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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Odd Laws podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy, we were

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Speaker 2: down in DC several weeks ago. We were at that

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Speaker 2: IF conference and we had a great meal when we

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Speaker 2: were in town.

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Speaker 3: We did indeed, so we had a good meal.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: We went to a place called Butterworks, which is getting

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Speaker 3: a lot of buzz, has been getting a lot of

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Speaker 3: buzz for a while and sort of serves I don't

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Speaker 3: want to say farm to table because that's not really it,

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Speaker 3: but like an emphasis on organic maybe like rarer cuts

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Speaker 3: of meat. I remember we had bone marrow, which I

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Speaker 3: love bone marrow. The first time I ever ate bone

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Speaker 3: marrow was that in All you can Eat buffet in

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Speaker 3: Las Vegas, and it was so it wasn't even the

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Speaker 3: best bone marrow, but like I ended up with a

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Speaker 3: mountain of empty bones on my plate.

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Speaker 2: I think both of us like like sort of rich Man.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's like I would say, it's like sucking the

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Speaker 3: life for sound of an animal. It's animal essence.

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Speaker 2: We had really good fries, which famously and will probably

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Speaker 2: get beef sallow. No seed oils very hip these days.

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Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure we had uh something with flowg raw,

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Speaker 2: which I love. I seem to recall there was some

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Speaker 2: left on the plate and I was like, does anyone

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Speaker 2: want this?

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Speaker 4: Does it?

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Speaker 2: Can I take this bite? Can I take this bite?

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Speaker 2: I cannot resist fowgrast. Anyway, it was a really good meal.

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Speaker 2: I love doing restaurant episodes because or talking about the

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Speaker 2: food industry, because if you want to understand the economy,

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Speaker 2: both in the sort of short term, like where we

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Speaker 2: are on the cycle with food costs and labor costs

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Speaker 2: and how free spending people are, they're a great snapshot

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Speaker 2: and any given time they are just this perfect combination

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Speaker 2: of labor costs, inputs in rent, which is like the

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Speaker 2: whole economy. There.

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Speaker 3: There's also the supply chain issue, right, and we did

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Speaker 3: that whole episode on Cisco, the dominant food supplier to

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Speaker 3: restaurants in America. I doubt Butterworths uses Cisco for obvious reasons,

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Speaker 3: but like where they actually source their ingredients is a

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Speaker 3: really interesting topic.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 2: This is what I say, which is that like there're

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Speaker 2: this perfect combination of the snapshot at the moment and

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Speaker 2: then the big structural things of how the economy works

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Speaker 2: across the cycle. So I really like restaurant episode.

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Speaker 3: There's also an interesting cultural element in this, and like

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Speaker 3: everything is cultural and political nowadays, including the restaurant business,

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Speaker 3: because Butterworths has been described as a sort of right

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Speaker 3: wing maga hangout, so we should talk about that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm fascinated by the DC scene because that has like, oh,

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Speaker 2: they're like Democrat bars Republican bars. I don't do they mix.

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Speaker 2: You got to.

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Speaker 3: Declare your political allegiance before you walk in.

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Speaker 2: It's so and actually there's something really profound here because

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Speaker 2: I feel like this is happening to brands of all types, right, yeah,

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Speaker 2: is this the right coded brand of the left coded brand, etc.

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Speaker 3: But in dec people have to choose side.

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Speaker 2: You have to choose sides. But anyway, it's funny, you know,

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Speaker 2: because we were there and our producer kills like we

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Speaker 2: should go to Butterworks. I was like, Oh, there's the

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Speaker 2: mega restaurant. Great, I want to check it out. But

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Speaker 2: when you go in, you know, it's not like there's

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Speaker 2: you know, you wouldn't know it.

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Speaker 3: Let's say, aren't wearing red hats and stuff, but you

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Speaker 3: would never.

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Speaker 2: Know it at all you would never like. At least

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Speaker 2: the night we were there, I didn't see any like

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Speaker 2: white house notables that I recognized, although apparently they do

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Speaker 2: hang out there from time to time. But it's not

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Speaker 2: like designed it. It looks just like a very nice,

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Speaker 2: normal restaurant, a real good, great dining room.

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Speaker 3: So there is a bit of a clubhouse element to it.

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Speaker 3: We should talk about the overall design because that's pretty

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Speaker 3: unique as well.

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Speaker 4: Well.

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Speaker 2: When I tweeted, I was like, oh, we had a

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Speaker 2: great meal at Butterwords on Twitter. All these people respond

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Speaker 2: because you know, apparently whatever anyway, it made the connection

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Speaker 2: with the chef and owner of the restaurant, Bart Hutchins,

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Speaker 2: we really do have the perfect guest. Therefore, to talk

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Speaker 2: about Butterworths. We're going to be speaking with Bart Hutchins. Bart,

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Speaker 2: thank you so much for coming on the out Lots podcast.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me. Guys.

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Speaker 2: What's a mega restaurant?

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Speaker 4: Oh God, where do we start?

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Speaker 2: Do you think of it when you see in the

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Speaker 2: media it's like auditions, Like, do you conceive of it

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Speaker 2: the same way that it's written about? What does that

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Speaker 2: mean in your head?

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Speaker 4: So the history of restaurants more or less doesn't include DC.

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Speaker 4: Like when we think of the great American restaurants, they

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Speaker 4: happened sort of in LA or they happened in New York.

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Speaker 4: And so you think about like Spago in the eighties,

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Speaker 4: I guess, and what people talk about when they talk

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Speaker 4: about Spago is like this actor was there, that actor

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Speaker 4: was there, whatever. And then when you talk about the

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Speaker 4: great restaurants of New York, you talk about this model

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Speaker 4: eight there, this actor eight there, this bank person eight there,

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Speaker 4: this like important person ate there. And so in DC,

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Speaker 4: the version of that now that sort of politics or

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Speaker 4: pop culture is like what politicians are eating at these restaurants,

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Speaker 4: and that sort of becomes what you're known for. And

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Speaker 4: so early on we were on the hill, and so

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Speaker 4: we developed a following among the new administration that came

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Speaker 4: in like two months after we opened. And so now

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Speaker 4: it is a Maga restaurant because that's like an interesting

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Speaker 4: way to talk about the restaurant because they're there, and

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Speaker 4: so it's just like your notability is like who's in

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Speaker 4: the dining room. And so early on we had a

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Speaker 4: lot of customers from the administration, from like Scott Bessen

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Speaker 4: to Mark Rubio, Steve Bannon, whatever, it may be, And

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Speaker 4: so as that sort of developed, it became the Maga restaurant.

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Speaker 4: But like, if we did what we did at Butterworths

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Speaker 4: Well in New York, it would be like the I

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Speaker 4: don't know, if we did it somewhere near Wall Street,

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Speaker 4: it would be like the Wall Street Restaurant. So I'm

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Speaker 4: not entirely it'd be like you.

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Speaker 2: Know, but just one quick thing follow up. When anyone

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Speaker 2: launches an establishment in DC, do they have to sort

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Speaker 2: of think about this question of sort of which side

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Speaker 2: we'll be aligned with this restaurant in terms of like

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Speaker 2: the market opportunity.

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Speaker 4: No, it's relatively new.

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Speaker 5: It was.

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Speaker 4: It was a binary sort of in the seventies, eighties,

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Speaker 4: nineties of like you had political customers or you didn't. Right, So,

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Speaker 4: there was a very famous restaurant in downtown DC in

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Speaker 4: the seventies called Sans Souci. It was like this French

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Speaker 4: restaurant and all the administrations went there, all these things,

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Speaker 4: and Mick Jaggers up one day and he wasn't wearing

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Speaker 4: a proper sports coat, so they kicked him out. But

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Speaker 4: it was a political place, like you had to look

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Speaker 4: like you sort of belonged there, and so there was

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Speaker 4: political restaurants or non political restaurants, and it was it

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Speaker 4: was a lot about proximity and how close you were

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Speaker 4: to these various buildings. But this like declaring everything sort

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Speaker 4: of right or left is very new and odd.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I want to go back to something you said,

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Speaker 3: I'm kind of surprised that Washington, d C. Didn't develop

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Speaker 3: more of a food scene given that, you know, I

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Speaker 3: think about it as a political city for obvious reasons.

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Speaker 3: A lot of politics is about, you know, being seen

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Speaker 3: with the right people and appearing important, and so it's

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Speaker 3: kind of surprising to me that it didn't develop more

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Speaker 3: of these like seen and be seen restaurants.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's strange. When we started the place, this was

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Speaker 4: sort of explicitly an aim, like the dining room is

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Speaker 4: designed to not hide anyone, right, like you will be

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Speaker 4: seen and be seen like there's no there's no hiding place.

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Speaker 4: That was a big part of the business model. Because

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Speaker 4: I was looking at Spago and a couple other places

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Speaker 4: in New York from the eighties and thinking through that process,

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Speaker 4: I think maybe the answer to DC is like it

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Speaker 4: was more of a house party thing, and there's always

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Speaker 4: been sort of like the gentlemen's clubs and the private clubs,

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Speaker 4: and like the Georgetown scene was a you bring in

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Speaker 4: a chef and do a party at your house like

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Speaker 4: there was. It was always like behind closed doors. It's

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Speaker 4: a very like the smokefield room thing exists for a reason, right,

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Speaker 4: Like DC is a town that likes to hide itself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it is interesting to think, like you read stories

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Speaker 2: about d C and all the legendary things that'd be

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Speaker 2: like some editor at the Washington Post or something like that,

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Speaker 2: we're famous for their cocktail parties and everyone was there.

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Speaker 2: So it is true. It does feel like the places

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Speaker 2: where people congregated did tend to be these more like

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Speaker 2: private antities. Just one more question, though, it is not

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Speaker 2: quite true that it's like, oh, you open the restaurant

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Speaker 2: before the new administration and they start up. I mean

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Speaker 2: you're one of your co owners. I think there's like

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Speaker 2: affiliated with Breitbart UK. I mean there are.

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Speaker 3: Sur Butterworth, it's named after him.

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Speaker 2: There are there are political routes to the restaurant, right totally.

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Speaker 4: I mean, this is this is part of being in DC.

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Speaker 4: We have six investors I think two a third one

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Speaker 4: I would have to ask because he's like a tech bro,

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Speaker 4: so you never know where they aligned. But two of

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Speaker 4: them are pretty solidly like classic libs, and a few

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Speaker 4: of them are pretty like MAGA adjacent conservatives. I will

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Speaker 4: say the one you're talking about, Rahem Kassam, he used

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Speaker 4: to work with Steve Bannon was the Breitbart editor in London.

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Speaker 4: He's done a lot of work with the administration. One

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Speaker 4: of our investors when we started. When we open the place,

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Speaker 4: you sort of invite all your friends and family and

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Speaker 4: that's how you sort of get the business going. And

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Speaker 4: it turns out he was just way better at it

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Speaker 4: than the rest of us. So, like the first night

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Speaker 4: we were open, there's like sixty reservations and I'm pretty

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Speaker 4: sure like forty five of them were from Raheem, And

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Speaker 4: so the MAGA thing did sort of generate in that way.

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Speaker 3: How difficult is it to get investors for a restaurant

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Speaker 3: business in general but also specifically in DC.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like it's a terrible investment, right, Like, if

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Speaker 4: you're listening to this financial advice, don't do it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they say never open a restaurant, and I imagine

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Speaker 3: they also say never invest in a restaurant.

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Speaker 4: Right, So if you're looking to make money off an investment.

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Speaker 4: Never invest in a restaurant if you're looking to sort

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Speaker 4: of build for yourself a place to be to always

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Speaker 4: have the good table, to invite your friends, to have

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Speaker 4: something to talk about at dinner parties. It's one of

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Speaker 4: the best investments, right, Like, there's nothing more interesting that's

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Speaker 4: sort of like what's going on, And there's nothing more

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Speaker 4: convenient than like not having to host at your own

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Speaker 4: house and to be able to say, oh, I come

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Speaker 4: to my restaurants at my table. That part of it's great,

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Speaker 4: But as a business investment, it's like the worst, especially

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Speaker 4: post COVID. Like the Martins are joke.

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Speaker 2: Let's talk about the menu. I mean, the whole team came,

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Speaker 2: everyone loved the meal. Like, how do you go about

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Speaker 2: the process of sort of conceptualizing the overall menu? A

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Speaker 2: goal for the menu?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so are specifically is working with farmers. So I

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Speaker 4: have a host of farmers that I've been working with

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Speaker 4: as a chef for I guess a decade now. Most

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Speaker 4: of them are the sort of Pennsylvania Amish and Mennonites.

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Speaker 4: They sort of not technologically plugged in folks, and so

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Speaker 4: I get a call from them on Mondays, they go,

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Speaker 4: this is sort of what's coming out of the ground

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Speaker 4: this week. These are which animals are being slaughtered, which

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Speaker 4: ones do you want? And then those products come in

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Speaker 4: and the menu is based off of that, which sort

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Speaker 4: of doesn't really allow you to have the same dish

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Speaker 4: on the menu every single day, which is a classic

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Speaker 4: sort of trope of the restaurant industry. If you're like

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Speaker 4: in culinary school or whatever, they'll sort of say, like,

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Speaker 4: consistency is super important. You should have the same dish,

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Speaker 4: prepare the same way every time, because if it becomes

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Speaker 4: somebody favorite and they can't come get it next week,

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Speaker 4: they'll be super mad and they'll stop being your customer.

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Speaker 4: But what that does is sort of create a sort

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Speaker 4: of leans into a global supply chain where you, like,

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Speaker 4: you have to have bananas every single day if you

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Speaker 4: have a bananas foster, but like, bananas are not growing

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Speaker 4: year round unless you're willing to sort of go across

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Speaker 4: the globe, and then you're dealing with shipping and the

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Speaker 4: product's not as fresh in all of these sort of problems.

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Speaker 4: So what we do is we work with these farmers

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Speaker 4: and whatever's coming out of the ground at that time

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Speaker 4: is what we're doing. And so in the summer, when

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Speaker 4: there's a ton of tomatoes, we're getting all the tomatoes

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Speaker 4: in that we can, and what we're not selling and using,

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Speaker 4: we're canning to make to tomato sauce in the winter

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Speaker 4: when there's no tomatoes, Like that's a really sort of

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Speaker 4: good way to work around not having produce in the winter.

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Speaker 4: But other than that, we're sort of obligated to and

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Speaker 4: constrained by what's actually coming out of the ground at

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Speaker 4: that time.

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Speaker 3: Is it true that you don't serve burgers because you

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Speaker 3: don't want everyone to just go into the restaurant and

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Speaker 3: order a burger all the time?

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Speaker 4: The burger conundrum is the burger conundrum is the is

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Speaker 4: the bane of my existence. So I had a restaurant

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Speaker 4: three blocks from Butterwors years ago called Buckert's. It was

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Speaker 4: a lot like Butterwors, but smaller, and we did a

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Speaker 4: burger because that was it's good money at the time,

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Speaker 4: and it quickly became like one of those like, oh,

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Speaker 4: this is best burger in DC, really popular burger. And

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Speaker 4: so then you you do this like really interesting dish

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Speaker 4: with pheasant or you know whatever, and you work really

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Speaker 4: hard on and you're so excited you can't wait. People

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Speaker 4: try it, and then you sell thirty burgers in a night,

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Speaker 4: and then you're done. And so the problem with the

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Speaker 4: burger is not that it's it's bad economics or that

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Speaker 4: it's a bad dish. I love burgers as much as anyone.

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Speaker 4: The problem is, if you do it well, it's the

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Speaker 4: only thing you become capable of selling because it's so

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Speaker 4: self explanatory and it's it's so desirable. And so if

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Speaker 4: you want to sort of work with all these products,

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Speaker 4: if you want to be able to sort of sell

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Speaker 4: bone marrow, or you want to be able to sell

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Speaker 4: these game birds, or you want to be able to

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Speaker 4: sell this weird vegetable, you can't have a burger because

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Speaker 4: it just dominates the entire menu.

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Speaker 3: This actually reminds me of the podcast industry, right because often,

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Speaker 3: like some of our best episodes, I would argue, some

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Speaker 3: of our episodes that get the best feedback come in

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Speaker 3: lower in terms of downloads than some that I am

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Speaker 3: not such a fan of.

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Speaker 2: No, this is really interesting. I'd never thought about this.

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Speaker 2: If you have any I Guess signature item, it has

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Speaker 2: this crowding out effect. The moment you have a great

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Speaker 2: burger and it gets on the bus. I was like, Oh,

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Speaker 2: we all show got to order the best burger in

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Speaker 2: DC because we're here. Then what is the points of investing?

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Speaker 2: I had never thought about this phenomenon, the curse of

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Speaker 2: the Curse of the burger, But how I go, Okay, hey,

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Speaker 2: what about all this other great stuff that.

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Speaker 4: We have audience capture for ground beets?

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Speaker 2: Okay, so you talk to the farmers in Pennsylvania, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: How does it get there? Who are the entities that

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Speaker 2: actually deliver the food? And how built out is that?

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Speaker 2: Who are these companies and so forth that actually make

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Speaker 2: this distribution happen.

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Speaker 4: So I'm a psycho and I try to avoid the

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Speaker 4: quote unquote larger supply chain at all costs. So the

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Speaker 4: actual way that the produce and most of the meat

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Speaker 4: gets to the restaurant is a literal amige guy with

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Speaker 4: like a hat and the beard and everything shows up

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Speaker 4: at seven eight. He's like one of the few people

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Speaker 4: that has the key box code to the restaurant because

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Speaker 4: he refuses to be in DC during the day because

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Speaker 4: there's too much traffic and it's too loud. He says,

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Speaker 4: fair enough, so he comes in early comes to the restaurant,

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Speaker 4: drops it all off. We show up, it's there for

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Speaker 4: a lot of restaurants. It is sort of Cisco and

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Speaker 4: a couple of other really large companies that are that are

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Speaker 4: doing this procurement. And then a huge tractor trailer shows up.

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Speaker 4: And these are sort of commoditized and like they're pretty

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Speaker 4: standard across the industry. But if you want to break

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Speaker 4: out that you're dealing with like a guy with a

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Speaker 4: Ford F one fifty and a trailer.

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Speaker 3: I know you said you had these farmer relationships from

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Speaker 3: your previous experience as a restaurant owner, but how do

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Speaker 3: you actually go about finding and identifying potential suppliers, especially

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Speaker 3: in the Amish and Mennonite community, because you know, I

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Speaker 3: imagine they're not necessarily posting ads online or something like that.

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Speaker 4: No, they have a landline that they're only allowed to

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Speaker 4: use in the barn for one of them. So in

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Speaker 4: the earlier days, now that they're sort of an economy

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Speaker 4: for this because the farm table thing happened, But in

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Speaker 4: the early days before that was sort of an industry

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Speaker 4: of it in and of itself. The trick was you

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Speaker 4: would go to farmers' markets like actually the same one

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Speaker 4: that you would go to on a Saturday morning or whatever,

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Speaker 4: when you would talk to the farmer and you would

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Speaker 4: sort of say like, Hey, these carrots are really good.

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Speaker 4: I have a restaurant. I want to buy eighty pounds

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Speaker 4: of them every week. Can I get your contact information

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Speaker 4: or whatever it may be. And then for a lot

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Speaker 4: of those, if you see your favorite farm stall at

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Speaker 4: the market on Saturdays disappear, it's because of enough of

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Speaker 4: us are buying their stuff to where they don't have

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Speaker 4: to deal with that anymore.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's your fault.

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Speaker 4: It's my fault.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know that. Yeah, So there's farmers' markets in

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Speaker 2: my neighborhood in the East Village. I love going to

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Speaker 2: a farmer's market. Actually, I never really thought about farmer's

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Speaker 2: market economics before. But how much are farmers markets in

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Speaker 2: general about the revenue that they make their versus like

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Speaker 2: building some of these connections such that they have more

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Speaker 2: a place to be seen by potentially commercial clients.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you should definitely add you know, next time you're there.

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Speaker 4: Ask But my understanding is that if you're at the

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Speaker 4: farmer's market, you're sort of at the beginning of your

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Speaker 4: cycle as a new company, a new enterprise, or the end.

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Speaker 4: And so you know, there was a farmer that I

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Speaker 4: bought from from a long time who did pigs up

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Speaker 4: in Illinois and now working with a closer distributor in Virginia.

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Speaker 4: But the last time I saw him, he was at

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Speaker 4: the farmer's market and he was like, yeah, yeah, this

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Speaker 4: is the only outlet I have to sell things anymore.

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Speaker 4: Like we're on the way out. We're like we're done,

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Speaker 4: We're closing up shop, we're selling the farm. And so

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Speaker 4: that's sort of the cycle. Is either they're trying to

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Speaker 4: build an audience so that they can do this wholesale process,

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Speaker 4: or they're sort of like this is their last leg

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Speaker 4: because it's not a great economic model, like being at

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Speaker 4: a farmer's market is it's like small potatoes for them.

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Speaker 3: I know you said that the ingredients and the menu

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Speaker 3: construction was influenced by seasonality, So what's in season at

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Speaker 3: any given time? But how much does price actually influence

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Speaker 3: your decisions? So you know, if a farmer comes in

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Speaker 3: and says, I have trying to think of an expensive

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Speaker 3: thing faw graw, I have the best fog graw in

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Speaker 3: the world, or something like that. But it's really really expensive.

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Speaker 3: Would you still buy it? Do your customers care about price?

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Speaker 4: Oh? Boy, they do?

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Speaker 2: Sorry, no, no, they do.

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Speaker 4: I've been thinking about this a lot, so I was,

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Speaker 4: you know, it's the end of the year, so I'm

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Speaker 4: doing numbers and all those things you have to do

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Speaker 4: when you have investors. And I was looking at the

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Speaker 4: price of French fries specifically, and we've been noted for

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Speaker 4: the French fries and the beef teller fries and the

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Speaker 4: best fries in DC and whatever. And I think they're

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Speaker 4: on the menu right now for twelve bucks in order.

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Speaker 4: And I was looking at an old menu of mine

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Speaker 4: from a restaurant, you know, in twenty nineteen, and they

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Speaker 4: were on the same fries I've been making the same

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Speaker 4: price forever. They were on the menu for nine bucks

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Speaker 4: in order, and I was like, wow, they've you know,

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Speaker 4: really gone up. Twelve bucks is kind of expensive for

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Speaker 4: an order of fries, Like is there any room for this?

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Speaker 4: And I started sort of digging into the price of

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Speaker 4: goods and the labor involved and realized that, like, if

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Speaker 4: I wanted the same sort of margins on that nine

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Speaker 4: dollars order fries that I have on my now twelve

394
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Speaker 4: dollars order fries, they would actually be twenty five bucks. Wow.

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Speaker 4: So like we've just sort of like the cost of

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Speaker 4: goods is like eviscerated sort of the margins on that,

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Speaker 4: and we found other ways to make it up in

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Speaker 4: different areas of the menu or with private events or

399
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Speaker 4: whatever catering, whatever it may be. But chefs are not

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Speaker 4: inclined to at least like the chefs that are in

401
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Speaker 4: the kitchen every day are not inclined to think about

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Speaker 4: the price of goods because they want the best product.

403
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Speaker 4: Like they'll sort of stretch their own margins to get

404
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Speaker 4: the better product. If you're eating at a restaurant where

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Speaker 4: like the chef is named on something, you're getting the

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Speaker 4: best product no matter what it costs. Because we're psychotic

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Speaker 4: and obsessive in that way, because we tend to be

408
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Speaker 4: more artists than like economists, right, so they want the

409
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Speaker 4: thing to taste as good as they can, specifically because

410
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Speaker 4: other chefs are gonna come in and eat and be

411
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Speaker 4: like this is this is that doodoo flograph from Cisco

412
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Speaker 4: or whatever, and why are you serving that? And it's

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Speaker 4: really embarrassing for you.

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Speaker 2: Wait, do you have specials at the restaurant.

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Speaker 4: No, because we changed the menu every day. So the

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Speaker 4: special thing is designed to allow you to keep the

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Speaker 4: same menu year round and then like do the seasonal

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Speaker 4: thing on the weekends or whatever.

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Speaker 2: I see, Well maybe you could just there's just a

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Speaker 2: general question. I think like everyone who read that Kitchen

421
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Speaker 2: Confidential became really like cynical about specials. It's like, oh,

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Speaker 2: this is just how the chef gets rid of the

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Speaker 2: fish that's about to go bad or whatever. Can you

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Speaker 2: clear up some misconceptions or like how real is that?

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Speaker 2: I don't know that book made me. I read it

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Speaker 2: in high school. You know, a high schooler loves the

427
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Speaker 2: book like that, but like maybe early college, but like

428
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Speaker 2: it makes you very cynical about a lot of decisions.

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Speaker 2: And this comes out and it's like, oh this is

430
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Speaker 2: this is just a plate of like toimatoes with vinegar

431
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Speaker 2: and they called it something fancy, Like how real is

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Speaker 2: that phenomenon?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? So two things Number one. In his second book,

434
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Speaker 4: he totally Anthony in his second book, Medium Raw, I

435
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Speaker 4: think it was called he totally regrets writing that essay.

436
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Speaker 4: He's like, this has been detrimental to the restaurant industry.

437
00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:20,760
Speaker 4: I was an idiot I was really mad. I'm sorry

438
00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:24,159
Speaker 4: I wrote that. It's not true. So the funny thing

439
00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:27,000
Speaker 4: about Anthony Bourdain and this is he wasn't like a

440
00:19:27,040 --> 00:19:29,680
Speaker 4: good chef. He was like a very normal, run of

441
00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:32,120
Speaker 4: the mill chef. He was a great writer, a really

442
00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:35,240
Speaker 4: good media personality, but like if he lived in Columbus,

443
00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:36,760
Speaker 4: like he would be the chef of an Applebee's. Like

444
00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:39,000
Speaker 4: it was a very like like me in the road,

445
00:19:39,119 --> 00:19:42,359
Speaker 4: like a workman. God, that's gonna get clipped to look

446
00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:46,080
Speaker 4: like a jerk, but like he and he would say

447
00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:48,159
Speaker 4: that himself, like he wasn't like a grand sort of

448
00:19:48,359 --> 00:19:50,639
Speaker 4: hoe chef or whatever. He was a workman. He was

449
00:19:50,680 --> 00:19:54,679
Speaker 4: a journeyman. And so that is true at that level.

450
00:19:54,760 --> 00:19:57,520
Speaker 4: It's totally true, and all of it's still true to

451
00:19:57,560 --> 00:19:59,240
Speaker 4: this day. Like if the fish is starting to go

452
00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:01,920
Speaker 4: bad on Friday and you're one of those restaurants they

453
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:03,720
Speaker 4: are going to toss it in vinagrette and put it

454
00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:05,520
Speaker 4: on a salad on the brunch menu. That's one hundred

455
00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:08,680
Speaker 4: percent going to happen. But the bar, since that essay

456
00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:10,359
Speaker 4: was written in the nineties or I think it was

457
00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:13,280
Speaker 4: the y the bar for chefs, and because the whole

458
00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:16,600
Speaker 4: foody revolution of the mid oughts. The lowest level of

459
00:20:16,600 --> 00:20:18,520
Speaker 4: like chef is much higher than it was then. Like

460
00:20:18,560 --> 00:20:21,600
Speaker 4: there's there's fewer and fewer journeymen, and there's more and

461
00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:23,920
Speaker 4: more people who are into it because they're like obsessive

462
00:20:23,960 --> 00:20:27,040
Speaker 4: about the products and sort of artistically minded in that regard.

463
00:20:27,119 --> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 4: So if you're eating at a restaurant that's not a chain,

464
00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:32,440
Speaker 4: I wouldn't worry too much about that stuff because they,

465
00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:34,760
Speaker 4: if anything, they're more inclined to throw it out before

466
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:37,120
Speaker 4: you would even notice, because they're just sort of like

467
00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:39,399
Speaker 4: they would be ashamed if they sold a piece of

468
00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:40,480
Speaker 4: fish that smelled bad.

469
00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:45,359
Speaker 3: In defense of Anthony Bourdain's cooking ability, his cookbook is

470
00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:48,520
Speaker 3: really good and he has an awesome recipe for lasagna

471
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:52,840
Speaker 3: and then a whole like schedule for doing Thanksgiving dinner,

472
00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:56,240
Speaker 3: and I follow those religiously, although I will admit they're

473
00:20:56,440 --> 00:20:59,359
Speaker 3: you know, they're basic recipes in some sense, they're not

474
00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:03,320
Speaker 3: particularly creative, but they're great and I rely on them anyway.

475
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:06,800
Speaker 3: You know, you mentioned the importance of chefs in a

476
00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:10,760
Speaker 3: restaurant like this. How competitive are restaurants when it comes

477
00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:12,320
Speaker 3: to getting the best chef.

478
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:16,400
Speaker 4: Extremely It's like when we were opening Butterworths, I would

479
00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:20,440
Speaker 4: go stand out back of restaurants that I liked, where

480
00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 4: the sort of dumpsters were where people might take smoke breaks,

481
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:25,320
Speaker 4: in hopes that I could talk to the cooks and

482
00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:29,040
Speaker 4: steal them. So we trade talent and sort of fight

483
00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:32,800
Speaker 4: over talent in extremely competitive way, so much so that

484
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:36,119
Speaker 4: there's like serious feuds over it across the cities, Like

485
00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:38,000
Speaker 4: in New York DC, in LA there are chefs who

486
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:41,080
Speaker 4: hate each other because they steal each other's cooks. Particularly

487
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:43,679
Speaker 4: if you have like a really good fast dishwasher and

488
00:21:43,720 --> 00:21:46,280
Speaker 4: I can have one dishwasher instaff too, I'm gonna take

489
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:47,080
Speaker 4: your dishwasher.

490
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:50,320
Speaker 2: Wow, Can I ask you? So the night that we

491
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:53,600
Speaker 2: were there, after I tweeted we were there, and I

492
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:55,639
Speaker 2: think maybe you sent maybe it was a via DM,

493
00:21:55,840 --> 00:21:57,800
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, I'm glad you enjoyed the meal.

494
00:21:57,800 --> 00:21:59,560
Speaker 2: I think we had sort of an off night or

495
00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,359
Speaker 2: something like that. What does that mean, like an off

496
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:05,119
Speaker 2: night or from the perspective of the chef, because it

497
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,480
Speaker 2: certainly seemed like a very busy night, et cetera. Our

498
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 2: food was excellent in your mind When you say, oh,

499
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:11,919
Speaker 2: you know what, we kind of had an off night.

500
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:12,879
Speaker 2: What does that mean to you?

501
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:15,240
Speaker 4: It can mean a few things. That night, specifically, it

502
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:18,520
Speaker 4: meant it was very busy that night, but the business

503
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:20,280
Speaker 4: was not spread out. It wasn't like, oh, there's a

504
00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:22,360
Speaker 4: table at six fifteen, then another table at six thirty,

505
00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:24,399
Speaker 4: and then an oblow table. It was every single table

506
00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 4: came in at the exact same time. And so what

507
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:30,159
Speaker 4: happens then is all your production lines get screwed at

508
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:31,960
Speaker 4: the exact same time. So then there's a huge wave

509
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,600
Speaker 4: of cocktails, and the bartender's rushing through all the cocktails

510
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:36,760
Speaker 4: because all the cocktail orders came in at the same time.

511
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:38,879
Speaker 4: And then it moves to the kitchen, and the kitchen's

512
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 4: rushing through all the orders because they all came in

513
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:42,160
Speaker 4: at the same time. Instead of sort of like being

514
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:45,200
Speaker 4: super purposeful and like, okay, I have ten minutes to

515
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:46,359
Speaker 4: do this one, and then the next one's going to

516
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 4: come in, and then the next one's going to come in.

517
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:49,160
Speaker 4: They all come in at the same time, so you're

518
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:52,600
Speaker 4: rushing through it, and as a result, like things get sloppy.

519
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:54,639
Speaker 4: And so that night, specifically, I watched the rhythm of

520
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,400
Speaker 4: the restaurant and everyone came in at this exact same time,

521
00:22:57,440 --> 00:22:59,320
Speaker 4: and I could see the kitchen getting backed up, and

522
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:01,200
Speaker 4: tickets were a little slower than I would like them

523
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 4: to be in some of the plates. Like I was like, oh,

524
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:05,200
Speaker 4: I wish we'd played it that a little bit differently.

525
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 4: I wish it was a little neater here. And so

526
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 4: when that happens, reservation systems are mostly designed to do that.

527
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 4: Some of them are designed to fit as many people

528
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,680
Speaker 4: in as they can, and good for them, but most

529
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 4: reservation systems are designed to slow down the number of

530
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:20,920
Speaker 4: people who are coming in so that the dishes and

531
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 4: the drinks and whatever it may be are done well

532
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:26,679
Speaker 4: and done intentionally. And when there's like a huge swath

533
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:28,600
Speaker 4: of walk ins on any given night, that's when the

534
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 4: sort of like the production capacities of a kitchen or

535
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:34,679
Speaker 4: a bar get sort of backlogged and they get sloppy tracy.

536
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:37,679
Speaker 2: It sort of reminds me a little bit of like

537
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 2: our conversations that we talk about electricity and grid, which

538
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,320
Speaker 2: is the difference between total throughput and peak throughput, right,

539
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 2: and so you know, you want an even distribution, and

540
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 2: the problems come on that one really hot day or whatever,

541
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 2: and so spreading the demand out is also a very

542
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,880
Speaker 2: important consideration in sort of optimal.

543
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 3: Grid only you would compare the restaurant business to electricity grids.

544
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:06,719
Speaker 3: But it makes sense, I agree. Since we're on the

545
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 3: topic of reservations, one phenomenon of living in a foody

546
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 3: city is that you have restaurants where it's very difficult

547
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 3: to get a reservation. And I'm thinking specifically of Carbone.

548
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 3: I would love to take my husband to Carbone one day,

549
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:24,400
Speaker 3: but my impression of the process to get space there

550
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 3: is that it's so difficult it's basically not worth it.

551
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 3: And in fact, New York you now have reservation auctions

552
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 3: people selling platforms.

553
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:35,639
Speaker 2: There are these one I forget. What you appen is

554
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 2: where you can get a reservation fairly easily if you

555
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:42,880
Speaker 2: pre commit to a minimum spend. So it's like pre

556
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:45,199
Speaker 2: commit to like a three hundred dollars spend or.

557
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 3: Whatever, you hundred dollars worth of garlic.

558
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 2: And then anyway, so first.

559
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 3: Of all, how do I get a reservation at Carbone?

560
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:52,480
Speaker 2: What are your tips?

561
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 3: And then secondly, what do restaurants think of these like

562
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,640
Speaker 3: very intense competitions for seating in the restaurant?

563
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 4: H Number one, this is mostly David Jenks's fault, So

564
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:07,439
Speaker 4: I hope I hope he knows that this is entirely

565
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 4: his fault. Mama fuku coo. Was this his like sort

566
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 4: of Michelin star wresture. I think it's closed now, but

567
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:14,959
Speaker 4: it was the first one that I knew of at

568
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 4: the time that did this. Like there's no way around

569
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 4: the reservation system, Like you have to log on exactly

570
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:22,120
Speaker 4: two weeks before and you have to sort of win

571
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 4: the lottery. There's this famous story about how his parents

572
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 4: couldn't get a reservation for the first year because he

573
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 4: refused to sort of break out of this system and

574
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:30,760
Speaker 4: so used to you would like know somebody and you

575
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 4: would shake hands and you would sort of get a

576
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 4: reservation and whatever, and this like super scarcity model sort

577
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 4: of produced this like this this reservation thing to some extent,

578
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 4: So how do you get a reservation? A lot of

579
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 4: them are now designed to not have any workarounds, right,

580
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 4: So like knowing somebody is not going to help you

581
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:50,360
Speaker 4: because if you interfere with that scarcity model, you interfere

582
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 4: with the entire system. And so your best luck is

583
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 4: to sort of be online at the right time when

584
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 4: they go live. Some reservations book a month out, some

585
00:25:57,480 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 4: book a whole year out, some book one week out.

586
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 4: So understanding exactly where you are in that process and

587
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 4: when those dates unlock is sort of where you want

588
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 4: to be. Most of these systems are sort of automatically

589
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 4: ran by Open Table or Rezi, and so they're pretty standardized.

590
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 4: A lot of them are Midnight. I think Rezi's Midnight,

591
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 4: and I think Open tables like two am. So understanding

592
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 4: that might be helpful. Other than that, there's just like

593
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 4: not a lot of ways around it anymore because of

594
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 4: this sort of scarcely model that we have to maintain.

595
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 4: That being said, knowing the owner would help. So go

596
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:27,879
Speaker 4: meet the Teresa brothers, have them on the podcast, and

597
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 4: then see if they can get your reservation. That might

598
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 4: that might do it.

599
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 2: Very difficult.

600
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned David Chang. I just remembered some friends

601
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:39,880
Speaker 3: of mine back when David Chang had his food magazine

602
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 3: Lucky Peach. Do you remember that I closed down in

603
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 3: like twenty seventeen, But they used to do dramatic readings

604
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 3: of Lucky Peach. Sit there and you know, someone would

605
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 3: read it out loud in a really dramatic fashion, and

606
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 3: it was hilarious. It was so much fun. I need

607
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:54,880
Speaker 3: to do that again.

608
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 2: I think that sounds very fun.

609
00:26:56,440 --> 00:27:00,359
Speaker 4: I love Lucky Peach. I still have every issue. Oh

610
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 4: really yeah, like.

611
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 3: Oh wow, those are kroinitely valuable now you know.

612
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 4: What they might be Actually those real the good old days.

613
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:08,679
Speaker 2: We need a new Lucky Peach. I want to talk

614
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:12,239
Speaker 2: a little bit more about the labor market. So you

615
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 2: talked about the intense competition for chefs, but also you know,

616
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 2: there's the competition for a really high skilled dishwasher. I

617
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 2: kind of have like a two part question, which is, like,

618
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 2: right now we're recording this December seventeenth, like a, how

619
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,920
Speaker 2: does the competition for sort of this sort of more

620
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 2: everyday restaurant labor, Like what does it look like? And

621
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:37,119
Speaker 2: I'm also curious restaurant kitchens I suspect are sort of

622
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 2: disproportionately draw from the immigrant workforce, perhaps probably in many

623
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:46,159
Speaker 2: restaurants a lot of undocumented immigrants. I'm curious if you

624
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,120
Speaker 2: see any effect from that. And just to the extent

625
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 2: that there is a restaurant ideology or that you know,

626
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 2: and I associated obviously is sort of the crackdown on

627
00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 2: immigration or the reversal of unrestrained immigration part of the

628
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 2: signature moves of the current political environment. Could you talk

629
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,919
Speaker 2: a little bit about how this all looks from the

630
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 2: perspective of someone who has to staff a restaurant.

631
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,679
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there's an arms race to some extent, right,

632
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 4: which is like, traditionally the restaurant industry has drawn from

633
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:21,880
Speaker 4: this undocumented labor market, and there's obviously less and less

634
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 4: of those each day right now for a multitude of

635
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 4: political reasons, and so the good restaurant workers that are

636
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:32,280
Speaker 4: left are becoming incredibly scarce, and so there's there's huge

637
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 4: incentives if somebody, if your dishwasher comes and asked for

638
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 4: a raise, you just give it to them because you're

639
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 4: finding another one. Like training, you know, training a new

640
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 4: person who's never done it before, whatever it may be,

641
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 4: is going to take you months, and the cost will

642
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 4: just work out to be exactly the same as giving

643
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 4: the one you have a raise. And so the market

644
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 4: on cooks is, you know, sort of when I started

645
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 4: out the cook and dishwasher sort of level of the staffing,

646
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 4: not the management level, but below that, the average was

647
00:28:57,600 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 4: like sort of two or three dollars above the minimum wage,

648
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 4: And now it's like at least it's close to double now, right, Like,

649
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 4: so the DC minium way just creeping up to fifteen,

650
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 4: and I think our average cooks and dishwashers are like

651
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 4: twenty six twenty seven an hour, And so that market

652
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 4: is becoming harder and harder to staff because there was

653
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,479
Speaker 4: decades of sort of training this undocumented community on how

654
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 4: to do these tasks, and now all of that sort

655
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 4: of like human capacity, all of that training has been

656
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 4: pushed out. And so for the ones who are documentary,

657
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 4: the ones who stayed or whatever it may be, their

658
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 4: prices and their value are skyrocketing because there's just less

659
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:32,719
Speaker 4: and less of them and that time that was spent training,

660
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 4: whether it was that sort of at Applebe's or a

661
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 4: restaurant like mine or whatever it may be, those years

662
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 4: and years of training are becoming harder and harder to find.

663
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 4: You can't just like replace that in six months, Like

664
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 4: you can't teach with the dishwasher, maybe with with a cook.

665
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 4: I can't take a guy who works at you know,

666
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 4: dunkin Donuts or whatever and train him to be like

667
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 4: a French line cook in less than a year. It's

668
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 4: going to take a long time to get him sort

669
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 4: of to where he can do things to order and

670
00:29:57,320 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 4: be useful. And so there's a lot of just training

671
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 4: that's gone, and it's been great for the wages of

672
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:03,719
Speaker 4: the people who are still here, but it is it

673
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 4: is really competitive right now.

674
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 3: One notable thing about Butterworths is it's in a really

675
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 3: cool building, like a historic building, and the decor is

676
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 3: really nice. Joe knows that I'm into interior decorating, So

677
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 3: you know, you've got the antler chandeliers and the sort

678
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 3: of plush seats and all of that. How important is

679
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 3: the I guess the vibe of the restaurant to the overall.

680
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 4: Business massively important, right Like I think these days I

681
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 4: spend as much time thinking about lighting in volume level

682
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 4: and like spacing out of seats and whether or not

683
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 4: you can hear the person you're talking to, and that

684
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 4: stuff is I do about the food. Wow, Because there's

685
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 4: this sort of arc that started in the foody thing

686
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 4: sort of starts in two thousand and eight with the

687
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 4: housing crisis in the real estate bubble, and so all

688
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 4: of a sudden, all of these young ambitious chefs could

689
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 4: afford to go open a restaurant, and they hired cooks

690
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 4: beneath them, and they trained those cooks, so we got

691
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 4: a sort of a wealth of good cooks and good

692
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 4: people that went on to be chefs. And so that

693
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 4: foody thing that we saw in the mid oughts produced

694
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 4: a ton of really good food, Like we were better

695
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 4: off because of it. But now sort of real estate

696
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 4: and those things are back to where they were in

697
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 4: that way before that. And so now your competitive advantage

698
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 4: isn't just your food's good, because good food is easier

699
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 4: and easier to come by, Like you can find a

700
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:38,719
Speaker 4: good chef in any gahbor everywhere now, but you need

701
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 4: a competitive advantage because rents are sort of back to

702
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 4: where they were whatever. They're very incredibly expensive right now.

703
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 4: And so you're, oh, we have the best food in town,

704
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 4: Like doesn't work anymore, right, So, like you have to

705
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 4: combine the best food with a comfortable place to hang out,

706
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 4: or with a specific social scene, or with a whatever

707
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 4: it may be.

708
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 2: You mentioned lighting. When you think about lighting, how much

709
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 2: is it about the experience of the diners that night

710
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 2: versus lighting for instagram ability or TikTok or whatever it is.

711
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 2: And how do you think about the fact that part

712
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 2: of eating is creating social content and how does that

713
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 2: factor into your strategy and thinking about the overall vibe.

714
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 4: So I think a lot about it. And you saw

715
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 4: this again with that sort of like the foody thing.

716
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 4: The restaurants were incredibly bright, and this Scandinavian minimalism thing

717
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 4: was a trend at the time, but also lent itself

718
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 4: to Instagram and like posting and take. I hate minimal really,

719
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 4: I can't stand it. But it lent itself to sort

720
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 4: of photography and those sort of things incredibly well, because

721
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 4: you have these bright, natural light restaurants and you could

722
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 4: sort of photograph something top down in a way and

723
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 4: it would look really good on Instagram. And so to

724
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 4: say I don't think about it or I don't want

725
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 4: to be a part of that is not true because

726
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 4: what I'm actually trying to do is the exact opposite,

727
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 4: which is like our food photographs terribly. If you have

728
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 4: the photos on your phone from that night, they probably

729
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 4: look awful, But it's a reaction to that thing, which

730
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 4: is like I want to feel like something sort of

731
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 4: before that date or something sort of more classic. They're

732
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 4: more timeless than that. The rule of thumb. I worked

733
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 4: for this really good restaurant tour named Brendan who's down

734
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 4: in Florida now. So if you're ever in Destined and

735
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 4: you find a good restaurant, he probably owns it. But

736
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 4: his rule of thumb was, if it's too bright to

737
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 4: reasonably get away with giving a hand job, then it's

738
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 4: too bright in the restaurant.

739
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 3: That's not what I thought you were going to say,

740
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 3: but there's a good rule of thumb.

741
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 2: It's good to I'm going I'm gonna start pregging.

742
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 4: If you tell that to your staff, they never forget.

743
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 4: Like you'll never come into Butterwares it'll be too bright

744
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 4: because they won't forget that one.

745
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 3: Thank you for changing my restaurant experience forever. There's a

746
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 3: really good breakfast place in Connecticut that I like to

747
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 3: go to. The food's amazing, the service is excellent, but

748
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 3: the decor is terrible. It's like gray vinyl flooring and

749
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 3: just white walls. And every time I'm in there, I'm like,

750
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 3: they should let me redecorate. I would do it for free,

751
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 3: just to enjoy it a bit more.

752
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 2: In Truts, you you know how much I loathed the

753
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 2: agree to which the built environment has been designed for.

754
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 2: Like you've heard me like rant about millennial pink and

755
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 2: all of these all of these design I know, but

756
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 2: these design elements that are just so clearly designed to

757
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 2: be a backdrop for someone's Instagram and the way our

758
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 2: whole real life has been reoriented for social photography. It

759
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 2: drives me crazy. And I do appreciate anything that just

760
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 2: like just looks like the pre iPhone era, you know

761
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:27,720
Speaker 2: what I'm saying.

762
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 4: Absolutely.

763
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 3: One thing I wanted to ask is, you know we

764
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 3: talked about the clientele earlier, and you know, you got

765
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 3: some well known people into the restaurant. Do you try

766
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:43,799
Speaker 3: to like directly publicize that or like monetize that. If

767
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 3: Steve Bannon comes in for the first time, what do

768
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 3: you do?

769
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,959
Speaker 4: So it's actually the exact opposite, and on some level,

770
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 4: I'm grateful that the media at large has done this

771
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 4: for us, because it's as a restaurant tour, it's like

772
00:34:57,239 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 4: really embarrassing to do that. And so my big fear

773
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 4: is if you have a major client Nancy Pelosi was

774
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 4: like a regular one of my older restaurants. The big

775
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:08,319
Speaker 4: fear is if people find out they're there, they'll start

776
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 4: coming to interrupt her in the middle of dinner and

777
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 4: then that person's gone. And I've watched it happen with

778
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 4: restaurants over and over again, and that can range from

779
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 4: like a famous person to you know, if your if

780
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:21,359
Speaker 4: your bar gets known for having like pretty women at

781
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:23,280
Speaker 4: the bar, all of a sudden, it's like seventy percent

782
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,320
Speaker 4: male and the pretty women are gone. Like this is

783
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 4: this is this is like a reality of this thing, right,

784
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 4: which is like they're there because nobody's bothering them there

785
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:33,240
Speaker 4: and they get to be normal and sort of human.

786
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 4: And so in some ways it's been incredible thing for

787
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 4: us that the sort of media has picked up on

788
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:39,959
Speaker 4: this and they're they're happy to to sort of write

789
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 4: about it because it does bring in new customers who

790
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 4: are looking for that specific thing. But at the same time,

791
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:48,319
Speaker 4: you're you're always afraid of losing those customers. So for

792
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 4: me specifically, I would never ever in a million years

793
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 4: be like, hey, Politico, by the way, like in the

794
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 4: spotted Mark Rubio having dinner with his family, because then

795
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 4: you'll just never see that customer again. And that's a

796
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:03,240
Speaker 4: terrible thing to do to some money.

797
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:05,800
Speaker 2: Okay, but it's funny, you said, Marko, I was literally

798
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 2: just going to use Marco In my example of the question,

799
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, so you're there in the

800
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 2: chef so much as well, by the way Marco Rubio

801
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 2: is in the dining room, can I do you do

802
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:14,760
Speaker 2: anything different?

803
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 4: So at that point, it's the same thing with the

804
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 4: food critic. At that point, it's too late to do

805
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 4: anything different. So much of cooking and so much of

806
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 4: preparing food for a restaurant happens before the first diner

807
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:27,919
Speaker 4: sits down, right, Like if you're braizing something, you take

808
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 4: the four hours it takes to braize that thing, and

809
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 4: then the service starts and you're you're basically just sort

810
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 4: of heating up at that point. So there's not a

811
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 4: lot you can do on the food level, but there

812
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 4: is the sort of like minor details around the edges,

813
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 4: which is like, Okay, the plate's going to be a

814
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 4: little bit cleaner, you're going to let the server know.

815
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,719
Speaker 4: One of the funniest ones is we had the ambassador

816
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 4: from the UK and early on and I didn't know

817
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 4: who he was, and so I said I was like, hey,

818
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:55,320
Speaker 4: what's up man. All the all the British people were like, well,

819
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 4: you're supposed to say whatever. The title I don't even

820
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:00,320
Speaker 4: remember at this point because I don't care, but you know,

821
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 4: I use the wrong greetings and there's a whole proper

822
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 4: greeting etiquette that I just didn't know. And so you

823
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 4: do sort of try to let the servers in the

824
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 4: front of house know that sort of thing, because it's

825
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 4: just embarrassing for them if you don't.

826
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 3: You mentioned pretty women at the bar, So now I

827
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 3: have to ask, I imagine running a restaurant, you see

828
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 3: some interesting things go down, and you probably hear a

829
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 3: lot of interesting conversations. What's the most dramatic incident or

830
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 3: intriguing conversation that you've seen?

831
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:30,399
Speaker 4: This is so funny. So the sort of political era

832
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 4: where in now where that seem to be all anyone

833
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 4: talks about, is incredibly boring to me. So there's a

834
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 4: lot of sort of like political arguments or deal making

835
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:45,359
Speaker 4: that happens at the restaurants in DC, Whereas like pre

836
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 4: this era, I had a nightclub restaurant lounge thing in

837
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:53,320
Speaker 4: Adams Morgan where like semi regularly, this one I'm specifically

838
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 4: thinking about, this woman came in with her she was

839
00:37:57,920 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 4: in a relationship and she was having an affair, and

840
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 4: so she came in with her a fair partner and

841
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 4: was seated next to a guy who was also having

842
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 4: a fair, which was her partner, and so they were

843
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 4: seated right next to your wow, and had to like

844
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 4: we had to find the bouncers and sort of drag

845
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 4: all of those people out because the sort of arguments

846
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 4: and the yelling at each other started was just over

847
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 4: the top and ridiculous.

848
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 2: And I feel like maybe it'd be a good way

849
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 2: to discover that. It's like, okay, let's just call it

850
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 2: a wash.

851
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're both guilty.

852
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're both guilty.

853
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 4: All right.

854
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 2: I actually have like a million more questions. I'm mindful

855
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 2: of the time. I have one last that's sort of

856
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 2: like maybe an important macareconomic question. So Butterwords hasn't been

857
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 2: opened that long, but you've been in the business for

858
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 2: a long time. And one of the things that we

859
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 2: talk about a lot is, you know, in the twenty

860
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 2: twenty one twenty twenty two era, one of the phenomenons

861
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 2: of that time was for the first time in maybe

862
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 2: many people's lives they were a small business owner. It

863
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 2: may have been the first time that you couldn't just

864
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 2: put a sign in the window saying help want it,

865
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:00,040
Speaker 2: and expect a lot of people to show up the

866
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 2: era of labor scarcity, the likes of which we hadn't

867
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 2: seen in decades, and maybe people never had to contemplate

868
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 2: that possibility before. And the question we've been wrestling with

869
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 2: and asking a lot of people is like, what are

870
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 2: the sort of scars from that period, the traumas of

871
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 2: that period, and how do they carry over? Has your

872
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 2: experience of that time of realizing that you could wake

873
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:26,720
Speaker 2: up and might literally not be able to perhaps staff

874
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 2: a restaurant that day so that you can function, has

875
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:32,359
Speaker 2: it stayed with you to now in such a way

876
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:36,400
Speaker 2: that you think strategically different about things like optimal staffing

877
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 2: levels or optimal inventory or anything like that. Did it

878
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 2: change the way you do business in some sort of

879
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:42,479
Speaker 2: lasting way?

880
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, in a ton of ways. I'm not even sure

881
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 4: which one to start with. So number one, if you

882
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 4: came to the restaurant tonight and you went into the kitchen,

883
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 4: it's the exact same people that worked with be the

884
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,440
Speaker 4: day COVID started, And so I've kept them in various

885
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:58,239
Speaker 4: ways through multiple restaurants because I watched all my other

886
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 4: friends sort of lose cook and dishwashers and whatever during

887
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:04,239
Speaker 4: that time and not be able to get them back.

888
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 4: And so a chef designs a dish and maybe even

889
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 4: does a bunch of the prep, but at the end

890
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:09,959
Speaker 4: of the day, you're still putting it in the hands

891
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 4: of your staff to do it right when an order

892
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 4: comes in. And I saw the wholesale quality of their

893
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 4: food plummet because they all of a sudden, they were

894
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 4: handing it to people they didn't train. And so, for

895
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 4: a number of reasons, got really lucky kept a lot

896
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:22,399
Speaker 4: of those people, and I will keep them as long

897
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 4: as I possibly can, because to train a new generation

898
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 4: after them myself would just I mean, I'm almost too

899
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 4: late in my career to do it. And so that's

900
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 4: a big thing. We did see a huge exit of

901
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,600
Speaker 4: like management level staff during that time. So if you're

902
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 4: a really good front of house staffer, if you're a

903
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 4: really good waiter, really good manager, really good bartender, turns

904
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 4: out you're also a great salesman. So a lot of

905
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 4: them went into real estate and sales and whatever it

906
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 4: may be. And so there is if you're at restaurants

907
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 4: now and you're like, why a service so bad? Number One,

908
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 4: they're understaffed because labor has become so expensive that they're

909
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 4: trying to get more tables out of one server number two.

910
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 4: The people that they spent training to do those front

911
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 4: of house jobs exited that entire economy during COVID because

912
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,280
Speaker 4: we were sort of front lines of this thing happening.

913
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,240
Speaker 4: We were expecting to be open every day, but without

914
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 4: any staff or money to do it with, and so

915
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 4: a lot of like the best Somalia is, the best

916
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 4: front house managers totally exit of the market. So those

917
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 4: are still hard to find and we struggle with it

918
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:21,320
Speaker 4: all the time. I've got a good front hoouse manager

919
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 4: right now, really lucky, but it took us. He's our

920
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:26,359
Speaker 4: third one in one year because they're just really hard

921
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 4: to find. The talent pool for that is really empty

922
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 4: right now, and then the cost of goods is just

923
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 4: never recovered, and so sort of like you know, when

924
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:36,400
Speaker 4: it started, we were like, oh, you know, supply chains

925
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 4: are bad right now because of shipping or whatever it

926
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:40,840
Speaker 4: may be, and they'll go back down on you know,

927
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 4: whatever it was. Friar oil. This is a big part

928
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 4: of the beef tallow thing with the fries is I

929
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 4: buy the cows from this farmer, so I also get

930
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:49,320
Speaker 4: a good price on his talow because I sort of

931
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,720
Speaker 4: buy the whole thing. But most friars in any restaurant

932
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 4: in the entire world are filled with canoal oils that

933
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 4: are sort of globally processed, right, And so during COVID,

934
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 4: you saw these things go up in price and you

935
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 4: were told they were going to come down, and it's

936
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:05,839
Speaker 4: shipping containers whatever it may be. They never came down.

937
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 4: It costs an unbelievable it's like two hundred bucks a

938
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 4: night to Philip Ryer or something like that. And so

939
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:13,240
Speaker 4: that's when I sort of started the switch to Beetal

940
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:14,799
Speaker 4: and all that because I was like, Okay, well I

941
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:18,399
Speaker 4: know this guy, he's thirty miles away or whatever. I'm

942
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,239
Speaker 4: going to just buy his entire product and keep the

943
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 4: supply chain like one to one. So there's just just

944
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 4: all kinds of things that happened during COVID that we're

945
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 4: still recovering from. But the big ones are the staffing

946
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:29,879
Speaker 4: and the cost of goods.

947
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 3: Obviously vertical integration. There's one more macro, one more macro

948
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 3: question that we got to ask. We talked about the

949
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 3: supply side, but what are you seeing on the demand

950
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 3: side in terms of customers coming in and ordering, and

951
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 3: how connected would you say you are to the broader

952
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 3: business cycle, because I imagine, you know, if you're running

953
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 3: a McDonald's franchise, you probably experience the business cycle in

954
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 3: a very different way to someone who's running a boutique restaurant.

955
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 4: Yeah. So my understanding, just from other restaurant tours and

956
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:03,880
Speaker 4: the news and stuff, is that it's down right now,

957
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 4: and that I think reservations are down like fifteen percent

958
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 4: from last year is what most people are reporting. We're

959
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 4: in a very special circumstance. Obviously, we're new, and we're we're,

960
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, a luxury item, and

961
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 4: so airmes prices never dropped once and airmes demand never

962
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 4: dropped once during COVID, Like, this is sort of like

963
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:22,719
Speaker 4: the side of the business that we're in and we're

964
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 4: lucky to be in, and I hope we can stay

965
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:26,800
Speaker 4: in it. So for us, it's a totally different ballgame.

966
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 4: My understanding is that the reservations are way down. Spinning

967
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 4: his way down across the board.

968
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll give you a chance to sort of like

969
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:38,800
Speaker 2: really let your right wing side come out. Health code

970
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 2: violations and permitting and all that stuff. Of course those

971
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 2: are some of the most uncomfortable scenes. If you watch

972
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 2: that show the Bear, how real is it from your perspective?

973
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 2: Do you want to rant about the sort of do

974
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 2: you want to tell us anything about permitting and such

975
00:43:53,080 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 2: and DC?

976
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean so number one, the bear is fascinating.

977
00:43:56,719 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 4: The first season that uber Eats episode, I still so

978
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:02,320
Speaker 4: all of us switched to uber eads and all of

979
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 4: these things during COVID to figure out how to survive,

980
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 4: and that ding that it makes when a new order

981
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 4: comes in still sends me into like a blackout rage.

982
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 4: I remember one time during COVID picking up the iPad

983
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 4: that the uber eeds order came in and just throwing

984
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 4: it in the deep fire and being like, screw it,

985
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 4: I'm not doing this anymore. And so that episode I

986
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,400
Speaker 4: watched it with my wife. We at one point I

987
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:21,959
Speaker 4: was like, I think we might have to turn this off.

988
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:24,959
Speaker 4: Like I was getting like too upset, too anxious because

989
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 4: it was too accurate. It was totally spot on. And

990
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:30,279
Speaker 4: what that feels like with the health code violations and

991
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 4: the permitting and all that stuff.

992
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 3: Oh God, uh, is this where we're going to have

993
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 3: to bleeve the.

994
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:40,959
Speaker 4: Story I've been doing so good avoiding. Yeah, I tried

995
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 4: so hard, it's ridiculous. There was a restaurantur that I

996
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 4: worked for and the prep kitchen was in the basement

997
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,359
Speaker 4: and it wasn't ventilated, and I was like, how did

998
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 4: you get a permit for this? And he was like, well,

999
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 4: we put ten thousand dollars in a briefcase and gave

1000
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 4: it to the guy, and that's how we have this.

1001
00:44:56,920 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 4: So if you go down to the city hall and

1002
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 4: you pull the records for the building, this basement does

1003
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:03,919
Speaker 4: even exist. And this was like less than twelve years ago,

1004
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 4: and so that obviously doesn't seem like an ideal system.

1005
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:09,840
Speaker 4: But to do that same thing at the restaurant, we

1006
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 4: have now took us almost eight months to get the

1007
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 4: single permit for that, And so there's sometimes where you're like,

1008
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 4: was it better when we just put some cash in

1009
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:19,760
Speaker 4: a briefcase? Like I'm not sure what we're doing here,

1010
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:22,279
Speaker 4: because you're paying rent that entire eight months at that point,

1011
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 4: you know, ten thousand dollars is a lot cheaper than

1012
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:27,799
Speaker 4: whatever your rent is x eight months. And yeah, it's

1013
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 4: this strange thing. I'm not sure what sort of like

1014
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 4: don't say that, what sort of make work job. It

1015
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 4: is for the city to have these health inspectors that

1016
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 4: come by and say the same thing every single time,

1017
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 4: which is like, hey, by the way, like they put

1018
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 4: a to thermometer in all your food, which is hypothetically

1019
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 4: for food safety, but all the half decent restaurants are fine,

1020
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:46,840
Speaker 4: So like, what are you doing here? I saw you

1021
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 4: last month. They were the right temperature last month. Can

1022
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:51,320
Speaker 4: you leave me alone? But it's really the permitting process,

1023
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 4: because you're in this race against your landlord to open

1024
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:59,280
Speaker 4: before you start paying them, and getting seventeen different permits

1025
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 4: to like have a basement or have a closet or

1026
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 4: whatever it may be is legitimately stopping new restaurants from opening.

1027
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:08,399
Speaker 4: So it's pretty miserable. And that's just that's not left

1028
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:10,799
Speaker 4: right wing. That's just like really like sort of like

1029
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:13,319
Speaker 4: a technocrat would be better in this regard, right, Like

1030
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 4: it's like, please let me get my permit a little

1031
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:18,320
Speaker 4: bit faster. Or a mob system, right Like My understanding

1032
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 4: is from my friends in Montreal is that it's still

1033
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 4: very much a mob system. And so they go, yeah,

1034
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 4: well we still put some cash in a briefcase and

1035
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 4: then boom, we're open in a month, so you know,

1036
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 4: let's pick one of those. But it's middle ground right now,

1037
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 4: where like it's just like three guys in an office

1038
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 4: who are completely God, they're gonna come like inspect me

1039
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:36,759
Speaker 4: this week for saying this. It's just like three guys

1040
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,280
Speaker 4: in the office who are all idiots. Is just is miserable.

1041
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:44,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're definitely going to get a Vieah Yeah, who cares?

1042
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 2: Bard. That was fantastic. Thank you so much for coming

1043
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:49,799
Speaker 2: on a lot of fun.

1044
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 4: It was good to talk to you.

1045
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.

1046
00:46:52,280 --> 00:47:04,920
Speaker 5: Thanks guys.

1047
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:08,320
Speaker 2: I love restaurant episodes. I mean, I love restaurants, but

1048
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 2: I love restaurant it. I've just always learned so much

1049
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 2: talking to We could do.

1050
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,000
Speaker 3: Like a spinoff series which restaurants or something. I don't know.

1051
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:19,360
Speaker 3: They're incredibly informative in terms of the macro economic environment,

1052
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:22,479
Speaker 3: but also all these little themes that we talk about

1053
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:26,320
Speaker 3: on all thoughts like the supply chain, like labor hoarding,

1054
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,880
Speaker 3: like to your point, distribution of resources such as energy.

1055
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 2: No, I'd never thought about that time because obviously I

1056
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 2: presume a restaurant wants all tables filled any given time, right,

1057
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 2: But I had never really thought about the thing you

1058
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 2: have to have them staggered so that you do not

1059
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,120
Speaker 2: have all the cocktail orders come out all the same.

1060
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:49,360
Speaker 2: I had never thought about that, and the sort of

1061
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 2: a risk of like demand spikes. You have this system

1062
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 2: designed for some optimal throughput, but the idea of like

1063
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 2: you don't want it all at the same time very intuitive,

1064
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 2: I suppose I just had occurred to me before.

1065
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 3: Did you watch The Bear You must have?

1066
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, yeah.

1067
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:06,319
Speaker 3: I had to stop watching because it was so stressful

1068
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:09,319
Speaker 3: and it was so many people shouting at each other.

1069
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 3: I just I couldn't do it after the first season.

1070
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 2: It's funny, how like basically everyone we talked to is like, yep,

1071
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:19,000
Speaker 2: it's exactly how it is, and it's super difficult that

1072
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 2: And have you watched The Pit by.

1073
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:23,440
Speaker 3: The way, No, but you keep recommending that it's good.

1074
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 2: There's a new season starting soon. But I you know,

1075
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,440
Speaker 2: I was talking to a friend of mine who works

1076
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 2: at one of the NYU medical facilities, but he had

1077
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:33,680
Speaker 2: the same reaction, like he can't watch that. As a

1078
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 2: consumer of TV shows, to my mind, that's a very

1079
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 2: good sign.

1080
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1081
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:39,600
Speaker 2: When people say no, I can't watch this, it's too real,

1082
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, I'm not getting something overly dramatic.

1083
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:44,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to put the pit on my list.

1084
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 3: This is something that stands out whenever we do a

1085
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:50,760
Speaker 3: restaurant episode, which is there's an intensity about the job.

1086
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 3: And in many ways it's a unique industry because the

1087
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 3: profit margins aren't that big, Right, You're probably doing it

1088
00:48:56,800 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 3: for something other than money. You're selecting your ingreen radiance

1089
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 3: usually often because you want to make the best menu

1090
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 3: item possible, not necessarily again because it's going to produce

1091
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:11,440
Speaker 3: the most profit, and you basically dedicate your entire life

1092
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 3: to this undertake a right.

1093
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's interesting to think about what is a chef.

1094
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 2: You're thinking it's like, oh, this is someone who makes

1095
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 2: good food, right, But then the idea is like that

1096
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 2: the chef then has to think about lighting, all these

1097
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 2: other things that do not strictly fall under what we

1098
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 2: think of as the making of food. I don't do

1099
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 2: so many interesting things. I mean, it's so interesting how

1100
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 2: many trends seem to date back to two thousand and eight,

1101
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 2: and so part of the story there was like, Okay,

1102
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 2: there's a lot of cheap rents restaurants can open up.

1103
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,719
Speaker 2: But it's also the true that media is such at

1104
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 2: the time because of the invention of the iPhone and

1105
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 2: so forth, that like foody culture was like a thing

1106
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 2: in the media, right, and all these different crosswinds that

1107
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:57,680
Speaker 2: happen and at certain key points that make it difficult

1108
00:49:57,719 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 2: to disentangle history.

1109
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 4: I don't know.

1110
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 2: That was just a really fun episode. I felt like

1111
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 2: I learned quite a.

1112
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:04,239
Speaker 4: Bit in that one.

1113
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 2: Oh and also the burger, the burger I've never known

1114
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 2: about it.

1115
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes sense again intuitively, I gotta say, though,

1116
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 3: it makes you wonder what comes next? So like we've

1117
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:19,280
Speaker 3: perfected food, a lot of restaurants have perfected the vibes

1118
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 3: or certainly pay attention to it more than they used to.

1119
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 3: What comes next? Do you think?

1120
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 4: I don't know. What do you think?

1121
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:29,719
Speaker 3: You do some thought? Do you have some I mean

1122
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 3: I'd like it to be service. Yeah, I worry that

1123
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 3: it's going to be like some customization thing, which I hate.

1124
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 3: We shouldn't give customers options. I hate that.

1125
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 4: I don't like.

1126
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 2: I don't like I don't like choice.

1127
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Okay, shall we leave it there,

1128
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:46,880
Speaker 3: Let's save it there. This has been another episode of

1129
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 3: the Authoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me

1130
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:51,320
Speaker 3: at Tracy Alloway.

1131
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe Wisn't Though. You can follow me at

1132
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 2: the Stalwart. Follow our guest Bart Hutchins He's at White

1133
00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:59,399
Speaker 2: Guy Fiery. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Kerman armand

1134
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 2: dash O Ben at Dashbod and Kille Brooks at Kalebrooks.

1135
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:04,799
Speaker 2: And from our odd Lots content. Go to Bloomberg dot

1136
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:07,440
Speaker 2: com slash odd Lots or the daily newsletter and all

1137
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 2: of our episodes and you can chat about all of

1138
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:12,720
Speaker 2: these topics twenty four to seven in our discord Discord

1139
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:14,120
Speaker 2: dot gg slash od.

1140
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 3: Lots And if you enjoy all thoughts, if you want

1141
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:19,719
Speaker 3: us to do more restaurant episodes, then please leave us

1142
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:23,320
Speaker 3: a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember,

1143
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:25,799
Speaker 3: if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to

1144
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:28,960
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1145
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:31,680
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1146
00:51:31,719 --> 00:52:00,439
Speaker 3: and follow the instructions. Thanks for listening, Ey,