Building a Better Business with Ai.

By MVTT BLVC, in collaboration with Cluade

Don't Close the Doors. Rebuild Them.

By Matt Black | THE PODCVST by MVTT BLVC

Every week, another restaurant posts a heartfelt goodbye. The rent went up, the customers thinned out, and the owner is "sad to announce" the end. I get it. Rising costs are brutal, and nobody should be shamed for losing a business they poured their life into.

But I'm tired of hearing that closing is the only option. Most owners haven't run out of options. They've run out of imagination, and they've mistaken sentiment for strategy.

A restaurant is a business, not a memorial

When the numbers turn red, the instinct is to protect the thing as it was. The better instinct is to ask what the neighborhood needs now. If the demographic has shifted, shift with it. If it hasn't, walk around and see what is actually out there, then plan to reinvest. Renovate. Rework the menu. Consider a new location, because moving can change who walks through your door. Set a real marketing budget, because visibility is part of the overhead.

None of this is free, and I'm not pretending otherwise. Your overhead, your margins, and what you can afford to lose all matter. But "we can't afford to change" often hides a more expensive truth: we can't afford to stay the same.

Turn the restaurant into a place people want to be

People don't just need food. They need somewhere to be. The restaurants that survive will lean into what sociologists call the "third place," somewhere that isn't home and isn't work.

Start with free Wi-Fi, and offer a drink discount to people who stay and use it. Position yourself closer to an internet café than a traditional dining room. Add a tech-savvy person to your team. Trade some of your typical furniture for wireless charging bars and tables, so a customer can put a phone down and charge it while they eat. Offer free water or a free first bottle. These are small investments, and you can phase them in one purchase at a time.

Be a menace (strategically)

Here’s where I lose the cautious crowd. Traditional advertising is a slow bleed, and nobody scrolls past a “sad story” post and thinks, “I should go eat there.” So skip the sad story. Tell people why they should come get a burger from you instead of the place down the street. Lead with price, lead with value, and make it fun.

Then get aggressive about attention. Celebrity photos on the wall used to build restaurants, and today the celebrities are influencers. You can’t expect them to show up and post for free, and they’ll want to be paid. But look at the pricing: ask what it costs to have an influencer make a video at your place versus what it costs to have them simply be in your video. Being in your video is cheaper, and you control the content.

Or skip the invoice. Find the influencer at another restaurant, walk up like you’re their biggest fan, and then pivot into a rant about your little business. Film it and post it. Be a public nuisance about it. If they threaten to sue, post about that. If they try to gag you, post about the gag order. Then get a good lawyer, talk the terms down, and do it again.

Don’t use a new hire for this. Give the phone to the family member or the employee who never wants to do anything else and say, “Go be a public nuisance.”

Is it a little unhinged? Yes. Could it get you sued? Obviously, and I’m not a lawyer. It also may not land with every influencer or audience. But I’d bet the attention from one viral confrontation could buy you a few months of rent. Closing buys you nothing.

AI is an opportunity, not just a threat

Everyone is worried about what AI will take from small businesses. I'd ask what a small business can take from AI.

Imagine a restaurant that brokers a deal with an AI company and offers generative AI credits to customers. Buy an eight-dollar drink and get credits. Walk in the door and get credits. The restaurant could take a cut of what it generates, or the AI company could offer a kickback in return for a new channel to reach people. Whatever the terms, the math is there to be worked out, and it's a good problem to have.

It's a pitch, and it might get rejected. But "AI credits with your burger" gives a customer a reason to choose your place over the one next door. Right now, most owners aren't even asking.

The city has to hold up its end

Small businesses can't carry this alone. Walk through downtown Los Angeles and you'll see empty storefronts, empty lots, and sidewalks that make people not want to stop. In San Francisco, shop owners routinely power-wash the sidewalk out front every morning. It's treated as part of running the business, and the street is better for it.

I'd like to see Los Angeles adopt a similar standard: the sidewalk in front of your business matters as much as the interior. Keep it clean, and the city should reimburse the cost of the broom, the hose, or the rented power washer through city tax credits. A bucket and a broom aren't what's bankrupting anyone, and a clean street brings customers back.

Rethinking transit, housing, and jobs

The same mindset applies to the bigger systems. I'd like to see buses become autonomous and free, with consistent fare patrols that make sure the system stays orderly. The trains would stay paid, but automation would shift transit employment toward engineering, mechanics, and emergency backup roles. That means more people need training, which is why I'm also planning to go back to school myself.

On housing, I want to see more apartments, condos, starter homes, and affordable single-family options, built faster with robotics and autonomous equipment. The Palisades rebuild is an opportunity to use the existing multi-floor infrastructure for duplexes, apartment buildings, and family homes. I'd want those communities managed carefully so they become stable neighborhoods with families and schools, and not another Skid Row.

Adapt or be adapted to

I lost my apartment in a hurricane. Minimalism went from a lifestyle choice to a necessity overnight, and I've spent a lot of time since then thinking about what it means to rebuild. The lesson I took is that things can disappear fast, and the people who recover are the ones who ask what's next instead of what's gone.

That's what I'd tell every restaurant owner staring down a lease renewal. Don't close your doors. Rebuild them with Wi-Fi, chargers, a reason to stay, and a pitch worth making. Then do the math, because nobody is going to do it for you.

Matt Black hosts THE PODCVST by MVTT BLVC. Follow at mvttblvc.com.

I wrote this as a first-person op-ed in Matt's voice, so the opinions are his, taken from the transcript. I left out the police-budget segment and the more crude material. I can put this in a doc for editing and sharing, or make a shorter version for Substack or LinkedIn.