Digital Hospitality

Alex Goldfayn only needs 5 minutes of your time. As Alex Goldfayn, best-selling author and the brain behind the "5-Minute Selling" sales system, discusses on the Digital Hospitality podcast that old-fashioned communication method of the proactive phone call still may be the best. Especially in 2020. The heart of the Digital Hospitality thesis comes from serving others — but the brain is the smartp...

Martha Stewart and Michael Jordan. You won’t find two individuals with stronger brands than them, but you’ll only find one individual pulling inspiration from them in equal parts. Meet Daina Falk, CEO and Founder of Hungry Fan. As an entrepreneur with a bestselling cookbook and many more accolades to her name, Daina Falk found motivation as a young adult from the legendary kitchen savant who made...

How does a business become a media company? One of the first steps is by hiring a creative team to help you turn your life into digital content. In 2019, Aaron David Roberts, the president and founder of Rising Tides Creative, was called upon by restaurant owner and podcast host Shawn Walchef to help him and his talented media production team transform Cali BBQ into a digital content machine. By a...

Ravi Abuvala has a challenge for any aspiring entrepreneur, but only if you choose to accept. “If you're saying that you don't have the time to build a personal brand, actually clock how much time you're looking at other people's personal brands,” Ravi Abuvala said. “Clock how much time that you're on Instagram, you're on Facebook and you're on YouTube.” Lots of time adds up when you jot down the...

Drawn to the dough — in more ways than one — Bruce Irving’s rise in the pizza industry was low and slow. Bruce Irving is a marketing strategist, speaker, and founder of Irving Media Group LLC. The entrepreneur found fame as the voice and host of the Smart Pizza Marketing Podcast and the Local Business Podcast. In 2020, people are still looking for ways to get paid to eat pizza. Bruce Irving has fo...

Engaging with customers on Yelp could save your business. Direct engagement is key to online marketing. The best way for a small business to start directly communicating with their online audience right now is by owning and claiming a Yelp page. Serving as the Yelp Senior Field Marketing Manager and Small Business Expert, Emily Washcovick knows the future of business success is winning attention a...

What do you share? Why do you share it? These are questions growth strategist Brendan Kane asks clients like Taylor Swift and Katie Couric when it comes to crafting their own content. They’re also questions you should ask yourself — How do you use social media and digital content for marketing and why? Brendan Kane is a guest on Digital Hospitality, where he and podcast host Shawn Walchef dug in-d...

The Man, the Meat, the Legend. You’ve heard his memorable moniker before, but just who is Meathead? He’s a griller, journalist, and web pioneer behind Amazing Ribs dot com who’s been teaching the Internet how to BBQ right before Google was the end-all-be-all search engine. At 71 years of age, Meathead Goldwyn is among the most-respected members of the barbecue and grilling community. For good reas...

Robyn Lindars had a burning question years before she became GrillGirl — Why aren’t more women grilling? The Grill Girl lifestyle was all sparked by Robyn Medlin Lindars' newfound fire regarding outdoor cooking and living in general. “It’s really fun, it's a great way to cook outside and it’s a fun thing to do with your family,” Robyn reflected on her hobby turned passion project on this episode o...

You wouldn't normally associate the super-speedy Sonic the Hedgehog with anything "low or slow," but that's exactly how the legendary video game character's 2020 movie blockbuster came to be. There's so much that happens behind-the-scenes of any business before the consumer ever experiences the final product. In the case of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, while the animated hero might zip along at a...

Austin, TX knows BBQ and food trucks like San Diego knows fish tacos and surfing. Located deep in the heart of Texas, Evan LeRoy and his team at LeRoy and Lewis BBQ bring together two of Austin’s culinary calling cards with unparalleled New School creativity. Co-owning and operating LeRoy and Lewis BBQ by Cosmic Coffee’s open, eclectic and awesome beer garden, the pitmaster and chef is offering a...

Imagine you're buying a new home. You want a safe space for your family and friends with all the amenities. You’d want that home to be a welcoming representation for all you stand for when others visit. Cali BBQ Media’s web guru Kyle Pflueger builds “homes” for businesses. They just happen to be online. Dubbed a “Navy SEAL for websites" by Digital Hospitality host Shawn Walchef, Kyle Pflueger of M...

There's no question about it: alcohol to go sales have helped restaurants survive the COVID-19 crisis. Booze, Beer and other alcohol takeout options have been a lifeline for our Cali BBQ restaurant and others in California. That salvation was thanks to regulatory relief from the state Alcoholic Beverage Control agency which, among other changes, has allowed certain licensees to sell sealed alcohol...

Tabitha Lipkin was raised in Texarkana, but over the course of the last decade San Diego has made her their own. Taking a leap of faith, Tabitha Lipkin decided to return to the Lone Star State for her next big break in media and perhaps the next big thing in the industry as a host on the new NBCLX digital network. She gives all the credit to the San Diego community and FOX5 for making it all possi...

What do Larry King, Tilman Fertitta, Rick Ross, Chris Voss all have in common? For starters, they’re all very successful. Secondly, they’ve all be interviewed by a 19-year-old from Virginia. That talented teen entrepreneur? Casey Adams. Casey Adam has amassed 219k Instagram followers, created a Top 50 podcast, and interviewed heavyweights in media, business and entrepreneurship. All before his 20t...

Your cellphone: the portal to people, information, and food. Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, cellphones have become the go-to place for to-go orders due to social distancing. Ordering online is not just the now, it’s the future. The team of innovators at Qu Beyond POS are reimagining point of sale technology. They know digital dining as more than just a buzzing trend. “You have so many brands that are...

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Joshua Binning’s Lucha Cantina restaurant, staff and community have all seen life turned upside down. Operating in Rockford, Illinois, a town of less than 150,000 residents, the restaurant owner has a pulse on the people and a relationship with the government. Because of this, Joshua Binning linked with community leaders and industry peers to discussion so...

Lisa Ann is a self-made star, who triumphed by investing in herself and her future. And her amazing story is still being written. The Fantasy Sports expert and entertainer is by all accounts, and most modern metrics, the G.O.A.T. of the adult film industry. Ironically enough, when Lisa Ann's adult business career began, most accounts and most metrics didn’t exist. “When I got into the adult busine...

Miguel Luna was known by soccer fans as a clutch scorer who brought four championships to the San Diego Sockers. Miguel was also known as the guy who brought his teammates really good tequila. “I started bringing plastic water bottles with tequila to the locker room on gameday in 2010,” reflects Miguel Luna on his championship playing days with the San Diego Sockers on the Digital Hospitality podc...

In trying times, you can become a beacon of hope for others. The current quarantine conditions the country is in has everyone reflecting and revising how they go about both life and business. For Nicole Duncan, editor at Full Service Restaurant (FSR) magazine, she’s made it her mission for the last decade to profile the food industry and become an expert on the ins and outs of the business.  In th...

Sometimes when we’re young, we hear words of wisdom that instantly move us and inspire us for a lifetime. For Greg Rempe, host of The BBQ Central Show, it was Howard Stern who spoke to him through his father’s car radio as a child with words that would forever change his life. “He said, ‘People are turds,’” Greg Rempe recalled on this episode of Digital Hospitality. “I was way young. Fast forward...

Still catching your breath from the mountain hike with FORGED? Well, Navy SEALs and Marines don’t slow down so neither will we. On this second part of our interview with FORGED, CEO Mike Sauers and Marketing Manager Samantha Bonilla joined Digital Hospitality’s Shawn Walchef as they head to South Bay Rod and Gun Club for a shooting session preceded by a history lesson of the FORGED Brand full of b...

The Forged brand was born on the battlefield and built to give back. With military experience and tireless dedication, the team behind Forged always pushes forward, no matter the challenge. Running a business is never easy. But through adversity comes strength. For Forged CEO Michael Sauers, a former Navy SEAL, and Marketing Manager Samantha Bonilla, a former Marine, the brand means pursuing a hig...

Merging ancient traditions with forward-thinking trends, JBK Wellness Labs is ahead of the curve when it comes to self-care but in no rush just the same. Led by the tradition of the Tao, founder Dr. Jenelle Kim and her partner in business and life, Craig Nandoo, are utilizing Eastern healing powers and philosophy at their West Coast Headquarters for a self-funded self-care business that’s serving...

Is staying in really the new going out? Leave it to Sam the Cooking Guy to get people out of their nooks by throwing a dinner party night in and night out at his newest restaurant Graze. Offering a laid-back living room setting that makes every guest feel like old friends, he’s taking care of his crew just the same by keeping everything efficient in the kitchen. Lucky for Cali BBQ Media, we got to...