William J Post has over 30 years of experience in the foodservice industry in extremely diverse operations, including managing, supervising, and leading the creation, development, and opening of almost two hundred uniquely different concepts. Throughout his career, Bill has also provided consulting and advisory services to a list of who’s who in in the restaurant, hospitality and entertainment industries. A sampling of these clients would contain the following:
Bill’s executive profile draws upon decades of expertise and operational experience in concept creation, executive management and team development ranging from quick service and fast-casual businesses to chain operations, casual dining and highly themed entertainment concepts to world-class fine dining, and extraordinarily high volume catering and concession operations. The following descriptions yield a headline view into Bill’s leadership role in developing a list of who’s who in the restaurant and hospitality services world.
Throughout his span of almost twenty years at the helm of The Levy Restaurants, as President and Chief Operating Officer, Bill led the development of over 70 different restaurants and specialty concessions across the Chicago metropolitan area.
As President of The Levy Restaurants, Bill was at the lead in negotiating, designing and developing the first restaurants ever permitted to be owned, developed and operated by an outside party (The Levy Restaurants) on Disney property at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Fulton’s Crab House today ranks as one of the highest volume restaurants in the world, achieving over $25 million in sales as a dinner-only enterprise from its 700-plus seats.
Among other signature restaurants in the Levy portfolio were Bistro 110 and Spiaggia, both recipients of the prestigious Ivy Award, the “Oscar” or Academy Award of the restaurant industry. Levy is the only company to ever be awarded two Ivy Awards.
At the famed landmarks of Water Tower Place and Sears Tower, Levy operated five and fourteen restaurants respectively.
Levy’s emergence into the specialty concessions segment was led by its hometown dominance at Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park (now Guaranteed Rate Field), The United Center, Arlington Park Racetrack, McCormick Place Convention Center, Lincoln Park Zoo and Ravinia Festival.
Restaurant Associates is the oldest restaurant company in America with a rich legacy and heritage that reaches back almost 80 years.In New York City, as President of Restaurant Associates, Bill operated multiple restaurants in Manhattan landmarks such as Rockefeller Center (three restaurants), the Met Life and Grand Central Station complex (five restaurants), the world famous Brasserie on Park Avenue, and the famous Macy’s Miracle on 34th Street (two restaurant locations), among others.
Bill spearheaded and co-founded the emerging growth concept, Roti Mediterranean Grill. Roti, a leader in the fast-casual Mediterranean segment, today numbers 25 locations in Chicago, Washington DC and New York City.
Bill is the Founder and Principal of Carbon, a two-unit Chicago neighborhood taqueria, based on the simple authenticity and value proposition of true Mexican vendor fare. It isn’t Americanized Mexican food, it isn’t contrived, and it most certainly is not Chipotle! The business is an out-performer, achieving sales in excess of $2,000 per square foot in the two existing locations.
Bill is the Founder and Principal of WJP Restaurant Group LLC. In joint venture partnership with Corporate Office Properties Trust, a New York Stock Exchange publicly traded real estate investment trust, this new company, founded and created in the spring of 2015, currently lists five units in its portfolio – one in Annapolis Junction, Maryland and four others adjacent to the Redstone Arsenal, home to NASA and US Army Central Command in Huntsville, Alabama. The concepts range from:
Today, as both an entrepreneurial restaurant owner/operator and consultant, Bill offers his services in a unique consultative and advisory capacity to enterprising restaurateurs who aspire to take their own businesses to the next level of vision, operational excellence and profitability.
Bill has been involved in the creation of nearly 200 entirely different restaurant concepts and brand development. This has involved everything from name and logo creation to architectural planning, lease negotiation, construction management, team development, opening countdown planning, and of course, ongoing operational development plus many more disciplines that are involved in the multi-dimensional aspect of creating an individual restaurant or the creation of a restaurant, foodservice or hospitality company.
It is essential that team members have a very clear understanding of what a business stands for. What are its values, its ethics, its unique foundational principles – in essence its mission and purpose for being in business. Bill has built companies, all based on the principle of simplicity, where literally thousands of team members all knew, in the simplest of terms, what the company stood for. This sounds so simple but very few companies achieve such across the board brand comprehension.
When you do something two hundred times, you learn from mistakes and chances are you also get it right. Bill has perfected methodology to assist an opening, in essence building a database of customers BEFORE the business opens. This tool allows one to open a business to crowds that you as the operator control to the degree that you dictate.
The National Restaurant Association has stated that a vast majority of restaurateurs do not know, understand, or use their most effective marketing tool, their menu, to their full advantage. Menu engineering is an ongoing and never ending process, it uses proven advertising and marketing techniques to make your menu work most effectively, and profitably, for you. Keep in mind, you deposit dollars in the bank, not burritos, hamburgers or steaks. Using Bill’s Gross Profit Theory you will take more dollars to your bank too.
Bill seeks to work with owner/operators that passionately seek improvement in their overall business. Success does not come overnight, thus engagement of his services is only agreed to on a project basis and after a thorough analysis of needs has been comprehensively assessed, discussed between the parties, and a delivery of services is agreed to.
Application of the above tools in whole or in part will, without question, improve your business and correspondingly, your profitability and return on your investment.
Bill is aligned with and supported by a world-class list of associates who, if necessary, can bring added resources to provide added depth to a consulting engagement in terms of: