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And we also have Clinton Anderson, the CEO of 4th, who will be moderating the conversation with Jason. Jason, how about I let you give the audience some info about your background and you can also inform them a little bit about Chop Shop.

My name is Jason Morgan, CEO of Original Chop Shop. We bought the brand in 2016three unitsand I've grown it to 26. After a brief stint of attempting to be an accountant for about a year and a half, I transitioned into casino home and worked in corporate financing.

I was the first employee there after personal equity purchased the company. Assisted grow that from 20 to 150 areas, took it public in 2014, and after that 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 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 beverage element as well with fresh-squeezed juices and protein shakes. We do all stables, we do breakfast throughout the day.

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A little more complex than a few of the walk-the-line principles that are out there, but we think we have actually got something pretty special. We're going to include another shop this year and a minimum of four stores next year. So we will be 31 approximately stores by the end of next year.

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Hey, everyone. It's fantastic to be with you again. My name is Clinton Anderson. I'm the CEO here at Fourth. I have actually remained in this function for about six years. 4th, as much of you know, is a leading company of software solutions to the restaurant and hospitality industry. Our objective is to assist our consumers be effective in driving profitability and being efficientmanaging labor, managing inventory, and essentially providing them with tools they need to provide their vision.

It's rare to have companies that are precious and growing quickly, that can repeat that success every year. Jason, among the factors I was so thrilled to have you join our session is the success at Zos was remarkable. I have actually only met a handful of brand names where there was such a strong customer affinity for the brand name.

And now you're doing the very same thing at Chop Store. When you talk with customers about Chop Shop, they enjoy the location. They speak about its differentiation. And to be able to take what is a fairly complicated idea in terms of delivering a great experience for the customer, and be able to grow that from a couple of shops to now north of 30 stores next yearit's incredible.

We're going to speak about how to scale a restaurant service. Every restaurateur I ever speak with has imagine taking one store, two shops, 5 stores, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding throughout the city, throughout the state, into multiple states, and ultimately nationwide, even international reach. But it's hard, particularly in today's environment.

Labor is difficult. Stock expenses remain high. It's not a simple time to drive success and growth at the very same time. We're thankful to have you here today, Jason, because we're going to dig into that topic. The questions are going to be truly around: how do you grow an organization? How do you scale it and make it successful? How do you duplicate early success? And from there, after we speak about your experience and the lessons you've discovered, we 'd like to then state: well, appearance, how could technology assist? How can you utilize innovation as a multiplier to reproduce early success to far-reaching success? Second, beyond technology, how do you scale excellent teams? And last but not least, AI.

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The very first concern 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 regards to what it takes to really drive success in expanding restaurants? Inform me a little about your path, what you experienced along the method, and possibly a few of the more difficult lessons you discovered.

We talked a bit before we started about LinkedIn, and I've got a post teed up to follow this next week about what the playbook is likepoint by pointfor growing a service. To me, among the crucial things, and I feel extremely lucky, is that both brand names I've been included with are distinct.

And there's nothing exactly like Chop Shop in terms of what we're finishing with a big, varied menu. Most brands today are really singularly focused in regards to what they're offering from a food. I seem like we began at an advantage with both brand names by having something special that filled a specific niche nobody else was doing.

Due to the fact that it's simply harder to stand apart when there are 10, 20, 50 ideas within a two- or three-mile radius attempting to do the specific same thing. A lot of it starts with the brand. Does your brand have something special that nobody else is doing? That's uncommon.

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

They don't understand their breakeven sales. They do not understand how margin enhances as sales increase. They don't comprehend cash-on-cash returns. I've seen many companies where the numbers simply don't work. And yet individuals say: let's open 10 more. And I'll state: why? It doesn't earn money. Stop. You require to find a concept that is distinct.

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If you don't have those two things, you shouldn't be developing shops. Because as I hear your description, you have actually highlighted three things: execution, brand differentiation, and monetary practicality.

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Second, you require an engaging brand or distinct idea that resonates with customers. And 3rd, the math has to work. If you don't understand your unit economics, your fixed and variable expenses, you might be expanding blind and losing cash. Exactly. And another crucial lesson is about getting in brand-new markets.

When we broadened to Dallas, I anticipated brand-new stores to do 5070% of Phoenix sales in the first year. Too many operators presume new markets will open at complete volume the first day. That almost never happens. And when the stores open sluggish, but you have actually signed leases and developed a financial design based upon greater volumes, you get overextended.