Podcast
FULL COMP: Restaurant Tactics, Tools, & Strategies
Hosted by Josh Kopel · EN
What if I told you that the difference between struggling and thriving in the restaurant industry is just one conversation away?
I’m Josh Kopel, a Michelin-awarded restaurateur who’s spent decades building blockbuster brands across every tier of dining. I know the challenges you’re facing—because I’ve been there. That’s why I created FULL COMP.
Every week, I go one-on-one with the smartest minds in the game: restaurateurs, chefs, and industry insiders who’ve cracked the code. Together, we unpack their biggest wins, hardest lessons, and the strategies that changed everything.
No fluff, no filler—just actionable insights to help you boost profits, build your brand, and create the kind of restaurant you’ve always dreamed of.
So, if you’re ready to stop spinning your wheels and start seeing results, hit subscribe.
62episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Tobin Ellis: Your Labor Problem Is a Design Problem
1w ago00:41:04Tap to summarizeWhat if your biggest profit leak is hiding behind the bar, in the engine your guests never see?Tobin Ellis spent 30 years behind the stick before he started designing bars for a living. As founder of Studio Barmagic, he's redesigned everything from NFL stadiums to five-diamond resorts, once lifting a landmark hotel bar's revenue 131% in a single quarter.In this conversation, we get into why your labor problem is really a design problem, why the money is made during peak volume instead of slow Tuesdays, and why he builds every bar for the bartender first, the guest second, and the investor last.If your margins are thin and your weekends are leaving money on the table, this one shows you where to look.That's Tobin Ellis. To learn more about his work designing high-performance bars and to grab his book, Bar Design Essentials, visit barmagic.com._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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Helen Johannesen: Ownership Isn't the Win You Think
2w ago00:39:11Tap to summarizeWhat if owning a restaurant isn’t the win you think it is, but a risk most people misunderstand?Helen Johannesen didn’t just step into ownership, she sacrificed for it. Walking away from financial stability and taking a major pay cut, she bet on herself and a single restaurant that could have gone either way. Today, she’s a partner behind one of LA’s most respected hospitality groups and the force behind a wine brand built on trust, not intimidation.In this conversation, we unpack what ownership really demands, and why it’s not a universal path. Helen breaks down the illusion of revenue versus profit, why equity isn’t the right incentive for most teams, and how she built a wine program that rejects exclusivity in favor of access. If you’re chasing ownership—or questioning it—this episode will force a reset.To explore her selections and join the club, visit helenswines.com._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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Brendan and Bianca Shah: Collaborate, Don’t Compete
2w ago00:35:03Tap to summarizeWhat if the smartest thing you can do with your single biggest advantage is hand it to the competition?Brendan and Bianca Shah run Chado Tea Room and the wholesale arm, International Tea Importers, the family business their father Devan built into one of the engines of America's specialty tea culture. When he died in 2016, the two of them inherited a company that lived entirely in his head and rebuilt it from first principles.In this conversation, we get into why selling their best tea to direct competitors grew the entire category and made the brand their real moat, how the wholesale and retail sides power a single flywheel, and why paring a 300-tea catalog down to its essentials is what unlocks growth.If you're competing on product alone, this shows you what it looks like to build something nobody can copy.That's Brendan and Bianca Shah. To learn more about Chado Tea Room, visit chadotea.com._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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Jeremy Lett: The Product Failed, Not You
3w ago00:39:48Tap to summarizeWhat if the real thing holding your restaurant back is your refusal to trust your own taste?Jeremy Lett spent 26 years at Bloomin' Brands building food for Outback, Carrabba's, Fleming's, and Bonefish before taking over innovation at Cracker Barrel, a 650-unit institution he joined right as the brand was weathering its biggest public firestorm in decades.In this conversation, we get into why a great menu grows through subtraction, how to separate a product failing from you failing, and why your taste, earned over thousands of reps, is the one competency no spreadsheet can replace.If you're sitting on a concept people respect but won't repeat, this one will show you where to cut and what to trust.To learn more about his work leading culinary innovation and product development at Cracker Barrel, visit crackerbarrel.com._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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Seth Gerber: Your Restaurant Is a Factory
3w ago00:40:27Tap to summarizeWhat if you can't actually manage your people, and every hour you spend trying is the reason your restaurant won't scale?Seth Gerber co-owns MIDA, a six-restaurant Italian group out of Boston, and was a 2024 James Beard semifinalist for Best Restaurateur. He came up through Hillstone, earned his sommelier pin and an MBA, and treats outlearning everyone in the room as his only real edge.In this conversation, we get into why you manage the structure people work in and never the people themselves, why the cinematic version of risk that bets it all on one move is a fantasy that quietly ruins operators, and why the best restaurateurs grow slower than their egos want them to.If you're grinding inside your business and still feel like the bottleneck, this one tells you where the real problem is.To learn more about MIDA and their growing collection of neighborhood Italian restaurants, visit midarestaurant.com._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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Harry Posner & Natalie Dial: Put Staff Before Guests
4w ago00:41:30Tap to summarizeWhat if the conventional wisdom about putting customers first is the very reason your restaurant keeps losing good people?Harry Posner and Natalie Dial walked away from careers in medicine to open Tomat, a Michelin-recognized, seasonally driven restaurant in Westchester, Los Angeles. Neither came from the industry. Both came with the analytical frameworks most operators spend years trying to build.In this conversation, we get into why they deliberately ranked employees above customers before opening day, how diversifying revenue across breakfast, lunch, dinner, events, and a rooftop gave them financial staying power when the calendar went quiet, and why the "wrong" location turned out to be one of the smartest market plays in recent LA dining.If you think the customer is always right, this episode will change your mind.To learn more about Tomat, visit tomat.la._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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Philippe Massoud: Built to Last 19 Years
4w ago00:34:11Tap to summarizeWhat if the reason your restaurant isn't built to last is because you designed it to survive instead of dominate?Philippe Massoud opened ilili in November 2007, a 10,000 square foot Lebanese restaurant in New York City, nearly $7 million in debt, in the middle of a financial crisis, with critics questioning whether anyone wanted Lebanese fine dining at that scale. Nineteen years later, the restaurant is still breaking records.In this conversation, we get into why going smaller and safer is often the riskiest move an operator can make, how Philippe grew revenue 30% annually for five consecutive years after weathering the financial crisis, and why running a restaurant with two guests in mind changes everything.If you're building something real in a market that keeps getting harder, this episode is the one to hear.To learn more about ilili, visit ililirestaurants.com._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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Michael White & Bruce Bronster: Price Less, Win More
Jul 700:33:45Tap to summarizeWhat if the reason your margins are tight has nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with strategy?Chef Michael White held five simultaneous Michelin stars under the Altamarea Group before co-founding BBianco Hospitality Group with hospitality attorney Bruce Bronster in 2020. Together, they run a restaurant company that deliberately prices below the competition and still gets guests back three and four times a week because of it.In this conversation, we get into why their three C's, cuisine, consistency, and conviviality, are the real operating system behind a loyal guest base, how volume answers margin problems that efficiency never can, and why knowing your lane inside a close partnership is the thing that keeps the business from falling apart.If you're still chasing 20% margins and losing guests in the process, this one lands where it counts.That's Chef Michael White and Bruce Bronster. To learn more about BBianco Hospitality Group, visit bbiancohospitality.com._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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Ben Leventhal: Your Guests Didn't Leave, They Forgot
Jul 300:36:24Tap to summarizeWhat if your guests aren’t choosing your competitors, they just forgot you exist?Ben Leventhal has spent 20 years building the infrastructure that connects diners to restaurants. He co-founded Eater in 2005, co-founded Resy in 2014, sold it to American Express in 2019, and is now the CEO and founder of Blackbird Labs, a loyalty and payments platform built to give independent restaurants the tools that large brands have had for years.In this conversation, we get into why 42% of restaurants aren't profitable and what role loyalty plays in fixing that, how frequency and access are more valuable than acquisition, and why the independent restaurant's biggest competitive disadvantage is being invisible to guests who already love them.If your regulars aren't showing up as often as they should, this episode is where to start. To learn more about Blackbird Labs, visit blackbird.xyz._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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Rob Herold: This is the secret to delegation
Jun 3000:58:20Tap to summarizeWhat if the most valuable thing you could do for your restaurant is make yourself unnecessary?Rob Herold has operated a single Chick-fil-A in Bowie, Maryland for 17 years. While most operators chase more locations, he went the other way, building a business that runs without him so he could coach leaders, serve communities overseas, and climb mountains with his son.In this conversation, we get into why your time is worth more than you think, how hiring a virtual assistant became the highest-leverage decision he ever made, and what it really costs operators to insist on doing everything themselves.If you are drowning in your own business and calling it dedication, this one will change how you see your calendar.To learn how to delegate like Rob, check out the free step by step guide below:https://resources.belaysolutions.com/partners/full-compTo learn more about BELAY Solutions and how they can help you reclaim your time, download their free Freedom Framework here or text COMP to 55123 to get the link sent directly to you._________________________________________________________Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you'll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
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