Speaker 1: Pushkin. Anthony Strong got his first restaurant job when he
Speaker 1: was in high school.
Speaker 2: It was like day one in a kitchen. Really, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is my jam right here. And
Speaker 2: then I proceeded to cut like four of my fingertips
Speaker 2: off on a box grader that same day.
Speaker 1: So his fingertips healed, and he worked his way up
Speaker 1: in the restaurant industry, moved from his hometown to New
Speaker 1: York City and then to San Francisco, where in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight he got to do what so many
Speaker 1: chefs dream of doing, and what he himself had been
Speaker 1: dreaming of doing for decades. He opened his own restaurant.
Speaker 1: It was called Prairie.
Speaker 2: It was eighty seats, We had three different charcoal grills
Speaker 2: and full bar. It was busy, it was really well received, but.
Speaker 1: As a business, as a way to make a living.
Speaker 2: Sucked paper thin margins. A high labor business, very high
Speaker 2: labor business. You're spending a ton of money on very
Speaker 2: expensive ingredients. It's a very packed, very competitive sector, so
Speaker 2: it's hard to it's hard to stand out.
Speaker 1: It's a classic restaurant story and one that ultimately led
Speaker 1: Anthony to try something really different. I'm Jacob Goldstein, and
Speaker 1: this is what's your problem. My guest today is Anthony Strong.
Speaker 1: He's the chef and owner of Pasta Supply Co, a
Speaker 1: retail store and restaurant in San Francisco. Anthony's problem is this,
Speaker 1: how can you make a new kind of restaurant, one
Speaker 1: that serves good fresh food at a reasonable price and
Speaker 1: actually works as a business. Anthony's quest started during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: He closed his restaurant Prairie, and he started trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to create something simpler, something made for
Speaker 1: a moment when people were not gathering indoors. One day,
Speaker 1: you saw the answer sitting by the curb outside his house.
Speaker 2: My neighbor across the street had a vintage VW van
Speaker 2: and VW camper like an eighty two, and she actually
Speaker 2: caught me out there with a measuring tape standing outside
Speaker 2: of her van to see if I could get seventy
Speaker 2: inches is all you need from back of seat to
Speaker 2: back of seat to make a comfortable, you know, dining situation.
Speaker 2: She came out and she's like, excuse me, hey, what
Speaker 2: are you doing. I'm like, mind if I look in
Speaker 2: your van, by the way, are you selling it? She wasn't,
Speaker 2: but I was able to figure out that I could
Speaker 2: build a table for four that would be pretty comfortable
Speaker 2: inside of a similar model, and found one on Craigslist,
Speaker 2: drove up to Oregon with a friend to get it,
Speaker 2: and then built the thing out with a pretty like
Speaker 2: you'd be shocked, very surprisingly comfortable dining room.
Speaker 1: And the dining room is a table in the back
Speaker 1: of a van.
Speaker 2: Just to be clear, So the dining room when you
Speaker 2: know these old vans, they have that sliding door, and
Speaker 2: the dining room is just inside the sliding door, right
Speaker 2: in the middle, and the back is where I built
Speaker 2: the kitchen. I had a charcoal grill that rolled out
Speaker 2: and a whole kitchen set up, and I did two
Speaker 2: seatings of four people a night. I think the menu
Speaker 2: started around somewhere just above one hundred bucks a person
Speaker 2: and ended up being close to two hundred of person.
Speaker 1: Pretty high end, very high end, particularly for the fact
Speaker 1: that it's in a van down by the very Did
Speaker 1: it work as a business.
Speaker 2: It worked. It worked as a business because because there
Speaker 2: wasn't any overhead and it was just me and one
Speaker 2: person helping to clean a van and prep. But the
Speaker 2: important thing about it is It got me. It sort
Speaker 2: of snapped me out of restaurant mind, the sort of
Speaker 2: like herd mentality of the standard model of restaurant, which is, okay,
Speaker 2: you need to have eighty seats and a full bar,
Speaker 2: and a restaurant that has a host and a wine
Speaker 2: person on the floor and all of these moving parts
Speaker 2: that it takes to orchestrate, you know, a semi fine
Speaker 2: dining restaurant. So I sort of realized that maybe there
Speaker 2: could be an option outside of that.
Speaker 1: Anthony wound up opening a new restaurant in San Francisco
Speaker 1: in March of twenty twenty three. It was called Pasta
Speaker 1: supply Co, and he was really trying to do something different.
Speaker 1: To understand how and why this restaurant is different, I
Speaker 1: asked Anthony to take me through going to eat dinner
Speaker 1: there and to tell me all the ways Pasta Supply
Speaker 1: Co is different than the traditional nice restaurant experience.
Speaker 2: Will you start by not making your reservation? We don't
Speaker 2: take reservations. We're walking only cutting out having to pay
Speaker 2: a reservation platform.
Speaker 1: What's it cost to pay a reservation platform? Like you're
Speaker 1: talking about like open table or rezi right, like these
Speaker 1: kinds of online platforms where you make a reservation online.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, my old place. We're spending twenty five twenty
Speaker 2: seven hundred a month. Wow, because you pay a fee
Speaker 2: and then you also pay per reservation, and if you
Speaker 2: want more visibility on their platform, you pay an additional
Speaker 2: marketing package.
Speaker 1: So okay, so I don't make a reservation. I walk
Speaker 1: into your restaurant pasta supply co. Just in terms of
Speaker 1: what I see when I walk in the door, how
Speaker 1: is it different than a traditional restaurant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you walk in the door, it's very clear
Speaker 2: that you're eating an apasta shop. You see a huge
Speaker 2: retail display with tons of fresh pasta for sale, like
Speaker 2: thirty different kinds and twenty ish different sauces to work
Speaker 2: with and all sorts of fun you know, ingredients for
Speaker 2: the kitchen.
Speaker 1: It's like basically one side of the restaurant is essentially
Speaker 1: like a deli counter. Right, there's like a glass case
Speaker 1: and there's pasta in it. It's sort of a hybrid, right,
Speaker 1: there's like tables and then there's kind of a retail
Speaker 1: store in the same space. Tell me about the business
Speaker 1: thinking behind that setup.
Speaker 2: The reason for doing that was to have a business
Speaker 2: that could stand on two legs and be a little
Speaker 2: bit more durable long term. You know, in a restaurant,
Speaker 2: you're trying to make all of your money by filling
Speaker 2: up seats from hopefully the minute that you open until
Speaker 2: the minute that you close at night. The reality is
Speaker 2: the middle fills in pretty quickly and everybody's trying to
Speaker 2: fill early sittings or late seatings. And you know, with
Speaker 2: all of the resources that it takes to pull off
Speaker 2: a restaurant, like, making money that way is tough.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is amazing when you think about it.
Speaker 1: Like you got to pay rent, you know, for being
Speaker 1: there all the time, which in San Francisco is especially significant,
Speaker 1: right an expensive place to rent a shop, and for
Speaker 1: a restaurant, there's like maybe four hours of the day
Speaker 1: when you're actually making money, right and the rest of
Speaker 1: the time the space is just sitting there and you're
Speaker 1: paying for it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's crazy, it's so onch So.
Speaker 1: That's like a thesis, right, you have this thesis. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe if we could be selling fresh pasta all day long,
Speaker 1: that'll help bring in money at you know, three in
Speaker 1: the afternoon when we'd be making zero dollars otherwise. Is
Speaker 1: that working.
Speaker 2: It's working really well. Yep, yep, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: shocked at how well it's working. And in fact, we
Speaker 2: have people coming in all day long grabbing stuff to
Speaker 2: work with at home.
Speaker 1: So okay, So first thing I see when I go
Speaker 1: to your restaurant is it's not just a restaurant. It's
Speaker 1: a store. Good, We've got that. What else when I
Speaker 1: get to the restaurant? What else is different?
Speaker 2: When you get to the restaurant, you're greeted by a
Speaker 2: host at the door, which is totally normal, right, but
Speaker 2: that host is standing right at the door usually outside
Speaker 2: the host asks you for your order, we give you
Speaker 2: a menu, and we talk to you about food right
Speaker 2: up front, and we get your whole order right there.
Speaker 1: So that's a little more like a what would typically
Speaker 1: be a fast casual thing. Right. That's a little bit
Speaker 1: sort of like at a Chipotle or a Sweet Grain
Speaker 1: or something, Right. I mean, that's the kind of as
Speaker 1: a diner had that kind of experience.
Speaker 2: Why, yeah, kind of. You know, I was really interested
Speaker 2: in coming up with a model that could be casual
Speaker 2: but wouldn't make you like get a number on a
Speaker 2: stick and go bust your own table, right, like I want.
Speaker 2: We wanted to give a few more service touch points
Speaker 2: than than that, And so when you order with our host,
Speaker 2: you get the kind of the front end of the
Speaker 2: dining experience out of the way right away, right and
Speaker 2: then when you sit down at your table, the wine
Speaker 2: hits the table ten seconds later, your salad and your
Speaker 2: other appetizer hit a couple minutes after that, and then
Speaker 2: we land passes on your table within you know, fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes or so. It's like it just goes so much,
Speaker 2: so much more efficiently, And you know, it's not for everybody,
Speaker 2: by the way, Like we're definitely not the towel over
Speaker 2: your arm.
Speaker 1: I'm an impatient diner myself. I'd way rather walk around
Speaker 1: the block when my pasta is cooking than sit at
Speaker 1: a table. But I'm curious, as you say, not everybody
Speaker 1: like that. It's non traditional for a nicer restaurant, Like
Speaker 1: why did you make that particular choice.
Speaker 2: We chose to do that because it cuts on average
Speaker 2: twelve to fifteen minutes we found of dead time. I'm
Speaker 2: off the front end of every seating.
Speaker 1: So the dead time is a person just sitting there
Speaker 1: at the table and nothing's happening.
Speaker 2: Just sitting there. In fact, In fact, that's when you
Speaker 2: start catching up because you're out to eat with your friends, right,
Speaker 2: and you're sort of looking at the menu and you're
Speaker 2: sort of talking about how your day went. Then the
Speaker 2: server checks back in to see if you want stiller
Speaker 2: sparkling water or you want to start with the beverage,
Speaker 2: and then you say, hey, just a second, yeah, sure, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh my god, it's excruciating for a restaurant.
Speaker 2: You're just sitting there watching the table be dead, and
Speaker 2: so in a in a restaurant, we're constantly on people
Speaker 2: to get those orders in as fast as possible.
Speaker 1: Right. It's sort of analogous to the to the restaurant
Speaker 1: being empty most of the day.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: This is now you're at key time, you know, a
Speaker 1: few hours of the day when you can actually make money.
Speaker 1: But that table is just sitting there and you're not
Speaker 1: turning it over.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You want to maximize the percentage of time when somebody's
Speaker 1: at a table that they're eating and drinking. You don't
Speaker 1: want them filling up a table when everybody wants to
Speaker 1: eat and not having food in front of.
Speaker 2: Them, right, right, actual active engaged customer time, Yes, and
Speaker 2: we're able to price more competitively because of it, which
Speaker 2: is something that is huge in a city as expensive
Speaker 2: as San Francisco. You know, a normal fine dining or
Speaker 2: semi fine dining restaurant, you're seeing pasta prices way up
Speaker 2: past the mid twenties these days, and you're paying for
Speaker 2: that debt.
Speaker 1: Thirty bucks for a bullet pasta would make me very sad.
Speaker 2: Yep, it's it's pretty tough. So our version is cutting
Speaker 2: off some of the some of the bs off the
Speaker 2: front of the dinner.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute to discuss, among other things,
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting complicated dynamics in the restaurant business, tipping.
Speaker 1: Now back to the show. So, so let's talk about
Speaker 1: the menu. So I before I even walk into the restaurant,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the menu. How does your menu look
Speaker 1: different than a typical restaurant menu.
Speaker 2: So our menu is just two or three salads, that's it,
Speaker 2: five or six pastas, we change them pretty regularly, and
Speaker 2: no entrees. We're not trying to promise the world to people,
Speaker 2: you know, we can't. We're not going to roast a chicken.
Speaker 1: So what is having a smaller menu do for you?
Speaker 2: As a business, So the smaller menu is all about
Speaker 2: efficiency and doing more with less. You know, our we're
Speaker 2: a pasta shop. Our entire focus is pasta is using
Speaker 2: that one product, and we're not getting in a chicken
Speaker 2: and brining it and having it take up space overnight
Speaker 2: in the refrigerators so that the skin can dry out
Speaker 2: a little bit and then roasting that. Like all pastas
Speaker 2: are literally just like boil, cook them with the sauce
Speaker 2: for a minute or two and then they get sent
Speaker 2: to the table. So we just see a lot more
Speaker 2: efficiency from like really focusing on specializing on that one
Speaker 2: really high quality product.
Speaker 1: You're basically a pasta factory.
Speaker 2: Little pasta factory, and in fact it's everything is right
Speaker 2: on display there and people love it. You know. I
Speaker 2: really wanted to bring some wow moments to a retail storefront.
Speaker 2: And when people walk in and they see the pasta
Speaker 2: being made right in front of them on these on
Speaker 2: these machines with conveyor belts, it's like it's so exciting
Speaker 2: for them, it's so fun. It gets engaged in their food,
Speaker 2: which actually brings up another point, which is we don't
Speaker 2: make any pastas by hand. Okay, you know, I in Italy.
Speaker 2: You've got like ten grandmas. I've gotten to sit at
Speaker 2: a lot of tables with you know, half a dozen
Speaker 2: or so grandmas sitting around a table making tiny little
Speaker 2: tourdolini with their hands, right. And you know, for us,
Speaker 2: when we first opened, we were making some you know,
Speaker 2: very labor intensive, tiny, tiny handmade shapes and you spend
Speaker 2: like two hours making a dozen or so orders of something,
Speaker 2: so you sell out immediately. And I really didn't want
Speaker 2: to be the place that had to charge forty dollars
Speaker 2: a pound for some precious boutique product. Right, So we
Speaker 2: make thirty different shapes using this huge extruder machine, and
Speaker 2: also another one that makes rolled in filled pastas with
Speaker 2: all these cool conveyor belts. It goes, it goes really fast.
Speaker 1: So what do you charge? What's a bowl of pasta
Speaker 1: cost at your restaurant?
Speaker 2: All of our pastas are I think right now twenty
Speaker 2: one dollars in lower on the menu.
Speaker 1: So just to go back to like the arc of
Speaker 1: my meal at Pasta Supply Co, I've I haven't made
Speaker 1: a reservation, I've showed up, I've seen that it's a
Speaker 1: retail store. I've ordered before I sit down it's a
Speaker 1: small menu. Once I sit down, is it just like
Speaker 1: a normal restaurant? What's different? Once I sit down?
Speaker 2: Once you sit down, it's basically like a normal restaurant.
Speaker 2: It was kind of surprising to me how normal it
Speaker 2: felt just after having people order it the door. It
Speaker 2: just feels normal. The food hits the table, we bring you,
Speaker 2: you know, your water and your wine, and you can
Speaker 2: easily get another glass of wine without getting up and
Speaker 2: going to a counter or anything weird like, and it's
Speaker 2: a pretty normal feeling, you know, restaurant. It's It's funny.
Speaker 2: A friend of mine was like, hey, like you got
Speaker 2: to keep your business model to yourself, right, Like that
Speaker 2: whole order at the door thing, Like that's a that's
Speaker 2: a gold mine, dude, Like, don't tell anybody about I'm
Speaker 2: like no, no, fact, Like please, restaurants, please just start
Speaker 2: doing this. It works so much better. And the more
Speaker 2: acclimated people get to this type of thing, the better
Speaker 2: it is for all of us. We kind of need
Speaker 2: to snap out of it a little bit.
Speaker 1: So then my meal is done, I get the check.
Speaker 1: How does the check look different than a typical restaurant check.
Speaker 2: Well, the check looks quite a bit different because it's
Speaker 2: very much more affordable than you would normally find in
Speaker 2: a city like San Francisco. And then we also add
Speaker 2: on a service charge. Ours is pretty modest fifteen percent,
Speaker 2: and we right now we're still leaving the option to
Speaker 2: add an optional to add a gratuity.
Speaker 1: But the fifteen percent is basically is basically the tip.
Speaker 2: It's basically in lieu of tips.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, in live tips. So that is a
Speaker 1: whole thing, right, like tipping is a whole thing. It's
Speaker 1: a kind of a uniquely American thing, right, you go
Speaker 1: to restaurants in other countries, it's not customary to tip
Speaker 1: in the way that it is here. Why did you
Speaker 1: make that choice?
Speaker 2: I made that choice on principle the whole system is
Speaker 2: messed up because not only does it create a huge
Speaker 2: wage disparity between a lot of front and back of
Speaker 2: the house employees in a single restaurant.
Speaker 1: So the people getting tipped end up making a lot
Speaker 1: more than the people working on the line in the
Speaker 1: kitchen or washing dishes.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah yeah. I remember at times when I
Speaker 2: was a chef of a restaurant working eighty hour weeks,
Speaker 2: I'd make less than a server who worked for a
Speaker 2: few shifts on a really busy section. So you know
Speaker 2: that just that just doesn't work really, And also it
Speaker 2: creates a creates a vibe I guess you know in
Speaker 2: the in the in the customer and server relationship that
Speaker 2: is just generally unhealthy. It leads to things like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how into tipping out want to get?
Speaker 2: It's a pretty hot.
Speaker 1: It leads to like sexual harassment being normalized, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's what you were thinking of.
Speaker 1: It leads to like power dynamics and gender dynamics in
Speaker 1: particular between the customers and the servers. That can be
Speaker 1: really unhealthy.
Speaker 2: It's a very unhealthy thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so how does the service charge work in
Speaker 1: terms of employee compensation? Do you just pay the staff
Speaker 1: a higher wage than you otherwise would or does that
Speaker 1: how does that work? Yep?
Speaker 2: We we pay the staff a higher wage and are
Speaker 2: able to factor in, you know, things that most normal
Speaker 2: businesses do when they decide compensation, like tenure and performance.
Speaker 1: So, okay, so you have created this restaurant that's different
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways than a traditional restaurant. Right,
Speaker 1: there's no reservations, half retail, you order when you get there,
Speaker 1: it's a smaller menu. The service charge is baked in.
Speaker 1: How's it working as a business.
Speaker 2: It's working very well. Yep. We're paying people well. Our
Speaker 2: costs are significantly lower. Let me put it this way.
Speaker 2: I haven't skipped a paycheck since we open.
Speaker 1: You personally, because you mean, there's always enough money to
Speaker 1: make payroll, so you can pay yourself and everybody else.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, And that's rare for a lot of restaurants.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the lightning round.
Speaker 1: That's the end of the ads. Now we're going back
Speaker 1: to show. Let's finish with a lightning round. Okay, answer questions. Okay,
Speaker 1: that are kind of fun. What's the hardest thing about
Speaker 1: cooking for customers out of a van? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Uh, being the chef, Saintmelier, and server and the guy
Speaker 2: who's trying to fight off the seagulls all at the
Speaker 2: same time.
Speaker 1: The seagulls I didn't think of as one of the
Speaker 1: challenges of selling pasta out of a van down by
Speaker 1: the bay. Who's your favorite character in the Bear?
Speaker 2: Oh? God, favorite character in the Bear would be the
Speaker 2: Sioux chef, just like young going at it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, neurotic, but in the most charming way. It's kind
Speaker 1: of what I'm going for.
Speaker 2: Definitely neurotic. She's like, she's like straight out I know her,
Speaker 2: you know, I know, like so many of her in
Speaker 2: our business.
Speaker 1: She feels very real, doesn't she feel very real?
Speaker 2: She really really is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's one thing I can do to cook better pasta?
Speaker 2: Mmm? So you need to take it out of the
Speaker 2: water a minute even two minutes ahead of time, and
Speaker 2: give it enough time to get to know the sauce
Speaker 2: in the pan, pull it from the water, hold on
Speaker 2: to some of that cooking water, some of that pasta water.
Speaker 2: It's like gold. It's got all the starch in it.
Speaker 2: And you can add small amounts at a time to
Speaker 2: the sauce. But like giving those two the sauce in
Speaker 2: the pasta time to cook together in the pan, will
Speaker 2: like adhere the sauce to the pasta properly and just
Speaker 2: make a significantly better product.
Speaker 1: I feel compelled to say that my wife already does that,
Speaker 1: but I do not.
Speaker 2: Okay, point to her, Yeah, yeah, point to her.
Speaker 1: What's the most underrated pasta shape?
Speaker 2: Ooh, dang, that's a good one. Let's see here. It's
Speaker 2: such a heated topic for me, So honestly, like underrated
Speaker 2: pasta shape is rigatoni. It's a hollow, straight tube, but
Speaker 2: that's like typically ridged on the outside, right, And I
Speaker 2: feel like rigatoni is something that you know, it's just
Speaker 2: sort of seen as basic like spaghetti, right, but but
Speaker 2: it holds the juicy sauce inside so that it just
Speaker 2: like snap when you snap into the pasta just gushes
Speaker 2: into your mouth, and that like delicate little ridge on
Speaker 2: the outside gives a little bit of tongue tickle and
Speaker 2: helps it adhere to the sauce. Like it's such a
Speaker 2: it's such a like common yet just absolutely lovely shape.
Speaker 1: Well, I gotta ask, what's the most overrated pasta shape?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, what's the most overrated pasta shape? Oh? Dude,
Speaker 2: angel hair? What is up with angel hair? Passa? It's
Speaker 2: so thin? Like, okay, I get thin and delicate right like,
Speaker 2: But there's so many better thin and delicate pasta shapes
Speaker 2: that are long and slurpable, that don't just disintegrate and
Speaker 2: sauce immediately. Angel hair not into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like there was a weird angel hair
Speaker 1: bubble in maybe the nineties.
Speaker 2: It was very nicety.
Speaker 1: You don't know how old you are, but I will
Speaker 1: have to remember. Yeah, what are you going to go do?
Speaker 1: Right now?
Speaker 2: Right now? I Am going to go downstairs and see
Speaker 2: if we have enough semolina showing up for the weekend.
Speaker 1: It's flower basically, yeah.
Speaker 2: North American Organic, Durham.
Speaker 1: Someone you don't have flower, your screw.
Speaker 2: If we don't have flower, good luck with your business
Speaker 2: model if you can't make the pasta.
Speaker 1: Anthony Strong is the chef and owner of Pasta Supply Code.
Speaker 1: Today's show was produced by Edith Russolo, edited by Karen Schakerji,
Speaker 1: and engineered by Sarah Breugeer. If you like the show,
Speaker 1: please tell somebody about it or review it on whatever
Speaker 1: podcast app you use. If you don't like the show,
Speaker 1: don't review it, but email us and tell us how
Speaker 1: we could make it better. You can email us at
Speaker 1: problem at Pushkin dot Fm. I'm Jacob Goldstein and will
Speaker 1: be back next week with another episode of What's Your
Speaker 1: Problem