We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matias Whittingslow. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matias below.
Matias, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers
This story definitely has a few chapters. One thing for sure, is that through all of our ups and downs, we have always committed to being the authors of our own story knowing that once we started something that was OURS we were going to do what is best for us, and write our lives the way we see it.
Chapter one, we followed our dreams and opened our restaurant, Author’s Kitchen and Bar in Appleton, WI in June 2018. My business partner and I had a lot of cooking experience in the area and had really connected at a restaurant we oped a few years before this. I moved away for one year to Florida for a different job and on a trip back to Wisconsin, Josh came over to my in-laws house to celebrate my son’s birthday. It seems like in one passionate conversation at this birthday party is what ignited us to open up something that was ours- to stop working for other people. It took about one year to find a place that was just right and get it ready. We were really scrappy about it and used our life savings and sold things (like my business partner’s motorcycle) to make ends meet to open up. We were determined to not get a loan and be dependent on someone or feel like a lender or investor was watching over us. This was really about making it on our own. We had enough connections, friends and family in the area (pretty small city) so there was buzz about us opening up. We had worked so hard to get the restaurant up and running and had taken risks along the way – so our families were depending on our success. Josh and I always say “if we aren’t there, the restaurant is not open” and it has been like this from day one. As scary as it was to open that first time, going into it with pennies left, we knew we had the capacity to do it. There was drive from the fear of not succeeding that pushed us harder.
Things were going well and the word was getting out that there was a new restaurant in town. We were having fun and really like the team we had. In the middle of the night on March 13th, 2019 the building started on fire. It was an electrical fire that started in the upper floor boards. The building had 4 apartments above it and thankfully everyone escaped. The fire burned through the night and the firefighters did everything they could to put it out but it was a total loss, a short 9 months after opening. It was devastating, heartbreaking, unbelievable….all the other things you can think of for a loss of a business that is your livelihood, a business you had recently poured your heart into. The moment we got the phone call in the early hours of the morning, was a surreal moment. I actually turned on the news to see live coverage of the fire and it felt like I was watching a movie, something fake. They ended up demolishing the building.
Chapter two is the second Author’s location, only 2 blocks away! After the fire, we slowly got back to looking for new spaces to rent. The “blessing in disguise” in this situation is that I think we like this space better. The character and flow of the space, the exposed brick walls and wood floors are so inviting and I think we’ve created a hip yet at home feel. It was really crazy to go through what we had just gone through barely 2 years before with getting a second restaurant ready…the same repairs and inspections, re-ordering the same equipment, ordering the same custom tables, glassware etc. – we had just done this. As much as it was tasking, I now had the experience and could make better decisions and we knew what were getting into AGAIN.
Chapter 3? We opened on March 17th, 2020, when Wisconsin ordered a mandatory shut down due to COVID. We opened up for take out/to go orders only. Thankfully, in our short 9 months at the first location, we had established a good following so when we opened, it was evident that people missed our food. The support we had from the community was amazing and it really helped us get through a few months until we could open. Sticking with the theme of making our business work better for us, we now only do brunch Monday to Friday and Friday dinner. After going through what we went though, it helps you put perspective on your life and it can make it very clear as to what you want. I decided I wanted more time at home, more family time with my wife and 3 small kids and so we changed our hours. I believe that a work-life balance is so important and I think that the restaurant industry just gets skipped when it comes to this. Most people want to eat on nights and weekends- I get this, I do too – and most people are off from their “9-5s” and the restaurant crews are working their peak hours of business. So at this point in my life, thankfully, we have balance between work and family.
Matias, 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?
I am from Argentina and have been in the US for about 13 years. I always knew I wanted to be a cook and went to a culinary institute in Buenos Aires right out of high school. My family, and in particular, my mom really inspired me to be a chef. She was always cooking and it was a labor of love as it was always from scratch. There is a lot of Italian influence in the Argentinian cuisine and so I grew up eating a lot of pasta, pizza, gnocchi and risotto. Argentina is also known for its beef and my dad had butcher shops, so there was always some sort of meat on the table. After so many years of cooking and experience in many countries (Spain, US, Argentina) I knew I wanted a place of my own and that I wanted to be the Author of my own culinary story.
Our restaurant now is brunch and lunch and then we do once dinner a week. The food is creatively simple, delicious and straightforward. You can most likely pronounce every ingredient on your plate. Our empanadas are one our most popular menu items and they are Argentinian style of course. They are made from scratch and the varieties change daily.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Our journey so far as a restaurant as been all about pivots. After the fire, we opened in March of 2020 when Wisconsin ordered a mandatory shut down. We had always done a some to go orders, but that was not our main thing, and presentation and having the meal in our space was always important to us. Well, with that taken away, we had to send everything to go. We had to pivot quickly and decide how to staff for this. In a matter of days, we had to figure out a to-go system, like managing the phones, how/where to guide customers to park in a busy downtown setting, what information to collect from customers to find them in their car etc. We also got ahold of 2 delivery partners and set them up within a week so that we could get drivers delivering our food.
The next phase of pivoting was when we could open up with a certain indoor capacity and utilize our patio tables as well. It was a process of learning and deciding how many tables to put in the restaurant, how to space them, what safety precautions to take etc. I think in every phase really stayed positive and agile, knowing that what we were going through was something all businesses were going through.
The last major pivot was opening “normally” and then deciding that we wanted to make the business work for us. We changed our hours 3 times before we decided on our current hours. I think we realized after all these hills we had overcome and the perspective it gave us, we wanted to LOVE to go to work and work the hours we wanted. Family time was a big factor here too and I wanted a better work/life balance. Our hours are working well for us now and we SO appreciate all our guests that show up IF and WHEN they can to support us.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
Josh and I met when we opened a very popular brunch spot here in the Fox Valley. He is a goofball and I am pretty serious so we always got along well and I think we really compliment each other. We both have the same work ethic and see eye to eye on most things.
We did become good friends through that first job and then we worked together at a different restaurant when I moved back to the area after my year in Florida. We were both crazy enough and both had the hunger to make something succeed so going for opening up our own place, while if felt crazy, it felt right.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.authorskitchenandbar.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorskitchenandbar/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorskitchenandbar/
Image Credits
They are all ours- no photographers