The restaurant industry has, in short order, progressed from a technology laggard to a well of shiny objects. It wouldn’t have been difficult for 90-year-old Krystal to latch onto one buzzy solution, whatever that might be, from AI to self-service, implement it throughout the system, and talk about revitalization through a lens of “big changes.” But Amanda Hyde wanted to listen first.

Hyde had spent nine years with Logan’s Roadhouse and parent company SPB Hospitality (an entity that formed in 2020) when Krystal merged with the group in April 2023. Both were owned by Fortress Investment Group, which purchased each out of bankruptcy during COVID’s opening year. The move gave SPB its first QSR to go along with full-service brands like Logan’s, Old Chicago, J. Alexander’s, Stoney River, and more. While under SPB, Krystal remained independently run but with the benefit of tapping into a shared-services platform that quickly developed a track record in turnarounds (Logan’s being a lead example).

And one of those pools to pull from was talent. Hyde, whose past stops also include Mimi’s Café and Bob Evans, was promoted to SVP of operations at the legacy burger chain last February.

Hyde began to piece together a plan of “Good-Old Fashioned Hospitality” meets modern upgrades. What this meant, unpacked, was Krystal had operational pieces in place that weren’t nonexistent—they were dormant. Partnering with past leadership, Hyde recalls, it was clear Krystal touted “some of the best processes and procedures.” They simply weren’t being used.

MORE: SPB Hospitality’s Playbook on How to Lead a Company Through Growth, Acquisition, and Reinvention

“My first thought was, let’s see what’s out there,” Hyde says. “Let’s see what these long-term Krystal folks think will be the win and how they feel.”

When brands are bought or leadership turned over, you often hear about “listening tours.” A CEO might go visit “180 restaurants in three months,” and so forth. Hyde visited people, she says, more so than locations. What was their vision? Goals? She conducted an operations audit and started to see the picture..

“I really wanted to assess my district managers very quickly,” she says, “the people leading these general managers and restaurants.”

After doing so and streamlining leadership, and making sure Krystal had the right people in the right spots and markets, “we just started,” Hyde says.

And this is where Krystal’s evolution took a different turn. Instead of rolling out the latest innovation or making a sweeping proclamation, Hyde began by elevating people. District managers were taught how to coach GMs to plan their calendars, how to set a schedule of restaurant visits where they could motivate employees and foster cultures of recognition. That was the larger aim versus “let’s change this, let’s swerve this, let’s go to the next big thing,” Hyde says.

There are now performance-based incentive programs and new training initiatives designed to empower workers.

Krystal, with its nine decades of history, had a legacy product with a proven resume. But it’s had no shortage of missteps. The menu got bloated, costs misaligned, and, in turn, execution and consistency, store to store, became difficult to monitor. Hyde wanted to focus on the traits that worked historically so leaders would buy into quickly.

The company started hosting more in-person meetings. It got as granular as changing the titles of district managers to “directors of operation.”

“And you wouldn’t believe what a title change does to somebody’s mentality,” Hyde says. “When I talk to them, they’re like, this is the highest level I’ve ever reached, and I feel more of an owner, and I can hold them more accountable with results.”

Leveraging SPB, Krystal gave leaders social media training. It taught them how to maintain better presences on LinkedIn. The company printed business cards with refreshed titles and took headshots.

“The key is this: we’ve got to allow people to be their best version of themselves and then that confidence helps them to teach their team to also be that best version,” Hyde says.

While Krystal isn’t adding kiosks or AI or anything of that ilk just yet, it’s not to say the brand won’t in time. Hyde says the key is that step wasn’t in the cards for 2024, or the present. Krystal had to get its legs under it. “We were really understanding how, when we roll something new out, it doesn’t even get down to that employee level, the proper training and the proper understanding,” she says, “and before we made huge investments, dollar wise, on these technology things, we wanted to make sure we had the processes right as far as training.”

Krystal’s updated look continues to adjust as learnings come in.

There are some evolutions at work, though. Krystal added new digital menuboards and looked at enhanced labeling systems in-restaurant.

Something vital to consider, Hyde adds, was the brand’s facilities had worn down through prior ownership. “The investment we made in our facility right now has to be in the building and the structure,” she says. “I don’t know that we can have a shiny new kiosk until we have a good paint job and a roof that may not be leaking.”

So it’s a twofold task ahead: Invest in the bones of the business, and the anchors (the people operating stores).

Krystal is, however, testing fresh designs and a reimaging program. It decided to reinvent an entire market in Albany, Georgia, where there are six restaurants. Krystal started in late October and is now finishing up fixes. Within that base, each exterior was redone—pulling ideas from an Orangeburg, South Carolina, Krystal that was opened last year by media personality Charlamagne Tha God and his business partner and wife, Jessica Gadsden-McKelvey.

These haven’t been scrape and rebuilds, like some past efforts, but rather new branding-forward upgrades that focus on visibility in ordering and upgraded menuboards inside and out, as well as new furniture, painting, and cosmetic cues. The menuboards, in particular, allow Krystal to react swiftly on pricing and menu changes. It also enables the brand to try new products. The Orangeburg unit, for instance, opened with several unique items, including Churro Fries (and a milkshake), Chicken Nuggets, Waffles with Syrup, Jumbo Chicken Tenders, Sausage or Baco, Egg, and Cheese Waffle Sandwich, Glazed Chik Waffle Sandwich, and a Smash’d & Stack’d: a beef patty, melted Krystal Cheese, mayo, ketchup, and pickles, piled on a fresh bun.

Hyde says the investment on these remodels is “substantial,” and they’re returning plenty of early learnings. But more observations lie ahead. Krystal likely won’t do entire markets in swoops like it did in Albany, but it’s going to watch sales and see how it can adjust.

Something Krystal discovered in past attempts, namely with scrape and rebuilds, was whatever remodel approach the company was going to take, it couldn’t shut down and disappear. Hyde says quick-service guests stick to patterns. “You may go off their radar,” she says. “So we chose to stay open and do the remodel and renovations during, and stay open during that time. We’re just assessing was that the smartest thing? Should we do it differently next time?”

More images of the Orangeburg location.

Additionally, Krystal refreshed its logo and updated packaging. Both are crisper and more amplified versions of the company’s DNA.

And these pieces are coming together on the top line, too, as Krystal recently posted three consecutive quarters of same-store sales gains and a seasonal uptick in traffic trends.

There was something else Hyde found in the vault. During the pandemic, like most in quick service (there wasn’t an option), Krystal didn’t leverage its dining room. Given 80 percent of the business rolls through the drive-thru, the chain was able to survive without cafes during 2020 depths. Yet what did the brand give up in doing so?

As guests returned in the years to come, they found cafes reemerging as much as they were. Sitting down in a Krystal did not include the same hospitality touch as before.

The brand and its generational equity cultivated no shortage of “regulars” over time, Hyde says, whether from breakfast or value or craveablity. It also catered to hosts of “ROMEOS,” or retired, older men, eating out. There are veterans. People who grew up going to Krystal in the morning. Either way, when the brand closed lobbies during COVID, it lost some of that. And it hadn’t quite brought it back.

Last year, Hyde asked the team how it might improve dine-in sales. Kystal’s senior director of training suggested resurrecting “WOW Hospitality” modules gathering dust in the corporate office.

Essentially, this model asks employees to take the name of the customer ordering and put food on a tray. Then, they personally call out to guests and hand over orders ready to go.

“It’s understanding that that guest is a guest in our restaurant versus just somebody coming through the drive-thru,” Hyde says.

More broadly, SPB’s umbrella helped Krystal align processes, from inventory management to labor systems to IT, supply chain, HR, and the other shared-resources that power the different webs of a growing company. That’s enabled Hyde to focus on details.

In the past, Hyde says, some ownership groups came in and brought their own people and changed procedures to the point where Krystal operators were “just spinning.” They couldn’t latch onto anything.

SPB worked to simplify some of those pieces and pass along support specific to Krystal instead of trying to ask operators to fit into a box they weren’t familiar with.

This year, Hyde adds, will be about continuing that work but also understanding Krystal hasn’t come close to approaching where it can go, especially with people. While director-level turnover has been “second to none” (the brand didn’t lose any last year), it can improve with GMs and crew. “I really believe continuing to focus on people, creating an even more robust culture of recognition, and accountability, I think giving them the score, understanding what those goals are, and our goals broadly [will follow],” she says. “Continue to increase sales. Continue to increase restaurant count. We have a VP of franchise relations and that is new in 2025. He is really pushing this franchise package to get into states where we have not been [like Texas], areas we have not been, and when we can increase that Krystal footprint, whether it’s franchise, corporate, that helps us all win and grow.”

Employee Management, Fast Food, Finance, Story