Alice (00:00)

the piece that I had to really learn to throw into the mix was taking care of myself, which is something it's always I was always something I knew, right? Of course I gotta take care of myself or else I can't take care of other people. it's hard to put into practice when you have so many other things to do.

Pauline (00:30)

Hello everybody and welcome back. I'm Pauline Walfisch and I am here with my co-host Megan Nelson.

Megan (00:37)

Hi everybody, nice to be here today.

So, are you a mom who wonders if it's possible to be a good mom and fulfill your career aspirations? Are you wondering how you'll balance motherhood and run a business? Well, Alice Cheng is here today to talk about what no mom told her. Alice is the founder and CEO of Culinary Agents, a hiring and recruiting platform for the hospitality industry. She is also a host of a weekly podcast, Hospitality on the Rise, where she talks about career paths.

Lessons learned and the ins and outs of the industry with hospitality leaders. Alongside her professional career, Alice is a mom who navigated first-time motherhood at the height of the pandemic and is here to talk about what it's like to balance career ambitions, business projects, and parenthood. Welcome. Hi Alice.

Alice (01:30)

Hi Megan, hi Pauline, thanks for having me.

Pauline (01:33)

Hi Alice, I've never met you before.

Alice (01:36)

Yeah.

Pauline (01:37)

so for everybody who is out there and does not know, actually Alice is somebody very special in my life in many different ways. Alice is my sister-in-law. So there are two Walfischs in the room for all the episodes that we did with two Megans. Today we have two Walfisch So

Walfi...

Megan (01:58)

Is that the plural? Walf? Okay.

Alice (02:01)

we had a whole family chat about that.

Pauline (02:04)

Alice I know very well. And besides being an amazing sister-in-law and an amazing mom, which you'll hear about, like I have to confess Alice has been my like inspiration. And before helping hands was even a thing.

Alice was running culinary agents and I would watch her and then be like, I wonder if I could do that. And we had many conversations over Christmas dinner and trying to figure out like how do you do that? How do you get employees? How do what's your HR site? all of the how to run a business, including how to start a podcast.

So all the what no mom told you listeners out there have Alice to thank for bringing this to bringing this to life.

Megan (02:58)

You were so helpful, thank you.

Alice (03:00)

it's easy to answer questions and to give advice, but the hard part is always doing, right? So you're you're very kind, Pauline but obviously this is all of your doing and your team's doing. So I'm excited to contribute however I can.

Pauline (03:13)

Yeah. So we thought that, you know, I think you have a really interesting story, having watched it unfold, you know, being a career mom and having a baby during during the pandemic and

I'll let Megan use her history here of working

Megan (03:32)

Yeah.

Pauline (03:32)

in the hospitality industry during COVID.

Megan (03:34)

Hospitality moms, yeah.

Well, luckily I didn't do it during COVID, but you did kind of navigate this field, even on another side of it. But let's go back and talk a little bit about your career and how you started that. So Culinary Agents is your first baby. And so when did you start Culinary Agents and what what is it? How did it form?

Alice (03:59)

Yes, yes, yes, culinary agents is my first baby. I have always been a worker. I got my first kind of food and beverage related job when I was fourteen. and worked in a hotel, the catering department, a restaurant, I worked in the food court. I've always been a a worker and juggling a lot of different types of work and I really enjoyed the hospitality industry. I loved the people, I loved the hustle, I loved caring for people. I have that like

hospitality gene if you will and it really kind of filled that bucket for me it at that time I never thought of it as a career it was something I was doing while I was in high school it was good money it was flexible all the things quite frankly that draw people in as a first-time job and actually it's a really popular career for working moms as well or parents

I I went to work in technology. once I finished high school I went to college in Manhattan and I worked full time and I went to school full time.

I kept in touch with a couple of friends who then went on to culinary school and I heard them kind of always talking about struggling with finding, you know, opportunities, making money to pay for school debt, just kind

Megan (05:05)

Mm.

Alice (05:06)

of the the common challenges I think everyone faces, but in hospitality there's kind of, I would say, additional challenges that kind of fold on top of it.

Megan (05:13)

It was like word

of mouth, right? It's like, I know somebody, they're hiring, whatever. Yeah.

Alice (05:18)

It was

word of mouth and then the industry was also evolving and changing, becoming really exciting. there were more people who wanted to get into it. different types of career paths were emerging. Now you could do media, you could potentially, you know, have a sauce line, you can, you know, a lot of things were evolving. but that was fine and good. I was focused on working in technology. I spent thirteen years at IBM

kind of working in the startup circuit within IBM focused on the future of unstructured content, so digital, media, audio, images, etc. How do businesses, you know, store, protect, distribute, monetize, those types of things. that was kind of really exciting for me. I started IBM in the mail room, so kind of managing my career there and

Going up the ranks was both, you know, personally satisfying, but it was also really motivating for me to kind of like keep growing my career, having come from a non-traditional background of working in such a respected company. which as a side note ended up being a lot of the hospitality career path work that I do now is showing that everyone kinda has a different way to get to where they're going,

Pauline (06:25)

when you were at IBM, did you ever imagine that technology would be what it is today?

Alice (06:30)

that's a great question. yes, largely because that's what I was working in at IBM. We were working on AI, you know, back in, nineteen ninety nine, two thousand, And then you watch movies like, you know, T Two and like Terminator Two and some of these and they're not that far off.

Right, but they were

Megan (06:47)

Yeah.

Alice (06:48)

painting the picture of what the future could potentially be if a lot of this technology evolved a certain way. and I think that played a key role in me eventually starting culinary agents or being able to, because back in the day when I was in tech, it was extremely difficult to start a technology platform if you didn't know how to specifically code, if you didn't have enough money to

purchase equipment. I mean back then you you know you hear stories about people starting things in their garage. Well they had to because they had to have a server, they had to have switches, they had to have s have stuff. I was not an engineer by trade. So I didn't know how to, properly set up my, servers and stuff like that. but my time at IBM was really informative because I got to work with a lot of really smart people who did know how to do those things.

Megan (07:33)

Were you one of the few

women on your team at IBM or I'm guessing

Alice (07:37)

wait.

Megan (07:37)

that yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alice (07:38)

Yeah.

And although like IBM back then and still is one of the best, you know, employers for working moms, as well as like they're really conscious about diversity and all that. making sure that there's great opportunities and people are all looked upon equally. but even then, especially also the types of jobs I was taking, I had

a lot of men

in my early days,

who were on my teams, my

superiors, people who worked, alongside me and even for me. you know, that was just normal. I mean we're talking nineteen ninety nine, two thousand. I mean I

Megan (08:10)

Yeah. Yeah.

Alice (08:12)

I got basically a a dress code when I first started the company, like rules on, the length of my skirts if I was gonna wear a skirt, right? So

Megan (08:19)

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Pauline (08:21)

So funny

'cause where our industry is almost predominantly women. when we go to trainings, maybe there's one man in the room and then you were in an industry where you you were that token woman.

Alice (08:34)

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, in in in in a lot of ways that like prepared and shaped me. I would say even before then

my mother passed away when I was really young and I have a brother and a father and so I kind of naturally stepped into that role just naturally and it was it was fine but I took on a lot of kind of the the ways to deal with things how the coping mechanisms the stuff and in in that kind of prepared me to quite frankly do what I was able to do at IBM and then subsequently

Fundraise at a time in 2012 that like the venture capital, you know, fundraising environment has changed also pretty dramatically over the past decade plus. so I I'm not to be too cheesy, but I'm a believer of like, you know, things do work out as long

Megan (09:20)

Mm-hmm.

Alice (09:21)

as you you know put you you put what you need to put out there and do what you need to do, things do find its way of kind of working out.

Megan (09:31)

So with culinary agents, did you like have an idea and you're like, this is gonna be a great idea, or did it slowly evolve? What did that look like?

Alice (09:40)

It did. So going back to I had the idea six years before I actually started the company. I transferred out to Silicon Valley to work with Netflix and some of these companies while I was still with IBM as like a business consultant type and LinkedIn was just hitting the scene and it was the best thing since sliced bread.

as far as prior to that really Facebook was the only type of social network. and there wasn't a distinction where if you met somebody at a conference or something or some somebody professional, you didn't wanna, you know, connect to them

on a personal level. and LinkedIn really filled that void, at least in that in in that those business worlds, to be able to kind of keep in touch and network, but have like little to no commitment to like do anything or say anything to them and beyond, meeting with them.

Megan (10:24)

They don't have to see your vacation pictures.

Alice (10:26)

Exactly. And so

I you know, I had the idea when I was on the West Coast initially, it naturally gravitated to hospitality people when I was in California and I became friends with, both workers as well as owners, and they were having the same challenges as my friends on the East Coast. And I'm like, wait, this is this is interesting. and I realized that there was a lack of tools and technology to support not just business owners to find talent, but to help talent actually like how do you cut through the noise?

how do you represent yourself professionally when you're applying to an anonymous ad on

Anonymously. You know, like it was a r there were a lot of the tools that were available were just unprofessional and it kind of created that type of behavior. that's when I initially had the idea, like you need like a platform that's kinda like LinkedIn, meets match dot com for jobs but specific to hospitality 'cause there's so many nuances and at the time I was like somebody else will figure it out. You know, I had climbed my way up to a certain level at IBM. I was learning, I was enjoying what I was doing, and I was getting promoted, so I was like, you know, doing my thing career wise.

transferred out east and I was continuing to do my stuff and traveling around the world with IBM and fast forward six years later I'm still having the same conversations with my chef friends

who are now owners and they're still using Craigslist and word of mouth. Word of mouth is awesome and nothing ever is gonna replace that but that gets exhausted after a while. And if you also want to make sure you're diversifying your teams, etc, like you gotta tap out into other networks. and so you know one day I was like I'm

Just gonna build this. And I started, you know, I would I want to say my nights and weekends and all my free time while I was still working full-time at IBM building it, mapping it out, like designing it. Back then we didn't have all these great tools. Nowadays you can spin it up in you know, probably like an hour, at least a prototype. but I was creating like squares and circles with arrows and instructions were my design scopes on on PowerPoint, and that's what I

I ended up handing to developers to build for me. And, cashed out my 401k, invested everything. And when it got to a point where the feedback I was getting from some restaurateurs and chefs were like, this doesn't exist, you have to if you build it, like I will try it and I'll give you feedback. And that's really the confidence I needed to like go all in.

Megan (12:37)

That's so cool.

Pauline (12:38)

So what year

did did it start?

Alice (12:41)

Twenty twelve.

Pauline (12:42)

and that's like

around around when you entered Walfischdom.

Alice (12:46)

exactly. So I met I met my now husband in twenty eleven and I was already I was starting Culinary Agents that's when I was really starting the structure and building the stuff. That's when I was like really going on of course met him at the worst possible time. I say, you know, there's never a good time for anything. there's a better time for some things. but I was really focused on I had been basically thinking about this for six years. and you know, to your point earlier

both of you, Megan and Pauline, the technology had finally gotten to a point where I could actually pay for it myself and and there were tools available like AWS now existed. So I didn't have to worry about like I could just plug into the cloud. I didn't have to worry about building a server farm or anything. And tools made it easier for me to be able to do it. And so yes, that's when I entered Walfischdom. And so Pauline you probably initially met me when I was at the

height of the early startup madness I would say

Pauline (13:42)

When the laptop

went everywhere with you.

Alice (13:44)

Everywhere.

And it's hard, you know, it's it it's hard in general. And there's a lot of parallels actually to like being a first-time parent in some senses because it's difficult for other people to know what you're going through as a founder because you're you're constantly on, you're stressed out from every direction,

Megan (14:02)

So many people depend on

you too.

Alice (14:05)

And and you have you still have your responsibilities and people are people don't really understand what what's going on or why and after a while they also get like sick of hearing you talk about it.

Pauline (14:17)

Not me.

Alice (14:17)

Yeah. So it was it was it was great, you know, and I I really tried to be conscious about that. when I

be out with you know other folks, whether it be at like a family function or out with my friends, and try to be really present in whatever I was doing. But it's hard. It's really hard.

Pauline (14:34)

And it's and you're excited

and it's like there's good stuff happening and you wanna talk about it and just

I there is that parallel too of having the new baby, right? Like

yes, your whole life is wrapped up in in that new identity that you're having fun with, hopefully.

Alice (14:51)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, fun is one way to describe it, I guess.

Megan (14:54)

So yeah.

Pauline (14:55)

Mm-hmm.

just like new babies. They are

cute and cuddly and fun and also sometimes annoying and needy and loud and smelly.

Megan (15:05)

demanding.

Alice (15:06)

Yeah.

Megan (15:06)

So 2012 that really is like the start of culinary agents and then it kind of goes f goes on from there. okay.

Alice (15:17)

Yeah, that's when I quit my day job. I

worked on it for about a year before I quit my day job and started fundraising, like really fundraising to be able to sustain and grow the company.

Megan (15:29)

And where is it today compared to starting this project in twenty twelve and now it's

Alice (15:35)

Yeah, so fourteen years

later, we are the hiring platform for the hospitality industry. We've got just shy of three million registered hospitality users, but we have twelve million or so that are, you know, on the site annually. and we have about sixty five thousand businesses that

rely on us to find talent. front of house, back of house, hourly salary roles. it's really been an incredible journey and it's had kind of different lives over the past fourteen years, including, you know, a COVID in between.

Pauline (16:08)

so Alice, let's talk about twenty twenty, I know you met your husband as you were starting up your new baby, Culinary Agents. And then in twenty twenty something massive happened to that baby. And then also something massive happened to you.

Alice (16:27)

Yep, yep. You know, in the in the life cycle of

the business that Culinary Agents is. We're a a tech business, a tech platform. So we went through the traditional kind of venture capital fundraising, et cetera. So for those of you who are either thinking about starting a company or or have, the initial work around like what type of company you want it to be and in the future what you want it to be is good to think about because that informs you how you're gonna raise money or utilize and structure the company, et cetera.

that can have long lasting impact. We have investors that have made early bets with us and we were running the company leading up to COVID very well.

We had a couple of aha like big record moments as the company was growing, and we were starting to prepare for, you what's next? Do we do a growth round? do we just double down and focus more on on growing and then raise more capital later on, etc.? And then COVID happens. the hospitality industry was probably hit you know the hardest. one of the industries where, you know, there

They were like essential workers, but at the same time nobody could work remote and like the everyone had to adjust very heavily.

Megan (17:37)

the structure, the physical structure of buildings. The map of

Alice (17:40)

Correct. All of the things. Yeah.

Megan (17:42)

New York City shifted because of how people had to eat outside. Yeah.

Alice (17:46)

Exactly. and

you know, a lot of different hospitality businesses were either equipped and prepared from a technology standpoint to be able to take, orders or to go or delivery and all that, or they weren't and they had to move quickly and pivot and et cetera. So for us, you know, we just proactively shifted from our day to day business of being a hiring platform when our business is closed to how do we be a resource to support everybody? How do we anticipate the needs of, workers,

nationwide, how do we help facilitate support for business owners who are trying to support their workers and we mobilized pretty quickly and shifted into those areas. But it impacted our business very significantly. And we're fortunate to have gotten the company to a certain point and we had a reputation and brand that we were able to proactively offer support and and that kind of ultimately helped us be there and prepared for businesses as they were opening

'Cause

everybody was kind of opening in a staggered way. People would open and then there was Omicron, you had to close again and then there were just so many unknowns that made it almost impossible to plan.

But we were there to support everybody, when things would eventually get to a new normal and and it was hard. I think it took many years, even if a restaurant looks really busy in the past couple of years, like there i the the lasting effects were are real. we're now seeing, you know, more and more kind of up and up, but it did took a while.

Pauline (19:09)

And because you weren't busy enough.

Alice (19:11)

yes

Pauline (19:13)

redesigning

your business, supporting all of those different companies.

Alice (19:18)

Yeah.

Pauline (19:19)

Building the plane while flying it, as we say. Like

Alice (19:22)

Yes,

Pauline (19:23)

that also was the time that your family expanded.

Alice (19:26)

yes. So I had my daughter in twenty twenty one, where things were still I mean, I I I can't even remember the timing of like COVID and all the ups the ebbs and flows, but things were still pretty shut down or, you know, still in this kind of limbo mode. in some ways that was good timing for me.

the challenge of being a working mom, I think there's so many of them that, you can't quite prepare yourself for.

throw on top of that being a business owner in an industry that like you're kind of anticipating the the the recovery so you need to be you know prepared and also ready to jump at any moment that kind of creates a a different dimension or a different set of things to think about to prepare for we're fortunate in the sense where we have the company at a certain place I have really amazing co-founders and leadership. I think genuinely

that's when I also started thinking about, where is our company like what is our purpose in in having a business is to like

support the team. It makes me so happy to see their families grow. That means that we're doing something right. and so we really try to push the conversation around like if we're gonna have everybody work so hard all the time and support everybody else, we want to make sure that everybody everybody feels supported and that they can also have flexibility to do their own things. So in a couple of ways, when I kind of started this journey

there were a lot of different kind of things that I started thinking about that, you know, quite frankly I hadn't really thought about in that lens prior to that. Right? Like, I mean, why would I like just like, you know, people who

Pauline (21:04)

You don't know

what you don't know.

Alice (21:05)

Yeah, once you go through a certain experience and once you live through something, it does change your perspective on different things. we were luckily already our company was structured in a way to support, team members who were starting families. so we always tried to give generous

you know, flexibility with not just the policies but then also with PTO time and how you roll that over and

could stack it on, etc. I did not, I would say one of the things that I look back on that I don't know if I would change, but I'm like, I definitely advise other people not to do what I did. but I also don't think I could have done anything different was I I didn't take proper leave. I took three weeks of PTO. and I was just check emails while I was breastfeeding. I was

you know, I was there but I wasn't actively taking meetings until I had three weeks of you know, time. I can assure you that the people that have had children on our team since then, I'm the first one to be like, take all the time. I don't wanna see any emails from you. I don't, you know, expect you to answer anything and everyone is supposed to take you off CC

Pauline (22:17)

Yeah.

And because

that reality I mean, you're the business owner, right? Like it is it is your your baby. It's sort of like having a second child. You can't just be like, I'm not gonna take care of the first

child. I'm I'm postpartum with the second one. Like you still have to parent that first child and it is okay to take some time off and to be more behind the scenes.

But also, like I remember that period of time and it was still very much COVID, where the future was uncertain. And I was one of the first people that had COVID. And I remember being like, I can't take time off from work, even though I'm sick, because like I don't know if work will exist in two weeks, right?

Megan (23:03)

Mm.

Pauline (23:03)

Your industry was completely still unstable.

Alice (23:08)

Yeah, there were there's so many unknowns. I am a believer of like I try to you know focus on the things that I control and just accept the things that I cannot. I think there's actually a saying,

Megan (23:19)

Serenity prayer, yeah.

Alice (23:21)

yeah okay, yes. I'm like I know I didn't make that up, so don't quote me, but I know.

Pauline (23:21)

The Serenity Prayer, Alice.

Megan (23:23)

Yeah. Yeah. You're like, where does that come from? Yeah.

Pauline (23:28)

You you

know that she does not go to AA

Alice (23:30)

I

Megan (23:30)

No,

but you probably heard it from someone sitting at a restaurant. They're like, you know what?

Alice (23:35)

I

learned it actually from the former CIO at Netflix who every now and then we would have these little sessions where I don't know if he was just trying to explain to me so that he can like rein me in, but it was the how do you when you're so overwhelmed with all these things, how do you compartmentalize or separate

and focus on the things that you need to focus on and let go of the things that you you don't that that you cannot control that are just what they are. Right.

Megan (24:03)

Yeah.

Alice (24:04)

and that can be applied to many things, right? He was talking about in the context of like when you're really busy at work and you have all these things, like how do you easily decipher which ones you need to take action on and which ones are just like you just need to be aware of or you just ignore, that's how I still today it's like I'm I

I live in a world of switching costs, like compartmentalizing all the things I need to do, in addition to all of the hidden additional, what is it, the hidden mental load or all the addition

Megan (24:31)

The mental load, yeah.

Alice (24:32)

that, got added to my plate when I became a mother. and then throw in the fact that I became a mother at a later age. so like my hormones are like, you know, having a ball on on a regular basis.

Pauline (24:44)

We know something

about that.

Alice (24:46)

Yeah, and

Megan (24:46)

Ha ha ha.

Alice (24:47)

And you know, I wanted to be the best at all of it, right? even though my daughter would be like doing her four hour nap, you know, while she was one week old, and I'm doing as many emails as I possibly can and I'm watching her sleep, I felt guilty. I'm like, should

Megan (25:01)

Mm-hmm.

Alice (25:01)

I be doing something else that's benefiting her? Like should I be making sure that I'm doing extra research on those bottles or whatever? And there's just so many different directions that you can go on all at once.

But everything's a switching cost, it doesn't get any easier. I think you just have to practice.

Megan (25:16)

There Yeah, there's no like

there really is no having it all. We were sold a little bit of a bill of goods, I think. when I was growing up at least, that like we want women to know that they can have it all. And I'm like, well, not at all at the same time. Like I can't

Alice (25:31)

Something has got to give,

always call it life harmony, right? There's no balance, there's

no equal parts of anything that I do. but am I able to live a fulfilling like work world? Do I feel like I'm contributing and doing what I need to do from the work side and giving that my all? am I giving my all to my family?

You know,

and as long as I feel like those things are working in harmony,

Megan (25:54)

Yeah.

Alice (25:54)

the piece that I had to really learn to throw into the mix was taking care of myself, which is something it's always I was always something I knew, right? Of course I gotta take care of myself or else I can't take care of other people. it's hard to put into practice when you have so many other things to do.

I I'm a giver in general, like by

nature, and I'm in hospitality and I want to take care of other people. And so I do realize that at the end of the day, I'm like, wait, why am I feeling a certain way? Or why am I

so on empty, like I'm fulfilled by giving, but then I can't get ahead of my own, you know, myself and recognizing that not only is my body going through changes, but also, I need to hone in on, you know, different ways to, you better address all the other things that I I'm doing and make time for myself.

Pauline (26:43)

Yeah. this is like the new mom's

Alice (26:46)

Dilemma.

Pauline (26:47)

dilemma,

right?

Of like, I understand my work identity, right? Like I know who I am as a business person. I know who I am as a wife. I'm figuring out who I am as a mom. all of those things take priority that like who I am as a woman or an individual, I haven't thought about that. Like I haven't had time for that. I've had

Megan (27:08)

Yeah.

Pauline (27:09)

to run a business. I've had to take care of my husband. I've had to

Learn how to parent a child, like me, go to the gym? Huh? when's that supposed to happen?

Alice (27:20)

Yeah.

Yeah, and I think part of the first step, and you guys are the professionals, but for me, the sequence was like you have to acknowledge it first and then you

Megan (27:27)

Totally.

Alice (27:28)

have to figure out how you address it, if you're not aware of it and you don't identify it and call it out, then it always just gets lost in the mix and it's always gonna get deprioritized. I I call it like baby steps. You don't have to do it all at once. For me, I started, you know, I like to cook, as you know, Pauline, and I I'm very adamant about

about having certain types of foods in rotation for my family. And but that's that's a lot of work. You gotta figure out like I do meal planning and cooking on Sundays so that there's enough stuff to rotate throughout the week. So we don't have to, you know, order out or we don't have to just default to something that's easy that you know we may not want to be eating.

Pauline (28:08)

I am a thousand percent certain that my niece has the most beautiful snack box in her pre-K classroom because I have seen the way that Alice slices apples and it is

Megan (28:20)

Ha ha ha.

Pauline (28:21)

amazing.

Alice (28:24)

Yes, I I make sure that there are plenty of colors of the rainbow in her box.

Megan (28:27)

Yeah. Lots of variety. Well what you're describing

here, I call it it's like a self nurturing activity. And when I

Tell other moms to do this. I'm like, a self-nurturing activity means that you are the primary beneficiary. That it might be nice for other people, but it's something that you actually enjoy. And so the first beneficiary is yourself. And it sounds like cooking is something that you were able to enjoy, even though it

Alice (28:55)

Yeah, and

Megan (28:55)

helped your family.

Alice (28:57)

I have been very conscious about identifying things that make me happy.

If they happen to be things that make my loved ones happy, that's a bonus, but things that I really enjoy to do and I make time for them, and it's different for everyone, right? Some people just hate to cook. That's totally fine. Like do something else that you enjoy. I find, you know, happiness and joy in the in the things that I do. And then for things that need to be done that I don't find joy in doing, I find ways to make it work because it has to get done, right?

I everyone has stuff that need to get done that they that doesn't bring them joy, but I'll offset it with you know extra things that bring me joy and happiness. And as a business owner, I mean there's there's a catch 22 with like being an owner and being an employee or working for someone else. And and I'll caveat this by saying, I think also nowadays work is gonna evolve and change. So,

if

people are in a certain position and they're starting a family and it's their first time and there's concern about, what's gonna happen, et cetera. I'm like, you should just anticipate change in general. yes, by law, you know

your job but things happen and like organizations evolve and like things shift around. So I think going into it and having anticipation that everything is gonna change after is probably a good perspective to bring, you know, bring into the fold.

Pauline (30:19)

we call it

psychological flexibility.

Alice (30:22)

There you go. See, you guys have fancy words for all these things. You know

Megan (30:25)

Yeah.

Alice (30:27)

and i it and and I think that's that's really helpful, right? between like AI and just in general how things are evolving is that should continue to expect change. So while you're the business owner, you know, the pros and cons are

you have this added workload, you have you know, I had a whole team that still relied on me keeping the company, open and ready making sure that I'm strong for them because who knows what's gonna happen and relying on my co founders and my leadership team who also have families, but it's a little different when you're the dad versus the mom or, you know, depending on what role you're playing.

the pros is that you do have flexibility.

honestly I I don't know and I didn't want to have to start a family when I was starting early years with culinary agents. I wanted to dedicate, my time to building my company. I had thought about it for six years. I put my entire life savings into it. I was determined to get that thing, you know, get culinary agents like off the ground to a point where the foundation was built strong and that I could have flexibility to do other things, which was start a family. So,

that's the pros of, doing your own thing. but there are cons as well. as as a working mom in general, I think, going into it with the expectation that things are just gonna change all around and and just be okay with it,

Megan (31:44)

the kids

are changing all the time anyway, you know. My kid's going into high school is not the same as when he was four years old. And that means something different for my career than it than it did then.

Pauline (31:55)

Yeah, and going into kindergarten will be

Alice (32:00)

I will say the cliche that is so so true is that it goes by so fast. And I am a big like no regrets person. And the way that we've done it over the past, you know, almost five years, like I have no regrets. We didn't have regular help. We didn't have much help at all, actually. and that's partially because we didn't really ask for help.

Pauline (32:23)

I was gonna

say just for my defense, it wasn't because people didn't offer.

Megan (32:26)

Ha ha ha.

Alice (32:27)

I don't know.

We you know, it is also a combination of what we needed help with. It d almost like logistically didn't even make sense to have certain people come support. didn't invest a lot of time and effort, which I don't regret, into building like a like a little

mom support network in my immediate area. I think everybody needs to figure out what works out for them. I had some friends that I, you know, relied on, but I didn't feel the need to kind of do all these play dates and meet other, moms in the area. and it was and it was COVID.

Pauline (32:58)

And it was COVID. I w I really wonder

for you

Megan (33:01)

Yeah.

Pauline (33:01)

like how much that would have changed if it wasn't that the first like

Alice (33:04)

Yeah.

Pauline (33:05)

two years everybody was afraid of

Alice (33:09)

Yes. There's a lot of that too. for me personally, I don't think anything would have changed. I actually really quite enjoyed and I savored every moment of having all the extra time with my daughter and we took her everywhere. We still take her everywhere.

And I just strapped her on my chest during meetings. again another pro if I had to I like to hone in on the positives when when we talk about COVID and everything is like anything goes, like anything went. if I had Logan sleeping strapped to me and I was conducting a meeting, like nobody even thought twice about it. Where like pre COVID people would be like, What what what what's going on? What's this?

All those things I think really enables me to be able to have the experience that I wanted with my daughter. And you know, being

Pauline (33:53)

Yeah.

Alice (33:54)

a later stage or later aged mother, I knew that it was probably my only chance that I was going to have that. So I'm I'm I'm glad I got to spend a lot of time, and I still get to spend a lot of time with her because I have flexibility with.

my schedule and it it's really important for me that i also create that flexibility for the team and since COVID maybe we've got one two three four five six six babies on my team since COVID so

Pauline (34:21)

Isn't that the best

feeling? I love when we have new babies.

Alice (34:25)

It is.

Pauline (34:26)

you get to nurture them.

Alice (34:30)

Yeah. And you know, you know, we talked earlier about the hospitality industry and as the overall industry continues to evolve as a profession, as a place to work, more businesses are trying to figure out how they can support, families, growing families, owners are having, you know, starting families and making it kind of like a new norm, which is really great,

Megan (34:51)

It's so cool.

When I was in the restaurant industry, I was pregnant with my son and waiting tables, and I didn't never imagined I'd be waiting tables while pregnant and having an infant. But I saw other moms ahead of me do it, and we had a really supportive company who gave time off, who had a pumping room, all of these things. Was it easy? No. But it was like, OH it is possible. And I think that's only taken off from there.

Alice (35:22)

Yeah.

Megan (35:22)

Would you agree that that it's a totally

Alice (35:23)

Absolutely.

Megan (35:24)

different landscape for that? Yeah.

Alice (35:26)

Absolutely. And now as those companies also continue to grow, they make other opportunities for parents who want to evolve into working in a a corporate role or a different t aspect of the industry and get off the floor. and there's more of those jobs and career paths that are

getting surfaced as examples, and that's encouraging and inspiring people to either stay and say, like, I I could do this as well, or seek out employers who support that kind of development. And all of it is great, right? That's those are the the building blocks of a of an industry that actually, you know, has longevity and has meaning.

Pauline (36:04)

Yeah, 'cause taking care of new parents is is taking care of our future.

Megan (36:09)

So Alice, what would you say when we think when you think about being a business owner, being a parent? What's the one thing that no mom told you that you had to learn the hard way?

Alice (36:21)

Oh geez

Megan (36:22)

Mm-hmm.

Alice (36:23)

wow. I mean, I think there's like there's like the physical stuff that people don't really talk about, or at least I wasn't that aware of

and obviously being an older aged mother, you know, nature got jarbled up together. I also it took me a lot longer than I was anticipating or hoping for to kind of get back to feeling a little bit more on the normal side. or at least

Megan (36:50)

Yeah.

Alice (36:51)

accept my own personal new normal.

Megan (36:53)

Yeah.

Pauline (36:54)

You talking

physically, emotionally.

Alice (36:57)

Physically, you know, I breastfed for two years and I know that that affects the hormones and everything, but when I finally stopped I didn't notice a a shift in general, just physically and mentally of like, okay, let's like that chapter is over but in the beginning I was I was quite overwhelmed with emotion and feeling and

I'm not a very like emotionally driven person in general. I mentioned earlier my mother passed when I was young. I kinda got raised by like, men, that was just always logically like, let's break it down and address the pieces and then put them back together, right? So I approach a lot of things that way. and try not to like react a certain way I was I was wasn't prepared for a lot of like the emotions that came early on with with motherhood.

which were great. I was like surprised when they it was happening and I like, I guess this is what people mean when they say you get a lot you know, you get a lot of emotion on that. I should say hard on myself, but I was like, you know, physically not getting back to the point that I wanted to, both like in energy levels and just in general.

Pauline (38:05)

Yeah, and

you you made an effort to really prioritize yourself.

And then started to find your way back to that.

Alice (38:15)

yeah, yeah. I mean and maybe it came in spurts, right? I would go be like, Okay, now I gotta focus on myself and then I would just get really busy on other stuff and I I think just almost just recently, wow, almost five years in, I've like kind of I experimented with different personal routines, you know, and obviously as different schedules shift around, I'm like, okay, fine. Like there's just so much earlier you can wake up ahead of everyone, right? So you gotta experiment, I feel like, if if people ask me for advice, I'm like figure out like what works for you.

And and just like protect that time, right? I have 20 minutes in the morning between when I drop off and when I start my first like actual meetings. that's 20 minutes to for me. I do like a quick workout, I feel good, and it sets me up for the rest of the day. It took me a while to get to that. Before I was like, let me try to do it at night and this, and something always comes up. I've

Found my things at certain times that have worked for me at that given time, and that's been helpful.

Pauline (39:13)

Yeah.

Megan (39:14)

Alice thank you

so much for joining us today. It's been really wonderful hearing you talk about your experience and your business and being a mom.

Alice (39:22)

Thanks for having me. I mean, I think even preparing for this and just talking about it has like brought back a lot of different, great memories that I I've forgotten. I mean like brain fog is a real thing. It's it's a real thing.

Megan (39:35)

When you were talking about

breast breastfitting, I was like the brain fog, yeah.

Alice (39:39)

Yeah,

I would I would have conversations sometimes and like, I really don't even remember what we talked about.

Pauline (39:45)

I mean yes yesterday. She was like, That never happened to me. I'm like, You don't remember this? I remember this so

Megan (39:50)

Ha ha ha.

Pauline (39:52)

clearly. She's like, No. The brain is a powerful thing. We have the ability

to like block out all of the ugly stuff. So

Alice (39:59)

It is.

Megan (40:00)

Well, if anyone wants to listen to a really great podcast on hospitality industry, it's called Hospitality on the Rise. And you can check it out at

Alice (40:10)

Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.

Pauline (40:12)

I will wait for our next dinner.

Alice (40:15)

Can't

wait. Thank you so much for having me.

Pauline (40:18)

Thank you. Thank you for being here and thanks for sharing your story with our listeners. There's more where that came from. See you soon.

Megan (40:26)

Bye everyone.