Wingers Alehouse : Wingers Founder Eric Slaymaker Spotlights a 14-Year Operating Partner

This video features Eric Slaymaker, founder of Wingers Restaurant & Alehouse, in conversation with the new operating partner at the Riverton, Utah location. The interview is structured as a brand-built spotlight on a long-tenured team member who has just transitioned into ownership. Tenure is the headline. The new operating partner has been with Wingers for 14 years before taking ownership of the Riverton location. Slaymaker frames the milestone as the payoff for a long relationship between the brand and a team member who has grown through the system. The operating partner describes the 14-year run as the greatest ride of his life. Operational performance underscores the conversation. The location went through a full remodel during the COVID-19 closure period. Despite the disruption, the store is performing better in the current period than the same period the year before. Slaymaker uses that data point to position the brand as a model that holds up through external shocks when the people running it are committed long term. The video closes with a direct call to action. Slaymaker invites prospects who want to align with the right brand to visit wingersfranchising.com. The implicit message to franchise candidates is clear: Wingers builds operators who stay, and the career-to-ownership pathway shown here — 14 years of operations followed by an ownership stake — is the trajectory the brand is willing to invest in. For prospects evaluating restaurant-and-alehouse franchises, the spotlight makes a specific argument. The brand is small enough that the founder personally interviews the next generation of operating partners, and the brand's economics are durable enough that a remodeled, post-COVID store outperforms its pre-disruption baseline. Both signals matter to candidates weighing operator-track or single-unit ownership in the casual-dining segment.