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