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Thank you. And we also have Clinton Anderson, the CEO of 4th, who will be moderating the discussion with Jason. Jason, how about I let you give the audience some info about your background and you can also tell them a little bit about Chop Shop. And then I'll let you take it from there, Clinton.

My name is Jason Morgan, CEO of Original Chop Store. We purchased the brand in 2016three unitsand I've grown it to 26. After a quick stint of attempting to be an accountant for about a year and a half, I transitioned into gambling establishment residential or commercial property and worked in business finance.

I was the very first worker there after private equity bought the organization. Helped 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 Shop. My hope is that we can duplicate the success we had at Zos, and we're off to a really 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 drink part as well with fresh-squeezed juices and protein shakes. We do all stables, we do breakfast all day.

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A little more complicated 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 4 stores next year. We will be 31 or so stores by the end of next year.

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Hey, everyone. It's terrific 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 numerous of you understand, is a leading service provider of software services to the restaurant and hospitality market. Our goal is to assist our consumers achieve success in driving success and being efficientmanaging labor, managing stock, and generally offering them with tools they require to provide their vision.

It's uncommon to have business that are beloved and growing rapidly, that can repeat that success every year. Jason, among the reasons I was so fired up to have you join our session is the success at Zos was incredible. I have actually just met a handful of brands where there was such a strong customer affinity for the brand.

And now you're doing the very same thing at Chop Store. When you talk to consumers about Chop Store, they love the location. They discuss its differentiation. And to be able to take what is a reasonably complicated idea in regards to delivering a fantastic experience for the client, and be able to grow that from a few shops to now north of 30 shops next yearit's fantastic.

We're going to talk about how to scale a dining establishment organization. Every restaurateur I ever talk to has imagine taking one shop, two stores, five stores, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding across the city, across the state, into multiple states, and eventually national, even worldwide reach. However it's challenging, particularly in today's environment.

It's not a simple time to drive success and development at the exact same time. How do you scale it and make it effective? Second, beyond technology, how do you scale excellent groups?

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The very first question I have for you, Jasonlook, you've done this twice now in the dining establishment industry. What has your experience been in terms of what it takes to really drive success in expanding restaurants?

We talked a bit before we started about LinkedIn, and I've got a post teed as much as follow this next week about what the playbook is likepoint by pointfor growing an organization. To me, one of the crucial things, and I feel really fortunate, is that both brands I've been involved with are special.

And there's absolutely nothing exactly like Chop Shop in regards to what we're doing with a big, diverse menu. The majority of brand names today are extremely singularly focused in terms of what they're using from a foodstuff. I seem like we started at a benefit with both brands by having something special that filled a specific niche nobody else was doing.

A lot of it starts with the brand. Does your brand have something special that no one else is doing?

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

They don't understand their breakeven sales. They do not comprehend how margin improves as sales boost. I've seen so numerous companies where the numbers simply don't work.

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If you do not have those 2 things, you should not be constructing stores. Because as I hear your description, you've highlighted three things: execution, brand name distinction, and monetary practicality.

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Second, you need a compelling brand or special concept that resonates with consumers. And third, the mathematics has to work. If you don't comprehend your system economics, your fixed and variable costs, you might be broadening blind and losing money. Precisely. And another key lesson is about going into brand-new markets.

When we broadened to Dallas, I anticipated new shops to do 5070% of Phoenix sales in the very first year. Too numerous operators presume new markets will open at complete volume day one.