What's Cooking? is the podcast for hospitality operators scaling smart. Hosted by Conor Sheridan – CEO and co-founder of Nory, and a former operator who built and ran multi-site restaurant brands himself – each episode goes behind the scenes of fast-growing restaurant groups to explore the operational challenges that actually matter - like disconnected systems, staffing chaos, and margin pressure.
Through honest conversations with industry leaders you’ll get practical insight into what’s working on the ground right now - from automation and AI to culture, data, and waste reduction. No fluff. No forecasts. Just the blueprint for better hospitality operations at scale.
New episodes every two weeks.
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Données mises à jour le 09/09/2026
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How to Rebuild a Struggling Restaurant Region with the VP of Operations of Emmy Squared Pizza
Saison 2 · Épisode 8
jeudi 20 août 2026 • Durée 40:31
There's a split happening across hospitality right now that doesn't get talked about enough. Restaurant groups that opened after Covid built their operations for a world we're actually in: leaner teams, faster decisions, tighter margins, all from day one. Groups that existed before Covid and survived it are often still running on assumptions from a different era. Surviving the pandemic and surviving what came after are two very different problems. Topher Bertone-Ledford, VP of Operations at Emmy Squared Pizza, has spent the last two years living inside exactly that gap. He took over the group's New York region in a challenging state and rebuilt it from the ground up. Today, New York is the group's top-performing region on profitability. In this conversation with Conor, Topher walks through the operational reality of a post-Covid rebuild: why the middle of hospitality has disappeared, why "cleanliness is respect" is the foundation of everything, the labour acquisition speed problem no one has solved yet, the 12 Steps of Service campaign Emmy Squared rolled out in a three-month sprint, and the total-experience math the guest is actually doing at the end of every meal. Plus a frank closing take: the hospitality industry needs to stop pretending it's like any other industry.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The middle of hospitality has disappeared. Fast casual has streamlined; fine dining has doubled down on opulence. The mom-and-pop with linens and a $35 pork chop no longer works. Operators have to run to the edges to be successful.
- Cleanliness is the foundation, not a nice-to-have. Topher's Emmy Squared turnaround started with one question walked through every restaurant: "Are we seeing the same restaurant?" Leaders who couldn't moved on.
- Labour acquisition is a speed problem, not a salary problem. The talent pool has shifted post-Covid. The operators who move fastest on decisions and communicate vision fastest win the "diamonds in the rough."
- Data has to be real-time to be useful. Running the business off a two-week-old P&L means being two weeks behind the bell curve.
- Guest experience is total math, not dish math. The guest never knows the numbers. They do a split-second equation at the end: does this total match the experience I just had?
Hart's Group Bite-Size: Scale Without Standardising
Saison 2 · Épisode 7
mercredi 29 juillet 2026 • Durée 14:03
Missed the full episode with Harts Group CEO Sam Hart? Here's the bite-size cut.
Keep an eye out for our next episode of What's Cooking, hosted by Conor Sheridan, CEO of Nory, the AI operating system for hospitality.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-harts-group-multi-brand-playbook-what-to/id1825066598?i=1000777855873
The Harts Group Multi-Brand Playbook: What to Centralise, What to Protect
Saison 2 · Épisode 7
mercredi 22 juillet 2026 • Durée 55:32
Harts Group CEO Sam Hart on running eight distinct hospitality brands, centralising the systems that scale, and protecting the individuality that drives the reputation.
Most multi-brand hospitality groups end up looking like a head office running several businesses that happen to share a name on a group balance sheet. Harts Group has done the opposite. Since 2003, the family-run business behind Barrafina, El Pastor, Quo Vadis, Parrillan, Bar Daskal, Drops and El Siete has scaled to 16 sites in London plus a first international opening in Dubai, while keeping each brand genuinely distinct in culinary identity, sourcing and guest experience. In this episode, Sam walks Conor through the operational architecture underneath: what gets centralised (finance, comms, HR, estates, one shared tech stack), what stays bespoke (menus, sequence of service, chef and MD leadership per side of the group), and the deliberate cultural decisions that let a group with 470 staff protect quality while absorbing a 38% minimum wage increase since 2022. Plus the two-year tech review Harts just completed, the AI task force building custom tools for restaurant ops (including an internal reservation bot), the Yum Pingo dish-level customer data that drives menu decisions, and the international expansion into Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Bangkok. A rare conversation with an operator who has held the line on individuality while genuinely scaling.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The group owns the systems, the brand owns the identity. Centralise finance, HR, estates, comms and the tech stack; protect menus, sequence of service and culinary leadership per brand
Lived experience is the guardrail on new brands. Harts opens restaurants where founders or partners have genuinely lived the cuisine. It's the discipline that keeps the portfolio credible
The tech stack should be best-in-class and open. Standardised across the group, single source of truth, but modular enough to swap components as the market moves
Data at dish level changes menu decisions. Popularity alone lies. Rating-per-dish across thousands of reviews (Yum Pingo) is how Harts improved customer satisfaction while cutting labour 18%
Being privately owned is a structural advantage. No forced timelines, board consensus over votes, and the freedom to pause when the world changes. That patience compounds into brand quality
Black Sheep Coffee bite-size: Never fear competition
Saison 2 · Épisode 6
mardi 14 juillet 2026 • Durée 11:30
Missed the full episode with Gabriel Shohet, co-founder and co-CEO of Black Sheep Coffee? Here's the bite-size cut.
Keep an eye out for our next episode, featuring Sam Hart, CEO, Harts Group
Hosted by Conor Sheridan, CEO of Nory, the AI operating system for hospitality.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conviction-over-consensus-with-the-co-ceo-of/id1825066598?i=1000775914193
Conviction Over Consensus with the Co-CEO of Black Sheep Coffee
Saison 2 · Épisode 6
mercredi 8 juillet 2026 • Durée 01:03:13
Black Sheep Coffee co-CEO Gabriel Shohet on building a 135-site brand by betting on the bean the specialty industry rejected.
In 2013, two university flatmates from St Andrews quit their corporate jobs the same day, moved to London with around £20k between them, and built a coffee company on the bean the entire specialty industry had written off. 13 years later, Black Sheep Coffee runs 135+ locations across five markets, opens roughly 1.5 shops per week, and remains majority founder-owned. In this episode, Gabriel walks Conor through the conviction behind the Robusta bet, why customer satisfaction is the only growth metric they look at, the decision to operate 50 corporate shops before franchising, how they pick franchise partners (minimum unit thresholds, territory exclusivity, no mom-and-pops), why both founders relocated to Florida to lead the US expansion, the Sun Belt entry strategy, and the company slogan that explains the whole approach: never fear competition, open right next door instead. Plus a frank take on the David and Goliath fallacy, the role of data in a hypergrowth business, and why "great ideas" aren't what builds a brand.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Conviction over consensus. When the industry tells you you're wrong, stress-test the belief harder rather than abandon it faster
Customer satisfaction is the only growth metric. When it stays high, open more shops. When it drops, stop
Build the proof before you franchise. 50 corporate shops before the first franchisee landed
Filter out the mom-and-pops. Territory minimums and development schedules align partners with growth
Never fear competition. Open right next door instead. If your strategy is to avoid competition, you'll fall on your face eventually
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro: building on a conviction the industry thinks is wrong
2:50 Welcome, Gabriel
3:12 St Andrews flatmates, Sunday Skype calls, quitting jobs the same day
Jamie Oliver Group bite-size: A second act
Saison 2 · Épisode 5
mercredi 24 juin 2026 • Durée 13:42
Missed the full episode with Ed Loftus, Global Director of Jamie Oliver Restaurants? Here's the bite-size cut.
Keep an eye out for our next episode, featuring Gabriel Shohet, Co-Founder, Black Sheep Coffee.
Hosted by Conor Sheridan, CEO of Nory, the AI operating system for hospitality.
A Second Act with the Global Director of Jamie Oliver Group
Saison 2 · Épisode 5
mercredi 17 juin 2026 • Durée 49:05
Ed Loftus on bringing Jamie's Italian back to the UK, scaling Jamie Oliver Group to 80+ sites in 24 countries, and the discipline behind a real second act.
Very few people in UK hospitality ever get to attempt a real second act. Jamie Oliver Group has just done it: Jamie's Italian back in Leicester Square in March 2026, seven years after the 2019 administration that closed the UK estate. The man who's been at the company through all of it (nearly 15 years, employee number one of the post-2019 strategy) is Ed Loftus, Global Director of Jamie Oliver Restaurants. In this episode he walks Conor through what it actually took to get here: building globally first (80+ sites, 24 countries, 7 brand formats), the franchise-first pivot, the partnership architecture behind the UK return (Brava Hospitality Group with Cain International), and a 30% smaller menu doubling down on fresh pasta made on premises every day. Plus 16 global partners, a head office that's banned PDFs, why "my Jamie is not your Jamie" matters when scaling a celebrity-chef brand, the John Lewis Cookery School partnership, and Ed's frank case that "people" is the operational metric most operators ignore.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A good brand doesn't necessarily make a good business. The 2019 UK administration wasn't a demand problem, it was a flexibility-and-capital problem
Build globally first, then come back home. Jamie Oliver Group spent six years proving the model in 24 countries before relaunching in the UK
Franchising is a marriage. Partner selection is the single most important decision; the right partners weather macro shocks together
Simplicity scales. Complexity does not. The technology backbone (digital intranet, no PDFs, LMS, sentiment) starts from that principle
Don't recreate the past. When a brand returns to market after a setback, the question isn't what to bring back, it's how the strongest attributes should show up in today's market
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro: what a genuine second act looks like in hospitality
2:43 Welcome, Ed
Creams Cafe bite-size: Nobody needs a dessert
Saison 2 · Épisode 4
mercredi 10 juin 2026 • Durée 12:50
Missed the full episode with Oliver Rodbard, COO of Creams Cafe? Here's the bite-size cut.
Keep an eye out for our next episode, featuring Ed Loftus, Group Director, Jamie Oliver Restaurants.
Hosted by Conor Sheridan, CEO of Nory, the AI operating system for hospitality.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rebuilding-the-franchise-with-the-coo-of-creams-cafe/id1825066598?i=1000770899848
Rebuilding the Franchise with the COO of Creams Cafe
Saison 2 · Épisode 4
mercredi 3 juin 2026 • Durée 46:01
Creams Cafe COO Oliver Rodbard on scaling a franchise system, vertical integration as franchisee protection, and what it takes to make every visit count in a discretionary category.
Oliver Rodbard, COO of Creams Cafe, sits down with Conor to walk through the operational reality of running a 98%-franchised, ~100-site business through UK family restaurant visits halving, aggregator commissions of 20 to 30%, and a tech transformation built to give margin back to franchisees, not extract it from them. 17 years across YUM! Brands, Pizza Hut Europe and Canada, Freshii, and Soul Foods Group give him a perspective rooted in both sides of the franchise table. He explains why vertical integration (Creams' own gelato and dry-mix plants) has held Creams inflation to ~19% while UK food service has run ~59.5%, why "trust governs the relationship, not the contract", and why every change Creams makes is consumer-tested then operationally tested before it lands. Plus a frank view on aggregators, the new Creams Direct delivery platform that's already done close to £1m in 10 weeks, and the philosophy that anchors all of it: when the category is discretionary and visits are down, every experience has to be worth it.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Trust, not the contract, governs the franchise relationship. The cleanest way to lose a franchisee is to forget that
Vertical integration done right is a margin gift to franchisees, not an extraction tool. Creams held inflation to ~19% while UK food service ran ~59.5%
The guest experience will never be better than the team-member experience. Build the back of house and the front follows
Capability beats control. Every franchise system thinks tighter rules = better outcomes; the durable answer is better-trained operators with more flexibility
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro: the franchising model and rebuilding trust
2:13 Welcome, Oliver
2:30 17 years across YUM!, Freshii, Soul Foods to Creams
5:21 The service model transformation: theatre over function
7:00 "Maniacal" testing: consumer panels, then operational reality
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