eatvancouver.net

Interview Series Part I. A Chat with Sean Heather

By Jason Chin
Eat Vancouver Editor
Sunday, October 1st, 2006

I recently had the chance to sit down with Vancouver restaurateur, Sean Heather, in Salt, one of his newer ventures. Heather has been highly influential in shaping Vancouver’s dining landscape over the past several years. His several restaurants and bars in Gastown, including The Irish Heather, Shebeen, The Salty Tongue, Limerick Junction and Salt, have enjoyed both critical and public success. Salt, in particular, represents a significant diversion from the traditional restaurant or pub experience in Vancouver and has changed the way many Vancouverites dine.

In our discussion, Sean and I covered a lot of ground, such as his background, where his restaurant ideas are born, and information on his newest venture, Pepper.

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Jason Chin: I’d like to hear about how you got started off in the restaurant business.

Sean Heather: Well, because both my parents worked, it was my job to get the dinner started before my mother got home. So I’d have the potatoes peeled and the carrots chopped and then she’d come home and start cooking the protein. That was my job so it’s something I knew I could do. Plus, I’ve never been shy about talking or meeting people. But more to the point, I guess, it was when my grandparents called and asked, “what’s Sean up to?” My parents said, “oh nothing, he’s just arsing around all summer.”

“Well send him over here, we’ve got him a job washing dishes.”

So I came back with a thousand English pounds stitched to the inside of my jacket. I’m a thirteen – fourteen year old kid, and I’m not asking if I can go on the school trip, I’m telling my folks I’m going on the school trip because I’m paying for it. I always liked making money, you’re beholding to no one.

JC: So, how did this all translate into owning several restaurants in Gastown, of all places?

SH: I moved to Gastown ten years ago because I couldn’t afford to go anywhere else. Now I can’t really justify moving anywhere else. It’s been good to me. I was 29 or 30 when I opened up the Heather – and I opened the Heather for peanuts. The great thing about it was I was paying two grand a month for the Heather and I locked that in for five years. People say “location, location, location,” I say “lease, lease lease.”

JC: Well there must be a limit to that

SH: Well within, reason, yeah. I mean look at this, it’s an alleyway, there’s drug dealers all over the place and I do 150 covers on a Friday night and it’s a 50 seat restaurant. I was able to put the money that I would spend on rent and on a chef and put those into Jay Jones and Chris Stearns and it’s this sort of dream team that makes people want to come down and see these guys in action or see something in an alleyway. If you can put together a package of things that are unusual then you make it a draw, you make it a destination spot. If you make it a destination spot, then it doesn’t matter if you’re on the moon.

But with the Heather, I didn’t have a choice. I tried to open it in Kitsilano because I used to manage Benny’s Bagels in Kitsilano and I knew everybody because I used to work the counter for four years. It made sense if I could have afforded it. So after I came down here, I opened the Heather and it almost failed so many times, but we got through it because we built up a steady trade of people who don’t live in Gastown. You have these people that would actually get someone to drive them in from Richmond so they could have a good pint of Guinness and a good pot pie. So now we’re a destination spot. My philosophy is that if this place [Salt] didn’t work, although I never really believe it wouldn’t. I know that sounds cocky but with this I really thought we hit it out of the park, but if this didn’t work, I can tear it down tomorrow and open a sandwich shop. The rent is such that even as a sandwich shop, I’m going to make money off of it. If you open up a restaurant beside cactus club on Robson and it doesn’t work, it’s over. You’re not going to pull yourself out of that.

JC: With your various projects, it always strikes me how varied they are, but they are all successful. Is there some sort of general recipe you have?

SH: Well they have to be different to be successful, because they’re all in on top of each other. So when I opened up Shebeen, people thought I was nuts. The idea with Shebeen was that I can open it up and it can be the same the same feel [as The Irish Heather] but it has to be dramatically different with the product it offers or the concept because otherwise all that would happen is it’d just spread the business out. So probably Shebeen is a good example of everything else I’ve opened in that yes, it’s right beside the Heather, yes it’s Irish, but its focus is whiskey and it’s a great function room. The Heather can’t offer that privacy so if you want to book a private party, we’ve got Shebeen. So it is its own business, and yeah it’s part of the Heather, most people think it is still the Heather, yet it drives its own cart. And in a way, they feed each other. So when this place [Salt] is busy, we send people to the Heather, and so on. And it’s easy for me to manage: I was just at the deli, went to the Heather and talked to the guys in the kitchen, and then I came down here. I’m going to check the kitchen out here, and then I’ll go over to the worksite and look at Pepper. I can walk everywhere. I’m very much still hands on and I never want to lose that.

And to answer your question, in a roundabout way, there’s no overall strategy except that I can’t open another Irish pub besides an Irish pub and so, for instance, I opened up Limerick Junction, which is probably the closest, except Limerick Junction doesn’t have a kitchen and it’s 220 seats and it has a dance floor and live music – The Heather has none of those things. So it looks like another Irish pub so close, but in fact, it’s a different beast.

JC: To change directions a bit, I know you are active on a couple of dining message boards, and you blogged the opening of Salt. What do you see as the role of the internet in the restaurant business?

SH: I got involved in egullet first because I knew that several chefs and industry people that I respect are on it and I thought it seemed like an industry chat – I didn’t realize and then I underestimated how many people are part of it that are not part of the industry. So you are sort of trading blows with other chefs and then there is maybe somebody who does not get the inside joke who is listening on the side. So I kinda backed off that for a while and I was very attracted to [Waiterforum] where 90% of the people involved are industry professionals.

JC: And it’s not public.

SH: But it’s going public.

So I used the blog after watching Rare One use the blog and all the success with what they did. If I could have got the place on Opening Soon the TV show, I would have done so.

JC: They weren’t interested?

SH: They had a full roster, but I did pitch it.

I see it as a really cost effective way of drumming up interest and focus on the things you want to focus on, but as I have said, you live by the blog, you die by the blog. You have to be on it all the time. When I entered into the blog, I looked at everything before I did it. I looked at my business partner and thought I never had a business partner before, how likely is it that we will start fighting? And if we start fighting, I don’t want it on the blog and I don’t want it on Opening Soon. So I look at him, who I’ve known for two years, and I thought, no, it won’t happen with him. You have to look at every single aspect of how it might backfire and try to control it as much as possible.

JC: So it sounds like the blog makes you more aware of the process?

SH: Like a business plan, it focuses you.

JC: Will you do it again?

SH: Yes. I am going to blog, in two weeks time, the launch of the new business, it’s called Pepper. There will be a Pepper blog.

JC: So, when conceptualizing a new restaurant, clearly you have many ideas that you can’t all go with. What makes you to choose one over another?

SH: Location. I have a series of notebooks with a concept in each notebook, things I see when I travel and so on. And when I find a location, I leaf through my concepts and see which one will fit. Now, it’s not a blueprint, so I may change it as I go. I had a lot more ideas before I had the money to do them, so rather than waste that I put them in jars. Now what limits me is time. I have another project that will take shape six months after Pepper and I’m starting that now. Pepper is already in advanced stages. There’s only so many things you can do properly, but I’m not short of ideas.

JC: Well Salt was a great one. But will it be difficult to keep the menu fresh? I mean, I know you guys went on several trips to source stuff for it initially, but as the menu changes?

SH: I’m looking at Barcelona , London and Portland now, just I have an eight month old a two-and-a-half year old so it’s tough. So it was actually my 40th birthday 2 weeks ago and my wife brought me to San Francisco and we went to the French Laundry and Chez Panisse.

So, I was on that trip, which I may write off as a business development trip and I would love to go to London or Barcelona, but I may end up just going to Portland, Oregon to do some research for the next place, but I’m running out of time. I hope to be open by the middle of November at the new place.

JC: So that leads to my last question, is there anything you can tell me about Pepper?

SH: Yeah, it’s like Salt, but hot. I can’t tell you who is working there, because they haven’t told their bosses yet. That’s going to be on the blog for sure. I’ll be announcing the team and I think it will arch a few eyebrows. It’ll be an open kitchen. The food is cooked to order, fresh, street food – loose interpretation of that. What I mean to say is nothing bubbling in a pot overnight, a rich demi, or something like that. A lot of pan juice, a lot of olive oil.

JC: Sounds like tapas.

SH: A lot of tapas style.

JC: The term is kinda thrown around a lot.

SH: I’m reluctant to use it for that reason. I love the Bins, but you can’t get out of the Bins without spending 35 to 36 dollars for having three tapas. Tapas are supposed to cost six to eight bucks.

JC: Or less

SH: Or less, three dollars, that kind of stuff.

I’m working on the menu right now. The problem is, even with this place [Salt], we could easily have opened with four dollars for ox tongue, four dollars for prosciutto and all that kind of stuff. But we need to get 15 dollars in food sales off of everyone who comes in here.

JC: That’s reasonable.

SH: But at the same time somebody’s going to say I just want to have the ox tongue.

JC: Get three of them.

SH: (laughs) I should say that. So part of what we’re looking at is I know what I’d like to do in there, but financially in a business plan, can I do that? And it’s only 44 seats, an old diner. Luckily this time I own the building; I actually bought the property which is nice

JC: So, Pepper will be six to eight [dollars] per plate?

SH: We might do 15 bucks for three hot, so like half a deboned quail stuffed with dates on saffron rice or couscous or something, followed by blini with some house smoked trout or something like that, and something like lamb tenderloin seared on polenta. Or it may be way more Spanish than that; we’re still in the working phase and it may be 15 bucks or it may be 18 bucks for that. And there will be way more draft beers, because I have a basement in this little diner I bought and I’ll be going after Crannóg. I’ll have a rotation of beer that will change all the time. But the same kind of wine [as Salt].

JC: Cocktails?

SH: Probably not.

JC: But you have Chris Stearns and Jay Jones working for you.

SH: I know, but part of the deal was they put down their shakers.

JC: Were they tired of it?

SH: I think, the way I pitched it to Chris is – Chris got Jay – I’ve known Jay longer than I’ve known Chris but I didn’t think Jay would be interested. The way I got Chris was – I knew that he loved wines, but he’s not known for that. So it’s a neat project and the pitch I used was it is a great way of showing another side of your professional persona, even if you only do it for seven or eight months it shows that you are known for wine as well as cocktails. So, I think we might do a featured cocktail. But in North America right now cocktails are starting to go and whiskeys are going up and things are changing. And this kind of restaurant that I’m opening is starting to come in. In Toronto, Marc Thuet, he’s Alsatian, cocaine problem, larger than life character, probably 280 pounds. He opened up a fine dining restaurant last year and this year downgraded to a bistro – not in quality, but service because it’s more fun.

JC: It’s pretty fun from the customer’s perspective as well.

SH: Yeah, I see myself as Joe average, I think, with my tastes and things like that, so if I can design a place to appeal to me then it’s gonna get a cross-section of the community. And I think people like to eat this way. And I hear this all the time, people say, “I love to eat this way.”