Graze Craze: Bringing Hospitality Back to Fast-Casual Through Charcuterie Innovation

Cory Hibbard, President of Graze Craze, reveals how his charcuterie-focused fast-casual brand achieved 14 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth while QSR giants struggle. Operating from small 500-1,000 sq ft locations, Graze Craze has scaled to nearly 100 units in under 5 years by focusing on corporate catering and premium boards that solve dining challenges for businesses and consumers seeking elevated food experiences with fast-casual convenience.

#FastCasualNation #GrazeCraze #RestaurantFranchise

Get Your Podcast Now! Are you a hospitality or restaurant industry leader looking to amplify your voice and establish yourself as a thought leader? Look no further than SavorFM, the premier podcast platform designed exclusively for hospitality visionaries like you. Take the next step in your industry leadership journey – visit https://www.savor.fm/

Capital & Advisory: Are you a fast-casual restaurant startup or a technology innovator in the food service industry? Don't miss out on the opportunity to tap into decades of expertise. Reach out to Savor Capital & Advisory now to explore how their seasoned professionals can propel your business forward. Discover if you're eligible to leverage our unparalleled knowledge in food service branding and technology and take your venture to new heights.

Don't wait – amplify your voice or supercharge your startup's growth today with Savor's ecosystem of industry-leading platforms and advisory services. Visit https://www.savor.fm/capital-advisory

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are back here on Fast Casual Nation, the podcast
that started it all, and of course I'm here with
the indomitable Miss Sarah Canceler. How are you today?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm doing fabulously. How are you, Paul?

Speaker 1 (00:12):
It's going to be a fantastic show Today. We're going
to talk about something that I am very passionate about,
and that is the declining hospitality in restaurants, specifically with
fast casual. And I think that Fast Casual can actually
bring hospitality back. So we're going to talk to a
founder today. We'll talk about that and get into it.

(00:34):
You guys do not want to miss this one. Stick around.
This episode is brought to you by Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

(00:57):
Chefs take the heat all day, every day. Forming under
pressure is what we do. Just like Philadelphia Cream Cheese,
Phillies creamy texture holds up every time, less cracking, more binding.
Ask your distributor for the original Philadelphia Cream Cheese originals.
Deserve the original. All right back here on the podcast

(01:19):
Fast Casual Nation. If you guys are not subscribed, make
sure and do that right now. It is the number
one thing you can do to help the show. Today's
topic is all about hospitality. Share We're going to jump
into some news real quick over from the site. Give
me a heads up of what you got brewing over
there on Fastcasual dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, you know, we always got a ton of stuff
going on.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
But I'm sure you may have heard the news this
week that hyphen has gotten another investment from Cava. Well,
the first investment from Cava to help with its automated makelines,
and as you recalled, Chipotle has sunk some money into
them over the last yeah, for avocado slicing bots. So
you know, Cava and Chipotle are usually pretty big competitors,

(02:02):
but they seem to be on the same side in
this one, so that that's very interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
So you can read all about that.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Well, that company raised a lot of money too, I
mean they were raised. I think they had two rounds,
one like twenty five and the other was around thirty
four million.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
This is the second round and Cova is leading this round, uh,
the last round, I think, So big news over there.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Do you think that this is going to make a difference.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
You mean in the industry of automated make lines, you know, absolutely.
I mean Chipotle is already doing it with their avocado
and they're seeing I mean, in their earnings calls, they
talk about how how great it is, even though their
earnings calls haven't been done great, but they're they're looking
for that as the future. And I think Cova is
doing the same, and everybody does what Chipotle and Cova does,
so I think it's it's going to happen.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, definitely leading the ways for sure. All right, we're
gonna flip over to my favorite thing, and that, of
course is this one right here. Muckbang belongs in your
restaurant marketing playbook.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Go on.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I love to hate it.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
I don't get it pee all these people slurping noodles
and maybe eating loudly, and I think it's disgusting.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
But gen Z loves it.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
That's why you see all those videos on TikTok, and
so this blog is all about how you can incorporate
it into your own marketing playbook and why it's so popular.
I still think it's gross. I'm I guess I'm old now.
I hate it, but I feel like restaurants are doing
it are seeing some traction.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
I mean, Dave's Hot Chicken is so known for this.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
Yeah, well yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Just kids eating in their cars chopping and dropping sauce
and sloshing and it's just gross.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
But okay, so what do you make of you know,
to kind of get into the topic today, I want
to talk about mostly QSR same store sales because this
the reason I always kind of bring this up is
QSR always is a precursor, I believe to Fast casual
in the sense of how consumers respond. So if sales

(04:07):
are declining in QSR, it's possible we could see declining
sales in Fast Casual. The only brand that really well,
there's a couple Taco Bell's been holding its own, but
you look at brands like Wendy's, which has had two
quarters of down, and you look at brands like Popeye's,
they are down and out. You've got Burger King struggling.

(04:30):
I mean, they had a little bit of an up
in this last quarter. KFC has been down for quarter
after quarter after quarter. McDonald's really the only shinings other
than Taco Bell. Taco Bell has but they have just
amazing marketing. And then you look at Starbucks, which I
think is the king of Bellwether in terms of sales,
and they've had I think seven quarters down. Now, So

(04:54):
do you think we're getting into a space of customers
just not wanting to eat out.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
I don't think so. I think Chipotle's down, Shake shocks down.
But you know who's up, Chili's the cheesecake factory I've
been seeing. I think casual dining is kind of.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
So is it a research come back?

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Maybe?

Speaker 1 (05:12):
So this gets into our topic, which is hospitality in
this space because if you're you know, because in QSR
you don't get it. You know, you don't even get
a chance at hospitality. You know, it's you push you
through the line, smash and grab, try to get you
into a two minute drive through lane, you know where
you're not even sure you ordered the right thing and

(05:32):
you can barely ever check to see if it is
actually right. So we wanted to bring in a guest today,
Corey Hibbert, who is the president of Greg Gray's Craze.
And this is a charcoutery brand in fast casual, which
I didn't know existed until I found this brand.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah, ever, I mean, give me all the cheese and
hopefully you can give me something.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Who's along with it? Talk about hospitality coming?

Speaker 1 (05:56):
I love it, Corey. Welcome to the show Man.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
How I appreciate you guys having It's great to join
you this morning.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
All right, well, listen, we got to learn a lot
about what you guys are doing Craze Craze, So give
us the rundown for a lot of our audience. We
have people in the franchise community, other brand leaders, a
lot of people out there. Give us the four one.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Yeah. So Greense Craze a part of Family Brands at
United Franchise Group, which is probably a familiar name to
some and some not so much. We've got ten brands
that we own across many different verticals, from Sinorama or
kind of og concept that quickly became the world's largest
and well known signage franchise all the way through to

(06:34):
coworking brands and other food concepts. But then you land
around this little interesting time in our economy and in
our country called the pandemic. And we've got a consulting
arm forty years now in the franchising space. We've got
a lot of folks that have come to us and said, well, hey,
can you help us kind of build a brand or

(06:54):
get it off the ground. And while the world was
kind of uncertain about what was next to our consulting
Arm came Grace Grace, a brand new concept out of Oklahoma,
and quickly we saw a really unique opportunity to attack
a really underserved and really you know, a market that

(07:15):
lacked a lot of consolidation and consistency, and in came
the venture that became our now near one hundred unit franchise,
Grace Crazy. So's it's been less than five years since
we started franchising, currently sitting at ninety three stores around
the country.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
That is insane.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
Yeah, it's been it's been a wild ride. But I
think the really interesting piece of the puzzle here is,
like I think we just resonate a lot with what
some of this industry is really hungry for, which is consistent, convenient,
accessible food for the masses. And we'll get into that
a little bit. I think on kind of like who
we are.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
You know, you said this brand started in Oklahoma.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
It did. So this concept actually came to our consulting
arm and they were just looking for help turning into
a franchise, and ninety nine point nine to nine percent
of clients of our Accurate Franchising is the name of
our consulting division. It's not a franchise. Concept. It's just
a service we offered to young kind of budding business
ventures that are looking to get into expanding through the

(08:18):
world a franchise, and we kind of got them too
the finish line, and we took a step back and went,
wait a minute.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
What was their unit cow when you guys picked them up.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
They had four local stores in the Oklahoma City market.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well, it was in the Oklahoma City market, you said it.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Was, Yeah, originally started in Oklahoma City. Was started by
an Air Force veteran. Unfortunately, the business venture started quickly
right We got in initially as a joint venture, and
a really unfortunate turn of events just weeks later, the
founder was diagnosed with a terminal illness and oh wow,
is sense no longer with us? Which became a really
interesting piece of the puzzle for us. As we look

(08:53):
to build brands, we're looking for committed and dedicated partners
that really own the brand and the concept. That kind
of threw us into the front seat to be able
to kind of take the reins, but also have to
rapidly identify who we were as a brand as we
wanted to take this outside of just one market and
expand and one thing that United Franchise Group has in

(09:15):
its tool belt. One thing we do I think very
well and a lot of folks in the industry would
attest to, is we can build brands like we have
the support, we have the infrastructure, we have the shared services,
we have the resources from finance through construction through everything
into the day to day operations. So we had to
move quick and it became kind of a really fast

(09:38):
growing and emerging kind of shining star in our portfolio brands.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
And you guys, grew pretty steadily through the pandemic, right,
I'm assuming because it's kind of a perfect pandemic situation.
People want exciting, fun ways to connect, but they can't
do it. So pick up a cool charcutery board, a
brilliant one.

Speaker 4 (09:57):
Hundred percent And you know it's funny because we talk
about launching what most consider a very communal brand in
the middle of the least communal time in our company
aera county history, and I think people were really hungry
for ways to connect. And the beautiful thing about our
product is we could serve both sides of that, right,
like we do the individually portioned grab and graze style product,

(10:19):
but we also still had our mainstay offering, which is
a large board that feeds twelve to twenty people depending
on if it's you know, an appetizer or a meal.
And we could really drive home not just the consistent,
deliverable product that you couldn't get. But I think the
biggest problem that we inherently solved is even box lunches
have become different. Yeah, right, like you need two days

(10:43):
to round up dietary restrictions accommodations for one hundred people
in an office. Now we're a few clicks of the button.
There's not a whole lot you need to do in
order to make it work for everyone.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Who is that that's a big part of the business.
Now obviously catering is going to be, you know, a
deeper part of it. I want to go back to
the franchising engine that you guys have built. I'm going
to bring up your website sure, because this is intriguing
to me when I was doing a little bit of
a deep dive on this. I'm gonna go over to

(11:12):
that's the number of franchises that you currently operate.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
It is so we've got a few divisions that are
nested in there. So big flavor brands being our food division,
and we've got both the Great Greek Mediterranean Grill and
Grace Grace in Big Flavor, Star Point Brands being some
of our service brands. Vast being our co working division.
So we've got three different brands that are in the
coworking space.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Okay, you met, you said Vast coworking.

Speaker 4 (11:38):
Okay, yeah, so that will be venturect kind of like
a we work office, correct, And those are three completely
different brands some you know, venture X was one that
we originated franchising and Office Evolution Independent our Intelligent Office,
both concepts that were acquired. So venture X would be
much more like your your we work type coworking. Okay,

(11:59):
that would be your modern, very clean lot of glass walls.
But we have different offerings and different categories. Our president
of venture X interest minds that to kind of your
marriaut bonvoid, right, Like you've got different types of hotels
and offerings for different things, and we've got three very
different opportunities for co working or shared office space between

(12:21):
those three verticals.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
That's cool. I love to see the dynamics of franchise
systems when we discover one on the show. It's always
fun to kind of grill it down, which is which
is interesting to me because when I look at the
franchise elements that you guys have built, there's a lot
of people facing things and that gets in the whole

(12:43):
idea around hospitality, which is one of the things we're
obviously talking about today. Hey, when you know, we were
going to talk about this pre show. But I worked
with you know, in helping a brand build about fifteen
years ago. They were here in South Florida. It was
a company called The Cheese Course, right, and they were
a sandwich and chocouterery concept that was started by the

(13:07):
sister of John Offerdahl, who has offer Doll's Sandwich shop
here in South Florida. Sure, and this thing was blowing up.
I mean they were doing three four million dollars a
unit they started franchising. You know, real estate was kind
of the downfall, and then of course COVID came and
everything pivoted on them because of that very point. But

(13:29):
they weren't able to pull out of it. They ended
up selling the brand and I think still today there's
one in my hometown here that's still operational and it
still is a fantastic product in the franchising, it looks like, yeah, yeah,
so what when you look at building around a chacreutery menu.

(13:51):
I mean, first of all, do you feel that that
gets you too tight of a lane?

Speaker 4 (13:57):
This is like, this is probably one of the most
commonly asked questions. Obviously, we've had a lot of success,
we're opening a lot of locations, and we've got a
lot of interest in the brand. I would say on
a discovery at a tour, is this a trend? Is
this a fad? Are we pigeonholed? I think is probably
one of the most frequently asked questions. I think the
reality is simplicity seems to win more and more, right Like,

(14:19):
I think you guys are talking a little bit about
the trends and QSR and how that leads into fast
casual as we started to show, and I think it's
a really interesting thing to take a step back and
kind of analyze because I think sometimes the moving target
feels like the shiny pending needs to kind of move
the needle for whatever's next. But what we've found is
we've actually kind of shrunked the menu and we've limited

(14:42):
the number of ltos, and we see more sell through
and more consistency on products. But I think some of
that comes around the fact that Charcubry is a lot
of everything for everyone, right, Like our large classic board,
the Going Crazy, which is our staple product, that's the
core product we've really built this around. Has your meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, sweets, starches.

(15:05):
It's really hard to find somebody in a room that
doesn't want something on that board. Yeah, and I think
because of that we've been able to kind of position ourselves.
We want almost I think the Cheesecake Factory menu is
synonymous with being overwhelming. Right, It's thirty five forty pages.
The worst thing we could do is have forty skews
on a board and then give people thirty or forty

(15:27):
choices to sift through and just essentially hand over a
case of analysis paralysis. We want it to be easy
to go. I see the use case. I see how
this feeds the folks that I need to feed, and
whether that's dinner with the family on a Friday night.
On the consumer side or as you're probably kind of
picking up, the bulk of our business is built around

(15:48):
that corporate consumer catering.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
For Well, that's interesting you say that because that was
I think that was one of the failing points of
Cheese Course because they had the two course, three course
cheese model, too many choices, a lot of inventory, which
is as you know, cheese inventory is very expensive. So
it's cool that you guys are are minimizing the choice,
which I think is a few exactly you hit it

(16:11):
analysis paralysis, which I.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Think that it lends itself. You guys do a really
good job of like the marketing because you can lean
into trends. So it's like girl dinner a couple of
years ago, when everybody was just like eating meat and
cheese at home, and now you've got catering or you've
got football parties. You know, women are coming up and
coming with football fans and they're winning that. So it's
like you can really get on TikTok and lean into

(16:34):
all those fun trends.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
And really the shift and like even our lto model
from a few years ago to now is we have
a lot less ltos that we roll out, but we
market seasonally around the opportunities with those. So like, yes,
we do have a game day board football theme board.
Obviously it's a very communal watch. Sport does very well,
for us, it's a staple on the menu. Some of
our stores keeping on the menu year round, even when

(16:58):
football season. So we have a store in Australia that
sells it to the Australian Football League and into rugby
because the shape is somewhat similar. Right. So, I think
we've really learned that people want a consistent delivered product
and they want their expectations to be exceeded. And the
more variables you introduce into the scenario, especially in this

(17:19):
kind of ever changing landscape of food supply chain and
consistency and reliability, the more true to our core we
can stay, the more we know we can deliver a consistent,
convenient experience to the end user. And that's where we went.
We're confident that we can talk about the size of
the industry or the di wires or home based businesses,

(17:42):
which are very prevalent in our industry. The reason we
jumped into this is because there was no consolidated commercial
solution for people coast to coast, and that's why the
Fortune five hundreds utilize us on the same day and
sales meetings and twenty different markets because we can bring
the convenience that I think the catering industry in general
has just been lacking.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah, did you get to Australia from Florida Australia.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
Yeah, Australia is an interesting way. Australia is near and
dear to our hearts at United Franchise Group, we've been
in the Australian market for over twenty years with Cinorama.
There's one hundred Sinorama locations in Australia alone, so that
is the only place actually outside of the United States
that we've ever sold franchises direct. Similar to most brands,
we go master licenserre out when we sell internationally. We

(18:27):
want to committed partner. We've got a fully staffed home
office in Australia, so it was a natural next step
for us.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
I'm going to visit one of these locations because you
have one over in Pembroke Pines that are Jeremia's Italian ice.
I just looked it up, and that's interesting because what
is the footprint of a unit Right now.

Speaker 4 (18:49):
We're looking at a thousand square feet, but we could
go as smalle as five hundred and six hundred square
feet if we're creative with the space and we're looking
for Class B locations. We don't want to pay for
foot That is not our game. The harder, not smarter
model is selling a lot of individual charcoti cups we
call them, which are kind of you've seen them probably
at events or parties Gallas where it's you know, handheld charcotery.

(19:13):
You got to sell a lot more of those. That
gets into kind of the burger business or the sandwich
business where it's a volume game. And the beautiful thing
about what we do is a couple of large boards
will make the business really really healthy a day is it?

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Is there any dine in on these?

Speaker 4 (19:28):
There really isn't. We've got a location or two that
we've you know, they've got some cafe tables, and because
of proximity, we've been fortunate in some markets, like we've
got stores in Texas and in North Jersey that we're
fortunate enough to be able to land on a main
street and keeping it kind of within our parameters of
what we want in the rented space, et cetera. So
we embrace it when we can because the more foot

(19:49):
heavy locations of foot traffic heavy locations, obviously we want
to continue as we're building not just a brand but
an entire category. We want to be as accessible and
convenient as poss the consumers as well. We just don't
We don't lead with that or pay for that intentionally
because we don't need it to build a really great business.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
He's hitting on something interesting on something that we've been
talking about, and that is these delivery only concepts growing share.
Are you seeing more of that now?

Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, even the bigger locations and the bigger brands that
have more locations you know and there in the hundreds,
are starting to do some of those delivery only But
are you guys on your din in ones do you
I mean, are you serving alcohol in some of those?
Because I feel like you could really bringing back the hospitality,
like there's a there's a way to get that into it.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
We absolutely are, and obviously, you know, as you get
into on prim alcohol consumption state by state, it gets
very nuanced. But we do have the ninety three locations open,
We've got a little over twenty that currently have takeaway
wine and beer licensing, and a few of them have
open in locations that are easy enough to be able
to dive into on prem consumption as well. So we

(21:03):
do obviously, again that's not part of the model that
we really lean into because I think now you're changing
the labor model. Like, part of what sure is this
so special is we don't have weight service, we don't
have a lot of labor in the business, and we
can do a lot of production with just a body
or two in the back of house. And my anxiety
over that, obviously is it drastically changes the labor model,

(21:26):
and I'm not entirely sure for the better. But the
hospitality piece, I think is really important. I know that's
going to be kind of a topic of discussion as
we dig it.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, well, let's talk about that because this is one
of those products that definitely dials into hospitality, you know,
anything that can bring a lot of people around a table,
and especially in what feels more of like a casual dining,
which is back to our point that we talked about earlier,
hitting on sales revenues starting to increase in casual dining,

(21:56):
dipping quite a bit in QSR because people are asking
for more hospitality now, you know they've been kind of
starved of it. What are you guys doing. Do you
feel that kind of solves that problem right now that's
in fast casual?

Speaker 4 (22:10):
Yeah, Look, I think we bring speed inconvenience to a
vertical that frankly revolves around hospitality. Everything about CHARCOOTERI is communal, right,
it's it's an experience. We've brought speed and efficiency to
the process to go, hey, well, if you just need
to feed you know, five hundred people and you don't
want to do a lot of guest work, then we
can we can deliver on that as well. And I

(22:31):
think the driving force still behind most of our customer experiences. Well,
we want to elevate whatever is going on, and that's
why we want to bring CHARCOOTERI in right. And you
know it's funny we call all of our back of
house employees grasologists. It's something we trademarked early on. We said, hey,
like we we need to do something other than just
become a production facility. If we want people to feel

(22:53):
how specialness is, so they should be able to step
to the front of house and be able to engage
with a walk in customer and say, well, how can
we help you? And we can walk you through the journey.
We can show you the different variety of products meats, cheeses, sweets,
et cetera that land on a board but I think
the product and the whole concept behind charcuity itself revolves

(23:15):
around kind of an elevated level of hospitality because that's
what it brings to the table, with or without our
team there, right, Like, I think it elevates whatever it
is incorporated into.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
So char creery is really you know, the experience is
all about you. You're sitting there with your friends and
the server comes out and tells you about these five
cheeses and about these five meets and the sauce or whatever.
So how do you keep that experience when it's like
a to go? I mean, do you have little cards
at the catering? Are they like little posters set up
because people really love to like nerd out about like

(23:47):
what kind of cheese they're eating or what the meet
they're eating.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
Yeah, And this is like this is even a real
time evolution of what we do, right, because we do
we include everything's labeled. All of our dips, jams, hummuses
are made in house. So you look at it. I'm
sure you've had at some point like a red beat hummus,
but you look at this pink, radioactive looking dip, and
if you've not experienced it before, you, I'm not sure.
I'm going to take a flyer on what that is

(24:10):
if you don't know what it is. So we do
have print material that comes along with all the product.
If we do stage catering, we come and we actually
assemble the the catering experience and we do lay out
some of these but we have both print materials to
like cards that will include kind of an explanation of
each product visual. Every dip Gym Hummus individually or in

(24:31):
large format is labeled and packaged with kind of an
explanation of what it is. But we're looking at something
really interesting where we're actually now introducing a whole new
experience our newest lt O, which you know this is
this is breaking news here on the podcast because this is.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
We're breaking news. Hang on the bomb.

Speaker 4 (24:52):
Yeah, we're really excited about this because we're shifting our
next lt O actually into becoming more of an experiential sale,
not just a product sale, where we're going to be
introducing a wine pairing board where each one of these
boards will be stamped and certified with a well known
social media influencer in the wine education space. It's a collaboration,

(25:14):
but what it does is it. It brings an entire
experience to CHARCOOTERI that previously you couldn't get in a
box right like you needed to incorporate somebody with some
expertise or maybe a wine expert. Now you can on
your way home from work on a Friday, You'll be
able to come Q four, pick up a wine pairing
board in the stores that sell wine and beer, grab

(25:36):
two bottles all in one shopping experience, and head home.
But then when you get home any unpack it. You'll
be able to dive into the board and try new
things right PIRENT bids and products. And I think selling
the experience is going to be really interesting because kind
of our long term vision is we're a solutions provider.
I think charcooter is a service both on the corporate

(25:56):
side and the consumer side. Becomes a really interesting play.
A footprint gets to everywhere it needs to be to
fulfill that.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
How do you guys deal with the inventory conundrum with cheese? Okay,
because that was a problem that and I'm going to
go back to cheese course because I've got a chance
to see a lot of what these guys were dealing
with and cheese big cost, you know, ridiculous amounts of
options that you have. You know, I can just and

(26:24):
still to this day, I go over to Whole Foods
and because of my experience with cheese, course, I look
for a certain type of cheese now because I've been
educated on cheese. So I'm like, whoa, there's some good
stuff out here.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
It's dangerous, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, how you how do you guys manage that?

Speaker 4 (26:41):
You know? Obviously, consistency in the product that we deliver
means we've got kind of framework where we operate. This
isn't just a hey, source whatever you want to do,
whatever you want, throw together, whatever you want. So in
that we've got a consistent kind of ordering pattern and
consistent order guide that our franchises follow, which aren't just
the products that you see on like our Going Crazy Classic.
We do have upgrade cheeses from Truffle Palms and Goat

(27:03):
cheeses and other things. But we have a vendor that
is providing all meats and cheeses, no hormones, no antibiotics,
very clean product. But the beautiful thing about meats and
cheeses and the way that we deliver them is most
of them have very long shelf life. Believe it or not.
Most cheeses, I think our shortest shell life is six weeks.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, you got it. I mean I order from Rebel
Cheese and they have you know, it's like those cheese boxes.
But because my wife has kind of gotten to the
point where she's a little bit addicted to this stuff,
you know, and she loves these now artists and cheeses
and where now it's you know, have you ever thought
about doing this, you know, like a box product that

(27:47):
you could do mail order and you know, the kind
of like coffee, because this is something that is replenished.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
Yeah. Yeah, we constantly analyze this, right, But I think
a huge value proposition of what we do is the
fact that we incorporate fresh produce and color and vibrance
into the product. And as soon as you go down
that prepacked cryovac ship plane, you lose all color and
you lose a lot of It's funny. I've had franchises

(28:13):
over the years that have been with us from the
first handful of stores, and they push back when we
look to get maybe a little more efficient or make
some operational changes because they go, look, I bought into
grays Craze because as I scroll through pinterest. As I
scroll through arcoutery boards, Gray's craze stands out from the
rest because of how vibrant, how kind of thoughtful we've

(28:37):
curated the thoughtfully we've curated the boards. I don't lose
the identity. That's why I bought it.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Is cheese an important part of the marketing.

Speaker 4 (28:46):
You know. The interesting thing is, I don't think the
cheese is as much as the overall variety is it is, right, like,
you need quality product, We're not look I mean, when
you're looking at a large classic gone crazy board of ours,
you're looking in that one hundred and eighty five dollars
range before you get to the portions where you can
back the math out and go, oh, well, that's actually

(29:07):
less than ten dollars ahead, that's the best value in catering.
That one hundred and eighty five dollars price point runs
the risk of sticker shock to casual scroll by, right,
So we have to lead with good quality product and ingredients.
But I wouldn't say that without a specific type of
cheese that we have because we've got reach and accessibility
into a lot of different lanes and a lot of

(29:29):
different varieties of cheeses. And meats. I wouldn't say one
of them would be kind of a cornerstone to our success.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
So do you have all right? So is there an
option where someone could say I want something just for
me and my partner. What would that look like on
the menu?

Speaker 4 (29:49):
Yep, absolutely, So we'll go anywhere from kind of a
snack sized portion in a charcouity cup, which is, like
I said previously, a handheld or they're often used for
catering instances for kind of grab and go stairstep from
there into a full plate individual portion called the grab
and grays, and then we've got multiple portions in between
there that will get you from an individual to maybe
two to four, which would be kind of a smaller

(30:11):
one to two, two to four depending on if it's
an appetizer or meal, and then like that four to
six range for a snack where it would be okay, well,
maybe this is kind of a small gathering or maybe
we're having a picnic or taking it to the beach
and we just want to piket some things. And then
you get into what we would consider our boards, which
would be our small, medium, and large, and that'll fok
eight to twenty depending on appetizer A four.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
What is my price range on these things?

Speaker 4 (30:36):
You're in anywhere on a cup from twelve dollars to like.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
The grab and praise.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
Yeah, you're going to be in that twelve to fifteen
dollars range. And that's going to be your full individual meal, right,
that's going to be your plate. It's going to have
a little bit of everything. Coty cup, charcuity cup.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, Okay, that looks like something you would like, Sharah.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Absolutely, I am in heaven. That's all I need.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
That's your jam right there.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
Now.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
If that had a bottle of wine with it, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Like supersecco, some bubbles.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, there you go in the loan grazer, the picnic box.
So you've got a good scale of different, you know,
different levels of products that can easily scale up until
you obviously do the add ons sell well for you guys?
How how does that work?

Speaker 4 (31:26):
Yeah? The interesting thing is is they do. Now we're
we're working our way into kind of even consolidating some
of those, right, So we've we've moved from well, hey
what about olives and what about you know, smaller add
ons of breads, et cetera, to getting into a couple
of kind of set packages like you would just scroll past.
But then our upgraded meats and cheeses are a really

(31:47):
big piece of the model actually for us. We that's
where the customer gets a little bit of choice and control.
We you know, we can make your classic modifications. You
got a gluten allergy, you've got a nut allergy, et cetera,
we can exclude. But we don't have like a build
your own board concept because I think that with one
from the labor side, charcuitary boards take time and thought

(32:09):
to put together. Right, We've we've battled the concept of
like how far can we go in the customization and
putting you know, the product in the hands of the customer.
What we don't want is to remove the value of
the product that we're trying home when it goes too far.
But the upgrades are the way that folks take control. Right,
So we have a lot to come back and say,
give me the bianca de worro, which is like a

(32:31):
white wine salamie. Give me the charizo please, I'd love
to throw some like I'd said, truffle goat cheese on there,
or you know a different you know, dial cheese that
maybe we can incorporate, so we have those upgraded meats
and cheeses that give folks the control and kind of
the ability to customize their product, but typically in the
format of an upgrade.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Not in Okay, so tell me how the sandwiches are doing.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
This was a really interesting introduction for us. Right, so
we know easy cater well good partners of ours. They
came to us about a year ago and said, there's
not a lot of people that are sitting around googling
charcootery catering near me. Right, we don't want to get
into the sandwich game. I don't want to compete in
the individual sandwich game with Jersey Mikes and the like

(33:16):
big boys. Right. That's that's a completely different business model
that frankly, our franchises didn't buy into. But the very
natural side step into sandwiches to be able to provide
a more comfortable solution maybe per se to people that
are ordering for the masses, is sandwich platters. Right, fifty
percent of catering keyword searches on easy caters platform. They

(33:37):
totally started with the search sandwich. We introduced sandwiches on
the platform and sales doubled in the locations that were
beta testing, but only thirty percent of those additional orders
contained sandwiches. So what it said is people don't know
where to go, right, like I think, so I.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Got them into this is a lost leader one and look.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
Like they're very profitable because all we had to introduce
was tremada and let us we are But.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
You know, you guys are making more money on these boards.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
Well yeah, but the interesting thing with sandwiches, like the
labor is actually a lot lower than billionaire.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Probably takes a lot more time in labor to build
a board than it does to build a sandwich.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
That you can understand because the experiences of just a step.

Speaker 4 (34:19):
Above one percent. And what was happening is people were
landing on the sandwich platters and then they go, WHOA,
I didn't think charcuteri was an accessible option in the middle.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, exactly. So they're getting they're getting all jazzed up.
They're going to win the uh, they're going to win
the company picnic Award exactly.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
And and those customers have been retained a whole lot
better and they keep coming back.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
And getting Oh yeah, for sure. Once you hit a
passion point with a customer, it triggers something in them.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
And I've often said this, if you've got a brand
that can do that, Chipotle does this and then they've
been able to do it, and a handful of others
do it. Kava was able to hit it.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
I want to talk about sales because you have a
statement in here at least on our research showed a
thirty three percent same store sales growth. Is that true?

Speaker 4 (35:05):
It is? Yeah? And look, I mean I think the
most exciting thing for us.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
And fourteen quarters consecutive four team quarters.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
Can secure We're twenty one weeks this week of year
over year.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
How do you, Corey? How do you not have How
are you not beating people off with a stick to
come and buy a franchise?

Speaker 4 (35:23):
I mean, in some capacities we've got more activity and
leads than we have the bandwidth to handle them. And
that's something we'll never take for granted. Right, But I
mean we've sold fifty five new franchises so far this year.
I mean like we've we've had a lot of activity.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
And I thought, okay, so talk to me about the
franchise deal. Okay, the unit economic you said is around
thousand feet perfect window where do they spend their money
to be able to drive these kinds of sales?

Speaker 4 (35:50):
Are they?

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Is it all online marketing?

Speaker 4 (35:53):
So it's not. That's actually a very small piece of
the puzzle for us. As the online marketing. A lot
of this is likened to a sales and marketing business.
I say often, I think we're food adjacent. I don't
think we're food business. I think foods the eye product.
But I think we're food adjacent because the core of
what we do is bring a solution to the table
for local businesses, right, That's the core of what we

(36:13):
do as an offer. Now, i'd be remiss to not
talk about the fact that over fifty percent of our
sales every week this year have come in same week,
which tells me there is more pressure from the consumer.
We're getting more and more consumer demand. But I also
think it's a great compliment to our franchisees with tenure,
because now those corporate customers aren't giving us two weeks
heads up. They're going, hey, I know they've got this.

(36:35):
I'll give them a forty eight hour notice to go
feed one hundred folks because I know they can come through.
So I think it's interesting because there's definitely. As we've
gotten to the point where we're knocking on the door
of one hundred locations, the consumer demand is getting heavier
and heavier. But the core of what we do is
bring a solution to the table and make the life
of the person ordering food for the masses a whole

(36:56):
lot easier. We need an outgoing person, a passionate, enthusiastic
franchise to plug into the community at the grassroots level.
That's networking groups, that's Chamber of Commerce involvement, that's canvas marking.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
It's the local store marketing model, which yeah, we hit
on that last week. We had the Marvia team on
talking about that, uh with which, by the way, we
get ready. We're gonna ready to drop that video today, guys.
So if you if you are not ready for a
crazy one, Joey Geoffy is going to be a new
rock star in Fast Casual To just tell you this

(37:30):
right now, watch that episode. Sorry to interrupt there on
that one. It's gonna be a good one. Okay. So
I have a hard question for you, Corey. Yeah, Okay,
I'm seeing something here. You guys are a multi franchise system.
You're building around these boutique environments for coworking, which I

(37:51):
think are great. I think those those have a certain,
you know, interesting element. But the story behind working has
also been the week work debacle. Okay, so lots of
money rays and then it went to crap. You know,
Masa San was not happy about his deal. Okay. So

(38:12):
if you have a decline in centralized work, which is happening,
it's really happening. I mean our own businesses. We now
we used to have eighty percent of our staff in
one place. Now we have ten percent of our staff
in one place and eighty percent of our staff everywhere else.
How do you combat that? If businesses are starting to decentralize, I.

Speaker 4 (38:38):
Look at that as the greatest opportunity for coworking. Frankly,
explain where are they going? How many people home most
of the time? I know, but here's the problem. Like
I can't speak for the industry as a whole, and
certainly not the charge that I'm leading, But the reality
is I got to find year old a three year
old at the house, and whether they're at school or not.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Yeah no, yeah, I get it. It's harder to which
means it leans into you know, the co working spaces,
you know, those kind of things you fill up a
lot of that. I mean, that's exactly what we do.
We put people in co working spaces. A lot of times.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
Thing go so right. I think while the decentralization is happening,
I think it's also creating probably more demand on that
individual office space, on that one off office rental or
the shared space. So I think while you might have
to sidestep from selling twenty twenty staff member locations, none

(39:32):
of our businesses in the co working space were actually
set up to take on hundreds and hundreds of people
on multiple floors. We've accommodated that over time, but I
don't think that's the value we bring to the table.
You can get that in a commercial building anywhere, right,
So that's not how that those brands have scaled. So
I think it's it's interesting because so long as you're
not comfortable and kind of stuck in your core model

(39:54):
to the point where you won't kind of adopt or
adapt to what's being thrown at you. Like I I
think good franchising looks like the ability to mold and
shift to kind of the exterior surroundings without losing the
core identity and the value of what the brand is.
And we've got a pretty solid forty year history now
thirty nine and a half years with United Franchise Group.

(40:16):
Where signage industry hasn't always been perfect right fully promoted
has been in the embroidery, promotional products marketing space that's
not been perfect forever. But yeah, the pandemic is the
best thing that happened to every single one of our
brands because we took a step back and figured out
where we could solve problems for folks instead of becoming
victim to the ever changing world around us.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Are you finding in the real estate not to get
off on the co working space, but are you finding
in the real estate business where coworking spaces are starting
to pop up everywhere because they are losing tenants, you know,
and they're creating these new coworking elements. Is that why
you think coworking aligned with what you're doing at Gray's

(40:57):
Craze is kind of a match made in heaven.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
It works great for us, right because my selfish motives
being the one that's leading the Grays Craze brand is
that sounds like a whole lot more catering opportunities. Yeah,
in my book, right, it's a lot more gatherings. People
are bringing folks to these buildings to have board meetings
instead of having them internally where maybe previously they had
a centralized kitchen. So I think, actually it's been phenomenal
for us, and it gives us more synergies. We've been

(41:21):
really big on developing an ecosystem where our brands can
help support other brands, and it's amazing how many different
touch points we have across completely different verticals. If you
make an attentional effort to kind of bridge those caps.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
That's crazy. I do you have any is there share?
Have you seen any other brand that's.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Doing this, not on the high level like this?

Speaker 3 (41:47):
I mean, I think there's a lot of local like
I even have one down the street that the lady
has opened it on our own, but I haven't seen
any that are big like this, you know.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Scale, you know, you get the one off. Yeah, I
mean I would say maybe Lewis Basil's Wildflower had kind
of a similar, but he was very high production. You know,
it was a bakery cafe, but they had all these
very unique elements that are very similar, especially when you
got into the catering side. I just look at the

(42:17):
scale of high really high quality product like what Corey's
bringing to market is very unique. I will have to say,
we've uncovered a lot of things here on fast Cashual before,
I don't think we've uncovered one like this.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Well, I mean, it's just amazing.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
There's no I was just thinking there's no like ovens
or like the expense to operate.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
It has to be sold, you know.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
That's just as far as the F, F and E package, Corey,
what does that look like for a brand new unit?

Speaker 4 (42:45):
Yeah, and you've got a couple of refrigerators, You've got
some prep tables. You have a tabletop oven so we
can you know, par bake our breads so they're still
made fresh, but we don't need you know, a lot
of the mixers and other things. So, yeah, you got
a tabletop oven. You've got you know, like a classic
a Roboku, going to use that as a process or
for hips and jams. You've got you know, to two refrigerators,

(43:06):
a freezer, and then the rest of it is really
more just fit out related.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
And slicers are.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Your human employees just individually cut up everything.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
I meet slicer. That's probably the core piece of equipment
in what we do because everything we do is made fresh.
Like there's no we're not using pre sliced meats and cheeses.
The stuff isn't cryovac. These are food service packs, and
we're making every single board fresh to order and there's
nothing sitting waiting for customers.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Interesting stuff, all right, So we've we've hit you with
the challenge question of you know, people going to work
from home, because I think that was a good answer.
You pass the test, you know, but that doesn't mean
it's over sure. We're going to grill you more nor it.

(43:51):
My question is is when you look at scaling this,
you're closing in on one hundred units, and you think
about revenue opportunity here and and what you can generate
out of a thousand square feet, what do you feel
is the capacity or top line sales bet and I'm
just going to say best performing market, good operator, you know,

(44:14):
top of the game in terms of marketing. What could
one of these units drive in terms you know?

Speaker 4 (44:19):
What's so interesting is because this has changed so fast,
so obviously the last six weeks of the year kind
of like a super Bowl for us because it's the
consumer sidekicks in whether we want it or not. You
get the gifting, the holiday, all of the events, all
of the occasions. But our top performing stores in the
last month of the year in December have had forty

(44:42):
to fifty percent increases every single Franchin. I know it.
I know. I know it's the young I know it's
a young business. But I think the beautiful thing is
December gives us the benchmarket holiday season.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Come on, you're going to win the holiday season, yes.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
Always, always, But here's here, here's the way I'm getting
to answer your question, though, Paul is like, I think
what we've got to really recognize is that December sets
the bar for capacity. Oh what we can talk about
the reduction outside of you know, in months, trends, et cetera.
But the reality is December gets a production. Well, I mean,
if we're looking at December's production and we could roll

(45:19):
that consistently, which I mean, you're looking at thirty three
percent year over year sales growth, twenty one straight weeks
of eight system wide AUV growth, We're nowhere near getting
to where the business can be. Like the businesses.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
You didn't give me a number, give me a number.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
Yeah, I mean, look, I think three years ago, if
you said could a store do six or seven hundred
thousand dollars of sales out of a graz crazy we
would have said, come on, now, thousand square feet like
there's only so many so much space for bodies and elbows,
et cetera. I've got multiple franchises that I'll tell you
a half a million, six hundred thousand dollars is not
just attainable, it's going to happen over the next year
to two years. And I think that is where this

(45:56):
business gets really entry.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
You had a million dollar store in one thousand square feet,
that would be what top five percent of the chain
for sure.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
I mean that's that's a lot of volume out of
a thousand square feet, right, And you got to think
our core product, our best selling product is a large board.
It's about two feet by a foot and a half
like that. That's a lot of counter space as where
assemblies of space. It's been interesting because, like we've got
a great partner in Wrsehead, who is the meat cheese
provider I talked about earlier. We've had massive orders for

(46:26):
churches for fifteen hundred two thousand people out there.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
What do you do with that, How do you stage
that much product?

Speaker 4 (46:32):
Easy, a refrigerated truck, a couple extra slices, So.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
They just spent one outside and say this is yeah, okay,
so you have a movable reefer out there. Yeah, which
is good. I mean, because you know, that's the thing
that you can do when you get those kind of
scalability issues is you don't have to build it into
the unit. You can build it into the back making
sure you've got good accessibility for something like that. I've
seen a lot of operators go that direction.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
Yeah. One of our busiest locations in the entire system
split her cafe in Bellevue, Washington and operates out of
less than four hundred square feet. Wow, this business scales
very easily. And she's yet I mean, she's done orders
for twelve hundred people at a large gathering she didn't
bring listen.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
It's a good it's a good model because I like
the idea of you going after b locations that lowers
your you know, you're well, it raises your access in
terms of opportunity and lowers your real requirement in terms
of just economic costs from the real estate side of things,
which is what a big. That's a big part of

(47:35):
fast casual. If we can get below that, yeh, you know,
window of no return once you get get there. Some
of these brands are paying ridiculous rents, are you, Shara,
are you seeing on the real estate side, are you
seeing continuing rising rents for most of these ag locations corner?
You know?

Speaker 3 (47:55):
Absolutely, And it's why all of the bigger brands are
trying to get smaller prints too.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Yeah, that's just going to keep happening.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
It just keeps pushing more gets away from the whole
point of hospitality.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
Right, yeah, but that's why you need these concepts like this,
that we can do hospitality at home, you can go
pick it up and you still have that experience.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Well that's a good point too, because this is an argument,
not an argument. It was always something that who is
the guy that was Anthony, Anthony Pigliacompo of Modern Market.
He and I used to debate this topic, and that
is hospitality outside the four walls. Okay, how do you
deliver that? Modern market? One of the early fast casual

(48:37):
darlings growing fairly well, you know, their merger with Lemonade
all that kind of stuff. But his his whole premise
was you have to be able to build a brand
that can literally resonate when it is at home with
the person. Do you feel like you guys are doing that, Corey.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
I think that that is probably the most important way
for us to win, because again, like your interaction at
most is walking into a store and interacting to place
and order and then coming back to pick the order
up or we come to location, it's a few minutes
that we're assembling. I mean, part of the way we
do stage catering is we've we've steered in a lot
of times away from your classic grazing table, which is

(49:16):
kind of the buzzword for a long time in charcooterine.
Now it's shifted into mobile charcotery carts, so that brings
in the whole charcuteri service thing. We're leaning into that
a little bit. But our stage catering is actually much
more convenient in the format we suggest, which is let's
have some large boards, we'll stage it with glassware, eucalyptus,
et cetera. But the cleanup is a three minute project. Yeah,

(49:37):
it's forty.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Right in this the more I hear it every minute, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
That's hospitality. Like for the hospitality component too. You could
really lean into that loyalty application too, because if I
had a location close to me, you know, I host
a book club every month, and I have this and that,
and it's like loyalty. You get those points and the
ltos and then I've become like almost an obsessive brand
and back. So like the loyalty, I feel like you
could really hone in on that well.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
I like that. I like what you guys are going
to do with the wine pairing. I think that might
go well for you, and it will give you an
outlet to local influencers, which is probably going to build
up a little bit of that you know and interesting stuff. Corey, Listen,
this has been a really engaging conversation today. You know,
when I went into this episode today, I'm like, it's

(50:25):
a charcuterie thing. Is this a big deal? I would no,
no offense, Corey. I was like, is this a big deal?

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Shriffmasa. I was stoked. I'm like, yes, me and Cheese.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
Look, that's our job, right, Like, that's what we're here
to solve for, and it's to change the perception that
it is the occasional indulgence, right, like we can make
it accessible at the best and most competitive of price
points and get Charcoteri to the point where it gets
a little more accessible.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
We got to do this for you guys. I think
you got something here, So kudos to everything you're doing.
We're going to keep an eye on you, though, Sharon
and I are going to watch you like a hawk
bringing on.

Speaker 4 (51:03):
Hey, you guys are close right, Let's get a board
and I'm.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Going to go to the one in Pembroke Pines. I'm
gonna see what you guys got over.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
There the city, and we love our we love our
comfort food, so meat and cheese would do good here.

Speaker 4 (51:15):
We're working on it. Yeah, I got I got somebody
we're literally in conversations with this week about getting getting
the store. Going a Kansas city.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
You come seeking and I'll take you.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
To Is there such a thing as a barbecue tricoutery board?

Speaker 4 (51:28):
It's so funny if you looked at like I got
a boar's head binder behind here. And they're great, Like
I said, they're great partners of ours. Obviously, you know
you being in Florid pall and know the way they
dominate the deli space big time. Et cetera. And a
lot of their focus last year was around kind of
barbecue products, so they we started to tease this whole
concept of barbecue ry and who knows if it has

(51:50):
legs down the road. It's a little siloed, but I
think it does bring an interesting kind of fun opportunity
to the table and being able to access all those
daily meets, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Traditional Yeah, I mean you could easily do something around
football season pretty quickly, you know, with with an angle
like that. I know, Mission Barbecue, who's down here. I
was talking to one of their executives and they were
talking about the explosion of growth that they see come September,
which is all you know, college and NFL football growth,

(52:22):
and they and they're like, you know it, just the
amount of weekend growth that they get in barbecue sales
is insane, so huge. Hey, listen, it's been good having
you on you guys. Visit over to Gray's Grays. You
can see it right there. We'll bring it up one
more time for you to visit and learn a little
bit more about it. And I think, you know, we

(52:43):
do have a lot of people that follow this podcast
that are looking for franchises, which is interesting. I'm getting
more comments on this. I think our show now, Shara
is we're getting a lot of people who are entertaining
the idea of getting in the restaurant business. Absolutely, and
they're finding fast casual nations. So Cory, thanks for coming

(53:06):
in today. We're really to appreciate.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
It all sure, great to chat.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
All right, earlier, Corey's got on is out. He's out
of here building those chicuterie boards and killing it. By
the way. Uh so that's very cool, Shara. Okay, so
let's go into a couple of updates for the summit.
Can you announce any speakers?

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Oh my gosh, yes we have.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
Okay, go You've go to the Fast Casual Executive Summit
and it is just, I mean, so many speakers.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
We've got.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
Fit, the president of Fizz, We've got the president of
East Coast Wings, we have Coasta Vida, we have Dave's Hot,
Chicken City Barbecue and Pizza, Chicken Salad, Chick Hop, Dottie
the president, there, Solid House, CRUs Pizza Company, Bagel Brand, Scooters,
La Madeline, Main, Squeeze, Velvet Taco.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
I mean, I could go on and on and on
this is.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
A get to be a good lineup here. Man.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
I'm very excited and like we've told our viewers before,
we're going to do a couple podcasts there, so you
can get a couple of these women and men on
our podcast.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
So I mean Clayed over Kayla. So it's just it's
going to be.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Yeah, this is a rock star group for sure. So uh,
if you guys are not attending this this uh extravaganza,
you should be. All you have to do is visit
a Fast Casual Executive Summit dot com and of course
you can find this over on Fastcasual dot com.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
And then we have a catering workshop following that up.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
As soon as Fast Casual Summit ends, catering begins and
I might have to get a tap Cory to get
him on one of these panels, especially there to go.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
That would be that'd be cool. Yeah, that's uh, that's
a good one. And it's in October October five through
seven in Austin, Texas.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
My home is also Austin City limits, the same going
on the same time.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Really yeah, got that is going.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
To be playing on Saturday before, so I'm trying to
Sabrina Carpenter so I'm trying to get.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Yea, oh, that means crazy fans going into Austin. We
got to go to the You know what we should
do is we should visit South Congress and go there
is an old old lounge there called the Continental Club.
Elvis played there. It's one of those c D back

(55:30):
room but it's like it's been in Austin forever and
it's music and I know some people that run it
and they always have these up up and coming music events.

Speaker 4 (55:39):
Have you.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
You guys are doing a tour, aren't you.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Man, Yeah, we're doing a fast casual tour.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
So the Sunday before we're visiting like six or seven
different regional fast casual restaurants.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
You should do a takeover party at that thing and
do a because it's all music and very you know, swanky.
It's across the.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
For a place to do a party there.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
It'll handle maybe one hundred people, you know, so it
would have to be kind of the best stuff.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Yeah. Anyway, Hey, listen, you guys are if you're not
subscribed to the podcast, to make sure and do that
right now. Catch us over on YouTube. If you're watching
us there right now, then leave a comment down below,
smash the like button, and of course do all those
other things which are subscribed to the channel, and we'll
catch you next time right here on Fast Casual Nation.
Take care,