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

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.

05/25/2026

Compliance doesn't just cost you fines. It costs you people.

When break tracking slips, onboarding is messy, or documentation delays paychecks, your employees won't file complaints. They'll just walk out the door and leave. Then you'll be paying to rehire and retrain all over again. The real damage isn't the penalty. It's the turnover nobody traces back to the root cause.

Workstream automates meal breaks, onboarding, document storage, and labor law updates so compliance stops being a guessing game.

Learn more at workstream.us

05/22/2026

Your slowest night of the week is just sitting there waiting to be turned into something. Instead of cutting hours from staff, try this strategy: bring in someone local people care about. Maybe that's a neighborhood chef, a community figure, or someone with a following in your area.

Customers just need one good reason to show up on a night they normally wouldn't - and that can turn a dead Tuesday into standing room only.

See more restaurant tips and strategies here: https://www.youtube.com/

05/21/2026

"You can't manage restaurants from a computer. You can't manage restaurants from a camera. And you can't manage restaurants from a phone call."

Lucy Laton lives that philosophy every week. As Franchisee and COO of VDM Management, she spends four to five days in her 46 Little Caesars locations, building the kind of culture that turns a team member into an area supervisor running seven restaurants.

Lucy spent nearly three decades in the industry before a chance introduction brought her to Little Caesars in 2021, when VDM had 24 locations. Now they have 46.

"It's the people business. We just happen to sell pizza."

Workstream is how VDM moves fast on the right people. When a newly acquired store in Marietta, Ohio went from weeks without applications to three to five a day, the result was exactly what Lucy expects: the ability to be selective, not just reactive.

Lucy, thank you for showing up shoulder-to-shoulder every single week.

05/21/2026

Ever heard of local content creators? They're your biggest growth channel this 2026.

Those people filming food at restaurants in your city aren't just for clout. They have the audience you're trying to reach - and one partnership with a creator who genuinely loves your food can do more than months of paid ads.

See more restaurant tips and strategies here: https://www.youtube.com/

05/19/2026

"We always go back and say, what's the right thing to do?"

Suzy Bronzati started on the restaurant floor. She's spent 30 years since leading HR at Winger Bros. Management, and that's still the question her team comes back to.

Wingers operates in small communities across the Mountain West. The company's core idea: cultivating vibrant community alehouses. That means actively encouraging locations to join the local chamber of commerce, show up at events, and get embedded in the towns they serve.

When franchisees lean into that, it shows. One location nearly doubled sales after getting genuinely connected to the community and is now opening a second store. In Pocatello, employees who've moved on still come back to work weekends because the culture is worth returning to.

When Wingers moved to Workstream five years ago, managers could run hiring from their phones instead of going back to a desk. Across 21 locations, that freed them to be where it mattered most.

Suzy, thank you for 30 years of building a company that earns its place in the communities it calls home.

Workstream

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