You've probably heard it a hundred times: your restaurant should be making a 10% profit margin. I'm going to tell you why chasing that number keeps a lot of restaurant owners stuck. Not because profit is bad. Profit is oxygen. But a benchmark without understanding the decisions behind it is just a s...
Sales are down, costs are up, and too many independent operators are trying to fix both problems by writing another check. In episode 154 of “The Restaurant Prosperity Formula” podcast, David Scott Peters sat down for something a little different: an interview where his AI assistant, Claude, asked h...
You know your restaurant food cost percentage. You probably already know it's too high. So why isn't it getting better? That question drives restaurant owners crazy, because the number itself isn't actually the problem. The problem is what that number isn't showing you. Let me explain what your rest...
There are more free restaurant resources available today than ever before: videos, downloads, podcasts, webinars, checklists, templates. So why aren't more restaurants improving? Because information doesn't change a business. Execution does. Collecting resources for restaurants without ever implemen...
I've coached restaurant owners for more than 23 years, and I keep seeing the same pattern: people don't change when things get uncomfortable; they change when things become unbearable. In episode 153 of “The Restaurant Prosperity Formula” podcast, I dig into why that happens and what it costs you to...
If your restaurant is doing great sales but you're still not making money, you don't have a sales problem. You have a control problem. And it happens to the best of restaurant owners. I've worked with restaurant owners doing two, three, even $4 million a year in sales who get to the end of the month...
Catering sounds like easy extra revenue — more orders, bigger tickets, new customers. Beautiful, right? Except for many independent restaurants, catering doesn't create profitable growth. It creates more chaos with better packaging. And nothing will fool a restaurant owner faster than a big sale tha...
 In this episode of "The Restaurant Prosperity Formula" podcast, I tackle one of the most frustrating challenges restaurant owners face: getting their team to actually do the work, not just agree to it. If you've ever watched an employee nod through a meeting and then go right back to doing things t...
If your restaurant food cost seems to change every time you calculate it, you may not have a food cost problem at all. Instead, you likely have a process problem.
Over the years, I've worked with thousands of restaurant owners who were convinced their food cost issues were caused by pricing, theft,...
Most restaurant owners think of their restaurant food distributor as a supplier. And technically, that’s true. They source products, deliver inventory, help with emergencies and keep your kitchen running.
But here’s what I’ve learned after coaching restaurant owners for years: if you’re not activel...
Most restaurant owners don’t struggle because they lack systems. They struggle because the systems they worked hard to create slowly fall apart after rollout. In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula Podcast, I dig into the real reason restaurant systems fail and why creating a checklist...
 If your restaurant customers aren’t coming back, the problem probably isn’t your food. More often than not, it’s the experience you’re delivering.
I talk to restaurant owners all the time who are frustrated because they know the food is good. Guests enjoy it. Reviews may even be solid. But for som...
