Brian Parenteau, Restaurateur

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses. But first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the Creator Space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers. Questions like, how can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don't burn out after year three? Every week, I sit down with business founders at various stages of their side hustle to small business journey.

These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

Today's guest is Brian Parenteau, the founder of multiple award winning restaurants in Florida from Fort Lauderdale to Miami and more. Brian, welcome to the show.

[00:01:05] Brian Parenteau: Thank you for having me.

[00:01:07] Sanjay Parekh: So I'm excited to have you on because I feel like everybody always has an idea of oh, I want to start a restaurant one day. And maybe you're going to disabuse us of those dreams or maybe reinforce them in a minute. But before we get into that, give us a little bit about your background and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:24] Brian Parenteau: Well, I moved to South Florida years ago, when I finished college, I came down here with dreams of, getting a nice job using my degree, which was, management, business management.

And I took a job as a barback in a nightclub in South Beach to, make ends meet to fill the gaps and from there it spilled over into something I enjoyed and I went on a little bit further, became a bartender and a server and then I kept progressing forward and then I eventually became a bar manager and then I got really good at the job and I started, helping a restaurant group opening up different concepts.

And then eventually I took everything, I learned what not to do, and I went off on my own and, started my first restaurant, seven years ago.

[00:02:24] Sanjay Parekh: So you, it sounds like you're very much an accidental, restaurateur, entrepreneur, in this.

[00:02:32] Brian Parenteau: Absolutely. My whole life, all through college, all through high school, I was always, I never want to work weekends.

I don't want to work holidays. I absolutely loathe the hospitality business. Never wanted to work weekends. I wanted to go out on weekends. So it really flipped the script. I started working in it and loving it.

[00:02:58] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, that's super fascinating. It's so funny. For so many entrepreneurs, I think that tends to be the stories that you just accidentally fall into it.

And then this is not what I wanted to do, but I enjoy it so much. Like for me, I knew I never wanted to write software as a job because my software always has bugs in it and so that's why I was an electrical engineer. Yeah. I ended up only starting software businesses and that's all I've ever done.

And so it's just so funny. So for you, so this, I assume this was your first time being an entrepreneur. Was there anything entrepreneurial, like when you were a kid, or were there any entrepreneurs in the family?

[00:03:35] Brian Parenteau: Yeah, no, I, did a couple of small entrepreneurial, I don't know, calm outbursts throughout the years.

When I was working in hospitality, I, tried to open up like a used car business selling, I used cars online and I had a really small warehouse that would fit a couple cars. And I tried that for about three years. I didn't have much success in it. I wasn't passionate about it. I thought I would like it because I could drive a cool different car, but all the cars I bought were never cool.

And then eventually after that, I linked up with a guy I went to college with and he was running a lighting company and together we opened up an events venue and we hosted, some bar mitzvahs, maybe a wedding, some, adult birthday parties in this little event venue. Wasn't giant, but it wasn't small.

And I did that for, one or two years. And once again, it was something I wasn't overly passionate about and eventually it just fizzled out but in the background the whole time I was always working at hospitality, you know filling in those days off as a bartender to make that extra cash to carry me through to you know the next venture that I went into.

[00:05:00] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, but it sounds like you got a little bit of taste of hospitality by doing the event venue. Because that's like a very intense, situation there. I've seen that too. I've run events as well. And it's a tough business to do that.

[00:05:13] Brian Parenteau: It's really tough business because all the events, they fall on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, fall during the week.

And you have to have, you have to turn that venue around in six hours or less, you'd have the event running from eight to midnight, maybe two in the morning. And then the people that have the event for the following night, they're in there at eight, nine, 10 in the morning decorating.

So you have to go in there, clean, paint, set up different lighting, get their logos up and all this different stuff before they, so it's like you worked around the clock doing that business, but you only worked friday saturday and sunday, right? And then you'd have a lot of down time which didn't make good for you know A good financial month because it's like you're making money sometimes and then a lot of time you're not making money. Still have all the permanent bills.

[00:06:10] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, so so moving forward to the restaurant business then going through this process.

How did you end up making that leap and starting the first business for yourself?

[00:06:21] Brian Parenteau: I always felt like I wanted to own something. We didn't necessarily need to be a restaurant or a bar or anything like that. But over the years I would meet people, especially working at these restaurants and bars and people thought I did a pretty good job.

So people. They would pick my brain. They would pitch me on stuff. And I got pitched on a couple ideas like, Hey, would you like to be a minority investor in this place in Miami? And I, always ran, through their proposals and asked a lot of questions and, I watched how these people did.

And eventually I started to put something together myself. I eventually met my business partner. While working at one of the restaurants, that I was employed at, he was one of the minority owners there and he eventually went off on his own and I went with him and that's how we started the first venture.

[00:07:21] Sanjay Parekh: And what was the first venture?

[00:07:23] Brian Parenteau: It's called drink bar and lounge. So this is just a cocktail bar. So this is what, where it makes sense. I made the leap, but I didn't make the leap into this massive, restaurant with multiple employees. I kept it small, I kept my vision clear and I launched a bar, a cocktail bar and, did it with, a small amount of capital in a small location and had a lot of success with it. And that's what spiraled into the next three.

[00:07:55] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. in, terms of starting that, a lot of people that start these types of things, they're like, oh, I'm just going to, buy the business and then somebody else will run in, whatever. and I often tell people like that, once you buy the business, like there's going to be a time where something goes wrong, you're going to have to work in the business.

That ends up happening. How much did you work in the business when it started?

[00:08:18] Brian Parenteau: Non stop. I, worked open to close. Six, seven days a week.

[00:08:26] Sanjay Parekh: And were you bartending or were you just managing? What were you doing?

[00:08:31] Brian Parenteau: I was doing everything. I was bartending, managing, doing the ordering, doing the inventory. I was pretty much hands on. I ran every aspect of that first location. There wasn't anything I didn't know.

[00:08:47] Sanjay Parekh: And was that, was your motivation and doing that because it saved you money because you didn't have to hire, or was it because you wanted to make sure you knew everything that was going on? What was your motivation?

[00:08:58] Brian Parenteau: Wanted to make sure it was getting done right, done correctly. Like I have, a passion and I have, certain ways I want things to completed and I needed to make sure that it was getting done that way. So I took the reins and made sure that it was being done. So over time, it just, I could teach other people and they could take over.

[00:09:22] Sanjay Parekh: So how long, in terms of starting that one, how long was it? Did you start paying yourself right away? Or was there some gap in time before you started getting paid?

[00:09:31] Brian Parenteau: Yeah, there was a big gap, for that first year I ran, I lived off, the bartender tips, the few shifts I worked a week, but I probably waited probably almost one year before the first payment out of the restaurant came.

And it was a small one. And then as the business grew, then the payments grew or the disbursements grew.

[00:09:58] Sanjay Parekh: Was there anything that made you, nervous about taking that leap and starting that on your own?

[00:10:04] Brian Parenteau: Absolutely. I made less money that first year we were open. Way less money because I went from working, five shifts a week, the ability to make tips, and, making a decent wage because I was managing at the same time to just, strictly working, one or two days, a little bit of management and, and not paying myself for all the little things like that.

Inventory and ordering and, and setting up payroll and scheduling, that was all stuff, I did on my computer at home. It was like a tough way to clock in and clock out. So yeah, I took a loss for the first year.

[00:10:47] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. And that's honestly that's the boring, necessary work of starting a business like that.

Nobody wants to do inventory or payroll. That's not really the fun part, but it's the necessary part. It doesn't work. Unless you do all that. How long was it after that one before you then decided to start the second one?

[00:11:11] Brian Parenteau: I ran with that one from 2017 to 2019, and then the second one, don't know, came into play and I opened the second one in, right in the middle of Covid, in 2020.

[00:11:28] Sanjay Parekh: Wow, in the middle of COVID. So you already knew the pandemic and you're like, yeah, no, we're going to do it anyways.

[00:11:35] Brian Parenteau: Well, I started it before the pandemic, because there's a lot of construction and the pandemic hit and it was just like, what do I do now? Do I stop? Do I move forward? So I just pushed forward.

I delayed it a little bit, opening and then I opened and, I had to have all the necessary pieces in play partitions, social distancing, masks, all that stuff, which, we did and we got through it.

[00:12:02] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Did you still have the bar at that point and you were still running that as well?

[00:12:06] Brian Parenteau: Okay, so both simultaneously.

[00:12:08] Sanjay Parekh: And so how did the since we're talking about the pandemic? How did the bar fair then during the pandemic?

[00:12:15] Brian Parenteau: It didn't fare well at all I mean we for the first several months they would not allow any bars to be open, you could only be open if you served food. So what I did was I filed for a restaurant license. And since I had a lot of time, since the business was closed, I got it quickly.

I developed a food menu. I hired a chef and I implemented food and reopened, probably a couple of weeks later.

[00:12:42] Sanjay Parekh: Oh, wow. That, was a good pivot and shift there. I'm sure a lot of your compatriots that ran just bars, did they end up shutting down or what happened?

[00:12:51] Brian Parenteau: Most of them shut down a couple of them came to us and like how did you do that?

And it's like I didn't want to share my secrets, but I helped them the best I could.

[00:13:02] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, that makes sense. Crazy times and now i'm sure you look back at that and Having survived that now there's probably a lot of lessons. From that experience, what have you walked away with? Through living through that pandemic.

[00:13:18] Brian Parenteau: Yeah. I mean you just have to pivot you have to adjust. You have to figure out your strengths and weaknesses. You got to trim the fat I learned a lot from that and I think our businesses, after that really thrived, you learn to do a lot with less, and, we had to make sure that we were serving up a great product because you only got one shot at keeping these customers happy, especially during a time where customers aren't everywhere. Yeah, there's a lot of, learning experiences there and you just have to yeah adjust and pivot.

[00:14:02] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, so now It looks like you're starting to expand into other cities outside of where you are in Fort Lauderdale. Talk to me about that and what's the thought process there because it's a lot harder to manage when you're not nearby at that point.

[00:14:18] Brian Parenteau: It's tremendously more difficult to manage, because in Fort Lauderdale, I have, three locations.

They're all maybe a mile apart. Very easy to get to. It's 10 minutes from where I live. it's, it's very easy to manage. Fourth location's in, let's call it downtown Wynwood, Miami, and that's, 45 minutes to an hour away, depending on traffic, and it, takes a while to get there, and once you're there, I have to make sure that I get everything done because you can't forget something and just be like, oh, let me just go drop in, fight traffic for an hour.

So yeah, it's been difficult. It's, yeah. It's been fun but it's been challenging at times just trying to allocate my time. So I guess to the right places and the right times.

[00:15:14] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah what motivated you to do that? And open up a location that's not that far away, but significantly far away from you.

[00:15:23] Brian Parenteau: I think I always wanted to be in a great big international city and part of it, I guess is ego. I've had a lot of success in fort lauderdale and they're doing well and fort lauderdale's, it's a small city, but I, had dreams of, going into big cities, such as New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, and, Miami being the closest, right?

So let's, that's the easy route to get to a big city. So I went down there and that's how I opened it up.

[00:15:54] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. So is the concept that you've opened up in Miami similar to the ones in Fort Lauderdale? Or is it totally different?

[00:16:02] Brian Parenteau: There's, they're similar, but different.

[00:16:05] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:16:06] Brian Parenteau: It's a little more edgy, a little more industrial.

It's, based off of my Mexican restaurant in Fort Lauderdale.

[00:16:13] Sanjay Parekh: Huh.

[00:16:14] Brian Parenteau: It's like a elevated, edgier, more Miami version called like an international version of my Mexican concept up here in Fort Lauderdale.

[00:16:25] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. Okay, cool. And then do you share, in terms of starting that one up, did you end up sharing any of your staff that you already had?

And help augment what you were doing in Miami or, was it totally separate?

[00:16:41] Brian Parenteau: Mostly separate. We shared kitchen staff. Okay. So we won't, yeah, our corporate chef, his name is Tulio. He runs the Mexican concept in Fort Lauderdale as well as the Mexican concept down in Miami. And we took a couple of his people at the beginning, but right now it's just him.

And so he's the only shared employee.

[00:17:03] Sanjay Parekh: Okay.

[00:17:04] Brian Parenteau: And everyone else is people we've trained and coached.

[00:17:07] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. And the motivation to do that is to maintain quality or kind of have an overall view of everything that's going on? What's the motivation of having him over both?

[00:17:19] Brian Parenteau: Yeah. It's the oversee quality.

He understands what I'm looking for. And so he knows how to, get his staff to follow or buy in and, create the, the vision I have.

[00:17:38] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox. Committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901. Quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are available at Hiscox.com. Hiscox, business insurance experts.

[00:18:00] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, let's change gears a little bit and talk about the hospitality industry. As a whole, since, you never went to school for hospitality and you just fell into all of this, what kind of challenges have you faced as an entrepreneur in this industry?

[00:18:14] Brian Parenteau: I guess at the beginning, one of the biggest challenges was having people take me serious.

I went from a bar back to a bartender, to an entrepreneur, but people like, ah, he was just a bartender. He was the guy I used to come in and have him pour me shots and, spill my guts too. That was a challenge, a lot of people didn't take me serious.

And, a lot of people like, oh, that's just some crummy bar that you opened. It'll be closed in a couple of years. Now they're not saying that.

[00:18:48] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Did you do anything to try to get over that kind of perception that people had of you?

[00:18:56] Brian Parenteau: I just worked hard and I, worked really hard to make the brand successful.

But besides that, it's, I didn't, I didn't post anything or make my, or fabricate anything to make myself look any different than I was. It just, I just worked harder because then I, therefore I'm going to open multiple concepts and show them that I'm serious.

[00:19:20] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. Well, how did you approach marketing, for these businesses?

Like from when you started to now, has it changed over time? How do you get the word out? How do you get people to know about you?

[00:19:34] Brian Parenteau: Yeah, marketing is a big part of it. There's so many moving parts to marketing from ads to social media to PR. The first one I used a lot of, my local resources, friends, I was, first time opening a bar. So I was able to reach out to my clientele and let them know.

That coupled with social media and a couple other things made it successful. But now my marketing approach is very different. Like use everything now. Back then it was a little more, of approaching, friends and, clients and just, letting them know, Hey, I'm, open this place up, come on in now it's, I don't know people in every market I open now.

So it's, I have to, markets of the masses. I'm still out there pounding the streets and knocking on doors and inviting, local businesses and into my business. But, it's definitely changed. Yeah, I can't rely so much on call it my personal brand or my popularity can't rely on that anymore.

I'm not that popular.

[00:20:54] Sanjay Parekh: Can you can you remember back to the time when you had just the bar and the first person showed up that you didn't know directly, like you hadn't invited the bar. How did they find out about you? Do you remember?

[00:21:11] Brian Parenteau: I think it's just word of mouth. Yeah. I, promote a great product and I put out a great product, so I think word of mouth.

Yeah. People would come in and talk to me and, I treat everyone really well.

[00:21:27] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, to me, that's always like the most exciting thing as an entrepreneur, when you create something, it's like, well, of course your friends and family are going to try it out and whatever it's when that random person shows up that there, there is no way you have a connection to, you can't figure out how you have a connection to them.

And somehow they heard about it or they found it or whatever and they are using your product. To me, that's like that aha moment, that golden, period of Oh yeah. This is all going to work out.

[00:21:57] Brian Parenteau: Yeah, no, absolutely. Obviously I have a lot of those moments now, right? Yeah. I still have, some of the beginning moments where I know a lot of the clientele coming and I promote to the clientele I know, but, but it's when they bring back their friends and their friends, and friends, and then random people start to hear about you.

And then they see advertisements, they see, our brand on TV and stuff. And yeah, it's really interesting.

[00:22:27] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Were you ever surprised by the growth that you've seen? in your businesses as you entered this industry?

[00:22:35] Brian Parenteau: Blown away.

[00:22:36] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:22:37] Brian Parenteau: I, can't even imagine. I don't know, seven years ago, if you said, Oh, where will you be?

There was no way I was saying, Oh, I'll be operating four restaurants doing multi-millions of dollars in revenue. Yeah. So

[00:22:53] Sanjay Parekh: what was, if you can remember back, what was your projection of where you'd be like, just, you one good bar and that's it, or, what did you think you were going to accomplish?

[00:23:02] Brian Parenteau: Yeah, I think one good bar, and, I always liked bartending, so I was like, I could just, work my own bar.

[00:23:12] Sanjay Parekh: So you were trying to be Sam Malone at Cheers, basically, is what your idea was. That was it. So let's, since we've talked a little bit about kind of the history, let's talk a little bit more about that and think back to, something that you would change and do differently if, you could go back in time, is there something that stands out to you of now that I know what I know, Oh, I would have done this way differently.

[00:23:41] Brian Parenteau: The, biggest thing is I would have. Taking the leap a lot sooner. I was putting it off, saving money, which I mean was a good thing, but don't know why I didn't pull the trigger sooner. I think I had been ready for plenty of years and I think I just waited too long.

So that's probably the big one. I should have, jumped ship or left my comfort zone a lot earlier.

[00:24:08] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. What, why is it that you feel like you waited? What was it that held you back?

[00:24:15] Brian Parenteau: I think it's probably money. I was working hard and saving money and I just wanted to make sure I had the right amount of money.

But I lived so humbly. I lived so below my means this whole time because my end goal was to own a business. So I did everything possible to live below my means. And that's how I was able to save the money to start the first business.

[00:24:44] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:24:45] Brian Parenteau: And even to this day, I still live way below my means compared to a lot of other people.

And and I have, I could probably spend a lot more on a lot of different things, it's just I, like to have that safety net or that safety blanket in place. And if something goes wrong. I don't stress it. I don't worry about it.

[00:25:05] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, that's a good way to live because you never know when a pandemic is going to show up.

Yeah, Anything else that is not predictable. So was there anything that nudged you and caused you to finally take the leap that just sent you a verge of okay, now is the time.

[00:25:23] Brian Parenteau: I guess it was just when I was working for a restaurant group, I was helping them open, up restaurant concepts and I was killing myself doing it.

And I was working 15, 17 hour days. And I was, I can do this on my own. I don't need, I don't need anyone now and I won't need anyone doing it for myself. Yeah, so I guess that was, my breaking point. I'd say yeah, it was when I really was like, all right. This is it. I'm going full force into this I'm seeing what's what it takes to really open up or you know a new concept I can do this.

[00:26:02] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. That realization is something that drives I think a lot of people and just knowing and being convinced that you can do it for yourself. Along those lines what advice would you give to somebody that's thinking about?

Being like you and either starting a side hustle or launching a full time business?

[00:26:20] Brian Parenteau: I would say, be humble and live below your means, save money and, dive in and, don't be afraid. So I guess fail, but I think if you have a lot of passion a lot of heart and you do what's right. I think you'd be all right.

[00:26:41] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah, that's great advice so thinking about a kind of last question here for you thinking about managing all of this stuff. Are there any technologies or apps or systems that you have in place to help you manage and get through the day because there's a ton of people that you're dealing with that are employees and you know you can't all, see them all at the same time.

So what do you do to make it all work?

[00:27:06] Brian Parenteau: I just use my calendar and just scheduled everything up. That's probably the easiest thing. every time I'm on a call, it's if they want to set a meeting with me, I'm send it, send me a calendar invite. And if you don't, we won't be able to do this.

[00:27:22] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:27:23] Brian Parenteau: That's probably the best technology. Because that allows me to, really schedule my time out. It allows me to really strategize, like today, I'm on with you. I got a 230 meeting after this and then I got to drive to Miami. I got a four o'clock meeting down there and another one at six, so I have it all mapped out on my calendar.

I have the times, travel times mapped out so I know where I need to be. So that's probably the technology I use the most. Every business has other simpler technology, scheduling apps, which makes things a lot easier, back when I started, it was a pencil and a paper. Now we have scheduling apps that make things easier.

Payroll, it's all automated now. Hit clock in and clock out and import numbers. So I guess a lot of those simpler technologies, quick books, once again, that makes things a lot easier.

So yeah, all these new platforms work well.

[00:28:23] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I lied to you. There's actually one more question because you sparked it with that answer.

Thinking about your calendar, do you schedule time away for yourself from the business? Like, how do you think about that time away? And is there blocks in your calendar specifically for that? Or is it weeks? How do you, do that?

[00:28:45] Brian Parenteau: I don't have anything specifically blocked out. But when things come up, I check my calendar and if I can do it, then I, pencil it in or, I just went to California for five days to see my family and I had to schedule it out, I had to strategize, see what the good week was and then I scheduled it out, put it in my calendar and people know not to reach out and contact me.

And, but it's, I, it's very, not last minute, but it's not I don't schedule vacation six months out, right? When I go on vacation, I schedule it a couple weeks out.

[00:29:23] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah, okay That's that's interesting advice there. Brian, where can our listeners find and connect with you online?

[00:29:32] Brian Parenteau: They can find me on my Instagram and it's at briperento, B R I P A R E N T E A U.

You can follow my websites, which is Bartulios.com, Drinkftl.com, Tuliostacos.com and Patiobarandpizza.com.

[00:29:57] Sanjay Parekh: I love it. I love it. Thanks so much for being on the podcast today.

[00:30:01] Brian Parenteau: Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.

[00:30:07] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.