Ask Emad Yacoub what chapter of life he’s living, and he doesn’t hesitate. “Somehow when COVID came in…it was very close to taking the whole company down, it kind of injected me with another energy,” he says. “I’m in a chapter… that I think I could take this company so far out there. I just don’t think I’m going to have enough time in my life to accomplish everything that I want to do.” It’s a striking answer from someone who insists, “I’m just a simple person just doing a job,” yet leads one of Canada’s most ambitious hospitality groups.
See also: Sweat equity: How David Ingram built Canada’s most innovative gym from a career in retail grit
Origins: The immigrant who refused excuses
Yacoub arrived in Canada at 19 without English, money, or a plan beyond survival. He stacked shifts—squeezing orange juice as a kitchen helper at the Harbour Castle by morning, bussing tables at night—often seven days a week for “$4.15 an hour in 1984.” On his lone day off, he’d buy three tickets at the discount theatre and watch films for six or seven hours. Back to work the next day. Rinse and repeat.
ADVERTISEMENT |
So where did this kitchen helper develop an ambition for more? He credits a business mind—he’d studied accounting before immigrating—for propelling him out of the dish pit and into serious kitchens. Even at four dollars an hour, he says, he asked, “If they could squeeze an extra tray of bacon out of me, will the hotel be more profitable?” That blend of culinary curiosity and cost awareness fast-tracked him: by 25, he was chef de cuisine at one of Toronto’s most exclusive hotels, leapfrogging colleagues with European pedigrees. As one mentor told a surprised brigade, “This guy has what you guys don’t have.”
Work ethic: A father’s legacy
If his engine seemed relentless, it was modeled at home. “My father… worked seven days a week, morning and night,” Yacoub recalls. The elder Yacoub held a government job by day, learned pharmacy at night (despite no formal training) until people eventually called him “doctor,” and did bookkeeping on weekends. He kept that pace until retirement around 80—and passed away three years later. The lesson landed: never ask for an excuse, find a way.
A language barrier, for example, wasn’t a handicap; it was a prompt to outwork. “If you could do the job in one hour, my job is to do it in 45,” he says. If layoffs ever came down to two equal performers, he didn’t want the barrier to be the tie-breaker. “I have to… be a tiny bit more than you… because I want to make sure that I give them no excuses.”
ADVERTISEMENT |
The first leap: A hot day, a cold start, a street table
After a successful stint in Vancouver, Yacoub returned to Toronto to buy a failing café for $93,000—most of it deferred. Day one was a disaster. The AC was broken, the city sweltered at 38 degrees, and the café pulled just $425 in sales. He went home, gave himself a familiar pep talk—You fixed restaurants for others; now fix your own—and returned with a scrappy plan.
He hauled a table to the sidewalk, brewed a big urn of coffee, and offered it free to passersby. When they asked for cream and sugar, he’d smile: “It’s inside the restaurant.” They’d walk through waves of music and the smell of fresh muffins, croissants, and panini—roasted peppers, chicken, the works. “Maybe I’ll come back for lunch,” they’d say. Sales climbed: “from $400, to $1,000, to $2,000, to $3,000… until becoming almost $9,000 a day.” Soon, actors filming nearby knocked on the door before opening, craving his tuna melt. It wasn’t a marketing budget—it was momentum built on generosity, aroma, and experience.
Philosophy of service: Treat them like guests in your home
Ask Yacoub what really drives restaurant success and he waves off the usual buzzwords. “This business is built on this…can you treat people like a guest in your house.” He trains teams to make the feeling visceral: the warmth you’d give a best friend who drops by; the table you’d reserve for your mother; the bottle you’d open for family.
ADVERTISEMENT |
Perfection is an aim, not a guarantee. “Nobody’s perfect,” he says, invoking Michael Jordan’s free throw percentage. “If you’re the best… and you’re still missing eight shots, you’re not perfect.” Guests, however, expect perfect; they paid for it. So what bridges the inevitable gaps? Friendship. “If you treat every single person walking through the door like your family, they will never complain about your mess… They’re willing to forgive you.”
He tells new hires the seating test. Every restaurant has one worst table and one best. If the room is empty at 5:00 and a walk-in gets the worst table, he asks the host: why? If it were your mother surprising you, where would you seat her? That simple mental flip—from transactions to relationships—recalibrates decisions up and down the service chain.
Facing failure: When to stop riding the dead horse
The meteoric rise of Glowbal didn’t come without stumbles. He loves experimentation, but he’s ruthless about results. “Don’t try to beat a dead horse,” he says. He tells the story of a 2006 concept that threaded the Silk Road—Asian, Indian, Mediterranean—served as tapas trios. The food was “outstanding,” the design “incredible,” but the market wasn’t ready for Middle Eastern flavours and mashups. “If it’s not working, it’s not working. Just get rid of it, start again.” He believes the same concept might thrive today—but timing matters as much as taste.
ADVERTISEMENT |
The COVID crucible: Losing $100,000 a day
Then came the pandemic. “During COVID, we were losing $100,000 a day for 41 days straight,” he says. “$3 million of cash” vanished, and Glowbal sank “almost $2 million” into the red. The only path forward was radical honesty, rapid closures where necessary, and obsessive post-mortems on each miss. “You need to analyze your failures… why the idea you have in your head is not working. If you understand where the failure is coming from… then you don’t repeat the mistakes.” It may have nearly broke the company—but also re-ignited him. The crisis clarified his edge: relentless action and the soft power of hospitality. Treat people like family; own mistakes; move fast.
Roots of welcome: An Egyptian door always open
Yacoub’s deepest service story isn’t from a dining room; it’s from a village in Egypt. After a tour cruise and temple visit on the Nile, he told his cousin he craved mint tea. His cousin knocked on a stranger’s door. An elderly woman welcomed in fifteen travellers and brewed it. “Our doors are always open for the stranger,” he says, voice catching even now. For centuries, Egypt sat on the Silk Road; its culture made hospitality a civic duty. “Invite them, feed them, look after them, and send them on their way.” That, is the philosophy of any business that lasts says the son of Egypt.
The scale and the strain: How far can friendship travel?
Today, Glowbal spans concepts like Black+Blue and employs “1,500–1,700” people, targeting “$100 million in revenue a year.” Yacoub believes the model can scale: “Our philosophy… could be 50 Black+Blue locations in North America.” The constraint isn’t vision; it’s energy and capital. “I don’t like to bring partners from outside. I don’t like to be so much in debt,” he says. Building a flagship can cost millions, with payback stretching “six, seven years.” Expansion demands patience measured in decades—and the personal stamina to keep showing up. “How much energy I’m going to have,” he wonders, half-joking that his wife won’t be happy with the travel demands.
Lessons for builders: Relationships compound
Pressed for one piece of advice, he doesn’t reach for spreadsheets. Instead, one simple lesson. “Treat any client of yours like your best friend,” he says. If your banker calls to ask how your kids’ first week of school went, “there’s no reason for me to change my banker.” Likewise, if a guest feels like family, they’ll forgive the eight misses out of a hundred. And they’ll be back.
ADVERTISEMENT |
A few more takeaways from his playbook:
- Remove excuses. If you’re behind—language, network, capital—outwork and outlearn. “I have to… give them no excuses.”
- Sell the sizzle you can smell. Free coffee, fresh baking, music in the air—create a sensory on-ramp to your story.
- Measure with love and math. Revere experience, but track unit economics; if it’s a “dead horse,” let it go.
- Make perfection forgivable. Strive for it, teach for it, but win loyalty through genuine care.
- Remember your door. Hospitality starts long before the check drops; it begins with the welcome.
The man behind the momentum
For all the accolades, Yacoub still frames himself as a worker, not a celebrity. “Wake up in the morning… go to work and go home, be there for family,” he says. The simplicity is disarming—and perhaps the point. He’s built a company on the most human of business strategies: open the door, mean it, and keep pouring tea. And if he had more time? He’d spend it multiplying that feeling across a continent, one best-friend welcome at a time.
