gusto! is a better-for-you fast casual restaurant founded in Atlanta by Nate Hybl. From the chipotle mango avocado bowl, to the tahini cucumber feta pita, Nate has captured the need for casual, but healthy food all different people and palettes can enjoy. Arch + Tower partnered with Nate as he’s grown gusto! from his one location in 2014 to seven locations in 2020. It has been a joy to work with our friend and be a part of the evolution of gusto! and share in the growth of this unique brand Atlantans now know and love.
Arch + Tower Business Value.
Guided a replicable business model that will allow gusto! to expand into a large-scale business and established organizational clarity
Crafted purpose statement, values, and strategy to provide a operational standard
Developed values catered towards employee diversity and partnered with Nate to foster an environment where all feel welcome, conveying the heartbeat of gusto!
We Listen.
Nate had four restaurant locations when he brought Arch + Tower in to help him identify current issues and provide insight on how to expand and do it well. He believed he had some issues with scaling training for employees, but beyond that there were no distinct trouble areas. Arch + Tower listened carefully to Nate’s hopes for gusto! and deciphered through his words where we needed to start. Our first steps with Nate were:
Narrow the responsibilities of growth
Take his leadership team through the RightPath Personality Profile to build a foundation within the team and a common language
Define what gusto! is to make replicating its model successful
We Understand.
The identity of a founder is ingrained into the identity of a business. To completely separate personal and business with a client can lead to missing out on valuable pieces of a person’s life that are pertinent to their leadership of their business. Being boundaryless in conversation with your client can provide immense insight that no amount of statistics can garner you, and that is what Nate allowed us to develop with him. The playbook Arch + Tower created for Nate was not just for Nate, the founder of Gusto, but for Nate the artist, foodie, diversity-conscious, excellence-driven, big thinker. The aspects that helped us do this were:
Explore Nate’s passions and uncover the founder behind the brand, the man who coined the phrase, “shake yourself awake.”
Continual conversation about the transcendent purpose of gusto! beyond food
Encouraged self-discovery through many tools, like the RightPath Personality Assessment
Through these things Nate continues to become our partner and our friend with a thriving, replicable business model.
We Focus.
A business cannot say yes or no to growth if its foundation is not solid. You may be able to expand, but the success of it depends heavily on the playbook you have for your current business. We dug into the details of gusto! with Nate to ensure his playbook is rock-solid and ready to use in new locations. Nate worked with our team to help him put each facet of gusto! into an operational standard for use across all storefronts. RightPath created cohesive language among the leadership team. We captured the spirit of the brand in a carefully-crafted purpose statement. We expressed the unique behaviors of gusto! with colloquially-worded values statements. Finally, we tied it all together with a customer-focused model called, Serve Up.
We Solve.
While we often create a scope of work, sometimes we create a scope of life. Because we did not limit ourselves with Nate, we were able to see his whole person, and allowed space to truly see his vision. In conjunction with an incredible team and gusto!’s developing playbook, Nate has opened multiple locations in Atlanta and allowed for a consistent model with each rollout. gusto!’s behavioral values are understood by each employee from servers to leadership through thoughtful onboarding and training. Organizational clarity and a simple-but-powerful Serve-up team model provides structure that Nate and his team can rely on. There is no need to recreate the wheel when a new location is opened and when questions arise. These strategies offer guidance no matter the market conditions or challenges.
“Arch + Tower fostered clarity and growth on my leadership team. They expertly facilitated assessments that forced my team to be vulnerable and hear feedback associated with their strengths and weaknesses. This exercise ultimately made our team stronger and there are not a ton of business coaches and consultants out there that take this thoughtful approach. They can only achieve this because are absolute experts at their craft.”
- Nate Hybl │Founder of gusto!