December 15, 2025 • 27 mins
Gregorys Coffee is everywhere right now, and founder and CEO Gregory Zamfotis joins Zack to talk about what it really takes to scale a coffee brand without losing its soul. From mall food courts to multi market growth with Craveworthy Brands, Greg shares how he thinks about speed, quality, and culture in every store.
Zack and Gregory discuss:
- Why franchising is the right next step for Gregorys Coffee
- How to deliver specialty coffee at real New York speed
- Dropping beloved donuts to bake fresh in store
- Developing team members who care as much as you do
- Using guest feedback to stay ahead of competitors
Thanks, Gregory!
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-zamfotis-65589112/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/gregorys-coffee/
https://gregoryscoffee.com/
https://www.instagram.com/gregoryscoffee/?hl=en
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Give Novation, the
Restaurant Guest ExperiencePodcast.
I'm your host, Zach Ot, and eachweek I get to chat with an
industry expert to get theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
Learn what's actually happeningin your restaurants and exactly
(00:22):
how to improve while drivingrevenue.
Learn more at ovationup.com.
And today I have the man, themyth, the logo, Greg Zamaphotis
of Gregory's coffee.
They are just blowing up allover the country.
New York City-based coffeebrand.
If you're in New York, you knowGregory's.
And now they're in malls indifferent locations all around
(00:45):
the country.
So Greg, thanks for joining uson Giving Ovation.
How are you?
Hey, happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (00:51):
And yeah, doing great.
Thanks for that intro.
SPEAKER_01 (00:53):
Well, and we have been working together for almost
four years now.
So this podcast is a long timecoming, but I'm such a big fan
of what you've built and whatyou're building.
And um recently acquired,partnered with Craveworthy.
It's a pretty big deal.
How has that been?
SPEAKER_00 (01:12):
That's been a journey.
Like everything I do, it'salways interesting.
So, as you mentioned, we'vegrown substantially over the
last couple of years.
We worked on the StrategicPartnership Assignment Property
Group, which was sort of thereal kickoff to that, where we
converted a number of Starbucksin their properties to
Gregory's.
They just happen to be aroundthe country where our whole
(01:33):
store base was based in the sortof the New York and DC metro
markets.
So it was something differentfor us.
We were now in Florida,Nashville, Phoenix, California,
Tacoma, some really coolmarkets.
So we knew going into it thatonce we opened these stores,
we're going to want to openplenty more after that and fill
in these markets with moretraditional Gregory's, not just
(01:55):
sort of mall property locations.
So the thought was, are we goingto grow these corporate or were
we going to franchise them?
It sort of became very obviousto us very quickly that
franchising would be thepreferred way to grow just
because we want to get densityin these markets much quicker.
And Cray Worthy is a group thathad been interested in
(02:15):
partnering with Gregory's for along time.
The timing wasn't quite rightuntil more recently when we
said, you know, we're ready todo this.
And they bring tons of prowesswhen it comes to leveraging
franchising as a lever to grow.
So we came together and they'rehelping us do that now.
So we're kicking off thatprocess and hope to be
(02:36):
franchising in 2026.
SPEAKER_01 (02:38):
That's awesome.
And you know, I've got a lot ofrespect for Majewski and what
he's built over there.
And he's had such an incrediblecareer, and it's amazing what
he's done because he and I arelike almost the same age, and I
feel like he's lived like threelives.
So it's great to see that.
Now, by the way, are youoriginally from Jersey?
SPEAKER_00 (02:59):
Originally from Brooklyn, but then I moved to
New Jersey.
I think I was like 10 or 11years old.
So okay.
SPEAKER_01 (03:06):
Well, just because the way you said mall sounded
very Jersey, a little less NewYork.
SPEAKER_00 (03:10):
And so my father had a Panini Press sandwich shop in
a mall in New Jersey, and that'swhere I really, you know, while
I worked for him my whole life,where it really sort of cut my
teeth.
And is it in high school is whenI started working most of my
weekends and breaks for my dadat his place in a food court in
the Freehold Raceway Mall in NewJersey?
SPEAKER_01 (03:31):
Okay, yeah.
So is that where you learnedyour love for Cinnabon as well?
Because I feel like that wasback in the day when Cinnabon
and Chick-fil-A were just likemall spots.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
Yeah, yeah.
Cinnabon was huge.
Auntie Ann's pretzels, you findthem in many mall properties for
sure.
We used to have like a Nathan'shot dogs next to us, Sabaro
Pizza, all the hits, everybodywas in there.
SPEAKER_01 (03:52):
Yeah, I love that.
Now, one thing that I reallywant to clear up for our
listeners, if you look up, andby the way, Gregory's Coffee is
one of the few stickers that Iactually have on my laptop
because it's such a cool logo.
And it really is.
If you've never seen it, you hadto look it up.
And especially if you can watchthe clip of Greg here because it
really is him.
It's like his glasses and hishair.
(04:15):
And what happens, Greg, when youwant to like change your style
up?
What happens when you want a newhairdo?
SPEAKER_00 (04:22):
Oh man, you know, I get this question a lot.
So unsurprisingly, I have morethan one pair of glasses.
They just tend to be thick rim.
The shape has changed over theyears.
My hair, I guess the main thingis just I hope I don't go bald
because I think that's where theproblem comes in right now.
As long as it's kind of like upthere doing some bit of a mess,
(04:43):
then uh it kind of ties in.
So I am a little bitpigeonholed, but it's been
working for me for a while.
SPEAKER_01 (04:48):
Yeah, well, yeah, obviously.
So good for you on that one.
And the other thing I want toclear up though, is there is,
and this is something that wealways train our people on when
they start up at ovation, and ifthey're gonna be working with
you, there is no apostrophe.
This is the plural of Gregory's.
There are a lot of Gregory's,it's not his coffee shop, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:09):
It's not mine, it's yours.
That's part of it.
The other part was we just likedhow it looked b looked better
without the apostrophe when wewere building our first sign in
2006.
But hey, Starbucks doesn't havean apostrophe, right?
That's named after Starbucksfrom Moby Dick.
SPEAKER_01 (05:23):
So Oh, I actually didn't even know that.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
Yeah, come on, man.
Starbuck, I guess he was thefirst mate in Moby Dick.
SPEAKER_01 (05:30):
Oh my gosh, I've read two books about Starbucks,
and I never even like either Imissed it in those books or they
didn't talk about it.
SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
But they don't really talk about it that much,
but that's part of the lore, Iguess.
SPEAKER_01 (05:48):
Okay, because as I was prepping for this podcast, I
wanted to make sure thatlisteners knew that there was no
apostrophe because that was ahot job.
Keep it queen, man.
Yeah.
And it does.
I mean, the logo looks reallyslick, and I think that like
having that apostrophe in therewould just like kind of like
throw it off.
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
Yeah, the grammar heads out there are never gonna
be happy with the decision, butmake it work.
It's like, you know, the famousplace, the ear in lower
Manhattan.
It's like it was a neon or asign that said originally said
bar, but part of the B likebroke off, so it looked more
like ear.
So they just started callingthemselves ear in just because
the sign got messed up.
(06:26):
They're like, yeah, instead ofchanging the sign, we'll just
change the name.
SPEAKER_01 (06:30):
Sure, there we go.
You know, some things changeorganically, some things never
change.
Like you go to McSorley's.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's a big light ordark.
Yeah, exactly.
Light or dark.
For those of you who don't drinkalcohol, if you ask for
non-alcoholic beer there andthey say light or dark, they're
not asking you what kind ofnon-alcoholic beer you want.
I unfortunately had theexperience of asking for
(06:51):
non-alcoholic beer and theybrought me out real beer and I
quickly realized it.
But then when I asked for it,he's like, Well, what do you
want?
A soda?
And I was like, Yeah, I'd lovewhat.
And so they brought me out alukewarm can of ginger ale that
he cleaned with his t-shirt andthen put on the counter.
So anyway, if you're in New Yorkand you after you get some
coffee, you want a beer,McStorley's is great.
(07:12):
If you don't drink, uhMcStorly's is not great, but
it's still historic.
So let's talk about that wholevibe, the whole guest
experience.
What do you think, Greg, is oneof the most important aspects of
guest experience nowadays?
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
Some things never change.
I think it's sort of respectingthe guests and their time, why
they're there, and then sort ofsolving backwards for it, right?
Like, what do we have to do tomeet the customer where they're
at?
I was raised in a foods andservice family, right?
My father had fast casualconcepts in New York City my
(07:46):
entire life, and it was drilledinto me from a very, very young
age that we needed to crush thelunch rush.
That's how you made your moneyback in the day.
Uh, you still do in manyrestaurants in New York City,
but the only way you're gonna dothat is you gotta be fast, you
have to be really great product,great service, your restaurant
has to be clean.
You know, do all those things ina really busy setting because
again, that was what thatcustomer wanted.
(08:08):
The lunch customer in the busyparts of New York City, those
are the elements that are superimportant to them.
If you could do all those thingswell, you'll tend to have a
great business.
So that always sort of resonatedwith me and stuck, which is why
when we launched Gregory's, ourpoint of view is different than
a lot of the other specialtycoffee concepts out there,
because everybody was just honedin hardcore on quality and
(08:32):
product, which is right, andthey should do that, and we do
that too.
But they sort of turned a blindeye to a lot of other things
that I think people really valuein their experience.
No matter who we talk to or whatsurveys we do, convenience is
almost always at the top offolks' list when it comes to
coffee.
It might not always be theirfirst preferential item, but
(08:52):
it's always an important factor.
Access to the location, speed.
Now we know obviouslydrive-throughs are popular for a
reason, the most convenientthing.
You don't have to get out of acar.
So we said, well, why can't wedo both?
Why don't we focus onthroughput, but also not
sacrifice quality?
So that was our point of view 20years ago, and that's remains
(09:13):
our point of view today is whydoes a customer have to
sacrifice just because they'regetting something quicker,
right?
So we put systems in place, weuse tools, we train our people,
we do all these things to ensurewe can deliver super high
quality in the fastest amount oftime possible.
Not everybody is actuallylooking to rush, we don't want
to rush them, but I would alwayssay, why not give that time back
(09:34):
to somebody?
So if they say, hey, I'm I don'tmind if I get my product in two
or three minutes or seven oreight minutes, but if they could
get it quicker and then theycould choose what they want to
do with those extra minutes,they could stay, have their
coffee, hang out, they could geton their way and going.
But I never wanted people tosay, well, there's a floor,
right?
It's always going to be 10, 15minutes to get my product,
(09:54):
whether I'm coming in rush ornon-rush.
Because I would think about it,well, if I've got a lunch break,
30 minutes, by the time I getout of the office or whatever
I'm doing, I get to where I needto go.
If it takes to take 15 or 20minutes to get my product and
then I have to turn around andgo, all of a sudden that kind of
eats up my entire ability totake my break.
I'm not going to come to back tothis place anymore.
So I'm saying, why don't I tryand execute at a higher level
(10:19):
than what other folks weredoing, specifically those that
were focused on quality andsolving for it that way, because
again, I'm looking at what do Iwant?
Again, and that's also maybeanother element to this is
selling to myself and makingsure whatever I'm doing or we're
doing as a company resonateswith me as well.
I am the classic New Yorker.
(10:40):
I look in and I see a busy lineat a place.
If I don't feel confident theycan move a line, I just I don't
do it.
I'm not the guy that waits inlong lines or or 45 minutes for
a slice of pizza.
Just I'll never do it.
So I don't want to be turningoff customers that are like me
that say, like, oh, I wouldn't,I want to feel like I'm going to
be serviced in a relativelyreasonable amount of time.
(11:01):
You know, it doesn't have to beinstant, but it also doesn't
have to feel like you'rewatching paint dry, which is
what it could feel likesometimes waiting in some of
these lines.
SPEAKER_01 (11:08):
And I think that you have such an interesting
balance.
There's a story that I have tolddozens of times.
I've told your story dozens oftimes.
I'd love to hear it from you.
But it to me shows uh such adiscipline, and it shows that
you really care about the guestexperience more so and like you
have this balancing act of like,okay, I want to create
(11:30):
efficiencies to create a greatguest experience, but that means
I'm gonna have to sacrificesomething else.
And I would love for you to talkthrough how you thought about
getting rid of the donutsbecause this to me was so
powerful because I know howspecial that recipe was to you
and your family.
And so, yeah, do you want totell us that story?
SPEAKER_00 (11:52):
Yeah.
For it's certainly not the onlytime we've had to make a
decision like this.
So we have a central commissarywhere we prepare roast our
coffee, also where we preparemost of our foods.
And for the majority of the timehere at Gregory's, every single
baked good was made fromscratch, baked fresh at that
commissary overnight, and thendelivered to our cafes, our
(12:16):
stores to be used in themorning.
One of the results of COVID waswe had to think through
production, making use of ourspace, but also we're growing.
It was becoming harder andharder for that facility to make
product, all those productsevery single day.
But one of our most popular or anumber of our most popular
pastry items were our donuts.
We had a classic sourdoughglazed donut, a whole wheat chai
(12:40):
donut, and an apple fritter.
So we had those three donuts,which were probably three of our
top five selling bakery items.
All three were recipes from myfather's first business.
He dropped out of BrooklynCollege in the 70s to take over
the donut shop he was running inSouth Brooklyn.
So again, these are 55-year-oldrecipes that he always loved,
(13:01):
and we started using them atGregory's.
At some point, people lovedthem.
They stood the test of time.
But the problem was once wedecided we wanted to move the
baking and production in storeas opposed to the commissary, we
could no longer do donuts.
Donuts are fried, right?
So at least the way that we weredoing them, we weren't going to
put fryers and hoods in all ofour stores.
We had ovens, convection ovens,so we could bake off fresh.
(13:22):
So we felt like this was goingto be a huge upgrade for our
guests by being able to deliveran even fresher product.
So while we were still makingthe products from scratch,
baking it in our own facility,it was still baked at a remote
facility, and it was probably 12to 18 hours before.
Whereas now, when you get acroissant at Gregory's at 7
(13:43):
a.m., it was baked 30, 45minutes ago, right?
It's a fresh product.
So it was a hard decision tosay, well, are we going to
eliminate some of our customers'favorite items?
But you know, we truly believedin the decision that we were
going to elevate the experiencefor the guests.
They would appreciate the factthat they were getting a truly
fresh-made product.
They were able to see it.
The ovens were right behind thepastry case.
(14:05):
They're watching that productcoming out.
Honestly, the smell, too.
Like you can't get away from youopen the oven door when you're
baking fresh croissants or freshchalkage or cookies.
I mean, it's intoxicating.
So it was another side benefitof having that in the store.
But we thought that while thecustomers might bristle at this
overall, it was going to be abetter experience, better
(14:26):
product, and a better overalltarget for what the customers
think we're going for, which washow can we make our bakery
program rise closer to the levelof our coffee program, which we
felt was elite, amazing.
People love it.
But obviously, they're watchingus make that product right on
the spot.
So we want to do that with thebaked goods too.
So unfortunately, we had to saygoodbye to those donuts.
The recipes are still there.
(14:47):
We could use them maybe at somepoint, but right now that's not
in the cards.
SPEAKER_01 (14:51):
That discipline of taking that family recipe that
meant a lot to you.
And, you know, you could havesat there and argued, like, no,
this is Gregory's coffee.
Like, this is part of our DNA.
But uh Gregory isn't the part ofthe DNA.
It's the guest experience that'spart of the DNA.
And I love that you were able tokind of pull out your desires
(15:14):
and your wants and put the guestfirst.
And that really, I think shinesthrough.
Like when you when you go to aGregory's coffee, like it shows
that the guest experience isparamount.
SPEAKER_00 (15:25):
Yeah, that's 100% true.
I just had this sort of reminderyesterday about how much our
people matter, not just ourguests, but our team.
Um, I was in our our DC, and oneof my favorite team members of
all time, uh, team member namedCindy.
She's one of our team leadersdown one of our DC locations.
And it's like, again, talkingabout baked goods.
(15:46):
Anytime I'm at a store thatCindy is at, the pastry case is
undeniably perfect.
I couldn't set it up bettermyself.
And she truly gets it and careswith putting that little extra
love as to how you're baking.
Like you could bake, it's like,hey, 20 minutes is the
recommended time for thesecookies.
Make sure you take it out.
Then there's also people thatsay, like, well, I want to check
(16:07):
and I'm not gonna take it outuntil 20 minutes and 30 seconds
because I don't see the properamount of browning and the
texture isn't right.
Like, she truly gets it andcares, and it's like something
about her little touch.
But again, that comes back toshe cares, she's such a good
person.
She's a native Spanish speaker,and she always struggled early
on speaking English.
So she never felt like she couldmove up at Gregory's or any
(16:31):
other business because of herlimitations with the language.
But I had told her supervisor atthe time, I'm like, you know
what?
I don't even care about that.
This is a person you need toreward.
She works so hard.
She's honestly a bright lightanytime I'm in.
She's maybe not the mostconfident English speaker, but
she definitely can communicateeffectively with her team and
with guests.
And she's never let me downever.
(16:52):
So again, we continue to moveher up.
I was got to see her yesterdayand chat a little bit.
Again, like clockwork, I go in,the patriot case looks
absolutely perfect, and she'sjust rocking and rolling.
So I believed in her, even whenmaybe she didn't believe in
herself.
And that's also just somethingthat for me is just how we think
about this business.
It comes back to the people, notjust the people we serve, but
(17:12):
the people we serve with,alongside with, shoulder to
shoulder.
And for me, I never put anythingbeneath me.
You'll see me plunging toilets,you'll see me sweeping and
mopping.
You probably see me behind thebar because I just love making
coffee, so I can't help myself.
Sometimes to my own detriment,if I'm dressed nicely, I have a
meeting, I have to meet with alawyer or for whatever reason, I
(17:33):
have to wear a white shirt and atie, and I might wind up getting
a splattered espresso on mebecause I was behind the bar for
20 minutes helping the team outis just something that I can't
help myself.
I just genuinely love theproduct.
I love serving the guests, beingshoulder to shoulder with our
team.
And whether it's doing any ofthose things or if something
just needs to get done, Iwouldn't ask anybody to do
(17:54):
anything I wouldn't do myself.
And I think my team trulybelieves that because I show
them that every single day.
So that's sort of the kind oforganization I always wanted to
set up and how I wanted peopleto feel.
So you're not just going to seeme sitting on the side counting
money or not paying attention tofolks.
Like I really want to be rubbingshoulders and digging in with
the team.
And it sort of creates thatculture of that's how we think
(18:17):
about the world.
We want to help each other.
It tends to lead to betterexperiences for the guests.
You know, not you don't have totell them treat that person
right.
But people tend to do thosethings when they're in a great
culture or a great environmentand they feel good, right?
If they're feeling like they'rebeaten down or that kind of
supervisor or boss who doesn'tmake them feel good or yelling,
they're not going to then turnaround and be smiling and giving
(18:37):
the best experience to a guestbecause they don't want to be
there.
I still would love to figure outhow to be doing like daily NPS
scores with our team.
So, like, how do they feel whenthey come in the shift and how
do they feel when they leave theshift and really see how are we
meeting them where they're at,right?
Like it's it's just as importantfor me to serve our guests as to
like make our team feel they'regreat and have enjoying the time
on the shift.
If they start the shift at anine and leave at a six, that's
(18:59):
something's wrong.
Like, what did we do?
Did something one-off happenwith a guest, or is it something
that we're doing that's notmaking their experience with us
positive?
So these are some of the thingsI think about too.
Again, I know you're into thedata and all that stuff too, and
certainly with customersentiment, but team sentiment is
something that I think is almostas important because it they go
hand in hand.
(19:19):
You can't have a great customerservice if your team isn't
loving it.
SPEAKER_01 (19:23):
Well, we should talk about that, Greg, because I'd
love to even just like run anexperiment with you on
leveraging because we have akiosk survey as well that we
don't normally use for front ofhouse anymore, but something
that we should definitely try onthe back of house.
I mean, I know that you guys arethe reasons that we have a
call-to-tech solution.
I mean, we met with you uh threeyears ago, right?
(19:43):
We're about a year after youguys started working with us,
and we're like, hey, we'rethinking about doing something
different with our phones.
And so we built that together.
And that's been an amazingsolution and solving a lot of
problems.
And over the years, I think youguys have been instrumental in
providing a lot of feedback andjust really appreciate your
partnership and talking aboutgetting in the weeds.
I mean, like, usually at yoursize, there's a lot of CEOs that
(20:06):
don't really care about theguest feedback.
I read those things.
I care about this stuff.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:10):
So I'd love for you to just tell me like how has
ovation been helpful for you tokind of keep a pulse on things.
I mean, it's just exactly that.
I actually read the emails, Iactually read the feedback.
It's important to me tounderstand what's working and
what's not.
Nobody likes to read badreviews, right?
It doesn't help, it doesn't makeyou feel good, but better to
know than to have the blindspot, right?
(20:31):
Like just say, like, well, whatare we going to do about this?
It's like a free secret shopperreport to understand what are
the guests saying.
And I remember way back in theday when Yelp was first starting
out and reviews, you know,online reviews didn't really
exist.
I remember the first time I gota review posted on Yelp about
our first store.
It might have been a three-starreview because I think the
(20:52):
something was like the guest wasupset that there was crumbs on
the table when they got there.
And I remember trying to reachout to Yelp to be like, take
this thing down.
Like, I don't know why this, whyare there things about posted
about my business that I have nosay in, or like, and I it was
new at the time.
It was like 20 years ago, itdidn't exist.
I'm like, no, sorry, we can'ttake it down.
And then I sort of realized whatit was, which is sort of like a
(21:12):
window into the store.
And yes, every not every personis going to be giving a fully
accurate or whatever descriptionis their own personal
experience.
But that person felt that kindof way, so it drove them to
leave a review.
So it should just sort of driveus to be better at what we do to
sort of make less reasons forsomebody to not want to leave a
five-star review, right?
So that's the goal.
And getting more data points,more information just helps us
(21:34):
strengthen and become a bettercompany, a better service model,
better team.
So for a lot of things, we don'thave the data, we don't have the
information.
It's hard to understand wherethe opportunity is.
But using a tool like ovation,having those insights come in so
frequently across the portfolio,you can dive in and truly get a
(21:56):
sense of what's going on.
Again, as you scale too, it'sanother challenge.
You have one or two stores,maybe you might not realize how
much you're missing, but youmight have a pretty good sense
of what's going on just by beingin the store or the restaurant
all those hours and paying closeattention to how things are
feeling, even though sometimes,again, as you know, customers
don't always say it.
They might write it to you, butthey wouldn't tell you to your
(22:17):
face.
But as you scale, it becomesmuch harder.
And that's what I found.
As we started going from two,three, five, ten stores, it was
impossible for me to reallyunderstand how the customers are
feeling across the portfolio.
So to have this at your disposalis sort of non-negotiable at
this point.
It's like if you don't reallyknow how your customers are
seeing you, then you're justflying blind.
(22:39):
Yeah, you might be doing well.
And I've spoken to otheroperators or restaurant groups
that are doing well.
But there's certainlyopportunities or things that
could be better.
And I think that's what I'veseen.
There's maybe my one of thebigger lessons I learned was
over the years, you can't everrelax because things change and
things change quickly.
And you don't want to be caughtflat footed because, like, we
(23:00):
had some stores that werekilling it so busy.
But in the back of my mind, Ialways knew there was some the
leader, maybe wasn't as strongas I would have hoped.
There was issues at the store,but I didn't really want to mess
with it because the store wasdoing so well.
But the real reason probably wasthe fact that it was a great
location.
There wasn't as much competitionaround.
So we had this sort of likemonopoly situation going on
(23:21):
where there was nowhere else togo.
And the minute a competitoropened nearby, like, oof, like
things just dropped because wejust weren't strong enough for
operating at the level that Iknew we should have.
So I never wanted to have thathappen again.
I'm saying, like, you know, nowwhen there's smoke, you got to
make sure there's no fire.
So whether it's poor reviews orsome slippage on KPIs or
whatever it is, some negativesentiment, let's just try and
(23:43):
zip that out as quickly aspossible because you never know,
right?
Like things might be greattoday, but things change in a
blink.
And you don't want to be caughtnot being resilient enough or
able to withstand challenges foreither macroeconomic challenges
or direct threats, right?
People are ruthless, right?
I have coffee shop competitorsthat like out of a whole city,
(24:05):
however many tens, hundreds ofthousands of locations, like
they'll open up next door toyou.
They just don't care.
But again, I would also say thatonly tends to happen if people
perceive you as not so strong.
I wouldn't open up the next tosomebody if I thought they were
a great operation, because I'mlike, well, why would I do that?
But so if I'm ever perceived tobe weak, that's another thing to
(24:25):
say, like, well, why would thiscompany come near me?
They see an opportunity becausethey think they can take my
market share.
So from a competitivestandpoint, is how do I continue
to build a moat or how do I makepeople say, like, I don't want
to go anywhere near a Gregory'sbecause they're doing such a
great job, right?
So you have to have thatmentality too.
And like all these things, like,you know, iron sharpens iron,
right?
Like, you know, by taking thehard feedback, taking a deep
(24:46):
look at what's going well, butalso like an even deeper look at
what's not going well.
And how do you tighten that upand make sure there's visibility
and ovation is a great tool tobe able to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (24:56):
Well, appreciate that because I think that like
it is sometimes hard to eat crowand it's tough to sit there and
like read some of the feedbackthat's negative, realizing that
it's a much smaller percentageof the total feedback, but that
negative feedback is stuff thatneeds to get take action on
right now, right?
And that's why, you know, whenwe send the the daily and weekly
(25:16):
emails, we like to remind peopleof, hey, here's how many
positive surveys you got aswell.
But I think at the end of theday, it's like yesterday, for
example, I'm counting mycalories right now, and last
night as I was going to bed, Ihad three like uh gummy bears
and a York peppermint patty, andI didn't put those in my calorie
tracker.
But guess what?
It doesn't change the truth.
(25:37):
It doesn't matter what my datashows, yeah.
Right.
It's like the truth is thetruth.
And so to your point, it's muchbetter to know what's going on
so you can act on it as opposedto hoping that it's not
happening.
SPEAKER_00 (25:51):
Yeah, it's being honest with yourself, right?
You're not doing yourself anyfavors by not seeing the truth,
right?
So whether it's putting theaccurate things in, because then
when you look back, like, ohyeah, I only I did, I was on
track.
Like, no, you weren't.
I deviated and I'm sort of thecheating, right?
So, you know, if I'm onlylooking at the positive reviews,
what am how am I gonna learn?
How am I gonna get better,right?
That's that's just not how how Iwould approach it or how others
(26:12):
I would recommend taking thatfree feedback as much as you can
and using it as a tool toimprove.
SPEAKER_01 (26:17):
Love that.
Well, Greg, how can people findand follow you in Gregory's
Coffee?
SPEAKER_00 (26:22):
So, Gregory's Coffee, you can find at pretty
simple uh Gregory'sCoffee.com.
Our handle is at Gregory'sCoffee on all the channels.
Again, no apostrophe.
So at Gregory's Coffee on allthose TikTok, Instagram, X, I
guess you call it now, Facebook,et cetera.
Me personally, you could find memy first name and my last name
at Gregory Zamphotis.
(26:43):
I'm probably most, uh althoughI'm not very active on on many
of the channels, I'm starting tobecome a little bit more
LinkedIn, Instagram X.
So I'm on Twitter.
I mean, I'm on TikTok.
I just haven't posted or doneanything just yet, but I'm there
and should probably be onSubstack soon, so you'll could
probably find me there too.
But yeah, maybe Instagram isprobably the most likely place
(27:05):
to find me right now that I'mactually doing stuff on.
SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
Love it, man.
Well, Greg, despite being thelogo for always putting the
guest above yourself, today'sovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGiving Ovation.
Thanks, man.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for joining us today.
If you like this episode, leaveus a review on Apple Podcasts or
your favorite place to listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
(27:29):
two-question estimate-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 ovationup.com.
Welcome to another edition of Give Novation, the
Restaurant Guest ExperiencePodcast.
I'm your host, Zach Ot, and eachweek I get to chat with an
industry expert to get theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
Learn what's actually happeningin your restaurants and exactly
(00:22):
how to improve while drivingrevenue.
Learn more at ovationup.com.
And today I have the man, themyth, the logo, Greg Zamaphotis
of Gregory's coffee.
They are just blowing up allover the country.
New York City-based coffeebrand.
If you're in New York, you knowGregory's.
And now they're in malls indifferent locations all around
(00:45):
the country.
So Greg, thanks for joining uson Giving Ovation.
How are you?
Hey, happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (00:51):
And yeah, doing great.
Thanks for that intro.
SPEAKER_01 (00:53):
Well, and we have been working together for almost
four years now.
So this podcast is a long timecoming, but I'm such a big fan
of what you've built and whatyou're building.
And um recently acquired,partnered with Craveworthy.
It's a pretty big deal.
How has that been?
SPEAKER_00 (01:12):
That's been a journey.
Like everything I do, it'salways interesting.
So, as you mentioned, we'vegrown substantially over the
last couple of years.
We worked on the StrategicPartnership Assignment Property
Group, which was sort of thereal kickoff to that, where we
converted a number of Starbucksin their properties to
Gregory's.
They just happen to be aroundthe country where our whole
(01:33):
store base was based in the sortof the New York and DC metro
markets.
So it was something differentfor us.
We were now in Florida,Nashville, Phoenix, California,
Tacoma, some really coolmarkets.
So we knew going into it thatonce we opened these stores,
we're going to want to openplenty more after that and fill
in these markets with moretraditional Gregory's, not just
(01:55):
sort of mall property locations.
So the thought was, are we goingto grow these corporate or were
we going to franchise them?
It sort of became very obviousto us very quickly that
franchising would be thepreferred way to grow just
because we want to get densityin these markets much quicker.
And Cray Worthy is a group thathad been interested in
(02:15):
partnering with Gregory's for along time.
The timing wasn't quite rightuntil more recently when we
said, you know, we're ready todo this.
And they bring tons of prowesswhen it comes to leveraging
franchising as a lever to grow.
So we came together and they'rehelping us do that now.
So we're kicking off thatprocess and hope to be
(02:36):
franchising in 2026.
SPEAKER_01 (02:38):
That's awesome.
And you know, I've got a lot ofrespect for Majewski and what
he's built over there.
And he's had such an incrediblecareer, and it's amazing what
he's done because he and I arelike almost the same age, and I
feel like he's lived like threelives.
So it's great to see that.
Now, by the way, are youoriginally from Jersey?
SPEAKER_00 (02:59):
Originally from Brooklyn, but then I moved to
New Jersey.
I think I was like 10 or 11years old.
So okay.
SPEAKER_01 (03:06):
Well, just because the way you said mall sounded
very Jersey, a little less NewYork.
SPEAKER_00 (03:10):
And so my father had a Panini Press sandwich shop in
a mall in New Jersey, and that'swhere I really, you know, while
I worked for him my whole life,where it really sort of cut my
teeth.
And is it in high school is whenI started working most of my
weekends and breaks for my dadat his place in a food court in
the Freehold Raceway Mall in NewJersey?
SPEAKER_01 (03:31):
Okay, yeah.
So is that where you learnedyour love for Cinnabon as well?
Because I feel like that wasback in the day when Cinnabon
and Chick-fil-A were just likemall spots.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
Yeah, yeah.
Cinnabon was huge.
Auntie Ann's pretzels, you findthem in many mall properties for
sure.
We used to have like a Nathan'shot dogs next to us, Sabaro
Pizza, all the hits, everybodywas in there.
SPEAKER_01 (03:52):
Yeah, I love that.
Now, one thing that I reallywant to clear up for our
listeners, if you look up, andby the way, Gregory's Coffee is
one of the few stickers that Iactually have on my laptop
because it's such a cool logo.
And it really is.
If you've never seen it, you hadto look it up.
And especially if you can watchthe clip of Greg here because it
really is him.
It's like his glasses and hishair.
(04:15):
And what happens, Greg, when youwant to like change your style
up?
What happens when you want a newhairdo?
SPEAKER_00 (04:22):
Oh man, you know, I get this question a lot.
So unsurprisingly, I have morethan one pair of glasses.
They just tend to be thick rim.
The shape has changed over theyears.
My hair, I guess the main thingis just I hope I don't go bald
because I think that's where theproblem comes in right now.
As long as it's kind of like upthere doing some bit of a mess,
(04:43):
then uh it kind of ties in.
So I am a little bitpigeonholed, but it's been
working for me for a while.
SPEAKER_01 (04:48):
Yeah, well, yeah, obviously.
So good for you on that one.
And the other thing I want toclear up though, is there is,
and this is something that wealways train our people on when
they start up at ovation, and ifthey're gonna be working with
you, there is no apostrophe.
This is the plural of Gregory's.
There are a lot of Gregory's,it's not his coffee shop, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:09):
It's not mine, it's yours.
That's part of it.
The other part was we just likedhow it looked b looked better
without the apostrophe when wewere building our first sign in
2006.
But hey, Starbucks doesn't havean apostrophe, right?
That's named after Starbucksfrom Moby Dick.
SPEAKER_01 (05:23):
So Oh, I actually didn't even know that.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
Yeah, come on, man.
Starbuck, I guess he was thefirst mate in Moby Dick.
SPEAKER_01 (05:30):
Oh my gosh, I've read two books about Starbucks,
and I never even like either Imissed it in those books or they
didn't talk about it.
SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
But they don't really talk about it that much,
but that's part of the lore, Iguess.
SPEAKER_01 (05:48):
Okay, because as I was prepping for this podcast, I
wanted to make sure thatlisteners knew that there was no
apostrophe because that was ahot job.
Keep it queen, man.
Yeah.
And it does.
I mean, the logo looks reallyslick, and I think that like
having that apostrophe in therewould just like kind of like
throw it off.
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
Yeah, the grammar heads out there are never gonna
be happy with the decision, butmake it work.
It's like, you know, the famousplace, the ear in lower
Manhattan.
It's like it was a neon or asign that said originally said
bar, but part of the B likebroke off, so it looked more
like ear.
So they just started callingthemselves ear in just because
the sign got messed up.
(06:26):
They're like, yeah, instead ofchanging the sign, we'll just
change the name.
SPEAKER_01 (06:30):
Sure, there we go.
You know, some things changeorganically, some things never
change.
Like you go to McSorley's.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's a big light ordark.
Yeah, exactly.
Light or dark.
For those of you who don't drinkalcohol, if you ask for
non-alcoholic beer there andthey say light or dark, they're
not asking you what kind ofnon-alcoholic beer you want.
I unfortunately had theexperience of asking for
(06:51):
non-alcoholic beer and theybrought me out real beer and I
quickly realized it.
But then when I asked for it,he's like, Well, what do you
want?
A soda?
And I was like, Yeah, I'd lovewhat.
And so they brought me out alukewarm can of ginger ale that
he cleaned with his t-shirt andthen put on the counter.
So anyway, if you're in New Yorkand you after you get some
coffee, you want a beer,McStorley's is great.
(07:12):
If you don't drink, uhMcStorly's is not great, but
it's still historic.
So let's talk about that wholevibe, the whole guest
experience.
What do you think, Greg, is oneof the most important aspects of
guest experience nowadays?
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
Some things never change.
I think it's sort of respectingthe guests and their time, why
they're there, and then sort ofsolving backwards for it, right?
Like, what do we have to do tomeet the customer where they're
at?
I was raised in a foods andservice family, right?
My father had fast casualconcepts in New York City my
(07:46):
entire life, and it was drilledinto me from a very, very young
age that we needed to crush thelunch rush.
That's how you made your moneyback in the day.
Uh, you still do in manyrestaurants in New York City,
but the only way you're gonna dothat is you gotta be fast, you
have to be really great product,great service, your restaurant
has to be clean.
You know, do all those things ina really busy setting because
again, that was what thatcustomer wanted.
(08:08):
The lunch customer in the busyparts of New York City, those
are the elements that are superimportant to them.
If you could do all those thingswell, you'll tend to have a
great business.
So that always sort of resonatedwith me and stuck, which is why
when we launched Gregory's, ourpoint of view is different than
a lot of the other specialtycoffee concepts out there,
because everybody was just honedin hardcore on quality and
(08:32):
product, which is right, andthey should do that, and we do
that too.
But they sort of turned a blindeye to a lot of other things
that I think people really valuein their experience.
No matter who we talk to or whatsurveys we do, convenience is
almost always at the top offolks' list when it comes to
coffee.
It might not always be theirfirst preferential item, but
(08:52):
it's always an important factor.
Access to the location, speed.
Now we know obviouslydrive-throughs are popular for a
reason, the most convenientthing.
You don't have to get out of acar.
So we said, well, why can't wedo both?
Why don't we focus onthroughput, but also not
sacrifice quality?
So that was our point of view 20years ago, and that's remains
(09:13):
our point of view today is whydoes a customer have to
sacrifice just because they'regetting something quicker,
right?
So we put systems in place, weuse tools, we train our people,
we do all these things to ensurewe can deliver super high
quality in the fastest amount oftime possible.
Not everybody is actuallylooking to rush, we don't want
to rush them, but I would alwayssay, why not give that time back
(09:34):
to somebody?
So if they say, hey, I'm I don'tmind if I get my product in two
or three minutes or seven oreight minutes, but if they could
get it quicker and then theycould choose what they want to
do with those extra minutes,they could stay, have their
coffee, hang out, they could geton their way and going.
But I never wanted people tosay, well, there's a floor,
right?
It's always going to be 10, 15minutes to get my product,
(09:54):
whether I'm coming in rush ornon-rush.
Because I would think about it,well, if I've got a lunch break,
30 minutes, by the time I getout of the office or whatever
I'm doing, I get to where I needto go.
If it takes to take 15 or 20minutes to get my product and
then I have to turn around andgo, all of a sudden that kind of
eats up my entire ability totake my break.
I'm not going to come to back tothis place anymore.
So I'm saying, why don't I tryand execute at a higher level
(10:19):
than what other folks weredoing, specifically those that
were focused on quality andsolving for it that way, because
again, I'm looking at what do Iwant?
Again, and that's also maybeanother element to this is
selling to myself and makingsure whatever I'm doing or we're
doing as a company resonateswith me as well.
I am the classic New Yorker.
(10:40):
I look in and I see a busy lineat a place.
If I don't feel confident theycan move a line, I just I don't
do it.
I'm not the guy that waits inlong lines or or 45 minutes for
a slice of pizza.
Just I'll never do it.
So I don't want to be turningoff customers that are like me
that say, like, oh, I wouldn't,I want to feel like I'm going to
be serviced in a relativelyreasonable amount of time.
(11:01):
You know, it doesn't have to beinstant, but it also doesn't
have to feel like you'rewatching paint dry, which is
what it could feel likesometimes waiting in some of
these lines.
SPEAKER_01 (11:08):
And I think that you have such an interesting
balance.
There's a story that I have tolddozens of times.
I've told your story dozens oftimes.
I'd love to hear it from you.
But it to me shows uh such adiscipline, and it shows that
you really care about the guestexperience more so and like you
have this balancing act of like,okay, I want to create
(11:30):
efficiencies to create a greatguest experience, but that means
I'm gonna have to sacrificesomething else.
And I would love for you to talkthrough how you thought about
getting rid of the donutsbecause this to me was so
powerful because I know howspecial that recipe was to you
and your family.
And so, yeah, do you want totell us that story?
SPEAKER_00 (11:52):
Yeah.
For it's certainly not the onlytime we've had to make a
decision like this.
So we have a central commissarywhere we prepare roast our
coffee, also where we preparemost of our foods.
And for the majority of the timehere at Gregory's, every single
baked good was made fromscratch, baked fresh at that
commissary overnight, and thendelivered to our cafes, our
(12:16):
stores to be used in themorning.
One of the results of COVID waswe had to think through
production, making use of ourspace, but also we're growing.
It was becoming harder andharder for that facility to make
product, all those productsevery single day.
But one of our most popular or anumber of our most popular
pastry items were our donuts.
We had a classic sourdoughglazed donut, a whole wheat chai
(12:40):
donut, and an apple fritter.
So we had those three donuts,which were probably three of our
top five selling bakery items.
All three were recipes from myfather's first business.
He dropped out of BrooklynCollege in the 70s to take over
the donut shop he was running inSouth Brooklyn.
So again, these are 55-year-oldrecipes that he always loved,
(13:01):
and we started using them atGregory's.
At some point, people lovedthem.
They stood the test of time.
But the problem was once wedecided we wanted to move the
baking and production in storeas opposed to the commissary, we
could no longer do donuts.
Donuts are fried, right?
So at least the way that we weredoing them, we weren't going to
put fryers and hoods in all ofour stores.
We had ovens, convection ovens,so we could bake off fresh.
(13:22):
So we felt like this was goingto be a huge upgrade for our
guests by being able to deliveran even fresher product.
So while we were still makingthe products from scratch,
baking it in our own facility,it was still baked at a remote
facility, and it was probably 12to 18 hours before.
Whereas now, when you get acroissant at Gregory's at 7
(13:43):
a.m., it was baked 30, 45minutes ago, right?
It's a fresh product.
So it was a hard decision tosay, well, are we going to
eliminate some of our customers'favorite items?
But you know, we truly believedin the decision that we were
going to elevate the experiencefor the guests.
They would appreciate the factthat they were getting a truly
fresh-made product.
They were able to see it.
The ovens were right behind thepastry case.
(14:05):
They're watching that productcoming out.
Honestly, the smell, too.
Like you can't get away from youopen the oven door when you're
baking fresh croissants or freshchalkage or cookies.
I mean, it's intoxicating.
So it was another side benefitof having that in the store.
But we thought that while thecustomers might bristle at this
overall, it was going to be abetter experience, better
(14:26):
product, and a better overalltarget for what the customers
think we're going for, which washow can we make our bakery
program rise closer to the levelof our coffee program, which we
felt was elite, amazing.
People love it.
But obviously, they're watchingus make that product right on
the spot.
So we want to do that with thebaked goods too.
So unfortunately, we had to saygoodbye to those donuts.
The recipes are still there.
(14:47):
We could use them maybe at somepoint, but right now that's not
in the cards.
SPEAKER_01 (14:51):
That discipline of taking that family recipe that
meant a lot to you.
And, you know, you could havesat there and argued, like, no,
this is Gregory's coffee.
Like, this is part of our DNA.
But uh Gregory isn't the part ofthe DNA.
It's the guest experience that'spart of the DNA.
And I love that you were able tokind of pull out your desires
(15:14):
and your wants and put the guestfirst.
And that really, I think shinesthrough.
Like when you when you go to aGregory's coffee, like it shows
that the guest experience isparamount.
SPEAKER_00 (15:25):
Yeah, that's 100% true.
I just had this sort of reminderyesterday about how much our
people matter, not just ourguests, but our team.
Um, I was in our our DC, and oneof my favorite team members of
all time, uh, team member namedCindy.
She's one of our team leadersdown one of our DC locations.
And it's like, again, talkingabout baked goods.
(15:46):
Anytime I'm at a store thatCindy is at, the pastry case is
undeniably perfect.
I couldn't set it up bettermyself.
And she truly gets it and careswith putting that little extra
love as to how you're baking.
Like you could bake, it's like,hey, 20 minutes is the
recommended time for thesecookies.
Make sure you take it out.
Then there's also people thatsay, like, well, I want to check
(16:07):
and I'm not gonna take it outuntil 20 minutes and 30 seconds
because I don't see the properamount of browning and the
texture isn't right.
Like, she truly gets it andcares, and it's like something
about her little touch.
But again, that comes back toshe cares, she's such a good
person.
She's a native Spanish speaker,and she always struggled early
on speaking English.
So she never felt like she couldmove up at Gregory's or any
(16:31):
other business because of herlimitations with the language.
But I had told her supervisor atthe time, I'm like, you know
what?
I don't even care about that.
This is a person you need toreward.
She works so hard.
She's honestly a bright lightanytime I'm in.
She's maybe not the mostconfident English speaker, but
she definitely can communicateeffectively with her team and
with guests.
And she's never let me downever.
(16:52):
So again, we continue to moveher up.
I was got to see her yesterdayand chat a little bit.
Again, like clockwork, I go in,the patriot case looks
absolutely perfect, and she'sjust rocking and rolling.
So I believed in her, even whenmaybe she didn't believe in
herself.
And that's also just somethingthat for me is just how we think
about this business.
It comes back to the people, notjust the people we serve, but
(17:12):
the people we serve with,alongside with, shoulder to
shoulder.
And for me, I never put anythingbeneath me.
You'll see me plunging toilets,you'll see me sweeping and
mopping.
You probably see me behind thebar because I just love making
coffee, so I can't help myself.
Sometimes to my own detriment,if I'm dressed nicely, I have a
meeting, I have to meet with alawyer or for whatever reason, I
(17:33):
have to wear a white shirt and atie, and I might wind up getting
a splattered espresso on mebecause I was behind the bar for
20 minutes helping the team outis just something that I can't
help myself.
I just genuinely love theproduct.
I love serving the guests, beingshoulder to shoulder with our
team.
And whether it's doing any ofthose things or if something
just needs to get done, Iwouldn't ask anybody to do
(17:54):
anything I wouldn't do myself.
And I think my team trulybelieves that because I show
them that every single day.
So that's sort of the kind oforganization I always wanted to
set up and how I wanted peopleto feel.
So you're not just going to seeme sitting on the side counting
money or not paying attention tofolks.
Like I really want to be rubbingshoulders and digging in with
the team.
And it sort of creates thatculture of that's how we think
(18:17):
about the world.
We want to help each other.
It tends to lead to betterexperiences for the guests.
You know, not you don't have totell them treat that person
right.
But people tend to do thosethings when they're in a great
culture or a great environmentand they feel good, right?
If they're feeling like they'rebeaten down or that kind of
supervisor or boss who doesn'tmake them feel good or yelling,
they're not going to then turnaround and be smiling and giving
(18:37):
the best experience to a guestbecause they don't want to be
there.
I still would love to figure outhow to be doing like daily NPS
scores with our team.
So, like, how do they feel whenthey come in the shift and how
do they feel when they leave theshift and really see how are we
meeting them where they're at,right?
Like it's it's just as importantfor me to serve our guests as to
like make our team feel they'regreat and have enjoying the time
on the shift.
If they start the shift at anine and leave at a six, that's
(18:59):
something's wrong.
Like, what did we do?
Did something one-off happenwith a guest, or is it something
that we're doing that's notmaking their experience with us
positive?
So these are some of the thingsI think about too.
Again, I know you're into thedata and all that stuff too, and
certainly with customersentiment, but team sentiment is
something that I think is almostas important because it they go
hand in hand.
(19:19):
You can't have a great customerservice if your team isn't
loving it.
SPEAKER_01 (19:23):
Well, we should talk about that, Greg, because I'd
love to even just like run anexperiment with you on
leveraging because we have akiosk survey as well that we
don't normally use for front ofhouse anymore, but something
that we should definitely try onthe back of house.
I mean, I know that you guys arethe reasons that we have a
call-to-tech solution.
I mean, we met with you uh threeyears ago, right?
(19:43):
We're about a year after youguys started working with us,
and we're like, hey, we'rethinking about doing something
different with our phones.
And so we built that together.
And that's been an amazingsolution and solving a lot of
problems.
And over the years, I think youguys have been instrumental in
providing a lot of feedback andjust really appreciate your
partnership and talking aboutgetting in the weeds.
I mean, like, usually at yoursize, there's a lot of CEOs that
(20:06):
don't really care about theguest feedback.
I read those things.
I care about this stuff.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:10):
So I'd love for you to just tell me like how has
ovation been helpful for you tokind of keep a pulse on things.
I mean, it's just exactly that.
I actually read the emails, Iactually read the feedback.
It's important to me tounderstand what's working and
what's not.
Nobody likes to read badreviews, right?
It doesn't help, it doesn't makeyou feel good, but better to
know than to have the blindspot, right?
(20:31):
Like just say, like, well, whatare we going to do about this?
It's like a free secret shopperreport to understand what are
the guests saying.
And I remember way back in theday when Yelp was first starting
out and reviews, you know,online reviews didn't really
exist.
I remember the first time I gota review posted on Yelp about
our first store.
It might have been a three-starreview because I think the
(20:52):
something was like the guest wasupset that there was crumbs on
the table when they got there.
And I remember trying to reachout to Yelp to be like, take
this thing down.
Like, I don't know why this, whyare there things about posted
about my business that I have nosay in, or like, and I it was
new at the time.
It was like 20 years ago, itdidn't exist.
I'm like, no, sorry, we can'ttake it down.
And then I sort of realized whatit was, which is sort of like a
(21:12):
window into the store.
And yes, every not every personis going to be giving a fully
accurate or whatever descriptionis their own personal
experience.
But that person felt that kindof way, so it drove them to
leave a review.
So it should just sort of driveus to be better at what we do to
sort of make less reasons forsomebody to not want to leave a
five-star review, right?
So that's the goal.
And getting more data points,more information just helps us
(21:34):
strengthen and become a bettercompany, a better service model,
better team.
So for a lot of things, we don'thave the data, we don't have the
information.
It's hard to understand wherethe opportunity is.
But using a tool like ovation,having those insights come in so
frequently across the portfolio,you can dive in and truly get a
(21:56):
sense of what's going on.
Again, as you scale too, it'sanother challenge.
You have one or two stores,maybe you might not realize how
much you're missing, but youmight have a pretty good sense
of what's going on just by beingin the store or the restaurant
all those hours and paying closeattention to how things are
feeling, even though sometimes,again, as you know, customers
don't always say it.
They might write it to you, butthey wouldn't tell you to your
(22:17):
face.
But as you scale, it becomesmuch harder.
And that's what I found.
As we started going from two,three, five, ten stores, it was
impossible for me to reallyunderstand how the customers are
feeling across the portfolio.
So to have this at your disposalis sort of non-negotiable at
this point.
It's like if you don't reallyknow how your customers are
seeing you, then you're justflying blind.
(22:39):
Yeah, you might be doing well.
And I've spoken to otheroperators or restaurant groups
that are doing well.
But there's certainlyopportunities or things that
could be better.
And I think that's what I'veseen.
There's maybe my one of thebigger lessons I learned was
over the years, you can't everrelax because things change and
things change quickly.
And you don't want to be caughtflat footed because, like, we
(23:00):
had some stores that werekilling it so busy.
But in the back of my mind, Ialways knew there was some the
leader, maybe wasn't as strongas I would have hoped.
There was issues at the store,but I didn't really want to mess
with it because the store wasdoing so well.
But the real reason probably wasthe fact that it was a great
location.
There wasn't as much competitionaround.
So we had this sort of likemonopoly situation going on
(23:21):
where there was nowhere else togo.
And the minute a competitoropened nearby, like, oof, like
things just dropped because wejust weren't strong enough for
operating at the level that Iknew we should have.
So I never wanted to have thathappen again.
I'm saying, like, you know, nowwhen there's smoke, you got to
make sure there's no fire.
So whether it's poor reviews orsome slippage on KPIs or
whatever it is, some negativesentiment, let's just try and
(23:43):
zip that out as quickly aspossible because you never know,
right?
Like things might be greattoday, but things change in a
blink.
And you don't want to be caughtnot being resilient enough or
able to withstand challenges foreither macroeconomic challenges
or direct threats, right?
People are ruthless, right?
I have coffee shop competitorsthat like out of a whole city,
(24:05):
however many tens, hundreds ofthousands of locations, like
they'll open up next door toyou.
They just don't care.
But again, I would also say thatonly tends to happen if people
perceive you as not so strong.
I wouldn't open up the next tosomebody if I thought they were
a great operation, because I'mlike, well, why would I do that?
But so if I'm ever perceived tobe weak, that's another thing to
(24:25):
say, like, well, why would thiscompany come near me?
They see an opportunity becausethey think they can take my
market share.
So from a competitivestandpoint, is how do I continue
to build a moat or how do I makepeople say, like, I don't want
to go anywhere near a Gregory'sbecause they're doing such a
great job, right?
So you have to have thatmentality too.
And like all these things, like,you know, iron sharpens iron,
right?
Like, you know, by taking thehard feedback, taking a deep
(24:46):
look at what's going well, butalso like an even deeper look at
what's not going well.
And how do you tighten that upand make sure there's visibility
and ovation is a great tool tobe able to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (24:56):
Well, appreciate that because I think that like
it is sometimes hard to eat crowand it's tough to sit there and
like read some of the feedbackthat's negative, realizing that
it's a much smaller percentageof the total feedback, but that
negative feedback is stuff thatneeds to get take action on
right now, right?
And that's why, you know, whenwe send the the daily and weekly
(25:16):
emails, we like to remind peopleof, hey, here's how many
positive surveys you got aswell.
But I think at the end of theday, it's like yesterday, for
example, I'm counting mycalories right now, and last
night as I was going to bed, Ihad three like uh gummy bears
and a York peppermint patty, andI didn't put those in my calorie
tracker.
But guess what?
It doesn't change the truth.
(25:37):
It doesn't matter what my datashows, yeah.
Right.
It's like the truth is thetruth.
And so to your point, it's muchbetter to know what's going on
so you can act on it as opposedto hoping that it's not
happening.
SPEAKER_00 (25:51):
Yeah, it's being honest with yourself, right?
You're not doing yourself anyfavors by not seeing the truth,
right?
So whether it's putting theaccurate things in, because then
when you look back, like, ohyeah, I only I did, I was on
track.
Like, no, you weren't.
I deviated and I'm sort of thecheating, right?
So, you know, if I'm onlylooking at the positive reviews,
what am how am I gonna learn?
How am I gonna get better,right?
That's that's just not how how Iwould approach it or how others
(26:12):
I would recommend taking thatfree feedback as much as you can
and using it as a tool toimprove.
SPEAKER_01 (26:17):
Love that.
Well, Greg, how can people findand follow you in Gregory's
Coffee?
SPEAKER_00 (26:22):
So, Gregory's Coffee, you can find at pretty
simple uh Gregory'sCoffee.com.
Our handle is at Gregory'sCoffee on all the channels.
Again, no apostrophe.
So at Gregory's Coffee on allthose TikTok, Instagram, X, I
guess you call it now, Facebook,et cetera.
Me personally, you could find memy first name and my last name
at Gregory Zamphotis.
(26:43):
I'm probably most, uh althoughI'm not very active on on many
of the channels, I'm starting tobecome a little bit more
LinkedIn, Instagram X.
So I'm on Twitter.
I mean, I'm on TikTok.
I just haven't posted or doneanything just yet, but I'm there
and should probably be onSubstack soon, so you'll could
probably find me there too.
But yeah, maybe Instagram isprobably the most likely place
(27:05):
to find me right now that I'mactually doing stuff on.
SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
Love it, man.
Well, Greg, despite being thelogo for always putting the
guest above yourself, today'sovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGiving Ovation.
Thanks, man.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for joining us today.
If you like this episode, leaveus a review on Apple Podcasts or
your favorite place to listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
(27:29):
two-question estimate-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 ovationup.com.
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