The Pre-Shift Podcast

About The Pre-Shift Podcast

Great teams make great restaurants. On The Pre-Shift, restaurant operators and industry experts dive into what it takes to build great restaurant teams. We explore their stories, the strategies they use, and valuable lessons on running restaurant teams. Hosted by D. J. Costantino. Presented by 7shifts.

Publisher

7shifts

Category

arts · business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Oct 2020

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

144 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Oct 2026

   Put down the ramekins: How Joe Fontana built Fry the Coop to 10 locations | 077

   Two hours into portioning sauce into cups, Joe Fontana decided he was done doing the work and needed to start building the system. In this episode of The Pre-Shift Podcast, we sit down with Joe, founder and owner of Fry the Coop, a Nashville hot chicken concept with 10 Chicago locations and an 11th on the way, to talk about how he built a business that could grow past one restaurant. Joe shares how a meatball concept he couldn't fund led him to a simpler menu, why he trains with one page inst...

2. 

   2 Sept 2026

   The pitfalls of restaurant scaling with Andrew Scott of OwnerShift | 076

   Andrew Scott, founder of Owner Shift Training and former multi-unit restaurant owner, walks us through the expensive mistakes that nearly took him under at his fifth location—and the systems he rebuilt to stop being the operating system his restaurants depended on. You're driving across the city for the third time today because someone forgot to order lettuce. Your phone buzzes at 6 a.m. with a no-call-no-show text. You can't even make it out of the city limits for a family visit before you'...

3. 

   12 Aug 2026

   The compliance rules that multi-units get wrong with Felice Ekelman, JD | 075

   Getting workplace law advice after you get a complaint is like fixing a schedule after the shift's over. In this episode of The Pre-Shift Podcast, we sit down with Felice Ekelman, a principal at Jackson Lewis who leads the firm's restaurant industry group, to talk about the compliance mistakes that catch multi-unit operators off guard. Felice walks through why state and local rules don't travel with you from one location to the next, what "audit-proof" really looks like on paper and on the fl...

Who has been a guest on The Pre-Shift Podcast

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

• Garrett Mills
• Troy Hooper
• Shawn Walchef
• Katie Button
• Michel Falcon

Reach and audience

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

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.0 / 5

7 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

16 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 58 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

83

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

82

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