A version of this post originally appeared on August 20, 2025, in Eater and Punch’s newsletter Pre Shift, a biweekly newsletter for the industry pro that sources first-person accounts from the bar and restaurant world.
This send is the final in a three-part series on high-volume restaurants, presented by Square — the technology company that makes commerce and financial services easy and accessible.
Amba, according to Cambridge Street Hospitality Group chef and owner Will Gilson
Where: Cambridge, Massachusetts
The backstory: James Beard Award semifinalist Will Gilson launched Cambridge Street Hospitality Group in 2012 and now operates eight concepts in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2024, he opened his most recent restaurant, Amba, at a local farmers market. In the first year of business, the Mediterranean-inspired fast-casual restaurant has almost tripled its daily sales. Gilson discusses how he got here.
On staffing during peak hours
I wish I could tell you that there’s a perfect science behind it, but sometimes we just try to make sure that we’re not overstacking ourselves. We have one person on the line to get everything open in the morning to cook breakfast. To prepare for our busiest hours, we add another person on the line at about 10:30 a.m. and another at noon. Between catering and in-house orders and stuff that’s hitting the delivery services, we’re doing up to 400 items.
On encouraging online orders
Now people are really used to ordering their food online ahead of time and picking it up, which [keeps] the queue of people [from getting too busy]. We don’t have the infrastructure of Starbucks or Dunkin’ as far as their online ordering goes, but everything from our website to our Square site prompts people to be able to do that. Most of [our customers] are placing their orders ahead of time. We also have two [self-service] kiosks that we have set up inside. On the kiosks, we have a sign that says, “Don’t want to wait in line, use this kiosk right here.” That’s a way to direct people if there is a queue that is forming.
On the efficiency of premade ingredients
Coming from a chef background, I was thinking about making absolutely everything ourselves. What ended up helping us grow faster was identifying two of the items that we were going to be using the most—pita and hummus—and trying to see if we could find the best vendor that we could that could supply us with those. I’m sure I could make a better hummus than the one that we get, but it would take forever [between soaking, boiling, blending, and storing]—and it would require a system that is so complicated that maybe only a couple people could do it. We’re paying a little bit of a premium to be able to have somebody else’s product. Daily, we’re probably saving five hours of labor.
On strategically opening new locations
I have been able to go from one restaurant to eight concepts in the past five years. I always [want to] make sure that we’re walking into the right deal. A lot of the brands that get acquired by venture capital end up going into high-profile spaces with very high rent as a way for marketing. Owning this ourselves without that sort of investment means that those deals are less attractive to us. [We consider factors like] foot traffic and parking. If so much of your food is going out the door via delivery apps, then you need to make sure that you’re in a space where people aren’t having to park far away. You [also] want to avoid scooters and bicycles and Uber cars just clogging up the front of your business.
We want to make sure that we don’t grow too fast until we really understand the nuance of the demand [we’re supplying]. We spent a lot of time trying to find a concept where we can hit the right price points; [at Amba,] there’s nothing on the menu that costs over $20. We felt as though this was the type of concept that would fit into this neighborhood where there are a lot of offices and residences, and not a place that was known for sit-down dining. In all the years that we’ve been doing this, we’ve never opened up a concept that made the people so happy so quickly. I’m never confident that any restaurant will work, but you take a leap of faith.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
