Stephanie Izard has a streak of fearlessness in her. She went from being a sous chef to a restaurateur at age 27 and hasn’t looked back. Closing that restaurant, Scylla, in 2007 after a three-year run, she went on to compete in and win season four of Bravo TV’s Top Chef in 2008. From there she launched her goat-themed restaurant empire, now comprised of two Girl & the Goat locations in Chicago and Los Angeles, two units of her Peruvian concept, Cabra (Spanish for “goat”), in those same cities, as well as Little Goat Diner and Duck Duck Goat in Chicago.

At the end of March she opened her first licensed concept, Valley Goat, at the Treehouse Hotel Silicon Valley in Sunnyvale, Calif., and last month she opened Lucky Goat at the Hollywood Casino in Joliet, Illinois, with another to come in nearby Aurora. Next up: Cabrito, a fast-casual concept slated to open at Orlando International Airport.

She also recently attended US Foods’ Food Fanatics conference in Las Vegas where she caught up with Menu Talk hosts Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality. She shared her approach to menu development, her plans for the future and the odd but beneficial status of being famous.

Amanda Toups, partner with her husband Isaac Toups in New Orleans’ Toups Meatery, flew into action when COVID-19 closed the restaurant back in March, 2020. The couple cooked and handed out to-go meals for their employees and their families and anyone else who showed up in need. Within a few days, 500 people wrapped around the block.

Through the end of 2020, they prepped and distributed 100,000 meals, but the need didn’t end once the pandemic eased and restaurants were back in operation. In 2021, Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans, and in 2024, the governor of Louisiana cut back funds on summer feeding programs for school children. Amanda immediately brought back Toups Family Meal, starting with Easter boxes. Then she got in front of the media to broadcast the dire need in the community and spread the word on her active social platforms. As a result, she was able to drum up support from locals and other nonprofits to raise funds and help with meal deliveries. The Toups amassed a volunteer delivery driver army of 200 people and this summer delivered 70,500 meals.

Now Toups Family Meal is a fully operative nonprofit with a commissary kitchen, meal and grocery distribution center and delivery hub, mostly self-funded but supported by donations and volunteers. Listen as Amanda shares the heartwarming story of how she and Isaac turned a personal community outreach effort into a hunger-fighting organization through their generosity and commitment. 

Jet Tila is known as a TV chef these days, thanks to his many appearances on the Food Network and elsewhere, but he has actually been working in the restaurant industry for pretty much his whole life. Having grown up working in his parents’ Thai restaurants in Los Angeles, he then attended culinary school and went on to cook at a wide variety of foodservice operations, including Compass Group subsidiary Bon Appétit Management and at Steve Wynn properties in Las Vegas. He also operates five Dragon Tiger Noodle restaurants—four in Nevada and one at the Dragon Tiger Casino in Central City, Colorado—and is the research & development chef of fast-casual Pei Wei Asian Kitchen, with some 120 restaurants across the country. 

Tila was a keynote speaker at US Foods' recent Food Fanatics conference in Las Vegas, where he walked the 5,000 attendees through his own humble beginnings and ultimately his success as a TV personality and cookbook author as well as a chef and restaurateur. He also performed cooking demonstrations at the conference, including one for birria fried rice. One of his passions these days is Chino-Latino cooking, exploring the ways that East Asian and Latin American flavors go together. 

During these stressful times people are turning to comfort food, he believes, whether that’s fried chicken sandwiches, noodles or Tila’s particular passion, fried rice. He discussed his own passion for “grandma cooking,” and shared his perspective on where food is going these days.

Chef and restaurateur Victor Steinbrueck shook up the Seattle seafood scene when he opened LocalTide in 2020. The restaurant refuses to fall into typical seafood or restaurant categories, like fish and chips or fine dining sole. It’s serving up sustainable, sophisticated dishes that work just as well as takeout or while enjoying the hip vibes of Local Tide. Steinbrueck and guest host Gloria Dawson discuss making pandemic pivots, finding moments for high-touch hospitality at a fast-casual restaurant, and what sustainable growth means for a self-described "slow mover."  

Douglas Keane originally opened Cyrus in Healdsburg, California, earning two Michelin stars and many accolades. But during the pandemic, a burned-out Keene did not want to reopen it as a traditional fine dining restaurant with an upscale tasting menu. So he sat down and figured out how to change the business model and staffing model to provide a living wage for all his team members and a distinctive dining experience for guests. 

At the new Cyrus, located in the Sonoma County town of Geyserville, the evening is choreographed like a dinner party in someone’s home, starting with drinks and bites in the Bubble Lounge, then proceeding into the kitchen where guests interact with the chefs over a first course, followed by a multi-course hyper-seasonal tasting menu in the dining room and ending with a sweet finish in the Chocolate Room. And every team member makes an annual salary of $75,000. 

Raheem Sealey is the corporate chef of Kyu Restaurant, which has locations in Las Vegas, Miami, and New York City.

Sealey is based in Miami, where he moved from the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix in 2009. He attended culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts and worked in a variety of restaurants, including Caribbean concept Sugarcane and Zuma, which offers modern Japanese food in a stylish setting, as well as Pao by Paul Qui, which, similar in a way to Kyu, also offers Asian-inspired cuisine from a wood-fired grill. He eventually landed at Kyu in 2016 as a sous chef, and has been there ever since.

There, Sealey offers items like smoked brisket rubbed with a shichimi pepper-based spice mix and served as a lettuce wrap, yakiniku baby back ribs, and whole roasted cauliflower in green chile vinaigrette.

Sealey discussed his menu development process and shared that the restaurants will soon have a crispy duck salad and a grilled pork chop with sweet chile sauce and smoked eggplant relish.

He also shared a trick for catering to customers who don’t like cilantro.

The average workplace catering order size is up 12% to about $420. That’s good news for restaurants, said Cindy Klein Roche, chief growth officer for ezCater, a platform that connects workplaces with dining concepts. 

But restaurants must optimize their online presence and present an appealing menu to get a piece of that growing pie. About 59% of those who place workplace orders are swayed by the menu, with budget-friendliness following close behind at 37%.

While companies have been using catering as a return-to-office incentive, food has now evolved into a vehicle to drive productivity and collaboration, Roche explains. And employees who first try a restaurant at work will then return to that restaurant on their own or with a group for lunch or dinner. 

With B2B catering on the rise, she offers valuable insights as to how restaurants can boost that revenue stream, why breakfast and afternoon treats are growing as catering opportunities and where workplace catering is heading next. 

Marc Sheehan has long been interested in the history of food. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of American in Hyde Park, N.Y., the Massachusetts native worked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Dan Barber’s farm, restaurant, and hotbed for culinary innovation in upstate New York, before working at Menton, a French-Italian restaurant by Barbara Lynch. Previously, he earned national acclaim at Loyal Nine in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

There he served food based on what people cooked in the region from the Colonial era onward—not what was in cookbooks, which catered to a wealthy audience, but what normal people grew in their gardens. It turned out that they grew a lot of cayenne pepper, coriander and other robust flavors that were toned down by the likes of Fannie Farmer and other purveyors of food for the well-to-do.

Now Sheehan operates Northern Spy, a restaurant in the Boston suburb of Canton, located in a copper rolling mill first opened by Paul Revere. 

Sheehan recently discussed the restaurant, which opened in December of 2020, as well as how the food that his ancestors likely grew up on is different than what you might have thought.

Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, visited Atlantic City’s Ocean Casino Resort, which just opened two new concepts from restaurateur Stephen Starr. Bret had a chance to sample menu items from Sunny’s, a breakfast-lunch spot, and Chez Frites, a bistro offering the familiar French plate of steak and fries along with a selection of seafood. 

Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, was taken with the number of chains offering burgers and hot dogs as specials, iconic July 4th food that’s extending throughout the month. The pair discussed new offers from Carl’s Jr., Applebee’s, Shake Shack and other concepts. 

Panda Express introduced Hot Orange Chicken, a limited-time spicy spin on its signature dish. Bret had a chance to try it at a pop-up at one of the chain’s New York City locations, where the item is being served in bao buns, wrapped in Chinese pancakes, and with bacon, in addition to its usual presentation over rice. 

We’ve also seen a lot of pickles this week. Del Taco launched a fried pickle taco and Saladworks has a new Chicken Pickle Crunch Salad with pickle ranch dressing. 

Then Pat shares her interview with Matt Banton, VP of menu strategy and innovation at Cracker Barrel. He’s been at the chain for less than a year, but hit the ground running, focusing on flavor innovation, building a robust pipeline and making sure the food and drink selection creates memorable guest experiences. This summer’s Campfire Meals are a favorite example of his. 

Chef and restaurateur BJ Lieberman discussed his career evolution, from his time at Husk and Little Pearl in Charleston, SC, and Washington, DC, to the launch of his restaurants in Columbus, Ohio. He opened his first Columbus restaurant, Chapman's Eat Market, at a difficult time — August 2020 — but that restaurant was later listed as one of the most exciting restaurants by the New York Times. He went on to open Ginger Rabbit, a jazz club, and Hiraeth, a fine dining restaurant, which he recently reopened as Metsi’s, a more casual Italian spot. BJ and guest host Gloria Dawson discuss how timing and larger changes outside of your control can impact a restaurant.