EVENT RECAP

2026 858 x CREATE

858 x CREATE moved back to the West Coast to the beautiful Terranea Resort for our third consecutive year as title sponsor. It was hands down the best CREATE yet that we have been a part of, Informa’s version of RLC for the emerging enterprise operator, which continues to create new forms of value and connection for operators and partners. Here's a look back.

Event overview

Opening Remarks. JG kicked off the general session and introduced keynote speaker Scott Boatwright, CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill. JG’s remarks compared the industry to the 2026 New York Knicks amazing comeback from a 29 point 3rd quarter deficit during the NBA Finals while centering on 3 key themes 858 has heard everywhere during the first half of 2026: the guest relationship is the center of gravity, operators want fewer, better integrated systems, and an AI conversation that has moved from hype to business impact. "For the first time ever, the playing field is actually tilted toward the emerging enterprise operators," he told the audience of 250 operators. This set the stage for an operator-only workshop that immediately followed.

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Operator Roundtables: The 2026 Tech Priorities Shaping Emerging Enterprise Brands. For the 2nd consecutive year in a row, 858 held an innovation forum that broke CREATE’s attendance records. 80 operators filled eight tables, to tackle 1 of 5 topics. The session opened with a short framing from JG describing 5 topics hitting every P&L: guest data, the operator technology stack, first party ordering, AI in operations, and emerging to mid-market brand scaling. Brand captains from California Fish Grill, Sweetfin, Farmer Boys & several emerging enterprise brands representing every major function led table discussions where operators voted for the topic they wanted to discuss. This was followed by 30 minutes of discussion and collaboration. Operators thanked one another as they departed with new tests to run within their business, and ideas to discuss with their teams. More on the results of these discussions below.

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VIP Dinner. Nelson's oceanfront outdoor patio at Terranea hosted 858 x CREATE's VIP dinner Monday night, an evening reception built for operators and partners to connect following the first day.

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1:1 Meetings. On Tuesday morning, partners met with senior operators organized by the conference partner in lieu of a traditional tradeshow floor. Operators and prospective partners connected in back to back meetings with a beautiful ocean backdrop for the morning and put the right people together to explore potential business opportunities and develop the right relationships.

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Tech Stands. Branded tech stands for 858 partner companies lined the main event foyer Monday through Wednesday. This passive approach to client showcasing offered visibility, a place to meet, but avoided the intrusive sales-forward approach of a typical conference booth.

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What the Data and Voted Discussion Topics Tell Us.

Over 100 attending operators were polled on their top technology priorities over the next 12 months prior to the event, and over 80 operators dove deep on a subset of specific unique challenges facing their teams at 858’s workshop. The five topics tables chose from were: AI in Operations, The Guest Data Play, Winning the First-Party War, Rationalizing the Stack, and Scaling from Emerging to Enterprise. Here’s what we learned from this cross section of data and live discussion.

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AI has a clear boundary, and operators drew it where the market did.

AI in Operations and Guest Data took 61% of the vote between them. Tables shared what’s working now: back-office data entry, SOPs, KPI and AUV tracking, G&A replacement, labor deployment, marketing and finance. And, what’s not yet working: in-person hospitality, anything inauthentic, privacy exposure, dirty data, onboarding. The national picture agrees. Restaurant365 ranks front-of-house AI last among second-half investment priorities at 6.31%, behind back-of-house at 9.09%, and the NRA has 26% of operators using AI but only 6% taking customer orders. Start where the manual data entry is; leave the guest-facing voice until the data underneath is clean.

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The work operators described is activation, not acquisition.

Stack rationalization drew only 15% of workshop votes but became the discussion at two of eight tables. Their rules: justify the ROI, consolidate, centralize data sources, avoid long contracts, prioritize integrations that actually work. Guest data ran on the same instinct: first-to-third purchase automations, payment data to identify guests, discounting discipline, behavior before versus after loyalty signup. Nobody asked for more data. They asked to act on what they already hold. The audit that follows: contracts up for renewal, integrations that quietly don't work, and how much of your guest data reaches a decision.

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Your number-one priority probably isn't your CEO's, and that's why the business case can stall.

Split the interest data by function and the fragmentation resolves. Technology leaders put stack rationalization first at 33%, and no other seat shared it. Founders went to growth operating systems at 22%, marketing to loyalty at 36%, operations and finance to supply chain and third-party delivery at 14%. Four seats, four doors into the same stack. A consolidation case argued in technology's language lands on a founder who wants a system to grow into and a CMO who wants the guest back. The ones that survive get framed as what rationalization unlocks for them.

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What Brand Executives Said

Here's what stood out:

Knicks in 5! "I really enjoyed your main-stage performance at CREATE. You distilled complex topics in an easy to consume way that made it fun and relatable to all of us in the room. Lots of valuable information to share with my team when I get back!”, said one emerging enterprise Founder & CEO

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The conversation could have kept going. "The exchange of best practices was both insightful and energizing, and it was clear that the conversation could have continued well beyond the time allotted," said one operator, a VP of Operations.

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It wasn't just business cards. "Great to be connected with those I was not before," said one CEO. Another operator put it more bluntly: "Thanks for overloading my table with the best of the best at the conference."

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The connections outlast the conference. "I still have these people reach out to me on LinkedIn or through email... I made some good connections with my group last year," said one returning operator, a CEO, describing how the relationships from past sessions have held up.

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Feedback & Learnings

We're proud of how CREATE came together for a third straight year. Here's what we heard this week, and what we'll do differently next time.

The 1:1s were the best reviewed part of CREATE, for the partners who got the full experience.

The 1:1s consistently came up as the single strongest piece of CREATE. That said, the experience wasn't even: show rates ranged from about half to nearly full. Operators complained about 10 meetings being too taxing.

Next Time: Work with our partners to improve the 1:1 format and a manageable amount of meetings for both brands and partners to make it impactful. We continue to believe this format is better than the traditional booth hours.

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A reception-style format is preferable for the VIP dinner.

Most of our partners came prepared for a reception-style mixer and instead found a seated dinner, which slowed connections and, in at least one case, ran into a long enough wait on food that it ate into the time meant for conversation.

Next Time: Own the experience further. Either stick with a reception-style format or move to our intentional seating format to get the right people connected and spending time with one another.

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The roundtable continues to shine.

The only critical feedback about the roundtables was that operators wanted more time with one another. We had to deny 3 tables worth of operators that waited outside and could not enter due to capacity.

Next Time: Get a bigger space and go longer. Bottom-line: 858’s operator sessions continue to get ranked the highest and break attendance records, so we’ll work with our conference partner to give the people what they want.

With Gratitude

None of this works without the support of our clients and partners. They seeded the operator conversations and traded sales theater for real peer dialogue. And for that, we thank you.

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858 exists in service of the operator. We believe this industry is a big enough table that everyone can eat, so our job is to get the right operators in a room and facilitate real problem solving over sales theater, and get out of the way. Technology only matters here if it drives a business outcome, not because it’s new. We’re not perfect. We’re an events firm still learning what works. But we think there’s no better return on an operator’s time, or a sponsor’s time, than an 858 peer-to-peer forum.

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Follow 858 for the next recap and first access to our fall lineup: NEST Technology Summit, NEST Chapter Gathering, the CFO Summit, and our first standalone SoCal Field Trip here.

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Zippy's

Anthony Mejia

VP of Technology

Pokeworks

Ha Ly

Head of Marketing

Agave & Stone Hospitality

John Iannucci

CEO

Tacotarian

Kristen Corral

Co-Founder & CEO

Farmer Boys

Mark Hardison

CMO

Hungry Howie's

Moises Santana

VP of Operations

Calfiornia Fish Grill

Paul Potvin

CFO

Sweetfin

Seth Cohen

President

Axial Shift

Sarah Higgins

Head of Marketing

Axial Shift

Raechel Barnes

Operations & Project Management

Consolidated Concepts

Chris Anderson

VP of Sales

Consolidated Concepts

Shannon Brooks

VP of Business Development

Meez

Joshua Sharkey

CEO

Meez

Dominic Casaus

Senior Account Executive

Momos

Davi Dubinski

Co-Founder & Head of Sales

Momos

Jill Bucci

Enterprise Account Executive

Reachify

Zeel Jadia

CEO & CTO

Reachify

Aaron Spears

Lead DevOps Engineer

Toast

Grant Douglas

Mid-Market Enterprise Account Executive

Toast

Alex Thomas

Solutions Engineer

With Coverage

Sage Disch

President, Hospitality & 4-Wall

With Coverage

Zach Zimmerman

Director of Hospitality Partnerships

Event pictures

Take a look at some moments from the event, from great conversations to key highlights. These photos capture the energy of the day and the people who made it memorable.

See Event Pictures ↗