Bryan Kaeser of Mudhook Bar and Kitchen!

Today’s highlight goes to Bryan Kaeser of Mudhook Bar and Kitchen!

Your LinkedIn shows you got your experience as the owner of Dallas Beer Kitchen, was there any unexpected issues with the creation of your first business? Was there any changes you knew to do differently with Mudhook Brands?

In retrospect, there were a lot of unexpected issues with DBK. That came from a lack of experience from both my business partner and myself. Lease negotiations, staffing, menu planning – you name it and we could have done it better from the beginning. I took a lot of notes over that course of time, along with actions we could have taken to prevent them from happening again. I took all of those notes into consideration in creating the business plan for Mudhook during my two year lapse in owning a restaurant!

You led 225 store associates at Lowes (*Home Depot) as a store manager, how did you drive up morale and sales? Do you prefer managing over a smaller team like Dallas Beer Kitchen or prefer overseeing hundreds of employees?

Home Depot really provided me the opportunity to grow as a leader. The founding principles helped me define myself and what I look for in people. I drive morale by having a high performing team from the start by hiring the right attitudes, instead of just experience. Once I have a team put together, I just make sure that I take care of whatever they need. Set expectations, have a good training program and follow up with recognition and accountability. I have a captain over team building to ensure we have events every quarter, provide bonuses every six months and take action on all suggestions at monthly Zoom meetings. Most of the time it’s those little things that really drive the message home that their contributions count, that we’re listening to them and taking actions that make sense to have their work environment to be improved.

You started Mudhook Brands around June 2019, was that enough time to get your name out there before this pandemic hit?

Well, Black & Bitter Coffee started in June and I used that as a launching board into the community. We utilized social media, including Nextdoor which is big in this area, to get our message out. Mudhook opened in November to crowds – lines out the door 30 minutes before our opening time. When COVID hit, that just gave us an opportunity to shift our focus on the community even more heavily. By listening to our neighbors, we gave out free school lunches to students in the area that suddenly didn’t have anything to eat. We converted the dining areas inside and outside to a general store and farmer’s market. Whatever the grocery stores were running out of, I would order from our restaurant supply company who had plenty of stock in their warehouses. All of these decisions came from me helping customers in the restaurants and hearing the struggles they were dealing with. If you put your community first, they’ll take care of you. And they have…we’ve never closed and are continuing to set record sales week over week.

Mudhook Brands received recognition in sources like Dallas Morning News & CultureMap, what was your favorite press spot or award during your entrepreneurial projects?

Honestly, they’ve all been very humbling. To be included on the Best Neighborhood Restaurants list within 4 months of being open was shocking. But then I believe my favorite came this year when we won the Mayor’s Choice Award for Business of the Year 2020! That was a great feat for all of us. I just love doing what I do, so these awards and nominations are icing on the cake. It doesn’t go to my head, we just continue to keep our head down and keep making our customer experience better and better.

You also own Black & Bitter Coffee, how do prioritize when working with two separate businesses? Is there any key differences between marketing coffees versus beer?

Honestly, I have to balance my time at the place producing the higher profit. That would be Mudhook, but I do continue to spend time at BnB developing the employees and improving the customer experience there as well. The demographics for coffee drinkers vs. alcohol drinkers is vast! The social media channels for each are incredibly different. The service expectations are the same, but marketing has to be different for each.

.What’s the bar & restaurant scene in Duncanville like and has there been any ongoing developments?

This has been a very small town suburb for a years. It was dry about 4 years ago – no beer, wine or liquor for sale unless it was a private club. Beer and wine just made it into stores for sale, yet no liquor. So having a bar open in town was a big deal. It also had no coffee shops or creative space for the community. So both have been good for growing the restaurant scene and providing gathering spots for like-minded individuals.

.With restaurants stating GrubHub and DoorDash make it hard for them to make a profit, do you think food services are beneficial or harmful for restaurants?

They are beneficial. I honestly just price my affiliate prices in line with their service fees – normally 30% higher than prices in-store. Customers understand why at this point.

. David Chang brought up the fact that restaurants are almost like banks where so many businesses depend on them and that restaurant either have to take up more avenues for revenue or expect customers to pay higher prices, what adaptations are you expecting for yourself?

That’s thought-provoking, but I haven’t had that issue with Mudhook. Most restaurants have some downtime where they could operate ghost kitchens on the affiliate services to drive additional sales. At Black & Bitter, we’re going to expand into roasting with Bellwether Roasters. This will provide an additional revenue stream via wholesale coffee. I currently have eight projects to expand this year that will quadruple the size of the company in 2022.