We were lucky to catch up with Van-alan Nguyen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Van-Alan, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
I had very low self-esteem and confidence when we opened our first restaurant. I
was inundated with challenges on a daily basis, some of which there’s simply no way to anticipate or prepare for. I used to live in fear of the unknown, believing that any one of these issues could ruin our business. But, they never did. After a while, I began to believe in our ability to overcome.
It’s important to reflect on our past and to recognize the accomplishment we’ve achieved. By leaning into the wins we’ve experienced as a result of having to overcome previous struggles, we built up our sense of confidence, believing that we could find a solution to any problem that presented itself, as we have in the past. If the first attempt to fix a problem wasn’t successful, we’d go back to the drawing board and try to identify the root cause and why we believed the attempt wasn’t successful. Then, we’d make adjustments and try again. We would do that as long as it took for us to get the desired result. The resilience of our team allowed us to continue to overcome, and that continued to uplift our team’s sense of confidence and trust in each other!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I began my career at In-N-Out Burger as a cashier and worked my way into management. There, I learned about the cornerstones of a successful operation such as providing a high quality product, delivering great service, and maintaining a clean and welcoming environment. Being immersed in a culture that relentlessly pursued excellence while uplifting its people was instrumental in shaping my philosophy in management and leadership.
While I loved working in that culture, I felt that fast food wasn’t my calling. I dreamed of creating more unique experiences for guests and had a strong sense of how I wanted to do that. However, I realized that I had very little knowledge of the financial models for full-service restaurants. So, I took on an analyst role at a consulting compay where my responsiblity was to audit sales and inventory for restaurants of all sizes. In that role, I learned about prime cost industry standards, supplier/distributor/retailer dynamics, and most importantly, how to curate beer, wine, and liquor selections. I was essentially learning how to operate a full service restaurant from the accounting standpoint, which enabled me to create a sound business plan. I learned that despite how experienced you are or how well-thought-out your concept is – investors only care about the three financial documents at the end of your business plan; the balance sheet, the cash flow statement, and income statement. They want to know how they’re getting their money back!
After several rejections, we decided to self-fund the project with every last penny we had. So, I opened my first restaurant, 595 Craft and Kitchen in southwest Las Vegas in June 2017, where we were the first and only non-gaming, non-smoking, and family-friendly craft beer pub. We featured 24 rotating craft beer handles, a scratch food menu, and good vibes! For the first 18 months, I operated in the GM, chef, and bar manager capacity to understand the primary job functions of each role but more importantly, to save money. It was a period of intense learning!
Once I was able to to fill those management positions, I was given an opportunity to open a kitchen inside Able Baker Brewing Company in the Arts District area of downtown Las Vegas in September 2019, where we became the first local brewpub with an open floor plan and scratch kitchen. Guests could come in to see the brewing process just steps away while enjoying tasty bites and top notch craft beers, all in a relaxed community-focused dining environment.
In March 2024, I opened a District Deli & Coffee, a hole-in-the-wall that serves NY-inspired sandwiches, coffees, and smoothies at an affordable price. Here, we try to cater to the blue-collar workforce and families in the surrouding areas to keep them from getting priced out of their communities.
My vision is to create community-driven concepts that bring people together and combat the ever-growing digital world. I hope to be a strong steward of our community by connecting people together with physical experiences. In a notoriously difficult industry to make a living in, I hope to develop our people with marketable skills so they can achieve professional growth and success in their lives.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three most important skills that helped me navigate through the unknown and sustain as long as I have are hard-work, problem-solving, and resilience.
Hard-work is simply showing up and always giving it your best effort. You know what you’re capable of, and you’re ultimately accountable to yourself to produce the results you want to achieve. Accept that you have to grind and pound the pavement to earn your accomplishments. Theodore Roosevelt said that “nothing worth having comes easy.” Now more than ever, it seems like an apt quote about achieving success. I’m much more appreciative of the things I have, knowing how hard I had to work to earn it. On the same token, I rarely think about things that I haven’t spent time or made sacrifices to protect.
Without resilience, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist. Where would we be if everyone just threw their hands up and walked away at the first sign of hardship? I don’t know of any successful leaders who hasn’t had their own trials and tribulations to overcome. Despite the possible bleak outlooks, great leaders always show up. As I write this, I’m being challenged with some seemingly insurmountable odds at one of our outlets. And yet, I will continue to show up day after day because I have to believe that there’s a solution; we just haven’t found it, yet! In some ways, being resilient is easier than quitting. If I let us fail, what do I say to the people who rely on us to make ends meet? How can I preach to our team about these strong values, when I can’t model the behavior? Resilience is like Rocky said. “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”
Problem-solving rounds out the three most important skills for me. We can show up every day and put our best foot forward but, if we don’t know how to diagnose a problem and come up with a plan of action, then in many circumstances, we’re only delaying the inevitable. Problem-solving is being able to make adjustments and tackle the same problem at different angles, if the first attempt doesn’t work. In June 2020, when restaurants were only allowed to do take-out orders, 595 Craft and Kitchen struggled tremendously. We thought that because we were a craft beer pub, people associated us more as a bar than a restaurant. So, we tried to offer special pricing on our foods and promote food on our social media platforms to drive in sales. No results. Then, we expanded on our sandwich and burger offerings. Still, not enough results. Finally, we looked at restaurants that were doing fairly well with 3rd party deliveries and believed we should add rice dishes to our menu, to offer more hearty and wholesome meals. That started to move the needle, and gave us the breath of life so we needed to continue marching forward!
Without any of these three qualities, I don’t think I would have survived the whirlwind of a seven years as a restaurateur, let alone receive the opportunities from In-N-Out. Leaning on these three skills have helped me overcome everything we’ve faced thus far. The more we conquer, the more we believe these skills to be qualities that set us apart. But, it has to start from somewhere. It’s important to reflect and celebrate the wins along the way, few as they may be. Celebrating our wins and our accomplishments – admittedly something I need to do a better job of, keeps us from spiraling into negativity, and keeps us from losing our way. Remember to give ourselves some love!
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie was one of the first and most influential books I read that helped to shape my perspective on management and leadership. In a nutshell, it shows you how to build strong relationships with people so that you they will follow your leadership. Many of its teachings coincide with being generally kind and compassionate human beings, which is becoming increasingly rare in this day and age. My key takeaways from that book is to be compassionate, have empathy, and help lift others up. Leaning on these teachings have served me well in building trust with others and leading my teams to strive for excellence, relentlessly.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://artsdistrictkitchen.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/districtdeliandcoffee/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/595-craft-and-kitchen-las-vegas
Image Credits
Kevin Lingley
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
