Markus Pineyro [00:00:00]:

As a digital food hall, we have to win by delivering great food. So the delivery component is extremely important for us. We want our food to be delivered in the best condition possible. So our goal is to make your food, whether it's pad thai tacos, we want to finish it at the same time for the expediter. The expediter is then going to package the food at the same time. The system knows when the driver is pulling up, so we package our food. We hand it to the driver. We have a ten minute delivery radius.

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Markus Pineyro [00:00:42]:

The driver then delivers the food to your door within ten minutes of it being cooked at Oomi.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:51]:

Welcome to Wisking It All with your host, Angelo Esposito, co founder of Wisk.ai, a food and beverage intelligence platform. We're going to be interviewing hospitality professionals around the world to really understand how they do what they do. Welcome to another episode of Wisking It All. We're here today with Marcus Pineyro, co founder of Oomi Digital Kitchen. Marcus, thank you for joining us today.

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Markus Pineyro [00:01:21]:

Hey, my pleasure to be here. Previous stuff, so I'm excited.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:28]:

That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm excited to have you on. You know, for people listening, typically that we have either restaurant operators or restauranteurs in general, or restaurant tech related companies and founders. So a lot of nuggets on mosaic and a lot of the times the restaurant tech companies or founders come from the restaurant world. So in general, there's a lot of good advice and nuggets that are shared with, you know, our listeners. So having said that, obviously the. The place I like to always start and I do my research.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:00]:

I don't want my listeners to think I don't do the research. I got everything about you. That and all the questions I need, I want out of you. But I like to let the guest explain what they do. So what is Omi? Digital kitchen?

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Markus Pineyro [00:02:14]:

Yeah. So we're a digital food hall based in Dallas, Texas. For those of you that don't know what a digital food hall is or what people call digital food hall these days, just changes, right? It's like saying ghost kitchen, dark kitchen. Like, who knows? But what we do and what we focus on is making great food. We have six different brands that we currently operate out of Oomi. It's one central kitchen we have. We cross utilize our cooks. You know, the guy that's doing grilled chicken for our tacos is also doing grilled chicken for a salad.

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Markus Pineyro [00:02:47]:

The guy that's frying wings is also going to be frying negro. So based on that, you know, we. We are one central kitchen with six different brands, and we specialize in delivery and carry out.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:58]:

Love that. So I always like to understand where and how people got where they are. And so I'd love to understand a bit more of your story. So I know you've been in the restaurant space for decades, but maybe just share that story of, like, how did you start in the restaurant space and then what led to or what inspired you to create this concept?

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Markus Pineyro [00:03:16]:

It's one of those things where growing up, I always had, like, a passion for the restaurant business and conceptualizing and, you know, like, I was like, it's like I have really faint memories of, like, drawing, like, business, like, like, restaurant, like, floor models and things like that, you know, and my parents were like, why do you. Why are you not playing with legos? Like, why are you doing blueprints? Like, you know, it's just, like, really crazy ideas. Like, one of my far, far fetched ideas was doing a restaurant with, like, no waiters and a swimming pool in it. It was, like, the weirdest thing, right? But now, if you think about it, like, 20 something years, like, 30, 40 years later, it kind of makes sense, right? Like, the. No waiters and the conveyor belts. So, like, really weird stuff that, you know, nobody could fathom years and years ago. But anyway, so, yeah, I just always had a little bit of a passion for the restaurant industry. And, you know, literally my first job out of college was working for a restaurant group here in Dallas.

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Markus Pineyro [00:04:16]:

And, yeah, ever since then, I just never looked back. And I've been doing. I've been in the restaurant business, you know, as an owner operator for 18 years and in the industry for 20 years. So just a long road, most of it in brick and mortar. And, you know, took the dive into this digital space about two years ago with Oomi kitchen. And, you know, funny enough, it's like a lot of the people that you host on your podcast, the people you talk to, like, those are the solutions or technologies that we're currently using at Oomi.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:50]:

So that's awesome.

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Markus Pineyro [00:04:51]:

We are the, they're, you know, they're providing the technology. We're making great food, and together we are a digital food hall.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:00]:

That's really cool. And I love to. I love to understand, like, what inspired you to start a digital food hall. So I know you were a restaurant operator owner. You know, how did that transition happen from, okay, doing that, that, which is a tough job, and we can chat a bit about, you know, the ups and downs of that. But what made you kind of switch or where did the idea come to then say, you know what? I want to do a digital food hall.

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Markus Pineyro [00:05:24]:

Yeah, no, no, great. So great question. So for me, you know, I've been doing brick and mortar for, at that point, like, 16 years, and I got to a certain point in my life where I was like, hey, like, I want to keep doing restaurants, but I don't want to keep doing the traditional, like, brick and mortar. And, you know, the, I thought there was ways to make a much more efficient p and l and operation. And then this was coming to fruition right around, like, January 2020, you know, right when COVID started hitting. And, you know, me and my partner, he was coming from a big corporate background as well, franchise world, which is even worse. Like, what do you, when you think brick and mortar? So he was also thinking about, like, hey, like, if I'm going to stay in this industry, like, I want to do something a little bit different. You know, let's think.

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Markus Pineyro [00:06:17]:

You know, there was a article, like a document that came out around 2019 towards end of the year, and it was labeled the maybe I should dig around for it, but it was called the restaurant of the future. And in that restaurant of the future, there was a lot of talk about, you know, the taco bells with two different stories and, you know, two different levels and all different kinds of drive throughs, dark kitchens. You know, you know, all this stuff started. Like, people were starting to talk about it, so that kind of caught our attention. And then, you know, all of a sudden, we, we get hit with a pandemic. And, you know, we, you know, both of us just kind of, hey, like, I got to watch my business. I was operating brick and mortar restaurants at the time. You know, he was in the franchise world.

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Markus Pineyro [00:07:01]:

So we kind of like, hey, let's prioritize life and let's get out of this. And soon enough, when we kind of came out of it, we started talking again and say, hey, I think we were kind of onto something with this restaurant of the future, like, kind of pivoting from the brick and mortar traditional model. So then we started really, like, you know, really started thinking about, like, hey, what can we do? Like, what, what. How can we reinvent the traditional restaurant model? And we had a few different iterations, and at the end, we picked the one we currently have. And, yeah, we've been open for 13 months now. We're still very young. We have a long ways to go. It's not easy.

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Markus Pineyro [00:07:44]:

It's not the traditional restaurant strategy. There's a lot of variables, but, yeah, you know, we're, you know, we're. We're very excited about what's. What's to come. I'm a concept guy, so whenever we came up with the idea of creating concepts and, you know, conceptualizing different brands, I was like, like, so excited about that part. You know, that's kind of my. Where a lot of my passion comes from. So, yeah, you know, that's the kind of.

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Markus Pineyro [00:08:12]:

That's a story of Oomi in a nutshell.

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Angelo Esposito [00:08:14]:

I love that. And then I know there's obviously a few different brands under the same roof. So maybe just to share with our listeners what are. What are the brands and what are they? What do they each serve? Just to get a sense. And then we'll dive a bit deeper into maybe operational stuff.

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Markus Pineyro [00:08:29]:

Yeah. So one, the most recent, we have two brand new brands that we just released in the last, like, four months. So we have. Okay, I'll start with those. Those tell you a little bit more, like, of our story and what our customer wants. And, you know, so it's a little bit of, like, we use data to figure out, like, hey, what should be our next concept? We listen to our customers, and, you know, we are data driven and customer driven as well. So we developed our clucky's damn good chicken brand and launched that about a couple months ago. It's, you know, anything from tenders to wings, chicken sandwiches.

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Markus Pineyro [00:09:06]:

And then we have our love bowls concept, which is our mediterranean healthy lifestyle bowl concept. So those are the two newest brands. And then our anchor brands, which we open with our. We have an asian concept called Hot Lips. You know, pad Thai, drunken noodles. We have a barbacoa egg roll. And that tells you a little bit more about kind of how we approach things. Cause we have our mexican concept, urban taco, which makes barbacoa.

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Markus Pineyro [00:09:32]:

So, you know, from hot lips asian to urban taco mexican. And then we have burrito, which is our sister concept, to urban taco, which essentially is urban taco in a bowl. So rice bowls, burritos, you know, chicken, tinga, barbacoa, you know, pastor, all that on a bowl. All the traditional items you would see in urban taco, which is my original concept that I created now 18 years ago, which now lives digitally at Oomi.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:01]:

Wow, very cool. And then I think, I'm checking out the website. I think there's also savage rabbit and tribal juices. Right?

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Markus Pineyro [00:10:10]:

Can't forget salads, right? So savage rabbit is our salad concept. We're going to be doing wraps as well. And then travel is one of our partners, and we, you know, it's a press juice, local press juice company here in Dallas.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:26]:

Got it. And then last but not least, I believe there's a gelato. Interesting. A cafe.

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Markus Pineyro [00:10:30]:

Yeah, that's another partner that we don't make the gelato.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:32]:

Okay. Those are the partners. Okay. So the. Got it. Tribal juices and the gelato.

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Markus Pineyro [00:10:37]:

You know, we try to give our customers a little bit more than, like, the traditional soda and, you know, beverages. We have gelato. We have pressed juices. We're looking for a cookie partnership right now at the moment. So it's more of an open, like a marketplace.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:52]:

That's awesome. That's awesome. And so when people come, is it just understand the concept behind it? Obviously, I understand the digital part, and we'll get more into that because that's super exciting. But it's also a physical. Is it also a physical food hall? So can people come and actually go to each location, or is it more just like back a house? Everyone's cooking, but everything is online and delivery.

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Markus Pineyro [00:11:15]:

Yeah, it's a small lobby, which, you know, people come in and order. There's no stalls, there's no suites. One central lobby, but there's no, besides, like, there's a component of an experience through the lobby. You know, we have our digital lockers, QR code enabled, like smart lockers. So that's part of the experience. Like, for us in food tech, it seems very mundane. And like, oh, yeah, obviously you have lockers, but we get customers that never in their life been to a food tech conference or anything like that. And when they see them, they're like, whoa, what is that? It's like these tech lockers.

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Markus Pineyro [00:11:51]:

So it's part of the experience. It's one lobby. You got the QR codes to scan for pocket kiosks. We want everybody to scan a QR code and then from there, open our platform on their phone, because then that forces a customer to, you know, give us their information, and that's kind of part of our circle. Right? Like, it's all digital. You know, we. We have. We're able to collect data from our customers versus just a credit card transaction.

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Markus Pineyro [00:12:21]:

So that's kind of part of our ecosystem. And it's a very nice lobby. It's not. We're very brand forward. It's not a sheetrock lobby with, you know, a couple iPads on a wall. Like, we have more of an experience of going in there, ordering. You know, we have no dining in house. So, everybody, it's more of a grab and go delivery as well.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:45]:

Got it. Got it. Cool. And I'd love to maybe just to kind of paint that picture and you started touching on it, but just imagine that typical customer journey. So there's two scenarios. I want to walk through them both. One is, you know, ordering online, which we'll talk about. But to start with, the in person grab and go.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:59]:

So they come into this lobby, and I'd love for you to just kind of describe it in more detail. Cause it sounds pretty interesting. So they come in, what do they see? They scan something, then they get their menu. I'd love to understand just the typical process.

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Markus Pineyro [00:13:11]:

Yeah, preferably. And most of our customers know now to order prior to arriving, so they will go to our website or download our app, place an order. They typically walk in, scan their QR code by our lockers. The locker opens automatically, they grab their food, and out they go get the occasional walk in. So when that walk in does come in, we have our QR codes where people, you know, there's, you know.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:43]:

Well, can see the menu.

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Markus Pineyro [00:13:44]:

Yeah, exactly. You walk in, you see a scan here, you scan. Our platform opens up, they place an order, they wait, you know, 1215 minutes, they get a text QR code, open the locker, grab their food, and out they go.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:58]:

I love that. And then getting the flip side, which I guess is probably the majority of the customers, someone who's at home or at work, and they want to order online. So for that experience you mentioned, they have mobile app or web, I guess. And when they get there, what's the experience like? Is it similar to maybe a third party delivery app? Is that the general gist or. I'd love to understand, like, what does that look like?

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Markus Pineyro [00:14:20]:

Yeah, our platform. I mean, it's very similar. You know, it's a marketplace, is how I would describe it. You know, the only difference is that you can order from all these different brands at the same time. And that's what makes it exciting. It's, you know, you can get, you know, tacos, you can get pad Thai, and then you can come back with some prochugo, you know, gelato at the end. So it's. That's what really gets people excited and makes us much different than a third party platform where you're tied to one, but if you want the other one, you can get it, but your food's gonna go around town and get, you know, by the time you get it, you'll have two different meals, but they're not great.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:02]:

Yeah. I come from a big family, and so we're five siblings and, you know, parents or whatever. So I've seen that scenario happen where, like, half of people want something, half the other people want something else. And it just comes at two different times, two different ubers, two separate delivery fees, two separate. So that's actually a pretty cool concept when you think about it, is the, which I think is a key differentiation to definitely call out is the idea that you can order different foods, like you said, tacos and wraps or bowls or whatever it is, in one delivery fee. In one. One delivery, I guess, which is neat. I love to hear from your perspective, because you came from just typical brick and mortar, like you said, when you were just straight up urban tackle restaurant and then kind of saw this digital potential, and now you're really tech forward.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:52]:

What are some typical or notable, what are some clear, I guess, advantages you started seeing, like, just, just to maybe share with the audience? What are some clear advantages when you went from pure brick and mortar to now this kind of digital, you know, dining experience, everything online? I'd love to just get some, some wins.

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Markus Pineyro [00:16:12]:

Yeah. No, I think the. I think the biggest difference I've seen is that we are definitely looking much more into data because we have more data. You know, when you go to a brick and mortar, basically the only data that you're providing is your card. Right. And maybe some brick and mortar companies have a way to track that data and figure out what customer profile looks like and how many times you've been there. There's ways to figure that out. But for us, it's like we have the name and the data of each customer, and with that data, we're able to really figure out what's working, what's not working, where to push.

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Markus Pineyro [00:16:59]:

How do we acquire a customer? What's the LTV of that customer. So we're data driven. And that's something that, coming from brick and mortar, like, I never really experienced. You know, they especially pre COVID, like, now we're leveraging all these technology partners that you've hosted on your platform that we are able to, because of their great products, we're able to harness that data and figure out, okay, like, what do we do with this data? Like, let's, like I said, let's get better. Let's push here. People don't like this. People are really coming back for this. How do we acquire customer? How do we value that customer that we just took and how do we keep them involved and how do we keep them in our ecosystem.

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Markus Pineyro [00:17:43]:

And to me, that's as valuable as it gets. And that's something that, coming from brick and mortar, never really existed. Like, we used to do comment cards like pre COVID, you know, like, hey, you want to this comment card and sign up for our email list. And then we would do, like, contests with our waiters and who can collect the most comment cards. And that's about it. You know, it's business card from back in the day. Yeah, we had, you know, now it's. I mean, you can.

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Markus Pineyro [00:18:16]:

There's endless possibilities what you can do with data. And us being digital, every transaction is digital. So we know a lot more information about our customers than we ever did before.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:29]:

That's awesome. And it's super interesting to hear even, you know, to hear you say the words LTV, right. For people that don't know, it's lifetime value. For someone like me who's running, you know, a tech company like WISK, it's. It's a very common word, you know, CAC, customer acquisition, goss, LTV. But I love hearing, you know, restaurants. You hear, you know, average check size and this and that, and, you know, typical things. But to hear a restaurant talking about LTV, I think, is so cool.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:51]:

And it's a pretty interesting indication of, like, how you guys are really going data driven, which. Which is super cool.

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Markus Pineyro [00:18:59]:

Sometimes. I hope I'm just using it properly and not just trying to sound smart. No, you're saying words I never thought I would use in terms of, like, customers.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:09]:

Right, right. It's so cool.

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Markus Pineyro [00:19:12]:

Like, turn customers. Like, you know, that's. That's been a word used in the industry, but it was hard to, like, really quantify it or, like, raise it. Tactical matter. And now it's like, you know, when we look at data, like, we're looking on, hey, why are we turning customers? And how can we get it back? Send them the email. Like, unleash the crack.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:32]:

Let's go.

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Markus Pineyro [00:19:33]:

You know, so that's awesome. All these, you know, it's almost like we're becoming like, an e commerce platform. And right away, you know, like, we're trying tactics. Like, hey, how do these guys, how are these people growing their shopify accounts? Like, well, they're doing this, this, and that. Like, well, we're a restaurant. Why can't we do the same things? Like, with e commerce? People are buying, it's just, they're just buying food. So let's use some of those tactics. So that's something that I'm starting to look into right now into that approach of like, yeah, we're a restaurant, but maybe we're an e commerce brand that just sells hot food.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:11]:

Right. So that's an interesting angle. Yeah, it's interesting because you think about e commerce and there's, you know, there's thing, you know, abandoned cart and you send them an email to reengage or to fit like, all these kind of tactics and ideas and newsletters and product promotions or bundling or whatever. And it is an interesting angle, obviously, you know, restaurants are hard because it's perishable goods and it's, you know, but to your point, it's interesting to think of it as more of a tech slash e commerce company and LTV and CAC.

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Markus Pineyro [00:20:39]:

Exactly. It's like a, it's an idea and an approach that I think will work and could work. So that's kind of where my brain is. Wire itself and, you know, like, you know, I get a lot of these, like, I know you probably see them like the, you know, you, you start looking into marketing tactics and all of a sudden you get an ad on your Instagram account with these guys promising retargeting. And that's what really got me going. I was like, why not do that for a restaurant? Like, let me look into that. So once I get more information on how to transform a restaurant into an e commerce platform, that's awesome.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:18]:

We'll have to have another one of these, share some of these lessons. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure you're gonna learn a lot and I'm sure a lot of things can from that world could be transferred over. I love the data side. Everything you're doing there, the way you're thinking about it, what are some maybe like operational wins, right? Because I imagine there's probably some good operational wins. Right? You mentioned, and you kind of alluded to a few, but I'd love to hear from you. Like you mentioned, the chicken you make here can be used in this, be used in that, be using that. So I'd love to, for you to maybe elaborate.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:47]:

Coming from the brick and mortar regular restaurant world, what does it look like now that you have this kind of centralized kitchen, not having to deal with.

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Markus Pineyro [00:21:54]:

Waiters and the drama that comes with waiters is off the top, just a plus, right. We have one thing to do and one thing only is what I tell my staff in the expo or our front of house team, which is just like our expo team or management is, we just need to make great food. Like that's it. Like, there's no tables to clean, there's no valet parking to deal with. And, you know, things that were, like, peripheral to a restaurant, the traditional brick and mortar or, you know, bartenders or bus boys or, you know, wait list. And the hostess, like, all that is gone. To me, that's the fat. You just removed all the fat.

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Markus Pineyro [00:22:41]:

Now let's just focus on the cook's making great food, putting on the expo counter, looking at it, approving it, putting the lid on it, and that's your stamp of approval, packaging it, and then you go out and deliver it. Right. So I think it really does simplify the four wall operation. There's another layer with delivery, which we can talk about.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:07]:

Right. I was gonna ask and how we're.

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Markus Pineyro [00:23:08]:

Fixing that, but operationally, it makes much more sense to me to operate in this manner, to be able to be consistent and putting out good product. You know, we currently have a 4.9 star rating on Google, so you can go out and find any brick and mortar or other ghost kitchens or dark kitchens or delivery kitchens or digital food halls. It's hard to find.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:41]:

Yeah, yeah.

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Markus Pineyro [00:23:42]:

We have over 200 reviews, and it's our number one priority at the end of the day is great food. Without all that. You know, we can be on all these podcasts and we can talk to, you know, go to all these conferences and have all this cool technology and, you know, all these tactics. But at the end of the day, we are a restaurant at heart. We're just leveraging technology to our advantage. So that's something that we've never forgotten and something that we came in, into this food tech world as a restaurant operator. We're just leveraging technology. We didn't come from the technology side to go operate kitchens and run restaurants.

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Markus Pineyro [00:24:26]:

So I think that, to me, has a longer term. Like, it seems a little bit more of a success. Like a route for success, right? Like, yeah, doing, like, the hard part is a restaurant and the food. Yeah, the easy part, like, what these guys are developing all these great integrations, all these, you know, new solutions. All, you know, that all just complements our great food, and it helps us put out great food and communicate with our customers better. But at the end of the day, it's the food that has to be great, and there's no exception.

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Angelo Esposito [00:25:03]:

I love that. And just out of curiosity, when you guys do online reviews and stuff, do you guys consider it all under, like, omi? So is it, like, all reviews under, or is it. Every brand has its reviews. I'm just curious, like, how you manage that, since you have multiple brands?

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Markus Pineyro [00:25:16]:

That's always been a question for a lot of topics, right? Like, they said one Instagram account and then smaller Instagram accounts. They said one website, like one order platform. The simple answer is yes, we funnel everything towards Oomi. That's the brand. And we have these sub brands. The sub brands do have Google listings. They do have, you know, you know, like, they're still getting. They're still having a social media account, but we kind of have like a, instead of like an 80 20 type of approach, it's more of a, like 95.

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Markus Pineyro [00:25:53]:

Five, you know, like 95 efforts is Oomi, Oomi, Oomi. And then the sub brands, we give him attention, but we really try and funnel everything towards Oomi. So we want somebody to run a review. We. We want him to write it on, on the Oomi account. And that's what we funnel them. It doesn't prevent people from writing individual reviews for the sub brand. But if we're gonna dictate where your energy is going, it's gonna be towards the Oomi Instagram account, the Oomi website, the Oomi Google site, it's all gonna be funneled towards Oomi.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:29]:

And then out of curiosity, because, you know, we have a lot of restaurant operators and owners listing. And so I always try to, you know, squeeze some, like, value out of just, like, lessons learned or mistakes made. And so I think you have an interesting story because you went from, you know, brick and mortar to really digital. And even for our listeners who are not fully digital, but, you know, they're embracing some tech, you obviously have a lot of experience because you're embracing all tech. So any kind of lessons or just things you can share of, like, tech, that has helped. And it doesn't even have to be this specific brand, but just like, whether it's this inventory system or this online ordering, change your life because of X or Y. So just really anything you can share so people listening can maybe have some, some takeaways. On the tech side, I think high.

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Markus Pineyro [00:27:14]:

Level, I would say communicate with your guests. Whatever tools you have, you have to communicate with them. I was doing some recon work on other brands, and I'm just like, a food nerd, right? Like, why are you doing a mock order for this other brand? Like, well, because I want to get in their email flow. I want to see what that, what that looks like. I want to see how they communicate with their customers. And you'd be surprised how poorly some big, big brands do in communicating with their customers. Like, I placed an order from one of these brands two weeks ago, and I haven't heard anything back. And I signed up for all the bells and whistles.

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Markus Pineyro [00:27:58]:

You can text me. You can email me. I haven't heard any Super bowl promotions. I haven't heard any Valentine's promotions, but so I forgot. I already forgot about this that I order. Like, so it's not. It's not in my. In my wheelhouse anymore or in my interesting thinking about in my radar.

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Markus Pineyro [00:28:16]:

So I would say communication is key, especially with all these digital platforms that we currently have. You know, we. We're very thankful right now. We're using empower delivery, which has been a great tool for our delivery and also our customer flow, where it's. I think it's one of the best tools out there, at least, you know, from where we came from, it's definitely an improvement. And, you know, I think you probably. Yeah. You hosted Zach over at Ovation.

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Markus Pineyro [00:28:48]:

Yeah, ovation is.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:51]:

And I also hosted Meredith from Empower. Empower delivery.

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Markus Pineyro [00:28:55]:

Yeah, definitely.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:56]:

So, yes.

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Markus Pineyro [00:28:57]:

That's really cool because, yeah, I mean, ovation to me has been a great tool. Like, I don't know why anybody would operate without it. And that's. And I told Zach to it, you know, I was like, hey, like, you are, like, quintessential to everything we do. Like, it's a great tool. I think it's.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:16]:

And for people who don't know, can you elaborate a bit on it? Like. Like, what is. I mean, I know we had an episode, but for you listening to this episode, what is ovation and how do you guys use it?

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Markus Pineyro [00:29:25]:

Yeah. So to me, ovation is essential for the communication part that I was talking about. Like, for the ability for us to text a customer an hour after they placed an order and ask them directly from me, how's your food? Anything to contribute, good or bad? We want to hear it. We hear the great reviews. They go to Google. Right, where we funnel them to Google. Excellent. If it's a bad review, it goes directly to me on my cell phone, and my wife knows we're having dinner, and I get an ovation text.

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Markus Pineyro [00:30:06]:

Everything stops. And I need to tend to this ASap. So that's what I do. If you have a complaint or you have anything to tell us that didn't go out as planned, I want to hear about it, and I'm going to fix it this second, right away. Whatever I need to do, above and beyond, I will fix it. And the biggest satisfaction comes from when that. When you recover that customer and they come back, and they actually send you a note. Hey, I went back, and it was great.

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Markus Pineyro [00:30:39]:

Thank you.

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Angelo Esposito [00:30:40]:

That's cool.

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Markus Pineyro [00:30:41]:

I'll be back again. Like, how can you not value that?

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Angelo Esposito [00:30:45]:

Yeah.

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Markus Pineyro [00:30:45]:

So I'm a big ovation fan, and I recommend it to anybody.

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Angelo Esposito [00:30:51]:

Now, this is great. I love giving people, like, actionable tips that they could do. So ovation sounds like it's an awesome product, and it's serving you, so people can definitely check that out. And I know you briefly mentioned empower delivery, which is great because it's a perfect sega. I want to chat a bit. You know, we're talking about the operational inside those four walls. But another big challenge is probably delivery. So I love to understand more how you do it, and then maybe we could even touch on how you're leveraging empowered delivery.

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Markus Pineyro [00:31:16]:

Sure. So to us, like, as a digital food hall, we have to win by delivering great food. So the delivery component is extremely important for us. We want our food to be delivered in the best condition possible. So our goal is to make your food, whether it's pad thai tacos, we want to finish it at the same time for the expediter. The expediter is then going to package the food at the same time. The system knows when the driver is pulling up. So we package our food, we hand it to the driver.

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Markus Pineyro [00:31:58]:

We have a ten minute delivery radius. The driver then delivers the food to your door within ten minutes of it being cooked at Oomi. So if you think about it, and you're eating dinner at a restaurant, and they bring the food out, and it happens all the time. You're talking to your friends, everybody's socializing, you're having a few drinks, you're waiting for somebody else else's order to come in. All of a sudden, you've been chatting and talking for 710 minutes. So basically, our food is just like you went to a restaurant. When you get it, it still has that shelf life of being transported. It was transported, but it was made ten minutes ago.

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Markus Pineyro [00:32:46]:

What do you do with it after? We don't know. We can't guarantee you. Sometimes you get your food putting the kids to bed or you're finishing up work. Yeah, the food's gonna sit, but our goal is to deliver it to you within ten minutes of it being made. But we also battle test our food. Like, we sit down with our chef, we come up with a new recipe, a new menu, and it tastes great. But the test is not done until I put it in my car and I drive around town for 20 minutes. 25 minutes.

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Markus Pineyro [00:33:21]:

Come back to me just in case, you know, put it on the counter and give it a 35 to 45 minutes test. And that's when we know if we have a good product or not. It's not coming out of the fryer or, you know, on a plate. We tested like, it would be tested by the delivery drivers and the customer. And that's part of kind of like our, our constant development strategy.

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Angelo Esposito [00:33:48]:

Love that. I love that. So just to recap for people listening, so definitely some, some, some wisdom in the way you guys handle deliveries. You're leveraging a tool called empowered delivery. People could obviously do their own research and figure out whatever tools they want, but seems to be working for you. And, you know, big fan of Meredith. So. So I would definitely recommend checking that out on the customer communication slash feedback side.

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Angelo Esposito [00:34:10]:

Your leverage innovation again, whether someone uses ovation or anything, like they should be reaching out newsletters, SMS, check out ovation, but feel free to check out anything else. But the point is, communicate with your guests. Anything else that comes up top of mind that you want to share on that. On the tech side?

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Markus Pineyro [00:34:27]:

On the tech side. I mean, I think that's, you know, those two pieces are essential for us. There's other things here and there that we use. But, yeah, I'd say just the communication part is key. Like, don't. If you acquire a customer and you spend 25, 30, $40 to acquire a customer, don't waste your money and forget about them. They just want to be heard. Just send them something.

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Markus Pineyro [00:34:53]:

Send them. Send them something.

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Angelo Esposito [00:34:56]:

I love that. Well said. And then last but not least, you know, I love to understand what's, what's next for you guys. Right? And you gave a hint with diving a bit more into the e commerce side and maybe, you know, borrowing some knowledge from that's, you know, that world of business. But, yeah, I'd love to hear from, from straight from you. What's next for Oomi kitchen?

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Markus Pineyro [00:35:16]:

Yeah. So we're, we feel like we're in the infancy stage, right? So we want the brand to mature. We want to become a household name in our hyper local market. Yeah, we think we can accomplish that by, you know, doing great marketing, having great word of mouth, and really just stabilizing as a, as an operation, proving the concept to ourselves, to our investors. And then the next step is to, you know, hopefully spread the word of, you know, through locations and growth. But, yeah, just keep putting out good food. And to me, my biggest priority is keeping our 4.9 stars on Google.

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Angelo Esposito [00:35:59]:

Awesome.

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Markus Pineyro [00:36:00]:

That just means we're doing things right. And, you know, as long as we keep doing that, then good things will come.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:06]:

I love that. I love that. And I know I said last but not least, but I forgot the last. Last is I love for you to be able to plug where people can find you. I know we mentioned the name and the website, but this is your chance. Just where people can find you. So website social handles whatever you want to share. The floor is yours.

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Markus Pineyro [00:36:22]:

Yeah. So it's Oomi kitchen across all social. Oh, you know, our website. In terms of my personal, like, I just, like, I'm on the ovation app all the time. I manage our social media and I'm the one if you. Somebody needs to get ahold of me directly, send a message to Oomi and I'll be checking that message within 5 seconds.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:45]:

That's awesome.

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Markus Pineyro [00:36:46]:

Yeah, and so that's. Yeah, that's. It's a, Oomi is an extension of us. And, you know, we're of myself as well as a brand. You know, like, it's just so I am very in tune with the brand and the communication that goes with it. Like, it's. I'm watching everything. And so that's, that would be a good way to get ahold of me, either through a purchase and tech salvation, or I like that through our Instagram or the traditional LinkedIn, but that's about it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:17]:

I love that. And then for people who want to check out the website, I'll just spell it out here. Oomi kitchen dot Com is oomi kitchen.com. You'll see all the brands there, which, by the way, I love all the different logos and styles, like really well done from a branding perspective, but. So check it out there. Oomi kitchen. I love what you're doing and I think what I'd love to actually have you back on the show as you guys progress. Cause it sounds like you're already doing really cool things.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:44]:

And like you said, you're. You're 13 months in, exploring some interesting tech, doing some really interesting stuff. Love to, you know, touch base and in the coming months or year and see. See what else you learn and can share with our restaurant audience. So with that said, I just want to. Yeah, with that said, I would just. I just want to say thank you, Marcus, for being on the show once again. Marcus Pinedo, co founder of Oomi Digital Kitchen.

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Markus Pineyro [00:38:12]:

Thank you.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:14]:

Feel free to check out wis AI for more resources and schedule a demo with one of our product specialists to see if it's a fit for.

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