Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Barry Ridholts. You're listening to Masters in Business podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is somebody that is a little bit
Speaker 1: out of my comfort zone. It's chef Bobby Flay. You
Speaker 1: probably know him from any of the sixteen cookbooks or
Speaker 1: thirteen shows he's hosted on the Food Channel or the
Speaker 1: the Cooking Channel. Um, I gotta tell you a quick,
Speaker 1: funny story. So the whole concept of this show is
Speaker 1: find somebody who's a master in their area, whether it's
Speaker 1: investing in finance or or business people like um, Jim
Speaker 1: McCann at Flowers or Mark Cuban who owns the Dallas Mavericks,
Speaker 1: and and find out what makes made them the terrific
Speaker 1: business person they were. And I've been trying to do
Speaker 1: more and more non finance people, and I thought of
Speaker 1: Bobby Flay. I don't know what made me. It pop
Speaker 1: into my head. Maybe it was something I saw on television.
Speaker 1: And so I had reached out to his people and
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, sure, he's got a new show and
Speaker 1: he's got a new cookbook. He's happy too, And so
Speaker 1: we had this really fascinating conversation. Of course, on the
Speaker 1: way home, I think of a thousand questions I should
Speaker 1: have asked him as a restaurateur instead. Instead, I have
Speaker 1: two cookbooks of his about his famous restaurant, Mesa and
Speaker 1: this wonderful dish that my wife. I took my wife
Speaker 1: there for a birthday years ago and she has not
Speaker 1: stopped talking about this dish. And he actually walked me
Speaker 1: through the through the recipe for that dish. But here's
Speaker 1: the most fascinating part. The guy is just such a real,
Speaker 1: genuine person and such a true New Yorker. After the show,
Speaker 1: we walk him down to the um out of the building.
Speaker 1: Where you going, Bobby, I'm taking the subway down to
Speaker 1: my office. Bobby Flight takes the subway. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: most efficient way to get around the city. So we
Speaker 1: walk across Lexington Avenue. People come, Hey, it's Bobby Flay,
Speaker 1: like the crowd season. He says, Hi, shakes the hand.
Speaker 1: The three of us head down into the subway. He
Speaker 1: gets on a train and goes off to his destination.
Speaker 1: It was really quite fascinating that as as real a
Speaker 1: person and as true and New Yorker as ever you
Speaker 1: want to meet without further ado, Here is our conversation
Speaker 1: with chef and respirator Bobby Flay. This is Masters in
Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest
Speaker 1: today is a well known chef, author of a cookbook,
Speaker 1: restaurateur and star on the Food Network. Bobby Flay, Welcome
Speaker 1: to Masters, and I'm so glad to be here. Your
Speaker 1: introduction is going to take a while. Let me give
Speaker 1: you the give people the quick version of it. Um,
Speaker 1: you became head chef. First of all, you drop out
Speaker 1: of high school to start working in restaurants. You're seventeen.
Speaker 1: You be come head chef at Miracle Grill, which was
Speaker 1: a lovely little place in the village. Then you open
Speaker 1: your first restaurant, Masa Grill. It gets named Restaurant of
Speaker 1: the Year by Gayle Green, you win the James Beard
Speaker 1: Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year, and ninety three
Speaker 1: you now host or have hosted or specials on the
Speaker 1: Food Network and Cooking Channel over thirteen shows. How many
Speaker 1: cookbooks is this right? Over twelve cookbooks? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: it's thirteen four. And you've, of course you've won three
Speaker 1: Emmy's and you're the first chef we've had on on
Speaker 1: Masters and business. You know, I followed your career accidentally.
Speaker 1: I don't even know I was following your career. When
Speaker 1: I was in grad school. The only nice restaurant I
Speaker 1: could afford to take my then where grad school was
Speaker 1: here in the city was that a university. The only
Speaker 1: restaurant I could afford that was nice was Miracle Grill,
Speaker 1: and that was late eighties, early nineties. It had this
Speaker 1: delightful outdoor garden you'd of a garden and a fantastic
Speaker 1: brunch and one day we just asked somebody, who's the
Speaker 1: chef here? Oh, some guy named Bobby Flay. Okay, that's nice.
Speaker 1: So when Mesa opens, we're one of the first people there.
Speaker 1: I remember taking my wife. I think it was hurt
Speaker 1: I won't say what number, but it was a round
Speaker 1: number birthday, and there was a dish that I have
Speaker 1: a bunch of your cookbooks and we still can't find
Speaker 1: this dish, which was clams in a curry thaie coconut
Speaker 1: sauce not but it's not in the Mesa cookbook and
Speaker 1: it's not in the I don't know if it's in
Speaker 1: any of your cookbooks. That's a long time ago. That
Speaker 1: dish has haunted me for years. Is it didn't have
Speaker 1: like a wild rice waffle with it. No, it definitely didn't.
Speaker 1: It was almost like, you know, you go get molt
Speaker 1: a Belgian place and they pretend to have a tie sauce.
Speaker 1: It was like that, only delicious. So you you, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember that specifically. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: the development of food. So so I mentioned earlier, dropped
Speaker 1: out of high school at seventeen, found your way to restaurants.
Speaker 1: When did you first fall in love with cooking? It's
Speaker 1: hard to say, really, I think, you know, I remember
Speaker 1: cooking with my mother when I was a kid, you know,
Speaker 1: at home. Um, the very first thing I remember cooking
Speaker 1: was um mighty fine chocolate pudding, okay, right from the package,
Speaker 1: from the package, and you all you would do is
Speaker 1: you get a sauce pan and put some milk in there,
Speaker 1: you know, you measure out the milk and you would
Speaker 1: bring it to a skald and then you would add
Speaker 1: the sort of package of chocolate powder or whatever was
Speaker 1: in there. And then I remember just uh stirring it
Speaker 1: with a wooden spoon and watching me get thick and chocolate.
Speaker 1: And I thought Wow, that's this is what cooking is.
Speaker 1: It actually changes the texture and the look in the
Speaker 1: flavor of things. And that's what led you to molecular astronomy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't do astronomy, but but um, you know it's
Speaker 1: it's my very first cooking memory. But like I used
Speaker 1: to like make a lot of deviled eggs at home,
Speaker 1: and you know, things like that, I mean, really simple things.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that I was really interested in cooking
Speaker 1: as a profession because, frankly did no precedent for that.
Speaker 1: I mean, cooking was only thought of as a blue
Speaker 1: collar profession. Even when I started cooking professionally, more like
Speaker 1: a short order chef than a real we just you know,
Speaker 1: there was no such thing as as a celebrity chef,
Speaker 1: for a chef that had any sort of name or knowledge.
Speaker 1: I mean, besides, I'm sure you know some some French
Speaker 1: chefs who own the top restaurants of the day. But um,
Speaker 1: in terms of like a network dedicated to food and
Speaker 1: things like that, that that was way far in the future.
Speaker 1: And as this an urban legend, you're eight years old
Speaker 1: and you're folks, as you only want for Christmas, and
Speaker 1: you said an easy bake oven. Now that's a real story.
Speaker 1: The urban legend is how good I am in the
Speaker 1: basketball court. Not true. Now, I used to actually I was.
Speaker 1: I was a good ball player. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: I'm a city kid, so I grew up playing a
Speaker 1: lot of sports outside in the streets and UMT just yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I love I played ball all the time.
Speaker 1: We were talking before the show about what happens, and
Speaker 1: you hit a certain age. Right before I got married,
Speaker 1: I was playing on the courts over a thirty third
Speaker 1: and second by the turns to the tunnel and I
Speaker 1: twist my ankle and I walk home and I'm living
Speaker 1: and my wife said, that's what you've done with ball.
Speaker 1: I I quit. I quit it forty two. Um, And honestly,
Speaker 1: I think about it every day because I love playing basketball.
Speaker 1: Used to we used to play in a restaurant league,
Speaker 1: um at Basketball City on the West Side, you know,
Speaker 1: at Chelsea Piers. And it was it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was great competition. And I mean I I I
Speaker 1: grew up playing basketball in my whole life, so it
Speaker 1: was it was almost like my my my renaisce my
Speaker 1: basketball renaissance. And then um, like you, um, I went
Speaker 1: up for a rebound and I came down wrong on
Speaker 1: my ankle and I I didn't really hurt myself. I
Speaker 1: just sprained my ankle and I was like, the next time,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be in a cast and I can't
Speaker 1: do this. And that was you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: friend of a friend. I want to get the name right.
Speaker 1: David Chang just to open a new restaurant, and we
Speaker 1: had said to friends, let's go this weekend. It's in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: will go on Sunday. Oh no, it's closed. He's in
Speaker 1: the restaurant ball league he plays, so the restaurants closed
Speaker 1: on Sunday. Right, So some of these guys who are
Speaker 1: serious cooks also serious ball. Absolutely, So let's keep working
Speaker 1: our way through our list. Um. So you studied with
Speaker 1: some of the great chefs at the French Junary Institute,
Speaker 1: and you said, when you grew up, there really wasn't
Speaker 1: a frame of reference for chefs. What is it that
Speaker 1: makes a great chef? Um? And you can answer your
Speaker 1: question the other way, what makes a chef great? If
Speaker 1: that's a uh, well, I think I think the original
Speaker 1: question is really the real question. I think you know,
Speaker 1: what makes a great chef? I mean lots of things. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, the words chef really means chief. So basically,
Speaker 1: besides you being well, first of all, you have to
Speaker 1: be a good cook. Let's let's let's get the fundaments
Speaker 1: out of the way. You need to be a good cook.
Speaker 1: You need to understand the fundamentals. You need to be
Speaker 1: a very good teacher because you need to be able
Speaker 1: to teach your brigade, so to speak, to pull off
Speaker 1: the things that you need pulled off in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: You can never do it by yourself as a chef.
Speaker 1: You also need to be a good leader. You need
Speaker 1: to be inspirational. Um. And you know, ultimately I think
Speaker 1: that um, you need to be dedicated and passionate about food.
Speaker 1: I'm Barry rid Holts. You're listening to Masters in Business
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is Bobby Flay,
Speaker 1: best known for his work with Miracle Grill. Let's go
Speaker 1: down the list, nayso all of the shows on the
Speaker 1: Food Network. Let's talk a little bit about the business
Speaker 1: of restaurants. Since you are essentially a restaurateur, everybody knows
Speaker 1: it's a really challenging business. Most new restaurants don't survive
Speaker 1: when they open up. What is it that makes it
Speaker 1: such a challenging proposition for a restaurant to become successful
Speaker 1: in New York anywhere, but New York City for sure
Speaker 1: right now? Um, it's is a real squeeze on on
Speaker 1: small businesses in New York City, especially the restaurant business.
Speaker 1: As you know, the ransom New York are spectacularly insane,
Speaker 1: just in the labor costs go go up and up.
Speaker 1: Tip credit just got uh brush to the side. I mean,
Speaker 1: as it is the restaurant business in general, Okay, across
Speaker 1: the board, across the country, it's very difficult to make
Speaker 1: a profit unless you're unless you're slammed every single night. Okay,
Speaker 1: now bring it to New York with a rents are
Speaker 1: you know quadruple any place else? The labor costs are
Speaker 1: the same. Um, all the regulations, I mean, it just
Speaker 1: makes everything really really difficult. I mean, frankly, I just
Speaker 1: opened my new restaurant, Gotto a year ago, and I
Speaker 1: looked at my business partner, who has been my We've
Speaker 1: been business partners for twenty five years, and I said, Lawrence,
Speaker 1: I just wanted you to know I want to open
Speaker 1: this restaurant really badly, but we're gonna probably lose money.
Speaker 1: And what does he say to this? All right, let's
Speaker 1: do it, because because it's important to us. We you know,
Speaker 1: we really want we really wanted to open Goto. It
Speaker 1: was a restaurant that I was pining a way to open.
Speaker 1: And sometimes, you know, you do things not for the money,
Speaker 1: and and this is a perfect case of that, you
Speaker 1: do it for the love of So that's a question
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you later, but let's bring it forward.
Speaker 1: What gets you excited about new restaurant? Um? Well, the energy? Uh,
Speaker 1: of course, going through the food. I mean to me,
Speaker 1: when I when I open a restaurant, it's food first.
Speaker 1: So I come up with the menu and the concept
Speaker 1: first in terms of what I want to cook and
Speaker 1: what I want to serve, and then everything else sort
Speaker 1: of gets built around it. Then the then the design
Speaker 1: comes in. You know, I think about what the energy
Speaker 1: of the room wants wants to be, um, and then
Speaker 1: you know that those are the two most important things,
Speaker 1: and then we just sort of fill everything in around it.
Speaker 1: So it starts with the food. Then the energy is
Speaker 1: that is that the decor, the staff, the flow, what
Speaker 1: do you mean it's all of it. But like when
Speaker 1: you walk into a restaurant as a customer, there's a
Speaker 1: certain buzz. Sometimes it's quiet and people the restaurantur wants
Speaker 1: it to be quiet. Sometimes it's really loud and maybe
Speaker 1: the maybe the restaurantur wants to be really loud, but
Speaker 1: the customers are sort of not sure if they want
Speaker 1: it that way. I mean, you have to take um,
Speaker 1: you have to take attack, and you have to stick
Speaker 1: with it. So, for instance, that Gotto, I wanted high energy.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be bustling, but I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be controlled chaos. I didn't want it to be just
Speaker 1: I didn't want to feel like a nightclub. I wanted
Speaker 1: to feel like a really good restaurant that's kind of
Speaker 1: fun and has a little buzz going to it. And
Speaker 1: then the lighting is incredibly important UM, and that is
Speaker 1: not on my list. That's interesting. I have a list
Speaker 1: of things to ask you about what's most important in
Speaker 1: a restaurant, and I don't even think about. When it
Speaker 1: comes to design, lighting is the number one thing, the
Speaker 1: number one thing for design that lighting, and we spent
Speaker 1: we spent a lot of money on lighting um lighting
Speaker 1: design UM. And if you go to Bar American, which
Speaker 1: is in midtown here, or if you go to Gatto,
Speaker 1: they both have these sort of orange glows to the room.
Speaker 1: It makes everybody look good, and when you look good,
Speaker 1: you feel good. You know. I was at a restaurant
Speaker 1: not too long ago, and I won't mention their name,
Speaker 1: and it was very dim, and there's a fine line
Speaker 1: between romantic and too dark. And the waiters literally had
Speaker 1: these squeezy hand held flashlights. So when you couldn't read,
Speaker 1: everybody's whipping out their phones to read the menu, and
Speaker 1: the waiters come by with a flashlight, and I was
Speaker 1: compelled to ask, Hey, if the waiters have to have flashlights,
Speaker 1: maybe that means something's wrong with the lighting in the restaurant. Well,
Speaker 1: that's just because you can't see the menus like me.
Speaker 1: But it was everybody. It wasn't just old people who
Speaker 1: were fifty, it was you walk in. I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: it's it looks like the section is closed. It could
Speaker 1: be too people, could you know. I mean they're looking
Speaker 1: for that sort of mood lighting. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think that restaurants can certainly be too dark for sure.
Speaker 1: And you're saying lighting is really very Lighting is important yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So on a on a related note, so when you're
Speaker 1: looking to launch a new restaurant, and let's use Mesa
Speaker 1: as an example. So there's the Mesa that just closed
Speaker 1: in New York not too long ago. I think to
Speaker 1: make way for a condo. Is that? No, that's that boo,
Speaker 1: to make way for a condom? Mason closed because after
Speaker 1: twenty three years is that my rent was quadrupled? That's
Speaker 1: a lot. So you opened up a Mesa in Vegas
Speaker 1: and the Bahamas. And so when you're opening out a place,
Speaker 1: when you're scouting a place to open a new restaurant,
Speaker 1: what is it that you're looking at? Is it just
Speaker 1: traffic or is it uh something more complex than that. Well, first,
Speaker 1: first of all, location is important. I don't care how
Speaker 1: good you are, how popular you are, Um, you want location.
Speaker 1: You know the you know the old sort of at
Speaker 1: age location, location, location. When it's really true, when I
Speaker 1: open a restaurant and we're gonna spend a bunch of
Speaker 1: money to open a restaurant, I want every chance I can,
Speaker 1: So I start with location. Location is very important then
Speaker 1: to how the space feels. Um is it? Is it
Speaker 1: a space that we can actually design a restaurant that's
Speaker 1: gonna actually feel good when you walk into it. I
Speaker 1: don't like restaurants that where the ceilings are too low.
Speaker 1: For instance, Um, I don't like restaurants that that where
Speaker 1: the rooms are broken up like one big room. When
Speaker 1: you can and when you walk in, the bar and
Speaker 1: the and the dining room have a have an affinity
Speaker 1: for each other. I think that it's really important, and
Speaker 1: their energy sort of bounces off each other. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about restaurants that aren't yours. What sort of rooms
Speaker 1: do you walk in and say, Wow, there's a really
Speaker 1: good energy in here. Keith McNally, do you know that
Speaker 1: I know the name? Okay, so he owns like Baltas
Speaker 1: are he had Pastis Marandi. I eat in Keith mcnalley's
Speaker 1: restaurants more than I eat in any other restaurant besides
Speaker 1: my own. Actually, I don't really eat my own, but
Speaker 1: when I when I go out, I mean I'm in
Speaker 1: Keith mcdalley's restaurants. Because this guy, to me, he is
Speaker 1: a fan. He is he is one of the best
Speaker 1: restaurateurs in New York, and he creates an amazing energy
Speaker 1: and great um surroundings and it makes you want to
Speaker 1: be there. And the food is really simple. You know,
Speaker 1: he's not reinventing the wheel by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 1: But but he but the food is always solid and
Speaker 1: good and you know what to expect, and they deliver
Speaker 1: on their promise. And I always feel good in his
Speaker 1: in his restaurants. So in the last minute we have
Speaker 1: left in this segment, what are the things? What is
Speaker 1: the most important thing that most restaurateurs get wrong? They undercapitalize.
Speaker 1: It takes that a lot of money to open up
Speaker 1: a a restaurant. Well, if let's say you think it's
Speaker 1: gonna cost two million dollars, it's really four double whatever.
Speaker 1: You're double the time to build it and double the
Speaker 1: money to finance it. I'm Barry Rihult. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My guest today is
Speaker 1: Bobby Flay, restaurateur, host on the Food Network, Cooking Channel, uh,
Speaker 1: cookbook author, and let's get into the specific details. You've
Speaker 1: hosted more than a dozen cooking shows on the Food
Speaker 1: Network and Cooking Channel. You have thirteen cookbooks published currently.
Speaker 1: Your shows are Bobby Flay's Barbecue Addiction and the Worst
Speaker 1: Cooks in America and you've won three Emmy's. And the
Speaker 1: funny thing is you began your television career back in
Speaker 1: How does a chef find his way into television? Well,
Speaker 1: the Food network UM started in New York and as
Speaker 1: a startup cable company, and Mason Grille was what was
Speaker 1: one of the hot restaurants of that time, Restaurant of
Speaker 1: the year, the James Beard Award that was that was
Speaker 1: the pinnacle in New York back then. Yes, exactly, And
Speaker 1: so they were looking for people to come on the network,
Speaker 1: you know, and and frankly a lot of people were like,
Speaker 1: what are they going to talk about? You know, for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours in food you know, they'll run out
Speaker 1: of things to talk about to anyway, Um, long story short,
Speaker 1: I saw it as an opportunity to to showcase, you know,
Speaker 1: who I was and what my restaurants were, because I
Speaker 1: knew that people all over the country would start watching
Speaker 1: this network. And so like when the family from Minneapolis
Speaker 1: is coming to New York for three days, they'll maybe
Speaker 1: they'll pick my restaurant as one of the restaurants that
Speaker 1: they'll come to. It just puts you know, basically, um,
Speaker 1: people in there in your seats, and so I looked
Speaker 1: at it as a really good way to market my restaurants.
Speaker 1: But this has evolved until a lot more than hey,
Speaker 1: let me get some more butts in the seats. This
Speaker 1: has really become a second career for you. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: really has in some way. I never think of myself
Speaker 1: on television because I'm because the restaurants are so important
Speaker 1: to me that you know, and the Food Network knows this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been on the Food Network for twenty years,
Speaker 1: but they're they're they're in second place. My restaurants, my kitchens,
Speaker 1: that's the place that I always want to be more
Speaker 1: than any place else. But the network obviously has become
Speaker 1: very much my family and has given me a fantastic
Speaker 1: platform for what I want to do and what I
Speaker 1: want to to try and experiment with. And the amazing
Speaker 1: thing is really food on television. What was Julia Child
Speaker 1: like nineteen sixty three? The Food Network has exploded in
Speaker 1: popularity the past couple of years. It's it's really part
Speaker 1: of pop culture now. I mean I think that Iron
Speaker 1: Chef did that, you know, when I when I when
Speaker 1: I when I competed against the Japanese um Iron Chef
Speaker 1: in America. I think it's probably twelve years ago now.
Speaker 1: I think that that really changed the way people looked
Speaker 1: at food on television, and then that led to throw
Speaker 1: down with Bobby Flag and that ultimately Now, originally there
Speaker 1: was a little bad blood between you and um the Japanese. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: and now you guys are supposed to be but now
Speaker 1: we're good friends. I mean, you know, it was just
Speaker 1: it was sort of in the heat of the competition,
Speaker 1: but you know how that goes, for sure, and uh,
Speaker 1: you had you had famously leapt up on the table
Speaker 1: and brandished your knives and they were offended by that.
Speaker 1: They were offended by um, a little cultural difference. Now,
Speaker 1: apparently the cutting board in Japan is sacred. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that, did you know know until I read it
Speaker 1: and something you had written. Yeah, I said, no idea.
Speaker 1: So I had no idea obviously, And my sush chefs
Speaker 1: kind of lifted me up on the table. We we
Speaker 1: sort of made it. We were having a hard time
Speaker 1: for the hour, and we sort of came back at
Speaker 1: the end, got all the food done, and we were
Speaker 1: just happy. They lifted me up on the table and
Speaker 1: lo and behold, I you know, obviously I insulted him,
Speaker 1: so I apologized and now it's all it's all good,
Speaker 1: so good too. So when you're um, how involved you
Speaker 1: in the creation of some of these new shows, because
Speaker 1: you've done a lot of these, it looks like you're
Speaker 1: trying a lot of really interesting things. Well, right now,
Speaker 1: I'm doing Beat Bobby Flay, which is my new show.
Speaker 1: I mean, I created throw Down, I created Beat Bobby Flay,
Speaker 1: I create I create most of the shows that I do,
Speaker 1: barbecue addiction. So nobody's pitching you. You know, you're not like,
Speaker 1: I gotta take a meeting with the Food Network now
Speaker 1: we're gonna do for chefs. No, they I'm sure you'll
Speaker 1: see that soon. Um No, they pitched me all the time.
Speaker 1: I have a really good relationship with them. And I
Speaker 1: have a production company to ROCKSTRM Productions is my production company,
Speaker 1: so we produce, you know, a lot of my shows,
Speaker 1: and we produce other people's shows as well. So what
Speaker 1: makes you decide to accept or or you know, give
Speaker 1: green light or pass on a show? What elements are
Speaker 1: you looking at? What factors? I'm looking for simplicity, And
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of times people missed that
Speaker 1: miss that the concept of a show is simple, that
Speaker 1: those are the successful ones. A lot of times they'll say,
Speaker 1: just kind of what you did. We're gonna take Shark Tank,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take Iron Chef, We're gonna take this, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna roll it into this this one show.
Speaker 1: It's gonna have all these different elements. But basically what
Speaker 1: happens is it gets muddled and you can't follow it.
Speaker 1: Beat Bobby Flay is really simple. Two of my friends
Speaker 1: show up, they bring two chefs with them. Those two
Speaker 1: chef go at it for twenty minutes. One of them wins.
Speaker 1: Then that chef then tells me what their signature dishes,
Speaker 1: and we cook it for forty five minutes and there's
Speaker 1: a winner. That's it, and it's really simple. But what
Speaker 1: we do is we surround it with a big audience,
Speaker 1: um and it's got It's basically thirty minutes of pure energy.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a lot of fun. So now let's
Speaker 1: shift to publishing and cookbooks. In the last minute we have,
Speaker 1: you've got a dozen plus cookbooks out. What drives the
Speaker 1: process of putting out a new cookbook and how do
Speaker 1: you develop new recipes basically either a new show or
Speaker 1: a new restaurant. Basically begets a new book, and there's
Speaker 1: a whole theme of cooking, and you can basically work
Speaker 1: your way through all of that in a single cook exactly.
Speaker 1: I have a show about brunch called Bunch of Bobbies
Speaker 1: on Food Network, and so in the fall, we have
Speaker 1: a brunch book coming out. I'm Barry Ridholts. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My guest today
Speaker 1: is restaurateur and Food Network star Bobby Flay. Before we
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about investing in restaurants, let me
Speaker 1: ask you this question. How does a kid from the
Speaker 1: city find his way into thoroughbred horse race? Uh, well,
Speaker 1: when you drop out of high school or you cut school,
Speaker 1: um in the eighties, you go to the aqueduct in
Speaker 1: Belmont with your friends. That's what we did. I mean,
Speaker 1: we you know, we you know, we were New York
Speaker 1: City kids and you know, we we didn't want to
Speaker 1: go to school, so we went to the track. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like at that of the movie kind
Speaker 1: of story. And so I was always fascinated by My
Speaker 1: grandfather took me to Saratoga Springs, which is one of
Speaker 1: the most beautiful places ever. And I still go every August.
Speaker 1: And then when I started getting a little success in business,
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, it would be really cool to
Speaker 1: own a horse. And I really, um, I've really gotten
Speaker 1: into in a big way. You know, I race and
Speaker 1: I breed horses. I have a lot of horses in Kentucky.
Speaker 1: And you've had a few big winners too. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if i've I've I've had a little bit
Speaker 1: of luck. It's just so much fun. And I love
Speaker 1: the social part of it. I loved getting dressed up
Speaker 1: for the big races and throwing parties beforehand. It's just
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things that I think a
Speaker 1: city kid, Um, it's nice to kind of get out
Speaker 1: to the country every once in a while. And you know,
Speaker 1: and I go to Kentucky a lot, and I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time there. I always tell people who
Speaker 1: are from the downstate New York region who have never
Speaker 1: been up to Saratoga. Man, hey, you have to get
Speaker 1: up there. It's unlike any other place. Yeah. It's actually
Speaker 1: six weeks from the middle of July to the end
Speaker 1: of till till basically um Labor Day. Um. That there's
Speaker 1: a great race meet some of the best horses in
Speaker 1: the world, you know, show up there to compete. But
Speaker 1: it's just a great social environment and it's and people
Speaker 1: just have a great time. And the great thing about
Speaker 1: a horse racing is for two dollars you can have
Speaker 1: an opinion. Um. And actually, now you know, Governor Cuomo
Speaker 1: appointed me to the New York Racing Association board. So
Speaker 1: I've been trying my hand at that. That's a whole
Speaker 1: new experience. That sounds like a lot of fun. You're
Speaker 1: you're gonna get involved in politics. UM. So let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the business of new restaurants. How
Speaker 1: how often are you looking at new opportunities? Always, always,
Speaker 1: always looking at new opportunities, you know, Um, besides my
Speaker 1: Hi restaurants, I also have a UM, I have a
Speaker 1: slew of Burger places, eighteen bobbies, Burger palaces, you go,
Speaker 1: you got it. And so you know, we're constantly looking
Speaker 1: to to expand that as well. And I think that's
Speaker 1: the one that sort of can grow from a business standpoint.
Speaker 1: I think that the sky's the limit there for sure.
Speaker 1: What's fascinating, and again, this is a business show. We
Speaker 1: see McDonald's running into a lot of trouble. And then
Speaker 1: we see places like Shake Shock, like five guys go
Speaker 1: down the list of all the non burger king slash
Speaker 1: McDonald's burger joints doing really well. What is it about
Speaker 1: the simple burger that has so much room for potential growth? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, um burger is such an American thing.
Speaker 1: It's something that never goes out of style. It doesn't
Speaker 1: um have any loss of gain based on the economy.
Speaker 1: It's always something that's gonna be um a popular period.
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, as our taste change
Speaker 1: in this country for the better, people want better everything,
Speaker 1: including burgers, And so I think that that's that's some
Speaker 1: of the struggles that McDonald's is having. That now you
Speaker 1: can get a better burger, you know, for for a
Speaker 1: value price, right, not a buck or two more money.
Speaker 1: You know, a meal at McDonald's is what five or
Speaker 1: six dollars when you come out. You shouldn't know, Um,
Speaker 1: when you come out of a place like Shake Shock,
Speaker 1: it's eight or ten bucks. I'm assuming you guys similarly,
Speaker 1: And I notice you guys do a lot of things.
Speaker 1: The burger of the month. There's a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of variations there that I haven't seen elsewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we you know, you know, unlike some of the
Speaker 1: other other better burger places. You know, we have handcut fries.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the it's the real you know, French
Speaker 1: process of cooking French fries. Um. And you know, obviously
Speaker 1: are the meat is amazing. All of our ingredients are
Speaker 1: incredibly fresh. I mean, that's what people want to eat
Speaker 1: these days. And if I can, if I can reach
Speaker 1: people who can't get to my high end restaurants, whether
Speaker 1: it's at their price point or they're just at it's
Speaker 1: out of their location, um, I can reach them through
Speaker 1: Bobby's Burger Palace. And that's that's really my goal. So
Speaker 1: you started that out in smith Haven Mall by Stony
Speaker 1: Brook University. What was it like first testing a new
Speaker 1: burger joint out in the bourbs like that? Well, that
Speaker 1: was our pilot store, you know, and um, it's uh
Speaker 1: it was. It was a great testing ground, it really was. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's in a mall, it's out in Long Island, um,
Speaker 1: and people have really gravitating towards it. So how many
Speaker 1: of these would you like to open? Are you're gonna
Speaker 1: go for a hundred and more long term plan. I
Speaker 1: don't look at it that way. Um. Right now we
Speaker 1: have eighteen. We're gonna open another one in Maryland in
Speaker 1: a few months, and then you know, we're gonna do
Speaker 1: some we we want to go to them to the
Speaker 1: Middle East as well and and open some there. But
Speaker 1: we have this is a big country, and so we
Speaker 1: want to go to places like Texas and California and
Speaker 1: open more in Florida, places that we haven't done yet.
Speaker 1: That sounds fascinating. And if you look at the success
Speaker 1: of some of these other burger chains, clearly there's a
Speaker 1: demand for higher quality, not quite fast food. Yeah, absolutely know.
Speaker 1: Shake Shack. You know they on their first day they
Speaker 1: were valued at one point six billion dollars, not to
Speaker 1: Chevy No. And some people say, well, is it overvalued?
Speaker 1: I mean, frankly, who knows? I mean, but I think
Speaker 1: I think the most important message there is that it's
Speaker 1: a message that people are saying in the marketplace, is
Speaker 1: saying we we want better and we'll pay a little
Speaker 1: bit more for it. We saw that with Chapult, which
Speaker 1: was first bought by McDonald's and then spun out as
Speaker 1: a standalone and there's lines out the door constantly. We've
Speaker 1: done a great job. It's clear that at least the
Speaker 1: millennial generation is much more interested in fresh food that
Speaker 1: willing to pay a little more, and they're really not
Speaker 1: McDonald's customers. So let's talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: the Internet has has impacted the restaurant business. We have
Speaker 1: yelped and you could purchase reviews and yelp which has
Speaker 1: been a problem um for them. We have open table
Speaker 1: Twitter blogs. How has the internet impact did the restaurant business? Well,
Speaker 1: I think the Internet first and foremost has impacted it
Speaker 1: from um, just from information. You know, obviously it's it's
Speaker 1: the information highway as they call it. Right. So now
Speaker 1: when people want to go to a restaurant, they go
Speaker 1: to the Internet and they check certain blogs, they check
Speaker 1: certain lists, and they see what people are saying about
Speaker 1: your restaurant. UM, where the restaurant is. They're making reservations
Speaker 1: online more than ever, and so you know, obviously it's
Speaker 1: it's um. It's it's incredibly important and and and social
Speaker 1: media as well. Does open table work for the advantage
Speaker 1: of the restaurateur or is it taking money out of
Speaker 1: their pockets? I don't. I mean it's taking money out
Speaker 1: of our out of our pockets because we pay a fee,
Speaker 1: so it literally is taking money out of our pockets.
Speaker 1: But you know, I mean you pay for good service.
Speaker 1: And I think that that open table is the way
Speaker 1: people at this point want to make their reservations, and
Speaker 1: so we make it available to them. Does it bring
Speaker 1: more customers in? Is it an advantage to a restaurant?
Speaker 1: Because when I'm as someone who goes out to eat
Speaker 1: a lot, when I look at a restaurant to get
Speaker 1: the phone number, I see open tables over there, I'd
Speaker 1: rather call directly than just click. But it's because you're
Speaker 1: old school. I do the same thing. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's old school. I just like, why am
Speaker 1: I paying these guys two dollars just as happy? You know?
Speaker 1: Why do I am I gonna make? Look? I put
Speaker 1: myself through college and grad school as a waiter, as
Speaker 1: as a as a bartender, so I know how a
Speaker 1: little bit how the business works. And I'm always like,
Speaker 1: why is this middleman between me and the restaurateur? And
Speaker 1: how many people are they charging? How much it is
Speaker 1: all the time. Well, that's just the cost of doing business,
Speaker 1: I guess it is. And what about reviews, blogs, things
Speaker 1: like that. Is that something that matters or is it
Speaker 1: not as significant? You know, the movie we just saw
Speaker 1: that was out last year was Chef with the famous
Speaker 1: scene with the meltdown. Obviously it's a gross exaggeration, but
Speaker 1: there's always a touch of truth. How annoying are some
Speaker 1: of these um, Yelp reviews and blog you don't know?
Speaker 1: To me, the problem with Yelp is that I don't
Speaker 1: even know. It could be some of my competitors writing reviews.
Speaker 1: I mean, you still you don't know. So to me,
Speaker 1: it's like it's the last place that I look as
Speaker 1: opposed to, let's say, as the Gats, where I like.
Speaker 1: I like. I like the Gats because they do really
Speaker 1: um interesting stories and they have integrity. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a there's one called Infatuation, which I think is fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's a couple of guys who have really built up
Speaker 1: their business and they're building it more and more, and
Speaker 1: they go into restaurants looking for the good. Now if
Speaker 1: it's not good, they will tell you. Okay. It's not
Speaker 1: like they're just gonna only write good reviews. But but
Speaker 1: I like their attitude towards things. There were also some
Speaker 1: bloggers who go on looking for the bad because they
Speaker 1: feel like if they write a bad review, they're gonna
Speaker 1: get more clicks because it's gonna get noticed. Yes, because
Speaker 1: people like negativity. But you know, I think that's unfair obviously,
Speaker 1: especially for restaurant tours who put up all their money
Speaker 1: and their blood, sweat and tears, worked their whole careers
Speaker 1: and then somebody's gonna write a bad review about them
Speaker 1: because while they can get more clicks on their on
Speaker 1: their on their site. It's not fair. No, that's not
Speaker 1: And look, you know, if you've ever worked as a
Speaker 1: as a waiter or a short order chef, it's really
Speaker 1: hard work. This isn't the sort of thing that you
Speaker 1: can phone in. No. I mean in New York I
Speaker 1: think rub Street Is is a good one as well,
Speaker 1: But frankly, the New York Times is the king. Really
Speaker 1: when it comes to restaurant reviews. There is no more
Speaker 1: impactful review than the New York Times. It's not even
Speaker 1: it's not even nothing is in the same ballpark. So
Speaker 1: there's it's the New York Times, nothing else. Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: And you know, even out on in the Bourbs where
Speaker 1: I live, we were going to this local restaurant. It's
Speaker 1: called the Brass It's still called the Brass Rail and
Speaker 1: great burgers, really good food. I love their caesar salad
Speaker 1: specham wrapped around a romane lettuce and um. And then
Speaker 1: the New York Times review comes out. You can't get
Speaker 1: near the place months and it's even out in the burbs.
Speaker 1: It's really yeah, it's really amazing there. Absolutely. Um, let's talk,
Speaker 1: since we're in New York City, talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about some of your favorite UM restaurants. And I want
Speaker 1: to get down and dirty. So other than your own restaurants,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite pizza here in the city. Uh pizza.
Speaker 1: I like Motorno. I think it's a fantastic napoleonon style pizza. UM.
Speaker 1: And how about your favorite uh burger joint? Oh? J G.
Speaker 1: Mellins everybody I grew up there. Oh really, my father's
Speaker 1: best friend owns it. So that. But but no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, let me tell you. No bias involved, no
Speaker 1: zero bias. You just love them burgers. And I get
Speaker 1: it consistent. I get a check every time, So there's
Speaker 1: no like, there's there's no sort of nepotism. I mean
Speaker 1: it's but and you ask anybody if there's something about
Speaker 1: that burger, and just like you asked me about the shows.
Speaker 1: It's so simple, but there's something that hits the spot.
Speaker 1: We've been speaking with Bobby Flay, restaurateur, cookbook author, star
Speaker 1: of the Food Network. If you enjoyed these conversations, be
Speaker 1: sure and check out our full podcast, where the tape
Speaker 1: keeps running and we discussed many more things in great detail.
Speaker 1: Be sure and check out my daily column on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: View dot com. Uh follow me on Twitter at rid Holts.
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to Masters in Business on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast. This is Barry Ridholts.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. I
Speaker 1: enjoy the podcast, as we were talking earlier, because I
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about commercials or the time or
Speaker 1: anything like that, and I could relax a little bit.
Speaker 1: Um I mentioned previously, I first started eating your food
Speaker 1: at Miracle Grill, which really stood out. That was that
Speaker 1: the first restaurant where you really took over a kitchen
Speaker 1: and made it your own. Yeah. I was the chief
Speaker 1: there for three years and it was a brand new restaurant,
Speaker 1: and I stayed there for three years in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was a fantastic experience. It was
Speaker 1: also a delightful restaurant. I think it was first and
Speaker 1: sixth is that six and seven on First Avenue? And
Speaker 1: it was also one of the first times in New
Speaker 1: York City I had something with the Southwestern flavor. How
Speaker 1: did you come by? And that's really become your signature.
Speaker 1: You worked with somebody who exposed you to that. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little a guy named Johnathan Waxman who now
Speaker 1: has a restaurant called Barbuto in the West Village, And
Speaker 1: if you haven't been there, go there. It's so good.
Speaker 1: Um he um. He was from California and in the
Speaker 1: early to mid eighties came to New York and basically
Speaker 1: brought California and Southwestern cuisine to to the East Coast
Speaker 1: for the first time. Uh and he I worked in
Speaker 1: all of his restaurants, and I fell in love with like,
Speaker 1: you know, the you know, the fresh and dried chili peppers,
Speaker 1: and you know, blue corn not not in a bag,
Speaker 1: not in a tortilla chips, but like real blue corn
Speaker 1: meal and making dishes out of blue corn and all
Speaker 1: kinds of beans and limes and avocados and all those
Speaker 1: amazing ingredients that make up Southwestern cuisine. So I really
Speaker 1: decided to hone in on that as something that I
Speaker 1: really want to to to research even further. So then
Speaker 1: I went to the Southwest, and I worked in lots
Speaker 1: of different restaurants, and you know, just for a few
Speaker 1: weeks at a time. So one thing about our business
Speaker 1: is it's very giving um and people let, you know,
Speaker 1: chefs and cooks into their kitchens just to kind of
Speaker 1: experience it. So you can reach out to a restaurant
Speaker 1: in Arizona and say, how you don't know me on
Speaker 1: Bobby Flay one day, I'm gonna be someone big in
Speaker 1: New York, but I'd like to work in your kitchen
Speaker 1: for a few weeks, and you probably get a positive response. Really, So,
Speaker 1: how many different restaurants did you and what what was it?
Speaker 1: California was in New Mexico, it was mostly mostly Texas
Speaker 1: and New Mexico. I worked in about three or four
Speaker 1: restaurants over like, you know, two month period, just kind
Speaker 1: of hang out and see what was going on down there,
Speaker 1: and you really pick up the flavor of that cuisine
Speaker 1: and and then I came back and you know, worked
Speaker 1: at uh a Miracle Grill, and then and then I
Speaker 1: opened Macy Relle. So the love of barbecue does that
Speaker 1: come directly from Texas? The love of barbecue is just
Speaker 1: I just like it. Well, listen, what's more primal than
Speaker 1: a couple of is throwing meat on an open flame.
Speaker 1: But you really have taken it to a whole different level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we can get into the whole barbecue versus
Speaker 1: grilling things. Okay, so let's let's talk about that. Well,
Speaker 1: do you know the difference between whether you're smoking something,
Speaker 1: what's grilling in barbecue? What's the difference? Um? So, the
Speaker 1: one thing I know is you don't close the lid
Speaker 1: on the barbecue. You leave it open. Once you want
Speaker 1: the open flame. I'll give us you're smoking. I'll give
Speaker 1: you a simple definition. Go ahead. Barbecue is low and slow.
Speaker 1: Grilling is quick. So if I'm grilling something and want
Speaker 1: to grill a steak, you throw it on the grill,
Speaker 1: you cook it for a few minutes, it's done. Barbecue
Speaker 1: is like barbecue brisket or pork shoulder or ribs, things
Speaker 1: that you cook really low and slow. Sometimes there's smoke
Speaker 1: on it. Sometimes there's not, but that's basically I mean,
Speaker 1: it's always there's always sa to smoke up. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Where do you come on the dry rub versus wet sauce? Uh?
Speaker 1: I like them both. I like dry rubbing to create
Speaker 1: a crust and I like to finish it with a sauce.
Speaker 1: So you do both on the same meat. Yes, that
Speaker 1: that's that's one way to uh, one way to solve it. Um,
Speaker 1: what are the restaurant concepts are you thinking about going forward? Like?
Speaker 1: Are you always you always have three or four restaurants
Speaker 1: out ahead of you. I don't know about that. I
Speaker 1: do want to you know, there's a possibility that I
Speaker 1: want to do the next version of Masa Grill since
Speaker 1: Macy Reill did close last year. UM, I miss it,
Speaker 1: you know. But at the same time, you know, it
Speaker 1: was twenty three years old and it was time to
Speaker 1: to sort of do the next version of it. So
Speaker 1: in some ways I might have been a blessing in disguise,
Speaker 1: just like Goatto is the next version of what Bolo was.
Speaker 1: Um that closed six years ago when they knocked them
Speaker 1: building down. So you know, Gato is a Mediterranean restaurant.
Speaker 1: Obviously Mason Grille would be more in the in the
Speaker 1: south By Southwest vernacular, so that used to be on
Speaker 1: lower Fifth below. That's fairly fairly prime real estate. Can
Speaker 1: you now pop open a restaurant anywhere in New York
Speaker 1: and in a lower rent district and you're still gonna
Speaker 1: attract patrons or do you still need that sort of flow?
Speaker 1: I think I want. I want every advantage I can get.
Speaker 1: It's too hard. It's just it's just really too hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, like you look at the restaurants in Tribeca.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to get to Tribeca, and I
Speaker 1: love going to Tribeca, but I would say that restaurants
Speaker 1: in Tribeca are at a disadvantage than in restaurant like
Speaker 1: say in Midtown or you know, or like even in
Speaker 1: NoHo or Soho, because there's just not as much traffic
Speaker 1: and it's not like the rents are that much cheaper anymore.
Speaker 1: There used to be this huge disparity that was a
Speaker 1: lower rent district. You can't say that anymore. Now that's said,
Speaker 1: there were some very successful restauranents in Rebeca. You know,
Speaker 1: you talk think about Nobu Friends or Tribeca grill. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a handful of there's a handful um of restaurants
Speaker 1: in Tribeca that are successful, but not not dozens and dozens,
Speaker 1: and and that's a function of the locale more just
Speaker 1: to look Asian thing. So let me ask you what
Speaker 1: surprises you when you open a new restaurant, because I
Speaker 1: would imagine because you roll out a lot of fairly
Speaker 1: creative dishes. I don't want to say out their dishes.
Speaker 1: You're never weigh on the fringe, but you ever surprised
Speaker 1: you roll out a new dish and it it flops,
Speaker 1: and other dishes you think, ah, this is the throwaway.
Speaker 1: I'll just put it on the menu and everybody's ordering it.
Speaker 1: I think that you put menu. I think there there
Speaker 1: is some look. I think that you have to have
Speaker 1: a combination of a couple of things in your menu.
Speaker 1: You have to have some things that are crowd pleasers.
Speaker 1: So like, for instance, you know, you know people are
Speaker 1: gonna order chicken. You know people are gonna order certain
Speaker 1: kinds of fish like salmon. Um, you know they're gonna
Speaker 1: order a steak. But you also have to have some
Speaker 1: things that that um sort of add to the interesting
Speaker 1: part of the menu. So like you know, if I
Speaker 1: do a quail dish, I might sell five at night.
Speaker 1: It's okay, it's not going to be the most popular thing,
Speaker 1: and I know it's not going to But for the
Speaker 1: people who want to try something a little bit more
Speaker 1: exotic or they don't want to go sort of down
Speaker 1: the sort of pedestrian lane, there's something there for them.
Speaker 1: And I think you have to have both. Do you
Speaker 1: do you ever get really surprised by something that you
Speaker 1: didn't think was gonna pop, that gets traction and takes off. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a there's a dish at um at Gatto,
Speaker 1: which is a vegetarian dish. And you know, people are
Speaker 1: eating vegetables, ma'am, more than ever. Um And and as
Speaker 1: a chef, we have to make them more interesting. So
Speaker 1: for instance, um, we have a dish called um it's
Speaker 1: a piea, okay, and you usually piea has lots of
Speaker 1: shellfish and chicken and charizoh, and it's it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's got all these different proteins. We are. Paea is
Speaker 1: made with kale and wild mushrooms and crispy water chokes.
Speaker 1: It's completely vegetarian sounds awful and you're telling me that's delicious.
Speaker 1: It's it's the number one entreeply listen to this, Okay,
Speaker 1: we've been open for it just over a year. It's
Speaker 1: undefeated every night, every single night, Um, since we've opened,
Speaker 1: it's been the number one entree every night. That's that's stunning,
Speaker 1: that absolutely stunning. So now let's expand that. How often
Speaker 1: do you do something with a restaurant or you see
Speaker 1: a new restaurant and you say that's a slam dump
Speaker 1: that's gonna kill it and it flops or vice versa.
Speaker 1: You walk out of a restaurant and go, I don't
Speaker 1: know what these people are thinking, and it blows up.
Speaker 1: You know. That's that's that's the thing about the restaurant business.
Speaker 1: You can do everything right and fail. I mean I
Speaker 1: really and it's it's it's hard to even believe that
Speaker 1: that's true. But the restaurant business is a very tough business.
Speaker 1: It's competitive, it's expensive, there's razor thin margins. Yes, and
Speaker 1: also you can do things not well and be really successful.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've all been to restaurants where like you like,
Speaker 1: this place is not good, but you turn around and
Speaker 1: the place is packed and there's a line out the door.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's listen. I I don't pretend to
Speaker 1: know or have the magic potion for successful restaurants. The
Speaker 1: only thing I you know, I'm a native New Yorker.
Speaker 1: I feel like I know how to feed New Yorkers
Speaker 1: and that's sort of how I keep it. And we're
Speaker 1: a fairly discriminating bunch, but we're pretty open mind. Did
Speaker 1: we tend to try a lot of different foods? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but New York has a lot of options, and so
Speaker 1: somehow you have to capture the customer. You have to
Speaker 1: capture their attention, don't let them keep it. How important
Speaker 1: is repeat business to a restaurant. It's it's life or death.
Speaker 1: It's the life blood. It's the life of death. And
Speaker 1: you know, frankly like it got though it's a it's
Speaker 1: a very difficult reservation right now. Um. We we've been
Speaker 1: lucky enough to get some really fantastic reviews and buzz
Speaker 1: and people really seem to like the restaurant. So people
Speaker 1: are coming far and wide to eat there. They're making
Speaker 1: reservations thirty five days ahead of time. Um, but I
Speaker 1: know that the core of my business there for the
Speaker 1: long term are the people that live in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: So we really look to take care of people in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. Like if somebody from around the corner um
Speaker 1: walks into the restaurant, we'll find a table for them.
Speaker 1: So do you expect that a hot restaurant eventually cools
Speaker 1: all has it becomes just a local neighborhood joint. It
Speaker 1: has to the question. The question is, and you've seen
Speaker 1: this many times hot restaurants, you can't believe how hot
Speaker 1: they are, and then you look at them six months
Speaker 1: later and they're gone. The key is it's about I
Speaker 1: would say it's about eighteen months. If you if you
Speaker 1: have if you're lucky enough to have a restaurant that
Speaker 1: has some buzz and it's hot and has some good reviews,
Speaker 1: that around eighteen months, a lot of that sort of
Speaker 1: just fades away. And if you can transition to then
Speaker 1: become a restaurant that people think of as one of
Speaker 1: their sort of local places, then you can have success
Speaker 1: and you you can actually run into an issue where
Speaker 1: people are even afraid to try, Oh, I'll never get
Speaker 1: a rest We don't want anybody to feel that way,
Speaker 1: So that that sounds like you have a a savvy approach. Um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some other chefs. You mentioned one earlier
Speaker 1: that you really liked. Who are the chefs that you
Speaker 1: think are underrated or underappreciated that you really like what
Speaker 1: they do? Uh? Underrated or under appreciated? M Well, we
Speaker 1: can ask the other question, who do you think is
Speaker 1: overrat um? That's not you know, That's why I asked
Speaker 1: the first question. I thought you would prefer that that's
Speaker 1: never happening. Um, I don't think any chef is overrated.
Speaker 1: I think that if you're a chef, like you've given
Speaker 1: your life to this business, it's like more powered to you.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, who's overlooked? Who do people? Or let
Speaker 1: me ask it differently, what chefs out there that you
Speaker 1: found that you really like haven't been discovered by the masses.
Speaker 1: That's not none, none, no, especially because because now if
Speaker 1: somebody is really good, they get distarted. They get discovered
Speaker 1: in about thirty seconds because of all the blogs and
Speaker 1: the internet, social media, Twitter, So there's no more people
Speaker 1: toiling away in obscurity. If they're half decent, they'll be
Speaker 1: found exactly right? Is that good for the restaurant and
Speaker 1: that's got to be good for chefs who are who
Speaker 1: in the past might have been toiling away in obscure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways it's almost too much information
Speaker 1: because it's it's almost hard to separate at all. But
Speaker 1: it's I think that in general, I think that you know, um,
Speaker 1: it's just making everybody better. So that's one way the
Speaker 1: industry has changed, the rise of social media and everything else.
Speaker 1: How else has the restaurant business itself changed. I think
Speaker 1: it's harder to make more. I think it's harder to
Speaker 1: make a profit, um, just based on what's going on
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, you mentioned earlier in New
Speaker 1: York City is making it harder to be a restaurateur.
Speaker 1: What are some of the things that the city is doing. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a city and the state really, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: the the tip credit um for for explain that people
Speaker 1: used to service used to get paid a low wage
Speaker 1: to it dollars an now and they would actually earn
Speaker 1: most of their living on of course, because that's how
Speaker 1: that's how service makes basically. Has that changed, Well, it's
Speaker 1: it's going to add hundreds of thousands of dollars of
Speaker 1: costs to a restaurant tour um depending on how much
Speaker 1: business you do. And it's just makes it almost impossible
Speaker 1: two um to turn a profit. So what's the thinking
Speaker 1: behind that? Because a decent restaurant with a good waiter
Speaker 1: is going to make a couple of hundred bucks a
Speaker 1: night easily. What's the thing behind it? I have no idea.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't make any sense. Well not to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it was done for for a particular reason,
Speaker 1: but I just I just think that, um, you know, listen,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a political issue obviously, but I
Speaker 1: I just you know, I when I look at it,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, Okay, we're giving hundreds of people
Speaker 1: jobs or across the board in New York, you know,
Speaker 1: thousands and tens and tens of restaurants in New York. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you can't I can't imagine how many jobs
Speaker 1: that restaurant tours are giving out there. And so that
Speaker 1: so that should we should be in some ways celebrated
Speaker 1: for that. Instead we're being penalized for it. And it
Speaker 1: just makes it almost impossible. You'll see restaurants closed because
Speaker 1: of it, be close of this yeah, absolutely that And
Speaker 1: and is Is there any pushback? Is there any Backlas show, Well,
Speaker 1: there will be pushedback. It's supposed to start January one
Speaker 1: of next year, and you know, we're we're basically looking
Speaker 1: at lots of options. Has there been litigation filed against
Speaker 1: the city for this? Um? I don't know, and it'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to see, uh how this developed. So so
Speaker 1: that makes it more difficult to run a restaurant in
Speaker 1: New York City. How do you like the the A, B,
Speaker 1: C D restaurant ratings which we now see in windows?
Speaker 1: I like the A, B, C D restaurant ratings. You
Speaker 1: know when it first started, Um, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of controversy about you know, uh, the city going after
Speaker 1: every single restaurant, failing them, then passing them and making
Speaker 1: us pay fees. I mean again, it was another controversial
Speaker 1: thing that happened. Um. I think that I think the
Speaker 1: Health Department has now got it right. And for people
Speaker 1: outside of New York City listening to this, every restaurant
Speaker 1: in New York gets a health grade and it's right
Speaker 1: in your window. It's an A. And let me tell
Speaker 1: you something, you don't have an A, R, A B.
Speaker 1: People aren't going in there. That's true. You know, so
Speaker 1: you have it's either a or your toast. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know, listen, I think that what's happened now is that, um,
Speaker 1: I think the Health Department is sort of seeing like
Speaker 1: that they're basically making judgments. Of course, there's always a
Speaker 1: they can always get you on some technicalities that have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with you know, with really serving clean
Speaker 1: and healthy food in a clean and healthy environment. And
Speaker 1: so um, I think that they're taking a much bigger
Speaker 1: picture of you now, and I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's actually working out well. So this is actually a positive. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it started out it was a disaster. When the
Speaker 1: disaster disaster, it was a mess. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of good restaurants that we're not getting as well. They
Speaker 1: they they they took Thomas Keller at per Se, who
Speaker 1: was you know, charges five a person. Basically they took um.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't remember what happened, but they either
Speaker 1: gave him a really bad grade or they're closing down
Speaker 1: to something ridiculous. And then and then there was like
Speaker 1: outcry from everybody, like the New York Post road some editorial,
Speaker 1: I mean, and they find only sort of took a
Speaker 1: look and got their act together said we we we
Speaker 1: need the bigger purposes to clean up the troublesome rest exactly,
Speaker 1: not take the top to your restaurants that are doing that,
Speaker 1: are actually have that have great technique and set the
Speaker 1: standards kitchens and cleanliness. And look, anyone who's ever worked
Speaker 1: as a waiter can tell horror stories. Of course, milk
Speaker 1: left out overnight, and that that's probably the least terrible
Speaker 1: thing you could say. So let's let's keep plowing through
Speaker 1: some of my um questions about your cooking. So, I
Speaker 1: know you started you fell in love with Southwestern cuisine,
Speaker 1: but how is your cooking evolved since then? Well, now
Speaker 1: I'm cooking Mediterranean food at Gato, So I mean, I
Speaker 1: that's a big change. I do a little bit of both.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I love I love traveling in
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean. I love you know, Italy and France and
Speaker 1: Spain and Greece and you know, on and on and
Speaker 1: so I love eating that way. So I decided to
Speaker 1: open a restaurant of how I want to eat today,
Speaker 1: and that's what Gato is. So how often do you
Speaker 1: actually all the cooking You're you're back on the kitchen,
Speaker 1: Like if I walk into Gato on a Friday night,
Speaker 1: Bobby Flay is making my dinner, really, and that's really
Speaker 1: not the case for a lot of other chefs who
Speaker 1: do a little bit of everything. Yeah, I mean, like
Speaker 1: I said before, my most favorite place to be is
Speaker 1: the kitchen, and so you'll you'll find me my restaurants
Speaker 1: almost whole the time. So what else were your big
Speaker 1: food influences? Meaning? What? So? What did this? Clearly this
Speaker 1: just doesn't pop out of nowhere? Your parents, friends, family,
Speaker 1: like what first started pushing you into um, becoming a
Speaker 1: chef wanting to run restaurants? That that just doesn't spring
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. I need a job. So that's how
Speaker 1: you first started working in the restaurant. You left high school,
Speaker 1: you started working and then you ultimately someone said I
Speaker 1: gotta send this kid to French Cornia Joe Allen who
Speaker 1: I mean famous Broadway restaurants still open. And you know,
Speaker 1: Joe gave me my tuition to go to school. I
Speaker 1: was working there. That was my first job, and then
Speaker 1: he said, you know there's a new school opening up
Speaker 1: called the French Culinary Institute and you should go there.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I don't want to go back
Speaker 1: to school. I had just gotten out of school. I
Speaker 1: was happy to be out of it. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: actually had to go back and get my my g
Speaker 1: e D, my equivalencely diploma in order to go to
Speaker 1: school there because but he had to see something in
Speaker 1: you to get you to uh just he didn't just
Speaker 1: randomly pluck you from the line. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think he thought that, you know, maybe I could be
Speaker 1: an asset to him later on, and I listen, he
Speaker 1: The thing about Joe Allen that I was taught and
Speaker 1: have taken with me is he doesn't do everything for
Speaker 1: the money. He does things because he feels like doing
Speaker 1: it and he feels like it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: And that's what he did by handing me my tuition
Speaker 1: that day. That's an amazing, amazing story. So we're talking
Speaker 1: about some changes in the industry, it's not just the internet.
Speaker 1: What's your opinion on food trucks. I love food trucks,
Speaker 1: but like like anything else, is good food trucks and
Speaker 1: not good food trucks. But I think it's really cool
Speaker 1: that you can get like, you know, Korean tacos that
Speaker 1: are delicious on a food truck, or you can I
Speaker 1: mean you name, you name a cuisine, it's a truck.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's great. If you go over
Speaker 1: to sixth Avenue in the mid forties, you'll you can
Speaker 1: walk four or five blocks and come across a dozen
Speaker 1: different It's amazing. And you know what it does. It
Speaker 1: gives people who have the passion for this an opportunity
Speaker 1: for not so much money to actually go out and
Speaker 1: you know, put their own shingle out. And it's not
Speaker 1: running a restaurant for two million dollars. You get a
Speaker 1: truck and and basically you start promoting. And I love that,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's a great way for somebody
Speaker 1: to start a business. Is that potentially an entree into
Speaker 1: the restaurant business for this for sure? I mean there's
Speaker 1: there's been plenty of stories of food trucks turning into uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Brooks and mortar actual restaurants. And then I
Speaker 1: want to I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the cookbooks, because we really have glossed over that. What's
Speaker 1: the process like of creating a new dish? Is this experimentation?
Speaker 1: Are you looking at a dish and saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I could twist this a little bit and make it
Speaker 1: more interesting. How do you come up with something that's
Speaker 1: unique and special and not just you know, grilled chicken.
Speaker 1: You know, I have this team of women in my
Speaker 1: office known as the B Team. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've looked at my website, but they are, um they're
Speaker 1: all they all have their own lanes um as my assistance,
Speaker 1: but they all share one thing, which is they they
Speaker 1: all love the cook and they all love food. So
Speaker 1: in my office, all we're doing is talking about ingredients
Speaker 1: and dishes and restaurants and on. I mean, that's basically
Speaker 1: the conversation that happens. Like it'd be like a Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: I mean, people are talking about finance in my office,
Speaker 1: We're always talking about food at some level. So those
Speaker 1: conversations spur all kinds of things. They spur new shows,
Speaker 1: new new dishes, new idea is when I need to,
Speaker 1: like you know, I'm working on my spring menus for
Speaker 1: God doing for Bar American right now. Like I'll sit
Speaker 1: down with them and I'll brainstorm with them. Those That's
Speaker 1: how books and shows and new dishes, that's how it
Speaker 1: all gets done. How often are you coming up with
Speaker 1: new dishes for for the restaurants? Is this seasonal four
Speaker 1: times a year. So and once you get a seasonal menu,
Speaker 1: does that continue unchanged or will you move stuff in
Speaker 1: and out? I move it. I moved it every day.
Speaker 1: So you tried different specials. You see what works, you
Speaker 1: see what doesn't work. That's it's an ongoing problect, completely ongoing.
Speaker 1: And the last question that has been tormenting me, why
Speaker 1: can I find the tormented the mesa recipe for the
Speaker 1: tie clams in in coconut curry. Uh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: is it it's clams? What was it? Just clams? So
Speaker 1: this was I want to say mid nineties, maybe even later.
Speaker 1: What was the dish though? So it was an appetizer.
Speaker 1: It was a bowl of clams in a thaie coconut
Speaker 1: broth and it had a red curry. It was sort
Speaker 1: of some fresh salantrou uh, some scallions and look, I've
Speaker 1: had variations of that dish in a million places. My
Speaker 1: wife to this dish. Oh you're seeing Bobby Flay today,
Speaker 1: ask him about that coconut. But what you did something
Speaker 1: with that that was unlike anything we've had else Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a it's a lot of like aromatic,
Speaker 1: so it's like fresh ginger, garlic and onions, and then
Speaker 1: some chilies, and then you sweat it with some white wine.
Speaker 1: Let the white wine reduced alow way down, and then
Speaker 1: red curry paste, a good quality red curry paste. Let
Speaker 1: that cook for a little while. Then you add a
Speaker 1: bunch of coconut milk, um, and then let that cook
Speaker 1: for a little while. And then some some clam broth
Speaker 1: as well, and that becomes the broth. Then you strain
Speaker 1: that out and then you open the and you steam
Speaker 1: the clams in the broth. You cover it and then um,
Speaker 1: as soon as the clams are open, they're cooked. Then
Speaker 1: you put them in the bowl. You take the broth,
Speaker 1: add a whole bunch of fresh silancho and scions onto it,
Speaker 1: and then just pour it over the over the clams
Speaker 1: and you're done. How did you get all that? So?
Speaker 1: I served with some bread, some toast, some fresh some
Speaker 1: fresh bread with us. All Right, we're down because I
Speaker 1: know I have to get you out of here sooner
Speaker 1: rather than later. We're down to our last Um. A
Speaker 1: few questions that that dish. By the way, I'm not exaggerating.
Speaker 1: My wife, it's got to be ten or fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: She still brings it up. She's like, be sure you
Speaker 1: ask him about that, because we've never been able to
Speaker 1: find I have a stack of your cookbooks at home.
Speaker 1: I brought two of them in today. We've never been
Speaker 1: able to find that any of your cookbooks and we can.
Speaker 1: It continues to haunt me that that one dish you
Speaker 1: know how to make it? So all right, well, now
Speaker 1: she knows how to make it. I'm I'm in charge
Speaker 1: of grill. She's in charge of of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: So the one key question I asked everybody, and and
Speaker 1: take as much time as you are, as short as
Speaker 1: you want with this. So what do you know about
Speaker 1: the cooking business, about business in general, and about the
Speaker 1: television business today that you wish you knew twenty five
Speaker 1: years ago when you started all of it? I knew nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean I still know nothing. But I mean I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stop you right there and say I think you
Speaker 1: know more than nothing. Well, I mean, listen, it's let me.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna rephrase it. I'm gonna ask you a different question.
Speaker 1: What do you wish you knew twenty five years ago
Speaker 1: would have made your life easier? Um? Well, um, that's
Speaker 1: a very tough question. Isn't that a good question? I mean,
Speaker 1: honestly nothing. I mean, let me let me tell you,
Speaker 1: let me tell you why. Um. I've had a wonderful career.
Speaker 1: It's been so rewarding and so incredibly enjoyable that I
Speaker 1: think that not knowing things and learning them along the
Speaker 1: way has been really a big part of that. The
Speaker 1: journey has led you to who you are too. Yes,
Speaker 1: I I Um, I function with goals in front of me,
Speaker 1: and if I had if I just knew everything, then
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have as many goals as I had then.
Speaker 1: And so to be able to kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: try to reach those goals and in some ways surpass them,
Speaker 1: in some ways not meet them. Um, that's been the
Speaker 1: fun part of it. As you call it, the journey,
Speaker 1: I think that that's that's what it's that's what it's
Speaker 1: all about. So you come out of the French Culinary Institute,
Speaker 1: do you have a set of goals when you graduate?
Speaker 1: You're saying, this is what I want to do. I
Speaker 1: want to be my own chef for a few years.
Speaker 1: I want to open my own restaurant. I want my
Speaker 1: own throat. I want Bobby Flake TV. Well, no, the
Speaker 1: TV was never thought of, I mean because there was
Speaker 1: no precedent for it. So I never thought I'd be
Speaker 1: on television cooking. But I always wanted to open a big,
Speaker 1: bustling restaurant that had a lot of energy, and that
Speaker 1: turned out to be Masa Grill. So that was my
Speaker 1: only goal. And what how does Masa do out in Vegas?
Speaker 1: I would imagine that's a hop and joint out there
Speaker 1: does really well. We've been opened ten years. There any
Speaker 1: plans to open another one outside of New York City? Uh,
Speaker 1: it's definitely possible. But you know, I like New York
Speaker 1: and I like being in New York. And so you're
Speaker 1: in New York, Irish kid, grew up in New York.
Speaker 1: You strike me as a you know, really deep down
Speaker 1: inside sort of New Yorker. Oh no, it's not deep
Speaker 1: down inside, it's it's throughout me. Yeah, you got a
Speaker 1: touch of a New York accent. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: my favorite thing about New York is the subway. You know.
Speaker 1: We came here from my office and someone said, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be late. No it's three minutes. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: ont park and oh no, no, we're gonna We're gonna
Speaker 1: trust me, and it's right up in this building. You
Speaker 1: pop up and it's it's I find it like fascinating.
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering if they'll ever get around to finishing
Speaker 1: the Second Avenue subway. They're probably gonna close it up
Speaker 1: again and start again in ten years, right and going
Speaker 1: down forever. But you know, my most valuable thing in
Speaker 1: my while is my metro card. That's really fascinating. Bobby,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being so generous with your time.
Speaker 1: You've been huge fans of your restaurants for as far
Speaker 1: back as I can remember, going back to Miracle Grill. Uh.
Speaker 1: We've been speaking with Bobby Flay, restaurateur, cookbook author, food
Speaker 1: network star. If you enjoy this conversation, look up an
Speaker 1: intro Down an Inch on iTunes and you'll see the
Speaker 1: rest of our shows. Um be sure and check out
Speaker 1: my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com or follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter. I forgot to ask my Twitter handle
Speaker 1: at Ridholtz. You're on Twitter at b Flay at b
Speaker 1: Flay To check out Bobby Flay. You can also see
Speaker 1: Bobby Flay dot com. You have a list of all
Speaker 1: your shows, you have recipes, you have cookbooks, everything else,
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Ridholts. You've been listening to Masters in Business
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio