We recently connected with Lino Yi and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lino, thanks for joining us today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today

So I just closed my restaurant. I was heartbroken but at the same time a giant weight has been lifted from my shoulders. It’s like leaving a toxic relationship. I remember it fondly but it wasn’t always happy. I learned a lot about myself and what I’m capable of, more importantly I know how I would do things differently the next time around. For starters 1) find better business partners/investors. Surround myself with people who share my vision/ passion and not people who want a quick return. 2) No more food courts. I initially wanted counter service to avoid hiring a large staff. Full service is the way to go. I don’t want to be dictated by landlords, set hours, days of service, etc. if I want to do just dinner service and close on Mondays I should be able to. Having my own brick and mortar means I can set my own hours/days of service, choose to do 3rd party apps (Uber eats, doordash etc).

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

I started TKO ( The Korean One) during the pandemic. Like many service industry members, we cut our hours in half and I needed extra income. More importantly I missed my friends. So I just asked my neighborhood bar where I frequented a lot how business was. They said terrible and lost most of their staff. So I asked if I could do a pop up on one of the days they were closed. They get all the alcohol sales and 10% of the food sales. I get to cook, make some money and hangout with my friends. The first one we did was a huge success. And I was hooked. So I just copy and paste the sales pitch and went around to all my favorite bars/restaurants and got the ball rolling. But I didn’t keep it to myself I got my other chef friends in on it and it was just this great symbiotic relationship. We were making money for ourselves and our neighborhood restaurants/bars.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Lesson I had to learn. “Not everyone learns the same way” I had an old chef /mentor when I was coming up that would push me to the limit. I worked doubles, clopens(close-opens), holidays, etc. he pushed me harder than everyone else. At first I thought he had it in for me but he was just pushing me to be better. I am grateful for it. I made me better, faster, tougher. So when I opened my restaurant I had a young line cook and I pushed him the same way. I broke that poor kid. When he put in his notice I was so disappointed. I told him he should’ve fought harder for it. But that kid wasn’t me. I apologized to him afterwards. I learned that not everyone shares my vision, experience, feelings. There are other ways to motivate/teach young cooks.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Trust. I built my relationship with my staff ona few principals but the main one is trust. I trust they will do their job and they trust me to treat them with respect and care. I may have a staff but I would still do the dishes, take out the trash and do the floors. I demonstrated to the staff that no job was beneath me. It helped gain their respect. I encouraged the staff to come up with daily specials and we would discuss the dish and the process and I help with honest criticism and positive reinforcement. They would come to me excited about a dish and we figure out a way to execute them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: TKO_thekorean1