It won’t surprise you to learn that most survey respondents classified “staffing shortage” as a top 3 concern for 2025. According to Toast, restaurant turnover is averaging around 75%. An all time high….

Fact: more millionaires than non-millionaires own Ferraris. Conclusion: if you want to be a millionaire, buy a Ferrari?

Of course this is silly. It’s not the Ferrari that causes people to be millionaires, it’s that…

Each year, the prestigious James Beard Foundation releases what it calls the Independent Restaurant Industry Report. This report is a compilation of data gathered by the Foundation

Today I’m launching a video series on my new Youtube channel called Menu Mayhem where I take menus submitted by you and break them down—what’s going well, what needs improvement, and what this menu is communicating to guests.

There are going to be fewer investment dollars to go around. Neatly compiled in this X thread by journalist Catherine Rampell, a number of Wall Street analysts are predicting significant interest rate increases under the new Trump administration.

I recently read a piece from Noah Kagan (a prominent voice in the tech business world) about the lessons he learned much earlier in his career at a small early stage startup called Facebook. While I was going through it, I noticed that although the post is aimed at the tech world, the lessons are good for anyone who’ll listen. So here’s my adaptation.

So when we visit a restaurant that places “cocktails” in its name, we go in with enthusiasm, excitement, and high expectations. A feeling that, lately, a lot of these places seem dead set on taking from us. It got me thinking - what’s missing? When you see "cocktails" proudly displayed in the restaurant's branding, why is the result so often a letdown? For me, the answer comes down to one thing: identity.

How can I, one person, be expected to build and maintain a menu, keep up with vendors, rotate inventory, design and maintain a dining area, build a compelling cocktail list, handle customer complains, schedule and hire staff... The truth is, you can’t.

I run a restaurant consulting company. I know better than most how crucial feedback is for restaurant success. And in that moment, I just didn’t. I didn’t want to prolong my negative experience. I didn’t want to speak to a manager who I was pretty sure would argue with me given the overall state of service ... I just wanted to go.

Checklists are everywhere in restaurants. Or at least, they ought to be. The book spends a fair number of pages trying to convince obstinate professionals that checklists can bring considerable value to even the most highly-trained among us, and in some cases, even save lives.

For more than 15 years, I’ve helped companies ... Nearly every single day of those 15 years, I received an email or a call from a salesman (one time on my personal phone at 7am) promising me that they had the silver bullet...