In this episode, Deena McKinley, Chief Experience Officer at Papa Gino’s Pizza and D'Angelo's Grilled Sandwiches, discusses the rise of the role of Chief Experience Officer, leveraging automation to empower employees, and how the brand experience should begin internally.
Welcome to Elevating Brick and Mortar.
A podcast about how operations and facilities drive brand performance.
On today’s episode, we talk with Deena McKinley, Chief Experience Officer at Papa Gino’s Pizza and D'Angelo's Grilled Sandwiches. Papa Gino’s is a family-owned restaurant chain specializing in traditional thin-crust pizza. D’Angelo’s Grilled Sandwiches is a neighborhood-style sandwich shop chain in New England.
In this episode, Deena discusses the rise of the role of Chief Experience Officer, leveraging automation to empower employees, and how the brand experience should begin internally.
Guest Bio:
Throughout Deena’s career in marketing and advertising, she has achieved results by maintaining a focus on brands and enhancing the customer experience. With expertise in the retail and restaurant industries, she brings a critical understanding of the intricacies needed to develop and maintain a brand that customers will choose over and over again.
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Guest Quote
“I think it's really important to look at technology to create efficiencies that will help us grow our top line faster. So to me, the purpose of technology and where technology fits in all of this to help us grow our bottom line is that it compresses the middle of the P&L. You know, it pushes efficiency so that the top line can grow faster and push more flow through down to the bottom. And by doing that, your people are freed up to help do what they need to do to push the top line, which is to process things faster, and get better customer relationships so that they come back more and are more loyal. And all of the things that come from that ultimately drive more business.” - Deena McKinley
Time Stamps
**(01:51) - Deena’s career journey
**(07:22) - What IS a Chief Experience Officer
**(19:00) - Maintaining customer experience across a franchise
**(31:48) - Deena’s predictions for the future of her industry
**(41:42) - Sid’s final thoughts
Sponsor:
ServiceChannel brings you peace of mind through peak facilities performance.
Rest easy knowing your locations are:
ServiceChannel partners with more than 500 leading brands globally to provide visibility across operations, the flexibility to grow and adapt to consumer expectations, and accelerated performance from their asset fleet and service providers.
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Links
Narrator: Welcome to Elevating Brick and Mortar, a podcast about how operations and facilities drive brand performance. On today's episode, we talk with Deena McKinley, Chief Experience Officer at Papa Gino's Pizza and D'Angelo's Grilled sandwiches. Papa Gino's is a family owned restaurant chain specializing in traditional thin crust pizza.
D'Angelo's grilled sandwiches is a chain neighborhood style sandwich shop found throughout New England. Throughout Deena's career in marketing and advertising, she's achieved results through maintaining a focus on brands and enhancing the customer experience with expertise in the retail and restaurant industries.
She brings critical understanding of the intricacies needed to develop and maintain a brand. That customers will choose over and over again. In this episode, Deena discusses the rise of the role of Chief Experience Officer, leveraging automation to empower employees, and how the brand experience should begin internally.
The first award from our sponsor. Want to rest easy knowing? Your brick and mortar locations are offering the best possible guest experience. Partner with Service Channel For peak facilities performance, check out service channel.com today. To learn more. And now here's your host, industry and FM technology, thought leader and chief business development officer at Service Channel, Sid Shetty, along with our guest, Deena McKinley.
Sid: Hello everyone. Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. I'm here today with Deena McKinley, chief Experience Officer at Papa Gina's Pizzeria and DeAngelos Grilled Sandwiches. Deena, welcome. Thank you for being here.
Deena: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Sid: Really appreciate it. Thank you. So Deena, let's start.
Let's talk about this impressive career that you've had with a lot of accolades, and not only in the hospitality industry, but also in the advertising space. So can you share your journey with
Deena: us? Yes, absolutely. So I. You know, started my career in, actually, I was a high school English teacher to start and then Oh, interesting.
I made my way into marketing and advertising and I started at Zimmerman Advertising. I had a really great team and we handled, um, restaurant industry and, and. Papa John's Pizza, and we really ended up with, um, a great team there. And I think surrounding myself with great people and, and just working together with great brands and and great people, puts you in, in a position to have a lot of success.
And that's really carried through into my career here at Papa Gino's and D'Angelo, where having a great team surrounding yourself with great people, letting them do what they do best, gives us a recipe for success. That's
Sid: awesome. And you know what made you enter the restaurant and hospitality space? You were in this space before you left it and then came back.
Right. I've
Deena: always worked in something that had to do with restaurants since I left teaching. That is so when I started in the agency business, My first account was the Papa John's co-op group for South Florida, and when I did that, I worked, you know, exclusively with Papa John's operators. I went onto the actual client side of the business and worked for Papa John's for a year, and then I came back and worked again on the Papa John's account.
From there, the agency, I started to work on additional retail business. Then when I left the agency side and went to the technology side, I was working with restaurants and it was a technology platform where we serviced restaurant clients. So the technology company that I worked for, sole Purpose was really to increase frequency and the experience of multi-unit operators, and that was also specific to restaurants.
And now here I am. Back on the brand side, which is fantastic. That's awesome. So
Sid: you've been in this space this whole time, but just in different capacities or different sides of of the equation. That's perfect. Yeah. So Deena, tell us a little bit more about Papa Gino's and D'Angelo's grilled sandwiches.
Well,
Deena: Papa Gino's and D'Angelo are both iconic brands in the New England area. They were both founded in the 1960s. Papa Gino's was founded in 1961 and D'Angelo in 1967, and they're really very special brands in that. Community, they've been around, um, for so long that anytime you meet anybody on the street and you say, oh, I work with, you know, for Papa Gino's and D'Angelo, oh, I had my eighth birthday at Papa Gino's and everybody had a birthday party at Papa Gino's and they made pizza in the back and everybody knows the steak number nine at D'Angelo.
And, and it's just, they're brands that are so full of stories and full of love that they make you feel, um, just such an emotional connection to them. And when I was researching the brands before, you know, I moved across the country to work for, for this company. I lived in Arizona and I heard about this opportunity to come and, and work with these brands.
I did a lot of research and all of the research that I found and, and the social media posts and the Google reviews and just everything else. They were so full of love and emotion that I just felt like. What a chance for a marketer to go and work with brands that people love so much and that have such an emotional connection to, and to me, it became this wonderful opportunity to create great experiences going forward with brands that already had so much to offer in terms of emotional connection.
I love
Sid: that. I mean, clearly it seems like, you know, you don't just have customers, you have raving fans. Exactly. And loyal fans that have a certain sentiment to the
Deena: brand. Right. That's true. And and the other thing about that, you know, especially with pizza, pizza is the kind of business in this industry that is just, it's not just food.
You know, pizza, it's love. You know, in a lot of ways, everybody who can think of pizza in their memories has a memory. With pizza, there's an event associated with it, A sleepover, a birthday party, the Super Bowl, whatever it is, a queen a gathering. Pizza's the kind of food that brings people together. And you know, my history is that I've worked with pizza for my entire career and the idea of pizza is, is fun.
And it's this, this family and friend mentality, and it's this idea that when the pizza gets here, there's no rules. You know, the kids can open the door. And get the pizza delivery and you can eat at the couch and it's not the same formal experience that other dinner or other occasions eat might be. It's an opportunity to create an even more special experience when you have this brand that everybody loves and you have this experience that everybody loves and you know, that creates a lot of excitement for a marketer.
Sid: Yeah, I mean it's amazing what food can do to invoke memories, create a lot of nostalgia, you know, and, and, and create certain sentiment. And I think when brands understand that and tap into it and become part of those memories, that's golden. Right? I mean, that's pretty phenomenal. And so, you know, you were really attracted by the role and you know, you joined or at least had the chief marketing officer role at both the brands, and then you were recently promoted.
To chief experience Officer. So can you tell us about the scope of your role and what is this newish, you know, sea level, you know, role that's that we're seeing in the space? And what does it, do you know, what's the responsibility in the restaurant
Deena: world? That's a great question, and I get asked that a lot.
What is a Chief Experience Officer? There's kind of this real curiosity around the title and I love explaining about it, and I, I actually have a really great story to tell about it recently. So I went to a conference last year and I had a, a delayed flight, so it was a little late. Getting in, and I walked in about maybe 15 minutes into the first session, and it was very informal.
It was, you know, not a hugely formal, um, session. And I walked in and everybody is, you know, already engaged in this conversation. It was sort of an open dialogue. And another 15 minutes into it, somebody asked a question and it was a participation round. And, you know, I raised my hand to answer a question and, and everybody was introducing themselves in their titles before they answered a question.
And so I said, um, you know, Deena McKinley, chief Experience Officer for Papa Gino's and D'Angelo, and everybody in the room kind of went. It was like a, a record, you know, scratches. Everything sort of stopped and I, I just, I didn't know what was going on and I continued to talk and everything was fine. Well, at the end of the session, somebody walked up to me and said, you know, that whole awkward pause there for a minute was because the very beginning of the session, somebody said, you know, What is this new title Everybody's saying, chief Experience Officer.
No one really knows what that means. I wasn't there to hear it. And so every, oh, God's funny. Get on the joke. And I wasn't, and it was really funny. And, and of course the person, um, who was moderating no Ill intention at all. It was just a funny comment and it was funny that I had missed it and then said my title.
So after side barring there. For that funny story, I'll tell you what title means and what I think changed when my title changed is that I had marketing, catering and guest experience. When you think about that, it's very marketing focused. It's marketing and catering and you know, large orders and marketing large orders, cuz marketing's really a function of sales and result of selling and then guest experience, which is what is the guest feeling about what our product is and what's happening in the restaurants and how do we own that.
But then you add over the last few years the role of digital marketing and technology and how all of these things impact that guest experience and how all of the technology that we use now, loyalty programs, other. Interfaces on digital ordering, third party delivery. And then you look at the things that happen in the restaurant and how our team members utilize our p o s systems and if they have PS and if they have all kinds of other things that are in the restaurant that impact their efficiency and that impact the way they interface with our guests.
And how they feel about their everyday tasks and if it's easy on them or not, because what's easy on them makes their interface with our guests one way or another and how, how happy that they are and makes a direct impact on how happy our guests are. And so that in essence is experience. From top to bottom, from the way you bring in a guest, whether it's through a Google search or a television commercial, to the way they order, to, how that order is processed through the restaurant, to how the customer gets that order, to, how they provide feedback on that order through a review, through how you market back to them to come back and get another order, and then so on and so forth through this flywheel.
And so that's an overall experience. It's not just marketing. And when you think about that, you have to expand that horizon and say, this isn't just marketing anymore. We're really overseeing the entire process, the entire experience that happens between our guests and our restaurants, and the whole process start to finish.
And so that's where that, that new verbiage comes
Sid: from. I love that. So you're not just looking outward to the consumer, you're actually looking inward as well and saying, what's the kind of experience we want our employees to have? Because in any hospitality business, like you said, you know, spot on. If your employees are happy, that's going to result in them making your consumers happy.
And it's gonna show in their smile when somebody walks in, they're gonna be warm and welcoming versus not being happy about being in that, in that restaurant. And that that's a huge part of the experience for the consumer, right? Absolutely.
Deena: I mean, when you think about it, we all have a job because of them.
So the people in our restaurants are the most important people in our organization. We exist to support them. We exist because they do their job the right way. And so, Their experience is more important than anything else in our organization because they're the ones that are gonna provide our guests with the best experiences that keep them coming and that keep them happy.
And I think that we can't ever forget that. I love this. There's a resurgence and a real focus on that right now in the industry, and I think that we are doing a, a good job of, of making sure that we always remember that. And so when we talk experience, we are not just talking about guest experience anymore, we're talking about.
Overall experience and, and how it pertains to the most important people in our organization, which is our team
Sid: members. That's great. If you think about the world today, I mean, consumers also have extremely high expectations, and if you look at the hospitality business, you know, with the past, Eight years, or, you know, maybe lesser than that.
You know, if you look at what changes happened during covid, the number of interactions that you have with the consumer has increased. Right now you've got omnichannel, like, you know, services like Uber, uh, eats and DoorDash. There's a massive resurgence of the drive-through again. There's your website that brands allow consumers to order directly from, you know, there's your marketing, there's, there's your interactions with the consumer in the restaurant for takeout and all of that, right?
Consumers expect that all those interactions are in line with the brand and are perfect. There's no pass for two out of the five being great, right? Like you have to control. Everything and ensure that they're all great experiences because ultimately the, the consumer is only seeing this as Papa Ginos.
They don't look at it as, oh, but this is through X, Y, Z channel. They care about the brand that they're interacting with,
Deena: right? It's a connected customer experience that they're expecting now, and I just did a. Presentation with the a n a and it was for marketers, um, and advertisers as well as students.
And the whole idea was, you know, why is a connected guest experience important in just the overall landscape of marketing today? And there was this one slide that I had, which was of, of a customer, you know, a woman kind of going like this, you know, all frustrated and we've all been there where you've placed an order online.
And all your information's there, and then something didn't work, so you had to pick up the phone and call, but then when you called, they didn't have the same information as you put in online, and you're like, I don't understand. Why don't you have the same information? I, I, I'm the same customer that just did this online.
Why don't you have the same information If I just gave you my phone number, you had my phone number here, you should have. This connectivity. And that's the expectation. Now, if you order on an app, if you order online, if you order on the phone, if you order in store, all of those things, we as as consumers expect that an organization now has access to all of that data in one place, and that is now the new norm.
And if we can't do that for our customers, then. We aren't gonna have loyal customers, we're gonna have friction and things are gonna take longer. Think about the hold times. Think about how long it takes to process an order so you're not gonna have as many orders and, and then you're gonna lose loyalty.
So I think you're exactly right. These things are are critical to a business. To generate more loyal customers, more frequent orders and connected data, which is tremendously important to keep that business cycle going. Right.
Sid: And you are the chief experience officer of not one, but two brands, right. And you know, one is pizzeria and the other one is sandwiches.
Like, is there a difference in how you look at the experiences you wanna create or how you manage. The expectations at the restaurant level or you know at the corporate level, or is there just one common not star, and it doesn't matter which restaurant or product it
Deena: is? Well, the behaviors of the customers are different, and so it's fundamentally the philosophy of a connected customer experience are the same.
So philosophically, in my opinion anyway, it doesn't matter. Philosophically from how customers expect you to manage their business, that all remains the same. But the execution of strategies to build awareness, to build frequency, to manage daily expectation, to create efficiencies in the restaurants.
Those things are different for each business because a sandwich business is very different than a pizza business. You know, people come in at different times, they come in at different frequency levels. The actual times in in the restaurant to do things are different, you know, making a sandwich versus making a pizza.
So you have to take all of those variables into consideration when you're managing those strategies and executing those strategies. But fundamentally, you know, the idea of. What a connected customer experience is and why you need to have one art the same. Interesting.
Sid: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And when you look at the restaurant operators, are they, their interactions with the customer I presume are the same, like you're not Star is the same.
There's a lot of commonalities there, but how they run the restaurant and I'm sure varies based on like the demographic, you know, when the customer's coming in for a sandwich versus a pizza. You know, both very different items that. Are associated with different sporting events and one probably you have in the afternoon, one you probably want to have at night, you know?
How does that change the way you think about managing, you know, expectations from your operators and managing the consumer experience no matter when they walk in to any of your restaurants? Well,
Deena: you're right in the sense that the North Star is the same in terms of, you know, providing. You know, the best experience that we can, our mission is to out food, you know, out service, and pretty much just out experience everybody in the neighborhood with the best food.
And that translates across both segments, whether it's sandwich or pizza.
Sid: So Deena, how many locations does, um, both brands have, and is it all company owned or do you also have franchise
Deena: locations? We have over 150 total locations. The majority are company owned. And we have about 40 franchise locations right now, and we're looking to develop more franchise locations for D'Angelo at this time.
So right now we're majority, and you know, we're all in the New England area, so Massachusetts, Rhode Island, um, New Hampshire. Coupling in Connecticut and some franchise D'Angelo locations in um, Maine. And so we're looking, you know, in terms of D'Angelo to fill in some more of that white space that we have in, in those markets right now, primarily, um, probably Rhode Island and, and Massachusetts area.
Um, and the rest are all company owned.
Sid: Got it. And how do you ensure that you have the same experience in the franchise locations that where you have, you know, probably lesser control compared to the company owned? How do you manage that? Well, we
Deena: work really closely with the franchisees and we have an excellent person, Bob Dooley, who is in charge of our franchise, um, group.
He's our vice president of franchising and he's been with the company for over 40 years, so he is, Are guru on D'Angelo and our founder, um, is also still a franchisee and our franchisees have been in the system for a long, long time. So they have started with the consistency of the brand. You know, way back to when the founder started.
They have continued to be a part of the brand. Everybody is very much on board with brand standards. They are involved. We have, you know, meetings with them. We talk about marketing programs. They contribute to a marketing fund. And so we manage all of the materials and brand assets. And as far as, um, all of the quality controls, they are very much on board.
Um, our guest feedback are, our guest review scores are very high on our franchise side as well as our company side. We're. In the high fours, um, almost five, you know, stars when you look at our Google reviews, and so it's definitely a well-oiled machine. Hey,
Sid: I'm your host Sid Shetty, and I hope you're enjoying this conversation so far to make sure you're up to date and have access to all our episodes.
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I'm your host, Sid Shetty, and now back to the show.
So, you know, many folks in our audience are connected to facilities and construction and operations functions that touch the built environment. Right. What are your thoughts on the contribution of the built environment, the physical space to the experience of a brand?
Deena: My opinion is that when you walk into a location, having.
It be bright and, um, open and cheery is something that is, it's the first thing that people feel. It's, it's a very emotional kind of subconscious feeling, but even more so, I think it also helps the team members in a location. You know, we're, we always are thinking, I think. As, as people that work in the industry, we might be thinking of the customers always and how they feel when they walk into a new remodel or into a build.
But we should also, in my opinion, be thinking of the team members that go in to work every day and they're there all the time. And I've seen personally a difference in locations that we've remodeled before and after of just the team members. Reactions. It's a sense of pride, but it's also a sense of, of feeling good.
It's, it's just a sense of wellness. It's a sense of feeling good about, um, coming to work every day. And, and when you project that, you can also, um, you know, people see it. It's, it's contagious to be happy and it's contagious to smile and it's contagious when you feel good about what you're doing. It's kind of like, and this is a little bit off topic, but you know, we do a lot of community programs.
At both of our brands. And when, when you do good and when you give back to your community, that's something you bring with you too. And every one of our locations that does that, you can feel that and, and it's, the word you use is pride. You can feel that pride on them and you can just feel that sense of self-satisfaction that, Hey, I have a purpose here.
I'm not just working. You know, at Papa Gino's and Anglo, which I love, but I'm also giving back to my community by doing it. And when you walk into a location that also has a bright, cheery quality, you add to that, this big smile and this sense of wellbeing and it's, it's just a nice feeling.
Sid: That's awesome.
You know, I, I agree because, you know, consumers today actually expect a lot more from their brands than just, uh, great food, right? Like, they want you to stand for something and do good. Like you mentioned, doing good in the community makes your employees feel proud, and that translates to great, you know, smiles, right?
I think the same thing happens to consumers too, like they want to actually have, you know, the belief that the brands at. They are patrons of are, you know, are in alignment to their general idea of giving back or doing good and, and being responsible, uh, you know, in terms of the planet and other things, right?
Because I think that's, that's just a new way, that's just the expectation. And so that translates into, you know, what employees expect out of the brands that they work for as well. Um, now going back to kind of the physical space, right? I wanna flip that a little bit and ask you as a consumer, As a person with a family, like when you walk into any brand, what is the expectation you have as a restaurateur?
Like when you walk in, do you have or look at things that maybe normally a consumer would not look at, and how does that influence, you know, what you expect as a sea level exec. You know, out of the brands that
Deena: you run? That's a great question. So I think my perspective might is, is a little bit, I don't wanna say more forgiving from the facility standpoint, but I understand that it's hard when you have a lot of locations to do a massive overhaul.
And so the things that I really hone in on are cleanliness and consistency. So cleanliness and consistency are huge, and bathrooms are huge for me as a consumer. So I walk in and, you know, if your buildings are a little older, I can get that. If you haven't been able to do a big overhaul, I can get that.
But your lighting should be right. Your light bulbs should all be set. You know, you should be able to do the best that you can in the existing confines of your environment. And that's what I look at because those are the types of things that are within your control. Even if you can't do a tremendous overhaul or remodel to your environment, you can keep it clean, you can keep it well lit, and you can keep it welcoming in that sense.
And that's what I look at as a consumer and especially the bathrooms. So those are the most important things to me as a consumer. Now, when I, what I love as a consumer and what my, if I had all the money and budget in the world, I would say that the best consumer experience when you go in is an open space that's bright and cheery, and that is representative of the brand that.
Is, you know, open and conducive to great operations. And so I think, you know, putting on a, a brand hat and no restrictions, I think that consumers can feel that, they can feel when they walk in and when it's a great representation of a brand and when it's been refreshed, and when the teams are happy and when the operation is efficient.
Sid: Now you interact with other sea level execs, and you've been on a few different panels as well at the industrial level. What do you hear when folks talk about their restaurant operations? You know, as it relates to the assets that they have that are, you know, like for example, a fryer. Like if you, if you make fried chicken and you, and you.
Your fryer doesn't work. That has a massive impact on the consumer experience, restaurant operations, and you know, and it's just not ideal, and you're losing money every single minute. Those assets are down. And then also the physical space, like everything you just mentioned, when you talk to other sea level execs, you know, what do you hear about?
What they care about. Do they share the same sentiment that you have or is there still this gap between the connection between like the physical spaces, the assets, and the brand itself? Because we sometimes see, like in a, in a being in our space that the folks in our space don't do a great job in articulating the impact they have to the brand.
They're, they're very much like heroes without caves. They come in when there's an issue, they resolve it and they move on. But like no one tells a story as to the impact you had on the business.
Deena: I think that's such a great topic. From my own personal perspective, I think that people realize the impact that that has.
I think that they understand the need for being proactive on things like equipment and things like refreshing and remodeling, and that it's something that people desire. To do. Um, I think that where some of the challenge might come in is in quantifying the expenses, and that's where I think we need to figure out maybe how to better utilize data to quantify.
What the return on those things can be. And to your point, we lose a lot of money when something goes down the, I think, question is the predictability of that happening. And so on the one hand you can say it would cost. Not that much more to replace a fryer than it would to repair it if it goes down. But that if is the big question.
But if it doesn't go down, then it doesn't cost you anything. And so it depends on who is the keeper of that budget and whether or not that if is more important to them or less important to them. And so, in my opinion, I think that's how. It all depends on the list of prioritization and what a company is able to do with that.
Sid: That's spot on. And I think what I think is also important for our audience here is that sea levels do care about this and you know, all you need is a business case to help you understand how do you. Utilize the resources that are available to make the best business decision possible, but all you need is for the right function and the right departments to raise their hand and say, here's why investing in these functions, in these programs make sense because they have a huge impact on the brand, but if the functions are just in the motion of fixing broken things, You will never know because you know, you assume things are going right.
And is that a fair assumption?
Deena: I think it's a very fair assumption that making a business case is spot on, that making a business case is tremendously important and making a business case in the context of a company's other priorities, because as I mentioned, you can make a business case for a lot of things, but if a business has other priorities, And it comes down to those priorities versus an if, then you need to weigh those because there's only a finite amount of money to spread around potentially.
And so the business case needs to be very compelling to focus on an investment. Of an if versus another investment. And I, but I do think that it's really important to do that because if becomes a reality in a lot of situations and we, we discount that sometimes, so, and we become those superheroes without capes of how much resource are we then allocating to, you know, the ifs that become.
You know, realities, right? It's,
Sid: these are eventualities, right? They, they're going to happen at some point. And if the more predictability you can bring into the decision making, the better. Because ultimately, like you don't wanna lose revenue. You don't wanna have a poor customer experience. And sometimes all it takes is just putting your hand up and, you know, articulating the importance of the programs and what it does to the business.
And it, it's, it's not necessarily about how. Fast things are fixed. It's about what happens, you know, to the customer experience if you don't get this right. And then if you do it proactively and you know, to your point, customers keep giving you five stars and your reviews, that is ultimately like the not star, you know, cuz everything contributes to the experience of the customer.
Let's pivot to technology for a bit. You know, you are in the space talking to a lot of people and there's a lot of advancements in technology, in automation. Some really cool things that are happening in the restaurant space with robotics. You know, things like, uh, flippy, you know, at at white castles using to flip burgers, chippy, you know, Chipotle, you know, panda's using auto walk.
There's all these things that are happening. You know, back of house, but also like front of house with robots being used to, you know, bus tables, deliver your drinks. You know, these are just some of the advancements that are happening in the automation and the world of robotics. Right. What excites you?
What do you think is here to stay and what do you think is not gonna change about the business that, that you're in?
Deena: That's a great question. I think that the best part about automation, And robotics and the advancements in technology is anything that will help us create more efficiencies within our labor.
So I don't like to look at these advancements as replacements of people. I like to look at them as ways that we can enhance. The guest experience because what these technology advancements allow us to do is free up our people to do, do the things that they do best, that the robotics and that the technology cannot do, which is have better guest interactions.
Make our food faster and better, present it faster and better. You know, try to figure out what else we can do to create better experiences, get more involved with people in the restaurants, um, know our customers better and try to advance frequency and, and other things by gaining more knowledge of the guests in our restaurants.
So, to me, having all of this great technology, it serves a purpose as labor reallocation. Instead of labor replacement. And I think that it's really important for us to remember that because that reallocation of labor to doing the things that people are best at doing is what's gonna make our businesses better.
And we have to remember, I mean, first and foremost, we're in the people business. We are. The whole thing about restaurants and hospitality industry, I mean hospitality, we are a people, business people first. You know, going back to the very beginning of this conversation, we are all here because of the people in the restaurants, the team members in the restaurants are our whole reason for being, and that's not gonna change anytime soon, in my opinion.
And so anything that we do, again, just enhances what they can do.
Sid: That's right. And, and that's what we're seeing. Like there's a, there's a massive labor shortage right now, you know, especially for operators, but also like in the, the trades space. Like there's a massive shortage of skilled labor. And you know, one of the things that we talk about is no matter like which part of the world you're in, you know, whether they're a restaurant or on the services side, we need to encourage more talent.
To come into the space, you know, it's a good life. And you know, I think automation will, to your point, not replace the people that are needed. It's going to change what they do. And you know, I think if you talk, if you just, like I mentioned auto walk and flippy and chippy, this allows the restaurant to take the folks that were in the back of house and bring them front of house in front of the customer so they can be with the customer and help them.
Right. Would you agree?
Deena: Yeah, I mean, and I think it's really important to look at technology to create efficiencies that will help us grow our top line faster. So to me, the purpose of technology and where technology fits in all of this to help us grow our bottom line is that it compresses the, the middle of the p and l.
You know, it, it pushes efficiency so that the top line can grow faster and push more flow through down to the bottom. And by doing that, your people are freed up to help do what they need to do to push the top line. Which is process things faster, get better customer relationships so that they come back more and are more loyal and all of the things that come from that ultimately drive more business because that's, I mean, we're in in business to drive more business.
We're in a pizza business and then we're in business to drive more business. So all of those things need to work out. And if we can use technology to help us do that because they create more efficiencies, then that's what it's there for. What are your
Sid: thoughts on, uh, some of the interesting things with last mile delivery with autonomous robots delivering food and, and, and drones being tested?
Deena: Thoughts on that? Everything is possible right now in, in terms of different levels of customer acceptance and, you know, consumer acceptance of those things in general. There's some people that are fearful of change and in some markets I think that's gonna be brilliant. In other markets, I think it's gonna be hard for people to, to adapt.
Currently, you know, maybe more in the future. I think people think it's cool. I think it's a fun marketing and and PR thing. I do think that it's, like I said, it's great in some markets right now. I think like anything else, it's gonna depend on the
Sid: demographic. I agree. I mean, there's a lot of stuff happening right now.
A lot of things being tried out. Some will stick, some might not. But I think what is clear is that this is a very interesting. And fun time and there's gonna be some really big advancements that will shift consumer behavior even more. Now, going back a few years, I mean, you know, now I say a few years, but couple of years.
Let's talk about Covid for a second, right? Covid was a very strenuous time for the restaurant business, but there was a massive bounce back that happened, and you know, the restaurant business is doing great right now. Anything that you think that changed during Covid in terms of how you operated, what you did, consumer expectations that you think now is a standard ex, you know, practice that now consumers will expect?
Or do you think certain things will start to die down over time and go back to the way it was?
Deena: We were always kind of a third dine-in, a third delivery, a third carryout. And when Covid hit, we became obviously all pickup and delivery and just like everybody else. And we didn't have eating in restaurants anymore.
So I think with that, and this is. Primarily, I would say a Papa Gino's comment. I think with that, what ended up happening was we became more similar to other pizza concepts where pickup and delivery were more the standard versus, you know, being a more of a dine-in concept. And I think we've, we've definitely bounced back.
In the dine-in space, but it might have, you know, been something that dine-in just isn't as popular in general, unless you're in casual dining and fine dining. I think those are the ones that have really bounced back post covid. But if you're sort of like in between that you're carry out delivery model, third party, those are the things that kind of made a big shift and that's kind of becoming a core.
So I think that's what's. Been pretty interesting about Covid. I think the other thing that's really shifted is digital, and I don't think that that's gonna go away at all. I think that's something that really shifted the consumer mindset in terms of accessibility and people really ordering online and being more comfortable.
With digital in general. And I think that, um, that convenience is sticking and is not gonna go away. And the acceptance of third party, I think is something else that has definitely increased. I'm not sure that for all demographics that's gonna stay where it is. I think there's a certain demographic that is not as price sensitive as others.
And they are more willing to pay third party fees and prices. But some, you know, core customers are not. And while they would would during the pandemic pay for the convenience of third party, they are not willing to pay that much for the convenience anymore. But there is a demographic out there that is kind of immune to that because they live on third party in
Sid: general, as you look into the future, Is there anything that one excites you and two, something that you discuss with other execs about what to be prepared for?
I think
Deena: one of the things that is interesting to me is the concept of experience. Off-premises and the idea of virtual technologies with delivery. And so that's something that is an untapped opportunity right now, and how we can enhance off-premise experiences by using virtual technologies.
Sid: So can you explain that?
Like, you know, can you give an example of like, what would that look like? Whatever you want.
Deena: I mean, you know, think having, you know, pizza on the beach from your living room, you know, I, I don't know what it could look like. It's when you're in a gaming environment, I mean, this is very interesting one in my opinion.
And, you know, I'm gonna say it and then somebody else is gonna do it. But I think, like, let's say, you know, right now, Brands are in gaming environments like Roblox or, or something. And I say that cuz you know, I have young kids, but they're in, in a gaming environment and there's a, a pop-up, you know, brand A and another pop-up, brand B, and they're sitting, you know, talking to their friends and chatting online.
Well, who's to say you can't get delivery from those brands? And you're sitting there and you're having lunch with your friends, eating the same food, um, you know, just virtual dining experiences while you're in game or. You know, while you're pretend to be somewhere else. I think that that, you know, brands are gonna eventually tap into more than just awareness in these gaming environments, in these, these virtual worlds.
There's gonna, there's gonna be a, an ordering component and a transactional component to it at some
Sid: point. Very cool. Very cool. All right. Let's end with a fun question. Deena, what is your perfect pizza? What is your favorite kind of
Deena: pizza? Oh, well, Papa Gino's has. This amazing pizza. It's called the Italian Sausage ricotta pizza.
We have the best sausage on pizza, by the way. Like I, I'm not really a sausage on pizza eater and I love it. It's our traditional crust with marinara and sausage and clumps of ricotta cheese. With flakes of red pepper and it is delicious. It's so
Sid: good. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, on that mouthwatering note, Deena, I wanna say a huge thanks for taking the time to chat with me.
I really appreciate it and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. Can you tell our audience where they can find you? You can
Deena: find me on LinkedIn. Deena McKinley.
Sid: Well, that was Deena McKinley, chief Experience Officer at Papa Gino's and DeAngelo's grilled sandwiches talking about the role of the Chief Experience Officer.
Our restaurants are a people business and why experience matters we're both the consumer and the employee. Brands are starting to understand that, and it shows in the rise of the role of the Chief Experience Officer. What is also clear is that the built environment plays a huge role in that experience, and it's for us to build the right business case, ROI and narrative to drive the right investments.
With that, I'm your host, Sid Shetty. And I'll see you on the next episode of Elevating Brick and Mortar
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