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Mark Rosati has been culinary director of Shake Shack since it was a single hotdog stand in New York City’s Madison Square Park. He wasn’t sure he should take the job. He’d been cooking at Danny Meyer’s and Tom Colicchio’s fine-dining restaurant Gramercy Tavern, and running a takeout kiosk seemed like a step down. Would his chef friends even speak to him anymore? But Rosati said that he appreciated that Shake Shack used the same ingredients and cooking techniques that Meyer’s fine-dining restaurant used — in fact, prep for “The Shack” initially took place across the street at Eleven Madison Park, which was part of Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group at the time. Shake Shack has come a long way since then, with around 330 locations worldwide and its own test kitchen, and Rosati has relocated to Los Angeles for ease in travel as more shacks open in East Asia. His chef friends still speak with him. In this podcast, Rosati discusses how Shake Shack has evolved and how the research & development process as changed, including how he and his team have had to adjust during the pandemic.

As Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (LEYE) marks its fiftieth year in business, president RJ Melman doesn’t see any signs of slowing down. The multiconcept operator has over 150 restaurants in several states across the country ranging from fast-casual to fine-dining and, during the pandemic, brought some closed concepts back as virtual restaurants. Melman, however, does not think virtual restaurants are the future of the industry despite the Chicago-based company’s massive success with them over the past few years. LEYE is a family business for Melman. His father Rich co-founded the company back in 1971 and RJ has been with the company all his life, learning from his father. It’s one of the reasons he thinks brick-and-mortar units are still the way of the future. Earlier this week, LEYE announced it would be opening Aba, a concept already in Austin and Chicago, in South Florida – something Melman hints at in our podcast, which was recorded before the news broke. That expansion marks the company’s first Florida unit and is set to open in 2022.

Neville Craw has been developing menu items at Arby’s for the past 17 years, including some of the quick-service segment’s only lamb items — the chain’s gyros — and certain extreme limited-time offers, including sandwiches of venison and duck that were offered at just a few restaurants until they sold out, which sometimes happened in as little as 15 minutes. Although largely marketing stunts, it turns out that using sous-vide cooking on those items helped with the development of the chicken wraps that the chain launched last year. In this podcast, Craw, Arby’s vice president and brand executive chef, discusses his sous-vide journey, the intricacies of finding the right salt to put on the chain’s new crinkle-cut fries, rolling out smoked brisket, and the new opportunities he has to work with the chefs at Arby’s sister chains within Inspire Brands — Buffalo Wild Wings, Rusty Taco, Sonic Drive-In, Jimmy John’s and Dunkin’.