B (3:39)

Peace.

A (3:44)

Welcome to restaurant unstoppable. For 10 years and over 1000 episodes I've been traveling the country chasing word of mouth leads and having in person only long form discussions with the industry's finest owners and operators. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform the restaurant industry by bridging the gap between this generation's leaders and the next. Listen to today's guest and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. This episode is made possible by US Foods and one of the pillars of the US Foods we help you make it promise is more tools which provides resources designed to make running your food service operation easier and more efficient. From the all in one food service app Moxy, which goes beyond order placement to help manage every part of your operation 24, 7 to the digital solutions like check business tools and vitals, US Foods delivers smart time saving tools built to simplify operations and support your success. To learn more visit www.usfoods.com expect more.

B (5:02)

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A (5:04)

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B (5:54)

That's Restaurant Unstoppable.com RSP with excitement, allow me to introduce to you today's guest, James Beard nominated lifestyle writer and the author of seller Rat My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly, Hannah Sellinger. Hannah, are you feeling unstoppable today?

C (6:14)

I am definitely feeling unstoppable, yeah.

B (6:17)

I'm happy to have you here. I'm stoked to have you here. You're not my stereotypical guest. I usually talk to you leading restaurateurs, owners. We're really focused on business and how to grow a business and how to scale a business. Financials, operations, marketing. I discovered your book, I'm not sure how, and it instantly stood out to me. I'll talk more about that. But before we dive into your book and your work and your values, let's get that motivational, inspirational ball rolling with a success quote or mantra. What do you got for us?

C (6:46)

Damn the man. Save Empire Records.

B (6:49)

Damn the man. Save Empire Records. Why does that resonate with you?

C (6:55)

Classic 90s film, I think. I mean, we'll get into my book, but, you know, there's a very powerful string of, you know, power. It's against, you know, corporate power and taking back what belongs to the people and saving a business and, you know, saving an independent business. And that's part of what the book is about. It's not necessarily about an independent business, but it is about, you know, labor rights. And that's something that I'm deeply invested in.

B (7:31)

So what is it exactly that we're saving? What do you think? Is that at risk of being lost?

C (7:36)

I definitely think that we are in this moment in time and certainly when I worked in restaurants, which started in 2002 and extended through my 30s, and I'm aging myself a little bit here As I creep toward 45 next month, you know, we are looking at an industry in peril, that the restaurant industry has been in peril for a long time, and certainly Covid contributed to that. And we're still digging our way out of it. And I say we. Although I'm kind of industry adjacent at this point. I write about restaurants. I'm no longer in them. But, you know, the labor, restaurant labor is in jeopardy. People are struggling, restaurant owners are struggling to sort of reconcile what's happened in restaurants. And I think that's what I am concerned about when I look at the industry at large.

B (8:29)

Yeah. 100. And that right there is what, you know, I didn't realize that fully when I picked up or actually full transparency. I'm an audio person. I listen to your book while I was driving across the country. I'd love to get a hard copy, though. Good thing you're only like a town away.

C (8:43)

Yeah, I should have brought. I can't believe I didn't bring. That was so silly of me.

B (8:46)

I think this is not the last time we'll see each other, so I'd love to get a copy. I should. I'll support you and buy one. As long as you sign.

C (8:51)

I will, absolutely.

B (8:53)

So, I mean, what stood out to me was I was like, oh, great. Like a memoir, an autobiography of somebody, Front of House. Because I was somebody who gravitated towards Front of House. And a lot of the. The memoirs and the books in the restaurant industry are about the Back of House. And I was like, oh, I'm really interested in hearing this perspective. I think there was a. Something that I saw on social media that resonated with me initially. I can't quite remember what that is, but what really made me get excited about getting you on the show is that you share a lot of the same sentiment that I share after 1200 plus episodes and 12 years of talking to people and that that's. There's. The industry is under threat right now. It's getting harder and harder for small, independent operators to do good work. Labor is going up. The. It's hard to support local business. It's. It's the, you know, that we want to create opportunity for people. It's getting harder and harder to do that, and it's. The industry is under attack. So I really wanted to get you here today to kind of dive deeper into, you know, what you learned from your experience. We'll get into that experience through sharing your story and hopefully, you know, pull to the surface some of the big changes that need to happen. So I also want to recognize you too, because it, your book, like you, you kind of put some people on blast that are beloved American, like idols, you know, and to, to, to, to do that, to risk alienating yourself takes a lot of courage. And I just want to recognize that.

C (10:17)

Thank you. I think, you know, my feeling is, first of all, these are public people. And you know, public people, you know, they can be responsible for their own actions and they can be held accountable for the things that they've done. Many of the things that appear in my book, I had already gone on the record about the majority of them, which is how I passed a legal review with Hachette. And the other thing is that the restaurant culture, more than many other places, is steeped in fear. It's no secret to anybody that we are in at will employment states and that restaurants, in some ways more than other places, are places where you can walk in and have no job tomorrow, but also have no financial security blanket. You are being paid tips, or you're being paying a very low minimum wage and tips. And many of the employees work countless hours and really have no financial security to fall back on because you have no vacation time and you really don't have anything squirreled away. And so, you know, these people either are under, in some places, like working under Dave Chang, whom I, for whom I was the beverage director, you know, you're under NDA, or, you know, there's just, there's no ability to be a whistleblower because you know that, you know, speaking out will make it absolutely impossible for you to either work for that person or for anybody else in the industry ever again. Because if you speak, speak, you will never be employable, even though technically that's illegal. But we know that everybody gossips in the restaurant.

B (11:56)

Oh, especially in the restaurant industry. Especially such a small industry.

C (11:59)

Exactly.

B (12:00)

And especially in a city it's even smaller.

C (12:02)

Right. You know, and everyone knows each other. Everyone knows each other.

B (12:05)

Right. So like you, it does not take much to get a bad name.

C (12:09)

Right.

B (12:09)

You know, and if you are working for somebody with influence who is respected and they carry weight with that word, then be careful.

A (12:16)

Right.

B (12:16)

You know, so I mean, if you can narrow it down to maybe at least three or five key things that you think just to kind of have the top of my mind going forward, like, what are those three things or more that you would like to see change?

C (12:31)

So the first thing that I think that really deserves change in the industry is an elimination of what we refer to as the Brigade system. You know, we talk about, like in this is specific in some ways to fine dining, but also not specific to fine dining. You know, we talk about Escoffier's brigade system, which is the chef de cuisine being at the top, or the executive chef being at the top, and then the chef de cuisine, and then you have station chefs, so you have the gard manger, which is the cold station, or the patissier, which is the pastry station, or the saucier, which is sometimes regarded as the meat station. And that's system is designed in some ways to put people in specific places in the kitchen. But it's also a hierarchical system where the person at the top has the most respect and the person at the bottom has the least amount of respect. And that system is based and predicated upon inequality. And I really feel like there's no reason why everybody in a system of the kitchen can't have the same amount of respect and the same amount of responsibility. Why aren't we training people to all learn the same skill? Why does someone have to be at the top and someone have to be at the bottom? It doesn't seem to make sense in 2025 that we have this system of ranked power. It only contributes to ego, which we already have an issue with in the kitchen, and to abuse and to misuse of power. So that's the first thing that I would press in the back of the house.

B (14:04)

I mean, where do you think this manifested in your story the most? I mean, thinking about the book, that it comes up often, but like, when you think about it, where does it really resonate?

C (14:15)

It certainly to me was manifested with Chang and the way he treated subordinates and the way he, you know, felt like he had the right to yell at people. I mean, there's an incident in my book in which he came very in very hot. I think it was a stage. And he said, you know, oh, you're doing this incorrectly. I'm gonna murder you. I'm gonna scalp you. Like, I'll kill your fucking family.

B (14:44)

That's pretty intense.

C (14:46)

It felt pretty intense at the time. But it's also not. I hold Chang to account for this, but that's not unique to Dave. It wasn't something that only Dave did in the kitchen. I mean, Dave is the only person, to be clear, that I ever heard say, I'm going to murder your fucking. But in the kitchens in which I worked, he wasn't the only person who came down on his subordinates. He wasn't the only person that I Saw abuse the hierarchy of the brigade system. That was how it went. And I went to culinary school at the French Culinary Institute, and I certainly felt fear from people above me when I was staging in a kitchen. And I think that's just how it's ingrained. Based on Scoffy's system, what do you say in a kitchen when you're working on the line? You say, yes, chef.

B (15:33)

Right.

C (15:33)

That's. That's what we're.

B (15:34)

There's no dialogue. It's just heard.

C (15:36)

Yes, you're above me. Yes, chef. Yes, chef. Yes, chef. Behind. Yes, chef.

B (15:39)

Behind.

C (15:40)

Yes, Chef.

B (15:40)

Behind.

C (15:41)

Yes, chef. It's. It's drilled into you. Right. What if we got rid of that?

B (15:45)

Right. You know, a couple of things are going through my head. One, I. In this circumstance, you're talking about David Chang. Momofuku at the time. And what was the other restaurant you worked at with him?

C (15:56)

Well, it was. I was the beverage director of three, so it was Momofuku sambar, Momofuku noodle bar, and Momofuku co. Which had just opened at the time.

B (16:03)

And Resto too?

C (16:04)

No, Resto came after him. That wasn't him.

B (16:06)

Okay, got it, got it. So I think it's important to recognize this is 2008, when. Yeah, yeah. We are a product of the world we come up in. Right. And I think that this criticism isn't just falling on David Chang. I think it was the industry at the time.

C (16:22)

Yeah, Right.

B (16:23)

I think it's important to recognize that he. He came up in that system.

C (16:28)

Yes, he came up Boulay. Yeah.

B (16:31)

So I think it's important to recognize, like, we like to look back and kind of, like, point at people and say, they could have done a way better. Yeah, we all could have done a way better job 15, 20 years ago.

C (16:41)

You know, but, you know. Okay, so Boule was a formal French dining system rooted in the. In the scoffier's brigade system.

B (16:49)

Yeah.

C (16:49)

Right. So. But we're still teaching that, right?

B (16:51)

Right. No, so I want to touch on that too. So 100%. We've come a long way. I think we have a long way to go. I just like to think that, you know, I think of, like, old people sometimes. Like, if you're in your 60s or 70s and you're out in public and they say something, it's like a child. Like, you're like, can't.

C (17:09)

Don't say that anymore.

B (17:10)

Right. But you also have to remember that these people. The world is changing faster than ever before, and it's hard for people that have these deep grooves, these neural pathways of habits that, that stem from childhood, like in the 60s and 50s, like, you have to kind of give them a little bit of grace and be like, those are bad habits. Like, we can't talk about that anymore. And like, I think it's important that we give the industry grace because I, you know, and I'm not saying. I'm not trying to defend David Chain necessarily, but like the industry, I don't know, Dave. I've never spoken to him, never had him on the show. I don't know a damn thing about him. I just want to put that.

C (17:44)

You can have him on and ask him how he feels about my book.

B (17:48)

But I think it's important to kind of give the industry a little grace and recognize that, like, the people that we talk about in this. This conversation today were the. Brought up in a system that has. Has come a long way and has a long way to go. But I think this is kind of important to keep in that back in the mind. But you also talked about the brigade system. I agree with you. Titles create ego. 100, CEO, COO or Chef Chef D Cuisine or whatever it is. Titles create ego. But you also have to recognize that hierarchy has a place. But do we call it a high? Like, there needs to be a chain of command.

C (18:26)

Sure.

B (18:27)

Like a pathway of communication.

C (18:28)

I don't, I don't disagree, but I think that there's a better way to do it, and I don't necessarily have the answer. And also, you know, recognize that I'm not back of the house, but I witnessed a lot of back of the house in my 15 years of restaurants or whatever. So, you know, and this is just, you know, an inquiry into what I've seen go wrong in restaurants and the abuses that I've witnessed, and many of them trace back to Brigad.

B (18:54)

No 100%. And, you know, I think what could be a potential solution is this idea of an organizational chart or an accountability chart. So, same idea as a brigade. Right. It's like, here are the titles, here are the responsibilities of those titles. But it's really more about accountability than it is about hierarchy. Because the reason why we have titles and we have, you know, a direction information flows and direct reports and stuff is so that, like, information can move. But I think having an organizational chart where we're just kind of saying, okay, like, this role is responsible for these things, when that thing's not happening, we know who to go to.

C (19:32)

Right.

B (19:33)

So what's going through, it doesn't have.

C (19:35)

To be, you know, we've given permission for the person at the top to abuse the person at the bottom without as you mentioned, any accountability. Like why does the person with more knowledge get to indiscriminately yell at or you know, harm the person at the bottom? That's where we need to see change. That's where we need to rein it in and actually say, well, we're not just gonna like look the other way. We actually have to do something about it. 100 that's not happening.

A (20:04)

This episode is made possible by US Foods and one of the pillars of the US Foods we help you make it promise is more tools which provides resources designed to make run food service operation easier and more efficient. From the all in one food service at Moxy, which goes beyond order placement to help you manage every part of your operation 247 to the digital solutions like check business tools and vitals, US Foods delivers smart time saving tools built to simplify your operation and support your success. With Moxie alone, you can browse products with AI powered search, manage lists, track deliveries with the AI powered Where's My Truck? By US Foods reorder with just a few clicks. And you can do that from your phone, tablet or desktop. Here's a bonus. You can even browse Moxie without signing in. And we can't forget Check Business Tools, which is essentially a suite of vetted third party solutions that help operators solve critical business challenges such as drive traffic to their location, simplify staffing processes and modernize operations for greater efficiency. To learn more, visit www.usfoods.com. expect more.

B (21:16)

Well, agreed. You know, EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system, is the one that coined that idea of a accountability chart. So to give credit where credit is due. And I've heard amazing things. Are you familiar with the entrepreneurial operating system?

C (21:27)

But I'm not like yeah anymore, you know.

B (21:30)

Yeah, so that's on the rise. There's other, you know, organizational systems out there to help people with moving information to have accountability. And there is a lot of change happening. So I'm seeing a progress there. How you just said something that struck a chord with me. Oh. Talking about like a chef speaking down to people. When you pay attention to the most successful operators, business people out there, when you say the only thing you can say to me is yes, you know, or heard right. You're limiting yourself to so much potential from that individual. Maybe in the middle of a dinner rush, it's not the right time to have a conversation. But you know that everybody on Your team has some type of genius that's just waiting to be unleashed. It's your job as the owner, the leader, to discover what that genius is and to bring it to the surface.

C (22:22)

Right. And the idea that, and you know, Dave operated this way, that like the front of the house had no, no, no objective value because they weren't creative geniuses. They, you know, I'll put that in air quotes because like, they weren't chefs, they didn't cook. But someone who's a service professional does have genius. They're a hospitality genius. They know what, they can predict what a guest might want. Or they may be able to determine what wine you want in five seconds flat just by talking to someone really quickly. Or they may remember your birthday when you come in just from seeing you once. You know, there are different kinds of people.

B (23:02)

I'm so jealous of them.

C (23:03)

Right? There's such a talent, it's just a different kind of hospital hospitality genius. And defining genius in a restaurant as being able to make something delicious or knowing how to make Swiss meringue or cut a brunoise, those are practical genius. That's practical genius. But there are all different kinds of genius in a restaurant. I'm not a master sommelier, I'm a certified sommelier. I think it's genius to be able to smell a wine and know its exact vintage. I never got that far.

B (23:38)

Right.

C (23:38)

That's one kind of genius that I don't possess. You know, Chang can't do that either. So it's, it's very limiting to discard what those people in the front of the house have to contribute. And those people know your guests in a way that you, standing on the line who never interact with the front of the house or never interact with your guests on a face to face basis. Lack, I mean, that's just, you know, know it's eliminating half of the population of the people who are in your restaurant.

B (24:04)

Right. And I think one way to help me wrap my mind around this is that at the end of the day, we're tribal. We evolved to exist to coexist in a tribe. And whether that tribe was 150 or 50, like that tribe, everybody in that tribe brings something special to the tribe. And the, the, the, the whole of the wholeness of the tribe is what is healthy and leaning on the individual skills. Like when you come together and you let people bring their uniqueness to the, the wholeness, like that is what is powerful and that's how businesses operate. Like we're not supposed to be amazing in Everything. We're supposed to be in our lane.

C (24:43)

Yeah.

B (24:43)

You know, like, that's what makes us special as a species. So, I mean, just knowing that we evolved to have a lane and to stay in it helps. So we kind of unpackaged this idea of a brigade system or brigade system. You said it way better. And it's French.

C (24:58)

It is. But I just, to be clear, do not speak French. It's passable.

B (25:04)

So brigade. Or. Say it for me. Okay. Okay, cool.

C (25:08)

It was developed by Escoffier.

B (25:10)

You said it real cool. The first time. I was like, I feel like I'm gonna say this wrong. So. So any other instances in your career where you want to kind of address this. This core issue again? That core issue is eliminating the brigad.

C (25:23)

I think, to me. And maybe it's just because that's my trauma speaking. Chang is definitely the exemplar of the brigade for me, but I don't need to completely relive it every. I mean, and this is not.

B (25:37)

You don't like, surfacing trauma?

C (25:38)

Well, I mean, I feel like the book is definitely a rehashing of my trauma. This also isn't meant to be, like, my manifesto against David Chang. I feel like I've had enough of that in my life. Normal. Like, nor is my entire life, like, an attempt to, like, demonize him. He's a human, and he's made human mistakes. I. I hope that he is dealing with them in his own way as I am dealing with my mistakes in my own way. That's not the point of all of this.

A (26:10)

Right.

B (26:10)

Thank you for getting that out. So before we move forward, do we. Is there anything else you want to get before we move to the next thing that.

C (26:17)

No, I'm done with the brigade.

B (26:19)

So real quick, let's kind of go through the list because I want to make sure we get it all out and for the sake of time, mediation. So what is the next thing on your list you want to cover?

C (26:31)

Definitely the labor. The sort of. So when I think about having been an employee in restaurants, and when I think about what that I take the most umbrage with for both front of the house employees and back of the house employees, what I hope improves for them in the future is a more sort of equitable existence. And what I mean by that is that I would love to see eight to ten hour work days and reasonable holidays, like two weeks a year, like corporate employees get in corporate jobs and healthcare benefits. And I would love to see that in every state in the United States. And you Know, like, reasonable minimum wage. That's like. I would like to see them have, like, normal job, like, limits so that they feel like they're cared for and that they don't have to, like, scramble around to live normal lives.

B (27:38)

Where in your story do you think that you experienced this the most? I mean, everywhere.

C (27:47)

Well, yeah.

B (27:48)

I mean, the restaurant industry in New York.

C (27:49)

I struggled with it a lot. Yeah. And I think leading up to when I worked at Momofuku, it was certainly a struggle. And I don't mean to hinge this on Momofuku. When I worked at blt, it was certainly a struggle. And leading up to my father's diagnosis with als, which was when I worked briefly at Resto, I, like, went into work one day on Easter Sunday and informed my managers that my father had just been diagnosed. And I was given sort of no empathy, and I was categorically fired a few days later. You know, I wasn't told that I was fired because my father had been given a terminal illness diagnosis, but it was quite clear that that was the reason that I had been fired. And, you know, I say this because there was no other reason that I had been. I hadn't been miscreant. I hadn't ever been late for work. I had worked crazy hours. But it was obvious to the management that I was going to be a problem because I was going to have a personal issue that conflicted with the needs of the restaurant.

B (29:01)

So this was at Resto.

C (29:02)

That was at Resto, yeah.

B (29:04)

And I mean. Yeah, like, 100. That is not okay. Right. It's horrible. I mean, all the things that you listed, not having time off, not having labor or. Sorry, insurance, not having just a reasonable work schedule.

C (29:23)

Right.

B (29:23)

Not being able to, you know, plan something in advance and. And have security and knowing that your plans are. Are secure, like, that creates anxiety that, like, unease. Like you. You can't be in a good mental place if you're constantly worrying about your schedule, if you have kids to take care of, if you're worried about your job as a result of not being there. Why do you think we got here, though? Like, what? Like, how did we get here?

C (29:47)

There was also the. The incident in which my. My friend died and I was on. I was able to go to a funeral, but it was. There was a sort of a punitive element to it. How did we get here? You know, there's this notion with restaurant work that there's a. That it's. First of all, there's a notion that it's easy and There's a notion that it's well compensated and that because it's well compensated and easy, and I put easy again in air quotes, that you should kind of be thankful for it and that you should sort of take what you get. You know, that, like, the trade off of accepting this work, that is where you get cash in hand and where you are being paid big bucks, particularly when you're young, when you're coming out of college, and you're just given sort of stacks of cash. Also, this was, like, during a time when you didn't necessarily had to claim all of your money. You do now have to claim much more of your money than you did back when I was coming up. I'm not saying I didn't pay my taxes on the record. I'm just saying that maybe not everyone I knew paid all of their taxes. I, of course, always paid all of my taxes. Of course everyone I know paid all of their taxes. The trade off for that was that you had to forsake any. You were accepting. It was sort of a handshake with the devil, right? That, like, you were giving up something in order to make a lot of money fast. And that what you were giving up was stability and a reliable schedule and that you might have to work, like, these crazy hours and that if they give you a Thanksgiving shift, you were just supposed to sort of grin and bear it, and that that was your cross to bear.

B (31:42)

When you say stability, what do you mean stability?

C (31:44)

Stability insofar as, like, maybe one week you would work a Tuesday, and the next week you would work a Saturday, and you were never really gonna know because, like, some random manager who might be 10 years your junior or 10 years your senior, who knows, based on the week, right. Was going to determine your fate. And you didn't really have any agency you could put in a request, but, like, who knows, right?

B (32:02)

Right.

C (32:05)

And, you know, that was. There were, like, good things and bad things. I think people go into restaurants with this sort of false notion that it is flexible. It's the opposite, which is like, I'm free. I'm, like, released from the shackles of the corporate world. I don't have to work 9 to 5. I don't have to do these crazy things that you're all doing. Like, look at me. I'm not in a cubicle. I'm so free. But actually it's the opposite, because when someone says to you, well, I have a wedding on XYZ weekend, like, can you come? You're like, I have no idea. I Can put in a request.

B (32:40)

I'll try.

C (32:41)

Who knows?

B (32:42)

Right. But in terms of the amount. Of the amount of hours we work.

C (32:47)

Yeah.

B (32:47)

Like, how did we get to that point where pulling an 80 to even more hour workweek is like, almost like a badge of honor?

C (32:55)

It's a trick. Like, I think it's a trick. I think you go into it and you are tricked. I think at the beginning you think to yourself, well, look, I'm making so much money. Like, look, I walk out of this restaurant, I have a grand in my hand, but then slowly they sign you up for more shifts. And like, I distinctly remember at some point being in restaurants and someone saying to me, have you ever actually done the math, like, on how many hours you do divided by like, how many.

B (33:22)

How much money you're making?

C (33:23)

How much money you're making?

B (33:24)

What is your per hour?

C (33:24)

Yeah, what's Your per hour? $5 an hour. And I was like, oh, this sucks. Like, I don't. I'm making very little money, Right?

B (33:32)

Yeah. Cause you make your money in like three hours.

C (33:34)

Yeah.

B (33:34)

But you could be around like between.

C (33:35)

5 and 8, right. Or like 6 and 10.

B (33:38)

Right.

C (33:39)

Whatever.

B (33:40)

So what is. If this is how we got here? I mean, do we do.

A (33:44)

Did we do any research to know.

B (33:46)

How we got here? Was it just like this thing over time or like, you know, is it just like in your mind, if you could like, distill, like, your opinion that. Just brainstorming it, like, how do you.

A (33:54)

Think we got to this date?

C (33:55)

I think that at some point, restaurant owners got wise as to the amount of labor they were getting essentially for free. Because back when I came up in restaurants, the minimum wage for servers tipped employees was $2.13 an hour. A restaurant's not paying the employees. The customer is paying the employees. A customer is only paying the employees between, as we said, the hours of 6 and 10, or 5 and 8 or 5 and 9 in that other time when you're required to be there marrying ketchup bottles or folding napkins or. Or polishing glassware. One of my least favorite things to do, I really hate. Or like, rearranging a cheese board, doing, like these menial tasks that you really don't want to be doing, doing silverware roll ups, whatever the fuck your side work is at whatever restaurant you happen to be working at. Fine dining, whatever side work exists, no matter where you are in the world, you're doing it for free. Because $2 an hour is for free. After taxes, you get a paycheck for $20.

A (35:02)

Yeah.

B (35:03)

And what's crazy is there's still a huge, huge pay disparity between front and back of house. You know, like you're the one that's making the money at 215 an hour, you know.

C (35:10)

Right.

B (35:11)

213, whatever it is, it's wild. So I think also just the industry is generally, historically, people who own restaurants may have not been of the privilege like they come from. A lot of immigrants come here with, looking for opportunity. They get, they open a business, they don't really have any business experience. They, they get to where they are by just busting their ass and working hard. And they're there 80 hours a week. And they don't really understand historically the power of systems, processes, delegation, the extra time to manage a schedule. The thought of, if I have more people that I have to employ, it's just more to manage. Like, if you don't want to be here, go find another job. I think historically the restaurant owners haven't had a lot of business savviness, you know, and I think back to my parents. My parents opened a restaurant when I was 3 years old and they, they didn't have like, they, they got through high school, neither of them went to college. They, they didn't have any restaurant experience before that. My grandfather on one side was a barber, and the other side, I think he was in like alcohol sales or something. My grandmother was a nurse and my other grandmother was a stay at home mom. Like, my parents didn't come from a background of business. Right. They didn't have that privilege. And I think that's most people who open restaurants. Historically, it's changing, but it's just, there's just so much. I think you just work hard. Work hard. I'm working hard. Why aren't you working hard? Well, because you own it. Like, like it's different. Like no one's gonna treat it like you treat it. You're the owner. This is a job for me, you know, your business isn't. My baby is your baby.

C (36:52)

Right.

B (36:53)

And I think owners kind of have to kind of like accept that. Like they're. No one's ever gonna love your baby as much.

C (36:58)

No, they want, they love making a living and existing in the world and paying their rent.

A (37:03)

Right.

C (37:03)

I mean, but who wouldn't, right?

B (37:05)

Exactly. So what's the solution? I mean, if it has to change, what's a picture of what this done? Right. Looks like? Have you looked into that?

C (37:13)

I mean, it's really hard to say, you know, do we eliminate tipping culture? It hasn't been proven to work in the United States yet, but. Well, why? It's partly that we haven't figured out a system that benefits both owners and the people who they're employing. You know, it's going to take some mathematical equation that I haven't quite figured out. And, you know, in my defense, I am not a math major.

B (37:42)

Neither am I. You're in good company.

C (37:45)

I studied books. You know, I don't think it. I don't think that it can't work. This idea of eliminating tipping and paying employees more. It certainly works in other countries and quite well, wrapping them in benefits. But we're also not a country that loves to give our people benefits in general. We're cutting them as we speak, to a very big degree. So that's sort of like a mindset change that we have to arrive at in the United States. So I'm not sure if we're there yet.

B (38:20)

No, I agree. I think the biggest. I mean, before I start sharing some of my opinions, I want to hear more of yours. So, solutions, eliminating tipping culture or changing the tipping situation. What else can we do differently in the world of restaurants in terms of improving the labor structure and offering healthcare benefits? Time.

C (38:38)

I mean, we could support restaurant unions. We only really have them in hotels. You know, again, this is sort of an American problem. America is kind of ambivalent about union culture right now. We were very pro union 50 years ago. We're moving away from that. I'm not sure if that's great for workers. I think unions could be really good for restaurant workers. It could be really good for restaurant employers because they could have a negotiation that could be good for both sides. I think I may be betraying quite a bit of my politics, but I don't necessarily think that unions are bad. I think unions could actually help restaurant owners have a consolidated sort of perspective that they know that they're dealing with and it could help both of them. Yeah, you know. Yeah, that. No, that's it.

B (39:30)

So anything else that you've, like in all these conversations you're having, like, where is the conversation? Has. How is it steered to maybe possibly be another solution? I have some thoughts, but I want to get everything out of you before I start sharing some of what I've learned.

C (39:45)

We could all move to Europe.

B (39:49)

You know, I agree 100 with everything you're saying. It's getting harder and harder for small business owners, good people, to do the right thing.

C (39:56)

Yeah.

B (39:57)

Because it's just getting harder. Labor is going up and also the.

C (40:00)

Cost of Food is going up, real estate's going up and the tariffs are going to also, you know, everything. We don't know the full effect of that yet, but it is only going to get worse after August 1st at least looks like.

B (40:10)

Right. In my experience, the people I've spoken to, and I also speak to people that have really good reputations. That's who I'm chasing.

C (40:17)

Yeah.

B (40:17)

They want to take care of their staff. Of course they have. Every ounce of them wants to do the right thing and they're doing the right thing at their own cost.

C (40:27)

Right.

B (40:27)

And that's the reality is it's getting really hard for people to do the right thing. The right thing. Paying your people livable wage, giving them security in, in health insurance, giving them a little bit more than, you know, security and like benefits to make them like, they can be like, we need to be holistic, well rounded individuals.

C (40:46)

Oh, actually, I wanted to add one thing which is sort of a pipe dream at this particular political moment, but, you know, government subsidies toward the restaurant industry to help support independent restaurant tours, which I don't think that I see happening in 2025, 26, 27, maybe into 2028. But in a perfect world, if the government were to sort of recognize the needs of independent restaurants and how necessary they are to the fabric of American culture and we're to help support independent restaurants the way they support other things like, I don't know. Yeah, bombing Gaza could certainly help.

B (41:25)

Yeah. The things that get me excited as a potential solution are, you know, one just profit sharing is a great solution or just some type of bonus program. More and more successful restaurant tours, restaurant operators, multi unit operators are giving stake in the business to their staff. So it's not just you're an employee.

C (41:47)

But it's, you have a reason to.

B (41:48)

Work, you're an employee. If you're good at what you do, you, you, you get it, you want it, you have the capacity to do it. There is upward mobility here for you and we will set the bar low to help you get in. So I'm thinking of like Uptown Social right now in Charleston where so many of their employees are now partners in their organization. And the way you do it is like, I don't know exactly the process I'd love to get. Oh my God, Keith Benjamin back on the show to, to go into like how they actually organize that but like as little. So say something is EBITDA or valued at like $2 million. For 1% of the, the value of the business, you can own steak. So you know, or maybe it's a million dollars. So most people can't put up like a ton of money to own, own like 10 or 20 or 50. But they can find 1% from friends, family and fools or they can save up and get that 1%. They can raise $10,000, right. To have stake in a business now they, they're a part owner and their, their hard work is going towards building the value in something and increasing. They have a percentage of the stake of the value of that organization and.

A (42:54)

They can continue to put money away.

B (42:56)

And own 2% and like, and they can own a part of the business. Not just like literally, but like maybe they're a cmo, know, maybe they're an executive chef, maybe they're the, the, the general manager. But when you show up and you own it, you treat it better and you, you have a sense of like pride too.

C (43:11)

I don't disagree. It still can be cost prohibitive. That's still a lot of money for, you know, a back waiter. You know, you're still talking about a huge risk to take on when I don't have it up, you know, at my fingertips. But the failure rate of new restaurants, high. I mean, we're talking about a difference between new restaurant versus established restaurants. But what is it they say about, you know, there's an old adage about how to lose a big, a great fortune fast. How to lose a big fortune, how to turn a big fortune into a small fortune. I mean the adage is actually to open a winery.

B (43:49)

But how do you make a million dollars in a restaurant with 2 million?

C (43:51)

Right, exactly. So which is not to shoot down the idea, but we're here to talk.

B (43:58)

I'm here to hear your perspective.

C (43:59)

One other, you know, like, what if there were. Not that I love to get the government involved everywhere because right now I want to get the government out of my life. But you know, what if there were like a government initiated loan program where, you know, it could assist people who were interested in investing in these restaurants and they could take out a loan in order to be investors and partners in restaurants like this.

B (44:27)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean do what the SBA is doing, but similar for, right?

C (44:32)

Or like first time homeowner loans exist. Why wouldn't you have first time business owner loans like this?

B (44:38)

Right behind every great restaurant is a great person.

A (44:42)

The key to being great is to be of service to others. And this holds true for all organizations, not just restaurants. After spending a month in Phoenix, Arizona being hosted by Restaurant Systems Pro, CEO CEO Fred Langley. I got to experience firsthand Fred's desire to serve. It all started when I got there. Fred gave me the keys to his house and to his office building. When Fred leaves work every day, I witnessed him go coach one of his two sons baseball teams. And when Fred's neighbor lost power when they were hosting their son's birthday party, Fred offered to host the party at his house. Eric, why are you sharing this? Because how you do one thing is how you do everything. And believe me when I say that the desire to serve extends to Fred's restaurant clients. There are no secrets or shortcuts to life or restaurant success. There's only discipline, hard work, and the desire to do the right thing. Fred and his team at Restaurant Systems Pro are here to serve you with the systems and resources to be more disciplined so you can do the hard thing, which nine times out of 10, is the right thing. With Restaurant Systems Pro, you get accounting systems, budgeting systems, costing systems, purchasing systems, inventory management systems, labor management systems, training training systems, and the systems to create and implement checklists. On top of all this, Restaurant Systems Pro also has their own native general ledger, and they're in the process of launching their own pos, which they are so appropriately naming Serve.

B (46:12)

And you know what?

A (46:13)

If you don't want to change your pos, that's absolutely fine, because Restaurant Systems Pro integrates with all major POS providers. To learn more, head over to restaurantunstoppable.com RSP and you will find a link to schedule a demo with their sales team. A demo I personally did with Restaurant Systems Pro CEO Fred Langley and all 18 of our testimonials that we've recorded.

B (46:36)

Since the beginning of Restaurant Stoppable. Again, that's Restaurant Unstoppable.com RSP no, I, you know, like, I don't have the answers. I'm in pursuit of the answers. That's the whole idea of this podcast, is to go to see what different people are doing and to democratize or decentralize and democratize that knowledge, to get the information out there so people can learn and make themselves better, change their values, change their ability to do that, the right thing. So I have seen that this model of, of knowing that, like, hey, like, we go further together, if you're serious, like, you. Maybe you can't. You don't have credit to go to a bank, or you don't have the experience to go to the bank. We can be the bank. What is your vision? What do you want to do? Help us grow this and Then as you come up and as we get this going and we can replace you with the next wave of you who comes up but, like, help you help your job is to replace yourself.

C (47:24)

Right. Rent to own.

B (47:25)

Exactly. So, like, so if you help us get this going and you're good and you're a fit in culture, what's your vision? Then we can invest. The next restaurant we open is your restaurant. It's your vision.

C (47:36)

Look, I love anything that gives people at the bottom an opportunity to rise to the middle. The top. Middle, the top. Anything that, you know, does offer a level playing field for anyone in any industry, especially this industry that I love so much, that I've spent so much time, you know, trying to like, perseverating about. About my. I have. I just. I don't know what way. What the best way in is. I don't know what the best way out is. You know, I've seen so many things that concern me. You know, my concerns for the next five years have a lot to do with how our overall cost of living is going to change based on. On how Covid has come in and changed the industry and how the next phase of problems associated with tariffs and other things that are going on in the world are going to impact small businesses in particular.

B (48:36)

Right. You know? Yeah, it's a big question mark. Right. What's. What's the future look like?

C (48:41)

For sure.

B (48:41)

Yeah. What about ESOPs? Have you heard of.

C (48:44)

No.

B (48:45)

Employee stock ownership programs? No, I'm interested in learning more about those. Where basically it's kind of like, I don't. I've had people on the show in the years past to go into it. It's very complicated. I think that's part one of the struggles with these ops is that you need a hundred thousand dollars just to get a lawyer to do the paperwork.

C (49:02)

That's a huge amount of money.

B (49:03)

Exactly.

C (49:04)

And like, I don't know, a lot of servers with that or, you know, back waiters.

B (49:07)

Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, we've covered two things. How many things are on your list to help me? I mean.

C (49:13)

Two and a half.

B (49:14)

Two and a half. Okay. So. So we've talked about the elimination of the brigade, the hierarchy. We talked about labor, you know, models that have to change. We talked about, you know, specifically healthcare offering all these things, reasonable hours, security. It's. What's going through my mind right now is like, people in the industry say, like, nobody wants to come work for us. Like, nobody takes us seriously where this is a real career, this is a real job. But We. At the same time, you know, as we're saying that we're not treating. We're not doing the things that. Real jobs.

C (49:49)

Right, Right.

B (49:50)

Real, real. Like, so, like, you got to walk the walk if you want to be taken serious.

C (49:53)

Look, people got wise to that in the pandemic, right? Like, people were like, in every. It's. And it's not unique to restaurants. It's every field. Like, people were like, or I could work from home.

B (50:02)

Right?

C (50:03)

Like, why has everybody been lying to me this whole time? This whole time we knew we could work from home. And you motherfuckers were like, you gotta come into the office. But for two fucking years, we've been sitting at our computers and doing the exact same thing. I mean, my husband started going completely remote, and now he. And then they were like, come back to work. And he was like, no.

B (50:25)

Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a better balance that can be struck.

C (50:28)

Yes.

B (50:29)

100%. I do think that there's something to be said about being with your. Your people in person on occasion.

C (50:35)

So now. Now my husband goes in every other week.

B (50:37)

And, like, it's good to have, I think, facetime, but at the same time, like, in a busy world, like, why am I driving to and from work? Like, I'm sitting in a. Like, you know, I think generally speaking, the country could find bounce.

C (50:49)

Yes.

B (50:50)

You know, so 100% support that. What is the third thing on our list?

C (50:54)

The third thing is about accountability, which I feel like, you know, when we talk about some of the aggressors in the industry, the people that you're not having on your show, I feel like there's been sort of this watery sense of, oh, well, we've done our best to hold these people to account. And I'm not really talking about the Dave Changs of the world, although I don't 100% feel like he's taken full accountability for the things that he's done. I'm really talking about the people like Mario, you know, Besh, like, full on assaulting people. Oh, yeah. Like those guys, you know, like, we watched Mario, up against very clear and obvious evidence, walk out of a courtroom right here in Massachusetts, you know, after a full trial. And what is he doing? He's, like, living it up in Michigan, like, going on very expensive vacations in St. John every year. You know, Coach will fund his lifestyle forever. If he's not funded by the money that he made off of the Bastianich empire, or Batali empire, whatever you want to call it. The Bastianish Batali empire. And look, I was as big a Batali fan as everybody else in the 90s and 2000s. I grew up in that era as well. But I think it would be a lie to say that we really took that as seriously as we could have. It would be a lie to say that Ken Friedman really paid his dues. The person who really paid dues in that situation was April Bloomfield. She's really never recovered from the sort of things that went down with Ken and the.

B (52:46)

Does he have a podcast? The name sounds really good familiar.

C (52:48)

So he was the like one of the like boom boom room people at the Spotted Pig. Like one of the people who like had the like sex room above the Spotted Pig.

B (53:00)

And does he have a podcast now?

C (53:02)

If he, if he has a podcast, I'm not listening to it. I also like, knew him during my days and.

B (53:09)

Well, you know, I'll be honest, like one of the things that drew me to this industry, a lot of things did. I love the instant gratification of knowing a job done right. Like you see in real time, you're. That you okay, I did a good job. They're happy, they see me, they like me and like, and that. And plus also I've always accelerated, accelerated, like the host position or like a supportive role.

A (53:34)

I've.

B (53:34)

I realized that after, when I was flying commercially, I didn't want to be a server or a bartender because I didn't want that much responsibility, if I'm being honest. I wanted to be able to go in, get tipped out and socialize and make a little extra cash. But I love that, that supportive role and I love being seen and valued and getting instant gratification. I love the being up and moving, the social side of it all. I also love the after work side of it.

C (53:58)

Who doesn't?

B (53:58)

Exactly.

C (53:59)

Well, maybe not me at 45, but like I did at 30.

B (54:02)

The 18 to the 30 year old side.

C (54:04)

Fun.

B (54:05)

Yeah. You know, I love socializing. I love being together with a band of pirates and going out and having a good time. And beautiful people work in the restaurant industry. They're like, I will be a liar if I said that wasn't a draw to be working in the restaurant industry as a young person. I say cities. I hate cities. For the record, I love them. They're only good for like, they're breeding grounds for young people.

C (54:29)

You know, it was fun.

B (54:31)

I'm sure it was. You know, and I think that that is a part of the industry that you can't deny is that like there's a high sex drive in the restaurant industry. So.

C (54:41)

I mean, the drugs help, I think.

B (54:43)

Yeah. Drugs, partying. You know, I. I think I've. I've mellowed out as I'm about to eclipse 40 next month, which is crazy.

C (54:50)

I'm an August birthday. No, I'm a Virgo.

B (54:53)

Okay. But, you know, we. We do like to have fun. It's a. It's a. You know, we're. We're tend to be extroverts. We tend to be. We like alcohol. We. We do drugs. You know, so what does that bounce look like? How do we not take it too far?

C (55:09)

Yeah. You know, I think that's a bit of the Neverland aspect, right. Of restaurants. It's like, you know, there's like a little bit of a Peter Pan syndrome, which is like, well, we don't really have to grow up. And part of that trap that I mentioned at the beginning, which is like, oh, there's money and there's. And I don't have to do the nine to five. And. And for me, someone who had come from an Ivy League experience where, like, it was, like, rigorous, and my whole life had been about, like, rules and working hard and, you know, thousand pages of reading a week. I was like, wait, what about. What is this life where, like, you just, like, you don't have to do any of that stuff, but you can still, like, reap the rewards? Like my friends were. I had a friend who was like, at PricewaterhouseCooper. She's now been there since we graduated from college in 2000. She graduated in 01 and I graduated in 02.

B (56:02)

To.

C (56:03)

She's been there that whole time. She's a partner now, probably making a lot more than I made when I was a server. Okay. She probably was from the beginning, but it didn't feel like it. It felt like we were both just, like, making a lot of money. But I was like, she's working quite hard, and I am not working that hard, but I can still go into Bloomingdale's and buy myself a bag and look at me like, I sleep till one. I just do whatever I want. This life is amazing.

B (56:30)

Right. I think it's kind of. Kind of reminds me of the labor conversation where we go hard in this industry, we work hard, we play hard in. Our ability to outwork others is a badge of honor. And our ability to out party people is a badge of honor.

C (56:43)

Yeah.

B (56:43)

You know, so is it just. Is it. So what is the answer? You know, like, these people who are attracted to this Lifestyle are going to be coming to this industry. How do we. How do we evolve? How do we grow? How do we change?

C (56:55)

Well, those people are. That personality type will always be attracted to the industry, and you're always gonna have lifers. Right. And I don't think there's anything wrong with spending your entire career in restaurants. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be a hospitable character or wanting to be a nightlife person. And I think that some people grow out of it. I certainly did. I think some people evolve and want a different part of it. I think it's okay to, you know, be attuned to the fun parts of it. It. Especially when you're younger. It doesn't mean that we don't have the obligation to, like, give those people more and a better existence, even as they're doing the things that we did at park Bar on 15th street, like, when they're younger, you know, whatever.

B (57:43)

I think we got down this path. You said accountability is really the core of what we're talking of what we're talking about, where people take it too far. Maybe they're not making the best decisions while they're under the influence. They do things they can't take back. But what does holding them accountable look like in your eyes?

C (57:59)

I mean, some of these people should never be back in the industry, and some of them should probably be in prison. Batali should be in prison. And, like, I don't. I don't want another, like, story about, like, reframing this person or this person, like, coming back into the industry. Like, oh, it's been long enough. Like, they've been on timeout. Like, let's welcome them back. Like, let's not welcome them back back.

B (58:23)

I don't know much about his story. I mean, I think I heard that he sexually assaulted some. I mean, that's.

C (58:29)

It was rape, multiple incidences of rape and other things, you know, like drugging people. So he's somebody who should be in prison.

B (58:39)

Yeah. It's not good.

C (58:40)

No.

B (58:41)

Yeah.

C (58:41)

Like. And. But he did try to make a comeback. He, like, put. It was, like, two years ago. I'll tell you the whole thing. He, like, went back on Instagram after, like, you know, he was like, well, I took, like, two years off, so I feel like now that I've been acquitted, I can, like, go back. Like, bro, you shouldn't. And he, like, put up this thing, and then he was, like, gonna. He was, like, running, like, a class. Like, he was gonna do, like, a Five week, like, zoom. I think it was still. I don't know if it was still during COVID or if it was like that, like, touch and go post Covid moment. I think I had already moved back to Massachusetts, and I was like, what if I took this class as, like, a troll reporter and, like, sat in on it? I did have some, like, ethical, like, quandaries about paying him to do this. Cause I was like, I don't want him to have my money. I pitched it around, and then I was like, maybe I just give up on this idea. Cause it never sold. But in the meantime, I had been going onto his Instagram, which. Cause he was posting kind of a lot, but they were all super weird. It was like a picture of pasta. Like a picture of him walking a bunch of dogs. But the thing that I found them most disturbing was not these super erratic and strange fucking photographs, which was weird. And I had met Batali a number of times, including on vacation, because his family, prior to all of this, used to vacation at the same place that my family vacationed at in St. John. But anyway, was the comments. There were so many comments from so many men that were like, yeah, bro, you're back. Good for you. So glad to be see you back. Can't wait to see. Can't wait to, like, attend your class. Yeah, awesome. Like, your food's the best. And I was like, wow, does everybody just have collective fucking amnesia? Like, I mean, I understand that his food was good. I ate at Bob. Oh, many times. I've eaten at Lupa. I think I've eaten at every single one of his restaurants, including po, which was, like, one of his first restaurants in New York, like, 30 years ago. I mean, I loved his food. He was very meaningful to me a long time ago. Like, I. I watched him up on the Food Network when I was in high school. Like, I get it. But all of that doesn't matter to me because he's a rapist. And I'm not gonna go onto his Instagram and be like, I'm so glad to see you back. Like, no, just never again. Delete your account. Just delete your account. Just go away. Like, go sit in your house in Michigan.

B (61:01)

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I can't push back on anything you said. Like. Like, it's. But I am curious. Like, how do you think these people. What is the game, right? Like, how do you get to this point of where you have this acclaim in these restaurants and this attention? Like, I think that's kind of one of the underlying Things. I think David Chang is another person that played the game and got to the media. I mean, somebody else that you mentioned in the book that didn't come out of today's conversation.

C (61:34)

John. Johnny.

B (61:35)

What's. What's that?

C (61:36)

Johnny Yuzini.

B (61:37)

Johnny. Another celebrity. Right. You know, he didn't have too many bad things to say about Christy. Was it Christy? What am I trying to say?

C (61:44)

Christina.

B (61:45)

Christina Tosi. Thank you.

C (61:46)

I don't love her.

B (61:47)

I mean, I'm not here to, like, I don't know these people, just for the record, but, like. And I'm. They're top of mind because they were mentioned in your book. What are your thoughts on the media and if.

A (61:57)

Should we.

B (61:58)

Like, this is something that I've noticed. I mean, if we're talking about things that need to change, like, do you think the media plays a role in this?

C (62:05)

Oh, yeah. I mean, what's crazy is that I went first. Went public about my experiences with Dave in 2020 in an essay that almost immediately went viral and was subsequently nominated for a James Beard Award. And not just any James Beard award. It was nominated for the MFK Fisher, which is the top prize that a journalist can get under the James Beard heading for journalists. It was also nominated for. Was it nominated for an iscp? I can't remember, but it was, like, it was critically acclaimed. It was anthologized as an honorable mention in the best American Food Writing. Everybody knew about it. I heard from, like, Padme. Lakshmi retweeted it. She started following me on Twitter. Everybody in the food industry knew about that piece. I got a lot of work because of it. I got my literary agents because of it. I got a book deal because of it. And yet after that article came out, I continued, because on a daily basis, say, I get 200 press release emails or emails from publicists just on average, on a weekday. I continued to get press releases from random publicists, some of whom I had working relationships with, some of whom I don't know with Momofuku blasts, or blasts specifically about Dave on a regular basis. Like, things that were, like, Eastfork and David Chang collaborate on a pottery collection, or check out this new chili crunch from Momofuku to the point where I would say, start responding by just sending a link to my article and being like, have you ever Googled me? Like, it's pretty apparent that I not only worked for him for a number for a period of time, but that I'm, like, the foremost public figure who has criticized him and was written about in the New York Times, on the front page of the food section by Pete Wells. Like, like, it's all over the place. Everybody knows that I did this. Stop sending me emails about him. There was no reverberation about what had happened. Like, it was like people just forgot about it. Magazines that I write for, like, food and wine, which I love writing for, Food and wine, I love my editors there, but they continued to cover him. Like, in one section they would be like, publishing my work and then they would be writing about Dave.

A (64:41)

Why?

C (64:42)

Why? That's such a great question. Is his influence so outsized that it diminishes anything that he's done? Why would they take seriously me and privately tell me how influential and important my work is and then at the same, out of the other side of their mouth, be propping him up? I don't know, maybe because of money.

B (65:04)

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, just generally speaking, a little context, you know, I started this podcast 12 years ago, very bright eyed, and I was listening to all these entrepreneurial podcasts and marketing podcasts and personal growth podcasts, and I just fell in love with this world of podcasts. And I was like, where is this inspirational, motivational, uplifting, empowering podcast for the restaurant industry? Why aren't we sharing information this liberally? Like, why? Like, like, this is a part of the solution. We need to share information. Like, and I think that will help us get out of this rut we're in. And I started just like, well, okay, if I'm gonna go make example of, like, how do I find these people to make an example of? Well, the naive version of me was like, well, if they're winning awards, they must be the best in the business, right? They must have figured something out. So I, I'll. I just started going after essentially James Beard and Michelin star winners or like thrillist or top 30, 30 under 30. Like, I was like, clearly these, these people who have put together these publications have done thorough research to know that these people know their. And are like, good restaurant operators. Started talking to these people, started getting really pushing into like, not just like, tell me about your food, but like, how much money are you making? What are your P. Ls like, what are your values? Like? And that's really what the show is about, is like, I don't give a what you're cooking, right? Like, this podcast isn't about like the latest trends on food. It's are you making money doing it and are you creating opportunity for other people? Are you fiscally responsible Are you scaling a viable business? And the more I started talking to people who are the best in the industry, the winners, I started to realize that these business, these businesses, unless they're winning awards, aren't sustainable business models. Right. And it's, it's, it's, you know, food and wine, James Beard, Michelin star. Like, these are all marketing. These, this is media. It's marketing. And they control the entire narrative of the industry. Who's successful, who's not. Like that's a problem.

C (67:08)

I know.

B (67:09)

Like, am I crazy?

C (67:12)

Like, you know, like Michelin is obviously bought and paid for. Beard has an independent group of people who determine the awards, but you have to self nominate. So technically a publication in the, like in the journalism awards, someone else can nominate you, your publication can nominate you, but you can also nominate yourself. You can pay to nominate yourself. Now with the Eater award, I did not nominate myself. Somebody nominated me. But you can pay $75 per submission and pay to nominate yourself. So what does that do to the field? It means that wealthier people have a leg up on people with no money. It means that in journalism you can technically apply for financial aid and ask that your fee get waived if you don't have the funds. But most people don't even know that. So it means that there's a barrier between journalists who have money and journalists who don't have money. It means that chefs who can afford to put in the fee and chefs who can't afford to put in the fee, or chefs who know to nominate themselves and chefs who don't know to nominate themselves. There's an access barrier. And Michelin is obviously the same and the stakes are higher. There's more money involved, there's a higher fee to apply all of these things. I don't want to call them rigged because there are still independent people who ultimately decide. But there are other things too. James Beard is notoriously conservative. I don't mean politically conservative. What I mean is that they are not risk takers. I'm not trying to make this like a woe is me thing, but I knew that even though I had been nominated for that David Chang piece, it was very unlikely that I was actually gonna win. Because if they had actually given me the award. Yeah. Then I'm gonna stand up in a room filled with people, many of whom are chefs or chef adjacent, and accept an award for a piece that was taking down one of them. And were they going to let that happen? Well, probably not.

B (69:17)

Yeah. I think the other thing I've, I've Realized it's less about how good you are as a chef and more about how well connected you are as a chef.

C (69:26)

Connected, very political, assimilated. And you know, are you part of the club? The person who ended up winning was Francis Lamb. Splendid table, Francis Lamb. And he is just the person they want to have winning the award over and over again. And so he does.

B (69:43)

Yeah. And then the other media and people started to catch wind of how the game actually works. And then there was this huge just like self correction of overcompensating to like cover your tracks, which is in my mind just like now it's like we know you're guilty. You know, it's like. And just generally speaking, I think that there, if there's something being added to this list that we're talking about, I think generally it's just a ward culture. So many people are just in this industry to get awards because they know that they need those awards to make any kind of real money in the industry.

C (70:19)

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, in journalism, obviously it's different. I can't tell you how much many journalists that I know.

B (70:25)

What do you mean by that?

C (70:25)

In journalism it's different because we don't need them. Look, if you were to open up any freelance writers portfolio, 90% of them would have award winning journalists next to their name. You'll see mine. It doesn't say that. It says James Beard Award nominated. But I've never won any. If I've won some stupid little press club award, and I think I probably have, and I'm not even sure at this point because I've been around for a while, while I'm not calling myself an award winning journalist because that means nothing.

B (70:56)

Right? Well, I mean, the thing is, it does mean something, right?

C (71:00)

Sure. But like every single journalist calls themselves an award winner. And I want to be like, what award did you win? Did you win a blue ribbon at your summer camp?

B (71:10)

I don't think people get into journalism. I think they're truth seekers. They're, they, they're curious, they want to, you know, and truth is relative to. I think we have to keep that in mind. My truth might not be your truth.

C (71:20)

Right. But if you see it, let me put it to you this way. If you open up someone's website and it says award winning journalist, but it doesn't tell you what award, then you can pretty much say to yourself, it means nothing.

B (71:33)

Right. There's a lot of awards, right.

C (71:35)

It doesn't say Nobel Prize or James Beard Award or an asme which is the National Magazine Award, then I don't give a fuck what kind of award you won. Like, my dad gave me an award award one time. It said Best daughter. Do I believe him? He has three.

B (71:49)

You should add it to your profile. You know, I just think that it's weird. I think that human nature, we live in this literal global world now, and this is kind of an unprecedented thing, the way we live with access to all this information, I just don't. It's interesting. It's almost as if the consumer is more loyal to the marketplace or the media outlet than they are to the restaurants themselves. And that's a big change. Change. People don't go out to eat because of relationships. I mean, eating out is a big part of marketing, is psychographics. What does it say about me if I'm seen in this restaurant?

C (72:26)

Especially on the Instagram age.

B (72:27)

Exactly. Or, like, does this restaurant. Like, that's why everyone's like, start with why? Like, what is your mission? Like, what change do you want to see in the world? So, like, you can attract onto yourself people that share those values. And I think in a world where we live in a. Like, a global world, but we're still creatures that evolve to exist. In a small world of my tribe and the neighboring tribes, we only have so much attention. And because of that, I think Seth Godin talks about this in Purple Cow, how, like, the difference between number one and number two is usually 100%. Like, the number one ice cream in the world. Do you know what it is?

C (73:13)

Haagen Dazs.

B (73:14)

No, like, the number one flavor. Oh, it's probably, like, vanilla 100 is the num. The number one ice cream. Do you know what number two is?

C (73:24)

No.

A (73:25)

Chocolate.

C (73:25)

Well, I mean, that would have been my guess.

B (73:27)

Do you know how much vanilla is sold in America versus chocolate?

C (73:31)

Much, much more.

B (73:32)

100. More.

C (73:33)

Yeah.

B (73:33)

And that is a pattern that you see everywhere.

C (73:36)

I just want to say, for the record, that neither of those is my favorite flavor.

B (73:39)

So I'm just saying, like, it's just this thing. Like, that's a great example. But what happens is, like, what's the. The number one media outlet? Right. Oh, to like, get your trusted food. Yeah. Well, right. If you're in New York or, like, whatever. I think what I'm trying to say is we live in a global marketplace, but we're still. But we're trying to. But the reality is we're in. We're in fragmented local markets still.

A (74:01)

Right.

B (74:02)

So it makes it really hard to be seen. So that if you are somebody who gets one of these national publications talk about you, there's an imbalance. Like the media creates this horrible imbalance. And hospitality is about community. It's about relationships. It's about supporting your local businesses and the people in those businesses and the, the businesses that they, that they support. And I think we, I.

A (74:25)

If there's a fake fifth thing or.

B (74:27)

Do we do one, two. We talked about the hierarchy. We talked about labor. We talked about accountability. We talked about the media.

C (74:33)

We talked about. Yes, we're on, we're on media now.

B (74:35)

Yeah, but what about the consumer? Where is the consumer on this list?

C (74:39)

Well, so, I mean, I've been thinking about the consumer because, like, I, I have, you know, I go through like these fits where I'm like, mad at the consumer. Like, why don't you understand what's going on? And why don't you tip better? And why don't you understand that the. That like, you're paying for a product and if you're so angry about the cost of goods that. And just stay home, make your own pies. I baked a pie today.

B (75:03)

I saw the photo. It was very nice looking.

C (75:04)

Thank you.

B (75:05)

Was it a strawberry?

C (75:06)

It's actually apricot.

B (75:07)

Oh, that's what it was.

C (75:08)

And mixed berries. And then I also empathize with the consumer because dining out has become sadly a luxury and not. You can't for a family of four, you know. And I, you know, am fortunate insofar as I can afford to go out to nice places and not nice places, even as a family of four. It's not an affordable. It's not even affordable to go to like a casual venue anymore. Like a family of four to go out to like a normal place. It's like you're looking at $150 for a family of four just to, like, eat dinner.

B (75:52)

Yeah.

C (75:53)

And I'm not talking about when I went to Raffles for my birthday last year and I got the check and I was like, is that real? I love. I love you, Raffles. This is not about you, it's about me.

B (76:06)

I think the consumer is kind of a victim in this, if I'm being honest.

C (76:09)

Yeah, well, I mean, look, the consumer is certainly a victim of inflation and probably a victim of not adequately understanding what they're up at against.

B (76:18)

I think they're also a victim of marketing in a victim of media. Yeah, probably everything that the restaurant, everything that the consumer knows about the restaurant industry is through a media outlet that is painting a very misleading world of the restaurant industry, but also the restaurant industry is a little guilty because we, at our core, hospitality is about projecting a. A false reality. It's about helping you. You escape your reality. Right. You go to a restaurant, you don't see the reality.

C (76:50)

Well, that's the point, though. We don't want them to know what's really going on. Right. And. And you're supposed to go into a restaurant, and it's supposed to be magic. And that's. That's what we curate. Right. That we want to curate that experience. The problem is that we can't curate that experience for $50 a person anymore, or even $100 a person. Like, let's be real and fine dining. What are we up against? What are we up against in terms of what wines cost with tariffs, what food costs for local farms to produce this food? The climate is changing. Who knows what we're up against in the next couple of years? These experiences, like, if you pick up a copy of Food and Wine, I do love it. If you pick up a copy of Bon Appetit, I love it. And you see these things, These used to be tangible. Like, you could do these things. You could actually go to these experiences. You could go to these restaurants. You could have these experiences. Now it's totally in the. In the luxury demographic. Like, these are not. These are not real experiences that average Americans can have. You have to make $200,000 a year or more in order to be able to, like, go to these restaurants. So it's just escapism, right?

B (78:00)

Yeah. I mean, just to kind of round off the thought. And we got to start closing it up, because I gotta make sure you're on time for picking up your kids.

C (78:06)

Thanks.

B (78:06)

Uh, before we started today's conversation, I pointed at a book behind you on the shelf called Power and Progress. Um, and the whole idea behind that book is whoever has the money controls the agenda, controls the narrative. And in a national marketplace where there's only room for a couple big. We only have so much attention as consumers. We all share the same resources to get the same information. And if you have a lot of money, you can get that attention. You can hire publicists to go to work for you. It's about who you know. And if. And if you have a giant budget, you can paint a false reality and you can create. The marketing creates such an imbalance in this industry and in the world for that matter, that I think. And when I. I'm. I don't know if I'm famous yet for saying this, but maybe Someday I'll be famous for saying it. I think marketing is the bane of human existence because it's about. It's literally, I think just creating the. There's the rich getting richer and the poor getting poor. Marketing is at the leading edge of that because it's about controlling the narrative, and it's about. It's using agendas to spin false realities. And today it's easier than ever with the Internet. You know, it's just like you can pay people to do the work, to get the exposure.

C (79:16)

You know, I have to be careful because I have a marketing team, obviously.

B (79:22)

Well, I mean, I'm not saying marketing, it's the band of human existence. I'm not saying it's unnecessary. It's a. What is marketing? It's bringing something to market it, you know, but in a world where you can have a shit product and be a shit person and have the best marketing you can, that's more important than doing the damn thing really well.

C (79:40)

Look, here's what I feel like is the most dangerous. And I say this as a journalist first, the. The sort of seamless transition that no one has been pushing back on between journal toward from journalism to advertorial, where, you know, no one seems to think tw between what we run as a story and what we run as marketing. So, you know, I get a lot of offers to do things, to visit places, to go into restaurants. And my categorical first response is, I'm happy to visit this destination or I'm happy to visit this restaurant, but, you know, I do it without a story attached or, you know, even if I do it with a story attached, there's no guarantee that I will cover it. If I have a bad experience, I will not cover it. That is my editorial obligation. You know, I have the experience and then I decide what it is. It's not a quid pro quo. I am not a quid pro quo journalist. That's not how I operate. It's not ethical for me to promise to deliver something until I know how I feel about it. But the new sort of wave of publicity in lifestyle is tell me where you're placing it. I can't promise. I can't send you anywhere until you tell me that you're going to absolutely put it in X, Y and Z. And that is an ad that is not a story.

B (81:04)

Right. And that's content marketing today.

C (81:06)

Absolutely. And it's a real problem, and it's a real ethical quandary. And the journalists who do accept those assignments are not journalists. They're bought and paid for.

B (81:13)

Yeah. And it's something that I'm currently struggling with in full transparency of trying to keep this podcast going while all being transparent. And it's hard to do for people out there and I think we need to bring more attention to it. And we are at time. I want to respect your time. Any final thoughts, words before we say goodbye?

C (81:31)

I hope we can make the changes that we aspire to in the industry. And it's a place that I love very, very much. So, you know, even with the sort of mixed feelings that I have about having lived through my time in the industry, I do still, still see great things for restaurants moving forward. And I hope everyone will buy my book.

B (81:51)

Yeah. And say the title one more time.

C (81:54)

Seller Rat My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly from Little Brown.

B (81:58)

I really enjoyed listening to it. Thank you for taking the time to be the first interview in my new space, my new studio. I'm stoked that I can stay home and do these recordings in person. You're just a town away. We made it happen. I do like to ask my guest one last question before we say goodbye. Who do you respect?

C (82:15)

Who do I respect?

B (82:16)

Who's doing it right in the restaurant industry? Who is somebody that you think I should make an example of?

A (82:20)

Who's.

B (82:21)

Who's had success, who's treating their people right? Who deserves to have their story be told and be made an example of? Who is that for you?

C (82:29)

Oh my gosh. This so putting me on the spot. I hate this stuff.

B (82:33)

Sorry, I could have given you a heads up.

C (82:40)

My friend Jared runs a restaurant called Dead Horse Hill in Worcester. I'll give him a shout out.

B (82:45)

Dead Horse Hill, look out. I'm coming after you, Jared. And thank you so much. There is no questioning. You are unstoppable.

C (82:51)

Thank you.

A (82:52)

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B (84:04)

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A (84:07)

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