We were lucky to catch up with Madeline Buechter recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Madeline thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

I run my own social media. I have a background in social media & photography, so it just made the most sense. The further I get in this industry, the more people I met, the more I realize how many people outsource this part of their business. I’ve been approached numerous times from companies or individuals to come in and help with this side of it, but it’s just never something I would want to be off site. When I was a young server, I helped run some social media’s for two different food industry businesses. If I wasn’t working on site that day, I never felt like I was able to get the content needed. It’s a very in person job, which is why outsourcing has never made sense to me. I take pride in producing informative and pretty information via social media. I don’t tend to follow trends that I see on instagram or tiktok because it feels inauthentic to me. It just becomes noise to me when I’m scrolling my personal social medias, and I don’t want to contribute to the noise. Make it true, make it look enticing/delicious, and don’t make it look different than it will look at the table. A gorgeous cocktail/food photo is alluring, but if it doesn’t come out to the customer looking like that, it’s false advertising. Just be real.

Madeline, 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 am a hospitality professional with 15+ years of restaurant work under my belt and a degree in art education. I got in the industry young, just needing to make a little bit of money in high school. That trend continued through college, and I found a restaurant and family that secured my lifetime in this industry, Affäre in the crossroads district of Kansas City. I learned about food, wine and spirits along with every position a FOH employee can hold. I fell in love with the industry and taking care of people. I was curious, and the ownership and senior staff were great teachers. I left the restaurant to pursue a different side of the industry: food production, specifically chocolate. I worked at several chocolate shops around town, learning how to make my own chocolate from the bean and craft beautiful bonbons. Again, I was curious, and I learned so much in three years. I met my business partner when he owned a taco cart, and started working with him at different breweries during the pandemic, and moved that concept into both Parlor and Iron District just six months apart. The idea of a walk up window and fast causal food was never my love language, although I learned a lot of kitchen skills I hadn’t had previously, and I cherish those years. In 2023, we opened our brick and mortar and I got to be behind the bar again after many years away. We bring a concept of barbecue and mexican cuisine that the city has really come to adore. In my position of GM/bartender/owner/etc., I bring all of the skills I have gained through my career. I tie culinary tricks to cocktail recipes, I made chocolate in house, I use my teaching degree to train our staff and design our menus. I proud to be able to take bits and pieces from all of my “previous lives” and mold them into my restaurant.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

As cliche as it sounds, word of mouth is the best source for new guests. Making sure that each guest is being given the best experience so they walk away and want to tell their friends and family about it is the biggest goal in my book. Majority of new guests in our restaurant hear about it from someone else. Hearing “oh, so and so told me about you guys!”, is just the biggest compliment. It shows me my staff is doing their job well and creating a welcoming environment to pair with our food and beverage offerings. Treat each interaction like it’s a celebration, and they will go out and spread the word. Excellent hospitality is also great marketing.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

My only advice for managing a team is to actually know your people. Be interested in them as a human, their lives, their goals, and not just what they bring to your business. We all want to be seen and understood, and we all work better when we’re happy. Creating a team that feels like they can talk to me when they need something, in or outside of work, is really important to me. I want them to be loyal to me, so I feel they deserve my loyalty too. It has to go both ways to work, just like respect. As far as morale, we like to take time outside of open hours to do fun activities with our team. Plan a day to go to a sporting event, visit our neighboring restaurants, go to a play. Having a break from the stressful work environment and getting to be ourselves instead of just always on hospitality professionals brings a air of humanness to the restaurant camaraderie.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: @MadelineBue, @BarbacoaKC