AI Marketing Strategies With Josh Kopel, Michelin-Awarded Restaurateur

Artificial intelligence isn’t just a buzzword anymore. Those who understand how to leverage it will thrive. And those who don’t will fall behind. 

That’s why in this episode of The Pre-Shift Podcast, we invited Josh Kopel—Michelin-awarded restaurateur turned industry consultant—to talk all about AI and automation. 

Listen to the episode

Meet Josh Kopel, restauranteur turned consultant

Josh describes himself as a restaurateur first. For over 20 years, he owned and operated restaurant and hospitality concepts in Los Angeles, one of the most competitive dining markets in the world. But when the pandemic hit, Josh sold his restaurant group to wander around and discover his next chapter. 

“Out of that wandering and discovery came the Full Comp podcast. Like 500 episodes in, that’s when I figured out the reason I did well in the restaurant industry is not because I was a world-class restaurateur, but [because] I’m a world-class marketer.”

Josh’s podcast gets over a million downloads a month. And out of the podcast came his coaching and consulting practice: “ When I spoke, I said things that people thought were not stupid. Some of them were even interesting, and people began to reach out about my ideas.” Today, Josh operates one of the largest media assets, along with one of the largest coaching and consulting businesses in the restaurant industry. 

Why aren’t more restaurateurs using AI?

Josh explains that whether people realize it or not, they’ve actually been using AI for years. Think Alexa and Siri—two examples of AI that add value to our day-to-day lives. But when it comes to language models like ChatGPT, he sees one barrier to adoption: they do too much.

“When something does everything, you do nothing with it. And so the learning curve isn’t learning how to use it because it’s a language model—you just talk to it. The hurdle is figuring out all of the different things that you can do with it.”

Using custom GPTs for restaurant marketing

To help with this, Josh introduces the idea of custom GPTs. He explains it as “ an AI built for that restaurant that understands all of the facets of the restaurateur, all of the facets of the restaurant—messaging, brand positioning, everything. Because it’s consumed just an ungodly amount of historical information.”

Josh adds that it’s not that people aren’t marketing—it’s that they aren’t marketing enough. Sending a single email for a Super Bowl or Valentine’s Day special won’t cut it—send three. Posting on social media once a week isn’t enough—aim for ten. And trade those ad-hoc blog posts for consistent, weekly content.

This is where custom models play a key role in scalability: “When you get around to it, you’re doing them every week because this thing knows so much about you. It can extrapolate. And if it doesn’t know something, you can ask the AI to ask you questions to fill in the gaps.”

How to start using AI for your restaurant marketing

For operators new to AI, Josh recommends one of the most accessible options: “I think ChatGPT is probably gonna be the easiest model to use. I also think from a marketer’s perspective, it’s a really good place to go. The simplest thing that you could do is, number one, download it. Number two, pay the $20 a month.”

In Josh’s own words, “It is literally the best money you will spend in your entire life.” He compares the difference to hiring a 17-year-old versus an industry-expert veteran—for only $20 a month. 

As for the next step, Josh says to lead with curiosity. “ If you don’t know where to start—whether it’s with AI-based language models or with the marketing strategy for your business—starting from scratch and asking foundational fundamental questions will get you there.”

This means prompting AI to learn more about your business to understand your needs better and tailor its outputs accordingly—essentially having it ask you questions. Josh suggests this prompt as an example:

“I am a business owner. Ask me as many questions as you need to have a firm understanding of my business. These are my goals (input goals). How could you help me achieve these goals?”

To take it a step further, you can also provide more information about your audience. If you prompt AI to ask deeper questions about your customer base, Josh suggests that it might propose questions like:

• Who is sitting in your restaurant?
• What do your best patrons look like?
• Are they men? Are they women?
• Are they 35 to 45? Are they 18 to 25?
• Do they come in on weekends or during the week?
• Do they live in the area? Do they work in the area?

While answers to these questions may be second nature to owners and operators, Josh explains, “ It is to the exclusion of everything else. AI is one of the few things that’s gonna be able to level all of us up because it is very easy to get started when you lead with curiosity.” The more AI learns about your business, the more effectively it can help you.

 

 

Different ways restaurants can use AI for marketing

Josh explains that you can’t do it all: “The hardest part about being a restaurateur is that when you work on such slim margins, you’re obligated to be great. World class. It’s so many things. And so many of those things fall outside of your scope of interest and your circle of genius.”

“And the opportunity that ChatGPT gives you (or any one of the language models) is the opportunity to work with someone much smarter than you to help amplify the things that you are already doing or the things that you aspire to do.“

So once the AI model has a thorough understanding of your business, you can use it for different tasks. Josh offers the following examples for marketing use cases:

Competitive research – Josh explains that AI doesn’t just have access to historical data—it also has access to everything on the internet, making it a powerful tool for competitive research. He offers this as a sample prompt:

“ I want you to do a competitive analysis in my area. I want you to figure out what everyone else is doing for Easter, and I want you to help me conceptualize a concept that will be better than my competition.”

Create offers & optimize for reach – On top of researching offers from other restaurants, AI can also help create offers of your own. Josh explains, “Most people listening to this have great restaurants and terrible offers. You can use [AI] to create a sense of exclusivity.” For example, Josh shares this prompt to start:

“ Based off the principles of scarcity, urgency, and incredibly high perceived value, I want you to take this special (insert special) that we’re running this weekend and create an email that would inspire people to come in. What does that offer look like without discounting or freebies?”

He adds, “Your offer is worth very, very little if nobody opens the email.” And that’s where AI comes in again—use it to optimize for reach, with prompts like these:

“ Give me 10 options for a subject line. Optimize for high open rate and high click-through rate. Restructure this email in a way that’s going to increase the click-through rate. Give me 8 samples of calls to action that you believe will have a high click-through rate.”

Orchestrate for loyalty – Josh also suggests leveraging AI to create loyalty programs. In his opinion, the best restaurants in the world still have lackluster loyalty programs because they’re based on transactions. 

He says, “ We’re looking at the credit card companies. No one has done a better job of creating loyalty programs that actually inspire loyalty than credit card companies. Everyone sells food and beverages, right? It’s a commodity. What would differentiate you? It’s going to be perceived value. Credit card companies—it’s a commodity business.  Everybody does the same thing. And so, they are able to spike perceived value based on almost exclusively their loyalty programs.”

So instead of designing programs that are rooted in transaction—such as, get $5 off when you spend $100—he asks ChatGPT to create programs based on experience and status. “ We work with the AI to create these experience-based tiers and benefits that are available only to them.” 

Josh offers these as examples from when he worked with The RMD Group in San Diego:

• Gaining exclusive access to off-menu items
• Receiving previews of seasonal menu items before the official launch
• Pre-purchasing high-end liquor at the restaurant with liquor lockers

“And these things cost The RMD Group nothing.  These people are paying to be a part of the loyalty program and to generate more points through more spending so that they can then, in turn, spend more money to get exclusive access to things that otherwise they wouldn’t have the opportunity to buy.”

Using AI for menu engineering

Aside from enabling restaurants to tap into new marketing initiatives, Josh also uses AI for menu engineering. 

“One of the first things we do when we onboard a client is we ask for a product mix, ranked by unit sales for the year. The reason that I need it is I need to know: what are the clear winners, and what are the clear losers? And I’ve got to tell you, 200 restaurants into this, no one’s ever come to me with a clean menu, right? We’re always whittling down, repositioning, repurposing. So then what we do is we pull out everything that’s not selling or reposition it so that it will.”

And this is where AI comes in: “We use a model to create a new menu that is a roadmap—not a compass—to their desired per customer average spend.” He sees the menu as a tool instead of a choose-your-own-adventure journey for the customer. AI can help determine the most logical outcome for the menu, which can help you get to your sales goals.

Final remarks & resources

Josh takes it back to his original thesis: “I believe the greatest hurdle in our industry is not a lack of knowledge—it’s overwhelm. Knowledge is everywhere. We are coming out of an era of data, big data everywhere, and we are moving into the era of actional information.”

“People don’t need more information—they need actionable information.” And because AI is so accessible in terms of affordability, Josh says, “I think one of the most exciting things about AI is the interpretation of data—actionable data.”

To stay ahead, Josh also advises restaurateurs to subscribe to newsletters from tech companies, citing 7shifts, Tripleseat, and MarginEdge as ones to follow. He also points to looking at those in comparable industries, such as online retail. 

“I didn’t become a great marketer by looking at other marketers in the restaurant space. I learned by looking at other industries, saying, ‘Who’s doing it right? Who has loyal fans that come back time and time again and that are willing to pay a premium rate for a commoditized product? Who are they? Who are they talking to? On what platforms are they talking to them? What are they talking about?’”

He ends off by saying, “ I had thousands of problems when running my restaurant until I didn’t. I only had to solve one problem to solve all my other problems—and it was money.  When I had no money, I had a thousand problems. When I had money, I was just able to throw that money at those problems. And it’s amazing how these problems just become minor inconveniences.” And the key to all of this is AI—with the right tools and curiosity, the money problem might just go away.

And if you’re still overwhelmed, Josh sums it up simply: “If I could give one recommendation, it’s to start [using AI] every day—to work on it every day.”

• Connect with Josh on LinkedIn 🔗
• Check out JoshKopel.com 🌐
• Join Josh’s monthly 5-day challenge for restaurant owners 🚀
• 7shifts: How Top Multi-Unit Restaurants are Using Tech to Grow📱