Friends of Branded!

Happy Saturday, and I hope you had a great week.

The phrase, “don’t call us, we’ll call” is a classic and often cliché of a statement from a hiring organization to a potential candidate and suggests that the candidate will NOT be hired. It’s considered a polite, but also final way of ending an interaction without inviting further follow-up from the other party.

For Brandon Barton, the CEO at Bite, and the H^2’s biggest fan my digressions, “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You” is also the title of the song released in 1975 by the American rock band Sugarloaf, co-written by lead vocalist Jerry Corbetta.

For the H^2 this week, the phrase is neither about politely being blown off from an employment opportunity or this song from the mid-70s, but rather a CTA (Call to Action) for the hospitality industry to embrace content marketing and think about the importance of creating a top of the funnel that will drive inbound calls and interest in your business. A commitment to creating valuable, and discoverable content that attracts, engages, and nurtures prospects is what I want you to take away from this week’s Top of the Fold b/c in all seriousness, your business depends on it.

While this is true for our entire industry, for ResTech companies specifically, it’s mission critical, b/c (sorry, not sorry) restaurant owners & operators don’t want to hear from you.

This is not b/c our industry is comprised of rude or disinterested people, but b/c it’s among the most fragmented, JIT (Just in Time) focused and accepting of good enough as any and while your tech may offer value to operators, the often In The Weeds nature of our business makes taking outbound calls or responding to outbound e-mails from ResTech companies a low priority (or considered a fire-able offense by Schatzy if salesperson that popped into one of our restaurants were to be directed to him by a member of our staff).

My first job out of graduate school was a sales position on a fixed income desk and I remember being asked in my final interview by the Head of Fixed Income Sales why I wanted a job where I would hear the word “no” 19 out of 20 times. The interviewer emphasized that I would hear the word “no” from so many people in my life and that included my wife (I was single at the time), my kids (I had none that I was aware of at the time), and why would I want job that all but guaranteed I’d hear “no” 95% of the time.

For whatever it’s worth, my answer was that securing a “yes” on that 20^th call would be the reward and drive the satisfaction from my work as a salesperson.

I don’t know if 19 out of 20 was an accurate calculation or assessment of the odds, but if we accept that as true, I expect that today, outbound-only campaigns have even lower odds than a 5% success rate. I’ll go further and despite my believing we’re all salespersons at some level, that things have changed and no successful sales campaign can be created without telling your audience who you are, what you know, and how you can help them. This is what content marketing does and it's mission critical today b/c your customers are finding solutions organically.

The “buyside” (the customers you’re pitching) is inundated with tools that allow them to search for what they have concluded they need. Add to that the digital tools that have exponentially increased the amount of outreach, and the “buyside” has been forced to put up more blockers and become only harder to reach directly.

Sy Syms, the founder of off-price retail clothing store SYMS Corporation in 1958, was credited with the company’s slogan, “an educated consumer is our best customer” and while I’m willing to wager heavily that no one had Sy Syms on their bingo card for inclusion in today’s H^2, Sy was ahead of his time.

ResTech companies – your customer is an educated consumer or at least needs to become one and that’s part of your responsibility (to educate them)! Trust is built early and well ahead of your outreach, but like most things, you’ve got to earn it!

How do you earn it? Fantastic question. You need to give before you ask (for anything).

Did you create a white paper? A demo video? A case study? A webinar?

What have you done to earn the trust of the party you’re pitching to learn what’s important to them and what their priorities are?

Specifically, what has your company done to educate, inspire and attract prospects before any salesperson engages? If you’re not making a concerted effort to establish awareness and trust, then you’re invisible and the odds of success are awfully low.

Content marketing isn’t solely about building awareness, it’s a commitment to give and be helpful before anything is asked for and if you’re offering insights that are received as having potential value to the recipient, this will generate inbound opportunities.

The embracement of content marketing builds your pipeline and wait for it (pausing for effect), reduces your customer acquisitions cost (your “CAC”).

For restaurant operators, if they don’t know you, they won’t buy from you and that’s what content changes. You need to share your insights, demos, and success stories. This all done to show operators how your tech addresses real pain points and opportunities. I can’t tell you how many tech companies Branded has been connected with that have built a solution that’s in search of a problem. That’s backwards and the fact these companies have been funded is a constant reminder that hospitality operators aren’t being engaged early enough in the process to avoid these types of mistakes.

If you want your technology to be a trusted tool, you need to start with the value-add and that’s not done with sales, it’s done with content. You want a seat at the table? Show up with value and deliver insights before you start selling your solution.

It’s Branded’s position that too many tech companies are still overweighting sales and are underweighting content-driven marketing strategies. Our industry is not only fragmented but is dominated by independent operators who are not actively looking for new tech (read: your tech solution is not their priority and your urgency to sell is not their concern).

I’m Branded’s “Finance Guy” so let me conclude this week’s Top of the Fold with an important number. According to HubSpot, inbound leads, driven by content, cost over 60% LESS than outbound leads.

This is not to say the ResTech companies don’t need sales (“SDR” teams or sales development representatives) b/c they do and I’m not just saying that b/c Chowly’s Head of Sales is a large and intimidating man that I also like and respect (I see you Tom). 😊 Sales work requires a high volume of calls, paid lead lists and repeated manual touchpoints. Content marketing isn’t inexpensive, but when done correctly, it drives organic inbound leads from potential customers that are already problem-aware and solution-curious.

This is when the magic happens, and the sales cycle is shortened and the overall CAC is lowered.

We still find too many ResTech companies that view content-marketing as a branding exercise as opposed to a customer acquisition efficiency engine (the “CAEE” or an acronym that’s never been used prior to today and probably will never be used again).

Content creates leverage, its warms the market, builds trust and reduces the cost of every sale that follows. Yes, it can be hard to measure b/c specific attribution can be complex. That’s why the pairing of content marketing with sales teams is Branded’s recommendation b/c the content builds the awareness, and authority, and increases the likelihood of success for the sales team.

Self-interested statement follows - for those interested in exploring opportunities with Branded’s marketing team and ways to help drive actionable content marketing strategies, we’re here to help.

It takes a village.

There is nothing easy going on in these markets, but as my mom taught her three sons, you should take joy where you can find it. And that’s what I want to do with this week’s Shoutout section. Share some joy with the good things I see going on and specifically with some friends and portfolio companies of Branded.

The FIRST shoutout goes to our partners at Spendgo, our best-of-breed loyalty program for your in-store, mobile and online customers.

I want to use this shoutout to share a success story that includes our partners at Spendgo, our friends from Toast and our new friends at bb.q chicken (Andrew Lee (Head of Marketing) and Joseph Kim (CEO) you’re now part of the Branded Village gentlemen!). 😊

The SECOND shoutout goes to our partners at Curbit, the kitchen capacity management solution for restaurants, and our new friends at honeygrow on their partnership to supercharge digital ordering and kitchen flow.

And for those playing the home game, yes, this shoutout also includes our friends from Toast as a result of honeygrow’s embracement of Toast's Kitchen Display System and I get to bring in our friends from Olo who handles all of honeygrow’s off-premises needs.

You can read about this partnership here: honeygrow Partners with Curbit, but in an effort to not bury the key takeaway behind a link, Curbit’s technology serves as the availability engine, pulling the real-time kitchen data from Toast kitchen display system. It then syncs with Olo to dynamically adjust promise times to pace the flow across their online ordering channels. This all adds-up to smarter order prioritization, fewer surprises for the team members, and smoother workflows from screen to service.

Pulled from Curbit’s blog post: “With honeygrow having reached 100% digital ordering, Curbit will be a key partner to assist in providing the feedback loop from the kitchen. We will now have real-time control over order timing and be able to provide transparency for our guests. It’s a game changer for takeout and delivery” — John Paul Thomas, VP of Operations Services

But wait, there’s more as Curbit and Olo are now powering up the fast-growing and beloved neighborhood bagel shop, Call Your Mother deli.

This partnership marks another successful integration of Curbit’s Capacity Management platform with Olo’s digital ordering platform, enabling Call Your Mother to maintain operational excellence while continuing to grow their footprint.

Branded loves when our friends and partners come together to deliver (pun intended) value to operators.

Welcome to the Branded Village honeygrow and Call Your Mother!

The THIRD shoutout this week goes to our partners at Fishbowl, the modern restaurant marketing platform and its guest relationship platform that’s designed specifically for restaurants to manage and optimize their guest relationships.

I included Fishbowl this week b/c of a LinkedIn post on restaurant sales & traffic for the month of May and a longer term perspective they offered that caught my eye and I felt was important to share.

Fishfood: May Restaurant Sales & Traffic – A longer term perspective

The report pulls from the good people at BlackBox Intelligence and reports that same-store sales growth for the restaurant industry of +1.4% in May, with traffic off -1.0% (thus the implied check average growth for May was +2.4%).

While the report offered some encouragement, here’s the bigger picture:

Branded invites readers of the H^2 that are interested in learning more about our portfolio companies, and investment strategies to be part of our Access Hospitality Network.

For this week’s Access Hospitality Network section, I want to bring our partners at Copia, the leading platform for surplus food redistribution, back into the AHN!

 Why are they back? Fantastic question.

This week, Copia launched a major upgrade to its nonprofit partner portal, further strengthening the backbone of its donation network.

Why does that matter? Your questions are awesome! 😊

Because Copia doesn’t just fill the gaps in existing donation programs, they help create and support them from the ground up. By investing in tools for nonprofits, Copia ensures donations are received more efficiently—with fewer delays, more reliability, and clearer feedback loops. That means fewer missed pickups and a smoother experience for operators.

The upgraded Portal also brings in more nonprofit partners, allowing Copia to scale alongside its customers. Whether you’re operating in 3 markets or 300, Copia is building for where you’re headed.

This update reflects Copia’s mission-driven DNA: removing barriers to donation for everyone involved. They're quietly bolstering support because they fundamentally believe that by donating surplus food, we can create meaningful, measurable impact in the very communities where we live and work.

You may remember Copia’s guest piece in this newsletter a few weeks back, which addressed the urgency of this work. In May 2025, Congress passed the largest cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in U.S. history—slashing nearly $300 billion from a program that over 40 million Americans rely on. This isn’t an abstract policy change—it directly affects the restaurant and hospitality workforce and puts an increased weight on nonprofit organizations.

The reality? The people impacted aren’t strangers. They’re the same people powering our industry—the cooks, servers, dishwashers, and cleaners. This isn’t a food production crisis. It’s a logistics crisis. And it’s a call to action for our industry.

I want to give a special thank you to our friend Danny Klein and the entire team at FSR Magazine for continuing to shine a spotlight on this important issue and to the nonprofits serving our communities. I'm proud to know that our portfolio company, Copia, is playing a big role in making this happen.

You can read the article by Copia’s CEO, Kimberly Smith published in FSR Magazine here: The Industry’s Moment to Lead: Fighting Hunger, Waste, and Apathy

Kimberly’s article (like the H^2) isn’t political, but it is actionable!

Again, as Branded’s “Finance Guy” if you choose to read Kimberly’s article, here’s what’s in it for the industry to help address this solvable problem:

This isn’t just about doing good. It’s also about doing well!

Operators, friends, let’s extend and expand our table by integrating food donations into our daily operations.

We just dropped two powerhouse episodes on the Hospitality Hangout you won’t want to miss. First up, we’re getting spicy with Mike LaRue of Angry Chickz to talk franchising, brand growth, and what it really takes to create buzz-worthy guest experiences. Then, we shift gears with Kevin Bentley, Head of Tech at Jollibee Group, for a deep dive into how innovation is reshaping brands like Smashburger and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Whether you're into franchising or future-forward tech, these episodes are packed with insights to help you stay ahead in hospitality. Tune in now!

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That’s it for today!

See you next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel.

It takes a village!

Jimmy Frischling

Branded Hospitality Ventures

[email protected]

235 Park Ave South, 4th Fl | New York, NY 10003

Branded Hospitality Ventures ("Branded") is an investment and solutions platform at the intersection of foodservice, technology, innovation and capital. As experienced hospitality owners and operators, Branded brings value to its partners through investment, strategic counsel, and its deep industry expertise and connections.

Learn more about Branded here: Branded At-A-Glance