208: Deidra McGuiness-Ciolko | The Three Rs of Restaurant Success

Chef Life Radio: Strategies to Empower Culinary Leadership for Success, Sanity, and Satisfaction in the Culinary Industry

When the restauranteur Deidra McGuiness-Ciolko opens her business with just $7 left, she must find a way to turn things around quickly or risk losing everything.

"I just figured, we're going to make it, it's going to be fine. We had to close for five months and that was tough. The laws here in the Dominican Republic for the curfews are very strict, and you don't mess around. We shut down"

This is Diedra McGuiness-Ciolko's story...

Deidra McGuiness-Ciolko is a restauranteur and professor who moved to Costa Rica and started her own restaurant, Gordito's FreshMex. She talks about her journey from Boston to the Caribbean and her experience during the pandemic. She advises people who are thinking about starting their own businesses to be careful what they wish for and to treat their business as if it were someone else's.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How Deidra McGuiness-Ciolko ended up in the Caribbean

2. The three Rs of business (reduce, reinvent, relax)

3. The importance of being careful about what you wish for when starting your own business

Resources:

Gordito's on the web

Chapter Summaries:

00:00:04 - The day the restaurant opened, it had $7 left. It was a tough year for the business. As people are aging, they are turning to meditation, prayer, and getting rid of their bad habits. There is a lot of space to learn one of the three Rs.

00:00:55 - Deidra Mcguiness-Ciolko is a restauranteur professor, taco maker, and dear friend. She's going to talk about her journey from Boston to Costa Rica. Adam Lamb is a chef and hospitality professional. Adam has coached and mentored thousands of culinarians over his 30 years career.

00:02:05 - Deidra McGinnis is from Boston and she is now a taco maker in the Caribbean. She worked in Santa Domingo for nine years as the director of operations for the liquor end of a casino. After her son was born, she moved back to Florida and became a stay-at-home mom. After five years, she decided to move to Cabernette and started Gordika's FreshMex Restaurant.

00:05:38 - “resilient“ is one of his favorite words. She grew up in Boston for Irish Italian; she's had several acts and she's not afraid of doing anything anymore because she did this ” I don't often have nice things to say about me, but I'm getting there. “

00:06:36 - There was a pandemic in the Dominican Republic. The business had to be closed for five months. The owners liquidated all their employees and bought out their partner. It was the first time in 60 years that she had any time off in the business. They were responsible for 700 people. Someone quit his job and sold his shares in a hotel company, and started his own restaurant. Deidra's advice to people who want to start their own business is to be careful what they wish and don't become their business. Deidra also advises not to treat the business as if it was someone else's business. There is a Facebook group called “asshole line cook, “ where a member wrote a harsh post about restaurants not being able to get employees because they don't pay enough. The next day the member of the group apologized for his post. Deidra is grateful to her clients for choosing to spend their dollars with her. Deidra and Joe had a midlife crisis last year and they were separated for a year and a half. Deidra has been smoking and working and drinking like a maniac since she was 20 years old. She had to learn to calm down and learn to be a duck and let things slide at her restaurant. Diedra has been using a coach for a year. Deidra has never done the hard work before. So she wasn't down with the whole coaching thing. She's been doing it now for a full year and it's helped her turn her life around. She has reconnected with Joe.

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Mentioned in this episode:

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