Still publishing these updates in bullet point style, until we’re caught up to the present!
December 4, 2024: Irvine Building Department approves our construction plans.
December 11, 2024: I’m particularly proud of this entry.
When we hired Mel and Alben, one of the incentives we committed to offering was health benefits.
Alben had benefits from working at Raising Cane’s, so we matched the perks…but Mel did not, at her previous employer.
We wanted to make sure their bases were covered and they felt appreciated; so that they could give 100% and not be distracted.
No, benefits are not required; and yes, it’s going to make our labor costs higher…but loyalty, feeling appreciated, staff giving us their best, and a lower occurrence of attrition…
Those things are a high upfront cost that lowers over time - while being cheap is a low upfront cost that gets more expensive over time.
This is what we did when we started The Halal Guys in 2014, and it’s served us well (scaled to 9 stores and sold after 10 years).
We’re copying and pasting, here.
December 12, 2024: Landlord approves exterior store signage. Woohoo!
January 7, 2025: Symplyfi, a vendor-partner, installs low-voltage for Adentro (consumer Internet that doubles as data-gathering that helps us market better; GRUBBRR (our self-service kiosk); and Boxie (locker system to securely service third-party delivery)
We also got Pepsi to install our soda machine and Tractor to install our tea-dispensing machines.
January 10, 2025: Construction is in full swing, and our team is present to install table trackers.
One of corporate’s required vendor-partners is LRS (Long Range Solutions) - a company that will help us bring food orders to the customers…no matter where they are, and even if they decide to move tables.
Want to know my honest opinion?
Thomas likes the trackers; Andrew is fine with it; and I’m not completely sold on them.
They are NOT cheap, at a price of about $8,000.
They’d be almost $2,000 more if we hired LRS to install them…but corporate offered to install them for us on-site, which I appreciate.
Not sure they are dramatically more effective than non-electronic table tents with numbers…which are pennies on the dollar.
Our neighbors at Shake Shack do about $9M in sales a year…and they use these table trackers that look like they costed $5.
But we want to embrace tech, and we want to be good franchisees that want to deliver a consistent experience…so we’re committed!
January 14, 2025: The Health Department came and did a preliminary inspection - to give us a gauge of whether we’d pass the final inspection (scheduled on January 17th).
They gave us a few corrections to make, and we felt good about passing. Our GC accommodated those changes in two days.
January 17, 2025: The Health Department came again and gave us NEW corrections to make. What the heck?!
Again - thank goodness for Kristeen at the GC team for doing whatever was necessary to get approved.
We got another inspection scheduled for January 23.
January 21, 2025: Our patented induction heaters and iron plates arrive, are cleaned, and are installed!
Seeing these is particularly exciting.
It’s what differentiates us, it’s what’s going to do a lot of the heavy lifting it comes to creating a simple operation for us franchisees and a unique experience for the customers we seek to serve and delight.
January 21, 2025: The Fire Department approved our fire and ansul systems, and Electricity approved our power. Almost there!
January 22, 2025: Orientation starts! First Class.
We weren’t approved by Health, yet - so our managers could only do paperwork, getting to know each other, and giving a tour of the store and what to expect.
January 23, 2025: We passed Health and get our CO (Certificate of Occupancy). We can now start training with food!
Love the bullet points. Keep building, keep posting and keep us informed.
I didn't know all of these(fire, health, building approval) was needed to open a restaurant. It's not something that happens here. I can just buy a building and start selling whatever i want.
The part were you said 'investors looking to buy'. Is it possible to buy or invest in your Franchise? Like share etc.