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In it Together: tough calls and closures with Lien Ta & Shehzad Roopani

OpenTable’s webinar series, In it Together, tackles key topics facing the industry during the COVID-19 crisis. What does hospitality look like in a time of emergency? How can we support our communities today, both financially and emotionally? Hosted by OpenTable’s leadership team, the platform brings together restaurant leaders and experts to foster conversation and share advice during uncertain times. Register for free for upcoming webinars.

For restaurants, 2020 has been marked by government loan applications and business model overhauls, all strategies to weather the financially devastating COVID-19 storm. Now, six months into the pandemic, some operators are being forced to ask: when is it time to close for good?

In this week’s In it Together discussion, OpenTable CMO Jessica Jensen spoke with Lien Ta, co-owner of Los Angeles’ All Day Baby and the recently shuttered Here’s Looking at You, and Shehzad Roopani, CEO of Peli Peli South African Kitchen. In their conversation, the restaurateurs opened up about the tough calls they’ve made during the pandemic and what led them ultimately to decide to close a restaurant.

“You have to look at the data and accept the data, and take away the emotions,” said Roopani. “There are risks you can appreciate and understand, but if you can no longer manage that risk, you have to say no. Otherwise, all you’re going to do is disappoint a lot of people.”

Why some concepts flex, and others falter

A restaurant’s ability to survive the pandemic may come down to dollars and cents, but a host of factors influence income: location, concept, and longevity, to name a few. As Ta summed it up, “Nobody was coming to Here’s Looking at You, but some people were still coming to All Day Baby.”

Ta made the difficult decision to close Here’s Looking at You a day before its fourth birthday. The restaurant had made a name for itself as a sit-down, celebratory experience, with only 11 tables and a 15-seat bar. As one of the first boutique restaurants in Koreatown, the centralized location made it a perfect meeting place for groups coming from opposite sides of town. But “with shelter-in-place rules, people weren’t traveling all over the place for something in a to-go container,” Ta said.

All Day Baby was newer, having opened just last fall. “The allure and the joy was still being defined,” Ta explained. After being mandated to close, her team sold biscuit sandwiches out of a takeout window, allowing guests to select a pickup time and avoid lines. Guests who had never visited the restaurant before the pandemic came to the takeout window and embraced the experience, allowing All Day Baby to win over a new clientele.

Like Ta, Roopani operated both fine dining (Peli Peli) and fast casual (Peli Peli Kitchen) businesses, and knew with the onset of the pandemic that the former wouldn’t be sustainable. “We were [already] very vulnerable,” he said. “We’ve been playing defense for a long time.”

They laid off everyone but their executive staff, who took a variable compensation structure, and enough employees to conduct off-premise sales. The team shifted their focus to takeout and delivery and developed a more efficient menu of less expensive dishes.

For Roopani, refocusing the business also meant establishing more clarity around the brand. Though the South African influence hovered around Peli Peli since its 2009 launch, it was never central to the concept. Now, that’s changed: the new Peli Peli South African Kitchen focuses on culture as a pivotal part of the dining experience.

“Culture is the new technology,” Roopani said. “We see people over the next five years gravitating to ideals in the human component.”

Renegotiate – and reimagine – everything

In developing a new concept and trying to keep his business afloat, Roopani leveraged every possible tactic. In addition to prioritizing takeout and delivery, his team partnered with Kroger to sell prepared boxed meals in local stores. (“It was a business model we were excited about, but I’d be lying if I told you we made any money off of it.”) When they did finally decide to shift their business model, Roopani said, “we renegotiated everything.”

They shifted to a variable model, paying vendors based on sales. They restructured leases. They worked to set expectations with all business partners, removing some of the constant pressure of uncertainty. Now, Roopani is committed to eliminating any fixed costs that his company can’t manage.

“If I continue, I’m going to wake up in January with more liabilities,” he explained. “I’d be back in the same defense model that I was in prior to COVID. I’m not going to repeat history – my executive team and I are taking a hard, critical approach.”

Inflated food prices have also required significant adjustment. Pork supply is limited and expensive, leading Ta’s chef partner Jonathan Whitener to buy beef ribs instead. The cost of to-go containers, bags, and cookie sleeves has skyrocketed – all things she didn’t have to buy in abundance before. At Peli Peli, Roopani has shifted his guest communications to promote takeout over delivery in order to avoid the costs associated with the latter.

For Ta, shifting her business model has also meant looking for new ways to generate sales and keep her staff employed. She reached out to programs employing small restaurants to cook for front-line workers, but they were oversubscribed – so she decided to create her own.

Currently, her team is working with the social service nonprofit El Nido Family Centers, preparing meals for a housing community in Watts. “They are providing us with something to do and another means of keeping our lights on.”

Building a healthier industry

Ta and Roopani both agreed that despite all of the current challenges, this moment presents an opportunity to transform the industry for the future. “We can look at this as a really large reset of an industry that’s a little fragile and broken anyway,” said Ta.

Roopani wants to see more protections for small, independent restaurants. Since restaurants often work with larger vendors, they aren’t always able to defend themselves in the face of conflict – legal battles are too expensive and time-consuming. Without regulatory protections, any adversity puts their business in danger.

For Ta, the future is political. She appeared on video during the recent Democratic National Convention to tell her story as a small business owner during the pandemic, and she’s trying to raise awareness about voting. Also on her mind? Wage disparity and tipping.

“If we are to think about this in a large way, do we really need to be on this tipping model?” she asked. “Can we pay the creatives in the back the same way we pay creatives in the front? We’ve all seen what it’s like to lose our jobs. We all need to think more about how we can truly sustain the industry.”

In it Together: reinventing the industry with Andrew Zimmern & Rohini Dey

OpenTable’s webinar series, In it Together, tackles key topics facing the industry during the COVID-19 crisis. What does hospitality look like in a time of emergency? How can we support our communities today, both financially and emotionally? Hosted by our COO Andrea Johnston, the platform brings together restaurant leaders and experts to foster conversation and share advice during uncertain times. Register for free for upcoming webinars.

The only constant for restaurants during the coronavirus pandemic is change: closures, partial reopenings, new regulations and protocols, and (in some cases) re-closures. Operators have been forced to adapt at lightning speed, from food and beverage programs and business models to guest interactions.

That’s a tremendous burden on restaurants – but it may also present an opportunity. In this week’s In it Together discussion, OpenTable’s Andrea Johnston spoke with James Beard award-winning chef, TV host, and social justice advocate Andrew Zimmern and restaurateur, James Beard Foundation Trustee, and women’s advocate Rohini Dey, PhD. Together, they explored the future of the restaurant industry and shared ideas on how to take this moment to reflect and re-emerge stronger than before.

“Food people are the best people in the world,” said Zimmern. “Even when our own house is burning down, we’re still trying to think of ways to help the people who are in the building with us. Every month I see new reasons to be hopeful.”

Reinventing… the menu

Dey said she had always offered entrees grudgingly at her Chicago restaurant Vermilion, which melds Indian and Latin American cuisines, preferring formats that allow diners to taste a variety of flavors. After reopening this month following the COVID-19 closure, she’s finally offering a menu that suits her style: more small- and medium-sized plates, unbundled accompaniments, and less ceremony overall.

“Now it’s all about what the guest wants,” she said. “Not the chef model.”

Additionally, her young, diverse team has been actively involved in recent protests for racial justice. Together, they introduced Beyond Borders, a series spotlighting phenomenal cuisines that have historically been marginalized in the U.S.

Reinventing… the hospitality

Zimmern is involved in a number of restaurant businesses, and each has responded differently to the pandemic – one shutting down entirely and others focusing on contactless delivery, takeout, and patio dining. “We have to engage with the diner in a new way,” he said.

His five-step plan for the future? “Save the cash, pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot.” Instead of fixating on when things go “back to normal,” he advised thinking of this time as an opportunity to be creative in terms of operations.

As an example, Zimmern pointed to robotics. A couple of years ago, he was Twitter-shamed for profiling a restaurant that used robotics. Today, hundreds of robot-assisted restaurants are on the rise as a strategy to facilitate contactless food delivery. “Everything should be on the table to maximize dollars.”

Reinventing… the business model

With restaurant revenues slashed, the question of how to maximize dollars is top of mind for chefs and operators. Many have already renegotiated leases, reduced the size of their team, and moved to leaner, more efficient menus. What now?

Dey listed four ways restaurants can adapt their business models to thrive in the future: delivery and curbside service; off-site dining, including pop-ups and collaborations; retail products, such as grocery; and experiences, moving food service into unexpected spaces like art galleries.

Zimmern agreed that with more people cooking at home, grocery and retail present growth opportunities. “Everyone’s saying, ‘where do I get that rice, or that pot?’ The ready-to-eat space has a lot of promise.”

Reinventing… the supply chain

Not only chefs, but small farmers and purveyors are struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic. Zimmern noted that with the government banning some work visas, “there will be no one to pick tomatoes in Tennessee or crabs in Maryland or grapes in California.” He called for more protection for immigrant workers.

Additionally, many small farms raise specialty products (think Wagyu beef) that are not available in supermarkets but do go to restaurants. “We need to think about not only what we are raising but where we are serving it,” Zimmern said.

Take seafood, for example. According to Zimmern, 75 to 85 percent of seafood that’s harvested is sold in restaurants, not markets. “The seafood industry has basically gone dark,” he said. Maintaining a healthy supply chain throughout and beyond the coronavirus pandemic will require awareness, action, and resolve from the food industry.

Reinventing… the pay structure

Despite living in survival mode, social justice is still top of mind for restaurant owners and employees. Dey moved away from the tip credit model in her restaurant, aiming for more equity across the front and back of the house, and also plans to introduce a surcharge to invest in employee education. “We want to pay our employees better despite the higher cost,” she said.

Zimmern is encouraged, too. He predicted that in a few years, the pay structure and financial equity structure in restaurants will be radically different from the current reality.

The coffee trade makes a good case study. Zimmern explained that Starbucks was able to grow because of its fair trade policy, and customers got used to paying $4 for a cup instead of 50 cents. “We’re going to see the same thing in this country when it comes to food,” he said. “Gone are the days when we deflate the cost of a menu item. We’re going to have to pay farmers what it costs for a chicken and pass that onto the customer.”

Both Zimmern and Dey indicated that now is a time to be innovative and bold, not fearful. “The whole creative destruction right now gives us a degree of freedom,” said Dey. “I’m taking my chances.”

In it Together: reopening and the guest experience with Lynn Juang & Juan Correa

OpenTable’s webinar series, In it Together, tackles key topics facing the industry during the COVID-19 crisis. What does hospitality look like in a time of emergency? How can we support our communities today, both financially and emotionally? Hosted by our COO Andrea Johnston, the platform brings together restaurant leaders and experts to foster conversation and share advice during uncertain times. Register for free for upcoming webinars.

Across the globe, restaurants are slowly opening their doors to diners, whether through pickup and delivery services, partial-capacity dining rooms, or outdoor spaces. For many operators, that means adopting their business, brand, and concept to a new and constantly changing reality.

In this week’s In it Together discussion, OpenTable’s Andrea Johnston spoke with Lynn Juang, COO of hospitality creative agency Brand Bureau, and Juan Correa, the New York restaurateur behind Llama Inn and Llama San. Together, they dove into best practices for reopening – keeping brand and design top of mind.

“We are social beings – we crave connection and interaction,” said Juang. “Restaurants, bars, and cafes are here to stay in some way, shape, or form. Why do people go out to eat and drink? We have to identify those core drivers and start to think about more creative ways to answer [that need] in a new situation.”

Adapt your menu to new circumstances

“We don’t like the takeout business,” Correa laughed. “But it’s going to be part of the new normal. We’re going to have to live with that and get much better at it.”

When NYC restaurants were first ordered to shut down, Correa’s top concern was for his staff’s safety and financial well-being. A few weeks ago, he started takeout and delivery so that he could keep paying employees and keep the businesses afloat. That shift required considerable changes to his Peruvian menu, crafted by his chef and partner Erik Ramirez.

“Erik cooks in a specific manner, and traditionally our food hasn’t traveled very well,” he said. “We were nervous about customers receiving something that didn’t meet [our] standards.” They shortened their menus to highlight dishes that would travel well (think quinoa salad over ceviche) and reduce food waste. The updated menu also reflected a range of prices to accommodate a wide audience of guests.

Be as nimble and flexible as possible

Juang’s advice to clients has been to treat this period as one long friends and family preview – to test a concept, see what happens, and be ready to test something else. Gauge how guests are responding to new offerings, and how they’re interacting with your space, food, and packaging. Solicit feedback and react to it.

“Some clients want to dip their toes into takeout, or open their façade to the street,” she said. “It can’t be at a high cost, because in a couple of weeks the guidelines might be different, or there could be another lockdown. It’s a hard balance, and being patient and flexible is key.”

Because future regulations remain uncertain, Juang prefers light lifts over big ones. Her clients are layering in new sanitation stations and maximizing space between tables, and some are even experimenting with design solutions like modular partitions and screens. But since any solution may have to be temporary, now may not be the time for a full redesign.

Reconsider staff roles and processes

For Correa, reopening means learning new health guidelines, including increased sanitation of surfaces, social distancing, staff health checks, and more. It also means rethinking their employees’ functions and responsibilities.

At Llama Inn, it’s all hands on deck – everyone pitches in with all tasks. At Llama San, roles are more precise, with one staff member clearing tables and another running food. For Correa, the latter model feels more appropriate to this moment. “How do we craft roles so we can minimize the exposure a given guest has to our staff?” he asked. He is looking at ways for guests to interact with only one or two employees per visit.

With evolving roles comes new processes. For example, guests at Llama San and Llama Inn will receive a single disposable menu printed front and back, along with a digital menu option for those who prefer not to touch a menu. Instead of a massive wine list, guests will see an abbreviated wine list that’s updated weekly.

Ultimately, these changes come down to learning to be hospitable while also being efficient. “With more options in front of them, it’s harder for guests to make up their minds, and they have more questions for servers,” he added. “We want to provide all the hospitality, but we also want to limit the time of exposure.”

Tell your story through a new medium

In addition to being a standout chef, Ramirez has excellent taste, Correa said. His partner brought in bamboo packaging for their takeout orders to make sure the food is presented well, and also prints cards that explain each dish – the ingredients, components, and how to assemble or reheat it if it gets cold.

“Our food is Peruvian and has a lot of context – clients are not necessarily familiar,” Correa said. For example, Llama Inn’s Lomo Saltado features hanger steak, a scallion crepe, and toppings like avocado and rocoto crema and is intended to be assembled before eating. “We’re just starting, but we’re trying to learn and listen to what guests are telling us.”

Communicate safety measures with humanity

For many operators, balancing the sterility of sanitation procedures with warm hospitality poses a challenge. Juang recommends a messaging approach that blends transparency and honesty with vulnerability.

“This is all new for everyone,” she said. “It’s being honest about what we know and what we don’t know, and what we’re doing based on the information we have. That brings humanity to communications. And that’s what we’re looking to do – to rebuild trust with everyone walking through our doors and eating our food and drinking our drinks.”

Start with a tight, well thought-out operation, and layer on personality around that. Also, be clear that safety is a two-way street, and restaurants have expectations of guests, too. That doesn’t mean plastering signs on every wall reminding guests to wash their hands, it means straightforward, warm messaging emphasizing that we’re all in this together.

In it Together: calling all leaders with Kevin Boehm & Naomi Pomeroy

OpenTable’s new weekly webinar series, In it Together, tackles key topics facing the industry during the COVID-19 crisis. What does hospitality look like in a time of emergency? How can we support our communities today, both financially and emotionally? Hosted by our COO Andrea Johnston, the platform brings together restaurant leaders and experts to foster conversation and share advice during uncertain times. Register for free for upcoming webinars featuring Steve Palmer, Becca Parrish, Elizabeth Blau, and many more.

This week a group of restaurant executives and leaders met with the Trump administration to address weaknesses in the Paycheck Protection Program, a key component of the CARES Act intended to keep hospitality workers employed. The conversation marked a critical moment for the industry: today, restaurateurs aren’t just business owners but advocates, effecting policy change at the highest levels.

One voice at the May 18 roundtable was Will Guidara, a founding member of the Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC), an organization dedicated to saving local restaurants. (As many as 25% of independent restaurants could close permanently due to the coronavirus pandemic.) The IRC was founded in mid-March, when a group of celebrated restaurateurs across the country joined a phone call with a simple call to action: Would you help us save restaurants? From reps at the James Beard Foundation to Guidara and Top Chef’s Tom Colicchio, plenty came on board to raise capital and start lobbying.

For our most recent In it Together discussion, we invited IRC leaders Kevin Boehm, cofounder of Chicago’s BOKA Group, and Naomi Pomeroy, chef of Beast in Portland, Oregon, to weigh in on how to lead in a crisis.

“We’ve come a long way in seven weeks, with 60,000 participants,” said Pomeroy. “We’ve been hearing that we’ve gotten more traction on The Hill in a short period than anyone has ever seen. You take people used to working 16 hours a day – what the hell else are we going to do?”

“We went from state-mandated closure straight into IRC advocacy,” added Boehm. “We didn’t know each other before, and we’ve become friends through this. We have a phone call nearly every morning – it’s like a support group as well as advocacy.”

Unite around a common ask

Pomeroy attributes some of the IRC’s impact to the all-hands-on-deck effort that earned the coalition a seat at the table. The organization joined forces with representatives from the National Restaurant Association and national chains to push forward a common ask – to amend and extend the PPP.

“Everyone was in support,” she said. “It was about finding the channels where there was agreement on how to save the industry.” She emphasized that even though the IRC boasts some big names (Tom Colicchio, Andrew Zimmern), the coalition encompasses different styles of restaurants, including her 26-seat spot.

Educate others about the business

“We found early on that most politicians didn’t really understand how our businesses operate,” said Boehm. To explain why the PPP needs to change, restaurateurs first had to educate policymakers about the cost to run a restaurant, how employment works, and the scope of the issue (11.1 million people work in independent restaurants nationwide).

Boehm identified two specific changes to the PPP that the coalition would like to see. First, the program allows restaurants eight weeks to reopen and operate at full capacity; the IRC wants to extend that period to 24 weeks. Next, they want the PPP to give restaurants until the end of 2020 to get back up to 100% full-time equivalents.

“We don’t want a bailout, we want the opportunity to get back to work because we’re so important to American society, cities, and neighborhoods,” he added.

Education extends to restaurant guests and the general public, too, Pomeroy said. “Restaurateurs have been so busy eeking by that we haven’t had the chance to communicate with communities about what it takes to do what we do,” she explained. “We have make-up work to do in that area – to educate about why food needs to cost what it does.”

Be honest, inclusive, and vulnerable

When it comes to leadership style, both Pomeroy and Boehm default to honesty, while remaining inclusive of different viewpoints. “It’s important to say how you feel and also find the sweet spot that doesn’t alienate people and tends to be bipartisan,” Pomeroy said. “The cause here is restaurants – everybody wants to go out to eat, whether to an old steakhouse or a Vietnamese noodle shop down the street. We can find a lot of commonality at the table.”

For her, being honest and vulnerable means sharing doubts with her team about how to use loans, for example, and whether she can bring servers back after the crisis. And if her team needs to find alternative work in the interim, she’s understanding.

Solicit ideas from others

At BOKA, Boehm is proud to have collective intelligence in his executive team, who talk through issues as they come up. He appreciates that everyone around the table has a unique style and perspective. “Abby [Kritzler, Executive Director] is the most compassionate person I know, and also risk-averse,” he explained. “That’s why she has a spot. Making all of these decisions together has been an exercise in finding the right answer that gets us to the intersection of doing the right thing, being responsible, and keeping our company running at the same time.”

Pomeroy also has great leadership, but because her team is small, she doesn’t have the same support network. As a result, she leans on the IRC. “One of the reasons I’m so passionate about the IRC is because I’m able to have those conversations and reflect. That’s given me a lot of inspiration.”

She’s also soliciting ideas from her community. When she announced that Beast might not reopen in its previous format, guests were devastated – and Pomeroy wants to use their investment to engage them in the future of the restaurant. She plans to survey her email list about what they’d like to see. “How can we all create something together?”

Raise collective expectations for the industry

Boehm pointed out that while a T-shirt has skyrocketed in price over the past decade, “a burger is still $15.” The restaurant business has stagnated while the rest of the world has evolved. A couple of decades ago, he would see a 20% profit, but “every year the model gets worse,” with higher taxes and labor costs.

“We need to look at the model, cut better real estate deals, build better pricing structures, and stop having a model that’s so fragile,” he said.

Pomeroy shared that she was shocked to hear Tom Colicchio admit that he only turns a profit in the last four months of the year. “I thought I was the only one going through that cycle, biting my nails every winter,” she said. “I came to realize that’s been par for the course.”

She called on restaurateurs to change the business model by being more transparent, sharing experiences, and banding together to raise prices and exercise their collective voices.

Embrace the silver lining

One plus side of a struggling industry is the opportunity to reinvent it. Boehm noted that over the years, as people mature as ideas become more vetted and filtered, “you dream within this box.” In this moment, restaurateurs can drop the guardrails and think big. “What do I want to be, what do I want this industry to be moving forward?” he asked. “Let’s be really innovative.”

Pomeroy used the phrase tabula rasa, or “blank slate,” to describe the opportunity. For example, she has loved spending more time at home during the shelter-in-place orders instead of working 65 hours a week. “What can I design in the future that has me working three to four days a week? There’s a lot of opportunity for us all to maximize.”

Lorena Garcia: don’t rush it

The coronavirus pandemic has shown that for restaurants, community comes first – including staff, guests, and professional peers. Operators are quick to stand in solidarity and share struggles and successes. As part of OpenTable’s partnership with Top Chef’s Restaurant Wars, we tapped into that spirit of generosity, asking chefs to tell us about the ups and downs of their careers: lessons learned, mistakes made, and their personal evolution along the way. Hear their stories, get inspired, and find resources to help in uncertain times here.

A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Lorena Garcia has spent her culinary career introducing Latin flavors to a wider audience. In addition to Top Chef, she’s appeared on shows on Telemundo and Univision. Her job titles include chef and entrepreneur behind Chica (with locations in Miami and Las Vegas) and also cookware designer, cookbook author, and founder of a nonprofit fighting childhood obesity. Her picture hangs on the Wall of Culinary Titans at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. In short, Garcia has done it all.

With her experience have come plenty of learnings about hard work, following her passion, and targeting the right market. Here, she talks us through her path to success.

What’s the best advice you’d give to another chef or restaurateur who’s opening their first restaurant?

Really prepare. Opening a restaurant is so much more than just the food and service – it’s about understanding every aspect of the operation. Have your projections for four months, six months. Study the market even before considering opening.

What was the most exciting moment in your career?

Opening Chica, my dream restaurant, with those flavors that I wanted to bring to the table – that is one of my biggest successes.

What about mistakes you’ve made in your career? Are there any that stand out?

Absolutely. The lessons I have learned through years of working in restaurants, television, my nonprofit, and my books have helped me understand who my customers are and target to their needs.

Early on in your career, when you were presenting Latin American food to audiences in the US, were there challenges you faced?

One of things I learned cooking internationally is that people on the East Coast are different than people on the West Coast. Corn tortillas are common on the West Coast. On the East Coast, people feel that corn has an almost raw flavor. What are the things that you’re going to adapt? It’s an interesting learning curve, creating foods and flavors that are understood throughout the county.

Your photo sits among pictures of Thomas Keller and Emeril Lagasse on the “Wall of Culinary Titans” outside The Venetian. What was your reaction to seeing yourself there, or how did it feel to get that recognition, especially as the first woman?

I wanted to be in Vegas and be in the company of chefs I look up to in my career. First, I was surprised to see myself there. And after I took a minute to think about it, I felt gratitude and full awareness. These are the moments that you know to continue what you’re doing, that you’re on the right path. You can actually visibly look at it. Every time I go to Vegas I feel that involvement, that love, and it gives me fuel to continue to do what I do.

You’ve partnered with Taco Bell to expand their menu. What made you want to take on that project, and how did you approach it?

I thought about it for a long time before committing to a project like that. I had the opportunity to reach the 40% of the population that goes to Taco Bell – let’s bring them an opportunity to eat something low in calories, not full in fat. I changed some ingredients that needed improvement – guacamole, pico de gallo, rice. It was an opportunity to feed so many people who may not be able to afford a $30 meal.

You originally studied to be a lawyer. At what point did you realize you wanted to change paths?

The first time I realized was in my first job, the very first day that I had a case I needed to bring to court. I thought, this can’t be my career! I left the same day and followed my passion. I enrolled in culinary school the same year. My mother and brother thought I was out of my mind that I left my job to peel vegetables, but thank God I did.

But law school helped me with thinking logically and making the decisions I needed to make in my career. It’s something that taught me a lot throughout my journey.

You mentioned before how important it was to understand every aspect of the business as an owner, beyond the kitchen. How did you learn those skills?

I started with my own little restaurant, working my butt off. I opened with $40,000 and my best friends in front of house. I was doing everything. I figured, if I’m putting all these hours in, I want to do it for myself.

It was a small restaurant, and in six months there was a line outside with a 45-minute wait. I put eight more tables in, and it grew like that. I have a strong belief: every step at a time, like a ladder. Don’t rush; give it the time you need to give it. Only time and practice will give it to you.

Why some concepts flex, and others falter

Renegotiate – and reimagine – everything

Building a healthier industry

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