#7 A Vision for a Better Restaurant Industry | Ben Shewry

What if we told you it is possible to run a restaurant where staff don’t burn out, and the business thrives? Where treating staff correctly equals better performance.

In this episode of Heard, Ryan sits down with chef and author Ben Shewry, co-owner of Attica in Melbourne, one of very few restaurants in the world operating as a certified B Corp.

Ben’s not interested in trends or empty virtue-signaling. He’s spent the last decade proving that you can build a high-performance restaurant without sacrificing your team’s health, your ethics, or your culture.

“We are not tortured artists, that’s not an acceptable mentality.”

From implementing a four-day work week to rejecting toxic kitchen hierarchies, Ben shares a blueprint for how the next generation of chefs, restaurateurs, and leaders can create a workplace where people actually want to work.

He’s been ridiculed for his ideas, “a bunch of pussies,” the team were once called, but the industry’s shifting. And Ben believes that change is no longer optional.

“You can get on board and change for the right reasons… or that change will come for you.”