Nestle Toll House Cafe by Chip exec feels the heat in upcoming ‘Undercover Boss' episode

Workers at NestleToll House Cafe locations can thank producers of the CBS TV show "Undercover Boss" if cooler heads prevail at cafe locations in the future.

While pretending to be a cafe worker for an upcoming episode of the show, chain executive Shawnon Bellah discovered, among other things that worker "uniforms are super hot to work in."

"You don't realize that these cute beanies that we thought were amazing are actually extremely hot," she said, reflecting on the days spent working at three cafe locations and at an icing manufacturing plant during the summer. "We have some expectations in our service standards, some are unrealistic," she said. "So we are modifying."

Bellah, 38, is chief operating officer at Crest Foods Inc., which oversees operations of and franchising for the Richardson- based dessert chain, which has about 100 locations in the U.S.

For the "Undercover Boss" episode that's set to air Dec. 27, Bellah played the part of a single mom from Oklahoma who was taking part in a reality TV show, trying to win $200,000 to launch her own pie shop. That's only partly non-true.

Bellah is a single mom to a 15-year-old high school freshman son, and an 8th-grade daughter, age 13. Both, she said, were excited about mom's star turn.

During the week of filming, Bellah said she labored side by side with actual cafe workers, taking in their tips on everything from cake icing to frappe making.

The latter provided another lesson: the ingredients and procedures for making frappes are too spread out, resulting in workers having to take too many extra steps to make one drink.

"We haven't done a great job of that," she said of the layout. "That's something that I have our construction team and training team working on now."

Bellah said she was pleased to see, first hand, that workers and consumers are "passionate about the brand."

"It's nice to really see your concept in somebody else's eyes," she said.

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