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Walid Jamal tells the story of the American Dream through his company, JHG Restaurants’ Michigan IHOPs. His family emigrated from Lebanon when he and his brother were young, and their first jobs in the U.S. were as server and busboy at their local IHOP. Later, while Walid and his brother were finishing college, the franchisee reached out.
“He said, ‘You guys were very hardworking when you were here, and I think there’s an opportunity. A location in Grand Rapids, Michigan, might be for sale. Would you be willing to consider it?’” Walid said.
His brother stepped away from a full-time job to pursue the opportunity, and Walid started working weekends while in college before graduating and jumping on board full-time in 2006. What started as one restaurant has grown into four locations with about 140 employees and plans to expand further across Western Michigan.
Walid said he and his brother were fortunate in some sense to get their start before the industry fully integrated technology. They recalled the days of the big old green books when journal entries, credits, and debits were written by hand. While he doesn’t long for the days of the past, Walid said it taught him the ins and outs of the business and how to roll up his sleeves to solve challenges.
After one year, the location they bought rose to an ‘A’ rating, and after two years, it became profitable. Still, Walid said they desperately needed a system to eliminate the endless manual labor it took to operate and grow the company.
In some cases, it took as much as a month to produce a profit-and-loss statement, rendering that data almost useless. By the time they had the numbers, the opportunity to act had already passed.
Walid also described reporting efforts as reactive rather than proactive, and often that reporting was hard for managers to understand and use in their daily operations.
“The biggest obstacle that I saw was verifying that we’re operating our restaurants at their most profitable margins,” Walid said. “The challenge then becomes what kind of tools can you provide your managers to make the best decisions on what to order, who to schedule, and how to get better, faster data?”
The adaptability and innovations of Restaurant365 are extremely important to me. I know there’s always a new tool or technology that will help improve my business,, and I always want to be working with a company that truly serves its customer by making managers’ jobs and the company’s job easier.
Walid Jamal, President
jhg restaurants
Finally, the business’ accounting processes were time-consuming, as was labor management, particularly scheduling. The more the company grew, the more those inefficiencies compounded, pulling dollars away from the bottom line and time away from the restaurants themselves.
I wanted more time in the dining room, not sitting in the office.
Walid Jamal, President
jhg restaurants
As the company expanded, the amount of work behind the scenes increased. More locations meant more accounts, more reporting, and more pressure to stay on top of margins. Without better systems, growth would only make things harder.
Learning the ropes, especially at 19 and 20 years old, took a lot of trial and error, according to Walid. The pair earned their MBAs and started looking for ways to operate more efficiently. As they contemplated overhauling the ship as they were sailing it, they began to spot opportunities across the business.
As they evaluated solutions, the goal was not just to improve a single location, but to build a system that could support multiple restaurants and future growth.
After implementing Restaurant365, the team gained access to faster, more reliable data across the business. Instead of waiting weeks for reports, they could now see performance in near real time and take action sooner.
“It was more proactive versus reactive. In the restaurant industry, that is money,” Walid said.
Shortly after partnering with Restaurant365 in 2021, the team immediately began to receive truly actionable insights into the performance of its four locations.
“Today, we can run P&Ls much more quickly and have accurate, real-time numbers in front of us,” said Office & Financial Manager Michele Lurye. “From a manager and operational standpoint, the labor reporting has been invaluable. Our managers today have a better understanding of how to manage labor throughout the week so when the weekend comes, we’re not worried about overtime and excess cost.”
What once took weeks now takes hours. Budgeting and reporting processes that previously required significant manual effort can now be completed quickly, allowing the team to stay ahead of the business instead of reacting after the fact.
R365’s scheduling module has been especially useful, helping managers build weekly shifts according to historical labor data and forecasts. Managers can further sharpen labor costs by using actual versus theoretical reporting to find variance, including when team members are clocking in too early or too late.
Across the back office, Lurye said efficiency and automation within R365, in many cases, enables her to halve the time spent on various tasks.
“Reconciling banks is 100% better than what it used to be,” she said. “We have 15 bank accounts, which used to take me a week’s worth of time. Now, I can get it all done in a day.”
The impact has also been felt at the individual level.
“My bookkeeper said, ‘You’ve bought me back six or seven hours a week,’” Walid said.
With the time saved on reporting and reconciliation, the team can focus on higher-value initiatives, including operational improvements and new programs like POS pilots.
Having set the stage for expansion in Western Michigan, Jamal said he’s confident to undertake the push in partnership with Restaurant365.
“The beauty of Restaurant365 is that it’s almost a copy and paste to set up a new entity or a new restaurant,” he said.
As the company looks to grow from four locations to many more, that consistency and scalability will be critical. With real-time visibility into performance, faster reporting, and significantly less time spent on manual work, the team is able to operate more efficiently while staying focused on the restaurants themselves.
“The adaptability and innovations of Restaurant365 are extremely important to me. I know there’s always a new tool or technology that will help improve my business, and I always want to be working with a company that truly serves its customer by making managers’ jobs and the company’s job easier.”
80% faster bank reconciliation
(from one week to one day)
6–7 hours saved weekly
in bookkeeping
Real-time P&L insights
instead of month-old data
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.
