When my family started Ninong’s in 2008 things were a lot different. The state of our economy, our customer base, and our sales numbers have changed in the 10 years we’ve been open. I noticed a shift when I started working for the restaurant. We were growing and I could tell mostly because of how much we were spending in food costs.
I had a 2013 Subaru Impreza hatchback at the time and I started noticing that slowly but surely my car was filling up with groceries more and more every week. It got to the point where I couldn’t fit the groceries anymore so I’d have to make the trips to the grocery store 3x a week instead of my normal 2x.
Imagine that. An extra trip just because I couldn’t fit everything in my car. I knew something needed to change.
Then a salesman from Sysco walked into our door. Bless him! He had no idea who we were. In fact, he was just walking by because he wanted to try to recruit a restaurant down the street from us. He stopped in and offered to look through our grocery list and see if we would be a good fit.
Working with Sysco has been integral in our growth as a restaurant. Aside from groceries they offer so many free services that help businesses in the restaurant industry succeed. I can’t say enough about how much I value the relationship Ninong’s has with Sysco.
A couple weeks ago we had a Business Review at their headquarters in Oxnard. One of the things that I truly believe has kept us in business for almost 10 years is that we don’t want to stay stagnant. We always want to keep pushing the envelope, trying to evolve, and challenging ourselves to make even better dishes. Sysco has really helped us to do that.
The new chef showed us some really great dishes and has our minds turning with ideas on our next release. I can’t tell you exactly what we have planned yet but rest assured that we’re working on some really yummy stuff. Stay tuned!