Joy, Senior Director of Research and Development at Checkers and Rally’s, grew up in the business.
“My father was the first Checkers franchisee ever, and I worked in his office,” Joy said.
Before beginning his professional career, Joy received a degree in food science and hospitality management at The University of Alabama. He attributes his ability to work well in the business side of his job to both his hospitality management degree and his experience working at his father’s franchise.
Now, Joy may spend all day in his test kitchen developing new products or traveling around the country to look for new and better ways to cook food.
“There could be times when my day is traveling to a potato farm in Iowa,” Joy said.
His job wasn’t always so well-funded and technologically advanced. Joy began his career as a marketing coordinator and worked his way up in the marketing department. He loved developing food, but the company did not have a test kitchen.
“I morphed it into what it is today,” Joy said. “I would go into the restaurant from seven to around 11, leave during the lunch rush, and work two to four or four-thirty. I went to the CEO and said, ‘We need a test kitchen.’”
The CEO said, while they didn’t have the money at the time to fund a test kitchen, if Joy could come up with a way to finance the project, he could create a test kitchen.
Today, the test kitchen is where Joy creates all the food for Checkers and Rally’s.
“There’s a focus group room where a panel of eight to 12 people give live, real-time feedback,” Joy said.
Joy said there are two parts to his job: the technical side and the artistic side.
“You really have to have both,” he said.
Joy spoke about Checkers and Rally’s recent success.
“We’ve been on fire the last five to eight years,” he said. “A lot of it is doing consumer work. Sometimes the consumers don’t know what they want, and we have to help them. How do we bring those unique flavors to them? We’ve done things like take a mozzarella stick and twist it a little, use French fry batter to give it that light, crisp, peppery taste.”
Terri Snyder, Checkers and Rally’s Restaurants, Inc. CMO and Executive VP, said that Joy is a great leader.
“Ryan is the [cause] behind the unique products we have,” Snyder said. “I have been in the business almost 30 years. I’ve worked with a lot of people in product development. He gets the operation and the consumer. He stretches the space. He’s very inventive and very entrepreneurial.”
Jennifer Durham, Vice President of Franchise Development, began working at Checkers and Rally’s the same week as Joy.
“Literally everything that comes out of the test kitchen has his stamp on it,” Durham said. “It’s not just a job, it’s a brand he’s grown up in and loved.”
