catching up by Andrew Tellijohn
Kristal ball Long-time restaurant family exited Embers to build customer loyalty giant
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ack when Upsize last visited with David Kristal in 2004, he was helping retool Embers, the restaurant chain his father, Henry, co-founded in 1956. The family had also gotten into franchising Joey’s Only Seafood and Grill restaurants, a Canadian chain, as its U.S. franchisors, and had started Foodstreet Plus, a St. Paul-based loyalty marketing company started to help provide purchasing power to restaurants and to counter cash flow burn at Embers. Ultimately, the Kristals moved on from the restaurants, with the last Embers closing in 2021. But Foodstreet, now Augeo Affinity Marketing … has gone gangbusters. In the beginning, Foodstreet developed and managed group-buying programs for food and restaurant expenses, such as payroll processing, insurance coverage and office supplies. “We took all the buying power we had in Embers across our entire expense base, from payroll processing services to trash removal services to credit card processing services,” says David Kristal, CEO. “We brought that set of services to independent restaurants, packaged it up and delivered it out through one of the largest food service distributors in David Kristal, left in bottom photo, and his father Henry Kristal, co-starred in several ads while trying to revive the Embers restaurants, which Henry co-founded in 1956. 22
UPSIZE NOVEMBER • DECEMBER 2023
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