This essay is dedicated to our teammate Emmy, who passed away on June 14, 2022. Emmy loved food—documenting her breakfast, lunch, and dinner nearly every day. We will miss her joyful presence in our kitchen.
For the first nine months of Dumpling Club, I did almost everything myself: every ingredient was sourced by me during weekly trips to the farmers’ markets, every dumpling was hand-pleated and packed by me, and every Instagram post was photographed, edited, and written by me. My only partner was Cynthia, who helped me deliver orders once a week (and who continued delivering all our orders for two years). If that sounds exhausting, that’s because it was.
I cannot describe to you the relief and joy I felt when I first hired Linda. Not only did I have an extra pair of hands, which more than doubled our output, but I had someone to talk to. Instead of making decisions in a vacuum, I had someone with whom I could discuss my ideas. Here was another person who could taste the food critically, react to my (sometimes) outlandish propositions, and offer suggestions and creative solutions of her own.
But one thing I did not let Linda do was pleat dumplings. While she helped me with everything from developing recipes to washing dishes, I felt an intense ownership over the dumplings and felt that each one should be finished by me. So when we stood across from each other at the worktable, a silent boundary was drawn: on one side, Linda scooped filling into each wrapper and on the other side, I pleated.
Maybe a month went by, maybe two. Things were going well. But one day, I went on a walk with a girlfriend who had previously been the pastry chef at a famous bakery in the city and complained that I was still pretty exhausted from wrapping dumplings. My girlfriend gave me the side-eye and said gently, “How is Linda supposed to learn how to pleat dumplings if she never pleats a dumpling?” (Heli, I owe you. I will never, ever forget this moment.)
Written out like that, it looks obvious. But to anybody who’s ever had to manage a business based on craft, that first moment when you let go is incredibly hard. And in reflecting about food businesses specifically, a good recipe is a dime a dozen; the true difficulty lies in replicating the recipe over and over at a consistently high bar. I realized that Dumpling Club’s success would not be rooted in my ability to make 100 delicious dumplings, but rather in my business’s ability to make thousands upon thousands of delicious dumplings—something that only a team of people could achieve.
Building and growing my team has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s also the most rewarding and infinitely less lonely. Here are some things I’ve learned so far:
There has to be room for failure.
If you know me, you know that I really, really, really don’t like failing. And if I’m being completely honest, I am still on this journey. It’s hard to let food go out the door that isn’t exactly “how I would do it.” But here’s the thing: sometimes the food is better when someone else takes the lead. Say hello to our house-made char siu pork and Hong Kong shrimp wontons: they were developed with Nancy at the helm. The stuffed cucumber kimchi and Shanghai zongzi? All thanks to Linda. And I don’t even bother wrapping spring rolls anymore: Htet, Mariela and Nikki have their own process that’s so much faster and more predictable than what I could have done.
If I had gone for perfection, the dumplings might be 1% or maybe 5% better than they are today. But in exchange, I would have missed out on some incredible dishes that you now know and love. Giving the team room to experiment and take leadership has been a much better choice.
People who want to learn are infinitely more valuable than people “with experience.”
When hiring for the team, the qualities I look for are loyalty, consistency, conscientiousness, the ability to take feedback, and a willingness to communicate. What I don’t look for? The ability to wrap dumplings.
It’s not that I don’t care about experience. My eyes always light up when I see a resume with a relevant background in Asian cuisine. But once the candidate is in the kitchen, I’m looking primarily at how they interact with us: do they accept feedback with grace? Do they share their thoughts in a constructive way? Do they lend a helping hand in all parts of the work, or do they feel certain things are beneath them (like sweeping or taking out the garbage)? Do they seem dedicated to the work, or is their mind somewhere else? Almost everyone we’ve hired has had no prior dumpling-wrapping experience and let me tell you: they can now all fold dumplings. That part was not the dealbreaker!
Work together, not in silos.
It’s common in food businesses to structure the team in stations, where each member is responsible for the success of their own station. I once interviewed a candidate who worked at a prominent Chinese restaurant in the city and their sole job was to make dough and wrap dumplings. They worked at their station alone, doing the same routine six days a week, which I found shocking.
At Dumpling Club, we work in pairs to prep filling and dough and then come together at the same table on most days to wrap dumplings. Every team member learns all parts of the dumpling production process. In the beginning, my rationale for this structure was that our team was too small, and we needed to be able to sub people in and out easily if someone got sick or went on vacation (yes, we take vacations). But it’s turned out to have other positive outcomes. When we work together at the same table, we can learn from each other. I’ve often picked up tricks to improve my own technique by standing at the team table and observing someone else’s work.
Create a culture of feedback.
One thing I’m insistent about is that everyone on the team provides feedback on the food. When we work on a new recipe, we make sure to create a tasting plate for every team member. Then we go down the line and everyone is asked to provide some feedback: did they like it? Why or why not? Was it too salty, too sweet? Are there any flavors missing? Was the texture enjoyable?
By encouraging feedback from everyone, we set an important precedent: in this kitchen, it’s OK to speak up. That can lead to a lot of benefits, from vocalizing new ideas to pointing out a process that can be improved.
The feedback loop is also an important part of training and quality control. When we put a dumpling recipe into production, we taste each batch of filling before we begin wrapping. The one that always catches us by surprise is our simply pork wontons: because there’s only one major ingredient, the taste test is critical. Together, we’re often able to identify small nuances in the way the pork has been cut, ground, or stored that leads to changes (for example, we can tell when the pork is a little short on fat!).
If the team wins, you win.
There was a point in time when my team had to sit me down and give me some difficult feedback: Stop criticizing and start supporting us. I was so busy pointing out all the ways that we were struggling that I didn’t stop to think that maybe I was the problem.
Now what’s foremost in my mind is, How can I set up the team for success? If we’re struggling to manage inventory, I may need to streamline the menu rather than introduce a new specialty ingredient every week. If the meatballs keep coming out lopsided, I might need to build a training day into the schedule. If our freezer door was found ajar on more than one occasion, maybe it’s time to invest in remote sensors or better latches.
There’s more that I’m learning every day. Just as I try to give my team room to fail, I am also giving myself room to make mistakes and grow. But I won’t lie: it’s been hard. In my next and final installment for Edible San Francisco, I’ll talk about the heartaches and emotional burdens of being an entrepreneur and how I persevere through the tough times.
—Cathay Bi is the chef/owner of Dumpling Club in San Francisco
Read the rest of the series:
