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

Hi Christian, what is the most important factor behind your success?
For us, the most important factor behind our success has been doing the right thing. Since day one, we’ve always wanted to do the right thing for our guests, our team, our partners/suppliers, our community, and in a broader sense, the world. It’s worked for us because it’s such a simple motto, basically our north star.

It may seem vague, but everyday we’re constantly assessing – what’s the right thing to do? There’s this concept of a ‘flywheel’ for businesses (it can be applied in personal life too), which basically the creation and maintenance of a virtuous circle/cycle.

If we don’t take care of our customers, they won’t come back, and we’ll be out of business; in order to take care of our customers, we have to take care of our team and our partners. Once we start the cycle and set our mind to constantly improving, things can really take off and keep growing.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am the chef & owner of Yang’s Kitchen.

When I first opened my restaurant, I just wanted to cook good food and serve a bunch of people. I quickly learned that if we wanted to survive and make some money, I had to figure out how to operate a profitable business as well. This, as well as managing a large team, is probably the most challenging aspect of my job.

Taking this path definitely humbles you very quickly. You have to be able to face the truth, and to be able to adapt quickly, or otherwise ‘die’. It’s definitely been the biggest challenge of my life and I wouldn’t recommend it to everybody. Running a restaurant can consume the majority of your life & energy, and you must be willing to sacrifice and work ridiculously hard to have a shot at success. Of course, there are outliers and anomalies who can succeed with relative ease, but I wouldn’t say that that’s the norm.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
The luxury of Los Angeles is that it’s such a vast city, there are so many experiences you can curate depending on the person. Most of the people I hang out with enjoy food, so we usually anchor our plans around eating food somewhere, whether it be at a restaurant or a home cooked meal with farmers market ingredients. I would say that visiting a farmers market in Los Angeles is a must do — I think LA has access to some of the best farmers in the entire country. In terms of restaurant recommendations — I can’t really make any because there are so many restaurants in the city, I don’t often go to places more than once, because I always want to check out a new spot and see what they’re about.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Everyone in my life has played a part of where I am today. My parents, my family, my friends, my wife Maggie, my business partner Allan, my previous boss Bryant, etc. Everyone I mentioned above has given and shown me positive and negative experiences, and ultimately, I know it’s up to me to weigh the experiences objectively and to learn from them and use them productively in my own life.

Website: https://yangskitchenla.com

Instagram: yangskitchenla

Image Credits
Brandon Lee, Jennifer Chong

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