The 4-Wall Series
Deep-dive on unit economics
Latest
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Blackstone Took Chips Off the Table at Jersey Mike’s. It Did Not Exit.
Blackstone sold a slice of Jersey Mike’s at a below-entry valuation and kept the majority stake. What that means for restaurant operators.
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Prime Cost Recovery Playbook: When You’re Above 65% and Need to Get Back
The sequenced levers to pull when prime cost creeps above 65 percent. Real numbers, real examples, no filler.
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How Same-Store Sales Are Actually Calculated (And Why the Number You See Isn’t Yours)
What SSS actually measures, how public chains compute it, why traffic and check split matter more than the ratio itself, and Q2…
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The Restaurant Labor Cost Benchmark Everyone Quotes Is Wrong (Here’s the Real One)
Real 2026 labor benchmarks by concept, Q2 disclosures from 12 public chains, and the four rules for comparing your labor cost to…
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Wendy’s Just Admitted It Broke Its Value Equation. Every Restaurant CFO Should Read the Quote.
Wendy’s CEO Bob Wright just admitted the chain broke its own value equation. The financial fallout, and the four lessons every restaurant…
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Stripe vs Square vs Chase for Restaurant Merchant Services (2026)
Free: The Restaurant Financial Health Checklist. The 6 numbers a chain CFO tracks weekly, plus 30 yes/no questions you can run against…
Where to start
Start with The Model for how a restaurant P&L should be structured, then dig into Expenses and Sales for the metrics that actually move the number.
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