Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. I gotta say
Speaker 1: that we are so blessed with having the best of
Speaker 1: the best when it comes to the world's great chefs,
Speaker 1: and that includes our next guest, Emerald Legassie is in
Speaker 1: the house World Renow chef and restaurate Tour host of
Speaker 1: Emerald Cooks on Roku. We're gonna talk about that in
Speaker 1: just a moment. Uh. And he's here in our interactive
Speaker 1: broker's studio. So delighted. Welcome, Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: How are you doing. I'm awesome. You're awesome. You get
Speaker 1: a lot going on, well, a lot going on because
Speaker 1: we are you know, we We just debuted a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago the Tailgate Show on Roku, and now
Speaker 1: Friday we debut the Emerald Cooks. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a kind of like the Essence of Emerald Show. But
Speaker 1: speaking of the Essence of Emerald, that just wasn't enough
Speaker 1: of them, so they bought the Library of Essence of
Speaker 1: Emerald and Emerald Live. So you now have an Emerald
Speaker 1: channel on Roku that you can just go on and
Speaker 1: stream when you want and catch maybe some old Emerald
Speaker 1: Live shows or some new Emerald cook shows, which also
Speaker 1: just speaks to you, like how much content you have
Speaker 1: created over how many years. It's it's been a few years.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying, no, no, no, no, It's been a
Speaker 1: few years and a lot of content and it continues.
Speaker 1: You know. It's just like it doesn't stop because the
Speaker 1: restaurant business doesn't stop. If once you stop, then the
Speaker 1: customer stops, the excitement stops, you know, the creativity has
Speaker 1: to keep going on and you have to keep driving
Speaker 1: every single day. So that's that's the message of the
Speaker 1: staff every day. Let's get up today and let's try
Speaker 1: to do a little bit better than we did yesterday,
Speaker 1: and let's make it exciting so that the guests are
Speaker 1: excited to come back. Well, it's interesting, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to get back to the program in the
Speaker 1: show and in just a minute, but before we do that,
Speaker 1: I want to get an update from you about what's
Speaker 1: been happening over the last couple of years. Um, because
Speaker 1: when we do SEP in the morning, and speaking of
Speaker 1: sometimes things do stop. And we saw the world shut
Speaker 1: down during the pandemic, and I know that the fact
Speaker 1: of the restaurant industry so much you had to close
Speaker 1: some restaurants during the pandemic. Talk about what the last
Speaker 1: two and a half years for like for you? I?
Speaker 1: You know, I was closed for a little over two years.
Speaker 1: Um uh do you ever think about that? It's amazing?
Speaker 1: But you know that's good. There's good and bad, right,
Speaker 1: So A good thing is is that it gave me
Speaker 1: a chance to really be at home, which I never
Speaker 1: really had a lot of time to be at home
Speaker 1: with the family. It gave me a chance to really
Speaker 1: sort of dig in my inner soul to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: where are we here? And you know, where do we
Speaker 1: want to go? And how are we going to get there?
Speaker 1: Because some things are great and some things on so great,
Speaker 1: And so what happens to close seven restaurants? Um, we
Speaker 1: have five open now, not counting the amazing uh B
Speaker 1: Shrow at sea at Carnival Cruise Line soon to be two.
Speaker 1: We're announcing that next week we're going to do our
Speaker 1: second uh emeraldst B Strow on a new ship called Celebration,
Speaker 1: where the first restaurant is on Mardi Gras. Go figure.
Speaker 1: But getting back to the rest strump business. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a difficult time because there's no revenue coming in.
Speaker 1: But I kept my staff for for the five restaurants. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, that's expensive, very expensive, and obviously a very
Speaker 1: a big commitment to the communities that we're in too.
Speaker 1: In Las Vegas. How many people is that? Well, I
Speaker 1: went from a little less than eight staff members right
Speaker 1: now we have just a little under eight hundred. So
Speaker 1: but I don't know where they went. That's that's the
Speaker 1: other thing. You talked to restaurant tours and chefs. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, the labor pool out there. Talked to Danielle,
Speaker 1: talked to Erica Pare, etcetera. Where do they go? It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I talked to my doctor friend. He's having
Speaker 1: trouble getting a nurse. You know, it's just it's crazy.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it with the economist market watchers. It's
Speaker 1: just like, how is it persistently that so many people
Speaker 1: have just kind of left the workforce and stayed out
Speaker 1: of it. And some of it I get of retirees
Speaker 1: and sort of that's not necessarily the case, but you
Speaker 1: know what his his's the thing is that, um, the
Speaker 1: majority of those people went retirees or even close to
Speaker 1: being retires. They were you know, they were young people, twenties, thirties, forties,
Speaker 1: right that you know, still had a lot in them
Speaker 1: and a lot more to go. But I just don't
Speaker 1: it's it's so difficult these days, uh, staffing supplies, purveyors.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's still you still today. I mean we're
Speaker 1: we are working on a renovation project right now, and um,
Speaker 1: you don't have to order stoves like a year in advance,
Speaker 1: you know, ten months in advance. Because it used to
Speaker 1: be like you could pick up the four O case
Speaker 1: six months, six weeks, you know, boom. Now now it's
Speaker 1: it's not like that at all. It's it's all the
Speaker 1: way around. So it's still as persistent problems. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's difficult operating out there. But you know what, what
Speaker 1: what what you have to do is you gotta pull
Speaker 1: back the reins and you gotta go back and say okay,
Speaker 1: and then you got to go to the team and say, right,
Speaker 1: how are we going to do this better? And how
Speaker 1: are we you know, we've already passed survival, right, so
Speaker 1: we're already passed that stage gate one is gone, so
Speaker 1: you know, how how we how are we going to
Speaker 1: get there? I have to say, I'm in the k
Speaker 1: on Twitter is saying please tell him my wife and
Speaker 1: I missed his restaurant in the South Beach. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we had a great restaurant, a couple of great restaurants
Speaker 1: in Orlando as well. But you know that you gotta
Speaker 1: do what you gotta do, said Bam. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: tell you. I'll make it. I'll make the story really quick.
Speaker 1: You're ready. Because there's there's a lot that we do.
Speaker 1: Back in the old days when I was doing Essence
Speaker 1: of Member, we're doing eight shows a day, and so
Speaker 1: you guys know television, it's unheard of to do eight
Speaker 1: shows a day, Okay, unheard of, right, So being a
Speaker 1: food show, we do three four shows, try and get
Speaker 1: for lunch, we had we had what we called a
Speaker 1: shift table, So all the food that we cooked, we'd
Speaker 1: put on that table because the staff wanted to eat it.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's why I would be yeah, that's all right.
Speaker 1: So we would come back after after the lunch break,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, it's a very tiny crew,
Speaker 1: you know, four camera, one stage person, people in the
Speaker 1: control room, etcetera. And all of a sudden the camera people,
Speaker 1: you know, they need all this food. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm losing them. And so Bam came about
Speaker 1: waking everybody up to like, yes, can I get your
Speaker 1: attention everybody, because we've gotta got three more shows to
Speaker 1: do it? Did I'm hoping my producer Paul Brannan is
Speaker 1: not listening, because he's going to be like that when
Speaker 1: we're not paying attention. Exactly, take it away, Paul, he said,
Speaker 1: starting tomorrow is gonna be doing. You had a question, Oh,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm just I think that's just fantastic. Um, so,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about the way that kitchens are
Speaker 1: portrayed in media today? You think about a show like
Speaker 1: The Bear, for example, that got so much attention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know the world has changed and so
Speaker 1: is television. Right so you know, we're we're in a
Speaker 1: place right now where people are really thriving on this
Speaker 1: competition stuff. And um, you know, I could have been there.
Speaker 1: I've been I'm a guest guest John, a couple of them,
Speaker 1: you know, Gordon and Top Shelf, etcetera. But um, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be in that arena. That's just not
Speaker 1: the arena that I want to be. I want to
Speaker 1: teach people how to cook. I want to I want
Speaker 1: to take the I want to take the you know,
Speaker 1: just the whole intimidation factor out of like what what
Speaker 1: cooking is, or what shopping is or what wine is. Right,
Speaker 1: all right, hang on a second, Emerald, bam bam. Now
Speaker 1: come on, bam bam. Thank you. We're gonna come back
Speaker 1: with the Emerald Legazzi. Emerald Legassi is still with us,
Speaker 1: you know, um well owns restaurants. He's a chef, has
Speaker 1: been doing it for a long time. He's also a
Speaker 1: host of Emerald Cooks and Roku. There's a bunch of
Speaker 1: programming all of his going on Roku. Um, where do
Speaker 1: I want to start. We want to talk about Cruse ships.
Speaker 1: I want to go back there because you guys you
Speaker 1: got deals with Carnival and your food, your restaurants. Right,
Speaker 1: it's my It's really my food, and it's a it's
Speaker 1: a remarkable experience working with the staff. You know, first
Speaker 1: of all, it's worldwide people, so from all over the world.
Speaker 1: The kitchen staff Pom and at least from India. UM
Speaker 1: it's been an absolute pleasure working with them. Of course
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of the president, Christina, and of
Speaker 1: course Arnold, who's really a driving force. But it's been
Speaker 1: a remarkable, remarkable experience working with them because it's not
Speaker 1: just about like, Okay, here here's a dish that you
Speaker 1: can do. It's about training, training manuals, working with the
Speaker 1: kitchen team, the food and beverage team, and then doing
Speaker 1: a really really awesome job executing because what they do
Speaker 1: really well is execute well how do you So, how
Speaker 1: do you do that when it comes to consistency in
Speaker 1: a floating city as you've described it before, Carol, but
Speaker 1: also you know in Las Vegas and Florida, how do
Speaker 1: you do it? Yeah? So it's it's not easy, but
Speaker 1: you know what, um, you know, I've been, I've been
Speaker 1: to the route where I've had many many restaurants, and
Speaker 1: obviously since the pandemic and by choice, I've really tailored
Speaker 1: that down to now where it's manageable. Great people, great team.
Speaker 1: Can't win a Super Bowl without a great team, right,
Speaker 1: It's not just a quarterback, So you can't. You can't,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta have a great team and great leadership.
Speaker 1: Um so, Um, you know, I just tried to remind
Speaker 1: the staff every day that we're gonna get up and
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a little bit better than we did yesterday.
Speaker 1: And um, it's it's a constant it's a constant movement.
Speaker 1: It's every day we're just pushing and pushing and pushing,
Speaker 1: whether it's service or whether it's the food, the seasonal menu, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's a constant, constant push. But once
Speaker 1: you're in it, and that's I've been in it since
Speaker 1: I was ten years old, so you it's very hard.
Speaker 1: Once it gets in your blood, it's very hard to
Speaker 1: you know, to you know, I thought at times that
Speaker 1: I wanted to do something else. Wow, I'm gonna become
Speaker 1: a wine guy, you know, gonna you know whatever. It's No,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen. No, No, it gets in. It
Speaker 1: gets in your blood. And uh, you know, I have
Speaker 1: I have four kids. Um My son is the only
Speaker 1: one interested in the business. And uh, the girls are
Speaker 1: just kind of ones a c p A you know
Speaker 1: once Uh also valuable when you're running a business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, one does make up massage. The other one
Speaker 1: is a senior in high school soon to go to college.
Speaker 1: So they're interested, but they're not interested. And you know,
Speaker 1: many times the girls have told me, you know, dad,
Speaker 1: why do I want to do this? It's that's it's
Speaker 1: too much work. Okay, What do you cook at home
Speaker 1: when you're with your whole family? It depends. I'm a
Speaker 1: very seasonal kind of weather kind of guy. I love seafood,
Speaker 1: I love fish, So that's usually what kind of comes
Speaker 1: to the top. But it could be a great roast chicken,
Speaker 1: it could be bowling as it could be uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it could be after after spending, but after spending they
Speaker 1: have spending twelve hours, you know, shooting cooking. Do you
Speaker 1: actually want to come home and cook? What do you
Speaker 1: order out? No? Do very very rarely. I don't need
Speaker 1: I don't really eat fast food, and I don't really
Speaker 1: very very occasionally do we order out? Mostly Vietnamese food
Speaker 1: in New Orleans has such an incredible Vietnamese population and
Speaker 1: such incredible Vietnamese food. So that's really I guess that
Speaker 1: would be called ordering out, I guess right. And having
Speaker 1: far and bombies and and rolls, you know, spring rolls
Speaker 1: delivered to your house. Maybe that that's love New Orleans.
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, well, I moved there in a D
Speaker 1: two to take over Commander's Palace. I fell in love
Speaker 1: with the city, the architecture, the music. Of course I
Speaker 1: have a little slight background in music, so that that
Speaker 1: people yeah later um, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I just fell in love. The food is just it's
Speaker 1: one of America's greatest food cities. In my opinion, I
Speaker 1: think people in New Orleans, even after the pandemic, eat
Speaker 1: dollar for dollar to eat better than most places in
Speaker 1: the world, and certainly in this country. Uh. It has
Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of years of traditions, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just about Creole or Cajun and so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of history. There's a lot of tradition there.
Speaker 1: And now you know, you add all of the ingredients
Speaker 1: and techniques from other cultures that are influencing you know,
Speaker 1: the city besides you know the Cajun and Creole aspect
Speaker 1: of it, and it's really really just a remarkable food city.
Speaker 1: It really is whether you whether you know, whether you
Speaker 1: go down the street and just have a simple poor
Speaker 1: boy or whether you go to a traditional classic place
Speaker 1: like Antoine's or Commander's Palace or Galatoise, or whether you
Speaker 1: go to one of the you know, the more modern
Speaker 1: restaurants like Susan Spicer or Emeralds or whatever. It's it's
Speaker 1: just it's really it's really a remarkable place. I think
Speaker 1: New York, um and New Orleans is really what's really
Speaker 1: happening food cities. Uh, in my eyes, at least, that's
Speaker 1: that's what's happening. I used to be able to say
Speaker 1: other cities, but since the pandemic that I put the
Speaker 1: brakes on on that. Well, you know, and I do
Speaker 1: wonder when you look at um big issues that are
Speaker 1: facing the food industry. You know, we've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about supply chains, right with Russia, the invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and you know, um costs, climate change, innovation, There's some
Speaker 1: disruption going on a lot of it. I mean, what
Speaker 1: do you think about what's front and center for you?
Speaker 1: Someone who has been so innocent's scutting. It's gotten very
Speaker 1: very hard, very difficult to operate. Restauranateurs are having a
Speaker 1: hard time because courser through the roof, labors through the
Speaker 1: roof if you can find them. Um, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: really tired of everybody blaming everything on COVID. It's like, people,
Speaker 1: let's get over that right now. Okay, forget it, it's gone.
Speaker 1: It's not going away. Okay, I'm sure in a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks there's going to be another variants that's gonna
Speaker 1: you know, that's gonna happen or whatever. It's not going away,
Speaker 1: So face the world. But quit making excuses about why
Speaker 1: is it taking me a year to get a stove
Speaker 1: instead of like six weeks or eight weeks like before.
Speaker 1: And the first thing you want to do is, you know,
Speaker 1: is blame everything on on COVID. I'm just really tired
Speaker 1: of that. Um, it's like enough enough. I mean, let's
Speaker 1: let's get over it. If we haven't figured out at
Speaker 1: this point in the world how to live with it,
Speaker 1: we were in trouble, maybe you should go bury yourself
Speaker 1: under a tree. I mean really and truly, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's just come on, let's just move on. It does
Speaker 1: make you wonder, like why we haven't figured it out.
Speaker 1: I've got thirty seconds left here. Oh no, I'm staying
Speaker 1: for another segment. I told you you're gonna come back
Speaker 1: with your son, and we have a bottle of line
Speaker 1: and we're gonna do um last night. You want to
Speaker 1: leave with our audience? Um, really and truly and I'm
Speaker 1: not one to like just you need to really check
Speaker 1: out Emerald Cooks on on on Roku channel. It's an
Speaker 1: awesome show. It's very personal because the guests that I
Speaker 1: have on on Emerald Cooks, it's the shrimp person, it's
Speaker 1: the oyster person, it's the two ladies that are making
Speaker 1: sucking exactly and and it's really uh and a lot
Speaker 1: of these people, especially the Tailgate show, never been to
Speaker 1: New Orleans and so that's what makes it even more special,
Speaker 1: very special for us. On this Wednesday, Emerald be Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Emeral Legassie. This is Bloomberg