Running a Restaurant is No Joke with Eric Wareheim

To spotlight the complexity and resilience of modern restaurant owners, Square partnered with comedian and food entrepreneur Eric Wareheim on a four-part content series, “Running a Restaurant Is No Joke.” Blending humor and heart, the series follows Wareheim as he immerses himself in the behind-the-scenes realities of running a restaurant, guided by three celebrated Los Angeles chefs: Alisa Reynolds of My 2 Cents, Alvin Cailan of Amboy, and Keegan Fong of Woon Kitchen.  

Part of the Big in Restaurants campaign, the series broke away from typical product-driven narratives, instead leveraging entertainment and storytelling to address restaurant owners' concerns, including managing razor-thin margins, staffing challenges, and takeout logistics. With Eric Wareheim’s comedic lens and the chefs’ unfiltered honesty, the series offered both levity and actionable insights while seamlessly integrating Square’s value as the connective tissue powering their businesses.  

The content strategy challenge was to ensure that a series more typically used to drive brand metrics could deliver on qualified leads. Given the appeal of Eric Wareheim, we knew it would be easy enough to generate leads with a gate, but we couldn't guarantee that they would be the right audience given his broad appeal. To further qualify the audience, we built an ecosystem of editorial content authored by the chefs and an email series that connected themes in the series to products and nurtured leads. This approach was crucial to the overall Big In Restaurants campaign, achieving its key goals.

The series launched shortly after the fires in LA. And to support those impacted, Square is backed WoonHeim, a one-night wildfire benefit hosted by Wareheim and Keegan Fong at Woon Pasadena.