Katie: Welcome back to the BusinessMakers Overtime Show heard hear and online at the BusinessMakers.com/overtime. We're here in Chapter 3 as Esther and I mentioned, feeling very beachy, very Pacific Coasty right now with executive chef L.J. Wiley at Yelapa Mexicana Restaurant in Houston, Texas. Welcome, L.J. Welcome to our show.

L.J.: Thank you very much. It's wonderful to be here.

Esther: So tell us what it's like really to be - you've opened a successful restaurant here. You're in Houston. This is not exactly the most forgiving culinary scene, to say the least. What is it like? You're kind of experimental so how are you different and how has it been, the challenges?

L.J.: Wow. That question I could talk for an hour about because yeah, I am kind of experimental you could say. I wasn't trained culinary wise in Houston very much. So my background doesn't mesh well I think with Houston, but I'm from Houston. So in that sense my background meshes perfectly. I've had a little bit of a period of adjustment doing stuff that I think doesn't fit in our culinary scene and we're moving more towards what I think does fit in our Houston culinary scene, which is a lot more plain, good food. It's like what you would call soul food or home cooking type stuff only we're doing Tex-Mex.

Katie: Awesome. 'Cause it does have to be pretty daunting to be in Houston right by Mexico and have a Mexican restaurant.

L.J.: Absolutely.

Katie: There's a ton and I thank my lucky stars 'cause I am a Tex-Mex and Mexican food fiend, but there's a lot of competition out there.

L.J.: There's a lot of competition. I think if you go to beforeyoueat.com and look at the different categories of restaurant you'll see that tacaria and Mexican food restaurants are more than four times any of the other categories, but the thing that really safeguards it or makes us feel better at the end of the day is that we've got a product that none of those people have. I've got a background that none of those guys have. My background's in a lot of Southeast Asian style cuisine and a lot of fusion and upscale dining cuisine.

Katie: Really.

L.J.: So I'm bringing a lot of stuff to the table that you'll never find in those other restaurants as far as flavor combinations, textures, combinations of temperature on the plate, a lot of crispy, fresh elements in the food. So it's not your Tex-Mex rice and beans type stuff and far be it from me to tell everybody what to categorize us as, but don't pigeon hole us as Tex-Mex because you'll be disappointed when you come in.

Katie: Okay. So what is here?

L.J.: I told somebody the other day that was trying to get it out of me what kind of cuisine, what kind of cuisine. It's equatorial fusion I think is the only way that I can describe it because all the food -

Katie: Nice.

L.J.: -- all the ingredients come from the equator and the ones I've been trained with just so happen to come from the other side of the equator in Southeast Asia, but when you take those ingredients and you mix them with the Mexican ingredients, surprisingly enough it's almost a natural fit.

Katie: It works.

L.J.: So it works really well.

Esther: Well I agree 'cause I've eaten here several times and it's amazing.

Katie: That's equatorial fusion.

Esther: Yeah.

Katie: That is awesome.

L.J.: So if I had to say if it's not Tex-Mex what is it? It's fresh, healthy, local produce driven as much as we can, food with a Mexican influence or a Tex-Mex influence to it.

Katie: Very cool.

Esther: So I want to know more about the business of owning a restaurant or working in a restaurant because food is - we've talked about it on the show - food is great. We love it. We eat.

Katie: Oh, we love foods.

Esther: We enjoy food; we enjoy cooking, but what about the business aspect of it? How challenging is it really to have a restaurant? The realities of it.

L.J.: Every restaurant owner that I've ever met is a gambler at heart and I think that they'll all agree with that. If you have to compare them to someone else it's definitely a poker player or somebody that has to run some odds. There's still some skill involved in doing what we do, but every time you order for the weekend it's kind of a roll of the dice because you don't know how busy you're gonna get and how much of that food you're gonna go through and obviously food has a shelf life. So you've gotta either move it or lose it.

Katie: Exactly.

L.J.: And for anyone that's ever worked in the restaurant industry you know there's a lot of urgency behind everything. It's gotta move really fast. Everything's very hurried and rushed in a restaurant and the reason for that, the fundamental reason for that is because the food does not wait. If it's cooking on a fire, it's either gonna burn or it's not gonna cook and it's one way or the other. If it's sitting in the fridge it's either gonna sell or it's gonna go bad. So on the business end of it, you've gotta run those numbers in your head every day and it's gotta become to the point where it is a little bit like rolling the dice. You just kinda' calculate the odds and go.

Esther: Well what about the recession because has that really impacted your business at all or do you find that people are still coming out to eat?

L.J.: People are definitely still coming out to eat and I think that restaurant businesses - I'm not gonna say recession proof, but it's definitely a recession resistant area of business, especially as far as we've experienced. We opened a restaurant in the worst economy in 25 years and we are blessed to have the success that we do have.

Katie: You're full. You're sitting here and table after table, it's packed.

L.J.: Well and like I said it's a blessing to be able to say that and is there a formula for that in business? No. We've got really a great publicity team helping us out now.

Esther: Because you've really embraced the social media channels, too. You've kind of gotten your hooks into some of the people who really can get your name out there.

L.J.: I have and that was a fortunate turn of events. That's I guess what I contributed to that end, the business end of it coming into it was when I told Chuck I was going on Twitter he thought I don't wanna hear about it. Computer games. What are you doing.

Katie: Personal; yeah.

Esther: Computer games.

L.J.: And when I explained it to him and showed him some stuff about it of course he wasn't completely ignorant to it, but he, oh, okay, I can see the impact now. After using Twitter and Facebook to access a certain segment of the clientele and to, like you said, get to people who will spread the word for us, the power of it is just amazing. Social media is definitely a very powerful new tool to use in marketing -

Esther: But on the flip side, if the food's not good people can be very vocal about that, too, but you have the food to back it up.

L.J.: Yeah; well you've gotta deliver. It doesn't matter if you're using social media or you're handing out flyers or you're just standing in the street with a penguin suit, you're still gonna have to have food to back it up.

Esther: I'd love to actually talk to you about what advice you could give to a budding restaurateur who is dying to get into the business, doesn't know where to start.

L.J.: I would pray that that person has worked in a restaurant for at least several years so that they know what they're getting into. There are some restaurant owners that I've met and even worked with who came from complete different areas of business and they decided they wanted to get into a restaurant and once they got in there and they saw everything that went into it and they saw that it's actually not the most profitable of businesses that you can start. It's very difficult to turn a profit in a restaurant. People who want to get into the restaurant business, they need to get into it for the passion of food. They don't need to get into it for making a quick buck because as hard as it is for me to say it right now and I feel a little bit hypocritical 'cause I'm goin' in that direction, we don't need a lot more chain restaurants. In my opinion we need a lot more artisinally produced food. We need a lot more hands-on care taken into where the food comes from and where it's going, but if you wanna get into it for money that's not the way to go.

Esther: Good advice.

Katie: Stick to the passion.

Esther: You gotta have the passion. That's right. In so many businesses that's true. Well thank you for being on our show, L.J. We really appreciate it.

L.J.: Absolutely. I appreciate it as well. Thanks.

Esther: You've been listening to the BusinessMakers Overtime Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com/overtime. I'm Esther Steinfeld.

Katie: And I'm Katie Laird.

Esther: We'll be back next week. See ya' then.

Katie: Can't wait.