5 Moves Joe Guith Makes When He Takes Over a Struggling Restaurant Brand (And what a two-location operator can copy)

Joe Guith is the CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's. That is about 3,800 restaurants and roughly $5 billion in system sales. Before that he was CEO of Church's Texas Chicken and brand president of McAlister's Deli. Each time, he was handed a brand that needed fixing.

I built 720 Sweets from one shop to seven locations, then sold it. At Workstream's On the Clock 2026 in Atlanta, I sat on stage with Joe for half an hour. Here is each move in his own words, with the version that fits a two-location operator. His first moves, on culture and accountability, are in the companion piece: Why a Rebrand Almost Never Fixes a Struggling Restaurant Brand.

Watch the full keynote on YouTube (30 min)

Full interview, key moments, and transcript: Joe Guith on turning around Carl's Jr. and Hardee's.

1. Size up the real competition before you touch the playbook

Watch this part: Joe on competing with McDonald's (4:52)

Joe's first surprise at CKE was scale. "Church's, we were about a billion three, billion four when I started. CKE is five billion. So it's three times the size." CKE is really three businesses: Carl's Jr., Hardee's, and international, "all of which are billion-four to two-billion-dollar business units."

His honest read: "This is probably going to take longer. We're going to have to do more."

The second surprise was who he was up against. At Church's, the competitors had slipped. "Bojangles, KFC, and Popeyes, they've kind of gotten off their game a little bit, and Church's is rolling on them."

At CKE the picture is the opposite.

"That's not the case with McDonald's and Burger King right now. They are 100% on their game."

Joe Guith

And a competitor he did not expect: "Chick-fil-A is actually a primary competitor for us with Hardee's, at least at breakfast, because we're so big at breakfast."

That changes the plan. "It's going to take more than perhaps just getting back to the playbook. We're going to have to make more investment, and it could take more time."

What you can copy: Write down the three places your customers go when they do not come to you. Be honest about whether each one is sharp or sloppy right now. If they are sharp, your old playbook is not enough. Budget more time and more money than feels comfortable.

2. Rebuild the leadership team around will and skill

Watch this part: Joe on replacing the leadership team (6:54) and the trait he hires for (10:22)

Joe does not walk in planning to fire people. "I always come in with this positive approach of, hey, can we work with the current leadership?" It has not gone that way. "Unfortunately, in both cases it basically had to change out the whole leadership team, minus one."

The reason is not talent on paper. "It isn't like these people don't have experience, or that they don't have great resumes. But what you start to find is, is it the right experience? Do they have the right level of engagement? Do they really want to do it? It's this balance of will and skill."

Most of the time, the skill is there. The will is the problem.

"More often than not, when we have to make leadership changes, it's more of like, they got into this and I don't think they really knew what they were signing up for."

Joe Guith

When he hires, he looks for two traits. "It's really finding people that are approachable, and quite frankly humble. That has not always been me, to be clear." Down-to-earth people work well together, and "people are more focused on the activity versus the politics, or who's winning."

He borrows one more rule. "I think it was Michael Dell that said, if you find drama with someone, get it out and get it out fast. And he couldn't be more right about that."

He also learned what a missing seat costs. CKE's HR leader left the week he arrived, and it took an outside consultant to say the obvious. "You need an HR leader. And I'm like, you're right. I didn't realize what I didn't have."

What you can copy: In a two-location shop, your leadership team is your GMs and assistant managers. Ask the will question before the skill question: does this person want this job as it really is? Hire the approachable, humble one over the impressive resume. And if nobody owns hiring and people problems, that gap is costing you more than you can see.

3. Put the fundamentals in before the tech

Watch this part: Joe on gamification and the missing audits (24:13)

An operator in the audience asked Joe about gamification, like rewards for a fast drive-thru. His answer started somewhere less exciting.

"Where we are in the journey is earlier than other brands. Quite frankly, we have far more what I would call basics to fix." The first basic is incentives. At the restaurant level, CKE is "starting to look at incentives and realigning them towards execution."

The second basic shocked him twice. "I saw it at Church's and I saw it here. We didn't have third-party audit. We had food safety, but we weren't regularly auditing or measuring our operational execution. That is just so fundamental and basic. It was completely absent at Church's, and it was barely there at CKE."

Gamification is not wrong. It is just step two.

"You've got to have the fundamentals in there before you can layer on things like gamification. But I have seen what you're talking about in drive-through times. We did implement something like that at Church's. It does work."

Joe Guith

What you can copy: Before you buy a new system or launch a leaderboard, write a one-page operations checklist and have someone who is not the manager score each shift against it. Tie the bonus to that score. Gamify the drive-thru or the ticket time only after the checklist holds for a month.

4. Treat digital as a productivity engine, not a labor cut

Watch this part: Joe on the McAlister's numbers (18:07) and AI and restaurant jobs (20:55)

I asked Joe how an operator survives rising costs when guests will not accept higher prices. His answer was digital, with a warning attached.

The proof is McAlister's, where he was brand president. "We were maybe 10% digital going into COVID, and we changed the platform, changed the loyalty, and we went from 10% to 40% in about an 18-month time frame." Wingstop, he notes, runs at 70 to 80% digital.

The restaurant-level number is the one to remember. "When we went back and looked at it, and again there's some inflation in there, sales dollars per labor hour jumped 50%."

Why? "If I went from 10% to 40%, now I have 30% of my transactions that I don't have someone in the restaurant punching in an order. That's gone. That's real."

Here is the warning.

"I won't say, oh, we saved on labor. Anybody talking about saving on labor, you need to run away from that very fast."

Joe Guith

His frame instead: "It's more about redeployment. It's a productivity game."

The staff did not disappear. "It wasn't like all of a sudden we had less people on the shift. But they were doing things that were adding more value. Welcoming the guest, focusing on executing the order, cleaning the restaurant. Because we don't have robots to clean. Not yet anyways."

He sees AI the same way. "There was the PC, there was the internet, and now we have AI. It is a transformational technology, but I don't see this mass displacement of people. I see a redeployment." Airlines and hotels moved check-in to your phone, and their staffing did not collapse. And the real obstacle is not the software. "The biggest barrier and adoption to any technology, including AI, is us, and changing behavior."

On stage I said the value of AI, and of an all-in-one platform like Workstream, is taking the repetitive, automatable work off the GM so they can spend that time with guests and staff. Joe's answer: "I 100% agree with that."

What you can copy: Track sales per labor hour, not only labor as a percent of sales. Move ordering to the app and the kiosk, then put those saved hours where guests notice them: the greeting, order accuracy, a clean dining room.

Saved hours work the same way in the back office. Every hour a manager spends on manual hiring, onboarding, or payroll admin is an hour they're not on the floor doing what actually matters: guest service, food prep, training. Workstream's all-in-one hiring, payroll, and HR platform takes that admin off their plate, so the time goes back where it counts. Request a demo →

5. Find the glide path back to value

Watch this part: Joe on why guests stopped paying (14:36)

Joe did not soften the economy.

"Inflation is out of control. The industry took way too much price."

Joe Guith

He backs that with one chart. "The chief economist for the Coca-Cola Company has this 60-year chart of percent of income spent on away-from-home eating. And it was dead flat for 60 years until the last five. And it jumped from what was an average of about 5% to like 5.6 to 5.8%."

Incomes rose the whole time, so the dollars rose too. The share is what broke. "When it jumps out of line like that, that's what's causing pressure. You look down at what you're paying, and you're like, no, I'm just not going to pay that. Even if I can, I'm not going to. And so there's been this pullback."

The job now is to earn the price back. "Stepping in the system, we were way out of line. We're still working on it. But how do you find areas to deliver value for guests in a way that will bring them back?" That means getting sharper on pricing and on the economics, "because in the end we need to find a way to make more money and deliver more for the guest at the same time."

At CKE's scale it also means rebalancing who pays for what: franchisee incentives, margins, and investment on both sides. His example: "Burger King was a great example where they made very significant investments to step change, and they're doing incredibly well."

What you can copy: Put your menu prices from five years ago next to today's. If your jump is bigger than what your regulars' paychecks did, you already know why the Tuesday lunch crowd is thinner. Fix the two or three items that anchor value first.

The short version

None of these five moves needs a $5 billion budget. Joe's summary of the whole approach was the least glamorous line of the day and the most useful: "You've got to have the fundamentals in there before you can layer on things like gamification." Know your competition. Fix the basics. Put people where guests notice them. Then earn the price back.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does going digital reduce restaurant labor costs?

Not directly, and Joe Guith warns operators to walk away from anyone who promises it will. When McAlister's went from 10% to 40% digital in about 18 months, sales per labor hour rose about 50%, but the restaurants did not cut staff. The hours moved from taking orders to greeting guests, executing orders, and cleaning.

Will AI replace restaurant workers?

Joe Guith expects AI to redeploy restaurant workers, not remove them. He compares it to the PC and the internet: administrative jobs disappeared, but the need for people did not, and the industry is still not fully staffed. He says the biggest barrier to AI in restaurants is people changing their own behavior, and that a new technology takes about a decade to take root.

What should a restaurant fix before adding gamification or new technology?

Operational audits and incentives tied to execution come first. Joe Guith found no regular third-party operational audit at Church's and barely one at CKE, and he calls that the most basic gap to close. Gamification, like drive-thru timing contests, worked at Church's, but only on top of those fundamentals.

How has the economy changed what restaurant guests will pay?

Guests are pulling back because menu prices rose faster than the share of income they are used to spending on dining out. Joe Guith cites a 60-year chart from Coca-Cola's chief economist: the share of income spent on away-from-home eating stayed near 5% for 60 years, then jumped to 5.6 to 5.8% in the last five. His verdict is that "the industry took way too much price."

What traits should you hire for on a restaurant leadership team?

Approachable and humble, with both the will and the skill to do the job as it really is. Joe Guith says most leaders he has had to replace had the resume but had not understood what they were signing up for. He also follows Michael Dell's advice: if there is drama with someone, get it out fast.

Request a demo of Workstream →

About the author. Wilson K Lee built 720 Sweets from one shop to seven locations and sold it. He now runs wilsonklee.com, where he publishes real numbers and playbooks for food and beverage owners, and he hosted the speaker interviews at Workstream's On the Clock 2026.