Growth changes the questions
Growing a restaurant company creates a peculiar leadership problem. The people who know the business best are also the people spending every day inside it. They can explain every moving part, every workaround and every decision that made sense at the time. Finding a quiet moment to ask whether those decisions still fit is another matter.
At the Restaurant Leadership Conference, Bolay co-founder and CEO Chris Gannon describes that problem with an engine-room analogy. Sometimes a team needs someone experienced enough to pull it away from the machinery and ask where the business is going. Being busy keeping everything running can make that a surprisingly difficult question to hear.
His conversation with Beck is about building access to that experience. At the time of the interview, Gannon describes Bolay as a 23-location Florida restaurant brand marking its tenth year. The company has capable people, ambitions for growth and a practical constraint: its overhead has to make sense for the business it actually operates.
Match expertise to the decision in front of you
Gannon talks about bringing in people with experience across marketing, finance and operations at different stages of the company’s development. The value comes from what those people have already encountered. A team facing a decision for the first time can benefit from someone who has seen the consequences of similar decisions elsewhere.
He describes working with an outside collective of experienced leaders, starting with a relationship formed after hearing useful insights on an industry call. That relationship grew into work on the brand’s evolution. What attracted him was the thinking, followed by access to a broader group of specialists.
The scope can vary. Sometimes a question needs a short conversation with the right person. Sometimes it becomes a deeper project. Gannon values having a vetted bench available for both. This gives the company a way to bring relevant expertise into a decision without treating every emerging need as an immediate, permanent executive position.
For another operator, the useful first step is to define the decision clearly. What needs to be resolved? Which experience is missing? How long will the work take? A vague request for help can become an expensive relationship with no obvious finish line. A specific problem gives both the company and the outside expert something concrete to work toward. That is an application of Gannon’s approach, rather than a process he claims Bolay follows word for word.
The people already on the team should get stronger
Beck asks whether trust has made the relationship largely hands-free. Gannon immediately describes a collaborative effort. The outside team helps do the work, but it also coaches the people inside the company. That includes him.
This is an important distinction for a growing restaurant organization. A finished project has value. So does an internal team that understands the decisions behind it and can make better decisions afterward. If all the judgment leaves with the consultant, the company may have purchased a deliverable while leaving its original capability gap intact.
Gannon’s emphasis is on experienced people helping emerging leaders see around corners. He describes leadership as assembling a strong team and helping that collective make sound decisions. There is no requirement for the CEO to personally possess every answer, which should come as a relief to anyone whose calendar already suggests otherwise.
A practical way to evaluate an outside engagement is to include a learning outcome alongside the work product. Who on the internal team will participate? What will they be better able to do afterward? Where will the reasoning and operating knowledge live? Those questions keep development visible instead of hoping it happens somewhere between the kickoff and the final presentation.
Choose partners for the business you are building
The support a company needed six months ago may differ from what it needs today, Gannon points out. That makes flexibility useful. It also means the leadership team has to keep evaluating the fit. The interview does not establish a universal cost advantage for fractional support or a measured return from a particular engagement. It describes how one restaurant leader thinks about access to talent.
When the conversation turns to Bolay’s future, Gannon puts growth of the people alongside growth of the restaurants. He also discusses exploring partners who could help take the brand into additional markets. Financial returns matter, but he wants partners who believe in Bolay’s mission and core values. Liking the food is an excellent place to begin.
That standard connects the conversation. Whether the next partner is an adviser, an executive or someone helping expand the restaurant footprint, the decision deserves more than a credentials check. The relationship should strengthen the company’s ability to do its work and preserve what makes the brand worth growing in the first place.
