Margy:
Good morning. Welcome to A Few Minutes with Margy. I’m Margy Lyman with Dudum Real Estate Group, and this is my new good friend Rolla Ghaben. She is a proud owner of several restaurants here in beautiful downtown Walnut Creek, and it has a very warm history—started by her father and carried on by you and your siblings. So, welcome.

Rolla:
Thank you. Thanks for having me—absolutely—and coming in and visiting.

Margy:
All right. We are, by the way, at Broderick, which is on the corner of Bonanza and Locust, right in downtown—across the street from another restaurant at the Gardens—owned.
And, um, so tell me—let’s start with your childhood, working in restaurants and your dad.

Rolla:
Yeah, those are fond memories that kind of get embedded in your life—the memories you don’t forget. But yeah, Dad was in the hospitality/restaurant industry all his life.
He was a world traveler—spoke like four different languages.

Margy:
Wow.

Rolla:
He was an amazing man. He loved people and loved telling his, you know, stories and sharing his life and family with everyone else. He was an amazing person.
We came to this country in—

[Music]

—the early ’80s… or no, late ’70s. I can’t remember. And, um, yeah, kind of got right into it.

Margy:
You were over by Nordstrom originally?

Rolla:
So, yeah—we had the Hofbrau back in the ’80s. Those are the memories that—

Margy:
Very popular. I have memories, yes.

Rolla:
Oh my gosh, yes. That place was home in a lot of ways.
I have two siblings—an older and a younger. Mike is my oldest sibling, and then David is my younger sibling—and we all worked in the business through high school.
Both boys decided to go away to college, and so they kind of left for a little bit. I decided to stay local—so I stayed local and went to college here and still worked with Dad.
So I probably had the most years working with him, under him—him teaching me the ins and outs and really just watching the way he was with people and his passion about this industry.
Of course I didn’t appreciate it then—I thought he was cuckoo, like, “Oh my gosh, he’s just crazy,” you know? Like—LOL—yeah, like my children probably think of me, you know? “Oh my gosh, my mom is just so…” you know—so over it—whatever.
But my dad was that person. We would watch him just—
—but build relationships with guests. And we watched—

Margy:
You told me there weren’t many people in Walnut Creek who he didn’t know.

Rolla:
No. A lot of people knew who he was—and knew him not because he owned it, but because he was always there. And the way he greeted them—made them feel—it was just…
It’s a passion that you just don’t see anymore. Unfortunately, things have changed, obviously, in our industry.
And that’s, I think, what we get from him. We all, again—we all went to college, got our degrees. Both boys went and worked for other companies.
I got married instead and had my kids—and still worked in the business.
Got my degree but never really left—just kind of stayed in it and walked alongside him.

Margy:
So what happened after the Hofbrau? I know that closed in the ’90s.

Rolla:
So it closed in August of 2001. And my dad was one of those business people—very old-school. A shake of the hand was kind of his way of…
You know, we had a huge, big remodel at the Hofbrau and thought we were going to be there for some more time—but it didn’t happen. So he ended up retiring, which was probably a good thing.
But at the same time we had Hubcaps, which was here.

Margy:
Right—everybody knows Hubcaps.

Rolla:
Yeah. So he retired from there. Mike and I were here running it. Mike was working—had like a real job during the day, came at night to help out.
Hubcaps transformed into Broderick, where we are right now. That was in 2015.
We had been here at this location since ’86, and then in 2015 we decided it was time to kind of either remodel Hubcaps, or do a different living concept, or just come up with a totally new concept.
And that’s what we did.

Margy:
And the prime—Broderick’s been around a long time. It’s a very well-known restaurant, and it has a very high standard of food and customer service. So you felt that was a great model for you.

Rolla:
For sure. We wanted something that was heavy—
I’m not saying Hubcaps wasn’t, because Hubcaps was—on a different level. We have a full bar here; it was just different.
And also the clientele in Walnut Creek was changing at that time as well, so we saw the direction of where things were going in our community.
We had been here for a long time—as kids and now young adults—and we felt like a lot of wood would really style and do well in Walnut Creek.

Margy:
So I want to ask you a couple of questions about some of the other restaurants you own—and then you’ve told me a little about your relationships with your employees and how loyal they’ve been to you. Some of them have been here for decades, and I want to dive into that—which is probably one of the reasons why customer service is so excellent at all your restaurants.
But tell me a little about some of the other restaurants that you and your brothers own.

Rolla:
My brothers and I are a franchisee of Original Mels. So when we had Hubcaps here for a long time, we also acquired the one in Walnut Creek back in 2003.
And then we continued to expand on that—we’ve expanded in the Sacramento region; we’ve opened new locations every now and then throughout the years.
So we had these two going for the longest time, but when we changed Hubcaps and kind of got out of the diner scene to a little bit more of a hip concept—
Our cousins—we partnered up with our cousins, and then after Broderick we opened Matching Brine with them.

Margy:
Yeah—great.

Rolla:
Which was a year after opening Broderick. And then, you know, we continued to kind of grow our own concepts alongside our cousins.
People always say, “Oh, there are so many restaurants.” Yeah—my brothers and I are on the, you know, the Broderick and the Mels side. And then we ventured out and partnered with our cousin into our own concepts of Lita, Bach and Brine—and then my cousin Victor—Hot Boys, which—
So it’s been a cool adventure.
But, you know, you learn from the roots—learn from childhood, watching our father—and also expanding as the three of us siblings.
What we’ve learned, and how we do things are, you know, the way we’ve done them in the years—you’ve learned the successes and failures, right? You learn the goods and the bads.
But he taught us to have that same passion as our father. It’s not easy—that’s the fantastic thing—and you really have to own it. It’s your baby.

Margy:
You’re very deeply rooted in Walnut Creek. I mean, it’s my feeling you guys really have your finger on the heartbeat of what’s going on in this town. And it—I mean, it’s changed a lot just since I’ve lived here, you know, which is the early ’90s.
And, um, you know—I would think that your father, and now your family and extended family, are all sort of keeping your hand on the pulse of this part of the East Bay.

Rolla:
Of course. This is—first, it’s home for us.
And I’ve said this for a long time—I want to say maybe 15 years—Walnut Creek is the mini San Francisco.
Yeah—without the bridge and without the water, right? And it’s on a smaller scale, obviously, but this is who we are.
Our dining scene is expanding—and it’s not as intense as San Francisco—but we have it all here. We have the shops, the beautiful downtown, great weather, beautiful scenery, all the little boutiques and the moms—and, you know, the restaurants that are, again, elevated.
And we’re seeing that now—we’re seeing, you know, the downtown living—and it really is a little mini San Francisco but without the congestion.
Yeah—I’ve… we’ve seen that coming 15 years, and it’s happening, and it’s going to continue tomorrow.
We have fabulous hospitals, great neighborhoods that are all very diverse and different.

Margy:
And your employees—some of whom you’ve told me have been here for years—so they have seen the changes that you guys have made too, but have kept their heart with you and your brothers and family.

Rolla:
Yeah. I mean, I think the most important part of this business is having that relationship between you and the people that stand right next to you throughout this journey, right?
Because without them, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do everywhere. And without their commitment to us—and our commitment to them—there’s no way.
It’s a relationship that needs to grow and prosper. And yeah, I mean, we’ve had people that have been with us for 20-plus years.

Margy:
So what are the goals for the next 20 years?

Rolla:
Five!
Five—oh no, we’re all getting up there.
I think just to continue to try to perfect this business—somewhere—
It’s harder and harder as we continue on, and of course COVID has kind of put a dampen on this industry—and how to try to execute the best possible way we can.
That’s always been our biggest priority: to our guests and making sure that we’re taking care of our staff.
I mean, this guy right here—he’s been with us for 25 years.

Margy:
That’s fantastic.

Rolla:
So that’s great. And he’s here before opening and everything else—getting everything ready for the crowds to come in for today and the rest of the weekend.
So it’s—and again, you see these people more than you see your family. We go home to sleep. We come here to be with them.
I’ve seen their kids grow up. They’ve seen my children grow up. They’ve seen my kids being babies. And, you know, it’s a really special bond that you want to hold on to as long as you possibly can—because it’s what makes this still fun.

Margy:
Yes—the relationships.

Rolla:
Yeah—the relationship that you build. The relationship with your team—really caring about you, about the guests.

[Music]

Margy:
Well, I want to give a shout-out to you—and some of the restaurants in town. I’ve patronized all of them, and I’ve got to say that your food is—in some cases unique—and then when it’s not unique, you get what you plan for and it’s fabulous.

Rolla:
And if it’s not fabulous, let us know—because it’s an imperfection of a business, right? Just like everything else. And, you know what—things do happen—happen.
But, you know, it’s funny—I have a story to say about a month ago—and you know I kind of hit you up all the time—about a month ago I had a review. I’m the first one that looks at them.
And it was a guest who—“I’ve been coming here for years to Broderick,” and she’s a regular. And I guess, you know—
—I want to hear—wasn’t afraid—blah blah—
—put my back—and that was like—

Margy:
No—that’s wrenching.

Rolla:
Well—just like—I, you know… So I reached out to her on the back end and I gave her my personal number. She ended up calling me, and I think I missed her call, and then she gave me her number and I called her back—and we had a conversation.
And it was this older woman that had been coming here for quite some time, and I’m like, “Look—whatever happened, we can fix whatever.”
And I think the biggest thing for me was her saying she was never going to come back into a business that she’d patronized for so long—because of one bad experience.
And I’m like, “Look—come in, I’d love to meet you—blah blah blah—we’ll fix whatever happened.”
And she goes, “Well… at the end of the conversation—did you call me for me to take off my review?”
I could care less about the review. I just wanted—
—and she ended up coming. We met. And we made a new friend.
And it was just—look, I couldn’t care about—like, when you’re here, we have staff here that lives—and that will make whatever—whatever—make it right. And that’s what’s important to me—making sure that the people who are here care enough about the guest experience and how to do it.

Margy:
That’s wonderful. Well, congratulations. Thank you so much. It was so nice to get to know you. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.