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Thank you. And we likewise have Clinton Anderson, the CEO of 4th, who will be moderating the discussion with Jason. Jason, how about I let you offer 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 Store. We bought the brand name in 2016three unitsand I have actually grown it to 26. After a quick stint of attempting to be an accountant 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 bought the company. 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 Shop. 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 primarily protein bowlsabout 40 percent of the mix. We also do salads, sandwiches. The secret to the program is we have a beverage element 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 concepts that are out there, but we think we have actually got something pretty unique. We're going to include another shop this year and at least 4 stores next year. We will be 31 or so stores by the end of next year.

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I've been in this role for about 6 years. 4th, as many of you know, is a leading service provider of software application services to the restaurant and hospitality industry. Our goal is to help our clients be effective in driving profitability and being efficientmanaging labor, handling inventory, and generally offering them with tools they require to provide their vision.

It's uncommon to have companies that are precious and growing rapidly, 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 have actually only satisfied a handful of brands where there was such a strong consumer affinity for the brand name.

When you talk to consumers about Chop Shop, they enjoy the place. And to be able to take what is a reasonably complex concept in terms of delivering a terrific experience for the customer, and be able to grow that from a few stores to now north of 30 shops next yearit's remarkable.

We're going to talk about how to scale a restaurant business. Every restaurateur I ever talk to has dreams of taking one store, two stores, five stores, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding across the city, throughout the state, into several states, and eventually national, even international reach. It's not easy, specifically in today's environment.

It's not a simple time to drive profitability and growth at the exact same time. How do you scale it and make it successful? Second, beyond innovation, how do you scale fantastic groups?

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The first question I have for you, Jasonlook, you've done this two times now in the restaurant market. What are some of the lessons you've learned? What has your experience remained in regards to what it takes to truly drive success in broadening restaurants? Inform me a little about your path, what you experienced along the method, and perhaps some of the harder lessons you found out.

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 service. To me, one of the crucial things, and I feel really lucky, is that both brand names I have actually been included with are distinct.

And there's nothing exactly like Chop Store in terms of what we're doing with a big, varied menu. Most brands today are very singularly focused in terms of what they're providing from a food. I seem like we began at an advantage with both brand names by having something special that filled a niche nobody else was doing.

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

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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 startup restaurateurs who are creative types. They love the food, they built the menu, they developed the brand name. I probably could not do that from scratch. However if you provided me something that has all those elements in location, I can take it from there and put the playbook in place.

They don't understand their breakeven sales. They don't understand how margin improves as sales increase. I've seen so numerous companies where the numbers just don't work.

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If you do not have those 2 things, you should not be developing stores. Because as I hear your description, you've highlighted three things: execution, brand distinction, and financial practicality.

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Second, you need an engaging brand or unique idea that resonates with clients. And 3rd, the math needs to work. If you don't understand your unit economics, your fixed and variable expenses, you may be expanding blind and losing cash. Exactly. And another crucial lesson has to do with getting in new markets.

However when we broadened to Dallas, I anticipated new shops to do 5070% of Phoenix sales in the very first year. A lot of operators presume new markets will open at complete volume the first day. That practically never happens. And when the stores open sluggish, but you've signed leases and developed a financial design based on greater volumes, you get overextended.