Building a Coffee Empire: The Success Story of Mokas Coffee and Eatery

In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, host Jeremy Julian interviews Jason Ingermanson, the founder of Mokas Coffee and Eatery. Jason shares his entrepreneurial journey from starting a $30,000 coffee shop in a Kansas mall to growing multiple successful brands, including Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers. Celebrating Mokas 20-year anniversary, Jason discusses the development and franchising of Mokas, his focus on quality and community involvement, and the core values driving the brand's success. He also shares insights on local store marketing, guest loyalty, and support systems provided to prospective franchisees. Tune in for an inspiring story of passion, discipline, and dedication in the restaurant industry.

00:00 Mokas Coffee & Eatery

00:14 Introduction and Guest Introduction

02:05 Jason's Journey: From Coffee Lover to Entrepreneur

03:02 The Birth and Growth of Mokas Coffee and Eatery

04:01 Navigating Challenges and Expanding During the Pandemic

05:21 Mokas' Unique Brand and Customer Experience

06:59 Commitment to Quality and Community

10:39 Franchising and Future Plans

18:13 The Story Behind the Name 'Mokas'

22:29 Franchisee Success Stories

23:14 The Importance of Transparency

23:41 Challenges in the Restaurant Industry

24:26 Expanding to New Markets

29:13 Local Store Marketing Strategies

32:06 Franchise Application Process

34:06 Discovery Day Experience

37:17 Master Franchise Opportunities

40:57 Connecting with Jason Ingram Manson

Transcript

Speaker: 0:02

This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, helping you run your restaurant better.

0:14

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. In today's episode, we are joined by a very special guest. If you've ever dreamed of turning your love for coffee into a thriving business, or wondering what it takes to build a brand essentially from scratch, you are in for a treat on today's. I am joined by Jason, who's the founder of Mokas Coffee and Eatery, a brand that started with a$30,000 coffee shop in a mall in Kansas. Ironically, really close to where my son is going to school and now they're celebrating 20 years. Jason shares lots of stories of how he got into the business, really what he's seen. Growing another fantastic brand in Freddy's, um, from kind of its origins all the way through to where they're at today. So for those of you that are looking to grow a franchise, looking to start your own restaurant from scratch, Jason shares a ton of really cool stories. He's a great guy. I'm grateful that he got to be on the show. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy. Julian, I'm the Chief Revenue Officer for CBS North Star. We wrote the North Star point of Sale solution for multi-units. Please check us out. CBS northstar.com and now onto the episode.

Jeremy Julian: 1:27

Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining. Like I'd like to say on every one of these episodes, I know you guys have got lots of choices and it feels like there's a new podcast, new YouTube channel, new everything every week. So I'm grateful for our listeners out there Today, I am joined by a founder. Of a couple of different brands, or I guess I know at least one brand as well as an operator. And, so I'm excited to have Jason kinda share a little bit of his backstory. he and I were able to catch up on the show before I hit record. But Jason, why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners and then we can talk a little bit about your professional, progression and then what, what the topic is for today, which is the new brand that you guys are, are trying to explode onto the scene.

Jason Ingermanson: 2:06

Sure. Jason Ingermanson, president, CEO of Mokas Coffee and Eatery, and also CEO of the parent company, JRI, HS. Fatality. going into a little bit of how I got started briefly is just, in 2000, early two thousands, I was, finishing up my career, working for other franchisees of other concepts. Had a lot of experience with a couple, well-known concepts at the time, and was just ready to go out and do my own thing. Always grew up having a passion for coffee. It was when the coffee scene, Was really starting to push across the United States in the early two thousands. when I left the companies I was working for, the first thing I did was, borrow some money from my grandparents who I grew up on their farm with. to be able to buy a$30,000 coffee shop in the Salina, Kansas Central Mall. So that's where it all started. So a little over a hundred restaurants later between Mokass Choys, Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steak Burgers, and a couple other, restaurant, one-off concepts that we have. here I am today and that coffee shop evolved into Mokas's Coffee, and then it evolved into Mokas's Coffee and Eatery as we added food. To our menu probably in the late two thousands. But the biggest story with Mokass is this year, is its 20 year anniversary, and we just started franchising though, in the last 18 months. And what occurred there is at the time, the, obviously as I said, growing up on a small farm, I didn't have a lot of resources to, just launch into business with an unlimited budget. So it was a very shoestring budget that I started on. One of my opportunities was to get into Freddy's frozen custard early. As a franchisee. And so that occurred after we had launched Mokass and it put Mokass, if you will, on the back burner. my, my wife operated it for the 20 years while I was growing, Mokas and, or expanding Freddy's across 15 states in the United States. And in, 2019 we decided, hey, we're ready to build our prototype MOAs and start preparing the franchise because we wanna share this with other people. And Obviously we opened in March of 2020. We all know what kind of fun we were having at that point in time. but It took off

Jeremy Julian: 4:08

doing business in March of 2020. Man.

Jason Ingermanson: 4:10

Yes, exactly. Launching a new prototype and adding a significant food menu was definitely a, it was a fun time. Like I said, I think what we opened that store about eight days before everything shut down. but we had a drive through and we all know if you're in COVID time or the pandemic and you had a drive through, you had an opportunity to really succeed and what I call an open window of marketing because everybody was getting cash in their hand and wanting to go.'cause no one was going to work really. And so it was really a good time for us to launch if we look back at it from that perspective outside of the challenges. and fast forward 36 months later, we've opened, three additional of those prototype Mokas locations and have begun franchising. We signed our first franchisee and we've got, three of our own corporate MO'S Coffee and eateries in development right now. So we'll end with seven by the end of next year with a franchisee adding a store. There'll be number eight, and we're really engaging with a lot of, franchisees in our interest funnel, if you will, right now just sitting down and making sure that we are a good fit for them. They're a good fit for us, but we're excited about the growth going forward.

Jeremy Julian: 5:16

I love that. And I know you and I talked Jason about the lessons you guys have learned and so I know we'll get into that. But for those that have not been to amcas, I guess walk us through it.'cause you've got everything from a Dutch bros, which is a, a-frame, 99% drive through to the third place Starbucks, that kind of got dubbed and everywhere in between. My brother used to be a barista up in the Bay Area in San Francisco, and coffee shops in the Bay Area are very different than any other coffee shops I've been to or in Seattle. For those that aren't familiar with Mokass, I personally am not. I'd love to have you walk through what kind of makes Mokass before the eatery part, and I'd love to talk food here as well and why that came about, but what makes it unique, what makes it different? talk to me a little bit about the brand and what you can expect if you choose to participate and go, go get your coffee there.

Jason Ingermanson: 6:00

Absolutely. we design our brands very comforting for our guests. A place where meetings can occur from a business meeting to a, I've seen a, date occur at a couple of our stores and now they're married and those are good stories. to be honest with you, the most important thing, I think before we get into product. That Mokas is about connection. Even when we first started it, if you look at our logo, it's two upside down coffee cups that make an m or if you look at it, it's two heads in conversation. And so for Mokas, for us, it's always been about connection and it's been about, making sure that we always provide a comfortable environment for that to occur. So our model won't be a, a drive through. at any point in time in the future, our model is always going to have that connectivity on the inside where we can engage with our guests, we can invite our communities in to raise money for, the local ball team or anything of that nature that's going on. Now, pair that up with our product and you gotta really, winning team, if you will. So our product is, we roast all of our coffee. we don't roast all of our coffee to control price, because that's just not how that trade works. We roast all of our coffee to control quality and to make sure that we, are putting our best foot, foot forward for our guests. And we like to tell the story about the coffee, where it comes from growing up on a farm. I have a lot of, passion for growing things, understanding how they're grown, and also understanding what our farming community does to do those things for us to eat or have coffee or whatever it might be. So coffee product on top of the line. We always try and stay very ahead on the curve of the beverages. What's out there, right? Used to be a coffee shop. Now we call it more of a beverage business.

Jeremy Julian: 7:43

Yeah, it's been incredible to

Jason Ingermanson: 7:45

hot drinks and when it got cold. You were booming and when it got hot, there wasn't really anything to have when we first got in the industry. And then there's the frozen drinks. Blended drinks, ice drinks, energy drinks. You can just keep going on and on. in the early days, staying on top of the drinks and having a high quality beverage. was definitely our sweet spot, if you will. We, have had a great offering. We get great feedback on our products. Our guests come back very often. They're very loyal. In our loyalty program, we have about 52% loyalty is what our market runs. Probably in the. Mid to upper twenties and we're in the fifties now. Again, we are a small chain still. but with what we're seeing is looking really well when we open stores, we see, people that are walking in for the first time and being able to see how often they come back. When they become an app user, they are, we're becoming their favorite spot and we're seeing that, happen in the sales and in the traffic counts quite. Quite quickly, if you will. but probably 10 years into Mokass, I was tired of seeing, food bags from other concepts in cars when they would come to get their coffee. And I said, okay, it's time to start putting a menu together. In the early days of coffee, it was just coffee and some pastries and some light baked goods. that was the industry, right? that's

Jeremy Julian: 8:57

the whole industry, I learned last week, I know you and I were talking about, there's a, former guest that I saw at a trade show. they were telling us on the show that, back 25 years ago, it was a lot of drip coffee. There wasn't a lot of these blended drinks and a lot of these super specialty items. And he would tell me somewhere higher than 70% of drinks. Now have some form of crazy modification like that. And I think to your exact point, it was just come in and grab a cup of coffee, maybe put a little sugar, put a little cream in, and you're on your way out the door. Not so much anymore. I've got teenagers and, I talked about my son, his, his girlfriends all about, the beverage choices. And she oftentimes will make her choice on where they want to go based on whether she can get the beverage. sorry, I'll let you keep going, but I think creating a reason to come in with good food and good beverage is huge.

Jason Ingermanson: 9:40

Yeah. And hey, the coffee industry, the coffee world, and even, after adding the food to Mokass and the commitment when we added to food, we always have to be very intentional about everything we do. Whether it's how we treat our guests and what our, and how we train our teams to treat our guests, how we treat our team so that they're in the right mentality to treat our guests appropriately. but then also if we're gonna serve food. The initiative was we want to focus on our food quality just as much as we do our coffee quality. And I have to say, if you look at the industry, that is a differentiator in itself. A lot of places that have some really good food and they also serve coffee, some places have really good coffee and they also serve food. I saw that there's an opportunity to do both really great, and there's not too many folks out there doing it. So outside of the connection, the community involvement. The type of leadership and development we give our team members the way that we always give back in our community in any ways that we can. the way that we look for young entrepreneurs to potentially become a franchisee of something like I was able to do. Without growing up with a lot of money, without having a lot of resources, is just really exciting. And all of those things is what milk is, coffee and Eatery is about, and we're just so darn excited that we're finally at a point where it gets to grow. And I'm telling you, our guests are loving it and our team members are staying with us. We have a very low turnover rate compared to the rest of the industry. Now, of course, our listeners will say, you've got four locations, and that's true, but let me tell you, I've been in the industry long enough. It doesn't matter if you have one or 500, if you do the right things the right way, those numbers will continue to carry. Just don't lose your way. A lot of times when things grow, they lose their way. They change, they look at different things. To me, I always wanna step back and look at the most important things that we always looked at, but then also be ready to adapt because of the way the world says that you need to. But when it comes to quality, cleanliness, and guest hospitality, those things should never change. Those are the pillars that should always drive us forward in any restaurant business or any hospitality business that we're in. And so that's what we stand for. And I'd love for you to follow up, on those questions based off of maybe some things that I didn't answer that you were hoping to hear.

Jeremy Julian: 11:56

Yeah. No, and I love that, that thought. Again, I was just sharing that I was at a tech conference and it's like technology and, our longtime listeners hear this all the time. Technology for technology's sake is not, doesn't matter. It's does it make the guest experience better? Does it make the staff members experience better?'cause if it doesn't do those two things. None of it matters. And so I love that you guys are focused on having great quality food, a great place for your team members to work. and really just at the end of the day, your guests continue to come back. and so I love that idea. What would you attribute, you alluded to it, Jason, but I think there's this magical idea of loyal guests coming back. And obviously at a Freddy's it's a different experience than at a Mokas coffee is one of those things that. If you're a coffee drinker, you pretty much drink coffee seven days a week whether you want to or not. whereas you don't have to have a cheeseburger or a hot dog or a grilled cheese every day. tell me what your thoughts are on how you guys even considered thinking about loyalty. Because the numbers that you just shared are through the roof as far as comparative numbers to what the rest of the industry is. And I think so many people would love to get there. And even in the. Better beverage concepts. Most people aren't where you guys are at. So how do you guys think about that and how do you guys even manage it again at four locations as you guys start to scale?

Jason Ingermanson: 13:08

Yeah. it's always making sure that we know what we stand for and who we are in every decision we make, we have two things that are very important to me. One is. When I first started in business, I didn't even write this down, but I had five things that were very important. I call'em the JRI, high five, and then number two in JRI, by the way, JRI, hospitality, that is my initials. So that's where it came from. everybody starts saying, Jason's restaurant, Jason is, it's just Jason Richard Ingram Man Center. It's my initials. Plain simple. My middle name is my dad's first name. but. When we talk about it, we have two things that we run our funnel through. It's our JRI high five about how do we look at things in business for our guests and our team members first, and we know if we do things in that regard that we're gonna be successful. It just, it works out that way. People will argue, but it's not as difficult. A lot of

Jeremy Julian: 13:57

nearly as hard as everybody makes it out to be.

Jason Ingermanson: 14:00

and they make it complicated. And the goal is to make it simple and everybody wants to say, Hey, we need a new system. And I say. We need to remove distractions. Most of the time we have the systems we need. We're not using them appropriately. So someone thinks we need to come up with a new one. So I have the motto that says, number one, we're gonna funnel all of our decisions we make through our JRI high five. number two, we have our core values. And our core values are another place we funnel things through. If we use those as a filter, if you will, with any idea or any thought that we have on where we're going in the future. If it's an idea that doesn't align with those two things and doesn't make it through the filter of those two things, then we're really thinking hard about why are we doing this? And I would say that we always start there and we always start there for the reasons. and you'll hear me say it a lot and people might even think it's funny to hear it so much. If you go and look at anything that we do, even in our small hometown of Salina of Kansas versus the rest of the world, we're pretty much considered small, right? 50,000 people. The amount of projects that we do in our community here is you. You would almost be head numbed if I took you through all of the different ones, and then you think about, we're in 15 states operating and our objective is to. If a guest walks into one of our restaurants in those 15 states, our mission is that they think the owner lives right down the street. We wanna stay connected, we wanna give back. We wanna be a part of every community that we're operating in. And so we take that to every relationship that we have, whether it's with a franchisee, whether it's with a team member, team members. You get a great team member, right? entrepreneurs, they get a little greedy when they get a great team member. A lot of times it's I wanna keep you at all costs because you're the best that we have. I'm the type of person that wants to build them up and create opportunity for them to go get to do what I got to do. So to be able to have 3000 employees across the country, nearly being able to think, wow, we could be a franchisee of Mokass from an internal standpoint, we also offer that and we also offer the opportunity for, those things to occur. probably a long answer is you'll always get from me because I'm a big reason why guy. there's a lot of thought that goes into what we do when we do it, but not to the point where it has to slow us down and be behind the curve. it's just being intentional about making sure that we go to those things that we believe first and filter the idea where a lot of folks, or a lot of companies that I've worked with or seen, they get 90 way per 90% done with the project they're thinking of, and then they start thinking about. Why are we doing this and is it the right thing? And sometimes they don't even think at all. They launch it and it's a dud, or they launch it and it's a deep discount. And now we've told our guests that our product is only worth whatever we're charging when we discount, right? You gotta be proud and you gotta stand for who you are, and I think guests respect that and they don't mind paying for quality when they can trust that you're going through these processes to make the best decision possible to deliver what we promise.

Jeremy Julian: 17:02

and I think it, obviously, it resonates with your guests to the point that you guys are hitting those numbers. what percentage of the food mix is food versus beverage? you guys started as a coffee house, you guys added eatery. I'm assuming, a breakfast sandwich is probably a, from a price point, a little bit higher than a drip cup of coffee. But, if you look at the mix, is it 50 50? Is it 70 30? where does it come out?

Jason Ingermanson: 17:22

Yeah, I would say some of our stores are 60 40 food to coffee and or beverage, and some of our stores are 60 40, Beverage to food. And so if you take the four locations and probably our anticipation of where the land is you're exactly right, we're probably right about. 50 50. And but the thing that's interesting is that, man, if you can be 50 50 on food and coffee, it really tells you are delivering the things that you're trying to, in regards to quality. but the other thing I'll tell you is we crack every egg when we make a breakfast sandwich. we are not doing any of this, heating egg things up or baking eggs and, and, utilizing products like that we're, we use the best coffee. We use the best product when it comes to our food and we're never going to change that.

Jeremy Julian: 18:05

I love that. and I love that really you're creating an environment where both the staff members want to be there and the guests want to be there. because you went down the path of JRI. Where's Mokass come from? Is that your wife's name? Is that, wife's maiden name? You just picked it, picked something there. love to hear the story of the inception of, of that.

Jason Ingermanson: 18:22

So a friend of mine helped me with that, but in the early days. my friend and I were actually, not only wa was I running coffee shops and coffee houses, but we also had done a beverage distribution company. And so we would go out and help other small coffee shops start their business. In the early two thousands, everybody wanted to open a coffee shop. It was a time where Starbucks was coming into the United States and really introducing across the country, not just in the, on the west coast, what this coffee. Craze was all about. And so when that happened, everybody was so excited about the beverage, that everyone wanted to open these. So we saw an opportunity to help folks open their own business. And then we would become their distributor of their coffee syrups, their powders for frozen drink, mix their recipes, and we'd go in and train their staff out and help open their business through consulting, and then we would be their distributor. And so Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas were the areas that we probably. Had the most locations in, and we wanted to come up with a cool name that resonated with people. And of course there's the Mokas coffee drink, M-O-C-H-A. and so we're in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

Jeremy Julian: 19:31

I'm like reading it on your shirt, going, ah.

Jason Ingermanson: 19:33

we're. Yeah, so that's exactly where Mokass came from. It's supposed to be short, it's supposed to be catchy, it's supposed to be fun, and just like our logo in connectivity with our guests or over a cup of coffee. It was also important at the time when we were helping others open their coffee shops, that we were well connected with them. They could feel like they could ask us anything, and we were there to help cultivate them into su success. And that's again, that's what's got my fire going for us, becoming a franchisor. To be honest with you, we've had a lot of success in the industry and we could just open Mokass on our own and control everything and not have to worry about, if you have a franchisee that doesn't wanna follow your procedures or any of those types of things. but because of. Who we are and how we like to give ourselves into others and help them succeed, whether it's in our community or if it's in business. That's why I'm excited about actually franchising is I'm not worried about having the police a franchisee. those things are naturally gonna come. That's just part of what you calculate in when you decide, when you be, when you decide, Hey, I'm gonna be a franchisor. I'm excited about finding the right franchisors. Just like we're franchisees, just like we're always trying to find the right team members. People that are ready to be cultivated into really good leaders. They're ready to listen. They want to be engaged with, they wanna be taught. They're looking for an opportunity. And so those are those same, that's the same thing we look for in our team members, and it's the same thing we wanna look for in franchisees. So I'm excited about getting those folks in, getting them connected. If they do one store or if they sign a five store agreement, I'm good with either one, but it's not going to be 60 stores across 10 states, and it's gonna be this franchise, this franchisor or franchisee relationship where. They operate a thousand restaurants. I don't think that's where we're gonna start with Mokass. It's not to say that someday we don't get there for some of the large operators, but we're really focused on creating something exciting and having some fire behind it, some passion behind it, some commitment, and some laser focus from our initial franchisees.

Jeremy Julian: 21:40

Yeah. No, and I love that. the, your passion for people, your passion for watching people build, that's one of the things that I also am passionate about. I know that a lot of the people that know me outside of the podcast. Talk about that all the time.'cause it's like how do I help you achieve your goals in life? And so I love that'cause that comes through. Jason, let's talk about what does a franchise look like today?'cause you guys are in the early stages and you're fortunate enough that you've been down the road before with. Another brand that obviously got, at the time of recording, just got purchased for lots of zeros at the end of that number. And so you got to watch some of the successes and likely some of the failures. So I'd love for you to talk to our listeners a little bit about what, what's gonna make a MoCAs different because we've had a lot of people come on and we, I've watched over my 30 years in the career, in my career. Brands succeed, brands fail. Franchisees hate their franchisor, and then I've watched the opposite. I've watched them in be incredibly successful. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about what's gonna make, bringing O Moku on to my portfolio different. Why do you think that you're the brand that people should be looking at to expand what it is that they're trying to do?

Jason Ingermanson: 22:47

I think it's discipline in how we make decisions. It's our focus on how we want to give more of ourselves into their success than gain success from their hard work. Obviously, if you're gonna be a franchisee of something, you better be ready to work hard, right? You better have a team that's ready to work hard. The restaurant industry is for the faint of heart. There's a lot of restaurants that close each and every day. those are the experiences and the knowledge that we bring to the table. And I would also say that we bring transparency to the table. we're not going to tell you everything great that you want to hear. we're not gonna tell you everything bad and nothing great. we're not gonna tell you everything great, nothing bad. We're gonna be very transparent, very businesslike, very partner like, and our success is going to be based off of your success. And don't be surprised if you don't see me in a franchisees store working their peak period with them when they first open their store. Because we do also have to understand that when you start, when you get into a franchise system early, you know the brand recognition isn't quite there yet. And it was the same way when I got into Freddy's early, the brand recognition wasn't there yet. Nine of the states that we're in, we opened the very first Fred's in that

Jeremy Julian: 23:59

Oh, wow. Yeah. Had it not been from our mutual friend, Steve, I would've never known what a Freddy's was. When I went to the very first one out in Arizona, a number of years ago, right? the store must have been open for less than six months. When I first went there and I was like, what is this? But my buddy had said, Hey dude, you gotta keep an eye out for these guys. And to your point, if it hadn't have been for that, I probably would've never stopped there.'cause there was 12 other restaurants right next to that Freddy. So the fact that you're passionate about that and understand that, sir, I'll let you keep going, but I just think

Jason Ingermanson: 24:23

No, you're

Jeremy Julian: 24:24

so critical for people to understand that. Just because you're really successful in the four stores that you guys have, doesn't mean that it translates even to Kansas City, which is only a couple hour drive away from where you guys are at.

Jason Ingermanson: 24:35

Yep. So we have to ask ourselves what things can we do to overcome some of the natural obstacles that you're going to have? And, those things are engagement. it's local store marketing programs that we've been able to build out over all the years. The things that we had to do to get our location successful across the country in the early days of Freddy's, when we go into a new state, listen, our 12th store we opened was in Northern Virginia in Fairfax, and between Kansas and Virginia, I don't think there's another state in between going that direction. And then after that we went to Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, a lot of states for the first stores. And if you know anything about the East Coast, there's a company called Friendlies. And so when we'd open a Freddy's, they say, oh yeah, we love your concept. We go the one down the road. And I said, this is the only one we have in this area. And they're like, oh, this isn't a friendlies.

Jeremy Julian: 25:28

yeah. you're also in Five Guy's Territory, right there in Fairfax, Virginia. that's where five guy, it was in that same

Jason Ingermanson: 25:33

is a retis and we're gonna knock your socks off with this product. And so we have a lot of really good tools that have been devised. But also if you go to our. Franchising page with, which is Mokass franchise.com. If you go to that page, you'll see the areas where we're offering franchises, and it's in a tight group from Kansas, working three states around. From Texas, up north, through Nebraska, and into those areas. And so we're really focused on building a synergy, a nucleus. We don't want to jump. I learned not to jump from Kansas to Virginia right now. That store's one of the top performing Freddy's in the whole system right now. But it took a long time and it took a lot of work and there's, and so that's something, people get fatigued when it comes to that. We want our franchisee to have quick success and hopefully be ready to go do their second one, or be very happy if they just did one store and they're off and running with it. We have a lot of systems, a lot of support, and because we have a lot of restaurants, we have all of our team at the JRI hospitality level, excuse me, up above Mokass, from HR to training, to our Chief culture officer that does leadership development classes and accountability driven leadership classes for our teams internally that we'll be able to actually share with our franchisees as well is going to be able to teach them how to deal with tough situations inside the restaurant. It's gonna teach them how to. Market, it's going to teach them how to use local store marketing and get out and make connections in their community. Not being a salesman, but being a really good community partner. You drive our business, we're gonna drive your business, and together we're gonna be a great community of businesses and for all of our people and our guests. So I would say that those are the things that we'll bring to the table that, because I know that they work after doing it myself as a franchisee. I know that they'll work to help our franchisees be successful, and I wish that we had that system back when we first got into the business. But at the same time, I may not have learned as much as I did, and I may not have been able to teach my team as much as I did because of what we experienced. So it's all about taking that experience and knowledge and not being protective of it. I run really good stores because I have all these things that I do, but I'm not telling you no. It's how do we collaborate? How do we connect, how do we share? Because really, when you buy a franchise, that's what you're buying. You're buying my experience, our experience, our knowledge, our systems, and a place for you to come and learn and be nurtured into a successful entrepreneur. Not only in just running a shift, but running a business, engaging in a community, all of those things.

Jeremy Julian: 28:06

and I've watched, a ton of brands that get outside of their core market and then those start to be anchors to the entire rest of the brand.'cause now they're focusing on trying to make this store in Fairfax, Virginia succeed. And it comes at the expense of the stores that we're operating really well. So I love that you guys are staying somewhat local, Texas, Oklahoma,

Jason Ingermanson: 28:24

back to that world anticipate and what could be a distraction and remove it. We're off and running and doing the good things every day, and anchors will drag you down emotionally, physically, monetarily, all of those things. We wanna avoid those at all costs, and you can never overcompensate for a bad location. And so having our development team that's been in 15 states over the years looking for sites to be successful. At the franchisees at the franchisees disposal to use is phenomenal. So we're really a four unit franchise that's got a hundred unit experience and a lot of years of it. So we're not as small. If you think about the knowledge and the value we bring to potential franchisee.

Jeremy Julian: 29:08

Yeah. And I love that you guys are gonna bring that and then truly make moca successful because of it. Jason, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what you guys consider local store marketing. A lot of brands come on the show and they, you gotta get into the local community, you gotta do

Jason Ingermanson: 29:22

Right?

Jeremy Julian: 29:22

but then you watch it and it doesn't actually succeed. So I'd love for you to talk through what have you found to be successful?

Jason Ingermanson: 29:28

Yeah, it's connection. It's getting our product and our community's faces, it's but doing it for the right reasons, not because I'm gonna get a sale out of it that may occur, but that should be the result of the reason why you're doing something, not the reason you're doing something right. Everything's gotta be intentional, like we talked about earlier. We go out into our communities to engage. To reward fire departments for what they do for us to reward police departments, what they do for us to connect with veteran groups in the community to say thank you. So we're out in the community and we call, the term that everybody uses to be consistent is local store marketing. I always like to say the word community involvement, but really equals local store marketing. But it's about actually being genuine, going out in your community, doing the right things for the right reasons, and not necessarily expecting anything in return, but maybe cultivating others to do the same thing. And with those things it naturally. You find success in that because

Jeremy Julian: 30:27

You build connections and it's all about hospitality like we talked about earlier, right?

Jason Ingermanson: 30:30

when you support your communities will support you. Now, a lot of people think that means if you serve the worst food and the worst drinks in the world, they're going to do that. That's not true. You still have to hold your, you still have to, hold yourself to the high level of, even if you're involved in your community and you can give them everything you want. But if you don't deliver on hospitality, food quality, drink quality, and cleanliness, it doesn't matter how much you're going out in your community, folks aren't coming. So you have to really understand and really be passionate about what it is you're doing in the industry and do it right each and every day to the best of your ability. And you're gonna win. if you give out a free meal to someone, right? A complimentary meal to them to come into your restaurant. You know what? They're still expecting the same result as if they paid for it. So it doesn't do you any good. If your product's not good to give someone a free meal to get'em in there, they're not coming back. If you're not friendly to'em, they're not coming back and paying. So it's not just about going out local store marketing, giving out some free coupons or whatever. It's about everything we like to do and what we stand for at Mokass from our logo forward. And that's connection. Doing things for the right reasons. And because of that, the right things will happen at the sales line because they're gonna embrace us as a huge partner in the community. And that's what we've seen.

Jeremy Julian: 31:50

and I, and I, based on what you've shared thus far, I'm. Suspecting that as you guys get out into these franchisees, you're going to expect them to spend some percentage of their time doing this, which ultimately is net, it's a leading indicator of what success is gonna look like for that story in the community. And Jason, earlier you shared the website, but talk me through what the process looks like. if I'm interested and I go to the website and I figure something else out, Hey, I wanna do a MoCAs. I love what Jason had to say. I'm a huge fan of this and I want to go there. What does that look like and what can they expect as a potential entrepreneur, as you said, that's interested.

Jason Ingermanson: 32:26

Sure. as you can imagine, when you get into franchising, there is some legal things there, so it does feel a little bit, businesslike right from the get go. So the important part is to watch these podcasts and watch our communications and what we do and not get. Turned off from some of the things that are just a natural process. Obviously there's a requirement from a financial standpoint. There's a requirement from a franchise disclosure document signature before we can really talk about things, and there's a process you go through. So if you went to the website, which is moca franchise.com, it's going to ask you some basic questions like what's your net worth? what's your liquidity of your net worth? What percentage of it is liquid? It's going to ask you what territory you might be interested in. If it's not one we're offering, then you can type in which one you may be interested in case we. Open it up to franchisees in the future. We still wanna stay connected. If someone has interest, we wanna stay connected. Maybe they're not a franchisee next year, maybe they're a franchisee five years when we get to Florida or wherever it may be that we're gonna grow to. And so number one, go there and put that information in because that puts you on our radar to reach out and have a personable conversation and walk you through the things that you need to know. And just have a quick conversation that's probably gonna answer some really important questions. It's gonna. Really understand, do we need to continue to go further? You know what I mean? We don't want to, we don't want to kick tires. We don't want to, we don't want people to kick tires. We don't want them to feel marketed to. if you say, I'm not interested, I'm not gonna keep sending you, 20 things in the email. If you say you're interested and you wanna stay up to date, of course we're going to oblige and send you the information that you ask for. that's the process. But the real fun process is after that. Once you get through the technical part of the process, you get to come to Discovery Day in Wichita, Kansas. you get to and think about Wichita, Kansas incubator for franchises that have grown into multi-state, businesses, pizza Hut, Freddy's, rent Center, lots of others that have started in Wichita, Kansas. So we're excited

Jeremy Julian: 34:26

so weird to me, but cool at the

Jason Ingermanson: 34:27

yes, it's it, yeah, exactly. So you get to come to Wichita, Kansas, where you get to see all of these things happen. All of this success happened over the years, and you're thinking, wow, could this be the next one? it's happened before. It can happen again. So you get to come to our office and we like to call it a Discovery Day, a Mokas's Coffee and Eatery Day, where we're gonna take you across the street from our, from our, office location over into our, prototype Mokas's restaurant. There. We're going to, get you a lot of caffeine, a lot of beverages, and a lot of food to try. you're gonna be very excited because you get to find, we do serve breakfast all day. That's probably one of the biggest excitements when people have interest in Mokass, is that, oh wow, you do breakfast all day. That's awesome. I love breakfast. And so that's a big thing that we, that we've found have been interested as, potential franchisees have came in and then we're just gonna spend time being real people. We're gonna be very transparent. We're not gonna be salesy. We're gonna answer the questions that you have. We understand that this is a significant amount of money, a significant investment, a significant change potentially for your family. And we're not gonna take those types of things for granted. We're going to have a conversation with another person, what dirt we're doing right now, exchange ideas, and at the end of the day, we're gonna go have dinner together. We're gonna wake up the next morning, be on our way, and if you have interest in learning more or going further, then great. If you want us to stay in touch with you, we'll absolutely do that. We'll probably invite you to our next three Mokass openings to come see what an opening looks like, if you want to, et cetera. But it's gonna be really, personable and not very business transactiony. And we're gonna talk about wins and losses, and we're gonna talk about experiences and learnings and failures. And we're just gonna be us. And I think people really appreciate that. in the franchise world, in a lot of cases it's gotten very salesy.

Jeremy Julian: 36:19

it's smoke and mirrors. Half the time you're gonna retire off of one store. It's it's probably not gonna happen, man. you've heard it, I'm sure,

Jason Ingermanson: 36:25

Oh, yeah. yeah. It's, it, I get to go play golf all day. No, I'm gonna tell you, I you don't get to go play golf all

Jeremy Julian: 36:31

You have to

Jason Ingermanson: 36:31

your goal with this is to get to the point where you get to go play golf all day, But that's not gonna

Jeremy Julian: 36:36

to work your tail off to get there.

Jason Ingermanson: 36:37

but it's a place where you're gonna wanna work your tail off. It's a lot of fun. There's no business that I've operated that I've had as much fun as going into am Mokass and operating with our teams and enter man, when you serve great products to guests and you're a caffeine dealer, if you

Jeremy Julian: 36:54

Yeah.

Jason Ingermanson: 36:55

you are putting smiles on people's faces. It's the easiest smile in the industry to put on somebody's faces. Is to hand them their outstanding crafted beverage and look at their face glow

Jeremy Julian: 37:07

I can tell from the website, you guys have got some pretty amazing food from that perspective too, especially if you guys are making it all in-house.

Jason Ingermanson: 37:14

yep, absolutely.

Jeremy Julian: 37:16

Excuse me. So Jason, are you looking for master franchisees? you talked a little bit ago about not looking for, this huge franchise group and again, I'd love to help whittle down the amount of web traffic, but also drive the right people there. You're looking for an entrepreneurial people that are looking to build a brand in a region kind of thing, and currently you're looking for that, but you're not looking for somebody that operates a thousand restaurants currently to come take Mokass and do that at this point.

Jason Ingermanson: 37:42

I would anticipate that we probably wouldn't leave a discovery day making a deal with something that would be a huge, group all at once because, we're, it's in an incubator right now. It's in that phase of growing and. Really making sure that whoever's gonna sign on understands who we are. who we are

Jeremy Julian: 38:03

the culture so that

Jason Ingermanson: 38:03

they are and how it portrays. And so I won't say, don't reach out if you're a large franchisee of another brand and you want to add another concept to your portfolio, because I'd love to have the conversation because never say never, right? I am. Have a rule. Say yes until you have to say no. And even having a connection or a meeting with someone, even if you knew before you went into it. Nothing's gonna happen here. I've got some of the best friends that I have in the world out of those types of

Jeremy Julian: 38:32

Yeah. That you get to go play golf six days a week with, because you got so successful. I'm teasing

Jason Ingermanson: 38:36

That's right. so I wouldn't say that we're gonna say no to anyone off the bat. We'll say yes until we have to say no. I would just anticipate that's probably not going to be our model over the next three to four years. After that. We'll have to reassess and see how things are going. But. I won't say never. I'll just say that I don't see that as being our model right now. And the master franchise thing, I believe we're definitely too early for that. I would see doing that in another country. not probably in the United States anywhere. So think of master franchisee in Canada or another country. Something like that is probably where I would see that occur first and definitely a few years down the road.

Jeremy Julian: 39:11

I That makes sense. I know you alluded to, or you said it earlier, how do people get in touch? How do people learn more? I know you guys have got a specific website outside of kinda learning about the product and the food. Mokas usa.com, but then, or Mokass coffee and eatery.com I think it is. but then you've got, you've got your franchise site. So why don't you, re re-share that for those that got to this point in the show and wanna learn more.

Jason Ingermanson: 39:33

Yeah, Mokass usa.com is where you wanna go to see all the fun stuff we do, all the beverages, all the food, all the menu, where our locations are. and that's where I would start first, because if you don't like what you see there, there's no reason to go to the franchise page and then next after you see all those things and you're mouth's watering every time you see them and you're like, okay, if my mouth's watering, it's gotta be a success. So let me reach out about franchising. I would say go to Mokass franchise.com and that's also going to have some fun pictures there of food and, limited time offers and menu and some of the things we do. But it's also gonna talk about the systems that we bring to the table, the experience we have that we bring to the table. And it's gonna break down some of the commonly asked questions that a potential franchisee may have. Then, like I said, there's a form there to fill out and get in contact with us, and I know as soon as you hit the send button, I've got, wonderful people on the other end, ready to make a connection and really get to know who we're, who we're talking to, in a very family, personable way and take it from there.

Jeremy Julian: 40:37

I love that. and Jason, thank you for creating this. again, obviously you could have, as you said, you could not be sharing this with the world, but the fact that you're going through the hard work'cause probably would be easier just to slow grow it yourself. But finding the right franchisees and picking them and helping them to be successful. I love that passion for people. And I love that you were able to share the story. So how do people get in touch with you personally? Are you, are you accessible? Is there a place that, that you would want people to connect with you off, offline.

Jason Ingermanson: 41:05

Yep, you can either go to my LinkedIn page, Jason Ingram Manson. You can go to our website, JR ia.com and hit contact us. If you go my LinkedIn page, my email address, contact information is there. So feel free to reach out, love to talk to anybody that's interested in, any of the things that we do. we also own and operate a country club here in Salina is one of our community projects, and that's been a fun project. We just opened a prohibition era, speakeasy called M 1918, and that's been fun. So if it comes to hospitality and putting smiles on people's faces. Anybody out there's interested in that reach out. We probably have a position for you or maybe we have a franchise model for you that will, take you to where you want to go in your life,

Jeremy Julian: 41:48

thanks for sh, thanks for sharing that. And I, I will definitely give you a ring when I'm heading up to go see, go see my kid, 40 minutes north of you, in college.'cause as you and I talked about, if you're in town, I'll swing by and say hello.

Jason Ingermanson: 41:58

Yes. That'd be a lot of fun.

Jeremy Julian: 42:01

awesome. Jason, thanks for sharing your story. To our listeners, guys, like I say at the onset, you guys have got lots of choices, so thanks for hanging out and make it a great day.

Speaker 2: 42:09

Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Visit restaurant technology guys.com for tips, industry insights, and more to help you run your restaurant better.