From Garage Pop-up to Bustling Brick and Mortar:
The early story of Harlem Biscuit Company
Location: New York, NY
Restaurant type: Fast casual
Cuisine: American, Southern
Years open: 4
The start: In March 2020, Chef Melvin “Boots” Johnson was at a crossroads. He’d been laid off from his restaurant job and was denied unemployment benefits. During a time when many were unsure of what to do next, Boots went to a place he’d always considered home: his kitchen. “I started cooking fried chicken and biscuits, right out of my garage,” Boots said. Using the Nextdoor app, he shared what he’d cooked up and started accepting orders. “Next thing you know, I have 30 orders from moms who are just excited to not be cooking on a Friday night,” Boots remembers.
As business picked up, he decided to approach his friend and now business partner Warren Satchell and discover what they could do to turn this venture into an actual business. So, they hosted a pop-up in the East Village of New York City, and although it wasn’t as successful as he’d hoped, he didn’t give up. He turned to a bar owner in Harlem and asked if he could leverage his space to set up a pop-up shop for his chicken and biscuits. The bar owner agreed — with a catch. He only had two weeks to prove it was a good bet.
“In those two weeks, people went crazy,” said Boots. “[People were] coming from all over … because they posted about these biscuits, and they’re putting pictures up all over social media,” he added. Needless to say, the bar owner let them keep the pop-up shop until they were ready to open their own brick-and-mortar shop (two years later, by the way).
The challenge: Boots and Satchell ran into a number of challenges along the way, but the biggest challenge was getting used to handling tasks outside of the kitchen and the technology that came with it. “We had to force ourselves to come out of the kitchen and really learn. I’m a restaurateur, and I know everything about building a restaurant, but that technology part of it, I was trying to stay away from it as much as I possibly could,” said Boots. Everything from launching a website to pulling data reports was new to the newly minted team. They proceeded to invest in tools like Square Online to help them understand how their business was performing. Once they got the hang of the technology, it ultimately helped them grow their burgeoning business.
“I’m thinking, 12, 18, 24 months out [now]; I’m thinking about system integrations, technology that ultimately benefits and sets us up for the long haul — not just a band-aid solution,” Boots explained.
The present: Today, Harlem Biscuit Company has its own brick-and-mortar location, and it’s still deeply loved within the community. The business has been featured on ABC and NBC and has even been raved about on TikTok. But Harlem Biscuit Company is just getting started. Boots envisions a world where Harlem Biscuit Company sells its biscuits nationwide and its homemade spreads are on grocery shelves near and far.
The insight: Two of Boots’ biggest pieces of advice for new business owners are to build customer loyalty through experience and stay resilient. On the topic of loyalty, he says, “Loyalty is a broad term. What I can suggest is looking at loyalty through the lens of every single customer touchpoint. Every opportunity that the customer has to interact with your brand is an opportunity to build loyalty.”
But at the end of the day, when all of the customers are gone and you have to prepare for what’s next, he says, “Will and determination are the keys to a resilient business. We thankfully have a product that does most of the work for us, but we still have to show up daily with a mindset to WIN.”
Square products used: Square Gift Cards, Square Register, Square for Restaurants, Square Payroll, and Square Online
