The Restaurant Coach Podcast

What if the biggest thing holding your restaurant back… is you? Most restaurant owners believe they’re trapped by labor shortages, rising food costs, inflation, or a lack of good employees. But what if those aren’t the real prison? What if the prison was built one decision, one belief, and one story at a time? In this episode of The Restaurant Coach Podcast , Donald Burns challen...

Leadership Is a System With Jarred Patterson , COO — New South Restaurant Group Most restaurant owners think leadership is a personality trait. Something you’re born with. Something you either “have” or you don’t. That belief is exactly why so many restaurants stay stuck. In Episode 181 of The Restaurant Coach Podcast , I sit down with Jarred Patterson , COO of New South Restaurant Group, to break...

In Episode 180 of The Restaurant Coach Podcast , I sit down with Nick Mattia , the founder and owner of Ready Strong Meals , for a raw, honest conversation about what really happens when ambition meets reality in the restaurant and food business. Nick didn’t come into the industry clueless. He came in with knowledge , confidence, and a clear vision. And that’s exactly what almost broke him. When “...

What happens when you refuse to let a good restaurant quietly die? In this episode of The Restaurant Coach Podcast , Donald Burns sits down with Madison Bree , a first-time restaurant owner who took a massive leap of faith by buying an existing restaurant in Michigan that still had a name… but was slowly bleeding out. The restaurant was Kathy’s 126 . The reputation was there. The energy, systems,...

What happens when a James Beard Award–winning chef looks around the modern food industry and realizes the system was never built to serve craft, soul, or truth ? This episode is a WAKE-UP CALL . In Chef Neo vs. The Matrix , I sit down with legendary Chef Craig Shelton for a raw, unfiltered conversation about what mass production, scale-at-all-costs, and corporate commercialization have done to the...

In this episode of The Restaurant Coach Podcast , I sit down with Megan Coignard, owner of Nicolo’s Pizza in Lakewood, Colorado—an independent restaurant operator who was once drowning in chaos, burnout, and the never-ending cycle every owner knows too well: firefighter mode . Two years ago, Megan picked up the phone because she had hit a wall. No more ideas. No more bandwidth. No more margin for...

In this episode of The Restaurant Coach® Podcast , I sit down with Matt & Stephanie Dunken, the powerhouse duo behind Slam Dunk Pizza . Their story is one every independent restaurant owner needs to hear. When they started working with the TRC Method , they were drowning with a prime cost of 94% . Profit was non-existent, stress was constant, and vacations were nothing more than wishful thinki...

Restaurants are rarely just about food. The ones that rise above the noise—the ones that dominate their markets—understand that culture drives everything. That’s the story behind The Plough @ Myrniong in Australia, led by Mark and Ruth Mills. In this episode of The Restaurant Coach Podcast , we uncover what happens when passion is channeled into purpose, when culture becomes the compass, and when...

Most restaurant owners think they’re doing “marketing.” But what they’re actually doing is noise. In this raw and real conversation with Bruce Irving—founder of Smart Pizza Marketing and one of the most respected voices in restaurant marketing—we pull back the curtain on what’s really holding restaurant owners back. We talk about the outdated tactics that make you look desperate, the cringe-worthy...

Lisa Gasparian’s Café Cremerie Comeback She got hit. HARD. 2020 didn’t just rattle Lisa Gasparian. It tried to wipe her off the map . When COVID strangled foot traffic in downtown Chicago, and looters ravaged her café during the riots, her small café was left gutted—physically and emotionally . Most would have folded. But Lisa? Lisa got F*CKING RELENTLESS. She joined the TRC Method when the...