April 24, 2026

BIGGEST TAKEAWAYS: Restaurant Leadership Conference 2026

The Restaurant Leadership Conference just concluded in Scottsdale, AZ. Informa, the company behind the event, described it as:

"The Restaurant Leadership Conference (RLC) is the ultimate gathering for C-suite executives and decision-makers in the foodservice industry. At RLC, you’ll gain exclusive access to the insights, strategies, and connections you need to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry."

This is a great show if you want to know what leaders at the biggest and most proactive brands are thinking about and how they are improving their businesses. It’s a little more relaxed in its pacing, which gives you more room to have longer and more meaningful conversations.

KEY TAKEAWAYS;

THE TOP TOPICS

Yes, there is always a lot of discussion around leadership and menu innovation, but since this newsletter is primarily about where operations and marketing come together, here’s what everyone is talking about.

1. AI.

Brands are 100% using it. They are 100% trying to figure out how to use it better. They are 100% looking for tools that help them.

We are 100% struggling with best practices.

If I’m being honest, it feels like vendors could be doing a much better job of showing us the exact steps to align with our goals and strategies.

Don’t just sell us the picture of the fully built Lego on the box. We need the instruction manual too, please.

2. Guest Feedback

At this show, we are used to hearing about systemic technology upgrades, shifting systemwide leadership, and nailing the guest experience, etc. And that was present. But more than I have ever noticed before, executives were talking about understanding their guests better, listening to what they want, and giving them more of it.

That all makes sense since retention is the name of the game. What makes a guest want to become a raving fan of the brand and keep coming back to the point that it becomes part of their life?

That doesn’t happen from a cool campaign or a promotion. It’s about understanding your guests, and that all comes from feedback. Feedback tells you what they like and what they don’t like, which is totally different than understanding purchase behavior.

Purchase behavior without guest feedback doesn’t give you the full story.

3. Personalization

Personalization is the new segmentation. Brands have been talking about that for years, but it feels like only now do we have the tools to do this the right way. Vicki Hormann shared on stage that when they send out an email to guests, there can be up to 7,000 variations of that email.

I’m not saying segmenting is bad. If that’s all your current tools can do, it’s worth doing, especially segments like new guests, abandoned cart, churned, etc. But if you can send me an email, text, or push notification that aligns with how I order or interact with your brand, that marketing will ultimately see much higher results.

IS IT MARKETING OR OPERATIONS?

On an awesome panel hosted by 🍽️Zack Oates🍕 with some industry leaders, they broke down what goes on in several scenarios to figure out how to diagnose and prescribe problems happening at the store level.

In almost every scenario (traffic is down, rewards signups aren’t consistent across locations, the food doesn’t look like it does on social), the solution came down to looking at guest feedback.

Are guests happy? No? Operations needs help.
Are guests happy? Yes? Marketing can be augmented.

Either way, the bottom line is that marketing and operations are a team and should be working together all the time.

PS: A guest that’s been recovered is going to spend 5x more in the next 365 vs. no interaction at all.

MEASURING PERFORMANCE

One of the best stories I heard around the power of feedback came from Susan Cline , Group Vice President, Strategy & Transformation at Bloomin' Brands. She shared the core pillars that have driven growth at Outback Steakhouse.

Here’s a mini-framework view you can use:

Deliver on your core values
Overdeliver on your service
Deliver on your brand
Empower your team and make sure it’s fun to work there
Lean hard into feedback to measure performance

The key is #5 and having the right tool that enables it. One of the ways Outback does this is by using Ziosk . While it does have order-and-pay at the table and some ticket increasers with the games, its ability to gather feedback on every order and power rewards program growth is where it really stands out.

Through this, they have happier guests, servers making more tips, faster table turns, a better understanding of return intention, and a whole lot more guests that have turned into mates.

MENU INNOVATION

Technomic delivered their annual State of the Industry report, and the part I found most interesting was around limited-time offers and menu innovation. They shared what guests are asking for and what is performing well. It came down to three main areas:

Indulgence – loaded items, carbs on carbs, interesting desserts
Information – transparency, health benefits, animal breed callouts, brand mentions
Innovation – texture or flavor opposition, fusions, bites, and poppers

If you’re thinking about what to do with your menus, the data shows these are working.

One thing I encourage brands to think about when they measure an LTO campaign, in addition to sales metrics, is retention metrics (did this bring guests back, did this bring them back faster) as well as engagement metrics (did open and click rates increase, did social activity increase, etc).

LTOs are a really great marketing tool, so it’s important to measure that part of the effort.