Not a technology. Not a data strategy. Not a luxury hotel concept. A human framework for the independent restaurant operator who wants to understand why their best servers are different from their good ones. Here is the distinction. Unobtrusive Service...

Tech has to support the Guest Experience, not supplant it. Fourteen waves of receipts.Since 1982, my position on technology in our business has been the same.Tech has to support the Guest Experience, not supplant it.That year was the first time...

It never ceases to amaze me how many people post content about how to do things they’ve never actually done.I’m not talking about researchers, academics, or analysts. They have a lane and they know it. I’m talking about platform CEOs...

Your Guest has already decided.Not after the food arrived. Not after the check. Before the server said a word. The emotional read landed the moment they walked in — the room, the energy, the feel of the place — and...

In 1969, Warren Buffett wrote a line in his partnership letter that most investors have read and almost none have fully applied: “Commitments of less than about $3 million cannot have a real impact on our overall performance.” Three million...

A bankruptcy court just approved the breakup of Fat Brands across four separate transactions. Eighteen restaurant chains. $1.4 billion in debt. One concept shut down entirely before the sale was even complete. Thirteen brands handed to the lenders who financed...

There is no feeling in this business quite like a full dining room.Tables occupied. Conversations overlapping. The pass moving. The cast in rhythm. The kind of energy that makes you forget, for a few hours, everything that keeps you up...

After 44 years in this business, I still ask questions to anyone with a pulse in the operation.Not because I lack confidence in my own judgment. Because I understand something that took me longer than I’d like to admit to...

A paper published earlier this year compared more than 350 AI models and looked at the questions they get wrong. When models fail, they tend to fail together, agreeing on the same wrong answer about 60% of the time. Random...

An unhappy Guest is the most honest feedback the marketplace will ever hand you. It costs nothing to receive and most operators waste it anyway. Not because they don’t care. Because they’re managing their own discomfort instead of the Guest’s...