The Best Podcasts for Restaurant Owners in 2022

If you run a restaurant and you’re not yet a restaurant podcast junkie: Your time has come.

For those restaurant owners and execs who have blissfully ignored the recent podcast wave — we get it. Every time you turn around, it seems that someone’s launched their own show. It can be hard to separate the treasure from the…well, the other stuff.

But there are some real gems in the hospitality podcast world. If you follow the right folks, you’ll get unprecedented access to seasoned, successful (sometimes famous) restaurant pros. And they’ll lay it all out there for you — from unbelievable war stories to operational insights to crazy, never-before-shared growth hacks that actually worked. And of course, some that didn’t.

So: the next time you’re commuting to work, or traveling, or washing dishes, or trying to tune out your toddler’s tantrums (just us?), grab your AirPods and add these podcasts to your must-listen list.

The Best Podcasts for Restaurant Owners

Food on Demand // Tom Kaiser and Nick Upton

Food On Demand is a monthly podcast that covers the latest news “at the intersection of food, technology and mobility,” with a heavy focus on the future of delivery and off-premises operations. Most episodes feature a specific topic or trend — e.g., drone delivery, virtual kitchens — as well as interviews with experts and operators who are driving the evolution of foodservice. Past guests include David Bloom, Chief Development and Operating Officer of Capriotti’s; Don Fox, CEO of Firehouse; and Fred Lefranc of Results Thru Strategy.

About the hosts: Tom Kaiser is the editor of Food On Demand, a media brand for restaurateurs, foodservice professionals, restaurant technology suppliers, and catering and delivery providers. Nick Upton is the Restaurants Editor for Food on Demand and Franchise Times. In addition to the podcast, Food on Demand also publishes a weekly e-newsletter and hosts an annual conference.
Catch an episode: Episode 20 of Food on Demand features Meredith Sandland and Carl Osbourn, authors of “Delivering the Digital Restaurant.” Listen here.

FULL COMP: The Voice of the Restaurant Industry Revolution // Josh Kopel

Created in partnership with Yelp for Restaurants, FULL COMP is a weekly podcast that explores the past and future of the hospitality industry. Host and Michelin-rated restaurateur Josh Kopel interviews both renowned hospitality professionals (ever heard of Wolfgang Puck?) as well as thought leaders from outside of the industry — many of whom offer smart new perspectives on an old business.

About the host: With more than 20 years in hospitality under his belt, Josh created FULL COMP to help restaurateurs “survive the present and thrive in the future.” He also hosts Restaurant Marketing School, and he’s currently the president of the California Restaurant Association.
Catch an episode: Episode 160, “Offboarding Yourself,” features Michele Hecken, an executive coach who helps business owners get out of their own way so they can foster growth and empower their team.

Hospitality Hangout // Michael “Schatzy” Schatzberg and Jimmy Frischling

A production of Branded Strategic Hospitality and Foodable Network, Hospitality Hangout is a podcast devoted to all things hospitality, technology and capital. The “Restaurant Guy” (Michael Schatzberg) and the “Finance Guy” (Jimmy Frischling) explore the latest trends and breakthroughs in hospitality tech — which includes everything from digital marketing to kitchen robots. While the two lively hosts bring plenty of personality (and smarts) to the show, most episodes also feature conversations with industry leaders who know a thing or two about restaurant innovation.

About the hosts: Michael Schatzberg and Jimmy Frischling are co-founders of Branded Strategic Hospitality. Michael is also the managing director of Branded Restaurants (which Jimmy co-founded), and he has over 35 years of hospitality brand development, management, and marketing experience. An entrepreneur and finance professional, Jimmy has over 30 years in the financial services, capital markets and hospitality industries. He serves as partner and finance director at Branded Restaurants, and he’s a principal at Oak Branch Advisors as well as a trio of municipal bond data and technology companies.
Catch an episode: Season 5, Vol. 2 features Carissa De Santis, chief information officer at Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, who talks about building their virtual brand, international expansion, and more.

Restaurantopia // David Ross, Brian Seitz, and Anthony Hamilton

Restaurantopia is a podcast all about restaurant management and operations. It’s heavily geared toward independent restaurants — but really, there’s something for everyone. Episodes feature a wealth of tactical content, and it’s a great podcast to follow if you’re looking for information specifically around cost control, marketing, management and personnel issues. Interviews focus on real-world learnings and successes from guests like Ken McGarrie, founder of Korgen Hospitality, and David “Rev” Ciancio, a hospitality marketing executive.

About the hosts: David Ross is a sales pro and the COO of Hillcrest Foodservice, which sponsors the show. Brian Seitz, a member of the Hillcrest management team, has a background in operations, law and finance. Chef Anthony Hamilton is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and has more than 20 years of restaurant and hospitality working experience, ranging from quick-service outlets to full-service catering to fine dining.
Catch an episode: Episode 66, “Restaurant KPI Benchmarks and What to Make of Them,” breaks down specific numbers around common (and uncommon-but-useful) industry benchmarks.

Restaurants Reinvented // Jen Kern

The Restaurants Reinvented podcast spotlights industry leaders and change agents — both the seasoned pros and the up-and-comers you need to know. Host Jen Kern brings a strong perspective to the show, asking her interviewees insightful questions around brand building, guest engagement, and revenue-driving strategies. The knowledge and experiences shared here inspire listeners to approach historical challenges in new ways — and they can expect to leave each episode ready-to-implement tools and tactics for their own operations.

About the host: Jen is the CMO of Qu, a centralized restaurant tech platform that goes beyond POS to connect on- and off-premise ordering, loyalty, and production experiences for restaurant chains. A long-time CMO, Jen leverages her business acumen to draw out stories and insights from her guests that resonate with restaurant owners on every level.
Catch an episode: In Episode 9, Jen interviews Greg Creed, former CEO of Yum! Brands. Greg shares insights and lessons learned from his time leading some of the world’s most well-known brands.

MP TV // Matt Plapp

MP TV is an “in-person video podcast” — but unless you really want to put a face to the voice, listening in is usually sufficient. Host Matt Plapp interviews restaurant and brewery owners and operators about their successes and failures in the business. Matt isn’t afraid to ask tough questions about wins and losses, and he likes to go deep on topics like building and retaining a strong team, brand development, and customer loyalty. In addition to business owners/operators, he’ll often bring on industry vendors and advisors — like food distribution execs and CPAs with a hospitality focus.

About the host: Take one look at Matt’s website, and you can tell he’s a busy guy. In addition to running MP TV, Matt is the founder and CEO of America’s Best Restaurants, an industry consultant for major franchise brands, and three-time author. He’s kind of the “king of content” for restaurants; if you’re ready to take your business to the next level, Matt’s probably got a resource for you.
Catch an episode: “Crunching The Numbers With Chris Rogers” features the CEO of AEH Accounting, who shares advice and ideas about restaurant marketing and finance.

BDO To-Go Podcast // Jeff Tubaugh and Dana Zukofsky

BDO To-Go is a monthly podcast hosted by Jeff Tubaugh and moderated by Dana Zukofsky. Each episode features subject matter experts who explore industry trends and best practices. The conversation often revolves around the impacts of ongoing consumer and economic shifts — and how to leverage constant change to achieve meaningful growth and success.

About the host: Jeff is a partner at BDO and Dana is a director in the firm’s National Restaurant Practice. Both Jeff and Dana have deep expertise in restaurant/hospitality accounting, compliance, and other financial aspects of the business.
Catch an episode: “The Scope of Restaurants Today: Supply Chain and Labor Shortages” features Mark Bromberg, the president at Apex Restaurant Group, which focuses on chain restaurant improvement, management, and rejuvenation.

Keys to the Shop // Chris Deferio

There’s a special niche in the podcast world just for coffee shop and cafe owners (and plain old coffee-lovers). Chris Deferio’s podcast is a definite stand-out. Keys to the Shop provides coffee retail professionals the insights and tools they need to grow their business or advance their coffee careers. Chris, an expert himself, leans on fellow industry vets to deliver actionable advice around management, leadership, and personal development. At the time of this publication, Chris has produced over 300 episodes.

About the host: Chris has spent more than 20 years in the specialty coffee retail industry. His roles have included barista, trainer, multi-unit cafe operations manager, consultant — and of course, podcast host. His clients range from small-but-growing cafes to large, well-established brands.

Catch an episode: In episode 314, “The 6 Essential Qualities of Coffee Shop Leaders,” Chris discusses the things leaders develop in succession that allow them to lead people sustainably.

Are we missing your favorite podcast?

If you listen to (or host!) a show for folks in the restaurant business — give us a shout on LinkedIn and we’ll add it to our list!

You might also be interested in

Restaurant Management

Tip Pooling: Pros and Cons

For restaurant owners looking to boost teamwork and make sure every employee gets their fair share, a tip pool or tip share seems like a natural solution. But like there are pros and cons to tip pooling that every operator should be aware of.

Of course, it doesn’t always make sense to pool tips. (And when it does make sense, tip pooling policies are definitely not one-size-fits-all!)

If you’re on the fence, check out our tip pooling pro-con list below and consider how they would affect your restaurant’s unique dynamics.

What are the pros of tip pooling?

It takes a lot of hard work and collaboration to deliver an excellent guest experience. For most restaurants, the primary goal of tip pooling is to ensure all employees are fairly rewarded for their contributions.

Here are a few of the benefits that tip pooling offers restaurant teams.

1. Improved performance

When executed strategically, tip pooling can bring your team together around a shared goal — delivering a top-notch guest experience — and reward them for doing so.

And when employees are all working toward a common goal, they’re much more likely to work together and go out of their way to lend a helping hand or fill in gaps. This can be particularly true for tip pools that include employees who generally aren’t directly tipped, like bussers, hosts, and back-of-house employees.

2. Reduced competition among servers

Does one section get all of the large parties (aka all the large tips)? Or does your patio section get too hot for most guests during the summer? When employees aren’t sharing tips, your workplace culture might start to feel (overly) competitive and even lead to tension or disputes. When servers start feeling slighted or get hung up on who-got-which-table, not only does that affect morale — it slows everyone down.

An equitable tip pool can keep servers from feeling like they need to keep score, so they can focus on providing top-notch service to all of the guests in the restaurant.

3. Increased focus on training

When you bring on new staff, you typically have them train with your best veteran servers. And when those vets know that their trainee will be part of their future tip pool, they’ll be more invested in the training, making sure to give them a master class in upselling and customer service.

4. More equitable distribution

Unfortunately, customer biases — conscious or not — can impact tip amounts. Whether based on race, gender, or other factors, this kind of discrimination can affect your employees’ livelihoods.

While restaurant operators can’t control if some employees receive preferential treatment, they can help to compensate for those injustices by pooling and fairly distributing tips.

Cons of Tip Pooling

While most restaurants these days run some form of tip pool or tip share, there are some common drawback and pitfalls to tip pooling, which are worth considering before you implement a new policy

1. Top performers may feel negatively impacted

If your best servers are consistently bringing in far more than the standard 18-20% in tips, they might not be so pleased to share with employees who may not have the same experience, talent or work ethic.

Couple that with the fact that some servers can turn tables much quicker than others, resulting in a higher volume of sales and a whole lot more tip income — well, your top earners could start feeling cheated by the tip pool.

And in a tough labor market, if a hardworking employee isn’t happy with their earnings, they likely have other options.

2. Under-performers can slip through the cracks

On the flip side of that: a tip pool could allow lower-performing employees to slip through the cracks. If you’re not closely evaluating the average tip amount (and average check size!), you may miss that one of your employees is struggling with their customer service.

3. Compliance is an added consideration

Tip pooling is regulated at the federal and (usually) state level. Some municipalities also have their own rules around how to legally pool tips. These laws can get pretty complicated, making it all too easy to fall out of compliance without even knowing it. For example: managers can’t participate in a tip pool; but what happens if a manager is also performing server duties? Can you include back-of-house in your tip pool? Does your eligibility for the tip credit change if you operate a tip pool? It’s important to know the answers to all of these questions and fully understand the laws that apply to each of your locations. (Especially if you have locations in multiple states!)

Tip Pooling Pros and Cons at a Glance

That’s a lot of information to take in, so here it is a handy-dandy pro-con chart.

To Pool or Not to Pool?

The majority of restaurants in the U.S. operate some form of tip pool. At Kickfin, we’ve worked with thousands of restaurant teams who participate in tip pooling or tip sharing. We’ve found that often, the positives outweigh the negatives.

But that comes with a major caveat: the best tip pooling teams have been strategic and intentional with their policies — and as a result, no two tip pooling policies look exactly the same.

If you want to set yourself up for tip pooling success, here are a few general rules of thumb.

Evaluate your requirements: Ask yourself why you’re running a tip pool. What needs are you trying to address or problems are you trying to fix? Specifically consider your restaurant type, team size, org chart, and local market to find the best policy for you.
Don’t overcomplicate: It shouldn’t require a degree in calculus to calculate your tip pool. If you feel like it’s getting unwieldy, it’s possible you’re setting your team up for mistakes and tracking issues.
Get feedback for better buy-in: This shouldn’t be a decision-by-committee scenario, but it’s worth checking with management and even some of your team’s unofficial leaders to get their input before running with a new policy. This can help get the rest of your employees on board.
Write it down and run it by your counsel: Your tip pooling policy should be on paper, in black and white. You should also have your legal counsel review it to make sure you’re not inadvertently out of compliance with tip pooling regulations.
Communicate everything: Once you’re feeling good about your policy, share it. Make sure every tip-eligible employee understands how it works and has the opportunity to ask questions.
Ensure transparency by tracking everything: It’s not enough to share your policy. It’s important that every payout is tracked, including how those payouts were calculated. Not only does that streamline accounting and reporting; it also creates a culture of trust with your employees. If there is ever any question around a payout, having a digital paper trail is invaluable.

The best tip pools are automated

Tip pool calculations often happen in a spreadsheet, which is less than ideal. Kickfin integrates with your POS, so you can eliminate spreadsheet math, reducing the risk of human error and ensuring every payout is accurately calculated and tracked. Plus: Kickfin customers can send instant, cashless payouts directly to their employees’ bank of choice.

The result: All the benefits of tip pooling, without the hassles, risk, and time required. (In fact, many of our users can calculate and pay out tips at the end of each shift in under 60 seconds!)

Want to learn more? Request a demo today.

Product and Company News

Kickfin Recognized on the 2025 Inc. Regionals List

Kickfin has earned a top spot on the 2025 Inc. Regionals list in the Southwest region! This recognition places us among the fastest-growing privately held companies in America—and we couldn’t be prouder of what this means for our team, our customers, and the restaurant industry at large.

A Milestone Achievement

As the #1 tip distribution platform, Kickfin is trusted by thousands of restaurant teams to automate tip pooling and payouts. Since 2017, our technology has given managers hours back in their week while improving accuracy, visibility, and reporting for operators.

Only 951 companies made the cut across all regions, and in the Southwest alone, the businesses on this list contributed 13,809 jobs to the U.S. economy while achieving a median growth rate of approximately 106 percent from 2021 to 2023.

Powering the Future of Tip Management

In the past year, Kickfin has taken automated tip management to a whole new level. In addition to exciting new features that make our platform more robust than ever, we continue to add to the list of our direct integrations with the leading POS brands—which currently includes Toast, SkyTab, Square, Heartland, RPOWER, PAR POS, Oracle MICROS, NCR Aloha, and more.

→ See how the Kickfin-Toast integration “changed everything” for HOBNOB restaurants

Kickfin’s POS integrations give our customers the ability to auto-calculate even the most complex tip pools in just a few clicks, which eliminates unwieldy tip spreadsheets, saves managers even more time, and gives operators unprecedented visibility into payout calculations and history.

A Heartfelt Thank You

This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without the trust of our customers and the dedication of our team.

As Justin Roberts, co-CEO of Kickfin, puts it: “We’re incredibly grateful to our customers who have made this growth possible by trusting Kickfin with their tip management needs. This recognition is a testament to the value that automated tip management brings to restaurant teams—helping them save time, reduce risk, and take care of their people.”

We’re honored to be included in the 2025 Inc. Regionals list, and we’re excited to see what the rest of 2025 has in store!

Product and Company News, Technology and Software

Kickfin Integrates with RPOWER POS to Automate Tip Distribution for Restaurants, Bars and Nightlife

You heard that right — Kickfin has added yet another partner to our ever-growing list of POS integrations!

RPOWER POS has joined the list of leading POS systems that now integrate with Kickfin so users can fully automate tip calculations and payouts.

RPOWER is a trusted name in the restaurant industry known for its handheld devices, online ordering capabilities, and robust reporting. RPOWER’s dedication to staying on the cutting edge of restaurant tech makes the integration with Kickfin a perfect match!

With the RPOWER-Kickfin integration, restaurant operators can:

Easily build out highly complex tip policies
Calculate tip outs based on roles, shifts and hours worked
Distribute tips directly to employee bank accounts
Establish an electronic “paper trail” for every tip out

( …and more. Dive into the latest Kickfin updates for the full scoop.)

Like all of our integration customers, when RPOWER users activate the Kickfin integration, they’ll have access to our robust Customer Success team (at no extra cost!). We’re here 24/7 to review and build out your tip policy within the platform, so you’ll be up and running in a flash.

Collaboration with Riot Hospitality Group

This integration was especially exciting because we worked hand-in-hand with one of our longstanding customers, Riot Hospitality Group, to ensure the integration checked every box — and that it could handle their complex tip pooling policies.

“Kickfin has been an outstanding partner to Riot Hospitality Group for years,” said J Goldin, the systems director for RHG.

“They had already helped us go fully cashless, which eliminated a lot of risk for our teams. When we decided to completely automate tip payouts, they were a natural choice to help with that as well. We worked hand in hand with Kickfin and RPOWER to ensure the system could handle the intense complexity of our rules, while still being incredibly easy to use for our operators.”

“Kickfin is easy to implement and easy to use. If you’re thinking about trying it, you’ll be glad you did.”

As our co-CEO Justin Roberts puts it, this integration is a “no brainer for RPOWER users who understand how valuable their managers’ time is.”

RPOWER users, we’re ready for you! Schedule a demo to learn how you can activate your integration.

(Not an RPOWER user but want to take advantage of these time-saving features? See if Kickfin is integrated with your POS!)

Product and Company News

Kickfin Product Updates: New Year, New Features!

We kicked off 2025 with some major (!) updates to our Tip Calculator features.

It was a big release, and we’ll break it all down for you here — but the big headlines are:

More integrations
More speed
More flexibility

If you’re not already using Kickfin — or if you haven’t integrated Kickfin with your POS to automate tip calcs just yet — this is for you! Read on to see how you can use Kickfin’s newest tip calc features to un-clunk your tip pooling process.

More integrations, coming right up

We’re continuing to roll out integrations with the leading POS systems, giving restaurant teams the power to auto-calculate tip pools and shares in a matter of clicks.

(Side note: Kickfin only builds direct POS integrations — not using a third-party solution! — which streamlines your tech stack and keeps your costs lower.)

We were thrilled to add RPOWER to our growing list of integrations, which already includes Toast, Square, SkyTab, SpotOn, PAR and more.

If you’re an RPOWER user and you’re not yet a Kickfin customer, request a demo and we’ll show you the integration in action!

Handle autograts with ease

For servers and bartenders handling large parties, autograts can be great — but for managers, they can turn into a logistical nightmare. Now, Kickfin can help with that…

With this latest release, you can break tips and autograts into separate categories with their own set of rules for distribution. You have the flexibility to manage autograt tip splits completely separate from regular tip outs, so you can fairly reward a hardworking server-bartender-busser trio for a job well done on a 30-top.

Tips & Autograts Broken Out on Tip Data Page

Tips & Autograts Broken Out on Review Screen

With this new set up, you’ll also get more transparency in reporting. You’ll be able to see the breakdown of tips and autograts collected by each user in your reporting dashboards (more on that later!).

Include cash tips in your distributions

You heard that right — we can now distribute shares of cash tips digitally, directly to your employees’ bank accounts. Instead of doing the math on cash tips by hand, you can easily add cash to your tip pool, and we’ll calculate the share among employees for you.

Important note: cash distributions aren’t available for all of our integration partners. Contact us for more info.

Advanced Tip Rules (for even the unruliest policies)

Think your tip policy is extra tricky? Don’t worry — we’ve seen ‘em all. And there aren’t many Kickfin can’t handle, thanks to our Advanced Tip Rules feature.

If you have Advanced Tip Rules enabled, we’ve added a few new capabilities so you can further customize your tip share while we take care of the complicated math behind the scenes. Here are just a few examples of the new features we’re rolling out.

Not using Advanced Tip Rules? Reach out to us if you’d like to enable these features.

Per Segment Tip Sharing

We’ve been calculating tip shares on a check-by-check basis. For example, if you have servers sharing a percentage of tips with bussers, we would only calculate and deduct that percentage if a busser was working at the time that a check was processed. We call this Per Check Tip Sharing.

Now, we’re introducing Per Segment Tip Sharing, which gives you the option to deduct a tip share from every check processed during a shift. Let’s go back to our example — servers sharing a percent of tips with bussers. With Per Segment Tip Sharing, we would deduct a percentage of the server’s tip for every check processed, even if the busser gets cut two hours before the server.

Split Evenly

Would you prefer that all of your support staff take home an even share of their tip pool? We can now make that happen.

Previously, our tip shares entered a pool and were divided among beneficiaries based on how many minutes they worked during a shift, which we call splitting by Time Worked. With our new product update, we’re introducing the Split Evenly option, which enables you to send an equal part of a tip share to every beneficiary that worked within a segment.

More accuracy

In the past, cash autograt payments were lumped in with credit card autograts and credit card tips, resulting in credit card fee deductions on cash transactions. But that is no more!

Now we’re able to deduct credit card fees only where they apply, so you’ll no longer see credit card fee deductions attached to cash autograt transactions.

Plus, we’ve gotten even better at math. With our new update, we can prevent rounding errors, so our tip disbursal should match the tips collected in your POS to the penny.

Revamped and expanded reporting

We added new reporting views to give you more insight into each pay period, individual pay sets, and tip calculations. Here’s a quick look at your new pay period report with expanded filters:

Main Pay Period Report - Filter Bar Expanded

You’ll notice that there are now separate columns for tips and autograts, but you can still view the gross amount earned (tips + autograts = gross).

And it doesn’t stop at the main reporting page. You’ll see this more detailed reporting when you look at individual employee pay period reports, review a specific pay set, or export the information from any of your reporting dashboards.

We know this is a lot of new information to take in — but we’ve got you covered with our full Product Release Recap. Simply log in to Kickfin, click on your name in the upper left corner and select “Support” to access that portal.

Not using Kickfin? Dying to get rid of your old-fashioned gratuity management system? Drooling over these new features? We’d love to have you. Reach out to us today to see how our platform could save you time and money.