December 2, 2024 • 21 mins
In this episode of Give an Ovation, we’re joined by Jason Sobocinski and Etkin Tekin, the co-founders of Haven Hot Chicken, who are on a mission to redefine the fast-casual dining space. From their roots as winners of the Perfect Pitch competition to expanding to nine locations, Jason and Etkin share the secrets behind their explosive growth and the passion for exceptional food that drives their brand.
Zack, Jason, and Etkin discuss:
- Why training and empowering teams are the cornerstone of their success
- The importance of pride in food quality and culture-building
- How they use guest feedback to maintain consistency and create unforgettable experiences
- Tactics for handling guest recovery and exceeding expectations
Tune in to learn how Haven Hot Chicken is bringing the heat and redefining the fast-casual dining experience!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast, where I talk to
industry experts to get theirstrategies and tactics you can
use to create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is sponsored byOvation, an operations and guest
recovery platform formulti-unit restaurants that
gives all the answers withoutannoying guests with all the
(00:21):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today I have two gentlemenwho, honestly, they sound like
movie stars, they look like rockstars and their food is just
from the stars.
It's amazing Jason Subosinskiand Etkin Tekin, the president
and CEO respectively, andco-founders of the booming Haven
(00:42):
Hot Chicken, winners of lastyear's Perfect Pitch competition
, and they've just beenexploding since then doing some
incredible things.
Welcome to the podcast,gentlemen.
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So first of all, talk to me a little bit about your
growth.
I know, Etkin, you and I talkedabout this recently at a trade
show and it's crazy to whereyou've been, to where you're at.
Talk to me about that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So I think the first time we met in person was at
Fast Casual Executive Summitlast year, and we had four
locations in October of 2023.
Since then, we've opened fiveunits in less than a year, for a
total of nine.
I think the foundation of ourability to grow has been
investing in our people,building up that team pipeline
and making sure that we havefantastic store level leadership
(01:30):
, really strong trainingprograms, establishment of a
learning management system andthen having a fantastic tool
that allows us to constantlymonitor how we're performing at
each of the locations, which iswhere Ovation comes in.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That jump is really big.
As you've been looking at it,what are some lessons that you
wish you could have gone backwhen you were your first
location and said man Edkin,here's what you should do
differently in this to help grow.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
How long is this podcast?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, I'll let Jason jump in as well, but I think
that maybe not for the firstlocation, but for the second and
the third one of the biggestlessons we learned was that we
kind of let the tail wag the dog.
We allowed the construction andphysical space timeline dictate
when we moved forward withopening the location, when it
(02:20):
should have been completelydependent on the readiness of
the teams that were going tooperate.
I would say that's the singlebiggest learning that we've had,
and we've since corrected itand we're much better at opening
new locations now.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, I'll second that with.
It's all about the people.
You'll hear us say this amillion times Our biggest
challenge is people.
Our biggest asset is people.
Training our crew and makingsure they're at the level where
we need them to be to do what weneed them to do in order to hit
the brand the way it has to behit that's our biggest challenge
(02:53):
.
If I can go back in time tostore 001 and do it all over
again, I would just train fivetimes more, just to be more.
Really, training is justeverything.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I went to a restaurant recently and I saw
like the employee backdrop andit said like their training
poster was in the background andit said something like
positivity is contagious orsomething.
And the guy taking my order wasone of the most grumpiest
curmudgeons and it was just likethis juxtaposition of like wait
(03:28):
a second, I'm like so confusedhere because they obviously have
missed something, when that isthe number one thing on their
training poster.
And this guy is cranky, right,like how do you prevent that?
How do you train that out ofpeople?
How do you?
What do you look for whenyou're hiring?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I think that hiring for attitude over skill is
paramount right now, making surethat you have the right people
coming in.
One grumpy person can bring theentire staff down on a random
day.
We often talk about culture,everyone talks about culture.
We can't talk about culture andthen expect the culture to be
(04:06):
in the store on the ground levelwith the guest.
We have to have certainstandards that we set and then
we have to let the leaders andthe people who are in those
stores on the ground we have tolet them create their own
culture and by doing thatthey're going to adhere to it
that much better.
If you have that grumpy teammember, eventually they're going
(04:29):
to get weeded out, and probablypretty quickly, because nobody
wants to work with someone likethat, nobody wants to pull tips
with somebody like that.
We're trying to createguidelines for culture and
guidelines for attitude, but wecan't go in there and tell them
you know command and control,that you have to act a certain
way.
We can just set that standardand then they have to uphold it
(04:49):
themselves and keep each otheraccountable.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You know we believe in clarity, competency and
control at the store level.
We want to give our store levelleadership as much autonomy as
they can so they are empoweredto make decisions even going to
legends and hospitality or teamengagement budgets or the ways
in which they're allowed to orgiven control over how they
engage with their teams whatfits and what makes sense for
them.
There aren't kind of catch-allprograms that we apply forced
(05:16):
fun to.
Forced fun is probably my leastfavorite part of my corporate
career, and so one of thesentiments coming into running
our own company was no forcedfun, we're going to do things.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Right, I mean that's.
That's definitely one of thosethings where, when I look at
these different things thatcompanies do to try to like be
cool, but they're like, but youhave to show up it's crazy.
I actually had someone theother day who did a big company
party and they said, hey, plusones are invited.
And this person actually sentin a bill for their plus one and
(05:55):
said, hey, you got to pay myplus one, their hourly rate, and
it's like.
The point is that, like, we'rehere to grow together and to
like have more fun together.
Not like this isn't necessarilya work thing, this is like a
people to people thing and it'sinteresting to see.
I like that idea of you have abudget that the locations use to
(06:17):
like engage with each other.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, they get a monthly budget that they're able
to spend in any way they want.
You want to go buy coffee or doyou want to do save up your
budget?
We've had a couple of gms savetheir budget over several months
and then do a big gift for eachof their team members at the
store.
That's it's whatever you wantto do for engagement to get
people you know excited and intowhat they're doing.
(06:41):
I think a big part of this forus that's worked really well is
we're obsessed with the qualityof our food, obsessed with it.
We're obsessed with the texturecrispy, crunchy, juicy, spicy,
delicious that's our mantra.
Our teams make everything instore.
It's a three-day process to getthe chicken from when it comes
(07:02):
in raw to out the door in a bunfor the guest right.
They know how much goes into it.
There's a lot of pride in thatprocess and there's a lot of
pride when we get great reviews,guest feedback.
That pride is something that Ican't manufacture.
They have to live it, be in it,see what it takes to put the
(07:24):
product out the way it needs tobe put out, and when they get
feedback that it's delicious andpeople love it and they're
trying it themselves, theirfriends, their family are into
it.
That's something that you can'treally match.
I mean, pride to me is maybethe number one thing for culture
building.
So as we watch our team membersget involved in the process of
making our food, getting it outto their guests and feeling that
(07:47):
pride in doing that, that'salso a huge part of our culture
and it makes people happy.
Yeah, and that's part of whatwe want to do, that's part of
our mission.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I think that what you bring up about being obsessed
with the food is interesting,because I've been to some places
where it's so inconsistent boththe food and, quite frankly,
the service, right Person toperson.
And I think that the two thingsthat you've talked about really
are training the people rightTo make sure that you get a
(08:18):
consistent experience of service, and obsession about the food
to make sure there's aconsistent experience with the
food.
And, jason, you and I were inthat room.
I can't remember what show thatwas.
It was, oh, rftc, that's right,that was my 100th trade show
I've been to with Ovation, wow,so yeah, which is like.
I know people are like, do youever work?
And I'm like, no, I just eatgood food and conferences.
(08:40):
But in that room I don't knowif you remember, but there's a
guy talking about trends andtalking about how the most
important thing nowadays isconsistency, because guests want
to make sure they're gettingwhat they're paying for, right,
right.
And I guess, as you're lookingat your business and you're
looking at I love that we'vetalked about some different
tactics to improve the culturewhich improve the guest
(09:01):
experience, but are there anyother tactics that you would say
are helping you to improve theguest experience or improve that
consistency.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Well, I'll just layer on quickly that I agree
Consistency is absolutely key,but I know a ton of businesses
that are consistent.
I want to be consistently great.
Yes, and that's even moreimportant, we look at and, trust
me, we screw up I would use adifferent word, but I don't know
if you bleep things out.
We're human, we're growing, wescrew up, and we screw up a lot
(09:34):
at times, especially when, whenthings get piled on and I want
to call it out, we call themopportunities.
Ovation has been a great wayfor us to get the feedback on
that.
We also use Google, we use Yelpand we jump on, we respond, we
learn, we humanize.
That's our biggest way oflearning right now is getting
(09:54):
the reviews from our guests andgoing out there and sharing them
with our entire team.
We're not hiding them.
We're going out there andsaying okay, we recognize we did
not deliver what we weresupposed to.
The first thing we apologize.
That's the second thing.
Typically, if it's somethingthat's pretty bad, we're not
asking for your money, so we'regoing to give you a refund,
(10:15):
because this is about building abrand, not about making money
at the end of the day right nowfor us and always.
And then try to reconnect andwhat we've found is that when we
can do that connection, it doesagain humanize us from being
just like this brand.
Now we have nine stores.
People consider us big.
You and I know we're not verybig, but when we connect, it's a
(10:37):
person, it's one of the generalmanagers or an AGM on the other
side connecting and saying I ama person, I want to recognize
that we screwed up.
I want to refund you, but moreso, I'd like to get you back in.
I'd like to figure out a waythat we can make this right so
you can see what we're meant tobe doing.
Sometimes that ends up beingbetter for us.
(10:58):
Sometimes one of these totalmess-ups ends up creating a
guest that drops the otherbrands that they're going to
because they've now gotten toknow us on a different level,
and I think that's theopportunity that really makes it
special.
That's one of the best tools wehave, because we want our core
guests to come more often.
We want repeats.
(11:18):
This business has high churnEverybody does in the QSR and we
want to reduce that, and agreat way to do that is just to
connect with our guests.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, I think it's recovering guests and again this
happens at the store level, youknow, monitored by, you know,
district managers and ourco-founders as well.
But we also want to give ourteams the opportunity to make
good or great experiences, justcompletely over the top.
Jason last year had us all readUnreasonable Hospitality.
We're big Will Goddard fans.
It's important to remember thelessons that are distilled in
(11:48):
that book and it's somethingthat we spread to the store
level leadership teams and weliterally we have a button in
our point of sale system calledLegends in Hospitality and this
is an opportunity.
When our guest experience lead,the person at the register,
really connects with afirst-time guest or a repeat
guest, they have the ability todo something for them.
(12:09):
They can give them a bananapudding if they haven't had one
before.
You know if they're talkingthrough what heat level a guest
should be getting for theirsandwich or their tendies.
They're able to provide anextra tender for them at the
other heat level that they wereunsure about, just to give that
added spark and connection.
That we're not just atransaction, right.
We want that full experience asa QSR.
(12:30):
That interaction opportunity isoften only 60 to 90 seconds,
right, and so we want to make itimpactful and we want to make
it last, and so, again, I reallythink a lot of it comes down to
empowering our teams to makedecisions that we want them to
make.
We're not afraid of giving awayproducts in order to make a
guest really happy, Like that'ssuch a no-brainer.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
We actually track comps and if your store is below
, like what was the last one wedid, you had opportunities.
Did you miss the opportunity,the mistake, to correct
something?
If you're not comping at all,what's going on?
(13:09):
Something's not catching.
So we do look at those comps.
We're typically looking attransactions like overall
transactions.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
In a week.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I know that there's opportunities out there and this
, in my mind, it's marketing,this is brand building, this is
how we.
I'd rather pay it that way andin kind to someone than go out
there and spend big money on outof home.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, I'm thinking about this.
Just yesterday I went to aburrito place and they were like
, hey, here's free chips andguac.
And I got home and literallythe burrito was wrong.
Like they gave me the wrongburrito and I was so mad.
But then I was like, but theygave me chips and guac and it
was almost like it's like didyou know?
Like were you planning onscrewing this up?
(14:07):
Because, like I literally wouldgo leave my bad review, but
they gave me free chips and guacand so, anyway, I had that pro.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I like to say I like they gave you something you
didn't expect.
We talk about unreasonablehospitality, but in that book
and this is something we preachall the time service is when you
get something you paid for yourexpectation.
Expectation is it's a product,it's a service.
This is what I get Hospitality.
Hospitality is when you receivesomething that you didn't
(14:33):
expect.
That's when you make thatcrease in someone's brain.
Right, that's when it sticks.
That's when it becomessomething where they're talking
about hey, I had this experiencewhere I got free shifts in Guac
.
Maybe next time you talk aboutthat, you won't mention that the
burrito was wrong, becauseyou're like ah, it's okay, but
like the fact that you'retalking about it now, you didn't
plug whoever the burrito placewas.
(14:53):
But in general, if you're outthere like, this is how we
market.
We exceed expectations, we blowminds of our guests, so they're
talking about what we do toothers.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And had the burrito been right, I'd be mentioning
this location, but you're makingme hungry.
I want a burrito now.
Well, I see.
The other thing, too, is thatyour team obviously cares.
I mean, you respond to everysingle piece of feedback
innovation and your score isincredibly high and your
response times are incrediblylow.
And so I think one of thequestions I have is like, how
(15:27):
has Ovation been helpful for youguys?
Because you obviously created aculture that cares and, like in
the words of Will Guder, likeyou've made it cool to care, but
how has Ovation helped in?
Has helped Haven?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
I think it comes down to what I was saying before the
pride on a work that goes intothe product, and so when we get
a review or an opportunity,we'll call it back from Ovation
saying I got home and there's nosauce in the bag.
It's like you know what?
Our chicken is delicious, butif you have it without our ranch
(16:05):
, you're really missingsomething.
So I just want to use the word.
But I can empathize, becauseI've gotten orders and they've
not had sauce in the bag and it.
It pisses me off.
I've got three kids.
Sometimes I'll make an orderand it's wrong, and some of my
kids are young, so that thatends their entire evening and
(16:26):
like, hence, your entire evening, exactly.
So I get it.
I get how disappointing it canbe.
Our product's not the cheapesteither, and so when we fail on a
quality or we fail on puttingsomething in the bag, it really
hits.
And that pride comes in whenthe GM and AGM and it used to be
literally me responding toevery single ovation and then
(16:49):
around store three, we said,okay, that's insane, we have to
do other things.
And now we put it in there inthe hands of the leaders of the
stores and I think it's betterbecause they can literally say
it's me, melanie, I'm at storeone and I've had people respond
this is AI and we'll write back.
No, it's me, melanie, and Iwatch all of these because I'm
(17:11):
obsessed with this.
So I'll jump in and say, hey,it's Jason, I'm one of the
co-founders, melanie's the GMand then people will say, oh, I
had a bet with my wife that youguys were AI and it's really
hilarious I Hilarious.
I think they're jumping in andthey're responding quickly for a
couple of reasons.
Number one is pride.
They have pride in what they'vecreated in the store and they
(17:33):
want to make sure that, hey, Ican jump on this opportunity, I
can create a better guestexperience, I can fix what we've
done wrong, but also to be outthere and honest.
Like we use an aggregateovation score as part of our
bonus for our team leaders andwe look at things because
sometimes people will give a badscore because they didn't like
(17:53):
the way something was priced.
Okay, that's okay.
We're not for everyone.
We have to recognize that too,but attaching it to your bonus
is a really great way for us tosay this is really important.
Guess first, like every day.
This is really important Guessfirst.
Like every day, it's guessfirst.
That's been the tool, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, I think, making sure that, again, all of our
store level leadership theirbonus, is predicated on
innovation ratings, but also ondeveloping their teams right and
allowing them to grow withinthe organization, so making sure
that they're getting peopleinto different training roles
and leadership roles.
And then I think the other thingthat can contribute to that
pride is that we try tocelebrate success as often as we
(18:33):
can.
One of the most active Slackchannels that we have as an
organization is the shout outsand celebrations channel.
We talk about the guest winsthat we have every day.
Somebody will drop a screenshotof the latest phenomenal
feedback that we've every day.
Somebody will drop a screenshotof the latest phenomenal
feedback that we've gotten froma guest and that fuels the team
our monthly all-hands.
Also, we celebrate that successand we walk through and
(18:55):
celebrate stores that will godozens and dozens of reviews in
a row at five stars and they'recompetitive with each other and
really want to get really highaverage ratings.
And so, in addition to givingthem the ability to do something
about it when a recovery isneeded, but then also
recognizing the hard work thattheir team puts in and the
(19:16):
passion and commitment they havefor delivering a great guest
experience alongside the premiumproduct that we offer.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Awesome.
I love that.
And, by the way, have therebeen any like changes that
you've made at Haven Hot Chickenbecause of feedback that you've
received?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Well, let's see, we've taken menu items away that
people really like and we'vegotten feedback to put them back
on, and so we're working onsome of that, but we have a
pretty straightforward andsimple and small menu.
We want to do very littlethings and do them really,
really right.
That's been the formula.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
So yeah, I would say that we just recently overhauled
our menu and it was a directresult of thousands of data
points across Ovation, you know,across the accessibility of our
menu, and so we underwentprobably six or eight months of
menu testing, iterating anddeveloping a new format for our
menu so that we have a couple ofnew product offerings as a
(20:09):
result.
We serve premium food atpremium prices and large volumes
, and we've had folks that arewe absolutely love your food, I
like.
I would like to eat it moreoften.
I need a smaller portion size.
Oh, interesting, yeah, that wassomething great for us to
incorporate.
That was yeah, that's true.
That's something that weabsolutely learned through
getting reviews.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Well, you guys both of you and the brand is just so
awesome and it's an honor towork with you and I think what
you do is incredible.
How can people find and followyou and your brand?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, we're just at at Haven Hot Chicken on
Instagram, linkedin, facebook.
We're not on Twitter, so don'tlook for us there.
Most importantly, come visitone of our nine locations in
Connecticut, nine going on 90,.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
I hear Nine, going on 90, and look out for some Haven
locations out of Connecticutsoon.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Nice Love that Well, gentlemen, for caring enough to
be consistently great and caringenough to connect with the
guests, today's ovation goes toyou.
Thank you so much for joiningus on Give an Ovation.
Thanks, Zach.
Thanks for joining us today.
If you liked this episode,leave us a review on Apple
Podcasts or your favorite placeto listen.
We're all about feedback here.
(21:23):
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question SMS-basedactionable guest feedback
platform built for multi-unitrestaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at OvationUpcom.
Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast, where I talk to
industry experts to get theirstrategies and tactics you can
use to create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is sponsored byOvation, an operations and guest
recovery platform formulti-unit restaurants that
gives all the answers withoutannoying guests with all the
(00:21):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today I have two gentlemenwho, honestly, they sound like
movie stars, they look like rockstars and their food is just
from the stars.
It's amazing Jason Subosinskiand Etkin Tekin, the president
and CEO respectively, andco-founders of the booming Haven
(00:42):
Hot Chicken, winners of lastyear's Perfect Pitch competition
, and they've just beenexploding since then doing some
incredible things.
Welcome to the podcast,gentlemen.
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So first of all, talk to me a little bit about your
growth.
I know, Etkin, you and I talkedabout this recently at a trade
show and it's crazy to whereyou've been, to where you're at.
Talk to me about that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So I think the first time we met in person was at
Fast Casual Executive Summitlast year, and we had four
locations in October of 2023.
Since then, we've opened fiveunits in less than a year, for a
total of nine.
I think the foundation of ourability to grow has been
investing in our people,building up that team pipeline
and making sure that we havefantastic store level leadership
(01:30):
, really strong trainingprograms, establishment of a
learning management system andthen having a fantastic tool
that allows us to constantlymonitor how we're performing at
each of the locations, which iswhere Ovation comes in.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That jump is really big.
As you've been looking at it,what are some lessons that you
wish you could have gone backwhen you were your first
location and said man Edkin,here's what you should do
differently in this to help grow.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
How long is this podcast?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, I'll let Jason jump in as well, but I think
that maybe not for the firstlocation, but for the second and
the third one of the biggestlessons we learned was that we
kind of let the tail wag the dog.
We allowed the construction andphysical space timeline dictate
when we moved forward withopening the location, when it
(02:20):
should have been completelydependent on the readiness of
the teams that were going tooperate.
I would say that's the singlebiggest learning that we've had,
and we've since corrected itand we're much better at opening
new locations now.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, I'll second that with.
It's all about the people.
You'll hear us say this amillion times Our biggest
challenge is people.
Our biggest asset is people.
Training our crew and makingsure they're at the level where
we need them to be to do what weneed them to do in order to hit
the brand the way it has to behit that's our biggest challenge
(02:53):
.
If I can go back in time tostore 001 and do it all over
again, I would just train fivetimes more, just to be more.
Really, training is justeverything.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I went to a restaurant recently and I saw
like the employee backdrop andit said like their training
poster was in the background andit said something like
positivity is contagious orsomething.
And the guy taking my order wasone of the most grumpiest
curmudgeons and it was just likethis juxtaposition of like wait
(03:28):
a second, I'm like so confusedhere because they obviously have
missed something, when that isthe number one thing on their
training poster.
And this guy is cranky, right,like how do you prevent that?
How do you train that out ofpeople?
How do you?
What do you look for whenyou're hiring?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I think that hiring for attitude over skill is
paramount right now, making surethat you have the right people
coming in.
One grumpy person can bring theentire staff down on a random
day.
We often talk about culture,everyone talks about culture.
We can't talk about culture andthen expect the culture to be
(04:06):
in the store on the ground levelwith the guest.
We have to have certainstandards that we set and then
we have to let the leaders andthe people who are in those
stores on the ground we have tolet them create their own
culture and by doing thatthey're going to adhere to it
that much better.
If you have that grumpy teammember, eventually they're going
(04:29):
to get weeded out, and probablypretty quickly, because nobody
wants to work with someone likethat, nobody wants to pull tips
with somebody like that.
We're trying to createguidelines for culture and
guidelines for attitude, but wecan't go in there and tell them
you know command and control,that you have to act a certain
way.
We can just set that standardand then they have to uphold it
(04:49):
themselves and keep each otheraccountable.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You know we believe in clarity, competency and
control at the store level.
We want to give our store levelleadership as much autonomy as
they can so they are empoweredto make decisions even going to
legends and hospitality or teamengagement budgets or the ways
in which they're allowed to orgiven control over how they
engage with their teams whatfits and what makes sense for
them.
There aren't kind of catch-allprograms that we apply forced
(05:16):
fun to.
Forced fun is probably my leastfavorite part of my corporate
career, and so one of thesentiments coming into running
our own company was no forcedfun, we're going to do things.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Right, I mean that's.
That's definitely one of thosethings where, when I look at
these different things thatcompanies do to try to like be
cool, but they're like, but youhave to show up it's crazy.
I actually had someone theother day who did a big company
party and they said, hey, plusones are invited.
And this person actually sentin a bill for their plus one and
(05:55):
said, hey, you got to pay myplus one, their hourly rate, and
it's like.
The point is that, like, we'rehere to grow together and to
like have more fun together.
Not like this isn't necessarilya work thing, this is like a
people to people thing and it'sinteresting to see.
I like that idea of you have abudget that the locations use to
(06:17):
like engage with each other.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, they get a monthly budget that they're able
to spend in any way they want.
You want to go buy coffee or doyou want to do save up your
budget?
We've had a couple of gms savetheir budget over several months
and then do a big gift for eachof their team members at the
store.
That's it's whatever you wantto do for engagement to get
people you know excited and intowhat they're doing.
(06:41):
I think a big part of this forus that's worked really well is
we're obsessed with the qualityof our food, obsessed with it.
We're obsessed with the texturecrispy, crunchy, juicy, spicy,
delicious that's our mantra.
Our teams make everything instore.
It's a three-day process to getthe chicken from when it comes
(07:02):
in raw to out the door in a bunfor the guest right.
They know how much goes into it.
There's a lot of pride in thatprocess and there's a lot of
pride when we get great reviews,guest feedback.
That pride is something that Ican't manufacture.
They have to live it, be in it,see what it takes to put the
(07:24):
product out the way it needs tobe put out, and when they get
feedback that it's delicious andpeople love it and they're
trying it themselves, theirfriends, their family are into
it.
That's something that you can'treally match.
I mean, pride to me is maybethe number one thing for culture
building.
So as we watch our team membersget involved in the process of
making our food, getting it outto their guests and feeling that
(07:47):
pride in doing that, that'salso a huge part of our culture
and it makes people happy.
Yeah, and that's part of whatwe want to do, that's part of
our mission.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I think that what you bring up about being obsessed
with the food is interesting,because I've been to some places
where it's so inconsistent boththe food and, quite frankly,
the service, right Person toperson.
And I think that the two thingsthat you've talked about really
are training the people rightTo make sure that you get a
(08:18):
consistent experience of service, and obsession about the food
to make sure there's aconsistent experience with the
food.
And, jason, you and I were inthat room.
I can't remember what show thatwas.
It was, oh, rftc, that's right,that was my 100th trade show
I've been to with Ovation, wow,so yeah, which is like.
I know people are like, do youever work?
And I'm like, no, I just eatgood food and conferences.
(08:40):
But in that room I don't knowif you remember, but there's a
guy talking about trends andtalking about how the most
important thing nowadays isconsistency, because guests want
to make sure they're gettingwhat they're paying for, right,
right.
And I guess, as you're lookingat your business and you're
looking at I love that we'vetalked about some different
tactics to improve the culturewhich improve the guest
(09:01):
experience, but are there anyother tactics that you would say
are helping you to improve theguest experience or improve that
consistency.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Well, I'll just layer on quickly that I agree
Consistency is absolutely key,but I know a ton of businesses
that are consistent.
I want to be consistently great.
Yes, and that's even moreimportant, we look at and, trust
me, we screw up I would use adifferent word, but I don't know
if you bleep things out.
We're human, we're growing, wescrew up, and we screw up a lot
(09:34):
at times, especially when, whenthings get piled on and I want
to call it out, we call themopportunities.
Ovation has been a great wayfor us to get the feedback on
that.
We also use Google, we use Yelpand we jump on, we respond, we
learn, we humanize.
That's our biggest way oflearning right now is getting
(09:54):
the reviews from our guests andgoing out there and sharing them
with our entire team.
We're not hiding them.
We're going out there andsaying okay, we recognize we did
not deliver what we weresupposed to.
The first thing we apologize.
That's the second thing.
Typically, if it's somethingthat's pretty bad, we're not
asking for your money, so we'regoing to give you a refund,
(10:15):
because this is about building abrand, not about making money
at the end of the day right nowfor us and always.
And then try to reconnect andwhat we've found is that when we
can do that connection, it doesagain humanize us from being
just like this brand.
Now we have nine stores.
People consider us big.
You and I know we're not verybig, but when we connect, it's a
(10:37):
person, it's one of the generalmanagers or an AGM on the other
side connecting and saying I ama person, I want to recognize
that we screwed up.
I want to refund you, but moreso, I'd like to get you back in.
I'd like to figure out a waythat we can make this right so
you can see what we're meant tobe doing.
Sometimes that ends up beingbetter for us.
(10:58):
Sometimes one of these totalmess-ups ends up creating a
guest that drops the otherbrands that they're going to
because they've now gotten toknow us on a different level,
and I think that's theopportunity that really makes it
special.
That's one of the best tools wehave, because we want our core
guests to come more often.
We want repeats.
(11:18):
This business has high churnEverybody does in the QSR and we
want to reduce that, and agreat way to do that is just to
connect with our guests.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, I think it's recovering guests and again this
happens at the store level, youknow, monitored by, you know,
district managers and ourco-founders as well.
But we also want to give ourteams the opportunity to make
good or great experiences, justcompletely over the top.
Jason last year had us all readUnreasonable Hospitality.
We're big Will Goddard fans.
It's important to remember thelessons that are distilled in
(11:48):
that book and it's somethingthat we spread to the store
level leadership teams and weliterally we have a button in
our point of sale system calledLegends in Hospitality and this
is an opportunity.
When our guest experience lead,the person at the register,
really connects with afirst-time guest or a repeat
guest, they have the ability todo something for them.
(12:09):
They can give them a bananapudding if they haven't had one
before.
You know if they're talkingthrough what heat level a guest
should be getting for theirsandwich or their tendies.
They're able to provide anextra tender for them at the
other heat level that they wereunsure about, just to give that
added spark and connection.
That we're not just atransaction, right.
We want that full experience asa QSR.
(12:30):
That interaction opportunity isoften only 60 to 90 seconds,
right, and so we want to make itimpactful and we want to make
it last, and so, again, I reallythink a lot of it comes down to
empowering our teams to makedecisions that we want them to
make.
We're not afraid of giving awayproducts in order to make a
guest really happy, Like that'ssuch a no-brainer.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
We actually track comps and if your store is below
, like what was the last one wedid, you had opportunities.
Did you miss the opportunity,the mistake, to correct
something?
If you're not comping at all,what's going on?
(13:09):
Something's not catching.
So we do look at those comps.
We're typically looking attransactions like overall
transactions.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
In a week.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I know that there's opportunities out there and this
, in my mind, it's marketing,this is brand building, this is
how we.
I'd rather pay it that way andin kind to someone than go out
there and spend big money on outof home.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, I'm thinking about this.
Just yesterday I went to aburrito place and they were like
, hey, here's free chips andguac.
And I got home and literallythe burrito was wrong.
Like they gave me the wrongburrito and I was so mad.
But then I was like, but theygave me chips and guac and it
was almost like it's like didyou know?
Like were you planning onscrewing this up?
(14:07):
Because, like I literally wouldgo leave my bad review, but
they gave me free chips and guacand so, anyway, I had that pro.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I like to say I like they gave you something you
didn't expect.
We talk about unreasonablehospitality, but in that book
and this is something we preachall the time service is when you
get something you paid for yourexpectation.
Expectation is it's a product,it's a service.
This is what I get Hospitality.
Hospitality is when you receivesomething that you didn't
(14:33):
expect.
That's when you make thatcrease in someone's brain.
Right, that's when it sticks.
That's when it becomessomething where they're talking
about hey, I had this experiencewhere I got free shifts in Guac
.
Maybe next time you talk aboutthat, you won't mention that the
burrito was wrong, becauseyou're like ah, it's okay, but
like the fact that you'retalking about it now, you didn't
plug whoever the burrito placewas.
(14:53):
But in general, if you're outthere like, this is how we
market.
We exceed expectations, we blowminds of our guests, so they're
talking about what we do toothers.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And had the burrito been right, I'd be mentioning
this location, but you're makingme hungry.
I want a burrito now.
Well, I see.
The other thing, too, is thatyour team obviously cares.
I mean, you respond to everysingle piece of feedback
innovation and your score isincredibly high and your
response times are incrediblylow.
And so I think one of thequestions I have is like, how
(15:27):
has Ovation been helpful for youguys?
Because you obviously created aculture that cares and, like in
the words of Will Guder, likeyou've made it cool to care, but
how has Ovation helped in?
Has helped Haven?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
I think it comes down to what I was saying before the
pride on a work that goes intothe product, and so when we get
a review or an opportunity,we'll call it back from Ovation
saying I got home and there's nosauce in the bag.
It's like you know what?
Our chicken is delicious, butif you have it without our ranch
(16:05):
, you're really missingsomething.
So I just want to use the word.
But I can empathize, becauseI've gotten orders and they've
not had sauce in the bag and it.
It pisses me off.
I've got three kids.
Sometimes I'll make an orderand it's wrong, and some of my
kids are young, so that thatends their entire evening and
(16:26):
like, hence, your entire evening, exactly.
So I get it.
I get how disappointing it canbe.
Our product's not the cheapesteither, and so when we fail on a
quality or we fail on puttingsomething in the bag, it really
hits.
And that pride comes in whenthe GM and AGM and it used to be
literally me responding toevery single ovation and then
(16:49):
around store three, we said,okay, that's insane, we have to
do other things.
And now we put it in there inthe hands of the leaders of the
stores and I think it's betterbecause they can literally say
it's me, melanie, I'm at storeone and I've had people respond
this is AI and we'll write back.
No, it's me, melanie, and Iwatch all of these because I'm
(17:11):
obsessed with this.
So I'll jump in and say, hey,it's Jason, I'm one of the
co-founders, melanie's the GMand then people will say, oh, I
had a bet with my wife that youguys were AI and it's really
hilarious I Hilarious.
I think they're jumping in andthey're responding quickly for a
couple of reasons.
Number one is pride.
They have pride in what they'vecreated in the store and they
(17:33):
want to make sure that, hey, Ican jump on this opportunity, I
can create a better guestexperience, I can fix what we've
done wrong, but also to be outthere and honest.
Like we use an aggregateovation score as part of our
bonus for our team leaders andwe look at things because
sometimes people will give a badscore because they didn't like
(17:53):
the way something was priced.
Okay, that's okay.
We're not for everyone.
We have to recognize that too,but attaching it to your bonus
is a really great way for us tosay this is really important.
Guess first, like every day.
This is really important Guessfirst.
Like every day, it's guessfirst.
That's been the tool, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, I think, making sure that, again, all of our
store level leadership theirbonus, is predicated on
innovation ratings, but also ondeveloping their teams right and
allowing them to grow withinthe organization, so making sure
that they're getting peopleinto different training roles
and leadership roles.
And then I think the other thingthat can contribute to that
pride is that we try tocelebrate success as often as we
(18:33):
can.
One of the most active Slackchannels that we have as an
organization is the shout outsand celebrations channel.
We talk about the guest winsthat we have every day.
Somebody will drop a screenshotof the latest phenomenal
feedback that we've every day.
Somebody will drop a screenshotof the latest phenomenal
feedback that we've gotten froma guest and that fuels the team
our monthly all-hands.
Also, we celebrate that successand we walk through and
(18:55):
celebrate stores that will godozens and dozens of reviews in
a row at five stars and they'recompetitive with each other and
really want to get really highaverage ratings.
And so, in addition to givingthem the ability to do something
about it when a recovery isneeded, but then also
recognizing the hard work thattheir team puts in and the
(19:16):
passion and commitment they havefor delivering a great guest
experience alongside the premiumproduct that we offer.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Awesome.
I love that.
And, by the way, have therebeen any like changes that
you've made at Haven Hot Chickenbecause of feedback that you've
received?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Well, let's see, we've taken menu items away that
people really like and we'vegotten feedback to put them back
on, and so we're working onsome of that, but we have a
pretty straightforward andsimple and small menu.
We want to do very littlethings and do them really,
really right.
That's been the formula.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
So yeah, I would say that we just recently overhauled
our menu and it was a directresult of thousands of data
points across Ovation, you know,across the accessibility of our
menu, and so we underwentprobably six or eight months of
menu testing, iterating anddeveloping a new format for our
menu so that we have a couple ofnew product offerings as a
(20:09):
result.
We serve premium food atpremium prices and large volumes
, and we've had folks that arewe absolutely love your food, I
like.
I would like to eat it moreoften.
I need a smaller portion size.
Oh, interesting, yeah, that wassomething great for us to
incorporate.
That was yeah, that's true.
That's something that weabsolutely learned through
getting reviews.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Well, you guys both of you and the brand is just so
awesome and it's an honor towork with you and I think what
you do is incredible.
How can people find and followyou and your brand?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, we're just at at Haven Hot Chicken on
Instagram, linkedin, facebook.
We're not on Twitter, so don'tlook for us there.
Most importantly, come visitone of our nine locations in
Connecticut, nine going on 90,.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
I hear Nine, going on 90, and look out for some Haven
locations out of Connecticutsoon.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Nice Love that Well, gentlemen, for caring enough to
be consistently great and caringenough to connect with the
guests, today's ovation goes toyou.
Thank you so much for joiningus on Give an Ovation.
Thanks, Zach.
Thanks for joining us today.
If you liked this episode,leave us a review on Apple
Podcasts or your favorite placeto listen.
We're all about feedback here.
(21:23):
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question SMS-basedactionable guest feedback
platform built for multi-unitrestaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at OvationUpcom.
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