Life & Work with Eric Ho

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Ho.

Hi Eric, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I came here from New York City in 2006 to attend college at Case Western for a degree in Aerospace Engineering. When I turned 21, I started bartending to just earn some extra cash. First at a country club, then Sweet Melissa’s where I was given full reign over the bar and really got into using fresh seasonal produce in cocktails. It was there that the bar manager at Melt and I became friends and he offered me a job when it became available. I was at Melt for 6 years working from host to bartender to supervisor to assistant manager to general manager. I was able to build a very powerful team there and learned a lot about running a restaurant from some of the management team. I became more confident in my ability and experience to start a place of our own.

In the summer of 2015, I began writing the business plan and projecting financials. In the spring of 2016, I started assembling the opening team for LBM, made up of industry veterans who I’ve been working with for years. By Sept of 2016, we leased a space in the Birdtown neighborhood of Lakewood and began construction the month after. We took 13 months to fully rehabilitate the space, doing majority of the work ourselves. We opened LBM on Friday the 13th of October 2017.

The first year was a total party. Within the first year of opening we were nominated by Tales of the Cocktail for Best New Bar and Best High Volume Cocktail Bar in the Central region, was listed in GQ magazine as one of the best hidden bars in America along with other regional and local publications and reviews. We were also able to offer all our employees health insurance, PTO and other benefits, which is more unheard of in our industry especially a business of our size, but it gave us career path, and something to age into rather than something viewed as a gig. In 2020 I was nominated by the Northeast Ohio SBA as the Minority Small Business Owner of the Year.

We’ve managed to navigate COVID successfully placing the health and safety of our crew and community above profits. I’m happy to say that we’ve been able to maintain 90% of our crew through the pandemic.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’ve almost bankrupted the business 4 times. But those were growing pains and I had to learn and understand cash flow throughout the month. Obviously, we figured it out and have safeguards from those situations now.

We’ve had our fair share of substance abuse problems with alcohol. But as time has gone by we have acknowledged the issue and have drastically cut back on our consumption.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I still consider myself a bartender even though my actual bar shifts are cut back to fill in shifts when people go on vacation and I primarily make sure the bills are paid, payroll is run and inventory is ordered.

I, along with everyone else on the team contribute a number of cocktails during each menu change. I started off conceptualizing cocktails that highlighted fresh seasonal produce and after attending seminars, conferences and classes I have also incorporated some molecular gastronomy techniques to my cocktails. And it is fun to build a menu with everyone else on the team because everyone has such a different palette, preferences and background.

My favorite thing is still to figure out a cocktail where the guest’s eyes just light up.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I have one of the greatest crews. Most of us have worked together for 4+ years at this point, if not practically a decade so our teamwork and chemistry is unmatched. Everyone is cross trained and we constantly rotate through all the job rolls so there is nobody above or below anyone else. It also makes filling in a piece of cake.

Within the bar and restaurant community we have fantastic friends with places of their own that we can call upon for anything. If a place has trouble staffing one night they do not hesitate to reach out to see if we can help and vice versa. Our relationships were especially important during COVID where none of us really knew what to do or expect and we relied on each other to weigh out the risks and benefits of any decision.

Pricing:

• $10-$15 cocktails
• $8-$16 food

Contact Info:

• Email: Eric@LBMBar.com
• Website: www.lbmbar.com
• Instagram: lbm_bar

Image Credits
Shelby Costo (@sweetcostocle)