Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / The Business of Merrymaking: Sara Connery on Leading Handcrafted Restaurants

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The Business of Merrymaking: Sara Connery on Leading Handcrafted Restaurants · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
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  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi,
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  and today's guest is Sarah Connery, CEO at Handcrafted
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  Restaurants in Kailua. HI.
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  Their mission is to master the craft of food, drink and
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  merrymaking with Aloha. Under Sarah's leadership, they
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  have grown into a thriving group of casual old service dining
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  concepts focused on local ingredients and a warm sense of
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  community. Sarah has a strong legal
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  background and previously served as the COO at Handcrafted during
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  her thirteen years with the company.
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  Handcrafted Restaurants has been recognized across Hawaii for its
• 0:53
  commitment to sustainability, high quality dishes and creating
• 0:57
  memorable dining experiences. Now before we get into all that
• 1:00
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company Add
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• 1:24
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• 1:42
  All right, back to our guest today, the CEO of Handcrafted
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  Restaurants, Sarah Connery. Thanks for making the time to
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  Share your story today. Thanks for having me, Anthony.
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  So Sarah, you actually have a strong background in the legal
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  world. What initially drew you there
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  before we kind of leapfrog into the restaurant space?
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  Yeah, I, you know, I would hesitate to say strong
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  background, but I did, I did go to law school and, you know,
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  that was, that was a big decision.
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  There were a couple, my grandfather and my aunt, both
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  were attorneys and they were people who I really admired
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  growing up. And it was a decision that I, I
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  certainly didn't take lightly. You know, going to law school is
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  a, is a big deal. And I was never 100% sure that I
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  wanted to be an attorney, but I was 100% sure that I would
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  regret it if I didn't go to law school.
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  And kind of thinking about things in that way is, is a way
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  that I framed a lot of major decisions in my life since that
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  time. And I certainly have never,
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  never regretted regretted going to school.
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  And I've never been a practicing attorney.
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  I am barred in the state of Hawaii, but it is a it it that
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  kind of understanding and knowing that I would have
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  regretted not going as something that really drove me through
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  those those challenging years. That's interesting.
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  Where did that line of thinking come from?
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  Was it just kind of innate to you or did somebody sort of
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  coach you in that way? Like hey, you may not know that
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  you want to do this, but you will always hold it against
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  yourself if you don't at least try.
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  Yeah, I, I, I don't remember a specific person coaching me in
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  that way about it at the time. I had gotten engaged and my now
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  ex-husband is a physician in the military and we were moving to
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  DC together right after graduation.
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  And I knew that choosing to be a military spouse was going to
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  come with a lot of moves during our, you know, during our life
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  together. And so I knew that my career
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  would never be able to come first.
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  And really grappled with whether, you know, investing all
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  of the time and money in law school was valuable given that.
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  But when I was, you know, kind of framing that for myself and,
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  and looking at it, I, I just knew that if I, if I settled and
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  said, well, it'll probably never really pay off because I'll have
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  to move. I just knew I would regret it.
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  And so I chose to go ahead and and go through with that
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  experience, knowing full well what the risks were and the way
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  things turned out, turned out better than I could have
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  possibly imagined, to be sure. But yeah, I think there was just
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  like that early. Knowing that my career wouldn't
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  necessarily be on this perfect trajectory really helped me
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  frame it, frame that decision in a way that gave me a good long
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  term perspective about it. I'm a little bit curious about
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  this. Do you think that sense of
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  possible regret came from, were you worried that maybe you were
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  using that as an excuse not to go through the challenging
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  experience of law school? Was that I'm trying to wrap my
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  head around sort of this sense of regret that you were trying
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  to avoid? You know, it was that and I
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  think sometimes when we know that we're capable of something
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  and we choose not to do it, it's like there's this sense of loss
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  if you, if you choose to let a, a path go by you or you.
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  I never want to feel like I didn't live up to my potential
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  or what I believe that I could, what my potential could be.
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  And so I saw that as as kind of part of that of, you know, even
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  if I decided to become a mom and never work, like I knew that
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  that would be something that was important to me to know that I
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  could do it, could fall back on it, you know, could, could have
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  accomplished that. So.
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  Is there another example of where that line of thinking came
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  up in a major life decision? Oh, that's a great question.
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  You know, there have been so many points in business along
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  the way, I think where I, I doubted myself.
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  And sometimes you rely on other people's, you know, belief in
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  you to get you through those hard times.
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  And sometimes I think you can, I at least have really looked at
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  myself and said, OK, who do you want to be in this moment?
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  And, you know, if you behave this way, will you regret it?
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  And if you behave this way, will you regret it?
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  Not to get too deep too fast, but my husband is now my
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  ex-husband and he actually came out of the closet a few years
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  ago. And that was a, you know,
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  obviously a huge moment and in our lives.
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  And I couldn't be more proud of who he is.
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  And that created a lot of challenges, of course, for us to
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  figure out how we wanted to handle it along the way.
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  But, you know, through through each of those moments, you have
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  the opportunity to decide who you want to be.
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  And for me, it was OK, if I behave this way, am I going to
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  look back and regret who I was in that moment?
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  And instead, does this give me the opportunity to be somebody
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  who I'm really proud of? And so I think if you can look
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  at at whether it's a big decision or a challenging moment
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  as an opportunity to be a person that you're going to look back
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  and be really proud of, that's a tremendous gift.
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  And, you know, we can't always control what comes at us in
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  life, and we can't always control, you know, who other
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  people are. But we do get to be in charge of
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  how we behave. And we do get to be in charge of
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  how we react to a given situation.
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  And I think there's a lot of power and a lot of beauty in
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  that. And so I, I try to look at
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  things not just like, oh, you're going to regret this, but like,
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  who do you want to look back and be proud of?
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  And. I knew that.
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  Yeah, that I wanted to be proud of that girl who chose to go to
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  law school, even if her career, even if she didn't have a chance
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  to become a Supreme Court Justice because she was going to
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  move around a lot or, you know, whatever it was so.
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  I don't think I've ever heard it put quite like that, but I, I
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  feel like that's an excellent framework by which to make
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  decisions. Here I am in my life, this fork
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  in the road. If I go this way and I'm a year
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  from now, I'm looking in the rearview mirror, is that a
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  person I'm going to be proud of? Right.
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  That's that's the decision matrix that you're using.
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  So like with your husband now ex-husband coming out of the
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  closet, I'm going to put words in your mouth.
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  Tell me if I'm hitting this or not.
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  You know, big surprise, lots of emotions.
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  You could have chosen to be very angry, bitter, resentful,
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  hateful. And there's probably a lot of
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  that that bubbled up, but you chose a different path because
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  you were using this framework. Like, OK, I need to sort of rein
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  in my emotions here. And I want to be 6 months a
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  year, 10 years from now, proud of who I was in this moment and
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  the way I am. Yeah, you know, I mean, the we
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  were married for 1314 years and you don't stay married to
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  somebody for that long if you don't like them.
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  You know, like we truly both loved each other very much and
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  we still do. We're we're dear friends.
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  And you know, throughout that whole experience, we both
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  started from the place of, you know, hey, this is really hard
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  because I love you. And you know, so our goal was
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  how do we stay friends? How do we stay family?
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  And you can it was a great opportunity for us to like feel
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  all the feelings and go through that emotional experience.
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  It's like I'm not going to pretend that that was, you know,
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  easy or didn't confront the core of my being, you know, in every
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  way of, you know, worthiness and what is love and you know, all
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  of these, you know, deep human things.
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  But if you can sit there and say, OK, I'm feeling this way,
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  I'm feeling down, I'm feeling hurt, I'm feeling rejected,
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  whatever. But how do I want to?
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  Who do I want to be? You know, how do I want to?
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  Does that mean I should drag somebody else down into the
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  bucket with me? Or can I say, OK, this is a
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  feeling and I'm going to I'm going to think about this as an
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  adult and give it some love, but also choose to be behave in a
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  way that that creates the opportunity for more love in the
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  world, but in a different, you know, in a different way.
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  And I think that that's, I know this is getting way off track
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  for business, but I think that that's kind of we'll get.
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  Back to the business in a minute.
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  This is way more interesting and important because I think human
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  psychology and the way that we approach things outside of the
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  business world have a big impact on how we approach our
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  customers, how we approach our employees and making the
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  business decisions. So I I think this is very
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  relevant if you're comfortable talking about it.
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  Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, Yeah.
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  So. So I mean what what you're
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  talking about. Yeah.
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  Yeah, like on paper that sounds amazing.
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  Almost Pollyannish, like I like how did how did you actually get
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  there? Because you're hurt, right?
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  This person that you loved, you know, now there's a
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  compatibility issue there at like, how did how did you get
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  from that place of hurt to a place of love and accepting?
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  Yeah, it's a, it's certainly a challenge, you know, on on both
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  sides. But at the end of the day, I
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  think that, you know, these things, I was certainly
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  blindsided by it in many ways. And at the same time, I had also
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  felt not quite connected in our marriage.
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  And I think that we're all lying to ourselves.
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  You know, it's, it's a, that that could have been an
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  opportunity to be like, oh, this is happening to me.
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  And instead, I knew and acknowledged and was honest
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  about the fact that like, I had felt things being off for a long
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  time and I hadn't figured out a way to address it correctly.
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  And so for me, there was also this sense of like relief that
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  it was like, oh, this explains our disconnection.
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  And I admire this person for having the courage to address
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  what this is and to to dive deep into his own psyche and figure
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  out what was going on with him, you know, and then bring that to
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  me and, you know, bring it in a hardened hands, you know,
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  loving, kind, you know, humble way that really enabled me to to
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  do the same back. And I think when you, you just
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  have to keep for me at least it was.
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  I just had to keep looking back to that.
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  Who do I want to be a year from now?
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  Who do I want to how do I want to look back on myself a year
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  from now? And then for the relationship as
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  a whole, like what's my North Star?
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  And I have a little, little North star that I wear on my, on
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  my necklace to kind of remind me in situations of like, you know,
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  for me in, in our, our split, our divorce, the North star was
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  we want to stay family and we're not going to be legally family
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  anymore. But how do we make sure we can
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  stay family? And that requires compromise.
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  That requires eating your pride. It requires a lot of humility.
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  And I don't know if I did it all exactly right.
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  I, you know, yelled at him and I've cried a lot too.
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  And there were a lot of, you know, moments along the way that
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  didn't feel good at all. But I'm really proud of of those
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  moments. And I'm proud that, you know, I
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  even when I was crying and yelling at him that he was able
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  to move through that with me. And then at the end of the day,
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  it was like, well, I love you. And you know, this is how we're
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  going to evolve that love in that relationship.
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  And I am also appreciative of you and appreciative of the way
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  we have the opportunity to evolve this relationship because
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  even though it hurts to change it, it doesn't mean that it
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  should have stayed the same as it was.
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  Is there like, was there a therapist who helped coach you
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  through this? Is there a spiritual framework
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  that you rely on for this kind of love first sort of approach?
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  Yeah, You know, it's fascinating.
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  I fascinating to me. I won't presume to say it's
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  fascinating to anyone else, but there was definitely a therapist
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  who my husband had started working with who was really
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  helpful for him and figuring out, you know, what was going on
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  with him on a personal level. And then for me, I am, I'm
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  really, really lucky. I come from no big T trauma in
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  my household. My parents got divorced when I
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  was 18, but I was very loved by my parents, my grandparents.
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  I had a great community, you know, I, I grew up in a really
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  loving, supportive household. And and yet somehow throughout
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  my 20s and 30s, I felt like I was like AI call it being a
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  spiritual Girl Scout. Like collecting merit badges for
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  like breath work, yoga, you know, going on this retreat,
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  learning meditation, implementing mindfulness
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  practices, like you want to read a tarot card on your girl, you
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  know, whatever all the things were.
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  And you know, there are a lot of I, I have, you know, kind of my
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  daily meditation practice that really is grounding for me and
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  supportive and all of those things I thought were just kind
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  of helping me be better at business and life.
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  But I really realized, you know, when I was very lucky to be at
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  age 38 and this is the biggest emotional experience, you know,
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  challenging of experience of my life when my, you know, marriage
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  is falling apart. It was really that that all of
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  those practices were, were preparing me for I feel like.
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  And, and so I for me, it's really relying on movement.
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  So yoga and walking, and we realized that when when we
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  needed to have hard conversations, if we did them on
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  walks, it was tremendously helpful for us.
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  And I think I think there's some, some pretty good science
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  behind, you know, there the somatic processing that the body
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  can do by through movement. And if your, if your body is
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  moving, it's less likely that those emotions are going to get
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  stuck in ways that are harder to deal with.
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  So walking daily yoga and then finding, you know, when you can
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  figure out how to meditate in a way that allows you to
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  experience even a brief moment of that peace within of like the
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  space where you know you're safe and that everything is going to
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  be OK. That's a really special, special
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  thing. And it's a really helpful
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  feeling to be able to experience that even for a moment to get
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  through hard times. But, you know, I, I also have a
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  profound respect for humans in a very different way.
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  It's like I didn't have, I didn't lose a parent or a
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  sibling when I was growing up and, you know, or have any other
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  really challenging trauma to deal with.
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  A lot of people do. And you really realize how
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  distracting that emotional trauma is for people.
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  And I have so much more empathy for people in the workplace as a
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  leader, having gone through that personal life challenge in that
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  way that, you know, if you really until you experience
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  extreme loss in some capacity, you don't really understand the
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  the impact that grief has on on on your day-to-day ability to
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  function. So it's a, it's a tremendous
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  gift if empathy also. Wow.
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  Yeah. And the way that you can frame
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  it today as a gift for what it taught you and the way that it's
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  shaped the way that you can bring empathy into the
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  workplace. And.
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  And I want to explore that a bit by first sort of talking about
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  how you got into the restaurant space.
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  You kind of, you know, so not as strong legal background as I
• 18:17
  originally framed it, but you know, you were checking it out.
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  You you know, you got you went through law school, you're
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  barred in the state of Hawaii. But what opened the door for you
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  into the restaurant world? Yeah.
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  You know, frankly, during law school, that was like the heyday
• 18:33
  of the Food Network. And law school sucks.
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  It's hard. You know, I'm glad I did it, but
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  it's hard. And one of the things that
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  really got me through law school was the was 1, the Food Network
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  and then cooking. And cooking was so good for me
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  at that time because it allowed me to do something tactile.
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  And you know, you, you have a, a start with these ingredients,
• 19:00
  you get to touch it, you get to be creative, you get to, you
• 19:03
  know, put in the spices however you want.
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  And then you get this, you know, not that long later, you get
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  this wonderful final product that you get to eat and enjoy.
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  And it's, so it's this very rewarding, short and creative
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  experience. And in law school, everything is
• 19:20
  long. There's one exam at the end of
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  the semester, you're constantly reading, there's no end to any
• 19:27
  of it until that one thing at the end.
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  And then it's just this huge ball of stress.
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  And so cooking was this wonderful, like closed loop
• 19:35
  gratification experience for me. And the Food Network was really
• 19:39
  inspiring at that time because you're like, oh, you know, it's
• 19:41
  this easy exposure to all kinds of different cuisines and
• 19:45
  ingredients. And, you know, and so then I
• 19:49
  started cooking as kind of the, the fun, fun outlet during,
• 19:54
  during law school. And, you know, again, like I
• 19:56
  said, I knew that my career wasn't necessarily always going
• 19:59
  to come first. And.
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  So I thought maybe even for our three-year stint in Hawaii, or
• 20:04
  what I thought was going to be 3 years and has now been nearly
• 20:07
  14, that I thought maybe I'd go to culinary school, you know,
• 20:12
  during that time and then who knows what after that.
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  But I just loved food. I loved cooking and that was a
• 20:20
  really kind of formative thing for me during those years.
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  And I would joke in law school, like when people would ask what
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  type of lawyer I wanted to be, I would be like, do restaurants
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  have lawyers? That's what I want to do, haha.
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  I had a, I'd worked at a, you know, a very mediocre, a Mexican
• 20:36
  restaurant in high school or in a college and loved that
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  experience. It's restaurants are chaos and
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  they're fun and, you know, it's something different all the
• 20:46
  time. And the people who work in
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  restaurants are wonderful heathens and just my favorite
• 20:53
  types of human beings. And so I was just kind of drawn
• 20:57
  to that environment. And when we moved to Hawaii, I
• 21:01
  was looking for a job to fill the time between, you know, like
• 21:06
  July when we got to Hawaii and then February when I was going
• 21:10
  to take the bar exam. And so I was just, you know,
• 21:13
  looking for a thing to fill the time and and AD on monster.com
• 21:22
  RIPI think popped up and my one of the founders of the company
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  who became my boss had his actual business e-mail on
• 21:31
  themonster.com ad, which is hilarious, but he was like
• 21:37
  rookie mistake, total rookie mistake.
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  I was like, this guy may be an idiot, but you know, this is
• 21:43
  cool. Like I'm going to send an actual
• 21:45
  e-mail to an actual person like wow.
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  And I looked up the company and at the time he was the CEO and
• 21:52
  looking for an executive intern, either somebody who is a recent
• 21:56
  grad or in a JD or MBA program. And I was like, oh, this sounds
• 22:01
  perfect. Like, you know, he wants
• 22:03
  somebody with with a higher level of education, but also I'm
• 22:07
  really into food. Like this sounds exciting to me.
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  And looked up the company. And the other founder of the
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  company is one of the founders of Hawaii regional cuisine and,
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  you know, is this incredible chef who's very focused on
• 22:18
  ingredients and focusing on local products.
• 22:23
  And so it just sounded really exciting to me.
• 22:26
  And so I reached out to the, the, the e-mail address and
• 22:30
  bunch, to my surprise, got an e-mail back and my, the CEO of
• 22:37
  the company said, Hey, I just moved from Maui to Oahu today.
• 22:40
  Why don't you come meet me next week and, you know, we can get
• 22:44
  together and talk. And I went and met with them at
• 22:47
  what would become the second restaurant in our company.
• 22:51
  And he was like, I actually filled the internship position a
• 22:55
  few weeks ago. But what I really need long term
• 22:58
  is AVP of the company. And he was like, you know, if
• 23:02
  you could, you know, start out as my assistant or something,
• 23:06
  you could see if this works for you.
• 23:08
  And I can see if this works for for me.
• 23:10
  And, you know, maybe we can go from there.
• 23:12
  And it was a little bit of an inflection point for me for sure
• 23:16
  because I was really excited about the this brand new
• 23:19
  company. There was just one restaurant in
• 23:21
  the company at the time. And, you know, the guy seemed
• 23:24
  great. And I was inspired by the values
• 23:28
  of, you know, the other partner, one of our owners and, and it
• 23:35
  just, it seemed exciting. But, you know, I just graduated
• 23:38
  law school at the time. And so the idea of being
• 23:40
  somebody's assistant was like, I.
• 23:43
  Felt like a demotion. Supposed to do.
• 23:45
  I felt like a demotion. Yeah, Yeah.
• 23:48
  You know, like I've been a paralegal at a law firm before
• 23:51
  law school started and I had an assistant there.
• 23:53
  You know, I was like, I don't know if I should be someone
• 23:55
  else's assistant at this point. I'm, you know, I got a lot of
• 23:58
  education, but I decided to to take the chance and do it.
• 24:02
  And I think that that's one of those, that's one of those
• 24:06
  moments that if you let your pride get in the way or you let
• 24:09
  your ego get in the way, you could really cut yourself off
• 24:12
  from some incredible opportunities, I think.
• 24:14
  And instead I, I said, hey, you know, these people seem great.
• 24:19
  This company seems inspiring. I'm going to give this a chance.
• 24:23
  So I told him that I just needed to make more money than I did
• 24:27
  before I went to law school. And he said, all right, you
• 24:29
  know, I'll pay you 5K more than than you made then.
• 24:32
  And I was like, all right, great.
• 24:34
  You know, if it, if it works, I'll prove to you I'm worth more
• 24:36
  and, and you know, and it'll all all come together.
• 24:41
  And so I took the bar eight or nine months later and it all
• 24:44
  worked out great for. Forever you passed the bar,
• 24:48
  passed the. Bar.
• 24:49
  And you've never been in practicing attorney?
• 24:51
  Correct. Yeah.
• 24:52
  I passed the bar and one of my titles for a while and the
• 24:56
  company was General counsel and I was focused more on kind of
• 25:00
  managing our investors and operating agreements and leases
• 25:05
  and looking at new developments. And so I've always heavily
• 25:11
  relied on my on my legal training, but I'm also very
• 25:17
  grateful that I never had to actually be a practicing
• 25:20
  attorney. So what I love about this part
• 25:23
  of the story, Sarah, is how you were able to set your ego aside.
• 25:28
  I've heard lots of examples of this kind of path where somebody
• 25:33
  makes a lateral move or a, you know, step down to what feels
• 25:39
  like a step down. In some cases, it's a big drop
• 25:41
  in salary too, because they see the vision, they buy into what
• 25:45
  the longer term opportunity can be.
• 25:47
  Let me go over here and prove myself.
• 25:51
  Let me learn a different skill. In your case, you didn't have to
• 25:54
  take a pay cut, but a lot of folks do because and, and maybe
• 26:00
  they're sort of using that framework without putting the
• 26:02
  language to it that you described earlier.
• 26:04
  Like when I look back a year from now, five years from now,
• 26:08
  who, who do I want to be proud of?
• 26:10
  Like which decision path is gonna give me the opportunity
• 26:13
  for that? And so you were able to do that
• 26:15
  and clearly it's worked out. Here we are 13 some years later.
• 26:20
  And you know, you went from assistant to VP of development,
• 26:25
  general counsel, the COO and now CEO.
• 26:30
  Yeah, yeah. So I I took over for our my
• 26:35
  original boss and Co founder in 2019.
• 26:38
  So July of 2019, I became the, the CEO of the company and that
• 26:44
  was a a great few months until the pandemic hit, which was
• 26:50
  became a really exciting year to be a first year CEO of a
• 26:56
  restaurant group in Hawaii. So it was a, it was a really
• 27:00
  challenging, really challenging time.
• 27:03
  But again, it was, it was one of those times of OK, you know, it,
• 27:07
  it, I learned and gained so much from that time and it was
• 27:11
  tremendously, tremendously challenging on so many levels.
• 27:16
  You know, Hawaii was not hit hard by the pandemic in the
• 27:22
  sense that we had tremendous loss of life, but it was hit
• 27:25
  extremely hard in the sense that we're an island community.
• 27:28
  And so Hawaii had to shut down all travel to the island
• 27:33
  essentially. We're very tourist dependent
• 27:36
  economy. And so from March through, I
• 27:40
  believe it was November of 2020, if you came to Hawaii, you had
• 27:44
  to do a two week self quarantine.
• 27:47
  And so people just weren't tourists weren't coming to
• 27:50
  Hawaii. Obviously, you know, we were all
• 27:52
  at home and so our restaurants had to just close, you know, on
• 27:57
  the mainland, you could pivot to doing the to go thing.
• 28:00
  And that worked out fine for a lot of people to get by.
• 28:04
  But for us that just wasn't the case.
• 28:07
  You know, Hawaii has our islands have about a million, our
• 28:12
  population is about a million actual humans.
• 28:15
  But on any given day we've got I think about two to 3,000,000
• 28:21
  visitors who are on the islands. And so and that's of course
• 28:25
  across all the islands. But I say that to say that, you
• 28:29
  know, the, the study population in Hawaii is not what the
• 28:34
  infrastructure of, you know, restaurants and businesses is
• 28:38
  built to serve. We have an infrastructure to
• 28:40
  serve, you know, a population that's much larger than our, you
• 28:46
  know, the humans who actually live here.
• 28:48
  And so it wasn't feasible for our restaurants to be open at
• 28:52
  all during those times. We couldn't even we had to
• 28:56
  completely shut down. So, you know, in, in my first
• 29:00
  year as Ceoi laid off every employee in the company, which
• 29:03
  was a, a really just gut wrenching and, and horrible
• 29:08
  experience. And of course, I had the
• 29:09
  tremendous support of our, our 2 owners, you know, throughout all
• 29:13
  of that. But you know, I'm the one
• 29:15
  writing the letters, I'm the one showing up at those, you know,
• 29:19
  on those Zoom meetings to, to have those conversations with
• 29:22
  our managers, with our team. And, you know, and then of
• 29:26
  course, figuring out, OK, how do you, you know, as a business,
• 29:29
  you can't just lay people off. I mean, you can, but there's a
• 29:32
  lot of work that comes with that.
• 29:34
  And so, you know, you got to do all the unemployment filings all
• 29:38
  the time and you got to figure out, OK, how do we make sure
• 29:40
  when the PP, how do we get PPP money?
• 29:42
  And then how do we stay afloat with that money and how do you
• 29:46
  negotiate with all of your landlords and how do you make
• 29:49
  sure that when you are ready to hopefully eventually come back
• 29:53
  that people are going to come back to you?
• 29:55
  And so it was a, it was a really challenging year.
• 29:59
  And there is, as we all know, I mean, there's so much that is
• 30:04
  outside of our control at any given time.
• 30:06
  And I think that that taught me to be grateful for every day,
• 30:12
  but it also really taught me boundaries with my personal
• 30:15
  time. You know, there's only so much
• 30:18
  you can do. And at the end of the day,
• 30:22
  you've got to do your best. And then you you need to rest to
• 30:26
  be able to start again. And I learned to protect my I
• 30:34
  learned to protect my, my peace during my time away because I
• 30:38
  had to to stay sane for everybody else.
• 30:41
  And what did that look like? Is that the meditation that
• 30:43
  you're talking about? The breath?
• 30:44
  It's meditation, it's going on beach walks, it's saying OK, I'm
• 30:48
  going to actually choose to close my computer by 7:00
• 30:51
  tonight and I'm not going to open it until 7:00 tomorrow
• 30:54
  morning, which those are not ours.
• 30:56
  I keep now I'm much more protective about my, my time
• 31:00
  now. But you know, then I really had
• 31:02
  to. There's always something more
• 31:04
  you could do, but at some point it, it has to be enough for the
• 31:09
  day if you're going to be able to get up and do it again.
• 31:11
  And I think, you know, I was how old?
• 31:17
  I was 30. I was 34 that year.
• 31:22
  So I was still pretty young still.
• 31:25
  Are pretty young by the. Way I still thank you.
• 31:27
  Thank you so much. I turned 40 this year, you know,
• 31:31
  it's feels like a big milestone. Yeah, but you know, I before
• 31:38
  that time, I think I just pushed, pushed, pushed, you
• 31:40
  know, it was go, go, go, achieve, achieve, achieve more,
• 31:44
  more, more and and you burn yourself out doing that.
• 31:48
  That's just you. It's not a a way to work for
• 31:52
  longevity. And So what you realized?
• 31:56
  Sarah how? How did that process work?
• 31:58
  Yeah. So we reopened, it was around
• 32:00
  Thanksgiving for most of the restaurants and Hawaii still had
• 32:04
  really rigid restrictions in place.
• 32:06
  So we were at as restaurants we were at 50% capacity for all of
• 32:10
  2021. So we were tremendously lucky
• 32:14
  that everybody wanted to come to Hawaii as soon as they could get
• 32:17
  out of their houses. But we, it was a really
• 32:21
  different operating environment than we had ever existed in.
• 32:23
  And we're, we're big, high volume restaurants.
• 32:26
  And so being at 50% of our operating capacity for the
• 32:31
  health and safety standards was, was a big challenge.
• 32:33
  And hospitality was a really interesting experience in that
• 32:40
  era coming out of the the pandemic.
• 32:43
  You know, everybody was so anxious to be in restaurants,
• 32:47
  but they had also, everybody experienced tremendous stress in
• 32:52
  their lives during the pandemic. And so the expectations were
• 32:57
  extremely high. Tensions were extremely high.
• 33:01
  You know, you had people coming from parts of the country that
• 33:04
  they felt masking was offensive. You had people coming from parts
• 33:08
  of the country where they felt not masking was offensive.
• 33:12
  And everybody was melting into Hawaii, where we had pretty
• 33:15
  high, you know, standards from the government that were outside
• 33:19
  of anyone's control. And so it was a really
• 33:22
  challenging time to try to figure out, you know, how do you
• 33:25
  be respectful of your guests? And how do you ask them to be
• 33:29
  respectful of your staff who are also feeling anxious about
• 33:34
  coming back to work, but want to come back to work too?
• 33:37
  You know, I mean, we all know how challenging that that time
• 33:40
  was. But when you are in a public
• 33:42
  facing business, coming out of a pandemic when there weren't
• 33:45
  vaccines that were widespread yet, that was still felt really
• 33:49
  scary to a lot of people. Yeah, and a lot of.
• 33:52
  Staff. A lot of, I've talked to a lot
• 33:54
  of restaurants, a lot of frontline staff felt like, you
• 33:56
  know, put in the middle where they've got, yeah, one set of
• 33:59
  customers who are upset that that guys not wearing his mask,
• 34:02
  another group of customers that's furious that masks even
• 34:05
  exist. And it's like, I'm just trying
• 34:08
  to hear, you know, I'm trying to do my job.
• 34:10
  Yep, and they're just trying to do their job or just, you know,
• 34:13
  trying to make it work and trying to make everybody happy
• 34:16
  and you just can't make everybody happy.
• 34:17
  But and so again, it's kind of one of those times of like, I
• 34:21
  think I I wish we all had Mel Robbins let them theory book at
• 34:26
  that time, because I think it's like you got to let them.
• 34:29
  You got to let people be how they're going to be and let me
• 34:32
  decide who I want to be back. And, you know, but it, it was
• 34:38
  really challenging for everybody and challenging for us as
• 34:40
  leaders, you know, to try to say, you know, make every, you
• 34:44
  know, you can't always put the guests first in that scenario.
• 34:47
  And we needed to make sure that first and foremost, we were
• 34:50
  protecting our staff and then, you know, and treating them with
• 34:54
  tremendous respect and hopefully let that follow, you know, let
• 34:58
  that trickle to our guests as well.
• 35:01
  So now I'd like to hear what makes handcrafted restaurants so
• 35:05
  amazing. And we've got to start with the
• 35:08
  one concept that has, I think 4 locations because the name is
• 35:12
  just so fun. You want to say it Monkey Pot?
• 35:15
  What's the name mean, where's it come from and and what's the
• 35:18
  customer experience like? Yeah, yeah.
• 35:20
  So I think, you know, it's, it's what you said at the very
• 35:23
  beginning. Hand crafted restaurants is our
• 35:25
  mission statement is to master the craft of food, drink and
• 35:27
  merry making with Aloha. And that's what makes U.S.
• 35:29
  special. Monkey Pod Kitchen is a really
• 35:33
  special concept to all of us. And and Monkey Pod is a tree in
• 35:39
  Hawaii and it's it's an umbrella tree.
• 35:42
  It's also called a rain tree and the tree itself is not native to
• 35:46
  Hawaii, but it thrives in the Hawaiian Islands.
• 35:48
  And we use that as a little bit of an allegory for our two
• 35:51
  founders, Peter Merriman and Bill Terry.
• 35:54
  And Peter's one of the founders of Hawaii regional cuisine and,
• 35:59
  and has been a, you know, incredible chef who became
• 36:02
  famous in Hawaii for saying you grow it, I'll buy it to farmers.
• 36:06
  You know, he was a real pioneer in the farm to table movement
• 36:08
  back in the 80s. And that's really carried
• 36:11
  through the Merriman's restaurants, but also now on our
• 36:14
  side in the handcrafted restaurants, which are more high
• 36:17
  volume. And Peter's partner, Bill Terry
• 36:20
  comes from kind of a more high volume restaurant world and
• 36:24
  business world. And so they really married those
• 36:26
  two ethos and Bill, Bill wasn't born in Maui, but moved here
• 36:31
  when he was an infant with his hippie parents who came to Maui
• 36:36
  in the in the 70s. And, and so they both, you know,
• 36:42
  the monkey pod tree, you know, it's just monkey pod is a fun
• 36:45
  word to say, but the tree itself, you know, is a
• 36:48
  non-native tree that thrives here.
• 36:50
  And the cool thing about that tree is that it has these pods
• 36:53
  that it drops down and the pods themselves actually nitrogenate
• 36:58
  the soil around the, the trunk of the tree.
• 37:01
  And so life thrives under the monkey pod tree.
• 37:05
  And a lot of trees, the shade of them actually prevents grass
• 37:09
  from growing or other plants. You know, you, we all struggle
• 37:12
  with that in our yards, I'm sure.
• 37:15
  But under the Monkey Pod tree, things actually grow really
• 37:18
  well. And so we love that, that
• 37:21
  metaphor for saying, OK, at Monkey Pod Kitchen, we want to
• 37:25
  be a company, We want to be a restaurant that makes the whole
• 37:29
  ecosystem around us thrive. We don't want to be takers, you
• 37:34
  know, and we want to be givers in a way that's sustainable.
• 37:38
  So one of our values, we have 7 values, but one of them is also
• 37:41
  sustainable profitability. And I used kind of this analogy
• 37:47
  for our team during the pandemic, you know, that as we
• 37:51
  were laying everybody off, which is this, you know, challenging,
• 37:55
  horrible thing. I was like, look, we're the
• 37:57
  monkey pod tree. We've got to make sure that this
• 38:00
  thing can keep giving back and keep working.
• 38:02
  We're not the giving tree. We don't want to chop off our
• 38:06
  our branches so that the fruit can't grow and that we just
• 38:09
  become a stump because actually that doesn't serve anybody that
• 38:14
  doesn't serve our people, that doesn't serve our guests, that
• 38:17
  doesn't serve our community. We want to make sure that we may
• 38:21
  have to prune back right now, but we want to make sure that we
• 38:23
  can come back fuller than ever. And for us, the Monkey Pum tree
• 38:28
  is a real example of that. And it's a real example of that
• 38:31
  value of sustainable profitability.
• 38:33
  And for us, what that means is looking at the long term and not
• 38:36
  making short term decisions. So we want to say, you know,
• 38:42
  hey, we are, we have a, a local farm out on the West side of
• 38:46
  Oahu that's a nonprofit farm. And they support kids in getting
• 38:53
  scholarships to go to school. And then the kids who are going
• 38:57
  getting those scholarships also work on the farm.
• 38:59
  So they learn how to operate the farm while they're going to
• 39:02
  school. And it's this really cool thing
• 39:05
  for, for our local community. And so we commit to buying kale
• 39:10
  from them and they grow these, you know, rows and rows of kale
• 39:13
  for us. And, you know, sometimes rain
• 39:16
  comes and screws up that crop and it's challenging and you
• 39:19
  know, you got to figure out how to pivot.
• 39:20
  But for us, it's, it's making commitments to, you know,
• 39:25
  working with our local producers, working with, working
• 39:30
  with people to make things better and to create long term
• 39:34
  ecosystem systems that can all thrive together.
• 39:38
  That's. Really cool.
• 39:39
  That's kind of the the long winded way of and monkey pod is
• 39:44
  just a fun word to say too. It's a fun word to say and we.
• 39:47
  Like to have fun. How it ties into the story and
• 39:50
  the founders and, you know, the sustainable movement that you
• 39:52
  guys are a part of is really cool.
• 39:54
  So I've never been to any of your restaurants.
• 39:58
  What do I experience when I walk into a monkey pod kitchen?
• 40:02
  Yeah, great question. So at Monkey Pond Kitchen, we,
• 40:05
  whenever you walk in the door, we want you to, we want you to
• 40:09
  see food happening. And ideally we'd like you to see
• 40:13
  fire because that's really evocative.
• 40:15
  It's it's this kind of primal connection to life.
• 40:20
  And so we do that mostly through our pizza ovens.
• 40:23
  And you can kind of see the flames dancing in our pizza
• 40:27
  ovens if you're if you're looking from the doorways.
• 40:30
  We also like you to see or hear live music playing.
• 40:34
  So we think that live music is a huge part of, you know, creating
• 40:39
  this really special experience. And we care tremendously about
• 40:44
  our food quality and our beverage quality.
• 40:47
  But we also are really aware that we're in the experience
• 40:51
  business. And that's what makes actually
• 40:52
  coming to a restaurant special or not, is what experience
• 40:58
  you're having. So we do live music between two
• 41:02
  and four times a day at all of our restaurants.
• 41:04
  And there's also a way to connect with our community where
• 41:08
  it's always, of course, local musicians who are playing.
• 41:11
  We have one musician, Isaac, who's been playing with us since
• 41:14
  day one at Monkey Pod Coalina, and he's now put out I think 4
• 41:18
  albums of original music. And it's just this really
• 41:21
  incredible thing to have these people who've grown with us, you
• 41:26
  know, who are, whose careers have been lifted alongside our
• 41:31
  restaurants growth. So it's a really special thing
• 41:34
  for us. And then the other thing that
• 41:36
  you're almost certainly going to see when you walk in our
• 41:38
  restaurants is a tray full of of Mai Tais with honey Lily koi
• 41:41
  foam. So we are probably most well
• 41:45
  known for our our Mai Tais. And I'm obviously partial, but I
• 41:50
  think they're pretty much hands down the, the best in Hawaii.
• 41:54
  And it's, it's this beautiful yellow foam that's on top of
• 41:58
  them that we make in house. So it's, it's a fun environment.
• 42:02
  It's, we are relentlessly focused on making things from
• 42:06
  scratch. We make all of our burger buns,
• 42:08
  our pizza dough, every sauce, everything we make from scratch
• 42:12
  every day. We get, you know, local fish
• 42:15
  that's of the highest quality. And so you can have this
• 42:19
  incredibly thoughtful and high quality dining experience, but
• 42:25
  we think it should be fun. You know, you should be seeing
• 42:28
  the pizza oven, you should be hearing the live music, and you
• 42:30
  should be drinking Mai Tais and having a great time.
• 42:33
  It doesn't need to be pretentious.
• 42:35
  So how does Monkey pod kitchen compare with your other
• 42:38
  concepts? And tell me if I get some of the
• 42:41
  pronunciations wrong. Moku kitchen, Ulu kitchen and
• 42:44
  the beach house. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:47
  So both the Beach House and Ulu Kitchen are a little bit more
• 42:50
  upscale than Monkey Pot is, and Moku Kitchen is a little bit
• 42:54
  more downscale. So Moku Kitchen is our
• 42:58
  neighborhood restaurant and it's also in, in Honolulu.
• 43:05
  And but the, the ethos that that carries through all of them is
• 43:09
  that mastering the craft of food, drink and merry making.
• 43:12
  And so we always, you know, at every restaurant, we do live
• 43:16
  music at every restaurant. We have our signature Mai tais.
• 43:20
  And at every restaurant, we want you to have this really, really
• 43:25
  high quality dining experience, but we don't want it to feel
• 43:29
  alienating or pretentious in any way.
• 43:32
  Even though at the Beach House and Ulu Kitchen, you're
• 43:36
  oceanfront dining and you know, you're, it's a higher ticket,
• 43:40
  ticket average, you're eating more steak and fish and what not
• 43:46
  at those locations. But it shouldn't ever feel, it
• 43:51
  just should never feel alienating.
• 43:53
  It should always feel really welcoming and joyful and happy
• 43:57
  to be there. I wonder if you can think of a
• 44:00
  specific story or two that illustrate that commitment to
• 44:06
  the merry making. Maybe you saw it come through
• 44:09
  for a guest experience, or for your employees, or both.
• 44:13
  Yeah, yeah, You know, I think it's in it's in the little
• 44:17
  things that we do everyday and then it's also in the bigger
• 44:20
  things that we do. So this week and next week every
• 44:23
  restaurant is closed a full day for our end of the year employee
• 44:26
  party. So one of the restaurants, we
• 44:29
  rent boats and they go out on catamarans all day.
• 44:33
  At one restaurant, they rented out a local music venue and had
• 44:36
  a circus themed party with the GM was the the ring dress.
• 44:43
  This is the ringleader and the staff put on a talent show and
• 44:46
  they had DJs. And at one restaurant, I think
• 44:49
  it was last year, we called it Podcella and they rented out of
• 44:55
  space and had multiple artists come and play music and swagged
• 45:00
  it all out. And it was a really fun
• 45:02
  experience. So we do these, we do kind of
• 45:05
  these big things to have fun with our staff and make it an
• 45:08
  exciting environment. But we also really want and then
• 45:13
  of course we do great quarterly parties.
• 45:14
  We do what we call Monkey Bucks everyday and promote a lot of
• 45:20
  learning. Monkey Bucks are kind of
• 45:22
  internal cash where we're always giving people Monkey Bucks for
• 45:26
  learning or for going above and beyond for their guests.
• 45:30
  And it just creates this fun, fun environment where people
• 45:35
  care about each other and care about delivering great
• 45:39
  hospitality to to their guests. And you know, it's in little
• 45:43
  things, it's in figuring, overhearing that it's somebody's
• 45:47
  birthday and bringing a little champagne toast and a birthday
• 45:50
  pie, which we all know tons of restaurants do that sort of
• 45:54
  thing. But it really does make a
• 45:57
  difference in in people's day. It's remembering a guest when
• 46:02
  they come back the next year. You know, we have a lot of
• 46:05
  guests that. Next year you remember a guest
• 46:08
  from a year ago. It's crazy.
• 46:11
  I don't know how our servers do it.
• 46:13
  They are the most amazing people.
• 46:15
  First people I I couldn't do it, but they are incredible.
• 46:19
  And, you know, we will have guests who asked for servers by
• 46:22
  name or servers that will walk over to a table and be like, I
• 46:26
  served you last year, you know, or send over the same glass of
• 46:30
  wine they got or, or whatever it is.
• 46:32
  You know, just these little things that, you know, create
• 46:36
  this special connection for people of, you know, being
• 46:40
  remembered and being seen and being heard that they just, they
• 46:45
  happen every single day. It's and it's a.
• 46:49
  It's a special thing to get to see.
• 46:50
  So to pull that off, there's got to be some kind of a process, a
• 46:54
  system of how you approach your team, how you recruit folks, how
• 47:01
  you go through the hiring process with them, what you find
• 47:05
  folks that are good, how you hold on to them.
• 47:08
  What's the approach here? Yeah, so we take a really values
• 47:12
  based approach to hiring. You know, we think skills are
• 47:16
  easier to train than personality and we want people who are
• 47:23
  enthusiastic about what we're what we believe in as a company.
• 47:28
  And when you find people that care about craft and about doing
• 47:32
  the right thing for their guests and about being incredible
• 47:36
  craftspeople and hospitalitarians, then you are
• 47:41
  starting at a really good place. So we ask questions in our
• 47:45
  interviews that try to get at that and try to get it, you
• 47:49
  know, what the words craft and handcrafted mean to people or
• 47:53
  what inspires them and their lives.
• 47:57
  And try to kind of figure out like, is this the type of person
• 48:00
  who's going to be a great teammate, who's going to be
• 48:03
  focused on quality for the back of the house and really great
• 48:07
  execution and living up to these awesome standards that we've
• 48:11
  set, you know, in the front of house?
• 48:13
  Are they going to be a person that cares about people and
• 48:16
  cares about making the experience special for every
• 48:19
  guest come into contact with and on on all sides are these people
• 48:23
  who want to learn and who want to grow?
• 48:26
  We really try hard to grow our people from within.
• 48:31
  And I think right now we have, I think it's nearly 40 managers
• 48:36
  across our company who've been with the company for 10 years or
• 48:40
  more, which is a pretty cool thing.
• 48:43
  Yeah, it's about a third, if not more of our managers that have
• 48:46
  been with the company for for 10 or more years.
• 48:49
  I was just looking at the list this morning, actually.
• 48:53
  And so, and a lot of them, most of them started as dishwashers,
• 48:59
  as prep cooks, as bussers, as greeters and have worked their
• 49:03
  way through the ranks. And you know, I think the you
• 49:08
  can attract great people by being a cool company and by
• 49:12
  saying you do the things. I think you keep great people by
• 49:16
  actually doing the things that you say you're going to do.
• 49:19
  And then the other thing that you know, we can't pretend isn't
• 49:23
  huge is people have to make money, right?
• 49:27
  Jim Collins in good to great and his team use what they call the
• 49:31
  hedgehog concept, which is it's three.
• 49:34
  It's like a, you know, tripartite Venn diagram 3
• 49:38
  interlocking circles 1 is what ignites passions 1 is what can
• 49:45
  you be the best at in the world? And then the last one is what
• 49:48
  makes the economics work. And so if you can put together
• 49:52
  those three bubbles, it's that that middle point where they all
• 49:55
  cross is the Nexus for your business and I think for your
• 50:01
  employees too. And I think as a good business,
• 50:04
  you need to know what those what your answers to those circles
• 50:09
  questions are and how you answer them on the business level, but
• 50:13
  also how do you answer them for each of your employees.
• 50:16
  And so, you know, you can't keep great employees just by igniting
• 50:22
  their passions and just by giving them the opportunity to
• 50:26
  do something that they can be the best at in the world.
• 50:29
  You also have to make sure that the economics work for them.
• 50:33
  And you know, we're all just pretending if we don't actually
• 50:38
  look at that piece too. And so when we're looking at
• 50:42
  that, you know, one of the things that we've done is, you
• 50:45
  know, we're we're very blessed to be operating in a place where
• 50:49
  we have a ton of tourist traffic.
• 50:50
  And so our restaurants are in great locations and we choose
• 50:54
  them very strategically so that they stay busy.
• 50:57
  And when you're busy, your front of house can make a lot of money
• 51:00
  because they're getting great tips because people keep walking
• 51:03
  in the doors. But of course, you also have to
• 51:06
  have a great product to stay busy.
• 51:07
  And there are a lot of pieces that go into that.
• 51:10
  But for the back of house, you know, which isn't traditionally
• 51:14
  tipped, we've had to figure out how to handle that differently.
• 51:17
  So we years ago, probably six or eight years ago at this point
• 51:22
  implemented a 4% service charge that goes on food that goes
• 51:26
  straight to our back of house. And I know people have a lot of
• 51:30
  feelings about various service charges and tips and gratuities
• 51:34
  right now. But one of the things that is so
• 51:37
  valuable is that about that is that as the sales rise and fall,
• 51:43
  so as sales get really busy and as the back of house team is
• 51:46
  working really hard to get the food out the door more and more
• 51:50
  plates in the same amount of time, they're feeling the
• 51:52
  benefits of that too. And that that instant
• 51:56
  gratification is is really rewarding for for people.
• 52:00
  So. Let's explore that for a second
• 52:01
  because I've been to restaurants before where they'll add a
• 52:03
  service charge in there and I'm like, what does that mean that
• 52:07
  I'm not supposed to tip then? And why is the service charge
• 52:12
  added on after the fact? Why not just make my hamburger
• 52:15
  4% more? But clearly there's a strategy
• 52:17
  here. Let's walk through that.
• 52:19
  There is and you know you could approach it a lot of different
• 52:22
  ways. This is the way we chose to
• 52:24
  approach it. We chose to do it as a service
• 52:26
  charge on total food sales, not on total sales, but on food
• 52:30
  sales rather than just increasing costs for a couple
• 52:35
  different reasons. One of them is that we can treat
• 52:38
  it like a gratuity and 100% of that we can give to our staff
• 52:42
  rather than paying, you know, kind of some of the different
• 52:45
  fees that that come out of total sales with those dollars.
• 52:50
  So one, we feel like we can make those dollars go farther by
• 52:53
  doing it that way. 2 is, it's that fluctuation in volume that
• 52:57
  I think is really important. And you know, we could do that
• 53:02
  different ways on the back end by saying, OK, you know, we're
• 53:06
  going to dedicate 4% of food sale, raise our prices by 4% and
• 53:10
  then dedicate that 4% to to this and that.
• 53:13
  But it's a little bit more challenging administratively to
• 53:18
  to do it that way. And this keeps it really, really
• 53:21
  direct day-to-day, week to week on exactly what are those
• 53:25
  amounts that you can isolate very easily and say, OK, our
• 53:29
  staff was way busier this week and they're going to get paid
• 53:32
  more because of it. So it ends up it, it ends up we
• 53:38
  think just being a much more direct to the back of house
• 53:43
  experience. The other thing that when you
• 53:45
  just raise your prices, you're also giving the front of house a
• 53:48
  raise. And not that the front of house
• 53:50
  doesn't deserve a raise. We want our all of our people,
• 53:53
  all of our teams to make as much money as they can.
• 53:57
  But I think this is one of the interesting things that we see
• 54:00
  in our industry a lot is that, you know, minimum wage goes up
• 54:05
  and that's just a raise for front of house.
• 54:07
  People think that oh, you're increasing minimum wage.
• 54:10
  All restaurant employees benefit from that.
• 54:12
  But really that's just the front of house that benefits from
• 54:14
  that. And you know, one of our
• 54:16
  founders is a chef and we care a lot about our back of house team
• 54:19
  and our food quality and getting really great people in our back
• 54:22
  of house as well. And so, you know, you raise
• 54:27
  minimum wage or you raise prices front of house and gets a raise
• 54:31
  because people are tipping on their total.
• 54:34
  And we also want our guests to have the opportunity to say, OK,
• 54:38
  I was going to give a, a 20% tip, but now I'm going to give,
• 54:41
  you know, a 15% tip because I'm paying 4% to the back of house.
• 54:46
  And I see that right there. That's OK.
• 54:50
  And so we want guests to have that awareness of you know, what
• 54:54
  that what they're paying, what that looks like.
• 54:58
  And again, if you if you raise prices 4%, then they're going to
• 55:04
  tip 20% to the server on that amount.
• 55:08
  And then the house could, you know, pay the pay the back of
• 55:11
  house from, you know, just their normal income, But you're not
• 55:18
  you're you're not creating any sort of wage equity.
• 55:22
  And one of the things that is just plagued the restaurant
• 55:25
  industry for a long time is is inequity between the front and
• 55:29
  back of house. You know, you aren't allowed as
• 55:32
  a restaurant to just put back of house employees in the front of
• 55:36
  house tip pool if you're taking a tip credit at all.
• 55:40
  And so we can't just say, OK, we're, we're all taking your 20%
• 55:44
  tips and then. We're divide that.
• 55:47
  Correct, correct. And so which consumers don't
• 55:51
  know, it's not anybody's job to know that, but we we have to
• 55:54
  play by, by all of those rules. And so you, if you are the guest
• 55:59
  and you are choosing to tip 20%, the, the law is written in a way
• 56:03
  that says the guest assumes that they are tipping the front of
• 56:07
  house staff, the server who was there, you know, providing their
• 56:12
  experience and the busser and the greeter, basically the
• 56:15
  people they saw with their own eyes, you know, the guest thinks
• 56:19
  that they're tipping those people.
• 56:21
  They don't think they're tipping the back of house.
• 56:23
  So you can't include the back of house.
• 56:25
  It's kind of the the logic on the way that law is.
• 56:28
  Written Is that a federal thing? Do you know?
• 56:30
  Yeah, is it? Is it by state?
• 56:31
  By. State OK.
• 56:33
  No, that's a federal. Yeah, OK.
• 56:34
  Clearly you guys have put a lot of thought into what's the right
• 56:37
  way to do this and lots of different opinions about it.
• 56:40
  This is the way that you guys have settled on and it's, you
• 56:43
  know, you've got 40 managers that have been with the company
• 56:46
  10 plus years. Sounds like you've got a lot of
• 56:49
  longevity there. Seems like something that's
• 56:51
  working for you. A lot of longevity and, you
• 56:54
  know, again, there as, as my grandfather would say, there are
• 56:58
  different ways to skin a cat, but you know, at some point you
• 57:01
  just got to decide and that's what's worked for us.
• 57:03
  And so yeah, we're we're extremely grateful that, you
• 57:06
  know, it's certainly not always perfect.
• 57:07
  The restaurant business is extremely chaotic and there's
• 57:10
  some crazy stuff that happens every day.
• 57:11
  But by and large, you know, we we do think that the the proof
• 57:16
  is there in the longevity of people.
• 57:19
  So by my count, there's 7 total locations under the handcrafted
• 57:23
  restaurants umbrella. What does the future look like?
• 57:27
  Any more locations being worked on?
• 57:30
  Yeah, that's a great question. So we have a location that we
• 57:33
  just started construction on, on Maui.
• 57:36
  So that'll be another beach house restaurant down on the
• 57:39
  South Shore on Kiave Kapu Beach. And that one has been a long
• 57:43
  time coming. We had some really we signed the
• 57:45
  lease in 2019 and it's been a challenging experience with the
• 57:49
  pandemic and changes in the permitting department and
• 57:53
  permitting laws, etcetera, etcetera.
• 57:55
  But we're in the homestretch there.
• 57:57
  So we're really excited for that restaurant to open in Q4 of
• 58:02
  2026. And then, you know, next steps
• 58:07
  for a company are kind of in the air.
• 58:08
  We've always kind of toyed with the idea of expanding to the
• 58:11
  mainland, but we don't know if we're going to do that for sure
• 58:15
  or not yet. We've looked at at at some at
• 58:17
  some sites on the West Coast, but nothing sure yet.
• 58:21
  You know, it's I think really challenging as or and exciting
• 58:25
  as a business to say, OK, what what is our for and how do we
• 58:29
  best serve what our purpose is, you know, and for us that's is
• 58:33
  that by being the best that we can be in Hawaii or is that by
• 58:37
  growing to to be as big as we can be, you know, across the
• 58:42
  mainland or across other whether that's resort markets or you
• 58:47
  know cities. Yeah.
• 58:49
  So we don't know exactly what the answer to that is, but we
• 58:52
  are definitely exploring our opportunities.
• 58:55
  And in the meantime, as we kind of have, as we very much have
• 59:00
  for our our history, we are pursuing the next location that
• 59:06
  we think is it as an A plus for us.
• 59:09
  So right now that's focusing on the beach house in Maui and
• 59:14
  we're really excited. And you said these are bigger
• 59:16
  locations, like what's the seating capacity?
• 59:20
  Yeah. So our, our smallest restaurant
• 59:22
  is about 8000 square feet with a 250 to 300 person seating
• 59:28
  capacity. And our largest restaurant is
• 59:31
  14,000 square feet with a nearly 500 person capacity.
• 59:36
  So they're they're, they're big restaurants.
• 59:40
  What can I even compare that to? I'm trying to think of a
• 59:42
  restaurant I've been to that has 500 capacity.
• 59:48
  Yeah, it's a lot, you know. Is this like a?
• 59:51
  Cheese. Like a cheesecake.
• 59:53
  Factory like a Cheesecake Factory size?
• 59:56
  Yeah, but. Obviously wait for.
• 59:57
  The guard house we we take a lot of pride in the ingredients we
• 1:00:02
  use and the way we do it but you know, when we're looking at
• 1:00:04
  what's our hedgehog concept of what can we be the best out of
• 1:00:07
  the in the world, the way we answer that is the Nexus of high
• 1:00:11
  quality and high volume so. A lot of people can do high
• 1:00:15
  volume restaurants and a lot of people can do really high
• 1:00:17
  quality restaurants, but we think it's pretty special that
• 1:00:22
  we can do really high quality at really high volume.
• 1:00:27
  I'm, I'm obviously biased, but I don't think that there are a lot
• 1:00:32
  of players in the market that are hitting the, the quality
• 1:00:36
  that we're hitting at the volume that we're we're doing.
• 1:00:38
  Yeah. When you go back to your sort of
• 1:00:40
  Venn diagram speak that those two intersections combining that
• 1:00:44
  overlap there of high volume, high quality is very small.
• 1:00:49
  It's a special thing. It's a special thing.
• 1:00:51
  Elite Air. Well, sorry, I just got one more
• 1:00:54
  question for you today, but before I ask that, I want to
• 1:00:56
  knock out a few things here real quick.
• 1:00:59
  If you want to get in touch with the brand, their e-mail address
• 1:01:03
  is info@handcraftedrestaurants.com.
• 1:01:07
  Excuse me, info@handcraftedrestaurants.com.
• 1:01:10
  Obviously then their website is also handcraftedrestaurants.com
• 1:01:14
  so you can learn more about their locations.
• 1:01:16
  And if you're planning a trip to Hawaii, check them out, Send me
• 1:01:18
  some pictures. I want to see what this monkey
• 1:01:20
  pod place is all about. Also is there?
• 1:01:24
  Yeah, yeah. Do you?
• 1:01:25
  Do you do the virgins for my kids?
• 1:01:28
  Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:01:30
  We don't want the kids to be left out.
• 1:01:32
  All right, all right. We're, we're looking for a
• 1:01:34
  spring break destination, so I'm going to have to put this in my
• 1:01:38
  wife's ear tonight. OK.
• 1:01:40
  So as a reminder for folks, if you want to get more employees
• 1:01:44
  access to benefits that won't hurt them financially and
• 1:01:47
  carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to us at
• 1:01:51
  addbackbenefits.com. Finally, if everyone will just
• 1:01:54
  take a moment to leave us a comment or review on your
• 1:01:56
  favorite podcast app, you'll hold a special place in my heart
• 1:01:59
  forever. Thank you.
• 1:02:00
  OK, so last question for you, Sarah.
• 1:02:02
  A year from now, you and I reconnect because you're
• 1:02:05
  celebrating something big. You're really happy.
• 1:02:07
  You're out in Hawaii. You're Yeah, You're vacationing
• 1:02:09
  with your family. Man, that puts a lot of pressure
• 1:02:11
  on me to be the big thing that you're celebrating a year from
• 1:02:14
  now. Yeah.
• 1:02:15
  Can we put anything else on that list?
• 1:02:18
  Oh gosh, I mean a year from now for me, the obvious one is, is
• 1:02:21
  getting the, this next restaurant open.
• 1:02:24
  So it's always I, I'm not a parent.
• 1:02:27
  I, I, I should be very careful about how I use the metaphor,
• 1:02:29
  but it is it's like birthing a new child.
• 1:02:31
  So, you know, we've been working on this for six years at this
• 1:02:35
  point. We're right in the middle of
• 1:02:37
  building our management team. I'm thrilled.
• 1:02:40
  The woman who's going to be the the general manager of the
• 1:02:43
  restaurant is a Maui girl, born and raised Native Hawaiian.
• 1:02:48
  She's been with us since day one at Monkey Pod Kitchen in Wailea.
• 1:02:51
  She's just an incredible person. And so I'm, we're really excited
• 1:02:55
  to be building the team with her right now.
• 1:02:58
  And we've been deep in all of the design work, picking out all
• 1:03:01
  the kitchen equipment. And, you know, we just got to
• 1:03:04
  some really juicy decisions on tile and colors a couple weeks
• 1:03:08
  ago that I'm excited about South.
• 1:03:10
  A year from now, I'm going to be really, really excited that that
• 1:03:14
  restaurant is open and hopefully booming.
• 1:03:17
  And, you know, is everything that that we've been looking
• 1:03:20
  forward to it being for the past six years.
• 1:03:23
  We're going to check back in with you, see how that's coming
• 1:03:25
  along. Yeah.
• 1:03:27
  All right. Sarah Connery from Handcrafted
• 1:03:29
  Restaurants. I want to be the first to thank
• 1:03:31
  you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
• 1:03:33
  I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me,
• 1:03:36
  Anthony. It's been a great time.
• 1:03:38
  Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
• 1:03:41
  podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:03:43
  today.