Make Restaurants Profitable

From Kicked Out of School at 15 to a 3-Star Michelin Kitchen: How Luke Mangan Built a Restaurant Empire

Make Restaurants Profitable

Show Notes

Luke Mangan got asked to leave school at 15. No HSC. No plan. No backup. Just a two-week work experience at one of Australia's best restaurants — and a quiet feeling that maybe this was something he could do. What followed was a career that took him from washing dishes in Melbourne, to a cold call that landed him a stage at a 3-star Michelin kitchen in London, to opening Salt in Sydney the year of the Olympics, to restaurants in Tokyo, Singapore, Indonesia, and cruise ships across the Pacific...

More from Make Restaurants Profitable

Oct 21, 2026

How to build a high performing restaurant team that runs without you: Mo Saad of Fricken shares how he trains his kitchen from the fries up, hires for attitude, and trusts his managers to make the call. ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac What do you do when your best managers are making decisions without you? Mo Saad and Tim Kummerfeld break down how Fricken trains for safety and consistency in the kitchen, why front of house starts with attitude, and why Mo s...

Oct 21, 2026

At one point, Tara felt like she had completely lost control—not just of her business, but of who she was. Burnt out, drowning in debt, and facing bankruptcy, she found herself isolating, second-guessing every decision, and questioning everything. But what she did next changed everything. This episode is a raw look at what it takes to come back stronger: the brutal self-talk, the wrong advice, the fearless decisions, and the one shift that 5Xed her revenue almost overnight. Tara also shares...

Oct 19, 2026

How to expand a restaurant business to a new city: Mo Saad of Fricken shares what went wrong when they opened on the Gold Coast, from supply chain and food costs to quality control and brand. ▶ Book a Profit Finding Session: https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac Should you build a central kitchen before you open in a new city? Mo Saad and Tim Kummerfeld break down why Fricken nearly bought one and didn't, what outsourcing prep did to food costs and rosters, and how a brand archetype session led ...

Oct 12, 2026

How to run a profitable restaurant comes down to your numbers, and most restaurant owners are being let down by the people meant to look after them. For restaurant owners, café owners, and anyone in a hospitality business, the right accounting setup is the difference between building wealth and quietly going backwards every week. Tim Niesler is the director of The FC Accounting Co, the accounting firm built specifically to service hospo owners, and he's seen exactly where the industry gets fa...

Oct 9, 2026

Trading while insolvent isn’t just “having a bad month.” It means your hospitality business can’t pay its bills when they fall due, and if you keep trading without a plan, the consequences can get serious fast. Book a Gameplan Session → https://foodiecoaches.co/yt-bac In this episode, Tim Kummerfeld sits down with Timmy Niesler from FC Accounting Co. to break down what insolvency actually looks like in hospitality and why so many owners leave it too late before making a decision. They cove...

See all episodes →