Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Victoria Sithy. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Victoria, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

I’m not sure if we’re the only ones in our industry but we invest a lot of time, money and energy into our staff. Even if that means we don’t make a lot of profit. We assist them with everything you could possibly think of so that they can live their best life including financial literacy, learning how to budget, setting them up with their own IRA’s that they learn to manage, fostering innovation so that they can learn to problem-solve better and come up with ideas to help grow the business. They know that they can come to us if there’s something wrong, professionally or personally. We empower them with confidence, words of encouragement, and support when they need it most. We do our best to show our appreciation for them often. This year has been a big year for us because we’ve been investing most specifically in everyone’s mental health. We’re in talks with mental health experts on how our team can lower their stress and anxiety.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I’m Victoria Sithy, Co-Founder of Sweet Basil MKE. We are a Thai and Laotian restaurant with a focus on street-style food reminiscent of the night markets and street vendors in Asia. Tuesday through Saturday, we’re serving up a variety of classic dishes such as Pad Thai noodles or Panang Curry but there are also a few Midwest-Asian fusion items on the menu such as Buffalo Chicken Rangoons or Caramel Apple Eggrolls for dessert! The menu is an homage to my family’s origins but also honors the place we call home here in the Midwest.

We also serve up monthly specials! The specials are posted on our Facebook and Instagram pages. It’s a fun way for the team to have some fun experimenting with new recipes. Or my mom, who is the main chef, will make some authentic dishes that are not found on the menu. These specials are also a way we can use up ingredients that would otherwise go to waste! We try to promote sustainability in many ways. Over 91% of our disposables are either compostable, recyclable or biodegradable! It costs us more to use the eco-friendly options but our customers prefer it which is awesome. Midwesterners have an appreciation for nature – there’s nature all around us! By using sustainable products, we hope to lessen the chances of littering our land.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Invest in your team! The restaurant industry is known for its long hours, stressful conditions and uphill battles. Whether you’re in the back of the house or on the customer-facing side, there’s a lot of moving pieces involved which creates positions that are both physically and mentally taxing. We try to give our employees the best possible work-life balance, we invest in our team’s mental health, and we work every single day on improving our communication with one another.

Our kitchen and operations used to run on tough-love and a hierarchy of seniority. During that time, our team experienced an increase in burnout, call-ins, and lack of accountability on our team. Disagreements and tension among our people were the norm, it caused a lot of stress and anxiety for all parties involved. When we opened in 2020, we were in survival mode and we had to do what was necessary in order for our business to survive! But from 2021 through 2022, we made the conscious decision to change the business so that we could find a balance.

This includes adjusting our hours to give our team better schedules and more time off. Removing certain items off the menu so there’s less prep work involved, there’s still a LOT of prep work involved but it’s much better than where it used to be when our team would have to come in on their off days just to prep. We’ve met with mental health experts on how we can lower stress and handle tough customer situations through mindfulness and breathing exercises. We began really listening to one another, valuing what the other person has to say (despite their seniority or lack of experience), and really learning how to support each other when we need to vent or problem-solve issues.

I’m happy to report that our team’s morale is up, attendance has improved, there’s less anxiety because we’re happy to work together and be at the restaurant. Most importantly, everyone’s mental health is in a much better place and we work towards solutions together. This abundance of happiness carries over into the way the food tastes, in the way we greet customers as they arrive in our space, the general vibe when you walk in. There’s good energy, great food, friendship and laughter. We’re convinced that’s what makes people fall in love with us and come back often.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I’ve been in the restaurant business for over a decade despite being 32 years old and it all started because of my mom. To give you some background on her, she immigrated to the US when she was 13 years old with her parents, my grandparents. Not knowing anyone or even how to speak English, all they had with them were the recipes from their homeland of Laos and Thailand ingrained in my grandmother’s memory. My grandma and mom cooked their favorite meals as a way of reminding them of home, it was their only comfort as they transitioned to living in an entirely different world. Food became their language, you’d often see them giving homecooked meals away to neighbors and strangers. It became a way for them to connect to others. My mom became a single mother doing her best to raise 3 kids and as we got older, as she was working all these factory jobs, we knew that she was unhappy and depressed. We asked her what she wanted to do – what her passions were -and she told us, “I would love to open a restaurant one day.”

My siblings and I took on multiple jobs ourselves, my brother worked at McDonald’s while also taking on side jobs fixing cars. My sister worked at Target and at the mall. We collectively saved as much as we could so that we could buy my mom a restaurant. In 2011, at the ages of 21, 19, and 17 we finally made it happen! We signed our names on the contract and bought a building!

Plot twist: the first restaurant was a bust. Buying the restaurant was only the first step, we didn’t know how much the start up costs and building repairs would truly be. We didn’t know what we were doing and the business failed. But we didn’t give up. We took all the lessons we learned from that first attempt and came back in 2014 with a second restaurant, Asian Bistro. It succeeded. We became the #1 rated restaurant in Janesville, WI on TripAdvisor.com! We operated Asian Bistro for 5 successful years until we were forced to close the business due to rent increases.

In 2019, we secured another restaurant space and planned to open our third restaurant, Sweet Basil. After months of renovating the space and pouring the rest of our savings into this project, 2020 steam-rolled right in and dared us all to fail. We were slated to open right at the beginning of the pandemic. We HAD to open, we had no choice. And our overdue credit card statements said so. We told ourselves, “If we break even, even if only a few people love our food, mom will be happy. We’ll be grateful.”

Thanks to the support of the Milwaukee and Franklin communities, it was an overnight success. We sold out of a week’s worth of inventory on our opening weekend alone! We didn’t know what to expect and the city showed up with so much love, support and words of encouragement. I get emotional thinking about it sometimes! So many restaurants had to close their doors during this time, it was an awful time to be a small business owner. But our community had our backs, they weren’t going to let us fail if they had anything to do with it.

Today, Sweet Basil MKE is a culmination of all our lessons learned, all of our hard work, my grandmother’s recipes, my mom’s passion for food, our family’s history. My mom has since met my step-dad, the love of her life! She gets to live out her dream and he cooks side by side with her every day. It’s truly become a family business, we have uncles and cousins working in the back of the house and in the front. We’ve also grown to hire a team of employees and they’ve become part of the family too!

Without the community, we wouldn’t have made it through 2020. We take our role in the community seriously, because we are so grateful. We’ve given out hundreds of meals to families in need, we donate as often as we can to local organizations including our local schools, we’ve partnered with non-profits in order to give back. Whether you purchase food from us, leave us a good review, or give us a boost on social media – you are helping us help families and people in need. Our restaurant is an extension of our home, we want everyone to walk in and feel like they belong. Like you’re family.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sweetbasilmke.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetbasilmke/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SWEETBASILmke
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sweetbasilmke/

Image Credits
Siege Food Photo (2 multi-dish photos)