 Think Tech Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Welcome to Adventures in Small Business, a joint effort by the United States Small Business Administration, the Hawaii Small Business Development Center, the Ming Center for Business and Leadership and the Veterans Business Outreach Center of the Pacific to showcase the stories of local entrepreneurs and small businesses. I am your host for today. My name is Dennis Kwok. I'm the Director of the Veterans Business Outreach Center of the Pacific. And today we have a very special guest, Mr. Hideo Simon, who is the co-owner of Pine and Jigger and Square Barrels, as well as a veteran. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So, you know, I wanted to read a kind of a bio about you, but maybe you can tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, if you could. Sure. Yeah. Well, I guess I did come from sort of a military background. My father was in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, and in my raising, I sort of follow through rules and restrictions of the Marines as I got older. I always had this sort of entrepreneurial spirit growing up. And then when I got to a point of adulthood, my father obviously motivated me to join the military, and I selected the Coast Guard to be the actual military branch that I decided to go with. And after that, I still had that entrepreneurial spirit, so I obviously went right back into it, and that's how I got to where I am now. Okay. So why don't you tell me a little bit about how your restaurants came about, I mean, what was the genesis, what was the thought process, and we can start with Pine and Jigger, because I know that was started before Square Barrel. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. When my wife and I were married, we lived in California. We were up and down the coast. I was working for Oracle Corporation, which is a big software company. Meanwhile, I still had that entrepreneurial spirit. I went into business with my uncle. We did real estate, did some housing flips, and we started purchasing rental properties. And all the while, my wife at the time was working in the restaurant industry, and she did it better than anybody could. So when we came up with an idea to start something new, something interesting and exciting, we came up with a restaurant bar idea. We partnered up with an old high school friend of hers, and he sort of came up with the concept of a Pine and Jigger. And we also partnered up with another guy who's sort of the face of Pine and Jigger. And he came up with the name. We got together. We collaborated. We finally executed on a particular spot, and we moved back to Hawaii in order to accomplish this, because we needed the help of the grandparents. With my background in renovations and also having an MBA, with Dave's background in obviously running a bar. He was a bar manager for Nobu's and Waikiki, which is a big successful cocktail program. And with Darren's background in business as well, and a huge network here in the business scene of Hawaii, Grace's background in restaurant. That's how we sort of combined forces and developed this, I guess, neighborhood loved bar and restaurant. Sure. As a patron myself, I really do love going to Pine and Jigger. Now you started Pine and Jigger, and then you kind of, I wouldn't say branched off, but you started doing your own. You wanted to do something that was specific, where you had a real passion for it. Sure. Yeah. With Square Barrels, it started from the fact that I loved burgers and I loved beer. And when we had opened Pine and Jigger, it was great. We had a great concept. I loved it. I did still have that entrepreneurial spirit. I still wanted to keep going. And so when I got to that point, sort of a lull, I don't want to say a lull. It was always busy. It was always a lot of work, but I still had that sort of drive to do something new. And the fact that I loved burgers, I loved beer. I mean, my first job when I was 14 years old, I worked at Jack in the Box. I worked at Jack in the Box for the very specific reason that I loved burgers so much. And then working at Oracle in the Bay Area, I fell in love with craft beer. We would drink Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, we would drink Anchor Steams. These are all pretty big breweries now, but back then they were definitely just getting started. Eventually, I wanted to open a burgers and beer place, and that's what Square Barrel's ultimately is. It's craft burgers with craft beers. You guys just had an anniversary, right? We did. Our third year anniversary. Congratulations on that. Thank you. So, you know, just being in the food and beverage industry, specifically in that industry, what are the biggest challenges you face in Hawaii as an entrepreneur or as a business owner in food and beverage? Yeah. There's a ton. If I could give you some specifics. One of the biggest hurdles that we have here in Hawaii, and probably in many states, is regulation. It's tough for somebody who has no idea, who has no concept of what it takes to do business in the United States or in Hawaii or wherever. We start off with a love for the craft, right? Maybe you love to sew, and you want to make a seamstress store or something like that, or you love, like me, you love burgers and beers, so you want to open a restaurant that has burgers and beer. But stepping into those kinds of situations, you have no idea what it is that you're going to have to deal with as far as getting the liquor license or getting your licensing to do business or food service permit, or permits to build your space or any of that. There's a lot involved when it comes to regulation, and of course, it takes a lot of energy. Just being able to wake up every single day and put in 15 hours, 18 hours. I wouldn't get to bed until three o'clock in the morning, and I had to go right back into it at six o'clock in the morning. So long hours, and the regulations, big hurdles. And how did you overcome these challenges or these obstacles, especially in the regulations, when you had, I mean, did you have a mentor or did somebody guide you through? I did have a mentor when I think back to when I was a teenager, which was when I first started my very first business. Before I was even in the Coast Guard, I started my own little skateboarding company because I was into skateboarding. It was great. And when I think back to that time, I had no idea. My dad, he gave me a little bit of guidance. He gave me some books to read and that sort of thing. But it took me going and finding this, I think it was called the SBDC even back then, but it was a small little office, it was on Nimitz. I can't remember. It's called Ginza West or something like that. I don't remember the name of that strip mall there, but there was a little office there. I went in there and there was a lady behind the desk and she guided me through probably about 50% of all the regulations that I had to figure out at that point to just get my general excise license and that sort of thing. And then going through life further and further, and then I actually, I did have a mentor. And my mentor was actually somebody I knew from when I was a child. It was my uncle, my uncle Tom. He lives in the Bay Area. And when I went back to the Bay Area after I graduated from University of Hawaii, I moved back to the Bay Area and I actually lived in his house, my uncle Tom and Aunt Kitty. And he helped me through a lot. I mean, he kind of guided me through the conversion from entrepreneurial spirit to actual entrepreneurial action. So I had this spirit. I wanted to do things. I wanted to try things out and he gave me some direction as to, okay, well, if we're going to do this, then this is how we're going to approach this. And he played a huge part in my life. Even today, he's still a big part of my life as a mentor. That's great. So it's great to have family as mentors. And I mean, talk about mentorship or influences. We talked about how you were a veteran in the Coast Guard. How has your military service become influenced as an entrepreneur? Has it influenced you in any way? Absolutely, absolutely. Not only an influence, but also a sort of guidance as well, like discipline, for instance, was a big part of it. Being able to wake up when you've only had three hours of sleep, I mean, it's kind of scary because everything's on you. All the responsibilities are on you. So perhaps that's one way of waking up just from the sheer stress or fear of failure. But when you're in the Coast Guard, you're in boot camp, you're sleeping three hours a day for as long as boot camp is. It's about two months. And you go to bed, it lights out 10.30 or whatever it is. I don't remember what it is now. But then you still got to stand watch at one o'clock in the morning. So somebody's going to come wake you up. You've got to go do this stuff and then you go back to sleep and then you wake up at five and it's the same thing every day for two months. And that's a small way of conditioning yourself for that kind of heavy amount of work. One of the great things that I had when I was in the Coast Guard was I had this officer training program where they kind of expose you to many different parts of the military service. And that was good because it actually helped me along the way where I got a little bit of exposure to investigations. I got a little bit of exposure to accounting even. Those were all great things. And when you're in business for yourself, you kind of have to be a jack of all trades. You got to know everything from accounting to marketing to whatever. People management. And that was a big part of it too. I had a great Lieutenant Commander that was my boss and he helped guide me. He showed me what it was like to have to manage people. But it was also a great way to see the ins and outs of every relationship. There's a great guy, funny. We had so many fun moments while I was serving. And I think it was that that helped guide me to try to make it fun for the people that worked for me as well. I mean, overall a very, very positive experience here. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It only helped. Only helped. Yeah, that's wonderful to hear. I mean, it really was a big part of turning. I don't want to say like the old school way is you go in the military and you become a man or whatever. But it really did turn me, change me from being this kid to an adult. It was a great experience for me to push me and drive me and try to get to my potentials. Because otherwise, I wouldn't have known. When you go to boot camp, all these guys are wet behind the ears. They don't know what they're getting into. And then all of a sudden they drive you so hard to the point of breaking down. But as long as you get through it, you know that you're going to be successful. That's wonderful. One way or another. Yeah. So we're going to take a short break and we'll be back in a minute. Thanks. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech, Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech, Hawaii. 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 to Pakistan, from the Russian far east, south to Australia and New Zealand. We hope to see you every Monday afternoon at 5 p.m. Thank you for joining us again. My name is Dennis, and I'm with the Veterans Business Outreach Center. We're going to continue our interview with Hideo Simon. Hideo. Yes. I do have a question. Considering the fierce competition in Hawaii's markets, how would you highlight your companies? I want to say company. I mean, I'm really talking specifically about your two restaurants. Sure. Competitive vantage. I mean, what makes you guys special, besides for the fabulous food? Well, Hawaii is tough, but one of the great things about Hawaii is that we are very close in it. And in many ways, it's not so much competition, but it's collaboration amongst our competitors. It's a big part of this sort of transition and movement to new and better things. You can't approach the situation of the gastropub of Hawaii. It's more about, well, this is what people are looking for. This is the kind of stuff that people want. So let's do it. Let's do the best we can. And if other people are doing it, then we need to help them and grow this whole scene together. Because if we just sit in the stagnant sort of, everything's going to be the same forever, then we're never going to get anywhere. That was one of the great things about the gastropubs of Hawaii when we first got started. There wasn't really any around. And we've seen a lot of great ones come about. So like I said, one of the great things about collaborative efforts is that you start to bring a supply to Hawaii. Because when we first got started, Whole Foods obviously had a great supply of craft beer. Why craft beer was, there wasn't any breweries that were really brewing much for beers. There was this place called HIVC, which is not around anymore. But they were doing some really fun beers. And we tried to get those guys on our tabs at the time. Maui Brewing was doing some fantastic beers, but they were on Maui. So there wasn't a huge access. Everything was coming in from out of state or out of the country. And in order for us to bring in more, we had to give the distributors a reason for it. And one of the reasons was that now we've got how many restaurants that are looking for craft beer here in Hawaii. So let's start bringing these things in ship loads and let's start selling. So that was a great thing about that collaborative effort. Competition-wise though, it is tough because Hawaii is a very finite sort of state. I guess you could say there's very little land. There's very little resources. And it's tough to work in that sort of environment. And like I said, with collaborative efforts like the craft beer movement, it helped us to bring a lot to Hawaii as a result of it. But then when I started to square barrels, a lot of the local craft breweries were actually popping up and then that gave us a huge access. Because now here in Hawaii, where we used to have next to nothing, even on Oahu more specifically, now we've got Waikiki Brewing, Honolulu Beer Works, we've got Lanikai, we've got Steuben and Stonewall. All these guys are doing fantastic beers. They're brewing it locally. There's such a great opportunity for us to continue with that collaborative effort. But again, you have to somehow keep that whole creative aspect to everything and sort of be different in your own little monopolistic competitive way. But it's tough. But at the same time, like I said, as long as you're always kind of looking for new and better things, then I think you're in the right path. I mean, we talked about the biggest challenges for you. I mean, the operations, the business side of running on food and beverage. I mean, there's got to be a joyful side as well. So if you can explain what makes you keep on driving and what makes you happy running these types of businesses. So it really has to do with the craft. And I know I talked about it. You might have the love for the craft, the burgers and beer or whatever. But then when you actually run the business, it turns into probably about 10% of your day. Or even less sometimes, when you wake up in the morning and you've got to file an insurance claim or you've got to get your payroll sorted or you've got to pay your taxes for the month or whatever. There's so many things, but then you still have that one little sliver of stuff that you can dive into and really enjoy. Just have that moment of sort of zen, you sit down and you can enjoy that burger that your chef has created and you just sit there and enjoy it and just sit back and say, wow, man, this is what it's all about, right? And I do enjoy a lot of the other stuff too, the creative side of things, developing logos, developing new artwork or graphics and that sort of thing. My background is in marketing. I graduated from the University of Hawaii with Bachelors in Business Administration with an emphasis in marketing. My MBA is also Business Administration, obviously, but focused in marketing. So I took many classes on consumer behavior and marketing mixes and efforts and that's what drives me about business. But again, it all comes back to that little sliver of time that I can actually sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labor, so to speak. The one hour a day, maybe, at the most. Hideo is not only, you're not only a client of the VBOT, but you're also a mentor. That's right. Yeah, so one of the great things that Hideo does is he actually, there's a lot of businesses or startups that want to open food and beverages and Hideo mentors them all for free and he spends time with these aspiring entrepreneurs, which is really great. So maybe we can talk a little bit about when you started your business when you were doing that skateboard business. You said that you got some help from the SBDC. And how has the SBA realm assisted you or if you had any assistance? Yeah, so again, with the SBDC, like I said, there was a lady behind the counter and she helped me a tremendous amount. I don't remember how many times I went to that counter and asked her questions because we didn't have cell phones, we didn't have all that stuff. So I would have to either pick up a landline and call or if I really needed some direction because we didn't have even internet. We didn't have the ability to go online and download forms or anything like that. I had to go over there and physically fill out the forms, write checks and all that stuff. But what I do remember even from that point is her directing me to the SBA. And my first business was a skateboarding company. Second business was a sort of skateboarding, snowboard, surfing, distribution company. And that was actually what I wrote my term paper on for entrepreneur marketing at UH. But meanwhile, while I was doing that, I actually went down to the SBA because she had directed me and said, hey, there's SBDC but there's also the SBA. And if you're looking for money or need a loan or something like that, you can go down there, you can talk to them and then maybe even talk to them, talk to one of the score volunteers. And that was great because I can't remember the guy's name, but when I went down there and I talked to the guy, he had something similar. I remember he had a restaurant and he had since retired from that business, but that's kind of what started me with the whole restaurant business was him talking about it. And I wasn't in the restaurant business at the time. I mean, I did work in a restaurant, I worked as a server for a couple years, but he told me about the ins and outs of restaurant business and it was helpful because it kind of brought this whole sort of motivation to get into that business. And then that also continued on because from that point, I had this relationship with the SBA. So moving back to the Bay Area and I was in a real estate business, I still have this real estate business, but during that time, when we were talking about opening another restaurant, then I went back to the San Francisco office, the SBA there, and I spoke to one of the scorer volunteers there and started talking about, you know, I wanted to open a restaurant. We ended up opening it here in Hawaii, obviously, but at that point we were talking about it and he gave us a bunch of resources too. Like first off, you need to write a business plan. Whether you're asking for money or you just need a plan or something written out, he gave us access to these templates that were like, okay, well, this is a business plan for a restaurant. This is a business plan for a taco truck or this is a business plan for a sports bar or something like that. So I had the ability to look at these different things and then see how they're written, what kind of resources that they use to get the information that they needed for writing these things up. So I mean, it was a huge resource for me and I think it's a great resource for anybody, obviously, to go through these things because you're never going to know how to write a business plan until you actually see something that's already been written up. On a kind of a personal note, if you could elude the audience and let everybody know what your plans are for your businesses, I mean, what holds, what does the future look like for Square Barrels or Pyton Jager? Well, I don't want to get too much into the secrets of where we're going, but obviously, Pyton Jager has been doing very well and well received among the neighborhood and everything like that. So we did some amazing things over the years. I guess in the future, you may see another Pyton Jager pop up somewhere else on the island, but it's tough to think that far in the future just because of how difficult it is to continue the operation. But we've been doing very well and my partner, Dave Newman, who is kind of the face of the business, has been doing amazing things and is always creating new and better experiences for everybody. So I couldn't ask for anything better for that. Square Barrels, we do have a brewing license in place for our location here in downtown. The idea is that we'll continue to create new and better beers in the future, to the point of maybe someday we might be able to open or build a significant size brewery. I look forward to that. Yeah, we're excited about that, but it is definitely something that is going to require a lot more time and effort. And I don't know how much more I got left in me. I hope your success continues. Appreciate it. And thank you for joining me today. Yeah, thank you for having me. I do appreciate it. That was Adventures in Small Business with our guest Hideo Simon. I'm Dennis Kwok from the Veterans Business Outreach Center. Thank you all for joining me.