Latest / "Mise En Place" Culture First™ / PULSE! Today’s Hotel, Restaurant & Bar Industry News Deep Dive | 08/26/2026 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, the hospitality industry is chasing a record $1.55 trillion in sales this year. But with a looming 8.6 million worker shortfall and consumers demanding a radical new definition of value, the playbook for survival has completely changed. 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. So ⁓ imagine walking into a packed hotel lobby or, you know, a really bustling restaurant right now. The top line revenue numbers, they look absolutely incredible. I mean, it's the best the industry has seen in a decade. Yeah. On paper it looks great. Right, on paper. But behind the front desk or ⁓ back on the kitchen line. Complete panic. The U.S. hotel industry alone has a hundred thousand open jobs that they mathematically just cannot fill. And the pressure on the operators trying to bridge that gap is it's reaching a boiling point. Today we are looking at an exhaustive analysis of the 2026 state of the industry. And it is a massive stack of intelligence we're looking at today. It really is. We're pulling from ⁓ the National Restaurant Association, State of the Restaurant Industry Report. We've got policy guides from the American Hotel and Lodging Association. The WTTC's latest labor report, ⁓ the Titan Cloud twenty twenty five downstream fuel industry report, and even Q two earnings calls from the major hotel brands. Right. We've got a lot of ground to cover. Yeah. So our mission for this deep dive is to decode exactly how operators can navigate soaring operating costs, a literal demographic cliff, and you know, rapidly mutating consumer pallets. We want to extract the actionable intelligence you can put into operational use today. Okay, let's unpack Just do Because before any operator can even begin to focus on the nuances of the guest experience, they have to figure out who is actually going to do the serving, right? Right. And under what regulatory framework. So we have this unprecedented $1.55 trillion revenue projection, but we have to move straight into the structural realities of staffing. Trevor Yeah, because it is the absolute bedrock of the industry. I mean, you cannot generate a single dollar of that $1.55 trillion without the human engine running the operation. Right. You can have ⁓ The most brilliant menu design, the most perfectly appointed dining room, but without the staff to execute it, you are basically just running an expensive museum. Wow, yeah, an expensive museum. That's a great way to put it. And right now that engine is severely constrained. I think we need to look at the numbers because the data we're reviewing today is just staggering. The WTTC, so that's the World Travel and Tourism Council, they project a global hospitality worker shortfall of eight point six million by twenty thirty five. Which is just a massive number. It's huge. And zooming in on the US, the AHLA and the NRA, they are aggressively lobbying for immigration reform. ⁓ specifically the expansion of the H to B schizinal visa program. And the context they are citing is the crucial part here. Right. They're saying the US is reaching negative population growth. And I keep thinking about the labor pool, and it isn't just a shrinking reservoir. No, it's not. It more like a leaky bucket where the holes at the bottom, like older workers retiring, they're getting wider. And the faucet above it, the new young workers, has been turned down to a drip. So I have to ask, are these labor shortages and regulatory battles just a post pandemic hangover? Or are we looking at a permanent structural shift in how hospitality operates? Well, what's fascinating here is that the data points unequivocally to a permanent structural and demographic crisis. Wow. Okay. Permanent. Yeah. This is not a temporary blick. It's not just a post pandemic hangover. Yeah. We have to look at the macroeconomic reality, which is entirely separate from the politics of immigration. Right, just looking strictly at the numbers. Exactly. When a nation hits negative population growth, the mathematical reality is that there are fewer prime age workers entering the labor force than there are older workers retiring out of it. And historically, you know, the hospitality sector has relied on this ever expanding base of young entry-level workers ⁓ and foreign-born labor to maintain its margins. And that base is physically shrinking. So the old model of ⁓ just put a help wanted sign in the window, offer minimum wage, and wait for a stack of applications, that's mathematically broken. It's completely broken. And while the labor pool shrinks, the cost to operate is exploding. Over the past five years, operating costs have grown four times faster than revenue. Four times. Yeah. So you have a situation where labor is scarce, meaning it's inherently more expensive, but operators cannot simply Price hike their way out of the shortage. Because if a standard burger jumps to $30 just to cover wage inflation, you destroy consumer demand. Right. The consumer box, your table turns drop to zero, and the math simply doesn't pencil out. I'm putting myself in the shoes of a franchisee or an independent owner right now. You're telling me my labor pool is permanently shrinking and I have to pay premium wages just to get people in the door. My first thought is, you know. How do I not go bankrupt by Q three? Yeah, it's a terrifying spot to be in. Which brings us to the regulatory environment. Which right now is a total mixed bag. We've got massive wins and then these really daunting new hurdles. Let's start with the wins. A federal court vacated the Department of Labor's twenty twenty one eight ⁓ twenty thirty dual jobs tip rule. Huge win. And the twenty twenty three joint employer rule was also completely dismissed. Plus, out in California. The state reversed a junk fee ban specifically to protect clear upfront restaurant surcharges. Yeah, and those are profound sighs of relief for the industry. I mean, let's break down the mechanism of that eight or twenty thirty rule so we understand exactly why operators were losing sleep over it. Okay, yeah, let's do that. So under that rule, an operator had to track exactly how many minutes a tipped employee spent on non tipped duties. Let's say you have a server named Sarah, right? She's taking orders and serving food, that's tipped work, but then she spends time Rolling silverware, brewing coffee, or you know, wiping down her station. Which every server does. Exactly. But if those non-tipped duties exceeded twenty percent of her work week, or if she performed them for more than thirty continuous minutes, the restaurant suddenly had to pay her the full minimum wage for that specific time rather than the tipped minimum wage. I mean, tracking that in real time in a chaotic, fast-paced restaurant environment sounds practically impossible. Imagine a Friday night rush, right? A manager can't stand behind Sarah with a stopwatch while she wipes down a booth. Precisely. It was an administrative nightmare, and it carried severe compliance penalties if you miscalculated by even a few minutes. Wow. So it's dismissal, along with the joint employer rule being vacated, which, you know, threatened to hold franchisers liable for the labor practices of independent franchisees that removes a heavy layer of regulatory anxiety and liability from the shoulders of operators. Okay, so that's the good news. But just as they get relief on one side, new pressures appear on the horizon. OSHA has proposed new heat rules for kitchens. This would require mandatory paid breaks and specific training based on temperature thresholds. Yeah. And on the equipment side, trade tariffs like the twenty five percent tariff on steel and aluminum, those are keeping the cost of kitchen equipment incredibly high. Yeah. Looking at this impartially, completely, regardless of where anyone stands on trade policy, the reality for a restaurant owner is that buying a new commercial walk-in cooler or a heavy duty range just got significantly more expensive. It's all about the balance sheet. Let's talk about the CapEx or, you know, capital expenditures. When the cost of raw steel goes up twenty five percent, the cost of every piece of heavy equipment in your kitchen goes up. Right. You combine that with the operational cost of the OSHA heat rule, and the margins get squeezed even tighter. The OSHA proposal is particularly impactful because it basically classifies restaurant kitchens in a similar safety bracket to industrial heavy machinery work or agriculture. So let's walk through how that actually works on the floor. How does a kitchen manager re-engineer a Friday night dinner rush to accommodate mandated cooling breaks without tanking their service times? I mean, if the grill station hits ninety-five degrees. And the line cook is mandated to step away for a 15-minute paid cooldown break. Who is flipping the stakes? That is the exact logistical puzzle operators have to solve right now. Right. You can't just pause ticket times for 15 minutes. The dining room will revolt. So to comply, you have to over schedule. ⁓ I see. You have to bring in a floater cook whose entire job is to rotate through the stations to cover mandatory breaks. Which means you are adding another premium labor cost to a shift. Completely compounding the very labor shortage we just discussed. Exactly. Or you have to invest heavily in upgrading your HVAC systems to ensure the ambient temperature never triggers the threshold in the first place. Which again brings us right back to the increased capital expenditures. It feels like they're caught between a rock and a hard place. So given this permanent demographic shift, this 8.6 million worker shortfall globally. And a regulatory landscape that just constantly shifts the goalposts. ⁓ what is the actionable takeaway for the leadership listening right now? The primary takeaway is a fundamental psychological shift. You must pivot from viewing labor as a renewable resource to viewing it as a premium asset. You have to invest heavily in retention, better training, clear career paths, improved culture. Because replacing a worker is becoming economically unviable. That makes a lot of sense. Operationally, you need to audit your kitchen temperatures and ventilation systems immediately. Do not wait for OSHA compliance to become mandatory. Get ahead of it. Get ahead of it by optimizing your HVAC now to keep your staff comfortable and on the line. Furthermore, ensure every single service or delivery fee on your menu is clearly disclosed up front to comply with these new state level transparency laws. Right. And finally You have to look at automation not as a way to replace your staff, but as a way to supplement the irreducible human element of hospitality that you physically cannot hire enough people to fulfill. So if I'm an operator and I'm forced to pay premium wages to a shrinking staff, my margin for error on the menu drops to essentially zero. Yep. Zero. I can't afford to prep ingredients people don't want. I can't afford a digital ordering system that frustrates the guest. Which means I have to figure out exactly what the modern consumer values right now, and that definition seems to be mutating really rapidly. It is changing fast. We're seeing inflation pushing diners to trade down. They're actively seeking out value menus. Like whataburger, they just launched a four dollar menu strictly to capture that budget conscious consumer. Right. But because of this hunt for value, traditional points based loyalty programs are actually becoming obsolete. A new report from Tilster shows that Just handing out points for purchases isn't driving loyalty the way it used to. It's a fascinating evolution of the consumer psyche, and it's driven entirely by economic pressure. For years, the industry relied on a transactional loyalty model, you know, buy 10 coffees, get the 11th free. Right, the punch card model. Exactly. But when household budgets tighten, the consumer's definition of value shifts. They aren't willing to wait for the 11th visit to feel valued. They want immediate experiential value today. So they want the discount up front. Yes. But it goes beyond just the discount. If they are trading down to a $4 menu, they still expect that $4 experience to feel personalized, frictionless, and dignified. Okay, dignified. I like that. If your loyalty app just tells them they have 50 points, they don't care. If your app uses their data to say, you know, welcome back, here is a one-click order for your favorite meal and we applied a ten percent discount for you today, that is experiential loyalty. That drives frequency. And the definition of what they're actually eating is changing drastically too, heavily driven by the rise of GLP one medications, you know, the weight loss drugs. This is sparking a massive shift toward holistic health. The twenty twenty six food and beverage trends point to fiber forward formulas, functional beverages, and clean label whole foods. For example, using a whole mycelium mushroom root instead of ultra processed faux meats. Let's pause there. Wait. Why am mycelium specifically? Are we just moving away from soy? The mechanism of GLP1 medications is actually what's driving this. ⁓ really? Yeah. These drugs fundamentally alter appetite and satiety by delaying gastric emptying and signaling fullness to the brain. The consumer physically desires smaller portions. Right. They just can't eat as much. Exactly. But because they are eating less overall volume, they demand that those smaller portions be highly nutrient dense and functionally beneficial. I see. They want massive amounts of fiber for gut health. They want clean proteins and they want botanical ingredients that offer mental clarity or stress relief. So to answer your question about mycelium, they don't want a faux meat burger that is held together by 30 synthetic stabilizers and isolates. And like older processed stuff. Right. They want a single whole food ingredient like the root structure of a mushroom, which is naturally fibrous and meaty that delivers clean nutrition without the chemical footprint. That makes total sense. Health and indulgence are no longer binary choices for this demographic. They want a premium, deeply satisfying experience, just in a more concentrated format. Exactly. But they still want massive flavor. Yeah. I mean, the National Restaurant Association's 2026 What's Hot Culinary forecast, it's pointing towards smash burgers and elevated instant noodles paired with these intensely bold global flavors. We're talking gochu jang, ghost pepper hot honey, Zatar flatbreads, and Filipino pork. Which perfectly aligns when you overlay it with the GLP one trend. How so? If you are only gonna eat six bites of a dish, you want maximum sensory impact from every single bite. The mechanism here is flavor density. Flavor density. Okay. Bold, spicy, global flavor profiles like ghost pepper hot honey or ziggara are incredibly effective tools for an operator. Spice is a relatively inexpensive way to deliver a premium memorable experience. Right. Spice is cheap. You can take a standard chicken sandwich, which has a relatively fixed commodity cost, and by applying a proprietary ghost pepper honey glaze, you dramatically increase the perceived value and sensory satisfaction of that dish without drastically increasing your underlying food costs. Okay, I have to push back on that though. Sure. Is spice a sustainable long term strategy? I mean if I'm a consumer paying twenty five dollars for a tiny portion of chicken just 'cause it has ghost pepper honey on it, aren't I eventually gonna feel ripped off? ⁓ How do operators balance spice with actual substance? That is the exact trap operators have to avoid. Okay. It is not about using spice to hide cheat food or shrinkflation. It is about sensory architecture. Sensory architecture. The substance still has to be there. The chicken must be high quality, the bun must be fresh, but the spice provides the halo effect of culinary innovation. ⁓ I see. It signals to the guests that they are eating something crafted, not just assembled. But to your point, if the core product is severely lacking. All the ghost pepper in the world won't save a restaurant from a bad Yelp review. Very true. And if traditional restaurants don't deliver that fast, flavorful, customized experience, someone else will. Yep. The convenience store sector is aggressively stealing quick service restaurant market share. And they're moving way beyond roller grill hot dogs. ⁓ absolutely. Sea stores are investing in premium food service. Racetrack is launching the very first potbelly sandwich partnership inside a Sea Store. Murphy USA is testing automated food, and fuel retailers are actively transforming their four quartz for electric vehicles. We have to talk about the four court, you know, the physical space where the pumps are. This is the biggest behavioral shift in convenience retail. Okay. When a customer pumps gas, the dwell time is roughly three to five minutes. They might run inside for a soda, but when they are charging an EV, the dwell time jumps to twenty or thirty minutes. Wow. Yeah, that is a huge difference. That completely changes the consumer's behavior. They want to sit down, they want Wi-Fi, and they want a real meal. So the C stores are expanding their high protein, low portion options specifically for that GLP1 demographic while they wait for their cars to charge. Exactly. The C-Store evolution is the ultimate threat to the traditional QSR. They are mastering what you could call credible convenience. Credible convenience. They already have the prime real estate and the habitual daily traffic. By upgrading their food quality and partnering with established restaurant brands like Potbelly, they're entirely blurring the line between a gas station and a fast casual restaurant. Right. Think about the mechanics. If a restaurant's drive-thru is slow because they are short staffed, or their loyalty app is clunky, that customer is just gonna pull into the C store where they can get a premium branded sandwich, charge their car, and buy a functional beverage all in one seamless twenty minute trip. Here's where it gets really interesting. We have this massive economic demand for four dollar value menus and this intense pressure for sea store speed. Right. But on the exact same day I was reading about Pot Belly in a gas station, I was reading Bonapatiz's twenty twenty six best new restaurants list. Okay. And the Northern California winners are doing the exact opposite of fast convenience. You have Jules in San Francisco, where the chef is fermenting pizza dough with a sourdough starter he's kept alive in his apartment since twenty fourteen. You know, creating these highly crafted flavor pairings. And then you have Maria Isabel, a restaurant honoring Latino women by executing a precise, proudly regional Mexican fine dining menu utilizing housed nickstamilized corn masa. Just to clarify for anyone not deep in the culinary weeds, what is nickstamilized masa and why does it matter? So nickstamilization is the traditional ancient process of steeping and cooking dried corn kernels in an alkaline solution like calcium hydroxide or lime. before grinding it into Massado. Sounds labor intensive. It takes hours. It requires immense skill and specific knowledge, and it unlocks the nutritional profile and the deep, complex flavor of the corn. It is the absolute antithesis of opening a plastic bag of microwaveable, mass produced fast food tortillas. So how do operators balance these two extremes? I mean the demand for a four dollar fast burger in EV, charging against this intense consumer craving For highly crafted authentic multi-sensory experiences like twelve-year-old sourdough and house nick stamilized corn. If we connect this to the bigger picture, it looks like a contradiction, but it's actually two sides of the same coin. It's the demand for absolute authenticity in whatever tier you operate in. Okay, explain that. The restaurant industry is splitting into a barbell. A barbell. Yeah, on one end of the barbell, you have absolute frictionless convenience. The $4 menu, the C-Store Potbelly Sandwich, the AI drive-through. On the other end of the barbell, extreme crafted authenticity. The fine dining concept using a decade-old sourdough starter where the authenticity is the narrative, the craft, and the sensory immersion. The middle is dead. The middle is absolutely dead. What consumers will mercilessly punish in 2026 is the middle ground. The mushy middle. Exactly. The mediocre, overpriced, uninspired experience that offers neither supreme. Supreme Convenience nor Supreme Craft. If you are just pretty fast and pretty good, you're obsolete. So what is the actionable takeaway for operators listening? First, you must overhaul your menus to offer portion flexibility. Do not just rely on the old playbook of supersizing to drive check averages. Offer smaller, high-quality, nutrient-dense options for the GLP1 consumer. Right. Integrate those functional clean label ingredients and those bold, spicy, global flavor profiles we talked about. It increases perceived value without breaking your prime costs. And the third. Finally, you have to upgrade your loyalty tech. Move away from outdated point accumulation systems and focus on AI driven personalization. Your tech should know what the guest wants before they even open the app, offering them targeted value that feels bespoke to their habits. Okay. So to survive that barbell, either providing perfect convenience or perfect craft while dealing with a shrinking labor pool, operators have to scale intelligently. They do they have to utilize next generation technology to protect what are frankly razor thin margins. Let's look at operational strategy and growth in the hotel sector. Right now, the US is leading a record global hotel construction pipeline in Q two of twenty twenty six. That's right. But the underlying data is really telling. This growth isn't coming from pouring concrete for massive new ground up builds. It's heavily driven by brand conversions. We're seeing huge pushes into brands like Windiber's Trademark Collection and BWHA's Boutique Aiden brand. Though it should be noted, the true luxury segments for Hyatt and Marriott remain incredibly robust. The dominance of brand conversions is a direct reaction to the economic environment. Let's look at the mechanism of a conversion versus a ground-up build. The cost of capital right now is high. Interest rates make borrowing expensive, and as we discussed, operating costs are outpacing revenue. Right, money is expensive right now. Very. So hotel owners want ROI positive optimization. They want the distribution power, the loyalty network, and the tech stack of a major brand like Wyndham or BWH, but they don't want to engage in a Heavy, multi-year, capital-intensive ground-up construction project or a massive physical renovation. Because ground-up construction takes years before you see a single dollar of revenue. Precisely. Conversions allow an owner to take an existing, underperforming, independent hotel, run it through a lighter brand standard renovation, plug it into a global reservation system, and start driving RevPay revenue per available room almost immediately. It vastly mitigates financial risk and speeds up market entry. And when they do convert, they are plugging into a tech ecosystem that is completely different from a decade ago. Olo CEO recently noted that we are twenty years into the digital revolution in hospitality. We've moved from the days of basic kitchen display systems, you know, the KDS screens that replaced paper tickets on the line to highly advanced AI. Hotels are launching AI powered search tools for bookings. And this blew my mind. They are adopting digital twins. These are exact 3D virtual models of their physical properties used to track and optimize energy consumption. It's literally like playing a game of the Sims with your actual hotel to figure out exactly which floor is leaking the most electricity. This raises an important question, right? Why are hotels investing millions in virtual modeling instead of just guest amenities? The answer is control. Control. As an operator, you can't easily control the macroeconomic cost of food, and you can't control the mandated minimum wage, but energy, utilities, that is one of the very few operational cost categories you can actively control. Walk us through the mechanism of how a digital twin actually saves money on the floor. Let's say you map a five hundred room hotel with a digital twin. The physical building is rigged with hundreds of IoT Internet of Things sensors. Okay. The AI analyzes real-time data from these sensors and tells you that the HVAC on the fourth floor is running at maximum capacity to keep the ambient temperature at sixty-eight degrees. Right. But the property management system knows that occupancy on the fourth floor is currently at ten percent. ⁓ wow. The digital twin automatically adjusts the airflow and temperature settings for the empty rooms while perfectly maintaining the climate in the occupied rooms, saving thousands of dollars a month in wasted utilities. That's incredible. And that saved capital can then be redirected to fund the high touch human elements of luxury service that actually drive guest satisfaction. And it's not just hotels optimizing their physical footprints. We're seeing this intense focus on the supply chain across the board. According to Titan Cloud Shaz's twenty twenty-five Downstream Fuel Report, forty three point five percent of operators cite fluctuating fuel prices and supply chain disruptions as their absolute top challenges. To combat this, over 60% of mid-market and enterprise operators are completely outsourcing their logistics. They are utilizing highly specialized software to manage fuel variances and asset maintenance. Which ties right back into the Sea Store Inconvenience discussion we just had. Let's look at the operational mechanics for a general manager of a modern Sea Store. Okay, let's look at it. If you are trying to execute a high-quality potbelly sandwich program, maintain clean restrooms, And cater to EV drivers who are dwelling in your store for 30 minutes, your plate is entirely full. Right. You cannot afford to have your management team bogged down in the back office trying to figure out why there is a 50 gallon variance in the underground unleaded fuel tank or trying to optimize the routing of fuel delivery trucks for the next week. You want them on the floor dealing with the gas. Exactly. Outsourcing the logistics and utilizing cloud-based fuel software removes that friction. It ensures the fuel supply, which is the primary driver of initial foot traffic, is stable, compliant, and cost effective. Makes total sense. By automating the back end logistics, you are freeing up the human capital in the store to focus on the food service execution and the guest experience. But with all this AI, you know, computer vision in the drive-thru, digital modeling of buildings and automated logistics, where is the line? I have to push back here, because this is what I hear from operators all the time. Uh-huh. At what point do we automate so much of the process that we lose the actual hospitality in hospitality? That is the central tension of the industry right now, and it is a phenomenal question. Yeah. The line is defined entirely by what you are automating. You cannot automate hospitality itself. Right. You cannot automate empathy or a genuine smile or the intuitive anticipation of a guest's needs when they walk through the door looking exhausted, but you Absolutely must automate the processes behind it. Give me an example of the difference. So if a front desk agent is spending five minutes staring at a screen, manually typing in passport data and credit card numbers while the guest stands there in silence, they aren't providing hospitality. They're just doing paperwork. They are just performing data entry. If a drive-thru worker is frantically trying to decipher garbled audio while punching in a complex custom order, they aren't providing hospitality. But if you use AI and computer vision to automate the data entry, eliminate the ordering friction and manage the supply chain, you liberate that employee. You give them back the time to actually look the guest in the eye, ask about their day, and create a genuine connection. So the technology is almost like the shield that protects the human interaction. It handles the math so the human can handle the emotion. Precisely. The actionable takeaway for leadership regarding operations is to audit your physical footprints immediately. Use digital tools like these digital twins or advanced energy management systems to isolate and reduce utility costs, which is the one thing you can control. Right. For physical expansion, prioritize brand conversions over new developments to protect your capital and speed up your ROI. And when you sit down to invest in AI, evaluate it not by asking, how many human jobs will this eliminate, but by asking how much friction will this remove from my staff's workflow? So what does this all mean? It means the path to that $1.55 trillion requires hyper efficiency in the back of house and hyper authenticity in the front. The restaurant industry is splitting into a barbell of convenience and craft, and if you are caught in the mushy middle, the demographic cliff and rising operational costs will swallow you whole. Absolutely. 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, meeting place, culture first leadership, and organizational strategies focused on safety, compliance, and building top-tier workplace culture. Right. The recipe for results podcast extra fast, high-impact extras, packed with operational tactics and actionable solutions. An 86uring the bad habits, cutting out systemic operational flaws, bad leadership habits. And inefficient practices across hotels, bars, and restaurants. Great lineup. 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. Absolutely. 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. Yeah. 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 Play and Poor Collective Equity Partner Program, visit HRBuni.com or search HRB Universal online. Definitely check them out. We look forward to having you join us for our next deep dive, where we will continue to explore captivating topics designed to elevate your career and entrepreneurial drive. Stay ahead with Paulson. Today is Hotel, Restaurant, and Bar Industry News Deep Dive brought to you by HRB Universal. Don't miss a beat. Whether you're commuting to work or unwinding on the couch, we've got your industry insights covered. On the go. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRadio, Deezer, or visit HRBUNI.com. Mobile app. Take the HRB network with you everywhere by getting our mobile web app at hrbuni.com forward satp. Big screen experience. Level up your show viewing stream pulse directly on TV via Roku or Amazon Fire TV. Until next time, keep innovating and striving for excellence. And as you head back to your operations today, consider this. In an era where AI can predict a guest's exact order before they speak, optimize the energy grid of a 500-room hotel floor by floor, and reroute fuel logistics in real time. The ultimate luxury and the true product you are selling is simply unautomated, genuine human connection. The tech is just there to buy you the time to provide it.