About Firehouse Subs
Firehouse Subs is a premium sandwich brand known for hearty, hot-crafted subs made with its signature steaming process. Founded in 1994 by two firefighter brothers, the brand has spent over 30 years building a reputation for great food and community impact — supported by its Public Safety Foundation that provides lifesaving equipment to first responders.
Now part of Restaurant Brands International, Firehouse Subs operates 1,370+ stores across 7 countries with annual sales of $1.25B — and is entering its next chapter of growth.
The Challenge
Fragmented data across a growing franchise network was slowing everything down
With hundreds of locations running their own systems and no unified view of performance, Firehouse Subs faced three compounding challenges:
Fragmented Data
Data spread across POS systems, customer feedback tools, call centers, and social media made it impossible to create a unified view of franchise performance across hundreds of locations.
Limited Franchisee Visibility
Franchise owners lacked consistent, actionable insights to understand their performance — leaving them unable to identify growth opportunities or course-correct in time.
Lack of Actionable Insights
The corporate team couldn't access timely, reliable KPIs, limiting their ability to drive performance, support franchisees, and guide the brand's rapid strategic growth.
Rapid Franchise Growth
Expanding from 300+ to over 1,000 locations introduced major complexity in managing financial and operational performance across the entire network.
“”
Danny Walsh
Vice President of Reporting & Analytics, Firehouse Subs
The Solution
Station Pulse — A Unified Analytics Platform
Firehouse Subs and Keboola created a unified analytics platform, connecting financial and operational data across the franchise. Now, corporate and franchisees have real-time performance visibility.
Unified Analytics Platform
Firehouse Subs partnered with Keboola to build Station Pulse — a unified analytics platform that connected POS, customer experience, call center, Yelp, and weather data into a single, real-time view by location. Both corporate and franchisees gained instant visibility into performance.
Centralized real-time insights that transformed decision-making across the entire franchise network.
Embedded Scorecard
A simple scorecard inside Franconnect delivered 10 key metrics with regional and national benchmarking, giving franchisees clear, actionable insights.
Fast, Scalable Deployment
The platform was built in five months and created a scalable, governed data foundation that supports ongoing growth and innovation.
The Results
4× growth — powered by data everyone could actually use
Station Pulse delivered measurable financial and operational improvements across the entire Firehouse Subs franchise network — from individual stores to corporate headquarters.
$1.4M
Financial Impact
Firehouse Subs achieved an average annual ROI of $1.4M with payback in under three months. The franchise network also saw measurable revenue improvements across hundreds of locations.
4×
Operational Performance
The platform accelerated systemwide growth 4× as the brand scaled from 300 to 1,200 restaurants. Employees gained the insights needed to work more efficiently and correct course faster.
Award
Systemwide Alignment
Real-time data created a shared source of truth used by franchisees, managers, and executives alike. The solution earned industry recognition, winning the Hospitality Technology Breakthrough Award.
100%
Universal Adoption Drives Productivity
Station Pulse achieved universal adoption across Firehouse Subs, with everyone from general managers to C-suite executives using the same dashboard. This created a common language for performance across the organization, leading to measurable increases in employee productivity.
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Danny Walsh
Vice President of Reporting & Analytics, Firehouse Subs
