Latest / "Mise En Place" Culture First™ / PULSE! Today’s Hotel, Restaurant & Bar Industry News Deep Dive | 09/02/2026 Episode
Transcript
- Brad Peters: Welcome to Pulse, today's hotel, restaurant, and bar industry news, a deep dive from HRB Universal, navigating your industry. With insights from leaders Massive Q2 MA is creating a $1.6 trillion consolidation trap, while AI and robotics are entirely rewriting the rules of the hospitality floor. Are your operations protected? Welcome to Pulse Today's Hotel, restaurant and bar industry news deep dive, brought to you by HRB Universal. We are delivering the critical updates, trend analyses, and operational intelligence you need to stay ahead in hospitality. It is honestly just a phenomenal time to be untacking these numbers. I mean the landscape is shifting right under the feet of every operator out there. ⁓ absolutely. And the margin for error has just, you know, never been thinner. Which is exactly our mission for this deep dive. We are cisting through what is basically a massive stack of twenty twenty six outlets today. Yeah, a lot of data to get through. Right. We've got the National Restaurant Association State of the Industry Report. ⁓ AHLA data, capstone partners, MA metrics, and some highly specialized tech forecasts. And our goal is to extract the ultimate operational blueprint for you. Because whether you are a GM pulling your hair out over Friday's schedule, an operator trying to price a menu, or you know, sitting in the executive suite planning expansion, we are looking for actionable strategies here. Exactly. Strategies to actually survive inflation and navigate these brutal labor gaps. Yeah. And Leverage this tech revolution instead of just being run over by it. So let's unpack this. We have to start with the biggest disruptor altering the physical footprint of hospitality right now, which is technology and artificial intelligence. Right, because the inescapable reality of twenty twenty six is that the digital infrastructure of a restaurant or hotel is now just as vital as the physical plumbing. Wow. Yeah. If the digital pipes clog, I mean the whole business stops. I'm gonna look at the news hitting the wires today because it underscores that point intensely. Wonder just raised six hundred and fifty million dollars. At a nine billion dollar valuation, right? Yes, nine billion. They're deploying kitchen robotics at a scale we literally haven't seen before. And simultaneously, Canary's eleven hospitality tech trends for twenty twenty six report just landed on my desk. ⁓ that's a good one. It is. And the core thesis there is that AI is officially shifting from the exploration phase to pure, unforgiving execution. Mm-hmm. Like we are looking at IoT enabled smart rooms, cloud native APIs, and zero trust security models becoming the baseline standard. Let's actually break down what that means for the operator on the ground though, because those terms can sound like, you know, white noise if you aren't an IT director. Very true. When Canary talks about the end of the ⁓ the digital experimentation phase, they mean the grace period is over. Like two years ago, having a quirky AI chatbot was a fun marketing gimmick. Exactly. But today, 2026 is strictly about ROI focused operations. The technology has to prove its financial worth on the PL immediately. Let me stop you there though, because when I read cloud native APIs and zero trust security models, I immediately wonder how that changes the day-to-day for, say, a hotel GM. Like how is a zero trust model functionally different from the Wi-Fi security hotels have been using for a decade? Okay, so think of a traditional network like a castle with a moat. Once you cross the drawbridge, say you log into the hotel's back office network, the system assumes you are friendly and just lets you roam around. Right. You're inside, so you must belong there. Exactly. But in a modern hospitality environment, you have thousands of connected devices. You've got guest smartphones, smart thermostats, digital door locks, ⁓ POS tablets, all just pinging the network constantly. It's a lot traffic. Right. So zero trust assumes the castle has already been breached. It requires strict identity verification for every single device and user every single time they try to access a new piece of data. ⁓ wow. Yeah, it completely isolates systems. So if a hacker gets into, let's say, a smart TV in room three ⁓ four, they can't just pivot and access the guest database or the payment gateway. That paints a very clear picture. It's essentially putting a separate lock on every single door inside the castle. Yeah. Rather than just, you know, relying on the front gate. And those cloud native APIs you mentioned, that just means These distinct systems can actually talk to each other seamlessly, right, without needing an expensive physical server sitting in a dusty back office. Precisely. The POS talks to the inventory system, which talks to the labor scheduler in real time, hosted completely remotely. And this level of integration is where we actually start seeing staggering financial shifts. Which brings me to this Wharton study that just came out. It revealed that tabletop tech, you know, those digital ordering and payment screens sitting right in front of the guest. is boosting average check sizes by two point nine one percent. Which is huge on its own. Right. But while simultaneously cutting labor by twenty-three percent. I mean those numbers should make any operator sit up and take notes. They really should. But I want to push back on this a little bit or at least look at the shadow side of Okay. We see the twenty three percent labor cut, which sounds great for margins, but consumer sentiment is highly fractured right now. It is. The data shows forty one percent of consumers say technology improves hospitality But nearly 38% say it actively hurts it. Yeah, that's a significant chunk. Right. If almost four out of ten consumers feel like a screen is ruining their dining experience, aren't operators risking alienating a huge demographic by just blindly automating the front of house? I mean, if I go out to a nice dinner, I don't want to feel like an Amazon warehouse worker entering data into a terminal. No, of course not. And that is really the defining tension of hospitality in 2026. You cannot simply remove twenty-three percent of your labor force and leave a void. So what fills the void? Well, if you cut the server's time at the table, you have to reallocate the remaining staff to do what humans do best. A tablet is fantastic at upselling a second margarita, right? Or accurately modifying a complex burger order. Yeah, it doesn't forget the extra pickles. Exactly. But a tablet is terrible at reading a guest's body language, realizing they are on a stressful first date, and offering, you know A warm, reassuring presence. That makes sense. The technology should make the transactional elements invisible so the actual hospitality can become hypervisible. ⁓ I like that. So it's about removing the friction of the transaction, not removing the hospitality itself. Okay, that tracks. But here is where the dynamic shifts entirely. And this is the concept that is really bending my mind a bit. Agentic commerce. We are seeing the rise of autonomous AI agents. Acting as the new consumer gatekeepers. Yes, and this changes the entire customer acquisition funnel. Traditionally, your hotel or restaurant marketed directly to a human being. Right. They see an ad, they click it. The human looked at your website, felt inspired by the photos, and made a choice. Agenti commerce means an AI assistant on a consumer's phone is the one doing the negotiating. Wait, so I'm trying to visualize this in practice. Are we talking about a consumer telling their phone, book me a hotel in Chicago for under $300 a night? Make sure it has a highly rated gym and order me a high protein dinner to arrive twenty minutes after I check in. That is exactly what is happening. The human never sees your flashy website. They never look at your carefully curated menu. The AI agent scans those cloud native APIs we just talked about, compares your amenities and pricing against fifty competitors in literally milliseconds, and makes the booking. It almost feels like having a hyper efficient. digital bouncer and concierge rolled into one. Except this bouncer doesn't care about your brand story, you know. It only cares about data points and how easily it can parse your digital footprint. The analogy is spot on. And if your digital bouncer, your ATI isn't speaking the same language as the consumer's AI agent, you don't even get considered for the transaction. You're just invisible. Completely. Your digital footprint has to be readable and attractive to an algorithm, not just a human eye. That is a terrifying but crucial pivot for marketing directors to understand. But this AI integration isn't just happening on the consumer facing side, right? It's invading the physical infrastructure of the buildings themselves. ⁓ absolutely. The hotel sector data on this is fascinating. Let's talk about Aquila 3D's digital twins. Okay. So a digital twin is honestly one of the most powerful operational tools to emerge in the last decade. It is a real time AI driven virtual replica of a building's physical systems. Aaron Explain the mechanism there, though. How does a virtual replica actually save money in the physical world? Sure. Imagine a massive luxury hotel in New York City. Traditionally, energy management is reactive. A guest complains it's too hot, or a manager realizes the lobby is freezing and someone physically adjusts a thermostat. Right, very old school. Yeah. But a digital twin creates a dynamic map of the entire HVAC, lighting, and plumbing networks. It constantly ingests data. We're talking local weather forecasts, real time occupancy of specific rooms, and even the angle of the sun hitting the building. Wait, really? The angle of the sun? Yes. It preemptively turns down the air conditioning on the shaded side of the hotel before the rooms even get cold. It's not a thermostat, it's a predictive, autonomous brain managing your utilities. And the financial impact is not subtle. The report highlights a single luxury hotel in New York City using this digital twin technology that saved two hundred and fourteen thousand eight hundred kilowatt hours. Which is massive. It translated to fifty-one thousand five hundred and fifty-three dollars in savings in just six months. Plus, they netted a sixty-six thousand dollar Kineticson incentive simply for having the real-time monitoring infrastructure in place. And that is exactly why the era of experimentation is over. That is hard. Bottom line ROI. And it becomes even more critical when you factor in regulatory pressures. Right. According to the AHLA, utility expenses in hotels are up twenty-seven percent since twenty nineteen. And you have aggressive regulations on top of that, like New York City's local law ninety seven. Mm-hmm. We hear this term thrown around, but for an operator outside of New York, what does a law like that? actually do. So local law ninety seven is essentially a strict cap on greenhouse gas emissions for large buildings. If your property exceeds its permitted carbon limit, the city imposes a fine of two hundred and sixty eight dollars per metric ton of CO2 over the limit. Yeah, for a sprawling energy intensive hospitality asset, that isn't a slap on the wrist. That is a recurring catastrophic financial exposure. So implementing a digital twin transforms compliance from a terrifying financial risk Into a measurable competitive advantage. You are actively dodging fines while simultaneously slashing your baseline utility overhead. Yes. So for the operator listening to this, the actionable takeaway is threefold. Let's hear it. First, on the front of house side, you need to integrate AI upselling tools directly with your CRM and preOS systems. Platforms like Hubplate are leading this by triggering personalized offers at micro moments. Right, catching the guest at the perfect time. Exactly. If the API knows a returning guest always orders a premium cabernet, the tablet or the server should offer it the moment they sit down, not ten minutes into the meal. Make it seamless. Second, you have to implement dynamic pricing and predictive labor scheduling, right? Yeah. Scheduling based on a manager's gut feeling of how busy a Tuesday night might be is just archaic at this point. You need to use real-time sales velocity, local event data, and historical booking pacing. And third, on the infrastructure side, You must transition from reactive energy management to active emissions control. If you wait for the monthly utility bill or the carbon fine to arrive in the mail, you've already lost. You need IoT sensors managing the load in real time. But here's the reality check. You can have the most optimized AI-driven physical infrastructure in the world. You can have a digital twin saving you 50 grand on electricity, but if your human labor force is mismanaged, your margins will still collapse. Which is the perfect bridge into our second block of analysis. Technology is optimizing the floor, but hospitality remains a deeply human driven endeavor. We have to look at how these digital tools are being deployed to solve the most expensive, volatile, and highly regulated part of the PL, which is the workforce. And the labor market in hospitality right now is just a masterclass in contradictions, and the regulatory environment surrounding it is completely unforgiving. Let's look at the clash in the data. The National Restaurant Association's 2026 report is projecting $1.55 trillion in nationwide sales and the addition of 100,000 jobs. That brings the total industry workforce to $15.8 million. Now, if you just read that headline, it sounds like a golden era of growth, but then you flip to the AHLA data and owners are getting absolutely crushed. Cost of goods is cited as a top pressure by 71% of operators and labor by 65%. It is the ultimate margin squeeze. Top line revenue looks incredibly healthy because menu prices have inflated, but the bottom line profitability is deteriorating. And a significant driver of this deterioration is what we can call the consistency gap. The consistency gap. I really like that phrasing. How are you defining that in the context of 2026? So, as brands scale, whether that's through the sweeping MA consolidation we are tracking or through aggressive organic unit expansion. The physical and communicative distance between executive strategy and floor-level reality grows exponentially. A C-suite executive mandates a new labor target or a new training protocol, but by the time it filters down to a shift supervisor in a bustling kitchen three states away, the execution is completely fractured. Church's Texas Chicken is actually a fascinating case study in the news today regarding expansion. They are plotting this ambitious 600-unit expansion in China. Now If we build an analogy here, it almost feels like scaling a brand without fixing your internal consistency gap is like building a massive skyscraper on a foundation of sand. That's a great way to visualize it. The heavier the building gets, the more units you add, the faster it sinks. Eventually, the sheer weight of your own expansion crushes your unit level profitability because the foundation just can't support the operational load. Exactly. And when you are managing thousands of employees across hundreds of locations. Operators who are still relying on outdated systems, you know, spreadsheets, whiteboards, or informal group texts, they suffer terribly. Let's pause in the group text for a second, because I know so many managers who still handle shift swaps via text message. It is an operational nightmare and honestly a massive legal liability. How so? Well, if a shift swap happens on a text thread and results in an employee working a double shift without the legally mandated rest period, the spreadsheet won't catch it, the whiteboard won't catch it. But the state labor board certainly will. ⁓ absolutely they will. Relying on analog systems leads to labor inefficiency, zero reporting visibility for the executives, and catastrophic management breakdowns. Which leads us to a genuinely sobering piece of news today. OutFox hospitality is currently staring down a three point eight million dollar penalty from the Illinois Department of Labor. Yeah, that's a tough one. The violation. They failed to give workers the required sixty days notice before layoffs under the Warren Act. Right. And the Warren Act, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, is designed specifically to protect employees from abrupt mass layoffs or plant closings. But a three point eight million dollar fine for an administrative timeline failure is just devastating. And if you scour the annual SEC reports across the hospitality industry right now, they are universally highlighting intense scrutiny regarding minimum wage compliance, tip credit calculations. And regulations stemming from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE regarding employment eligibility. This elevates labor compliance from a standard human resources chore to an existential threat to the business. You cannot manage multi-state or multinational labor compliance with a binder full of checklists anymore. No way. The rules change too fast and the penalties are way too severe. This is driving the rapid adoption of highly specialized workforce management technologies. Which brings us to Jack in the Box. They just completed a rollout of the Harry Workforce Management platform across all 212 of their locations, and they executed this in just five months. Rolling out an enterprise software platform to over 2,000 units in under half a year is an operational triumph. But what really matters is how the software actually functions on the ground. Right, let's look under the hood. How does a system like Harry fundamentally change a GM's life? It creates a single source of truth. It digitizes the entire employee lifecycle. From the moment an applicant scans a QR code to apply, the system tracks them. Right. It handles the onboarding paperwork digitally, ensuring every I-9 and tax form is compliant before they ever clock in. But where it really flexes is in scheduling. It doesn't just build a schedule, it acts as a compliance gatekeeper. Explain that. So if a manager tries to schedule a minor for too many hours in a week, or schedule a cook for a shift that doesn't allow for an eight-hour rest period from their previous shift. The software literally hard stops the action. It prevents the violation before it occurs. Wow. It takes the burden of memorizing labor law off the shoulders of a twenty-four-year-old shift manager who is just trying to get through a Friday dinner rush. Exactly. And by streamlining all of this administrative friction, it ties directly into retention. And retention is the golden metric, right? Because the cost of acquisition, posting the job, interviewing, background checks. the inevitable drag on productivity during a two week training period is vastly more expensive than just keeping a good employee happy. One hundred percent. But I have to ask you, let's be real here. Because we constantly hear tech companies claim their AI solves labor issues, how does software actually make a line cook want to stay in a high stress, hundred degree kitchen on a Saturday night? Software doesn't flip the burgers. No, it doesn't, and that is the essential question. You are right. Software does not lower the ambient temperature of the kitchen and it does not make the ticket machine print any slower. Right. What intelligent software does is surgically remove the systemic ambient frustrations that cause good employees to rage quit. Ambient frustrations like what? Like schedule unpredictability. If an employee doesn't know their schedule until Sunday night for a week that starts on Monday, they can't plan childcare, they can't plan their life. Good software allows for predictive scheduling and seamless. Compliant shift swapping. That's huge. It is. It ensures their paycheck is perfectly accurate down to the minute, including complex tip pooling matrices, so they never have to argue with the manager about missing money. It provides transparency. Yes. It gives them a direct digital line of communication to management that isn't dependent on catching the boss in a good mood. And perhaps most importantly, it takes the administrative nightmare off the manager's plate. Right. Liberating the manager. Exactly. If a manager gets five hours of their week back because they aren't wrestling with a scheduling whiteboard or tracking down missing tax forms, they can actually spend that time on the floor, mentoring that line cook, supporting the team, and building culture. So the software doesn't provide the hospitality, it frees up the human to provide the leadership. Exactly. If you're an operator listening to this, the app shable steps here are critical. First, deploy an AI driven applicant tracking system or ATS. To collapse your hiring times. If a great candidate applies, your system needs to be engaging them within minutes, perhaps via an automated text screening, not days. Yeah, speed is everything. The best talent gets hired by your competitor while you are waiting to review resumes on a Friday afternoon. Second, you must build highly structured onboarding programs. The NRA report highlighted Chipotle's burrito buddy system. Which is brilliant. It is. It's a structured 90-day mentorship program pairing new hires with experienced staff. It creates immediate social tethering and operational support. You should complement that with real-time sentiment tools. Like the potbelly pulse engagement survey mentioned in the data. Exactly. You push a quick two-question survey to an employee's phone after their shift. Did you feel supported today? Did you have the tools you needed? Use that data to spot turnover risks early. Mm-hmm. If a specific location starts showing a spike in negative sentiment, Regional management can intervene before an entire crew walks out. Do not wait for an exit interview to discover why your best people are unhappy. By then, the knowledge is useless. And finally, you absolutely must automate your compliance checklists. Flawless execution of local labor laws is literally the only shield you have against multi-million dollar fines. But here is the reality we have to face next. You can have optimized digital infrastructure, and you can have a perfectly compliant, highly retained workforce. But if the raw ingredients coming in the back door cost more than what the customer is willing to pay, your business model still fractures. That is the perfect pivot. All this technological optimization and labor pressure eventually lands on the physical plate. The product itself, what it costs to produce, and who the consumer is buying it from is undergoing a profound transformation. Let's look at the explosive Q2 MA activity in the food sector. The numbers are wild. They really are. We saw McCormick and Unilever announce a staggering forty four point eight billion dollar combination, ingredient acquired Tate and Alisle for five billion, and Marzetti purchased the Bacan sauce brand for $400 million. I really want to focus on that backhands deal. Paying $400 million, which is a massive 4.6 times trailing revenue for a sauce brand, is a deeply aggressive move. Why are these legacy food conglomerates writing such astronomical checks for younger brands? Because they are buying time and credibility. Capstone Partners noted a critical metric. 67% of branded acquisition targets in early 2026 were in the better for you, high protein, or sustainability categories. Okay, so a clear trend. Right. Legacy conglomerates recognize that consumer preferences are shifting faster than their internal RD departments can innovate. They can't invent a trendy, culturally resonant, clean label sauce fast enough, so they acquire one that Already has fierce consumer loyalty. And those consumer demands are shifting violently while the cost to supply them is absolutely skyrocketing. I mean, I'm looking at the producer price index right now, and the numbers are terrifying for anyone designing a menu. Fresh vegetables are up an astonishing ninety seven point eight percent year over year. Beef is up fourteen point two percent. This extreme food cost volatility is colliding head on with a deeply fractured consumer base. Operators are trying to navigate a profound generational divide right now. Let's break that down. On one end of the spectrum, you have Gen Z deal hunters who are incredibly price sensitive and hyper-aware of perceived value. On the other end, you have boomer convenience seekers who prioritize ease, familiarity, and premium experience, and they actually have the disposable income to pay for it. And the menu trends for 2026 reflect this sort of split personality in the culture. One of the most significant drivers of this change. Is the widespread adoption of GLP1 weight loss medications? Yes, that's a massive factor. Drugs like Ozempic or Wigovi have fundamentally altered how a massive swath of the population consumes food. Because of this, 2026 has officially been crowned the year of fiber and the body OS movement. The body OS concept is fascinating. Consumers on these medications, or honestly simply those influenced by the broader wellness culture they've created, are treating their bodies like an operating system. Like optimizing hardware. Exactly. They aren't looking for empty calories to feel full. They are looking for specific functional upgrades. Gut health, protein synthesis, sustained energy. Wait, so because a significant portion of the population have a medically suppressed appetite, they are actively seeking out hypernutrient-dense high-fiber foods when they do decide to eat. Exactly. But simultaneously, as a reaction against this intense hyper-optimization, there is a massive cultural push for extreme comfort. The trend forecasters are calling it nostalgia. Nostalgia. So it's not just retro, it's retro upgraded. Yes. It is the drive for familiar, emotionally soothing formats, but executed with premium ingredients. This is why we are seeing an insatiable demand for smash burgers or, you know, highly elevated, chef driven instant noodles. It is the ultimate culinary paradox. Consumers want a hyperfunctional, gut healthy, high fiber bowl on Tuesday for lunch and a decadent, nostalgic wagyu smash burger on Friday night. Exactly. And this chaotic demand is where the traditional boundaries of food retail are completely crumbling. Convenience stores are recognizing this chaos and weaponizing their massive scale and real estate footprint to directly steal market share from quick service restaurants. The Sea Store reputation revolution is one of the most significant shifts in the competitive landscape. Just look at 7 Eleven with their massive pizza redesign. They're actively and successfully shedding that historical gas station food stigma. If we build out an analogy here, watching these convenience stores upgrade to premium fresh prepared foods is like a minor league baseball team suddenly walking into a major league stadium. I see where you're going. They already have the stadium. Right. They already have the prime corner real estate, they already have the daily commuter foot traffic, they have massive financial backing. And now they're actually bringing culinary talent. To the roster. They were just outplaying the veteran QSRs who've gotten lazy. Yeah, they really are. They offer faster in and out times, and now the food is actually competitive. It is a profound threat. If a consumer can get a genuinely good, freshly baked pizza slice, a premium iced coffee, and fill up their gas tank in one stop, why would they sit in a drive-thru lane across the street for 20 minutes? Right, you wouldn't. But while the lower and middle tiers are engaged in this brutal trench warfare with convenience stores. The high-end dining sector seems incredibly resilient. I was looking at the Dallas Tastemakers list that just dropped, and it highlights a significant boom in high-end chef-driven concepts in that market. The demand for bespoke high-touch experiences hasn't disappeared. It is just concentrated at the very top of the market. Dallas is a perfect example of this resilience. You have Michelin-starred Mamani, Tatsu Dallas, Mabo, Sushi Kozi, and this incredible new spot called Red. Which is an Italian speakeasy located in a subterranean basement up in Denton. Consumers are clearly still willing to pay a heavy premium for a true, immersive, bespoke experience. However, when you charge that premium, the expectation for absolute flawlessness is uncompromising. And this extends to transparency too. We are seeing major legal battles over product quality and marketing claims right now. Yes, the legal landscape is fraught. We are watching Ben and Jerry's clashing with their parent company Unilever over brand positioning. But more operationally relevant is the Franco Vicabani lawsuit. That case is a critical warning for operators. It effectively proved that simply relying on broad FDA guidance will not necessarily protect your brand from a targeted consumer labeling lawsuit. Wow, okay. If you make a claim about a product being natural or sustainable, you must have an airtight, legally defensible supply chain to prove it. So bringing this all together, if I'm an operator sitting in my back office trying to design a menu for Q3 of 2026. I'm walking a terrifying tightrope. I have legal compliance breathing down my neck, ingredient costs like fresh vegetables up nearly ninety-eight percent, and a consumer base that is wildly demanding. I'm looking at this data and trying to figure out the math. If I can't afford to put a premium cut of beef on the plate, what am I substituting it with that doesn't feel cheap and scare off those Gen Z deal hunters? You have to fundamentally re engineer the menu architecture. You cannot take a dish you sold in 2023, absorb the new commodity costs, and simply raise the menu price by 30%. The consumer will instantly reject it. So what's the play? You have to pivot to high margin proteins and ingredients, but use bold, aggressive, global flavor profiles to maintain a high perceived culinary value. Okay, let's get specific. What does that look like on a plate? Well, the NRA Culinary Forecast provides great roadmaps for this. We are talking about leveraging flavor agents like Ghost Pepper Hot Honey, Caribbean curry blends, Zaatar flatbreads, or Filipino style pork preparations. I see the strategy. The underlying ingredient, perhaps a cheaper cut of pork or a chicken thigh or a flatbread, is highly cost manageable. But by applying a complex global flavor profile like a Caribbean curry or fermented hot honey, the dish feels intensely satisfying, premium, and exciting. Exactly. The flavor complexity provides the perceived value, protecting your margins against the commodity spikes. That is the ultimate actionable takeaway from menu design right there. Re-engineer to balance cost volatility with perceived culinary value. Furthermore, you need to audit your ingredient transparency and labeling immediately. Do not wait for a class action lawsuit to serve you papers because your all-natural claim isn't legally defensible under new 2026 scrutiny. And finally, If you are operating a quick service restaurant, you must elevate your customer experience immediately. The convenience stores have the speed and they are rapidly closing the gap on food quality. Yeah, they are coming for you. You have to beat them on hospitality, accuracy, and the warmth of the transaction. The operators who survive 2026 will be the ones who recognize that the old silos grocery, convenience store, QSR, casual dining have collapsed. You are now competing for sheriff's stomach against entirely new adversaries. That wraps up today's edition of Pulse. Before you get back to your floor or executive suite, make sure to check out the other powerful shows in the HRB Universal Network. Kitchen to C Suite, your definitive roadmap for advancing hospitality careers, from entry level up to executive leadership. He see Mise en Place, culture first leadership and organizational strategies focused on safety, compliance, and building top-tier workplace culture. OACEC for Results Podcast, Extra Fast, High Impact Extras packed with operational tactics and actionable solutions. eighty six sharing the bad habits, cutting out systemic operational flaws, bad leadership habits, and inefficient practices across hotels, bars and restaurants. This podcast is supported by the generous commitment of our sponsors, and we extend a special thank you to HRB Universal. Their dedication to providing comprehensive resources and promoting excellence is key to empowering professionals across the culinary and hospitality industries. We also want to acknowledge the Plate and Poor Collective Equity Partner Program. This initiative exemplifies a true commitment to fostering shared success and equitable growth. Within the food and beverage sector, helping entrepreneurs build a more inclusive and thriving future. The journey to the C-suite is fueled by innovation, relentless dedication, and the right network. We encourage you to engage with the resources and support offered by our sponsors. For details on how to connect with HRB Universal and the Plate and Poor Collective Equity Partner Program, visit HRBuni.com or search HRB Universal online. We look forward to having you join us for our next episode. Where we will continue to explore captivating topics designed to elevate your career and entrepreneurial drive. I want to leave you with one final thought to mull over as you look at your own operations. As AI Agenic Commerce continues to evolve and place orders on behalf of consumers without them ever looking at a menu, what happens to brand loyalty when the algorithm decides the Sea Store pizza is objectively a better nutritional and financial value than the local QSR? Who really wins when the AI is the one doing the eating? Stay ahead with Pulse. Today's hotel, restaurant and bar industry news deep dive, brought to you by HRB Universal. Ton is miss a beat. 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