15 ms·

How I Built a Barbecue Restaurant in Brooklyn: The Toll of Owning Your Business

177 points by ezl 12y ago

ezl 12y ago
Posted because a lot of things in this rang true about founding tech companies for me as well: There's a reason why big accomplishments always come with effusive thanks to family and friends. It's not just about giving thanks—it's about publicly apologizing to the people who've sacrificed so much so you can realize a dream.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kevinqi 12y ago
It's a bit windy, and there wasn't too much in the way of "how", but the story was well written - so a good read regardless.
bredman 12y ago
The one constant that seems to come up in all these founder stories is that you better love what you're doing. There's no guarantee that your new business will be successful or profitable but it seems inevitable you will sink nearly all your time, energy, and money into it. You better be feel rewarded by the journey because that's all you can count on.
- weinzierl 12y ago
  That's true. The only founder story I can think of that doesn't fit into the pattern is Scott Adams'. Here's the counterargument: When I was a commercial loan officer for a large bank, my boss taught us that you should never make a loan to someone who is following his passion. [...] My boss, who had been a commercial lender for over 30 years, said that the best loan customer is someone who has no passion whatsoever, just a desire to work hard at something that looks good on a spreadsheet. [...] On the other hand, Dilbert started out as just one of many get-rich schemes I was willing to try. When it started to look as if it might be a success, my passion for cartooning increased because I realized it could be my golden ticket. http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626104579121813075903866 http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023046261045791...
  - ezl 12y ago
    I actually side entirely with Scott Adams. I feel like it's a really cliche and popular thing to say "Do what you love and success will follow", but it seems like objectively bad advice to pick your profession based on your passion. We're all passionate about a lot of things that simply aren't commercially viable. I sell rental application software for a living. It's necessary, a part of the industry, and not something I'm particularly passionate about in subject matter. I AM passionate about doing the absolute best job by a mile and providing the incontestably, incontrovertibly, unambiguously best option on the market for our customers. Almost EVERYTHING I do (and the awesome people on my team do) has nothing specifically to do with rental application software. Rental application software is just a widget that we sell that has commercial value and therefore pays the bills. What we do is: software delivery, customer service, operations, listening to our customers, and a bunch of other stuff that is immediately translatable to <any other widget>. But we do the absolute best in industry at those things. So I'm not really passionate necessarily about "what I do" in the way people thing (rental application software), but we're really passionate about "what I do" in the way that I think of it (running the best damn business). Rental application software is just this tiny, tiny, tiny kernel of a thing makes it easy to classify what we do into an industry or subject bucket -- but for what we deliver, what we think about, what we REALLY DO, that tiny kernel occupies less than 5% of our thoughts. I have on more than one occasion heard founders (maybe in the process of pitching for investment dollars) say things like: > "This is my life's work. I'm passionate about _____" Where ________ is something like: - accounting software - restaurant POS systems - online coupons etc... If they are saying that to convince someone you're all in on it, I get it. I've pitched/sold before. And don't get me wrong, those are important things for someone to do. It's just not really necessary or important to me that those are things that the founder is deeply passionate about. Yes, I would MUCH rather invest in someone who is truly passionate about that boring thing. But: 1. If it's true, that person is probably awful boring (or alternatively, I have been blessed with really awesome and interesting friends!), and 2. Coupling your financial future to the commercial viability of "what you're passionate about" still strikes me as terrible advice, though admittedly feel-good advice that resonates with a generation of people accustomed to excess disposable income and who consequently have had the ability to pursue passions.
- nolok 12y ago
  > in all these founder stories [...] you better love what you're doing I agree with you as a general point but I disagree in that you make it about founders. As a general rule, if you have the chance/education/abilities to do, you should always pick a job where you love what you're doing, whether you're the founder or an important employee or a random grunt in a giant corporation. You're going to do that for 8h+ hours a day, 5+ days a week for years on end. Make sure you enjoy it.
  - rwallace 12y ago
    Actually, unless you are very unusual, one kind of job you should not pick is one where you love what you're doing, because if you love that activity, so do lots of other people (again, unless you are very unusual), which means they will crowd into that occupation and bid down wages and working conditions until life for almost everyone in that occupation is shit. Mind you, it's also bad to be in a job you hate. Forty hours a week doing something you hate is a big negative impact on quality of life. If you're going to be working for money, what you should aim for is something that pays decently and you don't hate.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      The problem with that theory is that just because you don't love it doesn't mean that there aren't lots of others who do love it. Trading off your joy doesn't mean you aren't still competing in a field where your competitors love it ... it just means you don't. For the concern you cite, avoiding what you love is misguided, you want to actually study the markets for various options to see what is getting bid down -- and choose something that has an attractive combination of economic conditions resulting from others preferences and interaction with your preferences.
- hoggle 12y ago
  Yes and as per the article and my own experience that's especially true when you think about going into food & beverages as it's the complete opposite of what it feels like being a customer - you have to love it (never-ending, physically and psychologically hard work) there really is no other way. Edit: I enjoyed Peter Thiel's "Competition is For Losers" as it pretty much sums up what is wrong with this industry from a business perspective - http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec05/ http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec05/
  - weinzierl 12y ago
    Yes and as per the article and my own experience that's especially true when you think about going into food & beverages as it's the complete opposite of what it feels like being a customer [...] The article mentions the founder eating fast food at least twice and I found that a nice way to express the difference between how customers see a restaurant owner and reality.
venomsnake 12y ago
A little side question - I love Serious Eats but after their last redesign there is no paging. So you just cannot browse to a certain point in time and then continue from there. Am I missing something obvious?
- nkurz 12y ago
  I don't think you are missing anything, but it's interesting how different people have different ways of using the web. I don't think I've ever wanted a web page to be split into pages, and I've always presumed it's done only to have more spaces for ad placement. I always go out of my way to submit links to a single page version, and although I've sometimes worried this might be depriving the destination site of revenue, I've never really considered that readers might prefer a paginated version. If I wanted to continue reading something after a pause, I'd leave the page open in a tab (or more commonly, separate window), keeping it scrolled to the position I stopped reading. If I had to reopen it again, I'd scroll quickly through with the trackpad or space bar until I saw something unfamiliar, much in the way that I would visually scan to find my place in a magazine article. How do you use the pagination to help you continue? By remembering the page number and clicking on it, by bookmarking the link to a specific page, or something else? Edit to clarify: I agree with 'zipperg' below, and I'm not suggesting that infinite scroll is anything other than a usability nightmare. Instead, I'm expressing my strong preference for true-single page articles such as this one over both pagination and automated loading. Unless I'm the one missing something and this page is autoloading the main content so well that I'm not bothered by it? (I'm less dogmatic about user comments --- hiding them can often be a good thing)
  - zippergz 12y ago
    I hate it when individual articles are broken into pages for no good reason, but I like pagination for main/index pages. The biggest problem I've had with this kind of scrolling is when something happens that makes the next "page" fail to load for whatever reason. Usually the only thing that can be done in that case is to reload the whole thing, and then tediously scroll back to where you were. It's gotten better in recent implementations, but it still happens from time to time. It's also annoying when I need to catch up after a long time away (or if it's a site I haven't read before). Depending on the site and what else I have going on at the time, I might read a given site over the course of days or weeks. I do usually leave the tab or window open, but sometimes it gets closed or reloaded for one reason or another. And again, as you say, you can scroll to the first unfamiliar thing, but when it's the equivalent of 10 or 20 pages back, that's a pain. And it's even worse when the "it won't load anymore" problem happens. It's a usability tradeoff, but I have had many more frustrating experiences with infinite scrolling over the past few years than I ever had with paginated indices in the 20+ years I've been using the web.
davidw 12y ago
How do BBQ restaurants work? The two methods I can think of are: 1) you run out when you run out and that's it for the day 2) you keep stuff warm. I'd expect that to dry it out. I've heard some of the famous ones in the south use method #1. Real BBQ is smoking stuff at low temperatures (not too far from 100C) for a long time - briskets can take 12+ hours or longer. So you can't just throw an extra one on when the customer orders, it's basically got to be ready. I think if I ever had a serious amount of disposable money, I'd open a BBQ joint here in Italy.
- 001sky 12y ago
  (3) Is you stage, so if you have inputs over (say) 3-4 hours then you have outputs over 3-4 hours. Basically like bread. But if you run out, you run out.
- TheBiv 12y ago
  I'm from the south and method #1 is done by almost every non-chain BBQ restaurant. Method #2 is done by almost every chain BBQ restaurant. Method #1 BY FAR produces the most fanfare. Notable #1 is LA-Barbeque, and Franklin BBQ in Austin and the wait is typically 2-5 hours and all of the BBQ is sold out before lunch.
  - davidw 12y ago
    I was really blown away to discover just how regional barbecue is - from a book by an economist of all things: http://www.amazon.com/Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday-Foodies-ebook/dp/B005GSYYQ2?tag=dedasys-20 http://www.amazon.com/Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday-Foodies-... Where I'm from in Oregon, there are a few places, but they're few and far between, and I doubt the quality measures up to areas where there is more knowledge and competition between establishments. Indeed, I have to admit to having had absolutely no clue about real barbecue growing up. I think it's pretty cool that it's such a local thing, in an age when so much of life is so homogeneous in the US.
    - jeffreyrogers 12y ago
      Just wanted to comment to say that the book you mentioned is great, as are most of the other things that economist, Tyler Cowen, has written. He and a colleague have a blog, http://marginalrevolution.com/ http://marginalrevolution.com/, that many HN readers will probably enjoy.
zachwill 12y ago
Great post, OP. I really love stories like this on HN — feel like I wouldn't come across them through other channels. Thanks for sharing.
NaOH 12y ago
I’ve worked in the food industry for quite a while, 16 years I think, often in kitchens but sometimes in other areas. About 20 months ago I launched my own food business. I’m the only employee. The few products I sell should be served fresh, so I go to the kitchen 364 days a year to prepare and deliver fresh goods. In some ways I can relate to Tyson Ho, in others I can’t, the difference being only how our work is similar or divergent. He’s had much more attention than I’ve had. I’m not certain what he did to garner it, but I’ve worked hard to fly under the radar. From following the tech industry (and others) for many years, I’ve made it a point to not grow too fast, to avoid taking on more than is possible, physically or economically. I’d rather under-promise and then over-deliver. Or, as is often discussed in places like HN, I want to manage customers’ expectations. One result is that I’ve done no marketing beyond some occasional use of Twitter. I don’t even have a website yet. In fact, I haven’t solicited one customer. Speaking to one person in food retail led to that person carrying my products when I launched, and every customer since has come by word of mouth. Since I only wholesale, my customers are not the people ultimately buying my products for consumption. So I do everything to keep my customers happy, word gradually spreads about my products, and other retailers find their way to me. Still, I can understand the tight economics Mr. Ho describes. I was profitable within weeks of launching, but I’m not rolling in money by any stretch. I’d hate to know what I make on an hourly basis. But I don’t know because it’s not one of the measures I use for gauging whether this is succeeding. I measure myself by my performance in the kitchen —things like punctuality, product quality, sanitation. I measure customer service by my customers' satisfaction with how I handle their needs. And I measure the bottom line simply by whether or not the bank balance is going up. He discussed balancing work with other aspects of life. I’m content with how I’ve done there. Mind you, I’m single and childless, so it’s not fair to compare me to him. But I’ve maintained some social life (that was never too big for me), and I’ve continued the long-distance friendships I’ve long been part of. All told, I’ve never understood why people get into this industry. It’s physically brutal, mentally endless, hard to make decent money, and customer expectations are brutal. On that last one, I’ll note that every industry has its odd customer expectations, but food is one of the oddest I’ve ever noticed. Example: You have a date with your significant other. The restaurant darn well better seat the two of you within minutes of your reservation time. In contrast, the doctor’s office has a waiting room you’re likely to sit in no matter how punctual you are. Another example: Unless something sells out from popularity, food customers usually don’t tolerate things being unavailable. “I’m sorry, there’s no bread for the table because the oven broke” isn’t something you hear, and that’s because customers, and in turn restaurant owners, won’t tolerate it. The best description I’ve ever heard about restaurant life is that it’s like working in an emergency room but without the life and death. But you can bet anyone worth their salt in a kitchen treats it like like and death. Still, I enjoy what I do and find both the work and customer service rewarding. I don’t blame anyone for trying this industry and fleeing it as fast as possible. And since it sounds like Mr. Ho is doing good work, I certainly hope he’s able to make his business work.
SixSigma 12y ago
On the subject of 11lb babies, more and more babies are being born already obese http://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/big-baby-boom-supersize-deliveries-have-doctors-worried-f6C10921987 http://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/big-baby-boom-supe...
kmttechnical 12y ago
An amazing story! Thanks for sharing so much of yourself! Best to you. Angie
joshu 12y ago
It kills me that restaurants add all the value to the area but lose almost all of it to rent. I wish I could design a town or something. Big tax break to landlords who house good restaurante long-term or or otherwise allow the restaurant to be profitable. Or maybe the town owns the town center or something.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  Or the restaurant owns the building. Yeah, maybe not practical in SF, but elsewhere it works well.
  - joshu 12y ago
    Yes, that works too. I remember when I was living in NYC when all four corners at an intersection went from restaurants to bank branches. Just awful.
  - RockyMcNuts 12y ago
    Or long-term lease. Typically NY situation is, up-and-coming restaurateur opens in a crappy underutilized space, takes a long-term e.g. 7-year lease. Lease is up, every established restaurateur and dilettante thinks they can make a fortune there, rent rises to where nobody can make much of a buck, often new restaurant closes shortly after. I don't know why there are so many freaking banks, New Yorkers refuse to walk and are worth money to banks. But a restaurant is a huge pain in the ass to a landlord compared to a bank.
    - joshu 12y ago
      Zone banks to second floors (external stairway?)
    - waterlesscloud 12y ago
      I wonder what the effects would be of cities requiring a long term lease to get a restaurant permit? Would landlords just not go along and we'd see fewer restaurants? Maybe, but it could be an interesting experiment to find out.
stevewillows 12y ago
A quote from a David Sedaris article [1] sums it up nicely through a conversation he had with an entrepreneur who was intending to retire at 55. > "One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work." The gist, she said, was that in order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two. [1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/24/laugh-kookaburra http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/24/laugh-kookaburr...
- yoshizar 12y ago
  This is a really interesting idea. I wonder if there's anyone who's been extremely successful in their work who would object to it. My instinct is that if you're smart about your time investments, you can get pretty far on most those burners without out a lot of time invested. For example, for me, health is a non-negotiable. But I can maintain it with only 4-5 hours a week of investment vs. 0 hours if I abandon it. I just have 3 rules: get enough sleep, eat only healthy things, exercise at least once a week. If you are running your own company and you can't sleep enough, I think you are either not prioritizing it or you're doing something wrong. You're unsustainably stressed or not managing your company's execution well enough. Not enough sleep affects your performance and ability to think as much as your health, so I really don't see any benefit to being chronically sleep deprived. Eating healthy doesn't take much more time than eating unhealthy. It means buying groceries, and knowing what's open around you that's cheap and healthy (Most Chinese take-out vegetable stir fry is a good option). The groceries come from Amazon Fresh, and mean 2-3 hours more per week cooking than you would if you got fast food. And exercise takes no more than 2 hours a week. The goal here is not to be athletic, it's just to be healthy. I think that whatever your main burner is, you can usually maintain the other burners adequately with 4-5 hours per week, and no more unless something unusual is going on. The key word here is adequate - it's not the main dimension of your success, and you may just be ok at it. But I don't think you need to fail at it in order to succeed at the thing you're focusing on. And if you can hit adequacy, you still have more than enough time for your main burner. If other burners combined take 15 hours per week, you very likely still have at least 80 hours a week left for your main focus. The specific numbers I hypothesize here applies only if you don't have kids, which I imagine skews your family number significantly.
eriktrautman 12y ago
I really enjoy reading about the trials of entrepreneurs outside The Bubble on HN and this was a great piece of writing. The vignette about the dirt-loving sniper sucked me in.
gozmike 12y ago
I met Tyson a few weeks ago at Arrogant Swine after the Brooklyn iOS Meetup. I have to say, from what I saw that night at his restaurant I'm fairly certain he's stumbled upon a formula that is going to work quite well. The place was jam packed, food was delicious and I'm still telling people about the meal and ambiance. If you're in NYC, definitely go check it out.
abbott 12y ago
Drove back from Brooklyn last night after celebrating my friend's 40th at Arrogant Swine, and then I wake up to see this on hacker news. Crazy. This restuarant appears out of nowhere in Bushwick/warehouse district. Being a North Carolina native I was a huge skeptic walking in. Mr. Ho has an NC (and SC) flag on the wall, usually not a symbol of pride outside the state (even for me), but in the case of BBQ it's respectable and makes a statement to anyone who know's anything about pulled-pork BBQ. If you're ever in Brooklyn, definitely check it out. There's something to be said about eating, drinking, and enjoying the vision of an entrepreneur. Impossible to do with your stereotypcial start-up.
- chiph 12y ago
  I do miss the NC BBQ. I used to eat at Cooper's in downtown Raleigh -- which is in the process of moving to a new location I hear. A developer bought the block and is putting up a tall building -- no room for a business started in the 1930s there. The best hushpuppies I ever had though, were at Bubba's in Charlotte. Ralph would make his dough in batches, and if you caught it at the end of the batch, the onions had had time to steep in the batter, and they were so good.

177 points by ezl 12y ago

ezl 12y ago

Posted because a lot of things in this rang true about founding tech companies for me as well: There's a reason why big accomplishments always come with effusive thanks to family and friends. It's not just about giving thanks—it's about publicly apologizing to the people who've sacrificed so much so you can realize a dream.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

kevinqi 12y ago

It's a bit windy, and there wasn't too much in the way of "how", but the story was well written - so a good read regardless.

bredman 12y ago

The one constant that seems to come up in all these founder stories is that you better love what you're doing. There's no guarantee that your new business will be successful or profitable but it seems inevitable you will sink nearly all your time, energy, and money into it. You better be feel rewarded by the journey because that's all you can count on.

weinzierl 12y ago
That's true. The only founder story I can think of that doesn't fit into the pattern is Scott Adams'. Here's the counterargument: When I was a commercial loan officer for a large bank, my boss taught us that you should never make a loan to someone who is following his passion. [...] My boss, who had been a commercial lender for over 30 years, said that the best loan customer is someone who has no passion whatsoever, just a desire to work hard at something that looks good on a spreadsheet. [...] On the other hand, Dilbert started out as just one of many get-rich schemes I was willing to try. When it started to look as if it might be a success, my passion for cartooning increased because I realized it could be my golden ticket. http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626104579121813075903866 http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023046261045791...
- ezl 12y ago
  I actually side entirely with Scott Adams. I feel like it's a really cliche and popular thing to say "Do what you love and success will follow", but it seems like objectively bad advice to pick your profession based on your passion. We're all passionate about a lot of things that simply aren't commercially viable. I sell rental application software for a living. It's necessary, a part of the industry, and not something I'm particularly passionate about in subject matter. I AM passionate about doing the absolute best job by a mile and providing the incontestably, incontrovertibly, unambiguously best option on the market for our customers. Almost EVERYTHING I do (and the awesome people on my team do) has nothing specifically to do with rental application software. Rental application software is just a widget that we sell that has commercial value and therefore pays the bills. What we do is: software delivery, customer service, operations, listening to our customers, and a bunch of other stuff that is immediately translatable to <any other widget>. But we do the absolute best in industry at those things. So I'm not really passionate necessarily about "what I do" in the way people thing (rental application software), but we're really passionate about "what I do" in the way that I think of it (running the best damn business). Rental application software is just this tiny, tiny, tiny kernel of a thing makes it easy to classify what we do into an industry or subject bucket -- but for what we deliver, what we think about, what we REALLY DO, that tiny kernel occupies less than 5% of our thoughts. I have on more than one occasion heard founders (maybe in the process of pitching for investment dollars) say things like: > "This is my life's work. I'm passionate about _____" Where ________ is something like: - accounting software - restaurant POS systems - online coupons etc... If they are saying that to convince someone you're all in on it, I get it. I've pitched/sold before. And don't get me wrong, those are important things for someone to do. It's just not really necessary or important to me that those are things that the founder is deeply passionate about. Yes, I would MUCH rather invest in someone who is truly passionate about that boring thing. But: 1. If it's true, that person is probably awful boring (or alternatively, I have been blessed with really awesome and interesting friends!), and 2. Coupling your financial future to the commercial viability of "what you're passionate about" still strikes me as terrible advice, though admittedly feel-good advice that resonates with a generation of people accustomed to excess disposable income and who consequently have had the ability to pursue passions.
nolok 12y ago
> in all these founder stories [...] you better love what you're doing I agree with you as a general point but I disagree in that you make it about founders. As a general rule, if you have the chance/education/abilities to do, you should always pick a job where you love what you're doing, whether you're the founder or an important employee or a random grunt in a giant corporation. You're going to do that for 8h+ hours a day, 5+ days a week for years on end. Make sure you enjoy it.
- rwallace 12y ago
  Actually, unless you are very unusual, one kind of job you should not pick is one where you love what you're doing, because if you love that activity, so do lots of other people (again, unless you are very unusual), which means they will crowd into that occupation and bid down wages and working conditions until life for almost everyone in that occupation is shit. Mind you, it's also bad to be in a job you hate. Forty hours a week doing something you hate is a big negative impact on quality of life. If you're going to be working for money, what you should aim for is something that pays decently and you don't hate.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    The problem with that theory is that just because you don't love it doesn't mean that there aren't lots of others who do love it. Trading off your joy doesn't mean you aren't still competing in a field where your competitors love it ... it just means you don't. For the concern you cite, avoiding what you love is misguided, you want to actually study the markets for various options to see what is getting bid down -- and choose something that has an attractive combination of economic conditions resulting from others preferences and interaction with your preferences.
hoggle 12y ago
Yes and as per the article and my own experience that's especially true when you think about going into food & beverages as it's the complete opposite of what it feels like being a customer - you have to love it (never-ending, physically and psychologically hard work) there really is no other way. Edit: I enjoyed Peter Thiel's "Competition is For Losers" as it pretty much sums up what is wrong with this industry from a business perspective - http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec05/ http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec05/
- weinzierl 12y ago
  Yes and as per the article and my own experience that's especially true when you think about going into food & beverages as it's the complete opposite of what it feels like being a customer [...] The article mentions the founder eating fast food at least twice and I found that a nice way to express the difference between how customers see a restaurant owner and reality.

venomsnake 12y ago

A little side question - I love Serious Eats but after their last redesign there is no paging. So you just cannot browse to a certain point in time and then continue from there. Am I missing something obvious?

nkurz 12y ago
I don't think you are missing anything, but it's interesting how different people have different ways of using the web. I don't think I've ever wanted a web page to be split into pages, and I've always presumed it's done only to have more spaces for ad placement. I always go out of my way to submit links to a single page version, and although I've sometimes worried this might be depriving the destination site of revenue, I've never really considered that readers might prefer a paginated version. If I wanted to continue reading something after a pause, I'd leave the page open in a tab (or more commonly, separate window), keeping it scrolled to the position I stopped reading. If I had to reopen it again, I'd scroll quickly through with the trackpad or space bar until I saw something unfamiliar, much in the way that I would visually scan to find my place in a magazine article. How do you use the pagination to help you continue? By remembering the page number and clicking on it, by bookmarking the link to a specific page, or something else? Edit to clarify: I agree with 'zipperg' below, and I'm not suggesting that infinite scroll is anything other than a usability nightmare. Instead, I'm expressing my strong preference for true-single page articles such as this one over both pagination and automated loading. Unless I'm the one missing something and this page is autoloading the main content so well that I'm not bothered by it? (I'm less dogmatic about user comments --- hiding them can often be a good thing)
- zippergz 12y ago
  I hate it when individual articles are broken into pages for no good reason, but I like pagination for main/index pages. The biggest problem I've had with this kind of scrolling is when something happens that makes the next "page" fail to load for whatever reason. Usually the only thing that can be done in that case is to reload the whole thing, and then tediously scroll back to where you were. It's gotten better in recent implementations, but it still happens from time to time. It's also annoying when I need to catch up after a long time away (or if it's a site I haven't read before). Depending on the site and what else I have going on at the time, I might read a given site over the course of days or weeks. I do usually leave the tab or window open, but sometimes it gets closed or reloaded for one reason or another. And again, as you say, you can scroll to the first unfamiliar thing, but when it's the equivalent of 10 or 20 pages back, that's a pain. And it's even worse when the "it won't load anymore" problem happens. It's a usability tradeoff, but I have had many more frustrating experiences with infinite scrolling over the past few years than I ever had with paginated indices in the 20+ years I've been using the web.

davidw 12y ago

How do BBQ restaurants work? The two methods I can think of are: 1) you run out when you run out and that's it for the day 2) you keep stuff warm. I'd expect that to dry it out. I've heard some of the famous ones in the south use method #1. Real BBQ is smoking stuff at low temperatures (not too far from 100C) for a long time - briskets can take 12+ hours or longer. So you can't just throw an extra one on when the customer orders, it's basically got to be ready. I think if I ever had a serious amount of disposable money, I'd open a BBQ joint here in Italy.

001sky 12y ago
(3) Is you stage, so if you have inputs over (say) 3-4 hours then you have outputs over 3-4 hours. Basically like bread. But if you run out, you run out.
TheBiv 12y ago
I'm from the south and method #1 is done by almost every non-chain BBQ restaurant. Method #2 is done by almost every chain BBQ restaurant. Method #1 BY FAR produces the most fanfare. Notable #1 is LA-Barbeque, and Franklin BBQ in Austin and the wait is typically 2-5 hours and all of the BBQ is sold out before lunch.
- davidw 12y ago
  I was really blown away to discover just how regional barbecue is - from a book by an economist of all things: http://www.amazon.com/Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday-Foodies-ebook/dp/B005GSYYQ2?tag=dedasys-20 http://www.amazon.com/Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday-Foodies-... Where I'm from in Oregon, there are a few places, but they're few and far between, and I doubt the quality measures up to areas where there is more knowledge and competition between establishments. Indeed, I have to admit to having had absolutely no clue about real barbecue growing up. I think it's pretty cool that it's such a local thing, in an age when so much of life is so homogeneous in the US.
  - jeffreyrogers 12y ago
    Just wanted to comment to say that the book you mentioned is great, as are most of the other things that economist, Tyler Cowen, has written. He and a colleague have a blog, http://marginalrevolution.com/ http://marginalrevolution.com/, that many HN readers will probably enjoy.

zachwill 12y ago

Great post, OP. I really love stories like this on HN — feel like I wouldn't come across them through other channels. Thanks for sharing.

NaOH 12y ago

I’ve worked in the food industry for quite a while, 16 years I think, often in kitchens but sometimes in other areas. About 20 months ago I launched my own food business. I’m the only employee. The few products I sell should be served fresh, so I go to the kitchen 364 days a year to prepare and deliver fresh goods. In some ways I can relate to Tyson Ho, in others I can’t, the difference being only how our work is similar or divergent. He’s had much more attention than I’ve had. I’m not certain what he did to garner it, but I’ve worked hard to fly under the radar. From following the tech industry (and others) for many years, I’ve made it a point to not grow too fast, to avoid taking on more than is possible, physically or economically. I’d rather under-promise and then over-deliver. Or, as is often discussed in places like HN, I want to manage customers’ expectations. One result is that I’ve done no marketing beyond some occasional use of Twitter. I don’t even have a website yet. In fact, I haven’t solicited one customer. Speaking to one person in food retail led to that person carrying my products when I launched, and every customer since has come by word of mouth. Since I only wholesale, my customers are not the people ultimately buying my products for consumption. So I do everything to keep my customers happy, word gradually spreads about my products, and other retailers find their way to me. Still, I can understand the tight economics Mr. Ho describes. I was profitable within weeks of launching, but I’m not rolling in money by any stretch. I’d hate to know what I make on an hourly basis. But I don’t know because it’s not one of the measures I use for gauging whether this is succeeding. I measure myself by my performance in the kitchen —things like punctuality, product quality, sanitation. I measure customer service by my customers' satisfaction with how I handle their needs. And I measure the bottom line simply by whether or not the bank balance is going up. He discussed balancing work with other aspects of life. I’m content with how I’ve done there. Mind you, I’m single and childless, so it’s not fair to compare me to him. But I’ve maintained some social life (that was never too big for me), and I’ve continued the long-distance friendships I’ve long been part of. All told, I’ve never understood why people get into this industry. It’s physically brutal, mentally endless, hard to make decent money, and customer expectations are brutal. On that last one, I’ll note that every industry has its odd customer expectations, but food is one of the oddest I’ve ever noticed. Example: You have a date with your significant other. The restaurant darn well better seat the two of you within minutes of your reservation time. In contrast, the doctor’s office has a waiting room you’re likely to sit in no matter how punctual you are. Another example: Unless something sells out from popularity, food customers usually don’t tolerate things being unavailable. “I’m sorry, there’s no bread for the table because the oven broke” isn’t something you hear, and that’s because customers, and in turn restaurant owners, won’t tolerate it. The best description I’ve ever heard about restaurant life is that it’s like working in an emergency room but without the life and death. But you can bet anyone worth their salt in a kitchen treats it like like and death. Still, I enjoy what I do and find both the work and customer service rewarding. I don’t blame anyone for trying this industry and fleeing it as fast as possible. And since it sounds like Mr. Ho is doing good work, I certainly hope he’s able to make his business work.

SixSigma 12y ago

On the subject of 11lb babies, more and more babies are being born already obese http://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/big-baby-boom-supersize-deliveries-have-doctors-worried-f6C10921987 http://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/big-baby-boom-supe...

kmttechnical 12y ago

An amazing story! Thanks for sharing so much of yourself! Best to you. Angie

joshu 12y ago

It kills me that restaurants add all the value to the area but lose almost all of it to rent. I wish I could design a town or something. Big tax break to landlords who house good restaurante long-term or or otherwise allow the restaurant to be profitable. Or maybe the town owns the town center or something.

waterlesscloud 12y ago
Or the restaurant owns the building. Yeah, maybe not practical in SF, but elsewhere it works well.
- joshu 12y ago
  Yes, that works too. I remember when I was living in NYC when all four corners at an intersection went from restaurants to bank branches. Just awful.
- RockyMcNuts 12y ago
  Or long-term lease. Typically NY situation is, up-and-coming restaurateur opens in a crappy underutilized space, takes a long-term e.g. 7-year lease. Lease is up, every established restaurateur and dilettante thinks they can make a fortune there, rent rises to where nobody can make much of a buck, often new restaurant closes shortly after. I don't know why there are so many freaking banks, New Yorkers refuse to walk and are worth money to banks. But a restaurant is a huge pain in the ass to a landlord compared to a bank.
  - joshu 12y ago
    Zone banks to second floors (external stairway?)
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    I wonder what the effects would be of cities requiring a long term lease to get a restaurant permit? Would landlords just not go along and we'd see fewer restaurants? Maybe, but it could be an interesting experiment to find out.

stevewillows 12y ago

A quote from a David Sedaris article [1] sums it up nicely through a conversation he had with an entrepreneur who was intending to retire at 55. > "One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work." The gist, she said, was that in order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two. [1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/24/laugh-kookaburra http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/24/laugh-kookaburr...

yoshizar 12y ago
This is a really interesting idea. I wonder if there's anyone who's been extremely successful in their work who would object to it. My instinct is that if you're smart about your time investments, you can get pretty far on most those burners without out a lot of time invested. For example, for me, health is a non-negotiable. But I can maintain it with only 4-5 hours a week of investment vs. 0 hours if I abandon it. I just have 3 rules: get enough sleep, eat only healthy things, exercise at least once a week. If you are running your own company and you can't sleep enough, I think you are either not prioritizing it or you're doing something wrong. You're unsustainably stressed or not managing your company's execution well enough. Not enough sleep affects your performance and ability to think as much as your health, so I really don't see any benefit to being chronically sleep deprived. Eating healthy doesn't take much more time than eating unhealthy. It means buying groceries, and knowing what's open around you that's cheap and healthy (Most Chinese take-out vegetable stir fry is a good option). The groceries come from Amazon Fresh, and mean 2-3 hours more per week cooking than you would if you got fast food. And exercise takes no more than 2 hours a week. The goal here is not to be athletic, it's just to be healthy. I think that whatever your main burner is, you can usually maintain the other burners adequately with 4-5 hours per week, and no more unless something unusual is going on. The key word here is adequate - it's not the main dimension of your success, and you may just be ok at it. But I don't think you need to fail at it in order to succeed at the thing you're focusing on. And if you can hit adequacy, you still have more than enough time for your main burner. If other burners combined take 15 hours per week, you very likely still have at least 80 hours a week left for your main focus. The specific numbers I hypothesize here applies only if you don't have kids, which I imagine skews your family number significantly.

eriktrautman 12y ago

I really enjoy reading about the trials of entrepreneurs outside The Bubble on HN and this was a great piece of writing. The vignette about the dirt-loving sniper sucked me in.

gozmike 12y ago

I met Tyson a few weeks ago at Arrogant Swine after the Brooklyn iOS Meetup. I have to say, from what I saw that night at his restaurant I'm fairly certain he's stumbled upon a formula that is going to work quite well. The place was jam packed, food was delicious and I'm still telling people about the meal and ambiance. If you're in NYC, definitely go check it out.

abbott 12y ago

Drove back from Brooklyn last night after celebrating my friend's 40th at Arrogant Swine, and then I wake up to see this on hacker news. Crazy. This restuarant appears out of nowhere in Bushwick/warehouse district. Being a North Carolina native I was a huge skeptic walking in. Mr. Ho has an NC (and SC) flag on the wall, usually not a symbol of pride outside the state (even for me), but in the case of BBQ it's respectable and makes a statement to anyone who know's anything about pulled-pork BBQ. If you're ever in Brooklyn, definitely check it out. There's something to be said about eating, drinking, and enjoying the vision of an entrepreneur. Impossible to do with your stereotypcial start-up.

chiph 12y ago
I do miss the NC BBQ. I used to eat at Cooper's in downtown Raleigh -- which is in the process of moving to a new location I hear. A developer bought the block and is putting up a tall building -- no room for a business started in the 1930s there. The best hushpuppies I ever had though, were at Bubba's in Charlotte. Ralph would make his dough in batches, and if you caught it at the end of the batch, the onions had had time to steep in the batter, and they were so good.