We were lucky to catch up with Angela Samuels Minichiello recently and have shared our conversation below.
Angela, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
It can be really challenging to keep a continuous creative flow. As a chef, baker, small business owner and mother of two kiddos, I am often pulled in many directions and experiencing fatigue and lulls in the creative process is natural.
Creativity for me often comes from being a present, mindful, student of life. Getting to my yoga mat, eating something seasonal and delicious or getting out in nature with OUT my phone or external distractions always pulls me back to the things that make me feel the most creative and a spark is usually fired.
If that doesn’t work, I turn on my favorite tunes and cook and dance until things feel right again.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am the co owner and creative director of The Hardware House Kitchen and co owner of Sweet Sage Baking Company. After another career in wholesale fashion and 10 years of food blogging, I started over in 2016 to chase my dreams of being a chef and business owner. These days, I manage the teams, food and creative direction of the luxury catering and events company I own with my husband Wes Minichiello and the bespoke baking company I own with my long time friend, Lindsey Johnston.
In my old career I felt pigeon holed into a very business path. I always felt creative and that I had art to share, but no one wanted to listen to the sales, customer service or branding manager roles I was holding.
In creating our companies, we have spent time curating teams of people who have multiple passions and who love a collaborative work environment. Our employees don’t work for us, they work with us and we try to show them that through culture and compensation.
As we expand and grow, the thing I am most excited about is giving back to communities we care about through service, mentorship and actual events driven to raise funds. We are hosting a fundraiser with a very talented vendor group at The Nest at Still Interiors in Costa Mesa on December 1st to benefit the victims of the devastating wild fires on Maui.,
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
There are many days where I wish that I had a better plan when I left my job in 2015, but I also could never have predicted a global pandemic right as we started to become successful and when our first child was 7 months. Being flexible and resilient have been instrumental in our success. I also think having integrity in everything you do is so critical.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
When I was first starting out in my career my Dad told me “you will learn more from bad bosses what NOT to do than you will learn from good bosses what TO DO.” And it was the most honest and true statement I encountered my career.
My Dad is an amazing businessman and has always been my personal mentor. For a majority of my career I was looking for a mentor of my own and realized after probably 15 years of working that the kind of mentorship I was seeking just wasn’t available to me.
In hindsight, every boss I had, good or bad, helped mold my leadership style and have lead me to the vision I have for my own company culture.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thehardwarehousekitchen.com/
- Instagram: @newfoodtuesdayz
Image Credits
All photos are candacedartezphotography who shot these for the team
