1238: Charles Clark, Owner of Clark Concepts

Summary

Restaurant Unstoppable Episode 1238: Charles Clark, Owner of Clark Concepts

Air Date: December 15, 2025
Host: Eric Cacciatore
Guest: Charles Clark

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Overview of Episode Theme

This episode welcomes back Charles Clark, celebrated Houston restaurateur and owner of Brasserie 19 under Clark Concepts. Charles shares how, after a decades-long partnership and managing multiple concepts, he now thrives with a single restaurant, quadrupling his income and focusing on delivering world-class hospitality. The discussion unpacks his journey through organizational growth, partnership dissolution, the hard lessons of the pandemic, technology adoption, and the under-appreciated value of focusing on people, purpose, and sustainable profitability over ego or accolades. It’s a masterclass on redefining success in the restaurant industry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Evolution Post-Partnership & Surviving the Pandemic [05:30 - 09:43]

• In 2019, Clark ran six concepts with his partner Grant Cooper. After the pandemic, they amicably split: Charles took Brasserie 19 (B19), targeting $10M+ annual revenue.
• He describes the split as amicable and pragmatic—a move away from ego and expansion to a focused, sustainable pursuit.
• Clark invests heavily in B19, with significant upgrades (patio, bathrooms), creating a “jewel box” and high-volume, top-tier experience.

Quote (Charles Clark, 06:44):
"My goal is to keep [B19] at 10 million… Out of 4,800 square feet, which is 2,300 a foot, which is 250 seats, which is insane. Most people are happy at 1,000 a foot. I’m doing almost 2,300 a foot."

2. Benchmarking Success—More Restaurants Isn’t Always Better [08:02 - 09:05]

• Clark explains that with a single, well-run restaurant, he quadrupled his income compared to when he had five.
• The restaurant industry facade can be deceiving: multiple concepts might “look” like success but may not be the most profitable route.

Quote (Charles Clark, 08:13):
"I have one restaurant. I’ve quadrupled my income with one restaurant.”

Numbers Clark Shares:

• Prime cost: 65%
• Profit: 12.2% (on $10M revenue)
• B19: Top-notch glassware, cutlery, and plating—returns that investment through customer loyalty and satisfaction.

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3. Defining and Delivering Great Hospitality [10:31 - 11:48]

• Clark’s mantra: “Never say no.” Flexibility and meeting customers’ needs—even if it means sourcing key lime pie from next door—builds customer loyalty for decades.
• Hospitality is about making every guest feel “seen.”

Quote (Charles Clark, 10:31):
"There’s one word we don’t use in this restaurant. It’s the word no… I’ll do anything for my customer, and they know it.”

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4. Growth, Organizational Structure, and Amicable Exit [12:15 - 13:31; 44:28 - 48:10]

• Clark and Cooper’s complementary partnership: Clark as food/operations, Grant as aesthetics/design.
• By 2019: ~400 employees, six restaurants. Post-COVID, Clark focused on B19 while Grant pursued scalable concepts.
• Lesson from partnership split: Always take the high road; get legal support but trust counts; don’t act like you know everything—rely on experts when needed.

Quote (Charles Clark, 48:22):
"Take the high road. Always. Even if it hurts a little bit... it’ll come back and bless you later on down the line."

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5. Technology & Systems: Tools that Move the Needle [32:37 - 41:46]

• Adoption of inventory and cost-management software post-pandemic (e.g., “Chef Cooks,” OpenTable CRM) was pivotal.
• OpenTable relationship: High volume enabled Clark to negotiate a monthly cap and secure data rights—a critical lesson for restaurateurs.
• Labor management improvements via real-time monitoring with Toast, adjusting labor dynamically to need.
• Emphasis on using tech for efficiency, not for guest-facing marketing (“we’d rather be word-of-mouth…”).

Quote (Charles Clark, 33:33):
"You gotta use technology… the OpenTable reservation system, we run profiles on our customers… We know every little detail about him."

• On tech partnerships: Don’t surrender your guest relationship/data to third parties. Negotiate, if possible, for data access and favorable terms as you grow.

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6. Financial Operations: Bookkeeping and Fractional CFO [52:23 - 57:09]

• Clark uses Serboni (“world class”) for accounting, payroll, taxes, and fractional CFO services.
• They meet monthly, analyze granular KPIs (comp rates, labor trends), and respond quickly to questions.
• Prime cost dropped from 67-68% (legacy accountant’s era) to 64-65%, adding six figures to profit at $10M revenue.

Quote (Charles Clark, 56:51):
"Serboni is like a lifeline to my numbers in my restaurant. I just feel comfortable knowing I’m not gonna have to audit them in a couple of years."

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7. Lease Negotiation & Investment in Physical Space [58:07 - 61:17]

• Clark negotiated lease extensions by investing $300K+ in the B19 patio (design, construction, branded elements).
• Lease is ~5.8% of sales, below typical benchmarks.
• Volume is the lever for labor and cost efficiency.

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8. People, Culture, and Purpose Before Expansion [73:28 - 81:46]

• Retaining staff: 100% employer-paid health insurance provided, annual Christmas bonuses, and a culture of genuine support and financial help when needed (e.g., giving advances or gifts in times of crisis).
• Progressive people-centricity: insurance via Assured Partners (local broker, ACA-compliant MEC plan).
• Company culture score: 9/10 (“We listen to everybody…”); could improve company parties for staff.

Quote (Charles Clark, 77:16):
"We listen to everybody... Just helping people. Because a lot of people have to check the check… if people see you working toward it, they’re going to help you."

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9. Rethinking Industry Accolades & Chasing Real Success [64:48 - 70:33]

• Skeptical of James Beard/Michelin awards (“It’s a business—I want to make money… You can have your James Beard award; I’ll drive my new Porsche to work.”)
• Discusses how the pursuit of awards can lead to unprofitable operations—“most restaurants that get them in Houston will be gone in four years.”
• Real value is butts in seats, purposeful hospitality, fiscal responsibility—not ego or recognition.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [08:13] Charles Clark: "I've quadrupled my income with one restaurant."
• [10:31] Charles Clark: "There's one word we don't use in this restaurant. It’s the word no."
• [33:33] Charles Clark: "We know every little detail about [customers]. We know their daughters, birthdays... It gives you so much to work with."
• [44:28] Charles Clark: "Take the high road. Always. Because you don't want to burn bridges in the city."
• [56:51] Charles Clark: "Serboni is like a lifeline to my numbers."
• [64:48] Charles Clark: "You can have your James Beard award. I’ll drive my new Porsche to work."
• [77:16] Charles Clark: "We listen to everybody. Just helping people. Because a lot of people have to check the check."
• [81:19] Charles Clark: "Having another restaurant, it’s not going to change my life. I love what I’m doing."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 05:20: Host reconnects with Charles post-partnership; B19 focus begins
• 06:44: Brasserie 19 economics, splitting the company
• 08:13: Income quadrupling with one well-run restaurant
• 10:31: Clark’s “never say no” hospitality mantra
• 23:48: Structure of Clark/Cooper organization circa 2019
• 32:37: Use of technology in restaurant operations
• 41:46: Warning on third parties/guest data ownership
• 44:28: The “amicable” partnership split: how to do it right
• 52:23: How a good accountant and technology shifted Clark’s financials
• 58:07: Lease negotiations: trading capital improvements for security
• 64:48: Clark’s take on awards culture—why they don’t matter
• 73:28: Investment in staff: healthcare, bonuses, personal assistance
• 81:19: Freedom and purpose as the real benchmarks of industry success

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Charles Clark’s Restaurant Success Formula

• Focus: Concentrate on one great restaurant; don’t get distracted by ego or expansion for its own sake.
• Hospitality: “Never say no.” Exceed expectations, create memorable experiences, invest in details (from glassware to guest recognition).
• Financial Clarity: Rely on competent, hospitality-focused accounting and embrace technology for cost control and data-driven decisions.
• Culture: Retain staff by treating them with respect, offering benefits, and fostering genuine connection.
• Purpose > Ego: Reject awards/industry pageantry as the metric of success. Define your own goals—people, profitability, longevity.

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Restaurant Recommendations [86:30]

Clark admires:

• Nancy’s Hustle – “Great little wine list, very consistent, open late.”
• Matt Bryce - Federal Grill – “A good worker with several successful concepts.”
• Tommy at Bari – “Best New York stories, old-school hospitality.”

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Contact Information

• Charles Clark’s Contact:
  • Cell: 832-5268
  • Email: [e-mail]
  • Open to offering advice to fellow restaurateurs.

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Takeaways

• Scale is optional. Excellence and financial sustainability come from focus—not expansion.
• Hospitality is about saying “yes” and making guests feel seen, going above and beyond.
• Use technology to empower, not distance, your guest relationship.
• Protect and support your people—culture and benefits matter.
• Define your own success—don’t get trapped by external validation.
• Businesses succeed through relationships, not accolades.

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For detailed show notes, resources, and to connect with Charles or future guests, visit RestaurantUnstoppable.com. Join the community for direct Q&A opportunities.

Transcript

[A]

What up Unstoppables?

[B]

We have a great episode for you today. But first I just want to say.

[A]

Thank you so much for your support.

[B]

We cannot do what we do without.

[A]

People like you liking, subscribing, following, sharing, downloading, all the things. Thank you. You make our mission to inspire, empower and transform the industry possible. And we are continuing to push forward into the future.

[B]

2026.

[A]

We're locking down some 2026 sponsors as we speak.

[B]

The plan is to reconnect with my.

[A]

Camper, which is currently in Mississippi.

[B]

We're gonna do Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida. Working, really going deep into Florida and.

[A]

Then working up through the Carolinas, maybe Georgia on the way through back to New Hampshire come spring.

[B]

So if you're in any of those states, if there are people you want.

[A]

Us to get onto the show, let us know. We are listening. We really want to exist to serve you.

[B]

First and foremost, Badass restaurateur.

[A]

So who are the people you respect and admire? Let me know. Put them on my radar.

[B]

Do you have a parking lot I.

[A]

Can park my camper in? Or a backyard? All the help we can get to keep our operational expense low and to keep our, you know, work authentic. We're here. We're listening. Thank you in advance. Enjoy today's episode and if you like today's episode, make sure to stick around to the end. I'll tell you how you can connect with Charles Clark in the network. 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 discussion 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 guests and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. This episode is made possible by Serboni your all in one bookkeeping and financial solution. We're talking about reliable tax preparation, business incorporation, seamless payroll and compliance reports. Strategic CFO services that drive business growth. Detailed custom reporting for complete financial clarity. Dedicated support for restaurants in multi location businesses. Did I mention bookkeeping? Sir Bony handled the numbers so you can focus on the vision. Call Sir Bony today at 281-888-2413 to schedule your free 30 minute consultation and discover how Sibonic can streamline your operations and boost your bot limited time. Offer an exclusive to Restaurant Unstoppable listeners. Mention this Message and get 20% off your first month of services. This episode is made possible by Meese. Mies is a digital recipe platform that helps you stay creative, build profitable menus and nail food execution at scale. We know to scale you need consistency because consistency builds trust with your guests and your staff. We all want to know what the job done right looks like and when you have systems, your systems are a picture of perfection of what that job done right is and that puts us to peace. We are so happy when we know we're doing a good job. Me will be the one source of truth for your entire team. It's time to take control of your profitability. Learn more at www.getmes.com unstoppable that's www.g-e t m e e z.com unstoppable. This episode is made possible by Restaurant Systems Pro and beginning in January 2026.

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Restaurant Systems Pro is going to be.

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Doing a 30 day mastery program. This is valued at $4,000 and if you head over to go.restaurantassistanspro.net profits you can for a limited time get this for only 97. But there's an even better deal if you sign up for a Restaurant Unstoppable network by heading to restaurantstoppable.com live you can get this 30 day mastery program for free when you join the community and you also get access to this in perpetuity because they're going to be popping it off every month. Go into 2026 with all the knowledge and resources and tools you need to be Unstoppable in partnership with the Restaurant Unstoppable and Restaurant Systems Pro. Again, Restaurant Unstoppable.com live join the community. Get access to this training. 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 tool which provides resources designed to make running your food service operation easier and more efficient. From the all in one food service app Moxie, which goes beyond order placement to help manage every part of your operation. 24. Seven 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 with excitement.

[B]

Allow me to introduce to you today's guest owner of Clark Concepts, Charles Clark. My man Charles, are you feeling unstoppable today?

[C]

Every day. Especially today. The weather's good, the holidays around the corner. Revenues will rise 20%. Probably. I. I'm. I'm excited about what's going on at the restaurant.

[B]

It's about to get busy. I love that for you. So the last time I spoke to you was in 2019, episode 666. This will be episode 1238. I've been busy. And back then, you had six concepts. You were the co owner of Grant, or sorry, of Clark Cooper Concepts, and your partners with Grant Cooper with six total concepts. Fast forward six years. Big picture, where are you today? How many locations do you have?

[C]

Fast forward 19. That's right before. A year before COVID So Covid kind of hurt us a little bit. Yeah. So we closed a concept called Salt Air.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And then we had the Dunn Levy. We had copa Gratify and Brasserie 19. Those four concepts were the up and running concepts. And so around 21, we decided to split the concepts up and we both wanted to be 19. It's the golden goose. You know, where the restaurant. My goal is to keep it at 10 million. You know, 10 million is the golden number in revenue a year.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[C]

That's it. Out of 4800 square feet, which is 22, 2300 a foot, which is 250 seats, which is insane. Most. Most people are happy at a thousand a foot. I'm doing almost 2300 a foot. Wow. Yeah. So anyway, we both kind of fought over Brasserie. And I said, look, my training is French. I'm a chef. I am going to say Brasserie. You can have all three other concepts. I don't care. So we, we decided that I take Brasserie and he'd take the other three concepts. And that's how we dissolved the partnership. And Brasserie has been around almost 15 years this coming May. So I wanted to put some love back into it. When you do a lot of volume like we do, it beats up the restaurant. I mean, you got so many people, three to five hundred people a day.

[B]

Come brand new tables, I noticed.

[C]

Yeah. Table in here is brand new. They all match perfectly. They all pop up to 6 to 5.

[B]

I noticed that too. I was like, this is nice.

[C]

Yeah. So, yeah, I put a lot of money into the restaurant the last couple of years. I redid the patio at a half million dollars. I redid the bathrooms at almost a quarter million dollars for two bathrooms. I had no ideal bathrooms.

[B]

Bathroom before I leave.

[C]

Oh, man, I got golden toilet in there. But I put a lot of love back into the restaurant.

[B]

I love that. So you mentioned 10 million in total revenue.

[C]

10 million total revenue. It's funny, I tell people, they go, you don't Miss having your restaurants. I go, let me, let me put it in perspective for you. I had four restaurants, possibly five. We split the company up. I have one restaurant. I've quadrupled my income with one restaurant.

[B]

Yeah. I can't wait to get into the details because, I mean, I, I think the restaurant is. Industry isn't always what it seems like. It's, it's not.

[C]

It's a lot of ego. There's a lot of ego involved, and I'm not an ego. This, to me, this is a business.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I, I think that, you know, there's a million and one different definitions of success in this industry, and I want to explore all them. And I think sometimes at surface level, what you think is success might not be success. What looks like success on the outside looking in, it can be deceiving, you know, so I'm really interested to get into the details of why you are the way you are telling how you got here and if life is better or worse. I can't wait to break that down. But before we do, so mentioned the, the 10 million in total revenue. What is your prime cost?

[C]

65.

[B]

65.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And what is your percent profit?

[C]

Right now I'm running at 12. 12.2.

[B]

When you're doing 12 or 10 million a year.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

That's pretty good.

[C]

Yeah. 12.2. I mean, what I use is we run fat. What I mean by that is I use $20 wine glasses. I use the best silverware, I use the best plating. Things like that Olive Garden. Not to say they're wrong or anything. They run more of a 25% cost profit cost. But, but they're, they're serving, you know, tumbler cokes for sodas. They're serving really cheap, little bitty wine glasses. But I don't mind. I spend money. I have the best customers in the world coming here. They're well traveled. Yeah. And when I put out a RL glass or a certain plate, they know the money is in there and it, it shows respect to them.

[B]

Yeah. And there is no one way to be successful in restaurants. That's the one thing I learned. There is no way. When I started this podcast, my goal was to like, chart, like, what is the way to be successful. No, and it's really, you got to reverse engineer what your market wants, what, what you love. And you got to do that, like, Venn diagram of like, what works here. Like, there is no right way. There's just the right way in any given moment with the players that are at the Table.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Including the ownership in the marketplace. Like, you got to. You got to do that dance. So I love talking numbers because it helps set benchmarks for my listeners. And know. Like this.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Like this is possible with this concept in this market. So now that we know what you got going on, let's go back. Actually, first, I almost forgot. We got to get that success, success quote or mantra. We get to that motivational ball rolling. So what do you got for us today?

[C]

Well, I use the philosophy, and I tell everybody from the dishwasher to the hostess to the general manager, there's one word we don't use in this restaurant. It's the word no. No one wants to hear that, especially you. Come in. You don't have reservation. Don't worry about it. I'll take care of you. Give me two minutes. And if you can't seat someone at a. The best table, they want it for their birthday. Explain to them why you can't. Listen. There's. There is already a reservation for there. It's their anniversary. But I'm going to get you the second best table. Just don't say the word no and don't give them excuse. Let them know you were always like, you're doing them a favor, like you're going out of your way for them. That's what I do. I'll do anything for my customer, and they know it. I deliver food when they're sick in the hospital. On the house.

[B]

You guys sell key lime pie, by any chance?

[C]

Key lime? Yeah. No, we don't sell key lime.

[B]

Would you get one for me if I asked?

[C]

Yeah, I did that. I think I said that in the. The last 119, a lady wanted key lime, and Tony Mandela's, where we're sitting right now, served key lime pie. And we called him, and he sold us two pieces of key lime pie. We ran over and got it, brought it back to Ibiza, the restaurant, in 2003, and gave her key lime pie from Tony Mandela.

[B]

So in that circumstance, I'm curious, do you just forward the cost to the bill, or do you just. Is it just on the house?

[C]

No, it's. It's on the house. It's kind of a little thing, because she's going to tell that story for 20 years.

[A]

Marketing.

[B]

Yeah, it's marketing, right? Yeah, it's a good marketing return.

[C]

Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. So, you know, when we first spoke in 2019, it was you and your partner, Grant. We didn't really get into, like, where you were in 2019, like, your organizational structure. And like, what your vision for the future of the restaurant group was. So can you take me back to 2019 and like, so six locations. How many employees do you have?

[C]

Six locations, employees. We had about 370, 400 employees.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

In all the restaurants, Grant really wanted to grow Copa. In other markets, Austin, Dallas, I didn't really want to do that. I wanted to stay in Houston and maybe do different concepts.

[B]

Why Copa out of all the other.

[C]

I think Copa is just a family friendly pizza, pasta. You got kids, you got. You got soccer moms, you got everybody. I mean, Italian is probably the most popular food in the world, and it just has legs to grow, I think. And Grant really wanted to grow it, and I wanted to concentrate on brasserie and. And just kind of, you know, make them all little jewel boxes of restaurants. And, you know, I can't blame him. So we. We sat down. It was his idea. He goes, why don't we split the company up? And I said, you know, I never thought about it, but yeah, that would be good. You know, I was a waiter when I first started back in 1981, and I waited tables for 12 years before I went to coloring school. So my dream was to finish in the kitchen and come back to the dining room as, you know, wearing a suit and hugging all the pretty girls, whatever. But I'm in the front of the house now. I'm not cooking anymore. I have an executive chef here. So, yeah, I'm really happy with having one restaurant, but I'm looking for. I have another concept in mind, and I'm looking for a location. Right now, as we're speaking, I'm getting very close.

[B]

Are you allowed to talk about it? Maybe we save that for later.

[C]

Yeah, maybe later. We can talk about later. I'll give you more details.

[A]

Sounds good.

[B]

I'm gonna put a note here so I don't forget. So what was it about Copa that made it. You know, it was a coppa or Copa, sorry, Copa coppa. That had. Gave it legs. Why was it appealing? Why. Why was it scalable?

[C]

I think.

[B]

How did you know that?

[C]

I think the price points were good. The menu is approachable. Everybody loves pizza. Everybody loves pasta. When you're doing items like pasta and you're adding chicken or this, those are items that the ingredients consistently say at a. At a price where you can do it all the time.

[B]

Flour and water.

[C]

And brasserie is different. I mean, when you're dealing with seafood, seafood fluctuates. When you're dealing with beef, right now, beef, the highest, it's ever been in 30 years I can remember. And. But I think Copa just had. You could keep the price, the control of your ingredients, your cost of goods. Two things kill you in the business. People think high rents, high rent doesn't kill you. Two things, cost of goods and labor. Those two things will kill you. Yep.

[B]

Those are your prime costs right there. We talked about earlier, what your prime cost was hovering at right now.

[C]

Would you say 65?

[B]

65. So why, what, why did you want to focus on brasserie? What was it about Brasserie 19 that made you really want to?

[C]

Well, I travel a lot, I like France, go to Paris a lot. And when I would look at brasseries over there, These brasseries were 100 years old.

[A]

50.

[C]

100. Brasserie Lipp, my favorite brasserie, was built before the eiffel Tower in 1880 in the same location. And look at Johnny Cromb. He's an Italian restaurant. It's been around almost 40 years. It's hard to have a restaurant to stay relevant more than six, seven, eight years. And brasserie, I think, like I compare it to the New Orleans restaurant Galatoise. Galatoise in New Orleans. It's got a classic look. Nothing's ever changed. But it's polished. It's. It's just a jewel box of a restaurant. And that's what I really want. I want something people a 10 year old girl 20 years from now goes, wow, I got engaged at Brasserie 19 or I had my first child and went to Brazil. 19. But that's what I want. I want something iconic like Johnny is built with Kravis.

[B]

Yeah, I had him on the guest as well. We actually referenced him a lot in the first guy. I should probably try to reconnect with him.

[C]

Oh man, I'd love to do a joint podcast with him. We'd have fun.

[B]

Yeah, he's. What did he say that always stuck with me? Oh, he, he emphasized the importance of enthusiasm.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And whenever you walk into the room, you have to be the most enthusiastic person. And when you walk into a room, people are going to be at a baseline. And your job is to raise that baseline every time you walk into the room because you will. Either you got to be really mindful of that energy you bring because you can bring people down, or you can bring them up. You have to choose to bring them up every time. That for some reason like that always stuck with me.

[C]

I got a text this morning from a lady. She goes, you don't know me, but my name is Carmen. She was here Watching the last game of the World Series. It was a good game, the Dodgers in Toronto. And she was sitting over here on the banquette. And I study fashion. I tell what people are wearing, and they were well traveled. I think they're from Mexico City. She had a poochie dress on, and they were finished. I go, y' all want another drink? No, we're just watching the series. I go, well, enjoy. I go, but I'm buying you a drink. So what are you having? You're having a cognac. You're having this? Okay. I bought them all drinks, like, five people. And I commented on her outfit. I go, I love poochie. It's one of my favorite dress designers. And I got a text this morning. She goes, hi, this is Carmen. You don't remember this problem, but you bought us round of drinks. And you commented on my outfit, and you really made me feel so special. We're coming back Friday night before. I love that. Yeah. And. And I sent that text and I showed all my managers. I said, it just takes a little bit of kindness to make people feel special. And now she's going to come back and, you know, probably spend another five or six hundred dollars.

[B]

One sentence. How would you define hospitality?

[C]

Just never saying the word no and doing anything the customer asks.

[B]

Yeah, I love that. And when I hearing you share your story reminded me of Will Guerdera. He pointed something out. He's like, hostility is seeing somebody, and when you are willing to do whatever they ask and you never say no, and you make them feel, like, important and special, like, in that moment, you are seeing them. And I don't think we realize how significant it is relative to human needs. Like, we literally need to be seen. It's like the third thing on the hierarchy of needs, above, like, food and shelter, then security. Like, I feel safe and secure. And then beyond that, it's being seen and loved and, like, value acknowledgment. Yeah, that's how important it is.

[C]

It is.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. Especially when I walk by, I'll hear people out the corner. You know, I'll just say, oh, that's the owner. And so this is all touchy. I don't. No, you can add it to whatever, but there's a demographic of people that don't. When they come in without reservations, they don't get great tables. And I don't understand that. It happens in every restaurant. So when I see that, I try to move them to a better table. Whatever. I go over and spend time with them more than Anybody else and make them feel special. And I've always done that. And I introduce myself and I treat them with nothing but the best respect. Yes, sir. No, sir, things like that. And I make their time here special because they don't get that in a lot of restaurants. And you know, some people, if you don't look a certain way, they just don't. They don't give you the attention you need, which I think is wrong.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It is wrong.

[C]

20, 25 years ago, the guy getting on a private jet had a briefcase in a suit. Today he's got tattoos, got his hat backwards, and he's getting on a G5, you know. Right. You can't read a book by its cover. Nor should you.

[B]

You're right, it's wrong. And I think it's also, we have to give ourselves a little grace because I think it's also human nature to gravitate to. Towards people who might look more like us. Yeah, it's how we evolved. And I think that is a prime example of choosing to be conscious and to recognize that that human instinct to gravitate towards people who talk and look like you is a. Is a.

[C]

It's.

[B]

It's what we do instinctually. And that no longer serves us when we, you know, going back 10,000 years ago, we, we all we knew was people like us. So we evolved to gravitate towards that security. Remember, one of those needs was security. And when you saw people who had. Who spoke different or a different culture or beliefs, that was literally a threat to you because they might want to kill you for not agreeing. Or maybe they have some kind of. Look what happened when the English or the Spanish came to, you know, America in South, Central America, like they might be carrying something that you, you don't have an immunity to. So there was actually evolutionary purposes of why we. We tend to not gravitate people to people that aren't like us. But that was 10,000 years ago.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like that instinct no longer the same reason why we're always anxious and nervous because we thought a lion was going to kill us. We don't have to think about that anymore. Like it doesn't serve us anymore. So choosing to override that initial gut instincts for some people.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

To say this, like, this is wrong, like I treat people equal. I think it's important to recognize that, like that feeling that you might get, no matter what side of the aisle you're on, to recognize it and say, okay, I recognize this, but that's not serving me or the situation or the greater good.

[C]

Yeah, right.

[B]

What are your thoughts on that?

[C]

I agree 100%. I mean it would be. When people are different, I always tell other people they'll, they'll look at them strange. I go look, if everybody dressed the same, it be a boring world. If everybody looked the same, it'd be a boring world. And B19 is known as the best people watching in the whole city. And I always make a joke, I said, you don't have a party unless you have a hooker, a preacher and an accountant in the room. You know, you need a mix of everybody. And people have tables over here in the gallery area where they like to sit so they can people watch and they, they'll joke with me. What time does the show start tonight, Charles? I go about 8:20, you know, so they, they know the restaurant well.

[A]

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[B]

So, okay, back to where you were in 2019. 375 employees, approximately six locations. Did I get those numbers right? Okay, yeah. What was your hierarchy? So it was you and Grant at the top as co founders?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And what lanes were you in? Did you guys complement each other?

[C]

We complement each other. Grant was very into the look of the. Of the restaurant, the aesthetics. I was more in to the food part of it. But Grant has a great palette too, and he's well traveled. But yeah, and we basically, the first 10 years of our partnership, we almost finished each other's sentences. We knew what colors we like. We knew what. We had shirts made up at our first restaurant called the Rules of Change. We made Arlen Poice, where the rules change, have changed, and they go. People go, what does that mean? It just goes. This is in an old, stuffy restaurant like it used to be. The rules have changed. It's whatever happens, happens.

[B]

Right.

[C]

It's going to be positive. It's going to be fun. And we're not selling wine four times the cost. We're selling wine almost at retail prices. We're just shaking it up and making it all different, making it more fun.

[B]

I think you can take it even a step further and say there are no rules in restaurants.

[C]

Yeah, there are no rules. Rules.

[B]

Yeah. I think Danny Myers is famous for saying that. Like, who says he can't?

[C]

He waits in line at his own restaurants. I have nothing but respect for that.

[B]

Yeah, that is cool. So 2019, again, you guys, you. You're more back of house, focusing on the food, and he's more aesthetic design, front of house. What were the actual business titles? Like, who did you have hired on your team?

[A]

Were there.

[B]

Did you have executives or.

[C]

We had a director of operations, Mark Cantu. The. At the time, he came from Mario Batali Group in New York, relocated in Houston. We're lucky to get him. He was very good. And then we had Brandy Key, who was our culinary director. Okay. And Brandy Key is with the Dish Society people now. And so that's what that was, the. The layout. And then we had, of course, GMs and all the restaurants, and. And then it broke down, you know, to managers, assistant managers, and then wait staff, and all the way down to the dishwasher. Okay.

[B]

Did you ever explore getting, like, was there a plan to scale. Like, did you have like a shared vision at that point that you were working towards?

[C]

Well, we basically love location. I was a location guy if like this restaurant right here. We had a Bees at the time and I think Catalan and Chris Shepard worked for us at Catalan and Tony Mandela's left this in Weingarten who owned the center. They called us and said, would you like this space? And to me, it was a no brainer. And we already had. We wanted to do a brasserie because there's not one brasserie to see. Nobody knew what brasserie is. My mom pronounces brassiere 19. And I'm like, you know, people go brassiere. But I knew a brasserie would work because it's an all day cafe. It's, it's, it's the restaurant for the people. So this location fell in our lap and we signed the lease I bet within 30 days, which is real quick to sign a lease. So we're very happy with this. But I'm driven by location. If the location comes, we have probably five to six concepts that are ahead. We'll say this concept will work at this location, like Copa. When it came, we said, oh, it's got to be there because it's soccer moms. It's, you know, the house.

[B]

You're thinking demographic marketplace.

[C]

Yes, Demographic. Yeah, think that. And then the concept comes. But location is so key. Yeah.

[B]

So back in 2000 when you started when you said, let's go into business together, that's when you got established. Right. You were together for 19 years by 2019. Was there a vision back then and where were you on that in that. That journey to achieving your vision by 2019?

[C]

Yes, we. I had an ideal of. Grant was more up front of the house. Think he was waiting tables and I was cooking in a kitchen. And I had an idea of selling wine at almost retail, you know, very reduced prices. And I just thought, anybody coming to buy a $30 bottle of wine that's usually 50 is going to jump up from 30 to 50. The 50 bottle used to be selling at 100, so. And it was a feeding frenzy. People would come in and go, oh my God, I'm gonna try a bottle of this. Let's get a bottle of this. I'm gonna get this to go. And we're selling so much wine. And when you sell so much wine.

[B]

The volume makes up for the.

[C]

It's a Costco effect. Yeah, you get more buying power. The wine guy calls you, hey, you're going through 30 cases of VUV. A week we're gonna give to you at $30 a bottle. So now you give the okay so I can sell it even cheaper. Yep, Yep.

[B]

Okay. So I guess what I'm curious at, like, in 2019, actually, I guess we should say, you know, it was in 2022 is when you guys decided to split into your own thing, right?

[C]

Yeah, about 22. But going back, like you said at Ibiza, our first. Grant and I really wanted to do a restaurant together, and we were so excited to do Ibiza. Ibiza came. I lived in Spain for a while in Marbella. And Ibizo is a small island, of course, where they have the DJs and all that. And I remember going there and thinking, God, every night is like a party. If I ever open a restaurant, I'm gonna call it Ibiza because it's. It's a party. And so I called it Ibiza.

[B]

Like, what was. It's a Spanish town, isn't it?

[C]

Yeah, it's a Spanish holiday.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah. And so anyway, I called her the bees, and nobody could pronounce it. And. And you sit with the lisp. I be the. And so anyway, it became really, really good. We had one investor, Ray Wheeler, and he put the money up, I think we did. We did. We built it for a million dollars. That's turnkey. And we paid him back within three years. And then Grant and I really wanted the restaurant to our sale, so we offered. Offered to buy him out. And he gave us a number. He didn't want to be bought out. He gave us a number that was a little high, but we agreed to it. And he said, if you miss one payment, it goes back to payment one. And I said, okay. I was. So I wanted to own this restaurant outright. And so we never missed one payment. Paid him off. I remember seeing that last check. And then Grant. I owned it. We were always. I was 51, 49. I had 51% of the company because I felt that paying myself through culinary school, paying for culinary school, putting my education, that. That's worth another 1%. So they agreed, which is pretty right down the middle anyway. But I had controlling interests. 51% until we split the company up.

[B]

Okay. Yeah. I guess what I'm curious about. So they say when you're going into business, like, we. We know this today, it's shared often if you want to have a vision.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You want to have a shared vision with your partners. Hey, are we going to the same place? Like, what is in the perfect world? What does our future look like, how many restaurants did we own? How many, how much money are we making? What does our life look like? What's our work life balance look like? What are people saying about us if we die in 20 years, what do we want people to say at our funeral? Right. You go through these exercises to share that vision. Did you have a shared vision in the beginning?

[C]

My, my thing is my reputation means more to me than anything. Being honest, hard working, and that was my goal, is to be a true restaurateur. Whether I have one concept or five concepts. Be a true restaurateur and run one of the best run restaurants in the city. And I think doing, you know, close to 10 million and probably right at 10 million this year at a brasserie.

[B]

And the money, by the way, everyone else is down.

[C]

Oh, I know. I can't believe that. Talked to Papa Se House the other night and they were up a little bit, but not much. But you're right, everyone is down. And I don't like to tell people that what the numbers I'm doing. But if you look, I mean, if you come out on Friday night, you know, the Valet's backed up 10 cars to get in. But I'm very, very fortunate. I think it's due to the staff and, and the way we treat our customers. If you're going to spend your last $20 somewhere you want to go where you're going to get the most bang for the buck, that value. Yeah.

[B]

And I'll say it for you, when we share numbers here on the show, it's not about ego. It's not about, it's about sharing knowledge.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And being inspirational and saying, listen, like, here's how I did it. You can do it too. But we gotta share. We gotta lift each other up. We gotta share those benchmarks so we know what's possible.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It keeps us showing up to achieve those things. Right. To hit those numbers, to hit those, those goals. So obviously the pandemic happens. Happened. I don't like to spend a lot of time talking about the pandemic because we know what happened. You know, it was tough. But I do like to fast forward to when we came out of the pandemic, which is right around the time you guys decided to split the, the company and go your own way. So I guess, did you come out of the pandemic stronger?

[C]

I. Oh, my God, yes. But what we learned to do is, you know, we learned to be a lot more efficient. I mean, we were controlling the labor, so minute we were controlling the food, what we bought. But on the other hand, when customers would come in and get something to go, I had a lady, the bill was a hundred dollars and she gave me a check. She goes, give this to the rest staff. It was ten thousand dollar check.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

And that happened probably a handful of times between Copa and here. People would go, here's $10,000 credit between the SAP. But we learned to get really, really efficient with the labor, the cost of goods, everything. It made us stronger.

[B]

Bring me to the labor. What, what did you do to get more efficient? What was something that you implemented? What was it a technology you implemented? Was it just focusing on how can we be more like, how did you move the needle with labor?

[C]

Well, there's a, there's systems we put in place. Like, there's a, every invoice we get, say for eggs, oysters or what, we scan it through this computer system, through this software, and what it does is it breaks down all your. It goes into inventory and it goes into cost and it almost tells you per minute what your costs are.

[B]

Okay, so we're talking about cost of goods now, right? Yes. So do you know the name of the software you use?

[C]

I think it's Chef. Chef's Cook. Chef Cooks or something. We've used two different ones. I'll get you the name later on the show.

[B]

Yeah, I would love to know. So you started leveraging technology to really be good about entering your, tracking your costs and not missing any of the costs.

[C]

Yeah, you know, I'm more old school, but you got to use technology. I mean, there's so much out there now. The open table reservation system, which we run profiles on our customers. Like when say our customer comes in, I know where he likes to sit, I know where he likes to drink. I know he doesn't like this waiter. He loves this waiter. We know every little detail about him. We know their daughters, birthdays, things like that. So it stores, it gives you so much information, so much to work, so much to work with. And the customer doesn't know that. I mean, they're not really thinking about that. They're going, wow, they knew my name. They knew my daughter's name. They knew what her birthday is. And I don't like to send out emails. Happy birthday. I would just, when I walk in, have the staff go, oh my God, it's Candy's birthday. Happy birthday. Yeah.

[B]

Even if the customer knew that you were using a CRM to, essentially, what OpenTable is, is a customer relationship management tool to store that information. The fact that you care enough to make the effort to document it so that they feel valued when they come back is something, you know, like there's no way we can remember thousands of guests, every little detail.

[C]

Johnny Giant crop is the king of it.

[B]

Well, you're so there are savants.

[C]

You go in there twice, they remember your name. All the hosts remember your name. He's the king of it.

[B]

Yeah. And there are some very special people out there, but most of us aren't walking encyclopedias. No retention for of people's names and their little quirks. Right. So we have to rely on that technology. But just going through the motions to make the effort is a statement of hospitality, I think. So were you using open table prior to this point?

[C]

Yes, I was using table for years and the prices went up and it used to be a dollar per person is what you paid. So when you get a part, a party of 20 and they booked it on Open Table, it's $20. So it got real expensive. So we do so much volume with open table. We came to. We met with the corporate people. We came to a cap fee and we pay a cap fee every month. And we don't use a lot of their marketing things. Things because we. I don't, you know, I don't what kind of marketing things they have. Like if you go and put in a French brasserie restaurant, it'll give, it'll shoot out. If you're paying, it'll shoot out. Brasserie 19. So we don't have. We don't pay to have them put our name out there. We'd rather be word of mouth through a society that, you know, word of mouth is.

[B]

Will always be key.

[C]

Yeah, I don't advertise anything like that. Okay.

[B]

I know OpenTable was kind of catching a little heat for a while.

[C]

They were. Yeah, I dropped them. I went with Resy for two years.

[B]

What changed with OpenTable to make you switch back?

[C]

I think they thought about it from the customer's perspective and I told them why I didn't use them. And I'm lucky. I'm OpenTable. I do a lot of volume, so a lot of reservations. So open table wants me, you know, they want me on here. Because other restaurants, other little bitty restaurants to go, what does Brad's reuse Open Table? Well, I'm using open table and so they. Yeah, they do that.

[B]

So just like consumers use word of mouth to find the restaurant. Restaurateurs use word of mouth or they follow the leaders.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

To see what are you doing.

[C]

Yeah. When I travel, I Cross reference it like five times before I go because you can put best, best Asian food or something. And which restaurant will come up and it's, it's sponsored. It's not, it's not even the real deal.

[B]

So you left them, you told them why you left them, details of why.

[C]

I just told him. I said, look, it's too expensive. What I'm paying. It's averaging $2,600 a month. I go, I, I mean, two, six hundred dollars a month, that's that. You know, I could have another manager on the floor for that.

[B]

And how many of your customers were loyal repeat customers there?

[C]

I have a lot of rep, repeat. But there's a lot of customers who live off open table too. It's so easy for them just to open table. Boom. And so it was. It's kind of hard because some customers would, you know that and say, hey, you're not an open table anymore. Yeah.

[B]

Like this is so inconvenient for me to have to not.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. So we're glad to be, we're glad to be back on there.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, you bring up a really interesting point, but I want to hold off on that. I'm really curious on what was it that changed about, about OpenTable that made you come back?

[C]

I think their pricing. They came, they, they were creative with us and said, look, we really want you guys on here. You have a contract with Resi and we'll buy you out of that contract. We'll give you a year free of open table and we'll cap your fees at so and so dollar a month.

[B]

And they wanted your influence.

[C]

Yeah. And I'm like, done. Yeah, we'll do that.

[B]

You also mentioned that earlier they were really designing the platform for the consumer, not the restaurant. Did that change at all?

[C]

Yeah, I think, I think they're going back to the relationship with the restaurants because, you know, the people I've dealt with, they listened to everything I had to say and I think they really cared and they're killing it. You know, they're buying up, I guess, these smaller restaurant reservation systems. But that's the scary thing when you switch. It's like, you know, hell, if I go to Resi, maybe they're going to buy Resi and just.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Bigger.

[B]

Yeah. So I have heard good things about OpenTable recently. I know there was a lot of, there was a lot of tension in the industry towards open table for a while, I think.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

A lot of it had to do with not sharing data.

[C]

Exactly. If you left them, they Took the data with them.

[B]

Do you have the data now?

[C]

Yeah, we made a contract, said, look, if we ever leave you guys in the future, we get our data. They go, yes.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's really important. And the point that I wanted to bring up is that I think we in the industry have to be very mindful about how many other industries wouldn't exist if not for our industry. There's a lot of adjacent industry to the restaurant industry, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think it's a pretty fair statement to say that the, the restaurant is losing the loyalty of the consumer and consumers are becoming more loyal to third parties marketplaces, I. E. Resi, I e. OpenTable, I. E. UberEats, I. E. Google, I. E. Meta. We, we live in a world that's so abundant with relationships that we're not hardwired to be able to manage all the people in our life. We were never meant to bump up against this, this many people. Like it's not humanly natural. Like yeah, we, we grew our, we're used to about 150 relationships through the existence of man kind.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then the 10,000 years ago, you know, agriculture, we started living in cities. Now we're on top of each other. And now with the Internet, it's like there's like we can, we're literally so connected. There's so many points of reference that we have to default to third parties to get our information because word of mouth is just too abundant. Like who do I trust? Right. So you become loyal to the third parties. But even scarier is our habits become tied to third party parties. And an example of that is to your point, when people get mad at you because you're not an open table because you can't make a reservation anymore by tapping a button.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So when the human brain has a neural pathway that says I want a reservation and they just start, they go, they know to go to open table, tap, tap to get to your favorite restaurant and it's not there anymore. Now they're mad because you're literally making it harder for them. But what happens when the third person party owns that habit and owns the data? It's not good for the restaurant.

[C]

No, it's not. Yeah.

[B]

So as I'm saying this, what's going through your mind?

[C]

I'm looking around the restaurant. I don't sit this long and I'm looking around at the tables, the water levels, the cocktail levels of the table and where my managers are and things. Because this is after. It's probably around 2 right now.

[B]

You want to go check on something?

[C]

No, I'm good.

[B]

Okay, cool.

[C]

I'm good. It's just habit.

[B]

So usually when I sit down, I make it a point. Point. You notice your, your back is kind of more towards like.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

I always make it a point to turn my guest away from the dining room because I know that they're going to be distracted.

[C]

Yeah. But I'm good.

[B]

You're doing great. You're doing great. So I don't. I just like to bring this stuff to the surface because I think going forward, as, as the more and more apps get developed, more and more third party marketplaces come on board. I think restaurant owners have to be really intentional about where are we putting our money to support the companies. I want to support us in our business. And how do we retain the relationship with the consumer? Because we got to be really careful to protect that relationship. And I just don't think it's on the radar of most restaurant tours. Is that safe to say?

[C]

Yeah, I'd say. I'd say that. Yeah. Like I, I get asked for a lot of donations. People come ask me donations. And, and my kind of rule is if I recognize them, that means that I recognize them from my restaurant. But I'll have people call me. Can you do a donation for. Remember this ago? What's the address of my restaurant? I don't know. They're just calling every restaurant trying to get this. I like to help people that help me.

[B]

Yeah. How do you feel about donating food instead of money?

[C]

Yeah, any. Anything. Anything they want. I donated. You know, chef dinners for the chef cooks inside their house, you know, for galas, for the ballet, for Texas Children's Hospital, things like that. I like to help any. Anything with kids in it. Yeah.

[B]

So we got down this pathway. We're talking about post 20, 2020 and how it made you come out stronger. You said your prime costs are good, your cost of goods. You start using technology to scan your invoices to really track all of your spending. So you're tracking actual versus theoretical costs.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And we then started talking about labor and how you, you mentioned your labor came down. I don't think you told me how it came down or what you started to do differently to bring it down.

[C]

I, I think what we do is on our toast app. We can pull up the app on our phone and go, okay, it's 8:20 Tuesday night. All my reservations ran. Let's go down to one host. Let's go down to one dishwasher. So let's, let's. Let's get rid of two more waiters. Waiters really don't hurt your labor because they're 213 an hour and people don't understand it. They're 213 an hour. But I had eight waiters that got paid last Friday. And everyone, eight of the 20 something waiters I have on staff, eight of them made over $3,000 on their check, so. Over 3,000. Some made 36. But they make a lot of money here. So the waiters really don't affect me. It's the, it's everything from the hourly people, the salary people don't hurt. That's a fixed cost. So you really got to watch the hourly people. Right.

[B]

So you just really started out of necessity because it was tight time, saying, like, we really got to start watching our labor and be proactive. Just.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Get to get lean when we don't need all these people on.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Were you using any software to help with that?

[C]

No, not really. No. We just. A lot of communication between the management, you know, how many. How many waiters are we running? I mean, host. Are we running with how many bartenders? We're running with the cooks. The cooks are kid because the cooks make a. They make a chunk of change by the hour in there. And, you know, you can't go down too small because you won't be able to get the food out the way it should be. But you really got to watch the kitchen, the labor. I'd say that's the number one thing.

[B]

Got it. Okay, so the year is now 2022. In our story, our timeline, when did the first discussions of dividing the organization, dividing the company, Clark and Cooper start to bubble up? When did that happen?

[C]

That's around 21, I think. Late 21. Grant. We went over to our investor's house. Steve Webster, good guy, and Grant wanted to have a meeting. And Grant says, hey, I want to grow the. I want to grow concepts, different concepts. And some of the concepts he had. I knew I didn't like graffiti. Raw was a concept I wasn't a fan of. Anyway, he wanted to. He said, why don't we split? I don't know if Webster said it or Grant said it, but we came up with that. Grant. Either Grant said it or Mr. Webster said, why don't you split the company up? And I never thought of that. And we both wanted, of course, B19. And so we. They came up with the decision. Okay, here's how it really went down. There was four concepts, and I Was going to take Brasserie and Dunleavy, and Grant wanted Dunleavy. So there was a million five in debt from Saltaire and Dunleavy we'd built.

[B]

Was that due to the pandemic or did you close two concepts?

[C]

Yeah, we closed Saltaire, but the Dunleavy we didn't close. But there was still. We just built them a couple years before. So there was a million five in debt out of.

[B]

You never had the Runway.

[C]

Out of 5 million. There was about a million 5 left in debt out there. And so I. I told Grant, I said, look, I tell you what, you can have all three concepts if you take the million five or if you don't take the million five in debt, I'll take Dun Levy and we'll split the debt. And he thought about it. He goes, okay, I'll take all three concepts. Concepts. And he took the million five. I took Rosary with a healthy bank. Bank account. And. And that's what you wanted? Yeah, that's what I wanted in the first place. Yeah.

[B]

Where is Grant today?

[C]

He's. He's at Copa. He. He's. He's there every day. Copa, of course, he has Graffiti Raw. I don't think they're doing great. They're in that by Mormo behind Uchi. And then he has Flora Florida as well. It's a kind of a interior, Mexico City type cuisine. And it's a beautiful. It's like a tree house that, you know, the Dunlave, what's called Flora. So it's all glass right there on the bayou. So it does well. And. So, yeah, Copa and Florida do well. And I. I'm sure he's working on some more concept. He's. The guy has more concepts in his head.

[B]

When he. Originally, whoever it was who suggested this originally said, let's split it up. What was your emotion? Was there. Was there a sting? Or did you just instantly think that's probably a good idea?

[C]

Grant and I kind of grew up together. He was a bartender when I first met him in Dallas.

[B]

Business partner for 22 years. And you worked together before that.

[C]

And I admired that partnership because most partnerships don't work out. And we were flawless together, and we trusted each other and all that. And, you know, it was sad to see the partnership come to an end. But, you know, I guess you just. You grow apart and you want. He wants to do his things, and I wanted to do my thing, and. And that was about it. So we just, you know, said, yeah, but we're still friends. Yeah.

[B]

It seemed like it was a very amicable. Amicable. Wow, this is a hard word to spit out sometimes. Oh, it was amicable departure.

[C]

It was. People would like to read more into it, but it's not. He's, you know, I. I text him the other day, and I sent him a party of 22 people to his restaurant floor for a birthday party.

[B]

What advice do you have for people listening to this who might be discussing going their own ways and how to do it as civil as possible?

[C]

Take the high road. Always. Because you don't want to burn bridges in the city. It's a big city, don't get me wrong. It's a lot of people here, but it's a small city. And when you burn bridges, whether with maybe an old landlord or something, but you just. Just take the high road. Even if it hurts a little bit, even if you're gonna, you know, have to suck it up, just take the high road. It'll come back and bless you later on down the line. Yeah.

[B]

What about in terms of. Did you have a partnership agreement going into this years ago?

[C]

We never had an agreement. It was a handshake. Yeah.

[B]

And I think, you know, when you're friends with people, like. And you have that rapport, there's a little less risk involved. Hindsight being 20 20, would you have gone through those motions to set up a partnership agreement?

[C]

No.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

It. It didn't matter. I mean, it didn't matter between us. We. We got a couple lawyers together, and we. We did the split in about three months.

[B]

At least you got lawyers involved, which is really.

[C]

Oh, yeah, we had to because it. You know, we're dealing with money. You're dealing with leases, you're dealing with liquor license. So we had to cover our ass.

[B]

Any other lessons you learned during this time that might help somebody listening to this to give them to make them prepared advice, things you didn't realize before. That's the first time you ever split up a company before, right?

[C]

Yeah, it's the first time I split up a company. I think the best advice I can give you is don't act like you know it all. You. If you have to hire an attorney, if you don't know something, whoever knows it, let them do it. Let them explain it to you. You know, there's more than one ways to skin a cat. What they say, but I know my strengths, and I know my weaknesses. And I know my weaknesses. I go to people and have them. Hey, I'm weak at this. Can you help me with this Human resources. I'd Say, I don't like to. I don't like to deal with all the human resource part of it. I love to. I. Being in the dining room. I love training the waiters. I love training staff. I love taking care of the customer.

[B]

Some would argue that that's human resources. Right. The training development is part of the human resources.

[C]

Yeah, I just guess it would be. I'm just saying I don't want to write train. I don't want to write training manuals. I'd rather be a hands on documentation showing them how to open a bottle of wine correctly.

[B]

Showing them how to instructing. Not necessarily creating the training material.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

What about like the. I don't want to be on a computer onboarding. Right. That kind of stuff and document, like making sure that the. The tax documents and everything are like, do I have everything I need legally?

[C]

I have an accounting company called Serbon county and their national company and you know, I pay them quite a bit and. But they, they do everything from my personal taxes all the way down. They cover my butt with paying the TABC taxes, paying payroll taxes, paying all that. That's what really gets you in trouble is not paying your payroll taxes.

[B]

So it's actually in full transparency and everybody knows because they've heard the ads. Sir Boni is a sponsor of this podcast.

[C]

Oh, I didn't know that they are. Yeah.

[B]

And I was actually here last week.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was here with Maria and Joshua and we were sitting on the patio and we roll up.

[C]

I was wondering, why were you with them? I didn't know. I didn't know. I thought y' all were just friends.

[B]

Yeah, well, we are. I hope we are now.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, it seems I'm getting along with them. I hope they don't mind me. So we rolled up, we. And we got a bottle of wine and I was like, I've been here before. And I was like, oh, Brasserie nights. I was like, oh, I had Charles Clark and Grant on the show like six years ago.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then I wasn't expecting to see you. And then there you are, you were here and you sat down with us and it was kind of. It was. It was a really great treat to be able to see you and to recognize the space. I was in the past and was not expecting to connect with you on this road trip out here.

[C]

I'm glad it happened. Yeah.

[B]

And I love connecting with past guests because I feel like you kind of understand what to expect. We have a little bit of rapport and we get to go Deeper.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Because now I'm not covering 20 years of a career, 40 years of a career. I'm covering the last six years.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So I really love it. It was a. It was a really nice treat to be able to bump into you naturally. So we made it happen. We're here. So, sir, Bony Services, they cover your accounting, your payroll, your taxes. Are you leveraging their fractional CFO services as well?

[C]

Yeah, they. We meet with them probably once. We actually have a meeting tomorrow, a zoom call. But they go over every deal detail with us on a prime cost. They point out, hey, you're every little thing from. Hey, there's a manager that has too much comps there. Your comp went up a half percent. Why? They point out every little detail. And so, yeah, I mean, I remember the first time I met with them, they. They gave me a B19 folder. And the folder was so beautiful. I go, now I know I'm paying you too much.

[B]

What is a B19 folder?

[C]

Brasserie 19. It was A. A folder of all the costs and everything. And it was every detail. It was like a book. And I'm like, now I know I'm paying you too much. If you can produce this.

[B]

Well, here's a serious question. Do you think you're paying them too much?

[C]

No, I don't think I'm paying them too much. I think I'm. I'm paying them. They're a good company. I mean, if I email them, they respond within 10 minutes. I call them anything I've ever wanted. They've done the counting I had before. I'm going to mention names. It was the worst accounting. And she was with us for 20 years.

[B]

Don't mention the names. But why was it horrible?

[C]

Oh, we never got P. Ls. We go a year without P and L. What were you.

[B]

What was your. Do you know what your general ledger they were using, was it QuickBooks or.

[C]

It was probably QuickBooks. There was no certified public accountant. It was an accountant, but not certified keeper. Yeah.

[B]

Did she specialize in restaurants?

[C]

Yeah, it was in the Woodlands. It was in Tomball Woodlands.

[B]

Here.

[C]

It was way too far. Never. They never wanted to meet.

[B]

Even though they did specialize in restaurants, though.

[C]

Yeah, they had about 20 restaurants.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah, but they're nothing like Siboni. Siboney is world class.

[B]

What's the difference?

[C]

Brownie is. It's. They're on top of their game. I mean, they've had an answer for everything I've ever questioned them. Like, I have to go pick up something at their office. It's ready right now. I'm gonna leave after, you know, 15 minute drive.

[B]

That's where I came from.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

I really do believe in that company and I, I look forward to being able to connect with people that I know and trust like you who are using tools that are referred to me organically. And if I have to promote companies, I want to be in love with that company.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I first discovered Siboney by Jason Carrier from Mama Betty's. I don't know if you're familiar, he actually came up in the world of nifa's.

[C]

Oh yeah.

[B]

The OG Fajita concept. Yeah. And he, he just had amazing things to say about this company. I was like tell me more. And he did. And I've just gotten the most incredible testimonials and it just makes me feel good to know that I'm, I'm aligning my brand with companies that are actually making a difference. And I like, I sincerely believe that that business model of fractional CFOs and like knows the teal accounting services is the only way possible that that combined with a very restaurant geared enterprise solution tech stack. So do you know what technology you're using in conjunction with Toast or are they handling all that?

[C]

They're handling all that. I, I do know when I meet when with them. They represent a lot of restaurants across the country. Chicago area too.

[B]

Over 800 locations.

[C]

Yeah. And, and I'm always trying to get information from them like on other restaurants and they're so good about. They never open their mouth. They don't.

[B]

I tried.

[C]

They're. They are so private. It's crazy.

[A]

Well that's important.

[B]

You know, honestly I was really trying to get them to talk about the world of their technology partners too.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Because they have a lot of different technologies partners and I was trying to get them to divulge like which, which technology do you like the best? Like. Yeah, which ones. But they have partnerships with a lot of these companies. They're very professional. They're very, I try to get them to spill. Yeah, they did successful and they, they.

[C]

Know I'm trying to and it's kind of funny.

[B]

So when did you start working with them?

[C]

Oh God, it's been two years, so 2023. Yeah.

[B]

Why did you like, what was it that made you make this decision?

[C]

I interviewed like five or six restaurant concepts. Who do you use? Who use, who do you recommend? And Cerberoni kept coming back and so when I met with them I man they were just so professional. And it made me feel comfortable knowing that the volume of restaurants they do, the accounts they have that do some $15, 20 million in revenue. And I said, man, if they can handle them with ease, they're going to handle me with, with these. And it just made me so much more comfortable. Yeah.

[B]

And they're very personable in one sentence. What is Cerboni to you?

[C]

Savoni is like kind of like a lifeline to my, my numbers in my restaurant. You know, it just, I just feel comfortable knowing that I'm not going to have to audit them in a couple of years or whatever. They're just a, you know, world class organization.

[B]

And you're not going to have to set a computer.

[C]

Exactly. I don't want to set up a computer. I'd rather clean 300 pounds of fish instead of the computer.

[B]

Yeah, I'm with you on that. There's a reason why I drive across the country.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

Like, it's because I don't want to sit at a computer.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's like I still sitting at a computer, but at least I get to see a real person not through a screen, you know?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So do you remember where your number, your prime costs were prior to two years ago?

[C]

That's probably closer to 67. 68.

[B]

67 to 68. So they brought you down from 67, 7. 68, let's say 68 to. What is it? 62, 60.

[C]

64. 65.

[B]

64. So three points.

[C]

Yeah. It's a lot when you're doing 10 million. It is, yeah.

[B]

What is that? I'm so bad at that. What is.

[C]

Yeah. Oh my God. It's six figures.

[B]

Six figures?

[C]

Yeah. Wow.

[B]

And that all goes to profit?

[C]

Yeah, all goes to the bottom line.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

What about, what else since I last talked to you in terms of how you think. I mean, you're, you now own one restaurant, right?

[C]

When I, when I took this restaurant over, there was two five year options left. And I'm in my first five year option. So that's only about eight years left. And so Kymco, who bought this, they, the whole center, they want, they were gonna build that patio no matter what. And then we're just gonna put concrete and a fence out there and. And that was it. So I said, okay, I tell you what, what if I build a patio, I pay it for it myself. And the only thing I want from you to extend my lease right now, give me two more five year options. And they go, you're going to pay for your patio. And they go, I go yeah. And he goes, well, what's it gonna look like? So I hired a team out of New York and I said, look, I gave them 10 brasseries in Paris and they came up with this look. I said, okay, so that cost me damn near 50, 50, 70,000 just to pay them to do the design.

[B]

But why did you win in this scenario, do you think?

[C]

Because I got, they were gonna. Before I came up with this deal, they were going to extend my lease, but they were going to raise the rent a lot more. The numbers were going to be higher. So I said, look, I'll pay for my own patio. I'll put at least quarter million dollars in patio. But the numbers stayed the same on the two five year options. Okay. And they go deal.

[B]

But you've spent 7,70,000 on the patio. Not.

[C]

No, no, no, no, I spent, that was just the designer. 70 for the design for some, you know, of all that. And then the, the cost of each umbrella. There's three umbrellas with heaters.

[B]

I saw those.

[C]

Each umbrella was 20,000 each. Yeah. The tile fence. And then when you build concrete, poor concrete out there, you have to have water retain. That was 220,000. That was the bulk of it.

[B]

So I had closer to 300,000.

[C]

Yeah. So when you add it all up and I'll probably come out a little bit ahead after the 17 years of leases up, but I feel comfortable with the lease I have in front of me.

[B]

So the lease that you had going into that deal, what percent, what percent of that was of your total revenue, your lease?

[C]

I'd say probably 5.8.

[B]

Okay, so you're two points below what they say.

[C]

Yeah, I try to, I try to keep 5% almost school. But yeah, I'm, I'm below. Yeah.

[B]

And where would it have been if they raised it?

[C]

I think it would have been six.

[B]

Three, six, three.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so you still would have been below the seven, which is good.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But you think you're, you're winning a little bit. But you also don't know what could happen in the marketplace. You like. No, the cost of things keep going up. You don't know that it would be 60. Maybe it could have been something different like after. Well, you said you extended it, but.

[C]

I pay percentage rent too. That's the only thing I have a percentage rent I have to pay. I write a check for about 150,000 a year every, every June. So I just paid that a few months ago. But, and then you put, you know, you divide that by 12 months and put that into your rent. Yeah. And so yeah, volume takes care of everything. Volume brings your labor down because you know, you have a full kitchen with seven cooks, eight cooks and, and you're doing 30,000 and then you jump up to 40,000. That's all you got. The same cooks doing 30,000 or 40,000? Yeah.

[B]

I mean I would like to point out that you have a full bar right now and it's 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon.

[C]

That's every day.

[A]

It's.

[C]

You can't make this up.

[A]

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[B]

Expect more, but it's also 2:30 on a Wednesday. But full bar is a beautiful thing to see.

[C]

I had a waiter started with me last year and I said, you will have a thousand dollar day where you make $1,000 in one day in tips. He goes, I've never made a thousand. I go, you will have a thousand. About three weeks later comes up to me, man. He goes, I just made $1,000. And I looked at him. I go, it's only Wednesday.

[B]

That's awesome. So anything we haven't discussed, you know, any areas, topics, things I should know about you, your, your business model, your ethos, things that you think people need to know.

[C]

The other. There's a couple things that I want to get off my chest. Ever since the Michelin star system, you know, came to Houston a couple years ago. Yeah, you know, when I go, I don't, when I go to Paris or Europe, I see Michelin stars. I might eat a restaurant and be surprised or like, oh my God, this is a Michelin star. It's two stars. You know, I don't really. Look, I don't pick a restaurant based on the Michelin, but if I happen to eat there and it's got a Michelin star, I said, well, I must, you know, I know what I'm doing. But all these people, I could care less about a James Beard award. I care less, I could care less about a Michelin star because this is a business. I want to, I want to make money in this business. And I told someone, I don't mean this in a cocky way. I said, you can have your James Beard award. I'll drive my new Porsche to work. You know, it's like money, you know, it's. Look at Johnny Carrabba. He's got Mia's, he's got Carrabba's. I mean, he owns his own dirt, which is insane on Kirby to own Your own land. He's never got a Michelin or James Beard award. He doesn't care about that. I don't know why people are so caught up in this James Beard Michelin thing. I know most restaurants that get them in Houston, they'll be gone in four years. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But mean, they're winning Michelin stars. They have James Beard Awards. They must be making money, right?

[C]

No, not at all. Not at all. There's a couple of. Probably make some money, but that was a trick question. What's that?

[B]

That was a trick question. No, I, I, I hear you and I agree with you. And I honestly, in full transparency, when I started this podcast.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

13 years ago.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was like, well, how do I find guests? Like, what's the best way to find guests? The way I found guests.

[A]

Guests.

[B]

What, before I started developing a network and using this word of mouth and, like, system that I use now where you will refer me to future guests, you actually referred me to Damien Watel, and I got him on the show when I was in San Antonio, you know, and like, that's how I do it. Because I started to learn. I was getting, I was chasing James Beard award winners and Michelin star winners and food and wine magazine features.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And my naivety told me that these are the people that must be successful at making money. Right. Because they're getting all this, these accolades.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then I started getting more and more confidence and brave about ask, let's talk numbers. You know, like, this is a business podcast. Like, how are you doing it? And then I started to realize the people that are winning the awards aren't making any money.

[C]

No.

[B]

And, or not all of them. Some are, you know, but there was a high percentage rate of some where I started talking about money. I'm like, like, what are your prime costs? We're struggling to stay in the black.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

And it's like, well, why? Well, because you're chasing awards.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you, in order to get those awards, you have to do kind of crazy things with your labor costs and your cost of goods to stick out.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, you gotta. I think things are changing a little bit with the James Beard. I think that they kind of are.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

It's, it's, There is an issue. So in your opinion, why do people, why do they care about awards?

[C]

I think it's, it's, I think it's an ego thing. I think it's an ego thing. I think if you do get a James Spirit Award, maybe the, the, if you're trying to do a restaurant deal. The, the, the landlord's gonna look at you a little differently. Oh, he's a James Beard. He must be good. So I'm gonna give him the lease or whatever. But you take somebody you know that's a worker, you know, DeMarco Marco Wiles restaurant. He worked in his restaurant for years. He never went out in the dining room really. He never really said hello to people. I don't know if he's shy or what, but he still. DeMarco's considered one of the best Italian restaurants in the city. And he built that out of nothing. All the old school operators like Mark Cox who had marks years ago, all these old school operators, they're kind of disappearing. Tony Vallon, you know, passed away a few years ago and he was one of my heroes. Heroes because you know, he had four or five concepts over the years that did well.

[B]

Landry's.

[C]

What's that?

[B]

Was he with Landry?

[C]

No, no, no. Tony's okay. He started La Grilla. Okay. Tillman did buy Lagrillia and Tillman brought Grotto from him.

[A]

That's what I was.

[C]

But Tony Belong started Grotto, La Grille and Tony's.

[B]

I knew there was a connection there. Yeah, yeah. I think back to what we were discussing earlier relative to consumers are more loyal to third parties. Michelin star and James Beard is considered a third party. I don't think what people. We hold these things in such high regard but at the end of the day, these are marketing platforms. Yeah, they are. Michelin star was literally born out of a marketing campaign for Michelin tires.

[C]

And I believe, and you know, somebody might not agree with me, but I believe the James Beard, the Michelin thing is a little woke.

[B]

Well, they have, they, they try to self correct after a while because they caught a lot of heat because I think people started to talk about how the James Beard was more about politicking and playing the game.

[C]

It is.

[B]

And then once they started to realize it was a white guys club and.

[A]

They said, oh shit, yeah, yeah.

[B]

They figured this out and then they way over corrected.

[A]

And don't get me wrong, I think.

[B]

That we could be to your point earlier, people that walk into a restaurant that are of a different culture.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Or don't look like everyone else.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Tend to be put in the not so great seats. And the same thing was happening with award culture. So the award culture people hard corrected. And then it was more about over correcting and just making, making sure everybody sees that we're trying really Hard to be more inclusive.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But then it's like, well, who's the actual best restaurant?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, does that matter anymore?

[C]

You're right.

[B]

And it's just, it's, it's an over. It's. Yeah, it's more people. You won't hear people talk about it because they're afraid of biting the hand that feeds them.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

And if you get the award, you will have a very busy year.

[C]

Yeah, I remember.

[B]

Until somebody else gets the award.

[C]

Marco Pierre White, one of the famous. He's the only chef that got three Michelin stars without going through Paris, without going through France. He never stepped foot on French soil and got three Mission stars, which has never been done. He gave back his merchant stars. He goes, man, I don't want these. I don't want them anymore. And I read his book Wide Heat, and that's one of the. That's one I started. That's why I said, man, I don't really care about awards. Yeah. I care about butts and seats.

[B]

But yeah, I mean, and to your point earlier, it's a, it's a, like it's a brasserie. Like, it's a European restaurants, I think, think have been able to hang on to the roots of the restaurant industry much better than American concepts. Have been much more transactional.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

You know, much more about ego. I think you have the right approach.

[C]

Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I second guess myself. I go, wait, I'm not thinking this. Am I doing this right? I mean, it feels natural what I'm doing. I'm taking care of the guests. I'm in the dining room. I'm doing this. Sometimes you second guess.

[A]

Are you happier?

[C]

I'm much happier. Happier. I would, I would. I tell people I would do this for free. I'm just, I'm out there with people and people, when I see their face and they come up, they go, thank you for having this restaurant. I've never been to a restaurant like this in my life. And these people travel. It makes me feel so good because me going to Paris, going to St. Bart, going to New York City, Palm beach, and getting little bitty details from all these little restaurants. Like this water bottle right here came from. I found this at the Polo Bar Bar in Ralph Lauren. Polo Bar in New York City. What's beautiful about this bottle is not only is it a well made water, it's one of the top waters. Looks like wine, doesn't it? If you're sitting three tables across, it looks like I'm pouring wine into a Glass. And people think that and go, you know what? I think I have some wine or I'll have a bottle of wine.

[B]

But I see monkey do neurons, mirror neurons, popping off Belvozor, New York, which.

[C]

Is one the of the busiest restaurants in the United States, they pour all of their iced tea refills out of wine bottles, so it looks like they're pouring wine. Little bitty details. Yeah.

[B]

We're already over an hour into this conversation. Does it feel like it's been an hour? It feels like 10 minutes fast, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So the mission statement is to inspire, empower, and transform the industry. We talked a lot about, you know, what's happened. I think, you know, hearing your values is very inspirational. Sharing some of the knowledge, knowledge and the things that you've done today to pivot, to evolve in terms of transformation. I think we've also talked about what's, you know, what the industry might be guilty of in the past and waking people up to make it a more purposeful, driven industry where we're not ego driven and, you know, I don't know, chasing awards, Right?

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

But in that. On that vein of transformation.

[A]

Anything else.

[B]

That you think we need to create awareness about for a better future? Are you worried about the future? Like, what do you think the future holds?

[C]

One thing? I try to retain my employees, and I'm thinking, how do I do that? Christmas bonus is what I do. So I sit down with Eric in my gym and about two years ago, and I said, you know what? Let's look at a healthcare program from the dishwasher to the general manager, that I can pay 100%. They don't come out of pocket one penny. And finally I found a, you know, a program, a package where everyone that's with me is. Is. Has health insurance. Wow. And I feel good about that. It makes me feel good knowing if somebody hurt themselves, they can go to their doctor.

[B]

Right. You know, we also like to squawk in the industry about people not taking the industry seriously. Yeah, but how can we be taken seriously if we don't take their lives, livelihood seriously and their health seriously?

[C]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

So what is the program you're using? Is there a company that you're going through to make this?

[C]

Erica has more the details on that. But it's. I use a medical. Not a medical, an insurance guy that came up with three or four packages for us and said, hey, this cost you this. This will cost you this, but they'll have better care with this. They'll have good care with this. So I chose one of the three packages, you know, gold, silver, bronze, whatever. And so there's no cost out of pocket for me, any of my. Any of my employees.

[B]

Is this a local firm that you're going through or is it like a company that does this, specializes in creating.

[C]

A company, Specializes in it.

[B]

Does that look like a very important conversation over there? If I were to. Is it a meeting?

[C]

No, you're good. You.

[B]

Can I ask.

[C]

Yeah, ask her.

[B]

Erica. Erica, I have a question for you.

[D]

Yeah, of course.

[B]

Do you want to come over here real quick? Sorry to interrupt. We're talking about insurance.

[C]

Talking about how everybody has a health insurance. You and I came up with that a couple years ago. And who do we use for that? Assured Partners. There you go. Assured Partners.

[D]

Assured Partners.

[B]

Do you handle that programming or like.

[D]

I help answer questions for it. But no, the Assured Partners, there's a team there that runs the mec.

[B]

What is Insured Partners?

[D]

Assured Partners, it's just a local Houston based insurance brokerage firm that specializes in restaurants and hospitality.

[B]

Can you get into the details as to why, what they do to make it affordable and approachable for restaurants?

[D]

Well, the MEC program run by bma, I can't remember exactly what it stands for. They put together and. And it's like running off of the aca. It's a similar. It's a basically this. A similar program as the Affordable Care Act.

[B]

Got it. Thank you very much.

[D]

Compliant with the Affordable Care Act.

[B]

I want to get that information. I appreciate that.

[C]

That help.

[B]

Are they local, just here to Austin, or they do national work?

[D]

Assured Partners is just, as far as I know, just Houston.

[C]

Got it.

[D]

The MEC plan might be nationwide.

[B]

Yeah, thank you very much. I wanted to get that. I sounded like a very good company. I like getting credit. Credit or credit's due. So I appreciate.

[C]

You see, those are my weaknesses. I don't.

[B]

You don't have to be good at everything. That's all we got Erica's for.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Thank you, Erica. So insurance, you're. You're stepping up your insurance game because you know, that's really important. Anything else?

[C]

That's one way holidays I love giving. Christmas mornings, everybody. I have a bartender who works the service bar. He's really fast, makes all the drinks for the waiters. And you know, I'm gonna surprise him with envelope with $1,000 in it, you know, for Christmas shopping. And I think I'm gonna give everybody a gift this year and, and make sure everybody has a good Christmas bonus.

[B]

How would you say your Culture is. On a scale from 1 to 10.

[C]

1 to 10, I'd say it's probably about 9.

[B]

What makes it a 9?

[C]

We listen to everybody. If someone has a problem, like, had a young girl, her father died in Mexico, and she needed a thousand dollars to bury him. And I gave it to her, you know, as a loan, you know, to make her feel good, to pay it back. I said, take your time. I think just helping people, because a lot of people have checked the check, you know, and I'm very lucky. I grew up very poor, but, you know, I've always believed in hard work, and if you want something, work for it. Yeah. And I think if people see you working toward it, they're going to help you. Like Steve Webster. He invested in me when I built this restaurant. I'm getting off subject, but I was building the brasserie, Grant and I, and we needed a million dollars because it's the second generation. We were, you know, not changing structural, but we're putting tables, you know, making it look good. So a million dollars, not a lot of money to do a restaurant, but it's a nice amount. And the bank across the street, Mutual of Omaha, he gave us half the money. And so we said, hey, we're halfway through. We need the other half. He goes, oh, well, times are tough. I can't do that. I'm like, wait, you said you were going to give us the million dollars. We're. We're in the middle of it. We already signed a lease. We're in the middle of construction. So I go to Steve Webster, and he had been wanting to be a partner with us for 10 years. He says, if you ever need money, let me know. A lot of people say that, but they don't back it up. So I go up here, him. I said, look, I'm going to buy. I need half a million dollars to finish the restaurant, Brasserie. He goes, okay, this is years ago when people would have checks on him. He reaches his pocket, had a checkbook, and he wrote me a check, half a million dollars, and gave it to me. I go, let's go to your office tomorrow and do the paperwork. He goes, I don't need paperwork on it. Just pay me back. And I go, you're a 20% partner from here on out, no matter what we do. He goes, okay. So we finished the restaurant, we opened up by paying back the money with 10 interest in 18 months, and he remained a partner. So those are people that. And I said, why would you. You don't want to see a Business plan. He goes, I don't invest in businesses. Yeah. He goes, I invest in people.

[B]

100.

[C]

And I never forgot that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And businesses. It's. It's in the language we use. It's called a company.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's the company you keep.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I think there's, like, a Latin for the word. I don't know. I can't remember that I want to say corporation or there's a. Some business term that, like, literally means, like, the people that you eat with. I can't remember, but, like, it translates to, like, that is a company. It's. It's the people. Like, it's. It's all about relationships.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And, like, that's the secret right there. What would you have to do differently to take it from a 9 to a 10?

[C]

Oh, what would I have to do differently? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe you have a. Maybe have a. A Christmas party every year. We're open every day except, like, Christmas day, Thanksgiving, and July 4, and New Year's Day, so it's hard to have a company party, things like that. And I feel bad not having a company party for all the employees. I used to do July 4th, but I feel bad pulling people away from their families. July 4th. So we haven't had a party in a couple years. Yeah.

[B]

Do you have a vision for your. Your company, like, going forward? Clark. Concepts going forward.

[C]

I'm looking at a concept right now, a location for our concept. And so I'm trying to put together a team to do that. And. But I don't want to lose focus on brasserie, because brasserie, I think, is, you know, it's. It's. It's the thing that. It's the butter on the bread.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And. But I'm open to do another one or two concepts, but I'm so comfortable right now. My daughter's just graduated college. I get to see them a lot more. Got a excellent relationship with my ex wife. We're best friends, her and her husband, Johnny Croppedomi. The other day, him and Charles Carroll, the chef at River Oaks Country Club, was in here, and they said, that, man, we're so jealous. Well, he was jealous of me. I go for what? He goes, you have one restaurant. He goes, you know what I would do just to have one restaurant again? Yeah.

[B]

And I think that goes back to ego. I think that, you know, again, my mission statement is to inspire, empower, and transform the industry. And I think that we. We grew. We came up in this world where.

[A]

Success is defined as something.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's by, you know, how many restaurants you can build or who's making the most money or who gets the most awards. And I think we really need to redefine what success in the restaurant industry is.

[C]

Yeah. I tell people like, they go, when you go to the restaurant, I go, you know, let me tell you something. Having another, another restaurant, it's not going to get me a private jet. It's not going to change my life. Having two restaurants is going to change my life. I'm comfortable, I'm happy in what I'm doing. Why, why would I mess that up? You know, so I love what I'm doing. Yeah.

[B]

And I, you know, I think one of my, my number one core value is freedom. And I really want to, I think people don't take into consideration the significance of freedom. And I think when people think freedom, they think, oh, I just want to like, be. To go to the beach whenever I want and lay down and take a nap or just play video games. Freedom is doing. What is freedom to you? Let me ask you.

[C]

Yeah, I know where you're coming from. That freedom is like, I'm kind of jealous. You getting in a, you know, in a van with a bed or something and you can just travel, you know, 10 hours and pull over in a desert somewhere and spend the night. I think seeing what you're doing, seeing the world, you know, seeing the United States from a different perspective, it changes. Changes who you are. Yeah, yeah, it does.

[B]

And getting to see the perspective. But in my mind, and I'm taking this from Dan Sullivan, strategic coach, well known corporate executive coach, says you need to look at freedom in four. There's four categories in freedom. There's freedom of money, freedom of time, freedom of relationships, and freedom of purpose. And I think that most people think that in order to achieve freedom, you have to start with money.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And they try to go for freedom of money. If I have enough money, I can buy freedom. Right. But I think we need to invert that and prioritize freedom of purpose. Once you, you have to have something to live for, like to show up for the, the thing that drives you, your passion, your purpose. And if you have that freedom, the next most important thing is relationships. I think we already talked about how important that is.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And being able to choose who you go into business with, being able to choose your partners, being able to choose the markets and the people you want to serve. And then if you can, you have.

[A]

Freedom of purpose and freedom of relationships.

[B]

Time is just, it's not even a Thing because you do like it goes by.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, you're doing what you love. I do think the money will come if you have those things.

[C]

What did Janice Shoplin say in me and Bobby McGee, freedom's just another word for nothing else to lose.

[B]

Right.

[C]

I love that. Yeah.

[B]

And I think that we need to prioritize purpose in the industry. I think we don't do that very well. So I've really loved today's conversation, my man.

[C]

Well, I hope I cover some, some topics that can help other people out there. And, and, you know, if any of your listeners want to even contact me directly, I'm always at Brie. I, I'd love to give you my, my two cents on how I become, you know, somewhat successful in this business.

[B]

I'd love to. If you were open to joining us digitally for coffee with Eric, something I do every other week.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Maybe a month or after this episode goes live. So if you're interested in, in talking to Charles, stick around for, for the closing thoughts because we'll let you know how you can do that. And a couple questions before I say goodbye to some final closing thoughts here. What is one thing you've done in the past year that's moved the needle that you can share with our listeners today?

[C]

I think the one thing, top line or bottom line, I've been wanting to do for, for the last 14 years, even when Tony Mandela's here, he had the same bathrooms for like 20. He was here 20 years. So the bathrooms have been for 34 years. And I think I moved the needle because I hired a designer in River Oak. She came in and showed me the whole package, the brass, the marble. And I was not thinking. I thought at the most a bathroom could cost you maybe 50 or 60,000. I didn't know that you could pay, you know, close to 100,000 to redo a bathroom. So I redid both my bathrooms in the last few months. And I am so happy with it. And I've been wanting to do it forever. And it was hard because I had a trailer with three bathrooms in the back parking lot. And when you take a woman wearing Louboutin shoes in July heat to a trailer to use the air can to use the bathroom, she's not happy. Guys didn't care. The women care. But I think that moved the needle. B19 because I tell every woman that comes in, they go, why don't you redo the bathrooms? I go, look at your go look in the mirror. I have the most beautiful women in Houston in The world coming in here. Why not go into the most beautiful bathroom? Yeah. And when I was doing the bathrooms, I was thinking Paris, 30s, 1940s meets the Carlisle Hotel. Old school New York. And that's was my influence, passion to do the bathrooms.

[B]

And how you do one thing is how you do everything so that, that makes a statement. You know, bathrooms are beautiful and spotless and clean and makes you feel safe and clean. Like, I'm sure the kitchen probably looks pretty dense too.

[C]

Yeah. But I getting redo the kitchen too. I'm. I'm redoing all the equipment. I'm going to overhaul the kitchen. That's the last part. I've redone everything in the dining room from the lighting, from the ceilings, from the carpet, all new chairs, the new bathrooms. So the kitchen is my next project.

[B]

I love it. And again, word of mouth is my north star.

[C]

Right.

[B]

That's how.

[C]

Oh yeah, word of mouth.

[B]

It's how I find people to make an example of. You referred Damien Watel to me the last time I was speaking with you. Who do you respect and admire today? Who's doing it right? Who, who really is somebody you think needs to be made an example of because of the, their, you know, fiscal responsibility. They're making money and they're also making a difference. Who's that?

[C]

You know, Nancy's Hustle is a little restaurant I really, really love. I go there. They, they're very consistent. A great little wine list. I think they're doing a really good job. They're kind of a hipster restaurant, but I like them because they're open late. Since COVID everybody seems to be closing at 9:30 now.

[B]

That's Nancy's house.

[C]

You said Nancy's Hustle.

[B]

Nancy's Hustle, yeah. And who's the woman behind that? Is it Nancy?

[C]

No, no, no. It's a guy. It's a gentleman. I don't even know his name, but I go in there and I see him working there and. But I like, I like that. Restaurant owner. Yeah, he's the owner. Got it. He has a, he has a partner named Sean.

[B]

Mr. Nancy Hustle Restaurant. I'm coming after you. I'd love to get you on the show.

[C]

Matt Bryce is another friend of mine who owns, owns a Federal Grill. Matt Bryce is a good guy. He's. He's got about four or five concepts. They're all Federal Grills. And he's a, he's a, He's a good worker. I know Ben Burke's going through a hard time right now with his restaurants over expanded maybe. But I love Ben Berg. He comes in here quite a bit and he started as a waiter like me. He's doing a really good job. And one of my favorite is Tommy over at Bari. The owner of Bari Tommy. He is an old school New Yorker from New York. Yeah. B A R I. He used to date Brooke Shields back in the day. He's, he's, he's a little older than me, but he's got the best New York stories. I could listen to him as well. He's in Houston, right across from Toulouse.

[B]

Thank you for that list, gentlemen. I'm coming after you. And you said we could reach out. What's the best way to connect?

[C]

Just email or phone.

[B]

And do you want to share that here?

[C]

Yeah. 832-5268 that's my cell phone.

[B]

In your email.

[C]

C.Clark7980comcast.net and this is episode 1238.

[B]

So if you head over to the notes associated with this episode, we'll, we'll link to that information there so you guys can get it.

[C]

Sounds good.

[B]

Awesome. Charles, my man, I cannot do what I do without people like you being willing to sit in the middle of your day. Spend an hour and a half plus with me.

[A]

Thank you so much.

[B]

And there is no questioning.

[A]

You are unstoppable.

[C]

Thank you, brother. I appreciate it.

[B]

Cheers. There's another episode wrapped up here at Restaurant Unstoppable. Special thanks to our guest today, Charles.

[A]

Clark, for coming on and opening up, getting vulnerable, sharing some inspiration and knowledge.

[B]

Great stuff.

[A]

If you enjoyed today's conversation with Charles Clark, be sure to join us on January 26th at 11am Eastern in the network.

[B]

Coffee with Eric.

[A]

Charles is joining us. And it's my goal to get all of my guests in the network to answer your questions, to, to engage with you. This is your opportunity to ask the questions you wish I did, to expand your network to build confidence in talking.

[B]

To other restaurant owners.

[A]

Guys, I can connect you with restaurateurs.

[B]

Leading restaurateurs across the country, but really.

[A]

At the end of the day, you need to be doing this in your own community. This is the secret to moving forward. I don't think we need fancy consultants anymore, if I'm being honest. I think that with the amount of information that's available, you know what to do next. All you need is community support from other people saying yes, that is the right next move and you can get that for $47 a month.

[B]

And I honestly hope that you get.

[A]

To the point where you do not need to be in the network because.

[B]

You have the, the courage to go.

[A]

Out and to talk to other restaurant tours in your own backyard. And you, you take this mindset of going further together and you bring it home. That's my vision. That's my goal. That's how we change the industry.

[B]

And we would love to have you.

[A]

Be a part of this mission. Again, head over to Restaurant Unstoppable.com live to join this and all future conversations. But if you just want to join this, I want to make sure you can be there. So head over to restaurantstoppable.com CWE for coffee with Eric. We'll get you a link to join this specific session with Charles Clark. Special thanks again to Charles for coming on, and thank you guys for showing up and listening. We'll see you next time.