The meez Podcast
Josh Sharkey (Entrepreneur, professional chef, and founder/CEO of meez, the culinaryOS for food professionals) interviews world class entrepreneurs in the food space that are shifting the paradigm of how we innovate and operate in our industry.
The meez Podcast
Xavier from OEO on restaurant bookkeepers vs Ai and how to charge corkage fees
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#139
Josh and Mike sit down with Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega, co-founder of Over Easy Office and ChouxBox to trace the winding road that took him from busing tables as a teenager to running a 400-person back-office operation spanning Philadelphia, Bogotá, and Manila. Xavier shares the story of opening and losing a restaurant in Dallas, the friendship with his business partner Tony that grew out of a failed concept in Philadelphia, and how their shared frustration with messy invoices and unreliable financial reporting led them to build a company designed to bring transparency and accountability to restaurant operations.
The conversation digs into how Xavier and Tony built their Philippines-based team from scratch, the early days of scanning invoices by hand to win over skeptical operators, and the cultural and logistical challenges of training a team to understand the chaos of restaurant data. Xavier offers a candid take on why he believes bookkeepers and the human-in-the-loop will remain essential for the foreseeable future, even as AI tools improve, and explains the difference between administrative bookkeeping and the deeper financial insight that helps operators actually run their businesses. He also weighs in on the limits of automation and robotics in restaurants, the realities of working with razor-thin margins, and what keeps him optimistic about the future of independent restaurants. The episode closes with a lighter detour into wine, corkage fees, and the debate over whether a good bottle can ever really be bad for you.
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/
Follow Xavier on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/followxavier/
Follow Xavier on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/winepeopleproblems/
Follow Overseasoned (Xavier and Tony's podcast) on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/overseasoned.us/
Visit Over Easy Office: https://www.overeasyoffice.com
Follow Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-jacober-713104124/
Visit Blanket: https://www.blanket.app/
Follow Michael: @michaeljacober
Timestamps
08:24 Xavier's Path From Busboy To Restaurant Owner
13:39 Meeting Tony And The Failed American Oak Concept
17:16 The Idea Behind Over Easy Office And ChouxBox
21:01 Building The Team In The Philippines From Scratch
24:38 Winning Over Skeptical Restaurant Operators
32:01 Landing Early Clients And Learning The Hard Way
41:23 Are Bookkeepers Going Extinct With AI
48:01 Defining What A Bookkeeper Actually Does
56:31 The Limits Of Automation And Robotics In Restaurants
01:02:43 Rising Costs, Shrinking Margins, And The Future Of Restaurants
01:07:24 Wine, Corkage Fees, And Closing Thoughts