- 14 hours ago
Ryan Feghali, known as “QSR Guy” on X, is a multi-unit franchisee of Little Caesars and Jersey Mike’s and co-founder of CoCo Playa. He uses honest posts to share the realities of operating restaurants at scale and turn insights into real business opportunities.
Watch now to learn how Ryan Feghali uses X to build real relationships, why telling the truth creates leverage, and how anonymous posts turned into business growth.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
Watch now to learn how Ryan Feghali uses X to build real relationships, why telling the truth creates leverage, and how anonymous posts turned into business growth.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
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NewsTranscript
00:00You and I are standing here right now because of your courage to post on X because I'm crazy
00:04enough to go on X and I'm like holy shit there's a restaurant on there telling stories on X like
00:08I gotta meet this guy I gotta interview him yeah you don't need to have tens of thousands hundreds
00:12of thousands millions of followers to get true benefit from telling stories on the internet
00:24welcome to restaurant influencers presented by entrepreneur I'm your host Sean Walchef
00:28this is a Cali BBQ Media production we are coming to you from San Diego at the Coronado
00:33Lowe's Resort at the Restaurant Franchise and Innovation Summit we started this show back in
00:392022 on a mission to find the best hospitality storytellers the best technologists and the
00:46best creators in life in the restaurant business and in the new creator economy we learn their
00:52lessons and stories I have been following today's guest QSR guy on Twitter now known as X for years
01:01and my goal was how am I going to get a restaurant owner operator a truth teller like him how
01:08am I
01:08going to get him on the show turns out he's at this show and he's on as today's guest Ryan
01:12so happy to
01:14see you in person I've been following your content Twitter why Twitter you know it it was a place that
01:22I could come in and have a pseudonym I was the QSR guy and I felt like that pseudonym gave
01:27me some
01:28freedom like some permission to just be my authentic self you know I'm in the trenches every day working
01:33building my my empire and I just wanted to be able to do it without having to worry about you
01:40know what
01:40is my franchisor is going to think what are my lenders going to think what are my employees going
01:44to think so I started with this QSR guy you know there's a lot of guys on Twitter and there
01:50wasn't
01:50a QSR guy so I grabbed there's no restaurant there's very well we'll get into it there's very few I
01:56mean
01:56we talked to storytellers we built this show to talk to the best YouTubers the best Instagrammers
02:00the best TikTokers but this is you are the first guest that has mastered Twitter and X as a
02:06storytelling platform and I'm so excited to have you on thank you I appreciate that yeah that's
02:10that that's no joke that is like legitimate I've you you've been you've been a guest that I wanted
02:15to come on to talk to our audience because storytelling is important how many restaurants
02:20do you operate yeah we have 35 right now 35 and uh Little Caesars Pizza Jersey Mike Subs of our
02:27own
02:27brand Coco Playa which I've talked about a lot on X and then uh getting involved in a new brand
02:32called
02:32Mike's Red Tacos which I'm super excited huge fan tell us about Mike's Red Tacos yeah so it's
02:36uh you've heard the story before right so it started out of a food truck and uh it's it's
02:41now sold over 200 units uh nationwide it's they have three locations right now they have the team
02:47that brought to you uh Dave's Hot Chicken Blaze Pizza Wetzel's Pretzels uh just you know an all-star
02:54team and I'm lucky to be among one of the first few franchisees that's going to bring it to Central
02:59California and you know we're going to hopefully see the story repeat like the Dave's Hot Chicken story
03:04what year did you start posting on Twitter or X ah man do you call it Twitter or X you
03:09know what
03:09it's tough I still call it when I post a tweet yeah it's a tweet it's not what is it
03:13yeah I guess
03:14I guess I just I think I call it X now yeah but I still call it a tweet but
03:18I started posting
03:19I think in 2022 okay and again I did a whole year of being anonymous and so and I was
03:27just you know
03:27posting random thoughts I had written content not photos not videos no photos no videos just random
03:33thoughts I had about the industry about you know the franchising space about the the food space and
03:39it just started to pick up some traction I didn't want like I wanted to just be authentic right I
03:43wasn't looking to go viral I wasn't looking to you know build a huge following I don't I don't really
03:48care I just wanted to you know put my thoughts out there and then see see what happened and you
03:53know just started taking off from there that's amazing can you talk about the community of other
03:58people that care about restaurants on X yeah it's it's amazing so I've built some real friendships
04:04from it I've been able to help people that people in my DMs would be like hey I have this
04:09this deal
04:10I'm looking at like what would you think of think of this and I would you know help them navigate
04:14the
04:14deal and this again was happening while I was completely anonymous yeah and they trusted me and
04:19it's funny because now I'm not anonymous and I like to get my my personal brand out there
04:23as QSR guy but still as Ryan Pagali and and just like yesterday I got a DM like hey I
04:28ended up doing
04:29that deal and it's working out amazing and like I just love hearing these stories I love being able
04:34to help people and honestly I've been helped a lot by by the community on on X there's a lot
04:39of times
04:39I've I posted when we were getting Cocoa Playa spun up I wasn't sure what POS system to use so
04:45I did a
04:45post like hey I'm looking to do this and I'm looking for a POS system and I got tons of
04:51comments just
04:51you know what they're what they recommend and why what they recommend staying away from and you
04:56know we ended up going with with toast maybe because of some people that uh you know gave me
05:02that direction and and yeah so I've been helped I've been able to help and build a huge community of
05:07people that are like-minded you know there isn't really something like uh what we have on X it
05:12anywhere right like a community of of restaurant builders operators real estate all the rest of it
05:17just people that are like-minded truth tellers truth tellers yeah yeah exactly no I think
05:21that's what attracted me to your content was that you weren't bullshitting like it was just
05:26like this is the facts like these are the facts these are the reports these are the financials
05:31this is how I'm thinking about it this was how we messed up I think one of the biggest things
05:35that
05:35I've learned you know doing as much content as we do is the more that I share as a restaurant
05:40owner
05:40operator the things that we screwed up closing ghost kitchens like we thought that we were going to be
05:45you know the Muhammad Ali of ghost kitchens and it just it didn't work out but the more honest that
05:49we
05:49are in youtube videos and podcasts like this is how we thought about it this is what actually happened
05:55and this is our you know it's just our experience yeah absolutely I think getting vulnerable is is a
06:01huge piece of authenticity yeah I remember one of my posts was just about imposter syndrome right
06:06everyone has it but not a lot of people like to talk about it and I was just like you
06:09know what yeah
06:09this like this is very true in this space you can have imposter syndrome because you look at
06:13all these huge mega operators and you're like oh you know like who am I to you know speak on
06:18what it's like to manage employees or build a marketing strategy and and once you get past that
06:23and you you actually like are vulnerable and able able to speak your true self then you it just
06:28unlocks so much for you that's amazing why did you go from anonymous to building your personal brand
06:34so it was it was a couple things happened together number one we were about to launch coco playa so
06:41I
06:41wanted to you know put it out there because I've been tweeting anonymously about like me building
06:45this brand over the year so I felt like it was like kind of a part of the story is
06:51to finally say
06:51like all right guys you've been reading this for so long yeah here's what you've been reading about
06:55and this is what the end final result look like and and this is me and you know this I'm
07:00not just
07:00bullshitting you I'm not just some AI bot that's you know talking about yeah this is real I'm real
07:05I'm doing real stuff and you know join along for the rest of my journey we're just getting started
07:09amazing now do you run the twitter accounts for your brands also um so I I did we don't have
07:16a
07:16really strong presence on twitter with our brands but uh you know I'm really involved in the social
07:20media strategy especially for coco playa just uh you know it's it's mostly on instagram and uh tick tock
07:26and um tell me about the strategy how do you guys think about it yeah so it's uh I think
07:30that there's
07:30a huge uh storytelling piece of like you know what we're trying to do you know we're a new brand
07:35so we're
07:35just trying to teach our audience about what we are and what we do and so that was a big
07:39component
07:39of the first year and then the other piece is just you know kind of being silly and funny I
07:45think people
07:45like you know content where they like it makes them chuckle so they can send it to their friends and
07:49then once you can send it to your friend and just the way the algorithm works it kind of ends
07:53up
07:53working out great so it might not be super product specific sometimes but it's like you know one of
07:58our best clips was uh you know you've seen it tons of times but someone said oh I wanted that
08:04uh I
08:05wanted that hot not ice and the person grabs the ice and throws it in the face of the employee
08:09like
08:09you know it's not super original we copied it but like it took off and you know people loved it
08:14people
08:14are like oh you're the girl that got her ice thrown in her face yeah so just being able to
08:18be silly
08:19funny and also be able to highlight our products did you know that toast powers over 140 000 restaurants
08:26across the united states canada and uk it's an incredible company i'm on the toast customer
08:32advisory board they are proud sponsors of this show restaurant influencers we couldn't do it without
08:37their support they power our barbecue restaurants in san diego if you have questions about toast if
08:43you're thinking about bringing toast on to be your primary technology partner at your restaurants
08:48please reach out to me i'm happy to get a local toast representative to take care of you
08:53you can reach me at sean p welcha on instagram once again thank you to toast for believing in
08:59the power of technology the power of storytelling the power of hospitality back to the show talk about
09:05consistency because in the beginning no matter what platform you start on you don't build a community
09:11right away you actually have to show up yep and do the work and do the reps yeah and that's
09:16a really
09:16great point because i think one of the things that i was already doing was doing deep dives into brands
09:21looking at operators seeing what they're doing right and you know just kind of noting our sops and
09:27how we think about things right so it was things that i was already doing that i just had to
09:32go and
09:32take and just put it on x right and and it does get a little bit exhausting being like okay
09:38i got to do
09:38a post today like you know that creating content and a lot of people like nowadays they oh i want
09:43to be
09:44a content creator that's my dream job it's a difficult job i'm sure you can attest to that we went
09:48five
09:48years without making any money we were just podcasting and we had very few listeners very
09:53few viewers but i mean if you dedicate yourself to the craft and don't quit yep and keep speaking
09:59the truth and getting more open more honest more vulnerable people start paying attention start
10:04paying attention and you know the thing is is i you know i do have you know my my whole
10:09business that
10:09i run and and i did take months a big business it's a big business thank you 35 restaurants is
10:15no
10:15joke 500 employees like yeah like that is the significant problems that are happening right
10:20now in his phone he's got somebody emailing him something i got it on do not disturb something that's
10:26broken somewhere the murphy's law of restaurant yeah but i mean like i had to take some time away from
10:31from x at certain times over the last few years and and it's kind of crazy you come back and
10:36it's it's
10:36kind of a different world yeah people that you were following before are no longer posting there's new
10:40people that are people people are reposting and then the algorithm always changes so i think
10:44consistency if if you really want to be great at this is is key right always just staying up to
10:48date with it even if you get busy just checking in making sure things are the way that they were
10:52before or what's changing you know you can you know keep up with it can you talk about the humans
10:58that
10:59you've met because the thing that i you know when i talk to restaurant owners business owners
11:03entrepreneurs about content creation obviously it's easy to see the gary v's of the world and the mr beast
11:10and the alex hermosis and you see all of the views what you and i realize especially for me from
11:15a b2b
11:16standpoint is that there's humans that will watch this and listen to this and then they'll send me
11:21a message to your point to the dms and you and i are standing here right now because of your
11:26courage
11:27to post on x because i'm crazy enough to go on x and i'm like holy there's a restaurant owner
11:31telling stories on x like i gotta meet this guy i gotta interview him yeah talk about the human side
11:36of
11:36like you don't need to have tens of thousands hundreds of thousands millions of followers
11:41to get true benefit from telling stories on the internet no absolutely and i i've met some really
11:46great friends uh people that i've learned a lot from people that every time they come to san diego
11:51they'll contact me and be like hey like i'm in town let's meet here and so i've been able to
11:56really develop some great relationships i've had athletes like professional athletes slide in my dms
12:01and be like hey i'm getting into franchising you want to meet for coffee and i've you know i've got
12:05to meet
12:05some great people through that and you know just the amount of people my network has opened up to
12:11because of because of just random posts of you know what's actually happening in my life it's
12:16it's not rocket science what i'm doing i'm just you know posting what what i'm seeing every day what
12:20i'm doing every day and um you know it's it's unlocked so many cool relationships that i would never
12:26trade for anything what are you looking forward to 2026 and beyond is it beyond x omni channel storytelling
12:32and you're trying other platforms are we going deeper in x what what are we looking at yeah you
12:36know i i i'm digging into x a little bit more um i i i've tried linkedin i've had mild
12:44success over
12:44there um i feel like everyone's kind of telling similar stories so uh i don't know i'm more of like
12:52off the cuff you know tell you how i'm feeling about reddit i think no i don't mess no reddit
12:56what's
12:56up with reddit i don't know i can't find anybody on reddit i can't figure it out i can't figure
13:00out
13:00if any if you know any restaurant that's dominating on reddit or doing a good job or building a
13:05community on reddit please send me a dm i would love to to learn more about it i'm interested to
13:09know that but i think youtube is a great platform i i haven't been able to uh tap into that
13:13yet but i
13:14think that would be probably what's next it is the biggest platform in the world right biggest tv
13:17channel in the world yeah so global tv channel i think that i need to gather a little bit of
13:22uh know-how
13:23into making videos and then i can i can translate a lot of my my content into you know videos
13:28for sure pretty
13:30once once i understand how to do it amazing what uh what kind of advice do you have for number
13:34one
13:35somebody that's getting into the restaurant space qsr space specifically yeah i think that surround
13:40yourself with great people that's what i've been able to do i've you know i'm not the best operator
13:45in the world but i've surrounded myself with those the best people and that's what i've been able to
13:49find a lot of success and then you know i think in general um ask the right questions it's always
13:55important to ask a lot of questions and ask the right questions and then uh don't be scared to
14:00put yourself out there i think that goes back to my my content on on x is like putting myself
14:07out
14:07there and just leaving my comfort zone just a little bit has opened up so many new avenues of
14:12growth both personally and in my relationships and in my business amazing uh if you guys are watching
14:18this i'm weirdly available at sean p welch up instagram is the fastest for me uh but i'm also
14:24on x i'm also on linkedin all the platforms we're going to put links to ryan uh qsr guy you
14:29have to
14:30follow him on x that is homework assignment for anybody that's watching us before i let you go i need
14:34to ask you about your personal tech stack android or iphone iphone what version uh 16 16 how often do
14:41you
14:41upgrade um every two years who's your carrier verizon verizon uh gmail or microsoft we just
14:50switched to microsoft last year really yeah tell me about that yeah it was a huge that's a big switch
14:54yeah it is and no google meets you're on teams i'm on teams yeah i got teams i got a
14:59bunch of teams
15:00meets all my whole team every single restaurant of ours it has their own uh teams channel we have our
15:05area
15:05coaches that they roll up to it's it's uh super organized all right we were going to do uh google
15:10g suite
15:10and slack combo we ended up just doing uh m365 because it had had everything and we're pretty
15:17happy with it right now but uh one of the big things we're using is power bi we upload all
15:21of
15:21our financials in there we built some great dashboards and it's been a huge unlock for us
15:25okay great um emails or text or phone calls or text messages text messages text messages do you
15:31leave voicemails uh i would say 50 of the time do you listen to voicemails when people lead them leave
15:39i do listen to them actually i read them do you send voice notes i do you do yeah really
15:46okay um
15:47how many emails do you get a day hundreds hundreds how many do you enjoy reading maybe like two how
15:54many tweets do you send a day i send around five a week so oh five a week really are
16:00they deep dives
16:01uh no but are you threading i was in the past now i just reading it's not it's not it's
16:07not
16:07a thing anymore no you just kind of put you know the as much as you want in the thing
16:12and people just
16:13press show more and they see like you can do an essay you can do whatever you want uh any
16:18tips for
16:19somebody starting on twitter x yes go and look at people's lists for example there's you know a lot of
16:25franchise lists made and you'll see all the franchise guys on there you'll see me on there you'll see you
16:29know ben little yeah name drop some other x x people that we should be um yeah ben little mc
16:34franchisee he's anonymous still but he's a mcdonald's franchisee amazing content um i have uh chris hatch
16:42he's a uh real estate guy he does the whole dirt dogs thing he's came out to meet me in
16:48coco playa
16:48um trying to think of who else i really like paul tran he's great paul's awesome paul tran is amazing
16:55pepper lunch restaurants let's go troy hooper's here and i mean strip mall guy uh pat buckley he
17:02was the uh he did the franchise wolf stuff for a while now he's got the empire spot big fan
17:07of him
17:08and um jt sing another good friend of mine amazing um what's an app that you use that you don't
17:15think
17:15people know about that we should know about oh that's a good one
17:24i don't know if i have one it's off of my head what's your notification management are you inbox
17:29zero uh inbox zero inbox zero is that all apps across all apps uh i try yeah so you don't
17:35have
17:35like 76 text messages unread no i don't know how people do that no i don't know it's just
17:42absolute madness yeah i got zero emails i mean right now i probably have a bunch but by the end
17:47of
17:47today it'll be zero so chat gpt uh gemini claude or perplexity i'm really enjoying claude co-work
17:54right now everybody it's just like sweeping claude has just taken over taken over yeah you don't use
18:00chat anymore you got rid of the page you still have paid version i still have paid chat i paid
18:04claude
18:04uh i do paid claude uh look i think that if we give 20 bucks to every ai platform we'll
18:10be like it'll
18:10be at my direct tv my old direct i think so but i think it's worth it right if you're
18:14talking 20 to
18:15test the the future that's true it's a it's a small price to pay for getting to actually understand
18:21like all right why do i like chat gbt more than rock versus pod oh yeah how does grok you
18:27know i
18:27love grok for when i want or not paid uh it's part of my x subscription right so but i
18:32love grok when i
18:33want to get like um for example i'm looking for a stand-up comedy special to watch like hey what
18:37are
18:38people saying about this because it actually uses x as like uh for feedback and i really like to see
18:43like
18:44what people actually thinking about things amazing um x is obviously the best platform for people to
18:50connect with you absolutely yeah qsr guy on x i have instagram i have linkedin um but i mean if
18:56you
18:57want to read my content it's going to be on x amazing um and the brands the brent coco playa
19:02coco
19:02playa it's a drive-through coffee cookies dirty sodas we got little caesar's pizza jersey mike subs and then
19:08mike's red tacos which i touched on a little earlier amazing yep we appreciate you guys uh thank you for
19:13watching thank you for listening as always stay curious get involved and don't be afraid to ask
19:18for help give my man follow on x thank you for watching thank you for listening if you've made
19:25it this long you are part of the community you're part of the tribe we can't do this alone we
19:30started
19:30no one was listening now we have a community of digital hospitality leaders all over the globe
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19:59show up all over the united states some international countries we would love to work with you and your
20:04growing brand on digital storytelling you can reach out to me anytime at sean p welchef on instagram
20:09i'm weirdly available stay curious get involved don't be afraid to ask for help we'll catch you next episode
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