Karrie League on opening another early Austin location after a landlord called to warn that a competitor might move in. The Leagues describe growth driven less by strategy than by fear of being boxed out.
Also in Austin.
Correct.
And it was a very similar situation where the landlord called us and said that there was a competitor potentially moving in. I feel like most of the expansion that we've done or that we did early on was entirely based in fear.
Yeah. I read that by 2003, Alamo was making much more money from food than ticket sales. And that might have happened even before, which makes sense, right? I mean, because that's really where you, especially drinks, right? When people are buying multiple drinks.
I mean, it's all, it's really just about cost of goods. You know, you're paying a majority of the ticket on first-run movies to the studio, you know. And on food, you're paying what rounds to 25% of just food costs, right? So you have a much better profit margin. So there's still profit to be made…
All right. So you've got these three locations, I guess, and you're thinking about a fourth location. And I think around this period, people sort of approach you about maybe franchising, and you did it. You opened a new franchise, a few franchises, I think, around Texas, like in Houston and maybe…