Hospitality Now

At Her Place, Chef Amanda Shulman Reimagines Restaurant Hours

April 25, 2023

A restaurant closed on weekends? Hear how this chef is building better work-life balance for her team and still filling seats.

When Amanda Shulman was a line cook at places like Momofuku Ko in New York and Joe Beef in Montreal, she fit her life into her work. She didn’t have a choice; Shulman long ago accepted the restaurant reality of working weekends, holidays, and odd hours. But when she opened a spot of her own, Her Place Supper Club in Philadelphia, Shulman wanted to fit the work into her life.

“As I've gotten older, I want to see my family and friends. I want to go to people's weddings,” Shulman says. “It was really important to me to make a schedule that was a little more flexible.” A decade of the restaurant grind has pushed Shulman to pursue better, healthier, more sustainable alternatives. At Her Place, she has done just that, infusing a sense of normalcy into a job that’s anything but.

Her Place started as a dinner party side hustle when Shulman was in college at the University of Pennsylvania. She’d invite people who hadn’t met each other before, and make her Facebook status something like, “5 courses, $35, message me if you want to come.” Those late nights filled with friends and strangers gave Shulman the space to experiment. Sometimes that meant making a meal from a whole pig, other times it was about creating an entire dinner of Roman pastas.

Shulman graduated in 2015 and kept these dinner parties up, but Her Place really took off in 2018, when she was a line cook at Momofuku Ko. That was what inspired Shulman to take the next step. Although she scouted spaces in Manhattan, Shulman ultimately chose to bring Her Place to Philly. Rents were more affordable, the city felt friendlier, and, in a full circle moment, that’s where Shulman first fell in love with restaurants: in college, she staged at Marc Vetri’s now-closed Amis Trattoria and worked at The Bakeshop On 20th.

Once Shulman opened her brick-and-mortar in June 2021 — inside what she calls “a hilariously decrepit pizza shop” — the whole operation was just three people: Shulman and two friends who ran the front of house. Almost two years later, Her Place’s staff of ten works together to figure it all out. “It's a total work in progress and a lot of, like, what would make this better? How do we make people want to work here and want to stay here?” Shulman says.

If Her Place, with its twenty-four seats and tiny open kitchen, is a stage, then Shulman and her team are performing at a level that’s the culinary equivalent of Broadway.

For staff, one of the most attractive aspects about working at Her Place is that the restaurant is closed on weekends. The team runs two dinner services Monday through Friday, and everyone gets a break on Saturdays and Sundays. There’s paid vacation, too. Her Place closes for a full week each quarter, offering staff four weeks of time off. Shulman strives to provide her team with balance, knowing firsthand how physically and emotionally draining restaurant work can be.

Another perk? Her Place covers 50% of health insurance for employees. Shulman also hopes to develop a maternity and paternity leave plan. “If somebody has kids, I would love to be able to figure out how to support them,” she says. “I don't even know what that looks like because I've never worked in a restaurant that's done it.”

And Shulman isn’t afraid of doing what hasn’t been done before. She recognizes that every day is a challenge, but she sees her restaurant as a team sport, and will do anything to make sure her people are happy. In return, Shulman has high standards. “My dad always says that for restaurants, every day's the Super Bowl. You have to perform, perform, perform.”

If Her Place, with its twenty-four seats and tiny open kitchen, is a stage, then Shulman and her team are performing at a level that’s the culinary equivalent of Broadway. They’re serving housemade “cheeze-itz” alongside caviar-topped crab salad, and coming up with inventive dishes like French onion soup lasagnetta and morel French toast. For the second year in a row, Shulman’s cooking has earned her a James Beard Award nomination for Emerging Chef.

The one thing Shulman wishes she could change about the industry is the negative narrative that restaurants are bad places to work. At Her Place, Shulman edges out this rhetoric on a daily basis. For other restaurants looking to do the same, Shulman recommends starting small. For example, if you want to work toward closing on weekends, start by closing one Sunday a month, then a full weekend, then two. Amp up at a pace that makes sense for your team.

While there are benefits to keeping things small, there are also challenges, like the lack of backup when someone calls in sick. That’s something Shulman and her team are working on now: striking the right balance between running a tight, committed ship and creating a foundation for growth.

This spring, Shulman will be putting her business model to the test in a second restaurant, My Loup. The new space, a five-minute walk from Her Place, is a joint project with Shulman’s fiancé, chef Alex Kemp. Though Shulman took her own advice and started out small, she has continued to dream big. And she works incredibly hard — for both her guests and her team — to make her places restaurants where people want to work, eat, and be.

Visit Her Place online at herplacephilly.com.

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At Her Place, Chef Amanda Shulman Reimagines Restaurant Hours

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