<\/p>\n
Dumplings headline the menu Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, which also serves bowls, chicken sandwiches and bao buns.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn Dumpling Shop added to its roster of big name investors this month with Keith Lee, a food critic and influencer.<\/p>\n
The Asian-influenced restaurant franchise touts \u201cShark Tank\u201d investor Kevin O\u2019Leary, Broadway\u2019s Patti LaBelle, Miami Dolphins\u2019 owner Stephen Ross, The New York Yankees and RSE Ventures as financial backers.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Brooklyn Dumpling Shop executives discussed the possibility of adding another investor and who that backer could be. A Dallas resident, Lee had tried the food before and enjoyed it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Keith Lee, a food critic and social media influencer, invested in Brooklyn Dumpling Shop.<\/p>\n
DEREK PEETS JR<\/p>\n
\u201cKeith\u2019s all about trust and authenticity and honesty,\u201d said CEO Jeff Gallety. \u201cWe started talking about a partnership investment and it came from a place that he loves \u2026 and it was then able to grow organically from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is Lee\u2019s first brand investment. The social media creator has more than 20 million followers across platforms and appeared at a Brooklyn Dumpling Shop store in Dallas earlier this month. Today he hosted a \u201cFamiLee Day\u201d festival in New Orleans, where 22-unit Brooklyn Dumpling Shop was a vendor.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just a brand partnership,\u201d Gallety said. \u201cIn Keith\u2019s own words, he\u2019s putting his money where his mouth is. He really believes in Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, in our food, in our vision, in the ways that we\u2019re building and growing this business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooklyn Dumpling Shop\u2019s footprint spans Canada and the United States. It has nontraditional restaurants in New York City at Resorts World Casino, Madison Square Garden and Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
The brand\u2019s menu includes unusual dumpling flavors such as bacon cheeseburger, mac & cheese and buffalo chicken, in addition to classics like pork & cabbage. Lee\u2019s favorite dumplings, according to the menu, are the Korean BBQ ribeye and Kung Pao chicken.<\/p>\n
Stratus Morfogen founded the brand in 2021 as an automat-style restaurant that relied on technology and didn\u2019t have customer-facing employees. But when Gallety took over as CEO in 2024, its business model shifted.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jeff Galletly joined Brooklyn Dumpling Shop as CEO in January 2024 and has since worked to strengthen the brand’s foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe brand was launched during Covid. It made a bit more sense then to have less human interaction,\u201d Gallety said. \u201cAs a new brand entering new markets, having the opportunity to engage with guests, bringing a spirit of hospitality to those interactions, being able to walk folks through our menu,\u00a0highlight top sellers and add a bit more personality to the brand\u2014that\u2019s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the last two years, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop put in the work to up its food quality, tech stack and restaurant operations, he said.<\/p>\n
The ideal franchisee already owns and operates other brands. As a unique concept, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop has less competition and can grow in an operator\u2019s existing market. The brand\u2019s variety of markets\u2014from British Columbia to Miami\u2014show its ability to take on different types of cities, Gallety said. Franchisees must sign up for at least three locations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could plug and play into their systems, where they might be tapped out for growth, or territories are all gobbled up in other brands,\u201d Gallety said. \u201cThey can go and take on a large territory and grow with white space. \u2026 We\u2019re now really able to support that with food quality, operations, technology, marketing, support, brand building.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dumplings headline the menu Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, which also serves bowls, chicken sandwiches and bao buns. Brooklyn Dumpling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,67936,67937,2645,67935,4686,18523,30751,29098,9,24,63,4015],"class_list":["post-165375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-franchise-investment","tag-franchise-ma","tag-franchise-news","tag-franchise-trends","tag-influencers","tag-investments","tag-investors","tag-mergers-acquisitions","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}