This week's guest is Janice Mylone, who joins us from New York City, born in Panorama City, California, and growing up in Ventura County, Janice embraces her California background. One of Janice's most beloved and personal and professional passions is agave and the relationship between Mexico and the Philippines. Janice has been recognized as a leader in the hospitality industry with articles published in Forbes, Punch, and other media outlets, as well as a Tales of the Cocktail Best New Bar nomination in 2022 for her work at San Francisco's For the Record. Janice also served as the former president for the San Francisco chapter of the United States Bartenders Guild.
In 2025, Janice was named as one of Imbibes 75s, and her program at La Yenda was the only New York bar nominated for Outstanding Bar Program by the James Beard Foundation. In a conversation with Janice, she shares her journey in the service industry from her early experience as a wedding planner and server to her expertise in craft cocktails and spirits. Janice discusses her career transitions, including moving to New York. We talk about her passion for logistics and management in the hospitality sector.
We also highlight Janice's ongoing projects, including starting a nonprofit organization to celebrate Asian and Pacific Islanders heritage, as well as a number of other topics. Make sure you check out Janice online on Instagram at My Tiny Dancer and on the web at FueledByAgave.co or check the show notes for all the links as usual. Enjoy the show. Okay, we're back with another episode of the industry podcast.
My name is Kit. This is Dan. How is it going? I'm still awesome.
Good to see you. Yeah, thank you. You're not a great start to the week. What about you?
Everything's great. No complaints, nothing to report. Everything's a copistetic. I literally have nothing exciting to talk about just dealing with the sale of the business, and that's when I'm opening up my time right now.
Well, good luck with that process. I'm sure it's no fun. No, it's not. I'm not enjoying it.
I'm going to be glad when it's over. Let's not talk about it. How about that? Okay.
Perfect. What we should talk about is our friend alchemistallie at alchemist.alie on Instagram. She is your go-to for bartending consulting or for private parties, bookings, cocktail classes. What doesn't she do, Dan?
Give us free drinks. That's true. Never. No, she doesn't.
If you've got a cocktail program you need some help with or have someone host a event for you. Talk about the sale of your girl. That's right. If you prefer doing your drinking in public at a licensed bar, then check out my bar, Sugar Run, Downtown Kitchener.
That's at Sugar Run Bar on Instagram. All kinds of stuff going on there. Burlesque. We have live music.
We have live comedy. We have great cocktails. And the list is constantly being updated. So come check us out Sugar Run, Downtown Kitchener, at Sugar Run Bar, and Instagram to figure out everything that's going on there.
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Sure. Inbibliotham is your one-stop shop for bartenders, cocktail lovers, and people just like to well drink. If you're looking for a thing to get out of it. It's a terrific little app for figuring out your drinks with a terrific flavor profile wheel.
And you can also share your lists of drinks that you make with your coworkers and friends. There are many different options in the program. It is a great cocktail app. The closing weekend of Babylon Sisters, we got stuck with a whole bunch of bottles of Spanish Black Vermouth and didn't know what to do with it.
And we used Inbibliotham to come up with some great cocktail ideas to sell on our last weekend there. So big thanks to Inbibliotham. Everybody should be checking in with that in Bibliotham. Yeah.
And there's links to Inbibliotham and everything we talked about in the show notes as always. So if you're wondering where you can find one of these products and people just check the show notes and all the links are there. And finally, if you like Booz and I'm assuming if you listen to the show that you do, then you should hit me up kipadbansisters.cakyPP. that is for wine from Malabar Winery in Beamsville, Ontario.
Great spirits from Allora the Stilling. If you're, I know a lot of our American liquors are not available here in Canada right now and we got the Canadian boost for you. Allora the Stilling at Atalordastilling.co. Check out what they're doing on Instagram and then of course the great wines from Portugal, Argentina and Spain from Terroir Winenports.
All of these available, email me directly either if you're at our restaurant or if you want a private order that's kip at BabylonSisters.ca and I think that that's all we need to prattle on about before we get to our guests. Oh yeah, it's more than enough. More than enough. Alright, welcome my guests.
Joining us from New York, it's Janice Bion. How are you? I'm doing really good. Just hanging here in lovely New York.
It was 78 the other day. It's 43 now. So it's like San Francisco again. Thanks very much for joining us.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's very much like San Francisco. Whether it was only there once but it was literally like I was there for a week and every day was an extreme dip or rise in the temperature. Crazy.
Yeah, it's a pretty, you get used to it. You get used to it. So being here in New York now, it's kind of it's got similar similarities as far as like going back and forth but also it's got seasons and that's going to deal with. Yeah, yeah.
And you're just recently been dealing with the closing of a pretty big New York institution, correct? Yeah, I was serving as the bar manager over at Leenda for the last year and a half year and a couple months and it was it's been a pretty emotional and heartfelt goodbye. It feels like the death of an institution for sure. Yeah, it's too bad.
There's been some, it's just that I mean I just went through this myself with one of my bars and it's just like a really tough time for smaller and more independent bars unless you're like a franchise or or a group of bars, like a bar collective then it's really tough because if you're on your own and you only have the sales that go through your particular door to support, rents keep going up, people are going out less. So many factors. Yeah, including like labor costs are going up minimum wage is going up because of all the tariffs all of here in America. We are dealing with unknowns for seeing prices for imported goods.
So there's just it's a lot of things to think about like most of the most of the lines that come to the US are coming from Mexico. So if you're putting a 25% tariff on that then Jesus, how much is your margarita going to cost? Yeah, Trump doesn't care. He wants you to make lines in the US.
It's like it goes back to the fact that like produce is so incredibly different everywhere you go. As somebody who grew up as a California girl, I grew up with I think kind of the best produce possible. I had access to like super fresh fruit and seasonality within like the farming industry and connections with my local farmers where I could go to the farmers market and I knew exactly what was going to be in season. They even had a website in San Francisco called choisa.com.org and you could go on to it and see what was coming in season regularly.
Whereas in New York, it is so incredibly different. Even the lime juice, just I talk about this all the time, but the lime juice tastes different out here. It's more it's more acidic. Like so your classic ratios that you may have grown up knowing on one coast are completely different from the other one because you're asking us.
Yeah, that's interesting. They're probably drier too, right? Yeah, because they're coming into New York on right and then they're like forced by gas in order to like ripen into what we have here. So then you get more bitterness and more yeah, much more right.
Interesting. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about how you got into the service. Are you grew up in California? Yeah, I grew up in Southern California actually, a little po-dunk town called Moorpark.
Okay. It's like to say if you're like, it's between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. So the dynamic of that was really interesting because you had people whose parents were migrant workers and worked in the farms and then you had people whose parents worked for Disney and Amgen and all like made a lot of money. So we only had one high school in that dynamic of like in like economic difference really kind of gave you a whole as to like how everything else, how it could look.
But it was a primarily very Americana spot like was very much like they used to film Wild West films there. Okay, it's also there's a lot of farming there used to be farming towns. So the produce was incredible. Like I would come, I remember growing up there and you'd come off of the freeway.
It was just fields and fields of corn. I brought a friend with me from the Midwest and she like she told me she was like, this looks like Iowa. Yeah, yeah, crazy. And so like how old were you when you first started your first service industry related job?
So I started as a barista and server when I was 14 years old under the table. But I started working behind a little barista bar over in my in War Park in my local town. And from there ended up actually getting picked up to be a wedding planner. I worked as a wedding planner for like eight years and I have always been somebody who has like multiple jobs.
I just can't like I like doing a lot of different things having a lot of projects. So after like while I was still working as a wedding planner, I also worked at I got into the local country clubs and started doing like banquet serving and serving at the grill. So you get people asking for old professions and margaritas. And I'm like, where do these recipes come from?
Like what's what's the build? What's going on? Where does this wine come from? And that's actually at about like 16 years old, I started learning wine and cocktails and like the stories that make up like our cocktail origin stories.
And back then we didn't have a lot of information. I'm talking like nine, I know I'm I turned 40 this year. And so somewhere back then if you want to do the math, but back then all of the information we learned was really word of mouth. So there was a lot of like stories that were being passed around that weren't necessarily true.
And now that we have so much more access to the internet and so many more resources and so much more time that's passed by for us to learn like the origins of certain things like it's it's great. But it also goes to show that what we learned in the very beginning may not have been accurate. Right. Yeah.
So I actually want to back up a little bit when you're when you're doing the wedding planning, how did you find that job? Because we I don't know if you've talked to anyone who did wedding planning before on the show. It's so forgotten. But that seems like a high stress job.
I was 15 years old and I was 15 years old and I was working at the cafe and this woman came in and she's like, I really like your personality. Have you ever thought about maybe like, would you be interested in helping me with my wedding planning business? And I ended up my first job with her was folding boxes, like wedding treat boxes. For the bopogara?
Yeah. For like eight hours for this 100 person wedding. Turned out she was the treasurer of the American bridal consultation chapter in Ventura County, handling like $2 million wedding. So I was 15 years old and I'm like at the double tree in Santa Barbara, throwing like tons and tons of like flowers into the air for this $2 million wedding.
And I'm like, okay, cool, this is my life. And I like remember being on the computer, like having to manage inventory at like 15 years old for this little like bridal consultant stationery shop in the middle of nowhere. So yeah, I'm a weird one. I've done a lot of things.
Well, it's amazing. That's a fair amount of responsibility for that age too. Like, I mean, I started working in Intrude as well then started working at like a pretty young age, like your first part time job, but I didn't give any responsibility. Now I did get asked being the wedding planner.
Any good brides of style stories at all? I mean, I was like, assistant wedding planning, wedding planners. So like, I really kind of like kind of co-worked with You have to deal with that as much. Yeah.
Perfect setup. And I think that I had to deal with was on the prelim part, right? Creating the invitations, making sure everything was already organized and structured. So it really gave me a strong background in logistics.
I was just gonna ask, sorry, I mean, I don't know what I was gonna ask. That was, you were about to answer my question, I was gonna ask like, was there anything in that wedding planning job that you feel helped prepare you for what you ended up doing with the rest of your career? That there's your answer, I guess. Like just, but I still understand how to navigate high-stress situations.
And how to quell people's expectations, what that big day looks like, as well as like how you kind of managed through the whole entirety of it all. And then so what was your first, what would you consider your first job that, well, at some point we should get into it. At some point you start developing a love for tequila and agave in general. How did that develop?
Was that when you started craft coctailing or before that? So I was a server for a really, really long time. I grew up in the age where people don't, women don't really go behind a bar unless you have boobs or really, really good looking. And even then it's usually at clubs or dive bars or places where they want to track a male clientele.
Or I got told a lot of different things like I needed to hop the bar in order to stop a fight if I wanted to work behind the bar or I wasn't tall enough to work behind the bar or I looked better in a skirt or I was too valuable as a server. So my interest in spirit started when I was 16 working at the country club. And I remember, I did a short, I'm not a short student, I actually did a long stint at the Riviera country club back in Pacific Palisades. And I remember I would slip into the bartender room because the bartender area for banquets was separate from the banquet room.
And then you'd have to serve from there. I would always be back there. Okay, so how do I make this Manhattan? And I'm like 17, 18 at this time.
So this is totally like, I'm not supposed to be doing that. So it's okay. It was a lot. Yeah, I think the statute of limitations are over.
You're not going to get arrested. Yeah. I think a lot of us secretly bartended when we shouldn't have been bartending. I was 16 for my first one.
So yeah. Yeah. And it's not like I was drinking anything. It was more like I just was fascinated by the technique.
Going into it, you know, those were the days when vodka was king. So everybody was drinking vodka. And I was starting to get into whiskey and tequila and just like understanding, what are these classic cocktails? Like what's an old fashioned?
What's the margarita? What's Manhattan? Why are people ordering this in this age range? And so like, how do I, how do I understand this all?
At the same time, like I said, I had like seven jobs at during that period of my time, and kind of throughout my career. So I was working at the Riviera country club. I was working at two other country clubs. I worked at Starbucks.
I also worked at a place called Hamburger Hamlet, where the whole concept was this woman who opened it was best friends with Marilyn Rowe. And their thing was to drink martinis and hamburgers. So there was a whole martini menu that I was a server. How did that business work out?
Was it last or? I don't think they lasted that like the other first season up until like 2015. I don't know if they've gone beyond that, but I actually love it. Like, I don't know it's a weird pairing, but I love those when they smash weird ideas together.
I think it's great. Yeah. That also was probably the weirdest requests I've ever gotten in my life for like a food preference. We said we had this one girl come in and she had just had some work done.
And she asked if we could take the burger and parade it. And bring it out of a straw. Oh, so disgusting. Just go get ice cream.
Why would you ever do that? But that's what she wanted. And you do that day. Oh my God.
The most interesting, well, like one of the most disgusting things that I've had to do. Yeah. Yeah. If you're in the service industry for long enough, then there's going to be more discussing things on that for sure.
But that is pretty gross. I mean, like as a bartender, I remember somebody said, if you haven't cleaned poop off of the ceiling, then you really have the bar. I cleaned it off the walls. So I say that.
Yeah. It's yeah. That's still that still ratifies you. I'm glad those days are behind me.
But yeah, I remember saying to somebody, like when I finally opened my first bar and then the first time that someone threw up in the bathroom, one of my service came out of someone threw up in the bathroom, I'm like, well, you grab them up because the day that I opened my own bar was the day that I stopped doing that. It's called delegating. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Just like I made to let you make the cocktail menu. Okay. So you're talking about it. I'm probably pretty back in my like, I don't think I've ever talked to anybody about my early, early employment like that.
Well, I kind of like to start that way because it's like, it's sort of gives us like a window into how you became what you are now, right? Like, it's all of it's a development story with everybody in their career, right? So I like to start as early as possible. And then we get, if we get on a different topic, we get on a different topic.
But yeah, so anyway, you're moving along your career. And at some point, you're learning about spirits, you're still pretty young. And then when did you specifically start to focus on tequila and mescau? That would probably be mostly when I went to Savro Francisco.
I was working in a spot called Tupelo. And this was probably around like 2010. Like I said, I was working as a server for a long time. I did some dive bar shifts here and there, but I didn't really get behind a craft cocktail bar till like 2014.
Oh, okay. But I had been bartending for years before that. But your side was like a very difficult time growing up for you there to try and get to like, get behind the bar, right? So yeah, like, because like, I came up to Savro Francisco in 2006, and I started bartending like at a spot called Ruby Sky in the very beginning.
And then I ended up doing VIP bottle service at their bar downstairs. But during that time, I kept applying for different cocktail bars, like Bourbon and Branch. There was a place called, oh my God, cantina at the time. I remember Redwood Room was around.
And so all these bars I really wanted to be a part of because it was like interested in what they were doing as far as craft cocktail. Even the club that I started at was a pre was called Slide and it was a pre prohibition in spot. Well, not pre it was a pre prohibition inspired love. And it had like six different champagne cocktail variations, a 12 piece like non alcoholic menu.
Yeah, it was wild. And it was like trying to really be inspired by the 1920s. So it was hard getting behind a craft cocktail bar because most people saw me as a club bartender or a dive bartender or they were like, well, she's fun and energetic. We just want her on the floor.
Like she's right. Yeah, it's almost like getting typecasted in the movies, right? Like after a while, if you can, it's a weird thing about being almost too good at your job is if you want to do a slightly different one. Yeah.
So when I was working at the dive bar, right too below, I was just like more like a neighborhood bar actually, I started drinking tequila behind the bar because Jameson and Fernet was ruining my life. I love them. I will always have a special place. I drink way too much for now.
But like back then, we were just monsters. My body was like, you need to switch to a different spirit because then is not doing you well anymore. And I got a lot of tequila and I started drinking different types of tequila to figure out what I like the best. And then I started going into the history of it and going diving into that as I'm diving into spirits and I'm taking classes and I'm doing whatever trainings I can find.
And it wasn't until I got to doubles acre that the gentleman who were running that program had a collective called Horoburo and they do a bunch of like mezcal trips at the time and the whole, like there was so much mezcal at that bar so much. And I remember I had a friend there who whenever we would hang out, he'd be like, hey, try this one, this one, this one, where is it from? What varietal is it? And what does it taste like?
And so my training started in like 2014, 2015 on mezcal, but in a very like rigorous way. Yeah, that's crazy. Like, I mean, you, I think that the average person would think more about that style of figuring out what like a region or a style of the crafting of the spirit more is a wine thing, right? So to do it with mezcal because I think for the average, educated mezcal drinker, it all tastes very similar, right?
Like the smoky, you get the smokiness and it's like a little harsh on the back end. That's what people think about when they think about mezcal. But that's not what it is. And there's so many different types and there's so many different processes.
And depending on what region you're going to, it's completely different. You know, there's some at mezcal that like that roasted barbecue isn't even there. And I just did a trip with Vago recently. And they're like, hey, like this is our process.
We do it very traditional. But as you can tell from our mezcal, it's not like overly smoked or anything. So to say that using this technique is the reason why is very is it doesn't necessarily always track. Interesting.
So how did you learn to, like, I mean, obviously from tasting a lot and you started taking classes, but like what point did you get to the point where you felt confident of like, okay, I can tell this is a mezcal from this region, this is a mezcal from this region. That's what like this is a different process of distilling, etc. So when I was a so when I was at Devil's Acre, I went down to Oaxaca with the Perobero guys and their trips were wonderful. I know that I think they're still doing them, but we visited like five, like four or five different regions where El Hago Rio, New Esther, so that we're producing mezcal.
And basically it got to meet the mezcaleros in the area and learn hands on with them of the whole entire process. So that trip really changed my life. And I came back from it being like, I need to learn everything I can about this spirit. So I started picking books, I started trying everything that I could.
And I went to Mexico a lot. I went to Mexico after that year about like four to seven times. Oh, well, just to learn whether it was about tequila, where there is about rice, s, apple, agro gente, like rum, everything. Like I just wanted to like soak in all of the Mexican spirits.
And through all of my findings, I ended up developing a class for beverage academy over at Bourbon and branch. And so I would teach like a got like the process of agave and do like a full blown like Mexican spirits tasting comparing both tequila and muscale and the differences between it. And kind of explaining to consumers how that goes. And so just all of that really helped me grow my education.
The part where I actually like felt like I could name someplace and like get to that part, it was I remember I was at the bar at my well was my first time there in like I think 2015 or 2016. And I'm sitting there and I walk in and I talked to Justice Shapiro, I say I can name any agave spirit from the Wahawken region. Like if it's these eight agaves close your eyes and hands me a glass. And I try and like, oh my gosh, this is like, there's a lot of minerality on here.
Like, there's a cause salinity to it that I don't and a creaminess from this. Like I've never tried anything like this is definitely coastal. And I don't know what region in Wahawk that would be coastal that produces muscale. Like right at this moment, like, what is this?
And he goes, Oh, it's an inicate instrument to a con from Don D'Amatteo's like, I would have never got this because I told you very specifically what I could answer. So he's trying to fuck with you, do you think? Or he just didn't know as much as you did. I think he was just, I think he actually wanted to see what I would say.
Oh, okay. Yeah. And after that, we got into an amazing conversation. And in December of 2016, I got offered a job.
Oh, yeah. Like I got a call from a friend saying, Hey, there's an open position. They just called me to ask if you would want to come out to New York and take it. And I, at that point, I was up for a council position with the United States bartender's Guild San Francisco and working at Bourbon Branch.
And I had just gotten finally gotten behind like the front bar there. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to stay here. I feel like I'm just starting to break the surface here. I'm going to stay there.
And then a month later, my well, I'll close. Yeah. Crazy. I mean, it's good.
That's yeah, like it just worked out perfectly for you. Because imagine if you had moved all the way, I mean, you would have found another job, obviously, with your talents. But like, but that's like the universe telling you that you made the right decision. Yeah, I feel like it really confirmed.
And I knew that at some point in my career, I would end up in New York. I have always wanted to be here at some point. But you know, it took time. It took time to really kind of like have my time on the West Coast and really enjoy there.
It's a big fucking move. Yeah, it's like, yeah. Would you consider yourself like I know you've obviously taken courses, etc. But it sounds like your like, most of education is almost self-taught.
I wouldn't say self-taught. I think it's experiential. Well, that's what I mean. I mean, more than like, you know, like you've more gone to like Mexico and learn yourself rather than like sitting behind a book.
I think it's a combination of. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm a nerd.
I never like every time somebody's like, oh, she's an agave expert. I'm like, absolutely not. The second thing you think that you're an agave expert, you don't know anything. Just like a constantly evolving plant.
And there's so much. I've read a lot of books. I've read a lot of I've listened to a lot of Distillers talk. I've I've taken a lot of notes over the years and a lot of photographs and a lot of like study.
And I actually start like when I was in San Francisco before I left, I was starting to do like a dissertation on Filipino and Mexican relationships in regards to the history of like the Stilling. Right. I read about this in your bio. I'm super interested in this.
So like let's dive a little bit deeper into that. Like, how did that even occur to you? And like, well, I mean, just tell us everything about this whole this and the whole notion of the Filipino and Mexican connection that you're trying to bring together. Well, so ancestral styles of sometimes ancestral styles and mass values, Filipino styles as a way of distillation.
And that comes from when Filipinos had migrated to Mexico via Spanish Inquisition and basically brought their skills that they used to use for Lumba, which is a coconut nectar spirit to create mescet like so they like switched out the plants to do so. So knowing that happened, I've been kind of like trying to study the history between the two countries and how we connect because I think for me, I needed to find authenticity in my relation to Mexico. I'm not Mexican and but I deal with a lot with Mexican spirits and I speak a lot on behalf of that. And it's not my heritage and I need to give respect to that.
But the way that I find my own connection to it and my own authenticity is by going into the history of it and finding those ways that we actually are related. That must have been interesting when you first discovered that though, right? Probably not something you were expecting to find. Not at all.
Not at all. And it kind of came later and I was like, Oh shit, okay, I have a I have space here where this makes sense why I feel so connected. Right? That's what I was going to say.
That must be what you must have felt at the time. Like, because you probably had no idea why you were so connected to this spirit out of nowhere. Like, I mean, like developed obviously, but like, there was something that was connecting you to go of it. Yeah.
And it's when I went back home to the Philippines back in 2015, 2017, 18, I can't remember now. I went back and my uncles back there. My Titos were like, Oh, your Tito has like the biggest lumbino collection in the area. And we know all these different producers.
We need to get you lumbino and like, get you actually understanding your culture spirit, which is like, we don't see that in the in the US or on any of the markets. There was one brand that I can't find anymore that was producing lumbino care in the States. And I think that, you know, it's a miss for us not to have access to that as a spirit culturally here in the US as Filipino flavors are on the rise. Okay.
So you started that dissertation and then at some point you actually did make the move to come to New York. And what prompted that? I was running a bar program called for the record. And it was one of my favorite, one of my favorite programs ever.
It's 1970s cocktail bar over in the Marina district, really kind of cozy and very music driven, which my back, I have a big background in music. I was a musical theater for a long time, did voice overs, did the whole entertainment route for a little bit when I was younger. And I remember being there and I had come up to New York to just do like a one day trip on my way to Europe to visit my family for a family vacation. And what happened was I realized, okay, I was sitting at Mr.
Paradise and I looked over to my friend and I said, I think I'm moving to New York. I realized that I if I wasn't going to own a bunch of bars in San Francisco, which I was on the trajectory to do, that if I didn't leave, I may not be able to fill some of the dreams that I've had in my life, dreams of living in New York, dreams of like, you know, changing up my life, because I felt like I had kind of kept going on at the same path. And I just felt like I had to shake up my world if I wanted to see change and see and push myself and grow in a very different way. And the same like New York thing was always sort of in the back of your mind.
It had been calling me about my life, whether it was like for school for musical theater, like I was supposed to come out here two different times for school and other opportunities. And it just kind of felt like, okay, if I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it again. And I need to move to New York when I'm when I can still climb that many steps. So you moved without like previously, you got offered the job and you could move, you turned it down, that bar closes down.
So this time you just up and moved and then you were like, I'll find work when I get there and obviously not a problem. Yeah, I kind of was like, okay, you know what, we don't have a place to live. We don't have a I moved here with my best friend. And he's been one of my biggest supports.
I like to think that I've been one of his and we've kind of been in it together for a long time. We came up in the San Francisco industry around the same time. And his career is like super skyrocketed. And I'm so proud of him.
And so we both were like, we need to change up what we've been doing in SF. We also could kind of feel the industry kind of start to change a little bit. And you know, the demographic of people that were in San Francisco had changed so drastically. So came to New York.
And as we're getting off the plane, I get an email from Julie Reiner saying that Landa's bar manager just put her two weeks in. And if I would be interested in interviewing. So how did she know about you through like I know you've been featured in a few magazines and tells us what's that had already happened at this point? So not at this point, like some stuff, but like I had reached out to her about really picking out shifts up my ladies.
So I moved out here with my best friend, Suzu. He was a Sousa. Okay. I was talking to him over Instagram about coming on the show and then it just never really happened.
So that's interesting. Yeah, no shit. Good for him. Well, tell me if you ever saw what's coming on the show, he's more than welcome.
But that is great. That's crazy that you guys are besties and moved out there together. And it's okay. Anyway, continue your story.
Yeah, I know. A little bit of information. But basically he connected me with Julie. He was like, you know, you'd be really good at my ladies.
Like a couple shifts like over there. You should reach out to Julie Reiner. And so he connected me with Julie and Julie told him she was like, I really like this girl. So we'll just keep her resume on file.
And then everything kind of fell into place so serendipitously. Like I've never like I've had jobs come through and I'm like, holy shit, this was like exactly what I needed wanted. But like this one was like, this is weird how everything works. Like coming with like a background and agave spirits into a beloved agave like Latin spirit program and having two very highly regarded strong women bosses.
Like, I remember looking at Suzu and being like, I'd be stupid not to take this job, right? Like, I came out to New York and all I wanted to do was bartend. Right. Was this your first sort of management role?
No, I've been managing cars for like eight years. Okay. So like, I know you've been running programs and courses and whatever and obviously behind the bar, but I didn't know if you'd actually done some management roles previously because that's like, it's a big difference. Once you move into that management side of it, like, and not everyone loves it.
And I love it. I love being able to see people grow and watch. And like, again, I'm a logistics person. That's what my degree is in is in like, I fell into an associate's degree in quantitative and qualitative logistics.
Like counselor, because I had taken so many science courses and so many different things. She was like, yeah, you basically are prime for logistics. Well, I mean, that's where we're helping when you start on the management side of it for sure. But it's also like, I mean, I can see that would help you just behind the bar.
Yeah. And I really love managing teams. Like, I just, I really also believe that we all need breaks and we all need moments to reset. So I was looking at New York to be my moment to reset and just kind of get a feel for the land.
If I wanted to create change, if I wanted to do anything that was impactful in this industry, I needed to understand the community that I was entering. And I couldn't do that. I didn't think I could do that just going straight into management, knowing my commitment and knowing that I needed to give this much to this business in order to see it work. So still like going back to like getting that email from her.
That's like pretty big compliment. Like, you know, you're just new in New Asian, New York. And now you've been offered at the bar management role at a pretty good time. Oh, I do know my phone.
I do know my phone. I was surprised. I was like, what the? Oh, okay.
And then I looked at Susan, I was like, I didn't want to manage. Why do you want to manage? What are you going to do? Right?
That's like you said, it's not a job you can turn down really. Yeah, given your love for a guy, like all things ago. I would not. I would have probably kicked myself 20 times over it because what I fell into was the most incredible group of people to work with.
I haven't worked with a team this strong in my career until now, where everybody is wholeheartedly an incredible human, but also incredibly talented. And to be able to kind of pull their stories from them and execute that in cocktail form and show them a different side of creativity and how to process is really cool. And I feel really honored to have had that time and space there because they were awesome. It's a great story for the two of you, like, because both of your careers have kind of skyrocketed, like, almost at the same time, but in very different ways.
In different ways, for sure. But no one can say that your career hasn't skyrocketed also. So that's, I mean, it's a great, a heartwarming story for everyone is in the service industry and wants to chase us as a dream for a career. Yeah, I mean, it's been a challenge.
It's been always a challenge to kind of like punch through walls and like expectations of what you're supposed to be. And also to quell your own like mental like imposter syndrome and all the things that we fight on our own. And I think that the biggest part of our industry that we have to remember is to take time to take care of ourselves. Yeah, well, that's the other thing, right?
Because the not only the hours you work, but the amount that you put into it. And someone like you, who's like, obviously a motivated individual who wants to be doing a million things at the same time. It's like, how do you find like, how do you sort of con everything down and like give yourself a break? For me, what I find is water really grounds me.
Sitting by like the ocean by river, by a lake or somewhere in nature, and just taking a moment without any electronics to just sit with myself and write down where I am kind of helps me put things in perspective. Like, land just closed. That was incredibly emotional. That was a lot of a lot of things, a lot of like feelings and work and a lot of combating my own personal like self worth sometimes.
And so I am lucky enough that I saved enough money so that I'm going to get out of town now. Good. I'm going to Miami and I'm visiting some really close friends and taking a moment to be by the water there and sunshine because it's not sunny here. And just take a moment and a breath.
And then I'm back to looking for a job. Right. Well, I'm sure you'll be okay. Do you find that it's that you have to remind yourself to take a break?
Because you're so highly motivated and you like to have a lot of things going on at the same time? Absolutely. And sometimes I don't have the luxury of getting out of town. So taking like a long bath or even just sitting in the park like is enough to make it get through.
Also music is so highly motivated by music. So I usually like my common routine is to wake up with a song. So I pick what my song is for that day and like, okay, this is going to set the energy and the tone of what I want to commit to and accomplish. So feeling through all of that or karaoke thing it out for the rest of the night that I'm great.
And I'm a mad woman when it comes to karaoke. So I'm old, no bars. So like I said, you're going to take a break. You're taking a little vacation, which is good.
What do you do you have anything that on there? Like obviously, obviously something going on. But like what's going on for you when you get back from Miami, besides like looking for another gig. You still have many other things on the go.
So yeah, so when I come back, I plan on really focusing on a project that I've had that I had back in San Francisco and bringing it over to the East Coast, hospitality of Asians and Pacific Islanders is a nonprofit I started about a year two years ago, two years ago now, with my friend Napier Blalen. And it's really focused on celebrating API heritage as well as creating resources and understanding within the different communities that are Asian and Pacific Islander. So I plan on hopefully doing something in the API month regarding happy and fundraising for that. And we are supported by another round, another rally.
So we have the like eventually once we start fundraising for the East Coast chapter, hopefully by fourth quarter, we'll have like scholarships and more resources for everybody out there. But there's a lot of things that I've been planning with somebody out with a colleague of mine out here. That's like something like that's a lot of work, like a nonprofit, right? Like all the fundraising that goes into it and the planning of events and whatever.
And so is that something we're able to pay yourself a salary to do or you're just doing it? I'm just doing it right now. It fulfills myself. In reality, starting a nonprofit, there is a lot of things that you have to go through and like a lot of steps and processes, everything from creating a board, you know, getting the bank account statement of business, like all of these different documents you have to create.
So that's why it took me and apps like a year and a half to really kind of hone in all of it, even down to like we have like a whole entire personal branding and like scope of what the nonprofit looks like. So the way that we built out this organization was that we have an asset Bible where if somebody wanted to create another chapter in another place that we weren't able to get to, we could hand them the asset Bible, create like a monthly meeting schedule and kind of grow that way. So yeah, that's crazy. So like, and I'm only asking this because like when I was my first bar, I was so clueless, I didn't know how to do anything and you kind of have to like you jump in and you're just like, okay, like I knew about bartending and making cocktails and giving good service.
I didn't know about all the fucking permits I needed and all this stuff, right? So when you're starting a nonprofit, how did you figure out how to do it? Like did you have someone, a mentor to help you or do you just dive in and figure it out? We were lucky enough to have another round another rally guide us through it.
Okay. I also had done like my my my Napier, who's my my co-founder also had some a lot of background in nonprofit work as well, that she had learned from other friends of hers. And we just kind of collected our resources because as bartenders, we meet a lot of different people. So the opportunity to, you know, connect with people within these different areas is a great way for you to kind of build what your interests are.
I also like back in the day, like I was an event planner, I used to do all the coordinate, all the fashion events in San Francisco in the early 2010s and even did like a coordinated whole entire fashion week there. Like prior to that, I was traveling around the country producing a live stream show with different nonprofits and socially good businesses. Like I worked for the Department of Innovation at the time in partnership, like live streaming shows with different nonprofits. So I got like an aspect of that from working with all of these different nonprofits and socially positive businesses.
So from all of my own personal like business building and entrepreneurship, it wasn't that hard to go into like nonprofit. It's just kind of figuring out the specific details of like, well, we need to set this up or do that, right? Like, but you already have set up so many things on the past. It's just like holding in on the specific ones you need for the nonprofit.
And I'll be honest with you, my work with. So I was on the San Francisco USBG Council for seven years. I served like a social media coordinator, vice president, director of the board president through pandemic. And because of that, I learned a lot about 501c3s, which are nonprofit organizations and 501c5s, which are what the USBG is.
It's and which is a trade, a nonprofit trade organization and the difference between. So I was learning nonprofit law and having to understand, oh, we can't do that as a trade organization, because we can't provide you a write off number, but this 501c3 can. And if we coordinate together, then this is so it was kind of creating the different business structures to come together. So you can utilize all all resources.
It's crazy. And this is why I sort of like to start talking about your career from way back in the day, because it just leaves to all this shit you've been able to accomplish in your career. And like, they're all little branches of the tree that move off in different directions, but it all starts from like the trunk base of like, and then expands like, I learned how to do this. And therefore, I was able to do this, right?
I just find that super fascinating. And someone's great, especially someone has accomplished with you at that still quite a young age. So I did so weird for you to say that, because I really feel like sometimes I haven't accomplished anything. And I guess that sometimes the imposter syndrome in me, I know we all go through it, but like, it feels very minute because I don't feel like I've given enough impact.
And so I just, I always want to be doing better and always want to be growing and always want to keep challenging myself. And I guess that's part of my own challenges to understand that like, there are accomplishments that have been made. I just want to see more impact. Well, yeah, I mean, sometimes it helps to just like take a breath and be like, okay, shit, I've already done all this.
That's not so bad. But also not to be satisfied. And it doesn't sound like you're the type of person who ever is going to be satisfied. So I don't think we have to worry about that.
Well, I tell, I told my little brothers this, I was like, if I die tomorrow, I am fully content with the life that I've lived, because I've lived every day to the fullest extent that I could have. And that doesn't mean that I go bunchy jumping off a cliff every day. But it means for me that I find I can recognize that my past is worth something, and that I am worth something because of the impact that I've made on those around me. Well, that is well said and a great way to end this.
So thanks so much. It's like, this is a super interesting conversation. We really appreciate you giving us the time. Tell our listeners where they can follow you and find out what's coming next.
So I'm up in the air. So just follow on Instagram at my tiny dancer. And then you can also visit fueled by agave.co if you wanted to arrange any agave classes, tastings, or needed consultation for any kind of bar program, not just agave. I do consult on the side too.
So amazing. Well, thanks so much, Janso. You're like, incredibly busy person. I know it well, obviously I have a little more time right now.
So I guess we caught you at the right time. But we really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. I mean, that sincerely and best of luck going forward that there's something that's slowing you down. So I'm not worried.
Enjoy your trip to Miami and honestly take some time to just take a breath and put your feet in the water. And again, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. Alex, John.