03/11/2024
LIFE UPDATE AND STORY TIME - New haircut, new collar, new career! (lol jk)
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐰𝐚𝐦𝐩 𝐁𝐨𝐢𝐥. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫.
This post has been a long time coming. Many people have asked me about Swamp Boil, why we closed the restaurant, and what I’m doing now. So, here it is from top to bottom! (Long Post)
My family and I started the Swamp Boil project in 2018. We have owned The Square Plaza where Swamp Boil, BC Boba Tea & Ice Cream, and Luxury Nails & Spa reside since 2013. My mom’s nail salon was the first business to exist in the plaza, and every time we would go to Orlando to pick up supplies for her salon, we would stop by King Cajun, a Vietnamese-cajun seafood boil restaurant. We would get cases of their sauced-up crawfish boils. I’m talking 20lbs at a time. Sometimes, our family members would even go down to Orlando just to get these boils.
We had vacancies in The Square Plaza and we were always brainstorming what to put in there. At home, we were trying to make something similar to King Cajun’s seafood boil sauce and eventually, we got pretty successful! Our home cooking was already loved by our friends and family too. So, we started bouncing around the idea of starting a Vietnamese-Cajun restaurant in our plaza vacancy. The concept had never existed in Gainesville, and it was perfect for game days, graduations, events, and other celebrations. It sounded like a perfect fit!
This is where it all gets real. In 2018, my family approached me to build and run the restaurant. I was reluctant. I did not want to start and run a restaurant. At the time, I was doing residential real estate, building Onesixone Ventures, and active in various startups and the entrepreneurial community. My personal “why” in life is: to help people feel Love and connection through created experiences. Thinking on this opportunity to practice my “why” and using it as a powerful learning and growing opportunity for my business and life experiences, I eventually accepted the position.
We began construction in 2018 and one year later in 2019, the world stood still. COVID stopped and changed life as we knew it. When things began moving again and people finally got back into this new world, we continued building the restaurant. Finally, on October 12, 2020, Swamp Boil was officially opened.
Many of you know the story from here. We instantly created a buzz and throughout our years of business, we became a favorited part of our community. People loved us and we were grateful for the patronage of our guests. You guys were the reason we did what we did and to this day, we are forever appreciative and grateful for all of the love and support all of you have given us. Receiving that has been one of my life’s greatest achievements.
Here are the parts that you guys don’t know. I wanted to close Swamp Boil after the first year. Everyone understands working in a restaurant is hard but running one is a personal hell. When I was finding restaurant mentors, I remember one asking me “why?” when I told him I was opening up a restaurant. I laughed and said because it’ll be fun and fulfilling! He being in the industry for over a decade, just smiled and said okay.
The goal for Swamp Boil was to become profitable after our 3rd year. The first year 2020, obviously we were in the red and the world was recovering from COVID. We used the slow time to figure out our systems and procedures. This time also forced us to be creative and innovative with our resources and marketing. Many of these efforts were what led us to become such a big name in such a short time, and they reinforced my skills in marketing, management, leadership, networking, and so much more. The second year 2021, we got into the flow of things. We underwent numerous changes from menus, staff, and even management, and I started feeling like an actual restauranteur. Our numbers were still in the red, but we saw positive progress. In the third year 2022, we planned to do an entire rebrand and renovation to apply what we learned in the time we were open to give everyone a fresh new menu and feel. However, the recession hit and our costs continued to increase while people’s disposable income began to decrease. Business was slow. Not only did we see record-low numbers, but I was burnt out and depressed for the first time in almost a decade. The restaurant industry chewed me up and spat me out. On October of 2023, I made the executive decision to permanently close the restaurant. On Wednesday, December 13, 2023, Swamp Boil had its final day of business.
Throughout the years, I had a great and fulfilling time building and running Swamp Boil, but it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I was miserable at Swamp Boil. My friend Justis Mendez told me he had never heard me say the words “I am miserable”. My close friends saw it in me too, but of course, I didn’t want to share that with the rest of the world and kept on trucking. I had a commitment to our team and our community, and I was proud of what we were building and achieving. Fall graduation weekend of 2023 before my parents and I went on our Europe and Vietnam trip to visit our family was the nail in my coffin. I was completely burnt out and depressed. I still remember sitting in a Paris restaurant and for the first time ever in my entire life telling my parents I was depressed, and I wanted out. We were miserable and losing money so why continue without a clear sight of success in the future? They encouraged me to keep trying, do the rebrand and renovations, and they would support me in whatever way I needed. I had hope in the new changes we planned on making and so I gritted my teeth and continued forward. I was refreshed after our trip but after being back and then going to Burning Man and getting inspired towards my true endeavors, things started to sink in again and some things even got worse. At this point, we were all burnt out. My family experienced what I was experiencing, and they agreed that the best decision was to close and lease the restaurant. On December 4th, 2023, I made the public announcement on our decision to close Swamp Boil.
While all of that was going on, I was pondering what was next, until on one serendipitous evening I met the wonderful, Teresa Callen. We randomly met in passing and started chatting about what was going on in the city and what developments were happening. I was bombarding her with questions and she answered them eloquently and candidly. We met a week or so later and she showed me what she did in commercial real estate, explaining to me the businesses she had helped throughout town, the connections and relationships she had with the movers and shakers of our community, and how she has helped shape the Gainesville ecosystem. My eyes lit up during our conversations and my mind was racing with ideas and possibilities. I shared with her my desire to get into commercial real estate because I have always wanted to help shape and build Gainesville into the beautiful and prosperous place I know it will be. I have always loved and adored this place I’ve called home since 2003, and I wanted to play a role in helping it grow.
She introduced me to her broker, Kris Callen, and to the rest of the team. We all really clicked and I saw myself fitting in well with this incredible group. On November 28th, 2023, I officially joined the Portal Realty team as their newest commercial real estate agent. I was overjoyed.
I became the agent to list and lease Swamp Boil, my own business, as my first deal as a commercial realtor. It was the perfect transition from past to present careers. We were able to find a buyer and closed on the lease in under a month. On February 9th, 2024, Swamp Boil was officially signed over to our family friend and contractor who helped us build Swamp Boil from day one. It couldn’t have been more serendipitous.
Swamp Boil was a labor of love and pride. We built something beautiful for our community and I’m proud to say many people still come to me and acknowledge the positive impact it made on them. Thank you all for that. The next day after we closed our doors, I felt like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders and I had new life in me. It was a bittersweet moment for us to close. The final days leading up to the closing became harder and harder because we and many others loved this place. It became integrated into the Gainesville ecosystem and it was sad seeing it go. Sometimes we felt like we gave up but we also knew we had bigger things to do than to let ourselves bleed out from a project that no longer served us. We had a bigger mission to fulfill.
There are a lot of details that I could write on and on about but this is long enough. I’m grateful for all the hardships we went through, the laughs we celebrated, the new and old relationships that have endured, and everything in between. I asked myself recently if I went back in time, would I do it all over again? In the past, I would’ve said no, but now, I would say yes. It shaped me into the person I am today and it brought so many amazing people and opportunities into my life that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I’m grateful for everything Swamp Boil was and still is. And, I’m grateful for this beautiful new future I have with Portal Realty.
That’s pretty much everything in a nutshell. If anyone ever wants to talk to me more about it, I’m happy to share my experience. I’ve learned a lot from these past few years and I am excited for the new projects that have come from them. As a final note, I’d like to share something I say often: you have to eat s**t before you eat caviar. Become a s**t connoisseur. The s**t you eat are the new experiences you try. You will never know what you like, what you don’t like, what you’re good at, and what you suck at until you put yourself out there and try. Eventually, you will have your caviar. You will learn your strengths and the things you love doing. The s**t I ate at Swamp Boil (not the actual food and drinks btw, those were delicious *chefs kiss*) taught me probably more than an MBA ever would. We are better because we do hard things and learn from them. So go out there and eat s**t and find your caviar.
If you want to connect, collaborate, or work together in the future, let me know! I’m always looking to connect.
I'd like to end this post by thanking everyone who has been a part of our corner throughout these years. We've been so blessed to have been helped by so many of you and I'm bound to miss everyone so I apologize if I miss you. Also, after tagging over 150 of you, I learned Facebook only allows 50 tags per post. Danny Ospino Julianne Flinchum Theresa Glaeser Hiro Leung Jim Asp Kristin Frost Amron Steve Grimes Joseph Santti Kevin Conklin Kyle Chance Michael Solomon Rynni Henderson Pablo Casilimas Martin Schaffel Parker Van Hart Carrie Wachter Martinez Khetpapol Limphoka Kyle Prodesky Jordan Fennell Caleb Noble Rick Fabiani Andy Chávez Jonathan Mills Isaac Hetzroni Anthony Traina Fernando L. Sanchez Steve Kaufman Kevin Conklin Alex Noboa Marihelen Wheeler Steve Cannon Victoria Liu Yadira Amarante Rakhu Amun Les Voss Noah Wilburn Edward Lavagnino Savanna Driebe Miller Joyner Aunt Carol's Sauce Laila Fakhoury Christie Debler Elizabeth Tortorici Greater Gainesville Chamber of Commerce Greater Gainesville Young Professionals
Swamp Boil signing out.
