Undercover Boss Analysis of John Fuller: CEO of Johnny Rockets
Name: John Fuller
Title: CEO of Johnny Rockets
Headquarters: Lake Forest, CA
Product or Service: classic hamburger restaurant chain
Brief Overview:
In this week’s episode of “Undercover Boss”, John Fuller, CEO of Johnny Rockets, will attempt a variety of restaurant positions, despite never having worked in a restaurant before, while undercover as “Tom Carter”.
Analysis
Scene from AJays new single "Medium Well".
Scene from AJays new single "Medium Well".
Position 1: Cook
Overview: AJay shows “Tom” how to cook burgers, and apply the special sauce.
Result: John doesn’t quite master the grill. At one point, AJay brings out his mushroom and cheese fry creation. AJay has submitted this creation to corporate, but has not hear back. AJay, with dreams of becoming a musician, gives John a taste of his rap skills.
How he made amends: John decides to test out AJay’s cheese fry recipe at a limited number of stores. If it does well, it will be added permanently to the menu as “The AJay Special”. AJay is also given 2 tickets to the American Music Festival.
What he should have done: John made a valiant attempt at the new menu item issue, but was a bit off target. The issue here is not specific to the mushroom/cheese fry submission. Rather, it’s with the process of the submission itself.
John should have looked to improve the internal process of accepting and reviewing employee recipe submissions.
Yep, I would have selected her as the new dance instructor too.
Yep, I would have selected her as the new dance instructor too.
Position 2: Server
Overview: “Tom” attempts to takes orders, serve food, and perform the team dances, under Janice’s supervision.
Result: John learns that many employees, including Janice, despise the corporate dance moves, and have developed their own. Janice is the breadwinner in her family, and wants nothing more than memories with her children, but struggles financially.
How he made amends: John asks Janice to assist corporate with compiling new dance moves. She was told that she’d be compensated fairly.
John also tells Janice to take her family on an all expenses paid vacation to the Grand Canyon, in memory of her father, who passed away before he got to do so himself.
Lastly, he setups up each of her four children with a $2,000 college fund.
What he should have done: John makes a good call here by including employee opinion in the choreography of upcoming dances, considering they are the ones that have to perform them. Keep them fresh so they don’t go stale. That was a food joke.
"Milkshakes for Dummies"
"Milkshakes for Dummies"
Position 3: Bartender
Overview: Claudia teaches “Tom” the basics of bartending, in an unfortunately empty bar.
Result: John’s cover is nearly blown when he’s recognized by two customers, but Claudia doesn’t catch it. John has a big concern about the emptiness of the bar on a Monday night. He and Claudia go outside on the street to drum up business.
How he made amends: John offers to pay Claudia’s rent for a full year, because he’s concerned that she’s not going to make enough at an empty bar.
What he should have done: Bad move, Fuller. You’re treating the symptom and not the cause. The money spent on her rent should instead be spent on marketing the new sports bar feature – duh! Drive traffic to her bar and her financial worries should take care of themselves.
Way to happy for a chili dog.
Way to happy for a chili dog.
Position 4: Food Runner
Overview: “Tom” works alongside Tony, delivering food to tables with utmost haste.
Result: Tony is an exceptional worker, with an unfortunate past. John learns that Tony had a string of bad luck.
His daughter Nikki was murdered, and for quite some time he lived under the boardwalk, homeless. Johnny Rockets gave him a shot at getting back on his feet.
How he made amends: Tony is offered an all expenses paid trip to an amusement park of his choice with his family.
John tells Tony that he’d like to make a $5,000 donation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Nikki’s name. Tony is also given $5,000 to assist with his financial situation.
What he should have done: With the exception of Tony’s personal hardships, there were no real issues presented in this position. It was merely a test of John’s empathy and generosity – which he aced.
Grade:
This Rocket Double is really more of a Single.
John Fuller nailed about 65% of the issues presented to him. Odd – that’s about how often they get my order right.
PS – Did this episode make anyone else hungry?
Don’t like our grade? Drop us a rebuttal, and leave a comment below.
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I am upset that John Fuller was marked down for paying Claudia’s rent. He met with the franchise owner and discussed setting up an appointment with a marketing expert to generate more publicity for the sports bar. The rent money was just to keep Claudia employed with them until the marketing expert started to generate more business! Also, no mention was made of his plan to have all new executives go through this same experience! This is a phenomenal way to get executives to really understand the company that they are running!!! He should have received and A for this idea alone! Whoever, wrote this article should have paid more attention to the show!
We ate at the Johnny Rockets at Six Flags in St. Louis. My daughter is allergic to gluten and the manager refused to give us a hamburger without a bun. She cannot eat anything that touches foods with gluten in it. It is very disturbing that you will not accommodate people with food allergies. We visited this restaurant because on Undercover Boss your company was portrayed as a good family restaurant. What a lie! Even though you only have a few selections of food to choose from and will not make any substitutions, it took more than one hour to get our food. The workers were rude, the manager is incompetent and the facility was not clean. I plan to share my experience on Facebook and verbally with co-workers. We will NEVER eat there again. Misrepresentation of your company through a tv show should be a crime. Chris Jackson.
What a value added show and J Fuller is an example of a human being with values and morals. Definately a boss who everyone would want to work for.
I love when he was undercover, he is really nice guy. He might not do everything right for every cases but I can feel that he had good intention to his employees.
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I find It truly useful & it helped me out much. I hope to give something back and help others like you helped me.
I recently visited The Banks location in Cincinnati, OHIO. I will tell you that John Fuller, CEO needs to do more than just what is showed in the Undercover Boss episode. I just caught this last night in (rerun) form, slightly ironic considering what I went through. Visited The Banks location, before a Cincinnati Reds game with my family. Service was okay I suppose, she never really came back to see if we needed anything, stood behind our booth @ the kiosk they use to input tickets, complaining to another employee about how she had been talked to for her service in the dining room and patio areas. So she finally brings my bill, amount was $58.89, sorry folks but I left a $5.00 tip. Again, not happy with her service, only to discover two days later that she upped her tip $20! I called immediately to the location, spoke to a manager, gave my complaint. Said it would be looked into. Never heard back. Sent two emails to Corporate, as well as a phone call to them to. Days upon days nothing. No refund, no call back, no email. NOTHING! It is not over a week later, I check my bank, no refund, I call them again, only to be told that yes 5 days ago they supposedly issued me a $20 refund for the matter. No one likes giving their name, no one even apologized for the matter. I am still waiting to see if the truth has been told on my refund. HOWEVER, I will never visit another Johnny Rockets in my life. The entire business from the top down is completely lousy!!!!
“John Fuller nailed about 65% of the issues presented to him. Odd – that’s about how often they get my order right.” Article ended with an exaggerated and ‘corny,’ end. #Sensatiionalism
I would like to meet John Fuller!