The Hospitality Hangout | Hospitality Podcast

Billy Shore, founder and executive chair of Share Our Strength, joins Hospitality Hangout live from the Prosper Forum for a conversation about building the No Kid Hungry movement, bringing the restaurant industry together and what it means to spend a lifetime working on a problem bigger than yourself.

Billy and his sister Debbie founded Share Our Strength in 1984 with a $2,000 credit card advance. More than four decades later, the organization behind the No Kid Hungry campaign has raised more than $1 billion to fight hunger and poverty and built partnerships across restaurants, business, government, education, health care and entertainment.

But Billy says the real work is not simply raising money. It is getting more people to believe they can make a difference.

He explains why the restaurant industry has been part of Share Our Strength from the beginning. Chefs and restaurateurs already spend their lives feeding people, and Billy believes those skills, relationships and platforms can become powerful tools in the fight against childhood hunger.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nick Wiseman, co-founder of Little Sesame, joins Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series to tell the story of how a tiny hummus pop-up in a Washington, D.C. basement grew into a national food brand.

Nick’s background is restaurants through and through. He started cooking professionally as a teenager, worked the fine-dining circuit in New York, and met future Little Sesame co-founder Ronen Tenne while working the fish station at a Michael White restaurant. Years later, they reunited in D.C. with the idea of bringing restaurant-level food to more people, with fewer rules and a lot more fun.

Little Sesame began in a 500-square-foot basement beneath DGS, a Jewish deli Nick was operating in D.C. The original goal was modest: serve a few dozen people a day and make better use of the space. Instead, customers immediately responded to the freshly spun hummus, and the pop-up began doing several times the volume the team expected.

Then COVID changed the business.

With downtown office traffic gone, Little Sesame started hand-packing pints of hummus and selling them out the front door. A few weeks later, a Whole Foods forager reached out. That opened a new challenge: how do you turn restaurant-quality hummus with a five-day shelf life into a grocery product without loading it with preservatives? Nick explains how the team spent about a year working through food science and eventually used high-pressure processing to preserve freshness while keeping the ingredient list clean.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Gregory Zamfotis, founder and CEO of Gregorys Coffee, returns to Hospitality Hangout live from the Prosper Forum for a conversation about what happens when a hometown coffee brand starts becoming a national one.

Greg opened the first Gregorys Coffee in Manhattan in 2006. Nearly two decades later, the brand has grown to more than 50 cafes and is entering a new phase of expansion with national franchising and new market growth. Gregorys has partnered with Craveworthy Brands to help accelerate that expansion while preserving the identity and culture that built the brand in New York.

But for Greg, coffee has never just been about the drink. He talks about the coffee shop as a gathering place: somewhere people meet, study, work, go on dates, have interviews and spend time together. Even as drive-thru, delivery and convenience have grown, Greg believes connection and community remain essential to the coffeehouse experience.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jackie Gebel was recommending restaurants before “food influencer” was really a job. On this episode of Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series, the creator behind No Leftovers joins Jimmy and Schatzy to talk about how a simple habit of sharing where to eat turned into a career spanning restaurants, travel, brands and social media.

Jackie traces the story back to Foursquare, restaurant lists and a move to Tel Aviv, where she found herself building food guides simply because she could not find the kind of recommendations she wanted. When she returned to New York, that instinct followed her. What started as emails and restaurant lists eventually became No Leftovers.

The conversation gets into the early days of Instagram, when reaching 1,000 followers felt huge, restaurants were just learning how to use social media, and brands were beginning to realize creators could actually influence where people ate. Jackie shares the story of her first paid No Leftovers campaign with Benihana, the larger brand opportunities that followed, and the moment she realized this could become a real career.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Lawrence Kim, President of IHOP and Chief Commercial Officer of Dine Brands, joins Hospitality Hangout live from the Prosper Forum in Orlando for a conversation about what it means to take the reins of one of America’s most recognizable restaurant brands.
IHOP has been around since 1958, but Lawrence does not describe the work ahead as a turnaround. He calls it an evolution. In his words, IHOP is not 68 years old. It is “68 years young.”

That evolution starts with understanding what people already love. Lawrence talks about IHOP’s breakfast heritage, the return of familiar touches like the syrup caddy, new menu ideas including Dubai Chocolate Pancakes and the BLTAF, and the brand’s everyday $6 Value Menu. IHOP officially launched that value platform as a permanent core-menu offering, with complete meals available every day at participating restaurants.

But Lawrence is not learning the business from behind a desk. When he joined IHOP, he spent his first months working inside restaurants as a cook, server and night-shift team member. Since then, he says he has visited more than 150 IHOP restaurants across the country, often walking in anonymously, waiting in line, ordering food, timing the experience and seeing the restaurant the way a guest does.

This is a conversation about nostalgia, listening, value and the responsibility that comes with carrying an iconic brand into its next generation.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Josh Beckerman does not cook. He barely eats at home. For more than two decades, he has been eating his way through New York City restaurants while building an equally unusual career as a professional magician, mentalist and one of the city’s most plugged-in food personalities.

On this episode of Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series, Josh, better known as the Foodie Magician, joins Jimmy and Schatzy to talk about the strange intersection of restaurants, social media, magic and influence.

Josh explains why he prefers dining alone, how he can walk into restaurants without reservations, and why eating at a different restaurant nearly every day has given him a unique view of the food scene. He shares some of his favorite restaurants, from hidden neighborhood spots to major New York destinations, and explains why great food can live at every level.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nigel Henry, Global Director of Operations at Yum! Brands, joins Hospitality Hangout live from Prosper Forum for a conversation about what it takes to create operational excellence across some of the biggest restaurant brands in the world.

Nigel’s path to global restaurant operations did not start in a boardroom. He began his career as a laboratory technologist testing food and water safety in his native Dominica, spent a decade in the United Kingdom, joined Pizza Hut in 2013, and eventually moved into a role that touches operations strategy across the Yum! portfolio.

In this episode, Nigel explains how Yum! shares ideas across very different restaurant brands without forcing them into one playbook. Through Yum!’s Global Operations Council, leaders can take what is working in one part of the business, collaborate across brands, and determine what can translate somewhere else.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Cassie Yeung did not take the traditional path into food. Before millions of people were watching her cook, she was dancing professionally with the Brooklyn Nets, working a 9-to-5, and trying to figure out what she actually wanted to do with her life.

On this episode of Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series, Cassie shares how she turned a lifelong love of cooking into a career as a creator, Next Level Chef competitor, brand collaborator, and New York Times bestselling cookbook author.

The conversation gets into the three-month window her parents gave her to make content creation work, the viral videos that changed her trajectory, learning from Gordon Ramsay, writing Bad Btch in the Kitch*, and why the recipes that connect most are often the simplest ones.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Deborah von Kutzleben, Chief Marketing Officer of Tropical Smoothie Cafe, joins Hospitality Hangout live from Prosper for a conversation about what happens after a brand has already grown across the map.

Tropical Smoothie Cafe has more than 1,700 cafes, but Deborah explains that store count is only part of the story. When she joined the brand, the opportunity was to make awareness catch up with the footprint. In other words, the cafes were already in people’s communities. The next step was making the brand feel familiar, loved and part of everyday life.

That work starts with knowing what people already love about Tropical Smoothie Cafe, then giving them more reasons to think of it. Smoothies are the anchor, but Deborah talks about the bigger opportunity around food, wraps, flavor, spice, protein, family occasions and cultural partnerships. From the Tiki Torch Wrap to Disney collaborations with Lilo & Stitch and Moana, the goal is not just to advertise. It is to create moments that feel happy, approachable and worth remembering.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On this episode of Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series, Jen Zeszut, co-founder and CEO of GOODLES, joins the show live from Pepsi Studios in New York City to talk about reinventing one of America’s favorite comfort foods: boxed mac and cheese.

Jen shares the winding road that led her to GOODLES, from studying psychology and French, working at Cosi in Paris, helping document the operations manual that later helped bring Cosi to the U.S., moving to Mendocino to learn from Cafe Beaujolais, and eventually realizing that the day-to-day of restaurants was not her path.

The conversation digs into the origin of GOODLES, the “cherry, cherry, cherry” startup moment, the wall of more than 100 investor nos, and why Jen still believed there was a massive opportunity in mac and cheese. Instead of treating the category as food only for kids, GOODLES set out to bring adults back to the mac aisle with bold packaging, playful branding, premium flavors, protein, fiber, prebiotics, and nutrients from plants.

Jen also talks about competing with Kraft and Annie’s, building a mass brand without trying to look like traditional health food, using Hollywood and athlete investors for reach, the Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively cream cheese moment, the Dreamy Creamy flavor, Goodles.com, Amazon, Costco, Whole Foods, Target, and why the brand is gaining millions of new customers.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, Jimmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Media

www.thehospitalityhangout.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.