Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sydney Grims. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sydney, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses.

I am a 4th generation restaurateur and the first female to join our family’s business. I joined Fearless back in 2017 when it was a collection of restaurants that were not even branded as Fearless. When I first joined my family’s business, my Dad, Marty, quickly recognized it was important to allow me to make my own way. He allowed me to make my own decisions, allow me to win, AND allow me to fail. He didn’t micromanage. I made financial, design, brand, and operational decisions without needing approval from him. Obviously, being my Dad, he understood and trusted the experience I had before joining the family business, but the biggest and best thing he did was allow me to be autonomous, run my own department, and make large decisions. When I first moved back home to Philadelphia, I was not only working with my Dad in the same office, but I was also living at home with my parents to save money for a down payment on a house. Living and working together was tricky at first because we didn’t turn work off when we went home. We would talk about it over dinner; that was a pitfall. You have to learn to turn off the work relationship when you walk in the door. It’s ok to live at home to save for your home, but having a boundary is crucial. I needed my Dad to be my Dad when I was at home and my boss as my boss. That’s a tricky lesson to learn, and we certainly had to navigate it; my Mom definitely served as co-counsel for both of us, haha, and acted as HR.

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 grew up in a family where my life constantly revolved around hard work and food. The work, my parents did was not for the faint of heart. My Mom worked in retail, managing Macy’s department stores as a regional manager for over 15 locations, and my Dad worked obviously in the restaurants. They worked weekends, nights, you name it, so I really grew up going to work on the weekends with my Dad. I’d play in the pastry kitchen at our restaurant Passerelle with our pastry chef, run around the back-of-house playing hide and seek with friends, and curl up under my Dad’s desk with a mini-handheld portable tv which to me in 1996 was the coolest thing EVER. I grew up working in the restaurants at a young age, helping where I could and learning the value of a dollar by age 12. I had worked all front-of-house positions by the time I was 18. I worked at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia as a Junior and Senior in High School, under GM Harry Gorestein as a front desk agent, laundress, and my favorite, “the lobby lizard.” On my first day of work at Four Seasons in 2007, I greeted the Dali Lama at the hotel while at the same time, Snoop Dog was leaving with his entourage and offering me backstage tickets to the concert that night. I went on to Cornell’s Hotel School, where I studied Hospitality and Real Estate Finance. Following graduation, I worked for Hillstone Restaurant Group, where I was promoted quickly and ran two of their locations in Manhattan by age 25. By 26, I was running all hospitality, food, and beverage events for billionaire Ronald Perelman’s estate, yachts, and air fleet. It was a wild ride, to say the least. And shortly after, I returned home to join the family business, where I have been now for 6.5 years.

I joined the business when we had eight restaurants and saw a massive opportunity to provide structure and infrastructure to an incredible company my Dad and his team had already built. I was not looking to take anything away but rather add and take the company to the next level. I brought standardized operating procedures and software systems and added tons of infrastructure and positions to support the future growth that my Dad and his team were ready to build. As a company, Fearless strives to grow at one restaurant per year. I knew with that growth strategy, we needed the support, and each subsequent year I would take on a department and hand it off to a new hire or promotion from within the take over that department when we could financially support it with a new restaurant addition. It has not been growth overnight, we are the tortoise in the race, and if we all remember how that fable goes…the tortoise always wins in the end. We are not looking to open four restaurants a year; we want to make PERFECT decisions that will not compromise our other locations. Not one location is a dud; it’s not dragging down our others. We believe growth comes when all of our children are happy in the sandbox. I think our mentality regarding growth is what sets us apart. Slow and steady wins the race. I too often see companies opening 2, 4, or 6 a year and have seen large restaurateurs lose it all.

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

On my first restaurant opening, I received a very snarky review from a food writer from a local magazine who had a poor relationship with our chef. It was a very personal attack on our chef (who had previously and unbeknownst to me) written a scathing Facebook post about the legitimacy of this particular reviewer. I had left my job, my significant other, and my group of friends to take the opportunity to open my first restaurant. Sure, opening a restaurant has glamour and allure, but it’s also grueling mentally, financially, and physically. And…on top of all of this, I had something to prove to my co-workers and family who entrusted me with this business. When the review came out, I was gutted. How could this reviewer take one experience to tear my family’s reputation to shreds? It was heartbreaking to see what one person could do based on one experience and one bad relationship. Shame on me for not researching more before hiring this person but shame on that reviewer for tearing down a local business trying to bring something new to our city of underdogs. After a couple of weeks, I picked myself up by my bootstraps. My Dad never has time for worrying, anxiety, or negativity. As an orphan by age 14, he always showed me what true resilience meant. He told me to stop wallowing and to go out and fix it. The only way to fix the tens of thousands of misconceptions about my baby was to prove everyone wrong and to focus on one motto “Each plate for each guest.” Every guest’s experience had to be perfect. I worked the floor day after day, night after night, to establish relationships, build staff rapport, and ensure each guest left happy. The evolution of this restaurant has been extraordinary, and now it is one of our crown jewels.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Joining Fearless was a massive culture shock. I came from 2 environments of negativity, political positioning, throwing co-workers under the bus, and general toxicity to an environment of support, cheerleading, excitement, desire to develop their team, and positivity. I had to unlearn the negative and intensely critical culture I had been taught by my first two employers and re-learn how to be human. I had to re-learn how to listen, not always be right, not always be the first to share my opinion and help boost positivity and not clap back with a sassy remark. I would love to say that it’s been easy, but it was one of my biggest challenges after learning that for six years. I have been much less of a micromanager because of my experience at Fearless. I have learned to trust my teammates more, to express that their ideas are welcome and that they are good ones in front of others, to stay quiet, and to listen. Every once in a while, I revert back to my old ways; our COO gives me a look, he’s like a big brother to me, always looking out for my best interest as a leader, and we have coaching conversations as well, so I can learn to be a better leader. Every leader in an organization needs someone to look to keep them in check, and he is mine.

Contact Info:

• Website: fearlessrestaurants.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sydneygrims/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fearlessrestaurants
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydney-l-grims-33213976
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@fearlessrestaurants