Grow Your Business: Live Q&A with the Founders of Harlem Biscuit Company

[Tom]

Hello Sellers — On April 6th, Melvin “Boots” Johnson and Warren Satchell, co-owners of Harlem Biscuit Company in New York City, hosted a Q&A on the topic of resiliency.

In March of 2020, Chef Melvin “Boots” Johnson couldn’t get unemployment benefits. “So I took my skills and just said, ‘Alright, I’m going to do something,’” he says. “And I started cooking fried chicken and biscuits, right out my garage.” His leap of faith turned into a leap of certainty. “Next thing you know I have 30 orders from moms that are just excited to not be cooking on a Friday night.”

That was the first unofficial day of Harlem Biscuit Company and since then they’ve sold over 7,000 biscuit sandwiches. Boots teamed up with his business partner Warren Satchell and together they are rapidly building their business, looking for a permanent brick-and-mortar location, and tackling any challenges that come their way. 

Boots and Warren talked about starting a new business, taking risks, connecting with the community, and managing quick growth. Read more about Harlem Biscuit Company, and other resilient business owners like them, in Square’s Stronger Than Before whitepaper.

[satchellwarren]

Loyalty… Broad Term. What I can suggest is looking at loyalty through the lens of every single consumer touchpoint. Every opportunity that the customer interacts with your brand is an opportunity to build loyalty.

[satchellwarren]

There's also this resource from Square:

https://squareup.com/us/en/townsquare/successful-loyalty-program

[Jetaimesweets]

What advice do you have for a small home based business. How can I grow more and eventually expand?

[satchellwarren]

I think the first piece of advice I would give is to think of what your long term strategy looks like.  And let that drive every single thing you focus on now. Focus on Consistency and Consistency in Execution, Focus on building a loyal following and let that loyal following advertise and advocate for you.  Let them market your brand/business. There will be moments in every single part of your journey that dictate where your focus should be.

[HC_Charlie]

I so wish I could try these, especially the Langston...sounds terrific! I have a marketing question here...I read how you used some social media influencers early on in your business to gain more attention. It this something that just happened organically, or did you actively seek out or work with a marketing agency who coordinated the role of these influencers. (I've always been interested in how successful it may be using social media influencers but have not been able to find an easy or reliable outlet for such talent.) Thank you!

[bootsbites]

Surprisingly it was organic. Right before we opened i would post on IG about our launch and one guy from TBO Harlem reached out to me and wanted to do a collaboration. He posted about our opening and Boom other influencer popped up also. I remember years ago when i had a food truck how much twitter helped me with business and I wanted to have that food truck vibe with my biscuits. 

[satchellwarren]

What Boots said! All of the energy around social media influencers has been organic at this point which we’re hugely grateful for.    I’m now being intentional about poaching/poking social media influencers across the food/hospitality/restaurant industries about working with us to help to continue to build our audience, community and following.

[kkeefer]

You started out on Nextdoor, enabling the community to validate your idea. How else do you see yourself working with the community in Harlem, especially as you get your first location off the ground?

One more question! What are the pros and cons of using a pop-up model?

[bootsbites]

We are very community focused. One of our goals is to be able to fund scholarships to kids from Harlem to attend an HBCU. The main Pro to having a pop up is, you’re getting your product out to the world. The con is, Its not your space. So every day we have to set up everything. Displays, kitchen set up etc.

[satchellwarren]

Further to the above/below. We’ve leveraged Nextdoor as a way to advertise freely as well as solicit talent from the Harlem Community. The concept has been validated by us just existing in the community and building relationships.

We see ourselves working a few different ways:  Sourcing local ingredients where possible. We’ve love to establish local partnerships with schools, community gardens, local makers and artisans(jams, honey, spreads, oils).  And scholarships to local kids to attend an HBCU as Boots said. We’re also working to establish a community day, a day(s) where we can give back to the Harlem Community that has supported us since day 1.

[GourmetOnWheels]

Congrats on what you have achieved so far.

One of the most important items in foodservice and often overlooked is food cost.

Food cost is the cost of ingredients, container or packaging, the lid or other package closing material, and the product/pricing label. We use for our made items a 75% gross margin thus a 25% food cost. Make it for 1.00 sell it for 4.00.

How are your COGS calculated?

[bootsbites]

COGS!!!! #1. I don't see food anymore I see numbers. LOL. i use to run Yardbird in Las Vegas at a 22% food cost. You need to know your numbers. Once you know your food cost you have to price item correctly. I tell folks you have to have price courage. What will the market bear? If I know my biscuits cost me .30 and I can sell for $3 do it! and sell a lot!! The key is know the numbers. 

We run a 17%, so now i can look at different packaging . I can add to my offerings on the menu. I can have wiggle room because i budget my shop at 21%

[GourmetOnWheels]

Those are very healthy margins!

[Thejediknight]

Tomorrow at 11am I will be here Harlem this is Boston Mike and between the Yankees and Giants I got some real questions for you but they can wait til tomorrow ...very huge congrats on your success outside of sports and see ya tomorrow

[satchellwarren]

Thank YOU!  

[GourmetOnWheels]

Where is the link to the event?

[Tom]

Hi @Thejediknight and @GourmetOnWheels — thanks for checking in! I wanted to clarify that this Q&A will take place in writing here in this thread (there's no need to register/no link). Feel free to drop in with any questions on this post and Harlem Biscuit Company will reply tomorrow.

[Donnie-M]

Mr. Johnson & Mr. Satchell, I want to commend you on an exciting and inspiring story that you are sharing with us.  Biscuits are a way of life having grown up in the south.  I keep a sticker on my desk that says "You gotta risk it for the biscuit".   I have a few questions for you:

1. I read where you are embracing technology, what one item or system did you find the most helpful so far in growing your business?  (I am thinking that item that you were like, dang this is awesome and was a great decision)?

2.  Growing your business down the road, what systems or processes are you working to implement so you can work on your business each day and less working in your business each day?

3.  Have you considered using the "ghost kitchen" concept to expand outside of NYC?

Thank you again for taking time to share your experiences with myself and the community!

Donnie-M

[satchellwarren]

Donnie... THANK YOU!  I hope you have the opportunity to experience the brand at some point. 

With respect to growing the business and so quickly, it's only been possible by offering delivery and signing up on a few of the delivery platforms such as Grubhub/Seamless, UberEats, Doordash, etc.   We don't regret the decision at all and it also forced our team to get in the rhythm and much faster. 

Systems and Processes first starts with talent. Making sure we have the right talent.  And in addition to talent making sure we're placing a ton of emphasis on training, execution and instilling consistency in everyone's mind from the front door to the kitchen.  We're currently building a lot of operational processes into our day to day and some that we can take with us to our respective brick n mortar shop.   We're also taking a look and doing a ton of homework on things such as additional platforms, services and technology that will help us be even that much more efficient and allow us to automate where possible to avoid everything manual.  Manual things such as lag time with respect to order confirmation and how an order management system helps alleviate that to other platform integrations that help with inventory reconciliation, to streamlining delivery partners, etc.  There's always something to focus thats what nobody tells you when you come up with these brilliant ideas!  

Ghost Kitchen... We've thought about it. But what we've also thought about equally is scaling strategically. We want to scale at a rate that we know we can maintain which is key and doesn't feel overly aggressive based on our Brand Strategy.  Having a brand strategy/roadmap is a ton of work but it gives you a laser life focus and decision making becoming that much easier. 

[Donnie-M]

Thank you Warren, My wife is a travel nurse and hopefully her travels will bring her to the NY area and I will put you all as a first on my to do when I visit!  I really respect that you want to be as efficient as possible.  Consistency is a great form of quality.  It isn't just a biscuit, it's an experience and feelings is what ties us all together as humans.  Thank you again for taking the time to share about your vision and experiences!

[Helen]

Hello! Thank you for this Q&A! My question is can you share your formula for a resilient business? By that I mean, what are the attributes of your business that you think are really important in being able to withstand hardship? 

Looking forward to reading all the replies later on today!