From Screw-Ups To Success

Can A Blunder Boost The Long-Term Value Of Your Business? Learn From The Favorite Mistakes Of These Restaurateurs.

- Eric Nicole Salta

Mistakes make restaurateurs stronger. That might sound dubious, foolish even, but by welcoming early-career stumbles, restaurant owners can put themselves at an advantage in the long run. Industry tips can be learned through books or television documentaries, but they can’t compare to the real-life experiences of the people who have restlessly persisted their way along the same career arc and whose disasters help hammer home the point.

QUICK TURNAROUND

Seventeen years ago, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf ’s significant presence in the Philippines could have been derailed within its first year of operations had it succumbed to the conviction that early successes would naturally replicate themselves.

“My team and I opened two stores that by all financial measures surpassed expectations,” says Walden Chu, president and CEO of CBTL Holdings Inc. “We planned for a more aggressive rollout in the second year that hit a snag when our third store in Tomas Morato, despite a fantastic location, did not meet targets and adversely strained our very young company’s limited financial resources.”

That store remained unprofitable for a number of years and represented a very costly learning curve; however, the process also allowed Chu to retain humility as his core value. “Humility allows us to face our mistakes, so we are able to address them. Humility also reminds us that we have not arrived, so we continuously work diligently towards greater success.”

After Chu began taking serious efforts to “adopt several paradigm shifts and further develop the business model,” The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf propagated a long-term approach and viable plan since that third-store scare to expand into a 100-store network with new product innovations like Nitro Brew and Nitro Chai rolling out this year. And yes, that Tomas Morato branch has since turned itself around.