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Welcome to the Surrender News/Blog.  Get the latest news, trends, tips and information to help you succeed and thrive in the workplace. For older blogs click the Archives or a Category.

  • It’s Been So Long – Let’s Go to the Restaurant Show!
    What are the fastest and best ways to increase your restaurant’s performance these days? How do you grow your company in a flat market?  What’s your plan for continuing to grow your net worth and making your successful restaurant company even more successful? We can figure out the answers to these questions together when I speak at the Texas … Continued
  • On New Year’s Eve, How To Brag About Your Restaurant’s 2025 Success
    It’s June…already! People don’t have to wake up early to take the kids to school, they struggle to keep them doing anything other than looking at a screen, and your Q2 has just a few weeks to go.  2025 has thrown some challenges the industry’s way, with consumer confidence falling due to economic uncertainty. Still, … Continued
  • Swipe Right to Unlock Your Restaurant Business’s True Potential
    Finally finding “the one” – the person your company has missed for its entire life – makes an incredible difference. This missing piece allows you to overcome the barriers between reliable and exceptional success.   It’s like a business version of a romance novel, but very real. But who is “the one”? Well, that all … Continued
  • Restaurateurs – Afraid You Don’t Know Enough? Hey, Join the Club!
    Before, I never thought of myself as a group person. Sure, you could have even called me a loner. So I never expected that the groups I belong to would be some of the most significant contributors to my success. Now I know better.  Join the Club One of the clubs I started – Restaurant Owner’s … Continued
  • How Top Restaurant Operators Follow Through to Increase Results
    Some people turn out to be better at starting projects than finishing them. I see it all the time both as a student of personality types and advisor of restaurant companies. Initiatives begin and then get sidetracked when another shiny object – or simply the siren song of day-to-day restaurant operations – sucks the attention … Continued
  • How to See What is Holding Your Restaurant Back
    It can feel lonely at the top – especially because being there forces you to take a long, hard look at yourself every day. Every entrepreneurial independent restaurant company reflects its owner. Whatever the owner does well and values, the company does well and values. Whatever challenges an owner becomes problematic to the company.  The Human … Continued
  • Are You Ready For the Summer Break from Your Restaurant that You Have Earned?
    It’s easy to joke about millennial and Gen Z workers who “quietly vacation” by slacking off in July and August (sometimes even simulating keyboard activity to give the appearance of effort) without their managers knowing. And who can blame them? In summer, life feels more flexible and less structured, and you know there’s great weather … Continued
  • The View from the Outside Your Restaurant: Gaining Helpful New Perspectives
    Be honest with yourself: Are your restaurants continually getting better, or are they ever so slowly deteriorating? Do you have evidence for your answer? What are your guests saying? What do the numbers say? Recently, a longtime client has brought me back after a 7 year absence. This company is a great business anyone would … Continued
  • Avoid Pitfalls of Restaurant Expansion by Planning in Advance
    It could be easy to be stuck in your tracks right now. You look at a flat market, threats of tariffs that can upend the economy, and a stock market that bounces around daily like a basketball players’ “shooters bounce” that goes up and down three times before it makes it through the hoop. Yet … Continued
  • How Multi-Unit Restaurant Supervisors Create Better Results
    You can’t afford to have multi-unit supervisors just run the machine. That’s always true, but especially in volatile and uncertain times like these. Instead of running the machine, your multi-unit supervisors must be building a better one.  Two Different Outcomes For people who work in your company, do the alarms in their phones wake them … Continued
  • How to Take Action and Power to Boost Guest Count
    The most important number for your restaurants – the one to look at every shift, day, week, and accounting period – isn’t on your P&L. That number? Guest count. I have clients who show up with positive comp guest counts. Those brands offer great experiences to guests who are willing to pay for unique and memorable … Continued
  • How to Discover the Missing Pieces to Increase Your Restaurant’s Success
    In this flat economy when you have to do all of the work yourself because the market is not going to do it for you, two questions hold the key to unlocking increased sales and profit: These days, you must have every possible element working in your favor. Making things right can add 5% to … Continued