Chef Way & Restauranteur Susan Tung: Building Sustainable Restaurant Systems

A restaurant is a business first. Susan Tung grew up a restaurant kid in her family’s Chinese restaurant, The Golden Wheel, and now owns Hanoi House in Peterborough, Ontario. Chef Waymond Wesley II, about to open his own place, asks her the questions a first-time operator should be asking. Sponsored by Save Fry Oil.

Key takeaways

• Culture is what happens when you are not there. Her definition, and the reason systems alone do not save you.
• Dummy-proof systems fail if the people do not care. Personnel comes before process, not after it.
• Know your numbers or nothing else matters. The passion and the cooking come along for the ride.
• A pay structure is fundamental infrastructure, not an HR nicety. She puts it near the top of the list.
• Hire for values, not just experience. Experience is trainable. Caring is not.
• Documentation and standardised recipes are what let a family operation become a business.

On this page

• Growing up a restaurant kid
• From family operation to systems
• Why the people come before the systems
• Knowing your numbers
• Ownership and a family at the same time
• People, ideas and sources mentioned
• Questions this episode answers
• Go deeper

Growing up a restaurant kid

Susan grew up inside The Golden Wheel, her family’s Chinese restaurant. That is a specific kind of education. You learn the trade by absorption and you also inherit a set of habits that were never written down, which becomes a problem the moment you try to run something at a different scale.

She has since owned a Japanese restaurant and now runs Hanoi House, a Vietnamese restaurant in Peterborough, Ontario, alongside Electric City Catering.

From family operation to systems

The move from traditional family operation to modern systems-based management is the arc of this conversation. Documentation. Standardised recipes. Actual training rather than watching somebody do it.

None of that is glamorous and all of it is what makes a restaurant survive a staff change.

Culture is what happens when you’re not there.

— Susan Tung

Why the people come before the systems

You could have the best systems in place, dummy-proof systems, but if the people don’t care, they’re not going to follow it.

— Susan Tung

This is the correction to every operator who thinks a better checklist will fix a morale problem. It will not. The checklist is downstream of whether anyone wants to follow it.

I think empathy is just the most important thing and asking the questions of like, you know, making sure they’re taken care of and having a pay structure is probably one of the most fundamental things when it comes to restaurants.

— Susan Tung

Note what she pairs together there. Empathy and a pay structure. Caring about people and paying them predictably are the same act performed two different ways.

Knowing your numbers

A Restaurant is a business first. The passion stuff, the culinary stuff, that all comes with it as well. But at the end of the day, the dollars and the numbers, that’s the most important thing.

— Susan Tung

Harsh and correct. Financial awareness is the thing most first-time operators postpone, and it is the thing that closes them. Chef Way is about to open in 2026, which is why he keeps returning to it.

Ownership and a family at the same time

The last part of the conversation is about balancing ownership with parenting, which is where the systems argument pays off. A business that requires you in the building every hour is not a business you own. It is a job you cannot quit.

If you are in Peterborough

1. Traditional beef pho, sliced ribeye and brisket in a 24-hour bone broth.
2. Garlic noodles, thick noodles tossed in a wok with garlic and oyster sauce.

People, ideas and sources mentioned

Questions this episode answers

• How do you turn a family restaurant into a systems-based business?
• What does culture mean in a restaurant?
• Why do good systems still fail?
• Should I hire for values or experience?
• How important is a formal pay structure in a restaurant?
• What numbers should a restaurant owner watch?
• Can you own a restaurant and still have a family life?

Go deeper

Every link above goes somewhere different. These are the ones not already mentioned above.

• Susan Tung interviewing Anton Kinloch, where she takes the host chair on opening a bar under pressure.
• Table 13, Susan’s own podcast.
• Chef Way on Instagram as @chefway__ and @chefsquirehospitality, or at chefsquire.com.

Find Susan Tung

Hanoi House is in Peterborough, Ontario. She also runs Electric City Catering and hosts Table 13.

Cite this episode

Tung, Susan. Interviewed by Chef Waymond Wesley II. “Building Sustainable Restaurant Systems.” Restaurant Talk by Save Fry Oil, 2025. https://restaurant-talk-by-save-fry-oil.castos.com/episodes/chef-way-and-guest-susan-tung-share-profit-tips-and-staff-management-gold