Most restaurant owners think they do not have a story to tell on social media.

They are too busy to post. They’re worried that food costs are up. Labor is tight. The ice machine is broken. Someone called out. A vendor is late.

There’s always an excuse to not post.

So when people like me say, “You should tell more stories online,” it feels like one more thing on the really big to do list.

But storytelling does not have to start with a camera crew, a viral idea, or a polished brand campaign.

It can start with an orange tree.

At Cali BBQ, there is an orange tree outside the restaurant. On the surface, it is just a tree.

It is not the barbecue smoker. It is not the menu. It is not the tri-tip or any of the things that look obvious from the outside the business.

It’s a tree that holds our history.

It connects back to family. My Bulgarian grandfather bought the property in the late 1970s. He and my uncle planted fruit trees, flowers, and built a fountain.

Years later, Cali BBQ opened in that same spot. The business became a sports bar destination, survived hard years, made mistakes, opened ghost kitchens, closed ghost kitchens, and kept going.

And the orange tree continued to survive.

Later, during the pandemic, Cali BBQ started to transform into what we started calling “the Amazon of BBQ.” We added new smokers, changed the back patio, and needed more space for trucks and operations.

The practical business decision was obvious: remove the orange tree.

But my wife Rosi said no.

She fought for the tree because it meant something.

It was tied to family, to Bulgaria, to gardens, to memory, to the life around the restaurant that existed before the current version of the business.

The business needed to grow.

She was right, the tree needed to stay.

It’s a part of our story.

Most owners miss this. They think their story has to be just about the product.

Now here’s a thought exercise for you to try:

What object inside your restaurant carries more meaning than a stranger would ever know?

Whatever you thought of just now is a story that should be told.

It might be a photo on the wall. A recipe from a grandparent. A table that has been there since day one.

The point is not the object. The point is the meaning attached to it.

Restaurant owners spend so much time inside the four walls that they forget to step back and see what the business actually represents.

The orange tree is a reminder to change perspective. Get outside the building. Look at the restaurant the way a guest, a family member, or an old friend might see it.

I’ve told my orange tree story on stages, in videos (like the one you can watch at the top of this post), and in conversations with other restaurant owners. Now people fly into San Diego, visit Cali BBQ, and ask if they can take a picture with the tree.

That’s because the story gave the right people a reason to care.

This is a lesson for every restaurant owner and small business owner trying to figure out social media. You do not need to invent a brand story. You already have one.

You just need to find your Orange Tree. Then tell people why it matters.

-Shawn (@shawnpwalchef)

Try Cerboni

I knew. I knew. I knew.

But here is what that “knowing” actually built: A low-paying job that couldn’t function without me.

That’s the problem: I wore the “owner-operator” title like a badge of honor for 10 straight years.

I knew how to open. Close. Open again on zero sleep.

I knew how to redesign menus, market to families, bring in master pitmasters, make social media, and throw street closure festivals right outside the front door of my restaurant Cali BBQ.

It’s a trap.

You think you’re building a business when you dig so deep into a trench. You’re actually building a cage.

And you’re the only one with the keys, which means you can never leave.

My grandfather taught me one of the most important lessons of my life, and I ignored it for a decade when I was stuck in that trap: Learn how to ask for help.

Not how to work harder. Not how to grind longer.

How to look another human being in the eye and say: “I don’t know. Please show me.”

The operators who stay stuck don’t lack work ethic, they have too much of it. What they lack is proximity.

When I started listening to entrepreneurship podcasts, I read The Proximity Principle. The concept fits on a napkin: Surround yourself with people accomplishing more than you are. Ask questions. Ask for advice. Ask for help.

You cannot do that standing behind your own counter. You have to get outside your four walls to be around growth-minded operators who are building businesses as CEOs, not protecting jobs that die the day they take a vacation.

***

That’s why I’m posting this from the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes at CREATE 2026 — the event by Nation’s Restaurant News and Informa built for emerging restaurant brands ready to scale.

Cali BBQ Media isn’t just attending. We’re a gold level sponsor.

Why? Because this show understands why we do what we do.

The agenda today alone is impressive:

• Scott Boatwright (CEO of Chipotle) sits down for an operator spotlight.

• Steve Ells (Chipotle Founder) and Tom Cortese (Peloton Co-Founder) take the stage to discuss their new concept, Counter Service.

250 multi-unit operators, investors, and dealmakers are in the room. No jumbotrons. No polished corporate keynotes. Just real leaders sharing their real mistakes in public.

How to Connect With Us Today:

📍 If you are at CREATE: Come up to our media table! We want to hear your story and help you amplify it with content.

📱 If you are not at CREATE: Tune in TODAY at 5:15 PM PT for our first-ever Rising Tides Live show streamed directly from the conference floor on the Cali BBQ Media YouTube Channel.

I’ll be joined live by these guests (and more):

• Troy Hooper (CEO of Hot Palette America, scaling Pepper Lunch across North America)

• Mike Ungaro (San Pedro Fish Market)

• Laura Wilber (Dinova)

• Jennifer Dodd (Main Squeeze Juice Co.)

The four walls of your restaurant will teach you how to survive. The people outside of them will teach you how to grow.

Stay Curious. Get Involved. Ask for Help. 🤝

-Shawn

Subscribe now

It has this beautiful postcard blue that doesn’t look real until you’re standing in it.

The water is memorable, for sure but something I’ll remember much more is a restaurant owner I didn’t expect to meet, who couldn’t get a word out as his eyes filled with tears.

But before we get into that story and lesson, I want to tell you how we ended up here.

Greece was our vacation after a whirlwind work trip with Toast in London and then Dublin.

We planned a lot of those trips in advance but when we got to our vacation spot we left our fate in the hands of humans and code.

Every AI tool I poked at, from Claude to Gemini to ChatGPT, to ask where the best seafood on the coast was, kept spitting back the same name: Aristos.

Our rental host also told us to go there, too. The tour boat company even said we had to try it.

Artificial intelligence and human intelligence, pointing at the exact same door.

Here’s what I think: When the algorithms and the locals agree, you go.

We came into Ormos Panagias by boat. No reservation, no plan, just salt and diesel in the air and somebody grilling close by. A kid caught our line and tied us off a few steps from Aristos Restaurant like he’d done it ten thousand times, because he had.

A table opened the second we walked up. The kind of timing you stop questioning. Our chairs sat right in the sand. The Aegean Sea kept rolling in beside us like it was part of the service.

While we waited on the food, there was a paper placemat on the table. An old black and white photo of a harbor, a few boats, a village built into the rock. A few lines of text under it. I read it the way you read anything in front of you when you’re hungry and happy. Then they walked us into the fish cooler and told us to pick, and I forgot all about it.

Local fish. Grilled shrimp. Sushi. Calamari.

It was as good as anything I’ve ever tasted.

But the food is never the story. The food is the bait.

I’ll be honest. This was a family vacation. Barefoot, board shorts, zero plans to work. We did not come to Greece to shoot restaurant interviews. But when a story is sitting right in front of you, you do not let it walk out the door. You investigate. You pull out the phone in your pocket and you tell the thing that needs telling.

So somewhere in the meal I told our server the truth. That I’m a podcaster from California who shows up in restaurants and pulls the stories out of the people running them. I asked if the owner was around.

A few minutes later, Aristos walked over.

Not from an office. There was no office. He was on the floor, running tables, working the room with his wife, one eye on a son expediting plates out of the kitchen.

Two generations on the floor. One lunch service. Nobody hiding behind a desk.

He gave me a few minutes. Walked me across the little street to the building where it actually started, the original room from 1971. He stopped me in front of a framed black and white photo on the wall and said, this is where it all started.

And I froze. Because I knew that photo.

It was the same one from the placemat on my table. The harbor. The boats. The village in the rock. I’d been holding his family’s origin story in my hands an hour earlier and didn’t know it. Grandpa, barba Mitsos, who started the whole thing in 1971 by teaching his village how to fish. Hard work, simplicity, and love. That was the recipe, printed right there.

The same photo on the wall of the first building. And in front of every single guest, every single meal.

With this much attention to detail everywhere I looked, that was no accident. So I had to ask him why.

He told me about 2003. The promise he made his mother that he’d protect what they built. The hospitality. The standards. All of it.

That photo wasn’t decoration. It was the contract. To his late mother. To his grandfather. Signed and re-signed every time a guest sits down and finds it waiting at the table.

So I told him what I actually believed. That his grandfather and his mother would be proud as hell of what he’s built.

And the man couldn’t speak.

Tears for the fifteen-hour days. For carrying somebody else’s promise like it was his own spine. For building something good enough that the next generation actually wants it.

I got a little wrecked too. Standing there barefoot in my board shorts, the Aegean a few feet away, the original building at my back. Salt water on both sides of me, the sea and my own face.

Because this is the whole reason I do the work.

Technology changes. Algorithms change. Platforms show up, disappear, and take your reach with them.

But the great ones still get built the way they always have. One family. One guest. One meal. One promise kept.

Every restaurant has a story. A beginning. A contract. A family commitment. Most of them just never tell you. Aristos hands you his before the food even arrives.

And here’s the part that sticks with me. The machines and the humans both sent me to the same place. But only one of them could tell me why it mattered. AI found me the meal. Aristos gave me the story. And all it took to capture it was the phone in my pocket and the instinct to never let an opportunity like that pass.

If you’re going to Greece, go to Aristos Restaurant. I’ll tell anyone who’ll listen.

Not just because it’s one of the best seafood meals of my life.

Because once you hear Aristos tell it, you know exactly what’s on the menu.

They’re serving legacy.

-Shawn

Every time you share one of our posts, you’re helping inspire other people to take their hospitality to the next level.

Share

It was 4:45 in the morning on the South Wall in Dublin. My son Kalin, David from our team, and I walked out to the Poolbeg Lighthouse to watch the sun come up over Dublin Bay.

The sky was changing color by the minute, the sea was flat and quiet, and the whole city was still asleep behind us.

I gave Kalin his spot and asked him to hold the lighthouse for a photo. He wasn’t interested in the lighthouse. He pointed past it, out at the horizon where the light was breaking, and asked me a question I haven’t been able to put down since.

“Daddy, can I hold the sunrise?”

I laughed and took the picture. But the longer the trip went on, the more that question explained the whole experience to me. I was busy framing the landmark; he was reaching for what the landmark was only there to point at.

That’s what the best storytellers do—they look past the obvious subject to find the thing that actually matters. Sometimes they’re restaurant operators. Sometimes they’re technology leaders. And sometimes they’re nine years old, standing on a seawall in Ireland.

People ask me how we end up making content for a company like Toast, and the honest answer is that it started with a single story we told about ourselves.

In July 2020, we filmed our first Toast unboxing video because I was sure there were other operators online looking for answers from someone actually running a restaurant, instead of someone just selling to one.

That was the easy part.

The hard part was everything wrapped around it—and there were nine years of it. The videos that weren’t good. The episodes nobody streamed. The five years we made almost no media money—not because the work wasn’t there, but because we were building belief before we were building a business.

Share

Trust is the slowest thing you can build and the fastest thing you can spend. We spent nine years building it before anyone was keeping score, and Dublin was where it finally paid out.

Because here’s what people miss about the trip: there was no creative brief.

Toast didn’t hand us a script, a shot list, or a list of interviews. They trusted us to go find the story ourselves. That kind of trust doesn’t get extended in three days. It gets earned over years of showing up.

We arrived at DION Rooftop with a simple plan—film, meet the team, tell a good restaurant story—and walked away with something we never could have planned. Allen Clancy happened to be onsite for a development meeting. I introduced myself, told him what we do, and he agreed to sit down with us. It became one of the most memorable interviews I’ve ever recorded.

Partway through, he mentioned that Díon means “roof” in Irish. I told him I started my media company on the roof of my restaurant in San Diego. We both stopped for a second. Two hospitality people, opposite sides of the world, connected by a rooftop and the same core belief that stories matter.

You don’t plan moments like that. You just have to be present enough to recognize them—the same way Kalin recognized the sunrise while I was focused on the lighthouse.

Later, while we were filming around the city, a local tour guide stopped to talk. He saw the cameras and asked for a few YouTube tips, and before he left, I asked him his favorite landmark in Dublin.

He didn’t hesitate. “The people.”

Not the buildings, not the cathedrals. The people.

After three days, I knew exactly what he meant.

Cara Kelly welcomed the whole Walchef Wolfpack into the Toast Dublin office and introduced us to the team powering the company’s growth across Europe.

John Ennis of The Lucky Tortoise opened doors and showed us the city through the eyes of someone who deeply loves its restaurant community. The hospitality was never something people talked about. It was something they practiced.

The Irish people are the landmark.

Three days isn’t enough to understand a city. But it’s enough to understand why people love it.

Years from now, I’ll forget the schedules, the flight times, and maybe some of the podcasts.

But I won’t forget standing on that seawall with my son, watching the light come up over the bay, and hearing him ask if he could hold it.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh. One hundred thousand thanks.

Subscribe now

This is something I learned this week: London doesn’t care about your itinerary.

The city rewards the people who show up hungry, curious, and willing to ask. That’s how the best stories have always found me — not in the planning, but in the showing up, camera rolling and phone charged.

Here’s five memorable moments that I’m carrying home with me from my 2026 trip to London.

As always you can follow along with me on social media as we travel the world this summer. @shawnpwalchef @calibbqmedia

Share

1. ‘Be The Show’ Went International.

There’s a strange kind of vertigo that comes from standing in a London hotel, delivering my Be The Show storytelling keynote to the International Toast Customer Advisory Board, while your mind drifts eight time zones back to Spring Valley, California.

After my Toast International CAB presentation, we visited the Toast London office to film a tour and unbox a Toast Go 3 — and all I could think about was the first time we unboxed Toast at Cali BBQ, a barbecue joint in a tough location, betting on technology before it was obvious.

From founding CAB member to the IPO, from the Restaurant Influencers podcast to launching Built for Busy in Times Square, and now telling stories with Toast on another continent — the lesson is simple. Relationships compound.

And we are nowhere near finished.

2. My Wolfpack Made It Unforgettable.

Business brought us to London, but family is what I’ll remember.

A sunrise gratitude walk with my son Kalin past Buckingham Palace before the crowds arrived.

An Uber Boat ride down the Thames, gliding under Tower Bridge, thinking about how much my grandfather would have loved that view.

The Changing of the Guard in proper English rain, the Natural History Museum, Tube rides with the kids, and Soho dinners at Toast-powered restaurants like Pastaio.

The meetings brought us here. The moments between them are what stay.

3. A Remote Team Now In Person.

Cam flew in from Buenos Aires. David came from Bulgaria. Chance made the trip from San Diego.

We’re a remote-first company, and most days that works beautifully — but there’s something that happens when you drop a team from three continents into a foreign city with one shared mission: tell great stories.

The work gets sharper. The relationships get deeper. The vision gets clearer. You can’t Slack your way to that.

4. The Best Interviews Weren’t Planned.

At dinner at Fowl, we asked the GM if we could film in the kitchen. Chef Will happened to be on site that night, and after a quick check, he agreed to come on camera.

Then he took us underground — through the kitchen that connects Fowl to its parent restaurant, Fallow — and a simple ask turned into a full Restaurant Influencers episode for Entrepreneur. No booking, no production plan, no guarantees. Just a question.

That same spirit carried us through the week: Jon Spiteri and his son Fin at The Latimer, the team at Black Cactus BBQ — recently named the best barbecue outside the United States — Mason Potter of Grateful, the CEO of Tenzo, and Scot Turner with the crew behind Homies on Donkeys, one of the most exciting restaurant concepts in London.

Every one of those conversations started the same way: “Would you be open to sharing your story?”

5. Technology Created Human Connection.

This trip wasn’t really powered by airline miles and hotel keys. It was powered by AI assistants, Slack threads, WhatsApp messages, LinkedIn introductions, and years of podcast episodes.

Technology made the connections. Storytelling made them meaningful. And restaurants — as they always have — gave us a table to gather around.

That’s the future I’m betting everything on: the intersection of hospitality, technology, media, and human connection.

Next stop on this European Media Adventure: Dublin — with more Toast storytelling, more restaurant stories, more adventures with the Wolfpack.

What’s the best thing that ever happened to you simply because you showed up? Let’s start a conversation in the comments.

Leave a comment

• Toast IQ - learn more

• Toast IQ Grow - learn more

• Toast Seamless Checkout - learn more

• Toast Finance - learn more

When I talk to product innovators and executive leadership to break down the latest technology innovations, I always have a specific mission: extract real-world operational ROI.

We spent time at the National Restaurant Show capturing explainer videos and other interesting stories on the floor with the exact people building these sorts of tools.

What we learned from Toast at the Show marks a fundamental shift for independent restaurants.

If you want ROI, here’s a story for you.

Subscribe now

Toast IQ: The $4,000 Labor Saving Use Case

Historically, my restaurant Cali BBQ in San Diego opened at 10:00 AM for NFL Sundays, but recently shifted to 11:00 AM. We were actively debating whether we should switch back to 10:00 AM to capture early breakfast traffic.

In the past that would have been an easy yes. Open an hour early, just in case. Why not? The answer was right in front of us, we just didn’t know how to look for it.

We learned an important and valuable lesson when we looked at the actual data provided by Toast.

Massive data analysis and lots of time used to be required to project labor costs versus historical sales. Instead of building manual spreadsheets, we opened Toast IQ and asked it to analyze the move.

• The Speed: In less than a minute, the AI parsed our historical multi-location Sunday data.

• The Decision: It mapped out historical labor costs against projected morning revenue gaps and clearly advised us not to open the extra hour early.

• The ROI: By trusting that data-driven insight, we kept our doors closed until 11:00 AM and saved $4,000 in unnecessary labor costs right out of the gate.

One of the greatest pain points for modern restaurant owners is that we are absolutely drowning in data, but we don’t have the time to act like data scientists.

We’re busy. No wants to spend hours drilling down into fragmented analytics dashboards just to figure out a basic operational scheduling shift.

Toast IQ solves this by putting a conversational, natural-language AI assistant directly inside the Toast Web dashboard. Instead of digging through legacy reports, you just ask it a question in plain text.

Toast also spotlighted Toast IQ Actions.

The AI can now execute changes directly from the chat interface. You can update menu pricing, add immediate upsell prompts (which drive checks 35% higher on average), or toggle item availability via text. To support diverse back-of-house teams, it natively understands and replies in multiple languages, including Spanish, Chinese, and Korean.

We are moving past the era of the passive point-of-sale system that simply collects data and forces you to analyze it.

The future is Agentic — with tech infrastructure that actively runs your marketing, automatically prompts your high-margin menu upsells, forecasts your cash flow, and handles administrative execution.

Share

Toast IQ Grow: Automating Your Marketing Burden

Marketing is usually the very first thing independent owners drop when the kitchen gets slammed. Toast used the show floor to highlight Toast IQ Grow for operators who are simply too busy running a restaurant to act as full-time digital marketer.

This is an all-in-one growth suite that pairs Toast’s core marketing ecosystem (Email, SMS, loyalty, gift cards) with their brand-new AI Marketing Agent (Beta) and a dedicated human Marketing Success Manager for a flat monthly rate.

Powerful software + smart AI + human oversight. That’s a powerful equation.

We watched a tech demo with Jake from the Toast team showing how an empty content calendar can be completely populated in minutes.

You simply type a goal into the chat. Something like: “Drive more weekday traffic; plan one email and one Instagram post per week to push traffic Tuesday through Thursday.”

Because the marketing tool is natively connected to your POS, the AI automatically cross-references your guest base, your highest-margin menu items, and your slow windows to generate high-retention campaigns.

The Numbers:

• Emails sent using the AI Marketing Agent are driving 7%+ more sales attributed directly to link clicks compared to campaigns created by humans alone.

• On average, restaurants utilizing the combined human-and-AI managed service see an 8% increase in total sales compared to cohort venues, with top-performing operators hitting 40%+ revenue growth.

Seamless Checkout: Erasing End-of-Meal Friction

The “dropped check dance” at the end of a full-service meal is painful for guests and a massive margin-killer for table turns. Everyone hates waiting 15 minutes to catch a server’s eye just to pay a bill.

We looked at a handheld terminal demo with Alexandra from the Toast team to break down their new Seamless Checkout feature, which completely eliminates this bottleneck:

1. A guest inputs and saves their credit card on file when booking a table via Toast Tables or Resy.

2. The server runs service completely as normal via their handheld terminal.

3. When the guests are ready to split, the server brings up the reservation on the Toast handheld, verifies the card is on file, and confirms the charge.

4. The guest signs, tips right on the screen, and walks out.

Guests still retain the complete flexibility to split the bill or change to a physical card if they want, but for regulars and business diners, it creates an ultra-premium, frictionless exit that turns tables faster and keeps a busy service lane moving.

Toast Finance: Proactive Cash Flow Management

Waiting until the 20th of the next month for an accountant to hand you a statement to see if you actually made money is a stressful way to live.

We synced up with Michel Rbeiz, Senior Vice President and General Manager of FinTech at Toast, to talk about how they are tackling cash flow anxiety. Michel walked us through the Toast Finance interface, which aims to make manual book reconciliation obsolete.

• Unified Financial Picture: The platform continuously pulls together all internal Toast processing accounts and external connected commercial bank accounts into a single dashboard updated in real time.

• Self-Reconciling Books: Built with AI to automatically categorize sales and expenses on the fly, offering proactive cash flow forecasting.

• Rapid Access to Capital: If the system detects a tight cash window or an immediate expansion opportunity, the dashboard displays pre-approved Toast Capitalbalances. The live demo showed pre-approvals (up to $200,000) accessible within 1 to 2 business days without traditional banking red tape.

Takeaway

Walking away from the show, one truth stands out above all else: The era of the passive, data-collecting point-of-sale system is dead.

The future belongs to platforms that don’t just show you a spreadsheet of your operational mistakes, but actively execute marketing campaigns, automatically prompt high-margin menu pairings, forecast your cash flow hurdles, and give you immediate conversational answers to save you thousands of dollars in labor on a Sunday morning.

Your tech infrastructure has to work just as hard as you do. It’s time to stop chasing the artificial intelligence hype and start implementing tools that help you Make Busy Happen.

Are You Built For Busy?

Do you want to try out Toast?

Send me a DM and click this link so I can help get you set-up with the right people.

Note: Shawn Walchef is a compensated spokesperson for Toast. Savings claim self-reported by customer, based on executing on Toast IQ’s suggestions resulting in labor and food waste savings over an 18-week period. Individual results will vary.

As we pack up our media gear, say goodbye to the windy city, and head home to San Diego, I am filled with immense gratitude. This year’s trip to Chicago marked a massive milestone for Cali BBQ Media: 5 years and 5 shows at the National Restaurant Association Show.

Even though the convention center doors have closed, the hustle never stops. Before we jump on our flight back to California, our crew is spending the morning filming at a legendary Chicago restaurant for one of our brand-new technology partners. It’s a good thing our restaurant and media teams are “Built For Busy”.

Looking back at the week, the energy in Chicago was completely off the charts. If you are in the restaurant business, hospitality, or digital media like me, this isn’t just another industry event. This is our World Cup.

We are talking about 53,000+ hospitality leaders, 2,200 exhibitors, and 12 football fields of ideas, technology, and pure hustle inside McCormick Place. Everybody here is chasing the same thing: a better way to survive and thrive in this business.

We had two full media teams on the ground capturing everything—from live-streaming at the grand entrance with Michael Ungaro (Kings of Fish and San Pedro Fish Market) to making a personal book announcement (more on that coming soon) at the National Restaurant Show bookstore.

We documented a blueprint for the future of our industry. From the exciting Show floor, high-tech rooms at the Google Summit, to the high-energy “orange carpet” of the Fast Casual Gala, we captured the real stories you need to hear.

Here are the major takeaways, the tech shifts, and the raw hospitality truths you need to execute right now to scale a profitable business.

1. The Behind-the-Scenes Secret at the Google Restaurant Summit

Most restaurant owners have absolutely no idea what is being built inside Google right now. Before the National Restaurant Show even opened its doors, we got rare, behind-the-scenes access at the Google Restaurant Influencer Summit right here in Chicago.

What is coming next for hospitality is happening a lot faster than people realize. We sat in on crucial conversations surrounding agentic ordering through Google Cloud, next-gen restaurant discovery through Google Maps, Gemini and AI search, autonomous drone delivery, and deeply integrated digital guest experiences.

But the most important part wasn’t the mind-blowing technology itself. It was the fact that Google brought restaurant operators, creators, and hospitality professionals into the room to give feedback directly to the engineering teams building these tools. That matters. Restaurant technology should help operators build profitable, sustainable businesses, not create more complexity and burnout.

2. Get Outside Your Four Walls (The Magic Happens in the Hallways)

One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned as a restaurant owner is this: you have to get outside the four walls of your business. Growth happens when you put yourself in rooms like this, because you never know who you are going to meet.

Right as the doors opened on Day 1, we ran into Damien and Dan, two operators who traveled all the way from British Columbia, Canada. They bought a bar and nightclub a year and a half ago and came to Chicago for the very first time to find a next-gen POS system and check out new equipment for their full restaurant concept launch. They stopped us because they watch our content online and make real-world business decisions based on it.

Events like this create opportunities to meet operators, founders, creators, and leaders who can completely change the direction of your business and career.

3. Media and Tech Have Exploded (The 5-Year Shift)

Looking back at our first year in Chicago, the floor felt like an equal mix of food and tech. Fast forward five years later to 2026, and the landscape has completely shifted. Technology is dominating, completely taking over spaces like the Lakeside hall.

But the biggest shift? Media is growing exponentially. When we first came here, we set the standard because nobody else was walking around with cameras. Today, cameras are everywhere. Podcasters, GoPros, professional lighting setups, and creators are occupying every single aisle. Every modern restaurant business is realizing they need to become a media company. Don’t get left behind. As we always say: Be the show, not the commercial.

In fact, it was incredibly humbling to see our media efforts recognized by the industry itself this year. I was honored to receive the Top Podcast Influencer 2026 award right from the National Restaurant Association Show.

None of this happens without an incredible team, our community, and the belief that telling stories is the ultimate way to lift up our industry.

4. Strategic Partnerships Build the Ecosystem of Success

You cannot scale a business alone, and you certainly cannot document a twelve-football-field show without an incredible village of partners who believe in your vision. This year proved that the tech companies winning the future are the ones actively engaging with the community.

Our friends at F3 Technologies generously opened up their to serve as our live content and podcast studio for the weekend, allowing us to record episodes and pull operators right off the floor to share their stories with the world. But the hustle didn’t stop there.

We brought our mobile rigs across every hall, running product demos and cutting content with Toast, R365, Pepsi, and so many other innovative tech partners who are building the infrastructure that keeps our businesses profitable and efficient.

5. Restaurant People Celebrating Restaurant People

After a grueling, high-energy day covering the convention floor, we raced across the city to the Fast Casual Top 100 Movers & Shakers Gala. We were out on the orange carpet interviewing some of the biggest leaders in hospitality, and the energy was infectious.

The coolest part of nights like this? Seeing restaurant people celebrate restaurant people. This industry is brutally hard. It’s long hours, constant pressure, and endless problem-solving. But hospitality people keep showing up for each other. Even fierce competitors share ideas, advice, and support because deep down, this industry feels more like a family reunion than a competition.

It was an incredibly humbling night for me personally, as I was recognized as a Top 25 Executive alongside operators and founders I deeply respect, like my good friend Troy Hooper, CEO of Pepper Lunch.

Huge shoutout to the entire Cali BBQ team, my wife, my kids, and everyone building with us.

6. A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships

Every single day at 4:30 PM, we hosted a casual gathering for our community right by the massive National Restaurant Association sign in the North Hall. We don’t want to just connect with you through a digital screen—we want to meet you in real life.

Bringing together restaurateurs, tech founders, creators, and storytellers to talk shop and network is what this industry is all about. A rising tide truly lifts all ships.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by, took a photo, and shared their journey with us this week. Now let’s go celebrate hospitality and build the future. Chicago, thank you for the hustle. Let’s work.

GET INVOLVED

What did you take away from the 2026 National Restaurant Association Show? A new idea? A new connection? A new technology? A fresh perspective on where the industry is headed?

Join us live on Wednesday at 1PM EST / 10AM PST as we share our biggest takeaways from the 2026 National Restaurant Association Show with Shawn P. Walchef and Troy Hooper.

From conversations on the show floor to standout moments, trends, tools, and lessons, this will be an open discussion about what people are bringing home from one of the biggest events in hospitality.

Join Here: Take Stage On Streamyard
Watch Here: Rising Tides Live

Subscribe now

I caught up with our good friend Michael Ungaro from San Pedro Fish Market (Kings of Fish Media) right as the Show opened to get his top tips for navigating the weekend:

1. Get your badge early: Do not wait in the brutal lines at the convention center. Try to print your badge at your hotel lobby or get to McCormick Place incredibly early before the crowds hit.

2. Wear comfortable shoes: You are walking 12 football fields across three different halls—Lakeside, South Hall, and North Hall. Treat this like an athletic event.

3. The Uber Trick: When the show floor closes, don’t even try to call a rideshare to the main entrance. You’ll be stuck waiting for hours. Walk a few blocks away from the main hub first, then call your ride.

4. Document the journey: Take photos of the people you meet and grab their digital business cards. The relationships you build in these hallways can become lifelong friendships.

   ---

The energy right now at McCormick Place for the 2026 National Restaurant Show is completely off the charts.

If you are in the restaurant business, hospitality, or digital media, like me, this isn’t just another industry trade show. This is our World Cup.

To give you an idea of the sheer scale of what’s happening in Chicago this week, we are talking about 53,000+ hospitality leaders, 2,200 vendors, and 12 football fields of pure innovation spanning three massive halls. It is impossible to overstate how massive this event is.

A huge shoutout to the National Restaurant Association Show team for partnering with Cali BBQ Media to help us bring this raw, unfiltered look to our community.

We have two full media teams on the ground, and we are tracking down stories across every aisle.

While we are exploring the entire floor and capturing everything from new industry trends to deep tech, we have a few key anchor partnerships we are shouting out today.

The Toast Booth #7012: We hit the ground running this morning and made a big stop to visit our close partners at Toast. They are the technology backbone of our actual restaurants at Cali BBQ, and they are the title sponsors of our Restaurant Influencers podcast series. We checked out their latest tech innovations and talked with their team about how operators can use technology to build more profitable, efficient businesses.

The F3 Tech Booth #5870: Our friends at F3 Technologies have generously opened up their booth space to serve as one of our live content and podcast studios for the weekend. We are recording episodes right from the floor. If you are walking the halls, keep your eyes open—we might just pull you into the booth to share your story with the world. As we always say: Be the show, not the commercial.

Magic Happens in the Hallways

One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned as a restaurant owner is that you have to get out of your four walls. Growth happens when you put yourself in rooms like this, because you never know who you are going to meet.

Right as the doors opened, we ran into Damien and Dan, two operators who traveled all the way from British Columbia, Canada. They told us they watch our content and came to the show for the very first time to find a next-gen POS system and check out new equipment. They bought a bar and nightclub a year and a half ago and are gearing up to launch their full restaurant concept.

Naturally, we told them to head straight to the Toast booth and tell them Shawn sent them!

That is the exact ROI of this show: connecting people, sharing resources, and lifting up the community.

Meet Up With Us: 4:30 PM @ The Sign

We don’t want to just connect with you through a screen, we want to meet you in real life. Every single day of the Restaurant Show, we are hosting a casual gathering for our community of restaurateurs, tech founders, creators, and storytellers.

• When: 4:30 PM Daily

• Where: Right by the big National Restaurant Association sign in the North Hall

Come hang out, talk shop, network, and be part of the Rising Tides community. Because a rising tide lifts all ships.

Make sure to subscribe to our Restaurant Technology Substack and follow along on social media @shawnpwalchef and @calibbqmedia so you don’t miss a single update, video drop, or interview from the floor.

Subscribe now

• Opening Day at the Toast Booth - Come see the new products our partners at Toast are rolling out for restaurant operators.

• Recording at F3 Technologies Booth - We’ll be filming live interviews and content every day of the show.

• Daily Rising Tides Community Meet Ups - 4:30 PM at the NRA North Hall Sign

• Subscribe to this Substack for exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes coverage, and real-time updates from the floor.

Subscribe now

The National Restaurant Show is our industry’s World Cup. But you don’t win the World Cup by sitting in the nosebleeds.

To win in the restaurant industry in 2026, you need to be on the pitch with the builders, the dreamers, and the leaders who are drawing up the winning plays for the next decade. You need to be where the momentum is.

That is why, every single day of the show at 4:30 PM, we are gathering the community at the big NRA sign across from Starbucks in the North Hall.

This is a daily community meet-up for the people who want to be in the center of the action. If you want to know what’s actually happening in this industry, you need to be at this sign.

• Come meet us.

• Take a selfie.

• Exchange social contacts.

• Share your story.

Because the truth is, nobody rises alone.

National Restaurant Association Show 2026
May 16–19, 2026
McCormick Place, Chicago, IL
www.nationalrestaurantshow.com

The First Pilgrimage to Chicago

It wasn’t always this way. Five years ago, I left my restaurant in San Diego to attend the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago for the first time. I didn’t have a plan, but I brought the essentials:

• My family, The Walchef Wolfpack.

• Cameras.

• Curiosity.

I had little idea what to expect. At the time, Cali BBQ Media was just taking off, having formed from inside my restaurant Cali BBQ.

We had recently launched Restaurant Influencers with Entrepreneur Media because the team at Toast believed in the vision enough to sponsor our video podcast series before most people even understood what we were building.

I was a newcomer looking for a map. I started texting everyone I knew from Clubhouse, where we were hosting a weekly live meet-up at the time:

“Troy Hooper, where do I go?”

“Who do I need to meet?”

“How do I make the most of this thing?”

I asked Carl Orsbourn who the best storytellers in Chicago were, and he connected me to the legendary Geoff Alexander from Wow Bao.

We even ended up hosting a Rising Tides restaurant influencer meetup at Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ with Duce Raymond, where we made lots of amazing content and ate lots of amazing barbecue.

And suddenly, something happened.

The Restaurant Show stopped feeling like a trade show. It started feeling like the center of the restaurant universe.

Every year since that first trip, the friendships I’ve formed have deepened. The conversations have sharpened. The opportunities have multiplied. But more than anything, my belief in this industry has grown.

This Show changes people. It isn’t because of the shiny booths or the late-night parties. It’s because when you put operators, creators, technologists, dreamers, and builders into one city together, momentum becomes contagious.

How to Change Your Trajectory

If you want to change the trajectory of your business, you can’t just watch from the sidelines. You need to make the pilgrimage.

• Shake hands.

• Film the content.

• Ask the “dumb” questions.

• Walk until your feet hurt.

• Take meetings you’re not ready for.

• Introduce yourself before you think you deserve to.

That is exactly how growth happens. For the fifth straight year, we’ll be documenting every moment of the show with Cali BBQ Media. We are here to tell the stories of the people who make this industry great.

Join The Rising Tides

We are back in Chicago because we believe in the power of “Rising Tides.” We believe that when one of us wins, we all win.

WHERE: The big National Restaurant Show sign (North Hall, across from Starbucks)

WHEN: Every day @ 4:30 PM

WHY: To connect, share, and draw up winning plays together.

I’ll see you at the sign.

#2026RestaurantShow

WATCH: Rising Tides Live - What To Know About National Restaurant Show

Share

If you aren’t building your business like Amazon did — leveraging technology, storytelling, and logistics — you’re going to struggle to survive in 2026 and beyond.

I’ve been in this game for 18 years at my family owned restaurant Cali BBQ in San Diego. I’ve survived the Great Recession of 2008 and a global pandemic in 2020 by making every mistake possible. Mistakes are what lead to growth.

The secret to modernizing your restaurant isn’t just better food; it’s becoming a Digital Hospitality company.

Here is your 5-step playbook to becoming the “Amazon of Restaurants” in your market.

1. Become a Media Company First

Amazon isn’t just a retailer. It’s also content ecosystem. To win today, you must be a media company, a technology company, and a restaurant. This is driven by our signature Four P’s content strategy:

PLAN

• Choose one idea that feels natural to share this week.

• Decide your message: “What do I want people to know, feel, or do?”

• Pick a time when you can capture it without interrupting operations.

PRODUCE

• Use your phone — prioritize good lighting and clear audio.

• Keep it short and engaging; aim for 15–60 seconds if it’s video.

• Record extra angles or clips for variety.

PUBLISH

• Post in vertical format for better mobile engagement.

• Add a short, personal caption that tells the story.

• Include hashtags relevant to your restaurant, location, and audience.

PROMOTE

• Share the content on multiple platforms.

• Encourage your team to share it from their own profiles.

• Reply to comments and messages to start conversations.

Stop making commercials. People want stories. Use your smartphone to capture the daily life of your restaurant and publish it on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and everywhere else you can.

2. Own Your Digital Real Estate

In the old days, it was about your physical “location, location, location”. In 2026, it’s digital location. You must own your website, your email list, and your data.

Stop relying on third parties to hold your customer relationships hostage. Build a deep CRM so you can reward your loyalists who want to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays with you. If you don’t own the data, you don’t own the customer.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT: If this insight helps you, share this article with one other restaurant owner. A rising tide lifts all ships.

Share

3. Deploy Strategic AI and Automation

Digital hospitality is our deep thesis. Technology makes us more profitable, more scalable, and more impactful. At Cali BBQ, we use Palona AI and my automated voice clone Shawn AI to answer our phones and take orders.

On our busiest day of the year—Father’s Day—Palona AI handled 156 calls that would have otherwise gone to a busy staff member. The result? An 18% sales lift because we never missed a guest.

We integrate these tools directly through Toast to keep our tech stack seamless.

4. Create Multiple Revenue Streams

Look at Amazon Prime and Thursday Night Football. They’ve created a system where you can watch a game and buy a product with one click.

Your restaurant should be no different. Think beyond the four walls of your brick-and-mortar. We are moving toward a world of TikTok Shop live streams and point-of-sale integrations where customers can buy your BBQ or Consumer Packaged Goods (like bottled sauces or canned drinks) while they watch your content.

5. Master Frictionless Online Ordering

Digital hospitality is making it as easy as possible for someone to buy from you. Whether it’s takeout, in-store, catering, or gift cards, your website—like ours at calibbq.media—must be frictionless.

We partnered with Toast to solve our online ordering problems during the pandemic, and it changed everything. When you make it easy to buy 45 racks of ribs for a tailgate, that is true hospitality.

Think bigger.

We have to leverage technology to connect with more people and run more profitable businesses. Don’t be afraid to look stupid while you’re learning—get it wrong so you can eventually get it right.

Stay Curious, Get Involved, Ask For Help

@Shawnpwalchef

Subscribe now

I didn’t bring my family to Times Square just for a billboard. I brought my wife and kids because this business costs something important: Late nights, missed weekends, and holidays that don’t feel like holidays.

For the last 18 years, building my San Diego restaurant Cali BBQ has meant sacrifice from the people behind the scenes. The ones who wait up, believe in the dream, and carry the weight with you.

That’s why this “Built For Busy” campaign kick-off moment with our partners at Toast hit differently. Behind the lights and the noise, every restaurant is a family business, whether the world sees it or not.

We talk a lot about systems, tech, and operations. But the truth is simple: you can’t build for busy without the people who hold it up when it gets hard.

This billboard wasn’t just a marketing asset. It was a statement to the ones who have been in the trenches since we opened on Troy Street in 2008.

Share

The Art of the Living Billboard

Times Square on a Thursday morning is a symphony of sirens, delivery trucks, and tourists.

Most people see that chaos and want to escape it. But for a restaurant operator, that noise is music.

It’s the sound of an economy that is alive. Last week, we went to the Crossroads of the World to celebrate the people who actually keep those lights on.

While the billboards above were making a statement, Toast was making a commitment to the NYC restaurant industry with an activation called Windows to Success.

Rather than buying traditional ad space, Toast turned the storefronts of iconic New York spots like Carmine’s in Times Square and Poppy’s in Brooklyn into “living billboards.”

They framed the windows with custom graphics that turned every kitchen into a stage.

This campaign is the next chapter for Toast, focusing on the pride and dedication at the heart of business ownership. It’s a brand evolution designed for the 164,000+ businesses they serve.

As Kelly Esten, Chief Marketing Officer at Toast, put it:

“For business owners, being busy is the point—it’s the proof of progress. This dedication to building products designed to help our customers succeed in a rapidly-changing world is at the heart of Built For Busy.”

That represents exactly how Toast understands this industry. They aren’t just selling software; they are building tools like Toast IQ—an AI assistant designed to act as an operator’s right hand during a Friday night rush.

Try Toast

Standing in the noise with the Toast team, my family, our amazing Cali BBQ Media crew, and a crowd of operators reminded me of one thing: showing up is the most important thing you can do for your community.

“Busy” means your systems are holding strong. It means your people are focused.

It means your technology is acting as your right hand so you can keep your head up and focus on the guest.

Eighteen years after starting Cali BBQ, we aren’t just surviving the rush. We are built for it thanks to Toast and our other restaurant technology partners.

The lesson from our Built For Busy trip to NYC is something we’ve known for many years as restaurateurs.

The hustle isn’t the hurdle. It’s the reward.

Subscribe now

Influential people have told me for years that I needed to get to Phoenix for the Restaurant Leadership Conference (RLC).

Now that I’m here at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge for the Informa event’s 25th anniversary, I see the story isn’t just on the stage. It’s in the hallways.

At the top of this post, you can watch my live video from the event co-hosted with , CEO of Pepper Lunch, a Japanese fast-casual brand with more than 560 restaurants in 17 countries.

RLC is full of power players just like Troy.

Marcus Viscidi from Informa shared the power of this event: there are roughly 950 executives attending who represent over 300,000 restaurant locations. That is massive scale.

But RLC has this unique way of stripping away the titles.

Troy told me about standing on the lawn on night one, having a casual conversation with a woman for ten minutes before realizing he was talking to the wife of Peter Cancro, the CEO of Jersey Mike’s.

That is the “secret sauce” of this event. Whether you’re a founder with five units or the CEO of a global powerhouse, you’re in the same “nooks and crannies,” having the same intimate conversations. We are all equals here, trying to up-level the industry together.

The Business of Being Human

For the technology partners and suppliers watching us, the lesson is clear: participate, don’t just pitch. Marcus and the Informa team have built a foundation where people can “build their own adventure”.

In 2026, that adventure included:

• Morning Connections: Golf tournaments, hiking, yoga, and even a gun club excursion designed to get people out of their shells.

• The Pickleball Shift: The Pepper Lunch team doubled down on the experience with a legendary pickleball party, featuring DJs and a full bar.

Why does a DJ at a pickleball court matter for your bottom line? Because you might spend three hours in a relaxed environment with a C-suite decision-maker. They might not be the one clicking “buy” on your software, but that top-down relationship provides the validation and access you need to move the needle.

Real Tech for Real Problems

When we did get into the Marketplace, the innovation was focused on one thing: Enterprise Scale.

I caught up with Kelly Esten, Chief Marketing Officer at Toast. They are the title sponsor this year (Cali BBQ Media is also a sponsor), and they aren’t slowing down.

Last year was about the kiosk; this year, they are showcasing a massive Enterprise Drive-Thru product.

It’s a clear signal that the “big players” are now looking for the same agility that smaller brands have enjoyed for years.

We also saw the latest from partners like PepsiCo, Restaurant365, Popmenu, and more — all focused on making your restaurant operations leaner and more connected.

The conversation doesn’t stop in Phoenix. Marcus and his team are already planning for RLC 2027, and the 2026 calendar is just heating up.

If you want to stay in the room where these decisions are made, you need to join us at:

1. Food on Demand (Dallas): May 5th–6th. This is the place for anyone serious about the delivery and tech ecosystem.

2. National Restaurant Association Show (Chicago): May 16-19. The “Super Bowl” of our industry. With 70,000 people and 700,000 square feet of space, it’s the only event that brings the entire food service ecosystem together.

RLC 2026 proved that when you lead with hospitality and intention, the business follows. Will I see you there next year?

Subscribe now

We got into this business praying for busy.

Not the slow nights, not the empty dining rooms. We dreamed about the chaos.

The tickets stacking, the line out the door, the kind of busy that tests everything you’ve built.

I remember opening our doors in 2008 on Troy Street in Spring Valley. No guarantees, just belief, grit, and the hope that one day we’d earn the kind of volume that forces you to grow or get exposed.

Eighteen years later, we’re still here.

Still standing, still learning.

And this weekend, while Cali BBQ celebrates 18 years in business, we’re also part of something bigger, Toast Built For Busy campaign.

That’s not a coincidence, that’s the work.

Because “busy” isn’t just volume. It’s pressure, it’s responsibility, it’s showing up for your team and your guests when everything is moving fast and nothing can break.

The truth is, most people romanticize restaurants until they feel a Saturday night rush. Operators know better.

Busy means your systems matter, your people matter more, and your technology better not fail you when it counts.

That’s why partnerships matter. Toast helps us manage the chaos so we can stay focused on what actually matters - hospitality.

Not perfect, not polished, real.

This moment isn’t just about a billboard in Times Square, that fades. This is about the operators in the trenches, the ones opening early, closing late, and doing it again tomorrow.

We’re not chasing busy anymore, we’re built for it.

#toastbuiltforbusy

Get more from Shawn Walchef in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

DATE: Thursday, April 16th
TIME: 10:30am (Meet-Up) ; 11:15-11:20am (Toast Billboard Goes Live)
WHERE: 47th St. and 7th Avenue in Times Square NYC
ONLINE: Watch LIVE right here on Substack as it happens

New York City, let’s make this one count.

We’re taking over Times Square with Toast.

At 10:30am you are invited to join us on the corner of 47th Street and 7th Avenue in the busiest intersection in the world to kick-off Toast’s new Built for Busy campaign.

We will be sharing stories, making content, and honoring the hard-working spirit that makes the restaurant industry so incredible.

This isn’t just about a new campaign. This is about our industry showing up to support each other. If you can’t make it to New York, you can also watch our live feed right here on Substack.

Bring your team, bring your energy, bring that Built for Busy mindset.

Will I see you in NYC next week? Let me know.

Share

“Stay curious, get involved, and ask for help.”

These are the three lessons my grandfather taught me, and they guide every move we make at Cali BBQ Media.

We just wrapped up an incredible experience at the Restaurant Franchise and Innovation Summit (RFIS) in my hometown of San Diego. It was a powerful time making content and connections.

I had the honor of being a speaker, and it was great to see other heavy hitters (and friends) in our community, like Troy Hooper and Michael Ungaro, also taking the stage to move this industry forward.

As a restaurant owner and operator, I know that the most important thing you can do is invest in your own education.

That’s why we’ve evolved into a full-fledged media company that travels to the biggest and most important events in our industry. We aren’t just there to attend; we’re there to tell stories from the ground about how technology and innovation are helping businesses improve.

We want to connect with the best technology operators, restaurateurs, and storytellers on the planet. Here is where we will be this summer—reach out so we can collaborate or connect.

Subscribe now

March 23–26: Las Vegas | Pizza Expo + Bar & Restaurant Show

Right after RFIS, we are heading to Vegas for the Pizza Expo and also the Bar and Restaurant Show. We want to capture stories about how you are learning and what tools you’re using to level up your business. If you’re going to be in Las Vegas for either of these, please reach out to us.

• Learn More: International Pizza Expo and Bar & Restaurant Expo

Late March / Early April: Washington, D.C. + Baltimore

After Vegas, we’re heading to the East Coast for the first time to tell restaurant stories in D.C. and Baltimore. We want to talk to technology companies and operators who have customers in these cities. Whether it’s for our Restaurant Influencers show or Digital Hospitality, we want to highlight your story.

• Get in touch with us: BeTheShow.media

April 19–22: Phoenix | Restaurant Leadership Conference

I’m heading to Phoenix for my first time at the Restaurant Leadership Conference. I’ve heard phenomenal things about this show—it’s where the best leaders in our industry go to sharpen their skills. If you’re attending, please let me know.

• Learn More: Restaurant Leadership Conference

Early May: Austin + Dallas | Food On Demand

Our Texas swing starts with a filming trip to Austin followed immediately by the Food On Demand conference in Dallas. Food On Demand is one of the most important delivery and off-premises events in our entire industry. We hope to see you in Dallas.

• Learn More: Food On Demand Conference

May 16–19: Chicago | National Restaurant Association Show

This is the “Super Bowl” of our industry. If you’ve followed our content, you know we do a lot of work at the National Restaurant Show with our partners. We’d love to meet you, talk shop, and share stories from the floor in Chicago.

• Learn More: National Restaurant Association Show

Late Summer: London + Dublin | Toast Stories International

To end the summer, Cali BBQ Media is going international.

We’re heading to London and Dublin to tell new Toast stories. If you know any innovative restaurants in the UK or Ireland, we can’t wait to meet them and share their journey.

Let’s Connect

At Cali BBQ Media, we believe every business must think like a media company to thrive today. We began as restaurant operators and are now also a full-service media agency ready to help you tell your story through professional podcasting, video production, and digital strategy.

Visit us at betheshow.media to see how we can help your brand stand out.

Will you be at any of these stops? Reply to this post or DM me.

Subscribe now

When James and Julie Petrakis opened The Ravenous Pig in 2007, they were filling a void in an Orlando market dominated by chains. The husband-and-wife team, both alumni of the Culinary Institute of America, returned to their roots in Winter Park to pioneer a craft food movement rooted in “everything scratch-made”.

The early days were defined by grit rather than glamour. Cash was so tight that after his car was stolen, James biked to work while finishing a restaurant he could barely afford to open.

Today, that resilience has paid off: James is a seven-time James Beard Best Chef South semifinalist, and The Ravenous Pig holds a prestigious Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition.

WATCH MORE: James Petrakis on Restaurant Influencers on Entrepreneur.com

Their menu remains an “American Gastropub” powerhouse, featuring progressive, farm-to-table dishes like Wagyu Filets, Tomahawks, and ducks that have transformed Orlando into a serious food destination.

inKind: The Capital and Marketing Engine

For Petrakis, inKind became the bridge to sustainable growth. inKind is a digital financing and loyalty platform that provides restaurants with upfront capital in exchange for digital gift certificates sold to their customer base.

Over time, the pre-paid credit model—where guests purchase dining credit in advance—evolved into a tool that his regulars embraced. This transformed initial financial relief into a powerful loyalty and marketing engine that kept the lights on and the business moving forward even when margins were thin.

• Capital Without the Bank: By leveraging inKind, Petrakis accessed funding without the rigid constraints or collateral requirements of traditional bank loans.

• Automated Marketing: James replaced expensive PR firms with inKind’s native marketing tools and email blasts, which he found provided significantly more “bang for his buck”.

• Frictionless Loyalty: Because the certificates are digital and stored in the guest’s email, regulars can’t lose them, creating a “loyalty engine” that provides reliable revenue.

Toast: Maximizing Efficiency

To manage multiple high-volume concepts, James consolidated his entire operation onto Toast.

Toast is an all-in-one point-of-sale and management system designed specifically to help restaurants improve operations and increase sales.

• Handheld Productivity: In the Ravenous Pig Beer Garden, five servers can manage a crowd of 200 people using Toast handheld technology.

• Increased Sales: By using handhelds, orders go straight to the bar and kitchen instantly. This allows servers to stay on the floor, focusing entirely on hospitality and selling more beer.

• Operational Simplicity: James noted that the system’s ease of use made it simple to roll out across the entire group, including their massive Polite Pig operation at Disney Springs.

7shifts: Streamlining Labor

With some employees staying for nearly two decades, James prioritizes “quality of life.” To manage complex scheduling across his empire, he relies on 7shifts.

7shifts is a team management platform that helps restaurants simplify scheduling, communication, and labor compliance. It ensures the team has the stability they need—a cornerstone of the “family” culture the Petrakis duo has built.

Resy: Managing Guest Experience

To handle the flow of a Michelin-recognized dining room, the group utilizes Resy for reservations. Resy is a hospitality technology platform that powers restaurant reservations and table management. This ensures a seamless guest experience from the appetizers to the final course, which Shawn Walchef noted “keeps raising the bar”.

The Strategy of Craft: Batching and Brewery Economics

Petrakis also shared two key “insider” strategies that keep the business lean:

• Cocktail Batching: To avoid “10-minute wait” times for craft cocktails, the bar batches its top-selling drinks for speed. This efficiency ensures guests get their first round fast, encouraging them to order more.

• Vertical Integration: The brewery operation ($50 per keg via a distributor vs. $375 per keg on-premise) is only sustainable because Petrakis is his own best customer. By selling 50% of his beer at his own locations like Disney Springs and the airport, he keeps the high “on-premise” profit margin for himself.

• Tech Vision: CTO Gustavo Cardona, a former NASA data analyst applied an “engineer’s point of view” to the cookie business.

• Visibility Boost: A partnership with Marqii that streamlined Google Business Profiles, leading to a 13% increase in “noticeability” in just four months.

• Core Engine: Toast serves as the exclusive POS, utilized for its robust API and Kitchen Display Systems (KDS) to sync high-volume storefronts.

• Freshness Guarantee: Using PDQ (Pretty Damn Quick) as an Order Management System to ensure e-commerce customers are only charged the day their cookies are baked and shipped.

Subscribe now

When you think of Levain Bakery, you might picture the legendary six-ounce cookies and lines stretching around New York City blocks.

But behind that warm, gooey center is a sophisticated technological engine designed for growth.

The leader of the company’s tech vision? Gustavo Cardona who’s tech journey led him from NASA to a cookie company that has scaled to almost 20 locations.

I was lucky enough to spend time with Gustavo inside Levain Bakery where I got a chance to try their absolutely amazing treats.

A former engineer who once worked at the Space Telescope Science Institute on data for the Hubble telescope, Gustavo treats the bakery’s tech stack like a precision instrument.

His “small but mighty” team uses an “engineer’s point of view”— A/B testing new tools to ensure they maintain the brand’s soul while operating at an enterprise scale.

LEARN MORE about the story of Levain Bakery on our Restaurant Influencers video podcast series on Entrepreneur.com.

RESTAURANT INFLUENCERS

1. The Operational Heart: Toast

For Levain, Toast is the central nervous system of every physical bakery. Gustavo moved the brand to Toast specifically for its customizable platform and robust API.

In a high-velocity environment like Levain Bakery, the back-of-house needs to stay perfectly synchronized with the front-of-house rush. He highlights the impact of Toast’s Kitchen Display Systems (KDS):

“First of all, back of the house, simple KDS. All the orders come through... storefront and marketplace, it’s all that.”

This integration allows the team to manage a high volume of orders in real-time without losing the “neighborhood bakery” quality.

2. Owning the Map: Marqii & Google Business Profiles

One of the most significant hurdles for a growing brand is digital “fragmentation.” With 19 locations, keeping Google Business Profiles accurate and engaging is a massive undertaking.

Levain utilizes Marqii to solve this. By centralizing their profiles, Marqii acts as a single source of truth for location data and store hours.

• The 13% Noticeability Bump: On the advice of the Marqii team, Levain simplified their naming convention on Google (changing specific neighborhood titles to simply “Levain Bakery”). The result was a 13% increase in noticeability in just four months.

• Search Optimization: Marqii helps them capture customers who aren’t just searching for the brand, but are searching for keywords like “best chocolate chip cookies in New York.”

3. The Digital “20th Location”: PDQ

Levain’s e-commerce business has become so large that Gustavo considers it their 20th location. To manage the complexity of shipping a perishable product, they rely on Pretty Damn Quick (PDQ) as their Order Management System (OMS).

PDQ allows Levain to execute a custom “bake-to-ship” workflow:

“The day we bake it, the day we ship it, the day we charge it. Because now we know you’re going to get your cookies.”

This logic ensures that customers are only billed once the product is fresh and ready for transit, maintaining the high standards Levain is known for.

4. Data-Driven Insights: MRI Software & Verkada

To understand the “Levain Impact” in new markets like Beverly Hills or Chicago, the team relies on foot-traffic intelligence. By using MRI Software integrated with Verkada camera systems, Levain tracks traffic patterns moving both inside and outside their stores.

This data is funneled into Tableau, which Gustavo also uses as an inventive intermediary to bridge data from the Toast API into their NetSuite finance platform. This high-level visualization ensures every expansion move is backed by hard data rather than guesswork.

Levain’s success proves that high-tech and high-touch aren’t mutually exclusive. By empowering primary partners like Toast to handle operations and Marqii to dominate search, Gustavo Cardona has cleared the path for his team to focus on what matters most: the community and the cookies.

Share