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

Ali, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?

The bigger a company becomes the more money they make, but becoming a big company comes with consequences. It makes the company have too many layers of regulations. The more money you make the more people want to take that money from you. Making yourself at greater risk for lawsuits. So then you create an amazing HR team. Also you want to protect your business and assets so you start to make decisions based on KPIs or data. Becoming less reliant on being creative and taking risks. You become boring and want to maintain your customers rather than creating new innovation. If innovation does step in the door you rather have many people review and change the innovations until it’s too late to be called “innovative” or the idea changes to the point where its original idea is ruined. Plus new investors create stress on the company and make crazy demands.

I would say Corporate America can slowly lose sight of the customers the bigger they become. I mean I do believe in using data to make decisions, but at the same time we can’t lose sight of the common conversations that customers say about our business (plus managers can manipulate numbers to make themselves look good). I believe that every business you start you need to be a customer of that business and ask questions about things that didn’t go right. Constantly looking for improvements and asking questions to staff. In food service I like to eat in the surrounding areas of the restaurant because I want to know about the competition. I also want to see what is lacking in the area and what people want. Talk to staff in the surrounding areas and see that insight you can get from them. You never know where a great idea can come. I believe the greatest leaders are also the greatest listeners. Corporate America isn’t the best listener of their audience.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

At the age of thirteen, I knew that I wanted to be a chef. I was taught at a young age how to work hard and do chores around the house. My parents tasked me to cook for my family of 5 around the same age. My first job was actually at Mcdonald’s in the 1980s. Back then Mcdonald’s was a real food service job. And the burgers were freshly made. I actually reference my experience back then to many chefs I work with today. I noticed when I worked at Mcdonald’s the managers used to schedule less people when I was working. Causing me to work at the pace of 3 normal workers.

From there I decided to go to Culinary school in San Francisco. I drove there alone with no family there. I always joke that if I didn’t work in food service and study food I would have starved to death, but not necessarily untrue. Back then food was about creating amazing experiences for people. Viewing it as an art form similar to archery. Like if you had 100% on an exam from the start and any mistake you made caused you to lose a point. If you had points off of dishes it was because of your errors on the dish. It wasn’t about being the best chef in the world. In the 80s and 90s there was no Food Network. We didn’t have social media either. I don’t even remember the concept of a celebrity or influencer chef back then. The food industry wasn’t just about seeing who was the best chef. It was about creating amazing experiences for people through your art of each individual dish.

I also worked at a Swedish bakery creating a new love in baking as well as cooking. Although I am a chef I love to implement my baking skills of baking into my cooking at the locations I manage.

I worked two jobs in two different high-end hotels after I graduated from culinary school. Becoming a respectable leader in the kitchen takes a lot of time and discipline. I mean working many hours and coming to work early. From prepping, ordering, cooking, training, cleaning, managing, talking to customers, and making worksheets. Anyone can call themselves a chef but truly developing your skill and talent to become respected as one is not an easy task. It’s not about being born with the skills, it’s about loving the job and putting in the time and effort to craft your skill. Making huge mistakes along the way and learning from them. Also learning from other people’s mistakes.

Even if you are the best chef in the world you won’t be an effective chef without your team. Meaning if you want to be successful you need to be a people person. You have to actually appreciate the team you have and the support they give you. Especially in today’s environment where turnover is high in this industry.

One thing that has set me apart from other people in my industry is my refusal to downgrade my recipes to lower quality ingredients. I believe the reason word of mouth spreads so much at the food service business i managed was because of the quality i was always able to maintain. I hated buying or using anything processed in my kitchens. I believe food is at the center of everything we do. Why should I compromise my products?

I have managed kitchens for hotels, restaurants, college campuses, IT companies, and movie studios. I have found that having a high quality menu with great ingredients is always superior. If compromising on my menu and going against my values was more beneficial to my kitchen I would have seen it.

The greatest form of marketing is word of mouth by creating an excellent product or experience. All other forms of marketing are secondary to that.

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

The biggest lesson you must learn is that change is inevitable. Who you were 20 or 30 years ago and how you operated are not who you are today. You must pay attention to the future and adapt to it, or you will lose your business. I have experienced too many small companies failing because they refused to change. You do not have to change the quality of your product, you may have to change the way you operate. You need to get involved with what is trending. Also understand how to adapt to changes in the law that can negatively impact your business but plan ahead. Our pride and stubbornness will not make us money or profitable. Please understand that many restaurants went under during COVID-19 mainly because they needed to react or implement an action plan to reduce costs and increase revenue. You may be a small business or company, but you always be innovative in the way you approach problems.

Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?

I have started a consulting and retail business. It doesn’t matter whether you’re starting big or little; it’s how you manage it and create a business plan and a budget so that you clearly understand what your risk is. I spent well over 100K to get started and made mistakes that cost me. I also realized that if you are incredible in one business that doesn’t necessarily make you an expert in another. You need to be able to leverage your skills to quickly make changes to your business. So you don’t spend money that is necessary.

There will never be a perfect business plan, but the key is to create one, research, and ensure everything is on paper. I developed Sustainable Culinary Solutions as I realized too many businesses needed help and were wasting thousands of dollars due to a lack of experience.

I knew of a business owner who started a coffee business. She did not do her due diligence in the business in terms of research. She over spent money on her Point of Sale system, coffee equipment, and her vendors over charged her for her products. She had no business plan nor calculated her product costs to see how far she was from being profitable. She ended up closing her shop in a year. This is a story I have seen countless times. I created my business to pass on my 38 years of education to those who genuinely have passion, want to succeed, and need the tools to follow their dream.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sustainableculinarysolutions.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sustainableculinarysolutions/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SustainableCulinarySolutions
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sustainable-culinary-solutions/
• Twitter: https://x.com/SustainableCul1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy32V-owwrtQw2KsRnCpAew

Image Credits

These are all my photos, and I have all rights.