Serving Restaurant Owners with Numbers, Systems, and Culture | Jim Laube (RestaurantOwner.com) | DH082

From Auditor to Editor, and many significant stops in-between, Jim Laube's journey has focused on serving those who serve others: restaurant owners and operators.

***

Some of the biggest successes in business come from unlikely career pivots. For Jim Laube, founder and president of RestaurantOwner.com, a winding road of working in restaurants and working with numbers took him from auditor to editor.

Looking back, Jim’s hospitality career journey began as a kid working at a corn dog stand. Later, while attending college at Michigan State University (Go Green!), the accounting student by day still made time to work as a bartender at night.

“You stayed out late and you partied after work."

“You made good money and you had fun,” smiles RestaurantOwner.com Founder and CEO Jim Laube on the Digital Hospitality podcast.

Learn more about Jim Laube and RestaurantOwner.com on this fun and informative episode of the Digital Hospitality podcast, a production of Cali BBQ Media.

Let us know how we can help you on your own Digital Hospitality journey by emailing [email protected] or sliding into our DMs on social media @calibbqmedia @calibbq @shawnpwalchef. We want to hear from you because your opinions are vital to our evolution and growth. Your voices and opinions shape this podcast and our other digital content.

RESTAURANT OWNER ONLINE

Join RestaurantOwner.com – https://www.restaurantowner.com/public/Join-Restaurant-Owner.cfm

Listen to the Corner Booth Podcast archive – https://www.restaurantowner.com/public/Corner-Booth-Podcast.cfm

Restaurant Startup and Growth (RS&G) on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/RestaurantStartupGrowth/

Restaurant Startup and Growth (RS&G) on Twitter – https://twitter.com/reststartupgrow

Restaurant Startup and Growth (RS&G) on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/restaurant-start-up-and-growth-magazine/

Restaurant Owner on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/restaurantowner

Understanding Food Finances:

After getting his degree in East Lansing, Jim Laube journeyed down to Houston, Texas for accounting work in warmer weather. Even when working with numbers, he somehow found himself close to the heat of the kitchen.

His accounting acumen led Jim Laube to joining the audit team at Luther’s, a BBQ chain in need of help with their paperwork. Over the course of his time with Luther's, Jim's role ranged from CFO to creating concepts.

Soon enough, Jim's appetite for assisting the restaurant only expanded. By diving into food finances first, his whole take on the industry he grew up in suddenly shifted.

“One thing I learned right out of the shoot is these guys don't know anything about numbers,” laughs Jim on his early work with restaurateurs. “They know nothing about what their food cost should be, or their labor costs and they could be making so much more money.”

Rather than collect his check and keep it moving, Jim felt moved to help the restaurateurs he encountered. By blending his two types of work experience, his first pivot was in motion.

“I started becoming a consultant,” recalls Jim. “We had some pretty good systems with respect to inventory control, food costs, labor costs, and we were very numbers driven at the barbecue chain.”

Teaching Others Online:

As a consultant, Jim was crushing it and so was his restaurant.

So much so that he couldn’t keep it all to himself.

“I always wanted to teach,” admits Jim Laube on the Digital Hospitality podcast. “I started teaching and working with my clients. I saw the improvements that they had, and I did that for about eight years.”

Jim’s teaching led to speaking and seminar work. The money was good and so were his skills, but the travel was taking its toll as Jim and his wife began to start a family.

Soon enough, he was bit by the online bug. Publishing all his insights, learning and notes that he would share at his seminars, Jim’s journey now had him as a content creator on the very young world wide web.