We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chef Rie Sims a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Chef Rie, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?
I believe in giving back to the community that has given me so much. As an example every year I cook for Wegeforth Elementary school for their teacher appreciation week. Not only do I cook for all the teachers but also the entire school staff.
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?
My business is Warung RieRie a cultural fine dining experience serving a 6 course authentic Indonesian meal. It was very difficult starting this business. As we are the very first fully legal backyard restaurant in San Diego. When we first opened in May of 2021 you could not have a backyard restaurant legally in San Diego and while we worked with the County of San Diego Health Department the only way we could sort of be legal was to basically cater to our own property by cooking offsite. However in California there is an ordinance called a MEHKO or Micro Enterprise Home Kitchen Operation. The problem was that every county had to opt into the program and San Diego is very conservative in those regards. It requires a 2/3 vote by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and to get it on the agenda took several years of many groups fighting for it. Along with my husband other backyard Chefs / Home Cooks and a group known as the Cook Alliance we were able to get it on the agenda in Sept. 2021 where it was unanimously voted in favor of allowing backyard restaurants. After a 120 day discovery period the County signed in the ordinance on a 2 year trial run thus making Warung RieRie a fully legal and licensed restaurant. Currently we are happy to say we are now in our second year of business and we are still currently fully booked one year out to dine with us!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
My knowledge of my culture and its cuisine. Also my strong work ethic and dedication to do what I love.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
The hardest challenge now is trying to get everybody in to dine with us. It’s makes us extremely grateful for everybody that is patient and gets to dine with us.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.warungrierie.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/warungrierie/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/warungrierie
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/warung-rierie-san-diego
Image Credits
All Images by Warung RieRie
