WEBVTT - Hopdoddy Recipe for Good Burgers, Happy Workers 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.280 Welcome to Chopping It Up. I'm your host, Mike Hanlon, 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:28.200 the senior restaurant and food service analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.639 Our research and that of bi's five hundred analysts around 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:35.400 the globe can be found exclusively on the Bloomberg terminal. Today, 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.760 we're joined by Jeff Chandler, a CEO of High Bar 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.159 Hospitality Group, the parent company of Hop Dotty Burger Bar. 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:43.480 How you doing, Jeff, I'm doing great. 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:44.680 Thanks Michael for having me. 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:47.639 Sure thing all right? So on LinkedIn, I saw you're 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.879 a University of Washington grad. I recently watched Boys in 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.560 the Boat, a movie about the Washington crew team. Have 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:55.120 you seen it? 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.080 I have? Yeah, I have, and it was really good 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:00.840 to see people where the purple in the gold and 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.800 to sing a bow down to Washington and brought back 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.319 a lot of good memories of the filming in and 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.760 around Seattle. I thought was interesting around the university and 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:13.200 certain clips were very cool. Yeah. 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.720 I really enjoyed it. It's on Amazon Prime if anybody 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:20.400 hasn't seen it. It was great. So uh so, did 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:22.399 you play a sport at Washington kid? 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.160 I believe it or not, I played. I played football. 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.240 I was an offensive center about two hundred and eighty 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:32.240 five pounds ago. I've lost I've lost a lot of weight. 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.039 But I played back in the Don James era. And 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.160 you know, for those who don't follow college football, Don 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.399 James really was the We called him the dog father, 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:44.960 uh and he was the coach's coach. He was the 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:49.680 players coach. He was big time into organizational control and 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:55.280 discipline and and uh and and bringing men to be 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.640 better men and not necessarily fielding a great football team, 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.160 although he did that. But I learned so much from 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:07.280 him on organizational discipline, structure process that you know, if 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.320 I'm honest, I probably learned more down on the football 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.720 field under you know, Don James and his coaching staff 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.240 than I did up in the business school about things 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.600 that I use every day, building teams, driving performance, setting 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.919 high benchmarks, how you push through adversity, how you handle 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.200 challenges like all of that I learned from him. So 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:28.560 I give him a lot of credit, dude. 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.680 That's awesome. Football is the ultimate team sport. And I 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.200 had a similar experience. I played at Georgetown, and I 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:38.200 learned so much from my coaches, Coach Benson and Scarlata, 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.240 stuff that I use every day man, whether it's about 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.400 being on time, accountability, you name it. 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.320 He had a phenomenal knack. I think he had the 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.000 walk from his office to our team room timed first 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:54.959 day of practice every year. What do we get. We 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:57.880 got a time X Okay, old school, this is back 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.000 in the eighties. We got a time X digital walk. 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:02.600 And he would walk us through the very first meeting 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.280 of the year. He'd walk us through how to reset 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:09.119 our times and he would count down three, two, one, 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.440 set it, and he said, gentlemen, you have no excuse 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:14.600 to be late to any meeting that we have. And 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.840 he would start his meetings really interesting. He would start 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:23.040 his meetings at seven fifty eight am, not eight am, 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.799 not eight thirty, but seven fifty eight. And I look 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.480 back on that, That's how I schedule my meetings today, 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.160 because it's mindful, it's purposeful, it's you know, it's seven 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.600 fifty eight, it's not eight o'clock. And he would walk 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.600 in and start speaking at the podium and literally it 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:40.760 would be seven fifty eight. 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.800 The guy was amazing, very cool man. All right, so 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:47.320 now you've you're the leader on the field. You've been 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.240 leading hop Dottie for quite a while now they must 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.160 be treating you pretty well over there they are. 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.080 It's, you know, we have I think, in my opinion, 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.640 we've got a world class private equity partner with L Catterton. 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.520 The way they approached their businesses, their ceo CEOs, their teams, 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.240 I think his first class. And they've been a great 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:11.000 support throughout this whole entire journey. And you know, look, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.200 it's been a choppy ride. Uh. You know, we've been 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:16.960 I've been here for eight years. We had the pandemic 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:21.920 right in the middle of it. We've had you know people, 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.880 you know, the Great Resignation era, we had the COVID, 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.400 we had the inflation era. So there's there's been a 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.440 lot of interesting ups and downs, for sure. 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.000 No doubt about that. Hop Dotty is an interesting name. 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.200 How did how was it? How did it get that name? 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:37.720 Yeah? I can't take credit for it, nor would I 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.760 would I want to necessarily. It's it was the brain 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:45.119 child kind of of the merger of burgers and beer, 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:48.719 and the founders thought, you know, hop obviously is the 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.920 flower that gives beer as aromatic flavor and bitterness. And 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:56.640 Dottie actually is a nickname for cattle in Scotland. So 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.080 the black ag is candle. They call them little dotties. 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.760 And and so this whole merger and blend between this 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.440 union between burger and beer. And you know, it's interesting. 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.400 People call us hot daddy, you know, we get we 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.280 get a lot of people that confuse us with bad daddies. 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.240 And but it's unique and when it sticks, it sticks. 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.159 And it's something that I think is memorable and unique 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.719 and once you know it, you know it, and it's 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:23.840 it's ended up working out real well for us. 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:26.720 Yeah, it's cool. And I know my dad would one 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:30.719 hundred percent agree that burgers and beer go together, you know, 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.520 like peanut butter and jelly they do, all right, So 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.320 how many units? Where are you primarily located? And how 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:39.599 fast do you open in new ones? 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.640 Yeah, so we're we're forty eight restaurants today. We're in 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:52.440 eight states. We're in California, Colorado, Arizona, big concentration in Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia, 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.960 and Florida. And you know, Texas is our home. That's 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.920 that's where we started. And you know, there's so much 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.240 white space in tech is to grow the economy in 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.960 Texas is strong you know, the demographics, psychographics, the consumer 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.279 behaviors and traits in Texas are strong. It's a heavy 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.720 dying out as you know, and drinking out state. And 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.880 so you know, our growth is going to continue Texas 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.240 Strong and we call it Texas Strong plus plus. We're 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:27.480 going to be entrepreneurial and opportunists in Arizona, in Tennessee, 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:32.320 in Florida, in Georgia, you know, anywhere in our existing markets. 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.000 And I think for the next five years we've mapped out, 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.240 we can stay in these eight states and continue to 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.640 grow real rapidly. I don't see any addition of a 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.800 new market. I mean, never say never, but there's enough 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.359 white space right now for infill that that's going to 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.599 keep us busy. So, you know, we started out at 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:57.080 five restaurants eight years ago and you know, again we've 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.880 we've we've had quite a bit of organic growth. We 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.000 had a we had a merger of grub Burger Bar 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:04.679 coming out of the pandemic, which helped, you know, further 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.119 accelerate that that growth. And now we're looking to build 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:09.800 a robust pipeline. Cool. 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.200 So when so, do you have a strong social media presence? 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.760 You know, and how was that expansion into you know, 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:20.720 into other states outside of Texas. 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.000 Yeah. Look, it may not have been a textbook, you know, 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:29.040 example of how you grow and develop the brand. You know, 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:34.240 like most privately held brands, Uh, you sometimes make decisions 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:38.040 on other factors. And so quite frankly hop Dot he 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:42.960 grew you know, Austin, Austin, Dallas, and then it went 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:48.640 to Scottsdale and then Newport Beach, California. And the reason 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.440 for Newport Beach and Scottsdale, Arizona is, you know, we 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:53.880 had two founders that you know, one founder had a 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.440 home in Scottsdale, one founder had a home in Newport Beach, 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.000 and you know, they seem to know the markets well. 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.920 And so it wasn't necessarily a pragmatic approach, but it 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:07.320 worked and it kind of scattered us around. We're working 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.480 today just in building and concentric circles out and strengthening 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:16.120 the awareness of the brand and the recognition of the brand. 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.600 And so I think that will continue. And again, we're 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.720 in enough states and enough markets where we've got plenty 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.680 of green space, you know, just to infill the current growth. 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.080 And you know, with our current structure, gosh, we're you 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.360 know we're shooting for eighty five restaurants total in five years. 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.520 And we've got the capital to do that, we've got 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.960 the people to do that. Now, it's just a matter 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.240 of finding the right real estate good stuff. 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.400 So how big are are the restaurants and how much 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:44.400 do they cost you to build? 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.720 Yeah, you know, that's a that's an evolving question. Right 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.600 we started out and we were at thirty six hundred, 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.120 thirty seven hundred square foot concept. All day long, we 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.840 roll in the the you know, kind of the popularization 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.120 off premise, and you know, what we look like is 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.679 just maximizing our throughput capacity. And now with off premis, 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.480 we can shrink the size of our units. We our 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.720 smallest unit today is twenty seven hundred square feet. We 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.920 think we can get down into you know, twenty four 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.160 fifty kind of as a smallest footprint and take advantage 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:24.040 and maximize that. And again, as we scale down these restaurants, 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.120 the cost goes down. But I'll tell you, like on 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.720 a tip, prototypical thirty five hundred square foot building, you know, 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:34.839 we're spending about a million six so a pretty sizable investment. 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.000 We think if we can get down into the you know, 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:40.040 twenty six twenty seven hundred square foot range. We can 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:46.280 knock that down to a million four perhaps, And you know, 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.200 and we we've changed, really changed and evolved our footprint 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.959 to again take advantage of off premiss take advantage of 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.920 mobile order pickup. When we have a drive through window. 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.040 You know, we're never going to be a fast food play, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.319 so we're never going to be in order at the 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.400 window and receive your food. We might be more of 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:07.800 a park through type operation because of the handcrafted nature 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.600 of our products. But you know, I think if we 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:12.960 can get them down sub one five, we'd be doing 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:13.480 really well. 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.480 Cool. Is there any other unit economic data? 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.720 Yeah, you know, our au vs are roughly three million bucks. 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.120 You know, I am proud to say that over the years, 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.720 A big initiative of ours was to become more scalable 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.240 and more efficient as we scaled, and all under the 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:40.720 master umbrella of you know, don't f it up, keep 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.040 the soul and the brand funky and organic, and our 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.920 brand parameters have always been around quality, uniqueness, and variety, 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.319 and last time I check, you're not going to get 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.600 there by you know, shrinking portion sizes and dumbing the 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.840 menu down and doing all of I think the harmful 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.720 things that a lot of operators get lulled into doing 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:04.679 is look to maximize their efficiencies. We've been really fortunate, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:11.920 Michael and enable to do both to maximize the guest 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.320 experience and to do that in a way that's most efficient. 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:17.360 And I give you a couple of examples. Number one 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:21.960 is it's just our beef program. We used to grind 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.120 all whole muscle proteins in house. We had eight different 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:29.120 proteins from ahi tuna to bison to different types of 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:34.800 chuck and brisket and turkey and you name it. And 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.680 we had butcher shops in our restaurants and the brand 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.360 was really built around this made from scratch, made by 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.120 hand mantra. And as we started to dive into the brand, 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.960 we realized, yeah, that's kind of cool, but what people 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:52.160 really want is just a craveable, badass, great burger. That's 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.439 really all they want. And so we started to test 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.480 and COVID really helped gave us some covered but we 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:04.040 ended up spending more per pound in our proteins. But 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.880 by doing that, we were getting a higher quality, more 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.720 consistent protein, and yes, we were bringing it in fresh 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:16.160 in a cryoback package loosely packed, and we found it 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:17.600 at the end of the day. A there was a 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.680 ton of waste in what we were doing. Our total 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.080 cost on beef went down three hundred bases points overall, 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.120 even though we were paying fifty seven cents more pound 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.400 for the product. And it was a better burger, it 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.200 was cravable, it was made consistently instead of paying a 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.800 twenty dollars an hour butcher, you know, to throw a 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:37.480 bunch of meat and the hopper and a little bit 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:39.520 of fat, and we had an eighty twenty blend and 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.480 this much chuck and this much brisket. We just we 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.920 had a great consistent product. So that's an example of 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.200 improving the quality while we improve the efficiency of what 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.040 we did. And I'm proud to say that today as 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.360 a company, you know, we're approaching a twenty two percent 0:12:55.440 --> 0:13:01.040 store level margin type business. So you know, we've and 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.400 that really helped us because during this time of inflation, 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.480 guess what, we didn't have to take much price. In fact, 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.440 we hardly took any price, and I think we we 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.120 had margins to play with, and you know, it was 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.280 real important for us that we kept strong price value. 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.679 We kept that quality in front of people, and we 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.319 didn't want to rise raise prices to a point where 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.000 I think most people did today and they're saying, oh crap, 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.880 what do we do. We've raised these prices, we got 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.160 to start discounting to get more sales. And it's a 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.920 it's a death spiral. So I think we've been fortunate. 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.000 We we you know, we've missed that bullet by taking 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:38.559 that approach. 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.920 Yeah, you have a you have an absolute, absolutely phenomenal product. 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.120 I'm a fan, and I'm a fan of the chain's 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:50.600 use of regenerative beef. When did you know? I feel 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:55.000 like that really plays into the Texas consumer right versus 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.000 maybe some of the other sustainability initiatives you could have 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.199 taken on. When When did hop Dot make that switch? 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:03.560 And how is it? How has it been received by 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:04.280 our customers? 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.160 Yeah, you know, gosh, we made that decision about a 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.360 year ago. Michael, I watched the Ground. I watched the 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:16.080 movie Kiss the Ground, Okay, and one of our beef suppliers, 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.960 a regenerative beef supplier, sent me it and I was 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.200 actually watched it on YouTube. And for those who haven't 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.960 seen Kissed the Ground or the sequel common Ground. I 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.880 highly recommend it because it's an eye opener and and 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:32.520 part of our mantra, part of our company culture is 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.280 always doing right, doing right by our guests, doing right 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.840 by our business, doing right by our team members, doing 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.240 right by the planet. And we're going to take a 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.720 common sense approach. And when I watched Kiss the Ground 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:48.440 and I learned about regenerative farming and ranching, It's like, well, absolutely, 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:53.200 you know, why wouldn't we build a healthier ecosystem. Why 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:57.760 wouldn't we you know, promote and build a program around 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:02.440 more nutrient dense beef for instance, or chicken in a 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:06.280 way that is helping the earth, and it's fighting climate change, 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.600 and it's you know, lowering our dependency on water usage 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:15.680 and pesticides and herbicides and you know, creating dust and 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.360 soil erosion, And why wouldn't we do all that? And 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.640 and so you know, there was an investment to be 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.400 made for sure. I mean, we're you know, if we 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.320 just flipped the switch tomorrow. Currently, you know, we don't 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.480 think we can find enough supply. We go through roughly 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.040 fifty five hundred head of cattle a year and it 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.320 would be hard to find a soul supplier that could 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:43.160 handle that in the regenerative space. But it's it's it's transitioning. 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.320 More and more ranchers are transitioning and a rapid clip, 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.600 and you know, I'm hoping within the next couple of 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:53.000 years we could go one hundred percent regenerative. So you know, 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.800 we are mostly regenerative. We buy up all the stuff 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.200 we can find that's high quality, and we're we're out 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.040 there telling the story to anyone who will listen about 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:07.440 all of the great benefits from turning to regeneritive farming 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:08.040 and ranching. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.920 Yeah, it's great. The page on your website dedicated to 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.600 conservation for the rest of us and the Force of 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.480 Nature brand video are both great. I suggest, thank you 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.640 listeners check those out too. And I'm a customer of 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:24.200 Force of Nature. Their products are great. 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.800 They are they are good, great company, great people, and 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.840 they truly believe in what they're doing, which which is inspiring. 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.520 Yeah, it's good stuff. And so I haven't been to 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.440 Hop Dottie in a minute. Unfortunately. When did you put 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:40.960 chicken on the menu and what percentage of the mix 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:41.760 does it make up? 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.240 Yeah, so from day one we have had a ground 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.520 chicken burger. From day one, we've had a ground turkey burger. 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.640 From down one or day one, we've had a ground 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.640 a heat shashimi great tuna burger. Uh, and from day 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.240 one we've had a bison burger. So those have all 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.240 been in the mix. We switched to a whole muscle 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:07.480 fried chicken breast option gosh, probably pre COVID, maybe twenty nineteen. 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.159 It was with the proliferation of all the hot chicken 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.960 and we came up with our own version of a 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.600 really kick ass Nashville hot chicken sandwich, and that led 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.040 into tenders and being able to do toss tenders and 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.760 tenders in a different way. So it's a big part 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:28.560 of our sale. I would say out of whole kind 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.880 of entree mix, it's about ten percent, So I think 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.560 that's a pretty healthy mix. And that's not including the 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.440 ground chicken burger that we currently serve, that's just whole 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:39.600 muscle chicken. 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.480 Yeah, and it's been such a hot category. It continues 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.359 that we continue to see innovation around chicken and the 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.960 quick service and fast casual names that we cover. Are 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.199 you seeing it grow as a percentage of mix or 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.919 is it about ten percent? You seem like where it's 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:55.600 going to settle in. 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.639 No, it's slowly growing, and I think our tender mix 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.040 is growing, you know, A we feel really comfortable. We 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.200 work with Redbird Chicken out of Colorado. Give those guys 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.360 a shameless plug. They are world class, fantastic, regenitive chickens. 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.800 You can tell and taste the difference for sure. So 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.240 I think as we sell more and more of it, 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.800 nothing beats a quality fresh made chicken tender, made from 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.800 scratch right. We bred it in house. And we do 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.040 a variety of tossed tenders. So we have a bunch 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:32.680 of signature toppings and sauces that we've created for our 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.159 famous fries, our permbers on truffle fries, well we do 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.800 those with our toss tenders as well, and that is 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:42.560 growing as a big category in itself, just the tenders. 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:46.639 So no, I see that continuing to grow. But we 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:48.159 just you know, at Hop Dotty, we have a lot 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.720 of great beef and turkey and other options, and so 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.240 people kind of are predisposed to come in knowing they 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:55.439 want a beef burger or they're going to eat you know, 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:00.479 healthier with a bison burger or a tuner burger. But 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.920 it allows us to access a different niche of our 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.359 potential guest space that I really believe driving our frequency 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.040 frequency of business cool. 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:11.960 And so I have a question. So I noticed if 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.440 I see like pastured chickens and whole foods, they tend 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:16.520 to be smaller, right, I don't know if it's like 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:18.959 lack of hormones and stuff like that. So is it 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.679 is it difficult finding tenders the size that you would like? 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.720 That are you know, yes and no? And it comes 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:29.560 and goes in waves. You know, if we said, hey, 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.040 this is our spect and we're only going to take 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:36.160 this spec then I think it's a challenge. We sell 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.720 it by the weight, so it might be you know, 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.600 four big tenders, or it could be six smaller tenders, 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.880 and it constantly evolves. And one of the reasons why 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:46.639 we feel that's important because we want to put the 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:50.399 best quality on the plate rather than a perfect shape 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.639 and size. To your point, you know, with some of 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:58.240 those products, to your point, time to harvest could be longer, 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.480 and that drives the cost up, right for because they 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.600 want time to maturity. And but you know, they're not 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:08.000 pumping them full of steroids and growth hormones and everything 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.399 else that's bulking up this chicken. They're not you know, 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.119 injecting it with saline and different types of solutions. And 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.000 so I think if we're flexible on size and inflexible 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.800 on quality, that's a good path for us to take. 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:27.040 Yeah, smart, how big is your bar business? 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.600 You know, our bar business is healthy. It's roughly fifteen 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:32.760 percent of our business. We've seen it EBB and flow 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.240 and it's rebounding right now. With the addition, if you know, 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:37.520 we're we're really at the end of the day at 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.280 Margarite and craft beer bar. But we do you know, 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:45.399 open up to what people want to drink, and and 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.480 that means maybe sometimes domestic beers, you know, not alcoholic 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:51.639 beers are on a rise right now. They're on a 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.880 tear out and another shameless plug for Athletic Brewing Company, 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.640 if you haven't had their beer, it's it's fantastic, it's 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:03.000 na And so we're seeing a rise in nabev, which 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.200 we think is good for us. It's a premium offering 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.600 and product that you know, enhances our experience. The fact 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.440 that it doesn't have liquor in it. Who cares? People 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.720 are ordering it? And I see that that niche continuing 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:16.480 to grow, for sure. 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.840 I've heard great things about Athletic my brother in law. 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:22.440 I haven't had them yet, but my brother in law 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:25.680 recommended them to me. He absolutely loves those. 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:27.879 Try the Hazy I p A. I'm a big I 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.399 p A fan. Hazy I p A competes with some 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:31.639 of my favorite I p. 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:36.199 As, great Hazy IPO That Hazy I p as are 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.280 right in my wheelhouse, so I'll definitely check that out. 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:42.920 All right. So I found it interesting that your loyalty 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.280 program has three levels. They're called the Headline, A Regular, 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.120 and Ultimate dotty Fan. Can you talk a little bit 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.480 about that, because it's not something that I see too often. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.560 Yeah, you know, we wanted to create a loyalty program 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.600 to build loyals, to build frequency, and it's just like 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:02.399 everybody else, but we wanted to do it not necessarily 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.840 with pragmatic. Hey you hit this level and you get 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:09.080 this for free. You know, we wanted to come up 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.320 with a different way. Really, and I don't like this term, 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:16.080 but it's it's descriptive. It's the surprise and delight, right. 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:18.439 We want to be able to give people recognition at 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:22.280 different points in time throughout their journey with us. It's 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.320 the whole notion of show me you know me, show 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.760 me you care, and show me you're committed to doing 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:30.960 something cool that's going to drive me back into hop 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:33.120