SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AUDIENCE GROWTH Greg Sanders gsanders@wtwhmedia.com
CONTENT STUDIO
VICE PRESIDENT, CONTENT STUDIO Peggy Carouthers pcarouthers@wtwhmedia.com
WRITER, CONTENT STUDIO Drew Filipski dfilipski@wtwhmedia.com
WRITER, CONTENT STUDIO Ya’el McLoud ymcloud@wtwhmedia.com
WRITER, CONTENT STUDIO Abby Winterburn awinterburn@wtwhmedia.com
ART & PRODUCTION
SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Tory Bartelt tbartelt@wtwhmedia.com
FSR ART DIRECTOR Erica Naftolowitz enaftolowitz@wtwhmedia.com
SALES & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
SVP, FOOD, RETAIL, HOSPITALITY SALES AND ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT Matt Waddell mwaddell@wtwhmedia.com 312-961-6840
VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Eugene Drezner edrezner@wtwhmedia.com 919-945-0705
NATIONAL SALES DIRECTOR Edward Richards erichards@wtwhmedia.com 216-956-6636
NATIONAL SALES DIRECTOR Amber Dobsovic adobsovic@wtwhmedia.com 757-637-8673
NATIONAL SALES MANAGER Guy Norcott gnorcott@wtwhmedia.com 854-200-5864
CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE Tracy Doubts tdoubts@wtwhmedia.com 919-945-0704
CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE Brandy Pinion bpinion@wtwhmedia.com 662-234-5481, EXT 127 FOUNDER Webb C. Howell
Call it a Comeback
Who doesn’t love a good comeback story?
It’s certainly a topic I’ve seen a lot more of in the restaurant industry as chains deal with a sluggish customer base, inflation, increased competition, and even political turmoil—all factors that make it harder to reel in transactions.
It’s the primary topic of this QSR magazine issue. El Pollo Loco has faced its own turnaround story since CEO Liz Williams took the helm in March 2024. As you’ll read in the story, innovation and other departments were stagnant, and the new executive installed a revitalizing five-pillar plan to get the company back on track. The fast casual’s next era comes with an improved development strategy, a burning desire to change operations standards, and a whole lot of menu innovation customers will enjoy. But I’ll let you read the story to learn more about it.
El Pollo Loco is just one example. What really put this topic on my mind is what happened back-to-back days on October 8 and October 9. On that first day, Domino’s dropped news that it underwent a rebranding for the first time in over a decade. While not necessarily a comeback story, the change does signal the pizza chain is aware it had to shake things up to keep consumers interested and listening. As part of the rebrand, the company introduced a new, catchy jingle sung by country music star Shaboozey. The pizza giant paired that with an updated color scheme, font, and packaging that is simpler in design, but still identifiable as Domino’s.
The following day, Wendy’s decided to drop some news. Few comeback sto -
ries in the restaurant world are more intriguing right now than the burger giant. The brand unveiled Project Fresh—a sweeping turnaround plan aimed at increasing brand relevance, improving operations, optimizing its system, and sharpening how it invests capital. After recent same-store sales declines and a confusing summer promotion, Wendy’s is refocusing on clarity, quality, and connection. That includes partnering with former Yum! Brands CEO Greg Creed to modernize marketing, doubling down on profitable dayparts, and reenergizing its menu with items like “Tendy’s.” It’s a back-to-basics strategy that seeks to reignite what made Wendy’s distinctive— and durable—in the first place.
Some of them have been at it for years. Just look at Burger King, for example. The chain introduced its Reclaim the Flame framework back in 2022, and it’s still using those principles to guide how it handles remodels, store refreshes, marketing, upgrades to digital sales, and franchisee profitability.
There are also examples out there of what not to do. Cracker Barrel is the best representation of this point. The chain switched up its logo, opting for a simplified look instead of the classic man sitting in a chair next to a barrel. Social media went absolutely insane. To the brand’s credit, it listened to customers and reversed its decision after about a week.
I’m sure between now and when this letter publishes, another brand will bring forth its strategy. Times are tough, and there’s nothing more unifying than having a solid plan to rally around.
Ben Coley, Editor
SHORT ORDER
DUNKIN’ ADDED A TOUCH OF OZ to coffee runs this season with the launch of its Dunkin’ x Wicked collaboration, which celebrated the release of “Wicked: For Good” in late November. The brand offered limited-edition drinks, MUNCHKINS treats, and exclusive merch inspired by the film’s characters, Elphaba and Glinda.
The chain launched a big collaboration with a featured film.
The menu introduced two new beverages: the Wicked Green Matcha, a creamy brown sugar and toasted almond spin on Dunkin’s Iced Matcha Latte, and the Wicked Pink Refresher, a sparkling, fruit-forward drink blending strawberry, dragonfruit, and blueberry. Completing the lineup was Wicked MUNCHKINS Donut Hole Treats, featuring pink and green glaze in homage to Oz’s most famous duo.
“Partnering with a story that means so much to fans everywhere gave us the chance to have a little fun with our own world, too,” said Dunkin’ CMO Jill Nelson. “The result is a collaboration that’s playful, creative—and in true Boston fashion, wicked good.”
The Dunkin’ x Wicked menu released in early November.
25 % OF RESPONDENTS SAY THEY ARE VERY likely expandto THEIR BUSINESS in the next year.
The Pressure Points of 2025
• Inflation remains the most pressing concern, cited by one in five restaurants (20 percent).
• To maintain profitability amid rising costs: 48 percent of operators plan to increase menu prices, 38 percent are conducting profit analyses, and 31 percent are adjusting food suppliers.
Labor Challenges and Solutions
• Hiring and retention difficulties continue to weigh heavily, with 41 percent of operators reporting moderate or severe hiring challenges.
• To address these issues, restaurants are focusing on:
• Increasing staff efficiency (47 percent) to make better use of existing teams.
• Implementing retention strategies (42 percent) to reduce turnover.
• Optimizing shift scheduling (39 percent) to balance workloads and improve employee satisfaction.
The 2025 Voice of the Restaurant Industry Survey, published by Toast, conducted between April 18 and May 13, 2025, captures insights from 712 restaurant decision-makers nationwide. The findings reveal a sector that’s meeting uncertainty with strategy, innovation, and optimism.
The Path to Profitability
• Driving demand is central to success: 40 percent of operators named profitability as their top priority, and increasing guest traffic is the main strategy to achieve it.
• However, 46 percent say advertising is moderately or extremely challenging, revealing that marketing remains a critical pain point.
• To strengthen their bottom line, operators are also improving: Employee productivity (25 percent) and employee retention (23 percent) to maximize efficiency and service quality.
Weathering a Downturn
• If consumer spending slows, restaurants plan to lean into marketing, not retreat: 47 percent will increase marketing efforts, 46 percent plan to offer deals, and 45 percent will introduce time-specific discounts.
• Far fewer plan defensive cuts: only 19 percent would reduce hours and 17 percent would reduce staff.
The Role of AI in Restaurants
• Restaurants are increasingly turning to AI as a human-boosting technology to enhance operations.
Expansion and Optimism
• Despite the challenges, confidence remains high: 25 percent of restaurant operators say they are “very likely” to expand their business in the next year.
• 86 percent of operators feel comfortable using AI, and many are already applying it to: marketing automation (28 percent) to reach customers more efficiently, real-time insights (27 percent) for data-driven decision-making, and menu optimization (26 percent) to improve offerings and margins.
fresh ideas
|VIRTUAL INNOVATION|
BY SAM DANLEY
The early rush may be over, but the segment’s evolution is far from done.
THE NEXT ACT FOR VIRTUAL RESTAURANTS
When virtual restaurant brands first took off during the pandemic, they seemed to offer an easy answer to a hard question: how could restaurants drive incremental revenue when dining rooms were closed and capacity was capped? For many operators, the appeal was simple. They could leverage existing labor, ingredients, and kitchen equipment to launch delivery-only concepts and capture surging digital demand.
That early rush cooled as the pandemic faded in the rearview mirror. And while delivery remains an important and growing part of the industry, some momentum has shifted back toward in-per-
son dining in COVID’s aftermath. Over 80 percent of consumers surveyed by the National Restaurant Association last year said they want to dine at sit-down restaurants more often. Just over three-quarters said the same for going to eat or picking up food at limited-service spots.
Reflecting that demand, most operators now view building on-premises business as a bigger priority than expanding offpremises channels, according to the Association. That’s especially important for nearly 90 percent of casual-dining and family-dining operators. It also holds true for a solid majority of limited-service
Virtual brands haven’t gone by the wayside; they’ve just evolved.
fresh ideas
operators, including 70 percent of fast-casual operators and 60 percent of fast-food operators.
“If you go back to the pandemic, full-service restaurants had complete capacity to bring all of these virtual brands on,” says Geoff Alexander, CEO of Wow Bao, an early entrant in the space. “A lot of those same restaurants have found ways to bring diners back in, and now it’s QSR and fast casual that are feeling the pinch. But they aren’t necessarily set up to bring in a second or third brand.”
Wow Bao didn’t begin life as a virtual brand. It had a physical footprint before expanding into dark kitchens in late 2019 just ahead of the pandemic’s digital tidal wave. Operators receive frozen products through a distributor and sell them via third-party delivery. A limited menu of bao buns, rice bowls, egg rolls, and other dishes uses basic equipment.
That simplicity helped the brand scale quickly, with nearly 1,200 kitchens joining the program since launch. Today, around 300 remain active, mostly with major enterprise partners.
Dog Haus is another early entrant that’s managed to hang onto its success in the delivery-only realm. The chain also launched its first virtual menus ahead of COVID, initially as a workaround for how third-party apps categorized restaurants. Online, customers almost exclusively ordered hot dogs, even though Dog Haus offered plenty of other items that did well in-store. That led to the creation of multiple virtual menus centered around overlooked categories.
Partner and cofounder Hagop Giragossian says Dog Haus initially treated virtual brands like a food truck, viewing the model as a cheaper and less risky way of entering the market and testing something out. Over the years, it has experimented with everything from chicken and burger brands to a plant-based concept. But the winner by a longshot is Badass Breakfast Burritos. Giragossian describes the concept as a “tent pole” of the company and one of its strongest areas of growth.
“It’s almost unfair to call it a virtual concept anymore, because it’s become such a huge part of our company,” he says. “It’s actually our largest menu category now. Even though we’re Dog Haus, we sell more burritos than we sell hot dogs. At this point, we’re basically a burrito company masquerading as a hot dog company.”
and other fillings already existed in the restaurants.
Dog Haus also has used its established reputation to lend credibility to its virtual brands, clearly linking them back to the parent company. Each concept is marketed as its own restaurant but with consistent branding and personality that reinforces the association with the original brick-and-mortar business.
“If you’re still around today, it’s probably because you’ve earned the right to be,” Giragossian says, noting just how challenging it is to convince a consumer who has never heard of a brand or seen a story to place an order.
Keeping the brands in-house and not expanding by partnering with other operators has helped Dog Haus avoid common pitfalls around quality control and brand trust, he adds. For every Wow Bao or Badass Breakfast Burritos that has thrived, many more have failed because they were too complicated or hard to execute.
Some high-profile concepts have also run into quality and trust issues. MrBeast Burger is a prime example: in 2023, the eponymous YouTube star sued Virtual Dining Concepts (vdc) over “disgusting” and “inedible” food that he said was damaging his reputation. While VDC countersuited and both cases are still pending, the public spat nonetheless highlighted the risks that come with licensing a brand without much operational oversight.
He attributes the success to simplicity and creativity, leveraging existing products and processes. Every Dog Haus virtual menu uses the same equipment, workflow, and ingredients as the brickand-mortar brand. The only new SKU required for Badass Breakfast Burritos was a flour tortilla. The eggs, proteins, cheese, sauces,
The legal drama and others like it also amplified perceptions that virtual brands were unreliable or even deceptive. As consumers lost trust, delivery platforms stepped in. Uber Eats purged thousands of virtual restaurants in 2023, citing duplication, low ratings, or lack of differentiation. Other platforms like DoorDash and Grubhub have followed suit with their own quality and differentiation requirements.
More recently, ezCater in October removed all virtual or deliv-
Badass Breakfast Burritos has been a major revenue channel for Dog Haus.
fresh ideas
ery-only brands from its platform, citing “customer confusion caused by duplicate restaurant concepts.”
That move sparked backlash from virtual brand operators who rely on catering orders to stay profitable. And while there’s no denying that bad actors eroded consumer trust with low-quality “copy-and-paste” menus and low food quality—especially during the height of the pandemic and its immediate aftermath—Alexander says the sector’s biggest vulnerability lies in how dependent
it is on third-party platforms.
“When you talk about pitfalls, I think the number one has to be that we are all reliant on an outside delivery factor in the marketplace,” he says, adding that when blanket rulings target all delivery-only brands instead of just those with violations or poor reviews, the effects ripple outward and also impact employees, suppliers, and consumers who lose access to brands they enjoy.
While the virtual brands segment has faced its fair share of negative headlines, Alexander believes those stories overshadow the many more cases where the model is working and continuing to thrive, even if it’s no longer the crucial lifeline it once was.
“The lifeline during the pandemic was literally saving jobs and paying rent,” he says. “We’re not there anymore, but if I told you today to go raise yourself 10 percent or 15 percent year-over-year, that’s a lot of people you’d have to pull into your door. Everybody has capacity, and everyone wants more sales, and this is one of the easiest ways to get that.”
The line between virtual and physical brands is blurring, signaling what could define the next phase of the segment. Take Wing Zone, for example. Chief development officer David Bloom told QSR the franchise has found “a lot of success” as a virtual brand, now available in about 100 units. Some are large-scale pilots with national partners, placing Wing Zone in 30–40 locations at a time with room to expand. Bloom said wings perform especially well in the evening and late-night hours, making them a strong fit for 24-hour operations looking to boost sales beyond traditional meal periods.
Great American Cookies is another recent example. The FAT Brands-owned chain partnered with VDC earlier this year to bring its virtual cookie brand into existing kitchens, starting with about 200 Chuck E. Cheese locations. For VDC, the move fits into a broader strategy to expand its portfolio with existing brands instead of original concepts created specifically for delivery apps. It also marks an evolution for Chuck E. Cheese’s virtual brand approach, after closing down a delivery-only pizza spinoff it created during the pandemic. And for Great American Cookies, it represents a new frontier with the physical brand quickly creating hundreds of new points of access via virtual touchpoints.
The trend goes both ways. Virtual brands are exploring physical touchpoints, too. Wow Bao has expanded into CPG products and hot vending machines at hospitals, hotels, airports, and other nontraditional locations. Badass Breakfast Burritos is now being integrated into Dog Haus’s physical restaurants, with dedicated menu boards, a distinct color palette, and neon signage to differentiate it from the original brand. Franchisees have also expressed interest in standalone locations, which could operate in smaller spaces with less equipment.
Looking ahead, Giragossian sees plenty of opportunity for other restaurants to use virtual brands in a similar way, serving as a testing ground for new concepts that could eventually stand on their own.
“Once you prove its success with third-party delivery, then you can start thinking about what else you can do with it,” he says.
Wow Bao began with a physical footprint before expanding into dark kitchens in 2019.
The Breakfast Company
A family-run chain with Greek influence plans to dive more into the QSR side of business.
BY BEN COLEY
FOUNDER: Dimitri Syros and Terri Syros-King
HEADQUARTERS: Sarasota, Florida
YEAR STARTED: 2020
ANNUAL SALES: $2mil AUV
TOTAL UNITS: 5 open, 2 in progress
FRANCHISED UNITS: none yet
DURING COVID, DIMITRI SYROS WAS IN LAW school at the University of Miami. He had no intentions of opening a restaurant. But food service is in his blood. His Greek family had restaurants his whole life, and he worked in them too.
When classes went remote during the pandemic, Syros returned to Sarasota, Florida, to be with his mother, Terri Syros-King.
The family spent time reminiscing after the passing of his grandfather, the patriarch. Together, they went through photos and recipes and shared stories. The memories sparked an idea.
“What if we got back into the restaurant business as a family?” Syros recalls. “What if we had a family cafe? My mom would be the one to essentially run it. She always dreamed of having her own place to keep the legacy going. Of course, I had plans to be a lawyer. I wasn’t really trying to be involved all the way, but I definitely wanted to help and do my part.”
Eventually, Syros decided he was allin too.
The Breakfast Company, a daytime eatery with grab-and-go options open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., officially debuted in Florida
in 2020 during the thick of COVID. And although breakfast was significantly hurt by the pandemic, the chain had few issues reeling in customers. Syros noticed guests were excited to get out of the house and have a new place to dine.
“We had a lot of buildup because my grandfather had a name in the community, so it was like, oh, the family’s reopening a new restaurant for the first time in 10 years,” Syros says. “We had a lot of buildup, I would say a lot of built-in regulars already that were excited about us reopening. So I think that obviously helped versus starting from scratch.”
There are now five locations open across Bradenton and Sarasota, Florida.
Syros and his family chose to dive into breakfast because his family historically owned diners; it’s what they were most comfortable with. Plus, Syros-King is a baker who wanted a place to showcase her pastries, and the daytime concept lends itself to that. Experience was also a factor. Before opening The Breakfast Company, Syros-King managed at a competitor, so she was used to the hours and the benefits of having an afternoon off. Additionally, Syros says it was strategic in that breakfast and lunch operations generally have lower food costs and are typically easier to operate.
When it comes to the menu, the family looked at places it already enjoyed—like First Watch and Panera—and tried to add a twist. There are the typical breakfast items like eggs benedict, customizable pancakes, and French toast, but there are unique products as well, like the Savory Sweet Potato & Bacon Hash or the Supreme Biscuit & Cracked-Pepper Gravy. The restaurant pays tribute to its roots as well. When it was considering opening the restaurant, the family actually stumbled upon Syros’ grandfather’s recipe book. It was a notepad with instructions that were more
WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP
Brewista to Brand Builder
As 7 Brew’s first new-store opener, Rebecca Brown is shaping the playbook for the brand’s explosive growth.
BY SATYNE DONER
Brew is on a generational run as one of the fastest-growing drive-thru concepts in the country. Since 2022, the brand has expanded by roughly 3,500 percent, growing from 14 units in early 2022 to over 500 stands.
Revenues reflect that momentum, climbing from $4 million in 2022 to more than $43 million in 2024. As the brand pushes toward it’s next major growth benchmark, it is betting big on expansion— anchored by a veteran leadership team and an unapologetic focus on people-first culture.
That focus is embodied by Rebecca Brown, whose journey with the brand began in 2018 as a brewista and later as a culture coordinator.
By 2023, she had stepped into the role of director of development, and a year later, she made company history as 7 Brew’s first new-store opener, launching the brand’s first franchisee location. Since then, she has helped design and scale the systems that guide successful openings nationwide, working closely with new franchisees to build teams, launch operations, and preserve the culture that defines 7 Brew.
“I started at 7 Brew when it was familyowned with just four locations, and watching it grow has been so special,” Brown says. “It’s been a learning process for both me and the brand, but we all share the same goal: creating a new kind of QSR. From drink innovation to how we interview, I love being part of shaping every side of it.”
So, what is the 7 Brew culture? Externally, the brand has focused on cultivating kindness and joy since its inception, serving fast, customizable drinks out of a 510-square-foot drive-thru or walk-up model. The idea: come once for the coffee, return for the people—lovingly called “brewistas”—whose energy is contagious.
But how do you operationalize a people -first culture? It starts with a team committed to making a difference at every level, franchisee to employee. When Brown consults with hiring managers, she advises them to look for individuals who hold the door open for others—early signs of servant leadership—and the rest will follow.
“I didn’t learn operations or ROI in a boardroom; I learned it by working my way through the ranks of this company,” Brown says. “As we expand nationally, we’re touching more lives than ever, and we want to make sure our culture keeps up. We promote from within, but it all starts with spotting those initial values before someone joins our team.”
Inside the stands, energy and fun are an integral part of the experience. Brown says that spirit translates directly to customers— whether it’s remembering a name, giving employees a free shift drink, or letting brewistas dance to their own music as they serve. The objective is to treat every customer like a new friend.
“We try to make connections in every community and really feel like a local coffee shop,” Brown says. “I move around a lot as a new-store opener, and I always work shifts in the stand because that’s how I made friends in a new city. We’re a personable brand because we teach employees how to have conversations and create emotional connections.”
Building a loyal following has been part of 7 Brew’s DNA from the beginning. When a customer drives up, an employee asks for a phone number and signs them up for the loyalty program automatically. On their next visit, their recent transactions 7 BREW
Rebecca Brown joined 7 Brew in 2018.
FireGrilled And FutureFocused
/ BY BEN COLEY
El Pollo
Loco
CEO Liz Williams had been a fan of the brand years before becoming part of the team.
She lives in Southern California, where the fast casual is based. The executive also previously worked for Taco Bell, which has a corporate office minutes away from El Pollo Loco’s Support Center.
When Williams received the call to consider the opportunity, she had the same question on her mind as everyone else.
“Why hasn’t this brand grown to be bigger than it is?” the CEO pondered.
Her quest to figure out the answer began in March 2024. She threw herself into the business by working opening and closing shifts inside restaurants, marinating chicken, and working the drive-thru line. Williams spent quality time with team members and franchise partners to gain a better understanding of El Pollo Loco’s operations.
The more she became part of the culture, the greater the opportunity seemed.
“I had a few anchors of leaders on the team, and I thought, huge opportunity to build out the team,” Williams says. “The brand hadn’t been focused on innovation. In fact, they had really gotten rid of the innovation team. They had gotten rid of the supply chain team. They really didn’t have a development team going, and I just thought, I know this industry. I know the hardest part is having a brand that has good quality. If you have that to start with, you can do everything else. And so that to me was exciting.”
Williams saw potential. All El Pollo Loco needed was a proper framework. So the CEO, along with the rest of the leadership team, developed a five-pillar strategic plan to create sophistication around the fast casual’s future.
The first is securing the chain’s spot as a leader in the betterfor-you chicken category. That objective is followed by operating with a hospitality mindset, becoming a digital-first business, bringing forth favorable unit economics, and finally, driving unit growth and national expansion.
“We all agreed you got to start with the brand,” Williams says. “That is the absolute starting place. It then has to be underpinned with good operations. We had a huge opportunity with technology and digital that we were not utilizing. We were years and years behind. We needed to get our business model corrected and get our margins up to winning economics. And if you do all four of those things, your development will take off.”
As part of that overall guidance, this year—which marks El Pollo Loco’s 50th anniversary—the company took time to reflect on its DNA. The brand brought in third-party assistance to determine what consumers think and also went out and talked to guests directly.
The chain wanted to not only understand itself, but also to discover what it should use as inspiration as it continues to grow. The best part of El Pollo Loco’s findings, according to Williams, is that the brand stands for quality.
“The fandom and the customer love—absolute strength,”
Williams says. “When you get the announcement that comes out that you’re taking this role, I just knew I’d made the right decision when my phone blew up over the next couple of days and everyone’s like, ‘I love El Pollo Loco. Did you know I love El Pollo Loco?’ People you haven’t heard from in years come out of the woodwork to tell you how much they love the brand.”
A Bolder Brand
At the heart of El Pollo Loco’s turnaround strategy is its latest “Let’s Get Loco” brand campaign.
CMO Jill Adams says the movement is about harnessing the power of your passion. The flip side of the campaign is that it’s a strategic call to action. When customers ask themselves, “Where are we going to have lunch?” or “Where are we going to have dinner?” El Pollo Loco answers with “Let’s Get Loco.”
“Our passion is around our fire-grilled chicken. It’s what’s fueled us for the last 50 years. It’s what’s going to fuel us for the next 50,” she says. And it was really this rallying cry of ‘Let’s Get Loco’—embrace what you are passionate about. For us, it’s chicken. For you, it might be sports. It might be writing, it might be gaming, but embrace your passion and it’s OK to be ‘loco’ about something. It’s OK to have ‘loco’ passion.”
Another crucial part is emphasizing that “getting loco” doesn’t necessarily mean going crazy.
“So many quick-serve restaurants, they don’t actually cook in their kitchens. They’re just reheating things that come in the back of house. They’re not necessarily using fresh ingredients,” Adams says. “They’re not making guacamole that’s fresh that
THIS YEAR, EL POLLO LOCO IS CELEBRATING ITS 50 TH ANNIVERSARY.
we’re just going to put on all your burritos free of charge. They look at that and go, ‘That would be crazy. We would never be able to do that in our business model.’ We say it’s crazy not to. We are a restaurant first and foremost. It’d be crazy to not cook. It’d be crazy to not make things fresh. And so for us it’s that ‘loco’ attitude, that ‘loco’ spirit. So you could think of it as there’s nothing crazy about loco. Loco is truly believing in what you do and doing it to the best of your ability.”
The chain launched revitalized branding in May with new advertising, plus updated looks for its website, app, and kiosks. All of the expected consumer touchpoints were evolved with a youthful spin on what El Pollo Loco has always been, according to Adams—a place of quality chicken that’s fast, easy, and affordable.
Within this new rebranding, the company is targeting the “fast foodie.” These guests—an audience of over 20 million—are in
their 20s and 30s and believe life should be as much fun as possible. They also prioritize quality as the most important factor when choosing where to eat and use food to bring family together.
The reason why El Pollo Loco is focused on this group is simply a math equation. When the chain looks across all demographic groups, Gen Z—which makes up the fast foodie category—is the only age range that is increasing its spend with QSRs. The brand’s research shows that everyone else, baby boomers, Gen X, and millennials, are spending less.
Adams says it’s not about abandoning El Pollo Loco’s core guests. It’s more centered around giving younger customers a seat at the table.
“They have this duality to them that I think has informed how we’re showing up with our marketing campaigns,” Adams says. “And by that duality, I mean they’re the most social generation. They put themselves out there on social media. They’ve documented their lives for the world to see. But they also are the generation that feels the lack of belonging, if you will, or really maybe sometimes a little more lonely. And so when I think about how we’re showing up with that group, we’re basically saying, ‘Hey, embrace what makes you you , embrace your passion, embrace your loco.’ Because at El Pollo Loco, you truly have a seat at our table. We embrace you for what you are.”
El Pollo Loco conducted focus groups with younger consumers to learn more about what they want from the brand. The guests rated the chain high on quality, but didn’t view their visits as memorable experiences or top of mind. They also sensed a lack of energy and vibes within the restaurant.
In response, next year El Pollo Loco will bring forth new employee uniforms, enhance packaging with updated logos and QR codes so guests can sign up for Loco Rewards, and standardize music playlists across the footprint to ensure it aligns with the “Let’s Get Loco” ethos. Additionally, the brand is showing up more outside the four walls in sports, gaming, and music. For instance, NBA player Dalton Knecht partnered with the brand on its quesadillas launch and Arike Ogunbowale joined El Pollo Loco as the chain’s first official WNBA partner.
The company also looks to generate buzz on social media, headlines, paid media, and activations. Adams says that over the past year, El Pollo Loco has increased its engagement and reach across all social channels and more people are seeing its content than ever before. She owes this growth to the brand leaning into pop culture, whether that’s the latest TikTok trend or inserting itself into popular TV shows, like “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
Paid media continues to be the workhorse. The chain extended TV advertisements to markets outside of Los Angeles, mostly during live sports. In terms of activations, El Pollo Loco unveiled its first mango habanero fountain, food truck, National Grilled Chicken Day, and chicken AI challenge.
The numbers say El Pollo Loco’s brand shift is working. At the annual franchise convention in September, the company revealed it was seeing incremental growth in new and existing customers in 2025 prior to the brand refresh, and that those numbers more than doubled in the months following the brand refresh.
Increasing digital sales are keeping El Pollo Loco top of mind
EL POLLO LOCO IS KNOWN FOR ITS FIRE-GRILLED CHICKEN, SERVED IN A VARIETY OF FORMATS.
as well. In Q3, digital—app, web, delivery, and kiosk—mixed 27 percent, up from 20 percent in the year-ago period. Loyalty transactions lifted 28 percent year-over-year, with frequency of members increasing 15 percent. The third-party delivery business represented 15.1 percent of sales in Q3, up from 13.8 percent a year ago.
The ultimate goal is to continue pushing digital sales, and the brand hopes to achieve that by making the purchasing process easier, such as improved salsa ordering, a new app home screen, and better cross-selling opportunities. In 2026, El Pollo Loco plans to simplify signing up for the rewards program, redeeming said rewards, and reordering previous items. Meanwhile, the chain will continue to increase gamification around more challenges, add personalized offers, and provide access to exclusive experiences.
Catering and large orders, which sits at about 1.5 percent of sales, also presents an opportunity.
“When you think about catering, more often than not, your choices are maybe a cold sandwich tray or pizza when you think about group orders, things where you can feed a crowd,” Adams says. “Where we really set ourselves apart and stand out is you have an opportunity for high-quality food, a hot meal, in
create more standardization across builds and portions to make it simpler for employees to execute orders.
Menu innovation will also be key. In the fourth quarter, the brand launched new Double Chicken Burrito Bowls, a Fam Feast (eight pieces of chicken, three large sides, and four churros), and a build-your-own bowl catering option.
The 2026 pipeline features chicken tenders made with a crispy, salty breading that keeps them warm for a long time and a seasoning that’s slightly sweet and spicy. The tenders will be paired with Baja Ranch (savory with some lime) and Pollo Sauce (vinegary, tangy, and somewhat smoky). El Pollo Loco will also release a fire-fried chicken sandwich with a crispy grilled filet and creamy cilantro slaw, placed inside a potato roll.
More beverage choices are coming too with several options in test, Williams confirmed during El Pollo Loco’s Q3 earnings call in November. Salads are getting a revamp with two new permanent flavors, Street Corn and Mexican Caesar, and one seasonal flavor, Chicken Bacon Ranch. Other menu upgrades include Baja Double Tostadas (shrimp and chicken) and more flavor around the core platform of bowls, quesadillas, and burritos.
“My team, they’re pretty relentless. They’re always pushing new ideas,” says Rene Pisciotti, head of culinary innovation. “I’ll
particular, a hot lunch, that is affordable to feed a crowd. So we have the right food. We certainly have the right concentration of restaurants in the states that we’re in. It really just has not been something that we’ve put as much energy and effort on, and 2026 is the year where that will change.”
Ideating Innovation
Marketing strategies must be supported by a menu that’s portable, flavorful, affordable, and based around chicken, Adams says. One major initiative next year will be streamlining menu boards so it’s easier for customers to find what they’re looking for. In addition to that guest-facing change, El Pollo Loco will
walk into our test kitchen without having any clue that they’ve been working on something, which is so great that they feel that they have the leniency to go and do this in the back. And I do encourage it. If you have something you’re passionate about, do it. Go research it. And then I’ll walk in the kitchen, not knowing what they’ve been working on, and they’ll have four, five, six different products out for me to try. And so there’s this surprise and delight element of it, but I’m always blown away by how creative they are.”
But El Pollo Loco isn’t abandoning its heritage product, bone-in chicken. Next year, the company plans to bring back Mango-Habanero Chicken, and after that, it will launch a new Honey Chipotle BBQ Chicken that’s sweet, spicy, and comes with BBQ Black Beans and King’s Hawaiian rolls.
EL POLLO LOCO HAS SPENT MUCH TIME DEVELOPING A MODERNIZED RESTAURANT PROTOTYPE.
“This is our heritage,” Pisciotti says. “This is the most important product to us. It’s what we’re known for. There’s no reason why we can’t take this product that is our foundation and also innovate on that a little bit.”
Developing the Future
Chief development officer Tim Welsh says El Pollo Loco has aggressive growth goals, but that it’s strategic and mindful on how to achieve them. The company reached store No. 500 at the beginning of October in Colorado Springs. About 65 percent of the footprint is franchised.
The chain isn’t willing to grow for growth’s sake. It wants to be smart and find the right opportunities in the right market. Last year, the focus was on looking for operational efficiencies, getting the restaurant design organized, and setting the framework for bigger plans down the road. This year has been about execution.
“I think what happens in this industry is people sometimes try to skip ahead and go sign all these development agreements and they don’t have the operations right, they don’t have the economics right, and then they wake up and they have people that
“We do well in urban core and suburban markets, so it’s not like we prioritize one over the other,” Welsh says. “We look for the best locations, for the best real estate in every market, and then it’s really about infilling those markets.”
The chain will open 10 restaurants in 2025, the most openings it’s seen since 2022. El Pollo Loco hopes to almost double this pace in 2026, and most of these restaurant debuts will be outside of California. Right now, Welsh says, there are no plans to move eastward, but he believes that if timed properly, El Pollo Loco can fit anywhere in the U.S.
“That’s really our focus is bringing in and finding the right partners,” Welsh says. “There’s a lot of interest in the brand, so it’s finding that right franchise partner to grow with us. And we’ll be methodical about it.”
El Pollo Loco is pushing growth with a new prototype called “Iconic.” The design features the brand’s classic fire stack gradient, an updated logo, a new color palette, furniture upgrades, LED lighting, and energy-efficient hoods.
The restaurant is around 2,000 square feet, with some flexibility; previously, the chain was building units at nearly 3,000 square feet and sometimes a bit larger. The groundup prototype costs around $1.9 million to build, which is 24 percent less than
said, ‘Oh, I’m gonna build 100 units,’” Williams says. “And they don’t because their business model’s broken… I know today some people say, ‘Well, why aren’t you growing faster? Why aren’t you opening more restaurants?’ We needed to fix the fundamentals before we could sign up credible, great choice partners.”
El Pollo Loco uses a hub-and-spoke approach for its franchised and corporate locations. The brand plants a flag and then expands into the next logical trade area. For instance, the brand has a presence in Dallas and is also opening in El Paso and Albuquerque, New Mexico, a new state. It also has a restaurant in Denver and entered Colorado Springs.
In addition to New Mexico, Washington State and Idaho will be the newest states in El Pollo Loco’s portfolio. Welsh estimates that two-thirds of future expansion will come from franchisees.
the prior model. Conversions and endcap locations cost between $900,000 to $1.4 million.
The company still wants a reputable dining room, but also recognizes where sales are headed. In 2015, drive-thru mixed 42 percent, followed by takeout at 32 percent and dine-in at 25 percent. A decade later, drive-thru is at 49 percent, takeout is 22 percent, delivery is 15 percent, and dine-in is 14 percent.
The prototype is also flexible enough to fit into different pieces of real estate, whether it’s a conversion opportunity (the company has opened inside bank buildings before), drive-thru only, endcap, or nontraditional.
“So our prototype is not a cookie cutter. It’s not a prototype in a traditional sense. It really is a kit of parts. And the kit of parts are designed to have specific relationships, but they don’t
have to necessarily go in any one size box,” Welsh says. “So it gives us a lot more flexibility that helps us both with our remodels because we have so many different types of stores out there today. And then as we think about new development, and we’re going into sometimes endcap locations, freestanding locations, there’s all kinds of real estate challenges that flexible format and kit of parts allows us to modify it and shape different building footprints. And that really has helped a lot because that is what’s been able to get us into conversions of older QSR restaurants or other existing spaces.”
At the same time, El Pollo Loco is remodeling restaurants through a two-tiered approach—a five-year refresh program and a more involved 10-year remodel program. The refresh includes exterior and interior paint jobs, graphics, and deferred maintenance while the full remodel includes full work on the interior and exterior, replacement of the ceiling, new floors, and digital menu boards.
The company’s objective is to remodel about half the system over the next four years.
In 2025, El Pollo Loco expects to redesign at least 55 units systemwide, 34 of which were completed through the end of the third quarter. The chain has seen, on average, a mid-single-digit uplift in sales, in line with projections.
Welsh says growing new stores and remodeling existing ones at the same time requires a balancing act.
“It is always a challenge, but it’s being disciplined and having the teams set up so that they’re hyper-focused on each of those areas,” Welsh says. “So we have a facilities team that is focusing on making sure our stores are maintained. We have a remodel program and we’re already three years out looking at our remodel program and surveying stores to make sure that we’re taking care of immediate needs now, even as we gear up for the actual remodel down the road. And then having other teams that are focused solely on new store growth. So each individual has their role and is focusing on it, but overall, the overarching umbrella is a balanced discipline approach to all of it.”
Within these new stores—and all other ones for that matter— El Pollo Loco wants to improve its service quality. Currently, eight out of 10 orders are accurate; most of the issues are related to missing items.
Operationally, the chain is on the road toward improvement.
The fast casual worked on solving labor costs even before California instituted the fast-food wage law in spring 2024, which increased quick-service minimum wage to $20 per hour. Before this, the brand was already testing kiosks and replacing its salsa machines with ones that are easier to clean.
Although technology is a bigger part of the dining room, COO Maria Hollandsworth says the brand has conducted analysis on how it can keep improving hospitality and not lose the human touch.
“When the customer walks in, we’d like to help ensure that our cashiers are saying hi to the customers and saying, ‘Hey, if you need help, just let me know,’” she says. “... At first, obviously not everyone is used to [kiosks], but as the time goes by, people start getting used to it. But we still have customers that will need help when it comes to the order taking. A lot of it is
really just the interaction, the eye contact, ensuring that we will be there for them in case they encounter any issues with their order-placing experience.”
When it comes to retention and staffing, El Pollo Loco hopes to build a culture that balances accountability and recognition. The company has monthly calls with general managers to ensure the line of communication remains open, and implemented a new learning management system to help facilitate much of the information flow. The chain also introduced some gamification to generate excitement as employees learn brand standards.
To track customer service and feedback, El Pollo Loco is partnering with Service Management Group (smg).
“I’ve worked with SMG in the past, but what’s really great about this is actual customer feedback,” Hollandsworth says. “They provide comments and you can really see where they’re happy with the experience or where they’re not satisfied with the experience. So that whole data that we can get, that whole feedback that we can get, we can act on it. Our GMs can access it every day and they can act on it immediately. And then for us, my leadership team and I, we can take a look at trends and then put things in place with our leaders on the ground and ensure that we can see improvements there.”
Becoming a National Chain
To Williams, El Pollo Loco has momentum, especially since it plays in two categories—chicken and Mexican—that are rising at a double-digit compound annual growth rate.
El Pollo Loco is the eighth-largest chicken chain in the country, earning $1.096 billion in U.S. sales in 2024.
In Q3, company-operated restaurant revenue decreased to $100.7 million versus $101.2 million during the year-ago period, attributable to a 1.1 percent decline in corporate same-store sales, partially offset by $700,000 worth of additional sales from the opening of two units. Although El Pollo Loco saw negative comps in the third quarter, transactions grew. Sales and transactions were positive to kick off Q4.
Corporate AUV is $2.3 million and store-level margins are 17.50–17.75 percent, compared to a year ago when it was $2.3 million and 17.4 percent, respectively. The long-term goals are to boost AUV past $2.3 million and to reach 18 percent to 20 percent store-level margins.
“In our dark days we were down 13, 14 percent [margins] but in the peak days we were up at 20 to 22 percent,” Williams says. “So this brand has shown that we can be very profitable.”
Williams wants the current leadership team to be remembered for growing and taking El Pollo Loco national.
She’d like to look back years from now and reflect on thousands of units instead of only the West Coast knowing the company.
“We have the highest-quality food. We have wonderful team members, and wonderful franchise partners, a really strong corporate team,” Williams says. “All of those folks have a lot of passion, and they all want to see this brand in 50 states.”
Ben Coley is the editor of QSR. He can be reached at bcoley@wtwhmedia.com
WOMEN IN RESTAURANT LEADERSHIP: TOGETHER SUMMIT
FEBRUARY 25 - 27, 2026 / CHARLESTON, SC
Join the movement of women reshaping the future of the restaurant industry at the Women in Restaurant Leadership: Together Summit. This three-day event is all about bold conversations, powerful insights, and purposeful networking that fuels the growth and success of women leaders across the industry.
WHAT TO EXPECT
• Visionary Speakers: Hear from trailblazing women who are changing the restaurant world, sharing strategies and stories that inspire action.
• Hands-On Workshops: Gain practical tools to overcome real challenges, enhance your leadership, and drive business success.
• Next-Level Networking: Connect with driven, like-minded women ready to collaborate and empower each other.
WHY ATTEND?
• Innovative Leadership: Discover fresh perspectives and actionable ideas to enhance your leadership in this evolving industry.
• Empowerment in Action: Engage in meaningful discussions that inspire personal and professional growth.
• Collaborative Impact: Be part of the conversations that tackle today’s challenges— diversity, equity, and work-life balance—and shape tomorrow’s solutions.
FEBRUARY 25 - 27, 2026
WOMEN
Who Should Attend?
If you’re a woman in the restaurant industry— whether you’re an owner, chef, manager, or emerging leader— this summit is for you.
Charleston Awaits
Experience the energy of Charleston while connecting with women leaders who are as passionate and driven as you are.
ARE YOU READY TO LEAD THE CHANGE?
/ BY QSR STAFF
QS R’s DIGITAL DISRUPTORS
MEET THE LEADERS RESHAPING HOW RESTAURANTS SERVE, CONNECT, AND COMPETE IN THE DIGITAL AGE
The restaurant industry has always been a story of people. But in recent years, it’s also become a story of technology. Innovation is no longer an accessory to foodservice. It’s the backbone of how brands grow, compete, and serve.
The 2025 class of Digital Disruptors represents a spectrum of ideas, but they share one obsession: making restaurants work better for guests and teams alike. Their tools don’t just collect data, they turn it into action. Their strategies don’t just chase efficiency, they elevate hospitality. Together, they illuminate the future of a more connected, intelligent, and human restaurant experience.
LUKE IRVING
FOUNDER AND CEO FINGERMARK
FOR TWO DECADES, Luke Irving has been pushing the boundaries of how technology can solve the industry’s most pressing challenges. As founder and CEO of Fingermark, he has built a company around one obsession: helping QSRs move faster and smarter. “We’re obsessed with speed of service and operational efficiency, using data to transform restaurant operations,” Irving says.
Fingermark first made its mark with kiosks and digital signage, helping QSRs modernize the guest experience and streamline operations. But as customer expectations evolved, so did the company’s focus. Today, Fingermark is leaning heavily into computer vision and AI, with Irving calling it the “future of QSR” because it gives operators “eyes everywhere” across their business.
The company’s latest advancement is Eyecue, a platform that began as a drive-thru intelligence tool and is now being expanded into a 360-degree
view of the entire restaurant. By pairing computer vision with a growing library of use cases, Eyecue translates visibility into action—delivering real-time insights to frontline employees and longer-term reporting for leaders. “It’s technology that creates impact at every level of the organization, empowering people in the moment while shaping long-term operational excellence,” Irvin explains.
Looking ahead, he sees a major shift in how AI is deployed across restaurants. While most conversations focus on predictive models or voice bots, he points to real-time AI as the next breakthrough. This technology won’t just analyze
trends but will coach staff in real time, recommend decisions during peak periods, and automatically surface insights that used to take weeks of analysis. “AI moving from the back office to the front line is going to be a real game-changer for QSRs,” Irving says.
JEFF WILSHIRE
SENIOR DIRECTOR, DIGITAL & PERFORMANCE MARKETING
MOOYAH BURGERS, FRIES & SHAKES
JEFF WILSHIRE DIDN’T start his career in restaurants. He spent years in the tech sector at IBM, and that’s exactly why MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes brought him in. As senior director of digital and performance marketing, Wilshire oversees everything from loyalty and analytics to the chain’s growing tech stack, bringing an outsider’s perspective to how a 75-unit fast casual brand can strengthen both sales and customer relationships. “One day selling cloud computing to now selling cheeseburgers—not your typical career progression,” he says.
Since joining the brand two years ago, Wilshire has focused on digital improvements that directly impact both topline sales and brand value. His vantage point has also given him a frontrow seat to how technology is reshaping the restaurant landscape. Delivery platforms, for instance, have shifted from extension channels into full-blown competitors, he notes, and winning loyalty has become tougher than ever. “A restaurant needs to be on top of its game every day,” Wilshire explains. “It may take three to five good eating experiences before acceptance in a customer’s ‘inner circle.’”
At MOOYAH, his team recently launched the brand’s first Customer Data Platform, unifying POS, loyalty, thirdparty, and ordering data into a single system to drive new insights. “From my experience, companies are good at creating data, consolidating data, and creating data insights,” Wilshire says. “The challenge is making insights ‘actionable’ that lead to real business outcomes.” Looking ahead, he sees delivery control as the next battleground. While third-party platforms will remain key
partners, Wilshire predicts the rise of delivery co-ops, autonomous vehicles, and even drones to help restaurants regain margins and ownership of the guest experience. “Something has got to give,” he says, “as the growing impact on margins is just too great.”
MARC WALLACE
CEO AND COFOUNDER RADIUS NETWORKS
MARC WALLACE HAS worn many hats in the restaurant industry, from working behind the counter as a teenager to co-founding District Taco in Washington, D.C. But it was his perspective as both operator and engineer that ultimately inspired Radius Networks, also known by its platform name, Flybuy. “We help brands serve guests faster and more accurately, which boosts sales and improves the experience for both customers and staff,” Wallace says. Today, the company is live over 40,000 locations across more than 50 countries.
Radius Networks began in 2011 with a focus on mobile location and proximity technology, eventually introducing Bluetooth-based Table Service, which reduced counter crowding and streamlined the dine-in experience. That solution alone scaled to more than 20,000 QSRs worldwide. The company later launched Flybuy Pickup, giving restaurants precise ETAs on incoming orders so staff could perfectly time preparation and handoff—a capability that became mission-critical during the pandemic. Now, Flybuy processes nearly 30 million unique orders each month and continues to expand into areas like location-based marketing, advanced guest identification, and AI-powered personalization.
For Wallace, the next big leap in restaurant tech is less about raw efficiency
LUKE IRVING
JEFF WILSHIRE
MARC WALLACE
and more about restoring what makes dining meaningful. “The challenges since the pandemic have made the restaurant experience sterile,” he explains. “Efficiency and convenience, while always important, are not the only reasons customers come to a brand—they want to love it.”
That philosophy is shaping Flybuy’s latest innovation, ETAi, which applies AI and machine learning to predict arrivals more accurately, trigger kitchen prep at the right time, and even course-correct if a customer is headed to the wrong location. The goal is simple: fewer errors, less stress, and a more seamless guest journey that blends speed with authenticity.
JEREMY THEISEN
CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER HANG
THEISEN’S TECH ROOTS date to 2003, when he led sales at startup “Restaurant.com.”
The company lifted from zero to 20,000 SMB restaurants on its platform in five years. In those days, the company’s colleagues included the likes of Grubhub, Groupon, and SeamlessWeb (today Seamless). So Theisen had the opportunity to interact with these founders when they, too, were trying to get off the ground. Learnings, he says, shaped his career.
Naturally, the sector has evolved exponentially. Theisen, who helps direct sales and go-to market strategy for Hang, as well as play a central role in shaping its product vision and roadmap, notes restaurants began to rapidly adopt technology—like online ordering, loyalty, and mobile—around 2015 or so. As chief sales officer, he scaled Punchh to $50 million in revenue is a little more than four years; over 40,000 locations globally adopted the tech.
Hang is an all-in-one AI marketing suite for multi-unit restaurants that offers an array of products from AI loyalty to CDM to campaigns. It unifies cross-channel customer data, delivers insights and recommendations, and powers optimized loyalty programs and one-to-one personalized promotional offers at scale.
And Theisen, as CRO, sits at the intersection of growth, partnerships, and innovation for this evolving field.
Following the transformation noted earlier, Theisen believes innovation plateaued a bit post-COVID. Many of the technologies
became stale and commoditized. However, AI unlocked another wave of potential.
Theisen notes AI is a term “people have been throwing around without much to show for it” in recent years. “But what’s different now,” he says, “is that the advancements are finally real and practical. We’re starting to see tools that genuinely improve operations—not just create another dashboard to log into.”
In other terms, the “big tech trend” ahead isn’t AI as a concept; it’s how smarter automation and intelligence are giving restaurants their time back. The best tools will help operators reduce costs, run more efficiently, and ultimately spend more time with guests. “That’s the real unlock,” Theisen says.
“Brands operate on razor-thin margins. The technology that wins won’t be the flashiest—it will be the most effective at cutting complexity, streamlining labor, and quietly driving more business inside the four walls of the restaurant,” he adds.
One advancement Hang is working on is to make sophisticated customer data and loyalty tech simple for restaurant brands. Too often, Theisen explains, marketers have had to depend on data scientists to uncover insights, write SQL queries, or stitch together information across multiple systems. The result, as many can attest, is bogged-down execution and a segment that lags on innovation.
Hang’s platform was designed so a marketer without any tech background could log in, segment guests, launch campaigns, and measure impact without ever touching code. For instance, it recommends a segment daily to marketers based on guest behavior, local events, current sales trends, and other factors. You log in and execute an AI based campaign with a click.
“The system automates the complexity, surfaces actionable insights, and frees up teams to focus on what really matters: building relationships with guests and driving more business inside the four walls of the restaurant,” Theisen says. “When technology empowers every level of the marketing team, not just specialists, you unlock real growth and adoption at scale.”
KELLY GROGAN
FOUNDER CRUMBS
KELLY GROGAN CAME up in the industry the old-school way—from the back of the house to leading marketing and sales—rising through the ranks just as technology integrations were becoming the norm. Along the way, she noticed a gap in how restaurants approached incremental
revenue channels such as catering, thirdparty delivery, local store marketing, and community fundraising. That insight led her to found CRUMBS, an agency designed to provide hands-on support that is strategic, scalable, and rooted in operational knowhow. The mission: help restaurants connect more deeply with their communities in ways that drive profitable transactions and longterm loyalty.
Grogan believes the industry is at a crossroads. Some brands are hesitant to adopt new tools, while others lean in too aggressively without a clear strategy. Restaurants now know more about their guests than ever, with new technologies emerging daily to act on that data. The challenge, she argues, is not whether to use the tools but how to apply them consistently without losing the heartbeat of hospitality.
While much of the conversation centers on guest-facing AI and loyalty programs, Grogan sees untapped opportunity in catering—especially as return-to-office trends gain traction. She envisions catering evolving into a concierge-style service, supported by technology that ensures restaurants can show up wherever people gather to eat.
CRUMBS is developing systems that bring transparency to local marketing ecosystems, tracking what actually drives revenue. Grogan believes the brands that win will stay visible and connected to their communities—capturing every crumb of opportunity.
MATT
FORBUSH
FOUNDER AND CEO
ZIGY
LIKE SOME OTHER Digital Disruptors, Forbush came up through operations as a multi-unit franchisee (has Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon stores, among others). And when the tools he needed didn’t exist, he built them. “That operator DNA shapes everything: if a feature doesn’t move sales, labor, or the guest experience on this shift,
KELLY GROGAN
“
NOT LONG AGO, RESTAURANT TECHNOLOGY WAS MOSTLY LIMITED TO TAKING ORDERS, PROCESSING PAYMENTS, AND HOSTING BASIC COMPANY INFORMATION. THE RESTAURANT EXPERIENCE TODAY IS AS MUCH ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY JOURNEY AS IT IS ABOUT THE MENU.”
JON ASHER
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
NÉKTER JUICE BAR
JON ASHER, CHIEF technology officer at Nékter Juice Bar, oversees the brand’s digital transformation strategy, including point-of-sale, payments, loyalty, mobile app, and third-party integrations. His focus is on building “a seamless, scalable experience for our guests and franchise partners.”
Under his leadership, Nékter has modernized its tech stack to unify data, personalize engagement, and improve efficiency. The company has grown from “a legacy punch-card system to a robust mobile rewards ecosystem that now serves over 3 million members and powers omnichannel engagement across 220-plus locations nationwide.”
Asher’s career began in aerospace, biotech, and retail, but he was drawn to how technology could “simplify complex systems and enh ance customer behavior at scale.” Upon entering the restaurant space, he quickly recognized digital touchpoints as being “just as critical as the food itself.” He notes the transformation of the industry over the past decade: “Not long ago, restaurant technology was mostly limited to taking orders, processing payments, and hosting basic company information. The restaurant experience today is as much about the technology journey as it is about the menu.” He highlights the shift from “expensive, difficult-to-update legacy POS and static loyalty” to “cloud-based platforms, mobile-first ecosystems, AI-driven personalization, and real-time data visibility.”
Asher believes “the next frontier is the fusion of creativity and technology.” He describes a future where individuals can “vibe code” and combine data science, psychology, and design thinking through AI, compressing innovation cycles from years to days.
“The most valuable skill isn’t just technical know-how, but the creativity to imagine new solutions that span disciplines,” he says.
Currently, Nékter is building a nextgeneration ecosystem that integrates loyalty, personalization, and operational intelligence. “It’s about turning raw data into smarter business decisions and a truly personalized guest journey,” Asher explains.
it does not ship,” he says.
A major change Forbush noticed over that journey was a shift from access to interpretation. For years, everyone fought to collect more data, he says. Now, operators have plenty. “The bottleneck is turning that data into clear actions that a cashier, cook, or shift lead can take in the moment,” Forbush notes. “Dashboards are giving way to coaching, and rear-view reporting is giving way to forward-looking guidance that tells the team what to do next. That is the gap Zigy fills.”
Zigy bills itself as the only AI shift manager able to read fragmented operations data and present simple, in-the-moment guidance for people who serve guests. It connects point of sale, scheduling, payroll, and external signals such as weather and events, then delivers coaching, tasks, and real-time incentives to hourly employees and managers.
MATT WAMPLER
CEO AND COFOUNDER CLEARCOGS
Forbush says the result is better guest experience, tighter shifts, and measurable sales lift “because the frontline knows exactly what to do right now, not next week, in a report. My job is to keep us relentlessly focused on one principle—your front line is your bottom line.”
“Zigy exists to make the frontline think and act like owners,” Forbush explains. “We translate brand goals into clear actions for every shift, then recognize great execution in real time. When hourly employees have clarity and immediate upside, guests feel it, and the business grows.”
Operationally, the company built and battle-tested the core stack inside restaurants. Then, it layered AI on top.
Going forward, Forbush says the four walls is where he sees the next tech trend unfolding. Specifically, using AI to empower hourly employees with personalized guidance and real-time rewards.
“A lot of attention goes to marketing automation and drive-thru bots,” he says. “Meanwhile, the most powerful lever in a restaurant is still the person greeting the guest and making the food. Give that person a clear target, a simple next best action, and immediate recognition tied to
WAMPLER RECOGNIZED THE challenge, and whitespace, of tech from the reverse side. He bought a struggling Jimmy John’s when he was 21 years old and ultimately ran multiple stores. It was an experience that shaped Wampler’s view of where tech might, and should, factor in.
Much has changed at the front door, he explains, from mobile ordering to loyalty. Yet the back of house still feels familiar. Prep lists are often recreated daily, siloed systems require manual stitching, and too many decisions depend on gut feel near the end of a long shift.
It’s a lesson, he says, driving the company he cofounded in ClearCOGS. Can progress in back of house come from tools that disappear into the workflow and return answers, not analytics?
The belief he’s working toward at ClearCOGS isn’t complicated—when a restaurant knows its future, it can run more systemized and profitable operations. So it turns sales, weather, events, and inventory signals into a single daily game plan that tells users what to prep, what to order, and how to staff, delivered inside the tools they already use.
Wampler feels restaurants today are still, largely, reactive. Teams scramble after problems show up. “The next real shift,” he says, “is making operations proactive. Daily plans should anticipate demand, set pars before the day begins, and adjust early so rushes feel routine. Operators will judge technology by how consistently it prevents surprises, not by how elegantly it reports them.”
An innovation ClearCOGS now is advancing is a “Restaurant Copilot” that functions like a fractional CFO and COO on top of a brand’s data. It will do the number crunching so managers can focus on the people side of the business and reduce waste, prevent stockouts, keep labor aligned to demand, and remove the end-of-shift scramble.
“The outcome is fewer surprises, steadier margins, and more time spent on hospitality,” Wampler says.
outcomes, and you change revenue, retention, and culture at the same time.”
“This is bigger than gamification,” Forbush continues. “Think mentorship in everyone’s pocket: coaching that adapts to the brand, the location, the role, and even the individual’s strengths. Combine that with performance-based micro-incentives that pay out instantly when a behavior moves a target. That is how you turn first jobs into career on-ramps and how brands build loyalty from the inside out.”
Zigy built an orchestration layer called “ZFusion” that normalizes data from dozens of systems and packages it for AI. This way, guidance is precise, contextual, and role aware. Under the hood it means connectors and a warehouse for POS, labor, tasks, payroll, and external data like weather and events; a standardized data model that creates a clean “state of the shift,” and specialized agents that map brand standards to next best actions for each store and location.
Additionally, the company’s engage engine ties actions to instant rewards. For instance, when a cashier hits an attach-rate target on an afternoon promo or a baker tightens freshness timing, Zigy recognizes
THE NEXT REAL SHIFT, IS MAKING OPERATIONS PROACTIVE. DAILY PLANS SHOULD ANTICIPATE DEMAND, SET PARS BEFORE THE DAY BEGINS, AND ADJUST EARLY SO RUSHES FEEL ROUTINE."
it. This closes the loop between strategy and execution. The brand defines outcomes, Zigy translates them into stepby-step behaviors, and employees get real-time coaching and recognition.
“Dashboards tell you what happened. Coaching tells your team what to do next,” Forbush says. “That is the difference between collecting data and creating results.”
AMBER GADSBY
SENIOR DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL MARKETING & ECOMMERCE
QDOBA
GADSBY WAS A MEMBER OF Domino’s marketing team during the company’s famed “Pizza Turnaround” era, where, in addition to being honest about its quality, the chain reached its standing as a technology power. After success in menu innovation and national marketing, she was promoted to lead Domino’s digital marketing department in 2012—an area, Gadsby recalls, she had no direct experience in.
In collaboration with mentors, team members, tech, and agency partners, she helped build the business and industry award-winning digital experiences over the next decade. “Change is constant in digital and tech,” Gadsby says, “which is why I love it.”
Naturally, Gadsby has seen a few periods of transformation during this journey, including the transition from desktop to mobile first; big data, insight, and personalization; and now, generative AI. “We are just getting started,” she notes of the latter.
“All are talking about the rapidly maturing AI landscape but it’s likely nuances in this wider category that are not entirely understood yet that piques my interest,” Gadsby says. “The ethics of distinguishing between real human versus AI interactions or being able to differentiate authentic versus AI generated content. Generative watermarking is an exciting new step here. We’ve yet to see dramatic consequences in this space but I expect it to be the catalyst for creating standards in the industry. Automation that allows team members to have a better experience in the restaurant is also an exciting area that is rapidly evolving.”
QDOBA, enjoying a growth spurt of its own recently (claiming earlier to have more than 600 future stores in its development
LAMBERT BRINGS LESSONS FROM MORE DIGITALLY MATURE INDUSTRIES— CHIEF AMONG THEM, THE POWER OF GUEST DATA. SHE BELIEVES IT MAY BE THE MOST TRANSFORMATIVE ASSET IN THE RESTAURANT SPACE.
JO
LAMBERT
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
OLO
THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY’S rapid digital transformation since the pandemic caught Jo Lambert’s attention, prompting her to investigate further. With only 18 percent of restaurant sales currently coming from digital channels, she saw a massive opportunity to deliver more personalized, hospitable experiences while improving operational efficiency through technology.
Lambert joined Olo as chief operating officer in 2023 to unite the Order, Pay, and Engage teams, creating integrated solutions that drive growth, streamline operations, and elevate hospitality. By pairing Olo’s core suites with more than 400 partner integrations, she is helping brands of all sizes operate more profitably while strengthening the guest experience.
A veteran of financial services and e-commerce, Lambert brings lessons from more digitally mature industries—chief among them, the power of guest data. She believes it may be the most transformative asset in the restaurant space. Data, she says, fuels a flywheel: personalization drives engagement, engagement drives loyalty, loyalty drives transactions, and transactions generate richer insights that accelerate growth and redefine hospitality.
Artificial intelligence is central to that vision. Olo’s Smart Cross-Sells program, for example, uses AI to deliver personalized recommendations based on context like order history, location, time of day, and cart content. The Olo Engage platform also enables brands to tailor outreach at the “segment of one” level—reaching the right guest with the right message at the right moment.
For Lambert, AI is no buzzword. It is the key to unlocking personalization at scale, deepening hospitality, and ensuring restaurants thrive in the digital era.
OLO
AMBER GADSBY QDOBA
pipeline), has invested in an extensive, multi-year overhaul of its tech stack. That included material enhancements to digital ordering and catering platforms, a centralized customer database, the leverage of Martech platforms, and upgraded back-ofhouse and point-of-sale systems. Gadsby adds QDOBA is actively piloting Gen AI platforms to align its go-forward approach. The work thus far, she explains, is driving digital growth outpacing in-restaurant sales comps.
TIM RIDGLEY
VICE PRESIDENT OF ONLINE ORDERING PAYTRONIX
WHILE IT MIGHT sound corny, Ridgley admits, he’s always had an affinity for restaurants and the philosophy of hospitality. This was true when he was writing code for the U.S. Senate and took him into the category in 2009. Ridgley was always on the
engineering side of tech. It’s a field, he says, where you can build something concrete and purposeful.
And in 2009, third-party delivery was just emerging. Few brands were experimenting with online ordering. Your largest players were the era’s pizza giants—chains like Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa Johns— that had been doing so for years. Ridgley felt there was an opportunity to rethink how people got their food. So, he took a chance. Fifteen years later, he’s still at it.
“In terms of what’s changed [since], the elephant in the room is the sheer technical complexity now required to run a successful restaurant,” Ridgley says. “In the past, great food, a good location, and fair prices were enough. Today, restaurants need third-party delivery not just for convenience, but for visibility. Because so much of how we interact is in short digital bursts, restaurants now need guest engagement
platforms to help make the most out of each digital interaction.”
They also need operational management software, loyalty programs, pointof-sale systems, inventory management, social media, an app, a website, and on it goes, he continues. These platforms have become essential tools for discovery, operations, and retention. “Opting out of any of them isn’t a death sentence, but it does put you at a major competitive disadvantage,” Ridgley says. “While these tools all help restaurants scale and improve their process, for small restaurants it can be a great risk to invest a lot of money in technology especially if you lack the staff in house to investigate and make the best decision.”
Into the future, Ridgley sees smarter, more accessible data synthesis through AIpowered CDPs rising atop need-lists. The industry is sitting today on mountains of data like weather, events, promotions, even personal context like being sick or craving a combo platter.
But most brands, he notes, aren’t equipped to capture or interpret it.
“Why?” Ridgley explains. “Because the data is messy, unstructured, and requires a level of sophistication that’s still out of reach for many.”
Although operators are often focused on generative AI, he sees the true breakthrough in interpretive AI—tools that can take a swatch of raw data and figure out what it means and how an operator should act. “That’s where CDPs are evolving,” Ridgley says. “Not just collecting data but making it actionable.”
“Add to that the rise of automation on smaller, cheaper hardware,” he says. “As labor and price pressures mount, the ability to run AI models on edge devices will unlock automation for smaller operators like AI-powered food prep or dynamic pricing, even in a single-location restaurant. This convergence of smarter data use and lightweight automation is quietly reshaping the tech landscape. And most people aren’t watching it yet.”
There are myriad initiatives underway at Paytronix to address these avenues. One is the near-term rollout of a product philosophy called “Guest Engagement 2.0.” Over the coming months, the company plans to launch new product lines and enhance its existing services with advanced features and capabilities. The objective of the platform, Ridgley says, is to overhaul the basics of its setup and invest in going beyond to empower customers with tools to collect, analyze, and leverage data.
The first major upgrade will be an overhaul of the company’s messaging capabilities. “It’s an exciting time for our product team,” he says. “We have several developments in the pipeline that we’re eager to share, and we believe they’ll significantly elevate the guest engagement experience.”
VALLORY McCORMACK
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING PORTILLO’S
AS
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING for Portillo’s, Vallory McCormack is shaping how the iconic brand connects with guests and builds loyalty in an increasingly digital landscape. She oversees brand marketing, brand design, and local restaurant marketing, leading efforts to grow visibility and engage fans across markets. McCormack has spearheaded integrated, digital-first campaigns and major brand activations, and she played a core role in launching Portillo’s first-ever loyalty program, Portillo’s Perks. The program reimagines the traditional model with an app-less digital experience that lives in guests’ digital wallets and delivers personalized rewards based on visit frequency and ordering habits.
“I became interested in restaurant technology after seeing firsthand how guest engagement and brand storytelling have become increasingly reliant on digital tools,” McCormack says.
Early in her career, restaurant technology was primarily focused on back-end operations like POS systems, basic online ordering, and efficiency improvements.
“Over the years, the restaurant space has transformed dramatically,” she adds. “Today, technology is central to shaping the guest journey, from personalized loyalty programs and digital offers to seamless delivery and in-restaurant kiosks that provide guests with more choice and convenience.”
McCormack points to RCS as a major shift in how brands can communicate with guests.
“RCS is the next evolution of SMS and MMS—more interactive, more visual, and built for marketers to create deeper guest engagement,” she says. “By the end of the year, it will be the standard for customer experience.”
Portillo’s recently partnered with Vibes to launch RCS as a messaging channel, one of the first U.S. restaurant brands to do so.
“In just our first couple of RCS messages, we’ve already seen engagement rates
TIM RIDGLEY
VALLORY McCORMACK
FOR ESTEN, GREAT TECHNOLOGY SHOULD NEVER REPLACE THE PEOPLE AT THE HEART OF HOSPITALITY— IT SHOULD EMPOWER THEM.
KELLY ESTEN CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
TOAST
KELLY ESTEN GREW up with a “live to eat” philosophy, inspired by her father, who worked his way through school in an Italian restaurant. After a career inflection point, she joined Toast eight years ago and now serves as the chief marketing officer. In her role, she helps the platform support about 148,000 restaurants of all sizes, reaching operators where they are with products that fuel their businesses while amplifying their voices and authentic hospitality.
Esten has witnessed firsthand the tech-driven transformation of restaurants over the past five years, reshaping both operations and guest expectations. Today, diners want to feel like VIPs, and the smallest touches matter—whether in a full-service dining room or at a drive-thru window.
While artificial intelligence dominates the industry conversation, Esten is more focused on practical applications. She emphasizes the value of AI not just for insights, but for the work it can take off the plates of busy managers. For her, great technology should never replace the people at the heart of hospitality—it should empower them.
That philosophy is reflected in Toast’s newest innovation, Toast IQ, an AI-powered conversational tool for food and beverage retailers. Toast IQ provides personalized insights and answers complex reporting questions in plain language, offering proactive intelligence that drives actionable results. Esten describes it as a way to augment the skills and potential of every restaurant operator, ensuring that technology serves as an enabler of hospitality rather than a substitute for it.
JOSEPH SZALA
VP OF DIGITAL EXPERIENCE
3OWL
AS VICE PRESIDENT and partner at 3Owl, Joseph Szala is helping restaurant brands rethink how digital connects with both the guest and the business. The Atlanta-based consultancy builds integrated websites, apps, and loyalty platforms designed to lift average order values, deepen engagement, and remove friction from the guest experience. But what truly sets 3Owl apart, Szala says, is its approach: pairing hospitality-driven collaboration with bold digital thinking so brands don’t just keep up with change—they get ahead of it.
Szala’s path to restaurant technology started in branding, where he built and sold an agency focused on foodservice clients. After that exit, he turned his attention to what he saw as the industry’s biggest growth lever. “Hospitality has always been part of my DNA,” he says. “Restaurants don’t just
increase as much as 5 percent compared to our SMS messages,” McCormack says.
With its richer visuals, one-tap actions, and app-like functionality, RCS could bring many brand interactions directly into guests’ native messaging channels without the need for additional downloads.
STEVE SMYTH
DIRECTOR OF RESTAURANT TECHNOLOGY
TACO JOHN’S
AS DIRECTOR OF restaurant technology for Taco John’s, Steve Smyth has spent more than two decades with the brand, including the last 13 years leading its tech evolution. Founded more than 56 years ago in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Taco John’s has grown to more than 340 restaurants across 23 states, and Smyth has been at the center of efforts to modernize how the brand serves guests and supports operators.
“Having spent the majority of my career
STEVE SMYTH TACO JOHN’S
serve guests; they anchor communities and fuel our economy.”
He’s watched operators move from resisting tech adoption to becoming technology-first businesses, a shift accelerated by the pandemic. Many rushed to implement quick fixes in 2020, but now, he says, leaders are revisiting those decisions with better data and clearer strategies.
Looking ahead, Szala believes the next frontier isn’t about adding more devices or platforms, but about weaving digital more thoughtfully into the physical restaurant. “Too many operators are still bolting TVs to walls and dropping kiosks on tables without stepping back to ask: how does this serve the guest, and how does it reflect the brand?” he says. The opportunity lies in creating seamless systems and in-store experiences designed for a tech-native world.
Right now, 3Owl is focused on helping brands unlock more value from loyalty platforms and making enterprise-level digital tools accessible to emerging concepts. By scaling innovation intelligently, Szala believes the industry can usher in its next wave of digital transformation.
“Access to best-in-class tech shouldn’t be reserved for the giants,” Szala says. “If we can scale it intelligently for growth-minded brands, we’ll see a wave of innovation across the industry.”
in restaurant operations, I developed a deep appreciation for the role technology plays in driving efficiency and enhancing the guest experience,” Smyth says.
That perspective shaped his approach when he was asked to help build Taco John’s newly formed restaurant technology department.
“Starting from the ground up, we built the infrastructure through continuous learning—identifying what works, what doesn’t, and adapting accordingly,” he adds.
Since 2012, Taco John’s has transitioned from a traditional server-based POS to a modern cloud-based platform and equipped every restaurant with self-service kiosks. The brand is also rolling out voice AI for drive-thru ordering, a shift Smyth says is guided by a clear standard.
“If a solution doesn’t enhance the experience for our team members, restaurant leaders, and—most importantly—our guests, and the cost to sustain the technology doesn’t make sense for our business model, it’s not the right path forward,” he says.
Smyth thinks the next chapter of innovation will center on technology that quietly powers operations.
“In the year ahead, I believe we’ll see brands refocus on hospitality—leveraging technology not as the centerpiece, but as a powerful enabler,” Smyth says.
That thinking is already in motion with Taco John’s rollout of Voice AI, live in 12
franchisee-owned restaurants and on track to reach more than 50 by the end of 2025, representing a major step forward in boosting the guest experience.
JESSICA KWA
HEAD OF CX STRATEGY, RESTAURANTS AND HOSPITALITY QUALTRICS
BEFORE ENTERING THE restaurant technology space, Jessica Kwa worked on the front line as a floor manager and training leader at MGM Resorts, later moving to Restaurant Brands International and Dine Brands. As an operator, she realized how much more technology could—and should—do to meet rising guest expectations, deliver consistency at scale, and help operators respond in real time.
That insight led her to Qualtrics, where she now spearheads solutions that turn every guest interaction into a competitive advantage. Her work centers on helping restaurants build loyalty, trust, and market share by optimizing service delivery, enhancing personalization, and quickly responding to guest feedback.
A core focus is reducing the time it takes
SZALA WATCHED OPERATORS MOVE FROM RESISTING TECH ADOPTION TO BECOMING TECHNOLOGY-FIRST BUSINESSES, A SHIFT ACCELERATED BY THE
PANDEMIC.
for brands to move from insight to action. For example, Qualtrics’ frontline recommended actions program uses AI to proactively surface the next best steps based on real-time feedback and operational signals—like having an expert consultant on hand, without digging through dashboards or reports. Through synthetic research and predictive intelligence, brands can test ideas, identify trends, and make confident decisions in minutes.
Kwa sees a major industry shift away from siloed data and static insights. She argues restaurants are sitting on gold
JESSICA KWA
MICHAEL KOCH
COFOUNDER AND CEO HUBKONNECT
KOCH’S EFFORTS IN restaurant tech stretch back to 2012, when McDonald’s leadership brought him in to reimagine the company’s tech platforms and drive innovation. Having previously built solutions for Fortune 500 companies like Visa, FedEx, P&G, and Home Depot, McDonald’s was looking for a partner who understood the complexities of enterprise big data, how to eliminate tech redundancy, and stop tech silos. Then-CEO Don Thompson and Global CBO Kevin Newell asked Koch to disrupt an industry lagging the retail world.
Koch helped build nine global systems for McDonald’s and developed the first enterprise AI system. That was in 2013. For some context, this was only two years after IBM Watson and three years before Salesforce Einstein was even built. So, in simple terms, Koch was one a pioneer in the enterprise AI space that’s become such a widespread topic in foodservice today.
Now, Koch leads HubKonnect, a company he cofounded as an AI platform for data-driven local-store marketing for top multi-unit retail and enterprise QSRs. It creates a custom LSM ecosystem powered by its “AI Brain” to bring hyperlocal intelligence to the individual unit and drive business results, sales, and transactions. The platform pulls in millions of data points around the location and provides each brand with tactics, timing, day, channel, assets, and operational execution steps to fuel results and provide continuous learning, getting smarter with each tactic and LSM plan.
Additionally, it pulls in client sales, transactional, and cost data so, for the first time, it can show local sales contribution, impact, and ROI.
Over the years, from those McDonald’s days to the present, Koch says the biggest change for restaurants centered on the rapid understanding of how tech can impact the organization across all business units. “Top QSRs are finally building the foundational data capabilities [most are almost there] to be able to utilize technology in a way that empowers their franchisees and make real time, data-driven decisions. The days of ‘I think’ are over. We live in a new world of empirical data.”
As far as what operators aren’t talking about yet, in a world where Meta, OpenAI, and Google are referencing “general intelligence,” or “AGL,” Koch feels “hyperlocal intelligence” will become the next frontier. This is the juxtaposition, he says, of general AI as it represents a hyper focus on immediate surroundings and what’s applicable to a location or individual. “What is relevant now, how will it drive decisions—now,” Koch says. “The ability for immediate insights and data in, say, a location in New York City is far different from what you would do in rural Nebraska.”
“It is not about ‘general intelligence,’” he continues. “It is about ‘hyperlocal intelligence’ that will be specific for the user, location, customer, and unit. Everything that is happening around them, locally and in communities, is where top QSRs compete for the next decade of customers.”
TOP QSRS ARE FINALLY BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONAL DATA CAPABILITIES [MOST ARE ALMOST THERE] TO BE ABLE TO UTILIZE TECHNOLOGY IN A WAY THAT EMPOWERS THEIR FRANCHISEES AND MAKE REAL TIME, DATA-DRIVEN DECISIONS."
mines of disconnected information—POS data, feedback scores, operational metrics, digital behaviors—and integrating them with operational intelligence unlocks new possibilities. From identifying a bad guest experience before the customer leaves the parking lot to predicting which menu items might flop before launch, Kwa believes AIpowered convergence will define the future of innovation and expansion—without adding complexity to daily operations.
ANGELA YOCHEM
CHIEF INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
KRISPY KREME
ANGELA YOCHEM HAS spent her career in technology leadership across industries, watching advances reshape consumer expectations, create new business models, and unlock insights that drive innovation.
Since joining Krispy Kreme in 2023, Yochem’s role has expanded to oversee both technology and cross-functional performance for the 88-year-old doughnut chain. She leads the strategy and execution of global technology initiatives while managing the business drivers behind short- and long-term growth.
Her focus is on leveraging the latest restaurant technologies to enhance guest engagement, empower team members, simplify operations, and fuel expansion. That includes investing in digital channels, third-party partnerships, loyalty programs, and automated drive-thru solutions. Yochem also emphasizes strengthening social media engagement and exploring emerging consumer interaction tools, all aimed at making Krispy Kreme doughnuts more accessible—when and where customers want them—in a seamless, frictionless way.
She acknowledges the industry-wide challenge: cost. Many technologies, she notes, deliver meaningful return on investment only at a large scale, a reality pushing restaurants to evolve quickly. She predicts some “surprising winners and losers” as companies adapt to new technologies to balance growth and operational efficiency.
Looking ahead, Yochem sees generative and agentic AI driving radical shifts in consumer behavior. She points to the rise of “extreme connectivity” through a smarter, faster digital fabric—placing restaurants more deeply in consumers’ digital lives than
ever. From inventory and labor management to demand forecasting and transactions, she believes connected, agentic technology will disrupt nearly every facet of restaurant operations.
RACHEL BUSS
VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGIC INSIGHTS CURION
FOR RACHEL BUSS, a veteran of the CPG food and beverage world, restaurants felt like a natural next step—just another channel with different occasions and a much faster pace. What stood out to her was the industry’s complexity and customization, factors that have historically slowed technology adoption. That, she notes, is changing quickly, with even public “failures” serving as valuable lessons that fuel industry growth.
As vice president of strategic insights for Curion, a full-service consumer insights firm specializing in product experiences, Buss leads the restaurant division. Her team partners with brands across the industry to better understand the customer journey and translate insights into smarter business decisions.
She is spearheading Curion’s new Pulse Suite, a set of tools designed to deliver fast, cost-effective insights to restaurant brands. The goal is to help leaders make confident, data-driven decisions instead of just relying on intuition—a critical advantage in today’s fast-moving, competitive environment.
Looking ahead, Buss believes the next major shift won’t be a single product or technology but rather the industry’s reaction to innovation. As brands add more AI and automation to their operations, the real challenge will be ensuring the human element of hospitality remains intact. She argues the future of restaurant tech depends on striking the right balance between efficiency and experience—innovating without alienating.
RACHEL BUSS
ANGELA YOCHEM
THIS PAST YEAR PROVED THAT THE VALUE WARS REMAIN INTENSE, FOR BIG AND SMALL PLAYERS.
/ BY RICK HYNUM
PMQ’s 2026 PIZZA POWER REPORT
Quick-Service EDITION
When Domino’s CEO Russell Weiner introduced the company’s Hungry for MORE plan in December 2023, the aim was to grow systemwide sales by $7 billion across five years, including $3 billion at its U.S. stores. Admittedly, the acronym is a bit clunky: MORE stands for Most Delicious Food, Operational Excellence, Renowned Value and Enhanced by Best-in-Class Franchisees. But, from the start, it was clear Weiner believed in it, and
with good reason: The brand saw a significant increase in U.S. same-store sales in 2024 and has repeated that success, for the most part, this year, with a rise of 5.2 percent in Q3 and 3.4 percent in Q2.
Even so, make no mistake: Whatever else went on behind the operational scenes at Domino’s, deep discounting was key to Hungry for MORE.
Domino’s kicked off 2025 with a January deal offering 50 percent off all menu-priced items ordered online. February brought more low pricing for digital orders—$9.99 for any pizza with any crust and any toppings. That promotion, called the “Best Deal Ever,” was back in April and again in July, along with a carryout special ($6.99 for large two-topping pies) in the first full week of June.
That’s a lot of discounting, but Domino’s can certainly afford it. And every deal adds more members—and valuable data—to its rewards program, which, in turn, drives more top-of-mind awareness.
With cash-strapped Americans eating out less than they used to, most QSR pizza brands found themselves compet-
DOMINO’S ANNOUNCED A BRAND REFRESH LATE LAST YEAR.
ing for fewer customers, and value deals were the response for large and small chains alike. Little Caesars rolled out its More for $9.99 Menu with various pairings in July. &pizza, a regional chain headquartered in Washington D.C., debuted a $7 combo offer that featured a half-cheese pie plus one topping and a beverage; the scrappy brand even confidently asserted that the deal “sent some serious shock waves across the various fronts of the value war.”
California Pizza Kitchen (cpk), meanwhile, launched a “$10 Pizza Days” promotion spotlighting four of its top-selling pies, but a minimum $20 purchase was required. Like CPK, Mountain Mike’s Pizza, another California-based chain, pushed for bigger ticket averages with its discounts, such as a $25 deal for a large one-topping pie, a 2-liter soda, and the choice of a salad, 20-piece garlic sticks, or Mini Churrs.
But one pizza brand wasn’t too pleased with the payback on
its value deals: Pizza Hut. David Gibbs, the outgoing CEO of Pizza Hut parent company Yum! Brands, told investors as much in an August 5 earnings call. Pizza Hut had been getting innovative with menu items like the new Cheesy Bites pizza and the Ranch Lovers Flights for dipping, but “an insufficient value message amid a competitive value landscape resulted in transactional softness,” Gibbs said. In other words, a 5 percent decline in Pizza Hut’s U.S. same-store sales for Q2 2025 signaled that customers weren’t biting.
“Clearly, this is…a softer consumer environment all around the world where value matters,” Gibbs told investors. “Value never doesn’t matter, but it’s [of] particular importance in this environment. And what we’re seeing around the world is we can win when we…do value the right way.”
Indeed, there was a bright spot in Q2 for Pizza Hut: Its $2-Buck-Tuesday special—a one-topping Personal Pan Pizza
for $2—went gangbusters, selling out at more than 3,100 locations on July 8.
As the major pizza chains duked it out in the value wars, they leaned into menu innovation as well. Pizza crust has turned into its own battleground, with offerings like Domino’s Parmesan Stuffed Crust, Little Caesars’ Stuffed Pretzel Crust, and Papa Johns’ Garlic 5-Cheese Crust. The latter, inspired by garlic bread, features a blend of five cheeses: Parmesan, Romano, Asiago, Fontina, and provolone.
Clearly, the chains recognize that business-as-usual on the culinary side won’t fly anymore as customers’ expectations rise. At Marco’s Pizza, for example, building “layers of flavor” is now imperative, Kathleen Kennedy, the brand’s director of culinary innovation, told PMQ. She pointed to recent items like the Triple Pep Magnifico and the Mike’s Hot Honey Pepperoni Magnifico as examples. “Profitability is an essential part of the equation,” she noted, “but it goes hand-in-hand with delivering unique, memorable experiences that inspire repeat visits.”
Kennedy added that the LTO is “a powerful tool in our inno-
LITTLE CAESARS ROLLED OUT ITS MORE FOR $9.99 MENU WITH VARIOUS PAIRINGS IN JULY.
CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHEN (CPK), MEANWHILE, LAUNCHED A “$10 PIZZA DAYS” PROMOTION SPOTLIGHTING FOUR OF ITS TOP-SELLING PIES, BUT A MINIMUM $20 PURCHASE WAS REQUIRED.
PIZZA HUT HAS STRUGGLED TO CONVEY ITS VALUE MESSAGE TO CONSUMERS.
VEG’ PREP MACHINES
CL50E Ultra with EasyStacker
Slice, stack, and sort tomatoes simultaneously
vation strategy. They allow us to move with speed, test bold concepts and bring excitement to the menu without overhauling our operations.”
Papa Johns served up its own limitedtime offer, with an emphasis on “limited,” on September 10. Papa Rewards members had exactly two hours, from 12 to 2 p m , to order the Croissant Pizza, an import from the UAE featuring a buttery, pastry-like crust. It was a textbook example of using the scarcity play to reward engaged loyalty members, spark conversation, and test a unique product.
Between value deals and new menu items with artisanal flair, QSR pizza chains spent 2025 on the offensive, but none more so than Domino’s. The chain now boasts 7,090 stores in the U.S., an upswing in sales, even a brand refresh in the works: redesigned pizza boxes, an enhanced website and app, new uniforms and more. “The new look and feel will roll out over the coming months,” Weiner told investors in October. “In all of our marketing, Hungry for MORE is no longer just a strategy. It has a look, a sound and a heartbeat. Seeing everything come to life this year gives me the confidence that, in 2026 and beyond, we will be able to achieve our goal of 3 percent same-store sales in the U.S. and continue to take meaningful market share….We’re just getting started.”
Rick Hynum is the editor-in-chief of PMQ. He can be reached at rhynum@wtwhmedia.com
PAPA JOHNS IS MAKING ITS MARK AMID A COMPETITIVE PIZZA LANDSCAPE.
DOMINO’S NOW BOASTS 7,090 STORES IN THE U.S.
MARCO’S PIZZA FINDS THE LTO AS IMPORTANT TO ITS INNOVATION STRATEGY.
EXPANDING MENUS WITHOUT EXPANDING WORKLOADS
Cut prep time, reduce waste, and keep every order fresh and consistent.
In quick service, operators win or lose on consistency. Every order has to look, taste, and perform the same whether it’s the first ticket of the day or the hundredth. For operators managing tight labor, limited prep space, and growing expectations for speed, that kind of consistency is a survival skill.
That’s why Baker’s Quality Pizza Crusts has built its reputation on reliability, now extending that same standard beyond pizza. Known for its premium parbaked crusts, the company has introduced a line of sandwich breads developed with the same preci-
sion and operator insight that have made its crusts a back-of-house essential.
Consistency doesn’t happen by accident. Each product is checked for quality and performance four times before it’s packaged. Every 15 minutes, product is pulled from the line and baked off to ensure it performs exactly as expected. That kind of process control allows operators the freedom to focus on execution and menu creativity rather than production.
“Beyond the crusts, operators can use our breadsticks, sandwich breads, and biscuits to run limited-time offerings or unique appetizers they wouldn’t otherwise have the ability to produce in small quantities,” Cookson says.
Durability is another edge. “Most of our crusts hold warm for up to 90 minutes,” Cookson says. “Sandwich breads can hold for several days in a grab-and-go case.” That reliability makes Baker’s Quality a smart fit for concepts leaning into new formats such as handhelds, take-and-bake items, and daypart-blurring snacks without adding production complexity.
Accessibility has expanded too. Baker’s Quality is now available through Dot Foods, a move that significantly broadens its reach. “Working with Dot Foods gives quick-service operators access to thousands of new products including smaller, independent manufacturers that they may not have known about prior,” Cookson says. Through Dot’s national network, customers can order Baker’s Quality products by the case instead of by the pallet, lowering barriers for smaller operations.
Baker’s Quality Pizza Crusts has built its reputation on reliability, now extending that same standard beyond pizza.
“The idea was initially brought to us by a customer who was trying to solve a problem,” says Anne Cookson, president and co-owner at Baker’s Quality Pizza Crusts. “They were making a folded sandwich, but their current product needed to be warmed up prior to folding, or it would break. We were able to develop a bread that was pliable while cold, saving them a production step.”
That operator-first mindset defines Baker’s Quality. The company’s parbaked products are built for busy kitchens where time, labor, and predictability matter most. “Having products on hand that are ready to use and high quality can save significant time and labor during the food preparation process,” Cookson says. “Our pre-made doughs offer more consistency than house-made doughs.”
That partnership also helps operators consolidate sourcing. “Dot Foods offers operators more options than they would get through one or two broadline distributors. It’s more of a one-stop shop,” Cookson says.
As tastes and ingredient technologies evolve, Baker’s Quality continues to refine its recipes and processes to stay ahead of expectations. “We are constantly testing new ingredients and meeting with our suppliers to improve our products,” Cookson says. “At Baker’s Quality, we strive for constant innovation and are continuously testing new flavors, sizes, and products to give our customers the options they demand.”
From sandwich breads to signature crusts, Baker’s Quality gives operators tools that perform under pressure, helping quickservice brands grow with more flexibility, less waste, and greater consistency. -By Drew Filipski ◗
HOW TO DRIVE SALES AND CONNECT FASTER
The must-have tool for modern restaurants.
The restaurant industry is more chaotic than ever, making it essential for businesses to find effective ways to engage customers. One increasingly popular solution is text messaging, a tool with a remarkable 90 percent read rate within just 10 minutes—far surpassing email’s 18 percent open rate, with messages often overlooked for days.
Automated
campaigns
are a core feature
of Text.Food, allowing restaurants to schedule texts based on slow times or special promotions.
The instant impact of text message marketing is driving more and more restaurants to adopt it as a tool for connecting with their customers. “We saw tremendous success with our PizzaCloud service,” Scully says. “It inspired us to create Text.Food specifically for all restaurants. Our goal is to add 10,000 quick-service and fine-dining restaurants to our text messaging service over the next two years.”
Unlike many other platforms that charge steep prices based on message volume, Text.Food offers volume discounts across
chains, regardless of how many locations an owner manages. “Our pricing starts at 2.2 cents per message for small customers and drops to as low as one cent for large-scale users,” Scully says. This model benefits both small operators and larger chains, ensuring that everyone receives the best rate.
Automated campaigns are another valuable core feature of Text.Food, allowing restaurants to schedule texts based on slow times or special promotions. Some even send humorous, lighthearted messages rather than relying on promoting coupons and sacrificing profits. “One of our users sent a message reading, ‘Did you know it’s not a felony to eat pizza on Monday? Order now!’ These messages are fun and engaging, not overly salesy, and people respond to them just as well as coupon offers,” Scully adds.
With Text.Food, flexibility is key to creating campaigns that match a brand’s voice, whether it’s advertising new menu items or encouraging customers to stop in on slower days.
Customer support is another strong suit where Text.Food excels. The platform offers a self-service portal, but for those who need assistance, their team is available 24/7 to help design the most effective campaigns. “We aim to offer the best of both worlds. Restaurants can manage everything on their own, or we can guide them through the process,” Scully says.
One of the significant advantages of Text. Food is the ease of setup. “Once the brand is registered, a user can send their first campaign in minutes. We handle the annoying bit, getting the initial approval from the National Campaign Registry,” Scully says. This makes it an attractive option for busy restaurant operators seeking a simple, effective way to boost sales and engage customers.
With affordable pricing, flexible campaigns, and exceptional customer support, Text.Food is positioned to become a leader in text message marketing for restaurants. Whether you’re a small independent operator or part of a larger chain, this service can help increase revenue and customer satisfaction—all with a simple text. ◗
To learn more about Text.food, visit text.food.
Price for this service varies based on type of message & volume.
• We apply volume discounts across entire chain, so individual location owners benefit from total chain volume.
As low as $0.01 per message for high volume customers!
Use your Existing Phone Number to send messages!
• Either through direct integration to your POS system, or by exporting lists from the POS to import into our platform, you can schedule & manage outbound text message marketing to increase revenue.
We are fully compliant with CITA/FCC regulations!
Text messages have up to 95% open rate within minutes: push online orders, drive additional revenue, & send upsell messages!
EXAMPLE OF HOW IT WORKS:
1) Send a X Dollars off coupon message to customers who’s last order was more than 90 days ago, with the goal of “re activating” those customers.
2) Send an “upsell” coupon for add on items to more active customers
3) Automated campaign to send a few hundred messages per day, with the goal of adding 10+ additional orders per day. Messages can be coupons, but you can also get great traction with messages such as “Happy Monday. Did you know you are allowed to eat pizza on Monday? ” followed by your online ordering link.
HOW AN OPERATOR BEAT LABOR AND SPACE CHALLENGES DOMINATING THE INDUSTRY
This
pizzeria is scaling by leading with quality dough and labor solutions.
Labor demands are crushing many operators from—high turnover rates and training challenges, to mistakes arising from a lack of oversight; operators need effective solutions to labor and consistency challenges that remain aligned with brand identity. Pizzerias depend on high-quality dough that customers love and rely on. When Mike Pitera, a NYC native, moved to South Carolina and opened a food truck, he was faced with these challenges compounded by limited space and needed a solution he could count on to scale.
“I was always in the pizza scene, so my father and I built a trailer,” Pitera says. “After my daytime job, I’d hook up the trailer and drive around Charleston, selling pizza for dinner service in different neighborhoods.” Launching a pizza operation out of a food truck, however, meant every inch of space and every minute of labor had to count. “When I first came down with a food truck, I didn’t have mixers or a landing kitchen,” Pitera says. “I needed a way to make pizza without a staff. Frozen dough was the only practical path to kickstart the business.”
isn’t just chefs—it’s scientists who analyze protein and gluten levels, hydration, and mixing,” Pitera says. “I gave them my recipe, and they scaled it commercially. If I make a 10-pound batch, they can make a 500-pound batch.”
With that partnership, Pitera now operates multiple locations using a single master dough recipe that forms the base for five styles— Grandma’s, Sicilian, New York, Detroit, and Tavern crust. The system allows him to serve high-quality, consistent pizza across locations while dramatically reducing labor dependency. “We receive sealed, portioned dough,” Pitera says. “A teenage dishwasher can lay it out to proof overnight and it’s perfect by morning.
That’s real-world labor efficiency.”
business.”
“I needed a way to make pizza without a staff. Frozen dough was the only practical path to kickstart the
Pitera began researching dough manufacturers that could deliver both quality and consistency—nonnegotiables for a New Yorker raised on classic pizza. “As a pizza maker, it feels sacrilegious to buy dough,” he says. “So the product had to be as consistent and high quality as if I made it in-house. If I froze my own dough and thawed it, I wanted it to perform the same way.”
That search led him to DeIorio’s, a New York–based frozen dough manufacturer with more than a century of experience and a reputation for partnering closely with chefs. “Their team
Now serving as a chef consultant to DeIorio’s, Pitera works alongside DeIorio’s Food Scientists to help other operators find the same balance of quality and consistency. His work embodies DeIorio’s philosophy of streamlined production without compromise. The company also offers several alternative base crusts— from cauliflower and chickpea to gluten free and red lentil— enabling brands to meet dietary trends without added complexity.
“With more than 100 years of experience and real chefs like me behind the product, DeIorio’s is built for consistency,” Pitera says. “Customers constantly compliment the crust. People from up north tell me it reminds them of home—the taste, the crispiness, the flavor. That consistency means everything to me.” -By
For more information on DeIorio’s dough, visit deiorios.com.
Ya’el McLoud
◗
Subs Success
How a non-restaurateur became a shining example for other Firehouse Subs franchisees.
BY BEN COLEY
After Elliott Goldsmith graduated from college in 2000, he joined a telecommunications company in Jacksonville, Florida, where he sold telephone and internet services. For a couple of years, he tried to hook Firehouse Subs, a young, emerging brand back then.
The meeting took an unexpected turn when then-CFO Stephen Joost reversed roles. Instead of Goldsmith selling his service, he was being convinced to become a franchisee.
“I come from a family with zero restaurant background experience,” Goldsmith says. “My father’s an attorney, brother’s an attorney, my other brother’s an investment banker, so I had no idea what I was getting into.”
At the time, Firehouse had a program where potential franchisees could participate in 100 hours of work to see whether they enjoyed the role. Prior to quitting his day job, Goldsmith worked inside the restaurant. During the week, he would arrive by 5:30 p m. to 6 p m , change into his Firehouse uniform in the bathroom, and work until closing. On the weekends, he was there open to close to see if he could handle the stress. Pretty soon, Goldsmith knew this is what he wanted to do.
He formally left his telecom career in June 2002 and began his two-week formal training at a restaurant in Jacksonville. Goldsmith then packed up his belongings and moved to his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, to open his first franchise restaurant. That occurred officially on December 20 of that year.
Fast forward to 2025, Goldsmith now operates 10 restaurants with an 11th one under construction.
“Where I was in 2002, [Firehouse] had regrouped and had the support staff and were starting the franchise,” Goldsmith says. “So I think the timing for me happened to be calling on them to sell my services, and they were looking to start expanding… The closest one to South Carolina was in Charlotte, North Carolina. An operator had opened a couple up there and so I just said hey, I wanted to move home and they’re looking to grow there.”
Goldsmith calls the restaurant industry “always a learning process.” He didn’t realize the amount of detail that went into operating a location. Being a consumer, he took for granted the basics of opening the store in the morning, the prep, fulfilling the food orders, and implementing the schedule.
He remembers his first week of training at one of the corporate restaurants practicing counting inventory, something he had never done. He went around counting items and reached the straws. He thought to himself, “I have to sit here and count every straw?” Thendirector of training Bryan Paquin sat back and watched him struggle for some time before he corrected the method.
“I was probably doubting myself and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a lot of work,’ but there’s little things like that I’ve learned along the way that it’s made me more successful,” Goldsmith says.
The franchisee admits over the years he probably hasn’t grown as quickly as corporate would’ve liked him to. That’s because life happens. When he first became a franchisee, he wasn’t married or had children, but all of that came over time. Also, there were a few economic ups and downs along the way, particularly the Great Recession in the late 2000s and the more recent COVID pandemic.
Still, Goldsmith says Firehouse worked with him to make sure he was always in a good spot business-wise to reach the next level. He now has three district managers to help him
Restaurants are revamping hiring for the next generation of workers.
BY SAM DANLEY
Gen Z is no longer the future of the restaurant workforce. It’s the present. This cohort, born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, already represents nearly half of restaurant employees and is projected to become the majority by 2030.
For an industry that has faced unprecedented labor shortages over the past several years, that reality has major implications.
According to a survey by the National Restaurant Association conducted late last year, 77 percent of operators said recruiting and retaining employees remains a significant challenge. Nearly one-third admitted they don’t have enough staff to meet current customer demand.
As restaurants rethink how they staff their businesses, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the traditional playbook for recruitment doesn’t resonate with today’s younger workers. Posting a generic job listing and waiting for applications to trickle in is no longer enough. Gen Z has grown up in a digital-first, on-demand environment, and their expectations for the workplace reflect that. To stay competitive, restaurants are reimagining not only how they recruit, but also how they position themselves as employers of choice.
Rethinking Recruitment Channels
says, pointing to strategies like connecting with local high schools or colleges in the area and working with local recruiters who understand the specific area when looking for store managers and GMs.
Recruitment today is about showing up in the spaces where potential employees already are. That’s the message from Mary Pillow Thompson, founder of foh&boh, which provides hiring and onboarding tools for independent restaurants, franchises, hospitality groups, and hotel chains.
“If you think the job post you put up on Indeed or any of those job boards is going to get seen by this generation, then you’re mistaken,” Thompson says. “They’re not going to those platforms and searching for barista positions in their city. Once you understand that, then you can begin to wrap your head around how to actually get in front of this workforce.”
That shift requires restaurants to be far more intentional and proactive. Darren Spicer, cofounder and CEO of Clutch Coffee Bar, says success comes from flipping the old model of waiting for applicants to find you.
“You have to get creative and get into the community,” Spicer
Equally important is having a strong presence on the platforms that dominate Gen Z’s daily lives. TikTok and Instagram aren’t just for customer engagement anymore. They’ve become critical pipelines for recruiting talent.
“Gen Z is obviously spending a lot of time on those platforms, and more and more big brands are promoting themselves and looking for talent there,” Spicer says. “If you’re not doing that, you’re already behind the eight ball.”
Thompson adds that creating authentic social media content about the employee experience can make all the difference. Gen Z job seekers will often research a company’s online presence before ever filling out an application.
“That is what is going to actually improve your retention,” she says. “When people can get a glimpse into what it’s like to work at your location, you’re going to attract someone that wants to work in that type of environment, and therefore your
Restaurants must have a strong presence on social media to meet Gen Z where they are.
operate the stores and a bookkeeper.
“Someone might say, 'Man, you should be at more locations,' but it’s just where it is,” Goldsmith says. “… You’re trying to do them when we can, when it’s the right time to grow. I’ve now got a staff built out… I was doing a lot of it, and that probably slowed my growth as well where I probably didn’t invest into the layers of leadership necessary to grow. Now I’ve made that investment, and my quality of life has improved.”
The operator is prepared to take on more; however, his Greenville market is fairly saturated. He believes there are a few opportunities, but not as easy as jumping into a new market. There’s also the struggle of finding real estate he can afford and the rising costs of constructing projects. So Goldsmith is satisfied with waiting for the right opportunity.
What drew him to the Firehouse franchise initially—and to this day—is the ability to give back to the community, particularly the brand’s connection to firefighters and first responders. The chain ramps up fundraising during October, which is Fire Safety Month. And crew members can directly see the impact. This year, for example, Goldsmith’s franchise business donated about $40,000 to local fire departments.
“The fact that we can go in and make this type of impact in a community, it’s huge. And the fact that then our crew members can see the effort behind it—so often these other concepts or businesses are raising money and you can’t see the direct impact and to know that over the years that we’ve given back substantial amounts to these departments that I’m driving through these communities that are near my restaurants and I can almost point to the stations where we’ve got equipment on trucks,” Goldsmith says.
The franchisee has considered adding another concept to his portfolio, but for right now, he’s comfortable sticking with Firehouse.
“I’ve gotten to meet some of the senior leadership within [parent company] RBI, and they continue to invest a lot of money in our brand, a lot of time,” Goldsmith says. “We’ve brought on the right talent to lead us to the next level.”
retention is going to go up because you’re going to make better quality hires.”
That only works if what’s shown online reflects the real employee experience. Spicer cautions that the strategy is bound to backfire when an employer brand looks appealing on social media but it doesn’t match the day-to-day culture inside the restaurant.
“If it’s smoke and mirrors and you don’t have the right culture and the right energy and the right foundation, people will figure it out very quickly,” he says. “If everything looks great on social media, but then you actually go inside the four walls and it’s night and day, you have a problem. So, it really starts with the daily culture and energy that you instill. You have to live that out and breathe that into the organization.”
Building a Brand That’s Relevant and Cool
Recruitment is only the first step. The bigger question is: how do you make your brand a place where Gen Z actually wants to work? For this generation, the appeal of a job is closely tied to image, culture, and peer influence.
Julianna Blackhurst, senior director of franchising at Jeremiah’s Italian Ice, says technology plays a major role in shaping how the brand connects with young team members. Outdated tools can quickly signal that a company is out of touch.
“Your technology has to be on point,” she says. “If you’re giving them a learning management system, it should look and feel like TikTok and Instagram. If it’s more like the 1996 version of Microsoft Word, your team is not going to engage with the platform.”
Jeremiah’s has embraced that mindset by creating training modules in a short-form, social media–style format. The approach resonates with Gen Z because it mirrors the way they already consume information, making it easier to absorb and retain. It also signals that the company is modern, attentive to how young people learn, and committed to setting them up for success. That experience doesn’t stay contained within the four walls of the store. When employees feel engaged and supported, they’re more likely to spread the word to friends and peers. In fact, referrals have become one of the industry’s most effective hiring tools. According to the National Res-
taurant Association, two-thirds of operators last year said they filled positions through employee referrals, more than any other recruitment channel.
“You can 100 percent bet that they’re going to tell their friends about their experience, about why they like working at the brand, because they want their friends to think they’re doing something cool at work,” Blackhurst says. “We have to be leading that charge and making sure that we’re on top of the trends—even down to the verbiage and making sure we’re speaking their language. If you meet your team where they are, then they will meet you back.”
Offering Flexibility and Opportunities for Self-Expression
Ask Gen Z what they value most in a job, and flexibility is likely to be near the top of the list. Blackhurst says restaurants should lean into that reality by spotlighting flexible scheduling during the recruitment process.
“We have to remember that when we’re working with these young people, their priorities might be different than ours,” she says, pointing to something as simple as needing time off during prom week to get their nails done. “That’s something that’s very real for them. That’s something they’re going to remember for the rest of their life. It would be insane to them if we didn’t allow that. Of course they wouldn’t want to work for us if that were the case. They wouldn’t tell their friends and younger siblings to come work for us, either.”
At Clutch Coffee Bar, Spicer has designed staffing practices around this principle. By intentionally overstaffing stores, the company is able to accommodate unpredictable schedules without leaving gaps.
“We curate shifts that fit around school and extracurriculars, like a 4 to 9 p.m. slot, and we’re upfront about expectations,” he explains, adding that this approach allows employees to balance work with sports, school events, and social lives, making the job more appealing from the outset.
Beyond scheduling, self-expression has become another key factor in recruiting and retaining Gen Z workers. Dress codes, tattoos, piercings, and hair color all play into how comfortable employees feel in a workplace.
Sam
Ben Coley is the editor of
art than science, so the restaurateurs performed a lot of R&D to reconstruct the best versions of what they found. The Breakfast Company offers homemade tzatziki sauce, gyro sandwiches, a Greek salad dressing, and chicken lemon rice soup.
For its bakery program, The Breakfast Company uses a commissary kitchen as a central hub to ensure consistency. Before this, Syros-King would do all the baking herself early in the morning and there would be a lot of leftover product. Now, for example, the chain uses cinnamon rolls to make the next day’s French toast.
“The quality isn’t diminished and we’re still not wasting any product,” Syros says. “So things like that have come into play.”
The Breakfast Company is also planning to tinker with its operational model. The first location was designed to be a typical full-service restaurant, with most of the to-go business happening at a counter toward the entrance. The chain isn’t totally cutting ties with this style, but going forward, the company is opting for a bigger grab-and-go sales channel. In fact, the next store opening in Venice, Florida, in April will be 4,000 square feet and feature a drive-thru. It will be co-owned with Shannon Holder, a family friend and experienced manager at The Breakfast Company.
The drive-thru will have an alternative menu highlighting quick bites, like wraps. The Breakfast Company is moving this direction for several reasons, starting with labor costs. Syros says Florida’s tipped minimum wage has doubled since the restaurant first opened. So the chain wants to explore ways to run with less staff.
Additionally, Syros and Syros-King recognize that customers eat breakfast in many fashions, and it’s not always a big sit-down brunch occasion. Syros was inspired by customer traffic early in the morning near one of The Breakfast Company’s locations.
“Across the street is a Chick-fil-A drivethru and a Wawa, and both of them are slamming every morning,” Syros says.
The Breakfast Company is also opening a store in Palmetto, Florida, but not with a drive-thru. Syros hopes for a future pace of two to three openings per year. Some of that may include franchising in the future.
pop up, making it easy to reorder or try something similar. Today, 95 percent of the chain’s transactions come from loyalty members.
Brown also teaches franchisees how to “open strong”—a strategy that roots new stands in their local communities. To her, an ideal opening means making a direct impact, including donating to schools and delivering free drinks to hospitals and first responders.
“We make giving back part of the opening process,” Brown says. “Franchisees can launch with ‘Caffeine for a Cause,’ partnering with local organizations and offering free drinks for a weekend with a QR code to donate to charity. If it’s Christmas, do a toy drive. If it’s the Fourth of July, offer free drinks and fireworks. Opening week always includes free drink drops and swag giveaways to bring the community in and make a difference.”
During this period of hypergrowth, Brown says every piece of the puzzle matters—hiring, community engagement, and everything in between.
Most of the office and operations staff have been brewistas at some point, so leadership understands the value of frontline employees, who often become the brand’s future leaders.
“We’re just at the beginning of our growth story, and we’re about to blast off,” Brown says. “We’re putting structures in place so we can support each other through this growth spurt. I’m passionate about building out the franchise support department and helping our partners succeed with 7 Brew.”
For Brown, culture isn’t an accessory to the brand—it’s the plan. She’s grateful to have started as a brewista with leaders who invested in her, and now she hopes to do the same for others, mentoring new operators and showing them how to reimagine the QSR experience.
“We’re building a brand that lasts because we have buy-in at every level,” Brown says. “Being in this position and having the ability to impact others is all I ever wanted. I dreamed of teaching people how to create positive experiences for customers and employees, spreading the kindness that was shown to me out into the world.”
Ben Coley is the editor of QSR . He can be reached at bcoley@
BY DREW FILIPSKI
Today’s leading POS innovators are helping quickservice restaurants work smarter—not harder— through connected technology, real-time data, and seamless guest experiences.
The modern quick-service restaurant runs on data. From the moment an order is placed—at the counter, kiosk, drive-thru, or app—every interaction depends on a seamless, connected POS system. But for many operators, legacy hardware, disconnected platforms, and fragmented integrations still stand in the way of progress.
As guest expectations for speed, personalization, and convenience rise, so does the need for smarter, more flexible technology. Cloud-based and edgeresilient POS systems now sit at the heart of restaurant operations, driving everything from kitchen orchestration and inventory control to loyalty and AIpowered analytics.
The industry’s top technology partners are helping restaurants unify their systems, unlock real-time insights, and future-proof their operations against constant change. In the following insights, leaders from the world’s biggest POS brands share how operators can modernize with confidence—building the connected, data-driven foundation that keeps guests coming back and business running strong.
LINDSAY PETROVIC
Head of Restaurants Product Management
What are the biggest challenges for quick-service restaurants with POS systems today?
Many quick-service restaurant’s still run legacy, hardware-bound, store-centric, and closed POS systems. Cloud-only also falls short without edge resiliency, open APIs, and microservices. That gap blocks realtime store observability, full o ine
Petrovic: These architectural limitations cause revenue loss due to network issues and software rollouts, prevent speed-of-service optimization customized to a brand’s unique workflow, and make it harder for digital operations teams to manage in-store technology.
How are operators addressing these challenges e ectively?
: Leading operators are adopting API-first platforms and hybrid cloud and edge. They automate deployments, add real-time telemetry, and treat the stack as a product, not a project—while insisting on open data contracts and portability.
What mistakes do operators make with POS systems?
Common mistakes include buying features over foundation, accepting vendor lock-in, and assuming cloud solves everything. Many underestimate o ine operations and neglect write access to core data. Underinvesting in observability and testing limits agility and reliability.
What key tasks are being enhanced through POS systems?
Modern POS enhances dynamic pricing, intelligent order routing, kitchen orchestration, drive-thru throughput, curbside accuracy, inventory signals, fraud checks, and exception alerts—all enabled by open, eventdriven data flows.
Why is partnering with a trusted brand more crucial now than ever?
As complexity grows across security, compliance, integrations, and uptime, partnering with a trusted brand becomes critical. Few teams can manage this alone. Experienced partners bring domain expertise, openness, and operational resilience. Cloud is essential but not su cient. Future proofing
requires partners committed to open data, composability, real-time observability, and full read and write access to operational data.
AMBER TRENDELL
Senior Director of Strategy
What are the biggest challenges for quick-service restaurants with POS systems today?
From kiosks and mobile apps to drive-thru and in-store ordering, quick-service restaurants are navigating mounting complexity as they serve guests across multiple sales channels. For large, franchised businesses, this is compounded by the presence of multiple POS solutions across their network, often the result of individual franchise choices.
As data structures and integrations di er from one location to another, these disparate systems create obstacles for operators wishing to standardize processes, adopt automation, or utilize machine learning and AI. Managing diverse systems raises operational costs, slows innovation, and exposes businesses to data security and compliance risks, particularly across borders.
How are these challenges impacting the industry?
These challenges are accelerating digital transformation and driving a strong trend toward system consolidation. Managing fragmented POS environments increases the strain of
maintaining legacy hardware and integrating new sales channels, which can impact profitability and both customer and sta satisfaction. Operators are now seeking unified platforms that make it easier to deploy new channels, capture consistent data, control costs, and scale loyalty and payments globally.
How are operators addressing these challenges e ectively?
Restaurant operators are prioritizing a fully integrated, connected technology stack across POS, labor, inventory, guest engagement, and analytics. Oracle Simphony delivers this
foundation by connecting ordering channels, loyalty, and payments while integrating with enterprise solutions like Fusion or NetSuite for real-time insights and advanced analysis.
Why is partnering with a trusted brand more crucial now than ever?
Restaurants must manage growing complexity while keeping guest data secure and adopting innovations rapidly. Oracle is the only global cloud POS provider with the infrastructure, fiscal compliance capabilities, and embedded AI to support operators worldwide. Global quick-service brands can’t scale AI or automation without a unified POS foundation— and Oracle provides the scalable, secure, cloud-based infrastructure to make that possible.
RACHEL AUER
Product
Marketing Manager
What are the biggest challenges for quick-service restaurants with POS systems today?
Quick-service restaurants are navigating a rapidly evolving landscape where the POS must do far more than process transactions—it must serve as the operational backbone of the business. Many still operate with disconnected systems across drivethru, in-store, mobile apps, and delivery platforms, which limits visibility and slows innovation.
A growing challenge is confusion between built-in versus bolted-on AI. Bolted-on systems create fragmented experiences and integration headaches, while built-in AI enables automation, real-time insights, and unified workflows. Operators also face growing integration complexity when connecting loyalty programs, delivery apps, and inventory systems.
How are these challenges impacting the industry?
Operational ine ciencies and
limited connectivity delay innovation and reduce the ability to personalize guest experiences. The confusion between built-in and bolted-on AI continues to slow adoption of automation and predictive analytics. These challenges are driving the industry toward modern, open POS architectures that unify digital tools, simplify updates, and create stronger data orchestration across the business.
How are operators addressing these challenges e ectively?
Successful operators are moving from legacy systems to unified POS platforms designed to grow and adapt with the business. This architecture maximizes uptime, streamlines updates, and connects loyalty,
delivery, and analytics tools through open, extensible design.
Why is partnering with a trusted brand more crucial now than ever?
Partnering with a trusted brand ensures operators have proven scalability, security, and ongoing innovation. A trusted partner provides the open, extensible foundation needed to integrate emerging tools and maintain a flexible technology ecosystem that evolves alongside customer expectations.
SHANE WALLACE
Product Manager, Managed Services & Solutions
What are the biggest challenges for quick-service restaurants with POS systems today?
Quick-service restaurant’s face major challenges with POS systems, including disconnected systems and outdated hardware—all while trying to
meet changing consumer expectations for fast and accurate order and payment experiences. This includes accommodating payment preferences,
maintaining consistency across selfservice, drive-thru, and counter orders, and integrating personalized deals and loyalty programs.
How are these challenges impacting the industry?
These challenges can cause frustration for both employees and customers. Poor POS experiences lead to incorrect orders, friction at the point of sale, and inconsistent service that drives diners away.
How are operators addressing these challenges e ectively?
When operators use connected technology systems that link POS, kiosks, and kitchen operations, they can decrease errors while increasing e ciency. By seeking a trusted vendor, operators gain reliable hardware along with value-added software and services for holistic support.
What mistakes do operators make with POS systems?
Operators often overestimate outdated hardware or delay upgrades that negatively impact the customer experience and complicate workflows. This can lead to downtime and higher maintenance costs over time, reducing performance and customer satisfaction.
What key tasks are being enhanced through POS systems?
Modern POS systems improve order accuracy, speed up transactions, and enhance customer satisfaction. Connected POS systems also enable data-driven decision-making using artificial intelligence, leading to smarter and more e cient operations.
Why is partnering with a trusted brand more crucial now than ever?
Quick-service restaurants that partner with a trusted brand get reliable and proven hardware and a consultative relationship that includes software, support, and services. As Wallace explains, “Each POS deployment should be a consultative experience that looks at the order and fulfillment process holistically.” In today’s fast-paced environment, seamless integration, uptime, and dependable support are critical.
scalable solutions that can simplify processes while enhancing performance at every level.
How are these challenges impacting the industry?
Operators who resist adopting new technology can quickly lose relevance. With so many ways for guests to interact with a restaurant, they naturally gravitate toward establishments o ering seamless, techenabled experiences.
How are operators addressing these challenges e ectively?
Establishments are getting ahead by collaborating with providers that can address this new wave of
MARK TURANGAN
Director of Marketing
What are the biggest challenges for quick-service restaurants with POS systems today?
Today’s consumers expect speed, convenience, and personalization—they demand a frictionless service tailored to their preferences. The industry must adapt to these expectations or risk falling behind. At the same time, operators face mounting pressure to streamline operations and maximize e ciency, actively seeking smart,
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technology and o er scalable, futureready solutions to benefit both operators and consumers.
What mistakes do operators make with POS systems?
When looking to save money, operators shouldn’t cut costs by purchasing lower-quality POS devices. A POS isn’t just a transaction tool—it’s the nerve center of your business. It drives analytics, manages inventory, tracks labor, and supports customer engagement. Treat it as an investment, not an expense.
What key tasks are being enhanced through POS systems?
Modern POS systems power self-service kiosks, drive-thru tablets, mobile ordering, and loyalty programs. Together, these tools create a seamless experience for both sta and customers, boosting speed, accuracy, and satisfaction.
Why is partnering with a trusted brand more crucial now than ever?
Experience matters. Brands that have weathered industry shifts and led innovation bring credibility, reliability, and proven solutions. Partnering with a trusted provider means gaining a partner who understands your challenges and is committed to your success.
JEN KERN CMO
BEN PRIOR
VP Strategic Partnerships BROOKE
HEINZMANN
Senior Director of Product Marketing
NIKO PAPADEMETRIOU
Co-Founder & SVP, Sales & Business Development
What are the biggest challenges for quick-service restaurants with POS systems today?
Most restaurants operate on fragmented, legacy ordering systems that don’t communicate with each other. Disconnects between in-store and online ordering channels create data silos and operational ine ciencies, making it impossible to get a single, holistic view of the guest.
How are these challenges impacting the industry?
Without accurate and connected real-time data, operators can’t respond quickly to guests’ needs or operational issues. The result: missed sales, slower service, order errors, frustrated sta , wasted resources,
and eroding margins in an already tight environment. Simply put, restaurants that can’t unify their data risk falling behind competitors who operate smarter and faster.
How are operators addressing these challenges e ectively?
Forward-thinking brands are tackling these challenges by adopting open, connected ecosystems. Rather than being locked into a single vendor, they’re building flexible tech stacks that can adapt as guest expectations evolve, letting them plug in the best tools for speed, personalization, and e ciency.
What mistakes do operators make with POS systems?
One mistake is treating the POS as just a box on the counter. It’s really the hub that connects ordering, kitchen, loyalty, payments — the whole operation.
What key tasks are being enhanced through POS systems?
Modern POS systems streamline kitchen routing, integrate loyalty, simplify labor scheduling, and create real-time reporting that reduces decision fatigue for operators.
Why is partnering with a trusted brand more crucial now than ever?
Margins are thinner than ever, so downtime or poor support is more costly. Trusted, long-term part-
ners provide resilience, speed, and the confidence to scale. At Qu, that trust is reinforced by the stability and triple redundancy of our proven edge technology, which keeps restaurants running even when the cloud goes down—ensuring uninterrupted operations and true peace of mind for operators.
MING-TAI HUH
Head of Food and Beverage
What are the biggest challenges for quick-service restaurants with POS systems today?
Modern quick-service restaurant’s face multiple critical challenges: balancing operational costs with customer expectations for value, managing system integration across multiple ordering channels, and maintaining consistent operations with high sta turnover. According to Square’s research, 71 percent of restaurant leaders planned to increase prices in 2025 due to rising food and wage costs. To maintain customer tra c, 43 percent are o ering loyalty program discounts and 38 percent are providing value items and combo deals. These challenges are particularly acute for growing quickservice restaurant’s that must maintain consistency while scaling operations and managing real-time inventory across multiple channels.
How are these challenges impacting the industry?
These operational pressures are fundamentally reshaping how quickservice restaurant’s approach their business strategy. While customers report high satisfaction rates (82 percent for dine-in and 72 percent for delivery), nearly half expect restaurants to maintain or expand their value o erings in 2025. This creates a complex balancing act for operators who must protect margins while meeting expectations for discounts and value.
How are operators addressing these challenges e ectively?
Restaurant leaders are embracing a dual strategy of technology adoption and value-driven solutions. Eighty-five percent plan to invest in technology improvements in 2025, and more than 75 percent believe AI or automation will improve key operational tasks. This technology push aligns with consumer sentiment, as 74 percent of customers support automation to fill critical gaps during sta ng shortages.
What mistakes do operators make with POS systems?
The most frequent mistakes include choosing systems based solely on price, underinvesting in sta training, and failing to plan for future growth. Many also use multiple discon-
nected systems, creating unnecessary complexity. Square’s research indicates that 60 percent of quick-service restaurant’s aren’t utilizing their POS system’s full feature set due to inadequate training and implementation.
Why is partnering with a trusted brand more crucial now than ever?
Eighty-five percent of restaurant leaders recognize the need to invest in technology to improve operations. As restaurants navigate rising costs while maintaining customer satisfaction, choosing the right technology partner is essential to improving operational eciency and the customer experience.
SHARON VANOY-FRISBY
Sr. Product Marketing Manager
What are the biggest challenges for quick-service restaurants with POS systems today?
For many quick-service restaurant’s, investing in a POS system that truly supports their business goals is the biggest challenge. No operator wants to
Customer expectations are also evolving quickly—guests want faster transactions, flexible payment options, and personalized loyalty experiences. A modular POS platform, meaning it can be configured, customized, and scaled, helps restaurants test and adapt features without replacing the entire system.
How are these challenges impacting the industry?
When POS systems aren’t aligned with operational needs, it shows immediately in longer training times, slower service, and reduced satisfaction. In a high-turnover environment, complicated systems slow onboarding and frustrate sta . Inability to adapt also a ects revenue. Restaurants that can’t easily introduce mobile ordering, loyalty, or upselling prompts risk losing sales. Modularity allows operators to add or adjust components as needed while keeping operations running smoothly.
driven analytics can happen incrementally, reducing downtime and disruptions. User-friendly modules also shorten training time, helping sta focus on customers while analytics tools optimize scheduling and predict peak demand.
What mistakes do operators make with POS systems?
A common mistake is choosing a system for its features rather than its fit. Some invest in sleek technology not built for quick-service restaurant’s wear and tear or lock into rigid systems that can’t adapt. Prioritizing modular, retail-hardened POS platforms allows operators to adopt specific components, test before rollout, and upgrade as their business grows.
Why is partnering with a trusted brand more crucial now than ever?
commit to a long-term solution only to discover it doesn’t deliver the expected results. A system that works for a large chain may not be right for a regional operator that needs flexibility across different formats.
How are operators addressing these challenges e ectively?
Many operators are adopting modular POS solutions that let them evolve without starting over each time a new feature or channel is introduced. Adding mobile payments, loyalty, or AI-
With so many options available, partnering with a trusted brand needs to provide assurance along with technology. Reliable partners deliver durable, retail-hardened hardware, long-term support, and flexibility to scale. This ensures the POS platform is right for today and can grow with operators into the future without costly disruptions.
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Allison Lauenstein
President FAT BRANDS’ QUICK-SERVICE DIVISION
What do most people not know about you?
I have always wanted to own my own restaurant, and I was very close to going to culinary school instead of getting my MBA.
What’s your favorite menu item among FAT Brands’ group of restaurants? At Great American Cookies, I love our Sugar Cookie Cakes. At Marble Slab Creamery, you can’t go wrong with any of our homemade ice cream flavors and always free mixins, but if I had to pick one combination, it would be Sweet Cream Ice Cream with gummy bears and chocolate chips. And, finally, for Pretzelmaker, our Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel Bites always hit the spot for me!
What’s your favorite cuisine aside from what FAT Brands offers? My go-to is always sushi—I love the freshness and presentation.
How do you maintain a work-life balance? During the work week, I aim to put breaks on my calendar, so I step away from my computer and phone, which helps me remain clear-headed. I also find that running helps keep me centered.
What’s the best piece of advice that other restaurant executives should hear? Anytime I am asked to take on a new project or role within my company, I say yes!
What are some of your interests outside of work? Outside of work, I love to spend time with family and friends. I also enjoy hiking to get fresh air and spending quality time with my husband, kids, and dog.
Great American Cookies, Marble Slab Creamery, and Pretzelmaker are the ultimate snack brands. For decades, the concepts have stood the test of time, striking the perfect balance between innovation and authenticity. As a result, the brands have thrived and experienced strong growth—Great American Cookies and Marble Slab Creamery through their co-branded model, currently one of the highest growth concepts in the FAT Brands portfolio in terms of openings, and Pretzelmaker, via impactful non-traditional growth partnerships.
My career has always been sweeter when working on these three concepts. I joined Global Franchise Group in 2012 as Executive Vice President, overseeing Brand Operations and Marketing for Marble Slab Creamery and Pretzelmaker. After some time, I transitioned into the Chief Innovation Officer role, leading innovation across the portfolio, consisting of Round Table Pizza, Great American Cookies, Marble Slab Creamery, Pretzelmaker, and Hot Dog on a
Stick. Years later, in an interesting twist, I decided to move into teaching, and became a Marketing Professor.
While certainly a shift from my typical dayto-day, teaching for three years offered a fresh perspective on learning, one that continues to influence how I lead to this day.
In 2023, an irresistible opportunity to reunite with these brands presented itself, and I joined FAT Brands, which acquired Global Franchise Group in 2021, serving as the President of Great American Cookies, Marble Slab Creamery, and Pretzelmaker.
I strongly believe in the power of relationships—and that’s exactly where I began—ensuring our team was positioned for success and that our franchisees were fully supported.
This strong foundation has fueled substantial operational gains as we focus on excelling in the following areas: the customer’s first impression, guest experience, product quality, and overall operational excellence.
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