Caveat emptor, all I’m saying is it’s not some kind of smoking gun 
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A bit off topic, but I’ve said that so much over the years (esp after joining my HOA Board for a few yrs)…
Okay, back to the topic. 
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Usually I’d agree but not on “wagyu” sourcing, fish labeling, or the Belcampo meat case.
On their web site I find only a second location in NY that’s not open yet and one XPot in Las Vegas.
at least in LA where they have multiple different concepts
It’s really weird, the restaurant group referenced, Chubby Group, has opened a ton of places recently in LA with a range of different concepts and many use Japanese beef. It looks like they have 14 places open in the LA area. It seems like they share common ownership structure and supply chain. TBH I’m not sure how they are growing so quickly in the current environment when it seems like the restaurants in general are struggling.
Note at brick and mortar Costco’s when they put out “individual” cuts of A5, I don’t believe you get a certificate. I use the term individual loosely when they are still ~4lbs 
https://www.reddit.com/r/Costco/comments/1hdwclq/a5_wagyu_at_costco_why_couldnt_they_just_be_one/
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The locations I see on the Chubby Group web site are mostly not in LA.
Chubby Cattle in Rosemead has a membership option. Chubby Cattle
The amount of “wagyu” Niku X is selling, they surely would be getting certificates.
no dog in this fight and i’ve never been to any of their restaurants, but they claim 70 locations in their group. not sure on the exact structure of their Chubby Cattle group, but they are related to Little Lamb, a large Chinese and/or Mongolian hot pot chain. i believe the 50% co-founder of Chubby Cattle has ties to Little Lamb in family business. Niku-X seems to be just one of their locations but a different concept than some of their others.
i briefly clicked on the youtube video and one of the issues discussed was the company’s valuation - it was advertised as $300 million (a 1:1 on their supposed annual revenue) but they now estimate $500 million in annualized revenue for this year. they must be doing very well - with 70 locations, that would mean grossing an annual average of over $7 million per restaurant. part of their business apparently is building modular restaurant concepts - something involving a factory to manufacture restaurant equipment (?) - to make it easy to open a new location. relatedly, they are testing crowdfunding and appear to have big plans for varied concepts.
whether they operate as a franchise or not was another issue, because there are legal requirements. the co-founder said they don’t. i’m not familiar with the ins and outs of this and i don’t care to look it up, but a brief Google search shows they do often use the word “franchise” across various websites, so perhaps if anything they’d just need to be a little bit careful. free boba for a review or lacking a disclaimer on some online menus/advertisements would seem to be smaller issues.
however, giving them benefit of the doubt, they might just need an extra look internally to make sure they’ve crossed all their t’s. on at least one bond offering prospectus, they misspelled the surname of their cofounder as “Zhang” instead of “Yang.” they could be doing extremely good business already, but if anything maybe their team should just do another check before they get extremely big.
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Judging by OpenTable, Niku X seems to be doing great.
It’s not a franchise but they do take different individual investors for each new location. The dude is a master at raising money from people and flying around on a PJ
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yes i do get that sense! they’ve certainly done well with getting investment.
i hope this comes off more as a friendly notice to them and less of an outright critique, but they should probably double check their websites for consistent messaging; the copy editing might have had some oversight. at least 2 of their restaurant websites and 2 of their parent group websites mention the word “franchise” in either the part about investment/expansion or what the group is directly (one of the founder’s quotes is from an interview). not Niku-X’s website, but their affiliated restaurants in the group and the Chubby Cattle website and NXT website. seriously it could just be AI copy. though perhaps there is some technical difference between their Chubby Cattle and Chubby Group. i’m not at all an interested party in any sense, but this is just from a quick Google search.
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Hmm, that always turns out well… 