INTERVIEW | Make Money by Turning Restaurant Chaos Into Profit With Roger Beaudoin

Summary

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Travis Makes Money – Episode Summary

Episode Title: INTERVIEW | Make Money by Turning Restaurant Chaos Into Profit With Roger Beaudoin
Host: Travis Chappell
Guest: Roger Beaudoin (Restaurant entrepreneur, author, podcaster, and founder of Restaurant Rockstars)
Date: June 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Travis Chappell sits down with seasoned restaurant entrepreneur and consultant Roger Beaudoin. Roger shares his entrepreneurial journey from unconventional beginnings, through building and selling multiple restaurants, to founding Restaurant Rockstars, which helps hospitality operators streamline their businesses and increase profits. The conversation centers on how to turn restaurant chaos into profit, the value of innovative hooks, mindset shifts necessary for success, and how non-traditional paths can lead to financial freedom—not just for restaurateurs, but for anyone aspiring to run a world-class business.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Roger’s Unconventional Entrepreneurial Start (01:39–06:50)

• Origin Story:
  • Roger recounts his first entrepreneurial venture on a California beach, selling lemonade with a friend. Dressed in attention-catching “3Thirst Aid” shirts, they sold out every day.
    • Quote: “I can't believe we're making money doing this. Hanging out at the beach all day, just selling lemonade like a kid would…” (02:26 – Roger)
• Transitioned into entrepreneurship while at grad school: started a pizza delivery business and a ski equipment sales business.
• After brief stints in advertising (Acura account) and running a clothing business, Roger returned to the ski industry and then spotted an unmet need for a high-quality pizzeria in a Maine ski town.

2. Breaking into the Restaurant Industry—From Idea to Overnight Success (06:10–09:09)

• Roger struggled to secure funding with no restaurant experience—laughed out of many banks.

• Eventually, a banker (who understood the opportunity) offered $150,000 instead of the million Roger sought, enabling him to launch his first restaurant.

• The restaurant’s success allowed a later real estate play: buying land, building a bigger restaurant, and flipping property.

  • Quote: “I wanted to literally run before I could walk.” (06:10 – Roger)

3. What Drives Restaurant Success? (07:01–09:09)

• Roger’s restaurant targeted skiers, decorated as a “shrine to skiing”—walls covered in memorabilia.
• Creative profit drivers:
  • A sponsored mug club became a significant revenue stream ($80K free cash flow annually).
  • Location, ambiance, service, and innovative “hooks” differentiated his restaurant from competition.
    • Quote: “I love hooks because they set you apart from the competition. Anything that you can do that's unique...really just gives you an advantage.” (08:32 – Roger)
• Service and staff training were central: “I trained my every single day in hospitality and what that means.”

4. Expensive Lessons—And Bootstrapping through Chaos (12:33–16:58)

• Roger describes losing $40,000 to a fraudulent chef, detailing an FBI investigation and a critical moment where he had to decide whether to give up or press on.
  • Story Highlight: “It turns out he’s a professional con man. ...Tears streaming down this elderly couple's faces because they've heard the story over and over again about how their son has taken so many restaurants for their life savings and blah, blah, blah. We lost $40 grand out of a $150,000 loan when $150,000 wasn't enough to start the business in the first place.” (15:03 – Roger)
• Found success by bootstrapping: “Sometimes you just gotta trust your intuition and bootstrap the hell out of the business. ...It’s not always going to be the expert that comes in and saves you.” (16:58 – Travis)

5. The Transition: From Restaurateur to Restaurant Coach & Podcaster (17:24–23:03)

• Roger operated for two decades before making an RV-fueled move to Idaho and starting Restaurant Rockstars—at his wife’s urging.
• Highlights the difference between running a restaurant vs. running a business—many independent operators lack business systems and are trapped in day-to-day chaos.
  • Core systems for success:
    • Cost control / profit maximization
    • Staff training, leadership, rewards
    • Marketing for new and repeat business
  • Quote: “A majority ...are trying to run a restaurant. They're not running a business. ...Success really came from applying business skills to a business that's not traditionally run by MBAs.” (18:40 – Roger)
• Developed online courses and launched the Restaurant Rockstars podcast—with over 488 episodes and 840,000 plays to date.

6. Lessons from Podcasting: Industry Connections and Sharing Best Practices (23:03–25:38)

• Roger’s favorite guest: Jon Taffer (Bar Rescue), known for his tough love and business turnarounds.
  • Quote: “He walks into a failing business, and he sees all the mistakes these people are doing, and he slaps them upside the head… But then he turns the business around.” (23:45 – Roger)
• Podcasting as a passion project for education; now travels to speak at restaurant and food service conferences, teaching business systems to owners.

7. Passion Projects: The Classic Car Guy Podcast (25:42–28:05)

• Roger’s classic car passion stems from childhood—restoring vintage cars with family, particularly MGs and a 1966 Corvette.
• The “Classic Car Guy Podcast” is in its early days (10 episodes), motivated by family legacy.
  • Quote: “My dad...was the President of the Western Massachusetts Model A Ford Restorers Club. ...But my whole childhood growing up is parades and car shows...” (25:50 – Roger)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I love hooks because they set you apart from the competition.” (08:32 – Roger)
• “I trained my [staff] every single day in hospitality and what that means.” (08:44 – Roger)
• On losing $40,000 to a con chef: “Sometimes you just gotta trust your intuition and bootstrap the hell out of the business…” (16:58 – Travis)
• “They're trying to run a restaurant. They're not running a business.” (18:46 – Roger)
• “When I owned restaurants, it was about delivering extraordinary dining experiences, treating everyone like they were a regular...” (19:34 – Roger)
• “You need systems for cost control, for marketing firepower, and for training and leadership—that’s the formula.” (20:41 – Roger)
• On podcasting: “It’s a passion project...We talk about successes, we talk about failures, best practices, SOPs, KPIs, all the important things that operators need to know to run a business, not run a restaurant.” (23:05 – Roger)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:39–06:50: Early hustles and first major restaurant play
• 07:01–09:09: The formula for restaurant success: ambiance, service, and memorable hooks
• 12:33–16:58: $40,000 lesson: hiring disasters and business resilience
• 17:24–18:19: Transition to Sun Valley, Idaho and Restaurant Rockstars genesis
• 18:40–21:35: From business operator to systems builder; creation of courses and training programs
• 23:05–25:38: Podcasting and connecting with industry leaders (notably Jon Taffer)
• 25:42–28:05: Personal passions—the Classic Car Guy podcast and family car stories
• 28:26–29:05: Where to find Roger and get help with uncovering business profits

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Where to Learn More

• Restaurant consulting and systems: restaurantrockstars.com or email [e-mail]
• Profit maximization for any business: rogerbeaudoin.com
• Podcast recommendations: Check out the “Restaurant Rockstars” and “Classic Car Guy” podcasts for more content from Roger.

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Roger’s journey shows that extraordinary success in restaurants—or any business—comes not just from hard work or culinary brilliance, but from creating systems, memorable experiences, and being willing to learn from expensive mistakes. His passion for sharing these lessons now fuels a thriving education business and multiple podcasts, making him a resource for anyone eager to transform their own “chaos into profit.”

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

I oh, let's go. I oh, let's go. You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis. What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's our mission to help you all make some more money. On this episode of the show, I have a new friend, Roger Bowdoin Rogers, a restaurant entrepreneur, author, speaker and founder of Restaurant Rock Stars, profit powerhouse and co founder of Nightcast Cap emphasis on the app. After building and selling several high profit restaurants, Roger now helps hospitality operators increase profits, streamline operations and build high performing teams through consulting, training and speaking engagements across the US And Canada. He also hosts the Restaurant Rock Stars podcast Man after My own Heart. And then outside of hospitality, he's an avid climber, skier, classic car collector and host of the Classic Car Guy podcast as well. So always love having any entrepreneur on the show, of course, but especially when they are also a podcaster because they just know how this game operates. So, Roger, what's up dude? Welcome to show.

[C]

Hey, thanks for having me on the show, Travis. Good to see you and thanks to the audience.

[B]

Yeah, of course, man, of course. Let's, let's jump back in time here. You're clearly entrepreneur through and through, even making entrepreneurial ventures out of your hobbies, which I find to be really cool. So tell me where this all started, man. What was the first time, what was the first time you ever made a dollar that you were shocked by that you were just like, I cannot believe somebody just paid me money for this.

[C]

Well, here's a hokey idea. You know, we all had these. Well, everyone's seen these kids lemonade stands when they're much younger. So right out of college, I sort of moved to Southern California for a while and I was on the beach and this crazy idea hit me. What if I was to come up with this business walking on the beach, selling lemonade? And so I had a good friend I was living with at the time and the two of us printed up these T shirts and the name of the company was called 3Thirst Aid. And we walked with the big red crosses on the shirts, and it was very visible. Yellow shirt, big red cross, and we're carrying lemonade, blanket to blanket, umbrella to umbrella. And we would literally sell out every day. We're like, I can't believe this works. Wow. So that time ago, and that was just something I did as, you know, just sort of a fun, crazy idea, but it worked. And I'm like, I can't believe we're making money doing this. Hanging out at the beach all day, just selling lemonade like a kid would behind the stand on the street, you know?

[B]

Yeah, right. So did you. Were you always an entrepreneur then? Was that something that was sort of in your blood? Did you take a different path out of high school, college for a time or. Or. Tell me like a, you know, tell me the timeline here.

[C]

Yeah, so I guess it really started when I sort of made a pivotal decision instead of going to graduate school, which I ended up doing. My father was a. A Marine corporal in the Korean War, and he discouraged me from joining the military. I had this whole pride of service thing, and I almost wanted to, you know, join the military for that. He discouraged me. He just wanted me to get a solid education. And so I ended up going to graduate school instead of Naval officer candidate school because that movie Top Gun came out, you know, and it's this glamorous portrayal of, you know, Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, you know, flying jets. And it's like, I wanted to do all that stuff. I was inspired. And I ended up going for an MBA instead of. But when I was in graduate school, I started a pizza delivery service on campus. I started a ski equipment sales business on campus because I was a huge skier. Both of those were pretty successful. So it kind of started there. I did have some traditional jobs. I worked for a major Los Angeles advertising agency on the Acura car account, which gave me great marketing experience. But then I quit that to start a clothing company with my then girlfriend. And we actually. They were the designers, and I just kind of ran the business. We got into Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom. So that was an entrepreneurial venture, too. That lasted a couple of years. And then I got back into the ski business, not as an entrepreneur, but as a marketing director for a major ski resort company. And then this is where my life really took a big turn. I was living in Italy when I was in graduate school doing an internship, and I ate a lot of pizza, you know, and I was really inspired by wood. Wood fired, brick oven, pizzerias and all that kind of stuff. And I'm on this job interview to this ski resort in this sleepy little town in Maine. And it was a huge ski resort, but it, the local infrastructure didn't keep up with the growth of the ski resort. There were a half a dozen businesses. They all succeeded in spite of themselves. Lines out the door, terrible service, terrible food. I just saw an opportunity to create this wood fired experience that was sophisticated because most of the clientele, most of the skiers came from Boston and Hartford, Connecticut and major cities. And these businesses I was so disappointed with. So I had this crazy idea to buy land, build a building in a great location and just go. And as you can imagine, you know, you're looking for funding for something like this. And I walked in to at least a dozen bankers offices with this business plan that asked for a million dollars. And the first question is, how many restaurants you ever owned or managed before? Well, I've never been read the business plan. I got a great idea. So of course I got laughed out of a lot of offices. But it actually did work because ultimately I met a commercial lender for a major New England bank that skied this resort every weekend, saw the problem, saw these lackluster businesses succeeding. He's like, you got an mba, you can start a business. My business plan literally asked for a million dollars because again, I wanted to buy land and build this Swiss chalet and do it, you know, I wanted to literally run before I could walk.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

So the guy, they said, well, I'm not going to give you a million bucks, but if you scale this project way back, I might be able to give you $150,000. So you really can't do much with that. So interestingly, I borrowed the $150,000, started this restaurant. It was an overnight success. And then two years later, I bought a piece of land. I got the million dollar loan. It was actually 18 acres of land and the restaurant only took up about nine acres. So I was able to develop the rest of the land, build a subdivision, build some spec houses, sell some land. So it turned into a real estate play. But the restaurant became super successful and that led to a couple other restaurants and I've sold all that now.

[B]

What about the restaurant? Made it successful that quickly? I know the restaurant business can be a really, really tough one. I think it's the highest failure rate of any entrepreneurial category. Right.

[C]

Well, I guess you'd have to say it was well targeted to the clientele of skiers. I was a passionate Lifelong skier. And I turned this place into a shrine to this sort of skiing. So the. Every inch of the walls and the ceiling were covered with skiing memorabilia, vintage ski equipment, all kinds of photographs of my adventures in Europe, all kinds of stuff like that. And then I really worked every single angle. It's like I got sponsorship for a lot of programs within the business itself that literally paid me to display certain things. We started a mug club. If you've ever been in these sports bars, you see these mugs hanging. Well, ours became probably the biggest in the state of Maine, and we sold about 1200 mugs that. That, you know, memberships were like 60 bucks a year times 1200. That was like $80,000 that came in the door just in free and clear cash flow, because I got a sponsor to put their logo on the mug. So there was no cost to us. All we had to do is give great service. And it just grew like, you know, one member invited five of their friends to join, and it just kind of grew like coral, year after year after year. And that was just one thing. But we really focused on three things. Food, of course, you expect is a given. And then the service, of course, has to be over the top, extraordinary. I train my every single day in hospitality and what that means. And then, of course, the ambiance. You know, people really felt like, this is our place. This is our clubhouse. It's like. Like I said, it was a shrine to skiing. So that became super successful. And, of course, it doesn't hurt to have an excellent location. We had 1200ft of road frontage. We had this giant grizzly bear on the front lawn with a pair of skis over one, you know, one paw raised in the air with a pair of skis in it. The other had this giant, like, this giant chalice, like, he's drinking a huge drink. And then I turned that into a propane tor porch, you know, attached to a propane thing. And we'd light it every night in this flame you could see for, like, half a mile down the street. Either way, marketing. It was about ambiance. It was about service. It was about hooks. I love hooks because they set you apart from the competition. Anything that you can do that's unique or different or special to a place really just gives you an advantage. So that's just some of the things we did.

[B]

How do.

[C]

When.

[B]

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[B]

There's a problem with, you know, like, going there yourself and seeing that there's not really anybody. There's not a restaurant here that I would want to go back to all the time because they're doing really well. That's one thing to know that the problem exists. But how do you go solve the problem when you're not, you know, a chef yourself? Like, how do you, how do you curate a menu that's actually great, delicious, you know, food that you can serve repeatedly and keep quality even with the high turnover that you might have with cooks and stuff like that? How do you build that from scratch?

[C]

Well, there's an interesting story behind that too, Travis, because creating or curating that menu cost you $40,000. And I'll tell you why. Because when I started my first restaurant, I of course, was not a chef. And I made the mistake of believing that I needed a full blown credentialed chef to put a menu together, which wasn't the case. What I really needed was a really solid kitchen manager that had cooking skills. I wasn't doing five star fine dining, you know, chateaubriand and all that. We were doing pizza. We had a wood fired, you know, oven. And all we had to do is come up with some unique pizza recipes with excellent dough. And that really wasn't rocket science. So how did I lose the 40,000 bucks? So I think I need a chef. So this is a restaurant in Maine that's targeting skiers at a ski resort. And we didn't know it at the time, but it turned out to be a seasonal business to start because when, when the snow melts, it's like the sidewalks rolled up. So I'm looking for a chef. And a long time ago, there used to be something called newspaper classified ads. This is like 30 plus years ago. Long before there was an Internet, I answered an ad in the Boston Globe for a seasonal chef on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, who is closing up his restaurant and was looking for a winter gig. So I answered the ad, I called the guy up. We were talking to him on the phone, my business partner and I. He was saying all the right things, you know, he sounded like he had everything we were looking for. He invites us to the island of Nantucket. So my partner and I jump on a ferry and we go over to Nantucket. He meets us at the boat. You know, we're walking through this small, little sophisticated town and everybody knows this guy. It's like, hey, Jerry, how are you, Jerry? He was like the mayor of Nantucket, this guy, everybody. It's a good sign. We walked into the restaurant and we're the only people in the place because he's closing it up for the, you know, for the summer. And he starts to cook the most amazing food. Here, try this. Here, try this. And we're in there for like an hour or two and he's feeding us everything under the sun. And it was unbelievable food. So we're like, wow, this could be the guy. So we invite him up to Maine to see our space. He comes up for the weekend. He walks into the space that we had leased, you know, and he's, he's designing the layout. He's like, we're going to need this here and that there. And then he starts putting the menu together. And then all weekend he's cooking the most amazing food again. So we hire the guy, we sign a contract, we give him, you know, we, we agree on a salary that we're going to start to pay him. And we had this bank loan, so we wrote him his first check. And now we need some equipment. I mentioned this ski resort that I was a marketing director for. I'm still working this full time gig. My business partner's, you know, starting this restaurant full time. And then every waking moment I've got outside of my job, I'm there. But she's putting most of the pieces in place. I'm under this deadline at this marketing gig I've got, you know, and the phone rings and my partner says, jerry's at this equipment auction, you know, and in the state of New York or Connecticut or whatever the heck it was. And he found everything we need. And it's pennies on the dollar because it's, you know, this restaurant went out of business. They got for whatever it was, right? And all we have to do is wire the guy $40,000 to this bank. He'll get a U haul truck, he'll buy all this stuff and bring it up the next weekend. Well, something didn't sound quite right to me. But again, I, you know, I don't have time to deal with this because I'm under this deadline stuff. So under duress, I agreed. Okay, wire them 40,000 bucks. I, we, we had this element of trust based on, you know, everybody likes Jerry and his food is amazing. Chef. Well, it turns out he's a professional con man. It was an FBI investigation because it was an out of state crime. We tracked down his parents in, in Rhode Island. And now tears are streaming down this elderly couple's faces because they've heard the story over and over again about how their son has taken so many restaurants for their life savings and blah, blah, blah. We lost 40 grand out of $150,000 loan when 150,000 wasn't enough to start the business in the first place. So you got a pivotal decision to make. It's like you either move forward at the restaurant plan or you pay back the $110,000 you got left and be on the hook for 40 to the bank with nothing to show for it. So you can see what the obvious decision was. Somehow we made a go of the place again. It was an overnight success. Two years of that proved what we could do. Got the million dollar loan, bought the land, built the 8,000 square foot building, started selling the land, building the spec houses, and it all just grew year after year after year. So that's kind of the story there.

[B]

Yeah, that's wild, man. So, yeah, just sometimes you just gotta trust your intuition and bootstrap the hell out of the business, you know, it's not always going to be the expert that comes in and saves you.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

What, so what was the next step after that then? So you do this whole development project. You obviously spending years at this, at this town in Maine. What was that the place that you ended up continuing to do business? Did you leave? Did you go somewhere else? What'd you do after that?

[C]

Yeah, both. So I spent 20 years there and I ended up getting remarried. And my wife, when we got married, said, we're on the five year plan, right? I'm like, what does that mean? She's like, in five years we're out of here. Because she grew up in a small town in Maine, but she lived in San Diego and in other exciting places, and she just knew that she couldn't move to this small town and be kind of isolated. You know, regardless of the skiing and all that, this town still lacked a lot of amenities like yoga studios and juice bars and, you know, art. Art events and all that kind of stuff. So somehow five years turns into 11 years, and she finally says, that's it. We're selling our house, we're selling our restaurants, we're going to get an RV and cruise the country and end up somewhere. And we ended up moving to Sun Valley, Idaho, because it's a big ski resort. And that's kind of when we started this company called Restaurant Rockstars. And that was entirely her brainchild. Not my idea, it was hers. And we've been doing that ever since.

[B]

Okay, and tell me about the differences between those business. Obviously, like, running restaurants is a completely different business than teaching restaurant owners how to run restaurants. Right? Like, they're, they're, they. They sound very similar, and they're, of course, adjacent to some degree, but you're essentially running an education business instead of running a restaurant. What were the core differences to you? How do you like doing this?

[C]

I guess the key differentiator is a majority. I mean, granted, there are lots of sophisticated operators out there and big restaurant groups that are very successful. And then, of course, there's the national chains that have everything dialed down to the cost of a drinking straw. You know, all this. But there is a large segment of the market that are single, independent operators or operators of one to five locations. And they're running by the seat of their pants, and they're tied to their business. They have no free time. It's like they're missing their kids, soccer games and graduations, and they're dealing with labor shortages and margins and all this. And the main reason is they're trying to run a restaurant. They're not running a business. And so success really came from applying business skills to a business that's not traditionally run by MBAs. So I didn't mention this, but, you know, we had a Mexican cantina that I purchased. There was a Turner, a failing restaurant. It was a steakhouse. I bought the property, we owned the real estate. We turned it into a Mexican cantina. We ended up selling that a couple years later. We had multiple restaurants, but we sold all that stuff. Right. But it was her idea to take all of this sort of restaurant operational system knowledge and apply that to some online courses that other people could literally understand and execute in their own business. To one, improve profitability, to establish leadership and train teams, not just in hospitality, but in salesmanship. Because let's face it, you probably go out to eat a lot like I do. I travel the country a lot when I speak at events and it doesn't matter the price point of the restaurant. But I would, I would say honestly that 8 times out of 10 I get what we call the order taker. The person might be personable and friendly, but it's like they got the pad and pen in hand or they commit it to memory. It's like, what'll they have? What do you have? You know, they expect that you had the menu, you checked it out, you what sounds good to you? And I'll just take the order and, you know, deliver the food and give you the check at the end of the meal. To me, that was always an ordinary experience. When I owned restaurants, it was about delivering extraordinary dining experiences, treating everyone like they were a regular, whether they were a first time visitor, getting to know them by name, introducing yourself by name. Anyone who interacted with a guest literally introduced themselves by name, thanked people a hundred times like it was not uncommon to get up from your table after paying the check and walk out and be thanked by eight people on the way out the door. Please. You know, and it's like personal experiences. But let's go back to the systems. I mean, there are three key operating systems. There's cost controls and profit maximization. There's staff training, leadership and accountability, recognition and rewards. And then there's marketing, firepower and affinity for new and repeat business. You put those three things together and you got a pretty powerful formula. So that's essentially the courses that we've come up with. And then she said, now we're going to start a podcast. Eight years ago, I didn't even know what a podcast was. I didn't listen to a podcast.

[G]

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[C]

I didn't know the difference between a webinar and a podcast. She's gonna. She says, we're gonna do webinars. We're gonna do podcasts. Okay, so you'd laugh now, but my very first podcast guest, I would literally send them a script. I'm gonna say this, and you're gonna say that. I'm gonna say this. And she's like, are you kidding me? So, a long way since then. So 400 and, I don't know, 88 episodes, and it's not huge, but 840,000 plays, and we just keep going with that. So we do that, too.

[B]

How do you like doing the podcast?

[C]

You know, it's a passion project because the business was very good to me. And since the pandemic, even before the pandemic, I mean, well, so many restaurants were completely wiped out. All the ones that are still standing, a lot of them are still struggling with these systems and lack of systems and, like I said, being tied to the business. So what I do is I interview industry leaders, people that have been very successful in this business. But we talk about successes, we talk about failures, best practices, SOPs, you know, KPIs, all the important things that operators need to know to run a business, not run a restaurant.

[B]

What are a couple of your favorite conversations that you've had?

[C]

Well, the best one, I would say the one that really stands out, and I'm trying to get them back as a guest. There's a celebrity from a TV show called Bar Rescue. His name is John Taffer. You might have heard him. I mean, he's pretty famous. I think there's been like, 13 seasons of this show. But this is a guy who has tough love. He walks into a failing business, and he sees all the mistakes these people are doing, and he slaps them upside the head, and he smashes the liquor bottles on the floor to get their attention. But then he turns the business around. He's got all these resources. He rebrands it, repositions it, gives it a makeover, trains people and gets them to save their business. What a conversation that was. And turns out we had a lot in common. When I was a kid, my parents and I used to vacation in the Catskills in New York at this resort. And he started his career working there as a waiter. So it's like we had that in common right off the bat if I didn't talk to him. So he was a fascinating guest for sure. So I get a part of the industry, but he definitely stands out.

[B]

Yeah, it's also cool just to be able to connect with people like that. Like. Like there would be. There would be no other reason to have those conversations other than the fact that you have a podcast. You know, it's the. It's the excuse.

[C]

Well, I like speaking. You know, I like speaking in front of audiences. The bigger the better. I mean, it'd be awesome to have like 5,000 people and just be up there teaching them something that. That I've had success with or that would help them be more successful. And I do. I'm on sort of this circuit. I speak at the California Restaurant show and the New York International Restaurant show, and mostly for a company called Performance Food Service, that's one of the largest distributors. And all of their different regions of the country invite me in to speak on a variety of profitability topics or marketing or leadership or whatever it is. And it's kind of a mini vacation. You know, they pay me to get out of town and, you know, it's just fun for me, you know, share the love, I guess. But I love talking shop with operators, so that's. That's really what drives me forward.

[B]

Tell me about the car show. Why start that one?

[C]

Well, again, that's. That all goes back to my father and my uncle. So they both came back from the war. My uncle was in World War II, and he came back first. My dad was obviously in the Korean War after that. So my older uncle took over my grandfather's trucking company in Massachusetts. And then when my father came out of the service, then he joined, and the two of them were best friends for 30 years until my uncle passed on. But they restored classic British sports cars, their MGs from Great Britain, and they. They manufactured this car from, like, 1955 to 1962. And when I was 15 years old, I got my first MG and I kind of worked. I worked off the car. It was. It was a total restoration. So one I learned about mechanics and putting this car back together, ground up with their help. They did about 15 of these things over the years. And then obviously I would work plowing snow and loading trucks and doing all the manual labor all summer, which was. They taught me a work ethic, but that's kind of where it started. And my dad, when I was born in 1962, was the President of the Western Massachusetts Model A Ford Restorers Club. And a Model A Ford is like a 1930s Henry Ford car. And that didn't really jazz me, but my whole childhood growing up is parades and car shows and, you know, going with my parents in this car, that never really meant much to me. It meant a lot to my dad. I came home from college, you know, and this. This Model A used to sit on this red carpet in the garage. You know, it was like a shrine to the Model A, and there were big shelves all around, and it was covered with trophies from all the, you know, the shows that this car won. And my dad is really into it. I come back from garage and I college, and I go down to the garage and I walk in the door and I'm stopped dead in my tracks because the Model A and all the trophies are gone. And in its place is a 1966 Corvette Stingray convertible. I'm like, that's the coolest thing you ever did do. Thanks. I inherited that car. And, God, we've had it for 40 years. It's been in the family 40 years. And if it gets 500 miles a year, you know, that's a lot. But that's kind of where it came from. My dad. So again, my wife says, hey, why don't you start a podcast around your car, guy? Passion. So I've got only 10 episodes of that, but, you know, that's a passion project, and once that gets off the ground, we'll look for some sponsorship. But I keep doing that, too.

[B]

Yeah, that's cool, man. That's cool. I love. I love. That's. That's why I love this medium, though, is that the only thing that unites us is the way that we get our message out. You know what I mean? Everything else is just about the thing that you really enjoy doing, which I've found to be really cool with all the podcasters that I've met. So, Roger, I appreciate you coming on the show, man. Where can people go to get more from you and from what you're doing with your restaurant coaching and things like that?

[C]

Yeah. So two things. I've got a personal email. They can reach out to me. It's R O G e [e-mail] that is the website restaurantrockstars.com but I also specialize in uncovering lost and hidden profits in other businesses. So I don't just specialize in restaurants. It could be literally any industry. And I've got this sort of forensic analysis, and I can literally find six figures plus in different businesses where they're just leaving money on the table or they're like missing things that they just don't see. So that's my name, Roger bowdoin.com so R O G E R B E A U d o I n.com and that's the website for that. But you can reach me either way.

[B]

Rogerbodwin.com and then check out the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. Obviously, if you like listening to podcasts, which theoretically you do or you wouldn't be listening to this one, then go check out Roger's podcast as well for all things restaurants and turnarounds and things like that. All right, Roger, I appreciate you taking the time, man. Thank you. I know you're a really busy guy. I don't take that time for granted. Everybody else tuning in, remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's a little bit easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got some money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys next time.

[E]

Peace.