With new technologies and third parties competing for customers, data is an invaluable commodity in the restaurant industry. But knowing what do with your data and the sheer amount of it may feel overwhelming. So, which big data strategies will help you grow outside the four walls to make better decisions for your brand?

Guests love your food and your team supports your restaurant concept. You're ready to take the next step to scale your business beyond the four walls. But how do you deliver the same brand experience, while staying true to your core values as you grow? In this podcast episode, Torchy's Tacos' GJ Hart, Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Rypka, founder and chef, discuss identifying growth opportunities and scaling a business, while honoring brand values. Tune in to hear how to make strategic decisions to expand into new channels and hire a passionate team to support growth. GJ Hart is Chief Executive Officer of Torchy's Tacos, where he oversees operations and strategic growth. A 36-year veteran of restaurant operations and management, he is passionate about growing casual dining concepts and expanding brands into new markets. Prior to Torchy's Tacos, GJ served as executive chairman and CEO of California Pizza Kitchen, as well as president and CEO of Texas Roadhouse. Mike Rypka is the founder of Torchy's Tacos. A food service and restaurant operations veteran, Mike served as executive chef for Dell Computers, Enron, and the World Bank before developing the concept for Torchy's damn good tacos. He's laser-focused on providing opportunities for his employees and developing a restaurant culture that promotes fun, innovative, and affordable gourmet.

Customers typically don't think about packaging for delivery orders until something goes wrong. Spilled drinks, mislabeled items, and lukewarm entrées contribute to a bad customer experience. Now more than ever, it's important to offer convenient solutions that represent your brand. So, how can you create a packaging experience that makes your guests' lives easier while adding efficiencies to your business? In this podcast episode, Bonnie Sussman Strominger, co-founder and CEO of GoLidz, shares how smart packaging choices help win sales by creating brand loyalty. Tune in to learn how investing in great packaging solves customers' biggest problems, extends the experience of your brand, and supports your bottom line. Bonnie Sussman Strominger is co-founder and CEO of GoLidz, where she creates innovative solutions that drive operator revenue and address customer needs. She has more than 20 years of experience in product development and sales.

When loyal customers walk into your restaurant, they know exactly what to expect. From the menu to the ambience, everything contributes to how guests experience your brand. And that's what keeps them coming back for more. But how do you make sure catering customers get that same great experience? Small branding and operations choices make a big impact on how guests perceive your catering brand. And they determine whether customers will place future orders. Your off-premises brand should represent the same positive experience guests find at your restaurants.

When you're recruiting experienced catering managers, you also need a team that is passionate about your brand to support them. Finding and retaining the right talent is one of the most important pieces of catering growth. And with a successful partnership between talent management and operations, you can hire a successful catering team at the right cost.

How do you grow your catering business if your brick-and-mortar restaurant isn't designed for delivery? In this podcast episode, Corey Manicone, Founder and CEO of Zuul, reveals how "ghost kitchens" help restaurant brands streamline their catering and delivery services. Listen to learn how a ghost kitchen could help you expand your business by providing custom space and specialized labor for delivery. Episode Takeaways: - Restaurant kitchens aren't always designed to support off-premises dining or delivery logistics. - A well-staffed ghost kitchen helps your brand organize, manage, and optimize labor and logistics for off-premises sales, while minimizing the risks associated with expansion. - Ghost kitchens allow restaurants to focus on what they do best — provide customers with great food and incredible experiences.

What if you could grow your catering business with multiple "virtual restaurants" without leasing another space? In this podcast episode, Kyle Feggins, Founder and CEO of Iron Horse Cafe, shares how he built his wildly successful virtual brands and tripled his sales by marketing those brands through catering apps. Stay tuned to learn how to develop and test a menu for a virtual restaurant and create a streamlined system to grow your catering business.

Customers get upset when they pop open a catering tray and find a cold burger or soggy salad. Especially when the food was meant to impress bigwigs at a meeting. So if you want to fuel your business with the fast-growing catering market—which has jumped 5.4 percent since 2018—it's a good idea to upgrade your packaging. Ordering better packaging is not too difficult, and it can make a huge difference in driving repeat catering business. In this podcast episode, Sabert Corporation's Nicole Buck, Vice President of Food Service, and Susan Beaudry, Senior Director of Marketing, reveal how better packaging improves the customer experience of your catering business. Nicole and Susan discuss how to choose the right packaging for your menu and customers, and why you need a packaging budget for your catering operation. Tune in to learn how a great packaging strategy can help you grow your catering business. Episode Takeaways: - Base your packaging choices on your catering menu. Choose packaging that reflects your food, the size of your orders, and the distance your delivery driver must travel, among other considerations. - Seventy percent of catering orders have leftovers, and only 24 percent of catering orders are eaten right away. So choose packaging that's easy to reseal, reheat, and reuse to ensure your customers get the most out of their catering orders. - One of the top concerns for catering customers is order accuracy. To give them peace of mind, use clear lids, label food, and make a catering drop-off checklist. - You can boost your catering sales by as much as 20 percent if you choose packaging that showcases your food and eases customer pain points.

We know that brands need data to succeed in the catering industry. So we partnered with Technomic to compile data for you to use to grow your catering business. That required looking at millions of ezCater catering transactions, surveying restaurant leaders across the country, and distilling that data into a report on the opportunities in the catering industry. In this podcast episode, Tina McDonough, Partner Marketing Manager at ezCater, discusses the insights from our catering report. Tina dives deep into data, such as the investments brands are making, the common denominators among restaurants with growing catering sales, and much, much more. Tina also explains how you can use these insights to capture more sales and invest in the right resources to grow your catering business. Episode Takeaways: - While many people are more familiar with B2C catering, such as for weddings, 61 percent of the restaurants we surveyed say that their catering sales are coming from the B2B catering market. - Ninety percent of restaurant leaders say that catering is strategically important to growing their catering business. - Restaurants with growing catering sales are investing in people, technology, and marketing. - According to our research, restaurants with online ordering have higher conversion rates than restaurants without. Download our report "The Catering Opportunity: Understanding a $60-Plus Billion Market" at cateringdata.com.

As your restaurant wins more online catering business, your customer service experiences also move online. That makes it even more important for your staff to serve great hospitality with every face-to-face customer interaction. By investing in hospitality training for your employees, your brand has a better chance of improving your customers' experiences and winning repeat business. In this podcast episode, we learn how and why Chaz Patrick, the Director of Training at Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q, prioritizes hospitality training for catering staff members. Chaz explains how you can help your employees develop a passion for your brand's food, cross-train for a more efficient staff, and develop the signature hospitality touches that make your customers come back for more.

Corporate catering can be a lucrative revenue stream for any restaurant or caterer. After all, what other catering client has a regular stream of meetings that require healthy boxed lunches, piping hot entrées, or decadent dessert platters? But it can be difficult to reach the prospects that will help you grow your business and become the caterer that fills those regular orders. In this podcast episode, we get a behind-the-scenes look at corporate catering from Christina Barbaro, the U.S. Event Manager at Dennemeyer, to find out what prospects really want from their caterers. Christina discusses how to build and establish trust with big businesses, and which special touches make a big difference when it comes to winning—and keeping—catering business.

These days customers are buying much more than roller hot dogs and Twinkies at the convenience store. They're also grabbing delicious, freshly prepared breakfast and ordering catering. And it's not only motorists who are shopping, but the local community. Some of the biggest "c-stores," aka convenience stores, are betting that catering can be profitable. With c-stores increasingly tapping into the quick service restaurant (QSR) and catering markets, these appear to be golden years for the c-store industry. In Part 2 of this podcast, we go inside the mind of Frank Beard, an Analyst for the smartphone app GasBuddy, to explore the opportunity for convenience stores to nab a local base of catering customers. Frank shares how gas station and convenience store operators can take their business beyond their stores' walls to capitalize on the booming catering market. Listen to Part 2 above, and if you missed Part 1, you can find it here.

A wave of gas stations and convenience stores is breaking out of the mold of roller-grilled hot dogs and slushies. Taking their cue from restaurants, "c-stores," aka convenience stores, are tapping into a growing demand for convenient feel-good food. In response to the market, some stores are offering freshly prepared meals and catering. This is big news. These stores aren't just blurring the lines between convenience stores and quick-service restaurants—they're also disrupting the catering industry. In Part 1 of this podcast, we go inside the mind of Frank Beard, an Analyst for the smartphone app GasBuddy, to learn about the industry landscape of convenience stores. Frank shares how gas station and convenience store operators are rethinking their business models to be more food-forward and capitalize on the catering opportunity. Listen to Part 1 and stay tuned for Part 2, which will discuss how convenience stores are changing the catering industry.

How do you reach customers, and deliver great old-fashioned hospitality, through a screen? In this podcast, we go inside the mind of digital transformation expert Karin Muscarella to find out. Karin shares ways to digitally transform your catering business, from delivering online hospitality to reconfiguring back-of-house operations. Also, hear her talk about different restaurant technology platforms to keep up with the "consumer experience of the future."

Every restaurant's dream is to build a cult-like following around its food, but how do you make customers feel that deeply about your brand and products? In this podcast, we go inside the mind of Ess-a-Bagel's Chief Operating Officer, Melanie Frost, whose family started the famed bagel company in 1976. Melanie shares ways to grow a loyal customer base for your catering business, from crafting a strong social media presence to using local marketing tactics to create a cult-favorite restaurant. Melanie Frost is Chief Operating Officer of Ess-a-Bagel. Her family started the business in 1976 and Melanie officially took over as COO in 2013.

How does a restaurant vision come to life? In this podcast, we go inside the minds of CoreLife Eatery's President, Scott Davis, and Director of Off-Premise Business, Nicole Jackson. Scott and Nicole talk about the different phases of developing a successful restaurant concept, from creating a menu to engaging customers at different touchpoints. Scott Davis is President of CoreLife Eatery and has spent nearly forty years in the restaurant industry. He formerly served as Chief Concept Officer and Executive Vice President for Panera Bread and also worked at Au Bon Pain and Carrols Corporation, which owns and operates over 800 restaurants under the Burger King brand. Nicole Jackson is CoreLife Eatery's Director of Off-Premise Business. She's spent the past decade leading sales teams and growing the catering business of brands including Boston Market and Panera Bread.

The better you know your customers, the more effectively your sales team will be able to reach them. In this podcast, Gracie Prasanson, Director of Off-Premise Sales of Jason's Deli, shares ways to strengthen customer relationships to grow a catering business. Plus, she answers our questions about what restaurants are doing to retain employees. Gracie Prasanson is Director of Off-Premise Sales of Jason's Deli, where she started as a one-woman sales team and rose to become the company's national director of off-premise sales. A 30-year restaurant veteran, she spent 20 of those years focused on building winning sales teams and developing strategies for growing business.

From designing a successful strategy to the secret to creating a cult-favorite restaurant, ezCater's "The Catering Feed" podcast series explores ways to grow a successful catering business. Host Genevieve Babineau, a decade-long catering and local-restaurant-marketing expert, invites restaurant industry leaders of thriving brands including CoreLife Eatery and Ess-a-Bagel to share business tips, insights, and tactics to help you dip into the $61.5 billion catering market.