Episodes

Host Bryan Tublin shares his top 10 lessons learned from Season 1 of My First Restaurant. Top 10 Lessons Learned: Know why you’re getting into the business Test your concept first! Timing and momentum matters Raise enough capital – Things always cost more and take longer than you think Choose the right contractor for your buildout Centralized Commissary vs. Store-Level Production? There’s no right answer Do, Delegate, or Deprioritize Take care of yourself first Look for self awareness and a grow...

“I work really hard, and my staff works really hard, so I have to be in love with that city and that community to do the work that I do.” — Dominica Rice-Cisneros is the Chef & Owner of Bombera in Oakland, California. During her long career as a line cook, Dominica worked her way up in fine dining establishments such as Chez Panisse and The Four Seasons, before opening her first restaurant Cosecha to showcase her take on California Mexican cuisine. Forced to close Cosecha during the Covid-19 pan...

“You want more happy employees that are gonna turn to happy guests, and in order to do that you don’t want your team to feel overwhelmed.” — Mistie Boulton is the CEO of Oren’s Hummus, and the President and Founder of EyeSpy Critiquing & Consulting, a mystery shopping and operations improvement business for the service industry. Mistie brings 20+ years of restaurant industry experience to this conversation, where we dive deep into why she decided to start a mystery shopping business in her 20’s,...

“Don’t ever even consider opening a restaurant unless you have worked in and ideally managed one.” — This week’s guest is Gabriel Baldinucci, co-founder of Baldinucci Pizza Romana, a “fast premium” pizza restaurant based in Austin, Texas. In this interview we discuss the origins of the concept, as well as: Why Gabriel believes the market for “fast premium” concepts is increasing as consumer palates become more sophisticated What the team did prior to opening to build buzz and refine their recipe...

“The people that are super successful have their operations on lock.” — James Deng is the Founder & CEO of Poké House, a poké chain based in Northern California with 9 locations and counting. James opened Poké House’s first location in 2015, and has since grown the concept to 5 company-owned locations and 4 franchise operated units, with big plans to scale beyond those numbers in the coming years. In this episode James shares how Poké House grew into this success, including: - How Poké House dif...

“Lean into your network, don’t be afraid to grow it, and don’t be afraid to ask people for help and reach out to people who have done it before. You never know what you’ll get back, you just have to ask.” — Marc Schechter is the Co-Founder of Square Pie Guys, a Detroit style fast casual pizza chain based in the San Francisco Bay Area. With three locations between San Francisco and Oakland, Marc has grown Square Pie Guys into a trendsetting brand inspiring square pizza concepts nationwide. I sit ...

“The least understood thing about opening a public facing business is the feeling of it, the emotional journey you have to go on” — Manny Yekutiel is the owner of Manny’s, a civic and political event space with a bookshop, coffee shop, bar, and restaurant, located in San Francisco. As you’ll quickly find out, Manny is not your traditional business owner, and this is far from a traditional interview. Having worked in the world of fundraising for political campaigns, Manny is charismatic and persu...

“Don’t pick the cheapest person, don’t pick the person who says they’re going to do it fast… pick the person that is the most responsible.” — In this episode we’re joined by David Murphy & Kayla Abe, co-owners of Shuggie’s Trash Pie & Natural Wine, a climate solutions restaurant highlighting upcycled ingredients, where they take all kinds of things left over from the food system and make them the stars of the menu. Shuggie’s is the new hotness of the San Francisco food scene and beyond, having b...

“Whatever you think it’s gonna cost double it, whatever you think you need for working capital triple” — This week’s guest is Todd Parent, Co-Founder & CEO of Extreme Pizza, a Bay Area-born chain with over 30 locations from coast to coast. Todd had a unique journey to restaurant ownership, starting in the dish pit of a friend’s restaurant in New Jersey, honing his management skills in Aspen, then eventually making his way to San Francisco, where he was encouraged to chase his entrepreneurial dre...

“At some point you have to say, ‘I’m not going to make a bad business decision to get my dream space.’” — Today our guest is Roberta Economidis, co-founder and partner of Georgopoulos & Economidis, a boutique business law firm based in San Francisco, with a specialty in the hospitality industry. Roberta has helped restaurants and hospitality businesses throughout California and the US with everything from corporate structure, to lease negotiations, private equity offerings, licensing, permitting...

“I wanted to close the gap between who I was and what I did.” — Jennifer Peters is the Founder & Foodie of Just BE Kitchen, a two-unit fast casual concept in Colorado, with an allergen friendly menu focused on serving “mindful mouthfuls from a conscious kitchen” through meals that are gluten, grain, refined sugar, and dairy-free. As you’ll hear in our conversation, Jen’s mettle was tested several times along the way to opening and sustaining Just BE, from having her funding fall through right be...

This week we’re flipping the script. Guest host Sam Oches, Editorial Director of Informa’s Restaurant & Food Group, interviews Bryan about his journey to start and grow Kitava. Sam and Bryan discuss Kitava’s origin story, including the path from pop-ups and farmers markets to opening a brick-and-mortar location inside an old McDonald’s. Other topics covered include: - How Bryan merged his business with his eventual co-founder’s to form Kitava - The process of coming up with a name and brand that...

“The guest experience will never rise above the level of the team experience” — Leo Kremer is the Co-Founder of Dos Toros Taqueria. As a Berkeley, CA native, Leo and his brother Oliver grew up eating Mission-style burritos from local taquerias throughout the Bay Area. After spending time as a professional musician, including with Third Eye Blind, and working briefly in management consulting, Leo and his brother opened Dos Toros in New York City in 2009. Leo and Oliver steadily grew the business ...

Charles Bililies is the Founder & CEO of Souvla, a group of fast-fine Greek restaurants with six locations throughout San Francisco. Charles has built Souvla from a passion project into a brand with a cult-like following, having been named a “Top 100 Restaurant” by the San Francisco Chronicle, and a recipient of the StarChefs award for “Best Concept”, as well as being featured in national media outlets such as The Today Show, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Bloomberg. If...

“I’m working LESS now with a hundred locations than I did with one… It’s a MYTH that it’s hard to expand.” - Ike Shehadeh --- Imagine the following… > You’ve been kicked out of college > Your first business goes broke and you become homeless > While working three jobs to make ends meet, you decide to open a sandwich shop > On your first day no one comes. You sell zero sandwiches > It takes you 3 months just to make more than $300 in gross sales per day What do you do from here? Well friends, thi...

“You need to be all in, otherwise it doesn’t really work.” - Benson Wang Benson Wang is the co-founder and CEO of Palm House Hospitality, an experience driven lifestyle and hospitality company based in the Bay Area with a diversified portfolio in restaurants, nightlife and lodging. In our interview we discuss: - How Benson and team make data-driven menu changes by sending new items to the Thunderdome - How they embraced their target market to help make operational decisions (e.g. Valentine’s Day...

“The end goal is to make people happy, and tell our stories through food” - Chef Nelson German -- Nelson German is the Executive Chef/Owner of alaMar Kitchen & Bar and Sobre Mesa in Oakland, CA. His restaurants tell the stories of the African and Caribbean diasporas through cultural foodways, and have achieved local and national accolades. Chef Nelson appeared as a contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef - Season 18, and he was named one of Plate magazine's “2020 Chefs to Watch,” and “Best Chef 2022” fro...

Jaime Sparrow is the owner of Sunbird Cape Cod, a zero-waste cafe specializing in fresh, local, and sustainable food. In this interview Jaime shares her journey from working in San Francisco restaurants to moving back home to open a food truck, and eventually a cafe, in a seasonal economy heavily driven by tourism. We discuss how Jaime and her husband tested their concept with a food truck, why popularity with Cape Cod locals gave them confidence to open their first restaurant, their early strug...

Hanson Li is the founder and managing partner of Salt Partners, a San Francisco based restaurant group with a current portfolio around the 4 major food groups: ice cream, Chinese take-out, bars, and bakery. This episode provides a super detailed perspective on running and growing restaurants, including what makes it so difficult, the tech stack Hanson uses for his growing fast casual concept Lazy Susan, and how he’s testing his way to scaling the business. –– Where to find Lazy Susan: Website: h...

Amanda is a cookbook author and owner of Radish, a fast casual restaurant with two locations in Nashville. In this interview Amanda shares the opportunity she saw for a healthy fast casual concept when she moved to Nashville, and how she took matters into her own hands by opening Radish. We discuss how she planned for and opened her first two locations, Radish’s org chart and what she looks for when hiring General Managers, the layers she implemented to allow her to step away from day-to-day ope...

Alex Brandwein is the owner and founder of Brandwein’s Bagels, an authentic New York-Style Bagel Shop located in Chapel Hill, NC. In this interview Alex tells the story of how a “breaking point” in his finance career led him to make the big life change to become an entrepreneur, and ultimately open a bagel shop while he was in grad school at the University of North Carolina. He also shares where the initial insight to open a college bagel shop came from, how a fortuitous meeting with an early me...

Mat Schuster is the Chef and Owner of Canela Bistro & Wine Bar, a Spanish restaurant in San Francisco specializing in ingredients and dishes from Spain and California. Mat also serves as the President of the Board for the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and generously lends his talents to helping restaurants succeed in the Bay Area. In this interview Mat shares how he became interested in becoming a chef and restaurant owner, menu tweaks he made based on customer feedback, and his thoughts o...

Ben Moore is a Partner and Co-Founder of Mamahuhu, a fast casual Chinese American restaurant concept that puts a modern spin on classic Chinese American favorites. In this interview Ben shares the story of how he fell in love with Chinese culture after living in Shanghai, was ultimately inspired to modernize Chinese American cuisine back in the States, then teamed up with a dream culinary partner in Brandon Jew, owner of Michelin-starred restaurant Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco. –– Where to find...

Laurie Thomas is the Executive Director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and the Owner of Rose’s Café and Terzo in San Francisco. In this interview Laurie shares her journey from working in marketing for a tech company in Silicon Valley to becoming an investor in a restaurant group in San Francisco, and ultimately transitioning to running the business full-time as she was tasked with turning the company around from the brink of failure. –– Where to find Laurie Thomas: Website: https://...