Today we’d like to introduce you to Kaia Matheny.
Hi Kaia, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Adrift was opened 25 years ago by her first owner with community as the priority. Locally sourced foods, by local Farmers and Fisher’s.
Fast forward the original owner stepped back and hired a fabulous management team to run The day to day operations, the original owner retired and sold the business to two of her managers that had been at Adrift for over ten years. The sale took place in October of 2019. Adrift and her crew made it through the pandemic. Adrift is still locally focused and completely inclusive. The current owners Kaia and Nora have known each other since childhood. Sharing families, family occasions and a business that values our community and families beyond our business model.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Owning and running Adrift has been an adventure, with a very steep learning curve. We reopened as owners six months before the pandemic. We faced so many uncertainties, with the struggles we faced for our work family, our vendor relationships , our community. What would they do, what would we do? We navigated our way past the new normal and sailed into an overwhelming amount of community support. Our community that we worked so hard to engage and support , showed up !
Nora and I are incredibly lucky to have been supported by our community from words of strength and encouragement to gift card campaigns, and support your downtown events.
Adrift still has challenges with staffing , cost increases, product procurement and the
political influence on entertainment budgets, all of our current problems are solvable because of the lessons we learned during the Pandemic.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Adrift Restaurant ?
Adrift is a community minded restaurant specializing in community relationships, locally sourced farm goods, supporting local fisher people. At Adrift we specialize in fresh scratch cooking, we believe food is for celebration, healing , gathering and creativity. We are known for our seafood, farm fresh ingredients, and creative twists on all of our dishes.
Adrift has set itself apart from other local restaurants with longevity, and non conforming kitchen creativity. Adrift offers amazing in house customer service and attention to dietary needs. We cater, collaborate with other restaurants ,encourage creative growth for our staff and community.
We are profoundly proud of the family we have built and are apart of. We welcome you to join our ever growing family of Adrifters!
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Advise for entrepreneurs in the restaurant industry would be to be afraid of the known, change should be one of your anticipated outcomes. Change is the constant, and failure means growth and knowledge.
Pricing:
- $20-$50 food
- Non alcoholic Beverages $3- $15 mocktails
- Wine $10-$70
- Beer$ 6-$10
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Adriftresaurant.com
- Instagram: Adriftrestaurant
