Culinary Business Insights for Restaurant and Catering Operators
Backstage
This is where the real conversations happen. Menus, operations, staff, costs, and everything else that determines whether a restaurant or catering business thrives or just survives. Written from the kitchen, not the classroom.
Some of Us Are Wired to Build a Clock and Not Watch It Tick
In 2016 I was living what most people in this industry would call a dream. Solo chef on a 100-foot luxury motor yacht, somewhere in the Turks and Caicos, doing work I loved in a place most people only see in photographs. But getting there required a pivot I did not see coming.
Your Energy Is Finite. Stop Solving the Same Problems Twice.
Early on, I took on events solo to keep costs down. I was afraid a quote that came in too high would lose the job. So I absorbed the work myself.
What I did not see at the time was what that decision was actually building. Not a solution. A pattern. Whether you are working independently or embedded with a client or company, the moment you take on more than you should, even temporarily, that becomes the new floor.
Feedback Is a Leadership Skill, Not a Personality Trait
One of the first things I tell a new cook or a team member is simple: ask me five times if you don’t understand before telling me you get it when you don’t.
Pay attention to what is said, not what isn’t.
Culture Is Built in the Moments Nobody's Watching
There is a saying that has stayed with me for a long time. If they gossip with you, they will gossip about you. Simple. And the longer you spend in professional kitchens, the more you understand exactly how true it is.
Here is the thing about being the person someone chooses to confide in. It can feel like a connection. Like trust. Like they picked you specifically because of something between the two of you. And maybe that is part of it. But if what they are bringing you is a takedown of someone who is not in the room, that moment is not intimacy. It is a test. And what you do next says everything about the kind of operator, leader, or teammate you actually are.
Food Is Such a Small Part of It
When most people think about the food service industry, whether it's a restaurant, a catering operation, or a full hospitality program, the food is what comes to mind first. And it has to be good. That part goes without saying. But the moment you step inside the actual business, the food becomes one item on a very long list.
You Don't Know What You Don't Know
There's a version of confidence that only exists before experience corrects it.
I was maybe a year out of culinary school. I'd picked up enough working for someone else to think I understood the business. When the opportunity came to cater a wedding on my own, I didn't hesitate. I saw the opportunity, I said yes, and then I underbid it. Not because the math was hard, because I was afraid they'd say no. So I came in low, told myself I'd make it work, and started planning. Or what I thought was planning.
What followed was one of the most expensive educations I've ever paid for.
How I Approach a Kitchen I've Never Seen Before
The first thing I do when I walk into a new kitchen is slow down. Before anything else, I need to read the room. You cannot figure out where a kitchen needs to go if you don't first understand where it is. That means watching how people move, how they communicate, where the friction lives. Every kitchen has a rhythm and my job on day one is to find it.
How to Know When It Is Time to Rebrand And How to Do It Without Losing What Works
This one is personal. Not just professionally, but emotionally. Because what we are really talking about is the thing you built, the idea you believed in, the identity you poured yourself into. And at some point, something shifted.
Why Catering Fails: And How to Build an Operation That Does Not
Catering is not what it used to be. When I came up in this industry, the pool was smaller, the learning curve was respected, and the people doing the work had put in the time to understand it. You worked your way through the stages. You showed up early and stayed late for someone else's event before you ever ran your own. You learned the lessons by living them, not by watching them on a screen.
That has changed.
Your Team Is Your Product: What Great Staff Training Actually Looks Like
You can have the best concept in the city. The right location, a beautiful room, a menu that turns heads. None of it matters if the people executing it every day are not equipped, not trusted, and not inspired to show up at their best.
Your team is not support staff. Your team is your product.
Why Your Menu Might Be Your Biggest Financial Liability And How to Fix It
There is a version of this conversation that feels comfortable. The one where we talk about tweaking a dish here, refreshing a description there, maybe swapping out a protein that has gotten expensive. That conversation has its place.
This is not that conversation.
Is Your Restaurant or Catering Business Where You Want It to Be?
Most people in the food industry got into it because they love food. The craft, the creativity, the way a well-executed dish can stop someone mid-conversation. What nobody tells you when you are starting out is that loving food is only about twenty percent of the job. The other eighty percent is operations, numbers, systems, and people — and that is exactly where most restaurants and catering businesses run into trouble.
A culinary consultant exists to close that gap.