Building a Casual Mediterranean Empire: Pita Mediterranean Street Food’s Journey to 30+ Locations | Restaurants & Franchises Series

How can an entrepreneur transform a passion for Mediterranean cuisine into a thriving fast-casual restaurant chain with over 30 locations across the Southeastern United States?

In this episode, Nour Rabai, founder of Pita Mediterranean Street Food, shares his inspiring journey from dishwasher to successful restaurateur. Nour discusses how he built a fast-growing franchise concept, driven by his desire to recreate the flavors of his childhood while adapting to the demanding fast-casual market.

Nour highlights the importance of controlled growth and understanding franchise laws in different states. He shares insights on navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, including embracing technology and third-party delivery services to keep the business afloat.

As the leader of a growing restaurant chain, Nour aims to reach 100 locations in the next 3-5 years while maintaining the passion and quality that drove his initial success. He discusses the challenges of balancing rapid growth with operational excellence, the importance of maintaining product consistency through centralized kitchens, and strategies for employee retention in a competitive job market.

 

Resources and strategies that inspired Nour:

  • Restaurant Business Podcast for industry insights
  • Self-taught approach to business growth
  • Centralized kitchen model for consistent food quality
  • Embracing technology for efficient operations (kiosks, integrated POS systems)
  • Adapting to market trends with limited-time menu offerings

 

Tune in for valuable insights on building a successful fast-casual restaurant franchise, overcoming industry challenges, and creating a positive impact in the competitive food service industry.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE

Transcript

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.


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Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories. Podcast where leaders share their experiences. So we can learn from their successes and be inspired. How they’ve overcome adversity! My name is Anthony Kodisbodi, and today’s guest is Noor Rabbi, founder of Peta Mediterranean Street, food a fast casual destination for fresh, delicious, and affordable Mediterranean cuisine. You’ll find all kinds of beautiful and flavorful foods, such as traditional and

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Anthony Codispoti: street Pitas Meza spreads rice bowls, salads and desserts founded in 2016. They already have over 30 locations in Metro, Atlanta, and the Southeast United States

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Anthony Codispoti: nowhere draws upon his 22 years of restaurant expertise as he aims to recreate his childhood experience of his mom’s kitchen. Colorful foods, delicious aromas with family and friends gathered for a meal. They are a fresh to order concept that does all their food, 100%. Hello.

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Anthony Codispoti: And before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company. Add back benefits agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line.

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Anthony Codispoti: One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our proprietary programs results vary for each company, and some organizations may not be eligible to find out if your company qualifies contact us today at addback benefitsagency. Com now back to our guest today, the CEO of Peta Mediterranean Street Food. Noor, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

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Mila Rabai: Anthony. Thank you for having me. I’m excited about the podcast.

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Anthony Codispoti: All right. So, Noor, before you started Pita Mediterranean Street food, you had worked in restaurants for years, including another concept that you started called the Beirut.

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Anthony Codispoti: Talk to me about how those early restaurant experiences led you to starting the Beirut.

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Mila Rabai: Absolutely so.

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Mila Rabai: When I 1st moved to this country, when I was 10 years old, I quickly started in the restaurant industry as a boss went into the dish pit, which is we call the dish area in the restaurant business, and then continued my my growth into the

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Mila Rabai: it’s into prepping and into the kitchen.

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Mila Rabai: So for many years, that is, that’s all I did, and that’s all I learned is the back of house, and I became very familiar with it, and took that on to manage a Co.

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Mila Rabai: Couple of different small concepts in the Ohio area

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Mila Rabai: until we transitioned down to Georgia to open our 1st restaurant back in 2,007, which came to a halt due to the economic crisis, and we waited it out till about 2010 when we purchased the existing restaurant.

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Mila Rabai: That was a Mediterranean.

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Mila Rabai: I said, and we turned it into the Beirut.

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Mila Rabai: So a year into it. We opened up the Beirut and and

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Mila Rabai: that’s that’s where we’re at now.

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Anthony Codispoti: And so do you still run and operate. The Beirut is that in existence.

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Mila Rabai: I do not not any longer. We took the Beirut. I ran it for about a year until I spun it off and created the fast casual concept which formerly known as Peta by the Beirut. So Peter had a history of starting in 1212 to 2012. We opened our 1st location under the name Peta, by the Beirut.

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Mila Rabai: and it was a fast, casual version of the bay really was a similar menu, but more on a fast casual side, and the when we spun that off I I personally found a great success in in in the fast casual segment, and I and I began to love and appreciate it more than I do the fine dining segment. So that’s how Peter was born.

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Anthony Codispoti: Nora, I’m gonna pause for just a second. The your connection seems to be a little bit delayed. Your Internet speed. I don’t know if you’ve got other apps open, or if there’s a place in the office that tends to be maybe a little bit better.

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Mila Rabai: Not really can you hear me better without the headphones?

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Anthony Codispoti: The headphones are are fine. I like the headphones. But there’s a delay. There’s kind of like a little bit of a delay in in the video feed just tells me, like slower Internet speed.

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Mila Rabai: No, I I don’t have anything open

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Mila Rabai: right now.

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Anthony Codispoti: It’s, it’s okay. It’s just not as great as it could be. And so if there are any changes that we can make, we’ll, we’ll make them, and if not, then we’ll just roll with the punches.

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Mila Rabai: I think. I don’t have anything operating aside from my, my, my, my computer. So.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay? And do you have, do you typically take video calls in this location in your office.

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Mila Rabai: Yeah. Every single day, every single day.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay, we’ll we’ll we’ll roll with it, and we’ll we’ll use what we got. Cause I I know there’s some good content coming out of this.

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Mila Rabai: Do you want me to try to do it on my phone? Would it be better on my phone.

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Anthony Codispoti: I don’t think so. But why don’t you go ahead and and try to connect the cell phone to the same link and we’ll see if maybe

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Anthony Codispoti: there’s any.

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Mila Rabai: Difference. There.

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Mila Rabai: Yup, give me one second.

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Mila Rabai: Sorry about this. It’s.

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Anthony Codispoti: That’s all right.

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Anthony Codispoti: There’s little little technology gnomes running around everywhere.

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Mila Rabai: And know it.

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Anthony Codispoti: Not always sure what what’s causing the little hiccups.

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Mila Rabai: I’m gonna mute this one. So see if it

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Mila Rabai: Wi-fi data.

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Anthony Codispoti: Let’s see.

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. Say something to me.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Name!

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Can you hear me better now?

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, this actually seems to be better.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Okay, let’s do that. Then I’ll hang up on the other start on this one. How’s that sound?

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Okay.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: see if Wi-fi data.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay.

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Anthony Codispoti: you feel ready. We’ll we’ll kind of jump back in where we left off. Then.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Yep, I’m just gonna get out of zoom, so there’s no echo.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Alright perfect.

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Anthony Codispoti: Alright. I like this a lot better. Cool.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay. So you went from the Beirut. Now you’ve got the Pita Street food concept. When did you feel like you knew that you really had something with with this new Pita Street food concept? When when did you feel like we’ve got something we could really build on here.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So I think it was. When we we opened our 1st location 1212, 2012. Not long after that we we began our our second the opening of our second location in 2013. Once the second location to open, we had the traction that we knew we had something is when I had the idea of like, okay, we want organic growth. We wanna grow this internally and see where it takes us. When we get into the Atlanta and outside the perimeter market.

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Anthony Codispoti: You specifically mentioned 1212, 12 is the date that you open. Was there any particular significance to those numbers to just kind of happen that way?

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I can assure you it just happened that way.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay?

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Anthony Codispoti: And is 12. Your lucky number. Now that on all your shirts, Nope, just okay. That was just a nice happenstance.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay, so you start out with one location, you went to 2.

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Anthony Codispoti: It takes, you know, in my experience, talking with business leaders, business founders is it takes a certain set of skills to be able to start something brand new, get it off the ground, maybe get that 1st location, even the next 2 or 3. But to go from that to where you are now with. I think you’ve got 33 locations. Now, is that right? 3 corporate, 30 franchises.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Correct.

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Anthony Codispoti: That’s a whole nother set of skills that not everybody who has the skills to be a founder can grow into. Right. You’re putting a management team in place. You have to learn to delegate. You can’t be doing everything, and always have your finger on the pulse of everything. Talk to me a little bit about what that transition was like for you during this growth process.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Absolutely so, I think when when we we took a deep dive into franchising in late 2016, when we had a lot of potential franchisees really come to us and say, Hey, we wanna open up a Peda location. We love the concept. So when we took that deep dive into franchising, and we began to sell at the end of 2016. It really gave me the opportunity to understand the business from a different perspective one. What it takes to run a company when you have multiple

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: multiple people involved in the process. What it took for us to create the franchise disclosure, document number one. What kind of systems we had to put in place for that franchise disclosure, document, because for you to become a franchise, you have to have those systems in place to incorporate into those documents, so that the franchisees that are buying your concept and believing in your concept have something of a playbook to play on.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So that’s how our our initial response to the franchise was that we built the system internally, and we utilize that system in that playbook to grow into our future prospective franchise locations.

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Anthony Codispoti: Talk to me about the decision to grow, using the franchise model as opposed to continuing to open more corporate own facilities.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So at the time we started franchising we had 5 corporate locations, and that was, that was that had been our vision since day, one of us growing the concept organically and not from a franchise perspective.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: You know. I I come back to the the demand that played a big part for us of people wanting to open kind of swayed me in the direction of maybe we do have something here that we can take and and grow.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Now I understand the difficulties of of growing a franchise, you know, having so many different owner operators involved

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and understanding. You know how how the concept will be taken from there with so many different locations, so many different ways to operate the store

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: from day one we incorporated our products to be made in the central kitchen, and that allowed us to control the product

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: during our growth strategy. So having that control from day one

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: assisted us in the franchise model because it alleviated a lot of the issues that would come from a franchise concept. You know, when you go to a location, let’s say in Atlanta, and you have the hummus in the euro.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and you love it. And if you go to a location down in Florida, and you have the hummus euro, and there’s a discrepancy and taste. We don’t have that because we control the the back end of it. The production of the sauces and the proteins. It’s all made in a central kitchen, distributed out so at the franchise level their responsibilities is to cook the product, to order and and take care of the guests.

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Anthony Codispoti: You mentioned that pretty early on, you were having potential franchisees coming to you, inquiring about possible opportunities. That says a lot about something that you guys were doing? What what is it that you guys are doing that was so attractive to people that they were raising their hand before you were asking for volunteers.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I think I think it has a hundred percent to do with the food. The food that we were serving and we still continue to serve is beyond phenomenal, especially in our eyes and our franchisees. We sold the concept to the Franchisees because they were sold on the food.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: The Mediterranean concept that we brought out, and the food and the the flavors and the profiles is what really, you know, sold the the

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: prospective franchisees and the current franchisees that are with us on the concept.

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Anthony Codispoti: And what is it that’s so different about your food? Is it fresh? Is certain spices that you’re using? Talk to me a little bit about that.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So obviously, the Mediterranean diet plays a big part in our in our, in our growth strategy. One, right? It’s healthy. We use fresh ingredients, olive oil, different spices, different flavors, you know, shawarmas hummus things that resonate with a lot of people that that have that exposure of traveling abroad, and you know you you combine that with the with the healthy, meaning

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Mediterranean food and and the clean eating of Mediterranean food kind of really played into one, and it kind of just, you know, really took off from there for us.

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Anthony Codispoti: Talk to me a little bit about the customer experience they walk in, are they, you know. Is it a quick service restaurant they order from a counter, and you know some people take away some people sit down. Is there a drive through to tell me what the typical restaurants like.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So the typical restaurant. And I’ll kind of go back to day one when we built the concept we kind of followed. We looked at Chipotle as our okay. Well, Chipotle is doing a fast, casual model, right? We took it. And we said, Okay, what can we do differently to Piggyback off of that, but at the same time do something where we have 1st to order food.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So we took that fast casual concept. We made it where you order at the counter. So you enter into our restaurant. You go to the counter, you order your food. It’s an open kitchen concept. So you see, everything being done in front of you. There’s nothing done behind the walls. We we are creating your food made fresh to order, and from day one that’s been our model, and that’s continue to separate. That’s what separates us from a lot of different concepts is that you’re not going down the line and

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: adding so many different things to a thing, to a, to a bowl, or a pita, or whatever that is that you’re in, you order off the menu. We create that product for you. Fresh made the order, and we deliver it to you in 10 min or less.

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Anthony Codispoti: That’s pretty impressive. So they’re not getting it at the counter they’re ordering there, and then they’re going to sit down, and it’s being brought to them.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Absolutely. Yup, Yup! And at the same time we give you that that open kitchen concept so you can see your food being sh, your meat being shaved off the comb, the grill chicken being cooked on the grill on the tar grill, your pita being made in front of you, so that we, we expose ourselves to the customer, so they feel one in one with us.

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Anthony Codispoti: Transparency on what’s going on. This is how your food is made.

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, tell me about the decision to go 100% halal and maybe actually 1st start by explaining what that means for people listening who aren’t familiar with that.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Sure. So so, you know, and and from the roots of it all Beirut was I’d open under. Hello! And we continued that process all the way through. We knew the importance of having halal

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: having a holoca concept as during that timeframe, and even continuing on. Now, what’s really important to us from our roots, being from Lebanon. So halal is a law, firm, prohibited way of of slaughtering me in a way right? And not only that. But there’s different items like

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: like different sauces and different desserts that might have things that are prohibited in the hello concept. Right? So we took that hello

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: aspect of our business and continue us. So we we advertise, and we

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: our 100% law concept. And we take that on from from the day one we started until until the end of day. So we’re gonna continue doing using our 100%. Hello, Brand.

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Anthony Codispoti: And so is that been more challenging for you to find

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Anthony Codispoti: suppliers that can meet those criteria for you here in the in the southeast United States.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: App. Absolutely. I wouldn’t say it. It was not challenging, as it is

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: more so from a cost perspective. Right? So when you go to a halal. Or even if you say a kosher thing, it’s really tough, because the product pricing increases dramatically. Right? So if you have, if you’re buying a pound of steak or pound of meat at $2. When you go to a halal aspect of it, you’re buying it at maybe 250, and that plays a big big part for us in in the food cost aspect of it. But

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: it’s also beneficial, because our franchisees love it, and our and our and our customers love it. You know. A lot of times we’ll get phone calls of saying, Hey, are you guys? Hello? And we say, yes, we have certifications at every single location. You’re more than welcome to come in and see the lost certificates where we get our proteins from, and we provide those for any customer that that requires it.

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Anthony Codispoti: And for those people who are listening that maybe halal is kind of a a new concept for them. What would? Why would this be interesting to them.

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Anthony Codispoti: Is it? Is it a cleaner process? Is it? Kind of paint? A picture on, on? Why, somebody who’s just learning about it for the 1st time might might be interested to partake in this.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I think, mo more than anything. It’s more of a religious thing, right? So from religious background, it’s halal is something that you know that is driven from a religious point of view. Right? It doesn’t change anything for the actual

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: customer. Right? That’s not looking for it. It’s not. Gonna it’s not gonna taste any different. It’s just more of a religious aspect of it in the way that it’s like a permissible food for the people who are looking for. Hello.

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Anthony Codispoti: Gotcha. So

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Anthony Codispoti: let’s talk a little bit about what your growth plans look like, what we’re at 33 locations right now, what’s coming down the pipe here in the next several months.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So super excited to talk about. You know what we just sign. We just signed a 14 story store deal with Walmart, which is amazing. We’re taking over you know, pre-existing restaurants that were in there. And and they’re not kios, but they’re actual physical restaurants. So we signed a deal with them to to start opening

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: actual brick and mortar stores inside the Walmarts.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and we are going to run and operate those like we do any store with 3rd party delivery with catering with you know. customers dine in takeout, you name it, and then in the pipeline we have another 6 brick and mortar stores coming within the 6 8 months.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: One in Panama City Beach, a couple more in Georgia, and a couple more in Alabama.

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Anthony Codispoti: The 14 locations in Walmart. That sounds like a pretty fun opportunity was there any thought to, hey? Maybe we’ll just try one or 2 there to see how it goes versus. Let’s just jump all in with, you know. 14 right out of the gate.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Well. So when, when the when the deal was brought to us, it was brought to us for

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: almost like a national brand, right so we can go anywhere in the United States that they’ve had availability. So we looked at it. And we decided, like

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: just the way that we’ve grown our concept organically and from in and going out, it’s we found much better success focusing on our territories and reaching out to, let’s say we wanna open one in California or one in Arizona which didn’t make sense, because there’s a lot of lot of pipeline deals that have to come into play for us to make that happen.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So we took on the majority of the available locations in Georgia, and we sent it out to our prospective franchisees, and one individual really took all the Georgia locations which really simplified our decision making, because it was it was his decision to say, Hey, I want all the Walmart territories in Georgia, and that’s why we signed those deals in there.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay, that makes sense. And you guys had actually been offered even more locations across the Us. To like, Hey, there’s there’s a whole supply chain pipeline here. I mean, you’re you’re 100% halal, right? You control the the production of all your proteins and your sauces in a central kitchen.

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Anthony Codispoti: You’ve kind of got your arms wrapped around what that is like

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Anthony Codispoti: in the geography that you’re at in the Southeast United States. Things change a lot when you know you’ve got to develop that same pipeline or figure out a way to ship all that stuff all the way across the country, so that obviously played a big part in your decision like, let’s just stay where we’re comfortable in right now, where we’ve got that supply chain built up.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Absolutely. And and, Anthony, I’ll touch a little bit on it. Why, we decided to do that because a a few years back we had sold 21 to locations in Chicago, in the Chicagoland area, to 1 1 Master Franchisee, and and we learned a lot through that process. And that process

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: really opened up our eyes of what it takes to grow across the country into the Midwest, from the southeast to the Midwest, and it really takes a lot from a franchise perspective to do that, understanding the D-c’s that we have in play with our current partnership with us foods. What does it take to take our proprietary items up there. How many skews of those proprietary items are

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: recommended to be sold to stay in the pipeline up there? What do we have to do and deliver from our central home base in Atlanta, Georgia, to them, you know. How do we manage the stores up that way? So we learned a lot from the from the Chicago store opening. And it kind of really, I’ll tell you, it put us. It gave us a real perspective of like, okay, maybe we grow organically. Let’s build our pipeline

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: from within and continue the growth that way organically, because it made more sense from all aspects of the business.

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Anthony Codispoti: So did the Chicago locations not work out. Then.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So we opened one. During the pandemic. We opened our 1st location and due to the to the issues of of distribution and operations and management. We ended up shutting the store in 2023 Yup.

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Anthony Codispoti: Hmm.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I never really master agreement at that in in the Chicagoland area.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay.

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Anthony Codispoti: So

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Anthony Codispoti: talk to me about what that roller coaster must have been like, right you you get excited, you. You had a deal, for, you know, 20 locations and a new part of the country, you know, as a business owner, you’re you’re hyped. You’re like, yes, like this is great growth. We can be in a, you know, a great city in, in, in the Midwest. And and then things don’t materialize. What you know. Talk me through that.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Yeah. So again, like you hit it, spot on. It was super exciting. At the beginning. We were head over heels to sign 21 locations in the Chicago area. There are some things that the viewers need to understand, and when they’re looking at a franchise concept when you’re going into States that are not franchise friendly, and I’ll speak on Illinois, for instance.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: There are many aspects of of the State of Illinois that you have to understand. When you go into franchising which you cannot, you can sign as many locations as you want, but you cannot collect the franchise fee on more than one location per as as they open

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: so from a financial perspective, it really it. It affected us because we had to invest so much time, money, and effort to be able to be franchisable in the State of Illinois. Number one, number 2. We had to wait

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: for each location to open, to be able to collect the franchise fee

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and understanding those rule and those laws that come into play. For many States that are part of that franchise. Law is is number one. So making sure that you have a great franchise attorney that can kind of guide you in the right direction, understanding that you know your growth strategy in those markets need to be very well calculated.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and understanding your your distribution, pipeline. So.

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Anthony Codispoti: So

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Anthony Codispoti: you shake off

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Anthony Codispoti: sort of the the disappointment from that experience, and you came through it with some really powerful lessons about understanding the the.

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Anthony Codispoti: the franchising laws in different States, and maybe even more importantly than that, understanding the challenges of distributing to a much wider geography. So I’m looking at your website. Now, I see you guys have locations, South Carolina, lots of locations in Georgia, one in Florida, some in Alabama. There’s a lot more coming. What are the geographies and the territories that you guys are looking to continue growing? Where are you looking for new franchisee opportunities.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I think Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, and and South Carolina is kind of our target territory. We’re really hyper focused on the southeast

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: we love, we love that area. We understand the clientele in that area. We understand that the capabilities that we have to fulfill the needs of our franchisees in those areas.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Now, I will not rule out anything outside of the southeast as long as we have a multi unit deal in place because that multi unit deal allows us to negotiate with the DC’s in our in, you know, our supply chains of giving them the idea of like, okay, we have a 3 or 5 unit deal going on in Tennessee or Oklahoma or Texas, you know, that allows us to kind of gauge our growth with them.

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Anthony Codispoti: Would you consider something in the Chicago area again, or do you feel like you’ve been

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Anthony Codispoti: burned once? And that that was enough.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: You know I will say this to all the viewers. Chicago is an amazing market, but it’s a very, very, very tough market. There is a lot of direct and indirect competition. So I say, for anybody that’s the halal concept, or even the Mediterranean concept alone in the Chicago area. Do your due diligence. Understand the market, understand where you’re going.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and if if I had to do it all over again, I think it would, it would highly be unlikely for us to go back. Because we’ve learned our lesson. We understand that market now, and we know what it takes to go in there, but it would. It would require it would require a lot of manpower for us to reconsider that.

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Anthony Codispoti: Understood.

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Anthony Codispoti: I’m looking at your website, and I see that you offer catering here. Is that a significant part of your business?

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Absolutely. I think the catering business right now is running about 25 to 30 of our business, which is the number. And again, that’s ebb and flow. It comes and goes. During, you know, we had a great quarter to because of graduations and and a lot of things that happen. And during the summertime, obviously it dies down. It picks back up when school comes back around and stuff like that. So yeah, it’s it’s a great aspect of our business. Absolutely.

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, I’m looking at some pictures here on your website and the presentations beautiful, I mean, not only does the food look delicious, but it’s a nice, bright, colorful presentation, you know something you’d be proud to set out at a graduation party or a birthday, or whatever it may be.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Absolutely. You know we we strive to have the fresh Mediterranean food as as part of our concept, the colorful, the the healthy choices, the grilled chicken, the hummus things that resonate with people that they, they, they wanna change. They wanna do something different other than the pizzas and the hamburgers and and the barbecue right? So so it’s a good spin for for, and a good change for people to to to have.

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Anthony Codispoti: Noor, what? What’s your favorite thing on the menu when you walk into one of your restaurants? What do you like to get.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So stick to warm up Peter

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: every day all day.

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Anthony Codispoti: You. You walk in, they say, Hey, nor we got your. We got your regular coming out for you.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: No, I I’ll be honest with you. I walk in. I go straight to the kitchen. One of my favorite things to do is work in the kitchen, so I I will go in and and start making food for customers. Cause this. This is my passion. It’s my hobby. That’s what I love to do.

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Anthony Codispoti: How would you describe what your your active role is in the company? Now, what what are the hats that you’re wearing these days?

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Where it’s. It’s I hate to say it, but it’s really sad, cause I’m out of the. I’m out of the restaurant right? So I deal with a lot of

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: back office emails, contracts, negotiations, you know, different territories, realtors looking for, you know, looking for new spaces. By the way, I’m not complaining. I’m just telling the people who are passionate about food. When you start to grow concept in a business, you slowly have to remove yourself from the restaurant and and start taking on things that are different than what you’re used to normally. But.

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, you went from being a food man to a businessman.

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Anthony Codispoti: There you go.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So.

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Anthony Codispoti: That’s part of the ongoing transition. Yeah, I get it.

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Anthony Codispoti: you know. And as a businessman, you know, one thing that all business leaders need to do is keep, you know, their eye constantly on the bottom line, and there’s 2 ways that you can sort of affect that number. You know. One is looking to boost sales. Another is, you know, how to decrease costs. I’m curious, as you think about both of those levers there. They’re particularly creative things that you’ve tried and found success with, and boosting sales or lowering costs.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: To everyone listening.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: There’s 1 solution to all the problems sales cure, all as simple as that sales cure all. And and and I drive that you know.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: to to all our our current stores and our and our franchisees and prospective franchisees. The serious girl, when sales are coming in, everything is great when things are down, you know, a lot of lot of issues begin to arise with food, cost and and distribution and menu pricing and labor, and and we’ve come out of a pandemic right? So we know

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: every quarter was something new. Whether it was labor, it was distribution. It was high food cost. So sales curl. And I I drive that that that hammer into that nail every single day, and and it’s and again I’m talking to the people that are listening sales curl

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: so.

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Anthony Codispoti: You mentioned the pandemic. Let’s talk a little bit about that. Sorry to pick it a scab, but I know that that was a a tough time for a lot of people in particular, people in, you know, the restaurant and hospitality space like yourself.

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Anthony Codispoti: How did you guys keep going through all of that.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: You know it was. It was a shock at the beginning. It really was I think from from day one when things

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: when things took a turn, we we the 1st thing we did we obviously shut down our dining rooms and focused on curbside pickup. Only

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: you know, to the. Then we pivoted over to the 3rd party, which took a huge leap. I mean it was.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: It was a game changer and a saver for for a lot of the people in the restaurant industry right? Having that 3rd party really kept our doors open. So my like.

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Anthony Codispoti: And Uber eats and places like that. Yeah.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Eats, and Doordash and Grubhub, and all those just having the opportunity for people to order from us, and for us, not having the capability of delivering that product. It really opened our eyes up now from the pandemic the uber eats, and the the Doordash and Grubhub, you know, continues to play a big part of our business close to 35 to 40%.

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Anthony Codispoti: No kidding.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Huge part of our business, and it kind of feeds off the question you had before. You know, how do we combat food, cost and paper costs and chemical costs when we’re diverting so much of the funds on the 3rd parties, right? So we took the initiative of adjusting the menu prices on all 3rd parties to be able to absorb those costs that are coming in from that.

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Anthony Codispoti: And I’m kinda curious, you know. When was it that you guys felt like, okay, we’ve finally broken through the pandemic like, we’re we’re finally back on kind of more normal footing. I think we’re gonna make it. I think we’re gonna be alright.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Yeah, I think late into 2022. We did. We did, you know. And I, I can’t say it’s just enough that you know all the programs they had during the pandemic for the restaurant industry were amazing, and we fought hard for our franchisees to make sure they they knew how to fill up the certain you know, for the different, you know, different programs they had for us to help these guys from the employee.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: the Er Toc program to the Sba programs and all that, you know, that helped us really

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: transition into 2022 from 21 into 2022, and things got better for us in late 2022, where we start seeing a lot of dining customers come into play, we start seeing a lot more catering orders come into play, the offices start opening back up, and and we have had an amazing 2023 and even a better 2024 now. So we know it’s better.

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Anthony Codispoti: That’s terrific. Yeah. I think one thing that surprised some people and myself included, is, you know, as we were going through the pandemic and right. We were ordering more food curbside. We were more ordering, more of our products and goods online instead of going to physical stores.

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Anthony Codispoti: You know, my, a lot of people, myself included thought. Hey, this is gonna be a more permanent transition, even once in a whatever way it happens, the pandemic subsides. You know people got used to sort of a new way of operating, and I think the thing that surprised me, and I’m curious to hear your viewpoint on this is once things started opening back up.

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Anthony Codispoti: man, we realized how much we missed

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Anthony Codispoti: being out in public, being around other people, going places to have these experiences. And you know, and just we love our homes. We love our apartments. But getting outside, you know, being able to to be around other people. Were you worried during the parts of the pandemic that things might not come back to the way that they were.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Absolutely. And and even to today, Anthony, we have not

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: gotten back to our pre pandemic in store traffic numbers. We have it. It’s it’s there. We’re almost there. But we it’s 2024 and the pandemics what? Maybe a year and a half behind us, and we’re still not to our pre pandemic in store traffic numbers, and that plays a big part of of how the the whole economy shifted in the in the consumer, perspective on on food and ordering fast casual food, you shifted to to go into a more simplified way.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Delivery! Take out to go that aspect of it.

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Anthony Codispoti: Let’s talk about your team for a moment, you know, in a competitive job, market recruiting and retaining good employees can be even more challenging.

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Anthony Codispoti: I’m curious. What are some things, maybe, that you’ve tried and found success with to recruit and retain good staff.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I’ll start with our corporate team. Our corporate teams been with us since a lot of them since day one of our inception you know, starting part time and going into full time with us. You know, we’ve we’ve had a close knit corporate upper management team that we’ve we’ve kept closely guarded. And and and we work together as a team. And and I appreciate each and every one of them 100%. Without them we can. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now at the store level.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: you know. We we rely heavily on our general managers to to take lead and build, build out their their team member schedules

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: we had found to retain employees by

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: paying decent wages, but at the same time offering the tip program.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: And that’s something we can deep dive into if you’d like. But once we introduce that that tip program, it’s helped.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: It’s helped retain a lot of employees in in our, in our system.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Now we know in the

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: fast food, fast, casual industry in the restaurant industry we have. We have changeover every single day. So retaining those employees means a lot to us because hiring somebody new requires time, effort, and a lot of money. Right? So once we introduce the tip program. It’s helped retain a lot of the, you know, the the

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: management team that are in place now.

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Anthony Codispoti: Tell me more about this tip program.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So a tip program kinda launched again very close to the pandemic timeframe where, you know, a lot of food was being taken to go and it’s something on the on our pos system that’s offered

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: to the Co. To the consumer, and they have the capability, the capability of tipping on any order, any percentage they want based on how they feel they they were served. Now, granted, we’re not a a full service restaurant, so we’re not waiters and waitresses that are coming to you and serving you. But you know it’s it’s helped out tremendously. And and and a lot of our customer base really appreciates the hard work that we’re putting in. And I think honestly, our open kitchen concept plays it.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: That’s a big part of that tipping, because they are seeing what we’re doing for them in terms of creating the food. And it’s kind of derived from that they’re saying. You know what my food’s being made fresh to order. He’s working hard. He’s got 10 tickets on the line. He’s running like crazy. They’re running like crazy. And they give the extra one or 2 or 3 added onto their bill.

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Anthony Codispoti: I think this is actually a really good thing that you brought up here, because I know a lot of people. They go to a quick service restaurant. They see a tip jar out or on the credit card thing. It’s asking for a tip, and they’re like, what am I tipping for they’re not coming to my table. They’re not bringing me my drink. It’s like they’re not waiting on me. This is quick service, but I think you’ve got a great comeback to that. It’s like, look what’s going on back here, these men and women. They’re hustling

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Anthony Codispoti: right? They’re moving around. They’re working hard to make your food and bring it to you with a smile. And you know, what does it hurt you to give a little bit of extra, you know appreciation for that right?

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I I you know a lot of it is is customer service driven, too, you know, when you come into a store and a and a and an employee or team member breats you.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: It automatically shifts your your mindset on

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: how you’re gonna be served right. If they’re greeting you with a smile at the register. As a consumer.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: You you! You go out of your way to make that tip happen because you you feel welcome when you feel welcome, and you feel appreciated. You have. Nobody has a concern of tipping. It becomes almost.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: You know I’m happy.

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Anthony Codispoti: Me to do it.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Yeah, mandatory. I’d say to do it, because, you know, when I go to a restaurant and I feel welcome, and I feel appreciated that I’m there, and the Co. And and the and the team members are happy. You know, I I that energy really resonates with me, and it resonates with a lot of customers, too. So it’s it’s a lot of that is driven from that perspective.

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Anthony Codispoti: Nor what’s something you wish you could teach a younger version of yourself.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Oh, boy! Who you wanna get into that? Huh?

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Anthony Codispoti: Absolutely.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: If there was something I want to teach a younger version of myself, I would probably

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: tell them to slow down.

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Anthony Codispoti: Interesting.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: And slow down.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: And and I say that if you’d like me to kinda elaborate on

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: as a young entrepreneur, you’re excited about everything that’s happening around you. You’re excited about all the things that

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: that come with with people wanting the franchise, not knowing what it takes

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: financially, mentally.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and from a family perspective. You know the time that it takes takes you away from your family.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Slow down, analyze, understand? You know where you want to go.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and it’s not. It’s easier said than done. Right

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: people is. You see, the dollar signs. You see the growth, you see. Hey? Listen. I’ve worked so hard for this.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: you know. A lot of times I get the question. Would you do it all over again? I don’t think I would. I really don’t.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I’m here now, and I will never let go, but if if I had a chance to do it, it it requires a lot of

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: mental

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and financial and responsibility. It does, especially if you’re going at it alone.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: right? Which we are. We’re going that alone. We don’t have. Vc. We don’t have PE money.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: We don’t have investors. We don’t have different partners. I’m going at it alone, so it’s different. If you’re going at it alone, slow down and and and forecast your future, and understand the financial and the mental capabilities that you have.

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Anthony Codispoti: It’s interesting to hear you say that, you know. If you had a chance to do it all over again, maybe you wouldn’t. What what might you do instead? Do you think.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: You know I would.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: It goes back to what I said earlier. I find passion being inside the restaurant.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: right? I find passion being around the team members and cooking and joking in this open, open kitchen concept.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: This is what I say. The amount of responsibility you have as your concept continues to grow when you’re doing it on your own.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: It’s it’s it’s it’s a really tough pill to swallow. And I’m I’m just talking to the people right now, right? So it’s not something that’s when you go at a loan that’s easy to take on.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: that’s why I say I would. I would go back and maybe focus on 2 or 3 locations that allows me to be in those specific stores. Take care of my customers, be happy with with who’s coming in and and and really provide them

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: an experience every single time they come in.

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, I think what I hear you saying is, you have a lot of gratitude for where you are now. You’re never gonna let go. You’re gonna keep, you know, letting this beautiful concept that you’ve created continue to grow, you know, as it’s allowed. But, man, there’s a big part of you that misses, you know, being there in the restaurants making the food every day. You kind of got away from, you know a little bit of the fun part of it.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Oh, yeah.

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Anthony Codispoti: I get that conflict. Yeah.

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Anthony Codispoti: what’s up?

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Anthony Codispoti: Go ahead, Nora, follow up on that.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Again.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: We’re we’re we’re shooting for the moon right now, right? So there’s no stopping, not just for myself, and not just for our company, not just for my family, but for the franchisees as well, you know, building a brand that they are excited about, and they’ve invested into. And we wanna make sure that we we we answer to that. And so we we are going to go as as

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: as hard and as fast as we can go, because now we have the systems in place, we understand what it took to get to this point. So it’s easy for us to multiply by 2 or 3. It’s no difference anymore. Right? But yeah.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: being back in the store is is is definitely something that’s

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: that puts a big smile on my face.

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Anthony Codispoti: Are there specific mentors, books, or maybe learning experiences, masterminds that have been helpful for you? Have you? If you go as you’ve gone through your professional career.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: You know, I’m a self taught individual, right? So

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I don’t read a lot of books. I do listen to a lot of podcasts. I find, podcasts very intriguing. I find, interviews very intriguing. I learn a lot from them. You know, reading different magazines that have to do with the restaurant industry plays a big part in in my vision, and what I’m doing as we continue to grow. But but yeah, I I am a self taught individual man.

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Anthony Codispoti: What are some of your favorite podcasts or specific people who have been interviewed that you like to listen to.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: No. I love restaurant, business, podcast cause. They they interview a lot of different people from different from different areas of the restaurant industry. So that’s 1 of my go-to. It’s easy to listen to. It’s about 30 to 40 min long. You take it on the drive when you’re driving somewhere like that. And you kind of just get the perspective of what people are going through in the industry and what they’re doing to combat different things

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: round.

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Anthony Codispoti: Nor what’s a fun fact that most people wouldn’t know about you.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: fun. Fact. I love cars.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: and I love my family.

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Anthony Codispoti: Tell me about your family married kids.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Married to a beautiful wife, Carol, and my 3 beautiful children, Mila and Nyah and Rain, which, by the way, they all work inside the stores when we’re there.

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Anthony Codispoti: Old, are they.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: They are 11, 8, and 4.

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Anthony Codispoti: What’s the 4 year old do in the store?

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Oh, well, he tends to just eat and just run around directly.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: But the the, the my oldest daughter, Mia, loves to be on the register. So when I’m when we go for a site visit, you know, she’ll hop on a register, take care of a couple of customers, and then, my well, she’s 9 now. I’m sorry. My 9 year old. She she can make a Peter like nobody.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: She knows the menu inside and out, and she can do any Peter that comes to the pos system.

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Anthony Codispoti: So do you think they’re likely to step into the family business at some point.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: No, I would love them to. I really would. It’s something that they’re passionate about, you know, every time we go to the store. The 1st thing they want to do is put on a pita shirt and a pita hat and hop back there and work. Obviously, that’s not feasible at a lot of locations because they’re not corporate owned. So we can’t just throw them back in the franchise location. But yeah, they they. I think they’re passionate about it.

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Anthony Codispoti: That’s fun you mentioned. You like cars. What kind of cars.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Oh, anything! I’m I’m i i love anything when it has to do with with cars, fast cars, trucks you name it. It’s just my hobby. Right? So that’s that’s what I love about about that. I love collecting them, passing them down to my son, you know, or my daughters when I when I get older.

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Anthony Codispoti: Any fun. New menu items that are coming.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Yeah, so.

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Anthony Codispoti: And it’s been recently released.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: I’m so glad you asked that question, because it’s it’s and a and and we we try to stay true to our Mediterranean roots as much as possible.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: but when it comes to a Lto, which is a limited time, offer that we like to offer. We like to put a little spin on it.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: And what we’re launching. July twenty-twond of 2024. We’re launching the Euro Philly.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: right? So it’s an amoroso roll with the euro meat with onions, peppers, and mushrooms with the Provolone cheese, and we also do with our with our grilled chicken. So you have the chicken under your option. It’s called the euro Philly.

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Anthony Codispoti: And how long will that be available? Starting at the end of July, till, when.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Till about the end of the year.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So we run our Ltos

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: pre pandemic. We used to run our tools about 3 months post pandemic. We run about 5 to 6 months to give them the shelf life that they need to get. Then to get the actual raw data that we need to to analyze and say, was it successful? Was it not? Because we’re basing it off of, you know, 30 plus locations. So we really need to run it for about 5 to 6 months.

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Anthony Codispoti: And so it’s sort of like an audition period. If it does well, maybe it becomes a permanent feature on the menu. Or do do you like the funness of sort of cycling through new ideas.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Yeah, no, we like the fun idea, the funness of cycling, of new ideas, because, you know, it opens up our customers, our consumer base right? So you never nobody. You never think of a year of Philly. Right? So us introducing that into the market of like oh, wow! You know what? Let me try. Because Philly is a very well known sandwich. Right? I’m infatuated with that sandwich.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So us understand, on it kind of brings in a different perspective on things, and it allows us to try new things. We’re not without bringing in too many new items into the store cause. We always have to look at the skews that we run inside the stores as well.

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Anthony Codispoti: You know, nor before we went live, and we were kind of going through the tech setup you mentioned to me some of these new locations that you’re opening up are going to be in a much more efficient structure. Can you talk more about what that means?

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Sure. Yeah. And and we wanna hyper focus on the Walmart locations. We’re gonna go kiosk heavy where? It kinda allows the the customer to order from from a kiosk point of sales system. And you know, having the the the integration of the 3rd parties into our our pos system. So we no longer need all the ipads sitting at the front register that you see at a lot of different restaurants. Everything’s integrated into our pos system, and it spits out the ticket, or it comes up on our kitchen screens

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: internally. So so some of our our tech plays are really rely on on our current partnership with with toast and what we’ve done with them. To integrate the 3rd party, integrate the kiosk, and into these stores, and allow the customer to order on their own.

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Anthony Codispoti: And I’m gonna assume that this is gonna reduce the

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Anthony Codispoti: the amount of employees that you need to rely on, which is probably helpful to franchisees in a really competitive job market like this.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Yeah, I mean, we tested it during the pandemic. The one of the 1st things we we did during the pandemic was was kind of introduced of kiosk. Because, okay, we barely have anybody to work. We can’t find people to come into work. Well, we introduce the kiosk. That kind of alleviate one individual from our our lunch and dinner lineup right? That helps out tremendously.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: It. Also, when you have a line out the door, it allows people to go and and bypass and go to the kiosk in order which allows you not to have to stay in line and wait for the next person to finish up their order process. So yeah, it’s it’s helped us tremendously introducing the kiosk and and the technology into

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: also, when it comes to our app and our online ordering platform as well. You know it. We made it so easy that a customer driving to the store just right before they leave to the store they can order their product, and then, as the moment they pull up, it’s grab and go.

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Anthony Codispoti: Nora, I just have one more question for you. But before I get to that I wanna do 2 things, folks, if you’re listening today. And you like, today’s content. Please hit the subscribe like or share button on your favorite podcast app.

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Anthony Codispoti: Nor, I wanna tell people the best way to get in touch with you.

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Anthony Codispoti: What’s that.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Best way is go on our website, Peter Street food.com and hit a submit a contact. Us form.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay? Last question for you. I’m curious. In the next 5 years. Where do you see your business and your industry going? What are the big changes that are coming.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Well, there’s a lot of direct and indirect competition coming into the Mediterranean segment. So, separating ourselves from

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: from from the

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: current

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: segment plays a big part for us. We wanna we wanna get to a hundred locations. Absolutely. I think that has been our goal for a while now. And I think the pandemics behind us. So reaching a hundred location, proving our concept out. And then, you know, finding a Vc or PE to take us to the next level is is kind of our goal.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: And that’s that’s kind of our our vision for the future.

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Anthony Codispoti: Any timeline for getting to that 100 locations.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: You know, I would put it between 3 and 5 years realistically. You know, cause we we will be at close to 50 locations by

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: of q, 1 of 2025.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: So that then we’re halfway there. Once we get to the 50 locations, momenta takes plays a big part in our growth strategy. And you know, new new trade areas and new franchisees come into play.

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Anthony Codispoti: Well, there’s just some exciting plans ahead. Be looking forward to following your success nowhere.

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Anthony Codispoti: And, Noah, I want to be the 1st one to thank you for making the time to share your story. Today. I really appreciate it.

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Nour M.B> Rabai Iphone: Anthony, it was a pleasure. I really appreciate you and thank you, everybody for listening.

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Anthony Codispoti: Folks. That’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories. Podcast thanks for learning with us today.