Restaurant Founders Stress Relationships, Community, and Team Support

As Salt & Straw prepared to open its 55th store and Postino marked 25 years in Phoenix’s Arcadia neighborhood, Kim Malek and Lauren Bailey used a Restaurant Leadership Conference stage to make a blunt point: restaurant growth still depends on human relationships, not just systems and schedules.

The panel, moderated by Sam Oches at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa, came before more than 1,700 restaurant executives and decision-makers gathered in Phoenix. Malek and Bailey described themselves as friends, and Bailey put the emotional reality of the job plainly: “Being a founder is lonely. You’ve got to stick with your peeps.”

For operators, that line landed because both women built their brands from early restaurant work and long bets. Malek said she first envisioned Salt & Straw in 1996 while working at Starbucks, where the idea of a welcoming “third place” helped shape her thinking. Salt & Straw later launched in 2011 as a humble ice cream cart and has grown into a brand that was expanding again in April 2026. Bailey, meanwhile, saved $30,000 from bartending before helping build Postino into a larger hospitality group through Upward Projects, which now includes Postino, Windsor, Churn, Federal Pizza and Joyride Taco House.

That background made the panel feel less like founder inspiration and more like a retention playbook for the floor. The two leaders leaned on community, third places and visible support, a reminder that workers do not stay because a company says it values culture. They stay when the people running it are present, responsive and connected to the business beyond the spreadsheet. In restaurant terms, that matters on a Tuesday night when a shift is short, the kitchen is in the weeds and morale can crack fast.

The practical lesson for managers is simple enough to use on the next shift. Keep relationships alive inside the restaurant and outside it. Make time to know the people you work with, not just their availability. Treat recognition and support as part of the job, not as extras. And remember that loyalty usually comes from more than scheduling software or a pay raise. Malek and Bailey, who have even partnered on a wine cream, showed how much stronger a restaurant can be when the people building it actually know and trust one another.