The Restaurant Prosperity Formula

In the hospitality industry, customer service is everything. When done right, your guests have an experience that creates memories, which are only enhanced by your service. For this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I talk with Jill Raff, a highly experienced customer experience strategist and author. Jill has a long list of restaurant experience that started in her family’s McDonald’s...

Restaurant owners ask me about marketing all the time. Like I always tell them, I’m not a marketing guy, I’m a systems guy. For this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I brought the restaurant marketing guy on the podcast to talk all things restaurant marketing. My guest, Matt Plapp, runs a restaurant marketing business to help restaurants acquire customers and build relationships with...

Restaurant Pricing Strategies to Save Your 2021 -- Welcome to week 4 million of living in a pandemic while owning a restaurant. This week, I’m talking about a major issue for restaurants right now: the shortage of food and the resulting increase in prices. What you’re paying for products right now is going through the roof, one of the largest increases in food distribution pricing in decades. The...

Why Restaurant Owners Must Lead with Accountability A big issue for restaurant owners is feeling like a hostage in their own business. They’re so afraid of losing their managers, they hold back on adding more to their plates and then don’t question them when things aren’t done right. That leaves the restaurant owner in a lurch – doing all the work and cleaning up after everyone else. While this ho...

Every restaurant owner I work with, since starting my coaching services in 2003, struggles with one thing. It is the one thing that dictates whether they are successful or not. That one thing is self-accountability. For this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula , I explain what I mean by accountability and why it’s so important. Tune in to learn how I help restaurant owners create the...

I just spoke at the first industry trade show since the pandemic. It was the Nightclub and Bar Show in Las Vegas, Nevada at the end of June 2021. I loved being back on the road and being on stage with a live audience. So on this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula , I talk about the lessons we’ve learned since March 2020, how they’ll shape restaurants for the future and what I see as...

In episode 23 of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula , I address the major challenge the hospitality industry is experiencing here in the United States as the states open back up and restaurants are experiencing huge sales increases. That challenge is the shortage of restaurant employees. Restaurants are extremely short-staffed, which means restaurant owners are spending all their tim...

In this episode, Anne Gannon, CPA of The Largo Group, and I offer our insight and experience on what the most successful restaurant owners we work with know about their restaurant’s numbers. This episode is important because most restaurant owners choose the restaurant industry because they’re passionate about hospitality and making memories for people. They don’t go into business because the...

In episode 21 of my podcast,  The Restaurant Prosperity Formula , I'm talking about the challenges restaurant owners are facing today from employee burnout and labor shortage to the need for stronger management and leadership. My guest for this episode, Darren Denington, has 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry and has an extensive background as a food and beverag...

In episode 20 of my podcast,  The Restaurant Prosperity Formula , I'm talking about the number one issue that is a burden in our industry right now. You might think I’m talking about a shortage of employees, but I’m really talking about burnout. I know your struggle because I see it every day with my members in my 24-week Restaurant Transformation Intensive program. They a...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks about the dangers of being a business owner who enables a work environment where no one is accountable, and the restaurant owner thinks they must be the best at everything. The problem with this is if you’re so good at doing everyone’s job and taking it over, your team learns they don’t have to be good or d...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks about the secret to being a successful restaurant owner. The answer? Find someone who gets stuff done. As an owner, you can’t do it all yourself. It’s just impossible. Plus, it’s not your job to do everything in the restaurant. Your job is to lead and take on more strategic activities such as marketing and...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks about owners of independent restaurants and their tendency to overwork themselves while also freeing their management team of accountability. David teaches you how to put yourself in a place of leadership and three lessons you must teach your managers and supervisors to empower them to do their job so you d...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks about the massive increase in restaurant sales that is coming for every restaurant along with the quickest path to prepare for it. As vaccine shots go into more arms and restrictions are lifted in more cities and states, everyone who has been abiding by the stay-home recommendations is going to flooding bus...

Restaurant Training 10 Steps to a Great Service Training Plan for Independents In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters welcomes back Darren Denington, CFBE, founder of Service with Style. Darren has more than 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry and has an extensive background as a food and beverage director, executive chef, general manag...

Restaurateur Couple Shares How They Went from Hobbyists to Entrepreneurs In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks with Brianna and Jonathan Cowan, owners of The Wooden Paddle in Lemont, Illinois. I first met them at the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Show over a decade ago, and they made a decision to get on an airplane a week later to attend one...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks with Brian Mueller, owner of Blue Coast Burrito in Cookeville, Tenn. Brian was a general manager of a Blue Coast Burrito location and had an opportunity to purchase the location he managed. During this conversation, Brian and David talk about the transition from being a general manager to an owner and the s...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks about the power of looking forward and making plans for 2021. When it comes to running a restaurant, 2020 did some serious damage to the industry and to many independent restaurants. And while the crisis is not over, there are some positive signs that 2021 can be a year of recovery and stability. It’s possi...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks with restaurant owner Karen Fagnilli, owner of The Lake House Inn Resort in Ohio on Lake Erie. Listen in to hear how Karen, her family and her team took the COVID-19 pandemic and used it an opportunity to improve their restaurant’s revenues and margins. She shares with David how the systems she learned from...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks about the reappearance of COVID19 pandemic restrictions for restaurants and how to measure the impact of them on your restaurant business. Listen in to learn why restaurant owners with drastically reduced sales, pivot fatigue and increased stress can still have hope and how to protect themselves until the v...

How to Run a Restaurant In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks to Steve Eller, restaurant owner of Cosmic Cowboy in Idaho. David and Steve talk through Steve’s experience adopting and working with David’s restaurant systems. Steve’s story is interesting in that he was already using a lot of the systems that David teaches, but his prime cost was...

Restaurant Food Cost Solutions for Independent Restaurants In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters talks to Emmy Barnick, restaurant owner of The Captain’s Cabin in South Dakota. David and Emmy talk through her restaurant’s financial journey starting in January 2020 when she was using her personal savings to make payroll through to the fall of 2020 whe...

Restaurant Technology Tips for Independent Operators In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters discusses restaurant technology, the pitfalls restaurant owners fall into when using restaurant software and how to get the most out of it. There are so many reasons restaurant owners sign up for a variety of different restaurant software and restaurant technol...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters discusses the fears and challenges facing independent restaurant owners today amidst the pandemic. If you’re feeling hopeless, angry, frustrated, scared or any variety of these emotions, this episode provides answers for how to manage these emotions with solutions for running your restaurant. As an independent re...

In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast, host David Scott Peters interviews Anne Gannon, CPA. After working in a big-five accounting firm in Boston, Anne was motivated to create a more efficient system for monthly accounting and tax services, so she opened her company, The Largo Group. She charges her clients a monthly fee and works one on one with them throughout the yea...