Somewhere, sitting in the back of one of Happy Day’s maintenance facilities, in an unopened bag on an untouched shelf that no one can quite find, was a part. A crucial part that was already ordered a second time. Nobody knew it was there, but it was needed, so, what do you do? Order it a third time. If you multiply that by, say a couple hundred parts, do you know what you would have? About $1,450 worth of new parts, in their factory sealed bags, or at least that’s what the Happy Day Maintenance team came across. Work orders kept getting lost in an overly complex system, requests that seemed to keep falling off the face of the earth. Small problems were going unnoticed while the big ones always felt urgent. That’s where today’s story starts, but it isn’t what it’s about. To understand the Happy Day maintenance team, we should head back to the garage.
Bruce Finch grew up around people who built things. Charles Finch, his father, was a contractor, and not in a small way. He built the first 3 TacoTime buildings, as well as a number of others. That tradition of making, fixing, and figuring things out didn’t skip a generation, and actually became a key component in Bruce’s vision for the company. Bruce had a history with welding, and his son and now Happy Day President, Tobe, remembers it clearly. Bruce in the garage welding fry baskets back together for the restaurants. Because really, why buy new ones if you can fix the ones you have? That instinct to be self-reliant and mildly stubborn (in the best way) became a key part of the maintenance department that Bruce crafted. Not because it was the cheapest option, though it probably is, but because there is a certain sense of pride in, “we can handle our own”.
“The journey we have been on wouldn’t be possible without our maintenance team” Tobe Finch says today. Paul Nardecchia, head of maintenance, describes the department as ‘Full-Service’. As in, they try to avoid outsourcing to other companies unless they have to. The team consists of six people that everything from metalwork, HVAC, woodworking, and upholstery down to landscaping, koi pond maintenance, and even locksmithing. They did the majority of Main Street Grill’s recent remodel as well as helping with the 2016 expansion of Zany Graze and the 2017 expansion of Mystic Café. The main office used to have a water-powered elevator that ultimately failed, but this somehow wasn’t a huge deal. The team installed a new freight elevator, making it once again possible to move the dry storage downstairs.
Then, there’s the freezer story, which I have to admit, almost sounds made up until you realize this team tells it matter of factly, as if it were any other job. Happy Day Catering’s building was a meat processing facility in its past life, and on top of that building, sat a massive commercial cooling unit. As Happy Day was making progress in its local food initiative, Happy Day Local, they realized they couldn’t find a cooling unit large enough for what they needed. The maintenance team brought in a crane, got the unit down, and spent about a month getting it operational. Now, it’s running the warehouse freezers.
The craziness expands far beyond their job stories. If you haven’t met him, one of our maintenance employees is actually in the top 5 longest standing Happy Day employees. Stan Austin has been in our maintenance department for 41 years, and at 84 years old, is our upholstery expert and former locksmith. Stan doesn’t make a lot of noise about what he does, by all accounts, he enjoys his job. He shows up and does what he does, like he has for four decades. That alone perfectly describes the culture of the department. For as long as anyone can remember, the maintenance team has operated like most any other. Someone calls, you go. There’s a problem, you fix it. It’s reactive by nature, not necessarily because anyone planned it to be, it’s just the gravity of maintenance work. There is always going to be something urgent pulling at your attention.
The scheduling reflected that. Requests come informally. Work orders moved through a system that had grown much too complicated to effectively manage. Trips to different locations weren’t planned around geography, so they would go up to Moscow and a day later, have to go right back for another job. Parts already on a shelf somewhere were being reordered, costs accumulated without a clear picture of where they were going or why. It worked, but it had its limitations. Phil Seward, who came to Happy Day in 2025 as our Director of Strategic Integration, saw that. He came on with the “how do we change that” mindset. The first step to change wasn’t a new software or strategy, it was something much more intimidating: a clean out.
The team began going through boxes and shelves at the various facilities. Does this need to be here? What is it? How old is it? What is it used for? A significant amount of materials were donated or passed alone to other companies that could actually use them. The remainder was catalogued, which brings us to the rebuild of the maintenance department. Under the guidance of Phil, the team implemented a new management platform which meant they had to build the entire inventory by hand. Every part in the system now has a location code and qr code. When scanned, you can see what the part is, how many we have on hand, what machines it’s used in, where to order it from, and which stores need it. Model numbers, serial numbers, order history, all of right there in one spot.
And it doesn’t stop there. Every piece of equipment in the restaurants have a barcode as well. Scan those and you’ll see what parts the machine uses and where to find them. For managers, it even goes a step further. Scanning the code also pull up a work order directly on your phone. Submitting a maintenance request went from a multi-step process that often fell through cracks to something that happens in about 10 seconds. The data that flows through the system has also changed how the department thinks about money. Every time a part is used, or a work order is completed, it all gets logged. Now, they can run a monthly or yearly report to see exactly which stores and which pieces of equipment are costing the most, and then use that data to build real, effective strategies around replacements and preventative maintenance. For the first time, there is a clear answer to the question, “Where is our money going?”
The scheduling transformation has been just as beneficial. Work orders are able to be efficiently assigned based on skillset. A job requiring wood working might go to Ron, whereas a problem with the landscaping would be assigned to Muhammad. And because the system shows everything, a technician heading to Moscow can plan every Moscow job into that trip rather than making three separate drives over two weeks. The Upkeep system also triggers automated work orders at certain times of the year, prompting the team to do preventive maintenance before problems have the chance to occur. Recently, Tobe and Phil have been doing walkthroughs of the stores, which generally results in a list of 20-40 items that could be fixed or improved. These are things that wouldn’t have been on the radar prior, but the proactive team now notices and works on them.
These changes have naturally come with some push back, but the team is handling it with tact under the leadership of Paul Nardecchia, who has worked for Happy Day for 13 years now. He grew up as a kid who took things apart so that he could understand how they work and hopefully put them back together. That curiosity never left him, it just led him to a much larger set of things to be curious about. The work itself is steady and meaningful, although he did mention that most of their ‘down time’ is driving between jobs. Paul shared that with the new system and changes that have paired with it, he generally feels less stressed outside of work. The shift from reactive to proactive means that he can think and plan ahead more, which changes how the whole day feels. But none of this is what Paul values most about his job, it’s his team and the people around him. He talked about his interactions he has with people all over the company at various types of jobs, and how rewarding it is to have these relationships, he mentioned his interactions with David Hayes, manager of Zanys, referring to him as an incredible guy in a way that you only really talk about someone you’re genuinely glad you get to know. And when it came down to everything the maintenance department has accomplished, the new system, the preventative approach, all of the jobs they do, Paul was direct with where the credit belongs. “I owe everything to my entire crew. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to do a tenth of what we do.”
Warren Buffett once said that someone is sitting in the shade right now because of a tree someone planted long ago. Happy Day’s maintenance team has been planting trees for decades. In a garage, welding fryer baskets. On a rooftop with a crane, bringing down a cooling unit that nobody else would’ve thought to salvage. The nature of this work is that when it’s done well, you don’t notice it. The elevator just works and the freezer just hums at the perfect temperature. The booths at the restaurant are seemingly indestructible as they stand through years of wear, and the stores keep running. The best job they can do is one that goes unnoticed, and somewhere in the valley right now, there are six people doing exactly that.
Special thank you to our team for everything they do: Paul Nardecchia, Paul Thomas, Ron Knoerr, William Groves, Stan Austin, and Muhammad Kayid
