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Sed ut perspiciatis unde.
SubscribeWe recently connected with David Pese and have shared our conversation below.
David, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?
I think there is a major fallacy when it comes to the restaurant industry failure rate. The failure rate is noted as the highest, and restaurants are seen as risky. It is my belief that the failure rate is skewed by those who enter the industry with no experience. Most people who have the financial capabilities to open a restaurant are often not experienced in the industry, while those who have the know-how to run a restaurant often lack the capital to open one. You also get folks in the industry who are excellent chefs but get stuck in the micro aspects of the business, where they tend to lose focus on the bigger picture. Putting out amazing food is definitely a major pillar of a great restaurant, but there are so many other facets to running a successful spot.
David, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I started by winning a shark tank-style business competition. With that money, We started where we could by buying what we could afford. My wife and I bought a taco cart and some camp fire equipment and pretty much duct taped and zipped tied our way into doing catering and events. We advertised catering on Craigslist and Facebook and pretty much said yes to any opportunity that came our way. Neither one of us had adequate restaurant experience but that didn’t deter us. We learned as we went along broke a bunch of stuff took a lot of L’s but turned those L’s into Lessons. We got better at it and the events kept leading to more opportunities. We eventually hustled our way into opening at the iconic 4th Street Market Foodhall and have been the longest-standing tenant there. We recently opened another location in Torrance at the brand new Enclave Foodhall and its been going great. We are constantly learning and improving restaurant success is often times fleeting. What’s hyped now is washed tomorrow you have to constantly be improving the service, the food, the value. You can’t rely on fads you got to be constant especially now.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I was once swindled by someone claiming to host a VIP Coachella event. We were indeed part of one of the many Coachella parties. We were charged an obscene amount and were then told not to accept cash or card but rather to receive tickets that would be redeemed for cash after the event. We were also instructed to feed the staff and keep a tab open for them.
During the event, we learned from the actual event host that he had already paid for catering from us and that we were contracted to feed his event. The person who brought us on as a vendor had pocketed the money for our catering and then told us we couldn’t charge because we had to accept these tickets that would supposedly be redeemed for cash afterward. We confronted the person who duped us, but he has been avoiding us ever since.
This experience nearly broke me. I had borrowed money from my dad (which took a lot of courage to ask for) and lost it all. I was working a warehouse job at the time, which I hated but paid reasonably well. That summer, I worked all the overtime offered, often pulling 60-75 hour weeks. By the end of the summer, I had paid my dad back. It was a harsh lesson, but we grew a lot from it.
What sucks is that this was done by someone from the Samoan community. Being Samoan in this business, it’s rare to run into others from the same background, so I always want to trust my people and always want them to do well. It just sucks that this guy happened to be a piece of…
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Managing a team and maintaining high morale has a lot to do with the culture of the business. Often, as you grow as a leader, you start to lose the face-to-face time you need with every employee. You start delegating managerial tasks to your managers, and they take on what you used to do. Now your message and training get inadvertently watered down, like a game of telephone. So, how do you combat this? You must make sure you have a strong message and ensure that your leaders have great principles. You often can’t teach every problem that is going to come your managers’ way, but if you can trust their principles and they align with you and your company, then you know you are in good hands. Culture for us is everything. It starts with our name, our story, and extends all the way to the service you receive.
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