Chris Ives on Fruitable Lessons, Menu Innovation, and Growing to 147 Locations

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Chris Eyes. He is the CEO, president and burrito roller at Bubbakoos Burritos, a fast casual Mexican fusion chain based in New Jersey. They focus on fresh ingredients.

customizable burritos, and a welcoming dining experience. Chris joined the team in 2019 and quickly made a mark by leading growth initiatives and new market expansions. Under his guidance, Bubbakoos moved up to number 316 in the Franchise Times Top 400 list. Prior to stepping in as CEO, he held positions as CFO and VP of Finance and Development, showcasing his strong financial background and leadership skills.

Chris also helped integrate new technology to enhance customer engagement and franchise operations. His passion for nurturing franchise relationships and driving internal growth continues to shape the company’s success. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad 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.

Imagine being able to give your QSR employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money into your employees’ pockets. And the companies too. One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com.

All right, back to our guest today, the CEO of Bubbakoos Burritos, Chris Ives. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Chris (02:02)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Anthony Codispoti (02:04)
Okay, so Chris, you graduated from Seton Hall with a degree in accounting. You worked at Ernst & Young right out of college and throughout your career moved your way up the finance ladder. What is it that you love about the finance and accounting world? What first drew you into it and what’s kept you there?

Chris (02:22)
Yeah, I what I sort of got into the finance accounting degree by accident, graduated college right before the recession was hitting, ⁓ was at a college fair and basically had a really good conversation and a good meeting with somebody at EY. And they’re like, hey, if you declare an accounting degree, we can get you into the mentorship, you can lead it to an internship and get a full-time job.

I went down to the, you know, to the registrar office and I changed my degree to accounting. ⁓ That’s really, that’s really how it all started. And what was that?

Anthony Codispoti (02:55)
From what? What was it at the time?

What was your degree before then? What was your declared major? Okay, all right. So you went there.

Chris (03:01)
I was just undecided. I, to give you,

maybe to give you a level set of how I got into accounting. I grew up in the restaurants, family owned catering business, been in a kitchen since I’ve been, I don’t know, probably five. ⁓ Just never really saw my, you know, my family, my parents, my dad growing up. And I just said, I never want to do this. ⁓ So that’s what, you know, that was really my inspiration to go to school, you know, go into corporate America and start to figure it out. And that’s.

It’s sort of my path on why I went to school and how I got into accounting.

Anthony Codispoti (03:34)
Okay. So kind of worked your way up through some different accounting roles. And then you had a stop at Fruitable, which it sounds like wasn’t your first foray into food and beverage. You had been, you know, kind of in the family business for a while, moved out of that, came back in a more official role. Tell us about that experience there at Fruta ⁓ and any powerful lessons that you learned there that you’re able to take with you today into your work at Bubbakoos.

Chris (04:03)
we’re going to need more than an hour. ⁓ I guess how I got there, ⁓ again, I worked my way through corporate accounting. ⁓ After I left EY, I went to go work with some firms that I knew. ⁓ Just was really keen on processing controls, relationship at EY was really everything. ⁓ From an audit background, you’re always not the liked one, but having good relationships allowed the working environment to be better between the client and the company. ⁓

I was just doing the daily grind into the city, putting 15, 16 hours in a day commuting. ⁓ And I had the opportunity, ⁓ actually my sister-in-law started the company. ⁓ I just had my second kid and I just sold my house. And I said, yeah, let me take the risk of not earning a paycheck. ⁓ And she was fortunate where she caught lightning in a bottle on when the Acai introduction to the East Coast was really booming.

⁓ And they, you know, at the end of the day, they just really, they were entrepreneurs. They started something ⁓ called lightning in a bottle and they were just trying to figure it out. They needed help and just having a, you know, ⁓ accounting background, understood food, understood distribution, ⁓ you know, understood relationships. ⁓ They really just, there was, it was a white canvas and we were just really drawing, you know, ⁓ drawing the chapters as we went.

did a lot of the wrong stuff. Everything you could think of, we did wrong. No franchise attorney, no franchise agreements, taking money too soon, not really understanding the puts and takes of what drives a franchise business or franchisee’s mindset of what they’re investing in. Looking at the ROI, we somehow got that up to 50 units from

I think we were in 16 states. So I was importing açaí from Brazil. We were distributing across the country. Again, this was just early times and all of those. 2015. We were living and breathing in every day, just trying to start a company like any other entrepreneur. And we had a lot of challenges, but we had a lot of successes. Grew the brand to 50 units with no capital.

Anthony Codispoti (06:28)
Wow.

Chris (06:29)
with and with no team. We did have, you know, we did have the one corporate store. We did open up a second corporate store, you know, really on a on shoestring budget. But the craze was there. I mean, obviously, you know, people were really intrigued by it. They were driving far from it. There were some there were some really serious entrepreneurs that made money on it. It just, you know, again, we were early. Costs were high. We just weren’t really focused on the ROI of the investment.

You know what it cost to build to you know, what they can actually make That again, there were some amazing success stories out of it But then also it led to some, hardships when things turned and it wasn’t as easy ⁓ You know that those hard times You don’t start to challenge and pressure ⁓ we had a couple dominoes fall where they just weren’t happy and You know, there was it forced us to go to chapter 11 ⁓ so, you know, we

We had a really good run, learned a lot along the way. I don’t know, it was my MBA, it was my PhD in franchise. That’s what got me there. I ultimately led the company through chapter 11. Ultimately I tapped out though, just cause I had to go back to start making some money. You know, I blew through a lot of savings and you know, I just had my second daughter.

And again, just moved. I had a new mortgage and I was just like, man, I got to start to figure this out. You know, we’re not, we’re not making it here. ⁓ so it made the hard decision to, you know, leave, leave. ⁓ and I knew, I knew the co-founders at Bubbakoos, they were at store 11 or 12 back in the day. And I just didn’t want to go back to corporate America. To me, it wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about, you know, having that corporate status. It was just like, man, this is what I love. This is where my passion is.

Again, I reached out to Paul and Bill who were the co-founders that started Bubbacoo’s and I said, love to help you. I think you’re in your infancy stages. You they were just starting to consider franchising. They just had a couple open. Said, just want to help you avoid a lot of the pitfalls and mistakes that we did. So I took a shot, ⁓ had an opportunity to go back to PWC and, you know, to build actually a technology franchise platform.

Anthony Codispoti (08:34)
You made all the mistakes you knew what they were you had the roadmap for what to avoid.

Chris (08:48)
in incubator state. And I just said, I’m not going back to the city. This isn’t for me. I don’t care about the money. My passion is working with entrepreneurs. My passion has always been, you know, within the hospitality space. I grew up in it, went a different path, you know, to try something else out. But at the end of the day, this is just really what I love to do, working with people and really driving impacts on making people money and being successful. ⁓ and I’ve had the opportunity to grow, bubacuse from store 12.

We’re about to open our 147th store next week.

Anthony Codispoti (09:19)
Wow. So I want to, I want to hear more about Bubbakoos, but before we get there, I want to talk a little bit about what went wrong at Fruitable. Was it mostly a matter of, Hey, the Acai bowl craze was going up into the right. And then at some point it plateaued and dropped off. it that there was more competition coming in? Was it some of the growing pains and the learning mistakes that you guys were making?

Chris (09:45)
It’s a combination of both. think it was just a lot of, you know, passionate entrepreneurs, founders thinking that they just knew best, meeting us, um, rather than bringing in strategic advisors to, know, to grow the brand. Um, I just think at the end of the day, you know, when you think you can’t lose, you know, it hurts when you, you know, you start to lose and then, know, it, it takes, it takes, you know, all the, you know, it takes the wind out of the air on you. Uh, I say that right.

Anthony Codispoti (10:15)
went out of your sails. Yeah, I get what you’re talking about. Yeah.

Chris (10:15)
Yeah, window your sale. You

know, end of the day, it was just we built something and it just wasn’t sustainable with the part we had, wrong franchisees, meaning that, you know, they might have got in for it for one reason, but it wasn’t the right reason. ⁓ So we had a little bit of that going for us. ⁓ We were just too thin. You know, we had a lot of darts on the map that we just couldn’t support it.

Anthony Codispoti (10:37)
What did you learn about franchisee selection from that process that you’re able to bring into your work at Bubbakoos?

Chris (10:46)
Yeah, it’s everything. ⁓ You know, having the right mindset, ⁓ really going through that diligence process of knowing the operator, you know, knowing what they’re getting themselves into, knowing that they know the restaurant space. It’s not a hobby. It’s not something we were handing over a check and just, you know, we’re going to give you a guaranteed return. It’s really making sure, you know, your core values, your mission, your vision of what you set within, you know, the corporate support center ⁓ is really what the French Aziz.

has a passion for the follow as well. ⁓ We’re all in it to make money, but you got to make sure that you’re aligned with the partnership. They understand ⁓ what their obligations are and they understand how we’re going to support them and what we do every day to make the money. So think alignment and transparency is everything in the business ⁓ on top of relationship. ⁓ You under the day, we are working for them. They’re paying our paychecks. ⁓

If you’re not, if you can’t take the ego out of it, ⁓ where, know, it’s, it’s only what you think, not, know, and not what they think, ⁓ 10 times out of 10, it’s gonna, it’s not going to end up, ⁓ you know, how, how you want to win. Sometimes you get lucky, but, ⁓ I think at the end of the day, transparency and relationship, ⁓ is, everything in this business.

Anthony Codispoti (12:03)
So what kind of personality traits are you looking for?

Chris (12:07)
You want somebody that’s got some entrepreneurship with them, but at end of the day, you want somebody that understands operations. You you’re giving them, you know, you’re giving them that strong. I always like to say you’re giving them that bike, that steel bike foundation. You’re working with people that know how to put the wheels on to start to spin and run the operation. But, you know, they got to be community driven. They got to, they got to understand restaurants. They got to love hospitality. They got to love serving guests. They got to love putting smiles on people. genuine hospitality, you know, along with that operational skill set.

of understanding the puts and takes of the restaurant space is critical. Somebody coming from a bank background or a technology background, you take a risk sometimes with some people if they understand the people aspect of it and they understand what it takes to have a good team. ⁓ But if you can’t run the operation and you don’t understand the hard work, you’re not going have an easy return on

Anthony Codispoti (13:03)
Hmm. So tell us what Bubbakoos is. I’ve never been to one before though. You just informed me there’s one right here in Columbus, Ohio, up in the Dublin area that I need to go visit. So paint a picture for us. What’s the customer experience?

Chris (13:07)
off

Yes, there is.

Yeah,

mean, Bubbakoos is a kick ass burrito concept. You are coming into a restaurant where you’re building your own, you know, your own burrito or bowl. But we do it different. You know, we have a lot of different flavors, a lot of different sauces, you know, around the world that you could put into your burrito. So it’s not just your typical, you know, rice beans, chicken, you know, pico guac out the door. I mean, we have sweet chili shrimp, have buffalo crispy chicken, you know.

We have a box of steak and shrimp burritos that we’re making fresh on the grill. We’re cooking your quesadillas to order. So you have anything from garlic parm all the way to Nashville hot. yeah, a lot of variety. our big focus is the flavor ⁓ aspect of it. We pride ourselves on being the only Mexican fusion brand out there. So everything that we do when we vet ⁓ from an R &D standpoint, it’s gotta be to our core and our DNA that it’s.

Anthony Codispoti (13:56)
Wow, this is a lot of variety.

Chris (14:14)
It’s being something different. have created something different on our, right as you order in every single one of our 150 restaurants, it says create something different right next to it. ⁓ anything that we put out to the public, we want to make sure we’re being different. It’s bringing that edge factor of that wow, of like, I didn’t expect to put a crispy chicken in my quesadilla with garlic parm sauce or Nashville hot with pickles in it. ⁓ It’s going in our food.

Anthony Codispoti (14:42)
Sorry, as you were talking, I got really hungry and so had to go check out your menu. ⁓ Folks that are listening, bubacoozburritos.com. Bubbacooz is spelled B-U-B-B-A, I guess how you would expect bubba to be spelled, and then K-O-O-S, so B-U-B-B-A-K-O-O-S-burritos.com. What’s behind the name? What does bubbacooz mean?

Chris (14:45)
There you go.

We used to always say ⁓ it’s the million dollar franchise fee question. ⁓ It was a nickname ⁓ from one of the co-founders and it was just mashed. ⁓ It was just a little bit of a mixing and match of how we put it together. ⁓ it comes from really how the brand was started on a piece of paper. Paul had the vision to do it back in his college days at Udell and he just called it Bubba Goose.

⁓ he had a nickname of Bubba and he, and he mixed it in with Coos and, Paul and Bill left Johnny Rockets together and they had the opportunity to start a burrito concept, it not, inside of Jersey Mike’s back in 2008. Our first store, you know, ⁓ Jersey Mike’s and Bubbakoos is in the same four walls, two totally different brands. ⁓ the franchisee of Jersey Mike’s was subleasing the other side of the space. and we, you know, the, boys got it open. ⁓ I think they.

Anthony Codispoti (15:36)
Just.

inside of a Jersey Mike’s.

Chris (16:01)
I think the story is we always laugh where they were doing 500 bucks a week, I think when we first started. ⁓ But they just, they were relentless. They were handing out coup, they were old school, guerrilla marketing all over the towns. Sandy hit in Jersey, everything was flooded. And they were just giving out free food, everything to the EMT, the cops, the firefighters. And that natural community just finally started to take. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (16:22)
Mmm.

Chris (16:27)
And we always call it the subs bub combo. You now you have the bubbecues for the, you know, the burritos, and then you go over to get the sandwiches, you know, right next to it. But, you know, 18 years later, it’s, it’s, it’s a small shop, but it’s mighty. It produces numbers. It’s been a staple in the community. It’s, it’s, it’s an overall, I mean, think it’s worth it. We still have the overall 2000 square, or I think it’s actually 1800 square feet. There’s two brands inside the four walls, but it’s two totally different concepts in the, in the same building.

Anthony Codispoti (16:45)
Still share space with Jersey mics. Okay. Bubs and subs.

How many corporate locations are there?

Chris (16:59)
We have nine.

Anthony Codispoti (17:01)
Did you say none or nine? Okay. Are they all in the Jersey area?

Chris (17:02)
No, no.

We have all of them in the ocean, Monmouth County, by the shore and then we have one in Orlando.

Anthony Codispoti (17:11)
Okay. And I think when you said you got there, there were 11 stores and now you’re over 140. And that’s in what a period of roughly five years. I mean, that’s throwing gasoline on the fire. mean, obviously, like most of that growth, or not all of it has come from franchisees opening up locations, but what did you do? Like, I mean, that’s a big growth curve there. Like, did you get in with sort of the right

franchise consultants. How did this unfold?

Chris (17:43)
No, everything’s

been organic. I we built the brand organically. ⁓ There’s always a little bit of luck. mean, we were always a small shop and inline or end cap unit, relatively inexpensive to build. Put it in perspective, 2019, 2020, we were building stores all in for $350. In today’s market, with inflation or whatnot, we’re at five, between five and $600K. ⁓ FDD has a higher range, but I’m just giving average here.

So don’t quote me on the FTD here, but you know, for a million, you know, for a two to one cash on cash return, we have over a lot of pretty attractive model. 50 to 65 % of our business is digital. You know, so we were, we were naturally just in the right spot, the right time. We just got our app developed right before COVID hit. And we sort of just, you know, exploded on the COVID scene, being a small shop.

Anthony Codispoti (18:37)
Wow.

Chris (18:42)
⁓ And we just had awesome operators that bled green and they were making money. you know, there’s no, there’s nothing better than validation from, your own operators, you know, bringing in their other operators. And I think 2021 or 2022 was our best year where we opened up 45 stores. And we’ve consistently opened up 20 to 25. So it’s not like, it’s not like we, we, you know, we’re saying that we opened up 50, 60, 70 stores, you know, it’s been slow growth. ⁓

But it’s been fast growth from the outside. mean, you don’t really ever get to appreciate how hard and how fast or how well you’re doing things until you really take a step back. when you’re fighting the fires every day, you’re just like, man, when does it end? But when you take a step back and you look and you deliver on the support and you deliver on the success and you deliver on the results, you get buy-in. And when you’re working with your franchisees and they know that you have their back and you’re busting your ass to…

to support them and to deliver ⁓ on what you say, that you’re gonna deliver with your mission and the core values every day. I you don’t always win. Not every store is a home run, not every store is a $2 million store, but they at least know that you have their back and that’s what they get up for every day and that’s why they take a shot on us and that’s why they continue to support us and grow with us.

Anthony Codispoti (20:03)
I wonder if you’ve ever thought about this, Chris, if you guys hadn’t had your app already in development so that it was already there at a time when not everybody was doing that, but it wasn’t already there when COVID started. Do you think you guys would be in the same place that you are right now?

Chris (20:23)
I, there’s a 50-50 shot. mean, we had, we had online ordering. It just never, you we never had it, you know, as fully functional as we did with loyalty and with a digital presence on the app. was online ordering. The bells would ring. It wasn’t integrated. It wasn’t a seamless process. We were still taking phone call orders. We were still actually doing our own deliveries. Meaning we, you know, we had people sitting around the shop doing delivery, you know, they would go out and be their own driver. So.

I think end of the day, you we would have a good shot to still be where we are today. ⁓ I just think that we naturally were ahead of it. We never were in these, you know, A plus centers that, you know, demanded such high rent. ⁓ You know, as you have, you know, headwinds and tailwinds, you win some, lose some. But I think we’ve always put our people in a position where they could still be profitable, you know, when, you know, when the market’s going through its ups and downs.

As we experienced today, there’s a lot of headwinds. The market’s pumping, but the average consumer ⁓ is continuing to be hurt. again, you have to caution that. You can’t just say, hey, you have to be here. We’re going to put you in a rent that’s 15 % of sales because when the sales drop and the consumer’s struggling, ⁓ what’s going to happen to that shop? So we’ve always been super cautious, which I believe is what’s really got us here today.

⁓ We didn’t force real estate that didn’t support the brand at our life cycle. Things are evolving, institutional money is coming into the brand now since the acquisition. ⁓ So I think there’s a lot more resources and there’s a lot more modeling and there’s a lot more tools that are at our fingertips to support some of the stuff. But we’ve always been a very scrappy, nimble, adaptable. We built this with, we had eight corporate employees.

For the past, you know five years we were we wear a lot of hats every day and you know now we’re you know We’re starting to fix that and you know, we were bringing on more people and you know more strategic, you know more strategic Corporate headcount, you know as far as bringing that, know bringing the brand to 300 400 500 units So, you know, you know, I’ll leave it at that but you know end of the day

Anthony Codispoti (22:42)
What can you tell us about the acquisition, Chris?

Chris (22:45)
Yeah, I think again, this is another thing where I think entrepreneurs have a tough time, right? I think the founders, you know, they brought the business to where they believe they could bring it to. And they believe that it was the right time to close out the chapter, to pass it on. Whether that’s support of the French Aziz or it’s a support to grow the brand, I just think it was an 18-year run on top of the Johnny Rockets run where

the overall guys just thought it was in the best interest of all parties to pass this on and continue to grow the brand ⁓ with capital.

Anthony Codispoti (23:24)
Is the ⁓ new equity partner, do they have experience in the restaurant, in franchising space?

Chris (23:29)
We

do. this is, know, we were another QSR founder run company that they acquired. They’ve recently done that before. I think they were a little larger the other brand they had, but they took it from 350 to 700. So they have a track record. You know, they know the space well. ⁓ They obviously understand the puts and the takes here, at the of the day, there’s a lot of opportunities, a lot of levers that we could pull to continue to grow the brand.

from what we were doing to what we’re doing now. That’s the exciting part. mean, I think that’s why the whole team is re-motivated. There’s a lot of white space. There’s a lot of levers that we could pull from a marketing standpoint, real estate standpoint, food innovation, culinary standpoint. We’re super excited. We’re really just, I feel like it’s 2018 again, where we’re in the war room and we are figuring out what is, we’re developing the new strategic plan to get us that 300, 400 unit mark.

Anthony Codispoti (24:01)
Yeah.

So you’ve been in a position of leadership, you since you arrived, you started out VP, Finance and Development, then CFO, and then just earlier this year moved into the CEO role. What would you say has been the most surprising thing about the CEO role for you?

Chris (24:51)
it’s lonely. ⁓ know, it’s lonely when you get, you know, so every day you’re waking up and you’re like, man, you know, is everybody happy? Is the culture being, you know, is the culture that you set out to deliver? it being amplified? Is it being, ⁓ you know, brought within the four walls of our restaurants every day? ⁓ You know, you’re worried about the overall economics of what’s going on, know, outside of things you can’t control, but you got to stay focused on what you can control.

I think at end of the day, it’s just knowing where you could call it support and, you know, being really transparent with your team to get the feedback. ⁓ I just think the biggest, the biggest change for me is like, you know, you felt like you you were there and like, you know, the past, you know, the past, you know, nine, 12, 18 months, ⁓ I worked alongside the founders as we prepare to, you know, to, to go to market and go for a transaction. ⁓ but then, you know, when the founders exit and

you’re left with your team and the equity partners, you’re like, who can I call today to shoot the conversation on? Does this make sense? Is this decision smart? What is your feedback? So just knowing that you know that you need to ask for help and be transparent, I just think is really the…

the ego level setter that you’re not gonna always be right, you’re not gonna know the answers, you’re relying on your team has been the biggest change.

Anthony Codispoti (26:21)
Where do you go for help or to bounce ideas off of?

Chris (26:26)
⁓

it’s a combination, whether it’s, it’s my close friends, whether, know, totally somebody not in the industry, just to talk on the average, you know, Hey, what are your thoughts? you know, you’re whether they’re the consulting space or not, you know, what do you think on this general business decision? ⁓ or you’re, turning to your mentors that, know, you’ve had relationships over the years that you continue to, you know, speak to, ⁓ or, you know, you’re, you’re going to somebody on your team, you know, just getting their feedback for a full three 60.

from the outside to the inside of what makes sense. But for me, know, I’m constantly, mean, sometimes I’m going to my dad, you know, he’s still a chef and I’m just like, you hey, what are your thoughts on, you know, this overall culinary, you know, process food costs, you know, what have you. So, I mean, you’re leveraging, you know, all your relationships are everything. It’s everything. It’s who you know. It’s who you’re friends with. It’s the people that support you. I mean, the person that’s probably not supporting you is probably not the first person I would call.

Just because sometimes people don’t want to see people ⁓ win. you just got to be careful on who you’re seeking advice on. You got to make sure you where you stand ⁓ on both sides of the relationship.

Anthony Codispoti (27:39)
Do you have any like formal peer groups, masterminds, business support like that, or is it more informal like you talked about, like dad, some friends, other business leaders that you just happened to know?

Chris (27:53)
I have a couple of formal mentors, whether they’re on our board or whether they’re just people that I really look up to within the space I’ll speak to. I do have a steering committee. I guess you want to call it a steering committee. I have some of our top operators I’ll meet with monthly just to get a full 360 view on what’s the feedback from the franchisee side. And that’s more of just a one-on-one.

I would say a five on one conversation where it’s open. It’s open shop of, what are you guys, you know, what are you guys hearing, know, within the, you know, on the line, what’s working, what’s not working. I take some of that feedback, incorporate it back to the corporate team. you know, to make some, if we need to make quick decisions or, know, look at something, you know, with a closer, ⁓ you know, closer look, you know, that, that’s sort of my, ⁓ sounding board to say, Hey, this is what the brand’s looking at. This is what we’re looking to do. What’s your initial feedback? You guys operate every day. ⁓

I try to take the corporate feedback away and I want that, you know, there are partners. I want them to give us the real feedback because they’re going to tell you the truth. Sometimes the people on your team just tell you what they think you want to hear. ⁓ I want to hear like the good and the bad.

Anthony Codispoti (29:07)
How do you think your background in finance ⁓ has shaped your approach to leading the restaurant in a way that might be different from somebody who doesn’t have a finance background?

Chris (29:16)
Thank

it’s probably annoying because everyone hates when I say it, but I’m just constantly looking at, know, how does it drive value to the bottom line? ⁓ I think you got the ops guys or you have the supply chain guys. just like, you know, stop, stop bringing it always back down to the bottom line. But I just think at the end of the day, how do we continue to make the lives of our operators easier, especially in a time like, you know, the environment we operate today. ⁓ But for me, it’s always how are we putting money back into our franchisees pockets? ⁓

So, know, since I’ve, since I’ve taken over or I’ve gotten the opportunity to lead, mean, I’ve been on turning every thing that I’ve personally done in the past five years to say, Hey, does this really make sense from an operations or financial standpoint? So I think understanding the business from top line of how sales are coming into the, into the operation to actually working the operation, ⁓ actually know, you know, knowing I operated this, I operated in Bubba coos stores, ⁓ COVID times. I was a GM for, know, for a couple of months.

just because we had to do everything we can to keep the lights on and continue to pay the bills. So we all took pay cuts and ⁓ we went to go operate stores. So just always having that mindset of knowing how this impacts the people and our partners always comes full to me of every decision we make.

Anthony Codispoti (30:42)
Is there a particular strategy or innovation that you’ve been involved with since you’ve been there that you’re most proud

Chris (30:54)
Good question. ⁓ I think to me, end of the day, think having the support of the French Aziz is, I think the best thing that I get excited about. ⁓ I think the French Aziz knowing that, you know, I wake up every day to support them. My team wakes up every day to support them. That’s a big accomplishment. It’s an intangible accomplishment. I we’ve done a lot of great things from…

implementing three different rounds of, you know, loyalty rollouts, you know, implementing, you know, new POS systems, you know, opening up over a hundred. So, mean, all those accomplishments are great, but I think the intangible aspect of when you, when you send out that franchisee survey every year and they, you know, they give you feedback on, ⁓ you know, do you support the executive team? you, do you support the leadership and you’re getting a positive response? To me, that’s always a feel good moment where I’m like, okay.

This is why I do what I do. This is why we do what we do. ⁓ It’s just that feel good moment that they get that you’re not sitting in a tower, which none of us are sitting in a tower. can see I’m sitting in a small office room here that every decision we’re making, we’re trying to put ⁓ their interest first.

Anthony Codispoti (32:06)
⁓ You guys have a lot of menu creativity and you touched on it before. ⁓ One example we pulled out here is the chihuahua. What is that?

Chris (32:17)
the chihuahua. That’s the co-founder’s special. That is our version of the Italian rice ball, except as a Mexican ⁓ panko crusted cheese ball. So we break that, we make those cheese balls. ⁓ It’s rice, cheese, panko crusted, deep fried for a minute. We break it open. It’s the bed of our bowls. So when you’re feeling in that extra hearty indulgence, ⁓

We smother it with queso and then you’re building a bowl just like you’d build any bowl. So instead of having a bed of lettuce or just regular rice, you know, we’re giving you that deep fried crunch creation there.

Anthony Codispoti (32:54)
Holy queso, that sounds amazing. Where does the, I mean, the founders have now, you know, they obviously they were a big part of the menu innovation in the early days. They had stepped aside. Where’s that menu innovation going to come from now?

Chris (32:56)
Yes. ⁓

Yeah, it’s a question. It still comes with inside our teams. That’s both teams. I say corporate teams and franchisees teams. ⁓ The amount of innovation that comes from our younger franchisees, know, those Gen Z franchisees, they live and breathe ⁓ creativity on the line, you know, with their staff. So we do have an incubator, I would call like an incubator ⁓ hotline where operators are sending us creative, ⁓ we call them.

killer creations or Mexican fusion ⁓ creations that we have constantly sending us stuff there. ⁓ On top of that, know, myself, ⁓ our supply chain director, ⁓ our ops team, you know, we do have huddles where we’re constantly just planning out the, and sorry, the marketing team, we’re planning out the annual quarterly LTOs of what we’re going to bring into the restaurant or use the same SKUs and innovate on as like a plus one, ⁓ you know, to bring to the market.

Anthony Codispoti (34:09)
What’s the footprint like? I’m looking at your website here and at least, you know, is beautiful store from the outside. It looks, they’re small? Okay, this one looks pretty sizable.

Chris (34:15)
We’re small. Yeah, we’re like,

we’re, would say in the past two years, our average footprint’s been 1500 square feet. ⁓ We do range from 1200 to 2500. Different markets obviously skew on what in-store guests are. ⁓ Southeast ⁓ tends to ⁓ eat, dine in more versus the Northeast. It’s, know, come in, get your bowl and leave. ⁓ So we’re just, again, not to bring it back to.

the numbers were just hyper-focused on that ⁓ revenue per square foot.

Anthony Codispoti (34:48)
Now I’ve heard that trend from a lot of business operators coming out of COVID with an even higher percentage coming from digital and coming from the third party delivery services that it just makes sense to shrink the footprint. People aren’t using the dining room quite as frequently. ⁓

Chris (35:04)
Yeah, that’s our biggest challenge. We’re constantly trying to figure out how we could drive ⁓ more traffic on our own digital platform or how do we drive them in the stores to get the food. ⁓ That’s our biggest challenge. The marketplaces of DoorDash and Uber, every day, I think I lose more hair from them.

Anthony Codispoti (35:22)
Because they take a big cut.

Chris (35:23)
Yeah,

it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, can you work with them? You’re not going to, you’re not going to get a door dash guest to come off a door dash to order to us and to stay with us. It’s just, it’s just a very large uphill battle that I don’t think I’ve yet to see anybody win. ⁓ you know, when somebody does win, I can’t wait to see it, but they’re, so powerful. They have so many people on the team. They’re building the, the sexiest, nicest, cleanest, innovative apps out there. ⁓ no, no QSR, you know, you know, that’s.

doesn’t have their own development team. I think there’s probably only a handful of those that can do it. Could just continue to innovate and support that infrastructure to deliver on that. we’re all really faced with ⁓ off the shelf technology in my opinion.

Anthony Codispoti (36:09)
So do you think that’s the biggest hurdle to people ordering more from your own app is that it’s just easier on DoorDash? Like if they were to order from your app, where does the delivery mechanism come from or do they have to pick it up?

Chris (36:23)
Yeah, they have to pick it up or they deliver it’s being delivered by door dash ⁓ Yeah, it’s a major hurdle I mean, you know, they have credit card partnerships they have all the power of You can order five things and get them all at the same time Now, you know recently they just introduced obviously like everything else AI You don’t even have to go search the store for anymore. You could just type into the chat bot what you’re looking to eat it’s gonna prepare your burrito and

based on the ad spend and based on what the guest likes, ⁓ based on the reviews, they may choose Bubbacoos, they may choose, know, Chipotle. ⁓ That type of power is sort of out of our hands now and now that’s another thing that we’re competing on against, you know, DoorDash on how do we make sure from an AEO standpoint, you know, Bubbacoos is being thought of over competition.

Anthony Codispoti (37:11)
Hmm. mean, it strikes me as, they’re the Amazon, you know, ⁓ so many, ⁓ econ retailers that I know they sell on their own website, but the vast majority of what they’re moving is through the Amazon platform because everybody uses it. That delivery and those returns are so easy. They’ve already got my billing information. ⁓ and so it’s like, what do do? You have to play their game, right? Same kind of thing for you guys. Yeah.

Chris (37:36)
You have to.

Yeah, that’s definitely, that’s a challenge that, know, unfortunately all small business, all operators are dealing with and it’s here. It’s not, you know, it’s not going anywhere.

Anthony Codispoti (37:49)
Yeah. What’s something surprising you’ve come to understand about human psychology from your role there?

Chris (37:57)
Every person is different. You got to wear a lot of different hats on who you’re speaking to you got to know you got to know your people You got to know your you know, you you got to your audience You got to know your people you you know the same conversation or one conversation you’re having with With your you know, your ops team or your ops executive versus your you know finance executive. It’s two totally different DNA’s and you got to know, you know how to really You know, what’s the right word?

navigate through those conversations. ⁓ Whether it’s good or bad, it’s two different approaches on how you’re going to deliver depending on the DNA of that person.

Anthony Codispoti (38:36)
Do you feel like you’re naturally wired to have those different types of conversations or is this a skill that you’ve had to develop over the years?

Chris (38:45)
no, I think it’s naturally come with my overall, you my makeup as well. I’m very, very transparent. ⁓ I’ll tell anybody how, you know, how it is, whether it’s good or bad. And that goes to French disease as well. Like I’m not going to hide or, you know, give somebody an excuse of why something didn’t happen. It’s either, you know, this is what it is. I think how you deliver on that is critical. ⁓ Delivery is everything. ⁓ So, I mean, no, I think

It’s a tough skill, but I think this goes back to selecting the right franchisee. that get people understand it. It’s very hard to teach somebody hospitality or how to work with the younger workforce. ⁓ You’re just not going to get that certain individual to change. Just like it’s an introvert versus an extrovert. Certain people get it. Certain people, they…

You could try to teach them and try to coach them. They’re just, they’re good at different skill sets. And it’s just like, not, you know, it’s hard to get, it’s hard to get somebody to come out of a kitchen that doesn’t like to talk to people. You’re not going to put those people, you know, forward facing because they don’t like to talk to people. They’re not going to go be the, you know, my first point of contact when they’re coming into the restaurant, trying to introduce them to the barbecue and get them through the, you know, get them through the menu.

Anthony Codispoti (40:06)
Chris, what’s a big serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life? How did you get through that? What did you learn?

Chris (40:13)
I’m going to go back to the chapter 11 stage. know that, you know, I was 20, what I was 27 at the time. I was young. That took a lot out of me. There was a lot of wins and a lot, you know, there was, that was a tough personal experience, you know, from a personal marriage, the whole nine yards versus, know, how do you, how do you continue to get up and go to work every day and support those people?

But again, I think it was the best thing that ever happened. It shows you the highs. I went through the highs. I went through the lows, know, back up through the highs, staying high right now. I think it just, it builds you as, you know, builds your character. It doesn’t, you know, things just don’t phase me as they did probably, you know, six, seven, eight years ago. You just, it’s that overall you’re paying for the experience type.

except I’m not paying to go through school. I was paying for a real life experience of how to navigate through that. ⁓ You know, working through court cases, working through the tough decisions of potentially people’s life savings being destroyed. ⁓ Just took a lot of emotional distress ⁓ at a younger age. ⁓ But I think it gave me lot of opportunity to be where I have the opportunity where I am today. I think a lot of that built on that.

Anthony Codispoti (41:38)
You know, when we’re looking in the rear of your mirror, Chris, it’s easier to connect the dots and say, Hey, man, that was the best thing that ever happened. You know, ⁓ I developed thick skin. Things don’t bother me as much as they used to. ⁓ I learned so much, when you’re going through it, when you’re in the dark tunnel, you know, it can feel like there’s no light. Yeah. How did you get through that time? Who, could you lean on? Where did you go to for help and support?

Chris (41:58)
It’s dark. Yeah, it’s dark.

family. mean, you know, just having open conversations with my wife ⁓ or just, you know, talking to talking to, you know, mom, dad, ⁓ just having those conversations. You lean on friends as well. ⁓ You know, again, it’s really just knowing the people that you can, you know, you can count on. There’s certain people that you can that you think that they have your back. But when you come to those situations, you know, you see you see loud and clear, you know, who’s on your team versus who’s not on your team.

Anthony Codispoti (42:36)
As you look back on that time, anything you would have done differently if you got the chance to do it over again.

Chris (42:50)
I think it comes down, no, but I wish we would have done business decisions in a little bit more of a transparent matter. I think we try to pound our chest on that. We weren’t this young entrepreneur group trying to figure it out. I think we try to play the game that we were experienced and we knew what we were doing. Franchising is all about both sides with the franchisee and the franchisor working together. So I wish we had a-

We had a clearer mind when we were operating, you know, 10 years ago, eight years ago, whatever it is. I just understanding the business better, but that was just all learning experience and just, just being young and dumb. No, I think, you know, again, I think everything happens for a reason. So I wouldn’t change anything. I mean, we, we started with $30,000 to open up our first store. We got up to 54 units. You know, we, we had.

We hit the brake pedal pretty quick and we figured it out. We learned, it was learning experience that you can’t pay for.

Anthony Codispoti (43:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. Setting all humility aside, Chris, what would you say is your superpower?

Chris (44:09)
Oof.

being a really good integrator. ⁓ You can give me anything and I’ll figure out how to get it done. ⁓ What I’m not good at or what I’m working on is being more of the visionary to find other integrators. ⁓ And that’s hard. That’s not easy, but that’s all about bench and that’s all about people, putting the right people in the right seats. And that doesn’t happen overnight. ⁓

But I think at the of the day, my skill set has always been the integrator of fixing things or implementing things and just going to do it. That’s just how I’m wired.

Anthony Codispoti (44:51)
I mean, that is what you typically think of when you think of like a CFO, right? And now you’re in this role that is typically more of the visionary, the CEO. And so it feels like you’re stretching yourself, right? You’re, you’re growing, you’re, you’re, you’re fitting into this new role.

Chris (45:02)
Exactly.

absolutely. And you’re onboarding a team, you’re onboarding all, you know, you’re filling out your C-suite. So on top of doing everything, you know, you got to train and teach them. ⁓ it’s integrating and being a visionary at the same time and growing, you know, getting the team in place to set up that vision and that plan, you know, to get the brand to the next hundred, 200 units.

Anthony Codispoti (45:33)
Do you feel like there’s the space to bring in a role that would act more as the visionary or would that be sort of counter to what your role is as CEO? Do you feel like the more appropriate thing is just for you to grow into this more and become more comfortable with?

Chris (45:53)
that’s good. I mean, I think from an R &D standpoint, there’s a lot of visionary opportunity out there from culinary side, which, we do internally today. We don’t outsource it. I think at end of the day, ⁓ it’s just really, again, we’ve had a team of eight. We just grew into a team of 15 in the last three months. So there’s just been a lot of growth and you got to fill in those gaps and it just takes time.

Some people have a ⁓ chief brand officer or something like that that sees more, that’s only focused on that every day where you have more of the integrator that’s overseeing and running the operations of the brand. So I think ⁓ there’s always opportunities to incorporate that. just think it’s gonna all go down to the culture of the brand.

Anthony Codispoti (46:46)
You’ve talked a lot about, you you’ve added a lot of corporate roles, ⁓ office roles recently as you guys are really gearing up for some big growth. Thinking more about sort of the frontline work or the people in the restaurants, you know, most markets labor is pretty tight. ⁓ Turnover is high in an industry like this. What have you found success with when it comes to recruiting and retaining good folks at that frontline?

Chris (47:18)
It’s all about leadership, servant leadership. got to be hands on, ⁓ alongside your team. ⁓ You got to be in the weeds, figuring out the pain points they’re going through. We are not a large corporation with the nine, I’m speaking about the nine corporate stores. We don’t have all the perks and benefits that you can get at a lot of these larger institutional. ⁓

organization. for me, it’s the why of what we do every day. But it’s all about servant leadership to me. This is an opportunity for you to have a lot of autonomy to grow. We have a lot of success stories where I still have people on my team that started with us at 17, 18 years old that been with us for 12 years, 13 years.

So it’s that inspiration of, you you’re working with a smaller, you know, I don’t want to say mom and pop, you’re still working with the smaller brand with the visionary to grow into something. ⁓ But you, you know, you’re doing it for the people. My team is coming every day because of the people on the team. Again, we don’t have the 401k matches, you we don’t have all the free gym perks or, you know, two months of paid time off, whatever it is. ⁓

You know, you’re working 50 hours a week, you know, you’re grinding, but you’re doing it with people that, you know, know have your back, that, you know, that’s a family. ⁓ at the end of the day, you know, I go in the restaurants at a minimum once a week. ⁓ the first thing I do is I go right to the hotline and I’ll start rolling a burrito right next to the person rolling a burrito. ⁓ that’s just how you get in the weeds or up on a grand opening day. I’ll go wash dishes. I’ll go, I’ll go in the back and get my hands dirty and, you know, just show that, you know, this is what we do. ⁓ you know, we’re not, not.

corporate guys sitting in an office, we’re out there and we know the operation inside and out and we’re gonna work alongside you to make sure what we’re doing makes sense ⁓ and there’s not gaps and we’re not fixing something that can’t be fixed. ⁓ If that makes sense.

Anthony Codispoti (49:33)
So when you go to a grand opening and you’re there rolling a burrito next to somebody or washing the dishes, do you think that person knows that you’re the CEO of the corporate office?

Chris (49:44)
I don’t ever

tell anybody that. I mean, maybe the French, obviously the French as he knows, but no, I mean, for the most part, I’m going in there in a polo and same pants they are, same shoes they are. And I’m just there to pump up the team and just make sure that everyone’s smiling and everyone’s happy and enjoying the food. And that’s what, again, that’s what I wake up every day to do. So that’s what I love. That’s where the passion is.

Anthony Codispoti (50:10)
Speaking of waking up every day, what is it that you do when you wake up every day? Kind of start your day off right.

Chris (50:14)
⁓ I’m

in the gym by 5 a.m. That’s my 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. is my that’s my Zen ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (50:24)
What do

you like to do?

Chris (50:26)
I mean, every day, know, just typically doing, yeah, weights. Yeah, weights, cardio. That’s my, that’s my, that’s where put, I said it worked. It’s always with the kids. ⁓ I’m racing home every day to pick up one of my girls at dance or, know, tonight I, you know, tonight I have basketball with my little guy. ⁓ So, you know, I try to power off usually between seven and nine o’clock at night. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (50:29)
weights, cardio, kind of, yeah. Yeah. What’s something fun you like to do outside of work, outside of the gym, outside of work?

Chris (50:55)
That’s the time where I try to spend the most with the kids and the family. Make sure that we eat as a family at the dinner table. And then typically, it’s either maybe watching a show with the wife or I’m picking up the computer and I’m finishing out the night for another hour or two. So it’s long, hard days, but again, it comes down to at home, family understands and you’ve got to put certain things. ⁓ You’re always putting the kids at family first, but they also understand when work comes in play that.

Dad’s got to work some long hours sometimes.

Anthony Codispoti (51:28)
I’ve just got one more question for you today, Chris, but before I ask it, I want to knock out a few quick things. Anybody that wants to get in touch with our guest, Chris Ives today, you can find him on LinkedIn. I’ve just spelled I-B-E-S Chris Ives, look for Bubbacooze. You can also find the brand at Bubbacooze.com B-U-B-B-A-K-W-O-S.com. And if you’re interested in franchise opportunities, Bubbacoozefranchise.com. Is that right, Chris? We get those all? Okay.

Chris (51:55)
That, yeah, appreciate that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti (51:57)
Yeah. And as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries an upside for the company, reach out to us at adbackbenefits.com. Finally, if you take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app, you will hold a special place in my heart forever. Thank you. So last question for you, Chris, a year from now, you are celebrating something big. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from today?

Chris (52:27)
⁓

There’s a lot.

Let’s summarize one, let’s see.

Anthony Codispoti (52:40)
Go ahead, give me a couple.

Chris (52:45)
from a brand standpoint, I hope that we’re opening up our 200th restaurant. ⁓ It’s a stretch, but I hope within the next 18 to 24 months, we have 200 locations open. But I hope at the end of the day, ⁓ French Aziz are making money. We’ve made the right strategic moves to grow the brand, AUVs up and profitability up. ⁓

from a father’s standpoint, I’m excited to see my kids continue to grow and go throughout elementary school and continue to crush and dance and just live out through ⁓ that kind, being that kind kid that people wanna be friends with. I end of the day, I think character’s everything. ⁓ You’ll constantly try to instill those things throughout within my kids’ DNA of what’s right and wrong.

Anthony Codispoti (53:44)
Love it. Chris Ives from Bubbakoos Burritos. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Chris (53:52)
Yeah,

absolutely. I appreciate it, Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti (53:54)
Hey folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.