The Late Night Restaurant Podcast Show

What if finding your next favourite restaurant was as easy as sending a text message?

On this episode of The Late Night Restaurant Show, Jay Ashton and Domenic Pedulla welcome Mario Gomez-Hall from Zest, an AI-powered restaurant discovery platform changing how people find restaurants, explore local food scenes and decide where to eat.

Forget scrolling through hundreds of online reviews. Zest combines artificial intelligence, recommendations from friends, verified restaurant visits and personal dining preferences to help people find great places to eat.

And the best part? You don't even need to download an app to experience its text-based restaurant concierge.

In this episode, we explore:

• How Zest uses AI to recommend restaurants based on your tastes
• Why recommendations from friends matter more than anonymous online reviews
• How verified dining visits help address fake restaurant reviews
• Finding hidden gems, trending restaurants and local favorites
• Planning date nights, group dinners and restaurant reservations through text
• What AI-powered restaurant discovery means for restaurant owners and operators
• How restaurants gain visibility as consumers change the way they search for food

We even put Zest to the test in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and Thunder Bay, Ontario, with some surprising results.

For restaurant owners, chefs, hospitality professionals and food lovers, this conversation offers a look at where restaurant search, AI technology and guest experiences are heading.

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#RestaurantTechnology #RestaurantMarketing #ArtificialIntelligence

Guests came in. They ate. They paid. What gives them a reason to return?

Preston Lee, founder of Thirty Percent, joins Jay Ashton and Domenic Pedulla on The Late Night Restaurant Show to talk about guest loyalty and the work behind a consistent restaurant experience.

The conversation covers:

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How training, systems and leadership work together.

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Auditing the guest experience, from the parking lot to the table and back.

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Why having regulars doesn’t tell you your guest retention rate.

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Building daily habits, including pre-shift meetings and recognizing your team.

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Focusing on the parts of your business you control.

Preston shares his approach to helping restaurant teams improve hospitality, develop leaders and give guests a reason to come back.

There are plenty of laughs, too, especially when Preston gets drawn into Jay’s 10% rule.

Before you spend thousands on restaurant equipment, this conversation deserves a listen.

Tyrone Ho from Econolease joins Jay and Dom on The Late Night Restaurant Podcast to talk equipment financing, cash flow and choosing equipment for the business you’re running today.

From testing a slushy machine to outfitting a full kitchen, they discuss:

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Buying outright versus leasing or renting.

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How Econolease’s Rent-Try-Buy program works.

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Why operators sometimes buy more equipment than they need.

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Questions about upgrades, returns, warranties and maintenance.

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Keeping working capital available during the first months of operation.

Tyrone also shares his perspective on Canada’s restaurant industry, including why openings and opportunities deserve attention alongside closure headlines.

Expect practical questions, honest discussion and plenty of laughs with Jay and Dom.

Free meals are common. Are they the benefit your team values most?

Jay Ashton and Domenic Pedulla welcome Jordan, founder of 7shifts, to The Late Night Restaurant Show to discuss findings from a survey of more than 1,000 restaurant workers.

The conversation covers why understaffing ranks as the biggest workplace stressor, how poor management drives employees away, and where restaurant benefits miss the mark.

You’ll hear practical ways to improve scheduling, spot early signs of disengagement, recognize good work, and match benefits to your employees’ needs. Jordan also shares how helping his dad manage restaurant schedules grew into 7shifts.

If you’re struggling with turnover, start with a simple question: Have you asked your team what would make them stay?

What does fresh citrus actually cost your restaurant? Beyond the price of lemons and limes, you’re paying for prep labour, waste, spoilage and inconsistent juice yields.

Zack Lister, Calgary entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Bodega Brands, joins us to discuss citrus sourcing, cocktail mixers and the hidden costs facing Canadian foodservice operators.

Zack founded Well Juicery in 2014, taking it from his home kitchen to thousands of retail locations across Canada. Today, he leads Bodega Brands, developing beverage brands and helping partners bring products to market across North America.

Its flagship brand, Drink Arté, works with producers in Mexico to supply premium juices and cocktail mixers to Canada’s hospitality industry.

In this episode, we explore the citrus supply chain from Mexico to Canada, Mexico’s influence on cocktail culture, and the operational tradeoffs between fresh squeezing and prepared juices. Zack also shares lessons from building and scaling beverage businesses.

If you own a restaurant, manage a bar or oversee food and beverage purchasing, this conversation offers a closer look at your citrus costs, prep time and margins.

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Every unanswered restaurant call puts a reservation, private event, takeout order, or future guest at risk.

Jay and Dom sit down with Randall and Vanessa from Hostie to explore how AI is changing restaurant communication while protecting the human side of hospitality.

Hostie answers calls and texts, books reservations, handles guest questions, supports multiple languages, and gives restaurant teams more time to serve the guests in front of them.

The numbers make missed calls hard to ignore. One restaurant receives 40 per cent of its calls outside business hours. Cactus Club Cafe recorded more than 100,000 calls across its locations in three days, with 60 per cent resolved by AI.

You’ll hear where restaurant AI is heading, how operators retain control of every guest interaction, and how Hostie gets a personalized virtual host running in about an hour.

If your phone keeps ringing while your team is in the weeds, this episode is worth hearing.

Jay Ashton and Domenic Pedulla welcome Australian direct response marketer John Dwyer, JD, founder of The Institute of Wow, for a blunt, funny, and practical conversation about restaurant marketing.

JD breaks down why restaurants lose revenue when they fail to collect customer data. He shares how one seafood restaurant built a 92,000-person database, filled empty seats with simple text messages, and used direct offers to drive real sales.

The episode covers Facebook contests, customer databases, high-value incentives, strong calls to action, and why random social posting is not a marketing plan.

With classic Late Night chaos, NEXT Food Expo talk, and a few wild ideas from Jay, this episode gives restaurant owners smart ways to bring guests back, increase visits, and build marketing systems that work.

Your food might be exceptional, but if your communication isn't, your customers never get the full story.

This week on The Late Night Restaurant Podcast, Jay Ashton and Domenic Pedulla sit down with Joshua from Beltway Media to explore one of the most overlooked areas in hospitality: strategic communications.

From building trust and shaping customer perception to branding, storytelling, AI, and the future of restaurant marketing, this conversation dives into why communications is no longer optional for restaurants and hospitality businesses.

Joshua explains the difference between marketing and communications, why authenticity outperforms perfection, and how every customer interaction, from your website and social media to your menu, music, and dining experience, shapes your brand.

If you're a restaurant owner, hospitality leader, marketer, or entrepreneur looking to strengthen your brand and build lasting customer trust, this episode is packed with practical insights you can apply today.

What does it take to walk away from a successful corporate career and risk everything to build your dream?

This week on The Late Night Restaurant Podcast, Jay Ashton and Domenic Pedulla sit down with Brandon McCraney, Owner and Master Blender of Old Raleigh Distillery in North Carolina.

Brandon shares the incredible story behind launching a distillery during the height of COVID, surviving construction setbacks, nearly losing everything, and building an award-winning whiskey brand through grit, creativity, and relentless determination.

The conversation explores entrepreneurship, hospitality, customer experience, government regulations, distillery operations, importing whiskey, and why telling your story matters as much as the product you create.

Whether you're a restaurateur, beverage professional, entrepreneur, or someone thinking about taking the leap into business ownership, this episode delivers honest lessons from someone who's lived every challenge.

Listen now and hear why persistence often becomes an entrepreneur's greatest asset. The Late Night Restaurant Podcast Brandon.

In this episode of The Late Night Restaurant Podcast, Jay Ashton and Domenic Pedulla sit down with Darren from SBS Specialty Beverage Solutions to explore how coffee has become one of the biggest profit opportunities in foodservice.

From nitro coffee and dirty sodas to the latest espresso technology from Europe, this conversation dives into what restaurant operators need to know to stay ahead. Darren shares insights from nearly three decades in the beverage industry, including trends from international trade shows, how equipment is evolving, and why total cost of ownership matters more than the sticker price.

They also discuss the launch of the Alberta Restaurant Hall of Fame Awards Gala, the importance of preserving hospitality history, and why innovation continues to reshape the guest experience.

Whether you own a café, restaurant, hotel, or bar, this episode is packed with ideas to help improve beverage sales, increase profitability, and create a better customer experience.

Listen now and learn where the beverage business is headed next.

Amanda, owner of Sweet Cheeses Charcuterie in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, joins us to share how she built a thriving charcuterie business serving everything from intimate gatherings to large-scale events.

We discuss entrepreneurship, customer experience, and how Rally Catering helped simplify ordering, payments, and operations, allowing her to focus on creating exceptional food experiences while growing her business.

A great conversation for caterers, restaurant operators, and anyone looking to work smarter while delivering outstanding hospitality.

www.sweetcheesuscharcuterie.com

What happens when chefs, restaurateurs, and beverage leaders stop looking elsewhere for inspiration and start celebrating what grows in their own backyard?

In this episode, guests from Ireland's thriving food and hospitality scene share how local ingredients, farmer partnerships, fermentation, and a deep connection to place are shaping some of the country's most respected restaurants and bars. The conversation explores Terroir, the challenges facing hospitality, the future of local food systems, and why confidence in your own products matters more than ever.

A thoughtful discussion about food, culture, community, and building something meaningful from the ground up.

From surviving as a refugee on a boat in the South China Sea to building a coffee brand rooted in purpose, Tim Nguyen's story is unlike anything we've featured before.

In this episode, Tim shares the incredible journey that brought him from Vietnam to Canada, back to Vietnam, and now back again with a mission-driven coffee company called Black Lotus Coffee. We talk about farming coffee, sustainability, entrepreneurship, mindfulness, and the life lessons behind the phrase "No Mud, No Lotus."

This is a conversation about resilience, second chances, and building a business with meaning at its core.

Jay welcomes Kate from Food Allergy Canada for a conversation on how the food service industry can better handle food allergies. One in thirteen Canadians has a food allergy, and Kate's organization offers free tools, training, and resources to help operators build better practices. Simple communication, staff education, and smart prep systems can be the difference between a loyal guest and a liability. Kate breaks down what informed dining actually looks like and how any restaurant can get started at no cost.

Food allergies affect millions of Canadians and play a major role in where people choose to eat.

In this episode, Jay Ashton and Domenic Pedulla sit down with David Giacometti, founder of Foods For You, to discuss the growing importance of allergen awareness in restaurants. David shares how his experience in hospitality led him to create a platform that helps operators provide accurate allergy information while giving guests greater confidence when dining out.

From hidden ingredients and cross-contamination risks to building trust with guests and their families, this conversation explores why food safety is no longer optional. It's a competitive advantage and a responsibility every restaurant should take seriously.

In this episode of the podcast, hosts Dom and Jay sit down with Jane and Shell from Autech Canada to discuss the fascinating world of automated sushi machines. Originating from the engineers at Audio-Technical in Japan—yes, the same company famous for headphones and DJ turntables—Autech has brought incredibly precise sushi-making technology to the Canadian market.

We dive deep into their flagship model, the ASM-E-95, an unbelievable "rice sheet printer" capable of pumping out a wild 1,300 perfect rice sheets per hour.

What we discuss in this episode:

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The Origin Story: How a special equipment division at an audio company ended up making a manual prototype featured in the 1987 movie Wall Street.

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Debunking the Automation Myth: Why automated machinery isn't taking away high-end culinary jobs, but rather freeing up chefs to focus on creative menu curation and artistry.

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Solving the Labor Crunch: How a single machine can save a restaurant "half a person" in labor costs and remove the intense stress of finding specialized, traditionally trained labor.

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Unexpected Markets: Why non-traditional venues like high-end steakhouses are suddenly installing sushi machines to diversify their appetizer menus.

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Sanitation & Safety: The hidden logistical victory of temperature-controlled, easily cleanable, NSF-certified machinery in modern kitchens.

Whether you operate a traditional Japanese eatery or a steakhouse looking to safely inject fresh, high-margin ideas into your kitchen, this episode breaks down why commercial automation is a game-changer.

With a projected 4,000 restaurants facing closure across Canada this year alone, the hospitality industry has officially reached its structural breaking point. Profit margins are at an all-time low, menu prices are pushed to the absolute limit, and traditional business playbooks are being completely flipped upside down. If independent operators want to survive, they have to stop managing from the boardroom and start looking at their business through a completely fresh lens.

In this highly engaging and philosophical episode of the Late Night Restaurant Show, host Jay goes solo to sit down with Matthew, an engineer who is actively re-imagining the agricultural supply chain at Verdant. In a rare twist, the guest takes Jay off the hot seat by turning the tables to explore how backend supply chain quality directly drives frontline customer loyalty.

Together, they challenge some of the most deeply grandfathered myths in the food service space—including the outdated "30% food cost rule"—and unpack why a restaurant's true customer experience extends far beyond the plate.

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The "Parking Lot to Plate to Parking Lot" Journey: Breaking down the hidden friction points in a restaurant's customer map, from digital menus and deep potholes to food safety perceptions the next morning.

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The Death of the 30% Food Cost Rule: Why judging success by a rigid 1964 metric is failing modern operators, and why 85% of Canadian restaurateurs don't even know their actual menu costs.

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The "Why Theory" of Menu Engineering: A simple Excel sheet exercise that forces kitchens to ruthlessly question why individual ingredients (like a single slice of tomato) exist on a plate.

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Freshness & Ethylene Management: How extending the shelf-life of produce by just 4 to 7 days at the farm level completely alters the financial reality for distributors and restaurants.

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The Modern Hospitality Education Crisis: Navigating a severe gap in culinary labor where vital kitchen skills are being replaced by short-form TikTok videos.

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Complexity Talks, Simplicity Executes: Unpacking a vital corporate lesson on why the most scalable solutions are always inherently simple.

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The Empty Chair Concept: Why every critical business or marketing decision needs to actively place the customer in the room.

Jay also shares an unexpected piece of homework regarding a brilliant 1980s Canadian television show featuring engineering-minded farmers , alongside a real-time call-to-action that will instantly brighten your staff's day. Pop in your headphones for a refreshing masterclass on human behavior, supply chain systems, and authentic community building.

Ask any operator how the current economic climate handles their bottom line, and you’ll likely hear a chorus of complaints about inflation, dwindling consumer confidence, and paper-thin margins. But according to our latest guest, it’s time for a major reality check. The hospitality industry isn't facing a temporary hurdle, it's dealing with a permanent structural shift.

In this raw, political, and unfiltered live-recorded episode of the Late Night Restaurant Show, hosts Dom and Jay sit down with David Hopkins, the straight-shooting President of The Fifteen Group—Canada's largest restaurant consulting firm. David cuts through the noise of recent data trends (like the shocking Ipsos Canada report on plummeting consumer financial optimism) to deliver a hard truth: the market is heavily oversaturated, and the mediocre operators are running out of runway.

David breaks down why top-tier operators are still making incredible profits, why tightening labor shouldn't come at the cost of guest experience, and how to simplify backend inventory workflows to protect your baseline.

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The Saturated Market Reality: Why David argues that a 30% reduction in restaurant density would actually save the remaining 70% of healthy businesses.

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The Ipsos Canada Price Shock: Unpacking the new consumer baseline where 58% of diners prioritize price point, and 36% of Canadians are actively borrowing money just to live.

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The "Mandy's Salad" Paradox: Why premium-priced brands can still stay "busy as sin" if the foundational value proposition is executed beautifully.

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Culture Over Labor Cuts: Why shifting your energy toward menu engineering and product cost control yields higher profits than aggressively cutting floor staff.

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The Tipping Machine Backlash: Unpacking how default 25% and 30% tip configurations on payment terminals are actively alienating customers and destroying restaurant loyalty.

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Navi Cost Control: The origin story behind David's streamlined inventory software, designed as a simple middle-ground tool between complex legacy systems and standard spreadsheets.

Jay and Dom also jump into a heated debate on structural tax policy, specifically criticizing Manitoba's recent food PST exemption that inadvertently turns grocery stores into a restaurant’s fiercest tax-free competitor. Put on your headphones for an essential look at standard operational metrics, servant leadership culture, and what it truly takes to engineer an 11-out-of-10 guest experience.

With inflation soaring and skyrocketing operational costs squeezing the hospitality industry from every angle, independent operators are facing a harsh reality: roughly 40% of restaurants in regions like Quebec are currently operating without profitability. If you are looking to pull your business out of the red, the answer might not be changing your menu prices—it might be looking directly inside your kitchen's garbage cans.

In this episode of the Late Night Restaurant Show, hosts Dom and Jay sit down with Ben Liegey, the passionate founder of Better Table and director of the groundbreaking food waste solutions documentary, Food Synergy. Ben breaks down the mind-blowing math behind Canada's staggering $50 billion food waste crisis and reveals how typical food and beverage operations are unknowingly throwing away up to 7% of their total food revenue.

Ben pulls back the curtain on how Better Table works directly with commercial kitchens, hotels, and restaurants to transition away from antiquated pen-and-paper tracking. He shares how data-driven audits, behavioral changes, and cutting-edge mobile technologies are helping operators cut their waste in half, streamline their prep, and instantly inject thousands of dollars back into their bottom line.

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The 7% Revenue Drain: Why food waste is an invisible profit killer and how much money it's actually costing your operation.

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Kitchen Waste vs. Plate Waste: Identifying the massive disparity between back-of-house overproduction and what gets left behind on a guest's plate.

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The AI Over the Garbage Can: A look at the future of tech in commercial kitchens—from expensive high-end camera monitoring systems to accessible mobile audit apps.

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The Sustainability Recruitment Advantage: Why the younger generation of culinary professionals actively chooses to work for restaurants with eco-conscious leadership.

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The True Carbon Footprint of Food: Moving past the "farm-to-gate" metrics and understanding why food waste makes up a massive 10% of global climate change.

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Sneak Peek at "Bon Appify": Ben reveals the upcoming launch of Better Table’s brand-new automated food auditing mobile app.

Whether you are trying to tighten up a bloated inventory system, adopt smarter kitchen habits, or adapt your business model for 2026, Ben's expert strategies prove that maximizing efficiency is the ultimate recipe for sustainability.