Ron Shaich

Think Panera and Corner Bakery, Chipotle and Qdoba.

All of the value creation tends to happen for those that are building something of large scale.

And if you have that dominant position and you're a better competitive alternative, you win.

And so we saw that opportunity in Kava.

And that's what led us to make that acquisition.

And at that point, Kava went almost overnight.

So it took us six months to do the deal.

but from 50 restaurants to 300.

And it led to a very, very tough 2019 because the company wasn't prepared or ready for it.

And one of the things about Act III Holdings, we're able, I have seven or eight partners.

Not one of them is a financial guy.

There's only one financial guy in the mix who was actually the activist who attacked me.

I couldn't tell anybody at the time that I actually thought he was smart and liked him.

But at any rate, I did.

And he joined us as our CFO.

And, you know, I have one partner that has been with me for 20 odd years who does all our deepest research and strategic thinking.

He was the guy who has really helped me develop Fast Casual and that ideology.

I used to say from his brain to my lips, I'd speak it, but he was the guy who really pushed me hard on thinking he's with us.

I have another partner who's opened 5,000 retail locations.

I have another partner who came up through Darden, who was the president of Dairy Queen, the president of...