The Bronx is a piece of history in New York City. It’s where baseball legends were born, and hip-hop music originated. It’s also where Senior Hospitality Executive Greg Thomas got his start, but his story doesn’t start in the restaurant industry. Instead, it begins patrolling the NYPD’s busiest square mile in America.
In a recent episode of the Restaurant Growth Unwrapped Podcast, Brian Siemienas sits down with Greg, Senior Vice President of 50 Eggs Hospitality Group, to discuss his unique journey from an NYPD officer to a senior executive in the hospitality industry. In the episode, Greg emphasizes the importance of culture, culinary excellence, and adaptability in the restaurant industry.
Here are some highlights from the episode:
- An in-depth look at Greg’s untraditional journey to hospitality
- Actionable strategies to help boost brand awareness, traffic, and sales for restaurants
- How to effectively utilize new technology and software
- Why restaurants need to focus on fostering a positive environment for their teams
In this blog, we’ll cover the main points of Brian’s exciting conversation with Greg. Follow along and listen to the podcast here.
Greg Thomas’s Unique Career Path: From NYPD to Hospitality
Greg’s transition from law enforcement to hospitality highlights how diverse experiences can contribute to success in any field. Being on the job during Rudy Giuliani’s time, Greg saw New York City go through the phase of bringing the neighborhood back to the people. When he left the NYPD and jumped headfirst into the hospitality industry, it was like one craziness to another.
Greg was given a great opportunity by former Hard Rock President Pete Beaudrault, where he began as an operationalist. As a former NYPD officer, Greg had hands-on experience with motivating people and understanding behavioral needs, but the hospitality industry pushed him to perfect those skills. While working alongside seasoned veterans, Greg opened up his first Hard Rock Cafe in Baltimore.
His journey took him from Baltimore to Orlando, Dallas, and Las Vegas where he discovered just how critical hospitality is. In Las Vegas especially, people treat hospitality as a form of life, which comes with its own unique challenges like heightened expectations and increasing customer demands. But that’s not the only lesson Greg learned from Vegas.
“We opened the Vegas restaurant at probably the worst time in the market of 2008 when the housing market crashed. It was bad news all the way around. The location was huge fanfare, with three floors on the Las Vegas Strip and thoughts of grandiose, but that didn’t happen. So we had to pivot. I turned a three-floor restaurant into one floor, but converted the top floor to Hard Rock Live with incredible shows from artists like Justin Bieber, Kendrick Lamar, Imagine Dragons, and more.”
And here we are today!
A Picture Is Worth A Million Dollars: The Importance of a Culture-Driven Restaurant
A restaurant’s culture shapes the environment for both employees and customers. A strong, positive culture improves staff morale, retention, and service quality, leading to better customer experiences. When employees feel valued and motivated, they’re more likely to engage positively with customers, directly impacting sales through higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
A cohesive culture aligned with the restaurant’s brand values helps create a consistent experience, reinforcing brand identity and increasing repeat business. This, in turn, boosts long-term profitability and customer retention, but the restaurant industry is changing every day. With the rise of social media and the overall digital landscape, restaurant owners need to focus on building a cultural movement inside and outside the walls of their restaurants.
“Reviews, pictures, and social media can make or break your restaurant. Someone will read your reviews, not like the picture, and decide never to go there to eat. There’s a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, but in the restaurant industry, a picture is worth a million dollars.”
Four out of five people check online reviews before going to a restaurant, and if those reviews are poor, most people won’t give your restaurant a chance. Eating out is expensive, and with so many options available, today’s consumer doesn’t want to take the risk.
“I changed the culture of a brand to make it successful by focusing on the very, very
tedious detail of reviews. It can be an arbitrary detail, but at the end of the day, it needs to be integrated into your restaurant’s unique culture, where every single staff member understands the value of a review. Everyone from your dishwashers to cooks to general managers need to understand that direction. And if you do that, I think you win.”
Navigating Top Restaurant Challenges: Take Care of Your People
In the restaurant industry, employees are the lifeblood of the business. When restaurants prioritize their staff’s well-being, they foster loyalty, enhance job satisfaction, and reduce turnover. Happy, motivated employees provide better customer service, which leads to a superior dining experience, repeat business, and positive reviews.
The economy is hard on everyone—organizations, consumers, and workers alike all have to navigate a complex economy that always seems to be working against them. So, when it comes to your employees, leaders need to find a way to ensure they’re making money. The physical bank account needs to be filled. But there’s an important aspect that needs attention as well: the emotional bank account.
Coming up through the positive and supportive culture of Hard Rock Cafe, Greg has taken those experiences with him to 50 Eggs Hospitality. There’s not an endless supply of service workers, so it’s critical to nurture and care for your employees starting from the first day of training.
“Nobody’s born knowing, right? I certainly wasn’t born knowing the operations that I know today. Everybody’s got the capacity to learn. We just have to be willing to teach. That philosophy is where we’ve found our successes.”
Ultimately, by creating a supportive, positive work environment, restaurants can boost productivity, lower operational costs, and drive long-term profitability through customer retention.
Culinary Innovation: The Foundation Of Success
The commitment to high-quality ingredients and innovative culinary approaches emphasizes the importance of food quality in attracting and retaining customers, making it a cornerstone of restaurant success. It’s a careful balance of financial prosperity and creativity.
“Creating a menu is a very strategic process. There’s the financial side, which is obviously critical to operations, but when it comes to creativity, you have to hire the industry’s best. That’s what’s going to set you apart in a competitive environment. Find the best leader and let them hire people who they feel they can go into trenches with. That’s where we’ve found the most success.”
Utilizing Technology To Keep Operations Running Smoothly
Technology has evolved rapidly across all industries, and hospitality is no exception. Just a handful of years ago, restaurant owners and operators relied on a POs system and a basic loyalty program. Today, there are tools for P&L management, project management, client services, sales, training resources, feedback platforms, and more.
So, how do you decide what’s best for your restaurant? You have to have a clear understanding of your goals, customer preferences, financial outlook, and internal team.
“No piece of the pie is more important than the other. Feedback, project management, and sales software are all important. But remember, you can have all the tools, but if you can’t put them into action, it’s not worth it. If you can be an expert at one of these and then take that expertise and teach it to somebody else and make it actionable, I think that’s how you win.”
Leveraging data effectively is like eating an elephant. You have to do it one bite at a time.
Cooking Up Culinary Innovation & Hospitality Excellence
From law enforcement to Senior Vice President of 50 Eggs Hospitality Group, Greg’s 20-year journey has been exciting.
The importance of culinary excellence and data-driven decision-making cannot be overstated, but perhaps the most important takeaway from this conversation is the significance of culture. Greg emphasizes the lasting impact of fostering a positive workplace culture where every team member understands their role in customer satisfaction, leading to better service and guest experiences.
And these highlights are just the tip of the iceberg. Listen to the full podcast to learn more about Greg’s leadership style, strategies to boost brand awareness, traffic, and sales, and more. Tune in here.
If you’d like to learn more about how restaurant groups use Nift as a cost-effective, 100% trackable net-new customer acquisition channel to lower their CPA, hit ROAS targets, and grow their database with first-party data, request a demo with our team.
About the Author
Brian Siemienas is a seasoned marketing professional with over 25 years of experience in the restaurant, hospitality, and entertainment industries. As the Vice President of Restaurant Solutions at Nift, Brian is passionate about driving customer acquisition and enhancing restaurant traffic.
Before Nift, Brian’s tenure included leading marketing for brands like Darden, Margaritaville, and Hard Rock. Most recently, he was the CMO at IMCMV, overseeing 28 Margaritaville and Landshark Bar & Grill restaurants across the United States. Brian orchestrated a symphony of brand strategy, communications, partnerships, advertising, creative development, public relations, loyalty programs, and digital/social media in this role. Brian’s fingerprints are all over the success of these iconic establishments.
When Brian isn’t shaping marketing landscapes, he calls Orlando, FL, home. An avid theme park enthusiast, he explores local attractions, travels, and passionately follows college and NFL football. Brian holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Telecommunications and a Master’s in Mass Communications from the University of Florida.
