To Run a Successful Restaurant You Must Make This Change

Hey there, restaurant pros. It’s David Scott Peters, and welcome to the Restaurant Prosperity Formula podcast. For over two decades, I’ve been guiding restaurant owners to success with the proven principles of something I call the Restaurant Prosperity Formula. I originally created the formula based on the daily practices of the most successful restaurateurs I coached, and it’s now the foundation of what I teach restaurant owners like you so you can achieve success.

What do I mean by success? Success is a restaurant owner who dictates the terms of their life and their bank account instead of their restaurant dictating those things for them. Success is a restaurant owner who has freedom from the restaurant, the financial freedom they never thought possible. How you define success is up to you, but I do know the way to achieving it is using the Restaurant Prosperity Formula.

This season, I’m diving even deeper into the core elements of the formula: leadership, systems, training, accountability and taking action. Along with my insights, you’ll hear from special guests, industry experts and inspiring success stories from fellow restaurant owners who have turned their businesses around and found their definition of success. In this episode, number 163, we’re tackling the gap between wanting it and becoming it. Let’s get started.

Years ago, my mother, Linda, and I attended several million-dollar speaking seminars taught by a gentleman named John Childers. John was teaching people how to communicate, how to influence an audience and how to sell from the stage. And one of the stories he taught was about surfing.

Now, I’m going to share my version of the lesson because I think it’s one of the best ways to explain why some people achieve their goals while others spend their lives wishing things were different. But there’s another part of the story that I think is even more important. It’s not just the gap between wanting something and knowing how to do it. It’s what happens after you learn what to do, because that’s when the real work begins. That’s when you have to change your habits. That’s when you have to do things that feel awkward, difficult and uncomfortable. And that’s when your discipline gets tested.

See, most people love the idea of achieving something. They love imagining the result. What they don’t always love is the process of becoming the person capable of achieving it. And there’s a big difference, because wanting something requires almost nothing from you. Becoming capable of achieving it requires you to change, and change is uncomfortable. That’s really what I want you thinking about as we walk through this story. Not just what you need to learn, but whether you’re willing to stay with the process long enough for the learning to change who you are and how you operate.

Picture yourself standing on the beach. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining. The waves are rolling in. And out in the water, you see surfers. They’re catching these beautiful waves, standing on their boards, gliding across the water. They make it look, well, effortless. And you think to yourself, man, I’d love to do that. I’d love to know what it feels like. I’d love to ride one of those waves all the way to the beach.

Here’s my question. Does wanting to surf mean you know how to surf? Of course not. But there’s something else interesting happening. When you’re watching those surfers, you’re seeing the result of everything they’ve learned. You’re not seeing the first time they tried to stand on a board. You’re not seeing all the times they fell. You’re not seeing the hours they spent learning how to paddle, how to position themselves, how to recognize a wave, how to balance or how to recover when something goes wrong. You’re seeing the finished product.

And that’s exactly what happens when restaurant owners look at other successful restaurant owners. They see the freedom. They see the profit. They see the owner who can take a vacation. They don’t see all the systems that had to be installed, the managers who had to be trained, the mistakes that had to be corrected or the uncomfortable decisions that had to be made. They see the surfer riding the wave, but they haven’t learned how to surf.

Now, let’s take this a little further. Imagine you’re sitting on your surfboard out in the water. You’re bobbing up and down. You’re waiting. What are you waiting for? A wave. Not just any wave. You’re waiting for the big one, the perfect opportunity, the wave that’s finally going to carry you to shore.

Does that sound familiar? How many restaurant owners are doing the exact same thing? They’re waiting for sales to improve. They’re waiting for the economy to turn around. They’re waiting for the right manager to walk through the door. They’re waiting until they have enough money to invest in systems. They’re waiting until they’re not so busy. And here’s what I find fascinating. While they’re waiting, they’re not doing anything to get ready. They’re just bobbing.

John Childers asked a simple question. What is the first thing you need to do if you want to catch a wave? You need to point your board toward the beach. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But think about your restaurant. Where are you trying to go? Do you want to grow to three locations? Do you want to make more money from the restaurant you already have? Do you want to work 40 hours a week instead of 70? Do you want to stop being the person who gets called every time somebody doesn’t show up to work? Do you want to build a business you can eventually sell? Because those are different destinations. And if you don’t know where you’re going, how can you possibly know what skills you need to learn? That’s the first lesson. You have to point your board.

But pointing your board isn’t enough. You have to get into position, and then you have to paddle. Why? Because you need momentum. You can’t sit motionless in the water and expect a wave to magically turn you into a surfer. And here’s the part I love. When do you start paddling? Not when the wave is already passing you. Not after you’ve missed it. Before. You build momentum so you’re ready when the opportunity arrives.

Now think about what that means for a restaurant owner. When should you start learning how to control labor? When sales are falling and you’re losing money, or before that happens? When should you develop managers who can run the restaurant without you? The week before you want to take a vacation, or months before, when you have the time to train them properly? When should you start understanding your financial statements? After your bank account is empty, or while you still have the opportunity to make changes? Successful restaurant owners don’t wait for the perfect wave. They develop the skills and momentum to take advantage of the waves that come their way.

But there’s another important question. How do you know what to do once you’ve pointed your board? How do you know how to paddle? How do you know when to stand up? How do you know whether you’re even doing it correctly? That’s where John’s next analogy becomes so important.

Let me ask you something. How does somebody become an engineer? Yes, an engineer. Does somebody wake up in the morning and say, “You know what? I think I’d like to be an engineer”? Absolutely they do. That’s where it starts. They have a desire. They have a goal. They have a picture of the future. But does wanting to become an engineer suddenly make them an engineer? Do they press a button and bang, they’re an engineer? Of course not. They have to learn.

And here’s the really important part. They don’t have to invent the entire process of becoming an engineer themselves. Someone has already figured out what they need to learn. There are schools. There are professors. There are textbooks. There are prerequisites. There’s a curriculum. There’s a sequence. You don’t just walk into a university, take a class on something interesting, take another random class next semester and hope that someday somebody hands you an engineering degree. You follow a plan. You learn mathematics. You learn science. You learn the fundamentals of your discipline. You apply those fundamentals. You solve problems. You complete projects. You get tested. You get feedback. And you progress. The work becomes more complex as you go. You build on what you already learned. That’s how education works.

Now, let me ask you another question. Who created the curriculum? Was it the student? No. The curriculum was developed by people who understood what an engineer needs to know. People with expertise, people who understand the profession, people who knew which concepts had to come first and which ones come later. And that’s incredibly important, because learning the right things in the wrong order can be almost as frustrating as not learning them at all. Imagine trying to teach somebody advanced engineering concepts before they understand the mathematics required to use them. They might be brilliant. They might be motivated. They might work incredibly hard. But they’re going to struggle. Not because they’re incapable, but because they haven’t developed the foundation.

Now, I want you to think about restaurant ownership. Where’s the curriculum? Seriously. Where’s the curriculum that teaches you how to become a successful independent restaurant owner? Most restaurant owners didn’t start out planning to become business executives. They loved food. They loved hospitality. They were great chefs. They were great bartenders. They were great managers. They had a family recipe. They had a dream. And one day they decided to open a restaurant. Suddenly they were responsible for everything: payroll, food cost, inventory, hiring, training, scheduling, cash flow, leadership, marketing, guest experience and the financial future of their families.

But who taught them how to do that? Maybe they learned a few things working for somebody else. Maybe they picked up some knowledge along the way. Maybe they watched videos, read books or attended seminars. But was there a complete, organized curriculum that showed them exactly what they needed to learn and in what order? For most of them, no. They were expected to figure it out, and that’s what so many restaurant owners spend years doing: figuring it out. Trial and error, a little bit of advice from one person, a new idea from somebody else, a spreadsheet they downloaded, a management book they read, a seminar they attended. They collected all this information.

But information isn’t the same thing as a curriculum. And knowing a collection of things isn’t the same as knowing how to operate a profitable restaurant. You need to understand how those things fit together. You need to know what to do first, what to do second, what to measure, what to delegate, what to teach your managers and how to know whether the process is working. That’s the difference between collecting information and following a proven path.

And it’s one of the reasons I developed the Restaurant Prosperity Formula. I didn’t create it by sitting in a room and imagining what a successful restaurant should look like. I created it based on the daily practices of the most successful restaurateurs I coached. I looked at what they were doing. I looked at the systems they used. I looked at how they led their teams. I looked at how they trained people. I looked at how they held people accountable. And I looked at what they did consistently. Then I organized those principles into a framework that other restaurant owners could learn and apply. Leadership, systems, training, accountability and taking action. That’s the foundation.

But here’s something I want to make very clear. Having a curriculum doesn’t mean you automatically become an engineer. You still have to attend classes. You still have to study. You still have to complete the assignments. You still have to learn how to solve the problems. And you still have to demonstrate that you can do the work. The curriculum provides the path. It does not walk the path for you. And the same is true with restaurant coaching. I can give you the framework. I can give you the systems. I can show you the sequence. But you still have to do the work.

And that brings us to something I believe is one of the biggest obstacles restaurant owners face: the discomfort of learning something new. Let’s go back to the surfer. You’ve decided you want to surf. You’ve pointed your board toward the beach. You’ve learned you need to paddle. You’ve started moving. And then a wave comes. You try to stand up, and you fall. Now what? Do you climb back on the board, or do you decide that surfing isn’t for you?

This is where I believe a lot of people get stuck. They confuse being bad at something new with being incapable of learning it. Those are two very different things. Think about the first time you learned to drive a car. There was a lot going on. You had to watch the road, manage your speed, check your mirrors, pay attention to other drivers and figure out how to park. It took conscious effort. Now, after years of driving, you do many of those things without even thinking. What changed? You developed competence through practice.

And restaurant ownership is no different. Knowing how to cook doesn’t mean you know how to manage cash flow. Knowing how to deliver great service doesn’t mean you know how to create a labor budget. Being a great bartender doesn’t mean you know how to develop managers. And working harder at the things you already know how to do won’t automatically teach you the things you don’t. This is the knowledge gap. You have a vision of where you want to be, but there’s a collection of skills between where you are and where you want to go. And until you develop those skills, that vision stays out of reach.

Now, here’s the part that makes this difficult. Learning is uncomfortable. When you’ve been running your restaurant a certain way for 10 or 15 years, changing that way of operating can make you feel like a beginner again. And nobody likes feeling incompetent, especially a restaurant owner. You’re supposed to be the boss. You’re supposed to have the answers. Your employees look to you for direction. Your managers expect you to make decisions. And suddenly, somebody comes along and says you’ve got to change the way you’re doing things. You need to stop writing schedules based on gut feeling. You need to use a labor budget. You need to track waste every day. You need to stop solving every manager’s problem. You need to delegate responsibility and hold people accountable.

And maybe you think, “I’ve been doing this for 15 years. Why do I need to change?” Because 15 years of doing something doesn’t mean you’ve been doing it correctly. Sometimes it means you’ve been repeating the same mistake for 15 years. Let that sink in. Experience is valuable, but experience without reflection, feedback and improvement can simply reinforce bad habits.

And there’s another problem. When you first start changing how you operate, you may actually feel less competent than you did before. Why? Because your old habits were familiar. You knew how to do things the old way. Even if the old way wasn’t producing the results you wanted, at least you knew what to expect. Now you’re trying something different. You have to think about things you used to do automatically. You have to stop yourself from falling back into old patterns. You have to learn new tools. You have to have conversations you might have avoided for years. And sometimes you make mistakes. That’s normal, but it can be frustrating. And here’s what I want you to understand. The discomfort isn’t necessarily evidence that the process isn’t working. Sometimes it’s evidence that you’re learning.

And here’s where discipline enters the picture. Motivation is easy when you’re excited about something new. You attend a seminar, you learn a system, you see what’s possible. You go home fired up. You’re going to change everything. But then Monday comes. The restaurant is short-staffed. A delivery doesn’t arrive. Your kitchen manager has a problem. An employee calls out. And suddenly that new system you were so excited about becomes one more thing you have to do.

Now you’ve got a decision to make. Do you stick with the process, or do you go back to the way you’ve always done things? Because what you’ve always done is comfortable. It may not be producing the results you want, but at least it’s familiar. And that’s the trap. We often choose the comfort of a familiar problem over the discomfort of learning a new solution. Think about that. You know you need to delegate, but it’s faster to do the work yourself. You know you need to hold managers accountable, but avoiding the conversation feels easier. You know you need to inspect your systems, but you’ve got a hundred other things demanding your attention. And every time you choose the familiar behavior, you’re reinforcing the very habits that have kept you stuck.

That’s why discipline matters. Discipline is doing what the process requires even when the excitement has worn off, even when you’re frustrated, even when you’re not very good at it yet, even when you don’t see immediate results. And here’s the part I really want you to understand. You don’t develop discipline because something becomes easy. You develop discipline by continuing to do the right thing while it’s still difficult. Eventually, the new behavior becomes more natural. Eventually, you develop competence. Eventually, you start seeing results. But you’ve got to stay in the uncomfortable space long enough to get there. You can’t keep climbing off the surfboard every time you fall and expect to become a surfer.

Now, that doesn’t mean every uncomfortable experience is productive. If you’re practicing the wrong things, you can spend years getting nowhere, which brings me to one of my favorite lessons. You’ve probably heard the expression “practice makes perfect.” I disagree. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

Before you misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting you have to be perfect when you’re learning. That’s impossible. What I’m saying is that you need to practice the right way, because practicing something incorrectly doesn’t make you better at doing it correctly. It makes you better at doing it incorrectly. Another way to say it is practice makes permanent. And this is where having a coach can make an enormous difference.

Let me give you a personal example. Those of you who’ve been following me for a while know that I’m a competitive masters rower. I rowed in high school and college, and after more than 30 years away from the sport, I came back to rowing. Today I wake up at 3:15 a.m. so I can be on the water at 5 a.m. Six days a week I’m rowing in team boats or in my single. And I can tell you something. Knowing how to row 30 years ago did not mean that I could jump back into a boat and perform at the level I wanted.

I had to rebuild my fitness. I had to rebuild my strength. I had to work on my technique. And I had to accept that the athlete I remembered being wasn’t the athlete I was when I returned. That’s humbling, because in your mind you remember what it felt like to be good at something. But your body doesn’t necessarily cooperate.

And rowing is a fantastic example of why correct practice matters. Every stroke is an opportunity to reinforce good technique or bad technique. If I spend an hour rowing with a technical flaw, I’ve just practiced that flaw hundreds of times. Now imagine doing that six days a week. Am I putting in the work? Absolutely I am. Am I getting exercise? Of course I am. But am I necessarily becoming the best rower I can be? No, I’m not. Because effort and improvement aren’t the same thing.

And that’s where coaching comes in. A good rowing coach can see the things I can’t see. They can identify a technical problem. They can explain what needs to change. They can give me a drill that helps me correct it. And then I have to go do the work. The coach can’t take the stroke for me. They can’t build my strength for me. They can’t develop my endurance for me. But they can help make sure the effort I’m putting in is moving me in the right direction.

Now, here’s something important. Even when you know what the correct stroke should look like, that doesn’t mean you can execute it consistently. You have to practice. You have to get feedback. You have to make adjustments. And you have to repeat the process until the new skill becomes natural. That’s what learning looks like, and it’s not always comfortable. I’ve competed at major masters rowing events, including the World Masters Regatta in Slovenia. And even after all the training and racing I’ve done, I’m still working to improve. There are still stronger competitors. There are still technical things to learn. There are still areas where I can get better. That’s not failure. That’s the process.

Now, take the same lesson and apply it to your restaurant. Let’s say you’re struggling with labor cost. You decide you’re finally going to get control of your payroll. Great. You download a spreadsheet. You look at last week’s sales. You write a schedule, and you tell your managers to keep labor at 25%. Are you now an expert at controlling labor? Of course not. You haven’t learned how to forecast sales accurately. You haven’t necessarily learned how to schedule based on sales and productivity. You may not know how to use a schedule variance report. You may not know how to measure dollars per labor hour worked. And you probably haven’t trained your managers how to adjust labor in real time without destroying the guest experience.

But here’s what happens. You try it for two weeks. Labor doesn’t improve. Your managers complain. You get frustrated. And you say, “This labor system doesn’t work for my restaurant.” Wait a minute. Is the system broken, or have you not yet developed the skills to use it correctly? That’s an important distinction, because if you abandon every system the first time it becomes uncomfortable, you’re never going to build a restaurant that operates consistently. You’re going to spend your entire career starting over, and that’s exhausting.

A coach can help you understand whether the problem is the system, the implementation, the training or the follow-through. And that can save you an enormous amount of time. But it still requires you to be willing to make corrections. Just like rowing, I can know what the correct stroke should look like. I can understand the technique. But if I keep practicing the wrong movement, I won’t improve the way I want to. The same thing happens when you’re a restaurant owner who understands labor control intellectually but continues to write the schedule based on gut feelings. Knowledge isn’t enough. You have to change the behavior. And you have to practice the new behavior correctly.

I want to talk about something I see consistently in my coaching program. Restaurant owners often understand what I’m teaching long before they’re good at implementing it. They understand why tracking waste matters. They understand why managers need accountability. They understand why recipes need to be followed. They understand why they need to stop being the answer to every problem. But understanding something intellectually and changing your daily behavior are two very different things.

Let’s use the waste tracker and key item tracker as examples. These are two of the simplest systems I teach. The waste tracker records what gets thrown away, why and how much. The key item tracker helps managers keep their eye on products that can have an outsized impact on food costs. Neither system is complicated. You don’t need an accounting degree. You don’t need to buy expensive software. But getting those systems used consistently every single day, that’s another story.

Why? Because they require people to change their habits. They require managers to pay attention to things they may have been ignoring before. They require employees to record mistakes instead of hiding them. They require the owner to inspect the process and coach people rather than simply making an announcement. And that last part is where the real work begins.

You can’t just say, “Starting Monday, we’re using a waste tracker,” then come back three weeks later, discover nobody’s been using it and conclude that your employees don’t care. You have to teach them. You have to explain why it matters. You have to show them how. You have to assign responsibility. You have to inspect the work. And when somebody does it incorrectly, you have to coach them. Then you repeat the process again and again until it becomes part of how your restaurant operates. That’s how systems get installed.

And that’s why I say systems impose your will without you being there, but only after they’ve been properly installed, trained and supported. A system sitting in a binder doesn’t impose anything. A spreadsheet nobody uses doesn’t control your costs. A manager who hasn’t been trained cannot be expected to magically know how to execute your standards.

Now let me ask you something. If you tried surfing for the first time, fell off your board and someone said, “Well, I guess surfing doesn’t work,” what would you think? You’d think they were being ridiculous. But restaurant owners do the equivalent every day. They try a new system. It doesn’t work immediately. They stop using it. They go back to the way they’ve always operated. That’s not necessarily proof that the system doesn’t work. It may simply mean the learning process wasn’t finished.

And this is where having a structured curriculum becomes so important. If I teach you the waste tracker without teaching you why accurate recipe costing matters, you’re missing part of the picture. If I teach you to hold managers accountable without teaching you how to train them, you’re missing part of the picture. If I teach you to delegate without teaching you how to transfer responsibility, you’re missing part of the picture. These aren’t isolated skills. They work together. And when you learn them in the right sequence, each one makes the next one more useful. That’s exactly how a curriculum is supposed to work.

Let me bring this into the real world. I want to talk about Tracy and Christy Carter, a husband-and-wife team I’ve coached and still coach. They’re restaurant owners working through the same kinds of challenges many of you face. And what I appreciate about their experience is that it illustrates something incredibly important. Learning a concept and applying it to your restaurant are not the same thing.

One area we’ve worked on together is creating a stronger culture of accountability. Now, accountability is one of those words restaurant owners love to use. They say, “I need my managers to be more accountable. I need more employees to take ownership. I need people to care about the business the way I do.” But what does that actually look like? How do you turn accountability from an idea into something people practice every day? That’s where the work begins.

Tracy and Christy worked on introducing a manifesto and clearer expectations around their values and the way their restaurant should operate. And Tracy described how that work was beginning to change the accountability structure and their culture. Now, think about what that means. They weren’t simply saying, “I wish my team cared more.” They were beginning to define what caring more actually looked like. They were putting expectations into words. They were creating a foundation their managers could use to make decisions.

But here’s what I want you to understand. The manifesto wasn’t the finish line. It was part of the curriculum. Because writing down your values doesn’t mean your team automatically lives them. You still have to teach them. You still have to explain what those values look like during a busy Friday night shift. You still have to help your managers understand how to reinforce them. You still have to coach people when their behavior doesn’t match the standard. And you have to make sure the people you’re holding accountable have actually been trained to meet those expectations.

That’s an enormous distinction, because I’ve seen restaurant owners get frustrated with their managers for not doing things those managers were never properly taught to do. They tell their kitchen manager to lower food cost, but they haven’t taught them how to calculate ideal versus actual food cost. They tell their general manager to control labor, but they haven’t taught them how to forecast sales or use the payroll guardian. They tell their managers to take ownership, but they haven’t clearly defined what ownership looks like. Then they’re disappointed when those managers don’t deliver.

And what happens next? The owners take everything back. They start doing the work themselves again. They say nobody can do it as well as they can, and suddenly they’re right back where they started, bobbing on their surfboard, waiting for the perfect employee, waiting for the perfect manager, waiting for the day when everything becomes easier. But the answer isn’t waiting. The answer is learning how to train, delegate, coach and hold people accountable. And those are skills. They don’t appear automatically because you’re the owner. They have to be developed.

There’s another example from my work with Tracy and Christy that I think makes the point even clearer. We worked through menu engineering. And Tracy talked about how difficult it had been to get the information together. He discovered that some of the information he was working with wasn’t accurate. Now, that’s frustrating. You’re trying to make better decisions. You’re trying to understand your menu. You’re trying to do the work. And you discover that some of the numbers you’re relying on need to be corrected.

At that moment, you’ve got a choice. You can throw your hands up and say this is too complicated. Or you can recognize that finding the problem is part of the process. That’s what we talked about. You find the errors. You correct the errors. And then you have information you can actually use. Think about how important that is. You cannot make good menu decisions if your recipe costs aren’t accurate. You can’t reliably understand which items contribute the most profit if you’re working with bad data. And you can’t fix a problem you haven’t identified.

So sometimes the first result of implementing a new system isn’t an immediate improvement in profit. Sometimes the first result is discovering that something you’ve been relying on is wrong. That’s not a setback. That’s progress, because now you know. Now you can correct it. Now you can make a better decision. And that’s what I mean when I talk about closing the knowledge gap. Tracy didn’t need another motivational speech about making more money. He needed accurate information, a process for analyzing it and guidance on how to use what he was learning. And then he had to do the work. That’s how you build competence. One skill at a time, one correction at a time, one decision at a time.

And I want to make something clear about Tracy and Christy’s experience. I’m not telling you that they waved a magic wand and everything in their restaurant was suddenly perfect. That’s not how this works. What matters is that they were working through the process. They were learning. They were identifying gaps. They were making corrections. And they were putting new expectations and systems into place. That’s what progress looks like. And it’s a much more useful example than pretending restaurant transformation happens overnight.

There’s something I want you to think about. There are three very different stages in the process of improvement: knowing, doing and becoming.

Knowing is when you understand the concept. You know that you should control labor. You know that you should track waste. You know that you should train managers. You know that you should hold people accountable.

Doing is when you start applying that knowledge. You actually use the payroll guardian. You actually implement the waste tracker. You actually train your managers. You actually conduct the accountability conversation.

And becoming is when those behaviors are no longer occasional projects. They’re simply how you operate. You become the owner who uses the numbers to make decisions. You become the leader who develops managers instead of rescuing them. You become the operator who protects the standards rather than hoping employees remember them. That’s the real transformation.

And I want to point out something about those three stages. The hardest transition usually isn’t from not knowing to knowing. It’s from knowing to doing consistently. Because once you know what to do, you no longer have the excuse that nobody taught you. Now you have to make a choice. Am I going to do what I learned? Am I going to keep doing it when it gets uncomfortable?

That’s the bridge between doing and becoming. Discipline. Not perfection, not motivation. Discipline. It’s the restaurant owner who continues using the labor system even after a difficult week. It’s the owner who follows through on manager accountability instead of letting another missed standard slide. It’s the owner who keeps coaching instead of taking the responsibility back. And the beautiful thing is that eventually discipline produces habits. Those habits produce consistency, and consistency produces results. What used to require tremendous effort becomes part of how you operate. That’s when you’re moving from knowing what a successful restaurant owner does to actually becoming one.

And here’s why that matters. A lot of restaurant owners stop at knowing. They go to a seminar, they take notes, they get excited, they go back to their restaurants, and two weeks later nothing has changed. Why? Because information doesn’t become action. Or maybe they make it to the doing stage. They start using a system. They try it for a few weeks. Then business gets busy. Somebody quits. A manager calls out. And the system gets abandoned. They never reach the becoming stage. They never develop the habit. They never make the new behavior part of the restaurant’s operating rhythm.

And that’s why consistency matters so much, because the goal isn’t to use a system once. The goal is to build a restaurant where the systems get used correctly whether you’re there or not. That’s the difference between knowing how something works and building an organization that actually works that way.

And it’s why the Restaurant Prosperity Formula includes all five pillars: leadership, systems, training, accountability and taking action. You need leadership to establish direction and standards. You need systems to define the right way to do the work. You need training so people develop the skill to execute those systems. You need accountability to make sure the standards are maintained. And you need to take action, because none of those things accomplish anything if they remain ideas. Those pillars work together, just like the courses in an engineering curriculum. You can’t skip the fundamentals and expect advanced work to take care of itself. You can’t skip training and expect accountability to solve everything. You can’t skip systems and expect your managers to read your mind. And you can’t skip taking action and expect your restaurant to change.

Now, I want to address something that sometimes gets misunderstood about coaching. People hire a coach because they want better results. That makes sense. But some people unconsciously expect the coach to deliver the results for them. And that’s not how it works. Think about a rowing coach. They can teach me proper technique. They can evaluate my performance. They can help me identify weaknesses. They can suggest changes to my training. But they cannot get in the boat and row the race for me.

The same thing is true in restaurant coaching. I can teach you how to understand your numbers. I can give you the systems that help you control food costs and labor. I can show you how to develop managers. I can help you understand what you need to delegate. I can hold you accountable. I can help you troubleshoot when something isn’t working. But I cannot go into your restaurant every day and do the work for you. And even if I could, what would happen when I left? You’d be dependent on me. That’s not the goal. The goal is to help you become the kind of restaurant owner who knows how to build and lead a successful business. That’s a completely different outcome.

And that’s why I believe coaching can be so valuable. You can spend years trying to figure out what you don’t know. You can make every mistake yourself. You can try every system you find online. You can keep guessing. Or you can work with somebody who has already traveled that road and helped other people navigate it. Someone who can say, “Don’t waste your time on that right now. Start here. Learn this. Practice it. Get this system working. Now move to the next one.” That’s the advantage. It’s not that you get to skip the work. It’s that you can stop wasting so much effort working on the wrong things. Let me say that another way. You can spend years figuring out what you don’t know, or you can work with somebody who already knows the path. Either way, you still have to do the work.

And the right coach doesn’t simply tell you what you want to hear. Sometimes the most valuable thing a coach can do is tell you that you’re practicing things wrong or that you’re avoiding something uncomfortable or that you’re expecting results from a system you haven’t actually installed or that you’re blaming your managers for a training problem. Those conversations aren’t always fun, but they can change your business. Improvement requires correction, and correction requires being willing to hear that something needs to change.

That’s why I tell restaurant owners that they have to be coachable. Not because they need to agree with everything I say, but because they need to be willing to examine what they’re doing, test a better approach and follow through long enough to see whether it works. If you’re not willing to change anything, a coach can’t help you. Neither can another book. Neither can another seminar. Neither can another spreadsheet. Knowledge only becomes valuable when you put it to work.

And I want to connect this back to the engineering example one more time. A professor doesn’t earn the degree for the student. The professor teaches. The curriculum provides structure. The assignments develop competence. The exams provide feedback. But the student still has to learn the material. They still have to complete the work. They still have to demonstrate the skill. And that’s exactly what a good coaching relationship should do. The coach isn’t there to make the owner dependent. The coach is there to help the owner develop the competence and confidence to lead the business successfully. That’s the goal.

So let’s make this practical. If you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, “David, I get it. I know there’s something missing, but how do I actually start closing that gap?” I want you to focus on five steps.

First, define the destination. Point your board. Don’t just say you want a better restaurant. What does better mean? Does it mean earning 15% to 20% profit? Does it mean reducing your prime cost? Does it mean taking two days off every week? Does it mean being able to leave the restaurant for two weeks without everything falling apart? Be specific, because your destination determines what you need to learn.

Second, identify the skill gap. Ask yourself, what do I need to know how to do that I cannot consistently do today? Maybe you need to understand your financial statements. Maybe you need to learn how to control labor. Maybe you need to learn how to delegate. Maybe you need to learn how to coach managers instead of rescuing them. And here’s the important part. Don’t confuse knowing about something with being able to do it. I can explain the concept of rowing technique to somebody. That doesn’t mean they can get into a racing shell and execute it. The same goes for restaurant systems.

Third, learn the right process. Don’t just collect random information. Find out what actually works. Find the sequence. Find the tools. Find the standards. This is where John’s engineering example becomes so powerful. You don’t become an engineer by taking a random collection of classes and hoping everything comes together. You follow a curriculum. You learn the fundamentals. You build on them. You develop competence. Restaurant ownership deserves the same level of intentional learning.

Fourth, practice correctly and get feedback. This is where the magic happens. You take what you’ve learned and use it. You make mistakes. You figure out what went wrong. You correct it. And you do it again. If your labor schedule isn’t producing the results you expected, don’t automatically abandon the process. Look at your forecast. Look at your staffing assumptions. Look at how managers adjust during the shift. Find the problem, fix it, then practice it again.

And finally, build momentum through consistency. This is the part people underestimate. They want the result immediately. They want the restaurant to change in 30 days. They want managers to become leaders after one conversation. They want food costs to drop the first week they start tracking waste. But meaningful change usually happens through a series of smaller improvements that build on each other. One manager learns to use a system. One shift gets more consistent. One report becomes part of the weekly routine. One responsibility moves from the owner’s plate to the manager’s, then another, then another.

And eventually, something remarkable happens. The restaurant starts operating differently. The owner starts behaving differently. The team starts making decisions differently. And what once felt difficult begins to feel normal. That’s competence. That’s momentum. And that’s how you close the gap.

Now, I want to come back to the beach, because there’s one final lesson in John Childers’ surfer story that I think is incredibly important. Remember the surfer sitting on the board waiting for the big wave, the perfect wave? Here’s the thing. If you know how to surf, you don’t have to wait for one magical wave to change your life. There are waves coming all the time. And when you have the skills, when you’re in position and when you’ve built momentum, you can recognize and take advantage of opportunities that somebody else might miss.

That’s true in your restaurant. An opportunity to improve profitability doesn’t always look like a giant increase in sales. Sometimes it looks like catching a waste problem before it costs you thousands of dollars. Sometimes it looks like a manager finally taking ownership of a responsibility you’ve been carrying for years. Sometimes it looks like improving your schedule by a few labor hours each day. Sometimes it looks like having the confidence to say no to an employee who’s unwilling to meet your standards. Sometimes it looks like being able to take your family on vacation and not worry about the restaurant every minute you’re gone. Those are waves. And the more capable you become, the more of them you can catch.

But if you’re still sitting there waiting for the economy to save you or the perfect manager to show up or for everything to become easy, you’re going to miss the opportunities that are already in front of you. You need to start paddling.

And here’s what I want you to remember. You’re going to fall. You’re going to get frustrated. You’re going to make mistakes. Some systems will take longer to install than you expected. Some managers will struggle. Some employees will resist. And there will be days when going back to the old way feels a whole lot easier. But that discomfort does not automatically mean you’re doing something wrong. Sometimes it means you’re finally doing something different.

The question is whether you’re learning from the experience and improving your approach, because there’s a difference between persistence and stubbornness. Persistence means staying committed to the destination while being willing to adjust the process. Stubbornness means repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result. That’s why feedback matters. That’s why coaching matters. And that’s why perfect practice matters.

And there’s one last thing I want you to consider. Everybody wants to ride the wave. Nobody stands on the beach dreaming about falling off the surfboard. Nobody dreams about swallowing seawater, struggling to get back on the board or paddling until their arms are exhausted. They imagine themselves standing up and riding that beautiful wave toward the beach. They imagine the result. But the falling, the paddling, the frustration and the repetition, that’s how you earn the ability to experience the result.

And restaurant ownership is exactly the same. Everybody wants the profitable restaurant. Everybody wants a great management team. Everybody wants the freedom to take a vacation. But are you willing to go through the uncomfortable process of becoming the leader who can build those things? Are you willing to change habits you’ve had for years? Are you willing to admit you don’t know something? Are you willing to practice a new skill even when you’re terrible at it? Are you willing to accept correction? And most importantly, are you willing to keep going when the excitement disappears and all that’s left is work?

Because that’s where transformation happens. Not when you’re dreaming about the result, but when you’re doing the uncomfortable work required to achieve it. The discomfort isn’t something you have to avoid on the way to success. Very often, it’s something you have to move through. And the discipline to keep moving through it is what ultimately changes you.

Restaurant pro, I want to leave you with a challenge. Think about one thing you’ve been struggling to accomplish in your restaurant. Something you’ve wanted for a long time. Maybe it’s better profits. Maybe it’s a stronger management team. Maybe it’s getting your time back. Maybe it’s finally feeling like you own a business instead of owning a job.

Now ask yourself three questions. Do I actually know the process required to achieve this? Am I practicing the right behaviors consistently? And when things become uncomfortable, am I correcting my approach or am I quitting?

Because I believe a lot of restaurant owners are much closer to changing their businesses than they realize. But they’re looking for the wrong kind of breakthrough. They’re waiting for the big wave when what they really need is to point their board, learn how to paddle, practice the right way and keep building momentum. And if you don’t know how to do that, find somebody who can teach you. That’s not weakness. That’s recognizing that you don’t have to figure everything out by yourself.

But remember, no matter how good your coach is, you still have to get on the board. You still have to paddle. You still have to fall, and you still have to get back up. Because the goal isn’t simply to know more. The goal is to become capable of doing what you couldn’t do before. That’s how you become a better leader. That’s how you build a better restaurant. And that’s how you move forward toward restaurant prosperity.

So here’s my final question. Are you waiting for the perfect wave, or are you doing the work to become the surfer who can catch it?

Until next time, restaurant pro, take action.