Restaurant Reset

About Restaurant Reset

The restaurant industry is stretched thin. Margins are tight, labor is scarce, and guests want more for less. I’m Andy Grindstaff, and after years in both operations and restaurant tech, I’ve seen what works. Restaurant Reset is for leaders who know the old playbook is broken. We’ll share real stories, practical systems, and proven ways to run a tighter, smarter, more profitable operation. The industry isn’t dying. It’s evolving. Let’s reset.

Publisher

Genius For Restaurants

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Dec 2025

Latest episode

27 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

38 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   27 Oct 2026

   Drive-thrus Have Been Measuring Speed of Service Wrong for Decades

   For decades, the drive-thru clock was a wire loop buried in the pavement, timing two points: the menu board and the window. Eric Lam's cameras now watch something like 55 million cars a year, and they measure what that loop never could: the full wait, from the moment a car pulls into the lot to food in hand. Eric grew up taking apart POS terminals at his dad's company, and his team is now rolling camera vision out across Culver's. He tells Andy why two stores with the same volume can have a 30% gap in wait times, why the first version of the product overstepped with the crew, and how to put cameras in a drive-thru without them feeling like Big Brother. They also get into the failed bets that led him to the drive-thru, what cameras could handle in ten years, and the TEDx talk he'd give: How Harvard Made Me Less Ambitious. In this episode: • The first two things that surprise an operator when camera vision goes live • Why stores with the same volume can have very different wait times • Giving GMs the data without telling them how to run their kitchen • "Our drive-thru is different," and why the customer doesn't care • Labor positioning, the bottleneck operators swear isn't theirs • Throughput and total experience time, the two numbers to watch • Why the cameras discard the video, and how that builds trust with crews • What breaks when you scale computer vision from a pilot to 1,000+ stores • The bakery and postal projects that taught him to pick the right use case • Prioritizing happiness, and advice for the burned-out GM Subscribe to Restaurant Reset on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. New episodes every week for operators who want to run a better business. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:21 The drive-thru clock buried in the pavement 02:12 Building trust in the cameras 03:39 Same volume, different waits 07:32 Why they stopped telling GMs how many burgers to cook 09:01 "Our drive-thru is different" 11:40 The most common bottleneck 13:23 The two numbers to watch 16:15 Avoiding Big Brother 20:40 Scaling to 1,000+ restaurants 26:56 Picking the right use case for computer vision 30:55 What's next inside the restaurant 38:30 How Harvard made him less ambitious 41:12 Advice for the burned-out GM 43:35 Cameras in 2036 Restaurant Reset is brought to you by Genius™ (Link globalpayments.com/genius (http://globalpayments.com/genius)) from Global Payments, the restaurant point of sale system that can power orders, payments and services in any type of food and beverage setting.

2. 

   22 Oct 2026

   Roy Choi Live at Genius World | Fireside Chat with Leah Rasori

   In 2008 Roy Choi was out of work, months into a job search, with a family to support. One night he told his wife he was going out at midnight to sell tacos off a used truck. She could have told him to go to sleep and keep looking in the morning. She didn't, and Kogi Barbecue went on to change how America eats on the street. At the first Genius World conference, Leah Rasori, Chief Marketing Officer at Global Payments, sat down with Roy for a live fireside chat. Roy is a James Beard Award winning chef, best-selling author, and the co-founder of Kogi, and this past year he became the first celebrity partner for Genius. What follows is about as far from a keynote as a room full of restaurant operators is likely to get. Roy admits on stage, for the first time publicly, that he doesn't think the math of his business works. He explains why most of his company's energy goes into things that never show up on a P&L, why he waited eight years to open a second Best Friend, and what he thinks a company the size of Global Payments owes the small operators who have no safety net underneath them. In this episode: - The midnight decision that started Kogi, and the one person who could have stopped it - Why Kogi's real problem in 2009 wasn't cash flow, it was building the blueprint mid-flight - Selling kimchi out of his mom's car trunk at five years old, and the 24-hour clock he never turned off - Putting 50 to 70 percent of the company's energy into things no spreadsheet can measure - The admission he had never made publicly: on paper, his business doesn't work - Why he took eight years to open restaurant number two, and how he thinks about 1 to 2 versus 2 to 5 - What small operators actually need from their technology partners, and why time is the thing nobody gives them - Why the word "genius" has been loaded for him since he was a kid Subscribe to Restaurant Reset for conversations with the operators and executives actually running the restaurant business. Listen on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:05 Andy sets up the Genius World fireside chat 02:23 Roy takes the stage 02:50 Rapid fire: tacos, tea, and rice 05:03 2008: laid off, and the midnight taco run 06:38 What actually threatened Kogi as it grew 07:37 Fixing the plane engine while it's still flying 10:35 His mom, the kimchi, and the trunk of the car 14:26 KPIs, market research, and moving without data 15:26 Investing in the intangibles 17:19 "I don't think the math of our business works" 19:02 Best Friend in Vegas, and 1-888-ROY-CHOI 21:01 Why moving slow is okay 23:51 What operators need from a company like Genius 28:36 What the word genius means to him Restaurant Reset is brought to you by Genius™ (Link globalpayments.com/genius (http://globalpayments.com/genius)) from Global Payments, the restaurant point of sale system that can power orders, payments and services in any type of food and beverage setting.

3. 

   6 Oct 2026

   He Built Online Ordering Before the iPhone | Noah Glass CEO @ OLO

   In June 2005, before the iPhone existed, Noah Glass started a company that let people order food by text message. Some of the very first orders came from his mom and his grandmother. Twenty-one years later, Olo powers digital ordering for roughly 850 brands across 90,000 locations, and more than 100 million guests order through it every year. Olo went public, then was taken private by Thoma Bravo last September. Noah and his family reinvested 75% of their proceeds back into the company, because he believes Olo is in a new founding moment. That moment is the Olo app: one place to order from the restaurants you love, at real menu prices, with zero commission charged to the restaurant. Noah walks Andy through why the Olo app works now when it couldn't in 2008, why menus on marketplace apps run 15 to 30% higher than the restaurant's own, the three metrics that matter for any digital business, and why he believes technology is how hospitality scales past the 150 people any one person can remember. In this episode: • Why the Olo app launches with 40 million guest accounts and no cold start problem • The hidden 15 to 30% markup on marketplace menus, and the guest fee designed to push people to order direct • Partnering and competing with the same companies, and restaurant tech's "Red Wedding" • What selling the company taught him about founder control and boards • The three metrics that matter: number of guests, frequency, and average ticket • Vanity metrics, the discounting spiral, and beautiful digital experiences that don't convert • Dunbar's number and what hospitality at scale actually looks like Subscribe to Restaurant Reset on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. New episodes every week for operators who want to run a better business. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:21 Ordering food by text in 2005 02:46 Launching the Olo app and Olo Network 06:23 Solving the cold start problem 08:01 Who owns the guest data 12:06 Zero commission and real menu prices 13:59 Why Olo charges guests a network fee 18:02 Partnering with your competitors 25:07 Selling Olo and reinvesting 75% 30:17 What the Portillo's board taught him 35:55 The three metrics that matter 41:22 Vanity metrics 44:30 Beautiful experiences that don't convert 45:33 The discounting spiral 52:16 Dunbar's law and hospitality at scale Restaurant Reset is brought to you by Genius™ (Link globalpayments.com/genius) from Global Payments, the restaurant point of sale system that can power orders, payments and services in any type of food and beverage setting.

Who has been a guest on Restaurant Reset

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Andy Grindstaff
• Mike DeJong
• Troy Hooper
• Joseph Palladino
• Zack Oates

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Contact Restaurant Reset

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.