Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Steelman.
Hi Bryan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I have been working in restaurants since I was 14. It’s just part of who I am and has been for as long as I can remember. That first taste of being an early teenager and working with people who were older than me and coming from every imaginable walk of life was fascinating to me. Working in restaurants was also a tool for me to be able to pay for college, to travel and live in some amazing places and to work seasonally through my 20’s so that I could work also work as an outdoor educator for Outward Bound. And for the past 21+ years of founding and working at Por Qué No, the restaurant industry continues to be a powerful force in my life because of how the restaurant impacts employees and our community at large.
My path to founding Por Qué No 21 years ago was certainly not a direct path. It took every single weaving thread in my life to make it possible. I was lucky enough to be introduced to incredible Mexican food at a very young age as my childhood best friend’s mom was from Mexico City and cooked us incredible food from the time I was 5 years old to 18. She taught me to roll a tortilla up in my hand in a spiral and hold it in one hand and dip it into your pozole. She taught us that good food would bring us close to her, even when we became surly teenagers.
After high school I mixed that gift of working with such an incredibly diverse swath of humans in the restaurant industy with the love that Marisella taught me growing up spending so much time at their home, and I decided to study Anthropology and Latin American Studies. I worked in many restaurants during this time, as a dishwasher, prep cook, busser, and eventually talked my way into being a server when I needed more robust tips because the cost of college increased when I leveled up from community college to university.
In my 20’s I kept working in restaurants as a way to pay for a lifestyle of working as a whitewater rafting guide and Outward Bound instructor during the summers. Working as an outdoor educator and a guide gave me the confidence to eventually advance from working in someone else’s restaurant to opening up my own business and be able to create the framework of a company that thrived on feedback, strong communication and an ethos that tries to get everyone to the top of the mountain.
So, in 2005, I dove in and opened Por Qué No. It was a shaky start, but we built up with one customer recommendation at a time. Then we opened our 2nd location in 2008. I am lucky enough to have a business with the best employees in the world, 3 of which I have been working with since almost the beginning of opening PQN and they have become partners in the business. It’s been a beautifully challenging 21+ years, and i’m beyond grateful for the opportunity.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Restaurants are never a smooth road. This is why so many parents want their kiddos to work in a restaurant when they are young, so they can learn what it takes to take on real and immediate challenges and turn them into a positive experience. Restaurants are great teachers. Restaurants are also spaces that can create joy, community and nourishment. But to experience said joy, community and nourishment, it requires a consistent and persistent desire to smooth out the bumps and a team that believes in executing that vision.
Our first year was full of struggles. We opened on a bit of a shoestring budget with not much left over for reserves, but we were also busier than expected straight out of the gates because it was a glorious Portland summer, and PQN was a fun new place in North Portland. In our first month as a new business I saw a bit of money build up in the coffers, and I immediately wrote checks to try to pay off a couple of the micro-loans that were given to me to start the business. We are talking about paying off a $2000 and $5000 loan, so not not huge numbers, but felt big to me. But, I learned an important lesson that autumn when business fell off 70% immediately after Labor Day, and we suddenly were losing money every day. Our break-even number at that point was $430/day, and our sales were averaging $200/day. We were open 5 days a week and I picked up a server position at a restaurant I had previously worked at for the 2 days a week we were closed so I could pay rent and payroll. It was a challenging time that we barely squeaked through. I learned the following year that we would be busy in the summer, but to be ready for the fall/winter lull in business. We did get quite the assist in our 2nd fall/winter because our fish taco was written up in Oprah Magazing in October of 2006. We got such a boost that fall that I have often said that Oprah saved PQN.
We’ve been impressed with Por Qué No, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Por Qué No specializes in being a place where every employee collectively contributes to giving an experience to customers that is loving, welcoming, nourishing and feels like magic. The food is delicious and healthy. The vibe is easy and simple and playful. The spirit of welcoming is palpable. We aren’t perfect all the time, to be sure, but we are always working on becoming better to feed bodies and hearts.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
This is not my favorite childhood memory, but it’s the memory that I think of quite often and I think it defined how I hold myself accountable in life. I grew up in the burbs of Sacramento, California where it was HOT and dry, and the clay soils could be nearly impossible to penetrate with a shovel after a long summer. In 4th grade at the beginning of the school year I was suspended from school for the rest of the day for getting into a fight in the first recess. My dad picked me up, didn’t say a word to me, drove me home, handed me a shovel and showed me where he wanted me to dig a hole in the back yard. This was a pretty big hole in bulletproof soil. we are talking 3 feet deep and at least 4 feet in diameter. He was a gardener, so I assumed he had a big plant he needed to be planted. It had to have been 90+ degrees day. He made sure I had water, but he also made sure that I dug that hardpan to the dimensions he had asked for. When I was done digging the hole, he told me to fill it back in. Nothing was planted, except an understanding of how I needed to show up accountable in this world. It’s the last fight I ever got into and the last time I ever even came close to getting suspended again!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://porquenotacos.com
- Instagram: @porquenotaqueria
