Case studies nobody believes.
Written by marketing. Read by no one.
TRUTH STUDIESALWAYS-ON STORYTELLINGEXPERT VOICESPAID MEDIAEVENT MEDIACATEGORY OWNERSHIPTRUTH STUDIESALWAYS-ON STORYTELLINGEXPERT VOICESPAID MEDIAEVENT MEDIACATEGORY OWNERSHIPTRUTH STUDIESALWAYS-ON STORYTELLINGEXPERT VOICESPAID MEDIAEVENT MEDIACATEGORY OWNERSHIP
Be the Show,
Not the Commercial.
We help the companies that sell to restaurants get found and get believed. It starts with the Blueprint, which shows you where you're losing customers. Then we close the gaps with Truth Studies: a real customer, on location, in their own words, turned into proof every team can use.
TRUTH STUDIESALWAYS-ON STORYTELLINGEXPERT VOICESPAID MEDIAEVENT MEDIACATEGORY OWNERSHIPTRUTH STUDIESALWAYS-ON STORYTELLINGEXPERT VOICESPAID MEDIAEVENT MEDIACATEGORY OWNERSHIPTRUTH STUDIESALWAYS-ON STORYTELLINGEXPERT VOICESPAID MEDIAEVENT MEDIACATEGORY OWNERSHIP
Your best proof is stuck in a slide deck.
Sales asks for proof. Marketing ships awareness.
Two teams, two sets of assets, no shared truth.
Paid spend without paid creative.
Paid spend behind creative that was never built for paid.
The Blueprint
Find out where you're losing customers.
The Restaurant Customer Acquisition Blueprint shows you where customers are finding you, where they're dropping out, and where your marketing investment may be going to waste. We look at customer acquisition through two lenses:
AI Visibility
Can customers find and understand your business when they ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and other AI-powered search experiences?
What it revealsWhere potential customers may never discover you in the first place.
Paid Media
Is your advertising reaching the right people, with the right creative and conversion path, and producing enough business to justify what you're spending?
What it revealsWhere customers see you, but don't act, and where paid investment may be underperforming.
The Blueprint finds the gaps. Truth Studies, always-on storytelling, your website, and paid media close them.
AI visibility findings in days. The complete Blueprint by day 7.
What a Truth Study is
One story. Every department.
A day on location with one of your real customers. We ask better questions and we let them talk. What comes back is a full asset pack: a long-form hero video, short-form clips for paid, photography, written assets, a custom landing page, a one-page leave-behind PDF, and social quote graphics.
Most case studies belong to one department. A Truth Study belongs to the whole organization.
How a Truth Study Works- Marketing runs it.HERO + SOCIAL
- Sales sends it.PDF + CLIPS
- Partnerships opens doors with it.LANDING PAGE
- Product marketing proves the roadmap.PHOTO + GRAPHICS
- Your executives cite it.ON RECORD
Proof.
See All Proof
Trusted by the companies restaurants run on
The Receipts
The numbers nobody can fake.
Nine years of publishing, week after week. No borrowed view counts.
1,500+
Episodes published across the network since 2017
24,000
Pieces of original content
26,000
Email subscribers
2026 NRA Show Top Podcast Influencer565 tracked registrations driven · 70% first-time attendees
The Guests
The biggest names in the business sit down with us.
Tap a guest. Watch the moment.
Tap a guest
Six properties. One thesis.
Be the show, not the commercial.
Why brands trust us
We own and operate Cali BBQ.
We own and operate Cali BBQ. We help the technology companies, equipment manufacturers, suppliers, and brands that serve restaurants get found, build trust, and turn customer stories into business.
Shawn Walchef opened Cali BBQ in San Diego in 2008 and still runs it today. He grew it by treating the internet like a dining room. That philosophy, digital hospitality, became Cali BBQ Media: more than 1,500 episodes published across the network since 2017, and work featured in The Wall Street Journal, Adweek, and The New York Times.
The Book
Be the Show. The book.
Nine years of digital hospitality: the playbook behind everything on this site, becoming a book. Leave your email and you will be the first to read it.