Meet Honey: Restauranteur

Did you ever have a time when you were working in fraud investigation, and then your family history, your creativity and your joy all converged in one place, and you quit your job and opened a restaurant?

Yeah, we didn't either. But this episode's guest did! Meet Honey Abada, the current owner of La Isla Manila in Barrie, Ontario.

Honey dropped some terrific insights on her own career journey, including:

• Leading with curiosity
• Getting out of your own head, and really hearing how others see your skills
• Being open when opportunity arises
• The ups and downs of entrepreneurship
• Using your skills and talents to serve

Transcript

Welcome to The One About Careers with Devon and Sarah Jane. A career podcast for
adults involved with teens navigating life after high school. We help you help your
teens make informed education and career decisions by providing quality information and
resources. Join us for weekly, bright -sized conversations covering various aspects of
careers, including insights from professionals and different fields. - New episodes
available every week at theoneaboutcareers .com.
- Hello everybody, welcome back to the One About Careers with Devon and Sarah Jane.
We're continuing our series of interviewing people about their careers, what they do,
how they got there, what they like, what they don't, all the good stuff. Sarah
Jane, who are we chatting with today? - Oh, I'm so excited about today because this
is different than what we've done before which I feel like is every episode but hey
um this is Honey Abada and Honey does these two really interesting things currently
she is a Filipino restaurateur and her restaurant is called La Isla Manila and she
also is a business consultant
- Welcome, Honey. - Hello, hello, hi guys. I'm excited to be here with you.
- We're so excited to have you. So Honey, how'd you get to where you're at with
your career now?
- I would say, it reminds me of my old boss.
It's, She always said, "lead with curiosity."
I've always been...
I've always found my way through curiosity. And it doesn't matter whether I'm in...
I was in high school, I was doing theater, I was doing academic and all that kind
of stuff throughout. It didn't matter even now changing from,
you know, having a career in marketing and then transitioning to accounting and then
investigation and now being having a restaurant and having my own business.
I was curious, I was curious what the work was like,
okay, like What does this entail? Until there is still fire, I'll keep going.
So, yeah.
- Which lead, which thread are you gonna pick up there, Devin? - Oh my gosh. Can I
pick up all of them? Actually, I'm curious about is what,
I guess what were some of the, were there experiences or were there things that you
had kind of along this way that when you went that made you think specifically I
think I'd like to open a restaurant or I think I'd like to get into business
consulting like where there are specific things that happened that made you kind of
that sort of tripped that trigger in your head.
I didn't realize I was creative until a friend of mine it's being surrounded with
people that you're with and seeing something that you didn't know they see in you?
'Cause a friend of mine just said, I was like, honey, I was talking about my job
and I love my job before I used to be in, I used to do fraud investigation for
the city of Toronto for about seven years. And I loved it so much because it was
curious. It was very, you know, you get to investigate to you. A lot of the things
that you do is figuring out ways or understanding how things are being done and
digging through it and always thinking outside of the box. And it got to a point
where it's no longer feeding that curiosity and there's that,
and the sense of creativity. And a friend of mine mine was like, you know, it
doesn't necessarily have to be an industry that you need to be creative, right? And
so I start and you are a creative person that you never really thought that I was
until she said that. And then next thing, you know, I started painting and next
thing, you know, and that kind of transition, it inspired me to
open myself into other things somehow my brain just suddenly become oh remember you
always wanted to be a business owner um remember you've always wanted to um open
your own business and so I think in this in the in the downtime when you're not
burned out is when you actually get to hear those um the voices that are actually
more of your internal dialogues and the quiet space.
- So I'm gonna have to follow the thread from fraud investigation to restaurateur.
- So I grew up in a family where everything, this is what they say,
right? That everything that you do as an adult was inspired from when you were a
child. And my family, I've always seen my family even growing up,
they will always have assignments for us in events that we have like gathering. So
you're going to take care of the spoons, your toe to take care of the plate, you
set up the table. And that becomes such a routine for the whole family.
And that's when I I said, the more involved I am with the family, the more I see
that like, oh, my family loves to cook. My family loves to host. It's something
that we do. Like people, we invite people from everywhere to do that. And fast
forward to here. And there's more of us from the Philippines that moved here.
And so that became like my mom is here who is good at cooking.
My aunt is also here that's good in cooking. And it became more of like, oh,
the skills it's needed for a restaurant, just kind of like, okay, because throughout
the years, a lot of people have mentioned, oh, your family's so good at hosting and
feeding us and all that kind of stuff. But it never, it was never time.
And suddenly, and I was also working at that time. And so by the time I quit my
job, there was that opening of like, you know what? We have everything that we
need. I can support the business side. We do have support for the day -to -day
operations. We have our cook, we have, I think this is the time. And so We said,
okay, I guess we're gonna go do it. - This is the time, things fell into place.
- Yeah. - You were open to opportunity. - Yeah, and I think that's why when I was
younger, I was never patient, right? Patience is always something that like,
oh, I want it now.
And the older I got, especially after, when I was at working out my full -time job
before I'm starting to realize like having that trusting yourself that like oh there
will be a time just have that there just have that there there will be a time it
will it'll come so in kind of going through this transition what is something that
has been maybe surprising or challenging for you um The most surprising is,
I wouldn't say surprising, but more of like a aha moment is it's a double,
it's a double -end sword, right? You have the freedom to run a business.
You have the freedom to do everything you want, however you want to do. Like
positively, That's a good thing, but also the other side is there like you are
doing everything and whatever happens whether it's good or bad. It's on you.
You know, you're so used to having someone tell you, okay, this is what you need
to do. This is the task. This is the project we're going to do, etc. So somebody's
thinking that for you. Now it's more of like, I have to create everything, time
management's on me. It's a different time management skills. I'm good at time
management, but getting that into business sense, because it's not like you're only
having one task. I'm surprised how much I don't think about doing nine to five.
I don't
Um, it's going back at it like, oh, I wonder it would be nice to go back type of
thing. I'm surprised of how comfortable I just got right away.
And that's when I know that I think I am, this is a good time for the venture
that I'm in. Right. So yeah. Yeah.
So you've talked a little bit about the restaurant tour and the timing of that. So
the business called consulting. How does that fit together or where does that fit in
or, you know, where are you at with that piece?
So with the business, it makes it a lot handy having the restaurant because I do
the business side of the restaurant and then the day -to -day operations would be
with my partners, which are actually my aunt and my mom.
With the consulting, it just makes it a lot handier
'cause I'm already doing that. And a lot of the things that I do is in finance,
taxation, and marketing for small businesses. And one of the things that I promised
to myself, and I think also influenced by my family,
is always have service. It's the act of service in the things that I do.
And having that intention and who you want to serve. So I've always, my intention
has always been to serve nonprofit organizations and artists who runs their own
business like creatives, because those, I can totally relate to,
I can talk to them about it and understand their thinking.
And I always tell people that, especially in finance,
because a lot of people think finance is like the last piece of business that they
think about. And it's always that piece of, hey, it's,
it's a way for you, I'm helping you have a runway, like actually create a runway
so you could actually lift up and scale and find your way through business without
having that weird thing at the back of your head of like, oh my God,
I have to do this, this finance, da, da, da. So, yeah, a mentor of mine once said
that as long as there's still joy, that it sits with you,
even though It doesn't make sense. Like even though it doesn't make sense why you
want it, it doesn't align to anything that you're doing. It's not aligned to code
and culture goals. If you're, if you still have fire in it, keep going.
Like just keep doing it. And one of the things that I do in my hobby time is I
I I do acting and
It's because of my mom mentor was like I was like I don't it doesn't make sense
It doesn't make sense to me. I'm 30 years old and I don't know why it gives me
joy to to be on a play and and what not as you like If it still has joy in you
do it. It's a wonderful thing. So I would always say that if there's some fire in
you that wants to just do something, um, just do it even once,
just even once. So yeah, and I don't, and my my teachers are like,
who cares? Like, who thinks that you're stupid? Nobody does. No, they're thinking
about themselves in their own head. So don't even worry about that at all.
You may have already traveled into this territory because there were some amazing
nuggets there. But knowing what you know now, is there any other piece of advice
you would give your teenage self?
Try to be present and get out of your head more.
We're so focused on what ifs, what if this thing doesn't happen,
what if that doesn't happen, right?
And a friend of mine helped me,
and this is a good thing right because you have all of these friends that you talk
to and I think that's a very that's where also like life nuggets um you get from
and she said she was talking about a friend of hers who was so worried and she
was like I'm at this guy you're so wonderful and everything and um but we just met
and he's now back in Spain, and he wants me to visit for December,
for Christmas, and I just met him. I mean, it's obviously there's caution there,
right? But her worry was, what if it doesn't work out? What if I go there and
like, it doesn't work out? And then she said, Well, then you get to enjoy Spain.
Because it's that fear of like, I don't think I can pull myself back from this,
but it's that trust, that self trust of, I can pull myself together and like take
a step back, or move to the other direction. So, so yeah, I think that would be
something that I would tell my 15 year old self.
That's stuff I'm going to tell my 50 year olds. I was going to say, non 15 year
olds who need to hear all of that.
Thank you so much, honey, for being on The One About Careers.
Your wisdom and experiences just so fascinating, and I know our listeners will really
benefit from that. So stay tuned for the next episode of The One About Careers,
when we continue to interview fascinating folk.
Thanks for listening to the One About Careers podcast. You can catch up with past
episodes at theoneaboutcareers .com. Join us next week for another bite -sized
conversation.