{"403001":{"#nid":"403001","#data":{"type":"news","title":"An Engineer Returns to His Restaurant Roots","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAll roads led to the restaurant business\u0026nbsp;for 37-year-old Georgia Tech alumnus Tim Ma. All, that is, except for one that originally took him to Atlanta.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMa literally grew up in restaurants, beginning in Maumelle, Ark., where his parents worked around-the-clock to keep open their small Chinese restaurant. Later, his family moved to New York in the 1980s, and some of the chef\u2019s favorite childhood memories played out against the backdrop of his uncle\u2019s much-acclaimed nouveau Chinese eatery, Paul Ma\u2019s China Kitchen.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019d go almost every weekend to my uncle\u2019s restaurant and see the entire family,\u201d Ma recalls. \u201cI remember being a little boy running around the restaurant. It was like one big dinner party.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo it\u2019s not surprising that the proud Yellow Jacket would eventually go on to open not one, but two successful restaurants of his own. It\u2019s just that he didn\u2019t realize that\u2019s what he wanted to do with his life\u2014he originally decided to try engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cGeorgia Tech was the last school I looked at,\u201d Ma says. \u201cI went on a campus visit and I immediately thought \u2018I want to go here\u2019.\u201d He wound up choosing Tech despite being offered full rides to several others.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMa studied hard for five years then graduated in 2000 with a degree in electrical and computer engineering. He then went on to get a master\u2019s degree, and started to build a lucrative career as a government contractor in the Washington, D.C., area. By all outside accounts, he was doing more than well, but Ma couldn\u2019t quiet the call of the kitchen.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd that\u2019s when he did the contemporary version of running away to join the circus: He quit his job and went off to\u0026nbsp;culinary school.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI was in L.A. around 2006 visiting my sister and brother-in-law,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were in a Japanese restaurant eating sushi and I kept thinking about how the food scene defines a city. By the end of the meal I told them that I wanted to open a restaurant.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDespite lots of push back from his parents, Ma eventually moved forward with his plan. He and his now wife, Joey Hernandez, sold everything they had to move to New York City where he enrolled in the French Culinary Institute, which is now known as the International Culinary Center. The couple did a lot of couch surfing and bunking down in some pretty terrible apartments\u2014some plagued with rats\u2014to make it through. \u201cAt one point we were essentially homeless for 10 days,\u201d Ma says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut Ma had found his passion. And the demanding environment at Tech helped him conquer all his obstacles. After an externship with Chef David Chang of the Momofuku Empire and a short stint cooking in St. Thomas, Ma and Hernandez moved back to the D.C. area to open a place of their own, all on a shoestring budget.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2009, the couple leased an old decrepit doughnut shop on a strip in Vienna, Va., dotted with more auto shops than four-star restaurants. It was the only space they could afford and it sat decidedly outside the city\u2019s vibrant food scene. \u201cWe found the place surfing Craigslist,\u201d Ma says. \u201cNo broker would even talk to us.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETogether with the help of friends and family, Ma and his wife did everything to make the nine-table Maple Avenue Restaurant, as they dubbed it, into a reality\u2014from hauling out the old fixtures to putting up drywall themselves. Ma and Hernandez, who serves as Maple Avenue\u2019s general manager and shares her husband\u2019s passion for restaurants, financed the venture with credit cards.Lots and lots of maxed-out credit cards.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt didn\u2019t take long for their money and credit to run out. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even get a $500 Home Depot card at that point,\u201d Ma admits.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt first, the barely 1,000-square-foot dining room sat empty most nights. Closing seemed inevitable. But just as Ma started dusting off his engineering resume, Maple Avenue had its very first day where it almost broke even. Then came a few more where it actually turned a profit. The critics started paying attention. Great dishes led to even better reviews, and the buzz brought in diners from across the region to sample Ma\u2019s menu of American cuisine enhanced with Asian and French flavors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe dichotomy of Maple Avenue is that you walk into a building that is physically barely hanging on and get great food,\u201d Ma says of his little restaurant that could.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn Maple Avenue\u2019s early days, there were two nods to his time at Georgia Tech on the menu. The first was his take on the Southern classic\u2014fried green tomatoes. The second was a pineapple steak that he loved eating at a Houston\u2019s near campus that he went to all the time during college. \u201cThat item was such a rip off of that steak,\u201d Ma jokes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBuilding on Maple Avenue\u2019s success, he and his wife\u2014now parents of three children\u2014opened a second restaurant, Water \u0026amp; Wall, in late 2013. This time the couple had no trouble getting a broker to answer their call or to lure customers into the spacious, professionally designed spot.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMa rarely uses his engineering training anymore but says he does not regret his first career. \u201cThrough engineering I got to learn a lot of leadership qualities,\u201d says Ma, who enjoys trading stories with the many Tech grads living in the D.C. area who frequent his restaurants.\u0026nbsp; \u201cAnd my security clearance from my engineering days always helps when I apply for a liquor license.\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/gtalumnimag.com\/2015\/02\/an-engineer-returns-to-his-restaurant-roots\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis story originally appeared in Vol. 90, No. 1 of the\u003C\/em\u003E Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERenowned Washington, D.C.-area Chef Tim Ma, a 2000 graduate, gave up a successful career in engineering to return to his first love \u2014 food.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Renowned Washington, D.C.-area Chef Tim Ma, a 2000 graduate, gave up a successful career in engineering to return to his first love\u2014food."}],"uid":"27469","created_gmt":"2015-05-08 09:14:16","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:18:13","author":"Kristen Bailey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-05-08T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-05-08T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"402991":{"id":"402991","type":"image","title":"Tim Ma","body":null,"created":"1449252000","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:00:00","changed":"1475895124","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:04","alt":"Tim Ma","file":{"fid":"75954","name":"ma.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ma.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ma.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":55373,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ma.jpg?itok=aCZfubwN"}},"403011":{"id":"403011","type":"image","title":"Waterwall","body":null,"created":"1449252000","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:00:00","changed":"1475895124","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:04","alt":"Waterwall","file":{"fid":"75955","name":"waterwall3.pg_-e1424810784705.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/waterwall3.pg_-e1424810784705.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/waterwall3.pg_-e1424810784705.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":752403,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/waterwall3.pg_-e1424810784705.jpg?itok=c0Ws5rxW"}}},"media_ids":["402991","403011"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/gtalumnimag.com\/","title":"Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"506","name":"alumni"},{"id":"596","name":"Alumni Association"},{"id":"8271","name":"alumni magazine"},{"id":"116","name":"food"},{"id":"166855","name":"School of Electrical and Computer Engineering"},{"id":"125731","name":"tim ma"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:editor@alumni.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EBeth Kanter\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeorgia Tech Alumni Magazine\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}