Knuckles
My first restaurant taught me how much of this business has nothing to do with cooking. It’s where I learned to build a concept, a team, systems and a point of view — mostly by having to figure things out as they came.
About Matt
I learned most of this by doing it.
I’m Matt Shefler. I’m a restaurant owner and operator in Montreal.
I’ve spent years building restaurants, running them, fixing things, changing my mind, making expensive mistakes and slowly getting better at understanding what this business actually asks of you.
A little context
I didn’t set out to become a consultant.
I came up through restaurants by working in them.
Over time, that turned into opening and operating my own places — and suddenly the job became much bigger than food and service.
It became leases, construction, equipment, staffing, schedules, payroll, food cost, menus, websites, reservations, suppliers, guest complaints, private events, contractors, permits and a hundred other things nobody thinks about when they first imagine opening a restaurant.
Some of those things went well.
Some of them absolutely did not.
But every problem forced me to understand the business a little better.
Where this comes from
I still run restaurants.
Nonno’s
Opening a second restaurant changed the problem completely. I couldn’t keep everything in my own head anymore. It forced me to think much more seriously about systems, delegation, communication and building something that can function without me being everywhere at once.
What changed
The second restaurant taught me something the first one couldn’t.
When there’s only one restaurant, you can get away with keeping an incredible amount of information in your own head.
You remember the supplier issue. You know why the schedule looks strange. You know which piece of equipment needs attention. You know what was promised to that table next Thursday.
Then you add another business and suddenly that stops working.
I became much more interested in systems, documentation, communication and automation — not because I wanted to make restaurants corporate, but because I wanted them to work without requiring every answer to come through me.
A lot of the tools and ideas on this site come from that process.
How I think about advice
My way is not the only way. It’s just my own.
Restaurants have too many variables for one person’s approach to be universally correct.
Different neighbourhoods. Different budgets. Different teams. Different customers. Different ambitions. Different owners.
And, importantly, different ideas of what a good life looks like.
What I can offer is a path I’ve actually taken.
One I’ve tested, made mistakes through, changed my mind about and refined over time.
I’ll tell you what worked for me, what didn’t, and why I think about something the way I do.
Then you decide what belongs in your restaurant.
Why this site exists
I genuinely like helping people figure things out.
Restaurants can be difficult, expensive and sometimes incredibly lonely businesses to build.
Over the years, I’ve learned a lot through experience — including plenty of things I wish somebody had explained to me earlier.
I don’t want to keep that knowledge to myself.
Some of what I share here will always be free.
Some tools take real time to build, and consulting takes time away from my own businesses, so there will be things I charge for too.
But the intention is simple:
Be useful. Be fair. Help where I can.
If something I’ve learned makes your path a little easier, then this place is doing what I hoped it would do.
What you can expect here
No secret formula.
01
Real experience
Things I’ve dealt with myself, not theories assembled from the outside.
02
Changed opinions
If I used to believe something and experience changed my mind, I’d rather tell you that than pretend I always had the answer.
03
Useful before impressive
I’d rather give you something practical you can use tomorrow than make restaurant ownership sound more complicated than it is.
04
Your restaurant stays yours
The goal isn’t to make you think like me. It’s to give you another useful perspective while you figure out what makes sense for you.