Bay Area Restaurant Management saves $250k a year across 38 McDonald's locations
Customer overview
Bay Area Restaurant Management (BARM) is a successful McDonald's franchisee with 38 locations under management. Proudly serving the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade, BARM has continuously innovated to maximize customer service and operational excellence. The team's involvement in California energy sustainability groups has helped BARM reduce energy usage, save money on rising energy costs, and establish more sustainable operations.
In one of the most expensive utility markets in the country, every percent of energy reduction is real money, and operators that get ahead of California's regulatory curve have a structural advantage.
The challenge
BARM started its work with GlacierGrid years ago to monitor cooler and freezer temperatures across their 38 sites, with the goal of reducing food waste and cutting down on the labor cost of manual temperature checks. The deployment delivered on that, and as GlacierGrid expanded its platform into HVAC control, BARM had a natural next step: extend the same centralized oversight from refrigeration to the largest energy line item in the building.
Working with GlacierGrid
As an early adopter of GlacierGrid's HVAC platform, BARM extended its existing refrigeration deployment to cover energy management across all 38 locations. The combined platform gave the BARM team a data-driven dashboard with:
- Intelligent HVAC control for optimized energy use, with setpoints and schedules managed centrally.
- Temperature and humidity monitoring across locations, protecting food inventory and supporting compliance.
- Real-time insights that allow immediate adjustments instead of post-mortem reviews.
- Centralized control replacing manual thermostat management at every site.
For an operator already disciplined about sustainability, the platform meant the team could stop trading off visibility against operational simplicity.
Results
Across all 38 BARM locations, the GlacierGrid deployment delivered:
- 9.2% energy savings versus baseline.
- $250k in annual savings flowing straight to the bottom line.
The savings compound the broader sustainability program BARM has built across the Bay Area portfolio.
Ready to see what your sites would save?
GlacierGrid offers a 90-day free pilot for multi-unit operators in QSR, c-store, retail, and gym verticals. Talk to our team about deploying intelligent HVAC control and refrigeration monitoring across your portfolio.