Gregg Majewski of Craveworthy Brands named EY US Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2026 Midwest Award winner

Award winner announcement

June 17, 2026 // Franchising.com // CHICAGO - Gregg Majewski, founder and CEO of Craveworthy Brands, was named an EY US Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2026 Midwest Award winner. Majewski was selected among top program participants in the Midwest, which included finalists.

A finance-trained operator, Majewski has spent more than 30 years building restaurant brands. He started at Jimmy John’s as an intern and rose to become one of the youngest people to serve as the brand’s CEO, CFO and COO, helping scale it from 30 locations to over 300, selling 700 additional franchises and building its well-known delivery model that helped define the category.

In late 2022, Majewski put everything on the line to found Craveworthy, a multi-brand platform built around a single idea: emerging concepts need the right systems to scale, and legacy brands deserve a second chance, without losing what made them special. The Company creates and builds brands with strong fundamentals and gives them shared infrastructure to thrive in the long term.

Craveworthy growth

Craveworthy has grown to more than 20 brands and 300 locations, surpassing $300 million in systemwide sales with a path to $1 billion. The portfolio spans fast-casual, quick-service, full-service and virtual concepts in various culinary segments, including Shaquille O’Neal-founded Big Chicken, New York City’s Gregorys Coffee and Taffer’s Tavern by Bar Rescue’s Jon Taffer, each supported by a centralized system across operations, franchise development, culinary, marketing, real estate, supply chain, training and technology.

At the heart of Craveworthy is a conviction Majewski has shaped the Company around: take care of the people who run the restaurants, and they will take care of the guests. It leads with "people, product and process," in that order, and is driven by a long-term goal of creating 100,000 success stories – the team members, operators and franchisees who rise from entry-level positions into management and ownership. To open those doors, Craveworthy invests in its own people through programs such as Crave University, a multi-level training program built to help them grow into hospitality leaders.

“I’ve never measured success only in number of locations open or sales made. I measure it in success stories – the dishwasher who becomes a general manager, the cashier who earns their first bonus check, the director who becomes a franchisee,” Majewski added. “They’re why we dream, why we keep going, why we win.”

Entrepreneur of the year program

Now in its 41st year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year program honors business leaders for their ingenuity, courage and entrepreneurial spirit. It celebrates original founders who bootstrapped their business from inception or raised outside capital to grow their company, transformational CEOs who infused innovation into an existing organization to catapult its trajectory and multigenerational family business leaders who reimagined a legacy business model to strengthen it for the future.

Regional winners were chosen by an independent panel of past winners, top CEOs and business leaders. Judges assessed candidates on long-term value creation, entrepreneurial spirit, purpose-driven commitment, and significant growth and impact.

As a Midwest award winner, Majewski will now be considered by the national judges for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2026 National Awards, which will be presented in November at the annual Strategic Growth Forum®, where high-growth CEOs, Fortune 1000 executives and investors converge to shape the future of business. The National Overall Award winner will move on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Award in May 2027.

The Entrepreneur Of The Year program has recognized the leadership of entrepreneurs such as:

• Jason McGowan, Crumbl Cookies

• RJ Melman, Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants

• Saeju Jeong, Noom

• Allison Ellsworth | Stephen Ellsworth, Poppi

• Jitendra Mohan | Sanjay Gajendra | Casey Morrison, Astera Labs

• Kathy Bolhous, Charter Next Generation

• Howard Schultz, Starbucks Coffee Company

• Holly Thaggard | Amanda Baldwin, Supergoop!

• Jodi L. Berg, Vita-Mix Corporation

• Michael Happe, Winnebago Industries

• Herb Kohler, Jr., Kohler Company

Founded and produced by Ernst & Young LLP, the Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards include presenting sponsors PNC Bank, Cresa, LLC, Marsh Risk, SAP and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. In the Midwest, sponsors also include Platinum sponsor LaSalle Network, Gold sponsors Becker Professional Education and Big Picture, and Silver sponsors ADP and Boomi.