From Analytics To Owning The P&L ft. Ryan Redus, VP of Real Estate, Hopdoddy

I recently interviewed Ryan Redus (VP of Real Estate at Hopdoddy). This guy has seen the restaurant industry from every angle:

• Agency
• Analytics consulting at Buxton
• Deal making at CBRE
• Brand side at Hopdoddy

Being in the analytics world myself, I wanted to understand what we overweight in importance.

Here is what I learned: Site Selection isn’t just a data problem. It is like a multidimensional board game. The best decisions happen when these forces intersect.

1️⃣ Analytics: demand, trade area, customer segments, forecasts

2️⃣ Operator judgment: visibility, access, parking, center dynamics

3️⃣ Financial discipline: labor, occupancy cost, capex, EBITDA

3️⃣ Relationships & negotiation: managing brokers, negotiating leases

Let’s dig into the insights.

The biggest shift going from consulting to operator is the bottom line mindset

When you are advising brands, the conversation is about sales forecast, customer segments, white space, and foot traffic. But when you are actually opening stores, the questions change:

• What’s the occupancy cost?

• What are the labor assumptions?

• What’s the build cost?

• What’s the cash-on-cash return?

Two of the greatest shifts in market share in 2025 came from shrewd cost management. Chili’s went on a mythical 3% market share run and started with unit economics first. Hobby Lobby absorbed 13% market share when Joanne shut down. Retail analytics folks like myself only have one piece of the puzzle.

Brand growth is constrained more by unit economics than demand. Ryan cites California and Denver as two very expensive markets. Plenty of markets can produce revenue, but not a profit.

Deal Fluency

Ryan told a story of getting passed over for the position at Hopdoddy for someone who had been closer to deal negotiation. He went to CBRE to round out that experience and came back better prepared. Network strategy is one thing but understanding lease economics and getting deals done is the full package for a VP of Real Estate.

Evaluate the “mix”

“For us, competition is the same thing as co-tenancy.” Too many restaurants treat competition as something to avoid and co-tenancy as something to seek. But in the real world surrounding restaurants are doing three things at once: bringing traffic, shaping the identity of the center, and competing for the same share of stomach. So the question isn’t “do we want competitors nearby”, the real question is: “Is there the right mix”.

Ryan described the numerator as the total number of customers coming. The denominator is the total number of restaurant options. For them Torchy’s and Velvet Taco can be positive signals because they attract like-minded customers. But too many adjacent food options splinter demand.

Your growth strategy needs an organizing principle

Hopdoddy has a geographic organizing principle: Texas+. Their main focus is in Texas as they see an additional 200–500k AUV from brand recognition. Many fast growing chains meet their demise with haphazard-PE-backed building frenzy, only to get caught out on a limb when the market shifts. You can define your structural advantage by geography, customer type, format, or some mix of the three.

Whitespace and infill analysis narrow the field

Hopdoddy partners with Kalibrate for whitespace and infill analysis. This focuses brokers on the right areas instead of sending random deals, and helps them consider relocations that have potential to bump revenue.

Parking still kills deals

Customers won’t fight friction. Forecasts matter but real estate is still physical. Getting out of your car and walking to the actual store at different times of the day will give you a feel for that friction. Ryan and his team cut deals simply because parking wasn’t good enough.

If you really want to level this up, you can do what I do: pack four kids under five into your minivan. Get the stroller out, and have them hold your hand while walking through traffic.

Flagships can be a terrible template for scaling

Hopdoddy started on South Congress in Austin. Incredible location for tourism, music, foot traffic, cultural relevance. Just “find the next SoCo right”? Well, not really. Great brands scale by translating the brand, not cloning the flagship. Practically, this means finding areas where your customer is shopping, and adapting the store to fit a more common trade area profile. Otherwise you are a one hit wonder.

Customers evolve, your format has to follow them

Hopdoddy’s original customer was young and urban. Over time those customers moved to the suburbs and had kids. They didn’t disappear, they migrated. The brand has to follow. From my analysis, Hopdoddy has done a great job of planting hip locations (Nashville recently) while filling out their Texas+ strategy further into the suburbs where those families went.

Keep listening off-prem

During Covid Hopdoddy introduced a new small format concept “Lil Doddy” with a drive-through pickup. They had always assumed folks wanted their burgers fresh. But the success of the tiny footprint store surprised them: 40% of sales in that location are mobile. It is a reminder that customers have a preference for convenience that operators underestimate.

After this interview my mind keeps going back to the core insight I have been learning this year: the analytics industry is focused on topline revenue. But market share winners focus on the bottom line first.

Onwards.