Jen Kern: [00:00:24] Hello everyone and welcome to our second episode of Restaurants Reinvented...a podcast created by, for and about all things restaurant marketing related. I'm your host, Jen Kern. And today I'm with Matt Smith, the CMO at Madera Group, which owns the Tocaya family of brands. Hey Matt, welcome to the show.
[00:00:43] Matt Smith: [00:00:43] Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me.
[00:00:46] Jen Kern: [00:00:46] I'm great. How are you?
[00:00:47] Matt Smith: [00:00:47] Doing well.
[00:00:48]Jen Kern: [00:00:48] Good. Good. Well, I'm really excited to dive in and learn all about the Madera Group and all its brands.
[00:00:54] You have some really interesting concepts and some new concepts that I can't wait to hear about. But before we get started, let's tell our listeners what your favorite menu item is from any of your concepts.
[00:01:06] Matt Smith: [00:01:06] Oh, that's a great question. It's like picking a favorite child, but with which I don't have to do yet. But I would probably go with the Street Corn En Fuego. If anyone's ever had elote, which is like a Mexican street corn grilled with a crema and some cheese, we basically take that and put it in healthy bowl form where you get to pick your protein and your cheese.
[00:01:30] And it feels like you're being indulgent, but you're actually eating very healthy ingredients and it's pretty light, but still packs a punch. So, pound for pound, I think Street Corn En Fuego is the one I would go with for sure.
[00:01:42]Jen Kern: [00:01:42] That sounds amazing. And how spicy is that?
[00:01:42] Matt Smith: [00:01:42] It's moderately spicy. you know, I think it depends on tolerance, but, it's for me, it's like the perfect amount of spice.
[00:01:42] It doesn't blow me away, but, I definitely feel it.
[00:01:42] Jen Kern: [00:01:42] Yum, that sounds delicious. Well, I know that Tocaya is very passionate about its organic ingredients. So tell us a little bit about your menu and the different concepts for the listeners that might not be familiar with the Madera Group.
[00:01:55] Matt Smith: [00:01:55] Yeah. So the Madera Group is a restaurant group. We have a fast casual concept called Tocaya Organica currently 17 locations throughout Southern California, as well as Arizona. And then we have some more full service concepts, a bit more on the high end, fine dining spectrum. We call them, high energy, fine dining, Basically, you know, super high quality food, but also, an incredible experience.
[00:02:21] It's going to be a lot of fun and not sleepy. As far as our menu at Tocaya, we do believe in, organic ingredients wherever possible. We just continue, with every passing day, week, month to educate ourselves on organic farming. And as a result, you know, we're not just organic for organic sake. We're trying to be smart about what's organic.
[00:02:41]Not every ingredient in the world needs to be organic. There's a little bit of misinformation out there. So, for those that we think do need to be organic, we're organic, our proteins are produced most of our vegetables, et cetera. But for others, you know, we don't want to essentially pass on unnecessary costs to our guests by getting, you know, organic peanuts.
[00:03:01] We don't even have peanuts on the menu, but organic peanuts that, you know, have a shell and aren't exposed to any you know, harmful, pesticides or anything like that. It's just kind of, you know, unnecessary as far as we're concerned.
[00:03:12]Jen Kern: [00:03:12] Right. Right. And based in LA and I hear you have the most amazing, and I see it on your website, the most amazing interiors. Your brand is beautiful. So tell us about some of the hotspots.
[00:03:24] Matt Smith: [00:03:24] Yeah. We have 11 units throughout Los Angeles. We're a very design forward and brand forward company. Our founder and CEO, Tosh Berman is really kind of the architect behind it... You know, it's his vision. He's intimately involved in every last detail of the interior design, the layout of the restaurants, the furniture, the fixtures, and we've essentially sought to elevate the fast casual space. So, really the idea with everything that we're doing is we want to bring back romanticism to hospitality without losing the speed, that people love about fast casual. So it's kinda the best of both worlds.
[00:04:01] Jen Kern: [00:04:01] I love that. Bring back romanticism to fast casual. How are you doing that?
[00:04:06] Matt Smith: [00:04:06] Yeah. So every light as I kind of alluded to it, every last detail is, is scrutinized and poured over. You know, Looking at music, for example, you know, you have a lot of restaurants or multi-unit restaurants such as put on a radio station or Spotify channel. We take that extremely seriously. You know, We have a person on my marketing team who also DJs at our full service restaurants and he serves as our in house music director.
[00:04:28] So he's actually curating custom playlists of, different kinds of music that you wouldn't ordinarily hear at a restaurant, or even on the radio. So, you know, we're constantly creating an experience in everything that we do, all the way from the music as I just mentioned down to the forks. There's not a lot of fast casuals you can go to where you sit down and eat your meal and you have gold forks at the table. So literally every last detail is about creating an amazing experience at an affordable price point, while also being, as fast as possible to kind of parallel the needs of today's consumers.
[00:05:02]Jen Kern: [00:05:02] right, right. That's fantastic. Because whenever anyone goes out to eat, whether it's fine dining, fast casual, we want to have an experience. Right? It's always about the experience. And I saw that you can even see what's playing on your website at each of the different restaurants.
[00:05:17] Matt Smith: [00:05:17] Yeah. So that's a really fun one and it, it, it really shows how we prioritize music, but yeah, you know, on our locations page of our website, you can go to any location and see, what's currently playing, or maybe you were enjoying a meal with friends and you heard something that you liked, but didn't have a chance to Shizam it or, or ask a friend if they knew it.
[00:05:34] So you can go to our website and see some of the music we're playing. And then in a similar vein, from a marketing perspective, we also leverage music by creating Spotify playlists for different holidays and days. And we're just a very music forward brand.
[00:05:48]Jen Kern: [00:05:48] right. Right. And do you get feedback or do surveys with your guests to see who their favorite artists are and what they want to hear? Because I imagine there's a diverse amount of playlists that you could play at any one given time, and nobody likes all the same music.
[00:05:48] Matt Smith: [00:05:48] Yeah, for sure. That's a great question. honestly, up to this point, it's really been primarily, in the hands of, Daniel, on our team who functions as our in house music director. he just has a really good pulse on what's coming down the pipeline and how to kind of take it to another level and differentiate what we're doing.
[00:05:48] All of the feedback we've gotten on the music has been overwhelmingly positive. people really, really seem to like it. The only. A complaint we've ever gotten is that sometimes. So a little too loud. We get a little too into it and have a little fun at the restaurants. The teams really like it it's very high energy.
[00:05:48] So that's the only complaint we've we've ever gotten on the music.
[00:05:48] Jen Kern: [00:05:48] Awesome. That's great. Well, let's talk about you a little bit and how you landed at the Madera Group. I know you've been there just one year and it's a very young brand, just just three years, three years young, really? You've been there a year. We talked in our pre show comments about how you'd been in New York before. And you have an agency background. Tell our listeners a little bit about your career path and what you're doing now today at the Madera Group.
[00:06:11] Matt Smith: [00:06:11] Yeah, so to some extent I kind of stumbled into marketing. And to another extent I, I stumbled into restaurant marketing. when I was in college, I studied psychology and, I very randomly took an internship with an agency called Suma Group. And that's the agency I eventually became a partner in, and during my internship, I learned kind of a different spin on, on the agency side, this was an agency built specifically for restaurant brands. And essentially how the agency functioned was as an external marketing team. So, for scaling brands, brands like Lemonade, brands like dos Toros in New York City, a few others throughout the country, we could essentially serve as your external marketing team.
[00:06:52]At similar group. So rather than having to hire a full suite of marketing professionals, you could outsource it to experts in the space. So we would either serve as the entire marketing team or work in tandem with a limited marketing team that was in house, or sometimes, there were bigger marketing teams we worked with and they just needed external agency resources.
[00:07:10] So, really fell in love with the restaurant space. More specifically, fast casual in that time. Eventually became a partner at Suma Group and a short time after that, came out to LA to visit with a client that was building a new concept. And he said, look, if you're going to help me build a restaurant here in Los Angeles, you got to check out this up and coming brand Tocaya.
[00:07:32] So, we went to Tocaya shortly after, I was blown away. I sent an email, on my way to the airport, to the CEO Tosh. And one thing led to another and we ended up doing a branding project for Tocaya. About a year after that, I exited my partnership at Suma Group. The Madera Group happened to be looking for a chief marketing officer.
[00:07:51] One thing led to another, and I found myself, moving with my wife to Los Angeles, which I never thought would happen. That's kinda my quick story.
[00:08:00] Jen Kern: [00:08:00] That's great. And how are you finding it? How's everything in LA? And how are you finding, you know, you're no longer on the agency side now you're technically in house, right?
[00:08:09] Matt Smith: [00:08:09] Yeah, well, geographically, I mean, it's hard not to like, the weather is perfect. I'm getting spoiled. If I ever have to live somewhere else, weather-wise it's going to be a struggle. It's, it's great to be out here. The team is amazing. You know, I, I never thought I wanted to be in house. I thought I would probably get a little bored, being on a marketing team, focused on one brand.
[00:08:31]But what's great about the Madera Group and the fact that our leaders are very entrepreneurial and creative, and believe in design and branding, et cetera, is that we're constantly creating. So, in addition to Tocaya, we obviously have Toca Madera. But we've also developed a new concept called Casa Madera.
[00:08:48] And we're always talking about taking each of our existing brands to another level and always of course, having fun, exploring what else we can possibly do. So, in a sense, we, as a marketing team at the Madeira group, get to function like a mini agency, and that's really fun. We get to work with a lot of different brands.
[00:09:05] They just all happen to be our own.
[00:09:08] Jen Kern: [00:09:08] Nice. And what's your team composition look like there?
[00:09:12] Matt Smith: [00:09:12] Yeah. So I oversee marketing obviously, and then also catering. So, you know, prior to, the pandemic, we had a catering team of about five people. And then as far as my marketing team, we have about another five people. So, you know, it's obviously myself, I have a marketing director who, now primarily focuses on the elevated brands as we call them the full service portfolio.
[00:09:33]I have a new restaurant opening marketing manager, which, you know, I, I can't recommend that position enough. you know, actually. I got her title and correct. She is the local restaurant marketing manager. So she focuses on, helping to open a market new restaurants, which is critical, but also creating a layer of a connection with our general managers at each store.
[00:09:33] Right. So, you know, as you scale, obviously you can become a little corporate, and that's something we want to avoid. We want to treat every restaurant as its own individual business and get the most out of it from a revenue perspective. And so, that person on my team is able to work directly with general managers, area directors, and make sure that what we're trying to do from a corporate marketing perspective applies to their location specifically, and is optimized for their business. And then we have a marketing coordinator and, you know, a couple of interns here and there. So it's, it's a good team. I mean, you know, Depending on who you ask, it's, it's somewhat lean, but, we really enjoy it and we have great chemistry and we work really well together.
[00:10:14]Jen Kern: [00:10:14] Nice. Nice. Let's talk about the brand a little bit because the brand, as I mentioned, it's very sophisticated for fast casual it's it's so elegant. I mean, just even looking at the colors, you get this very like upscale sort of hip and glam kind of feel from it. Right. Talk to me about the brand promise, which I, which I see prevalently on your, on your site and has a very inspirational tune to it and, and how you do get creative with your brand and, and push outside the box.
[00:10:41] Matt Smith: [00:10:41] Yeah. So, you know, our brand promise is really twofold. It's we want to make eating well effortless, and we want to create differentiated hospitality experiences. So, on the eating well effortless side, the reason why I fell in love with Tocaya is, You know, I don't enjoy eating healthy. I just don't. I love food.
[00:10:58] If I could eat a, an in and out burger or shake shack burger every day, and there would be no adverse effects, I promise you I would do it. When I was living in New York City, I would eat salads for lunch and I would go back to my desk and I say, yeah, I know this is healthy, but I'm supposed to enjoy my meals.
[00:11:13] It's my break in the day. Tocaya was really the first place for me, where I didn't have to think about eating healthy. And I didn't have to feel like I was making a sacrifice to eat healthy. And for me personally, that was huge because, it's kind of having your cake and eating it too. You know, I described the Street Corn En Fuego earlier and how delicious it is the fact that it also happens to be healthy is a major cherry on top.
[00:11:39] So, we want to make eating well effortless by taking healthy food and making it delicious. And obviously Mexican food lends itself really well to that because of all the spices, legumes, you know, proteins, et cetera. And then on the other side of the brand promise, create differentiated hospitality experiences.
[00:11:56]So as I said, you know, we, We respect the fast casual space. We respect the industry leaders, but, we also feel that, in their, in their you know, journey to success, we've lost some of the joy of, of dining out, right? You're seeing restaurant brands stamp out these boxes that feel kind of, industrial and warehousey and hard seating.
[00:12:15] And it's extremely transactional. They want you in, they want you out. They're giving you only to go, you know, bowls and plates because they want you to take it out. We're the opposite. I mean, we do a ton of off-premise business. But, we want you to dine with us and we want to kind of share that, that hospitality.
[00:12:33] So it's just an alternative approach to how we enter the space and we're constantly innovating and ways we can push kind of both ends of that brand promise forward.
[00:12:42] Jen Kern: [00:12:42] Nice. Well, unfortunately I haven't had the delight of, of dining in one of your stores since I'm on the East coast and you're not here quite yet, but how do you expand beyond the, the cutlery that you mentioned and the music and obviously the beautiful interiors. How do you extend that experience through your servers and, in fast casual, I think that's one of the biggest challenges, right? Like everyone's behind the, the counter. How do you extend that through your people on-site?
[00:13:11] Matt Smith: [00:13:11] Yeah. So I think that really comes down to creating a, a winning culture, right. And creating an environment that people want to be a part of. you know, our, Our team members are proud to tell their friends they work at Tocaya, right? Tocaya is kind of a cool kid in some respects and, to be able to work somewhere where, the playlist is, is house music.
[00:13:30] Right. And, you know, you have these uniforms that have been put together over a lot of different kind of research and design phases. We're not just giving you a black t-shirt and saying, you know, head out to the floor. They can see the care that we put into everything that we do, and they want to carry that on.
[00:13:48] So, you know, that's been a big part, other ways that we kind of push that idea forward of, of elevated fast casual is, you know, w. given my agency background, I really enjoy taking alternative approaches to a lot of different things that we do. So, for instance, our to go bags are a huge focus of ours is as odd as that may sound.
[00:14:08] When someone carries our to go bag, they're walking billboard for the brand. We want them to be proud that they're carrying a Tocaya bag. We essentially want to position it as a fashion accessory. So we did a to go bag redesign, about six months ago. And as opposed to just kind of rolling it out and having people see it and receive it when they order to go, we actually engaged a fashion, Instagram influencers.
[00:14:33] So, whereas, you know, a lot of restaurants are typically engaging food influencers obviously, we said, we're going to get these bags in the hands of fashion influencers so that the Tocaya to go bag essentially becomes a hot fashion accessory for the season. And as a result, you know, it's, it's worked, you know, we get pictures several per day uploaded on Instagram of people, not even posting their food, although we get a lot of that, but holding the bag up as if it's, you know, this prized kind of accessory, and we've kind of created an informal unspoken campaign on Instagram where, you know, if you, if you share the bag, we repost it with a.
[00:15:12] A sticker that we have, and it's just kind of become this fun, you know, cult type following.
[00:15:19] Jen Kern: [00:15:19] Yeah. Yeah. Well, everyone likes a reusable bag, right?
[00:15:22] Matt Smith: [00:15:22] Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:15:23] Jen Kern: [00:15:23] I would think given the, the change from on to off premises shifting with COVID, I would think that that's a pretty hot commodity now.
[00:15:32] Matt Smith: [00:15:32] Yeah, it is. I mean, it's, it's obviously been a crazy time, but, we've, we've in some sense benefited from the fact that, we've always prioritized making Tocaya as easy to consume as possible, whether you want to dine in. Or you prefer to have it delivered or you want to pick it up. So, we've been, understanding of the fact that delivery take out, especially on the digital side is not going anywhere.
[00:15:58] In fact, it's only ramping prior to COVID even happening. And so, that extra focus we put on it leading up to COVID without knowing that what was coming down the pipe has, has definitely paid off.
[00:16:09] Jen Kern: [00:16:09] That's great. Well, things have definitely changed a lot in the past few months. How have you adapted and what are some of the things that you can share with our listeners in terms of innovative strategies? Maybe new launches or new campaigns or LTOs. What are you doing to really keep the brand out in front of everyone and keep sales driving in?
[00:16:29] Matt Smith: [00:16:29] Yeah, absolutely. there's a few things that we've done and I really have to credit, our operations team, because as nimble as we want to be on the marketing side, as far as throwing out creative ideas, eventually you need people to execute those ideas at the restaurant level. And if you're, well, your operations team is resistant or they're not as nimble, it can hold back a lot of creative ideas. In our case, because of the fact that the whole company is very brand forward and very creative, our operations team has been open to creative ideas and getting them rolled out as quickly as possible. So for example, right when the stay at home order really kicked in, we came up with the idea to do meal prep for our guests. A meal prep is obviously something that people who eat healthy often take advantage of.
[00:17:14] They want to cook all their meals ahead of time. It's healthy. They don't have to think about it. They can repeat it easily. So we took some of our most popular menu items and put them in meal prep form, essentially individualizing the ingredients and giving four servings of each. So you could buy four of your favorite meal at Tocaya.
[00:17:32]The operations team literally in a day, was able to get that rolled out to our restaurants. And as a result, it took off. So, you know, it, It ended up within a few weeks ramping to, you know, almost 15% of our sales, which is crazy.
[00:17:44] Jen Kern: [00:17:44] Wow.
[00:17:45] Matt Smith: [00:17:45] So that, that was one. Another is, you know, I'm a big fan, especially given our size of a brand partnerships.
[00:17:52] So aligning with likeminded brands that have. A similar, but maybe slightly different followings and being able to kind of work together to do something creative. So, something we did, in early May was a partnership with MedMen. MedMen is a national cannabis dispensary. Cannabis is totally legal here in California.
[00:18:12]And we partnered with them on kind of a treat receipt type campaign where they reached out to all of their guests and said, if you sign up for Tocaya's app, which we also launched during COVID, you can get 10% off your purchase and on your receipt, you'll get a 10% coupon to use it at MedMen. So it was very, very successful for both of our brands.
[00:18:31] It's probably the first of, of a couple more partnership type stuff we'll do. And that was really great. And then probably the biggest thing we did during COVID was launching a new brand, which, again was unforecasted.
[00:18:45] Jen Kern: [00:18:45] That small little project.
[00:18:47] Matt Smith: [00:18:47] Yeah, exactly. In, you know, in the middle of everything that was going on, obviously, delivery and take out, were kind of a sole source of revenue.
[00:18:54] And, we saw an opportunity to cast a wider net on the communities we serve. So as a result, we created essentially a ghost kitchen brand. Although we don't love that term, that's what it is. It's called Burritos Loco. So super indulgent, delicious burritos, like a Nashville, hot chicken burrito, a Philly cheese steak, essentially the evil cousin of Tocaya, which is healthy and, you know, very particular and very detail oriented Burritos Locos has kind of, you know, as I said, the evil cousin, so that brand is a little bit more tongue in cheek. A ton of kind of cultural and pop cultural references, references to nineties LA. And it's been very successful and again, credit to our operations team in a matter of weeks, that's been rolled out to 11 restaurants.
[00:19:42]So,
[00:19:42] Jen Kern: [00:19:42] Wow. Wow. And I saw the Instagram page is absolutely.
[00:19:46] Matt Smith: [00:19:46] It's
[00:19:46] Jen Kern: [00:19:46] die for. Yeah. It's really fun. Like nineties LA you nailed it for sure. And, and the, your tagline, we roll fatties.
[00:19:54] Matt Smith: [00:19:54] That's, a subtle reference to, our partnership with MedMen maybe.
[00:19:58] Jen Kern: [00:19:58] Yeah. That's great. Well, that's a lot to take on during a pandemic. So you talked about, you know, pivoting to doing meal prep, new brand partnerships and rolling out essentially a virtual brand.
[00:20:12]Those are three major things. So kudos to you and your team. Everything looks amazing. I would love to hear more about how did you drive 15% of sales with meal prep in that short of a time, what were some of the things you did on the marketing side to drive that awareness?
[00:20:27] Matt Smith: [00:20:27] Yeah... So I, on our end, I mean, COVID has really forced us from a, from a marketing perspective to be very aggressive, right. There was a ton of uncertainty. No one knew what was going to happen. And, you know, even when we were limited to take out and delivery, we didn't know, you know, two weeks later they could say you have to shut down all restaurants.
[00:20:47] Right. So we really didn't know for the first time ever how much runway we had. So we wanted to get as much out of it as possible, as quickly as possible for as long as possible. So, meal prep really became our focus because it solved the problem of having to go to a grocery store, be around other people and wait in line.
[00:21:05] Right. As you know, very well, you know, just from being in America during this time, grocery stores were not the most desirable place to be. Especially as everything was kind of ramping up, there were tons of lines. People were freaked out about, you know, touching the same things other people were touching.
[00:21:23] There was shortage on certain ingredients. So we wanted to do two things. One, make it easy for people to not have to go to the grocery store. And two lessen the burden of cooking. You know, it's one thing, if we're just selling raw ingredients, you still have to cook them. This made it easy for people who were trying to still eat healthy during the stay at home order, but also families.
[00:21:44] Right? You know, you have people working from home, you have your kids running around. It's, it's kinda chaotic then to have to go shop for groceries and then to have to cook for your family... is very challenging. So it solved a lot of problems and yes, we, we did a lot on the marketing side and I think a lot of it worked, but I also just think it was a great product that filled the need more so than, you know, anything spectacular that we did marketing wise.
[00:22:09]Jen Kern: [00:22:09] That's fantastic. I know that I am absolutely so tired of going to the grocery store. And like you said, it's just a stressful experience. So if there's an easier way to get the food that I love from the restaurants I love I'm going to do it. So, that's a great strategy. So next, let's talk a little bit about digital transformation.
[00:22:27] So obviously with more of a focus off premises, we talked about delivery. We talked about takeout, curbside, you know, virtual, your virtual brand. What are some of the ways that you're driving digital transformation and how do you work with your executive team to make sure that your technology stack is as healthy and, and modern as your brand is?
[00:22:47] Matt Smith: [00:22:47] Yeah, so that's a great question. you know, I think the way that we do that is, you know, first off we have a great head of IT, Justin Keenan, probably one of the most knowledgeable people in the entire restaurant tech space. So having him kind of lead the charge has been very beneficial. As a young brand, you know, we're, we're still, we forget that we're still only four years old.
[00:23:06]We're relatively new to, data and technology, but we've, taken the stance of finding the right partners that are willing to scale with us. Using existing products when they're viable for our business and also just quality products, but looking for opportunities to kind of do something a bit more bespoke, like we would design a restaurant for instance, that fits our brands.
[00:23:31] So, we have a couple ideas that are kind of coming down the pipeline that I, I can't give too much detail into, but, our approach to everything that we do, including technology is, not being different for different sake, but taking what's worked in the past and then putting our own unique creative spin on it.
[00:23:48]Just as we did, when we, you know, had a locations page and put Spotify songs for each location. That's not, you know, a crazy thing to do, but it's our own unique spin on, on something that, exists. So, we want to take the same approach to technology.
[00:24:03] Jen Kern: [00:24:03] Right. Great. And how are you driving ROI? Well, actually, let me ask you this question. A lot of restauranteurs are challenged by not being able to get data on their guests. Have you found a way around that?
[00:24:13] Matt Smith: [00:24:13] Yeah. To some extent. I mean, I, I feel they're paying a lot of the, the feedback that guests give, whether it's, you know, Yelp or Google is, is qualitative and there's no real way to kind of make it quantitative. I mean, there's some new tools out there that are pretty cool, but as far as actual, you know, hard numbers, I think it's something that we have to keep up with.
[00:24:33] Especially because, you know, you can make an investment in, in, you know, a research project and, all of a sudden something like the pandemic happens and that research is essentially out the window. Consumer behavior has completely shifted. So we needed an ongoing way to, get guest feedback and leverage it as data so we can make more intuitive decisions.
[00:24:53]And the way that we did that was we created a rewards app. Right. So, we did that in tandem with a group out of, San Francisco. I believe they're based, might be Denver, San Francisco, but, They have a really great product and they were able to work with us to actually launch that. It's something we've been working on since last year, but we were able to actually launch during a pandemic.
[00:25:13] So obviously having our kind of first party ordering and, and take out and, and doing it in a way where we can incentivize frequency and, and, people ordering directly from us as opposed to a third party. We're getting a ton of information, on demographics, you know, daypart, quartile, all of it.
[00:25:32] And it's, it's like Christmas morning for me, because, up until that point, you know, we didn't have a ton of data on our guests. So, we're, we're all kind of learning and, and, and enjoying what we're getting. And, looking forward to the point where we have a long enough data set, you know, we've only been doing it for 65, 70 days, but a long enough data set where we can, take some actions as a result. And that's exciting for us.
[00:25:58]Jen Kern: [00:25:58] That's really exciting. That's great. Let's see, sorry. I have to have pause for a second because I lost my train of thought. I was going to ask about like balancing creativity and data, but I think because your data is so new, it might not be as relevant. What do you think?
[00:25:58] Matt Smith: [00:25:58] Yeah, I mean, we, the, the, the short of it is, You know, really what I said before, which is Every thing we do is going to have our own unique spin on it, no matter how small. So, you know, we don't, we don't settle for templated emails, that we send through a, a dashboard, you know, where we get our data.
[00:26:13] That's not good enough for us. We'll take the extra time. Make some beautiful creative, so it speaks more to what we believe in. So, I think that's the short answer to the intersection of data and creativity for us. Creativity, is always, I want to say always going to come first, but it's always going to be one of the biggest things that we focus on because it's worked so well for us up to this point.
[00:26:37] Jen Kern: [00:26:37] Right, right. Okay. What is your biggest challenge today?
[00:26:42] Matt Smith: [00:26:42] I think the biggest challenge... That's a good question. probably just the uncertainty, you know, not really, knowing what the longterm effects of, this pandemic are going to be as far as consumer behavior. And I'm pretty sure that everyone in every industry is experiencing that to some extent, it's not unique to restaurants, restaurants have been hit particularly hard, but I think, this has been a game changer that no one saw coming and probably, you know, the biggest game changer in my lifetime as far as how things will be affected moving forward. So, you know, better understanding how this will affect how we need to build restaurants, you know, what the mix of, of dine-in versus kind of take out and delivery is going to be moving forward. Are we moving towards a, an all digital world where you know, most restaurants are ghost kitchens and you can't have that kind of romantic meal at a restaurant. I hope not, but, we need to kind of be very weary of all possible outcomes as a result of something that, has really been, just a game changer for everyone.
[00:27:46]Jen Kern: [00:27:46] right. Right. Well, I know that here we shifted our focus from doing, we used to do two week sprints and we changed that to one week sprints just because things are changing so quickly and we want to be even more nimble. So in your world, how do you plan your marketing projects and what are you super focused on today?
[00:28:04]Matt Smith: [00:28:04] Yeah, I mean, I think what we're really focused on is creating the perfect off-premise experience. I think I can confidently say that as far as on-premise dine-in, I inherited that, you know, I can't take any credit for that. They did an incredible job creating an unbelievable hospitality experience, but knowing that, you know, whether, as I eluded to earlier, 80% of the restaurants are ghost kitchens in five, 10 years or not.
[00:28:33] We know that digital ordering and delivery and take out are just rampant. We're, we're certain of that. So the question is how do we create that amazing, unique experience that we have in our restaurants off-premise right? We've come up with some cool ways that we did even before the pandemic, to do it on the catering side.
[00:28:56] For instance, when we cater a meal to an office, it's not just boxes of food, et cetera, we have beautiful packaging, but we also send a Spotify playlist and that Spotify playlist allows you to create the Tocaya vibe wherever you're eating, whatever you ordered for catering, whether it's in the office or a party, et cetera.
[00:29:14] So little things like that are going to make a big difference as far as differentiating our experience, in people's homes, at their offices, wherever they would take Tocaya to go.
[00:29:26] Jen Kern: [00:29:26] Absolutely those small things can make such a big difference and we all want to feel comfortable today. You know, it's like you said, We're not sure when this is all going to come back and how it's going to come back. My guest last week, Justin Bartek talked about like, it's going to come back, humans aren't created to sit and eat in plexiglass boxes.
[00:29:43] Right. It's just a matter of when. But until then we want to have a similar experience where like, we want to be comforted. We want to have the nice bags, like you're delivering. We want to get some discounts. We want to have stickers on the bat. You know, it's like all that kind of stuff.
[00:29:59] Like. People still want to feel like they're getting that brand experience and that can be challenging at this time to, to really deliver that. So kudos to you for thinking outside the box. Tell our listeners, what advice do you have for marketers today? Words of wisdom.
[00:30:16] Matt Smith: [00:30:16] Hmm, that's a good question. The best advice that I have, I would say don't be afraid to take risks. I think, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm speaking probably mostly about our industry, multi-unit hospitality, but there's a lot of kind of copycat stuff, always going on and to be perfectly frank, it's kind of what, you know, turned me off from the industry when I was thinking about going in house, was... everyone wants to be the next Chipotle and while they're trying to become Chipotle, Chipotle is already on 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0. And you'll never catch them and you'll always be a step behind. So, don't be afraid to think outside the box and take some big risks. Obviously calculate it. And then also just, I guess, for the younger marketer, worry about the things that you can control.
[00:31:05] There's a lot of outside circumstances that are going to affect the results of campaigns you're doing and things like that. Work hard, do the right thing and focus on the things you can control. And you know, more often than not good things will happen.
[00:31:18] Jen Kern: [00:31:18] That's great. That's great. I love it. And you have a specific celebrity who has been very vocal about your brand. Tell me a little bit about that.
[00:31:27] Matt Smith: [00:31:27] You're referring to John Legend.
[00:31:30] Yeah, we got, it was, it was, a wonderful surprise during, the stay at home order, but, Postmates who's, an exclusive partner of us, our only delivery partner in Los Angeles, and a great partner, kind of surprised us with it. They didn't know it was coming.
[00:31:43] The marketing team didn't know it was coming, but they put together a campaign really focused on, getting people to support local restaurants. And as a result, they, got a few different celebrities on camera to say, you know, Hey, support local restaurants. Here's my favorite restaurant. And so, in our case, again, we didn't expect it.
[00:32:02] You know, it was totally organic. John Legend said, his favorite restaurant is Tocaya Organica and people should order from it. They then took the video and made it into a commercial. And it's kind of been all over social media. So it was, a wonderful endorsement because he's, probably one of the most likable celebrities out there, you know, not super controversial, just a very, very likable guy.
[00:32:25]So it was, it was a great endorsement to get, especially given the circumstances.
[00:32:30] Jen Kern: [00:32:30] Yeah, that has to be the best kind of surprise waking
[00:32:33] Matt Smith: [00:32:33] It was awesome.
[00:32:34] Jen Kern: [00:32:34] John legend is tweeting about your restaurant brand without you even asking.
[00:32:37] Matt Smith: [00:32:37] It's funny. We were, we were on a, we had a, At that point, we were doing daily executive calls and, I was actually, it was my, I was giving a marketing update and, you know, I'm signed into all our social accounts, just because, and I got a notification and it said, John Legend mentioned Tocaya Organica in a tweet. And I was like, guys, hold on one second. Let me just make sure that, you know, we didn't mess up his order or something like that. And I clicked it and it said tweet deleted. And I was like, Oh, no, like what could this have been? And then about a minute later, I got the same notification, opened it.
[00:33:12] And it was the video of him saying, you know, support local restaurants, we order from Tocaya Organica. So it was, it was really cool.
[00:33:20] Jen Kern: [00:33:20] Yeah, that's amazing. So what's next on the horizon for the Medera Group brands and Tocaya?
[00:33:26] Matt Smith: [00:33:26] Yeah. I mean, we, we got more restaurants coming. we're expanding in California and Arizona. We're obviously like everyone else excited to kind of get through this. Our dining rooms are reopened in Arizona. We have a solid plan to gradually reopen them in Los Angeles and we're just excited to kind of pick up where we left off from a growth perspective.
[00:33:47]Earlier this year, we, we got a lot of cool things in the works, so we're looking forward to it and, like everyone else, I think we could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
[00:33:56] Jen Kern: [00:33:56] Yeah. And most importantly, when are you coming to the east coast?
[00:34:00] Matt Smith: [00:34:00] That's a good question. We get it all the time. The person who asks that question the most is my mother, because she misses me. it's definitely in the plans, but, you know, we're not sure exactly when we want to be really smart about it. so we'll see if I, if you, if you forced me to guess, I would say we would be on the east coast in two years or less.
[00:34:18] Jen Kern: [00:34:18] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm gluten free and I love vegan options and I know you have a huge vegan menu and, your bowls look amazing. So it's a, it's a selfish ask. It's a selfish ask. And how can our listeners reach you?
[00:34:30]Matt Smith: [00:34:30] that's a good question as well.
[00:34:30] Jen Kern: [00:34:30] I assume you're on Instagram, LinkedIn,
[00:34:30] Matt Smith: [00:34:30] LinkedIn is probably the best way to reach me.
[00:34:30] Jen Kern: [00:34:30] okay. What's your favorite social? You're on LinkedIn the most.
[00:34:30] Matt Smith: [00:34:30] Yeah. I would say LinkedIn.
[00:34:30] yeah.
[00:34:30] Jen Kern: [00:34:30] Great. Well, Matt, thank you so much for your time today. It was fantastic hearing all of your insights and innovations, particularly the things that you were driving during the pandemic.
[00:34:38] That's really impressive. So keep up the fantastic word work. Thank you so much for joining us on Restaurants Reinvented and look forward to talking to you again soon.
[00:34:47] Matt Smith: [00:34:47] Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.
[00:34:50]