May 19, 2025 • 17 mins
Pete Mora, founder of Fajita Pete’s, joins Zack Oates to share how a catering-first mindset transformed his brand from a full-service Tex-Mex restaurant into a thriving, multi-unit concept. Pete reveals how simplifying the model, building genuine guest relationships, and leading with care have been the keys to sustainable growth. He also discusses how small gestures—from handwritten notes to surprise gift cards—can create loyalty that no marketing campaign can buy.
Zack and Pete discuss:
- How Fajita Pete’s evolved from full-service dining to catering-first QSR
- Why caring is the most scalable system in hospitality
- How to use small spaces as relationship-building showrooms
- The secret to growing catering without sacrificing quality
- Why outreach and quick feedback loops are critical to repeat business
- How Ovation helps capture guest sentiment and drive better service
Thanks, Pete!
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-pete-mora-605a37228/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/fajita-pete's/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast.
I'm your host, zach Oates, andeach week I chat with industry
experts to uncover 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.
It gives you all the insightsyou need, with none of the
(00:22):
annoying surveys for your guests.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today we have a friend ofmine.
We've been working together forquite some time now.
He's got an amazing brand, anamazing story Pete Mora, the
founder of the award-winning andmouth-watering Fajita Pete's.
Pete.
Welcome to the show man.
How are you Very good?
(00:42):
Thank you for having me.
It's an honor to meet you.
I've been following your branddigitally, and it's really cool
to see how much people love whatyou're doing.
They love the style.
Tell me about it, though,because it's not your typical
what you think of as like yourtypical taco shop.
It's not a regular Mexicanrestaurant?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
No, definitely not.
I think it's a hybrid.
It all stemmed from my veryfirst restaurant that had 60
tables, full service, typicalmom and pop.
Neighborhood Tex-Mex jointright Opened that right when I
was out of college and I didthat for six years.
While I was there I learned alot of the stuff in the
restaurant business that I loveand a lot of the stuff that
makes it difficult as well inthe restaurant business that I
(01:21):
love, and a lot of the stuffthat makes it difficult as well.
Luckily, I was 23 and I knewabsolutely everything, as every
23-year-old does.
So we battled through it,learned how to develop catering
business, and that's where theidea for Fajita Pizza came in.
Once I started catering I said,man, I'm selling more before I
(01:48):
open the restaurant than mylunch shift and I don't have to
worry about 6,300 square feetand 20 some odd employees per
shift.
So that kind of got my gearsturning and I developed the idea
of Fajita Pete's, which isbasically pickup, delivery and
catering, and it's a very simplemenu which led to a simple
equipment package which led tomy first shop being 1,200 square
feet and high ticket average.
So that's kind of how it allstarted.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It's sent from full service to this quick QSR type
model, if you were to go backand kind of do it over again,
what would you change about thefirst location?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I would have gone to law school.
Oh no, the first location wasavailable, which is the first
thing, right?
Oh, interesting.
You're 23 years old, you don'thave a lot of stuff going on.
I had the support of my family,which was energy, very little
capital, so we had to go find anabandoned restaurant that had a
(02:40):
lease available and talkourselves into a lease.
So that was kind of the firststep and the idea was
restaurants.
Let you know really quick ifyou're going to make it or not.
So my mother said we didn'tcome all the way from Columbia
to fill out applications.
So go figure out if you'regoing to make it in this world
and if you don't, you're 23,you're out of college, you'll be
(03:07):
fine.
So it was a combination of thegrit of wanting to get into your
own business, the passion I'dcreated in the restaurant and
service industry, waiting tablesthrough college, and then just
the availability of the spot.
I mean, the first eight monthswas just repainting the place,
making all the tables in ourgarage with my father and
figuring out where to get usedtable legs to get started, and
it's a typical walked up hillboth ways in the freezing snow
(03:28):
of Houston, texas, right.
So it's a typical story, butthat was kind of the origin of
it.
Is that the availability andfiguring out what to do with the
opportunities available.
And that's kind of how FajitaPizza came about too.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So you still have catering as a big part of what
you do, right?
What percentage of your revenueis catering versus?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
About 30% brand wide is catering, wow, which is huge.
You know it sets up your P&Lreally well.
Most of the orders are at least24 hours in advance, so it's a
really nice part of the model.
The hard part is getting it.
Catering is a relationshipbusiness, so the runway there is
a little longer, so you needthe interaction with the guests
(04:09):
from your what we call retail ornighttime business or lunchtime
business, and then that's kindof how you develop the catering.
Now with third-party vendorsit's a little easier to get into
offices than it used to be backin the day when I started, but
it's definitely rewarding onceyou get that catering to the
right levels, and what tipswould you have of people who are
(04:29):
?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
because obviously, catering right now is something
that everyone's talking about,everyone's thinking about.
How do you look at catering?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
When people walk into Fajita Pete's they say, where's
the rest of your restaurant?
You know that's the typicalthing.
I say, okay, let me tell you ifyou've never been here.
I've been waiting for you for17 years.
But we're a catering companythat happens to do some dining
and some delivery.
I think you have to lead withthat and that was a big shift.
Coming from the full servicerestaurant, people saw me at a
(04:57):
restaurant that did somecatering and then, once I
packaged it into the smallsquare footage and kind of
looked like a to-go shop, peoplesaid, oh, that's a catering
company that does some deliveryand something changed in the
guest's mind and then cateringjust shot up after that.
I guess With my footprint, Ihave the luxury of being able to
go catering first and work offof that.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I think that's so awesome, because there's
actually a restaurant here inUtah and they're only open like
a few hours a week but they're acatering company and they do
these giant catering orders.
They have one location, but Imean you are in line from 11 AM
until they close at like 3 PM.
(05:38):
I have never been there withouta line, but it's a catering
company and everyone knows themas the catering company, and so
I think that's a reallyinteresting tactic.
When you do your lunch ordersand stuff like that, do you put
in any flyers or notices aboutcatering, or how else do you get
people to know about catering?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
We've developed over the years.
I mean, first it was walkinginto offices and getting kicked
out by security.
You walk in and you give outlittle coins that said, hey,
free appetizer after you eat apizza, and stuff like that.
Now it's evolved to yes,definitely every catering needs
to have a box with your logo onit when you walk up the elevator
, because everybody in theelevator is going to tell you oh
, I'm going to follow you, whereare you going, right?
(06:16):
So then you have to have a cardto give them.
Yeah, you have to have a cardto give them, right then with
say hey, you don't have tofollow me, just don't be weird,
just go to my restaurant for afree lunch and get to know what
we're all about.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
You have to work all those angles and on our website,
our marketing team has done agreat job of capturing data,
retargeting people that abandonour carts, so a lot of people
just price shop.
We get a notification whenyou're shopping on my site.
If you leave, say hey, therewas a partial order, somebody
looked at this, this, this.
So we reply hey, if there'ssomething that wasn't clear on
(06:49):
our website, we'd love to serveyou.
Please let us know if you haveadditional questions.
So little ways to now.
With technology, it's a loteasier to re-engage with people,
create that repeat customer.
You have 30, 60 day dormantcustomer campaigns.
You have a lot of ways to dooutreach to people now that you
didn't in the past.
Because we're busy I mean,we're running restaurants and I
think really the most importantthing why I started my story
(07:12):
with the full service and why Ilike Ovation is you have to give
a damn.
You have to.
When you get back from yourcatering, maybe at 3 pm, once
the lunch rush is over, you sayhey, debbie, thank you so much
for trusting us with your lunchtoday.
I just want to check thateverything was amazing.
Please let us know if you haveany comments or when we can be
of service in the near future.
(07:33):
That's it.
That little email is soimportant.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I love that and I love the whole concept of
hospitality, especially when youcan't see the whites of their
eyes, where you can't watch themeat your food.
It's so important to do thatand, by the way, your website
not only has a lot of stuff onthere when it comes to catering,
but you.
The things that we found isthat it's not only about getting
(08:02):
people to eat your food at thecatering event, but getting them
to place an order with you, andso one of the things that we
found to be really successful iswe set up a QR code and it's
basically like our third partyconversion flow, so it was
catering provided by.
How was your experience toquestion?
Or how do you enjoy the food?
(08:22):
Two questions to get $5 off yournext order with us, and what's
cool about that is then you'renot only getting people to eat
your food, but then you'regiving them a coupon to come in
and order themselves, andcollecting more of that customer
data of the people who aretrying your food is just magical
.
Now, one of the things that wewere talking about before we hit
(08:44):
record was you have a littlebit of a dining room, but
there's only like a few seats.
Tell me how you utilize that,because I think that's really
smart.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, most stores have two to four tables, and the
way I like to use that is,first of all, some people that
work around your stores justwant to get away from the office
for 30 minutes, come in and eat, and that's an opportunity
right there to say hey, where doyou work?
If you can get to your office,so can I?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We cater here, you go.
Right, great service.
That's our very limited chanceat hospitality.
(09:17):
Another way is you have peoplesay hey, before I quote you, if
you don't like the food, what'sthe point?
Come on in to the shop, I'lltreat you to fajitas for two,
four.
Bring whoever the otherdecision makers are, and then
that way you get to show themand earn that confidence,
because I think catering is arelationship business and it's a
trust thing.
So you have to earn that.
And then, from then, then, thesale becomes super easy.
(09:38):
Right, you don't I that?
And then, from then, then thesale becomes super easy, right,
you don't?
I mean, they're going to orderafter that.
So I think it's really kind ofa presentation, the showroom, if
you will.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And what do you do to increase repeat order?
So let's say someone, you knowsomeone who places a catering
order.
How do you remind them to orderagain?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well, we have constant outreach to them.
We have a few emails per month.
And then the people becausecatering we do a lot of
corporate catering, so maybepeople don't order every week.
Some do.
Some pharmaceutical reps aredifferent than office admins,
but if there's dormant for 30days they get another little
touch point, 60 days they getanother one.
There's some customers thatonly order once a year but they
(10:13):
order for 800 people when theydo.
So, it's just a different way toget in touch with them.
Also, what's in the box?
I mean, this is completelyerratic, right?
I send the gift card to theperson placing the order with a
note that says hey, you'realways feeding other people.
Here's a gift card for you tofeed you and your family.
Come by the shop and pick upfajitas for four, fajitas for
six, whatever.
Give them $100, $200 gift card,whatever it is, Because I think
(10:36):
that's lost in that when I usedto do the catering myself, I
always noticed that the personplacing the order never went in
the room where the food was.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
You know, because they're doing the corporate
catering.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So then you could do little things like bring an
individual meal for them, eventhough they ordered fajitas for
30, guess what?
Take fajitas for 30 and thenone on the side Say, here you go
, I know those guys that don'tlike to share, they might take a
while.
Aside.
Say, here you go, I know thoseguys that don't like to share,
they might take a while.
I wanted you to get your foodhot and then you give them their
own meal at that time.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Wow, one of the things we always talk about at
Ovation is that the littlethings matter because they are
the little things.
We can fake the big things, butyou can't fake the little
things, you can't fake thereally caring right.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah, genuine moments are so important, even for the
valet security guard who wantsto kick you out of the line when
you're trying to deliver.
Say, bring him two tacos, riceand beans, queso and a drink.
Yeah, here you go, bud, andthat's it.
I mean next time he'll say, hey, you got 15 minutes to go up
there.
Little things like that.
(11:40):
When you walk into these hugebuildings, the guard nobody
looks at.
Drop them off, chips and queso.
Hey man, here's a snack, aquesadilla.
You know what I mean?
Those little things that youwould do for your guests that
come in regularly.
And I think that's theadvantage of coming from.
Full service is, and we tell ourpeople, even though we only
interact with guests 40 seconds,we preach 40 seconds of
(12:02):
hospitality.
And the stores that get that,the franchisees that get that,
you can tell in their repeatbusiness and order volume right,
so it's just about getting in.
And that's where I like Ovation, because when we were waiting
tables somebody was mad.
You could tell they were madand they could yell at you
immediately, which is what youwant With Ovation and we're 98%
(12:25):
to go.
Let's say I have a delivery atnight three blocks away from one
of my stores.
Man, these guys suck.
They forgot my queso and youget it immediately.
You get a ticket number.
You pick up, the manager getsit immediately.
You call and say oh my God, Ichecked that order myself.
My apologies, the queso's onits way and a couple brownies,
so sorry about that.
That right there is the tabletouch that we used to get in
(12:46):
full service that we don't getanymore.
But through this, people get tosee that because people are,
we're going to and I tell themhey, the only thing I can
guarantee you is we're going tomess up again because we're
human, but we're going to careagain.
People won't be too upset thatyou mess up.
They'll be upset if you mess upand then you ignore them.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
That's just double loss, yeah, and I think it's so
powerful that the real keyingredient of success with
Ovation is people who care.
You have to care about theguest experience, you have to
care about the guest, and if youdo about each individual guest,
then, yeah, a tool is going tobe great, but if you don't want
to use it, it's not going tomatter.
(13:24):
We preach response times.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Response times?
Yes, because I mean I don'twant you to.
Hey, you forgot my case.
So two days later, oh yeah, mybad, here's $5 off.
No, just ignore me At thatpoint, don't even talk to me.
It's got to be instant andoverwhelming that you show that
you care.
Kpis and response times andinnovation scores is part of our
KPIs when we do store visits.
And to your point about caring,that's what I told the
(13:48):
gentleman that helped us writethe operations manual when
you're starting the franchisingprocess, and it's hundreds of
pages in digital and this I said.
You could have saved me so muchtime if on the second line, it
just said do not read further ifyou don't give a damn, because
if you don't give a damn, thesenext hundred pages will mean
nothing.
There will just be words onpaper if you don't give a damn.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Amen, which is why we always preach at Ovation to do
good and eat well.
Right, it's like you got to dogood, you got to help your
guests feel like they matter andif you really care about them,
they're not just going to befilled, they're going to be
fulfilled, and that's what thisis all about.
That's the reason that peopleget into this and that's what
this is all about.
That's the reason that peopleget into this.
But my last big, salientquestion here, Pete, is I get
(14:40):
that you have this magic aboutyou and that you get it and you
love people and you care aboutpeople.
My question is how do you scalethat, and not just scale that
with corporate locations, butyou're scaling this with
franchises.
How do you do it?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
If I knew that answer , I would be the one with the
cool podcast equipment right now.
I think it's like marketing.
It's like every marketer tellsyou they have the silver bullet
and there's not.
If they had the silver bulletfor marketing, they'd be retired
30 years ago.
It's consistency, it's caring,it's trying to make care a
process right, trying to instillthat in every part of the
(15:16):
process.
And I think, like anything elsein the restaurant business or
HR related businesses, 85% ofyour problems are solved at the
hiring table.
If you hire the right person,then that's a huge part of it.
If you hire the wrong person,you can have the best systems
and it won't matter.
There's nothing better for thecrops than the farmer's own two
feet type of mentality, right.
(15:36):
So whoever's on there in thatstore has to have that presence.
It's about leadership at thestore level that will push that
through.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Man, I feel like there have been so many
one-liners here.
I don't know how we're evengoing to edit this down to a
single clip, but I'm so gladthat we can have the whole
podcast here.
Last question, Pete, whodeserves an ovation?
Who is someone in therestaurant industry that we
should be following?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I try to stay away from food critics.
I think anybody that'spreaching employee improvement.
I think somebody that reallyprovides a path for your
employees to grow, I think to goalong with the fact that we
need people that care.
I think a big part of that isproviding the store level hourly
employees a path that they feellike they have in their own
(16:20):
hands Training, set goals andthat develops a thing where they
won't have turnover.
I think somebody that reallyteaches that can help you learn
leadership at the manager level.
We're a growing company and wehave the C-suite and the CEO and
the COO and, at the end of theday, the most important C is the
cooks the more people that youhave training your people,
(16:41):
enrolling them in your idea.
I think anybody that teachesthat type of leadership if
leadership can be taught that'sthe big debate, right Is
somebody that will make yourstore better.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Love that Pete.
How do people find you andFajita Pete's?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
FajitaPete'scom.
Baby, I think we have socialmedia, we have other stuff like
that.
I don't know if you can tellyou haven't known me long enough
but I'm a simple man.
I named the company FajitaPete's because I'm Pete myself
fajitas.
So we do have all those coolsocial media and LinkedIn pages,
but the best thing you can dois go buy a store, try the
fajitas and get to know.
(17:16):
The crew Love that.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Well, pete, for serving up a masterclass on
caring with a side of catering.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGive an Ovation.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Thank you, brother, keep doing what you do.
It helps a lot.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
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
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 an Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast.
I'm your host, zach Oates, andeach week I chat with industry
experts to uncover 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.
It gives you all the insightsyou need, with none of the
(00:22):
annoying surveys for your guests.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today we have a friend ofmine.
We've been working together forquite some time now.
He's got an amazing brand, anamazing story Pete Mora, the
founder of the award-winning andmouth-watering Fajita Pete's.
Pete.
Welcome to the show man.
How are you Very good?
(00:42):
Thank you for having me.
It's an honor to meet you.
I've been following your branddigitally, and it's really cool
to see how much people love whatyou're doing.
They love the style.
Tell me about it, though,because it's not your typical
what you think of as like yourtypical taco shop.
It's not a regular Mexicanrestaurant?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
No, definitely not.
I think it's a hybrid.
It all stemmed from my veryfirst restaurant that had 60
tables, full service, typicalmom and pop.
Neighborhood Tex-Mex jointright Opened that right when I
was out of college and I didthat for six years.
While I was there I learned alot of the stuff in the
restaurant business that I loveand a lot of the stuff that
makes it difficult as well inthe restaurant business that I
(01:21):
love, and a lot of the stuffthat makes it difficult as well.
Luckily, I was 23 and I knewabsolutely everything, as every
23-year-old does.
So we battled through it,learned how to develop catering
business, and that's where theidea for Fajita Pizza came in.
Once I started catering I said,man, I'm selling more before I
(01:48):
open the restaurant than mylunch shift and I don't have to
worry about 6,300 square feetand 20 some odd employees per
shift.
So that kind of got my gearsturning and I developed the idea
of Fajita Pete's, which isbasically pickup, delivery and
catering, and it's a very simplemenu which led to a simple
equipment package which led tomy first shop being 1,200 square
feet and high ticket average.
So that's kind of how it allstarted.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It's sent from full service to this quick QSR type
model, if you were to go backand kind of do it over again,
what would you change about thefirst location?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I would have gone to law school.
Oh no, the first location wasavailable, which is the first
thing, right?
Oh, interesting.
You're 23 years old, you don'thave a lot of stuff going on.
I had the support of my family,which was energy, very little
capital, so we had to go find anabandoned restaurant that had a
(02:40):
lease available and talkourselves into a lease.
So that was kind of the firststep and the idea was
restaurants.
Let you know really quick ifyou're going to make it or not.
So my mother said we didn'tcome all the way from Columbia
to fill out applications.
So go figure out if you'regoing to make it in this world
and if you don't, you're 23,you're out of college, you'll be
(03:07):
fine.
So it was a combination of thegrit of wanting to get into your
own business, the passion I'dcreated in the restaurant and
service industry, waiting tablesthrough college, and then just
the availability of the spot.
I mean, the first eight monthswas just repainting the place,
making all the tables in ourgarage with my father and
figuring out where to get usedtable legs to get started, and
it's a typical walked up hillboth ways in the freezing snow
(03:28):
of Houston, texas, right.
So it's a typical story, butthat was kind of the origin of
it.
Is that the availability andfiguring out what to do with the
opportunities available.
And that's kind of how FajitaPizza came about too.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So you still have catering as a big part of what
you do, right?
What percentage of your revenueis catering versus?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
About 30% brand wide is catering, wow, which is huge.
You know it sets up your P&Lreally well.
Most of the orders are at least24 hours in advance, so it's a
really nice part of the model.
The hard part is getting it.
Catering is a relationshipbusiness, so the runway there is
a little longer, so you needthe interaction with the guests
(04:09):
from your what we call retail ornighttime business or lunchtime
business, and then that's kindof how you develop the catering.
Now with third-party vendorsit's a little easier to get into
offices than it used to be backin the day when I started, but
it's definitely rewarding onceyou get that catering to the
right levels, and what tipswould you have of people who are
(04:29):
?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
because obviously, catering right now is something
that everyone's talking about,everyone's thinking about.
How do you look at catering?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
When people walk into Fajita Pete's they say, where's
the rest of your restaurant?
You know that's the typicalthing.
I say, okay, let me tell you ifyou've never been here.
I've been waiting for you for17 years.
But we're a catering companythat happens to do some dining
and some delivery.
I think you have to lead withthat and that was a big shift.
Coming from the full servicerestaurant, people saw me at a
(04:57):
restaurant that did somecatering and then, once I
packaged it into the smallsquare footage and kind of
looked like a to-go shop, peoplesaid, oh, that's a catering
company that does some deliveryand something changed in the
guest's mind and then cateringjust shot up after that.
I guess With my footprint, Ihave the luxury of being able to
go catering first and work offof that.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I think that's so awesome, because there's
actually a restaurant here inUtah and they're only open like
a few hours a week but they're acatering company and they do
these giant catering orders.
They have one location, but Imean you are in line from 11 AM
until they close at like 3 PM.
(05:38):
I have never been there withouta line, but it's a catering
company and everyone knows themas the catering company, and so
I think that's a reallyinteresting tactic.
When you do your lunch ordersand stuff like that, do you put
in any flyers or notices aboutcatering, or how else do you get
people to know about catering?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
We've developed over the years.
I mean, first it was walkinginto offices and getting kicked
out by security.
You walk in and you give outlittle coins that said, hey,
free appetizer after you eat apizza, and stuff like that.
Now it's evolved to yes,definitely every catering needs
to have a box with your logo onit when you walk up the elevator
, because everybody in theelevator is going to tell you oh
, I'm going to follow you, whereare you going, right?
(06:16):
So then you have to have a cardto give them.
Yeah, you have to have a cardto give them, right then with
say hey, you don't have tofollow me, just don't be weird,
just go to my restaurant for afree lunch and get to know what
we're all about.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
You have to work all those angles and on our website,
our marketing team has done agreat job of capturing data,
retargeting people that abandonour carts, so a lot of people
just price shop.
We get a notification whenyou're shopping on my site.
If you leave, say hey, therewas a partial order, somebody
looked at this, this, this.
So we reply hey, if there'ssomething that wasn't clear on
(06:49):
our website, we'd love to serveyou.
Please let us know if you haveadditional questions.
So little ways to now.
With technology, it's a loteasier to re-engage with people,
create that repeat customer.
You have 30, 60 day dormantcustomer campaigns.
You have a lot of ways to dooutreach to people now that you
didn't in the past.
Because we're busy I mean,we're running restaurants and I
think really the most importantthing why I started my story
(07:12):
with the full service and why Ilike Ovation is you have to give
a damn.
You have to.
When you get back from yourcatering, maybe at 3 pm, once
the lunch rush is over, you sayhey, debbie, thank you so much
for trusting us with your lunchtoday.
I just want to check thateverything was amazing.
Please let us know if you haveany comments or when we can be
of service in the near future.
(07:33):
That's it.
That little email is soimportant.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I love that and I love the whole concept of
hospitality, especially when youcan't see the whites of their
eyes, where you can't watch themeat your food.
It's so important to do thatand, by the way, your website
not only has a lot of stuff onthere when it comes to catering,
but you.
The things that we found isthat it's not only about getting
(08:02):
people to eat your food at thecatering event, but getting them
to place an order with you, andso one of the things that we
found to be really successful iswe set up a QR code and it's
basically like our third partyconversion flow, so it was
catering provided by.
How was your experience toquestion?
Or how do you enjoy the food?
(08:22):
Two questions to get $5 off yournext order with us, and what's
cool about that is then you'renot only getting people to eat
your food, but then you'regiving them a coupon to come in
and order themselves, andcollecting more of that customer
data of the people who aretrying your food is just magical
.
Now, one of the things that wewere talking about before we hit
(08:44):
record was you have a littlebit of a dining room, but
there's only like a few seats.
Tell me how you utilize that,because I think that's really
smart.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, most stores have two to four tables, and the
way I like to use that is,first of all, some people that
work around your stores justwant to get away from the office
for 30 minutes, come in and eat, and that's an opportunity
right there to say hey, where doyou work?
If you can get to your office,so can I?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We cater here, you go.
Right, great service.
That's our very limited chanceat hospitality.
(09:17):
Another way is you have peoplesay hey, before I quote you, if
you don't like the food, what'sthe point?
Come on in to the shop, I'lltreat you to fajitas for two,
four.
Bring whoever the otherdecision makers are, and then
that way you get to show themand earn that confidence,
because I think catering is arelationship business and it's a
trust thing.
So you have to earn that.
And then, from then, then, thesale becomes super easy.
(09:38):
Right, you don't I that?
And then, from then, then thesale becomes super easy, right,
you don't?
I mean, they're going to orderafter that.
So I think it's really kind ofa presentation, the showroom, if
you will.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And what do you do to increase repeat order?
So let's say someone, you knowsomeone who places a catering
order.
How do you remind them to orderagain?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well, we have constant outreach to them.
We have a few emails per month.
And then the people becausecatering we do a lot of
corporate catering, so maybepeople don't order every week.
Some do.
Some pharmaceutical reps aredifferent than office admins,
but if there's dormant for 30days they get another little
touch point, 60 days they getanother one.
There's some customers thatonly order once a year but they
(10:13):
order for 800 people when theydo.
So, it's just a different way toget in touch with them.
Also, what's in the box?
I mean, this is completelyerratic, right?
I send the gift card to theperson placing the order with a
note that says hey, you'realways feeding other people.
Here's a gift card for you tofeed you and your family.
Come by the shop and pick upfajitas for four, fajitas for
six, whatever.
Give them $100, $200 gift card,whatever it is, Because I think
(10:36):
that's lost in that when I usedto do the catering myself, I
always noticed that the personplacing the order never went in
the room where the food was.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
You know, because they're doing the corporate
catering.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So then you could do little things like bring an
individual meal for them, eventhough they ordered fajitas for
30, guess what?
Take fajitas for 30 and thenone on the side Say, here you go
, I know those guys that don'tlike to share, they might take a
while.
Aside.
Say, here you go, I know thoseguys that don't like to share,
they might take a while.
I wanted you to get your foodhot and then you give them their
own meal at that time.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Wow, one of the things we always talk about at
Ovation is that the littlethings matter because they are
the little things.
We can fake the big things, butyou can't fake the little
things, you can't fake thereally caring right.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah, genuine moments are so important, even for the
valet security guard who wantsto kick you out of the line when
you're trying to deliver.
Say, bring him two tacos, riceand beans, queso and a drink.
Yeah, here you go, bud, andthat's it.
I mean next time he'll say, hey, you got 15 minutes to go up
there.
Little things like that.
(11:40):
When you walk into these hugebuildings, the guard nobody
looks at.
Drop them off, chips and queso.
Hey man, here's a snack, aquesadilla.
You know what I mean?
Those little things that youwould do for your guests that
come in regularly.
And I think that's theadvantage of coming from.
Full service is, and we tell ourpeople, even though we only
interact with guests 40 seconds,we preach 40 seconds of
(12:02):
hospitality.
And the stores that get that,the franchisees that get that,
you can tell in their repeatbusiness and order volume right,
so it's just about getting in.
And that's where I like Ovation, because when we were waiting
tables somebody was mad.
You could tell they were madand they could yell at you
immediately, which is what youwant With Ovation and we're 98%
(12:25):
to go.
Let's say I have a delivery atnight three blocks away from one
of my stores.
Man, these guys suck.
They forgot my queso and youget it immediately.
You get a ticket number.
You pick up, the manager getsit immediately.
You call and say oh my God, Ichecked that order myself.
My apologies, the queso's onits way and a couple brownies,
so sorry about that.
That right there is the tabletouch that we used to get in
(12:46):
full service that we don't getanymore.
But through this, people get tosee that because people are,
we're going to and I tell themhey, the only thing I can
guarantee you is we're going tomess up again because we're
human, but we're going to careagain.
People won't be too upset thatyou mess up.
They'll be upset if you mess upand then you ignore them.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
That's just double loss, yeah, and I think it's so
powerful that the real keyingredient of success with
Ovation is people who care.
You have to care about theguest experience, you have to
care about the guest, and if youdo about each individual guest,
then, yeah, a tool is going tobe great, but if you don't want
to use it, it's not going tomatter.
(13:24):
We preach response times.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Response times?
Yes, because I mean I don'twant you to.
Hey, you forgot my case.
So two days later, oh yeah, mybad, here's $5 off.
No, just ignore me At thatpoint, don't even talk to me.
It's got to be instant andoverwhelming that you show that
you care.
Kpis and response times andinnovation scores is part of our
KPIs when we do store visits.
And to your point about caring,that's what I told the
(13:48):
gentleman that helped us writethe operations manual when
you're starting the franchisingprocess, and it's hundreds of
pages in digital and this I said.
You could have saved me so muchtime if on the second line, it
just said do not read further ifyou don't give a damn, because
if you don't give a damn, thesenext hundred pages will mean
nothing.
There will just be words onpaper if you don't give a damn.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Amen, which is why we always preach at Ovation to do
good and eat well.
Right, it's like you got to dogood, you got to help your
guests feel like they matter andif you really care about them,
they're not just going to befilled, they're going to be
fulfilled, and that's what thisis all about.
That's the reason that peopleget into this and that's what
this is all about.
That's the reason that peopleget into this.
But my last big, salientquestion here, Pete, is I get
(14:40):
that you have this magic aboutyou and that you get it and you
love people and you care aboutpeople.
My question is how do you scalethat, and not just scale that
with corporate locations, butyou're scaling this with
franchises.
How do you do it?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
If I knew that answer , I would be the one with the
cool podcast equipment right now.
I think it's like marketing.
It's like every marketer tellsyou they have the silver bullet
and there's not.
If they had the silver bulletfor marketing, they'd be retired
30 years ago.
It's consistency, it's caring,it's trying to make care a
process right, trying to instillthat in every part of the
(15:16):
process.
And I think, like anything elsein the restaurant business or
HR related businesses, 85% ofyour problems are solved at the
hiring table.
If you hire the right person,then that's a huge part of it.
If you hire the wrong person,you can have the best systems
and it won't matter.
There's nothing better for thecrops than the farmer's own two
feet type of mentality, right.
(15:36):
So whoever's on there in thatstore has to have that presence.
It's about leadership at thestore level that will push that
through.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Man, I feel like there have been so many
one-liners here.
I don't know how we're evengoing to edit this down to a
single clip, but I'm so gladthat we can have the whole
podcast here.
Last question, Pete, whodeserves an ovation?
Who is someone in therestaurant industry that we
should be following?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I try to stay away from food critics.
I think anybody that'spreaching employee improvement.
I think somebody that reallyprovides a path for your
employees to grow, I think to goalong with the fact that we
need people that care.
I think a big part of that isproviding the store level hourly
employees a path that they feellike they have in their own
(16:20):
hands Training, set goals andthat develops a thing where they
won't have turnover.
I think somebody that reallyteaches that can help you learn
leadership at the manager level.
We're a growing company and wehave the C-suite and the CEO and
the COO and, at the end of theday, the most important C is the
cooks the more people that youhave training your people,
(16:41):
enrolling them in your idea.
I think anybody that teachesthat type of leadership if
leadership can be taught that'sthe big debate, right Is
somebody that will make yourstore better.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Love that Pete.
How do people find you andFajita Pete's?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
FajitaPete'scom.
Baby, I think we have socialmedia, we have other stuff like
that.
I don't know if you can tellyou haven't known me long enough
but I'm a simple man.
I named the company FajitaPete's because I'm Pete myself
fajitas.
So we do have all those coolsocial media and LinkedIn pages,
but the best thing you can dois go buy a store, try the
fajitas and get to know.
(17:16):
The crew Love that.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Well, pete, for serving up a masterclass on
caring with a side of catering.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGive an Ovation.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Thank you, brother, keep doing what you do.
It helps a lot.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
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
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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