Before you get into anything, know how you're gonna get out.

In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob and John break down how to pick a franchise brand the right way, starting with Dairy Queen's viral AI drive-thru video (12.9M views) and why Bob won't roll customer-facing AI out across F&P's restaurants. From there, they walk through how to predict where a brand is headed in 5 to 10 years: who's behind the leadership team, who the other franchisees are, why you should look at 50 brands before picking one, and why you should eat at the restaurant several times before you ever look at a P&L.

Plus: the Crumbl cautionary tale about rapid growth, why the "top quartile" numbers in an FDD can mislead you, franchise vs. independent (and why we should stop bashing each other), what P. Terry's can teach us about building loyalty, how franchisors actually make their money, supply chain risk, cannibalization, and why you should always leave room to scale.

#PillarMindset #Franchising #FranchiseBusiness #RestaurantIndustry #DairyQueen #AIinRestaurants #Crumbl #PTerrys #RestaurantFranchise #QSR #HospitalityLeadership #FoodAndPeople #BobLozano #JohnZertuche #FMPGroup #BuildingABusiness

CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 0:32 - Welcome Back to Pillar Mindset 1:08 - The Viral DQ AI Drive-Thru Video (12.9M Views) 2:27 - Is 90% Accuracy Good Enough? 3:04 - Why We Won't Put AI in the Drive-Thru 5:19 - AI's Real Power Is on the Back End 5:42 - Staffing & Culture: Chick-fil-A vs. Wendy's 6:19 - Picking a Brand: Where Will Corporate Be in 5 Years? 7:06 - Who's Behind the Brand? Public, Private & PE-Backed 8:54 - Look at 50 Brands Before You Pick One 9:33 - Leadership Turnover & Brand History 10:16 - Know Your Fellow Franchisees 11:25 - Can You Feel a Brand's Culture Before the P&L? 11:50 - Go Eat There: When to Visit and What to Watch For 13:23 - Only 14 of 100 Brands Grew This Year 14:00 - Why Growth Isn't the #1 KPI 14:42 - The Crumbl Cautionary Tale 16:49 - Crumbl's Numbers: Volume Drops & Franchise Churn 17:26 - The FDD "Top Quartile" Trap 19:07 - Spotting Hype Cycles: Buying Low, Selling at Peak Hype 20:10 - Building for Decades, Not a 5-Year Run 20:28 - Know Your Volatile Product (The Chicken Wing Test) 21:38 - Franchise vs. Independent: Which Route? 22:06 - "What Will Make You Happy?" 23:20 - Stop Bashing Each Other: Franchises & Independents 24:38 - "Profit Maxing" and Why Profit Isn't Everything 26:11 - Shoutout: First Bites & Learning From Local Restaurants 26:36 - Why Franchise at All? Systems vs. Creative Freedom 28:11 - Know How You'll Get Out 29:11 - "There Will Always Be More Money, Never More Time" 30:10 - UT Longhorns Comeback & Loyalty Lessons 31:43 - P. Terry's: Built for Stability, Not Speed 33:10 - Burger Prices: P. Terry's vs. Five Guys vs. In-N-Out 34:00 - P. Terry's Story: Family-Owned, 38 Units & Employee Ownership 36:59 - Why Private Equity Would Love P. Terry's 39:16 - How Does the Franchisor Make Money? 42:10 - Franchise Landscape & Supply Chain Risk 44:18 - Room to Scale: Mom's Corner Lot Lesson 45:34 - Cannibalization & Closures Are Real 46:39 - Final Advice: People, Product & Taking Your Time 47:20 - Outro

Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we share real strategies, real data, and honest conversations that help restaurant operators and business owners build better companies.

About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group: 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry.

About John: VP of AI at F&P Group. Background in game design and software. Now leads AI implementation across the company.

Texas has seen over a thousand restaurant closures in just the first half of the year. What's really driving that?

In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob Lozano and John Zertuche trace it all back to COVID-era overdevelopment, cheap capital, and stimulus-fueled spending, and why the bill is coming due now through margin compression, harder lending, and a staffing crisis pulling workers toward Amazon, H-E-B, and Uber. Plus: why staffing jumped back to the #1 challenge for operators, the career-path problem restaurants need to solve, and how F&P is experimenting with paying employees to create content.

Then, the other side of the story: why chains like Texas Roadhouse and Chili's are actually growing sales and margins right now. Bob breaks down the value equation, brand identity, conservative pricing, and consistency that's keeping them ahead, including a hilarious international review of Texas Roadhouse steak prices that says it all.

#PillarMindset #RestaurantIndustry #TexasRestaurants #RestaurantClosures #StaffingCrisis #TexasRoadhouse #Chilis #Hospitality #Mentorship #RestaurantBusiness #FMPGroup #BobLozano #JohnZertuche #FoodAndPeople

CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 0:38 - Welcome Back & Mentorship Theme 1:42 - Texas Restaurant Closures: Over 1,000 in Half a Year 2:08 - Going Back to COVID: Excess Capital & Overdevelopment 4:19 - Consumer Stimulus Checks & Spending Behavior 6:11 - Margin Compression: Food, Gas & Property Costs 7:16 - Getting a Loan Is Harder Now 8:24 - What Banks Actually Look At (Long-Term Business Viability) 9:41 - Why Texas Specifically? Social Media & the Reward Economy 11:06 - More Entertainment Options, Less Restaurant Loyalty 13:16 - Why Texas: Business-Friendly Growth & Overdevelopment 14:52 - More Capital = More (Undertrained) Business Owners 15:04 - What Should a Struggling Restaurant Focus On? Hospitality & Humility 16:36 - Staffing Is the #1 Challenge Again (33% of Operators) 17:13 - The "K Economy": Amazon, H-E-B & Uber Pulling Labor Away 19:29 - The Stigma of Restaurant Jobs & Social Media Culture 21:04 - Rising Pay Expectations vs. What Restaurants Can Afford 21:53 - The Price-Hike Mistake: Losing Customers After COVID 24:41 - Career Paths: The Sommelier Success Story 25:52 - F&P's Content Program: Paying Staff to Create Content 28:36 - Why Texas Roadhouse & Chili's Are Growing 29:41 - Consistency & Value: The Real Winning Formula 30:39 - A Japanese Tourist's Texas Roadhouse Review 32:35 - The US Supply Chain Advantage 32:41 - The Fatburger/FAT Brands Bankruptcy Lesson 34:51 - Brand Identity: Chili's Cheese Pulls & Applebee's Nostalgia 36:01 - Conservative Pricing: How Chili's & Texas Roadhouse Held the Line 37:36 - Volume, Consistency & Winning Long-Term 38:31 - Outro

Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we share real strategies, real data, and honest conversations that help restaurant operators and business owners build better companies.

About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group, with 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry.

About John: VP of AI at F&P Group. Background in game design and software. Now leads AI implementation across the company.

Concessions is a whole different beast. It's not a restaurant, it's a very raw form of hospitality where you've got 30 to 40 seconds to make an impact on a customer you'll probably never see again.

In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob and John break down what it's really like running concessions at UTRGV football games, combining two national franchise brands (Dairy Queen and Schlotzsky's) under one stand, serving 13,000 fans in 4 hours, and why thin margins don't matter when the real goal is building core memories with the community.

Plus: the surprising Starbucks-in-Japan story about investing a decade into a community before it ever pays off, the problems that come with serving alcohol outside your core business, why queue lines are a love-hate relationship, building a positioning chart from scratch, and the moment that made all the hard work worth it: 2 Tootsie Rolls traded for a tray of Dilly Bars.

#PillarMindset #Concessions #DairyQueen #Schlotzskys #UTRGV #CommunityInvestment #RestaurantIndustry #Hospitality #FoodAndPeople #FMPGroup #BobLozano #JohnZertuche #RestaurantBusiness #TeamCulture

CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 0:22 - Welcome Back & Today's Topic: Concessions 0:56 - Football Season Kickoff & UTRGV Vibes 1:10 - What Surprised You Most About Running Concessions? 2:21 - Vaqueros Win 44-0 & Suite Hospitality Shoutout 3:41 - Concessions vs. Restaurants: A Different Beast 4:19 - 13,000 People in 4 Hours 4:30 - Running 2 Franchise Brands in One Concession Stand 5:41 - DQ Ice Cream + Schlotzsky's Food: How It Works 6:05 - Thin Margins & Why They Still Do It 7:00 - The Dilly Bar & Tootsie Roll Story 8:04 - F&P Brands Under One Roof 8:18 - Investing in Community Over Profit 9:10 - Building Core Memories with Fans 10:26 - Bob's Own DQ Core Memory 11:01 - The Long-Term ROI of Community Investment 12:05 - Effort as a Superpower 12:39 - What the Team Gets Back 13:02 - The Starbucks Japan Story 14:17 - Not Showing Up Empty-Handed & F&P's Long-Term Mission 15:26 - Problems They Ran Into: Serving Alcohol 17:34 - Draft Beer, Queue Lines & Operational Fixes 19:11 - Building a Positioning Chart from Scratch 20:08 - The Rush: Why They Keep Doing It 20:39 - Team Shoutouts & Leadership Recognition 21:20 - Team Camaraderie vs. Team Breakdown 22:07 - Final Thoughts: Ego, Community & Feedback 24:43 - What's Next: UTSA Game 25:20 - Outro

Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we share real strategies, real data, and honest conversations that help restaurant operators and business owners build better companies.

About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group: 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry.

About John Zertuche: VP of AI at F&P Group. Background in game design and software. Now leads AI implementation across the company.