Latest / Choppin’ It Up by Bloomberg Intelligence / Next Level Burger Aims to Change US Eating Habits

Transcript

Next Level Burger Aims to Change US Eating Habits · Choppin’ It Up by Bloomberg Intelligence

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Bloomberg Intelligence. BI provides research on industries, companies,
0:07
Speaker 1: and expert topics, delivering key data from BI analysts and
0:11
Speaker 1: their given industry. Now Here is your Bloomberg Intelligence research team.
0:19
Speaker 1: Welcome to Chopping It Up Episode seven. I'm your host,
0:22
Speaker 1: Mike Hallen. I'm the senior Restaurant and food Service analyst
0:25
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg Intelligence. Uh. And it's my pleasure to announce
0:29
Speaker 1: our guest today, Matt de Grouterer from Next Level Burger. Uh. Matt,
0:34
Speaker 1: how you doing today? I'm doing fantastic, brother, great to
0:37
Speaker 1: see on a Friday. Same man. So, so, can you
0:40
Speaker 1: start by telling the audience a little bit about Next
0:43
Speaker 1: Level Burger, your mission, your menu, and anything else that
0:47
Speaker 1: you think would would be important for them to to
0:50
Speaker 1: kind of get a feel for for the brand. Absolutely
0:53
Speaker 1: appreciate that might. So we are America's first plant based
0:59
Speaker 1: burger joy and burger joint chain. Uh. We started way back,
1:03
Speaker 1: if you can remember, so many years ago now, way
1:08
Speaker 1: before the Kevin Harts of the world had gotten into
1:11
Speaker 1: the vegan burger joint game. Uh. And we really founded
1:15
Speaker 1: Next Level Burger on a value set of plant based Sure,
1:21
Speaker 1: even though there are only a couple of plant based
1:24
Speaker 1: multenew concepts at the time, but we wanted to take
1:27
Speaker 1: it to the pun intended next level by committing to organics,
1:31
Speaker 1: non GMO and before anybody was really talking about it,
1:34
Speaker 1: living wages and really what we asked ourselves, Mike, is Okay,
1:39
Speaker 1: if you were reinventing the burger joint for the twenty
1:44
Speaker 1: one century, what would it look like? And for us,
1:47
Speaker 1: it looks like Next Level Burger. So I am the
1:49
Speaker 1: CEO and co founder of Next Level. My partner in
1:53
Speaker 1: life and crime or chief visionary Officer, Sierra, who I
1:58
Speaker 1: met way back when I was out of the Rain
2:01
Speaker 1: Corps and it just gotten into college and she was
2:03
Speaker 1: in college. Uh and little did you know, uh, we
2:07
Speaker 1: were meeting at a restaurant. But we eventually build one together.
2:11
Speaker 1: So it's been a pretty unbelievable journey so far. It's
2:15
Speaker 1: very cool, very cool, and and you know you you
2:18
Speaker 1: have a great backstory, you know, you and Next Level Burger,
2:23
Speaker 1: and you know everybody loves a good backstory. Um, so
2:26
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about kind of your journey,
2:28
Speaker 1: how you got here and then what motivated you to
2:31
Speaker 1: start slinging vegan burgers? Yeah, absolutely so I am long winded,
2:36
Speaker 1: as my wife will definitely attest to let me see
2:38
Speaker 1: if I can put this in a nutshell so um.
2:41
Speaker 1: I grew up on a hundred percent not plant based diet,
2:44
Speaker 1: and not plant based diet. My mom was an amazing
2:48
Speaker 1: chef cook really uh you know, we always had pies
2:52
Speaker 1: and cakes and brownies and cookies, none of which forever
2:55
Speaker 1: vegan of course on the counters um it was scratched
2:59
Speaker 1: in her is every night, roasts and steaks and pork
3:03
Speaker 1: chops and mashed potatoes, piled high with as much dairy
3:06
Speaker 1: as you could possibly get into a plate. And and
3:10
Speaker 1: that was that was my idea of a really healthy
3:12
Speaker 1: way of living life, you know, um, you know, avoiding
3:16
Speaker 1: process what we would call it at that point, just
3:18
Speaker 1: fast food, uh, and for the most part, eating this
3:22
Speaker 1: amazing food that my mom will prepare from scratch and
3:25
Speaker 1: our home kitchen with lots of love. And that was
3:29
Speaker 1: the diet that I carried forward into my late twenties.
3:33
Speaker 1: By the time I was in my late twenties, I
3:35
Speaker 1: was consistently eating you know, ten pounds of red meat
3:39
Speaker 1: a week in sixteen to twenty four ounce porterhouses every night,
3:43
Speaker 1: big salad, baked potato, wash it down with the beer. Uh,
3:47
Speaker 1: And I felt like that was as good as a
3:49
Speaker 1: man could eat. And so this what was that? It
3:54
Speaker 1: tastes pretty good? Oh? It does it? Do? It tastes
3:56
Speaker 1: good it indeed? I mean I don't look forward to
4:00
Speaker 1: that steak. I would have it five six nights a week,
4:03
Speaker 1: and every night I would look forward to that steak
4:06
Speaker 1: like like nothing else. Um. But when I was twenty seven, um,
4:11
Speaker 1: and at this point just kind of set the stage.
4:14
Speaker 1: So I'm I had joined the Marine Corps of High
4:16
Speaker 1: school Infantry. When I got out of the Marine Corps,
4:20
Speaker 1: I had, I had gone to school, and I had
4:22
Speaker 1: planned to go to law school at DU in Denver, UM.
4:26
Speaker 1: But my wife and I UH found out that we're
4:29
Speaker 1: having our firstborn about ten years ahead of schedule. Okay,
4:32
Speaker 1: So I realized that I need to pivot quote friends
4:36
Speaker 1: ross from friends, pivot uh, and I needed to shift
4:39
Speaker 1: in a different direction. And so I ended up getting
4:41
Speaker 1: a job, um. And that job was in oil and
4:45
Speaker 1: gas venture capital. Now what's funny about that is that
4:48
Speaker 1: I come from a family of oil and gas and
4:51
Speaker 1: I never ever intended on going in that direction. My
4:54
Speaker 1: dad is a geophysicist, so he would bore me to
4:57
Speaker 1: tears as a kid and a teenager, show me all
5:00
Speaker 1: this three dimensional seismic and so I never expressed any
5:03
Speaker 1: interest in it. But I ended up through an interesting
5:07
Speaker 1: series of events in a position where I'm wearing a
5:10
Speaker 1: Versace suit and I'm in this oil and gas venture
5:13
Speaker 1: capital business on the finance side, not on the expiration side.
5:17
Speaker 1: And so you know, I'm moving forward in life. I'm
5:20
Speaker 1: feeling great, beautiful wife, beautiful son, working hard on building
5:25
Speaker 1: a career. And on the tenth anniversary in two thousand
5:29
Speaker 1: and ten of my mom beating breast cancer stage four, uh,
5:34
Speaker 1: she is diagnosed with it again and we lost her
5:38
Speaker 1: less than two weeks later on June two thousand and ten,
5:42
Speaker 1: and I was heartbroken. I I adored my mother, uh
5:45
Speaker 1: and and and she was only fifty six years old.
5:49
Speaker 1: And so four days later, on June the two thousand
5:53
Speaker 1: and ten, my son is turning three, and I met
5:57
Speaker 1: his birthday party in our house in Dallas, Texas. And
6:01
Speaker 1: you know, we're obviously a wreck, but we're you know, smiling,
6:05
Speaker 1: and we're trying to make it as as magical a
6:08
Speaker 1: third birthday party as we possibly can, and I remember
6:12
Speaker 1: so well this sense of sadness and grief um in
6:17
Speaker 1: my heart, uh, and looking across the table, and in
6:21
Speaker 1: the equal measure and perhaps greater measure, this sense of
6:24
Speaker 1: love for my son and wanting to see him grow
6:28
Speaker 1: old and and and and for whatever reason at the time,
6:31
Speaker 1: it just hit me that if I could get myself
6:33
Speaker 1: to a hundred healthy, that means I'm getting him to
6:36
Speaker 1: about seventy. I've done my job, right. And so what
6:41
Speaker 1: was happening at the same time that we were saying
6:43
Speaker 1: goodbye to my mother is that my wife had gone
6:47
Speaker 1: just in this very strange direction called being a vegetarian
6:52
Speaker 1: the year before the first Mike, the first vegetarian I
6:55
Speaker 1: ever met my whole life, Okay, my whole life. And
6:58
Speaker 1: I know that sounds crazy because it's not like you
7:00
Speaker 1: know this is this is literally two thousand nine, uh,
7:04
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, two thousand nine, when she decides
7:06
Speaker 1: to go on this path, and I say, honey, I
7:08
Speaker 1: love you and I will support you, but do not
7:11
Speaker 1: try to guild me into going vegetarian because it is
7:14
Speaker 1: never and I mean never gonna happen, right, famous famous
7:17
Speaker 1: last words. And so what she had started with in
7:20
Speaker 1: this vegetarian shift. Uh, became this even stranger concept that
7:27
Speaker 1: I couldn't conceive of, which was this vegan word which
7:30
Speaker 1: I never even heard, right, vegan. Um. I've met a
7:34
Speaker 1: couple of vegans. They were very nice, but very strange.
7:37
Speaker 1: And that was like my association with this this word vegan. Uh.
7:42
Speaker 1: And so my wife and I are both big readers.
7:43
Speaker 1: She started buying all these books, right and and the
7:46
Speaker 1: one that stuck with me was a book written by
7:50
Speaker 1: Alicia Silverstone called The Kind Diet. Okay, And of course,
7:54
Speaker 1: you know I'm forty now, so so I grew up
7:57
Speaker 1: on clueless and as if way hard tie, I mean
8:01
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of classic move Oh yeah, classic
8:05
Speaker 1: thought out of the nineties. I mean, I can't even
8:08
Speaker 1: tell you anytimes I saw Paul Rodd looks the same
8:10
Speaker 1: today as he did when he was in that movie.
8:11
Speaker 1: So some of the years ago, so I had been
8:13
Speaker 1: so long I forgot he was in it. Yeah, I know,
8:15
Speaker 1: and he doesn't look at any different. I mean it's hilarious.
8:18
Speaker 1: And and so I'm making fun of Sierra for taking,
8:21
Speaker 1: you know, diet and life advice from Alicia Silverstone, right
8:24
Speaker 1: and and and of course all in good fun. But
8:28
Speaker 1: after my mom passed away, Um, I was, you know,
8:31
Speaker 1: a Saturday or Sunday, and I pick up this book
8:34
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of like rolling my eyes and I
8:37
Speaker 1: start flipping through it, and it's actually really good. It's
8:41
Speaker 1: like written, well, it's interesting, she's citing her sources, and
8:46
Speaker 1: so I flipped back to the bibliography and I'm like, wow,
8:48
Speaker 1: this seems like some legit stuff. And my wife had
8:51
Speaker 1: already bought a bunch of the books. So I started
8:53
Speaker 1: picking up those books. And I started reading books by
8:56
Speaker 1: doctors and and and scientists. You know that in his
9:00
Speaker 1: study which has sold like three million copies at this point,
9:03
Speaker 1: by a Collin T. Campbell, How to Prevent and Reverse
9:06
Speaker 1: Heart Disease by cold Will Esselston, famous probably one of
9:10
Speaker 1: the most famous heart surgeons in the world. And these
9:13
Speaker 1: guys are all saying the same thing that there's this
9:15
Speaker 1: unbelievable correlation between diet and health outcomes, particularly heart disease,
9:20
Speaker 1: particularly cancer. And you know, my mom uh passed away
9:25
Speaker 1: from a breast cancer that metastasized her whole body. Um,
9:30
Speaker 1: but her heart gave out. That That's that that final
9:32
Speaker 1: moment when I was holding her hand that's what I
9:34
Speaker 1: watched happen. And and and six months after my mom
9:38
Speaker 1: passed away, her younger brother had his first and only
9:41
Speaker 1: heart attack, widow Maker, that was all she wrote. And
9:45
Speaker 1: my and her dad had had four heart attacks. He
9:47
Speaker 1: had four open heart surgeries. Um and And I had
9:51
Speaker 1: kind of always just run with the assumption that cancer,
9:54
Speaker 1: heart diseases are like it's the Russian Roulette of life.
9:56
Speaker 1: Like you get it, you don't get it right. And
9:59
Speaker 1: yet here I am, I'm reading all this science that
10:02
Speaker 1: does not support the way that I am eating, and
10:06
Speaker 1: you know, living every day on this type a personality.
10:09
Speaker 1: I'm eating ten paths of red meat a week. I
10:11
Speaker 1: drink more than that should if I'm being honest. But
10:13
Speaker 1: I had always, you know, felt like that was part
10:15
Speaker 1: of living a whole life. And I exercised a lot uman.
10:19
Speaker 1: I grew up in a family uh that that that
10:21
Speaker 1: prioritized that, and had played sports and in the Marine
10:24
Speaker 1: Corps and so on and so forth. So I felt
10:26
Speaker 1: like I was doing everything I could. But then I Mike,
10:29
Speaker 1: I was open up to this fact that I wasn't.
10:31
Speaker 1: And then I was at this crossroads moment where I
10:34
Speaker 1: was going to choose whether to take the blue pillar
10:36
Speaker 1: or the red pill, you know, take it to the matrix, right,
10:40
Speaker 1: And so I decided that I'm all right, all right,
10:43
Speaker 1: thirty days, thirty days, I'm gonna try this this this
10:46
Speaker 1: this no meat thing for thirty days, right, which at
10:49
Speaker 1: the time was like asking me to walk around my
10:51
Speaker 1: hands for the next thirty days and not my feet.
10:53
Speaker 1: I mean, it just felt impossible, And so I don't
10:56
Speaker 1: even carrian or vegetarian at the time. Was just pascatar, right,
11:00
Speaker 1: which which which I wouldn't have put it as that
11:03
Speaker 1: because I didn't even know the word at the time.
11:05
Speaker 1: But I was just gonna sypically where people start, right, yeah,
11:07
Speaker 1: but more intelligent people than me, Mike. It was. It
11:10
Speaker 1: was less like, Okay, I'm gonna go pestytarian. It was
11:13
Speaker 1: more like, okay, I'm gonna stop eating this, you know,
11:16
Speaker 1: massive amount of animal protein, and I'm gonna go real
11:19
Speaker 1: light on the dairy. But at this point, like all
11:21
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about is this, Like I mean, ten pounds
11:24
Speaker 1: of beef a week, you know, every once in a while,
11:26
Speaker 1: pork chop, every once in a while, some chicken, but
11:29
Speaker 1: for the most part is beef, bison. If I could
11:32
Speaker 1: get it. And and so I don't say any sier
11:35
Speaker 1: because I like have very little, you know, confidence in
11:38
Speaker 1: this being a long term shift, which sounds so crazy
11:41
Speaker 1: at this point, but was the case. And I and
11:44
Speaker 1: I just started. I just started. And two weeks into it, brother,
11:48
Speaker 1: I was sold. I mean, I felt so damn good.
11:52
Speaker 1: I was at the gym, and I remember I was
11:54
Speaker 1: just like, dude, I can just keep going. I just
11:57
Speaker 1: I felt late. I felt clean. My sleep, uh, you know,
12:01
Speaker 1: felt so much deeper and so much more restorative. Uh.
12:06
Speaker 1: And the stress at work, it just felt so much less.
12:11
Speaker 1: Nothing had changed, right, My stress was still high, my
12:15
Speaker 1: environment was still ultra competitive, you know, stakes were still high.
12:18
Speaker 1: No pun intended, but but I felt better about it,
12:24
Speaker 1: and and so I was sold. And I just I
12:26
Speaker 1: just kept going. And I of course told my wife
12:29
Speaker 1: once I felt pretty competent in my ability to keep
12:31
Speaker 1: going with this, she was thrilled. And I went on
12:35
Speaker 1: this three year, four year journey of shifting from uh,
12:39
Speaker 1: you know what was a very I mean, I wasn't
12:42
Speaker 1: a carnivore technically, but leaned in that direction to what
12:46
Speaker 1: you would call a Pasketerian with a little dairy here
12:48
Speaker 1: and there um and over that three years, my entire
12:51
Speaker 1: family shifted to this plant based diet. Um and my
12:55
Speaker 1: daughter was born. Uh in Mom was vegan the whole time,
12:59
Speaker 1: has been vegan since birth, except for one time with
13:01
Speaker 1: dad screwed up better some egg addressing, which he still
13:05
Speaker 1: brings up to this damn like I didn't know. I
13:07
Speaker 1: didn't know. But other than that one time, um and uh.
13:11
Speaker 1: And so in two thousand thirteen, I am coming up
13:16
Speaker 1: on my thirty first birthday. I made my first million
13:18
Speaker 1: by thirty. Um. And you know, we're living the all
13:21
Speaker 1: American dream right living Laguna Niguel in Orange County, southern California.
13:25
Speaker 1: In my office is in Newport Beach. I drive a
13:28
Speaker 1: red race car, red bmw M three, my dream car
13:31
Speaker 1: from high school, you know. And I've got two beautiful kids,
13:35
Speaker 1: beautiful wife, and like we have hit the jackpot. And
13:40
Speaker 1: yet my wife and I are feeling this sense, this
13:44
Speaker 1: itch to do something bigger than just ourselves. And I've
13:47
Speaker 1: come to this conclusion that my whole life, my whole
13:52
Speaker 1: life orients around making money, and that's it, Like that's it.
13:58
Speaker 1: It's that taking care of my family of just so
14:00
Speaker 1: thankful for because that's what I set out on as
14:02
Speaker 1: a journey when I left the path of becoming a lawyer. Um.
14:08
Speaker 1: But that in the charitable contributions flash four thirty five
14:11
Speaker 1: years and maybe I made a bunch of money and
14:13
Speaker 1: that was it, and I was just not comfortable with it.
14:16
Speaker 1: And so we had all sorts of ideas, all sorts
14:20
Speaker 1: of directions we felt we could go, but we chose
14:24
Speaker 1: the most insane path, Mike, and that was this idea
14:27
Speaker 1: that my wife had had three years earlier when we
14:30
Speaker 1: first started this journey of a plant based burger concept,
14:34
Speaker 1: and in two thousand thirteen, it didn't exist. And so
14:39
Speaker 1: we made the insane or the inspired probably a combination
14:42
Speaker 1: of the two decisions that we were going to be
14:45
Speaker 1: the crazy people that we're going to start America's first
14:51
Speaker 1: plant based burger joints. So, you know, under the age
14:54
Speaker 1: of thirty one, two kids under the age of six,
14:58
Speaker 1: leaving a career that was very lucrative behind selling our house,
15:02
Speaker 1: moving from California to my wife's home state of Oregon,
15:06
Speaker 1: and opening up America's first plant based burger joint. And
15:10
Speaker 1: oh boy, oh boy, did we have any idea what
15:12
Speaker 1: we were signing up for so I left my career
15:16
Speaker 1: on July thirty one. We opened up our prototype next
15:21
Speaker 1: level Burger a little less than a year later in
15:24
Speaker 1: July a fourteen, and we did not know. And any
15:28
Speaker 1: restaurant tour can tell you, if they're being honest, that
15:32
Speaker 1: one of the most anxiety inducing, one of the most
15:35
Speaker 1: nerve racking aspects of building restaurants is you never know
15:39
Speaker 1: if anybody's gonna show up, right. I mean you hope
15:41
Speaker 1: and you think, but you never know. And and we
15:43
Speaker 1: were taking that to the punt intended to the next level,
15:46
Speaker 1: because we're building something that didn't exist, and we didn't
15:49
Speaker 1: know if there was an appetite for it in the world.
15:52
Speaker 1: And so we opened up with this deep like breath
15:57
Speaker 1: hold it, what's going to happen? And our doors got
15:59
Speaker 1: blown off and people were just, you know, lining up
16:03
Speaker 1: out the door excited about what we brought. Now, Elon
16:07
Speaker 1: Musk has said famously something that I have I have
16:11
Speaker 1: I have felt myself time and time again that entrepreneurship
16:14
Speaker 1: is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. And
16:19
Speaker 1: and I I our CFO brought that to my attention.
16:23
Speaker 1: I laughed when he said it because so many times
16:26
Speaker 1: I have I have felt the layers of that, and
16:28
Speaker 1: it's this sort of roller coaster ride of being an entrepreneur.
16:31
Speaker 1: So the journey of Next Level Burger just from two
16:36
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen when we incorporated fourteen when we opened up
16:40
Speaker 1: our prototype UH that same year, employee number seven from Twitter,
16:46
Speaker 1: speaking of Elon musk fellawame Alex Paine, walked into our
16:50
Speaker 1: prototype restaurant two months after we'd opened and said, love
16:53
Speaker 1: what you're doing, Vision Ethos Alliance. He became our first
16:57
Speaker 1: seven figure outside investor. We opened up in Portland in
17:01
Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen. It was insanity, Mike, I'm talking
17:06
Speaker 1: line out the door for days. We actually had to
17:08
Speaker 1: close our seven and a half day in business because
17:12
Speaker 1: we couldn't keep food on the shelves or distributors couldn't
17:14
Speaker 1: keep up, which is good because our staff had that
17:18
Speaker 1: like thousand yards stair. Just absolute overwhelming insanity. UH. The
17:24
Speaker 1: explosion of of of of excitement around Next Level Burger
17:29
Speaker 1: in Portland put us on Whole Foods map. We ended
17:32
Speaker 1: up doing business with Whole Foods at their three six
17:35
Speaker 1: five concept That led to John McKie and I co
17:38
Speaker 1: founder and now former CEO of Whole Foods getting to
17:41
Speaker 1: know each other. That led to Whole Foods investing on us,
17:44
Speaker 1: becoming our biggest shareholder. UM. It led to a national
17:48
Speaker 1: expansion from coast to coast, with locations not just in Oregon,
17:51
Speaker 1: but in Seattle and San Francisco, Austin, Texas, Brooklyn, uh
17:56
Speaker 1: in New York City and uh, you know, just unbelievable
18:01
Speaker 1: alignment again of mission of ethos Um. And of course
18:06
Speaker 1: we just kept that good thing going. So we now
18:08
Speaker 1: have nine restaurants in six states, three time zones. We've
18:12
Speaker 1: served millions of guests, helped conserve billions of gallons of
18:16
Speaker 1: water and stop millions of pounds of carbon emissions from
18:19
Speaker 1: going to the atmosphere. And peck man, we're just getting started.
18:23
Speaker 1: And that's awesome and and uh, you know, I can
18:25
Speaker 1: relate to so many aspects of that story, but I
18:27
Speaker 1: love how um you know you've used you know, a
18:32
Speaker 1: grief stricken moment, you know some misfortune, and you know
18:36
Speaker 1: you were able to change your own life and the
18:39
Speaker 1: lives of your family members with your diet. And then
18:41
Speaker 1: you know, from there searching up for a higher meaning
18:44
Speaker 1: right and trying to do some good in the world.
18:47
Speaker 1: And and this bringing you into the crazy world of restaurant.
18:51
Speaker 1: It's it's awesome, man, It's it's a fantastic story. And
18:55
Speaker 1: I think it's very important to you know, the ethos
18:58
Speaker 1: of the brand and understanding what Net Level Burger is
19:00
Speaker 1: all about. So so thank you for that. So let's
19:03
Speaker 1: thinking a little bit about your business, um, you know, UM,
19:07
Speaker 1: I guess we'll start with why beyond meat and not
19:10
Speaker 1: impossible burgers? And I love that question. Yeah, and what
19:15
Speaker 1: percentage of your sales are coming from from that product?
19:18
Speaker 1: So that is a phenomenal question, Mike, and I love it.
19:21
Speaker 1: We started there, you know, at the beginning. Thank you
19:24
Speaker 1: for your kind of words to um. And I think
19:27
Speaker 1: I think our mother's whole important places in our respective
19:30
Speaker 1: hearts for sure, for sure. So when we started Next
19:36
Speaker 1: Level Burger, the first version of the business plan was
19:40
Speaker 1: a thousand units okay, because we didn't start NLB to
19:46
Speaker 1: just drive some impact. We wanted to drive global impact.
19:49
Speaker 1: And the first part of that was health. Uh you know,
19:54
Speaker 1: the average age today in America, Mike of being able
19:57
Speaker 1: to uh measure the initial symptoms of heart disease. It's
20:02
Speaker 1: not forty Like I just turned in September. It's not thirty,
20:05
Speaker 1: it's not twenty. It's eleven years old. Eleven years old.
20:10
Speaker 1: My daughter is about the tournament. And we have an
20:14
Speaker 1: obesity epidemic, We have a diabetes epidemic, we have a
20:19
Speaker 1: cancer epidemic, we have a heart disease epidemic. We have
20:23
Speaker 1: all sorts of challenges that are pushing our species in
20:27
Speaker 1: the wrong direction from a health perspective. And that was
20:30
Speaker 1: I've shared my reason for shifting gears, and it was
20:33
Speaker 1: our number one reasons for starting next level burgers. Diet
20:38
Speaker 1: makes an impact. Man. All the research points to diet
20:41
Speaker 1: making a massive impact. Huge, you know, so huge, huge,
20:45
Speaker 1: and so much of our problem in America. It is
20:47
Speaker 1: is the process bit, which you know is a whole
20:50
Speaker 1: another conversation that I'd like to have. Um, But let
20:53
Speaker 1: me answer your question. Why beyond and not impossible. It
20:59
Speaker 1: has to do of our perspective on health. So when
21:03
Speaker 1: I said value set, you know, I said, that's plant based. Yeah,
21:07
Speaker 1: but it's also organics. It's also non GMO, and so
21:12
Speaker 1: I highly respect what impossible is doing, highly respect what
21:16
Speaker 1: impossible is doing. That being said, they do use genetically
21:20
Speaker 1: modified ingredients that they are very very forthright about that.
21:23
Speaker 1: They're very bold about it. It is nothing they're doing
21:26
Speaker 1: in the dark that they're hoping doesn't come into the light.
21:28
Speaker 1: But it is not something that we plan to sign
21:32
Speaker 1: up for. So our non GMO policy is absolute and
21:36
Speaker 1: really at next level, the unofficial official way that we
21:40
Speaker 1: determine whether an ingredient or a menu item is going
21:43
Speaker 1: to make its way into a restaurant is would we
21:45
Speaker 1: put it in front of our kids? Because look Beyond
21:48
Speaker 1: Me Burger, which is, you know, a healthy percentage of
21:51
Speaker 1: our sales, but just part of our sales. We've got
21:53
Speaker 1: lots of housemade burgers that that are some of our
21:55
Speaker 1: absolute top sellers. But they're processed and that's okay, right,
22:00
Speaker 1: They're made out a whole food ingredients that are processed. Uh.
22:04
Speaker 1: You know, it's like my my protein shake every morning.
22:07
Speaker 1: You know, it's got a few things in it, but
22:09
Speaker 1: it's baseline of protein is organic yellow p protein growing
22:13
Speaker 1: in Canada. Right, That's how I start my day almost
22:16
Speaker 1: every single day. And my kids eat Beyond Me probably
22:20
Speaker 1: about once or twice a week. You know, it's it's
22:22
Speaker 1: more of a treat for us as opposed to something
22:25
Speaker 1: that's absolutely whole foods based um and and so for us,
22:29
Speaker 1: what it really boils down to is creating a spectrum mic.
22:33
Speaker 1: You know, my father in law who has been one
22:35
Speaker 1: of our biggest cheerleaders from the beginning. He is a
22:38
Speaker 1: cross between John Wayne and Yosemite. Sam. I kid you not.
22:42
Speaker 1: He is got the handlebar mustache. He built a steel
22:46
Speaker 1: rebar infrastructure company from the ground up, got it up
22:49
Speaker 1: to twenty million, and revs built the Trump Tower in
22:52
Speaker 1: Toronto and said bomb boyage retiring. And he's eating it
22:56
Speaker 1: every diner between here in the Mississippi back I mean literally, uh.
23:00
Speaker 1: But he loves our food and and my father in
23:04
Speaker 1: law with the guy he is the cartoon character in
23:07
Speaker 1: real life that he is. He can walk into the
23:10
Speaker 1: next level Burger with my wife, who is a vegan,
23:12
Speaker 1: college educated, yoga loving mother of two, and they can
23:15
Speaker 1: both eat at the same restaurant and have an awesome experience.
23:19
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is the spectrum of offerings
23:22
Speaker 1: from our housemaid Ummi mushroom and Kimwa burger organic top
23:28
Speaker 1: with organic avocado and lettuce and tomato. Uh and uh
23:34
Speaker 1: a garlic a oli um and you know, a whole
23:38
Speaker 1: grain bun just you know, really good for you. My
23:42
Speaker 1: wife's meal actually gluten free for her, so gluten free bunk.
23:45
Speaker 1: And then my father in law will get him be
23:48
Speaker 1: on burger with spicey halpenos as he called him, and
23:51
Speaker 1: the whole nine and he'll have a ball and he'll
23:55
Speaker 1: feel great. He'll have had a good time and my
23:58
Speaker 1: wife did too. And they're is so few places where
24:01
Speaker 1: that's the case. And so at next level, we didn't
24:04
Speaker 1: want to build a concept that we just attract a few, right,
24:09
Speaker 1: but that's just the vegans of the vegetarians or what
24:12
Speaker 1: have you. We want to attract nine of the people.
24:15
Speaker 1: And so when it comes to a menu that is
24:18
Speaker 1: built to attract that that broad spectrum, we knew we
24:22
Speaker 1: had to have just about everything. And so while you
24:25
Speaker 1: won't find beef or bison on your menu, everything else
24:29
Speaker 1: that you're looking for that a burger joint could offer,
24:32
Speaker 1: we've got it. Yeah, that's great because it will broaden
24:34
Speaker 1: your impact. And I think, you know, using you know
24:38
Speaker 1: what I what I would I what I you know,
24:40
Speaker 1: feed this to my kids as as a great you know,
24:43
Speaker 1: guiding for you you know, I think that's that's critical
24:48
Speaker 1: and it's been brought up by you a couple of times.
24:50
Speaker 1: So obviously it's you know as I you know, as
24:53
Speaker 1: I know as well, right, it's it's the most important
24:55
Speaker 1: job we have, right, So absolutely absolutely kids, you know. So,
24:59
Speaker 1: m I think that's a great way to judge what
25:02
Speaker 1: should be on on your menu and what should be
25:04
Speaker 1: left off, right, Yeah, And I think, you know, without
25:07
Speaker 1: going too far down the rabbit hole, we used to
25:10
Speaker 1: build businesses that were a reflection of our families, right,
25:15
Speaker 1: whether it was the stonemason or the clockmaker, uh, you know,
25:19
Speaker 1: whatever it is you did, it was like a family business,
25:23
Speaker 1: and you thought about your kids and the decisions that
25:26
Speaker 1: you made, which inherently meant you were thinking about the future. Right.
25:29
Speaker 1: It wasn't about just the next quarter or what can
25:32
Speaker 1: I get out of my career. It was about setting
25:35
Speaker 1: up your kids for a brighter future than you had. Um.
25:40
Speaker 1: And and I think there have been all sorts of
25:43
Speaker 1: amazing aspects of American business for the last hundred years,
25:48
Speaker 1: but one of those shifts that has has come with
25:51
Speaker 1: the double edged sword is to a more compartmentalized career. Right.
25:55
Speaker 1: My dad wasn't you know, working at Royal Dutch Shell
25:57
Speaker 1: thinking about you know, me joining the company someday and
26:01
Speaker 1: taking over as the geophysicist in chief. Right, he was
26:05
Speaker 1: just thinking about putting food on the table, finding oil
26:08
Speaker 1: and gas being successful, and then providing first family, retiring
26:13
Speaker 1: and going into doing whatever that next chapter was going
26:15
Speaker 1: to be. And it's just a inherently more short sighted perspective.
26:20
Speaker 1: So I think if we all spent more time, whether
26:22
Speaker 1: it's climate change or its health or its business, thinking
26:25
Speaker 1: about our kids in those decisions, and our grandkids and
26:29
Speaker 1: those decisions, I think the world be a much better place.
26:34
Speaker 1: Uh kind of agree with you more, alright, So, uh,
26:36
Speaker 1: you know, sticking on the plant based meat um topic
26:41
Speaker 1: just quickly, you know, it's selling out a premium price point.
26:44
Speaker 1: It seems like beyond sales have slowed partly due to inflation, right,
26:48
Speaker 1: consumer consumers wallets are are kind of crimped right now.
26:52
Speaker 1: They're they're pulling back a little bit on the low end. Particularly,
26:55
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about consumer demand from these for these
26:58
Speaker 1: products in the long term M and and UM You know,
27:03
Speaker 1: I guess, uh, you know, in terms of the beyonds
27:06
Speaker 1: and and the impossible obviously, you know other products veggie
27:09
Speaker 1: burgers have been around for a very long time and
27:11
Speaker 1: think they're going anywhere, but but just more so and
27:13
Speaker 1: in terms of the plant based meats man, Mike, that
27:17
Speaker 1: is a question that I all right, So I could
27:20
Speaker 1: answer that ever about thirty minutes and a cup of coffee,
27:23
Speaker 1: um and and, and we could digress into all sorts
27:26
Speaker 1: of rabbit holes that that would be fun to go down.
27:30
Speaker 1: I also want to be cognizant of respecting the companies
27:33
Speaker 1: that have been blazing the trail in some cases alongside
27:38
Speaker 1: of us in other cases like Impossible Little after we debuted,
27:42
Speaker 1: um and, and being cognizant of not getting into too
27:45
Speaker 1: much inside baseball. So maybe I'll dance around in a
27:49
Speaker 1: little bit without not answering your question. Um So, okay,
27:55
Speaker 1: let me start with the story. So earlier this year,
27:58
Speaker 1: during Pride Month, which is a big deal at next
28:01
Speaker 1: level burger uh, we had the Boys and Girls Club
28:06
Speaker 1: in Seattle reach out to us about catering an event. Okay,
28:10
Speaker 1: and the focus this event was lgbtwo Q plus and
28:14
Speaker 1: they're gonna be two kids at this event. And there
28:17
Speaker 1: we're gonna be two different caterers. One was gonna be Dix,
28:21
Speaker 1: which is like in and out for the Seattle Market.
28:25
Speaker 1: You know, it's like Bill Gate's favorite fast food burger. Uh.
28:29
Speaker 1: And the other was America's first plant based burger joint,
28:32
Speaker 1: Next Level Burger. Okay, And that's some stiff competition. Man.
28:36
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, you're going up against people's childhoods
28:38
Speaker 1: and and and you know, like me going to McDonald's
28:41
Speaker 1: with such a treatment, I was a kid, and so
28:44
Speaker 1: you know, we were absolutely excited to sign up and support.
28:48
Speaker 1: We didn't know what percentage of these kids we're going
28:51
Speaker 1: to sign up for the vegan burger, you know, at
28:53
Speaker 1: this at this event, and forty percent of these kids
28:59
Speaker 1: chose Next Level Burger. So when you can, yeah, it
29:04
Speaker 1: almost brought a tear to my eye because I was like, man,
29:06
Speaker 1: this is the future where God Lord and Heaven we're
29:09
Speaker 1: moving in the right direction, right, hallelujah, We're moving the
29:11
Speaker 1: right direction with more sustainable future. Um. And and so
29:16
Speaker 1: when you consider, in fact, there's a Wall Street Journal
29:18
Speaker 1: article just a few weeks ago that was basically saying,
29:22
Speaker 1: and I will be careful to share only so many
29:24
Speaker 1: of my personal opinions here, but it was saying that, well,
29:27
Speaker 1: it's a silly premise if five percent of the population
29:30
Speaker 1: is vegetarian, that beyond me, it is ever going to
29:33
Speaker 1: be a big thing, much bigger than they are. Right,
29:35
Speaker 1: you got five percent of the population. But what that article,
29:40
Speaker 1: either intentionally or unintentionally missed, is that sevent of people
29:47
Speaker 1: right now are flexitarian, that ten percent of millennials are
29:51
Speaker 1: self described vegan, and that this next generation the numbers
29:55
Speaker 1: could be staggering because they're waking up in a world
29:58
Speaker 1: that they realize as on fire from a climate change perspective.
30:02
Speaker 1: They're much more cognizant of their health choices when it
30:06
Speaker 1: comes to what they decide to eat and not eat,
30:08
Speaker 1: and how they live their life. And so what I believe, Mike,
30:11
Speaker 1: is that it is an inevitable march toward a plant
30:14
Speaker 1: based and a cell cultured future, a combination of of
30:18
Speaker 1: things that feel like meat from plants and things that
30:21
Speaker 1: are meat but not from a slaughtered animal but come
30:25
Speaker 1: from cell cultured technology. And I think that is inevitably
30:29
Speaker 1: the future. So, you know, it is amazing to me
30:33
Speaker 1: how people that are much smarter than I am can
30:35
Speaker 1: assume that just because something is happening, it's going to
30:38
Speaker 1: continue to happen at the pace you know that you
30:41
Speaker 1: can say, oh, well, look at these sales, they jump
30:43
Speaker 1: three year every year. That's just gonna keep going, right. Well,
30:46
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't, right, because how many things grow at
30:50
Speaker 1: three percent a year every year? Right? Almost nothing? And
30:54
Speaker 1: even if it happens for two or three years and
30:56
Speaker 1: it starts to slow down, and at the end of
30:58
Speaker 1: the day, I think what we're in is the infancy
31:01
Speaker 1: of this shift that has never happened before in human history,
31:05
Speaker 1: where we fundamentally change how we eat. And we're at
31:09
Speaker 1: a very blessed time in human history where we get
31:12
Speaker 1: to care what we eat because a lot of our
31:15
Speaker 1: grandfathers and grandmothers going back hundreds and thousands of years
31:19
Speaker 1: weren't thinking about how many calories were in lunch today, right,
31:23
Speaker 1: They were thinking about full bellies and making it through
31:27
Speaker 1: to the next meal or the next day. And so
31:31
Speaker 1: we have a great opportunity. But I think we have
31:34
Speaker 1: a significant responsibility to make sure that our food system
31:38
Speaker 1: reflects a sustainable future. And you can you can looby
31:42
Speaker 1: all sorts of arguments about all sorts of things, but
31:46
Speaker 1: what you cannot argue against is that a plant based
31:50
Speaker 1: meal has about fifty less carbon emissions upwards of less
31:55
Speaker 1: carbon emissions than a non plant based meal. And in
31:58
Speaker 1: a world again the u N has come out just
32:01
Speaker 1: this week with a bunch of new reports in a
32:03
Speaker 1: world that is heading toward disaster if we do not
32:07
Speaker 1: how do I put this politely change course? If it
32:11
Speaker 1: can be as easy to do your part to fight
32:13
Speaker 1: climate change is one of the steps in the week
32:16
Speaker 1: to eat one plant based meal. Is that really compromise?
32:19
Speaker 1: You know, I think the question is shifted not so
32:21
Speaker 1: much from y E. Plant based Why not at least
32:25
Speaker 1: some of the time it tastes great. You know it's
32:27
Speaker 1: gonna be better for you, you you know it's gonna be
32:29
Speaker 1: better for the planet. Why not incorporate that to your life?
32:32
Speaker 1: And that's what we want to be here for, Mike,
32:34
Speaker 1: is to be your easy option where sacrifice looks like
32:37
Speaker 1: a burger, fries and shake. Not a bad sacrifice, not
32:42
Speaker 1: a bad not a bad deal. Um. Alright, so let's
32:45
Speaker 1: talk about your business a little bit more. Let's uh,
32:48
Speaker 1: what are your customer demographics? What's a split between men
32:50
Speaker 1: and women? Uh? Income, average income, age, uh? And anything
32:55
Speaker 1: else you could share. Yeah, so, in some cases, I
32:58
Speaker 1: think it wouldn't surprise people to hear that a lot
33:01
Speaker 1: of our demographics look like the demographics and the psychographics
33:04
Speaker 1: that you'll find in a whole fits right. You know,
33:06
Speaker 1: they tend to be more educated, they tend to do
33:08
Speaker 1: a bit better on income. Um. What's uh, what's interesting
33:13
Speaker 1: about our demographics and psychographics. And one of the things
33:17
Speaker 1: that brings more Joe to Joy to my heart than
33:19
Speaker 1: anything else is that families make up such a percentage
33:23
Speaker 1: of who walks through our doors. Uh. And of course
33:25
Speaker 1: that's where and how we started next level was, well,
33:28
Speaker 1: this is special for our family and we wanted to
33:30
Speaker 1: share it with others. But we have a bunch of
33:33
Speaker 1: the young, cool kid crowd, you know, the the happening
33:37
Speaker 1: engineers and lawyers and doctors and teachers and professors. But
33:44
Speaker 1: what I am as proud of is almost anything, and
33:48
Speaker 1: I've seen this in every single one of our restaurants,
33:51
Speaker 1: is is how many people walk through our doors that
33:54
Speaker 1: you wouldn't expect. The contractors that come in with drywall
33:59
Speaker 1: and paint on their pants, right and and and you know,
34:02
Speaker 1: as a guy that didn't know a vegetarian until my
34:05
Speaker 1: wife decided to become one, to watch you know, so
34:09
Speaker 1: many times I've seence happened from from Oregon to Brooklyn.
34:12
Speaker 1: I'll watch usually, you know, because this is a kind
34:15
Speaker 1: of classic. We were kind of bamboozled and the feeling
34:18
Speaker 1: and I was absolutely guilty that like many meat right,
34:22
Speaker 1: and you couldn't be a manly man and and be
34:24
Speaker 1: a vegetarian. To this day, my association with the term
34:27
Speaker 1: vegetarian is negative because of it. Um and and you'll
34:31
Speaker 1: watch these these these classic you know, contractor g C
34:35
Speaker 1: looking guys walk in and you're gonna expect them to
34:38
Speaker 1: walk into a McDonald's if you were just stereotyping, and
34:41
Speaker 1: they walk up and they're like, I'll get the Maverick,
34:45
Speaker 1: which is one of more beyond Burger variants and decide
34:48
Speaker 1: of fries, and uh, I'll have a salad. Yeah. It's like, Okay,
34:52
Speaker 1: here's this guy that's gonna sit down to this big meal,
34:56
Speaker 1: uh full of awesome plant based and organic ingredients. Who
35:00
Speaker 1: breaks every stereotype that there is, you know. Uh, Or
35:04
Speaker 1: you watch the football team in Lake Oswego, you know,
35:08
Speaker 1: come in after a game or a practice and like
35:11
Speaker 1: here are all these these young athletes that are super
35:15
Speaker 1: focused on maximizing their performance, you know. Or it's after
35:19
Speaker 1: a d U game in Denver, right, and you know, hey,
35:23
Speaker 1: hockey players rolling through to get their plant based on
35:26
Speaker 1: So you know, we're not going to get everybody, and
35:29
Speaker 1: our demographics and our psychographics don't get everybody. You know,
35:33
Speaker 1: they're gonna be the means at twenty five they're like,
35:35
Speaker 1: it's not a burger if you don't have b for
35:38
Speaker 1: bison in it. And and we hope eventually those people
35:41
Speaker 1: decided to try either us out or plant based eating.
35:46
Speaker 1: Many people are surprised to find that they have eaten
35:48
Speaker 1: vegan food like that baked potato. It starts vegan, right, Um,
35:52
Speaker 1: it can be really good at trust me. But but
35:55
Speaker 1: the piece of the puzzle that really makes my day
35:58
Speaker 1: on a daily basis is that, yeah, you'll see some
36:00
Speaker 1: of the demographics and the psychographics you'd assume to see,
36:04
Speaker 1: but you'll also see some of the people you wouldn't expect.
36:07
Speaker 1: And you know, my grandparents spent thirty five years in
36:11
Speaker 1: Colombia as missionaries. Unbelievable uh sacrifice in their life to
36:17
Speaker 1: serve others. Um, something I didn't appreciate until even just
36:22
Speaker 1: recent years. Really uh, a mere sliver of what they
36:27
Speaker 1: really did and sacrificing their lives to try to help others. Um,
36:33
Speaker 1: And uh, you know you can stay, you know, in
36:38
Speaker 1: front of the choir and you can preach to the
36:39
Speaker 1: choir and they're gonna make you feel real good, like, oh,
36:42
Speaker 1: you're so right now, you're right right. But where do
36:45
Speaker 1: you make a difference in the world. You gotta get
36:47
Speaker 1: out and talk to the people. You gotta get out
36:49
Speaker 1: and the people that don't agree with you and have
36:51
Speaker 1: that conversation. Right, that's where you got to preach. And
36:54
Speaker 1: so are kind of plant based gospel if you will, Mike,
36:57
Speaker 1: is to get out and to preach to the people
36:59
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't necessarily assume we're gonna walk into the
37:02
Speaker 1: doors of a vegan burger joint, because every single day,
37:06
Speaker 1: more and more of those people are and we're here
37:08
Speaker 1: to meet them with an awesome meal that's hopefully going
37:11
Speaker 1: to change their paradigm of what eating plant based can
37:14
Speaker 1: look like or reinforce their existing behaviors of eating more
37:18
Speaker 1: and more sustainably. Very cool, and Uh, you have an
37:23
Speaker 1: aggressive expansion goal. I think you mentioned it earlier. A
37:25
Speaker 1: thousand units was the original goal because you wanted to
37:28
Speaker 1: make a real impact. Um, can can you talk a
37:31
Speaker 1: little bit about what your biggest obstacles to growth are
37:34
Speaker 1: at this current moment. Yes, and so I want to
37:38
Speaker 1: carry out that thousand units because now everybody that gets
37:41
Speaker 1: into the restaurant business is like, I'm gonna build two
37:44
Speaker 1: billion restaurants, you know, and it's like you can say anything, right,
37:49
Speaker 1: you can say anything, uh, And so I will say
37:53
Speaker 1: that our commitment, like our next step is that we
37:55
Speaker 1: quadruple our footprint from the seven units we started this
37:58
Speaker 1: year with twenty through. But my commitment to our team
38:04
Speaker 1: members has been that we will grow as aggressively as
38:08
Speaker 1: we can do so wisely and so and you know,
38:11
Speaker 1: and there's some great examples of companies that have successfully
38:15
Speaker 1: modulated their growth and built billion dollar brands. Patagonia of
38:18
Speaker 1: course comes to mind with Vanchard, you know, and they
38:21
Speaker 1: had to realize that, okay, fifty growth, we can do that.
38:25
Speaker 1: Anything over according to let my people go surfing Vonard's book,
38:29
Speaker 1: like you get over that mark and we start to
38:30
Speaker 1: watch the teams come apart. And so we're gonna have
38:34
Speaker 1: to figure that out for us as as we go
38:36
Speaker 1: and as we grow. And obviously is you know, with
38:38
Speaker 1: ten restaurants, a certain graded growth feels like this. With
38:42
Speaker 1: fifty it'll look and feel like that, and so you know,
38:44
Speaker 1: we'll we'll modulate accordingly. But our goal is to build
38:48
Speaker 1: a solid foundation and a company that's really built to last.
38:52
Speaker 1: Not to rip off on Jim Collins book Built the
38:54
Speaker 1: Last too much, but I love Yeah, well it's a
38:58
Speaker 1: great book, and I fell in love idea of becoming
39:00
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur at nineteen is a marine. When I read
39:03
Speaker 1: Good to Great, I was like, wow, it's like, well,
39:05
Speaker 1: my father actually recommended both of those books to me.
39:08
Speaker 1: Great both that was my man, you know, without digressing
39:11
Speaker 1: too much, and I'll keep it short and sweet. My
39:14
Speaker 1: brother picked up a guitar at fourteen and fell in love.
39:16
Speaker 1: He's never put it back down. Um, I didn't have
39:20
Speaker 1: one of those things growing up, Like I like playing sports,
39:23
Speaker 1: you know, whether it was rugby or whatever. I liked,
39:25
Speaker 1: you know, chasing girls in high school. And I enjoyed
39:29
Speaker 1: like living life. But I didn't have like the thing.
39:31
Speaker 1: I didn't pick up a paintbrushing but I love to paint,
39:33
Speaker 1: or a guitar and say I love to play guitar.
39:35
Speaker 1: But as a nineteen year old marine, I read that
39:38
Speaker 1: book and like a lightbulb went off in my head
39:41
Speaker 1: and I said, Man, someday I want to start a business,
39:44
Speaker 1: and I had no idea what it would become. In
39:46
Speaker 1: the last thing, I want to guessed as a vegan
39:48
Speaker 1: burner John. But anyway, I digress. Uh. From the standpoint
39:55
Speaker 1: of growth, we and that which is standing in front
40:00
Speaker 1: of us is the number one obstacle is is leadership
40:05
Speaker 1: at the shop level. Because I strongly believe in the
40:09
Speaker 1: last two and a half years is only driven this
40:11
Speaker 1: home more and more that you cannot have a great ship,
40:15
Speaker 1: great restaurant without a great captain, a great general manager.
40:19
Speaker 1: And so for us, what we're very aware of and
40:23
Speaker 1: we have an awesome class of leaders at next level Burger,
40:28
Speaker 1: that we are not going to be able to grow
40:32
Speaker 1: past our shop leadership if we're going to continue to
40:37
Speaker 1: commit to awesome food, awesome service, and tight operations on
40:40
Speaker 1: a daily basis and knocking people's socks off when they
40:43
Speaker 1: come to the door. So that is the number one
40:47
Speaker 1: thing that stands in our way to growing as fast
40:50
Speaker 1: as possible. And so what that means for us, and
40:53
Speaker 1: it's been true from the beginning, is that we invest
40:57
Speaker 1: heavily in our leadership we invest heavily and our culture,
41:01
Speaker 1: and it is going to be up to me on
41:03
Speaker 1: our leadership team that we mark a course that is
41:07
Speaker 1: not exceed our ability to lead at that shop level,
41:12
Speaker 1: because if we do, we're gonna end up with the
41:14
Speaker 1: mediocre result and we're gonna end up sacrificing that commitment
41:18
Speaker 1: to excellence, and that will be you know, a short
41:21
Speaker 1: term gain, long term loss. Yeah. Simon Sinek uh just
41:26
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago posted on his LinkedIn this brilliant video. Uh.
41:33
Speaker 1: I usually prefer people that have built companies to listen
41:36
Speaker 1: to them, whether it's the film Knights, the John Mackey's
41:39
Speaker 1: in the world, because there's it's like becoming a parent.
41:42
Speaker 1: You can read all the books you want to read,
41:44
Speaker 1: you can get a pH d in parenting, until you're
41:47
Speaker 1: up at two thirty in the morning and questioning your
41:49
Speaker 1: life decisions more than you ever have in your life
41:52
Speaker 1: in exhaustion. You don't know what it is to parent
41:56
Speaker 1: um And so I usually willin hard in that direction.
41:58
Speaker 1: But I continue to be thoroughly impressed by Simon Sinek
42:03
Speaker 1: of course many millions of other people or two, but
42:06
Speaker 1: he's on this stage and I don't know, I'm assuming
42:10
Speaker 1: the CEO of the company that paid him a handsome
42:12
Speaker 1: sum to come talk is on the other side, and
42:15
Speaker 1: he's talking about uh, goal setting, and he's talking about
42:22
Speaker 1: why stewardship, and he's talking about how, you know, like
42:27
Speaker 1: these company goals are arbitrary. They kind of come out
42:30
Speaker 1: of nowhere. You're in a board meeting or a leadership meeting.
42:34
Speaker 1: You're like, well, let's build two hundred restaurants or in
42:37
Speaker 1: his case, it's two hundred stores next year. Just randomly,
42:40
Speaker 1: somebody throws the spaghetti against the wall, and then somebody
42:43
Speaker 1: else is like, I love that idea, Let's do that.
42:46
Speaker 1: And then you build this entire plan around two hundred restaurants,
42:50
Speaker 1: and then you incentivize everybody to hit this two hundred
42:53
Speaker 1: stores excusing me two hundred stores mark, and you hell
42:56
Speaker 1: are you high water it? And no matter what, you
42:59
Speaker 1: go for this goal, and then the next year you
43:02
Speaker 1: open up two mediocre stores, because what you should have
43:06
Speaker 1: done is maybe opened up thirty stores, and those thirty
43:09
Speaker 1: stores would be awesome and they'd be, you know, performing
43:12
Speaker 1: exactly how you want them to. And so his point was,
43:16
Speaker 1: is the good leadership, great stewardship adjust accordingly and what
43:22
Speaker 1: was and no shade being thrown to the CEO on
43:25
Speaker 1: the stage with Simon Sinek. I'm sure he's a brilliant
43:27
Speaker 1: leader that has done many more amazing things that I have.
43:31
Speaker 1: But real time, you literally watched this guy interrupt Simon
43:35
Speaker 1: and go to this entire audience of probably hundreds, just
43:39
Speaker 1: so everybody knows we're not changing our forecast for next year, right,
43:44
Speaker 1: and he laughs and the whole audience laughs. But literally,
43:47
Speaker 1: real time, he goes, I hear you, Simon, but we're
43:50
Speaker 1: not going to do what you're suggesting we do. And
43:53
Speaker 1: I think so often in politics and in business we
43:58
Speaker 1: make decisions at the highest levels like that and stick
44:02
Speaker 1: to them hell or high water, and sometimes the catastrophe,
44:06
Speaker 1: sometimes just to detriment, and maybe every once in a
44:09
Speaker 1: while it works out well. So for us in our expansion,
44:12
Speaker 1: we want to grow as aggressively, Mike as we can
44:15
Speaker 1: do so wisely, and we want to make sure that
44:17
Speaker 1: when you walk into an ex elevel Burger, no matter
44:20
Speaker 1: where it is in the country, you have an awesome experience.
44:23
Speaker 1: And that is only going to come if we've got
44:26
Speaker 1: an awesome leader who's dedicated, focused and and and and
44:31
Speaker 1: really driven to make the experience for each and every
44:33
Speaker 1: one of the guests in their community happy, filled up
44:37
Speaker 1: and ready to go tackle the day. And and it's
44:40
Speaker 1: it's smart. Um. You know, our friends at black Box
44:43
Speaker 1: Intelligence have done some work on this and they find
44:45
Speaker 1: the number one predictor about a restaurant's success or failure
44:49
Speaker 1: is the quality of the GM right running the store.
44:54
Speaker 1: So so yeah, you know, um, and with the labor
44:57
Speaker 1: issues that that we've seen over the last up years
45:00
Speaker 1: in the industry, you know, it's it's more important than ever. Um.
45:05
Speaker 1: You know, i'd imagine I'd imagine that you know, it's
45:08
Speaker 1: a good motivation for some of your hour lease and
45:10
Speaker 1: assistant gms uh to kind of you know, bust our
45:14
Speaker 1: ass to to you know, work towards a GM job
45:18
Speaker 1: if you're if you're planning to to grow as much
45:21
Speaker 1: as you are over the next couple of years. Right, absolutely,
45:24
Speaker 1: And that's what's exciting, you know. And again, and I
45:27
Speaker 1: want to be comous at the time here ten minutes ago, um,
45:32
Speaker 1: and I'm going to digress too much, so I'll say
45:34
Speaker 1: this short and sweet. So we have this horrific Ukrainian
45:38
Speaker 1: war going on, right, and and you have watched Ukraine
45:44
Speaker 1: UH perform to a degree that almost no one in
45:47
Speaker 1: the world can believe, and the Russian military struggling UH
45:54
Speaker 1: in a way that no one could have anticipated. And
45:58
Speaker 1: the I read this a nominal breakdown by US retired
46:03
Speaker 1: US general that that drew the analogy to the French
46:07
Speaker 1: in the thirties, who were similarly perceived as one of
46:11
Speaker 1: the best militaries in the world. And one of the
46:15
Speaker 1: things that was seemingly the case in nineteen thirties French
46:20
Speaker 1: army and is seemingly the case in the Russian army
46:24
Speaker 1: as that they lack a strong n CEO class, a
46:28
Speaker 1: non commissioned officer class, your sergeants, your corporals, not the
46:33
Speaker 1: not the you know, not the lieutenant, not the captain,
46:37
Speaker 1: but the sergeants and the corporals and the lance corporals
46:40
Speaker 1: which aren't you know anyway, I digress. But the point
46:43
Speaker 1: is is that at the end of the day, if
46:46
Speaker 1: the sergeant doesn't know what he's doing, the platoon's not
46:50
Speaker 1: gonna do well. The captain can be great, but if
46:54
Speaker 1: you have that breakdown in strong leadership, then you're going
46:58
Speaker 1: to see poor performance. And so for US and and
47:01
Speaker 1: and I appreciate you sharing that black box, but I'm
47:04
Speaker 1: gonna steal that Mike, so just y. I uh yeah.
47:07
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, we have a general
47:11
Speaker 1: manager who we believe is one of the absolute most
47:14
Speaker 1: important people in our company, and what we are developing
47:20
Speaker 1: right beneath them is a junior leadership team that is
47:24
Speaker 1: the next generation of general managers. And so we believe
47:28
Speaker 1: in investing at every level of our company from a
47:32
Speaker 1: team member perspective, and that we air on the side
47:36
Speaker 1: of investing in that part of our business too much
47:40
Speaker 1: and never not enough. And so there are all sorts
47:42
Speaker 1: of initiatives, both that we've had going for years, some
47:46
Speaker 1: that we're rolling out next year that are focused on
47:48
Speaker 1: making sure that a we respect the hard work, because
47:52
Speaker 1: being in the restaurant business is hard work. These people
47:56
Speaker 1: work very, very hard and if you if one has
48:00
Speaker 1: worked in a restaurant, you can appreciate how difficult it
48:03
Speaker 1: can be. And so we believe that our team members
48:06
Speaker 1: should be paid, and they should be paid well. We
48:09
Speaker 1: also believe they should be able to be put on
48:11
Speaker 1: a track for a career and something that they can
48:14
Speaker 1: work on over a number of years would be very
48:16
Speaker 1: proud of and become very lucrative over time as they
48:19
Speaker 1: put in the effort and the consistent effort, and we
48:22
Speaker 1: believe that, you know, ultimately they're the keepers of our culture.
48:26
Speaker 1: So you know, at every point we're investing in leadership.
48:30
Speaker 1: But you never know when that team member that you
48:32
Speaker 1: just hired for the front of house in two years
48:35
Speaker 1: is going to be the general manager for that story.
48:38
Speaker 1: And we've seen that happen in time and time again,
48:40
Speaker 1: so you know, it seems overly simple, but we believe
48:44
Speaker 1: in respecting and supporting and developing our team members across
48:49
Speaker 1: the board period um. And we believe that doubling down
48:54
Speaker 1: on leadership is you know, a path of quality over
48:59
Speaker 1: quantity and making sure that at the end of the day,
49:02
Speaker 1: when it comes to next level Burger, whether we have
49:04
Speaker 1: twenty five units, a hundred, or a thousand, that when
49:07
Speaker 1: you walk into any of them, you're gonna be treated
49:10
Speaker 1: to an out of this world, knock your socks off
49:12
Speaker 1: experience because we have people that care and they're there
49:16
Speaker 1: to take care of their community. Because what we've quite
49:19
Speaker 1: many of us have forgotten is that in the restaurant
49:22
Speaker 1: business man, we're participating in an ancient practice. It is
49:26
Speaker 1: this ancient magical practice of inviting people into our space,
49:31
Speaker 1: preparing food for them, and then putting it in front
49:34
Speaker 1: of them and saying, you know, this is this is us,
49:37
Speaker 1: this is this is putting ourselves out there, and that's magic, man.
49:40
Speaker 1: And we commoditized it too much. And I think if
49:43
Speaker 1: we got back to some of those sort of ancient
49:45
Speaker 1: principles of what we're really doing when we're engaging with
49:49
Speaker 1: our guests and our communities, we respected a lot more um.
49:53
Speaker 1: And I think and I think that I think that
49:55
Speaker 1: the restaurant business would be a better place, and we're
49:57
Speaker 1: trying to do our part in that regard. And I
50:01
Speaker 1: appreciate that. And listen, I think that's a that's a
50:03
Speaker 1: perfect place to wrap it up. I really appreciate your time.
50:07
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to getting to to my first Next
50:10
Speaker 1: Level Burger and trying that Maverick Burger out. Uh. And
50:13
Speaker 1: I'm definitely looking forward to, you know, checking in on
50:16
Speaker 1: your progress and seeing how, uh, you know, seeing how
50:19
Speaker 1: Next Level Burger continues to change the eating habits of Americans. Amen. Brother, Well,
50:24
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward and I hope at some point we
50:26
Speaker 1: can cross past in person because I'd love to meet
50:29
Speaker 1: you in person. Really have enjoyed our chat today, Mike. UM.
50:33
Speaker 1: You know, one of my favorite things about Next Level
50:36
Speaker 1: is getting to hang out and have conversations like this
50:39
Speaker 1: talking about why we do what we do. UM and
50:42
Speaker 1: hopefully those concentric circles that we all think about when
50:45
Speaker 1: we think about and our impact on the world, they
50:47
Speaker 1: just go further and further out. So thank you so
50:49
Speaker 1: very much for having me on the day, brother. I
50:51
Speaker 1: think Bloomberg Intelligence is a service provided by Bloomberg Finance
51:01
Speaker 1: LP and its affiliates. This recording does not constitute, nor
51:05
Speaker 1: should it be construed as investment advice, investment recommendations, or
51:10
Speaker 1: a recommendation as to an investment or other strategy. Bloomberg
51:15
Speaker 1: Intelligence should not be considered as information sufficient upon which
51:19
Speaker 1: to base an investment decision. Neither Bloomberg Finance LP nor
51:23
Speaker 1: any of its affiliates makes any representation or warranty as
51:27
Speaker 1: to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in
51:31
Speaker 1: this recording, and any liability as a result of this
51:34
Speaker 1: recording is expressly disclaimed.