- A fearless pursuit of her passions and an intentional approach to creating the life she wanted has led Ann Kim to the helm of a restaurant chain that has netted $3.6 million in total revenue from just one restaurant — Young Joni — alone since 2016.
- She has since launched three successful restaurants in the Midwest that have flourished almost entirely thanks to word-of-mouth support.
- Part of the acclaimed restaurant Young Joni's success is a focus on people, offering all employees fair wages, benefits, and paid time off.
- Kim will open a new tortilla restaurant in Minneapolis' uptown neighborhood in the summer of 2020.
- Pushing herself "to the edge of discomfort" has been key to the exploration that led to her success.
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"My journey has not been easy. It has not been linear and it has not been traditional. I stand here because 10 years ago I said f--- fear," Chef Ann Kim said as she accepted the James Beard Award for "Best Chef in the Midwest" in May of 2019.
Kim credits her dedicated work ethic and need for passion and meaning in her pursuits as the impetus for her success, but is also refreshingly honest about how unplanned her path has been. "It was a lot of questioning what I wanted to do and what would make me happy," Kim told Business Insider. "Life is too short to daydream or ponder, 'What if?' Why not give it a go?"
That's exactly what Kim did multiple times in her life before becoming the notable restaurateur of a pizza paradise that has nabbed her $3.6 million in revenue she is now.
From law to acting to restauranteering
After studying at Columbia University, Kim worked at a law firm in New York City with her sights set on law school — until she began to notice that all of the people around her seemed miserable.
"I had kind of romanticized the legal profession. It was really a lot of sitting behind a desk and going through documents and having email exchanges," she said. "It wasn't how I wanted to spend my life."
So Kim turned to the dream she had had since she was young. "In the back of my mind I fantasized [that] I would drop out of school and start acting and make it to Broadway," she said. As endeavoring to work as an actor with student loan debt to pay off became untenable, she moved back to the Twin Cities, a place that has a thriving theater scene, in order to make a living while pursuing her passion.
Some 'creative financing' to get the business off the ground
Eventually, the hustle of finding gigs to support herself eclipsed her ability to pursue the art of acting, and amid the implosion of the financial crisis her then-boyfriend (now husband) Conrad Leifur lost his job in finance. As Kim remembered it, they looked at each other and decided they had nothing to lose in investing in a restaurant.
"He believed that I was a really great cook," she said, adding that he described her as lighting up when she was in the kitchen and told her that she was the best investment they could make.
Because it was the middle of the recession and banks weren't too into the idea of loaning money, the duo took their modest savings, maxed out a couple of credit cards, and qualified for a low-interest loan from the city to get their dream off the ground — a feat Kim affectionately calls "creative financing." Pizza Lola, a little spot in southwest Minneapolis fashioned after the many neighborhood restaurants that dot the streets of New York City, was the result.
A New York-style neighborhood spot in the Twin Cities that started it all
Her only goals for the endeavor were to be happy, work hard, and love what she was doing, but the neighborhood's reaction to her food exceeded her expectations. Word about the pizza restaurant owned by a Korean woman spread and after a few years of operations, Kim got a call from a producer for "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" and was subsequently featured on the show. "From there it just exploded," Kim recalled.
The success of Pizzeria Lola led to Hello Pizza, a counter-service spot, and the subsequent success of Hello Pizza led to Young Joni, the restaurant that would make her the best chef in the Midwest. It quickly became a destination restaurant despite no advertising or outside PR support. "Any of the accolades we've gotten are literally because people talk about us. I'm most proud of that," she added.
She's also proud of the quality of the jobs she's able to provide for her employees. What started with offering health insurance to all full-time employees at Pizzeria Lola has grown into a suite of benefits that more closely resemble Kim and Conrad's backgrounds in more traditional jobs. "We now offer health insurance for both full-time and part-time employees, a 401(k) with a match, and paid time off," she said of the approach she and Conrad, her partner in the endeavor, have taken that stands in stark contrast to most other restaurant jobs.
Employees are also offered leadership coaching opportunities that they're paid to participate in. Kim believes this has given her an edge in a competitive labor market since the softer, more EQ-focused qualities that circle skills like communication and collaboration are what can transform employees who know how to cook into employees who know how to lead.
"It's a tight labor industry. We have to invest in people first. It's about creating an environment where [my employees] can thrive, not be abused in terms of hours and wages, and really have a work-life balance that's conducive to mental, physical, and emotional health," she said. So far it appears to be working — Kim has had employees leave just to come back later after realizing how unique the culture she's created is.
Across her restaurants, a culture of comfort with confrontation has been instilled. "Don't let things stagnate. For us, it's about confronting it and not letting things fester into a giant sore," she added.
Success in the rearview mirror
In looking back on her success, she wants to offer caution to upcoming restaurateurs, noting that the margins are just as razor thin as everyone says that they are and that it's not as easy as just going on a show and nabbing an award.
Kim and Conrad bootstrapped the business in the beginning, putting much of the upfront cost on personal credit cards and doing everything from making Pizzeria Lola's lighting fixtures on their own to waking up at 6 a.m. to make dough to working the line all day and cleaning up at night. She credited her success to her method of treating the operation like the business that it is — a skill Conrad naturally brought to the mix with business plans and investment strategies. Kim put it this way: "Some people think if you just cook well, it's all going to be OK" — and learning to let go by hiring excellent leadership.
For Kim, hiring the right people means anchoring interviews in questions about real-world situations and how interviewees have responded to them and realizing that it takes around six months to realize if someone is actually a culture fit. "I'm less worried about technical skills because you can learn that. It's more about mindset and attitude — we manage our restaurants through our values," she said.
"Now I have an organization that [Conrad and I] built and people I trust who can do their best work," Kim added, "but it happened over 10 years. There are peak and valley moments when you want to quit and just throw in the towel, but nothing worth doing in life is easy."
These days, Kim spends more of her time outside of the kitchen than in it, most recently preparing to launch yet another restaurant — this time with a focus on tortillas. Suki and Mimi, as it will be called, is poised to set up shop in Minneapolis' uptown neighborhood in the summer of 2020 in an attempt to bring a neighborhood feel back to a now booming area of the city.
"If my work has made what has been a traditionally narrow path a little bit wider, a little bit more inclusive, than that will be my greatest achievement," Kim said in her James Beard acceptance speech.
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