Hospitality Industry Veteran Shapes Future Of Innovative Digital Foodservice Platform
Franklin Junction, an innovative foodservice e-commerce solutions platform, announced today the promotion of Rishi Nigam to Chief Executive Officer. Drawing on over 20 years of hospitality and retail experience, Nigam partnered alongside Aziz Hashim in 2020 to co-found Franklin Junction and revolutionize the foodservice industry. The platform serves as the first, and largest, digital marketplace connecting proven restaurant brands to highly qualified Host Kitchens for delivery only as a strategy to drive risk-free incremental revenue to both. Nigam has now been appointed to officially lead the innovative technology startup at an exciting time in Franklin Junction’s evolution as its holistic approach to restaurant e-commerce continues to receive widespread acclaim.
Prior to launching Franklin Junction, Nigam had specialized in raising the hospitality experiences to new heights in non-traditional settings such as stadiums, arenas, racetracks, and airports. Over the course of his career, Nigam had led teams as a Director of Operations at Aramark, spearheading the execution of premier large-scale events at world-famous sports and entertainment venues, and served as a Vice President at International Speedway Corporation, now NASCAR. While at ISC, Nigam oversaw the revitalization of the concessions, hospitality, and retail lines of business and significantly contributed to renovation projects totaling over $1 billion. Most recently, Nigam helmed the turnaround efforts for an award-winning airport concessions firm as they achieved record profitability and won several new contracts.
“I have been extremely fortunate all my life to pursue a career in hospitality, an industry I have built myself up in since starting as a cook when I was a teenager. Through my experience over the years, I have witnessed the extremely hard-fought battles of owners and operators to make a miniscule profit and, like any line of work, repeatedly saw real pain points that seemed to reemerge. Underutilized kitchen capacity and restaurant inefficiency was often at the root of the problem,” said Rishi Nigam. “Immediately once Aziz approached me with the idea of Franklin Junction, I knew creating a Host Kitchen marketplace to reposition existing assets for our partners was the future of the industry and I wanted to help write that story. It has been an incredible journey seeing how many restaurants we have unlocked meaningful profits for while saving so many jobs in such a short amount of time. I am looking forward to continuing making a positive impact in the industry I have grown up with and providing a solution under Franklin Junction for the infrastructure problems that have plagued our profitability for far too long.”
The Franklin Junction Host Kitchen model offers ultimate flexibility and is already used within a wide range of businesses, including restaurants, hotels, grocery and convenience stores, and is coming soon to non-traditional retail locations such as airports, convention centers, universities, and sporting venues. Looking ahead, Franklin Junction plans to continue curating category-leading brand partners to add to its growing portfolio, which include Nathan’s Famous, Frisch’s Big Boy, The Captain’s Boil, Nuchas, and more, while expanding into international growth as well.
“I have known Rishi for many years and, when conceptualizing Franklin Junction, I knew he would bring invaluable experience to the brand with his background in non-traditional operations, business development, and superior hospitality,” said Aziz Hashim, co-founder of Franklin Junction. “I am incredibly proud of the platform we have built so far for Franklin Junction and partnering with Rishi has been a huge part of that success story. As co-founder, he has helped shape the future of our company and he is just the person to continue propelling that vision as CEO.”
To find out more about Franklin Junction, follow https://www.franklinjunction.com.
