March 26, 2024 • 44 mins
The Evolution of Food Halls and Emerging Brands in the Face of Economic ChallengesIn this episode of The Restaurant Report, host Paul Barron and guest co-host Amy Hom, experts in the restaurant industry and consumer sentiment, delve into the fascinating world of food halls and emerging brands. Despite current economic challenges, such as rising prices and inflation, which have reduced restaurant visits, food halls, and innovative culinary concepts are showcasing significant growth and resilience.The episode starts with a discussion on Wonder Food Hall, a unique concept that recently raised an impressive $700 million in funding. Wonder Food Hall stands out by bringing together a diverse array of local and regional culinary offerings under one roof, creating a one-of-a-kind dining experience for patrons. Barron and Hom explore the factors contributing to Wonder Food Hall's success and its potential impact on the broader food hall landscape.
Next, the hosts shift their attention to Avalon Food Hall, a relatively new concept in Alpharetta, Georgia. Avalon Food Hall houses a collection of local and regional restaurants, bakeries, and culinary businesses, providing a vibrant and communal dining experience. Barron and Hom analyze the key elements that set Avalon Food Hall apart and discuss how it caters to consumers' evolving preferences, seeking unique and authentic culinary experiences.In the final segment, the podcast deeply delves into BFF Burgers, a startup brand in Shoma Bazaar. Based on their expert observations, Barron and Hom conduct a comprehensive AI outline and project analysis. They examine BFF Burgers' business model, menu offerings, and growth potential, providing valuable insights for aspiring restaurateurs and industry professionals.
Throughout the episode, Barron and Hom offer expert commentary on the evolution of food halls and the rise of innovative culinary concepts. They discuss how these trends are shaping the restaurant industry and provide valuable insights into emerging brands' strategies to thrive in the face of economic challenges.Our experts have created a new feature in the podcast - The Drawing Board- offering ideas and strategies for rising star brands to develop steps to success.
Executive Summary
BFF Burgers is a lifestyle burger brand based in Miami, Florida, that has successfully connected with an emerging demographic and young families. With its excellent graphic and design style, strong social media presence, and high-quality products, BFF Burgers has achieved a consumer sentiment score of 82.8 out of 100, comparable to the top 25 Fast-Casual restaurant brands. Through targeted strategies, the company seeks to expand its customer base, develop a stronger lifestyle connection, increase average check size, and enhance its brand vision.Market Analysis The fast-casual burger market in Miami is highly competitive, but BFF Burgers has successfully carved out a niche by appealing to Latin females and young families. The company's strong social media presence and influencer partnerships have been critical to its success. However, expanding the customer base is possible by attracting more male customers and developing a stronger lifestyle connection with family-based consumers.Marketing Strategy
- Expand male customer base:
- Introduce menu items and promotions tailored to male preferences
- Collaborate with male influencers and athletes to showcase the brand
- Sponsor male-oriented events and sports teams
- Develop a lifestyle connection for family-based consumers:
- Create family-friendly dining experiences and promotions
- Engage with parent and family-focused influencers and bloggers
- Participate in community events and support local schools and organizations
- Implement an upsell model:
- Train staff to suggest add-ons and premium menu items
- Offer combo deals and loyalty rewards to encourage higher spending
- Introduce limited-time offerings and seasonal specials
- Enhance brand vision through high-level influencers:
- Partner with well-known chefs, celebrities, and lifestyle influencers
- Coll
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
All right, everyone, welcome backto another episode of The Restaurant Report.
My name is Paul Baron and I'mgoing to be your host today. I
will be having a guest host joiningme today, and it's going to be
a great topic that is exploring theideas of how concepts are beginning the birth.
Some of these start in food trucks, some of these go into food
(00:29):
halls. There's a lot of brandsthat take a variety of different tracks.
Today we're going to be analyzing alot of the food hall craze that seems
to be re emerging in the market. It's going to be a good one
to make sure and stick around forthat. Joining me is miss Amy Hamm.
Great to have you into the show. How are you great to be
back? Thanks, Paul, Yeah, great, were you well? It's
(00:52):
good good to have you as guesthosts. Today. We're going to be
talking about the growth and the potentialare food hauls, the new brands on
the rise. And you and Igot a chance to kind of chat a
little bit about this before the show, and you know, so much happening
in this space as we get going. Before we take off, I want
to give kudos to you. Whatare you up to right now? What's
(01:17):
going on in your life? Oh, we have a lot going on over
here. We're getting ready to kickoff our second lead, which is for
the emerging Leaders that is happening inChicago, and then we've got another one
in Houston. So we just finishedup with the great Hall of Fame speaker
Marilyn Sherman and she is inspiring andmotivating a lot of leaders in the room
(01:38):
that evening, or she was.And then we do a little financial class
for all the emerging leaders. Soit's great to see the hospitality industry coming
together to get you know, tobring this sexy back into the business.
So we're having fun with it.And then just joined the Glean board yesterday,
so that's exciting. That's for thementor and mentee ship and the and
the industry and so just banding togetherand you know, doing a lot of
(02:00):
consulting work and most likely taking ona full time role pretty soon here.
Oh good news. Well that's that'snice to hear. Hot off to press.
But that announced yet? Yeah,well okay, well you got to
let me know on the on thelo lo as soon as as soon as
you posted. Thank you. Ifpeople want to reach out to you,
what's the best way for them tocatch you, Amy hom seventeen at gmail
(02:23):
dot com, just basic or myLinkedIn page. I'm always pretty active on
that to respond. Yeah, well, good, well. Amy of course
is an industry expert, has beenin a variety of brands and has done
a fantastic job in operations, marketingall sorts of roles so well. And
we've loved to have her on theshow. She's she's a big hit here
(02:46):
on the network from all of ourteam and you guys, people out there
are listening to this podcast, arewatching this show. The last time she
was on, we had a reallygreat show. Amy, Let's get into
it today. And I want togo over to one of the biggest news
stories, and that, of coursewas the issue around Wonder and Wonder Food
Hall is a concept out of NewYork. They ended up raising seven hundred
(03:10):
million dollars and I just want tothe team for doing that. I want
to ask you this. You're you'rea restaurant brand, you know, and
you get out there and you're thinking, hey, I'm going to go ahead
and I'm going to go out andraise just you know, seven hundred million
dollars just you know, just goraise seven hundred million a big deal.
(03:31):
Tell me, are there pitfalls tothis or is this something that you feel
is kind of natural with the currentstate of the restaurant industry. I don't
think that it's I would say naturalwith the current state of the restaurant industry.
I think it's an anomaly. AndI think Mark is doing great things.
I also believe he has He hasdone a great job of surrounding himself
(03:55):
with some amazing leadership to do this, and he's you know, he's also
put these are you know. WhatI really love about Wonder is that they
they're building slow to go fast anda lot of a lot of leadership.
They they think going fast and buildinga lot of brick and mortars and and
showing that on you know, ontheir spreadsheets is the right thing to do,
(04:16):
and I disagree with that. Ithink what Mark is doing is he's
he's been very methodical about it.He's tested different waters. First, he's
found out what works. And oneof the things that I love that he's
focused on is the technology piece withthe waste and the throughput of his kitchens
and then figuring out you know,and promoting the fact that he never wants
anybody to wait for their food,which in our society right now, that
(04:40):
is what all the customers want.So I think he's done a great job.
You know, he's he's got he'sin Walmart, they purchased Blue Apron,
They're doing things very methodically, SoI appreciate the fact that he's he's
building that the right way. II'm coming also from a history of working
with Reef and I think you know, and I was there just for a
(05:03):
little blink of an eye, butI do believe that he's doing it right
in the brick and mortar space because, coming from an operations background, brick
and mortar is much more food safe, and it is also an environment where
you can where employees want to work. A lot of them, don't,
you know, They want to workin safe spaces. So I think he
(05:25):
is doing some things really really well. And his team. Yeah, just
for some of you guys listening inmaybe you're not completely aware of this,
is CEO Mark Law, who ofcourse is the guy pretty much behind this,
and they've done a lot here.I mean I was looking at some
of the notes here shareholders on thislatest funding is Excel Bang Capital Forerunner Albumsters.
(05:46):
Yeah, I mean they have someThese are hitters. This is a
big boys and I've met Mark andhe brings that revelence and essence that you
need to drive seven hundred million incapital, like, yeah, it's crazy
and it's not everybody can do that. They really can't. There is a
there is a rare talent and connectionthere for him. So it's gonna it's
(06:08):
gonna help it to reach thirty fiveunits by the end of twenty twenty four
and ninety by the end of twentyfive. I mean, come on,
ninety units in one That would begoing from thirty five to ninety in one
year. Is that possible. It'spossible because he built it slow. So
now he's got a really strong playbook. Now he can replicate it properly,
(06:31):
depending on if he's picking great realestate right, there's many there's many factors
that go into this. Now he'sin Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York,
highly dense markets. Will this workin the urbs? I don't know.
I think that's something to tests out. The other thing is that the
consumer right now, they it's cheaperfor them to go to the grocery store
(06:53):
right now. Right, things haveflipped since pre twenty twenty, and so
there's a value perception that probably needto be there as well. Yeah,
even the meal kits are coming backnow. I've seen some new data on
some of the meal kits because BlueApron had lagging sales and they had a
big surge in the last six monthstwo quarters. You also look at a
handful of these very niche meal kitsthat are coming in, whether it's vegan
(07:16):
or protein based. That to mewas a bit of a surprise, but
definitely to the point of what you'retalking about in terms of grocery kind of
leading. The way I look atthis in terms of the growth and the
acceleration. Granted, Mark is growingthis in a slow, methodical pace to
(07:36):
get queued into where he can movefast. Here's the factor that I always
look at when I see these brands, because this is not the first,
you know, first brand that saidwe're going to see accelerated growth. You
know, there's a lot of casualtieson the side of the road that had
the same thought. Yes, andI will say this real estate is interesting,
(08:00):
but the one that concerns me rightnow are two and one, of
course, is a labor which weall know is getting ready to shift I
think nationwide. And then also you'redealing with a consumer that is really really
stressed right now in terms of justexpendable income. You know, credit card
rates and credit card loan balances arehigher than ever. In fact, I
(08:24):
think it was seventeen trillion US,which is insane. Savings going down,
We've got you know, the Fedstill pausing on FOMC, which is basically
the Fed funds right meaning interest ratesare not getting any cheaper, so buying
a car, home, any ofthose kind of things weigh in on that
(08:45):
pie of what's available to spend forrestaurants. Do you think this is the
right time to try to accelerate intothe market. That's a great question,
and I do think, Paul,out of all of it, that's the
risk, right I know you andI were talking about prior if some brands
had a loyalty program, because Iwas looking at some data and seventy percent
(09:05):
of customers will go to a placeand not even try a new one unless
they have a loyalty program place.And it is a value play right now,
and some of the upscale casual brandsare doing really well because they've not
taken pricing, But then you're alsodealing, like you said, with the
labor. You know, California goesto twenty next month. I was with
(09:26):
a restaurant's owner the other day andshe was in tears. She said,
she's probably gonna have to close thedoors. So there are some situations there
that are just getting really tricky.So I don't know what Mark and the
team at Wonder running for prime costs. I don't know what they're running for
their cogs and their labor. Ifthey're having the chef chefs use same skws,
(09:46):
that would help things like that,that would really kind of help their
cost their business along. But laboris something to be factored in and considered.
Yeah, I listen. I lovethe fact that you have brands out
there that are willing to put iton the line, you know, because
I think sometimes this takes me backto two thousand and seven. In two
(10:07):
thousand and eight, that was avery interesting time for the United States.
Obviously the economic recession that we thatwe pretty much had to go through from
the savings alone debacle, but wewere in I think it was Denver at
one of our fast casual summits whenthe news came down, you know,
we saw this just like it wasalmost as if the market was melting around
(10:30):
the event, you know, andthere was a handful of CEOs there.
I remember several of them felt likethis was going to open up a massive
opportunity in real estate, and infact it did for the fast casual sector.
We saw real estate prices really kindof plummet in the essence of being
able to, you know, forfast casuals to go in and really obtain
(10:52):
really good real estate. And alot of those operators doubled down during that
time when everybody else was running forthe hills, these guys were buckling down,
trying to get money and really movinginto the next level. Maybe that's
Mark's plan here, is to tryto you know, leverage in as the
market starts to sweat a little bit. What are your thoughts. I think
(11:16):
that's a good play. If so, I still think that that real estate
is out there, the there's alot of white space still for him.
He's just he's got he can prettymuch take that and plug and play that
anywhere. Food halls are great forhim. He can he can I mean
(11:37):
it's just the real estate alone ishis, is his world to play in.
There's still there's so much empty storefunds out there for him to take
advantage of where this would do reallyreally well. Yeah, and he because
he's only at eleven and he's growingto the ninety by twenty twenty five,
and people are still talking about isthis recession going to happen? You know,
(12:00):
you've got he gets to play,and there's empty storefronts from Starbucks,
or's empty storefronts from a lot ofdifferent brands out there that had really good
real estate that is there for thetaking. Now the landlords still are not
being that great, I would sayto the restaurant tours, and so it's
something that he just needs to consider. So I don't know what he has
in the talks there, what wonderslooking at, But I do think he's
(12:22):
got a great leadership team around himto make help make those decisions and do
his own work. Well. Thekey here is when you get into these
food halls, it really is aboutselection and the ability for pretty much the
entire family to kind of do whatthey want. When you go to one,
I know there's one here, we'llbe talking about in Miami kalled Sholm
Bazar and they have that, andthat's when we go. I know that
(12:46):
my daughter she likes a certain thing, My boy likes something else. Mom
likes something else. So it's there'sa benefit to that, you know,
if the pricing point is fairly decent, and you know, we'll show some
things here on screen, that isa good potential for a winner position,
you know. And I like thebusiness model, you know, overall,
I think it's a solid business modelgoing forward. When you look at this
(13:11):
and you think about food halls,are there any others that you're watching right
now that you're saying, Hey,this is starting to happen. We see
some movement here. What are yourthoughts on food halls? I know you
and I discussed a little bit aboutthe food hall in Nashville that Randy DeWitt
builds. He has one in Plano, Texas as well, does extremely well.
It's location could not have been better. He could not have built a
(13:33):
better location. Explain who Randy isso people can kind of get up any
do it. He is a phenomenon, I would say in the restaurant space.
He's created a lot of great brandsand he is this innovator and a
visionary and he thinks of things thatnobody else really would think of. And
(13:54):
you know, I don't know howmany failures he's had, but I know
many of his successes, and youknow, he's he's also just a really
approachable, you know, great leaderthat a lot of us have been able
to hang out with. So shoutout to him and all he's done,
Velvet taco, I mean, thelist goes on and on. So uh.
He built a food hall that hasthree different levels on the corner Broadway
(14:20):
on Main Street there where the allthe you know, the bars are and
where there's high foot traffic and everyyou know, I have a place around
the corner and it has just packedand he's got live bands going. He
sells out on New Year's Eve.It's it's pretty wild. And I believe
he shared with me at one pointthat the Plano, Texas location sold more
(14:41):
alcohol than the Nashville one, andit kind of for a minute jarred me,
But then I started thinking about it. When I'm in the food hall
in Nashville. We just had theWomen's leadership for QSR there and it was
all families and on Broadway. It'sa lot of bars, and so you
know his thinking was, he's gotdifferent brands there. He's got mom and
pop brands in there. He's gotupscale casual upstairs. And so anybody can
(15:05):
go there. And like you said, there's that veto you know, vote
in the family. And I probablyam thinking, Paul, you probably don't
get a vote when you go toeat it. You shall your wife or
the kids and so. But yougo here and everybody gets what they want.
And so I think that's what youwere alluding to before with show.
And so it's it is that environment, and people really like that these days.
(15:28):
I mean it used to be whenyou and I, well, I
don't know about you, but whenI grew up, it was whatever's on
the table's what you're eating. Andnow it's where does everybody want to go,
where everybody gets what they want,And it's just the cultures have just
shifted a little bit so that thatfood hall. I watched them very closely
because you're thinking, how would thatwork with the real estate with as large
as it is, as many vendorsin there, and it is magical when
(15:50):
you go in. I suggest youtake a trip to nash and check it
out, Paul, I got it. I have to do that because Nashville
is one of my favorite cities.Of course, there's so much great culinary
scene there, but there's another,you know, draw to it that I'm
following really closely right now and it'skind of interesting. But anyway, doing
(16:11):
that, are you sharing it's it'scalled it's called Bitcoin City, which is
it's basically a developer group that isin the blockchain area, and you know,
they've kind of created this little communityaround devs and different project leads and
people building on blockchain and web three, which you guys know I cover a
lot of that. We're going totake a short break check that out.
(16:32):
When I go, I think i'mback, I'll send you some info on
it because it's if you want tolearn about, you know, kind of
next gen tech and finance. That'sit's an interesting place in Nashville, I'll
get And also if you're into thebitcoin they have the conference there and I
think it's in June this year.We are going to come back here with
Amy hom take a quick break andwe'll be right back talking about these food
(16:55):
halls and the emerging brands coming outof stick around because we're doing something very
special toward the end of the showcalled the drawing Board. I'll tell you
about it in just a second.Devour is making it easy for QSR and
fast casual brands to tap into genZ's love of food ordering without heavy fees
or technology investments. It's all atyour fingertips. Expand food ordering into digital
(17:18):
realms like video gaming, stream andesports entertainment. Learn more at devour dot
io. Today. All right,we're back here with Amy hum and diving
into emerging brands and how they're growing. Amy, I want to jump into
this this food hall right now,let's kind of bring it up on screen
(17:38):
here. This one is the likeor not food halls are here to stay
in Atlanta. This one is everythingfrom Crogstreet Market to Poncity Market. There's
several of them that have kind offlown into this whole new area called Avalon
Food Hall, which is centering aroundwhat's happening in the greater Atlanta area.
(18:03):
Now. One of the things thatwas in the article here from Eaters is
providing an affordable entry point for independentchefs and food entrepreneurs, giving them an
opportunity to open a business without innumerableoverhead costs owning a standalone So that has
been kind of one of the Iguess the cornerstones of food halls is they
(18:25):
open up a venue, you getthe potential to get access to maybe a
chef you never had access before,so there's that, Or you get a
brand new entrepreneur who's doing things sounique and different you've probably never even seen
it in a restaurant before, becauseit's almost like a mad scientist experiment,
(18:47):
you know. Yeah, this isa tough one for me because there was
one of these down in Houston andRice Village, and I went to sit
and just observe when I was openingup a restaurant down there and a again,
it's about the location and be thetraffic and how is it being marketed?
(19:07):
Because chefs are really great at creatingamazing food and craveable items, but
they don't know how to market theirstorefronts. And unless that group in Atlanta
is doing that for them and doingsome ltos or whatever that sorry limited time
offers for those that don't know ltobut how are because that one in Houston
(19:30):
ended up closing down and I wentaround the corner and I just was talking
to some folks like, Hey,I'm just an inquisitive person. I said,
what happened here? And you know, they just could not get the
vibe was great, but it wasso slow in there. And I just
when you have so much going onin a space, you have to be
(19:51):
able to understand it as a consumer. And so depending on how it's set
up, how it's laid out,how again, how it's marketed, it
matters. And again, these chefsare great at creating food, but they
need help sometimes with you know,how to run their costs and make make
a profit and you know, wasteand all these other things. Culinary school
(20:11):
is great, but they also needto understand the business back end of things
and how to make their business successful. So hopefully they've got some folks mentoring
in there and helping them. Again, the space pretty similar to how Houston
was set up as well. It'sbeautiful, but again, how are these
how do you know who the chefis? They just see there's a chicken
(20:32):
sandwich, but what is a storybehind there? And how do they how
you know are they doing? Arethey utilizing influencers, are they utilizing community
billboards? I'm not sure, butI've seen these kind of come and go
a little bit throughout the years theysat. There's one down here in Laguna
Negalda close and had opened, youknow, past twenty twenty. So I
think I think there's a niche thereto be had, but I'm not sure
(20:56):
it's been solved yet, and Ido think it's a little bit risk.
Yeah, we were just showing onscreen for you guys that are maybe listening
on the audio version of this podcast. We were just showing on screen all
the different venues there just in Atlanta, and I think there was like nine
or ten that had various stalls theycall them stalls, And that's a lot
(21:18):
of competition in itself of having thatbecause I don't you know, here in
Miami, I don't think we havemaybe three at best, and I'm still
thinking only two. But I justdon't know. I mean, yeah,
Atlanta is a little different because it'spretty spread out kind of like Miami in
LA But I'm in agreement with you. I think there's got to be some
(21:40):
magic sauce somewhere coming to help reallyget it into the real concept of how
to get main decisions made from youknow, consumers who are going to make
a choice on where they're going.And if you're not reaching them, whether
it's through a loyalty program, amarketing effort, some sort of strategy,
or location, you know, you'vereally got some problems. For sure,
(22:03):
there's one there's one in New Yorkand the meatpacking district that actually does really
well, but again, some ofthe concepts in there are very slow.
And then there's the taco place thathas a line around the corner. And
why would you ask me this isthe taco place around the corner? Because
there's great value and because it's tacosand it's fast, and again consumers just
(22:23):
want fast, great value and amazingtasting food. Yeah, and then the
business side of it is how doyou make money doing that? And so
it's for that taco stand, it'sby volume, and some of the other
the other stalls, as you said, they change out quite a bit.
And so that's where the risk is. Is ken is that really a sustainable
business? I'm not sure. Yeah, it's gonna it's going to be interesting
(22:47):
to see how these uh, theseentrepreneurs make it, because you know,
a lot of people look at whetherit's food truck that eventually evolved to you
know, brick and mortar, orif it's just you know, operators that
have come from a community of otheroperators and they're spinning off into another brand.
Things of that nature. There's avariety of different routes that have been
taken. In today's episode, we'regoing to be doing Amy and I are
(23:11):
going to be doing a very interestingproject and it's called the drawing Board.
I'm going to show it to youguys a little bit. The concept behind
the drawing Board is pretty simple.What we're going to do Amy and I
is we're going to take an examplebrand and we're going to try to come
up with three concepts around it.We're going to take those concept concepts from
(23:33):
people that are in the industry likeus, and then we're going to feed
it into one of our AI models. Now we're building a large language model
right here at saver FM, andwe're doing it based on just the restaurant
industry. So think of it asyou know, Gemini or Claude or you
know any of those that you're probablyout there using right now, but all
(23:57):
built off of sentiment days to consumersand all the brands we're ingesting menus,
we're ingesting marketing strategies, ingesting theirfeeds, and we're taking this and sticking
it into a language model and I'mgonna see what comes out on the other
end. This is so fun,Paul, that you're doing this. It's
(24:17):
fun. We're gonna We're gonna try. It's gonna be a business plan for
this brand. I love it.Yeah, all right, So we're gonna
look at a food hall here inMiami, and this one is called Showman
Bizarre. I'm gonna bring it upon screen for everybody to kind of get
a view of it because there's alot of brands within it, and as
you can see here, we'll clickover here and you can kind of see
there's Amazonica, Amora di Pasta,Bandito's, BFF Beer, Garden, Dose
(24:47):
Delgi Faros, which is pretty good, Shaws of Kabab one of my favorite
ones I like to go to whenI'm there, and then Pokemia so m
I a actually for those of andI love this one too, Sandwich which
is SND which that's cute. Let'sjust sell you some things here. So
anyway, we're going to pick abrand, and the one we're going to
(25:08):
pick is BFF Burgers, so BFFBurgers a couple of things. I'll go
to their instagram just to give youguys a flavor for the concept. As
you can see here on screen,very high end in terms of how they're
preparing the quality of the product,and they've done a good job with a
(25:30):
fairly limited menu, so that's oneof the benefits that they have. And
then they also apply it into apretty aggressive and very family oriented marketing theme
as you can see here young women, kids, obviously the food itself kind
of tying into it. Lots ofreally great photography, you know, almost
(25:51):
a very lifestyle ish, you know, so to speak. So that's kind
of the brand we're going to betalking about over at Showma bazz Are today
And let's just get into it,and let's talk a little bit about first
thing, what you feel when youlook at brands like this. They're brand
new, They this is their onlyplace. Maybe they're getting started, but
(26:15):
they seem to have a lot ofexperience. And I don't know who these
operators are. I'm wondering if theycame over from you know, something big,
bigger. It has a little bitof burgerfy. I wonder, yeah,
I wonder if there's somebody from Burgerfiin this brand. But anyway,
what would be your first if you'retalking to an operator for the first time
(26:36):
and they've hired Amy Hahn and they'vesaid, Amy, take a look at
BFF and tell us, first ofall, is our branding? Right?
How do you feel about the brandingwith this one? When I look at
this, I see warmth, andit is inviting and it makes you want
to go. The food looks craveable. I think they've done a great job
(26:57):
with their Instagram and their marketing,and so I feel good about this.
I would go and try it.Mind you, it is one of the
top two food groups that everyone goesto eat, which is PiZZ and burgers.
So it's a win win win forme. Yeah. Yeah. So,
as you guys can see, we'reputting some stuff into Claude right now
(27:17):
and we'll at the end of theshow. I don't know if I'll show
it to you at the end ofthe podcast or we'll put it for download
when we create the report off ofthis. So you like warm, inviting,
cravable food In terms of their approachtoward family, do you think they
hit it based on what you've seenso far in the short time of the
(27:37):
product and their Instagram and some oftheir social They've got children on there.
They've got different family members included.They've got a kid's meal on the bottom
left that I saw. So yes, I think it matters. You know,
I'd be curious in the community asthis can be a community built based
brand that everyone talks about and raidsabout, or are they using influencers to
drive their business and so it dependson who those influencers have as followers,
(28:02):
but it is something to think about. One thing I often look at when
I see brands like this is I'malways concerned that, first of all,
Burger one of the crowd most crowdedspots out there. You can't hardly go
in this without having to lose marketshare. So it's a matter of who
(28:23):
you lose market share too. Whenyou look at this, this being a
fast casual concept. Do you thinkI mean Burgerfi is in this area?
I would say the Titan in SouthFlorida, even though Smashburger has some relevance
here but not so much. It'sit's mostly burgerfy. And then you fall
(28:44):
into these really unique little we'll callthem village burger. I don't know if
you've ever seen Village Burger Bar inDallas, but they kind of it's a
very maybe five to ten units,very well done. They mix you know,
cocktails, beer, wine, andburgers, and they bring the price
point down. But my question is, what do you think would be the
(29:07):
differentiator for this brand to be ableto go up against a real fast casual
titan like say a Burgerfi. Whatdo you think they would have to do?
Speed, value, and flavor.I mean, the food has to
be great. You get an influencerto bring you in, You come in,
you try it. And I alsobelieve they need to have a loyalty
(29:27):
program. I'm big on those sothat they can build their business. Now.
I believe this is a one shop, single shop right now, but
how do they build that? Evenif it's kind of, you know,
an organic way to do it.But they need to get into the community
and continue to build. But it'snot going to build unless they really deliver
(29:48):
on their service and their hospitality andthey're great food. It's got to taste
food. It looks like they're goingafter kind of that younger family group.
So you have whether it's gen Zor a millennium. Yeah, when you
think Burgerfi, what do you think, Paul, like the demographic and then
you look at this and it's alittle bit different, right it is.
And I can tell you when we'vestudied Burgerfy in and out, they know
(30:11):
pun, but they skew a littlebit older. Actually, I would say
gen X to Boomer. I don'tknow why that is. Maybe it's the
Florida demographic that we see, youknow when you look at that, or
if it's just the way that brandseems to connect maybe Oil a little bit
more old school burger shop. I'mnot sure. Yep. I agree with
(30:33):
you, and I think this ishot and looks it draws you in with
the colors. I think the pinkis really good, right, So I
think it was a good selection.Yeah, yeah, And so I think
all these little things that they've done, bringing the different family members and the
children and the mom and you know, the friends. I think that that's
really smart because you want to beable to relate to where you're going and
(30:56):
feel comfortable. And when I seethat, I'm like, oh, I
could go in there and check thatout. I'm probably the Burgerfi age group.
But since we're categories in it thatway, but you know, I
would still feel comfortable going in andgrabbing a burger with the younger crowd and
demographic and checking it out. There'stwo things I look at when you see
brands like this in when I dofast casual consulting or work with founders.
(31:18):
The one thing that I look atin terms of that differentiation, it all
boils down to what track did thebrand take for me? So some you
know a good friend of mine,long term buddy that's been in the industry
for a long time, Lewis BasilWildflower out of Phoenix, Arizona. Such
a great guy. He's crazy.I love you is what I should call
(31:42):
him. Crazy in a good wayand also crazy like a cat too because
he knows he's always He's very cunningon how he's doing his business. Very
much. Yeah, my point waswith Lewis. Listen, he was in
Phoenix, Arizona, going head tohead with Specialties and Paradise Bakery, Panera,
(32:06):
you know, pretty much every bakeryyou could imagine, bakery, cafe,
and Wildflower went the food route.So he pours his passion into that
menu like nothing I've ever seen.It's almost like he's running a five star.
Yeah, it's almost like running afive star restaurant. It is,
so he wins in that category handsdown. There's nobody that can compete with
(32:30):
Wildfore. If you guys are everin Phoenix, Arizona, stop by a
Wildflower. Look at the beautiful design. They have these Chilui designs in their
restaurants with the glass unbelievable how he'sdone it. But the food is literally
over the top. So I thinkthose two things. Either you're a food
focused brand or you're a lifestyle focusbrand, and I feel like this one
(32:55):
falls a little bit more to thelifestyle side. I don't know their food
yet. You know, I haven'ttried it yet. At Selma, I'm
going to get there, But whatdo you think do you think they're more
lifestyle? I mean, you haven'ttried the food yet, but you can
kind of see off all. I'dhave to try the food because, like
you were talking about Lewis, yougo back because the food is so good.
(33:15):
I have to try the burger becausefast, when you get a really
great burger, like hands down,you go back. You're just unforgettable.
Yes, yes, And you wakeup some days and you're thinking, I'm
really craving a burger today, andthat's where you go and you think about
it, like, I'm not anin and out fan. I grew up
(33:37):
in the Midwest. We didn't havein and outs. But everyone around me,
they come to visit, they say, we have to go to in
and out. We have to answerit outing right, and the food is
craveable to them. They crave itright, so they have to go there.
It's a crazy phenomenon, but it'sthere. And this could be the
same, This could be similar,it could be the beginning of something like
that. So depending on their foodquality. Now, if you go Paul
(34:00):
and you have this burger and youhave it one time and you're checking it
out because it's cool Instagram, youmay not go back if the burger's not
great, because we all know now, like you said, the space is
very congested what a great burger cantaste like. So the product has to
be like like Lewis is, ithas to be great. Yeah, And
I think the key here with anyupstart brand is this is a decision that
(34:23):
you have to consciously make. Youknow, you can't just go, hey,
we're going to do a really goodmenu and we're going to have really
great service, and we're going todo you know, really cool marketing and
branding. And you know, that'sour business plan. And when I talk
to founders and operators, I canusually it's not I'm just handed unluckily or
(34:43):
unluckily. I've had a chance tomeet with probably five hundred plus brand leaders
over my career, and I cantell you, as my grandfather would say,
either they're the crop sharers or they'renot. And the crop sharer is
the guy who gets it done.You know, it's the person who there's
something you know, just there thatyou can't quite put your finger on in
(35:07):
the founder that is got that passionin whatever vein. Maybe it's the lifestyle
vein, maybe it's the food vein, or it's the service vein. You
know, just unbelievable service. Ithink I think that's something that an operator
has to make. The have tomake the decision. What are you going
to be unbeatable at? What areyou going to be unbeatable at? Because
(35:30):
you can't win every I mean,I've seen a handful of restaurants, but
I've yet to see one that winsthem all. What differentiates you? It's
and it's tough to do now becausethere's so much out there, and you
do have to find that niche.And that goes back to the chefs trying
to figure out their food holes.You know, what is their niche for
the moment. And when you lookat this, you know, you went
(35:52):
through the menu and there's a lotof options there. But we talked about
the burger, you know, andso it's you can't some of the you
can have. I mean, lookat this, it's it's you. It's
crazy. It makes you. Thefood photography and the marketing makes you want
to go in and try it.I mean the mustard sauce on the hair,
the fries with the sauce all overit. They've done a really good
(36:15):
job with this. Now you goin, like I said, burger's not
good. You won't be back nomatter how great the photos are. What
do you think about you know,most of these product shots are staged.
As you can see, Yes,they're using pretty much the same uh,
the same model or the same crewperson. And you know, I'm looking
(36:36):
further into their Instagram and it lookslike it's getting a little bit more polished.
So as I go back further intothe brand less, polished by photography.
See how it how it kind ofI like that, it's it's not
that it's I guess that's my questionto you. Do you feel, well,
there's governor, there's the governor rightthere, mister DeSantis coming in there.
(37:05):
That's crazy. Well, I don'tknow if that's good or bad.
He you know, he dropped outof the race. So yeah, that's
another podcast for Yeah. So I'mlooking at that. They've got some pretty
good Are those able skimers? Isthat what that is? I'm not sure.
I'm not sure either. I thinkthat's an able schemer. So able
skimer a Dutch recipe. Think ofit as a pancake and a ball.
(37:30):
If you guys are listening to thepodcast versus watching it, which, by
the way, you can catch thispodcast the video version of it over on
saber dot Fm. Anyway, I'mkind of falling into the concept here looking
at it a little bit deeper.But my point and my question to you
was do you feel that the influencerroute is the way to go? Because
(37:52):
one of the ways that I foundthese guys was on TikTok, and it
was an influencer showing it eating ithaving fun with it, drinking some beers
havn't had their kids. Everybody's runningaround the place. I mean, it
just looked fun. Do you feellike influencers are the gateway for some of
these early brands okay so and TikTokand and staff mainly TikTok I get the
(38:19):
most traction for the demographic that they'retrying to reach. Yeah, interesting stuff,
all right, So we've got alot going on here. We've got
warm and inviting, credible food definitelyare some of its attributes. Family connection
and kid friendly, speed and valueover and over deliver on food quality,
which it looks like they are loyaltyplatform. I'm going to add some stuff
(38:40):
in there where I think they shouldgo on the loyalty platform, which is
more Web three. We talked toso many on Web three, the Bubba
guys, by the way, ifyou guys didn't catch our video and audio
on that one. This is aconcept out of the Bay Area that has
done a great job with Web threeloyalty platform, which integrates NFT to create
(39:00):
kind of this brand IP connection.And that's something that I think these guys
probably could do because they've done agood job at the naming convention BFF burgers.
I think you could just have somuch fun, would just be aff
alone. I mean that I'm justtrying to think they have everything that we
are thinking. But yes, theydefinitely can have a lot of fun with
(39:22):
it, which is why they namedit that. And we're having the conversation
and helping them with that. Soyes, I'm going to add in the
versions and variations. I'm putting thisinto our language model right now, variations
of BFF for a burger concept,because I want to think about this both
(39:45):
on positive and negative, you know, from a psychological perspective, because you've
got to be thinking about how peopleperceive that. Because you think about a
guy, he's forty something, he'sa bear drinker, but he loves burgers
and he drives a pickup truck.Okay, that's a good guy too.
That's like some of my best friends. Okay, those are good guys.
(40:07):
I agree. And he may thinkBFF. That sounds like something my wife
would say. They may they maysay, Okay, I'm not going for
any BFF. I got enough BFFs. But you could be a kid and
say, you know, big freakingfun or something exactly. Yeah, exactly.
(40:28):
It can be really fun to playwith for the for the family.
I'm not going to show what's onour what's coming back in just from our
just short notes already. But AIis running crazy with this thing. I
love AI, such a great crazytool. We've we've so we've been building
this language model for about a yearnow, and we had to get these
(40:50):
new servers. I'll tell you astory, and it's it's called Grock.
It's not the Groc that you seeon X It's it's a different platform that
basically it's like an Nvidia array.It uses an array of server servers and
chips that leverage against each other sothat it doesn't overtax, and you can
(41:12):
do a lot more with the softwarefor analyzing large language models. So we
ingest our database off of the RPI, which is the top one thousand restaurant
brands in the food space, andthis is casual Dining, Fast Casual QSR.
We ingest all of their menus,we ingest all of their TikTok accounts,
their Twitter accounts, their Facebook accounts, Instagram, and then we feed
(41:38):
that into it for sentiment data,and then we look at variations that make
a brand stand out. So that'sthe language model that we're building mainly around
just to understand what's happening in therestaurant industry. Hopefully it will give us
some insights to this. But thisis going to be a good one because
we're going to integrate the rp ourRestaurant Power Index in this as well.
(42:02):
Amazing, so good stuff, allright, Amy, As usual, this
is always fun breaking it down withyou. I love doing the drawing board
with you. And just as areminder for all of you guys out there
right now, you'll be able toget the drawing board breakdown, which we're
(42:22):
showing on screen how to build risingstar brands three steps to success. We'll
create this into an AI model andthen we're going to put this into something
you can download on a PDF overon the podcast when you guys get a
chance to hear this. So ifyou're listening to this, there's something special
(42:43):
for you residing over at savor dotfm on this show page, and that
is the drawing board breakdown that Amyand I just did for BFF. Everyone's
going to want to use that tool, so it's super cool. They haven't
even you know, BFF does noteven know we're doing this, well,
that's for sure. They're gonna goHoly Moly, and you're gonna have to
(43:06):
send him an invoice. And I'mjust kidding. I love it. I
love it. It's always fun.I love to see that passion in the
uh in the restaurant space because tome, that's hey, that's what makes
the restaurant space so different and unique. And I'll tell you my best friends
in life are in the restaurant industry. These are good people, you know.
(43:29):
We are good people in the restaurantindustry, and we all work together.
And I need to have another glassof wine with Lewis soon. He's
one of the greatest. So lovethat you mentioned him, telling myself hello,
when you see him, I willdo so. I will do so.
Thanks for having me, Paul,have a great afternoon. Take care,
Amy. All right, all right, So you guys, of course,
are still tuned in here. Ifyou're not subscribed to the show,
(43:49):
make sure and get subscribed right now. It's one of the best places to
get additional insights here in the restaurantindustry. And this is one of the
biggest podcasts out there at the RestaurantReport, So we appreciate all of you's
who, all of you who arelisteners and subscribers, so make sure and
stick around for that. We'll catchyou next time right here on the Restaurant Report
All right, everyone, welcome backto another episode of The Restaurant Report.
My name is Paul Baron and I'mgoing to be your host today. I
will be having a guest host joiningme today, and it's going to be
a great topic that is exploring theideas of how concepts are beginning the birth.
Some of these start in food trucks, some of these go into food
(00:29):
halls. There's a lot of brandsthat take a variety of different tracks.
Today we're going to be analyzing alot of the food hall craze that seems
to be re emerging in the market. It's going to be a good one
to make sure and stick around forthat. Joining me is miss Amy Hamm.
Great to have you into the show. How are you great to be
back? Thanks, Paul, Yeah, great, were you well? It's
(00:52):
good good to have you as guesthosts. Today. We're going to be
talking about the growth and the potentialare food hauls, the new brands on
the rise. And you and Igot a chance to kind of chat a
little bit about this before the show, and you know, so much happening
in this space as we get going. Before we take off, I want
to give kudos to you. Whatare you up to right now? What's
(01:17):
going on in your life? Oh, we have a lot going on over
here. We're getting ready to kickoff our second lead, which is for
the emerging Leaders that is happening inChicago, and then we've got another one
in Houston. So we just finishedup with the great Hall of Fame speaker
Marilyn Sherman and she is inspiring andmotivating a lot of leaders in the room
(01:38):
that evening, or she was.And then we do a little financial class
for all the emerging leaders. Soit's great to see the hospitality industry coming
together to get you know, tobring this sexy back into the business.
So we're having fun with it.And then just joined the Glean board yesterday,
so that's exciting. That's for thementor and mentee ship and the and
the industry and so just banding togetherand you know, doing a lot of
(02:00):
consulting work and most likely taking ona full time role pretty soon here.
Oh good news. Well that's that'snice to hear. Hot off to press.
But that announced yet? Yeah,well okay, well you got to
let me know on the on thelo lo as soon as as soon as
you posted. Thank you. Ifpeople want to reach out to you,
what's the best way for them tocatch you, Amy hom seventeen at gmail
(02:23):
dot com, just basic or myLinkedIn page. I'm always pretty active on
that to respond. Yeah, well, good, well. Amy of course
is an industry expert, has beenin a variety of brands and has done
a fantastic job in operations, marketingall sorts of roles so well. And
we've loved to have her on theshow. She's she's a big hit here
(02:46):
on the network from all of ourteam and you guys, people out there
are listening to this podcast, arewatching this show. The last time she
was on, we had a reallygreat show. Amy, Let's get into
it today. And I want togo over to one of the biggest news
stories, and that, of coursewas the issue around Wonder and Wonder Food
Hall is a concept out of NewYork. They ended up raising seven hundred
(03:10):
million dollars and I just want tothe team for doing that. I want
to ask you this. You're you'rea restaurant brand, you know, and
you get out there and you're thinking, hey, I'm going to go ahead
and I'm going to go out andraise just you know, seven hundred million
dollars just you know, just goraise seven hundred million a big deal.
(03:31):
Tell me, are there pitfalls tothis or is this something that you feel
is kind of natural with the currentstate of the restaurant industry. I don't
think that it's I would say naturalwith the current state of the restaurant industry.
I think it's an anomaly. AndI think Mark is doing great things.
I also believe he has He hasdone a great job of surrounding himself
(03:55):
with some amazing leadership to do this, and he's you know, he's also
put these are you know. WhatI really love about Wonder is that they
they're building slow to go fast anda lot of a lot of leadership.
They they think going fast and buildinga lot of brick and mortars and and
showing that on you know, ontheir spreadsheets is the right thing to do,
(04:16):
and I disagree with that. Ithink what Mark is doing is he's
he's been very methodical about it.He's tested different waters. First, he's
found out what works. And oneof the things that I love that he's
focused on is the technology piece withthe waste and the throughput of his kitchens
and then figuring out you know,and promoting the fact that he never wants
anybody to wait for their food,which in our society right now, that
(04:40):
is what all the customers want.So I think he's done a great job.
You know, he's he's got he'sin Walmart, they purchased Blue Apron,
They're doing things very methodically, SoI appreciate the fact that he's he's
building that the right way. II'm coming also from a history of working
with Reef and I think you know, and I was there just for a
(05:03):
little blink of an eye, butI do believe that he's doing it right
in the brick and mortar space because, coming from an operations background, brick
and mortar is much more food safe, and it is also an environment where
you can where employees want to work. A lot of them, don't,
you know, They want to workin safe spaces. So I think he
(05:25):
is doing some things really really well. And his team. Yeah, just
for some of you guys listening inmaybe you're not completely aware of this,
is CEO Mark Law, who ofcourse is the guy pretty much behind this,
and they've done a lot here.I mean I was looking at some
of the notes here shareholders on thislatest funding is Excel Bang Capital Forerunner Albumsters.
(05:46):
Yeah, I mean they have someThese are hitters. This is a
big boys and I've met Mark andhe brings that revelence and essence that you
need to drive seven hundred million incapital, like, yeah, it's crazy
and it's not everybody can do that. They really can't. There is a
there is a rare talent and connectionthere for him. So it's gonna it's
(06:08):
gonna help it to reach thirty fiveunits by the end of twenty twenty four
and ninety by the end of twentyfive. I mean, come on,
ninety units in one That would begoing from thirty five to ninety in one
year. Is that possible. It'spossible because he built it slow. So
now he's got a really strong playbook. Now he can replicate it properly,
(06:31):
depending on if he's picking great realestate right, there's many there's many factors
that go into this. Now he'sin Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York,
highly dense markets. Will this workin the urbs? I don't know.
I think that's something to tests out. The other thing is that the
consumer right now, they it's cheaperfor them to go to the grocery store
(06:53):
right now. Right, things haveflipped since pre twenty twenty, and so
there's a value perception that probably needto be there as well. Yeah,
even the meal kits are coming backnow. I've seen some new data on
some of the meal kits because BlueApron had lagging sales and they had a
big surge in the last six monthstwo quarters. You also look at a
handful of these very niche meal kitsthat are coming in, whether it's vegan
(07:16):
or protein based. That to mewas a bit of a surprise, but
definitely to the point of what you'retalking about in terms of grocery kind of
leading. The way I look atthis in terms of the growth and the
acceleration. Granted, Mark is growingthis in a slow, methodical pace to
(07:36):
get queued into where he can movefast. Here's the factor that I always
look at when I see these brands, because this is not the first,
you know, first brand that saidwe're going to see accelerated growth. You
know, there's a lot of casualtieson the side of the road that had
the same thought. Yes, andI will say this real estate is interesting,
(08:00):
but the one that concerns me rightnow are two and one, of
course, is a labor which weall know is getting ready to shift I
think nationwide. And then also you'redealing with a consumer that is really really
stressed right now in terms of justexpendable income. You know, credit card
rates and credit card loan balances arehigher than ever. In fact, I
(08:24):
think it was seventeen trillion US,which is insane. Savings going down,
We've got you know, the Fedstill pausing on FOMC, which is basically
the Fed funds right meaning interest ratesare not getting any cheaper, so buying
a car, home, any ofthose kind of things weigh in on that
(08:45):
pie of what's available to spend forrestaurants. Do you think this is the
right time to try to accelerate intothe market. That's a great question,
and I do think, Paul,out of all of it, that's the
risk, right I know you andI were talking about prior if some brands
had a loyalty program, because Iwas looking at some data and seventy percent
(09:05):
of customers will go to a placeand not even try a new one unless
they have a loyalty program place.And it is a value play right now,
and some of the upscale casual brandsare doing really well because they've not
taken pricing, But then you're alsodealing, like you said, with the
labor. You know, California goesto twenty next month. I was with
(09:26):
a restaurant's owner the other day andshe was in tears. She said,
she's probably gonna have to close thedoors. So there are some situations there
that are just getting really tricky.So I don't know what Mark and the
team at Wonder running for prime costs. I don't know what they're running for
their cogs and their labor. Ifthey're having the chef chefs use same skws,
(09:46):
that would help things like that,that would really kind of help their
cost their business along. But laboris something to be factored in and considered.
Yeah, I listen. I lovethe fact that you have brands out
there that are willing to put iton the line, you know, because
I think sometimes this takes me backto two thousand and seven. In two
(10:07):
thousand and eight, that was avery interesting time for the United States.
Obviously the economic recession that we thatwe pretty much had to go through from
the savings alone debacle, but wewere in I think it was Denver at
one of our fast casual summits whenthe news came down, you know,
we saw this just like it wasalmost as if the market was melting around
(10:30):
the event, you know, andthere was a handful of CEOs there.
I remember several of them felt likethis was going to open up a massive
opportunity in real estate, and infact it did for the fast casual sector.
We saw real estate prices really kindof plummet in the essence of being
able to, you know, forfast casuals to go in and really obtain
(10:52):
really good real estate. And alot of those operators doubled down during that
time when everybody else was running forthe hills, these guys were buckling down,
trying to get money and really movinginto the next level. Maybe that's
Mark's plan here, is to tryto you know, leverage in as the
market starts to sweat a little bit. What are your thoughts. I think
(11:16):
that's a good play. If so, I still think that that real estate
is out there, the there's alot of white space still for him.
He's just he's got he can prettymuch take that and plug and play that
anywhere. Food halls are great forhim. He can he can I mean
(11:37):
it's just the real estate alone ishis, is his world to play in.
There's still there's so much empty storefunds out there for him to take
advantage of where this would do reallyreally well. Yeah, and he because
he's only at eleven and he's growingto the ninety by twenty twenty five,
and people are still talking about isthis recession going to happen? You know,
(12:00):
you've got he gets to play,and there's empty storefronts from Starbucks,
or's empty storefronts from a lot ofdifferent brands out there that had really good
real estate that is there for thetaking. Now the landlords still are not
being that great, I would sayto the restaurant tours, and so it's
something that he just needs to consider. So I don't know what he has
in the talks there, what wonderslooking at, But I do think he's
(12:22):
got a great leadership team around himto make help make those decisions and do
his own work. Well. Thekey here is when you get into these
food halls, it really is aboutselection and the ability for pretty much the
entire family to kind of do whatthey want. When you go to one,
I know there's one here, we'llbe talking about in Miami kalled Sholm
Bazar and they have that, andthat's when we go. I know that
(12:46):
my daughter she likes a certain thing, My boy likes something else. Mom
likes something else. So it's there'sa benefit to that, you know,
if the pricing point is fairly decent, and you know, we'll show some
things here on screen, that isa good potential for a winner position,
you know. And I like thebusiness model, you know, overall,
I think it's a solid business modelgoing forward. When you look at this
(13:11):
and you think about food halls,are there any others that you're watching right
now that you're saying, Hey,this is starting to happen. We see
some movement here. What are yourthoughts on food halls? I know you
and I discussed a little bit aboutthe food hall in Nashville that Randy DeWitt
builds. He has one in Plano, Texas as well, does extremely well.
It's location could not have been better. He could not have built a
(13:33):
better location. Explain who Randy isso people can kind of get up any
do it. He is a phenomenon, I would say in the restaurant space.
He's created a lot of great brandsand he is this innovator and a
visionary and he thinks of things thatnobody else really would think of. And
(13:54):
you know, I don't know howmany failures he's had, but I know
many of his successes, and youknow, he's he's also just a really
approachable, you know, great leaderthat a lot of us have been able
to hang out with. So shoutout to him and all he's done,
Velvet taco, I mean, thelist goes on and on. So uh.
He built a food hall that hasthree different levels on the corner Broadway
(14:20):
on Main Street there where the allthe you know, the bars are and
where there's high foot traffic and everyyou know, I have a place around
the corner and it has just packedand he's got live bands going. He
sells out on New Year's Eve.It's it's pretty wild. And I believe
he shared with me at one pointthat the Plano, Texas location sold more
(14:41):
alcohol than the Nashville one, andit kind of for a minute jarred me,
But then I started thinking about it. When I'm in the food hall
in Nashville. We just had theWomen's leadership for QSR there and it was
all families and on Broadway. It'sa lot of bars, and so you
know his thinking was, he's gotdifferent brands there. He's got mom and
pop brands in there. He's gotupscale casual upstairs. And so anybody can
(15:05):
go there. And like you said, there's that veto you know, vote
in the family. And I probablyam thinking, Paul, you probably don't
get a vote when you go toeat it. You shall your wife or
the kids and so. But yougo here and everybody gets what they want.
And so I think that's what youwere alluding to before with show.
And so it's it is that environment, and people really like that these days.
(15:28):
I mean it used to be whenyou and I, well, I
don't know about you, but whenI grew up, it was whatever's on
the table's what you're eating. Andnow it's where does everybody want to go,
where everybody gets what they want,And it's just the cultures have just
shifted a little bit so that thatfood hall. I watched them very closely
because you're thinking, how would thatwork with the real estate with as large
as it is, as many vendorsin there, and it is magical when
(15:50):
you go in. I suggest youtake a trip to nash and check it
out, Paul, I got it. I have to do that because Nashville
is one of my favorite cities.Of course, there's so much great culinary
scene there, but there's another,you know, draw to it that I'm
following really closely right now and it'skind of interesting. But anyway, doing
(16:11):
that, are you sharing it's it'scalled it's called Bitcoin City, which is
it's basically a developer group that isin the blockchain area, and you know,
they've kind of created this little communityaround devs and different project leads and
people building on blockchain and web three, which you guys know I cover a
lot of that. We're going totake a short break check that out.
(16:32):
When I go, I think i'mback, I'll send you some info on
it because it's if you want tolearn about, you know, kind of
next gen tech and finance. That'sit's an interesting place in Nashville, I'll
get And also if you're into thebitcoin they have the conference there and I
think it's in June this year.We are going to come back here with
Amy hom take a quick break andwe'll be right back talking about these food
(16:55):
halls and the emerging brands coming outof stick around because we're doing something very
special toward the end of the showcalled the drawing Board. I'll tell you
about it in just a second.Devour is making it easy for QSR and
fast casual brands to tap into genZ's love of food ordering without heavy fees
or technology investments. It's all atyour fingertips. Expand food ordering into digital
(17:18):
realms like video gaming, stream andesports entertainment. Learn more at devour dot
io. Today. All right,we're back here with Amy hum and diving
into emerging brands and how they're growing. Amy, I want to jump into
this this food hall right now,let's kind of bring it up on screen
(17:38):
here. This one is the likeor not food halls are here to stay
in Atlanta. This one is everythingfrom Crogstreet Market to Poncity Market. There's
several of them that have kind offlown into this whole new area called Avalon
Food Hall, which is centering aroundwhat's happening in the greater Atlanta area.
(18:03):
Now. One of the things thatwas in the article here from Eaters is
providing an affordable entry point for independentchefs and food entrepreneurs, giving them an
opportunity to open a business without innumerableoverhead costs owning a standalone So that has
been kind of one of the Iguess the cornerstones of food halls is they
(18:25):
open up a venue, you getthe potential to get access to maybe a
chef you never had access before,so there's that, Or you get a
brand new entrepreneur who's doing things sounique and different you've probably never even seen
it in a restaurant before, becauseit's almost like a mad scientist experiment,
(18:47):
you know. Yeah, this isa tough one for me because there was
one of these down in Houston andRice Village, and I went to sit
and just observe when I was openingup a restaurant down there and a again,
it's about the location and be thetraffic and how is it being marketed?
(19:07):
Because chefs are really great at creatingamazing food and craveable items, but
they don't know how to market theirstorefronts. And unless that group in Atlanta
is doing that for them and doingsome ltos or whatever that sorry limited time
offers for those that don't know ltobut how are because that one in Houston
(19:30):
ended up closing down and I wentaround the corner and I just was talking
to some folks like, Hey,I'm just an inquisitive person. I said,
what happened here? And you know, they just could not get the
vibe was great, but it wasso slow in there. And I just
when you have so much going onin a space, you have to be
(19:51):
able to understand it as a consumer. And so depending on how it's set
up, how it's laid out,how again, how it's marketed, it
matters. And again, these chefsare great at creating food, but they
need help sometimes with you know,how to run their costs and make make
a profit and you know, wasteand all these other things. Culinary school
(20:11):
is great, but they also needto understand the business back end of things
and how to make their business successful. So hopefully they've got some folks mentoring
in there and helping them. Again, the space pretty similar to how Houston
was set up as well. It'sbeautiful, but again, how are these
how do you know who the chefis? They just see there's a chicken
(20:32):
sandwich, but what is a storybehind there? And how do they how
you know are they doing? Arethey utilizing influencers, are they utilizing community
billboards? I'm not sure, butI've seen these kind of come and go
a little bit throughout the years theysat. There's one down here in Laguna
Negalda close and had opened, youknow, past twenty twenty. So I
think I think there's a niche thereto be had, but I'm not sure
(20:56):
it's been solved yet, and Ido think it's a little bit risk.
Yeah, we were just showing onscreen for you guys that are maybe listening
on the audio version of this podcast. We were just showing on screen all
the different venues there just in Atlanta, and I think there was like nine
or ten that had various stalls theycall them stalls, And that's a lot
(21:18):
of competition in itself of having thatbecause I don't you know, here in
Miami, I don't think we havemaybe three at best, and I'm still
thinking only two. But I justdon't know. I mean, yeah,
Atlanta is a little different because it'spretty spread out kind of like Miami in
LA But I'm in agreement with you. I think there's got to be some
(21:40):
magic sauce somewhere coming to help reallyget it into the real concept of how
to get main decisions made from youknow, consumers who are going to make
a choice on where they're going.And if you're not reaching them, whether
it's through a loyalty program, amarketing effort, some sort of strategy,
or location, you know, you'vereally got some problems. For sure,
(22:03):
there's one there's one in New Yorkand the meatpacking district that actually does really
well, but again, some ofthe concepts in there are very slow.
And then there's the taco place thathas a line around the corner. And
why would you ask me this isthe taco place around the corner? Because
there's great value and because it's tacosand it's fast, and again consumers just
(22:23):
want fast, great value and amazingtasting food. Yeah, and then the
business side of it is how doyou make money doing that? And so
it's for that taco stand, it'sby volume, and some of the other
the other stalls, as you said, they change out quite a bit.
And so that's where the risk is. Is ken is that really a sustainable
business? I'm not sure. Yeah, it's gonna it's going to be interesting
(22:47):
to see how these uh, theseentrepreneurs make it, because you know,
a lot of people look at whetherit's food truck that eventually evolved to you
know, brick and mortar, orif it's just you know, operators that
have come from a community of otheroperators and they're spinning off into another brand.
Things of that nature. There's avariety of different routes that have been
taken. In today's episode, we'regoing to be doing Amy and I are
(23:11):
going to be doing a very interestingproject and it's called the drawing Board.
I'm going to show it to youguys a little bit. The concept behind
the drawing Board is pretty simple.What we're going to do Amy and I
is we're going to take an examplebrand and we're going to try to come
up with three concepts around it.We're going to take those concept concepts from
(23:33):
people that are in the industry likeus, and then we're going to feed
it into one of our AI models. Now we're building a large language model
right here at saver FM, andwe're doing it based on just the restaurant
industry. So think of it asyou know, Gemini or Claude or you
know any of those that you're probablyout there using right now, but all
(23:57):
built off of sentiment days to consumersand all the brands we're ingesting menus,
we're ingesting marketing strategies, ingesting theirfeeds, and we're taking this and sticking
it into a language model and I'mgonna see what comes out on the other
end. This is so fun,Paul, that you're doing this. It's
(24:17):
fun. We're gonna We're gonna try. It's gonna be a business plan for
this brand. I love it.Yeah, all right, So we're gonna
look at a food hall here inMiami, and this one is called Showman
Bizarre. I'm gonna bring it upon screen for everybody to kind of get
a view of it because there's alot of brands within it, and as
you can see here, we'll clickover here and you can kind of see
there's Amazonica, Amora di Pasta,Bandito's, BFF Beer, Garden, Dose
(24:47):
Delgi Faros, which is pretty good, Shaws of Kabab one of my favorite
ones I like to go to whenI'm there, and then Pokemia so m
I a actually for those of andI love this one too, Sandwich which
is SND which that's cute. Let'sjust sell you some things here. So
anyway, we're going to pick abrand, and the one we're going to
(25:08):
pick is BFF Burgers, so BFFBurgers a couple of things. I'll go
to their instagram just to give youguys a flavor for the concept. As
you can see here on screen,very high end in terms of how they're
preparing the quality of the product,and they've done a good job with a
(25:30):
fairly limited menu, so that's oneof the benefits that they have. And
then they also apply it into apretty aggressive and very family oriented marketing theme
as you can see here young women, kids, obviously the food itself kind
of tying into it. Lots ofreally great photography, you know, almost
(25:51):
a very lifestyle ish, you know, so to speak. So that's kind
of the brand we're going to betalking about over at Showma bazz Are today
And let's just get into it,and let's talk a little bit about first
thing, what you feel when youlook at brands like this. They're brand
new, They this is their onlyplace. Maybe they're getting started, but
(26:15):
they seem to have a lot ofexperience. And I don't know who these
operators are. I'm wondering if theycame over from you know, something big,
bigger. It has a little bitof burgerfy. I wonder, yeah,
I wonder if there's somebody from Burgerfiin this brand. But anyway,
what would be your first if you'retalking to an operator for the first time
(26:36):
and they've hired Amy Hahn and they'vesaid, Amy, take a look at
BFF and tell us, first ofall, is our branding? Right?
How do you feel about the brandingwith this one? When I look at
this, I see warmth, andit is inviting and it makes you want
to go. The food looks craveable. I think they've done a great job
(26:57):
with their Instagram and their marketing,and so I feel good about this.
I would go and try it.Mind you, it is one of the
top two food groups that everyone goesto eat, which is PiZZ and burgers.
So it's a win win win forme. Yeah. Yeah. So,
as you guys can see, we'reputting some stuff into Claude right now
(27:17):
and we'll at the end of theshow. I don't know if I'll show
it to you at the end ofthe podcast or we'll put it for download
when we create the report off ofthis. So you like warm, inviting,
cravable food In terms of their approachtoward family, do you think they
hit it based on what you've seenso far in the short time of the
(27:37):
product and their Instagram and some oftheir social They've got children on there.
They've got different family members included.They've got a kid's meal on the bottom
left that I saw. So yes, I think it matters. You know,
I'd be curious in the community asthis can be a community built based
brand that everyone talks about and raidsabout, or are they using influencers to
drive their business and so it dependson who those influencers have as followers,
(28:02):
but it is something to think about. One thing I often look at when
I see brands like this is I'malways concerned that, first of all,
Burger one of the crowd most crowdedspots out there. You can't hardly go
in this without having to lose marketshare. So it's a matter of who
(28:23):
you lose market share too. Whenyou look at this, this being a
fast casual concept. Do you thinkI mean Burgerfi is in this area?
I would say the Titan in SouthFlorida, even though Smashburger has some relevance
here but not so much. It'sit's mostly burgerfy. And then you fall
(28:44):
into these really unique little we'll callthem village burger. I don't know if
you've ever seen Village Burger Bar inDallas, but they kind of it's a
very maybe five to ten units,very well done. They mix you know,
cocktails, beer, wine, andburgers, and they bring the price
point down. But my question is, what do you think would be the
(29:07):
differentiator for this brand to be ableto go up against a real fast casual
titan like say a Burgerfi. Whatdo you think they would have to do?
Speed, value, and flavor.I mean, the food has to
be great. You get an influencerto bring you in, You come in,
you try it. And I alsobelieve they need to have a loyalty
(29:27):
program. I'm big on those sothat they can build their business. Now.
I believe this is a one shop, single shop right now, but
how do they build that? Evenif it's kind of, you know,
an organic way to do it.But they need to get into the community
and continue to build. But it'snot going to build unless they really deliver
(29:48):
on their service and their hospitality andthey're great food. It's got to taste
food. It looks like they're goingafter kind of that younger family group.
So you have whether it's gen Zor a millennium. Yeah, when you
think Burgerfi, what do you think, Paul, like the demographic and then
you look at this and it's alittle bit different, right it is.
And I can tell you when we'vestudied Burgerfy in and out, they know
(30:11):
pun, but they skew a littlebit older. Actually, I would say
gen X to Boomer. I don'tknow why that is. Maybe it's the
Florida demographic that we see, youknow when you look at that, or
if it's just the way that brandseems to connect maybe Oil a little bit
more old school burger shop. I'mnot sure. Yep. I agree with
(30:33):
you, and I think this ishot and looks it draws you in with
the colors. I think the pinkis really good, right, So I
think it was a good selection.Yeah, yeah, And so I think
all these little things that they've done, bringing the different family members and the
children and the mom and you know, the friends. I think that that's
really smart because you want to beable to relate to where you're going and
(30:56):
feel comfortable. And when I seethat, I'm like, oh, I
could go in there and check thatout. I'm probably the Burgerfi age group.
But since we're categories in it thatway, but you know, I
would still feel comfortable going in andgrabbing a burger with the younger crowd and
demographic and checking it out. There'stwo things I look at when you see
brands like this in when I dofast casual consulting or work with founders.
(31:18):
The one thing that I look atin terms of that differentiation, it all
boils down to what track did thebrand take for me? So some you
know a good friend of mine,long term buddy that's been in the industry
for a long time, Lewis BasilWildflower out of Phoenix, Arizona. Such
a great guy. He's crazy.I love you is what I should call
(31:42):
him. Crazy in a good wayand also crazy like a cat too because
he knows he's always He's very cunningon how he's doing his business. Very
much. Yeah, my point waswith Lewis. Listen, he was in
Phoenix, Arizona, going head tohead with Specialties and Paradise Bakery, Panera,
(32:06):
you know, pretty much every bakeryyou could imagine, bakery, cafe,
and Wildflower went the food route.So he pours his passion into that
menu like nothing I've ever seen.It's almost like he's running a five star.
Yeah, it's almost like running afive star restaurant. It is,
so he wins in that category handsdown. There's nobody that can compete with
(32:30):
Wildfore. If you guys are everin Phoenix, Arizona, stop by a
Wildflower. Look at the beautiful design. They have these Chilui designs in their
restaurants with the glass unbelievable how he'sdone it. But the food is literally
over the top. So I thinkthose two things. Either you're a food
focused brand or you're a lifestyle focusbrand, and I feel like this one
(32:55):
falls a little bit more to thelifestyle side. I don't know their food
yet. You know, I haven'ttried it yet. At Selma, I'm
going to get there, But whatdo you think do you think they're more
lifestyle? I mean, you haven'ttried the food yet, but you can
kind of see off all. I'dhave to try the food because, like
you were talking about Lewis, yougo back because the food is so good.
(33:15):
I have to try the burger becausefast, when you get a really
great burger, like hands down,you go back. You're just unforgettable.
Yes, yes, And you wakeup some days and you're thinking, I'm
really craving a burger today, andthat's where you go and you think about
it, like, I'm not anin and out fan. I grew up
(33:37):
in the Midwest. We didn't havein and outs. But everyone around me,
they come to visit, they say, we have to go to in
and out. We have to answerit outing right, and the food is
craveable to them. They crave itright, so they have to go there.
It's a crazy phenomenon, but it'sthere. And this could be the
same, This could be similar,it could be the beginning of something like
that. So depending on their foodquality. Now, if you go Paul
(34:00):
and you have this burger and youhave it one time and you're checking it
out because it's cool Instagram, youmay not go back if the burger's not
great, because we all know now, like you said, the space is
very congested what a great burger cantaste like. So the product has to
be like like Lewis is, ithas to be great. Yeah, And
I think the key here with anyupstart brand is this is a decision that
(34:23):
you have to consciously make. Youknow, you can't just go, hey,
we're going to do a really goodmenu and we're going to have really
great service, and we're going todo you know, really cool marketing and
branding. And you know, that'sour business plan. And when I talk
to founders and operators, I canusually it's not I'm just handed unluckily or
(34:43):
unluckily. I've had a chance tomeet with probably five hundred plus brand leaders
over my career, and I cantell you, as my grandfather would say,
either they're the crop sharers or they'renot. And the crop sharer is
the guy who gets it done.You know, it's the person who there's
something you know, just there thatyou can't quite put your finger on in
(35:07):
the founder that is got that passionin whatever vein. Maybe it's the lifestyle
vein, maybe it's the food vein, or it's the service vein. You
know, just unbelievable service. Ithink I think that's something that an operator
has to make. The have tomake the decision. What are you going
to be unbeatable at? What areyou going to be unbeatable at? Because
(35:30):
you can't win every I mean,I've seen a handful of restaurants, but
I've yet to see one that winsthem all. What differentiates you? It's
and it's tough to do now becausethere's so much out there, and you
do have to find that niche.And that goes back to the chefs trying
to figure out their food holes.You know, what is their niche for
the moment. And when you lookat this, you know, you went
(35:52):
through the menu and there's a lotof options there. But we talked about
the burger, you know, andso it's you can't some of the you
can have. I mean, lookat this, it's it's you. It's
crazy. It makes you. Thefood photography and the marketing makes you want
to go in and try it.I mean the mustard sauce on the hair,
the fries with the sauce all overit. They've done a really good
(36:15):
job with this. Now you goin, like I said, burger's not
good. You won't be back nomatter how great the photos are. What
do you think about you know,most of these product shots are staged.
As you can see, Yes,they're using pretty much the same uh,
the same model or the same crewperson. And you know, I'm looking
(36:36):
further into their Instagram and it lookslike it's getting a little bit more polished.
So as I go back further intothe brand less, polished by photography.
See how it how it kind ofI like that, it's it's not
that it's I guess that's my questionto you. Do you feel, well,
there's governor, there's the governor rightthere, mister DeSantis coming in there.
(37:05):
That's crazy. Well, I don'tknow if that's good or bad.
He you know, he dropped outof the race. So yeah, that's
another podcast for Yeah. So I'mlooking at that. They've got some pretty
good Are those able skimers? Isthat what that is? I'm not sure.
I'm not sure either. I thinkthat's an able schemer. So able
skimer a Dutch recipe. Think ofit as a pancake and a ball.
(37:30):
If you guys are listening to thepodcast versus watching it, which, by
the way, you can catch thispodcast the video version of it over on
saber dot Fm. Anyway, I'mkind of falling into the concept here looking
at it a little bit deeper.But my point and my question to you
was do you feel that the influencerroute is the way to go? Because
(37:52):
one of the ways that I foundthese guys was on TikTok, and it
was an influencer showing it eating ithaving fun with it, drinking some beers
havn't had their kids. Everybody's runningaround the place. I mean, it
just looked fun. Do you feellike influencers are the gateway for some of
these early brands okay so and TikTokand and staff mainly TikTok I get the
(38:19):
most traction for the demographic that they'retrying to reach. Yeah, interesting stuff,
all right, So we've got alot going on here. We've got
warm and inviting, credible food definitelyare some of its attributes. Family connection
and kid friendly, speed and valueover and over deliver on food quality,
which it looks like they are loyaltyplatform. I'm going to add some stuff
(38:40):
in there where I think they shouldgo on the loyalty platform, which is
more Web three. We talked toso many on Web three, the Bubba
guys, by the way, ifyou guys didn't catch our video and audio
on that one. This is aconcept out of the Bay Area that has
done a great job with Web threeloyalty platform, which integrates NFT to create
(39:00):
kind of this brand IP connection.And that's something that I think these guys
probably could do because they've done agood job at the naming convention BFF burgers.
I think you could just have somuch fun, would just be aff
alone. I mean that I'm justtrying to think they have everything that we
are thinking. But yes, theydefinitely can have a lot of fun with
(39:22):
it, which is why they namedit that. And we're having the conversation
and helping them with that. Soyes, I'm going to add in the
versions and variations. I'm putting thisinto our language model right now, variations
of BFF for a burger concept,because I want to think about this both
(39:45):
on positive and negative, you know, from a psychological perspective, because you've
got to be thinking about how peopleperceive that. Because you think about a
guy, he's forty something, he'sa bear drinker, but he loves burgers
and he drives a pickup truck.Okay, that's a good guy too.
That's like some of my best friends. Okay, those are good guys.
(40:07):
I agree. And he may thinkBFF. That sounds like something my wife
would say. They may they maysay, Okay, I'm not going for
any BFF. I got enough BFFs. But you could be a kid and
say, you know, big freakingfun or something exactly. Yeah, exactly.
(40:28):
It can be really fun to playwith for the for the family.
I'm not going to show what's onour what's coming back in just from our
just short notes already. But AIis running crazy with this thing. I
love AI, such a great crazytool. We've we've so we've been building
this language model for about a yearnow, and we had to get these
(40:50):
new servers. I'll tell you astory, and it's it's called Grock.
It's not the Groc that you seeon X It's it's a different platform that
basically it's like an Nvidia array.It uses an array of server servers and
chips that leverage against each other sothat it doesn't overtax, and you can
(41:12):
do a lot more with the softwarefor analyzing large language models. So we
ingest our database off of the RPI, which is the top one thousand restaurant
brands in the food space, andthis is casual Dining, Fast Casual QSR.
We ingest all of their menus,we ingest all of their TikTok accounts,
their Twitter accounts, their Facebook accounts, Instagram, and then we feed
(41:38):
that into it for sentiment data,and then we look at variations that make
a brand stand out. So that'sthe language model that we're building mainly around
just to understand what's happening in therestaurant industry. Hopefully it will give us
some insights to this. But thisis going to be a good one because
we're going to integrate the rp ourRestaurant Power Index in this as well.
(42:02):
Amazing, so good stuff, allright, Amy, As usual, this
is always fun breaking it down withyou. I love doing the drawing board
with you. And just as areminder for all of you guys out there
right now, you'll be able toget the drawing board breakdown, which we're
(42:22):
showing on screen how to build risingstar brands three steps to success. We'll
create this into an AI model andthen we're going to put this into something
you can download on a PDF overon the podcast when you guys get a
chance to hear this. So ifyou're listening to this, there's something special
(42:43):
for you residing over at savor dotfm on this show page, and that
is the drawing board breakdown that Amyand I just did for BFF. Everyone's
going to want to use that tool, so it's super cool. They haven't
even you know, BFF does noteven know we're doing this, well,
that's for sure. They're gonna goHoly Moly, and you're gonna have to
(43:06):
send him an invoice. And I'mjust kidding. I love it. I
love it. It's always fun.I love to see that passion in the
uh in the restaurant space because tome, that's hey, that's what makes
the restaurant space so different and unique. And I'll tell you my best friends
in life are in the restaurant industry. These are good people, you know.
(43:29):
We are good people in the restaurantindustry, and we all work together.
And I need to have another glassof wine with Lewis soon. He's
one of the greatest. So lovethat you mentioned him, telling myself hello,
when you see him, I willdo so. I will do so.
Thanks for having me, Paul,have a great afternoon. Take care,
Amy. All right, all right, So you guys, of course,
are still tuned in here. Ifyou're not subscribed to the show,
(43:49):
make sure and get subscribed right now. It's one of the best places to
get additional insights here in the restaurantindustry. And this is one of the
biggest podcasts out there at the RestaurantReport, So we appreciate all of you's
who, all of you who arelisteners and subscribers, so make sure and
stick around for that. We'll catchyou next time right here on the Restaurant Report
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