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

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 quick stint of attempting to be an accounting professional for about a year and a half, I transitioned into gambling establishment residential or commercial property and worked in corporate financing.

I was the very first worker there after personal equity bought the business. Helped grow that from 20 to 150 places, took it public in 2014, and after that left about a year and a half after going public to do this at Chop Shop. My hope is that we can reproduce 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. The key to the program is we have a drink part as well with fresh-squeezed juices and protein shakes.

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

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I have actually been in this function for about six years. 4th, as many of you know, is a leading company of software solutions to the dining establishment and hospitality industry. Our objective is to help our consumers be successful in driving success and being efficientmanaging labor, managing inventory, and generally supplying them with tools they need to provide their vision.

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

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

We're going to speak about how to scale a restaurant service. Every restaurateur I ever speak with 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 national, even global reach. It's not easy, especially 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 grateful to have you here today, Jason, since we're going to dig into that topic. The questions are going to be actually around: how do you grow a business? How do you scale it and make it effective? How do you reproduce early success? And from there, after we talk about your experience and the lessons you've found out, we 'd enjoy to then state: well, appearance, how could innovation assist? How can you use innovation as a multiplier to replicate early success to far-reaching success? Second, beyond innovation, how do you scale terrific groups? And lastly, AI.

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The very first concern I have for you, Jasonlook, you have actually done this twice now in the restaurant industry. What are a few of the lessons you've discovered? What has your experience remained 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 found out.

We talked a bit before we began about LinkedIn, and I've got a post teed approximately follow this next week about what the playbook is likepoint by pointfor growing a company. To me, one of the key things, and I feel very lucky, is that both brand names I have actually been included with are unique.

And there's absolutely nothing precisely like Chop Store in terms of what we're doing with a large, diverse menu. The majority of brand names today are really singularly focused in regards to what they're using from a foodstuff. I feel like we started at an advantage with both brands by having something distinct that filled a specific niche nobody else was doing.

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

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The 2nd thingI came from a financing background, so a lot of my learnings are more finance and data-driven versus a lot of early start-up restaurateurs who are innovative types. They love the food, they constructed the menu, they developed the brand.

They do not understand their breakeven sales. They do not understand how margin enhances as sales increase. I have actually seen so numerous business where the numbers just don't work.

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If you do not have those two things, you shouldn't be building stores. Yeah, perhaps both? Because as I hear your description, you have actually highlighted 3 things: execution, brand distinction, and monetary practicality. You have actually got to start with execution. If you don't have an operating model that works, broadening it just multiplies issues.

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Second, you require an engaging brand name or distinct concept that resonates with consumers. And 3rd, 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. Precisely. And another key lesson is about entering brand-new markets.

However when we expanded to Dallas, I expected new stores to do 5070% of Phoenix sales in the very first year. A lot of operators presume new markets will open at full volume the first day. That almost never happens. And when the shops open slow, however you've signed leases and developed a financial model based upon greater volumes, you get overextended.