In partnership with
Agape Capitalism
Friends of Branded!
Happy Saturday and I hope you had a great week.
If you’ve ever been to one of Branded’s Culinary Connect dinners, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve played a game of Family Feud with us.
I was thinking about our podcast, The Hospitality Hangout, and specifically the work we did out at the National Restaurant Association Show with our friends and partners from SpotOn, Workstream and PepsiCo. Lots of podcasting out in Chicago this week and my voice was shot by the time we rolled into our Culinary Connect dinner on Monday night (but that didn’t stop us from playing a quick game of the Feud).
As I sat down to write the Top of the Fold this week, I asked myself the question, ”why do people host podcasts?” And in the spirit of the Feud, I searched for the Top 5 answers (on the board) and here’s what I found:
Building Authority and Credibility
Scaling Intimacy and Trust
Networking Opportunities
Generating Revenue
Marketing a Business
A specific answer that was on my mind and a key driver of why I chose to be a co-host of a podcast wasn’t on the list. So, I took some liberties, asked for the next 5 answers and here’s what I found:
Mastering Your Niche
Growing an Audience
Repurposing Content
Improving Communication Skills
Low Barrier to Entry
Again, the answer I was looking remained absent, which doesn’t mean it’s a bad answer, it just means that the 100 people surveyed didn’t believe my answer belonged on the board. Respect.
The answer I was looking for: to learn and maintain a steep learning curve (please note, this answer also applies (at least for me) to the question: ”why do people write newsletter?”). Just saying.
When we invite a guest onto the Hangout, I’m afforded the opportunity to learn about the person, their company and more. And then there are moments during podcasts when a phrase hits you square in the chest and you immediately think: How have I never heard this before?
Okay, okay, okay, it took a moment to get here (shocker, right?!?), but that’s exactly what happened this week on the recording of The Hospitality Hangout with Kevin King, President & CEO of Donatos Pizza, as we dove into the topic of ”Agape Capitalism.”
Now, in fairness, maybe this philosophy has been quietly circulating in leadership circles for years and I simply missed the memo while buried in cap tables, EBITDA multiples, conference hallways, and enough “AI is changing everything” pitch decks to last a lifetime.
But the concept stopped me in my tracks b/c in a world increasingly obsessed with optimization, extraction, efficiency, automation, and quarterly performance metrics, Agape Capitalism asks a radically simple question: What if businesses actually treated people with dignity and believed that doing so was not charity, but strategy?
For those unfamiliar, “agape” comes from the Greek word for unconditional love, not romantic love, but selfless care for others. Applied to business, the philosophy suggests companies can pursue profits and prioritize employees, guests, franchisees, suppliers, and communities without those goals conflicting.
And honestly? Think about it, doesn’t that sound a lot like hospitality at its best.
I’m not talking about performative hospitality. Not “Have a nice day” scripted hospitality, but real hospitality and the kind where employees feel seen, and guests feel valued. Where franchisees feel supported, and suppliers feel respected. And where a culture becomes an actual competitive advantage instead of a slide in an investor deck.
That’s not softness. That’s infrastructure. And it also makes me think about one of the most famous quotes from the notorious mobsters. Al Capone, "Do not mistake my kindness for weakness, my calmness for ignorance or acceptance!"
What struck me most is that Donatos isn’t some tiny philosophical experiment running a couple of stores in a college town. This is a scaled restaurant brand operating successfully in one of the most competitive industries in America.
And for avoidance of any doubt, they’re not acting alone. You can see versions of this philosophy embedded inside companies like Chick-fil-A, Costco, Trader Joe's, and Shake Shack.
Yes, each of these companies are using a different playbook, but they’re using the same underlying principle: People are not expenses to minimize. They are assets to invest in. (CK, did this line get your attention? 😊)
And before anyone rolls their eyes and says, “Mr. Jimmy, this all sounds very warm and fuzzy,” (or my older brother tells me “My ‘Greenness’ is showing”) let’s talk business reality.
Many of these companies consistently outperform competitors when it comes to
employee retention
customer loyalty
unit economics
franchisee satisfaction
and long-term enterprise value
Turns out culture compounds, especially in hospitality. B/c despite all the technology flooding into this industry, yes, we’re talking about AI, robotics, automation, predictive analytics, dynamic pricing, smart kitchens, intelligent menus, restaurants are still, at their core, human businesses.
You can’t automate genuine hospitality. You can support it and enhance it with technology, but you can’t fake culture for very long. Guests eventually know and employees definitely know. And investors are increasingly learning the difference between brands with transactional economics and brands with emotional equity.
This brings me to the phrase we’ve all heard forever: “Nice guys finish last.” And to be fair, I believe there’s truth in that when it comes to short-term capitalism. Yes, you can squeeze labor, cut corners, extract margin, and optimize spreadsheets for a while. Maybe you can win a few quarters playing defense against humanity, but hospitality has always been a long game. And in long games, trust matters, relationships matter, reputation matters and of course, people matter.
That’s why some brands survive recessions, labor crises, inflationary pressure, pandemics, delivery disruption, and changing consumer habits while others disappear (faster than free samples being given out at the many food booths at The Show).
B/c the strongest businesses are often built not just on operational excellence, but on relationship capital. And relationship capital compounds just like financial capital (maybe even faster).
Maybe Agape Capitalism isn’t some niche philosophy after all. Maybe it’s simply the restaurant industry reminding the broader business world of something it forgot: People will always remember how you made them feel and in hospitality, that might still be the greatest moat of all.
Mr. King, (and to a certain extent, a tip of the hat to Mr. Jim Grote), thank you for joining us out in Chicago on the Hangout, and thank for you sharing the story and the business philosophy of Donatos. In hospitality, I believe people can literally taste culture and that’s what made our conversation this week on our podcast a much bigger one than pizza.
It takes a village.
LTO: The Branded Lid
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Scott Drake unpacks how Chuck E. Cheese is evolving for a new generation of families, kids, and consumers. Recorded live from the Restaurant Leadership Conference in Scottsdale, he shares how the brand is modernizing through all things digital while preserving the nostalgia and emotional connection that made Chuck E. Cheese iconic in the first place.
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This week’s Shoutout goes to Friend of Branded, John Pepper, and to one of Branded Hospitality’s portfolio companies, MarginEdge, for a partnership that feels a lot bigger than a job announcement.
In a restaurant industry obsessed with growth hacks, AI headlines, and labor challenges, sometimes the biggest edge still comes down to operators helping operators.
This week our friend Mr. Pepper announced that he was joining forces with our friend, Bo Davis, the Founder & CEO at MarginEdge.
It was a reminder that hospitality has always been a relationship business disguised as a food business.
Back in 2005, a young operator named Bo Davis walked into one of John’s restaurants looking for an opportunity. Twenty years later, those two are joining forces again at MarginEdge, a company built to help restaurants protect margins, simplify operations, and give operators back something they rarely have enough of: time.
That’s the industry at its best. Not transactional. Relational.
The restaurant business has always had a funny way of reconnecting people years later, usually with more scars, more experience, and a much clearer understanding of what operators actually need to survive and scale.
And that’s why this matters.
MarginEdge isn’t just selling software. They’re building with operator DNA. The best restaurant tech companies don’t simply understand spreadsheets and dashboards, they understand Friday night service, invoice headaches, labor stress, and the thousand tiny decisions operators make every single day.
At Branded, we talk a lot about “smart capital” and “operator-centric technology.” This is exactly what that looks like.
Relationships are table stakes. The edge is knowing where to put them to work.
John is taking on the role of GM of MarginEdge Labs, [me]’s new venture arm innovating what comes next for over 11,000 restaurant customers and its 200,000+ restaurant employees.
Big shoutout to John Pepper, Bo Davis, and the entire MarginEdge team, b/c in hospitality, sometimes the best partnerships aren’t new relationships at all. They’re great relationships that stood the test of time.
Click here to share this week’s Shout Out with your network!
Your ads ran overnight. Nobody was watching. Except Viktor.
One brand built 30+ landing pages through Viktor without a single developer.
Each page mapped to a specific ad group. All deployed within hours. Viktor wrote the code and shipped every one from a Slack message.
That same team has Viktor monitoring ad accounts across the portfolio and posting performance briefs before the day starts. One colleague. Always on. Across every account.
$20.8B in Redemption Requests. Percent Was Issuing Deals and Paying on Schedule.
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DEAL ROOM: PepsiCo’s DRIPS and the Industrialization of “Dirty Soda”
As I launch into The Deal Room, it’s clear that the National Restaurant Association Show and our podcasting work at the event is still very much on my mind.
We had the privilege of having our friends from PepsiCo and specifically Scott Finlow, Global CMO, PepsiCo, and Alison Dempsey, Innovation Lead at PepsiCo Away from Home, join us in the podcast lounge powered by Campbell’s Foodservice (I see you Cambell’s Foodservice and I look forward to our connecting 😊).
The discussion we had was about PepsiCo’s DRIPS by Pepsi and the company’s take on handcrafted beverages designed to help operators stand out.
Let’s be clear, nobody at PepsiCo invented “dirty soda.” The trend has been bubbling up for years out West through chains like Swig (respect Mr. Andrew Smith and the Savory Team) and Sodalicious, fueled by Gen Z, TikTok, customization culture, and consumers looking for indulgence without alcohol.
But PepsiCo may become the first major beverage company to industrialize it and that’s the real signal behind DRIPS by Pepsi.
What Pepsi showcased at the National Restaurant Association Show wasn’t just a few colorful drinks with basil seeds, boba, whipped cream, and flavor bombs. It was something far more important: a structured, scalable operating platform designed to help QSRs, theaters, campuses, and restaurant operators enter the crafted beverage game without having to build the playbook themselves.
That’s a very different story than “dirty soda is trending.” This is Pepsi saying:
Here’s the menu architecture.
Here’s the supply chain.
Here’s the training.
Here’s the branded consumer familiarity.
Here’s the social-media-ready beverage innovation pipeline.
Now go drive traffic, premiumize your beverage mix, and increase check average.
That’s not a fad. That’s infrastructure.
And make no mistake, beverages have quietly become one of the most strategic battlegrounds in restaurant economics. Margins are attractive. Customization drives engagement. Limited-time beverage drops create urgency. And younger consumers increasingly see beverages the way prior generations saw desserts or cocktails: as affordable indulgences and identity statements.
The biggest takeaway here? PepsiCo understands that operators don’t just need products anymore. They need systems.
The restaurant industry has historically struggled to operationalize trends quickly. Operators see something hot on TikTok, but execution at scale is where concepts often break down. DRIPS appears designed to bridge that gap, turning viral beverage culture into something repeatable, trainable, profitable, and scalable across enterprise foodservice.
And Pepsi isn’t stopping at independent experimentation. The company is already testing DRIPS with partners including Regal Cinemas and Saucy! by KFC, effectively using controlled environments as innovation labs before broader deployment.
Translation for investors? This isn’t really about soda. It’s about beverage platforms becoming operating systems for incremental revenue.
In a world where restaurant traffic remains pressured, alcohol consumption is declining, and consumers are still willing to spend on “little luxuries,” the beverage category is becoming one of the few places where operators can simultaneously drive margin, differentiation, personalization, and social engagement.
Dirty soda may have started as a quirky regional trend.
DRIPS suggests Big Beverage now sees it as enterprise software for the fountain machine. Respect!
To learn more about DRIPS by Pepsi, please click here (or contact me directly).
You can also click here to share The Deal Room with your network!
Workstream | restaurant grade Payroll & HR
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For the last 5 summers, I’ve given our interns the same assignment on their first day. Not one person has completed it.
Go home and watch Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. First person to watch it wins an awesome prize from me. Let’s just say, there was no “Right on Top of that Rose” response to this ask.
Now, it’s not lost on me that I am a mom… who employs babysitters. So naturally, these college kids probably think I’m assigning some cute movie about kids or family or responsibility. I DO always clarify that the movie has absolutely nothing to do with children. I also tell them, spoiler alert, the babysitter is dead. And yes, I have even suggested that the interns (of legal age, of course) may enjoy the movie with something that will make them giggle.
Not ONE intern has watched it. Not one.
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Looking for a co-working space in NYC?
Join us at B Works, the hub where hospitality meets innovation. This isn’t a shared desk situation, it’s a launchpad. If you want to be around founders, operators, the people shaping hospitality, your seat is waiting.
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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
235 Park Ave South, 4th Fl | New York, NY 10003
Branded Hospitality is a foodservice growth platform with three integrated business lines—Ventures, Solutions, and Media. We invest in innovative tech and emerging brands, provide expert advisory and capital strategies, and amplify visibility through podcasts, newsletters, social, and events—creating a powerful flywheel that drives growth, brand strength, and lasting success.
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