Jay Spongberg Named President, COO of WKS Restaurant Group

New Role, Same Leadership Team

WKS Restaurant Group has promoted Jay Spongberg to president and chief operating officer, closing out a 26-year run with the company that included a 16-year stretch as COO during which WKS grew from 65 restaurants to 382. Roland Spongberg stays on as CEO, so this isn't a changing of the guard. It's an expansion of authority for the executive who already ran the operation day to day.

A Career Built From the Ground Up

Spongberg didn't start at the top. He joined WKS as a property manager, moved into vice president of development, and then spent 16 years as chief operating officer before this latest step up. That path through property management, development, and operations gave him a working knowledge of nearly every function inside the business, the kind of ground-level exposure that few executives carry into a president-level role. It's the sort of resume that gets built, not assigned.

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Relationships That Held Growth Together

Much of what defined his time as COO had less to do with org charts and more to do with relationships. Spongberg built close working ties with WKS' brand partners and senior leadership teams, and that connective tissue is repeatedly cited as central to how the company scaled without losing consistency across its brand portfolio. Franchise growth at that pace tends to strain partnerships as fast as it builds revenue. Keeping those relationships intact while the restaurant count climbed from 65 to 382 wasn't incidental. It was the mechanism.

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Roland Spongberg's Endorsement

Roland Spongberg made the framing explicit in his own statement: "I have had the opportunity to work alongside Jay for many years, and I have seen firsthand the impact he has had on WKS. I am excited to continue working with him in this expanded role and look forward to what we will accomplish together in the years ahead." He also pointed to Jay's leadership, operational expertise, and deep knowledge of WKS as qualities the company will keep leaning on. Coming from a CEO who has watched the work firsthand for years, that's not boilerplate. It reads as a direct endorsement of a track record rather than a routine promotion memo.

Sixfold Growth in Sixteen Years

The sixfold growth under his watch is the number that matters here. Going from 65 units to 382 in 16 years isn't a hot streak, it's sustained execution across a long runway, and scaling a franchise network that size without letting quality slip across an expanding web of locations and brand relationships takes more than ambition. It takes discipline. The fact that this growth happened in parallel with Spongberg deepening his relationships with brand partners and senior leaders suggests the two weren't running on separate tracks. They were reinforcing each other.

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An Expanded Mandate Ahead

Going forward, Spongberg keeps operational oversight but picks up broader responsibility across the organization, consistent with what the president title typically carries beyond a COO's operational lane. WKS opted to widen one executive's mandate rather than bring in outside leadership to share the load, and that choice says something about confidence in what Spongberg has already delivered. The specific strategic or organizational duties attached to the new title haven't been spelled out yet, so the full shape of the role will become clearer as the transition plays out.

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Betting on Continuity

What WKS is really betting on is institutional memory. Having a president and COO who personally steered the company through multiple growth phases is a form of stability that's hard to buy from the outside. With Roland Spongberg staying at CEO and Jay Spongberg now carrying an expanded mandate, the organization is putting its chips on continuity, proven results, and a leadership dynamic that's already been stress-tested across more than a decade and a half inside one of the largest restaurant franchise operations in the country.