David Weeks, a former standout offensive lineman for the University of Georgia football team, owns a portfolio of restaurants in Georgia that includes Barberitos, Newk’s Eatery and Dunkin’. He plans to open his first Guthrie’s next year.
When he was a captain and offensive lineman for the University of Georgia football team in the 1990s, David Weeks was used to doing the dirty work in the trenches and letting his teammates get the glory.
Now, as the owner of nine top-performing Barberitos restaurants, eight Dunkin’ stores and four Newk’s Eatery units in and around his hometown of Athens, Georgia, Weeks is still fine with working in the background and letting his employees get the accolades. He spoke at length about the great crew he’s assembled since 2003, when he joined the Barberitos system.
“They are the ones who make me look good every day,” Weeks said about the staff at his company, Bean Team, which is preparing to take on a fourth restaurant concept after signing a four-unit agreement with the chicken fingers chain Guthrie’s. Weeks, who plans to open his first Guthrie’s in 2026, is preparing to open Newk’s and Dunkin’ locations in the University of Georgia’s business school.
A self-confessed workaholic and serial entrepreneur who juggles running a $30 million restaurant business employing 500 with family life and coaching high school football, Weeks is understandably proud of what the Bean Team has accomplished. Seven of his Barberitos locations rank in the top 15 of the system, with his first location in Athens achieving 21 percent growth each month. One of his Newk’s locations is a top-five store and the average weekly sales at his Dunkin’ locations are $10,000 higher than the system average, he said.
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Weeks likens his role as founder and CEO of the Bean Team to being a head football coach, with his operations leaders being his offensive coordinators and his general managers being his position coaches. But unlike a lot of other restaurant groups, Weeks said he flipped the organization chart: He sits bottom right on it and serves his ops teams, who in turn serve his general managers.
“I go back to my football playing days and understanding my role as an offensive lineman, where I just made sure I made the blocks and protected my quarterback,” he said. “I didn’t need the individual glory when the team is winning and I still feel that way.”
Football remains an important part of Week’s life. His three sons—Whit, West and Zach—carry on the family sports legacy as linebackers at Louisiana State University.
And like any successful football coach, Weeks is involved in all aspects of his restaurant business. He regularly travels to his 21 restaurants and meets with his general managers to go over inventory and sales.
He also makes it point to interview all his key hires and set them up to run the day-to-day operations at his stores, while he prefers to manage and mentor from the sidelines. If a general manager or someone on his executive team does not buy into the team culture and is not performing to expectations, he won’t hesitate to remove them from the roster and give someone else a chance.
“Running restaurants is hard enough. Running successful restaurants is an entirely different thing. It takes everyone, from our general managers to the cooks to the people sweeping the floors, to be at their best,” Weeks said.
“It really is like a football game every day for us, and I suppose that’s what I still love about it.”
Weeks referred to his longest-tenured employees, some of whom have been with him since he started, as family. A lot of that loyalty and trust in his teammates goes back to his football playing days when, as an undersized but versatile lineman, he played center, guard and tackle for the Georgia Bulldogs from 1991 to 1995 and blocked for two future Super Bowl MVPs: running back Terrell Davis and receiver Hines Ward.
These days, Weeks said he feels blessed to have a job he loves. After graduating from Georgia with dual business degrees in management and marketing, he gave up a high-paying pharmaceutical sales position to take a chance on a restaurant career. He has no regrets.
“I guess I always wanted to be my own boss, and the one thing I realized early on was that I really love food and I wasn’t smart enough to come up with my own concept,” he said. “Thank goodness for franchising and the great brands I chose.”