Bringing the Eats to East York

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Peter Pham, owner of Phamilyeats, located in Toronto, ON, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Phamilyeats is a bakery/take-out joint in Toronto that specializes in delicious, homemade comfort foods that are optimized for tastiness and best enjoyed when shared with your loved ones. It’s where our tagline “Gather round good food” comes from, and it’s our favourite way to experience food! Phamilyeats started as a side hustle with the goal of just bringing joy to friends and family and grew organically into a storefront through word-of-mouth and the overwhelming support of Toronto’s food-loving community.

Tell us about yourself

My love for cooking started at an early age. My mom used to own & operate a restaurant with her family in Montreal, so naturally, the kitchen in our family home always had something delicious cooking. I always enjoyed helping my mom prepare family meals, but I never considered that it could be something that I could pursue professionally. I went to Guelph for the sciences, where I quickly realized that path was not for me. I dropped out to attend a 1-year basic culinary program and then jumped right into professional kitchens in Toronto first, then in Hong Kong.

After a few years grinding it out, I decided to take a break from the industry due to burnout and feeling myself losing a bit of the fire that drove me. I wound up in an entirely new industry and re-ignited my love for cooking by feeding my friends and family. Without the career pressure, I was doing it on my own terms, cooking the things that brought me joy, and doing it because of the joy it brought others. I sold my pot pies to my friends at cost for a little while. Fast forward to the first pandemic lockdown, and I was furloughed from my job. With some time on my hands, a friend reached out looking for a Zoom cooking class to teach them how to make a Jamaican beef patty.

The patty had been something I've always eaten growing up, as many Torontonians have, but I never once thought to make it. I immediately fell in love with the process, and my chef brain kicked in and started thinking of all the ways to improve on the recipe. Friends caught on that I was making patties, and I sold my first patties that same week! It then snowballed into friends, then friends of friends, and next thing you know, I'm selling to strangers. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. It was clear that people wanted a higher quality patty than what the grocery stores offered. Knowing that I could fill that void inspired me to keep improving day after day, week after week. After a year of doing this out of my condo, BlogTO reached out to do an article. That's when my world turned upside down, and I was forced to make a decision. The article garnered so much attention that I received 1500 orders in a weekend. It was clear to me that I had to quit my job and pursue what I truly loved doing: feeding people.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I am still early on in my journey, but to date, my biggest accomplishment has been opening our first storefront. A year ago, I was still doing this out of my kitchen condo. Having a physical location - especially seeing what the pandemic was doing to the food & beverage industry - felt like it was at least a few years out at a minimum.

In a series of very fortunate events, I met Dan Rios, owner of Conspiracy Pizza. Through the peak of our BlogTO demand, he mentored me on how to operationalize my side hustle into a full-time business and ultimately invited me to share his retail space. Getting to this milestone where I get to pursue my dreams and create opportunities for others is just the first of many to come.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Growing the business is one of the most challenging parts of being a business owner. I'm a chef by trade which allows me to develop products and recipes, but I feel like even if you have a great product, that accounts only for 10% of the business, maybe less. The other 90% is making sure that everyone KNOWS that you have a great product through marketing and advertising, whether paid or organic. You have to be an employer that people want to work for, learn to communicate why your product is great and why you deserve to exist as a business. There are so many aspects of a business that chefs or cooks don't have to think about when they are working in a restaurant. As a business owner, they can be the difference between success and failure.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

My first tip is just to get started. You can plan or ideate all you want, but there is no better teacher than having hands-on experience. I'm not saying go from 0-100 right away, but try to find ways to start testing and validating your business, no matter how small. In the tech world, they talk about the concept of 'Minimum Viable Product.' I think the same concept can apply to most small businesses. For me, it was just starting to share some of my food with friends and family, getting feedback, and starting to think through costing and pricing first to break even, then to profit.
My second tip is to build your business around a strong product/service. It might take time to refine your product (and you should constantly be iterating until you really NAIL it), but it is totally worth it to have something that people will love, trust, and tell their friends about. Starting with a strong product and marketing/advertising will help you amplify your traction and success. Start with a bad product, and marketing/advertising is like putting lipstick on a pig. It sounds obvious, but I have seen many people invest in the form before the function, and they have a much harder time growing in the long run.
My third tip is to build and lean on your network as much as possible so that you can learn from others who have done it before. Building and running a business is hard, and it can be lonely, but it doesn't have to be. Most successful companies and people get help at some point from their network of friends, family, mentors, and allies. These relationships can help you move faster than if you were to try to do it on your own.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://phamilyeats.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhamilyeatsTO
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phamilyeats/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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