What The WRA Shows Revealed About Restaurant Reality in 2025
By Mark K. Laux, HotOperator®
I’ve been to my share of restaurant trade shows: Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, PA, Texas. Different badges, different booths — but lately, the same conversation is repeating itself.
Restaurant operators are incredibly busy, deeply stressed, and focused almost entirely on the small circle of guests who happen to walk through the door today. Meanwhile, the world around them is shifting faster than they realize.
And for many of the operators I spoke with at the WRA Shows this season, that shift is already hitting their bottom line— they just can’t see it yet.
Let’s Start With the Menu Problem
Most operators I met are still using menus that:
- Haven’t been updated in 8–36 months
- Are priced against old ingredient costs
- Have no engineering guiding item placement or pricing decisions
Meanwhile, the cost of key proteins has surged:
According to USDA Market Data, choice boxed beef is up 14–19% year-over-year, and certain primals have spiked over 20% depending on the week.
If you haven’t re-costed and re-priced beef dishes in the past 90 days, you are losing money on every plate.
This isn’t a guess — it’s math.
And when I mentioned The Menu Matrix, which shows exactly how guests “vote” with their wallets, I was met with more blank stares than I care to admit.
Your guests are telling you:
- What they love
- What they tolerate
- What they don’t value
Every single day.
If you aren’t looking at that data, you’re flying blind.
Now, Social Media: The Start-Stop-Start Cycle That’s Killing Operators
Most restaurants try to “handle it themselves.”
And here’s how that goes:
| When business is slow | They post a bunch for two weeks |
| When business gets busy | They stop completely |
| The algorithm | Punishes them for inconsistency |
| Result | They need to spend even more to get back into customer feeds |
And remember:
Organic reach is 2–8%.
Mark Zuckerberg does not open the gate unless you run ads.
For a restaurant doing ~$1M/year:
- Realistic monthly ad spend: $800–$2,500
- Posting frequency: 3–5 feed posts/week + daily stories + regular video
If you are not doing this, you are invisible to 80–90% of your market.
This Is Why Our Program Exists 
Our Menu + Social Media Combined Program:
- Re-engineers your menu for profit
- Posts for you consistently
- Handles ads strategically
- Makes sure your pricing stays aligned to actual food cost reality
- And does all this automatically — without you needing to ask
Not using it is — I’ll be direct — financially irresponsible.
If your restaurant matters to you, this is not optional work anymore.
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