A chef needs to be skilled in the kitchen. A restaurateur needs to be a skilled businessperson.
Entrepreneurs who play both roles have to manage both the atmosphere and food quality of their restaurants while managing their branding and reputation online. Thanks to Digital Main Street Mississauga, Jong Park can now manage HEE SUSHI’s digital presence just as well as he manages the kitchen.
Opened in May of 2021, HEE SUSHI in Clarkson specializes in unique combinations of sushi, rolls, and Japanese cuisine. Their staff are constantly creating innovative and traditional items and special plates for their loyal customer base who are always searching for a new experience from a team they know has fresh, high-quality ingredients to work with and deep knowledge of Japanese cuisine. The evolving dining experiences are Instagram-worthy and the emphasis on freshness demands the use of inventory control features embedded in restaurant management software suites. Accessing the expertise from Mississauga’s Digital Service Squad helped Jong breakthrough barriers to leverage the technologies HEE SUSHI needed.
“The team from Digital Main Street walked me through the processes of setting up ads step-by-step,” Jong said. “It helped me so much in connecting with the local community by making my business more visible and engaged. It’s astonishing to hear what customers have to say, like they didn’t know my restaurant even existed before they saw my ads, even though it has been here for over 2 years!”
Mississauga-based entrepreneurs who work with the Digital Main Street program work directly with a member of the Digital Service Squad and participate in webinars to learn how to use the tools of digital transformation to start or grow their businesses. Promising enterprises receive grants of $2500 to help them overcome financial barriers to embracing technology to support their operations.
“Due to the cost, I barely used the tools I now use,” Jong explained. “I didn’t actively advertise my restaurant on Google and delivery apps. Now I run ads on those platforms, and am able to bring more traffic into my restaurant as it increases awareness among potential customers in the community.”
While the process sounds easy now, Jong admits the initial risk was once too great for him. Entrepreneurs are independent people who find ways to finance their own businesses and carry the operations as the business becomes established. Before Digital Main Street, taking an additional risk on digital tools was just too much for Jong to take on alone.
“I knew marketing strategies needed time to build awareness and show results, but investing the capital to get started was a worry for me,” Jong remembered. “I couldn’t risk wasting funds because I didn’t know exactly what to do. With the help from the Digital Main Street team, I narrowed down the strategies I wanted to apply.”
Sharing the risk of establishing a digital marketing plan was just part of the value Digital Main Street brought to HEE SUSHI. Participating in the program was deeply meaningful to its owner, and that meaning only multiplied once the digital ads were set. Advertising might make a potential customer aware that a restaurant exists, but taking care of them so they want to come back much requires more.
“All the material helped me structure my business more effectively and more efficiently. I implemented so much of what I learned from the Digital Main Street program into my business operations,” Jong said.
“Improving customer service was my top priority. As a result, I see more smiles from my customers and have more regular visits from them, as well as more positive feedback. Seeing those smiles means so much to me as a business owner.”
The program was such a positive experience for HEE SUSHI that Jong does not hesitate to recommend it to other entrepreneurs in Mississauga.
“I’d say that with this small grant of $2500, you can initiate plans that were on hold and see the results,” he said. “For me, it was about customer service, marketing and operations, and now I have a greater confidence in those parts of my business, in myself, and in my team’s ability to take care of our customers.”
