By Tracy Morin
“My name is Matt Plapp,” begins the humble bio of PMQ’s biweekly columnist, who has been giving pizzeria owners invaluable marketing advice on PMQ.com since late 2024. “I’m the CEO (chief energy officer) of America’s Best Restaurants. I’ve worked with thousands of restaurants since 2008 when I started this company, and over the next 12 months, we will help 2,500-plus restaurants with their marketing.”
While we love Plapp’s short-and-sweet rundown of his role in the industry, we wanted to know more about the man behind the marketing articles. He recently sat down with PMQ to talk about his journey in the restaurant industry (including his dream gig as buffalo wing judge), the wisdom he lives by and what keeps him inspired as he helps other business owners succeed.
Read all of Matt Plapp’s articles for PMQ here.
PMQ: What’s your background, and how did you get into the restaurant industry?
Matt Plapp: Thinking back to middle school and all of the things I sold and marketed, like candy and homework, makes me realize I’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time. Plus, as they say, it’s in my blood. My mom and dad were very successful entrepreneurs in the ’80s and ’90s in the insurance business. That’s likely where my love for the restaurant business started, since they insured so many mom-and-pop restaurants, and we ate out four to five nights per week at their spots.
In 1999, I started working in radio advertising sales, and most of my clients were restaurants. I really enjoyed having an impact on a one-location pizzeria versus a massive car dealership. Also in 1999, I bought a book on websites and launched an online virtual boat dealership with my brother and dad. Over the next nine years, we went from online to brick and mortar, achieving $15 million in annual sales.
From 1999 to 2008, I learned so much in the digital marketing space and built so many relationships with small business owners through my radio career that it made sense in 2008 to launch a digital marketing agency. By 2015, I had grown our company substantially in the restaurant space and realized the next step was to become a firm that worked only with restaurants, and that’s how America’s Best Restaurants was born.
I still get a kick out of my first restaurant conversation about using Facebook marketing back in 2008. It was a local burger joint where I was a regular, and I was showing the owner how to use Facebook to market his place while I was enjoying a burger. He thought I was crazy, but he believed me. I didn’t realize how right I would end up being about Facebook, but I guess I was on to something.
PMQ: What are some of your favorite memories in working with and visiting restaurants over the years?
Plapp: First is meeting and talking with Guy Fieri a few years ago. He’s an investor in a few concepts with one of our clients, and I got to spend some time with him at one of the grand openings. I’ve always looked up to him, due to what he’s done for independent restaurants, and getting to spend some time with him cemented how genuine he really is.
Second is attending my first National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, New York, and then becoming a judge for the past four years. I’m a big wing guy, and that event was a bucket list event for me. But what made it memorable was making so many friends with the restaurant owners who show up to compete every year. Many of them are now clients, and even more are friends. It’s a great event attended by many great owners.
Third, and my favorite, is watching a friend and client grow his pizzeria from $500,000 to $5,000,000 over the past five years. Avery Ward of Little Italy [pictured below] embodies everything I believe in, and watching him take advice from my team and others, and then take action like no one else, is inspiring. Watching his journey and getting to know his family and team have been amazing memories.
PMQ: What top three books and/or people have been especially inspiring to you and why?
Plapp: Alex Hormozi, Dave Ramsey and Phil Knight.
Alex, due to his tactical marketing and sales advice. His $100M book trilogy has the best three books any business owner could ever read, in my opinion.
Dave Ramsey, for his The EntreLeadership Podcast. Dave’s down-to-earth advice is grounded in massive experience that’s relevant to small businesses. And the callers are small business owners like me—and my clients.
Phil Knight’s book Shoe Dog is the best book I’ve ever read from a founder. It’s beyond motivating and such an easy read. I typically read for 30 minutes or so and then move on, but his book had me reading for hours at a time.
PMQ: What’s your favorite vacation spot?
Plapp: Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I love the mountains, the arcades, the local restaurants and shops (especially the candy shops with saltwater taffy).
PMQ: What’s an average day like for you?
Plapp: I work out most mornings before 8 a.m., then grab some coffee and work on one to two projects until lunch. After lunch, I have meetings with my leadership team members and hop on coaching calls with restaurant owners. I’m the CEO and CFO for our company, so I don’t have a role in the day-to-day fulfillment of what we do for thousands of restaurants nationwide, outside of giving advice, and I really enjoy those afternoon conversations.
PMQ: What’s your favorite part of your job? What is the most challenging?
Plapp: I enjoy coaching sessions with restaurant owners. Ninety-nine percent of the restaurant owners I get to talk to are running great restaurants and love it. But they are buried in the daily operations, and simple tweaks to their marketing can pay dividends. I love those conversations and helping them uncover how to optimize their business.
But on the other side of that is also my nemesis: watching as most don’t take the action for a long period of time. It’s really frustrating to give them a clear path and watch them not have the fortitude to stick with it.
PMQ: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Plapp: If you’re not embarrassed by the decisions you made six months ago in business, then you’re probably not moving fast enough and making enough mistakes. It was the best advice I’ve ever gotten, and it’s something I forget daily. I beat myself up constantly over the “what ifs” from the prior year, and then that quote hits me, and I realize my mistakes were a product of getting uncomfortable and taking risks most people don’t take.
PMQ: Is there any daily routine, habit or life hack that you swear by?
Plapp: I’m not a routine person; I hate thinking that I have to get up and do something in a certain sequence. So one thing I’ve done for a long time is not have a routine. I still do what matters most days, like work out, eat “sensibly,” and go to sleep and wake up around the same times. But I think my “hack” is my lack of strictness with a routine—I just keep the same habits over a long period of time. Like working out—I’ve been lifting weights since 2010 with no breaks. Different days, times and styles, but always moving.
PMQ: What’s your personal mantra or motto?
Plapp: I stole it from a musician, Kid Cudi. At the end of one of his songs, he says, “The hardest part of writing your own story is knowing you’re worth the ink.”
PMQ: What inspires you?
Plapp: I want to help my employees become financially free. I’ve been fortunate throughout my life to figure out how to make money, but I see so many of my employees who never have and, honestly, likely never will. I also realize the trap we’ve all fallen into with debt, including myself.
So one of my goals by 2030 is to have our company set up so our employees earn much higher salaries than they could anywhere else. In my 40s, I was chasing money, thinking I wanted “things.” I bought a few sports cars and things like that, thinking that’s what I wanted, but it really wasn’t. Over the past few years, I’ve become clearer on my why and my needs.
I truly believe America’s Best Restaurants can become the best opportunity most of my employees will ever have to make a lot of money. And I want to be able to turn around in 10 years and look back at our team and see them living their best lives, and not slaves to the job or debt.
PMQ: How do you relax when you’re not working?
Plapp: I enjoy watching movies with my wife and kids, working out, shooting basketball and reading. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about collecting something, but I’ve not landed on what yet. I really like books and coffee, so I have an idea for a library at our next house that doubles as a “coffee laboratory.” I’m thinking of building a collection of types of coffee brewing machines and coffees from around the world.
PMQ: What might people be surprised to know about you?
Plapp: I don’t drink and never have. It’s strange to say that’s something people are caught off guard by, but it happens a lot. I grew up in a household where my parents told us about alcohol in middle school and let us make up our own mind, and I never chose to drink. Plus, it doesn’t help that I have a wild side. Many people have been out on the town with me, having fun times together, and then they wonder, “Wait, you don’t drink? Where’s this energy coming from?!”
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
