Blog Posts
Brendan and Bianca Shah: Collaborate, Don’t Compete
What if the smartest thing you can do with your single biggest advantage is hand it to the competition? Brendan and Bianca Shah run Chado
You Don’t Sell Food and Beverage. You Sell Seats. And That Changes Everything.
What industry most closely parallels the restaurant business? The airline industry. Delta sells seats. So do you. Before you can optimize anything, answer one question: are you in the manufacturing business or the experience business? Most restaurants are confused, and that confusion is killing profitability.
Jeremy Lett: The Product Failed, Not You
What if the real thing holding your restaurant back is your refusal to trust your own taste? Jeremy Lett spent 26 years at Bloomin’ Brands
Seth Gerber: Your Restaurant Is a Factory
What if you can’t actually manage your people, and every hour you spend trying is the reason your restaurant won’t scale? Seth Gerber co-owns MIDA,
Your Event Clients Don’t Want a Deal. They Want to Not Get Fired. Here’s How to Close Them.
Corporate event bookers aren’t looking for a deal. They’re looking to not get fired. What you’re selling is confidence. Reply within one minute and you’re 391% more likely to close. Here’s the complete system from outbound targeting to hand-raising emails to automated follow-up.
Harry Posner & Natalie Dial: Put Staff Before Guests
What if the conventional wisdom about putting customers first is the very reason your restaurant keeps losing good people? Harry Posner and Natalie Dial walked
Philippe Massoud: Built to Last 19 Years
What if the reason your restaurant isn’t built to last is because you designed it to survive instead of dominate? Philippe Massoud opened ilili in
Stop Trying to Fix Tuesday. There’s $15,000 a Week Hiding in Your Weekends.
When you ask someone to come in on a Tuesday, you’re asking them to alter their behavior. That’s incredibly expensive. Instead, focus on influencing behavior during peak hours. Sodici Pizza does $1.4M a year open four days a week. There’s $5,000 to $15,000 hiding in your under-capitalized weekends.
Kyle Willis: The Busy Trap
What if you are the biggest obstacle to your restaurant’s growth? Kyle Willis, VP of Growth at BELAY Solutions, has spent years watching high-capacity operators
How to Build a Restaurant That Can Grow Profitably: Randy Sharpe, Wahlburgers
Most operators think growth means adding more. More menu items. More locations. More channels. More promotions. More complexity. Randy Sharpe’s approach at Wahlburgers was the
Why Restaurants Fail (It’s Almost Never the Food)
Expert Summary The “why restaurants fail” diagnosis most operators reach for is almost always wrong. Restaurants don’t fail on food. They fail on memorability, demand,
Kim Alter: Control Is the Growth Strategy
What if the smartest restaurant you could open wasn’t the biggest, busiest, or most celebrated, but the one you could control? Kim Alter didn’t build
How to Build a Restaurant That Can Survive: Dan Simons of Founding Farmers
Dan Simons had the systems. He had the corporate restaurant training. He had the operational discipline. And his first independent restaurant still failed in 14