The Work Ethic Behind Sur Lie & Gather: Krista Cole’s Path to Culinary Impact

Today I have with me Krista Cole. She is the owner and director of operations for Sur Lie and Gather, and she's one of my favorite Maine restaurateurs. I would say also a two-time James Beard Semifinalist. Very impressive. Thank you very much. A lot of hard work goes into that. It is a lot of hard work. Well, and speaking of hard work, you're from Holton, Maine, Northern Maine, and I think hard work has been woven into your story. So tell me about. That. Yeah, definitely woven into my story. I did grow up, up north. My whole family's from Northern Maine and my mom raised three kids on without a high school or without a college education in northern Maine. So we learned really hard how to be hard workers, and I think a lot of values when you're from a small town and helping your neighbors and kindness, honesty, trustworthiness. So that comes a lot from my upbringing. I did go to college originally for nursing, so growing up in a small town, it seemed to make sense to become a nurse. It was a great livable salary and whatnot. But I think I soon realized once I started traveling that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So can you think back to a time on your travels where you looked around and you said, this really fits for me. I'd like to make this something more in my life, and describe that pivotal moment. Yeah, I think once I started traveling and just meeting new people and seeing new places, I realized that I could really do whatever I want. I think when you're from a small town, your scope's a little limited, and so I think my moment was I had been in hospitality in college and was a caregiver as a nurse. So the moment just came where I had the opportunity to get into hospitality, become an entrepreneur, which I wanted as well. And really the skillset was parallel to being a caregiver and working in healthcare. So somebody offered you an opportunity and you said, yes, I will go through that door? I did, yeah, and I did work full time. The first five years the restaurant was open, so I was a clinical manager for Maine Medical Partners. I managed three medical offices for them, the clinical staff, and went to the restaurant at night. Woke up in the morning, ran, went to the office, went to the restaurant For five years. So wait, I need to back up this, back up this conversation. So you were continuing to work in the clinical field and you also were working in the restaurant business. You had two essentially full-time jobs, Where you were keeping everything moving forward. And I did have a business partner in the restaurant initially at Sur Lie, my first restaurant. So once I took over as the sole proprietor just before the pandemic, I had just gotten out of healthcare and then became the sole proprietor. So at that point I just stuck with one job. Describe Sur Lie. I mean this was your first restaurant, so if somebody said to you what type of food is it, what's the vibe, what would your response be? Sur Lie is a Tappas restaurant. I usually refer to it as being upscale casual. It's got some really eclectic, incredible flavors and textures, and our guests really come in to have an experience, but it's in a really fun, approachable way as well. It's not fine dining Then, in contrast or in parallel. Tell me about Gather here in Gather is much different than surly. It's the markets. It's been a really big learning curve for me, understanding the difference in markets and what people coming to Portland want in a restaurant versus what the locals here in Yarmouth want in a restaurant. But I would describe Gather, which I bought from its previous owner as a neighborhood restaurant. It's in an old historical Masonic Hall on Main Street. It's neighborhood comfort food, and it's got a little twist to everything just to kind of make it our brand and make us stand out hopefully a little bit from others and what others are doing. And as someone who eats at your restaurant at least several times a month, if not more, I can say that you've definitely, I think you've continued to evolve the brand that Gather was once known for. And I would describe your staff is friendly and welcoming and the food is really delicious local, but I think there's something special about Gather because you're right, it's like an Invitation Inn. It's like, please come join us for dinner. And so my family and I, my husband, my mother, my kids, when they're in town, that's what we do, we gather. So do you feel like that approach to hospitality somehow ties back to your Northern Maine roots and to your wanting to make people feel welcome? Yeah, absolutely. Do think it does. And I think growing up, up north we did have access to local food and people hunt. People raised their own animals. I always tell the story about my nana when we were growing up, she had a huge garden and she would always send us home with canned and stewed tomatoes and we'd take our empty jars up when we went to visit and we'd bring full jars back. And I think when you have access to that, we're very lucky here in Maine to have access to that as well down in southern Maine. So that translates and transferred into our buying local values as well. But yeah, in small towns you go somewhere, everyone that's there, I mean I go home still and pop into the local pub and it's my dad and my dad's friends and people that I grew up with. So I definitely think that translates into my hospitality style. In your title, you have owner, but director of operations, so many people think of an owner of a restaurant as being a chef, but you make the distinction. Talk to me about that. I do make the distinction. I think a lot of people assume as the owner of the restaurants, people ask me, what's your favorite dish to cook? And I'm like, well, I actually am not the chef. I have an amazing executive chef and I've had incredible executive chefs that have come through the restaurant and added their own twist and really helped to help Sur Lie evolve. And I think that change is really nice to see, but I do focus more on operations and that comes from some of my management. I think in healthcare, I love data and systems and strategic planning and whatnot, and then I take care of all the branding and marketing as well. So I do make that distinction, not the executive chef. I'm a very good cook though, and I can jump in and help when needed. I'm actually fascinated to know this about you because I think you make my experience of you is you just make it seem like you embody all of the restaurant. Your team is so seamless in the way they do things. Maybe that is because of your operational background. And I think that there's something equally important to that as there is the food when you go into a restaurant. And also I think when I hire people, I look for folks that are, I'm really interested in what they value in life, and one of my favorite questions to ask people is what's their favorite job and why they loved it so much. I think it helps give me an insight into who they are, and I think hiring people for culture first and then teaching people skills, that translates into the experience because everyone that comes through the restaurant at this point in their life, this is their craft and they're really proud of it, and that makes a big difference in the service. You were a two time James Beard semifinalist. I think people are familiar with James Beard and the James Beard Award, but I'm not sure everybody entirely understands the process that somebody has to go through in order to get to the stage of even being considered. So you have to be nominated, And I actually had no idea that anyone had nominated us in two separate categories for the same year. Outstanding hospitality for Sur Lie. And then I had my own James Baird nomination for Outstanding Restaurateur because a lot of the work that we did during the pandemic with our farmer baskets was very community oriented. So yeah, I actually took my first real vacation in eight years. I was in Portugal, I had just arrived. Someone sent me a text and they were like, congrats on the James Beard nom. And I was like, oh, they must be texting the wrong person. Then lo and behold, I went on and checked the list, I sent it to my mom and my mom's like, you're on there twice. And I was like, what? But you do get nominated. There's only 20 people in each category across the US that make it to semi-finalists. So we made it to the top 20, and then there were some that made it into the top five, and then there's a person that takes home the award from each category. So it's an honor to be nominated and recognized. Yeah, Thank you. You've talked to me about these businesses that you've been building from the ground up and the branding behind the businesses. What about the branding behind you, the branding behind Krista Cole? Talk to me about your personal brand and what that means to you. Yeah, that's something I think I've been exploring a lot lately just in Sur Lie just turned 10 and just thinking about what the next 10 years looks like and really how to take my skillset and translate that into other business opportunities or consulting or helping. I'd love to help other people build their brands and workflows and systems. Like I said, I'm obsessed with systems. My personal brand, I think I'm still fine tuning that, but I think my story is really centered around being from small town, northern Maine and really taking pride in that. I think when you're younger and you want to leave and you take for granted the fact that being from that small town and having those values really is pretty special. And being from Maine, I think living back home again, I did leave for a number of years and came back and we're pretty lucky. Ki you're probably right that coming from a small town in Maine is something that you may not appreciate until you've left and then come back. Also, I wonder about the idea of being a woman entrepreneur, and I wonder if there's any difference between if you were being as a male restaurateur versus a female restaurateur. Because I've spoken to others and I think that leadership does actually shift. I do lean into being female, a hundred percent female owned, and there is a lot of male dominance in the restaurant industry, or it's got a history of that in a lot of industries, not just the restaurant industry. So I think being proud of being a female leader in an industry that's really dominated by men. I think also not coming from a restaurant background and in the beginning feeling like I really had to prove myself and I wasn't like working in kitchens from dish washing up and I didn't spend years in the restaurant industry before I opened my own. I did kind of fall into it, but a lot of the skills I have translated really well and I think has made us a really strong restaurant, made us a place with a really amazing culture, which has then translated into being successful in service and hospitality. I agree that there are a lot of transferable skills. What are some that rise to the top of the list for you? Well, organization, I laugh a lot about that because my executive chef is very creative. We joke a lot about how I'm very strategic and organized and efficient, and she's very creative, so I have to put things on her calendar and remind her of deadlines, and we always laugh about how she's not technologically savvy and whatnot. But it does. I think coming from a professional background in being organized efficient, I did have the luxury of having training in Six Sigma and LEAN Operations, which then translates a lot into the work that do. So I do like creating systems and workflows and decreasing waste. And I think also just being a really hard worker and always being myself, my team really appreciates that. So they have a lot of respect for me and they work really hard. I think they see me working really hard. Having also been in healthcare, which is also male dominated, I'm pretty sure you have experienced yourself, but being exposed to LEAN and Six Sigma and this idea of the Gemba walk and going to the gemba and being where the work is being done, I think for me that was one of the big learnings. So the idea of never getting too far away from where the work is being done too far removed I think is incredibly important. And what people will notice about Gather when they go in is it's an open kitchen. The work is right there. So what are some things that you've been able to observe when actually observing that work that you've been able to put into processes and systems that you think have really elevated the gather experience? I agree with the never staying too far from the work, and I think most people that will see me in the restaurants will see me hosting food, running, working expo, and we are short staffed to gather right now. So I trained on the grill last week and I worked at the grill the last two nights in a row, which was very grueling. But some of the workflows that we've put into place, I think that having just clear policies and procedures, clear workflows, we have steps of service that the front of house are trained to. We have opening and closing side work lists that everyone's trained to, and then extra side work duties. So I think having policies and procedures in place and making things that are not really dependent on me as well. Sur Lie, we're lucky enough where we're 10 years old, so it's such a well-oiled machine. I think everyone comes in, you hire professionals. This is their craft, this is what they love to do. You have very streamlined workflows. So that is very helpful in both restaurants. And then I think also for me to be so close to the work, it's hard sometimes I do have to balance being strategic and having the energy to, especially right now, the restaurant industry's in such a hard spot with labor. It's just like labor is inflated and the cost of goods is inflated so much. So I need to be strategic and learn how to pivot and whatnot. But that's hard to do when you're just trying to work the line or fill in staffing shortages. But it's interesting. Last night I was working the line with the kitchen and I'm like, why don't we have a clipboard where we can put easy prep projects on it? And that way when the dishwasher has downtime, they can be peeling carrots or something and just streamlining some of that. But a lot of that I wouldn't see if I wasn't so close to the work. So hearing you talk about the challenges of the restaurant industry, I think there are actually still parallels in healthcare where we have had staffing issues where I think we're still trying to figure out compensation for people and the value of the work. Does it feel a little bit like you, and maybe this is a good metaphor for what you do, jumped from the frying pan into the fire? Yes, absolutely. And working in healthcare, I really did jump from the frying pan into the fire. I was employed by someone else, and I had a secure job at least, and salary and earn time. Some of those things that you look back at now, and I was like, man, I had it really good. And then you jump into hoping and praying that all your hard work pays off someday. So yes. What do you see the path forward, the path through being for the restaurant industry? I know that hospitality, especially, I think the COVID really did a number on the industry as a whole, and yet I suspect we are going to come through this. The pandemic really did change. It changed the consumer's behavior a lot. Post pandemic, we're still only open four days a week. We are only seat till nine o'clock. Gone are the days of happy hour at four and dinner service and late night menus at 11, and people aren't eating that late anymore. They're not out that late anymore. I think the challenge with the restaurant industry is that the model was really built on taking advantage of really cheap labor and chefs that made a kind of livable salary and worked 80, 90, a hundred hours a week. And those days are gone as well, which is good. People need work-life balance, and people need livable wages. So now the wages for cooks, they're in Portland, you can see people paying 28 $30 an hour for a line cook. And so I think that the restaurants just need to figure out how to financially operate in the new world of restaurants and not in that outdated system that we are used to operating on, which is low margins, like cheap labor. And then you've got a really small margin at the end, and now that's just being eaten up by labor costs. So also the cost of goods is higher, but the consumer notices when prices go up as well. So even having open dialogues about, that's just educating people on why prices are going up, how restaurants operate, why that is so, might be helpful as well. Well, I know that when I go to a restaurant, if I know that I'm getting high quality food and it's going to be delicious and I'm enjoying the experience, then paying for it seems reasonable. Yeah, absolutely. And if all those things come together, I think that that's sort of the ultimate goal, regardless. Again, I go back to healthcare and there's so many things that you have just said that I could draw a direct line across. Although in healthcare, at the end of the day, you can choose not to go to a restaurant. At the end of the day. You can't choose to leave your festering appendix in your body and not have it taken out. Right? Yeah, exactly. But I think that the lessons you're describing are also about valuing people, valuing people more. I mean, in healthcare, we've always relied on, well, it's the mission, it's the mission of healthcare. So of course you're going to want to work all the hours, and of course you won't mind getting paid what we're going to pay you. But I think that when you rely on cheapness, then you're going to get a bad outcome. Ultimately, in healthcare, you do want to value people and pay them appropriately. And then healthcare is dealing with reimbursement from insurance companies and whatnot. So it's a new world as well and an outdated model that the healthcare is still work functioning in. And honestly, I think that aside from restaurants, I have a lot of interest in economic development and learning as much as I can and finding ways that we can contribute to fixing our broken systems and creating models maybe in Maine that can be replicated for healthcare and education to start. So that's a whole other talk. No, I love that. I mean, that's actually, that's the way that I also think about things within healthcare and outside of healthcare, and I think some of it is even convincing people that that's a direction that we all need to go in, is that whatever the system is that's not functioning, we need to evolve it to a functioning system. And sometimes just convincing people that changes necessary is challenging. So how do you approach that? Ooh, that's a really good question. I don't know. I don't have an answer for that, I don't think. I mean, I guess in the bigger, I think telling the story as much as you can. I mean, the bigger picture's very complicated. If we're talking about healthcare and education, if I'm talking about my restaurants, I think that engaging people into the conversation, helping my team, getting together with me and us making decisions as a team and not being the one who's telling people what the decision's going to be. And maybe that's, I can be a little indecisive sometimes, but I do really like having a lot of conversation and a lot of opinions and gathering as much information as I possibly can and making a decision. And I really do want my teams to be on board, but I think continuing to tell the story as well. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think you're right about the idea of engagement, telling people what to do has really never worked. It's never worked in healthcare. It doesn't work as a parent. I mean, yes, ultimately you have to set boundaries and children or people work within them, but ultimately it's easier to work with people who want to work with you. Yeah, absolutely. And hiring those people who want to contribute, and they don't want to just come in and work a shift and make some money and leave. And that stands out so much when people are really, really engaged in the decisions. And then they can take ownership of what we're doing, and they're more likely to have less burnout and more engagement. Krista, what some people may not know, is that you or the founder, co-founder of Cat Face Cafe in Biddeford. What's happening with that now? Yeah, so I did co-found a cafe in Biddeford called Cat Face. I wanted to give a nod to the sawmill industry there in textile mills. I'm from a mill town in northern Maine. My dad worked in the mill, my papa worked in the mill. And so Cat Face was a term to describe a healing wound in a tree. So I helped to build that brand, streamline some of the workflows. My executive chef Mimi consulted on the menu there, and I did just up selling my share a couple months ago after it reached a year old. I think having three restaurants was a little bit much, and I really do want to focus on my own brands, my brand as a person, and really what that is, and being female owned as well. But it was an amazing experience and I would really, really love to continue to grow that skillset of going in and helping people build brands, build spaces, streamline workflows and whatnot. So we'll see if I can translate that down the road. Well, given how hard you work, I suspect you probably will be able to do that. Persistence that's really important in it. And my observation is you have a lot of that. Main ingredient. Yep, yep. Still there\! Still there. Well, I appreciate your taking time out of your busy schedule. Thank you. We're interviewing you at the beginning of high season here in Maine, so we're lucky that you were willing to come in and have a conversation with us today. Thank you so much for having me. This was really nice. Yeah. And I will see you back at Gather. That's right. Very soon. Yes. I hope that those of you who have become intrigued by our conversation with Krista Cole, who is the owner and director of Operations for Sur Lie and Gather, will actually go to one of her restaurants when you are in Maine. We have Sur Lie in Portland, we have Gather in Yarmouth, both of which have an experience that's worthy of being experienced, and also hopefully meeting Krista Cole. She is the two time James Beard Semifinalist. And also, as you can tell, she's just a highly creative and lovely individual that is worth meeting. And similar to meeting Krista, I hope you'll come in and meet us at the Portland Art Gallery, come in and see our artists and explore creativity and the human spirit with us on site. And then maybe go get a bite to eat at Sur Lie, or Gather and meet Krista Cole. Nice to have you today.