The Atlanta entrepreneur turned an early restaurant failure into a scalable airport-concessions strategy built around established brands, partnerships and disciplined execution.
By Black Business Review
ATLANTA — Randy Hazelton’s business story did not begin with 20 airport restaurants or tens of millions of dollars in revenue. It began with a restaurant venture that ultimately taught him an expensive lesson: enthusiasm for a business is no substitute for understanding its economics. Randy Hazelton learned this valuable lesson early on in his entrepreneurial journey.
Today, Hazelton is CEO and co-founder of H&H Hospitality, an Atlanta-based airport-concessions company associated with more than 20 restaurant and concession locations and brands including Shake Shack and Auntie Anne’s. Reports in 2023 said the company was on track for approximately $50 million in annual revenue.
Randy Hazelton has transformed the airport restaurant industry with his innovative strategies.
But the road to that scale included bankruptcy, a strategic reset and a much more disciplined approach to entrepreneurship.
Randy Hazelton’s journey showcases resilience and strategic thinking.
In the competitive landscape of the restaurant industry, Randy Hazelton’s story stands out.
A Failure That Changed the Business Model
For Randy Hazelton, the experience of failure became the foundation for greater success.
Randy Hazelton decided to pivot and explore new opportunities within the hospitality sector.
In 2006, Hazelton left corporate America and entered the restaurant industry with Café Circa, a restaurant and bar in downtown Atlanta.
The concept attracted customers, but running a busy restaurant and operating a profitable restaurant proved to be two very different things.
Hazelton later acknowledged that he and his partners had not sufficiently mastered the financial and operational mechanics of the restaurant business. The venture eventually encountered serious financial problems and bankruptcy. Café Circa was sold in 2012.
Randy Hazelton recognized the potential in airport concessions early on.
Under Randy Hazelton’s leadership, the company has thrived.
Instead of walking away from hospitality, Hazelton changed his approach.
Randy Hazelton’s strategic relationships have propelled H&H Hospitality forward.
Randy Hazelton emphasizes the importance of leveraging opportunities in business.
That distinction matters.
Entrepreneurs are frequently encouraged to innovate, disrupt and build something completely new. Hazelton’s next chapter demonstrated another path to wealth creation: take a business model that already works and become exceptionally good at operating it.
The Airport Opportunity
H&H Hospitality moved deeper into airport concessions, where enormous passenger traffic creates a captive and constantly renewing customer base.
Rather than relying entirely on restaurant concepts created from scratch, the company built relationships around established brands and airport-concession opportunities.
Its portfolio has included locations connected to brands such as Shake Shack, Auntie Anne’s, Freshens and Famous Famiglia, including operations at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Hazelton also benefited from the federal Airport Concession Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, commonly known as ACDBE. The program is intended to increase opportunities for qualifying disadvantaged businesses to participate in airport concession operations.
Much like Randy Hazelton, many entrepreneurs face the challenge of scaling their businesses.
Hazelton has described that program as a springboard that helped his company participate in an industry where the barriers to entry can be substantial.
The lesson extends well beyond restaurants.
There are billions of dollars in business opportunities flowing through airports, government agencies, universities, hospitals and major corporations. The challenge for many small businesses isn’t simply creating a better product. It is learning how to enter those procurement and partnership ecosystems.
Scale Changes Everything
Operating one restaurant is entrepreneurship.
Operating more than 20 locations requires infrastructure.
As H&H expanded, Hazelton had to contend with staffing, franchise costs, airport operating requirements, advertising expenses and the daily complexity of serving thousands of travelers moving through one of America’s busiest transportation environments.
Randy Hazelton’s story embodies the spirit of resilience and reinvention.
Reports in 2023 put employment at roughly 100 people while describing H&H as being on track to generate approximately $50 million in revenue that year.
That transformation illustrates one of the biggest divides in entrepreneurship: the difference between owning a business and building an enterprise.
A founder can personally manage a single operation.
Twenty locations require systems.
The Bigger Black Business Story
Hazelton’s rise deserves attention for another reason.
Much of the public conversation surrounding Black entrepreneurship centers on starting businesses. Far less attention is given to the harder second stage: scaling them.
Black-owned companies capable of moving from $1 million to $10 million, then $10 million to $50 million and beyond, can create significantly different economic outcomes. They employ more people, qualify for larger contracts, attract institutional capital and potentially create wealth that survives beyond the founder.
Hazelton’s journey also challenges the mythology surrounding failure.
His first restaurant experience didn’t prove he wasn’t capable of succeeding in hospitality. It exposed what he didn’t know.
The second time around, he did the homework.
And that may be the most valuable business principle in his story.
Success did not come from pretending the bankruptcy never happened. It came from extracting the lesson, changing the model and returning to the marketplace with better information.
BBR Assessment
Business: H&H Hospitality
Founder/CEO: Randy Hazelton
Industry: Hospitality / Airport Concessions
Headquarters: Atlanta
Reported portfolio: 20+ airport restaurant/concession operations
Reported revenue milestone: Approximately $50 million annual revenue trajectory reported in 2023
BBR Power Move Score: 96/100
Why Black Business Review is watching: H&H Hospitality represents the type of Black-owned enterprise BBR believes deserves greater attention—not simply a startup, but a company demonstrating how procurement access, established brands, partnerships and operational discipline can be converted into meaningful scale.
Hazelton’s story ultimately isn’t about restaurants.
It’s about what happens when an entrepreneur survives failure long enough to understan
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