Inside the Digital Kitchen Revolution with Markus Pineyro

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Markus Pineyro is not just a restaurant owner—he’s a visionary reshaping how we think about dining experiences. As the co-founder of OOMI Digital Kitchen, Markus has created a food hall that operates almost entirely through digital interactions, yet still boasts a remarkable 4.9-star rating. On this episode of Give an Ovation, we dive into how Markus has built a successful, customer-focused operation without the traditional face-to-face hospitality we expect from restaurants.

In this episode, Zack and Markus discuss:

• The innovative concept behind OOMI Digital Kitchen and how it's redefining guest service
• The importance of creating a seamless digital hospitality experience for off-premise diners
• How Markus and his team turn guest feedback into loyal customers through technology
• The value of using customer data to optimize marketing strategies
• Why complaints can be the most valuable feedback for long-term success

If you’ve ever wondered how to elevate the guest experience in a digital-first world, this episode with Markus Pineyro offers insightful takeaways for restaurants of any size.

Thanks, Markus!

Episode Transcript

Zack Oates (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Give an 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 questions.

(00:21):
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today I am thrilled to haveMarcus Pinheiro on the
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today I am thrilled to haveMarcus Pinheiro on the podcast.
He's the co-founder of UMIDigital Kitchen.
He's the founder of Urban Taco,the co-founder of Unit Skin
Studio, the co-founder of DelSur Restaurant Group.
I mean, this guy, he is afounder at heart.
He's been a phenomenal partnerover the last year plus two

(00:43):
years.
It's been a minute and I hadthe privilege of going to Umi
Kitchen and it was phenomenal.
Such a cool experience.
So, Marcus, welcome to thepodcast, man.

Markus Pineyro (00:53):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Man, Appreciate it.
It's always nice to bump intoyou at the conferences and
excited to talk to you here forthis podcast.

Zack Oates (01:01):
Wait.
So you see me at someconferences.
That's very unusual.
I only get to conferences ifyou're not this podcast.

Markus Pineyro (01:05):
Wait, so you see me at some conferences.
That's very unusual.
I don't think it's a conferenceif you're not there officially.

Zack Oates (01:09):
Well, dude, for those who aren't familiar,
marcus, with UMI, do you want toexplain a little bit about what
it is, because it is just sucha cool spot.

Markus Pineyro (01:16):
Absolutely so.
We're a digital food hall.
We're located here in Dallas,texas.
We run and operate our owndigital brands out of one
kitchen.
We currently have eight brandsand we are on our way to 10 by
the end of the year.
We dedicate ourselves todelivery and pickup.
That's kind of like in ournature.
We're not a ghost kitchen.
We're not a dark kitchen.

(01:37):
We are a digital food fog thathas an actual.
If you look behind me, that's anice little picture of what our
lobby looks like and it's justpart of the experience we want
to create an experience whenpeople order pickup or order
delivery.

Zack Oates (01:49):
Yeah, and what prompted this idea?

Markus Pineyro (01:51):
Yeah, so I've been in the industry for 17
years, traditionally as a brickand mortar operator, and towards
the later years of my career, Istarted thinking about how I
can rethink like the traditionalrestaurant P&L or the
traditional restaurant model.
So early 2020, I startedtalking to my partner this is

(02:12):
before COVID about, hey, likethere's this new thing called
there's ghost kitchens and likelittle dark kitchens and this
intricacies about like how therestaurant space can change, you
know, and I kind of saw alittle bit of an opportunity or
a window.
And then COVID came and it waslike hey, like let's just let me
kind of manage through myregular businesses and make sure

(02:32):
we all survive and we can comeout of this alive and panic,
Right?
So when COVID came out, I wasin touch with my business
partner and I was like hey, youknow, I think that idea that we
had, we were kind of ontosomething.
Let's explore it a little bitfurther.
So it took us about a year or soto kind of develop like the
right model or the rightperformance and something that

(02:53):
we think would make sense, andwe had different iterations.
And then we ended up with UMIASS currently and we're like hey
, like, I think this is it, likelet's go forward.
And we went out and raisedcapital and we opened UMI in
December of 2022.
So we've been open for about ayear and eight months, I guess.
So, yeah, and it's just beenthe concept has changed since

(03:15):
just what we expected and whatwe thought about UMI, as any
other business like, you evolveand you change and you adapt.
So, yeah, we think that we'rekind of getting closer to what
we think is the next iterationof UMI and where we see UMI a
few years from now.

Zack Oates (03:31):
I guess kind of two parts is.
You've got a really interestingmodel because people are only
coming in there.
It's not like a super crazybusy place in terms of like you
don't have tons of seating, youdon't have servers.
So how do you think about theguest experience?
Busy place in terms of like youdon't have tons of seating, you
don't have servers, yeah.
So how do you think about theguest experience?

Markus Pineyro (03:48):
Yeah.
So for us, I mean we thinkabout the guest experience from
start to finish, right, and Ithink that's kind of where you
guys come in and have.
You guys have become like anintegral part of everything we
do.
So you know, you said it rightLike we don't have waiters, we

(04:09):
don't have front of house staff.
We have managers that run therestaurant, run the kitchen,
expedite.
We know we have our great cooksin the kitchen but we have
nobody in the front of house,like there's no one doing
customer service.
But the crazy thing is that wehold a 4.9 Google rating review
with over 350 reviews orsomething.
I got to check the numbers butwe're close to 350, which is a
pretty decent number, but weaverage 4.9.

(04:31):
I don't think there's anotherrestaurant in Dallas and I've
been trying to back check in andactually figure it out but I
really do not think there'sanother restaurant in Dallas
that has a higher rating than usand we have no front of house
staff.
So when you read our reviews,the common thread is for me,
coming from brick and mortar,like food was the most important
component, right?
So our food apparently isreally good, it's consistent,

(04:56):
and that's part of our reviews,and it's always good food,
excellent customer service,awesome food, phenomenal
customer service, awesome food,phenomenal customer service.
And I kept seeing it, seeing it, seeing it, and I started
thinking about it.
I was like, wow, that's great.
How are people like ravingabout our customer service if we
have almost no interaction withthe customer?
And I started really thinkingabout it and obviously like

(05:19):
there's a small interaction.
When the customer comes in andthey see us, we wave.
You know, if I'm there, Iusually sit down and talk.
You know I tend to like start aconversation, but really, like,
most of our interaction isdigital.
They place an order on theirphone or our app, they pick up
their food from a locker, theytake it home and then they get
an ovation text and that's it.

(05:40):
That's our flow.
But everything that we do fromour packaging to how we react
and how we leverage Ovation andhow we leverage our
communication, how we follow upwith them, like how we solve
issues with our own drivers andrefire food and we're using
Empowered Delivery, which hasalso kind of catapulted our
customer service, and how wealso interact, having our own

(06:03):
drivers being able tocommunicate directly with a
customer and have that back andforth communication.
So, once you have that flowgoing, apparently it gives us,
like we have great customerservice, but there's almost no
human interaction that I canthink of.
That's like significant, likethe opportunity, like think
about like somebody picking upfood and you're never going to
see a human ever again.

(06:24):
Yeah, that would be disastrousfor us.
I can't imagine like, if wecan't fix problems and we can
communicate with a customer, wehave no business.
So that's why, like to me, I'vetold you from day one I think I
came up to you at a conference.
Hey, like the first time I metyou, I'm like, hey, my name is
Marcus, I'm with UMI, like Ilove your product and I'm a huge

(06:45):
fan.
And then, like I know, we havea lot of common friends and we
started connecting.
And then, like you know, now we, every time we see each other,
it's a good time, but I am agenuine fan of everything that
Ovation has done.
It's part of our flow and partof our success.
I get into what we've beendoing for the last almost two
years.

Zack Oates (07:03):
Well, I appreciate that and, honestly looking at it
, by the way, you are at 350Google reviews on the button,
4.9 stars Like that isincredible, and I always talk
about Ovation as like a.
It's a great tool, but itrequires someone who knows how
to use it and who actually caresabout the guest experience,
right.

Markus Pineyro (07:23):
To me, like people are using Ovation.
They're out there.
I still think that they'reunder utilizing it or they're
not using it in the way thatwe're using it, and I think
that's something that like forus, like it's my thing with
technology is like I'm anoperator, I'm a restaurant guy.
Like I make tacos.
That's what I've been doing forthe last 17 years.
I started my Mexican foodrestaurant 17 years ago and

(07:44):
that's like I'm not taquero,that's what I am.
But now people like you thathave innovated and advanced all
these great technologies, for me, like the biggest thing I can
do is just leverage it as muchas I can, and that's what.
Like.
When I look at Ovation, I'mlike okay, what can I do
different?
What can I implement?

(08:05):
So, yeah, I mean there's somany little intricacies in
Ovation that just I think peoplelike need to know more about it
and figure out all these littlehacks.
We have hacks that we use forlike Uber Eats.
We have hacks that we use forOvation.
Like we're trying to figure outwhat extra step we can take to
touch the customer one more timeor communicate with them.

(08:25):
Like to me, like my biggest petpeeve for, like in restaurants,
like and I see it a lot Like.
I see it with huge franchise,like national groups.
You go in, you submit your namefor a newsletter, you submit
yourself for SMS marketing.
I give out my informationbecause I want to check your
flow.
I want to see how the big guysare doing it.
I want to see what Homeboy overhere is doing, I want to see
what Kaba is doing, I want tosee what their flow looks like.

(08:48):
And you'd be surprised, so manyof these big names and big
marketing departments thatrestaurants have.
They're not even following upwith a customer.
They're not sending mefollow-up messages, they're not
sending any type ofcommunication and I just gave
you the rights and everythingthat you needed to communicate
with me.
And if I go eat at yourrestaurant and you don't reach
out to me, the chances of meforgetting your restaurant are

(09:11):
much higher than coming back.
So for us, like you come to arestaurant, like you better,
you're going to hear from us,like we're going to be in touch
with you very politely, andwe're going to give you, whether
it's promotional, whether it'sinformational, but we're going
to serve you the rightinformation at the right time.
That's just part of our flows,but we're going to be in touch,
and Ovation helps us do that.

Zack Oates (09:33):
And I think that the way that you have approached
hospitality from a digitalperspective is most restaurants
are relying on their front staff, their front of house staff, to
actually be the hospitalityportion of their business.
But because you don't have any,you've had to create such an
intense digital hospitalityfootprint and you've been able

(09:55):
to do that so well becausethat's the channel that you have
.
Now, the beautiful thing iswhat you're doing for your
off-prem guest is what everyrestaurant should be doing with
their off-prem guest.

Markus Pineyro (10:07):
Yeah, a hundred percent.

Zack Oates (10:09):
But it's a different channel and we need to look at
it differently and treat digitalguests as if that is the only
thing that we have.
And if you do that, and if youthink about it that way, then
things like you're talking aboutthe post-survey visit,
following up with every singleguest.
That becomes obvious becausethose guests are so important.

Markus Pineyro (10:34):
For us every guest.
They're not incremental to us.
Off-premise is our business, sowe see it as we are.
Off-premise, first, we can'tlet any guest go untouched.
And in a restaurant it's likeyou touch a table, the manager
touches the table, the servertouches the table, the bartender
like the busboy, like there'sall these touch points.
You know that's what you learnin brick and mortar.

(10:55):
It's like, hey, go touch tables, go touch tables.
Like for us, we don't havetables and we don't have
managers, so we have to createthis digital footprint and we're
gonna eventually grab you atsome point, whether it's through
an email, an SMS, a follow-upsurvey, like to me.
Like another opportunity is andI've seen it.
Like we have the data to backit up.
It's like we're not perfect,right there.

(11:16):
Like we're not perfect, right,there's no restaurant is perfect
.
Like there's going to behiccups, there's going to be
issues, there's going to bepeople that even if you do the
perfect dish, they're not goingto like it.
It's too spicy, too salty,whatever it is To me like I
salivate when I get a complainton Ovation oh, my wings were too
spicy.
I'm like perfect, that is aperson that I'm going to turn
into a long-term customer.

(11:37):
Like I'm going to convert thatcustomer myself.
I mean, most of the time I dopersonal messages.
I love your AI tool, by the way, and like your AI answering
service, like it's phenomenal,like it's.
I mean, I use that as like abackbone and then I add, like my
custom stuff to it, but like Ican turn those customers around
and I can see them.
Like, once I turn them aroundand I'll comp your mail, I'll

(12:00):
send you a coupon like a promocode, and then I started seeing
that customer come back and Iknow they're coming back and
they're following up with me andthey're saying, hey, I went
again and hey, you were right,it was so good.
Like you can go to like ourGoogle reviews.
Like there's people that willtell you like, hey, like this is
a re-review.
Like the first time I went, itwasn't great, this happened, but
now you know I talked to Marcus.

(12:21):
Now it's like I love Boomi.
I'm a customer for life.
Like we get that over and overand over.
So when we get those negativereviews or negative feedback, we
convert those.
Those are like going to becustomers that we convert.
So it's almost like an ad thatreally worked and we can see the
return on the investment onthat customer, and so I think

(12:41):
those are some of the thingsthat people initially, you're
like upset, like why isn't thisperson complaining?
Why is this person complaining?
But you want to get thosenegative feedbacks, like we've
picked so many dishes just bypeople telling us, hey, the
cheese was melted too much orhey, my fries were soggy or
whatever.
Whatever the issue is, we goback to our team and we say, hey

(13:01):
, this is what we got.
This is a trend, we've got tofix it.
So we go in and improve thedishes right away.

Zack Oates (13:07):
That's what I'm talking about in terms of people
who care, because that doesn'tjust happen with a piece of
technology.
That happens because they havea leader like you, marcus, who
is getting in there and sayingthis is not just an incremental
channel that I want to be okayat.
This is not just an incrementalchannel that I want to be okay
at.
This is our full focus, that weneed to be excellent at, and I

(13:31):
think that it's reallyimpressive to have a 4.9 with no
on-prem, because normallyoff-prem is one and a half stars
lower than the average review.
You can't have a 6.4 out offive.

Markus Pineyro (13:38):
It boggles my mind, but at the end of the day,
it's the team, it's the peoplemaking the food, and then it's
also like just having thesystematic approach on what
happens after the customer getstheir food.
But yeah, it's very interestingit's.
I mean, I've managed fullservice restaurants my entire
life and it's always like peoplestruggle with it.
Like reviews are brutal because, like somebody eats a great

(13:59):
meal, it's very unlikely they'regoing to go and leave you a
review.
There's not a lot of peoplereviewing stuff like these days.
Like Yelp is a cesspool and Idon't know if your partners with
Yelp or not, but I'm not a Yelpguy.
I've never believed in it.
But people don't tend to go outof their way to leave great
reviews, but when it's a bad one, they're more likely to leave a
bad review.

(14:19):
So, typically, like it's hardto have really good reviews even
if you have great food.
So for us, like we're justchugging along and it's they
just keep pouring in and it's wejust keep doing what we're
doing.
Like hey, whatever we're doingis working, just keep doing it,
and we just keep pushing,pushing.

Zack Oates (14:35):
Love that.
What advice would you have ifsomeone is thinking about
ovation man?

Markus Pineyro (14:40):
I think that if you're not willing to get the
feedback from your customersafter they leave your restaurant
, then you're not doing it right.
And like it just doesn't makesense to me.
Like, why wouldn't you want tohear this great information?
Like there's also like one ofmy favorite tools is after each
customer.
Most of our customers will geta feedback survey the next day,

(15:04):
right, so you got to be careful.
Like you don't want to getoverwhelming, you don't want to
keep sending these texts, but wesend a text to the customer 24
hours after the initial text andwe ask them a simple survey.
Hey, we want to ask you acouple questions.
Would you be willing to fillout a survey for a $5 promo code
?
Like, we're incentivizing you.

(15:24):
Give us one more piece ofinformation, and that piece of
information is how did you hearabout us?
Like, and I checked that andtracked that religiously and
that's a small little hack byour friend Rev.
Like he's also an innovationhacker and he's like I've
learned so much from him.
And like that's one of thethings that we worked on
together and it's awesome Liketo me to have that data and know

(15:47):
.
Like okay, 20% of my customersare coming from social media.
30% are coming because theylive in the area.
10% saw a Facebook ad.
Like it's invaluable.
You know what that solves.
I think ever since I startedrestaurants and every
restaurateur I've talked to,nobody's really been able to
really tell you if yourbillboards or your ads or your

(16:08):
coupons or anything like that,if it really works.
We're just throwing money outthe marketing agencies or the
marketing gods and hoping thatsomething sticks.
But that really solves it.
Like we don't know where everycustomer is coming from, but we
have enough of a sample sizebecause we're getting hundreds
of these questionnaires filledout, so we know, like this is

(16:29):
where most of our customers arecoming from.
So that solves that question.

Zack Oates (16:34):
Yeah, and as you increase budget in, like your
online ads, and you don't seeanything bump up in online ads,
maybe that's not the right placeto put it Right.

Markus Pineyro (16:44):
So I think that you can do it by week, two weeks
, three weeks and exactly likedepends on how.
What I'm doing with marketing,I start seeing like hey, look,
it's picking up on social, it'spicking up from influencers.
Hey, our direct mail campaignis working because we're
starting to see a little bumpover the last seven days
compared to 30 days ago.
So is working because we'restarting to see a little bump

(17:10):
over the last seven dayscompared to 30 days ago.
So, yeah, I mean it's just onelittle hack.
It's something that's not thatwe created or we implemented
that Ovation allows us to do,but it's not necessarily a part
of the Ovation flow.
Yes, Something we created andwe hacked it.

Zack Oates (17:17):
I think that's beautiful because, yeah, not a
lot of people even know that wecan do additional follow-up
questions, and so it's great tosee people use it, and it's
great to see people coming upwith really clever ways to use
that.
Now, marcus, who is someone inthe restaurant industry that you
think deserves an ovation?
Oh boy.

Markus Pineyro (17:35):
I'd say Meredith Sandlin.
Oh, I love her.

Zack Oates (17:39):
I was just hanging out with her this week.

Markus Pineyro (17:41):
And I've told her.
It's like hey, the firstconference I ever went to, you
signed my delivering the.
You know the rest.
What's it called?
Delivering the digitalrestaurant?
Yeah, delivering the digitalrestaurant.
I went in there after herpatent on it and I asked her to
sign it and now she's a greatfriend of the business and a
great friend of mine.
So, yeah, I think she's doinggreat things in the industry and

(18:09):
she's one of the few peoplethat generally understands
digital restaurants, and she'slike the queen of digital
restaurants as I see it, yeahamen.

Zack Oates (18:12):
Now, Marcus, where can people go to follow you or
your brands?

Markus Pineyro (18:16):
Yeah, so I don't have a lot of social media
stuff, but I am pretty OBCD onthe Add With Me Kitchen, like
that's pretty much my account.
I check it every day, tend torespond to a lot of the direct
messages and things like that.
So, yeah, that's my personal,but it's also the business and
any social media network aroundword At Umi Kitchen Awesome.

Zack Oates (18:37):
Well, Marcus, for making us go Umi for digital.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGive an Ovation.
I appreciate it.
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.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question, SMS-basedactionable guest feedback

(18:59):
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.