Five fledgling concepts will vie for The Perfect Pitch title and a prize on Oct. 14 at the Fast Casual Executive Summit in Denver, Colorado.
The Perfect Pitch is a “Shark Tank”-style competition at The Fast Casual Executive Summit in Denver October 13-15. Five fledgling concepts will vie for The Perfect Pitch title, a $3,500 prize and six months of free service from Ovation.
Each concept will give a five-minute presentation in front of a live audience and a panel of judges. The judges will offer feedback on each concept and then the audience will vote on the best concept to win.
The Perfect Pitch will be held at 8:45 a.m. on Monday, October 14, 2024, at the Sheraton in Denver, Colorado.
Here are the restaurant brands competing in this year’s event.
GAI Chicken & Rice
GAI Chicken & Rice serves Khao Mun Gai, a chicken and rice dish that has its origins in the villages of the Hainan Province in the South China Sea. The dish eventually landed in Thailand, where it evolved and grew with spices and style. Gai (pronounced “guy-ee”) means “chicken” in Thai, Cantonese and Vietnamese.
Khao Mun Gai is served all over Thailand, and it has now landed in the streets of New York City with GAI Chicken & Rice. The company was launched by Ace Watanasuparp, Alpha O Bah and Chatchai Huadwattana in 2019.
The brand serves chicken bowls with white or dark meat, sticky wings and rice, chicken tenders and rice and flavored wings and rice. It also serves up salads, fries, sauces like sweet chili sauce and ginger chili sauce, sides like mac and cheese, roasted green beans and roasted cauliflower.
The brand has grown to four locations in New York City and recently partnered with Vett3d, a franchising firm co-founded by Steve Lieber, who is also VP of business development of Florida-based BurgerFi and Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza & Wings. GAI Chicken & Rice is now franchising.
“Franchising our Thai chicken and rice concept allows us to expand its reach and share our unique flavors with a broader audience,” Suansilphong said in an interview with FastCasual in January 2024. “There are not many Thai fast casuals in the U.S. yet.”
Pasta Di Guy
Pasta Di Guy launched in 2019 as a food truck. In 2020, founder Guy Carmeli opened his first brick-and-mortar location in Tampa Bay, Florida. Two years later, a second location opened in Trinity, Florida. A third location opened in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in January 2024.
The concept specializes in made-from-scratch pasta and the menu features pasta, sauces, flatbreads, salads, sandwiches and the brand’s popular cannoli. Their build-your-own pasta bowl is popular. In addition to being made from scratch, Pasta Di Guy’s pastas are also sauteed on the spot instead of being held in water.
Vegan and gluten-free options are available.
Carmeli, who has Italian roots, says he grew up on homemade pasta.
“When I arrived in the United States, I found out that there was not a lot of made-from-scratch pasta options here,” he said, “so I decided to open one.”
The brand began exploring franchising about a month ago.
“We want to expand, and our goal is to make it nationwide and be the Italian choice for American families,” Carmeli added.
Much Ado About Pizza
Much Ado About Pizza was conceptualized in 2020 during the pandemic by Kira and Mark Zabrowski, two teachers fed up with online student work. They opened the doors to their pizzeria in 2022 in Pleasanton, California, with a decidedly Shakespearean theme.
It’s an exclusively carryout business, with pizzas made on the makeline in front of customers and baked in a conveyor oven.
The Zabrowskis found support in the pizza industry, which surprised them given how competitive the industry is. Business was slow at first, but Yelp put Much Ado About Pizza on a list of top restaurants in the U.S. and that set things in motion.
The brand is known for its sourdough crust using a starter and just flour, salt, yeast and water.
“We try to keep that purity, and also its better for digestion. It’s better to eat,” Mark Zabrowski told Pizza Marketplace editor Mandy Detwiler in a phone interview.
“‘No crust left behind’ is our motto,'” Kira Zabrowski added. “We’re always working on it. It’s ever evolving.”
The Zabrowskis use top ingredients for their pizza and try to incorporate local ingredients where possible. They also try to make as much as possible in-house to control the finished product.
Pizza is competitive, and Much Ado About Pizza sets itself apart by its branding and the community service it does. “We do a lot of work with our community,” Kira said. “And we’re niche. We’re a little shop, a small mom-and-pop, and people like to support local. You come in, and we treat you like our family. We know our customers for the most part by name and by order. … We really put ourselves out there.”
Shootz
Hawaiian barbecue fusion restaurant Shootz has three units in Southern California.
Founded by Michael Dancel, Harold Walters, Christian Solomona and Nolan Perez, the brand first opened in 2020 right in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic. The four have islander backgrounds and thought meshing their roots with Hawaiian cuisine would fill a niche in the market. They met in a bar to talk about opening a restaurant and came up with a drawing of a logo on a napkin and created a menu and name all in one night.
They inked a lease for a food hall that was opening up in 2020. COVID hit and slowed down “the potential opportunities for us to be able to open up that first location,” Walters said in a phone interview. “We kept pushing and getting innovative with ways for us to be able to open despite COVID, and we opened our first location in September of 2020. Out of that 600-square-foot location, we did $1.9 million in the first 12 months.”
The brand serves up comfort food made from the soul, which equates to its popular Kimchi Butter Chicken Katsu and Spam Brulee Musubi, among other dishes.
Shootz focuses on quality, flavor and exceptional service. The menu is kept decidedly small. Catering is available for events.
Walters said the brand is looking to saturate Southern California with two more locations to open soon in the next three months. All three of the current locations are owner operated.
“All the original owners are still involved,” Walters said.
Saigon Hustle
Saigon Hustle brings traditional Vietnamese cuisine and culture to Houston, Texas. It has a single unit in Garden Oaks, a Houston suburb.
The brand was founded by Sandy Ghaffar and Sandy Nguyen, best friends since college. Ghaffar was approached by Ngyuen to open a restaurant, which Ghaffar at first did not see the value.
“Whatever we do, it better be big, meaning we better scale it,” Ghaffar said.
In 2020, COVID hit and set the project back by a year. Before the restaurant opened to the public, the owners did a cloud kitchen, and in Feb. 2022, Saigon Hustle opened its doors.
Saigon Hustle won a contest from private equity firm Savory Group, which gave it $1 million to grow its concept. A second location is under construction in Houston and is slated to open in October.
Both Ghaffar and Nguyen are Vietnamese, so Saigon Hustle offers Vietnamese food that is fresh, healthy and flavorful like egg rolls, crispy chicken wings, salads and soups, Banh Mi, noodle dishes and hot protein bowls. The menu is large, giving customers plenty of choices.
With Savory Group, Saigon Hustle looks to take Vietnamese food to the big leagues so it’s quick and has a drive-thru; guests can order and pick up food within eight minutes.
“We made (Vietnamese food) mainstream,” Ghaffar said. “I compare us to the Chipotle of Vietnamese food.”
About Networld Media Group
Founded in 2000, Networld Media Group is a leading media communications company specializing in digital media, events and associations in the technology, restaurant, banking, and retail industries. It’s media brands include ATMmarketplace.com, DigitalSignageToday.com, FastCasual.com, KioskMarketplace.com, QSRweb.com, RetailCustomerExperience.com and RewardsThatMatter.com. Events under the Networld umbrella include the Fast Casual Executive Summit, the Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit and the Self-Service Innovation Summit.
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