Why the Marketing Machine Is Not Built for Independent Restaurants

Matt Wampler: On today’s episode of the Restaurant AI Podcast, I’m joined by Eric Cacciatore, founder and host of the Restaurant Unstoppable podcast. Eric grew up in the industry. His parents opened a restaurant when he was three years old, and it became the gathering place at the center of their town. He originally left the business to become a commercial pilot, but at 27 he realized he was looking forward to his part-time restaurant jobs more than flying, so he resigned, went back to school for marketing and hospitality, and discovered podcasting in 2012. Thirteen years later, Restaurant Unstoppable is the longest-running podcast in the restaurant industry, with nearly 1,300 episodes and interviews with many of the most successful restaurateurs in America. Eric is now building the Restaurant Unstoppable Network, a live community connecting the top operators from his show across the country. This is a different kind of conversation for the show. Eric brings the perspective of thousands of hours spent listening to operators, and he’s not afraid to challenge how the industry thinks. We dig into what restaurants were originally built to be, the ownership models giving employees a real stake in the business, and where technology helps the independent operator instead of owning them. Before we dive in, a quick word from our sponsor, ClearCOGS. ClearCOGS helps restaurants turn the data they already have into practical daily guidance for prep, ordering, and labor, so operators can make better decisions before the day gets away from them. Because when you have a clearer view of what’s coming, you can run a more profitable restaurant. Now, here’s my conversation with Eric Cacciatore.

Matt Wampler: Eric, it's a pleasure to have you on, man. I think you've

Eric Cacciatore: It's a pleasure to be here, man. Thank you very much.

Matt Wampler: done more podcast episodes than I've listened to, period, across all shows ever. What are you up to with like thirteen, fourteen hundred?

Eric Cacciatore: I think recorded we have one thousand two hundred and eighty two and I think I have about another ten scheduled and I'll probably be at thirteen hundred by the end of the summer. That's the plan right now. Yeah.

Matt Wampler: Some of those are big, big brands. I mean, like you've almost interviewed like, I don't know, two, three, four, five percent of the overall restaurant population. I don't know, I'm making up numbers, but it seems like it would be.

Eric Cacciatore: Is that right? It's been a blast, man. You know, and the fun thing is people have said, aren't you worried you're gonna hit an end where you won't be able to have anybody else to interview? And the thing is, you know, if I was in Atlanta five years ago, five years goes by and there's a whole new wave of successful restaurateurs. And the industry will have changed so much in five years, and there will be people who have been on the show that can get back on the show and tell me what the last five years was all about. Maybe they were at five locations the first time and they're at twelve locations today. Like, let's pick up where we left off. So there's no end to the opportunity to make an example of people. Yeah.

Matt Wampler: Amen to that. Well, first off, I find this all to be fascinating and I love talking with people who interview restaurants because you get an operator on, they know their world. They have their world opinion that they want to tell you about, their perspective. You, on the other hand, you get the culmination of all of these different views. So you get kind of an interesting look at the world. But before we get into like what's going on in the restaurant industry today, I'd love to hear just how did you get started in this? Cause I knew you as a brand before I knew you as a person, which is kind of crazy.

Eric Cacciatore: Well, how I got started. Well, thank you first and foremost. How I got started. I grew up in the industry. My parents opened a restaurant when I was three years old. They had a solid 10 year run, lines out the door every weekend, tons of local accolades and press.

Matt Wampler: What kind of restaurant?

Eric Cacciatore: It was breakfast and lunch. It was your stereotypical mom and pop country shop, you know, breakfast bar, like grassroots, center of the town. It was what restaurants were meant to be, in my opinion. A place for the town to commune and to get together, talk politics, gossip, whatever. It was a gathering place. So

Matt Wampler: So they did it together. It was your mom and dad.

Eric Cacciatore: My dad did it. My mom got sucked into it, if we're being honest. So you know, they were the center of the community. They were loved and they did a lot of things right, but they had no prior restaurant experience. So they didn't really know how to make money doing it. So to answer the question, I got into this because I grew up in the industry. I had my dreams of opening my own restaurant. My parents talked me out of staying in the industry. They say go get a real job. So I thought to myself, well, what do I want to do? I've always thought airplanes are cool and the idea of being able to travel and see the world sounds really cool. I'll be a commercial pilot. Committed to that around the age of 15 and saw it through until the age of 27, made it to the regional airlines, worked in restaurants throughout high school and college and as a commercial pilot to supplement my income. And I realized that I was looking forward to my part-time jobs more than my full-time job as a commercial pilot. I'm also colorblind, dyslexic and have horrible ADHD. I was never meant to be a commercial pilot. I fell in love with the industry for the wrong reasons. And I made the hard choice after, you know, ten years of my life of committing to aviation and becoming two hundred thousand dollars in debt from school loans to resign and to pursue my passion. And you know, it was the hospitality industry. You know, I always knew that, my mentors were steering me in that direction. So I went back to school for marketing and hospitality, mostly to evade my school loans, because if you're a part-time student, you can defer your school loans.

Matt Wampler: Nice.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah, and that's when I discovered podcasts. So that's the fast forward version of how I got to where I am today. Leaning into my strengths, social emotional intelligence, curiosity. And I'll be honest, I got as far as I did in aviation because people like me. And they wanted to see me be successful. I got pushed through the system. I was never a natural born commercial pilot. I had to work really hard to get to where I did. I think that's a testament to my work ethic and my desire to just make people happy.

Matt Wampler: All right, can I ask you just a total random question about aviation? What goes on up in that cockpit? Do you guys just sit around and talk?

Eric Cacciatore: Lots of button pushing, man. Lots of button pushing. And just trying to be ahead of the airplane and lots of talking. It's boring, dude. It's real boring, if I'm being honest.

Matt Wampler: Yeah, it seems like. Pushing buttons, following the whatever GPS, the autopilot, and like just chit chat.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah. I mean I got into the aviation industry because I thought that it was like the ultimate, my naive fifteen year old mind was like that's gotta be like the ultimate form of freedom right there. And it turns out, taking a personality test twenty years later, I discovered that my number one core value is freedom. So, you know, for me it was always about the idea of being able to go anywhere and I just thought that was the ticket to freedom, being a commercial pilot, being able to travel. And you know, it's kinda boring and there's lots of rules, if I'm being honest.

Matt Wampler: I was gonna say three hour flights with some random person next to you. I can't think of a better way to train for interviewing people on podcasts.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah. So yeah, that's one way to do it, I guess. Wasn't the plan, but yeah.

Matt Wampler: Well, all right. So let's get back to it. You have your finger on the pulse of the industry. I mean, you've watched it over these last, what, 10, 15 years change, evolve. Give me kind of the arc. Where were we 10 years ago when you first started? Where were we five years ago? And more importantly, what is the industry talking about today? What are the problems, the challenges, but also just like where's the zeitgeist of the industry?

Eric Cacciatore: The problems have changed. I think they just become amplified. It's always been hiring, it's always been profit, it's always been driving new revenue. I think it's just getting harder and harder than ever before. So I think if anything's changed, it's been my show. I think I started this thing as a student of the industry, and as you learn, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know anything, and it's kind of just like lessons just build and build and build. So when I started the show, it was very like, talk to me about your restaurant. That was like the first 20 episodes. And then I was like, wait a second, it's not about the restaurant, it's about the people behind the restaurant. And then it was really just about learning from this individual, who they are, how they got to where they are, you know, where are you today? Tell me more about what you've learned as you've scaled and grown as a restaurateur, and the show for the first 500, 600, even maybe close to a thousand episodes was very much about tell me how you got to where you are and what you've learned as a restaurateur. I remember when I first started the podcast, the vision was to go get like a bucket of knowledge from each one of these individuals from across the country and to take all those buckets and to dump it into a giant pool and just have this ocean eventually of just knowledge that was curated, crowdsourced, merit-based, word of mouth, one interview leads me to the next interview. And like let's just go learn and be as open as possible. Two truths can be true at once and just understand perspective. So it started with the restaurant, then it evolved to the human, then it evolved to like the economics of how you become successful. Behind every great restaurant is a great person. And then it was like, well, how do you scale? You know, once you figured it out, like that's a whole new set of problems. You get one restaurant figured out, you get to three, and then there's a whole new set of problems from there, from going from three to ten, and then there's a whole new set of problems. So it was the evolution of restaurateuring. And then I was like, well, these restaurants are in this ecosystem that is an industry. Well, let's learn about the industry and those trends and how the system works. And that's kind of where I am now over the past, I would say, 300 episodes. It's not just who are you? How did you get to where you are today? But where are you today? Why are you there? And where are we going? Where's the industry going? And what are you doing to be prepared for that or to influence it?

Matt Wampler: Sounds like you've almost built a mental model of the restaurant industry. Is that fair?

Eric Cacciatore: In what capacity?

Matt Wampler: How things work, right? What are the, it's about the people, then it's about the metrics and the business. Yeah, and then it becomes about the industry and some of those trends and where it's going. Give me the update. You know, walk me through what are the trends? Where are we going? Where is the industry?

Eric Cacciatore: Honestly, you know, I think we're trending, it seems like it from when I'm on the internet, if I'm not talking to individuals, but the overwhelming narrative seems to be focused on scale. A lot of people have that dream of being the next, you know, fifty unit operator, a hundred unit operator, getting into twelve units, fifteen units, twenty units, selling to private equity. That seems to be a lot of the common narrative right now, is that success is measured by reach or span, how big you can get. And what I'm learning is that I don't know if that should be the narrative. You know, if you look back, I much rather look back to see what the industry was born out of. And if you study history, if you study anthropology, if you study, you know, how we got here as a species, and you look at where we're going, I think sometimes it makes more sense to almost de-evolve. And you know, we are human beings. We evolved to be reliant on family and community. And we live in a world that's dependent on market and state. So we're more connected than ever before, but we're disconnected more than ever before. And the restaurateurs I love to make an example of are the ones that are the best in their town. Not the best in their segment. Not the best nationwide. Cause I think the criteria on what you're judging is different for those. They just want to make an impact in their community. They're creating opportunity for other people. They're creating ownership for other people. That's what gets me excited. So I guess the answer is, what are the trends? I think the trends are there are a lot of people that are in it for concept creation. You know, like they love creating concepts. And I don't think that's what the industry was born out of. I think the industry was born out of relationships. It was born out of warmth and generosity. And it was born out of literal public house, like a pub is a public house where it was literally the original social platform, you know?

Matt Wampler: Yeah, I mean it used to be like an expression of your, you know, oneself, right? I wanna build this restaurant and share my vision of this meal with the community.

Eric Cacciatore: If you go beyond that, I'm talking like colonial time, you know, when we were out here basically colonizing the Americas. If you wanted to start a town, the first thing you needed to do was to establish a public house. If you drive the coastal New England areas or just anywhere on the East Coast, you see all these old towns. And at the center of each one of those old towns, not a church, a public house. That was where you got your news. That's where you got your entertainment. That's where you got your politics. That's where you met your friends. That was the heart of your community. It was the original social platform, you know.

Matt Wampler: That's back when, that's where the revolution began.

Eric Cacciatore: Exactly, literally the revolution started in pubs, people coming together and talking. And the people that own pubs weren't expressing their creativity. They were hosting their community. They were the literal founders of towns. And most of it was religious based, if I'm being honest, because a lot of the colonists were the Puritans, it was religious, like they came here for religious freedom and they were going to towns to start their own practices, the religious practices, and at the center of that was church and community and a public house. But there was church and state, right? So you needed the public house, the church was there, but you also needed the governance. But that communal place was the public house, which evolved into pubs over time. And I don't think the industry as we know it, that didn't come around until the 20th century, like early 1900s. And that's when it started to evolve more into a center for commerce and business. It was also around the time we were less dependent on community and family. It was when we were more dependent on market and state. So what became community became market, and that's when things started to change. But if you look at the origin of restaurants, it was all meant to be community. The word restaurant comes out of the word restore, and that was when people were traveling across Europe, I think the French countryside, every fifty miles there'd be a place to restore for traveling people. So if you look at the origin of restaurants, we're so far from what we started from. It's almost embarrassing.

Matt Wampler: Something you said really resonated with me, and that is this desire for scale. I'm wondering whether you would attribute that to social media and everybody being out there marketing how big they're growing and that's become the sexy thing, or would you attribute it more to like the economics? Like I was a Jimmy John's franchisee. Everyone would be like, I can't believe you pay 7% in royalties. And I always said, well, look, my contracts for buying food saves me 7% versus just buying it from a distributor. So I'm kind of making it up for it on the group buying, the business economics. Do you think it's more business driven, that in today's market, scale just works better? Or is it more like social media aspirational, you know, the Instagramification of everything?

Eric Cacciatore: I think that there's definitely an economic piece to it. The economies of scale. At the end of the day, we're in business and the purpose of business, many people would say, is to be profitable. I agree that if you want to be in business, you must be fiscally responsible. You must make a profit. You know, but what do we attribute this to? I do think that media plays a big role on it. I think a lot of the industry publications are focused and geared towards highlighting the fastest growing companies, the biggest companies, and we kind of glorify that. But on the flip side, you have the James Beard Foundation and Michelin Star, also media, also just a giant marketing machine, if we're being honest. Right. So there's two extremes. One is centered around ego, probably, right? Like I want to be the best. I need the awards. And the other is centered probably a little bit of ego and power. So both of those media outlets are geared towards ego. And I think that's part of the issue is that, man, we're gonna get deep into it. There's this book I recently picked up. Tony Robbins has been talking a lot about it. It's called Generations. It was written in 1991. And in that book, the theory is if you look back to the Puritans, every 80 years we seem to go through this four-phase cycle. And it starts with basically, you know, it starts with a high. We discovered the Americas, the opportunity is bountiful. And then these institutions are established, and after about 20 years, there's like this awakening, a spiritual awakening where institutions start getting challenged. Then another 20 years goes by, and these institutions are collapsing. And then there's a 20-year period of just crisis. We are in that 20-year period right now. The last high was post-World War II, the 40s into the 60s, where the middle class was better than ever before. There was opportunity boundless, people owned their own businesses. It was good times for like 20 years. And then in the 60s and 70s, there was a spiritual awakening. And then in the 90s into the early 2000s, everything started to collapse. And then in 2008, there was a great recession. Keep in mind this was written in 1991. So they were dead on in their predictions. And now we're in a crisis where there's about to be a giant bubble that's gonna likely bust real soon. So their predictions are on. So where I'm going with this, backtrack. What was my train of thought before I got to the book? Okay.

Matt Wampler: No, let's stay on this train of thought because I like it. So there's a big parallel there. About that exact same time the internet started to roll out, and then the personal computer, and then the iPhone, and now AI. There's been this drastic increase in technology over that 30-year period. Coincidence or part of the problem?

Eric Cacciatore: I think it can be a part of the solution too, right? So we're talking about basically in these evolutions, these four phases, which are, I think the first phase is high, the second phase is awakening, the third phase is the unraveling, and the fourth phase is crisis. There's a shift from a high, people are generally very focused on community. There's a social contract that's very strong, and people realize that we have to create win-win situations. That I need my autonomy, but I also need to find a way to have autonomy that feeds back and makes community better. And right now, if you look at the world we're in, it is very autonomy. It is very me, me, me. Exactly. That's the pendulum.

Matt Wampler: That's the World War Two moment. We all came back from the war, and we're all alive.

Eric Cacciatore: So we are in this point right now, in crisis, where everybody is out for themselves. Everybody is comparing themselves to everyone else. We are in no way dependent on family or community, we are wholly dependent on market and wholly dependent on the government. So we don't need each other, but it's literally a part of our DNA as a species to be seen and to be valued and to be appreciated and to find purpose within a community, but we don't have opportunity for that. We're more connected and more disconnected than ever before.

Matt Wampler: Which is ironic because the time we need community and the local pub, the public square the most is the time that it's going away.

Eric Cacciatore: Bingo. So my prediction, where are we? We are so about ourselves, about ego, about winning, about being number one, competing, competing, competing. And their answer is to realize that if you look at the root origin word of competition, there is no winner. It's all about just going further together. Competition was about making each other better. And we've taken that word of competition and there has to be a winner, you know. So I think that we're in this period right now where there's gonna be a bubble. We're gonna be forced to go back to family and community out of necessity, but that's also gonna help us reconnect and realize that that's all it's about. And the restaurant industry is so perfectly set up to be the one to take everyone back, you know, and that's what gets me excited.

Matt Wampler: Does anything have to change though from like a business structure? Because everything has become chain. I was just saying how do you disentangle that?

Eric Cacciatore: So I think one of the things that gets me really excited right now, what I'm curious about, this thing has always been about curiosity for me, it's exploring new business models and new ownership models. Because a lot of what people are saying is we need to create opportunity for our employees, we need to give careers to our employees. And I think that's not quite hitting the mark. What we need to do is to elevate people to our level or higher, right? And when we elevate people to our level or higher, then they make us go higher, right? So I think the real goal is, you know, I was listening to an interview with, I think it was Daniel Priestley and Nick Hanauer. I'm not sure if I'm saying his name correctly.

Matt Wampler: Daniel Priestley, Time Forge

Eric Cacciatore: And Nick was one of the co-founders of I think Microsoft or Amazon. He was one of the co-founders of Amazon. And they were debating. It was Diary of a CEO. I love that podcast. He gets phenomenal guests on. Stephen Bartlett, is it? I think. I never remember his last name, but I love his show. But they were debating on how do we fix this situation of the top zero one percent owning the majority, having all the money, and the middle class is basically decimated, and the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. How do we get out of the situation? was the debate. And Nick was saying that we need more government involvement, and I think that that is true. But it's a yes, and. What Daniel was arguing is that we need more entrepreneurs, we need more business owners, we need to build back the middle class and we can't wait for somebody to do something about it. We need to do something about it. And I believe that that's true. One of the things I've been saying is we need less restaurants and more owners. So that means less people that are sole proprietors of a hundred plus units, and more smaller community 10 unit operators that are the best in town. And the best means they take care of their people. They're creating opportunity, not just for careers. If you're gonna make society stronger, people need to own things. This generation doesn't own anything. You can't buy a house, you can't start a business. We need to create opportunity for the middle class to own things. And I think as a restaurateur, you're not in the business of food, you're not in the business of experience, you're in the business of transformations and literally creating opportunity for people. And the more opportunity, the more you can elevate the people around you, the more you'll become elevated. It's a win-win-win situation. So how do we create business models that give more equity? And that's one thing, have you heard of P. Terry's out of Austin, Texas?

Matt Wampler: Yeah, I have. They just did the employee, what I forget what it was, the ownership to employees.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah, so it's an employee ownership trust. And that's the first time I've ever heard of that. And I thought originally that they were doing an ESOP, an employee stock ownership situation. But it's not an ESOP. So I was actually just on the phone before this conversation with Kathy Terry, Patrick Terry's wife, who's actually responsible for spearheading this thing. And she's gonna come on the show and we're gonna dive into why an employee ownership trust. So this is an opportunity to take a 40-unit operation that is like the In-N-Out version of burgers in central Texas, and they could have sold to private equity, but they said no. We want our community to stay here. We don't want to scale, we want to make a bigger impact. We're gonna find a way to help all the people that helped us get here own something. We need more of that in the world. That's what gets me excited.

Matt Wampler: I always look at the Chick-fil-A example. You know, how do we optimize for the best operator, not necessarily the most well capitalized? And how do we give them one location and have them just do a great job, right? Just creating people that are building equity.

Eric Cacciatore: Right. And you know, I think Chick-fil-A is a perfect example of an organization that has found a way to scale and also make an impact. So I think it's possible, but it's definitely harder. And I don't know their business model. Isn't it family owned?

Matt Wampler: I think that they pay like a, don't get mad at me, Chick-fil-A. I think they pay like a twenty percent royalty, but as the owner you don't have to build out the restaurant. You put down like a ten thousand dollar down payment and Chick-fil-A does all the build out costs, but then you're constrained to like one location, maybe two.

Eric Cacciatore: This is why AI, see this is an example of how AI is fantastic. Let's just ask. Right? Let's see. So Chick-fil-A is a franchise model, although differently than most franchises. Very low buy in, operators typically pay only around ten thousand dollars to open a location, far less than the hundreds of thousands, often one million plus. Yeah.

Matt Wampler: Which we can stop right there for the first one. You're not optimizing for the most well capitalized. I don't need a private equity group. I don't need to come up with half a million dollars. It's a low bar. You can go find the best optimization.

Eric Cacciatore: Another restaurant group that I am a huge fan of is out of Charleston, Uptown Hospitality. Keith Benjamin, multi-time guest, partner in Uptown Hospitality. He was a part of a restaurant group, a mother company, father company in New York. Can't remember the name of that company, but he kind of took that business model and brought it to Charleston, and what they do is they have tons of partners. And the criteria to become a partner in the business is you need to have worked for the company for at least five years. All the other partners need to write off on you becoming a partner. And you have to buy into the restaurant that you're becoming a partner in. So I think they have four or five concepts right now. So if you become a partner, you're not investing in the entire restaurant group. You're investing in that location that you're becoming an operating partner in. But you have to put up at least one percent. So they figure out what the EBITDA, the value of the business is, say it's worth a million dollars. You have to come up with $10,000. Sounds like a familiar number, which is a low bar for a 20-something to raise money to then own stake in the business and then become an operating partner. And then they can put that profit away into a high interest savings account. And then when they have enough, purchase in another percent. And this is how you build wealth, by putting money in high interest savings and reinvesting in assets. So they teach their people how to build wealth. And I think that's another perfect example of what people need to do.

Matt Wampler: Well, it feels like, you know, in your eighty year cycle, you go back to my grandfather. He was about as capitalist as it got. I think his favorite line was always buy breakfast because it's the cheapest meal. He was just a cheap capitalist type guy. And it feels like today's generation, words like profit and equity, all of these things almost feel like dirty words. People don't want to talk about it. Do you get that sense?

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah, I think that it became dirty because people don't understand that profit is the best way to take care of people. I like to say fiscal responsibility. So you have to be fiscally responsible. If profit's being used correctly, profit isn't meant to line your pockets. You use profit for two things. First and foremost to pay off debt, and second to invest in assets. And that's how you build wealth, is you get your money to work for you. And the difference between an asset and a liability is an asset makes you money, it appreciates, and a liability costs you money. So if you can invest in assets, people can be assets, you know, they can make you money. So if you take that money and you use it to invest and create opportunity, you can become an institution. Look at Zingerman's, another company that you might have heard of. Have you heard of Zingerman's, Ari Weinzweig in Ann Arbor?

Matt Wampler: No I haven't.

Eric Cacciatore: So they started with Zingerman's Delicatessen, and they created the Zingerman's family or community of business. They could have scaled that delicatessen all across America, but they chose to scale depth. They chose depth over span. They wanted to go deeper into their community. So they took people that embodied their values within their organization and they created Zingerman's Roadhouse, which is a full service restaurant, Zingerman's candy shop, ice cream shop, coffee shop. And it was basically the core values, the same mission, the same purpose, the same core values manifested in different businesses within that community, and they would invest in partners, they would have multiple partners. So I think that's the model. But back to your original point, it's like profit doesn't have to be dirty. Profit is a tool to serve your purpose. It's fuel for the engine for your purpose. And if you look at it that way, it's a beautiful thing. That's the difference between capitalism, consumerism, which I think is not good, versus conscious capitalism. It's Adam Smith versus, who's that other dude that talked about shareholder, do you know what I'm talking about?

Matt Wampler: I don't. I think I do, but no. There we go.

Eric Cacciatore: Milton Friedman. So it's like Adam Smith was like the whole purpose of business is to add value to your community. And then Milton Friedman came out in like the 70s and was like, no, it's to get returns for shareholders. And for some reason, people just bought into that.

Matt Wampler: See, I partially wonder if that is a symptom and not the problem. And the problem just being when you opened up that pub and you were the first pub that was opened up in the new town, it was destined to do pretty well. You're probably gonna make money. Today, we're a little bit overbuilt. We've got price sensitive customers. It feels like it's harder than ever to squeeze profit out of a restaurant. And without profit, I don't run into too many general managers that aren't thinking about their people all day, every day. Too many business owners that don't realize that they are in the people business. They would love to do these things, but they're trying to make the payment to the bank.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah. Well, I think a big part of the challenge for independent restaurant owners is the consumer, if I'm being completely honest. I think they're a big part of the issue. Because if you look at consumers, they want more, they're all value driven. They want to get a deal, right? And the only people that can win the game on offering value are the larger organizations because they can offer the economies of scale and still be profitable. So a lot of big companies, their whole model is based on value and convenience. And they also have the biggest profit, which can go into controlling the agenda, the narrative of marketing to convince consumers that what they need is more time and a bigger bang for their buck. When the reality is that's actually not what they need. They need to keep their money local and support their community and build relationships and be a conscious capitalist. But that's hard. People don't want to do hard things and that's expensive. And people wanna feel like they're winning. You know, back to this idea of autonomy and like I wanna win, me, me, me, my family, you know.

Matt Wampler: You know, I hear a lot more of that perspective from the guys that are running second and third generation businesses, where they're thinking about how does this survive the third and fourth and fifth generation? I hear a lot less of it from the guys that are trying to spin up forty units and sell it to private equity.

Eric Cacciatore: What is it exactly that, I said a lot, so what are you referring to that you hear them say?

Matt Wampler: I'm referring to how you view what success of the business is. Either a long, thriving business that's gonna last beyond you, or one that just needs to last 20 years till you can get to a big exit, because you can take a lot of shortcuts and not invest in the community or as much in the people and get to that exit.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah. I think success looks like, or, you know, I don't know, it was the word success that you used.

Matt Wampler: It depends on what success is to the individual. If you're going to try and survive another hundred years, success is how can I make a self-living organism that is going to perpetuate into the future, versus if I'm just trying to sell it, success is just get it to this point and get it sold.

Eric Cacciatore: Back to where we were talking about the different seasons and the phases, right? I think success is a balance of, you know, it's a balance of having freedom and independence, but it's also a balance of having social security, right? And having people and relationships behind you. And I think we've been really bad about finding that balance. It's not one or the other, it's yes and. So we're at a point right now where your success, your security is wholly dependent on how much money you can make. So the more money you have, the more security you have, the more you can pay for people to do things for you. But I think that there's a reality that we need to find that sweet spot of monetary security and social security, relationships.

Matt Wampler: There's a lot of people that make a lot of money in this industry. And not just being an owner, but being the waiter at a high-end restaurant, being the bartender. These are lucrative positions a lot of times. And they don't require hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. But there's a weird connotation when you hear somebody say, yeah, that's my ex-boyfriend. He's a bartender. Or, even when I was Jimmy Johns, we were in DC and it was all politics and it annoyed me. So whenever they'd ask me what I did, I'd say I worked at Jimmy Johns and they'd get really quiet and awkward, like it's something to be ashamed of. What is that about?

Eric Cacciatore: I mean, I think it's just, we lost a lot of, and these are words from some of my recent conversations with Giving Kitchen. I had Ryan Turner on the show. And he's talking about the industry lacks dignity. There isn't a lot of dignity in the industry.

Matt Wampler: Yes, that's the word, dignity.

Eric Cacciatore: There isn't a lot of dignity, but we created this situation. I think part of what we do in the restaurant industry is, what is hospitality? Hospitality is warmth, generosity, giving, caring. And I think we have kind of given ourselves into a corner where there's nothing left to give. There's no more meat left on the bone. And now we as independents, I say we as independents, but this might reach a broader market, are trying to compete with people that have cups that are overflowing. And we're like, I can't compete with that. I think generally speaking, we just haven't been good about taking care of ourselves and having dignity, knowing our worth and asking for our worth. And also the consumer hasn't been good about treating us with dignity and giving us what we're worth and understanding that we provide value. You didn't cook this meal. It's not just a meal, it's a service. You got to come in, sit down, have this beautiful atmosphere, be served an amazing, delicious meal. Of course it's gonna be expensive. I can't pay my people a living wage, I can't offer them health insurance, I can't give them paid time off. There's no sense of value in what we provide.

Matt Wampler: Yeah, and not to mention we're in kind of the renaissance of food. Food has gotten so much better. There's authentic types of cuisines from all over the world that you can get in your town. You go to Cava, compare that to going to like McDonald's twenty years ago. I mean the food is better than it's ever been.

Eric Cacciatore: Right. And I'll also say I think the industry has gotten a lot more complex than it needs to be. We live in a world where you have to be digital. You have to be marketing. It used to be you would open up for business, you would prepare the food, you'd keep the place nice, you would be present, and you would take care of the people in your four walls. And now you have to be everywhere. Not only present within the four walls on the floor of your dining room and on the line, but you have to be present on all these digital platforms, everyone's reaching out to you from a million different directions. You have to have digital hospitality. And it's just like, how do I do all this? And that's where AI can be great, because it can help you bear the load and you can deploy agents. I just recently discovered this tool called Hermetic AI.

Matt Wampler: Jesse Stein.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah, Jesse Stein. That's a perfect example of deploying an agent. So if you have an inbound private dining request, the issue with private dining is if you're not right on it when that request comes in, the assistant who's booking this private dining for their boss is just gonna take the first, they just want to check the box. I got a spot to host this event, done. So if you're not on it to respond to that private dining event, you're gonna lose the business. So Hermetic AI is just an agent that will field the request, engage you in conversation, pull out all the data that it needs, make a suggestion on a package, and it will do all the heavy lifting and it will get it over the finish line, and then the private dining specialist will step in and then offer the hospitality to execute on the human side of it. So that's a great example. But what goes through your mind as I say that? Because I'll just keep going.

Matt Wampler: AI slop is what goes through my mind. Slop. It's a term people use now. AI will just regurgitate lots of words that sound right, but really just don't say much. And not that Hermetic AI is AI slop. I think they do a really good job. But I sit there and think, the sole proprietor who is great with people, creates the hospitality, now has to compete with national chains that have unlimited technology budgets that are working on this to make it work. And if he goes and tries to use AI, God knows what it's going to manage for his brand externally, and whether that makes things even worse.

Eric Cacciatore: Well, I mean, part of my hope, if we were gonna talk about AI today, and I think we've gotten to that point of the conversation, I think the cost of software has been more expensive. When it was the cost it was, it was necessary because you had these technology companies that had to take care of their support staff, their salespeople, the infrastructure, the security. I think one thing that excites me about AI is this ability for restaurant owners to no longer be dependent on software companies. I had this one guy on the show, Albert Sanchez, who wanted to be a software developer when he was in high school. That was his dream. His dad opened a restaurant and he became an opening partner in the restaurant, never went to college, but still had this passion, this hobby of programming and developing. But he also was a restaurant owner who, I think at one point they owned three locations, and he had never had the time to deploy his skill to engineer software, but he stayed really plugged into that world. And when vibe coding came out, or started to come up, about what was that, like October, September of last year? That's when it started to gain traction. He literally wakes up at 5 a.m., spends the first three hours of his day vibe coding, and he has basically replaced the majority of his subscription models. And he pays like ninety dollars a month.

Matt Wampler: Hey, the new engineer, the new software developer today, the skills that you really, really need is to be curious, great at creative problem solving. And I can't think of two traits that better represent restaurant owners and operators.

Eric Cacciatore: So I think, and now he's saving five hundred dollars a month. I think what's gonna happen, what gets me excited, back to this idea that we need more owners. We need people that own things, you know. I think you're a phenomenal example of this. You were a restaurant owner, and then you created a solution, an AI that you now use that collects data across a bunch of platforms to peer into the future and to help restaurants make decisions. I think you're gonna see more and more people coming to the market with solutions. And as I look to the future, I think it's really important that we do not let any one of these companies get too big.

Matt Wampler: So it's been really interesting being on the technology side of things, coming from operations. In restaurants, you're about serving an individual customer. How do I make their sandwich perfect? What's the right thing to say to them right now to pick them up or to get them to come back? Technology, you suffer from the more you do, the less well you do at everything. So if I'm gonna try and be everything to everyone, I'm gonna kinda be

Eric Cacciatore: So we're talking about like an enterprise solution, a one-stop shop. I don't want to mention names because

Matt Wampler: Well, the problem you run into is that restaurants are so diverse. Even within like pizza places, the way they set up their menu, the way they do their pizza, their operations, everything is different. Outside of franchises and their individual locations, nothing's really the same. So it's really tough to build actual good software for restaurants unless you're gonna have this really small market that you're building it for. I think the thing that gives me hope on AI is AI is really good at customizing to your operation and your specific needs.

Eric Cacciatore: So are you saying, I want to make sure I understand. So could you have like one agent that can be deployed across multiple different concepts, that is the same source agent but customized for that unique operator?

Matt Wampler: I am using, let's say, marketing software, and I need to do a campaign for, I don't know, increasing my pickup pizzas. It probably has a pre-built module and it probably has a bunch of guardrails on things you can and you can't do. So you're not gonna really bring your vision to it. You're going to work within the software to get that marketing campaign out. With AI, you could say, this is what I'm envisioning. This is how I'd like it to work. And it could go and say, okay, perfect. These would be the right channels for you. So we'll set it up that way. I mean, they could make a bespoke campaign, but that's just one campaign. But think about all of marketing. Think about all of your operations. Think about your inventory, your price controls. There's so much that no company can just make the software perfect for you. But AI probably could retrofit those softwares.

Eric Cacciatore: Well I think that's why, to your point, there are no two restaurants that are exactly the same. And the fact that they're diverse is what makes them so awesome. Within the world of restaurants, you have QSR, fine dining, counter service, drive through, pickup. And I don't wanna see, I don't know, man, this world where the tail's wagging the dog right now, if I'm being completely honest. I believe that we are in a situation where the independent restaurant industry is no longer independent. They're wholly dependent on technology because they have no choice but to play the game, because the technology platforms control the market. And that's where we just lost the game right there, is where we lost the relationship with our guests, where we have to play the game to get in front of the consumer because the technology companies own the consumer habits. And once you own habit, game over. Because people take the path of least resistance. It's a huge mental energy suck to think about a million different things. So if you can just hit an easy button, that's worth 30%, because it's just so easy to tap a button and solve a problem than to think for 15 minutes, where am I gonna eat today?

Matt Wampler: Well, I think it's also a little bit chasing revenues. We've been told in the industry, hey, revenues solve all. So if I can do a third party delivery and they take twenty percent or thirty percent, it's still additive sales and it helps. And, you know, chasing revenues.

Eric Cacciatore: Well, they look at it as a marketing expense, because I'm gonna gain new customers. That's not true, because the third party still owns the consumer habit. They want the easy button. So you will never get, you'll still be paying that 30%. They will never get off of their habit to order direct from your app. I think that's a marketing, I don't know if I believe that.

Matt Wampler: I'm not sure I believe it either. So when you talk with the people who you think really do care about hospitality and their people, how do they look at the world of technology?

Eric Cacciatore: When I talk to people about hospitality, meaning restaurant owners?

Matt Wampler: Yeah, you're talking to restaurant owners that you respect and think these guys have the right world view. They've got their finger on the pulse of where they should be as an organization, where the industry and consumers are going. How are they viewing technology?

Eric Cacciatore: I feel like a lot of them are doing it because they have no choice. I think a lot of people at this point, they're like, I have no other option.

Matt Wampler: Evolve or die, because somebody else is gonna do it and I'm gonna be behind, or because I just need to make rent.

Eric Cacciatore: It's yes and. It's like, yes, this is a giant inconvenience. Yes, I don't want to adopt these marketing habits and routines, but I have to. And even if I'm able to drive people to my business, I need to make sure that they have an outstanding experience, because if they don't have a good time, they won't come back no matter how good the marketing is. But I don't know, man. It's a weird time. Like how are you with marketing, with these AI tools? There's platforms out there that are all about optimizing your SEO. And I sometimes just wonder, it's like trying to put a band-aid on an axe wound is the only way I can try to figure it out. It's like, you have to do this, and here's the answer, the secret to success. Are you ready?

Matt Wampler: I think you could play either side of it. You have to have SEO and you have to have Google reviews and Yelp if anybody's going to come to your restaurant today.

Eric Cacciatore: You do, but you have to, right? And that's the point. And if what you're saying is true, and I do think you're right, you have to.

Matt Wampler: But on the flip side, I think we can all agree that there are so many great restaurants out there that do an incredible job and have such a great customer experience and have a horrible digital presence.

Eric Cacciatore: And they do well. I've spoken to those people too. There are places like, who was it? Azul in South Lake Tahoe. They have zero social media presence. Good luck getting a seat. And I think this goes back to giving equity to your team and creating ownership opportunities. Because how do you attract the best employees? You don't make them employees, you make them partners. You give them a reason to come work for you. And if somebody has that dignity because their name's on the door and they are investing in their future every day they show up and they have something to work for, you're gonna attract the best talent and they're gonna provide the best experience because they're gonna treat it like they own it, because they do. You can't expect somebody to treat your business better than you do unless you treat them with the same integrity and decency you would treat yourself. It's that simple and that hard too. I get that that's hard. I get that that's scary, to build something, the brainchild that is your restaurant, to birth it into the world, sweat, tears, blood, all that, to give a piece of it away to somebody else. To me, that is the ultimate form of selflessness.

Matt Wampler: Yeah, I also feel like we're kind of in a zero sum game where there's a finite number of dollars that are gonna go into restaurants. And I look at your parents owning a breakfast place. What did it cost for breakfast?

Eric Cacciatore: Back then, I should show you the menu, man. It was like five dollars for like a full meal. It was a deal and a half.

Matt Wampler: I probably told this story before, but my wife had a birthday a little while back, and we did the thing that we never do and we made a spontaneous purchase. We bought her a new bike for her birthday. And it was like a big celebration, kind of like one of those, my gosh, we splurged. The bike was like four hundred dollars. Then afterwards, really casually, it was like, we should go out to eat. We'll go grab breakfast at the diner. And we sat there and I'm like, I think that'll be a hundred dollars. Somehow that was an afterthought, that of course we're gonna go grab Saturday breakfast. But it's gotten really expensive. We did not go get breakfast that day.

Eric Cacciatore: I hear you and I understand, I see that pain point, but back again to this idea of relativity. I don't know if I brought this argument up, but I bring it up often. If you go back to nineteen twenty, the average household spent upwards of twenty three percent of their income on food.

Matt Wampler: Interesting.

Eric Cacciatore: So is food getting more expensive, or is it coming back to what the cost of food should be? Before the industrialization of the food system. Today, or as recent as like twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, twenty nineteen, I can't remember exactly, there's a book out there, I can't remember the name of the title, I'll have to look it up. But they talk about how today it's like nine percent of the average household income goes to food. So is it just, because if you're alive today, all you know is a centralized broken food system, so you think that food is getting more expensive? Or have we gotten so disjointed from what the actual cost of producing good food is? We don't have an accurate perception of the value of food. And dude, it's food. It's literally listed as a commodity. Food is a commodity right there next to like coal and oil and firewood. Well, firewood isn't a good example because that was once living too, but literally life. Something had to die to make sure that you survive, that you can keep living. And at some point, if you go far back enough, it's life, it's literally the thing that gives you life, isn't worth more than twenty percent of all the money you make.

Matt Wampler: And ironically, the food system throws out about forty percent of the food every year, so it's not even a very efficient system. The system itself doesn't value its commodity.

Eric Cacciatore: Well, that's the thing, you know? I love anthropology. We are what we are today as a species because of our relationship with food. We figured out fire, we can now cook food and our brains aren't using as much energy, and we can now have society because we figured out farming.

Matt Wampler: We figured out transportation and now you can go get a peach whenever you want.

Eric Cacciatore: And is that a good thing? Or should we use what's growing in our backyard? I hear stats often that we can't produce enough food for the amount of people that are alive. And I'm like, that can't be true.

Matt Wampler: We throw forty percent of it away. So I think we can at least support another forty percent.

Eric Cacciatore: We don't value food, bro. It's not an issue with things being too expensive, it's an issue with values.

Matt Wampler: Well, kind of what you're talking about has started to happen. In the last five, ten years, the whole farm to table, locally sourced, that's been kind of a movement.

Eric Cacciatore: It's a movement, but the consumer isn't supporting it because it's expensive. It's a twenty dollar burger, bro. I can't afford that. I'll be honest, I can't afford that. It kills me that I can't. I would love to spend $25 on a chicken every time I want to make a roast. I know a spot not far from me where I can spend $25 on a chicken and I'm friends with the owner and I would love to support his farm. I literally can't afford it. And I know of restaurant owners that want to support the local farms. They want to with all their heart buy local. They want to pay a livable wage. They want to offer their team health care. And they literally can't afford it. We are in a situation where good people can't do good things because it's not possible. That's the reality.

Matt Wampler: Well, now you've got a real issue. I'm a restaurant owner operator. I live within my four walls. I look around at the world and say, I can't afford the local stuff. The supply chain's inefficient. The distributor's taking a cut. My tech company's taking a cut of this and that. The only thing I can control is what's going on within my four walls. But they can't change the fact that the chicken costs twenty five dollars, right?

Eric Cacciatore: I think it should cost twenty five dollars. That's the thing, man.

Matt Wampler: Can't change the fact their customer's not gonna pay the thirty five dollars for it when they buy it.

Eric Cacciatore: I think it really boils down to an issue with consumer values. And that's gonna be a real hard needle to move, man. And I get that when I talk about this stuff, it feels like a pipe dream. But at the same time, we're back to this idea, we're in the middle of a crisis. I think that there's a bubble that's gonna burst, whether it's tomorrow or next week or next month, definitely by next year. And when that thing pops, there's gonna be a lot of pissed off people, a lot of people who don't know what to do. I might be one of those people. It's getting harder and harder to make an honest living in this world. I love the idea of thinking of the collective. When I think about doing what's right for the collective, I can't pay my bills. And that's the reality of it.

Matt Wampler: I think the pendulum's already swinging. I have to go to all these conferences and you get to hear incredibly smart people. And one of the things they're talking about is it's all about the experience and connecting with the guest and creating atmosphere. And I sit here today and think, okay, I have done nothing but web meetings. We're doing this virtually. I know you like to do them in person. We're doing this virtually. And tonight, me and my wife, we're in the Philly area, the thing we love most about Philly is it feels like community. So we're gonna go over to McGurk's and we're gonna watch the Phillies play. And we know that everyone's gonna wear their Phillies gear and the sound will be on and people will be cheering, because you get to feel like you're part of the community. You're part of something. And in our worlds where we're so isolated and working remote a lot of the time, that community, that's a good example of how that's pushing restaurants to be the place, the community square.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah. I think that the pendulum's gonna swing. It's what happens. And I think that we can kick the legs out from underneath this bubble and make it pop sooner than later, you know? That is my hope.

Matt Wampler: Also, by the way, I don't care what the wings cost. I'm going there for a very different reason than just the food. I'm going there for the hospitality, to be part of something. It does change the economics of what you're buying. It's not transactional.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah. If you look at what the consumer has money for, they spend money on things. How many subscription models does your average person have? How much money do we spend on cars? How big are some of our homes that just have rooms that sit empty? What do we value? Is it status? Is it nice things? But I don't blame the consumer. I think it's a matter of the messaging that they get constantly. It's the consumerism of America, this idea of buy more, get more, because that's good for the economy, but it's only good for the few at the top, I believe.

Matt Wampler: Well, and it just goes down to what's your relationship with the customer. If you are merely transactional and I want wings, I get on DoorDash and order whatever the cheapest respectable wings are, right? If I'm going to you because I'm your customer, and I support you and I feel like I'm your customer, it's far more relational than transactional.

Eric Cacciatore: Right. How much time do you have, man? Because I can probably do a five minute riff on Zipf's Law.

Matt Wampler: Go riff. You're my last call of the day. You just go.

Eric Cacciatore: I don't know how I just tied this all together, but I think it comes down to, and I don't hear a lot of people talk about this. Have you ever heard of Zipf's Law? I think it's Z I P F. Zipf's Law. And it's basically this law that states that in a given market, number one in a market will do twice as much business as number two, three times as much business as number three, and four, and five. It states that there's an uneven amount of resources distributed across a segment in a market, always. And it's usually, like I said, one does twice as much as two, three times as three, and like that. And it could be a barbershop, it could be a burger stand, it could be whatever it is. Whoever is the best in that market is gonna do twice as much business as number two if you're number one.

Matt Wampler: Zipf's Law. I'm giving your AI for this one. It is the observation that in many ranked data sets, the frequency of an item is roughly inversely related to its rank. Classic examples would be the most common word in a body of text might appear twice as often as the second most common word.

Eric Cacciatore: If you keep reading, you'll see that it applies to economies too.

Matt Wampler: Yeah. Shows up beyond words too, city populations, website traffic, and sometimes restaurant menu item demand. In the restaurant context, it's the pattern where a small number of items drive a disproportionate share of sales.

Eric Cacciatore: So it's the idea that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your guests and 20% of your menu items. So focus there if you want to be profitable. But it also applies to markets. So basically, if Zipf's Law is true, if you go back to the 1800s and the 1700s, a marketplace was literally a town. That was a marketplace. And it was great because you had these fragmented markets and there was room for number ones across all these different communities. If you wanted to start a bakery, you would just go out west where there was opportunity, and you would start a new bakery, or you could compete against that small marketplace. And it was spread out. Fractionalized markets, beautiful. The second industrial revolution hit. Railroads came, telegraphs came, radio came, syndication came, internet came. We went from being a bunch of fractionalized markets all over the place. Think about the 40s to the 60s. That was the beginning of the end, right? That's when we went from regional broadcasts to national.

Matt Wampler: Madmen just coming in and just taking over.

Eric Cacciatore: We went national. Everything went national, and then post the internet, boom, we went global. So now we have one marketplace. There's only room for one burger that's number one, McDonald's. There's only room for one sub shop, Subway. There's only room for one search engine, Google. What's number two? Bing? What's number three? You don't even know what number three is because you've never heard of it.

Matt Wampler: In most markets, the way it all starts out is there's a bunch of individual players and they all start to consolidate and eventually end up with this consolidated oligopoly.

Eric Cacciatore: Right. So I think that's our situation right now, is that we went from fragmented thousands of markets to these national and global markets now. And the sub markets that are broken out of that are technology markets. Google is a marketplace, Facebook is a marketplace, Uber Eats is a marketplace, Resy, American Express is a marketplace. Who owns these marketplaces? Technology platforms. So the community, the market, is literally controlled by technology. So you as an independent operator, your marketplace is digital. And here's the other thing, have you ever heard the secret? The secret to marketing is whoever spends the most money wins. So now we're all playing in the same marketplace against companies that have these absurd amounts of marketing budgets. You will never win that game. You will not win that game. You're throwing your money into the void. You will not win. And you have these marketers who are like, get on Google, search engine optimization, throw more of your money into the machine. You're in this ecosystem that is a bubble and nobody can see beyond the bubble because they're in it. It's like a fish in water. They don't know, it's all they know. But the machine is not built for you. And you will not win. And you're just burning good money. That's what I believe.

Matt Wampler: That's really just dark and cynical.

Eric Cacciatore: I know, man, but I'm really an optimistic person, I swear to God. And it kills me that I see this and I'm like, do I promote this behavior, or do I blow the whistle on it and say that machine will never work for you? And that's what I believe.

Matt Wampler: Okay, so on the flip side of that, I go to the Shawn Walchefs of the world. No one's coming to tell your story. You gotta get out there and tell your story. Podcasts now exist that you can go on. You can film in your restaurant, your food, tell your story and get it out at a lower cost than ever before.

Eric Cacciatore: I think Shawn is a great dude with a great heart and really good intentions. And I think that we're in this world where that's the thing you're supposed to say if you want to be successful. But I think the reality of it is, your next door neighbor probably doesn't know your story. And that's sad. We're in this bubble where we're trying to make sure that somebody in San Francisco knows my story and I own a restaurant. We're giving our energy to a platform that is just the antithesis, is that the right word? Of what we're meant to be. And I think that he is really well intended, and I think his heart's in the right place, and he believes that. In many ways, he's right. In this ecosystem today, that's what works. But I'm saying the ecosystem is probably not suited for everyone.

Matt Wampler: Well, it's a good point and an interesting one, because the tools with which you can go do it at a lower cost than ever and tell your story are also a global or national reach, not a local one. And it's still so hard to go local. It's still going to the group baseball games, giving away sandwiches and sponsoring the little league, all that kind of stuff.

Eric Cacciatore: It's relationships, dude. Yeah.

Matt Wampler: It's relationships one by one.

Eric Cacciatore: And he's right that you need to capture your neighbor's attention through this thing, when I could just go knock on the door. But this is a path of least resistance. So I do think Shawn's a great dude with a good intention. I just think that there's two truths that can be true at the same time. And he loves it, man. He's in it. I don't mean to sound crass to people who want to do good. That is my fear about speaking out, because I have friends. These are my friends, you know. But I just think that collectively we're a little lost as a society.

Matt Wampler: Yeah, and I don't think Shawn would push back on it at all. I think that at the end of the day, for so many of us, myself included, who never had any social media the entire time and just lived within my four walls, it never occurred to me to go out and tell my story. We would knock on the next door neighbor's door and give them free samples and introduce yourself as the business owner, but we weren't out there promoting the fact that this is a locally owned establishment. We let the big marketing corporate do our marketing.

Eric Cacciatore: Well, yeah. And let's be honest, man, marketing, where did these influencers get their information?

Matt Wampler: Whoever pays

Eric Cacciatore: Well, yeah, Google. Let's look at Google. I'm on the list. I'm probably gonna be removed from the list after this conversation, where I get this list from the Google team that says, hey, we have the latest and greatest thing, and you have all these marketers like, ooh, I'm gonna be able to break the story on the next latest, greatest. So we're literally being dripped the agenda, the narrative. And then we say, hey, this is the secret, this is what's gonna work next. Here's a book, man. I don't know if I've held this one up to the screen yet. It's called Power and Progress. It's a great book. It's written by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. Daron is an MIT professor in economics. And Power and Progress is our 1000-year struggle over technology and prosperity. The thesis is essentially whoever controls the technology controls the narrative. And I think Google is a prime example of this, where they literally control the market. And they're telling you exactly what they want you to do to succeed in the market. And then these influencers take up that story, they break the news because they all want to be the next thought leader. And they're just spinning the narrative of these giant tech corporations. And I think that the tech corporations really care about whoever has the most money to spend. So we're sucked into this vortex of this is what you have to do, but really the only people who win at the end of the day are the people that control the technology. That's what I believe. So I just think we kind of have to wake up and say, well, let me ask you this question. How's it going for us? How's it going? Let's be honest. Are things good right now? Is the economy good right now? Is it working?

Matt Wampler: I think everybody struggles, and I think this is where we all eventually become old people that are like, back in my day it was hard. You kids today have it so easy. I get the point. There's a lot of things that are wrong societally, economically. But we're also, if you look at the number of people in poverty over the last hundred years and how that's declined, we're also doing pretty well.

Eric Cacciatore: Yeah, I think per capita there's less murder than ever before. There's less death by hand to hand combat or war, right? Yes, I agree one hundred percent. That's huge.

Matt Wampler: But emotional health, I think everybody agrees. People are more depressed, more anxious.

Eric Cacciatore: Exactly. More suicide than ever before. More people who just have social anxiety because they don't even know how to engage people, because they came up in a world where they had more FaceTime with computers than human beings.

Matt Wampler: So I think we agree that there's a void there. I think we could agree that the local pub, the town square, is one of the areas that could be a real beneficiary of bringing everyone together. Paint me the vision of how that happens. Who have you talked to that gave you encouragement to think it is going to go back to the way it was?

Eric Cacciatore: Some of the folks that I already mentioned today. I think what P. Terry's is doing to create an employee ownership trust is really cool. What they're doing at Uptown Hospitality, where they're creating a really low bar for people to buy equity and to start small and scale their assets over time. Zingerman's with their community of business, becoming an institution, choosing to go deep, to choose depth over span. I think that's real hopeful. I think some things need to change with government and the lobbying and the laws too. I think one thing that's killing communities is zoning. Have you ever flown over Dallas?

Matt Wampler: No, I'm sure I've flown Dallas Fort Worth, but I can't say I've looked out the window.

Eric Cacciatore: So if you go out west and you see some of these, like Colorado, it's literally like oceans of suburbs. Oceans and oceans and oceans of suburbs. You have to get in a car and drive 30 minutes or 20 minutes to get to a restaurant. I think what has to change is that we have to remember that people need a community hub. They need a center spot. For every 100 homes, we need to be able to put a community hub in the middle of that. So people can walk to a bar, not get in a car, drink and drive, bump up against their community members, hear stories, hear perspective, get involved. I think zoning and the real estate development has had a huge impact on restaurants. We've literally built everything around cars and transportation, and now some people can't even afford cars.

Matt Wampler: Yeah, not to mention the fact that to get a lease on an unproven restaurant, unless you've got ten of them so you can say, no, we'll be a good stable tenant, isn't the easiest thing.

Eric Cacciatore: Right. So I think we need a lobby to make communities communities again. Civil engineering is a big part of it. Private equity is a big part of it. I think these private equity firms have relationships with developers. So you have these developers that are making developments left and right, but the oil is already there with the relationships. So they're not even trying to go to those local communities to find out what restaurateurs they can partner with to put in these developments or these mixed use spaces. Although there is one company I heard of that's based out of Atlanta that is intentionally going to local restaurateurs for their mixed use spaces, because they found out that, weird, if I go to a restaurateur that's popular in this community, I can charge two to three more dollars per square foot because that's gonna be a draw. But do you think the restaurant's seeing that?

Matt Wampler: They got the prime location. They got that going for them at least.

Eric Cacciatore: Maybe they are. I tried to talk to them and then we had a call and I never heard back from them. I would love to learn more about their model, but I'm curious as to why they don't want to share more about their model. And I think that's part of the issue. People are holding on to information. They corner a market and they're like, we have an opportunity here. We have to capitalize while it's hot.

Matt Wampler: You know, you talk about relationship building and community a lot. One of the things that I greatly respect about you is how you have built such a great community and how you've worked to bring people together. What is the unstoppable future for restaurants?

Eric Cacciatore: You know, there's three ways to make money with a podcast. I'm very grateful for all the sponsors that helped me get here. I couldn't have done it without them. But I think the reality is it's hard to have an unbiased journalistic podcast when you have to be careful about upsetting people. My truth might not be someone else's truth. But if you really want to have it be a transparent mirror of reality, you can't censor information. So it's getting harder and harder for me to do that and make money with sponsors. And I get it. They're playing the game. It's the world we're in now, it's content marketing. So I'm trying to focus, you know, after 13 years and 1300 episodes, I'm saying the cream rises to the top. Who are the top 100, 200, 300 operators that I've had on the show? Let's go back to them. Let's amplify their voice. Let's collaborate with them. Let's connect these leaders across the nation, get them talking on a more regular basis, and let that trickle down to the next generation of leaders. So I'm trying to build community around these individuals. And my business model going forward is to try to develop a listener-supported podcast, a community-supported podcast. If I can get 500 restaurant owners across the nation to pay $47 a month to get access to the best restaurateurs, the tools, technologies, and specialists that they're referring to through word of mouth, a true meritocracy. If I can just connect the dots and bring people together and let information flow so we can figure out how to lobby, how to pull in the same direction, what technology, to create a marketplace essentially, but built off merit and word of mouth. $47 a month. You don't think you're gonna get your money back on that? Connecting them with leaders like you, like ClearCOGS, man. How hard is it for you to get the word out in this marketplace, honestly?

Matt Wampler: I'd wear a pink dress and stand on the corner if it would help me get people's attention. But yeah, instead we've got social media, so we go scream. It's not easy, right? People we want to talk to living within their four walls worrying about making payroll.

Eric Cacciatore: And you were referred to me. I was aware of you, but Rudy Miick said you gotta talk to Matt. I'm sorry, I'm gonna say your name wrong. Wampler? Yes. You gotta talk to Matt. He's doing cool things with ClearCOGS. And that's word of mouth. I can promote that all day, but how are people gonna find out about you on social media? Cause your marketing is going against, I don't know, who's your biggest competition?

Matt Wampler: We don't really have a lot of competition. But yeah, I hear ya. But the irony is so thick. If you're gonna create real value that is not transactional, where somebody just paid you to say something, but you're trying to actually provide wisdom, guidance, best leaders, information, that creates real value. That's the harder one to monetize. Which is crazy.

Eric Cacciatore: It is crazy. Yeah. So that's what I'm trying to do right now. And it's not easy. But I believe in what I'm doing and there's incredible value in helping people connect and I'm stoked about that. So head over to restaurantunstoppable.com/live. We're live twice a week is the goal right now, and we're hoping to be live with live events across the country as I travel to go to these leaders in different markets and have a panel put together, and hopefully encourage more operators to do what we're doing in the network. But to get together in their local community and stop looking at the restaurant down the street as your competition, because those who choose to go together go further. And it's one of the biggest lessons I've learned, that the best in every market, they're all friends with each other, they're all supporting each other, they're all lifting each other up. So it's trying to encourage that. That's what the Restaurant Unstoppable Network is all about. And the community again is restaurantunstoppable.com/live.

Matt Wampler: I can't think of many people that would disagree with that. And I can't think of many people that wouldn't want to be a part of that. What is the best way to get involved?

Eric Cacciatore: Again, just head over to restaurantunstoppable.com/live. Or just email me, eric@restaurantunstoppable.com. Or if you want to test it out, if you listen to the show and there's a guest that you're like, I really vibed with this person, they've built what I want to build, I wish Eric asked these questions, I wish I could have asked these people these questions. Well, my goal is to get everyone that comes on the show to join us live in the community. So listen to the show. If there's a guest you want to connect with, head over to restaurantunstoppable.com/CWE, which stands for Coffee with Eric. And there's a good chance that I'm gonna host a live event with that individual just so you can connect and ask your questions. And that's free.

Matt Wampler: That is incredible. Well, guys, I mean, I don't know what else there is to say other than go visit Restaurant Unstoppable. Eric, thank you very much for coming on, man. This was an absolute pleasure.

Eric Cacciatore: Matt, thank you very much. I appreciate it. I know I can be a ball of energy sometimes, so I appreciate the platform. It's nice to be the guest every once in a while and to talk. Thank you. I love this stuff, man. It was a pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity.

Matt Wampler: Amen to that. And you gave some great history lessons because I didn't know some of those stats. That was awesome.