In 1999, researchers at Harvard ran an experiment that changed how we understand human attention. They asked volunteers to watch a video of people passing a basketball and count the passes. While the ball was moving, someone in a full gorilla suit walked directly through the frame, stopped in the middle, beat their chest, and […]
Five levers, five closing gaps, and the model that doesn’t depend on either. Most operators don’t know they’re running an arbitrage. They think they’re running a restaurant. But if you strip the floor away and look at what’s actually generating the money, what you find is a stack of bets — five of them — […]
It never ceases to amaze me how many people post content about how to do things they’ve never actually done. I’m not talking about researchers, academics, or analysts. They have a lane and they know it. I’m talking about platform CEOs and software vendors whose only real experience in a restaurant is that they occasionally […]
Tech has to support the Guest Experience, not supplant it. Fourteen waves of receipts. Since 1982, my position on technology in our business has been the same. Tech has to support the Guest Experience, not supplant it. That year was the first time I heard the industry beat the drum that more tech was going […]
Your Guest has already decided. Not after the food arrived. Not after the check. Before the server said a word. The emotional read landed the moment they walked in — the room, the energy, the feel of the place — and the verdict started forming before you had any say in it. That is not […]
A few weeks ago a colleague posted about hiring four cooks at $20 an hour. Three ghosted. One quit after fifteen minutes because it was too difficult. The post blew up. The comment section turned into a debate about systemic hiring failures, interview process audits, and automation solutions designed to remove friction from the kitchen […]
Four consecutive quarters of same-store sales declines. The most recent at negative 8.7%. A 22-year streak of comp growth — gone. Same quarter: 97 new locations opened. System-wide sales up 5.9%. That’s Wingstop in Q1 2026. And those two facts, held side by side, tell you everything you need to know about how the franchise […]
I’ve been saying for years that the biggest threat to the independent restaurant operator isn’t the chain across the street. It isn’t food cost. It isn’t labor. It isn’t even the third-party delivery platform taking 30 points off the top. It’s invisibility. And the intelligent web just made that problem significantly more urgent. Brian Solis […]
Walk into any casual full-service chain and count the friction points before you’ve ordered your first drink. The menu — laminated, multi-page, every surface covered in promotional pricing and limited-time offers. The QR code that sends you to a mobile ordering experience you didn’t ask for. The tableside tablet that wants to take your order, […]