Creations Never Imagined; Tastes Always Remembered
Christina Hamlett
October 14, 2006
I was down at the fish market at 6 this morning,” he explains, enthusiastically encouraging me to take a look at an enormous chunk of blue fin tuna that is in the process of being artfully incorporated into one of his house specialties. “Isn’t it gorgeous?!” he declares.
A kid in a candy store, I think, couldn’t be happier than Wong at this moment as he takes me on a tour, hops behind the bar to play restaurant critic Elmer Dills’ recent video review, then slides behind a chair opposite me, excited to start chatting with pride about what it’s been like to be a first-time restaurateur for the past 3+ years.
Though he’s new to the industry, Wong is quick to point out that he’s no stranger to the neighborhood. “I’m actually one of the very few native Angelenos,” he says. “I was born right here in L.A. at General Hospital and I grew up in the mid-Wilshire District.”
I ask what inspired him to open Japon Bistro.
With unabashed candor, he relates that he was “quite bored” with his last career as an executive recruiter. “I was lucky enough for the last 5 years of it to be able to work out of my home. It was fun for the first 3 or so years but I knew myself well enough to recognize that I wanted to be around a lot of people, interact with friends, and have a place to get up and go to every morning.”
Politics and international relations, he tells me, was actually his first love in college. (On an amazing note, we discover that we both graduated from California State University, Sacramento within a year of each other and may, in fact, have even been in some of the same communications classes.)
What really pulled me into the restaurant industry,” he continues, “is my love of creative, modern food. Modern Japanese cuisine is so different than Asian fusion in the sense that it’s an authentic cuisine with a modern twist. A phrase that I had coined when we first opened was, ‘Creations Never Imagined, Tastes Always Remembered’. We create things here at the restaurant that are very authentic, all Japanese ingredients and we put together combinations that make people say ‘Wow!’ There are flavors you might never have imagined but the taste—“ he smacks his lips together in a “mmmmm”—“you’re still thinking about it the next day or the next week and you want to come back and see what else you can try.”
Having friends who already worked in the industry and could give him start-up advice was a huge help, he reveals. “My entire life,” he says, “I’d been surrounding myself with people who loved food and knew food.” He laughs. “Just about every one of them tried to talk me out of doing this. It’s hard work. It’s challenging work, especially trying to keep coming up with things that are fresh and exciting and will keep customers coming back. But, hey, I went ahead anyway and here I am!”
With so many friends and consultants whose brains he could pick, what does he consider the best business advice anyone gave him?
Without hesitation, he replies, “Always be good to your staff and maintain as high a level of customer service as you possibly can.”
Thorough and strategic planning, he adds, is also essential to building a business—“any kind of business”— from the ground up. “I basically did the construction management of the restaurant so I knew everything that went on at every step of the way. Any changes that came to mind, I envisioned them and implemented them right on the spot so I was able to control cost overruns and such.”
He explains that 3 previous sushi restaurants had occupied the same space.
What I came into, however, was pretty much an empty shell. There were no sinks, no faucets, nothing. It had an old ugly sushi bar that was falling apart, an ugly front bar for drinks, mirrored walls, a black ceiling, purple vents.” He sticks out his tongue and says “Bleah!”
It took him 5 months to transform the prior drekkiness into something that would be suitable for upscale dining. “I knew that if I had let anything go or made any mistakes during the construction phase, I’d have to live with it.” He grins. “I don’t like living with guilt! All the ‘should’ves and could’ves’—I didn’t want to deal with them so I was just very careful to get everything right the first time out.”
I ask him to flash back to August 2003 when the doors of Japon Bistro first opened. He reflects on the question a moment. “Well, there’s always going to be butterflies. Then, there’s the exact moment when things happen and you’re not feeling any real anxiety, especially when you know you’ve done everything you can to prepare for it. The way I look at it, unless you open that door, you’ll never know whether you actually can. I always kid people when I say that I never operated a cash register before that first day of operation. It’s true!”
He recalls that there was a lot of buzz around town during the construction process. “People were curious about what it was going to be and what the food would be like. The first two days we were open, a lot of those people came in just to check it out. Interestingly, 90 percent of those customers are still with us.”
So what does Wong feel are the biggest challenges facing restaurant owners in today’s market?
Your question,” he responds, “hits the nail right on the head. When we talk about ‘today’s market’, things are very, very tough. The world economy is not in great shape. The world political climate is not good. The domestic situation is maybe doing okay here in California but the rest of the country is not doing so well. It’s a hard time period to launch a new restaurant, especially a fine dining restaurant. In uncertain times, the first layer of people in the food industry to take a hit are the fine dining establishments. People start to have a guilty feeling over spending money for upscale food while there are other people who are not able to.”
The number one priority in any restaurateur’s mind—whether it be a corner sandwich shop or an elegant restaurant that couples can go to—is focused on customer service. Customer service is king. I don’t care where you go or what you eat, if you don’t have good customer service, you’re not likely to go back, regardless of how good the food tastes. I really hate to say it but there are a lot of restaurants that are quite successful and have fabulous customer service and mediocre food. They’re doing gangbusters in business because customers like to feel that someone is paying attention to them and who really cares about them having a great time.”
Our conversation shifts to recent experiences that my husband and I have had in several Pasadena restaurants, especially when it comes to romantic occasions such as Valentine’s Day or Christmas Eve. When establishments become more obsessed by how many tables they can turn on what I call a “Hallmark-worthy” evening rather than keeping to their normal number of reservations and concentrating on stellar service, they are fairly quickly to lose our patronage.
The difference with Japon Bistro,” Wong points out, “is that we have a combination of many things going on that people come to recognize and understand and value as a place where they want to come and spend time. We have excellent servers, our food is pretty spectacular, and we have a comfortable environment that’s not pretentious or rushed. To open a restaurant in today’s market,” he says, “you have to have a passion for food and a passion for pleasing customers. If you’re strictly into it for the monetary side, you’re just not going to have a good product. For me, I can make money in any number of different ways. Accordingly, I don’t have to make money by ripping people off by thinking they’re getting good food when they’re getting something really mediocre. I tell everyone that I want them to leave happy, satisfied, and never hungry!”
Wong recently initiated the concept of monthly sake pairing dinners. “Well, the underlying factor,” he replies, “was to educate the general public about the differences and nuances of sake and how they complement difference Japanese foods.
It’s like wine tastings,” he explains, “where you have a different wine for each course. Did you know there are over 1100 different breweries in Japan? That’s a lot of sake to choose from!”
A lot of people, of course, only know sake as “that hot rice wine thing you drink out of a thimble”. Wong laughs when he compares it to rubbing alcohol. “Before I opened the restaurant, I never, ever ordered hot sake. I’d always order beer. The introduction of new grades and complexities of sake, though, totally changed my mind. Sake now is my beverage of choice!” A good Chardonnay, he offers for comparison, will hit 5 or so different notes on your palate; a good sake will hit 15 to 20. “I think sake should be shared with the world,” he proclaims, “and the sake pairing dinners are a fun way to introduce customers to the possibilities of making wonderful matches with different Japanese foods.”
So if he wasn’t running a restaurant, I ask, what would he see himself doing?
He chuckles. “My leisurely answer,” he says, “is that I would live in 3-4 different parts of the world a year. I would live in Central America for 3 months—Costa Rica, I think—then I’d live in Asia for three months, come back to the states for 3 months, and then who knows where I’d go off to for the next 3 months.”
I point out that between exotic travels and a white dinner jacket, he could become an international spy. As if on cue, his cell phone rings at that precise moment. The ring tone is the theme from James Bond. This cracks us both up. “Busted!” he exclaims. “But seriously…”
One of his servers walks by and has overheard my question. “The way you posed for pictures,” she comments, “you could be a male model.” This strikes him funny as well and he assumes a contemplative Jack Benny pose. “The cover of GQ maybe?” he considers. “I’ll have to think about that…”
Having had a political career and an executive headhunter stint, he believes he’d do well as a corporate event planner. “That would parlay my entire experience with politics, with people and, of course, with fabulous food and putting everything together into something spectacular and memorable.” He’s also entertaining the idea of one day becoming a philanthropist, adding in whimsical postscript, “in between spy gigs and modeling clothes…”
On a more immediate level, I ask what the remainder of 2006 holds for him. “I think 2006 will be my defining year,” he answers. “That’s the year that will really determine the longevity of Japon Bistro and whether I’m going to stay around for 10 or 15 years. I plan on hosting more sake pairing events. I plan on introducing more Japanese cuisine that people can get excited about. I’m always going to keep my menu fresh and ever-evolving. If we have an improvement on the world scene,” he prophecies, “I’d hope to see even more people coming through our doors and treating themselves to what the fine dining experience should be like.”
He adds that he wants to be “the small guy, the David that beats the Goliath of the sushi world!” He goes on to say that in the first year of operation, 80 percent of all new restaurants fail. In the second year, 50 percent of those remaining 20 percent fail. In the third year, there’s yet another drop-off ratio which is in the 50-60 percent range. “I’m going to make it through my third year,” he states with confidence. “I’m going to make it with style and originality and I guarantee you that no one is ever going to get bored with our menu!”
If he can actually find the time to do it, Wong also wants to start a Business Inclusion District for the area east of Lake Avenue. “The demographics,” he says, “show that things are moving eastward through the city. East of Lake is the forgotten part of Pasadena and it needs to be paid attention to. There’s a lot of potential here to push the envelope and get things rolling and I want to be the one to do it!”
Print
Email
