Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. I think this episode is going to release, it's going to probably be episode 320. I don't know that I've ever had a guest that I have tried to record now for the third time. Lawrence and I have done this podcast. I screwed up the first one, then he lost power on the second one. I'm excited to talk about what Lawrence and his team have been building. Very, very exciting brand, a brand that I grew up with. Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys podcast. today's episode, we are joined by Lawrence Brown. We talk a ton about his background and where he's at now. He talks a bit about time with Procter and Gamble as well as Burger King, but he is now with Greta's Italian Ice and they have grown almost 20 % year over year. They're at over 600 locations open now. And he talks about why ⁓ Lawrence, don't you go through a little bit of your background, a little bit of your history for the third time now. I've heard it three times. Maybe I can repeat it back for our guests. But share a little bit about who Lawrence is real quick, and then we'll jump into the Rita story. ⁓ they continue to grow in the franchise community and how they are awareness for Italian ice outside of the ⁓ markets of the Northeast and growing pretty expansively across the Midwest and into ⁓ Sunbelt, Texas, Arizona, and the South. If you know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I'm the Chief Revenue Officer for CBS Northstar. We were at the Northstar Plano Sells Solution for multi-unit restaurants. Please check us out at cbsnorstar.com.

Lawrence Brown: Awesome. Yeah. I was thinking about it over the weekend and this really gives time a charm and run for its money. So super excited to be back here for the third time and enjoyed the first two. So hopefully the third will be just as much fun, but ⁓ little bit about me. I also grew up in the Northeast. grew up in New York area and went to undergraduate Villanova, did ROTC there. So was in the military for a couple of years as ⁓ acquisitions officer. Got my master's studying finance, spend some time working in a bank and a real estate company and eventually

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: And now, on to our conversation.

Lawrence Brown: about 15 years ago, moved over to the franchising side. working in finance, real estate and franchisee relationships. I started out at King, which eventually became restaurant brands, worked on that business, a couple other ones, as I mentioned, finance and real estate functions, as well as field operations, and my last role as head of business development for the Americas. I then got an amazing opportunity to join two former bosses of mine. at Fat Tuesdays to corporate development, which was huge for me because, you know, as a franchisor, many times you just working with franchisees, they're leading development. I actually had to build my own shops. Incredible experience. I then got recruited that way to go work at Procter & Gamble's franchising arm, Tide Cleaners and Tide Laundromats. Really was ramping up, ⁓ build that out. Wasn't looking to go anywhere. And then Linda gave me a call. who's my boss and the CEO and said, look, we have this opportunity I've worked with her in the past. Love the brand. As you had mentioned, Gramp in the Northeast. really got excited to, and now I can actually say it, the first two times we did it, not the case, but I've actually had my one year anniversary, which was last week. So I've been here for a year. ⁓ incredible to lead up franchising and development ⁓ really push us into this next phase. Incredible brand, been around for 42 years coming up on here shortly. ⁓ in the northeast and we have and mid-Atlantic as well as the rest of the country. We have over 600 shops.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: It's amazing. So, again, like I said on the onset when I did the intro, I grew up with Rita's. So for those that either haven't gotten the privilege of having Rita's, why don't you explain what is a Rita's, you what is a shop that you keep referring to that you guys got over 600 of them, but you guys aren't in all 50 states and there's some international listeners and all of that kind of stuff. So talk a little bit about what makes Rita's unique. What is the product? And again, I know that there's one coming very close to me soon. And so ⁓ my waistline is not going to thank me, but my taste buds will soon here. Cause I get rid of when I travel, but haven't had any here here in Texas recently.

Lawrence Brown: Yes. Well, importantly, I'll also say as we are in a national in the Philippines and this year we should be opening up in Israel and we're looking at other markets as well. for the international edition, if your interest is good, please feel free to...

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: I did not know that. Very cool. We didn't go through that the first two times we went on this. I love that. That we hit another point. But yeah, so what is Arita's? What is Arita's and kind of, I guess, explain a little bit about what makes the product and the brand unique.

Lawrence Brown: Yes. Yep. So Rita's is Italian ice and custard for people aren't familiar with Italian ice. It's, it's like nothing else. And yes, you might say, Oh, I'm familiar. saw Luigi's in the, in the Zertisle as you know, Grumman. It's nothing like it. It's flight. It's light. It's fluffy. It just kind of melts in your mouth. There's nothing like it in this, you know, in a hot summer day comes from, you know, Southern Italy. It's based on Granita from the Amalfi coast. Just so delectable, so incredible. no way to even describe it unless you have it. So, know, our secret always when we new shops is to get in someone's mouth and have them try it. ⁓ then we pair that uniquely like no one else in the world with custard, a high quality custard ⁓ that would put up against any of the pure plate custard players out there is just a number one best in class product. And when you put those two things together, you create a flagship product as a gelati. So base to the bottom, we put custard, we put ⁓ your then of ⁓ of Italian ice in the middle and then dollop on the top of custard as well. And it's just such a refreshing, enjoyable summer, fall, and spring treat as well as now with our drive-thrus even into the winter, a lot of people are grabbing them and enjoying.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: I love it. And it's not just nice. I mean, it's flavored ice. And so I think, not that you didn't share that, but talk a little bit about kind of what some of the flagship flavors are, because I know you and I talked about it and I was a little bit shocked as to kind of your number one bestseller. then, because I've always gotten one of the other two that are kind of part of your guys' flagships. But one of the other things that I love is it's flavored and it's not your like the Hawaiian ice trucks that I see at the sock. soccer fields and things like that where it's just sugar on top of sugar. It's pretty subtle. So I'd love for you to talk through kind of the flavor profiles and a little bit more about that kind of flavored ice.

Lawrence Brown: Yep, great point to bring out. So first of all, we're made with real fruit. We have almost 80 flavors. We have certain fan favorites that are required in the shops, and then we allow our owners to then choose based on what their guests like and what the unique market is driving. But importantly, as you hit on, we're very different than the shaved ice, the Hawaiian type ice that you had mentioned, right? Because the way that they are made in a lot of these ice products is they start with ice and they shave it down, or the snow cones you get there, and then they add a bunch of flavor on the top. Well, the two problems with that versus our product is that it doesn't necessarily infuse the flavor into the ice, number one. And then secondly, what happens when you put warm mix on top of cold ice, it melts it. So our product is actually, as I said, made with fresh fruit. It starts at a liquid state and then we freeze it. Just like, you know, your gelatos are very high quality ice creams out there. We use very, very high quality machines are specific and we're customizing made just for us to produce this high quality ice that again, it's just light, fluffy, airy and refreshing on the summer day. And it's not like you had your cup and you look at it, ⁓ I just put a bunch of squirts of flavor on top and it's half melted.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Yep, yeah. And so again, you had shared, you know, kind of your guys' signature flavors. What are those signature flavors, cause Lawrence, cause again, ever since I had you on the very first time, I'm like, you know, for me, it's the, it's, one of those three that I crave. And then there's a second one that I love. And so what are the three signature items? I think, I think there's three and if there's more, you know, correct me.

Lawrence Brown: Yep, so our number one flavor, I'd say by far, always surprises people. But then once they try it, they're like, I get it, and this is all I want to get is mango. And our flagship product here is a mango gelati. So basically vanilla custard with the mango. But our other top selling flavors are cherry lemon, as well as cotton candy. The kids love cotton candy.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Okay, hadn't had the cotton candy, haven't had the mango and unfortunately I'm a huge mango fan. Ironically, if I ever go to a restaurant, they've got mango sorbet. It doesn't matter how many calories I've eaten for my meal, I'm gonna have mango sorbet. And so for me, now the next time I'm at Rita's, cause I'm typically either a cherry or lemon guy with the gelati. That's my go-to when I've been, but now I've gotta go check out the mango.

Lawrence Brown: Yes, you have to. Well, now I'm even more worried when we open up our plant open a bunch of shops in Dallas because not only are they going to be closer to you, you're going to try the mango and you're going to be even more hooked.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Yeah, no, for sure. You talked about the fact that you guys are at 600 units. ⁓ one of the things that I loved when we were talking before and had the challenges is the fact that you guys ⁓ figured out a way to put these shops into non-traditional locations or repurposing existing locations. I'd love to ⁓ our listeners hear a little bit about that workflow and how you guys got to that point, because unfortunately, I've seen brands stall out or struggle. ⁓ because they either trench shove a square peg in a round hole and it doesn't work, or they have to have it look exactly this way and it limits their ability to grow into other regions because there's places that don't have a drive-through as you alluded to or some of these other things. So I'd love for you to kind of talk a little bit about kind of the history of the buildings themselves and the shops and then kind of how you guys have continued to evolve because I do think it's a great part of your story.

Lawrence Brown: Yeah, no, and I think from the beginning, we always said we make it a Redis. We try to find the best location where we can drive traffic and then we convert it into a Redis, right? Because we're always looking at how can we optimize franchisees' investments so they get to try to get the highest return possible, right? So from the beginning, we always said you look at it, you know, those ice cream stands, they were always converted and make it a Redis. What we saw going into late teens is that There was specifically one location where the franchisee was losing property control the opportunity came up where the best site kept coming back over and over again. It was a former bank. Well, we did is we ultimately said, okay, let's let's convert this site and let's make it a read us. Let's go through the process and convert to read us and we were surprised significantly how much better it did because we added the drive-through. Now we had some drive-throughs in the past. We knew they did better. And we're actually in the process here in a couple of days, our latest FTD will break out the drive through numbers. We have over 30 drive through locations and we're really, we were really surprised and excited that, you know, taking a former bank like we've done in many other locations worked extremely well. And we started doing more and more locations, former coffee shops, former dry cleaners. And what we saw was, and this one specifically in Lynden mall, New Jersey is that, you know, franchisees can reduce their costs. They also reduce the amount of time it takes to permit because you already have the that they use there, all of those pieces and you can get up and running very, quickly and you make it a read as versus as you said, you know, many other brands will say, you know, as long as the kettle pods black, it's perfectly fine, which I means knock everything down and start from scratch.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Yep. Well, and even with that, with the advent of COVID and kind of just the fact that, you know, as you guys are, you know, doing, everybody's looking for an end cap with a drive-through at a place. And so it limits the numbers of locations that can be in any city because there's you just, there's physically not as much of the fact that you guys are able to repurpose things like banks, repurpose things like coffee shops. I guess. How challenging has that been, as you guys have gone through that process? I've talked with other franchise owners on the show and just in our space, it's a challenge. Finding locations that are going to be the high foot traffic are going to be the traffic that are going to drive franchisee success, because nothing is going to kill a brand worse than having franchisees that are grumpy and not having success. ⁓ guys are going to struggle to continue to grow, but it sounds like you guys have been able to match both. you know, the physical location as well as kind of the growth trajectory. so I'd love to have you kind of help our listeners what have been the challenges and how have you guys helped overcome that.

Lawrence Brown: I think again, the adaptive reuse really allows us to be nimble or a lot of other brands won't do that allows us to go into spaces. Not only the fact that we take second generation, but we can go down to 500 square feet or ⁓ to 1500 square feet. That ability allows us to go into places again, a lot of brands wouldn't be able to do. That said, I think a lot of brands and this is something that I've seen being 15 plus year in the development space, ⁓ the up until a year ago has been tighter than I've ever seen it, right? And you know, generally, what have we seen? know, 2001, 2008, a lot of brands go through retrenching and you see a lot of spaces open up. Well, we went through COVID. A lot of landlords did, you you're blend and extend. They got government funding. So not many shops actually closed down, which put ourselves in the retail real estate space at all time lows. That being said, mean, unless you're buried in a hole you've seen in the last three, six, nine months, a ton of different brands just trimming their portfolios. ⁓ didn't have that opportunity through Kogan. For us, we'd continue to see this as opportunities where we can step in and really jump into second-gen spaces and take advantage of it. ⁓ think the most important thing that we always say to franchisees that sign up and ⁓ in, they say, we have deadlines. Yes, we do have deadlines for a reason because we need to be working towards a goal. But we have never not extended the deadline. If someone is working diligently with us making offers, making LOIs, and unfortunately the site doesn't come through. So we're always flexible for people who are who are diligent towards the ultimate targets.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Well, and I guess I'll applaud you to start with ⁓ the PR firm that kind of sent over the stats I thought was pretty amazing. The fact that you guys have 35 shops open in 2025 and are on target to do, ⁓ you know, 10 more than that, at least this year in 2026. Clearly, whatever you guys are doing is working. And the other stuff that I was that your franchisees sales are up pretty significantly. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that success and. And how have you guys been able to not only make them so successful, but to continue to find, mean, obviously, can pat yourself on the back in your team, because I know ⁓ a lot of hard work, but it's amazing, because you're ⁓ of very few that has gotten into that place to able to grow not only at that pace, but to have the success within those brands. A lot of people in the franchise space, and I hate it, I hate to say this, but I watched it. They grow like crazy, but the franchisees aren't successful, and so it's not sustainable. it lasts three or four years and then they struggle. And so I'd love to have you talk about both sides of that. How have you not only grown shop volume, but inside of each of the shops that you guys have, you've seen sales uptick. I'd love to have you share a little bit about some of those secrets and what it is that you guys are learning and how you're doing it.

Lawrence Brown: Yeah, so I mean, first, of course, it comes to having a great team, like have a phenomenal team across the board really to support our franchisees up until recently, 100 % franchisee focus. So their success is our success. I think the second step is obviously recruiting and trying to find the best franchisees possible, right? So starting from the beginning, bringing them through the pipeline. You know, I always say the first thing that is most important is you got to like the brand that you're going into. Like, you know, if you're going to buy a, you know, Sorry to pick on their accountants, but you're going to buy a tax franchise and hate a county and you hate tax, like probably not the place you're going to ⁓ exactly. And then obviously, after that, finding your path to profitability, investment, and all of those pieces. I think the second piece that's really made us successful, ⁓ or third is being very focused on what we do well. A lot of brands, there's that slippery slope, like, okay, let's just add another piece, let's add another piece.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Yeah, probably not the right franchise model to be part of, huh?

Lawrence Brown: Really, as we started in beginning, are our core products? Custard and ice. And because of those two products, we can be very nimble when it comes to labor. We can flex down if it's extremely slow. You can be operating with one employee potentially up to five. So you can be nimble in labor as well as that maximizes cogs. Not only do we have a low cogs relative to other brands, we also have lower waste because we have less products that we're selling and it's a little bit longer shelf life versus something that's hot. piece of food that has, ultimately either go stale or, you know, or can expire because of timing.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Yeah, no, and so talk a little bit about, you I know when we had one of our last talks, Lawrence, we talked a little bit about the product and how you guys keep it consistent and keep it fresh across the brain. And I think it's a really cool story because again, lot of these franchisees that you guys are bringing on and in the future, obviously you're on the show to kind of share the story and go acquire new ones. The fact that you guys do a lot of the heavy lifting to help them get to the place where they're not having to grind their own beef for cheeseburgers in the back or some of these kind of things really, really helps. And so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about kind of your guys' supply chain and what does it look like as a franchisee to bring product in and kind of have it on the shelf to be able to keep consistency, to be at a place where you can deliver a great product across 600 shops, hopefully soon to be 800 to 1,000 or whatever a couple of years from now. But what does that look like from the franchisee's perspective? Because a lot of them are looking for How do I make money in a simple way where I'm the sales and marketing and I've just got to staff the store and things just go.

Lawrence Brown: Yeah, so great question. So the first thing, obviously it all starts with training. Every single franchisee that comes in needs to come to our headquarters in Philadelphia and do one week training. They then go into the local market and work with a franchisee. And then lastly, when they do the grand opening, we're there with them on site to help support that opening and train them in their shop. right, how does it, the quality, all of our products are made fresh in the shops. Right. Our cut, our ice has a 36 hour shelf life. So if you made it today, you know, this morning, it basically lasts through tomorrow. So on one side you say, okay, compare that to many other hot food places. Like you have anywhere 15 to probably an hour shelf life. Well, we have production, we have kitchen display, we have different to basically meet the projected volumes so that you can produce different levels of batch sizes based on what you think the volumes are going to be. But again, it's going to be produced fresh and you have ultimately almost two days. to be able to sell it because you obviously open after lunchtime on the first day. Our custard has a seven day shelf life. When it gets put into the machine, it comes in fresh and refrigerated. It has a significantly longer shelf life in the bag in the box that it comes in. And ⁓ after seven days, the reason is because we need to clean down our breakdown of machines to clean them. We have many different procedures that we allow it to extend that. Your most expensive product in there is your custard ⁓ because milk fats and dairies and all that's in there. where when you break down a chain, make cookie sandwiches as well as pints that you can sell to go. And that will extend it another 30 days as well. So not only do you have an opportunity to upsell and give people product to take home with them, you also have the opportunity to sell, extend the life and reduce your overcocks.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: I love that. I love the fact that you guys have got it so down. The other thing that I continue to talk to franchise or is about Lawrence and I don't know that we've talked about this, but I'd love your take on it is this, how do you make a reader successful in a community? I you guys are very community oriented. It's a product that, it's a product that goes from, you know, the youngest child in the family all the way up and through, you know, the elderly, you know, grandma and grandpa and everywhere in between.

Lawrence Brown: Thank

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Again, when I got to experience it, was when I was visiting my grandparents on the East Coast during the summertime. So it was like a perfect afternoon treat for me, but as a kid. so I know that being part of the community and continuing to pour into your local community oftentimes is the key to success that you are one of those chosen choices. I'd love to have you talk a little bit about how you guys facilitate that and help the... brand overall, both from a recognition perspective as well as to continue to grow within their local community.

Lawrence Brown: Yep, great question. think the number one thing I always hear Linda, our CEO says is that this is not a business for introverts. You need to be outside of your four walls. Of course, you start, you need to manage it, you need to train everyone, get everyone going, but you need to be outside of your four walls. You need to be managing the community, managing your involvement. And we always say the three things that make you super successful involved in your community is you're involved in your local schools. you're involved in local religious institutions, as well as you're involved in sports communities. And all three of those are the keys to the success. Because we also say our decision maker is the kids. They're ultimately saying, hey, I want to go to Rita's after my baseball game, after XYZ church event, after school. You're celebrating the win. You're doing your pick me up after the loss, all of those things. But it's so important to be involved in that community, knocking on all those doors and then getting people to try the product, especially when you're in new markets.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Yeah, no, and I know you shared earlier, Lawrence, about getting the product into somebody's mouth, you know, to get them to taste it. I guess what things do you guys do, especially when you're going to new community? Have you guys got kind of a playbook that says you've got to go hit all of these institutions? You know, I guess walk us through what that looks like. You know, this is kind of your team's job is to help make a new market as you guys are, especially getting outside of kind of your core market of the Northeast. I'm sure doing it effectively is going to be huge to continue to grow that. I'd love to have you share with our listeners that are now sitting here listening going, I've always loved Rita's. I didn't know they were coming. How do I get involved? That kind of thing. Help talk through what that looks like.

Lawrence Brown: Yeah, we always like to say the fours, right? The first thing is you got to get your four walls established. Then you go out four blocks and then you go out four miles, right? And the idea behind that is, is that again, you need to, our product, like when we do our, you know, our first day of spring, you know, and we give out the free ice, you know, one of those small kids cups, it's like 10, 15 cents overall cost to it. So get out there. It's a very low, inexpensive product. Get people to leverage what we have as the Tasteritas. So find the nearest. you know, whether it's, there might be, you know, the volunteer ambulance, local fire department, police department, local doctors offices, all of those people, you get in there and you just get them to try the product. go out to the, when you have your, when people are signing up, oh yeah, we'd have our intramural soccer signups come out. Okay, ask, hey, can we just give out RIDAs, scoop out, let people try the product. So get within those pieces of the community and get it into their mouth so they can try it. And once you start building that routine, that's huge and they've tried. The second thing is all about partnerships, right? So we like to talk about it. We have, we call them celebrity scoop nights where you get the teachers. They'll actually just say, look, hey, 50 % of whatever percentage you decide of sales will go back to local school. how cool is it? You know, I think of it, you know, your teacher is, out there scooping for you you get to go in there and get the product or, ⁓ we have different. many other fundraiser and creative ideas that we have things off the shelf, but we also don't limit our franchise. If they come up with a great idea or something that's specific to their community that allows them to to actually promote readers and do that, we're always supportive of it and figure out ways to do it. On top of, you know, we have national charities work with. We've been proud partner of Alex's Lemonade for many, many years as well. So there's many different avenues to do that. But the key is outside those four walls, four blocks, four miles, making yourself known and get everyone to try the product.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Yeah, no, and your whole comment about not being an introvert and owning a Redis is a hundred percent true. But I think it's, I think it goes to show that the product is very beloved and it's one of those things that when done right, there's like nothing else in the world that you can have. And so the fact that to your point, it's a sales and marketing game as much as anything else. But once you start to get those repeat customers, it's huge to help with that. Last question, Lawrence, I guess is, As I think about the dessert category and the extra shoulder period time, where Redis fits, it's not a meal replacement per se. Although I do know that when you start with dessert, sometimes life is better. But for the most part, it's not a meal replacement. What do you say to those listeners that are out there that when we're recording this, we happen to be in the middle of this nasty snowstorm, ice storm, that are like, Rita's works great in the summertime, but it sucks in all of these other periods. And I know that that's not true, but I'd love for you to dispel that myth that says it's only good for on the beach in the summer, because that's not the case. It is kind of a ⁓ 12 month, you know, between the drive through and the fact that you guys have figured out how to get off-prem working, you know, to a certain extent. It's huge that you can end up extending your periods all the way out to 12 months in many of the markets that you guys are trying to hit. And so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that.

Lawrence Brown: Yeah, well, the first thing I would say is that one of the highest volume months, I think it's actually number one volume month, depending on where you look for the research for ice cream sales in supermarkets is January. So dispelling the myth of like, ⁓ you only ice cream during the summer. You know, there's a huge amount of volume ice cream is being sold. Now, yes, if you have a walk up ice cream shop that people need to stand out and get a frozen product, of course, it becomes a little bit harder, just like you're saying in recording there in Dallas, where you got a couple inches of snow, people don't want to go outside. but that's where the drive-through comes in. That's where we've really focused to allow it, right? It's not only the fact that, know, post-COVID, when you look at multi-different data, it's like over 50 % of people prefer a drive-through. And oh, by the way, our core audience, families and kids, over 40 % prefer, you know, drive-throughs versus not because of the ease. It's also the weather factor that allows you to go through the drive-through. You know, I think if you look at many coffee concepts, you know, their highest selling side is actually not your hot. beverages or cold beverages and they sell just as much in the winter because of the drive-through purpose. So that's one piece of it. The second piece of our business line is that we're not just that the shop piece. We also have third party delivery that we've had now going on six years, right? It's been extremely successful and people love to order especially when it's a little bit colder outside as well as we have catering, right? So, you know, franchisees you can go out and cater in your local community and be able to to take advantage, whether it's birthday party, sporting events, whatever that might be, school events. So the consumption is there, as I mentioned, based on supermarket sales. It's just going out there and finding the individuals because, you know, they're probably sitting inside where it's 75 degrees and they still want to eat a dessert. Most of time it's a cold dessert.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Absolutely. And if there was a read us close enough that I could do it yesterday during the middle of the ice, it would have been a fantastic sweet treat that, you know, it's coming close. It'll be here soon enough. I know last time we talked, it was it was coming up. So selfishly, I'm excited. So how do people get in touch? Lawrence, like what are you guys looking for in a franchise? You know, are you looking for a multi unit? Are you looking for single or are you looking for Geo's? I'd love for you to kind of kind of qualify who it is that you're looking to contact you guys to.

Lawrence Brown: I'll see you soon, yeah.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: to learn more just because again, sometimes you guys are looking forward to this point. ⁓ sure, already I'll just repeat it. You have to be extroverted or have somebody on your team that can be extroverted. Even if you're an introverted owner, find somebody on your team that can go out into the community. But I'd love for you to share a little bit about what that looks like to get in touch with you and your team.

Lawrence Brown: So first of all, what I'd say is that we actually just launched in December our drive-through incentive program. What's really exciting about this, it's new franchisees as well as existing franchisees qualified. We believe so much in the drive-through that we're going to put capital, you $45,000 to $60,000 depending on when you're opening the date and there's some pieces that go through to equipment and some is actual check that's being sent to you. But we're actually going to put money behind it. You know, I've worked with many different franchisees that say, oh, we'll give you a discount on this and you'll pay it over five years. No. You have your safe treatment of oxy-healstiffy and you ring up your first sale. Boom, we'll send you a check to help support that. So we believe so much in a drive-through that we're willing to put capital behind it. So I think that's the first thing to continue to advertise. When we look for franchises, yes, the first piece is obviously the personality is key. We want people, now is it required that you sign up for multi-units? No, but we look for people to have the... capacity to get to multi-unit. So sometimes you get someone comes in and says look I'd like to do one see if it's Successful and add more and most of time they come back and sign up for more and more right But what does that mean it means that they have the financial capacity, right? We have minimum qualification So you have the ability to do more even if you sign up for one But you also have the managerial capacity based on your experiences where you've had multi units in the past or whether you know Those are the business experiences you have so you have the ability to have you know, three four or five shops because that allows you Going back to my point again, the more shops you have, can start putting a team in and get outside of those four walls and drive and manage that business.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: I love that. And so where do they get in touch? How do they jump on? You said you guys have got this incentive. It's so unique. And I think it's a really cool thing that you guys believe in the brand so much and believe in the growth. And obviously, it's paying off from the success criteria that you guys have. But the fact that you guys are there, where do they learn more? Is it just on the main website? Do you guys have a franchise-specific website? How can they get in touch and dig in deeper?

Lawrence Brown: Yeah, and I think one other question you asked is regions, Our focus is we're growing out west in the Midwest. So folks in there, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, as well as south going into the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, over to Texas. And if you're interested, go out to onaritasfranchise.com. You fill out something within less than 24 hours. You fill that out. Our director of sales will reach out to you and try to find a time to schedule a call. ⁓ I'm part of that process, so he initially has it. ⁓ And once he has that initial call and both sides seem like they're interested, go through most of the paperwork, we get the opportunity to chat before ultimately the last step in the process is we have a meet the team day ⁓ you get to meet the full team, including our CEO, Linda, and all of my peers, head of marketing, supply chain, operations, estate, all of those pieces to really get to know the brand and ultimately make that decision if you want to go forward.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Yeah, and I know we talked about this and just to reiterate in one of the past recordings as we were teasing about this being number three, I'm like, ⁓ did I talk about that one last time? But the fact that you guys are also looking to work with multi-unit franchisees that have other brands that are looking to add to their portfolio as well as potentially net new franchisees that might be in business doing something else. And so I guess speak to that a little bit before ⁓ we sign off, Lawrence.

Lawrence Brown: Yeah, no, I think this could be a very good add on, especially when we think about it in a couple pieces, right? The first piece is not only, you know, if you're a multi brand, multi unit franchisee, Reedus is an easy add on to do that, you know, work well pizza concepts and as well as sandwich concepts, but along with many others that don't necessarily cannibalize each other, but they ultimately augment each other. I think the second piece that can be really interesting that we've seen and we've had a lot of interest in Hey, I got two brands. got a pizza one and you know, want to add something else I go out and sometimes I find a side-by-side space. I'm involved in the real estate works perfect You know, of course we're able to you know, can co-develop the space and be very successful that way too So not only from the business perspective but from the real estate strategy perspective as well obviously you can leverage some of the support structure and the managerial and all of those pieces with both brands

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Yeah, no, and the thing I love, and again, gotten the privilege to talk now a couple times, is just one, how creative you guys are, and two, is just how you guys want to work with the groups to help make it work for both parties. I see all too many times ⁓ in 25-plus years working in the space, it's like, this is who we are, this is what we do, get over it. You guys seem like the antithesis of that, where it's like, no, we're gonna work with you to figure out, does it make sense? rather than it being one size, know, to your point, we're gonna scrape and rebuild. You guys are like, okay, let's go look at real estate. Let's go look at the different ways that we can do it because we want it to work just as much as you guys do because the successful franchisees ultimately help both the brand as well as help those franchisees to continue to serve their community.

Lawrence Brown: Yep, I couldn't agree more. most importantly, that's because how our guests view it, everybody thinks of it as that. That's my local Redos. A of times they know the owner, they know the franchisee. So all of this large brand, they think about it. That's my shop. My place is we always say ice custard happiness. That's the happiest place where I can go and I know it.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Well, I'm certain that there's lots of people in life that think the happiest place on earth is at Aritas not at Disneyland So so I appreciate Lawrence you coming back again for a third time ⁓ we would have had a problem I think Lawrence and I might have given up on this podcast but now going through three times It's been fun to share the story Is there anything else that we missed on today's show that maybe we covered before or something new and exciting other than the fact that you're now ⁓ Just eclipse your one year ⁓ year with ⁓ the team

Lawrence Brown: Yep, mean, think it's just, again, we're super excited for this brand. just, you know, we got 40 years, which I think the phenomenal piece about being around for 40 years is we're not going anywhere. We're just going to continue to grow and we want to do it the right way with the right partners. you know, sometimes that might mean, you know, going a little bit slower than you want, but it's all about being successful in this. So super excited to chat with anyone. Feel free. They can also reach out directly to me. Find me as well if you have interest, but. Again, we see huge potential to continue to grow this brand across the US as well as internationally as we slowly find markets that works well as well.

Jeremy Julian - Restaurant ...: Awesome. Just as a reminder, ownerredis.com. If you haven't already subscribed to the show, please do so. Again, restauranttechnologyguys.com, YouTube, Facebook, all of the different social media outlets. Lawrence, thank you again for sharing the story. Thank you for continuing to grow the brand and to our listeners. Make it a great day.

Lawrence Brown: Thank you.