The Guest Isn’t a Data Point

What if saying sorry actually makes guests less likely to come back?In this episode of The Return, Anthony Valletta sits down with Mason Jenkins, PhD, a marketing professor at UNC Charlotte, to challenge one of hospitality's most widely accepted practices: apologizing when something goes wrong.Mason shares research showing that proactively apologizing for a problem customers haven't even noticed can reduce repeat visits. Anthony pushes back on what that means inside a restaurant, where waiting for a complaint could mean missing the opportunity to make things right.They debate the difference between transparency and drawing unnecessary attention to mistakes, why an apology can undermine trust even when it's well-intentioned, and how operators can take ownership without making the guest experience worse.Plus, The Lie: that more communication and transparency always build greater trust.The question: When something goes wrong and the guest hasn't noticed, is it better to apologize or simply make it right?---About the guest: Mason Jenkins, PhDMason Jenkins is a Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing at UNC Charlotte's Belk College of Business, specializing in consumer behavior, services marketing, and judgment and decision-making. His research explores how customers interpret service experiences, develop trust, and build loyalty. His work has received funding from the Marketing Science Institute and has appeared in publications including the Journal of Business Research. He earned his PhD from Northeastern University.

Discounts bring people through the door. But are they actually bringing them back?In this episode of The Return, Anthony Valletta challenges one of the restaurant industry's most common strategies: using promotions to drive traffic and build loyalty.He breaks down the hidden costs of discounting, from shrinking margins and rising menu prices to training guests to wait for the next deal. He also makes the case that restaurants may be sacrificing the experience of their most loyal guests to attract customers who won't return at full price.Drawing on his experience at bartaco, Anthony explains why the brand has chosen to invest in bigger portions, better hospitality, and consistent everyday value rather than relying on discounts to fill seats.The question at the center of it all: If every promotion disappeared tomorrow, how many of those guests would still come back?

A three-location business has $50,000 to invest. Should it spend that money reaching new customers on connected TV, or improving the experience for the customers already walking through the door?Anthony Valletta and Kevin Planovsky of Sparkfly take opposite sides. Kevin argues that more accessible, targeted media can accelerate growth when an operator has a strong product and experience to back it up. Anthony argues that investing inside the four walls builds deeper relationships, referrals and a more sustainable base of returning guests.They debate the speed of paid awareness versus the staying power of word of mouth, the leaky bucket on both sides of customer acquisition, and what a business actually owns when the ads stop running.Plus The Lie: that you can buy your way to loyalty.

Restaurant technology is supposed to give your team time back. But what happens when it starts taking away the thinking that made them good in the first place?Anthony makes the case for automating as much back-of-house work as possible, while questioning the growing number of tools that replace human judgment instead of supporting it.He pushes on what operators are actually giving up in the name of efficiency.The episode gets into forecasting tools that slowly weaken a manager’s instincts, guest-facing technology that cuts labor but also cuts hospitality, and why having more information about a guest means very little if your team hasn’t been taught what to do with it.Plus The Lie: that technology gives your team time back.

We have more guest data than we’ve ever had. And somehow, we may know our guests less than we ever did.Jen Dodd has spent more than 30 years in the restaurant business and believes data is essential, especially when you’re trying to scale hospitality across hundreds of locations.Anthony pushes back on what the dashboard can actually tell you.They get into the difference between knowing your numbers and knowing your guest, why great operators still need to “listen to the hum” of the restaurant, and whether AI and automation are helping leaders see more or slowly replacing the instincts that made them great operators in the first place.Plus The Lie: that if we collect enough data about a guest, we actually know them.

Every great GM is supposed to want the next title. Regional. Director. Bigger scope. More locations.But what if promoting your best operator is the fastest way to weaken your best restaurant?Anthony sits down with Christin Marvin of Columbine Hospitality to argue about the career ladder hospitality treats as inevitable: whether moving up is real development, or just churn we’ve learned to call growth.They get into why the GM chair should be a destination job, not a stopover; why autonomy matters more than another training program; and what happens when a company’s growth plan gets mistaken for an individual leader’s ambition.Plus The Lie: that up is the only direction that counts.

I argue loyalty programs don't create loyalty, they just find the guests who were already loyal and put a price tag on them. Zach Goldstein, founder and CEO of Thanx, builds those programs for a living. They get into why most loyalty metrics are meaningless, what the "40% of revenue through the app" number actually tells you, and why a program that hasn't changed in two years is holding your brand back instead of growing it. 18 minutes, no filler.

Kathleen McDonough and Derek Williamson built Shifting People on a belief: take care of your people and everything else follows. Anthony built The Return on the opposite arrow. Episode 2 puts both in the same room. No warmup, no panel-discussion politeness. Kathleen makes the strongest case for people-first you'll hear anywhere, Derek gets asked to tear it apart before Anthony ever touches it, and then a soaked two-top shows up at a locked door at 10:01pm and every framework in the room gets tested at once. Plus The Cut, the people cost each of them trimmed that never makes the case study, and The Lie, where the people-ops world gets asked what it's lying to itself about. The 10:01 Test, with Kathleen McDonough and Derek Williamson of Shifting People.

We measure the wrong things in this business and then act shocked when the math quits on us.Covers. Average check. Labor as a percentage. Every one of them looks backward, and every one of them can be juiced for a quarter while the real problem keeps growing underneath.The number I'd trade all of it for is whether the guest comes back. That's the whole show. That's why it's called The Return.First episode is live. No guest, just me, saying out loud what I actually believe after over 20 years on the floor. Including the part that gets me in trouble: the guest matters more than the employee, and refusing to say so is exactly why your margins are bleeding out.If you've ever sat through an industry panel and wanted to launch your chair across the room, start here.

In this episode, JJ Perino of TwoTen Strategy discusses the evolving approach to site selection, emphasizing the importance of understanding what locations communicate about a brand beyond traditional metrics. He explores how data, customer behavior, and brand strategy intersect to make smarter real estate decisions.