# Will Pacio

> Will Pacio is the co-founder and CEO of Expo, a Dallas-based AI platform that pulls a restaurant's scattered data - POS, inventory, labor, guest feedback - into one dashboard operators can talk to. A Stanford psychology grad who walked away from a planned medical career to cook on the opening team at Thomas Keller's Per Se, he ran IT for the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, founded the fast-casual chain Spice Kit, then built the restaurant-staffing marketplace Pared before spinning it into Expo. His pitch: bring the 'Moneyball' approach to multi-unit restaurants so non-technical owners can make decisions with data instead of gut feel.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Expo
- **Organizations:** Expo, Pared, Spice Kit, Thomas Keller Restaurant Group
- **From:** Toledo, Ohio, United States
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Bachelor's, Psychology, Stanford University, Classic Culinary Arts, French Culinary Institute (New York)
- **Known for:** Part of the original launch team at Per Se that earned Michelin 3-star and New York Times 4-star ratings, Ran IT for the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, standardizing recipes across properties, Founded Spice Kit, a multi-location fast-casual concept

## Career timeline

- **2002** — Graduated Stanford; worked as a researcher at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto while applying to medical school
- **2003** — Trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York
- **2004** — Joined the opening team at Thomas Keller's Per Se in New York as a commis, later Chef de Partie
- **2008** — Founded Spice Kit, a fast-casual Asian street-food concept in the San Francisco Bay Area
- **2015** — Co-founded Pared, a restaurant-staffing marketplace, with Dave Lu
- **2020** — Spun Pared into Expo amid the pandemic and relocated operations to North Texas
- **2023** — Featured in D CEO for bringing the 'Moneyball' concept to restaurants from Dallas
- **2025** — Expo positions itself as an AI platform letting owners query their data via Claude and ChatGPT through MCP

## Achievements

- Part of the original launch team at Per Se that earned Michelin 3-star and New York Times 4-star ratings
- Ran IT for the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, standardizing recipes across properties
- Founded Spice Kit, a multi-location fast-casual concept
- Built Pared into a staffing marketplace operating in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., serving thousands of shifts per day
- Co-founded and leads Expo, whose clients include Romano's Macaroni Grill, Burger King, KFC, Popeyes and Cava
- Raised a $10M Series A; backed by advisors including Thomas Keller, Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp) and Gokul Rajaram

## Latest updates

- **2023-05** — Profiled by D CEO for bringing 'Moneyball' analytics to Dallas-based restaurant operators.
- **2025-01** — Expo repositions around AI, with an MCP that lets owners chat with their business data via Claude and ChatGPT.

## Links

- Website: https://getexpo.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willpacio

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/will-pacio
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-04