The Simmer

Since leaving Eleven Madison Park, the New York City fine dining restaurant he led to worldwide renown, nearly five years ago, Will Guidara has evangelized "unreasonable hospitality," or, as he defines it, the art of giving people more than they expect. As a professional speaker, he's managed to apply principles of running a successful and hospitable restaurant to other industries, from lawn care to insurance. In this episode, we tackle some big questions about the future of restaurants, including technology's role in hospitality. Plus, Will shares the ideas behind two of his newest projects, the annual Welcome Conference (returning to New York in September!), and his twice-monthly newsletter, Pre-Meal.

As Shake Shack's chief financial officer, Katie Fogertey manages the business's financial actions — that's obvious. But she's as much of a tech and operations expert as a financial one, taking a hands-on and holistic view of company when making decisions about its future. In this episode, we talk about "bespoke deployment" — Katie's term (that Kristen loves) for rolling out new processes and technology across the restaurants, new initiatives like drive-thrus and combo meals, and why kiosks are so important to Shake Shack's future. Music provided by Heywood Rex.

Q: Who calls restaurants on the phone? A: Far more people than we expected. Alex Sambvani is co-founder and CEO of Slang, a voice AI company that answers the phone for hundreds of restaurants. Over half of calls to restaurants often go unanswered, meaning diners don't get answers to straightforward questions like, "Can I bring my dog to your patio?" On this edition Alex talks us through the good, bad, and ugly of artificial intelligence, and teases "something big" coming from a new partnership.

Music provided by Heywood Rex.

There are restaurant people, there are technology people, and there are people who do both. Joe Unger was once a Subway franchisee, then held leadership roles at Taco Bell and Reef Technology. Now currently COO for Gosh Enterprises, a fast-growing restaurant group, Unger speaks to both sides of the business and how they work together. We talk through restaurant technology's growth from fun experiment to critical business strategy, including all of the bumps along the way.

Music provided by Heywood Rex.

Don’t call it a ghost kitchen! NYC-based Nimbus empowers the next generation of breakout food brands, providing dedicated kitchen space in hourly, daily, or monthly increments. We talk about what it takes to help food businesses launch, grow, and thrive. Plus, Camilla shares some big news: Nimbus is coming to Chicago!

Music provided by Heywood Rex.

We can't help talking about it, surge pricing is everywhere! Join us for an insightful discussion with Savneet Singh about dynamic pricing and customer loyalty models, his company's latest acquisition, and what he really thinks about free coffee at work. 

Music provided by Heywood Rex.