A Deeper Dive Winsight Podcast Network
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Restaurant Business is the leading media brand in the commercial foodservice industry, with a focus on entrepreneurship, innovation and growth.
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How to modernize a 50-year-old pizza chain
How is Happy Joe’s modernizing its brand?
This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Tom Sacco, the CEO of Happy Joe’s.
The 52-unit, Iowa-based chain has been around for 50 years. It was sold just before the pandemic. Sacco was brought in as CEO after a career with BJ’s, Ponderosa, Red Robin and Ghiradelli.
The pandemic forced the brand to rethink how it does business, and so Sacco talks about how Happy Joe’s modernized its operations coming out of that period. For instance, it didn’t count transactions.
We discuss the 2022 bankruptcy involving the chain’s corporate units and what led to that. And we talk about the brand’s surprising recent growth. We also discuss the chain’s penchant for small towns as well as taco pizzas and pickle pizzas and how Happy Joe’s was an early developer of both. -
How a more diverse C-suite is helping restaurants
How are restaurants making their C-suites more diverse?
This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Therese Gearhart, the president and CEO of the Women’s Foodservice Forum.
WFF’s leadership conference is coming up next week, and we figured it’d be a great time to check in on the industry’s track record of hiring women into leadership roles.
The answer is that it’s doing better. Several restaurant chains, including Denny’s and Dutch Bros, have recently hired women to be their CEOs. Three restaurant chains in just the last day hired women to be CEOs: Taco John’s (Heather Neary), Smashburger (Denise Nelsen) and Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream (Jennifer Schuler).
Therese discusses these issues and talks about how restaurants are doing getting people into management roles.
We talk about why it’s financially beneficial for restaurants to do these things. We talk about the upcoming conference, and Therese gives tips for up-and-coming employees to move up in the business and how companies can create more inclusive working environments.
We’re talking women in restaurants on A Deeper Dive, so please check it out. -
What Corner Bakery's new owners saw in the brand
What is Corner Bakery doing to right its ship?
This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Chris Dharod, the CEO of Corner Bakery.
Dharod is with SSCP Management, a franchisee of Applebee’s and Sonic and owner of Cici’s Pizza and Roy’s. The company bought Corner Bakery out of bankruptcy last year.
We had him on the podcast to talk about Corner Bakery and chat about the way in which the acquisition was made.
SSCP acquired the brand by buying the debt on the secondary market and then using that to take over the company out of bankruptcy, a process some folks call loan to own. Dharod talks about that process, its risks and what SSCP looks for in its investments, as well as how it turns them around, which it has done with Cici’s.
Corner Bakery is a particularly difficult process. The brand was owned by the same owner as Boston Market and was having many of the same problems. It didn’t pay many of its bills and was burdened by lawsuits and serious issues.
We talk about what the brand is doing to fix all that, what kind of people it brought in and what kind of sales the brand is generating now.
We’re talking Corner Bakery on A Deeper Dive so please check it out. -
Why you should never compromise on unit economics
Never compromise on your unit economics.
This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Justin Rosenberg, the founder of the fast-casual chain Honeygrow.
Rosenberg founded the bowl chain in 2012 and it was going quite well until 2018. He talks about why the company stopped growing that year and what the it did to get back on the growth track.
Hint: Honeygrow stopped making compromises on its unit economics.
We also talk about where the chain is growing and why smaller towns are apparently a recipe for success. Indeed, sometimes they’re too successful. And we also discuss how he started the chain.
This is an interesting conversation on A Deeper Dive so please check it out. -
Why restaurant consumers are more value conscious right now
How important is value right now?
This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Robert Byrne, the director of consumer and industry insights at RB sister company Technomic.
We talk extensively about value. There’s a lot of concern about traffic in the fast-food world, with McDonald’s and Wendy’s saying that lower-income consumers are cutting back. McDonald’s specifically said that people are more likely to stay at home.
Byrne discusses whether this is a broad problem or more likely to hurt McDonald’s. We also talk about what consumers mean when they think value and why they keep spending on restaurants despite soaring prices.
We also talk about loyalty programs. Many restaurant chains are focused on loyalty, but last quarter Starbucks did really well with its loyalty customers but lost business from anyone else.
We’re talking about the state of the consumer on A Deeper Dive, so please check it out. -
What to expect out of restaurants in 2024
What will the restaurant industry do in 2024?
This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Hudson Riehle, the senior vice president of the research and knowledge group with the National Restaurant Association.
Riehle joined the podcast to talk about the association’s annual State of the Industry Report and what it says about restaurants in the coming year.
Restaurants and bars are expected to generate $1.1 trillion in sales this year, crossing the trillion mark for the first time. We chat about how big the industry really is and how many people it employs.
And we talk extensively about labor, labor costs, labor availability and efficiency. We talk about demands for technology among operators and why it’s important to target younger generations these days.
It’s a packed podcast on A Deeper Dive, so please check it out.