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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 offer the audience some details about your background and you can also tell them a little bit about Chop Store.

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 brief stint of trying to be an accounting professional for about a year and a half, I transitioned into casino residential or commercial property and worked in business financing.

I was the first employee there after personal equity purchased 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 replicate 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. It is mainly protein bowlsabout 40 percent of the mix. We also do salads, sandwiches. The key to the program is we have a beverage component as well 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 a few of the walk-the-line principles that are out there, however we believe we've got something quite special. We're going to add another shop this year and at least four shops next year. So we will be 31 approximately shops by the end of next year.

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Hey, everybody. It's fantastic to be with you again. My name is Clinton Anderson. I'm the CEO here at 4th. I've been in this role for about 6 years. 4th, as a lot of you know, is a leading company of software options to the restaurant and hospitality market. Our objective is to assist our consumers be effective in driving profitability and being efficientmanaging labor, handling stock, and basically providing them with tools they require to deliver their vision.

It's unusual to have business that are cherished and growing rapidly, that can duplicate that success every year. Jason, among the reasons I was so thrilled to have you join our session is the success at Zos was incredible. I've just fulfilled a handful of brands where there was such a strong customer affinity for the brand.

And now you're doing the exact same thing at Chop Store. When you talk with customers about Chop Store, they like the place. They speak about its differentiation. And to be able to take what is a fairly complex principle in regards to providing an excellent experience for the client, and have the ability to grow that from a couple of shops to now north of 30 stores next yearit's incredible.

We're going to discuss how to scale a dining establishment organization. Every restaurateur I ever speak with has dreams of taking one store, 2 shops, five stores, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding throughout the city, across the state, into multiple states, and eventually nationwide, even international reach. It's not easy, especially in today's environment.

Labor is difficult. Inventory expenses remain high. It's not a simple time to drive success and development at the same time. But we're pleased to have you here today, Jason, due to the fact that we're going to go into that topic. The concerns are going to be really around: how do you grow a company? How do you scale it and make it successful? How do you reproduce early success? And from there, after we talk about your experience and the lessons you've discovered, we 'd like to then state: well, appearance, how could technology help? How can you use innovation as a multiplier to reproduce early success to significant success? Second, beyond technology, how do you scale great groups? And last but not least, AI.

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The very first question I have for you, Jasonlook, you have actually done this twice now in the restaurant industry. What has your experience been in terms of what it takes to truly drive success in broadening dining establishments?

We talked a little bit before we began about LinkedIn, and I have actually got a post teed up to follow this next week about what the playbook is likepoint by pointfor growing a company. To me, among the crucial things, and I feel very fortunate, is that both brand names I've been involved with are special.

And there's absolutely nothing precisely like Chop Store in terms of what we're finishing with a large, diverse menu. A lot of brand names today are very singularly focused in regards to what they're providing from a food product. I feel like we started at an advantage with both brand names by having something special that filled a specific niche nobody else was doing.

A lot of it begins with the brand name. Does your brand have something distinct 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 financing and data-driven versus a lot of early start-up restaurateurs who are innovative types. They love the food, they developed the menu, they built the brand name.

They do not know their breakeven sales. They don't understand how margin improves as sales boost. I've seen so lots of business where the numbers simply don't work.

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If you do not have those two things, you should not be constructing shops. Yeah, maybe both, right? Due to the fact that as I hear your description, you have actually highlighted 3 things: execution, brand differentiation, and financial viability. You have actually got to begin with execution. If you do not have an operating design that works, expanding it just multiplies problems.

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Second, you need an engaging brand or unique principle that resonates with customers. And another crucial lesson is about going into brand-new markets.

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