New Jersey native, Andrew Freeman, Graduated from Montclair State University with a degree in Marketing. Freeman went on to learn the restaurant business by working through the ranks at several legendary New York venues including Windows on the World, the Russian Tea Room, and the Rainbow Room. This experience set Andrew up to serve as Vice President of Public Relations and Strategic Partnerships for Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. In total, he spent ten years with Kimpton, launching over 40 hotels and restaurants as well as the global brand. Today Andrew Freeman serves as Founder of AF&CO, a leading restaurant and hotel consulting firm with a focus on marketing and Public Relations.

Today, we're here to explore and unpackage Andrew's career AANNDDD we're going to cover a few trends.

Check out Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller as mentioned in today's episode!

Check out Your Restaurant Still Sucks by Donald Burns as mentioned in today's episode!

Check out Restaurant Man by Joe Bastianich as mentioned in todays's episode!

Show notes… Favorite success quote or mantra:

• "I was born with a fork in my mouth."
• "When you come to the fork in the road, take the fork."
• "Dig in."

In today's episode with Andrew Freeman we will discuss:

• Passion for food
• Shifting from BOH to FOH
• Restaurant marketing
• Unavoidable mistakes
• Key attention to detail
• Successful rebrands and rebuilds
• Partnerships
• Community Involvement
• Importance of taking risks
• The three trends we discuss are:
  • Vegetarian/Vegan restaurans
  • Gig economy
  • Craft your own adventure
  • Delivery
  • Ghost restaurants
  • Food halls

Today's sponsor:

BentoBox empowers restaurants to own their presence, profits and relationships. The hospitality platform disrupts third-party services that come between the restaurant and the guest. BentoBox puts the restaurant first and offers tools that drive high-margin revenue directly through the restaurant's website. BentoBox is trusted and loved by over 5,000 restaurants worldwide including Union Square Hospitality Group, Eleven Madison Park, Gramercy Tavern, Lilia and more.

Restaurant365 is a cloud-based, all-in-one, restaurant-specific accounting and back-office platform that seamlessly integrates with POS systems, payroll providers, food and beverage vendors. It generates accurate real-time reporting and analysis in user-friendly dashboards, facilitating immediate, data-driven decision making. Restaurant365 eliminates manual, error-prone processes and is designed to help restaurant businesses grow with functionality that helps optimize labor costs, reduce food costs and increase revenue.

Contact info:

Website: AF&CO.

Thanks for listening!

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Huge thanks to Andrew Freeman for joining me for another awesome episode. Until next time!

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