Why Specialization Should Drive Your CPA Decision (Not Geography)

Here’s what I wish someone had told me when I was searching for my first restaurant accountant: the CPA firm three blocks away from your restaurant isn’t automatically your best choice anymore. 

I used to think like most restaurant owners—find someone local, someone I could meet for coffee, someone who “gets” the neighborhood. That’s how business had always been done, right? Your buddy recommends his guy, you shake hands, and you’re set. But that thinking is probably costing you.

Recently, I sat down with David Toth, a consultant who helps accounting firms develop industry specializations, to understand how technology has fundamentally changed the game for restaurant owners looking for the right CPA partner. What he shared opened my eyes to why geography might be the least important factor in one of your most critical business decisions.

David Toth on the Evolution of Professional Services

David Toth isn’t your typical accounting consultant. He works directly with CPA firms across the country, helping them develop specialized expertise in specific industries rather than trying to be everything to everyone. His perspective comes from watching hundreds of firms struggle with the transition from local generalists to national specialists—and seeing which approaches actually serve clients better.

“I tell accounting firms all the time today: just because you have three offices in Ohio doesn’t mean you’re a regional firm anymore,” David explains. “If you have niches or areas of expertise that you can serve clients all over the country, right? By bringing that type of value together.”

This shift has created unprecedented opportunities for restaurant owners to find truly specialized expertise, but it’s also created a new challenge: how do you identify the right partner when your universe of potential CPAs has expanded from dozens to thousands?

The Trust Problem: When Warm Referrals Go Cold

For generations, professional service relationships were built on one foundation: trust through proximity and referrals. You knew Joe the CPA because he’d been serving your local business community for decades. Your restaurant neighbor recommended him, and that was enough.

“The underlying theme here is trust,” David notes. “It was based on trust, meaning I’m a business owner in Northeast Ohio. I have a network of other business owners and I’m going to reach out to them for resources. Who? What lawyer are you going to use on a transactional side? Who’s your CPA?”

That system worked beautifully when your options were limited to your immediate geographic area. But technology has exploded those boundaries, creating what David calls a fundamental shift in the buyer journey.

“We saw younger generations becoming more digitally first in their buyer journey. How you use Amazon or eBay or Craigslist or Facebook. You’re more comfortable than you’ve ever been before when it comes to having digital relationships or forming digital relationships. And then boom, you have a pandemic.”

The pandemic didn’t just accelerate digital adoption—it proved that expertise matters more than location. Suddenly, restaurant owners were working with advisors they’d never met in person, and many discovered their remote specialists provided better service than their local generalists ever had.

The Overwhelming Paradox of Choice

Here’s where the new landscape gets tricky. Instead of choosing from a handful of local CPAs who may or may not understand restaurants, you’re now choosing from thousands of firms nationwide. That sounds like a good problem to have until you’re actually facing it.

“Your universe went from a hundred local firms to a hundred thousand national firms,” I pointed out during our conversation. “And I would assume on both sides, but on the accounting firm side and on the business side, how do you find each other?”

David’s response hit home: “You can go to Google and starting to find restaurant CPAs and realize even when you’re doing that search, there’s hundreds to look at or filter through. And so as you have all of this noise that’s starting to come to fruition when it comes to your ability to finding an expertise in accounting, what’s that trust and how do you build it?”

This is the modern restaurant owner’s dilemma. You have access to specialized expertise that would have been impossible to find locally, but the sheer volume of choices can be paralyzing. How do you separate genuine specialists from firms that just claim restaurant expertise?

The Real Cost of the Wrong Choice

The stakes in this decision are higher than most restaurant owners realize. It’s not just about filing taxes or keeping books—it’s about strategic growth, profitability optimization, and regulatory compliance in an industry with razor-thin margins.

David shared a perfect example: “I just found $2 million of tax credit savings that you didn’t take advantage of the last three years. That’s probably because you were using a CPA that didn’t understand the regulations that are coming out in large drones constantly where they have a team that’s constantly vetting it and researching it and understanding it.”

Think about that for a moment. $2 million in missed tax credits over three years because your CPA wasn’t specialized enough to know what restaurant-specific opportunities existed. That’s not a small oversight—that’s a business-changing mistake that happens when you prioritize convenience over expertise.

The restaurant industry has unique tax implications that generalist CPAs simply don’t encounter often enough to master:

• Section 179D energy efficiency deductions
• Work Opportunity Tax Credits for hiring from targeted groups
• R&D credits for menu development and process improvements
• State-specific restaurant tax incentives
• Complex tip reporting and credit calculations
• Multi-state nexus issues for growing chains

A local generalist might handle one or two restaurant clients per year. A specialized restaurant CPA firm handles hundreds, seeing patterns and opportunities that only come with deep industry focus.

What True Specialization Looks Like

When David works with accounting firms to develop industry specializations, he looks for something deeper than marketing claims. “The first and foremost important thing is who’s owning it,” he explains. “Is there somebody in your organization that’s incredibly passionate about that industry they’re going into? Because that’s who’s going to drive and lead that team going forward.”

Real specialization isn’t about adding “restaurants” to your website. It’s about:

Deep Industry Passion: Someone in the firm who genuinely cares about restaurant success and stays current on industry trends, challenges, and opportunities.

Specialized Team Development: Building knowledge across multiple team members, not just relying on one “restaurant guy.”

Industry Network Building: Connecting with other restaurant specialists—lawyers, consultants, lenders, suppliers—to provide comprehensive guidance.

Continuous Education: Staying current on the constant stream of regulations, tax law changes, and industry-specific compliance requirements.

Investment in Tools and Resources: Using restaurant-specific software, benchmarking data, and industry publications that generalists don’t justify.

This level of specialization takes years to develop and significant investment to maintain. “It’s not something that happens overnight,” David emphasizes. “Firms have to identify whether it’s based on a book of business that’s significant in one area or you have individuals that are very passionate about this space.”

The New Trust-Building Challenge

But here’s the catch: even when you identify firms with genuine specialization, building trust without face-to-face relationships and warm referrals presents new challenges.

“I come to their website, they look polished, they look like a very large firm. I would be intimidated,” I shared with David. “I’m not necessarily sure that I’m gonna just go and send a random email through their website and expect to be high up on their list of who they’re gonna come and talk to.”

This intimidation factor is real, and it’s keeping good restaurant operators from connecting with firms that could transform their businesses. The solution isn’t to default back to local generalists—it’s to find better ways to evaluate and connect with specialized firms.

Great Matches That Never Happen

Perhaps the saddest aspect of the current landscape is what David and I both see regularly: excellent specialized firms that would love to work with emerging restaurant brands, but can’t connect with the operators who need them most.

“It seems that it’s almost sad the idea that some of these great firms who would love to work with emerging restaurant brands, smaller groups with aspirations to grow, the likelihood of them being connected and meeting is so low,” I observed. “And that might be the difference between success and failure is making sure you find that relationship, the one that’s right for you culturally as well as from an industry expertise standpoint.”

This disconnect hurts everyone. Restaurant owners struggle with generalist CPAs who miss opportunities and don’t understand their challenges. Meanwhile, specialized firms want to work with growth-oriented restaurant operators but can’t break through the digital noise to connect with them.

The Solution: Specialization-First Evaluation Criteria

Given this new landscape, restaurant owners need a completely different approach to CPA selection. Instead of starting with geography, start with these specialization indicators:

Industry Focus Verification

• What percentage of their clients are restaurants?
• How many restaurant clients do they serve in your revenue range?
• Who are the key team members, and what’s their restaurant experience?

Knowledge Depth Assessment

• Do they understand your specific restaurant segment (QSR, casual dining, fine dining)?
• Can they discuss restaurant-specific tax strategies without consulting resources?
• Do they know current industry benchmarks and KPIs?

Tool and Resource Investment

• Do they use restaurant-specific accounting software?
• Do they have access to restaurant industry benchmarking data?
• Are they members of restaurant industry organizations?

Network and Relationships

• Can they refer restaurant-specialized lawyers, consultants, and lenders?
• Do they have relationships with restaurant equipment lessors and suppliers?
• Are they connected to restaurant industry associations and events?

Building Digital Trust: New Rules for Professional Relationships

The challenge remains: how do you build trust with specialized firms you’ve never met? David’s insight points to a fundamental shift in professional relationship building:

“That journey’s hard, right? Because in that case, you’re probably going to look at five or six different CPA firms and you probably are going to submit a contact form on all five or six. And sometimes it’s the first person that gets back to you.”

The firms that succeed in this new environment understand that responsive, personalized communication replaces geographic proximity as the trust-building mechanism. Look for firms that:

• Respond quickly with substantive, not templated, responses
• Ask intelligent questions about your specific situation
• Provide references from similar clients you can actually speak with
• Offer specific examples of restaurant challenges they’ve solved
• Demonstrate knowledge of your local market conditions even from a distance

The Geographic Advantage Myth

Here’s the uncomfortable truth many restaurant owners resist: your local CPA’s geographic advantage is mostly psychological. Modern accounting work happens digitally anyway—your books are in the cloud, your reports are delivered electronically, and your strategic discussions happen via video calls even with local firms.

What you’re really paying for with local generalists is:

• Convenience that costs you opportunities
• Familiar faces that may lack specialized knowledge
• Easy meetings that don’t justify missed tax savings
• Comfort that prevents business growth

Meanwhile, specialized restaurant CPAs offer:

• Deep industry knowledge that saves and makes you money
• Networks of restaurant-specific resources
• Experience with challenges you haven’t faced yet
• Strategic guidance based on hundreds of similar clients

The question isn’t whether you can afford to work with a specialized firm that happens to be located somewhere else. The question is whether you can afford not to.

Implementation: Your Specialization-First CPA Search

Ready to prioritize expertise over geography in your CPA selection? Here’s your action plan:

Phase 1: Define Your Needs

• Identify your restaurant segment and growth stage
• List specific challenges you need help solving
• Determine required service levels and communication preferences

Phase 2: Research Specialists

• Search for restaurant-specialized firms nationally, not locally
• Evaluate firm websites for depth of restaurant content and resources
• Check team credentials and restaurant industry involvement

Phase 3: Evaluate Expertise

• Schedule consultations with 3-5 specialized firms
• Ask specific restaurant industry questions to test knowledge depth
• Request and contact references from similar restaurant clients

Phase 4: Assess Cultural Fit

• Evaluate communication style and responsiveness
• Determine if their growth philosophy aligns with yours
• Ensure they can scale with your expansion plans

Phase 5: Make the Commitment

• Choose the firm with the best combination of expertise and cultural fit
• Implement transition plan to move from your current CPA
• Establish communication protocols and success metrics

Expertise Beats Geography Every Time

The restaurant industry is too complex, competitive, and regulated to entrust to generalist CPAs who happen to be located nearby. Technology has eliminated geographic barriers, creating unprecedented access to specialized expertise that can transform your business.

“Can you find a partner that’s going to help improve profitability, support your growth strategy, and develop a warm trusting relationship along the way?” David asks. The answer is yes—but only if you’re willing to prioritize specialization over convenience.

The real question isn’t where your CPA is located. It’s whether they have the restaurant-specific knowledge, experience, and passion to help you build the business you envision. Geography is just a distraction from what really matters: finding a partner who understands your industry as well as you do.

Don’t let outdated thinking about local relationships prevent you from accessing the specialized expertise that could be the difference between struggling and thriving in the restaurant business.