Editor’s Note: Airport Experience News launched the ACDBE of Distinction awards in 2024 to honor small, Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprises-certified firms that excel in their field. The program continues this year. Nick and Rob Crews of Crews Hospitality are among four winners for 2026.
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With industry titans like Bob and Debi Crews, who founded ACDBE-certified concessionaire Crews Hospitality in 1972, as their parents, it’s no wonder Nick and Rob Crews have been so successful in the airport business – it’s practically in their blood.
The brothers didn’t set out to join their family’s business but, as Rob puts it, “sometimes your heritage calls,” and they answered that call in 2008.
Rob was working in hospitality in New York while Nick was pursuing a law degree and working at a record label in Los Angeles when an opportunity came up at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) that intrigued both brothers, so they helped Crews Hospitality put in a bid. Up until that point Crews had only ever operated retail locations, but for this bid they made the strategic decision to pivot to food and beverage, which meant Rob could bring in his hospitality experience while Nick used his law degree to help sign brands and handle the legal side.
“When this opportunity came around it felt like the stars aligning,” Rob says. Winning that contract, which included opening the company’s first three restaurants at LAX between 2009 and 2011, encouraged the brothers to pursue careers at Crews Hospitality full-time, starting from the bottom and working their way up.
“We both rose with our positions in the company from 2009 through 2019, and that was a period of rapid growth. We opened probably 20 locations in three different markets over that period of time,” Nick says. “Our father was still majority owner of the business, but Rob and I had spearheaded the growth, raised the capital, built the locations out and were operating the locations.”
By 2019, Nick and Rob had strong visions for the future of Crews Hospitality. They approached their father about taking over the business so he and their mother could retire. “He loves us, but he wasn’t just going to hand it over,” Nick says with a laugh. “Rob and I had to go out and find a capital partner to raise capital to buy our parents out of the company.”
They succeeded and officially took over majority interest in the company in December 2019. They hit the ground running when they took over, with multiple bids in at numerous airports, but then March 2020 hit and everything came to a halt.
“We went from almost 1,000 employees in 35 locations in four different markets to either furloughing and laying off almost 950 employees and closing all locations except for probably two,” Nick says. “But Rob and I decided to dig in and get scrappy. Rob was driving the delivery truck in Atlanta and here in LA we pivoted and started doing catering at a golf course.”
Thanks to their scrappiness and know-how, the Crews brothers built the business back up and by 2021 were fully operational. “This is not a sit back and let things happen industry—you have to be proactive, not reactive,” Rob notes. “We appreciate our lineage for that.”
Carrying On A Legacy
When it comes to leading Crews Hospitality, Nick and Rob are all about honoring what their parents started. “We’re a family-owned business and we’ve grown to a mid-sized company, but we always want to keep that entrepreneurial spirit alive,” Nick says. “We try to manage up and empower our team members to make decisions and give them that entrepreneurial experience. We want to train and work with our team members to be able to grow and start their own businesses – but we want to treat them so well that they never leave.”
“Our core principles are integrity, operational excellence and partnership,” Nick adds. “And that goes for everything internal to how we deal with our airport partners, our brands and our team members.”
Rob notes that with everything that’s been thrown at them since taking over Crews Hospitality, their approach to the business has evolved. “When Nick and I first became owners of the company our goal was to grow, grow, grow no matter what market, go after every single RFP. But now that we’ve been through Covid, we’ve experienced all these different changes in the industry, we’re strategically looking at certain markets where we can grow and get our foot in with national concepts that we operate at a high level.”
The company is in the process of converting several smaller brands at LAX to larger national brands: In 2027, Pick Up Stix will become Dave’s Hot Chicken, Fresh Brothers Pizza will become Groundwork Coffee and Built Burger will become Five Guys Burgers. Across LAX, Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Crews currently operates 16 locations that are a mix of local businesses, national names, and the company’s flagship restaurant concept Cava. The majority of the locations are prime direct leases.
Crews also operated 16 concepts at ATL for 17 years until the contract ended earlier this year, but the brothers plan to continue pursuing opportunities at ATL, as well as at LAX, IAD and DCA. “We want to use our operational expertise and funding of our own to partner potentially with other companies on bigger projects, and if there’s something we can go after ourselves, namely in our home markets of LA, DC, and Atlanta, we will—those are markets where we can still focus on local brands, bigger packages and contracts that are 100% Crews,” Rob says.
Despite the current uncertainty around the future of the ACDBE program, Nick and Rob are committed to supporting and advocating for businesses like theirs, especially considering their strong family ties to the program. “It means the world to us because our father, Bob Crews, was a founding member of AMAC, which is the heartbeat of the ACDBE program,” Rob says. “Nick and I are extremely honored by that and it’s a deep and meaningful thing for us to keep this going. Without programs like this there really is almost no room for a small company to be competitive in the space.”
Nick, who is the current chair of the AMAC PAC Board of Directors, adds that it’s vital for airports to continue supporting businesses like theirs, and for ACDBEs to support one another as well. “We’re a reflection of the communities that we serve, we bring ingenuity and passion into the business, and that strengthens the airport ecosystem,” he says. “So we feel very passionate about advocating for the program, mentoring individuals, sitting on boards so that we can drive this industry forward as a whole.”
