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

Tara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Talk to us about building your team? What was it like? What were some of the key challenges and what was your process like?

I am originally from Chicago, and all of my experience in restaurants is there. So I didn’t have much of a network in Saint Paul. Upon opening Hot Hands, I asked the people closest to me here if they knew anyone with restaurant experience or anyone willing to help open a restaurant. A few of our opening employees were old high school friends of my husband’s and a couple college kids in the area. We had a very bare bones team and everyone did a lot. Cashiers would help prep food; cooks would help run food and sometimes take orders. It was a great team effort, but the busier we got the more it became clear that it wasn’t sustainable. We’ve had our staffing ups and downs, that’s for sure. We opened October of 2019 right before everything got shut down because of covid. At the start of the pandemic our staff of barely 6 went to a staff of 1 (just me). After a couple months we started to slowly bring people back. That was pretty wild. For the first few years of business we really did a lot with a little staff. We just celebrated our five year anniversary, and I feel like we finally have caught our stride. When hiring people throughout the years I’ve learned to listen to my gut feeling on whether someone would be a good fit. I used to look at resumes pretty hard and look for people with relevant experience. However, I think what works for us and the culture here at Hot Hands is how does the person make me feel? I’m always game to teach someone who is brand new to the industry whether it’s back of house or front of house. I think of my favorite places to eat, and it’s always the people that bring me back.

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 took a slight detour right after high school to end up where I am now. I intended to study Spanish in college, but realized food was what I was most passionate about. I attended DePaul University for one year in Chicago before going to pastry school in Elgin, IL. After completing the pastry program there I went to France for three months to study pastry at Ecole Ducasse and then at Hotel Du Cap Eden Roc in Antibes. I always liked to bake when I was younger, but I think it just didn’t occur to me that it could be a profession until I was in my early 20’s. At the start of opening Hot Hands the goal was to provide a comfortable place to grab some comfort food- pie, pastries, biscuits! While we still strive to make the best food we can, I think my goals have shifted from heavily focussing on the food to putting more energy toward trying to motivate the staff and provide jobs and opportunities for young people. We get a lot of high school and college aged kids that apply. Sometimes they work at Hot Hands as a stepping stone on the way to something else, but sometimes they find a deeper interest in food the way I did when I was their age. I think being a part of that experience for someone is pretty fulfilling.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

When opening a business and building a brand from scratch we try to find all these fancy marketing strategies. I thought there was a secret to advertising. I tried certain things- local newspapers, local news stations, radio exposure. But at the end of the day the people who keep coming back are the people who are most powerful in the solid incremental growth of our business. Word of mouth has proven to be the most effective way to gain loyal customers.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

In the five years of owning Hot Hands I’ve learned that it’s important to keep your head down. There were times I would be concerned about what other restaurants or similar business models were doing. While that’s important to a certain extent, I’ve learned that it’s important to focus on yourself and your own product. It sounds very basic, but it takes energy to do successfully. I also view “competitors” as colleagues and friends. In our first year of business a fellow pie shop owner said to me, “There’s enough pie for everyone”. That stuck with me. I love collaborating and bouncing ideas off of fellow pastry chefs and restaurateurs. I have huge respect for other business owners, chefs, etc; At the end of the day, we’re all trying our best!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hothandspie.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/hothandspie

Image Credits

All photos taken by my husband, Max Kafka