We were lucky to catch up with Jenni Lau recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jenni, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Moving to Maryland from PA, we missed a lot of the variety that we had back home. Before that, my parents started our new lives in New York back in the 1980s. There was so much to see, to do and most of all to eat and drink! This is especially the case when it comes to bubble tea! However, we simply called it milk tea back then and we drank it almost round the clock! Grabbing a cup of milk tea was as easy as walking down to the end of the block so when I decided to move my family to Maryland, there was a piece of my childhood pleasantry missing from my daily routine. I would beg my husband to drive us for miles, sometimes even back to our old neighborhood in PA just to have my milk tea fix! After a while, we discovered bubble tea shops that opened up in Maryland and decided to give them a try. They were just “Ok” and were enough to scratch the milk tea craving but it wasn’t the taste that I grew up with. That was when my family and I thought to ourselves, “Why don’t we open up a bubble tea shop of our own?!?”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As a Business Management Major and a Master’s Degree in Human Resources, I am dedicated to helping people and improving their work and personal lives. I bring all my 20+ years of experience as an advocate for the people to my business venture and it allows me to connect with my customers on a much more personal level. I believe it is what sets us aside from any other big chain and food/beverage business. There are several loyal customers that come in just to chat or say hello. I love connecting with people in the community in that way where we’re not just a business selling them a product, we’re here for each other! That is something I am most proud of as a business owner.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Following my dreams and my passion led me to owning my own small business. It was not intended to be my full time career but as something small for us to invest in to add something to the community. I love bubble tea and I simply wanted to share that love with everyone! So much that I gave up my career as a Human Resource professional to pursue it. Although the road to opening my first store was like a downwards roller coaster loops and dips, we managed to rise up to all the challenges and overcome the odds to become what we are today! After the first year of owning my own business, it became clear to me that the business would not even see the heights of which we had planned unless I immerse myself fully into it. So that’s when I made the decision to leave my full time career and make my side hustle into my main hustle. Now, just a short five years after opening our first store, I now have five other partners of whom I share the same passion for bubble tea making it a total of six locations across all of Maryland! The newest stores in Owings Mills at Stevenson University and Chatime Towson around the corner from Towson University on 40 W Chesapeake Ave! Both of which are in the college campus footprint and easily accessible by foot; just like how I remember it when I was in college myself!

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Managing a team starts at the interview process and it is more of a heartfelt conversation than a vigorous Q&A session. I would talk with potential candidates about their families and about their dreams, all to better understand what kind of person they are and whether they would be a good fit for my shop. I ask questions more akin to daily habits at home, what they like to do and what are their interests. Anyone can fudge their way through the usual interview questions like, “Why do you want to work here?” or “What makes you a good candidate for the job?”. This helps me to better understand what kind of employee they will be if they join the team. If it feels right and the conversation goes well, I’m not simply welcoming a new staff member, it is more like I am welcoming another member to the family. As their employer, I have high expectations for them and very specific goals that I want each of them to be able to meet. I reward good performance and encourage growth and learning all the while. This has been very effective in keeping up with the standards of the business and maintaining high morale amongst the staff.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.chatimemd.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chatimetowson
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Chatimemaryland/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/chatime-towson-towson-2