Transcript

How I Built Resilience: Vivian Ku, Restaurateur

Hey everyone and welcome to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR. I'm Guy Roz. Each week on Thursday, we invite entrepreneurs and other business leaders to come onto the show to talk about how they've been building resilience into their businesses this past year. And you can join us each Thursday at nine AM Pacific, twelve Eastern on the How I Built This Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube pages. to hear the conversation and ask questions as well. And today my conversation with Vivian Co, owner of the restaurants Pine and Crane, Joy and Today starts here is

Vivian is a first generation Taiwanese American, and she's opened three Taiwanese restaurants in Los Angeles. In the midst of the pandemic, with many restaurants closing, Vivian decided to open a breakfast pop up called Today Starts Here in LA's Chinatown. We talked about her childhood growing up on a farm and how she's leading three different restaurants during the pandemic. But first, I asked Vivian how she was doing in light of the recent shootings in Atlanta and the rise of violence against Asian Americans in the past year. I always when I hit something I don't understand.

Try to process it in a way where there's a silver lining. And I really had a hard time yesterday. I was like, there is no silver lining here. Um, you know, I couldn't really make sense of it. It felt like in a lot of ways we were Going backwards, like worse than when I was growing up. And

Part of the reason why We wanted to share Taiwanese food because It's part of my culture and you know, having it shared with a wider audience. I think it's really

There's something I really enjoy out of Having people kind of be more open minded or learn something about someone's culture just because they wanted a great bite to eat. I think it's just such a human thing. Um, and that's been a lot of the joy of running the restaurant. I remember Seeing this like white nine year old boy come in to order woody or mushroom salad to bring to his classroom.

Um And it was his birthday and I was like I was trying to bring in cupcakes to fit in and We've come so far. And then yesterday was like, that is completely the opposite. And It's just Um

a few bad actors that make the whole thing seem extra, extra bad. Um, I do believe that humans are good and that that's not representative of the whole entire picture. Um, and I think hopefully we'll be better allies for one another. I know, you know, during the summer, um, when BLM was going on, you know, I think a lot of kids my generation had to explain to you know our parents and aunts and uncles like what it was all about. And I think

You know, this will all band all of us together. And hopefully. Also realize that you know it's We all have a role to play here, and whether it's you know, more people feeling like they need to enter into their you know local politics or be involved I think

You know, um But it's really hard to make sense of it. Yeah. And I mean a lot of the conversation certainly in the last year

and certainly in the last few months have been about representation and the impact that representation has on empowering people, right? And and that's what you do through your restaurants. I mean you whether consciously or unconsciously, you're bringing as you say your your heritage and your culture um and your family's culture through food to people in the Los Angeles area. Tell me how you um I know you started with a restaurant called Pine and Crane.

In Silver Lake in LA. Tell me how you came to that. that place. How did you um How did you first decide to open up a Taiwanese restaurant? I knew I wanted to open a restaurant and it didn't have to be necessarily Taiwanese food. I just really

Like the idea of Creating a place and having people come together. I like the energy of a restaurant. And I like the idea of running a restaurant, but Taiwanese food made a lot of sense because you know, ultimately it's the food that I hold most near and dear my heart. And then also I felt like it was very underrepresented at the time.

Бад со мщер. You know, I'll always like to say that Taiwanese food is organically designed to appeal to the masses because of the way you know history um and migration You know, with all food kinda like shaped it's Culinary history and where it's going.

Um, it just made a lot of sense to me to, you know, share something that I'm from and then also it was something that, you know, could be shared with more people. Yeah. I'm curious for people who don't know, I mean probably the most famous to non Taiwanese folks, um Taiwanese cuisine is beef noodle soup, right? Or bow sandwiches. Tell me a little bit about the food that you make at your restaurants. Pine and crane, you know, it has a very heavy Northern Chinese influence on the menu um because you have my maternal side, they went from

Mainland China to Taiwan. In Nightin Forty nine when there was a civil war. Um and they came from this region um where they ate a lot of wheat because wheat was um the main agricultural product. So um a lot of like dumplings, buns, pot stickers, and my grandmother would always joke about how, you know, they would move over to Taiwan and then all of a sudden they were neighbors with native Taiwanese. And how like all the neighbors would kinda w wanna come over and learn like how to make these things because it was more of a rice based diet. Right.

And like Fermicelli made it from rice instead of noodles, um, made from wheat. Chaiwanese food just has a lot of different influences because you know you have The aborigines, you have migrations from China in earlier years. You have the Japanese occupation for fifty years, where they thought they would have the island forever. Um, and then you have two million people from all over China, such a large land mass, kind of gather together onto this island and all become neighbors with one another. So I think it makes for

you know, very interesting Solinary melting pot. Yeah. You grew up um In Bakersfield, California, which is like kind of the capital of America's food basket, right? Bakersfield and and and Modesto, like Fresno, these are like sort of

the big cities in the central valley of California. Was your family in the agriculture industry? We actually moved to Bakersville for that reason. So when I was around Five or six. My dad decided to buy a farm and we all moved over and you know, the earlier is when he especially when he was growing all sorts of stuff, that was when I was a lot younger. So a lot of memories are

planting seeds and like harvesting and playing with plants and things like that was really nice. Um But then you know school started. And then I became probably less and less Involved. Over time, but I also started to sort of I think

grow up and kind of see like, oh, this is a really hard industry. And like my parents wouldn't have to try and there were, you know, definitely rough years in there. I think Ultimately, you know, they they ran a small business. A lot of people in my family own small businesses, not necessarily in food. Um, and I did like how, you know Even in a moment of difficulty.

um they ultimately got to decide what was the best response. But yeah, I I grew up in Bakersfield. Yeah. And how did you

I know you went and studied at Harvard and Um, and so I have to assume you're pretty good student in high school and How did you decide to to go into the restaurant industry because I I have to imagine that there probably were people, maybe even your parents, who were like Vivian This is nuts. This is like the w the the most unstable like

The scariest thing to go into. Did did you get any any kind of pushback like that? A little bit, sure. You know, I originally went into the industry because Some of the very basic reasons like everyone else. Like I loved food. I love going out to eat. I love creating something. I loved how people are generally very happy when you feed them and I was like, That's a good way to make a living.

I didn't get as much of that, I think, as a lot of think Asian American kids especially got My grandfather was is one of my favorite humans ever. He was

Just Had so much oomph. And Was a very principled person And I remember from a very early age, you know, he would say something like along the lines of, you know, there are no inferior jobs, only inferior people. It doesn't matter what you do. It's

How you do it. Yeah. Um and I think that message was really powerful to me at a young age because I think you know it Sort of Gave me the first hint where it's like you know the things society value are sometimes not necessarily correct.

And that if I were stuck in a situation it's My response to it that truly mattered. I remember a time when I had like I don't know, got second place in a math competition or something and You know, it was a little bit grumpy, and you know, my grandfather was like, Okay, what's going on?

And um I was like, Oh, I got second place. I thought I would have gotten first. And he his response was like, Oh, first place is for losers anyways. And like it's not a very grandfatherly response, I think. Um, and not what you would expect. Um and I would get first place and then I was like the best in his eye still, but Um I think he was someone who Thought like you didn't need to be first place in life to

be someone admirable and that there's like so much more to a person Um, than just getting first place. Tell me about when you decided to open your first restaurant. Now you've got two plus a pop ups of three. How did you I mean it's it takes a lot of courage to start Anything.

Were you nervous? Wha what was what were the anxieties you had about About opening it up. I think Fear of failure. was huge. Yeah. Um

You know, I convinced my parents to let me go to culinary school. I'm so grateful to them, but You know, they actually said you know We will support you in this endeavor and You know, I had borrowed money from my parents, my

Ants. my boyfriend at the time who's now my husband and You know, I I like borrowed this money and I was ready to go and you know It was about

Time to sign the lease. And at that time I was like not sleeping well. I like had lost some weight and um just was very shaky and my mom was pretty much just like okay, well What happens if you don't do this? Yeah. And then I think, you know, it's uh regret minimization. You know, I was literally uh thinking about and I said, I think I would cringe slightly every single time I step foot inside a restaurant. And then she was like, Okay, well then you have to do it.

So for me that's kind of You know, and then once you sign the lease you know, sometimes it's just like that one thing to get through. Then it's too late to back out. And then you just pretty much have to focus on okay, well how am I going to make it successful? So it's sometimes just that that little push. When we come back, more of my conversation with Vivian Coo and how she navigated running two restaurants and opening a pop up. In the midst of a mass pandemic

Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This Resilience Edition. From NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Resilience Edition. And I'm talking with Vivian Coo. She's the owner of the Los Angeles restaurants Pine and Crane Joy and today starts here. With a pandemic decimating the restaurant industry this past year, I asked Vivian how she kept her restaurants and staff.

A float. We've had a lot of ups and downs at the beginning of the pandemic. When we had closed and I had Especially banked on a PPP loan that turned out like I I didn't make it the first round. Um so I was super worried, and I think

I think it's not lost on me that You know, had we been in fine dining or had we been a bar. our journey so far would have been many times more difficult. And I think a lot of that just comes down to luck. You know, we happen to be in a segment of the industry that's a little bit more Price point friendly, a little bit more takeout friendly.

Um so it's been a lot of ups and downs. Um You know, we close for roughly two months and then we came back. And when we first came back it was actually Great. Um a lot of people showed up and really generous with gratuity and the team was doing well and Then we started to navigate into um this period of time when we started to have

a lot of cases of COVID all around us. So then we had to start getting tested on site every single week and decide, you know There was not really a lot of guidance, so every single time we would have to come together And sort of check in with everyone on the team and see where they were at and decide, you know, what was the best thing for everyone involved. So the entire team The restaurant, you know, we try to be open for the community as well. Um, but it was a lot of coming together over and over again, being like what is the best decision now? What is the best decision now.

Um and then now as we're opening back up, I think You know Everyone has a little bit of concrete hope, especially because most of our team have had their first vaccination shot. But everyone is so tired. Um everyone's running out of steam and it's been over a year and we haven't really you know, you just keep going and there hasn't there haven't been opportunities to recover.

you know, everyone will need a really good vacation, but my hope is that we just Push through. Yeah. And as things open up, you know, we don't have we're holding off on indoor dining and um we'll open up outdoor dining at pine and cream soon, but we don't have outdoor dining. at Joy. So the road back is a little bit unclear at this moment for us.

You did something that sounds seems a little counterintuitive, which is in October. So really You know, as the pandemic was still raging and then it would it would become worse, especially in Los Angeles, you opened a a breakfast pop up. restaurant called Today Starts Here, that's been really successful. Um did you have the plan to do this or d was that kind of born out of the situation with the pandemic, did you just think, you know, let's open up a pop up a breakfast restaurant.

Yeah, um I think You know, when you look at it, it seems like we've expanded during the pandemic. Um but we did sort of down scale like from our original plans. February Twenty twenty was a super exciting time for us. Um, you know, I had finished signing a lease.

that I had personally guaranteed. Um and then we were in the middle of this lease for Chinatown that is Today starts here. We're almost done. Um, and I was looking at a different spot and we had a week where we were like, Oh my goodness, this is so exciting. We'll be working on maybe as many as five projects by the end of the year. And then the pandemic hit, and then

You know, immediately was like, Well let's Push all of that away. But you know, we had already started the conversation of like, oh, who would we promote to be a manager on our team and we've already had those conversations. Yeah. And who would we move to Chinatown this project? Um so we took a break for two months.

But when we came back, you know, and I was able to talk to the landlord and be like, look, can we try like a month to month situation? There's a lot of downsides to opening during a pandemic, but there's a lot of upsides too. Um You know, because no one came inside. We can kind of just You know, we just scrubbed down the space, put some old and new pieces of equipment together, um, and got to start up Rather quickly, um quicker than we normally would have been able to.

And then I think people were also very understanding given it was a pop-up and a pandemic. Yeah. It kind of allowed us to really keep our entire team. promote people who we were had planned on promoting, um also is There's a lot of benefits to having a bigger team at a separate location. So coverage if we needed was a little bit easier.

It had a lot of value for us, um, to try to just be in that space and then um I think once things calm down a little bit, we still have a lot of work to do there'cause we will we'll have to build out the space and think about how to be there in a more sustainable manner. Has that model though, that pop up model Al almost kind of like an informal model. Like what we're doing now.

this resilient series, we started this last year and when the pandemic hit and And it's been really great. We've learned so much about the show and about our audience by doing this. By doing that pop up restaurant, I have to imagine you learned a lot about what could work and what might be more efficient. in your business, right? Because it's just breakfast. And

It's a pop up, so presumably there's room to do the kinds of experimentation that you might not be able to do as easily in a brick and mortar location with critics coming in and all kinds of pressure. Is that am I right about that? Yeah, I mean there's pros and cons to having it be a pop up, I think. It's definitely not profitable on running breakfast alone, so we'll have to figure out something there in the longer term. Um, and I do think especially during the pandemic, a lot of people have been very entrepreneurial and like cooking out of, you know, their homes and sharing pop up kitchens and I think ghost kitchens were already part of the industry before this happened and I think

Will be a bigger part of the industry. I'm not as interested in ghost kitchens because you lose so much of the things that drew me to the hospitality industry in the first place. Um, but it's true, like um we were thinking, you know, if we did breakfast in the morning And then at night the space is available. Um if anyone on our team wanted to do a pop-up, that would be a really good opportunity. We really wanted it.

Pursue this. Because there's just so much potential. Um, we're not really sure what it is yet, but it's like we can put our heads together and think of creative things that we can do to make things work. Vivian, you know, I I I keep hearing about the travel industry. And by the way, I just out of curiosity, I looked I happened to look at airline stocks the other day as a gauge to see where they are. And they're at fifty two week highs, right? Because there's an anticipation that

People are gonna flood the zone. over the next few months as more and more of us are vaccinated, I'm not yet So I shouldn't say us, but there's more and more people are. Um this is a question from Oliver and it's a counterintuitive question, but it's an interesting question. I mean, do you think that in some strange way now might be a c a good time to think about opening a restaurant because

the country will reopen and people are just gonna go Crazy. Wild when they're freed from Being separated from others. I mean, my hope is that the restaurants act will help a lot of people who

Had lost their opportunities during this time or really struggled, especially those in fine dining. I my hope is that they'll be able to come back because I think Once again, like We would have had a much harder time had we been in That space.

And a lot of them were places that were more well managed. more loved, had better teams, maybe better food and all those things. And So my hope is that they get to come back. But Yeah, I think you know, sometimes

In the event that, you know, they don't get to come back. My hope is that There will be ne a new generation of restaurants that'll pop up from this, I think. Sadly there might be a lot of inventory available on the market. So it is a good time to start. A place.

And I think, you know, you kind of I think a lot of people have endure this pandemic, right? So there's the fact that you can make it through and then start something kind of you're almost more confident going into it because you've seen yourself go through something difficult. Yeah. I think it'll come back. And I think maybe this is too optimistic, but

you know, people have been really creative in their homes and like um So I've I'm I've spoken to several people who Are starting concepts. So um I'm hopeful.

Vivian, a lot of people watching are are in your in your industry and really um I hope this is helpful. So thank you um for watching. This is um Vernon by Facebook. As a fellow food business owner in Los Angeles, Vernon uh owns Offset Coffee Company and Pinky's Hot Box. Fernand asks, um. What what are some interesting ways that you found to drive additional traffic? to the restaurants while

Also better managing expenses. We actually have dot. Focused a ton on that during this pandemic. Probably as much as we should have. I think when the pandemic happened, but when we came back towards the end of May we Changed out our um point of sell system to make it more contactless. And also just a better system overall. So that was helpful. And then we got on a lot of different delivery platforms because we're like, okay, well, it's takeout and delivery now.

But other than that, I think so much of it has you know, so much of my energy has been on like what's the best thing to do next? And like keeping the morale of the team going, trying to make it through. It was kind of like, you know, as long as We make it through and we have most of the team intact. Especially like have them

It's okay, I think, if we're all a little bit physically tired, but not be also mentally trained, so you know, trying to Keep everyone's spirits in somewhat decent shape. Yeah. Yeah.

Vivian, when you think about this past year and what you've learned as a as a manager, as a leader, I mean I mean this year must have been a crash course for you. As a leader. Because there's no playbook. Right? There's no handbook. No one says, Hey Vivian

In five years gonna be a pandemic, here's the playbook. Just follow the playbook. You gotta write it as you're going along. Wha what is something that you wanna take with you that that you have learned about yourself as a as a leader and maybe applied to your to your businesses that you wanna Keep going. Once we are back in s sort of some version of normal.

Yeah, no, I've been So appreciative of everyone who's trusted me to make these calls along the way. You know, a lot of I think the team just really showed up and

I think it was important that I was able to Make sure that they felt that I had their best interest. One takeaway is that You know, it has to

Make sense for everyone. a business I think is good so long as everyone who Is helping it grow benefits. You know, for me it's

Making sure that we grow in a way, you know, or are on a trajectory in which We sort of live up to that. I like knew that going in, right? Like everyone knows like back of house is important, front of house is important, everyone on the team is important. I really couldn't have made it through alone and it's it's a team endeavor. That's an excerpt from my live conversation with Vivian Co.

Owner of the restaurants Pine and Crane, Joy and today starts here. If you want to see the full interview or any of our past live interviews, you can find them on the How I Built This Facebook page. or at youtube.com slash NPR. And if you want to join our conversation live and maybe even ask questions. They happen every Thursday at nine Pacific, noon Eastern. If you want to find out more about the How I Built This Resilience series or other virtual NPR events, you can go to nprpresents.org.

This episode was produced by Liz Metzger with help from Paris Safari. J C Howard, Bruce Grant, Almannian, Gianna Capadona, John Isabella. Julia Carney, Neva Grant. and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Janet Ujong Li.

Thanks for listening, stay safe, and I'll see you in a few days. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. to how I built this resilience edition. From NPR.