10: Embracing Your Target Market | Benson Wang, Palm House Hospitality

My First Restaurant

“You need to be all in, otherwise it doesn’t really work.” - Benson Wang
Benson Wang is the co-founder and CEO of Palm House Hospitality, an experience driven lifestyle and hospitality company based in the Bay Area with a diversified portfolio in restaurants, nightlife and lodging.
In our interview we discuss:
- How Benson and team make data-driven menu changes by sending new items to the Thunderdome
- How they embraced their target market to help make operational decisions (e.g. Valentine’s Day blind dating show)
- What Palm House is doing to help bring a more holistic approach to team management
Benson has had phenomenal success by tapping into the unique attributes of the target market for each of his concepts. He also shares practical advice around menu construction, staffing, fundraising and expansion.
Enjoy!
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Where to find Palm House:

• Website: https://www.palmhousesf.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/palmhousesf/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/palmhousesf/

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Where to find Benson:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benson-wang-38b06b17/
• Instagram: @bensonsfreshsqueeze

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Where to find Bryan:

• Website: https://www.myfirstrestaurant.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-tublin-03548910/
• Twitter: @btublin

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Where to find Kitava:

• Website: https://www.kitava.com/
• Instagram: @kitavakitchen

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Referenced:

• Sol Food
• Foreign Cinema
• Simco Group
• The Hillstone Group
• AOC Accounting
• SpotOn POS

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In this episode, we cover:

• (01:29) Benson’s early background and career before hospitality
• (05:29) What drew him to working as an operator in the restaurant industry
• (06:43) Where the concept behind Palm House came from
• (08:19) Why they pivoted from “Cal Carribean” to a more “Cal tropical” concept
• (09:45) The structure of Benson’s partnership group
• (14:07) Benson’s initial plan for how he’d spend his time after opening Palm House
• (16:19) The concept of “key money” when taking over a restaurant space
• (17:37) How much money they needed, and the structure behind their fundraise
• (21:39) The typical payback period structure on restaurant investments
• (22:49) How long it took to pay back investors on their initial investment
• (23:29) His salary after opening Palm House
• (24:15) Early mistakes that showed they didn’t know what they were doing early on
• (27:09) The art and science of using intuition to make operating decisions
• (29:51) Their data-driven process to making menu changes, aka “The Thunderdome”
• (34:49) How embracing their “serious leisure” tagline allowed Palm House to embrace their local market and stabilize as a business
• (40:27) Expansion driven by the need for more revenue and profitability to hire quality management
• (46:59) On The Fly Segment