E144 Steph Soulis

This week's guest is Steph Sullis, who is the President and CEO of Little Mushroom Catering, currently based out of Cambridge, Ontario. Little Mushroom Catering is all about teamwork, integrity and community, and is a certified, living wage employer. Steph is the driving force behind Little Mushroom Catering and has spent the past decade plus building up the business and currently employs over several dozen people. Steph also gives back to the local community and has served on numerous boards such as the Kitchener Public Library, Food Link Waterloo Region, KW Chamber of Commerce, Waterloo Region Food System Roundtable, Conestoga College Hospitality Program Advisory Committee, and Liberal Credit Union just to name a few.

Steph was very generous with her time and came up to join us for this interview in person and we thank you very much for that and it was a pleasure to talk with her. Enjoy the show. Hi, Kevin, great, nice to see you. Nice to see you for us from your Hawaiian vacation.

Yeah, I ate a lot of great food there. Oh yeah. Did you get some ideas? Yeah, I did actually.

Yeah, it was one of the best meals I had. I actually had a smoked venison poke, like okay, but the venison is from Molokai, which is one of the Hawaiian islands. And so like super local, awesome and delicious. And I'm sure that the idea is do we are there?

Yeah, yeah, I know wouldn't be your meal. But yeah, I'm not going to get venison out there. I like to get some meat. There are deer on Molokai, just that island, yeah.

They just fly them in and then let them in. There's lots of goats and sheep and stuff too, lots of animals, but fantastic, really good pineapple mango, flatbreads, fun stuff like that. A lot of Asian fusion and on the island of Kauai, there was a lot of Mexican food too. So that was a happy camper.

Interesting. Why that? I think just the island vibe. You can see lots of guacamole and they can grow avocados there, which is nice too.

For those who don't know, Stephanie is the owner of Little Mushroom Catering. So the popular listener is a little bit about Little Mushroom in the concept of the business and what all of the different side projects you have. Sure. I've been in an industry like most of us since my teenage days, but about 12 years ago, I started Little Mushroom Catering mostly just because I like to make people happy with food.

I love seeing their faces when they're eating what I've created or what I've at least had my chef's create with my recipes. We've grown by leaps and bounds over the years. Obviously, we got hit just like everybody else with COVID, especially with no events. So we had to do a lot of that COVID pivot.

We all hate that word now. We like to call it the swivel. And we've swiveled back quite a bit as well, and we're back to doing a lot of those full service events, weddings, corporate banquets, that kind of stuff. My favorite is always cocktail receptions, and that's sort of how I started out too, is I love the fiddly little hors d'oeuvres and fun stuff that nobody wants to make themselves.

That's the stuff I love to do. So that's really where our roots are, and making sure that we're using as locally made ingredients as possible. Right, that kind of your thing. It's like local ingredients.

And so you also have a restaurant at Wine Bar in Cambridge, and there is all Ontario wines as well. Ontario Spirits, craft beer, our cider we carry west of, and brand new is a Howell Road, apple cider. We're just going to start, I just went into flux this past weekend, Buried in Scotland, Ontario, and they've got some fun stuff, and they also carry the smaller cans, which is nice because not everybody needs a tall boy. So yeah, we're all crafty.

There must be a reason behind that. It must be more cost effective to go to bigger cans or something because no craft brewers use those small ones. No, it's that flux. So that's why I'm going to start carrying them.

So you have the Wine Bar restaurant, you have the catering company, anything else right now? Some of the other things you've sort of taken it as a set background. Yeah, we've been for the past year and a half kind of outsourcing our kitchen staff. I don't understand.

Other restaurants too. Yeah. So we've been at Bad One Sisters and Sugar Run. We were doing Descendants Brewery for a year and a half until they just recently closed their doors.

We also, we do all the food side of things for the center and square lounge, which is their kind of basement club. And yeah, and we've been out and we did a golf course this past summer, tried a bunch of different things. You know, it's worked really well in a lot of places. We've got it.

We have a good system, but staffing is so hard. Well, I was doing, because I was sort of like, when you took on my two spots, like you were also, like every time we talked to you, we were taking on another spot. And I was like, the amazing, but like also at the hardest time to find staff, right? Because post COVID, it's still not, we're not still, we're still not necessarily wasting time to find staff.

No, and everybody was having that same struggle. And so we were getting, we never advertised the fact that we were doing this. You know, offsite, we weren't trying to get, we weren't trying to sell it, right? But we had people knocking on our door going, I can't, I can't do this or I don't have the food background.

I don't want the food waste. I don't want to have to worry about ordering. I don't, you know, plus the staffing side of things. And so it made sense to a lot of different restaurants, a lot of different spots where food wasn't necessarily their, their main draw, but they still wanted to have really good local, you know, meats and cheeses, great charcuterie boards, great, you know, flatbreads and pasted dishes or whatever it was that we were doing in our wings and our sliders are awesome.

So whether it was more pub grubber, whether it was a little bit more elevated, we were a solution for a lot of people this past year and a half. Yeah, it was worth a great for us. I know that. So yeah, but so now it kind of got to the point where it was probably just a little too much after a while.

And really the heart of it, the focus is always good, not be the catering, right? Yeah. So. And now that we're back to being able to do that full on.

Yeah. It makes sense to bring our focus back there. Because that is where the margins are better. You know, we don't, we only have to bring in the food that we need for the menu that's already been set, right?

It's not like prepping for the potential of a busload of people getting dropped off and oh, we have to be ready. Right. So way less weight is right. Because you know, and the thing with the catering too is like they order a certain amount and then like not that many people show up to that.

So that's great. And okay, so let's back it up. Like when did you get into the service industry? Like what was your first job?

How old were you? Yeah, I was, I just turned 17 and I was babysitting for this lady down the street for me who was a server at what was at La Costa. So La Costa used to be kind of a chain within Ontario. There were a couple in Hamilton, Oakville.

We had one in downtown Kitchener. I think it's in lawyer's office now. But she was a server there and they were looking for a hostess and that's how I got my foot in the door. I didn't, you know, didn't have any experience or anything.

I worked at Summer Camp before that. That was my only other job that started as a hostess. And then I worked with Richard in the kitchen when he needed extra hands and which was a great learning experience. And then yeah, it kind of just went from there.

Okay. So, and like, so you worked at a bunch of different restaurants or? Yeah, over the years, I did everything from like pizza. That was my first actual serving job because it's harder to get a serving job in a nice place.

If you don't have the experience. Yeah, right now. So my very first boss La Costa was Brian Isard who has two caps standing farm. Like he does like really high quality but small batch farming.

And just in San Agatha area. But he was the general manager at La Costa when I started there. He was great. Then he moved on to something else.

I had a couple other GMs at La Costa who were not the greatest guys in the world to work for. And actually that's a big part of the reason why I started my own thing was so many of the restaurants that I worked in weren't great atmospheres for the people who were working there, especially young women. And so flash forward, you know, 10 years later, I lived in Ottawa for a bit. I worked at a tea house up there and I worked in some restaurant consulting up there as well.

And then moved back. And when I moved back, I went to eat dinner at Art Bar, which was in the center of the square. And Brian, who was the GM at La Costa was now the owner managing partner at Art Bar. And so when I had dinner, had an awful experience.

Derek Kynes was a chef. Derek's fantastic. He was a good buddy of mine. Food was great.

The service sucked. Yeah, I kind of remember that. It was low when it was not great. So I left a note on the back of the bill for Brian.

I said, Hey, Brian, I think you need some help. Give me a call. He called me up. I started on Friday by January.

I was managing the front house and all the catering side of things. So I was a sales manager for a while. We were doing lots of events in between the events that were happening at the center of the squares. We were having wine dinners and, you know, tastings and casino nights and other fun stuff happening.

And then in the summertime when the center of the square shuts down, which is like our big concert hall kind of thing, when it shut down, then we ran a summer camp for kids, summer chef school. And so I was the program coordinator for summer chef school for three years. And in doing that, we brought in fantastic chefs from all over the region, with little Polish grandmas coming in and teaching us how to make progees from scratch. We had a sushi master come in and teach us how to make sushi rice properly.

Yeah, it was really cool. And I learned a time because I didn't go to chess school. I have fantastic chefs who work for me who went to chess school and who looked to me for the recipes and the advice and the whatever. But my chef training came from me teaching a bunch of eight-year-olds how to use night properly.

Right. That's funny. So, and then so when you've been doing this for a while, obviously, at our bar and you're doing all this camp stuff, and at some point you're like, why don't I just get into business for myself? It was more of a necessity because Art Bar's lease was a nine-year lease with our gallery.

It was a long one. And it was a long one. And it was a full nine years. So I knew in May that I was going to be out of a job as of September.

So that summer, while I was working full-time and had a one-year-old and a three-year-old, I was like, what the fuck am I going to do next? So I was like, you know what? I have all these great connections. Brian's not ready to start something new.

He doesn't have the capital to start over with a new restaurant somewhere, so I can't rely on that. I don't really want to start at the bottom of the totem pole somewhere else. And everywhere else I had worked had been shitty. So I was like, you know what?

I can start something. I can hire other women. I can build something that's going to be a positive workplace and also be something that makes sense for my values and my morals and where I want to be in the world. So things like making sure that I'm sourcing locally, that we're being environmentally friendly, recycling, we compost, and that whole package deal of being socially and environmentally responsible was really important to me.

So I'm like, okay, I'm just going to start my own thing. So I had a thousand bucks and I went and I got some matching platters and I applied for a master business license and went to the small business center or whatever and checked in and was like, okay, what do I need to do to be legit? And yeah, my first event, September 5th was my last eight-hour bar. September 17th was my first hit-ear-and-gig.

I went to Staples and printed business cards. Right. Yeah. It was the small business up like, okay, sorry.

Sorry, why do the region small business center? You're not much help. It's funny though because I actually mentor a lot of their people now and they've been great clients to me since but starting out really they didn't know what we actually needed to get done to make it happen. Have they been around for a lot of that?

Do you know? Yeah, I think so. So I'm going to run by circuit points. I can imagine what it is.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that mean it's palli. However, you know, how hard was it to like sort of make an aim for yourself and drive with business?

Because now like everybody knows about your catering company and you're getting tons of business all the time. I know a lot of it ends up being word of mouth like somebody uses you and then tells somebody else, right? But like at the beginning, how difficult was it to build up the business? It was definitely word of mouth.

It definitely helped that I had the connections that I had from the center in the square because my first clients were the KWR gallery, the center in the square, the KW symphony. They didn't get clients to have. Yeah, yeah. Right.

They're connected and they're like that. And they just throw lots of events. Exactly. And so the arts community welcomed me with open arms.

They were really happy to be not just supporting a small business that they already knew but also the fact that I was using mobile help too. Right? It's all about the community and how else can we help each other in the community? Yeah.

So that was a big part of it. And then honestly, remembering this was 12 years ago, Twitter. Oh yeah. Super weird.

I'm still on it. Not really. But we were having tweetups. That was a thing.

There was like the tweet stock. And I met so many people through Twitter locally. You know, like basically within the first two years of me being on Twitter, I had 2000 local Twitter followers. I think that's crazy.

Yeah, that's crazy. It's crazy. And like some of them, I still consider good friends. Like we would get together and do things together because we met on Twitter.

And it's weird because it's so not a thing now. But 12 years ago, it was a huge thing. I spoke at the 140 conf. Like, you know, like 140 characters that was the Twitter thing.

Right, right, right. Way more than that. But we had a conference at the Tannery Building. I was one of the speakers talking about how Twitter helped my business.

And yeah, and I spoke at a couple business conferences about, yeah, how like using Twitter for business. It's interesting because like you're talking about like 12 years ago, that was a thing, not a thing now, 12 years before. That's definitely not a thing. Right?

So yeah, it's weird. Like this one little pocket of time where Twitter would actually help your business. I don't even use Twitter for mine because it doesn't do anything for you. Now it's all Instagram.

Do you have a social media manager? Do you do that? I do now. I did it for years, but it's really time consuming if you actually want to be engaged.

Yeah, but I find like we looked at whether we should farm it out to a company. We ended up hiring a student and he's part time with us and serves on the side too. Like a king. Yeah, so he actually has like a full job out of it.

That's good because like, so I'm not doing rugby because I like what I found, I had one when I had my rabbit and what I found was because she didn't work there. She didn't know when it was a good time to come like when what to be posting about right. Like so having someone who actually worked at the business makes me think that's a huge difference. I mean, I didn't make any sense to us because so many of the great moments that you want to capture, it's literally in the moment.

If you're not there, you're going to miss it, right? Or to send someone out to an event. It's kind of like I don't want to be sending some stranger out to somebody else's wedding to take pictures. That's weird, right?

So and it's not my place to do that. It's not my wedding, right? Where if he's already there and he's serving and he snaps a pic of something like a buzz, a plating or whatever, it's a lot different than having some creep out. Having a creep out.

Yeah, so when you like now that the pandemic is over and are you finding like the business is really increasing because so many people have put their weddings and etc on the hold and now there's everybody's getting married again or is it like about the same as it was before? I feel like it's more just the same as 2019, which is good. It's good. It's way better than 2021 was.

But last year, like last year we had a record year, but we had a record year partly because we were doing all of those swivels. So we had our core catering business and then we had this restaurant, this restaurant, this restaurant, this restaurant, this restaurant and a food shop where we were serving frozen foods and gift baskets and stuff like that. We don't. It was a great thing through COVID, but we started wrap that up in April of last year.

So I think we only had like 200 grocery orders last year, but in the height of the pandemic, we were doing a ton. Every week we had at least 40 orders for meals and we were changing up like every week had a different theme and it was fun for my chefs. It was a good cool thing to do and it was great for the community too because we were doing home deliveries because I had people like, I delivery drivers who still needed a job, right? So to keep everybody busy and employed and that's what we did, but it didn't like now sobeez has walla and like there's no, no, I can't be bad.

So when you have all these off-hearts and again, like it seems like you were doing what a lot of us were doing, you're like, let's try anything, right? So how do you decide? When you get to a point where like, okay, well, the pandemic's over now, are we doing too much? Should we cut back?

Like what, how do you go through it? Because it can't be easy to be like, let's shut down this part of the business that you've already started and you've been making some money off of like, what, how do you get to that to soon? It's still fun. That's another one thing, right?

Yeah, more stress, more stress and fun. Exactly. How much work does this feel like it is? If it's too much work, then it's not fun.

Right. You know, early on in the pandemic, I got to go in the kitchen and just blame my music and I'd make like eight different kinds of soup on a Monday and I'd be the only one in there and it was like, it was a blast. And that's what you like to do. You like doing that stuff, right?

Like, that sounds like a fucking nightmare to me. But if it's you, like, you love the cook, right? So, like that, so just being able to do that stuff is, and I'm like, right? Because what I found a lot, they're like, I like, bartending, I do, I do, you don't like it every day.

Obviously, it's just like, I'm like cooking every day. Like, sometimes you just not into it or it's stressful or you're dealing with shitty people or whatever. But when I moved into the ownership side, I realized how much more it's become like a technical thing. And like, all the fun is kind of sucked out of it.

Yeah. Being the boss sucks. I didn't twice for anyone. It's just don't go into business for yourself.

Because it sucks all of the fun of everything. Right. Like, I don't get to do any of the stuff that I actually enjoy doing anymore. It's all dealing with accountants and like doing the shopping.

Like, fuck, I hate doing the shopping. Yeah. Well, that was one of the first things that I outsourced actually. Yeah.

I outsourced by hiring. Right. Like, you just delegate it. Yeah.

And that's kind of how I built the business and figured out who to hire next. Because like this past year, we had a team of 57 employees or something like that. So, it's so amazing. Yeah.

And it's a lot. And I've always tried to keep under 50 because as soon as you go over 50, then your joint health and safety committee has to be bigger. And there's all these other rules that come into place. And you have a full HR department.

Yeah. Or like HR director of HR. And so your director of HR is that a person who also has additional roles in your company or is that all they do? She is like 70% HR and 30% admin.

Right. Yeah. So like, and that's interesting to me, like we just started to expand because for me, I owned a couple spots and like, we just as an 8-something is the HR manager, right? Because they're small spots and like, or the owner is HR.

Right. And we don't have that many issues anyway. Right. So like, once you start expanding, you take on all the traditional business.

Now you actually have to have a role for that person. That's crazy. Yeah. And so, and so you have the HR person, you also have something called the director of food services.

Yeah. And what's that role? Well, we're actually wrapping that role up. Oh, yeah.

So there's a dead beat. Yeah. Yeah. No, she's even guys after 12 years.

That's the best. You're not the best. Yeah. If you choose those.

No, it's really good for her. I basically, like she and I had worked at two different restaurants before I had started a little mushroom. And so when I started a little mushroom, I don't like baking. Baking is not my thing.

Right. But people wanted cookies and bars and to like that. And she loves that. And so I first brought her on as my baker.

And then she was our service manager. And then I sent her for wedding planning training. So she's WPI certified. I had her trained on the joint health and safety committee.

Basically, like all the expensive training I could send her to. I sent her to because I figured she'd never leave me. And now she's leaving. No.

But no, it's really good. So how do you replace someone like that? You don't know. And that's, that's like, it was a deciding factor in closing up some of those options.

Yeah. For sure. Like you can't do all that, if you're the person who was sort of directing it all. To train someone new in that position wouldn't be worth the return.

Well, it sounds like you need five people. Yeah. So she's going to have a grown catering company, the plastic store? Yeah.

No, she's actually going to work for golf course. Yeah. She's calling it a big portabella. Speaking of which, do the name, you hate mushrooms.

How so how did you come to this name? Yeah. So a little mushroom catering, it actually came to me in a dream. Probably a dream telling you that you're crazy for a heating machine.

Yeah. And it was not a magic mushroom induced dream either. It was a normal dream. But somewhere along the line, like my brother does a lot of the ancestry.com stuff.

A big part of our background is German. You know, welcome to KW or German. And, and one of the possible meanings of my maiden name was a little mushroom. Yeah.

And so, I'm going to share that. Someone was looking for it. Yeah. You can find it.

It's kind of horrible name. I'm glad I don't have it. That's why I took my first husband's last name, which was awful because I then became Stephanie Tanner. And for those of us who grew up in like the 80s and 90s, that's one of the characters from Full House.

Yeah. So I, like people love that. They just ate that up. But I didn't care because it was still better than my maiden name.

Sorry dad. Love you. He doesn't look like that. But yeah.

So it's one of the possible names for like meanings for our last name is Little Mushroom. Also a music nerd. You know, I like to do karaoke, but I'm also a classical music nerd. And Schubert was a short chubby dude.

And his nickname was Little Mushroom. And yeah. And I'm like, I just, I wanted a name that made people think of real food. Like somebody.

That's a good name for a good name. Yeah. And I don't want to bash like we've got lots of other great catering companies that have come and gone over the years like gusto or select. But like, what does that tell you?

It doesn't stand out for sure. Like I think it's like, like, it sounds like a name I would not remember if I was looking for a Canadian. Exactly. And people have remembered that I'm the mushroom lady who hates mushrooms.

It's been really good for marketing. Yeah. So the other thing that I know about you is within addition to all these fucking businesses you're running, you're also sitting on the board for every single thing. So how do you have time to do all that?

I do pick and choose. I'm pretty like, I'm pretty choosy. But if I, if I commit to something, I commit for one. So like, I'm never going to leave you high and dry kind of thing.

Like, that's not my style. And so over the years, I was, I was on the board for the Kitchener Public Library for nine years and the chair of it for four of those years. And yeah, and I just finished, just finished up there. And I'm actually, I'm giving a gift to the library in the next year as well as, like a thank you for just having me be part of such an amazing board.

So the, I don't think this is common knowledge yet, but there might be something named after me in their new branch that they're building out in so fast. That's pretty cool. Congratulations. Yeah.

But you're also, so you're an member of the Chamber of Commerce. I am and haven't for a long time. And I was on their board for a couple of years. I was on Explorewater Region, like the Water Region Tourism Corporation board.

I did work with Minto. Yeah. I have had not great luck with the BIA because I've only ever been actually in a BIA's geographical region once. And it was when I had non-nom treats, which is my cookie company side of the business.

We make logo cookies. So we'll put like your company logo on a cookie and yeah, they're great for trade shows. Little plug. So now no treats.

When I had, when we had first started that company, we were on Ontario Street. And so we were in the Kitchener Downhill BIA at the time and found that they were not helpful. Oh really? Yeah.

I've had an amazing experience with Kitchener. I haven't had, it's like Waterloo's been, I guess I should say this, like, because I don't want to slide the Waterloo BIA because they, I had like, I had a lot of friends who worked there. I love the women who I dealt with who worked there. Like they're super nice people.

I just feel, I think, I think they're doing a good job. I just think the Kitchener has gone way above the board. Like Kitchener's BIA is constantly just messaging me, like, do you want money for this? Do you want money for this?

Which is like above and beyond. We had trouble even being able to recycle. Really? Yeah.

And like that's something that's super important. And we couldn't compost. Like I had to bring my compost home with me. Well, it's like a problem.

It's like, when I was running my campaign last year, I was like saying, because I know there's no compost program for bars and restaurants in Waterloo or Kitchener. And it's like, that's something like an easy thing we could be doing from the city level, right? Like just like free compost program for bars and restaurants. Like that just seems like a no-brainer.

Well, and they had money to do a project in downtown Kitchener for the bio waste, like for like your grease and stuff. Personally, we don't use deep fires in any of our kitchens because, again, for environmental sustainability, we don't do grease. I mean, I love bacon, but we don't do grease. But that was something like, okay, if they're looking forward enough to do this pilot project and try this out, how can they aren't even composting?

Like it just seemed like a no-brainer. Right. Talk to us a little bit about the wine bar. What's it called?

A little mushroom dining lounge. Yeah, stuck with our prand. We're on 131 Sheldon. So we're kind of right behind Blackshop.

If you know where Blackshop is, just perfect. Yeah, just go down Sheldon and we're on your right. Perfect. Yeah, so check that out.

People on one of the hours there. We're open Thursday and Friday evenings from five to nine. And then Sundays we do brunch and high tea. So brunch, we open at 1030, high teas start at one.

Those are our most popular though. So they do sell out. It's only a 28 seat restaurant. So you do need to make reservation, especially for high tea.

Thursday and Friday nights, we can usually take walk-ins. But again, like our focus is very local, local, local. So you find some fun things on the menu. Like you'll get some like some duck and we've been able to source some quinoa that they actually like are able to farm in Canada.

Hey, yeah. And did you know that we grow bananas? Right. In Canada, there's a greenhouse in Canada.

We can grow bananas. Yeah, maybe. I think it's me. Yeah, I probably leave in that.

We're all the big greenhouses. Sorry. The ones that are growing wheat. Yeah.

But yeah, we chef Sydney is fantastic. She's a Conestoga College grad who actually she went. So one of the other board kind of things that I do is that I'm the chair of the culinary, or not, sorry, culinary, I was on culinary. No, I'm on hospitality.

The chair of the hospitality program advisory committee for Conestoga College. Okay. So that covers tourism, hotel and restaurant management, all of those courses we helped to design. We helped to tell the profs how to design our courses.

What do we, what do we as industry leaders need to the students to know? And we part of that with my involvement with Conestoga is we had a little mushroom scholarship. So $1000 to a local student every year. And Sydney was actually our very first recipient.

Oh, nice. 6, 7 years old, 7 years old, I think. And now she runs our dining lounge kitchen. It's good.

It's kind of like the circle of life where you're giving back and then you're also getting like rewarded by the work that you put in there is now coming back to that's the way things should work. And we've had that happen with co-op students too, which has been great. Like our baker right now, our full-time baker, she was our co-op student a couple years old, like in the bakery. And now she's heading our bakery.

So how many employees are you at right now? Currently we're at 30. Yeah, that's plenty. I can't even, like, hang over 50s, like in 90 or two.

I got lucky that the places that I own are smaller. So it's like, I don't need a whole bunch of people. Yeah. Well, even our dining lounge, like really we only need three people to run the dining lounge.

That's it. It's all the other stuff. Yeah. So how many of those are full-time?

About two of them are full-time, 10 part-time. And then we've got some casual staff as well. Cool. So dealing with staff is like one of the hardest things that we have to do as an owner.

So talk to me about the challenges of dealing with that many. Sometimes I don't even know them and then don't work for me anymore. Yeah. So we have, I think, one person on staff who I haven't met yet, because she's hired three weeks ago when I've been in Hawaii.

So yeah. But that's a challenge right there. And like just trying to keep on top of what's going on in people's lives, but in a professional manner. But enough so that like, okay, why is this person calling in sick every week?

Or like what's going on here? Or how can I be a support person without being nosy? Yeah. And it's also hard to because like part of it's like, okay, what's going on with this person?

Obviously something's not right. It's a concert calling in sick. Is it something we're doing wrong? Is it mental health issue or whatever?

But then the full-time that is super frustrating to be the person in charge and having people flake out at you all the time. And it's hard to not be super frustrated by that. And I have to keep a lot of professional boundaries. And I get, you know, people think I'm cold sometimes because like I'll, I've gone out to concerts or to bars or whatever with my staff.

Like I have fun with my staff. I invite them over with pool parties and stuff in my house. Like, so like I'm cool. I'm a cool boss.

I feel like to think this is what the cool mom says. But also, you know, I have to keep those professional boundaries because if something like when she hits the fan, I have to be able to be like, okay, that's not cool. That can't happen again. Or that's not cool.

We'll see you later. That's right. Yeah. It's very like and also especially because we grew up more in the era of getting pants from that or head.

Yeah. And like, you didn't have to watch such a fine line of like telling people however you chose to deliver that message. Like what needed to be said, right? It was sort of a trying to figure out a little bit correctly to say this.

But like, and now it's like, I find that the new, like first of all, it's a good thing. Like with the industry should have changed in that manner. But also like the newer generation is sometimes hard for us to relate to because they're so sensitive and it's very difficult to get a message across at all. Yeah.

We really try to take a coaching stance. You know, this is a teachable moment is often what's said. You know, how can we turn this into a teachable moment or like, yeah, we really try to look at it as coaching until it's not right. Yeah.

Yeah. Like sometimes you just want to say suck it the fuck up. Like, this is your job. Like, you know, and because like, for me, I would never, and maybe this is a bad thing, but like, well, it's probably definitely about like, for me growing up in the industry, it would never occur to me to take like a mental health day.

And it would never occur to me. Like 90% of the time if you were sick, you still came to work. Now that's not great. But like, it's just the way it was.

The new thing is how my staff don't ask for vacation time. They tell me when they're taking vacation. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Like, no, like you're not actually even eligible for vacation because you only work for me for four months. Right. Yeah. And they try.

Yeah. I know. That's the thing. But the other thing too is like, because staff is so hard to find these days and good staff is even harder to find.

You have to give in sometimes. What are they talking about? You're about to bother. Like, they do.

They really do. They know it. So like, if I have a really good, and I've been, like, even in the over the last few years of my places, I have been what I considered held hostage by a certain employee because they know I'm fucked if they leave. And then it's like, so the power dynamic is really changing the situation.

Not that there should be necessarily a power dynamic. I don't think, but there should be, but at the end of the day, like, you were the one who's given them a job and they should be following your instructions and how you want to do it. Right. But it's almost flippin' out to the point where they can, like, like I said, make their own vacation hours.

They can decide the hours they want to work, the shifts they want to work, and how they want to work them. Because otherwise, they'll just quit and go somewhere else. Yeah. And our biggest challenge right now with the catering side of things is can we do breakfasts?

Because I don't have any staff who want to come in and do a breakfasts. Right. But, like, for example, this week, we have five or six events going on. And then, like, Valentine's.

But, like, five or six actual events happening. That's really low for us. It's February. It's normal.

But, like, in December, we're doing six events a day. Not six events a week. Right? And so we're going to take a breakfasts.

If we get someone saying, hey, I want to breakfasts for 80 people or 100 people. Yeah. I'm going to take that job. But then I have to figure out who, which one of my staff I have to stock up to, to get them to come in at six events.

Instead of, like, when we were growing up in the industry, it would be like, you're working at six. You're working at six. And I would be like, well, I guess I want my job. Like, now it's like, the dynamic is what you have to do.

And again, I'm not, I don't know, maybe for the good of the industry, that's a better thing. But it's certainly not good for the business. Yeah. Like, it's great.

It's good that the employees feel like more of a sense of empowerment. I'm not. Well, and I would never ask an employee to do anything that I would do. Right?

Yeah. Right? Like, that's my number one rule. I'm not going to tell you, I'm not going to ask you to mock the floors or to do the dishes or whatever, if I'm not willing to also do that.

Sure. Yeah. But I'm doing that. So you do it.

And I'm paying other people to stand around and watch me do it. That's what you got. Like, yeah, like, I'm paying you. Why am I doing this?

And you're wiping that? You said, a lot of me sometimes a couple of times where I was at one of my bars. I was literally finding exactly where I'm wiping the tables down. I look over and look over and to employees or do static.

What's happened here? I think you, and it's like, again, I do think that there's a sort of a fine line. I do think that we need to move into an area where there are employees do feel like they have more of the same as going on in their own careers and their own lives. And they have that sense of empowerment where they can say, fuck this place, I don't want to work here anymore.

Like, that's always been the case. But now we're in the situation where if there's somebody who's good and valuable and they know it, well, they can hold you hostage. Yeah. And that's not good for the business.

No. And I, like, we really try, we're very, I would say we're we're pretty inclusive space. And we really try to work with people when they do have mental health challenges or we're in LGBTQ friendly space. Right?

And sometimes that means that maybe you have a trans employee who's on hormones. Right? There's some things that you have to be careful with there in just to make sure, you know, because there's extra sensitive. And so we're always kind of looking for how we can work around that work through it with them, be a partner with them.

But again, we have to keep those professional boundaries at the same time. And that's a bit of a tight rope. Right. Because at the end of the day, like, I always used to say this to my employees.

I don't even know if I can say this to employees anymore. But I always used to say, like, look, at the end of the day, if this place shuts down, I'm the one who's fucked. Not you. You're the ones who are going to be able to go find another job.

And Michael is always to, by the time you're done working on one of my spots, if my spot's on your resume, you can get a fucking job anywhere. And that's what I want for them. But by the same token, like, I feel like I know what I'm doing. And so therefore, like, you know what, the second thing you want to do things this way, this way, and this way, is the time that you're ready to open your own spot and then go do that.

But as long as you're working at the one that I own, I need you to do the stuff the way that I want it done and trust that there's a reason for that. Not like I have to pull it out. I would say, like, ask me, feel free to ask me why I chose them to do it this way. And I will happily tell you.

But believe me, I don't, like, I'm not, like, I just wake up one day and throw darts at the wall. Well, then asking the why behind things is again, again, often why people think I'm a bitch. Because I'll say, okay, like, can, like, I'll, I'll, I'll, can you tell me why you're doing it? And they think that I'm being a bitch or criticizing.

No, I just want to know, like, is that better? Is that a better way? And, like, does that make more sense than the way that I do it? Because if it does, then I'll change the way that I'm doing it.

Well, and I like to say that, like, in general, like, I don't think I have all the answers. Like, I'm happy for someone to come into me and say, look, I was just wondering why we do it this way, wouldn't this way be better? And if you explain to me a way that it is better or more, I'll be like, great, let's do it that way. And especially, like, I'm not behind the bar every day anymore, right?

So they probably do have a better idea in some senses of like how things would run more smoothly. Great. Tell me, but have a reason for it. You know, like, I'm open to the suggestions, but they also need to understand that, like, people like you, I have decades of experience.

So there's probably a reason why we're doing it a certain way. Now, the flip side of that is maybe we've been doing a certain way for so long because that's the way it's always been done. Because maybe you don't know that there is another way, especially with technology, right? And like, we're hearing that a lot about things being automated and, you know, how can we, how can we make things more efficient is always something that I'm looking for, right?

Like, we did some Kaizen training. I don't know if you're familiar with that at all. So it started with Toyota, like the Toyota manufacturing corporate or whatever in Japan, but it's kind of like the lean way of thing. So you're looking for your waist.

You're looking for like, okay, what's over, why is there over production? Or why is there, why are we walking from here to there to get the mop bucket when the mop bucket could just easily be stored here and then we don't have to walk as far or like, why isn't the mop bucket kept where the sink is or, you know, simple stuff like that, right? So we're constantly actually moving around where stuff is in our kitchen, which really drives some people crazy. But I walk in today after not being there for three weeks and my, yeah, we have like new shelving in a different spot and they've moved a different fridge over and they've changed how our bakeries laid out and like, because they time to fix stuff, right?

If every day you're going in and you're like, stuffing your toe on something, fucking move it. Right? So just, yeah, and that's like, that's how we try to train our staff. And we are part of like the Fair Kitchen movement, which was like a Unilever thing that they started a few years ago.

But I've actually, I spoke at the restaurants Canada show back in 2020, talking about, empowering your staff and giving them that chance to help make your business more efficient by having the voice. So we do every, every, like usually at least twice a year, we do staff surveys where we're like, what one piece of equipment is going to make your life easier. And you know what, if we can afford it, I'll talk about it for you. You recall me corporate Santa.

I'm okay with that. But yeah, what are some of those things that you see, you know, is there a menu item that just, like, there's an extra step that we're doing that we don't need to be or is there, you know, does it just not make sense because we're not using freaking lentils for anything else, so what are those lentils of kitchen, right? So yeah, stuff like that where we're, we really try to give our, all of our staff a voice. But at the end of the day, I'm still the one who makes the decisions.

Well, yeah, that's what I'm going to pay for. Right, exactly. And that's what I would say to people. Like, I'm not always going to take your suggestion.

And that doesn't mean that I'm like, not listening. Yeah, so like, but it's, I do find, with each new generation that comes, like that message is harder to deliver to them because it's all, like, they're very sensitive. And it's like, and you don't take credit, no constructive criticism, feedback, not even criticism. No, they don't take feedback.

They already know everything. Yeah. Yeah. Well, fuck them.

Where I'm like, I want to be back. Give me a feedback. Yeah. Okay.

Well, we take it a bunch of your time. So thanks, that has been super interesting conversation is tell our listeners how to get and hold you if they want catering and if they're signing new on the horizon, drop it here. All right. Well, you can find us at littlemushroomcatering.com or.ca.

We are on Twitter at catering fungi. If you want to follow me personally on Instagram is also at catering fungi. But the business is on both little mushroom catering and little mushroom dining lounge. Non-nump treats you can find on Facebook as well.

So we're here for all your full service event catering needs, but also those awesome branded cookies and, and the wine bar as well. So literally, she does everything. So thanks. Well, thanks.

I clean. I bartend. And I just like to say as well, this is your art. I mean, for both of my restaurants, I've been super pleasure working with you and your whole team.

And if you guys ever start doing that again, then anybody should consider a little mushroom for that because they're a pleasure to work with. Thank you very much. Yeah. It's been awesome.

Cheers.