At each Ops Summit, Crunchtime’s Ops Excellence Awards recognize the restaurants and hospitality brands raising the bar for operational performance. While we’ve already highlighted our incredible finalists and our 2026 winner, the caliber of submissions this year was so high that we couldn't stop there.
Before diving into their stories, we want to recognize our Honorable Mentions: Dave’s Hot Chicken, Fazoli’s, Habit Burger, Philz Coffee, and Pressed Juicery. Thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully submit your applications, and more importantly, for your relentless commitment to operational excellence every single day.
Dave’s Hot Chicken
For Dave’s Hot Chicken, keeping up with rapid growth meant focusing on micro-level execution. "We strive for operational excellence with every order. It means we make every order accurately, efficiently, and with food quality in mind, while maintaining cleanliness and hospitality," shared Leon Davoyan, Chief Technology Officer at Dave’s Hot Chicken.
The brand’s previous technology stack was creating operational bottlenecks in the kitchen, slowing down their ability to adapt. "Before Crunchtime Kitchen, the old system we used at Dave's Hot Chicken required technical staff to manually create reroutes for each store," Leon explained. "Now, with activity levels in Crunchtime's KDS, our teams change routing profiles with the touch of a button."
Empowering the teams with flexible tools and visual cues for commonly missed items with Crunchtime Kitchen has translated directly to guest satisfaction. "Crunchtime Kitchen drives an 8.75% improvement in order accuracy, contributing to a 2.1% increase in guest sentiment scores," Leon proudly shared.
Fazoli’s
For Fazoli’s, operational excellence isn’t viewed as an abstract goal; it is a daily discipline. "Operational excellence shows up in the small things we do right throughout the day. It’s not about perfection — it’s about discipline, accountability, and pride in the experience we provide," shared Kevin Karnes, Senior Director of Training at Fazoli’s.
Before implementing Crunchtime Labor and Inventory, the brand struggled to pinpoint exact areas for improvement. "Before Crunchtime, we lacked visibility into underperforming areas," Kevin explained. "Now, the system gives us clear insights into our opportunities, allowing us to drive better cost control."
By achieving this day-to-day clarity, Fazoli’s has driven impressive measurable outcomes. "At Fazoli’s, Crunchtime solutions help us significantly improve labor cost management and reduce our food cost by 1.5%," Kevin noted, proving that doing the small things right yields big financial results.
Habit Burger
At Habit Burger, operational excellence is directly tied to the customer guarantee. "At Habit Burger, operational excellence means delivering on our brand promise every single day: serving fresh, high-quality food exactly as the guest orders it, with speed, accuracy, and hospitality," said Crystal Canavan, Senior Director of Technology Innovation at Habit Burger.
To execute this consistently, especially during drive-thru and delivery peaks, the brand needed to streamline kitchen operations and eliminate the "stress of manual communication and order double-checks."
By implementing Crunchtime Kitchen, Habit Burger brought smart automation to their cook-to-order model. "With Crunchtime, Habit Burger continuously improves order accuracy and speed of service, especially during high-volume, drive-thru periods," Crystal shared. But the benefits extend beyond hard metrics. "Beyond stronger operational metrics, Crunchtime boosts team morale and confidence at Habit Burger," Crystal added. "The technology empowers our teams and supports them by making their jobs easier."
Philz Coffee
For Philz Coffee, delivering a great guest experience comes down to consistency. "At Philz Coffee, we believe that operational excellence means doing the right things the right way, every day," said John Heckerman, Senior Manager of Store Systems at Philz Coffee.
However, prior to Crunchtime, the brand was operating with minimal visibility, relying on guesswork for ordering and time-consuming manual data entry for accounting. By rolling out Crunchtime Inventory and Labor across Operations, Finance, and HR, they created a single, auditable data pipeline.
"Since moving to Crunchtime Inventory at Philz Coffee, we’ve gone from minimal visibility to consistent tracking of actual-versus-theoretical inventory and reliable on-hand levels, reducing waste, stockouts, and overbuying while speeding up counts and ordering," John explained. This clarity also extended to their workforce and administrative tasks. "Incorporating inventory purchases and invoicing with Crunchtime has increased the speed at which we are able to close the books on a period, the majority of which was previously manual data entry," John noted.
Pressed Juicery
For Pressed Juicery, operational excellence means creating a consistent, scalable operating model that empowers teams to execute with confidence while supporting long-term growth. "Pressed Juicery's journey reflects a strategic, phased transformation of operations. Crunchtime Ops Execution serves as our operational backbone, connecting daily execution with long-term performance and enabling proactive store leadership," shared Taylor Francis, Retail Operations Manager at Pressed Juicery.
By implementing Crunchtime Inventory and Ops Execution, Pressed Juicery replaced manual inventory processes with a centralized, real-time workflow while giving leadership the visibility needed to proactively support stores. "With Crunchtime Ops Execution, Pressed Juicery stores reached close to 90% compliance within the first year, reflecting a significant shift toward consistent execution," Taylor noted.
Together, the solutions have created a scalable operational ecosystem. "Together, Crunchtime Inventory and Ops Execution deliver clear ROI in labor efficiency, product loss prevention, accuracy, and cross-functional alignment. Both systems create a comprehensive operational ecosystem that enhances how teams work, communicate, and support one another daily," Taylor added.
A Foundation for the Future
These five organizations prove that when you combine dedicated teams with the right operational tools, the results are transformative. Whether it's expanding mobile pickup lanes, speeding up product launches, or simply closing the books faster at the end of a period, Dave's Hot Chicken, Fazoli’s, Habit Burger, Philz Coffee, and Pressed Juicery are locking in strong foundations for their innovation journeys.
Thank you again to our Honorable Mentions for sharing your stories. We are incredibly proud to partner with you and can't wait to see how you continue to raise the bar for operational excellence in the years to come!
Want to read more from our 2026 finalists? Check out our other spotlight stories:
