Dave Shula is back at the helm of Shula's Restaurant Group, returning as president of the family-owned franchise company his father, Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach Don Shula, founded in 1989. The move signals a sharpened operational focus as the group manages a six-concept, 30-plus-location portfolio and pursues deliberate market expansion over the next 18 months.
Dave Shula previously held the presidency for nearly 20 years before stepping away in 2018 to coach wide receivers at Dartmouth College through 2023. His return consolidates ownership and executive leadership under a single seat — a structural choice that franchise operators and prospective franchisees should read as a commitment to brand consistency over distributed management.
Expansion Targets
The near-term growth slate is concrete. Shula's American Kitchen is set to open this winter inside the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel and Executive Meeting Center Palm Beach Gardens — a hotel-anchored placement that fits a well-established pattern among legacy steakhouse brands seeking captive-audience volume and reduced street-level marketing costs. A second new-market opening in Thomasville, Georgia is planned for 2027, with additional locations described as under exploration. For franchise development professionals and hotel F&B consultants tracking branded restaurant partnerships, the DoubleTree deal is a useful benchmark: mid-scale Hilton properties remain an active channel for regional steakhouse and casual-dining concepts with established loyalty recognition.
What Operators Should Watch
The leadership structure here is worth unpacking for operators evaluating multi-concept franchise systems. Shula's six concepts — Shula's Steak House, Shula's American Kitchen, 347 Grille by Coach Shula, Shula Burger, Shula's Bar & Grill, and PRIME, A Shula's Steak House — span price points from fast-casual to upscale, giving the group flexibility to place concepts across hotel tiers, standalone real estate, and mixed-use developments. Dave Shula's stated priorities include team building within the corporate organization and reinforcing operational culture across franchised locations, two areas that tend to precede a more aggressive franchising push in multi-concept systems.
His background is unconventional for a restaurant group president — NFL player, offensive coordinator, head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, college football coach — but the operational disciplines he cites (preparation, accountability, consistency) translate directly to the franchise compliance and guest-experience standardization challenges that erode mid-size restaurant groups. For multi-unit operators and franchise buyers evaluating whether a legacy brand has the infrastructure to support growth, leadership continuity and owner involvement are reliable proxies for system health.
For agencies and vendors working the brand launch and hotel F&B space, Shula's dual-track strategy — hotel partnerships plus new geographic markets — represents an active procurement window for local marketing support, FF&E procurement, and franchise onboarding services heading into 2027.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
