Customer Interview: Burgerville

What does the IT Director of iconic Pacific Northwest restaurant chain Burgerville have to say about Crunchtime?

Dustin Johnston, Director of ISTS at Burgerville, serves as both technology leader and Crunchtime System Administrator. He was part of the original team that implemented Crunchtime across the company’s 42 locations and continues to oversee the system today.

We spoke with Dustin about the impact Crunchtime has had across inventory management, labor scheduling, reporting, and supply chain visibility.

Standardizing Inventory for Greater Accountability

Prior to Crunchtime, Burgerville faced significant challenges with inventory consistency. Each location maintained its own version of recipes, making food cost accuracy difficult to measure.

As Dustin explains:

“The system that we had before, particularly for inventory, was really antiquated. We had 42 different locations and we had 42 different sets of recipes.”

This lack of standardization created uncertainty around performance metrics.

“We had a lot of managers that were in the mindset of, ‘Well, if my food cost is bad... it's probably because the recipes are wrong.’ The fact was that most of the time they were right!”

With Crunchtime, Burgerville consolidated recipes into a single, controlled system.

“Consolidating and having one version of the recipe and knowing there's no way that it's wrong. That's really freed us up a lot to hold people accountable to numbers.”

Now, when updates are required, changes are made once and automatically applied across all locations.

“We no longer have to cross our fingers that it gets done right at every location.”

The result: improved accuracy, greater accountability, and stronger operational consistency.

Turning Data into Actionable Insight

For Dustin, one of Crunchtime’s greatest strengths is centralized data visibility.

“To me, the biggest thing that Crunchtime does is consolidate all our data and make it easier to visualize and make decisions.”

While Burgerville previously had access to large volumes of data, it was difficult to extract actionable insights.

“The problem was that we have so much data that it's hard to find those things that are important and you can take action on.”

With Crunchtime, leadership established clear KPIs and focused reporting.

“We can look at our top 10 inventory variances and say, ‘Hey, I've seen this one on here four weeks in a row. We need to change something about that!’”

The platform also improves supply chain visibility.

“If somebody calls me up and says our shake mix inventory numbers are really off... now I can look in Crunchtime and I can determine if it’s an issue with other locations too.”

“The point is, it’s immediately apparent with Crunchtime, and that never used to be the case.”

A Collaborative Partnership

Beyond the software itself, Dustin emphasizes the strength of the partnership.

“As a partner, Crunchtime has been amazing.”

He values both responsiveness and product evolution.

“There's always things changing, which I love.”

“Because Crunchtime is changing so much, I always know, even if a certain enhancement is not the thing that I want right now, my enhancement will be on the roadmap and made available in a future release.”

A Clear and Structured Implementation

Burgerville’s rollout process was guided by clear communication and hands-on support.

“The people that we worked with for implementation were great.”

“The plan was always very clear when we were implementing Crunchtime.”

Empowering Restaurant Teams

At the store level, one of the most impactful tools has been the mobile Counter Inventory app.

“Now our team members can walk around and take shelf-to-sheet counts without pen and paper and writing everything down and then reentering it into the BOH.”

“Now, they can just enter it once in the app.”

For Dustin, the goal is simple:

“To me, my job is to make their job easy.”

“The more stuff that I can automate, the more mundane stuff that I can get out of their hands and just take care of, the more they can focus on serving guests and employees.”

“Crunchtime has been big on that. It's done a lot.”

Learn More

Ready to see how your multi-unit restaurant operation can benefit from Crunchtime’s inventory, labor, and reporting solutions? Request a demonstration today.