look for more.

Catering As Brand Marketing

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, I love that. And and one thing I just gotta like double-click on because that 20% catering is really impressive. I mean, that's like that's a lot. What advice would you give to restaurants who are trying to increase their catering? Because, you know, right now there's people I know like Crumbs, I don't know, Kelly Grogan, like she's out there really pushing for catering. And Earl Dardick, who, you know, he's like pretty much the godfather of off-prem. And as we think about restaurants getting to at least double digit percentage, you guys are at 20. What advice do you have for those people who are trying to figure out how do we increase our catering programs? Uh, don't do it. Leave it all to us. No, just carry me. 13 restaurants catering for all of America. Let's go. At least all of Southern California.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah. No, I I think it's such a differentiator. There's so much that you can do within your four walls, right? And even I count takeout as being within your four walls because someone's going to come pick it up. I mean, margining third party and so forth. But to be able to have a channel, I look at it as how many guests do we touch that have never known about Stonefire because they're going over someone's house to a party or they're going to a wedding reception or they're going somewhere where they'd never heard of Stonefire. And um, we actually we did these town halls with all of our people, and our caterers said, Hey, you know what? We have so many people that walk up to us and say, Where's this from? Because our team members really don't have anything on them underneath their aprons, it has the Stonefire logo, but now we've kind of changed it all around and so we have our logos more present and on their uniforms and so forth than takeout menus and everything. But I would say you attract new guests. You attract people that maybe don't know anything about you, friends that are traveling in from another town or another city and then seeing your food. It's a great guest builder. But I just believe you have to just look at your portfolio products and oh wow, I just said products, my goodness. Sorry. Great portfolio.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Let's take a real big bite though while we're at it.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

That's that's amazing. Take your portfolio of your menu and look at it and say, how can I attract more guests? How can I attract more people? How can I enhance my brand and get out there? And that's just a big arm that catering provides.

Turning Feedback Into A Plan

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Well, and one thing I will say that we're seeing some customers do is they actually will have signs that'll say, Hey, how'd you enjoy your catering? Answer two questions to get$5 off your order from Stonefire. And so just as certain restaurants are using ovation to convert third party to first party, there's also people that are really leaning in to that guest acquisition through catering because it is, it's another marketing channel. But if you get them to, you know, you're giving them$5 off your next order. Typically what we find is that if your average ticket is call it 27 and you give them$5 off, then the average ticket isn't going to be 32, but it's actually going to be like 35. And so you're able to increase the average ticket, you're not losing money, and people are going to come in and try you out. And what better way than it's like they're paying to get that sample? And so it's like that's awesome. Yeah. I love that. And and from a tech perspective, Matt, as you're looking at the guest experience, are there any tactics that you've seen that people should watch out for that detracts from the experience or things that adds to the experience?

SPEAKER_02 12:03

So I would say, and not to be too on the nose here, but ovation has been a game changer for my department. Um, it's it's been a game changer for you know for our operations, but we're at a great size where I can still get all of the win back alerts on my phone. I've got the app set up, I'm seeing everything that comes through. I've had examples of where I've seen alerts come through, and before the general manager can respond, I can see that, oh, this there's an issue on our online ordering site. Let me fix that. Let me send the GM a note through elevation and let her know that, hey, we we've fixed this. Now she can, you know, now she doesn't have to open a ticket. It's actually saved us some time of having, you know, having a back and forth there, which has been great, but it's also helping put IT a little bit more in the forefront of the guest experience and being involved there. And I think as well, it's a I've never seen anything in my career where we've had been able to have such a direct conversation with our guests. And to me, as I've started to look at the feedback coming in, the communications we're having with our guests, I'm like, this is our strategic plan right here. Why do I need a strategic planning session? My guests are telling me exactly what I need to be doing every day. And the addition of ovation has just been phenomenal for our ability to influence the guest experience more directly, as well as just plan what our initiatives are.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

I appreciate that, Matt, because that's the reason that I started ovation was because as a someone who grew up in restaurants, I always felt like there was such a disconnect between me and the guest. And then in my adult years, getting really into restaurants, I would go in there and I'd be like, man, I wish I could tell them that this thing was wrong, but I don't want to go leave them a bad review and hurt their business. And what's surprising is I'm sure that you've seen this as well. Most brands are surprised at how many guests actually want to talk to them. How many guests actually have feedback and it's because they care, right? I mean, David, from your perspective, what do you do? Is it does it feel like there's ever too much feedback, or do you feel like you're able to kind of suss out what's going on?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Well, first off, there's never too much feedback. Never. Every sentence, every comment that a guest makes, every comment that we get from our team members is like you can never look away. I agree with Matt's sentiment. The first weekend we went live. I was the same way. I had it set up on my phone and I had all the alerts, and my phone was just and my wife's sitting next to me on a couch and she's like, What the hell is happening to your phone? And I'm like, ah, ovation alerts. And you're just going through and looking at everything. And it's just really been a game changer, Zach. I mean, it it really has been incredible. I can tell you, like, I got to share this little tidbit because I shared with my team just this last week. In quarter four, kind of wrapping up the year, we were average around like 10 hours of response time as it as in all 13 restaurants. In the first quarter, we're at two hours and 52 minutes. Wow. So that's 13 restaurants. Yeah, and our longest was like five hours. And it just made me feel so great. And so many guests say the same thing. A big OMG. I can't believe someone reached out to me within 10 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour. I haven't heard from X brand in four days or something like that. It is just, as Matt said, we were looking at doing all types of different stuff to kind of understand our guests and man, should we do secret shoppers and should we do this and should we do that? And Matt was like, no, we don't need to. Look at the feedback that we're getting from Ovation. It's simply incredible. And our teams are able to see shift by shift how they're performing. And it really has helped for our directors and our team members and our managers to be able to say, wow, we nailed this shift. Look at this. But oh, you know what? We fell behind, we missed some items, we need to look at our, you know, double check the bags a little bit better. But it's momentum. That's one of my favorite words is momentum. And I think ovation gives us momentum each and every day to understand how we perform. It's just, it's really a game, it's really been a game changer.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Well, that that's amazing. I love seeing how you all are using the tool and really showing that you care about the guests. And I think that's what matters because at the end of the day, we can't achieve perfection tomorrow, but we can achieve connection today. Right. And that connection allows that guest to say, hey, where am I going to go next for lunch? What am I going to do when I want to place a catering order? And when they have that trust, that even though I know that maybe not every single time, every single day, every single thing is perfect, I know that if I go to Stonefire, they've got my back. And so I trust them. And that trust that breeds more than just casual dining, that breeds true loyalty. So kudos to you all for not just building this brand, but for building the culture at the brand that pushes to make sure that guest feels seen, feels heard, and feels cared about because that's what it takes nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Right. 100%.

Authenticity Consistency And Trust

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Love that. Any other last piece of advice that you would give to growing brands, growing fast casual brands who are wondering how do we make it in this crazy world right now?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Well, first I think you have to be authentic. You know, you have to be authentic to your brand. And that's one of the things that over the past few years of looking as we've grown our menu and enhanced the things that we've done, we've constantly had to go back and say, does this fit into the home of Stonefire? Does it meet Stonefire Grill? Or are we stretching too far? And believe me, we've stretched with some really cool LTO menu items and gotten out with some flavors and some tastes and gone with spice because Gen Zers love it, right? We've tried some different things. But we also have to look at and say, does it meet who we are? Does it meet the authenticity of the brand? So I think that's the first thing that you have to do is establish that. And so many brands out there are phenomenal with that, right? Understanding exactly who they are. But I think you also have to think of the word limitless. I think limitless, if you're growing a brand, limitless needs to be in your vocabulary because that means you're not willing to stop at anything. I'm I'm going to go beyond every possible channel, wall, barrier to see what guests are out there, what would they like to see, how would they like to see us, and how can, you know, ultimately the only way you're going to grow a brand is to how we grow stone fire, hospitality. Service is what you do for somebody, hospitality is how you make them feel. Be consistent in what you do, be consistent in your food, be consistent in how you deliver it to your guests and be consistent how you deliver hospitality. And it's funny because you said trust. I say if you can nail the hospitality, if you can nail the consistency, that provides the trust to the guests. They know that they're getting that next level, right? They're not just getting something provided for them, but we're caring about the guests. Consistently, we care even more by making sure that they get everything that they want, how it's cooked, in the bag, served the way it's supposed to be served, and then now we trust that brand. So I think that's kind of how you build a brand.

People Who Deserve An Ovation

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Love that. So powerful. Final thought who is someone that deserves an ovation? Who do you guys follow? Who's someone that we should be celebrating?

SPEAKER_02 19:12

And I mean, since we're on a twofer, I will, you know, mine's gonna be a quick twofer, but I was really inspired uh by Zach. You're I listened, you know, recently to the your podcast with Fred and Christina, and you were talking about your daily rituals. And that is something I think is incredibly important. It is easier to fall out than you'll keep with those. But yeah, it inspired me to, you know, to keep with that, and it was just a great reminder. And I just want to shout out to two folks, Nick Sorillo and and Christopher Adams. These were two that started me on my career. So the, you know, the folks that kind of inspired me to stay in the hospitality industry and and help me fall in love with it, as well as you know, guided me into the importance of daily rituals and how to, you know, how to start your, you know, kind of start your days with intention. And that, I think, especially for someone young in my career right out of college, that's pretty rare. People just normally want to get you to work and and you know, get you really productive and sit down and do your work, and we'll talk to you in a few years when, you know, once you're doing better. But you know, they really kind of fostered me into this industry and and just want to give them a shout out. Nick's still doing great things in Chicago and Christopher up in up in Seattle. So awesome.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

I'll be really quick with mine. Number one, Brianna Valdez, founder of Home State Tacos out here in California. Incredible brand, incredible founder, incredible food. Go pick up their tortillas on a regular basis so I can just bring them home and they're amazing. And I do have to give a shout-out to Gray Levin, previous CFO, president, and CEO of BJ's restaurants. Greg and I worked together 15 plus years, and he just took over as CEO of Starbird Chicken. So I'm really excited to see how he grew BJ's to 200 restaurants. Can't wait to see what he does at Starbird. That's amazing. Yeah, and Starbucks. Great people.

Where To Follow And Review

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Great brand, great people over there. So awesome. Well, David Amette, how do people find and follow you in Stonefire?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

www.stonefiregirl.com. We're on LinkedIn. I think Matt's on LinkedIn, Instagram. I mean, we're out there. So if you want to connect, connect with us. We love talking hospitality. We love talking restaurants. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Well, for giving us a double portion of wisdom in how to build an incredible brand. Today's ovation goes to both of you. Thank you for joining us in Giving Ovation. Zach, thank you very much. Thank you very much. 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 estimates-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 ovationup.com.