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Unlocking Restaurant Profitability with Chip Klose

·42 min·2 clips

Every restaurant should ask guests if they have dined there before, then capture their name and email.

1. The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast episode focuses on restaurant profitability with Chip Close as the guest. 2. Chip Close is the host of the Restaurant Strategy Podcast and the founder of P3 Mastermind, and Jeremy Julian introduces him as an industry expert. 3. The episode asks how restaurants can make money consistently while still delivering hospitality, food, and growth. 4. Chip says he has been in restaurants for 25 years and started as a busser, dishwasher, host, server, captain, maitre d', and manager. 5. He says he spent 20 years in New York City, mostly in fine dining, opening restaurants and running restaurants. 6. Chip says he later moved into restaurant marketing, photography, and video because many restaurants either do not market or are not good at it. 7. He says he earned an MBA at age 42 during the pandemic at St. Joe's in Philadelphia, in the only MBA in food marketing he had seen. 8. Chip says the P3 Mastermind now has four groups and more than 150 enrolled people. 9. He says the program is built for independent owners and operators who want to make a living, provide stability, and build legacy. 10. Chip says the sweet spot is often 2 to 10 locations, especially operators who are growing but lack systems. 11. He says restaurants face three moving targets: revenue, cost of goods sold, and labor. 12. He contrasts that with Campbell's Soup, where sales are planned months ahead and production can be scheduled from known orders. 13. He says the uncertainty of covers, average spend, and staffing is what makes restaurant profitability hard. 14. Chip says revenue can grow only by selling more product, selling the product for more money, or selling a variety of products. 15. He gives examples such as breakfast, lunch, dinner, happy hour, late night, catering, private dining, merchandise, and cookbooks. 16. He says Gotham Bar and Grill used pantry products and bean-to-bar chocolates as additional revenue streams. 17. Chip says marketing should be organized around attraction, retention, and evangelism. 18. He says word of mouth is powerful, but restaurants should create the conditions for it instead of hoping it happens. 19. The tone is practical and operator-focused, with long back-and-forth explanations and concrete examples from service, fine dining, and coaching. 20. Listeners who manage independent or multi-unit restaurants will get the most value, while people looking for theory without operational detail may skip it.

As heard by us

A practical take on restaurant profitability through an operator's lens.

Restaurant profitability sits at the center of this episode. Chip ties PPA, new revenue streams, and the idea that profit is the only real measure of success in the restaurant business.

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Why you'd press play

If you need a sharper way to think about restaurant profit, press play.

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