December 15, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, host Jeremy Julian interviews Peter Wiley, co-founder and marketing IT mastermind behind Hothead Burritos. They discuss the company's innovative use of technology and marketing strategies which have fueled their rapid growth. Peter shares insights on the importance of integrating marketing with IT, streamlining operations through digital ordering, and leveraging loyalty programs. The conversation also covers Hothead Burritos' unique offerings, including their variety of sauces, and their approach to catering and delivery. Listeners get a deep dive into how tech-savvy practices can lead to a more efficient and customer-focused restaurant experience.
00:00 Hot Head Burritos
01:13 Introduction and Guest Introduction
02:41 Hothead Burritos: Brand Overview
04:18 Expansion and Locations
05:18 Customer Experience and Menu Customization
09:32 Digital Integration and Online Ordering
13:23 Third-Party Delivery and Integration
17:36 Catering and Large Orders
18:46 Creating an Online Ordering Menu for Catering
20:03 Evaluating Menu Offerings for Online and Catering
21:26 The Importance of Loyalty Programs
22:24 Incentivizing Catering Orders
27:19 Converting Customers Across Channels
30:35 Leveraging AI and Data Analytics
32:33 Popular Menu Items and Personal Favorites
34:39 Staying Engaged with Hothead Burritos
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is the Restaurant Technology Guides
podcast, helping you run yourrestaurant better.
Jeremy Julian (00:14):
What happens when a Midwest burrito chain cracks a
code of blending marketingtechnology and 16 different
sauces?
On today's show, we dive intothe story of hothead burritos
and one of its founders, PeterWiley, the marketing IT
Mastermind behind theirexplosive growth.
He and I have a really uniqueconversation that I don't see in
(00:35):
many people where he is not onlya founder, but understands.
The role of technology as wellas marketing and how it's going
to help grow their brand.
He shares some really expertinsights on how he took away
tablets and changed the orderingexperience for their guests to
continue to see their growththat, uh, nations Restaurant
News, and many otherpublications continue to talk
(00:57):
about.
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy Julian.
I'm the Chief Revenue Officer ofCBS North Star.
We sell the North Star point ofsale solution for multi-units.
Please check us out.
At CBS northstar.com and nowonto the episode.
Okay.
Welcome back to the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast.
I thank everyone out there forjoining us.
(01:18):
Uh, today I am joined by a brandthat selfishly I was able to
experience, and I know Peterwill talk a little bit about who
they are, where it came fromand, and whatnot, but, um,
really, really good product, funbrand growing, really making a
huge difference in kind of theirmarkets.
But Peter, why don't youintroduce yourself real quick.
a man of many trades, lots ofdifferent things that you get to
do for the brand, and then we'lltalk a little bit about.
(01:40):
Who you get to work with?
Peter Wiley (01:41):
Sure.
Well, my name's Peter Wiley.
I'm with a brand called HotheadBurritos outta the Midwest.
Uh, my brother started it in2007, so we've been around for
quite a few years.
Uh, I've been doing, marketingfrom the very beginning, logo
design, radio commercials, youname it, I've done it in one
shape form.
And as we've, grown, taken onmore of an IT role.
you know, it was a big bridgebetween marketing and it.
(02:02):
Now it's hard to do one withoutthe other.
So I kind of oversee the pointof sale, credit card processing,
gift cards, point of just reallyall those parts that have to
play together to make a campaignwork.
so that's my main role rightnow.
So
Speaker (02:15):
I'm saying, did you jump into it willingly or are
you one of those people thatreluctantly said.
Hey, if this crap doesn't work,I'm not gonna be able to get my
marketing stuff off the ground.
Or, or were you kind of a nerdthat you enjoyed that side?
I'm kind of a nerd.
Peter Wiley (02:25):
Yeah.
I mean, I, I've always been, uh,anything from graphic design,
audio engineering, been audioengineer for 30 years, still
mixed for a country band forfun.
Um, so I like, I like how allthe little things work together,
and I think it's funded fun tofit that puzzle piece.
Speaker (02:40):
That's awesome.
So for those that have notgotten to experience, and again,
I'm selfish enough that I havebeen able to, to experience it.
What is Hothead Burritos tell,tell us a little bit about the
brand.
Sure.
You know, where did it comefrom?
You know, you say it's beenaround, close to, close to 20
years, I think, you know.
Oh seven, yeah.
Yeah.
18 years.
Yeah, 18 years.
Yeah.
but what is the brand?
Is it, you know, talk us throughwhat is the brand, what makes it
special?
Peter Wiley (03:00):
Sure, yeah.
It's a fast casual Mexicanplace, so, or, or burritos,
hothead.
Burritos as you come.
My figured, uh, we actually sellprobably 60 to 70% bowls.
Uh, we also offer quesadillas,tacos and nachos.
But burritos and bowls arecertainly the core, thing.
And really what separates usfrom, uh, any of the number of
other competitors out there, uh,is we offer a large, wide
(03:23):
variety of flavors.
And specifically we offer 16different sauces.
lots of places to go and you canget sour cream, you can get, you
know, hot salsa or mild salsa.
That's cool.
We got all that.
but really it comes down tosauces, right?
We have our signature hotheadsauce, which is a zesty garlic
sauce.
it's super popular.
We have a sweet habanero saucethat's, uh, all sweet and no
(03:44):
heat, as we like to say.
Literally not hot at all, andsome people like to mix the two.
so as we've grown evolved, we'vetried different sauces.
We've recently rolled out likean avocado lime and a jalapeno
ranch.
And, so that just really letsyou get what you want the way
you want it, and have some funwith it.
That's the big difference.
We also do toast our burritosand bowls.
(04:06):
um, familiar with the speedovens.
Our next campaign coming up, uh,in the fall or in the winter is
everything's better toasted,right?
So it gives us some fun play onwords and differentiating factor
for
Speaker (04:18):
I love that.
And so talk me through where,what is your guys', I guess
penetration, you said you're upupper Midwest.
I I, I think you said you'rebased in Ohio.
How many stores are there?
Kind of, how, how big of a, aswath are you, have you guys had
at this point?
Sure,
Peter Wiley (04:31):
yeah.
We're at, uh, 87 locationscurrently.
Um, a majority are in theMidwest.
We're based outta Dayton, Ohio.
and we go up into, Cleveland,Youngstown.
Toledo a little bit.
Everything in between Columbus,heavily in Cincinnati.
I would say probably betweenDayton, Cincinnati, there's
probably 40 ish within, youknow, a short drive.
and then you get, we have acouple in New England, uh,
(04:52):
operated by a franchisee outthere.
Got one, uh, out in Texas.
And then we got, five in thepanhandle of Florida.
so that's kind of fun.
Had a franchisee that was downthere, um, and migrating,
working our way into Indiana.
I think we're up to sevenlocations in Indiana.
I currently got one in Kentuckyworking on a couple more.
We do have, new Jersey'sprobably next on the.
(05:13):
They're looking for a locationright now.
goal is to grow and keepgrowing.
So,
Speaker (05:17):
uh, that's awesome.
so Peter, talk me through alittle bit of kind of the
experience, because again, I gotto go to, I think everybody has
been to some of the stalwartsthat have been in the space, the
Qdoba, the Chipotles of theworld, and they go in and to
your point, the menu selectionis pretty slimmed down.
You kind of know what you'regonna get.
And then you go in and again, Iwent to a competitor on the East
(05:38):
coast, that is based in NewJersey or started in New Jersey.
You probably know exactly whoI'm talking about, just
recently.
And I brought a new guest therewho had never been.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah,
Speaker (05:46):
and there's so much more.
There's sauces, there'sdifferent ways you can
experience the brand.
And so I'd love for you.
As we talk about in person, andthen we'll get to kind of the
technology and how you guys dothis, but how do you guys
introduce these type ofexperiences to your first time
guests?
Because it is a elevatedexperience from some of those
stalwarts that have been in thespace.
Peter Wiley (06:06):
Yeah, and that's a great question, and one we
continue to work on every singleday.
Uh, our several years ago, totry to address that to the best
of our ability is we came outwith craft recipes.
So yeah, a lot of places youwalk in again.
name Chipotle, right?
Huge sales.
Super simple menu.
You had three or four things topick over the last couple years.
They rolled out a few morethings.
(06:27):
They actually rolled out a saucerecently if you didn't notice.
Speaker (06:29):
Oh, they didn't.
I'm not a huge, my, my teenagekids are big Chipotle people.
Yeah.
I, I see the bags in the trash,but I don't go there that often
myself.
But, uh,
Peter Wiley (06:37):
fair enough.
Yeah.
You know, they're great brands.
They do very well.
So nothing bad to say aboutthem.
but again, super simple menu.
I'll take that.
Right.
Versus you walk into us, you'relike, wow, that's a lot of like,
I got a burrito or a bowl.
Now you have all these othertoppings I gotta choose and, and
16 sauces to choose from, andwhich one do I get?
so what we did is simply builtcraft recipe, what we call craft
recipes.
(06:57):
So we said, here's some, here'ssome of our most popular
combinations, different flavorprofiles.
Some are sweet, some are hot,some are super hot.
right now we have a, its fall,2025.
We've got a ghost pepper and areaper burrito, right?
It's got Carolina Reaper cheese,ghost pepper sauce, spicy steak,
spicy chicken.
So we try to go.
Back and forth in both ways.
So when you walk in, you can beoverwhelmed.
(07:19):
In my mind, I kinda liken it toa smoothie place.
Mm-hmm.
It's like you walk in, you pick,man, I'm gonna take, you know
that smoothie?
'cause it sounds good.
So that, that, that is ourapproach to try to really
simplify the experience and alsogive you something that you
really like.
Because if you go to some of theother brands and come into
hothead and get the identicalthing.
It's not gonna have the sameflavor profile, so you might be
(07:40):
disappointed.
So we're like, no, we reallywant you to try one of the
sauces.
Pick one of them, put it onthere, we'll give it to you on
the side.
Uh.
And push people into thosedifferent flavor profiles that
they've never tried before.
Speaker (07:52):
Yeah.
And I, and I, and I think asconsumers and as you look at the
studies, especially the youngerwe get, you know, the younger
demographic is spending money,they oftentimes want those
abilities.
That was just with a brand, um,with people that are now
running, uh, KFC's, new saucybrand.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Exactly.
And it's all
Speaker (08:07):
about.
You know those 11 new, newspices?
I, we were talking before we getrecorded.
I was with, you know, some ofthe new operators over there and
they're like, yeah, it's allabout those 11 sauces and people
being able to to do that.
And so I love that.
How do you guys balance thatwith efficiency to ensure that
you guys don't have a queue thatgoes out the.
Out the door and you guys start,are treating people because they
(08:28):
can't come in and get theexperience that they might want
because they've only got 30minutes for lunch or whatever
else.
Peter Wiley (08:32):
Yep.
So craft recipes help addressthat.
'cause you come in and say like,I'll walk in, take the jalapeno
ranch, but I don't say anythingelse.
So they build, they know therecipe, they go down, build it.
Done super fast.
if from a training standpoint,if you're kind of new, you
haven't been there before, notnecessarily wanna try the craft,
or if you do wanna try thecraft, you know, we have line
speeds, we call it, right?
(08:53):
Ask the, ask three questions,right?
Would you like, white rice orblack or, um, we got Mexican
rice now too, so we got, uh,white rice, brown rice, or
Mexican rice.
Great.
Would you like black beans orpinto?
Would you like chicken soy?
You're not asking them 50million questions on everything.
You're leading them through themost popular items to help'em,
have a great experience.
Simplify it for the crew,simplify it for the customer so
when they get done, they'relike.
(09:14):
That was pretty easy.
Mm-hmm.
Now I, I like it and I can getit again.
Speaker (09:18):
Well, and, and again, we talk about the importance of
having the choice and havingthis brand that's not
irreverent, but it's, it's funand kind of spunky.
Yeah.
Even your guys' little logo iskind of that way.
Yep.
So, now how does that translate,um, Peter to kind of the digital
aspect?
I know part of what we wanted totalk about on today's episode is
kind of how do you guys getdigital and again, in your guys'
(09:39):
concept.
Outside of catering, but evenjust for whether it's third
party or it's first party,getting to digital in fast
casual is imperative in 2025 andbeyond.
A hundred percent.
So talk me through kind of whythat's such a critical piece to
be able to have that sameexperience digitally for these
people that want to engage withthe brand.
Peter Wiley (09:57):
Yeah.
It, it is critical nowadays.
I've been in, uh, someconferences recently and you
kind of do a survey like howmany people you know, had online
ordering five years ago, and
Speaker 3 (10:06):
there.
Peter Wiley (10:07):
few go up.
How many people had onlineordering two years ago?
You know, it just goes up andup, right?
Mm-hmm.
we had basic online ordering,before COVID, and we had
thankfully migrated to, our newpoint of sale, which is Q and we
used their online ordering.
and it just made it super easyto manage, super easy for
customers to get on and placethe order.
So you gotta have it.
(10:27):
We're 90% carry out and we're.
30% off-prem.
If I get my, if I remembercorrectly, that's a combination
of third party delivery and,online ordering.
And we're just seeing thatcontinue to go up, uh, month
after month, year after year.
And so we have to embrace it andget good at it operationally and
technologically.
Speaker (10:48):
yeah.
And, and so talk me through,'cause again, you guys have got
lots of choices.
Mm-hmm.
So now we put those, it's easywhen I'm standing in front of a
staff member and it, you gothrough this experience.
Yeah.
Yes.
You can have the brown rice, theMexican rice, or the white rice,
but being able to manage evenwhat burrito got into what bag
and, and you know, ensuring thatall of that happens.
(11:08):
Yeah.
'cause you don't have a easy wayto guest recover.
If it's off-prem.
So I'd love for you to talkthrough some of the things that
you guys think about because youguys have got probably, I mean,
if you were to extrapolate itout, tens of thousands of
choices between proteins andsauces and, and starches and,
and beans that just turn intosomething that's challenging to
execute on every time and getthe guests what they're looking
(11:30):
for so that they do come backand, and we all know that repeat
guests are, are a huge part ofour business and we have to have
it.
Peter Wiley (11:37):
Yeah.
Yeah, that, that is definitely achallenge.
And again, it's something Ithink all of us wrestle with in
the restaurant industry atwhatever level you're at.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (11:44):
Um, we worked really hard to, we use a kitchen
chi system, so we don't have aKDS again, most of our stuff is
made on a make line, so we don'thave a separate make line in
most of our tables or most ofour restaurants.
so the kitchen chip just seemedto be the best solution because
you can.
Essentially attach it to theburrito or bowl you're working
on and it tells you exactly whatto do.
It just read the, read it,what's on it, chicken?
(12:08):
Mm-hmm.
White rice, et cetera.
Makes it super easy to go downthe line, put it in the bag.
We have the ability to print outa whole summary kitchen chip, so
you can say, well, this order,you know, has four items.
It's got two, two burritos, abowl and a bag of chips.
Cool.
I got my master ticket that hasall of that on that I got my
individual tickets for each ofthe items.
(12:28):
I can double check that I got'emall, put'em all in the same bag,
put that the customer receipt onthe bag that has everything
listed on it.
Uh.
You should be good to go.
I wish I could say we wereperfect.
we are not, occasionally theygrab the wrong thing, wrong
order, but, uh, that's, that isa, a primary focus to get better
(12:49):
and better at that.
Speaker (12:50):
Yeah, and I think in general, I, I, you know,
thinking about that first isdefinitely something that, that
I think brands don't evaluate sothat they can get that training.
Because again, oftentimes whenthat guest has gotten the bad
experience.
They don't come back.
And so ensuring that you guyscan, can, get the right things
in the bag is a big piece ofwhat I spend time.
(13:11):
With operators, they're allworking on it.
Yeah, they're all working on,you know, there's gotta be some
magic bullet and eventuallywe'll get there.
But where there's some computerthat's gonna be sitting and
looking at the make line andsaying, Peter, did you ensure
that you put the right thing inhere, but we're not there today.
so talk me through'cause again,I dine out, I go to places that
don't have point of sale,integrated with third party,
integrated with online ordering.
(13:32):
They've got tablet.
What I call tablet hell, wherethey got a half a dozen tablets
sitting there on the, on, youknow, on the line.
And somebody's sitting theremaking, all of these different,
different, processes.
They run out of something, nowthey gotta go to each of the
tablets and go turn off.
Mm-hmm.
You know, the, the protein thatthey ran out of, or the sauce
that they ran out of, talk methrough why you guys felt it was
so critical to have these piecesintegrated and what does it do
(13:55):
ultimately for your guests andreally the operators at the end
of the day?
I can
Peter Wiley (14:00):
totally relate to that because that's where we
were before.
Yeah.
You got a GrubHub tablet sittingthere.
You ding in, you got a DoorDashtablet, you got Uber eat.
Yep.
Generally, in all of ourmarkets, we have all three.
I realize other markets may haveeven more, but it was like, good
gosh, this is, you know.
A nightmare, right?
I'm sitting in an office, let'sbe honest, I'm not rolling out,
I'm not sitting there rollingburritos every day.
(14:22):
and so part of the key wasgetting, you know, seeing that
right?
And seeing what a nightmare itwas to deal with.
Um, we tried a couple othersolutions in between that, tried
some menu mapping to get'em totry to come into the point of
sale.
They kind of did it, butultimately, lots of times you're
still relying on that tablet.
and, I'm gonna, I can't help butplug Q on this one because they
(14:43):
really.
Simplified that one of the keythings we looked in, the point
of sale, again, having comingfrom that problem was as we
started shopping around, whatkind of integrations do you
have?
Is a third party required?
Do you have direct integrations?
And that was honestly a reallybig hook for me because we was
becoming such a big part of ourbusiness.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (15:03):
And I think more importantly, it was becoming
such a pain point.
you can't do it right.
If you can't make the orderright, let alone get it in the
bag.
And so by having the directintegration, my crew is obl, not
oblivious.
I mean, they have it, it says onthe kitchen chip, but whether
it's an online order, a DoorDashorder, a GrubHub order, or Uber
Eats order, it just comesthrough the point of sale.
(15:24):
Prints out the kitchen chip.
They don't, they don't have tothink about it.
They don't have to look at atablet.
It just says, you know, GrubHubor DoorDash.
we also do, uh, delivery throughDoorDash Drive.
Yeah, that's where I was gonna
Speaker (15:35):
go next was just help, help our listeners that are less
familiar with DoorDash Drive.
Yeah.
I think everybody's familiarwith DoorDash having, having an
order get inserted into therestaurant and they're the, the
arbiter of the record, butDoorDash Drive is kind of a
little bit in between.
I'd love for you to educate someof our listeners that might not
be familiar with that.
Peter Wiley (15:52):
Yeah, it's, we've been using it for a number of
years.
So you have DoorDash, uh,marketplaces.
They'll generally call it if youtalk to'em.
and then you have DoorDashDrive, and they actually have
another one called DoorDashStorefront.
So, um, they, they're kind ofplaying in the.
A few of us feel a little bit ifyou want to on the outline.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (16:07):
But DoorDash Drive specifically what it does is it
allows us to take orders throughour website or through our
platform native, if you wannacall it.
just like they're placed in apickup order and they simply can
pick delivery.
And on the backend, when theychoose delivery, you know, it
runs all the address check andall of that.
It sends a call out to DoorDashDrive, which, or DoorDash,
(16:27):
essentially drivers and says,Hey, we got an order to be
picked up.
Without the integration, youcould still do this manually,
but you have to do it throughthe website and select a driver.
So, with the integration, itjust, it's, again, it's
transparent for my crew, it's, Iwon't say it's completely
transparent to the customer,'cause customer gets it.
Guess what?
There's a DoorDash person theredelivering their food and
(16:48):
they're like.
But I think they've come aroundto, that's just how it is.
It's really, really hard tocompete, uh, at least to our
volume of delivery, to selfdeliver.
DoorDash Drive makes it veryeffective, very affordable.
It's a flat rate instead of acommission, right?
Mm-hmm.
So if I'm on, somebody comesthrough DoorDash marketplace,
you pay 10 or probably 20 to 30%on a commission.
(17:11):
Yep.
Versus DoorDash Drive, you havejust a flat fee.
So the bigger the order, themore money I make as a
restaurant, the more profitableI am.
Versus on marketplace, you justkeep getting chunked at the
percentage.
So,
Speaker (17:23):
Yeah.
No, and it's, it's amazing howfew people I think, exercise
that, and I know Uber's got acompetitive product as well
coming out you know, the UberEats group is doing something
similar mm-hmm.
And are looking to do exactlythe same thing.
We've had them on the showbefore.
you talked about large orders.
I know that one of the growthareas for your business is
trying to figure out how to getthose larger orders.
I'd love for you to talk throughwhat does that look like?
(17:45):
And, and you know, again, I justgot back.
Tech would, the time we'rerecording this, they would have
talk about catering.
A lot of people are returningback to office and catering
orders come back and nodifferent than you guys were
able to expand your offerings.
Um, having online ordering and,and third party during COVID.
Now with people coming back in,how are you guys thinking about
(18:07):
catering and what does catering,have the ability to impact the
business, I guess, in generalfor you guys?
Peter Wiley (18:13):
Catering is huge for us.
and we want it to be bigger.
So for the last probably twoyears, it's been a primary
focus.
I wish we could say we excelledat it.
we, you have not.
Over the years, we've, so wejust thought it was challenging,
it's not an easy thing to do.
Um, you got customers that wannanegotiate with you and,
businesses that wanted on shortnotice.
So it was like, man, how do wemanage this and make it really
(18:35):
easy for the team, right?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (18:38):
Yeah, the customer might get it, but the team's
gotta be able to execute itwithout stressing out about it
and make it super easy.
so what really what we did is wemoved it all to online ordering.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
So
Peter Wiley (18:46):
again, we were able to create a separate online
ordering menu for catering,which was great.
makes it super easy to order.
You can add modifiers, you canadd, you know, add-ons, you can
pick your number of people, etcetera.
And we built it into packagesthat we have.
Easy, a deluxe and a VIP.
So it kind of fixes your pricepoint.
You know, do you want the basicor do you want something that's
got a few more options, or youjust kind of want all of the
(19:07):
options out there, and load itup.
And by doing that, what we didis we took it out of the, the
phone call, we took it out ofour crew, having to understand
and.
Do math and have a spreadsheet.
It just all that went away.
Just, Hey, you wanna placecatering order hit us up online.
Cool.
Guess what?
You can sign up for a rewardsaccount and get points on
catering, which is awesome.
(19:28):
Uh.
So it just comes through as anorder and the crew kicks it out.
We have some parameters on, youknow, how much lead time you
need and et cetera, to certainlyaccommodate the larger orders.
Uh, but that was our solution,was push it online, make it
really easy to order, and, givesthe customer some benefit to
order.
Again, if you're a rewardsmember, it's a huge.
(19:49):
For you as a customer and ourcrew just, they don't think
about it anymore.
Once you understand how to doit, like, man, I'm just cooking
a bunch of chicken and throw itin a pan, right?
And I don't gotta roll burrito,I'm gonna do nothing.
It's actually super easy.
So your labor goes way down andyour profitability goes up.
Speaker (20:03):
Well, and that was really where I was, I was gonna
go with it, Peter, is, is didyou guys for online?
And a lot of people I think needto evaluate this for just pure
online orders, whether it'sthrough DoorDash Drive, or even
for, pickup or, or any of thoseother areas as well as catering.
It sounds like you guys haveevaluated your menu offerings
that they may or may not be theexact same as what I can get
(20:23):
when I walk into the store.
Talk me through kind of how youguys evaluate that.
'cause catering, some placeswill cater fully made kind of,
you know, pre-made burritos or,or bowls or whatever else.
Other places, to your point,it's a, it's a alexan with, you
know, with chicken and beef andwhatever it is that you guys are
serving.
So I'd love for you to talkthrough how you guys as a brand
even evaluated that as you guysare trying to grow it, to ensure
(20:44):
that both the guests aresatisfied and it doesn't kill
the store and the in, in-storeexperience.
Peter Wiley (20:48):
Yeah.
For our online menu for, we'llcall it regular items, right?
Non catering items, it'sidentical to what you can get in
the store.
We just left it all the same.
The only caveat to that isfountain drinks.
Uh, we had a lot of challengeswith fountain drinks getting
forgotten, not picked up.
We're like, and because weoffered delivery too, it became
a, a pain point for the driver.
So, uh, I think that's the onlyvariance we have between if you
(21:09):
come in a restaurant and youorder online and on the catering
side, again, we tried to puttogether packages that may be
easy.
You can do a la carte and youcan modify the packages a fair
amount, uh, but one to keep itreally simple, really
streamlined, and easy to order,easy to make.
Every time.
Right.
Speaker (21:25):
yep.
So you said something duringyour description of catering
that I think is somewhat uniqueto what you guys do.
Yeah.
And I'd love for you to talk alittle bit about this, which is
you guys have got a loyaltyprogram and, and I know that it
across the board, thedefinitions of loyalty and what
does loyalty even mean?
Everybody wants to debate aboutit.
But knowing who your guests areand understanding when they're
(21:46):
coming in and giving thembenefit for coming back.
Oftentimes catering comes fromyour non-traditional customer,
but you want them to come in fortheir individual items.
And I've, I've talked withbrands in the past where it's
like I've got the executiveassistant that's ordering from
hotheads, you know, once a monthor twice a month, they get all
of those points and then can gotake their family out.
And so I'd love to have you talkabout why did you guys make that
(22:07):
decision?
'cause some brands are like, youknow what?
You don't get loyalty pointsbecause, um, and then there's
others like you guys that, thatare doing that.
I'd love for you to talkthrough.
How does loyalty play such ahuge part in your business?
Number one.
And number two, why did you guyschoose to have catering
participate in the loyaltyreward?
Peter Wiley (22:23):
Yep.
If I can go with two first, itwas definitely debated.
It was, I'm sure there's a, a,you're getting a lot of points.
Average catering orders, 200 to300 bucks.
Uh, you know, sometimes you get$1,300 catering order.
Do we really want to do this?
And ultimately it came down to.
Our goal is to grow catering andmake catering a significant part
of our business.
(22:43):
Mm-hmm.
Uh, we wanna aim for 20% atleast, and we got a long ways to
go to get there.
So every incentive possible is.
Worth it, right?
It, the, your profit marginincreases, your labor goes down.
So why in the world do I notwant to incentivize people every
single way possible to ordercatering from us?
you know, you hear the story ofthe drug reps, uh, who just, you
(23:04):
know, they're ordering all thetime.
And, you know, we haven't reallymentioned ezCater.
Uh, ezCater is a real factor.
so we gotta compete with them,right?
Mm-hmm.
People
Speaker 3 (23:13):
are
Peter Wiley (23:13):
used to ordering from there.
So we wanna give you anincentive.
Don't eat, don't order fromezCater, order from us.
You're gonna get points, you getfree food from it.
and we recently turned ondelivery for catering, uh, again
using DoorDash Drive.
So that's been probably abouttwo months.
Again, competing with ezCater,competing with people.
I don't wanna go pick it up,right, like you said.
Somebody an assistance orderingfor the office.
(23:34):
Last thing we wanna do is get upand burn an hour and go and get
food somewhere.
So now we can have it delivered.
Show up at your door.
We're actually far lessexpensive, than easy Cater to
have it delivered.
And I'll be running a promohere, uh, with free delivery.
'cause again, using DoorDashDrive, I'm not on a commission
basis.
I'm on a flat fee, and the flatfee is a heck of a lot less.
(23:54):
Uh, then ECAs commission.
So we're gonna be pushing that.
And, that was a real, everythingwe can do to push cater is why
we decided to go ahead and leavepoints on the board for
catering.
Speaker (24:06):
Love that.
flipping back to question one, Iguess, talk to me a little bit
philosophically, what, what isyour view on, on loyalty?
And again, there's the pointsystem, there's the punch
system, there's the.
But again, I thinkphilosophically, I, I've heard
lots of different brands overthe years go different routes
and I know it's something youguys have had in the brand for
quite some time.
(24:27):
And so I'd love to have you helpour listeners to get educated on
what have you found to beeffective for you guys?
Peter Wiley (24:32):
it goes way back.
My brother who started it was asubway guy for 26 years.
so you guys remember the subwaystamp cards?
I was a subway manager back whenI was 20.
I'm not 20 anymore.
you know, so that, that cameessentially with the brand,
right?
He is like, from the get go,we're gonna have rewards.
Worked well at Subway, didreally well for him.
So here we go.
So we had sticker cards forever.
(24:55):
and people loved them.
You know, they would collectthem, they'd have a stack of'em,
they'd have stickers.
And we're like, okay, this is,we're getting bigger and bigger
now.
You know?
Yeah.
You're like, uh, we're not in
Speaker (25:03):
1987 anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hey,
Peter Wiley (25:05):
where'd that role of stickers go?
Uhhuh?
I dunno.
Oh geez.
anyway, so then quickly it waslike, we need to look at a
digital system.
And we looked really hard andcontemplated it really hard.
'cause it's one of those thingspeople really liked about having
a sticker card.
It's tangible, it's in yourhand.
It's like a touchy feely, warm,fuzzy thing.
and so we did move to a digitalplatform and it was, uh, a
(25:29):
little challenging because ofthey wanted the sticker card.
You had to do a conversion,bring in a card, use it by this
date, et cetera.
Uh.
As we did that, the benefit withbeing digital, right?
I got some analytics, right?
Mm-hmm.
I get some data, I get names, Iget emails, I get phone numbers.
I get the ability to reach backout to those people and entice
them to come back in, or atleast make'em think about us.
(25:52):
And so that's really where welook at, the loyalty play.
Um, we work with Punch.
It's been a great, lots of waysto target people, look after
them, send general rewards, youknow, so we play a little bit of
both games.
We play segmented where we'regonna go after you because we
know you like a burrito, youknow, you like queso on your
burrito.
So guess what?
You're gonna get a case ofoffer.
But then we also will come back,you know, with an LTO like our
(26:14):
ghost and Reaper currently.
And say everybody's gonna getthat because that, that's, we're
telling everybody about.
It's a great opportunity.
So we, we walk the line betweentrying to be very targeted and
also being very broad and havesome fun with the messaging.
so it's, it's become an integralpart of our marketing and every,
we got stuff going out everyweek.
Um, every campaign is builtaround having some element of
(26:34):
it.
it, it, it just, I think thereis a, a groundswell of debate
whether you need loyaltyanymore, is it the right thing
anymore?
I'm still in the camp of, itbrings us, uh, a lot of repeat
business.
It lets us reach our customersvery easily.
so I'm in the camp of, yeah, wewanna have a loyalty platform.
and where you wanna look, Ithink where you start to get
(26:57):
sketchy on it is your discountrate.
Mm-hmm.
So if you see that you're justobliterating your discount rate,
then maybe you want to, youknow, a little timeout and how
do we do this?
So.
We walk that line pretty good.
We don't run a super highdiscount rate, uh, impacting our
stores, even though we do runsome really good offers.
Like this week we're running aorder online and, Buy, you know,
spend 10 bucks or more and get50% off your next order.
(27:19):
Right.
Speaker (27:19):
So, well, I feel like you're, uh, you're reading my
playbook here'cause I was gonnaask,'cause one of big things
that I know a lot of people talkabout, Peter, this is gonna be
kinda the last line ofquestioning Okay.
Is converting people fromin-store to online.
From online to catering, from oncatering back to in-store and
kind of being able to get moreusage out of them.
Mm-hmm.
You know, obviously you've gotthe, you know, the idea behind
loyalty is that you're gonna,um.
(27:41):
Help people remember you whenthey've lapsed.
Yep.
Know where they're at, createsome reason for them to come in.
But I also find a lot of timesregulars don't know you have a
catering program, and so theydon't think of you guys that
way, or they don't think of youas a DoorDash drive opportunity
or any of those kind of things.
So converting them.
So I love your thought thatsays, oh, you come in here.
Now your next order online isthis, or you ordered online now
(28:04):
your next in store purchase isthat.
And so I'd love to get yourthoughts, Peter, on kind of, you
know, you're a marketing guy wholives in it as well.
So the, the convergence of thosetwo is huge.
And I think way too few brandsthink about converting between
the different ordering channelsto drive top line sales and
ultimately.
Um, more frequency within thestore.
So I'd love, love to have you,uh, expound upon that if you
(28:26):
could.
Yeah.
That,
Peter Wiley (28:27):
that's, that is a a million dollar question.
Mm-hmm.
It's hard driving those toprevenue sales.
where we have seen, some, I'dsay our most success is seeing
people once they come into theapp, we can statistically see
that they're more likely toorder online and have higher
online ordering sales.
So a lot of our campaigns aredriven around, join a rewards
club.
(28:47):
You join the rewards club, youget an offer.
I realize that, and we have lotsof debates on now I'm excluding
and we're about a 20% rewardsparticipation rates.
That means I got 80% of mycustomers.
I'm not making the offer to.
But what we've seen when we dothat, even just a like last week
around a couple different offersaround queso in guac, and while
(29:07):
the offer was redeemed prettywell with the rewards members,
what we looked, what we gottalook at is.
What did it do to my sales?
Not, and not just my rewardsmembers.
So if, if all I looked at waswhere my rewards member results,
I'd be like,
Speaker 3 (29:22):
eh,
Peter Wiley (29:22):
it's okay.
What?
It didn't blow me out of thewater and, you know, I'm doing
cartwheels.
But then when I stepped back andsaid, but what did it do to my
queso, for example?
What did it do to my overallcase of sales for that day?
It was just a one day nationalcase of day thing.
We look back and our case ofsales were up, anywhere between
10 and 20% in differentlocations.
Forget the rewards members, justhow many queso items were
(29:44):
ordered.
10, 20% increase is.
That's a huge success, right?
Speaker (29:50):
Yeah.
Peter Wiley (29:51):
Uh, at least in my book, maybe other people are
getting 90, at a hundred, butwe're
Speaker (29:54):
not, not even close.
Peter Wiley (29:55):
Yeah.
So, uh, so as we start to, andwe're getting better at it, this
is something I think is alearning curve.
I think it is a lots of ab andtesting.
So we're trying to do moretests.
You know, on some of'em we'llrun, we'll throw marketing
dollars behind it.
On some of'em we won't.
We're in tv, radio, and lots ofdifferent platforms.
Sometimes we've con, leveragedthose platforms to promote
(30:16):
those.
And sometimes we haven't to tryto see does it make a
difference?
where do we see the results?
So, so I, I think hopefully thathelps out.
Just be willing to experiment,uh, and be willing to try some
different things and don't justfocus on the loyalty results,
but focus on.
What did it do to your storesales, uh, or even those item
sales you're promoting, so,
Speaker (30:35):
yep.
No, and I think that's hugethat, uh, using data and, when
we've made it 30 minutesthrough, uh, I'm sure there's
something you guys are doing AIrelated.
Maybe I should ask you, what doyou, what do you do in AI
related, just'cause everybody'salways intrigued and I'm sure
you've gotten asked the questionthe last half a dozen panels
you've been on.
Oh, yeah.
Everybody, ai,
Peter Wiley (30:50):
ai,
Speaker (30:50):
uhhuh,
Peter Wiley (30:51):
the extent of our AI is currently, uh, most of the
time it's with chat GBT.
We also use Gemini some.
Uh, but we've leveraged it for alot of brainstorming.
what can we do?
What are the questions?
What are, you know, even some.
Scripting ideas because you justget, you're doing this for a
while at the same brand.
A little stuck, like I've saidthe same thing in the last 10
(31:12):
commercials.
Why?
How can I say that differently?
so that's been super helpful.
It's also kind of cool to lookat some data.
it, it's, you know, it's notperfect and you hear about, you
know, it's, it's ghosting ormiscalculated and you're doing
something like that.
Speaker (31:24):
Sure.
But most times, directionally,it really is helpful to get to
the next level if you, if you doit properly.
Peter Wiley (31:30):
Exactly.
And we're looking at bringingon, a new data platform, a
customer data platform, um, thathas an AI built in.
So it will help us evaluate evenmore.
an ai, you know, if I couldthrow out a, a, uh, a request to
punch, it'd be, man, you know,incorporate an AI platform right
into punch because there's somuch data in whatever your
loyalty platform is.
(31:50):
Uh, there's so much data inthere and you know, with a
traditional SQL query, you'retrying to go through a
dashboard, it can bechallenging.
But it, but being able to use
Speaker (31:57):
natural language processing that says, gimme my
top 10 restaurant, top 10 guestsfor this and I'm gonna send them
an extra$10 off this week and togive to somebody else or
whatever.
That'd be huge.
Peter Wiley (32:06):
And it opens up to your entire team to ask those
questions versus me being a datanerd or my IT guy who, you know,
go in, figure all the options.
It's like, no, I can just, likeyou just said, anyone on my team
doesn't have to know anything,can ask those questions and get
some answers.
And I think, I think that'ssuper cool where a, you know,
for us.
I think it's gonna make the datathat much more accessible so we
(32:28):
can make better decisions, inour scenario.
Speaker (32:32):
I love that.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pivotone last set of questions,
Peter.
Okay.
if people haven't been a hotheadburritos, what is the number one
seller and then how does Peter,'cause you've been working with
this brand for a while.
Yeah.
I'm certain you have some crazymodifications that you do to
your orders, or at leasteverybody that I talked to in
restaurants.
So what is kind of the one ortwo go-to for people that have
(32:52):
never experienced the brand,they walk in and it's like,
these are the one or two itemsthat made you guys famous.
And then what is Peter's go-toorder?
Peter Wiley (32:58):
Yeah, probably the most popular is our Sweet ha and
Aero Burrito.
everybody thinks it's gonna behot and it's not.
and our chicken is a proprietarysignature marinated chicken, so
that's a substantial portionover our sales.
So people really love gettingthat.
So you get sweet ha and arrowcomes with rice beans, ru in
cheddar cheese and sweet ha andaero sauce.
You can always add anythingelse, you know, you can add
other choices to it.
(33:19):
But that's really a go-to andsomething we recommend.
If you don't mind, just a littlebit of zip and prefer something
a little more savory instead ofsweet.
Um, the hothead sauce, we havea, a Leroy spicy chicken
Leroy's, our mascot.
We call'em, probably see'embehind me on the wall.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (33:33):
Uh, that adds some more heat.
Uh, again, it's a proprietaryspicy sauce.
We have a lot of things thatwe've developed that are unique
to us, so you're not justwalking in and getting ranch,
uh, you're walking in andgetting, Southwest or hothead
sauce or, uh, avocado lime.
So sweet habanero would be thego-to.
And we have a lot of people thatmix'em.
Speaker (33:52):
Okay.
Peter Wiley (33:53):
I never, I've been here a long time and I never
thought about putting sweethabanero and hothead together,
but it's amazing that they do.
Or they'll take teriyaki and mixit with something else You're
like.
Okay.
Hey, man, you like it, you likeit.
My go-to lately has really beenprobably our h or um, our
jalapeno Ranch Bowl.
Speaker (34:12):
Okay.
Peter Wiley (34:13):
Which is one of our craft recipes.
But I really like the JalapenoRanch.
It's got a little bit of kick.
It's not too much.
I try to, in theory, do a littlebit of a low carb diet, so
sometimes I'll swap it out andgo with lettuce instead of the
rice.
but yeah, that's kind of mygo-to.
So.
Speaker (34:27):
Awesome.
And protein on your, is it thechicken?
Is that what you go with?
I
Peter Wiley (34:30):
go back and forth.
I kind of alternate.
So, uh, I do chicken a fairamount, but I do the steak a
fair amount too.
We got a nice, seasoning and dryrub on it that I like so.
Speaker (34:39):
Awesome.
So Peter, how do people learnmore?
How do people stay engaged withthe brand?
Um, you know, obviously ifthey're in the area, go check it
out.
If they're not, uh, sure gocheck out the website.
But what's the website and howdo they stay engaged to, to
learn more about what you guysare doing?
Peter Wiley (34:52):
Yeah.
Hothead burritos.com.
Uh, super simple.
If you wanna check out ourcatering, it's just slash
catering.
It's all up there.
we just, we try to have a goodtime.
We're always revamping doingsome stuff.
If you wanna have, you know,engage with the brand a little
bit more, I'm gonna plug our, wehave some games out there,
hothead burrito slash games thathas been a lot of fun addition
to us, a little bit on the technerdy side, but a little bit on
the, uh, playful side too.
(35:13):
So
Speaker (35:13):
I love that.
Well, Peter, thank you forsharing kind of your guys'
journey.
thank you for continuing tocreate a unique experience
'cause, uh.
Again, as a, as a consumer, it'sa, it's a fun brand to go check
out and you guys have a lot ofdifferent options to, to serve a
lot of different palettes.
So, to our listeners guys, youguys have got a lot of choices,
so thank you guys for hangingout.
If you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do so on your
favorite listening platform andmake it a great day.
(35:35):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology
Guys podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
This is the Restaurant Technology Guides
podcast, helping you run yourrestaurant better.
Jeremy Julian (00:14):
What happens when a Midwest burrito chain cracks a
code of blending marketingtechnology and 16 different
sauces?
On today's show, we dive intothe story of hothead burritos
and one of its founders, PeterWiley, the marketing IT
Mastermind behind theirexplosive growth.
He and I have a really uniqueconversation that I don't see in
(00:35):
many people where he is not onlya founder, but understands.
The role of technology as wellas marketing and how it's going
to help grow their brand.
He shares some really expertinsights on how he took away
tablets and changed the orderingexperience for their guests to
continue to see their growththat, uh, nations Restaurant
News, and many otherpublications continue to talk
(00:57):
about.
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy Julian.
I'm the Chief Revenue Officer ofCBS North Star.
We sell the North Star point ofsale solution for multi-units.
Please check us out.
At CBS northstar.com and nowonto the episode.
Okay.
Welcome back to the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast.
I thank everyone out there forjoining us.
(01:18):
Uh, today I am joined by a brandthat selfishly I was able to
experience, and I know Peterwill talk a little bit about who
they are, where it came fromand, and whatnot, but, um,
really, really good product, funbrand growing, really making a
huge difference in kind of theirmarkets.
But Peter, why don't youintroduce yourself real quick.
a man of many trades, lots ofdifferent things that you get to
do for the brand, and then we'lltalk a little bit about.
(01:40):
Who you get to work with?
Peter Wiley (01:41):
Sure.
Well, my name's Peter Wiley.
I'm with a brand called HotheadBurritos outta the Midwest.
Uh, my brother started it in2007, so we've been around for
quite a few years.
Uh, I've been doing, marketingfrom the very beginning, logo
design, radio commercials, youname it, I've done it in one
shape form.
And as we've, grown, taken onmore of an IT role.
you know, it was a big bridgebetween marketing and it.
(02:02):
Now it's hard to do one withoutthe other.
So I kind of oversee the pointof sale, credit card processing,
gift cards, point of just reallyall those parts that have to
play together to make a campaignwork.
so that's my main role rightnow.
So
Speaker (02:15):
I'm saying, did you jump into it willingly or are
you one of those people thatreluctantly said.
Hey, if this crap doesn't work,I'm not gonna be able to get my
marketing stuff off the ground.
Or, or were you kind of a nerdthat you enjoyed that side?
I'm kind of a nerd.
Peter Wiley (02:25):
Yeah.
I mean, I, I've always been, uh,anything from graphic design,
audio engineering, been audioengineer for 30 years, still
mixed for a country band forfun.
Um, so I like, I like how allthe little things work together,
and I think it's funded fun tofit that puzzle piece.
Speaker (02:40):
That's awesome.
So for those that have notgotten to experience, and again,
I'm selfish enough that I havebeen able to, to experience it.
What is Hothead Burritos tell,tell us a little bit about the
brand.
Sure.
You know, where did it comefrom?
You know, you say it's beenaround, close to, close to 20
years, I think, you know.
Oh seven, yeah.
Yeah.
18 years.
Yeah, 18 years.
Yeah.
but what is the brand?
Is it, you know, talk us throughwhat is the brand, what makes it
special?
Peter Wiley (03:00):
Sure, yeah.
It's a fast casual Mexicanplace, so, or, or burritos,
hothead.
Burritos as you come.
My figured, uh, we actually sellprobably 60 to 70% bowls.
Uh, we also offer quesadillas,tacos and nachos.
But burritos and bowls arecertainly the core, thing.
And really what separates usfrom, uh, any of the number of
other competitors out there, uh,is we offer a large, wide
(03:23):
variety of flavors.
And specifically we offer 16different sauces.
lots of places to go and you canget sour cream, you can get, you
know, hot salsa or mild salsa.
That's cool.
We got all that.
but really it comes down tosauces, right?
We have our signature hotheadsauce, which is a zesty garlic
sauce.
it's super popular.
We have a sweet habanero saucethat's, uh, all sweet and no
(03:44):
heat, as we like to say.
Literally not hot at all, andsome people like to mix the two.
so as we've grown evolved, we'vetried different sauces.
We've recently rolled out likean avocado lime and a jalapeno
ranch.
And, so that just really letsyou get what you want the way
you want it, and have some funwith it.
That's the big difference.
We also do toast our burritosand bowls.
(04:06):
um, familiar with the speedovens.
Our next campaign coming up, uh,in the fall or in the winter is
everything's better toasted,right?
So it gives us some fun play onwords and differentiating factor
for
Speaker (04:18):
I love that.
And so talk me through where,what is your guys', I guess
penetration, you said you're upupper Midwest.
I I, I think you said you'rebased in Ohio.
How many stores are there?
Kind of, how, how big of a, aswath are you, have you guys had
at this point?
Sure,
Peter Wiley (04:31):
yeah.
We're at, uh, 87 locationscurrently.
Um, a majority are in theMidwest.
We're based outta Dayton, Ohio.
and we go up into, Cleveland,Youngstown.
Toledo a little bit.
Everything in between Columbus,heavily in Cincinnati.
I would say probably betweenDayton, Cincinnati, there's
probably 40 ish within, youknow, a short drive.
and then you get, we have acouple in New England, uh,
(04:52):
operated by a franchisee outthere.
Got one, uh, out in Texas.
And then we got, five in thepanhandle of Florida.
so that's kind of fun.
Had a franchisee that was downthere, um, and migrating,
working our way into Indiana.
I think we're up to sevenlocations in Indiana.
I currently got one in Kentuckyworking on a couple more.
We do have, new Jersey'sprobably next on the.
(05:13):
They're looking for a locationright now.
goal is to grow and keepgrowing.
So,
Speaker (05:17):
uh, that's awesome.
so Peter, talk me through alittle bit of kind of the
experience, because again, I gotto go to, I think everybody has
been to some of the stalwartsthat have been in the space, the
Qdoba, the Chipotles of theworld, and they go in and to
your point, the menu selectionis pretty slimmed down.
You kind of know what you'regonna get.
And then you go in and again, Iwent to a competitor on the East
(05:38):
coast, that is based in NewJersey or started in New Jersey.
You probably know exactly whoI'm talking about, just
recently.
And I brought a new guest therewho had never been.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah,
Speaker (05:46):
and there's so much more.
There's sauces, there'sdifferent ways you can
experience the brand.
And so I'd love for you.
As we talk about in person, andthen we'll get to kind of the
technology and how you guys dothis, but how do you guys
introduce these type ofexperiences to your first time
guests?
Because it is a elevatedexperience from some of those
stalwarts that have been in thespace.
Peter Wiley (06:06):
Yeah, and that's a great question, and one we
continue to work on every singleday.
Uh, our several years ago, totry to address that to the best
of our ability is we came outwith craft recipes.
So yeah, a lot of places youwalk in again.
name Chipotle, right?
Huge sales.
Super simple menu.
You had three or four things topick over the last couple years.
They rolled out a few morethings.
(06:27):
They actually rolled out a saucerecently if you didn't notice.
Speaker (06:29):
Oh, they didn't.
I'm not a huge, my, my teenagekids are big Chipotle people.
Yeah.
I, I see the bags in the trash,but I don't go there that often
myself.
But, uh,
Peter Wiley (06:37):
fair enough.
Yeah.
You know, they're great brands.
They do very well.
So nothing bad to say aboutthem.
but again, super simple menu.
I'll take that.
Right.
Versus you walk into us, you'relike, wow, that's a lot of like,
I got a burrito or a bowl.
Now you have all these othertoppings I gotta choose and, and
16 sauces to choose from, andwhich one do I get?
so what we did is simply builtcraft recipe, what we call craft
recipes.
(06:57):
So we said, here's some, here'ssome of our most popular
combinations, different flavorprofiles.
Some are sweet, some are hot,some are super hot.
right now we have a, its fall,2025.
We've got a ghost pepper and areaper burrito, right?
It's got Carolina Reaper cheese,ghost pepper sauce, spicy steak,
spicy chicken.
So we try to go.
Back and forth in both ways.
So when you walk in, you can beoverwhelmed.
(07:19):
In my mind, I kinda liken it toa smoothie place.
Mm-hmm.
It's like you walk in, you pick,man, I'm gonna take, you know
that smoothie?
'cause it sounds good.
So that, that, that is ourapproach to try to really
simplify the experience and alsogive you something that you
really like.
Because if you go to some of theother brands and come into
hothead and get the identicalthing.
It's not gonna have the sameflavor profile, so you might be
(07:40):
disappointed.
So we're like, no, we reallywant you to try one of the
sauces.
Pick one of them, put it onthere, we'll give it to you on
the side.
Uh.
And push people into thosedifferent flavor profiles that
they've never tried before.
Speaker (07:52):
Yeah.
And I, and I, and I think asconsumers and as you look at the
studies, especially the youngerwe get, you know, the younger
demographic is spending money,they oftentimes want those
abilities.
That was just with a brand, um,with people that are now
running, uh, KFC's, new saucybrand.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Exactly.
And it's all
Speaker (08:07):
about.
You know those 11 new, newspices?
I, we were talking before we getrecorded.
I was with, you know, some ofthe new operators over there and
they're like, yeah, it's allabout those 11 sauces and people
being able to to do that.
And so I love that.
How do you guys balance thatwith efficiency to ensure that
you guys don't have a queue thatgoes out the.
Out the door and you guys start,are treating people because they
(08:28):
can't come in and get theexperience that they might want
because they've only got 30minutes for lunch or whatever
else.
Peter Wiley (08:32):
Yep.
So craft recipes help addressthat.
'cause you come in and say like,I'll walk in, take the jalapeno
ranch, but I don't say anythingelse.
So they build, they know therecipe, they go down, build it.
Done super fast.
if from a training standpoint,if you're kind of new, you
haven't been there before, notnecessarily wanna try the craft,
or if you do wanna try thecraft, you know, we have line
speeds, we call it, right?
(08:53):
Ask the, ask three questions,right?
Would you like, white rice orblack or, um, we got Mexican
rice now too, so we got, uh,white rice, brown rice, or
Mexican rice.
Great.
Would you like black beans orpinto?
Would you like chicken soy?
You're not asking them 50million questions on everything.
You're leading them through themost popular items to help'em,
have a great experience.
Simplify it for the crew,simplify it for the customer so
when they get done, they'relike.
(09:14):
That was pretty easy.
Mm-hmm.
Now I, I like it and I can getit again.
Speaker (09:18):
Well, and, and again, we talk about the importance of
having the choice and havingthis brand that's not
irreverent, but it's, it's funand kind of spunky.
Yeah.
Even your guys' little logo iskind of that way.
Yep.
So, now how does that translate,um, Peter to kind of the digital
aspect?
I know part of what we wanted totalk about on today's episode is
kind of how do you guys getdigital and again, in your guys'
(09:39):
concept.
Outside of catering, but evenjust for whether it's third
party or it's first party,getting to digital in fast
casual is imperative in 2025 andbeyond.
A hundred percent.
So talk me through kind of whythat's such a critical piece to
be able to have that sameexperience digitally for these
people that want to engage withthe brand.
Peter Wiley (09:57):
Yeah.
It, it is critical nowadays.
I've been in, uh, someconferences recently and you
kind of do a survey like howmany people you know, had online
ordering five years ago, and
Speaker 3 (10:06):
there.
Peter Wiley (10:07):
few go up.
How many people had onlineordering two years ago?
You know, it just goes up andup, right?
Mm-hmm.
we had basic online ordering,before COVID, and we had
thankfully migrated to, our newpoint of sale, which is Q and we
used their online ordering.
and it just made it super easyto manage, super easy for
customers to get on and placethe order.
So you gotta have it.
(10:27):
We're 90% carry out and we're.
30% off-prem.
If I get my, if I remembercorrectly, that's a combination
of third party delivery and,online ordering.
And we're just seeing thatcontinue to go up, uh, month
after month, year after year.
And so we have to embrace it andget good at it operationally and
technologically.
Speaker (10:48):
yeah.
And, and so talk me through,'cause again, you guys have got
lots of choices.
Mm-hmm.
So now we put those, it's easywhen I'm standing in front of a
staff member and it, you gothrough this experience.
Yeah.
Yes.
You can have the brown rice, theMexican rice, or the white rice,
but being able to manage evenwhat burrito got into what bag
and, and you know, ensuring thatall of that happens.
(11:08):
Yeah.
'cause you don't have a easy wayto guest recover.
If it's off-prem.
So I'd love for you to talkthrough some of the things that
you guys think about because youguys have got probably, I mean,
if you were to extrapolate itout, tens of thousands of
choices between proteins andsauces and, and starches and,
and beans that just turn intosomething that's challenging to
execute on every time and getthe guests what they're looking
(11:30):
for so that they do come backand, and we all know that repeat
guests are, are a huge part ofour business and we have to have
it.
Peter Wiley (11:37):
Yeah.
Yeah, that, that is definitely achallenge.
And again, it's something Ithink all of us wrestle with in
the restaurant industry atwhatever level you're at.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (11:44):
Um, we worked really hard to, we use a kitchen
chi system, so we don't have aKDS again, most of our stuff is
made on a make line, so we don'thave a separate make line in
most of our tables or most ofour restaurants.
so the kitchen chip just seemedto be the best solution because
you can.
Essentially attach it to theburrito or bowl you're working
on and it tells you exactly whatto do.
It just read the, read it,what's on it, chicken?
(12:08):
Mm-hmm.
White rice, et cetera.
Makes it super easy to go downthe line, put it in the bag.
We have the ability to print outa whole summary kitchen chip, so
you can say, well, this order,you know, has four items.
It's got two, two burritos, abowl and a bag of chips.
Cool.
I got my master ticket that hasall of that on that I got my
individual tickets for each ofthe items.
(12:28):
I can double check that I got'emall, put'em all in the same bag,
put that the customer receipt onthe bag that has everything
listed on it.
Uh.
You should be good to go.
I wish I could say we wereperfect.
we are not, occasionally theygrab the wrong thing, wrong
order, but, uh, that's, that isa, a primary focus to get better
(12:49):
and better at that.
Speaker (12:50):
Yeah, and I think in general, I, I, you know,
thinking about that first isdefinitely something that, that
I think brands don't evaluate sothat they can get that training.
Because again, oftentimes whenthat guest has gotten the bad
experience.
They don't come back.
And so ensuring that you guyscan, can, get the right things
in the bag is a big piece ofwhat I spend time.
(13:11):
With operators, they're allworking on it.
Yeah, they're all working on,you know, there's gotta be some
magic bullet and eventuallywe'll get there.
But where there's some computerthat's gonna be sitting and
looking at the make line andsaying, Peter, did you ensure
that you put the right thing inhere, but we're not there today.
so talk me through'cause again,I dine out, I go to places that
don't have point of sale,integrated with third party,
integrated with online ordering.
(13:32):
They've got tablet.
What I call tablet hell, wherethey got a half a dozen tablets
sitting there on the, on, youknow, on the line.
And somebody's sitting theremaking, all of these different,
different, processes.
They run out of something, nowthey gotta go to each of the
tablets and go turn off.
Mm-hmm.
You know, the, the protein thatthey ran out of, or the sauce
that they ran out of, talk methrough why you guys felt it was
so critical to have these piecesintegrated and what does it do
(13:55):
ultimately for your guests andreally the operators at the end
of the day?
I can
Peter Wiley (14:00):
totally relate to that because that's where we
were before.
Yeah.
You got a GrubHub tablet sittingthere.
You ding in, you got a DoorDashtablet, you got Uber eat.
Yep.
Generally, in all of ourmarkets, we have all three.
I realize other markets may haveeven more, but it was like, good
gosh, this is, you know.
A nightmare, right?
I'm sitting in an office, let'sbe honest, I'm not rolling out,
I'm not sitting there rollingburritos every day.
(14:22):
and so part of the key wasgetting, you know, seeing that
right?
And seeing what a nightmare itwas to deal with.
Um, we tried a couple othersolutions in between that, tried
some menu mapping to get'em totry to come into the point of
sale.
They kind of did it, butultimately, lots of times you're
still relying on that tablet.
and, I'm gonna, I can't help butplug Q on this one because they
(14:43):
really.
Simplified that one of the keythings we looked in, the point
of sale, again, having comingfrom that problem was as we
started shopping around, whatkind of integrations do you
have?
Is a third party required?
Do you have direct integrations?
And that was honestly a reallybig hook for me because we was
becoming such a big part of ourbusiness.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (15:03):
And I think more importantly, it was becoming
such a pain point.
you can't do it right.
If you can't make the orderright, let alone get it in the
bag.
And so by having the directintegration, my crew is obl, not
oblivious.
I mean, they have it, it says onthe kitchen chip, but whether
it's an online order, a DoorDashorder, a GrubHub order, or Uber
Eats order, it just comesthrough the point of sale.
(15:24):
Prints out the kitchen chip.
They don't, they don't have tothink about it.
They don't have to look at atablet.
It just says, you know, GrubHubor DoorDash.
we also do, uh, delivery throughDoorDash Drive.
Yeah, that's where I was gonna
Speaker (15:35):
go next was just help, help our listeners that are less
familiar with DoorDash Drive.
Yeah.
I think everybody's familiarwith DoorDash having, having an
order get inserted into therestaurant and they're the, the
arbiter of the record, butDoorDash Drive is kind of a
little bit in between.
I'd love for you to educate someof our listeners that might not
be familiar with that.
Peter Wiley (15:52):
Yeah, it's, we've been using it for a number of
years.
So you have DoorDash, uh,marketplaces.
They'll generally call it if youtalk to'em.
and then you have DoorDashDrive, and they actually have
another one called DoorDashStorefront.
So, um, they, they're kind ofplaying in the.
A few of us feel a little bit ifyou want to on the outline.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (16:07):
But DoorDash Drive specifically what it does is it
allows us to take orders throughour website or through our
platform native, if you wannacall it.
just like they're placed in apickup order and they simply can
pick delivery.
And on the backend, when theychoose delivery, you know, it
runs all the address check andall of that.
It sends a call out to DoorDashDrive, which, or DoorDash,
(16:27):
essentially drivers and says,Hey, we got an order to be
picked up.
Without the integration, youcould still do this manually,
but you have to do it throughthe website and select a driver.
So, with the integration, itjust, it's, again, it's
transparent for my crew, it's, Iwon't say it's completely
transparent to the customer,'cause customer gets it.
Guess what?
There's a DoorDash person theredelivering their food and
(16:48):
they're like.
But I think they've come aroundto, that's just how it is.
It's really, really hard tocompete, uh, at least to our
volume of delivery, to selfdeliver.
DoorDash Drive makes it veryeffective, very affordable.
It's a flat rate instead of acommission, right?
Mm-hmm.
So if I'm on, somebody comesthrough DoorDash marketplace,
you pay 10 or probably 20 to 30%on a commission.
(17:11):
Yep.
Versus DoorDash Drive, you havejust a flat fee.
So the bigger the order, themore money I make as a
restaurant, the more profitableI am.
Versus on marketplace, you justkeep getting chunked at the
percentage.
So,
Speaker (17:23):
Yeah.
No, and it's, it's amazing howfew people I think, exercise
that, and I know Uber's got acompetitive product as well
coming out you know, the UberEats group is doing something
similar mm-hmm.
And are looking to do exactlythe same thing.
We've had them on the showbefore.
you talked about large orders.
I know that one of the growthareas for your business is
trying to figure out how to getthose larger orders.
I'd love for you to talk throughwhat does that look like?
(17:45):
And, and you know, again, I justgot back.
Tech would, the time we'rerecording this, they would have
talk about catering.
A lot of people are returningback to office and catering
orders come back and nodifferent than you guys were
able to expand your offerings.
Um, having online ordering and,and third party during COVID.
Now with people coming back in,how are you guys thinking about
(18:07):
catering and what does catering,have the ability to impact the
business, I guess, in generalfor you guys?
Peter Wiley (18:13):
Catering is huge for us.
and we want it to be bigger.
So for the last probably twoyears, it's been a primary
focus.
I wish we could say we excelledat it.
we, you have not.
Over the years, we've, so wejust thought it was challenging,
it's not an easy thing to do.
Um, you got customers that wannanegotiate with you and,
businesses that wanted on shortnotice.
So it was like, man, how do wemanage this and make it really
(18:35):
easy for the team, right?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (18:38):
Yeah, the customer might get it, but the team's
gotta be able to execute itwithout stressing out about it
and make it super easy.
so what really what we did is wemoved it all to online ordering.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
So
Peter Wiley (18:46):
again, we were able to create a separate online
ordering menu for catering,which was great.
makes it super easy to order.
You can add modifiers, you canadd, you know, add-ons, you can
pick your number of people, etcetera.
And we built it into packagesthat we have.
Easy, a deluxe and a VIP.
So it kind of fixes your pricepoint.
You know, do you want the basicor do you want something that's
got a few more options, or youjust kind of want all of the
(19:07):
options out there, and load itup.
And by doing that, what we didis we took it out of the, the
phone call, we took it out ofour crew, having to understand
and.
Do math and have a spreadsheet.
It just all that went away.
Just, Hey, you wanna placecatering order hit us up online.
Cool.
Guess what?
You can sign up for a rewardsaccount and get points on
catering, which is awesome.
(19:28):
Uh.
So it just comes through as anorder and the crew kicks it out.
We have some parameters on, youknow, how much lead time you
need and et cetera, to certainlyaccommodate the larger orders.
Uh, but that was our solution,was push it online, make it
really easy to order, and, givesthe customer some benefit to
order.
Again, if you're a rewardsmember, it's a huge.
(19:49):
For you as a customer and ourcrew just, they don't think
about it anymore.
Once you understand how to doit, like, man, I'm just cooking
a bunch of chicken and throw itin a pan, right?
And I don't gotta roll burrito,I'm gonna do nothing.
It's actually super easy.
So your labor goes way down andyour profitability goes up.
Speaker (20:03):
Well, and that was really where I was, I was gonna
go with it, Peter, is, is didyou guys for online?
And a lot of people I think needto evaluate this for just pure
online orders, whether it'sthrough DoorDash Drive, or even
for, pickup or, or any of thoseother areas as well as catering.
It sounds like you guys haveevaluated your menu offerings
that they may or may not be theexact same as what I can get
(20:23):
when I walk into the store.
Talk me through kind of how youguys evaluate that.
'cause catering, some placeswill cater fully made kind of,
you know, pre-made burritos or,or bowls or whatever else.
Other places, to your point,it's a, it's a alexan with, you
know, with chicken and beef andwhatever it is that you guys are
serving.
So I'd love for you to talkthrough how you guys as a brand
even evaluated that as you guysare trying to grow it, to ensure
(20:44):
that both the guests aresatisfied and it doesn't kill
the store and the in, in-storeexperience.
Peter Wiley (20:48):
Yeah.
For our online menu for, we'llcall it regular items, right?
Non catering items, it'sidentical to what you can get in
the store.
We just left it all the same.
The only caveat to that isfountain drinks.
Uh, we had a lot of challengeswith fountain drinks getting
forgotten, not picked up.
We're like, and because weoffered delivery too, it became
a, a pain point for the driver.
So, uh, I think that's the onlyvariance we have between if you
(21:09):
come in a restaurant and youorder online and on the catering
side, again, we tried to puttogether packages that may be
easy.
You can do a la carte and youcan modify the packages a fair
amount, uh, but one to keep itreally simple, really
streamlined, and easy to order,easy to make.
Every time.
Right.
Speaker (21:25):
yep.
So you said something duringyour description of catering
that I think is somewhat uniqueto what you guys do.
Yeah.
And I'd love for you to talk alittle bit about this, which is
you guys have got a loyaltyprogram and, and I know that it
across the board, thedefinitions of loyalty and what
does loyalty even mean?
Everybody wants to debate aboutit.
But knowing who your guests areand understanding when they're
(21:46):
coming in and giving thembenefit for coming back.
Oftentimes catering comes fromyour non-traditional customer,
but you want them to come in fortheir individual items.
And I've, I've talked withbrands in the past where it's
like I've got the executiveassistant that's ordering from
hotheads, you know, once a monthor twice a month, they get all
of those points and then can gotake their family out.
And so I'd love to have you talkabout why did you guys make that
(22:07):
decision?
'cause some brands are like, youknow what?
You don't get loyalty pointsbecause, um, and then there's
others like you guys that, thatare doing that.
I'd love for you to talkthrough.
How does loyalty play such ahuge part in your business?
Number one.
And number two, why did you guyschoose to have catering
participate in the loyaltyreward?
Peter Wiley (22:23):
Yep.
If I can go with two first, itwas definitely debated.
It was, I'm sure there's a, a,you're getting a lot of points.
Average catering orders, 200 to300 bucks.
Uh, you know, sometimes you get$1,300 catering order.
Do we really want to do this?
And ultimately it came down to.
Our goal is to grow catering andmake catering a significant part
of our business.
(22:43):
Mm-hmm.
Uh, we wanna aim for 20% atleast, and we got a long ways to
go to get there.
So every incentive possible is.
Worth it, right?
It, the, your profit marginincreases, your labor goes down.
So why in the world do I notwant to incentivize people every
single way possible to ordercatering from us?
you know, you hear the story ofthe drug reps, uh, who just, you
(23:04):
know, they're ordering all thetime.
And, you know, we haven't reallymentioned ezCater.
Uh, ezCater is a real factor.
so we gotta compete with them,right?
Mm-hmm.
People
Speaker 3 (23:13):
are
Peter Wiley (23:13):
used to ordering from there.
So we wanna give you anincentive.
Don't eat, don't order fromezCater, order from us.
You're gonna get points, you getfree food from it.
and we recently turned ondelivery for catering, uh, again
using DoorDash Drive.
So that's been probably abouttwo months.
Again, competing with ezCater,competing with people.
I don't wanna go pick it up,right, like you said.
Somebody an assistance orderingfor the office.
(23:34):
Last thing we wanna do is get upand burn an hour and go and get
food somewhere.
So now we can have it delivered.
Show up at your door.
We're actually far lessexpensive, than easy Cater to
have it delivered.
And I'll be running a promohere, uh, with free delivery.
'cause again, using DoorDashDrive, I'm not on a commission
basis.
I'm on a flat fee, and the flatfee is a heck of a lot less.
(23:54):
Uh, then ECAs commission.
So we're gonna be pushing that.
And, that was a real, everythingwe can do to push cater is why
we decided to go ahead and leavepoints on the board for
catering.
Speaker (24:06):
Love that.
flipping back to question one, Iguess, talk to me a little bit
philosophically, what, what isyour view on, on loyalty?
And again, there's the pointsystem, there's the punch
system, there's the.
But again, I thinkphilosophically, I, I've heard
lots of different brands overthe years go different routes
and I know it's something youguys have had in the brand for
quite some time.
(24:27):
And so I'd love to have you helpour listeners to get educated on
what have you found to beeffective for you guys?
Peter Wiley (24:32):
it goes way back.
My brother who started it was asubway guy for 26 years.
so you guys remember the subwaystamp cards?
I was a subway manager back whenI was 20.
I'm not 20 anymore.
you know, so that, that cameessentially with the brand,
right?
He is like, from the get go,we're gonna have rewards.
Worked well at Subway, didreally well for him.
So here we go.
So we had sticker cards forever.
(24:55):
and people loved them.
You know, they would collectthem, they'd have a stack of'em,
they'd have stickers.
And we're like, okay, this is,we're getting bigger and bigger
now.
You know?
Yeah.
You're like, uh, we're not in
Speaker (25:03):
1987 anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hey,
Peter Wiley (25:05):
where'd that role of stickers go?
Uhhuh?
I dunno.
Oh geez.
anyway, so then quickly it waslike, we need to look at a
digital system.
And we looked really hard andcontemplated it really hard.
'cause it's one of those thingspeople really liked about having
a sticker card.
It's tangible, it's in yourhand.
It's like a touchy feely, warm,fuzzy thing.
and so we did move to a digitalplatform and it was, uh, a
(25:29):
little challenging because ofthey wanted the sticker card.
You had to do a conversion,bring in a card, use it by this
date, et cetera.
Uh.
As we did that, the benefit withbeing digital, right?
I got some analytics, right?
Mm-hmm.
I get some data, I get names, Iget emails, I get phone numbers.
I get the ability to reach backout to those people and entice
them to come back in, or atleast make'em think about us.
(25:52):
And so that's really where welook at, the loyalty play.
Um, we work with Punch.
It's been a great, lots of waysto target people, look after
them, send general rewards, youknow, so we play a little bit of
both games.
We play segmented where we'regonna go after you because we
know you like a burrito, youknow, you like queso on your
burrito.
So guess what?
You're gonna get a case ofoffer.
But then we also will come back,you know, with an LTO like our
(26:14):
ghost and Reaper currently.
And say everybody's gonna getthat because that, that's, we're
telling everybody about.
It's a great opportunity.
So we, we walk the line betweentrying to be very targeted and
also being very broad and havesome fun with the messaging.
so it's, it's become an integralpart of our marketing and every,
we got stuff going out everyweek.
Um, every campaign is builtaround having some element of
(26:34):
it.
it, it, it just, I think thereis a, a groundswell of debate
whether you need loyaltyanymore, is it the right thing
anymore?
I'm still in the camp of, itbrings us, uh, a lot of repeat
business.
It lets us reach our customersvery easily.
so I'm in the camp of, yeah, wewanna have a loyalty platform.
and where you wanna look, Ithink where you start to get
(26:57):
sketchy on it is your discountrate.
Mm-hmm.
So if you see that you're justobliterating your discount rate,
then maybe you want to, youknow, a little timeout and how
do we do this?
So.
We walk that line pretty good.
We don't run a super highdiscount rate, uh, impacting our
stores, even though we do runsome really good offers.
Like this week we're running aorder online and, Buy, you know,
spend 10 bucks or more and get50% off your next order.
(27:19):
Right.
Speaker (27:19):
So, well, I feel like you're, uh, you're reading my
playbook here'cause I was gonnaask,'cause one of big things
that I know a lot of people talkabout, Peter, this is gonna be
kinda the last line ofquestioning Okay.
Is converting people fromin-store to online.
From online to catering, from oncatering back to in-store and
kind of being able to get moreusage out of them.
Mm-hmm.
You know, obviously you've gotthe, you know, the idea behind
loyalty is that you're gonna,um.
(27:41):
Help people remember you whenthey've lapsed.
Yep.
Know where they're at, createsome reason for them to come in.
But I also find a lot of timesregulars don't know you have a
catering program, and so theydon't think of you guys that
way, or they don't think of youas a DoorDash drive opportunity
or any of those kind of things.
So converting them.
So I love your thought thatsays, oh, you come in here.
Now your next order online isthis, or you ordered online now
(28:04):
your next in store purchase isthat.
And so I'd love to get yourthoughts, Peter, on kind of, you
know, you're a marketing guy wholives in it as well.
So the, the convergence of thosetwo is huge.
And I think way too few brandsthink about converting between
the different ordering channelsto drive top line sales and
ultimately.
Um, more frequency within thestore.
So I'd love, love to have you,uh, expound upon that if you
(28:26):
could.
Yeah.
That,
Peter Wiley (28:27):
that's, that is a a million dollar question.
Mm-hmm.
It's hard driving those toprevenue sales.
where we have seen, some, I'dsay our most success is seeing
people once they come into theapp, we can statistically see
that they're more likely toorder online and have higher
online ordering sales.
So a lot of our campaigns aredriven around, join a rewards
club.
(28:47):
You join the rewards club, youget an offer.
I realize that, and we have lotsof debates on now I'm excluding
and we're about a 20% rewardsparticipation rates.
That means I got 80% of mycustomers.
I'm not making the offer to.
But what we've seen when we dothat, even just a like last week
around a couple different offersaround queso in guac, and while
(29:07):
the offer was redeemed prettywell with the rewards members,
what we looked, what we gottalook at is.
What did it do to my sales?
Not, and not just my rewardsmembers.
So if, if all I looked at waswhere my rewards member results,
I'd be like,
Speaker 3 (29:22):
eh,
Peter Wiley (29:22):
it's okay.
What?
It didn't blow me out of thewater and, you know, I'm doing
cartwheels.
But then when I stepped back andsaid, but what did it do to my
queso, for example?
What did it do to my overallcase of sales for that day?
It was just a one day nationalcase of day thing.
We look back and our case ofsales were up, anywhere between
10 and 20% in differentlocations.
Forget the rewards members, justhow many queso items were
(29:44):
ordered.
10, 20% increase is.
That's a huge success, right?
Speaker (29:50):
Yeah.
Peter Wiley (29:51):
Uh, at least in my book, maybe other people are
getting 90, at a hundred, butwe're
Speaker (29:54):
not, not even close.
Peter Wiley (29:55):
Yeah.
So, uh, so as we start to, andwe're getting better at it, this
is something I think is alearning curve.
I think it is a lots of ab andtesting.
So we're trying to do moretests.
You know, on some of'em we'llrun, we'll throw marketing
dollars behind it.
On some of'em we won't.
We're in tv, radio, and lots ofdifferent platforms.
Sometimes we've con, leveragedthose platforms to promote
(30:16):
those.
And sometimes we haven't to tryto see does it make a
difference?
where do we see the results?
So, so I, I think hopefully thathelps out.
Just be willing to experiment,uh, and be willing to try some
different things and don't justfocus on the loyalty results,
but focus on.
What did it do to your storesales, uh, or even those item
sales you're promoting, so,
Speaker (30:35):
yep.
No, and I think that's hugethat, uh, using data and, when
we've made it 30 minutesthrough, uh, I'm sure there's
something you guys are doing AIrelated.
Maybe I should ask you, what doyou, what do you do in AI
related, just'cause everybody'salways intrigued and I'm sure
you've gotten asked the questionthe last half a dozen panels
you've been on.
Oh, yeah.
Everybody, ai,
Peter Wiley (30:50):
ai,
Speaker (30:50):
uhhuh,
Peter Wiley (30:51):
the extent of our AI is currently, uh, most of the
time it's with chat GBT.
We also use Gemini some.
Uh, but we've leveraged it for alot of brainstorming.
what can we do?
What are the questions?
What are, you know, even some.
Scripting ideas because you justget, you're doing this for a
while at the same brand.
A little stuck, like I've saidthe same thing in the last 10
(31:12):
commercials.
Why?
How can I say that differently?
so that's been super helpful.
It's also kind of cool to lookat some data.
it, it's, you know, it's notperfect and you hear about, you
know, it's, it's ghosting ormiscalculated and you're doing
something like that.
Speaker (31:24):
Sure.
But most times, directionally,it really is helpful to get to
the next level if you, if you doit properly.
Peter Wiley (31:30):
Exactly.
And we're looking at bringingon, a new data platform, a
customer data platform, um, thathas an AI built in.
So it will help us evaluate evenmore.
an ai, you know, if I couldthrow out a, a, uh, a request to
punch, it'd be, man, you know,incorporate an AI platform right
into punch because there's somuch data in whatever your
loyalty platform is.
(31:50):
Uh, there's so much data inthere and you know, with a
traditional SQL query, you'retrying to go through a
dashboard, it can bechallenging.
But it, but being able to use
Speaker (31:57):
natural language processing that says, gimme my
top 10 restaurant, top 10 guestsfor this and I'm gonna send them
an extra$10 off this week and togive to somebody else or
whatever.
That'd be huge.
Peter Wiley (32:06):
And it opens up to your entire team to ask those
questions versus me being a datanerd or my IT guy who, you know,
go in, figure all the options.
It's like, no, I can just, likeyou just said, anyone on my team
doesn't have to know anything,can ask those questions and get
some answers.
And I think, I think that'ssuper cool where a, you know,
for us.
I think it's gonna make the datathat much more accessible so we
(32:28):
can make better decisions, inour scenario.
Speaker (32:32):
I love that.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pivotone last set of questions,
Peter.
Okay.
if people haven't been a hotheadburritos, what is the number one
seller and then how does Peter,'cause you've been working with
this brand for a while.
Yeah.
I'm certain you have some crazymodifications that you do to
your orders, or at leasteverybody that I talked to in
restaurants.
So what is kind of the one ortwo go-to for people that have
(32:52):
never experienced the brand,they walk in and it's like,
these are the one or two itemsthat made you guys famous.
And then what is Peter's go-toorder?
Peter Wiley (32:58):
Yeah, probably the most popular is our Sweet ha and
Aero Burrito.
everybody thinks it's gonna behot and it's not.
and our chicken is a proprietarysignature marinated chicken, so
that's a substantial portionover our sales.
So people really love gettingthat.
So you get sweet ha and arrowcomes with rice beans, ru in
cheddar cheese and sweet ha andaero sauce.
You can always add anythingelse, you know, you can add
other choices to it.
(33:19):
But that's really a go-to andsomething we recommend.
If you don't mind, just a littlebit of zip and prefer something
a little more savory instead ofsweet.
Um, the hothead sauce, we havea, a Leroy spicy chicken
Leroy's, our mascot.
We call'em, probably see'embehind me on the wall.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Mm-hmm.
Peter Wiley (33:33):
Uh, that adds some more heat.
Uh, again, it's a proprietaryspicy sauce.
We have a lot of things thatwe've developed that are unique
to us, so you're not justwalking in and getting ranch,
uh, you're walking in andgetting, Southwest or hothead
sauce or, uh, avocado lime.
So sweet habanero would be thego-to.
And we have a lot of people thatmix'em.
Speaker (33:52):
Okay.
Peter Wiley (33:53):
I never, I've been here a long time and I never
thought about putting sweethabanero and hothead together,
but it's amazing that they do.
Or they'll take teriyaki and mixit with something else You're
like.
Okay.
Hey, man, you like it, you likeit.
My go-to lately has really beenprobably our h or um, our
jalapeno Ranch Bowl.
Speaker (34:12):
Okay.
Peter Wiley (34:13):
Which is one of our craft recipes.
But I really like the JalapenoRanch.
It's got a little bit of kick.
It's not too much.
I try to, in theory, do a littlebit of a low carb diet, so
sometimes I'll swap it out andgo with lettuce instead of the
rice.
but yeah, that's kind of mygo-to.
So.
Speaker (34:27):
Awesome.
And protein on your, is it thechicken?
Is that what you go with?
I
Peter Wiley (34:30):
go back and forth.
I kind of alternate.
So, uh, I do chicken a fairamount, but I do the steak a
fair amount too.
We got a nice, seasoning and dryrub on it that I like so.
Speaker (34:39):
Awesome.
So Peter, how do people learnmore?
How do people stay engaged withthe brand?
Um, you know, obviously ifthey're in the area, go check it
out.
If they're not, uh, sure gocheck out the website.
But what's the website and howdo they stay engaged to, to
learn more about what you guysare doing?
Peter Wiley (34:52):
Yeah.
Hothead burritos.com.
Uh, super simple.
If you wanna check out ourcatering, it's just slash
catering.
It's all up there.
we just, we try to have a goodtime.
We're always revamping doingsome stuff.
If you wanna have, you know,engage with the brand a little
bit more, I'm gonna plug our, wehave some games out there,
hothead burrito slash games thathas been a lot of fun addition
to us, a little bit on the technerdy side, but a little bit on
the, uh, playful side too.
(35:13):
So
Speaker (35:13):
I love that.
Well, Peter, thank you forsharing kind of your guys'
journey.
thank you for continuing tocreate a unique experience
'cause, uh.
Again, as a, as a consumer, it'sa, it's a fun brand to go check
out and you guys have a lot ofdifferent options to, to serve a
lot of different palettes.
So, to our listeners guys, youguys have got a lot of choices,
so thank you guys for hangingout.
If you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do so on your
favorite listening platform andmake it a great day.
(35:35):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology
Guys podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
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