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
How Your Restaurant Can Use Voice AI with Pete Peng
Pete Peng is the founder and CEO of Jetson, the "Shopify of Voice Commerce". Jetson is a platform that enables businesses of any size to easily sell products and services through voice interfaces using AI technology. On this episode, Pete and Z...
More Than Punch Cards: Loyalty with Mike Bausch
Mike Bausch is the Owner of the 17-year-old Andolini's Pizzeria, which was recently voted one of the top 10 Pizzerias in the United States by Tripadvisor. He also wrote the book, "Unsliced: How To Stay Whole In The Pizzeria Industry", is the VP...
The Omni-channel Restaurant with Warwick McLaren
Warwick McLaren is the VP of Omnichannel Marketing at Global Franchise Group, which includes brands such as Round Table Pizza, Marble Slab Creamery, and Pretzelmaker. He oversees the development and execution of digital strategies across GFG's ...
Ghost Kitchens and Hospitality with Bill Stavrou
Bill Stavrou is the founder of Foodhaul, a Chicago-based restaurant group that provides under-utilized kitchens with ghost concepts created by notable chefs. Bill's family business has been in operation for over 50 years, and he's now bringing ...
Futureproofing Your Brand with Alonso Castañeda
Alonso Castañeda is the VP of Brand Development and Strategy at Savory Restaurant Fund, a group that partners with small restaurant concepts and takes them to the next level. He has also run operations at Cafe Rio, Paradise Bakery Cafe, and is ...
Aligning Your Restaurant Team with Preston Junger of 7shifts
To put it simply, Preston Junger is the real deal. He's the VP of Sales and the Head of US Operations at 7shifts, the practically ubiquitous employee scheduling software of the restaurant industry. His background includes VP at Yelp as well as ...
Your 18-Minute Consulting Call with Alan Magee
Alan Magee is the VP of Digital Marketing and Technology at Church's Chicken, a national chicken chain. He is also one of the Brand Innovators 40 under 40 and has led brand marketing at Moe's Southwest Grill and InterContinental Hotels Group.
Focusing On The Fundamentals with Kyle Inserra
Kyle Inserra is a restaurant growth strategist, thought leader, and current advisor with Sabre Real Estate Advisors. He started his career in the corporate finance and advertising industry, but changed careers and found his passion in the resta...
Group Purchasing For Restaurants with Edward Zimmerman
Edward Zimmerman has over 40 years in the food and hospitality industry and currently uses all of that experience as President of The Food Connector, a company that develops marketing plans for small to mid-size food manufacturers and distribut...
How To Grow From 5 to 5,000 Locations with David Bloom
David Bloom is the Chief Development and Operating Officer at Capriotti's Sandwich Shop and Wing Zone, where he is focused on growing those brands to national names. With 40+ robust years in the hospitality industry and experience at loca...
Owning Your Customer Data (And 12 Ghost Kitchens) with Andrew Martino
Andrew Martino is the founder of Ghost Truck Kitchen, the world's first digital food truck lot. He's on year three of running the 12 concept concept out of his 800 square foot location, is the owner of Martino Hospitality Services, is starting ...
Telling The Story That Only You Can Tell with Chip Klose
Chip Klose is the owner of Chip Klose Creative and works with brands to promote their unique value proposition to the right people as a restaurant consultant. He made a name for himself in operations, and went on to learn the in's and out's of ...
Her Restaurant Survived 2020 - Here's How with Amy Mills
Amy Mills is the Owner and Chief Strategist at 17th Street Barbecue, one of the "best BBQ brands on earth." She is also an author, speaker, consultant, and has judged on numerous cooking channel and food network shows. Unfortunately, many stori...
Kelly MacPherson Interviewed 10 Leading Restaurant Execs - Here's What She Found
This episode of Give an Ovation features the final interview as part of Table for 10, an e-book focused on technology transformation and collaboration. Kelly MacPherson, former CIO at Burger King, Popeye's, and a current Advisory Council Member...
Live Life and Run Restaurants Strategically with Christy Lamagna
Christy Lamagna is a dynamic keynote speaker, author, and coach who uses her 30+ years in strategic planning to help people overcome challenges and press forward. She's also the MarCom advisor at ShedWool, a smart scheduling platform that works...
Simplifying Your Menu and Your Diet with Molly McGrath
Molly McGrath is a culinary innovation leader with over a decade of experience in strategy, menu execution, and operational efficiency. She's worked at The Chopping Block, CSSI Marketing, Roti Modern Mediterranean, and is now teaching how to tr...
All About Digital Hospitality with Shawn Walchef
Not only is Shawn Walchef the owner of the award-winning Cali Comfort BBQ and the larger Cali BBQ Media, he is also the man who beat us to naming a podcast "Digital Hospitality" - a video podcast that he has hosted since 2017. As a pioneer in t...
Communicating Brand Through Every Little Detail with Matthew Smith
Matthew Smith is what you could call a CMO squared - being the Chief Marketing Officer at The Madera Group and one their brands, Tocaya Organica. Matthew has seen tremendous success in building Madera's brands (Hailey Bieber wears thei...
How To Increase Customer Loyalty and Delivery Profits with Andrew Boryk
Andrew Boryk is the Co-founder and CTO at Lunchbox, a next-gen digital ordering platform for restaurants to improve their relationships and retention, and one of Ovation's favorite partners. Andrew and Zack discuss why restaurants need their ow...
Why Your Restaurant Should Automate with Miguel Ortiz
Miguel Ortiz is the VP, Marketing Leading Product Management and Marketing at Transact Technologies and the creator of BOHA (Back Of House Automation), a tool that automates time-consuming tasks for restaurants. Miguel brought great insights to...
Why 2021 Will Be The Year Of Customer Experience with Steven Simoni
Steven Simoni is the CEO of Bbot, a company that started by producing robots that would deliver food and drinks to tables and transitioned to a software service that helps restaurants and hotels run more efficiently with happier staff and guest...
Owning Your 3rd Party Guests with Chris Rumpf
Chris Rumpf is the Founder, CEO, and El Conquistador oficial of Flyght, a company that unifies restaurant technologies. He and Zack Oates talk the four must-do's of 3rd party, technology integration, and how your restaurant can unify t...
Storytelling Through Data and Media with Kevin Seo
Kevin Seo is the CEO/Co-founder of FoodFest Live, a pandemic-born digital events and media company that helps restaurants thrive. Kevin brought energy, insight, and his absolutely contagious laugh to this episode where he and Zack discuss resta...
The 2021 Restaurant Scoop with Sam Oches
Sam Oches is a musician-turned-foodie who is currently the Editorial Director at Food News Media, the company behind the QSR and FSR magazines. As one of the top people to follow in the food and beverage industry and the host of QSR's Fast Forw...
Brightening The Feed - Restaurant Influencing with Olivia Gochnour
The only thing that may make you hungrier than listening to this podcast would be taking a look at the @utahgrubs Instagram page, which is run by our guest, Olivia Gochnour! Olivia's food photos have attracted over 65K followers, and on this ep...