Five essays asked what happened to the restaurant. This one asks what gets built instead. A few operators have written the answer. Almost nobody else can reach it. The three disciplines that separate the survivors from the graveyard, and the layer the rest of the market still needs.
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© Johnny Auer
25
Years in foodservice
$10B
Portfolio scale
$100M+
Transaction thesis
15+
Kitchen tech platforms evaluated
Two sides of the same market
The best suppliers can't always reach the operators who need them. The best operators can't always find the innovation that would change their business. Castle Peak holds both sides.
Suppliers, Brands & Technology
You built something the market needs. You can't reach the buyers who should have it.
Your product works. Your early customers love it. But the RFP goes out and you're not on it. The operator who should be buying from you doesn't know you exist. The wall isn't your product. It's the distance between what you've built and the institutional buyers who control access.
Castle Peak becomes your commercial arm. I represent your product to operators, build the channel strategy, make the introductions, and stay through deployment. I don't hand off a strategy and hope. I build your activation motion around existing institutional infrastructure so the connection sticks and scales.
Operators, Restaurants & Institutions
You're competing on the same playbook as everyone else. The differentiation is out there. You can't find it.
You manage a portfolio of accounts across foodservice, healthcare, education, or managed services. The suppliers who could elevate your programming are out there. The technology that could change your kitchen economics is out there. But finding it, vetting it, and integrating it takes bandwidth you don't have.
Castle Peak brings vetted innovation directly to you. Products and technology I've already evaluated, from companies I already represent. And I stay through integration. I don't hand you a supplier and disappear. I build the activation with them so it works inside your operation from day one.
Latest
Castle Peak is the connective tissue between innovation and institutional scale.
Every relationship on one side of the market strengthens the other. A cooking technology partner creates demand for a protein supplier. An AI platform that automates procurement strengthens the value proposition for an operator. An institutional distribution network scales what a single supplier could never reach alone.
The ecosystem compounds. That's the architecture. Castle Peak doesn't just connect products to market. It builds them.
Sometimes the most valuable connection is not supplier-to-operator. It is platform-to-platform. When two ecosystems need to plug into each other to unlock something neither could build alone, Castle Peak architects the structure, takes a position in the outcome, and stays through the build. That is how a hardware partner gets a CPG portfolio. How a manufacturer gets institutional reach. How a venture vehicle gets the customer set it has been missing.
KITCHEN TECH
AI & AUTOMATION
PROTEIN
CULINARY
CASTLE PEAK ECOSYSTEM
PROCUREMENT
DISTRIBUTION
OP SYSTEMS
CPG
Currently active across 8 portfolio companies spanning kitchen technology, AI and automation, protein, culinary, procurement, distribution, operating systems, and CPG.
How it works
Advisory is the engine. Portfolio is the architecture. Ventures is the destination. Three gears of the same machine, all pointed at the same place: building something real.
The Engine
Advisory
You know the problem. You need someone inside it.
Retainer-based commercial strategy and execution. Channel mapping, distribution strategy, operator introductions. The work that funds the ecosystem and deepens both sides of the market simultaneously.
Engagements run 90 days to ongoing. I embed in the problem, stay close to execution, and bring the institutional context that makes a strategy actually land. The relationships built here become the activation infrastructure for everything else Castle Peak does.
The Architecture
Portfolio
The product is ready. The market isn't built.
I represent your product to market. Equity and commission structures for companies that need a commercial partner, not a consultant. I build the GTM motion, open the doors, and walk through them on your behalf.
And I stay through deployment. I build your activation around existing institutional platforms and distribution infrastructure so the connection scales without requiring anyone to change how they operate.
The Destination
Ventures
The advisory work builds relationships on both sides of the market. The portfolio assembles the ecosystem. Ventures is where Castle Peak proves the thesis from the inside: owned concepts, developed from the ground up, using the products, technology, culinary programming, and supply chain the ecosystem has built. I don't just advise other people on how to grow. I build brands and take them to market on the same infrastructure the portfolio companies use. That's the proof that the architecture works.
How I work
I start by listening. Most engagements begin with a conversation where you tell me what you're building, where you're stuck, and what you've already tried. I'll be honest about whether I can help, where the real leverage is, and whether the fit is right. If it isn't, I'll say so.
No two engagements look the same. The shape of the work follows the problem, not a deck. What stays constant is the posture: accountable to the outcome, not the billable hour.
Who I am
I'm Johnny Auer. I spent 25 years in institutional and commercial foodservice, most recently leading food transformation for Sodexo's North American portfolio. I evaluated kitchen automation, built off-premise food programs, authored acquisition theses, restructured product portfolios, and learned how large organizations actually make decisions about what to buy, from whom, and why.
I built Castle Peak to own the connection nobody else would. From the inside, I kept seeing the same thing: the right suppliers existed, the operators had the problems, and the connection was slow, mostly accidental, and nobody was accountable for making it work.
When I represent a supplier, I tell you. When I'm advising the operator side, I keep evaluation separate from representation.
Castle Peak is accountable for making it work, and earns when it does.
Built and scaled an off-premise food program from concept, connecting suppliers to operators inside a $10B portfolio
Authored acquisition theses across food delivery and technology-enabled convenience services, including one that informed a $100M+ transaction
Evaluated 15+ kitchen technology platforms from both sides: what the technology could do and whether operators would actually buy it
Restructured a commercial portfolio across non-commercial, managed services, GPO, and emerging technology by mapping how each channel actually buys
Thinking
A working thesis on food and hospitality economics. The series maps where the value went, piece by piece, from the supply chain to the consumer's couch. See the full series → · Run the tools →
Operating Models
What Gets Built Instead? Five essays asked what happened to the restaurant. This one asks what gets built next.
Read the essay →
Interactive Tool
Consumer Economics
Who Was the Customer? You paid $16 for the burger that was $11 in 2015. You are wrong about what you are paying for.
Read the essay →
Hospitality Economics
What Happened to the Room? The dining room is emptying anyway.
Read the essay →
Technology Economics
Who Owns the Customer? How delivery platforms captured the restaurant relationship.
Read the essay →
Technology Economics
The Escape Route. Some operators are building a way out of platform dependence.
Read the essay →
Margins
Who's getting rich off your $16 burger?
Read the essay →
Interactive Tool
Distribution
Sysco just paid $29B for Restaurant Depot. The most interesting part isn't the price tag.
Read on LinkedIn →
Growth
The loneliest feeling in food and hospitality is knowing your product is better than your numbers show.
Read on LinkedIn →
Innovation
People are talking about AI the way they talked about robotics. Here's what they're getting wrong.
Read on LinkedIn →
Workplace
Every QBR, the same question: what are we actually doing to make people want to be in the building? My friend Jessica has a good answer.
Read on LinkedIn →
Remembrance
I lost my friend Joe Roy recently. He was the most talented person I knew who never needed you to know it.
Read on LinkedIn →
Operating Model Sandbox
Twenty real bets on the survival map. Pull six levers and watch your concept move alongside them. The disciplines from Part Six built into a thinking tool.
Open the sandbox →
The Alignment Test
Your technology stack works for someone. Find out who. Select your vendors and see who owns the customer relationship.
Run the test →
Get in touch
If something here resonates with where you are, I'd like to hear about it. Whether you're a supplier trying to reach institutional buyers, an operator looking for differentiation, or an investor pressure-testing a growth thesis.
No pitch. No intake form. Just a conversation.