The Secret Behind a 4.9 Rating with Derrick Hayes of Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks

Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Zach Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover their strategies and tactics to help you create a five-star guest experience. This podcast is powered by Ovation, the AI feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what's actually happening in your restaurants and exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

Learn more at ovationup.com. And today we have a rising star that is blowing up 10 years in the making. Derek Hayes, he is the CEO of Big Dave's Cheesesteak.

Hearing about it all over the place, based in Atlanta, but quickly growing nationwide. Derek, welcome to the podcast, man. Thank you, man. Thank you for having me, Zach.

So, Derek, for those who don't know, walk me through Big Dave's Cheesesteak. Well, it all started from an idea, you know, that I had in my head that I want to honor to my father. My dad had passed away from lung cancer. And I knew that it was gonna be a coping mechanism for me because he was my best friend.

So if I don't have him no more, what's the best thing to do? Keep him alive. So I wanted to make his name stay alive. That was my goal.

So, you know, me just dreaming in 2009, you know, what I'm gonna do once I leave Philly. I knew I was gonna, you know, change my life and do something better. I just ain't know what I wanted to do. So one night I was leaving a party and it was a spot that said uh Phillies, they were selling Phillies, and I was like, what's a Philly?

And I go in there and um I wanted a cheesesteak, and I'm like, why they call it a Philly? And it just like dinged in my head, like, oh, I'm about to bring the original cheesesteak to the south, to the southeast, and let them see exactly, you know, what it is. Now, needless, it was a lot harder than you know just my dreams and my imaginations. But over the years, it's been amazing because I've been able to go through these roller coaster rides, teach myself, also lift other people up while I'm doing it.

I've been able to motivate communities. I've been able to just bring a brand that's for the United States and globally around the world that people enjoy. And it's been amazing so far. And it all you know just happened off of me, just wanting to honor my father and um keep his name alive.

So when people say, Welcome to Big Daves, or is that a big dave? My father's name is still carrying on. And it helped me keep his name alive and it feels good, and it makes me feel like, you know, I'm not alone in the world and I still have my father somehow. Amen, man.

And what a great way to honor your father by having something where people can come together and connect. I think that's beautiful. I mean, have you always loved cheesesteaks, or what was it that kind of got you into cheesesteaks? The thing that really resonated with me with a cheesesteak is I grew up off.

I'm from West Philadelphia, so my whole life. That was the history of Philadelphia. You got cheesesteaks, you got Italian ice, which we call water ice, and it's just like a marriage for us, like you know, growing up. Like these are the things you're gonna do.

Either you're gonna go get a cheesesteak, you're gonna go get a water ice, you wanna go get a pizza, might get some Chinese food, but those are the things that's real like big in Philly. And when I seen that it was a need that Georgia was missing, I just wanted to fill that void. I love that. Obviously, you're creating an amazing brand and some great things.

I mean, I know that you're in the restaurant right now and it is bumping. Yeah, you know, I'm in my little office right now. I had to create me a backdrop, you know. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

And I appreciate you giving me this interview because people like you help me, you know, spread the word. Also just let people know what I'm building and it's here to stay. I love that. And one of the things that obviously you care about so much is the guest experience.

And so as you think about the guest experience, what do you think is most important to you? For one, um, sorry, for one, the the most important thing for me is to get people to understand that you're not just walking into a food spot. You're walking into family, like a barbecue, family reunion. We care about how you feel today when we walk, when you walk in the door, we say, hey, welcome in.

How are you doing? We always understand that somebody could have woke up this morning and got some bad news. You could have been on the way to get lunch and got some bad news, or you just might be having a down day. We want you to understand that when you walk into Big Dave cheesesteaks, we are here for you.

We are here to serve you, we are here to make you feel good. And customer service is my biggest driver in the company. Like right now, the location I'm in right now is my flagship is uh downtown Atlanta, 300 Marietta Street. And I got a 4.

9 over 2,000 reviews in this location off of Google, you know, people coming and out, and it's a tourism spot. So you know, having tourism spots is really hard to give reviews because most people sometimes just come one time and give their review and they go back home to their city and state, and you never hear from them again. But a good thing about us and those reviews, a lot of those people say, I cannot wait till you open in our city and state. I cannot wait to not wait to have it.

So we are creating something that is a little different than a lot of companies when they just say, hey, this is a tourism spot. No, this is a spot where we get our data and understand what cultures and what groups and what cities and states want us. That's how we do it with reviews. And what do you look for?

I mean, in terms of training your staff and in terms of hiring your staff and in terms of making sure that that culture stays alive. Like, how do you keep that culture of really caring about the guest experience alive in everyone? Well, with anything with people, you gotta see it to believe it. And I think that we have really strong leaders that interview people, that let people know if we let you inside this company and this brand, you have to operate at the highest standards because this is how we operate.

But needless to say, I have early on employees that I gave Phantom Equity to, you know, as long as they stay in the company, you know, the day I exit, they'll reap the benefits. But people get to see that. They see, you know, people, hey, this guy put the time in here, he was able to become some type of equity holder. And I think that allows people to say, I'm not just here to punch a clock, I'm here for a career.

I have an opportunity to actually retire in this company, I have an opportunity to actually change my trajectory for my family. Like I got people in this local um in the company right now, when they started, they had no home, no car, no family. I got guys that bought homes, bought cars, married their wives. I actually got a guy who's my first employee that actually been married, I think now for two years.

He met his wife at the register. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, so like we are here for a lot of many reasons, you know, and we like to say that we're bigger than food. The cheesesteak is amazing, the egg rolls are amazing, the food is amazing, but we like to stand on culture because we understand that we live in a very fast-paced world right now where a lot of love is not given, and we try to give you that love when you come in a location.

And I mean, honestly, right now, Zach, if you went to a restaurant and they just was off that day, you're like, yeah, the food was a little off, but the customer service was so amazing, I'm gonna give them another shot. And that's how I've been able to grow this brand. Because, like, you know, people are gonna make mistakes. We're human.

But at the end of the day, like, if you're just you're standing on that customer service, you're standing on what we represent. When somebody walks in the door, we're letting them know how we feel about them. I think that shows the people aspect of what we're building. When you look at um McDonald's in the early days when you were a kid and you seen the um McDonald's houses where they had the play houses, all on the weekends, that was the culture of the brand.

The brand sold burgers, but the culture was family. The culture was getting other people to understand, my backdrop falling down on me, getting people to understand that it's bigger than food. And honestly, I took a lot of those legacy brands that I seen growing up and I learned a lot from them. Me building this brand just wasn't like, hey, this is my vision, this is all I want to see.

I said, how can I look at a lot of successful brands that happened over the last 40, 50 years that done something bright, and I could polish it and make it better in my systems, and that's what I've been able to do. I love that. I mean, so powerful to learn from successes. And as you look at your brand and as you look at some of the tactics that you're using to improve the guest experience, some of the things that you've seen working, what are some of the things that you've used and done to improve the guest experience?

One, incorporating some type of AI technology because let's be honest, we live in a world now where data is king, and we like to get people real feedback in real time. So we'll get a review on the spot. Like we have a lot of barcodes where you come in and from the moment you're about to walk out, we say, Hey, can you scan and give us a review? We want honest feedback.

We tell them whether you had a good experience or a bad experience, we'd like to hear your experience so that we can polish up. And the way we do that is getting guests real time reactions, whether that's a GM or a shift lead going over to a large party saying, Hey, how was your food? How could we do better? Or how did you like it?

Or what did you see that we can improve in? Those things help us out as a whole group. Lastly, I like to say, you know, from third party, you know, where you got like Doordash, Uber, and all those things, you're able to see it now, how your food carry without your feast. And I think that's what people don't understand is like you can carry well in customer service in a restaurant, but when you have a stranger that don't work in your company grabbing the food and going to take the food somewhere else, and you want that same guest experience to hold up.

Now you're coming from a food aspect of saying, hey, we use premium food. We don't use any, we don't cut any corners when it comes to food. We are a premium fast casual brand, we like to say. And those type of ingredients last longer.

Like when you from a French fry, from the type of steak we use, from the roll we use, it holds up. So, like, say right now, Zach, if you was to order a cheesesteak and you at your office and you and your guys about to eat lunch and it took 20 minutes to come. I want that 20 minutes that don't feel like 20 minutes. I want it to feel like you walked inside my location and the sandwich is still hot and it's pleasing you so that you can give me a 4.

5 rating on Google or me on a DoorDash or Uber or or more. So we got one model, let's show who we are as a company, as customer service when you walk through that door. And secondly, we're gonna show you who we are without our face being shown in our food. And that's on third party.

And how do you make sure that that guest feels the love when you're doing stuff off-prem? We're very system driven. I know I'm the CEO and founder of the company, but I don't per se push myself that way. I like to push myself to the team as we're team members and let's grow together.

And I think that's how we've been able to grow that guest experience because let's be honest, Zach. If you were sitting there working and you say and you've seen your boss, there's either gonna be two things. You're gonna try to overwork the impression, boss, or you're going to slack off or not know you're slacking off because you don't think your boss even cared. But if your boss coming as a team member and say, hey, I'll get dirty with you, let's go.

It's a team effort always, and it's less feeling like, hey, I work for somebody. Because we live in a world where you gotta worry about ego too, right? You think about it, you know, I'm gonna be 39 years old May 8th, right? I hire people that that's older than me or younger than me, don't matter.

But at the same time, you might have someone that has been brought up a certain way, and that ego might be driven from working for a young guy or working for a young company, and that helps when you come at them and say, hey, we in this together. Now, I am the leader of the company, always represent that way, but I always will get dirty with you. Like right now, I could walk in a restaurant and we're jam-packed and I see the grill getting backed up. I'm getting dirty with them.

I don't care what I got on, what outfit I got on, I'm getting dirty because I understand that the guests are gonna see that. They're gonna see the CEO and founder of a multi-million dollar company still getting dirty. And that's how I've been able to make this brand feel authentic and stay authentic. Zach, you know, once you get up to 10 locations, 15 locations, the water starts coming.

Water and down start coming, you know, the guest experience changed. The consumer can see it immediately, the ones that have been there since day one. My consumer don't see that. My consumer walks in all the big Dave chees and they feel that same culture because we drive it.

I have something called a blue apron program, right? If my employees learn how to work all the stations, they graduate to a shift lead. And once they graduate to a shift lead, they have an opportunity now to be a GM in a couple months, right? Now they're working towards something.

So imagine the person that started on the fryer, now started working on the register, now started being a grill cook, now started being whether it's uh helping out in the back of the house, but now I got a GM saying this person is ready for a blue apron. This person ought to work all the categories in the restaurant, this person can carry themselves from customer service, this person is a leader, so they check all the boxes, and then I come in in real time and I graduate them to a shift lead.

So that's how we keep the guest experience exciting. That's how we keep the guest experience strong, and that's how we keep the customer service strong because in big days, they're just not coming in and punching the clock, they're working towards something. Everybody in life wants to feel like they're included in something. I don't care what you do.

You can be the most kind-hearted person in the world, but if you study just building something for somebody else and you're not included, one day you're gonna wake up and say, When am I gonna be included in this? When am I gonna get my flowers? When am I gonna feel like I'm a part of something I help build? They don't have to question that because the day one, we let them know when you get hired, you have an opportunity to be a part of all of this organization all the way up.

I love that, man. And I think that's so powerful as we look at what we're doing. There's that incredible concept of improving and getting these employees excited because as we always say, the employee experience dictates the guest experience. You've got to make sure that they're excited, they're loving it, they're feeling the upward momentum, and they transfer that to the guests.

I think that you know they say a fish always stinks from the head first, and man, you're the head of that fish over there, man, right? And I like and I and speak off your fishing mechanism. I always use this in real life. I say, look, I fish a lot.

I grew up fishing in real life. My dad was a fisherman, and it taught me patience. So you can have bait on the line and throw it in the water. You can't see what's about to bite your hook, right?

That's success. You're trying to catch something. Sometimes you'll get a bite, sometimes you'll get a nibble. But if you're not ready, when you catch that big fish, what you gonna do?

You can't reel it in. That's success. You ask for so much, you're not learning as you go. When you get it, you'll lose it.

And I like to keep that with my teammates to let them understand. We always fishing, but we're patient and we're learning how to fish, and we're learning how to reel that fish in, no matter how small or how big it is, so that we can move forward. Yeah, love that. Well, Derek, I know you know a lot of people in this industry, but who's someone that deserves innovation?

Who's someone that we should be following? Well, you already probably follow, but I'm just proud of my wife right now. She went through difficult times last year, you know, restructuring her company. But now she's coming back strong.

She just started franchising. She's getting a lot of leads right now. I'm just happy for her because I'm seeing her smile again. So I want to get a flowers right now to uh Pinky Cole Hayes, my wife, because she deserved everything that she got coming to her because she didn't give up.

I tell people all the time the easiest thing to do is to quit because you don't have to worry about it afterwards. But I can promise you this if you keep going and shooting your shot, you won't have to tell somebody about what you did or what you could have done. You have done it. Amen.

I love that. And her book, I hope you fail. I mean, just so powerful, such a great message, and she's just such an inspiration. I've I've enjoyed every single time I've heard her speak.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, question on this podcast. Yeah, honestly, uh, I just think that she has the real story to pay attention to when they come from, you know, growth and uh leadership. And honestly, you know, as CEO and fender in a public eye, you're always gonna get blamed for something. But I think right now when she's standing on 10 toes and showing people that she really has a strong brand, she really has an American brand, is she here to stay?

And um I'm gonna help help her make sure that she does that. Love that. Derek, appreciate that, man. How do people find and follow Big Dave's Cheestakes and you?

Okay. Big Dave Cheestakes on Instagram, personal page, official D Haze. And if you want a franchise, go to theBigDave Cheestakes.com, fill out the franchise application.

We are accepting qualified individuals right now. We're looking for more team and the operators, and let's go. We're building something special and it's gonna be here to stay. Love that.

Well, Derek, for showing us how to build a legacy from day one. Today's ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Given Ovation. Thank you.

Thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen. We're all about feedback here. Again, this episode was sponsored by Ovation, a two question SMS based, actionable guest feedback platform built for multi unit restaurants.

If you'd like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience, visit us at ovationup.com.