Going from 20 Seats to 200 Seats in 8 Years

Nok Chokthana: I'm the part-owner at the Kubo Asian Fusion bar in Fort Lauderdale. We've been open there for eight years now. I come from Thailand. My husband and my brother-in-law are from the Philippines. So three of us started this restaurant. But before that, we worked in the hospitality industry too.

My husband used to be the executive chef in Miami, doing the catering. I came here to study for a master's degree. So when I finished studying international business, I married him. And then I said, Okay, I don't know how to cook or operate the restaurant much, but I think I can manage it. So I think we could be a good team for this, since my brother-in-law is a good cook. And also my husband, who worked in catering. So we kind of come together as a team. So we found this location. We start from a 20-seat.

Actually, it's from the same plaza. It's so funny, like we keep expanding in the same plaza until now. So the first beginning was next to the dry cleaner, so it's only 20 seats, that's where we start from, and later on, during COVID, we struggled a little bit, but thank god, you know, the local customers support us a lot, so we have the chance to expand to 45 seats.

And a year later, next door, it used to be a gym for women and a place to sell sports goods; they also left during COVID, so we kind of knocked down the wall and put it all together to be like 200 seats.

Nok Chokthana: We came up with the Asian fusion menu. So we have Thai, Filipino, Japanese, some Chinese, and Korean. That's all we do all together. It's a little overwhelming, but you know, like we just want to see everybody coming to the restaurant.

We just bring up the know-how of what is good from that nationality's food, and then we bring it to the menu. But another challenge is that we have to know how to make that thing good. Even though I'm not from Korea, or even though my husband isn't from Thailand or China, we have to make it.

It's something like a sense of the chef, those Asian chefs. I think they can adjust whatever Asian cuisines we can mix and match to create a unique taste of Kubo. That's what we have nowadays. Yeah.

Nok Chokthana: My husband and my brother-in-law are the main chefs. So my brother-in-law, whose name is Joe. He's actually a nurse. He's supposed to be a nurse and then like but his passion is cooking. But his food is like in the hot kitchen, like cooking, especially since he is a really good cook at Filipino food, so we can assure you that the Filipino food in our menu is from him, and everything is made from scratch. And my husband, he's also Filipino, but he's an expert in sushi.

Nok Chokthana: The name Kubo came later, but the idea of having the restaurant is mine. Because my husband, back then, was really hardworking and dedicated to his job. So he didn’t have time for me then. And I feel upset, and I'm like, ' Why don't we stay together? ' You know, I'm like, how are we going to stay together? If I stay with you all the time, what is gonna be our job? So that's why I came up with the idea of the restaurant.

We ensure that everyone comes in with a smile and leaves with one. So it's going to be challenging to keep growing and growing. 

Nok Chokthana: People don't know us; they might think these guys are lucky, you know, like they probably have money or something! No, we start from scratch. Managing a restaurant is kind of like the hardest industry of all types, so I think the key to being like that is how you feel about customers. We are investors and active workers, too.

If my employee works, we work. So for eight years, even though we were thinking we were okay, we settled, we could go somewhere, we could relax, but we still stayed with our employees.

So even when I have nothing to do, I walk around the restaurant; at least I can say Hi to the customer. Hi, how are you? Are you new? So I think that's the key. 

I think that's the key to getting the customer to vote for us to be in the top 100. And that's a surprise. 

Nok Chokthana: So on Instagram, every single time, we start from very, very low budget. It's our budget. We don't have much money to hire the professionals who handle our platform. As I do, like my husband said, you graduated with a business degree, so you have to use your talent to do this. So that's challenging me. So that's the real lesson in your life. 

Even though some people offer to grow your followers to 10k+ or whatever, you know, that's fake people. I don't want that. I want my real, real customer, you know? And I never convince my customers, like, hey, follow me, follow me, follow me.

Most customers aren't really following us on Instagram, but since they're local, they already know us. I appreciate all those followers we have right now, which are really organic, so I'm happy about that.

Nok Chokthana: Most of the restaurants struggle, especially the labor right now. And lately, labor costs have been going up. It's really hard. I think it's not hard to find people to work with, but it's hard to get what you want. Or the people who qualify to be or fit in your place. 

Even though I got like 10 people to send me applications, I'm gonna have to find only one, or maybe I need 10, but I get only one that I want. It's not a matter of the number. It's a matter of like, if they fit in my place, if they're okay in my place. But thank God, for all eight years, I haven't really had to struggle to find people.

Nok Chokthana: Honestly, since day one, I have never fired anybody. I'm really tough in the restaurant, but that's my negative side; even though some people do bad things, some bosses might fire them. But me, I need to talk about the reason why you're doing that. 

For me, I'm fair enough. I want to get this. Can you give it to me? Or can I have this? You talk to me. I give it to you. But not just like, you just take it and you go. That thing has no warning. You go.

Nok Chokthana: We expand the sports bar concept. The sports bar at the beginning used to be a cafe. But it doesn't work out, mostly we sell food, you know? So that's why I came up with the idea. I told them we should change this spot into an entertainment room or something like that. 

So we came up with the idea of a bar. We have to compete with other American sports bars, which is what they are, you know, they are local. We have to promote that a lot because people don't understand what an Asian sports bar is like: do you serve only Asian food? Do you open the channel just for ping pong or judo? I'm like, no, it's not. It's funny. Some people leave a comment like, You're gonna welcome only Asian people? No, it's not about that. It's about food. You know, we can open any channel, but it's about food. So I mean, when you step into an American spot, it's not just welcoming the American people, correct? So it means I can walk in, but the food they serve is gonna be traditional American.

For our restaurant, we're gonna put finger food, you know they have the chicken wings we put the chicken karake; chicken karake is a japanese fried chicken so you're gonna feel different taste that one marinate with the ginger, the Japanese sake, so that's how like you're gonna feel like; over there you eat hamburger here you eat sushi so and you enjoy the sport which environment you like you pick you know and we also gonna have private booking room up to 40 people that they can book for the karaoke.