When you’re the CEO of an emerging brand, you’re not sitting back calling shots from a distance—you’re on site, sleeves rolled, building tables at 7am and leading pre-shift at 11. The last two weeks were exactly that: setting up the store, training the team, pressure-testing every system, and making sure the opening felt like us—tight, warm, and high-energy.
Every opening teaches us something new, and this one was no exception. We refined our station charts and prep par levels, tightened our service rhythm for peak periods, and sharpened the handoff between FOH/BOH so guests feel the pace without the panic. We audited the menu boards and delivery platforms (accuracy matters), tuned thresholds for out-of-stocks, and doubled down on our “open-to-close” training days so new teams experience the full daily cadence before day one.
Beyond the four walls, we spent real time building a foundation for community marketing. That means more than a couple of social posts. It’s a local playbook—walking the neighborhood, dropping taco boxes and catering one-pagers to offices, gyms, and studios, lining up school & team partnerships, mapping nearby events, and setting a simple weekly drumbeat the team can sustain after we leave:
- a rotating tasting/sampling touchpoint,
- a local partner highlight,
- a value hook (think combo/Tuesday plays), and
- a story post that shows the humans behind the brand.
We also brought what I’ll just call the vibes. Openings aren’t just operational—they’re cultural. You can feel when a team clicks. We celebrate first wins loudly, coach in real time, and set clear standards so “how we do things here” is non-negotiable but still fun. It matters.
This morning I finally got back to the office, made the massive list, and yes, I’m checking it twice—because our next opening is in two weeks, with another corporate store landing shortly after. This is the biggest leap of growth we’ve taken in such a short window. It’s exhilarating and, honestly, a little overwhelming. But I feel confident—confident in the system we’re building, in the training that now runs like a spine through the brand, and in the legacy partners who are walking this path with us.
For the curious, here’s what “the list” looks like between openings:
- Marketing rollouts: localized calendars, geo-targeted ads, creator/ambassador outreach, campus & corporate sampling, and a lean PR hit list.
- Onboarding & training: pre-shift scripts, guest flow drills, role-play for tricky moments, and a clean certification path so leaders can coach up, not clean up.
- Ops & forecasting: labor grids aligned to real traffic patterns, prep yields and waste tracking, and a simple weekly scorecard (sales mix, speed, accuracy, guest sentiment).
- Experience checks: secret shopper cadence, social listening, and a quick post-opening “hot wash” to lock in wins and fix friction fast.
As always, we’re learning. Some learnings are operational (the kind that end up as one line in a SOP and save you ten headaches later). Some are about people—hiring winners, giving them the reps, and creating a place where they want to stay. And some are about pace—how to grow fast without getting sloppy. My job is to hold all of that at once: marketing hat, forecasting hat, scheduling hat, onboarding hat, training hat—and decide, every day, which hat the brand needs most right now.
To our franchisees: major shoutout. Thank you for seeing the vision and building this with us. You’re not just opening stores—you’re helping shape a brand with staying power. We don’t take that lightly.
We’re late with this entry, but we’re right on time where it counts. Store five is live. Store six is in two weeks. Then our next corporate build lands. It’s a lot. It’s big. And it’s exactly the work we signed up for.
Back to the list. Next stop: even smoother than the last.
