Among family-owned restaurants groups, Hofman Hospitality Group (HHG) weathered the pandemic better than most.
As it turned out, though, the 75-year-old company found itself obligated to evolve with the times, adding food trucks and ghost kitchens (detached kitchens serving pickup and delivery only)—not to mention a chief financial officer.
And just who the southern California family enclave hired as its CFO perhaps says just as much about HHG as it does about its finance chief himself.
“At this point, I was out of the restaurant industry,” recalls Chistopher Crawley, who had begun a stint in the private equity realm after having invested more than a decade of his finance career–building years inside the controllership functions of Sizzler USA and the Japanese ownership group Yoshinoya America.
For Crawley, the virtually biblical havoc that the pandemic brought down on the restaurant industry had been an almost irrefutable sign that his professional future must lie somewhere else—anywhere else.
Thus, it goes without saying that when we had the opportunity to sit down with Crawley at NetSuite’s SuiteWorld 2023 tech conference in Las Vegas, we couldn’t resist asking the CFO how he had once more landed back in the realm to which he had once bid farewell.
Certainly, it should have come to no surprise to us that there had been a recruiter involved.
“The recruiter told me, ‘You’ve got to meet these people!,’” explains Crawley, who notes that at the time, he was committed—at least for the short term—to keeping the restaurant industry in his rearview.
Certainly, it should have come to no surprise to us that there had been a recruiter involved.
“The recruiter told me, ‘You’ve got to meet these people!,’” explains Crawley, who notes that at the time, he was committed—at least for the short term—to keeping the restaurant industry in his rearview.
Known widely across southern California for eateries such as Hof’s Hut—which began as a lone burger stand opened by Craig Hofman’s grandparents—HHG additionally serves the dining public with more upscale venues such as Lucille’s Smokehouse BBQ and Saint & Second.
His favorable impressions of the Hofmans transgenerational team aside, Crawley confides that he was somewhat weary of joining a family-owned business.
“It raised a red flag for me at first,” remembers Crawley, who observes that the typical fear of a newcomer is that a business is being driven by the gut instinct of family members rather than data or proven results.
“Brad had a methodical approach to his decision-making and where and how capital should be invested,” remarks Crawley, who adds that while food trucks and ghost kitchens may have safeguarded HHG’s business during the pandemic, his own hiring had more to do with the pandemic’s aftermath.
“Because of the pandemic and the pent-up demand in the restaurant business, it became clear to us that the labor headwinds were changing,” explains Crawley, who tells us that a mandate to achieve greater visibility into labor dollars more than validated his time at the tech conference.
He concludes: “We can’t control what we can’t see—and if we don’t see our labor costs, what we will see is unexpected fluctuation in our P&L.” –Jack Sweeney
This article first appeared on Forbes.com