Jet Tila is the chef at Wazuzu, the buzzworthy pan-Asian restaurant at Encore Las Vegas. He is from L.A.
Kari Haskell is the baker behind northwest Las Vegas' Retro Bakery, known all over the valley for creative cupcakes with a little attitude and a lot of buttercream. She is from Oregon.
Ricardo Guerrero is the creator of Slidin' Thru, a mini-burger slinging lunch truck local foodies are chasing from Henderson to Summerlin. He is a Vegas native.
They're young, hip, passionate about their food - and savvy beyond their years when it comes to building their businesses and images. They sat down with me recently over dim sum, sushi and megachip cookies for a casual conversation about what they do, where they're going - and why we're following.
How to stand out - and stand tall
Brock: Cupcakes, the truck and the sliders, and the cuisine here at Wazuzu, pan-Asian, are all pretty hot trends in food right now. How do you distinguish yourselves?
Kari: I'm trying to do it by diversifying our menu. It's cupcakes, all day, every day, but we have, for example, the megachip cookie, a Saturday special. I've been baking that cookie since I was 15. That's what I've always done - bake. Cake came because that's what I could build my business on, and custom cakes because that's what my husband is very good at.
Jet: So what makes the slider truck different?
Ricardo: The food we serve. The Ya-Ya burger is Greek, named after my grandmother. It's homemade tzatziki sauce, a little feta cheese and red wine vinaigrette. It's something unique. You're not going to find it anywhere else. The Captain's Order is balsamic reduction, feta cheese, sautéed onions and bacon. There's a Caprese with fresh mozzarella and basil. And who doesn't like a slider? You get three different ones in one tray.
Kari: You don't feel fat eating it. Just like a cupcake!
Jet: Wazuzu is a different animal, being on the Strip. I'm not good at a lot of things but I think I'm good at understanding what people want. I went right to New York right when I got my job, ate everywhere, ate everywhere in L.A., and thought, what's missing? To me, pan-Asian here was like Tao, basically a Chinese joint with a pad Thai and sushi.
Brock: They have food there?
Jet: Exactly. In Vegas, who else is pan-Asian? At that time, Social House, and now they're back. And that's a sushi joint with a pad Thai. They'll weave in one other Asian dish and call it pan-Asian. But it makes great sense business-wise, because you're going to get higher perceived value from sushi than Chinese food.
Kari: So did you choose Encore or did Encore choose you?
Jet: Encore chose me.
Kari: That's amazing.
Jet: I was working 30 hours a week cooking for billionaires in L.A., moonlighting. I had the best life. And then they were like, "Mr. Wynn would like to open a restaurant."
Kari: Oh my god! I can't even imagine that.
Ricardo: That's a crazy phone call.
Jet: I was like, How did you find me? I live off the radar. I'm not Ming Tsai. There's maybe four or five dudes that can knock this kind of restaurant out, competently give you great dim sum and great sushi and great Thai. So I cooked the tasting, I left it all here, thought, I'm never gonna get this job. And then: "Do you want the job?"
"Are you serious? Do you know me?" So I figure this was the next step for me. I'm 35 now. The 30s are the best ever.
Kari: You feel confident, like, I can do this.
Jet: You've amassed enough skill at what you do.
Kari: Yes!
Jet: You're mature enough to plan what you want to do with it.
Kari: Yes!
Jet: We hope. You've shed most of your vices.
Kari: Well, no ...
Ricardo: She works at a cupcake shop!
Kari: I do eat a lot of sugar. I have a total love-hate with what I do.
Jet: Don't we all?
Kari: Sometimes I think maybe I should come up with a cupcake that people will feel better about eating. You at least have some healthy stuff on the menu here.
Jet: But I'm further in my 30s. I have to eat better. How old are you?
Ricardo: 23.
Jet: What's it like at your age, building this business?
Ricardo: Sometimes it's a little overwhelming, and it's only been four months. I had big dreams but I had no idea it would take on what it has in such a short amount of time. I'm just trying to buckle down and get super focused. I don't want it to blow by me and think, if only I had done things a little different. I'm trying to calculate every move right. I want this to turn into my legacy. I don't want to ever have to fill out another application ever again! (laughs) It's all so new to me. I didn't work for like a year before this, I was just going to school. I would have friends over and cook a big dinner and bring leftovers home to my mom and she would say, "You should start a catering company or something." But then it was like, check out this cool trend that's going on in L.A. with all these lunch trucks. This is probably realistic for us. We started looking into trucks and then it just happened. Three months later, I'm setting my grand opening. We went for it.
Jet: How many days are you in service?
Ricardo: Five days a week.
Kari: So lucky. I see your schedule and I'm like, "That son of a bitch!"
Ricardo: Yeah, but I wake up at six in the morning and go to bed at one o'clock.
Kari: Exactly. And your days off are not days off.
Ricardo: There's a lot of planning. But it's all worth it in the end. That's the American dream - build something out of nothing.
Jet: So are you making plans for the next step or just trying to maintain?
Ricardo: I'm trying to take it now and really perfect it so there will be a strong foundation for adding future trucks. We're doing really well but there are things that can be perfected. I feel like we're in our little brother's t-shirt right now, busting at the seams.
Jet: My family came here in the '60s and opened the first little Thai market in the country - it was 800 square feet - and some of the first Thai restaurants in the history of America. So I was the kid bagging groceries and wiping the floor, cutting meat, working at the restaurant. So this is what it's about for me. Do I want to grow? My whole life has been about taking my parents' foundation and finding out how really big people made it. That's why I love your story.
