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Thank you. And we likewise have Clinton Anderson, the CEO of 4th, 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 likewise inform them a little bit about Chop Shop. And after that I'll let you take it from there, Clinton.

Thanks Christina. My name is Jason Morgan, CEO of Original Chop Store. I've been doing this for about nine years now. We purchased the brand name in 2016three unitsand I've grown it to 26. Prior to this, I have actually spent many of my profession in hospitality in some shape or form. After a brief stint of attempting to be an accounting professional for about a year and a half, I transitioned into casino property and worked in corporate financing.

I was the first worker there after private equity purchased business. Helped grow that from 20 to 150 places, took it public in 2014, and then left about a year and a half after going public to do this at Chop Shop. My hope is that we can reproduce the success we had at Zos, and we're off to an actually good start.

We're at the counter, we bring the food to the table. It is mostly protein bowlsabout 40 percent of the mix. We likewise do salads, sandwiches. The secret to the program is we have a beverage element also 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 pretty unique. We're going to add another shop this year and at least four shops next year. So we will be 31 approximately stores by the end of next year.

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Hey, everyone. It's excellent to be with you again. My name is Clinton Anderson. I'm the CEO here at Fourth. I've remained in this function for about 6 years. Fourth, as numerous of you understand, is a leading supplier of software application solutions to the restaurant and hospitality market. Our goal is to help our customers succeed in driving success and being efficientmanaging labor, handling inventory, and generally providing them with tools they need to provide their vision.

It's uncommon to have companies that are cherished and growing rapidly, that can repeat that success every year. Jason, among the reasons I was so fired up to have you join our session is the success at Zos was remarkable. I have actually just fulfilled a handful of brands where there was such a strong client affinity for the brand.

When you talk to customers about Chop Store, they enjoy the place. And to be able to take what is a relatively complicated principle in terms of providing a fantastic experience for the client, and be able to grow that from a few stores to now north of 30 shops next yearit's incredible.

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

Labor is difficult. Stock costs remain high. It's not an easy time to drive profitability and growth at the exact same time. However we're pleased to have you here today, Jason, because we're going to go into that subject. The questions are going to be really around: how do you grow an organization? How do you scale it and make it effective? How do you reproduce early success? And from there, after we discuss your experience and the lessons you've found out, we 'd like to then state: well, appearance, how could innovation assist? How can you use innovation as a multiplier to duplicate early success to significant success? Second, beyond innovation, how do you scale excellent groups? And last but not least, AI.

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The first concern I have for you, Jasonlook, you've done this twice now in the dining establishment market. What are some of the lessons you've discovered? What has your experience remained in regards to what it takes to really drive success in expanding restaurants? Inform me a little about your course, what you experienced along the method, and perhaps some of the more difficult lessons you learned.

We talked a little bit before we started 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 business. To me, one of the essential things, and I feel extremely lucky, is that both brands I've been included with are unique.

And there's absolutely nothing precisely like Chop Store in terms of what we're finishing with a big, varied menu. Most brands today are really singularly focused in regards to what they're providing from a food item. I feel 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. Does your brand name have something unique that no one else is doing?

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The second thingI originated from a financing background, so a lot of my learnings are more financing and data-driven versus a great deal of early start-up restaurateurs who are imaginative types. They enjoy the food, they constructed 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 place, I can take it from there and put the playbook in location.

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

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If you don't have those 2 things, you shouldn't be building stores. Since as I hear your description, you've highlighted 3 things: execution, brand distinction, and monetary viability.

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Second, you need an engaging brand name or unique principle that resonates with clients. And another essential 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 very first year. Too many operators presume brand-new markets will open at full volume day one.