
Episode #1
The Joy of Ops at NRA 2026: Cutting Through the AI Hype (Ep. 1)
<p>Welcome to The Joy of Ops. This is the first conversation we recorded live on the floor of the National Restaurant Association Show 2026 in Chicago, where we met a ton of smart, interesting people over a few packed days. <br /><br />In this opener, Ellis McCue sits down with Brian Reece and Steve Crowley of Service Physics to compare notes on what actually showed up this year: a flood of AI vendors still hunting for a real use case, the quiet disappearance of last year's robots, and a surprising wave of new restaurant concepts launching despite a tough operating...

