Let’s be honest — if your restaurant had a Chief Marketing Officer, you wouldn’t need the Restaurant Rebellion.

Hell, if you had someone whose only job was marketing, you’d be ahead of 90% of the independents out there.

But that’s not the world most independent restaurant owners live in.

Most of you are running on grit, muscle memory, and Redbull. You're working doubles, juggling payroll, fixing the ice machine, and trying to make next week’s schedule work with fewer bodies than you need.

Marketing? That’s what you try to think about when everything else stops calling your name from the dining room.

And when you do get to it, chances are your “marketing person” is also a shift leader, bartender, or one of your twenty-something team members who knows how to post a story on Instagram.

This message is for you.

It’s also a declaration of who the Restaurant Rebellion is not for — and who it absolutely is

Who This Is Not For

Let’s get this out of the way:

Restaurant Rebellion is not for corporate chains.

They’ve got in-house marketing teams, ad agencies, scheduled content calendars, and brand guides thicker than your payroll binder. Their budgets are bigger than your annual revenue. And that’s fine — they have no soul — just shareholders.

We’re not here for them.

We’re also not here for the operators who want to throw a couple bucks at Facebook ads and magically expect to go viral.

This isn’t for people chasing marketing shortcuts or trend hacks. If you think the next TikTok dance is the secret to your restaurant’s success, keep scrolling.

We’re not building followers. We’re building foundations.

If you're allergic to rolling up your sleeves and doing the work — the real work of building a business that markets itself every day — this isn't for you either.

Who This Is For

You want to know who the Restaurant Rebellion is for?

It’s for the owner doing inventory at midnight and checking Instagram DMs in the walk-in.

It’s for the manager who’s trying to snap a halfway decent photo of the lunch special between seating a party of six and plunging a toilet.

It’s for the shift lead who’s also running your email list, learning Canva on the fly, and Googling “how to make a reel with music that doesn’t suck.”

It’s for the twenty-something on your team who’s excited about marketing but doesn’t have a plan, a strategy, or the experience to know what works and what’s a waste of time.

It’s for the owner-operator who’s been in the game for years and knows that today, great food isn’t enough.

You need visibility.

You need a system.

You need a way to compete — without pretending you’ve got the resources of a national chain.

That’s what we do.

The Problem We’re Solving

Most independent restaurants aren’t struggling because the food or service isn’t good.

They’re struggling because no one knows they exist.

Chains are everywhere — not because their food is better, but because their marketing is louder, faster, and more consistent.

They win the attention war. And attention is currency.

They’ve got systems. You’ve got a server uploading a blurry photo of your Tuesday dinner special five minutes before their shift starts.

It’s not a fair fight — and it’s not your fault. But it is your problem.

The algorithm doesn’t care how perfectly you season your short rib. It cares about how often you post, how people engage, and whether your content tells a story that gets noticed.

You’re not just in the food business anymore. You’re in the visibility business. And if you’re invisible, you’re bleeding money.

What the Restaurant Rebellion Offers

We built Restaurant Rebellion for restaurants like yours — the ones with no marketing department, no full-time strategist, and no extra bandwidth.

We teach independent restaurant owners how to build a digital marketing machine — one that works even when you’re slammed on a Friday night or short-staffed on a Tuesday lunch.

You’ll learn:

• How to build a website that actually drives traffic and sales (not just an online menu).
  
  

• How to grow and use an email list that keeps guests coming back.
  
  

• How to use simple content to tell your story and stand out in a sea of sameness.
  
  

• How to systemize social media so it doesn’t eat your life.
  
  

• How to compete online — even if you’re a one-unit indie going up against national brands.
  
  

No theory. No BS.

Just tools, training, and real-world strategies that work for real-world restaurants.

What Makes This Different

There are a lot of “restaurant marketing experts” out there.

Most of them haven’t worked a dinner rush in years — if ever. They speak in buzzwords, sell cookie-cutter strategies, and pitch you agency retainers you can’t afford.

We’re not them.

Restaurant Rebellion was built by a guy who’s spent 20 years in restaurants — as a chef, GM, and a closing dishwasher. We’ve lived with your problems. We know what it feels like to wake up with a broken walk-in and an opening grill cook call out.

Everything we teach is built for the operator in the weeds. The one trying to grow — but already running at full capacity.

We don’t just want to help you get “better” at marketing. We want to help you build a system that runs — even when you can’t.

Because you can’t keep running your restaurant and being your own marketing team without burning out.

Why We Fight

We call it a rebellion for a reason.

Because it’s time to stop letting chains dominate the conversation.

It’s time for independent restaurants — the ones with soul, history, and character — to fight back with strategy.

We’re not trying to go viral.

We’re trying to build restaurants that last — restaurants that can compete and win.

Not by pretending to be a chain, but by learning how to market like one — on your own terms.

Ready to Join the Rebellion?

If you're tired of feeling like your food is the best kept secret on your block…

If you're ready to build a digital marketing system that gets people in the door…

If you want to take back control of your restaurant's future…

This is your next step.

Shoot me an email with the the subject line “Ready to Fight” at Michael@RestaurantRebellion.com and I will show how to take back your restaurant.

This is for fighters. For builders. For owners who want to win.