Tomorrow out in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, Informa’s Restaurant Leadership Conference kicks off and it’s considered one of the foodservice industry's flagship events.
This statement better be true, b/c I committed to my daughter that I would only go to the “major” events and well, this is one of Branded’s favorite and most events of the year.
Branded has been attending this conference for years and the double-sided tape on the wall that survived a renovation of Twenty6 remains proof that we’ve been attending this event for a long time (IYKYK).
Like most events, what makes this conference such an important one is the people and specifically the top decision-makers that attend.
For this week’s Shoutout, I want to highlight the amazing corporate partners that are rallying with us to RLC and helping us create a series of events that we believe will contribute to RLC 2026 being a most memorable conference!
Branded believes people remember stories, not sales decks and that’s what we plan to make happen at RLC 2026.
Our line-up is full and we’ve been training all winter long to be conditioned to sprint this marathon.
Here’s the line-up!
Early on Monday morning, with our partners from DIRECTV For Business, we’re not just kicking things off with a round of golf, but we’ll be mic’d up and conducting interviews with executives between swings. To all the CEOs and other members of the C-suite participating in this round, please remember, what happens on the golf course in PHX, Schatz & Julie will capture on camera!
On Monday night, we’ll be having a special operator-centric Culinary Connect dinner with our partners from Adyen, a unified commerce payment platform for restaurants, consolidating in-store POS, online ordering, and app payments into one system.
Whether or not the Feud will be played again isn’t something I’m permitted to say, but one thing is for certain, Frank and Dean will be seated at the same table. 😊
Following our dinner, the doors will open wide and we’ll be kicking off our Cocktails & Connections event with our partners Adyen, Doordash, DIRECTV and DailyPay.
What does the team have planned for this gathering? You’ll need to be in the room where it happens to find out!
And our grand finale, on Tuesday, starting at 10am, we’ll be Live from RLC with the “Hospitality Hangout, presented by DailyPay.”
DailyPay helps restaurants by increasing employee retention and hiring rates, while providing workers immediate access to their earned income. The Branded team is thrilled to have DailyPay powering our Influencer Row and we’re excited at the line-up of guests we have joining us on this special edition of the Hangout.
Work hard, play hard and remember to wear sunscreen.
See you in Phoenix!
