 Think Tech Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. And welcome to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 from the Think Tech studios in downtown Halaululu and the Pioneer Plaza. These days, the rain has stopped and we've got some beautiful sunshine out there. And so I'm gonna try to go through this show really quick so I can get outside and enjoy the sun. We've got a really special guest here today. Somebody I've been trying to get on the show I'm gonna say over a year. And we finally were able to make it happen. He's a very busy guy and you'll find out more about that shortly. But his name is Tyler Kimura. I think I said that right? Rockhamah. Rockhamah. Rockhamah sounds close. But I answered him just back. Rockhamah. Rockhamah. But he's the owner and the manager, the general manager for the Outback Steak House in Hawaii, which I have seen for many years since I live in Hawaii. And we have a lot of events and dinners and lunches out there. So he's a familiar face. Tyler, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. I'm glad we finally got this done. Thanks for the opportunity to be here today. I appreciate it. You're a very busy guy. You got a lot of things going on. But before we jump into all that, why don't you give us a little bit of background on yourself? How long have you been in Hawaii and where did you go to school? Everybody wants to know where you go to high school. Okay, well I've been with Outback Steak House now for 20 years and 11 days. So you started when you were what, six or seven? I'll take that as long as I possibly can. That's for sure. I started off when I was 16 and in high school and it was really the first job that I ever had. I started off as a busboy dishwasher and worked my way up. Started managing, being an hourly manager when I was 18 years old with Outback Steak House. Was this here locally or on the way? No, I started in Texas. I moved around to a couple of Outbacks in Texas. Texas, I can't think of a better place for a Steak House. I mean, if you're gonna have a Steak House in Texas, this is a place to be, that's for sure. So, spent about 10 years working in Outback Steak Houses there. I've been here in Hawaii now for about the same amount of time. My wife is born and raised here in Hawaii. I'm shell. And so she drug me kicking and screaming all the way to Hawaii and I've loved every second of it. Was Outback able to transfer you over here? They were, I came over here knowing full well that I was gonna have a job waiting for me, that I was gonna manage and shortly thereafter, takeover as an owner of an Outback Steak Houser. And so it's been probably the best decision that I ever made and I just enjoy it every day. Very good, and you've got a very beautiful location out there in Hawaii. I do, I would put our location up against anybody else's out there, that's right. It's right there on the ocean, right there on the water. We get to enjoy the sunsets every day when it's not raining. That's right, yeah, well, enjoy it while you can. Exactly. But you've got, right across the street, you've got that big ocean, you've got a nice monologue bay. But Hawaii Kai is also a nice community too. It really is. It's a good community to live in. I couldn't think of a better place to have a restaurant. Really, truly. The people that come to my restaurant are just fantastic. Little backstories, 10 years ago when I came here and had the opportunity to take over an Outback, I was actually offered either the one in Waikiki or the one in Hawaii Kai right around the same time and it was a pretty easy decision for me. The one in Hawaii Kai, obviously, with my wife being born and raised there, made it an obvious choice and having a chance to get to know the people and really having a business that's supported by all the local people just makes all the world a different. Sure, and well, I would imagine that maybe the clientele a little bit different in Waikai compared to Waikiki. I mean, there's a lot of local business that comes in. Absolutely, I always often equate it to 95, 97% of the people that come in that restaurant or local population, which is really special for me because I get a chance to really develop those relationships and get a chance to know them. And we have conversations where we left off last week, when they came in again. Yeah, and that's great. And then plus you have your neighborhood, you've got your neighbors and your friends. I guess if your children go to school out there, you've got, there's a whole network of. Absolutely, it's a special place to live, a special place to have a family. Hi again to my daughters Alexis and Madison. Just, but a great place to really have a business and be able to support a community. Cause it's one of my favorite things about my job is being also able to give back to the community and help support in the community and help raise money for the different schools and organizations that are out there in Hawaii. Yeah, well you definitely become an active member of the community when you're out there. But that particular location has done very well for Outback in general, hasn't it? It has, it's a little backstory. As I took over the restaurant, probably about the worst time you could take over a restaurant in 2008, not the best time to start a new business. But we learned a lot and we learned a lot of things very quickly. First year, probably a little rough. A little bumps and bruises along the way, a lot of learning went into that. But for the last several years now, we've really enjoyed some great things. Have done some really great things and have really helped to grow a successful business. Well it's nice to start with something that's kind of at the bottom because there's really hopefully only one direction to go from there. I couldn't agree with you more. I couldn't agree with you more. But I have to give credit where credit's due. If you'll allow me a second just to plug my staff. My staff is some of the best in the industry and I just couldn't be more proud of what we do day in and day out. So thank you to all of you for all of what you do. I really appreciate it. You know, I've gone to dinner there and I've also gone to events there and I gotta tell you that the staff that I've interacted with have been always very good at what they do. You know. They're fantastic. So it's a good team that you've got there. Thank you. You're very lucky man. They make my job easy. They do, I would imagine. So what's, you know, there's, how many other state-backs, outbacks in the state? We have six total. So we have four outback state-couches here on Oahu. We have one in Waikiki, Waipio and Kapolei. We also have one in Maui and Kihei and then one in Kona as well on the bigger. Very good. So you're not alone? We're not alone. You got some company. And it's important and I think it's great to have those other restaurants here because there's a partnership between all of us. We get together all the time. We talk about many. We talk about marketing. We talk about the industry and as a whole. And we also support one another. If I need something, they might have it. If they need something, I probably have it. And we just share ideas and share best practices and it's a great deal. Now are these, and yours particularly, are they franchisor, are they owned by you? That's a great question. So it's actually a partnership. So I'm part owner and outback's part owner, which I think is a really great and unique business model that Outback created. It gives me a little bit more of an interest in what it is that we do. Having some skin in the game is always nice. And you have to write a check to take over a restaurant that obviously makes you work a little bit harder. Very good. But they still provide some support. Outback's a huge organization. I mean, they've got to have some good contracts and good supply chain and things like this. So yeah, they take a lot of the guesswork out of it and the support systems that we have are just fantastic. We have, I think, 700 Outbacks in the United States now, which is pretty amazing. And the supply chains that we have, like you said, are fantastic. We bring in a lot of our products from the mainland and to be able to do that, obviously, there has to be some good systems in place. It does. It certainly helps. Absolutely. You raise an interesting point. What are the challenges here in Hawaii, say, is compared to, if you had a store in California, is compared to Hawaii? I mean, there's obviously shipping issues that have to be addressed. And I think that that's probably one of the biggest ones that we experience on a regular basis is that shipping component. It is very challenging to order correctly, to bring the product in. On the mainland, you're ordering, you get the product two or three days later. That's how great the supply chains are. Here, we order and I get it two weeks from now, making sure that there's no storms and no other contributing factors, which can happen. So the ordering is a bit of a challenge. The other piece of that, I think, is the other challenging is just staffing from time to time. I'm very fortunate, again, with the staff that I have working with me, but I think just staffing in general here in the state with the unemployment the way that it is, it makes it a little bit challenging from time to time. When you've got low single digit unemployment, it makes it tough. Absolutely. And I know we've already talked about how great your staff is, but one of the other challenges that I have heard is that it's hard to get good quality staff. How do you get so lucky to find all these good people? I really think it's about the core of people that have been there for a long time, first and foremost. Second is I think it's the culture that we have in the restaurant. I've had the privilege of working for probably 10 different Outback State houses. And so I've taken some goods, I've taken some bads, and we've kind of put together what we really think is a great Outback State house in Hawaii, Kai. But the expectation to work in my restaurant is it's gotta be perfect. From a service standpoint, it's gotta be perfect. And I think that people respect that, understand that, and wanna be part of something that's bigger than themselves. And once we get those great ones in there, wrap my arms around them as much as I possibly can and try to truly, truly, try to make it not just a job, but I want it to be a place that I really want to be a part of. And if it's not a job and it's a place where you can see your family, your friends, make some money, share some laughs, I really think that we win. And that's how we create that magic. Yeah, the customer's winning, the employees win, everybody ends up winning. Everybody wins. And so, we have very low turnover at my restaurant. That's a good sign. And I think it's because of that culture that we have in that environment where people wanna be part of it. That's good, it's nice to get that type of engagement. I couldn't agree with you more or none. I mean, I'm just super blessed to have the staff that I do, and they just, they make my job and enjoy them. Have you found that a lot of your employees come from East Oahu or do they kind of dispersed around? A little bit of everything. There's several people that work and live in Hawaii guy. I got people that drive all the way from Mililani to work at my restaurant. That's dedication. And to me, that's a testament to what we do. I mean, if you have to drive by two other Outback Steak Houses to get to my Outback Steak House, I think that really says something about what we do there. It does, it's a good testimonial. One of the topics that we've always had on the show before is the training and the continuous training that has to take place. And do you have a formalized training program? Yeah, and that has to be the cornerstone of everything that you do. I mean, the training has to be there. It should be told not 10 years ago when I took over my Outback Steak House, I threw out the Outback Training Manual. It wasn't something that I liked. Did you tell Outback about that? It might have been something that I played close to the chats a little bit. But I just thought it could be better. I really did. I think that you have to invest in people. I think you have to invest time, you have to invest money. And when you invest in that, you get great people out of it. And so it's probably 10 days of training before you really touch the floor. We have a really fun last day of training where you come in and we make every single item together with me. It's kind of hard to watch my weight when we're making every single item in the restaurant at one time. But we make every appetizer, every salad, every dessert, entrees, everything. And we let them experience the food, try all the food so that when a customer goes, tell me about this, their reaction is, let me tell you about this. Alice Springs Shake, and it's fantastic here. The ingredients, it goes into that. And I think that people really respect that and understand the passion that my servers have for what they do. But it's, again, it's that investment, it's that time into them. No, and it's that passion. I mean, obviously you have passion for doing this excellent job that you're doing. And that also, that's contagious. A lot of people will pick up on that and try to emulate it. So that's great. Well, we work hard at it. That's a message that I think everybody should be receiving is that, if you want excellence, you've got to act excellently. If you want something half-assed and... Agreed. It's just going to happen. Well, very good. We're going to have to take a short break. And we're going to come back. And you've got another hat that you wear as well. So in addition to running one of the more successful outbacks in the state, if not the country, you also wear another hat. And that's just a little teaser. So we're going to go on break right now. We're going to be back in about 60 seconds and continue our conversation with Tyler, who owns the Waikai Outback franchise. See you soon. Hi, my name is Bill Shaw, our host of Asian Review, coming to you from Honolulu, Hawaii, right here in the center of the Pacific Ocean. Asian Review is the oldest of the 35 or so shows broadcast by Think Tech Hawaii. We've been in production since 2009. Our goal is to provide you, the viewer, with information, breaking information about events in Asia, Asia being anything from Hawaii west of Pakistan, from the Russian Far East, south to Australia and New Zealand. We hope to see you every Monday afternoon at 5 p.m. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner. And I'm Beatriz Cantero. And we have come in this series, Young and Old Alive, to take a look at our past, your past and the past that's not seen history books. History books are his story. And what we refer to as mirrors of the past, but we as colonized people, indigenous peoples and people of Kola, look into the mirror and do not see ourselves that. On the Tyes that Bind, we will examine those underlying causes. Please join us with the Tyes that Bind on Wednesdays at noon twice a month. We look for you there. Aloha. Aloha. Welcome back. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're here this week talking with Tyler Rachemont about the Outback Steakhouse in Hawaii, which from what I understand and from my experience is probably one of the best in the country. We're gonna talk about another hat that he wears, which he says is a small one. I think maybe it's a little bit bigger than small. But tell us a little bit about the chairmanship that you're on. Sure. Currently I'm the chairman of the board for the Hawaii Restaurant Association. I've been with the Hawaii Restaurant Association for about four years now, and got an opportunity to join the executive team. Last year as the incoming chair, this year I said as the chairman of the board and obviously next year then I would be the outgoing chair. So you're lucky that this is only a one-year term. I couldn't agree with you more. I've said in some boards where it's a two-year term and in the second year is tough. But congratulations on that. Thank you. You're a great team. How many members are in the organization? So we have about 700 restaurants that are part of the organization. There's about 6,000 restaurants now statewide. So it's quite a few. 3,500 is the number that we have for O'ahu and then obviously tons of restaurants on the other neighboring islands as well. So obviously with 700 of the 6,000, we're always looking for more members and not always looking for new members. I would imagine. Let's talk about that for a second. I mean 700 members. What is the value of becoming a member of the association? Yeah, I think being part of the association leads you to a lot of different avenues. It's what do you want to get out of it really? There's opportunities to participate in mixers and networkers and educational seminars and I think there's a lot of value that goes into them. Of course. When you can go to a networking event or to an educational seminar and learn about the new laws at the liquor commission or upcoming regulations for the, who has to be on-premise with a certain certificate, different things like that. It's important to know those things and so being able to go to these tutorials or mixers and networking seminars, those are really, really important. And as you mentioned earlier, Tyler, I mean you've been able to work at 10 different outbacks and you were able to pick up best practices and probably something from every place that you've gone. And so there's a tremendous learning opportunity to get out and mix with people that are in the same business, that are doing the same thing and figure out how they address some of these issues. That's probably my favorite thing about being part of the Hawaii Restaurant Association is getting outside of my four walls and getting out into a mixer environment, having a cocktail with friends and just talking about best practices. What's working for you? What can I learn from you? What can you learn from me? And let's take you back to our restaurant and let's be successful together. And I think that's one of the biggest parts about being part of the Hawaii Restaurant Association. It's getting outside of your four walls, your network and helping to build your brand, helping to build your business. And I think that we can help you with that. You know, there's so many different elements of running a restaurant. There's no way that one person is gonna be able to, I guess, be an expert in all these different areas. And so having, I guess, an opportunity to meet with people and to share ideas and to go to the training and maybe even specifically seek people out for areas that you need some help with. Absolutely. I mean, that's, you know, being a member, an active member and just joining and paying your dues isn't gonna do it for you. You know, you've gotta be actively involved. Absolutely. And I mean, you said a perfect, excuse me. It's, you can go out and you can meet other people that are in your same industry, but you can also get an opportunity to meet different vendors. We have different vendors and suppliers and these are the people that also come to our organization events and things like that. So, getting a chance to talk to people that, you know, might be able to supply you with something that you've never heard of, seen of before is really great. It is. And it's, I guess we could talk about this for a while or maybe it's a subject for another show, you know, at some point. We'd love to come back. I think learning more about that organization, but tell us a little bit about how it's structured. I mean, you've got a board. Yeah, we sure have. And you're the chair and what else goes on? What are the committees and that sort of thing? How much time do you have? So we have board of directors. We have an executive team. We have an events and fundraising committee. We have a marketing team. We have a social media team. So, you know, that right there, I mean, OK. Let me ask you this. If you can disclose it, great. What is the cost to join? Oh, absolutely. And you can find all this information all on the Hawaii Restaurant Association website. But it's for a regular member. It's $165, depending on how many employees you have, obviously it tears up from there. If you're an allied member, meaning somebody that supports the restaurants, it's $375 for the year. And to be honest, it'll probably be the best $165, the best $375 you ever spent. Well, and where I was headed was, let's just say it's $165. And you're a new restaurant. You're just getting started out. You're starting to get some traction. You're maybe even getting close to break even. Absolutely. Now all of a sudden you want to be at a hit second gear and you want to get into the social media side of things. You join as one of these committees. You get on the committee. You're going to learn all kinds of things. It opens up so many different doors. I can't tell you how much I've learned just in the last couple of years of being part of the Hawaii Restaurant Association. I wanted to get in and support it. I think I've now got into it to learn from it, because that's really what I'm doing on a regular basis. So if you join the organization, you get in there, you put yourself into it, you can learn a ton. You can make a lot of friends. You can meet a lot of people, learn a lot. And I promise it'll help you be more successful. One of the comments that I used to make, I'm a very active member of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, and I chaired the Economic Development Committee and the Small Business Committee. What I tell members is that if you're not getting value, that is at least two or three times, if not more, than what you're paying and do is, and there's something wrong, and you need to go back and reexamine. Because getting that type of value out of membership is easy to do. It is. You just put your mind to it. Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm glad to hear that that's a consistent team that you guys would have to. I think your money is worth 10-fold when you join the organization. How often do you guys have events? We actually now have about 12 events a year. So we're a shout out to Dan Pence from our Events Committee. He works for Hawaiian Volcanic Water, just does a fantastic, fantastic job of supporting the Hawaii Restaurant Association. And him and his team just worked tirelessly putting on these different events throughout the year, whether it's the mixers, whether it's the educational seminars, whether it's the golf tournament coming up in June. And where is the golf tournament going to be? It is out on a golf course. It is out on a golf course. And if you give me a second, I'll get it. All right. Well, they can call in. We've got to call in. All right. It's also on our website. It's on the Hawaii Restaurant Association. I'm probably going to get a little bit of lack for not knowing that. But it's a nice golf course. And it's going to have clubs and golf carts. And probably some adult libations as well. There you go. And it's white prints. White ball. Nice one. There we go. Maybe I'll be in less trouble now. Yeah, white prints. Well, that's a good course, though. Yes. Is that the one that's out on the Eba? Yeah. Yeah, that's where it's out there. It's beautiful. And there's not that much water to lose balls in at all. But I'll find it. Yeah, well, OK. Good luck with that. Thank you. But you've got the golf outing. That's it now. And people could actually go to this and they can actually sponsor holes. You can sponsor a hole. You can have a team that goes out there. And I mean, it's a full, fun day of fun. It's a couple hours out on the golf course. Obviously, when you have 220 golfers that are playing, we have all three golf courses that are out there. It's a lot of fun. It's a great day. And it's another one of those networking opportunities because there's a big event at the end. There's a dinner at the event where we give away a bunch of prizes and things like that. But again, any opportunity to get FaceTime with other people is always a win. And from my experience, sometimes it's the reception afterwards that is the most well attended. You'll have people show up that didn't even play golf and they're at that reception. We get quite a few of those, actually. Yeah. And so it's a big event. That's something to keep in mind for those people that are out there. Absolutely. We'd love to have them out there. That's for sure. It's a great event. And so you have networking. The networking events rotate around from different venues. We try to look for some of our different members that have restaurants and try to ask them and try to get them involved. That value piece, trying to get them some exposure and try to get them dollars coming in the door. That's another one of those value-add opportunities. If you're a member, you can sign up to maybe host one of these things and really get some visibility. Absolutely. You have 100, 200 people coming in your doors for an evening. That's a good night. And if they have a website, they take some video of it. They take some pictures through it and say, look how busy we are. Put it on your Facebook and your Instagram and then all of a sudden, yeah, absolutely. Everybody wins. That's great. So if you were a new restaurant just starting out or say you were a person starting a new restaurant and you were trying to get some traction on this thing, you've been in a business long time. What are some of the bits of advice you might offer a new restaurant owner, some of the things that they should do, maybe some things that they shouldn't do? Join the Hoya Restaurant Association. All right, that's one way of doing this. That's always a good one. We're sticking with that theme. Yeah, we're going with that theme in this segment. That's for sure. No, if you're just starting out and if you're just looking for a concept, if you're really at that ground level, to me, it's finding the right idea first. It's finding the right concept first. It's finding something that maybe nobody else is doing in the industry. It's trying to find your niche. Does that mean a concept related to food or ambiance? It could be anything. But you need to be able to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Take Outback, for example. I mean, we're an Australian-themed restaurant. And I don't know about you, but I don't know any more Australian-themed restaurants that are out there. And it's definitely our niche. And it's our differentiating factor when it comes to just our identity. So I think starting off in the restaurant, you need to find that. You need to find out what is going to be that for you. And then it's making sure that the product is sound and making sure even more importantly that you have the right people. And I can't say it enough to anybody that'll listen. We are in a people business, we're a hospitality business, and you've got to get the people right. If you do that, you're always going to have a fighting chance. And going back, Tyler, to what you mentioned before, there's 6,000 restaurants in this town or in this state. And there's a lot of options. And people are going to go where they feel most comfortable. And the food needs to be good. But the people, that interaction, that's what's going to really bring them back. I want my restaurant to be considered Cheers. I want to see a Sambi on the bar and Woody waiting tables. Because I think that people gravitate to an environment that they know and they're comfortable with. And they know the experience that they're going to get. And I think that that's what you get when you come to my restaurant. I think if you had Sam behind the bar and Woody serving the drinks, it'll be standing room only. I promise. If they're watching, give me a call. Oh. Very good. But you certainly seem to know how the formula works. And you're putting it all together. And I think the fact that your chair of the Restaurant Association in Hawaii speaks well of your ability to be able to do that. Thank you. It's a lot of fun. Congratulations. Thank you. You've done well. And I know you've been there for 20 years. It's amazing. You're one of those young professionals. You should be in some of these magazines as one of these special 40 people. You're very kind. I'm just lucky. I found something that I'm passionate about. Found something that I love to do. And I think we can find something like that. You're always going to enjoy it. And we've got about less than a minute to go. And would it be fair to say that I know you've got a great team out there, but are you always looking for good people? There's always opportunity. Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're looking for an opportunity, knock on my door. Give me a ring, because I'd love to meet you. Very good. Always looking for the next Superstar to join my team and help me continue to grow my business and to continue to support them. Very good. Well, you heard it here, folks. Outback Seekhouse in Waikai is hiring. They're looking for good people. Always looking for great people. Very good. Well, thank you for being on the show today. We're going to wrap up. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30. We highlight successful individuals and their businesses in Hawaii. There are challenges, but there are special people who have made it work. And Tyler was one of them. So until next week, aloha.