Every restaurant owner eventually asks the same question: do I hire this out, or do I bring it in-house? Marketing, training, finance, whatever the function, the instinct is usually the same. Find an agency or a consultant, hand them the keys, and wait for the magic. On this episode of the Ride or Die Restaurant Show, Greg Provance and Spiro Douvris make the case that the hand-off itself is the problem, and that the real question isn't agency versus in-house. It's whether you've defined what success actually looks like before you ever sign a contract.

Spiro draws the first hard line: an agency does the work for you, a consultant hands you the blueprint and you execute it. Confusing the two is where most outsourcing relationships go wrong before they even start. Greg goes further with the real root cause behind almost every failed agency relationship he's seen: a misalignment of expectations. Owners expect people to walk through the door holding the ad, while the agency is optimizing engagement metrics nobody agreed to define together. Nobody ever agreed on what success meant, so there's nothing to hold anyone accountable to. The same failure mode shows up with fractional CFOs and CMOs, a model built for owners who need senior-level expertise without a $150,000-$250,000 full-time salary, but it only works if both sides agree upfront on outcomes and timelines.

Greg shares a client story that captures the whole problem: a business owner on her third marketing agency, frustrated all over again, until Greg asked one question. "Who's creating your content? Who's telling your story?" Her answer: "That's what I hired them for." That's the moment the real issue surfaces. An outside agency can promote a story. They can't tell it, because they don't live inside the brand the way the owner does.

In this episode:

• Why "agency vs. consultant" isn't just semantics, and how confusing the two sets an outsourcing relationship up to fail
• The real root cause behind almost every failed marketing agency relationship: unnamed misalignment of expectations
• What a fractional CFO or CMO actually is, and when that model beats a full-time hire or a project consultant
• Why views and likes don't translate to transactions, and the leading indicators that actually matter
• How to vet any outside service with the right questions before signing anything
• Why treating an outsourced relationship as a partnership, not a hand-off, predicts whether it succeeds

Is the smartest move to build every function in-house, or bring in outside expertise? Greg and Spiro land on neither, arguing the real answer is agreeing on what success looks like before you pick a side. Agree? Disagree? Greg and Spiro want to hear it in the comments.

🎧 Catch every episode of Ride or Die at https://gphospitalitypartners.com/podcast, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music so you never miss one.

📈 Trying to figure out whether to bring in outside help or build it on your own team? That's exactly what we work through inside the Leadership Circle: https://gphospitalitypartners.com/leadership-circle

📖 Grab Greg's books: https://gphospitalitypartners.com/books

#RestaurantIndustry #RideOrDiePodcast #RestaurantMarketing #FractionalCFO #RestaurantLeadership #SmallBusiness #Hospitality

Most restaurants think onboarding ends the moment the paperwork is signed and the apron is handed over. Greg Provance and Spiro Douvris argue that’s exactly where it should start. On this episode of the Ride or Die Restaurant Show, Greg makes the case for retiring the word "orientation" altogether in favor of "integration," and lays out the exact three-phase framework he uses to turn a brand-new hire into a true believer in 90 days or less.

Greg draws a hard line between training and onboarding: training is about skills, onboarding is about culture, and most restaurants only ever do the first one on purpose. His framework breaks the first 90 days into three phases: turning a stranger into a teammate (days 1-30, learning names, superpowers, and how the team operates), turning a teammate into a contributor (days 30-60, mastering their station and demonstrating core values in a way that’s felt), and turning a contributor into a believer (days 60-90, someone who’s bought into the mission, not just punching a clock). Greg’s rule of thumb: by day 90, you should know whether someone is going to be the right fit, full stop.

Greg shares the "superpower lunch" from his own client work: within the first week, a GM or owner sits down one-on-one with a new hire to find out their unique strength, then shares it with the whole team. Spiro matches it with his own story of a quiet cashier who found his voice once he felt safe enough to be himself on the line, and years later drew a crowd of former coworkers on his last shift before joining the Coast Guard. The lesson: culture isn’t built by the employee handbook. It’s built by who gets picked to train the new hire, and whether anyone bothers to find out what that person is great at.

In this episode:

• Why "orientation" is the wrong word, and what changes when you call it "integration" instead
• The three-phase 90-day framework: stranger to teammate, teammate to contributor, contributor to believer
• Why picking the best employee as your trainer is often the wrong call, and what to look for instead
• How the "superpower lunch" gets new hires to feel seen and heard in their first week
• Why tying the "why" behind every task and every menu item to your culture changes how guests experience the food
• How to shift an existing team’s culture without just replacing everyone at once
• Why core values have to be genuinely non-negotiable, not just a poster on the break room wall

Is onboarding a paperwork event or a 90-day culture-building process? Greg and Spiro land firmly on the latter. Agree? Disagree? Greg and Spiro want to hear it in the comments.

🎧 Catch every episode of Ride or Die at https://gphospitalitypartners.com/podcast, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music so you never miss one.

📈 Struggling to turn new hires into long-term believers instead of quick exits? Learn about Greg’s Leadership Circle: https://gphospitalitypartners.com/leadership-circle

📖 Grab Greg’s books: https://gphospitalitypartners.com/books

#RestaurantIndustry #RideOrDiePodcast #Onboarding

#RestaurantCulture #TeamBuilding #RestaurantLeadership #Hospitality

Eighty percent of first-time franchisees are buying their very first business, and 91% come in with zero restaurant management experience. So why do franchisors keep signing five-unit development deals with people who've never run a single shift? On this episode of the Ride or Die Restaurant Show, Greg Provance and Spiro Douvris make the case that the franchise model isn't broken because of who's buying in, it's broken because of what franchisors are measuring.

Spiro lays out the data: 70% of first-time franchisees have no prior industry experience at all, 21% come from hourly staff roles like server or line cook, and only 9% have actual restaurant management experience under their belt, decades of consistent data pointing the same direction. Meanwhile, the industry's success metric has drifted from "is this location profitable and well-run" to "how many units are under development." Greg connects it to real brand history: Quiznos chased explosive unit growth and collapsed, while Jersey Mike's, per a friend deeply involved in that system, built its growth on rigorous franchisee vetting rather than taking anyone's check. The stats say the typical franchisee hasn't changed much in decades. What's changed is what franchisors decided to reward.

Greg shares the story of a friend, deeply embedded in the Jersey Mike's system for decades, who was blunt about the lesson: "Don't just take anybody's money." It's tempting to sign the big check for a five-location territory deal, but the operator writing that check still has to run the stores, and an under-supported first-time owner with a five-unit deal is a five-unit problem waiting to happen. The difference isn't the size of the check. It's whether the franchisor invests as much in developing the franchisee as they did in closing the deal.

In this episode:
- Why 80% of first-time franchisees are buying their first business ever, and what that means for franchisor support
- The real stats behind franchisee experience levels, and why "first time in business" is a bigger risk factor than "first time in restaurants"
- What Quiznos' collapse and Jersey Mike's growth reveal about unit-growth-first vs. franchisee-first models
- Why multi-unit development deals put inexperienced operators on timelines seasoned operators would struggle to hit
- How franchisors and franchisees both fall into "victim mentality" instead of fixing the real communication gap
- What a healthy franchisor-franchisee relationship actually requires: alignment on what success looks like, not just a signed agreement
- Why investing in franchisee development (not just the initial training window) is the real growth lever

Is the franchise model itself broken, or is it the incentive structure built on top of it? Greg and Spiro land on the latter, but the debate is worth having for yourself. Agree? Disagree? Greg and Spiro want to hear it in the comments.

🎧 Catch every episode of Ride or Die at https://gphospitalitypartners.com/podcast

or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music so you never miss one.

📈 Struggling to build a team (or a franchisee network) that actually executes your standards without you standing over their shoulder? Learn about Greg's Leadership Circle: https://gphospitalitypartners.com/leadership-circle

📖 Grab Greg's books: https://gphospitalitypartners.com/books

#RestaurantIndustry #RideOrDiePodcast #FranchiseModel #FranchiseDevelopment #RestaurantLeadership #SmallBusiness #Hospitality

Eric Cacciatore, host of Restaurant Unstoppable and one of the most respected voices in restaurant hospitality, joins Greg and Spiro to make an uncomfortable case: the industry didn't lose hospitality by accident. It traded it for profit margins on purpose, and most operators haven't noticed the swap.

Eric breaks down Joe Pine's shift from the Experience Economy to what he calls the Transformation Economy, where the goal is making a guest happier, healthier, or wealthier for having walked in. He traces the industry's obsession with shareholder returns to Milton Friedman, and contrasts it with Adam Grant's case that a business exists to add value to its community, not extract from it. Zingerman's gets held up as the model done right: instead of scaling one deli into a chain, they built a community of independently owned businesses sharing their values and profit. Independent restaurants make up roughly 70% of the industry by location, yet chains pull in a disproportionate share of revenue, the same 80/20 imbalance that shows up everywhere once you measure it.

Greg shares the "superpower lunch" from Loyal AF: a new hire sits down with their GM or owner and talks about their actual strength, which then gets shared with the whole team. It costs nothing and builds a bond a shift schedule never will. The difference isn't the concept on the menu. It's whether anyone in the building feels seen.

In this episode:

• Why hospitality is a survival instinct, not a soft skill
• How the original American "public house" built entire towns, and what restaurants lost when they stopped building community
• The real difference between the Experience Economy and the Transformation Economy
• Why independent restaurants keep handing profit to the platforms and vendors they claim to compete against
• What a "superpower lunch" does for a new hire that a job description never will
• Why equity, not just a paycheck, is the only way to actually keep your best people

Nobody here is arguing profit doesn't matter. The debate is what profit is for, and whether your restaurant is building a community or extracting from one. Agree? Disagree? Greg and Spiro want to hear it in the comments.

🎙️ Check out Eric's own show, Restaurant Unstoppable, at restaurantunstoppable.com — one of the best resources in the industry for real stories from real restaurants.

🎧 Catch every episode of Ride or Die at gphospitalitypartners.com/podcast, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music so you never miss one.

📈 Still handing out jobs instead of building owners? That's the gap the Leadership Circle exists to close. Learn more: gphospitalitypartners.com/leadership-circle

📖 Grab Greg's books: gphospitalitypartners.com/books

#RestaurantIndustry #RideOrDiePodcast #RestaurantUnstoppable #HospitalityIndustry #IndependentRestaurants #CommunityBuilding #RestaurantLeadership

Eighteen percent used to be a generous tip. Now it's often the low end of the suggested range, right before the screen turns around and the whole line watches you decide. In this episode, Greg and Spiro tackle one of the most divisive topics in the industry: tipping culture, and whether it's helping restaurants or quietly driving customers away.

The numbers back up what everyone already feels. 72% of Americans say tipping is expected in more places now than it was five years ago, according to a 2025 Bankrate study, even as the share who always tip at sit-down restaurants fell from 77% in 2019 to 65% in 2024. Ninety percent of consumers say tipping culture has gotten out of hand. Two thirds feel real anxiety when an employee watches them pick a number and turn the screen around, what researchers are calling "digital guilt," while default suggested tips on kiosks now often start at 18 to 25%, "tipflation." And the group actually profiting most as tip totals climb isn't the restaurant or the employee. It's the credit card processing companies. Greg and Spiro get into all of it, plus the distinction most restaurants get backwards: you're not tipping for service, you're tipping for hospitality.

Greg shares a simple rule from his own restaurants: say a guest's name three times during their visit, and by the third time, you're not just serving them anymore, you're friends. That's the line between a transaction and a relationship, and it's the same thing that separates a real tip from a fee tacked onto the register. The difference isn't the percentage on the screen. It's whether the hospitality was ever there to earn it.

In this episode:

• Why 72% of Americans say tipping is expected in more places than five years ago, even as tipping rates at sit-down restaurants keep falling
• "Digital guilt" and "tipflation": what's really happening when that screen turns around and the suggested tip starts at 18 to 25%
• Why credit card processing companies, not restaurants or employees, come out ahead as tip totals rise
• The real distinction: you're tipping for hospitality, not service, and why so many restaurants get that backwards
• A simple, free rule for turning a transaction into a relationship
• What to actually consider if you're deciding whether to keep the tip prompt on your kiosk
• The takeaway: when does a tip become just a fee, and what makes it a tip again

Whether you think tipping culture has gone too far or it's just part of doing business, this episode makes the case that the real question isn't the percentage on the screen. It's whether your team earned it.

Agree? Disagree? Greg and Spiro want to hear it in the comments.

🎧 Catch every episode of Ride or Die at gphospitalitypartners.com/podcast, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music so you never miss one.
📈 Ready to build a team that brings the kind of hospitality that actually earns a tip? Learn about Greg's Leadership Circle: gphospitalitypartners.com/leadership-circle
📖 Grab Greg's books: gphospitalitypartners.com/books

#RestaurantIndustry #RideOrDiePodcast #TippingCulture #HospitalityIndustry #RestaurantMarketing #CustomerExperience #RestaurantTips

"I miss when ordering a burger didn't require an onboarding process." That's the line that kicked off this episode, and once you hear it, you can't unsee it: download the app, verify your email, allow tracking, scroll for the promo code, then order your food. Greg and Spiro dig into where all this tech actually came from, and whether it's helping restaurants or quietly wearing everyone out.

Neither of them is anti-tech. Spiro's whole business is built on the tech and service side of hospitality. But they call out something most operators feel and few say out loud: a lot of restaurant software gets sold on hype, not results, "all sales, no service," and then the operator is left training staff on a tool that solves a problem it also half creates. They get into why so much of this becomes a task instead of a tool, and the two questions worth asking before you buy anything: would a guest actually use this, and would they be excited to.

Greg shares a real example: a full-service restaurant that rolled out QR code ordering during COVID, and watched servers quietly stop serving because they figured the app was doing their job for them. The fix wasn't more tech or less tech. It was doubling down on hospitality around it, servers walking guests through the app while still bringing full service, and those same servers ended up handling more tables than the ones working without it. The problem was never the technology. It's when tech replaces the humans instead of freeing them up.

In this episode:

• Why "it's not a tool anymore, it's a task" is the phrase restaurant owners keep repeating, and what's actually behind it
• The real cost of stacking new software on top of software, and what happens when only one person on staff knows how to run it
• How to spot a vendor selling "all sales, no service" before you're locked into a contract
• The QR code story: what happens when a restaurant assumes the app is doing the server's job
• Two questions to ask about anything in your tech stack: would a guest use it, and would they be excited to
• Why the operators pulling ahead build their tech around their culture instead of reshaping their culture around the tech
• The takeaway: use tech to enhance hospitality, never to replace it

Whether you think restaurants need more tech or less, this episode makes the case that the real question isn't how much technology you're running. It's whether it's helping your team connect with guests, or getting in the way of it.

Agree? Disagree? Greg and Spiro want to hear it in the comments.

🎧 Catch every episode of Ride or Die at gphospitalitypartners.com/podcast, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music so you never miss one.
📈 Ready to build a team that can run your tech stack without losing the hospitality that makes guests come back? Learn about Greg's Leadership Circle: gphospitalitypartners.com/leadership-circle
📖 Grab Greg's books: gphospitalitypartners.com/books

#RestaurantIndustry #RideOrDiePodcast #RestaurantTech #HospitalityIndustry #RestaurantMarketing #TechFatigue #CustomerExperience

Good help isn't hard to find. Your hiring system is broken. In this episode, Greg and Spiro dig into the first and most overlooked piece of building a real culture: who you let through the door in the first place.

They break down why most restaurants hire reactively, waiting until a shift is uncovered, then grabbing whatever body is available, and how that one habit quietly destroys culture before it ever has a chance to take hold. Greg shares the story of a 16-year-old with zero restaurant experience who ended up becoming one of the best hires of his career (and brought his sister and best friend along with him), plus the flip side: the toxic, high-performing team member who taught the whole staff that results matter more than how you treat people.

They get tactical: how to write job ads that filter for culture instead of resumes, why "always be hiring" should be the default mindset, how to build interview questions that actually reveal fit, and why working interviews (yes, even for hosts and bussers) can save you from a costly bad hire. The takeaway: skill can be taught, culture can't be installed after the fact, and there are no exceptions for rock star performers who don't fit.

In this episode:

• Why hiring for resume over culture keeps restaurants stuck in the same cycle
• The "always be hiring" mindset and why waiting until you're desperate backfires
• How to write job postings that attract the right people and repel the wrong ones
• Building interview questions around core values, not just experience
• Why working interviews are one of the most underused tools in hiring
• The real cost of keeping a toxic high performer on the team
• Why culture standards have to be non-negotiable at every level, top to bottom

If you've ever hired someone who looked great on paper and turned out to be a disaster, or passed on a raw, inexperienced hire who ended up being a star, this episode is about building a system that gets that call right more often.

What's your culture non-negotiable? Greg and Spiro want to hear it.

🎧 Catch every episode of Ride or Die at gphospitalitypartners.com/podcast, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music so you never miss one.

📈 Ready to build a ride-or-die team from the ground up? Learn about Greg's Leadership Circle: gphospitalitypartners.com/leadership-circle

📖 Grab Greg's book, Loyal AF: How to Build a Ride or Die Team That Grows Sales, Wows Guests, and Never Leaves: gphospitalitypartners.com/books

#RestaurantIndustry #RideOrDiePodcast #RestaurantCulture #RestaurantHiring #RestaurantLeadership #HospitalityIndustry #TeamBuilding

Uber Eats. DoorDash. Grubhub. Ask most restaurant owners about third-party delivery and you'll hear the same word: plague. In this episode, Greg puts Spiro (who runs a company that manages third-party delivery for restaurant brands) in the hot seat to challenge that narrative head-on.

Spiro doesn't let the platforms off the hook, restaurants aren't the customer, onboarding is poor, and support is genuinely broken. But he makes the case that most operators are stuck in a victim mindset that's costing them real opportunity. They break down exactly how that infamous 30% fee breaks down (platform fee, processing, and delivery cost), why running your own delivery service is often more expensive than people assume, and why third-party platforms might be the highest-ROI marketing channel most restaurants are ignoring, because you're advertising to a customer who's already hungry and ready to order.

Greg shares a real example: a client running three restaurants with 67% of sales coming through DoorDash, still posting a 24.5% net profit margin. The difference isn't the platform. It's the strategy.

In this episode:

• Why the average third-party user orders 5-7 times a week, and why that's your customer whether you like it or not
• The real fee breakdown: platform fee, processing, and delivery cost explained
• Why visibility (and landing in that top 11 search results) depends on your execution, not luck
• How to set up your third-party menu correctly: photos, descriptions, item order, and smart upsells
• Why promos work better on third-party than on Meta or Google ads
• Using third-party data to spot operational issues that are also hurting your in-house business
• The industry's explosive growth: from $85 billion in 2023 to a projected $200+ billion by 2030

Whether you see third-party delivery as a necessary evil or an untapped growth channel, this episode makes the case that your results depend far more on your strategy than on the platform itself.

Agree? Disagree? Greg and Spiro want to hear it in the comments.

🎧 Catch every episode of Ride or Die at gphospitalitypartners.com/podcast, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music so you never miss one.

📈 Ready to turn third-party delivery into a growth engine instead of a drain? Learn about Greg's Leadership Circle: gphospitalitypartners.com/leadership-circle

📖 Grab Greg's books: gphospitalitypartners.com/books

#RestaurantIndustry #RideOrDiePodcast #ThirdPartyDelivery #UberEats #DoorDash #RestaurantMarketing #HospitalityIndustry