SPB Hospitality — parent company to Krystal Restaurants and Logan’s Roadhouse — has been making a lot of changes recently. At the end of 2024, the company divested from most of its brewery business with the sale of Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant, ChopHouse & Brewery, Ragtime Tavern and Seven Bridges Grille & Brewery to Kelly Companies.
Now, with a lighter portfolio under its belt, SPB Hospitality is planning a huge comeback for 90-year-old legacy brand, Krystal. The company also wants to focus on improving and expanding its remaining portfolio into new markets and will look into acquiring a smaller upscale casual-dining brand moving forward.
“We really are trying to kind of capture what's next on the American landscape of international flavors,” SPB Hospitality CEO Josh Kern said. “We know we're good at hospitality and running great restaurants, but how do you kind of match that up with what consumers want in the marketplace? By removing the brewery group with concepts that were born 35 years go and have had their heyday… we can pivot off of those brands and then focus on some new opportunities in the marketplace.”
By divesting from the brewery group, Kern said, the company is able to narrow its focus to modernizing and expanding its legacy brands, as well as investing in new companies down the line. Logan’s Roadhouse, for example, is “85% through a turnaround” after focusing for 18-24 months of improving the hospitality factor. Now, Kern said, the company will be expanding Logan’s Roadhouse in new markets where the brand’s main competitor, Texas Roadhouse, currently does not dominate.
Last year, the company acquired two concepts by Iron Chef Jose Garces — Amada Tapas Y Vino and Village Whiskey — which Kern said have been a better fit.
In 2025, one of the biggest priorities for SPB Hospitality is to help Krystal — the quick-service restaurant known for its square sliders — make a comeback five years after the company declared and emerged from bankruptcy.
“Krystal is in the early phases of a turnaround,” Kern said. “The brand had, quite simply, just been dilapidated, and there were 18,000 things wrong with it. Over the past year, we’ve made it profitable, which has been a huge achievement. We also had a lot of franchisee goodwill to repair, and we’re getting closer to a comeback every day.”
Krystal’s numbers still have a long way to go — the 280-unit company had a 5.8% decline in sales and closed 2.8% of restaurants in 2023 — but senior vice president of operations, Amanda Hyde, is working closely on a brand turnaround. Last year, the company reduced headcount and restructured to start afresh. Hyde said she also spent a lot of time speaking with longtime team members to talk about what the brand was like “when Krystal was at its finest.”
“We understood the truth of where we were,” Hyde said. “Sales and profitability were not great. Guest counts were diminished. There was no energy out in the field, and if you’re in operations, you really need that energy.”
The journey to profitability for Krystal began with curating a new team of 14 “superstar” regional directors and investing in personnel through career development opportunities. Additionally, the company has been rolling out store remodels with digital menu boards, a sleeker design and a renewed focus on the drive-thru lane. The key to the brand modernization is to not lose the sense of legacy that made customers fall in love with Krystal in the first place.
“We have something called the Crystal Ops Advisory Committee we put into place last March and it's a group of two directors, two general managers and one training manager,” Hyde said. “We always run ideas through this advisory committee to make sure it's on-brand and on-point. We always want so make sure it’s something our guests will resonate with and that our team will buy into.”
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