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Exploring the Rise and Evolution of Poke Works with Ha Ly

Erika Rivas

In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, Jeremy Julian, the Chief Revenue Officer for CBS North Star, interviews Ha Ly, the head of marketing for Poke Works. They discuss the rapid expansion of Poke Works across the U.S. and delve into the unique aspects of the poke cuisine. Ha describes poke as a build-your-own bowl concept featuring raw fish cured in various sauces, emphasizing freshness and flavor. They talk about the national penetration of Poke Works, its key marketing strategies for entering new markets, and enhancing guest experiences. Additionally, Ha shares insights on Poke Works' new Hawaiian Hot Plates menu and the importance of their loyalty program in driving repeat customer visits. The conversation provides a comprehensive overview of the brand's growth, guest acquisition strategies, and the exciting new offerings designed to attract a wider audience.

00:00 PokeWorks

00:56 Introduction and Guest Introduction

02:10 Discovering Poke Cuisine

06:08 Poke Works Expansion and Market Penetration

07:25 Marketing Strategies and Customer Engagement

10:34 Loyalty Programs and Customer Retention

21:28 New Product Offerings and Future Plans

24:19 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Jeremy Julian:

In today's episode, we are joined by Ha Lee, who is head of marketing for Poke Works. We talk a ton about, uh, the value of what Poke is doing and how much it's expanded in the US and how really in every major market, uh, uh, poke is a well-known. Product and really how they continue to grow throughout the US as well as how they continue to bring guests back in for second, third, and fourth visits. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy. Julian. I am the Chief Revenue Officer for CBS North Star. We sell the North Star point of sale product. Check us out at c cbs north star.com and now onto the show. Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. As I say, each and every time. I know you guys have got lots of choices, so thanks for hanging out. Today is one of my favorite types of cuisines, and quite frankly, it's one of the brands that introduced me to this, this cuisine outside of a little roadside stand in Hawaii years ago. But, I am joined by Ha Ly, I think is how you say your last name. Did I mess that? the last name up? Okay, so ha why don't you introduce yourself to our audience and then we'll talk about, this unique cuisine and where the brand's at and where it's going.

Ha Ly:

Yeah, my name's Ha. thanks for the intro. Excited to be here. I'm the, head of marketing for Poke Works. I've been, I've been part of that, team for about a year and a half now. prior to that, I've been in technology companies, big and small. mostly larger tech companies for, a decade and a half. but fairly new to the restaurant industry. Really captivated by it. My, I have family members that have been in it for decades. and, just really excited to be, to be working with Poke Works. the partners and I have known each other, for a number of years. we have, experimented, started, another business together as well, Really familiar with the founding group. Amazing guys. And, the concept, of Poke Works is real simple. It's basically build your own poke bowls. so we try to focus on fresh ingredients, really delicious flavor profiles that appeal to, a wide variety of folks. But, the key element here is that poke it your way, build your own concept, because. The folks love choice. They love fresh foods, and that's what we deliver at Poke Works.

Jeremy Julian:

And for those that are not on the coast or not as familiar with Poque, describe the cuisine.'cause I know we were talking pre-show. I know even in, north Texas where I live, the amount of poque compared to where I was in Southern California, it's night and day different and you go to Hawaii and it's for those that are less familiar with it. Explain what Poque is, where did it come from, the origin and, tell the story of what Poque is and why it's such a, because for me, I love it. I'm, I will likely have poke soon in the next couple of days because it, it's now on my brain. But, for those that are less familiar with Poque and the cuisine itself, what is it?

Ha Ly:

Yeah, so Poke really is, is one of the core I would say, and. Quite legendary, Hawaiian, cuisines out there. And it is basically, raw fish that is cured in various sauces. And so you have, typically ahi. Or salmon, that is in a soy based, or a choy based, sauce. And with that as a marinate, it has this incredible umami flavor. And then you toss it with fresh, fresh, vegetables and herbs. sometimes it's hki, seaweed, sometimes it's just some really crunchy, slices of the white onion. but. it's typically served over rice. and that's it. But in our case, we take this maximal list approach to it where you could really stack, I. you're poke with tons of crunchy add-ons like garlic crisps, onion crisps, wanton and you could put on a bed of, white rice or salad mix. But Poke originally came, I would say is best known from Hawaii. It's a classic, just, given how fresh the seafood is out there, and the flavor profiles, it's really easy to eat and it's, I just think of it as sushi, but with a lot more flavor.

Jeremy Julian:

and the thing I love about it is, one, it's healthy, So it's fresh. It's, especially if you get it over lettuce, it's low carb. and my goodness, the amount of different permutations that you can have. The thing I also love about it is, at Poke Works, you guys have got a lot of different sauces that you can add on top of it, which obviously makes it less healthy.'cause now we got a mayonnaise based sauce, that's spicy or whatever else. again, you talk about it, I like to equate it almost to a Chipotle or a subway type of experience. is that fair? As an example, you've got start with your base and then you move your way through the line at Poke Works again, I've been, but for those, painting a picture for those that haven't been, that's how it all works.

Ha Ly:

Yeah, exactly. it's got that build your own line experience. and so you choose your base, you chip, you choose your protein and you choose your flavor. I think the key difference there is in the flavor and the sauces is the sauce that you use, that's gonna be marinating giving a lot of uniqueness, and umami to that, to that fresh fish or fresh protein. it's really. the key differentiator between kind of other build your own concepts, but yes, it's, you go in, the first thing you'll do is choose your base and choose your format because we have, our bowls and we also have a burrito, concept. but then I. Yeah, we got a burrito. We actually got our kickstart early on because we, we created this burrito, buildium, poke burrito, which kind of caught fire early on, in the brand's, life. But yes, and then you choose your toppings. After you choose your sauces, everything gets tossed together and at the end you get a heaping bowl of poke plus base. and, whatever you choose to top it with.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. thanks for sharing. For those that have not experienced it, where are you guys at penetration wise?'cause I think Poke because of both the product and its fantastic product and I think once you get through the initial, I don't understand what this I. it ends up being one of these very craveable type of products. and again, you and I were talking about that a little bit. So where are you guys at from a national, nationwide expansion perspective? I think the brands, I think you said 10 years old, help me understand, where are you guys at now and what is, what does the format look like as you guys continue to expand across the nation?

Ha Ly:

Yeah. we started in New York, and then we quickly moved to the West Coast. But now, poke in general is coast to coast. It's well known, 10 years ago when Poke works, kickstarted the Build Your Own Poke experience, it was a little bit less well known, but. the expansion has been extremely rapid. almost every state will have a poke concept, whether it's a small, let's say family owned operation or as part of a brand. There are regional brands all over the country already. we have 65 stores in the us. We've got 10 outside of the us. and we're continuing to basically grow even within domestic us. And, we have, international interest as well.

Jeremy Julian:

Love that. so for you, that's in charge of marketing and trying to get the word out about what's going on. How do you think about going into new markets? how do you think about I guess exposing this product into a new market that may be familiar with it, but aren't as familiar with the Poke Works brand name and all of that, talk me through your thought process.'cause we have a lot of listeners that are on, that are trying to get outside of their core markets of New York, Chicago, la, San Francisco, wherever. So how do you think about those different, experiences and how you seed the market before you guys go in and open the doors?

Ha Ly:

just like many other concepts, we are, we've got signage up, we're plastering the windows, the surfaces outside of the store just to get that street level visibility. that's one. the second thing is almost every market that Poke works enters or will enter, the concept of poke is already, it's already there. so it's, as a cuisine. It's almost already well known in every single locale that we're gonna be entering. The second thing is, Hawaiian food, is also something that many folks are familiar with, right? They may not know exactly every dish, but they know that it's out there, right? We, we've got amazing, examples of that from Hawaiian Bros. l and l, ELL, like all of these, Really notable brands have been in their markets a long time, so we get the benefit of that. Now when it comes to, opening a store, we're out there, our, our partners and, ourselves, we're out there hitting the We're promoted, we're promoting it in the neighborhoods that we're launching in. We've got local PR running. and so we're executing effectively every single marketing and pr. Campaign or tactic that you would expect from a new local, new local store opening. And then what we focus on then is really just the, as boring as it sounds, just the basics. Every guest that comes in deliver high quality service, make sure the food is delicious and fresh. And, our stores Accelerate both on third party and first party in terms of visibility. we've got some, some strategies that we've been executing the past year and a half. That's worked exceptionally well. but it really is that we're not, there's, no airplane flying overhead with poke works, on the tail. we're just executing and making sure every guest that comes through our doors, has a good enough experience and ex dining experience that they go and tell their friends.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. And I, the one thing I would say about the store that's local to me is the, the level of energy when you come into the store is always really high. So you feel like you're wanted when you come in. And I'm sure we've all been to places where you walk in and it's it's dull, it's dreary. You want the food.'cause you saw some review on Google that says it's good, but then you walk in and you're like, you people don't even want me to be here versus at least at the store that's local To me, it's like, Hey, welcome, welcome in and can I, can I help you through the menu? And I think that. Is also a testament to you guys executing well is for those that aren't as familiar. You, you're, you help walk them through the experience versus just expecting that they're gonna know exactly what they want. I'm sure you guys have those guests that know exactly what they want and it's not a problem. And then there's others you can tell that are looking around going, what did I just walk into? And at least the store that I said local here to me, they do a fantastic job of walking you through, walking you through that experience.

Ha Ly:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Julian:

ha. Talk to me a little bit about client acquisition. we talked about new store client acquisition, and I know you and I, prior to hitting the record button, had talked about, loyalty and just, how do you engage with guests? Because again, I think it's been a misnomer in the restaurant industry for a long time, and in retail in general. Obviously e-commerce and pizza have had it down for a long time because they knew who their guest is. And a lot of restaurants have made the excuse that says, I have no idea who my guest is. How am I supposed to know who my guest is? And I think it's a fallacy, and I'd love for you to share, you come outta the high tech world, and then really are now in restaurants. And you probably have heard some of these things, even internal to your own brand going, no. We're not able to figure these things out. But for our listeners that maybe. Have this myth in their mind that they can't figure out who their guests are. Help understand, help our audience understand how you're able to do that, and then how you're able to continue to move them. Up the funnel into a place where they're engaging with the brand more often because I think all too often when we've got trackers in our pocket every day, we've got credit cards that are, that the data's out there in the world. And I think too many people use the excuse that says, I don't know who my guests are, or, I'm gonna ruin my guest experience by stopping them and asking them if they're part of the loyalty program. Help me understand how you guys have solved for some of that.

Ha Ly:

Yeah. we don't have enough time to go through this. I could literally be here, for a couple of days talking through strategy, tactics, technologies. and to your point, a lot of my experience actually comes from the e-commerce world where we were acquiring and trying to identify, customers and guests at scale. and the past year and a half we've been doing a lot of rethinking as a brand as to who. That customer set is, and if you, if we zoom out, what we're ultimately trying to do is, serve really fresh poke, and other entrees. Simply to, prospective guests that are hungry. They're looking for something delicious, something fresh. we don't exclude folks. there's no such thing as a, somebody that eats purely, hamburgers or eats solely pizza when they go out and consider something dying. We wanna make sure that we show up when guests are hungry, right? that's the ultimate kind of barometer for success, is how many of those guests can we serve? and at the highest level, there's always social media, right? We're engaging constantly on social media. but when it comes to our bread and butter strategy, it's really. We want to make sure we're right there at the right time when guests are hungry. And the great thing is, by and large guests tell us when they're hungry,

Jeremy Julian:

Yes.

Ha Ly:

and this, we've seen this, over and over again in every single kind of, business that, does customer acquisition demand, capture really well and. One of the big areas, of course, is making sure that you show up on Google Maps or Yelp really nicely, because when someone's hungry and they're not entirely sure, they haven't made up their mind where they're going, they're pulling out their phone, right? You have a phone, I have a phone. Every, almost every person in this country has a phone, that, that has, that has money to spend on lunch and dinner. And so you're gonna pull it out and you're gonna look. You know what? I'm looking for a restaurant. I'm looking for lunch, I'm looking for dinner. You might be looking for a salad. Whatever it is you're gonna tell, the phone. look, I'm hungry right now. I'm ready to go pick up something to eat for myself or for my family. we have strategies in place that ensures that, our service, our quality, is reflected and we show up well and, we show up often for those guests.

Jeremy Julian:

I love that idea. And I think far too few people consider that says, am I in that relevant data set? And I think we all go out and are like, Hey, I'm hungry. What do I want to do? And if it's not in one year rotation, I. meaning like almost everybody reads the same 10 places every week. they're like, oh, I'm gonna go to Chipotle today and I'm gonna go to Poke Works tomorrow and I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to Jimmy John's the next day. Like they have the same 10 restaurants that they go through the Rolodex in their head before they do that. And so if you're not in that consideration set, I. It's hard. And number two, if I'm now in discovery motive, I want something different for dinner, I want something different for lunch, and it doesn't show up and be relevant. How are you capturing those people though? So now I've come in, you and I talked a little bit prior to about the value of your guys' loyalty package and the fact that is. A way to communicate with your guests directly, How have you guys considered that? Because again, I think all too many restaurants go, oh, that's too much work. I can't get my cashiers to do. I've heard every excuse in the book and I think it's awful and I really struggle. Or it's too expensive to have that. But at the end of the day. we need to be able to communicate with our guests to know what's going on. I had a previous guest on that had a problem with their fries. They were using regular table salt instead of kosher salt to salt their fries, and they were getting feedback from their loyalty guests saying, there's a problem with your fries. Something changed this week. They had a new cook on the line. And with that, they were able to go fix the problem'cause they were getting direct feedback from the guests. And so in that case, knowing where those people are at and what's going on with them, when they come in, when they fall off, all of those kind of things is really critical in my mind. And I think too few restaurants invest the time and energy in it. So how are you guys, how have you guys even considered that when you acquire them? How do you get them into the cycle so that you're top of mind when they're ready to eat?

Ha Ly:

Oh, okay. I can take another day. But, just to break

Jeremy Julian:

I know I keep giving you these softballs, but I'm like, I want people to think, Hey, if I haven't at least started capturing an email address or something, you've gotta be there because if you're not, other people are, and you're losing out to them. And now a word from one of our sponsors. Every restaurant operator understands the chaos of a restaurant kitchen during the meal rush. Restaurant technologies, oil, total oil management solutions, an end-to-end automated oil management system that delivers filters, monitors, and recycles your cooking oil, taking the dirtiest jobs outta your kitchen and letting your employees focus on more important tasks. Control the kitchen, chaos with restaurant technologies, and make your kitchen safer. No upfront cost. To learn more, check out RTI dash i c.com or call 8 8 8 7 9 6 4 9 9 6.

Ha Ly:

Yeah, no, you bring up a good point. There were several, guest touch points that you talked about there. One was what happens if somebody shows up in store? they've indicated they're coming in, they're dining with us, they're gonna be our guest. the second thing is, I. how we show up and how do we show up again and this changes channel to channel. like the way we do this in stores on our own channel is different from the way we do it on DoorDash or Uber Eats. I. and it's different, also from even ezCater, which is our one of our catering partners. and then the third question you had was, how do you respond to them when they're reaching out? so just to break this out into those three parts, let's start with a simple one, which is what happens when a guest has an issue or, they. want to call our attention to something. One of the, one of the benefits that we offer to our franchise partners is that we centrally, triage any inbound communications, from, from our guests across every single channel. So it, we will see every single message on DoorDash, on Uber Eats on our app. In our stores. And so we have internally guest service and and guest support centrally. We monitor every single channel. We respond to all the reviews and commentary that we get. and, when we need more depth of detail, we'll work with our franchise partners to ferret that out. Our goal is always to make it right for our guests, so if anything goes wrong, reach out. Anybody reaching out across any channel. We will be there to listen and we're gonna follow up. and this way we provide that consistency of service, and that's really crucial for us. the second,

Jeremy Julian:

just wanna be heard when they have a problem and you gotta respond.'cause if you don't, it feels like you don't care. sorry. I'll let you keep going.

Ha Ly:

oh no, e exactly. that is the key thing, right? do we fix your problem? And the answer to that has to always be yes. the second thing is, Talking about how does this work, channel to channel. So it's different across, we found that it is different across each channel. and when a guest comes in and they dine with us for the first time, turns out that those mechanisms of, showing up again and again, and having that visibility is built right into most channels. DoorDash, Uber Eats, they know that once we've locked in on restaurants that we love ordering from. Promote that, right? You and I, when we open up our apps. We're too busy to drive or cook. we're gonna look and write. Immediately when you open your app, you're gonna see, hey, you ordered from these, three to 10 restaurants before, and Uber Eats and DoorDash. in most third parties, they will tell you like, where you order from last, do you wanna reorder again? And of course, the secret there is how do you get somebody to order the first time? So we've got a few things, going up, strategies that we deploy there to make sure that hey, a guest has ordered a first time, a second time, a third time, and then, we'll probably cool it off on the marketing a bit, but once you get that pattern going, I. These third party channels, they know they're gonna promote the most popular spots any of us, prefer to dine at. just because it's, the mechanisms make sense. It's higher conversion value, faster, time to decisioning. and that's how we focus channel, the channel to show up first, a second, a third, a fourth, fifth time, and then allow those platforms to just elevate our visibility.

Jeremy Julian:

Before you go on to 0.3 real quick, one thing that somebody said to me is that a lot of times, 70% of first time guests don't come back, and that baffled me. I had a guest that I was talking to last week when I was at a trade show. I said 70%. I don't know if you guys are finding that same thing, but if I could get. 25% of that 70% to come back, you're gonna drive, a really significant sale volume for products. again, if I'm buying a Yeti cooler, I'm probably not coming back for a Yeti cooler every month, but I can come back to Poke Works, every week if I need to. And so I think restaurants, I. Need to figure out how to get that first time guest to come in a second time and that second time guest to come back a third time. So I love that idea that you guys are in tune with that and making sure that you're making sure the product is really good, making sure they had a great experience, and then driving them to that other behavior.

Ha Ly:

Y Yep. it's, I don't know about the stats for other brands. we're doing okay I would say on repeat visitation, even on our team, our lifecycle marketing effort right now is okay. Like how do we optimize and maximize that second visit? Literally, that's our goal. Like we have a certain second visit metric we know where. It probably is in the market for the top tier, restaurant brands out there. And we have a singular focus of

Jeremy Julian:

How do I get them there the

Ha Ly:

close that gap.

Jeremy Julian:

get'em in the second time and you have a great product, you're gonna end up being that repeat. You'll be on the, you'll be on the cycle, most likely.'cause they're local, I would assume.

Ha Ly:

Yep, exactly. It, it's, but that's our focus, it's, there's nothing, no, nothing complex about, just close the gap on the second purchase, close the gap on the third purchase. And then we keep going

Jeremy Julian:

rest takes care of itself. I love that. you and I talked pre-show about different product offerings that you guys have been playing with. Tell me a little bit more about why you guys are considering adding, in addition to Poke some other local flavors that, that I think, pair well with Poke and why have you guys considered that?'cause it's hard. It's hard to execute. Okay. and now you guys are adding more. Tell me more about what kind of you guys are thinking about from that perspective.

Ha Ly:

thank you for the lead in on this, but, for us it's really exciting. We recently launched Hawaiian Hot Plates. It's, it's a play on the, the classic, Hawaiian plate lunches. and the reason for doing that is that frankly, guests can only eat so much raw fish in a week. poke fundamentally starts off with really high quality, raw seafood. But with that said, there's limitations to how many times, guests might be wanting to have poke. And so for those that have young children, for those that have families where they're trying to pick, different, different options for more than one person, it behooves us to actually create. an additional category that would appeal to more folks, right? and that comes in the form of, Hawaiian plate lunches. for us it's, we call'em the, the hot plates and really it's mac salad. it is fresh greens and it is, hot proteins over a better rice. and this kind of balances out our portfolio of options. You know now instead of coming in, you're not feeling poke. You could expect the same high quality ingredients, same service, freshness, and really flavor profiles and that deliciousness, from, from Poke Works. And I think that's a compelling offer for a lot of our guests.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. No, and when you were sharing about it with me before the show, I was like, Ooh, that sounds, it's gonna be hard even, quite frankly, when I go into the store and be like, okay, so I want this or do I want that? And, maybe I'll be one of those people that'll have two entrees in the day and take the rest of it home. love that idea. how are you, how is that rollout going? Are you guys, I'm, we're recording this in, late April. Are you guys is it at all 65 stores? Is it just starting to roll out? where are you guys at in that continuum?

Ha Ly:

Yeah. it's a national rollout. It's been rolled out for a few weeks now. it, it is doing, I don't wanna say any numbers, but it's doing surprisingly well. and so we've seen, an uptick in orders across almost all of our stores too. you could probably guess it, but one of them is holy Chicken. That is doing exceptional. and, we're excited for the next 12 months we're gonna be amplifying that message, repeating it, for a long time to come. And we think it's gonna be a strong staple on our menu.

Jeremy Julian:

and the thing I'd said to you that I love that you guys are considering is that no veto, I've got kids and if they don't want poke, but I want poke, like we have to fight. it's I want poke. They don't want poke. And it's then. And so sometimes we would go to two different restaurants, but now if they've got all these other options, it's like, Hey, you're gonna go have the. have these other plates and, hot plates while I have poke. And I think it'll be great from that perspective. ha what did we miss? What did we miss about the brand? What did we miss about where you guys are at? what else do you want the listeners to hear before we wrap up?'cause we're getting close to time on wrapping.

Ha Ly:

Yeah. the one thing is we, that question you had asked around, how do we keep and retain our guests? we, we didn't quite get, through to the one remaining question, which is, how do we do that for our first, first party? Channel, we do that through our loyalty program. poke Works Rewards is, is a national program. We've had it for a long time. We recently went through a refresh in November, where we changed up our, rewards program to create, more frequent rewards for our guests. And so we've seen tremendous traction and success with that. our rewards program is actually growing, four times faster than it was last year. yeah, it's, as I mentioned, pre-show, the, the traction, blew our minds. We weren't even sure. that it could grow that fast. But, our goal is to keep it going. it, seems to be, compelling, to many of our guests and many are signing up for it. The second thing is, it's driven really significant sales increases, so we're looking for that visitation. and we think the combination of, service quality flavor kind of brings guests in over and over again. And, we hope that, we're able to really, reward our most loyal, guests and keep them coming back, keep, keep serving them.

Jeremy Julian:

and I think, one of the things that I've always recognized about your brand and really the cuisine type. Is if you're a Poke K Works fan, you are like rabid, like you're one of those people that, that wants to go and wants to support the brand. At least that's what I've seen both on social and just kinda people that I'm like, people just love it. And so from the fact that you guys are giving them more and. Able to not only acquire customers, but be able to drive those sales. how have you guys considered it? And again, just I'd love a little bit of education. You talk about giving those loyal guests even more for those naysayers that might be out there that are like, I can't keep giving away more food. My food costs have gone up. Inflation. They come up with all these darn excuses. why has giving away more been such a sales driver? Because I think all too often, and again, I know that I'm preaching to the choir here'cause you guys have been executing on this. Why has that been such a critical piece of ensuring the repeat visits? Because I think it's, I think people, step over dollars to pick up dimes from time to time thinking about, cost savings instead of driving top line sales.

Ha Ly:

I think it's, it's always been a marketing tactic, right? it's just the question of, like, where do you want to, provide the value? And for us, we can either take, take those dollars, plow it into more paid marketing, or we take, Some of those dollars and give it right back to our guests. and where we came from when it came to rewarding our, rewarding our most valuable guests was, Hey, you'd have to come visit us five times before you see any rewards. We just, it didn't sit right with us. and so our new program actually, helps round out, a meal. And what I mean by that is. One, you could visit us, one to two times and you're eligible for that first, reward, right? That could be a drink, that could be a miso soup. That could be a side, and all that does is saying every other visit, every two to three visits, when you come in, we're gonna just. We're gonna feed you. we're gonna, you go in, come in, get that entree, get that, that drink that's a reward, or that spam masui or, or that side and really flesh out your meal, have a real sizable meal, and get more for your dollars. And thank you for your patronage. and so we're not trying to give you a free ball every five to six visits. We're just trying to make your meal a little bit more full, and make our guests a little bit more, satisfied with every visit.

Jeremy Julian:

I love that thought.'cause it's that idea of abundance and really being there to, to see the value.'cause I think even as people are struggling with, just the state of the economy and all of these things, if I can get more and potentially have these things more frequently, it creates that I. Reward cycle that ends up bringing me back. ha, tell our listeners a little bit more, how would you want them to engage, it sounds like signing up for the loyalty program is almost a no brainer, especially if there's one close to you. But, how do you want them to engage? How do you want our listeners that are getting done at the end of this recording, to engage with Poke Works and learn more about it?

Ha Ly:

Yeah. find us on social media, poke works co. and if you're nearby, stop in. Grab a meal, with Poke Works and learn more@pokeworks.com.

Jeremy Julian:

Awesome. So I asked this question of a lot of restaurant brands, what's your go-to, what outside of the new hot plates that, that you're excited for, what is your new go-to? So if they've never had Poke K works, what would you tell them? Is it salmon? Is it, is it, is it the tuna? is it the white rice? Is it the salad? what's your go-to and what would you recommend our listeners that have never been so that they have just a wow experience at Poke Works the first time they go,

Ha Ly:

okay. First timers, try out our signature works. a large percentage of folks that's new to Poke and new to Poke works orders. Our signature works or A bit famous for that. we've, chef crafted delicious options, whether it's tuna or salmon or something else. my personal favorite is Umami Yahi. I like the Ahi, I heard our salmon's real good. it actually is delicious. and for me, I like to top it off with chili Crisp. we crafted the chili crisp ourselves. it's incredibly delicious, but it's got some serious heat to it, so be careful.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. Yeah. be, be sparing on it if you're, if your stomach's not ready for it. I personally love the spam Musubi. I, my wife's like, how do you eat that stuff? But I don't know, ever since I was little, the first time I went to Hawaii, when I was little, I started eating spam musubi. And ever since now I'm like, it's one of my go-tos. And she's You just got a freaking big old bowl of poke. Why do you need more spam? But it's yeah, she won't let me, she won't let me get it at the house. So anytime I'm out, it's it's one of my go-tos ha. Thank you so much for educating our listeners. Thank you for what you do to really, quite frankly, bridging the gap of kind of in-store marketing, above store marketing, e-commerce, and trying to drive that.'cause I think. Far too. Restaurants consider these things, and there's a lot more tools at our fingertips that I think, people can use. And to our listeners, guys, like I said, you guys have got lots of choices. Please go check out Poke Works, and if there's a store near you, please go visit, support the franchise, support the product, let us know how you liked it, and make it a great day.

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