Taco Teachings With Anthony Valletta, President at Bartaco
Anthony Valletta is the President at Bartaco, which features upscale street food, freshly squeezed juices, specialty cocktails, and bottled beer. It’s inspired by the beach culture of Brazil, Uruguay, and southern California. Anthony is an analytical and hands-on Senior Operations Executive with a wealth of knowledge and experience in strategic operations planning, constructing strong teams, and navigating startups by establishing business operations and driving revenue and profitable growth.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Anthony Valletta explains why he decided to take over as President of Bartaco in September of 2021
How Bartaco looks at the implicit and explicit behaviors of its customers to inspire innovation and the incorporation of technology into the brand
Why customer sentiment about Bartaco’s ability to throw a great party takes priority over sales
The ways Bartaco is using technology to personalize the customer experience
How Bartaco is overcoming its challenges with recruitment
What Bartaco is doing to spur frequency in customer visits
The factors associated with choosing new locations and successfully launching a new concept
Anthony shares the best advice he’s ever received
What you’ll learn in this episode:
Customer engagement is a huge part of branding for any restaurant. The vibe you get is evident as soon as the customer walks through the door, and that vibe is further accentuated upon interacting with the service staff. How can a restaurant create an unforgettable experience? How do you make a restaurant brand enjoyable the minute a customer enters? For answers to these (and other) important questions, check out this episode of From Persona to Personal.
For most restaurant operators, the most important things to check each morning are sales, labor, and numbers. According to Anthony Valletta, President of Bartaco, the Bartaco brand takes a different approach. Operators of Bartaco check guest sentiment first to discover how customers feel about how they can create a better party since Anthony says it’s “our job every day to throw the best party in town.”
In this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni welcomes Anthony Valletta, President of Bartaco, to discuss the ways Bartaco tries to create a memorable experience for its customers. He shares how Bartaco resisted the temptation to replace human servers with technology and, instead, made sure it had more people on hand to create an exceptional customer experience. Anthony knows anyone can make a great taco, but Bartaco wants to be a place where people can really come and enjoy themselves. Tune in!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
This episode’s sponsor:
Today’s episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we create meaningful moments of brand trust and influence how people interact and engage with brands.
There is a science behind tapping into your audiences’ desires and motivation. After all, if you’re not changing your audiences’ behaviors, you can’t truly unlock all of your brand’s potential.
The proven models and methods of Behavior Design is the strategic foundation for your brands’ success.
Episode Transcript
Roger Hurni 1:50
Hello, everyone. I am Roger Hurni, the host of this show where I get to speak with top leaders in food and beverage, and today I have a fantastic one. But before I introduce Anthony, I'd like to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we create meaningful moments of brand trust and influence how people interact and engage with brands. There is a science behind tapping into your audience's desires and motivations. After all, if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you can't truly unlock all of your brand's potential. The proven models and methods of behavior design is the strategic foundation for your brand’s success. And now today I have with me Anthony Valletta, who is the president at Bartaco. Anthony is an analytical and hands on Senior Operations Executive. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience in strategic operations planning, constructing strong teams and navigating startups by establishing business operations, driving revenue and profitability growth while penetrating new markets. Anthony also closely tracks the financial budgets and performance in addition to the performance of his team, he hones the technical and leadership skills of that team, and on all of its members through interactive training and on the job exercises. And I think probably most importantly, I love the fact that Anthony likes to immerse himself as well as the company's teams, into their surrounding communities with many humanitarian and philanthropic ventures in order to get back to the communities they serve across the country. Anthony, welcome to the show.
Anthony Valletta 3:27
Thank you, Roger. Great to be here. Appreciate it.
Roger Hurni 3:30
I have to tell you that intro is like…
Anthony Valletta 3:35
Trying to fit it all in and years of experience
Roger Hurni 3:38
There's a lot to unpack there. I think that you do a tremendous amount for any company that you work you work for. Which will actually bring me to my my first question because I did obviously a little bit of research. Bartaco seems like you had some amazing menu and as a vegetarian I appreciate the options there. But why the heck aren’t you on the West Coast? That's the West Coast I need a Bartaco near me.
Anthony Valletta 4:06
You know, slowly but surely we started in Connecticut kind of worked our way down to Georgia. Where one of the founders was from and started infiltrating in between and slowly going out west. We're in Colorado, so we're venturing that way but a lot of expensive plans over the next couple of years. So at some point, we'll probably be your way at some point in the coming years.
Roger Hurni 4:23
Okay, well, I'm hungry now. So a couple years from now doesn't do me much good.
Anthony Valletta 4:28
If I want to get youa flight to Colorado now it's the closest I can get for today but we'll get it we'll get it fast we can run it
Roger Hurni 4:33
Well, I am from New York originally. I do get to go back to the East Coast once or twice a year so I will make certain I stop into a Bartaco. So looking at your essay looks like you've been at Bartaco for a year, right? Why did you you take the position and what do you think the opportunities and with in front of Bartaco are with you?
Anthony Valletta 4:54
Yeah, you know, the company of Barteca that originally started with Barcelona and Bartaco. I've always been Uh, mesmerized by since since their conception, they've been amazing company, really some good trailblazers for the industry. And as the industry continues to evolve, especially from COVID, we evolved in so many different ways, right, as an industry. And when I looked at the opportunity with Bartaco, not only we think the brand is fantastic, and I love the passion that this team has for quality of food in service. But really, the innovation and the incorporation of technology, I thought, is one of the future industry and our tacos, an amazing job, incorporating technology, but not taking away the human element. And that's a lot of times that trade off, and I think people struggle with is that the tech doesn't trade off hospitality, which is our industry. And it did an amazing job with it. And the team that's here is absolutely incredible. We have some amazing leaders looked at the team was very fortunate to be surrounded by some great people, as they say, for the smartest guy in the room in the wrong room. And definitely the right room, there's a lot of smart people around me that know much better than me. So it was an opportunity really couldn't pass up. And, you know, being from the northeast, being able to be in Connecticut as a home base. It's just nice to kind of bring it full circle. So…
Roger Hurni 6:03
Wonderful, wonderful. You know, you said something really interesting there that, and I see the struggle happen a lot, where we're companies trying to embrace the technology, but they don't necessarily always factor in the human element. And particularly from a behavioral standpoint, they will pay a lot of lip service to it. But they don't necessarily look at implicit and explicit behaviors of their customers in order to facilitate those kinds of changes. Are you doing anything along those kinds of lines with that combination that you spoke about?
Anthony Valletta 6:37
Yeah, I mean, our big thing during obviously, with COVID, QR dining became something that we thought was dead years ago, and it came back in, as opposed to just taking it at face value. We partnered with a great company called One Dine and small company at the time, they're basically you control the ordering from your mobile device. We call it on demand hospitality. But the theory, the easy answer would have been do that replace the server, save the money walk away, and we leaned in, we doubled down the size of our management teams to really make sure we had more people in the dining room in the kitchen, to be able to create that exceptional experience. So more touchpoints more engagement. And you think about all the things that shout at the challenges a server or manager from engaging with the guests and throwing a party, which is our job every day just to the best party in town. It's ringing and things in micros, running back to the expo to look for food, it's we can list the list is endless. We wanted to remove those pain points from this from the manager side and be able to give them almost 90% of every hour to spend just engaging, yes, customizing, experiencing, making them feel great. And on top of it, we went to basically a livable wage across the board. So all of our team, share it on the tips, including the back of house. So everybody in the restaurants make a flat wage, no matter what your position, no matter what your tenure dishwasher makes the same as the guy or gal running the front door makes the same as the line cook, and they share the tips. And with that, we've been able to get really above market and some markets like double what wages are being paid. And we've been able to have employees that were working two and three jobs, we're down to one. So we've had only been able to lean in and create what I think is a better hospitality experience. We've made a we've gotten better hospitality to our internal guests, our staff, they're able to make great money and make a great living. And there's no more, you know, the conversations of wage, right? Well, he or she makes more than me, we've eliminated all it's a team effort. It's team service, that's what we do best. And it's really been a great change to see.
Roger Hurni 8:34
You know, so many executives that I speak with fall short of understanding that translation of that team, as you described it into what I have called in my work in behavioral marketing, when I've called branding at the table, that idea that your brand doesn't necessarily need to be advertised as much as experienced and branding at that table. It's something that's overlooked by so many people. And it seems like you've got that really dialed in now.
Anthony Valletta 9:07
Yeah and that's always been our focus since conception. We want to throw a great party with a great hospitality, the guest always comes first. And you hear that a lot to your point. But oftentimes, it's not really the case. You know, I talked to a lot of operators and peers. And you know, first in the morning, they're checking sales or checking labor, they're checking numbers, and then they happen to get to guest sentiment somewhere later. Our team first thing in the morning is guest sentiment first where the guest telling us how do we create a better party for them? And how do we make our team set up to really fill that part? And it's exactly as you said, Roger, our thing is, we want an unforgettable experience. Anybody can make a great taco, anybody can make a great drink or you know, we're proud of what we serve. And we think it's best in class. But at the end of the day we all know there's great people out there making great drinks and great food, but the experience and how you enjoy the brand and if it if it feels great when you walk in the door. That's the game changer. That's what Bartaco was always focused on.
Roger Hurni 9:55
That's great. I will work with a few companies now where they’re taking that experience and they're translating it over into their app to where we're using behavior analysis to extend that that table experience into understanding those implicit and explicit behaviors and then customizing through the app communications one to one. So that that experience feels incredibly personalized, because it is. And I see from a lot of executives, that's next opportunity. Are you doing anything around that?
Anthony Valletta 10:29
Yeah, we're working with with the platform, now it's in development. The idea is when you when you actually check into a table, you use a mobile phone number, which kind of that houses your data there, the idea for us is exactly your point is to kind of start using some air in the future to be able to have it more customizable, whether it's, if we know you have an allergy, or we know there's a preference, or we know that there's a routine that you're going through, we want to be able to use that kind of customize that experience over time. But we want to make sure that again, don't take apart that human element. So you still want those employees and the managers to be able to engage and recognize that because especially with allergies, we all know, it's a very sensitive thing in the industry. So putting it in an app, sometimes you still feel a little bit weary. That human element that lets you know, hey, Roger, I will be taking care of you, I'm going to personally oversee this. You can't ever replace that, in my opinion. So we're definitely using it to advantages in the back end, our biggest thing, honestly, is that we're doing it for our employee facing, we're really doing a lot more analytics on how our staff can improve on hospitality. And that's something that was really important for us to kind of change the way we looked at tech.
Roger Hurni 11:31
Yeah, I did. I can't even begin to emphasize how correct you are with not losing that human element I, I worked with a couple of companies that they actually don't send the messages to the customers, they actually send the messages to a host or someone who's like a staff person, to be able to engage with them face to face about who this person is and their background, so that that human element feels more personalized, as opposed to doing sort of a generic message. So I'm glad to see that you're on that path. That's amazing. Let's switch over to some some issues because I get into, I want people to be able to learn from this. And that's been a good part of the conversation. One of the things I'm hearing a lot is challenges with recruitment. For many company leaders I speak with what is it? Is it a is a challenge for you? Or what other challenges are you facing now?
Anthony Valletta 12:23
That's a great question. You know, listen, recruiting and talent has always been a problem at COVID, post COVID. But we're very fortunate we have an internal talent acquisition team that, I think is honestly one of the best in the business. And currently, as of today, we are 92% staffed, which I know is an anomaly right now in the business. And we thank God every day for our staff, you know, for believing in what we do. But the big change for us, I think one was that management shift, we were able to really provide a better quality of life, we really leaned into our incentives, we changed the incentive structure of our management team, we have, you know, obviously the basics, right, the 401k, the vacation, all those things are there. But we leaned into some of the intangibles that I think the upcoming workforce is really all about. We have a personalized coaching program for all of our salaried managers across the board that works on soft skills. We looked into our partnerships and what we're doing work with a company called Kampala G on carbon neutral, working on really kind of the community aspects and the environment aspects that are actually becoming something that people are asking for in interviews, they're wondering what we're doing to better serve the environment and better serve our community. And leaning into that was a big piece for us. And then the living wage piece. At the outer level, you know, we have some of our athletes making, you know, 30 plus dollars more an hour, if not higher, which in our industry is unheard of, unless you have maybe a server collecting tips, but a dishwasher to make $30 an hour that word spreads fast. So I think the adaption that we had during COVID kind of changed the way we look to how we run the business. But it's kept us ahead. And we've been able to now write that point, which is we're very fortunate as we start to upgrade, which most people weren't able to do now we're looking and saying how do we continue to add the top talent to our team. So it's been an issue in the industry, I fully agree. We've been very fortunate because of hard work on the inside. And because of our team being loyal that we're in a really good number and we're able to grow at the rate we wanted without too much of a challenge. So selfishly, we haven't had to go through all the all the issues, I think that a lot of our peers have unfortunately.
Roger Hurni 14:23
Well, that amount of training, I know can translate really well to that dining experience. I have a question that can be a little bit of a step backward because you have all that training, the customer dining experience has really changed because of COVID. You've mentioned that a couple of times that you really prep these teams doing all that kind of training, how are they interfacing with the new customer behavior? I mean, it feels like it's not just going to the restaurant anymore how I use anything like a Bartaco. I might just pop in for lunch or I might grab food to go so I can meet somebody at a park. Like, how are you navigating that customer dining experience without the training of your staff?
Anthony Valletta 15:08
You know, the doubling up with the management team has made the big difference we have, we have what we call kind of zone, similar to assigning a manager and a section, right. But those zones are very small, they're 8 to 10 tables. And then there's a manager station there, from the second we open the door, the second we leave, and they own that zone, that could be takeout, because obviously, with COVID, we have a lot of takeout, that can be the bar itself, it could be late night, and we really had that ownership piece be a really big component of how we kind of manage all the processes and all the changes that we've had. And again, by doubling down on that team, they have a lot more bandwidth. They're able to do this on a much higher level than we were able to do it before. So that part's I've done a lot. And we've extended our training, we've got almost 3x, the size of our internal training team to make sure that we're constantly providing more information and support back to the field and how we can do this better. And we're always looking to take that feedback from our team to evolve. So you know, we've, I say, we always have a good plan that we execute well, you try to have a great plan that you execute well, right. But every day, there's just the evolution of what we see from the shift. And when people dine, we used to be a dominant late night concept. And we still are in some locations, but that mid days grown exponentially. To your point, people were stopping in grabbing a margarita and one taco at three o'clock in the afternoon because they were out shopping and said I don't need dinner. But I'll stop in. So every store is becoming so much more dynamic to your point. And I think that's just more hiring really high capacity leaders and give them the autonomy to make the make the best decision for the guests. So that's what we're here for.
Roger Hurni 16:39
Does that flexibility in the guests? Does it spur more frequency of visits? It seems like it would. But then there's a common part. The second part of that question is, even if it is, what are you doing to spur that frequency? Beyond operations? Are you doing anything from a marketing perspective?
Anthony Valletta 16:59
Nothing really, from marketing. I mean, we've done what I'm sure everyone else is doing and you know, third party things, testing on the lines. But honestly, our big thing, if you think about the old school restaurant, push, you had your 12 to 2 and your 5:30 to 9, whatever you want to call it. And those shoulder periods, everybody was fighting for the same 100 people, right. And to us, we really try to make sure it's customized during each of those segments. And we take that frequency, we've because now the way we're experiencing it now, some of our locations that are in mall areas are more retail, we're seeing people pop in 2,3,4, even 5 times a week, whereas before, I'm going to go for dinner, right Raj and I go out to dinner on Saturday night, we go out, we spend our money and we go home. Now it's like we meet for drinks on Monday, we talk on Thursday lunch, and then Saturday night, you know, take out your significant other. So the frequency is there. And because we really done this, what we kind of wanted is like ownership like owning that zone and a hospitality standpoint, frequency has gone up exponentially because the use case of how they can experience us has changed from let's sit down and have dinner to I can kind of go in for a ride like big event, small event by myself quick drink quick bite in the menu kind of lends itself to that. So we've been fortunately very well positioned for this dynamic change and how people have been dining and restaurant.
Roger Hurni 18:12
Dining flexibility is definitely a critical factor for success. Again, I think that falls short on probably a lot of your competitors. Let's shift we're talking about same story. We're talking about frequency customer service training all that's been great. I led this earlier with one or two on the West Coast, how are you picking new locations? But more importantly, how are you introducing Bartacos to new customers who haven't experienced that brand before? What do you what do you do when you do a launch from operations and marketing perspective? So there's a lot to unpack in that question.
Anthony Valletta 18:47
Yeah, absolutely. I'll take the first part of kind of the real estate perspective. I mean, we've had some great success and some great markets across the country right now. And I think a lot of those markets, when we look at it, we know we can saturate them because we've got great brand awareness and build these great hubs. You know, we have some great expensive strategies in the mid atlantic down in Florida, the northeast, we're branching into Chicago next year, looking to expand Colorado. You know, as everybody knows, it's always hard to go to a new state and launch a concept. Even if you've got 100 of them, there's always that the local flair, the local adoption, understanding the trends. So we're very careful when we choose a new market to go into that we've kind of looked at some same store look alikes and what the market looks like and what the feel for the style when it comes to experience we're trying to create. And fortunately, with the size team of ours, we've got a lot of market knowledge, you know, between all of our experiences and our past lives. So we've kind of got this duality of you know, the areas that we already have a great demand and great brand presence. Let's continue to grow those. And then the markets that we're going to enter into like, Oh, we're doing Charleston, South Carolina, and we have Bucktown Chicago coming up next year two new markets for us that we've done a lot of research on we're very confident and excited about those markets, but we want to do it the right way. And when we go in, I say we're a little, we're very unorthodox and how we open compared to most restaurant companies, you know, most of them throw this big VIP party and tons of people go before and weeks and weeks of training, and then you open up and it's still always a cluster, no matter what you do, because it's an opening. We don't do that we open a restaurant quietly, we don't announce an open date, we don't go to marketing. We open when we feel that we are ready to open the doors from an execution and experience standpoint that goes from how the building's design is, how the flowers look how the food's coming out of the kitchen, how our staffing is, a lot of times we get people get locked in of Oh, you have to open on May 1 well, hell or high water, you just told the whole world, you know, the PR world, you've got to open and that and sometimes troubles us so. So we opened when we feel it's ready. We opened a store in DC not too long ago. And it was like a Monday and we said at seven o'clock, let's open the doors and see what happens. And a few guests walked in, we handed out a few taco tokens to come in. But what we also do on the open is we actually fly in an entire team from across the country of experienced staff in the first two weeks the restaurant, it's run by existing staff, the staff of the new restaurant, you know, is training during that process, and we slowly will tail them off of that. And the marketing piece, we don't really push that until we feel we're operating at 100%. Because obviously these restaurants, they want to, you know, take the catapult right come out of the gates with big sales volume, which we get. But a lot of times I'm sure you've heard it in your time, right, you have this big peak, you have a valley, and then you kind of climb back up to your plateau. And we'd rather just show a consistent steady climb over time and kind of build off of great experiences. So it's a little different, it's a little slow to start. And when we feel at 100%, then our marketing team works out we do a lot with influencer marketing and social media, a lot with kind of local blogs and things of that nature. But we're not big in the traditional sense. It's pretty much all social for us, especially given the demographic that drives in. So a little unorthodox compared to most restaurant openings, no VIP party and fancy whistles. We just kind of open the doors and let guests find us.
Roger Hurni 22:09
I think that's a fascinating approach. It almost, I know you're growing in real company, so I don't want to … it almost sounds like a Mom and Pop approach which I can really, really, because it makes it so approachable as opposed to feeling corporatized.
Anthony Valletta 22:29
You know, that's exactly what we go for. You know, we, as much as we're growing brand, we want to feel like a local community restaurant, we want to feel like that Mom and Pop. Those are the things that made us great to start. I think, as we all know, when companies go to a certain point, it's hard to keep that going. Yeah. And that's one of the things I think that really keeps us still feeling a little bit more like that Mom and Pop restaurant. “Yeah, the anti changing.” That’s exactly it, exactly.
Roger Hurni 22:53
I know. You do not want to fall into that category, downhill very quickly. All right, well, um, what's on the horizon? Like, look, it's just you and me here like, what can you share? Like anything announcements or anything else like that?
Anthony Valletta 23:09
Yeah, we've got some great new locations coming up. I think I can kind of be one big thing. We're entering Charleston rendering, I said Buck 10, Chicago, we're opening up two in Miami. One is actually opening up, e'll see at some point in the next few weeks, we don't release the date, but it's coming up very quickly. We're going into Coconut Grove Charleston. As I mentioned, we're looking at some locations in Denver and Boston. In Virginia, we've got a beautiful location opening up in the wharf. So we've got a lot of a lot of growth coming up in a lot of markets across the country. So really excited to be able to kind of spread our wings and continue to keep the growth there. From an insider piece, we're really working a lot on the seasonality of our menu, really look at how we can dive into better, you know, better programs that are beverage, we do a secret taco, which is our rolling kind of r&d and excitement of the menu. We have a new one coming out very shortly. That's more of a tailgate style feel to it, but we stick true to kind of our you know, Brazilian, Uruguayan, Southern California kind of inspiration on that. But overall, we know we're looking to continue to revamp and continue to improve the menu but for us the next I'd call it five restaurants we have the most exciting thing without seeing them is they are what I would call kind of pinnacles of design for us we've, the typical design you see in a Bartaco, the next five will look nothing like them and it gets really exciting. We're undergoing this kind of change of how you experience it and how it feels. The one in Coconut Grove we were talking briefly before we got on Roger about Greece and it has this very Grecian feel white walls, curved corners but still has that Bartaco vibe in essence to it. So I think the most exciting kind of insider pieces when you see the renderings in the new stores we’re opening the next five or six, it's game changing for us. It's a really big step and a huge direction I’m most excited about that to come for us.
Roger Hurni 25:02
Oh, that sounds wonderful. Well, I'm in Scottsdale. So just think of Arizona…
Anthony Valletta 25:08
It’s on our list. It's we're looking, we're looking very closely.
Roger Hurni 25:13
I have one last question for you, because we could you've, you've given listeners and some really interesting insights to how they might want to adapt and change a little bit. And honestly, you know, borrow from some of the strategies that you're employing. What's the best advice you've ever gotten, Anthony?
Anthony Valletta 25:32
Well, it's a great question. You know, I think somebody made a comment to me once that sticks with me, and he said, if it's not broke, break it. A lot of times that old principle, right that if it's working, you keep going, and you just kind of let it let it run its steam. And a lot of times you see brands dissipate and become kind of fall back and kind of goes out. There's those that make things happen. Those that watch things happen, those that wonder what happened, you always want to be the one on the front of making things happen. So I think the key to us is, when you know there's an opportunity somewhere, even if it's working well, when you break something apart, you find the small pieces that that could have been improved, and we put it back together, I think you can always find a better version of it than you had before. So to us, it's about, you know, being a pioneer and kind of, you know, trailblazing the future. What we think this on demand hospitality is, we had to kind of break the system and say, Let's rework it and assume it doesn't work at all. And I think that's been the best thing in everything, whether it's how you're dealing with l&d, or marketing or construction, or whatever it is, if it's not broke, break it and really look at all the pieces and you typically will come out ahead and keep that practice. Every day with everybody, your team, you know, it's got to be a collective effort.
Roger Hurni 26:39
Wonderful, wonderful advice. I can probably sum that up in four words, complacency is a killer.
Anthony Valletta 26:45
1,000% 1,000%.
Roger Hurni 26:47
Well, I appreciate again, I really, really appreciate the conversation. Thank you very much for being on the show. I've been speaking with Anthony Valletta, the President at Bartaco. Anthony, where can people learn more about you and Bartaco?
Anthony Valletta 27:22
Absolutely. You can go onto our website, bartaco.com, got all the information there. See all of our partnerships and all of our locations you can feel free to reach out to me directly. My email very simple. It's an “A” and then my last name Valletta, at bartaco.com. (avalletta@bartaco.com) Always love to hear from our guests and prospective partners in the future. So look forward to sharing the brand with you.
Roger Hurni 27:43
Great, great, thank you so much. Again, have a great day.
Anthony Valletta 27:47
Same to you. Thank you, Roger. Appreciate it.
