We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lindsay Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lindsay, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I’ll begin by saying that it is not the easiest thing for me to talk about my own attributes. I say this not to be self-deprecating, but because I am such a work in progress. Aren’t we all?
If you would have asked the 16 year old me about work ethic, I would have likely not even known what that meant. I was very much the self involved teenager who would rather be out with her friends doing whatever, than working on myself or for anyone else. I had serious FOMO back then. I probably wasn’t the best employee in my early years of working. I wasn’t engaged and I just didn’t care about any of the jobs I had. But I eventually found my way into the service industry, first at a boutique selling vintage everything, and later on in restaurants selling and planning private parties. It was in the first few years as a service industry professional that I realized I cared about something and wanted to do it well.
When I first started working in restaurants in Chicago, I was so excited to go to work everyday. I had a boss that believed in me, I worked on a team of people that were all talented and fun to be around and I really liked my job. It was hard, and it should be noted that I did not care for the countless hours of cold calling that I had to do, but I felt empowered and I was doing my job well, which felt pretty great. It was that job where I learned about long restaurant hours, aching feet, late night drinks and junk food, but most importantly, I realized I loved creating an experience for people.
That realization is the reason that I have worked in the service industry for the past twenty years. I have worked in restaurants, in catering, in venue management and everything in between. Each new job was a progression for me, leaning new skills, making more contacts and letting the creative side of me be more present. All these jobs, projects and events led me to taking the leap and starting my own business, which puts my work ethic to the test, daily.
I think that when I realized how much a hospitality experience can mean to someone else, I loved the challenge of making that event, that meal, that visit to my bar the most amazing experience it could be. I think that desire for excellence has fueled my work ethic for years, sometimes to a fault, but so far with good results. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m originally from the Chicago area, and moved to Cleveland back in 2008 for a job. I assumed I would be here for a short time and nearly 15 years later I’m still here, loving Cleveland!
I started my career in restaurants and then moved into the contract foodservice side of things for about 9 years. My final position in that world was with the wonderful Cleveland Museum of Art as their Director of Catering & Sales. I loved my time there, and it set me up to take a leap of faith and start my own business, Flight Cleveland.
Flight is a neighborhood wine shop and bar offering an approachable, adventurous and affordable wine experience. We opened in 2018, after many years of thought and development. The idea actually came to me on a trip to Bordeaux, France with friends back in 2012. I came back with ideas of creating a wine experience in a bar and shop setting that felt lively and fun. Several years passed before the idea was fully conceived, at which point I left my corporate job, and set out to bring Flight to life. Almost five years in now, Flight has been thriving as a destination to come drink and shop for wine. Flight focuses on small producers who work sustainably, in both traditional and modern settings. The idea is to find the wines that aren’t in every other wine shop and bar, and that don’t carry a huge price tag, affordability is a core value at Flight. The space is bright and welcoming, designed to be social and lively, and best enjoyed with a glass of wine or two!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Great question! I think that organization, good communication skills and my culinary school/wine education were really important qualities that have served me well throughout my career.
I am a hyper organized person, and I think my ability to manage logistics really well have helped me progress throughout my career, but also have allowed me to create some really amazing projects and events as well. I have coordinated/managed everything from an intimate, high end dinner for 4 up to a weekend of events worth over $750,000 in revenue, with hundreds of staff and vendors involved. I think part of what has made me successful in my past and present roles is the ability to communicate well to the people around me. Whether they work for me or I work for them, I work hard to interact kindly, calmly and clearly, which help establish really great relationships. And finally, the education I gave myself in the culinary arts and wine have helped me be a well rounded industry professional.
My advice to people who are on their own career paths is to find an organization system that works well for you and stick to it, always. Being organized solves problems before they start. Always, always, always treat your team with respect and kindness. I am nothing without the people who have chosen to work with me at Flight. Your people are everything, let them know that with fair, kind and clear leadership. Same advice goes for your customers, that seems like a given. And while you are taking great care of your people and your customers, don’t forget about yourself. Hone your craft, educate yourself where and when you can on your chosen industry, take care of your body and mind. You can’t be great if you don’t feel great.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
The past year has been the hardest one yet for me. We got through our first year, and then 2+ years of the pandemic, and just when we started to find some normalcy, my business partner Matt Blank passed away suddenly. Matt was my first employee at Flight, and over the past 4 years he worked for and on the business as if it was his own, and so he became a partner. He ran our wine program with creativity and levity, and his palate and memory for each wine was like nothing else I’ve encountered. It was a huge loss for Flight when he passed, but an even larger loss for me as his friend.
Since he passed in December, I have had to rearrange the company structure entirely. I gave most of what I was doing for the business away to others, while I worked on learning his role so the business could carry one with a fantastic wine program that he created. It’s not been easy learning all the ins and outs of his role, while trying to find my style and voice as the leader of our wine program. But I’m learning, and I’m up for the challenge. This year has pushed me to look at my business with a different lens, and I think that I will be a better operator for it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.flightcleveland.com
- Instagram: flightcleveland
- Facebook: Flight Cleveland
Image Credits
Tiffany Joy Photo
