FULL COMP: Restaurant Tactics, Tools, & Strategies

What if the reason your restaurant runs on you is that you keep showing up?

Mike Mudrey bought a crêperie in East Lansing with no restaurant experience and a corporate job he had no intention of leaving. Nine years and four locations later he still has both, and one of his restaurants sits over an hour from where he lives. Never being able to work the floor is what forced him to build systems instead of habits.

In this conversation, we get into why every question you answer twice should become a system, how prepaid and pre-selected bookings drove his no-shows and food waste close to zero, and why the money was never in the crêpe.

If your operation stops working the week you take off, this one is for you.

To learn more about The 601 Group and their portfolio, visit 601-group.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

What if the only reason your guests came once is that nothing changed after they left?

Felipe Riccio is chef and partner at Goodnight Hospitality in Houston, TX. At his restaurant March, his tasting menu restaurant, the entire menu is thrown out twice a year and rebuilt around a different corner of the Mediterranean. He is twelve seasons in. He will tell you it is probably not a winning formula.

In this conversation, we get into why a concept nobody can repeat back to you will never travel, how discipline and paperwork are what buy a chef creative freedom, and what it costs to close a restaurant for two weeks twice a year on purpose.

If your guests like you but do not come back, this is a great place to start.

To learn more about Goodnight Hospitality, visit goodnighthospitality.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

What if your concept should have been designed backwards, starting from the check average you need?

Ariel Arce had 16 seats and no way to predict what anyone would spend. So she solved for the number first. Sixty five dollars a head, two turns a night. Then she designed a guest experience to deliver it, down to a rule that every song has to be three minutes long.

In this conversation, we get into why she has refused to charge what the market would pay for nearly ten years, why she now plans the closing date of a business before it opens, and how the real asset in her SoHo townhouse turned out to be the three floors themselves.

If you built your concept first and hoped the numbers would follow, this one’s going to give you a better blueprint.

To learn more about Tokyo Record Bar, visit tokyorecordbar.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

What if the fastest way to become a great independent operator is to go work for a chain?

Al Lucas spent 21 years at Chart House, starting as a dishwasher and leaving as a vice president. He took that to Stephen Starr, then to Defined Hospitality, where Kalaya just won Outstanding Restaurant at the 2026 James Beard Awards. When a young cook asked him for career advice, Al told him to get out of independent restaurants as fast as possible.

In this conversation, we get into the fundamentals most independents never get taught, how Al and his partners choose who is worth building a restaurant around, and why the room at the Beard Awards is full of operators who will be gone within a year.

If you learned this business by figuring it out alone, this will show you what you missed.

To learn more about Defined Hospitality, visit definedhospitality.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

What if the thing you are most proud of in your business is also the thing quietly draining it?

Amanda Signorelli and Nick McMillan took over the Golden Steer in 2019, the oldest steakhouse in Las Vegas, open since 1958. Neither of them came from restaurants. They came from tech, inherited a brand with more history than margin, and had exactly one year to learn the business before COVID shut it down.

In this conversation, we get into why they rebuilt the financial model from scratch instead of fixing the old one, why none of us have any business running their own social media, and the lessons learned growing the brand to new markets.

If you are sitting on a brand people love and numbers that do not work, this one is for you.

To learn more about Golden Steer, visit goldensteer.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

What if the customers you're driving away are exactly why your restaurant works?

Telly Justice and Camille Lindsley built HAGS into one of New York's most talked-about restaurants by refusing to be for everyone. An 18-seat queer fine-dining room in the East Village, a tasting-menu-only model, pay-what-you-can Sundays, and a point of view sharp enough to repel anyone who doesn't belong there.

In this conversation, we get into why planting a flag makes you more distinct than your neighbors, why you need eight reasons to be different instead of one, and why scaling a concept means getting it out of your head and into the people you train.

If you're afraid a strong opinion will cost you customers, this one will change how you think about who you're actually for.

To learn more about HAGS, visit hagsnyc.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

What if the reason you survive your own mistakes has nothing to do with how smart you are, and everything to do with your product?

Ashley Morris spent years in finance before he bought the sandwich shop he was obsessed with in college. Today he's the CEO of Capriotti's and Wing Zone. He'll tell you the real asset he bought was product-market fit so undeniable it gave him room to make every mistake in the book.

In this conversation, we get into why product-market fit forgives the mistakes that sink everyone else, why owning your data means nothing until you know what to do with it, and what actually transfers when you scale into a second brand.

If you're grinding against the current and can't figure out why, this one shows you where to look first.

To learn more about Capriotti's Sandwich Shop, visit capriottis.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

What if the smartest thing you can do for your restaurant is refuse to rush it?

Nick Wong spent twenty years in kitchens like Momofuku and UB Preserv while peers opened their own places at 28. He waited until 40, and his partner Lisa Lee left a tech career at companies like DoorDash and Facebook to build it with him. Together they opened Agnes and Sherman, an Asian American diner in Houston, on their own terms: two days off a week and staff benefits from day one.

In this conversation, we get into why patience beats FOMO in a fear-driven industry, how they engineered product-market fit for a category of one, and why they invested in their team before profitability made it easy.

If you're rushing to prove something, this one will make you slow down.

To learn more about Agnes and Sherman, visit agnesandsherman.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

What if the operators most likely to build something unforgettable are the ones who have never run a restaurant?

Dave Shah and Camilla Caremoli had never worked a shift in hospitality before opening CasaDamí. Dave built a global tech studio and thinks in brand. Camilla comes from four generations of an Italian food family and thinks in operations. A year in, they've built the kind of room a community actually shows up for.

In this conversation, we get into why they chased one unforgettable location instead of twenty, how they learned to separate real feedback from noise, and why the relationships built inside a room outlast any menu, wine list, or buildout.

If you're an operator who believes experience is the only edge that counts, this one will challenge you.

To learn more about CasaDamí, visit casadami.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com

What if the thin margins crushing your restaurant aren't the industry's fault at all?

Hamed Mazrouei came into restaurants as a total outsider. He built Vivant, the managed network company that keeps thousands of restaurants online, and he refuses to accept the beliefs operators treat as gospel.

In this conversation, we get into why the thin margins operators blame on the industry actually come down to volume, why guest retention is the highest-leverage metric almost nobody fixes, and why simplification is the one trait every successful founder shares.

If you've been blaming the business for numbers you have the power to change, this one will make you rethink everything you assumed was fixed.

To learn more about Vivant, visit vivantcorp.com.

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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com