Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Emerson Teoh. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Emerson, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?
Perseverance & patience. With any success or goal of being successful, you must have perseverance & patience. As nothing good in life comes easy, this means pushing through all the challenges & hardships thrown towards you, every successful person in life has gone through their own challenges & hardships. Patience, be patient for your success, even though others succeed earlier, just keep calm and be patient. Quick success builds your ego, slow success builds your character.
I developed this view of having perseverance & patience for success, mainly through my very short journey so far as an entrepreneur. At the beginning I thought I was gonna hit it off the mark straight away & boy was I wrong. The start of Hearth Kota Kinabalu wasn’t as straightforward as I thought it out to be, I had to face lots of challenges & hardships, even after trying different things and thinking this would work, nothing came into fruition, and I started to grew impatient as I saw others doing well. But then slowly I began to realize that through this process, I have managed to learn a lot, in a way it forced myself to learn new skillsets & knowledge, and overall it really changed my character as well, in a way I would say I’ve grown to be more mature.
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.
My name is Emerson Teoh, started my hospitality journey when I was just the age of 16, and have been in this industry for 10 years and counting. Bulk of of my experience came from my time in Sydney, Australia, where I worked & studied there. I got into the hospitality industry, mainly because I wasn’t doing that well academically in primary & secondary school. As for cooking, it was mainly attributed a particular movie called “No Reservations” saw some cooking scenes from the movie and thought that looked fun, and I asked me mom to teach me how to fry an egg, this was when I was probably 10-12 years old, and that’s where it all started.
Currently I own & manage a steakhouse called Hearth, based in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. We started out in 2022, here we modernize the concept of a steakhouse, by offering a flavor focused menu. There is also a strong emphasis on Spanish wine, which is a region of wine that isn’t that popular yet among the locals, but pairs nicely with all sorts off grilled food.
What sets us apart from others would be our method of cooking, which is an open-fire style of cooking, over grill & oven uses just firewood & charcoal. When food is cooked with fire, it really brings out a new depth of flavor that cant’ be replicated with gas or electricity.
The thing I would say I am most proud of, is definitely the team that I have behind me, without them, I would be where I am today and answering this question, they have been and are the cornerstone of the success Hearth has seen so far, I would say I am very blessed and grateful for the team I have with me, some still being from day one itself. Another thing I would say I am proud of would be that Hearth has been opened for two years, it is still considered a short time for sure, but especially being in an industry where there are lots of closures, I would say I am proud and grateful that I am still opened till this day.
What I would like others to know about our brand is that Hearth will not be the last, and that there will be more to come.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I would say it was definitely our commitment to the quality & value of our food, service & product that we give to our customers. We are always looking for ways to maintain & improve what we do, this means of course making sure that every customer that comes to dine in at Hearth, we check on their experience, was it good or bad, if it was bad, we find out why and we take steps immediately to rectify the issue at hand. The important ensuring that you hear your customers and make sure they feel heard.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
Managing people definitely has been the hardest part of this journey so far, as everyone has a different mindset, and it can be really challenging and frustrating at times. For me what’s important is treating them like they are your business partner, especially the really good team members that you have, make sure they feel heard, ask for their opinions on things, listen to their concerns, engage with them socially on a personal level as well. There is no golden rule or guidebook to follow when it comes to managing people, it’s just something you figure out and develop along the way.
Image Credits
I have the rights to all these pictures and they belong to me