Retail scale, simplified: How automation saved this retail owner’s late nights

By

Jonathan Greene

, Adam Brown

, and Anthresia McWashington

Last Updated May 7, 2026

By

Jonathan Greene

, Adam Brown

, and Anthresia McWashington

When Adam Brown stepped into the role of Director of Construction at Pollo Campero, he inherited a vision of groundbreaking proportions: The Latin American restaurant brand was ready to triple its U.S. footprint.

But beneath the surface of this ambitious expansion was a fragmented reality. Adam found himself following a digital paper trail scattered across cloud drives, documents, and endless email threads. 

“When I arrived, everything was being managed through email and spreadsheets," Adam explains. "Nobody really had an idea of what was happening during the lifecycle of a project.”

The stakes were high. In a high-velocity rollout, a single "bad project" could destabilize the health of the entire portfolio.

What kept Adam up at night wasn’t just the construction, it was the invisible financial exposure buried in a spreadsheet he hadn't seen yet.

The collision of talent and tasks

As the company prepared for weekly project health meetings, the leadership team needed answers. Because the data lived in silos, the responsibility of "plugging the holes" fell squarely on Adam.

Adam was a Director of Construction being bogged down by administrative duties.

Instead of analyzing site performance or identifying cost-saving trends, he was manually stitching together data from 21 different states just to provide a snapshot of the past. 

I would find myself running reports late at night because often the questions and answers leadership needs to make decisions come in evening business meetings.

Adam Brown

Director of Construction

Pollo Campero

The five-second moment: Shifting to automation

Adam realized that if he continued to be the source of gathering information, he would eventually become the bottleneck that stopped Pollo Campero’s growth.

The "Five-Second Moment" occurred when he flipped the switch from manual reporting to automated transparency. With a capital project management system, Adam was able to stop building reports and start building an automated system.

“I would find myself running reports late at night because often the questions and answers leadership needs to make decisions come in evening business meetings," Adam says. "The tools free up my time because I can automate reports for them so that every week they have the best information.”

The mental shift? He moved from proving what happened to predicting what could happen.

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The outcome: Capital mastery in real-time

By moving Pollo Campero into a unified platform, Adam helped transform the construction department from a cost center into a strategic launch pad.

The results weren't just better organized files — they were transformed business capabilities:

• From site-bound to strategic oversight: With remote visibility, the team no longer had to be on-site daily to manage GCs. This reclaimed "operational energy" allows a six-person team to manage over 140 locations.
• A culture of accountability: When all data was centralized, the information siloes vanished.

For the first time, Pollo Campero could use their lessons learned to protect their capital. They could trace change orders to their source and ask, "Do we need to update our prototype?"

Now, when Adam meets with leadership, the conversation isn't about where a document is—it’s about where the company is going.

Written by

Jonathan Greene

Writer

17 articles

Jon Greene is a freelance educator, writer, and award winning theater maker. As an educational writer he has created content, lessons, and led seminars for Young Audiences of Louisiana, Hynes Charter System in New Orleans, Centre Stage School of the Arts in Singapore, 'Friends of The Museum' Docent Workshop in Singapore, The Prague Public High School System, Moleac Pharmaceuticals, and with the Grand Portage Ojibwa Tribe. His work and writing for theater has been featured in Howlround and American Theater Magazine and he is the recipient of 2 regional theater awards in his home of New Orleans. He is a BFA Graduate of Boston University and a previous Kennedy Center Fellow.

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Adam Brown

Director of Construction | Pollo Campero

Adam Brown is the Director of Construction at Pollo Campero and a veteran of the development and construction industry. With a career that includes executive roles at The Woodmont Company and Portillo’s, Adam specializes in scaling restaurant and retail brands through strategic project management. A graduate of Missouri State University, he brings nearly 20 years of hands-on experience and leadership to every project he touches.

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Anthresia McWashington

Content Manager | Procore

22 articles

Anthresia McWashington is a Content Manager at Procore. She previously worked as an editor and reporter for Gulf Energy Information and Houston Media Group. She earned her BA in Communications and Journalism from the University of Houston. Anthresia loves track & field and practicing her French. She lives in Houston.

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