{"id":10752,"date":"2025-04-01T08:46:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T08:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.restroworks.com\/blog\/?p=10752"},"modified":"2025-04-01T08:46:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T08:46:17","slug":"chad-mackay-roadmap-to-building-restaurants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/chad-mackay-roadmap-to-building-restaurants\/","title":{"rendered":"Chad Mackay&#8217;s Roadmap to Building Restaurants with People, Purpose, and Resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Chad Mackay has built a group of restaurants by staying true to one core belief: great hospitality starts with great people. His journey, shaped by family legacy, personal reinvention, and a deep respect for the human side of business, offers a refreshing contrast to the fast-paced, often transactional world of hospitality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In conversation with Ashish Tulsian on <em>Restrocast<\/em>, Chad reflects on his early exposure to restaurant life through his father\u2019s footsteps, his pivot from the corporate world back into hospitality, and how embracing failure, empowering teams, and staying grounded in purpose have shaped his journey. From weathering the 2008 financial crisis to fostering multi-decade employee tenures, this is a masterclass in building a business where people come first\u2014and stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Chad Mackay, CEO of Fire &amp; Vine Hospitality, on Building Restaurants Through People and Values\" width=\"1140\" height=\"641\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/up-dY_0_YgE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad, let\u2019s begin with your story. How did you first get into the restaurant business?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad Mackay:<\/strong> Thanks for having me, Ashish. My entry into the restaurant world started early. My dad managed some of the best restaurants in Seattle, and I worked in them as a dishwasher and busser. Eventually, I worked my way up to sous chef. But after watching a family restaurant suffer significant losses\u2014flooded twice and dealing with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).\u2014I stepped away. I told myself I\u2019d never work in restaurants again. I went to Seattle University, got a business degree in accounting, and started a corporate career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So what brought you back to the industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad Mackay:<\/strong> Funny story\u2014I was doing well in consulting, working with companies like Arthur Andersen and later in 3G billing systems for wireless companies. But I didn\u2019t love the culture where I was working. Around the same time, my dad\u2014who had launched Flying Fish and later El Gaucho\u2014approached me. He said, \u201cIf you\u2019ve ever thought of this as a family business, we should talk.\u201d It wasn\u2019t a push; it was more of an open door. We brought in a family business coach, talked through our goals, what failure might look like, and even included our wives in those discussions. We gave each other one year to try it out, and neither of us looked back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A family business coach\u2014that&#8217;s pretty unique. Do you think more family businesses should take that route?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad Mackay:<\/strong> Absolutely. It\u2019s not common enough, but it should be. At the end of the day, you still want to sit at Thanksgiving together. A coach helps create a shared vision and a structure for difficult conversations. My dad was part of Vistage and always valued having mentors. That mindset helped shape how we approached the partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You became CEO in 2013. What changed after that transition?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad Mackay:<\/strong> Taking on the CEO role meant truly owning the vision and leading the next phase of growth. But you don\u2019t reach success without failures. We had to shut down a few concepts that didn\u2019t work\u2014like an Italian restaurant and another called Sea Grill in Tacoma. I learned humility and resilience. My wife reminds me of a time I said, \u201cWith a deal this good, we can\u2019t lose.\u201d And, well, we did. But we took lessons from that and refocused on what we do well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You faced a massive test during the 2008\u20132009 recession. How did you get through it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad Mackay:<\/strong> That was brutal. When the financial crisis hit, we were building a new El Gaucho in Bellevue\u2014a massive 14,000-square-foot space. Business dropped 40%, but we leaned on old-school cash flow management, got creative with financing, and made it through. One investor even guaranteed a line to help us close the project. In the end, every vendor was paid in full. That was a lesson from my dad\u2014when he had to shut down a flooded restaurant, he still paid off every vendor. That kind of integrity builds lifelong industry relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Throughout our conversation, I\u2019ve noticed how much emphasis you place on people. Why is that so central to your philosophy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad Mackay:<\/strong> Because hospitality is about people\u2014on both sides. You can build the most beautiful restaurant in the world, but without the right people running it, it won\u2019t succeed. Our goal is to develop people and a culture that thrives. Technology helps\u2014we use data to know who\u2019s coming in, track anniversaries, etc.\u2014but nothing replaces the human touch. That\u2019s all we\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Any final thoughts on what drives you every day?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad Mackay:<\/strong> My wife once asked, \u201cHow do you keep getting up daily?\u201d I told her, \u201cBecause no one else will.\u201d That\u2019s the spirit it takes in this business. It\u2019s relentless, complex, and challenging\u2014but building it on strong values, great people, and human connection is incredibly rewarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You\u2019ve clearly evolved as a leader. What\u2019s changed for you over the last 10 years?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad Mackay:<\/strong> A lot. I used to try to do everything myself. That led to me being the bottleneck. Over time, I realized empowering others was the only way to grow. Promoting Cooper to president was a turning point. I stopped injecting myself into every layer and instead focused on coaching. I\u2019ve also learned to let the next wave of leaders rise\u2014and they\u2019ve exceeded expectations, especially the younger talent we brought in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>On a personal front, what\u2019s one thing you\u2019re working on improving in yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chad Mackay:<\/strong> Being more present. Being there when I\u2019m with my family. That means putting down the phone, staying off email, and just being in the moment\u2014whether at breakfast or just hanging out. We travel a lot, but it\u2019s the daily presence that I\u2019m working hardest on.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"conclusionnbsp\"><strong>Conclusion <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Chad\u2019s story is a reminder that the soul of hospitality lies in connection\u2014not just between businesses and guests, but within teams and families. As the restaurant world evolves, leaders like Chad are showing that staying human is the ultimate competitive advantage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chad Mackay has built a group of restaurants by staying true to one core belief: great hospitality starts with great people. His journey, shaped by family legacy, personal reinvention, and a deep respect for the human side of business, offers a refreshing contrast to the fast-paced, often transactional world of hospitality. In conversation with Ashish [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[11,16],"class_list":["post-10752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-restrocast-podcast","tag-featured","tag-pick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.restroworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}