Selectively, and only on operating questions.
Forty-five years of operating experience and a published, dated body of work on restaurant operating architecture is the kind of record that gets asked about in disputes: what a reasonable operator would have known, what the standard of practice actually is, whether an operating decision was defensible at the time it was made.
What I Will Speak To #
Operating practice. How restaurants actually produce what they produce, what the standard of care looks like in a working operation, how a competent operator reads a given situation, and whether a decision was consistent with that. My positions on these questions are already published and dated in my framework, which means my testimony cannot be shaped for the engagement. It is on the record before anyone retained me.
What I Will Not Do #
I will not reach a conclusion first and build the read backward from it. The read is the read, and if it does not support the side that retained me, that is what I will say. Anyone who needs a predetermined answer should retain someone else, and will have no trouble finding them.
I also will not take work where the effect is to point my framework at operators on behalf of a party that does not carry operating risk. That is the same refusal I hold on franchisor engagements, for the same reason.
Before You Call #
Read the published work on whatever question is in dispute. Every position is dated and searchable in the Knowledge Base, so you will know before the first conversation whether my record helps you or hurts you.
Inquiries: Let’s Talk.
