Make Restaurants Profitable

How to scale a restaurant business: Mo Saad, co-founder of Fricken Chicken, explains how he went from one food truck to four locations across two states. ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac Mo nearly built a central kitchen just before the move interstate. He explains why he's glad he didn't, and what moving to contract manufacturing did to his food cost, his rosters and his quality control. He also covers choosing a location, rebranding, training, managing a team across four sites, and running the back office with AI. 00:00 Intro 00:40 How to choose a restaurant location and expand interstate 06:13 Supply chain, central kitchen and food cost when you expand 11:29 Restaurant branding that fits your customer 16:49 How to train restaurant kitchen staff and keep food safe 23:03 How to build a high performing restaurant management team 29:19 How to use AI in a restaurant business 48:04 Uber Eats commission and delivery strategy 55:23 Advice before you open a restaurant ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac Subscribe for more hospitality business coaching content.

How to cut slow shifts in your restaurant using AI: Mo Saad of Fricken connects AI to his Square and timesheet data to find the shifts that aren't paying for themselves. ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac Which nights cost you more in wages than they bring in? Mo Saad and Tim Kummerfeld show how Fricken uses AI to spot quiet shifts, build a branded dashboard from a few prompts, and work out where ad spend actually pays off, while the owner still makes the final call. CHAPTERS 0:00 How to cut slow shifts in your restaurant using AI 0:58 How to connect AI to your restaurant POS and timesheets 1:58 How AI finds slow shifts and cuts decision fatigue 4:00 How to build a restaurant dashboard with AI 6:30 How to use AI for restaurant ad spend and Uber Eats ads 9:30 Where to start with AI in your restaurant Ready to grow your restaurant's profit before you add more shifts? ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac Subscribe for more hospitality business coaching content.

How to build a high performing restaurant team that runs without you: Mo Saad of Fricken shares how he trains his kitchen from the fries up, hires for attitude, and trusts his managers to make the call. ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac What do you do when your best managers are making decisions without you? Mo Saad and Tim Kummerfeld break down how Fricken trains for safety and consistency in the kitchen, why front of house starts with attitude, and why Mo skips meetings to keep his team fresh. CHAPTERS 0:00 How to build a high performing restaurant team that runs without you 0:58 How to train new kitchen staff and keep your kitchen safe 4:12 How to train front of house staff and hire for attitude 6:37 How to manage restaurant managers so they make the call 7:40 How to run restaurant management meetings without burning out your team 10:06 Restaurant KPIs to track every week Ready to grow your restaurant's profit without working every shift? ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac Subscribe for more hospitality business coaching content.

At one point, Tara felt like she had completely lost control—not just of her business, but of who she was. Burnt out, drowning in debt, and facing bankruptcy, she found herself isolating, second-guessing every decision, and questioning everything. But what she did next changed everything. This episode is a raw look at what it takes to come back stronger: the brutal self-talk, the wrong advice, the fearless decisions, and the one shift that 5Xed her revenue almost overnight. Tara also shares how she rebuilt her culture, transformed her food costs, and built a team that lives and breathes the experience she dreamed of. You’ll hear: 00:00 – Feeling like a failure (and what came next) 06:00 – Why your worst-performing venue is draining more than just cash 09:30 – How Tara found the right plan (after 3 wrong ones) 14:00 – The $600K mistake and the decision that changed it all 18:30 – What 5Xed her weekly revenue instantly 22:00 – Choosing the right partner—in life and business 27:30 – How Tara dropped her food cost from 32% to 20% 30:00 – Building culture through “Meraki Impact Days” 35:00 – What real customer experience actually looks like 38:00 – The advice that could’ve saved her $100K (and 6 months of stress) 41:00 – What to do when everything’s “fine” but you’re bored 43:00 – Why your next venue is probably a bad idea 44:30 – The number one thing every new owner should do before signing a lease If you’re in deep—or just don’t know what the next move is—book a free call with the Foodie Coaches team at foodiecoaches.com. 📱 Behind the scenes + more tips: @foodie_coaches | @tim.kummerfeld

How to expand a restaurant business to a new city: Mo Saad of Fricken shares what went wrong when they opened on the Gold Coast, from supply chain and food costs to quality control and brand. ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac Should you build a central kitchen before you open in a new city? Mo Saad and Tim Kummerfeld break down why Fricken nearly bought one and didn't, what outsourcing prep did to food costs and rosters, and how a brand archetype session led to a full rebrand. CHAPTERS 0:00 How to expand a restaurant to a new city: Mo Saad and Fricken 0:57 Restaurant supply chain problems in a new city 2:04 Central kitchen vs outsourcing restaurant prep: food cost and rosters 4:13 How to keep quality up when you outsource prep 5:38 How to rebrand a restaurant with a brand archetype 8:25 How to earn trust from celiac customers Ready to grow your restaurant's profit before you grow your footprint? ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac Subscribe for more hospitality business coaching content.

How to run a profitable restaurant comes down to your numbers, and most restaurant owners are being let down by the people meant to look after them. For restaurant owners, café owners, and anyone in a hospitality business, the right accounting setup is the difference between building wealth and quietly going backwards every week. Tim Niesler is the director of The FC Accounting Co, the accounting firm built specifically to service hospo owners, and he's seen exactly where the industry gets failed. For years, accountants told hospitality owners not to bother with tax planning because they probably wouldn't be around next year. Tim built something different. An accounting firm that sets owners up for the future, not just the next tax return. In this one, the two Tims go deep on the stuff most owners were never taught. Why your business structure matters more than you think. How putting GST, PAYG and super aside weekly gives you an early warning system. Why, in hospitality, you almost never have a cash flow problem, you have a profit problem. And the Division 7A trap that quietly snowballs into a tax bill you can't pay. If you've ever told yourself "I've just got a cash flow issue," this episode is for you. You'll hear: → What a hospo-specialist accountant does differently from a traditional firm → Why the right business structure protects your personal assets → The weekly habit that flags trouble in your first three weeks, not five months later → Cash flow vs profit, and why hospitality owners confuse the two → How to handle ATO debt without going further backwards Key takeaways: Put your GST, PAYG and super aside weekly from day one. It becomes your red flag. In hospitality you get paid every day, so a cash flow problem is usually a profit problem. Your real break-even includes loan repayments and ATO debt, not just your P&L. Pay yourself a wage and your super. Your business sale is not your retirement plan. Ready to build a restaurant that makes money and runs without you? Book a Profit Finding Session: https://discover.foodiecoaches.com/bac Follow Foodie Coaches: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld New episodes every Wednesday.

Trading while insolvent isn’t just “having a bad month.” It means your hospitality business can’t pay its bills when they fall due, and if you keep trading without a plan, the consequences can get serious fast. Book a Gameplan Session → https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac In this episode, Tim Kummerfeld sits down with Timmy Niesler from FC Accounting Co. to break down what insolvency actually looks like in hospitality and why so many owners leave it too late before making a decision. They cover how to recognise when your business is becoming insolvent, the risks of continuing to trade while losses and debt keep building, and what options you may have to regain solvency before the situation gets worse. They also explain why tax planning still matters when you’re losing money. Sometimes seeing the real numbers is the wake-up call you need to finally change direction. The message is simple: know where you stand, understand your options, and act before the problem becomes impossible to ignore. Book a Gameplan Session → https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac 00:00 What Insolvency Actually Means 02:20 The Risk of Trading While Insolvent 03:30 How to Regain Solvency 04:00 Why Tax Planning Still Matters 05:20 Accounting and Structure Mistakes 08:00 Getting the Right Advice Early 11:00 Planning for the Bigger Picture Follow along: Foodie Coaches https://www.instagram.com/foodie_coaches/ Tim Kummerfeld: https://www.instagram.com/tim.kummerfeld/ New episodes every Wednesday. #restaurantaccounting #insolvency #restaurantdebt #restaurantowner #hospitalitybusiness #smallbusinessaccounting

A hospitality business can look profitable on paper and still hit a financial wall when old debt, repayments and tax obligations start eating the cash. Book a Gameplan Session → https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac In this episode, Tim sits down with Timmy from FC Accounting to break down what happens when hospitality owners are carrying debt and struggling to keep up with current obligations. They cover how ATO debt affects cash flow, why your real breakeven may be much higher than you think, and the difference between having a cash flow problem and having a profit problem. They also explain Division 7A loans and how taking money out of your business the wrong way can create a much bigger tax problem later. The goal: understand the debt, know where your cash is really going, and make changes before the business hits the wall. Book a Gameplan Session → https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac 00:00 Managing Debt and Cash Flow 00:56 ATO Debt and Business Models 03:23 Profit Versus Cash Flow 07:14 Understanding Division 7A Loans Follow along: Foodie Coaches https://www.instagram.com/foodie_coaches/ Tim Kummerfeld: https://www.instagram.com/tim.kummerfeld/ New episodes every Wednesday. #restaurantaccounting #restaurantdebt #cashflow #restaurantowner #hospitalitybusiness #smallbusinessaccounting

A good accountant shouldn’t just help you when business is going well. They should help you plan for what happens when it doesn’t. Book a Gameplan Session → https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac In this episode, Tim Kummerfeld sits down with Timmy Niesler from FC Accounting Co. to talk about what “planning for the worst” actually looks like for hospitality owners. They cover how the right business structure can protect your personal assets, why trusts need to be understood properly, and why owners should be planning for GST, PAYG and super before those bills arrive. They also break down why paying yourself properly and putting tax aside weekly can expose problems early, before a cash flow issue turns into a much bigger one. The point is simple: build the business so you’re protected if things go wrong, not just comfortable while things are going right. Book a Gameplan Session → https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac 00:00 Intro 00:44 The Role of Accountants in Hospitality 03:09 Business Structures and Asset Protection 04:15 Common Accounting Issues and Education Gaps 05:37 Trusts, Wages, and Superannuation Planning Follow along: Foodie Coaches https://www.instagram.com/foodie_coaches/ Tim Kummerfeld: https://www.instagram.com/tim.kummerfeld/ New episodes every Wednesday. #restaurantaccounting #restaurantowner #hospitalitybusiness #smallbusinessaccounting #restaurantprofitability #FoodieCoaches

How to design a restaurant that actually makes money is a question most owners never ask until it's too late. For restaurant owners, café owners, and anyone in a hospitality business, the design of your space either sets you up for profit or quietly drags you under. Gerrick Numan has been involved in 500+ venue designs through his studio Millé, owned four of his own venues, and now runs Restaurant Design Academy, teaching hospo owners to take control of the process themselves. He's seen it both ways. The stunning fit-out sitting empty while a dingy bar next door is packed and pumping. The two-million-dollar build doing twenty grand a week in sales. A beautiful space that takes fifteen years to pay off and needs renovating in six. Gerrick's point is simple and uncomfortable. Winning a design award means nothing. What matters is whether the space is comfortable to be in, whether it grabs attention from the street, and whether it's laid out to make money instead of forcing an extra two staff on every shift. This one will have you auditing your own venue by the end. Because most of the fixes cost a few hundred dollars, not a few hundred thousand. Key takeaways: Get clear on who you are and who you're for before you touch a single material. Great street presence can pull in 5 to 15 more people a day without a full renovation. Product and experience come first. A phenomenal fit-out won't save bad food. Design is a financial decision, not a decorating one. Ready to build a restaurant that makes money and runs without you? Book a Profit Finding Session: https://discover.foodiecoaches.com/bac Check our Restaurant Design Academy: https://www.restaurantdesignacademy.com/ Follow Gerrick: @restaurantdesignacademy Follow Foodie Coaches: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld New episodes every Wednesday.

If your restaurant build costs $1 million, Gerrick Numan believes the venue should be capable of doing around $2 million a year in turnover. Otherwise, the fitout can take too long to pay itself back. Book a Gameplan Session → https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac In this episode, Gerrick breaks down how to budget a restaurant build without spending money customers will never notice. You’ll learn how to think about fitout spend versus expected revenue, where hidden build costs usually appear, and why taking over an existing hospitality site can dramatically reduce setup costs. You’ll also learn how to get most of the visual result for a fraction of the cost through smarter materials, simpler finishes and better design decisions. And Gerrick explains how working with the right contractor early can help keep the build on budget and avoid expensive variations halfway through the project. If you’re opening a new venue or planning a refit, this is how to make sure the build works financially before you start spending. Book a Gameplan Session → https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac 00:00 Intro 00:23 ROI and Build Costs 01:11 Hidden Expenses and Site Selection 04:18 Smart Design and Cost-Saving Tips 08:45 Working with Contractors and Tendering 12:04 Startup Chaos and Mental Toll #restaurantdesign #restaurantfitout #restaurantowner #hospitalitybusiness #restaurantprofitability #GerrickNuman #TimKummerfeld

Your venue layout doesn’t just affect how the space looks. It affects how fast your team can work, how many customers you can serve, and how much revenue the room can generate. Book a Discovery Call → https://www.foodiecoaches.com/bac In this conversation with Gerrick Numan, he breaks down how venue design impacts the numbers behind the business. You’ll learn how better kitchen and bar layouts can reduce unnecessary labour and speed up service. You’ll learn how seating mix and flexibility can help you fit more customers in without wasting valuable seats. And you’ll learn how lighting, music, acoustics and temperature shape the experience customers have without them consciously realising it. If your venue is busy but still feels inefficient, the problem might be built into the space itself. Book a Discovery Call → https://www.foodiecoaches.com/bac 00:00 Intro 00:23 Designing Kitchens With 3D Software 02:29 Optimizing Seating And Layout 04:31 Operational Flow And Internal Space 07:08 Flexible Seating And Group Sizes 11:18 Atmosphere, Lighting, Music And Acoustics Check out Restaurant Design Academy: https://www.restaurantdesignacademy.com/ Follow Foodie Coaches https://www.instagram.com/foodie_coaches/ Follow Tim Kummerfeld: https://www.instagram.com/tim.kummerfeld/ New episodes every Wednesday. #restaurant #hospitality #restaurantdesign #restaurantowner #venuedesign

Gerrick Numan has designed more than 500 hospitality venues, and his biggest lesson is simple: a beautiful fit out means nothing if the business can’t pay for it. Book a Discovery Call → https://www.foodiecoaches.com/bac In this episode, Gerrick breaks down how to design a venue that looks good, feels right, and still makes commercial sense. You’ll learn why product comes before design, how to improve street presence, and how your layout affects the guest experience from the moment someone walks in. If you’re opening, renovating, or rethinking your venue, this is how to avoid spending big on a space that doesn’t perform. Book a Discovery Call → https://www.foodiecoaches.com/bac 00:00 Why beautiful venues can still fail 00:42 Gerrick’s journey into hospitality design 01:23 Lessons from 500+ venue designs 02:26 Turning your brand into a physical space 03:25 Street presence vs destination venues 04:09 Why product comes before design 05:29 Lighting, branding and visibility 06:24 Designing the first guest interaction 07:53 Fixing confusing customer flow 08:47 Your next step Check out Restaurant Design Academy: https://www.restaurantdesignacademy.com/ Follow Foodie Coaches https://www.instagram.com/foodie_coaches/ Follow Tim Kummerfeld: https://www.instagram.com/tim.kummerfeld/ New episodes every Wednesday. #restaurant #hospitality #restaurantdesign #restaurantowner #cafeowner

How to run a profitable restaurant starts with knowing your real numbers. For restaurant owners, café owners, and anyone in a hospitality business, weekly bookkeeping is the difference between guessing and knowing. Kylie Patch runs the bookkeeping division at FC Accounting Co, and she's built the reporting rhythm that gives hospo owners accurate numbers every single week. Most owners are making decisions from numbers that are flat-out wrong. Bank accounts that aren't reconciled. Expenses landing in the wrong week. A P&L pulled on the wrong basis that tells a story that isn't true. Kylie has seen it hundreds of times across the 75 businesses her team services. And she's watched what happens when an owner finally sees their real position for the first time. One client cried happy tears when the report went up on screen, because she could finally see where she actually stood. This one is about confidence. The kind that comes from trusting your numbers enough to act on them. You'll hear: → Why your numbers are almost certainly wrong (and the reconciliation habit that fixes it) → Cash vs accrual explained in plain English, and why it changes everything you see → The weekly reporting rhythm that makes accurate numbers possible → Kylie's honest take on POS systems and what actually integrates well → The real return on outsourcing your bookkeeping, in time and in decisions Key takeaways: If you don't like numbers, don't do your own books. Stick to your genius. Numbers with your feelings beats feelings alone, every time. A reconciled bank account is the difference between real numbers and fiction. Accurate weekly reporting buys back roughly a day a week for owners already doing the work. Ready to get clear on your numbers and build a restaurant that runs without you? Book a Profit Finding Session: https://discover.foodiecoaches.com/bac Follow Foodie Coaches: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld New episodes every Wednesday.

How to scale a coffee business is one of the hardest questions in hospitality, and few have done it like Flight Coffee. For café owners, roasters, and anyone in a hospitality business, this is a real look at what it takes to grow a brand from a home garage to national distribution. Richard Corney and Nick Clark co-founded Flight Coffee in a garage in Napier back in 2009, and today they supply around 120 cafés across New Zealand plus a growing retail and ready-to-drink range. The story is anything but smooth. A roaster crammed into the middle of a café because there was nowhere else to put it. Six months building out an old car park on the smell of an oily rag. Outgrowing the space before they'd even finished it. Taking on investment in 2018 so the business could grow without their houses on the line. Along the way they learned what actually drives growth. Nick winning the 2013 NZ Barista Championship. Roastery tours that turned into brand goodwill with international guests. Deliberate decisions to diversify products and channels as a new generation of coffee drinkers arrived. If you make coffee, sell coffee, or dream of building a brand that scales beyond your four walls, this one is for you. You'll hear: → How Flight went from a garage roaster to supplying 120 cafés → Why putting a roaster inside your café looks great but doesn't scale → How competition wins and roastery tours built the brand → Why they took on investment, and what it freed up → Diversifying products and channels for the next generation of coffee drinker Key takeaways: Growth is hard and growth is expensive. Plan the facilities to grow with production. A great story and brand goodwill can do more than any ad spend. Taking on the right investment can grow the business without risking your home. The coffee drinker is changing. Meet them with new products and channels. Ready to build a hospitality business that makes money and runs without you? Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/fc-bac-yt Follow Flight Coffee: @flightcoffee Follow Foodie Coaches: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld New episodes every Wednesday.

How to use cooking classes, micro-influencers and founder-led content to build a restaurant people fly across the world to visit. The exact marketing strategy Cooper Abercrombie used to turn Bar-A-BBQ from a tent pop-up into a 2025 Texas Monthly Top 50 restaurant — with a line out the door six days a week and customers flying in from Australia and beyond. Cooper Abercrombie was a sales manager in Texas. Seven years ago he bought a smoker, made "awful, awful, awful" brisket, and refused to be bad at it. Today Bar-A-BBQ in Montgomery, Texas is one of the most talked-about barbecue restaurants in America — 2025 Texas Monthly Top 50, ranked #6 on the 2026 Texas Barbecue Top 50, doing $60,000+ weeks out of a 1,400 sq ft ex-vegan sandwich shop, with a line out the door six days a week and about to move to a building five times the size. None of it was luck. In this episode, Cooper sits down with Tim to break down the exact marketing playbook. Why he treated social media as a craft to master (not an afterthought). The 90-day posting rule that separates the operators who get traction from the ones who stay invisible. Why micro-influencers outperform big ones — and generated two viral videos that took him from $25K to $60K weeks in seven days. How his BBQ classes became both a revenue stream AND his best marketing channel — every attendee becomes an ambassador for life. And why teaching people exactly how to make his product (the thing every operator is scared to do) built the fanatic customer base that keeps them coming back. If you're a restaurant owner, café owner or bar owner who says "I'm too busy for marketing" — this is the episode that changes how you think about it. You'll hear: 00:00 – From "awful brisket" to Texas Monthly Top 50 in seven years 02:00 – Working 48 hours a week for free to learn from the best pitmaster in Texas 06:00 – Why ego is the #1 reason most owners never level up 10:30 – Social media as a craft: why Cooper spent as much time learning it as smoking brisket 14:00 – The YouTube channel: 63K subscribers driving 10-20% of daily foot traffic 17:00 – Why teaching customers exactly how to make his product built his fanatic base 21:00 – The 90-day rule: post every day at 9am for 90 days and watch what happens 25:30 – The two viral videos that took Bar-A-BBQ from $25K to $60K weeks in seven days 30:00 – Micro-influencers vs mega ones: why the small ones actually convert 36:00 – Turning cooking classes into a marketing engine (and a real revenue stream) 42:00 – The "fanatic" customer: how to build one person who brings you 50 more 46:00 – What Cooper would tell every restaurant owner terrified of the camera Key takeaways: Marketing is not the afterthought. It's the multiplier that makes your great product actually visible. Post every day for 90 days at the same time. Just do it. Watch what happens. Micro-influencers convert better than mega-influencers — every time, for restaurants. Teaching people how to make your product doesn't cost you customers. It creates ambassadors. Cooking classes are the ultimate marketing engine. Attendees become your biggest promoters — and pay you for the privilege. One viral video from a small creator can change your business in seven days. Getting someone to your restaurant once is easy. Getting them back five times is the whole game. The best marketing tool you have is founder-led content. Turn the camera on and start. If you want to build a hospitality business people cross the world to visit, book a free Profit Finding Session with the Foodie Coaches team at https://discover.foodiecoaches.com/bac Follow Cooper and Bar-A-BBQ: @barabbq @cooperabercrombie YouTube: Bar-A-BBQ Follow along: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld New episodes every Wednesday.

How Lucio De Falco built Sydney's most iconic Neapolitan pizzeria from scratch — and the lessons every restaurant owner, café owner or pizza maker needs to hear about consistency, quality and running a hospitality business that lasts. From a 14-year-old kid washing dishes in Naples to one of the best pizza chefs in the world. Lucio De Falco started washing dishes at his aunt and uncle's pizzeria in Naples when he was 14. By the time he was 21, he was in Sydney — recruited to help launch the first Neapolitan-style pizzeria in Australia at a time when nobody here knew what that meant. Four years later, he opened his own. Lucio Pizzeria Darlinghurst, 2008. Within the first year it had been voted Sydney's best pizza by The Sydney Morning Herald, Time Out and The Good Food Guide — back when reviewers showed up unannounced and you didn't know they'd been there until the article ran. Today Lucio Pizzeria has three venues — Darlinghurst, Zetland and Bar Lucio in Kensington — and Lucio is Vice President of AVPN Australasia (the official body for true Neapolitan pizza), an international judge, and the man behind one of only a handful of AVPN-accredited pizzerias in the country. In 2018 he competed at the Campionato Mondiale Della Pizza in Parma against 750 pizzaioli from 44 nations and came home with Best Pizza in Australia and 5th in the world. In this episode, Lucio sits down with Tim to talk through 17 years of running his own pizzeria — the obsessive focus on dough fermentation, the difference between being a great chef and a great operator, why most owners burn out chasing the wrong things, and the one thing he says separates the standout operators from everyone else. It's a conversation about craft, consistency and what it actually takes to make food that's worth coming back for. You'll hear: 00:00 – Washing dishes in Naples at 14 — how it all began 01:40 – Coming to Sydney at 21 to launch the first Neapolitan pizza in Australia 02:20 – Opening Lucio Pizzeria Darlinghurst at 25 — and winning Sydney's best pizza in year one 05:00 – Why fermentation, ingredients and craft are the difference between great pizza and average pizza 06:00 – The difference between being a great chef and being a great operator 07:20 – The numbers most chefs avoid until it's too late 10:00 – Why profit margins are getting tighter (and what the best operators are doing about it) 11:30 – Why you have to watch your business from up high, not from inside the kitchen 14:00 – Burnout: how to spot it before it costs you everything 45:00 – Why staff happiness is the most important thing you can build 46:30 – "It's hard to gain a customer. It's easy to lose one." 48:30 – Why your customer experience matters more than your marketing 49:00 – His advice to anyone thinking about opening a pizzeria right now Key takeaways: Pizza is art, but pizza is also business. Master both, or you'll burn out. The fermentation, the dough, the ingredients — there are no shortcuts. Consistency is the brand. A great chef and a great operator are two different people. The best owners are both — and they know it takes years. Watch your business from up high. The minute you're stuck inside it, you stop being able to lead it. It takes years to gain a regular customer. It takes a fraction of a second to lose them. If you're thinking about opening a pizzeria right now, do your homework first. Don't let your ego make the decision for you. One in three hospitality businesses is either breaking even or losing money. Know your numbers before you sign anything. If you want to build a hospitality business with the kind of consistency and craft that lasts 17+ years, book a free Profit Finding Session with the Foodie Coaches team at https://discover.foodiecoaches.com/bac Follow Lucio and Lucio Pizzeria: @luciopizzeria @lucio.defalco Follow along: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld New episodes every Wednesday.

Michelin is coming to Australia, the surcharge ban deadline is 30 September, and another rate rise is likely before Christmas. Here's what every Australian restaurant owner, café owner or bar owner needs to know this month — and what to do about it before the next round of change hits. The industry has been handed some broken eggs. But as Wes puts it — we're much better at making omelets than letting our eggs go bad. In this month's industry update, Tim sits down with Wes Lambert — CEO of ARCA and the man in Parliament advocating for the entire hospitality industry — to break down the four things that will define fiscal '27 for every operator in the country. The good news first: Payday super has landed and, for most operators, it's been smoother than expected. Michelin Guide is officially coming to South Australia in October — with the rest of Australia to follow — and food tourism is expected to boom in 2027 as a result. The bad news: the surcharge ban lands 1 October and you have to be ready by midnight 30 September, junior rates are officially banned in franchise businesses, another rate rise is likely in November, migration is tightening, and trust tax changes are almost certainly passing Parliament. The takeaway: this is a rebuilding year. The operators who thrive will be the ones planning for what's coming, not reacting to it. You'll hear: 00:00 – ARCA Gala Dinner + Fine Foods on 31 August in Melbourne 02:00 – Payday super update: how it's actually gone (better than expected) 03:00 – Surcharge ban 1 October: what you need to do before 30 September midnight 04:00 – BankTech ATMs and CTPOS: the countertop cash solution for the ban 05:30 – Why "we'll drop our merchant fee" from PSPs isn't the whole story 06:30 – Rate rise expected in November — before Christmas 07:00 – Junior rates officially banned in franchise: what it means for pricing 07:30 – The split in the industry: experience operators vs everyone else 09:00 – Michelin Guide coming to South Australia in October 09:30 – AI adoption: why the government is investing (and why you should too) 11:00 – Two Australias: renters vs boomers — how to price for both markets 13:00 – The "half a percenters" — telling the story of your produce 14:00 – Migration tightening in fiscal '27 (and the premium dining labor agreement) 17:30 – This is a rebuilding year. Here's how to eat the elephant. Key takeaways: Michelin coming to Australia is genuine good news — food tourism is expected to boom in 2027. Get your venue ready. You have until 30 September midnight to sort your PSP and menu pricing before the surcharge ban lands. If a PSP tells you they'll "drop the merchant fee," ask what you'll be paying instead. It's rarely nothing. Another rate rise is likely in November. If you're signing equipment leases or variable-rate debt now, price it in. Menu prices need to be up 10% across calendar '26 into '27. If you haven't done it yet, do it before October. Experience is the split. The operators pumping out great social media and hospitality experiences are having record months. The ones who aren't are stuck. You're not going to change the government. Plan for what's coming and turn every threat into an opportunity. The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. FREE RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 🎟️ ARCA Gala Dinner + Fine Foods — 31 August, Lakeside Pavilion, Melbourne. Book tickets: https://arca.org.au/events/ 📅 Foodie Coaches Profit Day at Fine Foods — spend a whole day with Tim and the team working on your business: https://foodiecoaches.co/FineFoodxFoodieCoaches 🏛️ Join ARCA — $52/year. The people in Parliament fighting for your industry need your support: arca.org.au 🤖 AI Implementation Call with Foodie Coaches — if you want help implementing AI in your business, book a call with the team: https://discover.foodiecoaches.com/bac Follow along: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld New episodes every Wednesday.

How to handle restaurant debt, ATO debt, and small business tax problems the legal way — and why every hospitality operator, restaurant owner, café owner or bar owner in Australia needs to hear this conversation. The Small Business Restructure (SBR) framework, explained. In this episode, Tim sits down with Jono Patch — head of Restaurant Revive (Foodie Coaches' debt restructuring arm) — to talk about the elephant in every hospitality boardroom. Why owners end up in tax debt. Why the shame keeps them stuck. And the exact legal framework — a Small Business Restructure (SBR) — that can wipe most of the debt and let the business trade on. Jono's been through it personally. Understands exactly how it feels. And explains it in language every operator can follow. If you've got a five, six or seven-figure tax debt and you haven't been able to bring yourself to talk about it — this is the conversation to start with. You'll hear: 00:00 – The three symptoms that lead to ATO debt in a restaurant 02:00 – Why bookkeeping neglect is symptom #1 04:00 – Why failed expansion is symptom #2 05:30 – Why the head-in-the-sand mindset is the killer 07:00 – The shame around ATO debt in Australia (and why nobody talks about it) 10:00 – What "pre-insolvency" actually means (in plain English) 14:00 – The Small Business Restructure (SBR) framework, explained 16:00 – Real numbers: what a $500K debt looks like inside an SBR 18:30 – The 3-week voting period and how the ATO actually approves it 22:00 – Trading during and after an SBR — what changes and what doesn't 24:00 – When an SBR is NOT the right option (and what to do instead) 26:00 – Great revenue, bloated cost structure: the pattern Jono sees every week 28:00 – The mental health cost of carrying debt in silence Key takeaways: 80-90% of small businesses have ATO debt at some point. You are not alone. You are not a failure. The head-in-the-sand mindset is the single most expensive one in hospitality. Time is your greatest asset when you have debt. The longer you leave it, the fewer options you have. The Small Business Restructure (SBR) is a legal, legit framework that has been designed for exactly this situation. Your accountant might be doing a great job on your tax lodgements — but that doesn't mean they're the right person to fix a debt crisis. Great revenue isn't the answer to a bad cost structure. Fix the cost structure and the tax debt stops growing. Ask for help. It's not weakness. It's a step operators take when they're serious about saving their business — and their mental health. 🔧 Restaurant Revive — debt restructure and pre-insolvency specialists (Jono personally takes the call, not a sales rep): https://foodiecoaches.co/restaurant-revive-yt 📞 Book a free Profit Finding Session with the Foodie Coaches team — if you want expert eyes on the numbers and structure behind the debt: https://foodiecoaches.co/fc-bac-yt Follow along: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld New episodes every Wednesday.

How a third-generation Italian restaurant owner nearly killed his first restaurant — and the mistake every new restaurant owner, café owner or bar owner makes when they try to copy a concept that worked elsewhere. The lesson Matteo Galletto learned the hard way after 75 years of family hospitality. Matteo Galletto grew up around restaurants on two continents. His grandparents started a family restaurant in Liguria, Italy in the 1950s — the business that pulled the family out of post-war poverty. His father Lucio brought a sliver of that experience to Sydney in 1977 and opened Lucio's in Paddington in 1983 — one of the most iconic Italian restaurants in Sydney for 40 years. Matteo went the other way. Went to university. Studied commerce. Did everything his dad spent a fortune making sure he could do. Then he came back to restaurants anyway. His first solo attempt in Sydney failed. Not because the food was bad. Because he'd been insulated from the backend his entire life — his parents kept all the hard stuff to themselves — so when he opened his own doors he discovered that "looking after the customers is the easy part" and "making sure you can open the doors at 12 o'clock is the hard part." He went back to work with his dad. Then years later he moved to Noosa to open Lucio's Marina in Tewantin — and almost made the exact same mistake again. Same concept that worked in Sydney's east. Different town. Different demographic. Wrong fit. In this episode, Matteo sits down with Tim to talk about the lesson it took two restaurants and 75 years of family hospitality to teach him: a great concept in the wrong place is still a bad business. It's the conversation every operator opening, expanding or relocating needs to hear. You'll hear: 00:00 – Three generations across two countries — the family that started it all in 1950s Italy 03:30 – Lucio's Paddington: 40 years as one of Sydney's most iconic Italian restaurants 05:20 – Why his dad spent a fortune trying to keep him out of restaurants 05:50 – The first solo restaurant — and why it failed 06:30 – "Looking after the customers is the easy part. Opening the doors is the hard part." 08:00 – Why hospitality isn't as fun as it used to be (and what's changed) 10:00 – Coming back to work with his dad and modernising the business 14:00 – Moving to Noosa and the second mistake he almost made 18:00 – Right concept, wrong town: the lesson every operator learns the hard way 22:00 – What 75 years of family restaurants actually teaches you about longevity Key takeaways: The hardest part of hospitality isn't the food or the service. It's the backend you've never been taught. A concept that works in one suburb won't automatically work in another. The market is the variable, not the recipe. Three generations of family wisdom doesn't make you immune to making the same mistakes everyone else makes. Being insulated from the hard stuff as a child means learning all of it as an adult — fast. Modern hospitality requires working harder to deliver the same sense of hospitality the old generation had as standard. Every great family restaurant has had to evolve. The ones that stay the same close. If you're opening or relocating a venue and want to make sure the concept matches the market, book a free Profit Finding Session with the Foodie Coaches team at https://discover.foodiecoaches.com/bac Follow Matteo and Lucio's Marina: @luciosmarina Follow along: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld New episodes every Wednesday.