Ovations Food Services: A Standing Ovation
Restaurants
Written by Ashley McGown   
Monday, 01 June 2009
Ovations Food Services: A Standing Ovation
How this foodservice business founded just over a decade ago grew an exponential amount in recent years.
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Food Services of America (Portland)
In business, the right mixture of talent, hard work, and networking can cause a company to experience tremendous growth in a short period of time. When Ken Young founded Ovations Food Services in 1995, the organization, which operated under a different name, was a small consulting firm that after five years generated $7 million annual revenue out of its five US locations.

But Ovations has undergone a significant transformation since that time. In 2000, Young and his partner, Todd Wickner, sold a portion of the company to Comcast Spectacor, which today serves as a parent company to Ovations.

In less than 10 years, the organization has grown into one that generates $200 million annual revenue and employs 350 management-level employees across its 85 North American locations. According to Young, president and CEO of Ovations, the transition from a consulting-based firm to a foodservice business wasn’t something he planned.

“After we established relationships with the companies we were consulting for, many of them asked us to operate their food services, and those situations resulted in management contracts,” he said.

Today, Ovations has approximately 80 management contracts with businesses across the US. This number has increased dramatically since 2000 with the addition of Comcast Spectacor’s resources, but Young and his team make sure they don’t take on more work than they can handle.

“We don’t go after every contract that’s available,” Young said. “Our reputation grows because we provide exceptional customer service, and we can’t do that unless we’re aware of what’s going on with each client. We constantly evaluate the situation we’re in and decide how much we can handle.”

Young and Wickner built Ovations under the principle that executive management should be directly involved with the supervision of each location. Of course, this was much easier to do when the company had five locations, but today, the pair make a strong effort to stay involved as much as possible.

To help the co-owners stay connected, a local manager is appointed to each contracted venue, and although the managers are given a lot of autonomy, they keep Young and Wickner aware of any major challenges.

The local managers are responsible for the operation of their venue, including recruiting staff. “We don’t have a lot of overhead,” Young said. “In addition to my partner and me, we have regional vice presidents, but we allow the local mangers to make decisions on their own, unless it’s about a major financial challenge.”

Making a connection
According to Young, there are a few reasons Comcast Spectacor approached him in the late ’90s, eager to purchase his company. Just prior to 2000, Comcast Spectacor purchased a venue management company, and its team became interested in creating a portfolio of businesses that could provide an array of services to stadiums, arenas, and conventions across the country.

As a foodservice company, Ovations fit perfectly into the portfolio, and because Young already had a strong relationship with Peter Luukko, president of Comcast
Spectacor’s ventures unit, communication was open.

“Comcast Spectacor wanted a foodservice organization that could operate as a separate entity, independent of its management company, and that seemed ideal to us because we wanted to stay involved in all aspects of operation,” Young said.

“I’ve known Peter for 20 years, so when he approached me, we talked openly about both businesses’ visions and goals,” he continued. “It was clear from the start that the two companies were
potentially a great fit.”

Learning and expanding
Although Young and his team pay close attention to Ovation’s growth, they aren’t afraid of expansion. The company doesn’t do a lot of international work at the present time, but its team is trying to establish a presence in countries outside of North America, including Singapore and Croatia.

“We don’t have any contracts in those areas yet because we want to take the time to research and learn about the culture of a region before we begin work there,” Young said. “It’s important that we understand the business habits of the communities we want to work in, but as a foodservice company, it’s especially important that we are familiar with the area’s eating habits.”

Because the team at Ovations has done a lot of work in the US, employees are aware of how much money the average family spends per person at certain events like concerts or football games. These figures are an example of the information Young and his team will research before moving into other countries.

The team at Ovations doesn’t have a goal in terms of international growth, but overall, Young and Wickner hope to double the size of the company in the next five years. “We definitely want to expand the company, but our philosophy today is the same as it has always been,” Young said. “We’ll continue to look at opportunities that arise and take on contracts we know we can manage well.”

And as Ovations continues to grow, Young, Wickner, and their team give back to the communities they work in. As often as possible, the team hires charitable groups to run events, which allows the organizations to earn money for their cause, and if there’s food left over from an event, Ovations will donate it to a local shelter.

To date, the team has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars. “We want to be part of every community we do business in,” Young said. “It’s important that you give back rather than just taking out.”
 
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