Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Chris Ives on Fruitable Lessons, Menu Innovation, and Growing to 147 Locations

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Chris Ives on Fruitable Lessons, Menu Innovation, and Growing to 147 Locations · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Cotespodi,
• 0:17
  and today's guest is Chris Eyes. He is the CEO, President, and
• 0:21
  burrito roller at Bubba Coos Burritos, a fast casual Mexican
• 0:26
  fusion chain based in New Jersey.
• 0:29
  They focus on fresh ingredients, customizable burritos, and a
• 0:33
  welcoming dining experience. Chris joined the team in 2019
• 0:37
  and quickly made a mark by leading growth initiatives and
• 0:41
  new market expansions. Under his guidance, Bubba Coos
• 0:44
  moved up to #316 and the Franchise Times Top 400 list.
• 0:50
  Prior to stepping in as CEO, he held positions as CFO and VP of
• 0:55
  Finance and Development, showcasing his strong financial
• 0:58
  background and leadership skills.
• 1:01
  Chris also helped integrate new technology to enhance customer
• 1:05
  engagement and franchise operations.
• 1:08
  His passion for nurturing franchise relationships and
• 1:11
  driving internal growth continues to shape the company's
• 1:14
  success. Now before we get into all that
• 1:17
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  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
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  AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
• 2:00
  today, the CEO of Bubba Coos Burritos, Chris Ives.
• 2:03
  Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
• 2:05
  Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.
• 2:08
  OK. So Chris, you graduated from
• 2:09
  Seton Hall with a degree in accounting.
• 2:12
  You worked at Ernst and Young right out of college and
• 2:15
  throughout your career moved your way up the finance ladder.
• 2:20
  What is it that you love about the finance and accounting
• 2:22
  world? What first drew you into it, and
• 2:24
  what's kept you there? Yeah, I mean, what I sort of got
• 2:29
  in, got into the finance accounting degree by accident,
• 2:32
  you know, graduated college, right?
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  You know, right before the recession was hitting.
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  Was that a college fair? And basically, you know, had a
• 2:39
  really good conversation and a, a good meeting with somebody at
• 2:43
  EY and they're like, hey, you know, if you declare an
• 2:46
  accounting degree, you know, we can get you into the mentorship,
• 2:49
  you know, you could lead it to an internship and get a full
• 2:50
  time job. So I went down to the, you know,
• 2:54
  to the register office and I, I changed my degree to accounting.
• 2:58
  That that's really, that's really how it was started.
• 3:00
  And what? What was that?
• 3:02
  What was your degree before then?
• 3:04
  What were you I. Was just on your.
• 3:05
  Third major. OK.
• 3:06
  All right. They get, so you went there,
• 3:08
  maybe they give you a level set of how I got into accounting.
• 3:11
  I grew up in the restaurants, family owned catering business,
• 3:14
  been in a kitchen since I've been, I don't know, probably 5
• 3:19
  just never really saw my, you know, my family, my parents, my
• 3:21
  dad growing up. And I just said, I never want to
• 3:23
  do this. So that's what, you know, they,
• 3:25
  that was really my inspiration to go to school, you know, going
• 3:28
  to corporate America and start to figure it out.
• 3:30
  And that's, it's sort of my path on on, on why I went to school
• 3:35
  and and how I got into accounting.
• 3:38
  OK. So kind of worked your way up
• 3:40
  through some different accounting roles.
• 3:42
  And then you had a stop at Fruitable, which it sounds like
• 3:49
  wasn't your first foray into food and beverage.
• 3:51
  You had been, you know, kind of in the family business for a
• 3:55
  while, moved out of that, came back in a more official role.
• 3:58
  Tell us about that experience there at Fruita and any powerful
• 4:03
  lessons that you learned there that you're able to take with
• 4:05
  you today into your work at Bubba We're.
• 4:07
  Going to need more than an hour I guess.
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  How I got there again. I work work my way through
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  corporate accounting. After I left EY I went to go
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  work with some firms that I knew just was really keen on
• 4:21
  processing controls. Relationship at EY was, you
• 4:24
  know, really everything you know, from an audit background,
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  you're always not the, the liked one, but having good
• 4:29
  relationships allow the working environment to be better between
• 4:31
  the client, you know, and, and the company.
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  I was just doing the daily grind into the city, you know, put in
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  15, you know, 16 hours in a day commuting.
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  And I had the opportunity, my actually my sister-in-law
• 4:45
  started the company. I just had my second kid and I
• 4:49
  just sold my house and I said, yeah, let let me take the risk
• 4:53
  of not earning a paycheck. And she, you know, she was
• 4:58
  fortunate where she caught lightning in a bottle on, on
• 5:00
  when like the acai introduction to like the the East Coast is
• 5:03
  really booming. And they, you know, at the end
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  of the day, they, they, they just really, they were
• 5:10
  entrepreneurs. They started something caught
• 5:13
  lightning in a bottle and they were just trying to figure it
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  out. They needed help and just having
• 5:18
  a, you know, accounting background, understood food,
• 5:21
  understood distribution, you know, understood relationships.
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  They really just there was, it was a white canvas and we were
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  just really drawing, you know, drawing the drawing the chapters
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  as we went did a lot of the wrong stuff.
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  Everything you could think of we did wrong.
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  No, no franchise attorney, no franchise agreements.
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  Taking money too soon, you know, not really understanding, you
• 5:47
  know, the, the, the puts and takes of, you know, what drives
• 5:50
  a franchise business or franchisees mindset of, of what
• 5:53
  they're investing in. You know, looking at the ROI, we
• 5:58
  somehow got that up to 50 units, you know, from I think we were
• 6:02
  in 16 states. So I was, you know, I was
• 6:06
  importing acai from Brazil. We were distributing across the
• 6:09
  country. You know, again, this was just
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  early times and you know. All those what year was?
• 6:13
  This except the 2015. OK.
• 6:18
  We, you know, we were just, we were living and breathing in
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  everyday just trying to start a company like any other
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  entrepreneur and we did. We had a lot of challenges, but
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  we had a lot of successes. You know grew, you know grew the
• 6:28
  brand to 50 units with no capital.
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  Wow. With and with no team we we did
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  have you know, we did have the one corporate store we did open
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  up a second corporate store, you know, really on a on a
• 6:40
  shoestring budget. But but the the craze was there.
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  I mean, you know, obviously, you know, people were really
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  intrigued by it. They were driving far from it.
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  There were some there were some really serious entrepreneurs
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  that made money on it. It just you know, again, we were
• 6:55
  early costs were high. We just weren't really focused
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  on the ROI of the investment. You know what it costs to build
• 7:02
  to you know what they can actually make.
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  Again, there were some amazing success stories out of it, but
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  then also it led to some, you know, hardships when things
• 7:11
  turned and it it wasn't as easy. You know that those hard times
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  you don't start to challenge and pressure.
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  We had a couple Domino's fall where they just weren't happy.
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  And you know, there there was it forced us to go to Chapter 11.
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  So, you know, we, we had a really good run, learned a lot
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  along the way. I don't know, it was my MBA, it
• 7:35
  was my PhD in, in franchise. That's what got me there.
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  I, I ultimately led the company through Chapter 11.
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  Ultimately I tapped out though, just had to go back to start
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  making some money. You know, I blew through a lot
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  of savings and you know, I just had my, my second, my second
• 7:53
  daughter and again, just moved. So I, I had a new mortgage and I
• 7:57
  was just like, man, I got to start to figure this out.
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  You know, we're not we're not making it here.
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  So made the hard decision to, you know, leave, leave.
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  And I knew, I knew the Co founders at Bubba Coos, they
• 8:08
  were at store 11 or 12 back in the day and I just didn't want
• 8:13
  to go back to corporate America. To me, it wasn't about money.
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  It it wasn't about, you know, having that corporate status.
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  It was just like, man, this is what I love.
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  This is where my passion is. Again, I reached out to Paul and
• 8:25
  Bill who were the Co founders that started Bubba Coos and I
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  said love to help you. I think you're in your infancy
• 8:30
  stages. You know, they were just
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  starting to consider franchising.
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  They just had a couple, open said.
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  Just want to help you avoid a lot of the pitfalls and mistakes
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  that we did. You made all the mistakes, you
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  knew what they were. You had the road map for what to
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  avoid. So, you know, I took a shot, had
• 8:44
  a had an opportunity to go back to PwC and you know, to, to
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  build actually a, a technology franchise platform in incubator
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  state. And I just said I'm not going
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  back to the city. This isn't for me.
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  I don't care about the money. My passion is working with
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  entrepreneurs. My passion's always been in, you
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  know, within the hospitality space I grew up in.
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  It went a different path, you know, to, to try something else
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  out. But at the end of the day, this
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  is just really what I love to, to do working with people and
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  really driving impacts on making people money and being
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  successful. And I've had the opportunity to,
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  you know, grow Bubba cues from store 12.
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  We're we're about to open our 147 store next week.
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  Wow. So I want to, I want to hear
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  more about Bubba Coos, but before we get there, I want to
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  talk a little bit about what went wrong at Fruitable.
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  Was it mostly a matter of, hey, the Acai bowl craze was going up
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  and to the right and then at some point it plateaued and
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  dropped off? Was it that there's more
• 9:41
  competition coming in? Or is it some of the growing
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  pains in the learning mistakes that you guys were making?
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  It's a combination of both. I think it was just a lot of,
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  you know, passionate entrepreneurs, founders thinking
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  that they just knew best meeting us rather than bringing in
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  strategic advisors to, you know, to grow the brand.
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  I, I just think at the end of the day, you know, when you
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  think you can't lose, you know, it, it hurts when you, you know,
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  you start to lose and then you know, it, it takes, it takes,
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  you know, all the, you know, it takes the wind out of the air on
• 10:16
  you. I said that right?
• 10:18
  Wind out of your sails. Yeah, I get what you're talking
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  about. Yeah, it, it, you know, at the
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  end of the day, it was just, we built something and it just
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  wasn't sustainable with the part we had, you know, wrong
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  franchisees, meaning that, you know, they might have got in for
• 10:31
  it for one reason, but it, you know, it wasn't the right
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  reason. So we had a little bit of that
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  going for us. We were just too thin.
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  You know, we had a lot of darts on the map that we just couldn't
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  support it. What did you learn about
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  franchisees selection from that process that you're able to
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  bring into your work at Baba Kuz?
• 10:50
  Yeah, it's everything, you know, having the right mindset, really
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  going through that diligence process of knowing the operator,
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  you know, knowing what they're getting themselves into, knowing
• 11:00
  that they know the restaurant space.
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  It's not a hobby. It's not something where you're
• 11:03
  handing over a check and just, you know, we're going to give
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  you a guaranteed return. It's really making sure you
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  know, your core values, your mission, your vision of what you
• 11:12
  set within, you know, the corporate support center is, is
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  really what the franchise has, you know, has a passion for to
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  follow as well. You know, we're all in it to
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  make money, but you got to make sure that you're get, you know,
• 11:25
  you're, you're aligned with the partnership.
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  You know, they understand, you know, what their obligations are
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  and they understand how we're going to support them and, and
• 11:32
  you know what we do every day to make them money.
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  So I think alignment and transparency is everything in
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  the business on top of relationship.
• 11:41
  You know, end of the day, you know, we are working for them
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  that, you know, they're paying our paychecks.
• 11:47
  If you're not, if, if you can't take the ego out of it where
• 11:50
  it's, you know, it's, it's only what you think, not, you know,
• 11:53
  and not what they think, 10 times out of 10, it's going to,
• 11:56
  it's not going to end up, you know, how you want to win.
• 11:59
  Sometimes you get lucky. But I think at the end of the
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  day, trans transparency and relationship is, is everything
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  in this business. So what kind of personality
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  traits are you looking for? You, you want somebody that's
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  got some entrepreneurship with them, but at the end of the day,
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  you want somebody that understands operations.
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  You know, you're giving them, you know, you're giving them
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  that strong. I always like to say you're
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  giving them that bike, that steel bike foundation.
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  You're, you're working with people that know how to put the
• 12:24
  wheels on to start to spin and, and run the operation.
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  But you know, they got to be community driven.
• 12:29
  They got to, they got to understand restaurants, they got
• 12:31
  to love hospitality, they got to love serving guests, they got to
• 12:33
  love putting smiles on people. So genuine hospitality, you
• 12:36
  know, along with that operational skill set of
• 12:38
  understanding the puts and takes of the restaurant space is
• 12:41
  critical. Somebody coming from a, you
• 12:43
  know, a bank background or technology background, you know,
• 12:48
  you, you take a risk sometimes with some people if they
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  understand the, the people aspect of it and they understand
• 12:53
  what it takes to have a good team.
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  But if you, if you think you're, if you, if you can't run the
• 13:01
  operation and you don't, don't understand the hard work, you're
• 13:04
  not going to have an easy return on that.
• 13:08
  So tell us what Bubba Coos is. I've never been to 1 before
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  though you just informed me there's one right here in
• 13:14
  Columbus, OH, up in the Dublin area that I need to go visit.
• 13:17
  So paint a picture for us. What's the customer experience?
• 13:20
  Yeah, I mean, Bubba Coos is a kick ass burrito concept.
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  You are coming into a restaurant where you're building your own,
• 13:27
  you know, your own burrito or bowl.
• 13:29
  But we do a different now, you know, we have a lot of different
• 13:31
  flavors, a lot of different sauces, you know, around the
• 13:33
  world that you could put into your burrito.
• 13:36
  So it's not just your typical, you know, rice, beans, chicken,
• 13:42
  you know, pico guac out the door.
• 13:44
  I mean, we have sweet chili shrimp.
• 13:46
  We have Buffalo crispy chicken. You know, we have a botch of
• 13:50
  steak and shrimp burritos that we're making, you know, fresh on
• 13:52
  the grill. We're cooking your quesadillas
• 13:54
  to order. So you have anything from garlic
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  Parm all the way to Nashville hot.
• 14:00
  Wow. So it's a lot of variety.
• 14:02
  Yeah, a lot of variety. So you know, our big focus is,
• 14:04
  you know, the flavor aspect of it.
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  We pride ourselves on being the only Mexican fusion, you know,
• 14:09
  brand out there. So everything that we do when
• 14:11
  we, you know, when we vet, you know, from an R&D standpoint,
• 14:14
  you know, it's got to be, you know, to our core and our DNA
• 14:17
  that you know, it's, it's being something different.
• 14:19
  We have create something different on our right as you
• 14:22
  order in every single one of our 150 restaurants, it says create
• 14:24
  something different right next to it.
• 14:26
  So anything that we put out to the public, you know, we want to
• 14:29
  make sure we're being different. It's bringing that edge factor
• 14:32
  with of that wow of like, wow, I didn't expect to put a crispy
• 14:35
  chicken, you know, in my quesadilla, you know, with the
• 14:38
  garlic farm sauce or Nashville, you know, Nashville hot with
• 14:41
  Pickles in it. It's going in our food.
• 14:45
  Sorry, as you were talking I got really hungry and so I had to go
• 14:48
  Check out your menu. Folks that are listening.
• 14:52
  bubbacoosburritos.com Bubba Coos is spelled BUBBAI.
• 14:58
  Guess how you would expect Bubba to be spelled?
• 15:00
  And then K double OS. So BUBBAK doubleosburritos.com
• 15:06
  What's behind the name? What does Bubba Coos mean?
• 15:09
  We used to always say it's the $1,000,000 you know franchise
• 15:12
  fee question. It was a nickname from from one
• 15:15
  of the Co founders and it was just mashed.
• 15:18
  You know, it was just a little bit of a mixing and match of how
• 15:20
  we put it together. But it it comes from really how
• 15:24
  the brand was started on a piece of paper.
• 15:26
  Paul Paul had the vision to do it back in his college days at
• 15:31
  Udell and he just called it Bubba Goose.
• 15:35
  He had a nickname of Bubba, and he and he mixed it in with Koos
• 15:38
  and Paul and Bill left Johnny Rockets together and they had
• 15:42
  the opportunity to start a burrito concept, believe it or
• 15:46
  not, inside of a Jersey Mike's back in 2008, our first.
• 15:49
  Side of a Jersey Mike's, yeah. Jersey Mike's and Bubba Coos is
• 15:53
  in the same 4 walls, 2 totally different brands.
• 15:56
  The franchise of Jersey Mike's was subleasing the other side of
• 15:59
  the the space and we, you know, the, the boys got it open.
• 16:04
  I think they, I think this, you know, the story is we always
• 16:06
  laugh where they were doing 500 bucks a week, I think when we
• 16:09
  first started. But they just, you know, they
• 16:12
  were relentless. They, they were handing out
• 16:14
  coop, you know, they were old school, you know, guerrilla
• 16:16
  marketing all over the, you know, all over the towns Sandy
• 16:19
  hit in Jersey, everything was flooded and they were just
• 16:22
  giving out free food, you know, everything to the EMT, the cops,
• 16:25
  the firefighters and that natural community just finally
• 16:29
  started to take and we always call it the Subs bub combo.
• 16:32
  You know, now you have the Bubba Coos for the, you know, the
• 16:34
  burritos and then you go over to the get the sandwiches, you
• 16:36
  know, right next to it. But, you know, 818 years later,
• 16:40
  it's, it's, it's a small shop, but it's mighty.
• 16:43
  It, it produces numbers, It's been a staple in the community.
• 16:47
  It's it's it's, it's an overall still.
• 16:48
  Share space with Jersey Mike's still Yeah.
• 16:51
  OK. The overall 2000 square or I
• 16:53
  think it's actually 1800 square feet, there's two brands inside
• 16:56
  the four walls, but it's two totally different concepts in
• 16:59
  the in the same building. How many corporate locations
• 17:02
  are? There we have 9 did.
• 17:05
  You say none or 9. 99. OK.
• 17:08
  Are they all in the Jersey area? We have all of them in the
• 17:11
  ocean, Monmouth County by the shore and then we have one in
• 17:14
  Orlando. OK.
• 17:17
  And I, I think when you said you got there, there were 11 stores
• 17:20
  and now you're over 140 and that's in what a period of
• 17:24
  roughly 5 years, I mean that's throwing gasoline on the fire.
• 17:29
  I mean, obviously like most of that growth or not all of that
• 17:32
  has come from franchisees opening up locations.
• 17:36
  But what, what did you do? Like I mean, that's a big growth
• 17:40
  curve there. Like, did you get in with sort
• 17:43
  of the right franchise consultants?
• 17:46
  No, everything's been organic. I mean we built the brand
• 17:48
  organically. There's always a little bit of
• 17:52
  luck. I mean, we were, we were always
• 17:53
  a small shop and in line or end cap unit relatively inexpensive,
• 17:59
  you know, to build, you know, put in perspective 2019-2020 we
• 18:04
  were building stores all in for 3:50.
• 18:07
  In today's market, you know, with inflation or whatnot, we're
• 18:09
  you know, we're at 5, you know, between 5 and 600 KFDD has a you
• 18:13
  know higher range, but I'm just given average here, so don't
• 18:17
  quote me on, on the FTD here. But you know, for a million, you
• 18:21
  know, for a 2 to one cash on cash return, we've over a lot of
• 18:24
  pretty attractive model 50 to 65% of our business is digital,
• 18:30
  you know, so we were, we were naturally just in the right
• 18:34
  spot, the right time. We just got our app developed
• 18:38
  right before COVID hit and we sort of just, you know, exploded
• 18:42
  on the COVID scene being a small shop.
• 18:46
  And we just had awesome operators that bled green and
• 18:49
  they were making money. And you know, there's no,
• 18:52
  there's nothing better than validation from, you know, your
• 18:54
  own operators, you know, bring it in their other operators.
• 18:57
  And I think 2021 or 2022 was our best year where we opened up 45
• 19:03
  stores and we've consistently opened up 20 to 25.
• 19:07
  So it's not like, it's not like we, we, you know, we're saying
• 19:10
  that we opened up 506070 stores. You know, it's been slow growth,
• 19:15
  but it's been fast growth from the outside.
• 19:17
  I, I mean, you, you don't really ever get to appreciate how hard
• 19:20
  and, and how fast or you know how well you're doing things
• 19:24
  until you really take a step back.
• 19:25
  And you, you know, you, when you're fighting the fires every
• 19:27
  day, you're just like, man, this is when does it end?
• 19:29
  But when you take a step back and you look and you deliver on
• 19:32
  the support and you deliver on the success and you deliver on
• 19:34
  the results, you get by in and when and you know, when you're
• 19:37
  working with your franchisees and they know that you know, you
• 19:39
  have their back and you know, you're busting your, you know,
• 19:41
  you're busting your ass to, to support them and to deliver.
• 19:44
  You know, on the, you know, on what you say, you know that
• 19:47
  you're going to deliver with your mission and you know the
• 19:49
  core values every day. I mean, you don't always win.
• 19:53
  Not every, not every store is a home run.
• 19:55
  You know, not every store is a $2,000,000 store.
• 19:57
  But they at least know that, you know, you have their back.
• 19:59
  And that's what that's what they get up for every day.
• 20:02
  And that's why they take a shot on us, and that's why they
• 20:04
  continue to support us and grow with us.
• 20:06
  I wonder if you've ever thought about this, Chris, if you guys
• 20:09
  hadn't had your app already in development so that it was
• 20:15
  already there at a time when not everybody was doing that, but it
• 20:19
  wasn't already there when COVID started, do you think you guys
• 20:22
  would be in the same place that you are right now?
• 20:26
  I, there's a 5050 shot. I mean, we had, we had online
• 20:30
  ordering it just never, you know, we never had it, you know,
• 20:35
  as fully as functional as we did with loyalty and, and with a
• 20:37
  digital presence on the app. It was online ordering.
• 20:40
  The bells would ring. It wasn't integrated.
• 20:43
  It wasn't a seamless process. We were still taking phone call
• 20:45
  orders. We were still actually doing our
• 20:47
  own deliveries, meaning we, you know, we had people sitting
• 20:50
  around the shop doing delivery, you know, they would go out and
• 20:52
  be their own driver. So I think end of the day, you
• 20:56
  know, we, we would have a good shot.
• 20:57
  This will be where we are today. I just think that we, you know,
• 21:01
  naturally were ahead of it. We never were in these, you
• 21:04
  know, a plus centers that, you know, demanded such high rent,
• 21:08
  you know, as you have, you know, headwinds and and tailwinds.
• 21:12
  You win some, you lose some, but I think we've always put our
• 21:15
  people in a position where they could still be profitable.
• 21:18
  You know, when, you know, when the market's going through its
• 21:21
  ups and downs, you know, as we experienced today, you know,
• 21:24
  there's a lot of, there's a lot of headwinds the, the market's
• 21:26
  pumping, but the average consumer is, is, is continuing
• 21:30
  to be hurt. So, you know, again, you have,
• 21:33
  you have to caution that, you know, you, you can't just say,
• 21:35
  you know, hey, we're, you know, you have to be here.
• 21:38
  You know, you're, we're going to put you in a, you know, rent
• 21:40
  that's 15% of sales. Because when the sales drop and
• 21:43
  the consumer's struggling, you know, you know, what's going to
• 21:45
  happen to that that shop. So we've always been super
• 21:49
  cautious, which which I believe is what's really got us here
• 21:51
  today. We didn't force, you know, we
• 21:54
  didn't force real estate that didn't support the brand that
• 21:56
  our life cycle. Things are evolving, you know,
• 22:00
  institutional money's coming into the brand now, you know,
• 22:03
  since the acquisition. So I think there's a lot more
• 22:06
  resources and there's a lot more modelling and there's a lot
• 22:09
  more, you know, tools that are at our fingertips to support
• 22:12
  some of the stuff. But we've always been a very
• 22:14
  scrappy, nimble, you know, adaptable, you know, we built
• 22:18
  this with we've had we had eight corporate employees for the
• 22:22
  past, you know, five years. We wore we wear a lot of hats
• 22:25
  everyday. And you know, now we're, you
• 22:27
  know, we're starting to fix that.
• 22:28
  And you know, we we're bringing on more people and, you know,
• 22:30
  more strategic, you know, more strategic corporate headcount,
• 22:35
  you know, as far as bringing the, you know, bringing the
• 22:36
  brand to 304 hundred 500 units. So, you know, you know, I'll
• 22:42
  leave it at that. But you know, end of the day.
• 22:45
  What can you tell us about the acquisition?
• 22:47
  Chris yeah, I, I, I think again, this is another thing where I
• 22:51
  think entrepreneurs have a tough time, right?
• 22:54
  I think the founders, you know, they, they brought the business
• 22:57
  to where they believe they could bring it.
• 22:58
  They, they can, they can bring it to.
• 23:01
  And they believe that it was the right time to to close out the
• 23:04
  chapter and to pass it on, whether that's a, you know,
• 23:09
  support of the franchisees or it's a support to grow the
• 23:11
  brand. I just think it was a 18 year
• 23:14
  run on top of the Johnny Rockets run where, you know, the overall
• 23:19
  guys just thought it was in the best interest of of all parties,
• 23:22
  you know, to pass this on and continue to grow the brand, you
• 23:25
  know, with, with capital. Is the the new equity partner?
• 23:30
  Are they? Do they have experience in the
• 23:32
  restaurant? In the franchising space?
• 23:33
  Yeah, this is, this is, you know, there we were another QSR
• 23:38
  founder run company that they acquired.
• 23:40
  They've recently done that before.
• 23:41
  I think they were a little larger the other brand they had,
• 23:44
  but they took it from 3:50 to 700.
• 23:47
  So they have a track record, you know that they know the, they
• 23:50
  know the space well, they obviously under they understand
• 23:55
  the puts and the takes here. But end of the day, they, you
• 23:58
  know, there's a lot of opportunities, a lot of levers
• 24:00
  that we could pull to continue to grow the brand from what we
• 24:02
  were doing to what we're doing now.
• 24:05
  That's the exciting part. I mean, I think that's why the
• 24:06
  whole team, you know, is re motivated.
• 24:08
  There's a lot of white space, there's a lot of levers that we
• 24:11
  could pull from a marketing standpoint, real estate
• 24:14
  standpoint, you know, food innovation, culinary standpoint.
• 24:18
  We're super excited. We're you know, we're really
• 24:20
  just, I feel like it's 20, you know, it's 2018 again, where
• 24:24
  we're, we're in the war room and we are figuring it out.
• 24:27
  You know what is, you know what, we're developing the new
• 24:29
  strategic plan to get us that 304 hundred unit mark.
• 24:33
  So you've been in a position of leadership, you know, since you
• 24:37
  arrived, you started out VP, finance and development, then
• 24:41
  CFO, and then just earlier this year moved into the CEO role.
• 24:45
  CEO role. What would you say has been the
• 24:49
  most surprising thing about the CEO role for you?
• 24:54
  Oh, it's lonely, you know, it's lonely when you get, you know,
• 25:01
  so every day you're waking up and you're like, man, you know,
• 25:03
  is everybody happy? Is the culture being, you know,
• 25:06
  is, is the culture that you set out to deliver?
• 25:08
  Is it being amplified? Is it is it being, you know,
• 25:12
  brought within the four walls of our restaurants every day?
• 25:16
  You know, you're, you're worried about the overall, you know,
• 25:18
  economics of what's going on. You know, the outside of things
• 25:20
  you can't control, but you got to stay focused on what you can
• 25:23
  control. But I think at the end of the
• 25:24
  day, it's just knowing where you could call and support and you
• 25:27
  know, being really transparent with your team to get the
• 25:30
  feedback. I just think the biggest, the
• 25:33
  biggest change for me is like, you know, you felt like you were
• 25:36
  you, you were there and like, you know, the past, you know the
• 25:39
  past, you know, 9/12/18 months, I worked alongside the founders
• 25:43
  as we prepared to, you know, to, to go to market and, and, and go
• 25:46
  for a transaction. But then, you know, when the
• 25:49
  founders exit and you know, you're left with your team and,
• 25:53
  and the, the Equity Partners, you're like, man, where, who can
• 25:56
  I call today? You know that, you know, to, to
• 25:59
  shoot the, to shoot the conversation on that.
• 26:01
  Does it, Am I doing, you know, does this make sense?
• 26:03
  Is this decision smart? You know what, what is your
• 26:06
  feedback? So just knowing that you, you
• 26:08
  know that you need to ask for help and be transparent.
• 26:12
  I just think is really the the ego level setter that you know,
• 26:17
  you're not, you're not going to always be right, You're not
• 26:19
  going to know all the answers. You know you're relying on your
• 26:20
  team. Is has been the biggest change.
• 26:25
  Where do you go for help or to bounce ideas off?
• 26:29
  Oh, it's a combination, whether it's it's my close friends,
• 26:34
  whether, you know, totally somebody not in the industry
• 26:36
  just to talk on the average, you know, hey, would you know, what
• 26:39
  are your thoughts? You know, you're whether they're
• 26:41
  the consulting space or not, you know, what do you think on this
• 26:43
  general business decision? Or you're, you're turning to
• 26:46
  your mentors that, you know, you've had relationships over
• 26:48
  the years that you continue to, you know, speak to or, you know,
• 26:54
  you're, you're going to somebody on your team, you know, just
• 26:56
  getting their feedback for a full 360 from the outside to the
• 27:00
  inside of what makes sense. But for me, you know, I'm, I'm
• 27:03
  constantly, I mean, sometimes I'm going to my dad, you know,
• 27:06
  he, he's still a chef and I'm just like, you know, Hey, what
• 27:09
  are your thoughts on, you know, this overall culinary, you know,
• 27:12
  processed food costs, you know, what have you.
• 27:14
  So I mean, you're leveraging, you know, all your relationships
• 27:17
  are everything. It's everything.
• 27:19
  It's who you know, it's who you're friends with, it's the
• 27:22
  people that support you. I mean, the person that's
• 27:24
  probably not supporting you is probably not the, the, the first
• 27:27
  person I would call just because sometimes, you know, people
• 27:30
  don't want to see people, you know, win.
• 27:33
  So you get, you know, just got to be, you got to be careful on
• 27:35
  who you're seeking advice on and you got to make sure you know
• 27:38
  where you know, you stand, you know, on both sides of the
• 27:40
  relationship. Do you have any like formal peer
• 27:45
  groups? Masterminds, some business
• 27:48
  support like that or is it more informal like you talked about
• 27:51
  like dad, some friends, other business leaders that you just
• 27:55
  happened to know? I have a couple formal mentors,
• 28:00
  whether they're on our board or whether they're just people that
• 28:02
  I, you know, I really, you know, look up to within the space I'll
• 28:07
  speak to. I do have a, a steering
• 28:09
  committee. I guess you want to call it a
• 28:11
  steering committee. I have some of like our our top
• 28:15
  operators I'll meet with monthly just to get a full 3, you know,
• 28:20
  360 view on, you know, what's the feedback from the franchise
• 28:22
  east side. And that's more of just a
• 28:24
  one-on-one, you know, I would say A5 on one conversation where
• 28:28
  it's open, it's open shop of hey, what are you guys, you
• 28:31
  know, what are you guys hearing, you know, within the, you know,
• 28:33
  on the line, what's working, what's not working.
• 28:36
  I take some of that feedback, incorporate it back to the
• 28:38
  corporate team, you know, to make some, if we need to make
• 28:41
  quick decisions or, you know, look at something, you know,
• 28:43
  with a closer, you know, a closer look, you know, that
• 28:47
  that's sort of my sounding board to say, hey, this is what the
• 28:50
  brand's looking at. This is what we're looking to
• 28:51
  do. What's your initial feedback?
• 28:53
  You guys operate every day. I try to take the corporate
• 28:57
  feedback away and I, I want that, you know, they're, they're
• 28:59
  our partners. I want them to give us the real
• 29:00
  feedback because they're going to tell you the truth.
• 29:03
  Sometimes the people on the team just tell you what you, they,
• 29:05
  you know, what they think you, you want to hear.
• 29:07
  I want to hear like the good and the bad.
• 29:11
  How do you think your background in finance has shaped your
• 29:18
  approach to leading the restaurant in in a way that
• 29:21
  might be different from somebody who doesn't have a finance
• 29:24
  background? Oh, it's probably annoying
• 29:27
  because everyone hates when I say it, but I'm just constantly
• 29:29
  looking at, you know, how does it drive value to the bottom
• 29:31
  line? I think you got the OPS guys or
• 29:35
  you have the supply chain guys. They're just like, you know,
• 29:37
  stop, stop bringing it always back down to the bottom line.
• 29:40
  But I just think at the end of the day, how, how do we continue
• 29:42
  to make the lives of our operators easier, especially in
• 29:46
  a, in a time like, you know, the, the, the environment we we
• 29:49
  operate today. But for me, it's always how, how
• 29:52
  are we putting money back into our franchisees pockets?
• 29:56
  So, you know, since I've, since I've taken over or I've gotten
• 29:59
  the opportunity to lead, I mean, I've been unturning every thing
• 30:02
  that I've personally done in the past five years to say, hey,
• 30:04
  does this really make sense from an operations or financial
• 30:07
  standpoint? So I think understanding the
• 30:09
  business from top line of, of how sales are coming into the,
• 30:13
  into the operation to actually working the operation actually
• 30:17
  know, you know, knowing I operated this, I operated in
• 30:20
  Bubba Cue's stores COVID times. I, I was AGM for, you know, for
• 30:24
  a couple months just 'cause, you know, we had to do everything we
• 30:27
  can to, you know, keep the lights on and continue to pay
• 30:30
  the bills. So we all took pay cuts and, you
• 30:32
  know, we, we went to go operate stores.
• 30:34
  So just always having that mindset of, you know, knowing
• 30:38
  how this impacts the people and, and our and our partners always
• 30:42
  comes full to me of, of every decision we make.
• 30:47
  Is there a particular strategy or innovation that you've been
• 30:51
  involved with since you've been there that you're most proud of?
• 30:57
  That's a good question. I think to me, the end of the
• 31:02
  day, I, I think having the, the support of the franchisees is, I
• 31:06
  think the best thing that I, I, I get excited about.
• 31:11
  I think the franchisees knowing that, you know, I, I wake up
• 31:13
  every day to support them, My team wakes up every day to
• 31:15
  support them. That's, that's, that's a big
• 31:17
  accomplishment. And you know, it's an intangible
• 31:20
  accomplishment and we've done a lot of great things from
• 31:23
  implementing 3 different rounds of, you know, loyalty roll outs,
• 31:26
  you know, implementing, you know, new POS systems, you know,
• 31:31
  opening up over 100. I mean, all those
• 31:32
  accomplishments are great. But I, I think the intangible as
• 31:35
  you know, aspect of when you, when you send out that franchise
• 31:38
  server every year and they, you know, they give you feedback on,
• 31:42
  you know, do you support the executive team?
• 31:45
  Do you, do you support the leadership and you're getting a
• 31:47
  positive response. To me, that's always a feel good
• 31:50
  moment where I'm like, OK, this is, This is why I do what I do.
• 31:53
  This is why we do what we do. It's just, it's just that feel
• 31:57
  good moment that you know, they get that you're not sitting in a
• 31:59
  in a tower, which none of us are sitting in a tower.
• 32:02
  You could I'm sitting in a in a small office room here that you
• 32:05
  know, every decision we're making, you know, we're, we're
• 32:07
  trying to put their their interests first.
• 32:12
  You guys have a lot of menu creativity and you touched on it
• 32:15
  before. One example we pulled out here
• 32:18
  is the Chihuahua. What is that?
• 32:20
  Oh. The Chihuahua, that's the that's
• 32:22
  what that's the Co founder special.
• 32:25
  That is our version of the Italian rice ball, except as a
• 32:28
  Mexican panko crusted cheese ball.
• 32:32
  So we break that, we make those cheese balls.
• 32:35
  It's rice cheese, panko crusted, deep fried for a minute.
• 32:39
  We break it open. It's the bed of our bowls.
• 32:43
  So when you're feeling in that extra hearty indulgence, we
• 32:47
  smother it with queso and then you're building a bowl just like
• 32:50
  you'd build any bowl. So instead of having a bit of
• 32:52
  lettuce or just regular rice, you know, we're giving you that
• 32:54
  deep fried crunch creation there.
• 32:58
  Holy queso, that sounds amazing. Where does the, I mean, the
• 33:03
  founders have now, you know, they obviously they were a big
• 33:05
  part of the menu innovation in the early days.
• 33:08
  They had stepped aside. Where's that menu innovation
• 33:12
  going to come from now? Yeah, it's a great question.
• 33:15
  It it still comes with inside our, our teams.
• 33:17
  That's both teams. I, I say corporate teams and
• 33:19
  franchisees teams. The amount of innovation that
• 33:23
  comes from our younger franchisees, you know, in, you
• 33:25
  know, those, those Gen. Z franchisees, they live and
• 33:28
  breathe creativity on the line, you know, with their staff.
• 33:32
  So we do have a incubator, I I'd call it like an incubator
• 33:35
  hotline where operators are sending us creative.
• 33:41
  We we call them killer creations or, or Mexican fusion creations
• 33:44
  that we have constantly sending us stuff there.
• 33:48
  On top of that, you know, myself, the, our supply chain
• 33:52
  director, our OPS team, you know, we do have huddles where
• 33:57
  we're constantly just planning out the, I'm sorry, the
• 34:00
  marketing team. We're planning out the annual
• 34:02
  quarterly Lt. OS of what we're going to bring
• 34:04
  into the restaurant or use the same skews and innovate on as
• 34:08
  like a + 1. You know what to bring to the
• 34:10
  bring to the market. What's the footprint like?
• 34:14
  I'm looking at your website here and at least you know it is
• 34:17
  beautiful store from the outside.
• 34:18
  We're small, it looks. They're small.
• 34:20
  OK, this one looks pretty sizable.
• 34:22
  We're, we're I would say in the past two years, our average
• 34:25
  footprints been 1500 square feet.
• 34:27
  We do range from 1200 to 2500 different markets obviously skew
• 34:33
  on, on what in store guests are SE you know tends to eat, dine
• 34:39
  in more versus the Northeast. It's you know, come in, get your
• 34:42
  bowl and leave. So we're just again about to
• 34:46
  bring it back to the numbers. We're just hyper focused on
• 34:48
  that, you know, revenue per square foot.
• 34:51
  Now I've heard that trend from a lot of business operators coming
• 34:54
  out of COVID with, you know, an even higher percentage coming
• 34:57
  from digital and coming from the third party delivery services
• 35:00
  that it just makes sense to shrink the footprint.
• 35:03
  People aren't using the dining room quite as frequently.
• 35:07
  Yeah, that's our biggest challenge, you know, and we're,
• 35:09
  we're constantly trying to figure out how we could drive,
• 35:12
  you know, more traffic on the, you know, our own digital
• 35:14
  platform or how do we drive them in the stores that, you know, to
• 35:16
  get the food That that's our biggest challenge.
• 35:19
  The the marketplaces of DoorDash and Uber, every day I think I'd
• 35:23
  lose more hair from them. Because they take a big cut.
• 35:26
  Yeah, it's it, it's, it's, it's how can you work with them?
• 35:29
  You're not going to, you're not going to get a DoorDash guest to
• 35:32
  come off a DoorDash to order to us and to stay with us.
• 35:35
  It's just, it's just a very large uphill battle that I'd, I
• 35:38
  don't think I'd get to see anybody win.
• 35:42
  You know, when somebody does win, I, I can't wait to see it.
• 35:44
  But they're, they're so powerful.
• 35:46
  They have so many people on the team.
• 35:47
  They're building the, the sexiest, nicest, cleanest,
• 35:51
  innovative apps out there. No, no QSR, you know, you know,
• 35:55
  that's doesn't have their own development team, you know, and
• 35:58
  I, I don't, I don't, I think there's probably only a handful
• 36:01
  of those that can do it could just continue to innovate and
• 36:03
  support that infrastructure to deliver on that.
• 36:05
  So we're, we're all, we're all really faced with off the shelf
• 36:10
  technology in my opinion. So do you think that's the
• 36:14
  biggest hurdle to people ordering more from your own app
• 36:18
  is that it's just easier on DoorDash?
• 36:21
  Like if they were to order from your app, where does the
• 36:23
  delivery mechanism come from? Or do they have to pick it up?
• 36:27
  Yeah, they have to pick it up or they deliver.
• 36:30
  It's being delivered by DoorDash.
• 36:34
  Yeah, it's a, it's a major hurdle.
• 36:35
  I mean, you know, they have credit card partnerships.
• 36:37
  They have all the power of you can order five things and get
• 36:41
  them all at the same time. Now I, you know, recently they
• 36:44
  just introduced, obviously like everything else AI, you don't
• 36:47
  even have to go search for the store for it anymore.
• 36:49
  You could just type into the chat bot what you're looking to
• 36:51
  eat. It's going to prepare your
• 36:52
  burrito. And based on the ad spend and
• 36:55
  based on what the guest likes, based on the reviews, they may
• 37:00
  choose Bubba Coos, they may choose, you know, Chipotle, that
• 37:04
  that type of power is sort of out of our hands now.
• 37:06
  And now that's another thing that we're competing on against,
• 37:08
  you know, DoorDash on how do we make sure from an AEO
• 37:11
  standpoint, you know, Bubba Coos is, you know, being thought of
• 37:13
  over competition. I mean it, it strikes me as you
• 37:18
  know, they're the Amazon, you know, so many E com retailers
• 37:24
  that I know they sell on their own website, but the vast
• 37:27
  majority of what they're moving is through the Amazon platform
• 37:30
  because everybody uses it. That delivery and those returns
• 37:33
  are so easy. They've already got my billing
• 37:35
  information. And so it's like, what do you
• 37:38
  do? You have to play their game,
• 37:40
  right? You have kind of thing for you
• 37:41
  guys. Yeah, yeah.
• 37:42
  That's, that's definitely that's, that's a challenge that
• 37:45
  you know, unfortunately all small business, all operators
• 37:48
  are dealing with and it's here. It's not, you know, it's not
• 37:51
  going anywhere. Yeah.
• 37:54
  What's something surprising you've come to understand about
• 37:57
  human psychology from your role there?
• 38:02
  Every person's different. You got to wear a lot of
• 38:05
  different hats on who you're speaking to.
• 38:06
  You got to know, you got to know your people.
• 38:09
  You got to know your you know, you got to know your audience.
• 38:11
  You got to know your people. You know the same conversation
• 38:14
  or one conversation you're having with, with your, you
• 38:16
  know, your OPS team or your OPS executive versus your, you know,
• 38:19
  finance executive. It's two totally different Dnas
• 38:23
  and you got to know, you know how to really, you know, what's
• 38:28
  the right word, navigate through those conversations.
• 38:33
  You know, whether it's good or bad, you got to it's two
• 38:35
  different approaches on how you're going to deliver
• 38:36
  depending on the DNA of of that person.
• 38:40
  Do you feel like you're naturally wired to have those
• 38:43
  different types of conversations, or is this a
• 38:45
  skill that you've had to develop over the years?
• 38:48
  No, I think it's naturally come with my overall, you know, my
• 38:52
  make up as well. I'm I'm very, very transparent.
• 38:56
  I'll tell anybody how it's, you know how it is, whether it's
• 38:58
  good or bad. And that goes to franchisees as
• 39:01
  well. Like I'm not going to hide or,
• 39:03
  you know, give somebody an excuse of why something didn't
• 39:05
  happen. It's either, you know, this is
• 39:07
  what it is. I think the how you deliver on
• 39:09
  that is critical. Delivery is everything.
• 39:14
  So I mean, I I think it, it, it's a tough skill, but I think
• 39:18
  this goes back to, you know, selecting the right franchise.
• 39:21
  People get people that get people understand it.
• 39:25
  It's very hard to teach somebody hospitality or, or how to work
• 39:30
  with the younger gender, you know, the the younger workforce.
• 39:32
  You're just not going to get that, you know, that certain
• 39:35
  individual to change. I mean, they're just like, it's
• 39:37
  an introvert versus, you know, an extrovert.
• 39:39
  I mean, certain people, certain people, you know, get it,
• 39:44
  certain people, you know, they, you could try to teach them and
• 39:46
  try to coach them. They're just they're good at
• 39:49
  different skill sets. You know, just like you're not,
• 39:52
  you know, it's hard to get, it's hard to get somebody to come out
• 39:54
  of a kitchen that doesn't like to talk to people.
• 39:56
  You're not going to put those people, you know, you know,
• 39:59
  forward facing because they don't like to talk to people.
• 40:01
  They're not going to go be the, you know, my first point of
• 40:03
  contact when they're coming into the restaurant trying to
• 40:05
  introduce them to Bubba Coos and get them through the, you know,
• 40:07
  get them through the menu. Chris, what's a big, serious
• 40:11
  challenge that you've overcome in your life?
• 40:13
  How did you get through that? What did you learn?
• 40:16
  I'm going to go back to the Chapter 11 stage.
• 40:19
  You know that you know, I was 20 what I was 27 at the time.
• 40:23
  I was young. That took a lot out of me that
• 40:29
  there was a lot of wins and a lot, you know, there was, that
• 40:32
  was a tough personal experience, you know, from a personal
• 40:36
  marriage, the whole 9 yards versus, you know, how do you,
• 40:38
  how do you continue to get up and go to work every day and
• 40:40
  support those people? But again, I, I think it was the
• 40:45
  best thing that ever happened. It shows you the highs.
• 40:48
  I went through the highs, I went through the lows, you know, back
• 40:51
  up to the highs. Staying high right now.
• 40:55
  I, I think it just, it builds you as you know, builds your
• 40:59
  character. It doesn't, you know, things
• 41:01
  just don't faze me as they, as they did probably, you know, 678
• 41:05
  years ago. You, you just, it's that overall
• 41:09
  you're paying for the experience type, except I'm not paying to
• 41:13
  go through school. I was paying for a real life
• 41:14
  experience. I've had to navigate through
• 41:16
  that, you know, working through court, working through the court
• 41:19
  cases, working through the tough decisions of potentially
• 41:23
  people's, you know, life savings being destroyed.
• 41:26
  Just took a lot of emotional, the stress of that, you know,
• 41:31
  at, at a younger age. But I think it, it, it gave me a
• 41:35
  lot of the opportunity to be where I, you know, have the
• 41:37
  opportunity where I am today. I think a lot of that built on
• 41:40
  that. You know, when we're looking in
• 41:43
  the rear of your mirror, Chris, it's easier to connect the dots
• 41:46
  and say, hey, man, that was the best thing that ever happened.
• 41:49
  You know, I developed thick skin.
• 41:52
  Things don't bother me as much as it used to.
• 41:55
  I learned so much. But when you're going through
• 41:58
  it, when you're in the dark tunnel, you know it can feel
• 42:01
  like there's no light. Yeah, it's dark.
• 42:04
  How did you get through that time?
• 42:05
  Who who could you lean on? Where did you go to for help and
• 42:07
  support? It's family.
• 42:09
  I, I mean, you know, just having open conversations with my wife
• 42:13
  or just, you know, talking to, talking to, you know, mom, dad,
• 42:17
  just having those conversations. You lean on friends as well.
• 42:22
  You know, again, it's really just knowing the people that you
• 42:24
  can, you know, you could count on.
• 42:26
  There's certain people that you could that you, they think that,
• 42:29
  that you, they have your back. But when you come to those
• 42:32
  situations, you know you, you see, you see loud and clear.
• 42:37
  You know who's on your team versus who's not on your team.
• 42:41
  As you look back on that time, anything you would have done
• 42:44
  differently if you got the chance to do it over again?
• 42:53
  I think it comes down, you know, no, but I, I wish we would have
• 42:56
  done business decisions in a little bit more of a transparent
• 43:00
  matter. You know, I, I think we try to
• 43:04
  pound our chest on that. You know, we weren't this young
• 43:07
  entrepreneur group, you know, trying to figure it out.
• 43:09
  I, I think we try to play the game that we were experienced
• 43:12
  and we, you know, we knew what we were doing.
• 43:14
  You know, franchising is, is all about, you know, both sides with
• 43:18
  the franchise and the franchisor working together.
• 43:21
  So I wish we, we had a, we had a clearer mind when we were
• 43:25
  operating, you know, 10 years ago, eight years ago, whatever
• 43:27
  it is, I'm just understanding the business better.
• 43:30
  But that was just all learning experience and just just being
• 43:36
  young and dumb. No, I, I think, you know, again,
• 43:39
  I think everything happens for a reason.
• 43:42
  So I, I, I wouldn't change anything.
• 43:44
  I mean, we, we started with $30,000 to open up our first
• 43:48
  store. We got up to 54 units, you know,
• 43:51
  and we, we hit, we hit, you know, we hit the gas, we hit the
• 43:54
  brake pedal pretty quick and we figured it out.
• 43:59
  You know, we learned it was a learning.
• 44:01
  You know, again, it was a, it was a, a learning experience
• 44:04
  that you can't pay for. Yeah, setting all humility
• 44:08
  aside, Chris, what would you say is your superpower?
• 44:16
  Being a really good integrator, I, you know, you, you can give,
• 44:21
  you can give me, you can give me anything and I'll figure out how
• 44:24
  to get it done. What I'm not good at or what I'm
• 44:28
  working on is being more of the visionary to get to find that,
• 44:31
  you know, to find other integrators.
• 44:34
  And that's hard. You know that, that that's not
• 44:35
  easy, but that that's all about bench and that's all about
• 44:38
  people putting the right people in the right seats.
• 44:41
  And, and that's, that doesn't happen overnight, But I think
• 44:45
  end of the day, you know, my, my skill set has always been the
• 44:46
  integrator of, you know, fixing things or, or implementing
• 44:50
  things and just going to do it. That's just, that's just how I'm
• 44:54
  wired. I, I mean, that is what you
• 44:57
  typically think of when you think of like ACFO, right?
• 45:01
  And now you're in this role that is typically more of the
• 45:04
  visionary, the CEO. And so it feels like you're
• 45:08
  stretching yourself, right? You're, you're growing.
• 45:11
  You're you're, you're fitting into this new role.
• 45:15
  Oh, absolutely. And you're on boarding A-Team,
• 45:17
  you're on boarding all you know, you're filling out your C-Suite.
• 45:21
  So on top of doing everything, you know, you got to train and
• 45:22
  teach them. So it's integrating and and
• 45:26
  being a visionary at the same time and and growing, you know,
• 45:29
  get the team in place to set up that vision and and that that
• 45:31
  plan, you know, to get the brand to the next hundred 200 units.
• 45:36
  Do you feel like there's the space to bring in a role that
• 45:42
  would act more as a visionary, or would that be sort of counter
• 45:46
  to what your role is as CEO? Do you feel like the more
• 45:49
  appropriate thing is just for you to grow into this morning
• 45:53
  and become more comfortable with it over time?
• 45:56
  Oh, it's good. I, I mean, I think from an R&D
• 46:00
  standpoint, there's a lot of visionaries, you know,
• 46:02
  opportunity out there from culinary side, which, you know,
• 46:06
  again, we, we do internally today, we don't outsource it,
• 46:10
  but I think at the end of the day, it's, it's just really,
• 46:15
  again, we've had a, a team of eight.
• 46:17
  We've just grown to a team of 15 in the last three months.
• 46:20
  So there's just been a lot of growth and you got, you got to
• 46:23
  fill in those gaps and it, it just takes time.
• 46:25
  So some people, some people have a, you know, a chief brand
• 46:30
  officer or something like that, that that sees more, you know,
• 46:34
  that's only focused on that everyday where you have more the
• 46:37
  integrator that's overseeing and running the operations of the
• 46:39
  brand. So I think there's definitely a,
• 46:42
  there's always opportunities to incorporate that.
• 46:44
  I just think it's going to all go down to, you know, the, the
• 46:48
  culture of the brand. You talked that a lot about, you
• 46:53
  know, you've added a lot of corporate roles, office roles
• 46:57
  recently as you guys are really gearing up for some big growth,
• 47:02
  thinking more about sort of the frontline work of the people in
• 47:05
  the restaurants. You know, most markets, labor is
• 47:08
  pretty tight, turnover is high. In an industry like this, what
• 47:13
  have you found success with when it comes to recruiting and
• 47:17
  retaining good folks at that frontline level?
• 47:22
  It's all about leadership, servant leadership.
• 47:25
  You got to be, you got to be hands on roll, you know,
• 47:28
  alongside your team, you know, you got to be in the weeds, you
• 47:31
  know, figuring out the pain points they're going through.
• 47:35
  We are not a large corporate corporation with the nines.
• 47:40
  I'm, I'm speaking about the 9 corporate stores.
• 47:42
  We don't have all the perks and benefits that you can get at a
• 47:45
  lot of these, you know, larger institutions, you know,
• 47:48
  institutional, you know, organization.
• 47:50
  So for me, it's, it's, it's the what it's, it's the why of why,
• 47:56
  you know, of, of what we do every day.
• 48:00
  But it's, it's, it's all about servant leadership to me.
• 48:03
  You know, you got it. You, this is an opportunity for
• 48:05
  you to have a lot of autonomy to grow.
• 48:08
  You know, we have a lot of success stories where I still
• 48:11
  have people on my team that started with the last 1718 years
• 48:14
  old that been with us for 12 years, 13 years.
• 48:18
  So it's, it's that inspiration of, you know, you're working
• 48:20
  with the smaller, you know, I don't want to say mom and pop,
• 48:24
  you're still working with the smaller brand, with the
• 48:27
  visionary to grow into something, but you, you know,
• 48:30
  you're doing it for the people. This, you know, my, my team is
• 48:33
  coming every day because the people on the team again, we
• 48:36
  don't, we don't have the, the four O 1K matches.
• 48:39
  You know, we don't have all the free gym perks or, you know, two
• 48:44
  months of paid time off, whatever, whatever it is, you
• 48:47
  know, you're working 50 hours a week, you know, you're grinding,
• 48:50
  but you're doing it with people that you know and know have your
• 48:52
  back, that you know, that's a family at the end of the day.
• 48:55
  You know, I go in the restaurants at a minimum once a
• 48:58
  week. The first thing I do is I go
• 49:00
  right to the hotline and I'll start rolling a burrito right
• 49:02
  next to the person rolling a burrito.
• 49:04
  That's just how you get in the weeds or up on a grand opening
• 49:07
  day. I'll go wash dishes.
• 49:09
  I'll go, I'll go in the back and get my hands dirty and, you
• 49:12
  know, just show that, you know, this is what we do.
• 49:15
  You know, we're not, we're not corporate guys sitting in an
• 49:18
  office. You know, we're out there and we
• 49:19
  know the operation inside and out.
• 49:22
  And we're going to work alongside you to make sure what
• 49:24
  we're doing makes sense and there's not gaps.
• 49:27
  And, you know, we're not making, we're not fixing something
• 49:32
  that's that can't be fixed, if that makes sense.
• 49:37
  So when you go to a grand opening and you're there rolling
• 49:41
  a burrito, sat next to somebody, you're washing the dishes, do
• 49:44
  you think that person knows that you're the CEO of the corporate
• 49:47
  office? I don't ever tell.
• 49:48
  Yeah, no, I don't tell anybody that.
• 49:50
  I mean, maybe the French, obviously the franchise knows,
• 49:54
  but no, I mean, for the most part I'm.
• 49:55
  I'm going in there in a polo and, and same pants they are,
• 49:59
  same shoes they are, and I'm just there to, you know, pump up
• 50:02
  the team and, you know, just make sure that everyone's
• 50:04
  smiling and everyone's happy and enjoying the food.
• 50:06
  And that's what we again, that's what I that's what I wake up
• 50:09
  every day to do. So that's, that's what I love.
• 50:11
  That's where the passion is. Speaking of waking up every day,
• 50:16
  what is it that you do when you wake up every day?
• 50:18
  Kind of start your day off right.
• 50:20
  I'm in the gym by 5:00 AM. That's my 5:00 AM to 6:00 AM is
• 50:24
  my That's my Zen. What do you like to do?
• 50:30
  Every day. I mean every day.
• 50:31
  You know, I'm just waiting. Yeah, wait.
• 50:34
  Yeah, wait. Sauna Cardio.
• 50:37
  Yeah. What's something fun you like to
• 50:39
  do outside of work, Outside of the gym, outside of work?
• 50:42
  It's all, it's always with the kids.
• 50:44
  I'm racing home every day to pick up one of my girls at dance
• 50:48
  or you know, tonight I, you know, tonight I have basketball
• 50:50
  with my little guy. So, you know, I, I try to power
• 50:54
  off usually between 7:00 and 9:00 at night.
• 50:58
  That's the time where I try to spend the most with the kids and
• 51:00
  the family, make sure that we eat as a, you know, eat as a
• 51:03
  family at the dinner table. And then typically, you know,
• 51:06
  it's either maybe watching a show with the wife or I'm, I'm
• 51:09
  picking up the computer and I'm, I'm finishing out the night, you
• 51:11
  know, for another hour or two. So it's long, hard days.
• 51:14
  But you know, again, it, it comes down to at home, you know,
• 51:19
  family understands and you, you, you've got to put certain
• 51:22
  things. You're always putting the kids
• 51:24
  at family first, but they also understand when work comes in
• 51:26
  play that, you know, dad's got to work some long hours
• 51:29
  sometimes, so. I've just got one more question
• 51:33
  for you today, Chris, But before I ask you, I want to knock out a
• 51:36
  few quick things. Anybody that wants to get in
• 51:38
  touch with our guest, Chris Ives today, you can find him on
• 51:42
  LinkedIn. Ives is spelled IBES.
• 51:44
  Chris Ives. Look for
• 51:46
  bubbacoosyoucanalsofindthebrand@bubbacoos.com, BUBBAK doubleos.com, and if
• 51:54
  you're interested in franchise opportunities,
• 51:56
  bubbacoosfranchise.com. Is that right, Chris?
• 51:59
  We get those off. Yeah.
• 52:00
  Appreciate that. Yeah.
• 52:02
  And as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to
• 52:05
  benefits that won't hurt them financially and carries an
• 52:08
  upside for the company, reach out to us at Add Back
• 52:11
  benefits.com. Finally, if you take just a
• 52:14
  moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast
• 52:17
  app, you will hold a special place in my heart forever.
• 52:20
  Thank you. So last question for you, Chris,
• 52:23
  a year from now you are celebrating something big.
• 52:26
  What's that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from
• 52:29
  today? Oh, there's a lot I could
• 52:38
  summarize one. Let's see.
• 52:43
  Go ahead, give me a couple. Oh, from a, from a brand
• 52:53
  standpoint, I, I hope that we're opening up our 200th restaurant.
• 52:57
  It's a stretch, but I, you know, I, I hope within a, you know,
• 53:00
  the next 18 to 24 months, you know, we have 200 locations
• 53:04
  open. But I, you know, I hope at the
• 53:06
  end of the day, you know, our franchisees are making money.
• 53:09
  We put, you know, we made the right strategic moves to grow
• 53:12
  the brand AU VS up and and profitability up.
• 53:17
  But you know, the from a from a father standpoint, you know, I,
• 53:20
  I, I'm, I'm excited to to see my kids continue to, to grow and,
• 53:24
  and go throughout, you know, elementary school and continue
• 53:27
  to crush and dance and, you know, just live out through
• 53:31
  that, that the kind, you know, being that kind kid that you
• 53:34
  know, people want to, you know, be friends with.
• 53:37
  I mean, at the end of the day, I think I think characters,
• 53:39
  everything you constantly try to instill those things throughout,
• 53:42
  you know, within my kids, you know, DNA of what's what's right
• 53:46
  and wrong. I love.
• 53:48
  It Chris Ives from Bubba Coos Burritos.
• 53:51
  I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
• 53:53
  and your story with us today. I really appreciate.
• 53:56
  It Yeah, absolutely appreciate anything.
• 53:58
  Hey folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired
• 54:00
  Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 54:02
  today.