Recent grad one of Cache Valley’s newest restaurant champions
At age 24, Justin Hamilton, owner of Café Sabor and the nearly finished Hamilton’s, a steakhouse opening in June, proves that youth doesn’t hinder success.
Graduating from Utah State University in ’03 with a bachelor’s degree in both political science and economics, Hamilton chose not to be employed, but to employ, and before even finishing school, he created Café Sabor, where he wanted something unique.
While helping a friend in Idaho Falls build and manage a Mexican restaurant, Hamilton came up with a restaurant idea to fit Cache Valley.
“I didn’t want just a traditional Mexican restaurant,” he said “There’s so much more to Latin food.”
“I put together a concept that was different – something that would reach out to different branches and parts of the community,” he said. “I wanted a concept that college kids would still feel like it would be a great place to come and hang out with friends and where families would come. I also wanted to have a little bit of a nicer place with a full dining experience.”
With a little help from personal individuals and family, Hamilton made his restaurant.
Located on 600 W. and Center Street in Logan, next to the train tracks, Café Sabor has been open for a year and half and has since become a familiar location to students and residents of Cache Valley.
Hamilton, originally from Idaho Falls, came to Logan in 1997 to attend USU and liked Logan even before he lived there.
“I really love Logan,” he said. “I liked the way people treated you even when you were a high school student.”
During college, he was involved with many different organizations and activities including being a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, President’s Leadership Council, working with the Associated Students of USU and being in charge of organizing the USU Howl in 2000.
“He’s always been busy,” Jarret Blonquist said, a finance and economics senior, who is also a server at Café Sabor. He knew Hamilton before the restaurant was built.
“Ever since I’ve known him, he’s had about a million things on his plate,” Blonquist said.
Involvement, Hamilton said, taught him important skills for success and gave him networking opportunities.
“Just being involved in so many different clubs and organizations and stuff really helped us out in the beginning to bring lots of different groups down to the restaurant,” he said
On top of the university experience, Hamilton views his age as an advantage in the restaurant business.
“You only have everything to gain and nothing to loose,” he said.
Although he said there is a “tight balance” of being a friend and a boss when his employees are the same age.
“It’s interesting to have a boss that’s my age,” Blonquist said. “But it’s a lot of fun.”
And barely out of college, Hamilton said he knows what students want.
“Just understanding being a USU student and understanding what the needs are, has really helped out,” he said. “A lot of business owners overlook what a role the university plays in the business’s success.
“On average I bet college students eat out at least once a week – sometimes two or three times a week,” he said. “The disposable incomes and the entertainment budgets that a lot of college kids have is just huge.”
Hamilton, who originally came to USU with plans of going into law school, is now making his name in Cache Valley’s restaurant business. Already with one successful restaurant under his belt, he has now decided to embark on another one – a steakhouse in North Logan.
At 2400 N. Main Street, the building is nearly finished and will open June 1.
For this project, Hamilton received help from a team of students working on their project for a public relations agency class (JCOM 5300) where the team functions as an actual public relations agency for a semester. And it was a win-win situation for both groups – Hamilton got advice and PR students got a real-life experience.
David Allen, a PR senior on the team, said Hamilton was open to everything.
“He’s a big thinker,” Allen said. “We were told right up front not to eliminate any of our ideas just because of cost or too extravagant.”
The team pitched four ideas. Hamilton used all of them.
“It’s been an awesome experience to work with someone who’s so young and had so much success,” Allen said.
Hamilton said he was surprised how professional the PR team was and how much they helped.
“I was 110 percent pleased with the work that they did,” he said.
With two restaurants soon in Cache Valley, some might think Hamilton is set for life, but he looks at his success as a learning experience.
“I don’t think I’ll do restaurants for the rest of my life” he said.”We’ll see where the future takes me.”
-joelfeathers@cc.usu.edu
CafÉ Sabor owner Justin Hamilton talks about his new steakhouse that will be opening in North Logan in June. The 24-year-old graduated from USU in 2003 and has worked with a USU public relations student group to market his new restaurant. (Photo by John Zsiray)