Restaurant

Tayyab Rizvi, founder of ScaleMates, shares how leaving Google and YouTube led him to build a marketplace matching franchise owners with invested operating partners.

Daniel Karen Cohen opened McDonald’s in Venezuela at 21, grew 50 Wendy’s in 48 months, and now runs a pizza franchise where the dough rests 72 hours. His biggest lesson was learning to slow down.

Brian Shunia built Wing Snob from a single 880-square-foot location to 70+ franchises nationwide — powered by simplicity, culture, and obsessive operations discipline.

Elle Piper built the operational infrastructure behind 7 Leaves Cafe’s growth to 43 locations. Her story runs through a buffet brand that closed overnight and a son who taught her to lead differently.

Debra Johnson, COO of M Street Entertainment Group, on hiring 1,200 people in a week at Zappos, a brutal year of loss, and rebuilding herself into The Integrated Edge.

Josh Goodman turned a crowded Baltimore bar into a 12,000-tap global operation — surviving two failed partnerships and a near-shutdown before Coca-Cola invested in PourMyBev.

Drew Nieporent, founder of Myriad Restaurant Group, on building Nobu with Robert De Niro, four decades of restaurants, and facing a health crisis head on.

Josh Zolin of Windy City Equipment shares how sixteen years as a stuntman, a studio apartment breaking point, and his father's repair business became a three-time Inc. 5000 company.

Andres Garcia built Venezuela’s first Wendy’s into 240 US locations, sold in 2024, and now builds Mr. O1 Extraordinary Pizza — deliberately, one culture-first location at a time.

Dylan McDonnell of Foodini shares how celiac disease, a corporate law career, and California's SB68 converged into a company solving the restaurant industry's allergen data problem.

Kevin Gudejko of Main Street Ventures Restaurant Group shares four decades of restaurant industry lessons, a buyout thirteen months before COVID, and $2M in annual community giving.

Luis Ginestra, CEO of the Rabbit Group, shares how he cut 15 Miami hospitality concepts to 7, doubled sales, and built a partnership model around proven global brands in one of the country's most competitive markets.