Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Boomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest.
Speaker 1: His name is Ralph Scamadela, and he is the head
Speaker 1: chef and partner at Tao Group, which is one of
Speaker 1: the largest restaurant groups in the United States. UH. They
Speaker 1: have some immense restaurants that are in the top ten
Speaker 1: in terms of total revenue. We've previously spoken to several
Speaker 1: other restaurateurs, but this is the first time we've had
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone who is in the restaurant business
Speaker 1: at this sort of level in terms of being not
Speaker 1: just national but global. They have restaurants in Australia and
Speaker 1: Singapore and elsewhere. If you were at all a foodie,
Speaker 1: if you're interested in the food service industry, if you're
Speaker 1: interested in understanding what makes certain restaurants successful and others
Speaker 1: not so successful, you're gonna really enjoy this conversation. With
Speaker 1: no further ado, my conversation with Ralph Scamadela. My special
Speaker 1: guest this week is Ralph Scamadela. He is a chef
Speaker 1: and partner with the Two Group, one of the most
Speaker 1: successful restaurant and nightclub companies in the United States. The
Speaker 1: two group operates in New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Sydney,
Speaker 1: and they run three of the top ten grossing restaurants
Speaker 1: in the United States, including the single biggest grossing independent restaurant,
Speaker 1: Tao Asian Bistro in Las Vegas, which in did over
Speaker 1: forty two and a half million dollars in revenue. Scamadela
Speaker 1: oversees all of the chefs and concepts in New York,
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, l A. Uh pretty much. You probably have
Speaker 1: eaten his food and not even known it. Uh. And
Speaker 1: last year Madison Square Garden purchased a controlling interest in
Speaker 1: tal Group. Ralph Scammondello, welcome back to Bloom. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much, Berry, pleasure to be here. So I did
Speaker 1: that intro. I should ask for a raise, You definitely should.
Speaker 1: So I've been looking forward to this conversation. I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit of a foodie and have eaten in some
Speaker 1: of your restaurants. But I want to go back, really
Speaker 1: to the beginning. How did you get interested in cooking?
Speaker 1: Is this something that you were passionate when you were younger?
Speaker 1: Did you just kind of develop it later in life.
Speaker 1: I grew up in an Italian American home, so my
Speaker 1: parents were always My father worked, my mother was always
Speaker 1: home cooking. And I got a job working in a
Speaker 1: restaurant when I was very young, and a chef in
Speaker 1: that restaurant took a liking to me and just would
Speaker 1: help let me help out in the kitchen while I
Speaker 1: was doing bus play work. I was doing way to work,
Speaker 1: and he encouraged me to go to school for it
Speaker 1: and really so that I had a knack for it,
Speaker 1: and he really guided me to go to New York
Speaker 1: City Community College and then uh, when I graduated high school,
Speaker 1: I went to Grady High School in Brooklyn. It's a
Speaker 1: tech vocational school. I wanted to be an electrical electrician,
Speaker 1: electrical engineer. I wasn't sure, but when I he encouraged
Speaker 1: me to go to New York City hotel and restaurant.
Speaker 1: And when I graduated high school, his good friend of
Speaker 1: his was the chef at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: and he got me a job working at the Plaza Hotel.
Speaker 1: So it was like from being in a small restaurant
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn to the biggest hotel pretty much in New
Speaker 1: York or anywhere in America. Was unbelievable. So do you
Speaker 1: find most of modern chefs today? Are they going to
Speaker 1: restaurant schools like huminary institutor elsewhere or are they a
Speaker 1: combination of self taught or mentored along the way. Where
Speaker 1: where are most of our I think most of them
Speaker 1: go to school? But there you know, it's not there's
Speaker 1: no one that's the one thing that's great about the
Speaker 1: restaurant business. Now there is no one path of success.
Speaker 1: Right when I was growing up and you wanted to
Speaker 1: be a chef, and you wanted to be an accomplished chef,
Speaker 1: you had to do your internship and then you had
Speaker 1: to do you had to be a comee in a
Speaker 1: French restaurant, You had to work for a big hotel,
Speaker 1: you had to work for a great chef, and you
Speaker 1: had to go through this long, arduous path. Now you
Speaker 1: could develop the greatest hot dog, the greatest burger, and
Speaker 1: you can be recognized for so many things, different things.
Speaker 1: Not only is a chef, but become a successful business
Speaker 1: person doing it. So I think that to be the
Speaker 1: most successful, school and education helps you not only with
Speaker 1: knowing how to roast the chicken, not just using that,
Speaker 1: but understanding the business. What to look for in the business,
Speaker 1: how to make the money, how to hold onto the money,
Speaker 1: how to spend the money correctly. So it's more than
Speaker 1: just the base technicals of cooking. You really have to
Speaker 1: underthink like an entrepreneur, not necessarily just a chef. I
Speaker 1: mean when we went to school, was you had to
Speaker 1: take hotel accounting, accounting, beverage and inventory control stuff. Why
Speaker 1: do I need this? Like my kids would say to me, Oh,
Speaker 1: why do I need algebra in high school? You're never
Speaker 1: gonna but you do use it, and learning those skills,
Speaker 1: those mathematical skills and standing business is super important to
Speaker 1: be successful. So you've been working in the restaurant field
Speaker 1: in New York City for a long time. Not too
Speaker 1: long ago, we spoke to Bobby Flay about opening a
Speaker 1: restaurant in Manhattan, and he described it as the most
Speaker 1: difficult place in the world to open a restaurant. He's
Speaker 1: never opened a restaurant Singapore. That's yeah, because the government is,
Speaker 1: you know, on top of you. But New York is
Speaker 1: pretty very restrictive, and it really comes from lots of
Speaker 1: people for years taking advantage of the system, like building
Speaker 1: people not falling building permits correctly. These people that stole
Speaker 1: the gas downtown and like is he? That was one
Speaker 1: of my favorites, Carnegie restaurants. Who steals gas? What if
Speaker 1: it's not like millions of dollars and I get it man,
Speaker 1: and the risk is definitely not worth the reward. That
Speaker 1: that's totally asymmetric. Let's talk about some of the technological
Speaker 1: advances that we see in modern kitchens. How has technology changed?
Speaker 1: Is it easier to run a big kitchen or is
Speaker 1: it just an additional complication using It's a little bit
Speaker 1: easier to run it. You know, you from the computer
Speaker 1: systems that help you control inventory, watch, purchasing to just
Speaker 1: managing the kitchen, managing employees payroll. Now, it used to
Speaker 1: be when I started at the Plaza tell my daily
Speaker 1: rate was two dollars and thirty six cents an hour.
Speaker 1: It's like fifteen hour, so you're really managing people on
Speaker 1: the half hour now, So technology of punging in, punching
Speaker 1: out managing those people, but also the cooking techniques. That's
Speaker 1: what I was gonna ask. There's so many new technological
Speaker 1: gadgets that you could use, from from the souve days
Speaker 1: to down the road. How does that help or does
Speaker 1: it just make it more challenging. Uh. No, it does
Speaker 1: help out a lot, especially the Combie ovens where they heat,
Speaker 1: they hold, you can use less employees and the product.
Speaker 1: You don't really lose anything in a product. If it
Speaker 1: was years ago, you would have to have a whole
Speaker 1: crew prepping and then putting it in oven, taking it out,
Speaker 1: cooling it and reheating it. There. There's technology now where
Speaker 1: you make items, you cook them to a certain temperature,
Speaker 1: you'll hold them at that temperature and then you really
Speaker 1: reheat them and serve them out. So especially for big banquets.
Speaker 1: We do a lot of banquets in Vegas. It's been
Speaker 1: a big, huge help for us. But some of those,
Speaker 1: like Suvie techniques, I think those some of that is
Speaker 1: come and gone. I think that in the beginning, when
Speaker 1: it came in, it was a cool idea and a
Speaker 1: lot of chefs used it, but I think it's gotten
Speaker 1: to the point where it's overused. I don't really like
Speaker 1: using it for red meats or heavy meats. For chicken
Speaker 1: and certain vegetables, it makes them great, but you've got
Speaker 1: to use some of those techniques are you have to
Speaker 1: really understand how to use those and what the outcome
Speaker 1: is going to be. Not just to say oh, it's
Speaker 1: suvied and that's gonna make it great. That's just not
Speaker 1: the not the case. Let's let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the cooking aspect of being in a restaurant. What
Speaker 1: does it take to make a great chef? Well, that's uh. Firstly,
Speaker 1: you gotta have passion for it. You know, you gotta
Speaker 1: want to do it, and struggle through learning, self learning,
Speaker 1: taking instruction, taking a lot of criticisms. We also have
Speaker 1: to like any artist or artists in I like to say,
Speaker 1: forget about artists, but you have to learn all the
Speaker 1: techniques of proper roasting, proper grilling, proper stain, proper cutting,
Speaker 1: and a lot of I think that's some of the
Speaker 1: things that get lost is really understanding all the basic
Speaker 1: techniques and knowing how to use those techniques and combine them.
Speaker 1: How does that differ from someone who is passionate about
Speaker 1: food at home and it's a pretty good chef on
Speaker 1: their own. What does it take to transition to actually
Speaker 1: being a head chef in a restaurant? Uh, cooking and
Speaker 1: being a chef, to me are two completely different things.
Speaker 1: Chef has to be a good cook, but a great
Speaker 1: cook can't always be a great chef. There it's a
Speaker 1: chef is a person who runs the business, who runs
Speaker 1: the back of the house, runs the kitchen. Has to
Speaker 1: know what all the other employees are doing in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: has to know, like if you're on the STA station,
Speaker 1: everything that's in that state station, what your musing plus is,
Speaker 1: what your recipes are. You're correct, You're executing those recipes correctly,
Speaker 1: over and over again. It's at home, you're you know,
Speaker 1: when I cook at home, I make grilled chicken, I'm
Speaker 1: making it famili and the kids in the family, and
Speaker 1: that's it. And when you're in the restaurant, you may
Speaker 1: you may be making hundreds of them. So if you
Speaker 1: come in at eleven thirty on Tuesday, you want to
Speaker 1: come back at a elemit thirty on Friday, have the
Speaker 1: same exact experience that takes a chef, somebody with skill
Speaker 1: who knows how to teach, who knows how to set
Speaker 1: that kitchen up correctly, and make the teach those techniques
Speaker 1: and set up the musing plus correctly. So so it's
Speaker 1: really a matter of organization and running a team more
Speaker 1: than just being a skilled correct. Huh, they're they're interesting.
Speaker 1: So when you're you run a number of restaurants, how
Speaker 1: do you spot talent? How do you identify who's going
Speaker 1: to be a good chef, either to hire or promote.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a really challenging thing. Talent. You know,
Speaker 1: that is a tough one because there are there are people,
Speaker 1: like I said, who can't cook, and then when you
Speaker 1: put them in a roll over responsibility just a mere
Speaker 1: fact of the anxiety of having to watch over other people,
Speaker 1: be responsible for other people. It takes a lot for
Speaker 1: for employees and people to get over. One of the
Speaker 1: things is you'll see somebody who's working. He's a hard
Speaker 1: working They're a hard working person. They're consistent, they cook good,
Speaker 1: they come up with specials, they come to you, they
Speaker 1: interact with you. You see how they move, how they
Speaker 1: just you know, there's a lot like watching a great
Speaker 1: basketball player, a great baseball player. They have a feel
Speaker 1: and a style and lots of moves and and you
Speaker 1: pick up on that, and a lot of these people
Speaker 1: can once they get to the next level, just dealing
Speaker 1: with the anxiety and stuff on them. And I think
Speaker 1: we try to teach them a little by little of Okay,
Speaker 1: you're a great cook, you do a great job on
Speaker 1: your station. You've really done a lot of these things.
Speaker 1: Now let's teach you how to be a chef, because
Speaker 1: I always say to guys, if you're a great whatever
Speaker 1: sote guy, are a great grill guy, you can only
Speaker 1: make so much money. You're not gonna pay the saute
Speaker 1: man the same way you would pay the sus chef
Speaker 1: for the executive chef. So for you to grow into
Speaker 1: not only make more money for yourself, but grow the
Speaker 1: business and educate yourself and maybe do whatever you want
Speaker 1: on your own, you have to overcome these challenges. What
Speaker 1: are the differences and responsibilities for the sioux chef versus
Speaker 1: I assume the executive chef. The buck stops with them.
Speaker 1: There's charge of everything from ordering to food quality to
Speaker 1: what the recipes are. The next uh lieutenant, the Sioux chef,
Speaker 1: what do they do? So chefs do everything. The chef
Speaker 1: does as little as possible that those guys are always
Speaker 1: working and those uh that used to be When I
Speaker 1: was a Sioux chef, I made sure the chef had
Speaker 1: very little to do. I mean the chef, the executive
Speaker 1: chef has final say over the menu, the food the
Speaker 1: He's the ultimate. They are the ultimate, and what the
Speaker 1: food quality is, what the dish looks like, tastes like,
Speaker 1: when it's executed, and the viability of running that business.
Speaker 1: They're responsible for food costs, are responsible for labor costs.
Speaker 1: We also make all our chefs responsible for the facility.
Speaker 1: So it's taking care of the equipment, managing that equipment,
Speaker 1: because buying a out, you know, a blender item makes
Speaker 1: this ovens a forty dollars. These days, it's not like
Speaker 1: you buy an oven for six hundred bucks, put it in,
Speaker 1: it works. Everything's so expensive. So you mentioned taste. How
Speaker 1: do you two questions on taste? How do you make
Speaker 1: sure a dish is consistent not only from meal to meal,
Speaker 1: but you have restaurants all over the country. How do
Speaker 1: you keep that consistent? And when you're designing a dish,
Speaker 1: are you trying to be as broadly focused as possible
Speaker 1: or or are some dishes designed for a special niche
Speaker 1: niche audience and a special bunch of It's definitely a
Speaker 1: little bit of both. At the answered the first question.
Speaker 1: When you get a recipe at home, you look at
Speaker 1: a recipe and it's a cup of this, a teaspoon
Speaker 1: of that. One of the things we try to do
Speaker 1: is really measure everything out, so someone's on the line
Speaker 1: and it's a spoon of this, a spoon of that.
Speaker 1: It will always be the four ounce later will be.
Speaker 1: It's never a pinch or season to taste. I think
Speaker 1: salt and pepper, and you really see it. You'll go
Speaker 1: to we have restaurants in New York where the food
Speaker 1: is seasoned here and people go out to Las Vegas
Speaker 1: and have the same dish. Oh, it didn't taste the same.
Speaker 1: It didn't. The taste of that clientele in Vegas is
Speaker 1: totally different, different age, different demograph, level of salt, different
Speaker 1: level of pepper. And then you go to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and it's different again. They everybody had all their you know,
Speaker 1: McDonald's does the same thing. Big corporations will see what
Speaker 1: people like to eat and how they like dishes seasoned
Speaker 1: or levels of seasoning, and they'll they'll play up to that.
Speaker 1: You have to adapt to the local. Huh, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Never would have guessed that. So you mentioned you cook
Speaker 1: at home for the kids. What do you eat at home?
Speaker 1: How different is it from what you're cooking in the
Speaker 1: rest Well, first I have to do all the work myself.
Speaker 1: When I'm at the restaurant, there's always somebody can say,
Speaker 1: get this, get that. Cleanness, pats you with like an
Speaker 1: assembly line with the kids peeling potatoes, nothing like that.
Speaker 1: And I'm not always but I you don't. Again, my
Speaker 1: my wife and I elait this, and then my son
Speaker 1: will only eat certain dishes. My daughter, who's thirteen, will
Speaker 1: only eat certain dishes. So I try to make a
Speaker 1: little bit of everything for everybody. But now the summer
Speaker 1: is great, so it's all about barbecue. It's a salad,
Speaker 1: one vegetable and then grilled meat and grilled fish. That's
Speaker 1: why I like the summer makes life easy. Let's let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about life in the kitchen at
Speaker 1: a big shop like yours. Um, what's it like being
Speaker 1: a chef? I would imagine the hours a pretty brutal.
Speaker 1: Hours are brutal, but I think that anybody who's in
Speaker 1: any profession has brutal hours. I don't you know, talk
Speaker 1: to a lawyer or an electrician or somebody. They're always
Speaker 1: working lots of hours. They're working hard. Huh. The one
Speaker 1: thing about the restaurant is that It never closes right,
Speaker 1: even if the you close for dinner or service ends
Speaker 1: at eleven o'clock, there's always somebody there's cleaning, is putting
Speaker 1: stuff away, getting ready for the next day, checking mesu
Speaker 1: plats for the next day. The chef is always forecasting
Speaker 1: for tomorrow, looking at what he needs, for what they
Speaker 1: need for tomorrow, who's coming in this day and age employees.
Speaker 1: Employees calling out is always a big thing. So we're
Speaker 1: always jumping in and helping out on the line and
Speaker 1: moving How do you balance that with a personal life
Speaker 1: If it's that, it's tough, but you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that we do is that unless there's some
Speaker 1: big circumstances where got people have to work six days
Speaker 1: a week or work a double shift, we really focus
Speaker 1: and emphasize that everybody takes it two days off, every
Speaker 1: takes their vacation. When you take your vacation, you make
Speaker 1: sure you leave your phone home, don't answer emails, don't
Speaker 1: reply to email if you are answering those emails, So
Speaker 1: that downtime and off time is super important. I'm a
Speaker 1: strong believer in it, and I make sure that the
Speaker 1: whole team follows that rule. So years, many years ago.
Speaker 1: I worked in a kitchen um as a short order
Speaker 1: chef and a waiter in a bartender in college, and
Speaker 1: I always noticed that some kitchens would really well oiled machines.
Speaker 1: Everybody knew what they had to do and it was
Speaker 1: pretty clear how things ran. How do you scale that
Speaker 1: up to an operation the size of yours. If you're
Speaker 1: doing forty million dollars in sales and just one location,
Speaker 1: this is really a military type operation, isn't it. It
Speaker 1: is a military type operation, But we definitely take that
Speaker 1: same focus that you said. It's a small mom and
Speaker 1: pop and we take every station and we break it down.
Speaker 1: So if there are seven stations in the kitchen, each
Speaker 1: station is responsible for nine dishes or eight dishes, so
Speaker 1: you can really focus in on a soux. Chef will
Speaker 1: walk around and make sure they taste and monitor those.
Speaker 1: So as the food comes up, it's a huge past.
Speaker 1: The line is about twenty five ft and everyone is
Speaker 1: putting up the dishes that they're responsible for that part
Speaker 1: of the menu. So if you compartmentalize all the food,
Speaker 1: it's not like you'll go there and make the salad,
Speaker 1: then run to the other side and make the noodles.
Speaker 1: Then run to the other side and make the fish.
Speaker 1: Every single person has a set of responsibilities the measing,
Speaker 1: plus lists and things that they have to be ready,
Speaker 1: and we monitor and check those things before service, enduring
Speaker 1: services plus meaning everything in its place, sliced. As an
Speaker 1: order comes in for pattie, you're not slicing the radishes,
Speaker 1: you're not slicing the chicken. Everything is ready to go
Speaker 1: and it's assembled. When when the order you mentioned there
Speaker 1: are seven stations. What are the seven stations? Uh, there's garminer,
Speaker 1: pastry and tow would be dim some grill, hot apps,
Speaker 1: saute and walk in the kitchen, and then there's a
Speaker 1: sushi station which is a free standing and um, what
Speaker 1: do you think are the biggest misconceptions people have about
Speaker 1: how restaurants run? And I asked this having as again
Speaker 1: a person who goes out to eat a lot I
Speaker 1: and was a waiter. I'm always surprised at the comments
Speaker 1: people have for two waiters and it's like, oh, you've
Speaker 1: obviously never worked in the kitchen. Otherwise you've never asked
Speaker 1: I wanted a big misconceptions The chef is actually cooking
Speaker 1: every dish. That's oh my god, what have he don't know.
Speaker 1: And it's impossible for especially in a restaurant of our size,
Speaker 1: that the chef is cooking every dish. But he's he's
Speaker 1: creating every dish. He's coming up with it, and he's
Speaker 1: monitoring and working with the team as they produce it.
Speaker 1: And for us, like someone came in one day and
Speaker 1: we had the lobster delivery. Came in and there were
Speaker 1: probably foeces of lobster and somebody said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I thought you used frozen. Why would you think that
Speaker 1: we used frozen. We get it delivered twice a week
Speaker 1: from Maine, you know, we take it, we break it down,
Speaker 1: we we we cook it, and we get it ready
Speaker 1: for that service, and we do it fresh every single day.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of misconceptions about how those things
Speaker 1: get done. What does it take to create a new dish,
Speaker 1: what does that process like? So usually one of us
Speaker 1: will come up with an idea, all I have an idea,
Speaker 1: or the chef will have an idea, and then we
Speaker 1: we kind of collaborate on it. For if it's seasonal
Speaker 1: now summer and spring is great, lots of different products
Speaker 1: come in and we'll test those out and I'll make something,
Speaker 1: or the chef will make something, and then we have
Speaker 1: a couple of corporate chefs will come in and then
Speaker 1: everybody will collaborate on that dish and add a seasoning
Speaker 1: or take something away and really try to maximize not
Speaker 1: only the flavors, but the execution of that dish. Where
Speaker 1: are we going to pick it up from, how is
Speaker 1: he going to get How is it gonna look and
Speaker 1: taste exactly the same way we just made it. So
Speaker 1: that goes a lot into the thought of how to
Speaker 1: make a dish, like is it coming out of the
Speaker 1: station where we're holding the means and plause? What do
Speaker 1: we have to make ahead of time? What can we
Speaker 1: make at the moment, and how can we get that
Speaker 1: same experience over and over and over again each guest?
Speaker 1: That is, how how often do you change up the menu?
Speaker 1: The bulk of the menu is kind of static because
Speaker 1: there's hits, those big famous hits that everybody loves, Like
Speaker 1: going to a def Leppard concert, you gotta hear those
Speaker 1: ten songs. That's all that people want to hear. And
Speaker 1: then there's about a certain percentage that we swap in
Speaker 1: and out every year, but there's always special So once
Speaker 1: a year. We change the menu, and it's probably teen
Speaker 1: per cent of it that goes on and goes off
Speaker 1: based on seasonality, and something's work and some things don't work.
Speaker 1: But specials are always ever changing. We run four or
Speaker 1: five specials a day. Let's let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the business of running a restaurant. You have some
Speaker 1: really big operations in New York, in Las Vegas, in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I think I saw a list that three
Speaker 1: of the ten top grossing restaurants were talent groups. How
Speaker 1: do you make sure that every customer experience will hold
Speaker 1: the seasoning aside for regional difference. We call them guests,
Speaker 1: though every every guest gets the same experience no matter
Speaker 1: where the restaurant is. I think it's for us. It
Speaker 1: starts with finding the right employees, are people and teaching
Speaker 1: them hospitality. I think that you can you have to
Speaker 1: find good people. Right. You can teach anybody how to cook,
Speaker 1: you can teach anybody how to do any of the
Speaker 1: basic skills that you need for the restaurant business. But
Speaker 1: finding the right people, finding a good people who are
Speaker 1: into the hospitality business, who really want to give the
Speaker 1: best guest experiences. The most important thing that we do
Speaker 1: finding the right people. What does it cost to open
Speaker 1: a new restaurant in a city like New York of
Speaker 1: Las Vegas these days depends on this square foot. It's
Speaker 1: probably two thousand dollars of square foot, three thousand dollars
Speaker 1: of square foot. That's several millions, seven million dollars, right.
Speaker 1: What Why is the failure rate so high for restaurants?
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is anecdotal, but I always
Speaker 1: here are gone within three years or some number like that.
Speaker 1: One of the things that just because you make the
Speaker 1: greatest souffle or the greatest steak, you have to to
Speaker 1: me for us anyway, The real estate is the most
Speaker 1: important part of the deal, right You have to have
Speaker 1: the right space in the right location at the right rent,
Speaker 1: and one wants all those If you're paying exorbitant rent
Speaker 1: and you have a snowstorm, something happens business, you know,
Speaker 1: like so you have to plan for those things. You
Speaker 1: have to plan for war. When the business ebbs and
Speaker 1: flows and the rent is constant, pay them regardless of
Speaker 1: what happened. People in the Hampton's doesn't matter. That's it.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest misconceptions is someone That's why going to school and
Speaker 1: understanding the business end of it is super important. Understanding
Speaker 1: projecting out, Hey, I can do forty dollars a week
Speaker 1: in business, my rent factor is six percent. I can
Speaker 1: always make money. If I do forty thousand a week
Speaker 1: and I dipped the twenty and my rent is seven,
Speaker 1: I can still make money. But if my rent is
Speaker 1: double that and it's and my rent fact that goes
Speaker 1: up to you're gonna have to make care your in trouble.
Speaker 1: So so real estate costs in in a big city
Speaker 1: is the most challenging thing I think. So yeah, what
Speaker 1: about overseas? I know you guys have places in Australia
Speaker 1: and you mentioned Singapore more or less the same concept
Speaker 1: or you're not dealing like San Francisco, New York. The
Speaker 1: rents have to be crazy. But in in Sydney and
Speaker 1: in Singapore or in a hotel, so we're in star
Speaker 1: In in Sydney and Marina based sands, so we do
Speaker 1: have rent deals, but the hotel or all partners, so
Speaker 1: it's a base rent and a percentage rent, so it's manageable.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't matter you're someone, it always managed. Is
Speaker 1: that true with most So there's a sort of odd
Speaker 1: thing here in New York that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of big hotels that have restaurants inside. Some are fairly
Speaker 1: famous named brands, and some are lesser known entities. Is
Speaker 1: that financing structure similar where the hotel is subsidizing the
Speaker 1: rent because they want the space there for guests or
Speaker 1: how do they Each one is individual? But I think
Speaker 1: you find more and more now that the individual operator
Speaker 1: puts up very little of their own cash and the
Speaker 1: base build or the hotel will finance the whole project.
Speaker 1: There'll be a partner and you'll get less of a
Speaker 1: percentage on the front end and less a percentage on
Speaker 1: the back end, but they'll finance the whole project for you.
Speaker 1: So that becomes fine, actually attractive. There's little risk when
Speaker 1: you're a little risk less risk. There's always risk of
Speaker 1: you know, getting employees not making money, signing to a
Speaker 1: deal that may not be as lucrative as you want,
Speaker 1: doing all this work and finding out three of the
Speaker 1: net is nothing. So why is it that so many
Speaker 1: people seem to be attracted to investing in restaurants? Is
Speaker 1: it just a hobbyist thing? It's like a movie or
Speaker 1: Broadway show. Right, it's like the worst investments in the world.
Speaker 1: Don't go that far. We're looking at the money. I
Speaker 1: mean well, I mean it's super sexy, right, and it's
Speaker 1: it's action, and it's people, and it's the The afrodisiac
Speaker 1: of opening a restaurant is great. Man. People come in,
Speaker 1: they see you, and people who wanted to stand it
Speaker 1: for the business or very are smart about investing. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, it looks easy to everybody. I guess
Speaker 1: the restaurant it makes hard and it's done the the machine.
Speaker 1: That's it. Oh my god, they charged in twenty seven
Speaker 1: dollars for a chicken. I go to the store. Its
Speaker 1: five dollars. How is that possible? Yeah, it's so not true,
Speaker 1: but that's what people think. So if you had to
Speaker 1: decide the most important job in the restaurant, not counting
Speaker 1: the chef, who do you sign that task to? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I always say that every single person in
Speaker 1: that restaurant matters, from the person who sweeps outside, receives
Speaker 1: the delivery and puts it away, And think that every
Speaker 1: single person in that chain has a a very important
Speaker 1: part to play in a guest experience. Coming in coming
Speaker 1: up to a restaurant that's dirty on the outside, you
Speaker 1: know you want it clean, you want it sharp. Every
Speaker 1: single job in a restaurant is important. I have to
Speaker 1: totally agree with you. We had a very nice meal
Speaker 1: the other day at a very nice restaurant. I won't
Speaker 1: mention and the bus boys, I don't know if they
Speaker 1: were trying to break the dishes, but they were just
Speaker 1: and it was just one of those little things that
Speaker 1: I noticed that chief a really nice restaurant. They should
Speaker 1: teach these guys not to slam um everything down. It
Speaker 1: should be more gentle, because half the restaurant's had whipped
Speaker 1: around every time, and that happened throughout. I was shot people,
Speaker 1: and it takes away from the experience, Like is the
Speaker 1: bus way important? Yeah, sure that that person is very important.
Speaker 1: From the same way, you walk in and the major
Speaker 1: d or the host greets you and says a low
Speaker 1: and then the server comes over and takes your order
Speaker 1: in the chef and the the person who received those goods,
Speaker 1: did they take care of them that they put them
Speaker 1: away the right way so the food doesn't spoil everything.
Speaker 1: And it's every single thing matters everything. It doesn't it
Speaker 1: has a big impact on the experience. Um, do you
Speaker 1: have any thoughts on this tipping or not movement that
Speaker 1: seems to be gaining It's it's you know, it's difficult
Speaker 1: because tipping in upstate New York or smaller counties where
Speaker 1: it's super valuable to the employee, and whenoun employee or
Speaker 1: waiter gets serving gets stiffed in one of those, they're
Speaker 1: not making any money. In New York it's different. There's
Speaker 1: the yell of people coming in, the amount of business
Speaker 1: that we do, so paying a server thirteen fourteen dollars
Speaker 1: an hour is very tough on the restaurants in New
Speaker 1: York and I believe in the end it's it's changing
Speaker 1: the face of the restaurant business in New York City,
Speaker 1: and certain restaurants with servers will be elite kind of
Speaker 1: high end restaurant because most people won't be able to
Speaker 1: afford it. I mean, you think we're better off just
Speaker 1: keeping tipping as it is and not ye, I could
Speaker 1: totally see that. So when you want to go out
Speaker 1: for fun, what sort of what are you looking in
Speaker 1: in a restaurant when you're dining out? So I have
Speaker 1: different if we go out to eat as a team.
Speaker 1: We go to look to see an experience. Who who's
Speaker 1: doing something in Asian food, who's doing something in Italian food?
Speaker 1: Or the dishes interesting. If I'm going out with my family,
Speaker 1: it's someplace where my kids can destroy and have a
Speaker 1: good time and I don't have to worry about them
Speaker 1: and just have a nice glass of wine and relax.
Speaker 1: So it's all about what we're trying to do and
Speaker 1: what we're trying to accomplish. Will go out and as
Speaker 1: a team and will we went to that in steakhouse
Speaker 1: cult and so ten of us went out. We ordered
Speaker 1: everything on the menu. We tried everything. Literally, how many
Speaker 1: ten people just bring us two of these like I'll
Speaker 1: always go like, there's a green salad, we don't want that,
Speaker 1: but bring everything else? Do people recognize you when you
Speaker 1: go out? You have to have other people in the
Speaker 1: restaurant industry say some people, I mean, because nobody ever
Speaker 1: try to be as incognito was possible, not that anybody
Speaker 1: would know me, but you know, the restaurant business very
Speaker 1: incestuous in the city, so service could have There was
Speaker 1: a bartender there and a server that worked for us
Speaker 1: in town. Something knows automatically does that mean you get
Speaker 1: better service or it depends on what depends. But they
Speaker 1: had a good time at town or not. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know. But so when you are looking at
Speaker 1: a restaurant, what what would it take to get you
Speaker 1: to invest in a restaurant that wasn't part of your group?
Speaker 1: What would you be looking for? I know you probably
Speaker 1: are precluded from doing that, but but if you were
Speaker 1: thinking about that, like, what what sort of things catch
Speaker 1: your eye as a potential investor? Want to things the concept?
Speaker 1: What the concept is and what it's driven by. Is
Speaker 1: it driven by a steakhouse? Is it a concept that
Speaker 1: goes across all different genres? Is it a businessman restaurant
Speaker 1: or is it specific to a ethnic cuisine? What's the
Speaker 1: location and what what is the P and L say?
Speaker 1: What do the multiple say? Are they do they have
Speaker 1: the right scale? Are you charging enough? So if it's
Speaker 1: only sixty seats and people say well we can do
Speaker 1: three million a year, three million a year at sixty seats,
Speaker 1: how much money are you gonna make off that investment
Speaker 1: if you leave you if you took that half a
Speaker 1: million dollars and lifting in a bank and made two
Speaker 1: percent on a CD, you would make more money and
Speaker 1: it's safer. You have to have the right size restaurant
Speaker 1: with the right concept and the right location and enough
Speaker 1: scale to make that investment worth it. So most of
Speaker 1: what I see with the Towel group, there's there's tow
Speaker 1: the whole run of Asian restaurants. Um, what are you
Speaker 1: do in terms of steak and in terms of Italian
Speaker 1: we do Lava, which is an Italian steakhouse. We have
Speaker 1: one in New York, one in Las Vegas, one in Singapore,
Speaker 1: So that kind of encompasses the Italian Italian American kind
Speaker 1: of food from New York, New York neighborhood food with steak.
Speaker 1: And we have Legacy, which is a seafood restaurant in
Speaker 1: the Moxi Hotel, Tao Beauty, and Essex Vandal. So it's
Speaker 1: lots of different concepts, but Tao is definitely our biggest
Speaker 1: concept that we have and it's the most famous. And um,
Speaker 1: when you when you go around to restaurants in Manhattan
Speaker 1: is part of the back of your head always running
Speaker 1: those numbers, like what they're doing first, seeing what ideas
Speaker 1: I could steal and take it make our own, because
Speaker 1: you know you're always looking to improve yourself. Anyone who
Speaker 1: says we do everything perfect and we do everything great
Speaker 1: and we do the best food, the best guest experience
Speaker 1: is just fooling themselves. You're always looking where I'm always
Speaker 1: looking for that edge and seeing what people are doing.
Speaker 1: Is there any innovation and to see kind of business
Speaker 1: are doing and in a location, is it's sustainable? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it gonna be a threat? Is it gonna be something?
Speaker 1: Who or part of that concept that maybe there is
Speaker 1: something there and they can make something of it. You know,
Speaker 1: you're always thinking when you're looking and seeing what's going on. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Can you see where they're investing the money in right
Speaker 1: that they spend money on five in flowers and no
Speaker 1: money on linen and linnen? Is that really where you
Speaker 1: want to go? So I'll interesting? Can you stick around
Speaker 1: a little bit some more questions for you. We have
Speaker 1: been speaking with Ralph Scamadela. He is chef and partner
Speaker 1: at the Towel Group. Be sure and check out our
Speaker 1: podcast Actually is where we keep the tape rolling and
Speaker 1: continue discussing all things fine dining. We love your comments,
Speaker 1: feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot net. You can check out my daily
Speaker 1: column on Bloomberg dot com. Follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Rick Halts. I'm Barry Helts. You're listening to Masters in
Speaker 1: Business on Bloomberg. Yeah, welcome to the podcast, Ralph. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for doing this. I find this topic
Speaker 1: absolutely fascinating, not only because I like to cook a
Speaker 1: little bit and I certainly like to eat um, but
Speaker 1: wherever I go, I'm I'm burdened with that mathematical knowledge
Speaker 1: of looking around and saying, it's a really good restaurant,
Speaker 1: but how the hell are they making any money? If
Speaker 1: a Friday night, this place is half empty. The food
Speaker 1: is great, where is everybody? Do you ever have experiences like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Thane having a great time doing a show also and
Speaker 1: it's great. Uh. You know, when you not only look
Speaker 1: for the food experience, but you always look for the
Speaker 1: business experience of like, what's going on? What are they doing?
Speaker 1: Why aren't they busy? Why are they busy? That's lots
Speaker 1: of you know, people will look at taw and say,
Speaker 1: oh my god, they're so busy, let's open up right
Speaker 1: next door, and they don't because is it the business
Speaker 1: in the areas I think too is especially it is
Speaker 1: the destinations. Destination is a special experience. No one's walking
Speaker 1: by and saying, oh, let's pop in for a snack.
Speaker 1: Everyone's going there, and it's a completely immersive experience. Right.
Speaker 1: It's it looks great, food is good, the service is great,
Speaker 1: but the feel and the vibe of the place, it's
Speaker 1: it's all about going out and having the experience. So
Speaker 1: there's a restaurant group on Long Island. I won't mention
Speaker 1: their name, and they just opens up this immense restaurant,
Speaker 1: Mediterranean restaurant, of which there are a number of on
Speaker 1: Long Island. Um uh Chima is, Juan Lamani is another one,
Speaker 1: and so a third one is Giant Place of MP
Speaker 1: Taverner is a third one. But this giant place opens
Speaker 1: up and we walk in and it's just gorgeous. It's spectacular,
Speaker 1: and we sit down for dinner after making reservations. We
Speaker 1: family members in from out of town, and I'm shocked.
Speaker 1: Everything is mediocre, And I know the restaurant group, the
Speaker 1: rest of the restaurants are actually really good. It looks
Speaker 1: like they put in five million dollars building this place.
Speaker 1: So leading up to the question, when a restaurant opens up.
Speaker 1: How long does it have to kind of adjust the
Speaker 1: dials and trim the sails and get it right. My
Speaker 1: wife is like, we're done with that. We don't have
Speaker 1: to go back there. I'm like, I think you got
Speaker 1: to give it a couple of times. You know, people
Speaker 1: will say six months. If the service is really really
Speaker 1: good and the food's okay, people will give it a
Speaker 1: second chance. If the services really bad and the food
Speaker 1: is okay, people won't give the restaurant a second chance. Really,
Speaker 1: I think you gotta the food comes second to the service,
Speaker 1: second to the service. I think interesting and initial reactions
Speaker 1: to people coming in and saying I think he sometimes
Speaker 1: you could take three months, depending depending upon how far
Speaker 1: they're reaching right what kind of cuisine it is. Is
Speaker 1: a real simple cuisine and they're executing it poorly? Or
Speaker 1: is it real simple cuisine and the buying poor ingredients?
Speaker 1: I mean, you could if you go out a lot
Speaker 1: and you're somebody like you who knows the difference. You
Speaker 1: can tell the difference between a really good steak and
Speaker 1: a real bad steak, and steak is the easiest piece
Speaker 1: of fish or quality of the produce, and you're saying
Speaker 1: here they built this restaurant's great, and they're using crumby
Speaker 1: tomatoes and they're using really poor fish, and steak quality
Speaker 1: isn't good. You know that they're cutting back on the
Speaker 1: most important thing. I think that's one thing that we
Speaker 1: never do. You may like or not like, but we
Speaker 1: buy the best ingredients and let them speak for themselves
Speaker 1: because people will always be able to tell that apart.
Speaker 1: There's a restaurant two or three times before I write
Speaker 1: it over really, so I'm two x and then you're
Speaker 1: you're done. And I always noticed a favorite restaurant, the
Speaker 1: food will be really at a high level for a
Speaker 1: long time, and then it starts to falter. And you
Speaker 1: always wonder is this an aberrational meal or is this
Speaker 1: the beginning of the ends? Because all restaurants seem to
Speaker 1: have a natural lifespan with hand. You know, you go
Speaker 1: to Smith Lenski any day of the week and you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna get a good steak, and they've been
Speaker 1: there for a million years. But that sort of longevity
Speaker 1: really seems to be the exception, isn't it? In this day?
Speaker 1: And as yeah, I think one of the things is
Speaker 1: not only the location and the rent, which kind of
Speaker 1: squeezes things down. But I think they own their buildings,
Speaker 1: so that might take them what they most places when
Speaker 1: they're in trouble. Instead of buying a prime steak, that's
Speaker 1: I mean, we pay twenty one dollar a pound for
Speaker 1: primes like week, so what does that translate to fifty
Speaker 1: dollars of steak? I think people will buy less equality
Speaker 1: ingredients to make up the difference in perol, make up
Speaker 1: the difference and profitability. And I think that once you
Speaker 1: start doing that, the guests will notice that, especially if
Speaker 1: you go there three times a week or once a
Speaker 1: month and all of a sudden you're eating the same
Speaker 1: thing and you know it's different. Let's say maybe it's
Speaker 1: an off night the next time you go and it's bad.
Speaker 1: That's it, all right, everybody has an off night, So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's there's one thing when it's when it's a one off,
Speaker 1: then when it's really that. That's something about reviewers. They'll
Speaker 1: come in and if they do it over a two
Speaker 1: week span or a month span, that's different coming in
Speaker 1: on one time when the place is busy and maybe
Speaker 1: just getting a bad experience. How do you how do
Speaker 1: you judge any business? You know, It's not like it's
Speaker 1: a movie where it's been seen a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: times and everyone's vetted it. You're you're having somebody make
Speaker 1: the meal. You don't know what happens in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: They're bad experiences, absolutely, but you have to. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things where you have to give it three
Speaker 1: or four tries before you're actually or go to a
Speaker 1: couple of dinners and say, you know it, really, from
Speaker 1: beginning to end is a bad experience, or from beginning
Speaker 1: to end it's a good experience. So so let's talk
Speaker 1: about reviews a little bit um setting myself up to
Speaker 1: get shot. In general, I think the better reviewers and
Speaker 1: let's let's include the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: New York magazine Time Out will go at least two x.
Speaker 1: But here's the bigger question. I remember back in the
Speaker 1: day a review in in a major paper, and I
Speaker 1: would say the time still has this power that's at
Speaker 1: that restaurant is jammed for months and then it starts
Speaker 1: to attend. You eate. But it's not the same sort
Speaker 1: of hammer it was twenty years ago. That wouldn't Mimi
Speaker 1: Sheridan or Brian Miller or one of those big reviewers
Speaker 1: and John Marini when they would come in, that would
Speaker 1: make or break it. Now you take the subway and
Speaker 1: there's five reviewers. Everybody's a Yelp guy. Everybody's something terrible.
Speaker 1: Forget ye reviews. And at one point in time that
Speaker 1: the goats was great. I think Google kinda took the power.
Speaker 1: Is looking to drive advertising centers, right, I can't say
Speaker 1: something bad about somebody who could possibly advertise with you.
Speaker 1: And that's what Yelp does it. You know, I guess
Speaker 1: there to me a lot of those outrageous reviews. They
Speaker 1: just trying to drive traffic to the site. Right, So
Speaker 1: you get on either and those guys and they just
Speaker 1: have they hammer us like to no end, and it
Speaker 1: is impossible to get some bad meals. Yes, is it
Speaker 1: possible that everybody there's a great job but us impossible.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't be where we are. You know who we are,
Speaker 1: and with this reputation, the success speaks for hammer us.
Speaker 1: But they're trying to drive. If you went and said
Speaker 1: something bad about uh, some small Italian restaurant or some
Speaker 1: small Asian restaurant, would anybody care? No, But if you
Speaker 1: say something bad about towers says something good about town.
Speaker 1: It drives traffic, That's what it's about. What about speaking
Speaker 1: of clicks? What about Instagram and people photographing dishes? Does
Speaker 1: how significant has that become? Does that affect presentation of
Speaker 1: people aware at of of that subsector of diners who
Speaker 1: want to take everywhere? Everything is the Instagram moment? Everything,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of some of what we do
Speaker 1: is geared towards the Instagram moment. But I always say,
Speaker 1: if people will take pictures of something, that's great and
Speaker 1: Instagram and that's great. But a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: you see on Instagram is almost inedible. Right, stuff on
Speaker 1: the giant towers makes no sense. What are you gonna eat?
Speaker 1: Like something has got five thousand ingredients with cheese poured
Speaker 1: over it that nobody nobody, So so you're you will
Speaker 1: put you as on the fence with Instagram. No. I
Speaker 1: like Instagram. I think for me it saves me probably
Speaker 1: five six thousand galleries a day A Right, you don't
Speaker 1: have to go on need You can look at a
Speaker 1: picture of it and kind of figure out what's in it.
Speaker 1: You can pick up an idea and the description of
Speaker 1: the dishes there. I personally like Instagram. I just think
Speaker 1: that for it too, what the average person likes on
Speaker 1: Instagram doesn't really translate to what a good meal would be. Really.
Speaker 1: I was reading that too long ago that there are
Speaker 1: some specialty ice cream makers out of Brooklyn who have
Speaker 1: redesigned their labels to make them more Instagram friendly. People
Speaker 1: are literally snapping photos in the frozen food aisle of
Speaker 1: your favorite I think that that's but that's one thing
Speaker 1: about the restaurant business now, there is no one path
Speaker 1: to success. Right guy can come up with something Instagram
Speaker 1: and Instagram like um, black tap. I mean Instagram made
Speaker 1: them those those shakes and instagramming those achs and and
Speaker 1: they're great. I mean, it's unbelievable. They do a great product,
Speaker 1: but they were struggling in the beginning and they hooked
Speaker 1: onto Instagram, and Instagram helped promote their business. So when
Speaker 1: you go out to eat, tell us some restaurants you like,
Speaker 1: Where do you go in New York? Where do you
Speaker 1: go in that are not too group restaurants? Where do
Speaker 1: you go in Los Angeles? Try not to go anywhere else.
Speaker 1: And you know, I try to conserve as many. You know,
Speaker 1: my favorite place in l A Is Republic. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've been there. It's the old Librey of bakery.
Speaker 1: The food is really good. The chef is great, and
Speaker 1: it's seasonal and it's fresh, and it's non threatening. I
Speaker 1: like and where people don't have to think so much
Speaker 1: when you're eating and just order something and it's the
Speaker 1: food is good, the service is good, and the ingredients
Speaker 1: are really fresh and well made non threatening. To tell
Speaker 1: us about some other memorable meals you've had anywhere in
Speaker 1: the country, anywhere in the world. Well, one of the
Speaker 1: play Hong Kong is one of the dishes that we
Speaker 1: have on the tow is a snapper in the sand,
Speaker 1: and we had it in a place in Hong Kong
Speaker 1: and this guy with the server was unbelievable. It had
Speaker 1: like these big fishing boots on white fishing boats and
Speaker 1: we went over picked the fish out. It was like
Speaker 1: dancing in the food and the dish was like unbelievable.
Speaker 1: So I went into the kitchen and there were three
Speaker 1: cooks on a walk and I just was trying to
Speaker 1: talk to him. Nobody said, I don't know, nobody ever
Speaker 1: stops here. I don't know, you look like you belong
Speaker 1: in the look belong right. You could put out a
Speaker 1: chef coat and pretty much go anywhere. But people said,
Speaker 1: nobody stop, nobody stopped right into the White House if
Speaker 1: you want, and uh so they weren't really saying anything.
Speaker 1: And I went down the block. I bought a case
Speaker 1: of beer, brought into the kitchen, gave each guy like
Speaker 1: four or five beers, and they told me how to
Speaker 1: make this dish. Right there. I was like, that was
Speaker 1: a great experience, cheapest acquisition cost that that's amazing. How
Speaker 1: about in the United States? What other meals have you
Speaker 1: had that are memorable? You don't strike me as a
Speaker 1: gastronomic sort of no, you know, I look at food
Speaker 1: and I say to myself, what what some of those
Speaker 1: long meals where you go to uh those tasting dinners.
Speaker 1: I don't have the patience to sit through one of those.
Speaker 1: I don't knock anybody's food food in a restaurant business
Speaker 1: on any level, from the guy who sells the halal
Speaker 1: guy in the street outside to to you know, per se.
Speaker 1: It's all hard work getting people to come in, guess
Speaker 1: to buy the stuff. But for me, I don't like
Speaker 1: sitting there for four hours and eating and drinking and it's,
Speaker 1: you know, seven courses paired with a wine. If I
Speaker 1: get a good one contail and a really good bottle
Speaker 1: of wine with dinner, I'll always pick a wine that
Speaker 1: will go well with an appetizer and an entree, seven
Speaker 1: different wines. By by the time you're on your seventh course,
Speaker 1: with the seventh point, you're either drunk or tired. Everything
Speaker 1: kind of tastes the same. And it doesn't to me,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense. I was in Barcelona in
Speaker 1: September and we went to this one miss three Michelin
Speaker 1: star rated restaurant. I'm not exaggerating. When it was twenty courses.
Speaker 1: They were all tiny little things. But even still after
Speaker 1: the tenth it's like, all right, I'm good, Wait, we're
Speaker 1: only half way, and the wine just kept flowing. It
Speaker 1: was it was at Barcelona is some of the best
Speaker 1: food in the world. It was amazing. But last time
Speaker 1: we went to Japan, we went to four three star
Speaker 1: Michelin restaurants. Each one was worse than the next. Just
Speaker 1: going on to so, you know, to a sushi place,
Speaker 1: do you are you picking food out of you? Just
Speaker 1: do and say to the chef, give me what you got,
Speaker 1: give me what you got and you're happy with that.
Speaker 1: What do you like for sushi here in New York?
Speaker 1: We went to Nedda, but you know, I like to
Speaker 1: um sushi by Gary. He's always good man. He always
Speaker 1: does a good job. Simple, it's fast, it's clean. Sushi
Speaker 1: Seki on twenty three is very good. Also tell us
Speaker 1: what else? What about Italian? What do you do when
Speaker 1: you want to go out for Italian and not always
Speaker 1: cooking home? You know there's something really good. Yeah, cook
Speaker 1: at home, but there's some really I live on Staten
Speaker 1: Island and some really good restaurants on Staten Island just
Speaker 1: to Tian Italian American. It's a place on New Door
Speaker 1: Plane and pizza jove that the pizza is great. The
Speaker 1: Italian food is great. Two guys from Italy in a
Speaker 1: small place, but they do a great job. What do
Speaker 1: you think it? Concepts like quality meets quality Italian any
Speaker 1: of that run. There's some some pretty good, some good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do some pretty good. They do a good job.
Speaker 1: I don't like knocking anybody because I get We get
Speaker 1: knocked all the time, but I know what it takes
Speaker 1: to get it done, so I always go out for
Speaker 1: the experience and what about Chinatown. You have a go
Speaker 1: to Flushing and work your way. I'm born and raised
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, and when I do go back to Brooklyn
Speaker 1: at the Seventh Avenue. Eighth Avenue in Brooklyn has a
Speaker 1: great Chinatown. So I used to go to Queens to
Speaker 1: see the Mets play, but since it's so bad, I
Speaker 1: don't go out to Queens anymore. But Brooklyn has great
Speaker 1: Chinese food, and so to Staten Island. It's some really
Speaker 1: good Chinese restaurant. So I'll go to Brooklyn and when
Speaker 1: I want to get my Chinese Chinatown fixed um. And
Speaker 1: then the last restaurant question I wanted to ask is
Speaker 1: what do you do when a dish comes out and
Speaker 1: you just don't like it? Send it back? Well, if
Speaker 1: something is up in the past and it's not right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look right at to send it right back
Speaker 1: to the cook and send it the first thing. I'll
Speaker 1: send it back and then turn around and yell at
Speaker 1: the zus chef and make them to go back there
Speaker 1: and make it with them. So no hesitation. I know
Speaker 1: basically are are very uh fearful. Maybe that's right. I'm
Speaker 1: with you. If something is overcooked, back it goes which
Speaker 1: part of rare was confusing to you? On a steak,
Speaker 1: this is somebody else's shoe, not that I ever say
Speaker 1: that to the makes mistakes right, see this, I think
Speaker 1: I got the wrong wrong steak. I ordered it rare.
Speaker 1: This is meaning, well, can can I get a rare steak?
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of people that really seem
Speaker 1: to be hesitant to send stuff back, you mean in
Speaker 1: the kitchen or as a diner, as a diner unless
Speaker 1: it's really really bad. It depends on like if we're
Speaker 1: with the crew of getting people will send stuff back
Speaker 1: if it's not right. With my family, it's pretty you know,
Speaker 1: order stuff that I know is safe. Like when you
Speaker 1: go out to eat, people say, if you go, if
Speaker 1: you go somewhere, what do you want to My first
Speaker 1: instinct is always the word something safe, especially with a
Speaker 1: big group of people, because you don't know, and like
Speaker 1: what do you mean by safe? Like just a piece
Speaker 1: of grilled chicken or nothing to not on the fancy
Speaker 1: end of the menu, not on the fancy or end
Speaker 1: of the menu, so simple, and and the bread and butter,
Speaker 1: because you know it'll be done, will be a good meal,
Speaker 1: it'll be a safe experience. But if I'm going out
Speaker 1: for a dining experience, it's totally different. I'm going out
Speaker 1: going out with friends and we're hanging out, we're partying.
Speaker 1: It's always a safe experience. Does does being in the
Speaker 1: business ruined that that people think? When you eat with
Speaker 1: a bunch of people, everybody's looking at you like what
Speaker 1: what does he say? What? It was like, No, it's
Speaker 1: I just try to eat. Yeah, I just eat, man,
Speaker 1: I I really really enjoy eating, so and trim. How
Speaker 1: do you manage to keep the calories? Just? First, you
Speaker 1: gotta exercise. You gotta make smart decisions about what to eat,
Speaker 1: when to eat. When we would work on dishes or
Speaker 1: work on the menus or opening too Chicago very soon,
Speaker 1: so that's coming in September, and right now that we're
Speaker 1: working on dishes, so well, I would take four or
Speaker 1: five bites, six bytes, seven bites, eat half the dish,
Speaker 1: and I only now it's one or two bites, just
Speaker 1: to get tested at how it's doing to the next one.
Speaker 1: It's really about how many calories you consume in a day.
Speaker 1: Let's um, that's really quite interesting. Let's let's jump to
Speaker 1: our favorite questions. I want to see, uh see how
Speaker 1: how you run down these relative to to what this
Speaker 1: is the speed round? Absolutely, So, what do you think
Speaker 1: is the most important important thing that people don't know
Speaker 1: about your background? Important thing that they don't know about
Speaker 1: my background? It's the loaded question that you know. I um,
Speaker 1: I just a regular guy, born and raised in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: and just worked my way up and worked hard that
Speaker 1: I think that when people see success or you're working
Speaker 1: in a restaurant, always got this, always does that, and
Speaker 1: no one gets anywhere without working hard and paying your dues.
Speaker 1: And I definitely paid my dues over and over, overpaid
Speaker 1: my dues. I'm waiting for that check to come back
Speaker 1: to the refund um. Who was some of your early mentors.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the one chef that took a liking to
Speaker 1: you when you were young. Yeah, I don't know if
Speaker 1: he's still alive. It was an old Sicilian guy. But
Speaker 1: I worked in a restaurant called The Scene many years ago.
Speaker 1: Chef there was chef named Joan ev Pik, an old
Speaker 1: French guy who was really back in the day that
Speaker 1: was one of the few four star restaurants in New
Speaker 1: York from the New York Times and when it really
Speaker 1: really was something and he was a strict disciplinarian. He
Speaker 1: was the guy who really talked made me understand what
Speaker 1: running the kitchen was and how everyone should look and
Speaker 1: behave and perform. And it was all about dressing right,
Speaker 1: looking right, and where the white hat and the neckerchief
Speaker 1: and stand there and just that was what the day is.
Speaker 1: Where you got screamed at from the minute you opened
Speaker 1: the door then you went home. Man, you were just
Speaker 1: like hammered every minute of every day. And um, what
Speaker 1: chefs influenced your approach to cooking? Who did you who
Speaker 1: did you think about? Who affected In the early eighties
Speaker 1: I worked with when there was a restaurant hotel on
Speaker 1: the west on the east side, the Westbury Hotel. It
Speaker 1: was a restaurant called a Polo and Roger Verge was
Speaker 1: the consulting chef and Daniel Bleu and crew came from
Speaker 1: Leon and those guys with those that team was one
Speaker 1: of the really first people who exposed me to a
Speaker 1: different world of how French food was and the seasonality
Speaker 1: of it. And back in French restaurants were always like
Speaker 1: this is it, this is these are the dishes duck
Speaker 1: all orange in the middle of the summer, in the
Speaker 1: middle of the winter. They were more seasonal food and
Speaker 1: really taking a farm approach way way back when. I
Speaker 1: don't want to transmitted in the eighties though I was
Speaker 1: only like two years old. Though when so you mentioned
Speaker 1: you don't have time to read books, You're so busy
Speaker 1: at the restaurants. So what do you do for fun?
Speaker 1: What do you do to to keep enter? Now it's
Speaker 1: the summer, so I like to hang out in the
Speaker 1: backyard and have a nice glass of wine and go
Speaker 1: into pool. And but I like enjoy playing with my
Speaker 1: kids and do a lot of charity work and helping
Speaker 1: others really gives me a good sense. And we taw
Speaker 1: Group and tow Cares that were involved in a lot
Speaker 1: of different charities. How Cares that's the charity and what
Speaker 1: sort of what sort of groups do you guys like
Speaker 1: to work with? We think in uh, the breast cancer
Speaker 1: research and breast cancer walks, we do a lot of that. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm actually my charity and the part of TOW Cares.
Speaker 1: I'm on the chairman of the board of Eating two,
Speaker 1: which is a school and a facility for people on
Speaker 1: the autism spectrum. So I do that work and we
Speaker 1: have another charity called pop Earth is works with people
Speaker 1: on the autism spectrum, so I do a lot of
Speaker 1: that work. And Um, since you joined the restaurant industry,
Speaker 1: what has changed and is this for the better or
Speaker 1: for the worst. Every single thing has changed, like now
Speaker 1: getting rid of plastic straws. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: it is for the better, sure, especially the way employees
Speaker 1: were treated. I think back in the day, you could,
Speaker 1: you know, yell at, smacked, hit, and all of it
Speaker 1: was wrong. It's almost like, you know, the trail of
Speaker 1: an abusive parent. You abuse the kid, the kid grows
Speaker 1: up to be an abusive parent, and that was really
Speaker 1: what was learned, yelling and screaming. Yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: definitely had to be broken. It better today the restaurant
Speaker 1: industry has had a little bit of its own meat too. Movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's way way better today. People will respect
Speaker 1: each other respect. I hate to use that term diversity,
Speaker 1: but women in the workplace and just different people in
Speaker 1: the workplace, and the way you treat people and treat
Speaker 1: people with respect and treat yourself with respect so you
Speaker 1: can treat other people with respect makes a lot of sense. Um,
Speaker 1: what is it that has you most excited about the
Speaker 1: industry today. It's dynamic, it's ever changing. Maybe I said
Speaker 1: it a couple of times, but the way to make
Speaker 1: money and the way to get your point across and
Speaker 1: get your dish across is changed so much. And it's
Speaker 1: just you could come up with something that's the greatgest
Speaker 1: boobon and make a fortune. And people who have the
Speaker 1: food truck revolution I think changed the way a lot
Speaker 1: of people think about restaurants that you can go to
Speaker 1: a truck and have a great meal. You can go
Speaker 1: down the road and it's everywhere. Right. You go to
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden and the food stands are great. You
Speaker 1: go to a huge improvement from what it was, Yankee
Speaker 1: Stadium or City Field. I don't know if anybody goes
Speaker 1: to City Feilding. I love them, but it may be
Speaker 1: the best food of all the major You can go
Speaker 1: and um where we went to Fenway Park a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago and the steakhouse and there was great.
Speaker 1: It was a great experience. And those are the different
Speaker 1: things where you can get great meals anywhere now, not
Speaker 1: not just a high end, not just a high end restaurant.
Speaker 1: Tell us about a time you failed and what you
Speaker 1: learned from the experience felt I failed, like you know,
Speaker 1: as a restaurants we learned. You know, we had a
Speaker 1: restaurant up on the Upper east Side Arlington Club that
Speaker 1: the food was great, but it was just bad location.
Speaker 1: That was We learned a lot to really be more
Speaker 1: careful about the locations that we picked and just sometimes
Speaker 1: you have to know when to get out right. I
Speaker 1: think that we let that. That's one of the most
Speaker 1: important things. If you listen to any business as risk right.
Speaker 1: So something's work, something's don't work. But if it's not working,
Speaker 1: you've tried everything, let it go and move on. What
Speaker 1: why do you say it was a bad location. I
Speaker 1: just reminded. I'm reminded of the Seinfeld with the black
Speaker 1: Hole restaurant that always died and never never seen that.
Speaker 1: For some reason, it just happens that way. I don't
Speaker 1: know why that that part of it's in front of
Speaker 1: a bus stop. It was like all crazy little things
Speaker 1: that was successful, and we took it thinking that we
Speaker 1: could make it work. And listen, we had a great
Speaker 1: partners and great food and just didn't go. Didn't go.
Speaker 1: So someone's a millennial and wants to become a chef
Speaker 1: or or enter the restaurant business. What sort of advice
Speaker 1: would you give? It takes time. They all think it's
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody wants instant gratification. And I went to school,
Speaker 1: I worked for this chef to a year. I worked
Speaker 1: for that chef for a year. I'm ready to be
Speaker 1: a chef, just not the case. It's a long process.
Speaker 1: And our final question, what is it that you know
Speaker 1: about the restaurant business today that you wish you knew
Speaker 1: years ago. It's very difficult to make money. It's very difficult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that um everyone the perception of people. I
Speaker 1: didn't actually do it for the money. I did it
Speaker 1: because I just loved it and wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: I didn't take the approach of hey, I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: this and I'm gonna make a million dollars and make
Speaker 1: five million dollars, gonna make ten. I just did it
Speaker 1: because it's what I wanted to do. And I took
Speaker 1: that approach of going in and just working and working working,
Speaker 1: figure that if I could just work hard, the opportunities
Speaker 1: will come. And I don't know, I would have studied
Speaker 1: harder in school though, that's what I would have paid
Speaker 1: it to more attention in college. Very very good. UH,
Speaker 1: this has been fascinating stuff. We have been speaking with
Speaker 1: Ralph Scamadela. He is chef and partner at the Toe Group,
Speaker 1: which runs UH, the most highest grossing restaurant in America,
Speaker 1: as well as three of the ten top grossing independent
Speaker 1: restaurants and a slew of other highly regarded and well
Speaker 1: reviewed restaurants. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and
Speaker 1: look up an intro Down an Inch on Apple iTunes, Stitcher, overcast,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com wherever final podcasts are sold, and you
Speaker 1: could see the rest of our two hundred previous such conversations.
Speaker 1: We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us
Speaker 1: at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would
Speaker 1: be remiss if I did not thank the staff that
Speaker 1: helps put together these conversations each week. Attica val Bron
Speaker 1: is our project manager, Medina Parwana is our producer, Slash
Speaker 1: audio engineer. Taylor Riggs is our booker. Michael Batnick is
Speaker 1: our head of research. I'm Barry Ritults. You've been listening
Speaker 1: to Masters in Business from Bloomberg Radio