Hi Square Sellers! We spoke with Steven Lee, General Manager of Wayla and Little Wayla on New York’s Lower East Side. He talks about the restaurant’s cohesive work culture, Covid-19 adaptations, and the future of the brand. Adding lots of photos because there food is truly amazing.
Origin Story
We opened the restaurant in late April, 2019. For the first couple of weeks it was very slow. We’re on the border of the Lower East Side and Chinatown and our street doesn’t have a lot of foot traffic. Our entrance is also pretty hard to find since we have a nondescript basement front door.
That being said, the press started to trickle in fairly quickly and we were fortunate enough to get some strong reviews early. Business grew organically from there. We have a beautiful outdoor patio in the back and anything with outside seating is golden in NYC. We had some nice instagram posts from influencers and we hit a great stride that first summer. We felt grateful for the warm welcome the press and our customers gave us. You never really know how people will react.
Work Culture
We strive to ensure the entire staff is an inviting and helpful team, both for the front and back of house. When you walk in the restaurant it’s very welcoming and warm. It comes from the top down, as our ownership team is very caring and nurturing. Restaurants in New York can sometimes have a pretentious atmosphere. That’s not us.
I started in restaurants as a waiter and a bartender and I know how it feels to be unsupported when you’re on the floor. You can have amazing food or amazing service or you can have both. We believe positive energy attracts positive energy. Our guests notice everyone is happy and it’s real and genuine. Even when a restaurant has really high demand, it’s still essential to treat each guest with care and kindness.
Curating the Team
Part of the equation is to make sure you carefully hire. Everyone needs to work hard and collectively during service. You need to attract people that will align with the work culture and approach of the business. To be successful in creating a cohesive, self-checking system, everyone needs to be a good fit.
When hiring I don’t overly focus on past experience. Often in the restaurant industry, there is a tendency for certain personality types to become bitter or overly focused on potential tip earnings. I look to find the right matches for our work culture. When a new employee starts, they shadow with different team members. This allows them to learn from their co-workers and not just receive guidance from the managers. For example, it’s typically the servers that keep the other servers accountable during a shift. It’s a team effort. We all have to work together.
I’m also a very hands-on manager. I am the one scrubbing the floor and taking out the trash. This restaurant requires hard work and I’m in the trenches right alongside everyone. There’s no task I’m above and I think that creates a certain level of respect. If everyone works the same amount, we won’t have to work as hard and it will be a better environment for everyone.
It took about a year for the culture to become established but now it’s set and has its own momentum which is great for me as the general manager. It makes my job so much easier when the work ethic and approach is embedded into all our team. It’s just such a smoother experience all around.
Covid-19 Adaptations
We closed for a few weeks in March due to the pandemic. Most of our kitchen staff lives in Amherst, Queens which was hit really hard by the crisis. We needed to be sure they were safe first. Once we felt good about our precautions and procedures, we opened back up to help the community.
Lunchboxes for Neighbors
We launched a pay-what-you-can lunchbox with a suggested price of $5. It’s a pay whatever you choose pricing format. Customers pay on a sliding scale or even nothing since this is such a challenging time. Early on we had lots of guests that needed the free meal or just were in a position to pay $2 but more and more people are paying $5 and some donate extra to help cover the cost for someone else’s meal. We just have different buttons set up in our POS depending on what they choose to pay.
Outdoor Dining
We’ll be able to serve on our outdoor patio until October, as well as keep our curbside dining in the front of the restaurant. All the tables are socially distant, and we had to remove furniture to achieve the right spacing. We now have a 90 minutes limit per table because the demand is so high and we have fewer seats available. It’s the only way to give more of our neighbors and guests the opportunity to dine with us.
The thought process now is how we can further adapt and enhance our dining experience given this new set of constraints. We’re exploring a couple different options. Since there’s no immediate end in sight to the pandemic, it’s crucial to keep adapting to this new reality.
Little Wayla
We have a small take-out concept upstairs for to go lunch and delivery. This is where we serve our lunchboxes for neighbors program. We want to run it as long as possible. Financially people will be hurting for a long time. Little Wayla also serves as a mini Thai bodega. We sell Thai packaged goods, beverages, snacks, and sauces. We hope to expand this offering over time. It adds some nice fun items that many people haven’t had the opportunity to try. It’s fun watching our guests try a Thai snack for the first time.
For the downstairs restaurant we offer take-out and delivery through our Square Online Store. We use third party services through Caviar, DoorDash, and Postmates. There is no viable way for us to deliver our food ourselves.
What's Next
We’re currently offering Comfort Food by Wayla, limited quantity family-style meals. Now that we have less seats to offer we are exploring new menu formats and ways of serving dinner. We’ve been considering launching a chef’s tasting menu for the sit down restaurant. It might be a cool experience and given the new spaced out dining it might make more sense for timing and pacing of our tables.
Almost every restaurant’s drive is to open additional locations but this is obviously not the time for expansion. All of our plans are on hold until after the pandemic. We had short term opened a Little Wayla location in Miami but we put that project on pause for now. The travel for managers and chefs going between New York and Florida was just too big a burden during Covid-19.
A lot of small mom and pop restaurants are permanently closing up. I feel so fortunate everyone on the team was eager to come back to work. We’re so grateful to have such a great group of employees and appreciative customers to serve. It means more than ever when our guests choose us now. We want to honor that support and in turn keep finding ways to also help nourish our neighbors and the community.
