Meet Christina Montoya | Director of Operations & Partner at Vin Folk

We had the good fortune of connecting with Christina Montoya and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Christina, we’d love for you to start things off by telling us something about your industry that we and others not in the industry might be unaware of?
That back of the house chefs, cooks & dishwashers work so hard and the pay doesn’t even come close to a good quality of life. Hours are long. The work is very physical. And if you are on salary more than likely you’re being worked to death too.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We opened Vin Folk in Hermosa Beach with an idea in mind. We wanted to create a place that would change the quality of life for chefs and cooks in this industry. We wanted to provide them a living wage and offer health benefits (the least any employer should be offering). We wanted to take that a step further by eliminating traditional front of the house team, servers, bussers, runners, etc. At Vin Folk your server is your chef and every guest receives a chef’s table experience. This way they all split the tips in house in addition to their wages. Everyone wins. I think this sets us apart from the traditional restaurant model in the United States. Usually servers would take home their tips working a fraction the hours that the back of the house would work and make double if not triple what a hard working dishwasher would make. Throughout my years as a fellow co-worker, as a manager, and as a human, it would pull at my heartstrings to watch the hard work the kitchen does and see what goes on their paychecks compared to what the front of house employees make or walk home with. We took even a step further by closing our restaurant on Sundays and Mondays giving everyone a real weekend!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We would hit up places in the South Bay, being thats where I live. I would first take her to get a coffee at Hi-Fi then grab a Baran’s breakfast burrito. We would cruise around the Palos Verdes and check out all the little spots along the water, hike and if its low tide, check out the tide pools. If its nice out we would sleep off our burritos on the beach. We won’t be hungry for lunch so we would go straight into dinner at Gabi James to have tapas and gin, then finish up with at Ryla for martinis and snacks. The next day we would go to the Rivera Health Spa for some Korean body scrubs, massage, and bimbimbaps! Afterwards we would go to happy hour at Mi Burrito for the BEST margaritas in the South Bay. The next day we would ride our bikes from Redondo Beach to Manhattan Beach and have lunch and wine at Fishing with Dynamite where we would crush a tower of seafood. We would walk around window shop around town. Get back on our bikes and stop by Hermosa Beach for a snack off the specials board (and beer) at Hermosa Brewing Co. Crawling back down to Redondo we would stop by the pier and go to Old Tony’s to view the sunset and have a Fire Chief. For music that night we would go see local bands Fartbarf or Royal Rats play at Saint Rocke. The next day we would have appointments with the amazing people at Deep Seas Tattoos to get tatted up before I send her back to LAX.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
All the lady leaders in the South Bay that brought me to this point in life! Sara Gabriele, Co-Owner of Gabi James. Kate Failor owner of Hudson House. Miori Nakamura – Miori Nakamura Designs. And my business partner Katya Shastova, always pushing me to be better.

Website: https://www.vin-folk.com

Instagram: @vin.folk

Image Credits
Ricardo Mora
Christine Le