Most restaurants are not failing because of food or service.

They are losing money in places they never look.

In this episode, we sit down with Mickey Pendergast, a cost-reduction expert with 30+ years in the industry, to break down where profit is quietly disappearing inside your business.

You will hear:

• Why great operators still struggle to make money
• The real reason margins stay stuck in single digits
• How “small” expenses like waste, linen, and processing fees drain profit
• Why more sales does not fix a broken cost structure
• How one or two points in savings can change your entire business

This is a straight conversation about what most operators ignore.

If you want to keep more of what you earn, this episode matters.

What does it take to build something that big, and survive everything that tries to break it?

In this episode, you get the full story behind one of the most unique restaurant concepts in North America. From a 200-square-foot fish market to a multi-million dollar operation, this is about resilience, reinvention, and thinking bigger than the industry tells you to.

You’ll hear:

• How a family business scaled into a destination brand
• The real impact of storytelling on sales and growth
• What happens when you lose everything and start again
• How to turn a restaurant into a media engine
• Lessons on leadership, pressure, and building for the next generation

This is not a theory episode. This is lived experience.

If you’re building something in this industry, this one will stick with you.

This episode gets real.

No tech talk. No theory. Just operators in the trenches.

We sit down with the team from Leo’s Kitchen & Bar in Edson, Alberta, a town of 10,000 where every decision hits harder and every dollar matters.

They break down what it actually takes to run a restaurant right now:

• Menu changes that take months
• Rising costs that never stop
• Equipment repairs that wipe out profits
• New competitors entering a small market

You’ll hear how they cost every item down to the ounce, why most restaurants are still guessing, and what happens when traffic slows but expenses don’t.

This is the side of the industry most people never see.

If you run a restaurant, you’ll feel this one.

If you don’t, you’ll understand why it’s one of the toughest businesses in the country. 👊