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

Alright, Dakota thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Om-Le Road finally opened this year! It was an idea in the works for a long-time and we finally decided to bring it to life. The risk was the same as any other restaurant; will people like the idea and the food we serve? Starting any business takes so much time away from your personal and professional life, and with restaurants, it could be months or even years before you start seeing any profit. You put your whole livelihood in danger when you don’t have as much time to focus on a steady job or simply taking care of your own health. We were fortunate enough to have a good idea and the experience to help it flourish. It’s hard to make the decision to sink all your money and any extra time you had into a business that is never guaranteed to work.

Dakota, 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 started working in restaurants at the age of 15 and have been in the industry since. I’ve learned so much and so many different cuisines along the way, I wouldn’t trade the 14 years of experience I have for any other profession. This is Om-Le Road’s first year of being open in Austin, Texas and the support has been amazing. We serve French-American fusion breakfast and brunch. We specialize in our rolled-omelette sandwiches and sweet crepes. We have the best hollandaise sauce in the city and I would argue we have the best in the state. Our goal is to give every person a chance to try elegant dishes while still being affordable for the working class. Supervising the kitchen for well-known breakfast and brunch locations in Austin allowed me to find two major problems in the market we hope to solve. The wait to get a table and get seated on weekends and busy days would be a couple hours at the very least, and the price was not something everyone could afford to try. With Om-Le Road, we want guests to be able to try refined French cooking techniques made into a timely and affordable American meal.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

It has been said before, but stay positive. In the food service industry, tensions will get as high as the temperature. As a leader, it is your job to stay calm and keep the mood light-hearted. If you’re visibly stressed and panicked, the whole restaurant will be as well. It is easy to understand but much harder to replicate when the time comes. You must be able to see every obstacle as an opportunity to overcome and every situation as a problem that does have a solution. Without you the team is lost.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We had quite a few problems along the way. The fastest way for any business to fail is letting situations get the best of you. Within a month of opening, we had someone try to break into our window and damage the property. We had to get the window fixed before we could serve any customers. Immediately after, we had rain storms which caused a leak. The leak ran behind our equipment and wet the outlet that the fridge was running on. This meant the fridge blew out and had to be replaced, as well as hundreds of dollars worth of food that went bad. The rain made a mess of our parking situation as well and the whole team was discouraged and thought this might be the end of service for a while. With what little money we had left, we fixed the window ourselves, bought a new fridge we had to transport ourselves, got the parking lot cleaned up, and restocked and prepped all the food we had lost. We were closed for one day to get all this accomplished and thankfully, open for service again the following day! We have been happily open since but sometimes all it takes is one really bad series of events to such down a restaurant for good.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://omleroad.toast.site/
• Instagram: @omleroad
• Facebook: Om-Le Road
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/om-le-road-austin
• Other: Our new location is 5313 Manor Rd. 78723 Austin, Texas

Image Credits

David Schub
Cassie Martin