Meet Seth Sandoval | Founder of Happy Hour Heroes & Career Bar Professional

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

Hi Seth, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I’ve always wanted to start something of my own. Working for other people has generally not been very fulfilling for me, so I wanted to do something with my time and energy that I could always look back on and be proud of. When it came to deciding what to do, I tried to envision what 10 years in the future would look like, and I imagined the impact it would have if my nonprofit had existed for 10 years and then was taken away. If it wouldn’t matter to anyone, it wouldn’t have been worth doing. So I’m trying to build something that 10 years from now becomes some thing that my community couldn’t imagine not having.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I come from a family of servers, bartenders, and chefs. In fact my mom was a bartender and my dad was a chef, and she even bartended while she was pregnant with me. Some people are born into real estate or personal finance; I was born into hospitality, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to find out how to make a career out of it. I started as a bartender in Santa Cruz, cutting my teeth and participating in cocktail competitions in San Francisco. I became a bar manager while I was very young, at only 24 years old. I was managing people much older than me, some had kids, second jobs, and side hustles. I started to really understand the struggles that my mom had went through as a single parent working in the service industry. I moved to San Diego in 2020, during the pandemic, and my mom had passed away about a month after I left my hometown. It wasn’t until about a year later that I started the hashtag #supportyourlocalbarmom, letting people shout out their favorite “bar mom.” I raised some funds from spreading the word around and distributed the money to unsuspecting bar moms that had been nominated by their friends. That idea, paired with some excited encouragement from a few friends sparked the creation of Happy Hour Heroes, a nonprofit that aims to provide childcare for single parents working in the service industry. Jess Roskow, whom I met working alongside at a busy bar in the Gaslamp, had a similar upbringing to me and held me accountable to really get this thing going, which is why she became the co-founder and only partner in Happy Hour Heroes. I couldn’t have gotten this started without her drive to turn this idea into a reality. We both still hold jobs, I’m currently the Beverage Director for a boutique hotel group, and Jess is bartending. We operate Happy Hour Heroes on the side, so 100% of the money raised goes right back into the program to keep the lights on and make sure there is always resources available for parents in our community. As a secondary driver of revenue and brand awareness, we created a product called Bartender’s Handshake. It’s a wax-based hand salve made for bartenders to treat and prevent bar rot that can be used throughout one’s shift, and 100% of profits go right back to Happy Hour Heroes. The future of Happy Hour Heroes isn’t just in providing childcare for service industry workers, but solving the problems that many of us face that no one else is seeming to pay attention to. We want to create a better industry that encourages longevity and career growth, as well as physical, mental, and financial health. I want more people to be able to make this into a career, so we can all be taken a little more seriously, and live longer more fulfilling lives while getting to do what we love, and what some of us were born to do.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
This is a loaded question, because it really depends on the person and what their level of “fun” to be had is. But if you have a week in San Diego, here’s what I’d say. Bring your passport. Don’t be afraid of Tijuana, there are lots of cool bars there, and some of the best aguachiles in the world. Go to Oryx for dinner, and Aruba for cocktails and late night bites. You’ve gotta do Balboa park and check out the newly re-opened botanical garden. Go to PB and walk to Mission Beach on the bike path along the beach, get a tiki cocktail at Miss B’s Coconut Club or a martini and a steak at Moe’s Steakhouse, then around 9 PM go and watch the fireworks coming from SeaWorld over Mission Bay. On another day I would go to Convoy, get some ramen or hot pot, then get a cocktail at Realm of the 52 Remedies (literally the best cocktails in town), then maybe check out Convoy Music Bar for a cocktail then go to O Zone Billiards to play some pool. On another night if I’m in the Gaslamp, I’d go to La Puerta for happy hour, maybe catch a Padres game if the season is right, then hit up Gaslamplighter and sing some Kareoke. If you’re really on a cocktail tour, go check out Speakyeasy-ception bars Neighborhood/Noble Experiment/Youngblood in East Village for a choose-you-own adventure cocktail experience. Don’t leave San Diego before cooking yourself a steak late at night at Turf Supper Club with your closest friends. And if you’re a real party animal go to Pacer’s on a Monday night, iykyk. Then maybe get an IV before heading back home because you just partied enough to make John Daly proud.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I can’t give enough gratitude towards Basem and Cyndi from Fierce & Kind Spirits. There’s so much about the liquor industry that is built to feed the machine, but what Basem and Cyndi have done to create a philanthropic brand along with a quality product, while being the ones to actually get their hands dirty in their community efforts is inspiring to say the least. Basem coached me on how to start my nonprofit and showed me all the steps to go legit, and then proceeded to throw one of our biggest fundraising events of the year, Bourbon & Blues. There would be no Happy Hour Heroes without Fierce & Kind.

Website: https://Happyhourheroes.org

Instagram: @supportyourlocalbarmom

Image Credits
Xander Brown