Joseph Tenczar Email Address

Restaurant Chief Information Officer

Floyd \"Sonny\" Tillman and his wife, Lucille, founded Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q in Gainesville, Florida. The year was 1968.\r\n\r\nTheir goal was to create a casual restaurant offering the very best authentic southern Bar-B-Q. Of course great food wasn't the only reason folks stopped by. Customers could always count on fast, friendly service every time they visited.\r\n\r\nToday, Sonny's is the biggest name in Bar-B-Q and operates in nine states. Success is great. But after 40 years, it's still about\"Feel Good Bar-B-Q\".

Joe Tenczar is the Chief Information Officer for Sonny’s BBQ, one of the largest and most popular barbecue restaurant companies in the country. Tenczar joined Sonny’s BBQ in 2014 with a focus on creating the franchise restaurant technology blueprint of the future. Tenczar has also led the Marketing, Finance, and Purchasing areas for Sonny’s while acting as CIO.Additionally, Tenczar is a founding partner of Restaurant CIOs, a “CIO-as-a-Service” company where he and his CIO partners collaborate to represent hospitality companies on a fractional basis.Before Sonny’s BBQ, Tenczar was the global CIO for Hard Rock International, where he led the R&D and rollout of many innovative technologies that affect the Hard Rock guests and staff members.His specialties include a strategic focus on emerging technology’s place in hospitality and understanding the overall tactical hospitality technology necessities. After beginning his career as a programmer and manager for financial software companies, Tenczar was a senior technology leader for the second largest arm of the Marriott Corporation. He then joined Ripley’s Entertainment as VP of Technology during the construction of their Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, Canada. During his tenure, Tenczar helped pioneer the use of RFID technology into POS and PMS systems for the benefit of guest security and convenience.