Restaurant Reset

Before “AI” became the buzzword on every restaurant tech panel, Carl Orsbourn was already leading the digital transformation of foodservice. The co-author of Delivering the Digital Restaurant and The Path to Digital Maturity, Carl has been on both sides of the industry: running 1,000 ampm convenience stores with $1.3 billion in sales before leaving it all to build ghost kitchens, dynamic pricing startups, and now lead AI innovation for global restaurant brands.

In this episode, Carl joins Restaurant Reset host Andy Grindstaff for a brutally honest breakdown of what’s hype, what’s real, and why the boring stuff (clean data, integrated systems, and operational clarity) is the true foundation of every restaurant’s future.

You’ll Learn:

• Why 85% of restaurant AI projects fail (and how to be in the 15%)

• The truth about ghost kitchens: what worked, what didn’t, and what’s next

• How dynamic pricing could quietly change how restaurants manage margins

• Why “bad data beats good AI every time” and how to clean yours up

• What small operators can do right now to improve their digital maturity

• Which tech trends are overhyped… and which ones are just getting started

• Why AI should augment humans, not replace them

• Carl’s career pivot from billion-dollar corporate exec to startup disruptor and what it taught him about reinvention

Carl’s message is clear: you can’t automate passion, but you can use data to scale it. If you’re ready to future-proof your restaurant without losing your soul, this one’s for you.

Listen to “Restaurant Reset” on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Restaurant Reset is brought to you by Genius™ (Link globalpayments.com/genius) from Global Payments, the restaurant point of sale system that can power orders, payments and services in any type of food and beverage setting.

Before she was known as The People Doctor, Marissa Andrada spent three decades leading people and culture at some of the world’s biggest brands: Chipotle, Starbucks, Red Bull, Kate Spade, and GameStop. Her career has touched over a million frontline employees, and she’s made one thing clear: you can’t scale a brand without scaling your people.

In this conversation, Marissa sits down with Restaurant Reset host Andy Grindstaff to unpack why the future of restaurants isn’t just AI or automation… it’s human connection.

She shares powerful stories and hard-earned lessons from turning Chipotle around post-crisis, helping Starbucks double down on its values, and teaching leaders to bring kindness, purpose, and empathy into the way they run teams.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to define a purpose and set of values that actually guide your restaurant day to day

• Why “kind leadership” outperforms “nice leadership” and how to practice it

• The 90-day rule that determines whether a new hire stays or leaves

• How to turn hourly jobs into meaningful, upwardly mobile careers

• Why understanding pop culture might be the smartest market research you’ll do this year

• The surprising link between pets, well-being, and employee retention

Marissa’s approach is simple but profound: Lead with kindness. Build with purpose. Never forget that culture is your competitive advantage.

🎧 Listen now on Restaurant Reset, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Restaurant Reset is brought to you by Genius™ (Link globalpayments.com/genius) from Global Payments, the restaurant point of sale system that can power orders, payments and services in any type of food and beverage setting.

What happens when restaurant owners finally get honest about what’s breaking their business? In this special Q&A solo episode, Andy answers the toughest questions he’s received from operators… the ones that don’t have easy answers, but every leader needs to hear.

He covers the hard truths about what’s really killing margins, why burnout isn’t a badge of honor, and how to make smarter, faster decisions in a rapidly changing industry.

If you’ve ever felt stuck between rising costs, overworked teams, and too many tech tools that don’t talk to each other, this conversation will hit close to home. Andy breaks down practical, no-fluff frameworks you can actually use. These are drawn from years of working with some of the most innovative restaurant brands in the country.

In this episode:

• Why you can’t keep eating rising food costs and how to raise prices the right way.

• The difference between a burnout problem and a delegation problem.

• Simple frameworks for fixing broken inventory systems.

• What makes loyalty programs actually work (and what doesn’t).

• How to connect your tech stack without losing your mind.

• What AI means for restaurants and how to tell real innovation from noise.

This episode is a conversation every restaurant operator needs to hear and a reminder that you’re not alone in the chaos, and that sometimes, a few better systems can make all the difference.

🎧 Listen to the full Q&A episode of Restaurant Reset now.

Restaurant Reset is brought to you by Genius™ (Link globalpayments.com/genius) from Global Payments, the restaurant point of sale system that can power orders, payments and services in any type of food and beverage setting.

Tony Roy was leading international operations for a global tech giant when he made a bold decision: leave it all behind to build tools for single-location restaurants.

Today, as the Co-founder and COO of Popmenu, Tony’s helped more than 10,000 independent operators grow smarter, simplify their systems, and save hundreds of hours a year through automation and AI.

In this episode, Tony and Andy go deep on what makes great restaurant technology and why most companies get it wrong.

They break down:

• Why empathy beats enterprise when building for operators

• The most overlooked challenges small teams face when adopting tech

• How automation and AI can actually make restaurants more human

• The real reason restaurants churn from tech platforms

• What separates restaurants that are thriving from those struggling to keep up

It’s a masterclass in clarity, empathy, and execution… and a roadmap for the next decade of restaurant innovation.

🎧 Listen to the full episode of Restaurant Reset wherever you get your podcasts.

When most people think of innovation in restaurants, they picture shiny new POS systems or loyalty apps.

Jason Riggs wants you to look somewhere else: the edge of the operation. The headsets, timers, and drive-thru systems that quietly run the business.

As the former GM of Hardware at PAR Technology and current strategic leader at Audivi AI, Jason has built everything from fleet tracking for truckers to livestreaming tech at GoPro (and now, some of the most advanced AI-ready systems in the restaurant industry).

In this episode, Jason joins Andy Grindstaff to explore how operators can build technology that actually works for people, not against them. They break down:

What you’ll learn:

• Why the drive-thru became the new command center for restaurants• How to avoid “overinvesting in the current paradigm” and future-proof your systems• What most AI vendors aren’t telling you about “humans in the loop”• Why hardware is still the foundation of every great restaurant experience• How to think like an ecosystem builder, not a tech collector• What “tech spaghetti” is and how to stop serving it to your staff• The three questions every operator should ask before buying AI

This is one of the most practical, grounded conversations on restaurant innovation you’ll hear all year.

If you care about where technology is really headed (and how to keep your systems (and your sanity) intact) this one’s for you.

Learn more about Jason’s work here: https://mach10pm.com/

🎧 Listen to the full episode of Beyond the Register wherever you get your podcasts.

Nathan Downs went from cooking in Michelin-starred restaurants to building a technology company that’s rethinking how the world eats.

As CEO and cofounder of FoodSpot, Nathan is leading the charge in smart vending: a growing industry that’s making fresh, high-quality food available 24/7 in hospitals, campuses, offices, and even food deserts. His mission is simple but ambitious: democratize access to fresh food and eliminate the massive waste built into America’s food systems.

In this episode of Restaurant Reset, Andy Grindstaff and Nathan dive deep into:

• Why Nathan left a prestigious chef career to enter food tech

• How he built a hardware/software company without millions in VC funding

• The 40% food waste crisis and why distribution is the real problem

• What separates a vending machine that prints money from one that fails

• The overlooked art of making unattended retail feel human

• How AI and automation can empower chefs instead of replacing them

• The future of food equity, brand access, and the “microstore” model

Nathan’s journey is equal parts startup grit, culinary craft, and systems thinking. It’s a masterclass in how to blend technology and hospitality to build something that actually feeds people.

Listen now to learn why the next restaurant revolution might not happen in restaurants at all.

When Adam Brotman joined Starbucks, the company didn’t even have free Wi-Fi. A few years later, he helped architect one of the most powerful digital ecosystems in restaurant history: the Starbucks app, Rewards program, and Mobile Order & Pay system that changed how every brand thinks about loyalty.

In this episode of Restaurant Reset, Adam breaks down how it all happened and what every operator can learn from it.

We cover:

• How Starbucks built the “digital flywheel” connecting loyalty, mobile, and in-store ops

• The five-year journey from idea to mass adoption

• The operational chaos (and magic) behind Mobile Order & Pay• How to earn cross-functional trust across tech, ops, and baristas

• The real value of guest data — and what happens when you don’t own it

• Why AI will make loyalty more personal, not less• How operators can use ChatGPT to analyze data and optimize decisions

• Why Adam believes AI is about to make hospitality more human

Adam also shares his playbook for evaluating new technology (from Web3 loyalty to AI-powered personalization) and the lessons he’s carried from Starbucks to J.Crew, Brightloom, and Forum3.

If you’ve ever wondered how digital transformation actually happens inside a restaurant brand, this is the episode to study.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

01:30 — The moment Starbucks Rewards became a revenue engine

03:10 — Building the Starbucks “digital flywheel”

06:30 — Learning the business from ops before pitching innovation

11:40 — How long it really took to launch Mobile Order & Pay

16:50 — Balancing sexy tech with store-level practicality

24:00 — The unseen problems new tech creates

35:00 — Delivery apps and the cost of losing your data

43:00 — How operators should really use ChatGPT

45:00 — The next evolution of loyalty: personalization + community

50:00 — AI and the future of hospitality

53:00 — Adam’s top book recommendations

Most operators try to scale their restaurants by tightening systems or adding tech and somewhere along the way, they lose the soul that made guests fall in love in the first place.

Chef Jackson Kalb never made that trade.

From being fired at 26 and sleeping in his childhood bedroom to now running seven successful restaurants across Southern California, Jackson has built a hospitality group that scales without sacrificing humanity.

In this episode of Restaurant Reset, host Andy Grindstaff sits down with Jackson to unpack the lessons, systems, and failures behind his rise from rejection to resilience.

You’ll learn how to operationalize gut instinct, design systems that listen to guests, and build culture that embraces iteration instead of fearing it.

Episode Timestamps

00:00 — Introduction and why breakfast burritos still matter

01:30 — How a free burrito giveaway turned into a line around the block

04:30 — The secret to the perfect breakfast burrito (and why details matter more than hype)

06:00 — Balancing gut instinct and data when making big decisions

09:00 — The power of learning through mistakes: “Mistakes aren’t optional. They’re required.”

11:40 — Pivoting Jemma di Mare into Ospi Brentwood: how to evolve a concept without losing culture

15:50 — Getting fired at 26, hitting rock bottom, and the vow that started it all

20:30 — Raising $90K after 450 rejections and opening a 22-seat restaurant on $3K rent

28:40 — Why ignorance can be an advantage when starting out

34:30 — What competing on Top Chef without taste or smell taught Jackson about resilience

40:00 — The invisible systems that make or break profitability

44:20 — Scaling across cities: balancing standardization with local adaptability

47:30 — How to use guest feedback as your most valuable data source

48:00 — Why stoic philosophy powers Memento Mori Hospitality (“Remember you’ll die” really means “Remember you’re alive”)

50:00 — Closing thoughts and what’s next for Jackson and Memento Mori Hospitality

Listen to this episode on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

And make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode.

How do you bring a legacy restaurant brand back to life?

Not with buzzwords. Not with gimmicks. But by giving people food they actually crave (and making sure your team can execute it flawlessly).

Chef Mike Gieseman has spent two decades building craveable, profitable menu items for brands like Qdoba, Quiznos, and Taco Del Mar. As VP of Culinary & Innovation for REGO Restaurant Group, he led Quiznos’ comeback—reviving an iconic brand through smart menu design, operational discipline, and an obsession with flavor.

In this episode of ‘Restaurant Reset,’ host Andy Grindstaff digs into:

• The playbook for brand turnarounds and why it starts in the kitchen, not marketing

• Why "approachability" beats novelty

• The LTO formula that makes franchisees love innovation (and drives higher margins)

• The story behind the Burnt Ends Sandwich and Bison Reuben that brought Quiznos back into the spotlight

• The truth about plant-based proteins and what's next for sustainable innovation

• Why outsourcing culinary is killing originality in restaurants• How to keep innovation craveable and operationally achievable

Mike’s approach blends chef creativity with business pragmatism: simplify the kitchen, respect your brand DNA, and make food that guests can’t stop talking about.

Chapters:

00:00 — The hidden world of culinary R&D

03:00 — Why testing too much can kill innovation

07:30 — The profitability formula behind LTOs

14:00 — How to innovate inside a turnaround brand

19:30 — Nostalgia vs. novelty: getting guests to try something new

24:30 — Overhyped trends (sorry, Nashville Hot Chicken)

29:00 — Why outsourcing culinary is killing creativity

36:00 — The future of plant-based proteins

40:30 — How to revive a tired brand without losing your identity

Under 25% turnover isn’t luck. It’s a proven system.

Nick Sarillo (Nick’s Pizza & Pub) breaks down how a carpenter’s mindset turned two suburban Chicago units into high‑throughput, low‑churn operations: a purpose the team actually uses on shift, training that certifies to a 1–5 standard (not “shadow me”), a visible ladder (Rookie → Pro → Expert) tied to pay, and an accountability test that fixes problems fast: Don’t care, Don’t know how, Can’t do it. We also cover his open‑book huddles, the email that drove a 110% sales surge in five weeks, and the hard lessons from closing a Chicago location. If you lead a team, this is a blueprint you can steal tomorrow.

If your “help wanted” budget is bigger than your training budget, you’re buying turnover. Nick shows the opposite approach—engineer the job, teach life skills, and make excellence objective. The result: sub‑25% annual turnover and a team of mostly first‑job teenagers who run a 9,000‑sq‑ft, high‑volume room with confidence.

What you’ll learn:

• Write a purpose your team can use on shift. Start with a collective subject (“Our dedicated family…”), present tense, and specifics your competitors can’t copy. Put it in orientation and training; certify people by having them write down where they lived it with a guest.
• Replace “shadow me” with standards. Use a 1–5 scoring sheet per role; certify only when a team member hits 4s. Excellence becomes evidence‑based, not opinion.
• Make the restaurant a school. Post the Rookie → Pro → Expert ladder (3 skills per rung) and tie pay to certifications so progress = paycheck.
• Decompose complex stations. At the host desk, Nick trains four roles: Greeter, Seater, Filler (350 seats, headset, live map), and Host Coordinator (the strategist).
• Diagnose mistakes in 60 seconds. Don’t care, cDon’t know how, Can’t do it. If you hire for values, it’s usually #2 or #3 → retrain or reassign.
• Open‑book rhythms that matter. Weekly 20‑min huddles on sales & cash‑flow projections (not just post‑mortems) so everyone sees the runway.
• Leading through a crunch. In 2011, road construction cratered sales ~60%. Nick leveled with his community; the email (his team’s idea) drove a ~110% sales bump over five weeks and kept the doors open.
• Knowing when to walk away. He closed a Chicago location after a year: rent too high, runway too short, over‑optimistic sales. Lesson—get a conservative real‑estate model and a team that pushes back on assumptions.
• Scaling culture before units. Bake purpose, values, training, and communication tools into onboarding so culture scales with you.

Chapters

• 00:00 — Why Nick: sub‑25% turnover in two busy units
• 01:16 — From carpenter to operator: design work that means something
• 08:08 — Purpose that runs a shift (“Our dedicated family…”) + how to teach it
• 10:58 — Onboarding & values: make culture a certifiable skill
• 12:39 — Coaching & feedback: loop, performance, direct (life skills)
• 14:47 — Training over recruiting: define A‑plus and teach to it
• 16:14 — Don’t care / Don’t know how / Can’t do it (accountability test)
• 20:04 — Host stand, decomposed: Greeter/Seater/Filler/Coordinator
• 24:17 — The ladder: Rookie → Pro → Expert (pay tied to skills)
• 33:44 — 2011 crunch: open‑book huddles + the 110% “save the shop” email
• 38:08 — Chicago closure: rent, runway, realism
• 41:20 — Scale culture before units: systems that survive growth
• 43:15 — Reading list: Built to Last, Resonant Leadership, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, The Fearless Organization, Good Jobs (discussed)