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Piada Italian Street Food’s Sales Outperform · Choppin’ It Up by Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode one hundred of Chopping It Up. I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Mike Hallen, the senior Restaurant and Food Service
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, Our Research, and that bi's five
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: hundred analysts around the globe can be found exclusively on.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: The Bloomberg terminal.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: If you enjoy the pod, do me a solid and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: give us a five star review on Apple or Spotify.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Today we're joined by Chris Duty, a chef by trade
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and the founder, chairman and CEO of Piata Italian Street Food,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a fast casual restaurant chain serving Italian food in a
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  Speaker 1: unique way. Welcome to the pod, Chris, Thanks Mike, glad
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: to be here, Glad.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: To have you.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: So you grew up in the restaurant business. What happened?
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  Speaker 2: Your mom couldn't talk you out of it?
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, actually she started a restaurant in Columbus. It's
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: an institution called Linn and it's a kind of a
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: if you think a Commander's Palace in New Orleans, Lindy's
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: is like that. It's a large restaurant with outdoors dining
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: and private party rooms and does a lot of volume.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: And so she started it in nineteen eighty one, and
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: that restaurant is still cranking. She's no longer with us,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: But I grew up, you know, eating great food. So
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: she was very talented in the kitchen, and so we
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: were exposed at a very early age to great culinary food.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: And my other side of the family's from New Orleans,
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: and so I went to business school at Tulane and
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: my dad, when he said he's no longer with us
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: eithers he said, listen, if you go to New Orleans,
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: you got to get a job. And so I worked
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: through college and got a job working for the Brennans
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: at Mister be'es and I got a culinary degree while
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I got my business degree, and so it was a
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: great experience, a lot of funny stories about in New Orleans.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Spent two and a half years in the kitchen there
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: and then came back and was the one of the
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: chefs at my mom's restaurant for a number of years.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: So yeah, my background started in the kitchen before I say,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: and that was you know, that's been really one of
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: the key things for my career because I understand food
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: and I know how to cook, and so it's helped
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: me manage chefs. It's helped me lead chefs and create brands.
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  Speaker 3: Because I have a you know, enough of a background.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't consider myself a chef anymore, but I can cook.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Cole, Well, you grew up in Columbus is like
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a sneaky good restaurant town.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: We got Camera Mitchell Restaurants and some great spots and
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Columbus and then New Orleans, man, forget it. That had
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to be a great place to go to college and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: be a young adult man.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we had a lot of fun. But yeah, Columbus
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: is great. Uh. A lot of a lot of the
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: big chains are based here. Uh. So there's been a
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  Speaker 3: lot of successful restauranteurs that have uh you know that
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: are still here. You know, Cameron's a good friend and
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: we built the Bravo Brio chain started it here.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Uh and then you have.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Some of the big chains like Wendy's and White Castle
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  Speaker 3: and you know, so, uh, it's a food town. It
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: is a food town and there's a lot of a
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: lot of restaurants to choose from, and so it's a great,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: great place to launch PIAA. Uh so it worked out well.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Cool and you mentioned you co founded Bravo Brio restaurant group.
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  Speaker 1: That was a chain that I covered over a decade ago.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I'm aging I'm dating myself right now, but over a
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: decade ago when I analyzed small cap restaurant stocks.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: That's Dody.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: So clearly this is not your first foray into Italian food.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: What inspired you to serve it in a fast casual setting?
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: And has it been more difficult to train hospitality this
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: time around?
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  Speaker 3: Certainly, Bravo Brio was very successful for a long time,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: and when we sold that business in six I left
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: on that transaction. I was still an investor, but I
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: left the operating side. And you know, I was pretty
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  Speaker 3: young at the time. I was probably forty three forty four,
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  Speaker 3: and I wasn't done. You know, fast casual was just
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  Speaker 3: coming on then. And so having been to Italy, you know,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: a dozen times or more, I said, you know, why
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: has anybody done this in fast casual? And so I
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: went back to Italy and seven and eight really with
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: the goal of figuring out, Okay, is there a way
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: to develop a fast casual version quality wise? What we
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: were doing at Bravo Brio from a food standpoint, because
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: we were running it, the food was great. And so
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: I met a guy in Rimini, south of Venice, and
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  Speaker 3: he introduced me to the piata. And the piazza is
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: a thin crust dough that's made with olive oil and
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: it's cooked on a stone and you hit it with
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: salt and pepper and it bubbles up. It was really
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: quite fascinating, and he gave me the recipe. He showed
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: me how to make it, which was really cool, and
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: I knew I had something then, and so on the
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: plane on the way home, I sketched the menu. So
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  Speaker 3: I had spent a lot of time in Columbus, in
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: the chipotles and in the paneras, because really two thousand
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: and eight they were still are to a large extent
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: the biggest brands in fast casual, and they probably thought
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  Speaker 3: I was somewhat of creep because I was always in
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: there and studying, and I was like, well, how can
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I do this in Italian? And so on the menu
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  Speaker 3: on the way home, at these I don't have them.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: I should have kept them, but I said it should
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: be postables, piatas and chopp salads and I and I
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  Speaker 3: knew that because I wanted to appeal to a broad audience.
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  Speaker 3: I wanted, you know, I wanted students, I wanted professionals,
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  Speaker 3: and I also wanted the dinner day part. So after
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  Speaker 3: you know, studying that, I knew the delivery system needed
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: to match what Chipotle was doing. So you Q order
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: at the stone, pay at the end. And I built
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: a test kitchen in my office and I focused grouped
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: this concept for six months. Uh. And I did that
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: for two reasons. One, I didn't want to get laughed
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: out of Columbus if it if it wasn't kick ass
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: when it opened. And and and I really figured out
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: the design and the menu and the logo. So I
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: put a lot of thought into the concept before the
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: before the first store opened. Uh. And that proved to
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: be very valuable because we opened the first store, it
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: did two point seven million on a six hundred thousand
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: dollars investment.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 3: And so we love that return on investment. You know,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: that's that's we talk about, you know, level economics a
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: lot in our business. And and you really can't do
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: better than that. And so the first store was a success. Uh.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: And because I because we had figured out you know,
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: the the food and the menu and you know, and
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  Speaker 3: I had brought people in that had worked with me prior.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: We were able to open stores two through ten pretty quickly,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: so it it took off pretty fast.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: So how do you do pasta in a fast casual
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  Speaker 1: environment without holding up the line?
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  Speaker 3: Well, we we we fire so that the pasta's obviously
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: cooked ahead of time, and then we fire the pasta
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: in batches and that comes up to the front. So
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: you haven't been so you got to come see it,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: and you can see it in the video. I'll send
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: you a video of how we do it. But we
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: have pans on the front, and so we hit it
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  Speaker 3: with the sauce and it's they're hot, and we throw
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: the you know, the protein in it and then the
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: pasta and then we fill it with whatever they choose,
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's chicken or sausage or steak.
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  Speaker 1: Uh.
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  Speaker 3: And it goes down the line. So it's very fast
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  Speaker 3: and it's tossed. Uh, so it's hot and and and
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: so that that has a lot of the show, you know,
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: and it's made made to order in front of you,
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  Speaker 3: and so people, uh, people really love the the making
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  Speaker 3: of the food.
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  Speaker 1: It's not just assembled, but it's made in front of you. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: So the toss in the pasta and the pan in
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  Speaker 1: front of them.
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  Speaker 3: That's right, and it works out great. It's very fast,
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  Speaker 3: it's very fresh, and it works all over the country.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Very cold, all right, Besides the piatas, what else makes
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: you know the chain unique?
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Well, we kind of created the category. Nobody had figured
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: out how to do Italian in fast casual, and I
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: knew pizza wasn't the answer because pizzas. I think pizza
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: is a very local business, and you know, people have
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: their favorites, and I think you've seen this in the
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: people that have tried to, you know, build brands around pizza.
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  Speaker 3: Pizza's heavy. You know, it's generally a dinner item. I
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: don't think people prefer to eat pizza at lunch, so
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  Speaker 3: we stayed away from that. And so piata's light. You
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: can come and get a chop salad with salmon. You
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  Speaker 3: can get a postable if you're really hungry, or you
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  Speaker 3: can get a piata, which is you know, made right
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  Speaker 3: in front of you. It's like an Italian burrito, and
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  Speaker 3: it's you know, we have a twelve key menu items
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  Speaker 3: that people can choose from, and they can modify those,
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  Speaker 3: but generally people gravitate.
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  Speaker 1: Towards the menu items cool and a fast casual did
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  Speaker 1: pretty poorly last year, but Piata was able to buck
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  Speaker 1: the trend.
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  Speaker 2: How have you and the team done it well?
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  Speaker 3: I think, you know, there's a lot of reasons. Obviously,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: I have a great team. We're experienced restaurant operators. We've
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  Speaker 3: had twenty nine quarters of positive comps, which is kind
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: of world beating in the last six seven years. Our
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: business kind of took off during the pandemic because you know,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: full service restaurants really kind of took it on the chin,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: and so we got a lot of trial during the pandemic,
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: and I think we were successful at converting those people
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  Speaker 3: to you know, regular guests. And so I think I
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  Speaker 3: think it complements the other fast casual brands that are
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: out there. It's different, nobody's doing it. It's fresh, it's
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: the right price point. The restaurants are you know, cool,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: they got a great design, and so I think I
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: think we're well positioned to uh, you know, and it's
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: proven to work all over the country. So it's it's
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: proven its portability.
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  Speaker 1: Does the chain overlap with Chipotle's footprint, and if so,
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  Speaker 1: as it benefited from their sales weakness, I.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Don't think we benefit I don't think they're sales. It's tough.
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  Speaker 3: What they're doing is they're building so many stores. I
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: think they're cannibalizing some of their sales. H. But we
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: love being next to Chipotle or Cava or Panera because
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: we compliment them. So I think we're uh, we're unique. Uh.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I think we get in people's what I
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: call getting people's rotation.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: You know, one day you might want Mediterranean and one
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: day you want Mexican, the other day you want Italian.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: And we do very well for you know, we do
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: very well going up against them real estate wise. Uh.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: We started this business uh in Columbus, and then we
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: went Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, Akron. We you know, the whole
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: goal was can this concept? The whole goal from the
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: beginning was can I scale it? Is this scaleable? I
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: never really had any interest in doing one or two
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: of these. I designed it to say, all right, let's
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: build an Italian brand, Italian brand that can compete with
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: the very best and uh, and we've been successful at
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: doing that. And so the real estate strategy is, you know,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: now it works in Dallas and Houston and Tyler, Texas
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: and San Antonio. We just opened in San Antonio and
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: it's you know, going gangbusters, and so, you know, the
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: the real estate strategy has been, hey, we're not going
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: to New York, we're not going to Chicago yet. Uh.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: And the and the reason for that is, uh, you know,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: because there's so many fast casual players. Now, what you've
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: seen is success in the bigger markets that what we
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: would what people call tier one markets isn't necessarily a
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: slam dunk because there's more competition, they're more expensive to
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: build in, the rents are much higher. Yes, it'll work
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: in those markets, but our strategy has been, hey, let's
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: let's uh, let's do the Chipotle model, which was, Hey,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: this thing kicks butt in Akron, Ohio. Right, that's awesome.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: That means it'll work anywhere, and it's proven to work
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: just about anywhere. Very cool.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Do you think fast casual is is getting saturated or
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: is there still room for differentiated concepts.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I think if you're differentiated, there's there's a ton of route.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: I think if you're if you're doing what you know,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: If you're not differentiated, you know, I mean, I think
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: that the burger segments pretty crowded, the salad segments crowded,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: and and because we're serving hot food, we do more
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: dinner business than lunch. And that was kind of by design,
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: because I did I studied these concepts, and now Chipoti
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: does great dinner. Panera originally, you know, was busier in
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: the morning, still is, and at lunch they didn't do
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: as much dinner dinner business. So the brand had to
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: have a strong dinner day part and Piata has that.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: And so that's why our volumes are you know, two
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: and a half million and higher, which puts you in
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: a pretty good spot from a growth standpoint.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: What's the split between lunch and dinner, It's pretty close.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: It's probably fifty three to forty seven dinner fifty three
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: dinner forty seven lunch. I like that mix because you know,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: you didn't I didn't want it to be a lunch
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: centric concept. You couldn't do the volume. Fast casual doesn't
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: work at one point three million or one point four million,
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: not on the investment, and so you really you grow
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: to have a brand that works lunch and dinner. And
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: then we have almost ten percent of our business is catering.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Our concept travels, uh so we do a huge volume
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: of catering business, which is a great brand extension as
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: we go into new markets, and.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: So that that's that's a real ad. Yeah, it's great
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: for marketing too. Yeah, very cool.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: What do you have plan to boost same store sales
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: this year?
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: We do l T O s Obviously, we introduced seasonal items.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, our focus around comps is execution,
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: and you know, I think people lose sight of that.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: We have a great team of operators that run these
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: restaurants and we're still new and so I think I
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: think our comps over the last six years are reflection
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: of the brand, the menu, and the execution of of
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: the concept by our team. So yeah, I mean it's
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: it's it's pretty impressive. We're we're up five and a
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: half percent year to date. So we continue to show
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: you know, positive comps and that's you know, and we
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: we really do look at traffic too, so we can't
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: just say it's we're careful of taking too much price.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: The average check is I had fourteen dollars, you know,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: and that's kind of in the sweet spot. I think
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: you can spend more if you you know, go nuts
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: and order a bunch of sides and stuff. But it's
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: it's I think it's in the sweet spot and that's
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: why we've had the success and the foods. You know,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: the food's great.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are really strong results here to date. We're
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: coming up on earning season. I'm assuming a majority of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: my companies are going to be complaining about the weather.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: So kudos to you guys.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: We got kicked in the you know, shins for a
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: while there in late January early February. But you know,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: sure the weather hurt, right, but you know what's cool
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: is we bounce back and you know so Q one
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: was actually positive. Uh so yeah, we we do watch
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: the trends. We watched the uh you know, the big
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: public companies and and if you have you know, negative comps,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: as you know in the you know, in your world
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: and the restaurant analyst world, it's tough to get it back,
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: you know, if you've had a tough go of it. So,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: you know, with Piata's so different. Uh, it's unique. And
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: you know, I have a philosophy. Every store has to
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: you know, work on its own. You know, we we
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: are very disciplined with capital and growth. Uh. You know,
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: we'll probably do sixty eight restaurants this year. You know,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: fifteen next year. But they they have to work. Uh,
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: you know, we have ahilosophy in our company. You have
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: to earn the right to grow. You can't just say well,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: we're gonna you know, and I think that gets missed
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: by some you know, especially when you go public. Right,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: it's how many restaurants you get to build? Well, how
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: many restaurants you get to build successfully?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: It's the key.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, so we focus on being very disciplined
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: around growth.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate that, you know.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I see I have some companies whose comps are dropping
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: and they're trying to make up for it by accelerating
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that unit growth. Man, that's usually not a great plan.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: So how many you know you mentioned six to eight
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: this year, fifteen new units next year? How many restaurants
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: do you have total? And which markets are you looking
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: to expand in?
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's you know, with ones under development sixty five.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: We are expanding huge in Texas. Texas is a great
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: market for us. We've kind of bucked that trend as well. Well.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Uh and I and again I think it's because we're unique.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: We're not you know, tex mex We're not trying to
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: compete with with all of the the the burrito, you know,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: taco concepts out there, so we do huge volumes in Texas.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: We're opening our first store in DFW, so it'll be
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: our first license store this year. Uh and and we're
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: excited about that. Uh you know, it's wet, we won't
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: run it per se, but DFW is a busy airport
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: and uh, great brand extension, great brand exposure. But Texas,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: you know, our philosophy has backfill existing markets, uh, primarily,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: but Florida, Virginia are all markets that are on our radar.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: But you know, I think one of the keys to
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: our success is we have experienced supervision and operators in
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: these markets. Uh that are you know, far away from Columbus, right,
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: and so uh we're not We're not managing those from here.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: And and that's critical as you you know, prove your
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: portability you know geographically.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I appreciate your measured pace of development. What's
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: been the hardest operational problem to solve for as you've scaled, Well.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: I think it's always getting the right people, getting getting
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: them trained properly, making sure you're really ready to open restaurants.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: But we have a kick ass training team that's uh,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: got a lot of experience. So when we open restaurants,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: we we do it right. We know how to do it,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: you know. I mean it's always the people right, the
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: getting the right leadership in these stores. Our stores are
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: run by what we call Piata Partners and they're chef coats.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: All of our chefs wear chef coats, so we know,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: you know who's in charge when you're you're in there.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: They they they know what the expectations are of throughput
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: and the guest experience, and so you know, it's just
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: it's people discipline and capital discipline. But I'd say it's
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: people I mean, uh being disciplined around picking great sites. Uh,
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: you know, as you as you get bigger, you want
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: to make sure that you're you know, we're on the
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: developer's radar now. And so Piata's really kind of in
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: launch mode where we're starting to get calls from all
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: of our developers that that won us in their centers.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a brand they want in their centers.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Is there any unit economic data that you're willing to share?
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Sure?
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I mean our average you know, volume, our au vs
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: are about two and a half million. Got story to
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: do three, three and a half four. Obviously we leve
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: with higher volumes. It's about nine hundred to a million
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: one to build them. So we're pretty pretty you know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: very disciplined and run how much we spend. And if
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: you can open doing you know, a sales to investment
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: ratio of two and a half to one, then it
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: puts you in pretty rare air and the returns become
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: you know again great, right, if you can pay for
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: these restaurants in three years, Uh, that's you know, kind
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: of the gold standard. And you know, so that that's
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: that's what we try to achieve. And for the most part, uh,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: you know, we're we're successful at doing that, you know.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: And if they start out a little bit slower, they
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: take time to build. That's why we cluster restaurants in
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: a market. We're not geographically going to go you know,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: to you know, ten new cities in a year. I
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: call that a blow your brains out strategy. I don't
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: believe that's the right real estate strategy. I don't believe
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: it's the right supervision strategy. And so you know, it's
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: also helps with the brand and the marketing. You know,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: the more restaurants you open in a market, people are
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: excited when a new one opens. And because you can't
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: really market your way to success in this business, it's
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: it's really about taking care of the guests every single day,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: every meal, every day part and getting them to come back.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: You're not going to spend enough marketing dollars to build
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: a brand.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: So for sure, what's the demographics, So your typical customer say, it's.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Thirty to forty three, fifty female, fifty percent mail. We
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: do huge volume and you know college towns. You know,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: we're in you know, College Station in Texas. That's a
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: four million dollars store. So, uh, you know, obviously the
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: students love it. But we also try to put these
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: restaurants not necessarily on campus, but you know, adjacent to campus,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: so that we get the professional, you know, person that
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: you know wants to grab a quick bite to eat,
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: the construction worker. You know, we were just at Piata
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: today for lunch, and you know there's a bunch of
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: construction workers wolfing down piadas and pastables and you know,
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: so it appeals to a broad demographic and and that
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: was by design, and I think that's what's cool about
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: the brand. And we we talk about Piata eliminates the
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: veto vote, meaning if you don't want Italian you can
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: still come to Piata and get a great, great lunch,
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: right if you If you want something you know, healthy,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: you can get a power bowl with salmon. You can
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: get a you know av ac chopp salad a salmon,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: or you can get a you know rigatoni barata pasta
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: with meatballs. And you know it's it's pretty, it's pretty delicious.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: So dude, you're making me hungry.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I have an eat and you know, it's two thirty
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon here, and I'm you know, you're killing me.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: If you try it, you'll you'll cover it, right, It's
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: it's you'll get it. It's it's a lot easier to talk.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: You know, once you've tried it, you'll say, okay, I
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: get it. Pretty confident in the food. We've got a
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: great corporate chef and a great team of people, and
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: you know, we we are strong believers in not cheapening
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: the brand. You know, we were talking about you know,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Bravo Brio and when we first spoke, and you know,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: one of the things they did was they took the
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: crab out of the crab cakes and that's you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: the youth ism if you will, it's you know, it's
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: kind of a it's true story. And once you start cheapening,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: because whether you've gone public or that's when you start
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: to the guest figures it out eventually and they stop
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: coming back. And we're not going to do that with Piata.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Piata is all about the hospitality and the food and
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: the speed, and the formula is pretty powerful. It's worked
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: out pretty well. Yeah, it's cool.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I figure it out real quick, man, because I got
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a pretty good palette and you know, my mom's a
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: phenomenal Tian cook, and I have a big appetite.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Man, So when you cut back, I could tell pretty quick.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Love for you to dry. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: It sounds like my first chance could be that Dallas
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth Airport location. We'll see. We'll see where my
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: travels take me later this year. Are you and the
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: team working on any technology initiatives.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Well, we have a very strong technology team in house,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: and so we've built our own kind of dashboard and
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: our own platform. We have probably it's close to a million,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: eight hundred million loyalty users. So you know, one of
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: the things we did early on, you know, we had
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: second make lines in the first store, so this is
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: twenty ten. The first store has a pickup window, and
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: so we we were really well positioned with our website
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: and our online ordering during the pandemic, you know, and
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: even way before the pandemic, you know, the concept actually
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: started out doing seventy percent diying in thirty percent carry out,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: and now it's flipped because you know, people use fast
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: casual you know, so frequently now. But yeah, we use
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: you know, hot schedules for you know, scheduling. So you know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: there's clearly our dashboard tells us, you know, how many
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: people are clocked in, you know, at any at any
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: given time during the day at any store. We have
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: a you know, our dashboard tells us sales, it tells
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: us you know, it tells us everything in real time.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: So from a for a company this size, I think
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: our technology platform is pretty pretty advanced. Uh, you know,
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: given given sixty five stores.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've clearly put you clearly put a ton of
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: thought into this before you started, and it really seems
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: like you're benefiting strongly from it.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: It's very cool. How would you describe the company's culture.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: I think it's as good a culture as you know,
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: any company I've ever created or had. Uh. We've got,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: you know, a team of people that have been here
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: a long time. My executive team and I've worked together
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: for over twenty five years. Uh, so we can communicate
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: and shorthand they know, they kind of know what the
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: expectation is at the store. So when we go into
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: the stores, you know, the the guest experiences number one,
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: and we talk a lot about aces and places. The
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: restaurants need to be staffed appropriately for the volume they're doing.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: So I would put this team up against you know,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: the best in the business, very experienced. You know, we
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: all kind of talk the same language. We are focus
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: is on our team, our turnover, our management turnovers less
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: than what is it fifty at the management level, you know,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: fifty five percent, you know, which is phenomenal. So you
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: know under one hundred is phenomenal in this business. But
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: your people stick around because there's a lot of growth opportunities. So,
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: you know, culture is everything, right, the people, the team.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: If you don't have that, then you shouldn't be growing
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: losing people. You especially if you're going to go into
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: high growth mode. You know you have to have real,
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: really strong operational leadership in the field. Uh, and we
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: have that. Yeah.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: You can't expand uh without losing the culture unless you
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: have the people ready to ready to fill in.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: It's got to bother you when you the guest has
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: a bad experience, if they have a complaint or something.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: You know, we try to recover right then, you know,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: and and teach our people, you know, let's take care
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: of the guests, right we don't. We don't call them customers.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: We call them guests. And we've taken that from kind
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: of full service. And it's got to bother you if
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: the guest does a bad experience, and so we we
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: monitor that very very closely. And you know, our MPs
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: scores are probably some of the best in the industry,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: and we look at that every day. Frankly, we look
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: at guest comments every day.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Chris, is a great story. Thanks for sharing it, man.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad to do it. It's a fun story to tell,
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: especially when it's working.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: That it is.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I want to thank the audience for tuning in. If
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: you'd like to find your nearest Piata Italian street food,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: go to Mypiata dot com. If you liked our discussion.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Please share with your friends and colleagues. Check back soon
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: for another interview on chopping it up.