The Hospitality Hangout | Restaurant Industry Trends & Hospitality Leaders

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” were on the road at the Restaurant, Finance and Development Conference in Las Vegas with guests Andrew Smith, Managing Director of Savory Fund, Andy Wiederhorn, Chief Executive Officer of Fat Brands and Tim McLaughlin, Chief Executive Officer of GoTab. Smith is Managing Partner of Savory Management, a Mercato Partners value-add management company, that focuses on delivering outsized returns through strategic growth and replication strategies. They partner with high-potential restaurant concepts to deliver necessary capital, industry knowledge, and operational prowess to facilitate growth into multi-unit brands and they specialize in taking fast casual and polished casual food and beverage concepts with between 2 and 8 locations and scales them into 30 plus units. Smith talks about growth, brands and shares breaking news with the guys. Wiederhorn has served as a director and Chief Executive Officer of FAT Brands Inc. since its formation. It is a global franchising company that acquires, markets, and develops fast-casual, quick-service, casual dining, and polished casual dining concepts around the world. They own seventeen restaurant brands including Round Table Pizza, Fatburger, Marble Slab Creamery, Johnny Rockets, Fazoli’s, Twin Peaks and more. Wiederhorn talks about growth and acquisitions and buying 9 new brands. They talk about Fat Brands looking at new acquisitions and having a one thousand store pipeline of stores to be built. The idea of GoTab was started when co-founder McLaughlin started his first restaurant and brewery in 2015. GoTab, Inc., is a Restaurant Commerce Platform helping large and mid-sized restaurants, breweries, bars, hotels and other venues run lean, profitable operations while making guests even more satisfied. Recently the brand made Inc. Power Partner Awards. McLaughlin talks about the importance of integrations and what is next for GoTab. To hear more from all of the guests that stopped by to chat with Schatzberg and Frischling at RFDC and Branded Quickfire, check out this episode Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Carin Stutz, president and chief executive officer at Native Foods. Stutz has been in the industry for five decades and worked with brands such as Red Robin, Wendy’s, Cosi, Applebee’s and more. Stutz said looking back at her career and her early start at McDonald’s, she loved being in the restaurant business. Native Foods, the plant-based fast-casual brand launched back in 1994 before the plant-based restaurants were popular. They have twelve restaurants in three states, Colorado, California and Illinois. Stutz says that the brand is really leaning into vegan comfort food, delicious, nostalgic food with a twist. Recently they hired a new chef to bring innovation to the brand. Frischling talks about plant-based foods and says, in the U.S. alone plant-based foods are a $7.4 billion dollar market and are growing three times as fast as overall food sales and grocery retailers nationwide. He says despite these numbers there are still some wary customers. Stutz talks about soy benefits as a protein and the myth around it as well as the innovation around vegetable proteins. Stutz offers advice for operators that may not have plant-based foods on their menu, to introduce consumers to plant-based foods. She says, operators need to go all in to vegan if they are adding a plant-based menu item. Stutz says it is an easy sustainable message. She adds that there are usually three reasons you see the guest come to your restaurant for plant-based options, one is health, second is environment and lastly is animal compassion. In addition to Native Foods, Stutz sits on several boards including Kura Sushi and Checkers & Rally’s Restaurants. She says it is an honor to be on a board and she looks at board service as her giving years. She wants people to look at the foodservice industry as a real career. To hear more about Stutz’s insights on the industry, technology and innovation and her answer to her Trivia Tuesday question about George Clooney, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy”chat with André Vener, partner and co-founder of Dog Haus. Dog Haus is known for its signature all beef Haus Dogs and handcrafted proprietary Haus Sausages, as well as its 100% genetically tested, humanely raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free Black Angus beef from Creekstone Farms. The founding partners are three friends who share a passion for creativity, quality and commitment to community. They are Hagop Giragossian, Quasim Riaz and Andre Vener and they opened their first Dog Haus in Pasadena, California in 2010. Frischling starts out the episode by asking the Trivia Tuesday segment question, “Was Vener a guest at Michael Jackson’s funeral?” Where the answer will be revealed at the end of the show. Vener talks about Dog Haus and says they have about sixty locations in twelve states and the restaurant is known for dogs, sausage, burgers, hot national chicken sandwiches, plant-based foods, a kick-ass bar program and their virtual brands. Vener is asked about his foresight to create virtual brands prior to the pandemic and the launch of The Absolute Brands. Vener talks about breaking down the Dog Haus menu to create five different companies by looking at items that were ordered for take out. During the pandemic Dog Haus was able to give their franchisees the opportunity to offer brands that had been created only for ghost kitchens. They would be able to have five concepts to offer for delivery since the bars and restaurants were shut down. Dog Haus went from minus 45% in April to being up 12.5% in the second half of the year with all of the shutdowns. The virtual kitchens started running solely within their stores but have since partnered with Kitchen United, Kroger and CloudKitchen to grow their reach. Vener talks about the convenience of having Kitchen United brands in a grocery store. He shares how you are able to order from multiple brands all in the ease of placing one order. This is also a great way to introduce the name of brands to grocery store customers. To hear Tuesday's Trivia answer and how Vener is bringing Bad-Ass Breakfast Burrito concept to a brick-and-mortar, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Mani Kulasooriya, Co-Founder & CEO of Cut+Dry plus the guys introduce a new segment, Trivia Tuesday and share a fun trivia question about their guest at the end of the show. Cut+Dry is an all-in-one commerce enablement platform for foodservice distributors. It was created to provide distributors, their customers, and their suppliers with a single digital platform to make food commerce a more enjoyable, more profitable, and less wasteful experience. Kulasooriya has been working in tech for over twenty plus years. He started in consumer internet and fintech before fintech was even coined. Before founding Cut+Dry, in 2019, Mani co-founded CAKE, a restaurant technology startup, which was acquired by Sysco. All founders start a company based on some experience they had, positive or negative. Kulasooriya shares how he took specific experiences from Citigroup, Yahoo and CAKE before he developed Cut+Dry. Kulasooriya says that Cut+Dry has the largest structured data base in the industry. He adds that the big problem that they are solving can have significant benefits to the foodservice ecosystem and also to humanity in general. Kulasooriya notes that 30% of food getting thrown out has environmental and social consequences. They talk about the role that data plays for the operators, distributors and the manufacturers. Cut+Dry does the heavy lifting with the data then gives the operators, manufacturers and distributors the applications that make their businesses run better. To hear more about how the data can positively impact the total business, the use case for the restaurants and Kulasooriya’s Trivia Tuesday answer, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Rajat Bhakhri CEO and Co-Founder of Boston-based Incentivio, Inc.Incentivio is a fully automated intelligence-driven guest engagement platform for restaurants and virtual kitchens that increases retention, maximizes revenue and enhances the guest experience for both first-time visitors & loyalists.Bhakhri is a graduate of Purdue University with a degree in electrical engineering. He delivered pizza for a short period of time until his first job as a software engineer. Bhakhri moved to Boston and worked for a startup. He then started Aeturnum, a technology services company with 250+ engineers and offices in the U.S. and Asia focused on building platforms for startups in the U.S. and Europe. “We should build a single stack solution where we can capture all the guest data,” says Bhakhri . He adds, to help increase check sizes and help restaurants retain guests. The idea was how to democratize tech for all of their customers. Frischling says, I love that you use the democratization of. I think that’s really important and I think long time listers of the podcast know the 2/3 of the restaurants in this country are small to midsize businesses, they are mom and pop, there’s a lot out there for the big boys and God bless, we love the big boys, we respect the big boys but I do love what Incentivio is doing for everyone else or almost 2/3 of the market.They talk about Incentivio and Uber joining forces to offer restaurants first party ordering and commission free delivery. Uber will provide delivery drivers to restaurants using Incentivio’s order-ahead solutions. Restaurant guests can order delivery directly from a restaurant’s website or mobile app, and the Incentivio platform dispatches an Uber driver for the delivery. To hear about Incentivio’s artificial intelligence product and more, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and special host, Rev “The Marketing Guy” bring you this episode on the road from the Fast Casual Executive Summit in Indianapolis. They chat with Kathy Doyle, President and Publisher at Networld Media Group, Jim Bitticks, President and COO at Dave's Hot Chicken, Zack Oates, Founder and CEO at Ovation and André Vener, Partner at Dog Haus. Kathy Doyle stops by to talk about the Fast Casual Executive Summit that is now in its seventeenth year. When they started this model it was about bringing fun networking and learning together to the industry. Doyle says, “I mean I don't care what you do for a living no matter how much you love it. Some days are longer than others. So when you can throw some fun in there and people are having a good time, a lot of things get done and deals get done and people learn and they move forward when they're on the road.” She adds, "so that's the real mission of the Fast Casual Executive Summit.”Dave’s Hot Chicken president and chief operating officer, Jim Bitticks stops by to talk about the brand and its start. He says, “Dave's Hot Chicken is a concept that started in a parking lot just five and a half years ago with three guys, nine hundred dollars, an igloo ice chest, an E-Z Up and a portable frier.” Bitticks adds, “They got strategically lucky that a Farley Elliot, a blogger from Eater LA came in on the third day and loved it, posted a blog article on it. The next day they were wrapped around the block and it never stopped.” Dave’s Hot Chicken has 84 locations today. Oates, the founder and CEO of Ovation, stops by to chat about the show and The Perfect Pitch, which was a global contest like Shark Tank for fast casual brands. Oates said the winner was Flake Pie, out of Utah. When asked why Oates comes back to Fast Casual Executive Summit each year he says, “This is such a good place to not just meet people but reconnect with people and this is something that's really fun, as I was looking through the agenda last night it's like every single panel has an Ovation customer on it. Which is really cool to see because when we came here two years ago we did not have a single customer that was here.” André Vener, Partner at Dog Haus shares what to expect in his session, he says they will be talking about ghost kitchens and what is going on in that space including Dog Haus’ Kroger partnership they have with Kitchen United. They talk about it being a unique opportunity in a grocery store. Dog Haus was created by three friends in 2010 with a passion for hot dogs. Vener says they have about 75 locations, in 20 states. To hear the branded quickfire with the guests, technology that Dave’s Hot Chicken has added and more check out this episode Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael0Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” chat with Jeff Handler, chief executive officer and President at Hopdoddy Burger Bar & HiBar Hospitality Group.Handler grew up in the business, he has been in the industry for more than thirty years. He shared, “My dad was a tavern owner and growing up, if I wanted to spend time with my dad that meant kind of sometimes early mornings and weekends hanging out at the tavern picking quarters out of booth seats and cleaning the grill and cleaning beer lines and emptying pool tables.” Handler joined Hopdoddy Burger Bar in 2016 as CEO and in 2021 he was also named CEO of HiBar Hospitality, a growth-focused umbrella company owned by L Catterton that in 2022 completed its first acquisition, Grub Burger Bar.The guys ask Handler about Hopdoddy and he says, “I don't care what you call us as long as you call us the best burger place you've ever been to.” He adds, “That's what we aspire to do. Hopdoddy plays in the better burger space. We look to be disruptive and really rethinking, reshaping kind of what a better burger joint looks like and acts like.” Hopdoddy is based out of Austin, Texas and currently has 50 locations really from coast to coast.Handler talks about what differentiates Hopdoddy and says, “So what makes Hopdoddy different I think it's that we really are open minded to what a burger is. Most people just think it's a bun and meat and some toppings and we look at it as a vessel for flavors. Anything that we can grind, grill, we're going to make a burger out of it and so we've done some pretty cool creative things with different proteins.”Off-premise is a focus topic on this show and Handler shares his tips and some recommendations for operators that may still be struggling since the pandemic. Handler said, what they learned quickly was they could be profitable, they could take care of the guests and they could take care of the team members by getting them back to work. Hopdoddy’s off-premise business was about 12% and post-pandemic is now at 40%. To hear about the founders of Hopdoddy and how Hopdoddy’s tackled engineering the food for takeout plus experience, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” bring you this episode from FSTEC. They chat with Daran Han, Cargill Digital Business Studio Lead, Stacey Hey, Digital Product Owner of Kitchen Blueprint, Jessica Stanchfield, Digital Product Owner of Hot Take and Nate Shrader, Digital Product Owner of Chekt. Cargill Digital Business Studios is a startup studio backed by Cargill investment and expertise, designed to incubate and scale digital businesses within Cargill that address the most urgent problems facing our global food and agriculture system, now and into the future. Han says, “over the last couple decades we've really kind of doubled down around investing in new solutions and integrating the way that we bring our entire offerings to our customers.” He added, “so we're kind of found on the history of entrepreneurship over the last 165 years as we think about what's ahead for us and we look at the environment that we serve and agri-food everything we're seeing is a digital disruption starting to come in and impact the environment that we operate in and as Cargill we're investing in a digital business studio.” Han explains that it is a place where they incubate and build new businesses from the ground up, meshing the capabilities, expertise and the resources at Cargill, doing good work to impact the environment. Stacey Hey, the digital product owner of Kitchen Blueprint stops by to talk with the guys. Kitchen Blueprint creates transparency with data and insights to show where costs are going, where loss is happening and how processes can be more efficient across the back-of-house. Hey says that, “there's a whole host of new opportunities that come to bear whether that be optimization of profits. Whether that be reduction of labor reliance. Whether that be whole new opportunities to automate areas of the restaurant they otherwise would not have gone or would have gone undiscovered so that's really the heart of what we focused on.” Digital product owner, Jessica Stanchfield of Hot Take, the food-focused research platform that connects businesses to their customers stops by to chat with the guys. Stanchfield says that Hot Take is an innovation and insights platform. They bring the consumer voice and insights into the innovation process and that they are critical to making better business decisions. Checkt’s digital product owner Nate Shrader stops by to talk about Chekt, a contactless food pickup system designed to meet the demands of high-volume foodservice environments. Shrader says, “it's a modular smart food locker solution designed to transform take out and pick up for restaurants and really anyone who is a really high congested food service provider. So stadiums, colleges, and universities as well.”To hear customer stories from each of the guests plus the quickfire questions from Texas, check out this episode Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” were on the road and with a special edition live from FSTEC in Dallas. Andy Freivogel is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Science On Call. He has over twenty-five years experience in both technology and retail. He also spent years creating specialized data networks and systems for end-user support in the residential digital services arena. Freivogel stops by to talk to the guys about the show, Innovation Alley and Science On Call, a tech support platform for restaurants. Freivogel says that the theme of the show is optimism and enthusiasm, people are happy to be back. CEO of Copia, Kimberly Smith stops by and chats with the guys. Copia’s technology allows businesses to safely donate their excess food to nonprofits and access tax deductions. Copia is helping the industry track food waste. Smith shares that Copia has just closed a Pre-Series A with Branded Strategic. Smith says from an operation standpoint they are continuing to grow. She adds that operators that are not focusing on solutions to donate their waste are missing out on tax benefits. Stephanie Sollers, CEO at Virtual Dining Concepts, stops by and talks about the new brick-and-mortar launch of MrBeast Burger. Virtual Dining Concepts creates large virtual brands with celebrities, media companies and influencers, helping them expand their businesses into the food category. Sollers says the ethos of the company is to bring these concepts into restaurants and kitchens that have extra capacity. Chris Keating, EVP at Winsight comes by to talk about this year's FSTEC. The show had over 700 operators. They talk about the panel CEO’s in the hot seat, and Keating says that chief executive officers are technology professionals now.To hear more from all of the guests that stopped by to chat with Schatzberg and Frischling at FSTEC, check out this episode Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” chat with Jay Fiske, President of Powerhouse Dynamics, a Middleby Company while in Dallas at the FSTEC Conference. As president Fiske is responsible for leading all strategic and day-to-day company operations. He is a technology executive and investor with over twenty years of experience building businesses and innovative technology products to market. Fiske says, “Powerhouse Dynamics, we are a Boston based technology firm and we are the folks behind the open kitchen internet of things platform. We help large multi-site restaurant operators manage their critical infrastructure more efficiently, save money on energy, reduce risk on food safety, help make sure all their cooking equipment is up and running and producing high- quality products.” He adds, “So think about this as the internet of things. The critical back of house infrastructure and you know driving those kinds of efficiency that this visibility and control and connectability suddenly affords these multi-site operators.” Restaurants can use Open Kitchen to connect, analyze, and control equipment like refrigeration, HVAC as well as a large range of kitchen equipment brands to automate essential facility functions. The guys ask Fiske, “can you share with our listeners about what Open Kitchen is doing to help operators maintain their equipment before they even break and have issues? And the importance of what we're learning from you is the smart kitchen.” Fiske says as Open Kitchen integrates with different types of equipment and makes and models, the business case for connectivity really varies by the kind of equipment. There is a common theme across all equipment for uptime and maintenance. Fiske says Open Kitchen can give operators insights to the data and all you to be proactive on prioritizing any issues. Schatzberg makes a point and says that what he really loves about Open Kitchen is that it can integrate with equipment from many manufactures, not just Middleby. Fiske says that when operators are integrating with Open Kitchen that their data can not be shared with anyone else. Frischling talks about how data is a hot topic and asks Fiske, “Can you share the role that the Internet-of-Things (IoT) generated data is playing with Powerhouse Dynamics Open Kitchen and how is it helping everyone?” Fiske says that they provide the infrastructure to get all the raw data to the cloud and it is creating the business tools around the data for effective outcomes. To hear about the foodservice feud plus Frischling and Schatzberg answer to the talking back question, where they see automation going in foodservice, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout. Episode Credits:Sponsored by: DirecTVProduced by: Branded Hospitality MediaHosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy FrischlingProducer: Julie ZuckerCreative Director: Adam LevineShow Runner: Drewe RaimiPost Production: GrodMediawww.thehospitalityhangout.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.