GoTo Foods Names Brandon Coleman Deli Division President
Turnaround specialist Brandon Coleman takes over McAlister's Deli and Schlotzsky's, bringing a record of rapid EBITDA growth from Cotton Patch Cafe.
One Leader, Two Deli Brands
Brandon Coleman takes over as President of McAlister's Deli and Deli Brands on November 2, 2026, inheriting a portfolio that includes both McAlister's Deli and Schlotzsky's Deli. The appointment places a single executive at the helm of growth, innovation, profitability and operations for two concepts that have long shared a parent company but rarely a unified strategic voice. Coleman's mandate is broad by design: work with franchise partners, align internal teams, and keep the guest experience consistent across a map of locations that stretches well beyond any one region.
Why His Dual Perspective Matters
What makes him an interesting choice is the vantage point he brings to the job. Coleman has sat on both sides of the franchise table, as operator and as franchisee, a duality that GoTo Foods is betting will let him translate boardroom strategy into something that actually works at the counter. Omer Gajial, CEO of GoTo Foods, put it plainly: "Brandon's deep expertise on both sides of franchise operations will be invaluable as we build on the brand's strong foundation and enter its next chapter of growth."
Gajial went further in describing what that next chapter should look like, saying the company's focus will be "clearly communicating what makes McAlister's special and giving guests even more reasons to visit," while "listening to our team members and franchisees, elevating the guest experience and prioritizing franchisee returns in our decision-making." Read together, those are not the words of a company making a routine staffing change. They describe a strategy with three moving parts, brand clarity, guest experience, and franchisee economics, and they name Coleman's dual background as the reason he is positioned to move all three at once.
The Track Record Behind the Confidence
The resume behind that confidence was built most recently at Cotton Patch Cafe, where Coleman served as CEO and Operating Partner on behalf of Altamont Capital Partners. In under two years, he grew EBITDA by roughly twelvefold, a figure steep enough to suggest something closer to a structural overhaul than incremental tightening.
The growth did not arrive as a single good quarter, either. Cotton Patch Cafe posted six consecutive quarters of positive sales and traffic, and its Google rating climbed from 3.8 to 4.7 stars on his watch. Coleman also steered the brand through its 2026 sale to Local Favorite Restaurants and the integration that followed, a transaction that reshaped the company's ownership structure entirely.
Profitability and Satisfaction Rising Together
What the Cotton Patch numbers suggest is a particular philosophy rather than a lucky run. Profitability and guest satisfaction do not always move in the same direction in casual dining; cost discipline can erode the dining room experience just as easily as it can fund it.
Coleman's record shows both lines rising together, which lines up neatly with Gajial's stated priorities for McAlister's, where guest experience and franchisee returns are framed as complementary goals rather than competing ones. Guiding a brand through a sale and integration adds another dimension: familiarity with the kind of organizational upheaval that can accompany strategic change, a skill that may matter again if GoTo Foods makes further moves within its deli division.
A Career Built Across Casual Dining
Coleman's path to this point runs through some of casual dining's more recognizable names. He held the CEO role at TGI Fridays and worked in leadership positions at Dave & Buster's, Del Frisco's Grille, and Romano's Macaroni Grill, before a stint at Brava Partners advising restaurant brands and private equity firms on strategy.
That combination, operating restaurants directly and advising on them from the investment side, gives him a view of the business that few single-track careers in either direction can match. He currently serves on the board of SafeWay Driving and belongs to YPO, the global network for business leaders, rounding out a profile that pairs governance exposure with operational depth. His Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing from Texas A&M University adds a formal layer to what is otherwise a resume built on hands-on experience.
The First Real Test of the Strategy
GoTo Foods appears to be counting on that breadth more than any single line item on Coleman's record. Growing two deli brands at once will require coordinated work across guest experience, franchisee returns and sharper brand messaging, and those three areas draw on different parts of what he has done before: marketing training, boardroom judgment, and operational discipline earned at chains of varying size and complexity.
The transition period beginning November 2 will be the first real test of whether that mix translates across brands as different in texture as McAlister's and Schlotzsky's. If the Cotton Patch playbook holds, the early signals to watch will be familiar ones: sales and traffic trends, guest satisfaction scores, and franchisee outcomes, the same metrics Gajial has already named as the measure of success for this next chapter.