Significant Regional Milestones for 2026 Growth

Thank you. And we likewise have Clinton Anderson, the CEO of 4th, who will be moderating the conversation with Jason. Jason, how about I let you provide the audience some information about your background and you can likewise inform 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 Shop. We purchased the brand in 2016three unitsand I have actually grown it to 26. After a short 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 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 truly good start.

We're at the counter, we bring the food to the table. The secret to the program is we have a drink element as well with fresh-squeezed juices and protein shakes.

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A little more complex than a few of the walk-the-line concepts that are out there, however we believe we've got something pretty special. We're going to add another shop 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, everybody. It's terrific to be with you once again. My name is Clinton Anderson. I'm the CEO here at Fourth. I've remained in this role for about six years. 4th, as numerous of you know, is a leading service provider of software options to the restaurant and hospitality industry. Our goal is to help our customers be effective in driving success and being efficientmanaging labor, managing stock, and basically offering them with tools they need to deliver their vision.

It's rare to have companies that are beloved and growing quickly, that can repeat that success every year. Jason, one of the factors I was so fired up to have you join our session is the success at Zos was fantastic. I have actually only met a handful of brands where there was such a strong client affinity for the brand name.

When you talk to clients about Chop Store, they like the place. And to be able to take what is a relatively complex concept in terms of delivering a great experience for the client, and be able to grow that from a couple of shops to now north of 30 shops next yearit's fantastic.

We're going to speak about how to scale a dining establishment service. Every restaurateur I ever speak with has dreams of taking one store, two shops, 5 shops, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding throughout the city, across the state, into several states, and eventually nationwide, even international reach. It's not easy, especially in today's environment.

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

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The first concern I have for you, Jasonlook, you've done this two times now in the dining establishment market. What has your experience been in terms of what it takes to actually drive success in expanding dining establishments?

We talked a bit before we began about LinkedIn, and I have actually got a post teed as much as follow this next week about what the playbook is likepoint by pointfor growing a business. To me, among the key things, and I feel extremely lucky, is that both brands I have actually been involved with are special.

And there's absolutely nothing precisely like Chop Store in regards to what we're doing with a large, diverse menu. The majority of brands today are extremely singularly focused in terms of what they're offering from a food. I seem like we began at an advantage with both brands by having something distinct that filled a niche nobody else was doing.

Since it's simply more difficult to stand out when there are 10, 20, 50 principles within a two- or three-mile radius attempting to do the exact very same thing. So a lot of it begins with the brand name. Does your brand name have something distinct that no one else is doing? That's rare.

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The 2nd thingI originated from a finance background, so a great deal of my learnings are more financing and data-driven versus a great deal of early startup restaurateurs who are innovative types. They enjoy the food, they constructed the menu, they developed the brand name. I probably could not do that from scratch. But if you provided me something that has all those elements in place, I can take it from there and put the playbook in location.

They don't understand their breakeven sales. They don't understand how margin enhances as sales boost. I have actually seen so lots of business where the numbers simply don't work.

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If you don't have those two things, you should not be constructing stores. Since as I hear your description, you have actually highlighted 3 things: execution, brand name differentiation, and monetary viability.

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Second, you need an engaging brand name or special idea that resonates with clients. And another key lesson is about getting in brand-new markets.

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