Restaurant Technology Podcast

Cali BBQ Media

Restaurant Technology is a weekly business news series hosted by Cali BBQ Media Founder Shawn Walchef. Keep up to date on the latest stories, insights, and thought leadership in the modern restaurant technology landscape. restauranttechnology.substack.com

  1. 6D AGO

    Welcome to the World Cup of the Restaurant Industry: Live in Chicago 2026

    Tips for Surviving The Restaurant Show I caught up with our good friend Michael Ungaro from San Pedro Fish Market (Kings of Fish Media) right as the Show opened to get his top tips for navigating the weekend: * Get your badge early: Do not wait in the brutal lines at the convention center. Try to print your badge at your hotel lobby or get to McCormick Place incredibly early before the crowds hit. * Wear comfortable shoes: You are walking 12 football fields across three different halls—Lakeside, South Hall, and North Hall. Treat this like an athletic event. * The Uber Trick: When the show floor closes, don’t even try to call a rideshare to the main entrance. You’ll be stuck waiting for hours. Walk a few blocks away from the main hub first, then call your ride. * Document the journey: Take photos of the people you meet and grab their digital business cards. The relationships you build in these hallways can become lifelong friendships. The energy right now at McCormick Place for the 2026 National Restaurant Show is completely off the charts. If you are in the restaurant business, hospitality, or digital media, like me, this isn’t just another industry trade show. This is our World Cup. To give you an idea of the sheer scale of what’s happening in Chicago this week, we are talking about 53,000+ hospitality leaders, 2,200 vendors, and 12 football fields of pure innovation spanning three massive halls. It is impossible to overstate how massive this event is. A huge shoutout to the National Restaurant Association Show team for partnering with Cali BBQ Media to help us bring this raw, unfiltered look to our community. We have two full media teams on the ground, and we are tracking down stories across every aisle. While we are exploring the entire floor and capturing everything from new industry trends to deep tech, we have a few key anchor partnerships we are shouting out today. The Toast Booth #7012: We hit the ground running this morning and made a big stop to visit our close partners at Toast. They are the technology backbone of our actual restaurants at Cali BBQ, and they are the title sponsors of our Restaurant Influencers podcast series. We checked out their latest tech innovations and talked with their team about how operators can use technology to build more profitable, efficient businesses. The F3 Tech Booth #5870: Our friends at F3 Technologies have generously opened up their booth space to serve as one of our live content and podcast studios for the weekend. We are recording episodes right from the floor. If you are walking the halls, keep your eyes open—we might just pull you into the booth to share your story with the world. As we always say: Be the show, not the commercial. Magic Happens in the Hallways One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned as a restaurant owner is that you have to get out of your four walls. Growth happens when you put yourself in rooms like this, because you never know who you are going to meet. Right as the doors opened, we ran into Damien and Dan, two operators who traveled all the way from British Columbia, Canada. They told us they watch our content and came to the show for the very first time to find a next-gen POS system and check out new equipment. They bought a bar and nightclub a year and a half ago and are gearing up to launch their full restaurant concept. Naturally, we told them to head straight to the Toast booth and tell them Shawn sent them! That is the exact ROI of this show: connecting people, sharing resources, and lifting up the community. Meet Up With Us: 4:30 PM @ The Sign We don’t want to just connect with you through a screen, we want to meet you in real life. Every single day of the Restaurant Show, we are hosting a casual gathering for our community of restaurateurs, tech founders, creators, and storytellers. * When: 4:30 PM Daily * Where: Right by the big National Restaurant Association sign in the North Hall Come hang out, talk shop, network, and be part of the Rising Tides community. Because a rising tide lifts all ships. Make sure to subscribe to our Restaurant Technology Substack and follow along on social media @shawnpwalchef and @calibbqmedia so you don’t miss a single update, video drop, or interview from the floor. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com

    5 min

  2. MAY 13 ·  BONUS

    National Restaurant Show 2026: Will I See You at the Big Sign?

    The National Restaurant Show is our industry’s World Cup. But you don’t win the World Cup by sitting in the nosebleeds. To win in the restaurant industry in 2026, you need to be on the pitch with the builders, the dreamers, and the leaders who are drawing up the winning plays for the next decade. You need to be where the momentum is. That is why, every single day of the show at 4:30 PM, we are gathering the community at the big NRA sign across from Starbucks in the North Hall. This is a daily community meet-up for the people who want to be in the center of the action. If you want to know what’s actually happening in this industry, you need to be at this sign. * Come meet us. * Take a selfie. * Exchange social contacts. * Share your story. Because the truth is, nobody rises alone. *** National Restaurant Association Show 2026 May 16–19, 2026 McCormick Place, Chicago, IL www.nationalrestaurantshow.com *** The First Pilgrimage to Chicago It wasn’t always this way. Five years ago, I left my restaurant in San Diego to attend the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago for the first time. I didn’t have a plan, but I brought the essentials: * My family, The Walchef Wolfpack. * Cameras. * Curiosity. I had little idea what to expect. At the time, Cali BBQ Media was just taking off, having formed from inside my restaurant Cali BBQ. We had recently launched Restaurant Influencers with Entrepreneur Media because the team at Toast believed in the vision enough to sponsor our video podcast series before most people even understood what we were building. I was a newcomer looking for a map. I started texting everyone I knew from Clubhouse, where we were hosting a weekly live meet-up at the time: “Troy Hooper, where do I go?” “Who do I need to meet?” “How do I make the most of this thing?” I asked Carl Orsbourn who the best storytellers in Chicago were, and he connected me to the legendary Geoff Alexander from Wow Bao. We even ended up hosting a Rising Tides restaurant influencer meetup at Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ with Duce Raymond, where we made lots of amazing content and ate lots of amazing barbecue. And suddenly, something happened. The Restaurant Show stopped feeling like a trade show. It started feeling like the center of the restaurant universe. Every year since that first trip, the friendships I’ve formed have deepened. The conversations have sharpened. The opportunities have multiplied. But more than anything, my belief in this industry has grown. This Show changes people. It isn’t because of the shiny booths or the late-night parties. It’s because when you put operators, creators, technologists, dreamers, and builders into one city together, momentum becomes contagious. How to Change Your Trajectory If you want to change the trajectory of your business, you can’t just watch from the sidelines. You need to make the pilgrimage. * Shake hands. * Film the content. * Ask the “dumb” questions. * Walk until your feet hurt. * Take meetings you’re not ready for. * Introduce yourself before you think you deserve to. That is exactly how growth happens. For the fifth straight year, we’ll be documenting every moment of the show with Cali BBQ Media. We are here to tell the stories of the people who make this industry great. Join The Rising Tides We are back in Chicago because we believe in the power of “Rising Tides.” We believe that when one of us wins, we all win. WHERE: The big National Restaurant Show sign (North Hall, across from Starbucks) WHEN: Every day @ 4:30 PM WHY: To connect, share, and draw up winning plays together. I’ll see you at the sign. #2026RestaurantShow WATCH: Rising Tides Live - What To Know About National Restaurant Show This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com

    27 sec
  3. Live from Food On Demand Conference - Dallas

    MAY 6

    Live from Food On Demand Conference - Dallas

    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com

    12 min

  4. MAY 2

    Do You Want To Build The Amazon of Restaurants?

    The restaurants who are stuck in the past are DOA. If you aren’t building your business like Amazon did — leveraging technology, storytelling, and logistics — you’re going to struggle to survive in 2026 and beyond. I’ve been in this game for 18 years at my family owned restaurant Cali BBQ in San Diego. I’ve survived the Great Recession of 2008 and a global pandemic in 2020 by making every mistake possible. Mistakes are what lead to growth. The secret to modernizing your restaurant isn’t just better food; it’s becoming a Digital Hospitality company. Here is your 5-step playbook to becoming the “Amazon of Restaurants” in your market. 1. Become a Media Company First Amazon isn’t just a retailer. It’s also content ecosystem. To win today, you must be a media company, a technology company, and a restaurant. This is driven by our signature Four P’s content strategy: PLAN * Choose one idea that feels natural to share this week. * Decide your message: “What do I want people to know, feel, or do?” * Pick a time when you can capture it without interrupting operations. PRODUCE * Use your phone — prioritize good lighting and clear audio. * Keep it short and engaging; aim for 15–60 seconds if it’s video. * Record extra angles or clips for variety. PUBLISH * Post in vertical format for better mobile engagement. * Add a short, personal caption that tells the story. * Include hashtags relevant to your restaurant, location, and audience. PROMOTE * Share the content on multiple platforms. * Encourage your team to share it from their own profiles. * Reply to comments and messages to start conversations. Stop making commercials. People want stories. Use your smartphone to capture the daily life of your restaurant and publish it on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and everywhere else you can. 2. Own Your Digital Real Estate In the old days, it was about your physical “location, location, location”. In 2026, it’s digital location. You must own your website, your email list, and your data. Stop relying on third parties to hold your customer relationships hostage. Build a deep CRM so you can reward your loyalists who want to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays with you. If you don’t own the data, you don’t own the customer. JOIN THE MOVEMENT: If this insight helps you, share this article with one other restaurant owner. A rising tide lifts all ships. 3. Deploy Strategic AI and Automation Digital hospitality is our deep thesis. Technology makes us more profitable, more scalable, and more impactful. At Cali BBQ, we use Palona AI and my automated voice clone Shawn AI to answer our phones and take orders. On our busiest day of the year—Father’s Day—Palona AI handled 156 calls that would have otherwise gone to a busy staff member. The result? An 18% sales lift because we never missed a guest. We integrate these tools directly through Toast to keep our tech stack seamless. 4. Create Multiple Revenue Streams Look at Amazon Prime and Thursday Night Football. They’ve created a system where you can watch a game and buy a product with one click. Your restaurant should be no different. Think beyond the four walls of your brick-and-mortar. We are moving toward a world of TikTok Shop live streams and point-of-sale integrations where customers can buy your BBQ or Consumer Packaged Goods (like bottled sauces or canned drinks) while they watch your content. 5. Master Frictionless Online Ordering Digital hospitality is making it as easy as possible for someone to buy from you. Whether it’s takeout, in-store, catering, or gift cards, your website—like ours at calibbq.media—must be frictionless. We partnered with Toast to solve our online ordering problems during the pandemic, and it changed everything. When you make it easy to buy 45 racks of ribs for a tailgate, that is true hospitality. Think bigger. We have to leverage technology to connect with more people and run more profitable businesses. Don’t be afraid to look stupid while you’re learning—get it wrong so you can eventually get it right. Stay Curious, Get Involved, Ask For Help @Shawnpwalchef This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com

    9 min

  5. APR 24

    Built For Busy: Celebrating Restaurant Hustle at the Crossroads of the World

    I didn’t bring my family to Times Square just for a billboard. I brought my wife and kids because this business costs something important: Late nights, missed weekends, and holidays that don’t feel like holidays. For the last 18 years, building my San Diego restaurant Cali BBQ has meant sacrifice from the people behind the scenes. The ones who wait up, believe in the dream, and carry the weight with you. That’s why this “Built For Busy” campaign kick-off moment with our partners at Toast hit differently. Behind the lights and the noise, every restaurant is a family business, whether the world sees it or not. We talk a lot about systems, tech, and operations. But the truth is simple: you can’t build for busy without the people who hold it up when it gets hard. This billboard wasn’t just a marketing asset. It was a statement to the ones who have been in the trenches since we opened on Troy Street in 2008. The Art of the Living Billboard Times Square on a Thursday morning is a symphony of sirens, delivery trucks, and tourists. Most people see that chaos and want to escape it. But for a restaurant operator, that noise is music. It’s the sound of an economy that is alive. Last week, we went to the Crossroads of the World to celebrate the people who actually keep those lights on. While the billboards above were making a statement, Toast was making a commitment to the NYC restaurant industry with an activation called Windows to Success. Rather than buying traditional ad space, Toast turned the storefronts of iconic New York spots like Carmine’s in Times Square and Poppy’s in Brooklyn into “living billboards.” They framed the windows with custom graphics that turned every kitchen into a stage. This campaign is the next chapter for Toast, focusing on the pride and dedication at the heart of business ownership. It’s a brand evolution designed for the 164,000+ businesses they serve. As Kelly Esten, Chief Marketing Officer at Toast, put it: “For business owners, being busy is the point—it’s the proof of progress. This dedication to building products designed to help our customers succeed in a rapidly-changing world is at the heart of Built For Busy.” That represents exactly how Toast understands this industry. They aren’t just selling software; they are building tools like Toast IQ—an AI assistant designed to act as an operator’s right hand during a Friday night rush. Standing in the noise with the Toast team, my family, our amazing Cali BBQ Media crew, and a crowd of operators reminded me of one thing: showing up is the most important thing you can do for your community. “Busy” means your systems are holding strong. It means your people are focused. It means your technology is acting as your right hand so you can keep your head up and focus on the guest. Eighteen years after starting Cali BBQ, we aren’t just surviving the rush. We are built for it thanks to Toast and our other restaurant technology partners. The lesson from our Built For Busy trip to NYC is something we’ve known for many years as restaurateurs. The hustle isn’t the hurdle. It’s the reward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com

    1 min
  6. LIVE from Restaurant Leadership Conference 2026

    APR 21

    LIVE from Restaurant Leadership Conference 2026

    Influential people have told me for years that I needed to get to Phoenix for the Restaurant Leadership Conference (RLC). Now that I’m here at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge for the Informa event’s 25th anniversary, I see the story isn’t just on the stage. It’s in the hallways. At the top of this post, you can watch my live video from the event co-hosted with Troy Hooper, CEO of Pepper Lunch, a Japanese fast-casual brand with more than 560 restaurants in 17 countries. RLC is full of power players just like Troy. Marcus Viscidi from Informa shared the power of this event: there are roughly 950 executives attending who represent over 300,000 restaurant locations. That is massive scale. But RLC has this unique way of stripping away the titles. Troy told me about standing on the lawn on night one, having a casual conversation with a woman for ten minutes before realizing he was talking to the wife of Peter Cancro, the CEO of Jersey Mike’s. That is the “secret sauce” of this event. Whether you’re a founder with five units or the CEO of a global powerhouse, you’re in the same “nooks and crannies,” having the same intimate conversations. We are all equals here, trying to up-level the industry together. The Business of Being Human For the technology partners and suppliers watching us, the lesson is clear: participate, don’t just pitch. Marcus and the Informa team have built a foundation where people can “build their own adventure”. In 2026, that adventure included: * Morning Connections: Golf tournaments, hiking, yoga, and even a gun club excursion designed to get people out of their shells. * The Pickleball Shift: The Pepper Lunch team doubled down on the experience with a legendary pickleball party, featuring DJs and a full bar. Why does a DJ at a pickleball court matter for your bottom line? Because you might spend three hours in a relaxed environment with a C-suite decision-maker. They might not be the one clicking “buy” on your software, but that top-down relationship provides the validation and access you need to move the needle. Real Tech for Real Problems When we did get into the Marketplace, the innovation was focused on one thing: Enterprise Scale. I caught up with Kelly Esten, Chief Marketing Officer at Toast. They are the title sponsor this year (Cali BBQ Media is also a sponsor), and they aren’t slowing down. Last year was about the kiosk; this year, they are showcasing a massive Enterprise Drive-Thru product. It’s a clear signal that the “big players” are now looking for the same agility that smaller brands have enjoyed for years. We also saw the latest from partners like PepsiCo, Restaurant365, Popmenu, and more — all focused on making your restaurant operations leaner and more connected. The conversation doesn’t stop in Phoenix. Marcus and his team are already planning for RLC 2027, and the 2026 calendar is just heating up. If you want to stay in the room where these decisions are made, you need to join us at: * Food on Demand (Dallas): May 5th–6th. This is the place for anyone serious about the delivery and tech ecosystem. * National Restaurant Association Show (Chicago): May 16-19. The “Super Bowl” of our industry. With 70,000 people and 700,000 square feet of space, it’s the only event that brings the entire food service ecosystem together. RLC 2026 proved that when you lead with hospitality and intention, the business follows. Will I see you there next year? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com

    14 min

  7. APR 16

    Built For Busy - Times Square Live with Toast

    To any operator reading this. We got into this business praying for busy. Not the slow nights, not the empty dining rooms. We dreamed about the chaos. The tickets stacking, the line out the door, the kind of busy that tests everything you’ve built. I remember opening our doors in 2008 on Troy Street in Spring Valley. No guarantees, just belief, grit, and the hope that one day we’d earn the kind of volume that forces you to grow or get exposed. Eighteen years later, we’re still here. Still standing, still learning. And this weekend, while Cali BBQ celebrates 18 years in business, we’re also part of something bigger, Toast Built For Busy campaign. That’s not a coincidence, that’s the work. Because “busy” isn’t just volume. It’s pressure, it’s responsibility, it’s showing up for your team and your guests when everything is moving fast and nothing can break. The truth is, most people romanticize restaurants until they feel a Saturday night rush. Operators know better. Busy means your systems matter, your people matter more, and your technology better not fail you when it counts. That’s why partnerships matter. Toast helps us manage the chaos so we can stay focused on what actually matters - hospitality. Not perfect, not polished, real. This moment isn’t just about a billboard in Times Square, that fades. This is about the operators in the trenches, the ones opening early, closing late, and doing it again tomorrow. We’re not chasing busy anymore, we’re built for it. #toastbuiltforbusy This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com

    14 min
  8. Toast on Tour - San Diego

    APR 13

    Toast on Tour - San Diego

    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com

    11 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Restaurant Technology is a weekly business news series hosted by Cali BBQ Media Founder Shawn Walchef. Keep up to date on the latest stories, insights, and thought leadership in the modern restaurant technology landscape. restauranttechnology.substack.com

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