Music
From sunrise to sunset, Brewster has it all.
Hi, I'm Kyle Hinkel.
I'm the Executive Director of the Brewster Chamber of Commerce,
and this is The Best of Brewster,
a monthly show featuring the business people of Brewster and Cape Cod.
This month, the spotlight business is the furies Cape Cod Cleaning and Linen Service,
and I'll be talking with the new owner, Steve Lam.
But right now, joining me here in the studio at Channel 99 in Northeast Ham
is Kyle Parker, the owner of Guapo's Tortoise Shack.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. This is fantastic. What an honor.
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
Very grateful.
Well, we're celebrating Guapo's right now because the Brewster Chamber of Commerce
has selected Guapo's to be honored with a Score Build a Better Mousetrap Award,
which is going to take place in May.
This is a program that Score developed where they invite the local chambers of commerce
from Cape Cod in the islands to honor somebody from their local community
who has survived the first critical five years in business
and is contributing to the health of our local economy.
And we all felt that Guapo's fits that bill.
Well, we're grateful for you feeling that way, for sure.
Hey, you're welcome.
It's amazing.
Definitely.
So when did you first open Guapo's?
We opened our first location for Guapo's in 2005 on Route 6A in Brewster,
right next door to the Brewster General Store.
Right.
Yeah.
And what was that like? I remember that.
It was awesome. I mean, it was an incredible experience.
We learned a lot. The first thing we learned is that we needed a bigger place
and a bigger parking lot.
Yeah.
But everything in between was a real blessing for us
because all of the challenges that we faced in that particular location
got us ready for the next location.
Right. That makes sense.
So we had some experience.
Yeah, I remember how if you tried to get in there with the parking,
and then you couldn't back up and you couldn't go forward
and it was jammed in there on 6A, it was not...
We couldn't get in there to go to work sometimes.
My wife got into a car accident right in front one day
with our newborn daughter right in the back seat.
Yeah.
And it was pretty scary, but it just became very clear to us
that if we had intentions of being around for a long time,
we had to find a new spot.
Yeah.
And you did.
We did. We were very lucky.
So the new spot is up on Underpass Road.
Yep.
And it's near the bike trail.
And it was prior to your purchasing it and renovating,
it had been...
We bought it from Terry in Sandy Ladd,
and they operated it as Brewster Express,
Box Launch, and they had another concept in there once before,
and they had it for a long time,
I think probably close to 30 years or something like that.
Wow.
I didn't realize that.
So that's a good model to follow, I think.
That is a good model to follow.
You found a good spot that had good vibes.
Yeah, totally.
And I understand you did do some remodeling in there.
We sure did.
I mean, we bought it and we didn't have time to get it ready
for the first summer season when we bought it.
So through the winter time,
we kind of tore it all apart and put it back together
and flip-flopped the lobby in the kitchen.
So the kitchen used to be enormous.
And what we did was we tightened up the kitchen
and made it really small because I believe...
Well, I like small spaces to work in because it's very manageable.
Yeah.
And we gave the guests a lot more room to move around in the lobby
and it gave us an opportunity to kind of invite them inside to our home
is how we felt.
Yeah.
We didn't feel like it was a counter.
When you moved up to Underpass Road,
it was two years after you first opened that you moved up to Underpass.
Yes.
And was it year-round at that point,
or was it just summer seasonal only?
So when we first started next to the general store, we were year-round.
We didn't understand the seasonality of the business here.
We had just moved here from New York City.
So we felt that the idea of being year-round
and being here for the locals and our friends was really important.
Right.
And also we had a rent bill to pay every single month
that was kind of expensive.
So we couldn't really afford to close.
Once we collected some data after a couple of years,
it became clear to us that the way to stay there for 30 years like the Lads
would be to go seasonal.
So that's what we did right out of the gates at the new location
and we haven't really looked back.
Yeah.
That makes so much business sense.
It's just totally makes so much business sense.
It's like, how do you deal with this, the seasonality of things?
Thank God we have some great professionals around us
that can give us guidance because you can look at data
and spreadsheets and all kinds of information.
But the entrepreneurial side of you says,
I need to be here.
I don't want to miss anything.
I want to serve the community year-round.
Sometimes that's not practical.
It takes a lot of courage, I think, to say,
you know what, this is what we have to do
and just see it through that way.
And you mentioned entrepreneurial
and I think you're one of the more vibrant entrepreneurs on the Cape.
Thank you.
Well, you've proven it.
And so what's it like to be an entrepreneur?
It's terrifying, you know, really.
I mean, any entrepreneur that I know that I try to emulate,
that I feel is successful and worthwhile
to kind of model myself after,
we're all very passionate.
We're all very committed to our core values
and to what we believe in, and we're all dreamers.
You know, I think that the big thing for us is that,
you know, we're sitting here at Nassat High School.
Anybody will tell you I was a terrible student.
I think it's public record.
But the fact is, is that because I was a terrible student,
didn't mean I was a terrible person.
Right.
And the things that I saw and that I believed in,
it was really hard to convince a lot of people of that.
And thankfully, and I'm very lucky to be sitting here today,
is that I found the right people to believe in me
and give me an opportunity to show what I could do.
To go from forward, which is really cool.
It's really cool.
Now, I remember when I was talking with you and Donna beforehand,
Donna remembers holding one of your children
while she was operating as the cashier.
Now, that's a huge, I mean, talk about a family business.
You know, mother, daughter, child, rather,
and husband, all in the same place.
What are some of the other challenges that you faced
as a new business owner?
Well, as a new business owner,
I think that you come out of the gates so well-intended
and in the dreamer side of you and the passion side of you,
kind of, you know, overruns the practical and business side of you.
So you're going off of a lot of emotion.
And I think that it takes a long,
it took me a few years to really settle into myself
and let go of some of that emotional stuff
and take a real practical approach to the way we did things
and why we did things and who we were.
So I think that, for me, one of the biggest challenges
was kind of tuning out the negative feedback
and the people who didn't believe that anything was possible.
And, you know, you have to stay hopeful.
And I think that you really have to select
who you spend your time with
because the negativity you get from some people is defeating.
And I think that in a lot of the cases,
you know, guys like me are kind of best off spending some time alone
than in large groups because the way I view the world
and the way I see things isn't really common.
Your glass is half full.
Yeah, I think so. I feel pretty good about it.
So now you own the store,
or you have a store in Orleans as well.
Yes.
And when did you open that?
We opened in 2012, I believe.
In November?
Yeah. Wow. Hard time of year to open.
Very difficult time of year to open.
It wasn't the way we drew it up on the board,
but you have to take what you do and roll with it.
So what were the challenges you faced there
with that November opening and everything?
So going back, you know, when you re-engage the idea of a startup,
you're starting to get your creative juices flowing.
You're starting to get your emotional side up to the front
and you really, you know, you believe in something so strongly
and you kind of have to push aside the pragmatic side
and go full guns of lazing and get your program started.
So for me, I think that the challenges
with opening the Orleans location were very personal.
I had a lot of great support around me.
I had a lot of, you know, incredible people around me,
but the challenging part were, again,
I think that there was a lot of, you know,
people have a lot of opinions about what you want to do
and what you want to do with your life,
and we had everybody from our accountant
to some local business leaders that I respect,
that I went, that I go to for counsel,
telling me it wasn't the right time and it wasn't this
and it wasn't that, but I knew it was the right time
and it was the right decision.
I knew it in my heart and I had to stick to my guns
and really see it through because I believed in it.
And put down those emotions that we're crowding in
at the same time, challenging stuff to do.
So I know that you were holding special fundraisers
at Guapos out of Orleans.
Why did you start doing that?
So I think a large part of who we are
has to do with our sense of community
and our commitment to our community.
When we opened the Orleans location,
we finally had a vehicle that we could, you know,
a facility that we could use to kind of engage the community
in a really meaningful way.
And I firmly believe, you know, I think it was Albert Einstein
that said a life spent not serving others
is a life not worthwhile.
And I believe that.
It's not something that, you know,
I didn't open any restaurants thinking I was going to be a rich man.
I don't think that that's me.
But I opened it because in my experience
traveling around the country and working in different places,
I always admired the operators that really engage the community.
And, you know, it's a privilege to be in business
and you have to give back.
And it's the right thing to do.
You know, for me, it was always something that was on my mind.
I didn't have the right vehicle for it.
When Orleans came about, it was just a natural fit.
Yeah, really.
What are some of the organizations that you've helped
through the fundraisers at the store?
We partnered with the Latham School for a long time,
Cape Cod Children's Place.
Capabilities.
Capabilities.
Remember that from last year.
Project graduation here at Nassau High School.
I'm kind of looking offset to my wife
because that's kind of her side of things with the logistics.
But we try to touch as many local nonprofits
that are doing great work with kids specifically as possible.
I was a kid growing up here.
I understand the challenges of being like me in this community
because I'm different and I have different energy
and the way I see things might be a little bit different.
So anything that we could do to help a kid realize their potential
and realize that there are people out there like them,
that, you know, on paper I shouldn't be sitting here with you.
But I'm fortunate enough to have had the right people around me
and the right mentors to guide me
and that, you know, gave me the confidence to chase it.
Now, you mentioned that, well, when you were growing up
in the living in Rooster, that you worked at Chillingzorth.
Chillingzorth for a long time.
Long time. I think we did 10 or 12 years with Nitzie.
And what an incredible guy.
I mean, that guy, Nitzie, has done more for me than he'd ever know.
The inspiration and the tough determination that he showed me
when I was a kid.
He's amazing.
It's amazing.
And that guy, he should be celebrated every minute
for what he's accomplished.
He's a great chef and a great businessman.
Incredible.
That's what we need to have him in our community.
So I've asked people these two questions,
which I think are kind of interesting for the people to hear.
What do you like most about being a business owner?
What I like most about it is being able to have an idea
and take an idea, kind of sketch it out on the paper
and realize it when you make it a real, a real living thing.
You know, everything that we have started
and that we continue to do today started off as an idea.
And if you look at it now from when it started,
it's evolved so much.
And that is so exciting to me.
Every single year we try to change something.
We try to update and evolve and grow not only as a business
but as operators and as people.
And I think that that part is so rewarding to me.
I wouldn't replace it for anything in the world.
And being able to work in an environment,
having been in corporate America,
to be able to work in my own environment where I feel,
I believe in what we do 100%.
I believe in our mission.
I believe in our team.
I believe in my wife.
I believe in our people.
I wouldn't trade it for anything.
That's great.
It's amazing.
That's fantastic.
That's fantastic.
What's your favorite pastime?
Well, anything to do with my kids.
You know, I love spending time with my kids
and we work really hard to make sure
that we're available to them all the time.
But on the selfish side of things,
you know, if I could get on a golf course any day,
I would love to do it.
There you go.
You know, I've got a great group of guys
that I golf with here,
so that's always a treat for me.
Yeah, that's cool.
Well, this has really been fascinating.
And I want to thank you very much for taking time
out of your busy schedule
and I know it is busy for doing the interview.
And congratulations on the Mousetrap Award.
Thank you.
This is really awesome.
You'll be receiving a plaque
and you'll be able to hang it up in the store.
Maybe we can get them to give you two.
That would be really cool.
That would be a great store.
That would be really cool.
Which would be really cool.
We're very grateful.
So now, folks, follow me to Wellfleet
and I'll introduce you to Steve Lam
and we'll be at the Furies.
Awesome.
That was terrific.
Thank you.
We're here at the Furies in Wellfleet,
right on Route 6A.
I'm getting ready to go in
and talk to the new owner of the business, Steve Lam.
So follow me.
Welcome to the show, Steve.
Thank you very much, Kyle.
You're welcome.
This is really cool.
This is really simple.
We're just going to have a conversation.
And I am interested to know just what is the Furies.
I love the logo.
The Furies is an awesome company
and it's been around for more than 30 years.
I am very fortunate to have acquired the Furies in 2016,
having taken over for Sarah Payne Curley,
who is a phenomenal person
and built a great company.
My mission is to continue what the Furies does
and essentially we're residential and commercial cleaners.
We also do steam cleaning.
And if you look around this wonderful room,
we have linens and towels to satisfy vacationers
that come out to Cape Cod and who need towels and linens
because the house doesn't provide it.
The vacation homeowner doesn't provide it.
Yeah, I can remember as a kid coming out to the Cape
and mom having to pile all the linens in the car
and what a pain that was.
And so this is great because people can just come here
without having to worry about that.
They can pick them up and then they can drop them off
and they don't have to worry about watching them either, right?
It's exactly. It's that much less to pack.
And it's a wonderful thing when we hand them off to people
and we hand deliver as well on the Cape
and when they bring them back and they say,
see you next year, so we love to hear that.
There you go.
We love to hear that.
Yeah, you got a built-in audience there.
So when did you decide to buy the Furies?
I met Sarah last April having been a New Yorker
and been a CFO and COO of several companies
over 30 plus years.
I've always wanted to own a company
and it took quite a few months and an exhaustive effort
actually evaluated over 30 companies in the New York area
as well as throughout New England.
And Sarah's business, this business,
I felt so close to because it's a high integrity service business
in a wonderful area.
I've always loved Cape Cod.
My family roots are on Cape Cod and also in Massachusetts.
So it felt like a natural move for us to try and manage that transition
and we were fortunate enough to do that.
Now, where do you live on the Cape?
My wife and I live in Brewster.
I commute obviously to this location here in Wellfleet.
We bought a house in Wellfleet but it's for our employees
because part of the challenge of owning a business on the outer Cape
is housing, especially when the employees bulk up during the summer
and so we have a house and we also have other housing
that we offer for employees that come on the Cape for the summer.
That's really terrific.
It is.
It's really good to hear because you're right about the housing.
It's a huge issue here.
That's crazy.
It is.
I know other businesses on the Cape that have bought motels
or have other add-ons to their business in order to accommodate that process
but you need to take those type of steps
in order to prepare your organization, whether it be this company
or a restaurant to serve as the great population
that comes on the Cape during the summer.
Yeah, it becomes one of the benefits that you offer to an employee too
to be able to say, I've got a place where you'll be able to stay.
Exactly.
It's one of the hooks, if you will, when you're looking for new people.
So that's important.
Sure.
I love it.
So you mentioned that you were a CFO and a COO in corporations.
Tell me about that.
Well, I had some interesting experiences.
I was the CFO and COO of a company called Steiner Sports.
We were in the sports marketing at Sports Men Rebellion World.
So I met Hall of Famers, Hank Aaron, Derek Jeter,
all the Red Sox, and so many others.
That was awesome.
I had a lot of experience.
I've also been on the board of directors of an Applebee's franchise.
I've been in the videocassette distribution business.
I've been fortunate.
I've had a marvelous career, but life has to be lived once.
Right.
And I felt like this was something I needed and wanted to do.
Definitely a different direction.
Exactly.
But at the same time, your whole analytical side
kicked in there when you were doing the analysis about whether you wanted,
what business am I going to get?
Yes.
I knew what I didn't want.
I knew what I wanted.
And I was able to, as I mentioned earlier,
when I looked through several businesses,
personally, I was able to evaluate them rather quickly
because of my experience.
Right, because of your background, which is cool.
And I'm also fortunate to be working with some amazing people
in the office, Veronica and Kate and Ryan
and so many others that play an integral role
in running the FURIES quality people that care,
that deal with our customers and understand their needs
and help the business move in the right direction
by inspiring and training and quality control with our employees
to make sure our customers are 100% satisfied.
So these folks stayed with you when you purchased the business?
Oh, sure.
Which is really wonderful.
Keeping people employed is important.
Exactly.
And we also recently acquired a steam cleaning.
I was going to ask you about that.
Part of our business, yeah.
I knew that you had done that.
Right.
That's interesting.
It's exciting.
It really is, because it's a natural add-on.
We were always offering it, but we were offering it
to an organization that was a subcontractor.
And so we ended up acquiring that business.
The name of the business is Hydropower.
It's been around for several years.
We've been fully trained and our staff has gone through
the entire process, including technical training.
And it's an amazing, amazing part of our offering,
because before we didn't clean carpets on that level
or upholstery on that level.
We would just obviously vacuum and mop and wash.
And also, I should add, in an eco-friendly mindset,
which is everyone is conscious of the environment.
These days, yeah, very much so, which is really cool.
So are there plans for any additional expansion,
or is that the expansion for now?
I think we're okay for right now.
Do you have any ideas?
If I come up with one, I'll let you know.
Okay.
That's cool.
So I always ask everybody who is on the show,
these two questions.
What do you like most about being your own business owner?
That's a good question.
I thoroughly enjoy meeting customers
and getting to know our employees.
The two main forces that make a business successful and fun
are the relationships with customers and with employees.
And we desire for our employees to be happy and safe
and successful.
And I get a big kick out of meeting our customers
and getting the validation that we're meeting their needs.
That's cool.
It's very, very, very rewarding.
That's very cool.
It is.
I'm just curious, how many employees do you have?
We have 10 full-time on a year-round basis,
but we will bulk up to somewhere between 45 and 50
during the course of the summer.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So on the flip side of what you like most,
what do you like least?
Difficult question.
It's hard to put into words what I enjoy least.
I enjoy coming to work every day.
I think about the business on a regular basis.
If I were to come up with one,
I would say that navigating certain issues relating
to legislation and regulation and the whole process
of dealing with H2B's situation is a little bit unique this year.
In future years, we'll have other plans,
and there'll be an evolution of that process.
I'd say that's the least fun,
but we're managing effectively through it.
That's good.
So what do you like to do in your spare time?
I just ran my seventh half marathon.
Oh, nice.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
In New York City this past Sunday,
and I'm in the process of recovering from that.
So I've done seven half marathons,
and I also would like to play golf.
I've been to Scotland with the guys,
and occasionally I get out there.
I love Highland Links.
It's a beautiful course.
It is, of course.
And I've been to Sir Quesad and Captain's course as well.
So that's a lot of fun.
It's always a good experience to get out in the fresh air
and hit the ball and see if it goes in the right direction.
Well, good luck this spring and summer with that.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Well, I want to thank you very much.
This has been really interesting.
Pleasure, Kyle.
Cool.
And thank you all for watching.
You can learn more about the Brewster Chamber of Commerce
by going to our website, www.Brewster-Capecott.com.
Tune in again next month for more of the best of Brewster.
