Welcome And Guest Background

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 get to 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. And this podcast today has been, I feel like, years in the making. I met Jeff Galetli, who's the chairman and CEO of Brooklyn Dumpling Shop a few years ago and was super impressed because he was at RBI for years doing both domestic and international with coffee, with burgers. He was with private equity. He is with Pepsi with Pepsi. Lighting, he has had such an interesting career. And Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is doing some fascinating things both in the retail, booming, as well as CPG. And so had to invite him on. And Jeff, I know it's hard to spill all the secrets in 18 minutes, but we're going to try to get as many from them as we can. So how are you today?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Amazing. Thank you so much, Zach, uh, for the lovely introduction and for having me on.

Growth Story Across Restaurants And Retail

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Awesome. Well, I'm super excited. For people who aren't as familiar with Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, do you want to give us a little taste on what's going on and again touch on the retail and the CPG?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Brooklyn's Uplink Shop. Company's only just about four and a half years old. The first location opened in May 2021. Since then, we've grown to 22 operating locations now, coast to coast. We got New York, Jersey, Philly, Miami, Dallas. We got nine open in Western Canada, and a lot more on the way. So we started and were born as a restaurant company. Over the past couple of years, we have been also building out consumer products. So we have a regional density strategy here in the Northeast. We're in places like Walmart and ShopRite, Stu Leonard's, a few other local retailers. We actually have a few more coming online over the next couple months. So that CPG business kind of growing out from there. I actually got on board here back in the end of 2023 when we got some investment from Kevin O'Leary and a core group of investors that comes from Kevin's side, a guy by the name of Matt Higgins, who runs a fund called RSE Ventures that were a part of their portfolio. And from there, that's where I got on board in Jan 2024. We've grown about 5x in that time period. And uh hopefully, you know, folks haven't come across us will either open a restaurant near them soon or at least be in their frozen aisle in the not so distant future.

Restaurants As The Brand Billboard

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Awesome. Now, Jeff, how do you split your time between the traditional restaurant and CPG?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah, I think it's probably fair to say I have at least maybe two full-time jobs. The brand is the same, the products are similar in terms of the core products, but ultimately very different go-to-market strategies. And so, you know, kind of doubling up on a lot of things. But the way that we view this is, you know, first and foremost, we are a restaurant company. These are true restaurant quality dumplings that we serve on the CPG side, but the restaurants are the front porch of the business, the single greatest billboard that we can have. And we have uh four corporate stores, the balance are franchise or license. And so we want to be uh a best in class franchiseer and license partner to those partners who have chosen to invest their capital and time with us. And so we take that very seriously, treat their capital very preciously, and want to make sure that that's which is the most visible thing that we have, is firing off cylinders. We're executing with phenomenal guest experience, every guest, every time, and that we build the brand that way. And then if you can't make it to a Brooklyn Delpic shop or you we don't have one in where you live, you can order us at your local grocery store or online here pretty soon. And that's something we're really excited about. But everything we do, it starts as a restaurant business and then make sure that we bring that restaurant quality to us wherever we we show up.

Quality Control From Store To Shelf

SPEAKER_00 4:08

And when you think about the guest experience, because I mean, you come in, you dine in versus you get it to go versus you get delivered. I mean, like it's hard enough for restaurants to figure those things out. And now you're throwing in grocery and like shipping, and I guess soon shipping nationwide, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah, yeah. We've already done a lot uh actually with Cabinet O'Leary on QVC. So, you know, folks could could order it on QVC now, kind of wherever you are. But that's the thing. It's quality control is imperative. We've made huge strides in the business, you know, just very candidly when I got on board here, even on our restaurants, you know, we we focus on Google Rating as the main entry point for a lot of people into our brand, Google Broken Delpic Shop. Obviously, there's other means that people come to us. But if you start there, our Google rating was a 3.85 as a system across the restaurants that we had open back in Jan 2024. Cumulatively, so even including all those were finished March at about a 4.31 on a trailing 90 basis, trailing 90 days, we're at about a 4.8 for our entire system. So we've really made huge progress there. And it took a lot of work, right? We changed a lot of our food, our menu, our operating model, our tech stack, pretty much everything that you could change got changed and upgraded and evolved quite a bit from when we were much more nascent as a brand to now. But that's what people see, and that's what matters. And so you're right to think, okay, how do we then translate something like that into the grocery aisle? And, you know, it starts with having great packaging that's going to catch someone's eye. They pull us off, they bring us home, that moment of truth, they cook the product, they try it, making sure that we have the highest quality products. We actually did quite a bit of work there. You know, don't need to get into so much of the specifics, but things like of a dumpling, like dough to filling ratio and the flavor profiles and the protein content and going all natural and doing all those things to make sure that we were showing up on the shelf in a really strong way. And so we've made great progress there. And uh, we know people love our food. Our job is to get it to them as efficiently and profitably as we can.

Why CPG And Stores Boost Each Other

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Now, this is something that's really interesting. Thinking about because you you're obviously trying to own, you know, do a great job in the franchise space, and you're also trying to do a great job in the retail space. Do those things ever compete? Like, if I'm a franchisee and I'm looking to open up some locations, and you're like, oh, hey, by the way, good news, we're gonna be in the grocery store down the street from you. And I'm like, wait a second, like, is there any fear about that cannibalization? Or what what advice would you give to people who are thinking about that?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Great question. In a prior life, I came from a business that had both CPG and restaurants. And we actually did an analysis and we found that the zip codes where we had the highest CPG sales were also the zip codes of our highest sales restaurants. And so ultimately it comes down to occasion, right? And what's the occasion that we're satisfying? Interesting. The Dumbly category is growing quite a bit right now. We've been on the frozen side. Other folks are doing uh some interesting things. Ultimately, the way I view this as a you're satisfying an occasion with a customer, somebody who wants to go to the restaurant, have us prepare it in an expert way for them, that convenience. Now, from the restaurant, they might choose to dine in. An increasing amount of our sales are coming from third-party delivery or in particular catering. So we're satisfying those different occasions. That kind of at home, you know, after school or late night occasion where you're pulling something out of the freezer, bit of a different occasion, obviously different price point. And the way I'd think about this is we're so small today as a brand, there's infinite runway for more penetration and having the brand show up in more places. And ultimately, you know, synergistically working to both drive more awareness. Oh my God, these restaurant quality dumplings I can get in my freeze aisle. That's amazing. We can satisfy those occasions. And then, of course, with that growth comes economies of scale, purchasing power, cost implications. So we view it all really synergistically on the brand side, on the business side, and ultimately believe that you know our franchisees and other folks understand that as well and are excited about the brand showing up in more places. And we're really excited with progress they've made and a few big announcements coming in the not so distant future.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

That's awesome because as you I actually didn't know about that with like the CPG and how that would sell it more, but I think that makes sense because I mean, like I'm going through the grocery aisle and I see a restaurant brand in there. Number one, I'm gonna trust because I I've seen them, right? So I'm gonna trust that, like, oh, this is probably gonna be pretty good if they could open up their own restaurant. And then when I go to the restaurant, like I love being able to see that there's more things on the menu that you can't get in the grocery store. And so it kind of has that combo effect, which I think is awesome. And on the flip side, if you don't have other good stuff in the restaurant, then it's tough because I look at there are some places where they sell the ability to make like their best thing in the grocery store. And now I don't go to those restaurants as often because the restaurant itself, it's like I would go for that one thing that they sell, and now I can get it in the grocery store. I don't go to Nathan's hot dogs, for example, because if I want a Nathan's hot dog, it's not gonna be that different if I go in versus if I get it. I don't go to Red Lobster as often now that they started selling the box in store, right? But I think it's because Jeff, you have spent such a profound amount of time building out the dining experience and that to-go experience and allowing people to have more than just that one thing. You get the whole meal, you get the whole experience which draws people in, right?

Hospitality Shift And Menu Expansion

SPEAKER_01 10:08

And that's for us where Brooklyn Topic Shop bites bowls boba on the restaurant side. So a dumpling's a delicious bite. We have temperabites, you know, you can get our version of a sandwich and a bow bun. You can then make it a meal with sides or boba, and we also have some incredible fast casual quality bowls that people love. So Brooklyn Toby Shop bites bowls boba. And we're not obviously doing that in the frozen. We've also done a lot to change our operating model. And before people who heard about Brooklyn W shop from years ago, they think about this thing that we called the automatic basically a locker system that, you know, heating or cool, the food would sit in while you wait to come pick it up. We've actually kind of moved away from that and focus a lot more on really high quality hospitality now, guest experience, being really inviting to and warm the folks who walk into our door. And as a new brand in so many of these places, being able to educate guests, walk them through our menu, call out fan favorites. We just launched a really big partnership with the mega influencer Keith Lee. Now the first thing you'll see is, you know, our Keith Lee Keith Lee menu, Keith Lee's favorites. Before it would have been really hard to have that interaction because there was this physical piece of machinery that was blocking it. Now it's not just having great food, but also great hospitality, a really warm, inviting experience for folks that want to dine in with us. And that also you can't really recreate. But to your point, it kind of builds the overall brand narrative and story around Brooklyn Topic Shop and how people think about it and the affinity that they have for it. And so, you know, if you think about today, okay, 22 restaurant locations, we're in about a thousand retail doors now. I think both of those numbers could multiply really significantly before there'd ever be any type of kind of competition. And I think, again, it's satisfying need states and occasions of consumer demand. And we think that they work really synergistically. So for all those reasons, we're really excited about it. I think our franchise community is really excited about it because it's good for the brand. And I would say if we're not on that shelf, they're going to grab somebody else, right? And they can get someone else's product there. So it may as well be ours. And we might, as a company, as a system, be participating in the benefits of that.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

I'm excited for it to hit Utah stores, man. That's what I need, Jeff. I need some Brooklyn dumpling shop out here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Well, if there are any potential Utah franchisees listening, we've got a great story to tell. We've got an incredible product, and we'd love to speak with you.

Guest Experience Starts With Food

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah, there you go. So thinking about the guest experience, what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays? And this is I'm fascinated to get your take on this because again, your career spans from the CPG with Pepsi to the private equity to the giant stores, you know, giant brands, and now this growing brand and CPG and you know, dying-in, third party to go, like you you see the guest experience like the maybe 1% of 1% of restaurant operators has seen. So talk to us about what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience?

SPEAKER_01 13:20

It's kind of a big lead up for what I think is going to be a very not profound statement, which is at the end of the day, we're a food business. It has to be the food. You have to serve great food that people want. And we could build like a whole apparatus around that, around service modes and convenience, price points, and all that. And there's a value for money equation that we think about a lot that factors in all those things and what's the value going to the guest or to the consumer. But at the end of the day, it's got to be about the food. We have to have food that people love. And so that's why, kind of going back to first principles, when I came on board here, everything was about the food, getting the food to consistent, high quality, excellent, that people really love. And so that's where we spent the majority of our time and effort in the beginning. I think with that, now we have a great product and we've done other work on that, the overall system to make sure that we're we're firing all cylinders when it comes to convenience and you know the basics of the operating model when it comes to order accuracy and food quality and friendliness and speed of service and all that. So we've made progress on all those fronts. But at the end of the day, it's about breed food people love. And that's ultimately what we want to be most known for, and we want people to think about when they think about our brand.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

I mean, actually, I do think that's pretty profound, Jeff, because you know, I've had almost 500 people on here, and the number of people who will say that, we'll talk about the food is the most important part, is surprisingly low. Because I think that there's so many things to worry about. But at the end of the day, it's like, why does that one location taco place do$5 million a year? It's because the food is that good. It's not because they have great marketing. Everything else can be forgiven when the food is that good.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

I agree with that totally. And I think there's examples of this out in the market. If you think about like what are brands, who are brands that that we admire, that we aspire to be. You know, think about brands like Chick-fil-A or In N Out or Raising Canes. You know, they're not necessarily the fastest. They don't necessarily have that. There's not necessarily on other things. But like at the end of the day, people love their food and they love the price point which they're paying for that food. And they like kind of the overall experience around it. And so as we think about who do we want to be kind of as we grow up, there's a lot of brands that we look to that I think have nailed that equation. But at the end of the day, people love their food and they want to go eat it. And to your point, I think they're probably willing to forgive or slightly overcome certain things to an extent within reason. And we want to be good across the board, but it all starts with the food, and that's what matters most. Of course, now it's like, okay, order accuracy, right? The food that I ordered, did I actually get that? Like food quality, was it made to standard? And so for us, we've done a lot of work on things like SOPs, training, and all that to make sure that we can consistently execute the food to make sure speed of service, you know, people were a fast casual brand. They don't necessarily want to wait around forever. So we've made a lot of progress on all those things, but at the end of the day, it's about great food, get it to people, and charge them a price that they feel good about to build that loyalty and frequency and make sure that we don't have a leaky bucket of people coming in that never return.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

And I love that because as you're talking about your team and it's like, okay, we've got a huge line of people. What do we do? Do we focus on speed or do we focus on food quality? It's like the number one thing is food. People can forgive it if it's a little bit later than they were expecting, if the food is right. But if you're gonna pump out the wrong type of food or inconsistent food, that's unforgivable. And so I think that's a great, it lets people, when you put the food first, it lets them realize the other things can fall in line. And actually, we have customers who there's a hard to argue that Dave's hot chicken isn't doing pretty well. And what's interesting is like speed of service is not one of their metrics that they track because they're like, I want it to be right. I don't want to rush my team. I want it to be right. And I think that the goal is obviously both. Yep. But I think that it's amazing though, if you have to choose what do you put first?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, and that I mean, like as a metric, we do track speed of service because I think we were so high in the beginning, we were at closer to like nine minutes. As a system, now we've gotten our average ticket time down to about six minutes, which I think is like a reasonable amount of time. Now we're not like counting the drum that we got to be at three minutes or four minutes, right? We did set a speed of service standard of about five minutes, 30 seconds. So the system average is still above that. So we still want to move people in that direction, but we don't want to do it at the expense of everything else. Right. And so it was like kind of we were at a really, really high place. Let's move that to more in reason. Got a little bit more way to go. But if we can get there and then fire on all cylinders and everything else, we feel like that's a really good place to be.

Who Deserves An Ovation And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 18:23

I love it. Jeff, I feel like we have just barely dipped this dumping dumpling in the soy sauce of wisdom, but I do we do need to wrap up here. So I want to understand who is someone in the restaurant industry that you think we should follow, who deserves an ovation?

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Speaking of brands that I admire that do something really, really well and have kind of even created a system and have created an incredible amount of brand love and product affinity is Adam Goldberg over at Papa Bagels. That story is amazing. What he's built, you know, since the pandemic to now is incredible. And so I want to give a shout out to Adam, and I'm a big fan of the brand. And uh it seems like the rest of America is too right now.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

I know. Bagels are having a surge right now. That's pretty crazy to see what's going on, but I love it because I'm a Jersey boy living in Utah, and uh, I need to meet some bagels, man.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

So I'm I'm from Jersey too. I don't know if we ever talk about this.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Um, okay. Right. As soon as we end, we're gonna start comparing Jersey notes. There we go. But I like you, so I'm assuming you're from North Jersey. Uh Burton County, yeah. There we go. All right. I could tell. I could tell. I don't do the Eagles fans thing, but no offense to anyone.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

But a Jets fan, which shows a lot of grit and resilience.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Oh, yeah. Love it. Well, Jeff, how do people find and follow you and Brooklyn Dumpling Shop? Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Go to BrooklynDupling Shop.com. Again, you know, we're always interested to talk to great franchisees, uh, particularly folks who are a franchisee of another system and you want something to plug into your system that you can grow with and uh and take on a large territory. Check us out on social media, Instagram or TikTok, and we'd love to speak with folks and appreciate the time.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Awesome. Well, Jeff, for hopefully giving me a good option for dumplings in Costco here coming pretty soon and for reminding us that building the legacy brand is built on the foundation of food. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Giving Ovation. All right, thanks, Zach. 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 ovationup.com.