“The people that are super successful have their operations on lock.”
—
James Deng is the Founder & CEO of Poké House, a poké chain based in Northern California with 9 locations and counting.
James opened Poké House’s first location in 2015, and has since grown the concept to 5 company-owned locations and 4 franchise operated units, with big plans to scale beyond those numbers in the coming years.
In this episode James shares how Poké House grew into this success, including:
- How Poké House differentiated from competition by making their tightening their operations
- Why buying a warehouse and using it as a distribution center can be helpful to business owners with multiple locations
- All the technology tools Poké House uses to run a tight ship, and
- How James manages the stress and anxiety that comes with running a bootstrapped restaurant business
James is sharp, insightful, and full of operational wisdom, so I think you’ll really enjoy this episode.
Please enjoy my conversation with James Deng of Poké House!
––
Where to find Poké House:
- Website: poke.house
- IG: @poke.house
- FB: Poke House
- Twitter: @PokeHouseUSA
––
Where to find James:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yundeng/
––
Where to find Bryan:
- Website: https://www.myfirstrestaurant.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-tublin-03548910/
- Twitter: @btublin
––
Where to find Kitava:
- Website: https://www.kitava.com/
- Instagram: @kitavakitchen
––
Referenced:
- The E-Myth
- Homebase
- Jolt
- Beekeeper
- Olo
- Loyalti
- Choco
- SBA 7a loan
- Shoe Dog, Phil Knight
- Principles, Ray Dalio
- IMP Seafood
In this episode, we cover:
- (01:58) The Poké House origin story
- (09:48) Losing 13 pounds the first month after he opened the first restaurant
- (14:38) Pulling out of operations allowed James to implement SOPs and hire more managers
- (16:18) Team structure as Poké House scaled
- (18:53) How Poké House differentiated from competition by refining their operations and making them as “tight” as McDonald’s or Chick-fil-A
- (21:28) The changes James made to help improve operations
- (25:00) How much you can save by buying and utilizing a distribution center
- (26:48) Getting into franchising
- (28:33) Onboarding Jolt to improve operations
- (31:02) Rewarding employees with equity
- (33:15) How James spends his time today
- (34:53) On The Fly Segment
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