The Sports Bar Reinvented. Convo w/ Brooks Schaden of Tom’s Watch Bar

What happens when a restaurant stops thinking like a traditional restaurant and starts thinking like a live event?Brooks Schaden, Co-CEO of Tom’s Watch Bar, joins James Tice to talk about building restaurants around live sports, fan communities, and shared experiences. From playoff runs and opening day surges to alumni groups and watch parties, Schaden explains how Tom’s turns every game into an event. He also shares why sports-driven restaurants require a different operational mindset, where forecasting changes daily based on schedules, rivalries, and team performance. The conversation covers service speed, labor precision, kitchen design, mobile POS systems, and the small operational decisions that have a massive impact on profitability and guest experience.What You’ll Learn: • How Tom’s Watch Bar forecasts demand around sporting events and playoffs • Why sports bars require a completely different operational model than traditional restaurants • How fan clubs, alumni groups, and watch parties drive recurring traffic • Why service speed, mobile POS, and menu engineering shape profitability • How analytics and forecasting improve labor, inventory, and guest experience • Why experiential hospitality is becoming one of the biggest opportunities in restaurantsVisit tabcommerce.com to learn how extended terms, higher limits, and smarter controls can power your growth.Episode Links- Tom’s Watch Bar: https://tomswatchbar.com/- Brooks Schaden LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooks-schaden-35564a11/