SERVING The Ultra Wealthy: Joe Rogan, DiCaprio, Guy Fieri

Summary

Podcast Summary: Camp Gagnon Episode: SERVING The Ultra Wealthy: Joe Rogan, DiCaprio, Guy Fieri
Host: Mark Gagnon
Guest: Philip Franklin Lee (Chef Phil)
Release Date: August 7, 2025

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1. Introduction

Mark Gagnon welcomes listeners to Camp Gagnon, introducing his guest, Philip Franklin Lee—affectionately known as Chef Phil. Chef Phil is a renowned chef with multiple Michelin stars and ownership of 27 distinct restaurants. Their conversation delves into Chef Phil's journey, his experiences serving elite clientele, and his relationships with high-profile individuals like Joe Rogan and Guy Fieri.

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2. Philip’s Achievements and Background

Chef Phil shares his impressive credentials and personal milestones:

• Michelin Stars:
  "I've been awarded Michelin stars at two different of my restaurants. Actually, I went from zero stars to one day. I went from zero to two restaurants getting a star at the same time." [03:04]

• Television Competitions:
  "I've done a bunch of competitions on TV. At one point held the record for most wins on Food Network. Currently hosting or co-hosting and head judging a sushi competition show with Iron Chef Morimoto, called Sushi Masters." [03:04]

• Family Achievement:
  "As of two weeks ago, my little brother Lennon... got his first Michelin star. We've made history as the first two brothers in America to ever each hold stars simultaneously." [03:58]

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3. Understanding Michelin Stars

Mark and Chef Phil delve into the significance of Michelin stars:

• History & Purpose:
  "The Michelin Guide started... as a map for travelers to find good hotels and restaurants to increase tire wear—and thus sales. Stars were introduced later to denote exceptional quality." [04:39]

• Star Ratings Explained:

  • One Star: Worth a stop.
    "If you're in an area with thousands of restaurants, one star means it's really worth your time." [07:19]

  • Two Stars: Worth a detour.
    "Go out of your way, but not too far." [07:19]

  • Three Stars: Worth a journey.
    "You should consider buying a plane ticket for this experience." [07:19]

• Misconceptions:
  "There's a lot of misunderstanding about Michelin. A 'plate' or 'recommendation' isn't the same as a star." [04:39]

• Integrity of the System:
  "With Michelin, there's no politicking or paying for stars. It's based purely on the quality and consistency of the dining experience." [08:31]

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4. Overcoming Challenges and Scaling the Business

Chef Phil discusses the tumultuous journey of expanding his restaurant empire:

• Relocating Due to COVID-19:
  During California's shutdown, Chef Phil relocated his operations to Austin, Texas, leveraging his mailing list to build a strong customer base.
  "We were supposed to be here for five weeks. By the third week, we're sold out for the following two weeks." [41:25]

• Scaling to 27 Restaurants:
  "We broke ground just last month and now we have 27 restaurants. The biggest one is the size of a TGI Fridays." [87:16]

• Employee Relations and Benefits:
  Chef Phil emphasizes treating employees as professionals:
  "All of my employees have a 401k with a 5% match. My dishwashers start at the low 60s, some in the mid-70s." [88:51]

• Philosophy on Leadership:
  "The only person who actually matters is the guest. If they're having a great time, you're killing it." [33:35]

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5. Relationships with Celebrities: Joe Rogan and Guy Fieri

Joe Rogan:

• Story of Moving to Austin:
  Chef Phil recounts how Joe Rogan played a pivotal role in his relocation:
  "Joe came in for a dinner and loved the sushi. He encouraged me to stay in Austin, promising he would promote my restaurant on his podcast to ensure its success." [40:55]

• Impact of Promotion:
  "Within four minutes of his Instagram post, our Austin location sold out, and we amassed a 25,000-strong waitlist overnight." [46:50]

Guy Fieri:

• Support in Career:
  Chef Phil shares his experience on Guy's Grocery Games:
  "Guy fought for me on air, insisting that I mention Scratch Bar by name, ensuring my brand was promoted correctly. He even advocated for me with the producers." [57:20]

• Mentorship and Advocacy:
  "Guy Fieri is a great champion of my career. He taught me that success is fleeting and to always be ready when it arrives." [52:33]

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6. Addressing Cultural Appropriation and Being a White Sushi Chef

Chef Phil tackles the sensitive topic of cultural appropriation in the culinary world:

• Facing Criticism:
  "I got shit for being a white sushi chef for a very long time. It stopped when I got a Michelin star." [24:06]

• Defense of His Craft:
  "Sushi has evolved over centuries and isn't strictly bound to one culture. My approach respects tradition while incorporating innovation." [25:35]

• Cultural Evolution:
  "Japanese cuisine, like whiskey and steak, has been perfected by them, but they originated elsewhere. It’s about passion and respect for the craft." [26:06]

• Impact of Recognition:
  "Once I received a Michelin star, the animosity ceased, validating my dedication and approach to sushi." [36:55]

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7. Secrets to Sustaining a Successful Restaurant Empire

Chef Phil shares his strategies for maintaining and growing his business:

• Iterative Dish Development:
  "I iterate until a dish works. It’s like a guitarist refining a riff until it’s perfect." [75:34]

• Emphasizing Experience Over Strict Consistency:
  "My idea of consistency is providing the best experience each time, not necessarily identical dishes." [85:08]

• Promoting from Within:
  "Most of our executive roles are filled by chefs who have grown within the company, fostering loyalty and understanding of the brand." [82:51]

• Financial Strategies:
  "When private equity offered to buy out one location, I used the funds to buy out partners and reinvest in employee salaries and benefits." [87:50]

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8. Future Endeavors and Vision

Chef Phil unveils his ambitious plans for a new restaurant:

• Four-Acre Ranch Restaurant:
  "It's set on a four-acre ranch outside downtown Austin, featuring cabins for overnight stays and all ingredients sourced from on-site livestock and gardens." [16:07]

• Commitment to Excellence:
  Designed with the aim of achieving three Michelin stars, the restaurant focuses on creating a unique, immersive dining experience that transcends traditional establishments.
  "It's not just about serving food; it's about curating a once-in-a-lifetime experience." [17:43]

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9. Conclusion

Mark Gagnon expresses deep admiration for Chef Phil, acknowledging his friend's genius and the profound impact of his work. The episode concludes with mutual gratitude and plans for future collaborations.

“You're a genius and so kind and so knowledgeable. If you share a similar passion about anything in your life, I think that will come through in the episode.” [00:00]

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Notable Quotes

• On Michelin Stars:
  “With Michelin, there's no politicking or paying for stars. It's based purely on the quality and consistency of the dining experience.” — Philip Franklin Lee [08:31]

• On Success and Guests:
  “The only person who actually matters is the guest. If they're having a great time, you're killing it.” — Philip Franklin Lee [33:35]

• On Cultural Appropriation:
  “It’s about passion and respect for the craft.” — Philip Franklin Lee [26:06]

• On Scaling the Business:
  “We always had to break even on week one, or else I would die.” — Philip Franklin Lee [87:16]

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Key Takeaways

• Passion Drives Excellence: Chef Phil's unwavering dedication to sushi and culinary innovation has earned him prestigious Michelin stars and a loyal clientele.

• Leveraging Relationships: Strategic connections with influencers like Joe Rogan and Guy Fieri have been instrumental in catapulting his business to unprecedented heights.

• Cultural Sensitivity and Evolution: Navigating the complexities of cultural appropriation, Chef Phil emphasizes respect and passion over rigid adherence to tradition.

• Business Acumen: Beyond culinary skills, effective scaling, employee relations, and financial strategies have been crucial to managing a multi-location restaurant empire.

• Visionary Future: With plans for immersive dining experiences, Chef Phil continues to push the boundaries of the restaurant industry, aiming for excellence and sustainability.

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This episode offers an inspiring glimpse into the life of a culinary genius who not only masters his craft but also builds a successful, respectful, and innovative business empire. Listeners gain valuable insights into the challenges and triumphs of serving the ultra-wealthy while maintaining authenticity and excellence.

Transcript

[Mark Gagnon]

This is Philip Franklin Lee, or I just call him Chef Phil. He's a personal friend of mine and one of the most prominent chefs in America today. He's truly a genius. He has multiple Michelin stars. He has 27 restaurants, all different concepts. And the guy is just like a dictionary or like an encyclopedia of culinary knowledge. And he's met everybody. So today we talk about stories of how he met Joe Rogan and actually moved his entire restaurant operation to Austin, Texas. We talk about what it's like cooking for the most elite of the elite heads of state estate billionaires, and what it's like going to their homes and making them food. He even tells the stories about Guy Fieri and what it was like starting off at how Guy actually really helped him out with his career. And he even goes on to talk about how he scaled his businesses, which I think is valuable for anyone that's interested in chasing their dreams specifically. And it fits in an unconventional industry. I love this episode. I think Phil is truly a genius and is so kind and so knowledgeable. He knows everything about sushi and food and is just so truly passionate about his craft. So if you share a similar passion about anything in your life, I think that will come through in the episode. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and welcome to Camp.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Prime. Delivery is fast.

[Mark Gagnon]

How fast are we talking? We're talking puzzle, toys and lick pad.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Delivered so fast you can get this puppy under control. Fast.

[Mark Gagnon]

Pads, Coleman, Peg, Hammer.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Fast and fast. And those training T R E A.

[Mark Gagnon]

T s faster than you can say sit.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Fast, fast. Free delivery. It's on Prime. On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages, that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[Mark Gagnon]

Chef Phil. What's up, brother?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yo. How are you? I'm great. How are you?

[Mark Gagnon]

I'm excellent. Thank you for joining me on my lovely couch.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It's a nice couch. It's a comfy, comfy pillow here. Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

You said you've never done a couch pod.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I've never done a couch pod.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, welcome to it.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Thank you.

[Mark Gagnon]

I almost did a pool pod with Matt McCusker yesterday that makes.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

That's on brand.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. Literally pulled up and it was. We felt the pool was Like a little pool. And turns out it was a hot tub. And I was like, it's so hot outside. If we get in this hot tub, we might die like friends. Like, I don't think we can do this. I don't think we do the hot tub.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

That'd be a great story for the pod lore. How did they die again? Well, murder?

[Mark Gagnon]

Suicide? No, they both just singed in a hot tub. It was a sous vide, as you probably know much about now. I know you just as a friend and as a wonderful chef and just a homie of mine, but can you explain to the people some, like, in brief, the background, and I want to ask you about your genius, but first I want you to brag because I know that you're gonna feel very uncomfortable doing this and it's gonna be kind of funny to watch me see you try to brag.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I'm not really a bragger, but. But I can. I can just list facts.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, just do facts.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah, do facts. So I've got today as we sit here, I have just opened my 27th restaurant in Resorts World in Vegas on the Strip. Yep. I have been awarded Michelin stars at two different of my restaurants. Actually, I went from zero stars to one day. I went from zero to two restaurants getting a star at the same time. I've done a bunch of competitions on tv. At one point held the record for most wins on Food Network. Currently hosting or co hosting and head judging a sushi competition show with Iron Chef Morimoto. Him and I called Sushi Masters. And as of two weeks ago, my little brother Lennon, who you probably met, he made. He was making sushi at Andrew's wedding.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

He just got his first Michelin star. And we found out via this headline for this huge article in Michelin that we've made history as the first two brothers in America to ever each hold stars simultaneously. So that's probably the coolest of all of the accolades.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, it's pretty wild. You and your brother both get Michelin.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Stars, and I think we're also might be the only two white guys who also got stars for sushi.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. So hold on. Can you just start with Michelin? What exactly is Michelin? Why does it matter? There's probably people listening. Like a Michelin star. This is some fancy bs, you know what I mean? Can you explain why it matters and what it is?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. So I've been obsessed for almost 20 years with chasing Michelin stars. Some actors want to just act and some actors want an Academy Award. Right. Some cooks Just want to cook. And some want Michelin stars. I'm of the latter, of course. I also just want to cook, but I want Michelin stars. So the Michelin Guide started, I think, in 1900, maybe 1901, I can't remember, but I think it was 1900. And what they basically were Michelin tires, right? French tire company. And in order to. They basically put out a guide. And it was. It was a map of all of France. And it was like, hey, you should go check out these hotels and these restaurants. And it was a way to get people to put more wear and tear on their tires, right? So they'd have to buy more tires. After about 20 or so years, they introduced stars. So there's three stars. So nowadays you're hearing a lot of, like, there's a lot of misunderstanding about Michelin. There's a lot of people who, like, will get what's called a plate or a recommendation. And the media will be like, oh, they're a Michelin star. It's like, no, there's. You can get. The lowest thing you can get is a recommendation or a plate. That's what they call it. As opposed to a star. A recommendation just means that you are recommended. Then you have a Bib Gourmand. A Bib Gourmand is somewhere between recommended and a star. But specifically, you have to be. Thank you. Specifically, you have to be under a certain price point. So it has to be a place where it's like, yo, awesome restaurant, great value. You'll get full. You'll be happy for a certain amount of money.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's interesting. And that's Bib Gourmand.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

That's Bib Gourmand. Then you go to Michelin Stars.

[Mark Gagnon]

What about Michelin guide? Is that.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So the guide is the book now it's online. It used to be a little red book before everything was digital. And so the book is called the Michelin Guide. And inside the guide, you have recommendations. Bib Gourmand's one star, two star, three star. One star is. It means worth a stop. So basically the idea is like, if you're in the area and you're going by, it's worth a stop. Two stars is worth a detour. Like, hey, go out of your way, but not too far. Just detour. And three is worth a journey. Three is like, you should buy a plane ticket to another continent. It's that good. Now, you might think that the fact that I only have one star would mean, like, I'm not that you're a schlub. That I'm a schlub.

[Mark Gagnon]

You're a huge failure.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I still literally cried on camera when I, when I got those stars.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, it's worth noting, like, I feel like you're being a little bit generous with the rating here. Maybe like that 1900s rating is kind of what you're referring to. Like. Oh yeah. Worth the stop.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Like, well, that's what it was. They've, they've kept. I mean it's still worth the stop because here's the thing. You go through New York City, right, And there's thousands of restaurants. Fair, there are some. That's worth a stop. Meaning if you're in New York, it's worth your time. A detour would be, I'm on the East Coast. It's worth detouring into the city to hit that restaurant with two stars. Three stars is you live in Spain, you should fly to New York City, right? So that's, it still makes sense.

[Mark Gagnon]

But I feel like for me growing up, like in Florida, I don't even think in my town there was any Michelin starred restaurants. There might have been like a Michelin guide.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

No, Florida got it in 22 or 23. It's brand new in Florida. So there is a Michelin guide now, but it's, it's maybe three or four.

[Mark Gagnon]

Years old right now. I wonder, is there, how political is the Michelin system? Is there like a gamification that goes on? Is it truly just like a good faith critic that tries a dish and is like, yeah, this is great.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So in my opinion, and I've, I've now had a star for five years, there is nothing, there's no politicking you can do. You cannot pay for it. You can't brand like advertise for it. Now you can definitely. They have to hear about you. So like, yes, you can hire a big PR firm because that will get you on their radar. But as far as actually get like there are a lot of other rating systems and awards that I won't name names on. But you know, you know about them. And it is kind of pay to play. You got to show up, you got to campaign, you gotta make donations, you gotta show up and do free dinners at the galas now you don't have to. It just so happens that if you don't, you don't win. Right? So no, with, with Michelin, it's still the one. Michelin to me is like that. I don't know if it's like a, a, like a girl figure or A father figure. It's like you just want their approval. You know what I mean? It's like. It's like, I hate that I don't understand what I have to do, but I just need your approval.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You know?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. No, of course. There's things like that in comedy where it's like, you'll get off stage and, like, you know, Louis or like, some, like, Chris Rock will see your set, and if they go, hey, good set.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

That's it.

[Mark Gagnon]

Like, it's just.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Like, it doesn't do anything. It's not like it's going to change your life. You know what I mean? Like, you don't get to all of a sudden, a million dollars in open forum. Like, maybe it could happen, but more so it's like, oh, I just got approval from people that I really respect that have been doing this longer than me, and when I got into the game, I looked at them as, like, the zenith of greatness, and now they're giving me an accolade that just means the world.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. I mean, and you get that. You get those nods, too. You know, I had, you know, I had the privilege and honor to cook for Thomas Keller from the French Laundry. Most legendary chef alive, you know, still responsible today for being the beacon of fine dining in America. And he came in and sat down in front of me and, you know, ate my sushi. And afterwards, you know, invited me to hang out and. And drink some beers. And, like, that was probably, like, one of the coolest things ever.

[Mark Gagnon]

Did he give you any specific compliment that means a lot to you, that the average person would be, like, what does that even mean?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

He gave me a specific compliment that matters to me, but I think the average person would get it. And that was. I can't remember the. This isn't verbatim, but it was something to the effect of, like. So he's. He's a bit older now. You know, he opened the French Laundry 30 years ago, something like that. So he's. He's in. He's in his sort of, like, legacy phase of his career, you know, and still very active. But. But he said something to the effect of he was very happy and excited to see, like, young chefs who are going to, like, take the torch. It was something about, like, hey, it was a recognition of, I won't be here forever. And I'm very stoked on what you're doing because you will help move this along. The kids are all right. When I'm. When I'm gone, there will be. There will Be. You're part of a. Of a class that will continue.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, that's like the highest confidence.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yes. I. I'm literally. I'm getting goosebumps. Right. My hair is standing up just thinking about it.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. Now I'm curious. As far as Michelin goes, is it possible to curate a menu or a cuisine or an experience that would kind of put you in better standing? You know what I mean?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. You very rarely does a. Does a. Does a film get an Academy Award out of nowhere. And they had no idea what they were. They were building. Right, Right.

[Mark Gagnon]

They touched on, like a massive. They were going perhaps like a historical figure.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You're going for it. Yeah. Right. So, like, the reason I'm so proud of getting one star is because I wasn't going. Well, it's not true. I am going for two at pasta bar, but I wasn't going for two in the beginning. And so, like, for example, I don't currently have a restaurant that should get three stars. Sushi should get one, Pasta bar should get two. We haven't gotten two yet. I'm hoping next year we'll get it. Um, but I'm building a restaurant right now in Austin that I am going for three stars. I am from. From inception to execution, I will be designing a restaurant to get three Michelin stars. Now, I'm not doing it to get three Michelin stars. I'm doing it to open a fantastic restaurant. But it is designed to get three Michelin stars, if that makes sense. Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

If you're on your way to making a great restaurant, you might as well also include some of the accoutrements to get the third star.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. Which. But again, there's no criter. There's. And nobody knows. But I've worked in three Michelin star restaurants, and I've dined at dozens of them. And there's a. There's a feeling, there's a vibe, there's a. There's a X factor that you can't really touch on, but you're like, oh, I'm in a three star restaurant.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. Can you extrapolate on that? Because I bet you there's people listening and like, you know, they might live in Florida, like me. You know what I mean? And like, they, you know, they work with a forklift or something, and they're over here being like, dude, there's like a Mexican spot down the street from me, and it's like a mom and pop, and they've owned it for 25 years, and they have the best food in the world. And all this Michelin stuff is just rich people and fancy people trying to put awards on.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It is rich people, it is fancy people, it is awards. I mean those are all true things.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, is there a delineation between like that amazing mom and pop spot and like a three Michelin star restaurant? And what is the intangible factor that a lot of people miss?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So, you know, when Texas was getting stars, we got our first round of stars this last year. And I was reading all of like the media's like, you know, anticipation, like who they thought was going to get what. And it was so clear that nobody had any idea what the Michelin guide is, no idea what that is like. To give you an example, all of the local food media in Austin were thinking there'd be between four and six, three stars in Austin. Los Angeles got its first three star this year. Los Angeles has never had a three star before two weeks ago. Right.

[Mark Gagnon]

Which is a rich food culture going back 60 years.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And we think that there's going to be six of them in Austin. Yeah, there isn't six of them in New York City. You know, now that's not anything against anyone. That's just there is a big misconception that the stars are based solely on best in class. It is best in class, but not best in class in city. It's best in class on earth. Right? So like all the three stars on earth share a DNA. All the two stars share a DNA. All one star share DNA.

[Mark Gagnon]

It might be a great restaurant in Austin, but is it Jean George? Is it, you know, is it some of these other places?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And so really what it is is, you know, and Austin had several one star barbecue spots. You would, you know, everyone was thinking, you know, in LA they were mad they weren't giving them taco trucks, you know, but they, they did. They recognized in Austin that barbecue you can get in Austin is, is up there with the world class of anything you can get anywhere on earth. Right? But really what it is, it is the intangibles. It's the feeling that you take away from those restaurants that you don't recreate. It's not about feeding people yummy food because our grandparents, our grandmas either make or made yummy food, right? It's about curating a feeling. It's about curating an experience. To give you an example, the difference between you've been to sushi, right? That's a solid one star to me. You show up 30 minutes early, it's a 10 seat restaurant. We Give you complimentary cocktails and canapes. You, you come in, you sit up with the chefs. We're giving you the best sushi possibly can, but we're keeping it fun, we're keeping it light. It's a kind of a party atmosphere, even though it's very respectful to what we're doing. And then you get your bill and you, you off. Right. What we're gonna do at the new restaurant is it's. Well, first of all, it's set on a four acre ranch right outside of downtown Austin. And there's going to be little, little cabins that you can stay overnight. And I'm going to have my own longhorn dairy cows that I'm going to milk every morning for all the butter and the cheese and the, all the desserts. And I'm going to raise my own ducks and goats and I'm going to hunt all of the, of the, of the animals. And I'm going to do a tasting menu that like, when you show up for dinner, it's meant to be somewhere between, depending on your at your leisure, somewhere between a three and a six hour experience, you know, where it's like, come and hang out on the 4 acre farm for like 45 minutes to an hour before we even go and start. Now you'll have a drink in your hand, but it's like, this is not the local mom and pop that just has awesome ceviche. This isn't, this is a once in a lifetime experience, which is kind of.

[Mark Gagnon]

What most people's greatest meals are anyway. You know what I mean? Like, if you think about like, oh, what is the greatest meal ever? And it'll be like my grandmother, my nonna was making this thing and my family did a trip to Napoli, where she lives, and we stayed at her little villa and like she cooked for us and I played with my cousins. You know what I mean? It's rarely just the food. The food is an addition and sort of a multiplier to this full experience of like this moment when I was a child. And so when you think about the restaurant in that same way, it's like it transcends the food. It is the full experience starting from when you make a reservation or when you get in contact with the maitre d and you walk into this place and you stay there for an extended period of time.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And the reason some of restaurants that are on the side of the road, that are just great, don't end up with stars is they have, you know, of, of the three or four different tangibles and intangibles. They might crush one, maybe one and a half, but they don't have all of them.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You know what I mean?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And it's not because they're not capable. It's like, what can you do in a strip mall with your 800 square feet? You know what I mean? Like, you just can't give that type of experience. And also, they're not going for it, right?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. They're happy making, you know, great food for their community, which is its own thing.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Again, that's the actor who just wants to act, who doesn't necessarily need the Academy Award.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Same idea.

[Mark Gagnon]

And there's a purity in that as well.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

100%.

[Mark Gagnon]

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[Philip Franklin Lee]

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[Philip Franklin Lee]

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[Philip Franklin Lee]

30 to 50% off all jeans.

[Mark Gagnon]

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[Philip Franklin Lee]

I got shit for being a white sushi chef for a very long time. It stopped when I got a Michelin star the night before we opened the first location in Los Angeles in 2017. I think it was my publicist quit because she thought what I was doing was blasphemous. Wow. And she was unwilling to. To. To represent my interpretation of sushi.

[Mark Gagnon]

Can I ask what the ethnic heritage of your publicist was?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I believe she was Chinese. Oh, really? I believe I'm fairly certain she wasn't Japanese.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, she's sticking up for the Japanese.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

She was. She wasn't Japanese and she wasn't white. Interesting.

[Mark Gagnon]

But especially this was a time in 2017. This was a. A cultural moment where this was when.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Cultural appropriation was getting smashed on Facebook.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You know, there was. There was. You know, I remember reading at that time about these white girls who, like, lived in Mexico, who went back to, like, Seattle and were making burritos and there were people picketing. You know what I mean?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. A white lady with, like, a kimchi, like, digital store.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. And. And, you know, so.

[Mark Gagnon]

Which I can understand the frustration. If you lived your whole life eating kimchi and you're Korean, people have been making fun of you because your food's stinks, and all of a sudden some white lady doesn't. Everyone loves it. I can understand the frustration. I don't think it's justified to, like, protest in front of someone's store, but I can get where that animosity comes from.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I don't. I don't get where that animosity comes from. Unless it is a. Well, I was gonna say, unless it's a strictly, like, capitalistic move where someone is just literally trying to exploit.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

But, like, sushi didn't originate in Japan. You know what I mean? I'm listening. Yeah. So, like every cult, well, starting, it started in China, but modern day sushi, like, what you know today is from Japan, but sushi didn't start in Japan.

[Mark Gagnon]

Really.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And when you say sushi, do you.

[Mark Gagnon]

Just mean, like, the exercise of, like, eating raw?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Okay, sushi. Sushi's been around for about 2,000 years, and only 200 years ago this year was the first piece of nigiri ever made. Like rice with a little piece of rice with the fish on top. Like, I do. It's 200. 200 years old. And sushi, being raw, I think is 250 years old, maybe 300 years old.

[Mark Gagnon]

And was that Japanese?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah, yeah, the Japanese.

[Mark Gagnon]

Great Japanese move. Right. Because they just take everything and make it the best.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So again, Japanese make the best whiskey and scotch. Did they start that? No.

[Mark Gagnon]

Make the best steak.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

They make the best everything. What they. What the Japanese do, amazingly, is they take stuff that other people have started and they perfect it. I've never had a Japanese person be upset with me for making sushi. I've only ever had white people upset with me for making sushi. And, you know, several of the. It's. And it's not like what I was doing back then was, like, way different than what I'm doing now. Like, the hamachi with the corn and the. And the sourdough was on the menu when she quit.

[Mark Gagnon]

Interesting.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You know what I mean? The bone marrow was on the menu when she quit. It's just that if you look back 10 years ago at the state of sushi in America, it was fish on top of rice, soy sauce, wasabi. It wasn't garnished back then. Now, I won't say it wasn't garnished. It was very rare to find it garnished. And so what I was doing is I was. I, you know, I wanted to make the most traditional and respectful type of sushi I possibly could. The problem is white people were mad because they don't know the tradition. They don't. They don't know where it comes from.

[Mark Gagnon]

They don't know imitation crab. That's what traditional, respectful.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

There's no Philadelphia cream cheese on this. But the fact that I was white and I was doing it different than what they were used to made it seem like I was being blasphemous as opposed to actually going, hey, how come you. First of all, Phil, why sushi? Oh, because when I was five years old, it became my absolute favorite food, and I was obsessed. When I was seven, I would only eat omakase. When I was 13, I bought my first book on making sushi. Started making it at home. I grew up in LA in the 90s and early 2000s, and we had the second highest concentration of sushi bars per capita in the world.

[Mark Gagnon]

I grew up outside of, like, Tokyo.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. All of my friends from Japan grew up eating less sushi than I did. Hilarious. So when you say it's not part of my culture, what. Why? It's not part of my blood. Why? You know what I mean? So I just thought the most traditional and respectful thing I can do. So the thing that makes Italian food Italian is they only serve what's from their region. That's why every region of Italy has different food.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

What makes Japanese food? Japanese food is the same thing. Right. And so sushi would have. If you have a sushi chef in. In Tokyo from Okinawa, and you have a sushi chef in Tokyo from Hokkaido, they're going to have different styles of sushi. I'm not from Hokkaido. I'm not from Okinawa. I'm from la. So I treated LA as the prefecture of Japan. So all of my. My sensibilities, my flavor profiles, I used LA as my. As my. The colors of my paint on my.

[Mark Gagnon]

Palette, which is the most Japanese thing.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You could do, which is the most traditional thing you can do. But everybody didn't understand it.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right. That makes a lot of sense.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

But then over time, we became you know, the, the, the media would. On us and people would show up and be like, this is the best thing I've ever had in my life. And we became a cult classic that, like, you know, one of those movies that has terrible Rotten tomatoes or. I know about. Has terrible critic scores, but, like, is sold out.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yes, exactly. And it's got, like, the audience rating is 98.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. So audience loved us, but everyone who, whose job it was to, you know, you know, review didn't.

[Mark Gagnon]

Was that frustrating?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Did you have animosity, like, at a certain point where you're just like, I'm pouring my life out to try to make this wonderful. I'm going to Japan, learning under these famous chefs.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, I didn't go to Japan. I didn't learn under the famous chefs.

[Mark Gagnon]

Did you go to Japan after the.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Restaurants started, I went to Japan. I've now been three times, but I had, I think my first trip to Japan was 2019. Oh, really?

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, I thought you had one before.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

No. Oh, interesting. But I've been, you know, obsessed with, and studying sushi for. I mean, I don't. We're not going to turn this podcast into it, but like, we could open a bottle of wine and we can talk about the history of sushi by century. You know, for, for, for hours. It's been a, like, it's been a passion of mine. And I lost my train of thought. Where were we going?

[Mark Gagnon]

No, just this idea of, like, animosity that people are, like, lambasting you in the media and you're like, I'm so.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I. So I was very lucky. I played music when I was younger and when I was in, like, middle school, I was in a, like, a pretty popular band for, like, our hometown. And that's when message boards started. And people talk. Of course people talk. And, and I Learned in, like, 12 years old, 13 years old, 14 years old, to just let people talk, you know, tried fighting them when I was younger, but, like, I just, you know, you let it go. And then I've had, you know, I've had other, like, instances. I won't mention what TV show, but I've been on a show before where, like, the edit is so bad, like, making me look so bad. And the words that are coming out of my mouth on the screen aren't actually coming out of my mouth. They're overdubbed with other words that I've said, you know, that they caught on camera.

[Mark Gagnon]

Legal.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Except for the fact that when you do these shows, you sign a piece of paper that Says were allowed to Dr. Alter, make you look bad, you know, all that kind of stuff, you know. So I've had. I've had those opportunities to be completely misunderstood and to be, you know, lied about. And so here's the thing. If I went out of business because of it, I would. It probably would kill me. But I got a fucking. I had a sold out restaurant every night. And so to me, I come from the. Like, I played in hardcore bands and punk bands. We're not supposed to be mainstream, you know what I mean? We're supposed to. We're not supposed to sell out amphitheaters and arenas. We're supposed to sell out bowling alleys to 200 kids who give a shit. You know what I mean? And so in the food world, I was selling out these little tiny restaurants, these little tiny clubs to people who gave us the critics. Didn't get it. Cool, whatever.

[Mark Gagnon]

And you got to really, like, be with the people every night that you were affecting. And you were like, yeah, this is what. It's what I've got into this for. Anyway.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Here's what I have learned it the only. There's only one person who actually matters, and that is the guest who's paying money. If the guest who's paying money is having a great time, you're killing it. If the guest is. Who's. Who's paying money isn't. You need to fix that, right?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. I don't think you would trade having an empty restaurant and all.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

No, no.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. I'm also curious. Like, I am a fan of history and I love history very much. Could you give me in brief, if there is such a thing as a brief answer, what is the Japanese obsession with perfection as you've understood it through sushi?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So I am not. I don't claim by any stretch to be like a Japanophile. I'm a sushi file, right? I don't know that's a word, but you know what I'm saying. I know the history of sushi. I don't know the history of Japan.

[Mark Gagnon]

But why does sushi. Why does sushi come through Japan and get perfected?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, the thing about sushi is that the only constant is that it has been evolving. It's never stopped evolving. And so even today, you see the world of sushi isn't what it was eight years ago. Eight years ago, you couldn't find a Speakeasy 10 seat 17 course with the words behind you on the back wall, nigiri. Only you couldn't. Now the Houston Chronicle did the list of the top 20 speakeasy, 17 course, 10, you know what I'm saying?

[Mark Gagnon]

It became a genre in its own right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It has become a genre. And it's actually one that I, you know, I have a couple of, I have several friends, but I have a couple of friends in Japan who are world renowned chefs who, you know, dined with me early on and they were like, this is gonna be the future of sushi. Because the thing is, you're. Everybody's handcuffed by tradition. They're not. No one's allowed to go outside of the box. And you just did. And you're doing it really, really, really well. And so this will be the, you know, Hasato Hamada from the Wagyu mafia said it in 2017, this will be the future of sushi. And two years ago when he hosted me in Tokyo at his, at his restaurant to take over and, and, and, and do my sushi, he went on the record again, said, I said this in 2017. And now you can see this is the future of sushi.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, there's a.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

His words, not mine.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's an interesting disruption, right? Like, I, I like that about sushi, even just in the way you're explaining it, that there is an inherent kind of evolution to it, which I think a lot of white America doesn't really understand or respect. And there's almost like an inert sort of prejudice that Americans have that, like, if I were to see like a Filipino guy or like even like a Central American dude with like a mono lid making sushi, I would be like, well, this is his culture. You know what I mean? Like, it's just as much like Filipino culture as it is yours, you know what I mean? Like, like, I don't think, like that the color of your skin or like where you were raised when you. Which should preclude you from making great sushi.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

This is the only thing that should matter, right? Your heart. That's it. If you're, like I said earlier, I can see an argument for you're a capitalist, you're a VC firm, you're private equity, and you're just trying to cash in. I could see an argument for like, hey, that's not right. But if it is your soul, if that's what you want to do, if that's what you want to spend your life doing, you should be able to do it. And I'll tell you, you can do it. You might have to. Nowadays, no one's getting in trouble for making sushi, Right? Right. But I did. I got. I got a lot of hate for making sushi, and it instantly died when I got a Michelin star.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because you need to rebrand your crotch. That's right. You need a full rebrand on your dong. And you're gonna do it with bluechew. Because bluechew, their tablets aren't just for better sex. No, they are. Like if Tony Robbins give a motivational speech rate to your rates your wiener, you know, I mean, you're going to feel amazing. Look, I just took one of bluechew's tablets today, and suddenly, I mean, look at me, I'm glowing. This table, absolutely getting crushed underneath it, right? My penis is giving a press conference. Okay, Feeling great. Never been better. So whether you're trying to make, you know, a memorable moment with your. Your sweet love, or you're just trying to give, you know, a friend of yours or a girl, you know, like a, you know, some crazy group chat fodder, something for the girls to gossip about, bluechew is absolutely the chewable tablet delivery service that you need to bring the thunder. And the best part is that we got a special deal for the listeners of this lovely program. Get your first month for [e-mail]. just use the promo code Gagnon at checkout. All you gotta do is pay five bucks for shipping. That's like a cup of coffee. All right, five bucks for shipping. You're gonna get free money. Bluechew straight to your door. So upgrade your legacy. Let your name ring out for eons, and let's get back to the show. What's up, people? Quick announcement. If you are a fan of Camp Gagnon or Religion Camp, I have great news, because we are dropping History Camp. That's right. This is the channel. We're going to be exploring the most interesting, fascinating, controversial topics from all time throughout all history. Right? You probably know about Benjamin Franklin. I don't know, Thomas Jefferson, Nikola Tesla. Interesting figures from history and you probably learned about in school. And they were pretty boring.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

But not here.

[Mark Gagnon]

No. As you know, I was raised by a conspiracy theorist. So I'm going to be diving deep into all of the interesting, strange, occult, and secretive societal relationships that all of these famous, influential men from our shared past have. So if you're interested, please go ahead and subscribe to the YouTube channel. It will be pinned in the description as well as the comments. And if you're on Spotify, this doesn't really apply to you. But these episodes will be dropping as well. Just go ahead and give us a a high rating because it really helps the show.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real.

[Mark Gagnon]

And so is the relief from Ebglis.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

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[Mark Gagnon]

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[Philip Franklin Lee]

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[Mark Gagnon]

Like a good neighbor.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

State Farm is there.

[Mark Gagnon]

And you've also met some pretty interesting people doing this. Like very many.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Most of my closest friends today I met across the counter from me, my daughter's godfather I met across the counter from me. You know, like Neen Williams, my partner in NAC Burger and the NAC podcast I met across the counter from me.

[Mark Gagnon]

Is that you met Joe as well?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yep, I met Joe across the counter from me.

[Mark Gagnon]

Like he just pulled up one night.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You want the story? I would love it. So December 2020 living in LA. Four or five restaurants at the time. I had three sushi by scratch restaurants at the time it was called sushi bar. California outlawed outdoor dining. So during the no indoor dining. We just moved the sushi counter to the sidewalk and people were eating the full experience on the sidewalk.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's hilarious.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Then we moved back indoors, back outside, back indoors. Then they said, no indoors or outdoors. That was gonna kill us. So the entire state of California was shut down. And I took a poll. How many of you guys are willing to relocate for jobs? I can't carry your salaries. You can get unemployment or I can find you. I'll find us a state that will let us cook. Enough people raised their hands. We flew to Austin. We were supposed to be here for five weeks. This is back in 2020, the first week. We reached out to all of the local media to promote us and they all said, no, we're not promoting. First of all, we don't think restaurants should be open at all. But also, if we're going to promote restaurants, it's not going to be an outsiders restaurant. We're going to promote. I get it. Not mad about it at all. Those are just what happened. So because we had a cult following in LA with like, you know, 100,000 people on our mailing list over the last decade, sent out a mailing that said, hey, guys, you know us because when you come to our restaurant, you typically leave with a hug. And if not your first visit, your second visit. It's. It is really that type of. I mean, you know, I mean, you've, you've only been there as my friend, but it is that kind of, oh, absolutely.

[Mark Gagnon]

Environment, not only from you, but like I'm talking to people next to me and like, I'm, I'm like me. I'm like, oh, you know this guy? Like, I'm going to New York City. So I'm like, oh, yeah, we have mutual friends. Like, it becomes like you go as a person and then you leave kind of as a group.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And there's, there's so much of the. What I wanted was being in hardcore. I wanted. I do. I like sing alongs, I like pylons. I like when you're getting the mic, everybody up to the stage, get close. That's what I've designed as, as a restaurant is the club version. We're like, like we're a show. I never played concerts. I played shows, if you know the difference. Right. So like Nobu is a concert. Sushi by Scratch restaurants is a show.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And so anyways, we've sent out a mailing list. Hey, guys, you know, as you know, we're shut down. We're going to Austin to try to have jobs so that we can stay afloat, so we can reopen, you know, whenever California is ready. Please, if you have any friends, tell them to come support us. Well, it turns out that somebody who got that mailing on the mailing list was Joe's wife's best friend. And she reached out to Joe's wife and said, you gotta check these guys out. So it turns out the very first reservation ever made was by Joe's wife. Now, she didn't make it till like week four of the five week pop up. And so first week we pretty much sit empty. We have a couple of people straggling in. Second week, we're like 50% capacity. By the third week, we're sold out for the following two weeks with a hundred people on the wait list.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Then comes our fourth Saturday of our five week stint, and in walks Joe Rogan. Now, at the time, I didn't know he had a podcast. I don't, I didn't really watch UFC back then and I loved Fear Factor, so I was like, hell, yeah. And so he comes in with his wife, he's got the little hat on. He's sitting hat low. He's not there to see and be seen. He's there on a date with his wife. He didn't even know when he left the house he was going to have sushi that night. Starts eating. You know, we're sitting literally this close to each other and I'm. I like watching people's reactions and I like it because it's, it's just like comedy. I can turn left, I can turn right. I can, I can make adjustments based on my banter will change based on are we talkative? Are we not right? Am I doing crowd work? Am I just sticking to the fucking script? A lot of that. And so, you know, Joe's very expressive. He takes a bite, you know, looks at his wife and goes, so a couple sakes in. Hey, you know, Philip, I gotta know, like, who, who? Where's the Japanese chef? What's going on? I'm the chef. What? You're the chef? What's your story? You know? And he asking me questions. And two thirds of the way through the menu, he's like, I just got to say, I've never had sushi better in my life. This is like the best thing I've ever had. He's like, and I've traveled everywhere and blah, blah. He's like, how do I eat this again? And I'm like, unfortunately, we're. We're sold out the next two weeks. But if you want to leave your number, I can make sure you're. I'll move you to the top of the wait list. And he's like, well, you should. You know, la. You should move to Austin. I'm like, I can't move to Austin. I have five restaurants that I'm going to need to open in a couple of weeks. And he goes, they're not going to reopen in a few weeks. And I was like, yeah. He's like, philip, they say a few weeks is going to be a few months. You and I both know that. They're not just going to. They're going to be a while. You should stay. Just stay one more month. Just do one month. And I think he could see that he had me on the ropes. He's like, I'll tell you what. Don't think about it. Just say yes. If you say yes right now, I will guarantee you're sold out. And I was like, what do you mean? He goes, I'll take a picture of you. I'll put it online, and any seats that don't sell, I'll pay for.

[Mark Gagnon]

What? I've. Bro, I've never heard this story.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You haven't heard the story?

[Mark Gagnon]

No. This is wild.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I'm glad I'm going as in depth as I am, because I'm giving you the full story because I figure people at home might not know the story.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's so funny. That's a pretty solid sales pitch.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

How the do you say no to that? I don't. You say yes. You say yes. Thank you, sir. Right. So he's like, all right, you know, open up the reservations. I go, dude, I'm wearing a mask and gloves. Like, let's finish dinner. I got one more seating. And after the last seating, I'll open up the reservations. He's like, great. Stand there, takes a picture. What's all the socials? Blah, blah, blah. He leaves. I do my next seating. I open up the reservations at about 12:30am on a random Saturday night. I think it was January 12, 2021. Within four minutes of his Instagram post. February sold out. Wow. And we wake up the next morning. There's 25,000 people on the wait list. And we've had a lot of big, big, big celebrities. Bigger in terms of, like, you know, 30 million, 60 million Instagram followers who will post about us and. And we'll get three new reservations. Yeah. You know, and, you know, I Really, I mean, I'm forever indebted to Joe. You know, there's not a year that goes by that he doesn't get a birthday present and a Christmas present from me. It's starting to feel kind of weird five years later, but still, like, dude, you changed my life. But we were so blown away that when Los Angeles and California turned, not the. Not the people, but the city and state turned their back on us, Austin answered the call in our darkest hour. Right. And Marguerite and I decided that we will not shut down this pop up until everybody gets a chance. And so about four or five months later, we have not gone back home to la. We're just running this pop up and we make the announcement because we just keep extending month, extending month. And it's. The months are selling out and like we're breaking. We're breaking talk, which is like the like, you know, resi. Like talk is the same, same thing. So literally we're like, it's going on sale and it's. The site is crashing. 40 seconds and. And all 300 seats for the month are gone or whatever.

[Mark Gagnon]

Has that ever happened in your career before this breaking?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

We always, all of our restaurants sat at or near capacity with between like 10 and 20 people on the waitlist on a Saturday night. Now we're looking at like 4, 000 people on the waitlist tonight. Like just. Just nuts. And eventually we decided we should probably tell the IRS that we don't live in California anymore. And so we bought a house here. And it's been almost five years.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. That's how. That's why we live in Austin now. That is cr.

[Mark Gagnon]

I didn't realize that it was that dramatic of a moment. Like I thought it was like, oh, yeah, like we came over and we kind of had some success and we met some cool people and we just kind of stuck around. I didn't realize it was like.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

No, it was. It was Joe enough or you could. It was Joe literally forcing me to move to Austin because legend. How do I. How do I. How do I leave that?

[Mark Gagnon]

And the fact that he would do it in that way to guarantee that it would work out, like, what an. Like, I've always. Like, I've obviously, as a comic, like, I know he does this with comics, but the fact that he does this with people outside of the comedy space in such a significant way is like really a testament to like his character. Right? Like that he would just put it. Put you guys on.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I mean, you know, he told me once that he understands his, like, like level of power.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And he tries to use it for good.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And sometimes it's misunderstood, you know, often. Most of the time, it's misunderstood by specific people, but he's trying to use it for good.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You know, he, you know, and, and. And he tells me all the time when somebody goes to the restaurant, then hits. He gets tagged or his friend hits him and goes, dude, you were right. Because he told me. He's like, every once in a while they'll style me out, but then somebody will go and be like, why did you like that? It wasn't that good. And he's like, dude, you're batting a thousand. And it just. It makes me happy because, like, nobody has been able to say, yo, why did you say that place was good?

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, that's wild. It's crazy that it can really change that quick. Even in. In the restaurant world, like, so in entertainment, it makes sense. But I guess in the restaurant world.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I never would like, every overnight success. We were at year 10, right. You know, year 10 of owning restaurants. Today I'm at year 20 of. Of dedicating my life to this, and I'm at year 13 at owning restaurants now. So I guess it was year nine when. When he. When he did that. But I mean, like, Margaret likes to remind me all the time, yes, we're an overnight success 10 years in the making.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And, you know, Guy Fieri told me he's been. He's been a. Almost like a mentor of mine and just amazing champion of my career. And he told me once, long time ago, probably back in, like 2014, he's like, success, it's like a. It's like a street. Success is going to drive by. You don't know how often it will, but it's going to drive by, and you will never. It might stop for a second, but it's never here to stay until you're ready to, like, ready for it. And I feel like had Joe's first, because we both lived in la, he could have found us there. And had he found us in 2017 or 18 or 19, maybe we wouldn't have been ready for it. Maybe it wouldn't have been. Maybe the food wasn't as good. Maybe the experience was, you know, but, like, we were ready to ex. To. To hold on to success at that point.

[Mark Gagnon]

What can you tell me about Guy Fieri? I feel like this is another person that's extremely misunderstood by the.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

All right, I'm going to tell you the My Best Guy story, and I had the honor of telling this story to his wife recently in front of him because he did something for me that is. It's almost unbelievable. So I actually. So I never wanted to be on tv. I was like, fuck that. Fuck being a TV chef. I'm a real chef, right? So my first restaurant, no paycheck, really hard to survive. And a bunch of my. So Chopped, which is filmed in New York, was only really doing east coast chefs. Well, this year, in 2013 or 14, I can't remember, they started doing west coast chefs. And a bunch of my friends went on, and they all won. And if you go on and win, they ask you if you know anyone else who will win. Now, apparently the producers got my name from, like, eight or nine different people. And I was like, nah, I don't know. And all my friends are like, dude, it's $10,000. You need money, fly to New York for free, get $10,000 and fly home. Like, why would you not do that? So, all right, fine, I'll do it. So I fly there and I win. And as I land back on the tarmac at lax, phone turns on, I get a text. Hey, we just got your number from Chopped. There's a new show that's shooting tomorrow called Guys Grocery Games. Would you like to be on it? It's up to a $20,000 prize. And I go, okay. So I show up the next morning. This is episode three of. Of season one of Guy's Grocery Games. And I had just done Chopped, where nobody speaks to you. Not none of the judges, none of the hosts. You are. They turn the lights off. You have to put your head down and walk single file. Like it's. It's psychological warfare, right? I get to this thing, and I'm expecting that this is my first cooking competition. I just. Or on TV at least. So I'm expecting that's what it's going to be like. And I get there, and it's light and it's airy and it's cheery. And Guy comes out to all of the contestants before we even go do our, you know, welcome interviews or whatever, he's like, I just want you all to know that you've. You've made it. You won. The fact that you're here, you know, blah, blah. He gives us a real amazing prep pep talk and shakes all of our hands, spends a few minutes. Hey, what's your name? Philip. Okay. What do you do? I have my own restaurant, you know. Oh, what kind of restaurant? Oh, I make everything from scratch. Blah, blah. Wait, you. You own it? Yeah, I do. Okay, good luck today. You know, blah, blah. So then don't see him for a while. And now we're starting. And what he does is he goes, all right, next up, you've got Chef so and so from so and so. And you do your big walkout, right? And I'm like the third one to get called out. So he calls. All right, so next up is Chef Philip Franklin Lee. He's a chef and owner of a bistro in Beverly Hills, California, you know, reading off the teleprompter. And I'm doing my big walkout. And he goes, no, no, no, no. Stop, stop, stop. And everyone's like, wait, wait, why do you. What's going on? And he's like, no, no, no. This kid owns his own restaurant. I'm not saying he's an owner of a bistro. He owns Scratch Bar. Let's do it again. And the producer's like, well, you can't say the name of the restaurant. He's like, bullshit. This is my show. He. This kid came. He's. He's 27 years old or 26 years old. He's fucking putting himself out there. He owns his own restaurant. We're promoting his restaurant. And that he gets into a fight with the producers on episode three of his first competition show. And I'm just standing there, we're all standing there while they're arguing and he's like. And they're like, they finish up and he walks over to me and goes, listen, we're going to go back, we're going to do it. We're going to say scratch bar. I don't know what they're going to air, but I want you to know this. No matter what you do today, you cook from scratch. You're the scratch man, the scratcher. You don't stop saying scratch the entire episode. And I go back and I do the thing. He does the intro for me with saying scratch bar. And I do every single course that I do. I make my own butter in one course. I do something from scratch and I end up winning. I think 16 or 18k that day. And I just can't believe that a celebrity on TV would not only care about a 26 year old kid enough, but like, he didn't just advocate for me, he fought for me. And I didn't know him. He didn't know me. He didn't know me anything. You know what I mean?

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, that's awesome.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And it was the most like, that was like, that Was one of the most incredible things that ever. So then, yeah, people talk about me later about being white. It's like, I don't care because there's like, you know what I mean? Like, I've had enough love that the hate gets kind of drowned out.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, that's fascinating. Like, I really feel like the perception of Guy in the media is like, oh, he's this wild dude. He wears these crazy shirts and his hair is funny.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Do you know that I think they miss Shane Torres.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, of course.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Have you heard his bit on Guy Fieri versus Anthony Bourdain?

[Mark Gagnon]

I've heard, I've seen excerpts of. I've seen like clips.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Amazing. Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, I mean, Shane's like all time. But like, I do think people miss Guy's genius.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yes. His whole thing is, look, yes, he has racing stripes. Yes, he has, you know, spiky hair. But that's his personality.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You have long hair. That's your personality. I have a beard. That's my personality. Right. That's just his personality. And is it a little bit different than everyone else? Sure. But he's not doing it as a shtick. Like he collects hot rods. He's a hot rod guy. Yeah. So he dresses like a hot rod guy. Like, why is that? Why do we hate him because he dresses like a hot rod guy when he has such a huge heart. You know what I mean? It's weird.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

But that also goes to show you that a person that amazing who's done nothing controversial in his entire existence, really, if people can hate him, then you can discredit everything people say.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

As a whole.

[Mark Gagnon]

Now I'm curious. When you're cooking and sort of working with these like high powered people. Right. Like you're like someone like, Joe is massively influential and he's not the only one that you've. You've cooked for. Is there a pressure when you're making each dish? Do you. Do you psych yourself out? Do you have to kind of calm yourself down? Like, what is that?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

There was only two people who I've ever been nervous to cook for. Davey Havoc, the singer for afi.

[Mark Gagnon]

That makes sense.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It's a weird one, but it's true.

[Mark Gagnon]

Knowing you, that tracks. You're a big AFI guy.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yes. Yeah. I have several AFI tattoos, but my favorite band since I was 12, you know? Yes. And Thomas Keller.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Those are the two that I have. Like, I'm like jump. Like I'm like messing up my words. You know what I mean? Yeah. But no, I mean, otherwise I really try to teach to treat every guest and a lot of them, I know who they are and they know I know who they are.

[Mark Gagnon]

Because everyone knows who they are.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Because everyone knows who they are. Yeah, but I, but like, you can only, you can be one of two things ever a human or a fan. You can't be. And the second, you're like, if you start out as a fan, you're almost never going to become a human. Right. And so I've always treat, like all of my restaurants have always been like, welcome to my kitchen, welcome to my home. So I just treat you like a guest at my house. And if I'm, if all I do is treat you like a guest at my house, it's really easy because I don't have to do anything different than I do for every other person. Right. Because I'm already chatting up the room, I'm already offering you a drink, I'm already making sure you feel taken care of. Now the fact that you're a celebrity, you just also are getting that treatment, right?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. If you treat everyone great, you don't have to switch it on.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And now I have so many friends who are, you know, that sounds bad. I have so many celebrity friends, but I have a lot of friends who have celebrity status that I met because they ate at the restaurant and they liked the food and felt a connection because I treated them like a real per. And I viewed them like a real person.

[Mark Gagnon]

Now it's one thing to do it in your own restaurant. People come in and they get a reservation or maybe like they work with the concierge and they go through sort of traditional channels. But I've heard that you've done some private events for some pretty interesting and, and high powered people. Are those experiences different? Like you might go to someone's home and cook in their kitchen at like some, you know, multi billion dollar mansion somewhere.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I think, I think I can't talk about who it is. And I think I know, I think, I know that. I think you know what, what I'm. What it is. Right?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It's one that's set up.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. Okay. You know, I try not, I just try to stay out of my head. I just try to do my thing. You know, it's always a little bit the first time you see someone, it's like, oh, that's a president. Oh, that's the one of the richest guys in the world. Oh, that's, you know, head of state, whatever. Oh, that's, you know, 100 time Grammy Award winning Whatever. Like, yes, there's a little bit of, like, anticipation, but probably no different than if you're doing a show and you know that Chappelle's in the back, right? Yeah, you're a little. But. But the second you get up there, you do your thing and you. It's gone.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. The muscle memory kind of lost in. You're like, this is just like sort of any other experience.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And so, you know, I'll tell a fun story about that. I'm going to leave all of the names out. Fair. So I get gifted to some. Like, I get gifted as a birthday present to somebody and go to their house, make sushi. The gentleman who it is is like, this is the best sushi I've ever had. And I've traveled the world and, you know, there's nothing I can't afford. And incredible. And this is over Covid. So, like, you can't go to restaurants or whatever in LA and do the dinner. Great time, leave, get a call back a couple of days later. Hey, so and so wants to know if you can come back this weekend to do another dinner. And the person who I'm talking to is like that. And that's crazy because this person never brings back the same chef. So I go back that weekend and this person has invited three couples to join him and his significant other. And it's like, I'm so excited to show all of my friends the best sushi in the fucking world. And so I'm getting ready. I come out with the first dish and he goes, hey, guys, this is Philip, blah, blah. And I know every single person at the table. It's like an Illuminati party, dude. You're looking around, you're like, what the hell? Well, no, no, I know them personally. Oh. Every person at the table is a regular at my restaurant.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, hilarious.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, that must be nice.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

That was. That was cool.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, that's crazy. What's up, guys? I'm on the road. That's right. I'm going to Chandler, Arizona, San Diego, California, Burlington, Vermont, Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, and a bunch of other dates that I will be adding to my website. Markagnon live.com I would love to see you guys there. Obviously, if you don't know, I'm a stand up comedian and stand up comedy is my passion. It's the thing I love to do. And seeing you guys all come out to the shows truly makes my life. I hang out after the show and say, what's up to everybody? So if you want to come through, check out the show say what's up to me, it would mean the world. You can see me at all these dates and more on my website, markagnon live.com and I'll see you guys on the road. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because we got merch, if you don't know. We got camp research and development merchandise. You can see it right here. Also, my buddy Andrew Schultz was actually just out hanging with his fam, having a good old time. All of a sudden a dude walks up to me, goes, yo, what's up, Schultze? And guess what? He was wearing this shirt right here. So shout out to that legend, whoever you are, you're the man. I appreciate that. And if you want to cop your very own camp threads, go to camp-rd.com we're dropping all sorts of new gear. You can see some of the images here of some of the products that we got. And anytime you buy a T shirt, you help this show directly operate. It is a huge, huge lift and I'm very grateful for everyone that reps the gear, especially at the live shows. Seeing you guys wearing the T shirts at the shows truly makes my life is the coolest thing ever. I cannot believe people are actually wearing clothes that me and my friends are designing and sending imessage chats like, yo, you think this is cool? It's the craziest thing in the world. And I'm so grateful for everyone that does it. Check it out. We got the link in the description. Now let's get back to the show.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Support for this podcast and the following message comes from America's Navy. The Navy offers new graduates hands on training and experience in careers like computer science, aviation and medicine, plus education and sign on bonuses. Parents, help your grads start their career. [e-mail] you say you'll never join the.

[Mark Gagnon]

Navy, that you never track storms brewing in the Atlantic.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And skydiving could never.

[Mark Gagnon]

Be part of your commute. You'd never climb Mount Fuji on a port visit or fly so fast you.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Break the sound barrier.

[Mark Gagnon]

Joining the Navy sounds crazy.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Saying never actually is. Start your [e-mail], america's Navy forged by the sea.

[Mark Gagnon]

Now, are there logistical issues? Like, do they? Are they like, okay, well we need to test the food and we need to look at the rice and make sure that everything's fine. Like we did do a background check on you.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I've definitely had background checks done in some of the dinners that I've done. My team asked we have to sign NDAs.

[Mark Gagnon]

Sure.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. There's definitely been those things. Not too often, but it does. It does occur.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I've never had to go with, like, a metal detector or, like, there's, like, they're checking the food for poison.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Because, again, I was. I was a chef who was, like, brought as a gift.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Of course.

[Mark Gagnon]

Like, it goes through the right channels.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. Because the right person vouched. Right. They didn't find me on Craigslist.

[Mark Gagnon]

So I know at the restaurant, very many, you know, celebrities have come in, as we've said. Are there any specific people that you can share? I know you don't like to kiss and tell, but are there any specific stories of people that have come in that you can share as far as celebrity?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So, yeah, I mean, you're right. I don't kiss and tell. However, if the paparazzi saw the kiss, I can say it.

[Mark Gagnon]

Comment on it.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yes. I mean, obviously, you know, I mean, you know, who's been to the restaurant and, you know, there's been a lot of big, you know, great people. Some fun, fun Story two come to mind. Two come to mind. One is Ashton and Mila. Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis. They actually came to Scratch Bar about a month after I opened my first restaurant. And we're now, you know, 13 years later when we now, you know, happy Thanksgiving kind of. Kind of thing. But they did something for me that was really, really cool. When they had their first kid, they. The first time the kid was ever seen in public was at our restaurant.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, wow.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. And the first photographs of them with the kid ever is right in front of the sign of the restaurant.

[Mark Gagnon]

Whoa.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And that's wild. Yeah. And. And. And, you know, that was. You know, I never asked if that was planned or not, but I do know that the paparazzi did not come on our side of the street. They stayed on the other side of. But regardless, it felt really, really cool. Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Especially at that time. Like, restaurant one, first couple months.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, that was restaurant two. That.

[Mark Gagnon]

That happened.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Okay. The gathering swine in 2014 in. So that means, guys, grocery games was 2013 then. Because I didn't have Gathering Swine then the second time. And I don't think I've told this story on a podcast, but it's public knowledge that Leonardo DiCaprio has been to the restaurant. But I'm gonna tell a fun story since we're on this topic. In Austin, right after Joe blew us up and we're sold out with the wait list and Everything. There was a very affluent gentleman who lives in Austin who reached out to us. He'd been in several times, and he reached out and said, hey, I need this Saturday night, 9:30 seating. And our concierge was like, I'm sorry, we're sold out with a wait list. And he said, I'll Give every person $1,000 to buy their seat. So she calls me and goes, hey, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I'm not kicking every. Like, I'm not just going to say, hey, sorry, pick another night. But you can call every single person and offer them $1,000 for their seat. And do me a favor, anyone who accepts, put them to the head of the line, like, get them into the restaurant the next month news. I mean, as you probably guessed, every single person accepted $1,000. This gentleman comes in and it turns out the reason that he came in was because Leo was only going to be in Austin for one night. And him and Leo had a bet. Him and Leo had a bet on where. Where the best sushi in the world is. One guy was saying Austin. Leo was saying la. So they come in. So basically Leo had. Had. Was in Austin. And this was like a way that they could settle. Like, hey, you come and try my dude in Austin and see, you know, since he's been in a bunch of times. But like, hey, come to Austin and see my guy and then, you know, we can settle this bet. So they come in. I don't even know who's all going to be there because they didn't tell us this, but Leo walks in, they all sort of sit down, he stands up and tells this story. So, you know, we have this argument, blah, blah, and he's like, I just want you to know the place I was going to take you to in LA was Phillips restaurant.

[Mark Gagnon]

So they're arguing about the same spot, the same guy.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, that's so funny. You should have taken them up on that. Be like, well, you better get a reservation over there. Yeah, let's run it back. That's wild.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

So you go from these sushi restaurants. I'm actually curious. Were there any concepts for restaurants or ideas that you did that Failed?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yes. Well, failed.

[Mark Gagnon]

Failed is a strong word, but failed.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Is a strong word. I have closed restaurants, okay. My second restaurant was called the Gadarene Swine. It was a meat. There was. There was no animal product in the menu, and it was a tasting menu. It's kind of like what Love Madison park is doing now back in 2014, it was a tasting menu, high end, only vegetables. And that closed because I had a partner in the original Scratch Bar and that. That allegedly took all of the money out of the account and left the country. And then basically I had to get a restraining order so he would stop taking money out of the accounts. And just you. A judge can remove them from the account, but the judge can't remove him as a partner. So he was like, if you want to take over, it'll be a million dollars cash.

[Mark Gagnon]

So after already allegedly fleecing you?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yes. So what we did is he had me, I was 25 at the time. He had me sign all the paperwork that I signed. I didn't realize I had personally guaranteed Everybody, including the IRS. So IRS hits me up for 40k. My vegetable purveyor hits me up for. For 30k. Staff hasn't been paid, you know, so on and so on. So I kept that restaurant open until I paid every single person out and then close the restaurant. So I wouldn't call that a failure.

[Mark Gagnon]

The restaurant, but the restaurant, the relationship, perhaps, maybe.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. I had Franklin's Crab & Co. Was like a lobster roll, you know, concept up in Montecito. Yeah, it was doing all right, but it was in a hotel. And the hotel really wanted sushi because they loved our sushi in la. So we did reconcept that to be. To be sushi. So that one also closed. I had two other restaurants that also closed. The Silver Bow and the Monarch were all in the Montecito Inn. So in the Montecito, when I had Franklin's Crab and Company, Silver Bow, the Monarch, Monarch and Silver Bow closed, never to return. Silver Bow was my attempt at three Michelin stars. And had I not closed it, I think we would have got there, really. And.

[Mark Gagnon]

And why did those close?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So the hotel that we were in, we're still in when they found us. You spent time in Montecito a little bit. Just like, you know, it's like the wealthiest zip code like in the world.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Staying at the Montecito inn was like 250 a night. But every other hotel around there was like 2500. So now half of the Montecito win were these unbelievable sweets. And half were 250 a night. And they brought us in to go buck wild on the food. So. And they were going to remodel the entire place and be. Just go high, high, high.

[Mark Gagnon]

You're part of their plan to modernize.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

They eventually decided not to do the remodel. And eating at our restaurants was 2 to 3x staying there.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, there's a mismatch.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It didn't work out. And so no hard feelings. It is what it is. They now have a beautiful restaurant there called coast and Olive. They took over both the restaurants and turned it into one big bistro style thing. And then sushi is still there. Funny, they actually in when they agreed because, you know all these hotels, there's like buyback, you know, blah, blah. They were like, we'll let you keep sushi, but you have the rest. You have basically have the rest of this lease, which was two more years to get a Michelin star. And if you don't get one, then that will be out too. And then I got a star, so I got to keep it.

[Mark Gagnon]

Put the pressure on.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Now I'm curious. Like with comics there's always like a joke that never worked or an idea that you always thought was going to make it that never really worked. Was there ever a dish or a piece or a roll or something that you were like, I think this has something and you, every time you did it, you were like, this doesn't work?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

No, I don't think so.

[Mark Gagnon]

Really?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

No. Because the thing is you just, you just iterate until it works. And it may seem like from an outsider's perspective that like when you write a dish that like, you kind of like that like, like throwing darts at like, it's like Mad Libs, you know what I mean? But it's, but it's, it's not. It's more like if you ask a guitar player like, yo, how'd you come up with that song? They're like, well, just been kind of strumming this thing for a few years and lately I've been doing this. And so it's just the next thing that I wrote. And so that's kind of the way like I never sit down with a pen and paper and go, I'm writing a menu. If I'm doing an event or something, I need to like write a set list. I can write a set list, but I don't write dishes. I can't. I never sit down and just write dishes. They just sort of come. And it's because I've been thinking about this sauce for a couple of years. I've been thinking about this concept for a couple years. And then something goes, oh, you know what? That would be great with that sauce. I have my back pocket and this thing and boom, it all comes together.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, that makes sense.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I don't think I've ever like had an Idea cooked it start to finish. I mean, like, that's bad. Interesting, because that. It's like, how often is. Is Eric Clapton, and I'm not considering comparing myself to Eric Clap. But how often is he gonna play a riff that sounds bad?

[Mark Gagnon]

Right?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

He might do, like, it might not be finished. Right. But it's not going. He's not gonna. It's not gonna sound. It's not gonna be unpalatable. Right.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's just not done.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It's not done. And so he might. He might have a really short riff that he can sits on for years because he can't figure out where it goes. And then one day, oh, that there it is. Because he hears one. It's just something.

[Mark Gagnon]

Did you ever have a concept for a restaurant? They were like, I would love to do this, but it just wouldn't. Like, this is like, too expensive, inconceivable, too crazy. Like, what's like, the highest.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It's the restaurant I'm about to open in spring.

[Mark Gagnon]

How long have you been thinking about it?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

More than. More than a decade.

[Mark Gagnon]

Because it's just so. It's almost like James Cameron level. Like, oh, yeah. It's a place you can stay where everything's made.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I'm going, like, I'm. Yeah. I'm gonna have an acre and a half of a culinary garden. I'm going to make my own sugar out of honey from our apiary. I'm going to feed my dairy cows the olive mash from the olive oil Texas Olive Oil Company on the road and all the leftover beer mash from Jester King. Every six months, I'll send my. My dairy cow to slaughter that will come on the menu for the next six months. I'm building a 4,000 square foot, you know, like Hunter's Cabin, you know, in the middle of the woods.

[Mark Gagnon]

It would have been impossible to do six years ago.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Like, it would have been impossible. Yeah. I actually have had this property for almost four years because it was. It was a good price and I could just get it. But I've not been able to start on it until literally we broke ground, like, in the last month.

[Mark Gagnon]

This is like James Cameron having Avatar, like, in his drawer.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

This is my Avatar.

[Mark Gagnon]

The technology isn't ready to do this.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, technology is ready to milk cows, but, you know, there's just something about. So I'm. I'm super literal. So when I first. The reason that scratch bar and now scratch restaurants and we don't serve anything we don't make from scratch is I'm Very, very literal. And when I was going to open my first restaurant, I looked up the definition of restaurant, and that's a hilarious place to start. Well, you got to know what the fuck you're opening. Because I'll tell you what, a lot of restaurants aren't restaurants by definition, okay? A restaurant is a place where guests sit and pay to eat food, to consume food that was prepared on site. So if I buy someone else's bread and I buy someone else's butter, and I buy someone else's smoked salmon, and I buy someone else's roasted turkey, and I buy some and I put all them and I assemble all of them, by definition, I'm a delicatessen. I'm not a restaurant. So I wanted to take it further and say, I'm not going to serve anything I don't make myself. Now, there is a slight caveat there. I don't refine my own sugar. I don't. You know, like, there's, like, there's certain things you don't actually make. So. So the rule of thumb is if it's an ingredient in something, it can be purchased. But, like, I can't purchase a bagel chip and then garnish a bagel chip. I'll have to. And I can't purchase a bagel and slice it and turn into a bagel chip. I'll need to make my own bagel chip. Right. If that makes sense. But if I'm making a sauce and it needs. Well, now I. Now I make my own soy sauce. But I didn't. Back in the beginning, if it needed soy sauce in there, I would buy soy sauce as one of the 13 ingredients in a sauce, if that makes sense. Of course, you know, if you're going to use katsuobushi, which is like, basically dried bonito flakes in your dashi. I'm not buying fresh bonito and then making my own. You know what I mean? But if I. But if I am going to serve it as, like, your next course is bonito flakes, then I would have to make it myself, right?

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, that makes a lot of sense.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Here's another good example. I want prosciutto on the menu. So I got to get a whole pig. I got to break it down. I got to wait two years. However. However, if I wanted to boil prosciutto into a sauce, I could buy prosciutto. Does that make sense?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, of course. Yeah. If it's. If it's sort of part of a.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Greater ingredient, I'm not serving you that Prosciutto. I'm not serving you with anything I didn't make. When I say I, it's the general. You know, it's the global I. Because I have, you know, a giant team.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, of course. And I also imagine, like, supply chains and, like, global logistics also play a role in this. It's like, oh, we want to do, like, a coffee thing. It's like, well, it's got to go to Ethiopia. You know what I mean? Like, you can't grow coffee, you know?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. So. And so. So we're taking it all the way back to, like, growing our own vegetables, hunting our own, you know, meat.

[Mark Gagnon]

And if you raising our own, you're not gonna. You're not gonna.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So again, so same idea.

[Mark Gagnon]

Put it on the. Like, the title of the dish.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I'm not. Well, so for. If I serve a carrot course and there's a carrot on the plate, that carrot came from my garden. Now, if that carrot is garnished with a sauce made from onions, I might buy the onions from the farm across the street.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Because that's going into the sauce.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yes.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And I need hundreds of pounds so that I can reduce it all the way down.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yes.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And I'm not dedicating four acres of the. You know, not dedicating the entire thing to onions for sauce.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yes.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You know what I'm saying?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, yeah. No, that makes a ton of sense.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So, like, I'll. I'll buy chicken carcasses from a local farm, but the chicken meat you're eating will be from me.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right now. This is so much detailed culinary knowledge, and I would consider you a genius, specifically in sushi and specifically with the other restaurants and concepts that you've developed. But then there's also the business element of scaling all of these restaurants and managing people and hiring people to manage in your stead when you're not there. Because you have 27 places, there's only one fill. So, like, where does that come into play? How do you learn all of this? And how terrifying is that concept of scaling?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I never meant for any of this to happen right. At all. In 2011, maybe 12, I got my first executive chef job, and it was a restaurant called Decachet in Toluca Lake in Los Angeles. And I very quickly learned that. So guests were calling in to be like, hey, is Philip cooking tonight? Because we're open seven days a week. And I was off one day. Oh, he's not. When is he cooking? Okay, I'll come in that day. And when the owner came and told me that I said I got to do something. Because being a chef is a big misnomer about the difference between being a cook and being a chef. If I come to your house tonight and I cook you an amazing dinner does not make me a great chef. Makes me a great cook. But if I bring four or five dudes from different walks of life who maybe they do or don't know each other, and I orchestrate them to cook you a great dinner, that makes me a great chef. And so I realized right then that I have to stop cooking and I need to start training. So I immediately, because I was the chef who was, like, working saute and expediting, I went around the other side of the expo and I started expediting, and you guys are cooking. And at that point is when I realized I'm not going to teach recipes ever. I'm going to teach approach. I'm going to teach, like, mindset philosophy. I'm going to teach you to think the way that I think, not recreate what I'm doing, but to create the way that I create.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right. Because then you can't solve problems.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Exactly. And so, like, if you have. If you're a restaurant that has a beet sauce and the beet sauce recipe has 35 grams of sugar every time, regardless of how sweet the beets are, it's never going to be perfect. So my idea of consistency is not that it should be the exact same every time. It should be the best every time. I have this idea about first kisses. If the kiss is exactly the same on the second and third and fourth time, it's not as exhilarating. You don't need the kiss to be the same. You need the kiss to be as good. So if it's the best kiss you can have, it'll be just as good as the first kiss, right?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. There's like a proportionality.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Context.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So, you know, as we've grown, what I've done is I've promoted from within. There's this. There's this, this. You've heard of Chef Driven. Most restaurants, when you hear Chef Driven, is like, well, we put bacon on our Caesar salad. The CEO of. Of Scratch Restaurants Group was my sous chef at scratch bar in 2015. And as he's aged out of cooking slowly, just been my right hand, and we've grown. And now the entire company, not the people who do the taxes, but the entire. The entire logistical brand of the company are chefs who have aged out. And so chefs get things done. We're efficient, we do not fail, Problem solve, figure out. Correct. And you know, I never meant to open this many restaurants. What, what actually happened was when I sold. So the restaurant that, that Joe blew up, that was our a pop up. And that was our fourth location of Sushi Bar. Private equity comes in, offers to buy that location. Just that one, not my other ones. At that moment, I'm only a 50% owner of all my restaurants in California. Margaret and I are 50% owners. The deal is going to allow me to buy out all my partners in California and go back to 100% ownership of everything that we had. And so I did. I sold that one location. It was in East Austin. Here they were supposed to run that. They'd run Sushi Bar Austin. I'd run Sushi Bar la, Sushi Bar Montecito, Sushi Bar la. Because I had two of them, you know, when I was on Rogan In January of 22, at that moment, I don't think I had a single restaurant open because I had ones in LA that were still closed in California that were still closed. And I had just sold the one in Austin. And now today there's 27.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, that's insane. Three years.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Keep in mind though, that my biggest restaurant is the size of this, you know, this room, right. You could fit all 27 restaurants in in a TGI Fridays. Right? Right. So, you know, the thing was, and you asked me this earlier, before we even started rolling, but like, I had to figure out a model that didn't exist. Because the model that existed was invest millions of dollars, take three years to break even. I had to open restaurants and break even on week one, or else I would, I would die.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And so my father in law would build the restaurant. My father in law would build them. I would go with him and I would help. You know, like in New York, all that, that, the, all the brick on the wall. I spent 48 hours, I did all that brick, you know, with a thing myself. So we would open restaurants again. It's a DIY punk mentality. It's like you. I'm not giving up. I have like over 300 employees now. Every single person has a 401k with a 5% match, which is the legal limit. You can't match more than that. Even my dishwashers, everybody, if, if one of my chefs who's making six figures, his, his, you know, girl has given, given birth or whatever, six week full pay, paternity, you know, medical, dental benefits, extended education, stipend, everything we can give, we do and instead of starting kids out of culinary school at minimum wage, we now start them at like, depending on the restaurant. Somewhere between like, you know, low 60s, mid-70s. I have this idea that we should stop being the help. We should stop being just service. We should be professionals. So, I mean, I think chefs should make as much money as lawyers. I think chefs should make as much money as anyone else. And I think that this should become a career where your parents can be proud that not only have you found success, but you drive a nice car and you bought yourself a house. Probably other than my brother and I getting that Michelin thing, the proudest I've ever been is when one of my cooks who came started with me while he was in culinary school, when he was like maybe 19 or 20, still works with me 12 years later. He came to me and said, chef, I just got approved to buy my own house in California. And that was the coolest thing ever. Because now not only do I care about him like a son, but like, we're providing a life that I don't need that much to be happy. I have a nice house, I have everything that I need. Right. And so I thought, these are my real partners. Everyone who shows up. Because I'm not at the restaurant every day, I can't be, but they are and they deserve. You know, basically what I did is when I, when I bought out my 50% of my partners, the full 50% that used to go to my partners went out into salaries and benefits.

[Mark Gagnon]

And you probably have no turnover. Like, I couldn't imagine people are leaving.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

There's still turnover.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, I'm sure, like anything, but I'm sure a lot of people are going off to start their own restaurants and chase their own dreams.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

There are several speakeasy 10 seat sushi restaurants around the country that are alum, several of them in Austin too.

[Mark Gagnon]

And I can imagine there's probably people clamoring to just be a part of what you've built.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, the thing is what you actually want, and this is where Thomas Keller is, and I mentioned earlier, legacy for a chef, your art doesn't get hung on the wall. It's gone. When you're gone, it's gone. What lives on is the family tree. It's the lineage that you train under him and he trained under him and he trained under him. And so what you want as a chef is that one day it means something to have worked for you.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, that's awesome. Well, Chef Phil, I. It means something that you're a friend of mine, truly. And I'm very grateful to call you a friend and a brother. And I appreciate everything today, all the knowledge and. And just even hearing the stories. A lot of the stuff maybe you've told before that I've never heard, which is fascinating.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

There's a lot we talked about that I don't think I've talked about.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, I appreciate that.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, thank you for doing it with me. It means the world. Thank you so much.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Thanks for having me.

[Mark Gagnon]

And we're actually going to check out sushi by scratch restaurants tonight.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Hell, yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

I'm excited.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Hell, yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Thank you again, brother.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Absolutely. My pleasure.