Episode Transcript
Move To Tacoma – Sidepiece Kitchen
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Hailey Hernandez: [00:00:00] This is Channel 2
Producer Doug Mackey: 5 3, move to Tacoma on this episode of Move to Tacoma.
Hailey Hernandez: Tacoma is a beautiful place. I love it. Um, and I’m determined to keep it, um, accessible to all so that my story is not a one-off. Um, and I hope that one day my employees open. Not their own side piece kitchen. ’cause I’ll sue the shit out of ’em.
I’m just kidding. I’m not really gonna do that. Don’t. No, no, no, no. But I’m hoping that we are part of their journey, but not in the way that people were part of my journey.
Producer Doug Mackey: Channel 2 5 3 is member supported. I’m producer Doug Mackey and I hope you’ll show your support by going to channel two five three.com/membership and join.
Thank you. We are back.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: I’m Marguerite and I want you. To move to Tacoma.
Move to Tacoma Theme Song: Move to Tacoma. Move to Tacoma. Move to Tacoma. You’ll like it. Move to Tacoma. Move to Tacoma. Move to tacoma.com.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Hi, I’m Marguerite. This is Move to [00:01:00] Tacoma, and we’re here today with Haley Hernandez. Hello. And we’re inside. Peace Kitchen.
Welcome Haley. Hello. Thank you for having me. Or having you rather Thank you for having us. Yeah. And letting us, uh, set up a bunch of stuff in here. Yeah, for sure. So it’s your three year anniversary. Happy anniversary. Thank you. I’m very excited to hear the story of how you got started and what it’s really like to run a business in Tacoma.
Uh, the glamorous parts and the less glamorous parts. Most definitely. But first, before we get into all that, um. When did you move to Tacoma and why?
Hailey Hernandez: I am actually a Tacoma native homegrown, so, and my husband who couldn’t join us today, but he’s the co-owner. Um, but he’s born in the house that we live in right now, so That’s unbelievable.
Yeah, literally in the same house. In the house, like in my bed is right where he was birthed, so. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Were you also born at home or were you born at like two years or? No, my parents were normal, so, um, just kidding. Lucky you. I love my mother-in-law. Uh, but, uh. She’s like one of those OG Tacoma hippie dippy, you know mm-hmm.
Types. Uh, [00:02:00] but no, I was, I was born in Longview, Washington. Okay. My dad moved up here ’cause he’s a construction worker. Got it. So did a lot of like, projects like the Narrowest Bridge and, uh, but I’ve officially been a homegrown person, like since I was like eight or. Seven or eight years old, so. Awesome. And what neighborhood did you grow up in?
Um, well we bounced around a lot. Mm-hmm. Uh, just ’cause around the timing of like the recession and everything. Mm-hmm. My parents were renters and we moved where it was most affordable. So I spent like my formative years kind of like 12th and Sprague, um, and South 12th and Sprague. And then, uh, I lived in University Place for a while, but I don’t have, unlike a lot of people who have like lived in, lived in one neighborhood their entire lives.
I. Maybe lived in a neighborhood like a couple years here and there. Um, but the longest I, right now at least I live, uh, like Central Tacoma, so.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Awesome. So you’re the house that you live in with your husband mm-hmm. That he grew up in is in Central?
Hailey Hernandez: Yeah, central. It’s like North Central. North Central. So yeah.
Okay. Six area. Mm-hmm. Nice. So what do you like about
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: living there?
Hailey Hernandez: Um, I like the area that we are in because [00:03:00] it’s kind of like one of the last places that feel like it’s the Tacoma. I don’t know how to say this correctly, but it’s one of the last places that feel like the Tacoma that we grew up in. Yeah.
Um, like that. That, I don’t know, that old Tacoma vibe of just a whole bunch of rundown smoke shops and just a perfect dose of commercialism. Um, and which end of six hour are you more towards Pearl. Okay. Okay. Makes sense. A little bit over that way. Yeah. RIP to Denny’s. Um, but, uh, just enough of like the, the sprinkled in, I know it, when I look around, it hasn’t changed as much as a lot of the other areas versus.
When I lived over on, when I was a kid, um, one of the first houses we lived in was on North 21st and Adams and uh, that whole area unrecognizable. Yeah, I don’t remember it at all. I cannot think, uh, yeah, it doesn’t even look the same. So
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: I’m trying to think. North 21st and Adam, right? By the power plant?
Yeah.
Hailey Hernandez: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We lived there for like a couple years and, uh, one of the first house that my parents rented. But I like the area that we’re in just ’cause to me it is, like I said, just the perfect mix. Um, it’s gotten just enough of [00:04:00] the, let’s revitalize so I don’t. Hit a pothole and pop my tire. Uh, but um, it’s still, still a little quieter and less touched.
So
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: what’s your favorite stuff to do in your neighborhood?
Hailey Hernandez: Um, hang out at my house. Uh, honestly, I know that’s the best answer. I am, uh, I’m in a really great position because I’m just close enough to 16. So if I wanted to go south, I’m just like the freeway’s right there, or highway at least, um, or go over to get car.
I don’t ever do that, but if I wanted to, I could. Um, I feel like I’m just like right in the middle of everything. Mm-hmm. I’m not too far from anything. And to me, the ability to, um, not have to say, oh, well I have to go all the way to the north side or all the way to Hosmer or wherever. Um, I really, really like that.
Plus. Um, my of the favorite things to do is we have a park. So if my dog does want to go walk, he kind of runs the roost of the house. So, uh, if he does wanna walk, we’re right there. And, um. I dunno, we have, if I wanna eat local food, I can go down the street to the tiki hut or if I wanna go, um, drunkenly at 2:00 AM to any of the fast food chains, I could do that too.
So that’s what I like. [00:05:00]
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Perfect balance. Yeah, it is. That’s awesome. So how did you get to the point? Where you were like, I want to be the biscuit queen of Tacoma. Like, claim my destiny.
Hailey Hernandez: How did this happen? I don’t know if there was ever a point that I had done that. I think like the best way to, the best way to kind of summarize it is I am industry born and raised.
Like my first job I worked at Little Holland, Mikey Burger. Um, that was my first restaurant job. My husband, um, we. Been together since we were 16 years old. We went to Mason. Oh my gosh. We went to Mason Middle School together. Um, so we are high school sweethearts. Um, and, uh, we both just, uh, we didn’t have, we didn’t pursue like the college route.
Um. I couldn’t afford to, he didn’t want to, ’cause he didn’t wanna leave me ’cause I’m just, I’m awesome. Um, and he didn’t wanna go somewhere out of state. Um, but, uh, we, uh, both grew up in the industry. I didn’t really have many other avenues. Um, so growing up in the industry, working through the industry, being a service worker for eons, um, [00:06:00] you just get burnt out and tired and you don’t necessarily feel like you have a way out.
Yeah. Um, and I think it was just one. Bad, but I mean, I could list a resume of places that I’ve worked even locally that don’t exist anymore. Um, and to me. It was getting sick of having to file for unemployment because of a, a, a place closed or being sick of working for the places that do maybe, still, still sustain, um, that, uh, they sustain because they were, you know, maybe not the best employer.
So it pushed me to my point of not taking care of the labor. Yeah, for sure. Um, and so I kind of just got pushed my breaking point and I realized after working for, I was working as an executive chef at the time for a, a local place and, uh. I realized I was giving all of these ideas and my passions and my dreams and everything that I had worked on and my skillset that I had worked on, my husband was working that at the same time.
And, um, it dawned on me that why am I doing this for somebody else to profit off of my labor? Um, to me that was instrumental and to, and into what. [00:07:00] Became side, side piece. Um, it took about a year of convincing myself that I was being taken advantage of or, um, I, I essentially, like, I don’t even know, um, to, to realize that the situation that I was in wasn’t ideal.
Um, so I spent that time researching and figuring out how I was gonna do it. ’cause how is. I mean, I don’t come from a family of money, right? I, my parents are construction workers. Um, I’m the oldest of three girls and my dad’s a construction worker, not my mom. She’s a stay at home mom. Um, me and Dante, we decided to play house the second we turned 18.
So we didn’t do things like, you know, invest into 4 0 1 Ks. And so I was sitting there at the time, 27, and I had no money. I think I had $300 in my pocket. I’m like, how am I gonna figure out how to do this? Um, yeah, that’s, that’s what, how did you do it? Uh, I think the best driving force of making something succeed is, um, a, a scorned woman, um, and grit and determination and, uh, I no lies detected.
I, to me it was kind of like. Um, [00:08:00] it wasn’t out of Nece. It was, it wasn’t out of like desire and this dream to, to start this biscuit restaurant or biscuit enterprise or whatever. Um, it was out of necessity. Like if I didn’t get out of the situation I was in, I felt like I. I didn’t think I was gonna survive.
I had just been diagnosed with lupus. Mm-hmm. Um, I was very sick at the time. I was in nephrotic lupus, which is when you’re like nearing kidney failure. Um, and it was because I was working 80, 90 hours a week on a $45,000 salary. Salary, um, working 14, 15, 16 hour days, and. So, um, outta necessity, I just looked at my husband and I said, Hey, um, I just broken my arm at the time at work, at work and didn’t miss a single day.
And I looked at him and said, I can’t do this anymore. And he’s like, I know. And I’m like, I have to figure something out. I said, what are you gonna do? I said, I’m gonna do this for myself. Um, so I lied on a payday loan application. Do Money Tree right down the street on 38th. You went to Money Tree? Yeah, I had got a payday loan for, I think it was like [00:09:00] $2,400 or something like that.
Some something, give or take. And, and that was what I used to fund my first commissary kitchen. I had seen buddies, chicken and waffles on Instagram and so I knew that it was possible to be able to, um, do a takeout kitchen where somebody could order online. Okay. Wait,
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: you
Hailey Hernandez: be, have to explain
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: how this works because I mean, everything I’ve ever heard, like to open a restaurant.
Like costs a lot of money. Mm-hmm. And you’re like, I had 2,400 I, I what I imagine was a high interest loan for $2,400. Yeah. So what was the business model that you were working off of? And when you say, okay, I’ve seen buddies do it, like, did you call buddies and be like, no, what’s the business model? You just dove it.
Hailey Hernandez: Well, I mean, I think that’s a kind of the benefit of having. Regardless of the situation of where I was working, I was, for lack of a better phrase, uh, using somebody else’s funds to learn how to run a business. Mm-hmm. Um, I was, you know, working as a salaried manager at the place and, uh, doing everything from the social media side of it.
So I was pr aware of like permitting aspects. Okay. And, um, just kind of like the day-to-day ins and out. So I start with a business plan, absolutely not.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm. [00:10:00]
Hailey Hernandez: Um, and I saw that it was possible and I knew I was gonna figure it out along the way. But that being said, as far as like a business plan, a business model, my goal was just to be able to sustain and make money until I could find another job.
There was no side pieces gonna be a brick and mortar. There wasn’t even a side piece is gonna be a takeout kitchen in six months. Mm-hmm. I thought that I would make some money until I found another job and figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Um, and. Our first month, uh, I got a, I did a GoFundMe where actually one of my current employees, Evan, his parents funded the entire thing so I could get a commercial Kitchen Aid mixer.
It was like $500. It did. They get free
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: biscuits for life. Yeah, they’re honestly,
Hailey Hernandez: Evan’s parents are the sweetest people I’ve ever met in my life, and they’re also Tacoma lifers. Um, and he worked with me at that past business, followed me and he’s still here. Um, and then, uh. Yeah, I just like anything I could do, I bought equipment used and the takeout kitchen model is fantastic for people who are just getting started.
Um, I think especially when the fire behind you is that you have no other option. Yeah. [00:11:00] Um, at the time my phone was disconnected and, uh, I had maybe a hundred and something dollars in my bank account, um, rent was due and I was sitting with a, like you said, high interest. Payday loan from Money Tree, um, and a Kickstarter, and I made a website and an Instagram page, and within a about two months of finishing the permits and telling my job, Hey, I’m out of here.
Um, I’m taking everything with me that I opened and we sold out that weekend and it was originally just my mom would come help me prep on the weekdays. ’cause I don’t know if she really thought that it would succeed, even though she tells me that I always believe in you. You’re the oldest, you can do anything you want.
Um, I think that she also knew that what I was doing was like, really? Anxiety inducing. So, um, she would prep on the weekends and then my husband was still working at the same employer that I had just quit. Um, and so he would on his weekends, come and, um, work the takeout kitchen. So started a website. It was like.
60 bucks for to host on, on [00:12:00] square’s website platform. People would order online. I would post the specials that week, um, on Instagram, which cost me zero money. And, uh, the bulk of my bulk of my funds spent upfront were in my permitting, which was quite large, um, in my, my lease with the commissary kitchen and then with ingredients.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: So can you explain for people watching, like what is a commissary kitchen and how did you find mm-hmm. The location so that you could mm-hmm. Make this happen for so little?
Hailey Hernandez: So a commissary kitchen is essentially a giant commercial kitchen where all the equipment is commercial grade and they are held to.
The permitting codes and laws of the area. Um, you rent a space, it’s like a shared workspace. Um, so you rent a space, you get a certain amount of hours and you can’t exceed those hours, and you have a station assigned and you work out of that kitchen. It’s how places that use the farmer’s market or restaurants that.
That are at the farmer’s market or even makers that make things like jerky or juices. Um, any small maker that doesn’t have a physical [00:13:00] location, so usually it’s quite expensive. Um, and in Tacoma there are not a lot of commissary kitchens. I think the newest one would be Sue’s Way, which is over in like north.
Tacoma, or sorry, uh, south, uh, 23rd in Tacoma Avenue I believe. And then, um, people might be fa familiar with the gourmet niche, which has been around forever. And they’re at the, the end of Sixth Avenue all the way towards, um, kinda like TLO area like Jackson over by the Tacoma little theater. Um, and our Tacoma musical Playhouse.
So that’s become a musical playhouse, right? Yeah, it is on six in Jackson area. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh, I always confuse ’em. I do, I do too. Yeah. It, we only have two theaters and I managed to confuse it Shouldn’t be hard. And yeah, here we are. I’ve been here forever. Uh, but, uh, it’s a great way for makers to be able to test out at.
A product or be able to, um, kind of soft run a or even hard launch a business idea for a food-based business without having to have a physical space.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: And you say it’s expensive, but like, compared to even like the [00:14:00] cheapest restaurant space, like what’s the general difference between Right.
Hailey Hernandez: So fact in, in case someone’s listening to me.
Yeah. The difference is with a commissary kitchen is you’re based on hours and you rent everything. Everything’s an upgrade, so you only have a certain amount of space that comes with your package. That’s all the space you get. If you grow and you need more space, um, more than, let’s say a couple of shelves in a walk-in and a couple of shelves in dry storage, then you need to rent more.
Um, so those costs start to add up. We had started with 40 hours a week is all we were allowed in the kitchen. So my business hours and my prep hours had to fit within that. That allotment the amount of space I had needed to fit with that allotment. So you have to be like super efficient. Yeah. Versus within your own space, you know, you don’t have to worry about how many hours you’re there.
If prep runs over, it’s not the end of the world. If you had a crazy busy week, you’re not. Held to 40 hours a week and then the surcharge. Um, and you’re also held to your own standard, not the standards of others. Um, one downfall of working in a commissary is [00:15:00] if there’s a commissary tenant that is near you or their station is next to you.
Uh, yes, there’s a baseline cleanliness that is what upheld in like contracts and signed agreements, but those agreements aren’t always maybe to your standard of certain things. So that is one downfall. Um, and, uh, it’s like having roommates. Yeah. It’s like if somebody, if one person gets. A, a health issue like rodents, you all get it.
And so, um, there’s things like that, uh, and this, and this
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: is Tacoma, so that’s a thing. Yeah. I mean, it is.
Hailey Hernandez: Yeah. Um, but I would say to be able to test an idea on a, um, on a smaller scale without having to worry about, um, signing into a five year lease. Right. Um, in a, and also when you don’t have any other.
Funds to be able to do it. It’s a really good way to get started. Um, and it was something that was instrumental in our being able to succeed. Um,
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: yeah.
Hailey Hernandez: So
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: how long were you working out of the commissary kitchen before you were like. Okay. Like this is viable. Like yeah, for sure. This is like, this is gonna be my, my business now.
Hailey Hernandez: So we soft [00:16:00] launched as like a test run in May of 2022. Oh my gosh. It was 2022. Oh my goodness. Um, 2022 and we did one week. And um, I knew at that moment that, okay, if it’s gonna be like this. Dante’s gonna need to quit his job. I, I can’t, my husband, I’m like, I can’t have him just here on the weekends. Um, the first full official weekend was the first weekend of June and we sold out and then, um, it kept happening.
And then the second month, uh, which was July, I told my husband, Hey dude, like I. This isn’t, I’m gonna need help, more help than this. Um, why don’t you come work for me for free? Um, and uh, I’ll give you half the company. Uh, ’cause it was his too. We’re married. That’s the best thing about being married.
Everything. His good credit score score. My good credit score. Uh, it’s fantastic. Uh, his shirt’s my. Shout out my shirts. Um, so, uh, that happened. He kind of quietly quit and, uh, thankfully we had some, some unemployment money from the quiet quit. Um, and he came and worked for me full time. And, uh, I knew actually probably in July, mid-July when it hadn’t slowed down yet that we were gonna [00:17:00] need to upgrade our package at the commissary kitchen or find a different space.
Fortunately, and unfortunately at the same time, we were witnessing, um, just like bad practices, uh, as a, not even as a landlord, but just as a person from the situation we were in. And our coten, which was Buddy’s chicken and waffles, um, was um, kicked out of the kitchen. And I over, over things that were honestly wild.
Uh, they’re all deep in our Instagram. Somebody, if anybody was curious, the lore exists, the if you wanna, is down there. Yeah. Um, but uh, I looked at my husband and I said, we have to move too. We can’t give this lady money.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm. And
Hailey Hernandez: he said, are you sure we’re two months into this? And I said, yeah, this is a moral issue.
So we walked out of that kitchen in, um, August. I told her, keep my money. I don’t care. Um, I’m not giving you a single penny. Um, I had just come from a bad situation with bad owners. I wasn’t gonna pay a bad landlord. I wasn’t gonna do that by choice. So, um, I reached out to another commentary speech in the [00:18:00] space, in the area who was down to, um, I.
To take us as tenants and what you’re doing when you’re doing like a takeout kitchen like that, where you’re essentially a ghost kitchen or cloud kitchen. Um, when you’re doing that, it’s something that’s not the typical thing that commissary kitchens are set up for. Mm-hmm. Um, that essentially acting as like a physical restaurant, um, without a physical restaurant.
So finding one was difficult. So we found a different commissary. Um. And Buddy and I moved together as well again, uh, and I told him, if I move with you we’re best friends for life. And he said, yeah, obviously. So we moved together and we did it in a different space. And so that was September when we finally opened, and I would say the end of September was when I looked at my husband and said, we need to upgrade again.
Um, already, yeah, we couldn’t keep up. And at that point you’d been in business like six months? Not even. So all of June, all of July, two weeks of August, and then all of September. So less than four months, uh, in total. And then, uh. And this was fueled by just like, yeah, the demand for your [00:19:00] delicious biscuits.
We would just keep selling how we’d, we’d upgrade how, or we’d, uh, raise our pars and make more and it would still sell out. And we would take pre-orders or we would take orders like per the day and people would come pick ’em up and there was a certain amount allotment. So we decided instead of upgrading our space again, ’cause I was.
Extra, extra broke. Um, my, my, uh, yeah, it was just a, a wild situation. Um, we, uh, we decided to expand our hours. Um, so that would entail asking our friends for help. So first person that we asked was Evan, who I used to work with. He would come help us out, um, here and there. He just had a child. He wasn’t working.
Um, so it kind of helped with his schedule. Like he could just like pay him under the table a few hours. And then October happened and we continued to get even busier and it wasn’t enough for the three of us, and my mom couldn’t, uh, keep helping out. So I reached out to another friend of, um, sidepiece who helped us out with popups.
Um, they also worked at our previous employer and then I wanna say Jan or January, December was when. [00:20:00] It really hit the fan that we were way bigger than we ever could have imagined, and we needed a bigger space. So I started looking at other commissary kitchens. I started looking at other commissary kitchens.
Nothing existed that would meet the demand of what we needed or that operated within what we were doing. So I started looking at food trucks. The problem with the food truck is you still need a licensed commissary kitchen. And so what was I gonna do? Prep? I didn’t know that. Yeah. You still need a commissary kitchen.
Yeah. So you’re still, I’m still bound by the same. You know, a situation that I was trying to get out of which I didn’t have enough space. Mm-hmm. Um, we didn’t have enough storage space. We didn’t have enough prep space. We didn’t have enough hours. Uh, so with the new truck, which we had no money, we still were not putting money in into a savings ’cause we were just.
Scraping by just paying ourselves and putting money into taxes and all that.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Yeah.
Hailey Hernandez: Um, so with a food truck lease, which we would’ve had to completely lease, we not any money to put down on it with our, while also paying a commissary kitchen, we were looking at upwards of like eight to $10,000 a month that would be coming out.
And that’s [00:21:00] just in space. And for food truck plus the permitting of moving a food truck around Tacoma’s not the most food truck friendly city. Right. Um, so the permitting for that and then also just. Every other tiny detail, the truck maintenance, moving the truck from space to space. Yeah. So I looked at my husband and I said, dude, we can’t afford to expand at least in Tacoma with a food truck, and we can’t afford to.
We can’t afford to move kitchens ’cause there’s nothing around us. Um, I think that we should try to do a brick and mortar. And he looked at me, he said, you’re an idiot. And I went, I know, I know, I know. He’s like, the best part about doing this is that we got a break from like having to be customer facing.
Right. And I’m like, yeah, I get that. He’s like, I thought this was supposed to be a break. I’m like, I know, I know. But we have essentially two full-time employees now and we keep going. You’re like, you had seven month break. Like people are so mad that we keep selling out all the time. Um, why don’t, he’s like.
And he goes, with what money? I said, well, why don’t we do Kickstarter? So that’s what we did. I, uh, while we were doing service, [00:22:00] I sat my phone up on the front counter of like the, the commercial space and I recorded a video for Kickstarter. And in between each take I would go and run and make orders. ’cause we were slammed that day.
So I would go rush, rush, rush, try to fix my hair, go make the video. Um, and then that night I finished all the Kickstarter documentation and the everything you gotta fill out. And I posted the video. You, you did all that in a day. Yeah. One day.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: I, I wanna say I, like, I’ve known people that do kickstart like people, some people really get ready to get ready on Kick Kickstart.
Didn’t that? Yeah. I, they really overthink. I had, you know, no
Hailey Hernandez: idea. I know people hire like a whole management team, like consultants. I had no idea. Yeah, I didn’t know that that was something that people did. So, call it ignorance or call it like. I’m always just a, I mean, I set our website up on our own. I did everything else on our own website to follow our permits.
I’m like, I’m, I’m gonna do this. Plus I didn’t feel like I had any other option. Um, ’cause we, like I said, had $0 aside from what was just coming in. Um, and I did not know that people hire, like full on. I learned that afterwards. Um, I think it, I filled [00:23:00] everything out. It got approved like a couple days later.
We launched the Kickstarter. I made the post and then, um. We had been looking at spaces. The space that we’re currently in was up. It had been listed for quite some time. We used to live down the street, so we knew it was empty.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Let the record show we’re on the corner of 47th and South Oaks near the Tacoma Mall.
Hailey Hernandez: It was, um, we knew the area. We, Dante and I are, our first like adult apartment was over here for years. Mm. Um, and so we were comfortable with the area plus. What we were paying in rent at the commissary was like, I wanna say like $2,600 a month for X amount of hours a week. And this space with our, just the lease was listed at like $1,400 a month plus triple net per square foot.
Mm-hmm. So our triple net was really low as well, so. The rent alone was cheaper than what we were paying at the commissary. How much infrastructure was here? Did you have to get a lot of
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: commercial equipment or plumbing?
Hailey Hernandez: So it was already zoned for, um, commercial, so that was great. Especially commercial food.
It already had a grease trap, which is a big Yeah, big hiccup here in Toronto. I’ve heard about
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: that before. Yeah.
Hailey Hernandez: [00:24:00] And so that was like our big thing. And then it already had, um, a hood vent installed, which is another big giant purchase that you don’t really hear about. The grease trap overshadows it. But yeah, the hood vent and HVAC system being installed, and it was small, we could run takeout.
From it, the area is a little quieter for amount of tropic and there was enough parking. So, um, it just seemed like a, a good thing to do and that’s what we did. And I. Launched the Kickstarter and reached out to the real estate company and said, Hey, I wanna lease this space. Can we see it? We signed an LOI the next day, a letter of intent to lease the
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: next day.
Yeah,
Hailey Hernandez: we looked at it, I said, this is the space. And then, um, 30 or 25 days later, we funded the Kickstarter. So on April 25th, my husband’s birthday, and then April 30th, uh, they approved the LOI and the next day we went. Paid the money. Okay, so this is
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: April 25th, 2 20 23. Yeah. So we, so less than a year later, you’re in a brick and mortar.
Mm-hmm.
Hailey Hernandez: Yeah. And so we got $25,000. Well, actually we did not get $25,000. That was what our Kickstarter total [00:25:00] goal funding was. Yeah. One thing people don’t tell you about Kickstarter is if somebody’s card declines, you screwed. This is what it is. Um, so we actually only collected 2,100 something or 20,000.
21,000 something. Uh, and you pay taxes on that too? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I, I don’t ever, I don’t remember. I think you do. I don’t recall. I don’t, maybe it depends on how much. Yeah. I think it also comes of how much comes out in the way that it comes out. Yeah. Actually it feels like so long ago. Um, but we funded it.
I couldn’t believe it. I posted some ugly crying video of me in the morning being like, oh my God, I can’t believe you guys did this. Like it was lifechanging. It is life changing. Yeah, it was. So, um, yeah, but the problem is, is $21,000 doesn’t go very far when one of in costs. Six to $10,000. Right. So, um, and construction and all that jazz.
So we knew at the very beginning that we were gonna have to do everything on our own. You see, people say like, yeah, we built our own restaurant. Um, but they have at least a contractor somewhere or a plumber somewhere, or, yeah, no. You can go pull our permits. We [00:26:00] didn’t hire as, we don’t have a, the only permit we did was for our, our Ansel system, the hvac, uh, or up in the hood vent.
There’s a fire suppression system. I don’t know how to do that. And I didn’t wanna get in trouble. So that was our biggest one. And that was actually an unexpected surprise purchase because of improperly done, um, Ansel system that was unpermitted that had caused us to fail our first inspection. Hmm. Um, so it was an unexpected $15,000.
Expense. Um, and that was wild when you only had that much money. So we would, uh, run the takeout kitchen during the day. Dante and I, um, I think we started, the day we got the keys. I brought a sledgehammer in and I hit this wall and it was the most therapeutic experience of my life. Um, and I remember just sitting in here like crying and being like, I can’t believe that this is real.
And I don’t know if maybe I was also crying ’cause oh my God, what did I just get into? Right? But we, uh. We would go and we would work the, we didn’t really have much of a plan. I got like those, you know, those big giant post-it sticky notes? Yeah, yeah. Like the gigantic ones. Mm-hmm. I got that. I tacked it up to this wall and I started like writing all the things we needed to do.[00:27:00]
And then by my fourth sheet I sat there, I’m like, okay, so let’s just start with this, uh, the demo stuff. And then we would work at the takeout kitchen during the day doing prep, um, and doing orders on the days that we were open at the takeout kitchen. So we’d wrap up around two o’clock, and then this is in.
May, and then we’d get off at two. We were right down the street, bomb over here. And then from two 30 to 10 30 at night, we were working. It didn’t matter what day of the week it was, it was me 10, my husband and my father-in-law. And we would chisel up the ground with, uh, we learned that you could rent a device at some point that made it easier.
Um, but the rest we did was literally with the hammer and, um, we bashed out walls. And I, um, before all this though, I had reached out before we even signed the lease. I reached out to Sean Madison from the, um, grease shop situation and made sure that we were good on everything that we would, didn’t need permits for, uh, beautification changes, anything that wasn’t structural.
Is this someone at
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: the city? Yeah, Sean Madison
Hailey Hernandez: is like, you’ll hear him talk if any conversation about the grease traps come up. He’s about Sean. Uh, he’s not the most loved guy in the [00:28:00] industry, but uh, ’cause he’s the. The czar of the three chefs. But, um, we had made sure that anything that we were gonna do didn’t need a permit.
Um, so we weren’t doing anything structural or anything that would cause load bearing issues. So like
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: aesthetics?
Hailey Hernandez: Yeah. So cutting a hole in this wall, I didn’t need a permit for that. Mm-hmm. Or, um, you know, changing a sink out for something that already had preexisting plumbing I didn’t need. I didn’t need a permit for that.
That’s great. I wasn’t installing anything, so we saved a lot of money on that facet versus a lot of these shell businesses that restaurants go into.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Yeah.
Hailey Hernandez: They have to like install all those things. So just in permitting and wait times alone. Um, plus our grease trap was good, so that was great. Um,
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: this is a good time to pause for the break.
Yeah. And when we come back, I, I mean, I, I feel like we kind of understand the era before you got the space. Like I know that. You, you had to hire people. You, you had to become a boss after having such bad experiences. Yeah. F uh, with bosses before for sure. Like Sure. I wanna hear about all that. Yeah, most definitely.
Okay. Yeah, [00:29:00] be right back.
Channel 253 Founder Erik Hanberg: Hello, this is Eric Hanberg, host of Citizen Tacoma and a co-founder of Channel 2 5 3.
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Thank you, thank you. Move
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: to Tacoma. And we’re back to the Move to Tacoma podcast with Haley Hernandez from Sidepiece Kitchen. Hi Hailey. Hello again. Okay, so when we [00:30:00] left off, you were just talking about opening the brick and mortar space, and I think this is really like, obviously I had seen your socials, which I think like, I mean, I’m sure anybody watching probably already knows that, but the reach of your socials is really outsized for the size of your business.
Mm-hmm. This is really, and I think like it’s, it’s a real testament to how much people like you. Yeah. And also like. You have really good biscuits and cheesecake, obviously, like you have a lot of social capital and people love your, your socials. So that’s how I first became aware of you at probably at about this time was when I really started to pay attention to what you all were doing.
How would you say the way that you approach social media. Supports your business. Mm-hmm. And how is it maybe different than the way some other small businesses do?
Hailey Hernandez: Um, I would say like the biggest factor of it is, first of all, side pieces. Has never paid a dollar about or a dollar for advertising whatsoever.
I’ve never put a dollar into paying for an ad. Um, and my concern has never been with social media trying to. Reach anybody. [00:31:00] Um, I’m not like our social media. Um, the second it starts to become curated, it starts to become, uh, it starts to feel like kind of false to me and not indicative of who I am and who we are.
And for us at least, um, when I started, it was the only way I was gonna reach people and I didn’t intend to reach anybody other than people who had followed my business page from my previous friends list. Um, so it started as my personal Instagram. I actually just got a reminder today of a post they do, like the memories post that I had posted, like we’re at 1000 followers now and that was three years ago.
So, um, and now I think we have like 52,000 something that’s bananas. And we have like videos that people have seen 20. Someone million times like, and that was then intention was never to like curate this aesthetic for um, right. For a social media. So I think that’s like the biggest thing in how to approach it is people always ask, people do ask, they go, what are your tips for social media?
I wish I could tell you ’cause I just post what I think is funny. Um, I post what I would laugh at. I post what [00:32:00] is on my mind. Sometimes it’s. It gets me in trouble. I’m gonna be honest. Well, yeah,
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: but I think, I think like you are very honest on social and you also speak to your customer. And when other people who are not your customer have something to say about that, you, you don’t let that rattle you.
No, this
Hailey Hernandez: isn’t their place. This isn’t for, I didn’t open this place. I mean, like, I think. Side piece. A side piece kitchen in its own was formed based off of a radical or act of resistance. Like it was resisting against what we had just come from, it was resisting against what we were told that we could do with our lives.
And it was 100%, it was a, it was a form of, of, of, I mean, there’s another way to put it, but breaking barriers for, for all of that. Um, and we had spent years like working for people and told that we had to curate this to the guest and that the customer was always right. Mm-hmm. Um, I wasn’t gonna do that with my business, especially if it was like my, my money.
I wasn’t going to, I wanted, when you open a business, you have a very, you have the potential to strategize, curating your customer base. I knew exactly what [00:33:00] customers I would like to serve, and I knew what exactly which ones I didn’t want to. Mm-hmm. Um, so my content that I posted on social media, if there was any curation, did have to do with curating the customer that I wanted to, um, come here for us.
Um, and this is no secret, we’ve highly politicized our business. I just posted this morning a biscuits ski against bands and a slice against ice like again, which. We launched. And what, what does that mean? What does that mean? So, okay. It’s important to know that one we opened May or June, technically soft launch May, 2022.
June, 2022 was our first official month. June, I wanna say it was like the 24th of 2022 was when Roe v. Wade was overturned. Mm-hmm. So we’ve been opened for just a few weeks and that was when I decided to launch our first ever basic. Biscuits against bands where we donate. At the time it was $1 per biscuit went to Cedar River Clinics, which is a, they provide, um, health services like abortion or gender affirming care.
Right? Um, and it was an, uh, an act of protest of we’re gonna help raise money for this because I, this is a woman owned business, right? Like I right [00:34:00] to, to come here and eat here. I’m fueling you. I’m, I’m literally feeding you and nurturing your existence. And if you’re gonna vote against my existence. I, you know, that’s just wild.
I don’t wanna feed you. Um, so, uh, we’ve done that now eight times and we in, we started to factor in what we call slice against ice, where we’ve included cheesecakes into it too, where we donate to the Northwest immigrants rights projects. Um, my husband is Mexican American, his dad is from Mexico. And so, uh, that was something that was really.
Really important to us. We started it in January. No coincidence to why we started it, but in January of this year, um, right after the inauguration and, um, we, uh, donate 50% of all cheesecake sales for the day to, um, the Northwest Immigrants Rights project, who does amazing things. So, yes. Um, but yeah, no, we were able to, that was the first moment people told me you’re in when we first opened.
They’re like, you’re so foolish. Like you’re going to cancel your own business. Who told you that? So many people. Oh my gosh. Local business owners. I see you look at me now. [00:35:00] Um, vocal, business owner, new era. Yeah. Of the business
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: marketing especially. You’re not Walmart, right? Mine,
Hailey Hernandez: like, my God, even my parents I think were a little concerned that I was picking such a heated, I mean, aside from political situation in this country, like that’s always been a very heated conversation topic, right?
And so that I was choosing to fund or choosing to do a fundraiser based off of that. So, but I knew that it was a really good way early on to draw the line in the sand of. Hey, this is where I stand. Um, I don’t care what you think. Um, well, and standing
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: up for something. Yeah. Do you find that increases customer loyalty in general?
Like, I think so. It seems like it would
Hailey Hernandez: to me. It wasn’t even like, I guess, yeah, I, I would say so. Yeah. Um, just because it’s not, there’s not a lot of places out there, especially, we had not even been open in a month yet when we launched our first one. And I think, um, especially in this area, I think what we have done as far as that is concerned and using our voice for those purposes.
I don’t think there’s a more Tacoma thing that you can do, and I have always been die hard. [00:36:00] Tacoma. I’ll always be die hard. Tacoma, I ride for Tacoma in all of its, all of its glory and all of its failures. Um, I love this city. I’ll never stop loving Tacoma. I’ve traveled all over and I don’t, I could never leave here.
Um, and I think. A lot of us that are og homegrown tacos have, in a way, felt pushed out in so many ways, um, which is a whole nother issue. And to see, um, Tacoma’s always been gritty and Tacoma’s always been a, you know, we’ve always done things that are a little off the cuff or a little, you know, whatever.
Uh, so I think it, it reached You’re not upsetting anyone’s sensibilities with this. Yeah, no, I mean, I honestly, to be frank, I don’t really care. Uh, yeah. And I, I, I, to me, I was. I thought, like, okay, well if anybody agrees with it, then they agree with it. If they don’t, then, and the OG way is like, they’re just not gonna support us, and that’s okay.
Um, so,
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: so the next part of this that I’m curious about, so like the social side is mm-hmm. I think really interesting and really visible to. People on the outside. Yeah, [00:37:00] but what about the labor side? Because I think, yeah. You know, a lot of people say, oh yeah, you know, you think you know, you know everything about how to have employees.
Well now you have employees and you have to deal with the DOL. Yeah. And like what has that been? It’s not the DOL, I don’t even know what department labor. It’s still the DLL and I and all that stuff and all
Hailey Hernandez: of that. What,
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: what lessons have you learned, and also how have you stayed true to yourself in that department?
Hailey Hernandez: Yeah. I’ve learned that I was ripped off for like 15 years of my life. I’ve learned that I busted my ass for other people to take advantage of me, and I learned that they put profits over people. That is what I learned. I pay, there is not a single employee at SPE who makes less than $20 an hour. Um, every single one of them is on an equal tip pool.
All of my employees have health insurance and dental care. We’ve been open. Everybody has health insurance and dental. If they wanted it, I didn’t force anybody. Right? But if they wanted it, they got to pick their own healthcare plan. When I said, I wanna offer you guys health insurance. Um, I gave them the options and told them, what do you guys want out of a plan?
It wasn’t this, this is the cheapest plan that money can buy. Right. Um, it anybody who works over 40 hours a week and has been [00:38:00] here and, uh, since the beginning, um, they have, their health insurance is all covered 100%. We pay for all of it. They don’t have to pay a cent. Everybody else, it’s like a 60 40 split.
Um, I, they get, we pay time off outside of just the statewide mandate of like sick pay, which is 40 hours. We also have a company policy, which they get. Our base employee gets 40 hours of P-P-T-O-A year that they can use however they like, uh, uh, in addition to the 40 hours of sick pay, and then managers get an additional week as well.
Um, we also, so that’s a week of paid time off sick pay. Yeah. And then a week of company paid time off as well. Wow. So like a person could
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: take a
Hailey Hernandez: vacation or take if they take care of their
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: sick kid or, or they wanna go
Hailey Hernandez: home early one day and use PTO for, and it’s paid, it’s paid 100% at their, at their standard rate.
And then anytime that we close as a business. I told them when we first opened, when we sat here in the same spot, and I said, any day that I don’t wanna be opened, that I wouldn’t work, I would never ask you to work. And if, um, if we don’t work it, I don’t think you should lose money over it. So they also get paid.
So I’m not working 4th of July. Mm-hmm. [00:39:00] That’s, I like to get drunk that day. Um, I would feel weird if they lose, uh, you know, 10 hours or eight hours of their day or of their pay. So if it’s an additional holiday that we are closed, we pay them additional as well outside of that 40 hours of PTO that they can take at any time.
We treat our employees very well. So when I say that I feel like I was lied to for years, I am doing fine. We are doing fine. As a company, our margins are fine. Um, and I think a lot of that is because I’m here and I work every day, right? And I open a bus. It’s not that I opened a business to sit behind a desk and play.
Business owner. Um, I opened the business to give myself a job.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Mm.
Hailey Hernandez: And because I gave myself a job and I’m here working those additional, I didn’t wanna get rich off of this. I just wanted to make a, a, I wanted to make an employer for myself and I wanted to change and give, um, I. Give the industry that we work in back to the people who actually run it, and all the people who make profits off of la other people’s labor.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: And so what is the relationship like with you and the employees? Like what’s the vibe as a [00:40:00] result of that? For sure.
Hailey Hernandez: Um, I think a really good way to put it is that, uh, every single employee that started here almost two years ago still works here.
Every single one. Every well, okay. Aside from my sister.[00:41:00]
Sister who went
Hailey Hernandez: back to her big kid job after a year, but you can, she’s my youngest sister and I’m the oldest. So, um, and then there’s like one other like. Friend situation. Yeah. But every full-time employee that we’ve hired that’s ended up working here full-time. My original staff, aside from one and a half, I’m gonna close my, include my sister as a half aside from one and a half of them.
They all still work here to this day.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: And how many people work here now? 14. 14 people? Yeah. We hire
Hailey Hernandez: 14 full. We have 12 or 11 full-time employees and three part-time employees.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: 11. I had no idea. 11 full time. Yeah. Okay. And so we’re in the little space that was like the original physical space. Yeah. And you’ve recently expanded.
So what has that meant? Like what is what, what are you, what kind of biscuit business are you doing now? I mean on, you don’t need to tell me all your money in business, but like, I mean, how many biscuits are you selling? Like it’s a 14 people, I can put it this way.
Hailey Hernandez: Okay. So in 2022, we were only open from July to December.
Right. So about half the year. And I made like. I think we made like $75,000 [00:42:00] and that was more money than I ever could have imagined. Right. Um, and then in 2023, we, uh, were technically a takeout kitchen for seven of the months, or five eight of the months. One of the months we were closed. And then for the remaining months we were, uh, open here and just half the amount of space that we have, we ended the year, I wanna say like $350,000 last year.
2024 was our first entire January to December year. Um, and we did 1.2 million. So that growth. Yeah. And we started this with $24,000 and a bananas. Yeah. Payday loan for. Like, I dunno, like 2000 something. But we also did get a, uh, shout out to the city of Tacoma. They have a fantastic, uh, business accelerator grant program situation, or not grant, it’s a loan.
They always say, Hailey, you keep saying Grant, it’s a loan. Um, it is a loan. I am paying it back. But they matched our Kickstarter, so they gave us $24,000 from, so we did technically start with like a little under 50,000. Um, but okay,
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: so I’m mindful of the time. So. What are, [00:43:00] what are the, I know you wanna give a really honest, like reflection of what it’s really like to run this business to people who might be watching or listening.
Yeah. Who are thinking like, I also have a. Have a food dream. Yeah. I also have a business dream. Like what are the lessons you’ve learned from all this in the end
Hailey Hernandez: side? Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great question. Um, sidepiece as it is, couldn’t exist with, existed without, um, not just me and my husband having had years of working in this industry.
Um, you know what’s funny, as Dante and I used to work at a coffee shop that used to come to years ago, B sharp coffee, B Sharp. Yes. Yeah. So we’ve worked in this and I, I was like, it’s Marguerite on the street. Um, back in the day and you used to come in there and get your coffee and Creative Colloquy was there.
Yeah, that was like
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: a opera alley thing. Yeah. Back and
Hailey Hernandez: B Sharp is now, that’s where what Devil’s Reef is now. So, um, you know, was that like 15 years? I think he also came into Cafe Barau a couple times. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. So we also was there, that’s, what is it called? There’s another coffee shop there, Lander.
When I say that every business that we worked at doesn’t exist anymore, that’s what I’m talking about. Um, we were raised in this [00:44:00] industry and because we were able to see Tacoma evolve, um, not just in our youth but over our careers, uh, we have a unique perspective on the area. I think it’s really important as, um, whatever industry you’re gonna.
I wouldn’t open a, uh, a hair salon because I’ve never worked in a hair salon. Right. Um, I might love doing my hair. I absolutely enjoy it. And I think that I could maybe thrive in a hair salon potentially, but I’ve never worked in it, so I don’t think it would be wise of me to go and open a hair salon and expect other people to make me money.
Mm-hmm. Um, I think that if you’re going to open a restaurant specifically in Tacoma, you should work in a restaurant in Tacoma. Side pieces thrived based off of our connections that we’ve made as not just, uh, now business owners, not just as people, but as employees. In Tacoma, one great help that we got was from Chris from Red Hot when we used to come in as employees.
Um, and Dante was one of his beer reps and would sell him beer, and that was a connection we made there. Um, E nine. Did fantastic things for us because when we were off of a shift, we would go and drink an E [00:45:00] nine on six Ave and we made friends with all of them. And Dante learned to, his background is brewing beer, learned a lot of things from them.
Um, that’s awesome. Connections I made through, uh, other folks or maybe through shared disdain for the, when I worked at Marrow and Merrill shut down abruptly. Um, and so a lot of our interconnections love. The reason that we’ve succeeded are based off of our connections that we’ve made. And without our story and everything that we’ve done, I don’t think we’d be nearly as successful.
Um, it gives you a unique, a unique perspective. And I also believe fullheartedly that um, if you’re gonna be an employer in an area, you need to see what it’s like to be an employee in Tacoma. I. You need to be or in any area. It also allows you to see like the culture. I’m not like anti don’t move to Tacoma.
I’m actually pro bring more people in. Bring so, so sp, right Speaker truths bring people in. If you’re coming into Tacoma and you’re bringing your culture and you’re, you are integrating and we need more. I just went to LA the other day and, uh, to go visit some family, and I was like, wow. I thought Tacoma was so cultured.
How the heck do we not have like half the restaurant type? I, you know, [00:46:00] you know what I’m saying? Um, we have some room for girls. Please bring more things here. Open restaurants here.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: But I would say like, move to Tacoma if you’re cool. Yeah. I mean you’re not, yeah. Ruin,
Hailey Hernandez: integrate, bring, move to Tacoma. It just keeps
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: snatching the best people that can’t.
Hailey Hernandez: Yeah. Live elsewhere. Can we just keep taking the best? I think it’s really important in opening a business, moving to an area is to understand that the place that you’re moving is in a blank canvas. It’s not, it’s not something to be repainted. There’s a culture that exists there already and it’s not up to you to, to determine Yeah.
How that culture should change based off of your a. Like your comfortability.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: There is kind of a vibe sometimes where entrepreneurial folks will move into Tacoma and be like, what an undiscovered land. Yeah. And what untapped potential. And it’s always very irritating. No,
Hailey Hernandez: it’s frustrating because it’s undiscovered to you.
Yeah. I was, you know, and people would be like, this needs to change. That needs to change. I, I was settle with it
Producer Doug Mackey: for years. Yeah. Maybe.
Hailey Hernandez: Yeah, mag Goose doesn’t need to have a, a white paint job with black outline on it. Like I’m fine with it smelling like pee. I’m totally sorry Mag Goose. Um, you know, and there’s a lot of things that have existed here for [00:47:00] years that make Tacoma exactly what it is and are the foundation of the people who have built this city.
I think Nico Case. Um, and Herric All American Song. I say it best and I feel like that if Tacoma had a national anthem or city anthem, that’s it. And it’s like the people who built it, they loved it like I do. And building this city isn’t just people who are homegrown, who have been here forever, right?
Building the city is people who are putting into it an energy that when you come here and you see it and you love it and you want it to grow and thrive, and that is like important. So yeah, dealing with like the Department of Licensing or the LNI come here. And be an employer and see why we love to be here, hire people from here, or people who are going to build it up and make it what the best version of Tacoma.
That isn’t a blank campus. Well, it only gets better if it’s better for everybody. It does for sure. And I think this is where
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: we’re hitting a lot of friction, right, is it’s not better if it’s too expensive to live here and it’s not better if you can’t make enough money. Tensions are high. Yeah, and I
Hailey Hernandez: mean, I have Evan.
The same employee who’s [00:48:00] been a friend of ours for years, who we’ve worked with and who is now an employee of mine. Um, Evan just bought a house, I’m put telling all his business. Evan just bought a house. Evan has lived in Tacoma his entire life. His parents live in Tacoma, Dante and Evan went to Stadium together.
Yeah. Um, Evan just bought his first house for his growing family, and Evan bought a house in Lakewood. Uh, ’cause Evan couldn’t, I don’t know, Evan couldn’t afford to Tacoma. I don’t know if I’m supposed to say that. It’s expensive. Uh, but it’s expensive. I couldn’t afford to Tacoma. I looked, I look, I play Zillow all day long and I go, Dante, what do you think about this one?
Oh, well, our payment would be $7,000 a month. Um, uh, the people who built this city can’t live here anymore, right? They can’t afford to live here. Right? So people need to understand when putting a business here. Or moving here. Um, they understand how that affects the people who built the place that they’re gonna call home.
Um, and to me as a business owner, that’s crucial. This isn’t owning a business in Tacoma is a or anywhere, not just in Tacoma. You have a duty to make sure that you understand how you’re gonna fit within the fabric of that community.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: [00:49:00] Yeah.
Hailey Hernandez: This isn’t a Pinterest board. This isn’t owning a business. This.
Certainly not. I pull my hair out and, and it threatens my marriage all the time. Um, it is very, very important to understand how you’re going to affect the community around you. And if you’re bringing something in that does have the possibility to gentrify or. You know, make it, uh, to not be in the, it was really important for us to feel like, uh, the people of this area could still afford to like, come and eat here.
Yeah. Um, but affecting the community in which you’re moving into and not just seeing it as a, well, the rent is great here and the parking is fantastic.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Right.
Hailey Hernandez: Um, it was really important for us to be able to, um, essentially like. To make sure that we were integrating within the fabric of, of this area without changing it, um, without asking for more of it and accepting it, how it came and how we entered it.
And there’s a way to beautify and, um, to improve upon without affecting the cultural situation in this area. Um, so there’s that. And one other way that we knew we could do it was by giving back to the community that built this area. So by things like biscuits against pans or [00:50:00] going in. Yelling at city council meetings.
Um, I’m, they’re sick of me. Um, or making posts that could definitely be seen as politicized or talking about how areas of Tacoma are forgotten while other ones get street fairs. Yeah. Um, and so I think anybody that opens a business here needs to take into consideration that I’m watching you. A hundred percent.
You don’t have to worry about the community, you have to worry about me. ’cause I’m the most critical of new businesses. Haley has 50,000 Instagram followers. I’m very, I’m highly critical of new businesses that come here. Mm-hmm. I think that, um, if you come here as a career owner. And you’re gonna employ people who don’t necessarily have a chance to become career owners ever.
That that was never something that was given op, an opportunity was given to them. Um, I’m highly critical of those people and I wanna see how they move within Tacoma. And are you asking for security guards to, to sit in your parking lot or are you asking to make sure that people are being paid a living wage?
Because I know and I see every single one of you, so there’s that, um, you’re on notice. So it’s, this is tough. Opening a business is rough. I’m not gonna [00:51:00] pretend this is like this curated. It’s so nice and it’s not rough. Like I’m not even pretending that it’s, it’s rough and gritty because it’s my exterior.
No, this has been tough. Every day I wonder if I wanted to do this every day. I wonder if this was the right choice. Every day I wonder if I’m making the right move. Um, and I think that if I was not asking those questions, um, then I would be making the wrong move because I’m asking those questions of. Am I doing what’s right for my employees?
Yeah, it’s not about me and my stress, everything at the time I post something, I’m worried about how it affects my employees, how it affects the business, because this is their livelihoods. Um, and I think every business that moves here needs to ask that to come as a beautiful place. I love it. Um, and I’m determined to keep it, um, accessible to all so that my story is not a one-off.
Um, and I hope that one day my employees open, not their own cype kitchen. ’cause I’ll sue the shit out of ’em. I’m just kidding. I’m not really gonna do that. Um, don’t open something up. No, no, no, no. But I’m hoping that we are part of their journey, but not in the way that people were part of my journey.
Right. So I hope that kind of like amazing. I know, I know it’s [00:52:00] a lot. But SPE was a lot. YP piece was highly the, our, our existence is political. Our existence is, you know, is resistance. So. That’s
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: awesome. Yeah. Thank you for coming on and for speaking your truth. This was so great. Yeah. I can’t believe, I cannot believe how much you’ve grown in three years.
What are you gonna do next? Can I just, sorry, one more question and then we, we get done. What are you
Hailey Hernandez: gonna do next? What else can you do? Sell it to somebody stupid. That’s why. I’m just kidding. If there’s anyone
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: dumb listening. Yeah. If you wanna buy, Hey is open to, I’m just kidding. I
Hailey Hernandez: don’t know. Next is, um, be able to figure out how we can grow within our side piece community.
As far as I know. I know I have a, my, my executive sous chef Ivan would love to open a larder. It was what he said in his interview two and a half years ago. And I would love to be able to be part of his journey. So using, what’s a larder? Like a little market where you Oh, like a cur, you know, little like, uh, there’s another word for it.
Like a cutesy grocery Sort of, kind of, sort of, yeah. Something that he’s able to support small mark makers. And then, I mean, we don’t have a lot of good, he’s mentioned wanting to do [00:53:00] some kind of delicate descent type thing ’cause we don’t have that. But being able to. For it. The people who have rode for the mission, um, of Cype, uh, be that in our employees, which would always be my priority, or people who have contributed otherwise.
That’s awesome. I think that’s what’s next for Cype. There’s no expansion coming. I’m not opening another location.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Okay. You’re not gonna take the whole building?
Hailey Hernandez: Hell no. Okay. Alright. I don’t, that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to give myself a job. I’ve given myself a job. Now it’s time for me to figure out how I can support the people who, who make my, my situation a reality.
So amazing.
Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin: Thanks Hailey.
Hailey Hernandez: Yeah. Thank you so much. I, so it’s always concerning for me to like go speak publicly ’cause I ramble. But um, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. ’cause it gives highlights of the dope people that make this a reality, not just our. Employees, but the people who have made this a possibility.
I can’t believe that I’m sitting, that I own everything in here. So bananas. Yeah, it is truly. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
Producer Doug Mackey: If you like this podcast, check out, move. To [00:54:00] tacoma.com. Move to tacoma.com is a neighborhood guide, blog and podcast to help people in Tacoma Pierce County and beyond find their place in the city of Destiny. More information@movetotacoma.com. Move to Tacoma is part of the Channel 2 5 3 podcast network.
Check out these other shows. Grit and grain. Nerd Farmer, interchangeable. White ladies what say you, citizen Tacoma and kitchen. 2, 5 3. This is channel 2 5 3.