Nick Lincoln of Urban Wren: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Restaurateur
An Interview With Martita Mestey
Hospitality should always come first.
When we first opened I felt like we made a lot of rules. Rules that made things easier for us. It wasn’t until we started focusing on our hospitality more that we realized those rules were meant to be broken. When hospitality comes first, positivity spreads and guests come back for that.
As a part of our series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Restaurateur”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Nick Lincoln.
Nick Lincoln, Owner & Executive Director of Urban Wren in Greenville, SC is no stranger to the restaurant world. While the pursuit of wine knowledge originally drew Lincoln to the hospitality industry, as he continued to learn more, his vision for Urban Wren cultivated into something that went beyond simply providing good food and good service. Thanks to Lincoln’s careful leadership and direction, what once started as an idea for an urban wine and cheese shop quickly developed into a premier, globally-inspired dining destination in a flourishing culinary scene.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know’ you a bit. Can you share with our readers a story about what inspired you to become a restaurateur?
In 2017, my family and I took a trip to Italy. We were invited by a local winemaker in Montalcino to join his family for a home-cooked dinner. They treated us with amazing hospitality, incredible food, and so many delicious wines throughout the night. To cap off the night, they shared their own label of Brandy with us. Returning to South Carolina, we thought it would be incredible to sell wine and offer experiences like what we had in Italy. This thought is what started the idea that eventually became Urban Wren.
Do you have a specific type of food that you focus on? What was it that first drew you to that type of food? Can you share a story about that with us?
I grew up a picky and simple eater. But I found when I traveled throughout my 20s that I was far less picky than I once thought. I was eating multiple-course dinners with food I had never heard of before in countries like Italy, Hungary, and Honduras. Even in my travels within the States, I found myself more adventurous with trying new food. I realized it was less about what the food was, and more about how it was prepared. The flavor is what I became focused on.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you became a restaurateur? What was the lesson or take away you took out of that story?
I fully jumped into the restaurant industry without a lot of experience. I surrounded myself with good people that I learned from quickly. I remember being on the Expo Line shortly after we opened Urban Wren where I had the thought, “What did I get myself into?”
To paint the picture: It was an incredibly busy night, food was flying out of the kitchen, and everyone was collectively working hard. For over 2 hours straight we had so many tickets printing that we ran out of rail to place the tickets, and I had to start lining them up on the counter in front of me just to keep up. With the tickets that didn’t fit on the counter, I left them in the printer. The Expo Line was overflowing with orders, and panic set in as I was trying to get organized. I also had my chef (a veteran on all accounts) calling to me from across the counter telling me to call out what I needed from him.
I had one of those moments where seconds feel like forever and all I could think about was how I had no idea what I was doing. I had a team of people around me who must have thought that I was a complete idiot for thinking I could do this. But after those few seconds of panic, I shut it off, focused on a couple of tickets at a time, and kept moving.
This is the moment I think about any time I feel like I don’t know what to do. I remember to keep moving and figure it out on the fly.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? How did you overcome this obstacle?
8 days after our grand opening of building our dream that took over 2 years to create, we were forced to shut down because of the Pandemic. We went from having 3 people stacked up behind the bar to being closed for nearly 2 months. When we were finally able to open again, we had to remove half our tables from the dining room and half of our chairs at the bar, keeping everyone 6 feet apart. It was a nightmare come true.
But we didn’t spend all that time to simply close after 8 days. Instead, we took that time to train our staff more about wine. When we reopened our doors, it was a much slower pace which helped our team ease into the opening of our new restaurant. It became a blessing in disguise to be able to slowly work on our craft and execution as a team. Many of them stayed on staff for over 2 years following the Pandemic. We were able to create consistency and have had thousands of 5-star reviews for all the great things our team does. That reputation we built has given us some great accolades and amazing experiences that we hear from our guests. It’s an honor to hear so many people tell us it’s their favorite restaurant in Greenville, South Carolina.
In your experience, what is the key to creating a dish that customers are crazy about?
Whimsical presentations and flavor. People commonly say they “want to eat something they can’t make at home.” I think our menu does this very well. From the ingredients to the execution, many of our dishes are too laborious or too challenging to execute for the at-home chef. When chef puts together a dish, it isn’t enough that it simply tastes great. It also must be memorable in its presentation. We have been lucky enough to have executive chef Taylor Montgomery create so many memorable dishes. His dishes are eccentric and eye-catching, and we oftentimes have had guests stop a food runner along the way to ask what the dish is that they are running. It’s his whimsical and fun dishes that he packs with flavor that create a great dish and overall dining experience for our guests.
Personally, what is the ‘perfect meal for you’?
I love a multiple-course meal. Six, nine, fifteen courses; I love it. I love small portioned plates, each showcasing its own flavors and going through the experience of inspiration behind it all. One great tasting menu is like going out to dinner at 9 different restaurants in one sitting. I’d honestly not eat all day to eat this way every day for dinner if I could.
Where does your inspiration for creating come from? Is there something that you turn to for a daily creativity boost?
My inspiration comes from reading and listening to podcasts. I follow so many different types of people and I am constantly reading new books. I get fulfilled from reading success stories and hearing people’s ideas and experiences of all kinds. I get just as much inspiration from listening to a military veteran on a podcast or a business mogul talk about their latest achievement, as I do from reading about some of the most successful people in the restaurant industry. These stories and ideas I hear or read help me to inspire my team and continuously work on building the culture of our restaurants.
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? What impact do you think this will have?
I am working on a non-profit called Staff Meal to benefit people within the hospitality and culinary industry in Greenville, SC. We feel we have an opportunity to provide help, training, and growth within our community that directly builds up and supports our industry here. Details are being put together now!
What advice would you give to other restaurateurs to thrive and avoid burnout?
I was once told to find something you’re passionate about and figure out how to make money doing it. I think that holds true for operating a good restaurant. You must love it, or at least a major part of it. But I think this goes for most things in life and if you love something, you’ll take good care of it and always stay invested.
Thank you for all that. Now we are ready for the main question of the interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started as a Restaurateur” and why?
- Hospitality should always come first.
When we first opened I felt like we made a lot of rules. Rules that made things easier for us. It wasn’t until we started focusing on our hospitality more that we realized those rules were meant to be broken. When hospitality comes first, positivity spreads and guests come back for that.
2. Don’t get held up by negative reviews.
It’s amazingly easy to see a 5-star review, smile, and move on to the next. It’s incredibly hard to read a 1-star review and not let it take over every other thought you have for the rest of the day. It’s a hard business to be in when anyone who walks in your front door can leave a comment (or a short story) about how much they hated something about your restaurant. At the end of the day, you can take it in good stride and learn from it because a mistake was made, or simply acknowledge that your restaurant may not be for everyone, and that’s okay too.
3. It’s about relationships.
I’m not an extrovert and when we opened, I never wanted to talk with guests about their dining experience. I had great servers, bartenders, and managers that were great at that. I didn’t know why people would want to speak with me. I simply opened a restaurant with some great people, and yeah, we do some really cool things. But very quickly I learned how great it is. I forced myself out of my shell, met new people and I have made some great connections because of it. So much so that today I love meeting new people.
4. Be flexible.
There are so many things that come at you or change in every aspect of the business. The more willing you are to be flexible, the better off you’ll be.
5. That I’d become a Handyman.
For all the times I’ve had to learn to fix something on the fly… I’ve had to fix IT, plumbing, electric, HVAC, and so many other things over time that I’ve never had to do before. More so than anything else, I’ve become our in-house IT person and fix anything to do with technology. Unfortunately, you can’t always wait for someone to come by and fix something when it’s game time and the restaurant needs to stay operational.
What’s the one dish people have to try if they visit your establishment?
For me, hands down the Fin & Belly. It’s been on our menu since day 1, and the times I do get to enjoy a meal myself, I always struggle to pick a new dish instead of that one because it’s that good.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Always be prepared! One major stress point is technology as it has made so many things so much easier. However, when that technology doesn’t work, it causes breakdowns for everyone. For our business, so many aspects are based on technology. Our scheduling, reservations, point of sale, order execution, payment, and even the music. On a day when wifi goes down, even for a short time, operations nearly come to a standstill. It’s a point that we don’t stress often enough to our team. Technology is only one factor, but is a great example for us to always try to think ahead.
Thank you so much for these insights. This was very inspirational!
