Garrett Snyder & Robert Campos of Mountain Mike's Pizza
Mountain Mike's Pizza
Guest: Garrett Snyder, VP of Restaurant Development, and Robert Campos, VP of Franchise Development, Mountain Mike's Pizza
Host: Chris Hatch
Summary
In the Dirt Dog Pod's first two-guest episode, Chris Hatch talks with Garrett Snyder and Robert Campos of Mountain Mike's Pizza, a 40-plus-year-old Bay Area brand with 309 restaurants in 10 states. They walk through the full franchisee journey, from first inquiry and Discovery Day to broker selection, site tours, financing, construction and opening. They explain what makes a good Mountain Mike's site (a strong store in small Hurricane, Utah, included), why the brand ranks at the top for franchise lending, how in-house construction managers support franchisees, and how expanded hours and local marketing are pushing AUVs toward $1.5 million.
Key Takeaways
Mountain Mike's sweet spot is about 2,600 to 2,800 square feet: a modernized pizza parlor built around family, community and sports, with TVs, arcade games and beer and wine.
With close to 70% of sales from carryout and delivery, access and visibility come first. Drivers can't spend eight minutes getting out of the parking lot. The brand prefers daily-needs anchors and end caps with strong food co-tenancy.
Density isn't everything. Small, underserved towns like Hurricane, Utah, and Eureka, California, are among the brand's strong performers.
Site selection is an art and a science. Data and AI are an "insurance policy," but boots on the ground and comparing nearby brands' sales to their national AUVs still matter most.
Strong FUND scores in FranData's Bank Credit Report have brought lenders offering franchisees special terms. The loan process is still the biggest bottleneck, so start early and overlap design with lease negotiation to avoid dead rent.
Construction managers bid every job to four or five GCs on a standard bid form, hold weekly calls and make at least three site visits during build-out.
Garrett's advice for landlords who want to land a Mountain Mike's: low rent and a big TI check.
Transcript
Editor's note: The CEO's name, Jim [Metevia], is spelled from the audio and should be confirmed.
[01:45] Chris Hatch: Welcome back to the Dirt Dog Pod. We have two special guests today. Our first two-guest episode, which we're really excited about. We have Garrett Snyder, who's the vice president of restaurant development and Robert Campos, his colleague, who's the VP of franchise development, both with Mountain Mike's Pizza. So Robert and Garrett, welcome to the pod.
[02:17] Garrett Snyder: Thank you for having us, Chris.
[02:17] Robert Campos: Great to be here Chris, thanks.
[02:20] Chris Hatch: We have not had two executives on at one time. So this is a lot of fun for us. We're treading into new territory here, but I thought it would be entertaining having both of you here and kind of really a better perspective of how things go when it comes to a franchise concept, I think, because it really is kind of a team effort here. So, I thought maybe a good place to start is when a new prospect, a new franchise prospect comes into the system. How did the two of you work together? How does that work at Mountain Mike's?
[02:54] Robert Campos: Yeah, well, I'll go ahead and take that first because they typically start with me first, right? So folks have heard of the brand or maybe they're responding to some of the franchise development marketing that we're doing and they reach out and inevitably they're connected with me. So I get the pleasure of working with them from initial inquiry, kind of doing my first call with them, getting a good sense of who they are and what they're all about, what they know about the brand. And then we take them through the discovery process. And I work through that process pretty much on my own up until the point where we bring them in for what we call our discovery day.
And that's typically the first time that Garrett and the rest of our team will get a chance to meet with them. And once they're signed though, they immediately head right over into Garrett's camp and then Garrett and his team pick up the ball from there on if you want to share a little bit about what you guys do once that comes about.
[03:47] Garrett Snyder: Sure, yeah, the handoff is essentially when the franchise agreement and franchise fee is paid and immediately within a week, I'm reaching out to the franchisee to schedule a kickoff call. And that's the first step with me. That kickoff call, essentially I'm just walking them through the initial steps, which really is all about hiring the right broker for that market that they're in. And also just kind of walking them through the initial steps on site selection. Walk them through some market planning. We want to schedule a tour with them within three weeks of their franchise agreement signing and onboarding a broker. The goal is to be out in their market touring all together.
So those are the initial steps and I don't go too far in depth on that initial call. You know, I'm not walking them through every step through design and permitting and construction because, they're only going to retain so much information on that first call. And so I want to make it really focus on their initial three to five steps.
[04:54] Chris Hatch: Are you finding that the majority of your franchisees or maybe the franchisees that you're after and trying to sell territories to, are they typically accustomed to building restaurants? Do they know how to do that? Or is it starting at base level one?
[05:11] Garrett Snyder: So it's a mixed bag. We have some that come from backgrounds with other brands. We have some very strong franchisees who come from Jersey Mike's or Crumbl Cookies, Popeyes, Dairy Queen, you name it. And then there's some that we thought were a great cultural fit. They have a restaurant operator on their staff that they're bringing in. And they may have never negotiated a real estate deal or built a restaurant before, but we have all the tools and processes in place to help them throughout that process. So it's a mixed bag.
[05:49] Chris Hatch: Robert, I got to imagine as you're taking that kind of point of sale call upfront for the second group there that Garrett mentioned, that's got to be intimidating if you've never opened a store before.
[06:02] Robert Campos: Yeah, I think that's one of the best things about Mountain Mike's, though, is we have such a great support system in place that they're never on their own. And honestly, some of our most successful franchisees have come from industries that are outside of restaurants. And so they've never, as Garrett said, never had to go through an LOI process, never negotiated a lease, let alone been through the construction and build out of a restaurant space, right? So how do we take somebody like that? Put them into our system and work them through. And it's really a credit to Garrett and his team, everything from our real estate managers who are there, touring sites with them.
They may be worried, but they know they've got people in place that are going to help them out with site selection, with construction, all the way through to, of course, into the operational phases as well. But we do a great job, especially for the franchise fee that we charge, which is kind of low in the industry. We do a great job of making sure that we've got enough team members there to make those new franchisees that are not experienced in that area feel comfortable with moving forward. And they get a chance to see that throughout that discovery phase, through the webinars that I conduct with them, through Discovery Day where they meet with our whole leadership team.
So I think they get very comfortable prior to signing. And once they sign, I think they're even more blown away by the support that they get once they come on board.
[07:23] Chris Hatch: Yeah, that's good to hear. Why don't you guys walk us through what does a typical Mountain Mike's look like today? What's the restaurant look like? What's the size? What's the ambiance you're going for?
[07:35] Garrett Snyder: Sure, I can start off with that, Robert. In terms of footprint, we're looking for, the smallest we really want to go is 2,000 square feet. We can go up as big as, we have a couple of restaurants that are over 4,000 square feet, but really the wheelhouse is somewhere between 2,600 and 2,800 square feet. And really that fits in with who we are, our DNA. We're a modernized pizza parlor. You bring in the Little League team, soccer teams, families. It's a brand that has three pillars. It's family, community and sports. You know, TVs everywhere in the dining room, arcade games, beer and wine for the adults.
You know, we want to invite our guests in and have a great experience in our restaurants. So our footprint, we want to accommodate people to enjoy themselves and have a great experience at Mountain Mike's.
[08:34] Chris Hatch: Do you also, I assume you offer the pizza as well for delivery and carry out customers? What are you typically seeing as far as percentage of sales go versus dine in versus delivery and carry out?
[08:40] Robert Campos: Absolutely.
[08:49] Garrett Snyder: Robert, you take that.
[08:50] Robert Campos: Yeah, I think a good healthy split ideally would be 33, 33, 33 in a perfect world. I would say that what I've seen, at least in seeing us open up in new markets, because of the price point that Mountain Mike's is at, we are a premium pizza brand, right? We're not competing with the Little Caesars and the Domino's and Papa Johns and those guys directly in terms of pricing, right? We're certainly not providing the same level of product. Our product is head and shoulders above it. So in a new market, it does seem to be, and I'm sure our ops team can source out all these numbers, but it does seem to be that when guests first try the product, they're going to want to do it there inside the restaurant.
We know that through our local restaurant marketing efforts, if we've got a great franchisee that's doing all those local restaurant marketing efforts, they're going to pull those folks into the restaurant. They're going to have a great experience. They're going to taste some incredible pizza. And they're going to say this might have been a little bit more expensive than had I just ordered from Papa John's or something, but this is head and shoulders above in terms of quality. And so now they've had a great experience at that they've experienced that service. They've experienced that product fresh and hot out of the oven. And now if they don't have time to come in then that following week or two weeks later, they can always order it for carry out and delivery.
So. You know, it's kind of my understanding that when we open up in those markets, we have an opportunity to serve those guests first inside of that restaurant, which will then build that delivery and carry out business as well. Because I think people are maybe a little bit less likely to just jump right in to placing an order for delivery or carry out when they've never had the product before, because the pricing is not going to be comparable. They don't have a benchmark yet of what they're getting. And so I think in the beginning, we might skew a bit more heavily toward dine-in, and over time that will build that delivery and carry out through that great experience.
[10:42] Chris Hatch: Yeah. Do you typically fill the orders for delivery and carry out through third party apps? Is that how you're doing that? Or do you have your own or how does that work for you?
[10:50] Garrett Snyder: So it's both third party, but also we have our own delivery drivers as well.
[10:57] Chris Hatch: Staffing your own. That's got to be an entire separate business plan almost in and of itself, Running delivery drivers.
[11:03] Robert Campos: Yeah, it's like a business within a business actually and we we don't require it, but we certainly do recommend when somebody opens up, especially in a new market, that they purchase a couple small delivery vehicles. That way they can get out there and have those driving billboards going around town. And, you're there at the grocery store and you see this this car going by with this really good looking pizza on the side of it. Hey, what's that? I've never heard of that before. You know, and they look into it. Oh, they're right down the street over here. And so it's a great way to kind of help build that up.
Of course, now they're retaining any delivery fees and the team members are getting tips. And so it is its own business within a business. But there are some cases, of course, where if the product maybe has to go a little bit farther out and you don't want one of your own team members to take that time going all the way out of that way, we partner up with companies like DoorDash. We utilize DoorDash Drive where we can then assign that order directly over to a DoorDash driver. Who will come pick it up. We're not paying a commission for that, but they are getting a delivery fee and they are getting the tip and things like that as well. So it's kind of the best of both worlds.
[12:08] Chris Hatch: Yeah. I just could imagine all of the separate items that might come into play as you add delivery drivers in. And so, what an interesting business model, especially the way the world's gone, right, with these meal deliveries. Pretty fascinating. You know, I have the pleasure of being an 80s baby. Growing up in the 90s for my teenage years, I feel a lot of nostalgia. You know, as you start describing what the restaurant looks like, because my brain's going to the Pizza Hut buffets, my brain's going to the Round Table Pizzas of the world. And, it's really interesting. We see so much of the discount pizza expanding all over the place.
And I almost feel like you guys don't really have too many competitors out there. I mean, I can't imagine there's a whole lot of people chasing space in your size because you got like the Boston's and the California Pizza Kitchens of the world that have more of a diverse offering that are bigger, but you're kind of unique there.
[13:09] Garrett Snyder: Absolutely. I would say we are unique. That pizza parlor feeling that we all had as kids with nostalgia going into our restaurants, playing arcades. We had as kids like you're saying, Chris, We're probably similar ages... Our competitors out there are in the fast casual segment, but there are very few pizza competitors out there that are like us that want to bring people in and have a good experience while also doing a great carry out delivery business. So, we're very fortunate that we built a model that's really working nationwide. And we feel like we're the the head honchos in the business and doing so. Some of our other fast casual competitors are more about get the pizza out quick and get them out the door, right? But we really want our customers to enjoy a great experience at our restaurants.
[14:12] Robert Campos: I think I'll add to that. It's funny you mentioned just kind of your age and one of my favorite things to see when I go into a restaurant and I'm there because I'll take my family to my local Mountain Mike's here in Arizona. And I love seeing when there's the grown men having these Pac-Man or Galaga battles in the arcade. And they're right alongside the Little League team that's in there also. It's slightly nostalgic in that sense, but at the same time, as Garrett mentioned earlier, it's a modern version of that old pizzeria that we remember from when we were kids. And so it's got that same special element.
Actually, the franchisee here in Arizona, grew up in the area where we had a lot of Mountain Mike's, where we still do, where Mountain Mike's started out in the Bay Area, and they had those experiences. He remembers going to Mountain Mike's, when he was playing Little League and now he's a franchisee of his own Mountain Mike's out here in Arizona. And so he's creating those same memories that he had when he was a kid. He's creating those for his children and for other children there in the community. So it's really cool to see that come into play and just kind of seeing that new generation of Mountain Mike's fans coming along with the new restaurants.
[15:30] Chris Hatch: Yeah, that's fun to hear that kind of story, right? Carrying it onto the next gen. And I do feel it's such a missing piece of Americana, right? We need more of this, right? This is awesome. So is there somebody named Mike at the top of the organization, and is he a large person physically?
[15:45] Robert Campos: We're all Mike, right? No Mike there. We've got some great folks on our leadership team. Funny enough, none of them named Mike, but I'm sure the legend of Mountain Mike exists somewhere. And I'd love to hear that story in full detail.
[16:05] Chris Hatch: Listen, I just feel like if you're a guy named Mike and you're like six foot seven and you're over 225 and you're listening to this podcast, you should probably apply for a job at HQ somewhere. I'm just saying.
[16:05] Garrett Snyder: Yeah, he said that. Absolutely.
[16:16] Robert Campos: You own a lot of red flannel probably, right? An axe perhaps?
[16:19] Garrett Snyder: Bring the axe to the interview for sure. And you know, it's a 40 year plus old brand. So Mike is probably out in the woods somewhere just hanging out.
[16:30] Robert Campos: Retired in his cabin.
[16:30] Chris Hatch: So store one you said was in the Bay Area?
[16:35] Garrett Snyder: Yes, sir. Palo Alto was the first location.
[16:39] Chris Hatch: And how many stores are you guys sitting at today?
[16:42] Garrett Snyder: 309 units open today.
[16:44] Chris Hatch: 309. And how many states does that span? It's got to be pretty good coverage there.
[16:47] Garrett Snyder: Yeah, so we're across 10 states open and operating and we will be operating in 15 states by the end of next year. So really, really good growth.
[16:58] Chris Hatch: Wonderful. Yeah. And do you find with the franchisees that are starting to come in the door now, are you typically signing multi-unit franchise agreements versus kind of the one-offs? I know some concepts kind of evolve and kind of grow, right, with your franchisee customers.
[17:12] Robert Campos: Yeah, we're a bit of a hybrid in that sense. I know a lot of my colleagues in the development arena, some brands are strictly multi-units. We're not touching if it's less than five units and going into new market. We certainly do want to partner up with experienced franchisees like that, especially as we go into new markets. But that being said, when we have an existing market and we've got some areas that we'd love to sort of backfill and have some new opportunities, especially if we've got a great franchise candidate. We're happy to sign them to a single unit agreement if they're the right fit. Some of our best franchisees, as I mentioned earlier, they've kind of come through that pathway and have done a fantastic job and then now look at a second or a third or a fourth or a fifth.
And so we never want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, right? We want to make sure we're allowing the right franchise partners to come into the system. And then we know if they do a great job, that's going to create healthy growth for us for many years to come. Inevitably, they're going to sign that three unit development agreement or five unit or ten unit down the road because they've now validated the brand and are doing fantastic. So we'll take a little bit of both, but it's got to be the right folks every time.
[18:31] Chris Hatch: Okay. So I've got a trade area identified. I've attended Robert's discovery day. I've listened in on the webinars. I'm ready to pull the trigger. I pulled the trigger. Garrett, I onboard with you. Start with identify a good broker. We started looking at sites. How do you pick or how does your brain work, Garrett, as you start to select what might be a good mountain Mike site? What are you looking for? When you see a new potential store location.
[19:04] Garrett Snyder: Sure. I mean, Chris, as you know, there's a lot of variables that go into site selection and that varies also between brand to brand. With Mountain Mike's, I think some of the key components that we look for are daily-needs anchor tenants. We're a community brand, right? Also, visibility and accessibility are huge for us. We need that convenience because our delivery and carry out business is so strong. You know, as Robert was alluding to earlier, we're close to 70% as a system for carryout and delivery. So super important that our delivery drivers aren't spending eight minutes just trying to get out the parking lot. Right. So, access is big.
And in these new markets we want to get found quick. So visibility is huge. You know, we prefer to be an end cap on the street with some great other food co-tenancy in the energy zone of that trade area. And on top of that, our team does further due diligence. And I have colleagues with other brands that I stay in close touch with. We're able to share how they're doing exactly maybe across the street. And then we compare that to their national AUV. Doing that really helps us determine if it's a viable site. Another thing I'll add is I will say that density isn't the most important thing to our brand as it may be for some brands.
Because really it's all about how saturated is the market as well? That's a factor that you need to bring into play. And I bring that up because we've done well in very dense markets, but we've also done really well in small towns where there's not many options. Hurricane, Utah is one of our strongest units in our system. You know, many people may not know Hurricane, it's just outside St. George, just outside Zion National Park, but. Small population, but fantastic operator and it's worked out beautifully for us.
[21:22] Chris Hatch: Yeah, that man, if you sit in the parking lot of a handful of those restaurants there in Hurricane, it is astounding the amount of traffic that they see. And, I think a lot of that area really benefits from having all those park visitors, right? They're coming out of the park. You're kind of the last stop before you get to the interstate and then head off to wherever you're going home to. And good for you guys. That is is a rock and a rolling store. I've seen it going off a couple of times as I've driven by. A hard one to probably select though if you go back to Hurricane, right?
Because you're probably looking at a population that's sitting, what, about 12 to 18,000 people there in the immediate trade area. And that one probably felt a little bit risky, I would think, right? Is that where, on something like that, is that where you rely more on the competitor sales volumes and understanding that?
[22:04] Garrett Snyder: Exactly. You know, it's a good question. You know, we have a lot of restaurants in California and we've already, we felt more comfortable going into Hurricane because we've already gone into small towns in California prior to that. You know, I'm talking way up north and like Eureka and Fortuna, Crescent City area of the world, right? Way up north. That again, small population, underserved markets, but doing fantastic. So. I think we had that comfortability knowing that we had success in small towns in California that we could replicate that outside.
[22:52] Chris Hatch: Yeah. Well, what a good success story and a good store. So, a lot of that windshield time is so critical. I feel like everybody keeps talking about how AI is going to replace everybody and every job. And every single time I come back to site selection, I just keep looking at it and I'm like, well, I think AI probably helps me a lot in site selection. And there's a lot of data that I can scrub very quickly for me. But you still got, you got to do that empirical fact check. You got to go back and call your friend that's a Dairy Queen or whoever else and say, how is your store doing here?
And have the dialogue and understand the story of why the store is doing what it's doing. And I just, I don't see it replacing that anytime soon, maybe just enhancing. Have you guys started implementing anything on the data side or the AI side to help you as you scrub potential opportunities?
[23:51] Garrett Snyder: Chris, we have not, and I'm in agreement with you that I don't think that an AI can replace us. To me, site selection has always been an art and a science, and data is important, but I treat it as an insurance policy. But you know, a lot of these platforms are great and they're good directionally, but... There's also an art to site selection and AI maybe can't capture that, right? Also, the due diligence piece I touched on as well with the sale volumes and just being there, boots on the ground, looking at it with your own eyes if this is going to work or not. That art, I don't think is going away anytime soon.
[24:34] Chris Hatch: Yeah. So Robert, I've selected my site, right? And Garrett's team has given it a scrub. How hard is it to get these financed these days? I mean, I assume that it'd obviously be a hefty capital outlay for anybody who was trying to do it out of cash. I assume most of these franchisees you're working with are probably borrowing to do this. Is that, is there readily available funds for that kind of lending these days or how does that market look?
[25:00] Garrett Snyder: Yeah.
[25:04] Robert Campos: Yeah, obviously the environment we're in right now, borrowing has gotten a little bit more expensive. There's also been some recent changes to the whole SBA process, which created some additional challenges. And, we're actually right in the thick of that. Some of those changes are just now being implemented and there's things that will kind of shift that borrowing environment. Historically, though, Mountain Mike's has been in a very, very solid position. We're actually ranked as the number one lending opportunity. There's a report created every year called the Bank Credit Report. It's BCR. It's basically validated through a company called FranData that independently analyzes all of these franchise brands, be it restaurant brands or non-restaurant brands.
And every year they award one restaurant and one non-restaurant brand, based on what they call a FUND score. They create a FUND score for each and every one of these brands. Kind of like a FICO score for the franchise. Mountain Mike's has always been the last few years at least, in that top one, two, or three positioning. We won it last year as the number one brand. We won just ahead of Tropical Smoothie Cafe, which is a fantastic brand as well. But we knocked them off for the number one title. We've had, because of that standing, and this is due to how they evaluate the brand, they're looking at things like historical borrowing and paybacks, right?
Have there been defaults on loans that were previously taken out for this franchise? But they also look into who's on the leadership team there? They look into what's the depth of the training program? Are there all the support mechanisms in place to make the banks feel better about lending to somebody who's borrowing for this brand. And so we've been in a very great position with that, with our standing there in the industry. And as a result of that, we've had many banks that have pursued Mountain Mike's and offered our franchisees special finance terms, in some cases, financing them even below the prime rate because they're funding them on their own dollars rather than taking those loans to the marketplace and selling them off to another bank.
So we've been in a pretty good position for that. You know, most of our financing challenges typically will originate with franchisee or borrower neglect. I forgot to send this in or I forgot to do this or to do that. But for the most part we've got a very solid position and we've got many great bank and financial institution partners. That love to do work for Mountain Mike's and to help our franchisees grow. So we're always looking for new folks as well. We get contacted by different banks out there and we love to hear from our franchisees on if there's somebody specific that they've worked with that's not sort of within our scope and love to invite those folks to come out and offer more services to new franchisees as well. It's a tough market, but it really hasn't been a big challenge for our franchisees.
[28:22] Chris Hatch: Garrett, the equation for most developers in the country has gotten a little bit, definitely has been stress tested over the last two years. And in a lot of respects, it feels kind of like a perfect storm to me because I think the retailers were already there maybe a year before that or a year and a half before that because labor costs started it all. And so it's kind of, it's just become more challenged to get more of these buildings out of the ground. Are you finding that you're seeing more new store locations going into new shell space? Or are you still looking at second gen ops where you're recycling former concepts?
[28:58] Garrett Snyder: So we're looking at both, Chris. We don't want to pigeonhole ourselves into looking for only second gen. Due to the vacancy rates across the country, vacancy rates are at a 15-year low. It's 3%. And that 3% includes bad real estate. And we know there's a lot of bad real estate out there. So really, it's not 3%. And so yeah, it's a difficult time. So we're looking at both, first gen and second gen. And as you know, it's been challenging with costs, construction costs and the loan process getting these things out of the ground, even on a developer's side. So yeah, it's been challenging. Like you said, it's a perfect storm.
[29:50] Chris Hatch: You know, it's been interesting. I remember when we got to the kind of $30 mark on shell space across the board, kind of in most markets you were going anywhere, which was what, maybe like 10 years ago, kind of coming out of the '08, '09 recession. And then we blew past $40 so fast. I feel like we didn't even like stop at Go to collect the $200, right? Like we just kept going, right? And then all of a sudden it was like $45, $48. You're starting to see $50. You start to see $55. And you're like the sales haven't really come up enough for this.
Like, this doesn't quite balance, right? Everybody's got to make money, right? Including the tenants too, right? I just feel like we blew past that so quickly. It's just, it's been such a challenge.
[30:29] Garrett Snyder: Yeah, that's right. Absolutely. We're seeing it, that's consistent across the country, right? I mean, there's construction costs are very similar. It doesn't matter where you're going across the country.
[30:52] Chris Hatch: What, Robert, what are you seeing AUV-wise, right, as you're talking with new people and in the FDD, what are you typically seeing AUV-wise for Mountain Mike's?
[31:05] Robert Campos: So system-wide, we're right about 1.1 million. And I think that's a good, it's solid space that's improved since the company was purchased about eight years ago. We've been able to drive that AUV up year over year. We currently have an initiative where we're looking to push that even further up to about 1.5 million. And we've got some great tactics that we've been implementing that are helping to drive that. So for us, when we look into how that you know, that AUV gets calculated. Obviously with our foundation being in California and 260 locations in the state of California alone in areas where, as Garrett mentioned earlier, he talked a little bit about density in the market, right?
We have a pretty dense Mountain Mike's presence up in the Bay area of San Francisco and Sacramento throughout the central Valley. And so, despite that dense presence, our AUVs are still very respectable. Now, as we've gone into new markets, places like into the kind of the greater Seattle market, actually just north of Seattle and the state of Washington, as we've gone into Utah, as we're now going into Texas and seeing the numbers that some of these guys are able to produce there. Most recently, Las Vegas. I mean, we wrapped up 2024. We had no restaurants in Las Vegas, and now we've got some fantastic ones. open, and we've got many more to come in that market and they're just hitting it out of the park.
I mean, they're doing incredible business. And so we expect to see that AUV continue to climb, especially as we go into new markets, especially as we maybe pull that density out just a little bit to allow these restaurants to really thrive and be that go-to place in their community. We expect to see that number keep ticking up. And again, our ops team, they're doing some fantastic stuff along with our marketing team to make sure that we can grow sales even in that existing concentration of units up in the Bay Area and the Sacramento market through the tactics that we're rolling out. And so we hope to keep driving that AUV number.
We know it's easier to run a $2 million restaurant than it is to run a $1 million restaurant. So we want to keep pushing that. I think we've got a good plan to do that.
[33:19] Chris Hatch: What are some that can you share any of the tactics that you're using to try to push up? What are the items that you guys are focused on at the moment?
[33:28] Robert Campos: Yeah, think number one a big priority for us has been and always will be that that great pizza experience that's going to be created through the dine in opportunity. So if we can get those folks in. It's leveraging those local restaurant marketing tactics that goes all the way back to the beginning when they first talked to me. You know, it's my role here to really filter out the folks that we believe are going to get out there to do that. You know, Garrett mentioned Hurricane, Utah. This guy's just a rock star, local restaurant marketing guy. Not because he comes from a marketing background, but because he's so connected in his community.
He coaches the local high school softball team. I mean, he's tied into his community and he's kind of the mayor, the ambassador for Mountain Mike's into Hurricane, Utah. And so we want to continue to push that. We want to make sure that we're bringing in franchisees. That are going to be all about being involved in their communities and making those connections. But beyond that, other levers that we're really focused on pulling right now are expanded hours. We've got a product that is just a phenomenal product. Pizza is not like a breakfast burrito, right? You can have pizza just before lunch. we've got an incredible pizza buffet that we run Monday through Friday from 11 to two.
So we want to drive traffic in on those workday hours where people maybe wouldn't otherwise be going to get pizza, right? But we've got an incredible lunch buffet with fresh hot pizza, a full salad bar. They're grabbing their beverage as well. It's quick. It's easy in, easy out. But also, more importantly, a focus on late night hours. Pizza is incredible after 10 o'clock at night. It is even tastier at two o'clock at night. And I would argue some of the best pizza I've had has probably come after a night of maybe a couple too many adult beverages at well after midnight, right? And so we have some incredible locations, incredible franchisees that are just hitting it out of the park with their late night business.
And so we've put a real big focus on that, but not only on extending the hours later into the evening, but also kind of bumping them up on the front end as well. And, there are some restaurants, some of our best franchisees, again, it takes the franchisee to help take these initiatives to the next level. But some of our best franchisees, they've done such a great job in their community that they open up the doors at nine o'clock and there are people waiting to come in. There are people going in there to enjoy that pizza that early in the morning. It's incredible to see, it's really cool to see.
We want to keep pushing that, we want to make it aware. It may not be as successful in every trade area, right? Certain trade areas can have different natural behaviors, but that's where the site selection process comes into play as well. And of course we want to be cognizant of hours and things like that and kind of what the market does. But it's been a huge opportunity and we've really seen some really strong sales growth. So we're excited to see that continue to roll out.
[36:26] Chris Hatch: It feels like a direct correlation that the later you get into one's day, the lower the inhibitions and the more likely that you might order pizza, right? Whatever. Back to your point.
[36:35] Robert Campos: I think so.
[36:36] Garrett Snyder: I think that's accurate. I mean, it's also the most, it's the most delivered food in the country is pizza.
[36:46] Chris Hatch: Yeah, makes perfect sense.
[36:46] Robert Campos: And just think about the amount of competitors you've got at 8 o'clock versus the amount of competitors you have at 11 o'clock. Many of the brands have now sort of checked out or clocked out for the day. And if we're one of those last two or three options that's out there, especially when we've got a better product, we're going to win that fight every time. So we want to see it keep going.
[37:10] Chris Hatch: Garrett, that's an interesting point you bring up. I mean, in some respects, folks like yourself are looking at the hot chicken folks, the burger guys, retailers, and saying, yeah, welcome to the third party delivery. This is our world. We've been here the whole time. Yeah.
[37:26] Garrett Snyder: It's our world. And also a big reason why we did so well during COVID.
[37:33] Chris Hatch: Yeah, sure. You know, I feel like sometimes Robert, that folks like you that are selling franchises are almost like a little bit handicapped from the standpoint that you're selling the franchise and you're going off that FDD and the sales that are stated in the FDD. And it's almost like an unfair advantage that the publicly traded companies have because they're reporting live time earnings. And so a potential customer literally can go in and see instantly Hey, where is, where are the stores at volume wise? And then some analyst has pulled the most recent 10 Q or whatever else has come out. And it's like boom, here it is.
And it is kind of interesting. Like a good example of this is you see Dutch Bros is publicly traded, not that they're encouraging new franchise growth, but they still have existing franchisees. And so you look at like Dutch Bros with the publicly traded numbers versus 7 Brew, which is all franchise. And it's just kind of interesting to think about. The difference of how your data is kind of trailing.
[38:35] Robert Campos: Yeah, so obviously we've typically got one shot a year to refresh that data. This year, I'm very happy to report that our current FDD that we just released within the last two months, we were able to get our prime costs in there. We're tracking food and labor and broadcasting that throughout that FDD. And more importantly, they're fantastic numbers. When we can see our food and labor in the low-to-mid fifties range, we want to let prospective franchisees know about that. Now, especially as it relates to to recruiting those experienced multi-unit operators that understand what those numbers mean. If it's somebody who maybe just has a passion for the brand, has some business experience behind them, that may not be as important.
Of course, they want to know can I make money in this? Because as they say, if it doesn't make dollars, it doesn't make sense, right? So if they can start to understand that, sort of the complementary piece to my role is to then, throughout that process, to introduce them to existing franchisees. So whether or not they're coming from a background already of having franchise experience, or they're coming from a different business background, and we believe that they're going to be that local rock star that we're looking for, either way, I tell them, look, I'm not going to lie to you, but don't believe everything I say.
Talk to some of our franchisees. Get their perspective on what it's like to be a franchisee at Mountain Mike's. What was it like going through the site selection process? Do you feel you had enough support as you went through training? Do you feel that the marketing is sufficient for achieving the goals that you want to achieve within your market? And they'll go to these franchisees. And I'm very happy to say we've got a great community of franchisees that all lean on each other, that communicate frequently with each other. Folks that have maybe signed agreements at roughly the same time and ended up in that same orientation class.
And they may have opened up two or three states away, but they remain great friends and almost franchise brothers within the system where they can pick up the phone and say, hey, I'm kind of struggling with this thing. Have you ever been through that? Yeah, we did that. This is how we got through that. So we encourage that. We want to protect the family environment that we have in our franchise. And we've seen these guys just really become rock stars within that community. And so they know the numbers, they share experiences, and with that, it's become a pretty cool thing to see.
[41:12] Chris Hatch: Garrett, outside some of the stress points in the math equation that we've discussed here being rent, occupancy costs, what do you think are some of the other challenges that most of your franchisees are facing? Where are there bigger buckets of problems existing at the moment?
[41:29] Garrett Snyder: You know, we're very hands on in this process. You know, whether they've been doing this for a long time with other brands or this is their first time. I mean, we are very hands on. We're talking to them every single week and we've seen this show time and again, right? We've opened a lot of Mountain Mike's. So the one thing I will say that has probably been one of the more challenging things on top of what we've talked about is the loan process, right? It's just been taking longer than most franchisees are used to, or maybe if they've never done it before, you've got to build in some time to get through that loan process.
So I'd say that's been probably the biggest bottleneck for us across the board on trying to get these things open as quickly as possible. We do a good job of overlapping the development process by starting our architectural drawings during lease negotiations, right? Last thing we want to do is for our franchisees is pay dead rent. So we're very hands-on, like I've mentioned. And so we really hit it head on early on about that loan process to get that wheel turning early, start interviewing potential lenders. That way, when it's time and we're getting those numbers in, they can do their underwriting and hopefully you get a loan close sooner rather than later.
[43:01] Chris Hatch: I think the lending process is lengthy for everyone right now. Developer side, every side really. It makes sense. It's harder to get. I think they also are having difficulty solving their math equation. It's a bit of a tough environment from almost every angle. So we've identified the perfect location. We've gone through the discovery. We've signed up. We've gone through Garrett's onboarding. We've got the good broker. We've got a good spot. Everybody's feeling comfortable. We pull the trigger. Mountain Mike's has construction help, right, for the franchisees, which is a bit unique.
[43:43] Garrett Snyder: Yes. So I got two construction managers on my team that do a fantastic job, Phil LeClair and James Thomas. Right, essentially right when we hired the architect, that's when Phil and James, they split up the country 50-50. They get involved and, basically help support each of our franchisees through the process. So, I mean, we go as far as we line them up with all their vendors, all their third party vendors, GCs. We have a Rolodex of approved GCs in every market. And we created a GC template form that every GC has to use that form. And the reason for that is, if we get a GC using their own form, it's really tough to compare apples to apples for our franchisees.
And a lot of our franchisees, as you know, Chris, or a lot of franchisees in general, most do not know how to read a set of construction drawings. And also, many don't know how to pinpoint where GC bids are maybe off in certain areas, in certain line items. So our team does all of that for them in reviewing all those bids. And we don't go out to just two GCs. We go out and bid four to five every job in order to try and keep costs down for our franchisees. And we've brought in great third party vendors that have national pricing with us, but they're quality vendors.
And then during the build out phase, our construction managers are on the phone once a week with every franchisee with their GC talking about their progress talking about what tasks need to be taken care of that week and also you know our construction managers go out during the construction process at least three times during the build out stage to just oversee how things are going So really it's a free service that our construction managers are helping our franchisees.
[45:49] Chris Hatch: And good moment to shout out James Thomas. That's actually how we got arranged to do the podcast today. So, yeah, we've worked with James. Yeah, we've worked with him in times past when he was at Dutch Bros. In fact, I'll never forget we were in this tiny little cafe in Pullman, Washington, and it was like a cold winter morning. We had just looked at a site and. Boy, this thing would have taken like a shoehorn and a can of WD-40 to wedge a Dutch Bros in on it. It was like the tightest little tiny site you've ever seen in your whole life. And I'm like, hey, it's freezing.
Like, should we go get some breakfast? Let's go get some breakfast. And he's like, yeah, kind of on a diet. I'm like, OK. Well, do you want to get breakfast? He's like, yeah, yeah, let's go to breakfast. So we sit down. And it's this funny little diner. And we're sitting there. And the waitress comes over to help us take our order. I order like an omelet and James is like, yes, could you give me 16 scrambled eggs? And I just, I'm like looking, I'm like looking over at him and I'm like, are you okay? And he's like, yeah, yeah, I just would like 16 scrambled eggs.
And she's like, sure, we can do that. You know, this acting like this wasn't the strangest order she's ever taken. And then I proceeded to watch James eat like 16 scrambled eggs. And that was his diet. I can't even remember. It was like an egg-only diet or something like that. I don't know, some crazy thing, but.
[47:11] Garrett Snyder: Probably a carnivore diet, right?
[47:13] Chris Hatch: Yeah, I was dying. I was laughing so hard. It was so funny. It was like the real-life Gaston, right? From Beauty and the Beast, right? Amazing. Good times. So, all right, so we've zeroed in on the site. We've got the financing there. We're getting on a pathway to opening this store. What does opening a Mountain Mike's look like?
[47:26] Garrett Snyder: That's a great story. From what standpoint? Robert, do you want to talk about it?
[47:43] Robert Campos: Yeah, yeah, I mean, a couple of phases. Obviously, in the training phase, we've got our ops team and our franchise business coaches. They're there working with these franchisees and the owner training begins before that restaurant's ready to turn over, right? We want our franchisees fully trained and ready to engage on those final weeks of pre opening things. There's obviously a lot going on. Final inspections and things like that. So we want we start that training for the franchisees and maybe their general manager who might be working with them Typically, we want them ideally trained at least four weeks before that opening process begins, so they're ready and free to go through those final phases.
And then that franchise business coach, we've got one that's a new restaurant opening specialist. So he Will work extremely close to them to make sure all the smallwares are arriving is everything wired properly? Is everything ready to go? Placing that initial order for product and for supplies and just getting the franchisees and space set up and ready to go for that initial opening. Of course, they've been doing hiring throughout that time and so now the franchisees call the crew in, they're doing pre-opening training exercises, everything on, hey, who is Mountain Mike's? What is this brand all about? For a lot of the team members, may have never been to Mountain Mike's before, right?
If we're going into a new market, they've never heard of Mountain Mike's. So we've got a great learning management system we call Mountain Mike's University where we get a chance to equip these team members beforehand. There's video content because we're typically working with, maybe it's a high school college-aged team member, right? So we want to show them video content, but we couple that up with hands-on learning experiences. So hey, you just watched a video on how to make dough. Let's go over here to the mixer and let's make some dough. And they're going through, they're learning all these things and we're training the team there.
The franchisee is the leader of that. They're supported by that NRO coordinator, the FBC that's helping them out. And they're really getting the team ready. But part of that is also doing that initial community outreach. And so while those things are taking place, while they're sending those, you those first batches of pizza through the oven, they're going to take that, feed it to the team members. Hey, this is what real Mountain Mike's should taste like. And so they get a sense of that. But then they're going to take some of the other ones. They're going to go, let's go visit our neighbors. Let's go stop by the hospital across the street or let's go by the fire department and go bless them with a couple free pizzas here and let them know, hey, we're opening up right across the street.
Come in, here's my card, by the way. I'm the franchisee of the Mountain Mike's right over here. And so it's a big team effort, but we want them to open up really without flooding them with too many guests. We want them to kind of settle into the operation first. Inevitably, the buzz is already out there and it's like, my gosh, they're opening up a brand new Mountain Mike's right over here. Again, to reference our Vegas franchisees. I mean, they open up and they're coming out of the gates doing huge numbers because it's the first Mountain Mike's in this market and people are are buzzing about it.
So it takes a whole team, but again, those franchisees are supported by our great franchise business coaches and really the whole team essentially and getting things going. And of course, a few weeks later, we'll get to a grand opening and then we're really broadcasting that, we're here, we're serving our community, the team has kind of settled in now. And one of my favorite parts about those grand openings is that our franchisees, they get to pick a charity that they want to support through their grand opening celebration. And so they're typically donating a portion of sales or doing a check to these organizations. My local guys here in Arizona, they're former military.
And so they donated 100% of their sales to a military charity that supports some folks who were lost in a helicopter incident in Afghanistan. And so it's cool to see them pick those things that are close to their heart and bring that into their opening celebration. And really, again, it's just kind of the heart of Mountain Mike's being in the community, giving back to the community. And so seeing them go through all those phases of initial inquiry to site selection, to training, to now opening support and then opening and then their grand opening, it's really cool to watch it. But it is a team effort and we've got some great team members that help support them through all those phases along the way.
[52:20] Chris Hatch: Perfect. Well, it's you guys spend a fair amount of time, I would imagine, inside of these restaurants. So if you walk in one today, Garrett, what is your order, your slice or your pie order? What are you going for?
[52:35] Robert Campos: Yeah.
[52:36] Garrett Snyder: I'm going with our thin crust pepperoni pizza. That's what we're known for our Crispy Curly Pepperoni that curls up on the edges. You get a little bit of grease. Our CEO, Jim [Metevia], calls them teacups of joy.
[52:44] Robert Campos: Legendary Crispy Curly Pepperoni.
[52:55] Garrett Snyder: It's fantastic. And then I also get the mini churros. Those are nice little dessert side. My kids tackle each other for those. And then on top of that, I also like getting our garlic knots, which are fantastic. So that's my typical order at Mountain Mike's.
[53:18] Robert Campos: Yeah, I got to go Legendary Crispy Curly Pepperoni as well. And I'll order that because my kids love it. My wife loves it. It's a must have. But Mountain Mike's does some incredible specialty pizzas. And I will say, I walked into Mountain Mike's about two days ago, my local Mountain Mike's, and I ordered our current LTO, which is soft launched right now. It's going to launch officially next week. Basically it's launching July 1st. And this current LTO is the Zesty Aloha pizza. Controversial topic here: do you put pineapple on or not? Forget that argument. We put mango on it, and it is an incredible pizza.
And I will say I was the first to have the Zesty Aloha, out of our Surprise, Arizona location, the first one they ever made, and they did an incredible job. Mango does belong on pizza, and it's an incredible bite if you like a little bit of sweet on your pizza. But the bacon kind of gives it enough salty also, so it's phenomenal. You got to try it.
[54:19] Chris Hatch: I feel like I live with a lot of youth in my household with all my children, but just adding Zesty into the name, you've basically nailed the younger customer base, right? Yeah. I hear that word all the time. That's funny. That is funny.
[54:35] Garrett Snyder: Good job.
[54:58] Robert Campos: Get used to it's going to keep coming more frequently.
[55:41] Chris Hatch: So we've kind of walked through how to become a Mountain Mike's franchisee. And this has been great. If you're listening and you like the concept of teacups of joy and that you want to make that your livelihood, find Robert Campos. Don't make it a secret. Call him up.
[56:02] Garrett Snyder: Sea troughs of joy. Yeah. Yeah.
[56:13] Chris Hatch: Talk to him and find out if you're a good fit for Mountain Mike's and if Mountain Mike's is a good fit for you. So from Garrett's perspective, as we, for all the prospective landlords out there, what do we have to do to land you in our next building?
[56:28] Garrett Snyder: Low rent and a big check. Mountain Mike's is on a tear. What excites me is just all the green space out there for this brand to grow. And, we're the leader right now in the fast casual pizza segment on a national scale. And, we keep growing and we have a lot of room to grow, not just in additional states, but. We still have so much room to grow in the states we're in. It's a quality premium product that's true and tested. I mean, the brand's been around for 40 plus years, which says a lot. And we have a lot of great franchisees and a staff here at Mountain Mike's that everyone in this organization is truly passionate about Mountain Mike's and the direction it's headed.
[57:24] Chris Hatch: The crazy thing to me about pizza is it's so versatile, right? So we were just talking, Robert, about the toppings of putting mango on and bacon and all these crazy things. It could be gorgonzola cheese. It could just be mozz and pepperoni, right? And the other crazy part on the diversity standpoint is that you could serve it at a wedding or a funeral or anything in between, including a weekend pool party. It is really just one of the most broad spectrum foods that's out there in the world, right?
[58:00] Robert Campos: I can confirm that we've had our product served at weddings. I've got the photos to prove it. Not only that, but when we had the grand opening at the local Surprise Mountain Mike's here on the west side of Phoenix, somebody ordered a mountain-sized pizza, which is a 20-inch pizza. And they said, I want it to have pepperoni on it, but I don't want you to cover it, because we cover it. It's got over 200 pepperonis on it. Said, I don't want it completely covered. I want you to spell out, marry me. So somebody literally proposed with a Mountain Mike's pizza. I watched our delivery guy go out the door with it, and I saw them making it.
Got the photos to prove it and again, we've been featured at weddings. We've got pictures from I think it was down in Fallbrook one of our restaurants there in North County San Diego. Somebody got married and I don't know if the story was they had their first date at Mountain Mike's but at their wedding instead of doing the cake cutting and kind of crossing the arms and feeding each other, they did it with Mountain Mike's Pizza. And so we certainly have that draw from the local community there. So it's awesome.
[59:10] Chris Hatch: I do feel like we have to rewind back to the pizza that said, marry me. Do we know if it worked?
[59:15] Robert Campos: I'm hoping she said yes. How could you say no? I mean, if the guy showed up with Little Caesar's or something, I can see why she would shoot him down, but come on, he went to the best. It's like he's going to Jared, right? We're the Jared of pizza, right? He went to Jared, got that really big rock, went to Mountain Mike's, got that really great pizza. Slam dunk. Yep, slam dunk.
[59:34] Chris Hatch: Standard had been set for sure.
[59:36] Garrett Snyder: In addition to that, Josh Allen, the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills, his brother, after his wedding, had an after party and rented out a Mountain Mike's. So it's great to hear those stories within our system. And there are a number of those stories across the country.
[1:00:00] Chris Hatch: Well, you guys are truly doing great work. You're out there serving pizza to the world. Thank you for all you do. We appreciate you being on the Dirt Dog Pod and for everybody out there in our audience that's listening. If you're interested in exploring a franchise, please get with Robert Campos. If you have a site that you want to present, please get with Garrett and otherwise we're just excited to see what the future brings for Mountain Mike's.
[1:00:23] Garrett Snyder: Thank you, Chris. Yeah, I appreciate you having us on.
[1:00:25] Robert Campos: Yeah, thanks Chris.