Strategic Growth Milestones in 2026

Thank you. And we likewise have Clinton Anderson, the CEO of Fourth, who will be moderating the discussion with Jason. Jason, how about I let you provide the audience some details about your background and you can likewise inform them a little bit about Chop Store. And after that I'll let you take it from there, Clinton.

Thanks Christina. My name is Jason Morgan, CEO of Original Chop Shop. I've been doing this for about 9 years now. We purchased the brand in 2016three unitsand I've grown it to 26. Prior to this, I've invested the majority of my profession in hospitality in some shape or type. After a quick stint of attempting to be an accounting professional for about a year and a half, I transitioned into gambling establishment home and operated in business financing.

I was the first staff member there after private equity bought the service. Assisted grow that from 20 to 150 locations, took it public in 2014, and then left about a year and a half after going public to do this at Chop Store. My hope is that we can duplicate the success we had at Zos, and we're off to a truly good start.

We're at the counter, we bring the food to the table. It is mostly protein bowlsabout 40 percent of the mix. We likewise do salads, sandwiches. The key to the program is we have a beverage element as well with fresh-squeezed juices and protein shakes. We do all stables, we do breakfast all day.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

A little more complex than some of the walk-the-line concepts that are out there, however we think we have actually got something quite unique. We're going to include another store this year and a minimum of four stores next year. So we will be 31 or two shops by the end of next year.

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Hey, everyone. It's great to be with you again. My name is Clinton Anderson. I'm the CEO here at Fourth. I have actually been in this function for about six years. Fourth, as a lot of you know, is a leading service provider of software options to the dining establishment and hospitality industry. Our goal is to help our clients be successful in driving profitability and being efficientmanaging labor, managing inventory, and basically providing them with tools they need to provide their vision.

It's uncommon to have business that are beloved and growing quickly, that can duplicate that success year after year. Jason, among the reasons I was so excited to have you join our session is the success at Zos was remarkable. I've just fulfilled a handful of brand names where there was such a strong customer affinity for the brand.

When you talk to consumers about Chop Store, they enjoy the location. And to be able to take what is a relatively complicated principle in terms of delivering an excellent experience for the consumer, and be able to grow that from a few stores to now north of 30 shops next yearit's amazing.

We're going to speak about how to scale a dining establishment organization. Every restaurateur I ever speak to has dreams of taking one shop, 2 stores, 5 stores, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding across the city, across the state, into numerous states, and eventually nationwide, even worldwide reach. It's not simple, particularly in today's environment.

Labor is difficult. Inventory expenses stay high. It's not an easy time to drive success and growth at the same time. We're pleased to have you here today, Jason, because we're going to dig into that subject. The concerns are going to be really around: how do you grow a business? How do you scale it and make it successful? How do you duplicate early success? And from there, after we discuss your experience and the lessons you've found out, we 'd love to then state: well, look, how could technology help? How can you utilize innovation as a multiplier to reproduce early success to significant success? Second, beyond technology, how do you scale excellent teams? And last but not least, AI.

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The first question I have for you, Jasonlook, you've done this two times now in the restaurant market. What are some of the lessons you've found out? What has your experience been in terms of what it requires to really drive success in broadening restaurants? Tell me a little about your path, what you experienced along the method, and maybe a few of the harder lessons you discovered.

We talked a bit before we started about LinkedIn, and I have actually got a post teed up to follow this next week about what the playbook is likepoint by pointfor growing a service. To me, one of the crucial things, and I feel extremely fortunate, is that both brands I've been involved with are unique.

And there's nothing precisely like Chop Store in regards to what we're doing with a large, diverse menu. The majority of brand names today are extremely singularly focused in terms of what they're providing from a food item. I seem like we started at a benefit with both brand names by having something unique that filled a specific niche nobody else was doing.

A lot of it begins with the brand name. Does your brand name have something unique that no one else is doing?

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The 2nd thingI originated from a finance background, so a lot of my learnings are more finance and data-driven versus a lot of early startup restaurateurs who are imaginative types. They like the food, they developed the menu, they developed the brand. I most likely could not do that from scratch. If you gave me something that has all those components in place, I can take it from there and put the playbook in location.

They don't know their breakeven sales. They do not comprehend how margin enhances as sales boost. They don't understand cash-on-cash returns. I've seen many business where the numbers just do not work. And yet people state: let's open 10 more. And I'll state: why? It does not earn money. Stop. You require to discover an idea that is special.

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If you don't have those two things, you should not be developing stores. Because as I hear your description, you've highlighted three things: execution, brand name differentiation, and monetary practicality.

National Success in Brand Expansion

Second, you need an engaging brand or special concept that resonates with consumers. And third, the mathematics needs to work. If you do not comprehend your system economics, your fixed and variable expenses, you may be broadening blind and losing money. Exactly. And another crucial lesson is about getting in new markets.

When we broadened to Dallas, I expected brand-new stores to do 5070% of Phoenix sales in the very first year. Too lots of operators assume new markets will open at complete volume day one.