Welcome And Why Nick Matters

SPEAKER_02 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 an industry expert to uncover their strategies and tactics to help you create a five-star guest experience. This podcast is powered by Ovation, the AI 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 today I'm so excited. We have Nick Voynovich with us today, who is the president and majority partner of Little Greek Fresh Grill. He has an amazing story, an awesome background. He ran BFO Brady's for 12 years, grew it from 30 to 260 units. He's in the FRLA Hall of Fame. He was at Chili's. He was at Famous Davies before that. He's had an incredible career. And not just him, but he really was born into this. But Nick, welcome to the podcast. Oh, Zach.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Honored to be here, Zach. Thank you very much. Great to see you again. And certainly glad to be on your show and look forward to all having a good conversation, learning some new things.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Well, I am too, because from the research I've been doing and from our conversations before

A Family Story Shaped By History

SPEAKER_02 1:10

this, you were telling me that your mother was in the restaurant industry, but also you just mentioned that your grandfather was too. So talk to us about the background of restaurant and how this, you know, you got the fry sauce flowing in your blood.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Exactly. Well, it definitely uh goes back quite a way, probably uh in the 1920s, 1930s. My grandfather Costa, who's uh ironically Greek, he his father was an architect. And when he died in an accident uh building a monastery, all the kids were adopted by Serbian families in Belgrade. So Kosta uh became uh uh awfully worked his way up to the military and was kind of handling the King's Palace, all the uh events, and opened up restaurants in uh Belgrade, Serbia. Uh mom grew up in the business working in the stores and helping out. And during World War II, sadly, she said it wasn't bad when the Germans came, but when the communists took over, they lost everything. And so she never wanted any of her three boys to be in a restaurant business. And guess what happened, Zach? All three boys end up in restaurant business. So that's kind of how yeah. So I'm a third generation. My son works for our company, my daughters works with Lil Greek and also Beebo Brady. So fourth generation, I teased them that we're all restaurant people. You know, some people are there, they're different, different professions. But I said, My kids, you're we're unfortunately good or bad. We're we're born to be in restaurant people and they're they love it as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

So you did not give your kids the advice to not go into restaurants like your mother did.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Well, it kind of in a way. I'm my daughter actually was a ceramics major in college, so uh she is a little more artsy. Uh, but my son, uh when he graduated from Florida State, he said, Dad, I don't know actually initially because I want to go to grad school. I go, really? You go, yeah, you told me college is the most fun time of life, so I want to extend it. I go, no, no, no, you don't go to grad school for that. So yeah, 08, 09, 2010, it was kind of rough economy. And he goes, I'll just go work. I know you got a little Greek going on as 2012. He said, Let me just work. He started as a cook and worked his way up to assistant manager and then GM. And then when I had my health scare back in 2017, he went into um, you know, came over to work on the corporate side and he kind of works with all of our operations folks.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Awesome. What an incredible story. And I love the family aspect of this because you could really go one of two ways with that, right? Is that you could just run away as far away from that as you can or just completely embrace it. And I think that that's uh it's beautiful that you guys have embraced it as a whole family.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

And yeah, you know, we can't we're getting at uh Little Greek as a family business. Our my chief operating officer, Brian St. George, both of his sons work in stores. So it's kind of a you know, and our our franchisees are family businesses, you know, their kids work there. It's kind of like B4Brain's as well, where it's a you know family, you know, operation. We we love owner operators who kind of dig in and they know the customers, they know the staff, they know the community, and that's kind of what we're all about. And we we we live that as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Now, you're planning on uh growing, you had some pretty big growth plans with Little Greek. And uh I want to hear what have you learned? What are you gonna do differently? Because I know that at one point you mentioned that growing as quickly as you did with Beef O'Brady's, adding at one point 50 units in a year. You called that a

The Real Cost Of Growing Too Fast

SPEAKER_02 4:05

mistake. And so I what would you recommend and what are you planning on to go through this next period of growth with Little Greek?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, well, great question. And certainly what happened is some of the things we happened at Beefs was we were growing super fast and we were letting folks you borrowed too much money open store. So in the oh 2010 or so downturn, a lot of folks didn't make it. So I said, Well, Little Greek, let me try to fix my mistakes. So I try to do owner operator only, all cash. So we try to have no debt. And then we try to find what we call second gen, shut down restaurants, where instead of spending four or five, eight hundred thousand dollars to build a store, if you go into a shutdown subway or we did one with a wing stop, there's all your hood there, the bathrooms are built to code, you're kind of going fresh coat of paint, maybe swapping some equipment out, you can get a very much lower investment. And so folks don't have these big notes to pay. So when times get tough, kind of like what's happening right now, they can generally, and certainly during COVID, the franchisees can weather the storm. So I felt that by growing so fast, sometimes you get out of your skis and you realize that, well, gee, we're letting spend too much money. And also in my business, I think the pioneer stores are also like the most difficult ones, the first ones in a new market. You get a lot more of those where you're growing rapidly. So try to fix those mistakes and try to focus on franchisee success for the long haul. You know, not to try to patent the numbers and we're the fastest growing boop. That said, to your earlier question or point is I do feel we've never done any franchise sales advertising or marketing. And we've kind of gotten up into the low 50s. And I said a lot of our franchisees, our average franchisee tenure is probably eight or 10 years. And so I think with seeing other brands out there that are growing, I felt like the Greek segment, you got you got kind of cobb over in Mediterranean, but I think the Greek segment is an opportunity for somebody to have a thousand-year brand and felt that it would be kind of incumbent upon me to go kind of pick up the pace again and start being more aggressive. That's why I'm glad uh you're sharing my story, Zach, to be honest with you. And we brought in a PR firm and we brought in a uh franchise sales marketing firm to really for the first time in basically 15 years to try to get our name out there on a more regular basis. Normally it's been organic growth. Customer comes in, they love the food. Oh, I didn't know it's a franchise, I want to own my own business, and that's been our model. So we kind of realizing that there is a strength in numbers and the bigger the brand, the more horsepower you have, the more ability you have to work with vendors as far as getting better deals. So that's kind of our our strategy is to kind of go up to the other, let's get up to 100. Let's kind of push it. And that's why we have a lot of initiatives, I think you looked at with some some new non-traditional as well, because the world has changed. 35 to 40 percent of our sales are now third-party delivery. Uber eats easy caterer. Yeah. So it's crazy. You go to the restaurants and used to be 50-50, eat in, take out. We do a heavy catering, about 10% of our sales. Now it's almost 70 or 80%, is a delivery. So we're looking to do some

Owner-Operator Franchising With Less Debt

SPEAKER_00 6:50

new models where we're opening up like a mini group, a little Greek Express inside of a West Shore pizza. We did our first university uh up uh a Chick-fil-A was pulling out of Wafford College in South Carolina. We did a scale down the Little Greek Express, so we kind of you know, uh trimmed the menu down somewhat. So we're looking, we have a couple stadiums where two of them inside the uh Lightning Hockey Arena called Benchmark, and we have one inside Tropicana Field. So we're also looking at that too, Zach, is are there different ways to get after the consumer through different venues and as well as you know, increasing the openings on the Little Greek uh traditional stores as well?

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Yeah, because the square footage of restaurants does not need to be as big as it used to be. And especially, I mean, those are wild off-prem numbers. I mean, normally we're hearing like 60, 40, but that's really high.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah, it's scary in some ways. I mean, I was thinking Amazon's never gonna make it. And when I first saw these third party delivery guys, I go, this is crazy. People are gonna spend 30 or 40 percent more, but they'll do it. You know, they're they got used to it in COVID. So it is a different world. And I luckily we went in early on with small footprints, 1,1200 square feet, because you know, I already saw the that that you can get a lot of throughput on that size of store. So we're kind of looking to go like this Waffle College, they have uh it's record sales. I mean, that they're doing huge numbers and it's you know just massive amounts of food that goes through there. But certainly, given that this the world has changed and it's not gonna go back to the way it was, that consumers they want whatever food they want. We we see families of four getting four different deliveries coming in. So we're gonna be kind of going after this. Well, we do have some RD works going on with some items that would be also different than a little Greek. We're looking at a frozen Greek yogurt, we're looking at a kind of a signature burger as well, kind of a whole different ballgame to try to give the consumers more channels as well.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Love that. Love that. And thinking about the consumers, what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Well, yeah, two levels. One would be the dining customer. You need to make sure they're happy because that's where your bread and butter money maker is. I think the catering customer is really looking for us for great healthy food that's served fresh. You know, our our tagline is fresh, flavorful, fabulous. And that would be my concern, Zach, is our food does travel well. Before Brady's, you know, cold French fries and wings just doesn't really do as well. But our wonderful, you know, the gyro and the chicken, our salads and the rice is all made from scratch and very high quality. So it does travel well. But when the Doordash person is getting their food 30 or 45 minutes later, it's not like it's coming off that grill at 350 degrees in-store. So

Delivery, Catering, And Smaller Stores

SPEAKER_00 9:20

it's a challenge. So we're also working on trying to improve the um the in-store operations as well, but you know, making sure that that guests on those uh delivery orders that they're getting accurate, good quality food at a great price.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

That accuracy is actually so interesting because as you look at all the categories of when people will give feedback, accuracy is the most toxic attribute that can the most toxic topic of a review, meaning that when someone has a problem with accuracy, they're more likely to leave you a negative public review than any other topic. And in fact, it's the only category of feedback that they're more likely to give you negative public review as opposed to negative private feedback, which I find fascinating. It's like when you get someone's order wrong, especially in the delivery, I don't want to just tell you privately that you got it wrong. I want to blast you online because like you didn't get what you paid for. And so the fact that you mentioned accuracy, I think is really indicative of someone who intimately understands the importance of the guest experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

And it's such a challenge, too, because you know, in store, obviously, if we get somebody's salad dressing, they pay you know, but once it's third-party delivery, now you got two levels you got to go through to rectify the situation. Obviously, they can call the store, but they're doing a deal with a third party, which you know, we had to actually early on, we were tying the our T-sack, the plastic to go bags and knots because drivers were eating the food and you know, drinking the drink or whatever. So it's a I guess is necessary evil. You know, I don't like it, but it's the way the world's playing right now, and you got to make sure it's accurate because there's no recovery. And you know, you can imagine being, you know, you're waiting 35, 40 minutes for your food and you're paying a premium and it comes in inaccurate. And you know, how would you ever get that resolved? You know, you gotta drive back or it just it's it's a very difficult deal. So that it is it's unfortunate, but it's it's it's a quite a challenge. And to your point, people get really angry about it and they'll they'll light you up.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Yeah, and that's something that we find the benefit of all of this though, is that if you can connect with that guest, we find that a guest who gives you a one-star experience, if you're able to connect with them and make it right. And by the way, making it right is you don't necessarily have to drive back to them to give them a new thing, but it's about hey, here's a ten dollar gift card. I've gone ahead and refunded your order. So sorry that we missed your salad, right? Whatever the case is. They will spend five times more with you per year than your average guest. So that recovered guest is worth so much money and critical, especially today when we're facing Nick, our third straight year of down traffic in restaurants nationwide. And so that recovery piece, that let's make it right and let's not lose them is more critical than ever before.

Order Accuracy And Guest Recovery

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yeah, and Zach to your point, I think Florida is even, we see it worse than our other states because the Florida, the tourism traffic just didn't come down because of the whole community thing going on and international, and there was the flights were delayed, tariffs. It was just it's been a tough. So all my friends who are running Florida-based companies are seeing kind of a real struggle. It's really tough out there, and prices have gone up, fuel charges have gone up. So it to say for me, I still know our old uh CEO from B4 Brady's that this is the worst it's been since like 2010. Remember, we had that big housing crush that just we just had no idea. But for what I see, it's it's just really tough out there. And I don't see, I'm saying, like then, the worst the lighting be on the town. And then also you have that DLP weight lossing layering as well, where folks just aren't eating out as much. But now the nice thing for that is they do tend to go more healthy food, like our food. But nonetheless, if you had folks were eating twice a day, now they're just doing one or they're just cutting back. So we have a lot of headweights, and it'll be an interesting challenge to see how things kind of track out.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Or the other thing that I'm seeing is adults ordering more kids' meals where they just want less food. So a lot of brands right now are going to GLP one friendly menus where as high protein and as low calorie as possible, so you can keep those margins and or at least keep the price up. It's gonna hit your margins because you know you're you're cutting out some of those carbs and adding in proteins, but at least the consumer is gonna get a smaller calorie meal, but feel like they're getting what they're looking for, right? Because people on GLP ones are fighting for protein.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Exactly. We are doing that. Our protein portions are just in general, a little Greek had very bit large portions, our normal size, like a normal restaurant, like a Moe's, which's usually three or four ounces of protein. We we're doing five or six. Like our white chicken meal is two three-ounce skewers. Our dinner is nine ounces, and this is real chunks of white meat that's marinated, cooked on a grill. So we are just rolling out now a bowl program, which is a three-ounce skewer with rice, some veggies, not quite the heavy-duty salad with all the potato salad and uh cheese, the fetid cheese, to kind of address that market. Give them something, give them the price point, give them the high quality food, the high great, the great protein, but yeah, not quite as much. And so that's our bowl program, which we're kind of rolling out just these last few weeks, a store-by-store basis.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Love that. Nick, great, great, great ideas. Love what you're doing. Last thing, any tactics that you would share on improving the guest experience?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Wow. Well, you know, you got that quandary of the whole delivery piece. So we are looking just, you know, because at the end of the day, the the dining customer is kind of the thing, and let's try let's work on our hospitality. We're looking at, we have stores that have 4.9 Google ratings. We're really focused on driving the results and trying to take what you said earlier, the customers. And then for us, really the big thing is that catering. The

Traffic Drops, GLP-1, And New Bowls

SPEAKER_00 14:55

stores that really see what that do well with us have great loyal catering customers on a large-scale basis. We had one catering last week was almost a $20,000 catering rate. I think it's three stores involved to get all that food out. So uh it's a great question, Zach. And we're all just you know looking at what you can do to just get those customers in and try to take good care of them and treat them like they're family. That's it's uh you know, that's we've got to really do everything we can to make sure they're happy and make sure that food's great, going out perfect.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Man, I'm sure that little spidey senses on the back of people's necks just started tingling hearing about a $20,000 catering order. Imagine opening your day with $20,000 in the till. I mean, even spread across three restaurants. That's awesome. So, well, Nick, how do people find and follow you and your brand?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Sure. So uh you know, Nick Boinovich at Little Greek Fresh Grill, Little Greek, uh, you know, uh just you can you know, reach out to Zach that I'm on LinkedIn and uh B-O-J-N-O-B-I-C and uh Nick at mylocgreek.com. Certainly love that I like to reach out and just talk to other restaurant industry folks, find out how things are going for them. And one of my jokes is I give free bad advice. When you're old like me, I've learned a lot of mistakes and they're trying to share my thoughts and it's hopefully it works out there too. But certainly find us on the website. We mostly uh most of our stores are Orlando, Tampa, and Dallas, and we have six up in the Midwest, but we do want to keep growing, and we just opened our store in South Carolina, which is real exciting for us too. So thank you very much, Zach, for your time. And I apologize for my lack of tech skills getting me all loaded in, but I think we made it through it, right? And then also I do give you permission to go ahead and Photoshop more hair and kind of improve my works as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

You have my blessers on there. Needs no Photoshop, Nick. But you know

Where To Find Nick And Final Ask

SPEAKER_02 16:25

what? For doing big things with Rule Creek, today's ovation goes to you. Thanks for joining us on Give an Ovide, Nick.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Great. Thank you, Zach. Take care, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcast 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 get 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 ovationapple.com.