Not a consultant who picked restaurants. An operator who's been on the other side.

Thirty years in restaurants, and I've done most of the jobs in them. I started washing dishes and worked my way through the line, the floor, and the office to General Manager at a large national restaurant chain.

Later, I led a restaurant delivery operation from Northern Virginia to Baltimore, working with more than 200 restaurant partners and a network of more than 100 employees and contractors. I built the software the operation ran on, started businesses of my own, and eventually owned an 86-seat, full-service diner in Carrboro, North Carolina.

I've been through the hard parts too. I've fought to keep a restaurant open, and I've closed one. I've lived with the payroll decisions, the invoices that crept up, the financing that looked like a lifeline until the payments started coming out.

So when I look at your numbers, I'm not seeing a client file. I'm seeing the slow Tuesday, the vendor bill, the payroll you're not sure you can make. I've sat in your chair. That's the difference.