Speaker 1: I think with Biden, whether it's infrastructure or whether it
Speaker 1: was a stimulus pack, is we're finally putting people first.
Speaker 1: It's not enough to to sit back and say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't do it, so it's okay, or I support this.
Speaker 1: For that, I think we gotta get vocal, and I
Speaker 1: think we have to be not afraid to calling it
Speaker 1: some people along the way. It's going to happen, but
Speaker 1: I think I'm comfortable doing it, and I'll continue doing. Hi, listeners,
Speaker 1: and welcome to a special episode of Citizen Chef. My
Speaker 1: name is Christopher Osciitis, and you don't know my voice,
Speaker 1: but I'm the executive producer of this show. My team
Speaker 1: here at I Heart has been working tirelessly with Tom
Speaker 1: Colliqio over the past year to put together a show
Speaker 1: we hope inspires you to know more about the food
Speaker 1: you eat. And as we're looking forward to season two,
Speaker 1: we wanted to sit down and talk to Tom himself
Speaker 1: about his plans, about how he spent the last year.
Speaker 1: This year that's been so strange for all of us,
Speaker 1: but we're at a point where there is a little
Speaker 1: bit of hope. But that's something that Tom also feels
Speaker 1: strongly about. And so he really wanted to share with
Speaker 1: you the listeners, a little bit about what's inspiring him
Speaker 1: for the future. Tom is currently in his home in
Speaker 1: New York. I'm in studio in Atlanta. But while we
Speaker 1: can't invite you into Tom's restaurants, what we can do
Speaker 1: right now is invite you into Tom's living room, into
Speaker 1: his den, into wherever in his house is quietest because
Speaker 1: he's got a new puppy. Tom, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to chat with me. I know we're
Speaker 1: busy getting ready for the new season of the show,
Speaker 1: and you're certainly busy keeping your restaurants afloat, but I
Speaker 1: would just like to dive into what the last year
Speaker 1: has been like for you. Oh wow, it's it's been there.
Speaker 1: It's been up and down. A year ago today we
Speaker 1: closed all all of our restaurants and so I had
Speaker 1: to lay off about four seventy people, and that was rough.
Speaker 1: The last service we had was on a Sunday, and
Speaker 1: I remember going into the restaurant and Bartender has been
Speaker 1: with me twenty years. He was in there having dinner
Speaker 1: with his family, and all I can do to keep
Speaker 1: myself from losing it the table because it's terrible day.
Speaker 1: Even then, I had a good idea from talking to
Speaker 1: friends I have in government, that there was going to
Speaker 1: be a pretty robust unemployment package. So I felt at
Speaker 1: least people were going to get through. But then some
Speaker 1: of my employees weren't eligible to receive unemployment for various reasons.
Speaker 1: So listen it was. It was. It was tough. And
Speaker 1: then thinking about what my media plans were going to be.
Speaker 1: I was out of a job. I had no idea
Speaker 1: what we were going to shoot again on TV. How
Speaker 1: long was it gonna take to get the restaurants open?
Speaker 1: It was rough. Very Soon after closing the restaurants, about
Speaker 1: a day later, I received a phone call from a
Speaker 1: friend of mine who was working for talent agency and well,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a foundation and we want to
Speaker 1: help restaurants. And I kind of laughed and I said,
Speaker 1: I don't think your foundations are big enough to help us,
Speaker 1: but let's keep in touch. Soon after that, I received
Speaker 1: another phone call from a friend who when I worked
Speaker 1: at Food Policy Action, he was one of our lobbyists
Speaker 1: that we worked with and have joking, I said, I
Speaker 1: think independent restaurants need a lobbyists. Let's make that happen,
Speaker 1: and so I called my buddy. I said, I think
Speaker 1: I know we could do with your money. And that's
Speaker 1: how the Independent Restaurant Coalition was formed. We started to grow.
Speaker 1: It started with about twelve people, and we found a
Speaker 1: group down south that was involved in another group out
Speaker 1: of Chicago and in San Francisco, Los Angeles, all over
Speaker 1: the country. And we had one goal, and that was
Speaker 1: to reach out and make sure that our federal government understood,
Speaker 1: you know, how bad things were, and then also get
Speaker 1: them to understand the scope of how many people independent
Speaker 1: restaurants employing, and just getting an idea of the general
Speaker 1: economics if a percent of these restaurants closed. And it
Speaker 1: worked out, and we managed to get our bill written
Speaker 1: in the House, in the Senate, and the election with
Speaker 1: the new Congress, everything got thrown out the window. We
Speaker 1: had to start all over again, but we got through
Speaker 1: that and our bill is now included in the stimulus package.
Speaker 1: So I spent the better part of the last year
Speaker 1: working on that, and then the other part was just
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what I was doing with our business.
Speaker 1: There's opening in the summer, closing again in the fall,
Speaker 1: reopening again, trying to figure out the best way to
Speaker 1: use PPP opening a business and keeping staff safe. It's
Speaker 1: just been a it's been an up and down the year.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm feeling pretty optimistic business wise. We started
Speaker 1: shipping these boxes out and that's done really well so far.
Speaker 1: We got by We lost out of our four restaurants
Speaker 1: in New York, one of them is permanently closed, but
Speaker 1: other than that, the other restaurants are opened up l A.
Speaker 1: We just reopened Vegas. They're open more of a license
Speaker 1: and deal. They're open, but we're managing. Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1: Right now is a time of I think cautious optimism
Speaker 1: in the country, and there's been a lot of focus,
Speaker 1: especially from the Independent Restaurant Coalition, on dealing with the
Speaker 1: effects of the pandemic. But one thing that in your
Speaker 1: career you've always focused on is is not just what's
Speaker 1: directly in front of you, what what the apparent problem is,
Speaker 1: but digging deeper, looking further down the line. So what
Speaker 1: can the Independent Restaurant Coalition and groups like it turn
Speaker 1: their focus to long term after some of the immediate
Speaker 1: negative impacts of of the COVID pandemic have been addressed. Yeah, Uh,
Speaker 1: that's A great question, because we're struggling with that as
Speaker 1: well as organization. So we're going through some changes. Number one,
Speaker 1: we're moving away from a Seed four lobbying group and
Speaker 1: more towards the C six, which is a trade organization.
Speaker 1: So we're doing that work. You know. After that, I'm
Speaker 1: sure we're gonna end up working on whatever comes our way,
Speaker 1: whether it's healthcare that can really help our industry, minimum
Speaker 1: wage on a federal level or a local level. Mostly
Speaker 1: will be involved in helping craft these various bills, and
Speaker 1: you know, we want to get involved early on and
Speaker 1: shape these programs as opposed to letting them happen to us.
Speaker 1: And so that's what I think we're looking at coming up.
Speaker 1: There's not there's no one particular thing we're looking at
Speaker 1: right now. Right now, we just got to get our
Speaker 1: house in order. Tom. These days, you're known as much
Speaker 1: for your activism as you are for appearing as head
Speaker 1: judge on Top Chef for your restaurants. But I'm curious,
Speaker 1: it's easy working in this industry to whether you're a
Speaker 1: line cook, a manager, front of house, back of house,
Speaker 1: you know, your shift ends, you go get a drink
Speaker 1: with friends, uh and co workers back when that was
Speaker 1: sella thing that was easy to do, and it's easy
Speaker 1: to sit there and complain about the industry, and then
Speaker 1: you go to bed and you wake up and the
Speaker 1: next day you just go right back to work. At
Speaker 1: what point did you decide, I can't just focus on
Speaker 1: the day to day and I need to address these
Speaker 1: bigger pictures. When did you move from being someone who
Speaker 1: was aware of the problems to someone who decided to
Speaker 1: address the problems. Yeah. Sure, let's unpack that a little bit,
Speaker 1: because I think part of what you said there was
Speaker 1: really important because I was that person who would go
Speaker 1: out after work with Then when I ope my own restaurant,
Speaker 1: I realized that now I can make change and what
Speaker 1: I used to do not so much to go out
Speaker 1: with the coworkers, but at the end of the night,
Speaker 1: all the servers would sit in the private dining rooms,
Speaker 1: said grammarc tavern, and that's where they would, you know,
Speaker 1: do their side work and stuff like that close out
Speaker 1: the end of the night, and of course everyone would
Speaker 1: beach theman, you know, problems with this, problems that, and
Speaker 1: I would stare and listen, and you know, I would
Speaker 1: go to a meeting next day and image who meet
Speaker 1: the next day and say, well, this is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 1: This is some suggestions, and they're like, we're be getting
Speaker 1: this like one o'clock in the morning. You get a
Speaker 1: lot of information from waiters after they had a couple
Speaker 1: of glass of wine. It was about taking that information
Speaker 1: and then figuring out what to do with it, and
Speaker 1: that's how we made some real politic changes in our restaurants.
Speaker 1: They also helped, Like early on, Danny I were very
Speaker 1: like minded. I mean the grammar should have and we
Speaker 1: put out smoking before we were mandated to. We offered
Speaker 1: insurance well before people were offering insurance. In fact, you
Speaker 1: know a lot of our peers gave me a hard time.
Speaker 1: But when when it came to actually trying to focusing
Speaker 1: on legislation, it really started with the issue around hunger.
Speaker 1: And I got to credit my wife Laurie for the shift,
Speaker 1: because you know, I did a lot of work around hunger,
Speaker 1: but really raising money for various organizations. Chiefs naturally gravitate
Speaker 1: towards the issue around hunger. Please we feed so many
Speaker 1: people who you know, who can afford it, but we
Speaker 1: actually someone a us think that that food and nutritious
Speaker 1: food is should be right, but I would, you know,
Speaker 1: show up in events and bring food and to help
Speaker 1: raise money for no kid hungry, our gods that we
Speaker 1: deliver meals on wheels city Harvest. And I thought I
Speaker 1: knew a bit about the issue. And then my wife
Speaker 1: was mentoring a young woman and so she would come
Speaker 1: to house, clearly she was hungry. We would send food home.
Speaker 1: But then when she was in the school, principal call
Speaker 1: and say, it's clearly this young woman is hungry. So
Speaker 1: my wife started. She's a filmmaker, and she decided to
Speaker 1: take on the issue of hunger. A documentary placed the
Speaker 1: table and it was during that time that very quickly
Speaker 1: we learned that hunger in this country is more of
Speaker 1: a political issue, lack of political will. It's not because
Speaker 1: we don't have the resource to feed people. When the
Speaker 1: film came out and it gave me a soap box,
Speaker 1: and you know, obviously I was on TV already, I
Speaker 1: had a following, so I was able to use that
Speaker 1: following into trying to make some positive change around hunger,
Speaker 1: and that led to the founding of Food Policy Action,
Speaker 1: which was a lobbying group essentially set up to help
Speaker 1: craft legislation. But what we did is we actually published
Speaker 1: a score card. We great at Congress andally voted around
Speaker 1: various food issues, and so that that put me square
Speaker 1: into Capitol Hill. And we can't end hunger through charity.
Speaker 1: Charity can help it, help manage it, but we really
Speaker 1: need some legislation dating the food stand program, looking at
Speaker 1: school lunch, looking at school breakfast, and getting as many
Speaker 1: people as possible. And there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: organizations that were working on us. A lot of these
Speaker 1: organizations they were doing their charity work and they were
Speaker 1: afraid to get involved in politics, and we felt that's
Speaker 1: where we had to move people. You know, since the eighties,
Speaker 1: going back to Reagan, that was a message that government's
Speaker 1: bad governments the problem. Government is not the problem. Dumb
Speaker 1: governments problems, but good government and good policy really can
Speaker 1: help a lot of people. You know. I think we
Speaker 1: finally are seen that major shift. I think with Biden,
Speaker 1: whether it's infrastructure or whether it was a stimulus package,
Speaker 1: we're finally putting people first. It's not enough to to
Speaker 1: sit back and say, well I don't do it, so
Speaker 1: it's okay, or I support this. For that, I think
Speaker 1: we gotta get vocal, and I think we have to
Speaker 1: be not afraid to handling it some people along the way.
Speaker 1: It's going to happen that I'm comfortable doing it, and
Speaker 1: I'll continue to do it. Can you tell me what
Speaker 1: it was like the first time you actually went into
Speaker 1: Congress to address the seat of power of our nation
Speaker 1: in person? Yeah. So the first time I did it,
Speaker 1: was it a hearing, It's congressional hearing on I believe
Speaker 1: it was school lunch. I'd go there and I might
Speaker 1: speech prepared and it went really well, and I was
Speaker 1: I was more nervous giving my speech because I'm terrible
Speaker 1: reading a speech. And once I got through that, the
Speaker 1: Q and eight part was fine. I actually got into
Speaker 1: it a little bit with one of the members. It's interesting,
Speaker 1: but it was scared. So Shelley Pingry, who is a
Speaker 1: congresswoman from Maine, she had a townhouse on Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: and she wouldn't buy this, say afterwards and sixty members
Speaker 1: would show up, mostly Democrats, occasionally gets some Republicans in
Speaker 1: as well. You know, that's when he saw when the
Speaker 1: stuff really gets done. And you saw that how when
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats got together, they were all laughing, having
Speaker 1: a good time. I think a lot of that stuff
Speaker 1: that you see is really for the cameras and a
Speaker 1: lot of times you can get the other and move
Speaker 1: something along, but you realize that this is how stuff
Speaker 1: gets done, is by reaching out. It really works, and
Speaker 1: they want to hear from people. I think that sense
Speaker 1: of personal connection is is what's really valuable, and understanding
Speaker 1: of that is what pulls a lot of the levers
Speaker 1: and drives decisions. One of the things we try to
Speaker 1: do on Citizen Chef is really take deeper dive, to
Speaker 1: take time to dig into an issue so that you
Speaker 1: have time to talk to the people that you find
Speaker 1: really fascinating to really understand and unpack issues from their
Speaker 1: perspectives as well as from yours. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about what you're interested in exploring on
Speaker 1: this upcoming season of the show. Yes, so big changes
Speaker 1: at the U S d A. And you hear the
Speaker 1: U s t A. And I think the average person
Speaker 1: who clearly eats food, they don't understand how and what
Speaker 1: the U. S t A does. And so I want
Speaker 1: to probe that a little bit and see if they're modernizing,
Speaker 1: how are they going to modernize it, how does that
Speaker 1: affect people? A lot of what the pandemic sort of
Speaker 1: uncovered is the fragility of our food system, and so
Speaker 1: trying to figure out ways to modernize that. And there's
Speaker 1: several bills to get rid of the whole KFO feed
Speaker 1: lot system that's the way of feeding cattle and splittering cattle.
Speaker 1: Interested to see how that plays out. But also clearly
Speaker 1: the pandemic, a lot of people weren't able to feed themselves.
Speaker 1: And so now we understand the needs of what a
Speaker 1: strong safety and can afford Americans. And so I think
Speaker 1: probing a little deeper, we're still going to see regional
Speaker 1: storms that are going to really affect the food system.
Speaker 1: I think that's not going to change. And we saw
Speaker 1: the regional storm in texas As ice storm, and you
Speaker 1: see the habit that's it's playing out now and ways
Speaker 1: where there's shortage is a plastic and things like that.
Speaker 1: And so we're in the crossroads here and the question
Speaker 1: is how is government going to deal with some of
Speaker 1: these issues, How we can strengthen our food system, how
Speaker 1: are we gonna make them more localized. That's something that
Speaker 1: I want to continue to probe, but I think also
Speaker 1: want to explore just certain restaurants as they open up,
Speaker 1: how are they doing, because we're still a long way away.
Speaker 1: If I see one more America's open again, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put whatever hair I have on my head out because
Speaker 1: we're not open yet. Restaurants may be open, but people
Speaker 1: are still very hesitant to come out, and I think
Speaker 1: that the restaurant industry is still gonna struggling. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot left to do. I think it's really
Speaker 1: building on what we started season one. You know, the
Speaker 1: comments that I got back from a lot of people
Speaker 1: is they didn't know. And that's why I love to
Speaker 1: hear that they learned something they didn't know about. Are
Speaker 1: they went deeper than we and they thought and people
Speaker 1: I want people thinking about food in terms of this
Speaker 1: system that we created and think in terms of how
Speaker 1: does food different seeds to plate, what's the process and
Speaker 1: people are becoming more and more interested in how their
Speaker 1: food gets there. But tom as we're sitting here recording this,
Speaker 1: it's the beginning of April. Top Chef is premiering on
Speaker 1: TV and a lot of people know you through that,
Speaker 1: so it would be remissing me not to ask you
Speaker 1: if you could give us a little preview of no spoilers,
Speaker 1: but let us know one thing that you ate this
Speaker 1: season while you guys were recording in Portland, they really
Speaker 1: knock your socks off. There was one dish in Particken
Speaker 1: that I remember that I really enjoyed, but there were several.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of great food this season. In
Speaker 1: season and we shot during COVID we were in a bubble.
Speaker 1: We got to Portland quarantine for ten days. We had
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty people on the crew. They were
Speaker 1: all staying in a hotel. We were the only guests
Speaker 1: in the hotel and mask were worn. Socially distant temperatures taken.
Speaker 1: We had test taken every other day. I had my
Speaker 1: puppe with me, so I would take our own walks
Speaker 1: and that was about it. We you know, got through.
Speaker 1: Nobody got the other cool thing. Instead of flying guest
Speaker 1: judges in once a week, we had a pod of
Speaker 1: past cotestines who were the diners and the judges, and
Speaker 1: that made for a really interesting perspective. It was. It
Speaker 1: was a fun season's to shoot considering, you know, how
Speaker 1: how shitty the world was and time to get away
Speaker 1: and we made we made great TV, and there's some
Speaker 1: really cool things that came out of the fact that
Speaker 1: we were shooting, you know, under these scenarios. So the
Speaker 1: restaurant wards was completely different and really worked out well.
Speaker 1: We also really got into into some of the issues
Speaker 1: around diversity, you know, we we we did some really
Speaker 1: new things. I can't, I can't give it away. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you all of you know, some of
Speaker 1: the groups that we that we worked with. But it was.
Speaker 1: It was a good season, really was. Tommy mentioned your
Speaker 1: new puppy and can you promise listeners that at least
Speaker 1: in one episode your puppy is gonna make an appearance
Speaker 1: on the podcast. Well, we usually try to keep her
Speaker 1: quiet because I'm usually in a closet, but I can
Speaker 1: bring her. I can bring her out if you want.
Speaker 1: She's always always ready to jump in. Her name is Tiki,
Speaker 1: which is the Hebrew word for hope, but her Instagram
Speaker 1: site is very Tiky girl sunk to super freak. She's great.
Speaker 1: She's a flat coat of retriever. Our first Flatty passed
Speaker 1: away less November, I guess it was, and so we
Speaker 1: waited a few months and tikis Tiki's got us really
Speaker 1: got us to go. But she's been great. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been a good year for propets because we're home with them.
Speaker 1: You know, they're gonna freak out next year and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, their home by themselves, they're like, where there,
Speaker 1: free go, thank you. So it's gonna be a big
Speaker 1: change for them next year. I think after this past year,
Speaker 1: one thing we can agree on is that we need
Speaker 1: both more puppies and we need more hope. And it
Speaker 1: sounds like with her you got both at the same time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I think so. What I'm really hopeful
Speaker 1: right now, I think you know, it's it's more shots
Speaker 1: and arms and more people that are vaccinated, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of pent up demand out there, and every
Speaker 1: week we're hiring more people. Hopefully that continues and we'll
Speaker 1: get people back to work and eventually we'll get through.
Speaker 1: We'll learn a lot from it, and hopefully we're better
Speaker 1: for it. Tom, I just wanted to say congratulations, not
Speaker 1: only on all the work you're doing, but also it's
Speaker 1: it's Crafts twenty year anniversary. I'm sure this is not
Speaker 1: the way you imagine you'd be celebrating twenty years of
Speaker 1: your flagship restaurant. But well done nonetheless. Thanks. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: twenty years and we really didn't celebrate it. We did.
Speaker 1: I did some zoom cooking classes around it, and we
Speaker 1: shipped out some of our favorite dishes and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and that was great. But we're gonna celebrate our twenty
Speaker 1: first year. We're gonna call it our legal age and
Speaker 1: we'll have a party around that. But yeah, twenty years
Speaker 1: old and we're gonna we're gonna make it to twenty one.
Speaker 1: Luckily for us, we got through partly because we had
Speaker 1: a great landlord and we've been there twenty years and
Speaker 1: they appreciate us, and so they really worked to get
Speaker 1: through this. You know, Tom, you've mentioned on this called
Speaker 1: landlords a couple of times, and I think a fifteen
Speaker 1: dollar cocktail, it's not fifteen dollars because of the of
Speaker 1: what goes in the glass. It's everything else around that.
Speaker 1: And one of those big things is real estate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. Real estate, especially in New York and
Speaker 1: some other big cities, and really driving our cost. Rent
Speaker 1: is so much higher. You see, rent is like eight
Speaker 1: percent of our cost now it's four. So yeah, rent
Speaker 1: is it's just been it's been tough, and we're starting
Speaker 1: to see them come down a little bit, and I
Speaker 1: think there's gonna be some opportunities there, but it's been
Speaker 1: really driving our costs. You know. The good thing is
Speaker 1: a lot of chefs who came and trained in New
Speaker 1: York are leaving the city and they're opening up great restaurants,
Speaker 1: and so in a way, we're seeing great food in
Speaker 1: secondary and terchary cities, and because that's where you can
Speaker 1: afford to open up a restaurant, we're seeing a big shift.
Speaker 1: There's some benefits to it. But retail left New York
Speaker 1: when you have uh Ralph flam Paulo closed Flagship Store
Speaker 1: and Madison Avenue because the rent was too high, and
Speaker 1: I just felt, I don't need to be there anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't need to lose money in the
Speaker 1: store to be here anymore. I think that's what's happening
Speaker 1: in food too. I think a lot of people are
Speaker 1: maybe you did your first restaurant in New York, but
Speaker 1: your next two or three or four are not going
Speaker 1: to be in New York. Tom, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to chat with us today and anything
Speaker 1: you want to let listeners of Citizen Chef. Know there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a season two and I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: I've been heard from so many listeners that that they're
Speaker 1: ready for more so and yeah, pready to dig in perfect.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, So that's it. That was a chat
Speaker 1: with Tom. I really enjoyed diving into this conversation. Tom
Speaker 1: already has a great idea of what he wants the
Speaker 1: upcoming season of Citizen Chef to be, but he's also
Speaker 1: looking for some suggestions from you, the listeners. So hop
Speaker 1: onto Twitter, pull up your Instagram account you could find
Speaker 1: Tom at Tom Colichio and let him know what you
Speaker 1: want to hear about, and make sure to use the
Speaker 1: hashtag Citizen Chef. And I know a lot of you
Speaker 1: are probably already subscribers, but just in case you aren't,
Speaker 1: make sure you're subscribed to the show so when the
Speaker 1: new season launches, you will have first access to the
Speaker 1: new episodes. Thanks so much for listening today and for
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast. Stick around for the upcoming season
Speaker 1: of Citizen Chef with Tom Coliqio. It'll be hitting your
Speaker 1: phones and devices soon.