bartaco’s CEO Put His Cell Number on Every Receipt. Here’s What Happened

bartaco CEO Anthony Valletta put his personal cell number on restaurant receipts so guests could contact him directly. What happened next changed how he thinks about guest experience, customer feedback, loyalty, technology, and leadership. Anthony joins Michael Beck and Chad Horn on the ChatGTM Podcast from the Prosper Forum to explain why raw customer feedback can reveal what surveys and dashboards miss. And that’s only the beginning. Anthony shares a deliberately contrarian view on the restaurant industry’s “employee first” movement. His position: bartaco values and supports its people, but the guest still has to come first. The conversation gets into: • Why Anthony put his real phone number on bartaco receipts • What guests actually text the CEO about • Why direct feedback can beat filtered customer surveys • How bartaco creates loyalty after a bad experience • Why a manager followed an unhappy guest to another restaurant and paid their bill • The “menu of moments” approach to service recovery • Why personalization technology can become noise • How bartaco trains teams to actually know their regulars • Why Anthony believes restaurants have overcorrected toward “employee first” • Why he would rather operate short-staffed than staff with the wrong people • How a guest-first culture can attract a different kind of employee One line captures Anthony’s approach: “The best AI is the CEO cell phone number.” This is a conversation about what hospitality looks like when leadership gets closer to the customer instead of adding another layer between them. Subscribe to ChatGTM for more conversations with operators and leaders shaping GTM, marketing, technology, and the future of hospitality. Hosts: Michael Beck, Primary Host Chad Horn, Co-Host Guest: Anthony Valletta, CEO of bartaco Restaurant Industry - Join us October 28-30 at the Prosper Accelerate Conference in Dallas https://prosperaccelerate.com/ Save $250 w/ code: IncTankAccSav250 CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome 02:21 Anthony Valletta joins ChatGTM 04:00 The bartaco guest experience 05:30 Why Anthony put his cell number on every receipt 07:00 What happened when guests started texting the CEO 08:30 Turning direct feedback into action 10:00 Why hospitality starts with listening 11:30 The “guest before employee” philosophy 13:00 Creating accountability without corporate bureaucracy 14:30 How bartaco keeps leadership close to the restaurants 16:00 Building culture as the company grows 17:30 What restaurant leaders can learn from frontline employees 19:00 Using technology without losing hospitality 20:30 Why the human connection still matters 22:00 Leadership lessons from scaling bartaco 23:30 Closing thoughts #ChatGTM #bartaco #RestaurantLeadership #Hospitality #GuestExperience #CustomerExperience #RestaurantIndustry #RestaurantMarketing #Leadership #CustomerLoyalty