About the Guest

Jeff Chandler was born and raised in the restaurant business. Now the CEO of Hopdoddy Burger Bar, Jeff left a high-flying finance job at Goldman Sachs to bartend and never looked back. He spent 20 years at RAM Restaurant Group in Washington where he rose to become managing partner, then served as CEO of Opper Melang restaurants before finding his way to Hopdoddy.

Episode Summary

Jeff Chandler, CEO of Hopdoddy, on how to “do the familiar in an unfamiliar way”, how to think about the different parts of that customer experience and on the challenges of localizing the guest experience at every location.

Episode Transcript

Zach Goldstein

00:01:

From fake meat and robot chefs to ghost kitchens and delivery drones. The restaurant industry is rapidly evolving. Welcome to Food Fighters, bringing you interviews with the leading industry trailblazers. I’m your host, Zach Goldstein.

Zach Goldstein

00:19:

Welcome back to Food Fighters. I’m your host, Zach Goldstein. I’m here today with Jeff Chandler, CEO of Hopdoddy Burger Bar. Jeff Chandler was born and raised in the restaurant business. Now the CEO of Hopdoddy Burger Bar, Jeff left a high flying finance job at Goldman Sachs to bartend and never looked back. He spent 20 years at RAM Restaurant Group in Washington where he rose to become Managing Partner, then served as CEO of Opper Melang Restaurants before finding his way to Hopdoddy. Jeff, welcome to Food Fighters.

Jeff Chandler

00:48:

Hey, thank you, Zach. I’m fired up to be here.

Zach Goldstein

00:52:

Great. Well we’re, we’re thrilled to have you. And, and we’ll dive right in. You know, Hopdoddy and in a restaurant space overall, that’s, that’s just teaming with great concepts, Hopdoddy is in perhaps what many would call the most competitive part of that category. Yet you describe your concept as a complete unicorn, which I love. I love the uniqueness of the Hopdoddy the brand and concept. Tell us what makes Hopdoddy stand out and makes it so unique in the category.

Jeff Chandler

01:24:

Yeah. Thank you, Zach. You know, my team gives me a bad time. Every time I say something about unicorn or unicorn casual, they always kind of roll their eyes. But it really is different and I think a, what is that difference? It’s that we do the very familiar in an unfamiliar way. It’s different from, you know, how we take and make our burgers and grind fresh daily and bake our own buns to the type of people we hire and to how we train. It’s just that we do it in a different way. So I think that’s why it is a little bit different. And we fall in between kind of fast casual and casual dining, right? We’re really not fast or we’re not on the casual dining scene, but we do it in a very creative experiential way. And I think it’s a niche that more and more I see more and more competitors going towards this fast casual, casual dining hybrid.

Zach Goldstein

02:15:

Yeah, absolutely. And to make that work you focused, I’ve, I’ve heard you say this before, on, on the – every step of the customer experience, from the moment they’re walking up to the restaurant to, all the way to the – to the time that they’re leaving. And of course, everything in between: ordering and service and eating and drinking. How do you think about the different parts of that customer experience and ensuring that you are delivering on your brand promise at every step of the way?

Jeff Chandler

02:46:

You know, it’s, it’s a great question. We talk about that almost every single day in terms of how we break that down and what those touch points are that we really can impart something memorable, something different, something unique, something better. And so we really have scripted that through starting with design and decor, but really leading up to how we train our team members and, and what that guest experience is along the way. Again, we’re not perfect on it, right? We’re, we kind of live our “best today, better tomorrow” mantra and getting better at it. But it really is being specific about the touch points and how we want that guest to experience Hopdoddy.

Zach Goldstein

03:26:

Well it helps to have a burger that various publications most recently Thrillist, Food and Wine, etc., have called one of the best burgers in America. So I think that that gives you a unique, the unique standout experience that you can build around, right?

Jeff Chandler

03:40:

It does. I mean, it is around this fanatically great complicated product. I mean, again, it’s just a hamburger at the end of the day. But, you know, the founders that created Hopdoddy once said to me, and if they’ve said once, they’ve said it a hundred times it’s the most complicated concept they’ve ever created that they’ve ever run. And these are the same founders that created Eddie V’s. If you’re familiar with Eddie V’s, and they’ve created some just extraordinary you know, high end restaurants, casual dining restaurants, but there’s a lot of moving parts in Hopdoddy. So you know, to, to take a fanatical approach in how we build a burger is just the beginning, right? We know that those are kind of, for us, they’re, they’re table stakes. We have to get that right. And then it’s how do we do that? How do we create the team member experience? How do we create the guest experience that complements that fanatically great product?

Zach Goldstein

04:36:

And part of that starts with the the bar, right? And that’s one of the things that actually makes you unique is this combination of great local beers with the, the fantastic burger, right? How do you think about localizing each restaurant? Cause that’s something that not every brand does. And you’ve leaned really heavily into this concept that the place where a restaurant exists makes it unique, not just one new store in the Hopdoddy chain.

Jeff Chandler

05:09:

Well that’s, that’s right. And I think that it’s, there’s something communal in nature about Hopdoddy. There’s something communal in nature about how we wanted the guest to experience Hopdoddy. And it wasn’t just transactional, it wasn’t just going in, getting a great burger and getting out. Although a lot of people do that and that’s great. But I think the founders originally envisioned something more and we’ve kind of taken that and really run with it today. Meaning, you know, it is experiential, right? So again, I said earlier, we’re in the fast casual segment. We do transition though sometimes into the casual dining segment because of the experiential nature of what we do, right. With that full bar gives us a different niche to play in. It gives us the, you know, meet up after work, meet up on the way to dinner before a movie, what have you describe a quick burger and a beer. And, and really taking over from, you know, really the bar and grills or the old pubs of the past, right, where they really fostered that communal nature and that neighborhood environment. And, you know, the founders thought that was important. And we embrace that today. It gives another compelling reason to come to Hopdoddy or to be a Hopdoddy regular or a loyal fan. The fact that there’s that different element that, you know, just by nature of, of having that bar does make it more communal, more experiential. And another reason to come in to Hopdoddy.

Zach Goldstein

06:35:

It’s kind of a consistent thread through, through your career is you’ve kind of rode this, this microbrew or local craft brewery wave at, at many of the restaurants you’ve been a part, right? And thinking back a decade or two, how have you seen that focus change and, and learn to take advantage of it?

Jeff Chandler

06:58:

You know, that’s, it’s been fascinating to watch and I can tell you, I mean, I, I’m, I’m a burger and beer fan, right? It’s a perfect union of burger and beer. It’s kind of Hopdoddy’s name “Hop”, the hops, the aromatic flower used or the bittering unit in beer. “Doddy” is a nickname given to a Scottish Angus basically a steer that that perfect blend: Hop-doddy and, and I’ve always been around burger and beers my whole life. You’re right. And back in the late eighties, very early nineties, we, I was part of starting a, basically a craft brew pub. And we realized early on that there was something unique and special about craft beer. I mean pre-prohibition there were, you know, I would say, I can’t remember the number – it’s like 2300 breweries or maybe even more than that in the United States. There was tons of breweries in the United States. Post prohibition we lost a lot of those. And so I think we saw an opportunity back then, and I think we see it today. It’s fully alive and vibrant today. People embracing craft brew. And back in the early nineties when we started this it was completely foreign in a lot of areas. In fact, in 1992 we took it to Dallas, Texas. We had ended up having seven brewery related concepts in, in, and around Dallas. But people kind of looked at us like we were, we were odd, you know?

Zach Goldstein

08:23:

Right. Where’s my Budweiser? Or where’s my Miller? What are these other things?

Jeff Chandler

08:26:

Absolutely. A craft beer to them was Shiner Bock. Okay. You know, this is, this is crazy. And, and I look at Dallas today as an example. I mean, Dallas today is thriving with craft brews. So I think it’s, I think it’s a product that’s here to stay. I think it’s like any other explosion in a category, you know craft beer allows that uniqueness, that individual style to come through. And it really is about, you know, certain areas. So there are people that really embrace and, and search out for and seek craft breweries, you know, any like when they’re traveling or anywhere they go, they want to see what’s local, what’s great and they love that experimental aspect of it. And, and we really feel that Hopdoddy it compliments our burgers, right? It is experiential. It’s different. It’s not your bud light and Coors light beer. They’re flavorful, they’re unique, they’re distinctive, kind of like our burgers. And so we really feel, and, and this an important aspect. Now if you want to come in and get a Coors light Hopdoddy we’ll have that. But we really embrace that local craft draft in every one of our restaurants, we have these kind of colorful individual boards that our, our general managers put up that allows us to celebrate those local craft breweries.

Zach Goldstein

09:45:

For sure. And, and having such a strong bar has, has fundamental impacts on the economics of your restaurants as well. As you think about what it means to build a, a sustainable strong business model with strong unit level economics, having good attach rates of, of beer from the bar must help there.

Jeff Chandler

10:10:

Absolutely. No, it’s, it’s huge, right? And we, you know, our burgers really in some sense are our loss leaders just with the, the quality of our grind, the quality of what we do. And so the, the bar aspect does help kind of normalize that from a business perspective. You know, still giving strong value and be competitive within our pricing. But yeah, it’s just easier to dispense lower labor, you know, more quality, better consistency it just an easier product at a good cost.

Zach Goldstein

10:43:

Food Fighters – stay on the cutting edge.

Zach Goldstein

10:45:

So, switching gears the, the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers recently gave you an award. You were the recipient of the 2019 Commitment to People Award. One of the things that was noted which I thought was just phenomenal is you have given out your personal cell phone number to your employees and actually encourage them to call. That is unique and could result in you being inundated with phone calls. You have a lot of employees at this point. Tell, tell us about this commitment to people and why that made sense to you to do. How are your employees reacting to that that has changed that their, their day to day?

Jeff Chandler

11:33:

Yeah. You know, I’ve always been a big believer in being fully transparent, fully open and honest, being real, being myself, and expecting the same from others. And I know no better way to do that than just to engage in dialogue and conversations with our team members, right? So this, this whole thing, and if I first have to say, I was really humbled to be recognized by CHART for this. It was a, it’s a great honor. It’s a great distinction. There’s a lot of great people out there doing, you know, a much better job than I am, but I’m very humbled to get this and it, and it really, it started from this, this notion that I wanted to be – have transparency and the only way you get transparency is through, you know, an openness and a willingness to communicate openly and honestly in, in, and with genuine intent and not beat around the bush, being direct, all these things.

Jeff Chandler

12:24:

And so, you know, one of the things that I learned actually from my father back really early on in his pub business was just, you know, having what we call “town halls”, going out in the restaurants, meeting with people, talking with people, talking from, you know, dishwashers to a bartender to cooks, to the servers. You know, everybody and figuring out, Hey, what do we do great? What, what do we do not so great? Where, where do we need to focus on improving? How can we support you better? What are the things our guests are asking for? What are, what are they like, what are they don’t like? And it’s just a myriad of questions. And in that dialogue, you know, I could see this the first time I would visit a restaurant, you know, and I try to get the conversation going and, and, and I can always see it’s really quiet, right?

Jeff Chandler

13:11:

No one wants to tell, you know, the president or the CEO or somebody that, no one wants to say, ‘Hey, I don’t like this or this, this isn’t working well Jeff or gosh, why did you guys make that decision?’ And so I try to seed it with a few, you know, kind of critical comments that, you know, show a level of humility that people actually say, okay, wow, maybe he is open to listening to this. And so, you know, the next time I come back to that restaurant, those team members are more engaged. They’re, they’re more willing and open to share because they know that I really do want to know what’s going on. And I’m not looking to point fingers, I’m not looking to place blame and to get somebody in trouble. It’s not all about that. It’s about, you know, being truly humble and saying, how can we do a better job? How can we serve you better so that you can serve our guests better?

Zach Goldstein

14:01:

Right, I mean, they’re on the front line. They’re able to observe things that are hard to pick up as you go from one restaurant to the next. Right?

Jeff Chandler

14:12:

Right. So, it’s been invaluable. And you know, I’ve built that trust with team members and I, and I think it’s important. And so that kind of led to the “call me”, right? With anything. And I will tell you that a few people call me, a lot of people will send text messages, which I actually appreciate. Just be with schedules and timing and so forth. But I would say for the most part, you know, a good chunk of our team members have taken me up on that at some point in time over the last five years.

Zach Goldstein

14:43:

Are you getting texts daily? I mean, is that the volume at this point? Hey, this is, this is Bill. And I just had some thoughts that I wanted you to be aware of? Is that hap– like, like what’s, what’s the cadence here?

Jeff Chandler

14:57:

Yeah. So I see a spike right after a town hall meeting in one of our restaurants. And I might get, you know, in a team of, you know, 55 team members, I might get three or four, you know, after that. So it’s not, it’s not a huge number, but, but it’s, you know, when you take that time, 35 restaurants, it does, it does add up.

Zach Goldstein

15:21:

Sure. And, and, and you wouldn’t have gotten that feedback or that insight without it you know, you would’ve, you would’ve been reliant on it, bubbling its way up through the, through, through the hierarchy of management, which is you know, who knows if it makes it to you.

Jeff Chandler

15:37:

Right. That’s correct. Yeah. So I, you know, I, I always can do a better job in managing my time, but I do find that to be a priority. You know and one of the things like we do right now, and this really came from our Chief Operations Officer, is, you know, being more methodical about just picking up the phone and calling people. So, not waiting for them to call me, but you know, calling our general managers, our assistant managers, our trainers on a, a somewhat, you know, regimented basis but random in terms of how they perceive it and just say, how you doing? What’s going on? How can we help you? How can we support you better? And you know, that initiative we’ve been doing for the last probably four months and all of our exec team members are engaging in that. And it’s been, it’s been awesome.

Zach Goldstein

16:19:

The lost art of the phone call, huh?

Jeff Chandler

16:21:

Yeah. Believe it or not, right?

Zach Goldstein

16:25:

It’s amazing. It’s amazing what a quick conversation can get you.

Jeff Chandler

16:28:

It goes a long ways.

Zach Goldstein

16:31:

Yeah, exactly. So you have, I mean this is important because you now have 30 plus restaurants. You’re across the country, right? And so getting that feedback matters. I would imagine that as you, as you open up in more and more states, and as you look to expand, the, the other part of that equation is not just having great people who will tell you what’s going on, but you got to find good real estate. You need to be opening, especially with a footprint like yours. You, you need to be opening restaurants where there’s good demand. So tell us about that process right from, from beginning to end. As you, you’re now in multiple states, you’ve been on a pretty significant expansion tear, I would imagine there’s more to come. How do you think about figuring out where to put these restaurants and understanding what types of customers are, are really seeking a Hopdoddy experience?

Jeff Chandler

17:26:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I can tell you that the one thing I’ve learned is this it’s definitely a mix between art and science right? There– there’s a lot of good data analytic programs out there and gosh, with the technology, with, you know, geo-fencing and tracking people and knowing where they go and you know, where they populate certain areas. I mean, it gets scarily deep and invasive in terms of privacy, but but that doesn’t tell the whole story, right? There’s an art piece to it as well. Trying to understand how your core consumers, how they spend their time, how you know, how they use Hopdoddy and how you can capture them in a convenient manner, right. Whether it’s close to work or on their way home or by the gym or by where they shop on the weekends or what have you. And so I will tell you, you know, look, we don’t have it figured out by any stretch. And if a restaurant company that does with 35 restaurants they’re, I don’t know if they’re being truthful. I mean, I think, you know, it takes probably 500 units before you start getting very, very statistically great modeling and projections. So, you know, we try to blend that art and science and we do that again through great data analytics, through great people out in the field and through really a core understanding of who our guest is.

Zach Goldstein

18:46:

Yeah, I mean, I saw an interview where you said, you, you can’t just grow to grow. You got to have that patience and, and discipline. And certainly a lot of concepts that are reaching around this stage choose to consider franchising. It seems like Hopdoddy has, has not done that. And I’m not sure if that’s in the, in the cards for the future or not. But what, what’s unique about being all company owned and what are the challenges when that question comes up, as I’m sure it does, should we consider franchising? What would that mean to the brand? Right. How do you think about that when you’re 100% company owned brand today?

Jeff Chandler

19:29:

Well, it starts with like what I’ve talked about earlier. I mean, it Hopdoddy is fairly complicated, right? The fact that we do burgers, but we do it differently. There’s a lot of moving parts in a Hopdoddy. And so, you know, we really, I think, you know, when I came here five years ago, we, we, we ruled that out right off the bat because I felt there was way too many parts to, for it to be an effective franchise model. Now we’ve taken steps to, to make it more simple, right? And improving some of the quality and the consistency of some of our procedures. But it’s still a fairly complicated. So we think that for us, you know growing it internally, you know, we’ve got, you know, great founders and a great financial sponsor partner and you know, that really cares about growing the right way, right?

Jeff Chandler

20:15:

So it’s not about growing, how fast we can grow, you know, how strong can we grow? And, and do it right. And so I think it’s, you know, being able to be selective to be a little bit choosy in real estate and choosy about how we grow. You know, we don’t have that proverbial gun to our head and have to get so many units on the map. And so that has been really nice. And, and so I think, again, part of it is growing larger in terms of number of units, but we’ve also really invested a lot of time, money and effort into, you know, how do we grow better and how do we, how do we get stronger as a concept? How do we get stronger as a brand? You know, where we could have taken those dollars and that time and really invested in, you know, more units. But really making sure that we’re growing the right way in the regions that we’re established and you know, and, and just improving upon that.

Zach Goldstein

21:03:

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like there’s a clear focus on knowing who your customers are and what makes them unique. And I was laughing in a good way, but I was, I was appreciating these customer segment names that I saw. Striving singles, urban ambition, Bohemian groove, metro fusion. I mean, these are, these are uniquely Hopdoddy segments of customers. And you’re clearly using them to figure out where to put your stores and who fits into the brand and who to, who to attract. How do you think about customer segmentation and insight into those customers? And, and also where did these names come from?

Jeff Chandler

21:44:

Yeah, no, it’s they– they are funny names. So Experian has created these mosaic segmentation groups. Um and they’re fairly standardized. They’re fairly unified. You know, a lot of the big, big data data companies, use, use those to break them up into smaller kind of niches so that you can think about them in real terms, right? Like, okay, if this person, these is kind of how this psychographically, demographically how these people think, then you might be able to start, you know, everything from creating products and, and experiences that they like to where they trade how they trade, you know, if they’re looking for, again, a quick lunch or they’re looking for a long afternoon happy hour, you know, so you try to use some of those psychographic details to then, you know, we, we use them to better improve our product offerings or our pricing or the, the, the scope of products that we have. And really use that to form some of the core characteristics of, you know, why people come to Hopdoddy and then how we can better leverage that and lean into that while we grow in different markets. Right. Knowing that every market’s a little bit different.

Zach Goldstein

23:01:

Right. And that’s, I mean, that’s ultimately, not only is the, is the concept a little bit of a unicorn, but you, you want each store to feel a little bit that way. And so knowing who are these people and how can we really cater to them? I mean, that seems critical to me. If you’re talking about local craft brews and really having that local flavor,

Jeff Chandler

23:23:

That’s right. No, that, that is right. And that that does, you know, that sits at the core of any menu conversation or any pricing conversation that we have really, or any real estate question that we have is, you know, knowing those groups, you know, psychographically demographically, you know, and really trying to make sure that we build that concept around around those folks, right, that that will be our loyal fans. They, they’re the folks that will be in, you know, once a month or, or more. And so it really does serve as kind of as are our true North.

Zach Goldstein

23:57:

Absolutely. I think the, it’s, we can’t do a podcast without talking about the rise of off-premise. And I wanted to ask you directly because the challenge is with margin and the economics of third party delivery, are, are ones that the entire industry is facing. And there is, I’d say a very lively and appropriate debate emerging on whether restaurants are actually making enough incremental sales from third party delivery to justify it. That’s made harder though when the majority of your in-restaurant sales have alcohol attached to them and you have no opportunity to do that when you’re delivering your food off-premise. How have you thought about the uniqueness of off-premise for Hopdoddy and, and how are you taking into account the pretty significant margin hit that comes from not attaching alcohol to your food?

Jeff Chandler

24:59:

Well, look, you’re, you described the situation perfectly, right? And we’re right in that mix of, you know, fully leaning into it, fully understanding how we can make a better guest experience off-premise, right? Whether it’s packaging or you know, verbiage and reheating or you know, how we could potentially in some states attach, you know, beer let’s say in portable growler containers to those orders and those types of things. But you know, the overriding factor for us is, you know, my gosh, this on-premise experience, this is our bread and butter. This is what we built our brand on. This is what we built our reputation on. We can’t let off-premise business degradate the experience of the on premise guest. So you know everybody wants food at the same time, right? They want it between 1130 and one 30 and again between call it six o’clock and eight 30 at night.

Jeff Chandler

25:54:

And you know, so when our four wall business is busy, our off-premise is busy, right? And all of a sudden what seems to be a relatively short line with only 10 people waiting in line all of a sudden in reality is a 20 person line. Cause we have that many orders coming in from off premise, right? So we, we really pay a lot attention to making sure that off-premise business business doesn’t degregate our on-premise business. So that’s the first thing we do. The second thing then is how do we improve the off premise business? How do we increase throughput capacity so that we can handle more off premise business, right? Without degradating the on-premise business and how can we do the off-premise business in a way that is incrementally profitable? Right? To your earlier point, I think a lot of folks out there aren’t money in off-premise just yet.

Jeff Chandler

26:44:

And you know, we don’t make very much money off-premise. And I think what the belief and the, the thinking that, that I’ve heard from a lot of my peers is, you know, everyone’s trying to figure out, you know, who the big players are going to be, really where the cost structure is going to right size itself because some of these third party delivery companies can’t be making money. And once that figures out, you know, I think the marketplace will figure out how they can make money. And, and the key difference is the brick and mortar places like us, you know, we’re at a competitive disadvantage because we do have the brick and mortar facilities, right? We’re not in ghost kitchens and you know, the big proliferation of, of all of those folks that can help lower your costs over time. So it’s complicated. A lot of moving parts. I don’t think we do it great. You know? And we’re, I think in a big pool of people trying to just figure it out and do it in a way that is good for us.

Zach Goldstein

27:42:

It’s refreshing though to hear you talk about the importance of first and foremost, manage and retain the uniqueness of the in-restaurant experience. And I think that’s not said all that often. There’s a lot of restaurants that are rushing to ‘how do we figure out how to serve this bountiful demand off-premise?’. And in some cases harming the, what made them special in the first place. And it sounds like at Hopdoddy it’s first and foremost preserve what has made this brand so unique.

Jeff Chandler

28:18:

No, that’s right. And that’s, that that trumps everything else in this discussion. And to the extent we feel we can again, deliver on that on-premise experience. Well then absolutely we’re going to be opportunistic and we’re going to try to spread the Hopdoddy love out through off premise, but not at the expense of on premise. Right.

Zach Goldstein

28:35:

Great. Well uh on a related subject, and my last question the podcast is called Food Fighters. So, so we like to ask this question what food fight or challenge facing restaurants today is, is most on your mind? Whether that is right now or whether that’s something that you see coming around the corner a couple of years from now. What is the food fight that, that keeps you up at night as a restaurant CEO?

Jeff Chandler

29:04:

You know, a couple of things. Obviously the off-premise, the big dynamic shift there, that’s a concern, but we’ve already beat that one up enough. You know, I would say, you know, making sure that our food system in America is healthy, it’s safe. And you know, we continue to educate young Americans, young adults on healthy food, right? I think that part of what really resonated inside me with Hopdoddy is this approach of, you know, how can we deliver, you know, healthy food. And, burgers and fries and a category – let’s just say it, right? It’s not necessarily the most healthiest of foods, but how can we do it in a way that is healthy? That, you know, we do care about where our food comes from. We do care about the ingredients within our food, whether it’s, you know, I don’t care if it’s cheese, a sauce, our burger patties, but really, really understanding, you know, our food source and making sure that everybody is aware and taking actions to improve the, the health and the safety of our food source.

Jeff Chandler

30:14:

You know, as big food looks to, you know, like everyone else have some efficiencies, gain some margins. There are a lot of things done along in the chain that most folks don’t know about, right? The preservatives, the additives, the– a lot of the growth hormones, those types of things. And I think, you know, I’m seeing a really good trend of people that are getting on the bandwagon, right. Not only through, you know, forced programs like a menu calorie count and those types of things, but and, and standardizing the, the USDA organics kind of tag and what that’s all about. But I think it’s just an education and a, and a continual, gradual, you know, hopefully positive shift into just a healthier food chain and a food system in our country.

Zach Goldstein

31:04:

Boy, we could spend a whole podcast on that. That is, that is a very important topic. And I appreciate you flagging it. I think knowing that restaurants and restaurant leadership are focused on it should make us all feel a little bit better. Um so we’re out of time, unfortunately. Otherwise we would dive right into that. But Jeff, I greatly appreciate you joining us on Food Fighters. It was fantastic to hear the Hopdoddy story and some of the ways that you’re looking at the business and, and we wish you the best in keeping on that food fight and expanding your brand.

Jeff Chandler

31:38:

Well, thank you Zach. I really appreciate you for not only doing this, but for everything you’re doing at Thanx. And it’s you know, there’s a lot of moving parts out there and I think the more communication like this that gets out there, I think it’s all positive and healthy. So I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you.

Zach Goldstein

31:56:

Agreed. My pleasure.

Zach Goldstein

31:59:

You’ve been listening to Food Fighters with me, Zach Goldstein. To subscribe to the podcast or to learn more about our featured guest, visit thanx.com/food-fighters. That’s Thanx, spelled T H A N X.com/food-fighters. This podcast is a production of Thanx, the leading CRM and digital engagement solution for restaurants. Until next time, keep fighting Food Fighters.