#buildingPLR 99 problems, but "no customers" ain't 1
Plus, soft opening numbers, why this store is extra-important
If you’re in Orange County this week, we’re participating in OC Restaurant Week- so please visit us!
All right - still catching up. Tomorrow we’ll get to Grand Opening day (February 7th).
February 2, 2025: I’m backing up here, too.
This store is very important to Pepper Lunch. And not because it’s mine (though it’s a big part of it #ego lol)
It’s the first store in the US in over six years; and it’s the first store under the North American leadership team. Ever.
Six years ago, a Pepper Lunch franchisee in Australia offered to open a few stores here. And because:
• Corporate was slammed with growth back home (hundreds of stores were opening and operating in Asia alone)
• They were being acquired by J-Star private equity, and
• They trusted this franchisee…
They approved the deal, and he opened five stores within 18 months:
Alhambra, California
Artesia, California
Irvine, California
Las Vegas, Nevada
Houston, Texas (which has closed down this year, because it was not the ideal real estate location)
After that crazy ramp-up, the franchisee stopped building more stores - they needed to focus on fortifying the existing stores, and they had stores to manage back home in Australia (they currently have 13 stores in Australia).
What was missing was boots on the ground to enforce quality control and continued growth…until they hired Troy Hooper in early 2023 to build the leadership team (which I’m a part of) and put systems in place.
Since then, we’ve put 75 units in development in the States alone - and this doesn’t count the 20-30 stores that open globally, every year (we’re at 534) - and a bunch of other incredible milestones.
Anyway - back to the main point….because this store is important, Corporate in Singapore sent their corporate team to inspect and approve us for opening, before we could soft open to the public.
The global CEO is also coming out to attend our grand opening, too. I’m honored and scared to death at the same time lol!
In only two days - during the Friends + Family events mentioned in the last issue - they gave us their blessing, and we opened to the public on February 4.
February 4, 2025: Our first day of opening to the public, at 5:00pm.
Not bad for just opening up and not doing anything!
One of our biggest bottlenecks during Friends + Family was that we ran out of rice so quickly.
One rice cooker can probably service a $1M-$2M store. But if we want to staff and equip ourselves for the sales we want to make, we need to double up and get one more rice cooker.
These things are NOT cheap, at $3K (mine at home is $30 lol); but they’re not as expensive as pissed off customers who will never come back, and not being able to do at least $6K+ a day in sales.
So, we rushed up to Torrance where our rice cooker supplier, Suzumo International is, and picked one up.
February 5, 2025: Below, I’m going to highlight just a tiny sample of the 1,000s of little fires to put out, errands to run, and decisions to make.
Know that, for every issue I do bring up, there are 100 I don’t disclose lol!
A customer’s stroller slashes our wall, so we have to run to Sherwin Williams to get paint.
Our vinyl stickers with the store logo is too small, and the hours of operation sticker is warped.
February 6, 2025: We forgot to buy food label printer paper lol (my restaurant franchisees have to laugh and see themselves in these moments).
Our small wares supplier (NOT a fan - moving forward I’m doing my equipment AND small wares with Johnson Yeh and Matthew Lee at Action Sales) delivered the wrong items, and not enough of what we needed - so we rushed to Action Sales in Irvine, and Chef’s Toys in Fountain Valley, to fill in the blanks.
Big ups to Steve Garcia from corporate for guiding me remotely, to buy the exact things we needed.
Because we don’t have enough problems, our managers’ polo shirts started ripping, and we need to pick up extras.
Our second day of sales was impressive.
Again, just by sheer traffic of people stopping in. It’s a testament to our real estate.
You’ll see the labor number at 31%.
We’re not monitoring our labor numbers for about 60 days. We need to over-staff to accommodate sales and superior hospitality; we’ll have redundancies with training everybody to do everything; and there may be employees who don’t work out or leave. But our target is keeping it under 25% of sales.
All while I’m delayed on this newsletter, I get a nice message from a friend who’s opening his first franchise, all the way on the East Coast - saying he appreciates me building in public - and holds me accountable to keep publishing this lol!
On that same note…if you found this helpful, have questions for content, and/or have feedback to make it better - please let me know!
Writing this out is documenting the journey for future appreciation (and lessons learned) and it’s free therapy; but if it can also be of service to you and your journey, that’s a cherry on top.
Thank you for sharing your journey! I came over from the Asian Hustle Network group on Facebook. As someone who has always thought about opening a restaurant, this is extremely insightful and helpful to understand everything that goes on behind the scene. Thank you for taking the time to write all this up.