HeyJaredFULL COMP: The Voice of the Restaurant Industry Revolution
What if I told you that the difference between struggling and thriving in the restaurant industry is just one conversation away?I’m Josh Kopel, a Michelin-awarded restaurateur who’s spent decades building blockbuster brands across every tier of dining.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 22
- Latest publication
- Sep 18, 2026
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- Jul 7, 2026
Latest episodes
The Takeaway: Your Guests Didn't Leave. They Forgot You (opens the original)
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What if your regulars didn't leave you? What if they just forgot you exist? Most operators spend the year buying strangers while the people who already love them go quiet. The problem is memory, and memory is cheap to fix. In this takeaway, I break down why a guest who visits once a month is worth $720 a year and double that at twice a month, why a reminder beats a reward every time, and how a pre-loaded year of signature events kills the pressure to invent something new every month. If you have
Mike Mudrey: Your Restaurant Doesn't Need You (opens the original)
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What if the reason your restaurant runs on you is that you keep showing up? Mike Mudrey bought a crêperie in East Lansing with no restaurant experience and a corporate job he had no intention of leaving. Nine years and four locations later he still has both, and one of his restaurants sits over an hour from where he lives. Never being able to work the floor is what forced him to build systems instead of habits. In this conversation, we get into why every question you answer twice should become a
Felipe Riccio: Kill the Entire Menu Twice a Year (opens the original)
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What if the only reason your guests came once is that nothing changed after they left? Felipe Riccio is chef and partner at Goodnight Hospitality in Houston, TX. At his restaurant March, his tasting menu restaurant, the entire menu is thrown out twice a year and rebuilt around a different corner of the Mediterranean. He is twelve seasons in. He will tell you it is probably not a winning formula. In this conversation, we get into why a concept nobody can repeat back to you will never travel, how
Ariel Arce: The Spreadsheet Came Before the Concept (opens the original)
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What if your concept should have been designed backwards, starting from the check average you need? Ariel Arce had 16 seats and no way to predict what anyone would spend. So she solved for the number first. Sixty five dollars a head, two turns a night. Then she designed a guest experience to deliver it, down to a rule that every song has to be three minutes long. In this conversation, we get into why she has refused to charge what the market would pay for nearly ten years, why she now plans the
Al Lucas: Go Work for a Chain (opens the original)
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What if the fastest way to become a great independent operator is to go work for a chain? Al Lucas spent 21 years at Chart House, starting as a dishwasher and leaving as a vice president. He took that to Stephen Starr, then to Defined Hospitality, where Kalaya just won Outstanding Restaurant at the 2026 James Beard Awards. When a young cook asked him for career advice, Al told him to get out of independent restaurants as fast as possible. In this conversation, we get into the fundamentals most i
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