 Everyone, welcome to the Business in Hawaii show. I'm Daelyn Yanagida, and I'm joined today by my co-host, John Strandberg, Hawaii Regional Manager at Pacific Digital Science. We are live from our home offices on Oahu, Hawaii. If you want to tune in live, we are at thinktechhawaii.com. And while there, please subscribe to our programs and get on our mailing list. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to share with you stories of local businesses by local people. And our guests share with us their expertise, trials and tribulations while building successful businesses right here at home. In the thinktech studio today is Thomas Ray, owner of Square Barrels. If you haven't been to Square Barrels yet, it's an awesome restaurant and bar in downtown Honolulu. Very well known to the lunch and pahana crowd for their extensive beer on tap and other after-work delights. My favorite, of course, being the triple butterfly fries, the charcuterie platter, and mac and cheese. So I'm totally hungry right now. Thomas, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Hey, we wanted to roll into this segment by first learning a little bit about who you are. Why don't you tell us about yourself? All right, so I've been in Hawaii since 2006. The Navy brought me here initially. And then I went to HPU and got a degree in finance and worked in finance for a little bit and worked in restaurants and went back for my MBA, which I had never finished, but I'm still a couple of classes away. And then I left to go play rugby in New Zealand, got back from New Zealand, and now I'm here at Square Barrels. And that's my story. And you're sticking with it. That's my story, I'm sticking with it. Rugby, wow. Maybe, is there a rugby league in Hawaii? Yeah, so at most we have about 12 teams, but on average it's about six to eight. Yeah, it's a lot of fun, it's a good game, and it's a great community to be a part of. Nice. You know, I played football and I have to give rugby players extra credit because I got patted up, you guys don't. You're asking to do it? Thomas, John and I have been to Square Barrels and of course, I'm a huge fan of truffle fries, truffle butter fries, but why don't you tell us a little bit about Square Barrels and how, you know, what was the inspiration for Square Barrels and tell us about, you know, what your vision is for Square Barrels? So I came on initially right after I got back from New Zealand and my business partner, Hideo, he had set everything up prior and it was originally just a craft beer and burger joint and we had 24 taps and we had a lot of wine too, but the inspiration was the great pair of burgers and beers and bringing them together in an artisanal way, right? So we do a lot to make sure we have the best possible product. So we grind all the beef and house. Our recipes are pretty unique, some of them are inspired from the West Coast because we're both from the West Coast and others like develop over time, but the concept evolved, right? And we all love whiskeys, so then we started collecting more and more whiskeys to put behind the bar. And then as we grew, we developed our cocktail program to be competitive with the neighborhood because when we first started, we literally had no cocktail program and we were just gonna go burgers and beer and then everyone was asking for cocktails and so we had to adapt to the market. So you had a background in the Navy and then, of course, you played rugby. So where is being a restaurateur fall into that? How does that happen? When I was 13, I started working in my uncle's pizzeria. He went to law school at Hastings in San Francisco and when he got back from law school, for whatever reason, he decided he didn't wanna practice law and that he wanted to open up a pizzeria with his friend from high school. And so they did that and they were partners and then eventually my uncle took control of the restaurant. So since I was 13, I started working in restaurants and I had pretty low level jobs like dishwashing, helping make pizza dough, but I would sell pizzas in the fairy lines in Washington so I'd have a stack of like 10 or 12 pizzas and I would run up and down the fairy lines because the lines can go for miles and scream hot, fresh pizzas, ice cold drinks, 5.95 on pop and that was my first sales job and then I kind of always gravitated towards the front of the house and I worked in restaurants while I was in the Navy too. Wow, fantastic. John, I know for a fact that you were just there and you had the mother clucker. Tell me about it. I did have the mother clucker. It was, I was there for a meeting with a client and I told Tom as I was coming and I said, I want the chicken sandwich. And he had the chef put it on today for me and it was absolutely delicious. When you put bacon and avocado in a sandwich with a piece of deep fried chicken on Texas toast, how do you go wrong with that? I don't know, it sounds pretty fantastic. But I do have to share this with you in the audience as I actually got some on my lips. I didn't know I was there. I stopped, went to the restroom, put my mask on because you have to walk to the restroom with the mask. And I came back and realized there's some sauce on my mask and now when I wear the mask for today, I smell sauce. That's awesome. I would want to smell sauce all day. Sauce. So John, I know you frequent quite a few eateries around town often and speaking of having to put on your mask, things have changed around town, haven't they? Yes, they have. So my company and I, we do work with a lot of restaurants and everyone's still not sure how much they can open. And that's one of the pitfalls of the rules is no one's quite sure what they can or cannot do. And I give Thomas a lot of credit for finding ways of making things work. That's why I support square girls a lot. He's like, he finds what works with it until someone says otherwise. It's almost like the model of ask for forgiveness over permission. And that's something that I always admired about him. He just goes for it until it means work. So Thomas, we've been open now for almost a week. Tell me about week one. What was that like? The first day was pretty overwhelming. We didn't really know what we were doing in terms of just how intense that was gonna be because when you don't do anything for two and a half months besides to go, you lose all those skills that go with working in a fast-paced restaurant. And when you work in a restaurant and you're a part of this community, it's not as easy as it looks. You have to multitask on a very high level to make sure all your orders are in a line. You're dealing with potentially angry customers and then you wanna make sure that you're doing all the steps of service to ensure the guests has a great experience. So it was a learning curve at first. And then we had to, the problem with our location is it's been built for the last five years on relationships. And so it's really a part of the downtown community. So when you see all these people who have been essentially locked away for two and a half months and they've been friends for years prior to square barrels or they met at square barrels, they're going to want to interact. So regulating the parties was a challenge for us because we don't want to do anything that's going to put our restaurant in a negative light first, but the restaurant community as a whole. So if there's a cluster of COVID that breaks out in a restaurant, to me that would just be devastating because we've always been adamant about doing this safely and we're going to continue to do it safely. So it was a challenge and we're going to continue to rise to that challenge. And we got it under control as far as reservations go now. And that initial being sequestered feeling has kind of worn off and people are like less aggressive when they come in now. It's like, hey, they've been to maybe one or two restaurants and it's like they know the routine. I know that I am dying to get out and eat way more. Now it's been at least a couple of months. What did you see from your customers' reactions? I mean, are they being reserved, intensive? Are they looking for certain safety measures? From what I've seen, everyone's pretty comfortable with the situation and they're out because they're willing to take the risks that are associated with going out. And also we have had tremendously low numbers in Hawaii, so that adds to the feeling safe. The only issue that I saw with people being concerned about the safety was the delivery drivers. So like when the delivery service like Uber Eats and DoorDash, they had been going to restaurants for two and a half months that were completely empty. And so I think they were taken aback seeing so many people in a restaurant without masks. And so we got a couple of questions from them, like what are the laws, what's going on with this? And I just told them like, hey, they're part of a party, they're together, they don't have to wear their masks when they're sitting together. And then a comment was made, oh, well, I need to get out of here as soon as possible. But as far as people who came to the restaurant, there didn't seem to be any anxiety or trepidation about the experience. Nice. Hey, John, what have you been seeing out there? Pretty much the same. I mean, opening night, I was at square barrels on that Friday night and the parties were respectful of each other in the space to wear a mask and to walk to your table and to the restaurant and so on. But the people that were there at the restaurant, you already know they're risk takers because they want to go out and eat like me. And B, they didn't mind going through the extra steps. So that really says a lot about the people who are early adopters. They're setting the stage for future restaurant visits. And even now, I try to let people know when you go to a restaurant, wear your mask, get seated, then take your mask off. And the people who are there to serve you will actually take care of you and tell you what needs to get done. Hey, Thomas, I know for the past couple of months, we've, the media has been talking about the CARES Act and PPP and keeping people employed. How have you been able to use some of the government programs, PPP, CARES, IDLE, what have you, to maintain your staff? So the rules regarding the PPP changed pretty significantly from point A to point B. So initially it was eight weeks, you had to use your PPP money for 75% of employee wages and then 25% for additional expenses like rent and then utilities. And then those guidances have changed, I believe they're at 60, 40 now in terms of payroll to expenses. And now they've opened it up where it doesn't just have to be rent because the main issue with a restaurant is that we sell perishable products, right? And the main issue for us as a restaurant is we were in Alaminute Kitchen, everything's made from scratch. We grind our beef, like I told you, each burger is handmade. That's a significant process to get down and it's very tedious to do that, but we're, we did the best we could and we got as long story short, we did the best we could with the circumstances that we were given and we brought back our cooks and we used a lot of the PPP money to do renovations around the restaurant. So this beautiful wall behind me was repainted. We cleaned everything from top to bottom so you can't see it, but the ceiling actually took about three days to clean because we took each individual pile down and then we put them in our dishwasher which is extremely hot. So it gets them very clean and the ceiling is nice and bright and COVID free depending on what was worried about that. But yeah, we just did as many projects as we could and then we tried to minimize our loss in terms of food so ordering was a challenge, but we did the best we could and we're going to continue to fight and be a part of this community. I appreciate you sharing with us how Square Barrels and how you managed the time that we weren't able to be open. We're going to go to a short break, but when we come back I really am really interested in you spent your time, not just focusing on Square Barrels, but on the larger community and that initiative was Be Local Support Local. So let's go to a quick break and when we come back, I want to hear all about it. Perfect. This is Aloha, I'm Kisha King, host of Crossroads and Learning on Think Tech Hawaii. On Crossroads and Learning, our guests and I discuss all aspects of education here in Hawaii and throughout the country. You can join us for stimulating conversations to enrich and liven and educate. We are streamed live on Think Tech bi-weekly at 4 p.m. on Mondays. Thanks so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. Aloha. Welcome back. This is Business in Hawaii. Today in the studio, we have Thomas Ray, owner of Square Barrels in downtown Honolulu and my co-host John Strandberg with Pacific Digital Science. Hey, both of you running businesses that were impacted by the recent pandemic. I'd love to hear how business during that pandemic impacted both of you. So Thomas, I know that all the restaurants went to take out only and I think the community may not have a sense of how really, even though locals are patronizing businesses, how really our restaurant business was impacted? It was a significant impact. So we saw 80% revenue decline, which is terrible. So, but we did have some shining moments. It was tough at first and we all quit about four times during the entire process and we were just always there, whether it was my wife having a tough day and then I was like, hey, we gotta do this. We're not giving up no matter what, whether it was me who was going through my emotions and not wanting to do this. My chef was there for me and my wife and my business partner. So we all kept each other going through the entire process. Yeah, it was tough. We were just willing to fight it out because if I shuddered, then it would be a mental block for me that we were completely done and I didn't want to even risk that because once you shudder something, you're almost defeated. You're saying that's it. Yeah. John, in your line of business, you see, you have a ton of clients from different industries. How are they impacted? Well, I think our largest industry is impacted because of closed hospitality. Hotels are closed down so we lost a significant customer base there. Even restaurants have gone to take out models only and darken their screens because we provide the services to running our menu boards and so on. So they've gotten a little quiet and especially retailers have been hard as hit and our retailer partners have always been our front line of how we judge things and they're telling us, hey, can I pay my bill next month instead of this month? Kind of on the top of my head. But for us as a company, we just take it one degree a time. One foot forward to provide the board and we promise our customers will be there for them. I know that everybody in the state was impacted by the pandemic and how our state completely shut down. And so all of our families and our local businesses were impacted. And it was probably hard to focus on anything, but hey, what am I gonna do to make it through this time? But Thomas, what you did with your time was to become a voice for all local businesses and you created the local support local. Can you tell me about that program? Sure, so the concept came just looking at different economic data and I still believe we're in a significant amount of trouble because right now we're in this phase where the economy is kind of being short up by PPP money still as well as the additional money that people who are on employment are receiving from the $600 bonus CARES Act. I wouldn't call that a bonus, it's not fair to say that, but that's due to run out on July 31st and just walking around different neighborhoods. I've been in downtown for a long time, HPU graduate. I saw a line out the door for a subway, but across the street there was an Aloha subs and I know the owners. And I was like, why? I've never seen a line out the door for a subway, not since like subway first became prominent in like the late 90s, no one lines up for subway and this local business had maybe one customer. Then I was looking at other like large chains and just seeing fleets of cars that were just waiting to take delivery orders. And I just thought to myself like this has to change, we need to get the word out that even though people might think business is okay currently because they have the PPP money and whatever, it's a temporary fix right now. And our largest sector of our economy is tourism and without tourism, and I'm not suggesting we reopen tourism, we're gonna be in some deep trouble because there's a lot of secondary and tertiary businesses that thrive because of the tourism ripple effect. And until tourism returns even at one six, which would be 6,000 tourists per day, it's gonna be a long difficult road for small businesses. And I just wanted to get a simple message out that the B vocal part is if you are going and supporting local restaurants, tell people about it, tell people post about it on your social media and just come together as a community because no one in the history of the world has gone to New York City for a visit because they have the best Buka de Beppo in Times Square, which they do have a Buka de Beppo in Times Square. And I used to work for Buka de Beppo as a waiter. There's nothing wrong with Buka de Beppo, but people don't come to Hawaii for our chain restaurants. We have some of the busiest chains in the nation, I know Cheesecake Factory is one of the busiest chains in the nation, but they come for the character and the charm that our islands provide. And that's what our tourism is built off of. And we need to really foster and protect our local businesses because our culinary experience is gonna be defined by large chains if we don't. And the road is tremendously long. So that's basically in a nutshell why I did it. And then there's a different, I guess, question of how I did it if you wanna know. Well, that actually leads me into the question I was gonna ask you is how you did it. I got wind of it through the Chamber of Commerce before I heard it from you. Right, so to make something blow up on the internet, you either have to be a very influential person. Like, I hate to use this example, but we're gonna use Donald Trump, right? Anything he says on his Twitter people talk about, right? And I don't have that kind of marketing power, I don't. But what I do have is lots of different friends that have large enough networks in my own network where we could all come together and do a unified post with the unified message. So I tried to pick people in different sectors of our economy. So I picked a lawyer, I picked bars, I picked restaurants, I picked breweries, news anchors that I know, food writers that I know. Actually, I think some barbers were on there, coffee shop owners, a real estate agent. So I knew that if we all posted simultaneously, that would cast a big enough reach to different people where it could have a large impact. And that's what we did and that's what I'm currently trying to do. So we started with 74 people. And then now the email list has grown to 420-ish, I believe. Yeah, and that's just people who have processed orders. That's not including people who've bought in shirts for their friends. So I think we're approaching, we're definitely in the sixes for how many t-shirts I've printed since this campaign began, which is fantastic. I know it's hard to show this, but is there a way to stand up a little bit? Can you see the rest of that shirt? Yeah. You can just be vocal. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I chose the color too because it fades nicely. So once this gets washed about 30 times, it's gonna fade into a really nice light green. So there's that effect to it. Yeah, I know I bought my shirt. I'll be wearing it Sunday because there's an event you have planned for this coming Sunday. Right, so for this Sunday, I want everyone to focus on local breweries. So Honolulu Beerworks, like a Hebrewing company, Beer Lab, Inu Island. There's so many great local breweries here and the brewery, I wouldn't call it a bubble, but the brewery scene culture in Hawaii really took off in 2015 when we opened. So that year, I think Beer Lab opened, Waikiki Brewing opened that year, Lonnie Kai Brewing opened that year, and it was pretty small prior to that. A lot of people think of Kona as a local brewery, but it's actually owned by Anheuser-Busch Embed. So, and there's nothing wrong with people who drink Kona, there's nothing wrong with that, but our focus is on local independent businesses that operate and live in Hawaii, where the money is gonna stay in Hawaii and be recirculated throughout our economy. Well, Thomas, I wanted to thank you for getting involved and getting people to be vocal to support our local businesses. And I knew this was gonna happen, but we are out of time, but I want you to be able to tell everyone how to get involved with Beer Vocal Support Local and how to get in touch with you because I know you have some pretty exciting things coming up in the near future too with a brand new restaurant. So how do people get in touch with you? So we have a Beer Vocal Instagram page that it's not like it's on there, right? And then you click on the website and then when you click on the website and order your shirts, you then submit your phone number and your email address. And I send out maybe two or three emails a week with, hey, this is what we're focusing on this week. Last week it was blight. Blight is a consequence of businesses shuttering. This week it's gonna be local breweries and I'd like to continue with that positive message instead of focusing on the negativity, focusing on like, hey, we have great coffee roasters in Hawaii. Here's a Lee E. Coffee in Chinatown. Here's Kai Coffee in downtown. We have a lot of positive... We have a lot of businesses that are doing great things and creating great flavors and then we have like just even dress shops like Vallejo. So it's, you don't have to buy the shirt to be a part of the movement. It's merely just a uniform. You can join the movement by hashtag and say Hawaii's businesses, hashtag be vocal Hawaii. That's it. That's all you have to do and use those hashtags with by supporting local businesses and then taking a picture of those businesses. Awesome. We would love to catch up with you again, maybe in a month or so and also to hear about your new restaurant that you have coming up soon. Unfortunately, we are out of time. I wanted to thank Thomas and my co-host, John Strandberg for joining me today in the studio and a big thank you to the production staff. If you would like to be a guest on the show, please like us, subscribe and leave a comment below. Business in Hawaii airs every other Thursday at 2 p.m. and we look forward to seeing you back soon again. Thank you so much.