92 Norma Listman: We didn't have many options at the time, and knew we didn't want to keep working in other people’s kitchens. We knew we could create a restaurant that pushed for change in our industry. We worked to create a global south feminist restaurant that put workers and farmers first. We created a model that prioritized the wellbeing of the workers and community around the restaurant and put people over profits. Saqib Keval: Our restaurant operations focuses on radical transparency and involves the whole team in reviewing finances and important decisions. We invite our customers and public to review the restaurant finances as well, and have input in how we exist in the community. We involve our neighbors into our day to day operations, and work hard to make our restaurant a resource to the workers and neighbors. It has been a long process since we first opened. We knew we would make mistakes along the way, but we also knew that a restaurant like this, rooted in community, was one worth opening. Norma Listman: We use our restaurant as a tool to advance social justice movements, share political education and build awareness of the role of food in the liberation struggles of the global south. The restaurant is a platform to speak truth to power and enact change. We work to highlight the intersections of food system change and social change. This means that our politics need to be involved in every aspect of the restaurant operations and that we, as a restaurant group, need to constantly work to make sure our actions are coherent with our ethics and politics. It is a constant process of making mistakes, learning and self critique. It is something that every member of our team takes seriously. Saqib Keval: Our ethics and values are woven throughout our business model. Our golden rule is that any decision we make as a restaurant group must first care for the workers. Conventional restaurants prioritize everything over the workers and their quality of life, which leads to higher operating costs as a result of increased staff turnover, more waste, breakage, lower sales and a more exploitative management style. With our restaurants, we wanted to demonstrate that good ethics and treating workers and farmers well is good for business and lowers our overall operating cost. Norma Listman: We practice open book financial management, where our staff reviews the financials together. This results in more staff involvement in decision making, and more agency in taking care of the bottom line. We offer a strong benefits package, a 1:1 coaching program and many avenues for growth within the organization, which results in a more engaged staff with better overall staff retention. We run a kitchen that actively seeks to lower food waste and rewards initiatives that achieve our weekly set objectives. We pay our farmers well and build genuine relationships with them, which leads to us getting better quality ingredients. Our team sets weekly objectives for lowering food costs, labor costs and operating costs while still protecting our group’s values and ethics. We have a very tightly run restaurant that maintains healthy operating costs without sacrificing food quality, service or labor rights. We are able to be the strong business that we are because of the highly invested staff and leaders within our organization. We measure our success by our own internal metrics and standards. We know we are successful when we have high team retention. When our staff are able to build sustainable and enriching careers within our restaurant group. We know we are working well when we see personal growth happening amongst our team members. Saqib Keval: Growth for us is not horizontal. We do not want to open more and bigger restaurants. We want to work vertically. We want to grow down. To the roots. We are not looking for physical expansion but rather intellectual expansion, and growth of our culinary and hospitality techniques, and critical understanding of our industry. This is why we brought on a full time team coach as one of the directors in the restaurant
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