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And we also have Clinton Anderson, the CEO of Fourth, who will be moderating the discussion with Jason. Jason, how about I let you give the audience some information about your background and you can likewise tell them a little bit about Chop Shop.

My name is Jason Morgan, CEO of Original Chop Shop. We bought the brand name in 2016three unitsand I've grown it to 26. After a brief stint of trying to be an accounting professional for about a year and a half, I transitioned into gambling establishment property and worked in business finance.

I was the very first employee there after private equity bought business. Helped grow that from 20 to 150 areas, 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 excellent start.

We're at the counter, we bring the food to the table. It is primarily protein bowlsabout 40 percent of the mix. We likewise do salads, sandwiches. The secret to the program is we have a beverage part also with fresh-squeezed juices and protein shakes. We do all stables, we do breakfast all the time.

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A little more complicated than a few of the walk-the-line ideas that are out there, however we believe we've got something quite special. We're going to include another store this year and at least 4 stores next year. So we will be 31 or two shops by the end of next year.

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I've been in this function for about six years. 4th, as numerous of you know, is a leading service provider of software application options to the restaurant and hospitality industry. Our objective is to assist our clients be successful in driving profitability and being efficientmanaging labor, handling inventory, and basically offering them with tools they require to deliver their vision.

It's rare to have business that are cherished and growing quickly, 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 remarkable. I've only satisfied a handful of brand names where there was such a strong customer affinity for the brand.

When you talk to clients about Chop Shop, they enjoy the location. And to be able to take what is a relatively complex concept in terms of providing a great experience for the consumer, and be able to grow that from a few stores to now north of 30 stores next yearit's amazing.

We're going to speak about how to scale a dining establishment company. Every restaurateur I ever talk to has dreams of taking one store, 2 shops, five shops, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding throughout the city, across the state, into several states, and ultimately national, even worldwide reach. It's not simple, specifically in today's environment.

It's not an easy time to drive profitability and development at the exact same time. How do you scale it and make it effective? Second, beyond innovation, how do you scale excellent teams?

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The very first concern I have for you, Jasonlook, you've done this two times now in the restaurant industry. What has your experience been in terms of what it takes to really drive success in broadening restaurants?

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 company. To me, among the crucial things, and I feel extremely fortunate, is that both brand names I've been involved with are unique.

And there's nothing exactly like Chop Store in terms of what we're finishing with a large, varied menu. A lot of brand names today are really singularly focused in regards to what they're using from a food. I seem like we started at an advantage with both brands by having something unique that filled a specific niche no one else was doing.

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

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The second thingI came from a finance background, so a lot of my knowings are more finance and data-driven versus a lot of early start-up restaurateurs who are innovative types. They like the food, they built the menu, they built the brand name.

They do not know their breakeven sales. They do not comprehend how margin enhances as sales increase. They don't comprehend cash-on-cash returns. I've seen many companies where the numbers simply do not work. And yet individuals say: let's open 10 more. And I'll state: why? It does not make cash. Stop. You need to discover an idea that is special.

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If you do not have those 2 things, you shouldn't be developing stores. Because as I hear your description, you have actually highlighted 3 things: execution, brand name differentiation, and financial practicality.

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Second, you need a compelling brand or special idea that resonates with consumers. And third, the mathematics has to work. If you don't comprehend your system economics, your repaired and variable costs, you may be expanding blind and losing money. Exactly. And another key lesson has to do with getting in brand-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 presume new markets will open at full volume day one.