INSIDE JOBS
Small restaurants find big success amid gas pumps and grocery aisles
Got $2 million laying around? How about $95,00? A meager $13,000 then? These are the figures, just a few, that sources like Restaurant Insider and Forbes have said are required to open a restaurant.
Chef Jen Ross opened hers for $2,198. “I don’t think it was anything anyone would call a real restaurant,” Ross says, laughing. “It was a closet with a threecompartment sink, equipment I bought at Wal-Mart and some pots and pans.”
It was tiny but manageable. Also, it was inside a Rosemont gas station.
“I’m a jumper,” says Ross, noting that there were other ludicrous business decisions that predated the opening of DaJen Eats — a Jamaican vegan restaurant — but this may have been her boldest.
“I dream big,” Ross says. “I jump and trust that the universe at some point is going to catch me. So far, she has done a really
great job.”
So, too, has Ross, who learned a lot through trial and error and eventually opened DaJen 2.0, moving the microbusiness from the pump to its own brick-andmortar location in Eatonville. She loves the new place but admits the old one had benefits she no longer enjoys.
“At the gas station, we didn’t have to worry about the upkeep — all of that fell to the owner,” she explains. “Things as simple as the bathrooms, the licensing, they’re all in place. You have fewer responsibilities, so you can focus on what makes you awesome.”
Look around Orlando and you’ll see burgeoning businesses everywhere — food trucks, popups, collaborations featuring two trendy players inside the space of another. But this model, which creates permanent digs inside an alreadyproven business, allows newcomers to grow a brand on a budget at a safe, steady pace and seasoned pros to create workable models in an industry that often demands far too much time.
Vegan at the pump
Ross was already selling her nondairy dessert, Irie Cream, to local businesses when the gas station opportunity materialized.
“It was a Monday night, and I was entertaining myself with Craigslist photos of restaurants I could not afford,” she says.
Then she spotted one for less than $1,000 a month. She went to look. And with no restaurant experience whatsoever (“and no chairs”), signed on the dotted line.
Ross had some built-in clients — and a massive line on her first day — but it inspired more panic than pride. With practice and patience, she streamlined, reinvested in the business, eventually adding those chairs, along with upgraded equipment.
She also realized the offbeat location was an asset.
“Instead of making it like being there was something I was doing until I could do something better, we played it up for what it was. If we could make getting good vegan food as mundane as pumping gas, it removes so many of the barriers veganism faces,” she says, “that it’s elitist, or for people who have a lot of money, or for people who look a certain way.”
A Citgo in an impoverished neighborhood with people of color was exactly where she wanted to be.
“It’s pretty much the opposite of what people think of when they conjure up a vegan in their minds,” she says.
She tracked their customers religiously. Only 35% were fullfledged vegans who sought the place out. “The other 65 percent were there because it was food and it was good, and of them, 40% were just random gas station foot traffic.”
The tiny, oddball location was a critical part of her business’ success.
Suds and smoke
Chuck Cobb had a feeling it could be part of his too.
When his restaurant, Zoetic Sushi, shuttered its doors, Cobb found himself ready to revisit an old concept. The open space at the Sanford Express gas station (360 W. Lake Mary Boulevard in Sanford), which already sold local craft beer, seemed a solid place to start.
“The gas station owners were looking to add food concept,” says Cobb, owner and pitmaster of GitN-Messy BBQ, “but wanted someone with experience to run it.” Tapas was their initial idea, but Cobb convinced them barbecue made more sense.
Most days you can find him out back at 4 a.m., manning both smoker and social media accounts. For a one-man show, the latter is as vital as the former.
“I hit all the foodie forums like a windstorm,” he says. The smoker is formidable advertising on its own — the aroma drifts all the way to the traffic on 17-92 — “but without Facebook, I’d be sitting here twiddling my thumbs.”
It’s an integral part of the strategy says Cobb, who gets pre-orders after posting alluring images of ribs in the smoker, or the pressed, pulled-pork Cubans for which he’s fast gaining notoriety.
Ample foot traffic brings those popping in for gas right to the counter, where they can settle into one of 13 seats for a beer and some brisket, get dinner to go or simply note the place exists and plan to return later, which they do. A lot.
“We made $6,000 the first month with no advertising, no marketing, nothing — just word of mouth and social media,” he says.
The money was reinvested. The original menu streamlined. Like Ross, Cobb has made tweaks and seen improvements and the smaller footprint allows him to focus on meat and marketing.
“I’m my own boss,” he says. “I make my own hours. I do my own thing. And my business helps theirs and vice-versa.”
Dim sum, free time
When I go to Jerry Lau’s place, I get the pork chow fun I grew up eating. I get big bowls of congee, the leftovers of which afford me two days’ worth of furnace-stoking breakfast porridge. I get smiles and friendly conversation.
Kai Kai Dim Sum is a tiny place with a handful of seats inside the i-Fresh Supermarket (2415 E. Colonial Drive in Orlando). The comprehensive Asian grocery has everything from mochi to durian to geoduck. It’s an amusement park for foodies and an ideal place for Lau’s restaurant.
Lau has spent his whole life in the hospitality business. He began his career on New York’s Upper West Side — first busboy, then server, then captain.
“I loved to be in the front of the house, talking to customers, getting their feedback,” he says.
But Lau also loved to cook. And years later, at his own restaurant in Lake Mary, he elevated his skills and merged new kitchen finesse with long-honed customer service chops, successfully running the Kumquat Garden for 14 years.
But he found himself missing something many restaurateurs find elusive: family time.
“I’ve seen so many of my friends in the restaurant business — they’re working so hard,” he says. “Next thing you know, the kids are in college, then they’re moving out, then they’re getting married and having their own kids and they don’t have time for you anymore.”
Lau and his wife changed tack three years ago with Kai Kai.
“Orlando is getting more Asian, and I saw a demand for traditional, authentic Chinese food.” The iFresh space allowed them to reduce hours and get precious time back. The day starts at 8:30 a.m., the food is out on display by 10:30 a.m. and they close at 6 p.m. “Sometimes earlier if we sell out,” he says, “we have banker’s hours!”
Being inside the market delivers customers right to his door.
“They do their shopping and they can come in for a snack or buy some crispy pork to take home for dinner,” he says. “We do lunch specials for office people in the area.”
For those looking to start up in similar digs, Lau says location is No. 1 — look for something high traffic, with the equipment you need — or space that can house it. And start small with the menu.
He also says lulls aren’t the time to slack off.
“We all slow down sometimes,” he says. “This is the time to work on your customer service. Socialize. Going into a local place, knowing the people, it’s what customers enjoy most.”
Lau has no interest in compromising health or family for money or growth, but other entrepreneurs — like Cobb, who recently signed on to cater Harley-Davidson events, and Ross, whose circumstances offered her an ideal new venue when her gas station lease was not renewed — may have their eyes on bigger things.
It’s nice, though, to forge a business while wrapped in the arms of another.
“Do not despise humble beginnings,” Ross says. “If we’re transparent with our tribe and don’t pretend to be something we’re not, people will not only be supportive, they’ll cheer for you. They’ll want to see you move to the next step.”
It’s okay if you don’t have the capital, the loan or an angel investor to start.
“Just start,” says Ross. “Get the food out there and let it speak for itself.”
“If we could make getting good vegan food as mundane as pumping gas, it removes so many of the barriers veganism faces, that it’s elitist, or for people who have a lot of money, or for people who look a certain way.” Jen Ross, owner of DaJen Eats, a Jamaican vegan restaurant