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They said what? Top quotes from Fast Casual Exec Summit

October 22, 2013 by Cherryh Cansler — Editor, FastCasual.com

Nearly 150 restaurant operators gathered last week in New Orleans for our eighth annual Fast Casual Executive Summit. We were honored to meet leaders of some of the industry's leading fast casual chains, but just as important were the smaller concepts that were there to learn from the bigger guys.

The CEO Roundtable, for example, allowed attendees to quiz the CEOs of Schlotzsky's, Fatburger, Tropical Smoothie Café, Suzy's Swirl and Fiesta Group on how they handle everything from menu innovation to marketing. They had several things in common, but probably the most noteworthy was their dedication to offering high-quality products and not playing the "discounting game."

"You could buy cheaper food than us, but then you 'd have to eat it," said Tim Taft, CEO of Fiesta Restaurant Group, which owns Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabano.

The Summit yielded a variety of insightful, memorable quotes like Taft's. Some of my favorites are below.

"The government is a giant insurance company with an army." — James Carville

"Our executive team is like a club. Not everyone gets a membership." — Carl Howard, CEO of Fazoli's

"Too many people in government have never run a business. There's a lot of well-intentioned people, but the dynamic is very poisonous." — Don Fox, CEO of Firehouse Subs

"You don't want to be too far out. Companies confuse real innovation with novelty. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." — Rolie Zagnoli of Zagnoli Trading Company

"We will see consolidation in the technology space. The biggest challenge today is legacy systems. In time, I think that the right business solutions that help solve real challenges for the operators will surface, and you will see consolidation start to happen." — Erle Dardick, CEO of MonkeyMedia Software

"They say we have a skills gap in America. We don't have a skills gap, we have a core values gap." — Eric Chester, keynote speaker

"Useful is the new cool." — Jeff Fromm, keynote speaker

"Treat customers as king, learn from mistakes, be honest for customer loyalty in return." — Sam Patel, CEO of Ike's Lair

"Eighty percent of adults have seen digital signage in the past month; 70 percent of them have made an unplanned purchase because of it." — Lyle Bunn, principal and strategy architect at Bunn Co.

"I believe in food photography. The better the picture is the more you're going to sell. We eat with our eyes."  — Louis Basile, founder of Wildflower Bread Company

"Mobile payments provide the ability to more personally interact with your guests, and you inherently gain more information about your guests that can help you create a different type of customer experience." — Geoff Murtaugh, VP of technical services at Micros

"Brands successful with Millennials will be both high participation and high shareworthy." —Jeff Fromm, keynote speaker

"The most unique thing about the digital market is content. Don't use it just to list your menu items and price. They can be so much more — promotion, merchandizing, entertainment. They can be used to engage and create stickiness with customers." — Craig Rathbun, director of Philips Commercial Signage, North America

"People check their phones every five to seven minutes. How great would it be to send them a push notification encouraging them to come eat at Barbacoa during those times? We're not a destination location. Our customers make the decision to eat here about two minutes before they come in." — Matt Pyles, operations manager at Barbacoa Mexican Grill

"McDonald's sells more oatmeal than Egg Mcmuffins now. Oatmeal was a huge win for McDonald's. People won't leave the house for oatmeal, but they will if you cut the fruit for them." — Richard Yoo, VP & innovation manager, Mattson & Company

"Mobile payments, because they're so personal, is the beginning of a whole new era. It provides a direct connection to consumers, and they're not necessarily new consumers, but they're an innovative set of consumers, and those are the consumers you want." — Gordon Saussy consulting executive, Isis,  Mobile Commerce

Do you have a favorite quote from this year's summit? Leave it below.

About Cherryh Cansler

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Cherryh Cansler is VP of Events for Networld Media Group and publisher of FastCasual.com. She has been covering the restaurant industry since 2012. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, The Kansas City Star and American Fitness magazine, among many others.

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