Episode 3, Season 2: Jess Restaurant and Bar Vancouver, BC This week Al visits Kerrisdale Village, a popular Vancouver neighbourhood known for their shops and restaurants. He meets Winson Ho, General Manager of one of the newer additions to this neighbourhood Jess’ Restaurant and Bar. Combining opulence and luxury with casual dining may seem counter-intuitive, but Jess’ manages to pull it off. How they were able to open for business during a pandemic? How were they able to whether not one, but two complete staff turn-overs in the process? Listen to find out. You can learn more about Jess’ Restaurant and Bar at https://jessrestaurant.ca.
You can learn more about Jess’ Restaurant and Bar at jessrestaurant.ca.
Al Grego: Hello everyone. I'm Al Grego, and this is the "Yes, We Are Open" podcast.
Today. I'm in Kerrisdale, a neighborhood in Southwestern Vancouver bordering the Fraser River. Primarily a residential area, Kerrisdale is home to many longtime Vancouver residents, but its main shopping area, Kerrisdale Village, is a beautifully quaint tree lined street with ample shopping and a burgeoning restaurant scene. I park just off the main thoroughfare West 41st Avenue and walk a few blocks east to take in the neighborhood. It's a beautiful mild day, so lots of folks are out and about. I walk past something called the Arbutus Greenway, a nine kilometer north south stretch of old railway corridor that has been transformed into a walking, biking and rolling path connecting the many neighborhoods in the area.
As always, the Rockies provide the gorgeous backdrop to this charming scene. Having never been to BC, this is exactly what my expectation was of Vancouver. A vibrant city with a scenic backdrop built around maximizing outdoor experiences. A scene usually reserved for some European cities. I haven't seen this many people on bicycles in a North American city. It's early afternoon and after my stroll, I begin to feel a little hungry. So I make my way to the subject of today's story, Jess' Restaurant and Bar.
Michael: Hi, how are you?
Al Grego: I'm well. How are you?
Michael: Good. Are you meeting anybody right now?
Al Grego: I'm looking for Winston.
Michael: Oh, he's not in right now, but I was told you were coming in to meet him.
Al Grego: I'm a little early.
Michael: Yeah. That's okay. I can have you seated if you like, and-
Al Grego: Actually, I wouldn't mind eating.
Michael: Oh, absolutely.
Al Grego: That's Michael, the restaurant manager. He leads me to a table where I set up for my interview, but not before ordering some lunch. I order the wagyu bulgogi burger. It was delicious.
The interior of Jess' Restaurant is a feast for the eyes. The first thing that grabs your attention is a column of crystals hanging from the ceiling that spans from the front of the restaurant all the way to the back. The tables are round with blue velvet seating. Mirrors along the walls reflect the sparkle from the crystal column and the hanging crystal chandeliers over every table. There are golden brass accents everywhere. Every single detail from the dishes, to the cutlery, to the plating of the food screams fine dining, but the menu itself, while not typical bar food, had many casual dining options with prices that wouldn't break the budget. You could tell that Jess' was going for something different. Fine dining for a casual clientele. I finished my lunch just in time as Winson arrives for the interview.
Winson Ho: My name is Winson Ho. I'm the general manager of Jess' Restaurant.
Al Grego: First of all, the name, where does that come from?
Winson Ho: The owners of this company are actually Korean. It's a Korean family. They moved their assets, the business, their family, all to Canada, especially Vancouver, probably around six, seven years ago. So Jess is actually a chairman and the owner of this company and also Jess' Restaurant
Before this opened, it was actually a coffee house for like maybe 10, 20 years.
Al Grego: Oh wow.
Winson Ho: And the neighborhood, I would say Kerrisdale is kind of like one of the top three postal codes in Vancouver, and I would say the overall family age group around this area, that lives around this area, they're all much older now. They're at least forties to sixties or semi-retirement age, but it was also where all the original family kind of stayed at, and where all the money kind of stayed at as well. So they were finally glad that Jess' the restaurant and this caliber of the restaurant moved in, because if you were ever here 15 years ago, this entire street was casual-fine dining and fine dining, but over the last 15, 10 years because of rent was cheaper everywhere else and downtown happened, everything kind of moved away from this neighborhood because the price point of the properties were too high.
For the past four or five years, I usually run restaurants either behind the scene or in the front, and it was more so of contracts where I would work for them for six months to a year.
Al Grego: Right.
Winson Ho: Either opening or keeping running or revamping their ideas, but before all this, I was actually in Asia for at least five to seven years, I would say, of working literally from ground up. Like starting from washing dishes in big venues, just to get into the industry, and then eventually working from the kitchen to the bar, having experienced both ways and ended up being slowly moving towards the bar side and also management side. At the end of the few years in Hong Kong, I started working for smaller bars, like speakeasies, et cetera. In the Asia mindset, when you run a bar like that, you actually have a kitchen, but you don't really hire a kitchen team because the bar's too small for that. So for bars like that in Asia, all the bartenders and the owners actually know how to run the kitchen as well, and actually cook everything there as well.
Al Grego: Bartenders cook.
Winson Ho: Correct.
Al Grego: So, you know every aspect of running a restaurant?
Winson Ho: Yeah.
Al Grego: From washing dishes-
Winson Ho: To cooking, to bartending, to management, to training and wine and all that.
Because I kind of grew up around the area as well, when I was younger, so I kind of knew Kerrisdale really well. I started up talking to all the grocery stores around this area because there's at least four grocery stores around the area that is kind of owned by mom and pops or family over the years, and I literally walked in and said, "How do I open an account? How do I start buying from you?"
Al Grego: Right.
Winson Ho: This is kind of how the first approach of me just saying, I want to do business with you from every place down, like literally two stores next to me, a store next to me, or first right across the street, they started talking to us and we got into business with them. We would stop buying our fruits and veggies from big supplier chain and making the middle man making so much money while why not support the community.
Then that community eventually developed to the point where we met all the other restaurant owners here, and they would kind and tell us, this is what you need to do. Some restaurants been here for 20, 25 years, and they were literally telling us straight advice. We would like to see you be successful because if you guys are successful, we will all be successful, and we want to revamp the street, in a way, and actually make everybody great.
Al Grego: That's a great idea.
Winson Ho: So ever since that happened, I probably go to a barbecue every like ... During the summer-
Al Grego: Yeah.
Winson Ho: I would get barbecue invites from the real estate agent.
Al Grego: Right.
Winson Ho: The family next door or people that run a small community based group here. I've been invited to a lot of dinners, a lot of barbecues, a lot of gatherings, and that really showed me that that approach was really the correct way to do it because everybody around this area slowly developed to a point where they would come in for lunch. They would come in for a quick dinner. They would say hi, and that's how they referred more friends, and this is kind of how business went towards because at the end, I think with that approach, I would say 70% of our clientele became neighborhoods.
Al Grego: What's your competitive advantage?
Winson Ho: When this was first opened, I didn't know anything about it. Then I met the owners when I first signed on, and I asked them, "What did you want to try to do?" They kind of just said, one simple thing is they want luxury, lifestyle available at a much more approachable price point and also make it as approachable as possible. When they told me that idea, and before I signed on, I said, Kerrisdale was probably the best thing that you could implement that idea into because these people literally come in their sweats. You know, the hoodie at like-
Al Grego: Especially now during the pandemic.
Winson Ho: Correct, everybody want to come out and actually ... Sometimes they come out for a dessert, have a glass of wine, have a bite. Over the years, they kind of wanted to do it that way, and that mentality of bring the best that they can to the public or their neighborhood is kind of how we layered it out, and this is why, if you look at the pictures of this location, you'll see all the crystal lights in the middle of the room. This is actually a 10,000 piece specific order hung one by ones, Swarovski crystals.
Al Grego: Wow.
Winson Ho: So it took them around 16 to 17 days to hang one by one, and that dedication, I was like, okay.
Al Grego: That's attention to detail.
Winson Ho: Correct.
Al Grego: That's crazy.
Winson Ho: Cleaning is a problem.
Al Grego: I bet. I guess you can't just spray it with Windex, right?
As Winston is telling me how they're trying to make fine dining more of a casual experience, I can't help, but look over his shoulder at the table next to us where a little girl, no older than six or seven sits having high tea with what I assume are her mother and aunts, the girl's beaming in her tiara and Disney princess dress. This is as good, if not better than any fast food franchise for her.
Winson Ho: You can bring your children here. You can bring your babies here. You might be a work from home mom and you have a two year old, and you you bring ... We'll try to set it ... They'll give us a good heads up and go like, "I'm coming in with a stroller. Can you organize that with me?" Then I'm like, "That's totally fine." Then, especially during the pandemic, there's been a lot of disability people. So I even have a clientele that actually comes in and he can't speak. So whenever he comes in, my staff will grab a notepad, and he will have his notepad, and that's all we do. I would say this is all Jess' idea. She took around two years to put this place together, and every detail is her choice and how she imagined it and how she would fix it as well.
Al Grego: Up next it's bad enough restaurants were forced to close their doors to patrons for months. What happens when you're allowed to reopen, but you can't hire any staff or even keep the staff you've already got? Stay tuned to find out.
You're listening to, "Yes, We Are Open". Just three months into their grand opening, Jess' Restaurant and Bar were forced to close their doors due to the pandemic, as were all other BC restaurants and bars, but their biggest struggle would happen when they were once again allowed reopen. To help them with this task, they hired Winson Ho, a native of the area, to be the general manager. The hires seemed to immediately pay off, but not even Winson could have predicted that the struggle was only just a beginning for Jess'.
So if I were to ask you, was there any one events or anything that was the struggle that may have threatened to close your business down, what would that?
Winson Ho: So the first one must've had been the three months, no dine in rule.
Al Grego: That's like three months into your opening.
Winson Ho: Correct.
Al Grego: You had to shut down.
Winson Ho: Correct, and the only thing that was offered was you can apply for temporary patio seats.
Al Grego: Yeah.
Winson Ho: But by the time we kind of walked into it, it was literally just one to two parking stalls, right outside the restaurant, and it wasn't really worth it to put two, three tables out there for running the whole kitchen team, and it ended up not being worthwhile. At the same time, this road right in front of us, is actually a very heavy traffic. We literally need to clean our front door and the windows every three days because there's so much dust that gathers from all the car. So we're like that is not really going to be a-
Al Grego: Good place to eat.
Winson Ho: Correct. There's no point making the food suffer and the service suffer by just trying to keep the business running.
Al Grego: So during that lockdown, you did shut down completely?
Winson Ho: Completely, and June was when we reopened and all everything kind of let loose again. We can have dine in again.
Unfortunately, when I came in June 1st, the old kitchen team was already left, the old front of house, servers from bartenders to management, all left as well, and I took over it with a pretty new team that's only been there for two months or so. There was three of them in the kitchen, one of them in the front of the house, and it was just working with them and finding out, okay, can we open? A lot of them were like, "We've been stuck in at home for too long, and even if it's going to be busy and we're only two weeks to kind of get our staff together and a team together we'll work as much as we need, just so we can start working again."
Al Grego: After three months of lockdown, Winson was ready to reopen Jess', but he found that many of his staff were forced to move on to other work in order to make ends meet. So essentially, he had to hire all new staff and start again. So he did and had a grand reopening in June.
How did that?
Winson Ho: So that was a tough time. It's because when everything let loose, every company, it doesn't matter what business you were in, you were looking for staff. So everybody was fighting over staff. As we went, we had friends, like people that worked here and tried to refer other people, and then we would find out whatever we way. For the first two months, I would say none of my front of house staff except me were over the age of 21. They were all 21 or younger because the only ones we could find were students going to university because they didn't have go to school anymore. It was approaching summer. There's no more in-person classes anymore. There's a lot of kids that never had experience or they didn't know what to do. They were just looking for another job, and my hiring requirement became zero.
Al Grego: Right. If you want to work, you're in.
Winson Ho: Yes.
Al Grego: All right. So how'd that summer go?
Winson Ho: That summer went great actually. I think it's because everybody was stuck in for so long.
Al Grego: Sure.
Winson Ho: We actually had a team that, yes, we did a lot of like mess up, I would say. Our menus still had typos. Like everything ... Our website didn't work. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong, but we took that time to kind of slowly import certain people into the team and actually make them long and stable, and actually with some experience, and someone that would be staying with the company for longer. That's how the front of us team slowly came together.
Unfortunately for the kitchen team, the restaurant itself wasn't running very normally because everybody was trying to put a bandaid on everything.
Al Grego: Right.
Winson Ho: It was just a matter of open, get it open, get your name out there, making sure that the neighbor and everybody knows that you're still running and you're not closed because even when we open back in June, there's a lot of places from June to December of last year that you see them open in June, their hours would change weekly.
Al Grego: Because of the staff shortages.
Winson Ho: Correct. Then there was also places that would run for three weeks, and then the next week you try to go by, they shut down. They couldn't handle it anymore because they had no ability to hire, pay rent or whatever the reason may be. It was not in it for them to do it. So I would, within the past six years, just within the restaurant business side and the food and beverage side, I've seen so many places close down because of this.
Al Grego: September, you hit another speed bump.
Winson Ho: September was the moment where the kitchen team that we kind roughly put together and put our bandaid together and try to get that every piece as we went, that team actually all decided to leave in September.
Al Grego: All of them at the same time.
Winson Ho: All of them. Some of them give me like a week notice. Some of them gave me like two weeks notice. Some of them just said, you know what, I'm done because I've been doing this for six months straight or five months straight. I can't keep doing this without knowing what the future is like.
Al Grego: Sure.
Winson Ho: There's a lot of other restaurants our level or higher. We're supposed to be open this year, but they were forced not opening until closer to like September these big hotel brands, successful brands, or even well known 10, 20 years restaurants that been running around BC, they started realizing we're going through the same thing, we're short staffed. What do we need to do to hire staff? The people with a skill had more leverage, and I'm glad that they started to get more leverage because if you look at the hours that a chef works, they were not very respected very well for how many hours they were doing, and how much pay they were doing, and how much effort they were going into. So when September came, I would say, let's say I had 10 staff, six of them were offered at least $10,000 more per year to work somewhere else.
Al Grego: So they were approached by the big kind of-
Winson Ho: Correct.
Al Grego: Yeah.
Winson Ho: I'm not even ... I'm just saying 10,000 is minimum.
Al Grego: Sure.
For the second time, in just a few months, Winson found himself without staff, this time in his kitchen. While Winson's past experience with all stations of a restaurant allowed him to empathize with why his staff had to leave, it didn't help his dilemma on much. Luckily that experience came in handy in other ways,
Winson Ho: We actually finally sat down with owners, and we agreed that we were not going to be open for dinner because we did ... We do a lunch, high tea, happy hour and dinner service, six days a week, and we decided to close dinner, just through lunch. I ended up being in the kitchen cooking for like two months.
Like during service we'll still work normally and having a normal staff, but a lot of kitchen work is preparation. So we ended up finding staff that already works at other kitchen that are probably friends of ours, and they would just come in and help me out as like a buddy basis, and yes, of course we'll pay them their hourly wage for that once a week, but at the same time, it was more about that friendship and being able to have that beer at the end of the night at like 10:00 PM, even though, you know, so that kind of made us survive for a month and a half. I would say.
The new team didn't come in a month and a half later. They start slowly rolling in, and we didn't really reopen for dinner and full service until two months later, but that was probably the biggest struggle where my front of house staff did really, really well because they knew that the kitchen left, and they would do a regular lunch service, and they would be back there seeing that the kitchen needs anything done. Doing the dishes and all that.
Al Grego: It was a team effort.
Winson Ho: Correct, and this is kind of the way it had to be built. There was no longer, this is my table. This is my hour of work. I only take care of this. It was literally, I like to ... The kids were like, I want to work. I don't mind what hour you put me in? I don't know how long it is. As long as there's physical things to do, call us and we'll work.
Al Grego: Coming up after the break, we find out what the future holds for Jess' restaurant and bar.
Mat Belanger: This podcast is brought to you by Moneris. Today has shown us tomorrow has changed. Changed how we'll live, work and do business because now we're more open to what's possible, open to contactless payments, online bookings, curbside pickups, and more. Open your business to more opportunity with solutions to help you succeed online in store or on the go. To talk to one of our business advisors, call 1-866-MONERIS or visit moneris.com today.
Al Grego: Welcome back to "Yes, We Are Open". Jess' Restaurant and Bar has had a rocky start to their business to say the least. First, the lockdown, only three months into their existence. Then having to turn over their staff, not once, but twice within only a few months and during a time of industry-wide staffing shortages, but so far they've been able to weather the storm and overcome every obstacle thrown at them. In no small part, thanks to the leadership provided by Winson Ho. So what does the future look like for Jess'? We'll find out next.
What does the future look like for Jess' Restaurant?
Winson Ho: I would say future is we are here to stay. This is kind of like our first one, and we won't really do anything to it. We'll let us stay as long as it's possible and let this be the place to build whatever we need to do. It's because we're actually looking to have Jess 2.0s, Jess 3.0 and other ventures within this company, JK World Group. We actually run real estate investment, also golf and food and beverage. We're actually looking to do multiple Jess's down the road, and even combine Jess's into the golf clubhouse that we have. We actually bought a golf course a while ago, and we're working with that, and we're going to revamp that golf course and bring this type of fine dining into that golf course as well. We'll have a golf shop and an indoor golf experience with maybe a cafe next door, high tea next door, and lunch and dinner as well. This brand, we're looking to do a lot of stuff within the next 10 years I would say.
This is more of a personal goal instead of like a company mindset goal is because I've seen this Kerrisdale street 10, 15 years ago, being filled with medium to high end restaurants, and I would like people to slowly consider bringing this part of town to that again. Over the past here, I've actually met a lot of individuals and some groups from the big names, and they're really considering opening something along this street. Some of the smart people are already kicking into it because they realize, okay, we've done so well here for the past year. Well, that's in public, but they don't know how much we actually suffered from that year, and I'm seeing more and more food and beverage moving in.
Adam: My name is Adam, and I'm like the bartender kind of Jack of all trades. Yeah.
Al Grego: How long have you been working?
Adam: I'm only here about five to six months. I believe so I haven't been here that long. I originally come from Ireland so it's a little bit different to what I was used to, and generally speaking a bartender, never on the floor that much, but it's been a nice transition where you really get to learn the ins and outs of every single piece of working in a restaurant.
Al Grego: Yeah.
Adam: So it's been a completely different experience. It's obviously casual fine dining as well. So I've learned some much more here than I have anywhere else in such a short period of time, because it's actually at a level where it's competitive rather than just your typical beer sling and whatever it is.
Winson Ho: I would love that we have a team of people that are looking to stay, people that want to grow, and people that in the food and be side, they got to stay and develop and build the team of their own.
My entire kitchen team. The oldest one is 24 years old. A lot of people would go like their less experience because my old team was like 30 or 35 or older. They've been in business for at least five to eight years. These guys started working in the kitchen when they were 18, 19 doing the grit work, but they never really had a place where they could be themselves and they could learn to grow, and this is, I would say, the beauty of being in the neighborhood like this where it allowed you to make mistakes and learn from it.
At the same time when I build this team, I also tell them, you guys will be building your own team. You'll be running probably two or three other restaurants or a few of you that's younger, that's in a lower position, you'll be probably running this location. I told them, look to build that team specifically for the long foreseeable future, and this is kind of how I see myself in the future as well because I'm looking for people that are steady to stay and looking to develop and actually build something of their own. Like when they look at Jess, they go like I built it, instead of this is the company I work for.
Al Grego: Sounds like you set everyone up here for success.
Winson Ho: Yes. I'm trying to.
Al Grego: Thank you so much.
Winson Ho: No, thank you.
Al Grego: Is Jess' Restaurant and Bar open?
Winson Ho: Yes. We're open. We're open from Tuesday to Sunday.
Al Grego: Perfect. I love it. I love it.
That's the story of Jess' Restaurant and Bar. Resilience and leadership are two critical ingredients for any business to succeed. You can have perfect execution, but without resilience and leadership, it won't mean much. You obviously need to be resilient. So you don't give up at the first sign of adversity, and good leadership is what will lead you out of that adversity. The owners of Jess' Restaurant and Bar had excellent execution in their vision for the restaurant, but that didn't matter in the face of the a pandemic.
They needed resilience and leadership to survive and found just that in Winson. By the sounds of it, Winson is not in the process of passing that resilience and leadership onto his young team, creating a whole new generation of future restaurateurs. I'd say the future looks bright for them and for Jess' Restaurant and Bar.
"Yes, We Are Open as a Moneris Podcast Production. I'd like to thank Winson and Adam for taking time to share their story. You can learn more about Jess' Restaurant and Bar at jessrestaurant.ca. Follow them on Facebook and Instagram at Jess restaurants. For more information about this podcast, visit our site yesweareopenpodcast.com. If you'd like to support us, rate us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a Canadian small business owner or know of one with an interesting story of perseverance to tell I'd love to help tell it. You can contact me at podcast@moneris.com. Tune in next week for another story of small business struggle and survival on the "Yes, We Are Open" podcast. I'm Al Grego. Thank you for listening.