Strategic Growth Milestones in 2026

Thank you. And we also have Clinton Anderson, the CEO of Fourth, who will be moderating the conversation with Jason. Jason, how about I let you give the audience some details about your background and you can also inform 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 Shop. We bought the brand in 2016three unitsand I have actually grown it to 26. After a quick stint of trying to be an accountant for about a year and a half, I transitioned into casino home and worked in corporate finance.

I was the very first worker there after personal equity bought the business. 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 Shop. My hope is that we can replicate the success we had at Zos, and we're off to an actually great start.

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

A little more complex than some of the walk-the-line principles that are out there, but we think we have actually got something quite special. We're going to include another shop this year and a minimum of 4 stores next year. So we will be 31 approximately stores by the end of next year.

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I've been in this role for about six years. 4th, as many of you know, is a leading company of software solutions to the dining establishment and hospitality market. Our objective is to assist our clients be successful in driving profitability and being efficientmanaging labor, managing stock, and essentially providing them with tools they need to deliver their vision.

It's unusual to have business that are beloved and growing quickly, that can duplicate that success year after year. Jason, among the factors I was so ecstatic to have you join our session is the success at Zos was amazing. I've just met a handful of brand names where there was such a strong customer affinity for the brand name.

And now you're doing the same thing at Chop Store. When you talk with customers about Chop Store, they like the place. They discuss its distinction. And to be able to take what is a relatively complex concept in terms of providing a terrific experience for the consumer, and be able to grow that from a couple of shops to now north of 30 stores next yearit's fantastic.

We're going to discuss how to scale a restaurant organization. Every restaurateur I ever speak to has imagine taking one shop, 2 stores, 5 shops, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding throughout the city, across the state, into numerous states, and ultimately national, even global reach. However it's hard, especially in today's environment.

Labor is difficult. Inventory costs stay high. It's not a simple time to drive profitability and development at the very same time. We're grateful to have you here today, Jason, since we're going to dig into that topic. The concerns are going to be truly around: how do you grow a company? How do you scale it and make it effective? How do you reproduce early success? And from there, after we speak about your experience and the lessons you've discovered, we 'd like to then say: well, look, how could innovation assist? How can you utilize technology as a multiplier to replicate early success to significant success? Second, beyond innovation, how do you scale terrific groups? And last but not least, AI.

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The first concern I have for you, Jasonlook, you have actually done this twice now in the dining establishment industry. What are some of the lessons you've learned? What has your experience been in regards to what it requires to really drive success in broadening dining establishments? Inform me a little about your course, what you experienced along the way, and possibly some of the harder lessons you learned.

We talked a bit before we began 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 essential things, and I feel very fortunate, is that both brand names I have actually been included with are unique.

And there's nothing precisely like Chop Shop in terms of what we're doing with a big, varied menu. A lot of brands today are very singularly focused in regards to what they're providing from a food. I feel like we began at a benefit with both brands by having something unique that filled a specific niche no one else was doing.

Since it's simply more difficult to stand out when there are 10, 20, 50 principles within a 2- or three-mile radius attempting to do the specific very same thing. So a lot of it starts with the brand. Does your brand have something unique that nobody else is doing? That's uncommon.

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The second thingI came from a finance background, so a lot of my learnings are more financing and data-driven versus a lot of early start-up restaurateurs who are imaginative types. They like the food, they built the menu, they constructed the brand name. I most likely couldn't do that from scratch. But if you offered me something that has all those elements in place, I can take it from there and put the playbook in place.

They don't know their breakeven sales. They do not comprehend how margin enhances as sales boost. They do not understand cash-on-cash returns. I have actually seen so lots of companies where the numbers simply don't work. And yet people say: let's open 10 more. And I'll state: why? It does not earn money. Stop. You require to find a principle that is distinct.

If you don't have those two things, you should not be building stores. Because as I hear your description, you've highlighted three things: execution, brand name differentiation, and financial viability.

Evaluating Modern Dining Sector Share Trends

Major Expansion Targets for 2026

Second, you need an engaging brand or special principle that resonates with clients. And 3rd, the mathematics has to work. If you don't comprehend your system economics, your repaired and variable costs, you might be expanding blind and losing cash. Precisely. And another key lesson is about entering brand-new markets.

However when we broadened to Dallas, I expected brand-new stores to do 5070% of Phoenix sales in the first year. A lot of operators assume new markets will open at complete volume day one. That practically never ever occurs. And when the shops open sluggish, but you have actually signed leases and built a financial design based upon higher volumes, you get overextended.