Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast with Zack Oates
Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast is your backstage pass to the minds of hospitality leaders, innovators, and operators who are redefining what it means to serve. Hosted by Zack Oates, founder of Ovation, each episode dives into real-world tactics and inspiring stories from restaurant pros who know how to create five-star guest experiences—both in-store and off-premise.
From fast casual to fine dining, catering to curbside, learn how to drive loyalty, empower your staff, and deliver hospitality that hits home. Whether you're a restaurant owner, operator, marketer, or tech partner, this podcast will leave you with practical insights and plenty of reasons to celebrate and Give an Ovation.
Episodes
446 episodes
Focusing on Hospitality with Ellis Winstanley
What's the record for person involved in the most organizations at one time? It might just be our guest today, Ellis Winstanley with 11 active positions currently listed on his LinkedIn, some of which include Board Member of the Texas Restauran...
Finding Areas For Growth With Joe Monastero
Joe Monastero is the COO of Texas Restaurant Association. TRA aims to serve as an indispensable resource for the hospitality and foodservice industry. TRA membership enables your company to build customer loyalty, rewarding careers and financia...
Building Safer and Stronger Teams with Jason Berkowitz
Jason Berkowitz is the Founder of ARROW UP, a highly-designed training tool for reducing liability, insurance premiums, and building a stronger culture in restaurants. He has extensive restaurant experience, having been involved in over 40 rest...
Optimizing Third Party Relations With Juan Orrego
Juan Orrego, Co-Founder and CEO of Cuboh, knows what it takes to provide an optimal third party experience. Cuboh consolidates all your online ordering tablets in one device. Juan's middle man perspective has raised him an expert in efficiency,...
Creating A Memorable Restaurant with Clay Dover
Clay Dover is a true restaurant marketing vet with over 30 years in the industry (even though he barely looks 30 years old)! Clay is the CEO and President of Velvet Taco, a concept known for its gourmet tacos and strong brand. He has former exp...
Using Tech To Bridge Gaps With Bryan Solar
Bryan Solar, GM of Restaurants at Square, is a pro at using tech to help restaurant owners, staff, and customers to bridge gaps. Square builds common business tools in unconventional ways so more people can start, run, and grow their businesses...
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The 3 Simple Steps of Restaurant Marketing with Jodie Conrad
*Editor's note: Jodie was the Chief Marketing Officer of Fazoli's at the time of this podcast recording. She has since become the CMO of Donatos Pizza.Jodie Conrad is a restaurant marketing veteran with over 30 years in the ind...
Dynamic Pricing And People With Colin Webb
Colin Webb is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sauce Pricing. Sauce allows you to leverage your restaurant data to increase profit margins and grow sales. In just a few clicks, your company can scale expert pricing strategies. With an eye for data opt...
The Modern Way of Training Staff with Sam Caucci
Sam Caucci is the CEO and founder of 1Huddle, a training platform that aims to improve staff performance and better prepare employees for the workforce. 1Huddle has changed the training game by engaging employees with quick paced games that are...
Empowering Your Workforce With Rachael Nemeth
Rachael Nemeth truly understands what it means to work in the restaurant industry, from line cook to manager! Nemeth now takes on being CEO at Opus, a powerful training technology designed for your "deskless" workforce. Opus creates multi...
Owning Your Business With Bennett Maxwell
Bennett Maxwell is the CEO of Dirty Dough, home to super-stuffed cookie bombs! Dirty Dough is bringing one-of-a-kind cookies to the masses, and helping entrepreneurs find passion and success! With a background in sales, Maxwell brings his chari...
Refining Your Menu with Steve Madonna
Steve Madonna is the SVP of Culinary at Bar Louie, the Original Gastrobar concept with about 70 locations nationwide. Previously, Steve spent 12 years working as a Chef and Culinary Director at Wolfgang Puck. Steve is an expert is menu design a...
Normalizing Automation With Clayton Wood
Clayton Wood, CEO at Picnic, is pursuing innovation by making automation the future. Picnic is the essential back-of-house assembly line. The modular food prep station assembles your pizzas with precision and speed, delivering a consistent prod...
Making Data Work For You With Tammy Billings
Tammy Billings is a co-founder at Aben, a marketing operating system that alerts, executes, and measures ROI from data. Tammy's foundational belief for Aben was the idea that the data available to large enterprises should be open for all busine...
Serving Up Authenticity With Akash Kapoor
Akash Kapoor, CEO and Founder of Curry Up Now, is renowned for more than his growth from food truck to brick and mortar. As Chief Troublemaker, Akash is an expert in finding growth through discomfort and pushing the envelop. Tune in to find out...
Putting Customer Satisfaction First With Richard Zaro
Richard Zaro, Founder and CEO of Cutlets Sandwich Co., is looking to disrupt the sandwich landscape and nationalize cutlets. Zaro has proven his ability to keep the consumer happy and smooth out the consumer journey through online interactions....
Strengthening Third Party Relationships With Allen Beck
Allen Beck, director of off-premise and catering at Costa Vida, is an expert in all things third party and online ordering. This week, he brings experience with catering and working as a go-between to our podcast and shares how he reaches out a...
Marketing For Growth With Nick Bogacz
Nick Bogacz, founder and president of Client Pizza & Draft House, has proven his ability to grow a business. With over 20 years of experience in the pizza and restaurant industry, Nick opened his first location in 2012 and has grown h...
The À la Carte Customer Experience with Michel Falcon
Michel Falcon is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, creator of a successful hospitality company, and is currently building Brasa Peruvian Kitchen. His expertise is in restaurants, customer experience management, company culture, employee eng...
Breathing Life Into The Restaurant Industry With Sun Choi
Sun Choi is the Co-founder of Yummy's Korean BBQ and Sushi, a family-run restaurant located in Orem, Utah. In this episode of Give An Ovation, Sun Choi offers valuable insight as to what inspired him to leave the IT security industry and open a...
The Restaurant Tech Revolution With Chad Horn
Chad Horn, Co-founder and COO of Devour, is bringing restaurant tech to a whole new level. Devour is the first web3 payments, NFT and rewards platform catering to restaurants and their guests. Chad has paved a people-oriented career and i...
Good, Better, Best; Continuous Brand Development With Lee Kindell
This episode of Give An Ovation Features Lee Kindell, Founder and CEO of Moto Pizza! Famous for their deepish and other delicious and doughy menu items, Kindell is an expert at bettering your brand. The key ingredient? Passion. Tune in to Lee's...
Cooking Up Consumer Insights With Massimo Noja De Marco
As CEO and founder of Piestro, a fully automated pizzeria, Massimo Noja De Marco is no stranger to thinking creatively and bringing positive guest oriented service culture. With over 20 years experience in the hospitality industry, Massimo is c...
The Science of Franchising With Troy Hooper
As founder and CEO of not one but two companies, Troy Hooper is a jack of all trades! As founder and CEO of Kiwi Restaurant Partners, Hooper offers hospitality consulting, management, development, franchising, and concept creation services.&nbs...
The Intersection of Hospitality and Technology With Tomer Molovinsky
Tomer Molovinsky is the CEO and cofounder at Per Diem. Per Diem is a subscription business that partners with neighborhood businesses to create food and drink experiences their customers love. Tomer has built Per Diem into a company where...
