Workstream, 521 7th Street, San Francisco, CA (2026)

06/17/2026

We want to introduce you to two people who keep the wheels turning. Literally.

Laura Schwebach and Chau Vu are the HR team behind Lubricar, a growing automotive services group with nearly 42 locations across New Mexico. Their workforce is mostly young, first-time workers. In a single month, they handle more than 500 applications and hire about 45 of them.

Chau manages hiring and onboarding through Workstream every day. Because Lubricar's managers are on the floor, not at a desk, mobile access makes all the difference.

Laura brings 28 years of HR experience to the table. When Lubricar joined the beta for Workstream's AI interview feature, she had one thing to say:

"You don't even know you're talking to AI. That's the wonderful thing of it."

What stands out about Laura and Chau: they don't just use the tools. They help shape them. They test new features, share real feedback, and show up every month asking how things can be better.

With plans to expand and two more locations opening soon, the pipeline isn't slowing down and neither are they. They’re helping build something big, and we're proud to be growing with them.

Thank you, Laura and Chau!

06/15/2026

"They deserve benefits and they deserve a great experience from the start of their career to the end of their career, and they deserve the opportunity at career longevity."

Helen Quinones built her career at H&M, Adidas, and a food tech startup before Sailormen's CEO reached out while she was on maternity leave. Her honest reaction: "I don't even eat fast food."

But she saw an industry where the people doing the work rarely had access to real HR support. "How can I be a beacon of change in a community that doesn't normally have access to these resources?" That question is what brought her in.

Helen leads HR for Interfoods, the back-office operator behind Sailormen, one of the largest Popeyes franchisees in the country with 120 locations in Florida and Georgia. She visits restaurants every quarter to hear directly from her team, building programs around what she actually finds there.

She gives the in-restaurant team full ownership of the hiring process through Workstream, because the people closest to the restaurants know who belongs in them.

Helen, thank you for choosing the industry most people pass over, and for building something in it worth staying for.

06/12/2026

"I have a lot of empathy for the day-to-day. I've been there. I know exactly how you're feeling."

Today, Nick Venzon co-owns 16 Jimmy John’s locations with his brother and a longtime mentor, but the path there wasn't a straight line. There was a band, a year of college, late nights as a cook, and years of working every station before ever thinking about ownership. Nick says that's exactly what prepared him.

"I did the hardest part first,” he says. “When it comes to working and operating the store, it doesn't matter how much money you have. You need to be able to understand what customers need, what the staff needs, how to manage the people, how to manage the rushes, and everything that goes along with running a restaurant.”

His days look a little different now: morning store check-ins, construction project management, area manager support, and yes, occasionally still making sandwiches. But the heart of it hasn't changed. Workstream has been part of the process since 2020.

Some of his most rewarding moments come from former employees reaching out years later to say it was their favorite job. That doesn’t happen without the right culture.

Congrats to Nick and the team on everything ahead. We're rooting for you!

06/10/2026

"I joke that I was born inside of a Sonic. Sonic's been my first and only job."

For Jared Ervin, it's barely a joke. His grandparents were partners with Sonic's founder. His parents met at a Sonic in high school. And Jared himself started as an hourly employee at 15, became a shift manager at 17, and left college when his dad called and said it was time.

He asked if he could take his finals first. His dad said yes. He took them, then jumped in as a general manager. That was 17 years ago.

Today Jared co-owns 19 Sonic locations across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, where he also serves as president of the DFW co-op. But what he's most proud of isn't the growth. It's the people. A cook he worked alongside in high school is still with the company. An area supervisor he mentored recently became a franchisee himself.

Workstream has been part of the back office since they made the move away from paper onboarding. Jared says it was a meaningful step forward in how they run their operation.

Four generations deep, the Ervin family is still building.

06/08/2026

The show starts at the table. The work starts long before.

The magic of the Kobe Japanese Steakhouse teppanyaki experience, where guests gather across 13 Central Florida locations to celebrate milestones with "fun and flare”, begins long before the first flame ignites. It starts with finding the right people.

Getting the right people on that floor starts with Gabriela Serna, Kobe’s HR Recruitment Coordinator.

Gabriela oversees hiring for all 13 locations and 800+ employees. Dealing with dozens of applications a day for high-volume roles like host and busser. She uses Workstream to screen, filter, and schedule interviews, freeing up managers to be out on the floor.

"Workstream’s ability to use both email and text messaging is a game-changer, especially when connecting with the current generation of candidates."

The talent Gabriela hires is carefully selected to embody the company’s core values and uphold the founder-built legacy of Kobe Steakhouse.

Honesty, integrity, hard work, and a culture that is carried forward at every location. That’s the work that goes on behind the show.

06/05/2026

"I woke up 15 years later and here I am."

Jordan Avants took what he called a gap year at 19 to work at one of his family's Zaxby's restaurants in Asheville, North Carolina. Cook, then cashier. He loved the people. He loved the pace. Seven years later, he was a district manager running markets across Tennessee and Georgia. When Avants Management Group needed to bring HR in-house, someone on the leadership team suggested it might be a good fit. Eight years later, he's still in that seat.

He oversees HR for more than 1,300 team members across 31 locations in six states, with one other person on his team.

"I truly believe that our team members on the store level have a voice. If they reach out to me, I promise you I feel like a voice for that team member."

Jordan is part of the ownership family, but most team members who call him don't know that. They just know him as the HR rep who picks up and follows through.

Workstream helps Jordan hold that commitment at scale, simplifying onboarding and surfacing the recruiting data that shows what's working across 31 locations.

Jordan, thanks for taking that gap year.

06/03/2026

"Figure out what you love and figure out who you want to help and maybe you could find something where both of those things are happening at the same time."

A colleague said that to Brian Charyn the morning of this interview. By the time the call ended, he realized it described his entire career.

He played in bands since he was 16, worked kitchens for years, and somewhere along the way noticed that restaurants and performing weren't so different. "They all paid to get in, and they need you on stage to give them something they expected. That's no different than a restaurant."

Today he's Executive Director of Operations at Sheridan Investments, 18 Five Guys locations across New Jersey and Florida. His answer to "who do you want to help" is the same as it's always been: crew members who never had the opportunity to earn bonuses. People building financial stability for the first time.

"You can teach any willing person just about any job in the restaurant business. The difficult part is: are they showing up? And did you do the right thing to make them want to?"

Brian, thank you for building something that answers both questions.

06/01/2026

"Every couple of years, we have to create a new award. Because someone exceeds the last benchmark."

Colin Gilmartin has been the Operations Director at Magnum Foods since 1999. Thirty-two Little Caesars locations across Oklahoma. Six hundred and fifty employees, many on the team for a decade or more. At this year's manager convention, Colin received his 30-year plaque. One of his managers took home a 35-year award.

The retention didn't happen on its own. He runs quarterly meetings, a Christmas party, and an annual convention because the people around him are the business. "I want them to want to come to work. I don't want this to just be a job to them." He sums it up another way: "Leadership begins with humility."

Magnum Foods runs 32 locations across Oklahoma with 650 employees. Most of Colin's senior staff have been with him for a decade or more. His people keep outlasting the awards.

"It's less about food than it is about people. Managing people and developing leadership."

When the recruiting platform they were using lost its footing during COVID, Colin found Workstream at the Little Caesars franchise conference in Las Vegas. The platform gave him the volume he needed to keep hiring, and Workstream now runs across all 32 locations.

Colin, congratulations on 30 years at Magnum Foods. The awards will keep coming.

05/28/2026

"We are here to treat people with respect and dignity."

Marco Acevedo has carried that belief across a career that started on the floor of a restaurant in Costa Rica.

Over the next 35 years, he worked his way to regional director at McDonald's, supporting operations across the United States and dozens of countries worldwide.

Then a Bojangles franchisee offered him the chance to own three locations himself. He and his wife Mayra put a lot of thought into it, talked it through, and said yes. They sold their house in Texas, moved to Georgia, and took over three locations that were struggling and needed everything.

"We started to transform the locations," Marco said. "Hiring people, training people. Working."

Marco built MM Hospitality Group on the right foundation from the start. Workstream became part of that early on.

Today, the restaurants are thriving. Three locations that were struggling when Marco arrived, turned around by the people he put at the center of everything.

Congratulations, Marco and Mayra. We're grateful to be part of this journey.

05/26/2026

"The worst answer is 'we've always done it like that.'"

A Navy skipper told Trey Wiggins that. He brought it home.

Trey Wiggins spent nearly 20 years in the Navy before returning to Georgia in 2020. Naval Academy. Six years teaching flight school. Executive officer of a training school in New Orleans. He came back to run the family restaurant business his grandfather started in 1978. He is now COO of Rocket Enterprises, overseeing nine Hardee's, nine Huddle Houses, two Sleep Inns, and a Holiday Inn Express, with a third Sleep Inn under construction.

He runs the same philosophy across all of them. Pay your people well. Stay in the stores. Keep asking if there's a better way.

When Hurricane Helene came through and devastated their communities, his team cooked and donated about 4,000 burgers and hot dogs to get food out to everyone who needed it. That's who they are.

Rocket Enterprises runs at 60 to 70% annual turnover, about half the industry average. Trey pays managers well, keeps labor levels higher than most operators would, and considers it a competitive advantage.

When 60-plus applications were sitting unanswered in their previous hiring platform, he switched to Workstream. Candidates enter their availability; interviews schedule automatically.

Trey, thank you for bringing that same discipline home. Your grandfather's business is in good hands.

Workstream

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