About Us

Restaurant Masterminds helps Independent Restaurant owners with marketing and systems to attract new customers, build customer relationships, and increase sales.

They offers tutorials, reports, teleclasses, articles, workshops, and personal consulting that help people just like YOU do inexpensive marketing that GETS RESULTS for their restaurant. You can learn more about these terrific resources at www.rmmembersite.com .

For FREE tips and to be notified of upcoming teleclasses and workshops, sign up for Restaurant Masterminds weekly e-zine at: www.restaurantmasterminds.com.

Your Coaches:

Ben Martinez

Ben Martinez is an independent restaurant owner in Commerce City, Colorado; he owns and operates El Jardin Mexican Restaurant.  He has managed this family establishment for over eighteen years and is the biggest reason for today’s success in the business.  Through many ups and downs in this volatile business Ben has been the one constant in the day-to-day operations.

Like many restauranteurs, Ben has come up through the ranks of the business from washing dishes to payroll and every aspect in between of running a successful restaurant. He is well experienced in creating and maintaining budgets for the day to day-to-day operations. He as also developed many systems to help maintain the quality of food and service that his guests have grown accustomed to.

Although the restaurant was never overwhelmingly successful in its first twenty years of business, Ben found his niche in direct response marketing and grew his sales by 300% in just a few short years. Today Ben is considered as the expert not only in the restaurant industry but in the small business community as well. His creative ideas and “outside the box” thinking, has earned him prominent recognition throughout the local media and other small business entrepreneurs in the metro area. In just the last year alone Ben has received over $100,000.00 in FREE publicity from the local media for his “outrageous” marketing promotions in his restaurant.

Ben understands that many independent restaurant owners have nowhere to turn to for help with their business. With the always increasing labor costs, higher energy bills and food costs continuing to escalate, restauranteurs are left on an island alone competing against the National Chains who have unlimited amounts of marketing and advertising dollars not to mention corporate support. Ben’s goal is to help teach and coach other independent restaurant owners across the country the things that he as learned over the years about how to create a highly profitable business even in a tough economy and help them achieve the life style that he has created for him and his family.

Ben is a native of Colorado and he truly has grown a passion for marketing his restaurant and helping others. He and his lovely wife Lori have been happily married for over 14 years and they have two wonderful children, Ryan age 12 and Brandon age 10. For fun they like to take mini vacations, interior decorate and most importantly spend time together as a family.

Dick Varano

Dick Varano is an independent restaurant owner in Wells, Maine. He owns and operates Billy’s Chowder House, Varano’s Italian Restaurant and The Wells Beach Steak House. He started Billy’s in 1989 with his wife Sherri and opened Varano’s in 2000 and Wells Beach Steak House in 2007. Dick is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, class of 1979. This gave him a solid foundation and launching point for his career. Dick has been executive chef in resorts with multiple kitchens, run an Italian restaurant in Boston’s North End, as well as run high volume and gourmet restaurants.

Dick, like most independent restaurateurs started at the bottom washing dishes and prepping. After attending the CIA, the real journey began; one of Dick’s goals upon graduating was to be an executive chef within five years. This took careful career path planning, it involved working in banquets, doing breakfast, learning multiple cuisines and working in a high volume restaurant to gain experience running a very busy operation while managing a substantial budget.

One of the best experiences Dick had was running a restaurant that was in the red, being on C.O.D. with all your vendors is tough. The up side was, it taught Dick how to operate a restaurant under extreme conditions. Anyone who owns their own restaurant has experienced this in some form at some time during their ownership. If you’re not prepared for this scenario, your chances for survival are slim.

When Dick bought Billy’s Chowder House in 1989, it was a landmark seasonal restaurant on the southern coast of Maine. Two years after purchasing Billy’s, the whole economy crashed and Dick was forced to put all his experience to use. He was forced to let his chef go and take over the kitchen himself, and let go of the manager and have Sherri take over managing and bookkeeping. Through the utilization of tight controls and the use of the many systems Dick developed over the years, Dick was able to weather the storm that many seasonal restaurants weren’t.

Growing Billy’s and watching it prosper, led Dick to realize another goal, which was to own an Italian restaurant. Launching Varano’s in 2000 enabled Dick and Sherri to take this from conception to completion in six months time. Varano’s is an upscale casual restaurant with an award winning wine program, featuring an all Italian Wine List with over two hundred selections. Visiting Italy is now a bi-annual event.

In 2005, Dick and Sherri joined a mastermind group for restaurateurs; over the following two years they grew sales 25 percent. Along the way they masterminded their way into the Wells Beach Steak House, utilizing a design consultant they met through their group. In May 2007, their Steakhouse opened to rave reviews.