19 min read

Cafe Kindred: Thriving, Learning After 10 Years

Cafe Kindred: Thriving, Learning After 10 Years
Co-Founders of Cafe Kindred, Gary O’Hanlon and Jennifer Demetrio. Photo by Chris Jones.

Ten years ago – Sunday, April 12, 2015 – when the City of Falls Church’s first independent, local cafe, Cafe Kindred (CK), first opened its doors at 450 N. Washington St., only Starbucks and Panera were around to provide competing coffee and pastry options. 

But over the past decade, The Little City has added at least six more coffee shops within its 2.2 square-miles, with “maybe three more on the way,” Mayor Hardi told us recently

So, what explains CK’s success? 

After all, the restaurant selected as one of the area’s best by Northern Virginia Magazine has not only survived what’s become a highly competitive local cafe market, but grown and thrived to the point where it’s always bustling, and owners, Gary O’Hanlon and Jennifer Demetrio, have now launched a second eatery, Leesburg Diner.

Two oat milk lattes from the baristas! Photo by Chris Jones.

To find out, The Falls Church Independent, interviewed Jenn and Gary to learn how the two met originally – they married prior to opening CK – as well as CK’s origin story. We were also especially interested in what sorts of business strategies they’ve followed for success. 

Turns out, the lessons they've learned and strategies they've developed along the way could provide the curriculum for a course in "Entrepreneurial Management."

A Pastry Chefs Romance

When Jenn and Gary first met in the early 2000s, they were each channeling their creative passions toward developing skills as pastry chefs for Ritz Carlton Hotels. But in the coming years, their jobs would take them to sundry locales, their paths only crossing occasionally. 

After “going their separate ways,” however, they “happened to meet again" in New York City. Gary was the pastry chef at The Pier while Jenn was working for the Ritz Carlton in Central Park. 

From Ireland originally, Gary had been baking since he was “kicked out of school at [age] 16” and then “was lucky enough to get an apprenticeship as a baker.” And “now here we are,” he said. “It was pretty cool.” He’s been in the baking business for some 35 years now. 

An avid Liverpool FC football club (LFC) supporter since he was a kid, Gary remembers coming to the United States in 1992 because that was a World Cup soccer year. Anyone who’s been to Cafe Kindred knows LFC’s a main theme as their matches are always featured on the restaurant’s two sports TV screens.

After Gary moved to the Merrifield area “around 15 years ago” to become the pastry chef at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., he and Jenn were able to rekindle their romance after Jenn moved back to the area from California. Two years later they were married. 

And now, in addition to their marriage, their long simmering passion project for starting their own “pastry-forward” cafe was ready to launch.

Risk-Taking

But launching their own cafe certainly entailed risks. According to the National Restaurant Association, the estimated failure rate in the restaurant industry is about 30 percent with around 17 percent of establishments closing down in their first year. 

Jenn and Gary could hardly afford to outfit their new cafe’s decor. “It’s funny, because when you look at some of the early pictures” of Cafe Kindred inside, “there was nothing. We didn’t really have the money. Like, we were broke, broke, broke,” Jenn recalled. “Yeah, we cashed out our 401(k)s, everything. We definitely rolled the dice on that.” Jenn added, “We took out personal loans” and spent “absolutely everything.” “I think we opened with less than a thousand bucks. The pictures [pointing to the walls] and stuff, we didn’t have money for that stuff. That came later.”

Fortunately for Gary and Jenn, restaurant licensing in the City of Falls Church was not too difficult to obtain, especially given their experience. “It wasn’t too bad,” Gary said.

Values

CK’s whole vibe is as authentic as it gets. 

To loyal customers, perhaps what makes the cafe so special is that it’s such an expression of Gary and Jenn’s personal values, from the quality of its menu to its unique Rock, Punk and New Wave decor and soundtracks. 

Gary explains the restaurant’s themes: “This is basically my bedroom when I was, like, 12 years old, except it’s got a bar in it. [Laughs]. Like it’s every kid’s bedroom, right? It’s music. It’s posters. It’s football, or now it’s soccer. But, that’s just the basis for everything.” The restaurant’s Townshend Bar is, of course, named for rock legend Pete Townshend of The Who. “I think that’s what got me through my childhood is music,” Gary said.  

While some of the guitars on the walls are Gary’s, friends nearby have added to the restaurant’s wall collection. “The amazing thing about being around here is meeting just so many interesting people,” Gary said. “Like Matt, Matt Baker from Action Music is a really good friend. And the guys from CD Cellar are really good friends, you know? And Matt was like, ‘Oh, you need some guitars.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah.’ And he said, ‘Here.’ And he gave me a loan of so many guitars.” 

The Townshend Bar. Courtesy CK.

I asked if Gary plays guitar himself. “No,” he said. “I’m an idiot.” Jenn teased: “He was never taught the gift of rhythm.” [Laughs].

But the music “is one of the things I love most about this place,” I said, having just finished my breakfast. “I was just noticing you had the Sex Pistols on, but at a low volume, and you have all these older women [customers] chatting over there in a subdued way, so the two things actually blend, and you can’t find that anywhere else.”

Signature decor: Mod motifs and guitars. Photo by Chris Jones.

Mention of the Sex Pistols leads Gary into a lengthy discussion of the social importance of the music for him. “Music to me was an amazing introduction to everything about life, and that’s what music was about back then – I mean Ska music, the Specials, Bad Blood, everything social was in music.”

If you venture into the men’s room, you’ll see posters featuring The Who, Frank Sinatra’s mug shot, Arctic Monkeys, and, of course, The Jam. “My favorite band of all time, The Jam, you know? Paul Weller is who I liked since I was a kid. But it was all The Who and people like that. The Kinks who were finding their own way of getting into American Soul, you know, listening to that? And bringing that to England and Ireland and Europe. It was beautiful.”

Commenting on the contrast between the women dining and the Sex Pistols on the soundtrack, Jenn said, “It looks like a contrast, right? But it just works well together. A lot of the folks who come here remember that music. So, it’s comfortable to them. It’s not weird at all. It’s part of their childhood and how they came up.”

Even more critical to Jenn and Gary’s values are some of the lessons they learned during the pandemic. Prior to Covid it was all about the grinding work of launching the restaurant, but the pandemic taught them it’s "all about the people.”

“I think Covid was huge for us,” Jenn said. “And not in the way it was for a lot of other people. We were working so much and so hard and to our detriment, I would say, in the beginning, you know from 2015 to 2020, that it forced us to stop and breath and figure out ‘What are we doing? How do we reconnect with the people in the community?’ Which we had done but hadn’t realized, because all of a sudden we had people whom we know that are regulars, but all of a sudden they’re coming every day and they want to make sure that we're here in six months.”

Courtesy CK.

“Yeah, it was eye-opening,” Gary added. “I don’t think we realized how important this place is [for people]. I mean, you always want to be important, right? But, in people’s lives. I think at that time you got a minute to listen to people, and to breath, you know?” And what they heard from their customers during the lockdowns was “Hey, we appreciate you being here.”

As they reflected during the pandemic, they realized their mission was really about connecting with the people in their work and their lives. “When you got down to it we’d become a place people experience and we had become a part of people’s lives in ways that we didn’t see and didn’t understand and then it kind of opened our eyes.”

And this meant valuing and caring for their employees and their team as well. “It was just so hard to see because [before the pandemic] we were working 90 hours a week and we were at each other’s throats half the time,” Jenn said. [Laughs]. “And so, I think we became a lot more people-centric. But not necessarily just our guests, but our team as well. Once we started to develop our team, that just shot us up! It took a lot of weight off of us and we got a lot of reward from seeing people challenging themselves, or growing, or taking accountability, or being better parts of the team. So, that just totally catapulted us to another level.”

People-First Strategies

With the pandemic, Gary and Jenn realized they needed to bolster their employee training toward more “people oriented” strategies and to more fully empower and embrace their workers.  

They hand me a card they use for training with the restaurant’s people-oriented Core Values: Appreciative Spirit (Warm Welcome & Gracious Goodbye.); Approachability (Humility & Positive Attitude. Desire to Help.); Kindred (Connection through community and each other.); Growth (Lateral Leadership & Learning.); The Truth is in the Details (Pay attention to details, and the big picture will fall into place.)

CK Merch. Courtesy CK.

Jenn emphasizes how important “lateral leadership” is for example. If someone in the kitchen thinks they’re “too busy” so they’re just going to take a shortcut, then “whoever’s in the kitchen with them or whoever’s going to run the food – whether they’re your boss or not – is just going to say, ‘That’s not our standard.’” 

While we’re doing the interview in the back of CK, an elderly couple politely interrupts to tell Gary and Jenn how lovely their visit to Leesburg Diner was. “We saw them on Monday at the Leesburg Diner,” Jenn said with laugh. “And that’s amazing, the number of people from here who have come to visit us in Leesburg, just to show their support or interest by saying, ‘Oh, what else do you guys have going on?’ It’s touching. It’s really really touching. In the beginning we were like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to work. We don’t know what we’re doing. What are we doing?’ But, you’d see people who drove from Falls Church! ‘What are you doing here?’ And they’d be like, ‘Just wanted to see what you’re doing.’ And that’s amazing.”

What makes CK unique? Photo by Chris Jones.

Jenn described how they have worked hard to improve staff retention. Years ago, she confessed, they had trouble with it. “We lost people because, one, we didn’t take the time to find the right people, two, we didn’t take the time to train them properly, three, we didn’t give them any sort of path forward or anything like that.”

But now, “it’s changed,” she said. “And it wasn’t intentional. That’s just how we came up. I mean, nobody was taking us by the hand and saying, ‘Oh, let me show you the way!’ It was like, ‘Oh, you screwed that up, didn’t you?’ [Laughs]. It was different. It was a different time. But not only do you get a better team out of it and they feel better about each other, but they take more pride in what they’re doing. And they take it a little bit more seriously and they take their personal growth more seriously. And we spend a lot of time with everybody and if they have concerns that we’re addressing them. And they’re trained properly and that we’re here for them if they need things. It’s definitely coming along.”

“When I was an apprentice, I messed up so bad when I was 16 years old. And there was a stick on the wall with my name on it,” Gary recalled with a grin. “And every time I messed up, I got it! I’m dead serious… It was old school… It was half-joking and half, ‘You cost me my time!’ And I learned really fast. I was picked up and thrown across tables, the whole thing. Mostly laughing, but a lot of it was not.”

“But, it’s also great to see the team working so well together,” Jenn said. “For me to come in here on a Saturday and literally not be running around like a lunatic? I mean there were so many times where that was us every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year! And it’s like, ‘Wow, they’ve got this.’ And you’re proud for them and for the group they’ve become.”

“And they hold each other accountable,” Gary added. “That’s the beautiful thing. That’s what makes the work worthwhile.”

Teamwork

The pandemic also helped the whole team realize that social media was more important than ever. Some of the younger team members took charge of producing humorous social media video skits. 

A friendly competitive spirit was harnessed to train coffee baristas in speed and precision. The "6x6 Competition," testing to see if a barista could “make six drinks in six minutes,” became popular with the staff, so much so they created a leaderboard with names and personal bests posted for customers and staff to see. 

The 6x6 Competition is “almost always on their terms,” Jenn said. “I mean, it’s a friendly competition.” The baristas have gotten so good that, “now, a lot of them are under four minutes… they’re very into it.”

With such a tightly-bonded and well-trained team, Jenn and Gary have been able to trust the staff to operate CK while they’re in Leesburg, launching Leesburg Diner. “There were a couple of months or a few months when we weren’t here at all, “ Jenn recalled. “And, kudos to [staffer] Amber because we had just started working and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re off to do this other restaurant!’ [Laughs]. And she’s, like, ‘Okay.’ But, how do you do that with your team, to have them ‘be you,’ to extend what your vision is or what your heartfelt feelings are for your guests?” 

Quality

But all the training in the world would be of no use if the quality of CK’s coffee, pastries, and menu items were not so high. 

For Jenn and Gary, their commitment to high-quality sourcing, services, and performance are reflected in every aspect of their work. But they all go hand-in-hand. You’ve got to be properly trained to provide the customers the highest quality experiences.

“I think it’s hard to stand out on quality alone,” Jenn said. “There are a lot of good places around here and honestly, when we first opened, it was just us and Panera and Starbucks… There really weren’t a lot of places around. But now there are more places that have good quality. We worked with Vigilante [Coffee Company] since day one. And they did all their training. And Prince, the owner of Vigilante, he sat – back in the day we had that big banquette – and he sat in that booth until, like, midnight and it was just us grinding on that espresso machine. [Laughs]. Trying to figure it out, because it just took hours and hours and hours and hours for us to get it.”

Photo by Chris Jones.

“They were a small business and he was of the mindset that if you’re going to sell my coffee, you’re going to have to represent it properly,” Jenn continued. “I have to trust that you’re going to do it justice. And I totally respect that."

“The quality of the product we use is the same as the quality of the product we used at the Ritz,” Gary added. “It’s the same deli meats, the same breads, the same croissants. I mean freshness, FRESHNESS! [thumps hand on table for emphasis] We’re trying to get people who start working for us” to understand that “you’ve got a guy who plants a seed, or raises a pig, and you’ve got all this line of people who just do everything really, really well, just down the line.” So, what a waste it would be to not respect all of their earlier quality commitments and attention-to-detail.

“It’s having respect for the food, having respect for the coffee and the people who walk in to that door,” Gary continued. “Because it’s the same thing, right? We all make mistakes. But it’s about paying attention.”

Jenn emphasized that every customer must be prized. “I think in this business it’s really become kind of commonplace just to expect people to come visit you, as a business.” Like, ‘Oh, well. Order at the kiosk, but don’t talk to me. We’ll drop it off for you.’ It’s kind of become more commonplace where the service aspect of it and the pride and the quality is less common. And I think for us that’s the whole point of it. If you’re not doing it in a way that’s proper, why are you even bothering?”

“But for us, people aren’t stupid,” Jenn said. “They shouldn’t be taken advantage of and if you think as a business you’re going to be getting over on somebody or charging more than you should or whatever, I don’t know, for me that’s not ethical business practices, you know?”

Decision Making

But, sometimes, tough decisions need to be made when you’re walking the tightrope between what the customers might want and your commitments to the restaurant’s core mission of community-building. 

Gary and Jenn had to decide that CK would be the only cafe in the area that bans laptop use at customer tables on weekends. 

“”The whole point of us starting this cafe was music, football, friends and family, right?,” Gary said. “That’s it. And it’s always been. We’ve always wanted to be a destination for friends and family. For people to sit down and have a chat and have a laugh. That is first-and-foremost, and especially on the weekends.”

“And that’s where the laptop policy came in on the weekends,” Jenn added. “I mean, we struggled with how to frame it and how to walk that tightrope because Starbucks had kind of started that precedent of how coffee shops became your office space.”

“But that’s not what it’s supposed to be,” Gary interjected. “And it’s heartbreaking for us and it was heartbreaking that that was what this was turning into.”

“Yeah, you’d walk in and it was all quiet and people would have their headphones on,” Jenn recalled. “And the way we tried to bring that socializing aspect back was saying, ‘Look, on the weekends, you’ve got to turn it off.’ And then it gives the families a chance to come back in, right? We had seen families start to say..., ‘It’s too business-like in here. It’s too quiet.’ And they’re telling their kids to be quiet because somebody’s working. And that’s not what we’re about.”

For Gary, growing up in Ireland and experiencing the community of small cafes, pubs, shops, and restaurants is central to his vision for Cafe Kindred.

“In cafes back home, there were no laptops when I was growing up. But if you went to a cafe with a friend, they were all small restaurants back then. That’s what I grew up with. My dad had that. My dad was a shopkeeper and we had cafes and all this. And that’s what I grew up in too. And people would be sitting down and having a chat before breakfast, before they started work, or after work. The ladies from down the street, sitting and having a cup of tea, you know? Whatever it was. It was beautiful. It’s beautiful to see people sitting around that way.”

“The particularly important part of it is that everybody feels a part of it. Everybody, us, the guys working behind, the guys in the kitchen, and the guests, everybody’s invested, right?,” Gary added.

Assessment

A key to CK’s growth and success has been constant assessment of strengths and weaknesses to allow for continuous experimentation and adaptation.

It’s not just staff that must always be learning and growing. “We were learning too,” Gary said. “We were learning as we went, from the first five years or so with a lot of banging our heads against the wall and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears…. And that was the amazing thing about Falls Church, I think, was that we were allowed to grow. We made mistakes but we didn’t get caned for it. We didn’t just get shut down. Everybody was very, much like, ‘Hey, first time.’ And it was a great place to open.”

“We were always getting in our own way and not knowing the right step to take and the right direction to go and feeling like we were constantly choosing the wrong way,” Jenn recalled. “But, it is how you learn, right?”

While the Sex Pistols are playing... Photo by Chris Jones.

When they first opened, CK’s menu was “pastry-forward,” and Jenn and Gary were up early each morning producing Napoleons, Lemon Fruit Tarts and the works. But, by the end of the day, they were throwing out too much of what they had baked and wasn’t consumed. They had also heard many customers’ desires for a more expanded breakfast menu.

“We just wanted to do pastry and a couple of egg sandwiches and coffee,” Gary recalled. “But then it ended up going into a different direction. We ended up just getting rid of the pastries, basically.”

“People would say, ‘I wish I could get breakfast, like bacon, eggs and toast.’ And I was like, ‘Well, why can’t we do that? We already use those things, so why can’t we?’ It seems so obvious to somebody else but we were in our own world,” Jenn recalled. 

“Just trying to survive,” Gary interjected. “Yeah, just total survival mode. And we thought, ‘We can’t change anything. That would be terrible,’” Jenn rejoined. 

Now CK's menu includes a wide range of delicious offerings from around the world, from traditional English Breakfast to Croque Madame, or Avocado Toast, or Oatmeal with Cinnamon Sugar for breakfast. Or, even four varieties of Poutine. And for lunch, three types of salad plus a range of sandwiches from Classic BLT, to Caprese, to Reuben & Fries.

Resilience

Asked how they feel about all the new cafes coming to the City of Falls Church to compete, Gary and Jenn seem ready to take on all comers with resilience. For them, competition is good for the City and for business.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say that everytime a new place opens there isn’t a little nugget of fear in there,” Jenn said. “But, you know what happened – We saw it with Northside – people flock. They want to know what the new thing is. It’s only natural right? And we were dead for a bit.” 

But, then customers return. “It’s a testament to the fact that what we provide is quality and we care about the people who come in here. I think that’s just the long and short of it. I mean, I don’t go to the same place for dinner every time we go out. We have our regular spots. And why do we go there? They know us. The food is good. They treat us well. It’s the same reason everybody else goes. But you have to kind of trust in the fact that we were doing the right thing.... And competition is great. It’s great for the City. It’s great for business.”

For a long time, customers have come to visit CK from D.C. “And I’m like, ‘Why?,' Gary laughed. "‘Oh, we heard this place is cool.’ You know, you get a lot of people like that and they come once a month. Or they go to Rare Bird. It’s like a tour, you know? And I think Falls Church has done a great job building up a town where people want to come."

"You do have to trust in what you're doing though," Jenn added. "And the other aspect is, if the City doesn’t grow it’s not good for anyone."

“But, you gotta just keep doing your thing. Just keep going,” Gary said. “Yes, you have to trust in what you do and stick with it and not just go with every new trend out there. It’s like, what are your core values? And stick with those,” Jenn said.

Falls Church Restaurant Week

CK’s participating in the City of Falls Church’s Second Annual Restaurant Week, Jan. 31 through Feb. 9, and Gary and Jenn are looking forward to it.

“I think it’s great,” Jenn said. “Trisha [Barba, of Preservation Biscuit], she’s done a really good job of marketing it this year and last year. And honestly, anybody that does anything outside of running a restaurant, I mean, kudos to them. Because it’s already so much work. And, yes, we’re participating. I think it’s fun.”

“I’m glad Falls Church is doing their own to stand out from Arlington and D.C. and Loudoun and all that stuff,” she continued. “So, I’m glad they’re doing it. It gives people a chance to visit places they might not think of visiting, you know, get outside their comfort zone, or try something they haven’t tried. And there’s also a small group of us as restaurant owners that have been meeting that are just finding ways to support each other, outside of any City groups or anything like that. Just amongst us, to see if we can help each other out and things like that. Everybody has their own place, their own challenge and if, at the end of the day, we can help each other why wouldn’t we?”

Photo by Chris Jones.

“I think people do recognize when smaller, independent businesses are flourishing in Falls Church, because they care about the quality, they care that it’s not just bang-bang, there you go,” Gary said. “I mean it’s beautiful, right? It’s beautiful to be able to take something from nothing and to grow it and to sit here on a Saturday or a Sunday, and it’s only after nine years that you’re able to stand here and say, ‘Wow, this was just a shell nine years ago. And there have been thousands and thousands of people who’ve walked through these doors.'” 

“It’s kind of hard to wrap your brain around it sometimes,” Jenn added. “But, I think we can finally step back and say, not in a cocky way, but just be a little proud of something we created from literally nothing.”


By Christopher Jones