Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Brad Barmore on Why the Customer Isn’t Always First. And Why That’s the Secret to Great Hospitality

Transcript

Brad Barmore on Why the Customer Isn’t Always First. And Why That’s the Secret to Great Hospitality · 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
0:14
adversity. As you listen today, let one
0:17
idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi,
0:21
and today's guest opened his first restaurant on $120,000,
0:26
scraped together from friends, a personal loan and two silent
0:29
partners in a space where the biggest splurge was a $28,000
0:34
pizza oven. Most people said that number
0:37
wasn't enough. 14 years later, he runs three concepts across
0:42
Sonoma County. He spent years creating recipes,
0:45
cocktail programs and systems that became someone else's name
0:49
on the door. That tension eventually had to
0:52
break and the way it broke led to something he never fully
0:56
planned for, including a face plant he's ready to talk about.
1:01
Brad Barmore is the Co founder of Kin Restaurant Group in
1:04
Northern California, home to Kin Windsor, Kin Smoke in Healdsburg
1:09
and the Publican. He opened his first location in
1:13
2011 and has since built the group into a fixture in Sonoma
1:17
County dining, landing on the region's best of list multiple
1:21
years running. But before we get into that good
1:24
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back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:18
today, owner, operator, Pitmaster of Kin Restaurant
2:21
Group, Brad Barmore. Thanks for making the time to
2:24
Share your story today. Thanks very much for having me
2:26
on, I'm excited. So Brad, you started working in
2:29
a San Jose pizzeria as a dishwasher and prep cook the age
2:33
of 15. You know, a lot of kids that
2:36
age, myself included, were thinking more about the weekend.
2:39
What were you actually paying attention to back in the kitchen
2:44
the weekend? OK, you're wired like the rest
2:48
of us. Yeah, no, you know, one of the
2:51
things that my that my parents were adamant about was that, you
2:56
know, certain privileges were going to have to get earned.
2:57
And so, you know, if I wasn't, you know, if I wasn't, you know,
3:03
fully locked in with school or sports at the time, then I was
3:06
going to need to get a job. And, you know, cars and
3:08
insurance and gas and everything else.
3:10
You know, we can talk about how cheap it was back then, but it
3:13
still costs money. So, you know, it was important.
3:15
I worked a couple days a week. I kind of lied about my
3:18
experience at first to try and get on the line right away
3:20
making pizzas, which is not a difficult job.
3:24
Like, you can get the hang of it pretty quick.
3:25
But also chefs and kitchen managers have a funny way of
3:28
sniffing out whether or not you can do something like
3:32
immediately. And so I was sort of immediately
3:34
relegated back to sort of washing dishes and, you know,
3:38
like just helping, you know, with just like basic refilling
3:41
and, you know, slicing this and chopping this and, you know,
3:44
kind of learn some very rudimentary knife skills before,
3:47
you know, it didn't take long. Like I said, it's pizza
3:49
restaurant. It didn't take long before I was
3:50
on the line and, you know, Expo and run a lot of that stuff and,
3:54
you know, sending pizzas through.
3:55
So, you know, like I said, a lot of those times I might have
3:58
still been thinking about the weekend.
4:00
But pizza's a good pizza's a good place to start in the
4:02
kitchen, for sure. Fair enough.
4:04
Were you hooked right away on the restaurant business or was
4:07
it just kind of like a means to an end at that point and maybe
4:10
you found the passion for it later?
4:12
You know, there is something very intoxicating and and
4:14
addicting about seeing like, you know, just like perfect dish
4:18
after perfect dish after perfect dish come out or the, you know,
4:22
the satisfaction of fixing something that maybe isn't right
4:24
and getting it out looking exactly right.
4:26
And when you pull the last ticket off the line and you just
4:29
sort of, you know, you can either stab it like a
4:32
professional or you can do what a lot of us do and spike it like
4:34
somebody scored a touchdown at the end of the game, you know,
4:36
out of the kitchen floor, you know, and after just, you know,
4:39
just sort of taming the chaos. There is something that's kind
4:42
of addicting to that. But at that point, I had no
4:44
like, real aspirations to stay in it.
4:47
It was a just a means to make some money and something that I
4:51
did during the school year before I, you know, took the
4:54
sort of the more glamorous lifeguard and, you know, swim
4:57
coach and swim lessons teacher and that kind of stuff before I
4:59
did that in the summertime to make sure I can get a tan.
5:02
And so, yeah, so at that time, it really wasn't something that
5:04
I like had on my in my sights for a career.
5:08
What pulled you back to it? I I moved from San Jose up here
5:13
to Sonoma County to go to Sonoma State with the goal of pursuing
5:17
a political science degree or a political science degree.
5:19
Excuse me, That was a great idea.
5:22
And and it wasn't for me. Just like I loved my experience
5:27
at university at Sonoma State, like my friends there are still
5:30
my lifelong friends. In fact, you actually had one of
5:32
my close friends on your show, Marshall Hawks, and he and I
5:38
like, you know, that core group, have been friends forever.
5:40
My experience there was awesome and I did learn a lot, but I
5:43
again, I, my, you know, grades were not what my parents wanted.
5:48
And so I had to go to work. And so I was like, well, I've
5:50
been in the restaurant business. So I went and got serving job at
5:53
a chain restaurant in Rohnert Park.
5:55
At the time, that's all there were, were chain restaurants and
5:58
I kind of liked the money. And so there would be times
6:00
where it's like, Hey, I could really use you to pick up a
6:02
shift. That's like, well, I really kind
6:04
of have this, you know, I kind of have this class I got to be
6:08
at and you know, but the class isn't going to pay me.
6:11
So it just became this sort of, I don't even want to say slow
6:14
because I don't want anybody to make fun of me for lying.
6:16
It was a pretty quick like decision to be like, you know,
6:20
after like a semester, semester and a half, I was like, I, I
6:22
don't the school thing. I'm not, I'm my performance
6:24
isn't there. You know, it's not worth the
6:26
investment really. And much to my parents chagrin,
6:29
I kind of I kind of started pursuing the restaurant business
6:32
rather than staying in school. You said you dropped out of
6:35
school. I'm into restaurants.
6:37
I'm into getting paid rather than having to pay for this
6:40
expensive tuition. And then at some point you, you
6:43
were pulled out to New York. You spent about 8 years at Guy
6:48
Fiera's, Guy Fieri's restaurant group.
6:52
Tell me about that. What, what pulled you out there?
6:54
What was that work like? So I'd worked my way up from,
6:58
you know, busting tables, like I had sort of stepped back down.
7:00
They were like Guy Fiddy's group, you know, at that time
7:03
they were Johnny Garlic's was the name of the company.
7:04
And he and his partner Steve, they were like a premier
7:07
restaurant group in Sonoma County.
7:09
They had, they had three locations at the time.
7:13
They were in Santa Rosa, Windsor and Petaluma.
7:16
I started at the restaurant in Petaluma and they were a big
7:18
deal. They were not going to just take
7:20
some server from this chain and runner park and make them a
7:24
server right away. So I, I, I mean, I didn't spend
7:26
long couple weeks maybe I'm bussing tables and then became a
7:30
server and eventually became a bartender there and then, you
7:33
know, work my way up and spent time in the kitchen there.
7:37
That restaurant, that restaurant ended up closing.
7:40
The market was pretty tough at that time.
7:42
And they hadn't, at that time, they hadn't scaled themselves in
7:48
a way that can support more than 22 to three concepts.
7:52
And they had a fourth one on the on the way.
7:54
So that restaurant struggled a little bit.
7:57
And so I spent a lot of time on the line learning how to
8:00
execute, you know, at a higher volume, you know, or I shouldn't
8:04
say higher volume, but like more difficult stations, right, Saute
8:07
Grill, you know, making salads, you know, and I'd already done
8:10
the pizza thing. So, you know, that was a fairly
8:13
simple transition. Then that restaurant closed and
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I moved to another concept that they had in Santa Rosa, which
8:17
was it was called Tex Wasabi's and it was this half Southern
8:21
BBQ, half Japanese sushi restaurant.
8:25
And it was just this party restaurant.
8:27
Everything was designed to eat and drink as a group.
8:29
We made these big 64 oz cocktails for to share at the
8:33
table. And you know, there was a lot, a
8:36
lot of that kind of stuff. And, you know, I kind of learned
8:39
there that you don't have to, you know, to borrow a NASCAR
8:44
term, you don't have to drive with the restrictor plate on.
8:46
You can it really unlocked like what your creativity could be.
8:50
It's like, who does this? Like who is putting these two
8:52
things together? You know, And so that really
8:55
cut, that was really where I like fell in love with the
8:58
business. And it's just like, oh, like,
9:00
it's like this. We could do whatever we want
9:03
here. And, you know, that concept
9:06
thrived. And I I, I moved up to
9:07
management with them. And at that time, Guy was
9:11
getting big on TV and he had somebody that he had met when he
9:15
was on his original show, the Food Network Star.
9:18
He had met somebody, his name was Carl Ruiz.
9:21
And Carl came back to California from New York with Guy and
9:26
started with us because they were, they closed Petaluma, but
9:29
Tekfasabbies was thriving. They were looking to expand out
9:31
into the Sacramento market. They wanted somebody who was
9:34
like a real assassin, which Carl was awesome.
9:38
What do you mean by that term when it comes to the restaurant
9:42
biz? Just come in, just come in and
9:45
just make his way through every station and just pick off the
9:47
things that were just dead weight, like just that that
9:51
plate doesn't work. This guy's not carrying his
9:53
weight. You know, this ingredient is too
9:56
expensive or this ingredient sucks, you know, or whatever.
9:59
It is super efficient operator, super efficient.
10:04
And so we work together a lot. We just became good friends.
10:09
And he said, you know, he had an opportunity in New York.
10:12
He left the company, he had an opportunity in New York.
10:15
He's like, you know, in his very distinct voice and people who
10:18
know Cuban from Food Network and everywhere else, 'cause he, he
10:21
eventually got on TV as well. Well, no, he's got a very
10:23
distinct delivery. And he was like, bro, I got
10:25
something in California. I need you to, I got something
10:27
in New York. I need you to come out from
10:28
California. So I was like, OK, man.
10:31
Like, like, I love this. I would love to do my own thing
10:33
at some point. You know, at this point, I'm
10:35
still 23. Yeah, 23.
10:40
And no, I take that back, I was 25, so I, I'm still young.
10:47
I want to do something myself. And I'm like, OK, well, let's
10:50
go. So I get out there and it turns
10:51
out the thing that he had working in New York was still
10:53
pretty much in the abstract stages.
10:55
And, and so I was like, OK, well, now what?
10:58
So he helped me get a job at a Pan Asian restaurant on the, you
11:01
know, Upper West Side of New York.
11:02
And I spent, you know, a few months there as a, you know, as
11:05
a front of the house manager, sort of assistant general
11:08
manager type position. And I, I wanted to see like,
11:11
hey, if I can make this work in New York and I could drive in
11:13
New York, like what market can I not do this?
11:16
You know, it makes, it will make me know, like just it makes it,
11:19
I'm testing my limits here, you know, and at the end of the day,
11:22
that's all you, you have to do that.
11:25
And so I went out there and, and, you know, I just cut my
11:29
teeth and I learned a lot about, you know, how cutthroat it can
11:33
be. And I also learned a lot about
11:36
why it doesn't have to be like that.
11:39
You know, it doesn't have to be this.
11:41
You know every man for themselves.
11:43
Like, you know, if you're not pulling your weight, get out
11:46
type situations doesn't have to be like that.
11:48
And so you had been finding that in the restaurant spaces that
11:51
you worked in where it's like, if you're even just a little
11:55
subpar, you're out of here, right?
11:58
And well, it's, it's, I don't even know if it's that because
12:00
you're so like, it's so flaky. Like the people, the restaurant
12:06
business is this like, you know, it is the land of immediate
12:10
gratification right from the guest all the way through to the
12:14
dishwasher. And what I mean by that is, you
12:17
know, what other industry do you come into where you, you know,
12:22
you choose your product, you order your product, your product
12:26
is, you know, manufactured, it's distributed and delivered and
12:31
consumed and paid for all in one transaction.
12:33
What I mean, there aren't a lot of industries that are like
12:35
that. So everybody that's in there is,
12:37
you know, is about immediate gratification.
12:39
Well, unfortunately, that comes with immediate gratification
12:41
choices outside of the professional world as well.
12:44
So guys, it's a pirate ship in a lot of ways.
12:46
So you know, it's like you're so reliant on dudes that show up,
12:50
or I say dudes, but like on employees that show up every day
12:54
that sometimes even if they're not, you know, they're not
12:57
pulling their weight like they're there.
12:59
And that's availability is a great ability.
13:01
But what happens is is they you like the machismo of restaurant
13:05
kitchens or, you know, just the emotions of front of the house
13:09
staff. Like it just becomes really
13:11
difficult on people that aren't in the in the top tier.
13:14
It's brutal people. If you've ever read Anthony
13:17
Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, that is by 100%
13:22
like accurate description of what restaurant kitchens were
13:26
like back then for sure. But you got a taste that it
13:29
didn't have to be that way. Well, not necessarily that I got
13:32
a taste of it, but like my experience was like, well, hold
13:35
on, why is he doing that and why is she acting like that?
13:38
And we could have just handled this if we had done this.
13:40
And we could have just done this if we.
13:43
Didn't have a better role model. You were just thinking to
13:45
yourself like, it doesn't have to be this way.
13:48
Right. And I, I love my time in New
13:50
York, man, I like I the energy of that city.
13:53
It's addicting like it is sensory overload, man, it smells
13:57
different. It sounds different.
13:58
It, you know, it obviously looks different.
14:00
It feels different. You know, we have dry heat here
14:02
in California. They have humid heat and, and
14:05
freezing rain, a thing I didn't know existed.
14:08
You know, the coldest I've ever been is walking, you know, the,
14:11
you know, getting off at 77th and Lexington and walking the
14:13
four blocks to my apartment, you know, like that's the coldest
14:16
I've ever been in my life at 2:00 in the morning in, in
14:19
Manhattan. But you know it, my experience
14:24
was that, you know, like, as difficult as it was and as tough
14:28
as it was to, you know, to to exist in this high volume
14:32
environment, you know, at the core of it all, like, hey, man,
14:36
let's just nurture strong relationships here.
14:39
And let's just make sure that we have each other's backs and, you
14:43
know, lift each other up here. And then that will trickle.
14:47
I mean, not even trickle down. Then that will present itself to
14:49
guests in a way that, you know, takes a lot of pressure off of
14:52
us because the the tension and the fear of screwing it up is
14:56
diminished. And, you know, that's one of the
14:59
things that I took away from New York.
15:00
And also this, you know, this the idea that like, oh, yeah.
15:05
Like, I thought we were being creative.
15:07
Texas zombies. Like these guys are doing crazy
15:10
stuff. What do you mean?
15:12
Give us an example. Well, just like, you know, in
15:14
California, things are kind of easy, like we have fresh produce
15:17
within 20 minutes any day of the year.
15:20
You know, in New York, like it's January.
15:21
What am I supposed to do with the, with the rutabaga, you
15:25
know, like, and so just like what these guys are able to
15:27
accomplish with what's available to them.
15:30
And I think, I think what we did at Tex Wasabi's was
15:35
revolutionary in that it open people's minds specifically to
15:38
the sushi concept. It open people's mind to what
15:40
sushi or what that kind of cuisine could be.
15:43
And it's like force people to step away from what they
15:45
believe. Like traditionally it had to be.
15:47
And then I saw what, what you could do to open people's minds
15:51
when you were like technically Immaculate, you know what I
15:54
mean? And so like, just just like, I'm
15:57
trying to think of like a good example, but like, you know, we
16:00
used to do these, like this duck dish that had these like really
16:04
thin pancakes on them and these things like you wrapped them and
16:08
they held up and they never like fell apart.
16:09
But it was like eating like air. They were like, like, you know,
16:14
just texturally they were perfect.
16:15
And then with this crispy fatty duck, it was like, oh, when you
16:19
like are technically sound at every level, this is perfect.
16:22
This is perfect. You know, and you kind of
16:24
started to see what that could be about.
16:26
And again, like, at this stage, you know, I'm 43, you know, I
16:31
know a lot about food, but I like being in places that remind
16:34
me that, like, a lot means nothing.
16:36
I know nothing about food. You know, I like being reminded
16:39
that there's a huge, huge world out there.
16:41
And New York really made me appreciate the idea that, like,
16:43
for all of the things that I know, it's really not that much.
16:47
And so then at some point you come back to California.
16:50
Yeah, You know, New York is funny, man.
16:51
It's it's it's really is the city that never sleeps.
16:55
And if you really want to experience it, you play hard as
16:59
as hard as you play as hard as you work.
17:00
Now, you know, I, the restaurant business, like I said, it's a
17:04
pirate ship. So you see a lot of people that
17:06
are already sort of deep in the throes of addiction.
17:08
And I never fell into that at all.
17:10
But I still didn't want to miss out on anything.
17:13
So I tried to keep up with those guys.
17:14
And, you know, it's like you're, you're out and you're having
17:17
some drinks and then it's, you know, now you're at somebody's
17:20
apartment and they're getting a little squirrelly and it's 4:00
17:22
in the morning. And now I got to go home.
17:23
And it's like, you know, so I'm, I'm leaving, I'm getting out of
17:26
there and eventually the lack of sleep just catches up with you.
17:28
And just just from a health standpoint and a mental
17:31
standpoint. And also funnily enough, at that
17:33
time I was engaged to my, we're still married.
17:37
And our goal was, hey, let's let me go get this job in New York.
17:40
I'll come back, we'll get married in August or I'll come
17:44
back, got married next August. And then we'll move back out
17:47
there and we'll just make a go of in a big city for a while.
17:49
And then we'll come home and we'll do the white picket fence
17:50
thing and the 2.4 kids and the dog and the whole thing.
17:53
Well, she came the first time she came out, it was like, you
17:56
know, the weekend after Thanksgiving and, you know, Rock
17:59
Center's lit up and the snow is white.
18:01
And, you know, the Cartier building is glimmering and
18:03
everyone's happy and it's the gifts and the whole thing.
18:05
And she was like, yeah, this is great.
18:06
And then she comes back out in like, early March and the snow
18:09
is brown and there's no lights and Rock Center is not it.
18:12
And no one's happy and there's no gifts.
18:13
So she's like, she's like, you know, I don't know if this is
18:15
for me. I don't know if I can figure out
18:17
the transit system. It just feels like a lot.
18:18
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
18:19
It's like, you know, so numbers go up and letters go cross.
18:22
Like it's really simple. She's like, I don't think you
18:24
understand. And I was like, got it.
18:26
And so I kind of put in my notice and I was like, I, you
18:29
know, like I my promises, I've seen too many people ruin too
18:32
many relationships. My promises.
18:33
I'm never going to let this affect my family.
18:35
So that was it. So we came home and that's
18:37
ultimately what sold it for, for get out of New York.
18:40
And I'm so appreciative of my time there and everybody that I
18:42
work with. You know, it was it was awesome.
18:45
I would not be who I am or where I am today without that time in
18:47
that city for sure. So you've had the opportunity to
18:51
work a lot of different places at this point, right?
18:53
But there has to be a a tension that builds when you're good at
18:57
your job, but that credit is flowing somewhere else.
19:02
At what point did that tension become something you could no
19:04
longer work around? I think it was, I think it like
19:11
I was comfortable with the idea that, you know, this thing, that
19:16
this idea or this concept or the system that I was putting out.
19:21
I was comfortable with that idea of being a part of this company
19:24
because the working for the company specifically, you know,
19:27
the Johnny Garlic's company, the text wasabi's and all those
19:29
guys, the Guy Fieri and Steve Ruber's place working for them.
19:34
They had this element when they were smaller of like really
19:36
trying to empower their managers to be owners and that made you
19:43
feel like you had a little bit of your own blood in the
19:45
building. And so you were proud to show
19:47
off some of these things. And that was a really, I felt
19:48
like that was a really admirable trait.
19:50
Well, that gets more and more difficult the bigger you get
19:53
because your time with management, you know, your
19:57
management group, your, you know, the sort of corporate
19:59
level guys becomes less and less.
20:02
So they're not there to be. You know, face to face with you
20:05
to see what you're accomplishing.
20:06
It becomes much more about what they're seeing on paper, which
20:09
doesn't always translate, right. And then I even moved up and was
20:12
helping design systems for the bars for the whole company and
20:15
doing purchasing programs and training bartenders and things
20:18
like that. And when I got into the quote UN
20:21
quote, boardroom, which was just this at that time was just this
20:24
attic space in one of the original restaurants that they
20:26
had converted. But we thought it was cool to
20:28
call it the boardroom, you know, when I got in there and I
20:31
started to realize, like, oh, their interest is not is moving
20:34
away from the empowerment piece. And that's when I started to
20:38
sort of move away from it. And that was the part that
20:40
became difficult for me because we put these ideas in and I'm
20:44
all for a collaborative work environment where you put an
20:46
idea out and then everyone's going to question it because
20:48
they got to make sure the idea is watertight.
20:50
That's not the part that that's not the part that bothers me.
20:54
Like I'm totally comfortable with that.
20:56
What was bothering me was we had these ideas.
20:59
It's watertight. We walked away from the table
21:02
and not everybody was always supporting it.
21:04
It was always this sort of like, well, it's not really
21:07
translating to the bottom line, but rather than come back to the
21:10
table, I'm just going to go in and I'm going to just kind of
21:12
make an adjustment in this restaurant for this or I'm going
21:14
to do this thing. And it just wasn't as cohesive.
21:17
And his guy got bigger and wasn't able to be in the
21:19
restaurants. That became a big challenge as
21:21
well. You know, they really try to
21:22
capitalize on his name. And it just became, it was not
21:26
what I had originally started with.
21:27
And that's really when personally, it became untenable.
21:31
And to be clear, that's just what happens when restaurant
21:34
groups scale up. It's OK, right?
21:36
It wasn't personal. You're just trying to make the
21:38
business thrive. You're trying to make sure this
21:40
living, breathing beast gets fed.
21:43
So it's like, it's OK. It's not personal.
21:45
It just wasn't for me anymore. This is the.
21:47
Cycle and now. But now it's time for you to
21:49
spread your own wings. Right, right, and.
21:52
So how does this come about You? You pull together $120,000,
21:57
friends, family. Yeah, My business partner, my
22:00
now business partner, we had worked together, he had been
22:02
with the Johnny Garlic's group as well for longer than I had.
22:05
Even I, he and I had always just kind of said we'd go to these
22:09
P&L meetings. And like at that time in the
22:11
company, I was going to different restaurants and, and
22:14
going in and being like fixing their profitability issues and
22:17
fixing some of their service issues.
22:20
And JC, my business partner and I, he was always, and he, he was
22:23
running the Johnny Garlic's in Windsor and he was always the
22:25
most profitable guy. And I was, I would always get
22:28
the restaurants that I was going into to number 2 or #3.
22:31
And so the joke at the time was like, you know, you know, I was
22:36
LeBron and I couldn't get over the hump against the Celtics or
22:39
the Heat or any of these guys just like, well, maybe I'll just
22:41
go join this guy and maybe now we can do our thing, you know.
22:44
So I took, you know, I was actually sitting in Vegas on a
22:49
family reunion on a little bit of a heater in more ways than
22:52
one at a blackjack table. And he called me and I was like,
22:55
this is a strange thing. So I got up and I was like, hey,
22:58
man, what's going on? He's like, hey, were you joking
22:59
about trying to do, do our own thing together?
23:02
And I go, no, man, of course not.
23:04
And he's like, because I think I might have found us something.
23:07
I go, oh, so I fly home from Vegas the next day as planned,
23:10
and he picks me up from the airport and we drive to this
23:12
location in Windsor. And I was like, this is a great
23:16
spot, and it's at a place where, you know, the energy is building
23:19
up. It was kind of a quote.
23:20
It was a downtown space that had been developed like 10 years
23:24
earlier that was coming back up. And he said, you know, I think
23:28
we could do something here. And I said, OK.
23:30
And two weeks later we were signing a lease and we were
23:31
still building a concept, which is not the way you're supposed
23:33
to do it. So you did things out of order a
23:38
little bit. Is this so Ken Windsor is still
23:41
here today, kenwindsor.com, is it still at the same location or
23:44
have you guys moved? Nope, it is at the same
23:46
location. When we opened, we were, we were
23:52
one space that was technically 2 plots in this downtown live work
23:56
area. And we've since expanded to a
24:00
restaurant or to a space that had opened up next to us.
24:02
We expanded out into that to get sort of a private dining room.
24:06
And it's the same place, man. I mean, it's, you know, the same
24:10
bar, that same $28,000 pizza oven that you referenced, you
24:13
know, in the open. Like it's still all that same
24:15
stuff, just cranking, cranking out.
24:17
So what is the concept? What's the customer experience
24:20
like? So we call it, you know, an
24:23
American Bistro, which is very vague because it allows us to
24:27
make whatever we want, really. So we have burgers, we have
24:30
chops, we have, you know, pizzas, salads, this whole
24:34
thing. You know, Windsor is a very,
24:37
it's a town that is really centered on younger families.
24:41
The high school, like the high school's a big deal in town.
24:44
It's a small town. And frankly, if San Jose slash
24:47
New York me knew that I'd moved into a small town as a 30
24:50
something year old, like 18 year old or like 25 year old New
24:54
York, we'd probably be pretty upset.
24:55
But it's a great place to raise our kids and the businesses
24:58
thrive there. But we wanted a place at that
25:00
time when we opened, my oldest son was, you know, he was one,
25:05
you know, and my daughter was on the way.
25:07
And, you know, my business partner, his daughter was eight,
25:09
I think. And, you know, we wanted a place
25:11
where people could go out and eat without feeling it with
25:16
their kids, without feeling like they went out with their kids.
25:18
And so, you know, so we put together this menu that made us
25:23
part of every conversation. You know, I can really go for a
25:26
burger. You know, Kim makes great
25:27
burgers. You know, Hey, how about we go
25:29
out and we split a pizza that kids got great pizza, you know,
25:33
you know, lunch, like, hey, let's go get some salads.
25:35
Like it's a great place for lunch.
25:36
It's all these things. And then our kids menu, you
25:38
know, I forgot I meant to bring one to do this, but our kids
25:40
menu was actually, I don't know if you remember as a kid making
25:42
those cootie catchers where you fold them all up and you kind of
25:45
do the. Oh yeah.
25:46
Yeah, that's the kids menu there.
25:48
So kids can kind of do the number thing.
25:50
And it's like really kind of built to be comfortable for
25:52
that. And you can even now, 15 years
25:57
later, you can set your watch to the demographic that's sitting
26:00
in the dining room, you know, 3:00 to 5:00 in the bar area.
26:04
It's the happy hour crowd, you know, like 4 to 6.
26:08
It's sort of almost retirement crowd, a little bit older, 6:00
26:11
to 7:30. It's a lot of families, younger
26:14
kids all the way up to high school kids, 7:30 to 9:00.
26:17
It's date night, you know, it's a lot of sort of younger people
26:20
out on date night, You know, 9 to 11.
26:22
It's a hodgepodge of, you know, everyone kind of that sticking
26:26
around, having a nightcap, coming in after a softball game
26:28
or, you know, baseball game or whatever.
26:31
And you really can you can set your watch and that we're very
26:33
fortunate to have that support in Windsor.
26:35
But we feel like, you know, we built this restaurant concept
26:38
that like we really jumped on, you know, on at the right time
26:44
in the right location in a town that was growing in the right
26:48
direction for us in terms of what we wanted it to be.
26:51
And, you know, and we're still doing that because at the end of
26:54
the day, people want when you go out to eat, you want to know
26:59
what you're getting. We used to say that when we
27:02
were, you know, younger, when we were in our 20s, you know, in
27:05
the restaurant business, you know, it was dinner in a movie
27:08
that's people went out on a date.
27:09
It was like, Hey, let's go get dinner and go to a show, right.
27:11
Well, you know, when the, I don't know how I can't remember
27:14
how many financial crisis we've had since then.
27:16
But like when the, you know, when the, the housing and the
27:19
mortgage bubble kind of burst and everything kind of crashed,
27:22
Well, people still wanted to go out to eat, but they couldn't
27:24
afford to do both. So it put pressure on
27:25
restaurants to be dinner and the show, right?
27:28
Like it had to be this whole experience.
27:30
And now as time has gone on, you know, it's still the experience.
27:33
But the experience people want is they want to be comfortable.
27:36
They want to be welcomed. And one of the greatest things
27:38
that's ever been said for us is when we were trying to, you
27:41
know, the clock was ticking for us to get open before our free
27:43
rent kicked in or before our free rent ended.
27:45
You know, we're trying to figure it out.
27:46
We're sitting down having brainstorming sessions about
27:48
what do we want to call it and what, you know, we knew what we
27:51
wanted it to be at its core. And, you know, developing a
27:53
menu, we say that's the easy part.
27:56
That's I don't really mean it's easy, but we could do that
27:59
because we knew what we wanted it to be there.
28:00
But trying to figure out what the brand was.
28:02
My business partner said, hey, when people walk in, we want
28:04
them to feel like family, like that's our kin, like this is
28:07
their place. We just run it.
28:09
And the guys we were kind of working with consultants to kind
28:12
of help us, you know, to help us get open.
28:15
They were like, oh, that's let's write that down.
28:18
And so then we kind of came up with this logo and the whole
28:20
thing and it it worked. This kin, this family brand, you
28:24
know and. What's the year?
28:26
This is 2011. So we we signed the lease April
28:30
1st of 2011. Our free rent.
28:33
We got free rent for a couple of months.
28:35
Our landlord was awesome because he knew we were He knew us from
28:37
the old restaurants and he knew we were kind of young.
28:39
This part is a few years older than I am.
28:41
But he knew we were young and we were hungry and he was willing
28:44
to help us out and a few months free rent to get the place open.
28:48
And yeah, we signed the lease April 1st and we opened on June
28:53
22nd. That's fast.
28:56
Yeah, that's fast. And so when you guys are open,
29:00
was it immediate success, people just, you know, pouring in lines
29:04
around the corner? No, because that downtown area
29:09
was on the upswing, but there were still a lot of empty
29:12
storefronts because it had opened to all this fanfare and
29:16
then it was difficult. And so a lot of places were
29:18
closing. There's a lot of empty
29:19
storefronts and there there were few more opening, but we weren't
29:23
like there weren't a lot yet. So people weren't aware that
29:26
there was a lot going on down there yet.
29:28
So, you know, we gain traction kind of slowly.
29:32
And one of the things that we did that I think was a good idea
29:37
maybe for profitability right away.
29:38
It wasn't, but we kind of started it kept our prices, I
29:42
would argue below reasonable even.
29:44
And my joke to my business partner was like, hey, man, it's
29:47
like low level drug dealing. Like the first hit is free,
29:50
right? The first hit is cheap.
29:51
Now they're locked in and now they're they want to come back.
29:55
And so we slowly, after like a year, we were just beer and wine
29:59
to open. And after a year we started to
30:02
see some traction. And then we got a full spirits
30:04
license and that really opened up the doors both from a
30:08
profitability standpoint and also it was amazing to us.
30:10
We learned that there are people who even if they're only going
30:14
to have a glass of wine with dinner, they won't go to a place
30:16
that's just beer and wine. There's just, I don't, I don't,
30:19
I don't know how to explain it. OK, I don't know.
30:22
I it's just, and some of it is, well, we're going out as a group
30:28
and so and so won't wants to have a cocktail.
30:31
So now we're not going right. And some people just want the
30:34
option. Like they just look and they go,
30:35
Oh well, they have some great bourbons or that's a nice little
30:37
vodka list or whatever, but their wine list is better.
30:40
So I'm going to have a glass of wine.
30:41
But they want the option. I think is also what it comes
30:43
down to. So you open in June of 2011.
30:46
How long was it before you felt a little bit secure?
30:50
Like, OK, we got this. Probably we're like we really
30:57
felt sort of financially secure. I would say we were like 2 to 2
31:00
1/2 years in OK where we felt a while.
31:03
Yeah. Where we felt good, where we
31:07
both felt good, I should say. And we had at that point, I'm
31:10
pretty sure that at that point, we'd expanded into the banquet
31:12
room area and we felt good about what we'd accomplished.
31:16
And the energy was good. And, you know, the, the, the
31:19
energy downtown had grown. And now we saw a lot of familiar
31:22
faces. I think that Thanksgiving Eve, I
31:25
tell the story a lot, that Thanksgiving Eve, that's always
31:29
a really busy night because no one's cooking.
31:31
We looked around. We saw a lot of familiar faces
31:33
sitting at tables with faces we didn't recognize.
31:35
And what that told us was, oh, these people are bringing family
31:39
friends who are in from out of town to their place, and their
31:41
place is the place that we're running.
31:43
And that felt very fulfilling. And so I was like, OK, we're
31:47
winning this relationship game. Like we're making people feel
31:50
good. We have a, We are accomplishing
31:53
what we set out to accomplish, you know.
31:55
So at what point did you feel confident enough to think about
32:00
a second and then a third concept?
32:02
Well, my young and dumb self, after a year was ready to do
32:08
something else like my creativity at that level because
32:10
we opened, we had a kitchen manager.
32:11
He didn't, he was a great guy. He didn't work out.
32:13
So I took over in the kitchen. You know, my business partner
32:15
ran the front of the house specifically, you know, and I
32:18
took over in the kitchen and was developing menus and everything
32:20
else. And, and we, I was my, I was
32:24
feeling my creativity at that point.
32:26
And I BBQ has been something that I've done for a long time.
32:28
And I, I knew from our experience running restaurants
32:32
and my experience with Tex Wasabi's, all the things like
32:35
running a restaurant is one thing, being able to barbecue
32:37
really well is something else. You can be good at both, but
32:40
maybe not be good at them together.
32:42
It's just a challenge because of the art of how to make sure that
32:46
stuff stays fresh and hot and cooking all the time.
32:49
And if you overdo it, it's not as good the second day.
32:52
So you got to really be on top of pars.
32:54
But at that point, my creativity, I was like, we can
32:57
do this. We let's take this Kin brand and
32:59
apply it to an even more family centric type of cuisine, which
33:03
is BBQ. You know, you think big
33:05
platters, long tables, you know, it comes from a really humble
33:09
place in America where it's like you eat all that you had
33:12
available to you. And so that it was like the most
33:15
intimate thing like this is what we got.
33:17
Like. And so to me, the Kin brand fit
33:20
perfectly in this. And so I was feeling it like
33:22
right away. And my business partner was
33:23
like, dude, like, like, let's just, let's just get consistent
33:28
paychecks and let's, let's start there.
33:30
That's like, all right, slow down.
33:31
Yeah, you're probably slow down, Brad.
33:33
Yeah. So, but at two, 2 1/2 years, we
33:36
hit that Thanksgiving Eve. And that's when I was like, all
33:40
right, we, we got to, we got to capture this.
33:41
We, we've, we've, we've hit a certain level.
33:44
We're on a good trajectory. Let's try and jump and try and
33:46
ride this momentum as best we can.
33:48
That's when we started. That's when we started working
33:50
on the next. Concept.
33:51
OK, And so how long did it take? Ken spoke to Open Up.
33:55
We, we opened in October of 2015 and I think we took over the
34:05
business on the Healdsburg Square there in October of 2014.
34:10
So we were, you know, three years in in total and we took
34:16
over this business, we operated it for a little while while we
34:18
worked on the permitting and everything else.
34:21
And it's in this 100 year old building.
34:22
And we got started and started peeling stuff back in 100 year
34:27
old building. And you realize like, Oh yeah,
34:29
this budget is not going to work.
34:31
But you know, and we because we kind of set a budget for like
34:33
1/2 a million and we spent considerably more than that.
34:37
And yeah, so we, we, we were a year we were you.
34:43
Taking in investors for this concept too.
34:47
No, this was just you. Yeah, we were able to make that
34:49
happen. I mean, you know, we took on
34:50
some loans, some SBA loans, but we were, you know, kind of
34:56
making it go of it without taking on more, more hands in
34:59
the cookie jar per SE. And yeah, we were a year when we
35:04
got open in October of 2014, the menu was set.
35:08
Like I went to my business partner and said, here's what I
35:10
think. And like, I think we could do
35:13
this. And BBQ like was really starting
35:15
to get out to California in the way that it was in the South.
35:18
And people were starting to kind of be aware of like, oh, this is
35:21
what brisket can be. And oh, this is what ribs can
35:23
be. You know, this is what I get.
35:25
It can be like this. And like, my wife and I kind of
35:28
started travelling around the country and tasting sort of
35:30
regionally what the BBQ is about.
35:31
And so I, I made this pitch to my business partner.
35:34
I said, all right, dude, I think we can do this.
35:36
And he's like, OK. And then I brought the food out
35:39
and I was like, here's the brisket that we're going to
35:40
serve and here's how the ribs are.
35:42
And he was like, OK, man, this is pretty good.
35:45
And then we showed up And then I like independently, I showed up
35:48
at some, at some BBQ competitions locally, some small
35:51
stuff, and then like an actual KCBS event.
35:54
And we have a little hardware from there.
35:56
And when we started bringing hardware in from those, JC was
35:59
like, OK, it's time, let's go, let's go.
36:01
And yeah, so we we opened what we consider to be a sort of a
36:08
counter served environment a little bit different.
36:11
You'd order at the counter, play something.
36:12
And then we had servers come around, stay on top of your
36:14
tables, make sure you get refills.
36:15
We open with beer and wine there as well.
36:17
It's sort of a Texas Roadhouse, like real roadside Texas BBQ
36:21
place concepts or riff on it anyway.
36:24
And we opened up and we had lines up that one.
36:26
We had lines out the door for a while and.
36:29
Was it because you guys were already known in the community?
36:32
So it's like, oh, Brad and his partner, they're open up another
36:35
place. It's got the kin name on it.
36:37
And so people like we got to check it out.
36:39
I think 70% of it was that the other 30% of it was people were
36:42
dying for like real like great BBQ, you know, And so they,
36:48
there was this thirst for it and it was like, oh, we, we're, we
36:52
want this and these guys are doing it great.
36:55
We're in, we're in, you know, and the week we opened, we
37:01
didn't catch it at the time on the BBQ when we got it
37:03
delivered. And we did like our first couple
37:04
practice cooks. But there was there was some
37:07
kind of defect in the way it's this big carousel.
37:10
There was some kind of defect in the way that one of the shells
37:13
was hanging. And the 1st morning we're
37:15
scheduled to open the rack sort of collapses.
37:19
And this thing is designed to cook like 1500 lbs of BBQ at a
37:22
time. So the torque in the power of
37:24
this rotor, it's heavy and it just mangles these shelves and
37:29
all the meat in it and everything else.
37:30
And it's this like total disaster.
37:32
And when I tell you that like what you've seen in the movies,
37:35
people like ugly cry or like they just have this emotional
37:37
breakdown. I call my business partner dude,
37:39
and I'm like ready to retch. Like I just, I'm looking at this
37:42
and I'm like, dude, we're like 1,000,000 bucks into this.
37:44
We're supposed to open today. We don't have any money left.
37:47
We're like beyond behind schedule, which every restaurant
37:50
opening is and now this. So we went into crisis mode.
37:55
We got a friend of ours who's a welder to kind of get this stuff
37:57
straightened up, got new parts ordered and we just opened the
38:01
best we could with what we had. And we were open for lunch for
38:06
the first I think 2 weeks and then we started going from
38:09
there. That was the hardest stretch in
38:12
restaurants I've ever had. Like, I think it, you know, I
38:15
think it at one point I think I was like 76 out of 77 days or
38:19
something like that where I was in the restaurant with no day
38:21
off and I was seeing my kids, you know, like I would because I
38:27
got up at 3:00 in the morning to go run the BBQ pit and I'd get
38:30
home at 10:00 PM some nights. So I would go 3-4 days before
38:33
I'd see my kids. And that's at an age where like,
38:35
man, you're noticeably bigger, dude.
38:38
Like you are noticeably bigger than when I saw you the last
38:40
time, which is no way to live as a father, as I'm sure you can
38:43
imagine. And there's a picture that that
38:46
is floating around social media somewhere of me just covered in
38:50
BBQ grease and my son and I hugging in the middle of the
38:54
dining room. I'm like the second or third day
38:55
we were open. And like, I still think about
38:57
it. And I like get emotional because
38:59
I'm like, I was doing it for them in many ways, but I was
39:04
also doing it at their expense because I wasn't seeing them.
39:07
And it was just this moment of like, this is my dad.
39:09
And I'm like, this is my kid. And the dining room is full
39:11
behind us. So it's a cool picture.
39:14
It's just one of those things. I look back on that and go,
39:16
that's the hardest. I even looked at my wife at one
39:18
point and said dude I don't want to do this anymore like this is.
39:21
So how did you switch? What was the the inflection
39:24
point? What changed?
39:25
We we started to we started to get rhythm better in the
39:34
kitchen. Some of the people we hired in
39:36
the beginning didn't work out. Some of the people that some of
39:40
the people that were there were good, but they weren't as
39:45
comfortable with the amount of prep it takes to make 10 gallons
39:50
of baked beans at a time and 5 gallons of BBQ sauce.
39:53
And you know, our, our prep cook, our main like sort of sous
39:56
chef at the time, his name was Adam.
39:58
He was a great guy. Every morning I'd come in at I'd
40:00
be there at 3, he would come in at 5 and he would just look at
40:03
the prep list and he would just say, oh, good, another day with
40:05
a picnic from hell. Awesome.
40:08
Because it's potato salad and coleslaw and beans and, you
40:10
know, like all these things. And I, I think we open in
40:15
October. I think we got to about February
40:17
where we started to kind of hit like a certain rhythm.
40:19
And also the newness of it had kind of worn off.
40:22
And it's Healdsburg is a very tourist centric town.
40:25
So I think the seasonality of the town was starting to like
40:29
the rhythm of that town was starting to sort of wane a
40:31
little bit. And so we, we started to slow
40:33
down. We were able to focus way more
40:35
on tightening the systems rather than survival.
40:39
And also like we had never operated a restaurant that was
40:42
doing a 350 to $400,000 a month pace, which is what we were on
40:47
on the first few weeks. It didn't stay there, but that I
40:51
and we were at that point we were like only open for lunch.
40:53
It was bananas. I've met like we just didn't
40:56
know it could be that. And so, you know, once we sort
40:59
of worked through that, everything sort of slowed down.
41:04
That's when I started to, you know, you could breathe again.
41:07
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
41:09
You use the term you were just surviving, right?
41:13
And I think there's there's a pattern of it, you know, in the
41:17
restaurant industry, especially over the past 10 or 15 years,
41:21
and especially the geography that you guys are of having to
41:25
overcome hardships to not only survive, but at times and like
41:30
you're doing now, thriving. Walk us through what I'm
41:33
describing there. I mean, it really even started
41:37
with day one with the BBQ thing. But from a geographical
41:39
standpoint, you know, in 2017, you know, we all were awakened
41:44
by a bunch of Nixle alerts and, you know, phone calls from
41:48
family members, like, hey, man, like Santa Rosa is on fire.
41:51
You know, it's, you know, in the middle of the night, we're like,
41:53
what are we talking about? So, you know, like even in
41:56
Windsor, you could look to the southeast and see just the sky
42:00
is bright orange, you know, like it's one of the most up until
42:04
the following year here in California with Paradise, it was
42:07
the most destructive fire California had ever seen, just
42:10
burned through. Even my business partner at the
42:12
time, he lost his family home, you know, and so nobody knew
42:18
what to do and people were evacuated and Windsor was on
42:22
evacuation watch and, and we just, we didn't know we were.
42:25
And then they'd cut off gas and power because it all had to run
42:29
through there. So the restaurants had to close.
42:32
And I, I'm trying to remember, I think we were closed maybe for
42:34
three days and, you know, we opened back up and everybody
42:38
just wanted something that they felt to be normal.
42:41
And so the restaurants were packed at that point.
42:44
And at that point we owned the pub already.
42:46
So we had the pub, we had Ken Smoke, we had Ken, the
42:49
restaurants were packed the first day we could open back up.
42:51
I mean, it was, you know, it, it was like we had just opened Ken
42:57
Smoke again. I mean, it was that all the
42:58
restaurants were at that. Level Everybody missed you.
43:00
Yeah, Everybody missed normal. You know, we like to think it
43:03
was us, but we know what it was like.
43:05
Everybody missed comfort and normal.
43:06
And people were like, we don't have a normal now.
43:09
Like we have to find a place to live.
43:11
This is a place where we feel at home.
43:13
Let's just go see that, you know?
43:15
And then the next year was Paradise.
43:17
Paradise Fire didn't affect us directly, but the air quality
43:20
was terrible and people weren't going out as much.
43:23
And then the next year we had the Kincaid fire, which we had
43:26
all this dry lightning, which doesn't happen in our in the
43:28
Stone County or the Bay Area that often.
43:31
All these fires in the east and the West Windsor gets fully
43:33
evacuated, you know, like the closest burn scars are less than
43:38
a mile from my family home, you know, And so we went through all
43:42
of that and, you know, and it's like we just keep coming back
43:46
and keep coming back and we just start to get momentum back.
43:48
Everybody's, you know, feeling good and life feels normal again
43:51
coming out of that particular fire season.
43:54
And then, you know, then my Niners lose the Super Bowl to
43:57
the Chiefs the first time, and then everything gets shut down.
43:59
What feels like immediately after like that, it felt like
44:01
just four months of horrible tragedy.
44:05
You know, we felt the most blessed during despite all of
44:11
those things. We felt the most blessed during
44:13
COVID because people came out of the woodwork that we've known
44:18
forever because at that point we're open for nine years.
44:21
They said. We we have to keep our community
44:24
thriving as best we can. And so people came out and hate
44:27
and supported us and made sure they were coming in and even if
44:31
it was just to get beers to go and sit out on the town green
44:34
across the street from us, right?
44:36
Just whatever they could do to just put some money into the
44:38
restaurant to make sure that we could thrive.
44:39
And that meant so much to us. You know, there's a this rest
44:42
for this business will humble you no matter what, whether
44:44
you're not good at it or you you fail or you're really good at
44:48
it. And you realize that like
44:50
you're, you feel on some level not worthy of all the support.
44:53
And we took advantage of the government loans like so many
44:57
people did. And we did what it was designed
45:00
for. We kept everybody on staff.
45:02
We did the very best we could to provide even in A to go or
45:06
limited dining environment. We did everything we could to
45:10
keep the experience the best we can.
45:12
And a lot of restaurants didn't do that.
45:14
They just said, well, I can't operate without this many
45:16
servers and this many busers. And so we're just going to claim
45:18
to be short staffed and just hope to survive.
45:21
And my business partner and I really tried to keep things, you
45:25
know, the best possible experience we could.
45:28
And what ended up happening was because that was the case, we
45:31
actually built business proportionally speaking, because
45:35
we can only see half the restaurant for a while and all
45:36
that stuff. We actually built business
45:38
because people knew now that of all the places, we were the ones
45:41
that were willing to put in work to keep the experience the best
45:44
we could. And so we, I mean, we weren't
45:47
doing non COVID sales, but we were doing peak to elite COVID
45:53
sales. And when we came out of it, we
45:55
were as flush with cash as we'd ever been because we were able
45:59
to use that government loan to pay these people, which then
46:02
turned around into the sales, which we were able to pay that
46:04
government loan back with money to spare.
46:07
So, you know, we were able to, you know, and also some of it
46:10
got forgiven. I don't want to make us into
46:12
like, Saints, like we were the only ones that paid the PPP
46:14
back. You know, that wasn't it.
46:16
But we I don't. Hear that very often, though I
46:18
don't hear many people who paid the loans back.
46:20
No, they no, I, but I so I, I don't want to sit here and like
46:23
perpetuate some lie that we were the ones.
46:24
We didn't do it either. A lot of I mean, that was what
46:26
it was for. It was supposed to be forgiven
46:28
to make sure that the economy could survive on some.
46:30
Level, right? That was the intent, yeah, yeah.
46:34
Talk to me about the importance of your team, your staff, your
46:37
employees and taking care of them.
46:39
They're, they're the ones that make it go.
46:43
You know you're familiar with the Shake Shack concept.
46:48
Like tell us. So Shake Shack is like a, you
46:52
know, wildly successful burger chain, high end burger like
46:56
counter service chain that started in New York.
46:58
I think it was in, I can't remember what park it was in,
47:03
but it was opened by a restaurant group run by a guy
47:05
named Danny Meyer. And Danny Meyer like has
47:07
Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Hospital or Union Square Cafe.
47:11
And he runs something called Union Square Hospitality Group.
47:14
And his book Setting the Table shapes a lot of what I believe
47:18
about the restaurant business in that it's not a service
47:20
industry, it's a hospitality industry.
47:22
And that hospitality is predicated on relationships at
47:26
every level. My relationship with whether
47:28
it's a hotel, whether it's, you know, senior care, whether it's,
47:32
you know, our, you know, like the restaurant industry, I mean,
47:36
it to be anything really. You can even do it in like a
47:38
tire shop, right? You know, we want to make sure
47:41
that our relationship with you, that you get the full extent of
47:44
your money's worth and that comes with a certain amount of
47:47
confidence or a certain amount of comfort.
47:49
And so you can't do that unless you make your team feel that
47:54
first. And so I, I read it in the book
47:55
1st and I, I really try and preach it.
47:57
Your team you take care of, you know?
48:01
Guest service. Customers always right this,
48:03
that or the other thing the customer first no matter what
48:06
you know what that does that just makes people work hard
48:08
enough to just not get in trouble because a guest had a
48:10
concern that's all it is if you take care of your staff 1st, and
48:15
this is a Danny Meyer concept that I truly believe take care
48:17
of your staff first take care of your vendors and salesman next.
48:22
The guest get taken care of by example or by by default.
48:25
That's it. Because the team feels bought
48:29
in. The team is proud of what
48:30
they're accomplishing. The team knows that we have
48:32
their back no matter what the team takes.
48:35
Care of the vendors we. Take care of the vendors.
48:37
We get the best pricing we can find.
48:40
We get the best, you know, right of first refusal on the best,
48:42
you know, ingredients, the best product we can find.
48:46
You know, they then go into other restaurants and they talk
48:49
about what kind of company it seems like we must be.
48:51
We attract top tier talent. Top tier talent will always take
48:54
care of your guests. You know, we've been very
48:56
fortunate. We have had even and we've had
48:58
turnover. We're 14 years old, but we
49:00
haven't had a lot by restaurant standards.
49:02
We really haven't. And our chef at Kin, his name is
49:08
Logan. He and I, he was a prep cook at
49:11
Tech Wasabi's with me year all those years ago and he has been
49:16
the kitchen manager at Kin since like 2013 and he helped open Kin
49:21
Smoke with me. He helped open our 4th concept
49:25
Rest in peace. You know, he helped us do all
49:29
that, like take care of the team first.
49:32
It's the most important thing you, if your systems are right,
49:36
then that will not get in the way of your ability to operate
49:38
at a profitable level, right? So the responsibilities on you
49:41
to make sure you can do that and not cost yourself a bunch of
49:45
money in doing so. What's your?
49:48
Viewpoint on the high minimum wage in California.
49:52
I mean the studies. Are there that say that that
49:54
money goes back into, you know, the economy?
49:59
Everyone deserves a living wage and California's expensive and
50:03
restaurant margins are thin. And you know, you have to be
50:08
somewhat, this is a super controversial thing.
50:11
I'm like restaurant owners, I realize it.
50:12
You have to be somewhat comfortable that if unless
50:14
you're going to try and scale out to be this enormous
50:17
monstrosity or this big, you know, Death Star company, you
50:21
have to be comfortable with the fact that sometimes you're kind
50:23
of just owning a business so that you have a job, right, That
50:26
you have a job that fulfills you.
50:27
Sometimes you have to be comfortable with that.
50:29
It's and if you're comfortable with that, then you're
50:31
comfortable paying people a wage that makes sense.
50:35
That is, that makes sense for them that they can live
50:38
comfortably so that their work life balance, they don't feel
50:41
desperate to have to come to work because they can't afford
50:44
these things because they're bringing stress into the
50:46
building that has nothing to do with their actual work.
50:49
And that affects their ability to be, you know, efficient.
50:52
And it's just a basic human thing, like when you run a
50:57
business that's predicated on relationships at every single
51:00
level, why would I not want to do everything I possibly can to
51:04
fulfill and empower the people that work for us?
51:07
And if I can do that financially, of course I'm going
51:10
to do that. The restaurant business during
51:11
COVID got what was coming to it. Like restaurants failed because
51:15
they just treated team members and, and employees and family
51:17
members like garbage. Like they like, you know, you
51:21
this, you're getting minimum wage and that's all you're
51:23
getting. But I'm going to ask you to, to
51:25
to do $5000 in sales off this grill at a steakhouse.
51:29
But yeah, enjoy your 895 an hour for that, you know, and that's
51:32
just what it was. And then the expectation was
51:34
that you would work your way up. And if you didn't like it, you'd
51:36
do your own thing. Well, why does it have to be
51:38
like that? Why does it have to be this
51:40
thing of like, you know, screw you figure it out.
51:44
You know, this is my place. Screw you figure out.
51:45
No, it's not like that. Pay people what they're worth.
51:50
Yes, California is very expensive.
51:52
I get it, yes, the taxes are high, I get it.
51:55
Yes, there's all these things that go along with it.
51:56
Yes, it puts pressure on us, makes it harder for us to to,
52:01
you know, to be to get rich, so to say, so to speak.
52:06
But at the end of the day, the businesses, it's hospitality,
52:09
it's predicated on relationships.
52:10
Be hospitable to your team and then let the job fulfill you,
52:14
let your cup of life overflow if your bank account will not
52:18
right. So, you know, that's kind of the
52:19
way that we, that I look at it, tell us about what happened.
52:22
With the 4th concept so. We.
52:27
We were, you know, rolling right along.
52:30
We, I got hit up by somebody, by a contact in San Jose where I
52:34
grew up to do something down there, which would have been a
52:39
huge leap for us that would have expanded our footprint.
52:42
I mean, you know, it would have been a challenge.
52:46
We ended up not doing that, but it sort of reinvigorated this
52:51
idea of expansion in my mind, like, hey, let's really try and
52:54
grow this Kin brand. And we got asked about doing a
52:56
Kin Smoke concept down there that somebody wanted us to bring
52:58
it down there. The Kin Smoke concept is more of
53:01
the niche menu. Obviously.
53:02
That's the one that put us. You know, we had a full front
53:05
page in the food, you know, the food section of the San
53:08
Francisco Chronicle. We, you know, been on, you know,
53:10
sort of local television quite a few times.
53:15
You know, we, we, we that's the one that's gotten a sort of the
53:17
most important quote fanfare from like a press standpoint.
53:21
And so people wanted us to bring it down there to San Jose.
53:24
Well, you know, JC and I kind of figured out, well, that might be
53:27
more than our scale can handle right now, but we do want to
53:32
expand. And at one point in that
53:35
conversation, beer might have been involved, but we were like,
53:38
well, let's do both. You know, let's bring in this
53:41
operations manager that we know, let's make, let's bring in this
53:44
person, this culinary person that we know, let's let's do
53:47
this. And then we kind of went a
53:49
couple days like that actually probably is a terrible idea.
53:51
But we did bring in a new OPS manager who at one point was
53:55
like a server for us. She's absolute, She just an
53:59
absolute killer. She was so great.
54:00
And she helped us sort of build all these systems.
54:02
And we said, well, let's flex some creative muscle and we look
54:07
for sort of a more urban, trendy, you know, hip
54:12
environment. And we wanted to do more of a
54:16
cocktail bar and like small bites became this sort of
54:19
ubiquitous, borderline corny thing.
54:21
But we wanted to do a thing where people would come in and
54:24
kind of share food. Like we wanted it to be this
54:26
like not everything was very traditional meat, starch,
54:29
potatoes or sandwich and fries. Like we wanted to try and
54:32
deviate from that a little bit. And we put our best work
54:37
together for that menu. I like that is that is the kin
54:42
smoke. Is the menu that really speaks
54:44
to my. Soul the most just the nature of
54:47
that type of cuisine, but from a creativity standpoint, the
54:50
restaurant was called 1910 because that was the year that
54:52
that building had opened as a hotel.
54:55
That 1910 menu, as the kids say, we were in our bag with that
55:00
one. We, we pulled out every bag of
55:02
tricks that we know. We did some cool stuff and that
55:04
people still ask us about the cocktail bar we did.
55:08
We did some fun, fun things there.
55:11
My business partner did an incredible job of designing the
55:15
space to feel very hip and very funky and like just did that.
55:21
We it was our best work by a mile and 1/2 from a just what
55:25
setup standpoint what didn't work?
55:29
The location was not. The high volume space that we
55:33
thought it was going to be is part of it.
55:38
Where we are in Windsor and where we are in Healdsburg,
55:40
they're sort of these bustling downtown areas.
55:43
They're the concepts are set up to be quick in and out lunch
55:46
type things. And we're close enough to
55:48
professional service buildings and you know, business parks and
55:52
things like that where people could get over in 10 minutes,
55:54
have, you know, a 30 minute lunch and get back to work in 10
55:58
to 15 minutes and be good with the hour.
56:00
You know, this area in Santa Rosa, it has that near it, but
56:03
the parking is more of an issue and sort of on the outskirts of
56:08
the, you know, like four or five blocks of this thing.
56:10
At the time, the transient issue was kind of a big deal, and so
56:14
asking people to park and walk ended up kind of being a bigger
56:18
challenge than we anticipated. It got better as time went on
56:22
and our happy hour and our late night crowd was great, but
56:26
lunches were empty, you know, regular dinners were not, were
56:30
fine. We were half full, but that's
56:32
not enough to sustain. And we had great reviews there.
56:35
The the press was great. And we, you know, we just didn't
56:39
have the, we just didn't have the volume there.
56:43
And, you know, and then there was some other factors as well.
56:45
I mean, this really is the place, you know, this really is
56:48
the place where we had our first real sort of face plant.
56:50
You know, you know, there were some other factors that involved
56:54
there that, you know, like I said earlier, like, you know, I
56:57
never wanted this to get in the way of my family and, you know,
57:00
a decision that had to get made at that time.
57:03
And so my presence during the first, the last six months of us
57:06
getting open and the first six months of us being open, I was
57:09
not around as much as I need probably needed to be.
57:11
And we thought we had scaled enough to have management in
57:14
place. I could do it.
57:15
And sometimes you just find that for all of your hard work to
57:18
empower people and they want to do it and they're doing the best
57:21
they can, they just don't have. They just don't.
57:25
Have it in them to do the. Things that owners will do to
57:27
make something survive. Does that make sense?
57:29
It completely makes sense. So you guys go through this face
57:33
plant, you've got to close down this great concept because there
57:36
are a few things that just aren't a line that aren't quite
57:38
working. And today you've got three
57:41
successful locations. What does the future look like?
57:44
You happy with the three? Are there more growth plans in
57:47
mind? You know, right now we're happy
57:49
with the. Three, you know, we have been
57:53
able to buy 2 of the properties that our businesses are in.
57:57
We own the property where the pub is.
57:58
We own the property where you know, we you know where Ken is
58:06
and you know that is always we, our joke is always, you know,
58:10
the retirement is in the properties.
58:12
The retirement is not in the pizzas, you know, and our joke
58:15
is always, hey, man, if somebody comes along and offers us the
58:17
right price for the business, like, yeah, we'll sell it.
58:19
You know, I got, you know, J CS kids are out of college now or
58:22
his daughter is out of college now.
58:23
But you know, I got 3 kids is 8 year old.
58:25
Like, yeah, I'll gladly give, you know, get rid of some of
58:28
this off my plate so I can spend even more time with them.
58:30
Of course, you know, and that was the. 1910 thing.
58:36
Was the, my father was fighting cancer at that time and so he
58:43
lived in Vegas. I spent a lot of time down there
58:46
taking care of him in the last, you know, however many months.
58:49
And, you know, my father and I, we got very close.
58:51
I mean, we were close always, but we got very close at the
58:53
end. And I just realized like, hey,
58:55
man, like this is the greatest thing you can do.
58:58
Greatest gifts you can give back to your parents is to take care
59:00
of them at the end, whether they want you to or not, right?
59:03
Because there's, it's a hard transition for people to make.
59:05
And I made the decision I was going to do that.
59:06
And that was the what ultimately kept me out of 1910 in the
59:11
initial openings. And my business partner JC is
59:14
awesome. We've been friends longer than
59:16
we've been business partners. He did everything that he could
59:18
to make sure that that place was running and that he had my back
59:21
and, and just did a number of just very supportive and just
59:25
brotherly things that I will be forever grateful for, but that
59:28
really strengthened. Sort of galvanized.
59:34
My belief that like this can never come at this business, can
59:38
never come at the expense of my family because you know, do you
59:41
know what I would have like do you know?
59:44
Like I don't know why. He I terrified to think what I
59:47
would have felt like at this stage if I had chosen that
59:49
restaurant opening over being there with my dad as much as I
59:52
could possibly be. And I don't even know how many
59:54
times I made that drive down to Vegas, you know, So I, I, I, I
59:59
don't even want to consider what I would think guilt I'd be
1:00:02
carrying about that right now. It was absolutely the right
1:00:04
decision. But at the same time, you then
1:00:07
deal with this other guilt of like, man, if I'd been around,
1:00:10
maybe this wouldn't have happened, not because JC or, or
1:00:12
management was incapable, but maybe it just needed all of
1:00:15
Voltron to have formed, you know, to make sure that we were
1:00:18
there. And so you carry that guilt
1:00:21
also. That's really the challenge now.
1:00:23
And so. But what it did do is it made me
1:00:26
always choose. Family first, but be.
1:00:28
Really diligent about how you split your time up so that both
1:00:32
things are being fulfilled, you know, and so that really, you
1:00:38
know, now all of our decisions are for me personally, you know,
1:00:43
this is what I bring to the table when we come to our
1:00:45
collaborative environment with our, you know, financial officer
1:00:48
and then my business partner and I, this is the angle that I
1:00:51
bring to the table is yes, we should do this.
1:00:54
We should consolidate this. We should maybe try and look at
1:00:56
buying another property. We should try and do this.
1:00:59
You know what, what can we manage here?
1:01:01
And I have to look at it and say, I'm unwilling to put that
1:01:05
work in at the expense of my family because there's no way
1:01:09
for me to get back out of that in, you know, as far as sort of
1:01:13
a, it's exit plans the wrong term.
1:01:15
But we implement this thing, whether it's a new concept or we
1:01:20
close down, renovate and put a new menu together for a concept.
1:01:24
There may not be a way for me to look at it and say I can't get
1:01:27
out of that in a timely fashion without having to train somebody
1:01:30
new, which is going to require us to hire somebody new, which
1:01:31
who knows how long it's going to take.
1:01:34
I I. Consider that now.
1:01:36
More than I ever have. Whereas before it was like,
1:01:38
yeah, let's go. Let's just put the pedal to the
1:01:41
metal. We'll figure it out.
1:01:42
You know, I'm just way more aware of how fleeting our
1:01:48
lessons. Yeah.
1:01:49
It's a it's a tough balancing act for anybody, entrepreneur
1:01:54
and their family. And how do how do you find time
1:01:56
for both? And you clearly made the right
1:01:59
decision of being there with your dad towards the end.
1:02:03
But I get it. Like there's still a part of
1:02:04
you. There's that emotional tug of
1:02:06
war. Like, man, if I had given, if I
1:02:09
had had that time to give to the restaurant here, maybe things
1:02:12
would have been different. But you know, as, as we think
1:02:14
about that, Brad, I've just got one more question for you today.
1:02:17
And before I ask it, I want to do 3 quick things for the
1:02:20
audience. First of all, anybody that wants
1:02:23
to learn more about Brad's restaurants.
1:02:26
We got three websites here and we'll have them in the show
1:02:28
notes. But we've got kenwindsor.com,
1:02:31
kensmoke.com, and the public in windsor.com.
1:02:35
And again, we'll have all of those in the show notes.
1:02:37
But if you're in the Sonoma County area, you're looking for
1:02:40
a cool place to eat. 3 great places to try If you're enjoying
1:02:44
our show today, please take a moment to subscribe wherever
1:02:48
you're listening. It sends a signal that helps
1:02:50
others discover our podcast as well.
1:02:52
So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now.
1:02:56
And as a reminder, you can get your restaurant employees access
1:02:59
to therapists, doctors, and prescription meds that counter
1:03:02
intuitively, actually increases your company's net profits.
1:03:06
Real gains that can change how a business is valued.
1:03:09
So contact us today at adbacbenefits.com.
1:03:13
Brad Last. Question for you today.
1:03:15
A year from now, what is 1 very specific thing that you hope to
1:03:18
be celebrating a year? From now what?
1:03:22
Is something that I am hoping to be celebrating.
1:03:29
I mean, I'm hoping to be. Hoping to be celebrating, you
1:03:33
know, the most profitable year that we've had, you know, in a
1:03:37
long time because closing a restaurant comes with a whole
1:03:43
bunch of burden after the fact. You know, we were able to sell
1:03:45
because we had the lease. We were able to sell 1910, but
1:03:48
not for anything close to what we spent for it.
1:03:50
And it comes with all of these, you know, debt burdens and
1:03:54
vendor burdens and everything else.
1:03:56
And it puts so much pressure on the existing restaurants that,
1:03:59
you know, about a year from now, we should be free and clear of
1:04:01
all of that if we stay the course.
1:04:04
So at least that's what that's what we forecast anyway.
1:04:07
So a year from now, I'm hoping to look at, you know, our profit
1:04:11
margin being as strong as it's ever been and our relationships
1:04:15
staying the way that they are and our staff and our team being
1:04:18
as strong as they are. And because, you know, it's set
1:04:22
up so that when money gets made, everybody makes money, you know,
1:04:25
that's the way we set it up. But we want these guys to be
1:04:27
financially fulfilled as much as we can do that.
1:04:29
So at this time next year, you know, the spring of next year,
1:04:34
I'm hoping that we're celebrating our getting back to
1:04:37
our ability to do that and feel great about it.
1:04:40
Love it, love it. Brad Barmar, Kin Restaurant
1:04:43
Crew, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your
1:04:45
time and your story with us today.
1:04:48
I really appreciate you being here.
1:04:49
Yeah, Anthony, thanks for having me on, man.
1:04:51
This was fun. Folks, that's a wrap on another.
1:04:53
Episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:04:55
Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put
1:04:58
that into action today.