I’m a small business owner who took 50 of my employees to Greece. It was worth the $2,000 a person and 6 figures in revenue.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bashir Chedrawee, owner and CEO of Simone’s Kitchen, a Mediterranean eatery with three locations in New York state. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I started Simone’s Kitchen with my mother in 2018. As a Mediterranean-inspired eatery, we draw inspiration from countries across the Mediterranean basin, from Greece to Lebanon to Morocco, even Italy.

We had done company outings before in the US, such as going to a lakefront beach or renting out an entertainment center. However, going to a part of the world that we engage with on a daily basis, but most of us had never actually been…