Laid Off: And Designing a Toddler-Friendly Cafe in DUMBO

"I’m excited to chase the dream of building something that’s my own, that hopefully becomes a legacy for my family."

Aug 07, 2025

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In today’s issue, I talk to brand marketer Helen Zhang on why the best business idea she’s ever had came from chasing toddlers around while out to eat and what it takes to open a restaurant in New York when the safety net disappears.

Helen Zhang was already working on a restaurant when she got laid off. Ziggy’s, a café in Dumbo, had been in the works for months — a place where parents could get a great martini, thin-crust Roman style pizza, and not feel apologetic about bringing their kids.

Then, on December 6, 2024, she lost her job as Head of Communications at dental care startup Tend, where she’d spent nearly four years. Her husband was a stay-at-home dad. Their two boys were five and seven. The family’s healthcare was tied to her salary.

That same day, Helen filed for unemployment, applied for state-subsidized insurance, and moved money around to cover six months of mortgage payments. “I tried not to spiral,” she said. “I just took the immediate actions I needed to make sure we were okay.”

The layoff didn’t derail Ziggy’s, it accelerated it. “It felt like getting thrown off a cliff before I was ready, versus knowing I had to eventually jump off with a parachute.”

What were some of the projects you worked on while you were there? Anything you were especially proud of?

Launching in three new markets within six months of starting the role (Washington DC, Boston, Atlanta), scaling the communications program from five locations to over 20, building an influencer program from scratch and making the case for working with local creators, championing a culture of collaboration between comms, brand and performance marketing within the organization, spearheading media rollouts for nine-figure fundraises, ideating a brand campaign that reached tens of millions of consumers (on a shoestring budget, of course), and the dozens of partnerships and live events I brought to life that made going to the dentist sound cool.

How did they handle layoffs?

It was pretty standard. They put a 15-minute meeting on my calendar for a touchbase with the head of HR and my manager. It was very scripted and cold and my manager was completely silent. I tried to make a joke to make the whole thing less awkward, and because I had worked with the head of HR for so long, I felt like we had a personal relationship. She ignored it and just kept on reciting her script, which I know legally she was obligated to do, but didn’t make it any less brutal.

Where were you when you found out?

I was working out of Dumbo House where I worked remotely several days a week to be able to pick up my kids easily. I took the Zoom call there in a small room meant for recording podcasts. It was funny because I was actually deathly hungover… my husband's cocktail bar had thrown a huge party to celebrate its 20th anniversary the night prior.

Okay so, tell us more about Ziggy's!

Ziggy's Roman Cafe is a concept my husband and I dreamed up because of our personal nightmarish experiences dining out with our young kids, who are now five and seven. I’m a former restaurant publicist, and my husband co-founded one of the most iconic cocktail bars in the world, so eating and drinking has always been a big part of our lives. Before we had kids we loved to go out, but with kids we felt like we were always choosing between a practical option like a food hall or Shake Shack, or take our chances going to a “vibey” restaurant that could make a good martini, and pray our kids would behave. They usually didn’t. So we came up with our dream restaurant named after one of our boys where we could have great drinks and delicious food — a place we would be happy to go to pre-children.

We’re working with a few amazing chefs to curate a menu of easy Italian that’s exciting to eat any day of the week, with the most insane, mind-blowing thin crust Roman-style pizzas. We’re incorporating a few kid-friendly design elements that are a nod to parents, but won’t alienate any non-parents either. And because I now have all this experience in the startup space, I also knew we had product market fit when we started exploring the concept. Dumbo is an incredible neighborhood but mostly caters to the hordes of tourists. It lacks dining options for the residential community, and for years we had neighbors and parents at our kids’ schools compelling us to open something with accessible food and a fun ambiance. We finally listened, and now we’re a few months away from opening.

So much of this was already in motion before the layoff. What were some of the earliest things you did to get Ziggy’s off the ground, before there was a lease or a menu?

My husband toured a bunch of spaces casually for what feels like years. We had an opportunity to potentially be the flagship F&B in a new development in Williamsburg but it didn’t work out, which I’m so grateful for because we ended up finding our dream space much closer to where we live and have closer ties with the community. I had also put together a fundraising deck that fleshed out the concept and included financial projections. We went out to friends and family for the raise and started getting commitments. I started building the brand early, with a vision of how I wanted the visuals and imagery to look. Lots of Pinterest boards and mood boards were made.

You're a marketer at heart. When did it click for you that this wasn’t just a family dream, but a brand you were building? What were the first branding decisions you made?

The layoff definitely pushed me into taking the project more seriously as a full-time job. Like I mentioned earlier, I felt a new rush of urgency to make this thing a success, and I know from being a marketer that some of those early brand-building decisions you make at inception are the most important and irreversible you can make for your business. I had sketched out some ideas for a logo and had a color palette in mind, including a bold orange which I envisioned really standing out with a physical awning on the storefront. My husband suggested incorporating the team colors of AS Roma, the more progressive soccer club in Rome as an “IYKYK” touch, which was perfect because they included a rich orange hue. Both my kids love to draw and were doing some amazing sketches of dinosaur-like creatures at the time, so I also wanted to incorporate some illustrative assets into the branding as an homage to them and also to play up a sense of playfulness and unfussiness we’re aiming to convey with the dining concept.

We also landed on Godzilla as a mascot when we were watching Godzilla vs. Kong, Ziggy’s favorite movie, for the thousandth time and realized there’s an amazing scene of Godzilla taking a nap in the Coliseum — another Roman reference and kind of a family inside joke. All of these ideas were beautifully pulled together and synthesized by Picnic, a small agency I ended up hiring to execute the branding work. I had met one of the founders, Audrey Elkus, at a coworking event the day I got laid off (shoutout to Erika Veurinkof the Long Live newsletter whose event it was) and had just hit it off with her. She and her business partner Lwam understood the vision immediately and really brought Ziggy’s visual personality to life.

You’re opening a restaurant… in New York… with your husband — while raising two kids. How are you dividing roles, making decisions, and keeping things moving without burning out or bickering? What's a piece of advice when it comes to having a co-founder you're already very close with? In this case, married to.

I’m very fortunate that my husband has been in the restaurant business for over 20 years and has done this many times over. He is a true operator so it’s been relatively straightforward to delineate our roles, with him overseeing the physical buildout, budgeting, staffing and operations in general. Because I have a marketing background, I’ve led all the brand work, and will be embarking on a “building in public” journey on our socials. And while I made our fundraising deck full of beautiful imagery and compelling copy, he did all the financial projections and put together our pre-opening budget (guess what our investors were more interested in seeing?). And as a digitally native millennial, a lot of the paperwork, emails, permit applications, etc. have organically fallen on my plate — which I don’t mind, because it gives me an opportunity to learn new processes and pull my weight in the partnership.

So far I’ve loved being married to my co-founder. I think we have a huge advantage in that there’s no topic that’s taboo or uncomfortable for us to talk through. It also helps that we have a deep sense of trust in each other and each others’ taste. No matter how much we bicker, we know that it’s ultimately not productive and will always hear each other out and listen to the case the other person is making. A very high baseline level of respect is tantamount in the foundation of any co-founder relationship, which is baked in when you’re already close with the person. My one piece of advice would be to remember and prioritize your relationship above all the noise. My husband and I are about to enter a really chaotic, likely stressful season of life, but we’re in agreement that at the end of the road it’s just us, and we’re on the same team.

You’ve led big marketing teams before. What’s been the biggest adjustment in running your own business — especially one that’s physical, local, and deeply personal?

The stakes just feel so much higher when you’re working for yourself. You inevitably hold yourself to a higher standard when you’re personally invested in a business, and especially when the business is so tangible, it can be overwhelming and full of decisions fraught with analysis paralysis. I try to remind myself that done is better than perfect. Running a business that’s both community-driven and personal also has me talking about work more than ever before — to friends and strangers alike. I fully recognize that I am my own marketing channel and with so much skin in the game, I can’t afford to not tell literally every person I meet that I’m opening a local business. I used to compartmentalize work and my personal life, but that boundary simply does not exist anymore.

What were some of the practical things you did early on that helped you transition out of corporate — things like setting up systems, finding advisors, managing money, whatever kept the wheels turning?

One of my superpowers is resourcefulness, so as soon as the layoff happened I tapped all the experts in my life to help me with the transition. I have a friend who is a professor in public health give me the TLDR on getting healthcare for my family on the New York state marketplace. My best friend also happens to be my financial advisor and I spent the first few months day trading out of her apartment to help me build a savings cushion… not recommended unless you’re supervised by an expert. I moved money around from different places to set up a few months of mortgage payments so I wouldn’t have to think about them. I was also lucky to procure a few freelance clients to mitigate that financial stress a little further.

What tools or support systems have made the biggest difference so far — anything you’d recommend to someone leaving a full-time job to build something of their own?

I highly recommend making your professional circle as wide as you possibly can, not in a cringe networky way. For me, it was joining online communities within my industry or just with like-minded professionals. Building something of your own, even if you have co-founders, is an extremely lonely pursuit. Through mentorship programs, Slack and Substack communities like this one, and more, I have access to dozens of group chats full of kind people in similar or relatable boats willing to listen, make a rec, or lend a hand. I feel super grateful for this.

When you no longer have a company behind you — no IT team, no HR, no finance department — what do you actually need in place to feel like you're running a real business?

An accountant you trust with your life!

What’s something you thought would feel scary about working for yourself that turned out to be manageable? And what’s something that caught you totally off guard?

What I thought would be scary but wasn't: I was terrified of losing that structured support system. No more team to brainstorm with, no company resources to lean on, just me working in a silo. But honestly, everyone's a consultant now, and the freelance/entrepreneur community is incredibly generous. I have a whole network of people I can text for advice, cowork with, or use as a sounding board. Sometimes I get better support now than I did in traditional office settings. What caught me off guard: Nothing has completely blindsided me yet (knock on wood!), but the thing that continues to delight me every single day is picking up my kids at 3pm. I knew it would be nice, but I didn't realize how transformative it would feel to be so present for those everyday moments. It's become my favorite "meeting" of the day.

You’ve said this restaurant is rooted in community — not just foot traffic. What’s something you are planning to do to make Ziggy’s feel like it belongs in Dumbo, not just next to it?

We ideated this concept based on a real need for more family friendly and accessible dining options for residents in the neighborhood. I’m determined to involve the community throughout the building process as well, whether it’s getting feedback from friends and neighbors to hosting tasting previews before we open. We’ve also already done a slew of local events to start connecting with neighbors. Back in April, I made 200 custom Godzilla shaped cookies for local artists to give away as part of Dumbo Open Studios, a local walkabout that showcases the robust creative community here. And we’ve been tabling at Dumbo Family Games, another community event where they shut down a popular street on Sundays and host kids’ activities — we popped up with a Play-Doh pizza making workshop. It’s been a great way to get the word out about Ziggy’s and connect with locals.

What does “success” look like to you now — and has that changed since you left your full-time role?

I’m not ashamed to say that I have always been motivated by money and will continue to be with this career pivot. In terms of what success looks like, a big part of that will always be defined by financial independence. But since I left my full-time role, I’m excited to chase the dream of building something that’s my own, that hopefully becomes a legacy for my family. It’s also very important to me to be a model for my kids in showing them that it’s scary to take risks, but we can do scary things. Growing up in an immigrant household, my parents weren’t in the position to take those types of risks. They worked union jobs and penny pinched their way into the middle class. So I was always risk averse when it came to my career and favored stability over everything. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to be able to try a hand at entrepreneurship and a huge indicator of success will be what my kids think is attainable for their own futures.

If someone just got laid off and is sitting on an idea — something totally different from what they used to do — what would you tell them to focus on in month one? What matters most early on?

I would do the research to confirm that there’s an audience and an appetite for what they’re hoping to build or do, product-market fit, if you will. I worked with a founder who once said that unless your idea has the potential to be a billion dollar business, it’s not worth pursuing. I thought that was extreme, but I would be absolutely certain that whatever you’re hoping to do is monetizable. I would find as many experts as I can and learn as much as I can. I would buy a lot of people coffee in exchange for advice — people who are smarter than you who you trust. And then I would go for it!

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