Meet Austin Chen | Founder of Best Picnic Spots

We had the good fortune of connecting with Austin Chen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Austin, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
History of OC Luxury Picnics and Best Picnic Spots

The concept of OC Luxury Picnics was formed during the pandemic when my sister and co-founder, Karlie, had to think of a restaurant concept for a project she was conducting for a business course at Cornell University. Her idea was to create a business model that can shy away from brick and mortar since our other small businesses suffered great losses from COVID.

Simultaneously, I was dabbling in my passion of web development and design and decided to build a website for OC Luxury Picnics. Within the first month, we understood luxury picnics have become a growing trend and a major player as a choice for hosting events. We capitalized on the opportunities that came our way and fast forward to 2022, we have serviced hundreds of picnics of up to 100 guests and expanded to other cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and New York.

From growing OC Luxury Picnics, we quickly realized many individuals were impacted by the pandemic like us, and wanted to get into the industry to start a side hustle and generate income. More and more companies started popping up everywhere as they all understood luxury picnics are here to stay.

Our most recent endeavor, Best Picnic Spots, was launched in 2021 as the first official online marketplace for luxury picnics (think “Airbnb” for picnics). Through Best Picnic Spots, picnic vendors across the US can list their services and utilize our platform to grow their business, while guests can easily browse, compare, and book a picnic event. We wanted to create a platform to help other small businesses (picnic vendors) grow, but at the same time, provide a seamless booking process for guests wanting a picnic. Our platform has already launched in Southern California, San Francisco, and we’re currently preparing for Miami, Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas in the upcoming months.

What should our readers know about your business?
Best Picnic Spots, the “Airbnb” for luxury picnics, was born in 2021 when my sister/co-founder and I decided to take picnics to the next level and expand nationwide. As a leading vendor in the local SoCal market with OC Luxury Picnics, we wanted to make our mark by creating a marketplace that provides 1.) growth opportunity for other picnic vendors and 2.) awareness of luxury picnics to the community at large. However, our story getting here was far from straightforward.

I was once a small business owner of two brick-and-mortar after-school academies, focusing on education and music. I experienced it all: the joys and frustrations of building a business, watching it prosper, and bidding it farewell when the pandemic struck, and I had no choice but to forcefully shut down.

Despite these loses, my co-founder and I recognized opportunity and pioneered the luxury picnic model. The event planning industry was foreign to us, but we decided to enter the market with bold ideas.

OC Luxury Picnics was created at this time and we honed in on what felt important to distinguish our brand. Our top priority was establishing ourselves as a full-fledged hospitality service rather than an ordinary picnic company. We provided fully customized picnics and was one of the few that catered large parties (up to 100 guests) at a moment’s notice. As a result, we alleviated the stress and worry that came with planning a special occasion, guaranteeing the best experience possible for our guests.

OC Luxury Picnics became a top choice for luxury picnics. We learned the ins and outs of the business model, experienced growing pains, and understood what it took to be profitable and successful. While luxury picnics can be classified as micro events, there is nothing “micro” with what goes behind the scenes to providing the experience. This includes:
1.) Designing (themes, customizations, add-ons)
2.) Operations (inventory management, quality control, transportation logistics)
3.) Marketing (brand awareness, social media presence, advertising)

But we tackled each challenge with excitement as we watched our small business grow.

One year and a few hundred picnics later, we formed Best Picnic Spots to support other picnic vendors and provide guidance to both existing and future entrepreneurs.

Best Picnic Spots is a luxury picnic marketplace that provides a platform for picnic vendors to be discovered and found. Our mission: to provide solutions for building a successful and profitable business. We offer tools to address challenges with design, operations, and marketing, so picnic vendors can focus on what they do best.

We’ll never forget our early beginnings when OC Luxury Picnics was part of the scarce few picnic businesses. We had no model or guidebook to follow and had to learn from trial and error. We hope Best Picnic Spots can remove many of the initial obstacles we faced and pave the way to success for other picnic vendors.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Top Beaches: 1.) Newport Beach
2.) Victoria Beach, Laguna

Top Areas:
1.) Laguna Beach Area – a great place to shop, purchase souvenirs, eat gelato, and visit in the evenings for bars
2.) Balboa Island – a unique area in OC that you can visit via ferry. The island is a great day-trip to eat great local seafood, check out the museum, and participate in aquatic activities such as paddle boarding, duffy boats, or fishing
3.) Fashion Island – great mall for shopping
4.) The Spectrum – an outdoor mall great for shopping and finding good food
5.) Downtown Disney

Top Hikes:
1.) Black Star Canyon Falls Trail – a challenging hike with a lot of rock scrambling, but well worth the view of the falls at the end
2.) Crystal Cove Perimeter Loop – A long hike around Crystal Cove State Park. There are many easier hikes in the area as well.

Top Restaurants:
1.) Din Tai Fung, Costa Mesa – amazing dumplings (XLB) and Taiwanese cuisine
2.) North Italia, Irvine – great Italian food, especially their pasta
3.) Orobae, Irvine – best milk tea ever. Their famous drink is called “Rising Phoenix”
4.) Brodard, Fountain Valley – for amazing Vietnamese spring rolls

Top Activities:
1.) The Escape Game, Irvine – for some of the most well-thought-out and interesting escape rooms out there, this is my go-to place
2.) Disneyland and CA Adventures theme park
3.) Karaoke at Plush Karaoke – for singing and celebrating
4.) Luxury Picnics (of course!)

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
To my family:

We have stuck together through thick and thin and I couldn’t do this without your support. Thank you for staying by my side as I tackle each and every challenging obstacle.

Website: https://bestpicnicspots.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bestpicnicspots/

Other: https://www.ocluxurypicnics.com/ https://www.instagram.com/ocluxurypicnics/

Image Credits
Best Picnic Spots OC Luxury Picnics