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Former restaurateur, food writer and commercial real estate broker Jo McGarry has created a new business using all the skills she’s developed along the way.
MoJo LLC connects landlords with business-ready restaurant tenants and can connect new restaurant ventures to the farmers, fishermen and other purveyors they’ll need to feed their future customers.
"I could not help restaurants today unless I had 20 years of experience working with them and learning what goes into their business," she said.
She ran McGarry’s, an "upmarket" sandwich bar in downtown Edinburgh, Scotland, for five years before coming to Hawaii 23 years ago, when she began publishing food-and-beverage-centric magazines Brew Hawaii and Gusto, then wrote about the restaurant industry for MidWeek, and then she left the print media business.
While she still hosts "Radio MoJo" at 10 a.m. Saturdays on KHKA-AM 1500, McGarry turned her talents to the commercial real estate industry under the tutelage of Andrew Friedlander and Don Monroe at Colliers Monroe Friedlander Inc.
"I was extremely fortunate to work under Andy and Don, and learn commercial real estate from the perspective of people who understand that it’s about listening to people," she said. From them, "I got a really strong sense of what the industry is supposed to be about," she said. "Buildings and business really shape communities, and if you act responsibly, helping landlords and tenants … how can you lose?"
During her years at MidWeek she often would find herself in as many as six restaurants a day, and about five years ago she was struck by the number of mom-and-pop restaurants that were closing and delved into why it was happening.
When good landlord-tenant combinations are forged and good business terms exist for both, it’s a win-win, she said. "My belief is that when restaurants do well, communities thrive."
Hawaii restaurants are projected to generate $3.8 billion in sales this year, according to the National Restaurant Association.
"The cost to a landlord of a restaurant closing is probably upwards of 10 months of rent," McGarry said.
When a restaurant closes, often it has not been paying lease rent, so the landlord has legal expenses, has to serve an eviction notice, has to market the space and then pay brokers who find a new tenant, "so the cost of keeping a good tenant by helping them can often save the landlord hundreds of thousands of dollars."
"When you think about your little community, say, a school needs to raise money or there’s a medical emergency, where’s the first place you go? You ask Roy or Don Murphy or Big City Diner," she said. "Restaurants are asked to help their communities every single day, and who helps them?"
Enter MoJo.
"People open a restaurant because they want to make great food and see people happy," McGarry observed. They don’t think about cost control, grease traps, human resources policies or negotiating leases, and don’t realize a liquor license can take three to four months to obtain.
Hopeful restaurateurs have stars in their eyes, and McGarry’s company brings reality to the table.
"Landlords are faced with a huge problem with (new) restaurants. Landlords don’t know if restaurants are going to be good or not," she said.
"We prepare the restaurant completely" by working with owners on food, menus and pricing, on whether the restaurant concept suits area demographics, "and we take the whole package," including financials, to the landlord. "We say, ‘This client has found their mojo, and we believe they’ll be a great tenant for you,’" she said.
That’s not always the result, though.
A gentleman wanted her to find a space for a pasta business. She did $5,000 worth of due diligence, which indicated the hopeful pasta-maker would lose $100,000 over two years. "He said, ‘That was the best money I ever spent for somebody to tell me not to go into business,’" she said.
MoJo also provides "restaurant rehab" services for longtime favorite restaurants that are in need of some refreshing. Say the food is great, the view is spectacular and the carpeting is disgusting. Or, maybe a small operator spends 18 hours a day on the job, shopping, cooking and managing operations, "and the last thing you notice is the paint is peeling," she said.
MoJo would go in "with fresh eyes," taste the food, maybe update the menu or the pricing, suggest a flooring improvement or find other ways to help.
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