Quick Informal Government Summit
Susan Taylor, CEO and president of Juice It Up, shares a have a look at her profession, achievements and trade traits forward of her look at Quick Informal Government Summit 2025.
Picture: Willie Lawless/ Networld Media Group
July 18, 2025 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Managing Editor, Networld Media Group
In anticipation of the upcoming Quick Informal Government Summit, FastCasual.com is spotlighting panelists collaborating within the annual trade occasion.
Juice It Up CEO and President Susan Taylor will share perception on the “The Geography of Revenue: Location Intelligence for Restaurant Success” session aimed toward offering restaurant homeowners with the data and instruments to optimize monetary efficiency throughout all areas.
Occurring 20 years, the Quick Informal Government Summit has been the premier gathering for top-level restaurant executives trying to innovate, join and elevate their manufacturers. This 12 months’s occasion is happening October 5-7 in Austin, Texas.
The summit is run by Networld Media Group, publishers of Fastcasual.com, QSRweb and Pizza Market. It’s certainly one of a number of main trade conferences all year long. Click on right here to register for the Quick Informal Government Summit. The subsequent Networld Media Group occasion is the Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit happening March 16-18, 2026 in San Diego, California. Prime restaurant leaders will spend two and a half days of networking, inspiring tales and confirmed methods.
Describe your present position.
Because the CEO of a tenured and profitable QSR model, my position is pivotal and far-reaching, encompassing the strategic route, operational excellence and cultural basis of the model. I’m chargeable for steering the Juice It Up! into its subsequent section of progress whereas upholding its established legacy for high quality acai bowls, and handcrafted smoothies, bowls and meals. I’m fortunate to steer a cross-functional that’s targeted on our franchise homeowners success and innovating for the model’s future success.
What was your first-ever profession position and what’s one necessary lesson you realized from it?
My first profession position out of faculty was as a discipline consultant for a California assemblywoman, chargeable for speaking, working with and drawback fixing along with her constituents within the discipline workplace. I realized to pay attention and attempt to discover options that had been equitable for all. Mainly customer support 101.
What impressed you to work in your trade?
I’ve all the time labored in eating places. The sector consultant job was the one non-food job I’ve ever had. I like the workforce dynamic of working in eating places to perform the day by day targets collectively. I’m very artistic and love the flexibility to supply a terrific product and expertise that makes a distinction in a visitor’s day.
What do you get pleasure from most about your present position?
The flexibility to work with my workforce which might be at completely different levels of their profession and serving to them be taught and develop. I additionally love the flexibility to strategically have a look at the present state of the enterprise and plan for what a visitor desires now and within the subsequent ten years. The quick informal enterprise has developed over the previous 30 years, and it’s thrilling to look towards what is feasible within the subsequent 20 years from a meals, beverage and tech perspective.
What’s a standard false impression folks have about what you do?
I feel folks assume {that a} CEO is way faraway from the day-to-day enterprise or do not generally perceive what it’s like on the retailer degree. I’ve expertise from all ranges, and I like to be in shops with operators and franchise homeowners and spend time on how their enterprise is performing and get suggestions on how I can and my workforce higher help. I like with the ability to join with visitors and get their perspective on our model, too. A few of our greatest improvements come from franchisees and visitors.
What’s one profession achievement you are most happy with?
I’ve all the time endeavored to be a mentor, and a coach with those who I’ve labored with, actively investing within the potential of my workforce. It is an achievement that has ripple results, as I discover that these I’ve helped usually go on to do the identical for others.
What trade traits do you assume are at present over-hyped and why?
Extreme use of useful components with out clear profit or style. For a tenured and profitable QSR, the hot button is to grasp elementary shifts in shopper preferences (e.g., demand for comfort, worth, freshness and personalization) relatively than getting swept up in each new meals pattern. Innovation ought to serve a transparent enterprise function and improve the core model expertise.
In the event you weren’t working in your present discipline, what would you be doing as an alternative?
I would be a photographer.
What do you do to have enjoyable exterior of labor?
I’ve season tickets to the Hollywood Bowl and attend 15 to twenty concert events in the summertime.
The place did you develop up and the way did your upbringing influence the individual you might be at this time?
I grew up in California, the primary 11 years in Southern California after which the subsequent 15 in Northern California. My mother and father positioned a excessive worth on being curious and adventurous concerning the world round me. Contemporary meals, multicultural communities, innovation within the restaurant house inform who I’m and what I anticipate. I went to high school within the bay space and was uncovered to loads of ahead pondering eating places throughout school and after.
About Mandy Wolf Detwiler
Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the managing editor at Networld Media Group and the location editor for PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com. She has greater than 20 years’ expertise overlaying meals, folks and locations.
An award-winning print journalist, Mandy brings greater than 20 years’ expertise to Networld Media Group. She has spent almost twenty years overlaying the pizza trade, from impartial pizzerias to multi-unit chains and each measurement enterprise in between. Mandy has been featured on the Meals Community and has gained quite a few awards for her protection of the restaurant trade. She has an insatiable urge for food for studying, and might inform you the place to seek out the most effective slices within the nation after spending 15 years touring and consuming pizza for a residing.
