In just over 12 years, GPS Hospitality has grown from 42 Burger King restaurants in Atlanta to nearly 400 Burger King locations across eight states. However, as they expanded, their long-time back-of-house system, RTI, began showing its age. Frequent ownership changes, repeated sunset risks, and limited reporting capabilities created uncertainty for a company that relies on precision to run hundreds of high-volume restaurants.
GPS needed a modern platform that could match their highly specific operational model, scale seamlessly across hundreds of locations, integrate with their accounting and payroll partners, and be easy for managers to adopt. Restaurant365 delivered that and helped GPS complete a full, customized rollout to roughly 400 restaurants in just one month, entirely through remote training.
“The key piece that moved us towards Restaurant365, as opposed to the other we looked at, is that they were willing to solve the exact problems that we had, which were forecasting and labor. R365 was willing to develop that to our exact specifications,” said Gary Thomas, Vice President of Operations Support at GPS Hospitality.
For years, GPS relied on RTI because it could be configured to match the exact way the company runs its restaurants. Their operating model requires 15-minute sales forecasting, an hourly sales-labor matrix that adjusts staffing in 15-minute increments, a “caps” food variance system where only negative variances count, and simplified reporting through grouped variance categories like dipping sauces or breakfast condiments. This structure helps GPS maintain tight control over both food and labor, two pillars of their operating philosophy.
But RTI’s underlying technology became a growing concern. Its business intelligence tools were limited, forcing GPS to rely on outside partners for deeper reporting. More critically, the platform changed ownership multiple times and was repeatedly slated for sunset. For an operator of GPS’ size, system stability was no longer guaranteed.
What GPS needed was a platform that would protect performance, not disrupt it. The priority was ensuring they didn’t lose ground on food or labor control while gaining a modern, reliable system that could support their long-term operational needs, offer deeper visibility, and scale with the business.
I think for someone who is nervous about how to change systems, that is the least of my concerns. Our folks just intuitively figured it out… and that says a lot about the platform.
Gary Thomas, Vice President of Operations Support
GPS Hospitality
After making the decision to test Restaurant365 for its massive operations, GPS embarked on a monthslong pilot running R365 alongside RTI, comparing theoretical labor, 15-minute forecasts, and food-variance outputs to ensure parity. Only when those core functions matched did GPS approve a full rollout.
“If our forecast is off by $100, one way or another, we’re either going to be overstaffed by one or two people, or understaffed by one or two people, and that’s going to be bad for our business,” said Thomas. “So this labor matrix, which R365 developed for us, allowed us to implement these labor matrices where we could bring people in and out in 15-minute increments based on the anticipated sales.”
Restaurant365’s custom forecasting, labor, and variance tools that mirrored GPS’s processes, integrated electronic ordering and invoicing with all distributors, connected to the company’s accounting and payroll partners, and developed custom reports including daily food variance, cash sheets, punch-change visibility, and menu analysis.
Once the system was ready, GPS deployed it to roughly 400 stores in four weeks, which marked an unusually fast timeline for an operator of their scale. The rollout was entirely remote, driven by a simple weekly training cycle: send credentials on Friday, train forecasting on Monday, train scheduling Monday evening, and train ordering Tuesday. By day three of each rollout wave, RTI was turned off. Operators learned the platform quickly, and managers were forecasting, scheduling, and ordering in R365 almost immediately.
“I think for someone who is nervous about how to change systems, that is the least of my concerns,” said Thomas. “Our folks just intuitively figured it out… and that says a lot about the platform.”
Restaurant365 helped GPS preserve and strengthen its operational model while giving the company a scalable foundation for future cost control. GPS has seen meaningful improvements in key performance metrics, as well as smoother workflows and more actionable visibility across stores.
With R365, food variance tightened from a 1.5% threshold to 1.3%, with 60% to 70% of stores hitting that target every period. More than 90% of their restaurants consistently met labor targets, and store-level operators adopted forecasting, scheduling, and ordering quickly thanks to an intuitive interface and simplified reporting.
In addition to stabilizing and modernizing their back-of-house operations, GPS is now building on this foundation. They are implementing enhanced inventory workflows developed with R365 input, rolling out soft-drink variance for the first time using grouped-per-portion standards, and exploring future accounting integration through R365 partner, InfoSync.
The key piece that moved us towards Restaurant365, as opposed to the other we looked at, is that they were willing to solve the exact problems that we had, which were forecasting and labor. R365 was willing to develop that to our exact specifications.
Gary Thomas, Vice President of Operations Support
GPS Hospitality
For GPS Hospitality, Restaurant365 offered a way to modernize their back-of-house operations while preserving the discipline and precision their model depends on. With a platform tailored to their forecasting, labor, and food-variance needs, GPS now has a stable, scalable system that supports operators instead of slowing them down.
Rolling out nearly 400 stores in a single month, strengthening variance performance, and creating new opportunities for deeper cost insights have set the company up for its next chapter. As GPS moves forward with remodels, margin improvements, and long-term planning, Restaurant365 provides the operational foundation that keeps teams aligned and able to execute at a high level every day.
1.3% of sales
food variance threshold, down from 1.5%
Up to 70%
of stores met food variance targets each period
Over 90%
of restaurants consistently met labor goals
~400 stores
went live in one month with zero on-site training
Discover how you can start achieving savings like these for your business
Restaurant365 brings together accounting, operations, scheduling, and more in a flexible platform—empowering restaurants to choose the solutions they need and scale with confidence.
