Welcome to Chopping it Up. I'm your host, Mike Hallen, the senior restaurant and food service analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. I'm excited to announce today's guest, Matt eisen Eisenacher, Senior VP of Brand Strategy and Innovation at First Watch.
Thanks for doing this, Matt.
Always always nice to take a step away from the business and reflect to talk about It's happy.
To be here, very cool.
Before I start to grill you about the business, can you just talk a little bit about your role at First Watch, how long you've been there, and maybe any interesting career stops prior.
Yeah. I've been at First Watch now for about four years. We're based in Brandenton, Florida, and as you said, I'm the senior vice president of Brand Strategy and Innovation, so essentially I'm responsible for brand marketing and customer technology. Previously, I was the chief concept officer at Pata Tenans street Food based in Columbus, Ohio, and started my career in finance and then you know, migrated over to the world
of brand and marketing. So kind of have a good blend of both the art and the science of marketing.
Very cool.
So you know, there's been a lot of noise obviously since the start of the year in terms of consumer spending and traffic and all that good stuff. Can you share any interesting tidbits about what you and the team are seeing from the consumer right now?
Yeah, I'd actually take that behavior back even a little further, because, you know, I think with the rate of change we've seen with the consumer over the past three years has been incredible. I mean, you think about you know, I've been in this industry for a while, and the rate of change and change in behavior we've seen over the past three years since twenty nineteen is unreal. And I think, you know, what we've seen is that people are being
more discriminate about where they spend their money. They're not going to gamble with their dollars.
So you in the.
Industry, you're kind of seeing a bit of a polarization, you see, you know, like QSR brands that are moving towards one extreme and learning how to take another clickout or another second out of a transaction and are being successful with that. But on the other side of the spectrum,
you have consumers that are seeking an experience. I mean, you see all the stuff about travel and you know, travel hitting all time highs, and Sam goes through restaurants as well, that if you're going to go out to a full service occasion, that you're going to want something that's going to feel special, and you're going to want to go somewhere where it's going to be an experience
and that you want to talk to someone about. And so you know, we kind of see people pushing across those two polar extremes, and you know, we still we feel right about where we've been because you know, we offer a very consistent experience and things like our seasonal menu are ways that we can continue to surprise and whole customers so that you know it's it's the experience worth their dollars.
Very cool, and what are the demographics of the first watch customers?
Well, the cool thing about breakfast is breakfast is incredibly broadly appealing. I mean, when you look at our who's in our restaurants, all backgrounds, all ethnicities, income levels. I mean,
that's again the beauty of breakfast. You know, I think I like to say that you know, we've been around for forty years and if you look to say the first thirty to thirty five years, you know, we were we were a very traditional type of breakfast, you know, a little bit maybe closer to a diner type offering, and you might have heard people say, oh, that that's the place that I go to with my grandma. You know,
that was you know, years ago. And as we've kind of evolved the brand over the past five to ten years, you know, we've also started to attract a different kind of customer. So we kind of think of it in two different segments. We have what we call the traditionalist. That's the person we just talked about. That's like, you know, coming on a Wednesday, you get a traditional breakfast, you know, some hot coffee, and it's kind of a ritual for you and you kind of stay in your in your
crove and that's your thing. Most recently, we started to attract, you know, i'd say someone that's a little bit more of a foodie and is looking for higher quality. They like to try new things, they like to try new restaurants. We call them the trendy aspirational and the cool thing of a first watch is we we attract both of those,
So you know, it's for us. It's a little bit less about demographics, and it is psychographics and and we think that we have the ability to continue to attract both of those types of customers.
Okay, cool, Yeah, it's the it's it's a great it's a great concept, it's a great brand.
My son and I both love it. Yeah, he's a big fan.
You get when you go so oh man, I uh, well, you got to get the million dollar bacon, right, and you know I've changed it up.
Man.
Sometimes I'll get the chia pudding. Sometimes I'll get an omelet. But uh, you know, to be honest.
You're you're you're a trendy aspirational then it sounds like you wanna you want to dabble in a little bit.
Of everything to try new things.
Yeah, for sure.
And you know, a full disclosure here, I intermitte fast. So I don't get there as much as I probably would like. But my son is is a big fan and he gets there every chance, uh that he can.
You know.
So you know, one thing I've seen over the last year, especially chains that are have been able to attract high income consumers are kind of gaining some share here, and I think it might be because of the K shaped recovery. Right, higher income consumers obviously have done really well, saved a lot of money over the last few years, where lower income consumers or maybe are struggling a little bit since
the end of stimulus. So are you doing anything the specific target higher income consumers and if so, how are you doing it?
No, we don't specifically target them.
Now. I think our offering just by the nature of our menu, we do tend to be very relevant for hire incomes as well. But frankly, we have trade areas that we've opened up that we're in, you know, moderate income areas, and we do fantastic, So we don't target them. But when you look at that customer I was talking about that newer again trendy aspirational customer, they tend to skew a little bit closer to places like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, you know shop, you know, places like Nordstrom.
So so by that nature, you know, those types of individuals do make their way into a first Watch, but it's not something we intentionally try to try to attract. But you know, again, by focusing on things like our revolving seasonal menus that changes five times a year, we're able to kind of be out in more progressive trends within the culinary universe. And so you know, those types of individual that are seeking that type of experience, you know, are really attracted to a place.
Like first Watch Great and so you know, everything that that we hear is that is how much employees love that one shift, one menu model that you have. And I was very impressed with the turnover metrics in the S one when when the company went public a couple of years back. Are there any updated turnover metrics that that you'd like to share.
We we've been consistent.
I mean we we always you know, enjoy a benefit of being below industry turnover rates. And again, like you said, just those individuals that are willing to wake up at five thirty am and are motivated to come in when the sun sun rises. Just by by that nature, you know, you attract some really great individuals. And you know that along with you know, our our you first culture and
our focus our employees. We we really feel like that's been an advantage for us through the last few years where obviously you've read all the articles, you've seen it yourself.
It's been know, it's been a really wacky employment environment.
But we've all we've always felt like we have a unique advantage within that within the employment.
World for sure.
I think a big thing is just it's easier to to, you know, have a family when you have a relationship and a family when you have normal work hours, right, yeah.
I mean think about it.
We have a focus there where, you know, if we find out the teams are getting out beyond four thirty and evening, like we want to know what is going wrong?
What can we do to help? I mean, it's the consistency of knowing.
That you can leave and you know, be home for dinner consistently and you can get your kids off a school bus or have a hobby at night is really really important. And and so I don't know if you're going to ask me this. Everyone always asks a you're going to open for dinner and it's a resounding no.
I mean because like, yeah, so we always get the question.
But you know, difficult things can happen in restaurants at night, and you know that that second shift really becomes difficult. And so now our managers get to meet and see every customer and they get to be in the restaurant with.
Every one of their employees. So that's it's really unmatched.
Yeah, it's fantastic. So what's what's driving the chain strong traffic growth right now?
It's nothing sexy.
You know, we say this a lot that sometimes you know, we might sound a little boring because you know, frankly, especially over the last few years, you know, I was talking about how discriminate the consumer is hot food, hot cold food, cold smiles, little things like opening the door, right, I mean, these are like we have very particular steps
of service that are very ingrained in our culture. And you know, while the customer over the last few years has had a lot of question marks of where they might trust, you know, what restaurant brands they can trust, we have been very consistent. I mean, if you look at if you look at Technomic for instance, we're always in the top five of in the restaurant industry for brands that can trust. And so I guess the first first thing I would say is it's a really strong
focus on our teams and operations. And you know, I'll give Chris our CEO a lot of credit. You know, when we were going through say twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, a lot of brands were doing things like you know, they slim down their menu or you know, they're blocking off tables and and and you know, we we went the other way, and we wanted to if you wanted to get out during those times. We wanted to be a place that you just you could trust and you knew what you were going to get. So
we didn't change our menu one bit. We leaned into our seasonal menu. Actually we held off on pricing. So those types of things don't seem that sexy, but really allowed us to bring more people into First Watch that maybe had not come into First Watch before.
So so, you know, we really.
Believed that our focus there has really allowed us to produce some of the best performance in the restaurant industry over the last few years.
Yeah, I've run a great restaurants. You know, may not sound sexy, but it works, that's for sure. What's your biggest growth opportunity in the current store base. Is it improved through put on the weekends or boosting weekday breakfast in lunch sales.
Yes, it's both.
But the way we think about it is we talk about serving more demand and creating more demand. And you know, I think if you if you follow us, I'm sure you do. You know, at the end of twenty twenty two, we had said there are Number one focus wasn't serving more demand. I mean we have we have restaurants that you know, can have waits up to ninety minutes two
hours on the weekend. We have like demand that is sitting there at our front door, people that want to come in, and you know, we don't have to go find and so we started to realize that if we can really put a focus against, you know, be more efficient. I mean, in the last fifteen years, Mike a first Watch kitchen, it really hadn't changed. If you looked in twenty nineteen, came into a First Watch, a server would write down your order, would hand it across to the kitchen,
who would then verbally call it out. And if you think of a cook who's on the egg grill and you've got a full egg grow on a Sunday, like the amount of modifications and things you have to remember and just think about the efficiency there. So, you know, we started to realize that when our business started to transform into the last few years, that we really looked from end to end everything that was going on in our kitchens and we've we've really been focusing on all
process and procedures roles, things like double dishwashers. Again you talk about things that aren't sexy, but allows you to get through some of these bottlenecks, you know, bigger egg grills, bigger griddles, and so a lot of those things, as well as technology like kitchen display screens, have allowed us to actually you know, really start to increase peak hours on the weekend. So to answer question that is that
is the first priority. But you know, my team also we've been into testing a lot of different ways of using digital marketing and social media to get really targeted and and creating more demand as well. And so you know that's that's the type of thing that once we start serving higher peak hours on the weekends, which we're doing now, you will also focus on increasing during the week as well.
O great, great, Uh can you give us an update on where the alcohol program stands stands right now?
What percentage and what percentage of sales are you targeting?
Yeah, when when you go in with your son, do you did you get a cocktail?
I'm in New Jersey, man, so that that was not an option.
You know, these alcohol the the alcohol licenses are extremely expensive, so I'm sure it's prohibitive for you here, but so the answers, there.
Are some yeah, there are some pockets in the country, but really we're everywhere where we can have the program now. And it was incredible. We rolled almost our whole system in about a year and a half, and it was an incredible initiative because you know, we really felt again if you think about that occasion of first Watch being about a place where people can come connect with others. You know, we knew alcohol was a part of that, and so you know, it's mixing it at about six percent,
and you know, we're we're a little different. So I think as you look at other maybe breakfast or brunch places that really lean into you know, a full bar
and they're free pouring. You know, for us, we don't want to be defined by alcohol as the occasion because First Watch is a place you can come Monday through Sunday every day, and we always want to make sure that that's it's not only about Sunday brunch, right, and so you know, for us, it's it was about or is about taking away the VITA vote that if if you have a group of friends or you know, family and someone wants a bloody Mary. You know, we didn't
want to exclude people from that. So you know, that's that's the role that serves for us is it's it's another option for customers to enjoy relaxing and connecting with others. And so, you know, we've continued to innovate with new offerings. One of our best selling juices is purple Haze. I don't know if you've had purple Haze, but you know we've turned that into a spiked lavender lemonade as well,
and we've rolled a samegree option as well. We have a couple other innovations that will be coming to our alcohol platform. But for us, it's about balancing that with all the other parts of our menu and our.
Seasonal menu awesome.
You know. When the company iPod I was also impressed by the unit economics very strong, especially being a single shift restaurant. Can you give an update to those numbers.
Yeah, we're pretty proud of them because people forget, you know, when you look at our AEVs, they're done in seven and a half hours, and you look at it compared to you know, other places that are open for twelve hours, like Pound for pound hour for hour, we serve a
lot of customers. And to your point, if you think back to twenty nineteen, our AEVs were around one point four in and now you look at the end of twenty twenty two, we're around two million for the entire entire com group, but our new restaurants are averaging closer to two point two and you take that to the bottom line and we're producing, you know, eighteen to twenty
percent margins. In Q one, we even eclipsed Eclipse that So, you know, the thing that we're really proud of is that we generate through those solid unit economics, really strong cash on cash returns, and we have evolved the First Watch box significantly over the past few years. We're adding square footage, we're adding indoor outdoor bars, large expansive patios, we're adding more space in the back of house, dedicated
make lines, extended make lines in the back. And so even with all that innovation, and we've increased some of our buildout costs, but our cash on cash returns have remained really steady, over thirty five percent. So I think it just goes to show the amount of demand that we have for First Watch in daytime eateery.
Great. Yeah, three back, three year paid backs very attractive.
Is this team still aiming for one hundred and thirty company stores between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four.
Yeah, so this this year will open forty five to fifty one and about ten of those will be franchised, all the rest will be corporate. And while we don't give the numbers explicitly for out years, you can look at our long term guidance and we will We'll still continue to grow at about ten percent per year. So you do that math, and the number of units, you know, consistently grows, And I'll tell you our real estate and development team is the best in the industry. I mean
it is a well oiled machine. I mean you see how many think about that for you know, working right now, we're working even out until twenty twenty five finding site. So you think about how many units we have in our pipeline, and we've been doing it for so long that it's a well oiled machine. I mean, we don't even with that number of units, even in the full
service world, you don't feel it. You don't feel it at first watch because you know, I think we've really understood how to staff and handle that growing number of units. I mean, you think back to some acquisitions we've had in the past, and we've converted those units. We've had some years of some pretty significant unit opening. So we're really proud of that.
Great.
And is the long term restaurant target still about twenty two hundred here in the United States?
Yeah, twenty two hundred. We have several models that have shown us that twenty two one hundred units is feasible domestically, and so you know, people people look past that that's a lot, that's a lot of units, but if you look at it, you know, we have I don't remember the exact number, but somewhere around one hundred and ten in Florida, And you know a lot of times you look and we have some of those units a mile
two miles away from one another. And and so you know, we're we feel really strongly that the demand for breakfast is going to continue to grow and it's a it's an underdeveloped day part that we see a whole lot of white space and opportunity.
Great, And what's the split between new units that you're building in new markets, emerging markets, and mature markets.
Yeah, we're we're pretty uh we're pretty strongly a third or third third.
So we have a third in core markets, so those are more mature, established markets. We have a third in emerging markets where you know, they might have a few number of units, but we're adding quickly to it. So a great example of that is Chicago. We were just in a meeting the other day, you know, talking about unit growth and I looked up and saw how many we have coming in Chicago, and you know, it's just
it's one of our more recent new markets. And then the third would be uh, you know, brand new, brand new markets that we're entering and really close on being able to announce some of those. So we usually try to get to one a year. Sometimes it works out, you know, a few months off of that, but that's usually our.
Goal and nice and a good good excuse to visit Chicago in the summertime.
Chicago is really cool in the summer. So yeah, we we we opened our first in oak Brook, second and killed here and uh, you know, we just look at the Chicago land area.
The opportunity there is immense great.
So do you expect any cannibalization in mature markets?
We don't.
We don't see a lot and and when you when you think about why, and you think about going back to that excess demand and those long waits, what we traditionally see is that while a unit in a mature market might be affected for a short period of time called it you know, six eight weeks, what it does is it brings brings down those weights, and the weights get shorter, and so then people that probably wouldn't have come in or joined our wait list now join that list,
and so it just rises right back up. So it's it's really not a large factor for us, even you know, like I said, we have some units that are early a mile or two away from each other.
Uh More. More, what we think about, Mike, is we.
Will occasionally strategically plan for cannibalization. I'm thinking of one market in particular, where the demand was, I mean, our restaurants were busting at the seams. They just could not handle the amount of demand, and the weights were so long, and it was such a strain on our back of house and our kitchens that we went and we opened up three units right around that, you know, with the purpose of taking some of that demand and spreading it out.
But at the end of the day, we ended up raising the amount of customers that we were serving in that surrounding area. So it really we see as new units that you know, rising tide lifts all boats.
First Watch it's great, And this question may depend on the market, but your new stores typically open up with a big honeymoon period or they slowly build their sales volumes.
You know, we've seen a big change there over the last few years to the positive. Where years ago, call it ten fifteen years ago, we really would try and quietly open restaurants. Chryst will tell this story. It's a hilarious story where he went to a restaurant early in his tenure here and they hadn't.
Even received the sign on the outside of the building.
He couldn't find the new units, the sign wasn't even in the building, but they had opened. And so what we would see is slowly, over time, organically people would learn about First Watch and kind of find it and it would just slowly build. You know, now, because of our success, we have been able to invest in better and better real estate. So say five years ago we
were investing in see real estate. Now we're going and competing for a real estate, you know, right at Maine and Maine and the visibility and the access and all of that immediately gains that awareness and word of mouth. I mean we're in twenty nine states now, so a lot of you know, when we move into areas, people are really excited and tell there's like a buzz and word of mouth that we're opening strong right away.
And we've been holding those volumes.
Again, it comes back to you build that awareness and people start to understand who you are. You invest in great real estate, and then we have world class operations team that brings people back because it's just a fantastic experience.
How is how is social media impacting you know, sales and new markets?
You know, do you guys have.
A big social media presence and is that helping? Because I've seen that with following Do you don't follow us?
I do not. I try to limit my social media exposure to be honest.
Yeah, you know you should give us a follower. Our teams.
Our teams awesome and we've we've really grow We really focused on Instagram. It really fits our audience. You know, we have a presence on TikTok and Facebook, but less of a focus for us, and the cool thing if you looked in our IPO materials, we grow our social media following much like we do how we market across the country. That we do pay marketing for sure, but it's really about organic discovery and getting the right followers. So when you look at our engagement rates, they're off
the charts. Like if you actually look at how many people like or comment or engage with a post and you look at that as compared to a followers, our engagement is some of the best.
In the industry.
So our team does a does a great job and you know, we're really proud of what we're doing there.
What's the motivation behind acquiring franchise units and why are franchisees so willing to sell their interest in such a hot emerging brand.
Yeah, we've talked about that. We've talked about that. That is a big portion of value creation for us. And you know, let me just say first, we have amazing group of franchisees. We don't have a lot of them, but the franchises we have are here because they're huge fans at First Watch and there it's a passion for them and they just love the brand. So great group
of franchisees. But for us, when you look at our you asked about the unit economics, and you look at the you know what we're generating both from growing top line all the way to a really healthy bottom line. And so if you look for us at the opportunity of either getting you know, a royalty or operating and getting that full margin, you know, you can you can
see why that's so attractive for us. And when you when you ask about why they would want to do that, you know, we've stated publicly that you know, about half of our franchise agreements have pre negotiated multiples in the agreement, so it's it's something.
That is just part of the agreement that they had signed.
And so for us, you know, we really believe that we operate great, great restaurants, and to the extent we can operate more corporate restaurants, we will always look.
To do that.
Yeah, they generate strong cash on cash returns, so that makes sense. You know.
I think you'd mentioned that there was about ten franchise units opening this year. Are they all being opened by current franchisees or are you still out there looking to bring new franchisees into the system.
No, it's been several years since we've brought any new franchisee. I mean it's been for a while now. It's been a company company focus model, corporate focus model. Now, you know, when they signed agreements, they obviously do have a certain number of units that they can open, and so you know there are still units that will open on the existing agreements. But for us, it's it's continuing and has been all about opening corporate units.
Cool.
So, I mean I was going to ask you what the optimal company owned versus franchise mix is for First Watch. You know, I'm guessing it's pretty high.
Yeah, I mean it's we don't think about it as a percent I mean, don't get me wrong. We you know, we work with our franchisees to open new units through their agreements, and we're happy to do that. I mean, we see it as an opportunity to continue to grow awareness throughout the US.
The more units we.
Open, the more people are aware of us, and so that's important. But yeah, for us, we would really want to see that percent get as high as possible.
On the corporate side, got it.
G and A as a percentage of sales has been pretty flat excluding the early days of the pandemic. When do you expect to make meaningful progress on leveraging your GNA.
Yeah, I mean, we don't expect leverage on GNA in twenty twenty three. And a large part of that is because we believe that the stage we're in that we have a lot of investments that we can make that are wise to drive our long term growth algorithm. KTS was a great example of that. You know, that was
an investment last year that was pretty significant. But when you look at what that does for our restaurants, and I talked about the complexity of you know, our kitchens previously were you know, regulated by a human being, and so now you know the efficiency and the ability for especially if you think about hiring and bringing in new team members, the learning curve for them to understanding how to work in the kitchen.
It just gets so much easier.
And so you look at things like that as well as you know, you might have seen that we made an investment and increased benefits for our team members and our employees as well this year, and we look at things like that and we're not afraid to make those investments right now because we know that we've continued to grow adjusted and we have a very healthy business and strong unit economics, like you said, and so you know, we haven't talked about it in not years, but you know,
we've continued to feel like we will invest to make sure that we uh, you know, deliver our long term growth algorithm.
Yeah, and those I'm sure those investments in your employees are going to pay dividends.
Man, it's so important right now.
That's the way we look at it.
I mean, I think part of our success going back to the beginning, and you asked what's driven our successes, we we try not to get too distracted on what may be happening right now but might be a fleeting
moment like we have. We are very focused on the long term and we you know, like those COVID decisions that we talked about earlier, we we we didn't know what was going to happen in the environment, but we were looking at you know, beyond it and saying, you know what did we want to signal to customers about the long term And it's the same same thing here.
Great, can you talk a bit about the mobile app digital marketing?
Uh?
And I guess any other tech initiatives that you think listeners should know about.
Yeah, it's been it's been an area that we've been spending quite a bit of time on in the last year and a half. You think back to twenty nineteen, and you know, every brand was beginning to invest in customer data right they were making the investments, they were moving into determining, you know, how to leverage customer data.
And then twenty twenty hit and brands. I think everyone, everybody I talked to, no matter how big the brand, is now sitting with all of this data on their laps because everything for several years went through you know, digital digital ordering, and so I think what you're seeing is everyone's sitting with all this data and saying, how do I how do I leverage it? And you know, for us, we've been very methodical in making sure that we understand what our customers are doing.
Well. Who is the first watch customer? How often do they come?
I mean, even when you think of something like frequency, you know, it seems like an easy metric, but there is no standardized way in the industry right now to really you know, look, what metrics do you look at from from a customer frequency standpoint? How do you look at it, how do you define it? And so we've spent a lot of time there over the past year
or so. And the other thing that we're thinking really heavily about is, you know, sometimes those in a full service environment can get fearful of leveraging technology because it can interfere with that experience in hospitality.
It can add.
Complexity for your for your team members, it can it can make it a little bit more transactional for customers. So what we're really focused on is how do we develop digital tools and leverage our customer analytics to enhance hospitality. And a lot of that has to do with you have to start with your employees. You know, I've seen brands before that we'll just you know, they'll they'll develop some out of the box loyalty program and someone from the home office is setting out you know, offers or
whatever that might look like. And then you know, if it's not well understood or thought through from an employee perspective, you know that that doesn't make anyone's life easier. And so, you know, we're spending a lot of time on how do we look at points of friction in the in the first watch experience and how do we use technology
to help both our customers and employees. I'll give you one example of that if you went I don't know if you went on a weekend, but you know we have weightless where a significant amount of our traffic on
the weekends goes through waitless technology. And our host areas are very congested and and so you've got people coming in, they got to check in, people want to pay their check when they're going out, and so that's that's an area where like there there's a way where we can leverage technology here to make it better for both the customer and the employee for sure.
So what what keeps the first Watch team up at night?
Culture?
People and and you know growth at times, for any growth brand, it can be something if you take your eye off that, it's it's the it's the silent killer that you have to be careful of. Like so, we we're very very proud of our culture, and I'm sure you read all about it. We call our culture you First, which means we actually focus first our employees. They in turn,
we'll focus on our customers. And there's a lot of different things that we do to empower our employees but you know, when you think about it, if you think of like you know, call it forty new employees for every restaurant, and you just told you you know, we're going to open around fifty and you think about how many new employees you're bringing in, and then every year that number of units is going up, and then you
think of opening brand new markets. Like we talked about, like culture is what happens when you're not around, and so you have to have it strengthened, Like you have to have culture keepers throughout the organization. So for us, you know, things like we have what's called First Farm, First Watch Academy of Restaurant Management where every month we're bringing in thirty five managers from across the kind where
it's like it's all about culture. It's not about teaching you more things to do or more process and procedures. It's all about your development and culture. Or you look at something like we call it the Why Tour that we Hear You Tour, and it's the leadership team here
directly listening. They go to every we Hear You tour and so once a year, the leadership team actually gets on and speaks with hourly team members from every part of the country, and our whole point is to make sure that we understand the things that may not be going well or things that they need and allowing that communication to.
Come directly to us.
And it's the coolest thing, like because we sit after we go through every region and we have every leader from every department around a table and we go through all the feedback and we talk about what are we going to do and how fast can we go back and show them that progress. So I say that because we have things in place to ensure that our culture remains strong. But know that's the thing that it's the glue that holds everything together. So that's still the thing that keeps us up at night.
Yeah, that's very cool. What percentage of your new units are.
Are being staff with managers from from existing restaurants?
We we always bring them in from other locations. I mean we and we.
Have a program specifically for that because you know our you said, our operational systems have been decades in the making and so we know that you have to live it within another First Watch location. And you look at some of the locations that we've opened recently have like we've broken a record record after record. We had one recently that literally kept breaking its own record several times at the end of last year, and so you can't. It's not fair to take someone brand new and just
put them in there and say good luck. So yeah, that's a really important piece for that.
That success for sure. All Right, that's great man. Well listen, I want to I want to thank you for doing this. Uh, that was great.
I'm very excited to continue following the story. You work with some great people over there. It's a great team. Uh, you know, and I wish you a lot of success outside. I guess, uh, would.
You say Instagram and TikTok uh in the first one?
Follow us on Instagram?
Yeah, you got, you gotta follow us on Instagram and uh and also next time you go, you got to send me some pictures.
We always you know, and you go go into a first watch.
We always love to see people either post pictures or send us pictures. Chef Shane is always sending around pictures from social media and he shares them with our restaurants. He's always on there on there looking.
So yeah, give us a follow, all right, I'll be sure to do it cool, you know.
Thanks again, thanks for listening to everybody have a good day, well,