Articles by Jamie
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A Letter in Support of Arizona's HB2409
A Letter in Support of Arizona's HB2409
Mr. Chairman and members of the House Ways and Means Committee, Thank you for taking the time this morning to hear my…
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Jamie Baxter reposted thisJamie Baxter reposted thisThe #1 thing that determines whether a guest makes a repeat restaurant visit isn't the food, it's how the experience made them feel. At diner we've had thousands of real conversations with guests during their meals at full-service restaurants. Hundreds of thousands of messages. And the pattern is clear. Great food with a flat experience? They don't come back. Average food with a great experience? They do. The food gets them in the door. The experience is what brings them back. And "experience" isn't some abstract thing. It's the pacing. It's whether the server actually read the table. It's the energy in the room. It's the stuff that gets set in pre-shift, not in the kitchen.
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Jamie Baxter shared thisWe're hiring. 6 people today. Hiring 4 more. Come build with us. diner is the AI platform restaurants rely on to understand what's actually happening inside their locations in real time. Our AI, Tracy, has real-time text conversations with guests during their meal, turning live feedback into actionable insights for operators across 180+ cities. We've raised $6M. We're revenue-generating. We're growing fast. And we need builders. Here's what we're hiring for, all in Phoenix: - Principal Backend AI/SQL Engineer - Our third engineer. This is a co-pilot seat alongside our Head of Engineering. If you live in PostgreSQL, have shipped agentic AI systems in production, and want to own the hardest problems in our stack from day one, this one's for you. - Marketplace Ops Manager - Part analyst, part builder, part operator. You'll own marketplace health, build the automations that replace the manual work, and partner with us on unlocking guest growth city by city. - Account Executive - Every deal so far has been founder-led. You'll learn that motion up close, then own it. We have momentum. We need someone to turn it into a machine. - Head of Customer Success - All CS has been founder-led too. This is your blank canvas. Build the function from scratch, own the book, and define how diner retains and grows its restaurant partners. They're founding roles with real ownership, real equity, and real impact on a product that's already in the market and growing. If this is the kind of work you've been looking for, let's talk. 👇 All open roles: https://lnkd.in/gR9_SrYC
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Jamie Baxter posted thisBlack Box Intelligence™ just dropped a stat worth sitting with. 9% of full-service restaurants are at risk of closing in 2026. The easy read: macro headwinds, inflation, cautious consumers. All real. All documented. But buried in the same report is something more interesting. Black Box found that if a unit is losing traffic while the local market is growing, the issue is execution, not the economy. That's actually good news. Because headwinds are out of your control. Execution isn't. Silence isn't loyalty. It's just a lagging indicator you're not measuring. The brands that survive 2026 won't necessarily be the ones with the best real estate or the lowest cost structure. They'll be the ones who knew what their guests were actually experiencing, unit by unit, before it showed up in the comp numbers.
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Jamie Baxter shared thisWe're hiring at diner! Guests get 50% off in exchange for honest feedback during their meal. Restaurants get real-time insights they've never had. We're live in 180+ cities, backed by real restaurant operators, growing revenue, and still just getting started. If you have a high sense of agency, grit, and are adaptable, this might be the perfect fit for you. We're looking for roles across Product, Marketplace Ops, Engineering, Sales, and CS. A few we're highlighting to start with: Product Ops Manager: You'll sit at the intersection of product, data, and growth. Writing tickets, QA’ing features, building PostHog dashboards, wiring up automations, and prototyping solutions with AI. You'll be a catalyst for the product and engineering team to make sure nothing ships without being tested and nothing launches without being measured. Marketplace Ops Manager: You'll own the day-to-day health of our marketplace. Guest support, marketplace monitoring, building automations so that manual work eliminates itself, and partnering with marketing on grassroots growth tactics to unlock new cities. What we care about: builder mindset, high agency, curiosity, and a genuine love for how AI is changing the way restaurants interact with guests. We value execution over process, autonomy over hierarchy, and people who'd rather build it than manage it. We also prioritize an in-person culture and invest a lot into our team located in Phoenix. If this sounds like you, check out our careers page and apply: https://lnkd.in/gR9_SrYC Interested in Sales, CS, or Engineering? DM me, those postings are coming very soon.
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Jamie Baxter posted thisRestaurant operators are running in a tighter world right now. When margins get squeezed and traffic gets choppy, the conversations get blunt: - What’s breaking right now? - What are you doing about it? - Is it working? That’s the real gap in the industry. Not “more data.” Operational clarity. At diner, we help brands create an early-warning system from actual guests, so you can: • spot issues before they hit comps • pinpoint the driver (food vs service vs timing vs value) • test fixes fast (item-level menu development or full guest experience) • and show proof of improvement to owners, franchisees, and lenders Legacy mystery shopping was built for PDFs and quarterly reviews. Today you need a tight feedback loop you can act on weekly. If you’re feeling more pressure in the system, you’re not alone. The brands that win will be the ones who can diagnose faster and execute cleaner. #restaurants #restaurantops #hospitality #customerexperience #data
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Jamie Baxter posted thisI’ve been thinking a lot about what actually drives restaurant traffic right now. Not what looks good on a dashboard. What actually gets guests to come back. Black Box Intelligence™ (BBI) just published new “Best vs Rest” research that nailed something I’ve been seeing: the industry is splitting. The best operators are pulling away, and “pretty good” is getting squeezed. The part that stood out most to me is this: five-star energy isn’t the cheat code it used to be. Guests are flooded with review prompts, expectations are higher, patience is lower, and “good” has become table stakes. What predicts traffic better is the negative, especially when you normalize it by volume. BBI frames it as: Complaint density (complaints per 1,000 transactions). I love this metric because it’s operational. It turns “we got some bad reviews” into “we’re leaking traffic in a measurable way, at specific locations, on specific shifts.” If I were running multi-unit ops, I’d do three simple things: - Track complaint density by location. Brand averages hide problems. - Explain every “but…” (“Food was great, but…”) That’s your cheapest fix. - Slice by daypart. Weekend spikes usually mean throughput/accuracy. Dinner spikes often mean execution consistency. This is also why we built diner. If complaint density is the KPI, you need high-volume signal and fast loop closure. diner turns real guest feedback into real-time, location-specific insights teams can act on immediately. Credit to BBI for the research. Curious: are you tracking complaint density today? If so, what’s moving it for you?
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Jamie Baxter posted thisJust got through the latest Restaurant Finance Monitor and one theme shows up everywhere. Guest experience is no longer a “soft” metric. Investors, lenders, and operators are openly tying traffic, margins, and valuations to what’s actually happening inside the four walls. When brands stumble, the post-mortem isn’t vague anymore. It’s food quality. It’s hospitality. It’s consistency at the location level. One quote that stuck with me was essentially: “We didn’t lose relevance. We disappointed the guest.” That’s a hard thing to admit, but it’s also an important shift. What’s changed is the tolerance for flying blind. One mystery shop a month and a PDF weeks later doesn’t help when labor is expensive, traffic is fragile, and operators are expected to run tighter, more consistent businesses than ever. The operators who are winning seem to be the ones treating guest feedback like operational infrastructure, not a compliance exercise. Frequent. Fast. Location-specific. And coming from real guests, not professional shoppers. Curious how others are thinking about this. How are you actually monitoring guest experience across locations today?
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Jamie Baxter shared thisCouldn’t be prouder of what this team has built in year one. From an idea 12 years in the making from Lauren Bailey to a platform that’s actually changing how restaurants understand their guests, it’s been one hell of a ride already. So excited for this next year ahead! If you will be at RFDC this week send me a message - would love to connect!Jamie Baxter shared thisHappy one year to diner! It’s been exciting, challenging, and incredibly rewarding to see how far we’ve come. Building something new is always a mix of hard work and joy, and I couldn’t be prouder of what our team has created together. We marked our first “vesting day” last week, a little tradition we’ve carried from past companies where each teammate gets a funny vest to celebrate their one-year mark. It’s simple but reminds us to pause and appreciate the progress, not just the goals ahead. Grateful for this team - Jamie Baxter, Lauren Bailey, Trevor Baker, and Tobias Artz, the partners who believed early, and the journey we’re on together. Here’s to year two. 🧡 #diner #startuplife #phoenixtech
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Jamie Baxter posted thisWe analyzed thousands of guest conversations with Tracy (our AI) across restaurants on the diner platform to understand what separates top performing brands from bottom performing brands. The answers reveal the stark difference in guest loyalty. Top brands achieve 20% higher positive sentiment on topics Tracy covers related to guest loyalty compared to bottom performers. That's double the gap we see in any other operational category. Here are some example of what drives this difference: Top brands use team service models where multiple staff check each table instead of making guests hunt for "their" server. They've turned atmosphere into a loyalty driver by designing spaces guests are proud to be in; achieving the 'upscale but welcoming' balance where people feel special enough to capture the moment, but comfortable enough to relax. And they've removed operational friction points that bottom performers don't even realize are problems: parking issues, wait times, and noise levels that guests bring up unprompted during conversations with Tracy. Traditional public reviews and post-visit surveys tell you that something's working or broken. But conversational insights reveal the why and how in real-time, while the experience is still fresh. That's how we uncover that atmosphere functions as a loyalty driver, the team service approach, and the friction points guests don't mention in formal reviews but talk about naturally during their meal. This nuance unlocks the playbook for turning occasional guests into weekly regulars. #RestaurantOperations #GuestExperience #DataDrivenHospitality
Jamie Baxter replied to a comment
6mo
Hayfa Aboukier Peter Hodgson - we have a few restaurants in SLC and working on adding some more in the coming weeks!
Jamie Baxter commented on a post
6mo
Hank Murphy - thank you so much - keeping making those Bad Hambres burritos 🌯 that fuel our team at diner!!
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Jamie Baxter liked thisJamie Baxter liked thisCelebrating 3 years with GEDmatch! 🧬 It’s been an honor to work at the intersection of genealogy and technology. My highlights so far? ✅ Empowering hobbyists with professional-grade tools at no cost ✅ Supporting law enforcement with accurate, science-based facts ✅ Helping thousands of people reconnect with their heritage Here’s to many more years of discovery! 🚀 #GEDmatch #Genealogy #WorkAnniversary
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Jamie Baxter liked thisJamie Baxter liked thisWe did something! Putting our client partners in the spotlight on the BIG screen. From the 55" restaurant menu board to a 240ft billboard in Las Vegas, our clients deserve all the attention. Today, we are featuring Jeff's Bagel Run Jeffrey Perera, Danielle Perera, Catriona Harris, Aaron LeClair, Gary Sterley Your favorite restaurants are powered by NEON Special thanks to Scott Harkey and Todd Lowder from Harkey Media for this amazing billboard spot. Who should we feature next??
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Jamie Baxter liked thisJamie Baxter liked thisToday I made a big announcement to the 7shifts team. I've been fielding (at times) late night questions about all things 7shifts from board members, employees, and customers. All of them expressing excitement about our direction, feature ideas, the industry/AI evolution, and how we're going to continue helping restaurant operators win across the HR lifecycle. The problem? I'm usually asleep at 1am when some of these burning questions come in. And honestly, when you look at the numbers, it's embarrassing. The average person spends 26 years of their life sleeping. That's 226,000 hours. Gone. That's such a big loss of productivity. So I've decided to fix this the only logical way: outsource myself. I've spent months downloading my context, communication style, and deeply held opinions about restaurant labor optimization into a new AI persona. It knows our roadmap. It knows our values, philosophies, mission, vision, strategy, my personality/hobbies, etc. Say hello to JordAIn. Available 24/7. Never tired. Slightly more patient than me before coffee. Here are some key milestones we're looking to achieve... Q2, 2026: AI CEO persona answers weekly company Q&A Q3, 2026: AI CEO persona fully runs monthly all-hands Q4, 2026: AI CEO persona is present at all quarterly planning sessions with the exec team. My true self will be available via phone, but only in emergency situations that need escalation beyond my AI persona 2027+: AI CEO persona meets with investor and partners Special shout-out to Tavus AI for helping power the new me! Happy April 1st :)
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Jamie Baxter liked thisJamie Baxter liked thisToday is my final day as Group President for the U.S. and Canada at Marriott International. While I will remain with Marriott until my retirement from the company in June to support a smooth transition, today closes a chapter that has shaped both my career and my life in ways I will always be grateful for. Hospitality is about people, purpose, and possibility, and I have been incredibly fortunate to build a 37-year career doing work that matters alongside people who care deeply about what they do. To our associates across the U.S. and Canada, thank you. Your passion, resilience, and commitment to one another and to our guests bring Marriott’s purpose to life every day. You are the heart of this company, and it has been an honor to lead alongside you. To our owners and franchisees, thank you for your trust, collaboration, and entrepreneurial spirit, and thank you to our industry partners who help us deliver at the highest level. Together, we have built something enduring and meaningful. As I step toward retirement, I do so with immense pride in what we have accomplished and with great confidence in Satya Anand as he begins his role as Group President for the U.S., Canada, and CALA. Satya is a strong leader, and Marriott’s future is in very capable hands. As I reflect on nearly four decades with Marriott, what stands out most is not a title or a moment, but the people. From my earliest days at the Courtyard in Syracuse to today, this company and this industry have given me an incredible opportunity to grow, to lead, and to serve alongside people who live our values every day. I leave with a full heart and lasting appreciation for an industry and a community I will always love.
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Jamie Baxter liked thisJamie Baxter liked thisMeet David Hoff-Vanoni, Lead Software Engineer at Topanga. After developing his software engineering skills, David wanted to channel his expertise into climate-positive action. That’s what drew him to Topanga. Swipe to learn more about his thoughts on AI, his ideal weekend in Portland and, most importantly, his favorite halloween costume. ⬇️
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Jamie Baxter liked thisJamie Baxter liked thisWe heard you. Everyone wants to watch March Madness on Monday night… so we made our #aztechweek event a watch party. 🏀 Join us for night one of #AZTechWeek: PHX Founder Stories + March Madness Watch Party We’ll have the games on, food + drinks, and a room full of founders, operators, and investors. And during the night, we’ll run a quick, no-fluff founder panel with: • Rob Nicoletti (HALO) • Jamie Baxter (diner) • Kaled Alhanafi (Basata) Real stories. Real capital insights. Then right back to the games. 📍 100 Mill, Tempe 📅 April 6 🕠 5:30–7:30 PM This one’s going to be fun! Register here: https://luma.com/ztd8axfm P.S. The person posting this is an Arizona fan… Go Wildcats 🐻⬇️ (don’t tell my boss) Our incredible partners on this event: PHX Ventures Deloitte Morgan Stanley KBF Advisory Osborn Maledon, P.A. Clate Mask Gregg Scoresby Arizona Commerce Authority Silicon Oasis Josue Romero Jose Dastas Kyle Macdonald Anita Grantham Daniela Santangelo Freeway Jackson Scoresby Alex Nelson Chi Nguyen Marc Chesley Aaron Favreau Chris Chumley Jeff Kerr Bennett Scoresby Katie Sieker
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Jamie Baxter liked thisJamie Baxter liked thisBack to London after a week in the US 🇺🇸 What always stands out is the service culture. Not saying it’s purely a US thing (and tipping probs plays a role), but there’s a level of ownership in the experience that’s very obvious. This was my favourite example from the trip, printed at the bottom of a bill: A direct note from the CEO inviting feedback: • Shows accountability starts at the top • Makes giving feedback feel easy + valued I like it! Good job Anthony Valletta & bartaco 🫡
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Jamie Baxter liked thisJamie Baxter liked thisHappy Major League Baseball (MLB) Opening Day! ⚾️ As the season gets underway, we’re looking back at the World Baseball Classic at the Miami Marlins and loanDepot park earlier this month, where Qwick supported premium hospitality operations for VIP guests across the 12-day, 15-game tournament — all with a 100% fill rate. With the right team in place, gameday can feel like a home run. We're excited to deliver more success stories like this at stadiums across the country this season.
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