We were lucky to catch up with Sean Gafner recently and have shared our conversation below.
Sean, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
The short answer to “how did we scale up?” is simple, we have a incredible people working with us!
From the beginning we have, above all else, wanted to be a great company to work for. Our plan is to address every negative stigma about restaurant work until people in our industry understand the real value in the work we do. We believe that inviting people into a comfortable environment and hosting them as they celebrate life’s biggest moments is an important and honorable way to spend a life. We currently have 5 Directors, 22 Managers, and 30 Station Leads. Every one of these people started at fairly entry-level positions with our company as hosts, dishwashers, cooks, servers and bartenders. Not only is this good for staff morale, its a great way to keep your staff culture strong and we owe a lot of our success to the leaders that have developed while working with us.
We opened The Roost, our first restaurant, in March of 2015 and as typical for restaurant owners, especially chef’s like myself, I was in the kitchen working every shift for months. In the Summer of 2015 I ruptured my achilles tendon playing basketball late one night, and this ended up shaping our business towards growth more than I could’ve imagined. After trying to use a scooter to get around my kitchen and keep running the restaurant the way I had been, I quickly realized that I had to figure out how to run The Roost through others by equipping and empowering the great people on my team.
Fast forward a few months, The Roost was a huge success and I had freed myself up to work on my business more than in my business. I then saw a location become available three blocks South of The Roost and decided to open Jefes Tacos & Tequila, seeing that our top sellers at The Roost were tacos and margaritas. Aside from loving tacos and tequila myself, as well as the old school hip hop that we play at Jefes, this was also an exciting opportunity for some of our great employees to grow in their own career. From The Roost we promoted the following people to new roles at Jefes: an AGM become a GM, a Lead Bartender became a Bar Manager, and a Lead Cook became a Kitchen Manager. Jefes opened in April of 2016 and it turns out we were right, Longmont loves tacos and margaritas!
In 2018 I began building a team of Directors, starting by promoting Jefes’ GM to Beverage Director and The Roost’s Executive Chef to Culinary Director. In the Summer of 2019 we opened Smokin Bowls, a fast casual restaurant. For this location restaurant we promoted a Lead Line Cook to Kitchen Manager, an AGM to GM, and a Lead Server to AGM. This young and hungry crew ran a really great restaurant which also had a large back area that we turned into a pastry kitchen. This allowed us to hire an excellent Pastry Chef that could make all of our desserts, ice creams and some breads for all of our restaurants. Today we now have two full time Pastry Chefs in this same location. Smokin Bowls didn’t reopen after the second forced shut down due to the pandemic, but we kept the entire team on and they actually are still managing different restaurants for us today.
In the Spring of 2022 we saw an opportunity to transform a shuttered Outback into “An Island Escape”, which felt very strategic with the state of the world at the time. We covered the roof in palm thatch, filled the inside with carefully curated Tiki Culture items and opened Swaylo’s Tiki Restaurant & Bar. Swaylo’s once again created upward growth for five of our dedicated employees from other concepts. We also promoted our long-time GM from The Roost to Director of Operations in January of 2022. We were now getting pretty good at developing leaders, creating concepts, training large groups at once, and implementing SOPs to keep them running successfully as our team of Directors spread across multiple locations.
99 Bar Saloon was our fifth creation; we opened this location in May of 2023. The Saloon was the first management job for all four of our managers that opened it, and are still doing an excellent job of running it today. All four of them had been with us for at least three years in the positions of Lead Cook, Lead Server or Lead Bartender. Anything this team lacked in experience they more than made up for in passion and commitment; they are hungry to improve and have become a force to be reconned with.
In the Summer of 2023 we took the step to create Gafner Hospitality Group LLC, a Restaurant Management Company that employs all of our Directors and also allowed us to bring on our first full time accountant. We leased a 3,000 sq ft mixed-use space with offices and a large temperature controlled warehouse. This space allowed us to centralize all storage of equipment and decor, as well as meet with all of our restaurant’s management teams more efficiently and consistently.
In the beginning of 2024 we promoted a manager that had been overseeing catering events for us at The Roost and Swaylo’s to Director of Events for Gafner Hospitality Group. This allowed us to take on a large opportunity that we were approached with by the ownership of The Estes Park Resort. They were looking for a restaurant group that could come in and handle a large wedding and corporate event business at the resort, as well as renovate and reopen a 200 seat restaurant onsite. Due to the strength of our Director team, as well as our other four restaurant’s management teams, and finally our expertise in event catering, we said “yes” to this opportunity. In May of 2024 we opened Ember Restaurant & Bar on the shores of Lake Estes at the beautiful Estes Park Resort. Our Sous Chef of The Roost became Chef De Cuisine at Ember, an assistant manager became the GM, and Leads became AGMs and Bar Manager.
This is the best way I can paint a picture of how we went from opening our first restaurant that did $1.7M in sales its first year in 2015, to a $15M/year restaurant group with over 300 employees, five original restaurant concepts, and a pastry kitchen that produces the most delicious desserts this side of the Mississippi!
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Nobody gives money to restaurant start ups, and I don’t blame them. We opened our first restaurant, which is an 8,000 sq ft, 300+ seat restaurant, for $220,000. Aside from a LOT of trade for burgers and beers, we drained our 401k, we borrowed money from grandparents, we leased equipment, we applied for every grant possible from the Longmont Downtown Development Association and the state of Colorado, and we sputtered into opening day with about .40 cents in our personal bank account.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Generosity! Generosity is a Core Value of ours, and it’s also a Leadership Characteristic that we use to develop the leaders that run our restaurants. We believe that choosing to operate from a sense of abundance, by being as generous as possible, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We give back 40% of our profits every quarter between donations and staff bonuses. Also, we always pay for a guests food or beverage if they’re unsatisfied with it for any reason, or just because we recognize them and want to show our appreciation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://gafnergroup.com
- Instagram: @theroostlongmont @jefeslongmont @swaylostiki @99barsaloon @emberestespark
- Facebook: @theroostlongmont @jefeslongmont @swaylostiki @99barsaloon @emberestespark
Image Credits
Branded Beet provides all of our photography and has given us 100% rights to them