22: How Refining Operations Can Help You Grow | James Deng, Poké House

“The people that are super successful have their operations on lock.”

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James Deng is the Founder & CEO of Poké House, a poké chain based in Northern California with 9 locations and counting.

James opened Poké House’s first location in 2015, and has since grown the concept to 5 company-owned locations and 4 franchise operated units, with big plans to scale beyond those numbers in the coming years. 

In this episode James shares how Poké House grew into this success, including:

- How Poké House differentiated from competition by making their tightening their operations

- Why buying a warehouse and using it as a distribution center can be helpful to business owners with multiple locations

- All the technology tools Poké House uses to run a tight ship, and

- How James manages the stress and anxiety that comes with running a bootstrapped restaurant business

James is sharp, insightful, and full of operational wisdom, so I think you’ll really enjoy this episode.

Please enjoy my conversation with James Deng of Poké House!

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Where to find Poké House:

• Website: poke.house
• IG: @poke.house
• FB: Poke House
• Twitter: @PokeHouseUSA

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Where to find James:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yundeng/

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Where to find Bryan:

• Website: https://www.myfirstrestaurant.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-tublin-03548910/
• Twitter: @btublin 

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Where to find Kitava:

• Website: https://www.kitava.com/
• Instagram: @kitavakitchen

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Referenced:

• The E-Myth
• Homebase
• Jolt
• Beekeeper
• Olo
• Loyalti
• Choco
• SBA 7a loan
• Shoe Dog, Phil Knight
• Principles, Ray Dalio
• IMP Seafood

In this episode, we cover:

• (01:58) The Poké House origin story
• (09:48) Losing 13 pounds the first month after he opened the first restaurant
• (14:38) Pulling out of operations allowed James to implement SOPs and hire more managers
• (16:18) Team structure as Poké House scaled
• (18:53) How Poké House differentiated from competition by refining their operations and making them as “tight” as McDonald’s or Chick-fil-A
• (21:28) The changes James made to help improve operations
• (25:00) How much you can save by buying and utilizing a distribution center
• (26:48) Getting into franchising
• (28:33) Onboarding Jolt to improve operations
• (31:02) Rewarding employees with equity
• (33:15) How James spends his time today
• (34:53) On The Fly Segment