Experienced executive leader Sherif Mityas is the CEO of BRIX Holdings, a Dallas-based franchisor of award-winning food brands including Souper Salad, Smoothie Factory, and RedBrick Pizza. His demonstrated work history in retail and customer interaction earned him the accolade of Global CXO of the year in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Additionally, Sherif was named one of the top 10 innovators in the restaurant industry in 2020 by Nation’s Restaurant News.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- Sherif Mityas talks about how he broke into the restaurant industry
- How did he transition to BRIX Holdings?
- BRIX Holdings’ impact on popular food brands
- The difference between a RedBrick Kitchen Cafe franchise and a frozen yogurt franchise
- Sherif’s goals for BRIX Holdings
- Sherif’s proudest moment in the restaurant industry
In this episode…
Mergers and acquisitions are big business these days. Unfortunately, it’s a common side effect of acquisitions for the original business model to be lost in the transition. So how can companies going through a M&A prevent this from happening?
Executive leader Sherif Mityas explains the first step is to get back to the grassroots of the original business model once it’s acquired. Many times brands peak beyond their growth cycle and become stagnant. So, how can this be rectified? When reestablishing grassroots, it’s essential to reevaluate the brand’s target consumer and its original end goal. Want to learn more?
Join Chad Franzen of Rise25 in this episode of the SpotOn Series. Chad speaks with the CEO of BRIX Holdings, Sherif Mityas, about how the company impacts brands once it is acquired. Additionally, Sherif discusses how he broke into the restaurant industry, how to become a BRIX franchisee, and the company’s future.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Sherif Mityas on LinkedIn
- BRIX Holdings
- RedBrick Pizza Kitchen Cafe
- Friendly’s
- Red Mango
- Smoothie Factory
- Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt
- Humble Donuts
- Chad Franzen on LinkedIn
- SpotOn
- Rise25
Sponsor for this episode
SpotOn:
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show. Powered by Rise25 Media. We feature top founders, executives and business leaders from all over the world.
Chad Franzen 0:20
Chad Franzen here, cohost for this show where we feature top restauranteurs, investors, and business leaders. This is part of our SpotOn series. SpotOn has the best-in-class payment platform for retail and they have a flagship solution called SpotOn Restaurant, where they combined marketing, software, and payments all in one. They serve everyone from larger chains like Dairy Queen and Subway to small mom-and-pop restaurants. To learn more, go to spoton.com This episode is brought to you by Rise25. We help b2b businesses to get ROI clients referrals and strategic partnerships through done for you podcast. If you have a b2b business and want to build great relationships with clients referral partners have thought leader in your space, there is no better way to do it than through podcasts and content marketing. To learn more, go to Rise25Media.com or email us at Support@Rise25Media.com. Sherif Mityas has over 25 years of experience in the retail and restaurant sectors currently serving as the president of BRIX brands, a leading restaurant portfolio company spanning six brands with over 200 locations across the country. Prior to his current role. Sherif was the Chief Experience Officer for TGI Fridays at TGI Fridays, and CEO for Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery. Hey, Sherif, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?
Sherif Mityas 1:31
Great. Thanks for having me.
Chad Franzen 1:33
Thank you. Hey, so tell me how you how did you break into the restaurant industry?
Sherif Mityas 1:39
Yeah, I mean, a lot of my career has actually been in the retail space. But, you know, obviously, it’s a very incestuous industry. Folks move between retail and restaurants and hospitality pretty easily. And so some of the folks that worked with actually in the movie business, moved into the restaurant space, and was able to join the TGI Fridays group, and and help them out for a few years.
Chad Franzen 2:05
Yeah, I mentioned you were the chief experience officer for TGI Fridays, what were kind of your main objectives in that position?
Sherif Mityas 2:11
Yeah, at that point, I really had responsibility for anything that touches the guest. Right? So it’s not just marketing, culinary innovation, but also technology, digital. And so my main focus was how do we really create a different type of experience? Whether a guest is coming into a restaurant or whether they’re sitting at home? And so to me, it was really how do we take a 50 plus year old brand? And really make it new again, make it relevant again, and really think through? How do we engender the brand to a newer generation? Yeah, obviously do that through technology. And, you know, my big mantra when I came in was, you know, we want to be a technology company that happens to sell beer and ribs.
Chad Franzen 2:53
So what were some kind of changes you made maybe to enhance technology?
Sherif Mityas 2:57
Yeah, so we did a lot around, obviously, the digital platform that we put in place, really be able to, again, connect with guests, wherever they were, when they overdue, we’re thinking about a food and beverage occasion. So you know, improving our digital content, improving our app, or website or mobile capabilities. But even going further to we were the first restaurant chains interact with Amazon, Alexa and Google Home. So people could sit at home, open their Fridays, you know, by speaking to Alexa and get ribs delivered to their house by just not even using their thumbs on their phone. But talking and interacting even when you’re in a car and you know, the on demand system and all those marketplace systems that you have in your car, to be able to not only find a Friday’s maybe make a reservation, but also order and have it ready for you when you want to come and pick it up on your way home from work. So those types of things, were just trying to improve the experience and truth and trying to improve the convenience and the awareness of the engagement between our brand between our locations, our team members and our guests was really our focus.
Chad Franzen 4:02
Very nice. So what brought you to BRIX Holdings?
Sherif Mityas 4:05
So the BRIX Holdings opportunity was very interesting to me, because it was kind of in taking what we were doing in one brand, but now doing it across a portfolio of brands. And, you know, being able to really think about how do you grow? Not just, you know, from a consumer perspective, but how do you grow kind of the, the, the, the units from a from a brand perspective, right? How do you get, and we’re all franchise so how do you get the opportunities to bring on more great franchisees, owner operators that are able to have these great businesses that you’re able to support? To me was an interesting opportunity and to be able to kind of take some brands that are across a number of different cuisine types, I mean, we have everything from sit down casual dining to salad, the phase two frozen yogurt shops, right and be able to really think through how do you create a portfolio group that’s really allows people to, to invest in different ways to interact with guests in different ways. And at the end of the day, it’s just state people’s livelihoods.
Chad Franzen 5:09
So So for people who aren’t familiar, you kind of alluded to it. You guys have a bunch of franchise franchises. Tell me more about what BRIX Holdings does.
Sherif Mityas 5:16
Yeah, so BRIX Holdings is again, and we have a collection of great brands. So the biggest one that probably people know of, if you’re in the northeast at all is Friendly’s. So Friendly’s is an 80 plus year old brand. We know what kind of ice cream and you’ll be there as a kid. And we have about 100. And so locations of Friendly’s that are up and down the Northeast, and great brand and really reemerging in a new way. Back we just opened a new fast casual Friendly’s, so a very different model again to extend what that brand can do and what it stands for. We have a couple of frozen yogurt concepts. So everyone might know again, if you’re in the east or the Midwest, Red Mango, you might see him in airports, see them on college campuses, they’re also on streetside. And then we also have Orange Leaf if you’re down kind of either again, in the Midwest, or now in the South Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt, very kid friendly kind of toppings and sugar high. We have a soup and salad. So Souper Salad is our soup and salad buffet concept. Great opportunity for kind of great value lunch and dinner. And then we have a couple others, we have our Smoothie Factory. So again, very healthy, great smoothies bowls that we have mostly in the Texas market. And then we have a smaller group called RedBrick Pizza. So our kind of 900 degree pizza oven and concepts and Humble Donuts. So just rounding out all the cuisine types.
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