[00:05:14] Josh Sharkey:
That's the A Kitchen, right? In D.C.
[00:05:16] Ellen Yin:
A Kitchen and Bar in Washington, D.C. So we are really excited about that. Trying to figure out how to best maintain our culture. So, you know, after the pandemic in particular, I mean, I think culture has always been something that and I know that you're friends with Eli Kulp that, you know. He and I have talked about over the years, it's how do you create a positive culture?
[00:05:39]
How do you create a place where you retain, you know, team members and help them grow and develop. And so this is the perfect opportunity to do all that. But at the same time, it's, it's. Nerve wracking, because you're also creating something that is brings a level of uncertainty in terms of people who you might not have the opportunity to work as closely as if you were all in the same restaurant.
[00:06:08]
And 1st, you're in the same restaurant, then you're in the same city, then you're in the same group. So, you know, it starts to grow and making sure that we have the support system to. ensure that they have everything that they need to maintain that culture and succeed in delivering the standards that we've worked really hard to create over 20 some years.
[00:06:30] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. I mean, you know, this better than most, and I've had experience at well, where you take a concept that's working really well. I've had concepts in New York that, that worked really well. And then we plop them in Chicago on state street. Flops, you know, there's a transition, you know, obviously one I think and I don't want to hear more from you about culture because good culture is important and also like definable like what is the culture so that you can, you know, then sort of promulgated to the rest of your team, maybe just winding up a little bit like because you had High Street on Hudson in New York and pandemic happened.
[00:07:03]
You. Sure. You learned a ton from that. What are you now going into D.C.? Another new market, which maybe is more similar to Philly than it is to New York. Like, what are you, what are you looking out for? What are you spending more time on now? You know, you know, taking this concept and moving it to another city and considering more that you learned from High Street when you took it to New York?
[00:07:24] Ellen Yin:
Well, High Street on Hudson was a unique situation. I think, first of all, we were really excited to open it. This location was adorable. It was, it felt like the perfect location, but I think we didn't really understand that location as well as. We could have, and, you know, we studied the West village. We, of course, new Manhattan from Eli's experience there, but we really didn't understand this particular corner.
[00:07:53]
And there were a lot of things that were just kind of. Hunky about it 1st, being that, of course, Eli's accident changed a lot of what happened in New York City, but. The direction of the street, the fact that it was so far West, the fact that, you know, there was a playground across the street. I mean, all these variables.
[00:08:13]
That maybe sound like they create a perfect thing in Philadelphia might not be the perfect thing in New York for what you're doing. Also. We have this problem that we're super ambitious and the High Street is a very ambitious concept. It has to do with the bread. It has to do with local. It had a sustainable wine program, all these things that we were doing.
[00:08:35]
And the space was only 1900 square feet. It was really hard to cram all this talent and. And concept into a tiny little space, so I think if we had maybe taken 1 component of what we were doing in Philadelphia, and again, not bringing Philadelphia to New York, but taking the bread or whatever the thing that, that we thought we did best and.
[00:09:00]
Making that what people in New York want and enjoyed was, you know, part of, I think what we learned about opening a new concept in a new city. So, going into Washington, D.C. of course, we are trying our best to study. A foggy bottom neighborhood as much as possible understand the restaurant scene as much as possible.
[00:09:22]
I would say that. D.C. is interesting because it has a lot of components of Philadelphia. It's a very strong restaurant community. It's really important to integrate yourself into that community, be supportive of the community, give back to the community and represent that community. So we are trying really hard to do that.
[00:09:44]
It also has some components of New York, a lot of international visitation, as well as a strong residential base in the downtown area. What is unusual, I think, is the flow and the impact of the Presidential, who's in and who's changing and all the transiency of. That part of the community, so these are all things that we are trying to, like you know, get a handle over.
[00:10:12] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. How does that manifest the community involvement? Like, what are you doing now to plan for how you're going to be involved in the community in a new brand new city?
[00:10:21] Ellen Yin:
Trying to meet as many people in the hospitality industry as possible joining things like regarding her being part of the D.C. restaurant association, which is strong. You know, trying to meet as many people in our immediate neighborhood as possible doing collaboration. So we just did an event with Oyster Oyster, which was really fun. Rob generously introduced us to several of his customers and colleagues. So that was incredible.
[00:10:49] Josh Sharkey:
Isn't that cool about the restaurant industry? That like, there's not many other industries where you. But you open up another store in a new city and you sort of, you know, commiserate with all of the other restauranteurs in order to, you know, to, to build that community. It's pretty cool.
[00:11:05] Ellen Yin:
Well, I think that it depends on the type of restaurant you want to be. Of course, you know, we are part of AKA, which is our hotel partner, but they are even more of a community based thing. Organization in the sense that they serve people who are staying there for longer periods of time than just overnight stays. So, you know, when you look at Washington, D.C. and the restaurant landscape, of course, there's large restaurant chains.
[00:11:32]
I think we really affiliate ourselves and see ourselves as an independent community based restaurant. We want to serve the neighborhood. We want to serve, you know, the people who work and live in the area. So, to do that, we really have to, you know, plunge into the community.
[00:11:49] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, you have a decent amount of concepts now. A kitchen, you have another A kitchen bar opening, you got four, High Street, the hoagies, the bakery, the wonton project. You are opening more concepts and growing. I'm curious, you know, for me, I always think about with businesses, we have to grow because you have to up our mobility for your team. And they, you know, otherwise, what are they going to do?
[00:12:09]
They're gonna have to move somewhere else. Unless you have sort of horizontal growth, where you just like have CPG things, or Other, you know, other things within the four walls. But like, do you ever think about what the catalyst is for opening the next thing? Like when, and what is the impetus for like, okay, now I need to open another one. Is it opportunistic or is it, is it like team based?
[00:12:27] Ellen Yin:
Well, I would say that originally my impetus for growth was definitely having updates for our team members to expand their. You know, career and development toward I realized after 15 years that I was just in a cycle where I was constantly every 5 years trying to reinvent and trying to find a new chef.
[00:12:47]
And that's a really hard, frustrating place to be, especially when you're not a chef. And I think that I'm. You know, there's a few of us out there who are truly restaurateurs who don't actually do the cooking or have that background.
[00:13:03] Josh Sharkey:
You know, it's been, again, over 25 years now with Fork, and you have all these other concepts now as well, but what's super interesting to me is basically every five years you have a new chef.
[00:13:14]
Amory Lasher, and you have Tenyo, and Terrence, and then Eli, and then John, and then, you know, now George. That's a lot of change. And, you know, it's your vision, it's your business, right? And now you have to sort of plug in a new chef and of course, make sure that they can like have a piece of their vision in the food, but that has to also be aligned with, you know, the thing that you're building.
[00:13:36]
And I promise there's a question here, but I now have this sort of technology company and I'm in this position where I'm a chef and I, now I have this technology company where I don't know, freaking code, but I find it, you know, very helpful. There's like a very clear. thing that I want to build and I can kind of communicate that to, you know, engineers and, and, and technologists and have them help build this thing.
[00:13:59]
I do feel sometimes a little bit powerless of like, man, I want this and this, but I can't even do it. What do you think are, are some of the advantages and disadvantages of being a restaurant owner and operator and not being a chef? And also like, how do you maintain your vision as you add on more? Like, well,
[00:14:20] Ellen Yin:
That relationship between business and creativity is, I think, what excites me the most. Uh, you see that in many different industries. Like, you see that in the publishing industry. You see people who are writers. Or graphic designers, and you see the people who have to, like. Sell the ads to make the magazine work or produce the book to make the book work. So I think that it's not an uncommon relationship and it's something that really excites me because I am kind of an artist in a way I mean as a restaurateur, I feel like I am an experience And that's what is exciting for me and whether the chef is, wants to make food that's influenced by Asia or Latin America or whatever it is.
[00:15:05]
I feel like I could take the right person and have them fit into my vision as long as they have some key points, which are integral to our mission. One is they have to be. Committed to supporting the local economy. So that was something from day 1 that we have always been committed to is buying from local farmers, buying from local artisans, however, you want to say it, whether that is an economic support, or whether that's supporting local farmers.
[00:15:38]
Local artisans, however, you want to like phrase that that is something that's really important to us having the opportunity to take your creativity in many different ways is part of our mission statement. So, you can be a creative person and be a business person. You can be a creative person and be a chef.
[00:15:56]
But it all has to make the overall mission of the organization work, which is that we are about an organization that's committed to sustainability, that we are committed to our team members and to the community, being a learning organization. So, we do train and support many people through their career, whether they're starting out as high school students as CIA graduates.
[00:16:22]
You know, general managers who want to become owners, whatever that is, we are committed to that career development. So, those things, whatever that chef comes in has to accept those, those concepts as part of their, as their personal mission. And if they can accept that, then, you know, then we can make it work.
[00:16:43]
But if they can't accept that, then, you know, then they're probably not in the right place.
[00:16:48] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah. So it's really interesting. So those are sort of operational tenets, you know, where you buy from, how you include your team, things like that. But you are creative, right? You can't have a business for 25 plus years, especially a restaurant business, and not have this vision of what it is and how your customers should experience, you know, this space that you have.
[00:17:07]
And it's clearly, there's a level of consistency because it's worked over, over a long period of time. So, what is like the through line that you sort of ask these chefs to maintain from an experience, like, perspective that they have to do with, with the food, you know, to the guest?
[00:17:25] Ellen Yin:
Well, we are hospitality forward. So, I mean, whatever the food that's cooked. They are part of the hospitality experience, and so that means that there's a certain level of flexibility addressing people with allergies. Making sure that the food is timely, you know, I mean, we all have been in situations where there's a problem with somebody's experience, whether that's that they waited too long for their table, whether they had too long of a gap between their 1st, 4th, and their entree, whether they didn't like something, whatever it is.
[00:18:00]
We're about fixing it and creating the experience for our guests that makes them want to come back. Yeah. And so they have to be part of that. Yep. So, you know, and of course we want the food to be delicious and make people want to come. Yeah. Absolutely. That's part of it. But that part of it is to me, something that is collaborative and that we work together on.
[00:18:22]
I'm not in your sandbox. You know, 24 hours a day, I'm actually pretty hands off, but what we're trying to do is make sure that we create the sandbox together and that we have a statement that fits into the things that I just talked about, but those things that they may sound like they're operational, but they are really crucial to the success of the business.
[00:18:43]
And then of course, all the values that we profess integrity, mutual respect, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:18:49] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah. Are there any sort of guardrails or. Boundaries that you set on the kitchen side. And I apologize, I talk so much about the kitchen, but I'm just super curious. On the food? Yeah, like, you know, like, Something that you're like, that's just not a Fork type, you know, dish or maybe whether it's a a style or an ingredient, like, hey, let's stay away from that.
[00:19:10] Ellen Yin:
Obviously, I have a lot of opinions and I try to, you know, work together with whoever it is to make sure that we're That we start to get as close to whatever that vision is at the very beginning. It's going to be difficult because you're working with somebody who has a vision of their food. So, when we bring on a new chef, the onboarding process includes.
[00:19:32]
Then seeing what we do, we invite them in for dinner. You know, they can see what we have been doing. We'd like to see what they have been doing and what their vision of the food should be. And then we try to, like. Create a line that we, you know, walk together.
[00:19:48] Josh Sharkey:
I'm curious if there is a process that you, that you use in order to vet a chef or what do you look for in a chef independent of the operational tenants and the, and obviously making good food.
[00:20:01]
Are there other things, whether it's skill sets or heuristics or things that you look for in a chef? They're like, that's a chef for Fork.
[00:20:08] Ellen Yin:
I think servant leadership. Is a really important 1. I think that that person's temperament and. Believe in the culture and the culture that we've worked to create.
[00:20:20]
It's not a combative one. It is one where everybody in the organization is collaborating together. And that means sometimes hearing feedback from. The front of the house, sometimes hearing feedback from gas hearing feedback from myself. You know having the right attitude about the entire team. I think it's very team and leadership They don't have to be, they don't have to have necessarily a lot of experience.
[00:20:47]
I mean, Anne Marie came in, she had never been an executive chef. George had never been an executive chef, but Karen's Fury certainly had been. And Eli had been, um, CDC, but I don't think ever really an executive chef. So I think that Fork in particular is a great platform for somebody who's never been an executive chef to kind of
[00:21:08]
Have the right perfect size restaurant. We have 16
seats and 14 barstools an amazing team of professionals supporting on the hospitality side, and they can make their vision really. Blossom.
[00:21:22] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. How do you vet for that servant leadership? Are there, is there something that you ask or look for?
[00:21:28] Ellen Yin:
Oh, well, I definitely check references, check references, try to see how they interact when they come in for stage, ask as many questions about their philosophy, about management.
[00:21:39]
Some of them may not have a philosophy on management yet, but I think, you know, sometimes it's. It is a gut instinct. I don't know. Yeah.
[00:21:47] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. You know, speaking of like leadership, I mean, I don't know about you. Like when I think about the first restaurant, I opened my first business in like 2009, kind of embarrassed with like how I led my team.
[00:21:58]
And I had to learn, I mean, I had never been a owner or even a, you know, uh, I was a, I think a CDC at most before that. Like, are there ways that you lead differently today than you did 25 plus years ago and, and other things that are still the same from then to now?
[00:22:14] Ellen Yin:
Well, it's funny because I think the thing that helped me succeed the most was the fact that I didn't have any experience.
[00:22:21]
And so I came at everything. Because I needed help from everybody and also a lot of the people that I was working with were more experienced than I was. And so I have to be very humble and very appreciative of all the information that they were sharing with me and listen really carefully. And then. As I gained confidence, I guess, maybe I could look back at some times when I didn't really like myself.
[00:22:49]
And where I could have done better, but overall, I think that as I've grown, so starting from a person who never operated a restaurant, never managed a restaurant, just love the idea of a restaurant. I've been a server, a bartender, and I can't even say that I managed anybody because every, I think most of the jobs that I had.
[00:23:12]
In my pre-restaurant career. Or as a consultant creating documents on paper, so I never operationalize anything in my entire life. So, coming from that perspective, and basically. At the same time that the restaurant industry was changing, technology has been changing.
[00:23:32] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah,
[00:23:32] Ellen Yin:
and so I constantly had to adapt to new things. I mean, open table was not a thing 1997. Instagram was not a thing in 1997. You know, in 2010, Instagram was barely a thing. Google wasn't really even . Yeah. I mean, none of these things were really in existence and so just constantly having to adapt and learn, adapt and learn. I mean, I remember, you know, when I was in college even having to learn Lotus One two, wigs.
[00:24:05]
So, you know, I mean, I think that throughout my career I've been. In those types of positions. And so now as a multi-entity operator, I'm still learning because I'm trying to learn how to share information that previously maybe I wasn't so willing to share. I mean, I think I was always willing to share, but giving a very top level view of things, but now, you know, with the advent of.
[00:24:34]
Things like me or with the restaurant 365 or books or whatever, all these platforms are, how do you use that to get to where you want to be?
[00:24:44] Josh Sharkey:
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[00:25:52]
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's funny too. I think that, I don't know when this clicked, maybe it clicked for you right away. I think part of the problem when you become a, a leader, coming from a kitchen, or at least kitchens back, you know, in the day when they were a little different, there was basically, you know, just in the late 90s, 2000s, a lot of screaming and, you know, there was no real management.
[00:26:14]
The only, the only, like, metric of success as, like, a, as a leader was, Is the product good and are the customers happy? And, you know, I don't know about you, I'm, I'm gonna assume this is the case because just of how you've built your business, but like, there's this sort of turning point where the metric of success is that your team is happy and your team is actually growing and being more productive.
[00:26:37]
And that's like a, a chasm to cross where you have to like look at the, when your team members get better as like, Oh, that's how I'm, I know I'm doing a good job. Is that something that you measure or quantify or think about today with the team that you have? How well are they growing and what else are they doing?
[00:26:55] Ellen Yin:
Well, I, you know, from day one, I think my personality is that I love to help people and support people. And I love to see people come in and grow. So whether you stay for one year, five years, 10 years, however long, I gain personal satisfaction from seeing that person change and develop and grow. So, I mean, you know.
[00:27:16]
Right now, my leadership team, several of them have had multiple stints at Fork or one of our restaurants and come back after working for somebody else or having their own business. And that makes me feel great, of course, but, but I think that that's been an important part for me, especially. You know, I feel a personal failure when I hire somebody and they don't work out for whatever reason, because we spend a lot of time vetting people.
[00:27:45]
We interviewed them. We bring them in for a stage. We check the references. We really maybe have multiple interviews, whether you're a server or, you know, management. And there's a certain commitment that we make after you start training that we really want you to succeed. And so I personally feel like it's a little, for me, of a personal failure when somebody isn't the right fit.
[00:28:11]
Like, what should we do to not vet them properly to make them feel like they love it here?
[00:28:17] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, I feel the same, by the way, and I have some pictures on my wall that I talk about probably more often than my wife would like. One of them is, how are you complicit in the environment that you're complaining about, basically.
[00:28:29]
And there's this acronym I use for, well, anything that goes wrong in my businesses, specifically with the team, it's THIN. The acronym is THIN, which is basically like, if anybody does something, or something happens, That went wrong. It's either I hired the wrong person for the wrong job, I didn't inspire them enough, or I didn't nurture them the way that they specifically need to be nurtured because people need to be managed in different ways.
[00:28:52]
There's very few times when somebody messes something up and it's not actually on us in some way. Some way we create an environment. We're like we didn't give them the right You know parameters to succeed and it's it's stressful in one way But it's also really like it's a big weight off as well because it's like, okay, this is on me By the way, it does suck when you like realized you hired the wrong That's probably the worst feeling when you realized I don't know about you like when you realize you hired the wrong person like cuz they're probably good and just not for the thing that you need Has that happened to you before?
[00:29:23] Ellen Yin:
Probably. Often.
[00:29:25] Josh Sharkey:
Do you fire fast, or what do you do when that happens?
[00:29:27] Ellen Yin:
Probably my biggest flaw is that I want to give people too many chances, and sometimes it's just not good for the rest of the team to give that many chances because they see somebody who's impacting them, and, you know, we're a very team based organization, so tips are shared.
[00:29:43]
You know, work is shared and so when you have somebody who is not contributing in that way, you know, we try to give as many chances as we possibly can. But sometimes at some point, you have to cut the cord and that is only. You know, I hate it. I feel like I've let that person down and yeah, and I'm not good at that.
[00:30:04] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, it really is terrible because most of the time it's, it's, it's on us, you know, we just didn't pick them for the right role. Or, you know, one thing you mentioned is that people come back and they work again at Fork, which is pretty awesome by the way. And I'm like, kind of embarrassed to admit this because I've, I've been in New York for like 24, some odd years.
[00:30:22]
And I went to the chef conference last month. And I was like, I don't think I've ever been to Philly before. You know, I grew up in Virginia and I'm like, if I've been to Philly, I must have been like, you know, before memory started, like two or three years old. And wow, what a restaurant scene it is. It's pretty incredible.
[00:30:40]
I was, I was blown away. My question for you is, and I have two, because one's just basically, I just want to learn about Philly. But if you had to ask like a team member, any given team member that works at High Street Hospitality, why? They work there because it's all the places I could go and work at.
[00:30:56]
What do you think they would say is like why they chose to work at High Street?
[00:31:00] Ellen Yin:
I think that the answer would probably be unanimously about the quality of coworkers that they have. And at each restaurant, the, I want to say cohort, because, you know, after many years, There's like groups, each cohort is very strong together, and they stay friends for years and years, but it really is about how much respect that they have for their teammates.
[00:31:24]
And the fact that their teammates are there to support them. So, I would 95 percent say that you asked. People, why would they work there versus someplace else? That would be the answer.
[00:31:36] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I love that, by the way. I mean, I think that's such a great attribute of the restaurant business as well, right?
[00:31:42]
And really any business where there's a craft, camaraderie, you know, that gets built and it's compounding.
[00:31:47] Ellen Yin:
It’s hard because, you know, I mean, financial is still an important component, but I don't think that we are, we are not probably the highest paying. We are not, The hardest driving in terms of, like, you know, nobody's working 21 shifts in a row or doubles every single day or anything like that would try to, you know, be respectful of people's time, give people the time off that they need.
[00:32:12]
We do have benefits. And things like that to try to encourage retention, but I overall, I would say it definitely is the people.
[00:32:21] Josh Sharkey:
I love that. I'm just now learning more about the Philly scene. I've been meaning to take my kids there because there's so many awesome museums. What do you think is unique about the Philly restaurant?
[00:32:31]
I hate the word scene, by the way, but the Philly restaurant scene versus, you know, New York, L.A., Chicago, D.C.
[00:32:37] Ellen Yin:
Well, I think if you ask any chef in the city, they would say it's the collaborative nature and the support that you get from your colleagues. It's, I mean, obviously it's a competitive business, but people are there to create the overall.
[00:32:51]
Everybody wants the entire city to win and not just any one. You know, individual restaurant or restaurant group or anything like that. So you will get support from anybody that you ask. We have. Our organization, I'm just going to make a plug for it Sisterly Love Collective. You know, we are women, we're trying to support each other and helping each other grow their businesses that exist because of that collaborative nature and.
[00:33:16]
You know, other restaurant group owners, whether it be Michael Schutzman and even star, Mark Vetri. Cook and Solo Val and Marcy, you know, any of these larger restaurant groups. I think. You know, we definitely have the opportunity for dialogue amongst us. And, you know, we all just want the city to grow and thrive and.
[00:33:38]
You know, we love, we all love it here. So I think that that is the thing that makes the Philly foods in thrive. The other thing that is really unique. Two things that are unique. One is that Philadelphia is, or Pennsylvania is a state run liquor controlled. So that is something that makes it challenging to operate in Philadelphia, but at the same time, the opportunity for people to start businesses, even when they are less experienced or.
[00:34:10]
You know, if they're able to raise the capital to do so, the capital to open a new restaurant in Philadelphia is not as daunting as opening in another major metropolitan city, and that makes it easier to take risks, easier to generally succeed, and then that opens the door for future growth.
[00:34:29] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, yeah, that's huge. I mean, the cost of a restaurant in New York is
pretty insane.
[00:34:35] Ellen Yin:
Also, the cost of living in Philadelphia is modest relative to other major metropolitan cities. So 1 thing I learned in New York, I had the luxury of taking Amtrak to New York, an hour and 10 minutes door to door, but that's the same commute that many of my team members had.
[00:34:52]
And I'm imagining it's going to be somewhere in Washington, D.C. and that is a real mental challenge. And that makes it so that work is. You know, creating that positive culture is going to be even more important when we open in Washington D.C. because that commute can be draining. The other thing is, you know, you get to work and, you know, the way that the labor laws are structured.
[00:35:17]
It makes it really difficult because operators are like, well, you can't come to work early. You need to clock in when your schedule, you know, things like that. Don't make people feel like their professionalism is appreciated, you know?
[00:35:29] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if there's something you could do with the train, you know, where there's some sort of like book club or something with all that time from Philly to D.C
[00:35:37] Josh Sharkey:
You know, subsidizing like, you know, Kindle or something.
[00:35:41] Ellen Yin:
Yeah, I don't know. But I'm not saying that higher wages, obviously higher wages is positive. It's this challenge where restaurants need to really figure out how to operate in a more, like the business model we all said during COVID needs to be reinvented.
[00:35:57]
And yet. I feel like so much of our industry has just kind of fallen into what it was before and so a city like Philadelphia allows you the opportunity to try new things. For example, we're doing something with service charges at High Street where we pay a flat hourly rate. Everybody makes credit card tips on top of that when you don't have that room to even experiment or try things. It makes it really difficult.
[00:36:24] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, when in a restaurant in particular, it's always difficult to try things because it's such a, I always relate to a Broadway show. It's just every day it's on, you know, and the stop in the middle is really tough. I'm going to zoom out for a second and this might be really dumb because it was so long ago but I'm going to ask you anyways because you went to Wharton.
[00:36:41]
So I'm going to ask you to put your Wharton hat on and your consultant hat and to sort of zoom out from from High Street and just generally speaking. The restaurant business model as a, as a whole, because, you know, the, the one thing you mentioned, obviously, is like there's, yeah, we've sort of reverted back to the mean a little bit and margins, you know, continue to just decline, obviously, because of, you know, increased cost and in goods and supply chain and things like that, and the perception of what food should cost.
[00:37:06]
Doesn't go up much, you know, at least not anything significant. It's sort of a de minimis increase every, every year relative to what it should be, you know, as the food cost increases 30%, you know, the price of the food might increase 4 percent or something. They're definitely not like in line, but, you know, from the perspective of like, you know, looking at the restaurant business model, As a whole, as a business, like if you were to go in as a consultant from, you graduated, you know, Wharton, you go work at McKinsey or Bain or whatever and like, okay, come to our, come to our business and, you know, prescribe for us, how would we take this business model and make it more
[00:37:45]
Efficient and optimized for profitability, like are there things that you would say as a whole kind of like wholesale that the business model would you would change?
[00:37:53] Ellen Yin:
Obviously, everybody's circumstances different and that's the whole thing about the hospitality industry. You have such a large swath of.
[00:38:02]
Business types, so everything from fast food, all the way to high end dining. So, you know, it's really hard to generalize about what works or what doesn't work. But I agree with you that educating people on what the true cost of food is, what the true margins of a restaurant are, you know, I think that the cost of labor, obviously, you know, being in the friends business, which is the most labor intensive and capital intensive operations makes it really difficult.
[00:38:32]
But you have to kind of figure out how to. Rearrange those numbers because. It is a pie just like every other business and so you have whatever your revenue is going to be, and that is dictated by so many different things, location, you know, what your concept is, whether or not people want the concepts.
[00:38:52]
How complicated the concept is, then that dictates all the other expenses. I mean, you basically just have to figure out how to make. Your life work and. You know, for some people, I think that that is making team members all hourly and service charging or no service charging. I don't know, but
[00:39:14] Josh Sharkey:
yeah,
[00:39:15] Ellen Yin:
I don't know that I could say I could generalize everybody.
[00:39:19] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah. Well. If we just, even if we just focus on, you know, a couple, like, uh, full service and fast casual, I, I guess one question, and I've been, I've been thinking about this a lot and talking about it a lot, is like, I wonder how we change the perception of what food should cost, because you, when I say food, I don't mean food, the goods, the, you know, the, you know, the product, but like, When you go to a restaurant, you're paying for an experience, you go to Fork, you're paying for the years of like you understanding the, the feeling you should get when you walk in and what the light should look be like and, and how dim they should be at what time and how the music should be and, and, and, and where seats should be and how much space between this and how the server talk.
[00:39:57]
That's all part of the experience that you pay for. Mm-Hmm. on top of, you know, of course the food, these margins are gonna keep getting smaller, right? That's just part of, part of it is like really it, the price. We just need to increase, you know, you pay what you pay for a TV today is much different.
[00:40:15]
Oh, there's economy of scale that's different. How do we get like the perception of what food should cost to change?
[00:40:21] Ellen Yin:
Well, it's so complicated because in addition to what you just said, people are going out more and more. So, if you looked at, you know, how much money is being spent on food. More is being spent on food and dining out, but yet we all feel this, this pressure, right?
[00:40:37]
The fact that, for example, in the old days, dining out was a very special occasion thing that you did. I mean, we, as children, we hardly ever went out and if we did, we were having the whole experience, dessert and everything, right? Now I go out to eat 365 days a year. How many of those times do I eat dessert and, you know, just talking in general about, you know, like, you know, we want to have a great dessert program.
[00:41:04]
We want to have a great dessert program, but, like, maybe that dessert program doesn't look the same way that it used to look, you know, we had a whole pastry department. If you have a prefix, everybody's having dessert. If you are a la carte, not everybody's having dessert. So just those 2 things dictate how much labor is going to go into desserts because we all know that the ingredients are probably less expensive on, you know, the dessert component and the product mix is another thing.
[00:41:30]
I mean, like, if you engineer your menu properly, even though prices are going up, you may have some items that's. Are higher in cost, but you might have a lot of items that are selling really well that are lowering costs. So I'm not giving you an answer to your question, but I think that these things really do impact.
[00:41:49]
And, yes, you are paying for the experience, but. Increasingly, the experience is like upping its game all over the place.
[00:41:56] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, we are getting way better at optimizing profitability with technology and all kinds of other things and menu engineering, and that's necessary regardless, you know, of what happens.
[00:42:06]
But I think the idea of a service charge is really, is really interesting, right? Because we've kind of like rigged the system of, you know, we just now go out, go out to eat more often, which means technically you don't have, someone doesn't need to clean up your, your kitchen at home. You know, someone's serving you hand and foot, someone's designing a space for you.
[00:42:27]
All of that is like, if I had a butler at home and I had a cleaning service that came every day and I had a chef that came and cooked for me, that's, there's a cost to all of that, you know, as opposed to me cooking it myself. We've sort of, outsourced that cost and walked down the block, or maybe taking an Uber, to go to a place where they do all that for you, but not paying, you know, incrementally that much more for it.
[00:42:48]
So I think the idea of a service charge is actually really smart, because, especially if you can communicate it the right way. I think what's important is that in aggregate, a service charge The industry has to be able to communicate this really well. It's like, Hey, this is actually a big part of what you're paying for is all of this stuff on top of, you know, the food that's going to going to be here.
[00:43:06] Ellen Yin:
Right. Well, I mean, obviously it depends on geography, but I did study this significantly before we decided to try service charges in port, we just added 20 percent on because people were generally tipping 23 percent or more. So, adding a 20 percent service charge still allows you if you want to add an additional 3, 4, 5 percent if you, if you want to.
[00:43:29]
And that is mostly shared to the front of the house, except. When the gap is really large between the front and the back of the house, and everybody gets paid at least the minimum wage and and we share the tips amongst the kitchen staff as well, just to make it. So that on Thanksgiving, for example, we're open.
[00:43:47]
Is it fair for 1 party to make you know, a 100 dollars an hour, and I'm exaggerating just to protect the innocent and and somebody else is thinking. Maybe even after holiday pay, maybe they're making 35 an hour. If we share tips on those types of days, it makes it more palatable. And also a lot of the work that are done for these special events is done by the kitchen team.
[00:44:11]
At High Street, we have the service charge of 20%. It's a little bit more complicated there because we also have like a bakery coffee shop that we don't add service charge to, but in the restaurant they do, and some people get really upset because they feel like we're adding 20%. Uh, for the jams. If the tip percentage for High Street was 23%, I felt, I didn't feel like that that was such a big risk, but it allows us to share the, uh, service charge amongst a larger swath of people.
[00:44:39] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah. I actually like it. 'cause there's like dec, you know, you remove that decision, right? It's like it's there already. Yeah. Right. You know, you, you have like a bunch of. Other things that you're doing right now, which I want to, I want to learn a little bit more about Sisterly Love Collective and The Wonton Project and like all these boards that you're on.
[00:44:57]
I'm just super curious how that all works, but before I just curious, we're talking about, you know, margins and you're, you're growing into new consoles. Are there things that you aren't doing today that if you had exponentially more resources and time and capital that you would be doing that you just can't because of those constraints?
[00:45:16] Ellen Yin:
Right. Well, if I had endless resources, I would, I would, it would be a totally different story.
[00:45:22] Josh Sharkey:
What is that, what is that like, what is that like pie in the sky thing that you would be doing with the endless resources?
[00:45:27] Ellen Yin:
Endless resources. Well, I mean, Sisterly Love Collective. I, I, you know, I would love to have more workforce training.
[00:45:35]
More educational programming, more opportunities to invest in businesses that haven't typically had access to capital, more opportunities to teach more opportunities, you know, to do things that I love to do, which includes serving on all these boards and,
[00:45:53]
you know, volunteer organization. So, endless resources, no problem.
[00:45:58] Josh Sharkey:
See, this is, by the way, Ellen, this is what I, and again, I'm just getting to know you more. What I love about, about you is your answer was not, oh, I'm going to open up a hundred more places so I can 100x my revenue. It's like, here's all the things that I want to do to, you know, impact change and that I love.
[00:46:12]
That's what I would do. And I think that's so much of why you're successful, but can you just double click for a minute on on Sisterly Love Collective you've been talking about a little bit, so I generally understand, you know what it is, but, you know, the genesis of it and and and what you're trying to do with it.
[00:46:26] Ellen Yin:
Right, so, you know, I think everybody in our industry felt completely helpless on March 17th, 18th, whatever time your shutdown happened. And then the light goes on that it's not going to be 3 weeks, it's actually going to be a much longer period of time and that, by the way, you have no income coming in.
[00:46:45]
And what are you going to do to pay your staff and all your bills that you've wrapped up 30 days terms over? So, you know, I was just trying to connect with as many people as I possibly could. And a woman named Rokini Day in Chicago called me and said, Hey. Thanks. Would you like to join a zoom call and zoom by the way?
[00:47:06]
I didn't even know what that was. I mean, if you ever been on a zoom call, she invited me to be part of a group of women in Chicago, and they were basically talking about all the resources. Of what this, how to approach the city, how to, you know, maybe collaborate on delivering to the suburbs, all these types of collaborative, economically beneficial.
[00:47:29]
Opportunities during the pandemic and so. After the call, she said to me, do you think Philadelphia might be interested in starting something like this? And so we became part of this network of women organizations called Let's Talk. And it was great. We continue to be on calls with. Other and with other women in other cities, but what happened was that as we started to reopen, you know, what I noticed about Philly is we are doers.
[00:47:55]
We don't like to talk about it. We just like to do. And so we wanted to make our organization have. More activities, more one of the 1st things we did was we raised money for women against abuse and 2021. we had 1 of the 1st outdoor event. At the cherry street here, and we invited 20 restaurateurs to come and be part of it, sold tickets, and we ended up giving women against abuse, $25,000.
[00:48:24]
So, we started doing these types of philanthropic events, and I think that kind of. You know, made us a little bit more unique, but the thing that really drove us was that we started having these, these basically, like, almost former market fairs in front of our operation. In 2020, and Bridget Boyd named it Sisterly Love Food Fair, and this Sisterly Love Fair took off and people started following us and wanting to support women and wanting to support small businesses and restaurants.
[00:48:54]
As you know, everybody experienced that during the pandemic, but we just kept sticking to this woman owned, like trying to help each other model. And eventually Sisterly Love kind of became its own thing. We're a 501c3 through Les Dames Escoffier and we are now focused now that we're restaurants don't need the fares anymore.
[00:49:16]
But what happened during the pandemic was all People who were at home started these homegrown businesses. And so in Philadelphia, for example, there's a woman named the wild blizzard who started New June bakery. So these cottage businesses from home, fish town, pickles, mother butter. So the CDG products that started growing, and then, you know, we, we really felt that there was a need to bring women together to help support them with growing their business.
[00:49:45]
And a lot of these women feel alone when they're at the very beginning of their journeys. And so they have a network of business people, you know, people who have experience in different aspects, whether it be marketing, HR, financing, you know, city relationships, whatever it may be.
[00:50:04] Josh Sharkey:
I'm looking at the group.It's really cool.
[00:50:06] Ellen Yin:
Yeah, so really focused on that. So now we have close to, I think, probably 100 or more paid. We have a community of probably 6 to 7,000. You know, people who are. You know, adjacent to us, we have a caretaker mother circle that tries to support women with children or who are taking care of the elderly.
[00:50:31]
We have a circle for women on the line for Amanda Shulman is spearheading this. This is women cooks who want to become chefs or owners. And what they need to do to get from point A to point B, we are trying to expand into the suburbs. So it's been fun. Yeah. I'm a co leader with Jennifer Carroll from Eat CCC, and she was Top Chef.
[00:50:52]
Yep. Contestant Jill Weber from Sojourn Hospitality, who owns several restaurants, and Sophia. Deleon, who is with Elmer Curie, Guatemalan street food and created her own rum brand. So, you know, a diverse group of, of women leaders. And then we actually have a board of directors that includes other people as well.
[00:51:13] Josh Sharkey:
I love that. It's so impactful. It looks like I'm actually just looking at the website now. sisterlylovephilly.com. And there's a bunch of events and cookbooks as well. By the way, was Kiki Aranita part of this at some point? Yeah. That's what I thought. I thought, I think I might have heard her mention that.
[00:51:31]
Okay, so you started that. And you also started this in The Wonton Project during covid, which has now blossomed into a lot more. So I'm sorry, I keep asking about your business, but
[00:51:42] Ellen Yin:
That would be one that if I had unlimited resources that I would really focus on because it's a, it's one of my pet projects.
[00:51:49]
As you know, I'm not a chef, but I think, you know, I learned a lot about myself during the pandemic, just like everybody else. And one of the things that I started thinking about was, you know, my mother was an incredible cook and I always wanted to have a small little restaurant that kind of featured her dishes, but I could never make it come to fruition.
[00:52:11]
So during the pandemic, I. Was just thinking what could what is a ghost kitchen and since work isn't gonna have any indoor people What could Fork be like a ghost kitchen for another concept? I started thinking about that and I really only know how to make a few things. My mother taught my brother how to make everything in what you know I was really focused on cool and you know, I'm like, you know my career so I didn't learn how to cook anything for my mother.
[00:52:39]
So the one thing I feel confident about was I could make one time. And so I started testing the recipe and then the shootings in Atlanta started happening and I started reading more and more in the newspaper about people resenting Asians at Chinatown because they felt like they had, you know, part of bringing COVID to the U.S. and I mean, just this craziness.
[00:53:01]
And so I started really. Thinking about myself because I don't think I really thought of myself as anything I'm just like kind of a restaurateur or when I look in the mirror, of course, I see myself as being Asian, but I never really thought of myself as belonging to the Asian American community. And so I just wanted to do something that made me feel like I was doing something to help and.
[00:53:25]
Then I realized that I did a TED talk at 10. I realized how many other Asian or American born Asians. Felt similarly to me and so it really kind of helped me understand who I am as a person and as an Asian American and what will I have and The Wonton project is kind of a vehicle for helping to support Asian Americans in, you know, the Philadelphia area and beyond.
[00:53:51] Josh Sharkey:
So you make wontons, I see there's some boiled ones, there's some fried ones, and then I'm assuming some percentage of the proceeds go to AIPI, or something like that. Right, exactly.
[00:53:59] Ellen Yin:
The charities that we support, one is Asian Americans United, which is a Philadelphia based non profit. They're actually fighting to save Chinatown in Philadelphia.
[00:54:09]
There's a, uh, sports stadium that is being contemplated and they are one of the voices trying to preserve Chinatown. The other is CMAP, which is an organization that supports immigrants and refugees in South Philadelphia. And the last one is Advancing Justice, which is a national organization that speaks out against discrimination.
[00:54:31] Josh Sharkey:
Very cool. That's so amazing. I loved all of the sort of businesses and initiatives that popped up during COVID. It was so great to see an IRC kind of like blossoming during that time. I remember when I was actually supposed to launch my company in April or May of that year, decided to not to launch a technology company for restaurants and just create this thing called recipes relief.
[00:54:52]
And we basically like gave the product away and built a consumer app and let chefs sell their recipes to, to their customers. And um, raised, raised a couple hundred thousand dollars. All the proceeds went to the chefs and their businesses. I saw that. That was incredible. We were one of many doing things like that.
[00:55:08]
It was just so cool to see how restaurants were so impacted by COVID just like stepped up and did things. What I love to see is that Like this Wonton Project is still alive. It's amazing.
[00:55:19] Ellen Yin:
We're still making them and trying to figure out how to expand it into some sort of brick and mortar.
[00:55:24] Josh Sharkey:
Who's making them? Because they're your, they're your mom's recipes and then that you sort of recreated. So did you hire a different team for that? Or is that part of your current team or?
[00:55:32] Ellen Yin:
Well, originally it was being made at Fork. So, and crazy enough, once we decided to launch it, then everything opened up. So there were some days when I was faking them and training, uh, you know, our culinary intern to support me on, on that.
[00:55:47]
And then we moved it to High Street after Fork opened because we have a takeout business there. So it makes a lot of sense. And so right now the wontons are being made by our team at High Street.
[00:55:59] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, I'm curious where you source the, I don't know if you make the skins. I always make like some, I'll make like wonton or shumai filling and, and pre portion it and freeze it in my freezer just so I can have them when I want.
[00:56:11]
But I only ever find like the, you know, the square or the round, like little packs. You know what I'm talking about, like the little packs of.
[00:56:17] Ellen Yin:
Yeah.
[00:56:18] Josh Sharkey:
But like where do you source the wonton skins from? I don't know.
[00:56:21] Ellen Yin:
I like to use the Shanghai style wonton skins, and I try to look for the thinnest that I possibly can.
[00:56:29]
Of course, you know, as a bakery, we have a sheeter, so we could be doing them ourselves, but we're just not quite there yet.
[00:56:35] Josh Sharkey:
That's an undertaking.
[00:56:36] Ellen Yin:
Right, exactly. I don't know whether it's worth it or not, because already, I mean, it's a labor. And first of all, we use Lancaster County pork and shrimp.
[00:56:47]
So they are probably a luxury one on that dozen. We sell for 15, but that is the true cost. And. You know, it's a meal. It's not a, it's not an appetizer. It's a meal. So I think that for the value that you get, it's reasonable. But some people might think, Oh, my God, that's ridiculous. I would never pay 15 for, you know, 12 wontons. That's crazy.
[00:57:10] Josh Sharkey:
Well, you know, if you want commodity meat and
[00:57:13] Ellen Yin:
But if you want to add the handmade skin,
[00:57:17] Josh Sharkey:
That's a whole other thing. But, you know, I think it's just focused on like, good quality, like meat and shrimp. And the people making it like the skin, I mean, it's a whole,
[00:57:27] Ellen Yin:
Tt's super homey and comfort food and you know,
[00:57:31]
I love that I'm never tired of eating them.
[00:57:33] Josh Sharkey:
Okay, I'm almost wrapping you up here. I promise you are on more boards than I care to count. I'm going to read a couple of Delaware River Waterfront Corp. Old City Community Fund, The Arden Theatre Company, and Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. I believe you're on the board or at least an advisor to Open Table as well. Is that correct? Mm hmm. How does all this happen? How do you get on all these boards?
[00:57:54] Ellen Yin:
When the semi quincentennial was being planned, there was a small committee of people who, you know, we were somewhat involved with. But it all started because The bottom line is as a restaurant, and I think everybody knows this by now, when you are part of a community, especially if you're an independent restaurant, you're part of your community and our direct community of fork is old city.
[00:58:19]
And so I joined the old city district board, which is responsible for cleaning safety and marketing of the old city district as a community in center city, Philadelphia. And, you know. I started there, then I also really take pride in being part of. In 1997, when we opened the art and theater just opened its doors in old city, Philadelphia, and I felt that.
[00:58:46]
You know, supporting the arts in old city was going to be a really important part of. Making sure that that the neighborhood was vibrant that people were coming to visit it. And so I joined that board. So, those 2 were the 1st 2 and then mayor invited me in 2009 to. Be on the board of Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, which is expanding the waterfront from Allegheny Avenue, which is near fishtail all the way down to South Philadelphia.
[00:59:12]
And so that has been a really rewarding project, because we've seen all these different peers get developed. And right now there's a new park being built over 95 highway, 95, where people can. Walk directly from the city directly on to the waterfront.
[00:59:30] Josh Sharkey:
Oh, that's great.
[00:59:30] Ellen Yin:
So that's exciting. And then Jefferson was where I, you know, I worked in nonprofit before I worked in restaurants and just, you know, have had a huge affinity to.
[00:59:41]
Being part of the Jefferson community, especially with the restaurants being there. So that's how I ended up on all these boards.
[00:59:49] Josh Sharkey:
So some of them you sort of went after, you said, I want to be a part of this. I want to get involved. How does that? Yeah. Call and say, hey, I'd like to be on the board is like, how does that work sometimes?
[00:59:59] Ellen Yin:
Yeah. I mean, I think I, I, you know, having worked in nonprofit before and understanding how boards work. I knew that there are typically committees and other ways that you have to start before you can actually be. On a board or invited to serve on a board, because it's actually a huge responsibility and you can't just.
[01:00:18]
Show up at the meetings and not do anything.
[01:00:22] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. How often are you in, in a board meeting in a given month?
[01:00:27] Ellen Yin:
Uh, maybe once a month. I don't know.
[01:00:29] Josh Sharkey:
Well, okay. Very cool. Well, this was great. I really, really enjoyed. I mean, I could talk to you for a lot longer about the rest of your business and everything, but
[01:00:38] Ellen Yin:
Just to kind of finish where we started off, you asked me about Wharton and you said your father who passed away really wanted you to go to Wharton.
[01:00:45]
My father who passed away was just like. Why do you want to go to Wharton? You know, you're so smart. You should become a doctor or a lawyer. And I was just like, no, I want to own a restaurant. I really want to own a restaurant and I'm going to go to, I want to go to business school. And so that was how it started.
[01:01:02] Josh Sharkey:
You know, you learned a lot running a business over many years. Obviously you, you know, this as well as I do. I do sometimes regret because I do like the premise of what you can learn in a school like Wharton. By the way, I didn't realize, I'm actually reading a new version of a Benjamin Franklin biography by Walter Isaacson.
[01:01:19]
I didn't realize that he started Penn. Well, what turned into Penn? You know, it's funny, I want to go back to Philly and just sort of look at all of the impact that this has had. Specifically, it's insane, you know, fire departments and libraries and it's amazing, you know, and I think it's, it probably has put a stamp on that sort of entrepreneurial spirit of, and that community spirit of, of Philly of what he, you know, of what he started there.
[01:01:43]
So anyways, that was a tangent, but, but this was great, really grateful that we got to chat. I'm sure we'll meet in person again soon, and I'm definitely going to come visit Philly, but thank you.
[01:01:54] Ellen Yin:
Thank you, Josh. I really appreciate it and look forward to seeing you in person.
[01:01:58] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah.
[01:01:59] Ellen Yin:
Hopefully before the next chef conference.
[01:02:01] Josh Sharkey:
I hope so as well. Thanks for tuning into The meez Podcast. The music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist, Fresh Daily. For show notes and more, visit getmeez.com/podcast. That's G E T M double E Z dot com forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros.
[01:02:24]
And give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Keep innovating. Don't settle. Make today a little bit better than yesterday. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.
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