Pre-Order Now

The Operator's Playbook

44 years of unfiltered lessons from the front lines of independent restaurant operations. No theory. No pontificating. Just the truth.

By Jeffrey Summers

Pre-Order Coming Soon — $49.95

Includes the complete book + companion workbook

Scroll

The Problem

Twenty-four percent of restaurants go out of business in year one. Seventy-six percent are gone by year three. Those aren't abstract numbers. Those are real people who emptied retirement accounts, maxed out credit cards, and bet everything on a dream — only to watch it unravel.

The tragedy isn't that restaurants are hard. They are. The tragedy is that most of those failures were preventable.

They didn't fail because the food was bad. They didn't fail because the location was wrong or the economy tanked. They failed because the operator didn't know what they didn't know — and wouldn't ask for help until it was too late.

"I'm tired of talking head bullshit. They talk about the industry. I'm talking about your restaurant."
— Jeffrey Summers
"In 44 years, I have never once seen a great restaurant fail because the food wasn't good enough."
— From the Introduction

The Framework

Five Fundamentals. One Playbook.

In 44 years, I have yet to meet a single operator who was strong across all five. Not one. This book covers every one of them — because that's where the game is won or lost.

I
Perspective
The blind spots killing your business that you can no longer see.
II
People
Stop hiring bodies. Start building a team worth staying for.
III
Product
Service vs. Hospitality. Differentiation. The Guest experience.
IV
Performance
Leadership that works on the floor, not just in the office.
V
Profit
The money you're leaving on the table and how to stop.
44
Years in the restaurant industry
148
Independent operators coached
34
Restaurants opened from scratch
"If you picked up this book looking for validation — for someone to tell you you're doing it right — put it down. There are plenty of books that will do that for you. This isn't one of them."
— From the Preface

What This Book Is

This is 44 years of actually doing the job — opening restaurants, running them, watching them succeed and watching them fail, and logging every lesson along the way.

No other business touches people's lives the way a restaurant does. From first meal to last, nothing impacts a life quite like a restaurant does. That's why the operators who do this work deserve better thinking than they're getting.

This book is that thinking. Unfiltered. Peer to peer. No pontificating.

About the Author

Jeffrey Summers

34 restaurants opened from scratch. 148 independent owners and 158 multi-unit managers coached. More than 16,000 hourly employees developed at every level of the business.

Jeffrey is a consultant, speaker, and operator whose entire practice is built on one premise: that behavioral change through better thinking is the only thing that creates lasting results. He doesn't teach theory. He teaches what he's lived.

His clients range from first-time independent operators to established multi-unit groups. What they have in common is that they called him when the usual answers stopped working.

jeffreysummers.com LinkedIn jeffrey@jeffreysummers.com

Every Guest. Every Experience. Every Day.

Pre-Order Coming Soon — $49.95

Includes the complete book + companion workbook