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

Alright, Yuriko thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

Becoming a business owner was the realization of my career-long goal. Having opened and worked in restaurants for other people for the better part of two decades, it was my dream to eventually have my own place. Despite the constant chaos of owning a restaurant, I am pleased to say that I am absolutely happier as an owner versus an employee.

Having spent most of my professional life working in restaurants, I’ve never really had a “regular” job, but the times I have thought about what it would be like to go back to not having the responsibility of ownership, I’ve still been thankful for my current role. To say that the pandemic was a nightmare for restaurants would be a vast understatement. My restaurant was closed for 16 months. Even in the throes of that incredibly stressful time, a time when I felt like I was watching my entire industry crumble around me, I couldn’t see myself switching careers to take on a 9 to 5 job. I realized, and not for the first time, that the hospitality industry is just so implicitly part of who I am.

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 San Francisco and moved to New York after college, where I began working as a production assistant for MTV networks. I quickly learned that my skill set was perfectly matched for that industry, but that I had no passion for it. When the show I was working on was cancelled after one season, I found myself out of work and floundering about what to do next. Drowning my unemployed sorrows that night at my favorite bar in Brooklyn, I saw they were looking for a server and asked if they would hire me. I had zero experience, so the answer was of course, “Absolutely not.” But, they offered to train me so that I could use them on my resume to get a job elsewhere. There were two family meals a day, before and after service, and shift drinks. Needless to say, I went in every day for the next 30 unpaid days straight, until they had no choice but to hire me. The rest was history. I fell in love with the industry. A few years later I started my first GM job, and was thrilled to find that the same skill set that had been such a good fit for television production, was an equal fit for running a restaurant. But this time with the passion to go along with it.

Fast forward to today and I think that’s what sets my restaurant apart from others. I own my business with my husband and one of our best friends. Collectively we are the General Manager, Bar Manager and Executive Chef. We are literal working owners. If the restaurant is open, the three of us are there. I run the floor and host, my husband serves a full section, and our Chef is one of a three-man kitchen. Our passion for this industry is palpable. It’s what brought us together, what drove us to risk everything to open our own place, and what yields our returning guests. It’s not just the food, not just the service, but the whole experience that we create. I am incredibly proud of the combined sum of our efforts and the guest experience it creates night after night.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I met my business partner, Craig Schoen, at my very first restaurant job. He also happens to be my husband. He was the bartender I asked for a job when I found myself freshly unemployed after my failed attempt in production. The relationship was completely platonic initially, and obviously evolved from there! We worked at many different restaurants together over the course of 15 years, opening, running and consulting for numerous outfits in New York, Seattle and Nashville, before we opened Peninsula, and finally had our own place.

We met our third business partner and Chef, Jake Howell, at one of our old restaurants in Seattle. At that time Craig and I had already been entertaining the dream of opening our own place for many years. We always knew we wanted to partner with our Chef, and when we met Jake, we knew we’d finally found our guy. He was only in his early twenties then, and already his talent and drive were undeniable.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Like so many others, we were forced to get pretty creative during the pandemic. We were one of the first restaurants to close in Nashville, and one of the last to reopen. We had our last night of service on Saturday, March 14th, 2020. By the following week, we had pivoted to an entirely new business plan. One of the menu items we’re known for is our broth. As simple as it sounds, it is a highlight and a favorite for a huge portion of our clientele. In our first week of our pandemic closure we launched a broth subscription service: Bi-weekly pick up or delivery of a rotating broth, with a 3 month up front membership commitment. We were incredibly fortunate to already have the broth as an established product. Turning this into a retail operation was one of the things that enabled us to make it through.

For the next 16 months we continued to add to our retail offerings. I started a dumpling pop-up, which we initially sold as a frozen retail item, and then expanded into a hot food take out offering once a week. What’s funny is that the dumplings started off as an at-home cooking project, born out of boredom during lockdown. But using the repetitive task of dumpling rolling as a way to preserve my sanity paid off unexpectedly. After gifting them to friends and being well received, and after Jake tried them and concurred (the crowning moment of any and all of my culinary pursuits!), we decided to move the dumpling operations to the restaurant and sell them. A logical pairing for broth, and a side gig that generated another crucial revenue stream for us during our pandemic closure.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.peninsulanashville.com
• Instagram: @peninsula_nashville
• Facebook: @peninsulanashville

Image Credits
Photo of white asparagus and tabletop action photo (hands cutting food): Credit to Dana Kalachnik All other photos: Credit to Danielle Atkins