We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Matthew Kuscher a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Matthew, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear how you think where to draw the line in terms of asking friends and family to support your business – what’s okay and what’s over the line?
Friends and family are there to support the business, not to take away from it. So a general rule is if my friends and family want me to succeed, they pay full price. And if someone asks for a friends and family discount, we add 10% to their bill since they should be the ones supporting you the most.
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 am a third generation restaurateur who studied at FIU’s Chaplain School of Hospitality. I own and operate Kush Hospitality Group which is made up of five unique restaurants, two bars and a milkshake bar and attention to detail, décor, food and atmosphere is what separates us from everyone else. For us, it’s not just the quality of our food and cocktails or the length of training our staff has – it goes deeper than that. It’s how we devise programming to engage the youth and pet owners; how we hand-select each song on our playlists and design every art installation in each restaurant so its 100% authentic to our brand and love for our neighborhood.
Any advice for managing a team?
Learn about your staff, know their hobbies and their kids names. Praise in public and discipline in private. Give them thank you gifts for a job well-done. Think outside the box to make them feel valued and supported.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Integrity and authenticity. We make everything from scratch, we hand select every song, we design our own interiors with Miami in mind. We come up with unique programming that includes all and celebrates the rich history of the city.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kushhospitality.com
- Instagram: @kushhospitality
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEJ6-St7qYxFQZ0ckynLcOA
- Other: TikTok @kushhospitality
Image Credits
Valerie Lopez, Miranda Kruse