Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Owner of Schulson Collective Restaurant Group, Michael Schulson, talks being a restaurateur in COVID

Transcript

Owner of Schulson Collective Restaurant Group, Michael Schulson, talks being a restaurateur in COVID · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 1: kicks is my co Scholson. The Showson collected. That's what
1:02
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about today is a restaurant empire that's
1:04
Speaker 1: built in his vision and has made him want of
1:06
Speaker 1: Philadelphia's most successful hospitality professionals. We also discussed COVID nineteen.
1:11
Speaker 1: When you're in the restaurant business, you have to bring
1:13
Speaker 1: up that whole thing. But most importantly we're to talk
1:15
Speaker 1: about he's made these business adjustments because we're hear about
1:19
Speaker 1: it on the news. You can hear about how the
1:21
Speaker 1: you know, social distancing, limiting and sometimes even shutting down
1:25
Speaker 1: service in the restaurant business has been overtly affected by
1:29
Speaker 1: COVID ninteen. But more importantly, during this period of COVID
1:32
Speaker 1: nineteen where everybody in the world, including me, was gaining weight,
1:35
Speaker 1: Michael decided it was time to lose thirty five hounds.
1:38
Speaker 1: So we're gonna learn about that, and he did it
1:40
Speaker 1: in less than three months. So please welcome to Michael
1:42
Speaker 1: Money Making Conversations. My good friend, Michael Scholtzon. How you doing, Michael,
1:47
Speaker 1: good good, Thanks for having me on. How are you
1:49
Speaker 1: doing well? You know, you know, I'm a big I'm
1:51
Speaker 1: a big restaurant guy. Really, let me get personal a
1:54
Speaker 1: little bit about COVID ninteen and uh, my wife, I
1:56
Speaker 1: have a wife, and I have a lovely daughter who's
1:59
Speaker 1: wrapping up a college years and you know, at these
2:01
Speaker 1: once or twice a week, we will always go to
2:03
Speaker 1: one of our favorite restaurants and COVID hit and uh
2:07
Speaker 1: it just like the world, it flipped us all and
2:10
Speaker 1: gave us a new approach to the whole business. Actor.
2:12
Speaker 1: In fact, my wife still will not go to an
2:14
Speaker 1: all door restaurant. And she still you know, we can
2:17
Speaker 1: do take away, take out and curveside, but she will
2:20
Speaker 1: not go in the restaurant. And with that, I was
2:22
Speaker 1: just want to open up the whole journey of being
2:25
Speaker 1: shut down, if you can share with us the shock
2:28
Speaker 1: of how COVID ain'teen and how you kind of built
2:30
Speaker 1: your way out of it and started to read I guess,
2:33
Speaker 1: I guess reassessing a new way of doing business moving
2:36
Speaker 1: forward with your shows and collective empire. Yeah. So, so
2:40
Speaker 1: when we first tarned about it, the thought process was like, Okay,
2:43
Speaker 1: we're gonna have two or three weeks of something will
2:46
Speaker 1: be shut down, um, and then we'll go from there
2:49
Speaker 1: and see how it goes. And unfortunately three weeks has
2:53
Speaker 1: turned into two over a year now, so where every
2:57
Speaker 1: day it's kind of a new lesson and we're gonna
3:00
Speaker 1: do and we're big into setting goals for ourselves here
3:03
Speaker 1: as a company. The first goal was to make sure
3:06
Speaker 1: to just take care of everyone, to be safe and
3:08
Speaker 1: set up systems where people felt comfortable, whether it was
3:11
Speaker 1: coming to work, whether they didn't have food and they
3:14
Speaker 1: needed food, whatever our resources were. Is to take care
3:17
Speaker 1: of the employees. And that was kind of the beginning,
3:20
Speaker 1: and as we kind of progress through the process, it
3:23
Speaker 1: was Okay, we kind of see this is it's not
3:27
Speaker 1: gonna be a money making thing, unfortunately. It's about survival
3:30
Speaker 1: and getting to the other side. And we kind of
3:33
Speaker 1: put in some goals for ourselves if what does it
3:35
Speaker 1: look like for us when we get to the other side.
3:38
Speaker 1: The biggest goal that we put in there was to
3:40
Speaker 1: have the best people that we could possibly have working
3:43
Speaker 1: for us, and that has kind of been our our
3:46
Speaker 1: whole theme during this. We've hired some new people, we've
3:49
Speaker 1: hired some better people. Um. The good thing about this, unfortunately,
3:54
Speaker 1: is unemployment. You think about what the unemployment rate was
3:57
Speaker 1: going into this and now what it is. The other
4:00
Speaker 1: side of it, and if we could hire good people
4:03
Speaker 1: to come out of this, we're going to be a
4:05
Speaker 1: better company at the end than when we were when
4:07
Speaker 1: we started. And that's kind of what our goal has been.
4:10
Speaker 1: It really is, because you know there are a lot
4:11
Speaker 1: of them. I'm not trying to get any financials or
4:14
Speaker 1: anything like that. He's just talking about the attitude and
4:17
Speaker 1: the approach to this because when I invite people on
4:19
Speaker 1: money making conversation, not just want other people to know
4:22
Speaker 1: that other people, whether it's successful or they're small individual entrepreneurs,
4:26
Speaker 1: they were impacted by COVID eighteen. And we all have
4:29
Speaker 1: different stories and how we will impact it also affects
4:32
Speaker 1: how we can be successful. Now from a personal standpoint,
4:36
Speaker 1: can you walk us through those steps how you and
4:39
Speaker 1: your and your immediate family was dealing with COVID nineteen
4:42
Speaker 1: before you can go back to the first first it was,
4:45
Speaker 1: I mean our immediate family when we were in knee
4:47
Speaker 1: deeperness was employees um and now we're down to about
4:51
Speaker 1: we're back up to about five now and our goalege
4:54
Speaker 1: to get again right UM. So it was to protect
4:57
Speaker 1: everybody and make everyone feel safe and to getting of this.
5:00
Speaker 1: We were opening up a couple of the restaurants and
5:03
Speaker 1: giving away food to the staff for freeze, so this
5:05
Speaker 1: way they could take it home and give it to
5:07
Speaker 1: their families and feed their families. So that was the
5:09
Speaker 1: first step of trying to make sure everyone has a
5:11
Speaker 1: place to go, in place to eat. Um. And then
5:14
Speaker 1: as we got through this, it was with our family.
5:16
Speaker 1: It was we have two boys fourteen years old and
5:19
Speaker 1: ten years old, UM, and it was making sure that
5:22
Speaker 1: they felt comfortable and we were being safe and wearing
5:25
Speaker 1: your mask and understanding the importance of this and getting
5:28
Speaker 1: out to the other side and not becoming computer zombies
5:32
Speaker 1: and dealing with electronics every day. And it was entertaining
5:35
Speaker 1: them and and keeping busy and doing our thing together
5:39
Speaker 1: as a family. And we made a lot of bread,
5:41
Speaker 1: we made a lot of pizza. It was kind of
5:43
Speaker 1: things that would take us a long time. I mean,
5:45
Speaker 1: I think red was that thing that's like red could
5:47
Speaker 1: be a three day process between the starter, letting it
5:51
Speaker 1: rest and letting it rise and breaking it down and
5:54
Speaker 1: baking it. So it kept us busy. But but after
5:57
Speaker 1: a while we said, like, what are we doing here.
5:58
Speaker 1: We're just gonna get into this run of figuring it
6:01
Speaker 1: out or are we gonna have a purpose. And I'm
6:03
Speaker 1: definitely a person about purpose. Usually it's let's open a restaurant.
6:07
Speaker 1: This is our goal. Uh, let's get it going. We're
6:10
Speaker 1: gonna open the next one. So you can't, unfortunately, do
6:13
Speaker 1: that during this time, So the purpose shifted to the
6:15
Speaker 1: family and shifted to myself of I'm gonna eat better,
6:19
Speaker 1: I'm gonna exercise, I'm gonna take care of myself. Um,
6:22
Speaker 1: and we're gonna work together as a family to make
6:25
Speaker 1: sure that we're playing some board games, doing puzzles and
6:27
Speaker 1: all that stuff to entertain ourselves and not get caught
6:29
Speaker 1: up in depression and electronics. I would tell you this, Michael. Uh.
6:34
Speaker 1: You know when it when I like you, like all
6:36
Speaker 1: of America, when the COVID and eighteen hid and just
6:38
Speaker 1: not going anywhere, it's going to change the way we
6:41
Speaker 1: we have handled a lot of hygiens publicly and privately.
6:44
Speaker 1: Moving forward, I know I would always approach things differently.
6:47
Speaker 1: I don't think I would hug strangers like I used
6:50
Speaker 1: to come close to people that I don't know, even
6:53
Speaker 1: people I do know. I'll be cautious in my behavior.
6:56
Speaker 1: But as a leader, you know, we all look for guidance,
6:58
Speaker 1: we all And you're a leader, A leader of a
7:00
Speaker 1: successful collective is based out of the restaurant collective is
7:03
Speaker 1: based out of Philadelphia. And were you one of those uh,
7:07
Speaker 1: one of those proud towels? You know there's out there
7:09
Speaker 1: a success story. I should say, how did that really
7:12
Speaker 1: affect you emotionally? When you say did you get into
7:16
Speaker 1: or why me? Why now? Are you just look? I'm
7:20
Speaker 1: never that guy. I mean I'm not I'm not a
7:22
Speaker 1: pity guy. Nobody wants to be that pitty guy. Nobody
7:25
Speaker 1: wants to be around that pitty guy. Nobody pity doesn't
7:28
Speaker 1: get you success right fighting through it. And I think
7:32
Speaker 1: one of the greatest quotes I've got it it was
7:35
Speaker 1: Um said, the best thing that you could do during
7:38
Speaker 1: adversity is the right thing. The second best thing that
7:42
Speaker 1: you could do is the wrong thing, And the worst
7:45
Speaker 1: thing that you could do is nothing. And I think
7:49
Speaker 1: that was kind of our message to live by. Let's
7:52
Speaker 1: try and do the right thing. If it's the wrong thing,
7:54
Speaker 1: then we'll readjust and do something else. But we're not
7:58
Speaker 1: gonna sit around do nothing and have a pity party
8:01
Speaker 1: and just sit here and go life stinks. Um, we're
8:04
Speaker 1: all dealing with it. It was the reality of the situation.
8:06
Speaker 1: COVID is terrible. It's not fun. Nobody's having fun. It's
8:11
Speaker 1: a nightmare. But how do you adjust your life to survive?
8:15
Speaker 1: Not just to survive, but you kind of have to
8:17
Speaker 1: try and thrive through it. And my wife and I
8:20
Speaker 1: would like to travel a lot, and we like to
8:22
Speaker 1: ski and do things and with the kids and be
8:25
Speaker 1: outside and take trips and all that stuff. And what
8:28
Speaker 1: have we done, Like I'm not a camping guy, but
8:30
Speaker 1: we started to go to airbnbs and go camping up
8:33
Speaker 1: state New York. And we stayed in a York for
8:36
Speaker 1: the first time in my life, which I never thought
8:38
Speaker 1: I would do. We stayed on a farm, which I
8:40
Speaker 1: never thought I would do. But to do these things
8:43
Speaker 1: and just figure out how to live your life. I mean,
8:45
Speaker 1: we just drove to Bramant. The longest car out I
8:47
Speaker 1: ever did in my life was three hours. We just
8:50
Speaker 1: drove eight hours with two kids in the back. I
8:53
Speaker 1: got a hitch on the back of my car, which
8:55
Speaker 1: I never thought I would do. I mean, my friends
8:57
Speaker 1: are laughing at me. But you know what you have
8:59
Speaker 1: to adjust to, like get through this, not just survive
9:02
Speaker 1: and have a pity part. And I laughed because I
9:05
Speaker 1: was an old school road comic when I was out,
9:07
Speaker 1: when I left ib AM to pursue a left IBM
9:10
Speaker 1: to be a standard comedian, and I was on the road,
9:12
Speaker 1: so I know about those uh eight ten hour joints
9:15
Speaker 1: and then, but I didn't have two kids in the back, okay.
9:18
Speaker 1: And that's the different story of the restaurant. The restaurant.
9:21
Speaker 1: The restaurant stops. You know, when you can go from
9:23
Speaker 1: four or five hours, they want to stop, they want
9:25
Speaker 1: to complain, And I think that's what it's about. It's
9:28
Speaker 1: about it's about persevering and getting to the other side.
9:32
Speaker 1: And UM have goals. I mean, what am I gonna
9:35
Speaker 1: sit here and yell at the gun? I mean, you can't.
9:37
Speaker 1: We can't sit here. Everyone wants to yell at the
9:39
Speaker 1: cities or the states or or the federal government. You're
9:43
Speaker 1: not doing enough, You're not doing this, you're not doing that.
9:46
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to suggest that I disagree or agree.
9:49
Speaker 1: What I am gonna tell you is the only person
9:51
Speaker 1: who could control what you do is you you. And
9:56
Speaker 1: that's kind of the goal, is to get control what
9:58
Speaker 1: you could do, do the best of your ability, and
10:01
Speaker 1: don't sit there at the end of the day going
10:04
Speaker 1: I wish I would have. Right, Really, I'm talking to
10:08
Speaker 1: Michael Schultzen the Shows and Collected with restaurant chain, which
10:12
Speaker 1: is based out of It's a chain because he has
10:14
Speaker 1: a lot. It's not like a burger king because he
10:15
Speaker 1: had a lot of different restaurants. Let's talk about the
10:18
Speaker 1: whole creative process of doing so many different styles and
10:21
Speaker 1: not being a chain. Well, you know, we going one location,
10:24
Speaker 1: you get the same thing. Why the versatility, Why the
10:27
Speaker 1: different approaches to these different restaurants. You know, some people
10:30
Speaker 1: will call me an idiot for doing it. I don't
10:33
Speaker 1: have it figured out. It's like you figure out the
10:36
Speaker 1: business model, you like, put it in a box, and
10:40
Speaker 1: then you do it again and again and again and again,
10:44
Speaker 1: and it's just like right across level Field and they
10:47
Speaker 1: nail it. Um the US creative people and people who
10:51
Speaker 1: have passionate about what we do in terms of creating
10:55
Speaker 1: something that's unique and different. That's why we do this.
10:59
Speaker 1: We we just have this passion of creating an experience
11:02
Speaker 1: and we like I like to say it transports the
11:05
Speaker 1: customer to a different place and they feel special. And
11:09
Speaker 1: I think that that's why COVID has been so hard,
11:12
Speaker 1: is people don't feel like they're being transported anymore. It
11:15
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like it's this unique experience. And that's what
11:18
Speaker 1: we like to do and here here at the collective.
11:21
Speaker 1: And I think the thing that people miss often is
11:24
Speaker 1: the concept doesn't come first. The space comes first. And
11:28
Speaker 1: you can look at a space and it doesn't speak
11:30
Speaker 1: to a pub, it doesn't speak to a French restaurant.
11:33
Speaker 1: So you kind of have to see the space. You
11:35
Speaker 1: look around, you see what you feel. You come up
11:37
Speaker 1: with these ideas and then it's like okay, then you
11:39
Speaker 1: plug away and figure out what's next. But each one
11:42
Speaker 1: has a different uh you know, profit margin or profit
11:45
Speaker 1: and loss margin. So that's what I guess when people say, okay, hi,
11:49
Speaker 1: how can you define success when you know you can
11:52
Speaker 1: put stake restaurant has a different uh profit margin versus
11:56
Speaker 1: a Chinese restaurant. I'm just using an example or text
12:00
Speaker 1: mex restaurant and all this property margin different. How do
12:03
Speaker 1: you balance that? Michael? Look, I think you have to
12:06
Speaker 1: take each one individually. Um. I think sometimes some of
12:10
Speaker 1: the things that that's more challenging is the smaller the restaurant,
12:13
Speaker 1: the harder it is to create a larger profit margin,
12:16
Speaker 1: which people don't realize. But the other difficulty with that
12:19
Speaker 1: is in order to do a bigger restaurant, you need
12:21
Speaker 1: to raise more capital. So it's like that double edged
12:24
Speaker 1: sort of do I raise more capital and money that
12:27
Speaker 1: I have to pay off via returns or am I
12:31
Speaker 1: raising less money the returns are lower? So yeah, you
12:35
Speaker 1: kind of have to figure it out that way. And
12:37
Speaker 1: you want to balance it. I mean, if you're nobody,
12:39
Speaker 1: I mean people talking about it to get into politics.
12:41
Speaker 1: But people talk about like, Okay, we're gonna raise the
12:44
Speaker 1: tax rates, we're gonna raise minimum wage, we're gonna raise
12:47
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And I always say, to people who
12:50
Speaker 1: want to get in this conversation, let's not kid ourselves.
12:53
Speaker 1: People who are in business, who are operating, say at
12:56
Speaker 1: a ten percent margin, if they raise taxes and they
13:00
Speaker 1: raise employment, pay roll, and they raise all that stuff,
13:04
Speaker 1: we're not gonna operate a two. We're gonna still operate
13:08
Speaker 1: a tem per cent and something is gonna be cut
13:12
Speaker 1: if you want to raise minimum wage to fifteen dollars
13:15
Speaker 1: an hour, like okay, But but let's be realistic, like
13:18
Speaker 1: you're not gonna have two employees to do that job.
13:19
Speaker 1: You're gonna have one employee to do or the guests
13:23
Speaker 1: is gonna have to pay twice as much to get
13:25
Speaker 1: that food. The the operator or the business person or
13:28
Speaker 1: owner isn't gonna let it hit their pockets totally. Now,
13:33
Speaker 1: when we talk about the whole process, because in my mind,
13:37
Speaker 1: you know, for a restaurant business, like because you're not
13:40
Speaker 1: a casual restaurant business, you know, and so the whole
13:44
Speaker 1: take out of the whole curve side experience wasn't part
13:47
Speaker 1: of the business model before COVID nineteen. How is that
13:51
Speaker 1: settling into your business model? Now? Look, I think I
13:55
Speaker 1: think for us our business model is there is design service, Yeah,
14:02
Speaker 1: lighting which creates this beautiful ambiance okay. Um, you have music,
14:07
Speaker 1: which creates this other piece of the ambiance okay, and
14:11
Speaker 1: then you have food. Okay. So if you take all
14:14
Speaker 1: of those pieces, those five pieces, the only one that
14:18
Speaker 1: you could put in a box is food. So if
14:22
Speaker 1: you think about a business model of like, only one
14:24
Speaker 1: fifth of the things that we do well can translate
14:28
Speaker 1: to a house and that's not even going to translate
14:30
Speaker 1: into the house as well. It's a really difficult situation
14:33
Speaker 1: for us. So I mean it's pivoting in terms of UM,
14:37
Speaker 1: what what we put into that box, the type of
14:40
Speaker 1: box that we use. UM. But honestly, like we we
14:44
Speaker 1: haven't made a huge push to get into that takeout
14:48
Speaker 1: delivery because I just think that it really destroys the brand.
14:52
Speaker 1: And as you know, it's like you, your brand is
14:55
Speaker 1: is something that you could never recreate. Well, once you
14:58
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Speaker 1: E r Ai. Well, you know it's really uh. I
17:02
Speaker 1: have to agree with you, Michael. You know, it was
17:04
Speaker 1: just so my wife and I we have a favorite restaurant.
17:07
Speaker 1: We tell your restaurant we go to, and of course
17:10
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to go in the restaurant, so we did.
17:13
Speaker 1: We did curbside, and we when we picked it up
17:15
Speaker 1: and and brought it home again and for the second
17:19
Speaker 1: time in a row, it didn't taste like the experience
17:21
Speaker 1: that we had in the restaurant. And I had to
17:23
Speaker 1: tell her last like, hey, you know, when we get it,
17:26
Speaker 1: it's usually warmer, you know, usually dealing with a nice atmosphere.
17:31
Speaker 1: We're having a conversation, there's a lot of people around.
17:33
Speaker 1: It feels, you know, like you're saying, I have to
17:35
Speaker 1: agree with your Michael, because a lot of things go
17:38
Speaker 1: goes into the food experience. Sometimes people want the romance,
17:41
Speaker 1: Sometimes people want the the music, the loudness, the activity.
17:46
Speaker 1: I'm an activity guy. I like I like to walk
17:48
Speaker 1: into a bustling. I like to play with the waiter
17:51
Speaker 1: or waitress, you know, I'd like to have a relationship
17:54
Speaker 1: with that person. And I like to be around people
17:56
Speaker 1: who are talking, and that's lost if you do a
18:00
Speaker 1: curbside so so. But it all comes back to the food.
18:03
Speaker 1: The food did not taste like the same experience I
18:06
Speaker 1: have when I go into that restaurant. It's one of
18:08
Speaker 1: our favorite restaurants. And that's all you're saying right now, Richard.
18:12
Speaker 1: We can do that, but stuffing's gonna be missing. And
18:15
Speaker 1: you don't want to be victimized by the missing part
18:17
Speaker 1: of saying your food quality has changed all the experiences
18:21
Speaker 1: you think about it. You look at the food. It
18:23
Speaker 1: comes out on a plate, right, you're doing anything to
18:26
Speaker 1: and you don't have to clean it up. You have
18:28
Speaker 1: great music, you have great lighting, you have great ambiance,
18:31
Speaker 1: you're in energy. Like all of those pieces are part
18:34
Speaker 1: of the puzzle. When you take that, you have to
18:36
Speaker 1: literally get in your car, you drive to the place,
18:39
Speaker 1: you get home, you take it out, you open it up.
18:41
Speaker 1: It doesn't look as good as it looked on a plate.
18:43
Speaker 1: You have to put it on a plate. You have
18:45
Speaker 1: to get your silverware out, your kids are yelling and
18:48
Speaker 1: screaming because they're hungry, like something has missed, something's not
18:51
Speaker 1: at your disposal. It's just like the whole process is
18:55
Speaker 1: just lost. And by the time you eat the food,
18:56
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, this isn't working for me right, And
19:00
Speaker 1: it's you know, first of all, you you're hit so
19:03
Speaker 1: many positive nerves would be right now because I experienced
19:05
Speaker 1: this last night, Michael, and I'm going like, I put
19:08
Speaker 1: the pepper on the pizza, I put the power Jian,
19:11
Speaker 1: and again it was you know, I pulled up. I'm
19:15
Speaker 1: setting it up myself. So I've lost some of the
19:17
Speaker 1: ambiance because I'm doing all the work. And you know
19:20
Speaker 1: for a fact, when you do all the work, you're
19:22
Speaker 1: gonna do it or whatever style, whatever, just whatever gets
19:25
Speaker 1: the job done, you're gonna do it. You've lost all
19:27
Speaker 1: standards of servers for yourself. And that that's really funny
19:31
Speaker 1: because like I said when I when I pushed the idea,
19:34
Speaker 1: and I'm always talking to different people about how they
19:36
Speaker 1: are trying to be successful with their business, but you're
19:39
Speaker 1: the first person I've talked to that really hit a
19:42
Speaker 1: button with me, that said, ri shot. The problem you're
19:45
Speaker 1: having is that curb side work, but you lost the
19:48
Speaker 1: experience when your turn affected high and enjoyed the food. Yeah,
19:52
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I say to my business partners,
19:54
Speaker 1: and I'm a chef. Okay, I've been cooking my whole life.
19:57
Speaker 1: I went to culinary school. I worked in restaurants, some
20:01
Speaker 1: of the top restaurants in America. I work in Japan.
20:04
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. Okay, there's three elements to a restaurant. Okay.
20:08
Speaker 1: There's food, there's service, and there's design. Okay, I'm gonna
20:13
Speaker 1: ask you this question. I'm a chef. What's the most
20:16
Speaker 1: important piece in my mind? Food? To me? No design?
20:23
Speaker 1: What's the second most important in my mind? I'm a chef. Well,
20:28
Speaker 1: when when you say design, service, and I'm gonna tell
20:31
Speaker 1: you food is third. And I'm gonna tell you why
20:33
Speaker 1: you're walking through a design service dan food, design service,
20:37
Speaker 1: food and that on walking to a restaurant. It's the
20:40
Speaker 1: most beautiful restaurant in the world. It's fun. There's like
20:44
Speaker 1: three people in there. You're having a great time. It's energetic.
20:48
Speaker 1: The hospitality is off the charts. We're like, oh my god,
20:51
Speaker 1: like I'm playing with this server. The server was awesome.
20:53
Speaker 1: I'm having such a great time. I'm smiling. You get
20:56
Speaker 1: the food, you're with your friends, You're like, it's okay,
20:59
Speaker 1: it's okay. You walk out, You're like, Wow, I had
21:01
Speaker 1: a great time. My place was good looking, it was fun,
21:04
Speaker 1: it was awesome. Okay, are you going back? Wow? You
21:09
Speaker 1: know're going back? This is where I'm called of right now, Michael,
21:15
Speaker 1: because you hit me in the jaw right now, because
21:18
Speaker 1: I lost the design and I lost the service when
21:23
Speaker 1: I did curve side and and guess what, I don't
21:27
Speaker 1: want to do that anymore. I don't want to go
21:29
Speaker 1: back and have that experience because I don't know. So
21:33
Speaker 1: so it's left a bad taste in my mom because
21:35
Speaker 1: it's happened two times in a row. So, so you're
21:38
Speaker 1: fighting for that. Has it been successful for you? Look,
21:42
Speaker 1: it's nothing is successful right now. I mean, to be
21:45
Speaker 1: the definition of success is survival and getting to the
21:47
Speaker 1: other side. Uh, we're not. I mean, our food isn't
21:51
Speaker 1: doesn't translate into takeout most of our restaurants. I mean,
21:55
Speaker 1: the only one that we have that really works for
21:57
Speaker 1: takeout that people get take out of is sushi. I'm
22:00
Speaker 1: if you think about take out, it's like we want
22:02
Speaker 1: some pizza, we want some sushi, we want some burgers. Like,
22:06
Speaker 1: if you confine dining Italian restaurant, you're never going to
22:09
Speaker 1: compete with the local Italian place that does chicken farm
22:12
Speaker 1: for twelve dollars, So like why why try and compete
22:16
Speaker 1: with them? Like it's just gonna lose. It's a losing mob.
22:19
Speaker 1: So you know, when you're talking about ambiance, you talked
22:21
Speaker 1: about the experience, You talked about servers, your your time
22:24
Speaker 1: you spend in Japan, talked to us about that because
22:26
Speaker 1: it seems like it shaped a lot of your vues.
22:29
Speaker 1: So so for me, living in Japan was just the
22:31
Speaker 1: most amazing experience. I worked at the Spotto over there
22:34
Speaker 1: in the four seasons, and it wasn't necessarily about working
22:38
Speaker 1: in those restaurants. To me, it was about understanding the culture.
22:43
Speaker 1: And once you understand culture of what something is, you
22:47
Speaker 1: could create something here in the States that that feels authentic.
22:51
Speaker 1: And I think that's what people are really looking for
22:54
Speaker 1: in today's society. They want something that feels authentic, um
22:59
Speaker 1: and not like it's contrived or made up, or or
23:02
Speaker 1: just or Disney World or something they wanted to feel authentic, um,
23:07
Speaker 1: and that's probably what we do really well, and I
23:09
Speaker 1: think it's really important to us as a business. Well
23:12
Speaker 1: it works for me. Now, before we got on there,
23:16
Speaker 1: I brought up the fact that, uh, you know, doing
23:18
Speaker 1: COVID hit. You know, I'm at the house and my
23:21
Speaker 1: wife is asking me what I want for breakfast, what
23:23
Speaker 1: I want for lunch, And I'm gonna tell you, I'm
23:24
Speaker 1: a kind of a one and a half meal a
23:27
Speaker 1: day guy. So finally I was eating a breakfast and
23:30
Speaker 1: then a lunch and a dinner, and all of a
23:33
Speaker 1: sudden I realized I was gaining weight, and I went,
23:37
Speaker 1: hold up, hold holdo, hold on, hold on. We gotta
23:39
Speaker 1: cut out one of these meals. So I got rid
23:41
Speaker 1: of the because usually what I do, Michael, I get up,
23:43
Speaker 1: I get up at four o'clock Monday to Friday, get
23:45
Speaker 1: up at four o'clock, and so usually I eat about
23:48
Speaker 1: ten and eleven o'clock. And she had me eating about
23:51
Speaker 1: eight o'clock in the morning, and she came back with
23:53
Speaker 1: another meal a right noontime, and then she wrapped up
23:56
Speaker 1: the third beal about six o'clock. Now, then I switched
23:59
Speaker 1: the story, because here you are about to embarrass me,
24:02
Speaker 1: because is that a gaining weight? You lost thirty five
24:06
Speaker 1: pounds and three months during the COVID, it's COVID timeline.
24:10
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what made you do that and what
24:12
Speaker 1: was the motivation. Did you gave weight and you said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
24:15
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lose weight. What was the motivation? Yeah? So
24:18
Speaker 1: so for me, it's we do restaurants, and we're opening
24:20
Speaker 1: a lot of restaurants, and in restaurants, you're obviously tasting
24:23
Speaker 1: tons of food every day. So when I'm able to
24:26
Speaker 1: eliminate the tasting of food, that was just a huge
24:29
Speaker 1: starter for me. The other pieces pre COVID. I mean
24:33
Speaker 1: we had we had fourteen restaurants, we were looking open more,
24:36
Speaker 1: we were we were burning it all hours of the day,
24:39
Speaker 1: and finding time to go to the gym was just
24:41
Speaker 1: a nightmare. So I started to eat well, I ate
24:45
Speaker 1: the right foods, I stopped the tastings. I started to
24:47
Speaker 1: exercise more. UM and it was figuring out. I mean,
24:51
Speaker 1: everyone has these diets that are like they're literally like
24:54
Speaker 1: this um, Like I'm gonna do with this juice in
24:57
Speaker 1: the morning, and I'm gonna start myself and then gonna
25:00
Speaker 1: eat at night, like everyone has something for me. It
25:03
Speaker 1: was finding something where it's just like eating well, eating
25:06
Speaker 1: at the right times, and exercising. And the key keeping
25:10
Speaker 1: in there is the exercising as long as you're exercising.
25:13
Speaker 1: And I'm not a big runner. I don't enjoy running.
25:16
Speaker 1: I find it exhausting. So I would literally do a
25:19
Speaker 1: mile on the treadmill in the morning, and then I
25:21
Speaker 1: would do a mile on the treadmill at night. I
25:23
Speaker 1: put some weights in there and I was good to go.
25:26
Speaker 1: So you you work out like me? That's me now
25:30
Speaker 1: with somehow my show has become a nice haven for
25:34
Speaker 1: to talk to shifts. So the Rocko comes on my show, Uh,
25:37
Speaker 1: Donna Teller comes on my show, and just to name
25:39
Speaker 1: a few, Sammy Soon comes on my show, and now
25:42
Speaker 1: you on my show. When I get the word eat whale, see,
25:47
Speaker 1: I need to define to me what does that mean
25:49
Speaker 1: when you say eating whale? Eating well to me is clean.
25:52
Speaker 1: I think it's it's for breakfast. I think it's eating
25:55
Speaker 1: some yogurt, some berries, period, and the end of conversation,
25:59
Speaker 1: having a coffee and not putting creamer in there and
26:02
Speaker 1: sugars in there, like I put a little non dairy
26:04
Speaker 1: creamer in there five for launch. It's like having a
26:07
Speaker 1: nice salad, maybe you cheating on some dressing. Have a
26:10
Speaker 1: grilled piece of chicken, have some grilled shrimp, doing whatever
26:12
Speaker 1: you want dinnertime, having normal meal, having a normal meal,
26:16
Speaker 1: have some carbohydrates, have some vegetables, have some fruits. But
26:19
Speaker 1: to me, eating well is like you're eating a little cleaner.
26:22
Speaker 1: You're not depriving yourself. Your portion size as normal, meaning
26:26
Speaker 1: like you're not having sixty announces of steak, you're having
26:28
Speaker 1: six to eight, and you're not eating past eight o'clock.
26:32
Speaker 1: It depends on what time you go to bed, but
26:33
Speaker 1: like seven or eight o'clock should be in. Yes, Like
26:37
Speaker 1: if you're done at seven eight o'clock, give up the
26:40
Speaker 1: bag of potaty chips, give up the sweets, give up
26:43
Speaker 1: the sugars. Like I guarantee you you will lose weight. Well,
26:48
Speaker 1: you know I naturally drink a lot of water. We're
26:51
Speaker 1: not getting into it. I know, you know died expert Michael,
26:54
Speaker 1: but you know we're talking about losing weight. So thirty
26:58
Speaker 1: five and three muths you kind of you kind of
27:02
Speaker 1: leveling into a diet expert range, and you like to
27:04
Speaker 1: say what and as you want to naturally. But I'm
27:06
Speaker 1: a big dessert guy. I I eat by dessert before
27:09
Speaker 1: my meals, and it's dunes people. I go to the restaurant.
27:12
Speaker 1: I come to a restaurant and say, excuse me, can
27:14
Speaker 1: you give me the dissert menu before I start arguing
27:16
Speaker 1: my meal. I'm that guy. I'm that guy and so
27:19
Speaker 1: so a person like me who enjoys desserts. What does
27:23
Speaker 1: that play out in your menu world? In your restaurant world?
27:26
Speaker 1: Am I gonna come to your restaurant, Michael and be like, man,
27:29
Speaker 1: you got the dessert from me? Or you more of
27:32
Speaker 1: an you can't. This is the problem with all diets, right.
27:37
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to go on this extreme diet like you
27:39
Speaker 1: can't stop eating, like if they give you a cho
27:42
Speaker 1: I mean, you go to these restaurants and these restaurants
27:46
Speaker 1: are enough for three people, and people are eating the
27:49
Speaker 1: whole cake. So it's like eat the cake. Just just
27:52
Speaker 1: have a piece of it. Have a piece of the cake.
27:55
Speaker 1: Every day. I have a piece of chocolate. Like, chocolate
27:57
Speaker 1: is good for you, jocol it's not bad. Your berries
28:00
Speaker 1: are not bad for you. Some real ice cream is
28:02
Speaker 1: not bad for you have it, but you don't need
28:05
Speaker 1: a pint of ice cream, a cap like a box
28:08
Speaker 1: of cookies and a bag of the readers like you're
28:12
Speaker 1: just that's not what you need right right. But I
28:15
Speaker 1: am a guy that I will tell you, Mike, I'm
28:16
Speaker 1: a guy that you know. I think I've accidentally uh
28:20
Speaker 1: eating correctly because I'm a guy. I ordered three different things,
28:23
Speaker 1: but I won't complete the meal, so I called myself
28:27
Speaker 1: a sampler, you know. I was sample this dessert or
28:29
Speaker 1: a sample that that that appetizer, or that sample that meal.
28:34
Speaker 1: You know. But I'm a big bread guy. I love
28:36
Speaker 1: bread to death. I bread this type of corn bread.
28:39
Speaker 1: I love that. I love veggies. But these are things,
28:42
Speaker 1: like I said, I just accidentally eat, which I guess
28:45
Speaker 1: in a way allows me to maintain someone healthy lifestyle.
28:49
Speaker 1: But I drink a lot of water. Like you said,
28:51
Speaker 1: you held up your bottle of water. But I want
28:53
Speaker 1: to transition to because you do a lot of uh.
28:56
Speaker 1: You've hosted several competitions and these and I'm a big
28:59
Speaker 1: fan of Coppet Issue show with Michael and so. But
29:02
Speaker 1: there's always some uh winner and a loser winner losing.
29:07
Speaker 1: How do you handle that? In the judging process because
29:10
Speaker 1: you know the decision that you make. You can't ultimately
29:14
Speaker 1: tell somebody to walk away from walk off the show. Listen.
29:17
Speaker 1: I teach my kids at a young age like as
29:20
Speaker 1: look like work your ass off, practice, try hard, and
29:25
Speaker 1: like if you're good enough, you're gonna win, and if
29:27
Speaker 1: there's somebody better than you, they're gonna lose. And when
29:29
Speaker 1: you're judging, it's kind of like, look like you're either winner,
29:33
Speaker 1: you lose. I mean this whole thing where everybody gets
29:35
Speaker 1: a trophy today and like, kids come home and you
29:37
Speaker 1: came in last place and you got a trophy, Like
29:39
Speaker 1: like it's b s. It's not teaching people to be
29:43
Speaker 1: able to lose. People ask me all the time you
29:46
Speaker 1: play games with the kids, like do you lose on purpose? No,
29:48
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lose on purpose. Why would I do that?
29:50
Speaker 1: You need to teach them like practice, practice, practice, Like
29:56
Speaker 1: when you do all of those things, you'll figure it out.
29:59
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing with cooking. It's like there
30:00
Speaker 1: are gonna be people who are better than me of
30:02
Speaker 1: cooking and you may lose, but it is what it is.
30:06
Speaker 1: And and look, one of the biggest one of the
30:07
Speaker 1: questions that I always ask you in interviews that has
30:11
Speaker 1: to do with that is what do you not allow
30:14
Speaker 1: in your life? Is it harder for you? Is it
30:17
Speaker 1: which is true? For you? I hate to lose or
30:21
Speaker 1: I love to win? And for me, the answer is
30:26
Speaker 1: I hate to lose lose. Losing is just not an answer,
30:28
Speaker 1: like I expect to win. So winning when I win,
30:31
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, let me get up again and play again,
30:34
Speaker 1: let me play again. But when I lose, I'm furious.
30:38
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of just a mentality of people.
30:41
Speaker 1: Before we go, I want to talk about you have
30:43
Speaker 1: a new restaurant concept opening in Philadelphic called Midtown Village.
30:46
Speaker 1: Tell us about that and why now? Yeah, so we're
30:50
Speaker 1: so so it's interesting and you spoke about what happens
30:53
Speaker 1: during COVID. I mean there's there's a lot of restaurants
30:55
Speaker 1: that are going out of business. I think our business
30:57
Speaker 1: model used to be take space and build out a restaurant.
31:01
Speaker 1: It would cost us a thousands of fifteen hundred dollars
31:04
Speaker 1: of square foot to build it out. Now our business
31:07
Speaker 1: model is shifted. We could give restaurants that have clothes,
31:10
Speaker 1: and we could spend three hundreds of five hundreds of
31:13
Speaker 1: square foot on some really good opportunities. Because COVID is
31:17
Speaker 1: gonna be over, We're going to get to the other side.
31:20
Speaker 1: So here are some opportunities that we have, and one
31:23
Speaker 1: of them is it's in an area called Midtown Village.
31:25
Speaker 1: It's gonna be uh the name isn't known yet, We're
31:28
Speaker 1: not sure the name, but it's gonna be a boutique
31:31
Speaker 1: pizza place, brick up and pizza with some uh lots
31:34
Speaker 1: of seasonal vegetables, seasonal pass and stuff like that. So
31:38
Speaker 1: is it more casual dining? Yeah, definitely more casual. I
31:41
Speaker 1: think that that's kind of where people are going right
31:44
Speaker 1: now in terms of the COVID. I'm not looking to
31:47
Speaker 1: do any fancy, high end restaurants right now, but if
31:50
Speaker 1: you could get some casual places in now, Like I
31:53
Speaker 1: think we're good. Cool and Michael, thank you man for
31:55
Speaker 1: coming on my to make conversations. I hope you come
31:57
Speaker 1: back for I don't know if I want you coming
31:59
Speaker 1: back skinnier though, Mike Thirt, can we stay there? I
32:03
Speaker 1: appreciate you man, enjoy yourself, and I definitely tell them
32:06
Speaker 1: Sinse I come to Philadelphia a lot because I represents
32:09
Speaker 1: Steven A. Smithler. We always in that area in New Jersey,
32:12
Speaker 1: New York area, and I love to drop by. So
32:14
Speaker 1: if up, okay, okay, appreciate your Michael, stay strong. Michael
32:20
Speaker 1: Scholton of the Shawson Collective, the based in Philadelphia, got
32:23
Speaker 1: a new property developing in the Midtown Village area. I
32:26
Speaker 1: want thank you for coming on the show. I'm with
32:28
Speaker 1: Sean McDonald, I am your host. Thank you. In this
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