Agenda

All attendees, sponsors and speakers must check in at the registration desk and pick up a name badge. Please wear your badge at all times during the Summit.

Join us at the start of the Summit for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and a variety of games, including Blackjack, Roulette, Texas Hold'em and Craps, along with silent and live auctions with all funds raised going to CORE.

CORE: CHILDREN OF RESTAURANT EMPLOYEES
CORE is a national non-profit dedicated to serving food and beverage operations employees with children to provide financial relief when either the employee or their child faces a health crisis, injury, death, or natural disaster. CORE grants in all 50 states and in Puerto Rico. Each grant is based on need and may range from $500 to $4,000.

Breakfast is open to all Summit participants. Be sure to check in at the registration desk and pick up your name badge if you haven’t already.

In this session, you will hear three short, thought-provoking talks that will leave you challenged and inspired.

1. 5 Pain Points and 4 Wins: Driving a Guestcentric Experience With Your Partners| Josh Halpern
2. Legit. Data. Drives. Decisions – How to ‘Cue up Data To Drive Marketing Decisions | Laura Rea Dickey
3. Untangling Your Techstack: Benefits of a Unified Commerce Platform | Savneet Singh

Vetting, onboarding, training and tracking franchisee progress are imperative to running a successful brand, but they are also expensive and time consuming.

What if there were ways to cut both the costs and the labor associated with managing franchisees? Well, there are several, according to our panelists who will share their go-to strategies.

Labor shortages got you down? Have no fear; AI is here. Learn which types of technology can help operators fill in unemployment gaps left on the front line, at the drive-thru and the back of house.

CJ Ramirez of Dog Haus and Big Chicken’s Sam Stanovich will take on some of the industry’s hot-button topics.

No chairs, no podiums, just food for thought!

As nice as it sounds, we can’t all have the marketing budgets of Chipotle, Subway and McDonald’s, but that doesn’t mean your brand can’t capture customer engagement.

These marketing gurus will share some innovative and inexpensive ways they’ve attracted a lot of attention (and dollars) for their brands.

Franchising is obviously the fastest path to growth, but only if the operations model is solid and the franchisor is willing to work alongside their franchisees throughout the process. The franchisee, of course, must be willing to take advice and criticism.

This session brings together franchisees and franchisors, who have met one another halfway on the road to expansion. They will share the good, the bad and the ugly about their journey to success.

Gone are the days when job seekers would jump through hoops for the chance to work for your brand. With labor shortages affecting nearly every industry, it’s imperative to make the hiring and onboarding processes quick and as easy as possible. This session will explore a variety of ways to use technology to do just that. Experts will discuss everything from making it easier for candidates to post their info and drug testing them to performing background checks and tracking vaccine status and policy and program review and development.

Systems that don’t talk to one another, complicated user systems, outdated hardware and expensive upgrades are just a few of the headaches caused by technology in the restaurant industry. Ditching it all, however, isn’t an option, so what are your options when it comes to tackling your tech issues?

Our techies weigh in!

Third-party delivery companies and ghost kitchens have made it possible for brands of all sizes to offer delivery, but it’s not always profitable. Restaurants getting it right are finding ways to not only capture customer data but also entice them to order from their own channels as opposed to the UberEats and GrubHubs of the world.

Operators hear pitches all the time about products and services that will grow their business, but where’s the proof? We’ve got it right here. This session includes three 15-minute presentations, each featuring one vendor and one operator sharing the how, when and ROI behind recent rollouts.

1. Brixx Pizza & Thanx
2. Checkers & Rally’s Drive-In Restaurants & Schoox
3. Fazoli’s & ConverseNow

Join us at the World-Famous Wildhorse Saloon, an entertainment venue featuring southern smokehouse cuisine,  line dancing, mechanical bull riding, live music, cocktails and true southern hospitality. Cowboy up! 

The Brain Exchange breaks attendees into small groups to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing restaurant operators today. These informal group discussions allow attendees to learn from one another’s mistakes and successes.

Brain Exchange Topics:

• AI & PERSONALIZATION | Sponsored by Skellam AI
• CUTTING EQUIPMENT COSTS | Sponsored by 86 Repairs 
• DATA & FRANCHISEE MARKETING | Sponsored by Vya
• EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE | Sponsored by UKG
• FUTURE OF PAYMENTS AND GUEST EXPERIENCE | Sponsored by Paerpay
• HIRING STRATEGIES | Sponsored by Workstream
• UNIT LEVEL ECONOMICS AND EFFICIENCY | Sponsored by Fran Metrics

Customers are more interested now than ever in treating themselves to innovative beverages while dining out, according to December 2021 research from The National Restaurant Association. The group predicted that flavored sparkling waters, seltzers, spicy-rimmed cocktails and CBD-infused beverages to gain popularity in 2022, but creating such intricate drinks for mass consumption could be quite the challenge for restaurants suffering labor shortages. This session will discuss how to quench the consumer’s thirst despite fewer workers and rising supply costs.

Food costs aren’t getting any cheaper, but does that mean you can pass it on to your customer? And who decides the price: Marketing or Finance? Also, when is it time to raise prices?

Our experts answer all of these questions and more!

Attracting employees and inspiring them to stay can feel a bit like bribing your teenager to spend time with you, but it shouldn’t have to feel as demoralizing. The “employee whisperers” on this panel will share specific ways they have helped employees love their brands. And like any good parent of a teen, they’ll be sure to share lessons learned from mistakes they made along the way.

Customers demanding quicker service, COVID-19 concerns and labor shortages have led to an increase in restaurants using technology to better serve their customers.

Speakers in this session will share what went into their decisions to offer self-service solutions and what to look for in a partner as well as customer reaction and the effect on the bottom line.

Whether you are a marketer or partner with marketers, you are not going to want to miss out on this Lunch & Learn!

Come enjoy a local menu staple - Nashville Hot Chicken - while we share the “secret sauce” for franchise marketing success. We’ll provide spicy hot tips to help you drive more clicks online and “clucks” or conversions for your brand’s locations.

Through our scenario based presentation, we’ll walk in the shoes of three personas - Dan a hybrid consumer, Molly a MVP corporate marketer, and Fiona a rockstar franchise owner - and learn how corporate marketers like Molly can:

• Prove the value of marketing to franchisees
• Market locally at scale
• Empower franchise owners to create on-brand local campaigns
• Turn digital first consumers into raving fans

Franchising is all about growing a brand’s presence, but while some brands thrive at capturing the attention of successful multi-unit operators, others fall flat. But why? What is missing from those brands’ operations model that just can’t seem to get it right? This panel of franchisors and franchisees will tell you.

This panel, packed with CEOs and franchisors, will talk about the latest issues of the day and what it takes to succeed in franchising.

This session will definitely be worth staying until the end of the Summit.