WEBVTT - Eldon Scott of UrbanSpace on Modernizing the Communal Food Hall 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:06.800 This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.240 This week on the podcast, I have a special guest. 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.680 His name is Eldon Scott, and he is president of 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:21.239 Urban Space, which is the New York branch of a 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.040 fascinating company that began life in London, England. If you 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.160 have gone to any of the new and very hip 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.519 food courts around New York City, I'm partial to the 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:37.080 one on Vanderbilt and but they're all over Manhattan, you 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.840 will have experienced some of Urban Spaces work. They are 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:48.400 just really really good at totally recreating the concept of 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.320 a food court. You know, when I think of food courts, 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:56.440 I think of the terrible mall based um, really awful 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.880 chain foods. What they do is they go out and 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:06.200 find the most interesting chefs, entrepreneurs hip places in Brooklyn 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:10.320 and they bring them to Manhattan as food stalls, and 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.720 and some of them are just The food is fantastic. 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.880 The vibe and the energy in these places are just amazing. 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.440 I strongly suggest that if you're anywhere near New York 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.120 City and have an opportunity to try one of these places, 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.760 you really like it. They also do all of the 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:30.959 holiday uh sales um temporary spaces that pop up in 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:35.640 places like Brian Park and Grand Central Station. Uh. Again, 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:40.000 no chains, just unique one off merchants and entrepreneurs and designers. 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.840 Really really interesting thing. If you are at all interested 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:49.520 in food and how various chefs become popular, uh, and 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.840 about the future of how food is going to be 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:59.200 served in places like conference facilities, malls, etcetera, then this 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.680 is something you actually absolutely have to listen to. With 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:10.120 no further ado. My conversation with Eldon Scott. My special 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:14.320 guest this week is Elden Scott. He is the president 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:20.639 and CEO of urban Space, a unique real estate, dining 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:26.560 and retail establishment that given how difficult retail has been 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:28.399 these days, I thought it would be nice to bring 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.760 someone in who has achieved a high degree of success 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:38.680 in retailing and restaurateuring. Uh. Eldon went to undergraduate at 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.240 Yale University. He then moved on to the London School 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:47.920 of Economics before joining Urban Space in London. The London 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:53.000 Urban Space was founded in nineteen seventy by Eric Reynolds, 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.680 where it has since developed more than fifty sites, focusing 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:01.079 on artisanal and casual food and unique holiday fairs in 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.760 Eldon left London for New York City, where he opens 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.560 Urban Space, the first one in America, focusing on the 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.160 holiday fair in Grand Central. Now, Urban Space has a 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:19.600 number of locations in New York uh the Vanderbilt Market, 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:24.600 five seventy Les, Times Square, Madison Square, Broadway Bites, the 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.440 Garment District. They also run a number of different holiday 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:31.600 fairs Grand Central Station, Brian Park, Union Square, Columbus Circle. 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.000 And the company is about to take this unique business 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:39.680 model national. Eldon Scott, welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you so 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.160 much so so I hope I did that justice in 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:47.800 explaining sort of what what urban spaces. It's a fairly 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.160 unique model. Before we get into the details of it, 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.360 let's talk a little bit about your background. Um, you 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.839 mentioned you're a boarding school kid. You end up going 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.560 to Yale and then London School of Economics led you 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.520 to Urban Space in London after you got out of 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.320 ls A. You know, I've always lived in residential types 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.520 of communities through boarding school and then at Yale, and 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:15.560 you know, these these great colleges, we have wonderful dining 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.400 halls and one of the hearts of universities are these 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:20.800 dining halls. So I've always finished in this idea of 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:25.320 community and meeting other people around food and in communal 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:27.520 seating as well. So I think there's a little bit 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.159 of inspiration from those experiences that I took with me 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.279 to London. So did you go straight to urban space 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:35.599 out of London School of Economics or were there any 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.280 Um My background is urban planning in real estate, so 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:42.880 I worked in the coch Administration in the Department of 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:45.800 City Planning for a while. It's my first job new Haven, 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:51.599 New York City urban Planning. Then Lesse studied urban planning 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.359 and economics, and then I worked for Savills, which is 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.279 a property company in London. So I had some traditional 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.680 real estate and planning background. So then how did you 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.480 still belong to urban space? Well, you know, like a 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:04.320 lot of other young people on London, I was going 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.440 up to Camden Locke on the weekends, which was a 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.000 great place if you haven't been there, it's it's north 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.160 side of London and it's a fantastic, very busy spot. 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.000 And I was talking to my professor from LC one 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.280 day and I was like, I love this place, Camden 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.440 lock I gotta meet Eric Reynolds. He's a friend of mine, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.640 so I met Eric and shortly thereafter I left Savage 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.600 and started working with him at Urban Space. So he 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.440 set up Urban Space in the UK in nine seventy. 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.920 When when this was first brought to the four there, 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.800 did they have to raise capital or did it just 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.159 sort of start small and and go from there. It 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.640 started the small and went from there. Having said that, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.080 there were a couple of investors that Eric brought in 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.160 early on with Camden Locke. I mean Camden grew to 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.800 become the third or fourth biggest visitor destination in London 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.640 and was a real phenomenon at the time because you 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:57.960 have to remember in the seventies there were trading laws. 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.880 You couldn't open on Sundays UM, but you could open 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.520 markets on Sundays. So it was one of the first, 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.200 if not the first large private market to open in 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.520 London UM at that time. And it just really drew 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:11.719 and it got a lot of the youth culture coming down. 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.400 So that was a regulatory loophole. You couldn't have regular 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.520 retail open, but open air marketplace was allowed to run exactly. 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:21.040 And the same question in the United States. You come 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.600 here with the intention of setting up urban Space, new York. 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.279 Did you have to raise capital or by that time 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.560 was there enough capital from London. It was already had 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.320 enough capital by that time to to get going, So 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.120 we just applied the knowledge experience we had. I was 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:37.719 wanting to bring it to New York for a long 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:41.000 time because I was, you know, living in London, traveling 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.320 to a lot of European capitals, and it was such 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.200 a great market culture in Europe that I knew there 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:47.920 was something would be great in the United States. So 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.040 I wanted to bring it back. So I have been 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:54.320 writing about and talking about the death of retail for 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.160 it seems like a decade, if not longer. And part 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.200 of retail has to do with the the dining experience, 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.600 the traditional mall in America, it's a handful of chains. 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:10.000 It's a handful of well known, nothing unique, nothing special. 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.800 Are we at the edge of the death of the 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.559 food court? Is that going the way of the Dodo Bird? 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:19.480 I don't think we're the it's the death of the 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.920 food court. I think that the food hall is a 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.640 variation on an old theme and it's it's a new segment, 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:27.920 if you will. But I think there's still a lot 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.560 of other concepts which are gonna, you know, continue to 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.560 thrive as well. There's gonna be more food options, not less, 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.080 so the food court might be replaced with a food 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.200 hall or something a little more hip or a little 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.520 more innovative. Is that a fair assessment. The main difference 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.720 really is that the food hall has generally speaking, more 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.280 local and chef driven concepts. So let's talk about that 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.200 a little bit. I go to the one on Vanderbilt 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:56.640 all the time. I'm a huge fan of Delaney Chicken. 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.520 It's the greatest chicken sandwich I've ever had. Uh. Mr 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:05.040 Byng is just absolutely unique and um just a favorite. 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.920 And then there's a shop called Dough which does the 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.040 biggest donuts I've ever seen in my life, and they're 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:18.160 crazy delicious. Um, as are everything I've tasted. This is 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:23.000 a completely different approach to feeding people. It's not like 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.120 in New York you walk into a Delhi and there's 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.400 ninety seven different serving stations and you can get anything 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:32.400 from Medio, compizza or whatever. This is the opposite of that. 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:37.760 This is very specific artisanal foods. It's it's a bottom 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:42.280 up um business model versus a top down business model. 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.079 So instead of a large restaurant company that's got a 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.280 you know, senior management, and they're planning out what the 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:51.360 menus are going to be. We're really, we're truly market operators. 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.640 So we go to the market and we try to 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:55.680 find out what the coolest concepts are and we bring 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.920 them into one facility. You know, markets are two thousand 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.800 years old and people have had that kind of experience 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:06.640 where you can match consumers and vendors in the central 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.559 place and the central places the market operator and that's 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.240 what we are. So one analogy we give is it's 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.640 a little bit like an artificial reef. So if you 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.320 ever been snorkeling, you go out, you find a good area, 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:20.640 you drop down a bunch of old tires and old 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.520 cinder blocks, but the real color or the fish that 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.679 are coming. So it's not the architecture, it's not it's 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.400 not all the planning per se. It's just bringing together 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.160 market forces. Is bringing together the best of other businesses 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.280 and putting them together. I read an interesting report recently 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:42.320 from Kushman and Wakefield. They pointed out New York City 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:47.439 has twenty five or so active permanent food halls with 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:52.360 another dozen or so planned, but nationwide they think the 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:57.120 number of these food holes will hit three hundred is that? 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.600 Is that a real number? Three hundred foot holes around 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.040 the country rate. It's funny. I was talking to the 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.440 guys that Kushman a couple of weeks ago, and we 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.520 actually think it's probably much higher than that, really because 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:09.319 not all the things that are in the pipeline or 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.640 even being discussed. Um, I think there's gonna be too 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:14.640 much of it. It's gonna probably be some overbuilding and well, 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.400 but that happens in every every hot new trends eventually 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.640 reaches saturation and then it's too much for and that 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.320 that's true whether we're talking about fried chicken sandwiches or 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.960 man buns. At a certain point, it just it just 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.480 goes too far. So we mentioned Delaney Chicken and some 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.920 of some of my other favorites. I have to ask you, 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.400 how do you source vendors every You just opened up 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.160 one on Lexington Avenue five seventy where Mr Kay's used 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:43.320 to be. You know that restaurant for a million years, 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:49.520 and it's just a completely different set of hip, funky restaurants. 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:55.080 How do you guys consistently find such interesting vendors to 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.240 sell such unique food. We have a we have a 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.000 little bit of an advantage because we have our own 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.720 farm League set up, so we have these pop up 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.079 markets that we've been doing for years all around the city. 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:06.800 So we're in Madison Square, We're in we're in Bryant 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.199 Park in Square, and this is around the holidays. Usually 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.280 last couple of months is too open. Right now, Um 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.720 Square and Herald Square their food only markets. So what 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:19.920 we do is we bring people in and we try 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.600 them out. Because you know, you can have a great food, 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:24.800 you can be a great operator. You can be a 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.959 super highly followed chef. But we're looking for people that 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.000 are not just don't just have a great following, they're 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.560 also really good operators. You can also be a great 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:35.920 chef and not how to know how to cook in volume. 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.760 There's a big leap it takes to go from having 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.720 a tasty item to be able to serve a thousand 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:44.959 of those items pretty quickly. And I will tell listeners, 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.640 if you walk over to the Vanderbilt one, it's on 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.839 forty Street in Vanderbilt. At five to twelve, you can 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.080 walk in and walk into any vendor and get whatever 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.800 you want. At five after twelve, there's it's just flooded 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.760 with people, especially millennials and young people, and then after 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.120 two thirty again it empties out. That's got to be 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.120 a challenge to manage that sort of crush for any 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.760 chef or restaurant um operator. Yeah, and we're kind of 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.760 partner with the chefs in the space to help give 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.920 them the infrastructure that they need. Sometimes they like more infrastructure, 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.680 more storage, etcetera, etcetera. UM. But the ones that figure 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.079 it out do really well, and luckily not too many don't. 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:27.480 But I think that they kind of learned from each other, 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:29.360 so they'll look down the I almost say, hey, why 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.480 is that guy cranking it? Why is this line moving? 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:34.440 And they'll start to learn. But having said that, it's 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.440 there's a big skilled jump from being a good chef 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.959 to really producing quality and volume. So you you talked about, um, 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.319 how trendy. A lot of this is I think your 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:49.080 vendors are the most on trend foods in town. Not 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.959 surprised that you. The new place has a Raman specialists. 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:58.120 There's a ton of niche sort of foods. It's not 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.240 just oh I'm going to open a Chinese food. Mr. 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.959 Byng is a perfect example. It's a very specific niche. 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:09.120 So my question is how intense is the competition for people, um, 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.480 for chefs and others who want into the next urban 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.640 space market, and how do you make that that decision 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.040 This person is good, this person um may not be 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:23.959 an excellent fit. It's competitive because they're great locations and 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.920 the chefs want to be in those locations. So what 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.880 we do is we have a separate department that does leasing, 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.880 and we're looking at sales data from our other markets 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.160 are pop up markets, and if we see something that 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.720 looks like it's doing really well, we let the public decide. 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.840 We don't tell us. We all should read social media 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.840 and all that kind of stuff, and then all the 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.360 senior people will go to that restaurant and we'll see 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:49.559 what we like about the food, about the menu, about 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.160 the environment, about the service, and will make sure that 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.200 there's a whole list of things will look at to 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:56.959 make sure it's the best vendor in that sector. So 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:00.120 you mentioned you track sales and stuff. What metrics do 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.680 you look at to determine if a given space is 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:09.200 meeting your expectations or if a given vendor is being successful. 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:11.720 You know, there's a lot of different metrics you can 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:13.360 look at at the end of the day, it's sales 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.280 sales volume. Well, what other metrics would you even consider? 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:22.520 Obviously volume is um important, but is it consistent volume? 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.280 You could I've seen some days. Well, it's different day parts, 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.360 you know. You know, some vendors are going to be 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.280 better at lunch. I'm gonna do better after work. You know. 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:32.640 If we want to have a few things that will 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.680 work for for breakfast, so we will put someone in 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.680 with the lower sales volume, just because it's filling a 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.800 niche that we need. So there's it's it's science and art. 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.880 It's it's all mixed again to the mix. And I 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.000 first became familiar with the concept of a food haul 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:53.280 years ago when Italy opens up UM, and I have 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:57.240 my favorite Italian places. So I'm probably not the ideal 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.560 person to talk to about Italy because I have my 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:04.440 other favorite pasta places and favorite um pizza places. But 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:06.720 what did you think of when you saw a concept 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.840 like Italy, uh come into play. It's a great model. 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.600 It's essentially a more top down model. I mean, there 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.920 are some sub tenants in there, but it's primarily more 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:22.040 of a planned uh you know, food concept with stations. Um, 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.080 it's interesting because we had our first all food pop 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.800 up market at Madison Square outside of the first Italy, 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.840 and I remember at that time people saying, yeah, that's 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:33.440 really great, but you know, outside as an actual market. 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:37.440 From the perspective of individual vendors and entrepreneurs, you know, 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.000 you're not necessarily going to meet the entrepreneur at in Italy, 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:43.560 but you're very well going to meet the entrepreneur or 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:45.480 the chef at one of the food halls of one 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.400 of the food markets. I one one day my wife 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.320 had heard me talk about Mr Bing for forever, and 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.760 she was here for a show and it was four 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.320 in the afternoon, so I said, hey, it's not crowded, 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.080 let's walk over there and grab a Mr Bing and 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:02.920 person who built it was there. We had a whole conversation. Yeah. 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.160 I went to school in China and I studied and 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.200 we always love this street vendor and there was nothing 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.000 like it here in the States. And this worked out perfectly, 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.560 which which leads to a question, given that there are 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.640 so many different restaurants in New York, Um, can these 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.320 little pop ups compete with the restaurant? Do they have 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.880 the ability to go toe tootell with someone who's there, 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.560 who's going to see people or is this a totally 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.920 different market. I mean, obviously there's some crossover, but it's 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.680 a different market. We're not doing full service. If you 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.840 want to have a great business lunch with five people 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.080 and you want to have a reservation and waiter service, 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.160 you're probably not gonna go to a food hall. But 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.560 if you're okay with a little more bustling environment for 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.480 a business lunert sometimes people are, then you know that's 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:48.360 where you might want to go. And do you think 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.920 of urban Space as a real estate play or is 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.480 it a restaurant play? Everyone asked it set it's a 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.720 little bit both. Were really a real estate company from 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:02.120 the perspective that we acquire property and we sub lease property, 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.280 but we also act like an FMP brand, and we 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.080 also see ourselves as more of a brand than most 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.040 real estate companies would. I was trying to explain urban 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.439 Space to a friend who's not from New York but 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:15.600 understands we work, and I said, it's we work for 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.000 food and they kind of got that. Let's talk a 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.600 little bit about the holiday fairs, because that's how I 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:28.840 first discovered UM who you folks were who Urban space was? Um? 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:34.040 Grand Central Station has a giant holiday fair every holiday season, 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.160 Brian Park, you guys take over the park, Union Square 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:42.760 Holiday Market Columbus Square Holiday Market for many years every 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.480 holiday I got my wife a gift from Deborah Armstrong, 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:50.400 who was an artisan and jewelry designer. How did the 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:57.040 concept of these pop up temporary holiday fairs come about? Well, 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.119 I mean I came back from London and I was 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.160 I was used to go into these Chris Kindall's markets 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.720 in which are throughout Europe, and we didn't really have 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.040 a strong tradition of those in the States. Uh, this 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.960 was gosh, I don't know. In nineties, late nineties. Um, 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.080 so I first approached Grand Central Terminal and they just 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.720 renovated the main waiting room. This is going back a 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.159 lot of years. And they said, well, may it may 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.240 not work, but give it a shot. So we did. 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.600 You wasn't like years of haggling and negotiating. It was 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.480 just you have this empty space, I'd like to use 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.200 it for a holiday fair. It will generate revenue for 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.040 the for the station. How does that sound? And that? Okay? 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.520 Sure it was a test at first, you know, later on, 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.960 there was a lot more negotiating, haggling. You're aware that 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.600 that is not the usual way stuff gets done in 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.600 in New York City. Well, you know, there weren't a 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.160 lot of great users of public spaces back in the nineties. 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.040 You know, there were a lot of as many concepts. 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:54.520 There's a lot more great concept there's a lot more 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.119 great street food today there wasn't back then. So people 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.560 were looking for things like this, and Grand Central Station 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:07.640 was was at full The renovation finished not that long ago, 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.680 less than a ten years ago, the full full renovation. 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.880 The main the main part of that. This was just 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.680 the south waiting room. Is that the waiting room, and 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.720 then we moved it shortly thereafter to an outdoor uh 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.880 situation at Union Square, so that was a little bit larger. 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.360 And so when I lived on Lexington Avenue, we would 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.880 have a street fair every year, and it was very 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:34.520 quickly became boring and repetitive. It was the same junk 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:40.680 tube socks and just regular commercial stuff. Why have the 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.719 street fairs failed where your holiday fairs seemed to be 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.280 very successful and thrive every year. It's about the quality 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.199 of the product and the curation of the product. So 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.719 a lot of what we do as the operator is 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.679 curation and storytelling because we're trying to find vendors that 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.800 our entrepreneurs from New Yorker sometimes beyond you or and 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:02.880 have a real story and a real craft or something 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:06.280 to bring to the consumer. So let's talk about the 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.840 numbers behind that. I read somewhere about the vendors are 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.800 local for meither New York or the surrounding areas, and 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:20.000 are international. Is that more or less accurate something like that? 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.480 I mean, we we've had a guy forever who came 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:26.920 from comes from Colorado. Once a year he makes candles, 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.280 loads up his van, comes to New York. So New 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.560 York is known as a place that the hallidays, where 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.320 you can sell products, and then you will. I also 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.320 read that you have an unusually high percentage of women 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:43.920 and minority vendors. Is that right, that's a huge number. Yeah. 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:49.080 I think that's this reflective of the entrepreneurial community and 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.879 getting access to, you know, great real estate so they 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.600 can sell. So that's it's an outcome of what's out 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:59.040 there in the marketplace. And let me give you a 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:01.920 quote of yours and get a comment, because I love 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:07.040 this perspective. Most retail in America is top down, where 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.399 you have national chains that have bios who decide what 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:15.240 fashions are and distribute down to stores our models. The opposite, 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:20.320 we're dealing almost exclusively with small independent businesses, not national chains. 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.880 Is that the difference between a marketplace and a regular 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.240 sort of retailer. Yeah, I mean that's what we offer 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:33.320 over going to a national store. UH and the way 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.040 our buying gets done. Obviously we're curating, we're meeting, we're 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.440 looking at product, but at the end of the day, 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.240 we're looking at their UH, their sales and their behavior 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.840 and how the consumer likes their product, and that's how 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.240 we release our change for the next year. So we're 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:49.880 really listening to the marketplace. It's a market what's what's 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.200 the turnover, like how many people are repeat vendors and 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:56.200 how many people are fresh faces. We have turnover every year, 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.520 sometimes not because of the products. Sometimes people move on, 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:03.080 they get they get larger. UM the Body Shop, which 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:06.680 became a major international change, UM had a stall a 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.320 canden Lock in London in the nineteen seventies. Um she 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.480 started with a table selling potions. She came from the Midlands, 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:15.960 but that was their first London outlets. Sou Saban, which 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.440 is a pretty big retailer now started with with with 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:21.800 stalls and some of the markets, so some of them 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.560 grow out of it. That's amazing. I mentioned, um your 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:29.399 background having worked with the urban space in London, and 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:33.600 I read recently that you were looking at Chicago and 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:37.840 the West coast. How big do you think the concept 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:41.359 of food halls and gift fares can get nationally? Where 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:45.080 can this go? Certainly can go further? How much? I 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:47.080 don't have the answer to. There's gonna be a lot 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.080