A "Smashing" Conversation With Carl Bachmann, President and COO of Smashburger

Carl Bachmann is President and COO of Smashburger. He oversees the company’s leadership team and the entire brand, which includes more than 300 corporate and franchise restaurants operating in 35 states and eight countries. With more than 30 years of professional experience under his belt, Carl specializes in real estate selection, construction, operations, sales, team building, and the formation of hospitality companies.  What you’ll learn in this episode: We know how hard the restaurant industry was hit by the pandemic. It was devastating. A February 2022 headline from CNN declared, “The restaurant business will probably never recover from Covid.” However, it’s possible that some restaurants and restaurant chains actually improved their situation during the pandemic.  The national restaurant chain Smashburger thrived during the pandemic. Restaurants that leaned into technology over that time emerged from it in better shape than before. With more than three decades of hospitality experience under his belt, Carl Bachmann of Smashburger explains, “We started to kind of embark on that at Smashburger fall of 2019 and, boy, thank God we did because when March of 2020 happened, and the world changed forever, it accelerated that need for digital, accelerated the need for takeout business, and accelerated the need for digital and delivery. So luckily, we were positioned well.” As a result, Carl says they were “pandemic positive” with sales gains and improved culture.  In this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni sits down with Carl Bachmann, President and COO of Smashburger, for a conversation about the aggressive approach that Smashburger took to come out of the pandemic stronger than it was before. Carl talks about why he wishes they were even more aggressive in handling the challenges of the pandemic, the returns you get when you treat people like you want to be treated, and how they managed to improve the culture at Smashburger.