Renfro Foods is a privately owned, award-winning food producer of salsas, sauces and relishes, including 30 Mrs. Renfro’s products, located in Fort Worth, Texas. Founded in 1940, Renfro Foods is owned and managed by the second and third generations of the Renfro family. Its products are sold in the United States, the Caribbean, Canada and the U.K.As president of Renfro Foods, Doug works closely with his cousins Becky and James to run the company. In particular, Doug focuses on research and...

Burney Jennings is the CEO and president of Biscuitville. Burney took over the leadership reins from his father and founder of Biscuitville Maurice Jennings in 1996. Burney’s bold leadership, vision and keen sense of knowing what customers want has contributed to the company’s growth and success. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, Biscuitville Fresh Southern is a family-owned company serving authentic Southern food made fresh daily from locally sourced ingredients. Known as the Home...

Ben started Tocabe with his friend and business partner Matthew Chandra. Opened in 2008, Tocabe is one of the only restaurants in Denver specializing in Native and Indigenous cuisine and one of only a handful in the United States. Ben is a tribal member of the Osage Nation of northeast Oklahoma. Ben also created Seed To Soul, which creates prepared authentic Native American meals for people in need in Native American communities. In Ben’s words, Seed to Soul helps to create and develop a...

Roboburger is billed as the “World’s First Burger Chef In a Vending Format.” RoboBurger condenses the average kitchen by 99% into just 12 square feet, including refrigeration, heating, ventilation, prep line and cleaning. Burgers are automatically grilled and assembled in under 4 minutes. Roboburger RoboBurger was invented by Audley Wilson, a data scientist; Dan Braido, a Rutgers PhD grad; and Andy Siegel, a serial entrepreneur. Audley and his team have been working on Roboburger for about...

Craig is the founder of Doc B’s Restaurant & Bar. The restaurant is named after Craig’s late father, “Doctor B,” Doc B’s was first opened in Chicago in September 2013 and is a fresh, casual dining concept. Doc B’s has 10 locations in Chicago, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, and Coral Gables, FL; Austin, Dallas, and Forth Worth, TX. Craig was inspired to follow a career in the restaurant industry after meeting Morton’s Steakhouse legend Allen Bernstein at a Knicks game. Craig and his dad talked to...

Embassy Ingredients combines creativity and science to provide its customers with the very best innovative flavors and bakery ingredients available. Embassy Ingredients has an on-site flavor lab and full bakery test kitchen staffed with certified flavorists, food scientists and bakery specialists.They formulate, test and manufacture a wide range of flavors and bakery ingredients ensuring that taste, quality and performance are built into every product.Natural ingredients and colors have taken...

Livit Design is the leading design firm specialized in creating unique guest experiences in the Food & Beverage and all areas of Hospitality, Fitness and Retail sectors. For over 20 years, Livit has worked as strategic advisors to investors and global brands on design, operations, guest journey and guest experience with the focus on improving efficiency, profitability and increasing growth potential.Livit Design bills itself as “a perfect mix of foodies, architects, interior designers,...

Fransmart is a global leader in franchise development. For over 20 years, they’ve excelled at turning emerging concepts into national and global brands. Led by company founder Dan Rowe, Fransmart is known throughout the franchising community for spotting and growing brands like Five Guys Burgers & Fries and Qdoba Mexican Grill, from single unit businesses to the powerhouse chains they are today. Fransmart has built restaurants in all of the top 150 media markets in North...

Through his company, HospiVation, Jason coaches restaurant executives how to make their goals real in the restaurant and teaches restaurant managers how to transform their patterns of management to improve their hospitality leadership.HospiVation helps restaurants through coaching, speeches, workshops and books. They try to meet managers where they are and dive deep in the restaurant’s team to help them build better teams. Jason has wanted to work in the restaurant industry since a very young...

Thanx is a leading loyalty and guest engagement platform for restaurants. The company, founded by Zach Goldstein in 2011, helps businesses embrace digital purchasing, capture greater customer data, and take action on that information to personalize guest engagement.Thanx builds digital UX – mobile apps and web ordering experience – that help restaurants differentiate themselves. Thanx also offers dynamic self-service loyalty programs that help restaurants break free from cookie cutter loyalty...

Duck Donuts is an American doughnut shop chain based in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Duck Donuts was founded in 2006 in Duck, North Carolina, by Russ DiGilio and Robin Griffith, and has since expanded to over 100 locations in the United States. Duck Donuts is known for its made-to-order donuts in a variety of unique flavors. It recently opened a location in Thailand. Managing growth is something that Duck Donuts (and many franchises) pays careful attention to. The training program for...

Broaster Company is an American foodservice equipment manufacturer headquartered in Beloit, Wisconsin. The company is the leader in providing high quality pressure fryers and branded food service programs for over 65 years. “Broasting” is a unique cooking method developed in 1954 when Broaster’s inventor and founder L.A.M. Phalen combined the principles of a pressure cooker and a deep fryer into one commercial cooking appliance. The results – in quality, flavor and cooking speed – were...

TEAM Schostak Family Restaurants is based in Livonia, Michigan and has a portfolio of 150 casual dining, family dining, fast casual, and quick service restaurants throughout Michigan, TEAM Schostak Family Restaurants (TSFR) include Applebee’s, Olga’s Kitchen, Olga’s Fresh Grille, MOD Pizza and Wendy’s.Mark is the third generation of a four-generation family business. The company places a lot of emphasis on its road map, which includes its core purpose, its vision (to lead the way), its...

The International Food & Beverage Technology Association (IFBTA) is a nonprofit trade association that promotes the use of technology within the global food and beverage industries with a specific focus on education, networking, certification, standards, research, and events, while aligning with other industry associations and groups in support of their technology related initiatives.Rob started his career as a restaurant manager for Bob’s Big Boy and Marriott Hotels. In those roles, he...

GiftAMeal is an app that allows diners to take a photo of their order from a partner restaurant. For each photo taken, GiftAMeal donates to a local food bank to provide a meal to a family in need. Each month, more than 40,000 meals are provided through more than 100 local food banks in 37 states via GiftAMeal. In the last year, GiftAMeal has grown from 200 to almost 1,000 partner restaurants. Andrew fell in love with the profits-with-a-purpose business model as a student at Washington...

opsi is a daily workflow app built to progress the way modern operators manage their restaurant. With robust recipe management, true recipe costing, task and food prep lists, and product guides, opsi is suited for any operation looking to maximize efficiencies within their kitchen team, and cut down on employee training times. James has 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry and a strong vision for technology’s role in it. His time in the kitchen has taken him from New Jersey to...

Home Run Inn is a family owned & operated establishment with nine restaurants throughout the Chicago area. They’ve been making pizza since 1947 and began creating and selling frozen pizzas for grocery store distribution nationwide in the 1960s. Dan is the 4th generation leader of Home Run Inn Pizza. He started in the family business at the age of 13 as a busboy. Home Run Inn’s signature square-sliced pizzas originated in the 1940s when the tavern would slice the pizza into small...

Joseph is the former host of Forktales and is currently working as the VP of Digital Experience for 3 Owl. He’s also the author of “Stop Blasting My Mama” (a book about effective email marketing) and “The Bullhearted Brand: Building Bullish Restaurant Brands That Charge Ahead of the Herd.” Joseph’s book, “Stop Blasting My Mama,” tackles the topic of email marketing and how modern marketing is overrun with overly aggressive terms – like blast and campaign – to describe what should be a...

Caroline serves as Chief Operating Officer of Tupelo Honey and is a champion of high-growth, employee-centric workplaces. She joined the company as part of the initial senior leadership team in 2013. In Caroline’s nine-year tenure, she has been responsible for Tupelo Honey’s workforce expansion efforts, founding and leading its human resources and training teams and growing the brand from two locations and less than 100 employees to 22 locations and more than 15,000 employees. Tupelo...

JUICER is bringing dynamic pricing to the restaurant industry. Together with their customers who operate more than 4,000 restaurants across the globe, JUICER is applying machine learning algorithms to help restaurants optimize their digital menu pricing. Carl is also the co-author of “Delivering the Digital Restaurant,” a book that explores the world of off premise food and the massive disruption facing American restaurants through first-hand accounts of restaurateurs, food industry...

The first Dog Haus opened in Pasadena, California in 2010. Since then, Dog Haus has expanded to include 91 locations throughout southern California. Dog Haus has garnered critical acclaim and national attention for its signature all beef Haus Dogs and handcrafted proprietary Haus Sausages, as well as its 100% genetically tested, humanely raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free Black Angus beef. Many start-up restaurants rely on a celebrity name to drive consumer interest, which calls into...

Troy was born in Hawaii. His family goes back five generations in Hawaii and was among some of the first missionaries to arrive on the islands. He started as a 14-year-old dishwasher in Maui and eventually worked his way up to a sous chef working with his mentor, Chef Roy Yamaguchi. Hawaiian culture emphasizes “ohana” which means family. Troy has worked hard to embrace that same family atmosphere in his restaurants. It’s difficult to maintain a restaurant culture as a restaurant grows....

Chowly is a cloud-based solution that helps restaurants of all sizes integrate third-party online ordering systems into point-of-sale (POS) systems to manage orders, payments, billing, and more.The end result is a technology that saves restaurants time and money. Earlier this year, Chowly launched its Restaurant Control Center, which serves as a centralized hub for integrations and empowers restaurants with consolidated data and business insights. Sterling found that a lot of online...

David is a performance excellence coach focused on teaching, consulting and executive coaching for small to medium sized businesses, including many restaurants. David spent six years as a business/excellence coach for Pal’s Excellence Institute. Pal’s – or Pal’s Suddenly Service – is a drive-through only 31-location restaurant chain located in northeast Tennessee and southwestern Virginia. The restaurant is known for its speed, hospitality, cleanliness and people. Pal’s relies heavily on...