Many thanks to AQUA by El Gaucho for hosting the Seattle Restaurant Alliance March meeting. Thank you to Adesso for sponsoring our meeting.
Panel: Mastering the Art of the Side Hustle
We were happy to host an engaging panel. Thank you to our panelists:
Waseef Haroun – Mamnoon
Jill Kinney – Copine
Megan & Ben Campbell – Ben’s Breads
Polly Yakovich and Kevin Smith – Beast and Cleaver
Below is some advice they gave during the panel.
When deciding on a side hustle, be aware of the risk versus reward:
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Alternating your business strategy can be a heavy lift, but some side hustles carry much larger cost burdens than others.
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Search for ways to branch out your business in ways you can still operate if your new venture does not pull through.
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Ben and Megan said teaching a class was excellent way for them to make extra money on the side, without most of their usual business costs.
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Side hustles can be more than temporary, but to be so, they must be sustainable
When starting a side hustle, flexibility is key:
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Side hustles can take months to even years to start.
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Mamnoon started branching into retail after realizing that much of their food was prepared in bulk. Even though production was not a challenge, when starting the new venture, the process still took his team 9 months.
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Like opening a restaurant, it can take some time for a new pop-up to gain traction. Word of mouth works, but takes time, especially in Seattle.
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It can be tempting to want to change your business with rising costs, but committing too strong could make it more difficult to shift to other strategies down the line.
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Polly and Kevin wanted to branch out into burgers once a month, but the demand was so high that they needed to abandon the project. They were able to shift away quickly without sacrificing their brand or too large of a cost to their business.
Branching outside your industry does not mean abandoning your brand:
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People visit and return to restaurants based on the brand you create, and side hustles are no different.
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Copine has a brand for being high quality and upscale eating. When they started offering takeout, it offered a way for new people to access their food and expand their clientele.
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Do not sacrifice quality when branching out into new business ventures. This can hurt your brand that business operators work so hard to build.
SRA minimum wage survey
The Seattle Restaurant Alliance is looking to collect information to assist us in addressing restaurant business needs in discussions with elected and government officials on how public policy decisions affect the operations of fellow operators.
Please take a few minutes to complete this 10-minute survey. All information is confidential and will only be presented in aggregate. This survey is open for the next several weeks and we will share the findings at a future SRA membership meeting.
Please forward this survey link to fellow industry operators. It is open to all restaurant, bar, and nightlife owner/operators in Seattle, regardless of SRA or WHA membership.
Next SRA Meeting
Our next meeting is the April member meeting on April 2 (Location TBD).