Greg Golkin's guest appearances

Greg Golkin

Food Fighters: Food for Thought in the Fight for Food

Forktales

Bill Gardner

Eric Greenspan

Jeni Britton Bauer

Sam Slaughter

Scott Conant

Bobby Flay

Eli Altman

Martha Hoover

Seth Cohen

Alex Canter

Robert Thompson

Di Dang

Daniel Gonzalez

Tressie Lieberman

Jeff Chandler

OwlTail

In my chat with Greg, we unpack the launch of Tastemaker Acquisition and the interconnectivity of technology and behavior. We dive deep into the impact of technology on the industry and how pandemic accelerated adoption and behavioral shifts and so much more: The shortcoming of tacking on marketing features poorly. Letting bakers bake the bread. Stepping away from Cookies and traceability. How do we connect with people. The value exchange for knowing customers' behaviors and likes. Discussed KitchenFund's portfolio and lack of Full Service. The importance of the goodbye. Discussing how to give excellent experiences and working backward from the time when someone leaves. Collaborating between operations, marketing, and other stakeholders. Patron's perceptual layer and their desired values and optics.   Notable concepts under Kitchen Fund umbrella: Curry Up Now Gregory's Coffee Sweetgreen Bamboo Sushi Inday ByChloe eegee'sThey spend all of their days thinking about how they identify great concepts. Looking for authenticity.Authenticity is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. You need this as a brand to exist.It's why we don't get into starting restaurants. They invest in entrepreneurs that have a passion that emanates throughout the company.They look for a maniacal customer base. They speak with their wallet.NPS scores can be valuable because people promote concepts and restaurants unlike other industries.How many times a customer comes back is a big indicator of a brand's strength.Reactivation is critical (speaking to limited time offers' power) - a key skill of any brand. Layer on technology to tell the guest about the new items (e.g. CRM/App.)What you do with data is just as important as collecting it in the restaurant industry. Still trying to figure it out because it's a multi-channel business.There are differences in behaviors and how they acquire the food. Operators lose the behavior data when someone switches from drive-thru to indoor.Tastemaker Acquisition's launch is focused both on traditional growth restaurant brands and an avenue for looking at restaurant technology.Tastemaker Acquisition is a SPAC looking for much larger restaurant companies in the billion-dollar range.Checkmate - takes all of the delivery platforms and POS systems.Wisely - take data from systems and make sense of the data for companies to review/evaluate.A POS company is never going to be a good marketing company/platform.With cookies going away, we're going to need more buy-in from the guest. Attract them and develop the relationship to order direct. Can't be as sneaky. It was a Wild West for a while.Loves Starbucks because they hit him up with drinks that he wouldn't have thought about. Mixing things that already exist: Almond Milk with Honey. They know his ordering history.Convenience has been important for years. The pie is just getting bigger. Full Service has gotten smaller however there are stories within that space that are important.KF believes in experiential. Convenience and experiential are the things that matter moving forward.Involved in Bamboo Sushi - full service but feels special. Use the term Party Sushi to give an elevated experience for a price that works.It'd be weird if you paid for your concert ticket after the concert is over.Having hugs on the way out of a restaurant may be a great idea.Tidbit of wisdom for pi

In my chat with Greg, we unpack the launch of Tastemaker Acquisition and the interconnectivity of technology and behavior. We dive deep into the impact of technology on the industry and how pandemic accelerated adoption and behavioral shifts and so much more: <ul> <li>The shortcoming of tacking on marketing features poorly. Letting bakers bake the bread.</li> <li>Stepping away from Cookies and traceability. How do we connect with people.</li> <li>The value exchange for knowing customers' behaviors and likes.</li> <li>Discussed KitchenFund's portfolio and lack of Full Service.</li> <li>The importance of the goodbye. Discussing how to give excellent experiences and working backward from the time when someone leaves. Collaborating between operations, marketing, and other stakeholders.</li> <li>Patron's perceptual layer and their desired values and optics.</li> </ul> <h4></h4> <h4>Notable concepts under Kitchen Fund umbrella:</h4> <a href="https://www.curryupnow.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Curry Up Now</a> <a href="https://www.gregoryscoffee.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gregory's Coffee</a> <a href="https://www.sweetgreen.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sweetgreen</a> <a href="https://bamboosushi.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bamboo Sushi</a> <a href="https://www.indaynyc.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Inday</a> <a href="https://eatbychloe.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ByChloe</a> <a href="https://eegees.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">eegee's</a> They spend all of their days thinking about how they identify great concepts. Looking for authenticity. Authenticity is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. You need this as a brand to exist. It's why we don't get into starting restaurants. They invest in entrepreneurs that have a passion that emanates throughout the company. They look for a maniacal customer base. They speak with their wallet. NPS scores can be valuable because people promote concepts and restaurants unlike other industries. How many times a customer comes back is a big indicator of a brand's strength. Reactivation is critical (speaking to limited time offers' power) - a key skill of any brand. Layer on technology to tell the guest about the new items (e.g. CRM/App.) What you do with data is just as important as collecting it in the restaurant industry. Still trying to figure it out because it's a multi-channel business. There are differences in behaviors and how they acquire the food. Operators lose the behavior data when someone switches from drive-thru to indoor. Tastemaker Acquisition's launch is focused both on traditional growth restaurant brands and an avenue for looking at restaurant technology. Tastemaker Acquisition is a SPAC looking for much larger restaurant companies in the billion-dollar range. <a href="https://www.itsacheckmate.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Checkmate</a> - takes all of the delivery platforms and POS systems. <a href="https://www.getwisely.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wisely</a> - take data from systems and make sense of the data for companies to review/evaluate. A POS company is never going to be a good marketing company/platform. With cookies going away, we're going to need more buy-in from the guest. Attract them and develop the relationship to order direct. Can't be as sneaky. It was a Wild West for a while. Loves Starbucks because they hit him up with drinks that he wouldn't have thought about. Mixing things that already exist: Almond Milk with Honey. They know his ordering history. Convenience has been important for years. The pie is just getting bigger. Full Service has gotten smaller however there are stories within that space that are important. KF believes in experiential. Convenience and experiential are the things that matter moving forward. Involved in <a href="https://bamboosushi.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bamboo Sushi</a> - full service but feels special. Use the term Party Sushi to give an elevated experience for a price that works. It'd be weird if you paid for your concert ticket after the concert is over. Having hugs on the way out of a restaurant may be a great idea. Tidbit of wisdom for pi

EP 05 / Greg Golkin / Partner @ Kitchen Fund

Jim Balis

COVID-19 has dramatically impacted the U.S. restaurant industry in just a few weeks. We sat down with Greg Golkin of Kitchen Fund and Jim Balis of CapitalSpring to understand how restaurant investors &amp; their portfolio brands are weathering the storm, narrowing their focus, and how some restaurants are defining new visions of what it means to be a restaurant.

COVID-19 has dramatically impacted the U.S. restaurant industry in just a few weeks. We sat down with Greg Golkin of Kitchen Fund and Jim Balis of CapitalSpring to understand how restaurant investors &amp; their portfolio brands are weathering the storm, narrowing their focus, and how some restaurants are defining new visions of what it means to be a restaurant.

COVID-19 Special Episode: Interview with Greg Golkin, Jim Balis