Month: December 2025

What if the biggest threat to your restaurant’s success isn’t a lack of ideas—but too many of them?

Chris Gannon built BOLAY with the DNA of a legacy brand—his father helped launch Outback Steakhouse. But unlike the bloomin’ days of casual dining, fast-casual success demands ruthless focus.

In this episode, Chris shares how over-innovation almost broke his business, why the need to be creative can kill consistency, and the real lesson behind scaling a scratch-made concept. We get into why most founders outgrow their own systems, how a background in marketing helped him build culture from day one, and the power of saying no to the next shiny object.

If you’re trying to grow without losing your soul—or your sanity—this one’s for you.

To learn more about BOLAY and their mission to make bold, fresh food fast, visit bolay.com
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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you’ll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

Full Comp is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time.

We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other content:

Yelp for Restaurants Podcasts

Restaurant expert videos & webinars

Michael Mina is the best in the biz. He’s mastered excellence at scale. What’s equally impressive is that he’s done it alongside his partner Patric Yumul for the last 20 years.

Think about how much our industry has changed in the last 20 years. Today, the three of us reflect back on their decades long partnership together and look forward to the next chapter of their partnership.

For more on the Mina Group go to https://www.michaelmina.net
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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you’ll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

Full Comp is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time.

We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other content:

Yelp for Restaurants Podcasts

Restaurant expert videos & webinars

What if imposter syndrome wasn’t a weakness, but a compass?

Emily Brubaker didn’t think she was ready to run a resort kitchen. She didn’t think she’d win a national TV competition. But she did both—by betting on her values, not her ego.
In this episode, we get into the real story behind her journey from Vegas fine dining to Omni La Costa. She opens up about leaving the kitchen to raise kids, coming back through heartbreak and grit, and the radical changes she’s making to leadership culture in resorts.

We talk about redefining balance, leading with empathy, and what it looks like to finally believe in yourself—without losing your edge.

This one’s for every operator who’s ever felt like they didn’t belong. Emily shows us that growth doesn’t always start with confidence. Sometimes it starts with a question: “What if I’m wrong about myself?”

To follow her work, check her Instagram @chefbrubs. 

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you’ll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

Full Comp is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time.

We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other content:

Yelp for Restaurants Podcasts

Restaurant expert videos & webinars

Lauren Fernandez went from working in restaurants, to working on restaurants, to influencing the industry at scale. After cutting her teeth as a corporate executive turned franchisee, she’s taken the lessons she’s learned and crafted not only an educational platform, but an investment engine for those that come after her.

Today, we discuss what she’s built and how it works to ease the burden of independent restaurateurs.

For more information on Lauren and Full Course, visit https://www.fullcourse.com/
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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you’ll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

Full Comp is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time.

We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other content:

Yelp for Restaurants Podcasts

Restaurant expert videos & webinars

What if the most powerful thing you bring to your restaurant isn’t a recipe—but your story?

Alon Shaya built Pomegranate Hospitality not on a model, but on a mission: to lead with identity, not conformity. In this episode, he shares how embracing his immigrant past changed everything—from how he cooks, to how he hires, to the way he gives back. We get into the power of cultural storytelling in a commodity industry, the systems that let passion scale, and why he built an entire nonprofit around the teacher who saved his life.

This is for every operator who’s tired of chasing trends, and ready to build something real.

To learn more about Pomegranate Hospitality, visit pomegranatehospitality.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you’ll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

Full Comp is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time.

We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other content:

Yelp for Restaurants Podcasts

Restaurant expert videos & webinars

I’m Josh Kopel, a Michelin-awarded restaurateur and the creator of the Restaurant Scaling System. I’ve spent decades in the industry, building, scaling, and coaching restaurants to become more profitable and sustainable. On this show, I cut through the noise to give you real, actionable strategies that help independent restaurant owners run smarter, more successful businesses.

Today I dig into what customer loyalty really means and why so many programs miss the mark. Loyalty is not about discounts. It is about access, recognition, and the feeling of being valued. I break down how small moments of surprise and genuine connection can drive more repeat visits than any points system. If you want your guests to come back more often and spend more when they do, these strategies will help you build relationships that last.
 
Takeaways

• Loyalty should be about access, not just perks.
• Recognition is key to building emotional equity.
• Surprise elements in loyalty programs enhance customer engagement.
• Creating thresholds in loyalty fosters a sense of belonging.
• Handwritten notes can significantly improve customer relationships.
• Loyalty programs should focus on privilege rather than discounts.
• Emotional economics can drive customer loyalty effectively.
• Regulars should feel special through personalized experiences.
• Surprise and delight can differentiate your restaurant from competitors.
• Tracking changes in loyalty strategies can reveal valuable insights.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Hospitality Insights

01:26 Rethinking Customer Loyalty

05:48 Creating Emotional Connections with Guests

If you’ve got a marketing or profitability related question for me, email me directly at josh@joshkopel.com and include Office Hours in the subject line. If you’d like to scale the profitability of your restaurant in only 5 days, sign up for our FREE 5 Day Restaurant Profitability Challenge by visiting https://joshkopel.com.

What if staying quiet is the riskiest move you can make?

Katherine Miller built her career where politics and policy collide—and she’s not afraid to bring chefs into the fight. From her early days in democratic campaigns to working with global nonprofits and the UN, Katherine’s mission has been clear: empower the most trusted voices in food to influence the systems that shape it.

In this episode, we dig into why chefs are uniquely positioned to drive real change, how restaurant owners can speak up without alienating guests, and the surprising cost of silence in today’s political climate. She shares a clear, actionable framework for advocacy and explains why being apolitical doesn’t protect you—it sidelines you.

For any operator wondering how to take a stand without losing their seat at the table, this is the conversation you’ve been waiting for.

To learn more about her work and pick up a copy of At the Table, visit table81.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you’ll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

Full Comp is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time.

We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other content:

Yelp for Restaurants Podcasts

Restaurant expert videos & webinars

When you open a restaurant you’ve investing in more than a business, you’re investing in a community.  As we change and evolve as individuals so do our communities and few places more beautifully illustrate this capacity to change more than Portland, Oregon. 

Today’s we chat with, Portland’s adopted son, Celebrity Chef Gregory Gourdet. Instead of staking his claim in his hometown of New York or following the trends out to Los Angeles, Gregory has chosen to walk a more complicated path, using this talent and his food to help mend together a community that is still struggling to become the best version of itself.

For more on the chef visit https://www.gregorygourdet.com

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you’ll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

Full Comp is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time.

We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other content:

Yelp for Restaurants Podcasts

Restaurant expert videos & webinars

I’m Josh Kopel, a Michelin-awarded restaurateur and the creator of the Restaurant Scaling System. I’ve spent decades in the industry, building, scaling, and coaching restaurants to become more profitable and sustainable. On this show, I cut through the noise to give you real, actionable strategies that help independent restaurant owners run smarter, more successful businesses.

In this episode, I dig into what real storytelling looks like and why so many brands get it wrong. Authenticity is not a vibe, it is evidence. Your audience can feel the difference between polished propaganda and the truth. I explain why showing your process builds more trust than any perfect promo ever could and how behind the scenes content can change the way people see your business. If you are trying to reconnect with your audience or rebuild credibility, this is the place to start.
 
Takeaways

• Shop floor storytelling can rebuild credibility.
• Authenticity is evidence, not just a vibe.
• Polished content without process appears as propaganda.
• Identical restaurant marketing leads to audience distrust.
• Behind-the-scenes content increases engagement.
• People crave permission to trust brands.
• Stripping back promotional content can boost engagement.
• Engagement can triple with authentic content.
• Social media feeds are often overly polished.
• Transparency is key to audience connection.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Hospitality Insights

00:56 Building Credibility Through Process and Proof

If you’ve got a marketing or profitability related question for me, email me directly at josh@joshkopel.com and include Office Hours in the subject line. If you’d like to scale the profitability of your restaurant in only 5 days, sign up for our FREE 5 Day Restaurant Profitability Challenge by visiting https://joshkopel.com.

What if the biggest threat to your restaurant isn’t bad food or poor service—but bad tech?

That’s the bet Ankit Gupta is making. After shaping food delivery at tech companies globally, he saw a blind spot no one was fixing: restaurant tech was leaving restaurants behind. 

Now he’s leading the product team at Otter, and his mission is clear: to completely redefine what a restaurant point of sale system is and how it can holistically serve the changing needs of restaurants today.

In today’s conversation, he shares why POS systems should be more than a way of collecting revenue–they should be creating new revenue opportunities, how data and marketing can work together through automation to scale your brand, and what operators can learn from manufacturers to scale profitability.

This is more than a conversation about tech—it’s a conversation about identity, resilience, and realizing that the tools that will free us in the future already exist today.

To learn more about Otter and the most powerful restaurant operating system ever created, visit tryotter.com.

_________________________________________________________

Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you’ll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

Full Comp is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time.

We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other content:

Yelp for Restaurants Podcasts

Restaurant expert videos & webinars