Rachel Stainton:
Partnerships are often the key that unlocks growth in hospitality. The right partner can open doors you never thought you'd reach on your own, but where there's opportunity, there's risk. When you're expanding or starting out, no track record, no capital, no safety net, the instinct is to grab the firsthand extended your way and hold on tight.
Omar Kasim:
I was knocking on every door, pulling every string I could to find someone that would be willing to take a bet on me. And I was able to find an investor out of Dallas and we decided to partner together. If I really worked my butt off and I take this thing to the next level, this guy's going to be able to really pave the way moving forward.
Rachel Stainton:
Growth brings new pressures, new expectations, and a new visibility that partners can interpret very differently. And the hand that was extended might not be the rocket fuel you needed. Instead, it might turn out to be a fire starter. Suddenly, the thing that bonded you, the shared dream, can splinter into competing visions of what comes next.
Omar Kasim:
The first year we did extremely well and crushed it. And immediately after that, my partner wanted to franchise after one location. Him being remote from Dallas and looking at the P&L looked really pretty. But what he didn't see was all of the gum and string that was holding this business together. I'm working 80 hours a week to hit these numbers and it's not sustainable because we can't replicate me across the nation.
Rachel Stainton:
Our guest today is Omar Kasim, an entrepreneur and a restaurant owner who's navigated the realities of rapid growth, remote partnerships, and the pressure to scale. With deep experience in the fast casual world, he's learned firsthand what makes collaboration thrive and what causes it to crack. I'm Rachel Stainton and welcome to Science of Service, the podcast where we uncover the strategies behind building successful hospitality businesses. Whether you're a seasoned operator or just starting out, you'll find insights and inspiration to help you thrive. And whether you're expanding into your sixth or 60th site, Omar's experience offers hard-earned insight into choosing the right partners, recognizing red flags, and building relationships that last beyond the first burst of success.
There are countless paths that lead people into hospitality and just as many ways to get that first business off the ground. Some have a plan from day one, others follow a calling. Omar's story is a mix of both, part planning, part pure happy accident.
Omar Kasim:
By total accident. I originally was planning on going to law school. I was at the University of Arkansas, and my senior year I started working on what was a school project, which was creating a business plan. And being a college student, the restaurant world was just one thing that seemed to really make sense to me and I was like, "Oh, I feel like that would be a fun business to work on." And slowly by slowly, as I started working on that school project, I started ideating what it would be like to actually make this come true. And so I came to an inflection point in my life where I decided I was going to go full force into this business and forego law school.
My first restaurant was a concept called Con Quesos. It was a fast casual restaurant that offered unique tacos that had flavors inspired from around the world. We also had an emphasis on a variety of different queso flavors. Cheese dip or queso is actually invented in the state of Arkansas, not Texas. And so that was something that we really wanted to emphasize starting out of Northwest Arkansas. And so that was the whole bread and butter of the business model.
Rachel Stainton:
It takes a particular spark to look at a class project and think, "That's a better option than law school." But that's exactly the leap Omar made. He trusted his instincts, bet on himself, and dove straight into the deep end of hospitality. And honestly, that bold move makes perfect sense as his passion and drive for the industry are a total fit.
Omar Kasim:
I think the thing that I love most about the restaurant world is you get to wear different hats. I tend to be very creative-minded, but I like operations as well. With the restaurant world, you need a little bit of everything. You need some wheeling and dealing to be able to do lease negotiations and capital raising. You need to have a creative bone to get your hands dirty on the interior design, the architectural, the menu concept, the graphic design. And then the operations is really structured with policies, processes, procedures. And ultimately, I think the reason why most people get in the restaurant world is because of the people. And that's the thing that I enjoyed the most was the idea of having a restaurant full of people that were enjoying the product before my eyes was really the exciting part that led me to with the restaurant world and still drives me today.
Rachel Stainton:
Yeah. Absolutely. So that brings us up to speed on Kasim Ventures Management. What concepts are part of that group now and how many outlets do you have?
Omar Kasim:
Pre COVID, we had three different concepts. We had a juice bar, we had the taco concept, and we had this emerging brand that was initially just a side hustle called Plomo Quesadillas. And it was just something that we were doing late at nights on the weekend out of the backside of one of my juice bars. It was never intended to be anything great. It was just like a quick way for me to make money on the weekends. And when COVID happened and the sales were continuing to grow at Plomo and the sales were stagnant at the juice bar, it became very difficult for me to manage because I was having to do three different marketing plans, three different menu designs, and it'd become really cumbersome. And so when COVID came around, we made the decision to transition everything to be Plomo Quesadillas. And so now that's the only brand that we work on today.
Rachel Stainton:
Three concepts eventually became one for Omar and Kasim Ventures, but that very first spark, the original idea, left him with some stories worth unpacking. Every new business wrestles with its own set of challenges from timing to talent, but trying to build a restaurant while still in school with no capital and no safety net practically guarantees you'll need backup. And that's where partnerships enter the picture. Sometimes the lifeline, sometimes the landmine. It's a theme we're digging into today. How the right people can fuel your growth and the wrong dynamics can knock you off course. So let's rewind for a moment back to the very beginning of Omar's partnership story.
Omar Kasim:
Yeah .I'll try to make a long story somewhat shorter. But a college student, no money, no experience, no collateral, not necessarily the most bankable business. It was very difficult for me to be able to get traction to be able to open up the store. And so I did a little road show, was knocking on every door, pulling every string I could to find someone that would be willing to take a bet on me and invest in this restaurant brand. And so I was able to find an investor out of Dallas that had extensive experience in the franchising world. He had 150 franchises of his concept worldwide and we decided to partner together. And so the whole thought process for me was if I really work my butt off and I take this thing to the next level, this guy is going to be able to really pave the way moving forward. And so I saw it as a strategic partnership as much as just a way for us to be able to get capital in the business.
The first year we did extremely well and crushed it by all metrics. And immediately after that, my partner wanted to franchise after one location. And him being remote from Dallas and looking at the P&L looked really pretty, but what he didn't see was all of the gum and string that was holding this business together, which was put together by myself. And so my thought process was, "Hey, we have a long way to go. There's a lot that we need to work on. I'm working 80 hours a week to hit these numbers and it's not sustainable because we can't replicate me across the nation." He ultimately disagreed with my thought process. And so one day he showed up with a district manager from Taco Cabana and told me that he was removing me as the managing member of the business and that he was taking over effective immediately.
And so that was really difficult to be able to understand the thought process behind that. And my thought was, "Okay. Well, I can squabble about this and be upset or I can just move on to the next thing." And so because I had restaurant experience now, I was able to get a loan and open up a juice bar or something that I was really passionate about that was catered to health and wellness.
Rachel Stainton:
After shelving law school and diving headfirst into hospitality, Omar built a concept that was by all accounts successful, $10,000 a month in profit and a future that was looking pretty bright. Then just a year later, he found himself on the outside looking in, hunting for his next venture while launching a juice bar of his own, but he still owned part of Con Quesos, which is why a letter from his former partner hit like a plot twist from a primetime drama. The thriving business he'd left behind, cash in the bank and momentum on its side was suddenly upside down, now losing $10,000 a month instead. And if you're thinking getting news like that is a worst caso scenario, trust me, you're not alone.
Omar Kasim:
He was managing the business remotely, using his existing team. Although they're great people, they were in the cookie business and so they had no idea about the taco business. And in my mind, I felt that we were already separated and so it was time for a clean divorce and one of us needed to take the house. And so we made the decision for me to take over the business and for him to leave. That was probably the toughest year of my life because I had a business that I'd just opened up. We were opening a second location of that juice bar. I had a business that was failing and failing really, really badly and quickly. And so I was working every day from 6:30 in the morning at the juice bar until 11:00 at night. It was just really, really difficult. The great thing about my time at the restaurant starting it was that I developed a great relationship with our creditors.
And so I was able to go to our vendors and ask for net 45, net 60 schedules for me to be able to pay for things on credit cards. So I was getting interest-free credit cards to extend my cashflow. And I just sent a post out that just said, "I'm back." And a lot of the customers that remembered the time and remembered my story came back to frequent the business and brought their friends. And so we were able to turn around things in less than a year. And so we broke even one year later.
Rachel Stainton:
Amazing.
Omar Kasim:
And when I say broke even, we made like $28.
Rachel Stainton:
It still counts.
Omar Kasim:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But you know what? I felt very, very proud of that moment and things felt like they were going in the right direction and then COVID happened. So it was just thing after thing. But ultimately I'm really glad that we went and endured all of that because everything that we did to be able to turn the business around ended up being extremely valuable during the COVID years.
Rachel Stainton:
What Omar pulled off deserves serious applause because most businesses don't survive a one-two punch like that, a failing venture on one side and the shock waves of COVID on the other. His story proves something every owner-operator knows deep down. The value you bring doesn't always show up on a P&L, but you sure notice its absence when the wheels come off. When the business was running on Omar's sweat equity, it worked. Without that commitment, the cracks were impossible to ignore. There are a million tiny levers to pull in a small business, and when they fall on just one person or a small team, growth goes from just a challenge to Mount Everest. Add a partner who isn't fully aligned or doesn't see what it really takes to build something successful, and the climb only gets steeper. Thankfully, Omar had relationships he'd nurtured along the way, people and partners who believed in him when it mattered most, and those relationships were about to become critical to navigating what came next.
Omar Kasim:
We were doing things like extending credit terms. Those were really easy conversations to have again with our vendors because we had done something like that. And so we had already negotiated that before. We weren't having to assemble the plane while we were taking off.
With digital, I was trying to scrape in every dollar that I could. And so we were doing online ordering, we were doing Uber Eats, DoorDash. And so when COVID happened, there were shortages of tablets and onboarding for those systems. So people were begging to get on Uber Eats and we were already integrated. With our landlord, same thing. I made a deal with them initially where I was paying half of my rent for the first six months and then I was paying rent and a half for the next six months. And so that allowed me to reduce my occupancy costs really early on and be able to get a cash basis so that way whenever we were in the middle of football season, I could ultimately pay them back. The conversation that I had with all these guys was, "Hey, if you trust me to do all of this, I'll make sure that you get your money."
Rachel Stainton:
What's remarkable is how Omar managed to claw his way back from the edge, not by cutting corners or playing zero-sum games, but by building win-win relationships with the partners who genuinely backed him. Those trusted allies helped steady the ship while the partnership built on mismatch expectations naturally came to an end. Of course, Omar has some advice on choosing the right collaborators, partners who understand the road ahead and want to walk it with you. But first, he has another story that's an unexpected masterclass and growing out of adversity.
Omar Kasim:
Yeah. At my taco restaurant, we had chicken tika masala tacos, we had barbecue, brisket tacos, we had Caribbean jerk chicken tacos. And one of the things that we had on our menu was this kid's quesadilla. It's a six-inch tortilla, nothing but tortilla, cheese, and protein. The only reason we had that was because people had asked us, "You should really have some items for kids." So we had kids tacos, we had kids' quesadillas. We put no thought or effort into it whatsoever. It's probably the least proud product that I had. And whenever I was looking at the PMIX one day, I noticed that this kid's quesadilla was a top five selling item, and I was just blown away by that. So as I'm looking at the customers in the restaurant, I'm noticing all these college students, it's not kids, it's actual college students and some adults that they're buying these kids quesadillas, sometimes buying them in twos and threes, and they were just dipping them in their queso or their sour cream and enjoying them.
And initially I'm very frustrated about it because I'm like, "Man, I put all this heart and soul. We make our tika masala in house. Do you know how much that takes?" And so I had to take a step back and say, "Okay. There's something there. Customers are ordering this. They obviously like it. And so if they're asking for it, give them what they want." And so I started noodling on, well, what if we created a concept that revolved around quesadillas and incorporated some of the chef-driven elements of Con Quesos into the vehicle of a quesadilla. And again, it was a very poorly put together project. The reason why it even came about was my juice bar was located in a nightlife area, like a bar district. We would close at 7:00 and all the kids would go out to the bars after seven. So I was just thinking to myself, man, we need to leverage this real estate better. Maybe we can do a second concept in it. With the quesadillas, I just thought, okay, we can sell them late at night on the weekends.
And so the first Plomo location was out the backside of our juice bar, out the kitchen. So if you've ever seen a steel door on the backside of a restaurant that's all grungy and nasty, that was our front door. I put, I think, a total of $5,000 in it. I bought myself a grill, a refrigerator base and some smallware. And originally it did not do well. And I remember thinking this is the worst financial decision I've ever made.
Rachel Stainton:
Yeah. So I did say a masterclass, I promise that part is still to come, but you got to admit, Omar isn't afraid of a challenge. Launching his new venture down an alleyway with no lighting and off the beaten path of any foot traffic, it was far from ideal and seemingly far from paying customers too. But thanks to Omar's drive and his never say never attitude, he discovered the ultimate pairing for his quesadillas. Along with some grit and determination, he served up a win thanks to some gorilla marketing.
Omar Kasim:
One of the most successful marketing stunts that I did was I knew just being a recent college grad that every fraternity house usually had their back doors open on the weekends because they had these mail rooms where everyone had a little cubby. And so I started stuffing all of their boxes with menus with a coupon for half off their next quesadilla. And so we started getting some students to walk in. They got their half off. This is pre COVID, so our quesadillas, our chicken quesadillas were seven bucks. Those were the days, right? And so half off 3.50. And then we supplemented it with, if they tagged us on their Instagram story, they would get half off their next quesadilla. And so these college students were like, "Okay. I just got a quesadilla for 3.50. You're telling me if I tag you on our story, I'll get another quesadilla for $3.50?" And I'm like, "Yeah." And these are really good size quesadillas. They were 12-inch quesadillas. Same portions as we served today, so they're very, very filling.
And so we started having all these fraternity guys posting on their stories, and then their friends would come, and then their friend's friends would come. And then it became this speakeasy vibe. And one thing that I was very strategic about was I knew that the packaging needed to be attractive. And so we got these crepe holders. So the quesadillas, they weren't in a to go box or how quesadillas are in a boat, like how quesadillas are usually served. They were in this beautiful holder that you could walk around with them because we had no seating. We were serving at the backside of a door. So this quesadilla was really, really attractive. People would post on their story and everyone would say like, "Oh, I've got to try that. Where is it?" And we went from selling 50 quesadillas a weekend to eventually 500 quesadillas a night. And when COVID happened, we made the decision to convert the juice bar into the quesadilla concept. And so when students came back that following August in 2020, it was line out the door.
Rachel Stainton:
Talk about drama. This story has all the cliffhangers that hospitality loves to deliver, but beneath the chaos and the credit card gamble, there's a real strategy hiding in plain sight. Omar kept his initial investment lean, used space he was already paying rent on, and created a second revenue stream out of thin air or more accurately out of a back door. And that scramble into frat houses with coupons turned into a low cost, laser focused marketing plan, cunningly disguised as a hustle. Crucially though, Omar paid attention to the data. He listened to what customers actually wanted and leaned into it. Those small insights, the ones hiding in order history and late night cravings became the acorn that grew into something much bigger.
Omar Kasim:
Yeah. One, having access to data is important. So your point of sale, email surveys, whatever you can do to get data. So I think you have to look at what are my data points? How reliable are they? One of the things that we're really focusing on this year is our financial data and just being very, very astute about that and saying we have to have this data in order for us to make better informed decisions. So I think that that's probably the most important aspect is you have to have data and then you have to use that data. There's so many times that people will use a point of sale system basically just to process the transactions, but they're not actually looking at that data. And I think that that was one of the root causes that led me to Plomo was that I looked at our PMIX. I took the time to look at it and I saw something that didn't make sense to me and that data point ultimately led me to build Plomo years later.
Rachel Stainton:
So we've heard plenty of plot twists with pivots, setbacks, and surprising wins. And if you're listening to this podcast, you've probably lived through a bunch of those yourself and have the battle scars to prove it. But now that we followed the highs and lows with Omar, it feels like the perfect moment to tap into what he's learned from the ride. Starting with partnerships. Omar freely admits that if he had a second chance, he may have done things differently with his first venture. That partnership that didn't work out was a gamble. Omar's spidey senses were definitely dangling, but he still took the deal. So what would he do differently the second time around? What's his rear view analysis after things went sideways?
Omar Kasim:
So the thing that I didn't take into consideration is that sometimes egos trump logic because here's this individual that has to put zero work into a business and he's got a young, ambitious person. I was 23 at the time working my butt off and we're hitting a 20% EBITDA. I think 25% was our peak EBITDA. So we're doing McDonald's numbers. Part of that was not realistic because at the time I was paying myself a salary of like $35,000 because I was a college student, I was a recent graduate. And so one piece of advice that I've heard before is no deal is better than a bad deal. And I think that that holds truth that with the people that you work with and do business with, you can't look at it from just solely a logical decision, which is this person is in the restaurant business, they have the capital, they have the experience. You also have to look at it as a marriage, which is, am I going to enjoy spending time with this person? Does this person respect me? So I think that that's something that I've learned over the years.
And in hindsight, I probably should have just held out and tried to find someone else that would've been a better fit and maybe someone that had less restaurant experience, but was, again, a bigger believer in me. There are a lot of people that are out there. They're in a zero-sum game world, which is like, if you win, that means that I lose. And the way that I've just learned to do business, having again, been on the very, very negative side of that zero-sum ego-driven partnership is, "Hey, if I win and you win, then we win. So let's not argue about all these nuanced little things. Let's just both win in this situation."
Rachel Stainton:
Yeah. If we have anybody listening who is maybe going through something similar to what you've gone through or struggling with their partnerships or dealing with a tough setback, is there any one thing that you would suggest that they focus on? And then along with that, how would you encourage people to find these more trust-based relationships?
Omar Kasim:
Yeah. I think everything starts with the legal documentation. What a contract is it's the rules of the game. So I think that a contract, it's important to actually go through that and hire a third party, which is a law firm and make sure that they have experience. So using your best friend's cousins, dad who does wills and things like that, it might save you some money, but it's going to produce a whole lot of headaches. Finding an experienced attorney that works either in your field or in partnership agreements or something like that. I like working with larger law firms because they typically have people for each little thing. They have a labor law person, they have a person that deals with M&A, they have a person that deals with real estate. And so you might pay a little bit more, but you're getting a lot of expertise. And I think that advisors like your CPAs, your attorneys, that could really help you save some headaches.
There's also online questionnaires for partnerships, just like there are when you're preparing for marriage, where you just need to sit down and you need to have a conversation with your partner and answer these things publicly between you two, which is like, hey, if this happens, what do we do? If one person wants to sell and the other person doesn't, what happens? Maybe you say, "Okay. Well, I think that we should get a third party involved." The other person might say, "I say that we flip a coin." Well, it's better to have these conversations before the fact rather than after the fact.
Rachel Stainton:
Yeah. Absolutely. And I know you talked a little bit about negotiating your terms with your creditors and getting the net 45s that you could put things on credit cards to turn that business around. Were there any other things that you did tactically that helped bring that restaurant back when you did come back on board?
Omar Kasim:
It was very simple, but not easy. And the simplicity of it was just focusing on the three Cs, which was customer service, the cleanliness and consistency. And one thing that I always tell our managers is the number one form of marketing is a great customer experience. If you have a great customer experience and a long enough time horizon, it's going to work out. People are going to tell their friends, they're going to bring their friends' friends. They're going to come two, three times a month instead of one and done. It really wasn't rocket science. It was just managing our cashflow and just providing a great experience and letting people know that the founder was back and that I wanted to earn everyone's business.
Rachel Stainton:
Yeah. Amazing. If you could give your younger would be lawyer law school self a one-line closing argument for choosing hospitality instead of law school, what would that argument be?
Omar Kasim:
You only get one life. And of course, you want to be successful and you want to have family and have income and all of that stuff. That's all important. But I think that the most fulfilling life is a life that's interesting. And for better or worse, I've really enjoyed the journey that we've been on. There are times that it's definitely been rough, but that also makes the peaks that much greater. The uncertainty of entrepreneurship is ultimately what led me down that path because that life could be anything. I knew that I could crash and burn and fail before we even got the restaurant open. And I think that when you do something that's just, again, makes you happier and more fulfilled, you tend to output and produce a lot more, more efficiently and a lot better product. I also knew that it was also possible that we could become the next Chipotle, and I could be sitting on a stage explaining how this decision, this fork in the road that I went down this path instead of this path ended up leading me to where I am today.
Rachel Stainton:
In any business, growth is rarely a straight line and Omar's journey proves it. The stumbles, the pivots, the detours down alleyways, literally and figuratively, may feel like a setback in the moment, but they're often forces that shape a stronger concept and a sharper operator. Our thanks to Omar Kasim for joining us today and for reminding us that sometimes the smartest move is ordering from the kids' menu. If you want a refresher on today's takeaways or you'd like to learn more about Omar's mission, head to the show notes. I'm Rachel Stainton, and if you enjoyed this episode of Science of Service, please rate, review, and subscribe. And if you know an operator juggling ideas standing at a fork in the road or needing proof that a backdoor speakeasy gamble can pay off, why not share this episode with them? Thanks for listening listening and we'll see you next time.