The Madeline and Becca Podcast

How to open a restaurant with Lindsay Pohlad

Episode Summary

Lindsay Pohlad is the owner and founder of The Grocer's Table, a market, cafe and wine bar in downtown Wayzata, Minnesota. Lindsay has done the impossible, opening a successful restaurant during the Covid pandemic. She will discuss the nuts and bolts of opening a restaurant - from building a vision, choosing a location, sourcing a menu and hiring a chef and what she wishes she'd known before opening a restaurant.

Episode Notes

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Episode Transcription

Episode #8: How to open a restaurant with Lindsay Pohlad 

 

Lindsay [00:00:07] When I started thinking about doing this, I knew and this is the way it was back in my investment banking days. I need to know every single aspect of the business. I, I can't BS my way through anything. I just don't feel comfortable. And I think that that's what's given me confidence in this industry, is knowing that I have looked at every single number and really understood how the labor model works in the restaurant world. What costs should be. And, you know how to, how to build out a successful financial model. [Music transition] 

 

Madeline & Becca [00:00:50] Welcome to The Madeline and Becca Podcast. The mission of our podcast is simple, to inspire professional self-confidence in women everywhere. I'm Madeline. And I'm Becca. On our podcast, you will hear stories from real world influencers, women who have experienced tremendous success in their careers by building self-confidence. Thanks for joining us. [Music transition]

 

Becca [00:01:30] On today's episode, Madeline will be interviewing Lindsay Pohlad. Lindsay is the owner and founder of  The Grocers Table, a market cafe and wine bar in downtown Wayzata, Minnesota. Lindsay grew up in New England and attended Colgate University before starting her career in investment banking in New York City. Lindsay left the financial sector when she moved to Minnesota with her husband, working as the national director of food service sales at Talenti Gelato. Lindsay attended culinary school while raising three boys, which is when her vision for The Grocers Table was born. Lindsay has done the impossible, opening a successful restaurant during the Covid pandemic. She will discuss the nuts and bolts of opening a restaurant, from building a vision, choosing a location, sourcing a menu and hiring a chef and what she wishes she'd known before opening a restaurant. Here's Madeline. [Music transition]

 

Madeline [00:02:37] Do you feel that your time in culinary school was, I know some people debate, should I go? Should I not? Do you feel like it was helpful in learning all of the staples about the industry, in terms of your background? 

 

Lindsay [00:02:49] You know, I think so. You know, a lot of people, most people that we've hired at the restaurant, you know, don't have a culinary degree. And they learn, you know, they started working in the business with their family when they were 16 years old. And that's how they really learned on the job. For me, I think it was important to really understand what it felt like to be in every position. Right? Whether you were cook or whether you were purchasing or whether you were baking what, what those long hours felt like. Because when you did a quote on quote, lab at school, it was at least five hours long. So you're on your feet and you do every part of the job from, you know, prepping to cooking to washing dishes to everything. And I think that, for me, was really important to understand what it's like to do all those different positions and honestly how hard it is. [Music transition]

 

Madeline [00:04:00] I want to ask all the nuts and bolts about what actually went into starting Grocers Table. Can you tell us first, how did you come up with the vision and what is the vision? 

 

Lindsay [00:04:12] So, the vision is, you know, what I set out to do was kind of be a neighborhood catch all. So, I wanted this concept to be multifaceted, which provided a lot of challenges, by the way, in making this, this kind of concept come to fruition. But the idea of having a place where you could do multiple things and where we had a lot of crossover between the market, the wine bar and the cafe itself. So, I, what I set out to do was kind of hit on all those five senses, right? Taste, touch, you know, the smell, just that whole, that whole culinary experience when you walk in, I love the idea of having a bounty of food out. So when you walk up to the bakery, it's all different baked goods. You know, I positioned my pizza oven so you could really see what was happening in my wood fired oven. And really kind of see your product being cooked from, from start to finish. And, I loved the idea then, of selling a lot of those things that are on our cafe menu in the market itself. So whether it's our Rosemary Chipotle nuts that are on our cheeseboard and we bag those and sell those, or it's, you know, granola that we use in our yogurt parfaits that we bag and sell, so that people could really, you know, love the brand, get behind the brand and experience it in their own homes as well as in the cafe itself. 

 

Madeline [00:05:53] So, did it take you a long time to come up with this, I mean, have you been plotting over the course of several years or what did that timeline look like? 

 

Lindsay [00:06:01] You know, I had my son Jack about 10 years ago, and that's probably when I started thinking about doing this concept. The actual work on, you know, finding the location and really starting to dig in was about, I started that about five years ago. So it was about a five year process to get to where we are today. And, that said, there were a lot of bumps in the road which caused it to be that long. And to think that I would have started this, you know, four years ago, after only a year of planning, I was crazy. I had a, you know, at that point, I had a two-year old, a four-year old and a six-year old. Like there's no way. I think that the powers that be above had, had a had a different plan for me. And, you know, I'm a very impatient person. And so I wanted to get the ball rolling right away. I'm very kind of type A and scheduled and planned. And a lot of things happened that didn't allow us to get this open when we, when I wanted to. And that was an absolute blessing I think. You know, as we went through the process of, you know, from, from ideation, you know, I, coming up with the idea was, that was the easy part. I mean, I had been inspired by places on the East and West Coast living next to Dean and DeLuca and, you know, going to Eately and these just really, these really energetic, vibrant environments of enjoying food with family and friends. And, there were a couple of places out on the West Coast, Jones on Third. A couple places that's in West Hollywood. And then a few spots up in the Napa Valley area, Oakville Grocery and Shed. And I just, I loved and adored these places. And I, and I wanted something like this to exist in in Minnesota and specifically in my neighborhood. When things fell through a couple times with a lease or getting financing through on, on this new building that was happening in Wayzata, there were several times where my husband or friends would say to me, "well, why don't you just do it in Minneapolis? You know, you'll get great foot traffic there." And I just said, "absolutely not, I want to do this in my community for my friends, family, neighbors, etc.. I think Wayzata needs this. And I just said full stop on Wayzata. So, we, I just waited until this could happen exactly where I wanted it to happen. And, and I feel really lucky that it, that, you know, it all came to fruition. 

 

Madeline [00:08:54] So tell us about the process of choosing a location. 

 

Lindsay [00:08:59] That part was easy, too, in that I knew I wanted to be right on Lake Street and right in the heart of downtown Wayzata. There was a, a family. There is a family, the Beltz family, who had another development right on Lake Street. And I happened to have gone to Colgate with their son, who was starting to take over the family business of doing these developments. And he had told me, he knew I was, he had gotten wind that I was interested in, in this kind of concept and said, oh, hey, we're doing this addition to our building. Right, kind of on Broadway and Lake, right in downtown Wayzata, which could not be more of a, of a perfect location. And so, the conversation started there with him. And then once I fell in love with that spot, I, I was insistent on not looking at anything else. I wanted this place to feel as authentic and established as possible, like it had been there forever. And I worked really hard on the inside of my space to make it feel like it was timeless and it was authentic and true to me and the concept and that it could honestly just appeal to anybody from some of the older, lovely couples that live in Wayzata to young families. You know, to people like myself with, you know, with, you know, three boys that they need to feed. 

 

Madeline [00:10:41] So, after you picked a location, tell us about the process of actually designing the interior part of the space. 

 

Lindsay [00:10:50] Sure. I worked with David Shay, who is a great architect and designer here, who's worked on a lot of restaurants in the Twin Cities and actually around the country, and I worked with a great team of people over there that were just fantastic to work with. I, I went into it saying, exactly what I just said, I want this to feel approachable. I want it to feel timeless, authentic. I want it to feel as light and airy in the summer time as it does warm and cozy in the winter. And that's a hard balance to have here in Minnesota. Right? Because, you don't want it to just feel like this winter place that's you know, and we all love our cozy Minnesota winter places where we go to on Friday night and get, you know, a you know, a bowl of soup and some hearty, some hearty Midwest food. But, you know, we're on the lake in Wayzata, so I wanted it to, to really feel like we could capture all seasons with the ambiance. So, you know, we were working within the confines of, you know, lower ceilings already, which lent itself to this more residential neighborhood feel. And then we took what was just a vanilla shell, a white canvas, and we just kept layering and layering and layering. So I kept my ceilings exposed. But then I ran, you know, these farmhouse, rustic wooden beams across the ceiling so that you'd have that sort of texture on the ceiling and not just feel warehousy. I have wooden floors and that sort of this grayish aged tone. All the front of my counter, of my counter spaces in the cafe and the wine bar, it is, consists of reclaimed barn wood that we found that's, with sort of a nail head detail to it. And we have, we worked really hard to have the retail and the cafe really intertwined with one another. So, you're almost sitting among the product and the food. So there isn't just one section for wine bar, one section for market and one section for a cafe. It's really all in one and all encompassing. There's retail, you know, right in the wine bar area. There are, you know, products throughout the tables. So, so you feel like you're just, you're almost in somebody's home. 

 

Madeline [00:13:41] I love that. And so, in terms of actually doing the menu, where did your inspiration come from and what was important to you in terms of picking the menu. 

 

[00:13:56] The menu, you know, that, again, was, that was just that was another easy part. Now, making the ideas of the menu come to fruition and really be applicable to my kitchen constraints and capacity and equipment and all of that. That was a hard, part. But the menu itself, I just, I wanted it to be rustic and simple, sort of elevated versions of the classics from a bakery standpoint. All the recipes are recipes that I've been working on for the past 10 years, from the chocolate chip cookie to the cinnamon swirl donut bread to Pepsi cake. These are all recipes that I've tested on my children or recipes that have been in my family and are, you know, are tried and true for both kids and adults. And then from the, from the main cafe menu standpoint, I again, rustic and seasonal, you know, capturing all the micro seasons that happen in Minnesota, making sure that we had some really great familiar staples on there, but then that we were constantly bringing something new and fresh to the table. So, really allowing a lot of room for specials and seasonality and things like that. And, and in doing that, we had you know, I decided I really wanted to do this big deli case. That was the sort of showcase piece, the center of the cafe and the market. And with that, you know, that is what provides a lot of opportunity for constantly changing and tapping into the micro seasons and and providing something fresh and new to our customers all the time. So we just play around in that deli case. You know, we've got our staples of our Spanish tuna salad and chicken salad and, you know, a roasted beet salad. But then we're always throwing in a lentil salad or a couscous or let's play around with asparagus and do something cool with that and, and roast it up in our wood fired oven and, and see what happens, see if people like it. And so that's been a really fun area to play around from a culinary standpoint. 

 

Madeline [00:16:23] So how do you pick products? What is the process like if you have sauces or other packaged food? How does that work? 

 

Lindsay [00:16:31] In the in the retail area? 

 

Madeline [00:16:33] Yes.

 

Lindsay [00:16:36] Great question. Those are all quite random. You know, a lot of these products are products that I had come across in the last, you know, years of my travel. So, we have a lot of one off small batch family, you know, companies that do just chocolates or just popcorn or they, they specialize in this one hot sauce you know, out of Brooklyn, New York. And so, I picked a lot of those individual products and established relationships with those, with those companies that most of which do not have any distribution. So, keeping those relationships is quite challenging. But honestly, it's worth it, because I think that that is what provides, you know, a really unique offering at The Grocers Table. These are things you don't see anywhere else in Minnesota or even, you know, in the Midwest, which makes it really fun and special for our customers to come in and shop around. From the standpoint of, you know, when you look at our, our retail market, it really centers around a local meat and cheese program. So, I started out with the meat and cheese and then a whole table of savory items from olive oils to pastas and pasta sauces and vinegars and spices and things like that. And then an entire table of sweet items, which includes everything from chocolates to my favorite hot fudge and Caramel sauce and nut butters and popcorn and things like that. Most of my meat and cheese and the accouterments that go with that, whether it's the crackers or the fig jam or things like that, that is, that was sourced from a place called Fortune, formerly Classic Provisions, and who was just bought out by Fortune in Chicago. But they're a specialty food distributor. And I decided with my meats and cheeses that I wanted to go as local as possible. While some of my other products you know, I picked some things from around the country, I didn't want to do a bunch of French cheeses or Italian cheeses. I wanted to do Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa. And we pretty much have stuck to that, which is really great. You know, we're in a great part of the country for dairy. And so we've got some things that you recognize that are your, you know, your staples. We've got Alamar Cheese, which is produced here, right in Minnesota, which is exciting, as well as Red Table Meats, which is cured here locally in Minnesota as well. So, I love championing those local brands and really getting behind them. And people have responded quite well to them. The last part of the retail, which is the most surprising and most successful part of my retail, is everything that we make in-house. I didn't know if people were going to be interested in buying our own granola or our fig jam or strawberry jam or pickles or bootleg mix or things like that. And that is the stuff that I cannot keep in stock. It absolutely flies off the shelves. And that's been the most rewarding part of it, that all of these little things that we make and love. I mean, people are just, throw, you know, a dozen in their cart and just trying to keep up with that is, is challenging. But it's also really exciting. 

 

Madeline [00:20:12] And so, do you make those foods right on-site at the location of the restaurant? 

 

Lindsay [00:20:18] We do. Which is also very challenging. So, yeah, I mean, we don't have a big kitchen and we need to be, you know, prepping for our a la cart cafe menu. We need to be prepping for, to fill that big deli case. And then we also need to be prepping to provide, you know, all of these housemaid retail items. So, you know, our number one seller is our bootleg mix. By far. I mean, that's my number two revenue generator. You know, followed by our chocolate chip cookie. I mean, it's the funniest things that people are really loving. And, you know, our bootleg mix that was, you know, this is a recipe that has been in my family. And I thought, let's just see if people buy bootleg mix. I mean, we, I put it out at eight in the morning and it's gone by nine-thirty every day. And, and that's, that takes a lot of prep space, you know, fresh lime juice, lemon, pounds and pounds of mint. And, you know, my chef, Craig Johnson, who's just phenomenal. He, the day one that "really Lindsay on the bootleg mix? You really think we're going to sell this stuff?" And every day we look at each other and laugh and I yell over to him, you know, "hey, we need more bootleg mix. And a literally shakes his head and says, "I just I can't even believe this." So, it's been fun to see how people have responded to a lot of these items that we make in house. 

 

Madeline [00:21:41] So how did you pick a chef? How did you pick Craig? And what was the hiring process like? 

 

Lindsay [00:21:47] You know, the hiring process was interesting because we were planning on opening in April. And so, you, you really start to look for people because this industry is so transient. Right? You know, people are hopping from one place to another. It's a really hard industry. You know, it is so physically taxing, mentally and emotionally taxing. And we started the hiring process, you know, around February of this year. Because people do, you know, switch jobs so frequently. And during that time, you know, there was zero unemployment. I would almost say negative unemployment in the service industry. I mean, if you were to find someone, it was because you were stealing them from somewhere else. Quite, quite honestly. And I had a consultant, Pat Webber, who had been working on this project with me for the last five years, who, you know, stuck with me through this, through all the ups and downs. And he really helped me to, you know, to find people. We struggled a lot at first to find good staff and, you know, especially to find a chef. And it was really important to me that I found somebody as an executive chef that really shared my vision, that really loved this idea of this multifaceted concept that was inspired by it. Because it's, it's challenging. And, you know, and somebody who, it's hard to find a humble chef. I'll just say that. And, and I knew that I needed to find someone who worked well with others, who took constructive criticism and who wanted to deal with me on a daily basis, because as an owner, I'm so insanely hands on with everything from front of house to back of house that we needed to just work well together. So Craig Johnson, who's our executive chef, who has had a long career in the culinary work. He actually went to culinary school in Oregon and came here and worked at, you know, everywhere from the Damico restaurants, started that Cafe Lurcat. And then opened a place called Spill the Wine, which you might remember with his partner at the time. And then he he started Prairie Dog Meats and he was making these sausages, which we actually now sell in the market. And was at a number of different restaurants in Wayzata. And when I met him, we had actually hired somebody before. And then it didn't work out. And I met him kind of at the at the final hour. And that's when the space had already almost been complete. And I, I walked him through the space. He lives in Plymouth just five minutes down the road and has a sweet daughter named Maddie. And he, he walked through it and said, this reminds me of this place that I used to go to in Oregon that I absolutely loved. And right away, we hit it off. Right away, I could tell he was not only talented, but just a really good guy and, and could command the respect of the kitchen. And I hired him that day. And, you know, and didn't look back. And he and my general manager, who I hired about a month before that, you know, we've, I've kept them on full salary during this entire Covid challenging experience. And it's been, it's been a ride so far. And he's been just phenomenal. 

 

Madeline [00:25:39] So tell us, from the business side of owning a restaurant. Can you tell us what went into the planning process and how did you think through all of those things? Because I know there's so many moving pieces with inventory and salaries and all of the, all of that. What went into the business side of it? 

 

Lindsay [00:25:59] Yes. So this is where I worked very closely with Pat Weber, who owns this company called Mise en Place Consulting. And, you know, when I, when I started thinking about doing this, I knew, and this is the way I was back in my investment banking days. I need to know every single aspect of the business. I, I can't BS my way through anything. I just don't feel comfortable. And I think that that's what's giving me confidence in this industry, is knowing that I have looked at every single number and really understood how the labor model works in the restaurant world, what costs should be, and you know, how to, how to build out a successful financial model. It was quite challenging to put together projections, financial projections. With us being this multifaceted concept. Right? There wasn't a lot of precedents for, for what we are, especially, you know, in the Twin Cities. And so I could look at other restaurants and say, OK, these guys do two-million in sales and these guys do five. Where where am I? What percentage am I going to sell in retail? And so, retail has a much different margin than your actual, you know, food that you're selling a la carte in your cafe. You know, how much wine and beer am I going to sell? Are people going to look at me as a, an actual wine bar or are they going to see me more as like a daytime place to go in and grab food with your family? And so what can we project is food and beverage sales? And so, that part was really challenging. A lot of it was just, you know, kind of throwing darts at the wall and saying, OK, here's what we think and let's be conservative on this. And when it came to building out the budget in, in general, I knew I wanted to pay off my initial investment as quickly as possible. So I stayed to an extremely strict budget for building out the space and for my equipment and for what I allowed us to do in terms of, you know, the sort of initial CapEx expenditure. And I didn't want it to take me 20 years to pay back this investment. And so, we you know, we threw a bunch of numbers on the, on the paper and then we decided, OK, here's what we could afford to pay a general manager and a executive chef based on what we think we're going to do in sales. Here's where we need to keep our labor numbers otherwise, here's where we need to, you know, strive for in terms of our food costs. And, and then we just, we hit the ground running. And, you know, we've been open, tomorrow, it will be exactly one month that we will have been open. And our projections are, I mean, we're doing great business. And I feel really, really blessed that people have responded to us and, and we're far exceeding what we thought we were gonna do. 

 

Madeline [00:29:05] That's wonderful. Congratulations. And you have a summer, summer season to look forward to. 

 

Lindsay [00:29:10] Yeah.

 

Madeline [00:29:10] So sort of pre-, you know, we'll talk about Covid in a minute, but pre Covid, can you tell us what was the most challenging aspect for you of opening a restaurant? 

 

Lindsay [00:29:22] Let's see. I would say, I think it's, it's, you put together these ideas on paper, right, for what you want the space to look like or what you want the menu to be all about. And then, then reality sets in and you have to figure out what actually works. I'd say, when it comes to the original integrity of this concept, we are 90 percent there with what I wanted to do. But there were a lot of things that I wanted to do to start out. I mean, I got this, my biggest investment was this wood fired oven, right? Where I wanted to do wood fired bagels. It's sort of marrying that New York style bagel with the Canadian style bagel where you boil them and Honey water and then you finish them in the wood fired oven and I'd done so much research on bagels. Years of research. And when we went to really put the numbers together for, for what that looked like in terms of labor, it just, it could not work. You know, it's so labor intensive and, and your return on, on bagels is not high. And, and I, and at that point, I said, god, you know, we had already put together the plans for this wood fired oven. And so I said, OK, well, if we can't do bagels, we've got to do a mean pizza, like a really good New York style, like awesome pizza. And luckily, I signed on a chef that knows how to make an incredible pizza dough that just I mean, that's our number one seller is our pizza. We, all of a sudden we've turned into the Wayzata pizza shop. And, and so, you know, it's, it's being, it's being flexible. I think that's, was my biggest challenge. I get set on these ideas and then I really want to see them happen. And if anything, I've learned through opening a business and and then dealing with Covid, it's, it's learning how to pivot and pivot successfully and just move on. If something doesn't work, you figure out how to make it work. And, and I guarantee there will be a silver lining. In whatever it is that you had to give up, you've gained something. 

 

Madeline [00:31:37] So, tell us about the challenges that you faced with respect to opening the business during the pandemic.

 

Lindsay [00:31:45] Yeah. It was hard. We were set to open April 3rd. We were gearing up full force in March, beginning of March. And my husband kept saying, "Linds, this does not look good. I mean, this is, I don't know if you're gonna be able to open." And I couldn't even I, I, I would not listen to anybody. Right? I just, I couldn't hear it. I definitely went through those stages of grief. Right? Like, I was fully in denial at first. And then I was just angry and upset. And then I was kind of processing and understanding. And then I just moved on. So, you know, we, around March 15th when everything kind of happened, I, you know, took a pause. I started to talk to some of the other restaurant owners that I'm good friends with and close with here in Wayzata and everybody was sort of in the same stage I was in, as far as just being in denial. OK. "Well, you know what? Maybe this will be a couple weeks and then we'll be able to open by Easter and it'll be fine." And, you know, after the first couple weeks, you know, I, my husband and my three boys, I've got three boys, Jack, Luke and Alex, that are now six, eight and ten. And, they were about to, Breck was having their spring break, end of March. And I said, you need to take the kids. I need to just fully immerse myself and really work right now. There's my cuckoo clock. And, the plan was for him to go out to California, to his parents house and hang out with them there and take the kids. And he called me when he took them out there and said, "you know, I think you just need to step away. And I think you need to just, I think this is gonna be a really long situation that we're about to embark in. And you need to join us out here and. And just put this all on hold." Which, you know, it took me about a week to get out there. And, I said I, at that point, we had just started to hire all of our, because you really don't hire your, your front of house and back of house staff besides your management team until two-weeks ahead of time. So, we had started interviewing people and really getting people on board, but nobody had started working for us. But I had this general manager and this executive chef that I had promised a job to and was, you know, fully supporting. And I, and we were, we had such great momentum going into the opening of the restaurant. And I just felt like I was constantly letting them down. And I, it, and it was, it was really hard. And so, we all just took a step away for about four weeks or so. And, And we're doing Zoom calls like everybody else. And making sure we were all staying safe. And we were out in California. I was out with my kids and, and Tom and we were, it was shelter in place there before it was anywhere else. So we were just hunkered down and I was doing Zoom calls and we were strategizing. We were strategizing on what it would look like when we reopened. We knew we were extremely well-positioned for this kind of thing because we had so much retail and grab-and-go and prepared foods that we were, there was a lot of opportunity to help serve families in Wayzata. And in the surrounding cities and to be able to provide people with a home cooked meal, you know, curbside or, you know, where they never even had to enter. So, so that said, I came back, you know, in April and we started to talk about, OK, how can we, if we do end up opening at 50 percent capacity, what does that look like? But, every single day that we tried to make a plan, things changed. Right? So, restaurants are closed. Now restaurants can open, but only 50 percent capacity on the patio. OK. Then a week later, restaurants can open inside, but only at 50 percent. So, it was a daily constantly changing, you know, just moving target on what we were able to do. I, when we had only 50 percent capacity on the patio, I was really hesitant to open. I just felt like, gosh, I want people to be able to experience what it's like on the inside and to be able to come and shop and, and then I just had to let that go. I said, we are sitting here empty on the corner in Wayzata here and we could open tomorrow. And I just, I don't want to be a coward about it. I just want to open my doors and, you know, provide whatever we can, whether it's just takeout or whether it's just, you know, a couple seats on my patio, whatever it is, let's just do this. And so, we opened our doors on June 3rd and, and at that point we were able to do 50 percent on our patio. And because we're a unique concept in that we're a lot of retail on the inside, we were able to welcome people into the space at a 50 percent capacity to shop around. And so, there you go. We, we just did it. 

 

Madeline [00:37:11] And, I know you've only been open a short time, but do you have sort of a vision for what you want to have happen in, you know, year, two years, five years? Are you going to be a one location or do you have plans perhaps, you know, at some point down the road to open in other spots? 

 

Lindsay [00:37:31] Not right now. You know, I would say, given the amount of volume we're doing, we are facing some capacity constraints right now. So, we were able to work with the building owners to get some more storage space where we are doing a second walk in cooler and freezer, and then we're really working to utilize the kitchen at all times of day. So, we've got our bakers in at 1:00 in the morning until 6:00 a.m. and prep cooks in at night. So we're able to kind of utilize that space 24/7. And I have no plans of opening a second space. You know, I've been humbled by people asking me already to do that, whether it be in Edina or Minneapolis. You know, I have a very busy family life with my three boys and my husband, who have seen zero of me over the last month because I have been working bell to bell. And, you know, I think right now it's just, I just want to enjoy this where we are. I think, you know, staying in this small neighborhood and, and really authentic and and seeing a lot of people from me, Edina and Plymouth and, you know, Chaska and Chanhassen and then Minneapolis and even St. Paul coming over to check us out. That's really fun because I think, you know, the more business we draw to Wayzata, the more it helps all the other small businesses and people see us as a destination. And that's really exciting. 

 

Madeline [00:39:11] Is there anything that you wish that someone had told you that you didn't know before opening a restaurant? 

 

Lindsay [00:39:19] You know, I, I am lucky to have a bunch of friends in this industry, whether we just cultivated relationships with chefs or business owners. Patti Soskin at Yum! is you know, a good friend of our family. Lucia Watson from Lucia's was my absolute inspiration in all of this. I just, Lucia's was our spot, you know, and she created such a warm environment and, you know, with her staff and just the way she did her food and always changed it out seasonally. And so, I talked to a lot of people before opening end, and people told me a lot of things about how hard it is. And I refused to listen. So, I don't think there's anything I any piece of advice I could have gotten. I think it was more maybe the advice to myself to listen to people. But, you know, I think I, I, I think that you can never tell somebody how hard it is. I think the biggest challenge has been, you know, it has been people, has been, you know, my employees. I think you can build a fantastic concept and have excellent food and be in the best location ever. But if you don't have a great team that is, you know, stands by you, who you support and everyone supports one another and communicates and really follows the systems that you put in place, you'll fail miserably. And so, you know, the investment in my people has been something that I've really learned is, is extremely important from day one. And that, but that's, again, a learned thing. You just, you know, you just, once you start, you you really learn on the job. 

 

Madeline [00:41:12] And what advice would you have for other women who are considering themselves opening a restaurant? 

 

Lindsay [00:41:20] Gosh, you know, it's. I would say, you know, have courage of conviction. You know, I was not in this industry before. I thought, you know, who am I to think I can open a restaurant? You know, as I said earlier in our conversation, you know, learn every single aspect of the business. There is nothing that is beneath you. You know, from designing the back of house space, the kitchen. Know why things are placed the way they are. You know, know your financials inside and out. You know, understand what goes into building specs for a recipe. Just learn every single thing because you're not going to have conviction or confidence unless you really know all aspects of your business. If you don't know how to fix your point of sale machine when it's broken, then no one else is gonna, is gonna do it. So you have to do everything yourself. And. And that's what is rewarding. And that's what really provides you a sense of confidence that, that you know what you're doing. And, you know, for anybody that, you know, wants to open, you know, any kind of small business like this, it's, it's really, you know, believe in yourself and what, what you would want as a patron or as a guest. Right? I knew that if I stayed as authentic and true to myself as possible, then this thing would succeed or fail just based on, on that alone and, and I would be accountable for that. And I felt like that was important. Right? If, you know, it's that saying of you know. You know, if it's, you know, you build it how you want it to be and then you hope that other people will love it. And that's all that you can do, right? Don't build it for anybody but yourself. Don't do anything that you think well, the customer's going to like this, or I should do the menu like this because that's what people like. Do what you like and then, you know, have confidence in that. And, and really, I've been so surprised by how much people, how that resonates with people. They feel that authenticity. They really do. 

 

Becca [00:43:45] If you are in the Twin Cities area, you can enjoy The Grocers Table located just off of Lake Street in the center of Wayzata. They also offer online ordering. For more information, visit grocerstablemn.com. If you enjoyed listening to our podcast hit, subscribe now and leave us a review. Thank you to Nico Vettese for composing our original music. And thank you always to our home team of friends and family for supporting us in our mission. This episode was produced and edited by Madeline and Becca. Thanks for tuning in. And remember, you are somebody.