Peter Riggs | What If Restaurant Employees Were Paid to Think Like Owners? | ChatGTM S2 E47

What if the key to better restaurant performance isn’t asking hourly employees to “think like owners,” but actually paying them like owners?In this episode of the ChatGTM Podcast, Michael Beck and Chad Horn sit down with Peter Riggs, Founder of WaveWage, to explore what happens when frontline restaurant employees share in the upside they help create.Peter’s idea started with a moment almost every operator will recognize. About 30 minutes before closing, he watched a restaurant employee turn away customers who were ready to spend money. For the employee, another table meant more work. For the operator, it meant lost revenue and potentially a lost customer.Peter’s question was simple: What if the employee actually benefited from that sale?That became the foundation for WaveWage, a performance-pay platform designed to connect hourly employees with measurable sales performance.Peter shares how incentives can change frontline behavior, how restaurants can reward incremental revenue without destroying margins, and why the last hour of business could potentially become one of the most profitable hours of the day.We also get into restaurant technology itself, including why great software still fails inside restaurants, how WaveWage approaches integrations and gamification, and what technology founders consistently misunderstand about operators.One of Peter’s best observations:“Just because your tech works doesn’t mean we can put it to work.”CHAPTERS00:00 Welcome to ChatGTM 03:09 Meet Peter Riggs 04:28 From restaurant operator to technology founder 07:42 The truth about restaurant employee engagement 10:16 What is WaveWage? 11:01 The restaurant moment that sparked the idea 14:34 The dreaded last-minute customer 15:11 Incentivizing the entire restaurant team 17:03 Finding hidden performance gaps 19:07 Why nobody built WaveWage before 21:10 Making incentives visible and engaging 22:45 Employee badges, recognition and portable reputation 25:11 Avoiding unintended consequences 25:44 AI-generated incentive rules and confidence scores 28:36 Can employees change restaurant operating hours? 29:27 How do you prove an incentive actually works? 32:01 Can employees make more while restaurants make more? 35:13 POS, payroll and restaurant-tech integrations 36:58 What restaurant-tech companies misunderstand 40:06 What Peter now understands about tech founders 41:29 Selling WaveWage to his toughest critic: himself 42:27 Rapid Fire 43:20 Customers walking in two minutes before closing 44:08 The restaurant metric operators aren't measuring 44:33 What restaurant work needs to fix 45:31 Closing thoughts and what comes nextLearn more about WaveWage: https://wavewage.comPeter Riggs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-riggs-495b274/If conversations like this get your gears turning, subscribe to the ChatGTM Podcast on YouTube and follow us wherever you get your podcasts.What do you think: Should hourly restaurant employees share directly in the upside when they help generate incremental revenue?#PayThemLikeOwners #PeterRiggs #WaveWage #RestaurantEmployees #RestaurantPerformance #RestaurantTechnology #ChatGTM