Sally Kane is the first to admit that running a restaurant is not exactly like operating a mom ’n pop store, or a small service supplier.
“Restaurants are very different than other small businesses,” said the co-owner of The Coronet. “It is a uniquely difficult job, and a challenging business.”
Before opening the popular Tucson eatery, café and bar, she ran Surface Works, a local commercial and residential remodeling and painting company.
Nevertheless, the lessons Kane learned from operating The Coronet (which recently celebrated its 10th year in business) have made the 55-year-old entrepreneur an excellent source of advice for anyone wanting to start their own small business.
“I guess if a kid came to me looking for advice, I’d first want to know if they had a really good picture of the road they were walking down, and what they were walking toward,” Kane said. “It’s more than just thinking, ‘I’m good at software, so I should start a software company.’ You have to really be able to visualize what you want to make. A business is a creative endeavor, even if it’s in a field that doesn’t seem that way.”
Tucson abounds with such businesses, whether it’s one that’s obviously a creative passion project, like Lizzie Mead’s Silver Sea Jewelry, now in its 28th year of selling locally handmade jewelry, or Gayle Sebastian’s The Battery Guy, a mobile Tucson business that specializes in on-site golf cart battery replacement.
No matter the field, it all starts with having a clear vision for the business and then creating a space — whether physical or online — that reflects the small business owner’s personal ethos and passion.
“To me, there’s very little difference,” Kane said. “If you’re a painter, you have to be able to visualize the image before taking the steps needed to create it. And businesses are the same — you have to see your goal and understand what you’re moving toward.
“And then,” added Kane, “you’d better be the most tenacious (expletive) in the room!”
Jacki Kuder, owner and chef at Kingfisher Bar & Grill in Tucson, understands the interplay of creativity and business acumen necessary to run a successful small business.
“We certainly don’t want to fix what’s not broken,” says Jacki Kuder, owner and chef at Kingfisher. “But so far, the changes that we have made have been well received.”
A few years ago, Kuder and her husband Ted Burhans were just loyal diners at Kingfisher, the venerable seafood restaurant founded in 1993 by Jeff Azersky and Jim “Murph” Murphy on East Grant, long before the thoroughfare became a foodie hub.
“It was always a dream of mine to have a restaurant,” Kuder said.
She had previously worked as a chef with Janos Wilder at his namesake restaurant at Westin La Paloma Resort (where Burhans also worked out front) before serving about a dozen years in the health care field, which she says became “miserable” during the pandemic.
“I needed some sort of a life change, and the timing just worked out,” Kuder said. “Jeff and Murph wanted to retire at that time, and we saw that Kingfisher was up for sale, and after securing small business loans and tapping retirement accounts to fund it, here we are!”
The couple purchased the restaurant in October 2022, and have made only small changes so far — “updating the interior a little, refreshing some paint colors, bringing in our own art” — being careful to keep the spirit of the Kingfisher alive while imprinting their own personal style and menu enhancements.
“We certainly don’t want to fix what’s not broken,” Kuder said. “But so far, the changes that we have made have been well received.”
Both Kuder and Kane stress that the key to any successful restaurant — and, by extension, any successful small business — starts with a vision but then requires staffing the business with employees who understand and support that vision.
“It’s an abusive work situation,” Kane said of her field. “So I don’t like to hire people I can’t actually care about. That’s kind of how I hire, I ask myself, ‘Is the person sitting across from me someone that I can see who they actually are, understand their heart?’ There’s not one type of person I’m looking for, the only type is ‘genuine.’ And ‘present.’ If it’s someone who brings care to what they do, and lets me care about them, then that’s the component we need.”
Kane said her industry lost a lot of people following the post-pandemic reopenings, as hospitality workers came back demanding better treatment and pay.
“I think the industry was losing a lot of people because they felt unseen, or uncared for,” she said. “Employees have to feel like more than just cogs in the machine, and they can only feel that if the whole ecosystem is working.”
Kuder also believes in the importance of creating a supportive work environment and a symbiotic relationship between the business and its employees.
“One of my philosophies is I really take care of my employees,” she said. “We make a real good point to pay living wages, both front and back of the house.”
Kuder also noted that many on Kingfisher’s staff have been with the restaurant for decades, noting the longevity and dedication of her employees contributes to the restaurant’s family-like atmosphere and functional operation.
The next rule for small business success is understanding the business machinery beyond the concept. Practical experience isn’t enough. An in-depth understanding of the industry’s inner workings is crucial for any business owner.
“I don’t feel like most of my employees understand the mechanics of the business called restaurant,” Kane said. “Just working in a job for a long time may give you a lot of understanding about how it operates, but it doesn’t actually give you a comprehensive overview of running a business.”
“It’s an abusive work situation,” says The Coronet co-owner Sally Kane, with executive chef Tanner Fleming. “So I don’t like to hire people I can’t actually care about.”
On the other hand, Kane said that sometimes not knowing all the work entailed is useful when diving into a seemingly impenetrable industry, noting that taking on a big new thing sometimes requires a blend of naivety and boldness.
“Idealism and a lack of experience can go a long way if you wanna jump into this business,” she added with a laugh. “I’ve learned so much, but without the actual doing of it, one couldn’t really learn it anyway.”
Lastly, the restaurateurs stressed the importance of nurturing creativity and authenticity in any small business. Kane said that the passion for any creative endeavor stems from a desire to create a particular experience for customers, not just to run a business for financial gain.
“In the same way a self-taught artist or a musician who doesn’t necessarily go to school for their craft understands the thing they want to make, there’s joy derived from shaping a business to your vision,” she said.
“In any business, there are certain rules that put constrictions on you just to keep your doors open,” Kane added. “But there’s also so much breadth and width to how you can make that picture you want to make. I like what happens when you understand the thing, but then you make the thing to suit the way that you see the picture.”
Kane said the beauty of small businesses is that they never get too big to lose sight of that vision.
“There’s always that huge picture of this small thing that moves me,” she said. “But there’s only so big it can go until it stops holding someone.”
