The Hospitality Hangout | Hospitality Podcast

byMichael Schatzberg & Jimmy Frischling - Hospitality Insiders | Expert Strategies & Trends.', Hosts: Michael Schatzberg and Jimmy Frischling | Branded Hospitality Media, Hospitality Insiders | Michael Schatzberg & Jimmy Frischling | Branded Hospitality Media

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The Hospitality Hangout is where the restaurant industry gets real. Hosted by Schatzy, the Restaurant Guy, and Jimmy, the Finance Guy, this funny, unfiltered hospitality podcast dives into restaurant trends, food service innovation, hospitality technology, and the investment strategies shaping the future of the industry. With decades of hands-on experience operating restaurants and structuring capital markets deals, these two bring real-world insight from the kitchen to the boardroom. They connect the biggest operators, boldest founders, and sharpest investors in hospitality for conversations you won’t hear anywhere else. Each week you’ll hear from C-suite restaurant executives, franchise leaders, emerging bran...

Episodes(40 episodes)

The Foodfluencers: Gato Dates Went From Shabbat Dinner to Erewhon

Tonya Reznikovich kept asking her friend Gabriella “Gabi” Labi for more of the chocolate-covered dates she made for Shabbat dinner. Eventually, asking for another batch turned into writing a business plan.The founders of Gato Dates join Schatzy and Jimmy for The Foodfluencers, a Hospitality Hangout miniseries, to share how that homemade dessert became a brand built around Medjool dates, creamy nut butters and dark chocolate.Gabi and Tonya trace their journey through Los Angeles farmers markets, collaborations with brands including Seed + Mill and Coconut Cult, and the samples that got Erewhon’s attention. They explai...

Published: Oct 22, 2026Duration: 46m 21s

Farrelli’s Pizza and Why People Come Back for More Than the Pizza

Clayton Krueger started washing dishes at Farrelli’s Pizza when he was 16. Today, he’s the Chief Marketing Officer—and he still isn’t above jumping back into the dish pit.Recorded on location at the QSR conference in Atlanta, this episode of Hospitality Hangout brings Clayton together with Schatzy and Jimmy to talk about the family-run Washington pizza company where his career began.Clayton explains what makes Farrelli’s Northwest-style pizza different: a thicker rise, a slower bake and enough toppings to make a meal of it. The conversation covers honey cream cheese finishers, a Pizza of...

Published: Oct 20, 2026Duration: 37m 30s

The Foodfluencers: Why Alice Mushrooms Wants You to Eat Chocolate Every Day

Most wellness routines begin with a pill, powder, gummy or bitter tincture. Alice Mushrooms began with a different question: what if the supplement were the part of your day you actually looked forward to?On this episode of Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series, Charlotte Cruze, co-founder of Alice Mushrooms, joins Jimmy and Schatzy to talk about turning functional mushrooms into decadent daily chocolate supplements.Charlotte shares how her background in media, branded storytelling and food studies eventually brought her together with co-founder Lindsay Goodstein, a former pharmaceutical executive searching for more approachable alternatives to traditional su...

Published: Oct 15, 2026Duration: 42m 14s

No Child Should Go Hungry: Billy Shore on Building Something Bigger Than Yourself

Billy Shore, founder and executive chair of Share Our Strength, joins Hospitality Hangout live from the Prosper Forum for a conversation about building the No Kid Hungry movement, bringing the restaurant industry together and what it means to spend a lifetime working on a problem bigger than yourself.Billy and his sister Debbie founded Share Our Strength in 1984 with a $2,000 credit card advance. More than four decades later, the organization behind the No Kid Hungry campaign has raised more than $1 billion to fight hunger and poverty and built partnerships across restaurants, business, government, education, health care and...

Published: Oct 13, 2026Duration: 35m 27s

The Foodfluencers: Free the Hummus With Little Sesame’s Nick Wiseman

Nick Wiseman, co-founder of Little Sesame, joins Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series to tell the story of how a tiny hummus pop-up in a Washington, D.C. basement grew into a national food brand.Nick’s background is restaurants through and through. He started cooking professionally as a teenager, worked the fine-dining circuit in New York, and met future Little Sesame co-founder Ronen Tenne while working the fish station at a Michael White restaurant. Years later, they reunited in D.C. with the idea of bringing restaurant-level food to more people, with fewer rules and a lot more...

Published: Oct 8, 2026Duration: 45m 54s

Greg Zamfotis on Community, Coffee and Gregorys’ Next Chapter

Gregory Zamfotis, founder and CEO of Gregorys Coffee, returns to Hospitality Hangout live from the Prosper Forum for a conversation about what happens when a hometown coffee brand starts becoming a national one.Greg opened the first Gregorys Coffee in Manhattan in 2006. Nearly two decades later, the brand has grown to more than 50 cafes and is entering a new phase of expansion with national franchising and new market growth. Gregorys has partnered with Craveworthy Brands to help accelerate that expansion while preserving the identity and culture that built the brand in New York.But for...

Published: Oct 6, 2026Duration: 36m 19s

The Foodfluencers: Before Food Influencers Had a Name | Jackie Gebel of No Leftovers

Jackie Gebel was recommending restaurants before “food influencer” was really a job. On this episode of Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series, the creator behind No Leftovers joins Jimmy and Schatzy to talk about how a simple habit of sharing where to eat turned into a career spanning restaurants, travel, brands and social media.Jackie traces the story back to Foursquare, restaurant lists and a move to Tel Aviv, where she found herself building food guides simply because she could not find the kind of recommendations she wanted. When she returned to New York, that instinct followed her. What s...

Published: Oct 1, 2026Duration: 44m 55s

IHOP Is 68 Years Young: Lawrence Kim on Evolving an American Icon

Lawrence Kim, President of IHOP and Chief Commercial Officer of Dine Brands, joins Hospitality Hangout live from the Prosper Forum in Orlando for a conversation about what it means to take the reins of one of America’s most recognizable restaurant brands.IHOP has been around since 1958, but Lawrence does not describe the work ahead as a turnaround. He calls it an evolution. In his words, IHOP is not 68 years old. It is “68 years young.”That evolution starts with understanding what people already love. Lawrence talks about IHOP’s breakfast heritage, the return of familiar touches like the...

Published: Sep 29, 2026Duration: 29m 27s

The Foodfluencers: The Foodie Magician on What’s Actually Worth the Hype

Josh Beckerman does not cook. He barely eats at home. For more than two decades, he has been eating his way through New York City restaurants while building an equally unusual career as a professional magician, mentalist and one of the city’s most plugged-in food personalities.On this episode of Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series, Josh, better known as the Foodie Magician, joins Jimmy and Schatzy to talk about the strange intersection of restaurants, social media, magic and influence.Josh explains why he prefers dining alone, how he can walk into restaurants without reservations, and...

Published: Sep 24, 2026Duration: 46m 43s

Inside Yum! Brands: How Taco Bell, KFC and Habit Run at Global Scale

Nigel Henry, Global Director of Operations at Yum! Brands, joins Hospitality Hangout live from Prosper Forum for a conversation about what it takes to create operational excellence across some of the biggest restaurant brands in the world.Nigel’s path to global restaurant operations did not start in a boardroom. He began his career as a laboratory technologist testing food and water safety in his native Dominica, spent a decade in the United Kingdom, joined Pizza Hut in 2013, and eventually moved into a role that touches operations strategy across the Yum! portfolio.In this episode, Ni...

Published: Sep 22, 2026Duration: 41m 29s

The Foodfluencers: Cassie Yeung on Viral Food, Gordon Ramsay and Reinvention

Cassie Yeung did not take the traditional path into food. Before millions of people were watching her cook, she was dancing professionally with the Brooklyn Nets, working a 9-to-5, and trying to figure out what she actually wanted to do with her life.On this episode of Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series, Cassie shares how she turned a lifelong love of cooking into a career as a creator, Next Level Chef competitor, brand collaborator, and New York Times bestselling cookbook author.The conversation gets into the three-month window her parents gave her to make content cr...

Published: Sep 17, 2026Duration: 43m 49s

Tropical Smoothie Cafe’s CMO on Building Awareness, Joy and Purpose

Deborah von Kutzleben, Chief Marketing Officer of Tropical Smoothie Cafe, joins Hospitality Hangout live from Prosper for a conversation about what happens after a brand has already grown across the map.Tropical Smoothie Cafe has more than 1,700 cafes, but Deborah explains that store count is only part of the story. When she joined the brand, the opportunity was to make awareness catch up with the footprint. In other words, the cafes were already in people’s communities. The next step was making the brand feel familiar, loved and part of everyday life.That work starts wi...

Published: Sep 15, 2026Duration: 36m 42s

How GOODLES Made Mac and Cheese for Grown-Ups | Foodfluencers

On this episode of Hospitality Hangout’s Foodfluencers series, Jen Zeszut, co-founder and CEO of GOODLES, joins the show live from Pepsi Studios in New York City to talk about reinventing one of America’s favorite comfort foods: boxed mac and cheese.Jen shares the winding road that led her to GOODLES, from studying psychology and French, working at Cosi in Paris, helping document the operations manual that later helped bring Cosi to the U.S., moving to Mendocino to learn from Cafe Beaujolais, and eventually realizing that the day-to-day of restaurants was not her path.Th...

Published: Sep 10, 2026Duration: 52m 50s

Jo Lambert on Olo’s Big Bet to Give Restaurants Their Guests Back

Jo Lambert, COO of Olo, joins Hospitality Hangout live from Prosper for a conversation about the future of restaurant technology, online ordering, loyalty, guest data, and the next chapter of digital hospitality.Jo brings a unique background to the restaurant industry, with leadership experience across American Express, PayPal, Venmo, Yahoo, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, TechCrunch, AOL, and global consumer technology. In this episode, she shares why she made the move into restaurant tech, what drew her to Olo founder Noah Glass’ vision, and why the industry still has so much room to grow through better digital tools....

Published: Sep 8, 2026Duration: 31m 51s

Hospitality Insiders: Nadeem Bajwa’s Journey From Pizza Delivery to Franchise Empire

This episode of Hospitality Hangout introduces Hospitality Insiders, a special segment built for deeper operator-to-operator conversations about ownership, capital, structure, people, and what it really costs to own the thing. For this Hospitality Insiders conversation, Jimmy Frischling sits down with Nadeem Bajwa, co-founder and CEO of Bajco Group, one of the largest Papa Johns franchise operators in North America. Nadeem’s story is often told as an American dream story: he came to the United States from Pakistan in 1991, washed dishes, delivered pizzas, and eventually grew into one of the largest Papa Johns franchisees in th...

Published: Sep 2, 2026Duration: 39m 47s

The Friday Feeling: Inside TGI Fridays’ Comeback

On this episode of Hospitality Hangout, Ray joins the show live from The Prosper Forum in Orlando, Florida to talk about capturing the Friday Feeling and rebuilding one of casual dining’s most iconic brands from the inside out. Ray shares how he moved from the kitchen to the boardroom, left Fridays as president, led other major restaurant companies, and returned to a brand he never stopped caring about. He talks about the work behind the comeback, including leadership, franchisee alignment, technology upgrades, off-premise, social media, hospitality, and an 85% menu refresh built around food the team can be...

Published: Sep 1, 2026Duration: 34m 25s

The 2 P.M. Snack Brand Taking Over Grocery Shelves

Jake Karls, co-founder and rainmaker of Mid-Day Squares, joins Hospitality Hangout for The Food Fluencers series to talk about the chocolate bar built for the 2 p.m. crash and the founder-led content strategy that turned a better-for-you snack into one of the most talked-about brands in CPG. Jake shares how Mid-Day Squares started with Lezlie Karls making a cleaner afternoon chocolate snack for Nick Saltarelli, how the three founders began making bars by hand in a condo kitchen, and how they hand-delivered product while documenting the entire journey online. Jake also talks about using social...

Published: Aug 27, 2026Duration: 41m 29s

The SONIC Way: Custom Drinks, Drive-Ins and Doing It Their Way

John Kelly, Brand President of SONIC Drive-In, joins Hospitality Hangout for a conversation about drinks, drive-in culture, nostalgia, technology, and why SONIC still feels different. John talks about the power of SONIC’s beverage platform, from cherry limeades and Refreshers to dirty soda, SONIC ice, and more than a million drink combinations. He also gets into the SONIC Smasher, value, mobile ordering, SONIC Rewards, third-party delivery, and the role of drive-in stalls in creating a guest experience that still feels personal. The episode also explores how SONIC is thinking about AI and restaurant technology. John’s fo...

Published: Aug 25, 2026Duration: 39m 36s

Why Busy Restaurants Still Fail: Bruce Nelson on the Math Behind Profit

Bruce Nelson has seen the restaurant business from almost every angle: dishwasher, cook, chef instructor, restaurant owner, operator, author, and fractional CFO. On this episode of Hospitality Hangout, Bruce joins the show live from SpotOn Studios at the National Restaurant Association Show to talk about the financial side of hospitality and why great food, great service, and a busy dining room are not always enough to build a profitable restaurant. Bruce shares how he opened his first restaurant at 22, copied a competitor’s menu, priced everything one dollar cheaper, and learned the hard way that re...

Published: Aug 18, 2026Duration: 28m 58s

Maui Roots, San Diego Hustle: The Kalei’s Kitchenette Story

Kalei’s Kitchenette started at a farmers market table and grew into one of San Diego’s beloved Hawaiian-inspired restaurant and catering brands. On this episode of Hospitality Hangout, Khara Mangiduyos, co-founder of Kalei’s Kitchenette, joins the show live from SpotOn Studios at the National Restaurant Association Show to share the story behind the family-owned concept she built with her husband, Chef Andy Mangiduyos. From Huli Huli chicken and Kalua pork to Spam musubi, Hawaiian-style mac salad, Filipino hospitality, San Diego community events, and the power of solving real customer problems, this episode is a home...

Published: Aug 11, 2026Duration: 31m 48s