Franchise QB

Episode 90: Denise Tran- CEO and Founder, Bun Mee

• Mike Halpern • Season 1 • Episode 90

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In this episode of the Franchise QB Podcast, host Mike Halpern speaks with Denise Tran, founder and CEO of Bun Mee, a Vietnamese fast casual restaurant. 

Denise shares her inspiring journey from practicing attorney to entrepreneur, driven by personal loss and a passion for Vietnamese street food. The conversation explores the unique aspects of Bun Mee, including its branding, menu design, and operational efficiency. 

Denise discusses the importance of franchising for growth, the support provided to franchisees, and the ideal profile for potential franchise owners. The episode concludes with insights into the financial metrics and future growth plans for Bun Mee.

Takeaways

Denise Tran transitioned from law to entrepreneurship after a personal loss.
Bun Mee is inspired by Vietnamese street food culture.
The brand name Bun Mee is a pun and educational tool.
Bun Mee offers a unique Vietnamese sandwich experience in fast-casual dining.
The brand has a cheeky and fun personality that resonates with customers.
Catering and third-party apps are significant revenue streams for Bun Mee.
Bun Mee's real estate strategy includes flexible location options.
Franchising was launched after ensuring a proven business model.
Franchisees receive comprehensive training and ongoing support.
The fast-casual market has room for diverse ethnic cuisines like Bun Mee.

https://bunmee.co/franchise

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Mike Halpern, CAFC
mike@franchiseqb.com

This is the Franchise QB Podcast, where we empower entrepreneurs to win big in franchising. We huddle up weekly to educate our audience about the most successful small business model ever created, franchising. Welcome to the Franchise QB podcast. I'm your host, Mike Halpern, a 20-year industry veteran and entrepreneur. My mission is for listeners to achieve their American dreams of creating wealth and independence through franchise ownership. Every week we speak with franchisees, franchisors or vendors that support the industry. Thank you for joining us and let's get started. Joining us in the huddle today is Denise Tran, founder and CEO at Bun Mee Vietnamese Sandwich Eatery. Welcome to the show, Denise. Thank you, Mike. Thank you for having me. It is great to have you here. So you made a pretty dramatic career pivot a while back. Tell us how a practicing attorney ends up launching a Vietnamese fast casual concept. Good question. I am well. I think there's a lot of attorneys out there already. So I feel like one less attorney is there would be okay. Now I had a point in my life in my early thirties where there was a fork in the road. Basically uh a very, a major thing happened to me. My father died. I was, I just moved to New York city. I'd already been practicing for five years. I got engaged, moved to New York city. uh waiting to take the bar, get the news my dad has cancer and he had months to live. And so I took a break from everything, went down to New Orleans where he was at to take care of him. and, you know, and, and subsequently when he passed, his wish for me was to take his ashes back to Vietnam, his homeland. And it was through that journey and also losing my dad at such a young age um caused me to really take a moment and a pause and really assess what life really meant to me and what happiness meant and what success meant. Up until this point, I was doing the immigrant thing, which is be a lawyer, know, like have that fancy office and just, you know, and just check that box, right? But my dad's uh was just a uh wake up opportunity for me to access what would make me happy. And I knew that I didn't wanna change hours for dollars anymore. I was a transactional attorney. And I thought, while I was in Vietnam taking his ashes back, I was so inspired by the street food culture in Vietnam. And I've grown up eating bun mee sandwiches and growing up in a household where my mother is an amazing cook, my father is an amazing cook. And being inspired by all the tastes and sounds and smells of street food in Vietnam, when I came back to New York and decided to leave law, uh I wanted to find a business opportunity. I wanted to do something for myself and to create something for myself. And that felt like authentic to me. And that's how Bun Mee came about. just being inspired by that experience, thought, you wow, like, I don't see that anywhere. You know, this is back in 2008. So at this time, you know, now, I guess on the coastal cities, Bun Mee is pretty, you know, people are used to it, they know it. But at the time, it was just still a sandwich that was quite unknown. You really have to go to Chinatown alleyways and seek it out to have a bun mee sandwich. And so I wanted to be a part of creating that experience in a modernized way for mainstream audience. So that's kind of how it all started. Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that personal story with us. I'm sorry about the loss of your dad. I know that was a while back at this time, but that's just really neat how that inspired you to you know, fulfill his wish and go back to your homeland and uh experience that culture and the food and kind of redirect your life as a result, which is really inspirational and obviously been a really good choice for you. So that's awesome. Thanks for sharing that with us. I happened to have a roommate when I was in college back in the nineties, a long time ago, who is part French, part Vietnamese. So I grew up, I grew up in my college years, I was exposed to pho and Bun Mee and and foods that I was not exposed to when I grew up in the Philadelphia area. So that was pretty cool. And I moved to the DC area. I'm in Northern Virginia. There is a very big Vietnamese population. I am a big tennis nut and I play tennis with lot of my Vietnamese friends and I get to experience a lot of good food. So like you said, I think the coastal cities, the big metropolitan areas are certainly used to the Bun Mee sandwich, but not 20 years ago. think now it's a little bit more mainstream. m Explain to us like the name Bun Mee, right? It's kind of a play on words. What's the story behind that and what does it say about the brand? Yeah, you know, like I said back in 2008 when I decided to do this and it was developing this brand, was one of the frustrating things was people couldn't even pronounce it. You know, they couldn't pronounce it correctly. So Bun Mee is spelled B-A-N-H-M-I. And so Americans would say, me, know, bond me or like they just, they just would say it wrong. And I felt like, okay, I wanted, the role was to educate, right? And it started off being just really, I want to educate folks on this great sandwich and also teach people on how to say it. And it's the Vietnamese word for bread. It's a pun. And it's so cute to say. So I felt like it just kind of stuck with me. so, you know, it's really just, uh it stuck with me and I feel like it's, again, just really cute to say, you know? Yeah, and it's really memorable too. have a bun mee? Yeah, exactly. It's a brand name you're going to remember. I like how it's like phonetic so that people get how to pronounce it correctly. That's super cool. So thanks for that. So you have this concept, as we know, fast casual since, you know, 20, 25 years ago when brands like In-N-Out Burger and Five Guys Burgers and Chipotle, you know, fast casual exploded onto the scene. There's not a shortage of those type of concepts out there. So what makes Bun Mi different and why do your customers keep coming back? Well, just the fact that it is a Vietnamese sandwich, you know, what we are, the food that we're we're making and offering makes it different, right? Because, you know, when you think of the fast casual oh market right now, there's still a lot of room for diversity of options and cuisines. And in particular, Vietnamese food is still unknown with respect to like, you don't see a mainstream national brand that's Vietnamese. And so, so that in and of itself makes what we do pretty unique and different. And also what we're offering within the sandwich category. So we're offering a Asian sandwich and, and that's unique because where do you get an Asian sandwich? Right? You really don't think of Asian sandwiches as existing. Right? And so, I mean, you know, with the French colonization of Vietnam, we have baguettes. And so this was of, this is not something I created. This has always been this wonderful fusion of two cultures for over uh several hundred years that have been, you know, widely enjoyed. and eaten in Vietnam. It's our hamburger, right? It's fast food, but it's not something that Americans really think about when they think about sandwiches. It's a whole nation category that is completely not explored. And there are over a billion Asians in this world and no Asian category, Asian sandwich category that exists in the U.S. And I felt like was an opportunity in and of itself that's unique. The fast casual concept is not unique, but what we're offering remains still unique to this day. And that's the exciting opportunity that we're offering. Yeah. And I want to get into the way the operating model works here in a little bit. oh kind of you mentioned that Bun Mee, the brand name itself is a play on words. Your brand has a fun cheeky personality to it. How intentional was that and how does it play into the overall kind of trade dress and customer experience when someone comes into your Bun Mee restaurant? Yeah, very intentional. You know, we, we, I mean, you know, we're making sandwiches. Our, our name is Bun Me, right? It's a pun. So, so being cheeky, being fun, being irreverent, you know, uh, is a part of the brand voice. And I feel like it speaks to what we are and who we are. And we're not, you know, we don't take ourselves very seriously. We have fun. uh We love what we do, but we take the work seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously. So we still have a good time and it's all part of the ethos of Bun Mee is that we're a little cheeky, you know, we enjoy that. That's definitely intentional. Yeah, that's cool. So to someone that hasn't been to the Bay Area and hasn't experienced actually stepping foot in one of your spaces, aside from the diner and what other revenue streams are available to a Bun Mee franchise owner? Yeah, I mean, you know, we are revenue streams. We do a lot of catering, you know, lot of takeout third party apps, uh that sort of thing. But we do a lot of catering, uh office catering, party catering. That is something that is a big part of our business. And actually this weekend, we're gonna be at a music festival called Outside Lands that usually serves up over 100,000 people that come to the music festival. We have a booth out there and we're out there at the festival for three days introducing our brand to a whole new audience. But so we find different ways to increase our revenue stream. via all those opportunities. So let's talk about your real estate strategy. I noticed that, I mean, as an emerging brand, you have five locations. How much space do you need for your traditional footprint and your non-traditional footprint? I noticed that you have some locations in the airport, which is really interesting. So what does the real estate look like? Is it like a thousand to two thousand feet on the street? And then it's a fraction of that when it's in a non-traditional environment. Yeah, yeah. What's great about our brand is we, um, our smallest location is 700 square feet and that location does gosh, about over, um, over $4 million in sales. That's insane revenue. So, mean, so, you know, you can, so, and then our largest location is about one point. 1600 square feet. So our sweet spot though is I would say 1500. So you know, around 1500 to 1600 square feet is great, but we operate some of our highest volume locations. You know, we can do $1.7 million out of a thousand square feet. So we don't need a lot of space to do the volume that we do. So they are really flexible on space, but you know, We don't need a lot of space. So I think that's what's nice about our concept is we can really be very efficient with the space and don't need a lot of space to create volume. Yeah. And it's kind of cool that this early on in your development, like you've been able to land real estate that a lot of brands that are much larger than your brand don't have access to, because clearly there was a demand for what you guys are doing that's different. cause I, you know, 15 plus years in the food industry, know landing some of those coveted spots at the airport, they don't just happen. They don't hand those out. They give them to people that really have something unique and interesting. And it's going to be a win-win for the consumers as an amenity in the airport, as well as for the airport itself, the airport authority and the brand. that's, that's pretty awesome. Um, so, you know, wanted to our own horn, as you mentioned that Bloomberg this year recognized us as one of the. top airport restaurants in the world. Wow, congratulations. didn't know that. for business travelers. it is a real estate path that we want to continue pursuing is to be able to look at other airport opportunities too. So Denise, your mission is to build the most beloved Vietnamese fast casual brand that wins over the hearts, minds and taste buds of every American. That's an ambitious mission, and I suspect that franchising plays a key role in that vision. You established the brand back in 2011, so it's 14 years mature. But you recently launched the Bun Mee franchise last year in 2024. Why did you decide that now was the right time to franchise? Yeah, so growing our brand and being a national brand has always been the play. when I first launched this business back in 2011, that's always something that was part of the bigger goal. But I also wanted to make sure that we had a proven successful model that I felt comfortable teaching others. And so that took us some time. When we were finally ready and I felt like, okay, this is what we want to do. And we were ready to unroll this model, COVID hit. And that put us back for a few years. We spent the downtime during COVID retooling, taking inventory of ourselves, reassessing what we did, our operations, investing in our internal operations and processes and procedures so that when we're ready to do this again, we'll be stronger than ever. And I feel uh that was the right choice for us. I feel really confident in this place and where we're at right now to launch our franchise. And the market cannot be better right now. I think there's a lot of opportunities out there and a lot of opportunities for diverse ethnic cuisine, fast casual concepts like ours. Very cool. So am I correct that out of the five operating locations, three are in traditional locations and tour in non-traditional, is that accurate? Right. And then are they all corporate owned or do you have a franchise owner yet? All corporate owned. They're all corporate owned. Okay, so we're on the front end of trying to find the right franchise owners to join the system. Yeah. Hey, you got to start somewhere, right? New York is in the works right now though. congrats. That's awesome. Just getting registered in New York is a feat in and of itself. So congrats on that. I know. And that goes back to your friendly lawyers that we used to work with. have to, the examiner has to make sure that the brand is vetted and ready to go. that's good. So how many employees are required on a busy shift? Like you have either an owner or a manager and how many people can handle this kind of volume? To produce this kind of volume, obviously, you know, it can't be two or three kids. So tell me a little bit more about what that looks like on a busy shift. Yeah, so I mean, the range is, you know, if you think bare bones, then maybe four to five bare bones. And then on a busy shift, it may be just another couple of more people. So seven to eight employees on a busy shift, but not a lot. don't and we are managers or working managers. So they float around, they they uh they're able to fill in any any position. So We want to make sure that managers are working in the positions as well. So we have a very efficient and lean uh labor model that makes it work for us. Great. So, you know, I was curious about your vision for when owners come in and you've lived through it because you started as the owner operator and now you're semi absentee. So when a new franchisee comes in, do they have the choice of being in the restaurant? as the manager operator, as well as kind of building a team and putting a little more capital to kind of build that infrastructure so they could step back and maybe open a couple of locations. Definitely. We're open to both. So if you're an owner that wants to be in the trenches and that's what you want to do, great. um If you are an owner that, but you know, If you're an owner that says, I want to be semi absentee, I'm going to bring in someone with experience that will manage my operations. That is also okay. But what we do require is whomever is on the team needs to have restaurant management experience. So we're not going to take an owner with no restaurant experience and wants to come in and run a restaurant by himself or herself. We do recommend an instance where an owner has no restaurant experience to bring someone on their team, uh, either like a partner or an employee that's going to have that restaurant experience to run their operations. I'm really glad you're doing that so early on in your franchise development because, you know, being a guest in a restaurant is great. Sometimes owning it and running it is a lot more challenging than people think. And, you know, it's, it's your model. I'm assuming skews to the easier side of operations, but that doesn't mean it's easy, right? You're dealing with people, customers, vendors. There's a lot of moving parts. So you want to make sure that you have people with experience that are like, look at this as, wow, this is easy relative to what I was doing in this, you know, full service business model versus someone that's like literally doing what you did and having to step out of a professional role and figure it out. Like the benefit of a franchise is you've figured it out for them. So let's plug and play and let's get a good. you know, restaurant person in there to kind of take this thing and level it up. So I think that's really good guidance. And sometimes when you turn people away, they'll go find a really good partner that has experience and they can come in. Somebody has the capital. Somebody has the know-how and they make a really good owner. um So so how do you support those owners in terms of training and support from day one when they're like, join the system? Yeah, I mean, we you know, we have obviously on site training that we do. We all have Zoom classes. We plan on having Zoom classes and on-site training. We're building out an LMS system that they'll be able to access all our training online if they forget and need further ongoing training and support. And we plan on being on-site to help them launch the store, help them set up and We're always available on the phone. You know, we have, we'll have a support person that's available that they can call for anything that comes up along the way. Um, my primary goal is to make sure franchisees feel supported, that they're successful. I think that's what people are looking for when they join an emerging brand is like, okay, you've got to figure it out in your stores. How does that translate to me when I open in another market and the fact that that's your number. I think will give a lot of comfort to franchise owners that are kind of joining you to grow the Bun Mee concept. So tell me who are you looking for? Who makes the perfect fit to become a Bund Me franchise owner? Yeah, you know, I want someone that is like, I'm, you know, it could be someone that's tired of corporate life, wanna, you know, be their own boss, right? But is a little risk adverse. and doesn't want to go out and start something entirely new that's unproven is a foodie that loves Bun Mee, loves Vietnamese food, loves seasoned opportunity there, understands what we're doing, understand that the unique place that we're presenting in this field of, in this fast casual field, and they do understand that. Someone that is well capitalized. think it's important to make sure that you do have sufficient capitalization to be successful and someone that knows that they're, you know, that they can work well in a system, right? I mean, if you're a chef with all these fancy ideas and you know, like you, you won't be a good fit for us, you know, you're, but if you're someone that's like, I love people, I love, you know, I like to see people. like the immediate reaction that people have when they're eating something that we created. And that is fun for me. And I want to work for myself. I want to, um you know, be my own boss. That's really the person that we're interested in. I think that's an opportunity um that would be attractive to someone like that. Yeah. And I think the part about capital is really important because It's not just buying the furniture and the fixtures and equipment and doing the construction project. There's a landlord that's involved and the landlord is going to vet the franchise owners financial situation and you want access to great sites. And if they don't have the financials, they're not going to get the sites and that puts you at a disadvantage. So being aware of that early on, I think is really meaningful and having over-capitalized franchisees is always a good thing because they can make good decisions about hiring and good decisions about marketing. things like that. So let's touch on the menu a little bit. By the way, your food photography is mouthwatering. I looked at it yesterday and I'm like, my God, I want to eat this right now. looks so it made you hungry. It did make me hungry. The problem was it was late at night and I'm like, I can't eat right now. So how did you design the menu for both craveability, which I could tell it has, as well as operational efficiency, because they don't always go hand in hand. Yeah, you know, we tried a lot, a lot of food. And um it's just a lot of uh trial and error over the years. And as you mentioned, we've been in business for 14 years. So we've got a lot of data on what works with our customers and what doesn't. over the years, we've taken our best hits. When we first opened, we had a sardine sandwich. And we had a caff. fried catfish sandwich and we had a sloppy bun and we had a pork belly braised for hours sandwich. They're all great. They were popular, but some of them were extremely complex for what they were and how popular they were. we really thought about, you know, as we were thinking about scaling and what it means to scale operational wise and how to be efficient with our scaling, we had to make tough decisions about items that we really loved, but didn't sell as much. And so we had to really, um know, or items that we loved didn't sell that much, but you know, it was extremely complex to make and just wasn't. worth our, you know, the R.O.I. wasn't there to make that sandwich. And so we've streamlined our menu to maintain all the best hits that we know people love, they're tried and true. And then the ones that are a little bit more unique or more complex, we bring it back seasonally um for various different times of the year so that we could still be efficient throughout the year and still bring those items back that are a little bit more complex and could be a more niche sandwich that I think customers come back for and they'll know when we have them and they come back for that. But that way we're able to be um efficient in our operations. And I think that has proven to be the right path for us. Yeah, you're exactly right. Like you have to align the menu with things that are popular and delicious and create a following, but also are profitable and allow you to scale because your franchise owners have to execute that menu regardless of, you know, where they live and regardless of what their food cost is like here versus there. So that makes a lot of sense. um So what does a day in the life look like for a Bun Mee franchise owner? Like in the role of an owner operator. Yeah, you know, if you're an owner operator, you're essentially, you know, operating like uh a general manager of a restaurant, right? So, I mean, you will be probably, you know, making sure on a weekly basis to do to check your numbers, to forecast your sales, to do inventory, to make sure, you know, labor scheduling. uh doing quality checks and making sure that all that is consistent over the week. And on a daily basis, you could be coming in say like at 10 o'clock before you open and you might have a team that will come a little earlier to prep the kitchen. You may come in at 10, it opens at 11. checking in on the team, checking in on the line and the food, try everything a little, know, try a little taste of everything, make sure that all the food meets the standards. There'll be a busy lunchtime crowd. And then, you know, what might happen is during, when that's done during like maybe one or two, you'll do a few orderings for the next day, check to make sure you got all your stuff for the next day. And you could be... out by four or five, you know, when your night shift manager comes in and you could be out. So it could be a very, you know, on the job, a short day for you. But then there's, you know, obviously making sure your bills are getting paid. You know, you're reviewing your P&Ls and checking that inventory, making sure that those numbers are correct. so I think on the job and operationally in the store um as a franchisee. It could just be, you know, a four or five hour day for you on the job. But then, you know, you may be at home doing a lot of office work. Yeah, I was going to say like in the role when you become a little bit more semi absent when there's a manager in place, then he gets to work on the business a little bit more instead of where you are working on marketing techniques and building relationships in the community and. you know, figuring out ways to maybe scale the business and open another unit and things like that. So, yeah, no, that's really cool because a lot of the concerns people have is like they don't want to be in a restaurant for 10, 12 hours a day. So the fact that you have it set up where they can come in at 10, leave it four or five. And I know that that's up to the owner to figure out how much or how little they want to invest in physically being in the space. But I think that paints a vision for a potential franchisee to see what life would look like as an owner. So I appreciate that. um So, you when you look at the vision, I know we're really on the front end of franchising, so you're really methodical and patient about how you grew the business over the first 14 years. What do the next five years look like for you? Well, we'd like to see anywhere between five to 10 units per year growth after the first year. I think this whole first year that we've invested, I know it's going to take a little longer to grow. But we'd like to see a uptick of about five to 10 units per year so that within the next five years, I would love to see anywhere between 30 to 40 units that are built. some of it will be franchise owned, mostly franchise owned. Some of it will be corporate owned. And we'd still want to, like I mentioned earlier, pursue a airport growth. strategy that will be something that I would personally pursue uh corporate owned stores through the airport. know, 500 units all over and have like half of them fail. You know, um I really don't want to do that. I'm very focused on high quality, high touch. uh If boutique franchise, you know, is the right word, but it's really important to me that that we're a successful franchise. Yeah, no, I mean, I get that. comes through. I mean, you can tell you're passionate about the brand. want to build a foundation of really good franchise owners that are going to help each other and collaborate and be good brand ambassadors. And, you know, that starts with making really good decisions in the beginning. so let's talk item seven. If someone is like, wow, this looks really interesting. I might want to join the Bun Mee franchise system. How much will it cost to open a unit? Obviously there's a range based on the condition of the space, the footprint, the construction costs, labor in their market, et cetera. You're in the Bay Area, so my guess is that you guys are paying top dollar to get one of open. So if you open in your area or my area in DC, you're going to be spending a lot of money versus somewhere in the middle of the country where it's a little bit more efficient. But what does the range look like in item seven of the FDD? Right. mean, the numbers we have are, you know, big area numbers. And so it's going to be on the higher range. So for us, a traditional location could be as low as the low 400 and as high as over a million. But when I say over a million, I'm talking about building at the airport, using union labor and having all the red tape that comes with building at an airport location that you wouldn't have on a street side location. And on the low side, it would be a second generation type location where it's an existing restaurant of some kind that already has venting and hoods and things that are already kind of there. that's the range of possibilities that um it would take to get into a bungee. It's a very standard, fast, casual restaurant model. Yeah, that falls in line with what you see out there. So you shared with us that you have a unit in the airport that's doing over $4 million. That's unbelievable volume. Are there any other financial metrics you can share with us from your Item 19? Yeah. mean, I think what is notable On our Item 19, I would say someone that's looking at us as a brand to invest in would be that, you know, year over year, like for example, 2023 to 2024, we have an average blend of sales increase of 27%. across the, you know, like, I mean, blended, right? We have a unit that just had a 46 % increase in sales from 2023 to 2024. We had a unit that had 41 % increase from 2023 to 2024. So when you're looking at, know, in San Francisco last year had a negative 6 % growth. So in the, in the restaurant business. So when you see that, you know, ah when you're looking at a brand. thinking about how it's doing and the year over year growth potential that it's showing, that's something we're really proud of to be able to say that overall, all our concepts blended had a 27 % increase in sales from 2023 to 2024 is notable. And then the other thing that's notable is that, you know, our food cost is 25%. um which is on the lower end of the average fast casual food costs, which tends to be closer to 28 % or a little bit higher. And then our labor costs is around 19%, which is again on the lower end of what the average fast casual number is, despite the fact that we are in San Francisco in one of the highest markets. So I think those three metrics and just looking at them, if you think about it as a snapshot, I'm very proud of those numbers, you know, and to be able to present that on an item 19 and be like, look, this is, this is how we're doing, you know, you guys are doing really well. And yeah, mean, locally, you're seeing a 6 % decrease overall in the restaurant space and you guys are up, you know, average of 27%. Some instances over 40, that's really compelling. So Denise, if anyone's listening right now and they're considering getting into franchising of all the stuff that's out there, why should they give Bun Mee a serious look at becoming an think that they should consider Bun mee and give it a serious look because of all the things I mentioned before, we are uh a proven fast casual model with over 10 years of experience. Our momentum is at its highest ever. We are a chef driven franchise. We are a known brand in the Bay Area, one of the pickiest foodie market in the country. And we have a strong culture and ethos of support um and making that an important part of who we are. and that we're gonna provide that support to a franchisee who might be scared of taking that risk, who's a little bit risk averse to get into the food business, but wants to be in the food business. And also more than that though, we are in a um unsaturated segment of fast casual where we are still, we're not doing pizza, we're not doing chicken, we're not doing, you know, tacos, Mexican food. mean, we are creating a, we are a pioneer in what we do and it's a unsaturated market still. So there's not a lot of competition and very likely in your town or market, you're not going to have competition, right? And so it's all a unique proposition that I think hopefully if someone, you know, is out there looking at opportunities to invest. and to give up their precious dollars and time to consider all those things because I think it's a strong proposition. Yeah, you need to get over here to my area quickly because I really want to try that food and I don't get out to California as often as I'd like. yeah, Denise, I appreciate sharing all this great information with us about Bun Mee. Anything else you want to add to the mix today before we wrap up? No, just want to let everyone know that we're franchising in all the unregistered states right now. We're currently registering registered in New York or registering and also registering in California. So those California will be hopefully up and coming sometime this year. But other than that, all the unregistered states were available. We're out there. You can find us at www.bunme.co. oh Yeah, that's what we got going on and we'd be happy to talk to you about our opportunities. Well, thank you so much, Denise. And if anyone listening would like to connect with Denise and her team to learn more about becoming a franchise owner with Bun Me, contact me at franchiseQB.com or on X @QB FranchiseQB. I'll get you guys connected. Thank you so much, Denise, for taking the time to join us in the huddle today. Thank you, Mike. Thank you for listening to the Franchise QB podcast where you're at the helm of your future as a franchise owner. If you enjoyed the content, please rate the show and recommend it to anyone that might be interested in franchising. Make sure to visit FranchiseQB.com to subscribe to my newsletter and for an actionable playbook to go from walk-on to legend in your new business. Follow us on Twitter at QB franchise QB and join us every week for a new episode. See you next time. Visit franchiseqb.com. take the next step of your journey towards wealth, independence, and franchise ownership. And remember, when working for the man gets old, you must do something bold. Thank you for listening.