It’s a well-known understanding that the only constant is change. The restaurant industry knows this well. However, some establishments have managed to be flexible enough to adapt to these constant obstacles while also remaining secure in their principles, giving diners comfort in knowing that they will consistently deliver exceptional experiences. Here, three restaurants explain how they do it.
Musso & Frank Grill in Los Angeles, California
Courtesy of Musso & Frank Grill
Musso & Frank Grill established itself as an anchorpoint of the Los Angeles restaurant scene in 1919. Located on Hollywood Boulevard just a few blocks away from iconic landmarks such as the TCL Chinese Theatre, the restaurant has a prime location in a very tourist-centric area. Combined with a name drop on Taylor Swift’s most recent album The Life of a Showgirl, (the song “Elizabeth Taylor” has the lyric “We hit the best booth at Musso & Frank’s”), one might expect that the establishment would be a very “touristy” restaurant. However, Musso & Frank’s president and CEO Mark Echeverria says it’s far from it.
“We probably have a 85-90 percent return clientele of Angelenos that we’ve developed a relationship with over the years… It’s not uncommon to walk through the dining room on any given night and see three or four generations at a table enjoying Musso’s,” Echeverria says.
Echeverria is a fourth generation operator and a member of the family who established the Los Angeles restaurant in 1919. Over the course of its 106-year history, Echeverria says what has allowed Musso’s to succeed is the prioritization of guest relationships. Whether it’s your favorite appetizer or cocktail that the staff has memorized, dining patrons come for small, but very meaningful interactions.
Another core value of the restaurant that Echeverria cites is integrity. In his role, Echeverria has access to the restaurant’s corporate minutes going all the way back to 1927. He says he’s spent time going through these notes to understand their decision-making approach. This proved especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering the restaurant had lasted through world wars, food rationing, and financial depressions, there was much to learn from Echeverria’s forefathers.
“I noticed, in the [1930s] and [1940s], their decisions were always centered around the customer,” Echeverria recalls.
During the pandemic, Echeverria says the team went back to these lessons to keep the team together and ensure that the restaurant remained as unchanged as possible. Before they closed for 18 months during COVID, they had a team of 84 people. When they reopened, 78 of those team members returned. Echeverria said he also feared what the (possibly slow) customer return to Musso’s would look like. He was proven wrong when the restaurant was slammed with patrons as soon as they reopened. “All those lessons that I learned from reading the decisions of my prior generations, it paid off for us,” Echeverria says.
While social interactions continue to move online, Musso’s likes to keep it “old school.” But that’s what the customers come for: the community and the relationships. Musso & Frank Grill retains its place as a stronghold of Hollywood culture. It is a witness to the near-constant evolution of Hollywood, dating back to when “Hollywood Boulevard was a dirt road.”
“Musso’s and our community is this symbiotic relationship where we all grew up together. We take a lot of pride in that,” Echeverria says.
Pekin Noodle Bar in Butte, Montana
Courtesy of Jerry Tam
“The owner of the oldest Chinese restaurant in Seattle, Washington—that had Bruce Lee as a customer—took his first vacation ever (or in a long time) to come to Butte, Montana, and come to the Pekin Noodle Parlor. It was an honor and a distinction to have someone like that who grew up with the same type of immigration story,” Jerry Tam recalls. “He never found any pleasure in going to see the world, just wanted to work hard for his children and his family.”
Two Chinese immigrants, Tam Kwong Yee and Hum Yow, opened Pekin Noodle Bar in 1911, making Pekin the oldest continually-operating Chinese restaurant in the United States. Additionally, the restaurant has remained in the hands of Tam Kwong Yee’s family, eventually passing on to Yee’s grandson Ding Kuen Tam. The restaurant is now operated by Jerry Tam, who took it over from his father.
Tam says Pekin has always been a mom-and-pop restaurant. There are a number of elements that Tam cites as core to this type of establishment: “working hard, showing up on time, being honest, not stealing, and teamwork.” These factors are part of what has allowed the restaurant to endure over a century-worth of history.
Pekin has always been an integral part of Tam’s life. “Me and my sisters… we all were put to work. That started with just washing dishes and cleaning silverware, but this was always our second home,” Tam says. As a young child, he remembers enjoying bowls of noodles and rice from the restaurant. In his teenage years, he graduated to more traditional wok dishes like bok choy.
“We started with a bowl of noodles and rice and ended up with James Beard Award-winning Chinese cuisine,” Tam says.
Tam is still looking to grow the restaurant’s offerings “to provide the finest quality and variety of Chinese food on our menu.” In a time where people are increasingly reliant on delivery services like Doordash and Uber Eats, it’s become important to compete with what you’re able to order with a quick tap of a button.
As significant as Pekin’s commitment to food quality is Tam’s commitment to honoring his family legacy.
Tam’s parents played a fundamental role in making Pekin a staple of the community in Butte. “The best part about my mom and dad is they have a legacy of kindness,” Tam says. He describes his father as incredibly generous, donating and sponsoring whoever asked, whether that be high schools, athletics, or education, without asking for anything in return.
In addition to honoring his parent’s legacy, Tam also understands the importance of the immigrant story in informing the values that create the foundation for Pekin.
“If you go to Las Vegas, you’ll see that the most popular places to eat are in Chinatown. All the casinos are bringing well-known Chinese restaurants into their casinos. So, it’s proof positive that immigrants are what build America,” Tam says.
Tadich Grill in San Francisco, California
Courtesy of Tadich Grill
Tadich Grill, located in the Financial District of San Francisco, is the Golden State’s oldest continually-operated restaurant. The restaurant began in 1849, meaning Tadich started before California even became a state.
Tadich began as a small coffee stand on the wharf founded by three immigrants from Croatia. Eventually, the stand relocated to within the New World Market. Thirty-eight years after the original coffee stand was created, John Tadich purchased the establishment in 1887. In the years following, Tadich Grill saw name changes, earthquakes, a fire, and a partnership’s creation and subsequent dissolution. Finally in 1967, Tadich Grill moved to a location on California Street, which has remained its home since.
In its 176-year history, the restaurant has seen its fair share of ups and downs, including rising labor and food prices, labor regulations, and COVID, which Derek Belanger, Tadich Grill’s director of operations, says has forever changed the way the restaurant operates. For example, Tadich Grill never took reservations prior to COVID, but the pandemic forced them to pivot. Regardless of these challenges, Belanger says the restaurant “has really tried to be as consistent in how we operate in the front of house and with the guest experience as possible.” While the means of operating the business may have changed, the restaurant remains true to its foundational principles.
Belanger defines these main tenets as hospitality, tradition, and quality. “Nothing has changed in that [operational] model since the beginning. This has always been a place driven by warm service, hospitality, and focused servers,” Belanger says.
A significant part of this system is Tadich’s employees, who remain part of the team for decades as opposed to coming and going seasonally. These employees have “dedicated their careers to learning the art of hospitality,” which Belanger says is unique within the restaurant industry. This allows the front-of-house operation and guest experience to remain as consistent as possible, according to Belanger. The goal of the staff is to build generational relationships.
“We want people to be able to bring their grandchildren in and experience the same type of dining experience that they had when they came here with their grandparents,” Belanger says.
With such a rich history and long-established presence in the city, Tadich Grill is a significant representation of the changes that have come through San Francisco. They’ve had the unique opportunity to grow and evolve with the city.
Part of this growth is owed to their staff, many of whom grew up in San Francisco, weaving the spirit of the city into their work at Tadich. But another part is owed to the patrons that come in and out of the restaurant daily.
“The people of San Francisco that come and visit [Tadich Grill] have created what it has become today,” Belanger says.
