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Scaling Salad House: Technology, Operations, and Lessons Learned

• Erika Rivas

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In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, host Jeremy Julian speaks with Jarrod Bravo from Salad House. They discuss how Jarrod navigated the growth of Salad House from a single pizza restaurant to a prominent salad-focused brand across the northeast. Key topics include the importance of effective training, refining the menu based on data, and leveraging technology stacks like Toast POS and Ovation for operational efficiency and customer feedback. Jarrod shares insights on their journey to franchising, overcoming early challenges, and future growth plans. This episode is a valuable listen for anyone interested in scaling a restaurant brand through technology and effective operations.

00:00 Salad House

01:10 Introduction and Guest Introduction

01:48 The Early Days of Salad House

02:33 What Makes Salad House Unique

04:02 The Founder’s Story

06:08 Challenges and Growth

07:36 Franchising Journey

09:35 Tech Stack Evolution

19:06 Discussing the Tech Stack

19:47 Customer Review Platform: Ovation

22:18 Streamlining the Menu

25:05 Franchising and Growth

26:37 Personal Stories and Success

30:49 Signature Dishes and Unique Selling Points

32:48 Conclusion and Contact Information



Speaker 2:

This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, helping you run your restaurant better.

In today's episode, I am joined by Jared Bravo. Jared runs the IT stack and really operations and training for the team at Salad House. The Salad house team has been incredible to watch, grow, and continue to really what started as a. Pizza restaurant turned salad. You know, they turn it into a salad restaurant that has some really exceptional food and is growing all over the northeast. Uh, Jared and I talk in depth about what it takes to run a successful brand, some of the mistakes that they made and how they continue to grow. Uh, they actually recently were also recognized in Nations Restaurant News as one of those top, uh, growing fast concepts, and so I'm excited to see and hear how things go for them. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I am the Chief Revenue Officer for CCBs North Star. We sell the North Star point of sale platform for multi-units. Please check us out@cbsnorthstar.com and now onto the episode.

Jeremy Julian:

welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. As I like to say, each time we start these podcasts, I know you guys have got lots of choices, appreciate the time and appreciate, you guys, giving me feedback as well. Today is a fun episode'cause I love, these episodes of kind of people that started early with a brand and, Jared's no exception and really watched them grow. But Jared, why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners and then we can talk a little bit about, What you get to do professionally.

Jarrod Bravo:

Absolutely, guys. my name's Jared Bravo. I work for Side House Franchising. I'm also a franchisee myself. I've been with the company since 2011 and excited to share my journey.

Jeremy Julian:

Awesome. And when did the brand start? Because if you started in 2011, I know at least from yours and my, early conversations, there wasn't a whole lot of salad houses out there when you got started with the brand. I

Jarrod Bravo:

There was not. we, again, 2011 was our first location and, we didn't even have a twinkle in our eye about franchising. We were just, I was a cashier working my way up. I was actually working at the, Owner's pizzeria that he had before he even went into salad house. And when he decided to sell that's where I transferred to Salad House. And it probably took us about a year, but we realized we had something special there and we probably didn't start thinking about franchising till 2015, maybe late 2015. And then we got hired a lawyer, franchise lawyer, got some documents and opened our first one in 2017.

Jeremy Julian:

Awesome. for those that, haven't gotten to experience the brand, and again, I shared with you that, I, I dunno, between smash burgers and, smash burgers and salad, our mutual friend Rev, who did the intro to us, to us both, I, I'll text some pictures of my salads that I'm replicating the damn salads from salad house or text some pictures of, Of the, of the smash burgers they make out on the griddle outside. But, I guess share, share with our audience that hasn't had time to, to get to a salad house or hasn't had the privilege of getting there. What is Salad House talk? Talk us through

Jarrod Bravo:

guys. The name's probably a little confusing, but, once we decided, we thought maybe about changing it. We were a little too late to the process. But, we're a healthy brand. Started in New Jersey, specialize in craft made salads, create your own salads, make up about 60% of our sales. But in addition to that, we have appetizers. grain, warm grain bowls. 50% of our locations do some smoothies or a type of refresher. And, I think what sets us apart from these other salad concepts out there is we have food for everybody. You can come get a fried chicken sandwich with bacon, cheddar cheese, and ranch, or you can, come here and get a extremely healthy salad with all the vegetables you want. Pick your own dressing. And I think variety is what sets us apart.

Jeremy Julian:

Love that. Is that where the brand started, Jared? Is that kind of, when you guys started, I know, pizza to a salad house, and I'd love to, and I know you guys have evolved the brand over the last, 15 or so years. And so was it primarily just trying to, capture that sweet green craze? And again, I'm gonna say sweet green just'cause I wanna probably the, nationwide salad focused concepts. Is it trying to capture that, that, and then you guys continue to pivot as time has gone

Jarrod Bravo:

let's take it to square one, The founder, Joey Chaffey, amazing person. He, he has a family deli pizzeria that's been there since. The early eighties. Still there today, Choffy's Petri in Springfield. he got a restaurant degree working under his dad and his older brother just learning the family biz when he was 13. And, he was doing it for most of his life, but then he wasn't sure if he, that's what he wanted to do. He, did some Wall Street stuff, got a series seven, was going to the city a lot. And when he was gonna the city, he was always stopping at like a sweet green or chopped or these salad places. But living in Livingston, New Jersey, coming home, he was, he couldn't get anything like that. Here he is, like none of this was in the suburbs. And I don't want to take the shine away from him if he ever decided to do a podcast'cause he has a pretty incredible story. But, he was actually late to work one day. and it was nine 11, unfortunately. Very sad, but it's a wake up call for him and he realized he wanted to pivot and didn't see himself being the nine to five guy all the time in New York City. And he was driving home one night, saw a for sale, four lease sign right there, driving through Melbourne, back up to Livingston and put a pen to paper and really drew up the idea for salad house. I think that's where the variety comes in. Being in the pizzeria. When he first started, we had create your own pizzas on our menu we had. Pasta dishes. We had mama's baked Turkey meatballs along with some salads and we were 1500 square foot restaurant with, 14 seats inside trying to do this. Men like a diner size menu with 80 items on there. it was pretty unique. it was fun.

Jeremy Julian:

say. That sounds awesome. it quite honestly, it feels funny to, to think about, it's almost like mom's kitchen. what do you feel like today and, at a diner hit, your Jersey guy? So diners are the thing, but even at that, I know, you and I were talking prior to hitting the record button. After say nine or 10 o'clock in the suburbs, there's nothing to eat other than diner, food and jersey it feels and and typically when you go onto the diner menu, even though they've got lots of menu items, nothing is healthy, from that perspective. And nothing's, again, it tastes good, especially after you've had a couple of adult beverages. But it's, it's certainly isn't one of those things where you're like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna eat healthy tonight on my way home from work.

Jarrod Bravo:

Exactly.

Jeremy Julian:

I guess you guys have had to hone down and hone the menu in. So talk us through what is the concept? is it full service? is it counter service?

Jarrod Bravo:

we're a quick surf. come up order at the counter. You can have a seat. We will definitely bring it out to you. But, 70% of our business is these third parties, online pickup orders, delivery, and takeout. Especially since the whole pandemic, we've really just, we used to be heavy in store. just the whole online thing, the presence has changed everything. And, I think we got lucky with our tech stack that we were able to set ourselves up early for that success. And, yeah.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah, no, and I'd love for you to talk through some of that.'cause you moved up from a cashier at the pizzeria to cashier at salad house to now, you you're running quite a bit of the operational side of things. So talk us through that journey.'cause again, you guys have grown, at this point, how many solid houses are there total?

Jarrod Bravo:

Yeah, we have, 20 open right now, 19 in New Jersey, one open in Brooklyn. We have six in various construction phases. We're coming to Jersey City, Staten Island, Westchester, New York. we signed a franchisee down in Virginia, very exciting for us, and we actually signed two down in Maryland. So we have our work cut out for us the next year.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. So as you guys have been growing, you talked about refining the menu, but, talk us through how the tech stack is even built to hit that 70%.'cause I don't wanna say you guys are unique in that regard, but, so few brands have been able to figure out how to do it effectively and how to make money going off-prem with products. I guess just in general.

Jarrod Bravo:

Yeah. it actually goes back to our very first franchisee sale, which was in 2017. It was to, two brothers, Jerry and Chaz, Ike. Jerry's actually the chairman of our company now got involved with the company, loves it so much, but, we sold our first franchisee in 2017. It was new to us. It was new to super new to me. I was very young at the time. I think I was 21, 22. So I learned everything just from making a lot of mistakes. But, Joe believed in me, trusted me, and I was at least responsible on time. So at least he had that with me, And, so we sold it and it was great. We had a great relationship. Open come opening day. It was a disaster. it was so bad. We had lines out the door. People weren't trained properly. I take full fall for that. it was a huge learning experience for me. and for a whole year we were like, we were getting these bad reviews of people just oh, the service there was bad. It took forever to get my salad. It took forever to get my food. And, Honestly, we did$700,000 in sales our first year, which, our average unit volume now is 1.7, and that same store is now doing over 2 million a year in sales. So it's just funny to see how far we've come, but we had two to three years where we just had to clean up our process and we stopped selling franchises. We, we messed up. We felt like we did Jerry and Chaz wrong. We felt like we weren't there for them or providing them the right product. So we took a step back. Refined everything. They stayed with us. They trusted the process. They wanted to get involved and help us, which was just, if they didn't do that, who knows where we'd be today, because they still believed in us. And it, it was really nice. We didn't have the SOPs in place. I had trainings, training material. Maybe the staff didn't read it. I wasn't making sure they were going through the training material. We had to refine it and, Another thing we didn't have was data. We were using Harbor Touch, POS at the time, not sure if you're familiar with them. They Exactly. they worked for us at the time. They offered a very nice solution to get open and get through the door pretty quickly without much cost out of pocket. But we realized it wasn't the brainchild we needed, so we needed to switch our POS. Everything connects at the POS. that's the brain of our operation. And I think, Eric Kraus was his name. He was our tow sales rep at the time. I don't think he's with them anymore, but, he was always coming into the store and I was just always blowing him off'cause we weren't ready. And one day he just came in and it was the right time. I was like, we actually need a new POS system, Eric, let's do the demo. Let me see everything you can do. And we brought him down to, you can call it an office, but it was a room with some fold up chairs with me, Jerry and Joey just kinda like making a think tank there'cause we couldn't even afford to lease an office at the time. And, He put on such an awesome presentation, and we did some research on some other pos and just affordability at time. We, we thought toast was the way to go and we, they were still new in 2017. They were just getting their foot in the door. But, I think they've proven to be probably one of the biggest players in the game now. And we made a right decision because all the tech stack we've added on since then has a direct API integration with Toast has made, it's helped us reduce our menu, make educated data driven decisions for the brand.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah, no, and I'd love to, to rewind just a little bit about that store and why was it such a disaster? You talked about not having the SOPs and for those people that are out there that are at this journey of going, I got a really successful restaurant. I got three really successful restaurants, but it's an owner operator that's in those stores that might have started their early how. I guess if you had to do it again, what would you have done differently outside of the tech stack? And I'll, we'll talk about the tech stack here in a few minutes and I'd love to, to dig into why it was so much more effective than Harbor Touch. But across the board, there's things that you talk about, Jared, even operationally, even from a, we didn't do it right and these guys were able to, they came along with you on the journey for those couple of years to figure it out. and I guess for those people that are out there that are sitting here listening, going, you know what? I've got a really successful sandwich shop and I want to go franchise. What are the things that you learn that you, hey, if you had to do it again, you would've ensured that you did properly

Jarrod Bravo:

Like I. It's definitely comes down to training the staff and doing some kind of soft open with your friends and family, working out some kinks, getting some positive feedback beforehand. it's

Jeremy Julian:

training, like how to make a salad or training about what a salad house, about,

Jarrod Bravo:

a salad, coming in, what you have to do day to day. restaurant Depot runs inventory. there was so much stuff that like I learned from doing in the store that I thought if you find the right person, you just replicate it for the next store. And it's not like that. They need some in-depth training. I need you coming to work with me at an existing location for two months, three months.'cause I can give you a pen and paper, you can study it, but until you're in it. you really don't know what to expect when you're running a restaurant. And we got into Westfield. I, all the people got their training. They did what they could, but the expo wasn't talking to the cook, who wasn't talking to the sandwich maker, wasn't talking to the salad people, items weren't ending at the expo completed. There was missing ingredients. There was just, I could go on and on about the

Jeremy Julian:

No, I love it. These are the types of things that I want our listeners to hear because I, it's amazing. Funny enough, I have a friend here in town who's oh, I'm gonna start a, I'm gonna start a restaurant. I'm like, dude, you have no idea. I've been doing this for 30 years. It is so hard and there's so many things that go into it and when it operates well, which it sounds like you guys are at that place where you guys are able to just start to crank, crank these things out.'cause you've got your systems, your processes in place, but without it. You end up having a store that has the capability to do two plus million dollars, only doing$700,000, not making any money. Owners aren't happy franchise or is not happy, customers aren't happy. So across the board it's just, you sunk a whole bunch of money and time and effort into something that's not working. But now taking it back a few years, that was what, seven, eight years ago? You guys are at a place where you're like, oh no, we have to make sure that they understand. What does it take to, to prep the line for these things and then we can get into the data and why is the data so important about it? But, ensuring that you can operate the restaurant appropriately is huge, right? Because you're gonna have happy guests if you do, and you're gonna have really unhappy guests if you don't.

Jarrod Bravo:

I think establishing a hierarchy in the beginning too is very crucial. they went through a hiring process and they hired cashiers and salad people, and kitchen and prep cooks. And, but they were relying on us to answer all the questions where it's needed a manager in place. But these guys came from the investment world who just wanted some entrepreneurship and their own thing and opened us out house and they were looking to us for these answers. and after the, the initial 30 days were there for helping them training there, there was no hierarchy set for them on who's in charge of what. And th this is. If we took a step back and we changed everything, we couldn't sell, we would not sell another franchise. And we knew we'd fail if we tried to sell another one, even if people were inquiring because the reason we even got to Westfield was because of our customers in Melbourne and Morristown. Jerry was a customer in Melbourne. He saw our takeout thing filled with 50 orders every lunch. he was getting great customer service. He loved the food and that's what inspired him to open one. And he loved it. And we did fail him when we first started. and it was, I really took it to heart because, Joey's the founder. He is got his pizzeria. he trusted in me to be the director of ops. he gave me equity in the company. He really believed in me at such a young age. And, I felt terrible and it was just nice that I got that second chance, took a step back and we did things the right way and we had to hire some people for some help, I couldn't be a one man show, and that, that's, and the tech stack helped with that too.

Jeremy Julian:

No, and I'd love to, to dig in a little bit. So you talked about the POSB in the heart of what it is that you do. What were you not getting out of your previous system? And again, you guys were on Harbor Touch, product is, I think since Sunset and they've moved on to something else. And, and now you're on toast and obviously they've had a fantastic run from 17. What were you getting out of toast that you weren't getting? For, from, from your previous solution that helped you operate the business better, both remotely and on property.

Jarrod Bravo:

I wanna say so much getting out. It just, toast made it easy. It was a cloud-based system. They had a lot of API integrations. They worked with so many other of these tech companies that Harbor Touch didn't, and it was Tech Stacks that we were interested in. Wasn't sure if they were great, but we couldn't even explore the option because they weren't integrating with Harbor Touch. oddly enough, like when I first started at Soundhouse, we were in that weird phase where people. Started having online ordering, right? and I was getting fax machines of an order. I'd get it in, I'd have to put it into the POS system. I'd get their credit card number down at the bottom. Not very safe for security. I'd have to type it in, put in the zip code. And it was just, it took me five minutes to put in one online order and you go through a lunch rush where it's starting to make sense now and people are getting used to it and you're getting 20 faxes at once and like you almost have somebody dedicated just putting in online orders. Then you throw in DoorDash. On top of that, we're part of the DoorDash phase where somebody used to call us, give us the order on DoorDash. A driver would come in with a DoorDash credit card, pay for the order and just be gone. it was so like, interesting to me. I didn't understand it, and it's like hindsight, I wish it would, it was new now, and I invested, I wouldn't even be here right now. I'd be in a yacht.

Jeremy Julian:

it's funny that you say that'cause I have, my fourth child is, was born in 2015 and for, like a baby gift, somebody got us a DoorDash gift card and I work in the industry and my wife was home. I went back to work, baby's probably two months old or whatever. I went back to the office and one day she got, she's I don't know what this thing is. Orders essentially on their website from KFC, just literally, and KFC had run out of chicken air. potato wedges. And so the DoorDash driver's sitting in the drive through talking to the speaker box, calls my wife at home and goes, and so I laugh about it'cause it was probably 2015, maybe early 2016. And he is do you want the mashed potatoes or do you want the cole slaw instead of this? Because that's what, that's essentially how the DoorDash stuff, started years ago is they would go around and they take the orders on the web. Then they'd send somebody over to this property, go order in person and bring the food to'em. to think about, that was where it was in 2015, 2016 to where it is today. Now it represents, better than 50% of your orders it sounds like. Is that fair?

Jarrod Bravo:

Abso, third party makes up 43% of our orders. A

Jeremy Julian:

Wow. That's incredible. That's incredible. and that's, so toast, having the integrations to these third parties was huge. So talk a little bit about the journey towards online ordering, just in general and taking that transition from web, faxes coming in and somebody keying to now having it come straight

Jarrod Bravo:

Really happened for us because Joey was like, Hey, Jared, like what? What can I do to help you? You seem stressed a lot. And I'm like, Joe, I can't keep putting these, excuse my language, he's goddamn faxes into the POS here. It's killing me. At lunch, I got people coming in, we got a line out the door and I have to worry about this fax machine and getting it in. We looked at toast and it just made sense for us. And they had the online ordering package where everything comes right into the POS and it spits out all the tickets at the right fire and prep time to all your stations. And I was like, this is what I need. This would help us so much. And that's where our journey started with toast. And then we slowly started getting these other integrations they introduced us to at the first time. What was the name of the company for order aggregation? It was Checkmate. It's a checkmate. that was our first order aggregator, and I thought it was like, to me, I thought it was insane.

Jeremy Julian:

before the founder of Checkmates been on the show. it's funny'cause even that, it's like crazy to me to think that's less than 10 years ago that even, existed with all these third party aggregators. And even in, you guys were in the New York area that it felt like back then there was a new one that would pop up every week from Caviar to, you name it. And a lot of

Jarrod Bravo:

I was like, mesmerized with that. Like I could place a, an order on my phone and within five seconds it's hitting all my printers in the restaurant. I was, it was just like absolutely bonkers to me.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. Love that. So talk us through the rest of your tech stack so I know. and again, I would tell you encourage everybody out there if you don't already have an aggregator that's taking these third party orders and entering them. There's a Chinese place we go to and they've still got the stupid tablets, and in the middle of my meal I hear them ding and I hear them sitting. It's not that hard in today's day and age. our point of sale platform has it. Almost everybody out there has the capability to have those orders come straight in. It is not a cost. It is an investment in your business. And having somebody like you sitting there, taking these orders and reentering them, huge disservice to the brands if you haven't already done it. and I.

Jarrod Bravo:

flooded market. It's a hundred dollars a month guys. All your orders come in, all your third parties. it's worth every penny.

Jeremy Julian:

Yep. Yeah, no, so one of the things that you brought up earlier, Jared, was just customer reviews, and I believe you guys use a customer review platform to give you guys feedback and to be able to engage with guests when they give you negative feedback. Is that, talk us through some of the, some of what you guys are doing there and how you think it really helps the brand.

Jarrod Bravo:

if you ask any one person or company what their favorite tech stack added to Salad House was, it would be Ovation back in. they're gonna have to pay me for this,

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. Zach's been on the show too. Good, dude. but no, they're amazing. And I think it's, but it's real time feedback. It's not this, let me go into a 14 digit code that's on, it's like real. So

Jarrod Bravo:

we added

Jeremy Julian:

why it's so

Jarrod Bravo:

last August, so we haven't even been on with them for a year yet. And it's just been incredible. Not only for our customers, but for our franchisees. They have all come to us and say how much they love it, because we can handle a problem immediately. If a customer's unhappy, they get a survey 30 minutes after they've ordered. They can voice their frustrations to us and we can answer them right then and there, and we could solve it before it ever gets to a Google platform, a Yelp review, and not just before it hits there. We also want that customer. We don't wanna lose that customer and we wanna make them happy and learn from our mistakes, and we're able to give them instant. I can't tell you how many times I've messaged someone within two minutes of that messaging ovation. I'm like, hi, I'm Jared. I'm the owner. And they're like, oh my God. I wasn't even expecting reply. And the owner's replying to me. Here's.$5 off. I'm gonna talk to my staff. We're gonna work on this mistake. Sorry, this was missing from your order, and it's just been incredible for us. so they keep track of anything, three stars and below. They consider a losing customer and I can send them a reward and I'll keep track if they order again and we win back. Anyone who's left three stars or below, we've won back 96% of those customers to come and order from us again.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah, it's incredible, especially in today's day and age when traffic is down, people are struggling to get new guests in the door. You gotta keep the guests happy that you have. And on any given day, any one of our restaurants, there's tens of thousands of them out there. They're gonna have a bad day, they're gonna have produced a bad product, they're gonna have not read the receipt properly and put tomatoes on a salad that they shouldn't have put tomatoes on the salad and the guest is now frustrated about it. So being able to have a system in place, not hey. Text the owner. again, I've seen the, Hey, here's the owner and now I gotta drive there. You're talking about 43% of your orders, and I think he said 60 plus percent are from either first party or a third party. They're not even coming into the door. So you gotta be able to communicate with them. And if you can't, you lose those customers and they're gone forever. What other pieces of tech. again, Jared, you brought up even being able to change your menu based on customer's behavior. Talk to me a little bit about how, you said you guys streamline your menu based on the data. Talk to me about where that came from.'cause that, again, I think menu bloat, you talked about early days, you guys were selling, meatball subs and pizzas and everything else. How and why did that happen?

Jarrod Bravo:

Absolutely. So again, this goes back to us opening up in Westfield. It was, there was too many moving parts. We had create your own pizzas, chicken salad, salad bar. The fryer station. The grill station. It was just way too much.

Jeremy Julian:

One of these days I wanna meet this guy because I, dude, he sounds awesome, and at the same time, doesn't want to have to operate this every day. So I'll let you keep going.

Jarrod Bravo:

so one of the first things we did, we got toast and we just started piling data for three, three to six months. Tons of food, data. What is everyone buying? And we realized, hey, you know what? Joey's father-in-law really loved the calamari salad, loved it so much. We all loved it. Guess what? It doesn't sell. Take it off the menu. it, it's just because we love you. You can't love a product. That like you can love it, but if it's not selling, you gotta be, you gotta be able to distance yourself from it and realize it's not working for your brand. And we reduced our menu by 40%. And it was such a game changer. It made operations easier. We were able to focus on do on those things that we're selling. We were able to focus on doing those things correctly and making them better because we didn't have to worry about making pizzas or making pasta dishes at the salad concept. And we were able to really hone in on the food prep for the salads and the things that we're selling. Since then, have we added, I'd say we added on about 15% back onto that menu, but we were able to do it with a just very. driven with a purpose, using ingredients that are already on our menu, but maybe bringing it in a different sauce or just one other item to make a whole new different product. So it's not operationally tough for everybody, but it's easy to, keep something new and freshing for our customers.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah, and I'd love for you to talk through how you guys even manage that, because there's an emotional component to the calamari salad and I see these brands that get menu bloat and it's hard to execute. It's. Impossible to franchise and grow beyond that, because that original store might have had the space to do this calamari salad, but now you guys are trying to get into spaces that might not be able to do that. How did you guys walk through that journey internal to the business? Or are you guys just you know what, it's data driven because the data says one thing and then the owner's eh, I like that Mom needs to be able to get her grilled cheese with

Jarrod Bravo:

We definitely

Jeremy Julian:

though it never sells.

Jarrod Bravo:

we definitely bumped heads in our office about what's staying on the menu or whatnot, but at the end of the day, we were all able to put our differences aside and say this is the data guys. there's no what ifs here? It's yes or no. It sells, or it doesn't. it's very clear cut. And, some of the decisions were tough, but overall it was better for the brand.

Jeremy Julian:

I love it. So now let's talk growth. Jared, how are you guys? you talked about it in the onset and when I asked about stores, you guys have got what, six I think you said, in development currently. Where are you guys at on that journey and what does that look like for potential franchisees? What are you guys looking for? You looking for investors that are absentee? You looking for investors that are in the store? Are you're looking for, Growing like wildfire. while we're recording this a couple weeks ago, Dave's hot chicken sold for a billion dollars. I remember talking with them when they were early on. They had two stores and I watched them grow like wildfire, Talk to me a little bit about where Salad House is at and their franchising journey. I.

Jarrod Bravo:

we don't mind either. we prefer somebody who's, who wants to get his hands dirty. Owner operators. we just get along with them better because we're owner operators. Every single person on our corporate team owns or is invested in a salad house and they have equity and they've gone there and worked the store. So they see things from both lenses. but we're also not opposed to investors. What we've come to realize now that we have 19 stores is we have some. Really good managers, salad choppers that don't have room for growth where they're at right now, because you know they're running a great store, but they deserve an ownership so we can get investors to back them. Maybe they give them a little 5% sweat equity'cause they're gonna run the store and take it all off them. And it's been such a success for us. we have one guy who was fantastic actually working here in Westfield. him and his wife now own three franchises'cause we set him up with investors and he just crushed it for them. And now they're opening their third one in Wall Township, New Jersey.

Jeremy Julian:

I love that. That's awesome. you also said that not only did you start, you got a little bit of equity, but I think you have your own store. is that, so did I hear you correctly? How do you manage that? How do you manage both being on the brand side and managing a store? That's gotta be tough.

Jarrod Bravo:

Yeah. you need good people around you. I was, I actually made the manager somebody I trained under me in Morristown and I took him along for me with that ride. But, it, it wasn't easy. And lemme tell you something, I believed in this brand so much and, I was a cashier. I was working here. We were a franchise. We're not making any money. I don't come from money. I was saving every dollar. I had to get to Montclair to a point where I was like, tell my wife, Hey, we're taking out this loan. I'm going to my friend. I asked him for$30,000 just to get the store open. But I believed in myself and, I knew the brand and I opened it in 2021. it was during the pandemic. I took a shot on myself. I think'cause of that, maybe I got a decent lease deal, which kind of helped in my favor. But, it's been a great success. In the first six months I was there day and night, but I had my guy Justin, who was training under me in Morristown, and I take care of him very well and. He makes Montclair so easy for me. I go in a couple days a week, I check in with my staff, see if they need anything, make sure they're doing all right. But he's really the heart of the operation now and it surrounding yourself with those good peoples is how you can go on to do other projects.

Jeremy Julian:

and you shared a little bit of kind of your guys' unit economics. if your average stores are doing over a million and a half in a primarily salad, and I guess meal periods, you guys are only open for lunch and dinner, or are you guys open for breakfast as well?

Jarrod Bravo:

Lunch and dinner. All our stores are some open at 11, some 10 o'clock, and we close at either eight or nine o'clock.

Jeremy Julian:

Perfect. so that's pretty serious volume in, this concept. When I think about franchise groups and I think about, obviously there's some that are franchise, Chick-fil-A and McDonald's, they're doing significantly higher volume, but a lot more expensive to open up, I'm sure, than a salad house. you guys are doing pretty significant volume. It sounds like you guys are working your way down the I 90. Five corridor, is that kind of where you guys are at or are you guys looking to get outside of even the, the, I don't wanna say tri-state'cause you're really, I guess you're getting to Maryland and Virginia now, that central, central east coast area.

Jarrod Bravo:

Yeah, look, if we have a pretty solid real estate team behind us, Sabre Real Estate, they do a ton of, demographics for us, whether it be household incomes, daytime working populations, what the average person will spend on a meal. Like, all that stuff's very important to us. We seem to strive when we're near gyms, doctors' offices, lawyers' offices, office buildings, catering. that's, we need the daytime population. 70% of our business is lunch. 12 three, which is probably opposite from a lot of restaurants. Monday through Friday. We're booming Saturday and Sunday. we do well still, but we're not like the sit down restaurants where you're gonna go and you need, you can't even get a reservation. That's not us.

Jeremy Julian:

Okay. Yeah. love it. so what's the future look like, Jared? What's the future look like, for the brand? I guess let's start there and then I'd love to get a little bit of your thoughts on the tech. you probably keep an eye on some of those competitors like Sweet Green, they had that store in Chicago that was completely autonomous. No, no bodies inside and I don't know, it doesn't sound like you guys are quite there on that journey, that was a huge investment,

Jarrod Bravo:

We're not a fan of them, of the Rob Robots, not Sweet Greens. and in all fairness to a Sweet Green, a just salad, a chopped. are we seeing what they're doing? Do I follow them on Instagram? Of course. But we're focused on being the best version of Salad House. I'm not trying to replicate a sweet Green. I'm not trying to be a chop. I'm not trying to be a just salad. We're focused on us, we're and our customers, and we feel like we've just built something a little bit different than them, and not that there we're any better or worse than them. We're just, we're us, we're salad house. we're not trying to be the next sweet green. We're not trying to be the next drought or the,

Jeremy Julian:

Okay. Yeah. Awesome. what else did we miss? Jared, what else would you want the world, if this was their first time hearing about salad house that you would want them to, to hear about?

Jarrod Bravo:

yeah. I think it just goes back to our team and how we're all invested. Since we're still so young and growing our corporate team's, 12 people, you, we care about all of our franchisees. you're part of our family. You can get the owner, the founder, me, our brand marketing, our CMO, our CFO. You can call us, you can text us. we're just there. We wanna see you succeed. We're a small team and, we're not some huge corporation yet. we're not there. hopefully maybe one day. But, you're really getting, you're getting all of us and we're dedicated to you, and this is what we're focused on.

Jeremy Julian:

I love that. last question that I ask any of the restaurant people, what is the go-to one or two items? If I'm coming into salad house and it's my first time there, do I, is there something on the menu yet that's the Jared special? that they can just order the Jared special. Maybe at your store you can just tell your staff and they know what to get you. But what would be the one or two things that you would say if you had never been to a salad house? You have to check out because it just sets you apart from some of those other brands.

Jarrod Bravo:

honestly, the buffalo poppers. I actually have a funny story about that. I was actually, I was coming home from a bar one night. I was pretty drunk and I had these wonton wrappers in my fridge and I had like Italian cold cuts. I put like ham salamis, some Italian dressing, and I fried'em up in a pan. I was like, oh, these are pretty good. So I started experimenting them with them at the salad house, but I was like, oh, the cold cut stuff's not working. And I just did, buffalo chicken was hot at the, it's super hot now, but back in 2017 it was just getting. Started and I started making these buffalo poppers and then we put'em as a special and they became the number one selling appetizer, on our menu across the brand, across 10, 12 stores. And people were coming in just for those. So I definitely suggest you try those. It's just some grilled chicken, some buffalo sauce, some pepper jack cheese. And this popper we give you a blue cheese or ranch. So deep fried, it's a little unique.

Jeremy Julian:

love it. That sounds really good.

Jarrod Bravo:

as far as salads go, Fiesta chicken salad, once it was added to our menu, it's held the number one spot for probably a decade now you gotta, and it's like a Mexican inspired salad. You got romaine corn, black beans, tomato, avocado, some black and grilled chicken. Very good. And back to that one thing that kind of sets us apart, I forgot to mention this. proteins or chicken, steak, salmon, shrimp. All grill to order. You order that you can see the guy. You can look through our window. You can see him putting it on the grill, salt and peppering it. It takes five.

Jeremy Julian:

not sitting in a lexan where somebody's scooping it on top of the salad. it's getting made while you're, while the rest of the salad's getting prepared. That's really cool.

Jarrod Bravo:

So if you order steak, you can go round to the window. You'll see the guy putting it on the grill, salt and peppering it, and then seeing him finishing it on your salad.

Jeremy Julian:

That's incredible. Jared, thank you so much for sharing the story. thank you for, I honestly, I love watching entrepreneurs that started young, started to figure it out, and really even those people that are humble enough to admit that they made mistakes while they were going through this. So thank you for sharing that story. I can't, can't wait to get to one of the stores. I know I said this to you prior to, jumping on'em. Bum that I can't. And when I stupid rev in his fricking Instagram, I sit and watch him and I'm like, dammit. there's a concept local here in Dallas that's, that's similar. But, after I heard you talk about some of these things, it's oh, I gotta figure out how to go make some of that stuff. so I appreciate you sharing. how, where do they go? Check out, is it salad house.com to learn about franchising? Is that where you guys are at?

Jarrod Bravo:

that is correct. The salad house.com. We have a franchising page there. You can go link you right out to it. Little form you fill out. Someone will reach out to you if you're ever interested.

Jeremy Julian:

Awesome. thank you again for your time. To our listeners, guys, make it a great day.

Speaker:

Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Visit restaurant technology guys.com for tips, industry insights, and more to help you run your restaurant better.

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