YORK, Pa.— Ryan Krebs has been at Rutter’s Farm Stores for 35 years—if you count his 5-year-old self biking over, allowance in hand, to buy baseball cards.

The foodservice veteran and York, Pa., native took over the reins this month from now-retired Jerry Weiner to become director of foodservice for the convenience-store chain.

But a lot has happened since he bought those baseball cards. A graduate of Johnson & Wales University with a degree in culinary arts, Krebs has traversed the foodservice industry—and the country—working at restaurants, hotels, country clubs and catering firms and in rehabilitative and long-term care facilities.

Prior to joining Rutter’s in 2013, he spent about seven years as a corporate executive chef overseeing eight nursing homes in San Diego. His experience reflects an industry going through an evolution similar to that of c-stores.

“There was a push to upgrade foodservice in healthcare, which is obvious; it had never been what it should be, particularly in long-term care for our seniors,” said Krebs.

The company thought that a solid way to help propel change in its foodservice offering was to hire a chef (sound familiar?), which in turn propelled Krebs to become a spokesperson for the evolution, speaking publicly about enhancing long-term care and co-authoring a book on the subject.

Rutter’s hired Krebs in 2013 as a “roving restaurant manager,” moving to a different location each week. About a year later, he was named restaurant manager for the newly opened Middletown location, which quickly became the chain’s highest-volume store. He was running the program there for a little less than a year when he was invited to interview for the position soon to be left by Weiner—whose legacy resonates strongly with Krebs.

“Jerry Weiner already established us as a marquee player,” he said. “He built the foundation. He’s a hall of famer in the industry and has left me set to just move the business forward.”

Surely Krebs has been thinking about this transition for some time, evident in the handful of places where he’s already found epiphanies and great ideas:

Putting the Service in Foodservice

“As a chef you’re always in the back of the house, you never have to communicate with anyone, and Rutter’s has an open kitchen that your customers are literally 20 inches from you all day long. So I had to begin to develop the customer service side.”

Krebs believes this service aspect could be a crucial asset—or major weakness—to the c-store industry. “That becomes a separator of why would they go here instead of somewhere else.”

The Challenge of Consistency

A major challenge—and motivator—for Krebs as roving manager was to ensure consistency from one c-store to the other 59 in the chain. He learned it requires structure and that, luckily, Rutter’s does consistency amazingly well.

Scheduling Shouldn’t be Retail-Oriented

When Krebs arrived, Rutter’s was running more traditional retail hours for its foodservice employees—6 a.m. to 2 p.m., 2 to 10 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. “If you did that at a restaurant, there would be all these gaps,” he said. Instead, he began scheduling according to peak times throughout the day, with overlaps for easier transitions.

Setting Up Stations

Krebs also turned Rutter’s foodservice space into separate stations, “which is a restaurant thing. We have an expeditor, a fryer person, utility people and prep people, and we run our system based off prep lists and stations during our busiest periods to allow us to be the most efficient.”