Changing industries and building a new empire with Gocha Hawkins

Ever wondered what it takes to transition from a successful 30-year career in hair styling to founding a booming restaurant group? I just had the most incredible conversation with Gocha Hawkins, a restaurateur who's taking Atlanta by storm. She shares how she channeled her passion for cooking and community into several restaurants, a tapas bar, a food truck, and even a gourmet retail line.  Whether you're a foodie, a business owner, or just someone who loves a good success story, you don't want to miss this episode!

Can't-miss moments:

• What made Gocha leave her successful hair stylist career behind and go all in on a restaurant (no outsourcing to a manager or operator... she literally went all in, and it's seriously inspiring)
  
  
• Serving people and solving problems: when the wait time hits an hour, most restaurants just let the time get longer. Gocha came up with a genius move to serve people AND keep wait times down (it may or may not involve creative use of a food truck)...
  
  
• How Gocha turned a potential disaster into a money-making opportunity during the pandemic. This'll make you rethink your approach to tough times...
  
  
• The one thing Gocha says separates a "server" from an "order taker". I's a game-changer for any customer-facing business (and for you foodies: this distinction is how I find great food in nearly every city I visit)...
  
  
• Feeling beat down by inflation? Gocha's got an AWESOME perspective shift to help you reframe and keep kicking ass during tough times...
  
  
• Taking a little detour: Gocha and I chat about my days in the service industry, and I reveal the secret alliance strategy I used as a server that helped me turn tables faster...

Gocha's bio:

Gocha Hawkins is a visionary celebrity chef and the owner of the renowned Gocha's Breakfast Bars and Gocha’s Tapas Bar, which provide upscale, tantalizing cuisine that promises an unparalleled dining experience. Transitioning from a successful career in cosmetology, where she worked with A-list celebrities, to conquering the culinary world, Gocha's journey has been marked by resilience and determination. 

Hawkins’ tremendous success has underscored the importance of community, prompting her to give back by orchestrating events that emphasize community engagement through educational workshops, local high school partnerships where she helps develop teens in the community, and food drives for underserved communities. 

Resources and links:

• Gocha’s Breakfast Bar Website
• Breakfast Bar on Insta
• Gocha on Insta

Transcript

Angie Colee: 0:03

Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass, the show that gives you a virtual seat at the bar for the real conversations that happen between entrepreneurs. I'm interviewing all kinds of business owners, from those just a few years into freelancing to CEOs helming nine-figure companies. If you've ever worried that everyone else just seems to get it and you're missing something or messing things up, this show is for you. I'm your host, angie Coley, and let's get to it and welcome back to Promotion to Kick-Ass. With me today is my new friend, goshea Hawkins. Say hi, hi, you've got that wonderful red dress and I almost feel like my hair matches your dress.

Gocha Hawkins: 0:43

That's why I thought maybe your background was, you know, you were in the hair industry somewhere. I was like she's very artsy.

Angie Colee: 0:49

Oh, I am just a marketer, and you know a badass, A badass with bright red hair. So there we go.

Gocha Hawkins: 0:57

Yes, I'm ready. So tell us a little bit about your business. So you know, I have a restaurant group, and up under that restaurant group we have Gauchet's Breakfast Bar. We have two entities under that. We have Gauchet's Tapas Bar and then we also have a food truck. We have a downtown location that's underway, and then we have a retail line of gourmet grits and pancakes, which are I feel like you're speaking my love language, which is food, and I need to know where when downtown.

Gocha Hawkins: 1:31

Yes, so in Atlantic Station is where we're opening Atlantic Station.

Angie Colee: 1:36

Oh my gosh and I know you saw my face when you mentioned the tapas bar. I was like that's my happy place. I don't know if I've ever talked about that on the show before, but like I am happiest when I can go have fantastic food and everybody orders something different and we pass it around and I get to try all of the things. That makes me so happy.

Gocha Hawkins: 1:54

So I'm different here, because I guess the location where we opened it's on the southwest side of town, so people aren't used to tapas small plates and so when we first opened they were like we need more food, like this is not enough, and it was like it's tapas, it's small plates, like it's supposed to be shareables. You know you're supposed to order many, you know small plates and socialize, and they didn't get it. So I ended up having to add more full plate options, which was something that I didn't want to do, but I had to listen to the community somewhat. But, um, you know, for the most part it is tapas, for the most part.

Angie Colee: 2:37

So I feel like you're reading my mind, Cause that was going to be my next question. Wait, how do you resolve that if people don't get it? But it's a tapas restaurant.

Gocha Hawkins: 2:45

Yeah, we're having to educate and enlighten along the way.

Angie Colee: 2:49

That's fantastic. Well, I mean, how did you get into this line of business?

Gocha Hawkins: 2:59

I got into this line of business because I used to do hair. That was my true background. I did hair for over 30 years and I worked with some of the biggest stars in the business. Back in 2016, 17, social media started, you know coming out and it, you know, people started getting more access to more. You know hairstylists and barbers and you know they wanted to get their hair done for free A lot of celebrities so it was like people were changing money you know bartering basically if you post me, then you know I'll do your hair for free.

Gocha Hawkins: 3:30

And I wasn't that type of stylist. You know, I feel like Georgia Power could not take three likes to pay the bill. So I was like it's time to change lanes, and I did. I switched over to hospitality because I used to always cook in my family, and so the rest was history. I opened a breakfast restaurant in 2018. I was going to open back in 2008, right before the market crashed, and then the market crashed, and I'm happy that I did not open that restaurant during that time, because at that time, I was gonna open a dinner restaurant and, knowing what I know now, breakfast is the best cost-wise, cost-effective for your business period.

Angie Colee: 4:17

Ooh interesting. Are you cool telling me more about that? Like, how did you figure that out? What was that first restaurant opening like?

Gocha Hawkins: 4:23

Yeah, so my first restaurant. I moved to the Southwest side in 2014 and there was not a breakfast restaurant over here, so I was like I just didn't understand why this community was so underserved, because you have all the mayors that live over here, you have a lot of profile, you know celebrities, high profile and I just couldn't understand why we were only given big chain restaurants and you know, not decent. You know local businesses, small mom and pop restaurants that we could frequent. So I thought it would be a great opportunity to open up breakfast and the rest was history. The people, the community, loved it. We were giving jobs, you know, to the people in the community and we were giving back to the community as well. So we've been a hit since we've opened in 2018.

Angie Colee: 5:16

Oh, that's so nice, cause that's what I was going to ask. Like what, since it's such a big switch from hair to hospitality, even with the cooking experience that you've got, was there a learning curve? Was that first couple of years hard, or did it just take off?

Gocha Hawkins: 5:30

Oh, absolutely. It was very hard. Immediately upon opening, we were busy. I opened December 23rd, two days before Christmas, purposely because I just wanted to see what was going to happen. Because I just wanted to see what was going to happen.

Gocha Hawkins: 5:45

Now I have been a business owner for several years but I had never owned a restaurant In my mind. I was thinking it was gonna be the same. You know, same thing, you know. But I did not think about all the things that make a restaurant work. You know, when you do a repair, you have yourself, maybe a few other stylists who are up under you renting spaces and your assistant. So really you just have to rely on your assistant. But when a restaurant business, you have to rely on at least 20 people. You know you have your servers, bartenders, your bussers, runners, you know, dishwasher, cooks. It's a lot of people and I didn't factor in all of that.

Gocha Hawkins: 6:28

When I, you know, opened up this business, I was like, all right, it's going to be cool, I'm going to be able to do a little cooking, go back to work and do hair. Oh boy, was I fooled. I was fooling myself quickly. So you know, I ended up having to sell my salon the first day I opened because I said this is not going to work. It's just not going to work.

Gocha Hawkins: 6:49

And I realized that that's at that moment that I really had to throw myself into this business. I had to really learn it and understand it. Because I have friends who say I got people who can run it for you. But I didn't want to do that because I really wanted to learn the business. Like I said, I knew the business side of it but I didn't know how to put it all together.

Gocha Hawkins: 7:12

And so I put it all together, you know, just by trial and error. You know it took me probably like a year to get it together and it took me probably about three years to get all the processes together. You know it was a learning curve. Something would happen. Okay, now I've learned from this and now we'll. We know not to do this or we know to do this. So it's been a learning curve and I will say that every day is a learning curve. It's something every day. It's never a dull day. I tell people that day at Gautier's breakfast bar you know it's the, my wife calls it the break you off bar because something is bound to happen.

Angie Colee: 7:56

Yeah, that's so great. Well, and that's that's so cool. I don't know if you've ever like, celebrated or paid attention to that fact. I feel like a lot of people would have a different reaction or a different approach. They would go okay, well, here's this business that I'm already running, that I know how to do, well, and here's this new one that I know is going to be a struggle. I'm going to go play over here in this sandbox where it's safe, and maybe take my friend up on the run the business offer and instead you chose okay, well, I'm going to move away from that. I'm going to be over here and I'm going to invest all of my time in learning in that, and I don't think everybody would do that.

Angie Colee: 8:31

What do you think?

Gocha Hawkins: 8:32

Well, I definitely feel like people will take their easy way out, but for me it was all about when I do something, something like I really challenge myself and challenge of not knowing and figuring it out was the most rewarding thing I could have done for myself, because I feel like now I understand my business, I know that if the money doesn't look right or I know that something has happened, you know I have to figure out, like you know, was it raining outside or was, you know, a slow day, like it's many factors that I think about knowing my business, but if I didn't know it, I would think someone was stealing from me, you know. So it's great that I know it, like I know I really worked in my business for the first five years nonstop. Five years, nonstop.

Gocha Hawkins: 9:31

I missed a lot of friends, events, family events. I missed a lot of things, but I'm happy now, six years later, that I really and I really worked it and I feel like that's why we've been so successful and we've opened so many restaurants and we even opened, during the pandemic, another restaurant. I feel like that's because I work my business. I don't just let people run my business.

Angie Colee: 9:58

Yeah, I think that's so brilliant Like that, because there are a lot of people out there that would operate from that fear and I call it it's. I mean, it's understandable, right. Feeling the fear is human, especially stepping into the unknown, but it's also kind of half assing your efforts, right, like not really in it, not really learning and not really giving it the chance to succeed that it could have if I put my all into it, just like Gaucher did. So I think that's really awesome and I love that you brought up external factors too. I work with a lot of people with online businesses, but like that's the blind spot that I feel like they're missing when they're looking at stuff.

Angie Colee: 10:34

Oh, this campaign didn't go the way that I wanted it to. What went wrong? Okay, we can look at everything in the system the emails, the website, all of that stuff and also we need to look at what was going on in the world, because I was like there were a lot of marketing campaigns that failed in February of 2021. Which, if you remember, is when hell, I mean Texas froze over. I can say that I'm from Texas, I'm a native, I can say it. But like a lot of marketing campaigns, a lot of retailers and e-com businesses that shipped to Texas. They failed that day because there were factors outside of their control that impacted the sales process and, like we've always got to be looking at the big picture, Absolutely.

Gocha Hawkins: 11:14

Even when they had the strike in the film industry, we felt it. We felt it, oh yeah, we felt it because that was half the world, like it's so many people who are in film, and actors, actresses, you know, like it's a lot. Caterers like we felt it. You know we were excited when they went back to work. You know, I even gave away ten thousand dollars to help, you know, people in that industry. A lot of people were losing their homes, you know, and I was really amazed at how people really live day to day, paycheck to paycheck. I just didn't understand. I was in the film industry. They make a lot of money. I've worked in that industry and I still don't understand how people just don't know how to save money. It's just my world. I know you have bills Everybody does but I was always taught by my father that pay yourself first. If it's $25, $15, whatever it is, pay yourself first, and I've always done that. So I just never understood how people just don't know how to do that.

Angie Colee: 12:31

I thought well, I mean, I think that's part of it, because I definitely grew up where we didn't have great money stories in my neck of the woods in my family and not everybody knew how to be, and that's something that I'm still unlearning. I think it's part of that. And I also think how there's a lot of downward pressure on creative industries and it's so funny considering how valuable they are and how much money they generate the actual creative right, the ads, the videos, everything like that and how much people don't want to pay their creatives. And I'm like what?

Gocha Hawkins: 13:02

That's another story.

Angie Colee: 13:04

Oh, yes, I could rant about that good and long, but actually you brought up something that I was going to ask anyway, so I'm like, no, we'll just follow this shiny path. I was going to say you opened in 2018, two years before we now know a giant pandemic was looming and I know a lot of hospitality and restaurants got hit really, really hard by that. And you said you opened up a new restaurant 2021,. We did.

Gocha Hawkins: 13:27

Wow, can you tell me a little bit? Yeah, right in the middle of the pandemic, you know, we were already under construction and then the pandemic hit and I was like oh boy. And then it was in an area like it's, it's kind of out in a rural area. So I was like oh Lord, because it was so slow opening that we were able to master it by the time. You know, people did get back out and start moving around. So that was, it was a plus for us, you know.

Angie Colee: 14:08

I'm glad that you said that, because I feel like a lot of people will look at something happening like that and just kind of not necessarily throw in the towel but not learn from it either. If they just look at that and go, well, shit, there's not much we can do about that. I guess we'll just try and get better from here, whereas you go, okay, cool, we're going to take the slow time to dial in our processes and make this even better.

Gocha Hawkins: 14:30

Genius, and the good thing about it is we didn't have to have that much staff at all, and the good thing about it is we didn't have to have that much staff at all. So we used a lot of the staff that we had from the first location to go over. Since they were more experienced, we utilized probably three staff members.

Angie Colee: 14:45

Nice, oh, super nice. And what happened with the other restaurants, as all of this was going on in the pandemic?

Gocha Hawkins: 14:51

Had not opened those yet. We just opened Tapa's 2008, no 2023, may. Oh, okay, had our one year anniversary, so we just opened last year.

Angie Colee: 15:02

Okay, I was going to ask like cause I I saw some really creative ones. Like there was one out in LA that, like these people, were my hero. It was a taco stand, a taco restaurant right, and they're selling the cheap street tacos that's one that you would think wouldn't survive. They quickly pivoted to selling these like 150, $200 meal packs with a package of toilet paper and everything that you need to make tacos for the entire family, plus eggs, so that you can reheat the leftovers into breakfast tacos tomorrow, plus this toilet paper. Like I really love and admire that creativity of like no, we're not going down like that, we're just going to change.

Gocha Hawkins: 15:40

Yeah, we did some creative things as well. We had to. Well, number one, we never sold to goals Like. I was a restaurant that did not want my food to be sold to go. Well, when the pandemic hit, we were so far behind on, you know, with third parties because we had to sign up for like or dash all of that and it was a process so literally we didn't start doing to go to probably six months after the pandemic happened. Um, we never really fully closed in Atlanta.

Gocha Hawkins: 16:15

Atlanta was a different ball game. The whole entire world was shut down except for Atlanta. You know, kemp was like no, we're, we're not closing down, we're open. And we were still like doing to-go's, you know from in the restaurant, but we didn't have the third party apps. So by the time we did get third party apps, the world was slowly coming back open. And by the time we did open, open up again, we were bombarded between to-go's and in-house dining. Our wait time for in-house dining was like an hour, you know, because we just had so many to-go's. I had to get a food truck. I got a food truck and I parked the food truck out in the front of the restaurant just to do the to-go orders so that we could create a better experience for our in-dining guests. So now we have a food truck and now every weekend we have a food truck out just to do all the to-go orders. So it was a blessing and a curse at the same time.

Angie Colee: 17:23

That's so great. I'm so glad that came up Like talk about finding an ingenious solution for a problem that other people be like. All right, you just well. And I mean I'm sure, being a restaurateur from Atlanta, you heard about the Keith Lee incident last year. I follow him on.

Gocha Hawkins: 17:39

TikTok. People kept saying like. When I first heard about him they said be careful, keith Lee is coming. I thought he was a health inspector or somebody and I was like who is Keith Lee? I don't know, he was just a social media blogger about food. I was like this is ridiculous, that one person can have this much influence over somebody's restaurant. Just say, for instance, if you've been in business for 20 years and Keith Fleet comes through and said, oh, your food is garbage, and then you have to close down, that's terrible.

Angie Colee: 18:11

That is. Yeah, I do agree that social media can be such a blessing and such a curse, and I thought it was really interesting. So, for anybody that doesn't know who Keith Lee is, he started on TikTok and he was doing all of these food reviews in Vegas and now he tours with his family and does these food reviews. He's an MMA fighter, right? Yeah, I think he and his brother both were, and now his brother owns a restaurant too. He just did did a review on that.

Angie Colee: 18:35

Um and Keith, he, keith Lee, has an enormous amount of followers and his followers can be like a lot of internet. People can be kind of scary if they like or don't like something. He has to say yeah, well, and I thought it was funny, like I don't know. I guess the parallel that I wanted to make was I remember the big problem with his experience in Atlanta was that there seemed to be a lot of places with a lot of rules, contrary to what you're talking about, where you know some of the places that he reviewed. It was like we don't do to-go's, we don't do this, we don't do that. Here are the rules to eating at our establishment. And you were like all right, well, the wait time got to be an hour. That's not a great experience. Food truck, we're solving problems, we're going to serve everybody, we're going to make this happen, and I just thought that was really, really great.

Gocha Hawkins: 19:15

And that's the thing. A lot of people don't serve to-go's on the weekend because the in-house dining is too much. Like we have mad influx on the weekend. Everybody wants to go out on the weekend. So a lot of people just don't do to-go's because it's too much. It's too much of a wait time, you know, trying to do two goals and in-house dining, and it creates a bad experience for the guests. So a lot of people just do them on the weekend yeah, I think that makes a whole lot of sense yeah, I didn't see no with that, because he didn't ask why don't you guys do two goals?

Gocha Hawkins: 19:52

he just said oh, they don't, you know they don't do two goals. And so then it was like this big problem, like I didn't, I didn't think that was fairly general.

Angie Colee: 20:01

I love getting this perspective too, because I think that's the challenge with looking at these things online in a vacuum, right, I don't know anything about how the restaurant industry works. Well, that's a lie. I was a server for a long time, but, like, that is not the same thing as running a restaurant being able to manage a bunch of tables.

Gocha Hawkins: 20:17

So yeah, I think that you know they said did you? Did Keith Lee come by? I was like no, I wish he would have, because he would have not have had anything bad to say about my restaurant and he would. He would have done is help me out some more with some more people. That would have been.

Angie Colee: 20:35

But yeah, I was hoping he came to my restaurants. We'll put, we'll campaign. Let's say, let's put, let's put all of the followers of permission to kick ass, which are, admittedly, not as many as keith lee, but we'll go get him. We'll say, hey, go check out, go shade, you should do that. All right. So you've got all of these restaurants and you've learned all of these great lessons like what is the plan moving forward? What are you going to do with all this? Keep growing your empire.

Gocha Hawkins: 21:00

Well, I continue to. I want to continue to brand myself as an expert entrepreneur in hospitality and I have a product line that you know I'm excited about and I really want to focus more on that and I am now franchising. So the first franchise will be in Dallas and we've been working on a location for the longest. It's really hard to find locations in Dallas that are a good fit. I'm thinking more Adderson, because it's more young, trendy, you know, popular area. So that's what I'm looking for, but I just haven't found that location that makes sense yet. But we have our first franchisee who's wanting to open in Dallas.

Angie Colee: 21:48

Oh, that's interesting. Ok, and this is just me being curious and nerdy. Ok. What made you decide to go with franchising and what does that decision making process and learning curve look like?

Gocha Hawkins: 22:00

Yeah. So a lot of people had approached me, even before the pandemic, about franchising my restaurant. At the time I didn't know anything about it. I thought it would be great to franchise. It just sounds good, but I didn't really know what it meant. And then another thing is because I'm so hands-on, I was really scared to work with anyone using my brand, because I built my brand up over the years.

Gocha Hawkins: 22:25

I put a lot of time and energy into making sure that we create a five-star experience, making sure that the food is consistent, making sure that it's fresh quality, that the food is consistent, making sure that it's fresh quality. I've done a lot of work on my brand and I just did not know enough about people franchising, them taking on, you know, taking ownership of your brand. And I was in my mind I was like they might mess my brand up, like my food is not going to taste the same, they're not going to follow my rules. So those were the downside of getting a franchise. But you know, like, after doing all of my paperwork for the franchise, you know all of that your rules, policies, procedures it's all in the paperwork and you can take your franchise back from this person at any time and I didn't know that.

Gocha Hawkins: 23:17

So now that I know that, you know I'm more, I was more, you know, saying hey, okay, cool, I can do this. And the person that we found were who found us. He's so structured, he's, you know, his background is military, so he's a lot of structure. He has like over 30 years of restaurant experience and he's a great guy. He's, you know, he faith driven, so that was a plus. And you know I was just like, okay, cool, I could do this.

Angie Colee: 23:48

And you mentioned products too. I think that's really cool. First of all, I don't think I've had somebody talk about franchising on the show before, cause, like I said, I work with a lot of internet-based businesses and that's not really something that you franchise, but I'm really fascinated by you know, like physical and logistics and the whole location management staff Fascinating, all right. So we covered franchising products. Tell me more about products.

Gocha Hawkins: 24:13

I have a gourmet line of grits and pancakes. We have two flavors of pancakes lemon and buttermilk, and then I have jalapeno cheese grits. I have regular grits and cheese grits, garlic cheese grits, rather. So people travel from all over the world to eat our food.

Gocha Hawkins: 24:32

Now they always talk about the grits, pancakes and the hot sauce. So I thought that it would be a great idea to package and box it up so that people could have these same delicious products in their home. And the next thing I thought about was to make it very convenient where all they had to do was add water. Now, in most cases, when you only add water, the product is not that good. I wanted to make sure that I develop this product where it still tastes good. So it took me over a year to develop the product and I did so.

Gocha Hawkins: 25:11

Now it's to the point where it's convenient, it's flavor packed and it's tasty and all you have to do is add water. So, yeah, the lemon flavor is the bomb and the jalapeno cheese grits they're to die for. They're all good, but those are the most popular two items to sell. And we have a honey hot sauce as well that we sell and that I mean. We just did a video on it where you can put it on hot sauce, eggs, everything. It is so good you have to try it.

Angie Colee: 25:43

You have to try it. All I'm thinking is two things One, I'm hungry, and two, so I was traveling around for a while, spending like four to six weeks in different cities, and Atlanta was one of the places on my route. I guess you could say I did that in like late summer of 2021. And now I'm mad I didn't know about your restaurants, because that's my favorite thing to do is patronize local places. I'll go so far sometimes as a local chain, but I stay away from the big chain restaurants. I always want to go with locally owned and see what's happening nearby. Oh, I've had such good food that way.

Gocha Hawkins: 26:22

Yeah, absolutely. That's the first thing I do when I go out of town. I always look up reviews and I try to find small restaurants because, you know, a lot of times people don't know about these restaurants and you know I try to visit these restaurants because they have really great food in most places. Yeah, that's what I did when I go out of town, first thing I do is look up reviews.

Angie Colee: 26:45

Oh yeah, I look up reviews I and I read oh gosh, I'm such a nerd. My process for finding really good restaurants is I'll make sure that they have a couple hundred reviews. Sometimes I'll make an exception for that, but I'm looking at the really long reviews on the positive and the negative side and then I'll make my decision whether or not to go there. And here's my special secret little trick. I don't know why I'm telling this story, but it's coming up, so we're just going to share.

Angie Colee: 27:12

If I go to that restaurant and I ask a server, hey, what's good here? And they go, everything's pretty good I'm going to make my decision that day. If that person comes back to me and says oh, oh, my gosh, okay, well, I think you have to try this and do you really like this kind of stuff or that kind of stuff, and they get really excited about making recommendations. I have literally had situations where that server has ordered my entire meal for me. I have taken every single recommendation that they gave and I took food to go because it was way too much food, but that's my favorite leftovers, yes no, I tell people all the time that there's a difference between a server and an order taker.

Gocha Hawkins: 27:50

And an order taker is just coming to the table and they're saying what can I get you? A server is going to come, they're going to give you that five-star service, they're going to enlighten you about the specials for the day, they're going to recommend their favorite appetizers, their entrees. That's what that server is going to do. That's how we train our servers to be servers. And I tell you, we get so many praises about our servers because they are really servers. And they say it all the time yes, lawrence, he recommended this, that and the third, and we ordered it all, exactly what you were saying. There's a difference.

Angie Colee: 28:28

There's a difference. It makes a huge difference and it pushes me out of my comfort zone. I wouldn't say I'm a picky eater I'm more adventurous than I used to be but I have like certain textural issues and it pushes me out of my comfort zone. I wouldn't say I'm a picky eater I'm more adventurous than I used to be but I have like certain textural issues and so there are things that I would look at sideways and go. I don't know if I want to try that, but if I've got a Lawrence in my ear going, okay, no, I hear you, it's not mushy like the most of the mushrooms that you've had. It's really like shaved thin like this and okay, cool, I will try it. I will absolutely try it. You have addressed my fear. Give me the thing, I will eat it.

Gocha Hawkins: 29:02

My service will sell water to a whale.

Angie Colee: 29:07

I love it. I love it. Oh that you know sometimes I miss my table waiting days. That was a lot of fun. I had a special skill set in big tables because I'm a really good multitasker and so I figured out fairly early on in my career. I don't know if this is kosher to talk about it, but it's coming up whatever. I made friends with the bussers, the hosts, the bartenders and the cooks. I loved my coworkers, the other servers, but the ones that I wanted help from were the ones that could help me get that table turned around. The host can bring me the big parties that I'm really good at entertaining and good at taking care of. The cooks can cover me if I mess up and push my stuff to the front of the line. So yeah, I knew back then how to make alliances.

Gocha Hawkins: 29:52

I guess you could say you know, if you piss those cooks off, you're not getting anything pushed up nowhere.

Angie Colee: 29:59

Oh, restaurant industry. I've got stories for days on that one. So, oh, this is fascinating. All right, we've got products, we've got franchises. Do you have new restaurants in the works, aside from the franchises?

Gocha Hawkins: 30:12

I do. We have a downtown location opening up in Atlantic Station, so we're really excited about that. You know, we feel like once we get it, you know, downtown we'll be able to expand our footprint even more. So I'm really excited about downtown. I've been wanting to be downtown for the last five years and I'm finally.

Angie Colee: 30:32

There's something else I'm curious and I know I'm throwing a curveball about this, but, um, I'm curious, like so what's your process for all of these things? Did you visualize this from way back of, like I'm gonna own multiple restaurants, like how clear was this? Or did you just start taking steps and the next one revealed itself?

Gocha Hawkins: 30:51

are you speaking of when I first opened the first location? Yes, absolutely so. After I opened the first location yes, absolutely so. After I opened the first location, I definitely knew that I wanted to open more. My wife has always said that. You know they she's always heard this saying that you don't really make money when you have one restaurant. You know, it's when you have several restaurants that you really start making money, and I think she's pretty right on that part.

Gocha Hawkins: 31:15

I feel like I made a lot of money the first couple years and then the pandemic hit and we still made a lot of money during the pandemic and that was only because we were getting grants and we were feeding homeless, so we were getting money on that end, that end. So I didn't really notice a dip in income when the pandemic came, except that first month, that first month thing like just started staying in the house. But after that, you know, we started receiving money from everywhere. You know, yeah, so I feel like during the pandemic we made way more money, way more money. I really do. We made a lot of money.

Angie Colee: 31:58

That's really awesome. Like to me. That strikes me as your version of the like the the family pack, taco, pivot of like. All right, we're going to start serving people, we're going to start bringing in these other things. If the original way doesn't work, we find another way, which that just makes me so happy doesn't work, we find another way, which that just makes me so happy, Absolutely, yeah, so, yeah.

Gocha Hawkins: 32:20

So I do feel like now, since inflation has happened, you know, I mean inflation is out of control, so we're still making money. But I definitely can see the difference, because now we're, we have higher labor costs, higher inventory costs and everything is just through the roof.

Angie Colee: 32:41

But definitely we're still making money, but I could definitely see the difference for sure and does that like if it doesn't change soon, does that change plans for the franchise or anything? And I totally, totally understand if that's speculative or no, it won't change anything.

Gocha Hawkins: 32:56

I mean because it can't stay the same forever. You know, if it gets worse, it won't be forever. So we just have to keep going. We just have to keep figuring out different ways to save money. You know, to make it work. We just have to figure it out.

Angie Colee: 33:15

I love that. It's like I'm just sitting there with that felt like such a mic drop moment. They're like, nope, it's not going to be that way forever. We just got to figure it out. That is like the perfect way to encapsulate everything that we've talked about. Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much. You are my first restaurateur and this has been so enlightening and for a foodie like me, this has been so much fun. So please tell us a little bit more. Where can we learn about your restaurants? Where can we visit you? All the details.

Gocha Hawkins: 33:47

You can find me at Gautier's Breakfast Bar on social media. You can also find us at Gautier's Breakfast Bar dotcom. That's our website and you can find out more about us. Keep up with us. All the news, press and retail products they're right there at GoShaysBreakfastBarcom.

Angie Colee: 34:06

Yes, and when you try it, please reach out and let me know how good it is, or invite me to come along even better. Yes, where do you live? I live in.

Gocha Hawkins: 34:16

Houston, texas. Oh, you live in Houston, okay. So yes, I saw the bad weather you guys had. I think it was maybe a couple of days ago, maybe a week or so. I saw a guy posted it. He wasn't there. He's from New York and he was in his car driving with some friends from there and he said it's raining rocks. And he was in the car and it was he was showing you know, I guess it was you know heavy hail. But he's like, yeah, it's raining rocks here. Please get me to the hotel quickly houston weather can be super, super crazy.

Angie Colee: 34:51

I mean, I think there's a lot of that in the Midwest. You guys have had some crazy weather in Atlanta too. I know that I like that though. Yeah, it's getting crazy out there. Stay safe. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for sharing everything about this, this journey that you're on. I appreciate the hell out of you.

Gocha Hawkins: 35:09

Yes, thank you. I appreciate you for having me.

Angie Colee: 35:14

That's all for now. If you want to keep that kick-ass energy high, please take a minute to share this episode with someone that might need a high-octane dose of you Can Do it. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Permission to Kick-Ass podcast on Apple Podcasts, spotify and wherever you stream your podcasts. I'm your host, angie Coley, and I'm here rooting for you. Thanks for listening and let's go kick some ass.