Clay David Laugier

Clay Laugier does not write for the corner office.

Clay David Laugier is a restaurant operations consultant, hospitality leadership coach, and author who helps restaurant and retail managers reduce employee turnover, coach frontline teams, and lead a new generation of workers. Based in Red Hook in the Hudson Valley of New York, he has spent more than 20 years working in and leading restaurants, cafés, convenience stores, and retail stores.

He writes for the person running a double on four hours of sleep who still finds a way to make their team believe the night is going to go well. The shift lead carrying more than their title requires. The store manager holding three locations together with one good manager and a prayer. The operator who knows something is broken on their floor and cannot figure out why the fix keeps not sticking. That is who this is for.

Clay is a leadership coach, operations consultant, and author with twenty years building teams in food service, hospitality, and retail. He worked every level from the floor to the GM chair before founding Clay Laugier Ventures and Seeded Concepts, where he works directly with restaurant groups, food service operators, and retail businesses on team development and behavioral coaching systems.

The proof is not theoretical. More than 1.6 million dollars in documented sales growth. Number one in his district in competitive retail. He has stood on the same floor his clients are standing on, and he builds systems that hold during a rush, not just on a quiet Tuesday morning.

He also cofounded a community café and business incubator in Kingston, New York, built to train and pay the people the market had already written off. Fifteen dollars an hour when nobody in the county was paying it. Seventy-five percent of the profit went back into the café and the community.

That project is still the clearest thing he believes. People who get written off are not a liability. They are a strength nobody bothered to deploy.

Lead with Heart. Coach with Clarity.

Most restaurant and retail managers were promoted for being great at the job. Nobody showed them how to coach. Anyone who has run a shift knows the result: high turnover, inconsistent guest service, and managers who fix every problem themselves because no one taught them to build people who can.

The Coaching Playbook is a practical coaching guide for restaurant managers, retail store managers, shift leads, and anyone newly promoted into leadership. Written by Clay David Laugier, a hospitality leadership coach with more than 20 years on the floor, it turns coaching into something you do every shift instead of something you mean to get to.

Inside, you'll learn:

• The Coaching Loop: a five step method (Observe, Coach, Apply, Review, Repeat) you can run during a live shift

• How to coach in the moment instead of saving it for a yearly review

• How to turn one great employee's habits into the whole team's standard

• How to lead with heart and still hold people to a clear bar

Short, direct, and built on verified research and real floor experience, it's written to be read on a break and used on the next shift.

The Coaching Playbook is Book One of The Coaching Playbook For Modern Times series. The story continues in Set the Tone.

Set the Tone

Description

Belief without accountability goes soft. Accountability without belief breaks people. Great leaders do both.

The workforce has changed. A new generation walked onto the floor carrying different expectations, and many are doing it in the middle of a workplace mental health crisis. The old playbook of pressure and fear no longer builds loyal teams. Neither does being everyone's friend.

Set the Tone is a leadership book for restaurant managers, retail leaders, shift leads, and owners who want teams that care and deliver. Hospitality leadership coach Clay David Laugier draws on more than 20 years on the floor, verified research, and two unlikely coaches from television to show how belief and accountability work together.

Inside, you'll learn:

• The Ted Lasso Effect: how belief and curiosity build people who coach each other

• The Shoresy Standard: how to hold a high bar without breaking your team

• The Assist Standard: how to reward the people who make everyone else better

• The Whole Roster Principle: why every person on your team brings strengths and opportunities, not weaknesses

Every chapter ends with a Try This on Tuesday action you can use on your next shift, along with research sidebars that show the science behind the method. It reads as clearly for a new shift lead as it does for an owner.

Set the Tone is Book Two of The Coaching Playbook For Modern Times series, following The Coaching Playbook: Lead with Heart. Coach with Clarity.

FINE

An adult coloring book.

Bold. Irreverent. Built for adults who need to create, decompress, and laugh without a single good reason.

Because not everything has to be a leadership lesson.

COMING IN 2027

Two novels.

Gritty, honest, and built on the same belief in people that powers every coaching book Clay has written. Working class characters. Real stakes. The kind of stories where people show up imperfect and become something anyway.

More details late 2026.

Clay lives in Red Hook, New York. He is the founder of Clay Laugier Ventures, built around consulting, coaching, publishing, and live events for independent operators and small business owners in food service, hospitality, and retail.

The mission has never changed.

Help people show up braver, clearer, and more connected to the work they are already doing.

Your team isn't broken. Your system is.