Ron Shaich

Brugger's Bagels was my COO, is a guy who really understands discipline scaling and how you build these companies.

We took out a number of people from Panera's technology function.

The number three guy who built all that technology joined us and he brought a team with him.

We have the capability of really doing technology.

I have another partner who's a serial entrepreneur, great at food, great at design, great with ideas.

We get into a smaller business.

I mean, he's superb in helping bring it all together.

So the model for us in Act 3 was one to bet on a category.

and then have the ability to go in and help them build the dominant player in that category.

And so at Kava, we were able that first year to really provide a lot of technology skills that were needed, help out in many ways as there wasn't an effective CFO till we brought that in, and to actually help in multiple different ways to help that business grow.

And it was a very tough year.

I can remember Brett, our CEO, we used to go to breakfast every other week, walking back from breakfast in downtown D.C.

And he looked at me wistfully and said, Ron, I just wish we still had just our 50 stores, not these 300 that we bought.

And I looked at him and I go, Brett, you know, we don't have that choice anymore.

What we need to build is load-bearing people and organization around you that can take on this opportunity.

But if we can pull this off, Katie, bar the door, we're going to build an amazing company in a powerful category.

And ultimately, Kava has been probably the single best IPO in the last half decade in the restaurant industry.

How many restaurants are you up to now?

About 400.

But more importantly, I mean, it's perceived as a brand who's filling out a category Mediterranean and dominating in that.