Ty Wilson On The Hidden Spend Quietly Eating Restaurant Margins

#150 Josh sits down with Ty Wilson, co-founder and CEO of Tab Commerce, the financial management platform built specifically for restaurants. Ty grew up in his parents’ restaurants in Canada, studied finance, spent a few years in investment banking in Toronto, and landed back in the family business during the pandemic, where he saw how much money quietly leaks out of a restaurant through the expenses nobody is tracking. He and Josh get into why the local sourcing marketplace he started with never worked, what it took to move from software into regulated financial services, and why the long tail of spend (subscriptions, service contracts, repairs, and runs to Restaurant Depot) is where margin disappears. Ty explains how virtual cards, real-time visibility, and automated coding change what an operator can control, why Tab has moved more than a dozen restaurant groups off Ramp and Brex without losing one back, and how vendor-funded rewards are reshaping what a business card is worth. They dig into where operators are actually buying supplies today, the shift to ordering online, and how much the convenience of a single distributor can quietly cost. They also cover the hardest lesson of building software for operators, that respecting the switching cost matters more than being right on paper, and why hiring people who genuinely love the industry has been a bigger competitive advantage than automation. Along the way Ty tells the story of his family’s other business, the traveling Ribfest barbecue circuit that tours Ontario every summer. It closes with both of them trading favorite restaurants and an unapologetic defense of the Cheesecake Factory. Since we recorded, Tab has launched Tab Supply, an online store and AI purchasing agent that operators can use to buy 500k+ supplies from 180+ manufacturers. This includes equipment, paper goods, and supplies at great prices, fast shipping, and unlimited 5% cash back on every order when they pay with their Tab Card. It’s the same idea Ty lays out in the episode: make it faster, easier, and cheaper for operators to get what they need, while showing them where their purchasing can get better. Links and resources 📌  Visit meez: https://www.getmeez.com  Follow meez on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getmeez  Follow Josh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshlsharkey/?hl=en  Follow Josh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-sharkey-406965b/  Visit Tab Commerce: https://tabcommerce.com/  Follow Ty on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyedwardwilson/ Timestamps  05:50 Growing Up In His Parents' Canadian Restaurants  08:04 From Local Marketplace To Restaurant Back Office  11:45 The Terrifying Leap Into Financial Services  14:01 What Tab Commerce Actually Does Today  17:51 Life Before Tab, Petty Cash And One Shared Card  22:11 Restaurant Depot, Webstaurant, And Where Operators Really Buy  26:16 How Cash Back And Vendor Funded Rewards Work  32:53 Turning Spend Data Into Real Savings  43:40 The Hardest Lesson, Respect The Switching Cost  51:37 Olympians, Hospitality, And Canadian Ribfest