FRI
Dan Jones
Title
Chief Operating Officer
Company
First Watch
Channel/Region
MachineQ
Day of Attendance
FRI
djones@firstwatch.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-jones-fwrg/
Company Description
First Watch is a publicly traded daytime-dining restaurant chain specializing in breakfast, brunch, and lunch. It operates over 500 locations across the U.S. and focuses on fresh, made-to-order meals with a strong emphasis on customer experience.
Industry
Restaurants
HQ Location
Brandenton, Florida
# of Sites
500+
Revenue
$1.02B (FY2024)
Current Solutions & Services
A few managed broadband sites scattered across their enterprise.
Current Opportunities
As FirstWatch has grown, their current ISP strategy is not keeping up with their growth. They need to centralize into a single managed services provider for internet, SD-WAN, Managed WiFi, PCI as a Service, and IoT. Their current IT strategy will be a bottleneck for their future growth.
Small Talk Topics
Dan is a former COO of Cava, loves to golf, and LOVES Russ Richardson.
Share of Wallet Monthly Recurring Charges $
$0
On-Site Updates
Submitted on February 6, 2026 at 1:03 am by Russ Richardson
Dan and Tim had a great time at the event. Both Tim and Dan agreed to set up a meeting between Russ and the CIO in March / April.
Today they use Granite for network services and manage their own Meraki stack.
Russ will work to schedule the meeting and bring local leadership for a first meeting.