Fast Casual Market Share Growth for 2026

And we also 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 information about your background and you can likewise inform 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 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 property and worked in corporate financing.

I was the first staff member there after private equity purchased business. 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 reproduce 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 likewise do salads, sandwiches. The key 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.

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A little more complicated than a few of the walk-the-line ideas that are out there, however we believe we've got something pretty special. We're going to add another store this year and at least four stores next year. So we will be 31 or so stores by the end of next year.

Key Strategies to Expanding Restaurant Brands

I've been in this role for about six years. Fourth, as numerous of you know, is a leading service provider of software services to the dining establishment and hospitality market. Our goal is to help our clients be successful in driving success and being efficientmanaging labor, handling stock, and essentially providing them with tools they require to provide their vision.

It's rare to have business that are beloved and growing rapidly, that can repeat that success every year. Jason, among the factors I was so excited to have you join our session is the success at Zos was incredible. I have actually only fulfilled a handful of brands where there was such a strong consumer affinity for the brand.

When you talk to consumers about Chop Shop, they love the place. And to be able to take what is a reasonably complex concept in terms of delivering an excellent experience for the consumer, and be able to grow that from a couple of stores to now north of 30 stores next yearit's amazing.

We're going to discuss how to scale a dining establishment company. Every restaurateur I ever speak to has imagine taking one shop, two stores, five shops, and turning it into something much biggerexpanding across the city, throughout the state, into multiple states, and ultimately national, even worldwide reach. It's not simple, especially in today's environment.

Labor is hard. Stock expenses remain high. It's not an easy time to drive profitability and growth at the same time. But we're delighted to have you here today, Jason, because we're going to go into that topic. The concerns are going to be really around: how do you grow a service? How do you scale it and make it effective? How do you replicate early success? And from there, after we talk about your experience and the lessons you've learned, we 'd enjoy to then state: well, appearance, how could technology assist? How can you utilize technology as a multiplier to duplicate 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 very first question I have for you, Jasonlook, you have actually done this twice now in the dining establishment industry. What has your experience been in terms of what it takes to really drive success in expanding dining establishments?

We talked a little bit before we began 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 crucial things, and I feel really fortunate, is that both brands I've been included with are unique.

And there's absolutely nothing precisely like Chop Shop in terms of what we're making with a big, diverse menu. The majority of brands today are extremely singularly focused in regards to what they're using from a food. I feel like we started at an advantage with both brands by having something special that filled a specific niche no one else was doing.

Due to the fact that it's just harder to stand apart when there are 10, 20, 50 principles within a 2- or three-mile radius attempting to do the precise very same thing. A lot of it starts with the brand. Does your brand have something special that nobody else is doing? That's uncommon.

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The second thingI came from a finance background, so a great deal of my learnings are more financing and data-driven versus a great deal of early start-up restaurateurs who are creative types. They enjoy the food, they built the menu, they developed the brand name. I most likely couldn't do that from scratch. If you offered me something that has all those parts in location, I can take it from there and put the playbook in location.

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

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

Key Strategies to Growing Restaurant Brands

Second, you need a compelling brand name or unique idea that resonates with customers. And another key lesson is about entering new markets.

However when we expanded to Dallas, I anticipated brand-new stores to do 5070% of Phoenix sales in the first year. Too many operators presume brand-new markets will open at complete volume day one. That almost never ever happens. And when the stores open sluggish, but you've signed leases and developed a financial design based upon higher volumes, you get overextended.