Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their very own.
Earlier than there have been strains out the door, Alexandra Lourdes and Steve Jerome had been simply making an attempt to resolve completely different issues.
Lourdes, then a Ph.D. scholar at UNLV, had began collaborating on campus occasions along with her good friend Lin Smith Jerome, who was married to Jerome and would quickly turn into her closest artistic accomplice.
On the time, Jerome was operating a high-end steakhouse and wanted to spice up foot site visitors. He requested Lourdes and Smith Jerome to arrange a contented hour on the restaurant. The occasion packed the patio, and it lit a spark for a brand new enterprise.
The comfortable hour labored so properly that the restaurant needed extra — weekly occasions, full-on advertising assist, an actual partnership. There was only one problem: Lourdes and Smith Jerome did not technically have an organization. So that they made one. That night time, Smith Jerome filed the LLC paperwork. Lourdes mocked up a emblem on the eating room desk. Out of the blue, they had been within the restaurant advertising world, prioritizing storytelling, group and in-person vitality over conventional adverts. What began as a one-off collaboration shortly turned The Refined Company — and ultimately, the inspiration for Refined Hospitality Group.
Associated: How An Unmarked Dive Bar in Vegas Turned One among America’s Should-See Locations — Inside 3 Years of Opening
Bouncing from espresso store to espresso store with their laptops, Lourdes and Smith Jerome ultimately thought, Why not simply create one we really like working in? They introduced Jerome in as a accomplice, and their concept turned Café Lola: half artistic hub, half espresso store and the primary idea the three of them constructed collectively.
Constructing on that momentum, they launched Saint Honoré — a boutique doughnut store tucked right into a hard-to-find parking zone, the place they embellished pastries by hand and hoped somebody would are available in.
“We had been throwing extra doughnuts away than we had been promoting,” Jerome says. “One buyer would trickle in. That was it.”
Lourdes determined to doc what life appeared like as a small enterprise proprietor. “I ended up doing a day-in-the-life (video), and I simply began filming every thing I used to be doing, adorning doughnuts, and that video blew as much as like one million views,” she says. “Abruptly, I turned a storyteller.”
Lourdes has since grown her viewers to greater than one million followers on Instagram and a couple of.5 million on TikTok.
Associated: This Restaurant Tech Value Him a Shopper — Then Modified Every part for His Enterprise
Constructed completely different, constructed collectively
Jerome would be the first to inform you he isn’t on social media. He prefers to let the meals and hospitality communicate for themselves. However he additionally is aware of the ability of what Lourdes does with a telephone and a narrative.
“She brings folks in. I attempt to hold them coming again,” he says.
That line is not only a catchphrase. It is how Refined Restaurant Group works. Lourdes leads content material and group, drawing audiences by genuine storytelling. Jerome handles operations, high quality and visitor expertise. They do not compete for a similar function. They complement one another in each one.
Associated: How This Large Meals Firm Turned Its Fleet of Vehicles into Rolling Billboards — And the Lesson It Teaches About Model-Constructing
That readability has allowed them to remain small, quick and deeply linked to their visitors. Refined would not want company approval to pivot. If a menu merchandise is not resonating or a buyer remark surfaces one thing new, they will modify the identical day. New concepts come from employees, followers and generally their very own youngsters. The hole between concept and execution is usually simply 24 hours.
The staff’s agility exhibits within the ideas they’ve constructed: 5 Café Lola places, two Saint Honoré retailers (additionally house to their pizza spinoff, Pizza Nameless), the fried rooster model 3 Little Chicks, and two full-service eating places, Sorellina and Emilio’s, every a tribute to their households. What ties all of it collectively is not a delicacies. It is a standpoint.
They care about high quality. They care about pace. And so they care in regards to the folks on each side of the counter.
What began as a contented hour experiment and a quiet doughnut store has turn into a mannequin for find out how to construct one thing larger with out shedding your voice. They did not simply develop a restaurant group. They constructed belief, one story at a time.
Associated: Jon Taffer Teamed Up With This $300 Million Franchise Firm to Construct One thing Larger Than Eating places
About Restaurant Influencers
Restaurant Influencers is dropped at you by Toast, the highly effective restaurant point-of-sale and administration system that helps eating places enhance operations, enhance gross sales and create a greater visitor expertise.
Toast — Powering Profitable Eating places. Be taught extra about Toast.
Be a part of prime CEOs, founders and operators on the Degree Up convention to unlock methods for scaling your corporation, boosting income and constructing sustainable success.
Earlier than there have been strains out the door, Alexandra Lourdes and Steve Jerome had been simply making an attempt to resolve completely different issues.
Lourdes, then a Ph.D. scholar at UNLV, had began collaborating on campus occasions along with her good friend Lin Smith Jerome, who was married to Jerome and would quickly turn into her closest artistic accomplice.
On the time, Jerome was operating a high-end steakhouse and wanted to spice up foot site visitors. He requested Lourdes and Smith Jerome to arrange a contented hour on the restaurant. The occasion packed the patio, and it lit a spark for a brand new enterprise.
The remainder of this text is locked.
Be a part of Entrepreneur+ right this moment for entry.
