The Pre-Shift

Two hours into portioning sauce into cups, Joe Fontana decided he was done doing the work and needed to start building the system. In this episode of The Pre-Shift Podcast, we sit down with Joe, founder and owner of Fry the Coop, a Nashville hot chicken concept with 10 Chicago locations and an 11th on the way, to talk about how he built a business that could grow past one restaurant. Joe shares how a meatball concept he couldn't fund led him to a simpler menu, why he trains with one page instead of 40, and why he won't swap beef tallow or real butter to save money. If you're weighing a second or third location, or you're past five and feeling stretched, Joe's playbook for hiring, training, and marketing is worth your time.

Key takeaways

• Two hours of sauce cups: With two restaurants open, Joe spent two hours portioning sauce and decided to pay someone else to do it. He used that time to build training packages, write tests for his team, and hire managers to lead their own teams.
• From 40 pages to one: Joe's training manual used to be 40 pages. Now it's one page, and his service standard is six bullets, from saying hi at the door to saying goodbye on the way out.
• The beer test: Joe spends the first 90% of an interview asking questions, then considers whether he'd want to grab a drink with the candidate. If they pass, he can train them on almost anything, but the "hospitality bug" (enjoying helping people) isn't something he can teach.
• Thank-you cards don't write themselves: Joe found managers won't recognize their team unless he pushes, so he hands them thank-you cards with $10 Starbucks gift cards and asks for a list of their five best people. With a couple hundred employees, he says recognition has to come from store leaders.
• Stay under the cap, share the profit: Managers see team availability and a weekly hours cap while they build the schedule, and the more they stay under the cap, the more profit sharing they earn. Joe also relies on attendance records. When he lets someone go, he can back his decision with data.
• Announcements that the team watch: Joe records training and announcement videos edited like TikToks and sends them through 7shifts, where he reports a watch rate near 100%. For a National Wing Day special, his videos trained 200 employees on a ranch-powder wing.
• One hour, 30 questions: Joe recorded about 30 short YouTube answers to questions people search about Fry the Coop, like "Do you have a patio?", in a single hour. He aimed for search rather than views, since YouTube transcribes spoken words, and he pairs it with a weekly email that tells stories instead of selling, now at 111,000 subscribers.
• Growth came with pay cuts: Joe took a pay cut after restaurants five through eight to hire the people they needed. He needs about 20 restaurants before he can get a raise. His goal of 75 stores in 10 years needs an estimated $30 million to $40 million, and the 11th location will combine a storefront, a commissary, and the office.

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7shifts is the restaurant HR platform helping operators hire, train, schedule, pay, and retain their team in one place. With an easy-to-use platform and built-for-restaurant workflows, 7shifts replaces disconnected systems for 55,000 restaurants.

Andrew Scott, founder of Owner Shift Training and former multi-unit restaurant owner, walks us through the expensive mistakes that nearly took him under at his fifth location—and the systems he rebuilt to stop being the operating system his restaurants depended on.

You're driving across the city for the third time today because someone forgot to order lettuce. Your phone buzzes at 6 a.m. with a no-call-no-show text. You can't even make it out of the city limits for a family visit before you're being called back. This is restaurant ownership for many operators: running between locations, fighting fires every shift, and making six figures on the P&L while your life disappears.

Andrew Scott lived this for years. He went from that exhausting reality—working 100-hour weeks across multiple units—to building a coaching business that's now helped more than 1,000 restaurant owners add an average of $100,000 back to their bottom line and reclaim their time. But that transformation only happened after a near-disastrous expansion and a hard lesson about what systems really mean.

Today, Andrew shares the mistake that humbled him, why most people problems are actually system problems, and the one-at-a-time priority framework that stops the constant firefighting.

Key Takeaways

• Expansion without baseline data is just betting faster: Andrew's fifth location cannibalized 30% of his top store's customers. He hadn't checked his numbers before scaling—he assumed it would perform the same way.
• Most people problems are actually system problems: If multiple staff don't know how to do something, it's not a hiring issue. The procedure isn't documented, trained, or clear. Fix the system and the person problem disappears.
• Track food cost and labor weekly, not monthly: Andrew missed a 47% food-cost spike because he saw his P&L three weeks late. Weekly spot-checks catch problems in week one, not after 12 weeks of damage.
• You're the bottleneck when only you can do something: Undocumented processes pull owners into everything. Write it down, train it, delegate to someone doing it 80% as well as you. That's good enough to start.
• Higher wages can lower labor percentage: Better pay attracted stronger staff and reduced turnover. Higher productivity per person lowered labor %, not raised it.
• Dual-purpose every task to create time: When a manager covers a shift, they train someone. When you do operational work, you document it as a system. No extra time. Same effort, twice the output.
• Start small, then iterate weekly: You don't need perfect systems day one. Voice memo a checklist, turn it into a process. Every week, adjust based on what broke. Systems improve through use.

Resources

• Follow @AndrewRScott on Instagram and LinkedIn
• Learn more about OwnerShift: https://www.ownershifttraining.com/
• Restaurant Growth Accelerator Podcast: https://www.restaurantgrowthacceleratorpodcast.com/

Chapters

00:00 Meet Andrew Scott
00:42 Early Ownership Lessons
01:40 Trapped by the Business
03:41 Fear of the Phone
05:32 Fifth Location Mistakes
10:17 Perfect Before You Scale
11:03 People and Systems Thesis
12:46 Streak Free Checklist
15:51 Why Owners Stay Stuck
18:04 Let It Burn Briefly
19:17 Whiteboard Root Causes
22:09 The One Thing Focus
23:11 Finding Time and Profit
23:53 Audit Your Time
24:30 Schedule For Leverage
26:23 Weekly Financial Tracking
28:20 Fix Food Cost Fast
31:04 Labor Strategy And Pay
33:11 Staffing By The Hour
34:29 Overstaffing Kills Morale
37:46 This Week Action Steps
41:28 Delegate And Document
43:45 Where To Find Andrew
44:43 Episode Takeaways

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7shifts is the restaurant HR platform helping operators hire, train, schedule, pay, and retain their team in one place. With an easy-to-use platform and built-for-restaurant workflows, 7shifts replaces disconnected systems for 55,000 restaurants.

Getting workplace law advice after you get a complaint is like fixing a schedule after the shift's over. In this episode of The Pre-Shift Podcast, we sit down with Felice Ekelman, a principal at Jackson Lewis who leads the firm's restaurant industry group, to talk about the compliance mistakes that catch multi-unit operators off guard. Felice walks through why state and local rules don't travel with you from one location to the next, what "audit-proof" really looks like on paper and on the floor, and what the no-tax-on-tips provision means. Whether you're running two locations or twenty, her approach to hiring, classification, and training offers practical steps for operators looking to reduce risk as they grow.

Key Takeaways

• Call Early, Not After: Hear why the operators who end up needing a workplace lawyer are usually the ones who consult one before opening.
• Not All State Rules Are Alike: Discover why assuming your California playbook works in New York (or vice versa) is one of the most common mistakes multi-unit operators make, and why highly regulated states like California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts require their own separate approach to wage transparency, scheduling notice, and break penalties.
• What "Audit-Proof" Actually Means: Learn the checklist Felice runs with clients: an updated handbook, the right posters, compliant I-9s, matching time and pay records, and clocked meal breaks instead of automatic deductions.
• The Title Never Decides the Case: Understand why calling someone a manager, a sous chef, or a shift lead doesn't determine whether they belong in the tip pool or qualify for overtime exemption. What matters is what the person actually does on shift, not their title.
• Transparency Builds Trust in the Tip Pool: Hear why the biggest tip pool problems come from staff not understanding who's in the pool and how much they're getting, and why showing the math every shift cuts down on disputes.
• Training Is Where the Real Risk Sits: Discover why Felice sees management training on EEO, wage and hour rules, accommodations, and consistent discipline as one of the highest-value investments an operator can make, since most legal exposure comes from a manager's split-second call.
• What New Rules Require From Your Payroll Provider: Learn why tax only applies to a portion of overtime pay, and why your payroll provider needs to be told, specifically, to separate that line item since it won't happen automatically.

Resources

• More about Felice https://www.jacksonlewis.com/people/felice-b-ekelman
• Contact Felice at [email protected]

Chapters

00:00 Meet Felice Ekelman
00:55 Call Your Lawyer Early
02:55 Multi-Unit State Law Traps
04:27 Staying Ahead of Changes
07:34 California Compliance Minefield
09:22 Audit Proof Your Operation
13:49 Misclassification and Accommodations
16:07 Hourly vs Salary Exemptions
19:16 Tip Pool Rules and 80/20
23:41 Training Managers for Compliance
28:20 Insurance and Prevention Mindset
29:16 No Tax on Tips: What to Do
33:17 Contractors and Noncompetes
36:44 Top Priorities: Pay and I-9s
38:31 Key Takeaways

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7shifts is the restaurant HR platform helping operators hire, train, schedule, pay, and retain their team in one place. With an easy-to-use platform and built-for-restaurant workflows, 7shifts replaces disconnected systems for 55,000 restaurants.

Growing from one restaurant to nine teaches you that what worked at one location might not work at another. In this episode of The Pre-Shift Podcast, we sit down with Sam Aguilar, Brand President of Oak & Stone Restaurants, to discuss what it actually takes to scale a multi-unit concept without losing your culture along the way. Sam shares how Oak & Stone built a communication system that cascades from his weekly one-on-ones all the way down to the pre-shift, plus why he tracks two labor metrics. Whether you're opening your second location or your ninth, Sam's approach to scheduling, people development, and labor productivity offers practical takeaways for restaurants looking to grow.

Key Takeaways

• Two Numbers, Not One: Hear why Sam tracks checks per labor hour alongside sales per labor hour — and how rising prices can dilute what's really happening on the floor.
• The Hardest Jump Isn't Zero to One: Discover why going from one location to two was Sam's toughest stretch, and why the processes that worked for a single-unit operator had to be rebuilt from scratch.
• A Cascade That Doesn't Break: Learn how Sam's communication flows from his weekly one-on-ones down through area leads, GMs, and managers, ending in a daily pre-shift built around exactly three things.
• Systems Over Memory: Find out why Sam pushes leaders toward PAR-based ordering and documented standards instead of letting critical knowledge live in one person's head.
• The Tap Guide Role: Understand how Oak & Stone staffs and measures the person responsible for guiding guests through a 50-tap self-pour wall, and how that role became a real career path.
• Feedback Is a Gift, Even for Your Best People: Hear Sam's case for spending five minutes and a cup of coffee recognizing high performers, who often get overlooked simply because they're not the ones causing problems.
• Hiring Is Everything: Discover why Sam calls people selection the single most important decision a growing operator makes, since it creates almost every problem and solves almost every problem down the line.

Resources

• Connect with Sam Aguilar on LinkedIn 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-aguilar-75b05667/
• Oak & Stone 🍺 https://oakandstone.com/

Chapters

00:00 Meet Sam Aguilar
00:51 Career Path to President
02:02 Oak and Stone Growth Story
04:01 Hardest Jump One to Two
07:51 Scheduling for New Volume
09:39 Leading Multi Unit Teams
10:34 Meeting Waterfall Culture
14:00 Systems Not Tribal Knowledge
15:54 Labor Metrics That Matter
18:15 Tap Guide Self Pour Wall
21:32 Scaling Past Seven Units
25:45 Developing Leaders Internally
31:39 Texas Expansion Playbook
34:58 Franchising and Partner Fit
36:18 Advice and Favorite Menu Items
40:27 Key Takeaways and Wrap

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About Us
7shifts is the restaurant HR platform helping operators hire, train, schedule, pay, and retain their team in one place. With an easy-to-use platform and built-for-restaurant workflows, 7shifts replaces disconnected systems for 55,000 restaurants.

The Pre-Shift Podcast is back!

Tom Schmidt, co-owner of Salt + Smoke BBQ, talks with host D.J. about shifting from hands-on restaurant work to leading an eight-location, 550+ employee business, a transition he says truly began around the fourth location and felt like a “phantom limb” loss of how he measured success. He explains how delegating to partners and leaders—especially co-owner Haley, a director of operations, and later hospitality, HR, finance, and catering roles—enabled growth while preserving culture and “magic,” in part by creating advancement paths for ambitious managers and chefs.

Schmidt describes systematizing communication through agenda-driven meetings and cascading updates to stores, and relying on 7shifts Manager Log Books and Shift Feedback to surface real issues and protect culture. He also discusses saying no to new concepts, using forecasting and KPI-based bonuses tied to food, liquor, and labor costs, and shares the ongoing challenge of producing signature cheddar-and-bacon popovers.

Key Takeaways

• The Desk Shift Nobody Talks About: Hear Tom's candid account of what it  feels like to trade the floor for a desk — why operators retreat to what they're good at, and why that instinct can stall your growth.
• The 4-Location Wall: Discover why the jump from one to four restaurants demands a completely different version of you as a leader.
  Building a Team That Outgrows You: Learn how Tom and co-owner Haley Riley turned retention risk into a growth strategy by creating new leadership roles that gave a path to their best people.
• Getting Out of Your Own Head: Find out how they cascade decisions from a Wednesday corporate meeting all the way to weekend front-of-house staff — and why Tom credits structured meetings (despite hating them) with keeping eight locations aligned.
• The Feedback Loop That Builds Trust: Hear how 7shifts' shift feedback tool gives every one of their 550 employees a direct line to the top — and why Tom refuses to filter what comes back.
• Telling the Story Through Briskets: Understand how Tom connects labor and food cost numbers to something tangible — like seventeen lost briskets a week — to help managers act on the data in front of them.

Resources Mentioned

• Salt + Smoke: https://www.saltandsmokebbq.com/

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About Us
7shifts is the restaurant HR platform helping operators hire, train, schedule, pay, and retain their team in one place. With an easy-to-use platform and built-for-restaurant workflows, 7shifts replaces disconnected systems for 55,000 restaurants.

The Pre-Shift podcast is taking a hiatus. 

This podcast launched in 2021, and we’re so grateful to our listeners. We’ll continue to talk about hospitality and share tips from real operators in our newsletter, so make sure to subscribe to Food Runner. Take a look back through our archive! There are still a lot of great insights in these episodes from our 70+ guests.

📧 Subscribe to Food Runner, our Monthly Restaurant Newsletter

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About Us
7shifts is a restaurant platform that helps operators and managers hire, train, schedule, pay and retain their restaurant teams. With an easy-to-use platform and industry-specific solutions, 7shifts saves time, reduces errors, and helps keep costs in check for over 55,000 restaurants.

How do you grow from a single taco joint to a 50+ location brand without losing the soul of your company? For Joe Kahn and Chris Artinian of Condado Tacos, the answer is simple: QUESO. In this episode, Founder Joe Kahn and CEO Chris Artinian share the origin story of Condado Tacos, built on the principle of creating a restaurant where people would want to work forever. They detail their unique "QUESO" framework—Quality, Unique, Empowered, Service, and Opportunity—that serves as the lens for every business decision. From making tough calls on ingredient quality to fostering a pipeline of internal talent (with 66% of promotions from within), they provide a masterclass in scaling a people-first culture in the face of rapid expansion.

Key Takeaways

• Culture as a Foundation: Learn how Condado Tacos was founded with the mission to correct the "injustice" of the restaurant industry by creating a respectful and opportunity-rich environment.
• Codifying Your Values: Discover the "QUESO" (Quality, Unique, Empowered, Service, Opportunity) framework and how it provides a clear guide for decision-making across the organization.
• Values-Driven Decisions: Hear real-world examples of how their values led them to absorb costs rather than compromise on quality, mirroring the famous "In-N-Out" philosophy.
• Scaling Culture: Understand the challenges of maintaining a strong culture during rapid growth and the strategies they use, including a focus on internal promotion and robust communication.
• Hiring for Heart: Find out what Condado looks for in new hires, prioritizing friendliness, integrity, and a desire to make a difference above all else.

Resources Mentioned

• Condado Tacos: https://condadotacos.com/
• Feeding America: https://www.feedingamerica.org/

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About Us
7shifts is the restaurant HR platform helping operators hire, train, schedule, pay, and retain their team in one place. With an easy-to-use platform and built-for-restaurant workflows, 7shifts replaces disconnected systems for 55,000 restaurants.

In an industry struggling with retention and wage disparity, how can operators build a business that is both profitable and truly equitable? In this episode, we talk to Ji Hye Kim, the celebrated chef-owner of Miss Kim and a leading advocate for One Fair Wage. She shares the innovative and practical systems she uses to foster a transparent and engaged team culture. From daily "Best Next Time" conversations that empower staff voices to "Gross Games" that make open-book finance an exciting team sport, Ji Hye offers a blueprint for a new kind of restaurant management. She details the evolution of her compensation model—from no-tip to a base pay plus tip-share system—and explains how it has eliminated the front-of-house/back-of-house divide, creating a unified and motivated team.

Key Takeaways

• Simple Tools for Engagement: Learn about "Best Next Time," a simple post-shift framework to encourage open, constructive, and action-oriented feedback from the entire team.
• Making Open-Book Finance Fun: Discover how "Gross Games" transforms the abstract concept of sales numbers into a fun, daily competition that connects the team's effort directly to the restaurant's performance.
• A Fair Compensation Model: Ji Hye breaks down her base pay plus tip-share model, which ensures all staff earn well above minimum wage and fosters collaboration between the kitchen and dining room.
• Transparency Builds Trust: Understand why creating a simple, easy-to-understand pay structure is crucial for building trust and ensuring everyone feels valued.
• Retention Through Empowerment: Hear Ji Hye’s philosophy on retention—that creating a safe, empowering environment where personal goals are discussed is key to making restaurant jobs a viable long-term career.

Resources Mentioned

• Miss Kim Restaurant: https://www.misskimannarbor.com/
• Zingerman's Community of Businesses: https://www.zingermanscommunity.com/
• One Fair Wage: https://onefairwage.site/

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About Us
7shifts is the restaurant HR platform helping operators hire, train, schedule, pay, and retain their team in one place. With an easy-to-use platform and built-for-restaurant workflows, 7shifts replaces disconnected systems for 55,000 restaurants.

What if your dishwasher earned the same as your most tenured line cook? At bartaco, that’s not a hypothetical—it’s the reality. In this episode, we sit down with Anthony Valletta, President of bartaco, to discuss the innovative strategies fueling their nationwide growth. Anthony pulls back the curtain on their revolutionary compensation structure, where every hourly employee receives the same base wage and an equal share of tips, eliminating pay disparity between the front and back of house. He explains how this model has not only provided a true living wage but also fostered unprecedented teamwork and a self-managing labor force. We also dive into bartaco's philosophy on technology as a tool to enhance hospitality and their unique leadership academy that invests in developing the whole person, not just the employee.

Key Takeaways

• Tech as an Enabler: Learn bartaco's philosophy on using technology to handle transactional tasks, giving staff more time to engage with guests and enhance the human element of hospitality.
• A Radical Pay Structure: Discover how bartaco implemented a system where every hourly employee—FOH and BOH—earns the exact same base wage and receives an equal percentage of tips.
• The Unintended Benefits of Equal Pay: Hear how the equal-pay model has led to remarkable teamwork and a culture where the team holds each other accountable, creating a self-managing labor model.
• Developing People, Not Just Managers: Explore the "bartaco Leadership Academy," a program that provides executive-level coaching on life skills to every salaried employee, leading to profound personal and professional growth.
• Career Pathing That Works: Understand their "edible carrots" approach to career development, which provides clear, accessible, and attainable steps for advancement within the company.

Resources Mentioned

• bartaco: https://bartaco.com/

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About Us
7shifts is the restaurant HR platform helping operators hire, train, schedule, pay, and retain their team in one place. With an easy-to-use platform and built-for-restaurant workflows, 7shifts replaces disconnected systems for 55,000 restaurants.

Do you ever wonder if your restaurant's technology is ahead of the curve, just keeping pace, or falling behind the competition? In a tough environment where 44% of restaurants are missing their labor targets, knowing where you stand is the first step to getting ahead.

In this special solo episode, host D.J. Costantino walks you through the four distinct stages of a restaurant's digital journey: from "Analog" paper-and-pen operations to a fully "Optimized" and integrated tech stack. Discover where your restaurant fits in this framework and get a clear, practical roadmap for what comes next.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How to identify your restaurant's current stage of tech maturity, from Analog to Optimized.
• Why 44% of restaurants are missing labor targets and how real-time data can give you back control.
• The direct link between modern tools, a positive employee experience, and improving your team's retention rate.
• How automating manual tasks can free up hours of your time to work on your business, not just in it.

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About Us
7shifts is the restaurant HR platform helping operators hire, train, schedule, pay, and retain their team in one place. With an easy-to-use platform and built-for-restaurant workflows, 7shifts replaces disconnected systems for 55,000 restaurants.