In today's episode of Building Texas Business, I chat with Rafael Nasr, the man behind Craft Pita. Rafael shares his fascinating journey in the food industry, from starting his first business at a young age to launching Craft Pita.

He talks about his experiences running a food truck and working for other businesses, emphasising the value of community involvement.

We also discussed his perspective on private equity and assembly-line restaurants and how these experiences shaped him as an entrepreneur. It's an inspiring discussion with a successful food industry leader.

Show Notes

Previous Episodes

About BoyarMiller

(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)

Rafael:Yes, I am the owner and operator of Kraft Pita. We have two restaurants here in the Houston area, One in the Briar Grove Tanglewood Galleria area on San Felipe and Foundview, and we just opened our second location last November over on Buffalo. Speedway in West Park, here in the West U area, very close to y'all's office.

Chris: Yeah, and I'm grateful for that, by the way. So I've heard a little bit, but I want to hear from you. Tell us what inspired you to start Kraft Pita.

Rafael: Yes, so I'm a first-generation Lebanese, peruvian American. My father is from Northern Lebanon, and I spent my summers visiting my grandmother in Lebanon. My family has a restaurant business there as well, and so I spent a lot of my summers, you know, hanging out in my uncle's restaurant, always around food. I was the kind of kid classic story of grabbing scraps off the table at my grandma's house while the other kids are playing. You know, my sisters wanted to go to the beach and I wanted to go find the best shawarma possible.

Chris: Okay, so that was the origin of my interest in the business when I was at Texas.

Rafael: Christian University studying entrepreneurial management. I actually opened a food truck while I was in school, so I started my first business when I was 20 years old. It was basically a late night business for all the college kids after they got back home from the bars, soaking up a little of what they had enjoyed at the bars. So, as a university, this is a safety thing you guys need.

And I sold my business because I wanted to graduate on time and TCU is not a cheap school by any means and worked for several other businesses but kind of, while all that was going on, working for other restaurants.

Chris:I knew I wanted to open my own restaurant.

Rafael: I saw an opportunity here in the Houston market for a higher quality Middle Eastern Mediterranean food.

Chris: Okay, I love the idea that you started your first business when you were 20. Yeah, tell us, what was that like?

Rafael: That was insane. I would go to class from 8am until 3.30. I would prep food from 3.30 to 5.30. And I would serve from about 6pm until 2am. Luckily I found my girlfriend slash wife right before I started the business, because my social life kind of took a back seat. So it was, you know, I didn't go to college anticipating being in the restaurant business, but it taught me what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I can tell you it was a lot cheaper than my degree, but it was a really valuable lesson in what it takes as an entrepreneur to wear all hats in a business, and I learned that very early on in my career and it set me on for a great path to eventually own craft beer.

Chris: Yeah. So let's talk about kind of the things, that lessons you learned. You know doing that food truck, and then you get the idea for craft pita. What were you doing before that? And then what sparked you to kind of take the step to go on your own again?

Rafael: Yeah. So lessons I learned owning my food truck tell you a very valuable one. I didn't have a great partner. You know that was part of the reason I wanted to get out of the business and I think that was a really valuable lesson I learned super early in my career and I think that's a valuable lesson for any entrepreneur is that when you choose who you're doing business with, it's like you're getting into a marriage.

Chris: Right.

Rafael: And I also learned that you know when you are starting a small business, particularly in the food side of the industry.

You have to do as much as humanly possible yourself, because labor is your biggest expense. And I was in school and owning a business. I think if I was just running the business, I could have been more profitable. Things could have gone better. That was a valuable lesson I learned. I think everyone has a study. Oh, I want to, you know, invest in a restaurant. I want to bar, do this and it'd be cool. But I also want to do what I'm doing. This is a all in business. Gotcha and obviously now I'm all in.

Chris: Look, I think what you say is right. I'll say I'm not sure it's much different for most businesses. If you're really going to be in it as the entrepreneur, owner, founder, you have to be all in for sure.

Rafael: And especially that applies to business. Where business is, where you know human capital is the business you know you're. You need hands to to prepare something, you need hands to to serve something. And after that I came back here to Houston. I worked for a family friend over a Island Grill. Oh sure, yeah, I worked for a phasal, helped him open up his bunker hill store, worked there for about a year and I learned a lot working there. You know I learned that being a member of a community, being in neighborhood, a restaurant and shaking hands and kissing babies is a big part of being successful in this industry. I also worked for him to also gauge what Houston's interests were in the cuisine and Mediterranean food.

After that I went to go work for a company called Bert's Cabot, which it was a Chipotle style Middle Eastern restaurant Okay, and they were opening up several units very fast to MBA guys out of UT and when I worked for them it was amazing they're growing really fast. But I also saw the negatives of what happens when private equity gets involved and their only priority is opening as many units as possible. I also learned that the assembly style, chipotle style model was not something I wanted to do for Kraft Pita. I thought it was something I wanted to do, but it's kind of hard to convey quality and translate that when you're going through an assembly, style, model, concept right.

And I knew at Kraft Pita I wanted to be a better quality than like a sublayer Chipotle or any of those things. I also learned from them that branding is a really important thing. They, when I joined them, they were Bert's Cabot, then they were Bert's and then they became New Mediterranean and there was Turkish donor kebabs that are influenced by German food and I just learned that you don't have much time to translate what your food is to people especially when you're not selling American food.

Chris: It sounds like they had an identity crisis.

Rafael: It was an identity crisis and literally sometimes it was honestly just the name. You know your name is so important when you're in the food business and you can be kitschy, you can be cute, but when people read your name or need to type it into a web browser or into a social media search bar, it's got to be clear and has to be concise and has to translate what the product is.

Chris: Yeah, sounds like you had an immense amount of learning in just a few years.

Rafael: That was just two years and at the time my wife she's still in tech sales she moved to Austin so I followed her over there and I tried to get into fine dining. No one would hire me in any of the fine dining restaurants because of my past casual experience and taking two jobs in two years, so I ended up taking a job with Poppus at Popocitos I'm 35 in Austin and I stayed there for about three and a half years. I thought about going to culinary school but I already spent a lot of money on my degree and I decided to go work for Poppus because, being here in Houston, everybody knows the weight that name holds and also their management training is probably the best in the country when it comes to the hospitality industry.

Chris: They're definitely known for that.

Rafael: And they're known for that from outside of the industry when it comes to management, and I decided to go work for them, because why am I going to go to culinary school when I can go to restaurant school and they'll pay me?

Chris: for it.

Rafael: So that was an amazing opportunity I learned they have you start off as a busser and then a server, then a bartender, then a front of house manager, then you're a kitchen manager and when you get in the kitchen they have you work the fry line, then the grill line, make salads. They really. I learned there that as a manager, if you want to gain the respect of people that you're managing, you have to be able to do the job. You probably want to do it as well as them, but you have to know how to do it.

Sure, I mean, there there was guys working the grill that were as old as I was. They've been working there for as long as they've been alive, right. So it's one thing to manage a few people, but then when you're a restaurant like that and you're managing 40 people at once, it really taught me everything I need to know to be ready to go my own.

Chris: So you mentioned the importance of branding. So what was it that led you to Kraftpita True Mediterranean and to develop the concept that you came up with?

Rafael: So funny story about the name Kraftpita. I'd actually come up with it before we opened our food truck. We ended up not using the name and one day in Austin we had been brainstorming what we would call the restaurant, whatever. My wife brought the name up and she said what about Kraftpita? And I was like that's a great name. What did you think of that? She said you came up with it 10 years ago.

Chris: You were forgotten.

Rafael: I had forgotten. I'm like man. I'm so glad my wife remembered.

Chris: And again. Well, let me pause there For those that were at TCU late night what was the food truck?

Rafael: called. So the food truck is again an example of bad branding. It was called Mediterranean Chunky Monkey. This was my partner's idea and actually funny story. We had gotten a cease and desist letter from Ben and Jerry's for the name because they owned the rights to all food products that have the words chunky and monkey next to it. I wish I would have known you then. Maybe you could have held down.

Chris: The other important having a good legal team right yes, exactly.

Rafael: But to that point I told, hey, make sure you look it up. We're all good. Obviously didn't, but this time around I definitely looked up, covered my bases, so, and luckily we were selling the truck at the time while they were sending us the cease and desist letter. We chose the name Kraftpita because, like I mentioned earlier, when you read the words Kraftpita and you know it's a restaurant, you know you're walking into a Mediterranean, middle Eastern restaurant and because of the word Kraft, that you are walking into somewhere that has premium goods baked from scratch, made to order, it connotates quality and true Mediterranean is partially a joke.

Lebanese people think they invented everything and the Greeks think they invented everything. The Turkish think they invented everything. Palestinians, israelis it's a little bit of tongue-in-cheek of Lebanese food is the best Mediterranean food and we do believe that. Obviously I'm very biased, but I think what makes Lebanese food the best Mediterranean food is it has this through line of a freshness and spices that really brings the food up a few notches, whereas Greek food is not super heavy in the spices but lots of fresh herbs and things like that. And then, if you go into Turkish cuisine, syrian, jordanian, palestinian, and even if you go into Persian cuisine. There's a lot of spices.

I think Lebanese food is that right balance of spices and freshness, and so that's where Kraftpia two Mediterranean food.

Chris: I love it. So you opened your first location. You now expanded to a second location and some would say, especially in the restaurant business, going to that second one to two is a huge jump, because can you make it work when you now your attention split between two different locations? How have you made that work? Because part of that comes with having a good team.

Rafael: Definitely. We developed Craft Media from day one to be a scalable concept, so we always knew we were going to have more than one location. It starts and when you, it's one thing to open a restaurant and then think about opening another one, but when you do it from day one, it does make it a bit easier. Not saying that it's been easy, but, for example, our menu is not that big, it's consolidated. We developed managers and a management training program that allowed us to train up one set of managers and then split them off once the new store opened. The other thing that I'm very lucky to have is I work with my mother, claudia. Her and I are a great team and I kind of spend, you know, 80% of my time at the new store 20% of my time at old store, whereas my mother does about a good 75 25 split.

She stays at the old store and that makes a huge difference. You know, having ownership presence is one of the most important things at a restaurant and because I have, you know, because we're a team, we're able to split our time.

Chris: Yeah. What is it then about making sure you're hiring right, because so many people you know and I, we live it here and I think any business owner you talk to is the hiring decisions are so critical to getting it right. What are some of the things that you do at Craftpita to make sure you're making the best decision you can when you make that hiring decision?

Rafael: Definitely. At Craftpita we have a very high standard for hospitality. I do think it's something you can teach people, but there isn't a nature of hospitality when it comes to front of house. We really just ask basic questions like where do you like to eat? What's your favorite example of a good restaurant experience? You know, and typically you can find out if someone has hospitality based on the way they grew up, based on you know their families. They'll tell you. Like you know, my mother taught me. You know, to say hi bye every time I left the house, small things like that. And then in back of house we really try to find people who care about quality, because there's a lot of restaurants where now certain things are so a cookie cutter but they don't even really have to think while they're cooking. It just comes out and we're not selling. You know a very basic food we're selling food.

You know, some people have never made hummus before or tasted in their life, and so how are you supposed to hire someone, teach them this recipe and know, even though, what the expectation is. So, front of house, we really look for a high hospitality quotient. You know, when we're interviewing in a back of house, attention to detail and quality, those things are really important for us.

Chris: That makes sense. So how would you describe, maybe, the culture that you are building there at Craftpita, as you started it, and now growing it to multiple locations?

Rafael: Definitely. I think you know it's in our mission statement that we are committed to sharing culture through food and I think that's really the company culture we try to derive at Craftpita. You know the two cultures I come from actually the three. You know, in Lebanese culture, hospitality is a big thing. You walk into your grandma's house, she gives you hugs and kisses and then there's about seven courses of food that come out, and you know that that food and that is part of the love right, and same thing with my mother's Peruvian culture it's all about family, all about having good time, all about being together and food is kind of this the core part of that and then also being here in Houston.

Chris: I mean, you know, I always think Houston is where the south meets the rest of the country and southern hospitality is a thing.

Rafael: So, yeah, we really just want you to feel like you're walking into our house and that's the company culture we build and that comes from you know, serving high quality products, and everyone has a group effort making sure people feel welcome.

Chris: Very good, excuse me. So let's talk about starting a business and all that not easy. What are some of the maybe setbacks you've encountered and what have you done to overcome those? We've been through some, you know turbulent times recently and I'm sure starting a new business has not been the easiest. Yeah, what are some of the lessons learned that you could share with our listeners on that?

Rafael: I mean, I think and I hope no one else has to deal with this lesson ever again, but I COVID happened six months after I opened my restaurant ouch yeah so I, you know, spent my whole life dreaming of this restaurant and you know things are going really well. We actually made a national list of the Yelp top 100 restaurants in America and it just made our business skyrocket because we were the only restaurant he's on the list wow and that was in January of 2020.

Of course, you all know what happens February of 2020 and you know. I think the lesson with COVID is there will be outside forces that you did not predict that will affect your business and you can sit there and cry about it, you can roll over and die or you can hit the problem head on. I decided to. I realized when one of the big problems that was happening was how are people going to know we're open for business? Because not all a lot of people. You know we had the two week period here in Texas and some people stay closed and some people open up right after the two weeks happened. So I reached out to a friend of mine that had like a tent rental business and I said I need the biggest tent that can fit a f 350 because you know we got big trucks here in Houston. I need the biggest tent and I'm going to. I need to build a drive through. So I reached out to my landlord. I said, hey, can I do this?

you was fine with it, and so we had a tent outside of a restaurant for, I want to say, about six to eight weeks okay, and you know several of my staff had to leave, for you know they had pre-existing conditions or they wanted to go on unemployment and so I basically worked for about 90 straight days outside selling food.

I even started. I realized quickly that a lot of people wanted, like you know, cleaning supplies and gloves and sanitized. I got in the sanitizer business. I got in the gloves business. I reached out to my local farmers so I got produce from and I got farm share boxes. We became, you know, pseudo grocery store and that was that saved us, yeah, and a big reason another you know reason why that ended up working out for us is because of the presence of me, my mom, in the restaurant.

I think a lot of people, you know, a lot of our local guests, didn't want us to fail right, that loyalty you know going above and beyond for people, for those several months that we were open, I think, built a relationship that to this day still keeps our business, you know, afloat, and a couple other things that our business ran into, partly still because of the whole COVID scenario. But other things is labor inflation over the last few years. I mean, I was looking at my business plan from 2019 and I was like I'm not projected labor numbers. I can tell you we're way above that. And then same thing with our food pricing still going up, and these are just things I think any business person will go through. Is, you know, outside forces affecting your business and unexpected increased costs that you cannot do anything to change? Right, you just have to find ways around it, whether that's giving the guests more value. In one way or another, you have to solve these problems or else they're going to take over.

Chris: Yeah, it's funny you say, because most people having a good business plan is critically important and thoughtful and as soon as you finish the plan and go into action, the plan's worth nothing, right, exactly?

Rafael: Since I opened my business 10 years ago, people have always come up to me with crackpot ideas. I want to open a bar, I want to open a restaurant, I want to go food truck. And my first question to them is have you drafted a business plan? And it's not. You know, the business plan is not the end, all be all. It's not what's going to get you all the investment money. But it is a plan. You just need guidelines.

Chris: You need guidelines.

Rafael: You have some thought laid out right, that's all Just laying out your thoughts and you know once you lay out your thoughts you should take that business plan, give it to someone who knows something and have them rip you to shreds. It's some of the. You know it might be humbling but it's necessary yeah.

Chris: So how would you describe your leadership style? You know fairly young entrepreneur you mentioned earlier when you were in Poposita. Most people that were reporting to you were much older than you, so how have you managed through that and how has that leadership style developed?

Rafael: Yeah, I think you know I've only been a manager. I've never. I never was like a server at a restaurant. So for me I've only been in management.

I went from, you know, being on my own being a manager I would say not a very good one at all in any way, shape or form and I was maybe managing four or five people. Then I went to a mom and pop business where there was one central leader and I was just kind of a cog in that wheel and I molded my style of leadership then to, you know, be a service leader and help out the staff with Under Me and kind of bring whatever they needed to my boss. And then at Verds it was kind of like a, you know, a small to mid-sized growing business where they were really trying to implement their leadership style and I just I kind of went along with whatever they needed. But it was a little bit autonomous in the sense that they were headquartered in Austin, not in Houston. So you kind of also have to develop an in-store, in-store leadership that you are, at the end of the day, the point person.

Papa's taught me that you know, you can't manage everybody to say, especially in a big restaurant like that, you do have to individualize your leadership style with people. And I think in my industry I think that's a really important lesson, because some because at the end of the day, when you're managing people and you're being a leader, there are the moments where you're in a big like pre-shift total and everybody's listening to you and in those scenarios I would say I tend to do extremely well because I can command a presence. And then there's the times where you have to sit someone aside and listen and just let them talk and that is not necessarily you leading from, that's not necessarily you leading in the sense that you're telling them what to do.

Chris: But by you just listening. You're showing them that you're there for them.

Rafael: And I think I would describe my leadership style as I don't even know this, but experiential. You know, I'm in the trenches with my people and I also know when to pull back and let them do their own thing.

Chris: Well, I think what you were describing earlier is as a leader, how important it is when you're talking about the listening side is to demonstrate an empathy Right, and you learn so much. I mean you're managing or leading people. Everyone's different and one size doesn't fit all.

Rafael: One size does not fit all, especially in the restaurant industry, where, in a lot of hospitality, where you're dealing with teenagers, middle-aged people and older people I mean just from the age perspective, let alone people's different backgrounds you have to not everyone's in the same bubble, right.

Chris: You know, some of the best workers I have are teenagers, and it's their first job.

Rafael: They've never done anything before, but I've molded them into what I need at Craft Pita.

And then other times you might get someone who's a 20-year vet in the industry, but they don't listen. So you might have to stroke some egos and let them do their thing, but those two people you have to manage completely differently. So, yeah, it's been definitely. Throughout the years, my leadership style has changed and I think that's a good thing, to acknowledge that. You can go through ups and downs, but just constantly being, I feel, like awareness, in my opinion, is probably the most important trait as a leader if you're the owner of a company, because if you have that awareness that you might need to change your leadership style or sometimes you got turned up, sometimes you got turned down.

That will take you really far.

Chris: Very true, very true. So interested to ask you about this. So you've expanded to a second location. You said earlier when you started you were always planning to scale this business. So I have to think this is a question on a lot of entrepreneurs' minds what does it take, or when do you know when's the right time to make that expansion? And you know because you're gonna be facing it. You probably are now, but when do you go to the third store? So what are some of the things that you look forward, that you've learned to look forward to know when it's right?

Rafael: Of course I think it's. I think this applies to a lot of businesses and it definitely applies to the restaurant business. One, obviously, financials you have to make sure that you can afford to expand right, and I think that's obviously an obvious one. But you should be conservative. This is a tough business in the sense of it's very capital intensive. To open up a restaurant Construction is a nightmare. Dealing with the city is a nightmare. You don't.

You can have a really good idea of what something will cost to build out a restaurant, and I can't tell you it's wrong. I definitely had some struggles getting this store open and it was already a second-generation restaurant which normally should be easy, but it goes to like.

Chris: The lease terms and tenant allowances are important, and then timing of when you're going to actually rent commences off of completion. All those.

Rafael: Which the first store. You know, we dealt with a smaller landlord, the local landlord, and this new store. Over here on Bubblest Weedway there's a big national one. And just dealing with that legal process inside. That was really eye-opening to me. But yeah, that all plays into the financial decision, right. Secondly, I would say knowing when you're ready is it's a management autonomy issue? Is the restaurant running itself? Yeah, if you took a step back. What would happen?

I was fortunate enough to kind of have a situation be forced upon me in that I had to go on my honeymoon, I had to get married.

You know, my wife wasn't gonna let me get away with that one, so she was tired of waiting Is she we watch ad proposed and then COVID pushed back our wedding about two years but it was kind of a good. Hey, I need to get this restaurant to function for two weeks without me and obviously with COVID having all this stuff. I was very hands-on with the business but I think a lot of small business owners, specifically a lot of restaurant small business owners, struggle with like literally trying to step away. You have to. It's active, that don't do it passively is I'm going to walk?

Chris: away today.

Rafael: And you know what, if they mess up a catering order, if they mess up a few, this happens, that happens. You got to kind of, you know, eat sour grapes, or else you're never going to be able to scale.

Chris: Well, and I think on that mess up part, I mean, obviously it's usually more in how you respond to the mistake than the fact that you made one, because we're all human, yes, now, if you consistently make mistakes, that's one thing, but if you make it, your customer may not be happy, but how you respond and own it and make up for it will speak volumes as to whether they give grace.

Rafael: Absolutely Two things on that. One, I always one of my management things is it's okay if you make mistakes, I just care that you learn from them. If you show me you don't learn from mistakes, that's telling me you don't care? Yeah, you know we're, it's human, whether it you know, what we do is very. There's a lot of errors, whether it's temperature or technique, whatever. It's just a matter of if you do learn from those mistakes.

So, if you have to step away from your business and your team makes a mistake, it's very important to say, okay, guys, how do we prevent this from happening again? And on that same point, this is something I learned from Papas is that you know if you make a mistake and you train your guests that, no matter what mistake happens at our restaurant, we're going to fix it, whether that's comping it, remaking it, giving them a gift card for the next time they come in, or just if some of those people want it as an apology or to be heard. It trains your guests that your money is good here. If you spend $50 here, we're going to make sure you get $50 worth of your time and money. Yeah, so I think that's super important, Very good.

Chris: Well, so Let me ask you this I mean, as we kind of wrap things up, what are one or two things you would advise anyone, whether it's to start a restaurant or just any business, to kind of keep in mind as they move forward with that plan, that dream, whatever it may be?

Rafael: I would say, you know, to touch on a few things that we've already talked about at the end of the day. The restaurant business is not about food. It is about people. It is about your own people and it is about your guests. You're gonna spend a majority of your time dealing with your own people or dealing with guests. You're not gonna spend a whole lot of time, you know, coming up with recipes and making sure the food turns out perfect.

That's obviously a given, but the restaurant industry is a people business, so you have to mold everything you do around taking care of your own people and taking care of guests and if you approach it.

That way you're gonna be successful most of the time and hopefully you're halfway decent at making food. But that's just probably the first thing I would tell people. Secondly, you know I don't want to be one of those people that says stay away from the restaurant business. But this is. It is a business that requires high business acumen as well as knowing how to operate. I consider myself you know I'm a chef. I've been cooking for 10 years but I will always consider myself a business, a businessman before a chef.

And I think that's an important I think if you approach operating this in this line of work as being a businessman or woman, I think you're going to be successful. More than do I make delicious food.

Chris: You're 100% right. I mean, if you can't run in any industry, if you can't run a disciplined business, you can make the best product, whether it's a plate of food or a widget your business won't survive. Someone else will take over that widget or replace you, but your business won't be there unless you can run a smart, disciplined business and that has financially human capital yeah, lots of tenants to it. So, very true, all right, so let's have a little fun. This will be interesting from you, since you've shared your passion for your food and from your culture. Do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue?

Rafael: Ooh, that's a tough one. I'm a big barbecue guy. That's probably my passion food.

Chris: Oh, I love it yeah.

Rafael: I'll never get in the business. I actually just did a barbecue cook-off in Midland at the Permian Basin Cook-Off. I did barbecue for about 14 hours. I respect all my friends at barbecue so much more after doing that, I bet.

Chris: So barbecue, barbecue, it is all right. So if you could take a 30-day sabbatical, which you've already explained how difficult that would be for you where would you go? What would you do?

Rafael: Oh man, 30-day sabbatical. I've always wanted to do a trip to Japan. I've yet to go there. It's one of the culinary capitals of the world. I would like to go there and kind of get out of my comfort zone from a perspective of not being able to speak the language and not being super familiar with the culture. So I probably do about 30 days in Japan if I could.

Chris: All right, and I don't usually go here, but since you're an expanding business, you've got two. When can we expect the third-craft, pita?

Rafael: Third-craft pita. We're very comfortable with where we're at right now. It's going to be a lot easier to find a third location when we already have two operating. And I told my realtor team hey, give me the green light. I'd probably say 16 months. Ok 16 months.

Chris: Well, as I've said before, I've told you I think you're doing a great thing. It's a great concept, the food's outstanding and congratulations, thank you so much.

Rafael: I really appreciate it because it really means a lot.

Chris:Well, thanks again for being here, enjoyed here and your story, and I wish you the best success. Awesome, thank you.

Special Guest: Rafael Nasr.