This profile has not been claimed and data may not be accurate.
30th percentile
Chef-founder of FIELDTRIP, a Series A-backed fast-casual restaurant concept
Credibility
Domain Expertise · 37th percentile
- Wikipedia entity exists for JJ Johnson (chef), confirming public notability.
Relationship Matrix
Most Like You
Most Complimentary
Founder score
- 95%Probability of being accurate (95%)Current founder of FIELDTRIP, a fast-casual restaurant concept he founded in 2018.
- 95%Probability of being accurate (95%)Wikipedia entity exists for JJ Johnson (chef), confirming public notability.
- 90%Probability of being accurate (90%)FIELDTRIP received a Series A funding round from Founders Table (parent of Chopt) and Pendulum.
- 80%Probability of being accurate (80%)Co-founded InGrained Hospitality Concepts in 2017, making him a multi-company founder.
What you likely need
You'd get the most out of Festival events that put you in front of food-focused growth-stage investors and franchise operators who already understand chef-driven brands. Roundtables and dinners that let you road-test your unit economics story and SNAP-acceptance narrative with peers who've scaled past 5 locations would sharpen your pitch before your next raise. Warm-intro sessions with Enlightened Hospitality Investments-style family offices and travel-hub operators would directly accelerate both your expansion pipeline and your Founders Table channel strategy.
Would you attend these IRL Festival events?
We will tune and customize your Founder Festival experience to make sure you get invited to the events that would be most valuable to you.
- fundraisingA fast-casual founder dinner for chef-led brands (think Sweetgreen, Dig, Tender Belly alumni) to pressure-test per-location unit economics narratives ahead of growth-stage raises
- introsA closed-door roundtable with Enlightened Hospitality Investments, Saveur Selects, and food-focused family offices to get warm looks at FIELDTRIP's Series A story and expansion thesis
- tacticalA Founders Table partner dinner with rest-stop and travel-hub operators (Love's, Applegreen, HMS Host) to pitch FIELDTRIP as an anchor fast-casual concept for highway and airport locations
- positioningA positioning workshop for James Beard Award winners and TIME100-recognized founders on converting culinary accolades into a repeatable investor and franchise-partner media narrative
- positioningA mission-driven brand dinner for founders whose community-impact programs (SNAP acceptance, pay-what-you-can models) have earned national press recognition, to formalize those stories as investor-facing differentiators
- hiringA hiring roundtable for fast-casual founders scaling past 5 locations to share playbooks for recruiting a first COO or VP of Operations from brands like Shake Shack, CAVA, and Tender Greens
- fundraisingAn intimate Series A announcement strategy lunch with PR leads and investors who've helped chef-driven brands (Milk Bar, Eater-covered concepts) turn a funding announcement into sustained media and franchise momentum