About NARA

Brandon Styll

Founder & CEO

Brandon Styll is the Founder and CEO of the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance, a community-driven organization helping independent restaurants compete and thrive through vendor partnerships, purchasing leverage, and operational support.

With nearly 30 years in hospitality on both the restaurant and vendor sides, Brandon has spent his career deep in the realities of independent operators. He previously served as Director of Operations for respected Nashville institutions including Mere Bulles and Green Hills Grille, where he built a reputation for operational leadership and advocacy for local hospitality.

Brandon is also the host of Nashville Restaurant Radio, a long-running podcast featuring candid conversations with restaurant owners, chefs, operators, and hospitality leaders across Middle Tennessee. Across hundreds of episodes, he has become known for honest, thoughtful dialogue about the realities and humanity of running a restaurant. He also serves as Co-Chair of the Tennessee Engagement Council for Giving Kitchen, supporting hospitality workers in times of crisis.

He founded NARA after watching a growing imbalance in the industry: independent restaurants increasingly operating alone while large corporate groups leveraged scale, buying power, and resources unavailable to smaller operators. His vision was simple. Create a trusted alliance where independents could work together, gain leverage, reduce costs, and strengthen the local restaurant community without losing their identity.

His "why" is rooted in a belief that local restaurants matter far beyond food. They create culture, anchor neighborhoods, support families, employ communities, and shape the character of a city. When independent restaurants disappear, cities lose part of their soul. Protecting the operators who create those spaces is what NARA exists to do.

Today, through NARA, Brandon works alongside restaurant owners across Tennessee to help them protect margins, navigate vendor relationships with transparency, and build stronger, more sustainable businesses while preserving the character and community that make local hospitality special.

Vince Lanni

Managing Partner

Vince Lanni is a Managing Partner at the National Area Restaurant Alliance (NARA). With a background rooted in high-volume operations, Vince has led teams in some of the largest venues on Broadway in Nashville, managed restaurants across multiple states, and owned his own concept, giving him a deep understanding of both the pressures and opportunities within the industry.

Prior to joining NARA, he founded Serve Up Strategies, a restaurant growth accelerator focused on helping operators move from chaos to scalable success using a proven roadmap of practical systems, processes, and leadership development. In addition to his work with NARA, Vince serves as Co-Chair of the Tennessee Community Engagement Council for Giving Kitchen, supporting hospitality workers in times of need.

His expertise lies in developing leaders, strengthening team culture, and implementing streamlined operational systems that reduce stress, lower costs, and create a clear path for sustainable growth.