#14: How Zunzi's Built a Cult Following with Service and Spirit | Chris Smith, Zunzi's and Zunzibar
May 20, 2025
00:23:17
Episode 14

#14: How Zunzi's Built a Cult Following with Service and Spirit | Chris Smith, Zunzi's and Zunzibar

Chris Smith, CEO of Zunzi's and Zunzibar, shares his unconventional journey into the restaurant industry, starting with becoming a Five Guys franchisee while still in college. He recounts the moment he discovered Zunzi's, a beloved hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop in Savannah, and knew he had to buy it and franchise it. Chris explains his "Shit Yeah!" philosophy and his vision to change the restaurant industry for the better by focusing on six key stakeholders, starting with his team. He discusses the evolution of the brand, from a simple takeout spot to a dual concept with Zunzibar, a full-service beach bar experience. Chris also provides a look into his unique franchising strategy, which is focused on partnering with experienced, multi-unit operators to ensure sustainable and successful growth.

Featuring:

  • Chris Smith

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Keywords & Topics

Chris SmithZunzi'sZunzibarFranchisingRestaurant IndustryFive GuysEntrepreneurshipBrand BuildingCompany CultureGrowth Strategy

Transcript

Daniel Tsentsiper (00:01.016) Chris, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Chris Smith (00:04.229) man, I am living the dream. Daniel, how are you? Daniel Tsentsiper (00:05.23) I'm doing I'm doing well I'm you know I was thinking about what I wanted to talk to you about for this episode And I have so many ideas I think we can take it in so many different directions You guys are I think pioneering on a lot of fronts and also very bold on other fronts as well You guys are doing things that I I think are a little bit unorthodox So we'll dive in into those topics But I like to always start off by getting a chance for my audience to learn a little bit about yourself So I know that you actually started in the restaurant industry as a franchisee before now your current venture. You mind telling our audience a little bit more about how you got into this space? Chris Smith (00:42.228) That's right, so the restaurant business is one of those industries where there's always a story of how you got into the business. And with our podcast, The Shit Yeah Show, it's always the first thing I started. And so I got into the restaurant business right at a college. I was going to the University of Florida, getting a finance degree. And kind of the long story short is, pitched the idea to my parents, the open five guys instead of law school, signed a franchise agreement for seven locations while I was a, you know, I guess wrapping up my junior year of college and became a franchisee. And then a year after graduating, ended up opening my first location, had three by 23. it was baptism by fire. Luckily we picked a unicorn brand like Five Guys that really, at that time, if you didn't know what you were doing, you could open up and make money if you had a good location and were focused on quality service and cleanliness. Daniel Tsentsiper (01:27.126) Yeah, I was gonna say. Chris Smith (01:39.689) And so, you know, was certainly blessed to have picked that brand to have my entry into the restaurant business. Daniel Tsentsiper (01:46.093) Nice. Yeah, absolutely. think this was around what year was this when you entered the Five Guys space? 2006, 2007. Yeah. And around that time, think Five Guys was, you know, was starting to, starting to explode and you were with Five Guys for about how many years then? Chris Smith (01:52.177) Yeah, that was 0607. Yep, so first location open in 07. Chris Smith (02:04.263) Yeah, so from 07 through 2017 was when I sold the seven locations that we ended up opening. And in that time, I was in the process of completing that agreement and that's how I found Zoonzies as a fan favorite in Savannah. And kind of that first visit there, I said, somebody I'm gonna buy that restaurant and franchise it one day and it snowballed into, that's what we're doing today. Daniel Tsentsiper (02:07.661) Nice. Daniel Tsentsiper (02:28.671) So, no, tell me, like, what did you see at Zunzi's? I know you mentioned you were going there all the time. You love the South African iced tea and it was a fan favorite. You also mentioned that the owners were a little bit interesting. What did you see in that moment? You were like, shit, yeah, I'm going to invest in this brand. Like that seems like a very, it was a one restaurant at the time. What made you, what convinced you to invest and to take over? Chris Smith (02:48.208) Yeah. Chris Smith (02:52.776) Correct. Yeah, so, you I was just opening my second location, so was moving to Savannah and everyone was saying, you got to go check out this little hole in a wall dive sandwich shop called Zoonzies. And I walked up and there was a line of probably 50 people, you know, wrapped around the building. And, you know, it's always a good sign. Probably half the time the line was long because the owners were fighting and they were, you know, just doing what owners do sometimes in a husband and wife duo. And so it was kind of like the soup Nazi. Daniel Tsentsiper (03:10.028) That's a good sign. Chris Smith (03:26.163) from a Seinfeld, kind of that feel. But I waited in line, they were given free samples of the tea and the chicken and the sauces. And so I got the famous conquistador, the South African tea and walked around this old patio passing dumpsters and grease traps that weren't well maintained in a patio furniture that was all mix and match, cheap $40 rainbow umbrellas that were designed for the beach that were popped in there. Daniel Tsentsiper (03:27.789) Okay. Daniel Tsentsiper (03:47.211) Hmm. Chris Smith (03:54.044) You know, had the best sandwich of my life, the best tea of my life. Everyone was saying shit yeah, which is our motto. And you know, it just kind of came out. I looked around and I was like, man, the three things that five guys would talk about of being successful in this business were concept, location, and operations is have a great concept, open in a great location, and run in great operations. And if you consistently do that, then you should do well. And it really was a unique concept. Daniel Tsentsiper (04:10.348) Mm-hmm. Daniel Tsentsiper (04:20.445) Yep. Chris Smith (04:21.308) that everyone was saying, shit yeah, so that was good, the team and the fans. it wasn't a great location and certainly it wasn't great operations that were running. But the end product was a really happy team and a really happy customer base that kept on growing and people were willing to wait in line for 20, 30, 40 minutes, sometimes over an hour for a sandwich in the Savannah heat. Daniel Tsentsiper (04:31.637) Mm-hmm. Daniel Tsentsiper (04:44.544) What was the first thing you did, you know, once you took over? What was, what was your first agenda on the list? Chris Smith (04:51.142) Yes, the first thing I did was I said, guys, my number one goal of this year is to not lose any of you in the first year. It was let's retain the staff. felt like they were the magic of it. And especially because they really had no systems or processes. So, you know, we had kept Johnny and Gabby on for a year as part of our deal and they could be resources. But when you're taking over a business that's so closely held and they're not planning on continuing in the business as active partners. that you kind of want to rip that bandaid off and take it over. And so that's what we did and we really succeeded. still have, I think we still have some people that are from that original group that they kind of come in and out of the business. It's funny, they'll go in and grow somewhere else and they come back. And that's probably one of the fun parts of the business. Daniel Tsentsiper (05:43.371) Yeah. And I know that you mentioned you brought with you, or maybe this was a couple of years after you bought the business, you brought with you a team of five guys operators, right? People that were, you know, we would call them, we would just call them like excellent operators, people that knew the business, knew how to scale, knew how to run it right. What was that team like and who did you bring in to operationalize the business? Chris Smith (06:08.837) Yeah, so in the beginning, we still had the Five Guys restaurant. So I had some infrastructure that we could use to support that. We also had investors that were partners. They were running the backend in their family office. So I didn't have to do the accounting and all of that. I was able to focus on the operations and try to do that. Daniel Tsentsiper (06:15.465) Nice. Chris Smith (06:33.093) they were also Five Guys franchisees. So it just kind of happened to me that they were based in Savannah and was able to do that with them. But, you know, Five Guys has a very high standard of quality service, calliness. They're really known for that. And so that standard, it made sense for us to try to bring in some people. And so we brought some of our best people from our Five Guys locations. And then most recent in the past two and a half years, We partnered with the largest Five Guys franchisee, so he's a small investor with us. And then their operator is now our COO. so great pedigree, 10 years corporate McDonald's and then 16 years with RTM, which was the largest Arby's franchisee. He grew with them for eight locations, think 1200, sold to Rore Capital and then... was with the Five Guys franchisee and opened over 100 locations over a 10 year period and then sold back to corporate like we did. also brought on their controller to run our accounting and finances to free me up to be what I wanna be doing, which is really doing this is being able to talk about why we're in business and our vision statement is the restaurant business sucks, we're here to change it and really doing things differently. Daniel Tsentsiper (07:53.578) That was a perfect transition, but you're not going to escape without me double tapping on that. Why does the restaurant industry suck? And, and why is that your motto? Chris Smith (07:59.503) Alright. Chris Smith (08:05.256) man, the restaurant business sucks in my opinion because it will take everything from you if you let it. It's the most demanding business, mind, body, spirit. There aren't many businesses that you can work open to close seven days a week. You really can't, and not succeed. If you think about a lot of businesses, that you can just hustle harder. Yeah, and just do it, but you know. Daniel Tsentsiper (08:23.56) I'm sweating equity and it'll just work. Chris Smith (08:29.754) be it an online business or even some retail, whatever it is, the restaurant business, you really can't outwork the restaurant business. It will wear you down. And I hate to say it, kills people. And what it does, it also, it can put people into addiction. It can cause people to lose important relationships because of it. It's a business for a lot of people of first jobs and second chances. And so you have that dynamic of it. For me personally though, is I was so committed after my first location. I actually said in my Brunswick, Georgia location, I said, I will die before I fail in this restaurant. And I'd worked, think two years open to close. had locations that were a hundred miles apart, driving to all of them every day, cause I didn't have infrastructure. And so that was an experience I'm so happy. won't hopefully ever have to do again, but it taught me a lot about. Daniel Tsentsiper (09:11.187) Cheers. Daniel Tsentsiper (09:19.155) mean. Chris Smith (09:22.35) you know how hard the restaurant business can be and specifically for franchisees of I was a franchisee of a brand and luckily I picked a great one. But the franchise industry is not for the faint of heart. There's no guarantees in this business and and that's why for us I you know I would never sell to a franchisee like myself because for everyone that you know and unfortunately there's there's horror stories of situations where you've got someone who You know, their family may have some money and there's someone who might be a little hungry to be an entrepreneur and they go into that business and you know, you've got to fully commit, right? You've got to burn the boat on it and be willing to sacrifice a lot if you don't have the professional organization background to do that that we now have and you you really don't know what you don't know and that was my situation. At least I knew how to make perfect burgers and fries for my training while I was in college. Daniel Tsentsiper (09:58.152) Right. Daniel Tsentsiper (10:16.201) So it sounds like you have to be a little bit masochistic and you have to have grit. have to, there has to be some unreasonable incentive for you to be in the industry beyond just money, right? I've talked to so many franchisees and some of these people are very hands off, right? They come in with a pool of money and they see it as a business that's profitable, that's in some cases is very much recession proof, right? If you're thinking if we're talking like QSR, FastCast, Casual in some cases, very much recession proof. And they see it as just a business to, you know, bring them cash flow and they can, you know, sail with the wind. But in most cases from the best operators I've talked to, they actually do get their hands dirty and they actually go in and try to fix some of those imperfect aspects of the restaurant. And one thing that really, really, really got me was When in our first conversation, you brought up the six, you know, the six, I don't know what you call it. Six pillars, six stakeholders. Yeah. I know you have a good way of branding everything. Tell us more about those six stakeholders. then on the back of you saying the restaurant industry sucks. How do you make it better for, for yourself and for your, your team? Chris Smith (11:21.701) Stakeholders, yeah. Chris Smith (11:36.28) Right, yeah, so from right off the bat, like I said earlier, my first visit I recognized that the team was saying shit yeah, and the customers were saying shit yeah. And you think about the value of a motto and what that is if McDonald's had everybody saying I'm loving it, right? Or you'd go there and at Burger King you said I'm having it my way today, if that's still their thing. I don't know. Ours was shit yeah, you know, and it was so good and the experience overall, was that. And so I recognized that and that became really the goal of the company and it became the brand promise to our team first and then our fans that we want when they engage in our business, we want them to leave saying or feeling a shit yeah experience where it was just, we exceeded expectations. You can't like put a finger on it, but you want to go back and hopefully tell somebody about it. And so that's evolved now into our sixth stakeholder promise, starting with our team, then our franchisees, our fans, community, vendors, investors, and in order we want to make decisions based off of our shit yeah promise, that if we're gonna roll something out, our team needs to buy in, right? Our franchisees. If they're bought in, our fans probably will, right? And then if all three of those are doing well, then it's gonna be good for our community because we have a successful business. Right. And then you roll up and our vendors are happy and they're growing alongside of us. And then you have investors that are happy as well. And it's, it's not an easy thing. think most restaurants are really focused on, their customers. Right. The ones that are more successful than that are focused on their customers and their team. And usually their team first, cause they realize you gotta take care of them and they'll take care of your, customers. And then it goes all the way up, you know, to then, you know, the, the, communities you, you serve and. Daniel Tsentsiper (12:58.65) been. Daniel Tsentsiper (13:19.172) rain. Chris Smith (13:26.467) and all the way up to the investors. A lot of times now with private equity, know, a founder gets in the business to serve people. It's people serving people. then as people get in for the money as the main reason they're getting in, you know, absolutely should be making money in this business. It's a high risk, high return business. So it needs to be there to offset that risk. But a lot of people get into it and it ends up being numbers, serving numbers. And then it gets into less numbers, less employee numbers, serving more tickets, more customer tickets, and to the point that, you know, the magic is lost. And I think that's in this day and age of technology and tech stacks and everything that goes into it, so critical to utilize and maximize that in the back of the house of your business to free up the front of the house so you can really focus on the experience. And with our two brands, have Zunesies, which is our takeout delivery and catering. Daniel Tsentsiper (13:58.084) Right. Chris Smith (14:25.431) you you know, expedient model, you know, more of a get in, get out quick where execution is the experience. Of course, you know, we want, you know, we want you to be saying shit. Yeah. With that small interaction that we have and have fun with you there, but Zunza bar takes the complete opposite. It takes the award-winning food. Now we've added seafood to it. You've got a full, you know, high-end bar, you know, so it's a seafood and surf bar that we've evolved into with our award-winning sandwiches, wings and chips. Daniel Tsentsiper (14:30.274) Right. Right. Chris Smith (14:54.666) live music, it's really experience focused. And it's a place that we want you to hang out and have a good time. And so we kind of go to those two extremes with that business model. Instead of trying to blur the lines of, hey, we're a fast casual, that's so experience focused. No, you're fast casual and you want to get in and out and have it correct at a good price. And then we have a full service model that really is a place that you want to go and have a good time and hang out. Daniel Tsentsiper (15:05.983) Mm-hmm. Daniel Tsentsiper (15:15.535) Right. Daniel Tsentsiper (15:21.146) Right, right. And I actually really like that approach. It's like, understand the game that you're in, right? If you're in fast casual and if you're in QSR, the execution is king and you might not have as much resources or the bandwidth or the, you know, the pool of talent in order to deliver a more refined experience. But then when you're now also expanding with Zunzibar, and I want to ask you more about your growth plans around that business, but that allows you to also have this like higher AUV, more touch points with the customers allows you to kind of brand it into something really unique. So when you're running these two dual concepts, tell me when did Zunzibar come to be and then how are you kind of, let's say, how are you kind of managing these two experiences while also kind of rolling it up towards, you know, this brand that you created. Chris Smith (16:15.084) Sure. you know, Zunes is a 20 year old brand now. started in 2005, so this year is our 20th anniversary, which is pretty cool. I've had it 10 years. Johnny and Gabby, the original founders, had it 10 years. The Zunes of our concept was really birthed while I was in the Virgin Islands, and this was in 2017. I had sold my five guys, and I was like, how cool would it be if we had a beach bar someday? And our brand already had rainbow umbrellas, and so... You know, had created this idea. Zunzi's was a name after Zanzibar. The original founder wanted to, you know, always live like he was on vacation. So he named it after that as he replaced the vacation when he lived in South Africa, the rainbow umbrellas, right? That whole vibe was already there. And then COVID came and we were losing our lease of our original location. The landlord didn't want a restaurant there. It was too busy. And Daniel Tsentsiper (17:07.045) Hmm. Chris Smith (17:11.219) It was COVID, was like the world was ending. It's like, you know, if we're going to have to expand, let's go ahead and pivot and let's go into it. You know, let's add alcohol to it. Let's take the award-winning food, keep it very simple, a fast casual food model, but lead with an elevated beach bar experience, really a high brow, low brow. And it took us from one and a half million to over three million overnight. And now with the innovation, I believe the key to business. really has always been, especially now is innovation and marketing are really the two places that you have to be constantly, constantly engaged in. And that's why I have the podcast, the Shit Yeah Show, is if I'm asking and interviewing stakeholders, my team, other team members, franchisees, fans, I just had a fan from our Hilton head location come on, and amazing feedback. We turned around a terrible experience twice, terrible for his experience, right? Daniel Tsentsiper (17:41.189) All right. Daniel Tsentsiper (17:58.073) Yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (18:03.087) Yep Chris Smith (18:06.75) He's a very, I think we're actually gonna end up hiring him to be like a guest experience, like supervisor or something. But if I'm constantly asking the questions, what sucks about the business, what do we love about it, and then what should we be doing, and what are we doing to change it, then I'll be the person in the company who always knows where we need to move the ball, right, and just shift a little bit here and there. It's not about these big shifts. If you're constantly evolving a little bit every day in your personal life, Daniel Tsentsiper (18:27.438) Mm-hmm. Chris Smith (18:36.028) or in your business, then you're not having to make those big brand shifts that are there. You're just moving with the times. Daniel Tsentsiper (18:41.989) Got it. And so what is your growth strategy? Are you franchising? Are you opening up your own stores? What is the path that you see? And then if you are franchising, what types of operators are you looking for? You brought up earlier in episode, you don't want someone like yourself. What is the right person do you think that would mesh with your brand? Chris Smith (18:57.984) You got it. Chris Smith (19:06.645) Yeah, so in franchising you have something called a discovery day. And a good buddy, Jeff Sinelli, he's probably the only one that I know who's renamed it something different. He calls it a leap day. He inspired me to change that. And so we call it shooting the shit, where you'll come in for two days and we're just going to shoot the shit. We're not going to pretend to be something that we're not. You know, we're a very entrepreneurial growing company and we're busting at the seams in our office and we've got great people coming on board. Daniel Tsentsiper (19:26.852) All right. Chris Smith (19:35.39) It's really important that I think we align on four things, right? Our identity in regards to, know, we understand what we are as a brand and that it fits them. That, you know, they understand who we serve. That number one, we're here to serve our team and the service industry. There's a lot of things that we do for the service industry, like half off seven days a week for service industry. They come in and get food half off seven days a week, right? I'm not trying to make money off the service industry. It's also a great way to meet like-minded service industry people. After that, aligned on values. And then finally, they have to have discipline. And so that's kind of what we call the launching pad of the rocket ship, is if you keep all four of those intact, then as that rocket ship takes off, hopefully it won't blow up because you're aligned on all of those. And discipline is really the key that keeps it intact. for me, as you know, I think our team calls me the Daniel Tsentsiper (20:01.859) Bye. Chris Smith (20:31.4) visionary fearless leader founder. It's funny sometimes I've paired that up with Kevin Nelson, who's our CEO. He's just so disciplined rock solid has those disciplines in place that we can both both be on on kind of both ends of that and combine its rocket fuel for us. There's a great book by EOS, the entrepreneurship operating system called called rocket fuel that allows us to work together. So, know, for the growth, the growth and you know, that's the kind of the franchisee. Daniel Tsentsiper (20:38.687) Right. Yep. Yep. Chris Smith (21:00.531) how we can stay intact. The ideal franchisee is gonna be someone that's already operating a minimum of probably 10 restaurants, that they're really running this as a main business. They're not owner operators. They're business owners. They have an org chart in place. We're going about it very different. Our first two franchisees, we sold 17 locations last year in Florida, 10 in Orlando, seven on the West Coast. Daniel Tsentsiper (21:05.847) Okay. Chris Smith (21:23.891) We've got three or four locations opening this year, Tampa, Saras... Sorry, the villages, Jacksonville, Jupiter, Orlando, and probably five to 10 looking more next year or more. The franchisees we have to have, they've got to check that box. And so we also don't want them to be too big. We don't want the tail wagging the dog to where they're coming in. In those situations... Daniel Tsentsiper (21:44.979) Gotcha. Exactly. And they have all the demands and they're telling you kind of how to run the business. Chris Smith (21:53.459) That's right. And so we want to learn. I believe everybody has value and if we're aligned on values, remember, they're buying into the belief that the Shitty Act experience is the key. And so that's going to evolve over time. Things move very, very fast. But we're doing it differently. So those two franchisees have a management agreement in place. So we're actually running them for them because we didn't want to just jump into franchising and say, here's the Ops Manual. And then you got to deal with that. Daniel Tsentsiper (21:56.588) Absolutely. Chris Smith (22:19.997) It allows us to roll into it and not as big of a jump from that relationship. Because I believe that relationships are the key to life and business. It's our X factor of our business is that we just want to value the relationships of our business and life more than anybody else. And so we got to be good stewards of them to get more. And so we're doing it very different. We have management agreements in place for these initial franchisees. For some others, we'll actually do joint ventures. So if you are one of those bigger franchisees, we would love to do a joint venture with you, right? To where we're actually a partner in the business together. We've got a nice structure for that. I've got an opportunity in the Mid-Atlantic with a great 50 to 100 unit franchisee already who wants to do that with us, who came to us because of our podcast. And then franchisees. also too, we're not gonna have 1,000 franchisees. I'd like to have 10 great franchisees in the Southeast. Daniel Tsentsiper (22:53.281) Mm-hmm. Chris Smith (23:13.939) that buy 10 locations each and over the next 10 years we have 100 locations that ideally are doing around 5 million in sales. And I think we've got a good business if we're doing that by then. Daniel Tsentsiper (23:23.021) I love it. love it. Tell me you you talk about this 26x concept, right? You called the restaurant business a one X business. What is this 26x concept? And you know, how are you kind of what's the playbook to get to that? Chris Smith (23:40.414) Yeah, so, you know, 26X, 26 is our big cultural number. know, Chipotle, it was 13 for a long time. They had 13 characteristics. know, as a founder, you try to use things to unite. We've got to shift, yeah, and some other different things that's there. But 26 is our big cultural number. And so I believe that every business, a great business should have, you know, mission, vision, values, a brand promise. you know, a great product service model, profit model, all of that needs to be there. But I believe if you want to multiply that business and what we say 26 exit, right, is you have to value the relationships of that business and make that your X factor. I believe every business needs an X factor that really differentiates them. And the restaurant business is really, in my opinion, the worst steward of relationships because it's so demanding. It takes more people. to produce the smallest amount of sales, sales per man hour. So, you know, I believe I'm in this business because there's so many relationships. I've always wondered why, you know, I left kind of growing up with a silver spoon life. I've been very blessed and favored in that, to then go into such a hard business. But I truly believe it's because of the relationships that the restaurant business brings. And when you realize that and you just realize, you know, and you start valuing that, it's like the world starts working for you. Daniel Tsentsiper (24:37.311) Right. Right. Chris Smith (25:03.086) And so for us, it's those six relationships back to that promise. And then just saying, what can you do for those different stakeholders that nobody else does? And for us, there's some things that we do. We've got our text program with the 26 club. We're texting our customers all day. They're texting us, hey, good morning. Hope you're having a great day. Thousands of them. And there's some values that we have. Lead with love, be a blessing, and give to grow. We believe that you need to give people what they want. Daniel Tsentsiper (25:22.922) Cheers. Chris Smith (25:32.03) And it should be a relationship. All the way up to our investors. We've got a card that we give them to where they can use that at any of our locations. And so, unlimited. If they want to run up a big old tab and have a party, I'll probably call them the next day and say, who is the big party with? But there's only so many perks you can give people of being an investor in this crazy business. And that's one of them. Same for our franchisees. So we're always looking on how can we give more. Daniel Tsentsiper (25:47.602) Yeah, right. Chris Smith (25:59.495) to them and I believe that's the secret of growth is giving first. Daniel Tsentsiper (26:02.596) Yeah, totally. I think you're such a unique person. You have so many great ideas. It seems like you're running tons of experiments as well. I'm sure that some things work, some things don't. And then as you've kind of learned, you've codified a lot of those principles into your brand ethos. So last question for you. kind of looking ahead, you're trying to sell franchises, you're expanding the business, you're getting More operationally savvy. What other things do you think are on the horizon for you that you're like absolutely excited to to you know to be working on? Chris Smith (26:42.235) Yeah, you know, it's really cool is we're getting, you know, our vision statement is the restaurant business sucks, we're here to change it. people are seeing that we're doing things different. You know, I've got other restaurant groups and, you know, locally here that are reaching out that actually want us to 26X their business, want us to help them figure out how they can focus on their stakeholders. And it just starts with giving and it starts giving back to the service industry and their current employees and doing that. So, you know, I think the most exciting thing is through all the new relationships we get, it opens up another group of relationships in their sphere. And it just keeps on growing and growing. And so I believe that, you know, we don't get more of what we're not a good steward of. And I believe our greatest treasure in life are the relationships that we have. And you got to be a good steward of the ones that you currently have first. And that's our secret of the business. It's inside the four walls. Take care of our team that's currently working. Daniel Tsentsiper (27:22.055) Absolutely. Chris Smith (27:42.182) take care of our fans that are currently in the building, make them both say shit yeah. And then if we consistently do that, then they'll be bringing their friends and then we won't have the issues that most people have in the restaurant business of not being able to be staffed. They'll be coming to us and that's been proven. You know, we have very, very, very low turnover. We have our pick of the litter of talent. It's really an incredible thing. And we're on the brink of 2026, which is our big cultural numbers. So big thing is to come. It'll be 26X. Daniel Tsentsiper (28:07.843) Exciting. Exciting. Chris, good luck to you. It seems like you're killing it. And thank you for everything that you do for our industry to innovate, to push it forward, to give back. I'm really excited to see where you guys go. Thank you so much for joining the show. Chris Smith (28:24.432) Thank you, God is good. All right, bud, bye. Daniel Tsentsiper (28:25.309) Yes, sir. Take care.