We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Linda Yoo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Linda, 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?
Growing up, my parents owned a sewing factory in our home. My mom came to this country with no learned skill and not speaking the language. She took a job at a local sewing factory before having me, and by the time I turned 5, she had one interlock machine in our living room and she brought work home so she could work and raise me at the same time. She quickly expanded into our outdoor shed, then into the garage multiplying her staff and the number of machines. making her a full-on manufacturer. My dad eventually built additions to create a space for in-house laying and cutting of material and also a packing area. When I turned 9, I became a sewer. After school, I would sit at a machine with my broadway tunes playing, and I’d sew cuffs for sweatshirts, a fairly easy task. I would take the long string of sewn cuffs to the living room and cut them one by one, stacking them to be folded while I watched TV. I also spent time with my dad packing up finished clothes. Once I turned 15, I got a part time job in neighboring Hershey at the outlets doing retail and in the summer at Hersheypark. I’ve worked, practically, my whole life. I’m a doer, I get things done. I work, I don’t know how NOT to work. The one time I stopped working, after my ownership of my previous business (partnership in a bagel store in Hoboken), it was one month before I decided to embark on opening, what one day would become, Honey Day. It brings me satisfaction and joy to produce things with my own hard work. It makes it even sweeter when it impacts a community in a positive and uplifitng way. And I watched my mom who worked tirelessly, endlessly to provide for our family. She made sure she was there for me for every meal, every after-school snack, every activity I needed to be driven to, but she also made sure I was deeply involved in the family business sowing deep rooted seeds of pride and ownership in something that was ours.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My name is Linda, I grew up in Central Pennsylvania, and am proudly Korean American. I went to Penn State University and transplanted straight to Northern NJ, where I call home, right after graduation. During college, I diligently worked at Seoul Garden, our one Korean restaurant downtown, but was a not-so-diligent student. I wish I knew then what I know now – I love to work, and most importantly, I love to work in hospitality.
I transplanted to Northern NJ right after college and went straight to work in an etnry-level position in corporate American – where I thought I should be. I did well, because I give every job my all, but I was not fulfilled. After two years, I made the move to a project management job in NYC and thought I was on my way! Six short months later, I failed to complete a very large project and was fired immediately. I was embarrassed and devastated, committed to living on my own away from my family and felt lost and dejected. In response, though, my mom was understanding and encouraged me to take some time to regroup. I couldn’t have been more grateful for her gentle response. A few months later, I was approached with the opportunity to join a destination club as an on-site concierge and property manager back in NYC and got my foot in the door, officially, in the hospitality industry. I loved every part of this job. The fluidity, the itinerary creation, guaranteeing the satisfaction of the guest experience, creating relationships with vendors and everything in between! I enjoyed this job through marriage and having two children! After having my second, though, things came to a close in our company’s NYC location and I made the organic transition to being a stay at home mom.
Shortly after leaving my job in 2016, I decided to launch a from-home cooking company where I would offer a weekly menu, take orders and do food deliveries. It was a crazy time now that I think back, towing around a one and a three year old, getting all of my ingredients from the grocery store, making hundreds of eggrolls and huge pots of soups and sauces and doing deliveries all over Bergen and Hudson counties, and even delivering to Philadelphia for pop-ups! It was the first time I had produced and fed people en masse, and I was hooked.
It was in 2017 that I had the idea to open a kids cafe – it was all the rage and I was totally in that stage of life. However, God’s timing had other plans, and instead of starting a business from scratch with two young children and no experience, I was offered the opportunity to join a bagel store as a co-owner. It was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life, and probably one of the most rewarding experiences. Without the four years I spent there, I would never be where I am today. With my veteran partner, we grew a business to twice the size from where it started, I helped create a solid catering arm to the business, changed the entire company culture where customer experience came first and the quality of the product a close second, and survived a pandemic with steady (and eventually skyrocketing) sales. It was quite the ride, and I’ll be forever grateful. But in 2021, I took my exit from the business and partnership to focus on my family.
During the pandemic, my family had moved and settled into the great town of Glen Rock. After about a month of leaving the bagel store, and about a week into the school year, I found myself praying over this empty salon space on our main drag morning after morning. I prayed and sought God’s wisdom. I had always dreamed of owning a Korean American brunch restaurant. I always believed strongly that this concept would be well received, and would be the perfect fit for our diverse town. I believed I could go right back into business ownership if I took the time to build it with my family in mind, with the community in mind, with God in mind and with a greater purpose than just profitability. By December of 2021, I was meeting with a brand designer and was moving forward with a skeleton menu and some ideas. By December of 2022, Honey Day was open for business! Every step of the way was covered with God’s hand, a testament to His timing and provision and intention.
Honey Day’s mission is to provide excellent customer service with quality food and drink in a warm and welcoming environment for all. After a year of operation, we can proudly say that our guests are walking away feeling the impact of our mission every single day and I am so grateful to have a strong team that works hard to achieve this mission daily. We truly are grateful to serve our community well. We’re excited for what the future holds.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I am so grateful that I got firsthand experience of business ownership in the trenches and doing all the work from soup to nuts. I had a great mentor who guided my journey in ownership. I swept floors, stocked drink fridges, did bulk shopping 3x+ a week, placed orders and created relationships with vendors, managed a large team of incredibly hard working people, serviced hundreds of people on a daily basis and did it all with a smile and a determination that never dwindled. Without that experience, I would never have been able to open Honey Day. Without that experience, I would not have had a baseline of what to expect with restaurant ownership.
As an entrepreneur, I find myself needing to be ever flexible and always ready to problem-solve. There is no end to the daily challenges of running a business, and there is no time to get stuck in the problem that is here and now. I am always ready to troubleshoot and I know how to prioritize any issues that may arise. There’s a fix for every problem, and time does not ever stop, so neither can I.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
There are two books that have left a lasting impact on my entrepreneurship journey. Without a Doubt: How to go from Underrated to Unbeatable, Surbhi Sarna
Unreasonable Hospitality: the Remarkable Power of Giving People More than they Expect, William Guidara
From “Without a Doubt,” I felt connected to Sarna’s story as a woman entrepreneur, seeking an answer to a problem in an industry she felt passionate about. Her determination and candid story-telling of the challenges and accomplishments in work along with her personal journey as a woman, wife and mother, struck me deeply. It gave me hope and fueled my own determination, and gave me strength in the early months of being newly opened where I wasn’t quite sure I could balance it all. Her story resonated so deeply with me and I often found myself crying along with her along her journey of breakthroughs and setbacks. Her work led her down paths she had not expected, and her resilience has taught me to be open to new and unexpected opportunities.
I was so grateful for the book Unreasonable Hospitality. William Guidara paints the most amazing picture of how he came up in Union Square Hospitality Group under Danny Meyer and, having never been in that formal part of this industry, I loved reading along with a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most revered New York City restaurants of our modern time that I’ve admired for so long. I felt affirmed by some of the radical beliefs I’ve always held myself regarding hospitality to ensure the impact externally and internally.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.honeydaycafe.com
- Instagram: @honeyday.cafe
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/honey-day-coffee-and-kitchen-glen-rock
Image Credits
Headshot: Monika Eisenbart https://monikaeisenbart.com/ @monikaeisenbart Food Photos: Manny Cordero @mannymaximus00 Colossus Media Group https://cmg-agency.com/ @colossusmediagroup
