“…being a positive part of your broader neighborhood and community..”
— Shane Abbott, Co-Owner
Shane Abbott, Owner of Lupo and Stevie’s Famous
Shane studied engineering in college and worked first in tech, spending time as a professional poker player, and was among the first volunteers for Northwest Bail Fund prior to making his way into hospitality. His current business partner and friend Justin Harcus was the General Manager of the Via Tribunali in Fremont when the opportunity presented itself to buy the restaurant in 2018 and in 5 days from finalizing the purchase, reopened as Lupo. Shane and Justin opened Stevie’s Famous in Burien in November 2022. His wife Amanda Okonek, an interior designer, and their 2 kiddos + dog, Stevie, moved to Burien in 2021.
Excerpts from a conversation at Lupo on it’s 5th anniversary, March 7, 2023
How does it feel to be celebrating Lupo’s 5th year anniversary today?
It feels like it's been a lot longer than five years. I've had a lot of other changes in my life over the last five years… [I] feel like I still have so much to learn but I feel like I know a couple things about this industry, whereas then I had no idea exactly what I was getting involved with, how much I would fall in love with it, and how much it would be hard or time consuming. You assume things are going to be hard, but it's like having kids; this is gonna be hard, but you can't really understand how hard it's going to be until you're doing it…And I'm glad that we took this step and I started doing this crazy restaurant ride…it's so rewarding that it's a good trade-off.
Your background is in tech- specifically as a product marketing manager. How did you make the transition to owning two restaurants?
How do I give up something that pays well and is pretty steady to this, you know, challenging thing that doesn't necessarily have the steady paycheck associated with it? I probably did that corporate life for about 12 years. And I'd say even the last four or five years of it, I knew it wasn't for me and I was trying to get out of it…I had probably three or four years where I didn't have a steady job… My wife [and I] actually both were [some of] the first volunteers for Northwest Community Bail Fund…I was also basically a professional poker player for a few years…
And during that time, Justin, my business partner and I were talking about opening a bar…We weren't planning on buying this. But, you know, [Justin’s] running it. The owners are never here…So we started drafting an idea for a bar and thinking about that for about a year actually….this was late 2017. And [the owners] said, “Okay, you can buy the thing, here's the price. And you have till the end of the month or else we’ll sell it on the open market”...This was my first bit into seeing how some people can operate and just how cold it can be…but we said, “We'll buy it”. And it took not three weeks but three or four months and we took over the place on March 1, 2018.
Wait- back up. How did you end up finding your way into professional poker playing?
[Laughs] Yeah, I mean,I get asked that from friends sometimes…have you ever known your friend or your cousin or something that when you were playing even just Connect 4 when you're eight, they were the person that was better at it. Or when you're playing cards with family at Thanksgiving? There'll be some 12 year old kid in the family that's already as good as all the adults or something…I just was always good at them and interested. While I was still in tech, online poker was a really big thing. The government kind of shut it down to a certain point but in my spare time, I just started gradually getting into playing online poker… There was a huge poker boom, right 2007 / 2008… I'd gotten deep in some big tournaments and was really enjoying it but also [it was] a little bit of a backup plan…I did have an idea that that's really hard and not very sustainable. But enough where if you're disciplined, you can make a living out of it… It's just got these huge swings. It's a real emotional toll to “work” for a couple of weeks and then two weeks later, you have less money than you did when you started.
Did you scrap the business plan that you had for the bar that you were conceptualizing? Or is some of that at play here at Lupo?
I think we basically scrapped it… I'm so happy they [the previous owners] were working in pizza…it's the number one food that people eat so it's a good place to be in the restaurant market but more so we just ended up falling in love with baking and dough and the challenge of having a voice and making pizza a little differently.
We didn't see that going…We did love this restaurant because we love the neighborhood. We love the space…so we scrapped the business plan. We changed the name. The restaurant previously was a commissary-based business, so they're delivering from the main commissary ingredients and even pre-made dishes five days a week…we decided we wanted to be making everything from scratch so we converted a shop that really wasn't doing that to a scratch kitchen…
So in our effort to quit buying the pre-made ingredients…we needed to start making our own dough….We had a dough recipe that was related to what a lot of these Neapolitan restaurants were making and…you'll see people using spreadsheets and really analyzing the recipe and getting feedback and then making adjustments and that's kind of more of my wheelhouse. I'm a spreadsheet dork. The stuff that we're coming out with first was really chewy. It just wasn't right and so I basically just dove in. My year at the startup helped me feel confident…It's the information age and you can really learn a new craft. I was listening to a podcast on my way in while reading books at home, and I was lucky enough to have a restaurant open seven days a week. So our lovely neighborhood regulars are the ones testing out the recipes and it takes a while to get the groove but we're in here, seven days a week, making 60 to 100 pizzas a day so you get your feedback real quick. And if you mess it up you feel the pain.
What ended up happening was that I fell in love with it….I'm not a good line cook. I don't have good knife skills. But this was actually a place to really help and then it was so interesting and so challenging … And Washington is one of the best places in the country [for wheat and grains]. We have the WSU bread Labs in Skagit Valley…and they're working with all kinds of local farmers, who now work with a bunch of great local mills and you get some of the best flour in the country. Tartine Bakery down in San Francisco is famous and they're buying Skagit Valley flour…And you know, that was just one of many light bulbs to where I'm just like, “Well, why are we buying, you know, God bless the Italian farmers and people doing stuff over there, but we don't need to ship this across the world”...You feel so good to be buying from your local economy. We actually get to know these farmers and millers… I think restaurants can be really plugged into the local economy and neighborhoods and communities in a lot of cool ways.
You previously shared that you wanted to see if it was possible to manage a restaurant differently. Can you share a little bit about what you set out to do and what you learned from doing it?
I want to run a business, whether it's a restaurant or some other small business, in a way that feels more progressive…There's people where this is a temporary job or a job they're doing while they're going to school or something on the side, but there's plenty of people that this is what they do, and they would like to have stability to live and afford their bills and even take a vacation or, God forbid, have some kids and buy a house or a couple of dogs and you just can't hardly afford that in this industry.
And in Seattle, I wanted to challenge that because there's some way to make a dent…to provide some stability. It's not just something so that the owners can make money… [the previous owners were] just trying to pay everyone in the shop as little as possible…we converted this to an owner operated place pursuing ways to pay their employees the most we can…At this point we have profit sharing with the managers here and Chef Cam is going to be brought on as an owner. It's still an evolution and COVID was a big sidetrack on it and there's so much so many other things to be learning along the route. So it wasn't something we're able to implement completely right away, but I think it's constantly improving. I'm pretty proud that we've kept that goal.
How important is community buy-in?
…there's people that were here, before we even bought the restaurant, that already felt really strongly about the place… And they had just connected with this place that was really reliable and steady and Justin was a really steady presence in the neighborhood…I think that's what the goals are; that it's a really steady presence that feels a healthy part of your immediate neighbors and neighborhood…It just feels like we're part of the broader like restaurant industry and it feels really connected…COVID was [when] we really started to connect with a lot more restaurants and build some friendships and support.
And that can still you know, just the other day, Paul Osher from Rachel's Bagels & Burritos did a fundraiser for the tragedy going on in Turkey and in Syria…40+ restaurants signed up to support his idea for raising some funds. And I feel like if we had something that we really wanted other restaurants to sign up for at this point, we're part of that community, and we’d get a lot of love and support back and that feels good. That's been a big development compared to where we started.
Do you remember what first went through your mind when COVID shutdown was announced?
Well, I think the first thing was, “Man, we shouldn't have closed for a week, two weeks [previously] to remodel”. We could have waited. That was the only time we had closed up till then we just wanted to redo some things. There were still some wicker chairs in here and that was a handful of things we wanted to change…We only closed for five days that original time…we didn't have the big picture. I mean, you didn’t know what was really coming at that point, of course, but we were just thinking about how we were going to do business next week.
…[the shutdown announcement] was a Sunday. We were open Monday for takeout. So that was an interesting time because, you know, people really would tell us, “We're watching what you guys are doing” or “It's really cool”. I think going into COVID, we had maybe 200 Instagram followers…We started sharing and doing a bit more on Instagram at that point and that it really took off because I think we were pretty quick and there were others, that I remember, really looking to us for inspiration…coming up with cool ideas or ways to do business now with these changes, or what to do with staff… We felt it was too risky to close, but one of the main things I wanted was to be busy enough to keep [our employees] working full time. They both have been here a long time. And so we never really considered closing. We did have to lay off all but one on the front-of-house. Then, at that point, we printed some t-shirts and all the money from that went to that crew… We were in here every single day…It's probably the most we've worked in five years and that was that first nine months of COVID. We opened a storefront in the front and we turned the whole back room into a prep kitchen.
You moved to Burien in 2021. Did you move with the intention of opening another restaurant?
…The decision to leave Seattle and go down to Burien was really about getting some more space… We couldn't afford to do that here. We really fell in love with Burien …we weren't even living there yet and we have found this restaurant space in main street downtown…we ended up finding a space that previously was already a kitchen. Not a restaurant but like a catering kitchen… So we ended up signing that lease even before we managed to find our house down there but we knew that's really where we wanted to live…we knew we were going to maybe expand the business. We weren't planning on doing another completely different concept while still being pizza. It's basically the opposite end of the pizza spectrum.
How did you know it was time to open another restaurant?
We no longer owed any money on this business [Lupo]...it was the busiest months of the restaurant and we were liking the food we were putting out and then COVID hit. There wasn't a way to make much money during COVID. I think if it wasn't for the government stuff we would have run at a loss but we did manage to stay afloat with that. And once we got back open and in here, we knew we wanted to do something else. And because there's two of us, we have more ability to spread out a bit… So we were thinking about what we'd want to open all along probably as soon as we felt stable enough to do it. It was like waiting for the COVID just to clear.
We did it too soon… I remember trying to buy that pizza oven and what date I thought I said we needed the oven by and they laughed…I think we opened 10 months after that…we had never built a place from scratch…we tore it down to the studs and but I think there was probably a four or five month window where we didn't even touch it because we'd get called back into Lupo and we're working in here and I have two kids…We weren't ready, but it's good because then it forces you to do it. Of course we spent a little extra money on rent from that, but that's a pretty small number compared to what it costs to open anyway.
What was the biggest difference between your recent experience opening Stevie’s Famous and when you opened Lupo five years ago?
I'm just really glad we didn't open something from scratch [first]. Like the way that Lupo worked out for us was perfect in that we got to have a test ground to learn what we wanted to do as owners of a shop and with really supportive people that have been regulars here for years. We had people on the first day of COVID, a couple of neighborhood people, that bought really big gift cards just because they wanted to give us some money. One guy was in here and he was welling up with tears, that he couldn't believe that this was happening to us. It's just so gracious what some people did at that time.
We know so much more now about the process of opening or building out a shop. We felt like we knew enough about what kind of shop we actually could envision from the opening day; this is kind of the food we're going to serve and the style and the price points and the style of service. We knew we had a better feel for the type of shop we want this to be and that's just a big huge difference from what we did here.
How did you come up with the concept for Stevie’s Famous?
Lupo is full service; candles, a full bar, it's got some other diverse things on the menu, lots of wine. We wanted to open a casual spot…we wanted to do slices and I wanted to do a pizza shop that does delivery. We don't have that yet but it's a plan to add this year…we have a couple of arcade games in there. I would love to do something like a family pizzeria where everybody [comes] after little league games or whatever it is… this space already had this really big kitchen… It's got an office which is insane. It's got laundry…the space kind of helped shape exactly what the concept is as well.
What does hospitality mean to you?
I tend to think more broadly… being a positive part of your broader neighborhood and community… Within the restaurant context…The food is nourishing and it is responsibly made. From growing it, down to how we treat it in the shop. And you know, it's pizza, you're not gonna get mistaken for a health food joint but you don't feel down after eating this food.
…How the crew is treated and do they feel respected and safe. How do the guests feel and are they glad you're part of the neighborhood and then, how is your broader supply chain and who you're buying from and the farmers you’re working with?
I love seeing and learning from people who are true hospitality professionals because I’m not as in tune as they are…It's inspiring when you see people that are great at it and they really know how to just make someone feel so welcome and at home in a space. I'm always learning from them and trying to help do what I can to help complete that mission.
Have you noticed a shift in the Seattle dining scene since COVID?
[The] one that everybody's going to talk about is just this: The price of goods … is a really interesting challenge …the difference in what we're buying and how we're treating the crew… if we have the same price point, but someone's still telling us it's too expensive, and we know we're putting in so much love… I just want to do what we're doing and then hope … people just decide that they care.
What does balance look like for running these businesses and raising your family?
Yeah, it's a stretch. You just have to fight for it…I gotta get home. And so there is no free time. There's no real recharging. It's a tough stretch. [I’m] real optimistic about summer 2023 and giving myself back a little bit…I signed up for this and there's plenty of people working really hard and you know, I feel really lucky and I love the shops we have and the career I have at this point…You're just going to be running really hard…I know Chef Cam, he's got two kids that are older than mine, and he raised two little kids while he was not being paid well as a chef working, running, and opening multiple restaurants… It's what I'm looking forward to working on at this point forward and trying to prioritize it to find it [balance].
Which is your favorite pizza between Lupo and Stevie's Famous?
If I'm hungover, it's gonna be Stevie's. But if I want to go out for a meal that I'm gonna sit down and enjoy for a while, then Lupo is great. What Chef Cam and the team are doing here [at Lupo]…it blows my mind. I can't believe this is the food we're doing. I just love it.
What is the most requested dish by your kids?
On the pizza front, my son eats only the crust and just leaves the rest of it for some reason. He's four years old and then my daughter leaves the crust and eats all the cheese.
What is a recent memorable meal?
I wish I got out more than I do. When we were first starting the restaurants we would eat out a lot trying to get inspired by people service or however they did things.
[We went to] Sushi Kashiba… it was my wife's 40th…we sat at the tasting counter for sushi dinner…It was a really nice dinner…I really do love getting to do food trips…we did manage to get to New York before we opened Stevie's and get to go and see people that are doing what we think you know as the best in the craft and try to see how they're setting up their kitchens and how they organize their businesses. There's lots in Portland that are amazing. And LA.
What’s the best piece of advice you've received?
I'm not sure it's the best advice but the one I've received many times. And that is to really try to delegate. Delegate [sometimes] feels like giving somebody else something to do that you don't want to do but it's really resisting the urge to release different things in the operation to other people and to truly trust and let it go and let other people work on it. It's good for both people…But it's the lesson that just comes up over and over and over again and I was too slow to do that [at first].
I think one other has been if any big major change happens, like some big crew member leaves or something, trusting that it's gonna be fine…Even if the person is irreplaceable, now some other people get to learn the thing that they were doing… It's more learning and more experiences and it's very often better on the other side.
