Dallas Henderson has worked in the food, beverage, and entertainment industry since his teens. He started as a server and, since then, he’s filled many roles, from unit manager to director of operations for a variety of multinational brands, including Landry’s Corporation, and Lucky Strike Entertainment, a full service restaurant with bowling and various other entertainment options.
Nearly two years ago, a recruiter contacted him about an opportunity with RizePoint, and he thought it would be a great transition.
“I was in restaurant operations for 25 years, and I really loved it. But as much as I enjoyed working in the food and beverage space, it takes so many hours and really consumes your life. And it got even crazier with the pandemic. As anyone who works in restaurant management knows, the work never stops. I was working days, nights, weekends, and spending really long hours at work. I wanted to spend more time with my family, including my adopted and foster children,” Dallas explained.
“So, when a recruiter found this opportunity with RizePoint, it seemed like a perfect fit. I could use my expertise, since I knew the restaurant space so well, which made it super appealing. Plus, I could have more of a quality of life with my family,” Dallas continued.
Now, Dallas is RizePoint’s Director of Business Development, where he connects restaurant and hospitality brands to solutions for their operational excellence, safety, and quality management needs.
“I help customers with tailored solutions for their specific needs. The most fun part of my job is showing them what RizePoint is capable of,” Dallas explained. “I love RizePoint’s great people, products, culture, and reputation. And I really enjoy my role connecting brands to tools that can really help their business”
“We are beyond excited to have Dallas on our team at RizePoint. With his deep experience in the food, beverage, and entertainment industry, he has brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise that has been invaluable to our company. His ability to connect restaurant and hospitality brands to tailored solutions is unmatched. His contributions to our mission of driving operational excellence, safety, and quality management have been phenomenal. We feel privileged to have him on our team,” said Paul Damaren, EVP of Business Development.
RizePoint is Deeper and Wider than Other Solutions
“RizePoint’s solutions are so comprehensive. They’re deeper and wider than what a lot of other solutions offer,” Dallas said. “RizePoint provides lots of ways for brands to evaluate and audit, with holistic program management, corrective management, and much more.”
According to Dallas, the restaurant industry has faced some pretty big challenges over the years. Restaurants have historically been late tech adopters. When technology took off in other industries, restaurants didn’t embrace it. Then, of course, the COVID pandemic was tremendously disruptive to this industry. However, the pandemic forced many of these late adopters into technology because they had to use it to survive.
“We were seeing that brands with more than 100 locations often have tech systems in place for their safety, quality and compliance programs, but companies with fewer locations often don’t. That means that a restaurant brand with 30 or 50 locations might not have tech solutions, and their paper and pen systems aren’t cutting it when it comes to managing their safety and quality programs,” Dallas said.
He’s seen first-hand how RizePoint’s products are helping brands of all sizes and budgets become safer and more compliant.
“When restaurant brands have franchise partners or trading agreements, they’re trusting someone else with their brand. It takes years to establish a brand, but can take just one location to break it,” Dallas explained. “If you’re the owner of an established brand, you’re trusting other people to run different locations.”
For instance, a large, national fast casual brand had foodborne illness outbreaks at a few of their locations several years ago. While they had hundreds of locations that didn’t have food safety breaches, there was significant focus on the ones that did. Customers and prospects avoided all the brands’ locations – not just the restaurants that experienced the breaches – because they were worried about the tainted food that had sickened guests, which had made nationwide headlines.
As a result of safety breaches at a few locations, this brand lost customers, experienced declining sales, had stock prices plummet, received negative media stories and scathing social media comments – and their reputation took a major hit.
“Brands need to ask themselves, “How are my current trading partners managing safety and quality and compliance? If one partner isn’t prioritizing safety and quality – or if one location gets a health code violation – who’s responsible? It comes down to the brand ultimately being responsible,” Dallas continued. “So I ask my brand contacts, ‘Are you having trouble with accountability and visibility? Would it be helpful for your locations to submit self-evaluations,’ and they inevitably say, yes, that would be really valuable.”
“These brands are responsible if they have even one operator that’s not prioritizing safety and quality. So, it’s essential to give those brand stakeholders access, visibility, and accountability to maintain their brand and build it stronger. This reduces risk and liability,” Dallas added.
Since companies are only as strong as their weakest link, Dallas helps brands implement RizePoint’s solutions, which provide the necessary access, visibility and accountability to make these organizations stronger, safer, and more compliant at every location.
Enjoying his “nerdy stuff” in his spare time
Dallas enjoys his “nerdy stuff” when he’s not working, including reading a lot. He said he’s currently interested in books about micro-strategies. He also loves to hike, work out, and play guitar, and especially enjoys folksy music, like the Zac Brown Band.
He’s a family man, who cherishes spending time with his foster and adopted children. His adult daughter recently had a baby, and he loves spending time helping take care of his infant grandson. He lives with his family in Phoenix, AZ.
If you’d like more information on RizePoint’s amazing solutions, let’s talk.