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Thank you. 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 details about your background and you can also tell them a little bit about Chop Shop. And after that I'll let you take it from there, Clinton.

My name is Jason Morgan, CEO of Original Chop Store. We purchased the brand name in 2016three unitsand I have actually 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 home and worked in business finance.

I was the very first worker there after personal equity bought business. Helped grow that from 20 to 150 locations, 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 excellent 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.

A little more complicated than some of the walk-the-line ideas that are out there, but we think 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 shops by the end of next year.

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Hey, everyone. It's terrific to be with you once again. My name is Clinton Anderson. I'm the CEO here at Fourth. I've been in this role for about 6 years. Fourth, as a number of you understand, is a leading provider of software options to the dining establishment and hospitality market. Our objective is to help our clients be successful in driving success and being efficientmanaging labor, handling inventory, and essentially offering them with tools they require to deliver their vision.

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

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

We're going to speak about how to scale a restaurant business. Every restaurateur I ever talk to has dreams of taking one store, two stores, 5 shops, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding throughout the city, across the state, into multiple states, and eventually nationwide, even worldwide reach. However it's hard, especially in today's environment.

Labor is difficult. Inventory expenses stay high. It's not a simple time to drive success and growth at the same time. We're pleased to have you here today, Jason, since we're going to dig into that topic. The questions are going to be really around: how do you grow a company? How do you scale it and make it successful? How do you replicate early success? And from there, after we discuss your experience and the lessons you've found out, we 'd enjoy to then say: well, appearance, how could innovation assist? How can you utilize innovation as a multiplier to duplicate early success to far-reaching success? Second, beyond innovation, how do you scale terrific groups? And last but not least, AI.

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The very first question I have for you, Jasonlook, you've done this twice now in the restaurant industry. What are a few of the lessons you've learned? What has your experience been in terms of what it requires to really drive success in broadening restaurants? Tell me a little about your course, what you experienced along the way, and maybe a few of the harder lessons you found out.

We talked a little 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, among the crucial things, and I feel really fortunate, is that both brands I've been involved with are special.

And there's nothing precisely like Chop Shop in terms of what we're making 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 started at a benefit with both brands by having something distinct that filled a specific niche no one else was doing.

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

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The 2nd thingI came from a financing background, so a lot of my knowings are more finance and data-driven versus a lot of early startup restaurateurs who are creative types. They enjoy the food, they constructed the menu, they constructed the brand name.

They don't know their breakeven sales. They don't understand how margin enhances as sales increase. I've seen so lots of companies where the numbers simply don't work.

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If you don't have those 2 things, you shouldn't be building shops. Due to the fact that as I hear your description, you have actually highlighted three things: execution, brand differentiation, and monetary viability.

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Second, you require a compelling brand name or distinct principle that resonates with consumers. And 3rd, the math has to work. If you don't comprehend your system economics, your repaired and variable costs, you might be expanding blind and losing money. Exactly. And another essential lesson is about entering new markets.

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