Digital Hospitality

In this Pitch The Tide session, Runbin Dong , CEO and founder of Scale Social , shares how his family’s restaurant roots led him to rethink modern restaurant marketing. Drawing from firsthand operator experience, Runbin explains why authentic customer content consistently outperforms polished ads and influencer campaigns. He introduces Scale Social’s QR-driven platform, which turns everyday guests...

Shawn Walchef’s journey building restaurants and media reveals a deeper lesson about how modern leaders grow influence. After years of showing up, asking bigger questions, and learning in public, he began to see the patterns that separate short-term wins from long-term impact. This piece explores why consistency beats breakthroughs, why visibility creates leverage, and why today’s most effective f...

2026 goals took center stage on   Rising Tides Live as the community gathered to reflect on the lessons of 2025 and set intentions for the year ahead. With Mike Bisceglia and Elizabeth Doss filling in for Shawn Walchef , operators, creators, technologists, and founders shared stories about growth, resilience, and the power of simply showing up during busy and uncertain seasons. From building new v...

Labor scheduling has quietly become one of the most fragile pressure points in restaurant operations. Will Stewart , founder and CEO of rightwork , draws on his experience inside Starbucks to show how labor targets, human behavior, and unpredictable demand collide at the store level. He breaks down why traditional scheduling fails in real-world conditions and how forecasting, labor modeling, and A...

Shawn Walchef shares the hard lessons learned while scaling a modern media company from passion project to profitable business. After years of creating content without revenue, growth came through hiring sooner, reevaluating technology constantly, and expanding beyond a single show. The story reframes media as an operating business, not a hobby, showing how people, systems, and multiple products c...

Shawn Walchef sits down with Roger Beaudoin , founder of Restaurant Rockstars , to explore where real profit is hiding inside restaurant operations. Drawing on decades as an operator, Roger shares why menu engineering is often the biggest financial lever owners ignore, and how tightening profit spreads can unlock meaningful gains without raising prices. The conversation moves through leadership ve...

Shawn Walchef shares why investing in an on-ground media team was the turning point in transforming his content into a profitable media business. After years of producing with no revenue, Walchef explains how in-person production elevated credibility, strengthened guest relationships, and unlocked sponsorship opportunities that virtual content could not. From early financial risk to scaling seven...

Shawn Walchef sits down with Christine de Wendel , Co-Founder & CEO US of sunday, to explore why payment is one of the most overlooked moments in hospitality. Christine shares how the frustration of settling a check inspired sunday’s creation during COVID and how a simple QR-based payment experience evolved into a powerful tool for guest engagement and insight. The conversation touches on tabl...

In this episode of Pitch The Tide, Nick Bryant , VP of Sales at Powerhouse Dynamics , shares how more than two decades in hospitality shaped his belief that the back of house is the next frontier of restaurant innovation. Drawing from experience on both the operator and enterprise sides, Nick explains why visibility, uptime, and consistency matter more than ever for multi-unit brands. He introduce...

Shawn Walchef explains why leaving your business to attend trade shows and conferences is one of the most overlooked growth strategies in hospitality. Drawing from seventeen years of experience, he shares how showing up in person leads to stronger relationships, better content, faster learning, and real business opportunities. From B2B networking and proximity to industry leaders to securing six-f...

In this session of Rising Tides Live , hosted by Shawn Walchef , the community reflected on the wins, lessons, and momentum that defined 2025 while looking ahead to what comes next. Operators, creators, technologists, and founders shared stories about growth, resilience, and the power of simply showing up, especially during busy and uncertain seasons. From building new ventures and giving back to...

In this episode of Digital Hospitality, Shawn Walchef sits down with Anthony Wood , founder and CEO of Alervio , to explore how personal health challenges inspired a new approach to allergen transparency in restaurants. Wood shares how sudden food allergies reshaped his relationship with dining out and revealed the hidden anxiety many guests carry to the table. The conversation unpacks California’...

In this episode of Pitch The Tide, Ward Olgreen , Chief Operating Officer at Red Onion ai , shares how decades of restaurant operations experience led him to reimagine how brands understand their data. From years spent running multi-unit restaurants to building analytics for enterprise operators, Ward explains why Red Onion was designed to peel back the layers of guest behavior, marketing impact,...

CRS Hospitality is a group of 15 independent restaurant concepts across Champaign and Urbana, led by COO Kevin Hildebrand and grounded in a people first operating philosophy. Rather than forcing uniformity, CRS connects teams through shared systems that reduce friction while preserving each brand’s identity. Kevin’s path from golf to restaurants shaped his belief that strong hospitality comes from...

Naming a restaurant feels personal, but it is one of the most strategic decisions an operator will ever make. In this episode, Shawn Walchef walks through the five names behind what is now Cali Barbecue, sharing the lessons learned from each iteration. From overly descriptive titles to names that created confusion, Walchef explains how memorability, clarity, and consistency ultimately won. Intervi...

In this session of Rising Tides Live, hosted by Dean LaBay , the community focused on the power of storytelling as a tool for connection, growth, and trust. Participants shared how showing up honestly, learning in public, and telling imperfect stories can create real momentum in business and life. From personal experiences to professional lessons, the conversation reinforced a shared belief: when...

Runbin Dong built Scale Social from a simple belief shaped in his family’s restaurant: hospitality starts with people, not platforms. After growing up working every job in the house, Runbin saw firsthand how trust, familiarity, and human connection drive real loyalty. Scale Social applies that same mindset to marketing by helping restaurants capture authentic customer content without asking guests...

In this episode of Pitch The Tide, Ben Roscillo , Director of Business Solutions at Factura.ai , shares how his background as a restaurant operator led him to tackle one of hospitality’s biggest headaches: accounts payable. From years of managing invoices by hand to building solutions for multi-unit brands, Ben explains why Factura.ai was designed specifically for restaurants at scale. He breaks d...

Shawn Walchef spent five years building a media company that made zero dollars while running a restaurant business at the same time. Quitting would have been reasonable. He did not. This story breaks down why consistency, repetition, and belief mattered more than early results. From recording podcasts above a butcher shop to publishing one hundred episodes with almost no audience, Walchef explains...

In this session of Rising Tides Live, hosted by Shawn Walchef and Troy Hooper , the community looked back at the wins, lessons, and momentum that shaped 2025 while setting intentions for the year ahead. Operators, creators, technologists, and founders reflected on what it means to grow through consistency, vulnerability, and showing up even when life and business feel chaotic. From launching new v...

has spent years building two things at the same time: a restaurant business and a media brand strong enough to attract the people most podcasters only dream about. Today, his guest list includes Shaquille O’Neal , Dana White, John Taffer and Chef Robert Irvine . None of it came from luck. It came from consistency, community, and the willingness to publish long before anyone was watching.   Shawn W...

In this session of Rising Tides Live, hosted by  Shawn Walchef , the community turned Thanksgiving into a deeper conversation about what hospitality really looks like beyond the meal. Members reflected on honoring family traditions, creating space for overlooked voices at the table, preparing teams for the chaos of holiday service, and carrying gratitude through health scares, career pivots, and p...

KNOW founder and CEO Krish Sridhar joins Shawn Walchef to share how a simple digital checklist grew into a platform used by millions of frontline workers across the world. Krish explains why hospitality teams need intuitive, mobile tools that remove friction and create clarity, how AI should stay invisible, and why KNOW builds features directly with operators. This episode reveals how better workf...

In this episode of Pitch The Tide, Charlie Eblen shares how Single Tree BBQ grew from a food truck into a rising Tennessee brand built on family, community, and purpose. After losing his job in 2020, Charlie committed to building something of his own and turned Single Tree into a destination for real barbecue and real connection. Today he is raising 5 million dollars to open a flagship location, e...

Shawn Walchef shares the biggest lessons he has learned serving on the Toast Customer Advisory Board. From seeing how deeply Toast invests in customer success to understanding the power of real feedback loops, Walchef explains why every operator benefits from joining a larger community. He also reflects on how peers, storytelling, and brand advocacy helped shape his restaurant and media business....