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Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS]
01:47:47
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to this classic episode. Classics are my favorite episodes from the past 10 years. Published once a month, these are n of 1 conversations with n of 1 people. Sean Feeney makes you want to be a better person, friend and leader. His story never gets old and his out of the box thinking will have you questioning the rulebook. I hope you enjoy it. Here's a puzzle. What do OpenAI, cursor, perplexity, vercel, Plaid and hundreds of other winning companies all have in common? The answer is that they're powered by today's sponsor Work os. If you're building software for enterprises, you probably felt the pain of integrating SSO, SCIM, RBAC, audit logs and other features required by big customers. WorkOS turns those deal blockers into drop in APIs with a modern developer platform built specifically for B2B SaaS. Whether you're a seed stage startup trying to land your first enterprise customer or a unicorn expanding globally, WorkOS is the fastest path to becoming enterprise ready and unlock growth. It's essentially Stripe for enterprise features. Visit workos.com to get started or just hit up their slack support. Yes, they have real engineers in there who will answer your questions fast. Work OS allows you to build like the best with delightful APIs, comprehensive docs and smooth developer experience. Go to workos.com to make your app Enterprise ready today. Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick o' Shaughnessy and this is Invest like the Best. This show is an open ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. If you enjoy these conversations and want to go deeper, check out Colossus Review, our quarterly publication with in depth profiles of the people shaping business and investing. You can find Colossus Review along with all of our podcasts@joincolasis.com Patrick O' Shaughnessy is the CEO of Positive Sum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of Positive Sum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit Psum vc. My guest today is Sean Feeney. Sean is the co founder of Grove House Hospitality Group and the owner of Lilia and Missy, two of New York City's most sought after restaurants. He left his job in trading to chase down a dream with Michelin star chef Missy Robbins. Sean leveraged his finance background. He was actually introduced to me through past guest Scott Goodwin to write his own rule book for the restaurant industry, crafting several establishments that now boast several thousand people on the waitlist on any given night. His story is as entertaining as it is inspiring. As we go step by step through his business endeavors, he points out all the times he was told it's just always been done this way, and how that revealed to him where he could innovate. Sean's restaurants are the perfect example of building a business into the fabric of a community, collaborating with other brands in authentic ways, and staying true to oneself along the way. Please enjoy this awesome conversation with Sean Feeney. All right, Sean, so you have one of the most interesting stories that I've encountered in a long time. And I'm especially interested because I love the category of people that had a long, successful career in finance and then do something completely different, but approach the new business, restaurant and food and hospitality, in your case, with all the lessons and what they've learned in finance applied to the new place. And I find that it just sometimes leads to these fantastic outcomes because people will be familiar with some of the restaurants, but maybe not with your story. Maybe you could just start with that transition, like, bring us to the end of your finance career and kind of what you were doing. And the story of seeing this window of opportunity in restaurants to do something wholly different and maybe even how you process that psychologically, it's a big switch. It's hard to leave finance. Not many people do. But you've done it with spectacular success. So maybe just bring us into that moment of transitioning from one to the other.
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In 2003, I started in finance. 2009, I was married and moved into an apartment in the West Village in a townhouse where there was three apartments in that building. My wife and I lived on the top floor, and right below us, a chef moved in. And I was a massive food fanatic. I think the best I was ever at in finance was at restaurants every single night. And I had just read an article about chef Missy Robbins moving back from Chicago to New York to take over a restaurant called Devoche. And when I saw her the first time in our building, I was like, oh, my God, you're Missy Robbins, aren't you? Opening a Voce in a couple weeks. And she said, yes. And I was like, wow, I'm going to come all the time. And sure enough, I did. So for the next three years, I would go a lot with my finance colleagues, my parents, when they would come in from Jersey, my wife, our friends and I would flex. But Also being embarrassed to be a bit of a fanboy of hers. And she would come out to our table and do the whole spiel, shaving truffles on the pasta. And that's all we really were. We were just neighbors at that point. And she probably thought I was just a finance dork with my trader vest on. But she was really nice, and I liked her. But we were always ships, like, passing in the wind. And then the night that Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, I was at Anchorage Capital at that point. I just got home from work and saw her in the hallway, and I invited her up to our apartment for dinner. She had told me that she closed her restaurants down because Hurricane Sandy that night. And she said, okay, what are we having? I said, I'm going to cook. And she said, you're going to cook for me? I said, yeah. And she was like, well, what are you going to make? And I said, I'm actually going to make bolognese, which is pasta. And she's like, you're going to make bolognese for me? And Missy Robbins at that point was two Michelin stars and known for pasta. And she said, you got a lot of balls making pasta for me. And I said, trust me, I can't do much, but I love bolognese. I obsess about it. And that night she came up, we had bolognese, and I guess it was good because she stayed almost all night. And my wife Marie and I told each other our life stories to her. She told hers to us. And my daughter was about 1 years old then. That night, she told my wife and I that she was gonna be leaving her restaurant in 2013. And I couldn't understand why, because she's at this point in her career and life that she always worked for. She was 42 years old then, and she had been working in restaurants since she graduated Georgetown when she was 22. And over those 20 years of being in the kitchens, she worked from the very start and the lowest ranking position to the very highest executive chef position. She had two Michelin stars. She was getting good reviews. She was being nominated for all these great awards and got great acclaim. She sat there and said, I need to leave. I'm taking a year off, and I'm going to essentially deplete my entire bank account to build myself back up. And I learned she was broken physically, mentally. She put everything she had into this craft to be a chef, the best chef she could possibly be. And she attributed a lot of that success as a chef to. To stars and reviews and acclaim, and that had a price. She had enough money in her bank to take one year off in New York City. She had to get herself in shape mentally and physically. And she had to start investing into relationships personally for her family and friends that she had never been able to do in the 20 years before because she was mastering this craft. It was inspiring to watch that happen. So by the end of 2013, we had gotten to know each other very well. I got extremely inspired by someone who did exactly what they said they were going to do. I could tell in the beginning of that year, she didn't want to go back into being in the restaurants. She was telling me she was going to maybe go to become a psychiatrist or be an interior designer. Nothing had to do with being a chef anymore. But in that year, I was tasting food that she was making on the Weight Watchers point system, but her own recipes. And I'm like, well, she's the greatest chef of all time, and this is the best food I've ever tasted from her. She's got to be a chef. And then we would go out to dinner with her and see these people treating her with this great amount of respect and love and admiration. And I'm like, she's got to be a chef. But I also believe she could be an owner. Towards the end of 2013, I could sense that she was a little nervous about whatever. And I blurted out one night with my wife in our apartment, we love you, and we all support you, and whatever you need, we've got you. And I believed when I said that that night, it meant, when you open your own restaurant, we'll be there every night. We will fill it up. That's all I could offer and support at that time. And I was confident that I could do that because I was doing that for 15 years in finance. People would come up to me and ask me, what restaurant should I go to for a date? What should I go to in midtown for a business dinner? What's the best private dining room in Chelsea? And I knew the restaurant immediately. I would make the reservation, I would text these people what they were going to order, tell the story of the restaurant. It was what I loved. And I knew that if she opened her own restaurant, I believed in her so much that I would fill that restaurant up every single night. A couple weeks later, that support meant taking care of her because she felt like the one person she wanted to work with didn't need an Italian chef. And I supported her that night by telling her, go get Another offer, which she did pretty quickly with an extremely great restaurateur, but that didn't mean she was an owner. And I believe that she deserved it and you should maybe get another offer. And she did. I remember her coming to me and saying, I told you it's the same. It's the best I can get. I was like, well, even though I'm not extraordinary at my job as a high yield bond trader investor, I do know if I have a bond that somebody really wants, especially if two people really want it, maybe I could get them to pay the price. And we just started talking about how to negotiate between two people. And it was then that it hit me to do it with her. And I remember telling my wife, maria, we should do this with Missy. Maria saying to me, what are you crazy? Like, you've worked so hard to get this job at Anchorage for 15 years and like, you can't just leave it. And I said, I'm not leaving it. I'm going to help Missy and support her in any way she needs. She certainly doesn't need me on the floor. But in terms of financial help and operational support, I'm sure we could figure this out. It will give her ownership on day one. So my wife basically said in 10 minutes of that conversation, well, as long as you're not going to be an absent dad or husband, let's go. And that night I wrote a business plan, gave it to Missy the next day. It was nine pages long, and I've never done that before in my life. And it was a terrible business plan. But she didn't even read it. She read the first page of it and just looked at me and said, no. And I was like, don't say no so fast. Just take 48 hours and, like, look this over. Let's have another conversation. She said, I love you and I love Maria, but I'm not going to do this with you. This is the biggest decision of my life. And you've never done anything like this in your life. I need somebody who's done it before. That's my partner. And I was like, well, don't say no so quickly, but I understand. And I went upstairs. Maria looked at me. She was standing at the end. We had eight stairs up to our apartment, and she was standing at the door listening. She's like, what are you going to do? And I said, we're going to be partners with Missy. And for four months, every single night, I came home from Anchorage with something to talk to Missy about on why we should be partners. It was a belief that I had a human that I knew she deserved. And it wasn't even like we were saving her. But I just believed so deeply in someone that I was willing to do something that I never thought I could do, which was be an entrepreneur or think anything other than being an employee.
- [12:54]
A
Can you talk about the role of the word we've been using when you and I have talked is genius that people have? Because I think the way you've articulated everyone having some form of genius and the ways to chip away and find that thing and then embrace it. I like how you tell this story because this is not an easy transition. We could talk lots more about the hardships in the early days, but if you ask a New Yorker today about your restaurants, everyone will know them or have been to them or wish they'd been to them or whatever. And so the outcome can be so powerful. But it's always hard to embrace these things early on. And I really like the way you've articulated it to me around this notion of genius. So can you explain what that is, why you care about that concept?
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It was September 28, 2012, opening night of the Barclay Center. Jay Z. And I'll never forget this moment where he looks out into the crowd, said, everybody has a genius, and started calling people out in the crowd, you, with the yellow hat, I see you. You've got a genius. You are a genius. And I just thought it was so cool at that time. That was 2012, then when Lilia opened, and I felt something different in me. I thought back to that time where I heard him say, everybody has a genius level talent. And I started thinking about that and I started looking at other people who have felt a certain way about what they do. And for me, it was feeling comfortable with who I was and what makes me jump out of bed and what comes so naturally. And I started thinking about people who I looked up to and understanding that what you do is not who you are. Who you are is understanding your greatest strengths, understanding what you're not so great at and feeling okay about that. For 15 years in finance, I knew what made me different than others. I knew what gave me an edge. That thing, making relationships, genuinely building on trust. It got me through all of my days, the hard days, the good days. I knew what made me different in finance. But the job that I did in finance as a trader, it didn't make me extraordinary at it. It didn't ever make me feel in complete control of my destiny, my future. I always had a feeling in finance that if the music stopped, they would take my seat. I lived in that fear. I felt like it was a job. I also always attributed success and measured success in that finance job as an end of year bonus promotion or somebody who was looking at me to bid me away from where I was currently working. When I joined finance, that's how I was going to measure success, wins and losses. But when I felt this other thing, when Lilia opened, I realized that what success was, it was doing something every single day for the rest of your life, happy to do it. That to me, was success. And I couldn't feel that unless I was totally happy with who I was and honest with who I was. And I believe that every single human is a genius, and there is one inside of them.
- [16:34]
A
I love the descriptions you've given me of the early experiences on some of the restaurant floors and just seeing the magic that she created that you created together. I also love the way that you thought about the business. And I'd love you to just talk about approaches approaching something like a restaurant from first principles, thinking through, like, why does everyone say these businesses suck? How do I make it so that ours doesn't? Not just as a restaurant, but as a business? And some of the unorthodox things that you did early on, whether that be with real estate or other things, I would love to just hear those stories because I thought it was so creative how you approach the business.
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B
Oh, totally. I feel like I was excited about being partners with Missy because she was such an amazing creative, and I could hopefully follow her expertise in creativeness in an expertise of financial management. And if we could marry those two and find the perfect balance between art and commerce, I really believe there could be magic there. And if we found that perfect balance, it would be how we treat others, the people that worked with us, if we really nailed it. And that would create magic. And to me, I wanted to understand why people always said you couldn't make money in restaurants. Tell some friends in finance that. I was thinking about doing this with Missy those four months that she was saying no to me every night. Most of them said, don't do it. We've invested in restaurants. We never make any money back. But I also had this feeling like, there is a way. There's got to be a way. And I had been making a lot of friends in the industry because I was dining at these restaurants all the time for 15 years. And I then just started going to the restaurants and asking different questions in those four months. How do you purchase People, beverages, how do you purchase food, how do you manage payroll? And I was getting a lot of great info and ways on how people did things. I found the best way to make the biggest impact on some of these bigger challenges in the industry was when I was asking questions and I would get back, well, this is just the way it is. And to me, I loved hearing that because to me, it was people stopped looking for better ideas. I remember Missy saying, okay, we're going to be partners. What do we do next? We're going to go start looking at spaces. And when we decided to be partners, we already, in those four months of her saying no to me every single night, we wrote our partnership agreement. We knew our roles. We also agreed to finding the balance between art and commerce. I was obsessed with 20% EBITDA net income for a restaurant and the average profitability of restaurants at that time in New York City was 8%. She thought I was crazy, but she did say, like, I want that. That would be awesome. In order to get that, it had to be a very strict financial formula. You have two sales mechanisms in restaurants. It's food and beverage, and then you have a bunch of expenses. Some are fixed, most are variable. And I thought if we had a certain amount of sales, attributing each expense a percentage of sales so that you could back into a 20% net income at the end of the year, I thought that was the easiest way to do it, to keep it extremely simple. Just like the way she cooks, keep it simple. I wanted to do that with the finances of restaurants because I think they are simple. And it was just getting her to feel comfortable around that management of expenses, especially variable, the fixed expenses, very important to make sure from the get go you make a great agreement. The first one you ever have to make is occupancy. And that's where a lot of restaurants in New York struggle. It's the most important decision you make and it's the first one you make and you sign 10, 15, 20 year leases. And a lot of people, I believe go into space is inspired because there's amazing spaces in New York City, depending on neighborhoods, foot traffic, and a lot of times that inspired feeling when you go into a big space will overtake that financial diligence. And understanding that a price per square foot you're agreeing to now, it could severely impact you forever your business. And I thought it was crazy to me that everybody did this a certain way in New York City, where you walk into a restaurant space and the person that walks you into it tells you this is going to be the price per square foot. And then you have to do this whole financial calculation on what's that going to cost me per month. And I was believing that, can't we do this differently? Can't we say this is what I think we're going to do in sales? And, and then we could pay a percentage of it. Because everybody that I was going to asking what should we pay in rent? Was telling me, you shouldn't pay more than 8% of sales in your rent. That was the first thing I was like, whoa, we're just going to tie it to sales. And we looked at 38 places in Manhattan. All were just awful. We struck out left and right. They were too expensive. Probably 50 operators that were known said no to before us. Nobody really knew us. And I just couldn't feel comfortable signing leases like that until we finally found this location in North Williamsburg that we lucked out on and we were able to do a rent that I hoped we could do and afford. And my finance background, nothing in high yield bond markets helped me be a better restaurateur. It allowed me to think with a clear lens and, and try to keep it simple. I know a lot of people that are in the restaurant business have been in it forever and I think the mode of this is the way it's always been done. Like any other industry that you're in forever, it sets in. And I think that's what allowed me to think with just a clear lens of I don't know anything. I'm going to ask the dumbest questions and hopefully I get some great answers and I'll figure out the rest.
- [22:58]
A
How has that rolled forward in terms of how you deal now? With lots of locations, with people in real estate, like creating that alignment where it's a percent of sales rather than a fixed dollar amount. They probably heard that for the first time and they're like, what? What are you talking about?
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B
Oh, we had to sell it. We had to sell it. And I pitched it like crazy. But what was great about it was the first time I did it, I thought we were going to do three and a half million dollars in sales in the first year. And I agreed to a percentage of sales and we doubled that in the first year of sales, so the rent was even greater. And I was able to use that case of this is a partnership. And I feel like that is a true partnership. That deal versus here's the price per square foot. This is what you owe me every single month for the remainder Good luck. I've just felt like it was more aligned and. And both sides were incentivized. And every time I've given this is what I think we're going to do and do better. The landlord partner is more excited to make sure that the space looks amazing, that the sidewalk's clean, and every time something happens, they're willing to help out. I think it's a healthier relationship. It certainly helped us during the pandemic where all of our restaurants were tied to a percentage of our sales and we had zero. So I didn't have to have these awkward conversations with landlords that a lot of people in New York City did. And since then, I think landlords in New York have become more comfortable with this model. I hope that that will continue to be the case. It is a huge challenge for our industry in New York City to pay fixed rent all the time, especially when January and February and March, those are really slow months. A lot of businesses will try to not bleed as much in those months and try to make it back up in the next nine. To me, it just aligns everybody nicely.
- [24:57]
A
One of the things that I admire and have learned a lot from watching you and talking to you is the intensity and density of demand around your brands. I know on any given night, there's probably almost 10,000 people on a waiting list to come eat at one of these restaurants that can't obviously serve them all. So there's, like, incredible excess demand around these things. I'd love you to talk about this idea you told me about brands chasing customers versus customers chasing brands and everything that you've learned about that concept.
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B
Yeah, Missy and I are not cool. I remember the first day we were walking around Williamsburg to look at this space, and we were certainly out of water. I was wearing Gucci loafers and a Trader vest, and she certainly was not looking that cool either. And I remember thinking, like, how are we going to make it here? Manhattan will kill it. But I don't know, are we going to fit in? But then when we did open, it was not about what we looked like. It was about who we were and how we treated others. And understanding people aligned well with how we were trying to do it. And I started obsessing about that brand and understanding that every single night at Lilia, eight years later, we have 5,000 people on our wait list. And Missy, Our second restaurant, five years old, is 2,500 people a night on our wait list. And not to say that, to boast, but to try to understand why as we think about expansion after Missy was open in 2018. What's next? We believed that in order to feed more people, instead of opening another restaurant that takes two years to do, start to finish, maybe we could take a year to create our own company that would feed the people who were putting their names on the wait list, that maybe couldn't get into our restaurants, but would be able to get our products and bring it home. And the way we launched that was through basically a drop. Just how Kith and Supreme do these sneaker drops? We thought we had the community that would want that, and we started that early in 2020, where on Friday nights on Instagram, we would put the flavor of the sauce and the shape of the pasta on Instagram, two o', clock, the next day, pick it up, we would make 100 and 250 people would line up, and it was just, oh, my gosh. The same thing that happened with our restaurants is now happening with this little brand. And although I want to always feed every single human, I have realized the preciousness and almost like obsession around not filling the demand. But how do we find that right balance? And I've just thought about, as we grow even that pasta brand, what more can we offer to our community of guests in a thoughtful way that everybody will always say, oh, that makes sense. And I think just playing the long game has always helped with this too. Knowing the things that we've wanted to do. We've written all these things down in 2014, these little things that we've wanted to do. Open a few restaurants, do a pasta company someday, hopefully have a place where we can curate an entire experience where we pick you up at your home and bring you back when you're done with us after a few days and we've set those roadmaps. But in between, how do we build that out in a thoughtful way that's authentic in us so that people are chasing the brand versus the brand chasing the guests? That's definitely something I never thought I would say out loud before, but it is something that we think about every single day and we're grateful for.
- [28:54]
A
What have you learned from Ronnie at Kith about an incredible brand and building businesses around an incredible brand? One of New York's great, if not the great New York brand right now?
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I'm grateful for our friendship. I'll never forget getting a call from a rapper. His name's Action Bronson.
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A
Oh, come on. The ultimate food rapper.
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B
Yeah. Bam. Bam. He lives across the street from Lilia. And six months after we opened Lilia he became a huge supporter, and I didn't know him at all. I'll never forget the first night I walked into Lillian. He was there. It was January 23, 2016. It was 14 degrees outside, and Action was at the bar by himself in a New York Knicks jersey, Patrick Ewing shorts and flip flops. And I walked by him. I was coming from Anchorage. I walked in, service was going, and it just felt off. Every single night we were opened until then, it was just. The energy was intense and great. And it seemed oddly quiet that night. Everybody was there. It was just quiet. So I remember looking at Missy, what's going on? She's like, that guy is very famous. And I'm like, who? The guy with the flip flops on. She's like, yeah, everybody's going crazy. I'm like, yelling at all the cooks, like, do your job. They all want to stare at him. So I was like, who is he? And she's like, I don't know, some guy. Action. He's a rapper. So I was like, okay. I went up to him, started talking, and I remember that night, he had gnocchi with black truffles. And he put it on Instagram. This is 2016. I think at that time, he had maybe 200,000 followers, which was a lot. And he put it out. And that night we got 2000 followers because of that picture. And I'm like, who is that guy? Yeah, we became friends. And one night in June, he called me up and was like, hey, you gotta let this guy Ronnie into your restaurant. He lives in the neighborhood. I'm like, okay, who. Who's Ronnie? And he goes, he started Kith. Now, Anchorage's offices were right on the same block as the original Kith. And I remember leaving Anchorage for lunch during most days to get some mental clarity. And I would walk to kith. I didn't even know what Kith was. It was just a sneaker store at the time in this place called Atrium. I did not get this concept at all. But I kept on going back because I liked the music. I liked just the way it broke up my day. And then little by little, I saw a pair of pants that said KITH on it. And then there was a T shirt and then a hat. And I'm watching this brand being built. I still didn't understand it because I saw collaborations. I saw sneakers, I saw a few pieces of Kith designed products. I saw a lot of other brands that he was selling at the store. But I'm watching something happening. So when Action told me that he wanted to come to our restaurant. I was like, whoa, that's awesome. Yes. So I remember he came with Victor Cruz and I sat down with them for a little bit. And from that day on, I was so inspired by what he was building because I started asking him why he was doing it. And I watched him add content and storytelling and I would go into his stores knowing that I was the least cool person to walk into that store. I should not feel comfortable in that store. But every single person that worked for Kith would come up to me like I was a part of them and they made me feel comfortable. And I remember buying my first jacket at Kith that I felt like I could wear to Anchorage. I felt comfortable in it. And I think that was a big inspiration for me with Ronnie is that we were truly aligned on just trying to make others feel a part of something. And the way he's been able to do that. People that work for him are proud to be there. They're excited to come back tomorrow. The people that come to shop there, they're really proud to walk into that store and. And they're more excited to come back the next time to hopefully get something because it always sells out. Those are the things. And the way he tells the story about what he's doing, the collaborations, the relationships that he builds are long standing. He never does something for one time. I think that's also very inspiring for me as I think about a hospitality brand that can be bigger than just inside four walls. And now so many other companies around the world want to be attached to hospitality brands and experiences. That's what we create every day. Experiences. We are the best at creating experiences. How do you think about creating long standing relationships with brands that haven't been a part of the hospitality industry? I think it's a really exciting time to think about that. And Bronnie taught me, don't think about it as a one time event. I get asked a lot, who's your hero or who's your biggest inspiration in the restaurant industry? And there's so many. But really I look at people like Ronnie, what are they doing? I like that we could use that with our brand. The storytelling, certainly the way we treat people. Every single person that comes in, how do we make them feel just accepted? You're one of us. You are one of us. Whether you work with us or. Or you're dining with us.
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A
What are the ingredients of a great experience?
- [34:30]
B
Well, to me, the definition of hospitality is creativity plus compassion. So hospitality, it's how you make someone feel. And I think it starts with understanding who you're dealing with every single night. Who's walking into your door and trying to figure out why they're there and what is going to make that experience the greatest and exactly why they're there. That's the ingredient. It's compassion and then creativity and understanding that every single person that comes in is different and they're all there for a reason. Every single table is different, but they all should be leave excited to come back to me. We've said from the start. The first night we opened Lilia, I remember standing in front of everybody and saying, the way we are going to measure success of Lilia is not by profitability. It's not by stars or reviews and acclaim. It's if you are proud to be a part of this. You have to feel safe when you enter our doors. Not in a physical sense, but mentally safe, where you can then become comfortable. When you're in our presence, you could be your best self so that when you do leave, you're excited to come back to me. That goes for the people that work with us, just like it is for our guests. So any moment they walk in feeling safe so that they can enjoy and feel comfortable of the reason why they're there and they maximize that. And we have to read that. So if you're a guest and you're there for a party of two and it's a business dinner, we might not even know that, but we have to feel it, we have to hear it. So then I'm not going to go to your table and tell you the story about the mafaldini. You're not there for that. You're there to do something with someone else in business. And we're just going to make sure we don't screw anything up for you that night. But then when I see a table of six 26 year olds with a lot of LED lights and cameras taking a ton of pictures, I'm going to tell you every story about every dish because I know you're there to be entertained in a different way. And that feeling you're going to get is going to be way different. But those two situations, they're still going to leave excited to come back. And at the end of the night, we have a list of all the restaurants we have, how many people are making reservations for the next time. It's always blown me away. I am a professional diner. I've gone out to restaurants my entire life. I have never made a reservation. After an amazing dining experience for the next one. I'm like, get me out of here. I'm going right to bed. I can't think about my next meal. Every single night in our restaurants, there's people who make reservations for the next time. And that is what I study a lot.
- [37:42]
A
I want to talk about why giving such a shit about what you're doing is so powerful with a story of yours. It's one thing to have this mentality. I think it's impossible to maintain this mentality unless you care from a deeper place. Maybe this goes back to the genius thing. This was the thing you and Missy were meant to be doing. Can you tell the story about when you first met the creator of Chef's Table?
- [38:02]
B
Oh, yeah. So, Brian McGinn. I remember when Lilia opened. This was now July 17th. I woke up on my way into Anchorage. I was on my Instagram of Lilia and I did all the Instagram. Missy would always yell at me for taking pictures. The food was getting cold. But I knew it was building something. I saw somebody post a friend of ours, Adam Sachs, who is the editor in chief of Savor magazine, a picture of the Mafladini. And I commented, great shot, thanks. And I also saw in that thread a comment from someone who said, I tried to get in last night and I couldn't. I'm going to try next time I'm in town. So I dmed him and I said, hey, here's my email. Let me know. Turns out later that day because of weather, his flight got canceled. And he emailed me and said, my flight got canceled. Is there any shot tonight? Works for a party of two. I said, yeah. So we made the reservation and the friend that was dining with him was running late. So I sat down with this person and we just started chatting. What were you doing in Brooklyn? I was filming something. Oh, wow. What do you film? And he said, I'm one of the co creators of Chef's Table. My name is Brian McGinn. I was like, oh my God, it changed my life. Episode one, Season one. Massimo Butera, the Parmesan. Like he saved an entire industry. And like that changed my life. I remember hitting stop running downstairs to Missy and saying, you have to watch this with me. We have to watch this. And from that moment on, Brian and I just built a great friendship. And it was also a time where I felt like Instagram, social media, it wasn't just a face to face interaction that could change somebody's day. It was what else? What other modes of communication or Connection can really change the course of someone's day for the positive. And that just fills me up. It just is the thing. I believe every day is a good day. None of them are easy. For me, the thing that makes a good day is seeing somebody that crosses my path, just seeing someone changed just by saying, I like those shoes. Just knowing that I can go to bed. It could be the failing 15 times during the day, but at least I know that I said something to someone about their shoes that made them feel good. It gets me through that tough day. But Brian, that struck up a beautiful friendship and it certainly gave me the confidence to go hard at social media. And I'll never forget, for the first two years of doing Instagram for the restaurants, we would always get these comments of like, who's the 25 year old girl who does your Instagram? Because she does it in a great way. So I would always be like, I guess my Instagram voice is 25 year old female. But it was worth it.
- [41:07]
A
You mentioned it a few times. You have to tell us about the mafledini.
- [41:11]
B
In the process of us opening Lilia, there were nights where Missy would test in our apartment kitchen. And one night she was going to just make a spaghetti cacio pepe. And she called me up and she's like, hey, you got any black pepper? I don't have any black pepper. And I'm like, maria, do you have any black pepper? And she said, no, we actually don't. I was like, I think we got pink peppercorn. Or maybe Missy was like, I got pink peppercorn, but I just, I don't know, I just want caciopepe. So she ended up using this pink peppercorn. And she called me back in five minutes. She's like, get down here right now. So I go down, she makes this cacio pepe with pink peppercorn instead of black peppercorn. And I was like, God, this is incredible. She's like, I know, it's so floral. It's not spicy. I think we got something here. Now, Missy is a chef, a creative that does not plan her menu in advance. So when we open restaurants, I've learned not to ask her about the menu until three days before we open. That is extremely stressful. But I have now become very comfortable around this, and that is her creative genius. So about three nights before we were opening Lilia, I was like, hey, you make that spaghetti with the pink peppercorn and parmesan? She's like, oh, yeah, that's right. Well, I don't want to do spaghetti. We got something else. And I actually got this dye, this shape of pasta. It's like mafaldini. Let me see. And she did it, and it was just serendipitous, where it was this weird shape of pasta. It looks like the end of a lasagna, where it's like a ribbon. And she made the parmesan pink peppercorn butter pasta, water, simple. And we had it. And, oh, my God, it was so delicious. And then extremely beautiful. It glistened. It's pink. And when we opened, everybody would take pictures of it and post it on Instagram. And every single night at Lilia, there was, like, a little bit more people coming, a little bit more buzz. But what was going viral was this shot of someone taking a fork into the bowl of mafaldini with this pink fluorescent peppercorn and this light. And it went crazy to the point where we now sell 200 bowls of malfodini pink peppercorn and parmesan cheese every single night. And we know every day we have to make enough maflodini nests to feed everybody and never 86 it. And when we started the pasta company, it was the first thing we did. We were like, well, we're gonna give people the tools to make that dish in people's homes. And what's so cool about it now is people will flex as hard as they flexed early on at Lilia eating that bowl of pasta. Now they're making it in their home, and when you hear the video, they're playing the songs that they listened to while they were having at Lilia. And now you're giving people that beautiful gift to create that inspiring experience that they had at Lilia in their home. And I never would have thought that was going to be the case.
- [44:24]
A
Can you talk about the power of owning a relationship with a customer who comes back again and again through media and direct connection, which I think for restaurants historically, people come in, you get a phone number, they put it in a book, they eat, Then who knows? The know your customer hasn't been a powerful part of restaurants historically. I know you have a very different philosophy about this talk kind of the soup of that together, the media, the directness of it, the knowing your customer, how to serve them, and so on.
- [44:54]
B
It's a relationship to me, and it's a long relationship. Restaurants in general, you think about the experience of dining. The person comes in to check in, and they sit down, and for two hours, you have them captive, and then they leave. And I think that is a dining experience. But we've always thought about the experience where it starts with the reservation being made. We are so fortunate that we have people who will spend months and years trying to get a reservation at our restaurants. I do not say that to boast. It is the reality of what we've created. That is an enormous responsibility of ours. It's awesome to understand that people will wait up until midnight every single night until they could possibly get a reservation at your restaurant. 30 days later, once they do have that reservation locked in, secured, we got 30 days to begin that journey with you. I don't think about it as it starts when you enter our doors. It starts when you do that reservation. What can we do in 30 days leading up until that point to find out a little bit more about you, why you're coming here, how we're going to make it special. Maybe you find out a little bit more about us. What can we do in creative ways to let you know that we're as excited about you coming to see us as you're excited to see us? I think that's awesome. And then when you do get there, hopefully we have as much information as possible on you and we will learn more just by being extremely great listeners and asking the right questions and doing our best job at making you happy. And once you do actually leave us and are excited to come back, what do we do with that time? Because that could be another year, it could be a couple months, it could be next week. And so I've always thought about this opportunity we have, building a community in these four walls as not just a two hour dining experience. It's a much bigger investment for people than that. It's an investment in time, energy and financial. And that is our awesome responsibility to respect that and to be excited about that and to make people understand that it's not a transaction. This is something that we truly love to do, where if we do this the right way, you're going to come here on your first date, you're going to come here when you get engaged, you're going to come here when you get married, for your rehearsal dinner, and you're going to come here to celebrate great news, but you're also going to come here when you need to be picked up. Like a funeral or an election that is really scary for people or bad news, you got fired. There's that part of a relationship we have with people. And it has been amazing to watch people that come in to celebrate and people that need to get picked up and I think realizing that it makes that awesome responsibility we have to make it bigger than just a two hour dining experience, transactional. It's really going through this journey of life. And I think that is what gives us joy. And I think there's just so many cool ways to do it through modes that currently exist. And I think there's modes that can exist, whether that's sending text messages leading up to their dining experience with us, sending surveys after their dining experience with us. All those things exist. You get a lot of great information that way. After the first year of Lilia being opened, it was a wild success in anyone's mind, Missy and mine included. Having said that, we sat down and said, okay, what could we focus on year two on? Number one, we were very honest with each other that we were not going to be a wine destination. We knew we could grow into that. So let's do that. Let's find someone who is amazing at wine and like invest in our wine program. Number two, are we the perfect version of ourselves? Are we truly the perfect balance between art and commerce? Are we maximizing our operational efficiency? I did not know if that was the case. We were very profitable. We were extremely acclaimed. But operationally I did not know if we were the most efficient operation. So I sent out a survey to 500 people, most of them closest friends. And it was a 15 question survey where it really was structured around the entire dining experience from the moment you entered our space until you left. When you check in, at what point are you upset about not being sat on time? Is it five minutes after your reservation? 10 minutes after your reservation? 15, 20, 85% of the people said after 15 minutes, I'm upset. We had the control then to see on our technology of resi, our floor management system, when we would tell people to go back to our cafe to get ready for their dining experience, we could see the timer starts. If it was getting to that 15 minute moment and we were still not ready to seat them, we were going up to talk to them. We did not want people coming up to the host stand asking us what time once they sat down. When do you want your first drink? Two minutes after we sit down. Our drink order should be in. We want the drink in five minutes. When do you want your order to be put in? 90% of the people said 15 minutes after we sit down, our order is in. Great. So to me, the perfect turn was the hello, the experience and the goodbye. The hello is the first 15 minutes. The experience was then letting our back of house the Artists. The reason why people loved to consume, let them do their thing and not put any pressure on them. So that when the dessert menu was put on the table at the end, that goodbye started. How many minutes do you want to leave after that dessert menu's put on? 93% of the 500 people said within 20 minutes we want to be out of there. Great. So in 20 minutes, how do we put that dessert menu on the table? Get the dessert on the table, put the check on the table, have it signed so that they're out. And anytime I would ever see in the restaurant somebody doing the check signal, that's imperfect. So I just started obsessing about this idea of if we could nail this perfect turn. The perfect turn was not getting people in and out as quickly as possible so we could do as many covers. It was getting people the perfect experience that they wanted at the same time being operationally efficient as a restaurant business. And that would maximize the amount of covers we could do. And. And it turned out we were able to track all that on these systems we had. We could see the average cover times for 2 tops, 4 tops, 6 tops, 8 tops. Then we could look at all of our team members that were on those tables in sections and see who was the best server on 2 tops on average, who was the best at 4 tops and 6 tops, and then be able to coach in family meal and lineup. How do you move four tops? How do you get your order in in 15 minutes? Tell us. It was almost like giving the framework to our team and saying, if you believe in this framework, get us there. I'm not telling you how to get the drinks on the table in five minutes. You are, you are person, but this is the framework. If you believe in it, then let's go. That has been a big thing for us to just be able to give a framework. It taught us on how to lead people, get people inspired, and see who is going to follow us.
- [53:38]
A
I think the idea of the perfect turn is one of the great questions for anyone listening to ask themselves, like everyone's producing something. What is the perfect turn equivalent for your thing? It's such a fun, cool thing to.
- [53:50]
B
Explore, I think about in life. The reason why we called it perfect turn is a turn is of the restaurant. You have 60 seats in a restaurant. Your first turn is 60. Your second turn is 120 in the night. And I was thinking about this perfect turn. Nothing in life is perfect. But to me, perfect turn is that counterpoint of guest satisfaction and restaurant operation. And how do you marry that the same way we've tried desperately to marry the balance of art and commerce. And it's been a huge trust thing between Missy and I or Billy Derny and I as partners, or will Unsell deny, as partners. They are the artists. I needed them to believe me that if we can be this business, this healthy business, you will have the greatest, biggest canvas, the most blank, biggest canvas to paint on you could ever imagine. And we'll never have the discussion of putting on a cheeseburger or a grilled chicken onto this Italian menu like a lot of other people have to do, because they have to be safe. And it has always been. How do we find that perfect balance between art and commerce? How do we find the perfect balance between guest satisfaction and restaurant operations? How do we find the perfect balance between the accountability of team members but also having a place that they're coming to every day proud, knowing that it might not be the thing that they do forever, but while they're with us, can they get inspired like we did, to do something that they want to do forever? That could be to be in this industry forever, which we're fortunate to have, but it could also be, while they're with us, to get inspired in a way and to feel in a good place that they can say, I'm going to go be a jewelry maker because that's what I really want to do. I'm going to go be an artist because that's what I really want to do. I'm going to go to law school. It's always just trying to find the balance of what we're really trying to do. At the end of the day, I.
- [56:02]
A
Love the idea of integrating. Once you find this genius, you sort of embrace it. You described to me this feeling of doing the thing you're supposed to be doing, living in that. I imagine I'm very lucky to sort of be in a similar situation where once you have that feeling, you want as much of it as you can possibly get. I would love you to describe what it felt like to walk around solomeo, which is the place that Brunello Cucinelli has built, which, when you ask around this was a secret two years ago. Now everyone's talking about it, but you spent some time there and I think had a cool and unique experience that was impactful on you. When I think of integration of life's work or genius or whatever with the rest of life, life's not just work. Solomeo comes to my mind. I would love to hear you describe why the time you spent there was impactful on you and inspirational.
- [56:50]
B
I think it hit me right in the face that I get inspired by people love brands when they understand why those brands exist, not what they are. And when I walked around Solomeo that day in May of 23, I got hit in the face with why they do this. And I read about it, I listened about it, I saw in the stores in New York. But I was able to experience this authentic brand that was built for a reason and a mission, and not just about what it was. Never was I inspired the way I was when I walked around solomeo with team members of Brunello Cuccinelli and the pride that they had for the stories that they told about Brunello, about the history of the brand and him and his family, but also about what they do for it and how excited they were. I remember watching people in the warehouse, the headquarters, working so hard in this beautiful, bright, airy, healthy environment. And people were working so hard and some of these tasks, their jobs, looking at garments that were put together by people 25 yards away who are artisans, are masters of crafts, and they're opening boxes, looking at these beautiful garments, looking for flaws and doing it with smiles. And I saw people excited to dine together every day. At one o', clock, the lights get shut off, the power goes down, emails shut off. Everybody has to go to the cantina, which is like a three Michelin star restaurant, and you have a four course meal and you sit together and you talk about stuff other than work. And two o' clock you go back to work for another three hours really hard together and collaborate together and build beautiful things together. And at five o' clock, the lights go off and you leave to go home for the night. And on weekends you're not allowed in. The only time you're allowed to work more is if you get email permission. And I saw this beautiful city that was built around doing what you love to do, but also having time to do what you care about as well. And I think about that day all the time. I cannot wait to have tours around Williamsburg. But with people who have now worked with us for eight years, that have started as a host, who now is the director of our content, who has started as a back runner, who's now the head of our hr, who I recruited for two years to be our SOM at Lilia, who's now, she's now the COO of our company, we have these humans that started in one job and found something they truly are just passionate about, are the reason why we've been able to grow, to now lead other people who come to our restaurants every day to trail and stage and want to try us out. I feel like that is an exciting thing to do. And to be in a neighborhood like Williamsburg now for businesses and getting so involved in the community there to make it better to live there. It's definitely not solomeo. I hope someday, but someday it's my version of it. But it was just such an inspiring day. And everything that I've read about Brunello and his brand, I hope that I can leave the world that I'm a part of in a place that's better, just like he's done. I think it's an awesome feat, and it's something that, that does drive me now. And I think about success. And it's only possible if you're doing this thing that you truly love every day. And those goals that used to be set, whether they're financial or promotions, those are just byproducts. Those are great byproducts when you're doing something that you can just love to do every day. I remember thinking about in finance when I was in my 20s, if I'm good at this, maybe I can get married to Maria really fast, and we could have kids really fast, and I'll put away enough money to save so I could retire early and just be with the family. And I think about my father, who retired 65 and he had his own business. He was an oral surgeon. And always telling me, do what you love, do what you love. And all I want to do is be him. I knew early on in my finance career that crazy reality of retiring early just wasn't going to happen for me. And even if it did, what would I possibly be happy doing at 45 years old when I don't have a job? I got into that mindset, but luckily when Lilia opened and I walked through it and Missy and Feeney and Red Hook Tavern and Missy Pasta, it's, I'll never want to retire. I'll never want to stop doing this thing that doesn't mean opening restaurants all the time. It's, how do you impact someone's day in a positive way? And there's so many ways to do that, and I want to do that forever. And I think that's probably what I'm most inspired by with Brunello. He's doing that. He's creating something great. But it's much more than just these amazing garments.
- [62:45]
A
You're making me realize that there's A hidden attribute of wanting to do the work, to find this genius for you. It's the way you make someone feel every day. Restaurant's a great way to do that. Once you get in that zone, the attitude towards success can shift a lot. And you mentioned Jay Z when we started the conversation with the opening of the Barclays Arena. You've got this other great comparison comparing Jay Z and his attitude towards success versus dmx. I'd love you to just draw that distinction on what changes about your attitude towards success and what it means when you're in the thing that you're meant to do.
- [63:18]
B
I think about it, when we had these two restaurants we owned and operated, and they were everything we imagined and more. I would get this question, what's next? What's next? What's next? Always what's next. I think people just assumed that it would just be more restaurants. And Missy and I, those four months, she told me no. Every day we talked about what the future could look like. And the future looked more than just restaurants. It was, how do we scale a hospitality brand? How do you scale making every day a good day for others? That was exciting to think about. And it brought me to a place where I thought about Jay Z and dmx, two of the most famous rappers of all time. And at one point, DMX was bigger than Jay Z. And I looked at their paths, and DMX and Jay Z could rap forever until they weren't popular anymore, because that happens. And DMX took his talent and continued to steal radios out of cars in LaGuardia Airport or JFK Airport. And Jay Z looked at his brand and was like, I want to do more than just be a rapper. I want to start a business. I want to be an agent. I want to be an owner of a basketball team. I want to think about how to stream music. I want to get into liquor. And instead of taking fees to be a sponsor, how do I own brands? And I got extremely inspired by that. I started looking at Michael Jordan, how he did things differently with Nike, the deal that he made, and then looked at LeBron James and how he's done it differently than Michael at an early age. And I thought about our brand like that. How can we grow this brand in our authentic way that is true to us and not like everyone else always has done it? And to us, it was never just restaurants. There was something about our brand that people loved. And we were an Italian restaurant, just like Rao's, just like Carbone, very popular, hard to get into serving very similar food. But very different brands. I think about that because I think they can be grown differently. And especially in this day where the potential around media and content, the potential to put the pen and the microphone and the camera in your hand and the pan out of it, is extremely exciting to think about around hospitality brands. And it's an exciting time to be in a industry that creates experiences that everybody desperately wants. And those experiences can be created in person inside of four walls. They can be created outside of those four walls, whether that's your home on an island, in a villa in Italy, or on a screen. And how do you continue to create those moments in different mediums but make people feel the same? I think it's possible and it's exciting to experiment with.
- [66:43]
A
Can you tell me the story of Feeney?
- [66:45]
B
Feeney was a dream that I've always had since we opened restaurants. I've grown up in New Jersey, and I love pizzerias. It is a place where I would go celebrate with my parents. It's a place where we would have birthday parties. It's a place where we would go after funerals. It was just neighborhood pizzerias were very comfortable places, and I loved them. Not just because of the pizza they served, which I obsess about, but I loved what they meant to the neighborhoods that they were a part of. They brought them together. It was a place unlike any other restaurant that I had ever been to, where a little less formal, a little casual, but people came to be a part of something and they felt comfortable inside of them. It was during the pandemic. For a couple years, I was putting it off because every time I would bring up pizza to Missy, she would say no. And I knew when not to push. But during the pandemic, around the end of 2020, I knew that our company was going to be okay. And I was able to start thinking about what is next. And I got excited about this little space three blocks away from my home. Every morning, I would walk from my house to Lilia and I would stop in front of this location and just stare. I don't even know why. It was like a mental health practice I had. And I would just stare into this little white box of a space. And for a good three months, I would do it every day. And this man by the name of Papo, who's basically the mayor of Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, yells across the street, hey, are you going to take this space or what? Yells and it was 7:30 in the morning. I look back and I'm like, Yeah, I think so. And he goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, pizza? And he goes, yeah. Fuck yeah. Do pizza. Do pizza, man. So that drove me. I went to Lilia that day. I called the number on the for lease sign. The next day, I walked in and I was like, I'm taking this. And my hope was that we could create a pizzeria that could be scaled from a neighborhood pizzeria on three things. Delicious, consistent pizza that people craved, and Italian ice. Number two, it was a pizzeria that when people walked into, they were greeted with hello. They were greeted with a welcome back. How's your day? It was a conversation. It was hospitality. It was the same language we used at our other restaurants now in this little pizzeria. And number three, if we could do those two things really well. What I loved about pizzerias growing up was that whether they meant it or not, the impact they had on their neighborhoods. And I always loved being on a soccer team or a basketball team that had the name of the pizzeria on the jersey. I thought it was so cool that a Pizzeria would give $200 to a bitty basketball league. And I got that T shirt, and I was thinking of, well, what if we took 3% of our revenue and put it really back into the neighborhood? And then there's things that we could do that actually don't cost money, but shows the neighborhood that we love them. Like if you read three books in a month, show us the titles, and write two sentences, you get a free pizza for your family. If you show us proof that you did a neighborhood volunteer project, you get a free pizza for your family. If you are protecting our neighborhood or are trying to make it a brighter future, you get a 25% discount. Like FDNY and NYPD and any educator that's possibly helping our neighborhood's future or safety right now. These ideas were exciting to me. And then I just had this amazing creative partner who had been with us since he was 20 years old at Lilia and was now 27, looking for a new challenge in his adult life. And giving him the opportunity to be an owner of a business was exciting. And he got excited about that, and we did it. And it's just been an awesome run of putting that plan into action. And in that one year of finally opening in 2022, we were able to open three others. I don't know how many we will do. I don't think about it like that. My hope, my dream was eight years have 10 really successful, consistent pizzerias that just made the neighborhoods better. That made people proud to come in and excited to come back, and then just really go hard on the community aspect of it and be intentional about it and to get people excited about that. Hopefully so and so that they want to be involved in it. We did this cool thing where the first six months we were open, we were trying to figure out what the community needed. And we polled people. 94% of 1,200 people said they really wanted Williamsburg to be more clean. And I agreed. Everybody that worked with us agreed. You walked around Williamsburg and there was a lot of trash. There was not a lot of cans. And I figured, well, let's just start buying trash cans. And we went online and found these awesome green Feeney green $208 cans. We ordered five of them. We put one outside our restaurant, and then a couple outside other businesses around the neighborhood. I saw every day it was being used, and that trash that was not in that can was definitely getting thrown out into the street if that can wasn't there. So it was working. So we bought five more, and then in three months, we bought five more. And then after four months of doing it, I started getting all these fines from the city. $4,000 worth of fines. And I'm like, what's going on right now? And I'm like, well, I'm not going to stop this. The neighborhood's a little cleaner here. I'm not going to stop. And I reached out to the department of sanitation and got a meeting with the commissioner. Jessica Tisch sat with her, brought the violations. I was like, what's going on here? I'm trying to help here. It's our money. It's the revenue of our business. And after an hour conversation, she gave me the blessing and tore up the tickets. And what was cool about it, she just said, just send me all the locations that they're going to be at. And the reason why you got tickets is because they weren't up against the buildings. They have to be 3ft or closer to the building. A lot of these were, like, on the curb. We can't have that. So I was like, okay, I'm sorry. We won't do that. So we had the rules, and just send me wherever you're going to put these things. And now you have, like, 75 cans in Williamsburg and downtown Brooklyn with our logo on it, our little crown logo. It's working quietly, just building this thing, and it's really neat. We put a can afini clean Streets. We called it Clean Streets after Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. And like, put it out on Instagram, got people excited. And now we have like a Clean Streets menu item where you could buy $208 can and we've had five guests buy 15 of the five guests. 15 of the cans have been purchased by guests of ours, which is like, awesome because it proves you could do it, you could do it. And then if others join, it could be this beautiful call to action. It's not to say, like, we want press about it or we're doing this. What can you do? Just doing something you believe in and then hoping that others get involved in it. And that's kind of what Feeney has been. We started to do youth basketball tournaments in the summer where this park got redone in Williamsburg. And I was really proud of the park. It's awesome. It's beautiful. My boys play, my daughter plays on it. We should get like a high school basketball tournament here in the summertime. And we got a brand around it and just created a beautiful day in Williamsburg where we had a round robin tournament with four men's basketball teams from Brooklyn high schools. And it was awesome. So now this year we're going to do six teams, but we're also going to do women's teams. And we're not going to just do Williamsburg, but we're going to do it at the Barkley center outside of it and create a beautiful, like this day. And whoever wins that tournament, they get pizza for life. They get a little coin, and then you get one slice of pizza free every day for the rest of your life. And they'll be announced. The winners will be announced at the halftime at a Liberty game. And it's creating cool things, moments like that, where you come into the restaurant and it's not just that moment with us.
- [76:05]
A
Never one time, Ronnie.
- [76:06]
B
Never one time. That experience is not, to me, a quick thing. It's a real relationship. A lot of the people that we have working at Feeney are high school students. They go to school at this food and finance high school in Hell's Kitchen. It's the only culinary high school in all of New York City. It's something that we've invested in heavily this high school since 2019. And we're essentially building a company around these young New Yorkers who have this miraculous passion to serve others. And we now have 470 team members in all of our businesses. And probably I think at this moment, 91 of them are between the ages of 16 and 21. And they have come from this high school. It's a really awesome thing when you can impact the community. And with people in the community like New Yorkers working in this industry of hospitality, that profession, and they're never going to leave. I think for a long time, we've had people in the industry of hospitality in New York City come from other cities in the world. They come to earn their badge and put the names of the restaurants they worked in on resumes. And for a long time, that's where we got our talent. And you had to be in New York City to really be a part of it. And New York City is still the number one dining destination in the world. But there are certainly a lot other cities in the world now that have invested heavily in culinary arts and hospitality. And I think a lot of people would say that talent pool is not as great as it once was because other cities are taking from New York City. But I think it's even better than it was because we now have the youth of New York City who want to serve, who want this to be their profession, who will never leave New York City. And that is exciting to be able to build something with them in it and hopefully help them build their own thing eventually.
- [78:11]
A
I'm thinking about that token and how so many of the lessons behind your stories are relationship, engagement, like your willingness to just fricking engage creativity and community. With all those in mind, what happens in the back room at Feeney?
- [78:29]
B
So the day that I went on the tour of the space, I thought it was just little square of a box. I'm like, this is perfect. It's the perfect little slice shop. And then the person who brought me through the space said, you want to see the back room? And I was like, yeah, sure. So we go into this room and it was all white cinder, blocked floor, ceiling and wall. And it was the backyard of this building. It was a townhouse, and this was the backyard. And the person who bought the townhouse, instead of keeping the backyard, built this little room in the back with this beautiful skylight. And I'm sitting there like, I don't want this to be the pizzeria, because I got that perfect little box in front. And I'm not exactly sure what this is going to be, but I still want this space. And I believed that the numbers made sense for just that front slice shop. And I would have some time to think about what I was going to do with this back room. Now, I had never had an office in my life. I started in finance, I was on a trading floor the whole time. I never got to a point where I was important enough to have an office. I was always on that trading floor. And then when I had the restaurants, I would use the dining rooms as the office. And for the first couple hours of the day, I would still go to the restaurants really early before anybody was there, because I loved waking up early doing it. But then at like 10:00', clock, 10:30, 11:00, clock in the morning, that's when restaurant teams start coming in for that night. And that privacy was not really there. And I would get pulled in different directions. And so I was like, all right, well, I'll just use that space as my office. And it was so cool to think about. We had this beautiful sunlight coming in. And then I'm like, well, I have these amazing creatives on our team here. So of the first feeney, we had 20 people on our team. Five of them were chefs at our restaurants, Creatives. And I was fearful that at some point they might get bored of just making pizza, Caesar salad and Italian ice. So I'm like, well, maybe we put a little kitchen in here and use it as, like a test. And I was like, well, if we're going to do that, maybe we create my version of a space that I wish my tiny apartment in Brooklyn would have. So I created basically a living room with a bar and a beautiful kitchen. And I did not even know what that was going to lead to. When we first opened, we were so busy that it couldn't really do anything other than me working during the day. And then November of 22, we are right in front of the New York City Marathon. It runs right by us. And I knew that people would be lined up outside early in the morning and they weren't going to eat pizza at 8:30. So I looked at Will, my partner, and I'm like, what are we going to serve on Sunday? This was Wednesday. And he's like, oh, okay. He started looking on YouTube how to make bagels. Two hours later, he started making bagels. An hour later, I tasted the best bagel of my life. So that next Sunday On Marathon Sunday, 72 hours later, we put out on Instagram bagels at Feeney. And we sold out. We had 300 bagels made. It was insane. We put like a pre order for bagels for Marathon Sunday, sold out. And that became sort of like a test kitchen. And then as we started getting our footing with the pizzeria, I realized that my friends were always asking me for reservations For Lily and Missy. They then started asking me for private dining room at Missy for work functions. A lot of times I wasn't able to give them the reservations that they wanted because the room was already taken. It's like, well, I do have a group of friends who should enjoy this with me. And I sent out a text to a group and said, if you ever want to have a dinner, a private party, holiday party, investor dinner, media dinner, you could use this space. And sure enough, they started texting me like, I didn't even know you had it. I was like, oh, come and check it out. So they would come. And we have this beautiful shelf built, and nothing was really on it except for books that I love and pictures that have inspired me over some time. And I remember the first night, somebody brought something for the shelf, and it has now turned into the Friends of Feeney room. And that's the Friends of Feeney shelf, where it's almost like the 21 Club used to do, where all those toys in the 21 Club, you're kind of like a part of the club. And to me, it is my biggest supporters, the people that have been with me from day one forever. And I never tell someone to bring a gift on their first time. I want them to see it. I want them to ask me about the stories of everything, and then I want them to think about what they're going to contribute to it the next time. We've had some amazing nights back there and some incredible moments, and just it's been a really special space. And I think that's been the cool thing where we've been just fortunate to feel every single night, whether you're having dinner with 72 other people in our restaurant or 20 other people in a private dining room of them, or in a room that no one even knows exists or on an island three months of the year, four nights of the week, where people just can't even imagine someone having dinner, Looking at the Statue of Liberty and it all being cooked on a wood fire. How many creative and cool locations can we create for people to have memorable moments? And it could be things people can book. It could be things people don't even know. But I think that excites us to think about how many ways we can do that.
- [84:45]
A
How do you do this thing that you so clearly do, which is to sort of live in constant creative response to your environment? The bagel story, like the turnaround time on some of these things that then become legendary, interesting, fun, amazing. They seem to start. You seem to Have a very simple trigger to get going and try things. What do you attribute that to? Or how would you encourage people to bake that into how they live? Because so much of what I see is it takes people so long to get going in a business, in their life. How would you encourage people just to.
- [85:18]
B
Go, I think it's been fun feeling what's working and not afraid to admit when something doesn't. And to study both of those feelings. And when you know you've got something that feels right, how do you replicate that feeling? Not just the outcome. So the bagel example, I didn't tell my partner, will make a bagel. I didn't tell Will to make make a white pizza and where you would squeeze lemon on it. That became the most popular pizza in New York City. I didn't say that's what I want. It was knowing that I had someone who was extremely talented and feeling like he was in a zone of finding his true self and saying, we have an event in a couple days. I don't think they're going for pizza at 8:30 in the morning. What would you want to do? What would you be excited about doing? And letting him get excited about something and take his genius and lean heavily on it. I also think when I look back on all the times in finance where I felt stuck, where maybe I was even asking myself, why am I even doing this? I'm not that extraordinary at this. I learned early in my career I would try to go somewhere else. I would try to take that same job somewhere else. If I was not doing a great job at Goldman Sachs, maybe I could do that same job at Deutsche bank and they'll appreciate me more. And I made some decisions in my career there where I was in that moment of stagnation plateau, or maybe just not being that great. And I thought that jump could change things for the better. But over time, I realized that sitting in that period, sitting in that feeling, knowing that maybe you're not that good at something, or I'm not getting better at something, instead of making a decision like Rash and going to another place to do the same thing, sit in it and find that feeling. And whenever you feel that moment of stagnation or frustration, how do you take that negative energy and push it towards something more positive, like how do I grow from here? And that led me to, for some reason, blurt out to Missy Robbins, someday, I want to do this with you. I want to be a partner. I would have never in my wildest dreams have a deep belief in Somebody like that to say, I, I want to do something completely different than what I've ever done before, start a business with you. And I think it was because in that moment of my life in 2014, I was starting to feel comfortable with who I was in finance. I was doing a job at Anchorage Capital I knew I was very good at, and I knew that I could probably do it forever. It was the first time ever where I felt like if they stopped the music, they were still going to need me at Anchorage to be that relationship execution trader. Because I truly was very good at that job. But I knew that I was not going to get, like, better. They weren't going to name me a PM or a partner or I never wanted to go start my own finance company. But that was okay. I was sitting in that feeling of stagnation, and I wasn't making a rash decision. I wasn't calling Blue Mountain up or Citadel or Millennium to try to start my own pod. I was sitting in it. And I think that time, every time I would feel that it was like, well, maybe there's something else. And then there's this person in my life who I believe deeply in. And then I went and did it. And I think when I decided that that was going to be the time to do it, I was then trying to start putting intentions down on a piece of paper where it wasn't just an idea. Now, okay, I said it out loud. Now, how am I going to put this on a piece of paper? How do I start this journey in a thoughtful way? And it was putting little, small attainable goals on paper and watching myself cross them off. And as I would cross them off, I would set new ones. And over time, I would look back on those small attainable goals, and what I was now trying to achieve was just awesome and greater. And I think that helped me gain confidence in myself and give me momentum that I could be the best partner for Missy. I could confidently say, I know you're going to be the greatest artist. I'm going to be the greatest operator. And together now we're going to treat people the right way. Because I could close my eyes and look at these numbers and know how we're doing. She can close her eyes and create what she wants to create. It's what we know we can do in our sleep. And then we're able to now come together and treat every single human the way they should be treated by us.
- [90:33]
A
We talked about Lilia, we talked about Feeni, talked a little bit about Missy Pasta. We haven't talked about Missy. What lessons stand out to you most from that restaurant? Specifically independent of all the other ones?
- [90:46]
B
A lot of people, when I told them what Missy was going to be, they thought I was insane. Missy is one mile away from Lilia. And we decided early on that we're selling a lot of vegetables and a lot of pasta at Lilia. It became our most sought after items. And originally we only had four pastas on the Lilia opening night menu. We were really trying to make it about protein and wood fire, but it seemed from the very beginning, and because what she really loves is pasta, that's kind of what resonated with people. And so when we did Missy, it was like, let's just focus on vegetables and pasta. And I thought it was genius because nothing was ever going to be replicated from Lilia. There was not going to be a menu item from Lilia on the Missy menu. It was a separate restaurant, similar styles. And I was excited about the opportunity. Thinking back when she was on Weight Watchers in our apartment and we were tasting that food that she was creating on the point system. I had never tasted vegetables like this in my life where it's all I was eating for meals. And I felt so fulfilled. And I didn't become a vegetarian, but I could see. I could see it and it was delicious. So to me, I got it right away. We were going to have 10 vegetables and 10 pastas off menu steak, and that was it. And then we were going to create six gelatos and everybody was like, you're crazy. Nobody's going to come to that because they could get that at Lilia. Well, I also didn't share that. We had 5,000 people on our waitlist and they'll come to Missy and to me. We realized that it is an amazing business when you are so specific and intentional with the concept. And for me, going forward in this industry, anytime I'll get excited about a potential restaurant. It's how dialed in can you be, how intentional and direct with your vision can you be the perfect restaurant to me is a Missy is a Feeney is a Red Hook tavern where you could have five items on the menu and every single item on the menu is so delicious and so craveable. And at the end of every night, when you look at the numbers of what people are ordering, it is so balanced. And then you think about the overall space. How can you create a smaller space that's still warm and intimate and fun and exciting with a smaller team? Because when you look at the challenges we all face in the industry is things are big. At Lilia, we have 100 people on our team. At Missy, we have 100 people on our team. And not just from the financial standpoint of challenges. It is human capital challenges. And that's what keeps me up at night, the people. And I believe that the future of these restaurants are just smaller. It's the thing that excites me. Smaller footprint, smaller menu, smaller teams, I think impact neighborhoods and communities just as big as some of these other bigger restaurants. And when we opened Missy, it really made me think hard about that. And I didn't think about that going into Missy. It's a machine. It has double the seats that Liliya has. But it is delicious and extremely specific and direct. And I think about growing up in Jersey and excited to go to diners after soccer tournament games and how cool it was to go to that diner for breakfast after a 9:30 game to get a pork roll, egg and cheese sandwich and waffles, play a game, and then come back and get a BLT and a burger and then come back at night to get a big sundae and a chicken Alfredo, big bowl of chicken Alfredo. And I'm like, oh my God, that is the scariest restaurant ever to operate and own. And like, the menu was a bible. It was like a. And although it brings me back great memories to think about what that must take to run, I want to keep it simple. And Missy has been a great inspiration for me in that phrase, keep it simple. The most important ingredient is the one that is left out. I'll never forget our first conversation we had about possibly being partners after she immediately said no to me. She did sit down with me and I asked her, what is the advice that you have been given that has meant the most to you? And her boss, Tony Montawano in Chicago, said this beautiful phrase. The most important ingredient is the one left out. And it is the way she cooks. You look at the menu, there's never more than four ingredients. But it has hit me so hard in life. And then the way I think about building a brand. How do you get out all the noise and keep it simple and know what works and be honest with what doesn't and don't do that.
- [96:22]
A
If you think about all of the business lessons you've learned and approaching this with this great fresh mindset, variable rent, all these creative things that have made this thing go. What have been the most surprising business lessons across the whole enterprise that you've learned so far?
- [96:38]
B
I think early on Understanding the business side of restaurants, the operational side of restaurants, and how extremely archaic things still are. I think the thing that is the greatest reward, it's not a surprise, but the reward of understanding that one person or two people are not going to create your dream. Missy could not have done this on her own. I would have never dreamed to do this on my own. Together, we could not have done what we've done alone. The reward has been watching people who believe in what we're saying and doing and want to be a part of that, and understanding how powerful that force can be. Watching people change overnight because something's clicked inside of them and what that can do, it's infectious. That has been something I never really truly thought of until seeing it in front of me has been a great reward of watching others become just confident in who they are and then applying that to what gets them truly excited. Our director of content, she started as a host at Lilia and in the first six weeks she quit six times. Every single night she would come to me crying, I'm done. I can't do this, I can't do it. And I didn't understand because I thought she was awesome. And then I would read in the morning all these Yelp negative reviews about her and I'm like, what is going on? She was telling people that didn't have reservations, who wanted to dine, that it was going to be a three and a half hour wait or I'm sorry, we can't seat you tonight. And they didn't like that. New Yorkers don't like to be told they can't have. I would just stand next to her for a bunch of nights watching these interactions, realizing that she didn't like telling people no either. Like it wasn't in her nature. We don't do that in our industry. We want people to have an amazing time. And figuring out a way to let people warmly feel like can't happen right now, but we want it to happen, is an art. And the moment you get hit and you're back on your heels, it's game over. And I was watching her get hit on her heels and not feeling confident and in control of saying no. Going through that process with her and then watching her become our first mature D, asking her along this process, why are you even here in New York? Photography school. Oh, can I, like, see your stuff? Yeah. Wow. We opened Missy, our second restaurant, two years later. I could not be the 25 year old female Instagram voice anymore. She happened to be. And I said, well, can you start taking pictures for us? Because I don't have time. She did. So she was like, I also want to be the opening maitre d at Missy, too. Great. Do that. And so she started doing the photography, the posting on Instagram. Then, because she was with us, all my people knew that she was, you know, important to us. They started emailing her for reservations instead of me. And she became kind of like our VIP guest relations person. And then this Instagram and content thing became such a massive job. She was like, I can't work the floor anymore. I can't be the maitre d. Okay, great. And then a couple months later, I'm just so busy taking all this content and doing social media. Like, I can't take your reservations all the time. Okay, don't. And then in 2021, in the summer, we were on Governor's Island. It was awesome. Like, we were doing these dinners every night, and I was thinking, like, wow, we have the ability to create content in a new way. I bought a drone. I bought another camera for her to do video. She had never done video before, but she's like, I'm excited about this. I'm gonna start doing it. And she crushed it. She started making all these videos. And that brought us to this next level where other restaurant groups couldn't even have thought of doing so much different styles of content. And now she's created a role for herself. She wrote her own job description. And then I think about all these other people who are in our company now who have written their own job description. Our best decision is when someone comes and says, I want to do this. That has been a great surprise to me, but also an amazing reward. So I guess there are surprises about how inefficient the restaurant industry still is, how disjointed the opportunities outside the four walls are. There is a great wild, wild west out there for brands that have been built in restaurants. That is exciting and surprising. But I think the craziest, the best surprise that I've gotten is the best reward is watching people who start with us in a job that find their thing. And I'm able to say, like, yeah, we need that. We can support that now too. So that's been just an awesome surprise, because the hospitality industry is one that I think was viewed always and to some sort, it still is. It's an industry of people that are looking to do something else, especially in New York City, where they could wait a few tables during the week and still be able to go to their auditions in Broadway or get time to practice their musical instruments. But what I've seen people that work with us are this is their profession. But inside of this profession, there's now these other opportunities to be what you want. We have people who are on our team for eight years who are doing the same job, who are extremely happy in life, and we can't be more happy with them being on our team. But we've seen people that have started as a hostess who are now creating some of the greatest food content, period. I mean, I send it all to Brian McGinn, like, what do you think about this? He's like, this is awesome. And we now have people who are teaching themselves how to edit video the same way we have people teaching themselves how to make bagels. It's a great surprise for me, and it's a tremendous reward to be able to see that.
- [103:35]
A
When I first watched Chef Table, I remember thinking to myself, like, this is the best possible marketing for a restaurant, because when you're let in on a story behind a thing and you see a passion that's driven the thing, there's nothing that can make you want to try that thing more than that. And I feel like our conversation today has been that I imagine anyone listening, especially those in New York or traveling to New York, are going to be like, holy shit, I need to go try these places and take a bite of this story. It's been such a total pleasure doing this with you. I ask everyone the same traditional closing question. What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you?
- [104:09]
B
I would say Maria, my wife. I get teased a lot because I call her my rock wrapped in rose petals. She truly is. I say it a lot, that every day's a good day. She's my reason that I believe that that is the case. Her love has been relentless, and the belief. I remember the night Missy and I were driving home in an Uber from Lilia. It was six weeks after it opened. I had been going to Anchorage every day. I did that for three years and then went to the restaurants. But that wasn't supposed to be my role, and I was just doing it because I loved it. Even though I told Maria two years before that that wasn't going to be the case, and I wouldn't be absent dad or husband. But six weeks in, I was. She was coming to Anchorage really quickly to say hello with my daughter Biella, or she would go to family meal at Lilia just so we could kind of cross paths before she had to go back home with Biella to West Village. And Missy told me in the car ride home, like, will you keep coming to the restaurant every night? And it was after our review of the New York Times and we were certainly going to be very successful. We could tell. I said, yeah, I am. She said, good, because you're really. I haven't seen anybody this good on the floor. And you're really leading us. I said, okay. And I remember leaving Missy And I had eight stairs up to my apartment and it was like 2 o' clock in the morning. I woke Maria up and I told her about this. And I apologized because two years before that, I said I wasn't going to be this. And she didn't hesitate. And she just said, let's go. Let's move to Williamsburg. And we left this awesome apartment that we dreamed of and we moved into this really small apartment that was very temporary and 4:45 in the morning until I would let the pastry chef in 5:30 be at my desk at Anchorage. 5 o', clock, I would take the L train to Bedford and see Maria and Biella and have a quick bite and read a book and then work the room and work the floor and build this team and company. I guess the greatest gift is the courage she gave me. The courage to risk being my true self. And I'll be forever grateful. And I hope that you find belief in yourself a lot when others believe in you. I didn't have that belief in myself until someone truly believed in me like I believed in Missy. Like we believed in Missy. And when that happens and you do have that courage, you get that gift. You can buy a ticket to someplace you just never knew even existed. That's the gift she gave me.
- [106:55]
A
Incredible relationship. Thank you so much for your time.
- [106:57]
B
Thank you.
- [106:59]
A
If you enjoyed this episode, check out joincolasis.com there you'll find every episode of this podcast, complete with transcripts, show notes and resources to keep learning. You can also sign up for our newsletter, Colossus Weekly, where we condense episodes to the big ideas, quotations and more, as well as share the best content we find on the Internet every week.
- [107:18]
B
Week.