Chomp!

By Ron Aiken
December 13, 2013

Michelle Wang Embracing Life’s Journey

It was 2010, and it seemed like the right time for Michelle Wang.

Time to sell. Time to divest. Time to pull back and enjoy the fruits of a life’s work.

In a stroke, she sold the major holdings of her Miyo’s empire – Miyo’s Main Street, Miyo’s Harbison, Miyo’s Sandhills and M Vista – keeping only the Lexington and Forest Drive locations and M Cafe.

Three months of heartache later, she’d bought them all back – at a $300,000 loss.

Why? Because she cared, because she could and because she had to.

God has a sense of humor, Wang said. It was God’s plan to humble me, to love me, and He has.

I had been in business for 15 years, and I thought I had done all. I wanted to do something else, to travel, but when I found out the things that were going on, the standards had fallen, the things they were doing to my employees and our product, it was heartbreaking.

I realized I had to come back no matter what it took.

She bought back the properties, sued the group of her former chefs who had bought the business (they had never paid for it as promised to begin with, and they subsequently disappeared from Columbia) and started re-imagining both her concepts and herself.

In short, she started over, both as a business owner and, remarkably, as a person.

I had always had a very strong work ethic, a very strong character, Wang said. But I learned that as a Christian, I needed to learn from everyone. So that’s what I started doing. I realized we were all one team, and that you needed to care for the people who are helping you realize your dream and support them.

I used to think I had good people skills. But I realized I only got along with people I liked, and not with people I didn’t like. So really I didn’t have very good people skills at all. I work hard on that now, on learning from everyone and loving everyone. I’ve changed how I approach life and my restaurants.

Once I did that, I got excited about new ideas about food and health and flavors and what I could do next to bring that here.

In 2012 she opened M Fresh at 1237 Washington Street (gomfresh.com) to focus on healthy food options such as salads, soups, wraps, gourmet teas, creative juices (avocado, pear, carrots, etc.) and smoothies, and this year opened M Grille (gomgrille.com) to showcase a broader, cleaner flavor palate with inspirations taken from around the world after perfecting the art of elegant Chinese food at her landmark Miyo’s locations.

She still works as hard as ever; it’s what she’s done ever since she moved to the United States to study dance at City Center Ballet Arts and Broadway Dance Center in New York. While a student, she would work up to six or seven different jobs at a time to make ends meet – as a licensed insurance agent, in real estate sales, as a legal assistant working on immigration law, as a server and cashier at restaurants and even, after paying $1,000 for an intensive course, as a hairstylist.

The best money I ever spent, Wang says. My family (a husband and three boys) have never had to pay for a haircut.

Wang admits her goal-driven outlook in the past sometimes did her more harm than good. 

 

I grew up as an only child, and I was very self-centered, Wang said. My parents, both engineers, provided very well for me and I enjoyed being the focus of attention and not having to share anything with anyone.

Now, sharing her success with her employees and helping others achieve their dreams is almost as important to her as her business and family

I know now that even when I wasn’t ready, God was with me the whole time, Wang says. He’s given me the will to learn and to not fear what He has in store for me. I don’t look at obstacles, I look at them as challenges and opportunities and what comes after them. I love being a part of a team working toward a goal and to live my life that way.

When I first was working in my restaurants, I would often come home late and my dad used to leave a pot of soup on the stove for me. He wasn’t very expressive of emotion, but he showed me through the food that he loved me.

I like now to do the same thing for other people, to show my love for them through the food we make for them. I’m very blessed to have the success that I have and the people who work with me to make it that way, and I’m very excited about the future. I look back on the experience of selling the restaurants and how difficult it was, but I wouldn’t change a thing. It made me who I am today and so appreciative of what it means to love what you do and the people you do it with.

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