We recently connected with Matt Brice and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Matt thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Our entire restaurant brand is based around obsessed hospitality. We want to give every guest who walks in to one of our restaurants a one and a half hour vacation from whatever is stressing them. From valet to the front door to your table, we want you to feel like you’re in a neighborhood spot where you’re known and loved.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started as a dishwasher at age 13 for a local diner near where I grew up in Massachusetts. I fell in love with the restaurant business — and with serving others — and I worked my way up. I moved all over the country working at restaurant groups — and once I arrived in Houston, Texas, I never moved again. I am obsessed with hospitality — and making an impact on every person we come into contact with — and I prioritize this for our team. We genuinely care about our employees, guests and communities where we are blessed enough to serve.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We opened our second restaurant just as COVID hit — and the government imposed shutdown kept us from opening on time. Without revenue coming in, I was struggling to pay our employees. I paid them personally for as long as I could, and then decided (with the support of our awesome Hedwig Village mayor) to defy the city’s shutdown order and open anyway. We did it very carefully, with distance and extra sanitization efforts intact. We had to choose our employees and their wellbeing over following what we felt like was an overly long shutdown order impacting our local economy. I was incredibly grateful that our community supported us wholeheartedly — and we were at capacity right away.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

For years, we struggled with our first Federal Grill off Shepherd — I was cook, server, bartender, handyman — pretty much everything that needed to be done. We had many close calls with payroll — even having to take out loans to make sure our people got paid. But we never gave up — and after our second location was up and running, we were able to continue expanding. We now have five Houston-area locations!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thefederalgrill.com
• Instagram: the_federal_grill
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/federalgrill/

Image Credits

Loren Holub