Tal Clark: [00:00:00] Okay welcome to the all new Instant Payments podcast. I’m your host, Tal Clark. I’m the CEO of Instant Financial, a fintech company that modernizes payments and payroll for hourly workers and their employers. I’ve worked in the payments industry for 30 years at companies like Fiserv and Money Network, and I’m glad you’re tuning in today. If you like what you hear, please do us a favor and subscribe, leave a review or suggest a future guest for us to talk to. This podcast features industry leaders to discuss some of their challenges and the technologies they’ve used to improve their workplace. Today’s guest brings a wealth of experience, including finance, payroll and technology operations across a portfolio of thriving restaurant brands.

Joining me is Kevin O’Bold, Vice President of Finance for Ultra Steak, Inc, a long established restaurant company that operates brands, including Aspen Creek Grill, Aspen Tap House, and Slim Chickens [00:01:00] with more than 3,000 employees nationwide. Kevin began with Ultra Steak back in 2014 as a staff accountant and worked his way up through controller and leadership roles before becoming VP of Finance. He’s played a big part in the Ultra Steak’s transformation from modernizing payroll and IT to leading automation initiatives that reduce administrative hours and support managers in the field. Kevin, welcome to the podcast. Where are you joining us from today?

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, thanks for having me, Tal. I’m here in Fishers, Indiana. It’s a suburb of Indianapolis and it’s where our companies are headquartered.

Tal Clark: Alright, super. I see the Indianapolis Colts helmet in the background. So I guess you’re a Colts fan and what are you expecting out of them this year?

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, Colts fan through and through. Born and raised. It’s gonna be a rough year but there’s always hope, weak division. So we’ll see how it goes.

Tal Clark: Yeah, that sounds good. Well, I’m a Saints fan, so we’re kind of counting on the same weak division. So Anthony Richardson was not the guy? 

Kevin O’Bold: Not the answer apparently. So, gotta start over again.

Tal Clark: Good deal. Well, it’s Labor [00:02:00] Day weekend, so we’ll be looking forward to some of that. So I read a little bit of your background there, but why don’t you just tell us in your words a little bit about your journey in the restaurant space and Ultra Steak specifically, and we’ll kind of start there.

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, so Ultra Steak’s been around for over 40 years managing different brands and restaurants all across the country. We started with Sizzlers in the eighties and then started converting those over to Texas Roadhouses in the nineties. We were. One of the first franchisees of Texas Roadhouse, I think we had store number 12 that we partnered with Kent Taylor on.

We actually grew Texas Roadhouse brand in our space to be the largest franchisee of Texas Roadhouse. And we operated those for over 25 years. And then in the 2010s we started getting in the quick service space with Little Caesars. It’s a little bit out of our wheelhouse, but, we wanted to kind of diversify and explore different segments.

And then about 10 years ago we operated our own concept, which was Aspen Creek [00:03:00] Grill and Aspen Tap House. And then just recently, two years ago was a franchisee of Slim Chickens. So a lot of different brands, a lot of different decades. We operate in several states, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois and California.

So we’re kind of all different regions as well. I like to explain Steak as kind of a legacy company that’s acting like a startup. We have so many decades worth of knowledge and wisdom and experience, and they bring all that to the table. But we’re also in high growth mode, owning our own concept and kind of coming outta that franchisee type role.

So it’s a really exciting place to work every day.

Tal Clark: Yeah, it sounds like it. And some really cool brands for sure. And, everybody’s aware of the Texas Roadhouse the few, a few years they’ve had, they’ve been killing it . Let’s go ahead and just touch on that real quick.

You guys are really focused now on Aspen Creek Grill and some of your other brands. Talk to us a little bit about the, I know there was a transaction you guys sold Texas Roadhouse.

Back to Texas [00:04:00] Roadhouse, and I think, from what I’m hearing, that worked out really good for both of you guys.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, well, just being a partner with Texas Roadhouse for so many years they knew us, we knew them. It was a very easy kind of transition and transaction. We’re able to kind of use a lot of the casual dining space knowledge to get the deal done pretty quick. And now it kind of sets us up for growth mode internally.

And all those lessons learned applying it directly to a casual dining brand that we own. And it’s a little bit of a hard transition because, you have so much support and I think Texas Roadhouse corporate in Louisville is best in class at doing it. But when you have to kind of manage your own recipes, your own systems, your own people your own training for new store openings, construction it’s kind of all the in-house knowledge, has to be elevated. So it’s been a big challenge, but it’s one that we look forward to. And hopefully the reward pays off.

Tal Clark: Super. That’s super. look, [00:05:00] I know that you guys are growing to Aspen Creek Grill and Slim Chickens as well. Let’s talk a little bit about, a little bit about that because I think it’s really interesting I’m sure you guys are using some of the knowledge that you’ve gained over the years in working with Texas Roadhouse.

Talk to us a little bit about Aspen Creek Grill. What is it about that restaurant concept that makes it unique and what are you guys seeing there relative to the rest of the space? Because I don’t think it’s, it’s a, it has been a, it’s been a challenging year for many restaurant concepts and brands are challenging the last couple of years. I was just at Prosper Forum this week and there are a lot of conversations about that, about, things that have been occurring and what we anticipate going forward in the restaurant space. You sit in the middle of it as VP of Finance, so I’d love your take on I guess broadly the market.

Let’s do that and then we’ll come back to Aspen Creek Grill, but just your take and view on what we’re seeing, as far as challenges in the restaurant space and your guys’ strategy and managing through those right now.[00:06:00] 

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, an obvious challenge is just construction costs trying to find new sites just working with architects to kind of, how are we gonna cut square footage or space outta the restaurant that’s highly critical that we need to operate. It’s really hard to develop when you’re end growth mode like this to find the right deal that pencils out.

Then we also kind of have just normal challenges that the restaurants industry’s always had, but it’s just particularly heightened right now. Talk about food cost. I mean that, I can’t remember a time when food cost and dollars coming in the back door with suppliers just changes week to week.

It’s really critical to have, contracts set up, good relationships with your vendors, rebate programs, doing anything you can to control it because we can’t really control, the herd sizes or bird flu that comes through the system. So it just trying to be able to be nimble and move quickly and react to those things and have systems in place to recognize those trends are really important.

And then I think [00:07:00] pricing is another big one. If you look at any kind of industry trend, you’ll see that traffic is slowly declining and prices are slowly going up. And I read a study, I think that it looked at different segments of the restaurant industry before COVID to 2025. Casual dining was the highest increased check average at 38%.

Fast casual was second at 35%. And compared to us we’re in the low twenties. So we’re taking a strategy of kind of, again, those learnings of Texas Roadhouse in the nineties and early two thousands of when you hit kind of this recessionary traffic decline kind of area. What we go after is value proposition to our guests and gaining market share. And how you do that is you grow your traffic counts. So we’re working really hard to make sure that traffic counts is more important than kind of raising your check averages because that’s gonna steal market share over time. And when we come out of this or, get into a better situation, [00:08:00] maybe less inflationary, we’ll come out better ahead.

And our customers, will trust us more. They come in to eat, on a regular basis. We’re not gonna raise prices as quickly on them, but we do have to be strategic and make sure we watch our margins.

Tal Clark: Yeah. Well, that’s excellent. And I do, based on, again, what I’ve heard and picked up in conversations, I think that’s happening. And I I’ll just give you an example. I guess the guilty party here will remain unnamed, but there was one restaurant, table service restaurant concept I’ve heard talking about the realization of where their prices had increased over the last three or four years, almost as if you, these incremental increases occur and I think sometimes they may occur at the manager level depending on the concept or the region level, not necessarily at the corporate level. And they woke up in, in some, in the recent past and their traffic had gone down and they’re looking and they’re, it’s like almost a surprise that they’re menu prices in total had grown like [00:09:00] 50% over the last three or four years. And then I think the contrast of that, I think in a positive sense is you look at a Texas Roadhouse that’s gotten a lot of notice recently by the market and the consumer.

I think in that they, I don’t think have increased their prices. And so doing what you, I think you’ve laid out, it sounds like a strategy that you guys are following as well with Aspen Creek Grill and others. Does that sort of resonate with you? That we’ve got that’s, and that is generating loyalty and traffic, I think for those that haven’t raised their prices and I think the ones that maybe have ones that are suffering a little bit right now trying to figure it out.

Is that true in your mind?

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, I mean, Ultra Steak at least being around for 40 years, we’re in it for the long haul and the long game. So taking short term wins with raising your prices will look good. It’ll help your margins. It might help your sales for a little bit but just gonna deteriorate so fast. And like you said, we can learn lessons from our peers of maybe what not to [00:10:00] do and just keep doing what we know is our bread and butter. That’s worked for us. Tried and true.

Tal Clark: Yeah. That’s good. That’s good to hear. And it’s it’s good to see. It’s good to see, we want all brands to succeed and good to see that you guys are in a good spot. So I tell you what was, it was interesting for me too, and just looking at some of this while we were at Prosper Forum and some other restaurant events because we’re trying to make a lot of those and meet our clients and, meet folks like you guys and industry leaders. And one of the things that’s just you don’t think about is just I guess the cattle situation, right? I mean, crazy that evidently we’re running into a shortage that and it didn’t sound like there was any near term solve for that. We’re talking five or six years out before we get back to what might be considered normal. And I just I find that very interesting. I just, I’d love your you touched on it a little bit, but how do you manage through that as a restaurant? You guys in the restaurant business have so much to deal with, we’re talking about, [00:11:00] what’s your supply, and it’s not like you can make more paper plates or make more hard products we’re talking about agricultural products at the end of the day. How do you see that and how do you plan to work through something like that where you know that there’s gonna be shortages over the next little bit?

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah. We were looking at a chart and studying it the other day and seeing that, I think it was a 15 year trend. And it went straight down in herd sizes, but it went the opposite straight up in demand for beef. That’s basic economics 1 0 1, that, we’re in a, we’re in a pretty big crunch and like you said it’s multiple years to kind of get those back in line.

For us with our Texas Roadhouse, Aspen Creek, Aspen Tap House Brands, we cut all of our meat inhouse. We sell so much of it and we want a scratch kitchen and high quality there. So it’s a big part of what we do and what we offer to our guests. And I came from no restaurant experience when I joined Ultra Steak.

So what we do is we have [00:12:00] training for our support staff. You have to go into a restaurant and work several different shifts and in different areas. Well, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was like, 90 degree hot, humid day in Indiana, and I walk in the kitchen and the manager immediately hands me a winter jacket and a hat.

And I’m like, well, what’s this for? He goes, you’re working in the meat room today in the cooler. So it’s freezing cold in there. You got gloves on, you’re cutting meat. The meat’s freezing cold too. And I’m in there with one other guy just training with our meat cutter. And, I’m working really hard all day thinking, okay, I got these ounces down.

I’m making these good cuts. I’m catching on. He gets done and he goes, all so what we do is we kind of measure our yields after we’re done with all of our pars for the day. He goes, your yields they’re really low. I had to fix and trim a lot of this stuff for you.

You’re way off on your percentages here. And it gives me an appreciation for just how tight those margins are. And even though we cut our meat in house there’s only so [00:13:00] much that we can control. But you have to be it all, the tight margins just becomes very important for your business to control, what you can control.

So, there’s a lot of strategies that we’re trying to take to make sure that we’re pushing the right types of proteins. Maybe we shift away from beef, maybe go to pork for a little bit or have an LTO with fish or something else. So it’s an advantage that we have a lot of different proteins to pivot to when beef is kind of a struggle. But it is the backbone of who we are, so we’re not gonna go away from it anytime soon.

Tal Clark: Yeah. Okay. Super. That’s very interesting. And so let me, let’s back up a little bit. I wanna talk a little bit more about your background too, and we’ll probably come back to some of this ’cause I do find the the food and the operations part of it very interesting, especially from your perspective.

But you’ve been there over a decade– accounting, now leading finance, you got payroll and IT that you’re responsible for as well. So let’s talk more [00:14:00] specifically about about that for a little bit. How has your background that you developed influenced your approach to operations? How has it framed your, the way you work and the way you look at things. And then we’ll start talking a little bit about the people part of the business as well.

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, so my background, like I said, it doesn’t come from restaurants. So when I kind of look at everything in the business from my lens, it’s very administrative, very systems focused, accounting business, type thinking. And when I talk to operators, interact with them, what’s going on in their daily lives they have a very entrepreneurial, autonomous approach, to their restaurant.

It’s kind of, it’s their business. We take the Outback, Roadhouse model of let ’em have skin in the game. So it is really, they’re invested in how the operations are working. So I’ve had to learn a lot about transitioning over to the soft skills. Understanding a hospitality that’s relational.

And a lot of leadership is based on trust. [00:15:00] So getting to know these partners what makes them tick, what’s going on in their daily lives that is important to them. Then how can I support them and what I can bring to the table to kind of elevate that. So my job is to make them look good, to, to support them and what they’re doing with their teams and just kind of make their lives easier so they can focus on the guests, focus on the team ’cause that’s really what’s gonna drive value at the end of the day.

Tal Clark: Okay, that’s great. And I’m sure they’re, I’m sure they’re very appreciative of that and you provide significant support for them. So we’ve been talking about Aspen Creek Grill a little bit. Not so much Slim Chickens, but tell us a little bit about that concept for people that are not familiar with it because I think it’s I’m not sure how many locations you guys have, but that is you are a franchisee of Slim Chickens. That is another Texas restaurant, a Texas Roadhouse concept. Is that right?

Kevin O’Bold: We’re a basically a competitor. Jaggers is their chicken concept. 

Tal Clark: Alright. Well, tell me a little bit about Slim Chickens [00:16:00] then and maybe that organization then how you work, how you guys work with them and how that’s going. And just the differences really between Aspen Creek Grill and maybe Slim Chickens we can get into a little bit.

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, it’s a totally different segment and fast casual with Slim Chickens. And chicken’s really hot right now. A lot of restaurants popping up. This one was really intriguing to us just because of their quality of their food kind of their layout and their following that they have.

They start headquartered in Arkansas and we kind of are out west in our territory. We have a really good operator out there that’s used to that segment. And it’s been interesting to just see that, like you said, the different structure of limited service restaurants. How you can provide value added inputs, to help the guests.

It’s having a drive through was kind of new to us. Just all the metrics that it takes delivery – heavy delivery service providers and understanding, kind of throttling making sure that those, orders are coming [00:17:00] in at the right time. But we’re making sure we’re smooth in our transitions, but it does have a lot of those elements of a scratch kind of kitchen.

We make all our own in-house sauces. The chicken’s very important to be marinated and, not frozen. Making sure hot food’s hot, cold food’s, cold. So it’s a lot of the same foundations but just a different type of clientele and what they’re looking for and what they want in the experience.

It’s been a fun learning experience.

Tal Clark: Well, that’s good. And in that, so you’re really managing from an accounting, finance and really a personnel perspective. You have tips in Aspen Creek Grill,

We’ll dig in more to that. In Slim Chickens, do you have any tips that you’re dealing with there or is that primarily W2 hourly wages.

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, it’s a lot of hourly wages. It’s less people to operate, a smaller kitchen. And we don’t have a tip system, set up. It’s not a primary driver of their earnings, but, the different positions that they work do have different rates and you have to kind of manage of who, [00:18:00] who wants to work that position.

Maybe it looks more fun or a little easier. But it could be really important to. Just kinda like cutting meat at a Texas Roadhouse. You gotta be able to do the right things on the Fry Grill or the cashier being able to have, good relationships with your customers being kind of the front of the business.

So yeah there’s different roles and different spots that just have the right people on the bus and the right seats on the bus too.

Tal Clark: Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. I guess you, you mentioned chicken’s hot right now. It’s crazy. I think from what I understand that millennials and Gen Z, they don’t want bones in their chicken anymore either. Is that right?

Kevin O’Bold: That’s true. Yeah. Tenders, man. They are. They are hot right now.

Tal Clark: Yeah, it’s all tenders and nuggets. So it’s amazing what you guys, how you guys have to adjust what you do as a restaurant and what’s, what concepts are working and why. So, we’ll talk a little bit about the technology investments that you guys have made recently and we’ll, let’s start [00:19:00] with, we’ll go back to Aspen Creek Grill.

So what are you seeing and what’s some technology investments that you’ve made recently in that business that are helping you with operations?

Kevin O’Bold: Yeah, I mean, most of what our technology investments that we’ve done recently have all centered around the point of sale. It’s kind of the backbone of our business. It’s really hard to to start anywhere else. So you’re just trying to maximize what you can get out of that depository of data and make sure that it’s coming as quickly as possible.

Our back office system was one of the first things that we changed about four or five years ago, we moved to Restaurant 365 and 60 to 65% of your cost of food and labor are prime costs are coming through the back office system. So understanding COGS and labor, having integrated to the point of sale, getting real time data that’s drillable for our operators.

You can look at it on mobile phone even, when you’re on the go. That was all really important to us. We even looked at our HRIS [00:20:00] to see if we could get the hiring and onboarding process sped up and more integrated. So we found out we can get a candidate that you are ready to hire and ready to click the button, to fully onboard them. They can be through the system, fully compliant in the POS, within seven and a half minutes.

Tal Clark: Wow. 

Kevin O’Bold: They’re ready to train and start clocking in. So. There’s not much time you have to burn, after you’ve hired them and gone through all their paperwork in the back office to say, okay, let’s start your training and you’re fully in there, all the data points.

So having that true system of record, but it can flow down to all of our, even down to our scheduling system, within a matter a couple of minutes. It really makes us be able to quickly move. Another big one was pay at the table solutions. I know COVID kind of really blew this up. Darden was doing it, beforehand kind of as one of the big boys that was testing it out, but it really has increased our table turn times.

Just not having to wait on the server to drop a [00:21:00] check and kind of waiting on that time that’s there. There’s a lot less cash handling ’cause we’re almost incentivizing guests to pay by credit card. Just tap it on the device and go about your day. It did help with tips because it made tips higher.

We’d always heard that, when you go to pay to table solution, it’ll happen. But man, we just not, did not expect the basis point increases that we saw after rolling it out. And obviously our front of house staff was very happy to use it. It was easy sell to tell them Hey, we’re gonna switch to this device. And they say, why? We say you’re gonna get a couple more percent on your tips every night.

And then at Roadhouse we did try to strategically add in that gaming element to the pay at table device to kind of offset the cost. I was surprised by how many people actually use the gaming function. And then we just charge that automatically to the check.

But it really almost made it free to roll it out with a device and software platform fees, because we could offset it with the gaming revenue.

Tal Clark: Well, that’s great, and I think that’s a a [00:22:00] great place for us to pause here, Kevin, this has been a fantastic start and we’ll pick this up as we go forward with part two in a little bit where we’ll dive deeper into how Ultra Steak is embracing automation. More about what we’re talking about now.

We’ll talk about streamlining processes and planning for the future of restaurant finance and payroll as well, and how you’re managing that going forward.

So, to our listeners, you can learn more about Ultra Steak and their restaurant brands at UltraSteak.com. And don’t forget to join us for part two of this episode on the Instant Payments Podcast.