Jul 6, 2026 · 41 min · 13 segments
Eric Knott spent a decade as COO of PDQ scaling 40+ stores from Tampa to New York, and he'll be the first to tell you he learned as much from what went wrong as what went right. Now CEO of Kansas…
Eric KnottGuestJustinHost
And so our GMs at PDQ, we call them operating directors at Outback Managing Partners.
And so whether that's donating to the local school, being at a golf tournament that's raising money for some organization, knowing your regulars that come in and out of your restaurant.
Basically, My vision from a unit level is that people almost forget that it's Tiki Taco and think that it's Eric's place if I'm the GM there.
So I think that from the unit level perspective and then... each department or each person above that thinking that same way.
So as you said, I wear tiki gear even on days off, right? If I'm at the grocery store or at the dentist office or whatever, like I want everyone to be a walking billboard for our brand.
And, you know, we give a giveaway like taco cards and burrito cards and trying to have fun.
But the biggest thing, again, community outward facing and then on the inward side, I really look at us as like a really big family, not as big as like a large company.
But it's just a really big family, almost like if you grew up in the 20s and 30s when they're having 15 or 20 kids and you got all your cousins running around.
So that's to me, from a community standpoint, kind of what it means to us and myself.
I'm curious, obviously, being out in the community is really important on catering side of a lot of businesses.
How has that impacted what you guys do with catering?
And so we launched that in September of 2024 and it is now almost 12% of our sales via catering.
And I think part of it has something to do with like the food travels really well.
But the other part is, is that from a value perspective, you know, we're we're very aggressive on our catering pricing, which leads to a lot of frequency.
And so our GMs at PDQ, we call them operating directors at Outback Managing Partners.
And so whether that's donating to the local school, being at a golf tournament that's raising money for some organization, knowing your regulars that come in and out of your restaurant.
Basically, My vision from a unit level is that people almost forget that it's Tiki Taco and think that it's Eric's place if I'm the GM there.
So I think that from the unit level perspective and then... each department or each person above that thinking that same way.
So as you said, I wear tiki gear even on days off, right? If I'm at the grocery store or at the dentist office or whatever, like I want everyone to be a walking billboard for our brand.
And, you know, we give a giveaway like taco cards and burrito cards and trying to have fun.
But the biggest thing, again, community outward facing and then on the inward side, I really look at us as like a really big family, not as big as like a large company.
But it's just a really big family, almost like if you grew up in the 20s and 30s when they're having 15 or 20 kids and you got all your cousins running around.
So that's to me, from a community standpoint, kind of what it means to us and myself.
I'm curious, obviously, being out in the community is really important on catering side of a lot of businesses.
How has that impacted what you guys do with catering?
And so we launched that in September of 2024 and it is now almost 12% of our sales via catering.
And I think part of it has something to do with like the food travels really well.
But the other part is, is that from a value perspective, you know, we're we're very aggressive on our catering pricing, which leads to a lot of frequency.
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