A Deeper Dive

What is the right franchising strategy for your restaurant brand? It’s not as simple a question as you may think. And I brought in Sean Thompson, VP of IT with Freddy’s Frozen Custard and Steakburgers, to discuss franchising strategies and what may or may not work for restaurant brands. The number of strategies for franchising a restaurant brand, or any industry for that matter, is as varied as th...

Should restaurants worry about weight-loss drugs? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Leo Feler, chief economist with the data firm Numerator, to talk about the potential impact of GLP-1 drugs on consumers’ food-spending habits. Drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy are increasingly popular. The medications are historically used for Type 2 diabetes but were fou...

Why did restaurants close so many locations last year? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Jim Balis, the operations partner with the private equity and debt financing firm CapitalSpring. We had Balis on the podcast to talk about the closures. A lot of companies closed locations in 2024. Many of them ended up in bankruptcy, such as Red Lobster and TGI Frid...

Traffic and value dominated restaurant news in 2024. Unsurprisingly, then, this episode of the Restaurant Business podcast of A Deeper Dive, which features some of the best content from a year’s worth of podcast episodes, focuses mostly on discussions about that very topic.  The first clip features Technomic’s Robert Byrne, talking about consumer frustration over restaurant prices.  You can find t...

How can you tell if an emerging brand will be a long-term success? It’s not an easy question to answer. A lot of private-equity firms, restaurant executives, real estate companies, consultants, vendors and others all spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try and answer that question. This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive does its best to answer that question and f...

Restaurants have been loading their menus with new items lately. This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive is all about menu development, and specifically why so many restaurant chains are turning to limited-time offers to get customers in the door. RB Senior Menu Editor Pat Cobe joins me to talk about that this week.  Here’s a statistic: There were nearly 26,000 limited...

It’s impossible to kill a restaurant chain, even when it’s dead. This week’s episode of A Deeper Dive features a discussion on a fascinating phenomenon in the restaurant world lately: Operators bringing formerly dead or dying brands back to life. RB colleagues Lisa Jennings and Joe Guszkowski join me to talk about three such concepts: Steak & Ale, Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes and Ground Ro...

Church’s Texas Chicken has a new recipe that’s its old recipe.  This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Joe Guith, CEO of the chicken chain. He joined us for an exclusive look at the company and its growth plans.  Church’s does have some big growth plans. The company wants to get to $2 billion in system sales by 2028, up from $1.4 billion last year.  We talk a...

What’s the story behind the Hawaiian barbecue trend? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Elisia Flores, the CEO of the 200-plus unit franchise, L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.  L&L is rapidly growing and helped pioneer the idea of Hawaiian barbecue, though Flores explains exactly what that is. The chain’s system sales grew more than 10% last year, according...

What is happening with TGI Fridays? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features a discussion on the recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the casual-dining chain TGI Fridays. RB Senior Editor Joe Guszkowski joins me on the podcast to discuss the situation.  TGI Fridays’ filing over the weekend was hardly a surprise, given the chain’s years of decline and its appa...

What do we make of McDonald’s E. coli outbreak? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Bill Marler, the country’s leading attorney on food safety issues and foodborne illness outbreaks.  Marler is with the law firm Marler Clark. He has represented victims of outbreaks and consulted with companies on foodborne-illness issues for more than 30 years. We wanted t...

What are we to make of the weird year in restaurants? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Kenny Kraft, a managing director with Houlihan Lokey, and Tyler Martinez, a vice president with the investment firm. The three of us talk about the state of the restaurant industry, and there’s a lot to talk about. This year has been an odd one.  Consumers have cut ba...

Can your restaurant use customer reviews to manage their business? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Avi Goren, the cofounder and CEO of the hospitality technology company Marqii.  Marqii does a few things, such as automating updates on menus and location data. But it also has a product that helps operators manage and track reviews. We spoke with Avi at...

What are the benefits and drawbacks of artificial intelligence? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Richard Del Valle, the chief information officer with the Charlotte, North Carolina-based chicken chain Bojangles.  We spoke with Richard at the FSTEC restaurant technology conference in September.  We were interested in the efforts Bojangles was making in a...

How do you market a brand like Jack in the Box? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Ryan Ostrom, the chief marketing officer for the San Diego-based burger chain.  This is a complicated environment in the restaurant industry and we wanted Ostrom on the podcast to talk about how to market a brand in an environment like this. Ostrom and I talk about the comp...

Why is delivery so popular? Hint, it’s easy. This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Cameron Watt, the president and CEO of Intouch Insight, to discuss the firm’s recent study for Restaurant Business on third-party delivery at restaurants and convenience stores. Intouch Insight is a customer experience consulting firm that works with companies across restauran...

What is the future of Whataburger under its new CEO? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Ed Nelson, the CEO of Whataburger, and Debbie Stroud, who will take the chief executive job at the end of the year when Nelson retires. They joined the podcast for an exclusive interview. Whataburger is a Texas-based chain with more than 1,000 locations in 15 states. I...

What is the future of Topgolf? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Mathew Focht, the founder and managing partner of the investment fund Emerging. Emerging is a fund that invests in small technology and restaurant and entertainment concepts. The fund has invested in several food-and-entertainment brands. Several such brands have emerged in recent years to...

How does a pot-themed brand become one of the industry’s fastest-growing restaurant chains? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Marc Torres, the CEO of the fast-growing sandwich chain Cheba Hut. The Fort Collins, Colorado-based chain has picked up its growth in recent years behind franchising and strong average unit volumes. System sales grew 29% last year...

What do all these bankruptcies mean for the future of the restaurant industry? In this week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive, RB editors Joe Guszkowski and Lisa Jennings join me to discuss the spate of bankruptcy filings this year and what they mean for the business. Seventeen restaurant chains have filed for Chapter 11 debt protection this year, most of them since June....

What does the potential Circle K-7-Eleven deal mean for restaurants? This week's episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Hannah Hammond, a senior editor with RB sister publication CSP Daily News. CSP covers convenience stores, and I wanted to talk with Hammond about the big news of the week—maybe the year—in the convenience-store industry:  The proposed acquisition of...

How can operating a franchise lead to multi-generational success? This week's episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Kerri Harper-Howie, a second-generation McDonald's franchisee out of Los Angeles.  Harper-Howie has written a book : The Family Secret: The Business and Franchise Owner’s Guide to Building Generational Wealth . We talk about that book and the story...

Why are some restaurant chains suddenly struggling in international markets? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Joel Silverstein. Silverstein is a periodic guest on the podcast. He is the founder and CEO of the hospitality consulting firm Canyon Springs Advisors. He has helped a lot of companies grow in overseas markets. I wanted to talk with him about th...

Why should franchisees take private-equity investments? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Mike Esposito, the cofounder of Franchise Equity Partners. Franchise Equity Partners is a private-equity firm specializing in the franchise business. Mike helped found the firm in 2021 to invest in all kinds of franchisees. Before that he had an extensive career in...

How does an international restaurant chain break into the toughest market in the world? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Troy Hooper, the CEO of Pepper Lunch. Pepper Lunch is a Japanese fast-casual chain in which customers largely cook the food themselves. It is part of a generation of concepts with unique business models that are rapidly establishing t...