We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Monique King. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Monique below.
Monique, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.
All of our businesses are family businesses- it’s been that way since the very beginning. It’s our philosophy that a happy employee is always a better employee, and vice versa. If you have employees that are fulfilled and respect their job, and it’s a personal feeling, they’ll do everything better. Every part of this machine is symbiotic- you have to create delicious food, maintain a welcoming atmosphere, and serve everything with a smiling face- everybody has to do their part of the whole. That’s what keeps all of us afloat. We’re not in this just for ourselves. We consider our employees part of our work family; we know that we’re not family, but we’re not corporate in the sense that we implement strict rules. Even so, balancing a business as a family and with the people you care about can make your job difficult. For example, when I create a new schedule for the week, I consider the dynamics and individual traits of our team. Or, if a cook needs to leave to pick up their kids, we’ll adjust things to honor that. We understand the importance of acknowledging everyone’s personalities, outside goals, and familial responsibilities. When we first started, Paul wanted a job where he could take our kids to work. Since then, our kids and their friends have been involved with our restaurants- we’re constantly working with everyone. It’s a difficult business and you have to love it. People say, “Oh my god, that’s such a demanding lifestyle,” and yes, I would say, it absolutely is- especially for people who don’t love it- but we do. We take everything each day at a time. Every day brings something new, and we have to roll with it. We love being a family business because it allows us to do the right thing. Ultimately, we always remember that we’re just the next generation of owners in what we believe is a long lineage of beautiful family legacies.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a native Angeleno and was personally trained by Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken- they were really the first generation of chefs championing California cuisine. Around the 1980’s, Los Angeles restaurants started the trajectory they’re currently on. Previously, these women worked in classic French restaurants before blossoming into masters of eclectic global cuisine- now it’s everything we do. Paul and I met in Chicago in this modern New Orleans restaurant- he came from Kentucky and provided a more classic American perspective, which created beautiful regional cuisine. Everything really started to change then- from being so traditional, super high-end, and polished- but in Chicago, we had the opportunity to create dishes that expanded what people expected to appreciate and enjoy. Today, we don’t even look back; and now, it feels like we’re in the tenth generation of restauranteurs. We used to be categorized as the “Post-Puck” generation- everyone in that era was defining what the current and future landscape of Los Angeles cuisine would be. In terms of what we’re doing now, we definitely want to continue the theme of family. We have so many wonderful regulars and pride ourselves on anticipating where they’ll want to sit, and what they’re drinking before they order their meal- really delivering outstanding customer service. We have guests who have very graciously followed us from restaurant to restaurant, and we love to take care of them. It’s similar to the philosophy that every day and every situation is entirely custom and not cookie-cutter. Here at Little Beast, we’ll tailor and customize events to fit the vision of our guests, because we want them to feel welcome here. I can’t help but think of ten different ways to accommodate our guests’ preferences because it’s something I sincerely love doing. Again, it does make the job more difficult, but I always want to figure out a way to do it because I think it makes the entire experience more special.
Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?
We’ve purchased restaurants before. We were in negotiation to buy Little Beast before the pandemic. At first, it was “maybe November or December,” but by February, everything started to look pretty grim. But it remained an attractive opportunity- in part, to secure a liquor license and embrace the business of creating craft cocktails. Before we ultimately purchased Little Beast during the pandemic, the restaurant thrived on offering a robust takeout program and having an outdoor space to dine in, which helped re-claim business at a time when many struggled to operate in the same way. For example, our restaurant next door, Cindy’s, had to create a makeshift space for dining in the parking lot! Now that we’ve owned the restaurant for just under two and a half years, we get to focus more on refining our brand- we’re in a comfortable place where we have a staff that we love, there are programs in place that we’re comfortable changing as-needed, and we feel like we’ve gotten to know our clientele better. Now it’s all about refining our customer service, putting our touch on our offerings and physical space, and defining our digital presence on social media. We feel very fortunate that we’re finally at a place where we can focus on the next ten years. Of course, the actual operational issues will always remain- how do we stay relevant? I can’t stay cavalier because we have to adjust every single day to remain affordable and competitive; and to continuously expose ourselves to more people so we have a restaurant to run tomorrow. It’s always going to be a challenging business- difficult on families, difficult on personal dynamics; yet we love that people still choose to participate in it. The challenge will always be, at the end of the day, can you keep up and remain? It’s not always easy to be the “little guy,” or a very small fish in a very, very big pond, while being able to treat everyone with respect and dignity, to give people a place to work with a sense of security, and to sustain relevancy. But it’s something we embrace and try to rise to every day.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
We’re always looking for ways to improve our relationships with our guests. We like to experiment with foods and flavors to ensure that every iteration of a pork chop or flat iron steak is as great, if not better than the last version. It also keeps our customers interested because it’s a familiar choice, but still a new choice. Like on our burger, we’ll go back and update the house mayo or Thousand Island dressing- maybe we’ll have caramelized garlic aioli- then we’ll swap it out for something entirely different on next season’s menu. You know, a pork chop is always a pork chop, but we’ll make it eight different ways in two years. In terms of fostering brand loyalty, I think we do so by maintaining a small team. We’re definitely not corporate- the person printing out your menus is the same person coming in to create our fabulous cocktails, and the person answering your emails is likely someone who’s spent time waiting tables on weeknights. We also continuously seek out feedback- we’ve re-implemented comment cards that encourage our guests to leave feedback on their experience. We do this because we genuinely want to know what people enjoy or possibly don’t! We really try to drive in that it’s our people and our team who will take great care of you, whether you’re visiting us in person or purchasing a gift card for your best friend from somewhere on the other side of the country.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://littlebeastrestaurant.com
- Instagram: @littlebeastrestaurant
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/little-beast-eagle-rock/
Image Credits
Food and restaurant photography by Mia Chew