We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sean Gafner a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sean, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the decision of whether to donate a percentage of sales to an organization or cause – we’d love to hear the backstory of how you thought through this.

From the day we opened our first restaurant seven years ago we’ve been committed to giving away 30% of all profits. We give 10% to Colorado Kids Belong, 10% to Boulder County non-profit organizations, and 10% back to our staff through bonuses and employee incentives.

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 was born and raised on a farm and cattle ranch in the Central Valley of California and so as soon as I turned 18 I moved to a big city and got a job working in restaurants. I instantly fell in love with the high energy, fast paced restaurant industry! After working as a chef of other peoples restaurants for 18 years, in 2015 my family and I moved to Longmont, Colorado and opened our first Restaurant, The Roost, a craft-casual American restaurant and bar on Main Street. After having a great first year in Longmont we opened our second restaurant, just three blocks South called Jefe’s Tacos & Tequila. I 2019 we took an opportunity to open our first fast-casual restaurant called Smokin Bowls, with a large kitchen that we built out as a state of the art pastry kitchen to create desserts for all of our restaurants. In March of 2022 we will open our fourth restaurant, one that I’ve been passionate about for years as a California chef that has always loved Pacific Seafood. This newest concept is called Swaylo’s Tiki Restaurant & Bar; Swaylo stands for Southwest Longmont. Swaylo’s will donate a portion of it’s profits to The Ocean Cleanup, which aligns with our value of sustainability. In 2018 we successfully removed single-use plastic from our restaurants, we also partner with farmers and ranchers from Longmont to provide high quality local ingredients in a responsible way.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Nobody wants to give a startup restaurant any money, so when we moved out to Colorado with $45,000 in our bank account, with a $220,000 startup budget, we had to get very creative to fund The Roost. We found a company to lease us all of our equipment, tables, chairs and lights, totaling $50,000. We got $35,000 from Colorado Enterprise Fund; a state-funded foundation that loans money to local businesses. We did as much as possible in trade with local contractors. We found really creative ways to decorate the restaurant for next to free. We borrowed money from family and friends and we did as much as possible ourselves.

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

Honesty and vulnerability will go a long way with having authentic relationships with your managers and staff. So many of us entrepreneurs spend so many years trying to prove ourselves to everybody that by the time we are actually running our own businesses we have a hard time letting that guard down. We all have to find our own cognitive routines that will keep us centered and free from ego so that we can stay authentic and genuinely care for those we lead.

Contact Info:

• Website: theroostlongmont.com jefeslongmont.com smokinbowlsrestaurant.com swaylostiki.com
• Instagram: @theroostlongmont @jefeslongmont @smokinbowlsrestaurant @swaylostiki
• Facebook: @theroostlongmont @jefeslongmont @smokinbowlsrestaurant @swaylostiki