From Sandwiches to Smart Systems – Making Restaurants Boring (in the Best Way)
Matt Wampler’s journey into entrepreneurship didn’t begin in a boardroom—it started in the passenger seat of a beat-up car, riding shotgun with his dad through small-town real estate deals. At five years old, Matt learned how much a roof repair cost and what it meant to reinvest in something that might not pay off for decades. His dad was a small-town lawyer who used his income to buy and build apartment complexes, and Matt was soaking up the lessons, one ride at a time.
By the time he graduated college, Matt had two options: a traditional corporate job, or taking a swing on a failing Jimmy John’s franchise. He chose the latter, drained his savings, loaded up a U-Haul, and drove to Maryland. On day one, he walked into a grease trap of a restaurant—literally. The AC was broken, the cold table compressors were overheating, and there were buckets of ice just to keep the kitchen running. But Matt leaned in.
He worked 120-hour weeks, sleeping on the floor because there weren’t enough employees to cover shifts. Slowly, as he followed the franchise playbook and rebuilt a team, things started to click. He turned the business around, reinvested the profits, and eventually owned five locations.
But running five sandwich shops takes its toll. After his first child was born and minimum wage doubled, Matt knew it was time for a change. He sold the stores, enrolled in an MBA program at Duke, and dipped his toe into the corporate world. Spoiler: it wasn’t a fit.
“I found that I’m not meant for the corporate world,” Matt said. “The feedback loops were too long. In restaurants, if you mess up, someone quits and tells you why. You’re forced to get better. In corporate, there’s too much inertia.”
So he did what any sleep-deprived, data-curious ex-sandwich guy would do—he learned to code. And that led to ClearCOGS, a predictive analytics platform that helps restaurants make smarter decisions about what to prep, order, and staff. Want to know how many bagels to bake today? ClearCOGS has the answer.
Matt’s pitch is refreshingly honest: “Restaurants don’t know who’s walking in the door tomorrow, and it’s killing them. We help answer the 20 decisions a day that actually move the needle.”
Today, ClearCOGS serves 100 brands across four countries. Matt’s team is small—just a dozen full-time employees in the U.S.—but they’ve got some massive projects on the horizon so they’re big enough to make huge moves in the industry.
Matt’s goal for the year? “Make ClearCOGS boring.” Not in a bad way—in the predictable, dependable, ‘turn-the-lights-on-and-it-just-works’ kind of way.?
Because in the chaos of restaurants, boring is beautiful.
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