We were lucky to catch up with Lauren Perez recently and have shared our conversation below.
Lauren , looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I come from a long line of strong, hardworking women. My grandmother came to America from Palestine at age 16. She was never professionally trained but spent her life working as a private chef for many high-profile clients. Her generosity and love to serve and feed people is probably the biggest catalyst that ultimately lead me to where I am today.
My own mother followed in her mother’s entrepreneurial footsteps and started the shared commercial kitchen business that we run together today. At the time she was a single mom with 4 kids, a crazy idea, and an incredibly strong work ethic.
I consider myself fortunate to be surrounded by women who weren’t afraid to try something they had never been taught to do, but willing to work really hard to figure it out. It kind of feels like the “hard work” gene is in my DNA.
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 am currently running a shared commercial kitchen business in San Diego, California with my mom and husband. Together we make up Sae Kitchen and are passionate about giving food entrepreneurs a place to start & scale their businesses. We started small and grew organically over the last 15 years. We started with a 2500 square foot kitchen in Vista in 2009, opened our second kitchen in San Marcos is 2017 and are currently working on opening our third kitchen in the North County.
I absolutely love to see the evolution of businesses/brands and my job gives me a front row seat. I’ll often meet with people who are just getting started—they want to quit their day job, they’ve got this awesome product everyone is telling them to sell, but they just need a little push in the right direction. That’s where we come in. Working out of a shared kitchen enormously cuts down on the time & money that would otherwise make it cost prohibitive to start a food business. We also offer free consultations for anyone that needs help getting a health permit so we can help take the guesswork out of getting started.
Our new kitchens are designed for food businesses that have outgrown the hourly pricing model and want their own space but aren’t quite large enough to sign a long lease, build out a kitchen, invest in commercial equipment, etc. Our kitchens are just about plug and play (with the exception of any specialized equipment needed) so we think it’ll be a great way to help businesses take that next step in their growth.
We’ll also have a small event area available to rent for workshops, pop-up dinners, product launches, etc so we’re super excited for that!
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?
1- Self-discipline is huge. Being your own boss is great because you usually have the freedom to decide what you’ll do each day. But this means you’ve got to prioritize what’s important for your business and stick to it. I like to ask myself “What can I do today to move our business forward?”
2- Working ON our business, not just IN it. With entrepreneurship you wear so many different hats, it’s easy to get stuck in the employee role just putting out fires but it’s been super important for us to zoom out and think bigger picture to help us establish long term goals.
3- Having a growth mindset, but accepting that growth is not always linear. We’re always learning, always hungry to better ourselves and our business. At the same time, we’ve learned to embrace the fact that we will face setbacks, but there’s really no other option but to figure it out and keep going!
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
The book “StoryBrand” by Donald Miller has really helped pivot my mindset when it comes to our business and what we offer. The StoryBrand model taught me that people love to hear stories, and as a business owner I want to make my client the hero of the story.
Ultimately our story is about a person that wants the freedom to do what they love. Renting a shared kitchen gives people the time and money that they need to do that.
So that shapes the way we talk about what we do. The About Us page on our website isn’t so much about us and our story, it’s how we can help others to get to the point they want to be at.
When I give a kitchen tour I help people to visualize themselves there–making what they want, working when they want.
When we post on social media we try to craft it in a way to how our kitchen can allow people the freedom and opportunity to be their own boss, We’re here to make them the hero!
Contact Info:
- Website: saekitchen.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sae_kitchen/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Saekitchen2/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-perez-b449a779/
Image Credits
Janelle Aloi Photography
