In this episode of The Performance Revolution, host Matt Rolfe is joined by Trevor Booker, senior hospitality leader for Royal City Brewing & The Ward Bar, and Sarah Khattab, Senior Director of Sales for Entegra Canada, for a high-impact conversation on culture, leadership, and profitability in today’s changing hospitality landscape.
Trevor shares the hard-earned leadership lessons that shaped his career — from letting go of ego to surrounding himself with great people — and explains why culture begins with hiring for energy, alignment, and values, not résumés. His four-minute interview method, “house party” approach to hospitality, and obsession with setting staff up for success offer operators a radically practical blueprint for building teams that guests will love.
Sarah brings the national perspective, revealing how Entegra empowers operators to simplify operations, reclaim time, and reinvest it where it matters most: their people. With real-world examples of tech tools, procurement strategies, nationwide vendor programs, and training support, she shows how operators can reduce stress, reduce waste, improve purchasing, and ultimately create more capacity for leadership.
Together, they explore how operators can respond to the realities of 2025: transaction declines, rising costs, shrinking labor pools, and increasing guest expectations. Their answer is clear — and surprisingly simple:
Take care of your people, and your people will take care of your guests. Profit follows.
What You’ll Learn:
• Why great hiring has almost nothing to do with experience
• How to build a “house party vibe” that wins guests from minute one
• How leadership evolves from ego to empowerment
• Why transparency and clarity drive performance
• How Entegra helps operators find time, reduce costs, and focus on people
• Modern KPIs that actually matter (including beer samples, culture and environmental impact)
• Why sustainability and inclusion are now core guest expectations
• How resilience, curiosity, and smarter partnerships will define winning operators in 2025
A practical, inspiring conversation for leaders who want to build stronger teams, deliver better experiences, and run more profitable operations — without losing sight of the human side of hospitality.
