Undercover Boss

“To lead people walk behind them.” -- Lao Tzu

One of my biggest fears about starting a restaurant is my lack of prior industry experience. In fact, the truth is that up until this point in my career I’ve had limited operational experience in any industry, let alone in one as complex as the food service space. So last month I decided to rectify this deficiency by getting a line job at a fast-casual restaurant chain in Center City, Philadelphia.

My goal for the job was simple; be a sponge and absorb as much as possible on how restaurants manage their operations. Additionally, I knew the experience would provide an invaluable perspective on the backgrounds, fears, and motivations of the line workers that form the heart and soul of any food service establishment. In some sense, my experience felt a bit like the CBS TV show ‘Undercover Boss’ notwithstanding the fact that I’m currently nobody’s boss nor am I running an actual business …yet.

The experience was eye-opening. Over the past few years I’ve read several books on managing food service operations, from Howard Schultz’s Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time to Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business. Each of these books tells an inspiring tale of how to build a successful business by following your passions and prioritizing people over profits. However, as informative as a book can be it pales in comparison to the learnings of working for minimum wage at a restaurant and dealing with the ups and downs that come with that experience.

For starters, I was overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of managing food operations. As consumers, we take for granted the thousands of small steps and immense amount of preparation that goes into churning hundreds of customers in the short timeframes of lunch and dinner. In only a few weeks, it became clear that in order for Zaffron to succeed we’ll need great tools, systems, and work processes to ensure we consistently deliver a great product and customer experience.

Next I was blown away by the level of teamwork and collaboration needed to train employees and efficiently manage operations. In the restaurant industry you’re constantly dealing with new and inexperienced workers. Thus, not only do you need great employees but you need a culture that rewards mentorship…hopefully something we ingrain in our culture.

My final takeaway has more to do with me being an actual consumer and that is: to be patient, polite, and appreciative towards restaurant workers. During my brief stint, I noticed some customers (admittedly a minority) perceive workers to be idiots. For instance when mistakes happen people assume it’s because you’re not as intelligent as they are; hence the reason you’re working behind the counter and fulfilling their order. What they don’t realize is that sometimes as consumers we don’t communicate clearly or that working in the industry is quite challenging. So the next time you go to a restaurant and you notice that your server put onions on your burger when you said no onions, give them a smile and be kind. After all, what goes around comes around!

-Amir

Our Big Break

“The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist.” -- Harold Wilkins

October 15^th, 2010, was an unforgettable day. After a long, tiresome, and painful journey we finally succeeded in securing our first real estate location. This time we have a signed and fully executed agreement!

In many ways, getting a signed lease agreement is the most important step in a retail business, particularly when you’re a start-up and are struggling to get things off the ground. For those with limited commercial real estate experience, as was the case for me not too long ago, signing a lease is a big deal! The process is much more onerous than the standard residential leases most of us are familiar with. I’ll spare you the details of all the different negotiation points, and just highlight some of the major things that make a commercial lease such a big deal.

For starters, a commercial lease is a long-term commitment. A typical lease is 5-years long with options to renew for additional 5-year periods (assuming no defaults). Next a lease typically entails some form of guarantee where the tenant agrees to pay rent even if he goes out of business! Think about that…imagine, you’re a start-up and after a few months you realize you’re aren’t doing so great (as is typical for start-ups); well it’s not so easy to just close shop and pack your bags, because you need to continue to pay the landlord a whopping amount of money in rent. Lastly, signing a lease is a ticking time bomb that forces you to open for business as soon as possible since not only do you have to start paying rent but often times you’ll get slapped with fines and other penalties if you unnecessarily delay. So yes, signing a commercial lease is a huge deal! But ultimately it’s the cost of doing business and it wouldn’t be a business if it didn’t entail risk.

As for us, we couldn’t be happier with our location. We will be in the food court of Philadelphia’s premier commercial center, The Liberty Place, on 16^th and Chestnut Street. For those, unfamiliar with area – the Liberty Towers (and the adjoining Westin Hotel) is in the heart of Philly’s business district and is on the block with the highest pedestrian count in the city. Also, since we’re in a food court we know there’s already a ton of traffic on a daily basis – now the onus is on us to build a product with the right value that reels customers in…a risk I’m willing to take.

So October 15^th marks a monumental step in this constantly evolving journey to start a restaurant! Since singing the lease we’ve been working frantically to get all the architectural designs, work permits, and other approvals in order so we can break ground and bring our vision to life…but I’ll talk more about that process later. I also have some juicy details to share about a new job that I recently started. If you’re thinking that I’m back in the world of private equity then you’re in for a big surprise…

-Amir

Building A Brand

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose; By any other name would smell as sweet." -- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Coming up with a name for our restaurant was much more difficult than we thought. We had lots of ideas but were afraid to commit to something. After all a restaurant's name says a lot about it... or does it? When looking at names of other prominent fast-casual restaurants, I struggled to find any that stood out as exceptionally deep or meaningful. Chipotle is a type of jalapeño pepper used in Mexican cuisine. Così comes from the Mozart opera Così Fan Tutte, which was a favorite of the founder. Who knows what Pei Wei, Quiznos, or Qdoba even mean? While the name seemed important, we quickly came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to make or break our concept.

Still we wanted to come up with something unique, exciting, and relevant to our cuisine. A preliminary decision we made was to exclude the word Kabob from the name. Even though kabobs are going to be the core product, we didn't want to limit the scope of the menu. We also didn't want the name to scream Middle Eastern. We shot down lots of ideas before getting to Saffron Grill. Kabob Kafe, Tahini, Kismat, Skewers, Kaboom -- sorry Azam :) We also did a competitive analysis to make sure we were differentiating ourselves from our key competitors - Roti Mediterranean Grill, Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill, Pita Pit, Maoz Vegetarian, etc. Ultimately we liked Saffron, a suggestion from our friend Wren, and added the Grill to highlight the healthiness of our product. Saffron is a rare spice often used in Persian cuisine and is generally associated with high-quality, premium foods. Yet it comes from all over the world much like kabobs so it seemed like a great fit.

There was just one problem. The name Saffron Grill is not as unique as we had hoped. A quick Google search unveils several restaurants by the same name and similar variations. Most of them are sit-down Indian restaurants offering fine dining. We knew we had to come up with something a bit edgier to build the right brand, not to mention a unique name for which we could secure national trademark registration. After several brainstorming sessions we came up with something we are really excited about. We worked with our graphic designer to knock down a logo that represents the concept. Some of you may remember the preliminary draft (pictured above) from the survey you took a few months back. Well today, we're proud to present a preview of the new name and logo to you all today... introducing Zaffron! What do you think?

-Artina

A Dream Deferred

“There is no telling how many miles you will have to run while chasing a dream.” --Anonymous

Hey folks – first off, sorry it’s been so long since we’ve published a post. There has been a lot going on personally and professionally but we promise to do a better job of keeping you guys in the loop moving forward.

So August, 13^th was my last day in Boston. That’s right, as planned I left my old firm to move down to Philadelphia to officially immerse myself in this next phase of the journey. For those keeping track the plan was to leave Advent and then hopefully in a couple of months be up and running with our first store on Temple University’s campus… well that was the plan. Unfortunately, as I’ve come to learn the hard way, seldom do things go according to plan :)

A bit of history, on June 8^th we signed the lease for an awesome retail spot on Temple’s campus. Signing that 50-page legal agreement that I had spent countless hours reviewing was exhilarating and terrifying. We were prepared to take the next step. Unfortunately as it turns out, the landlord had different plans. As you may remember from the last post, the spot is an existing restaurant and we were assured delivery of the space within 30 days. A month passed and we were told that the eviction process was taking more time than expected but that we would get the space very soon. We waited patiently but a month later the landlord finally conceded that they weren’t going to give us the space. It turns out the tenant had cured their lease by paying up the money they owed and our lease was void.

I was devastated to say the least. I received this news one week before I was leaving Advent to move down to Philly full-time. Imagine the worst setback you’ve ever faced… you probably cried… well that’s how I felt. I’m a man so it’s hard to confess in a public forum that I cried, but I’ll admit there were a few tears running down my cheeks after that phone call. When you’re starting a business all you have is your hope, dreams and aspirations. Every time I closed my eyes I dreamed of our first store at that space… I imagined being the next big thing on Temple’s campus and Saffron Grill becoming the go-to spot for students. In a heartbeat the dream vanished.

I learned a lot from this experience. For one, I realized that you can’t trust everyone in the real estate business. I should have realized that something was off when the landlord never sent me a countersigned copy of the lease document nor cashed in my security deposit! I also learned that you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. As soon as we had signed this lease, we stopped searching for other properties assuming everything would work out just fine. This set our timeline back a few months as we had to start from scratch… again.

Nevertheless, I knew I had to continue to push forward and get over this hurdle. I held onto my faith that everything happens for a reason and channeled all my energy towards finding a new space. Time was of the essence now that I was leaving the Advent payroll. My broker and I have since been on the prowl and soon enough we’re going to make something happen!

-Amir

A diamond in the rough

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.” -- Anonymous

In my last post I mentioned we were very close to signing a lease… if only it were as easy as putting a signature on a piece of paper. We found a spot on Temple University’s campus that we are extremely excited about. We never thought of being in North Philadelphia given how little we knew about the area, but this location is in the heart of campus and is surrounded by tons of people. There is a movie theater in the building as well as a Qdoba Mexican Grill and a pizza shop. Right next door is a huge dormitory and there is another one in construction across the street. Even better, Temple is planning to build a full-blown gym on the second floor of the building. All the landmarks gave us a good feeling but we were most comforted by the space after we got estimated traffic counts in the neighboring restaurants. Thanks to our friends, Saara Hafeez, Sakina Zaidi, and Aminah Ali we were able to gauge how many people would come to eat at this location on various days. The numbers were astounding and beat our counts at any of the other locations we had evaluated.

Once we were ready to reach an agreement we had to engage a lawyer to negotiate the nuts and bolts of the lease. It is amazing how much there is to learn about the legal process and jargon. Luckily Amir had experience working with lawyers and legal contracts in his job, so he took the rein on this work stream. Nonetheless it required painstaking attention to detail and hours of phone calls with our counsel before we finally had a document we were all comfortable with. And so it happened… on June 8^th while I was thousands of miles away traveling through Hyderabad, India we signed a lease. Little did we know how much time it would take for us to actually get the space…

One of the best things about this space is that it is a running restaurant, which means the cost of us taking it over will be much less than building up a restaurant from a clean shell. Unfortunately this has also led to our process getting delayed more than we had expected. We were told by the landlord that they would deliver the space within 30 days as they had a strong case for evicting the current tenant (who is way behind on rent). It seems however, that the tenant wanted to put up more of a fight and now we are just waiting for them to duke it out. We are now supposed to get the space in 3 weeks time (which coincidentally is when we officially make the move from Boston to Philadelphia) so we are just hoping and praying that this works out as promised. If not, we’ll have to start thinking about plan B but in this business what else is new? :)

-Artina

The Birth of a Dream

“Every time a man puts a new idea across he finds ten men who thought of it before he did - but they only thought of it.” --Anon

It was the Fall Semester of my junior year in college. We had come back from the summer and I noticed there was something new and exciting about the campus vibe near my dorm. Right next to my apartment a Qdoba Mexican restaurant opened. I was completely enamored by this place. I was enthralled by the simplicity of its menu and the ability to create a myriad of options using the same ingredients but combining them in different ways. Qdoba was an instant hit on-campus. There were long lines snaking around every time I went – which was very often.

The rest of my junior year was super busy, in particular during the start of the spring semester gearing up for landing a summer internship. For those that don’t know much about the Wharton culture, internship season is a stressful experience and scoring a prized offer is in many ways a crowning achievement. By that measure I was fortunate enough to ultimately land a gig at Morgan Stanley. For me, Investment Banking was a complete thud. The only silver lining from that experience was meeting Brendan Petri, known as the Petri Dish. Petri was a character, from playing the air guitar a la Jack Black in School of Rock, to serenading me with ridiculous songs; the Petri Dish made the summer a lot of fun.

That summer while Petri and I banked like champions we would order dinner and eat together. Brendan would order something different every night meanwhile I would crush the Kabobs. It got to the point that a couple of weeks into our internship Brendan nicknamed me ‘Amir Kabob’ which quickly caught on and became my nickname in the office. One evening mid-way through our internship we were anxiously surfing seamless web to figure out where to order from for tonight’s dinner. After a couple minutes of surfing, Brendan threw his hands in defeat and turned to me and said “Amir Kabob, order me what you normally get yourself’. That night Brendan and I both ate Lamb Kabob platters with a bowl of hummus some bhaba ganoush and pita bread. After the meal, Brendan turned to me and said, “Amir Kabob, this food is awesome how come I haven’t eaten this stuff before?” At that point, I thought to myself, how come Brendan hasn’t eaten this kind of food before? He’s clearly a worldly and adventuresome guy, yet he’s never enjoyed Kabobs, how could that be? The more I thought about it the more I realized most Middle Eastern restaurants tend to be hole-in-the-wall shops and very ‘ethnic’ in nature, and nicer places tend to be too expensive for regular dining. Thus, it made sense why even though Middle Eastern food is pretty awesome, it’s not as widely known and consumed.

I thought to myself someone should bring Middle Eastern style food in the same format that Qdoba was serving Mexican food. To me the concept made a lot of sense since Middle Eastern foods can be prepared in a similar assembly line process and you can create a lot of different food combinations with a limited number of ingredients. Not to mention, if done right Middle Eastern food is healthier than Mexican foods since Kabobs are grilled and nothing is fried. To me, the idea had merit and no one was doing it the way I had envisioned it…

Thus, it was then and there during the summer of 2005 that the idea was born, it just took a little while and some convincing along the way to pursue it….

-Amir

Closer..

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” --Babe Ruth, American baseball player

This past month has been extremely busy for us. As we inch closer to our target launch date, we are quickly realizing how much work is in store. The good news is we are very close to signing a lease on a location we are very excited about! It’s a turnkey restaurant on a university campus with strong foot traffic throughout the day. I’ll tell you more about it once it’s confirmed!

In the meantime we’ve made progress on a lot of other fronts. For one, we’ve incorporated our LLC and opened up a small business bank account. We’ve continued to work with our architect on the interior design phase of our restaurant. He sketched a potential layout for the fit-out that was hard to grasp at first but overall seemed to be on the right track. Now we have to meet him in person so we can view the material samples and decide on the actual tiles, paint colors, tables/chairs, etc.

We’ve also begun the process of interviewing people to partner with us as a Chef/Kitchen Manager. This has been very interesting and we have some strong leads at the moment. Believe it or not the majority of our candidates came through a Craigslist post! We’ve talked to people that run the gamut… young cooks straight out of culinary school, veteran executive chefs with decades of experience, and even some folks who didn’t know a kabob from a falafel! At this point we’re hoping to set up some in-person meetings and tasting sessions with the candidates we are most excited about. Given how important it is for the chef to be able to cook the food perfectly, this will be a really crucial (and fun!) step in the process :)

In other news I’m going to be on the road for the next few weeks so will do my best to keep up with the blog (as if I’ve been doing a great job of that already)! But we should have lots of updates once we finalize our space and get the ball rolling on the construction of the space… after all, we’ve got less than 4 months to hit our deadline. Stay tuned!

-Artina