Behind the Numbers

True Food Kitchen runs 2,200 active recipes to power a menu of fewer than 100 items. Stephan Manning, Director of Restaurant Systems and Optimization, joins Behind the Numbers to explain how a 46-location scratch kitchen keeps 1,200 purchase items, 16,000 vendor items, and close to 2,000 invoices a week clean and moving through Restaurant365. Stephan covers the yield-on-yield recipe structure a sc...

Munsok So's 612North event space did $220,000 in sales across two days, including more than $160,000 in a single four-to-five-hour event. On this episode of Behind the Numbers, the president and CEO of So Hospitality Group, who signed on with Restaurant365 when the company had 11 employees, walks through how he built eight restaurants across four concepts in the St. Louis area: Drunken Fish, Kimch...

Six months after their first farm stand order, Julie Mountain and Dana Noorily were selling granola in 52 Whole Foods stores and making almost nothing on it. On this episode of Behind the Numbers, the co-founders and co-CEOs of The Granola Bar explain why they abandoned CPG, how a cold call to a Dannon-owned yogurt shop led to a 1,200 square foot kitchen with an 800 square foot dining room attache...

GPS Hospitality sells somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million Whoppers a year, and VP of Operations Support Gary Thomas can walk you through the math: 400 guests a day per store, almost 60 million guests a year, a third of them ordering a Whopper. On this episode of Behind the Numbers, Thomas explains how one of the nation's largest Burger King franchisees grew from 42 restaurants in 2012 to j...

Smokey Mo's BBQ sells over 1 million pounds of brisket a year, and President Craig Haley can walk you through exactly where every ounce goes. Recorded live at the NRA Show 2026, this episode of Behind the Numbers digs into the unforgiving math of Texas barbecue: a pound purchased becomes half a pound sold, briskets cook 10 to 13 hours and get fork-tested in 5 or 6 spots, and actual versus theoreti...

The Big Biscuit sold 1,388,759 biscuits last year, and VP of Finance Alex Clark can tell you the exact figure. Recorded live at the NRA Show 2026, this episode of Behind the Numbers gets into how The Big Biscuit runs finance on real data: capturing every sales channel, cutting manual accounts payable work, scaling from a handful of locations to two dozen, and pricing a premium menu item without pr...

Ramon Soriano sold 4 million tacos in ten years, and he can tell you exactly what that looks like stacked, lined up, and weighed. He can also tell you how La Calle Tacos went from a 13% net profit margin to 32%. In this episode, the founder and CEO of Houston's La Calle Tacos joins hosts Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney to break down the systems behind one of the most efficient independent operations i...

Lance Reynolds has lived every side of the restaurant business, from dishwasher at age 12 to owner of four restaurants to Director of Restaurant Operations Consulting at US Foods. In this episode, hosts Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney talk with Lance about why restaurants are slow to adopt technology, what the numbers behind a nearly $40 billion distributor look like, and the retention turnaround that...

Kristen Sandhurst sits on both sides of the restaurant equation: she is a partner at Edotto, an accounting firm built to serve restaurant operators, and the CFO of an affiliated franchise group running 20 Taco John's and 3 Slim Chickens locations. In this episode, hosts Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney talk with Kristen about what actually moves the numbers in a restaurant operation right now. The conv...

Greg Plummer started at 15 as a dishwasher at Bennigan's. Today he runs Concord Collective Partners, an airport hospitality company operating 12 restaurants and 13 branded concepts at LAX, with additional locations across Seattle, Ontario, and San Diego. In this episode, Greg joins Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney to break down the economics of airport dining at scale: 2 million transactions per year,...

Prakash Karamchandani -- PK -- co-founded Balance Pan-Asian Grille in 2008 with nothing but credit cards and a college roommate. Today Balance runs four corporate locations in Ohio, generates roughly $3 million AUV per store, and carries zero debt. On this episode, PK breaks down the operational and financial systems behind those numbers. The conversation covers the badge-based pay structure that...

Rebecca Stewart, VP of Technology at HuHot Mongolian Grill, sits down with Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney to discuss how a 55-unit family-owned brand uses data and automated reporting to increase sales and reduce theft. HuHot has been operating for 26 years, starting from a single location in Missoula, Montana. Today the brand serves 1.7 million pounds of noodles annually across three core varieties...

Restaurant workers live and work without paid leave, health benefits, or corporate safety nets. When a crisis hits, whether it is a health emergency, natural disaster, or sudden loss, the financial fall is fast. CORE, the national nonprofit that provides direct financial grants to food and beverage service families, exists to close that gap. This week on Behind the Numbers, Marc Cohen and Rich Swe...

In this episode of Behind the Numbers, presented by R365, Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney sit down with Troy Hooper, CEO of Hot Palette America and Pepper Lunch. Pepper Lunch operates 560 restaurants across 17 countries and serves more than 40 million plates annually. With a goal of surpassing 1,100 stores by 2030, Troy breaks down how the brand is building a scalable global franchise system rooted in...

Villa Restaurant Group operates more than 85 locations across 28 concepts. Many of which are inside high-volume airports and destination venues. Managing that level of complexity requires more than strong leadership; it demands disciplined systems and reliable data. Michael Lehmann, Controller at Villa Restaurant Group, joins Behind the Numbers to explain how consolidating technology created opera...

What is the secret sauce behind a brand that successfully manages over 500 locations while maintaining genuine hospitality? Today, we’re joined by Bill Valentas, CFO of Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers. Bill walks us through the complexities of managing a rapidly growing franchise, from implementing Actual vs. Theoretical (AvT) reporting to future-proofing your business through scalable...

How do you turn a street food concept into a global brand with nearly 400 locations? On this episode of Behind the Numbers, hosts Rich Sweeney and Marc Cohen interview the financial architects behind Dave’s Hot Chicken: CFO James McGehee and SVP of Finance Scott Putman. They discuss the brand's explosion from a parking lot to an international sensation, utilizing a lean team and powerful tech stac...

Black Rock Coffee Bar has doubled its footprint since 2020 and now ships over 26,000 pounds of beans per week to fuel more than 162 locations. But according to VP of Learning and Operations Services Heather Kulzak, the secret isn’t the coffee—it’s the people. In this episode of Behind the Numbers, Heather joins Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney to discuss how Black Rock trains 2,500+ employees, maintain...

Taziki’s Mediterranean Café has grown to 108 locations by holding tightly to one belief: hospitality still matters. But scaling that belief required clarity. In this episode, we sit down with Dan Simpson, CEO of Taziki’s, and Jean Silva from Square to explore how the partnership between Taziki’s, Square, and Restaurant365 reshaped the company’s entire operational approach. They break down how unif...

Brand Operations Manager David Selby of Square One Concepts joins Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney to share how he manages one of Arizona’s largest and most sophisticated beverage programs. David breaks down how his team counts 6,000 bottles, controls 2,100 SKUs, pours nearly 5,000 whiskeys a month, and reduced inventory count time by eight hours. He explains how Restaurant365 helped cut inventory carr...

In this episode of Behind the Numbers, hosts Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney sit down with Gregg Majewski, CEO and founder of Craveworthy Brands, to unpack how a 28-month-old company grew to 18 brands, 4,300 employees, and over $300 million in systemwide sales. Gregg shares why culture must come before numbers, how he empowers franchisees to succeed, and why hospitality—not automation—remains the hear...

In this episode of Behind the Numbers, hosts Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney sit down with Joshua Lacer Watkins, CFO of Ice Age Management Inc., a McDonald’s franchisee group operating more than 50 restaurants across North Carolina. Joshua shares how focusing on margins, cash flow, and operational KPIs drives sustainable growth and how tools like Restaurant365 empower both finance and operations teams...

World Pizza Champion Melissa Rickman pulls back the curtain on how Wholly Stromboli runs with the discipline of a national chain on just one (soon to be two) locations. Discover how her team drives food costs down to 18.5%, right-sizes staff from 48 to 38 employees, and has tracked more than 866,000 dough balls since 2010. From portion control with engraved scoops to AI-driven menu pricing, Meliss...

California’s 2024 PAGA reform finally gives operators leverage if they do the work. Employment attorney Anthony Zaller explains how proactive audits, supervisor training, updated policies, and documented corrective actions can cap certain penalties at 15%. We dig into why PAGA filings still exceed 10,000 a year, the $200 per-paycheck pay-stub risk, when to add HR support (25 employees) and bring i...

CFO and author Bruce Nelson breaks down how AI is changing the finance side of restaurants. From when to bring in a fractional CFO (hint: around $10M in revenue) to why one source of truth for numbers is essential, Bruce shares lessons from his career and vision for the future. Connect with Bruce Nelson Connect with Bruce on LinkedIn Visit Bruce's Website Connect with the Show Connect with Rich Sw...