First Watch Restaurant Group

Who actually owns First Watch

Short answer: nobody. First Watch has been a publicly traded, board-governed company since its October 2021 IPO. Ownership is spread across institutional funds, index managers, and a modest management stake — no individual, family, or firm holds a controlling position.

The private-equity owner is gone

Advent International bought majority control of First Watch in 2017 and took it public in 2021. Advent sold down its stake through 2025 — 5,000,000 shares in August 2025, then 9,400,000 shares in November 2025 — and by the company's April 2026 proxy statement, Advent no longer appears among 5%+ holders at all. The sell-down that started at the IPO is complete.

5%+ stockholders, per the April 8, 2026 SEC proxy (61,625,155 shares outstanding)

Holder	Shares	Stake
FMR LLC (Fidelity) Sched. 13G/A filed Feb 6, 2026	6,664,674	10.8%
BlackRock, Inc. Sched. 13G filed Oct 17, 2025	3,115,700	5.1%
Neuberger Berman Group / Investment Advisers Sched. 13G filed Feb 5, 2026	3,109,660	5.0%

Management & board ownership

Name	Role	Shares	Stake
Chris Tomasso	President & CEO	1,397,311	2.2%
Ralph Alvarez	Independent Chairman	620,135	1.0%
Mel Hope	CFO & Treasurer	437,830	<1%
All directors & officers	as a group (15 persons)	3,917,644	6.1%

Most executive/director share counts consist largely of vested stock options, not open-market purchases. Ken Pendery and John Sullivan, who founded the chain in 1983, hold no disclosed stake in the current filing — First Watch's Bradenton headquarters, 8725 Pendery Place, is named for Pendery, but he is no longer an owner of record. Mel Hope's stake above reflects the proxy's March 2026 record date; he was succeeded as CFO by Ashlee Weisser effective June 8, 2026 (see Leadership, below).

What this means for a sales approach

There is no owner-operator or family office to court. Capital allocation and vendor decisions run through the CEO, CFO, and CIO under normal public-company governance — a board of nine, chaired independently. This is a standard enterprise-IT buying process, not a founder relationship play.

Corporate snapshot

Footprint

648 restaurants across 32 states as of Q1 2026 (period ended Mar 29, 2026) — 572 company-owned (88%), 76 franchised (12%).

FY2025 close (Dec 28, 2025): 633 total, 560 company / 73 franchise. 64 new units opened in FY2025 across 23 states.

Strategic shift

First Watch is not offering new domestic franchise deals in 2026. Instead it's buying back existing franchised units — 16 restaurants in North/South Carolina and 6 more elsewhere in 2025 — consolidating toward a company-operated model.

FY2025 financials

Revenue $1.2B (+20.3% YoY) · System-wide sales $1.4B (+16.1%) · Net income $19.4M · Adjusted EBITDA $120.9M.

Market (Sep 11, 2026)

Stock $11.35, market cap ~$700M — down ~40% from its 52-week high of $18.82. P/E 40.1. Analyst consensus: Strong Buy, avg. target $19.27.

Founded 1983 in Pacific Grove, California by Ken Pendery and John Sullivan; headquarters relocated to Bradenton, Florida in 1986. Roughly 16,000 employees system-wide (last disclosed figure).

Leadership & board

The buying committee for any enterprise deal runs through three seats: CEO for strategic sign-off, CFO for budget, CIO for technical fit. All three have recent turnover or tenure dynamics worth timing around.

Name	Title	Notes
Chris Tomasso	President & CEO	CMO 2006 → President 2015 → CEO 2018. Long-tenured, stable at the top.
Ashlee Weisser	CFO	New — budget re-opener Promoted from SVP FP&A on June 8, 2026, succeeding Mel Hope. Prior finance roles at Bloomin' Brands, Red Robin, Darden, and CFO at Maple Street Biscuit Co. A brand-new CFO inside her first year is exactly when vendor and budget-approval processes get revisited.
Mel Hope	CFO, outgoing	Announced retirement Feb 2026; stayed on as an advisor through the transition. No longer the budget decision-maker.
Rob Conti	Chief Information Officer	Primary technical buyer Joined 2019 as SVP IT, elevated to CIO Sept 2024. 18+ years at Hard Rock International beforehand.
Matt Eisenacher	Chief Brand Officer	Owns loyalty/personalization strategy — adjacent budget holder for CIO's digital initiatives.
Eric Hartman	Chief Development Officer	Owns new-unit growth and the franchise buyback integrations.
Laura Sorensen	Chief People Officer	HR systems / workforce tech budget line.
Jay Wolszczak	Chief Legal Officer, GC & Secretary	Contracts, vendor risk, data-privacy sign-off.
Ralph Alvarez	Independent Board Chair	Former McDonald's president; chair since Dec 2019.

Board also includes Irene Chang Britt, Michael Fleisher, Charles Jemley, William Kussell, Stephanie Lilak, Jostein Solheim, and Rachel Tipograph. Source: DEF 14A filed April 8, 2026.

IT organization & technology posture

Digital roadmap (CIO Rob Conti)

Publicly stated focus areas: mobile ordering and payment, AI-driven personalization, and building out a digital loyalty program. This is a CIO under two years into the seat and actively modernizing — the highest-leverage entry window.

Security posture

Program modeled on CIS Critical Security Controls. Monitoring and alerting are outsourced to a third-party security operations center — no in-house SOC. No material breach disclosed to date, per the most recent 10-K.

Why the franchise buybacks matter to IT

Each acquired franchise group (16 units in NC/SC, 6 more elsewhere in 2025) arrives on its own POS, network, and payment stack that has to be folded into First Watch's corporate environment. That integration burden recurs every time First Watch buys back another franchisee — and the company has said it plans to keep doing exactly that instead of signing new franchise deals.

Priority opportunities — lead with these five

Ranked by a mix of budget certainty, deal frequency, and fit with Connection's core reseller-plus-services motion. All eight originally mapped opportunities are still real; these five are where a first conversation should start.

Multi-site network refresh / SD-WAN648 locations across 32 states, ~60+ new or acquired units a year. Continuous branch-networking demand with a predictable hardware-plus-install cycle — Connection's core wheelhouse.
Franchise-to-corporate IT integrationEvery reacquired franchise group (16 units in NC/SC, 6 more elsewhere in 2025 alone) arrives on its own POS, network, and payment stack that must be folded in. Recurring, not one-time, as long as the buyback strategy continues.
POS & kitchen display modernizationDirectly named by CIO Rob Conti as a priority (mobile ordering and payment). The clearest match to a stated, budgeted initiative rather than an inferred one.
Device lifecycle managementFront-of-house tablets, back-office PCs, and kitchen hardware across a fast-growing multi-state estate — high-volume, repeatable procurement business.
Managed detection & responseFirst Watch already pays a third party for SOC monitoring today — a live budget line to displace or augment, not a new category to justify. Higher margin than hardware refresh.

Also mapped — hold in reserve

Data & AI infrastructure

Underpins the loyalty/personalization push, but the budget line is less defined this early — better as a follow-on once the CIO relationship is live.

Disaster recovery / BCP

Real fit given the Sun Belt hurricane exposure, but a harder first-call topic than an active pain point.

vCISO / CIS Controls advisory

Smaller deal size, services-only. Best positioned as an add-on after the security conversation from MDR is already open.

Face-to-face access

No confirmed First Watch speaking slot was found at any 2026 restaurant-tech conference — treat any "confirmed speaker" listing for First Watch execs on smaller conference-directory sites as unverified; several checked turned out to be stale template pages with fabricated dates. The paths below are verified by date and location.

Where the buyers plausibly show up

Event	Date	Location	Fit
FSTEC (Foodservice Technology Conference)	Sep 23–25, 2026	Grapevine, TX	~10 days out The national restaurant-IT event; no First Watch speaker confirmed on the published roster, but it's squarely Rob Conti's peer group. Worth a rep attending to work the floor.
Florida Technology Summit	Nov 19, 2026	Hilton St. Petersburg Carillon Park	Local — no travel In the Tampa Bay metro itself. Best near-term low-cost option for a face-to-face touch.
Evanta Florida CIO Community Executive Summit	Nov 10, 2026	Fort Lauderdale, FL	Statewide CIO peer community; First Watch qualifies on revenue ($1.2B, above the $500M threshold). Application/sponsor-based, not open registration.
ElevateIT: Tampa Technology Summit	Apr 16, 2026	JW Marriott Tampa Water Street	Already passed this cycle — flag for the 2027 event and plan ahead.
MURTEC 2027	Mar 15–17, 2027	Las Vegas, NV	Flagship national multi-unit restaurant-tech show; MURTEC 2026 (Mar 2026) already passed.
Restaurant Leadership Conference 2027	Apr 4–7, 2027	Phoenix, AZ	Executive-level (CEO/CFO), not IT-specific — better fit if the play shifts up from CIO to CEO/CFO.
National Restaurant Association Show 2027	May 22–25, 2027	Chicago, IL	Largest industry trade show; good for brand-side contacts (Chief Brand Officer), less IT-focused.

Where the executives actually live

First Watch's headquarters is in Bradenton (Manatee County) — roughly 45–60 minutes south of the city of Tampa, in the same Tampa Bay / Gulf Coast metro. None of the confirmed leadership team lists the city of Tampa itself as home; most cluster in Sarasota–Bradenton. One exception is genuinely Tampa-metro.

Executive	Role	Home base
Eric Hartman	Chief Development Officer	Odessa, FL — an actual Tampa (Hillsborough County) suburb. USF grad; spent 10+ years at Bloomin' Brands before First Watch. Closest thing to a "Tampa" executive on this team.
Chris Tomasso	President & CEO	Sarasota, FL
Rob Conti	Chief Information Officer	Sarasota, FL
Matt Eisenacher	Chief Brand Officer	North Port–Sarasota area
Mel Hope	CFO, outgoing	Bradenton, FL (HQ)
Ashlee Weisser	CFO	Not publicly confirmed; works out of HQ (Bradenton/University Park area)

Locations are self-reported LinkedIn city fields, current as of research date; treat as directional, not confirmed addresses.

Entry strategy

Status

Clean slate No existing Connection relationship on file for this account.

Primary target

Rob Conti, CIO — under two years in the seat, publicly modernizing. Ideal timing for a vendor conversation.

Secondary trigger

Live now Ashlee Weisser became CFO June 8, 2026 — the budget re-opener already happened, it isn't pending. First 6–12 months in seat is the window to reach her.

Best near-term path to a face-to-face

No confirmed conference speaking slot exists for a First Watch executive right now. The Florida Technology Summit (Nov 19, 2026, St. Petersburg) is the lowest-friction local option — no travel required and squarely a CIO/IT-leader audience. FSTEC (Sep 23–25, Grapevine, TX) is the higher-effort, higher-yield option if a rep can travel on short notice.

Territory note

First Watch's Bradenton, FL headquarters sits in the same Tampa Bay corridor as Bloomin' Brands, Tampa General Hospital, and Shriners Children's — other accounts already mapped in this dossier series. Chief Development Officer Eric Hartman previously spent 10+ years at Bloomin' Brands, which may be worth a direct mention if that relationship is already warm. Worth coordinating as a single regional enterprise-IT territory play rather than a standalone pursuit.