Ted's Hot Dogs · Chandler & Tempe

The Window

A coffee & dessert concept, built and run start to finish — then carried to Tempe

Prepared for
Evan Ortolani
September 2026

The walk-up window at Chandler is real revenue sitting unused. This is the plan to turn it into its own concept — not a bolt-on menu item, a second occasion for a second kind of guest — owned end to end by one person from day one, and built as the template for the same work at Tempe.

What gets built

Concept & Menu

Soft serve, shakes, floats, dips and toppings, affogato, and coffee — I'm building it with its own pricing and portioning logic, not adapting it from the core kitchen's. Recipe costing and pour standards locked before anything goes in the window.

Look & Feel

I'm carrying an old-school diner and luncheonette direction straight through: physical signage, cup and container packaging, menu-board language, how the window gets talked about — one system, not a logo plus loose parts.

Standards & Training

I'm building the prep and pour standards, opening/closing checklists, waste and inventory targets, and a training arc the team can actually absorb on shift — built to run clean without me in the window.

Phase Three

Once the window's rhythm is proven, I'll build out a breakfast sandwich program — equipment and vendor decisions, a menu that shares prep with what's already running, and its own launch standards.

Tempe & the System Behind It

The same concept, standards, and training built to travel, not rebuilt from scratch — Chandler proves it, then I carry it to Tempe. Alongside that, I'm building the GM/ops layer that makes it stick: working directly with Brittany at Chandler and Mandy across both markets so the standard holds after I've moved on to the next thing.

Where this sits

This is a new piece nobody currently owns, built alongside Brittany's and Mandy's teams, not on top of them — three guardrails built in:
  • Doesn't touch how Brittany runs Chandler or Mandy runs day-to-day ops.
  • Chandler proves the model before Tempe.
  • Built for handoff, not permanent dependence on me.

Timeline

Phase 1

First Pour

Concept, menu, branding, and standards ready at Chandler — targeting two weeks from kickoff.

Investment

This is a working partnership, not a line item — and it's structured in two parts, not one flat number. A fair, ongoing base for the ownership this role carries, plus a real share in the new revenue the stand itself generates — tracked off its own register, not blended into the rest of the store's numbers — Chandler first and Tempe as it follows. My upside tracks the window's, not a separate line from it.

No number on this page on purpose — let's work out what's fair together, in the room, once you've seen the whole plan.