As you all know, Sweet Basil MKE is family-owned and operated. Every single member of our family plays a unique role in bringing the restaurant to life. In this blog post, we will highlight each person and their dynamic roles in both the family tree and in the restaurant. From the front of the house, to the kitchen, the back of house and behind the scenes.
We hope this blog will give you, our guests, deeper connection to the people behind the food you love.
Now, let's introduce everyone! 👨👩👦👦
SWEET BASIL MKE FAMILY: MOM & DAD
aka Chef Vanna & Chef Lo
Mom and Dad are the heart of the kitchen, their background and passion for comfort food is what started this entire journey. Sweet Basil started as Mom's dream. We saw them working multiple jobs to provide for our family and they weren't happy. We asked Mom what she wanted to do, where her passions were. She told us she would love to own a restaurant one day.
We (her kids) took on multiple jobs working at McDonald's, the kiosk at the mall, doing side gigs. We saved, we made it happen and even overcame a pandemic. Over the years, they've given their all into the restaurant and for our customers. Much of Sweet Basil's authenticity and success comes from their dedication and love that they put into the kitchen. Without them this dream wouldn't exist.
SWEET BASIL MKE FAMILY: The Siblings
There are 4 siblings total. Victoria, Claudia, Kenneth, and Josie. The three oldest co-own the business together and manage the three branches necessary to keep the business running.
VICTORIA - I'm the eldest (and ironically the shortest) and I'm the voice behind our brand. The visionary for our marketing and growth. I have a huge role in the branding, social media, and customer communications. It's been an honor to help foster our online friendships and in-person engagement at the restaurant. I also oversee all of the financial aspects of the business such as budgeting, payroll, making sure all the bills are paid and so on. I also hold a corporate day job in marketing for a sustainable packaging automation company called Felins, Inc.
CLAUDIA - She's the second oldest and takes care of all the the business process management and organizational structure. She keeps us on track in regards to deadlines, goals and optimizing for improvements or efficiencies. She also works at the corporate headquarters for a major airline and, because of this, has the necessary experience to analyze, measure and delegate important functions.
KENNETH - He's the third oldest and the only brother. He works with Mom and Dad in order to make all of the executive decisions for the kitchen, the menu, the inventory and prep-work. Kenneth has always worked in the restaurant industry most of his life and excels at kitchen work flow design. His techniques ensure that the work in the kitchen flows smoothly and safely.
JOSIE - She is the youngest sibling but quite talented in her own right. She mainly works in the front of the house; serving guests, packing orders, and keeps everything clean and orderly. She's in charge of our beverage program, hand-brewing our Thai Iced Teas and Thai Iced Coffees daily. She also does a lot of back of the house work such as helping the kitchen team with food preparations. Outside of work, Josie loves to experiment with making desserts, visit different boba shops and enjoying anime and K-pop.
& Their significant others
All of the siblings have wonderful significant others who have also done so much for the business. It's not easy owning a small business, let alone a family business. The hours and amount of work dedicated to ensuring the business is thriving to provide for our family is a huge undertaking. Our partners have sacrificed so much in order to support our family and the business. We would not be where we are today without them.
DREW - As Victoria's husband, Drew has been a part of the family for over a decade. He is the Operations Manager, working hard to ensure the day-to-day operations are running smoothly. He became a co-owner in 2020 but his role has since expanded to cover mentoring our staff, leading and planning all of our catering orders, maximizing the guest experience and doing majority of the record keeping and tax compliance for the business.
ADRIAN - As Claudia's husband, Adrian has become an integral part of our family. He has invested in both the business and family in various ways and is always lending a helping hand in coordinating family events. He holds a corporate leadership position within a major airline, often working an insane amount of hours. Thus, we are grateful for all of Adrian's time, efforts and support.
CHRISTINE - Kenneth and Christine have been together for about 2 years. She brings so much joy and light to the family dynamic. While she does not have an active role in the business, she steps in to help whenever needed. Her support for Kenneth, the rest of the siblings, and the family has been immeasurable. She makes space for accountability, growth, fun and laughter.
DEREK - Derek is an important part of nearly every "department" at Sweet Basil MKE! He's the jack of all trades floating between the front of house, back of house, behind the scenes, and outside of the scene - everything! Derek seeks to learn as much as he can, he takes feedback very well and is all about self-improvement; which is a valuable quality to have especially in this demanding industry. As Drew's high school best friend, he was always around to support the family and business for many years. He quit his full time job to work with us over 2 years ago and never looked back. We are lucky to have him on our team. He and Josie started dating less than a year ago, cementing him forever as a part of the family. Outside of work, Derek enjoys traveling, gaming and anime.
SWEET BASIL MKE FAMILY: The Uncles
UNCLE KYLE - But to everyone else, he's just Kyle. He is a hard worker who loves greeting customers the moment they walk into Sweet Basil, ensuring all guests feel welcome and invited. Kyle assists with the prep work involved in opening and closing the restaurant, supporting the dishwashing, sweeping, mopping, emptying the trash and ensuring the dining room tables and chairs are sanitized between each guest. Kyle also enhances the customer experience by clearing their plates and taking orders, often answering guest questions or helping them with recommendations. Outside of work, Kyle has interests in learning financial literacy - figuring out how to maximize his savings and retirement funds! He is a huge sports fan and enjoys watching both the Packers and the Bucks games.
UNCLE BEE
aka Chef Bee
Bee is a Chef and creative mind behind a lot of our new specials and foodie ideas. He is often experimenting in the kitchen to create something new. Winner of the 2023 Rockabilly Chili competition for Most Unique Chili with his Grapow Beef Chili (Thai Chili Beef), Bee has a natural passion for creativity. Outside of food, he has a curious mindset always seeking knowledge and learning how to continually grow. He's also interested in music, art, and is a huge sports fan.
The Staff
Additionally, we've been truly lucky to be able to hire support staff for various positions. Our current Dishwashing and Prep Room Specialists include Gabriel and Zeke. Both have been instrumental in supporting the kitchen and front of house teams even on our busiest days where wait times could exceed over 1-2 hours! Lee is also part of our Prep team and works part time helping Mom with so many tasks including stuffing and rolling hundreds of egg rolls, placing all of the meat on the skewers, and executing it all under the quality standards that Mom expects! Mimi rounds out the team in the front of the house, she's in charge of packing every single order that goes out and processes hundreds of items per day. She does her best to ensure speed AND accuracy, which is no small feat.
ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL
We hope you all enjoyed this introduction into the faces and voices behind our family's small business, Sweet Basil MKE.
Local restaurants are not faceless corporations; we are part of your neighborhood, trying to make a living, and we are humans.
We encourage you to connect with other local businesses in your area, the butchers, the florists, coffee shops, book stores, bakeries, gift shops, handymen, cleaners, and more. Get to know them and tell them when they're doing a great job, and especially tell them directly (with kindness) when they are not. Most small businesses will do their best to make it right! Most are open to the feedback in order to improve. And most will care about you if you care about them too.
Over 42 local businesses have closed in our city alone in last few years. Small businesses rely on community support to survive, without it local businesses will continue to close and replaced by empty buildings or chains.
Leaving 1-star scathing reviews have become a specialty for some people. More often than not, they are written as a reactionary impulse by people who want harmful revenge instead of communicating in a way that's helpful. If more people approached a mistake or error with compassion instead of criticism, local mom & pop places would thrive instead of shutting down because of reviews like this impacting their business.
We THANK you, our community for never letting us fail. For always providing candor with care: we hope our community knows they can talk to us like friends.
We've had so many customers kindly tell us when something is wrong. Whether by a whisper to us in the restaurant, or an email, or even calling us gently after the shift to tell us when we've messed up their order.
We've also had many of you do the same even to tell us how wonderful your meal was. How much your kids loved the food. How we played a part in your date nights, anniversaries, birthday parties and family reunions. THIS is what we mean when we call you, our community, the SB FAM! This is what we mean when we say that the SB FAM is growing to become the most wholesome army on the internet and at Sweet Basil MKE.
We hope to inspire many more people to find compassion and understanding for small businesses and the humans behind them.
With gratitude always,
The Sweet Basil Family
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