Insights from the Restaurant Show: Sunny Street President Mike Stasko

Handhelds have entered the dining room as experience plays a more crucial role than ever for guests.

At this year’s National Restaurant Association Show, some of the industry’s leading executives stopped by FSR and QSR magazine’s booth to chat about the landscape—what they’re seeing, hearing, and what might be next. We asked everybody the same three questions: One on tariffs and consumer sentiment; their thoughts on value; and lastly, to separate myth from reality with restaurant technology. In the days and weeks to come, we’ll share their answers.

Next up, Sunny Street Café president Mike Stasko Jr. And join us in Atlanta at the NextGen Restaurant Summit, where Stasko will be speaking on the secret to retaining and engaging restaurant employees.

Other conversations:

Donatos CEO Kevin King

WOWorks CEO Kelly Roddy

Give us your thoughts on the state of consumers, and if tariffs are on your mind.

I’m cautiously optimistic (on the first thing). I think uncertainty makes it difficult for folks to go out and eat. Discretionary spending is a little down these days. I think anybody telling you otherwise is probably lying. But that said, it feels, for us anyway, Q2 has been really positive. So we’re hopeful spending will start easing up a bit and we’ll begin picking up guest counts.

In terms of tariffs, I would say, luckily, we haven’t seen a ton of impact on our business. I’m hoping this was all a lot of smoke and mirrors and there can be better communication on the policy side going forward so there as much of that uncertainty.

Value, what does that mean at Sunny Street?

That’s the topic du jour, isn’t it? It seems to be what a lot of folks are zeroing on. The QSR guys are pretty smart about it. When they pivot to value plays, we definitely take notice. For us, the value is tied to service. We really lean into that given the fact that there’s so much fast casual out there now where convenience is the play. We’re hoping value can mean a good meal at a good price, but also the element of service factored in to brighten your day up. Those are esoteric things. And they go hand-in for us.

Quick follow up, Mike: Does that value plus experience play actually offer you a leg up potentially? Kind of like what we’ve seen at Chili’s recently as it compares itself to McDonald’s and so forth.

It’s working for (Chili’s). We’ve had a little less flexibility on it because of egg prices. Eggs are on three out of four dishes that we send out. So the value play there is not a good one for us. However, we’ve done stuff with LTOs that are not egg-driven and that are great margins, with decent price points for customers.

OK, one more. What did you think about some of the egg surcharges we saw in the industry?

That felt a little unsavory to us. It’s one thing to take pricing, it’s another to smack a surcharge per egg. We took our lumps on it for a little bit. It’s gotten better and we’ll play the averages and hope it evens out and it’s back to normal for the year.

How do you manage it as an emerging brand?

We’re not big enough where we’re contracting eggs for 12, 18, 24 months. Our exposure is real. We have 22 restaurants, with No. 23 on the way. But to be big enough to wield that power would insulate you somewhat. That’s not the position we’re in.

Moving on, tech trends today—what’s more myth than reality? And then the flip side of what’s actually making a difference.

I don’t know if this is myth or not, but there is some uncertainty—and I’ve been spending a lot of time on this in the last couple of years—which is also specific more to full-service restaurants, but the loyalty piece, or recognition. Is that really valuable to people on a day-to-day basis if they’re only a sub-regular user of your brand? I can count on one hand how many restaurant apps I use. We’re trying to figure out, does that fit into the full-service environment? A server has to come and get your number and get you to sign in and redeem your points and gain traction that way.

I don’t know if that’s a myth because I think recognition is important. We just haven’t quite figured out how to best utilize that. It’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of time. If you get half-baked on it and it’s not working, it becomes tough to unwind something like that.

As for what is making a big difference, for us, we switched over to Toast at the end of last year. Now, we have handhelds in the dining room. That’s really improved some of the metrics we look at, like table turns. We were set up old-school diner style where you got a check, took the check up to the cash register, and paid that way. On a Saturday or Sunday when you’ve got a wait in your lobby, it’s not ideal. There’s a line winding out and it’s jammed up. That entry point should be inviting and you want to be acknowledged immediately. We talk about the value of full service, right? That’s been a huge, huge win for us.

Have you had any issues with the tipping model on handhelds?

That can be a little sensitive. We’ve had pushback, where somebody feels like you’re being stared at to hit the best tip. But we’ve been cognizant of it. It’s a little tricky because you don’t want people to feel uncomfortable. At the same time, it’s like, I’m standing here, let’s just knock it out.

The good news is that technology is not new now. Folks are really getting used to it. It’s just been a long time coming, particularly for us. It’s fit in seamlessly for what we do.

The menu is right there. The training on the menu memorization, you lay it out pretty intuitively. The efficiency and amount of steps we take, it makes a major difference.


Originally published in FSR