Welcome to another episode of The Corner Booth, the official podcast of RestaurantOwner.com. Today, the restaurant industry is changing faster than ever. Learn from successful independent restaurant operators and other industry leaders as they share best practices that will help you engage your team, delight your guests, and grow your business. And welcome everyone to another episode of Corner Booth.
I'm Chris Tripoli with RestaurantOwner.com and I'm bringing to you today a story of Dandelion Cafe, multiple units now, nationally recognized, award-winning, and run by partners, founders, operators, husband-wife team, parents, Sarah Lieberman and J.C. Ricks. J.C., Sarah, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day. And welcome to Corner Booth. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Happy to be here. Well, Dandelion Cafe, it's fantastic. People love it.
You obviously got to be pleased with the contests that you've won. But before we get into that, why don't we just tell our listeners a little bit about you guys? How did you get started in the business? How did you meet? And what brought you to Dandelion Cafe? I'll go first. I grew up in the restaurant industry. My parents had a pizza place growing up from the time I was 12. So I grew up in hospitality, really. My parents did not have any restaurant experience.
Now being a restaurant owner myself, I realized how terrible they were at business. Like awful. You know, but it's fine. They were just trying to take care of their three or four children. Sorry. Good that we learn from mistakes, isn't it? I mean, you know, we can learn from mistakes. Yeah, so they were just trying to take care of their four children, and so I grew up doing that.
I went to, that was in Delaware, and in college, I went to Philadelphia, and I worked in a coffee shop all through college while I was there for years. There's some good food there, boy, oh, boy. Yes, Philadelphia has great food. I did that for a little while. I got out of the hospitality industry. I got a degree in industrial design, which is like product design. And I worked designing bicycles for a company called Fuji.
Fuji bicycles so i designed bicycles for them for a few years interesting and got laid off in 2009 the economy kind of crashed around that time it's really hard to get back into that kind of industry once you're out as well so i found a job in houston working in oil and i moved down to houston that's how i ended up here i worked in quality assurance for like a very small product company in oil.
But it really, coming from the hospitality industry, it was really difficult for me to be in an office and sit all day when you're so used to running around all the time. So I got out of the job working in oil and went back into hospitality, worked in catering, fine dining catering for a little while, did corporate catering for Nico Nico's here in Houston, Texas, did some of that, And another company as well, just doing some event management here and there.
And I hit my mid-30s and I just thought, man, I got to grow up. I got to do something with my life. And so I was like, oh, let me open my own coffee shop. But, you know, still, even though I grew up in the business, I didn't really understand what it meant to shoulder the responsibility of being the owner of the business because I was just my parents' kids, you know. And so with $60,000, I was like, OK, I'm going to.
Open this business. And I went to SCORE. If anybody knows who SCORE is, they're an offshoot of the SBA. They're business mentors. It's free. And I went to them with the idea before I even had a business plan together. And I said, I have $60,000 and I have this idea to open a coffee shop because I loved coffee since I had worked in it all through college and hospitality. So every week I went and met with them, wrote a business plan.
They helped me put together financials, all of that to try to get funding. Well, no one wanted to lend me any money because I had no collateral and $60,000 and that's not enough.
And so I went to about seven different banks, went through the commercial loan process with seven different banks and got denied, every time until my mentors connected me with a small lender here by a micro lender here called the bayou micro fund and they he you know rather than looking at my collateral and looking at the numbers and all of that he saw the drive in me i mean i went to seven different banks trying to get a loan
that's you know it's like doing a mortgage before you even know if you're like pre-approved you know so he he said he saw like the fire in my belly he called it and the drive to succeed and he put up collateral for me to get a $30,000 loan so I had 60 plus 30. And then I had good credit, and I opened five 0% APR credit cards and maxed them all out. Another $30,000 was put on credit cards. And then we were in business. So I got it open for about, I think, $125,000 to $130,000, which is unheard
of now unless you're going into a second-gen space. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. How long ago was this? This was, I mean, that was, I was 34 when I started the process and I'm about to be 44 in another two weeks. So this is almost 10 years ago I started the process of this. Okay. Yeah. So, and that's the, that's the beginning of Dandelion. So I opened it as a coffee shop. I really just wanted to have a few grab and go things in a cooler and coffee and some pastries.
Didn't really think it would turn into anything else. About three months in, I ran out of money and I had not touched my retirement, which was about $22,000 at the time. It wasn't a lot now. I mean, it was a lot then. For me, every little bit at that point. And it was just me on my own running
it. And I had met with a few other restaurant owners and I was like, do I close the doors or do I pull my retirement and put it in and see what happens and I had talked to a couple other people that had also pulled out their retirement and so I was like screw it I'm gonna do it you know like I'm gonna try it and around the same time also the community really was like hey are you gonna serve breakfast hey are you serving breakfast hey breakfast and I just was like okay well,
I'm hearing this every day, all the time, so I need to have more breakfast items. And so... I got a little range that had a two-by-two flat top and two burners on it. And I had a little three-foot hood, which I had gotten that step just to prep the grab-and-go. So then we started adding a very small menu of eggs. And this was before JC came on. This was when, you know, it was just me. And I came up with a breakfast sandwich and scrambled eggs with veggies and pancakes and just a few items.
It wasn't anything too crazy. I mean, I can tell the story of how we met because I'm at the point where we met. Okay. So we met in the first year that I was open. I was, because we were a coffee shop, we were open breakfast and lunch. And then we closed in the afternoons while my space was closed in the evenings.
And so I was letting different chefs do pop-ups there and we had a mutual friend who, who did a pop-up at my place and so I just would get a ticket to the dinner and I would let them use it for free I was trying to get the name out there and then I would go to the dinner.
Well he came to help our mutual friend and that's when we met and we were chatting it up and I had drank a bunch of wine and i was like here's my number and the rest is history from that point you know we actually did be in the restaurant yes we met in in the restaurant that we now i love it i love it and i'm sure you remember that day of course yeah i remember mine i remember i i owned a restaurant long ago and
it was a wednesday lunch about 1 30 and there were three ladies having lunch at table 44. I did not know that then, but the lady sitting in the middle would a few years later become my wife's. So you do, you meet the right people in this business. Good for you.
My background is a little different i i think i i grew up in a household where my mother cooked you know retired teacher stay-at-home mom cooked breakfast lunch dinner and you know that's kind of how like not only her but my aunts and all the kind of matriarchs that my family were So I fell in love with the kitchen at a very young age. I never decided or thought it was going to be like, okay, I'm going to be in a chef one day. I just knew I enjoyed cooking.
I knew I was good at it because, you know, I make good food and my mom wasn't around. I could whip myself up something if I needed to. I actually started selling pastries and like cakes and pies, like junior high, just for a little side job to get some money. Because I was obviously at that age too young to work, but it was just kind of something that came across my plate, as you'd say. And so I would do that for more fun than anything.
And then college, I was going to a university, Texas, San Antonio, for international business. And it was just kind of like, I got out of high school. I was so excited to get out of high school because I was like, oh, finally, I'm done with this. I can actually start moving myself in a career. And then the first year of college was just like high school all over again. And they don't tell you that. just high school all over again without like but on your own.
And so it just was like a drudge. I was just like, I'm over this. I was already over in high school. I'm over this. I do not want to keep doing this. And kind of sat down, reflected and thought about, you know, that saying of once you find what you love, you know, never work a day in your life. And I was thinking about all the things that I love and, you know, it always kind of wrapped back to food. You know, I think in high school, I worked at an H-E-B grocery store or I worked
at a local wing spot. but I was always in hospitality in some way, shape, or form. Yeah, yeah. And I loved being in the kitchen. I loved the joy on people's face when they ate something delicious, and I made it. So I was like, I'm going to go to culinary school. Went to not knowing much about culinary school, especially in the city of Houston. I Googled a few places, and it was like at that time, this is like 2009, 2010.
At that time it was like art institute you had lenote and i knew about those two so i went and did some like pre-interviews to see if what they what they were and i was like this is cool this is something i could see myself in and when they gave me that dollar amount i was like, maybe this isn't for me because today to go to culinary school it was like 50 000 60 000 and i was like that's not gonna happen for a two year i was like that's not happening.
And so then one more that I saw, it was actually San Jacinto College was having a community college that had a culinary program in East Houston. So I went there, met the chef, instructors, fell in love with their style of teaching and how upfront they were and how, you know, I could see the passion that they had for it. And I was like, okay, this is the place I want to be. Funny enough, a month, and the price was good.
But funny enough, like a month into classes, I find out that HCC had a culinary program. And it was much closer to me because I lived in Katy at the time. So yeah, so I was already locked in. And I was like, you know what, I love the instructors here. So I made the decision to drive.
And if you know anything about Houston, Katy's on the west side, San Jacinto's on the east side, without traffic, that's like 45, 50-minute drives with traffic because I had to be there in the morning was a good hour and a half. And so I did that five days a week for like two years.
That's a real commitment there. Yeah, and I don't regret it at all because I mean the amount of, the level of work ethic that it took me to get there every morning and the amount of work ethic that those instructors that I'm still close with some today kind of instilled in us. You know, I had it, but I didn't, I didn't have what I have now because of, you know, and so I, I definitely owe a lot of that to them. And then kind of, they had us washing dishes pretty much after class, you know?
And so I know I talked to a lot of people from other schools that paid a lot more. And maybe that's what the 50,000 was for the dishwashers because I saved a lot, but I washed a lot of dishes. And, and then after that, I was in River Oaks Country Club. It was my first job out of culinary and I was doing fine dining, private dining, corporate dining, sometimes having two, three jobs at a time, but learned a lot, learned a lot in those few years.
And then around the time when I met Sarah, met her in a restaurant, I was, I was, I was a private chef for a family and loved the job, but it left me with such like, I wouldn't have a lot of creativity going on because I wasn't like the fine dining restaurants I was used to. Add a lot of time on my hands because I was getting paid probably the same amount if not more but working like.
12 to 15 hours a week compared to working like 55 hours a week but i was still you can do those 12 hours in one day sometimes exactly so working at a place working at someone's house and doing three or four hours for just for dinner getting paid good so i had a lot of times on my hand so when my friend was like hey i'm doing a pop-up you want to help me i was like please let's do it because i, am bored i want to do something this creativity that i've got in me and that's
how we met uh we We were doing the dinner and yeah. And then ever since then. That was wonderful. It sounds like obviously you needed to meet. It was written that way. You needed to meet then, obviously from a personal standpoint, because things blossomed, but also from a business standpoint, because things have really been connecting, you know, from what was obviously a difficult time financially, originally with coffee and pastries, turned into breakfast.
I'm sure that was a facility challenge because you didn't think of that, Or you would have had a larger hood and you would have had more gas and electrical power in your tiny kitchen. But now let's describe Dandelion Cafe today because it turned into a very successful breakfast format. And your menu is wonderful for dine-in and for takeout. So why don't you paint for the listeners a little package of the concept that you guys did together.
Size, style of service, popular menu items. Yeah, so we are a brunch-lunch concept. We specialize in, local roasted, high-quality coffee and coffee drinks. We have a really great drink program that you could get at your best coffee shop in the city, but then we also have a great breakfast menu that you can find at some of the best, lovely ran, you know, people that are quality vision, breakfast spots, and we just put that together. So our concept is best of both worlds.
As far as the food goes, because that's what I specialize in, that's what I'm, you know, kind of hang my hat on. We are heavy breakfast focused. you know, American, new American style breakfast dishes with our spin. And we, you know, we love giving fresh made, scratch made food, quality items, and great portions for the price. I mean, you can't see me right now, but I'm a big guy. So I enjoy like a good hearty meal and I never like seeing customers walk away hungry.
So that's something that we also are very happy about. With the fine dining background, a lot of the stuff, some of your dishes you'll see are not super traditional. So we have, I want to say a few of our top items. We have a lemon blueberry French toast stick and our strawberry French toast. So we have two French toasts. And I mean, probably complete opposites. There was one point where we even had like a French toast versus French toast and people were kind of like rating them.
But so you have a Brioche strawberry cream cheese that is probably our top seller as far as French toast go. Then we have a lemon blueberry French toast, which is a focaccia bread, French toast stick with curd, blueberry compote, fresh blueberries, candy, lemon peel, which we all do in-house. And then on the savory side, we do a lot of almost down South Southern style dishes, biscuits and gravy.
But we also have, since we're in Houston, we have a lot of roots in like the Spanish breakfast or Mexican breakfast, chilaquiles, black meat tostadas, but we also put our own spin on those, so they're not super traditional. And a great breakfast taco. Yes, and a great breakfast taco. Can't forget it. It can't be in Texas and Houston without breakfast tacos. Northeast, totally different because that's where I'm from.
There's no breakfast tacos on there. It's all about like the breakfast sandwich, but, you know, down here is more the breakfast taco. Exactly. Little Miss Delaware. Let me tell you, welcome to. Yeah. You guys did such a good job with that. But I love that the goal, though, is to put your own unique twist because I think listeners need to always be reminded of that. that successful concepts seem to always be the ones that fit into something that's popular, but find their own point of difference.
So you're putting your unique twist on the food. You mix in some of the popular taco items and biscuits and gravy, but there's their own spin. Very inventive breakfast items leading the way with the French toast. So, yeah, so this is really, really good stuff. What's the size? Like about how many do you seat? And is this an order at the counter or is this full service? So we're a quick service counter service restaurant.
Got it. We are, I think, in the Heights location. So we have three locations. Our flagship, our first one in Bel Air is, what, 40 seats? About 45 to 50 seats. Right. Not including the outside. It's a patio, but it's really like a large sidewalk with some tables out there. We're actually going to be remodeling early next year, so we will get a legitimate patio. Yeah. That's our shoestring budget first location.
Yeah, and it's a tight space. We like to say it's cozy, but we've done a lot of magic out of that location. Our second location is on Rice University campus. It's actually our... It's a different concept. It's our downline cafe on the go concept. We really kind of, you know, we're big on giving the customer what they want, giving the community what they want.
And here they weren't looking for so much of a sit down as much as they were looking for kind of that grab and go idea that Sarah had at the beginning when she first started the restaurant. And we kind of were able to lean into that here on campus. And, you know, then me being like, I was super happy to do breakfast because I did dinner so long. And so when I did breakfast, I kind of brought my dinner and fine dining twist to it.
And they were like, we want lunch. And so I was like, okay, new challenge. Let's do some lunch items. And it gives a great space to do it in and all over here. And then third location, the Heights, we're, what, 70, 60? In the, between 70 and 80. Yeah, with the inside. Oh, with that, okay. And it's the same thing, right? It's brunch driven.
You serve breakfast lunch close it like what three or four and go home yeah and so the third location is pretty much copy and paste with the the first location it has it has so the first location we so we will get into it but we were on good morning america for award-winning chicken and waffles and when that happened we had to make some executive decisions and scratch a lot of our lunch menu because suddenly we were selling a hundred chicken and waffles a day.
And so we- Yeah, and a 225 square foot kitchen. And a 225 square foot kitchen, which we'll get into that a little more in the remodel of that kitchen from the three foot hood. Yeah, so. And when was that? Just to remind the listeners, was that 2023 that that happened? Yeah, so that was last year. That was in May of 2023, the end of May, I think, of 2023. So we scratched a lot of the lunch there. Then we're at Rice U, and they're like, we want more lunch than breakfast.
And so we're like, okay, it's a heavy lunch menu with some of the breakfast items. And then the Heights, I would say, has more lunch items now than our original Bel-Air location. A few. A few more lunch items. So it's a little bit of a combination of both Rice and Bel-Air, the Heights is. So, you know, we really think it's important to tailor the restaurants to the neighborhoods. Excellent. Every demographic is different in each neighborhood. And so we really,
the neighborhoods are who support our locations. And so we give them what they want. We're flexible with our vision. You have to be to be successful. And so we've kind of tailored each one a little bit, kept the same concept, but tailored them. That's exactly right. And listeners, I hope you're making a note of that. Those of you that are just starting out, that's the needle that seems to be thread just perfectly when you talk to successful people. And that is to build value in the brand.
Yes, you need a brand. You need main items. People need to know the look and what to expect in the brand. But to be able to be flexible and tweak to meet the particular, you know, part of the community that you're located in is brilliant. And obviously, that's where successful people seem to be able to hit the bullseye is when they're able to do that just right. For sure. And I think, you know, when you're in business all the time, people are like, oh, you should do this.
Oh, you should carry it every day. Oh, you should carry this. And, you know, you're like, oh, sure. No problem. You know, but you really have to sift through that. You do have to listen to some of that. Because if you're hearing the same thing over and over again, like I did when people were like, you should have breakfast, you should have breakfast. That's important stuff that you need to listen to. And not just be like,
oh, that's not what I want to do because that's not what I want. That's not my vision. You can't. Like, my vision was a coffee shop with pastries and grab-and-go items. Like, I had to change my vision. And so when your customers are telling you something over and over you better listen because they're going to be the ones who are coming to you and supporting you.
And and making you successful and so you can't listen to everybody but if you keep hearing the same thing over and over again you need to take note of it and you need to pay attention and be flexible you brought up a great point that's exactly right i think i've heard it from other people when they just call it a sort of filtering. You've got to filter through these comments because sometimes it is a little outlandish, doesn't fit your concept, you can't do it.
But you do have to continue to listen because sometimes you really are on stream and like you did when it came to breakfast and maybe perhaps other things. And so that's a very good thing to take note of because as entrepreneurs, as restaurant owners, this sort of demonstrates the fact that you might have final decision capability. You might be the person with the name, you know, on the lease. You're the one signing the checks. But we're not the boss. The ultimate boss is the customer.
And so, you know, the better we can make sure that we're doing what you seem to be doing very well, and that's altering to meet the needs that are coming from the customer, but without, of course, taking too big of a step. I mean, it's not like you're going to probably do, I don't know, Sunday night Italian family-style dinners just because a customer might think it's a cool idea. Right, right. Okay, I get it. I get it. Yeah. Well, and another part of success, too, for us is our hospitality.
So... The industry has changed a lot. And having grown up in the industry from the time I was 12, hospitality was a little different, I feel like, when we were younger. We're really big on how the customers are treated, how they're greeted, all of that. We want to give them an amazing experience at a counter service place. Our thing is we tell our employees we want them to feel like they are being treated like they're at a table service place, but paying at the counter.
Yeah. So we want them checked on at their tables. You're not going to go to a lot of quick service restaurants where you order at the counter. You sit at a table. The manager comes by and they're like, hey, do you need anything? Can I get you anything? They're going to run you your food. They're going to grab you your silverware from the self-service station. The food runners are. Even though we know you can grab it yourself, we're going to do it for you.
So it's going above and beyond in hospitality. And that brings people back. So we have the great food, the great coffee, the quality is there. And then we have the service, too, which is important to all of us. And our upper management, too, has been in hospitality for a long time. And they are the same way. we're all very much on board with, hey, we're in hospitality. We're here to serve our guests. And so we really try to impress that upon all of the staff as well.
So that's a big part of the success too. You know, that's a very good point. But I hope you guys are making note of this, listeners out there, because, you know, you're right. We do enjoy the convenience of fast casual. The counter service, you see people, you order, you get a number or buzzer, sit down, boom, boom, food's ready. There seems to be that value on time. It's very popular, as you know. It's a growing market segment. But, yeah, what's missing in sometimes is that hospitality.
Is there a way to develop a little bit of guest appreciation in a, you know, counter service rather than table service? So I compliment you for attacking that and just making that a part of the everyday staff responsibility. That's wonderful to see because hospitality is still the name of our industry. Exactly. I mean, there's definitely a way to do it. I mean, one of the ways we were started off by doing it to make sure that as many tables were touched as possible, we would give them a number.
They would sit down. And when we brought them their food, a lot of guests were actually confused about what was going on. But we would leave the number on the table. We'd bring them all their food. This is all you got. And I go, you can take this. I don't know. It's fine. You can leave it there. We leave the number. And so then you see a guest halfway done with their meal. The number is still on the table. Then we, OK, that table needs to get touched. You touch it once.
Everybody's okay then the number would get taken so there would never be anyone lost in the mix especially when we're very busy our managers can always see an eye if someone had a number on their table where they a guest is almost done with their food if that number's still on their table they're almost done with their food that means no one's touched them yet and that's you know that's a problem for for everyone so you know there's different ways that you
can do it depending on your concept just have to be creative and have to be hospitality forward focused on it you know because I think everyone knows what they're looking for when they go for a dining experience. So just implementing that on your guests, putting those diners eyes on when you go to a sit down restaurant, when you go to a quick service restaurant, you don't want to walk into a place. I don't care if it's a huge chain. You still want to be greeted. You still want to be noticed.
And I mean, it only takes a few seconds before no one says anything before you're like, I'm not coming back here again. That's a good point. Yes, sir. That's right. You still want to be able to get that in. And, you know, it's so timely because some of the research that came out, of course, after COVID with some customer changes.
Increase in delivery, increase in car side pickup, the idea of how packaging and takeout were so important, was that people still, however, welcomed that person to person contact. They couldn't wait to go back to a restaurant. And that created a whole new definition of value. People valued the time. Whereas I think years ago, our industry was defining value by cheap. You know, it's a value experience if it's inexpensive. Not so much anymore.
It's a value to the customer if the whole experience is meaningful. In other words, was this worth my time? More than food, but I'm looking for friendliness. More than just food, I'm looking for the facility. And so all of it together creates a sense of value. And it sounds like you guys knew that, and that's part of your culture from the get-go. Absolutely. And we'll find, actually, that there's, you know, people will pay when they order, right?
Or a counter service place, they pay when they order. They can leave a tip then. We will find that if we are out touching tables, there are cash tips left on the tables all the time because we're going above and beyond. Maybe they didn't tip at the register. Maybe they already tipped at the register. But we went and we took care of them
even more, and they recognize that, and they leave cash. If I'm out there on the floor or a general manager, I mean, one of us in upper management, they will come track us down and put cash in our hands. Of course, we don't keep it. We put it in the, you know, we put it in the tip pool for the staff. But that happens because we've been in hospitality so long and we know how to, you know, we know how to hospitality those people. Yeah.
And I think people are generally surprised too, as well, because they're not used to that level of service at a counter service, quick service restaurant. I think they're generally surprised and they're like, oh my goodness, you need a raise. And I'm like, okay, I'm an owner. I'm surprised. What a pleasant surprise.
It's really fun being out there because for me, I'm usually stuck back in the kitchen, but we're just trying to create a new lane for breakfast and brunch and people not to get used to what they feel like is the norm because there's always something better. Is there an alcohol component to your concept with brunch drinks and that kind of thing or no? Definitely. Yeah. So we do mimosas mostly. I got a wine and beer permit.
Pretty early on and I think in the very beginning actually and we did wine and beer and mimosas and really we only sell mimosas and it's not even that higher we maybe do three to five percent of our revenue as alcohol and it's all mimosas like we have we have a couple beers there we have like a wine there but they never sell because it's brunch and people want mimosas and so we make, all of our own flavors and syrups for our coffees and so so we make vanilla
we make lavender we make caramel we make hazelnut all of those and so we use some of those as well in our mimosas like we have a lavender vanilla mimosa and then we have. Hibiscus mimosa. We have pomegranate orange mimosa. So we do a bunch of different fancy flavors as well. Well, switching from the menu and service, which have been really entertaining, you've made me hungry. And let's switch a little bit to the operations side of it here.
How do you now with multiple locations, how do you guys separate the ownership roles? I mean, how does that work? You know, who does what? And what type of maybe key people do you develop in order to make this organization work every day? I mean, I think we've always had our, you know, sides of the restaurant from the beginning. It was almost unspoken, but I came in to help with the kitchen when she had
lost the kitchen manager abruptly or no call, no show. And she was just, oh, what am I going to do? We got to close down the kitchen. And I was like, well, I work at nights. Maybe I can come in the mornings. And so we've just always had that relationship in the restaurant where it's like, I'm back at the house. She's front of the house. She deals with the drink program and focusing on the service, making sure guests are good and financials.
And then I've been mainly focused on, you know, our food and our back of the house. So through that, I mean, we have management, general managers that kind of work under her and work, you know, we all work close together. But, you know, if there's anything going on for the front of the house, things that she needs and direction she wants to head for the business, you know, she can call them to help her.
And then vice versa with me, I hire my kitchen managers that, you know, if menu changes need to happen or inventory or ordering. You know, I can reach out to them, sit down with them, tell them, you know, any changes or if they have any advice or any changes, you know, because no matter how long you've been in this industry, you know, this, you can always learn something.
So my staff is teaching me on a daily, daily basis and, you know, vice versa. So. Yeah so like he said i'll just tell my side too like he said i was kind of drowning with the kitchen i didn't know what i was doing in there because i've been a hospitality front of house person my whole life so i was like oh thank god i'm like this this could work out great you know and so it works out great as partners that i'm
the front of house operations person and then he's the back of house so that we have our own lanes. So that's how we're pretty successful in business and still able to work together because we have our jobs. He's got his role and I got my role. So that's super helpful. We also are big on our culture and we know that it starts with us and it trickles downhill. And I am I've learned a lot of lessons. I'd never been a manager before opening Dandelion?
And it was my first time managing people. And for everyone out there who manages people or who has never managed people before, it is a job in itself. It's not you can be really great at coffee or really great at being a chef, but that has nothing to do with your management of people skills. And so that is something I have learned over the past 10 years is how to manage people.
And I've really done a lot of research on leadership and who is considered successful leaders like Abraham Lincoln and what made them successful leaders and why people revere them. And really the key is leading with empathy and humility. And so that's how we approach our culture and our leadership is really being empathetic with people but still holding boundaries.
And so it creates a culture that people buy into and it's not like we don't care you know i'm not like no it doesn't sound like it's manipulative and all of that at all like we legitimately do care about our people and we are family people we have two kids our one manager is a family guy too and he does a great job. We take care of our people. We pay them pretty well. They get bonuses. We give them a car stipend. We give them a cell phone stipend.
We do what we can. Not everybody has that ability. We only recently, yeah, we try to go above and beyond with them. And we've only been able to do most of this recently. Like, don't get me wrong. Bonuses, car stipend, cell phone stipend has only happened in the last, like, year. Sure, sure. We've had to get to this point. Like, the first location is eight years old. Yeah, the first location is eight years old. Before I started, I mean, we were only doing like 30,000 max.
Yeah, 30,000 a month, 35,000 a month. So with that being said, the way we manage our people, you know, one of our general managers, he is just having a lot going on in his life right now. And he came to us, and we're a brunch place. Our busiest day of the week is Sunday. And he came to us and he's like, hey, I really have all of this stuff happening in my personal life. I need Sundays off. And I mean, we didn't think twice about it. Yeah. Because.
And we're like, he means it because he cares about us and he's sold out for us. And we're like, you know what? We care about you and your family is important and you need to go take care of your family. And that's how you have to lead. You have to sit with people. When you can tell people are... Not doing well, or something's going on, you got to sit down with them right away and ask them, hey, what's going on? What's happening in your life? You know, is it, but keep it more focused on the job.
Some people, you know, with staff, they'll like go on and on and tell you all this stuff outside of work. And I'm like, that sounds like a lot.
And that sounds really hard, but it's affecting the way that you work and so let's say how can we get to the place where it's not affecting you at work you know so it really is just in general that's the culture like our managers manage the same way I will meet I'll have a meeting with all of our leads and I'm like hey we're here to manage with empathy and humility you see somebody struggling you sit down with them you ask them what's going on you set boundaries yes and hold
them accountable let them come up with the way to reach their goal right or their expectations you have for them you got to let them know your expectations you're not meeting your expectations you sit with them you say hey you're not meeting these expectations that we have set for you how can we get you to the point where you're going to meet these expectations. You let them come up with the idea. They say, okay, I'm going to do this and this and this. Well, guess what?
If they fall behind and they don't meet those expectations, it puts it on them because they were the ones that said they were going to do it. So then you sit down again and you're like, hey, you're not doing this thing that you said you were going to do. That you said. Right. And so people always feel more. And you said that you were going to do it. So that is how we lead our team. And then it makes a huge difference.
Like people, you know, we try to pay well. We try to take care of our people when they come to us with concerns. They're running low on money. You have to give a loan here and there. That's how things go. But we create it. We've created this culture where people are really committed. Well, I'm hearing such great stuff. Yeah.
And just to bullet point a few things, listeners, what we just heard in these last couple of minutes is really a summary of a fantastic human resource management development and leadership program for small independent restaurants. You, too, should actually do one, maybe. And we would load up your dining room, maybe in an evening when you're not open. Because you hit all the right principles that I know sometimes for some other operators takes a long time to learn.
But the fact that culture is starting from the owner's examples, it does roll downhill. And if you want a positive work environment, it has to start with the owners. That was the first thing you said. I love the staff and management engagement that you talked about. You mentioned the boundaries on more than one occasion, and that's true. People need to know what's expected, they're more comfortable doing their job if they truly understand what's expected.
You mentioned the balance between responsibility and accountability. If people understand what they're doing, they had input in it, they feel more responsible for it, which, of course, then makes it easier for you or your managers to hold them accountable for it. These are fantastic principles of successful restaurant operations. And in today's labor market, it's absolutely necessary because as you live every day, people are a little harder to find and harder to keep.
And quite frankly, people aren't looking just for a place to work. They're looking for a place where they fit. And so obviously, if you're creating that atmosphere and I'm working there and I feel like I belong, I fit, I'm going to do a better job and I'm probably going to stay longer. So everyone wins. Yeah. Good for you. That's the plan. Well, listen, we're running out of time. I wish we could talk more and more.
I'm serious about maybe having to do a separate forum just on independent restaurant management leadership skills and having you guys talk about culture and a positive work environment. But listeners, please check out Dandelion Cafe. Look them up. This is a fantastic program, multiple units already, with a great team that could probably set a bigger foundation for future growth. You've been listening to some wonderful tidbits of how to do things and how
to learn from things when they don't go right from J.C. Ricks and Sarah Lieberman. J.C., Sarah, thank you so much for taking time today. We wish you continued success. We hope things go wonderfully well for all three locations. And everyone else, we'll say bye for now and hope to see you again real soon on another Corner Booth.
Thank you for joining us on the Corner Booth. We'll be back next Tuesday with more inspiration, and insights and industry best practices to help you engage your team, delight your guests and grow. Music.