Jason Zhang’s Post

I spent three days at the Paris Baguette franchise convention in Florida. Darren Tipton opened by reading one-star reviews out loud. One was from a guest who’d come in at 6pm, and found the cases empty and half the store shut down. Four hours before close. He didn’t treat that as a marketing problem, but put numbers up instead: A guest who has a good first visit comes back about 42% of the time. Good second visit, 47%. Good third, 72%. So the whole relationship gets decided in three trips, and every one of them comes down to whoever happened to be working that day. Then he brought up Chick-fil-A. Is the chicken better than KFC? Maybe. What’s definitely noticeable is that somebody says “my pleasure” and hands you a refill before you ask for it. I work shifts across a few of our Bay Area cafés. It’s easy to file hospitality under the soft part of the job rather than the real work of ordering, waste, and merchandising. But the bread is the same in every store in the country, the 6pm case isn’t. Labor is only ever a cost on a P&L line, but it’s the actual product. Thanks to Darren, the operators and the suppliers who took some time with a student this week. #BakedInExcellence #ParisBaguette #FranchiseConvention2026