How Smashburgers Are Reshaping the Fast Food Industry

Thin, crispy, and seared to order with minimal toppings, smash burgers are more than just a food trend. They're a blueprint for the future of fast food. Built on low overhead and small menus, these independent spots are outperforming the burger chains on speed, consistency, and value. Even though consumers are eating out less, and these fast food giants are stumbling, it's these tiny smashburger concepts that are thriving. For only a few extra dollars, more Americans are ditching Big Macs and Whoppers in favor of these fresher smashed local alternatives. Customer retention at McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's

have plummeted, and their executives are panicking. The only tactic they had was launching limited time gimmicks, but even that has lost its effectiveness. The burger giants don't have the means to make smashburgers unless they change their business models. Smashburgers are not a new invention. Shake Shack, Five Guys, and Culver's have built their empires on it since the 2000s. Los Angeles has been the birthplace for food trends of the last decade like frozen yogurt, bubble tea, and hot chicken. It was here in 2018 when Smashburgers gained popularity as a fresher, tastier variation sold exclusively by a few

individuals out of their driveways. The business gained legitimacy as the first movers grew their viral pop-ups into lean, multi-million dollar brickandmortar concepts over the past 7 years. It's only in LA where the Smashburger market is most mature, quality is highest, and competition is fiercest. With low barriers to entry, owners rush into neighborhoods to stake market share. In this modern NBA original, we're going boots on the ground to understand what it takes to win. From the small firsttime restaurant tour to the market leader who's built the city's largest independent chain, growing to 11 stores in 5 years, one patty at a time. All right. Uh, PS extra patty in the window.

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of. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, Netswuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netswuite.com/modern MBA. The guide is free to you at netsweet.com/modernba. The regression in fast food is what's enabled Smashburgers to thrive. McDonald's business is not designed to compete on product. The only lasting improvements made to the menu over the past 20 years have been adding more sauce to Big Macs, increasing warming temperatures so that the cheese can melt better and removing artificial ingredients. McDonald's core business isn't burgers, it's real estate. Rent is

the strongest highest margin revenue stream for the Golden Arches, accounting for nearly double of royalties on food and beverage sales. And it's been like that for generations. because their profits are rooted in rent. The business is all about opening and leasing as many stores as possible. Real estate is more timing than capital. Since McDonald's started buying land in the 1950s before anyone else, it's no surprise that decades later, they make the most off franchises. The average Mickey D's franchisee pays up about $400,000 per store every year, four times that of Burger King, Wendy's, and Five Guys. The trade-off for scale is control.

Franchises handle execution, set their own prices, and run 95% of the world's McDonald's. They're mercenaries who sell burgers for the money, just like how McDonald's only supplies them with ingredients in order to collect rent. When American franchises started jacking up prices under the excuse of inflation, the company had no choice but to go along with it. They tried to elevate customer experience to match the higher prices with store models and new gourmet products. But these efforts all failed. Franchises collapsed under complexity. They revolt against anything that slows them down. Rolling tortillas was considered so tedious that McDonald's was forced to discontinue snack wraps

after franchises refused to make them. While the average franchise is grossing more with the price hikes, the reality is less and less of that is profit. The golden arches are stuck. They want to invent the next hit product, but they can't when franchises won't execute. They want to lead with value, but don't get to set prices. The only place they can influence price is on the mobile app, but franchises can still opt out. Hence the disclaimer of participating locations only. Store- level operating margins today are as low as they were 20 years ago. McDonald's is now pursuing beverages over burgers because drinks can be mass-produced far more

efficiently and the only complexity is operating a blender. Wendy's and Burger King are in the same predicament. Because their businesses run more on royalties rather than rent, they're forced to invest in product. Since they face the same issues of thirdparty pricing and execution, both brands lean into limited time rifts to mitigate inventory risk and operational complexity. They'll partner with any brand from the Adams family to Spongebob just to entice the bottom of the market. They tried to lead on value by blasting discounts and their franchises go along with it as they know there's not much left in the tank.

Like McDonald's, the store-level operating margins of both brands are also declining now as they all race to the bottom. With the collapse of their international ventures, Wendy's and Burger King's only strategy is to continually slash product to improve profits for their remaining franchises and to secure the flow of domestic royalties. Yet, all the burger giants historically competed on product. Wendy's with fresh, never frozen beef, Burger King with big portions and flame grilled patties, and McDonald's with special sauce and thin tallow fries. But these things that used to set these chains apart are now the baseline for

any modern LA Smashburger concept. Competition is fiercest in central LA, but the biggest opportunities are in the suburbs of South Bay, where there are only a handful of these spots. All right, guys. It looks like a little rush coming in. Matt, a former restaurant marketer, started smashing burger patties in his driveway during the pandemic when business crashed. That's where the idea for Proudly Serving was born. No onions, no mustard, extra pickles, no onions, no nothing. Prior to doing this, I didn't know much about smashburgers. I grew up eating those bar burgers or tabin burgers, but I also went to diners and had like little like roadside sliders.

So, that was sort of foreign to me. I knew from the get-go I was never going to be that place that wants it looking like a big UFO coming out of the burger. It just it wasn't my style. And so I didn't want to put myself in like a little compartment of, you know, we're Wagu or we're grass-fed. I really just wanted it to be a simple like roadside burger that everybody can enjoy. Every detail at Proudly Serving's two South Bay locations, from the pickles to the pinball machines, is deliberate. It took me several attempts to get our PS burger flavor profile down. It's our signature burger, but I wanted all the

ingredients to be of quality. You know, it's funny when you say that and putting American cheese in the same sentence, but there's different levels of American cheese, which maybe the average consumer won't really realize. I wanted the grilled onions to be a certain size. So, I had a mandolin that I went through several different levels or whatever to get that right size. It took me maybe four different pickles until I landed on the right one. The bun I knew right away. That was the only thing I knew out of the gate was I was using a Martins potato bun because I'm originally from the east coast. Can I get one fry for here? One fry for here. Coming up.

There's that side of special sauce. I worked with a lot of restaurants prior to this and they cared too much about the main star and other things were kind of put to the wayside. That's a recipe for disaster. you know, someone coming in and saying, "Wow, that burger was amazing, but I can really do without those fries." And it's like, why would they want to come back? Every single element needs to be considered thoughtfully. Our beer selection and wine selection is carefully curated. The decor is something I lose sleep over. I want people to walk in here and like, "Wow." In poker, the table you sit at is the most important decision you can make. And the same is true in business. With multiple burgers, beer on tap,

wine, and duck fat fries, he's built proudly serving on the older suburban demographic who are higher income, but also wary of hype and resistant to trends. Proudly serving as a destination, not a pit stop. And merit rather than marketing has played the biggest role in its 5 years of growth. A lot of other smashburger spots that I've come across, a majority of them basically serve like one burger and the only options are like adding like a different patty. I didn't want this to be just a place for people to come pick up their food and leave. I wanted to create an environment that they felt comfortable, engaging, uh where they can have a drink, sit down, bring their family, bring their kids. Consistency

was easy when Matt made every burger himself, but scaling that across shifts, teams, and two restaurants is a different kind of challenge. Uh, that milkshake you're working on right now, number 26. Anybody here picking up Jeffrey? All right. Uh, sorry. Give us about 5 minutes. We made a mistake. Don't hurt me. Give me one second. Those pickles look a little off. Um, Ferin, where did you get those pickles from? Pickles? Yeah. They usually aren't like green like this. That is not our pickle. But it's the same [__] label. What

Use it or not use it? No, I know. It's a No. Well, we have to use it, but it's uh they've never been green like um obviously the outside's green, but they're usually white. Yeah. They're not like that's like neon green. Yeah. The [__] I got to take a picture and show uh chef. [__] [__] Well, I hope that's good on camera. I got it. Thank you. All right. Uh PS burger extra patty in a window. And then uh that is a founder. No onions, no mustard, extra pickles. So, basically, uh, this is our pickle. It's a true like kosher dill pickle. And this is what we got sent. It's funny. Whenever I see other

burgers on Instagram or whatever, and I see this color pickle, immediately I know it's just a bad burger just cuz of that damn pickle. Um, this is a real kosher dill pickle, but I just took it out of the garbage. I mean, luckily I caught it. I don't know how many uh burgers got sent out with these. I just don't want someone eating that burger and thinking like that's our product. It's those little things that can just tweak and someone who comes here for years can be like, "Oh, it just tastes different." And maybe they never come back again. It could be that small little thing. So, yeah, the suburban market is tough to crack. That's why fast casual concepts like Shake Shack and Chipotle launched in cities where customers are easier to

acquire and momentum builds fast. But if you can win the suburbs, it pays off. Proudly Serving grosses on average $190,000 a month for an annual run rate of $2.3 million per store, more than the average Five Guys, Burger King, and Wendy's. The average order is $28 with 70% of transactions taking place in house and 30% being delivery. Alcohol is a core offering, but it only makes up 13% of sales. His average operating margin hovers well above the burger giants at 23%. I believe restaurants are a living, breathing thing. I at least want people leaving Proudly Serving knowing that and understanding that. And um if I can do that, I really I think um I'll consider myself successful.

All right, now you can take your break, Miguel. I already win. Inside LA, the Smashburger landscape looks different. Seasoned restaurant tours are jumping in, not just to do it better, but to do it differently. Katie and her sister Amanda have run Thai restaurants since 1999. When a space opened next door to their full-ervice flagship in West LA, they jumped at the chance to open something lean, fast, and casual. In just 3 months, Bon was born, serving the city's first ever Thai smash burgers. Thai food has come a long way. Like two decades ago, when you take a basic dish that has like coconut, peanut, or maybe a little bit of spice, you know, it'll be marketed as Thai food. But nowadays like the American

public are more advanced with their pallet. I feel like we are more of a curated burger joint. So we focus on ingredients, product and freshness. Thai food have many different popular dishes. So we were able to take the ingredients from grapa which is many different herbs from like holy basil redeyed chilies, garlic, lemongrass and we were able to infuse the oil from all the herbs and created a paste. So when we do our burgers, our carpal oil comes in and bursts the flavor even more. But you still taste everything, the freshness of the meat and the Thai flavors. The only thing that we don't make in house is our bun and our ketchup.

The menu balances the classics with more adventurous offerings like pandan milkshakes and papaya fries. Fusion Smashburgers are uncharted territory, and Katie is the first to admit that they're still learning. Bon is only one year old and grosses on average $71,000 a month for an annual run rate of $852,000. It's a lean operation with a tight menu and simple decor built to test product market fit. It's always a big risk to follow trend. Trend comes and go. Especially in LA, you see different things comes in to replace them and you have to always try to reinvent to keep up with the trend.

Bon runs at 6% operating margin and being next door to their flagship takes off the pressure for profits and allows the two kitchens to share staff and ingredients. The average order size sits at $26. We can't stop competition, right? But at the end of the day, we are proud of our product and our concept because of the vast variety of Thai food. We are always going to be able to create and invent something interesting and exciting at Bunra in downtown LA. Raj and his son Neil have reimagined the smashburger with something older and fresher. Old world cuisine. before the advent of the ovens. They used to make breads in a in earth in a hole in the wall, right? Flatbread is never really meant to be eaten later.

It's meant to be eaten straight from the fire. So, we came up with the proprietary way of making the flatbread that's like a fold. Mine has a little bit of crumb, but not that much, and it's hollow in the middle. So, as soon as I take it out, I let the steam out and I can make the bread. All the bread for our bun is made from scratch. So when we bake your burger, we're going to also bake the bread. It was not either of our like deliberate idea to do something non-traditional with a hamburger. My childhood was dominated by, you know, going to In-N-Out and his career obsessed with baking breads. Before Bunra, Raj and his family ran a fullervice restaurant in the suburbs that specialized in conventional flame grilled burgers for 10 years. But thick

patties were slow to cook and easy to undercook. Smashed burgers have made service faster and more consistent. By having it smashed, you have the condiments, the protein, and the starch. All of them is in every bite. The clam shape holds things together better. Depending on the humidity, you have to adjust the water. So these are the little minor adjustment. Even if you have a measurement, sometimes the humidity is up, so you have to add less or if it's it's more, you got to add. So just like fine-tuning just a little minor adjustments. I think it's the best comfort food that there is in the US.

So if I can enhance the bread, which normally is never done, I'm actually enhancing the whole process. And by creating a smash burger in a flatbread, it's a different category of burger. Burgers are so American and so ubiquitous to our culture that we sort of roll the dice with creating a restaurant that combine the two. So if you have two good things like fresh bread and great meat, you can't go wrong. So we use grass-fed beef which is clean and then we have the bread which is fresh. So now condiments, they're simple. We just keep it clean, fresh and we have it'll always be appreciated. All right. The OMG burger. Neil and Raj are adapting to operating in the city where customers are less forgiving, word of mouth is slower, space is tight, and elements like

marketing, branding, and social media play a bigger role. Bunra is much smaller, leaner, and focused in menu than their past concepts, and the family splits shifts from open to close. Like Bon, Bunra is just one year old. They gross on average $33,000 a month for an annual run rate of $396,000 a year. They turned a profit in month 10, a rarity for any restaurant's first year. Their operating margins sit at 18% above the average Burger King, Wendy's, and Five Guys. And the average Bunra customer spends $18 per order. As a fan of the Smashburger places, I still like the soft bun with the crispy like it's a vibe, you know, but it's also very saturated. We've been brewing our bread for about 10 years as well.

So, I think we found our lane. Most smashburger shops in LA are like bun grays and proudly serving where owners touch as many burgers going out the door as possible. Hi. Coming through, guys. You can afford to be in the trenches when you have one or two locations. But when you're one of the first movers and can imagine a future that others haven't seen, that day-to-day looks very different. I'm going to turn this one down a little bit. Okay. I put it at 325. Okay. 325. Yeah. It just gives you more time because that's a little aggressive right there.

Six years ago, Santos was the owner of a Michelin rated French beastro in Hollywood. While his focus was in wine and oat cuisine, he had long kept an eye on the burger scene. Back in about the early maybe the 2010s, I think or maybe before that. Um, I started following Kenji Lopez Alalt on Sirius Eats and he would have these like pages just dedicated to making a burger and his style if you know it, he's very scientific, so he does a lot of trial and error was a smashburger. In 2015 16, I had the opportunity to taste George Matz's burger over at Smoresburg and that was like a very I guess it's a life-changing experience for me because it's like explosive with meat, cheese, of course, bread and onions. I was like,

"Wow, this is so simple." But I thought I could embellish it and make it a little bit better. Right before CO, I was starting to mess around with that idea. When the pandemic shut down his beastro, Santos pivoted to save his restaurant. So, I was like, you know what? Screw it. I'm just going to sell burgers that I've been working on. Today, For the Win is LA's largest independent smashburger chain with 11 stores, all fully owned and operated. They've been voted the best smashburger in the city by Yelp, The Infatuation, and other publications. When there's no onion, um, you should actually be smashing those last, right? Because they cook faster. It's almost like a

smaller burger because the onions not there to absorb the heat. Yeah. Every single component from how you toast the bun, what you put in the bun, how you cook the onions, what you put in the onions. We touch everything a little bit so that it's a little bit different, a little bit elevated to have what I call janessa. It's like there's a flavor component in there that you know there's something there, but you can't put your finger on it, right? That and variation of texture. It kind of builds up to that synergistic moment of that bite, you know? That's that's for the win. What do you guys use to cut the uh tomatoes here? We have a machine.

Oh, you do? Yeah. Still a little thick, right? What you What do you think? I think it's half cut roll. Half cut by hand. Oh, I mean they're it's close. Yeah, they're within range. While most owners these days are trying to carve out a niche, Santos is focused on execution at scale. For the win is the leader and frontr runner that set the product standard and helped build the LA Smashburger market to where it is today. He's not worried about protecting some secret ingredient or proprietary technique. But he's not any less product-minded or meticulous when he's selling hundreds of burgers every hour every day across 11 stores. Santos can no longer jump into the kitchen every time something goes wrong. Back when I

ran Papy Beastro before this place was for the win. I took over as a chef and I already had cooks under me because they had been working for my previous chefs for a long time and they were skilled and seasoned. I could trust the guys to prep it correctly the way that I saw fit. When I lost all my staff because of COVID and they didn't want to work in burger restaurants, I had to hire kids and these kids didn't really know what they were doing and I didn't really know how to teach them as well as I maybe do now. So, I was getting really frustrated when things weren't done specifically exactly the way I wanted to be done. When you're watching the buns, um don't don't walk away from especially

if it's like after you put the bottom bun on. Um because the bottom bun you only need 10 seconds 15 seconds and then also more it needs a little bit more butter and also use a burger weight because the burger weight it's used to like if the burger is kind of like this the bun the burger weight kind of presses it down right. So it's completely uh covered. Oh good. Yeah. You can't make every single burger. You can't toast every single bun. You know you got to if you want to grow um you can't be at three place at once. And so you had to delegate and just being able to not just trusting but like giving

people empowering people to be able to uh take responsibility and you could trust them, right? But then that comes back to building systems and that's something that we're still working on to this day. Santos isn't chasing clout or social media accolades. To him, the real metric is consistency. As long as you get served an excellent burger, it has to be made great, right? That's the whole point in a clean restaurant and then the cashier serves it to you with a smile and it doesn't take forever. Very, very simple, but when it's done and it's done every single time and there's consistency and the people are really nice, that's that's the best you can ask for. Right. While Santos thinks

of the big picture and ideas, Peter handles implementation. Look. Oh, it's too small. Light slightly smaller. It's not too small. It's slightly smaller. Did you want to try the next size up? So, he didn't have them on granite. They have to order. Do we uh use two fires here? No, one is always off. They were on both constantly and I saw the utilities bill and I turned one off and you know these things are so expensive. It's not going to be Oh, there's a big difference. These things are a phase three. Uh something.

What was the uh what was the labor like here? Labor is 25, but that's because some uh people are training here for Cypress. Okay. So, they're getting ready for Cypress. Okay. Uh I feel like this is a good place to be the academy. Yeah. So, there's enough room. There's enough room, you know, and there's someone with some experience here. Um but yeah, it's still around 25. They've been doing really well. Numbers are climbing up. Cool. The kitchen is too big. If you have to walk from the cashier to here, you know, that's it takes so much time. There's not going to be like a line all the time and the cashier could start doing what he's doing, preparing the fries, preparing

the bags, putting the orders together while the cooks can focus on other things, but like the grill cook and help somebody out at the cashier, but he can, you know, open later. Yeah, like 1:00 a.m. In and Out is open till 1:00 a.m. at like all the locations. I mean, that's the goal. Raising Canes is open till like 1 or 2 a.m. You technically open a completely new business in the same business. Exactly. It's free rent. You could open till 3:00 a.m. because people are going to get the munchies after Yeah. You just have to hire people that are willing to do that, which there are. Yeah, there are people job. That's your job. Yeah. That's extra revenue with zero monetary

input. Yeah. I'll set a timeline. Let's try it. If it works, it's good. It's going to take some time for people to realize. Yeah. But if we try it, we have to do it for at least like 6 months or a year. Of course. A year. I would say a year. I don't think we're going to lose money. Cuz it's like if we only need two people to keep it open, that's like 40 bucks an hour. Yeah. So $60 of sales. Yeah. You need $60 an hour to make it worth it. It's going to happen. Peter isn't the corporate bean counter or spreadsheet guy. He started out as a dishwasher at the French Beastro 6 years ago. And when Santos pivoted, Peter jumped in to help when no one else would. He runs operations today and every week he checks in on all 11

stores. Hi guys. You good? Yeah. Good to see you, man. No more issues sometimes. Yes. Smell good, but I use bleach. Okay. I mean, if that works. Yeah, it's the piping here. Huh. Anything else here? No, I think that's it. new machine packaging. I mean, they're pretty stressed out, which you know, that's Yeah, I don't want to. Yeah. So, yeah. One thing is the uh that I mean, I don't know when that machine's going to be fixed. Maybe we maybe it's a maybe we should buy a new machine. Maybe we should try the Antunes.

Yeah. I mean, I'm ready to try new The thing is the best machine is at Hollywood and Korea Town. You've seen that one, right? The vertical ones in Montlo. It's It's No, no, no, no. That one doesn't have a butter roller. Oh, the one in Hollywood in Korea Town, that one is the best one, but we need a special outlet for that one. And not every location. You mean we have that at Hollywood? Yes. Behind it. And how do you get that outlet? It was there. Remember that one? Sometimes they can pull a wire from the breaker, but nine out of 10 times it's older buildings. They're like, "We can't do that." Which is something, you know.

Thank you. Uh see if there's such thing as a converter. Maybe. Probably not, right? No, cuz it goes up in power instead of down. Oh, which is, you know, okay, which is fine. We'll figure it out. It's always the solution, right? But yeah, the these machines, they break. They work for a year and a half and then it's just like they start giving problems. Okay. All right. Um, I mean, everything looks pretty good. Yeah, it's good that we came in and they're understaffed. It's also Yeah, it always is not good to see them stress out. Even though for the win is big, there's no franchises, lences, or venture capitalists. And Santos has little

appetite for such arrangements. He's not interested in securing a quick payout, looking good on a slide deck, or compromising on the values that got him to where he is today. I've heard like not horror stories because obviously, you know, these people get paid, but when private equity comes in, it's not the founder. It's like they don't really care as much. How can you? So they're just trying to make a buck and sometimes they sacrifice the product and then they go that other route from like instead of going in the four walls like oh let's just partner up with some celebrities and people like that right so let's just follow these celebrities around franchising but once it goes to

the big franchises and all that stuff that's when I you know we really have to think about it and I have to ask Peter what he thinks because yeah I trust his judgment I have to ask my wife what she thinks because I trust her judgment. Um, but uh I also really respect what uh what Todd Graves is doing, Blazing Canes. So, he owns 90% of his business and yeah, he's given away a few franchises back in the day or allowed people to buy franchises, but for the most part, it's all corporate stores. I mean, the guy's a billionaire now. I mean, not that's my ultimate goal, but um it would be nice, but I want to be able to teach my kids something, hand this thing down, cuz it's really special to me. Once you

give that over to private equity, you don't really have much power anymore that I want to have full control and or be able to give control to somebody I trust. And that's really important. And obviously, it's really important for the product, too. You want to keep it the same. You want to be consistent over the years. And to me personally, it's very special to have something that has longevity. For the Winds established plaza stores, like in Hollywood, gross on average $3.5 million a year. Their 100 ft food stall in Grand Central Market grosses nearly $2 million a year. And their 500 ft strip mall restaurants like in Glendale, gross $1.2 million a year. The chain's annual run rate,

combining all 11 stores, comes to $20 million a year. Their average order size sits at $30. across all stores. While their best locations enjoy 30% operating margins, the portfoliowiwide operating margin of the average For the Win restaurant sits at 25% higher than that of Shake Shack. Shake Shack's sustained success shows that there is an opportunity for new chains like For the Win to thrive without franchising or being pulled into a race to the bottom. It's exceptionally rare to get such an unfiltered look inside a big business. No conversation or footage we ever recorded was off limits. In an era where people are obsessed with fast exits, builders like Santos feel like one in a

million. He's bootstrapped his own journey, brings people along as he climbs, and stands exclusively behind his product. You won't find his name or face on their website or social media. He has no interest in personal branding or selling you a book or course. It's just Santos, his wife, and Peter. This small team of three are still learning, still hands-on, and still obsessed with getting it right. And even as restaurant tours and consumers in LA wonder about fatigue and saturation, Santos sees a world beyond. Very specifically Los Angeles and maybe New York City.

Smashburg is all over the place. But you go somewhere as close as like Palm Desert, nothing like that. May maybe something like it, but it's like not at the same caliber, not at the same craze. So I think there's ton of opportunities. Vegas, Phoenix, uh San Diego right now. So, those are the three places we're looking at. We're already opening up in Las Vegas and San Diego. Um, Palm Desert might be next. And I'm talking about we're still going to expand here in Los Angeles. We're going to maximize what we can do here. Um, and maximize each store, of course. Uh, but yeah, it's like what's next? I could

have just had this one shop and maybe two shops and hired a manager and called it a day and just retired, but it's like no, what are you made for? You know, it essentially what anyone is made for. You're made for greatness. So, if you're doing something well, you want to do that and keep doing it and you want to be the best at it. I've got Peter here who wants to really grow and explode and like, you know, he wants greatness as well. And we caught into something. We got lightning in a bottle, as they say. Some say smash burgers are destined to settle in next to Big Macs and Whoppers, but it's no accident that For the Win, Bun Grays, Bon, and Proudly

Serving are all pricing themselves just above their local McDonald's and thriving. Smashburgers are a fast growing market that's just in its first innings. The fundamentals are sound, and the opportunities for product are credible. The collapse of the legacy fast food burger has cleared the way for something better, and that future is being shaped by this next generation of small restaurant tours.