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And we likewise have Clinton Anderson, the CEO of Fourth, who will be moderating the conversation with Jason. Jason, how about I let you provide the audience some details about your background and you can likewise tell them a little bit about Chop Shop.

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

I was the first worker there after private equity bought the service. Assisted 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 Store. My hope is that we can replicate the success we had at Zos, and we're off to an actually excellent start.

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

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A little more complicated 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 at least four stores next year. So we will be 31 or so shops by the end of next year.

Hospitality Sector Shifts Shaping 2026

Hey, everybody. It's excellent to be with you once again. My name is Clinton Anderson. I'm the CEO here at Fourth. I have actually remained in this function for about 6 years. 4th, as a number of you know, is a leading company of software application options to the dining establishment and hospitality industry. Our goal is to assist our consumers be successful in driving profitability and being efficientmanaging labor, handling stock, and generally supplying them with tools they need to provide their vision.

It's unusual to have business that are precious and growing quickly, that can repeat that success every year. Jason, among the factors I was so fired up to have you join our session is the success at Zos was incredible. I've just fulfilled a handful of brand names where there was such a strong customer affinity for the brand name.

When you talk to customers about Chop Shop, they enjoy the location. And to be able to take what is a relatively complex idea in terms of delivering a fantastic 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 talk about how to scale a dining establishment service. Every restaurateur I ever talk to has imagine taking one store, two stores, 5 stores, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding across the city, throughout the state, into numerous states, and ultimately nationwide, even worldwide reach. It's not simple, particularly in today's environment.

Labor is difficult. Inventory costs remain high. It's not a simple time to drive profitability and growth at the exact same time. We're thankful 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 business? How do you scale it and make it effective? How do you duplicate early success? And from there, after we speak about your experience and the lessons you've discovered, we 'd enjoy to then say: well, appearance, how could technology help? How can you use innovation as a multiplier to duplicate early success to significant success? Second, beyond technology, how do you scale terrific teams? And lastly, AI.

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The very first concern I have for you, Jasonlook, you have actually done this two times now in the dining establishment industry. What are a few of the lessons you've found out? What has your experience remained in terms of what it takes to really drive success in broadening dining establishments? Tell me a little about your path, what you experienced along the method, and maybe a few of the more difficult lessons you discovered.

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, one of the essential things, and I feel extremely fortunate, is that both brands I have actually been included with are unique.

And there's absolutely nothing exactly like Chop Shop in terms of what we're making with a large, varied menu. Most brands today are very singularly focused in terms of what they're using from a food item. I seem like we began at a benefit with both brand names by having something special that filled a specific niche no one else was doing.

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

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The second 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 imaginative types. They like the food, they constructed the menu, they developed the brand.

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

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If you don't have those 2 things, you should not be developing stores. Due to the fact that as I hear your description, you've highlighted three things: execution, brand differentiation, and monetary viability.

Steps to Scale a Dining Brand

Second, you require a compelling brand or distinct principle that resonates with customers. And 3rd, the mathematics needs to work. If you do not understand your system economics, your fixed and variable expenses, you might be expanding blind and losing money. Exactly. And another key lesson is about entering brand-new markets.

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