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

Alright, Kim thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

My husband, sister and I started Crab Hut in 2007 with two goals: to retired our parents and to eat seafood at wholesale cost. When we first opened, we were so committed to bring the best seafood available to our guests that we’d get our live crawfish shipped to the airport and drive our little VW Beetle back to Convoy, our original location. Now with three locations and our new adventure, Kingfisher, we still place the same emphasis on serving high quality, mindfully sourced products and sourcing as much local products as possible. As we grow older, our mission has grew with us a little more as well. We were fortunate to be in the audience of a very prestigious award for the restaurant industry a few years back. And one of the award recipients that night questioned, why is it that our industry is not normal? Normal in a sense of being able to provide maternity/paternity leave, health care, sick days and vacations. Our mission now has grown to not only providing mindful and quality products, but also providing a little normalcy for our team.

Kim, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We started Crab Hut with a passion to bring Southern-inspired seafood boil to San Diego. At the time, our parents were running a small mom and pop restaurant in El Cajon city. Growing up in a restaurant family, we saw the long hours and hard work our parents put into their restaurant. We’re not sure why that did not deter us away from the industry.

A little bit about our family, we landed in Texas after we left Vietnam as refugees. We were introduced to Cajun food and seafood boils from our family who had already settled in Houston for many years before us. Ever since, we have been hooked on the complex flavors of Cajun and Creole cuisine. When we decided to open Crab Hut, we were broke youngsters. My husband and I were 24 years old and my sister was only 18. We had no collateral any bank and a limited credit history. We turned to our parents for a loan and used our credit cards to supplement restaurant equipment costs. Taking vacation at the time was such a privilege dream that we would never thought of. But regardless of hardship, we were very happy then. Being able to go to work everyday, open our doors to our beloved guests, hangout with our team at late night karaoke were some of the best days of our lives. Looking back, now that we are a bit more handoff from our restaurants, some of our proud moments for us were when we finally able to retired our parents, introduced healthcare to our team long before Affordable Care passed and flown in those delicious male blue crabs from Maryland for our guests.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Maintain our consistency and quality are very important to us. We understand in this market, it is very hard to make a profit. But we pride ourselves with our mindful sourced and quality ingredients, and we think our guests know that about us.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

We think stay consistence and relevant are some of the best ways to maintain and grow your clientele. Even though we have a strong followers, but by reinventing ourselves such as adding a full bar to our restaurants, is a great way to have something new for our regulars, but also attract new guests.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.crabhutrestaurant.com www.kingfishersd.com
• Instagram: @crabhut @kingfisher.sd
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kingfisher.sd/
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/crabhut