We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Naama Tamir a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Naama, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Talk to us about building your team? What was it like? What were some of the key challenges and what was your process like?

Lighthouse was founded by me and brother, Assaf. We had both been deep in the hospitality industry for over a decade in NY alone and we wanted to build something that felt different. From day one, we were lucky enough to have a very established chef who was a dear friend that we met during our time in the bar world – we were at Employees Only, he was the chef at La Esquina. To support him, we had a barebones, mostly inexperienced but excited kitchen crew. Assaf and I were bookkeepers, bartenders, hosts, waiters, and anything you could imagine. In the long run this was obviously prohibitive to growth, but it let us start and reinvest all our earnings into the restaurant.

After about 6 months, we started to expand our team. At the time, I hired people that I wanted to spend time with – funny, smart, interesting, etc. It was such a small crew that needed to be cohesive and happy so we prioritized compatibility, knowing that we could train people. It was important for us to have individuals we wanted to have around us, who fostered a sense of fun and respect. This helped us pick our main chef from the beginning and is still the most important credentials we consider when hiring someone.

Finding people to mesh seamlessly can be difficult but we were able to do it because we trusted our friends, colleagues, even former staff members to recommend new additions to the team. To this day, we lean on people who appreciate, enjoy, and value the culture that we are building to help us fill roles.

That also came into play with harder decisions. When we first opened, I was 28 and had to quickly learned on the job – it was a steep learning curve. Early on, we had an issue with one of our employees who was harassing the younger members of the staff. Before there was even any report, I could feel the tension. And knowing that our guiding light to make sure respect and comfort were paramount, I started inquiring. I quickly learned the issue and knew there was no path forward for him at our restaurant.

It was an incredibly difficult situation but the answer was also very obvious. And that was because we understood so intrinsically what was important to us to allow our team and restaurant to thrive and grow.

Ultimately, we hire for common sense and what you stand for – less about specific skills. We look for self-motivated, charming, and dependable people and, on top of the hard skills, we try to teach culture and make sure people are a good fit for the team. Because we hate to micromanage. Instead, we explain how we make decisions and why we make decisions, so people can feel confident in taking action. In other words, every member of our staff is expected to act the same whether my brother and I are at the restaurant or not.

Most importantly, we want each of our staff to be excited about what they are doing. While we have expectations and goals, we hire people who want to do a good job for themselves, which overall helps builds an amazing environment.

Naama, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My brother and I were born and raised in Rehovot, Israel, home of the Wiseman Institute and the Faculty of Agriculture. We both moved to NYC early in the 2000s and, I did what so many immigrants do, worked in babysitting and the hospitality industry. At this time I also studied Philosophy and Psychology at Hunter college. I worked in many places, but a few highlights: Employees Only, Macao Trading Co., Craft Steak, Mainland, Smith and Mills.

Upon graduation, I decided to pursue my passions – restaurants, sustainability, and education. Together this led me to open Lighthouse with my brother in South Williamsburg in 2010. The concept was and remains a sustainable, socially responsible, and forward thinking restaurant.

Lighthouse is a modern, Mediterranean, locally sourced menu, that is seasonal and experimental. We strive to create a warm and inviting ambiance – and a really fun one as well. We love to bring in new diners, but we also have a slew of regulars who help us build a casual yet energizing environment that feels comfortable for almost anyone.

Essentially, we are committed to always doing better. Whether this is in pursuing new technologies or management tools, revenue shares, environmentally-forward recipes. We are not afraid to change the paradigm of how restaurants are run – in fact we are constantly pushing to change it and improve it. We are a sustainable restaurant and we build that on three core tenants: financial, environmental, and social. We of course want to make sure we are doing well as a business, but that also extends to ensuring the same for our partners, staff, etc. We are constantly exploring what we can be doing on behalf of the environment, whether that is purchasing an industrial composter or creating zero waste dishes. And finally, we prioritize reinvesting in our community, from our regulars, to partners, to staff. We see this play out in many ways, and one that we are most proud of is our staff retention.

Lighthouse – a beacon of light to show that it is possible to run a business that is successful, while breaking barriers and doing more for its community.

Other commitments and honors include :

Awards : Slow food USA Snail-Blazer 2019

Executive Producer ; Umami Food and Art Festival.
Chair of sustainability practices and green initiative;  Babar (bar & restaurant alliance)
Co-founder NFL – No Free Lunch sustainability platform, in partnership with The Institute of Public Knowledge

Collaborator in the reusable to go container project by sanitation department.

Guest speaker / Contributor – NYU, New School, NYC Food Policy Center, Institute Food Tank, James Beard Foundation, Menus OF Change, ICE, CIA, UN.

Fair kitchen co-founder and partner / We Chef – Women Empowered leadership project.

Rally For Tomorrow – Sustainability focused education and community building for hospitality in collaboration with Another Round Another Rally.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Part of what makes Lighthouse special and unique is our focus on community and the environment. For almost as long as Lighthouse has been around, I have tried to inspire others in my industry (and whenever possible beyond hospitality) about what more we can be doing. I started guest lecturing at NYU, New School, Institute of Culinary Education, and more. I emphasized our commitments to sustainability in press and industry conversations. And soon parlayed this into a side hustle of speaking on panels addressing my peers, patrons, and leaders. While doing this, I helped found nonprofits and organizations that worked explicitly towards goals around environment and supporting workers. In other words, I made sure my voice was heard beyond the walls of Lighthouse.

Simultaneously, we constantly look for ways to ensure Lighthouse is not just speaking about being sustainable but acting towards real goals and change. Whether that is hosting and working with Rally for Tomorrow to help educate others in the industry or purchasing an industrial composter to help minimize waste in our neighborhood, we prioritize opportunities that will help us minimize our negative impacts, while doing more for our community.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I thrive in chaos. That obviously does not work when you’re running a restaurant, or really any business. I’m not disorganized but I rely on what’s in my brain to guide me.

This reliance became more evidently a problem as we grew.

There are the obvious impacts of this (who needs to be able to find their mousepad on their desk), but I actually recognized it more in intangible moments. Notably, while watching my staff interact with patrons. My memory has always been one of my greatest strengths and a point of pride. If you come to Lighthouse once, I will remember your name, your favorite dish, what exciting events you have coming up. I take immense pleasure in creating moments for people and making them feel remembered and seen. But that is a superpower of mine. It comes naturally to me and has helped me stand out in this industry and has helped Lighthouse grow a loyal community.

However, it does not come as easily to others. So I have had to learn how to teach this and how to translate what I do into actionable steps for others. I had to teach people to build mechanisms that would help them remember regular patrons, build on conversations, and, generally, make every person who walks through the door feels special.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lighthousebk.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lighthousebk/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100050318773477
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naama-tamir-a569a5113
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lighthouse-brooklyn-2
• Other: https://resy.com/cities/new-york-ny/venues/lighthouse?date=2024-04-19&seats=2 https://www.fairkitchens.com/en/stories/naama-tamir.html

Image Credits
David Orr Henry Hargreaves Mikhail Lipyaniskiy