Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Matthew Ridgway's Philosophy: Why Killing Your Old Self Creates Space for Growth and Leadership

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Matthew Ridgway's Philosophy: Why Killing Your Old Self Creates Space for Growth and Leadership · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:17
today's guest is Matthew Ridgway.
0:19
He is the culinary development director at Pomegranate
0:22
Hospitality. They are a New Orleans based
0:25
restaurant group created by Chef Alon Shia, known for concepts
0:30
like Saba, Safta and Miss River. Pomegranate Hospitality focuses
0:35
on fostering a people first approach, emphasizing staff
0:39
growth and culinary experience. Matthew joined the team in 2022
0:44
and has over 2 decades of experience leading award-winning
0:48
kitchens across Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York, and New
0:51
Orleans. He received formal culinary
0:54
training from Johnson and Wales University, plus a Hospitality
0:58
Management degree from Widener University.
1:01
Throughout his career, he has held roles ranging from chef to
1:05
owner, including founding a We'll Do That One Again.
1:11
Throughout his career, he has held roles ranging from chef to
1:14
owner, including founding A charcuterie business, Pork Salt.
1:18
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2:04
All right, back to our guest today, the Culinary Development
2:07
Director of Pomegranate Hospitality, Matthew Ridgway.
2:11
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:13
Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me.
2:15
So, Matt, you've been in the restaurant business for more
2:17
than three decades. What first drew you into this
2:21
space? Yeah.
2:23
I mean, saying 3 decades out loud really kind of ages me a
2:29
little bit. And I can't believe that I can
2:31
say that because I was always the youngest person in a room.
2:34
And now I'm feel kind of the elder statesman, a little bit
2:39
very different from today's generation, but still trying to
2:43
be relevant. I guess.
2:45
I never really actually wanted to go into the restaurant
2:48
business. It wasn't in the mid 90s
2:51
restaurant. Being a chef wasn't cool.
2:53
There was no, you know, the Food Network was in its first couple
2:57
years, you know, it was reruns of Julia Child and Frugal
3:01
Gourmet and How to Boil Water. I always loved, you know,
3:07
watching all of those Discovery Channel at the time had, you
3:12
know, the great chefs of the West, great chefs of New
3:15
Orleans, great chefs of France. And I loved watching it.
3:18
I grew up, you know, kind of crunchy, organic parents.
3:24
You know, we had grew up on three acres.
3:26
I learned how to can and preserve and we had a root
3:29
cellar. We had a lot of gardens.
3:31
So I was always very akin to cooking with my mom, who was an
3:37
excellent cook. My father was a terrible cook.
3:42
I used to call him the Gray ghost.
3:44
He everything he cooked, he turned Gray.
3:46
And so it was not really the best.
3:49
I think a lot of I always joke and say that that is why I
3:52
became a cook, but I just didn't want to eat his cooking.
3:55
But I think that I am in school and high school, I did OK and I
4:01
wanted to go into criminal justice.
4:04
And, you know, one of the things is that my I want to do being
4:10
the Marines and wasn't so much for the Marines itself.
4:14
I think it was more for the discipline, the organization.
4:18
I like a challenge. But my parents were much more
4:21
level headed. You know, this is before, you
4:23
know, right after Gulf War, you know, So we're really into good
4:29
chance I'd be drafted to go overseas.
4:31
My parents like you're not going to the Marines, which is a good
4:35
a good idea for them for me is that, you know, I've never shot
4:40
a gun before. I never owned a gun.
4:43
Not. For you, it wasn't about going
4:44
to war, it was more about like, hey, I'm just looking to get
4:46
some more life discipline. Yeah, I think so.
4:49
I think that like I like the challenge.
4:51
I like the discipline of of something of that nature.
4:55
And so my brother said to me, he's like, why don't you go into
5:00
cooking? He's like, do you like to cook?
5:02
And you're probably junior year, you like to cook you, you're
5:06
really good at it. And I was like, well, that's not
5:08
really career. And no one, no one goes into
5:10
cooking for a career. You know, at the time you're
5:14
either on your like last rung or you go to Votech and then maybe
5:20
you go into the, you know, I didn't know there's restaurant
5:22
schools or culinary schools. That just didn't occur to me.
5:26
So we went to go visit Johnson and Wales, the CIA, Widener
5:33
University, and I really wanted to focus on cooking.
5:36
And so when I went to Johnson and Wales, you know, you see the
5:40
classrooms, you see how the uniforms are pressed and neat
5:44
and everybody's really kind of regimented.
5:47
And I fell in love right away. Wasn't just, you know, just the
5:50
regimentation of it, but it was, you know, there was a a lot of
5:54
people that were passionate about the same thing I was.
5:59
You know, there was no Internet at the time.
6:01
There was, you know, you had random e-mail access, but not
6:05
really AOL was still dial up. So you know there wasn't you
6:09
just. Didn't get exposure to a lot of
6:11
the things that were. Out there, no exposure so and
6:15
they had the biggest culinary library in the world and I love
6:19
to read. I'm in.
6:20
Sorry, they who? Which school are they?
6:21
Talking about now, Johnson and Wales, Johnson and Wales OK.
6:25
And at the time CIA dictated that you or me, OK at the time,
6:34
Johnson and Wales didn't require that you be in the industry for
6:40
six months to a year where CIA did.
6:42
And I never really worked in the industry.
6:44
I worked in my cousin's bakery. I did some, I opened, you know,
6:50
I helped my brother-in-law at the tgi Friday's on City Line
6:54
Ave. which was a complete story in itself, but never real kind
7:01
of hard nosed restaurant experience.
7:02
So I decided like Johnson, Wells would be the obvious choice for
7:09
me. But we did go visit other
7:11
schools. We went to go Widener, we went
7:13
to IUP, we went to we went to Florida International University
7:21
and it just, it just seemed a great fit for me, Johnson and
7:24
Wells and so. You, you, you were able to be
7:28
around other people that had the same kind of passions that you
7:30
did. And they also had, I don't know,
7:34
it sounds like maybe the structure that you were looking
7:36
for, something that you were kind of craving from the
7:39
Marines. You've got that same kind of
7:41
structure and organization here, but wrapped around something
7:44
that you've been passionate about since you were a kid.
7:47
Yeah, absolutely. And it was just a, you know,
7:50
it's just a great experience being at Johnson and Wales.
7:53
And then once I was there, I just kind of immersed myself
7:56
into everything culinary. I was able to read at the
7:59
library incessantly. My drive to to kind of be the
8:09
best in the industry or what I thought was the best in industry
8:12
was really, you know, learning about the French classic chefs,
8:16
their apprenticeship programs starting at like 1314 years old.
8:20
And I felt I was so far behind everybody else that I had worked
8:24
twice as hard and I wanted to go to Europe.
8:26
That was really at the time you either went to France, New York
8:33
and maybe San Francisco, but if you wanted hard nosed French
8:39
training, you went to France or New York.
8:41
And I really wanted to go overseas.
8:43
And so I just spent my entire time trying to get overseas,
8:49
which was quite difficult because they didn't really have
8:52
an international program set up at the time.
8:55
The French chefs were very reluctant to actually have a an
9:03
American go over and use their name to get in the kitchen.
9:05
So it was much, much different. And that was, you know, that
9:08
wasn't that long ago. I mean, the 90s seem a long time
9:11
ago I guess for you and me for. Guys like our age.
9:14
It just seems like a blank. Right.
9:16
Yeah. So that was really like the
9:20
start of, you know, my culinary training and I was able to
9:25
parlay that because I wanted to go to Business School as well.
9:28
So Johnson Wells at the time was the only all states accredited
9:34
school that I could transfer credits to somewhere else.
9:36
So another reason. So you graduated summa cum laude
9:40
from Johnson and Wales. You then you went to Widener
9:43
where you graduated cum laude and then after you graduated
9:49
from there, is that when you first sort of jumped into the
9:51
pool? Yeah, you know, I did.
9:54
I so while I was working, you know, Johnson Wells, Yeah, I was
9:59
able to, they were on a trimester, so where I was able
10:01
to work a couple days a week. But we would take trips.
10:05
You'd we'd have like a four day class session and then Friday,
10:09
Saturday, Sunday you would be off because it was still a
10:12
working school, you know, that was the idea.
10:14
So we would actually take trips starting like Friday and go down
10:19
to New York City and eat at all these different restaurants, you
10:22
know, and really experience the, you know, the kitchens that I
10:27
really wanted to be into. And then when I graduated, I
10:31
went to Widener and I wanted to work.
10:34
There's only two restaurants in Philly that I really wanted to
10:37
work at. 1 was the fountain room at The Four Seasons under Jean
10:41
Marie Lacroix and the other one was Lebec Finn, George Perrier,
10:45
both neck and neck. You hear a lot about George
10:49
Perrier at Lebec Finn, I think mainly because it was an
10:53
independent restaurant where the fountain room both of us at, if
10:57
you remember Zagat was the rating.
11:00
You know that was the gold standard for rating.
11:02
We were neck and neck if not higher than Lebec Finn in all
11:07
categories. It just was an interesting thing
11:10
that we were in a hotel at The Four Seasons and Jean Marie
11:14
always said we are a restaurant that happened to have rooms
11:17
above us and. That was the other way around.
11:20
Yeah, it was a really, it was a really amazing and interesting
11:25
time. And in my life because we really
11:31
like, I got into The Four Seasons and I remember you could
11:36
not get an interview and you know, you it was a line out the
11:39
door. There's a line out the door at
11:41
The Four Seasons. There's a line at the door at
11:42
Lebec Fan. And that was really, that was
11:44
all you went to. And I was in class with a
11:49
gentleman and we started talking.
11:51
He's like, oh, what do you want to do?
11:52
He's like, well, I'm going to be an accountant.
11:54
I'm already, you know, I've been in the business for a while.
11:57
I said, you know, I want to be a chef.
11:59
And he's like, well, that's unusual because going to
12:00
Business School at the time, chefs didn't go to business.
12:03
School OK. So Widener, actually, we had
12:07
visited Widen University tangentially when I was looking
12:11
for culinary, but they didn't have a strong culinary program,
12:14
but they had the second best hospitality program in the
12:18
country. And, and when I went back and I
12:22
applied to Cornell and I got into Cornell, I got into FIUI,
12:25
got into U on AV, went to Widener.
12:28
The Dean actually remembered myself and my father when we
12:31
visited school. And I right away I'm like, he
12:34
could have just looked it up. He could have a secretary look
12:36
at the file, but he took the time to remember my father,
12:41
Remember Me, remember why I was going to Johnson Wells.
12:46
And that really kind of stuck a tone with me as like this is
12:48
what actually hospitality is about.
12:51
And I, I decided to go to Widener and they created a
12:57
program for me. There was no program for
12:58
culinary. You were either going to Aramark
13:01
or you went into the country clubs or you worked for.
13:04
So it brought culinary and business together for you?
13:06
Yeah, they, they just actually just created a program.
13:09
They said, all right, well, you're going to go in as a
13:11
freshman after two years, all your credits are going to apply
13:15
to any of the course study that you would need for your degree.
13:20
And then by the end of your first year, I carried 21
13:23
credits. You just caught up and you're
13:25
now a junior, right? So I was able to transfer all of
13:29
my culinary credits and a lot of the academic courses in.
13:33
And then they just applied them to a lot of my core curriculum.
13:37
And so I was able to get through school in about 3 1/2 years
13:43
versus 4 just because of my advanced, you know, degree
13:48
before. But it was a, a really an
13:51
amazing time because it just didn't it, it never occurred to
13:55
me why you wouldn't go into business for culinary.
13:58
It just it just never. I know you had a different
14:00
vision than most chefs at the time though.
14:02
Yeah, at the time you you want to become the executive chef,
14:04
there was no like culinary director.
14:07
There wasn't like a director of like recipe management.
14:10
It just didn't happen. And so I was very fortunate.
14:13
So I was in a class with this accountant and I said, you know,
14:16
I really want to get a job at The Four Seasons of Lebec Finn.
14:20
And they said to me, I goes, oh, well, my, my brother is the chef
14:25
de cuisine at The Four Seasons for the AM Kitchen.
14:30
And I said, oh, he goes, would you like to have an interview?
14:36
And I said yes. So I remember preparing for the
14:40
interview and the day before, you know, if you went to
14:43
college, you know, you're in a dorm, you get sick, everybody
14:47
gets sick. And so I got really sick.
14:50
I had, you know, pretty bad laryngitis.
14:52
I had a fever. But I'm like, I'm not missing
14:54
this interview. And I went down and I
14:57
interviewed with Jean Marie and I and his voice is equipped to
14:59
you and to do that's what you want to do.
15:01
You know, that was his thing is like he tried to pull out of you
15:04
and I could barely talk. I'm like, I want to cook.
15:06
And and I think that he thought maybe I was making fun of him.
15:09
And the next day I was hired. But I started in the cafeteria
15:13
and I was like, oh man, I really blew this interview.
15:16
But I realized in. The door, though, that's the
15:19
important. Thing that was it and you know,
15:20
you just have to push the door open and I just realized it's
15:25
like, well, if I'm here and I want to get there I'm not going
15:29
to complain about it. I'm just going to do the work
15:32
that someone else is doing. So I would go up and I'd ask
15:35
questions and I'd start working and I'd, you know, you weren't
15:39
allowed to really touch anything on the PM line.
15:41
It just was pretty taboo and I'd stand at the end of the line and
15:44
I watched them cook and I never seen any of this product before.
15:48
You know, even being a a kid from Bucks County, you know,
15:51
growing up in agriculture, I've never seen I'd never seen like
15:54
lobster being cooked. I never saw, you know, I never
15:57
seen steak like that. I've never seen filet like that.
16:00
I've never seen any. So you're just in awe.
16:01
You're like a sponge just wanting to soak it all.
16:04
It was amazing. And so I just over time, the
16:10
chef de cuisine, Martin Hammond noticed that I was just kind of
16:14
coming up. I'd ask people, I'd pick
16:16
parsley, I'd do whatever it took to get on that line.
16:19
And one day I got a call at 1:00 in the morning.
16:24
It was from Dave Jansen, the AM chef.
16:26
And he said one of my cooks called out, I can you work?
16:30
I never worked on the line ever. I, I didn't sleep.
16:34
There was like. Getting called up to the big
16:35
league. Yeah, and I didn't sleep the
16:36
rest of the night. I came into work and I worked
16:40
the hotline. It was a disaster, you know, it
16:44
was a disaster. It's pretty famous as you know,
16:48
at the time, you know, we had three cooks on the line.
16:51
There wasn't like in the lunchtime, it wasn't a huge
16:53
brigade. It was a three man line.
16:57
It was 2 cooks, Applause and Ana Saucier and then the executive
17:01
chef for the chef. The cuisine will come in and
17:03
kind of X bite metal, so very lean.
17:05
So you did your veg, you did your food, but you also did your
17:08
own special. And of course, I was like, I'm
17:10
going to prove myself. And I did this very complicated
17:13
special. And the legend has it that I got
17:18
the most docile, you know, Saucier, who ran the line.
17:24
Absolutely. Just so angry at me that he what
17:29
did you do? I am going to kill you and no
17:32
one's ever says it was too. Complicated to make.
17:35
Yeah, way too complicated. So like at the time, like
17:38
because I'm an avid Reaver reader, there's a chef named
17:41
Charlie Trotter and he came out with these books that really
17:44
kind of changed the game. And it was like, I didn't
17:46
realize that they had a brigade of like 20 kids in the kitchen
17:49
cooking this. It's like, you see this, you're
17:51
like, I can for you to produce this and and you don't know the
17:55
history, you don't know the whys.
17:56
You just think that like you can do all these things because, all
18:00
right, you made a sauce once or twice in culinary school.
18:03
It just didn't work like that. So it was it was a disaster.
18:08
And so it was a very big lesson to me in time management and
18:13
organization and understanding that there are certain things
18:16
you can and can't do while you're cooking on the line.
18:21
And then from there, like I just saw we had a festival called The
18:25
Book and the Cook in Philadelphia.
18:27
And you know, Jean Marie would bring in like Grey Coons, Jean
18:31
Marie Paladin, Daniel Ballou, Jean George, and they would come
18:35
through our kitchens and Jean Jean Marie would start sending
18:39
me up to their kitchens to work in their kitchens.
18:44
And I just, you know, I was a little bit of a ham, a very
18:49
discipline, but like and when you're.
18:53
You're, you're cracking jokes. You're you're making light of
18:55
things, Yeah. Before, you know, in, in the
18:58
biggest pressure situation when your chef is like literally
19:01
right next to you, I would still kind of like perform, but I was
19:06
able to perform under pressure pretty well, which really kind
19:08
of helped me along the way. And but he saw that and he'd say
19:12
to me that Matthew, you know, you need to, you need to be calm
19:15
down there. You have to be calm up there.
19:17
And I was like, I'm totally calm and, and he'd be like, Oh yeah,
19:22
right. But he keeps sending me up there
19:24
and he keeps. So they saw something even after
19:26
this disaster, your first time on the line, they didn't throw
19:29
you out to the curb. Yeah.
19:30
And, you know, this was years. This is, you know, you know, I
19:34
was there for 5-6 years and I'd started pretty young because I
19:39
was there while I was going to school.
19:41
So I was carrying a full caseload and, and then I was
19:45
still working full time. And so I really kind of tried to
19:50
learn how to balance those too. So when I graduated, I went
19:53
right into, you know, working in the restaurant and in banquets,
19:57
which, you know, they moved me around a lot.
20:00
And at first I thought it was. You know, I was like, well, I
20:04
don't want to be moved around a lot, but then it was the best
20:06
thing for me. And then gave.
20:09
You exposure to different things, right?
20:10
100%, yeah. And I just, I was able to parlay
20:14
that. And, you know, thanks to Jean
20:16
Marie and Martin Hammond and Dave Jansen, who had a lot of
20:19
faith in me. I was, you know, I would go up
20:22
to the restaurants and then I'd come back and I would be the
20:24
point person for the restaurants in New York.
20:28
And I didn't think there was anything weird about that.
20:32
You know, and I never thought that was anything that was
20:35
unusual, but apparently it was highly unusual that an American
20:39
would be able to do that and, and, you know, have the
20:42
opportunity to do that at all. OK.
20:45
That was I really cut my teeth in The Four Seasons and the
20:49
standards and the ability to really Jean Marie, we were
20:57
changing the menu every day. We change the menu everyday.
21:02
We have a set menu and old school menus.
21:06
French menus were pretty big. And then we would have at least
21:09
seven or 8-9 dishes on the menu that would change.
21:13
And it would be written Monday through Wednesday, Wednesday
21:16
through Thursday and then Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
21:18
So, and then in between there, if we found something new, if
21:23
there's something, you know, if Martin found he could get like a
21:27
fish or something, he would put it on and then you'd make a
21:30
whole new menu item. So it was a, it was a real
21:33
testament to seeing so much food and learning how to cook from
21:40
your heart and learning how to cook from your soul.
21:43
And less about recipes and more about taste was really a very
21:51
important segment. I think is lost a little bit.
21:55
It's lost step a little bit with with restaurants now, but it was
21:58
an important step because I understood food on a different
22:03
level after leaving that place. The interesting that thing
22:06
happened is we're in, you know, thinking about it now with my
22:11
culinary journey was there is a transition in the kitchen that
22:16
looking back years later, you know, when you got on the line,
22:21
it was all hard nosed restaurant cooks and chefs that really were
22:28
didn't go to college like learn by, you know, old school and
22:35
keep doing. Yeah, but my class of cooks and
22:41
coming up, we all had dual degrees.
22:44
Some had degrees in pre Med, some of them had, you know, some
22:49
of them were pre law degrees, some of them were biology
22:53
degrees and they all came into cooking.
22:56
And so that was AI think at the time a very scary thing for the
23:01
chefs above us and cooks above us here are these educated kids
23:06
that are going to take our job. So there was a lot of
23:08
gatekeeping going on and you didn't realize it at the time
23:11
and what it was. They were trying to hold you.
23:13
Back 100% but I don't think they did it intentionally.
23:16
I think they were just scared of change.
23:19
And that is something Jean Marie was never scared of, you know,
23:23
and he was you know, he was up there and he never was scared of
23:27
it, you know, And I think that really like rubbed off on me as
23:30
well is that you can't be afraid of the unknown.
23:34
And to move forward, you have to kind of like you have to almost
23:39
killed your old self to move forward.
23:42
And that is really to me, one of the things that take away that,
23:46
you know, speaking it out loud of why I think like with me was
23:50
Jean Marie was really really our connection has been for years.
23:55
That's great. We're going to skip over some
23:58
time periods here because I want to make sure that we give some
24:00
voice to pomegranate you. You know, you had multiple
24:04
career stops along the way. Obviously you learned a lot,
24:07
time management, all kinds of things about the business, the
24:10
practical aspects. You know your time there at Four
24:13
Seasons, you ran your own businesses for a little while.
24:16
But how did the opportunity to join Pomegranate come about?
24:20
Yeah, that, you know, I, I moved, I'm, I'm kind of a
24:22
journeyman a little bit, you know, I, I really like to
24:25
challenge myself. I like to see new things.
24:28
And so I moved, you know, from New York to Boston to Philly to
24:35
Spain to France, to Atlanta. And I was in Atlanta for the
24:41
second time and it was, you know, we had a house, we just
24:47
had our daughter and everything was going well.
24:49
And then COVID hit. And right before COVID hit, we
24:53
had a a trip planned to go to Bilbao and San Sebastian and my
24:59
wife, you know, something happened where, you know, her
25:03
sister couldn't come to babysit as long as we needed her to.
25:06
And so she said, well, where do you want to go on vacation or
25:10
where do you want to go for a trip?
25:11
And we rarely took trips, were both in the restaurant industry.
25:14
And I said, I don't know. And she goes, what about New
25:17
Orleans? And I was like, in 30 years,
25:20
I've never been in New Orleans, right?
25:22
And it was almost one of those things in my mind.
25:25
I built up so much I was almost afraid of it.
25:28
And I don't know why I had no basis of that.
25:32
But you know, watching great chefs and seeing Emeril like
25:35
back when he was on great chefs, not like essence to Emerald and
25:40
and watching him at Commander's Palace and then there was
25:43
Suzanne Spicer and Paul Pradom. And it was something that out of
25:48
the complete different genre that I was used to that
25:52
classical French, but like very like Asian and Italian and
26:00
Spanish little kind of sub genres for me.
26:05
I we went to New Orleans and we loved it.
26:08
We fell in love with it. It was amazing pandemic hits.
26:13
We worked through the pandemic. It's like a girlfriend I never
26:15
want to see again. And we came out of the pandemic
26:19
and I said, you know, why don't you know, we're looking to move
26:22
from Atlanta and we're looking either Montreal and she's like,
26:26
what about New Orleans? And I said, right, you know, so
26:31
I love Were you really? Looking for like the French
26:33
influence, Is that why Montreal? Versus New Orleans or just, you
26:36
know, yeah, 100%. Like the food that in Montreal
26:41
and New Orleans are, you know, what I thought I knew of New
26:45
Orleans was, you know, very similar how I cook, right.
26:48
And so job opportunity came up to work open a restaurant or a
26:53
hotel at the Hotel San Vincent, which is a a small boutique
26:57
hotel run by MML in Austin. And I went down.
27:02
It was right Omicron, so extremely hard opening, opening
27:06
a hotel during the tail end of the pandemic.
27:09
All the things right, you know, in our industry happened at the
27:13
same time. It was a confluence of like
27:15
events. We had a massive hurricane.
27:19
So all these things kind of led me to to a path of where it's
27:23
like I left kind of independent restaurants and went back into a
27:29
boutique hotel. And then I decided, you know
27:30
what, I really like the independent restaurants.
27:34
And it just so happened that I saw a ad for the culinary
27:39
development manager and I was like, I have no idea what that
27:42
is. But after reading, I was like,
27:46
all right, I saw through the company.
27:49
I said, I like the values of the company.
27:51
They don't want to take on someone like a, an executive
27:58
corporate executive chef because you take a risk in that right is
28:01
that if your vision gets kind of like sidelined by someone who
28:05
wants to do their own thing, it's a, it's, you know, it could
28:07
be detrimental to a small independent company.
28:11
So I took that role knowing that it was a role that was not
28:17
lesser, but it was definitely not where I was in my career.
28:23
It was kind of a lateral down move, but I've done those
28:27
before. And you did that because what
28:30
you just saw bigger opportunity down.
28:32
The road I did, I saw bigger opportunity.
28:34
I really like the lawn. I really like Pomegranate.
28:38
I, I just wanted to do something where I was building something
28:42
again. I try to, it's funny as I try to
28:45
get away from it, knowing that like, I don't want to build
28:47
anything. It's too much responsibility.
28:49
I don't want to be a leader anymore.
28:51
And I just find myself going back.
28:53
And so we're strange bedfellows and trying to create something.
28:58
And I, I really enjoyed the time.
29:01
And then, you know, I cooked for a lawn and we kind of like found
29:05
out through my reading his cookbook that we worked at the
29:08
same restaurant at the same time.
29:11
OK. And we didn't know that because
29:14
I had left three days prior to him starting.
29:17
And so we crossed paths and it was only when I read his
29:21
cookbook that I realized that that would happen.
29:23
And I went and it's so it's kind of those things that happen to
29:26
me all the time. It's almost kismet when I have
29:29
these kind of things in life. And I've learned to kind of
29:34
understand that and really kind of lean in.
29:37
So after a year, they approached me and said, you know, we know
29:41
that your skill set is much greater than this.
29:44
Would you want to be the culinary director?
29:45
I said yeah sure, I'm already doing it so why not So?
29:48
And what does that mean to be a culinary director of a multi
29:51
restaurant? Group Yep.
29:52
So you know, what happens that I, what I feel is like, you
29:56
know, the corporate executive chef was kind of a limiting role
30:00
where a culinary director I assist along with with all
30:05
things food direction, recipe development.
30:09
I go through all the restaurants, whether it's our
30:11
strategic partners are our owners, we're our owned
30:15
restaurants and really make sure all of the standards are being
30:19
upheld. The food is what we we, you
30:22
know, we had kind of like talked about we write all the tech
30:24
sheets, we write all the recipes.
30:26
We and we make sure that where I make sure that our teams are,
30:31
you know, kind of collation and driven to success on leadership
30:36
style and really teaching the teams on management, on physical
30:40
plant, on on ordering, receiving.
30:45
So really kind of encompassing all of it where it's just, you
30:49
know, as an corporate executive chef, you're just kind of
30:51
dealing with the food and you're just kind of dealing with those
30:54
kind of like just four wall operational things where I feel
30:59
that like culinary director a little bit more strategic.
31:02
And so as the culinary director, it's not just food, it's the
31:05
people side of things too, which in most businesses is the most
31:09
challenging aspect of the business.
31:11
One 100%, you know, you know, Martin Hammond said to me, he
31:15
said, you know, the food is the easy part.
31:18
He said the people is the the difficult part.
31:21
And I really didn't understand what he talked about at the
31:23
time, but it really is, is that the is the people are one, are
31:28
going to make or break your business.
31:31
But also, you know, as a leader, I feel that I need to be, you
31:38
know, I want to be A, to be a good leader, you almost have to,
31:41
one, take on servant leadership and two, you want to be able to
31:47
like teach them because, you know, selfishly, it makes your
31:51
job easier, right? And that's a pretty basic one.
31:55
But also it's like our job is to train the next generation of
32:00
chefs or cooks or, you know, our leaders in our industry.
32:04
And if we don't do that, there's going to be a massive void.
32:06
And you hear it a lot. Well, the, you know, you hear it
32:09
a lot now. Well, you know, the chefs or the
32:12
cooks or the the employees are not like they used to be.
32:15
Well, whose fault is that? You know, whose fault is that?
32:19
Did we spend too much time trying to rise to the top and
32:23
not enough time building from the bottom?
32:25
I think there's a lot to do that.
32:27
So talk to me a little bit more about how you approach
32:30
leadership, how you approach recruiting, hiring, retaining
32:35
folks in a labor market that's notoriously tight.
32:39
Yeah, it's it's difficult. The restaurant business
32:41
literally changed overnight from COVID, COVID, COVID changed
32:48
everything you know about the restaurant business, from
32:51
staffing to food to how the guests are now reacting to food,
32:59
how guests see their experience. And so you had to pivot during
33:05
COVID, but you're constantly still pivoting.
33:07
And those who don't pivot will just, we'll just go under.
33:12
And it, it, we saw it in the, in the, in COVID.
33:15
And that was, you know, a big one.
33:17
And what I've always realized and not like kind of like on the
33:22
surface, but I always look to, you know, a lot of times we will
33:26
say is like, I find what I don't want out of a leader and I do
33:30
the opposite. And what I found is that you
33:33
have to take people who lead in stride because of their past
33:39
experiences and kind of get the best out of what you need from
33:44
that experience and then apply that to your future self.
33:51
And you know, what I mean is that, you know, coming up in the
33:55
restaurant business for me was extremely hostile, just in
34:00
general. It was, you know, Yeah.
34:02
Oh, yeah. You know, it just was, it was a
34:05
hard place to work. You know, it's, it's hot, it's
34:07
sharp. Everything wants everything
34:09
right away. You know, the old school way was
34:13
always the method. You get yelled at a lot.
34:15
You get things thrown at you, you get burned a lot on purpose.
34:18
It was pretty brutal. There is a point in time where
34:22
you say, am I going to continue to be the, will you be the
34:26
abuser or because you were abused?
34:29
Are you going to take that and kind of adapt your style to kind
34:34
of break the mold a little bit? And I always felt that I was
34:38
never been. I'm, I'm always super upbeat.
34:42
I'm very full of energy. I'm always extremely passionate
34:46
about what I do because I feel it like if you're going to do
34:49
something, you spend a lot of time doing it.
34:51
You might as well just lean in all the way.
34:54
And so I always felt that like being that servant leadership,
35:00
which is kind of a not a new term, but like a term that like
35:04
I couldn't quantify years ago is that I wanted to help people
35:08
grow because it was the only way that I felt that our industry
35:12
was going to kind of manifest itself into IA business that I
35:17
would want to be in. And it wasn't about, you know, I
35:20
could take the pressure and the struggle and the the strife and
35:24
the hostility, but not everybody can.
35:26
And so it was something that I really wanted to kind of show
35:31
the beauty of our industry. And that's hard work to do.
35:34
You know, it's not about management by walking around.
35:37
It's not, you know, it's not just kind of just saying, but
35:40
you have to like this generation for sure wants to know that
35:45
they're one, doing this for a reason.
35:48
And two, they want some of it's a little, it's not so much quid
35:53
pro quo, but it is that doing it for a reason.
35:56
They want to get something out of it that's other than
35:58
monetary, and you have to find some.
36:00
Kind of a greater. Purpose, Yeah, I think a little
36:02
bit of it. And, and there is a
36:05
transactional element involved, which I get because it was hard
36:11
for me to fight tooth and nail to get my opportunities to go to
36:16
Taiwan, to go to New York, to go to France.
36:20
I it wasn't an open door for me. What I try to do is open the
36:25
door for everyone. It's up to them to walk through,
36:31
but I'm going to make that pathway much, a little bit
36:33
easier. And at the time I let them, I
36:35
let them fail, but I'm there to catch them.
36:39
And I feel that's important as well with retention.
36:44
Retention is a big thing in this industry because our churn is
36:46
pretty high. We tend to hold on to a lot of
36:51
people for a long time. Both Saba Safta are, you know,
36:55
our restaurants that we own. And the reason is 1.
36:58
The core values. One of the core values that I
37:01
enjoy is education. And this is where it comes back
37:04
to, you know, the chef said are in my trust are I feel a, you
37:11
know, a kinship to them to make sure that they got the education
37:16
that I got, but a little bit, you know, make sure that.
37:19
Without having stuff thrown at you.
37:21
Yeah, exactly. But you have to like, I think
37:24
that you have to couple it with not you're not coddling anybody
37:27
and you're not giving someone the free ride.
37:30
You're making sure that they're responsible for all their
37:33
actions and them understanding that every action they make,
37:37
there's a reciprocal action that follows.
37:41
So talk to me about the different concepts.
37:43
You've got my count 5 restaurants and two bars in the
37:46
portfolio. Is there kind of a common thread
37:49
that links them all together? Yeah, well, it's a lawn, right?
37:52
Is a lawn. Shia is the archetype for all
37:55
the restaurants he had. He had worked with John Besh in
38:01
capacity of like opening up a place called San Dominica.
38:04
He opened up a Shia restaurant. Then he broke off and started
38:08
Saba. And then from Saba, he had
38:11
Softer and then from softer since Pomegranate is kind of the
38:15
management arm of our our collection of restaurants, we
38:20
had the opportunity to open up the Chandelier Bar.
38:24
Miss River. We did a pop up residency at in
38:30
Vegas. We have salon in the Bahamas.
38:34
We're opening up a restaurant, a bar called Chechi within Softer
38:40
and So. A restaurant within a
38:41
restaurant. So it's so we're in a hotel, but
38:44
we're not part of the hotel. And so it opens up to what they
38:48
have is kind of like a common area.
38:50
And that common area extends part of our restaurant outward.
38:54
And then right across the way we build out a bar called Catchy.
38:59
So it was, you know, these opportunities come along and we
39:04
kind of take them with both hands because the idea is to not
39:08
only you, you kind of get in partnerships with management
39:13
deals to be able to fund your own restaurants, right?
39:16
Is that I think that's really kind of like a unique way of
39:19
vision of going about it. And so long story is being told
39:25
through Saba Safta, Miss River Chechi, and my job, which I take
39:32
on, you know, willingly and I enjoy, is to make sure that
39:37
story is true to the vision. What does that mean?
39:42
What what are some practical things that you do to make sure
39:45
that you're executing it the way that Elan and.
39:47
On on the technical side, on the four wall side, what I found is
39:52
that there is a massive gap between like what I've learned
39:55
and what the newer generation were able to learn.
39:58
So on the four walls, you know, teaching them about HVAC,
40:03
teaching them about physical plant all.
40:06
All the things that take operational wise that I know how
40:09
to run a restaurant, the labor, the food cost, people, people
40:14
management skills and we have a very specific way of with
40:22
pomegranate of making sure people are one heard within the
40:26
space of our company. But you know, have value and
40:30
respect it right. And that's in the restaurant
40:32
industry. It's a very I can speak to the
40:35
restaurant industry alone. You know, other industries are
40:38
tough for me. So I don't, you know, I can't
40:39
safe with any confidence. But you know, in the restaurant
40:43
industry, you did not have a lot of like respect.
40:47
There was a lot of gatekeeping. And we really kind of we make
40:51
that our mission not to make that happen, right?
40:54
And what I say all the time to our, you know, our younger
40:57
leaders, I said that's not just like words on the wall or on
41:01
paper. You have to work at it every
41:03
day. And it's not perfect.
41:04
And you're going to struggle with those those people issues
41:08
and those struggle with, you know, various degrees of like,
41:13
you know, racial, religious, ethnicity backgrounds.
41:18
But you always have to like, keep in mind that everybody
41:21
brings value. And our job is to bring the most
41:24
value out of those people. And in the end, that's what
41:27
people want. They want value to their job.
41:30
You know, it's not just sometimes always a paycheck.
41:32
So I really take that seriously. I feel education is one of the
41:37
most important parts of our, our core values that we're able to
41:43
kind of parlay that out into our leadership and, and, and that's
41:49
really an important aspect for what we do at, at Pomegranate.
41:54
Where do you guys see Pomegranate going in the next
41:57
few years? Are there new concepts planned?
42:00
Are you thinking about replicating some of the existing
42:04
concepts into additional locations?
42:06
Yeah, Yeah. So we are in the middle of doing
42:10
a new concept called softest table in almost the suburbs of
42:16
New Orleans. New Orleans, I don't know if
42:18
you've been here, it's it's pretty small.
42:20
So Orleans Parish is kind of small.
42:23
That is what New Orleans is. And then as it goes outwards,
42:26
you had Jefferson Parish and Metairie and Lakeside.
42:30
And so we're opening up in like kind of the suburbs, but the
42:33
suburbs are not like, it's not like a far jump from New Orleans
42:38
to the suburbs. So we're having softest table,
42:40
which is kind of a fast casual concept that we hope to kind of
42:46
repeat. I, I feel like our lean in of
42:51
the food and long story of Israeli Mediterranean is a
42:57
really good solid way to, we want to keep low below the
43:03
quality high and make it a little bit repeatable, you know,
43:07
and I think that's important to be diversified into different
43:10
concepts. We're always looking on the
43:12
pomegranate arm for new partnerships.
43:16
That's part of our, you know, business is consultancy, but
43:19
we're pretty slow with our growth on that end.
43:22
We do take on some like like I said, the pop up role in Vegas,
43:26
saying that's something Ilan really felt strongly about.
43:29
He's, you know, he cut his teeth in Vegas and he wanted to kind
43:34
of have a short term residency at the Wynn Hotel.
43:38
And with each new partnership that we have, we really do our
43:43
best to be good stewards of their of their place.
43:48
You know, we come up strategically with vision and
43:53
recipes, recipe development, a lot of them and then we maintain
44:00
and make sure that those recipes and vision is consistent on all
44:04
the brand side. But in the end, a lot of the are
44:10
our partners are the operators. And so it's more of a
44:14
consultancy, but we you know, each one we take very personally
44:18
to make sure that our story is told.
44:21
And I would feel that like an overarching like theme for all
44:25
of this is like storytelling is really one of the most important
44:28
things that we try to imbibe a spirit of storytelling with each
44:33
one of our restaurants. So our growth is slow, but then
44:38
it's like hurry up, you know, on the growth because it's like
44:42
that combination of restaurant businesses that you have slow
44:46
growth and then all of a sudden you're shot out of a cannon and
44:48
you you have like 3 projects going on at same time and like
44:52
how are we going to ever achieve this So.
44:54
Let me see if I understand that it's slow from the perspective
44:57
of you guys aren't rushing into bad opportunities.
45:00
That's right. Taking your time to identify the
45:03
right places, the right concepts or the right partners
45:06
ownerships. And then once you find them and
45:09
there's an agreement on both sides, then everybody wants to
45:12
move really fast because you've got you've got this connection.
45:16
You feel like you've got a powerful concept and you want to
45:18
move quickly with it. Yeah, absolutely.
45:20
And then on our growth side for the company as well is that we
45:24
really take our time to on our our four walls growth with
45:29
ownership to make sure that we're stable enough to grow the
45:33
business without creating a vacuum between our other
45:36
restaurants. And when I say.
45:39
Creating a vacuum, I'm sucking customers away.
45:42
Well, not only that, it's less about that and more about when
45:46
you open a restaurant, you inevitably infuse the
45:50
restaurant, your parent restaurant with your value, your
45:55
core values, your leadership skills.
45:58
You're going to inevitably pull somebody out of that restaurant
46:00
and that's going to create a void.
46:02
So when you open a restaurant, you're pulling people out.
46:05
One of my jobs 2 is create bench strength.
46:09
And our our job 2 is creating bench strength to make sure that
46:13
there is a good backfill of great leaders in the restaurants
46:17
to make sure that when if we do open another concept, we're not
46:21
bleeding any of the restaurants dry.
46:25
Got it. And the partnerships that you're
46:28
describing, I want to see if I understand this.
46:31
Often times it's not like you're staffing yet.
46:34
It's like you're coming in and they've kind of got it, you
46:37
know, partial vision. You're helping them complete
46:40
that vision and then telling them, hey, here's the best way
46:44
to sort of pull this off. Let us give you suggestions on
46:47
the menu, suggestions on I don't know how to organize your staff.
46:51
Am I hitting kind of the right notes here?
46:53
For sure. I'll give you a direct example,
46:55
Miss River at The Four Seasons. You know we don't own the bricks
46:59
of The Four Seasons. We have Miss River and we are
47:04
not the operators of of doing the day-to-day operations.
47:10
What we do is write the menus, overall concept and vision of
47:16
Grand New Orleans South Louisiana cuisine.
47:19
Make sure that you know the recipes are ours.
47:22
Make sure the recipes are followed.
47:25
We do give suggestions with like staffing levels and organization
47:31
of the kitchen and how things are going to operate.
47:33
But in the end they're the operators.
47:35
So they can take our our our directives as suggestions
47:41
because they are the four walls they operate.
47:44
But a lot of our direction too is tied to profitability as well
47:49
as that, you know, we don't want to be a restaurant, just a
47:51
showcase with no profit. We want to make sure that to be
47:55
good stewards of a like The Four Seasons and within The Four
48:00
Seasons we want to be make sure that they are profitable as well
48:04
and that they we can continue on a good relationship.
48:07
And I find a lot of times when businesses or partnerships in
48:11
the restaurant world go sour is people are not talking to each
48:14
other and there's no eye on the ball of like, let's make sure
48:19
we're profitable, but we're also making sure that vision is seen
48:23
through 100%. And that's where we come in.
48:27
So among the five restaurants in the 2 bars that are under your
48:32
umbrella, are all of these the partnerships that you're
48:35
describing or are you the operator in any of?
48:39
Them Nope. We operate, we operate Saba,
48:41
SAFTA, Safta's table and then we are going to be we, we're, we're
48:51
going to operate or we're operating Chechi, which is the
48:53
bar at SAFTA. We will staff it as well as
48:58
vision and we'll, we'll allocate, there's an allocation
49:02
of, of funds to make sure that in the end like yes, it could
49:07
because you know, the source hotel with that has Softa could
49:11
say, OK, tomorrow you're no longer operators, but you know,
49:15
they see the value in having Softa, which is their anchor
49:18
restaurant. We don't, we are not under the
49:21
source. The source is the hotel company
49:24
that operates, but we're an anchor store for them.
49:28
And so they see that there's value in that.
49:32
Whereas with the Miss River, The Four Seasons, you know, the
49:35
operating agreement is something that we do have, like, you know,
49:40
if a new chef cuisine comes in, we do have like final say, if
49:44
that chef cuisine is going to be in charge of the restaurant.
49:48
We are not going to be charged a payroll or taxes or, you know,
49:52
any of the nitty gritty with budgeting.
49:56
But we do have a good hand in like making sure that we're
50:00
constantly staying on the cusp of of of the restaurant world.
50:07
We're making sure our story is correct and accurate.
50:10
Got it. Matt, I've just got one more
50:13
question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to
50:15
do a few things. First of all, anyone who wants
50:17
to get in touch with Matthew Ridgway from Pomegranate, his
50:21
personal e-mail address is sauteme1@gmail.com and we'll
50:25
have that in the show notes. Also, as a reminder, if you want
50:29
to get more employees access to benefits that won't hurt them
50:31
financially and carries a financial upside for the
50:34
company, reach out to us at AD back benefits.com.
50:38
Finally, if it'll take just a moment to leave us a comment or
50:41
review on your favorite podcast app, you will hold a special
50:44
place in my heart forever. Thank you.
50:46
So last question for you, Matt. I would like to explore a
50:50
serious challenge that you've overcome in your life, whether
50:53
it's something personal or professional, how you got
50:56
through it and what you learned. OK, yeah, I mean, I thought
51:00
about this, you know, going back and forth like COVID was, you
51:04
know, personally and professionally challenging.
51:06
But I would have to say like turning point wise, 2007 was one
51:15
of the most challenging years of my life for a number of reasons.
51:19
Is that it? It was really when I started to
51:22
re evaluate who I am as a person professionally and personally
51:29
and where I was going to go with my career.
51:32
You know, I've always considered myself more of a vocation and
51:39
less of a job. And that really is always rang
51:42
true. But when you're in pursuit of a
51:45
journeyman vocation, you tend to leave what I call a lot of dead
51:51
bodies on the floor. And in business you'll say like
51:56
there's trade-offs, right? Is that if you're going to go
52:01
create your own business, there are trade-offs.
52:04
As you know, you have to be a little bit quote UN quote
52:06
selfish of like maybe it's less family time, maybe it's less,
52:10
you know, in pursuit of something.
52:13
Maybe you have to like get something in your restaurant or
52:17
your your business to grow. You're going to trade something
52:20
off, whether it's personally or professionally or monetarily.
52:24
And you have to be OK with that. And when I say leave a lot of
52:28
dead bodies on the floor is that, you know, in my quest to
52:32
kind of climb the rung of culinary in the restaurant
52:38
business, you tend to your relationships and your personal
52:43
life is basically very intertwined in your business.
52:47
You're not you don't own restaurants when you're working
52:50
in them, but you feel very kinship to ownership, right?
52:53
And, you know, with girlfriends or significant others or
52:58
boyfriends or family, you sacrifice all that, you know,
53:03
you, you spend no vacation time. And so you'd spend really no
53:07
personal time. And any personal time you have
53:10
you dedicated to your craft. And that is, you know, had
53:15
wreaked havoc on my life and my personal life for a long time.
53:20
I didn't really realize it though, you know, because it was
53:23
like, people just don't understand me.
53:25
They don't understand the vocation, they don't understand
53:27
where I'm going, they don't understand where I'm, you know,
53:30
being #1 and I didn't, I never really took a step back and like
53:35
understood that to a certain extent.
53:38
So 2007 I was in Atlanta with my significant other and I thought
53:44
we decided to go to New York And, and it basically I decided
53:48
to go to New York and, and I went up and, you know, it so
53:53
happened when we open up the okra room in New York.
53:56
It was kind of a disaster. Everything went wrong to being
54:01
over budget to not really understanding.
54:05
This is where I learned about a lot about business of, you know,
54:08
with the a chef owner. I was working with Joel, the
54:11
chef owner of, you know, the relationship between the owner
54:15
and the financier of the restaurant and, and his
54:18
relationship with, you know, kind of fell apart.
54:20
And, you know, I'm 20 years old and trying to manage that as
54:26
well as, you know, your relationship is falling apart.
54:29
And it almost became like a, a country western song for me.
54:34
You know, my, my dog died, my girlfriend left me.
54:37
You know, I lost my job, but then the economy crashed, right?
54:42
It's like I lost my job. Economy crashed.
54:44
No one wanted high end food and my dad got very sick and I was
54:51
in New York and you know, I went home to like, I just kind of
54:55
took a stop and I, you know, I did not know what to do with the
54:59
rest of my life. It was kind of like I hit all
55:01
the markers I wanted to hit very quickly.
55:04
And it's that kind of like half life realization of like I have
55:08
no plan behind besides like being a chef.
55:11
There was no thought of having children.
55:13
There was no thought of buying a house or it was all right.
55:18
I could go sleep on my friend's couch and start up again and go
55:24
back into being a chef of like a high end restaurant.
55:29
And I decided that I didn't want to do that anymore.
55:33
And I walked away from culinary. I went home, took care of my
55:38
father, and I was basically penniless and lived at home at
55:43
like 30 years old. And when I got the job, I
55:47
actually swept floors for a a fish company and then did
55:55
deliveries for them. And as I was doing deliveries
55:58
for them, you know, chef and you know, where where I was doing
56:02
deliveries for were cooks in my kitchens and they're like, what
56:05
are you doing? And I'm like, I don't want
56:07
anything to do with the industry anymore.
56:08
I don't it like it. It burned like a hole in my soul
56:12
that I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do.
56:15
And I just, you know, the charcuterie thing, I was always
56:20
kind of ahead of the game with a lot of stuff.
56:24
And again, you don't think you're going to innovate.
56:27
It's just not even a thought. I knew charcuterie because we
56:31
did it all the time in French restaurants.
56:33
I knew how to butcher because I knew how to do French.
56:36
I was in French restaurants. And that was, you know, always a
56:39
job. I didn't really think that was
56:41
going to be like parlay into something bigger than it was.
56:45
And so as I was sweeping the, you know, the floor and doing
56:49
deliveries, they also started a line of charcuterie.
56:53
They're kind of doing like a value added.
56:56
And I saw what they were doing at this company and I'm like,
56:59
that is just not good. But that's not my place.
57:01
I'm not, I'm not getting into it.
57:03
I had my kind of self talk. I'm not going to do this.
57:05
This is not where I want to be. I don't know what I'm going to
57:09
do and and the next thing is like I was like, I have to tell
57:15
them that this is not good. And I was like, I went to the
57:19
owner. I was like, this isn't very
57:21
good. I can make it for you.
57:23
It's pretty simple. So I started making things and I
57:26
started with duck comfy and then I started with block the foie
57:29
gras, which is like terrain that I did duck prosciutto.
57:33
And then I started bacon And all of a sudden we, you know, we saw
57:39
this like on a wholesale level kind of retail level that there
57:44
is real need for it. And again, still not looking at
57:47
that. I just knew how to do it.
57:48
It's relatively easy for me. And I didn't, it wasn't that I
57:54
was as invested emotionally in it.
57:59
And So what I did was I was like, I can work alone.
58:05
I don't have anybody to answer to.
58:07
No one answers to me and I'm just going to do some, you know,
58:10
I'm going to do some charcuterie and I'm going to go to a farmers
58:12
market. And then I realized that there
58:15
was no like supply chain for chefs direct market to like pigs
58:21
and ducks and chickens directly from farmers to a lot of the
58:27
chefs. So I created like kind of a
58:28
Co-op from Lancaster Farms to kind of like help farmers give
58:33
them a better check rather than getting through third party, I'd
58:38
pick the things up. I'd make something value added
58:41
at it. I would sell it to either
58:43
restaurants or sell it to farmers markets as a retail
58:47
farm. And it just kind of grew.
58:49
I mean, I just remember I was like, I don't want to be the
58:53
bacon guy. But, you know, realizing that
58:56
now, I should have been the bacon guy.
58:58
And it was, you know, I went, I made, you know, at the time
59:03
there was no significant market in 2007, 2008 for like very
59:09
boutique bacons or boutique charcuterie just didn't really
59:14
exist. And so I created a red wine
59:17
bacon. I created a honey cured bacon.
59:19
My dad's a beekeeper, so I got the honey from him.
59:22
I created cherry wood bacon. And it was just all new for
59:25
people. I mean, people call it
59:27
charchuterie. They didn't know what
59:28
charcuterie was. Pronunciations.
59:32
They're like, why am I buying this from you?
59:33
It's $7.00 a pound when I can buy it at the store for $2.00 a
59:37
pound. And it was, it was, you know, an
59:39
educational piece. And then the restaurant came
59:42
along again, did not want to get in the restaurant business.
59:45
I felt there was. I needed an outlet.
59:47
And so I kept it very small, lean and mean.
59:50
There's three of us in the kitchen.
59:52
We changed the menu every day for two years.
59:55
It was an old farmhouse that I rehabbed, and I just decided
1:00:01
that that was kind of my outlet for kind of really mending my
1:00:06
soul a little bit. And at the same time as it
1:00:10
happened is that I decided like, so I had connected with my first
1:00:17
girlfriend in elementary school, and we hadn't seen each other
1:00:22
since 8th grade. And for whatever reason, she was
1:00:26
in town. Where she lived in town, she's
1:00:28
still around and she said, you know, why don't we go get a
1:00:32
drink And well, she says that I didn't say that I stalked her on
1:00:37
Facebook, but that's not true. And so we ended up going out and
1:00:44
you know, in your head when you see, haven't seen someone from
1:00:47
8th grade all this time, you just have a vision in your head
1:00:52
that it's going to be a the same person, just taller with
1:00:57
pigtails and braces, right? And this beautiful knockout
1:01:01
woman walked through the door and I couldn't believe it.
1:01:06
She was the same person. And that night I got home, I was
1:01:10
talking to my mother and she's like, how was your date with
1:01:13
Elizabeth? And I said, good, it wasn't a
1:01:15
date mom. And, and she said to me, she
1:01:19
looked at me square in the face and you know, I'm, I'm 30 at
1:01:21
this point. She goes you, if you're not sure
1:01:25
about this, you need to tell her.
1:01:27
Don't fuck this up. She's a nice person.
1:01:30
And that stuck with me because that night I went to bed, I
1:01:33
said, you know, I can continue to do the same things I was
1:01:35
doing and not realize that the impact that I have on people and
1:01:40
family and myself and wondering why things continuously go wrong
1:01:45
and I'm not able to move to the next rung or I can somehow
1:01:51
understand that personally, who will help me professionally as
1:01:57
well. And that was probably like kind
1:02:00
of a turning point for me is that, you know, I really opened
1:02:05
up to her. I brought her into my life.
1:02:07
She brought herself and my life and her vice versa.
1:02:11
And we really grew A kinship to where we really like, we got
1:02:17
married later, I know in 37. So I married my first girlfriend
1:02:22
from elementary school at 37 years old.
1:02:25
We have a daughter at 40, so late father.
1:02:29
But all those things, it never, it wasn't a hindrance.
1:02:33
You know, I was wrong. It really, it just it took that
1:02:38
to realize that the, you know, everything crumbling, going back
1:02:42
down to the beginning is like you have to have yourself talk
1:02:45
to understand where you want to be and almost like I said, kill
1:02:50
your old you to move forward. You know, you, you can't just
1:02:55
continuously mourn or romanticize about the past.
1:02:59
You have to move forward. You actually have to have a very
1:03:02
short memory on things. You take from the past what you
1:03:05
need to take from it, but you can't relive it all the time
1:03:08
because if you do, you're just going to be in the same place.
1:03:11
And so that has really helped me be my north star of
1:03:15
understanding of what I want out of it.
1:03:17
And one of the things of pomegranate is they really
1:03:20
understand it. Like I'm not, I'm working hard
1:03:24
and I work hard, but they respect family life.
1:03:27
They expect they why I'm in New Orleans is because everything
1:03:31
about New Orleans on paper is a disaster, everything.
1:03:36
But once you're in and live in New Orleans, it gets in your
1:03:39
soul. You just don't understand why.
1:03:41
You can't even explain it. And but the one thing is, is
1:03:44
that it is the IT is where I feel like coming home to all the
1:03:49
time. And so does my wife and so does
1:03:51
my daughter. I'm raising her in Orleans
1:03:54
Parish and she gets to go to a school where, you know, when the
1:03:59
first day of school, there's a second line in the full, there's
1:04:02
a 16 piece brass band welcoming them, welcoming them to school.
1:04:06
I mean, it just doesn't happen. Just doesn't happen.
1:04:09
We go down the, you know, we go down to the quarter and we get
1:04:13
to see Jazz play. Now she's too young to go into
1:04:16
one of the bars, but we stand outside and she listens to jazz
1:04:19
and the, you know, the bartenders see her.
1:04:21
They, they, they'll give her like, you know, Shirley Temple,
1:04:25
you know, the walk out of Shirley Temple because they know
1:04:27
the little girl in the quarter is going to come down and listen
1:04:29
to jazz. She's seven years old and she's
1:04:31
got a 30 year old old soul. And that to me is like very,
1:04:35
extremely important. And, you know, having a great
1:04:38
relationship with my wife, it's only made me really kind of
1:04:42
understand that you can have both, but you have to kind of
1:04:48
have that talk, but not only your wife or your significant
1:04:52
other, but you have to understand that there is that
1:04:54
compromise and and there's compromise all along.
1:04:57
It's not a one way St. And that's really what, you
1:05:00
know, to me is like probably was one of the hardest things to
1:05:04
learn and it took, you know, everything imploding for me to,
1:05:09
you know, I'm pretty hard headed when it comes to those things.
1:05:12
So, you know, I really take a step back now on and and look
1:05:16
and say, OK, what is, you know, what are the core values that I
1:05:21
want to keep and retain for me and my family?
1:05:24
But also is like, do I want to work for this company?
1:05:28
Do I want to, you know, do I want to be a journeyman and kind
1:05:32
of work through those things? Because it is a two way St., my
1:05:37
two way St. for, for, you know, pomegranate is like they allow
1:05:41
me to not only I'm telling a long story, it's not about me,
1:05:45
it's about the group and about the team, but I'm also keep that
1:05:48
like I think it's important to keep that kind of like
1:05:51
entrepreneurship type feeling about you because you're always
1:05:55
kind of pushing to the next level.
1:05:57
You're always kind of trying to move to the next level.
1:05:59
It's not being selfish. It's kind of taking your
1:06:03
knowledge and, and giving it to people freely without any
1:06:08
thought of what's in it for you. And that's, that's really to me,
1:06:12
it's like what kind of that time in my life showed me.
1:06:15
And it took me a long time to kind of like really wrap my
1:06:18
brain around that. I'm the kind of AI always said
1:06:21
my mantra was like I was great at work, shit at life and like
1:06:25
it's not really the best mantra to have because.
1:06:29
By finding balance you found an additive effect from these
1:06:33
other. Elements of 100 percent, 100%.
1:06:35
Yeah, well, Matthew Ridgway from Pomegranate Hospitality, I want
1:06:39
to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your
1:06:43
story with us today. I really appreciate.
1:06:45
It thank you very much. I appreciate your time too.
1:06:48
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
1:06:50
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:06:52
today.