The Pre-Shift

This episode was originally published as part of the Restaurant Growth Podcast. It has been rebranded as part of The Pre-Shift Podcast as of January 2023. The information presented may no longer be up-to-date and may differ from the viewpoints and insights currently shared on The Pre-Shift Podcast.

Are you meeting the demand of local diners? Are you leveraging social media properly? Are you leaving money on the table? These are all questions that you should ask as you lay the foundations for a $10 million dollar restaurant. Josh Kopel, restautauateur and content creator, lays the blueprint for reaching profitability and then some in this tactic-packed episode.

00:00 Introduction and Opening Remarks
02:24 Meet Josh Kopel: A Michelin Rated Restaurateur
04:10 The Importance of Demand Analysis
07:59 Building Relationships and Community Engagement
13:01 Maximizing Revenue and Profitability
18:48 Leveraging Social Media and Digital Presence
24:07 Customer Retention Strategies
29:45 Practical Tips and Tools for Restaurateurs
31:40 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

About Josh Kopel

Josh Kopel is a restaurateur, tech pioneer and environmental advocate. Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the spawn of bootleggers and retail giants, he was bred for the hospitality industry. Throughout Kopel’s 20+ year career in hospitality he has managed venues ranging from the Alligator Bayou Bar, located on Alligator Bayou Road, seated on Alligator Bayou (it was exactly how you’re picturing it in your mind) to the hottest Hollywood nightclubs, bars, and ultra-lounges (far less glamorous than you’re picturing it in your mind).

Kopel went independent in 2010, opening his first concept Five0Four, a New Orleans-inspired bar, on the Walk of Fame in the heart of Hollywood. In subsequent years, he would open the Michelin-rated fine dining concept, Preux & Proper as well as South City Fried Chicken, voted the best fried chicken in Los Angeles by LA Weekly. Despite his success, he saw foundational issues within the industry and set out to fix them himself.

In 2018, Kopel founded FLO Hospitality Solutions, a company solely focused on leveraging tech to bring more humanity to the customer service experience, not less. His first product, FLO, launched in 2019 offering an all-in-one communication solution for restaurants, saving restaurateurs 1,500 labor hours per year while increasing their profits, on average, 5-15%. .

In 2020, the pandemic offered another opportunity for Kopel to serve the industry. In response to the devastation he saw, Josh created FULL COMP, a podcast, blog and video series dedicated to seeking out thought leaders from within and outside of the hospitality industry, using their wisdom to help the restaurateurs survive the present and thrive in the future.

Kopel’s varied interests and talents have landed him several positions of influence including board seats on the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council and the California Restaurant Association. He is also a co-founder of the Friends of Runyon Canyon, a non-profit focused on the protection of local Los Angeles Park areas.

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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.

The restaurant industry is anything but predictable. But there are two major costs that you have more control over: food costs and labor costs. These two combined make for prime costs, which can be even better manged with the use of modern restaurant technology. Steven Downer from XtraChef by Toast came by to chat about the micro-adjustments made possible by restaurant tech that can help restaurant owners stay more on top of their controllable costs.

The Restaurant Growth Podcast is presented by 7shifts, and hosted by Dominick "DJ" Costantino.

About 7shifts

7shifts is a team management platform designed for restaurants. We help managers and operators spend less time and effort scheduling their staff, reduce their monthly labor costs and streamline team communication. The result is simplified labor management, one shift at a time.

This episode was originally published as part of the Restaurant Growth Podcast. It has been rebranded as part of The Pre-Shift Podcast as of January 2023. The information presented may no longer be up-to-date and may differ from the viewpoints and insights currently shared on The Pre-Shift Podcast.

For our tenth episode, we welcome the authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant, Carl Osbourn and Meredith Sandland. Delivering The Digital Restaurant explores the world of off premise food and the massive disruption facing American  restaurants through first-hand accounts of restaurateurs, food industry veterans, and start up entrepreneurs. We chat about how the book came about, who it's for, and how technology can help restaurant during the labor crisis.

00:00 Introduction and Pre-Show Setup

01:19 Starting the Interview: Meet the Authors

02:22 Background Stories: Meredith and Carl

05:26 The Evolution of the Restaurant Industry

07:26 Challenges in the Restaurant Industry

14:23 Adapting to Digital and Delivery

21:57 Insights from Writing the Book

27:22 Conclusion and Where to Get the Book

30:20 Post-Show Wrap-Up

About Meredith Sandland

Spent two decades in consulting, corporate strategy, and restaurant development. After building 1000+ restaurants as the Chief Development Officer at Yum! Brands’ Taco Bell, Meredith observed that the on-demand economy was starting to affect restaurants. Meredith joined ghost kitchen start-up Kitchen United as employee #4 to create their business model, raise initial capital, and serve as the public face of the GV (Google Ventures) backed disruptor. Meredith lives in Orange County, California with her three favorite guys: husband, Scott; son, Lincoln; and dog, Kobe. 

About Carl Osbourn 

Carl led BP-owned ampm and its billion-dollar grab-and go food and beverage offering across the brand’s 1000+ convenience retail locations. At BP, Carl obsessed over consumer convenience, and transformed ampm’s fresh food offerings to deliver record growth. In 2018, Carl joined  

Kitchen United to lead Operations, working with restaurant brands to reinvent an operating system that capitalized on the rapidly changing face of  

food delivery. Carl, his wife Elicia, and their two cats, Positano and Ravello, live in Orange County, California.

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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.

This episode was originally published as part of the Restaurant Growth Podcast. It has been rebranded as part of The Pre-Shift Podcast as of January 2023. The information presented may no longer be up-to-date and may differ from the viewpoints and insights currently shared on The Pre-Shift Podcast.

How do you train a deskless workforce with modern technology? Through our great uniter—the text message. We welcome Rachael Nemeth, Co-founder and CEO of Opus Training on the show to discuss Opus' text message-based learning platform for frontline workers, onboarding and training the deskless workforce, and how a great training program can help keep employees around.

The 7shifts Restaurant Growth Podcast is hosted by Dominick "D.J." Costantino, 7shifts' Content Writer.

00:00 Introduction and Initial Requests

01:40 Podcast Recording Details

02:21 Challenges and Solutions in Podcasting

04:09 Introducing Opus Training

05:38 Use Cases for Opus Training

08:27 Importance of New Hire Training

09:46 Supporting Managers and Digital Assistance

13:39 Growth Pathways in Restaurants

18:03 Equitable Technology for Desk-less Workers

26:33 Challenges with Traditional LMS

29:43 Conclusion and Contact Information

About Rachael Nemeth
Rachael Nemeth is the CEO and Cofounder of Opus, a platform that helps employers design and deliver text message-based courses to their "deskless" workforce. Her background combines decades of experience in the service industry, instructional design, and second language acquisition. Before Opus, she worked in Operations and HR for Danny Meyer's, Union Square Hospitality Group, Baked, and Hot Bread Kitchen, an NGO that teaches baking production skills to underrepresented women. Her first company, ESL Works brought industry-relevant English training to New York City kitchens. Rachael is an alum of The New School and is from Kansas City (the Kansas side, if you're wondering).

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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.

This episode was originally published as part of the Restaurant Growth Podcast. It has been rebranded as part of The Pre-Shift Podcast as of January 2023. The information presented may no longer be up-to-date and may differ from the viewpoints and insights currently shared on The Pre-Shift Podcast.

We have a very special episode to share with you all, featuring the one and only Danny Meyer. We had the pleasure of hosting Danny (virtually) in our offices for a fireside chat with our CEO, Jordan Boesch. Danny went over his career, philosophy on hiring for his teams, the state of the restaurant industry, the early days of restaurant technology, and answered some questions from our team. It's an episode that you don't want to miss. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

About Danny Meyer
Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Danny Meyer grew up in a family that relished great food and hospitality. Thanks to his father’s travel business, which designed custom European trips, Danny spent much of his childhood eating, visiting near and far-off places, and sowing the seeds for his future passion. In 1985, at the age of 27, Danny opened his first restaurant, Union Square Cafe, launching what would become a lifelong career in hospitality. 

Thirty years later, Danny’s Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) comprises some of New York’s most beloved and acclaimed restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern, The Modern, Maialino, and more. Danny and USHG founded Shake Shack, the modern-day “roadside” burger restaurant, which became a public company in 2015. USHG also offers large-scale event services, foodservice solutions for public and private institutions, industry consulting, and educational programming. 

Under Danny’s leadership, USHG is renowned not only for its acclaimed restaurants but also for its distinctive and celebrated culture of Enlightened Hospitality. This guiding principle of prioritizing employees first and foremost has driven and shaped USHG’s ongoing evolution from a small group of restaurants into a multi-faceted hospitality organization.

Danny and USHG’s diverse ventures have added to the hospitality dialogue in many contexts including dining options in museums, sports arenas, and cultural institutions, as well as prescient investments in burgeoning neighborhoods.

Danny’s groundbreaking business book, Setting the Table (HarperCollins, 2006), a New York Times Bestseller, articulates a set of signature business and life principles that translate to a wide range of industries. A celebrated speaker and educator, Danny has set industry standards in areas such as hiring practices, innovative leadership, and corporate responsibility and addresses a wide range of audiences on such topics around the country.

Danny has been generously recognized for his leadership, business achievements, and humanitarianism, including the 2017 Julia Child Award, the 2015 TIME 100 “Most Influential People” list, the 2012 Aspen Institute Preston Robert Tisch Award in Civic Leadership, the 2011 NYU Lewis Rudin Award for Exemplary Service to New York City, and the 2000 IFMA Gold Plate Award. Together, Danny and USHG’s restaurants and individuals have won an unprecedented 28 James Beard Awards, including Outstanding Restaurateur (2005) and Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America (1996).

Danny and his wife, Audrey, live in New York City and have four children.

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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.

This episode was originally published as part of the Restaurant Growth Podcast. It has been rebranded as part of The Pre-Shift Podcast as of January 2023. The information presented may no longer be up-to-date and may differ from the viewpoints and insights currently shared on The Pre-Shift Podcast.

What are your restaurant's core values? If you're not sure, this episode of the podcast will help you figure that out. We sit down with Kelly McCutcheon, VP of People at Hopdoddy Burger Bar, to chat about how Kelly and her team whittled down a list of 50 characteristics into four core values that drive the 32-location machine that is Hopdoddy Burger Bar. 

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast

01:11 Meet Kelly McCutcheon, VP of People at Hopdoddy

01:57 Establishing Core Values at Hopdoddy

02:44 The Process of Defining Core Values

06:24 Implementing and Living Core Values

09:06 Core Values in Hiring and Daily Operations

13:22 Adapting Core Values Over Time

18:47 Advice for Restaurant Owners

20:45 Conclusion and Contact Information

About Kelly McCutcheon
In her hospitality career spanning 20 years, Kelly’s skill for training has grown into a passion for leading and developing others. She’s had the pleasure of leading the creation of a TM to GM career development program, where over 100 Team Members have turned their passion into purpose by advancing their career into a position of leadership. Through experience opening over 60 new restaurant locations, she’s discovered that great training aligns what we do with what we say we do, and great business performance begins by pouring into our people. Her training mission is to help people grow into the best version of themselves. Kelly is currently VP of People for Hopdoddy Burger Bar based in Austin TX. She’s also the Regional Training Director for the Council of Hotel & Restaurant Trainers and a dog mom of 2 adorable rescues.

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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.

Now that guests are coming back into your restaurant, it means there are more tables to clean, more guests to attend to, and more side work to complete.

The problem of restaurant task management is not a new one. Restaurateurs named employee engagement their third-biggest challenge going into 2020, meaning that figuring out how to keep your staff productive and motivated has been (and continues to be) a top priority in the restaurant industry.

In this episode, we’ll help you answer that question. Keep listening for our tips on making your staff more efficient and ensuring no task is left incomplete when you go home for the day.

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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.

Opening a restaurant is a big challenge that requires a huge investment of time and money. But the challenges don’t stop there—once open you have to focus on improving processes, managing labor schedules, and controlling restaurant costs.

Whether it’s food cost increases due to inflation or a labor cost rise due to rising minimum wage, cost increases, like taxes, are pretty much a guarantee in the restaurant industry.

This episode answers these questions and more. You’ll learn almost everything you need to know about restaurant costs so that you can remain profitable.

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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.

This episode was originally published as part of the Restaurant Growth Podcast. It has been rebranded as part of The Pre-Shift Podcast as of January 2023. The information presented may no longer be up-to-date and may differ from the viewpoints and insights currently shared on The Pre-Shift Podcast.

Welcome to the 7shifts Restaurant Growth Podcast, where sit down with the best minds in the restaurant industry to inspire you with new ways to improve your business. On this episode, we dive into how to deal with negativity in the restaurant industry, coming both from guests as well as your own team. Ken also leaves with some advice for restaurant employees who are still unsure about going back to work.

The 7shifts Restaurant Growth Podcast is hosted by Dominick "D.J." Costantino, 7shifts' Content Writer.

About Ken McGarrie
Ken McGarrie is the cofounder of Korgen Hospitality, a nationwide consulting firm dedicated to helping restauranteurs reach their absolute potential with effective leadership and maximum profitability. For the past two decades, he has helmed many successful restaurants, bars, and entertainment-based venues with a relentless focus on anticipatory service, staff empowerment, and attentive hospitality. He has helped launch new concepts and train hospitality leaders throughout the U.S. and Canada. After failing to start an exceptional college band with only average talent, Ken worked as a server/bartender while writing for magazines and newspapers. He started in management the same way that many people do – by surprise. When his GM asked if he would take a set of keys and open the restaurant on occasion, he was suddenly promoted to manager with no training or preparation, like so many others in the industry.

Ken went on to open and manage numerous successful restaurants and entertainment venues. With Korgen Hospitality, he has an exceptional client list, including helping open over a dozen restaurants with celebrity chef Fabio Viviani nationwide. An amateur guitarist, avid podcast enthusiast, and stand-up comedy devotee, Ken is currently based in Chicago, Illinois. Learn more at www.korgenhospitality.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.

Welcome to the 7shifts Restaurant Growth Podcast, where sit down with the best minds in the restaurant industry to inspire you with new ways to improve your business. In this episode, Shrad Rao, CEO of Wagepoint, discusses just how far restaurant tech has come in the last decade, and the wealth of technology available to restaurants right now. We also dive into some payroll best practices (and horror stories) and discuss how solid payroll practices can help retain employees.

The 7shifts Restaurant Growth Podcast is hosted by Dominick "D.J." Costantino, 7shifts' Content Writer.

About Wagepoint
Wagepoint is built just for small businesses and the bookkeepers and accountants who serve them. That goes for everything from product features and pricing to how we define our customer model — in a way that ensures our customers feel like Wagepoint is a friend who just happens to know a lot about payroll.

About 7shifts
7shifts is a team management platform designed for restaurants. We help managers and operators spend less time and effort scheduling their staff, reduce their monthly labor costs and streamline team communication. The result is simplified labor management, one shift at a time.