Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Danny Kievit on Building a Private Chef Brand & Cooking for Celebs Ep. 153

Transcript

Danny Kievit on Building a Private Chef Brand & Cooking for Celebs Ep. 153 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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Hello chefs. This is Chefs KSA.
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I'm your host Andre Natera. Today I'm joined by Chef Danny
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Kevit, founder of Leave It to Kevit, a luxury private chef
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service. We talked about building a
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private chef business leadership, the allegory of an
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artichoke, and the personal transformation that comes with
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choosing this path. Stay tuned.
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Great restaurants don't always bring customers in.
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Great stories do, because in food, beverage and hospitality,
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what you sell is only part of the story.
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It's the why behind it, the authority you create and the
0:45
experience that you built. Market scale turns expertise
0:51
into content that connects podcasts, video series and
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industry education, not ads. Assets.
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Market scale has brought run the past and how to manage like an
1:03
executive chef to life real world examples of how great
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content leads the conversation because attention is earned and
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the industry doesn't need more noise.
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It needs more leaders. What's it like being the the
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chef for the stars? So I was thinking about you the
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other day because, like, you posted a picture with Dana
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White. Yeah, so you get to cook for all
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the big names here in. Austin, I mean, I, I, I, I would
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like to say that I'm, I'm blessed, right?
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I get the opportunity to meet some incredible people, right?
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And it's so cool because like I get to be in their lives, you
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know? And, and what I've noticed, and
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I've said this before is everybody's normal.
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They're normal people, right? Sure, there's weirdos, right?
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Everybody's weird a little bit, but everybody's normal.
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They put their pants on one foot at the time and it's really fun
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to be able to be part of their experience.
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Now, how long have you had the catering business?
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Can I say something? Yeah, go ahead.
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I don't like the word catering. What's the word then?
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Private chef, personal chef. Chef.
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OK. You know, I think catering.
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What's the difference to? You OK, so think about a
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catering experience, right? You're going to think about
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somebody coming and setting up shaffers and like, you know,
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opening it up and like wedding or something.
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Exactly right. But I want to I want to like
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come in and and like make you feel comfortable, take care of
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you. I want to serve you right.
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I want, I want. It's a it's a different level of
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I feel service, right? Do you do the catering aspect at
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all? I mean.
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Or do you only do the private shafting aspect?
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I OK, so if I'm going to cater right, I'm going to do it on a
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different level. Like last month in April, I went
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to Portland and I cooked for 200 people that would be catering to
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a large. Do you have a shaving dish?
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I did not have any shaving. That you do plated.
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I, I so no, I created action stations.
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Oh, OK. Yeah, right.
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So kind of like set it up kind of like a food festival.
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Yeah, OK. You know, but if I do sort of
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like the I like to call it family style rather than buffet
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right now. And and, and some people will
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say family style is the food set in the middle of the table,
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right. And then so you're eating across
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from each other, like, yeah. Everyone goes pass some
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platters. I feel family style could be set
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up on a table where you get your plate and you go to it and you
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get food, right? Yes, that sounds like a buffet.
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It sounds. Just like a buffet sounds.
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Just like a buffet, right? But but it's it's, it's built in
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a way where there is like a sort of like this feeling of.
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Yeah, communal. Communal, right?
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Let's call it communal dining. You know, my, my, my
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grandfather, Grandpa Kivit, he was, he was a chemical engineer
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for Shell, right? And when he graduated,
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graduated, when he retired from Shell, he started working with
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his passion. And his passion was creating
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wood objects, right? He made grandfather clocks, he
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made tables, he made furniture. He made all sorts of stuff.
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Actually my dining room table of my house he built OK, very cool.
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So like this connection, he's, he's Kivit, he's the original
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Kivit. You know, in my life, there's
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that I have been with, there's four generations of Kivit, my
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grandfather, my dad, myself and my son, SO4 generations.
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But the, the connection that I had to my grandfather is wood.
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He'd say when I was little, he'd be like, do you want to go make
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some sawdust? And so that was like what I
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really remember. So whenever I set up these
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communal family style setups, I use like live edge wooden
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boards. I use wooden platters, right?
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And then also, instead of using like a Shaffer, you ask me, if I
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use Shaffer's, I'll use like a red like Crusade, right?
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And it'll have like fire under it, but it's on this like wooden
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box, right? So it kind of creates this sort
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of like farm style different kind of setup.
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Yeah, almost like you're doing a table scape for like a like a
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food and wine photo shoot or something like that.
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I like, I think you eat with your eyes first, right?
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You know, like I think the difference between me as a
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personal or private chef and a caterer is I'm going to come in
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and I'm going to create an experience.
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Yes, catering, there's different catering companies that will
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come in and have themes and all that kind of stuff, right?
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But I like to interact. I like to become part of the,
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the, the, the evening. You know, I think that the
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senses are very important, right?
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Your five senses, you hear, you smell, you taste, you touch, you
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feel, see, see. That's right.
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So you look first, then you smell.
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Yeah, if, if it doesn't look as you don't want to eat it.
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Exactly right, Right. Yeah.
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The the old expression of you eat with your eyes first because
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sometimes I have a problem with it because it's like, well, it
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has to taste good, But at the same time, if it doesn't look
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like you want to eat it, you're not going to eat it.
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I remember we had a conversation and I hope it's OK that I but we
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had a conversation and you said, what if you took all of the
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frill out of food? Remember, like what if Instagram
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didn't exist and you just ate food that was just good?
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That's how I like to cook. Yeah, yeah, it should be good.
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It should be good, but it doesn't have to have like all
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the ribbons and all the like, broken butter sauces and all the
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oils. And I mean, that's fun, but it
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can just taste good. I look at my food sometimes and
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I'm like, you know, looking at there's so much information
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transfer, right? And there's so much out there.
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And like back in in the day when I was first starting, there was
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a Food Network and the Food Network was different.
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It was like the Naked Chef and it was like Boy meets Grill,
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right? Rather than everything that's
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out now. And you know, you had Food and
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Wine magazine, you had this, but you didn't have Instagram, you
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didn't have that that food porn, you know. 24/7.
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So constant, right? So, so now of course, The thing
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is, is, is you compare yourself constantly, constantly, right?
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It's like, I like to say it's like chef thirst traps.
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Yeah, that's exactly what it's like.
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They're posting. They're posting something that
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looks really good, so you start thinking I got to post.
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Something I'm like, does my food?
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Does my food look that good? Yeah.
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Do I need trying to lose some weight?
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Are my plates looking? I don't know what's going.
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On here, you know, but I, but I, I always come back to like, my
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food is delicious and people are like, they're like they I I I I
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I don't know, I just, I hate to say it like this, but I, I kill
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her. Yeah.
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Is that bad to say? No, no, that's fine.
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I think, I think as a chef, you got to have a certain, you got
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to have confidence what you're doing, because I think you cook
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better with confidence. Yes, when you're confident, when
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you're, when you're behind the cutting board and behind the
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pots and pans and you taste something you say that's fucking
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good. Like you want to, you want to
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serve it to people. Totally.
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You're like, I'm proud of this, you know, and I think Anthony
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Bourdain said when you cook for somebody, you're telling them
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who you are. Right, Right.
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And you know, So that that ability to, to share from your
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soul is amazing to me. Yeah.
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I wrote a book. I read a book whenever I was a
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young chef and it's called The Soul of a Chef.
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Yeah, it's a great book. Right.
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And you also have the reach of a chef, you know, And those books
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very much inspired me. They lit me on fire, you know,
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and, and, and that's where I feel like my cooking power comes
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from. Is that a artichoke tattoo on?
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It it is an artichoke and you want to hear about this is.
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A fun yeah tell me about the tattoo cause artichoke is like
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one of my favorite vegetables and and we talked about like
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food porn on Instagram. Yeah I found this page.
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I wish I could remember what it was called but it's just someone
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send it to me and it's just a guy cleaning artichokes, that's
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all. It is.
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I saw it, you shared it. Yeah, it's like, it's so good
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and. He looks so easy.
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He's like, he just. Yeah, like nothing.
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He's just turning artichokes. And the sound from it, Oh my
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God. It was amazing.
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He's like, so fucking yeah. And I did AI did a guest chef
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dinner the other day where I served artichokes, braised
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artichokes. I love artichokes.
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They're so underrated. I also call them like they're
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the final boss of vegetables because they're like usually the
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most difficult one to learn how to like when you first start
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out, like a potato is easy. Then, you know, potatoes and
9:03
carrots, and then maybe you graduate something, but you
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finish at Artichoke, the final boss.
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It's the final boss of vegetables.
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I love it. Yeah.
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So artichoke is my favorite vegetable.
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Yeah. And we grew up in my family
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eating artichokes. And at first it was just a very
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simple, like, boil it for an hour and then dip it in
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mayonnaise or melted butter with Parmesan, you know?
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But but they have come so far, you know, of elevated them.
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Now I serve them differently, but this is kind of a tribute
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tattoo to my life. OK.
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So you're the first growth of the artichoke.
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You just see the artichoke, right?
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And then you cut it in half and you look inside the artichoke,
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right? Transformation.
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You flower, right? So it's like, it's kind of like
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my story in a tattoo, I guess, if you will.
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I mean, my tattoos, I didn't get my first tattoo till I was 42.
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I got one of my business. Leave it to keep it.
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I got one these birds, right? And these birds are kivit birds,
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right? It's called a northern lap wing.
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It's a Dutch bird, right? It's the Kivit and so there's
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three of them and that represents my family, OK.
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And then I've got my growth. That's a cool, that's a cool
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story. And you got the pinky ring.
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And I got the pinky ring. Pinky ring?
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You said final boss, right? Yeah.
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Somebody told me that you can't wear a pinky ring unless you're
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a boss. Yeah, I feel like a boss.
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There you go, I I used to flex a pinky ring.
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Yeah. You know, it looks good, right?
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It's got some some turquoise in there.
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Yeah. Yeah, when we were talking
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about, you know, making food delicious, sometimes I feel like
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chefs, we, we sometimes aren't. We're we're attached to the
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process, but sometimes we're not attached to the end result.
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Meaning that when it leaves the kitchen, sometimes we forget
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we're, we're doing 100 covers. We, we think about it right when
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it goes out, but we don't think about it much after it goes out.
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The amount of effort and thought that goes into from the
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receiving to the cutting board to the to the pot to the plate,
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you think about it every step of the way, but as soon as it
11:02
leaves the kitchen, you think about it much less, if not at
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all. Yeah, you're moving on.
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You're moving on, right? You're moving on to the next
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dish where when you do that, sometimes I think you think
11:13
about the aesthetics and this, that and the other, but you lose
11:17
the connection with the end result.
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And I think about like the analogy of a surgeon, right?
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The surgeon is more attached to the end result than the process,
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right? Because the surgeon has to go
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in, they have to find, you know, the disease and they have to cut
11:32
it right out. And they got to be very sniper
11:34
specific to get it out, right? And if it's done, it's done.
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Great job, mission accomplished. Where if they were a surgeon
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artist, they might show off well.
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I could do my knife skills and I could cut all the way around
11:46
here and I could stitch this up very beautifully.
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And look at look at my surgical precision and I cut all the way
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over here and look at all this and I might have got it out
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right. That's how chefs are sometimes.
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We want to show you all this other stuff, but we lose.
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The most important thing is like, was it delicious?
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Did the plate come back empty? Right.
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Did they find it delicious? Was the customer satisfied?
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Mission accomplished? And sometimes we lose ourselves
12:08
in the process and we forget about the end results.
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Like the Indiana Jones scene in the first movie where the guy
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comes out with all the swords and he's doing all this flash
12:16
and Indiana Jones just shoots him, right?
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It's like, that's what we're trying to do.
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We just want the result, right? It's like you'd have all the
12:22
flash, but it didn't matter. Bullet in the gun, that's all
12:24
that mattered. So, yeah, I mean, I, I've been
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ranting about this a lot on the podcast on the stop, because
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people are. Like, but I like it.
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I know it's. I like it.
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It's something that I think it's an important conversation, but
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at the same time I feel like I'm beating that.
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Look at the tattoo. Yeah.
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And result. You know what I mean?
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Yeah. And and what you're talking
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about, you're talking about with a surgeon is they got to go in
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and they got to do their their important work, right.
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But the important work is not done until the person's healed.
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Right. You know what I mean?
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So, you know, one thing that we used to always say in the
12:53
restaurant was every plate for every table.
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You know, like you can serve, I think Thomas Keller may have
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said this, you can serve like 99 perfect plates, but the 100
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plate goes out wrong, you fail. Yeah, You know what I mean?
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So it's I think it is important to look at it as a whole until
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the end. I remember I used to watch
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busboys and, and I'd always watch the plates coming back to
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see if they had food on the, on the plates, you know, and of
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course you're going to work at some plate, some places where,
13:21
you know, somebody orders a big plate of food and takes 2 bites
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of it and they love it. But they're just like not really
13:26
there to eat, you know, I like whenever you go somewhere where
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they're eat, I want them to enjoy.
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And I think that's what's kind of cool about like what I do now
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is because I have to start from inception of an idea you want me
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to cook for you and then go through the entire process to
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figure out what all that is. And then how to build it up and
13:53
set it up, and then how to get it there and then how to execute
13:56
it. And then how to follow up and
13:57
make sure that you had a good time, you know, So it's this
14:00
whole like this cycle and it's rinse, rinse, repeat, rinse,
14:04
repeat, you know, and it's very, very interesting.
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It's funny when you know, talking about plates coming
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back, I know a lot, a lot of times when I would be a chef,
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when I was a chef, I'm sorry. And I would look at plates and I
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would say they don't like their food and they didn't touch it.
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And I would tell the server go check on that table.
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I tell the manager, go check on the table.
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I don't think they'll like their food.
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And they would come back and they said no, they said
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everything's fine. I said, but they didn't touch
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it. And they said, I know, but maybe
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they're not hungry, but they said everything's fine.
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I said, look, I know you think that, but if they're paying for
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food and they're not eating it, something's wrong.
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And if they're saying everything's fine, you need to
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dig a little bit deeper. Most people aren't going to say
14:44
anything. Right.
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Most people are not going to say anything.
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And I think a lot of times we, you know, looking back at
14:50
restaurant service when the plates are coming back, look
14:52
what people are not eating. Understand, like you might think
14:54
it's brilliant, but if no one's eating it, probably not good or
14:57
taste it. Maybe you over brined it and
14:59
it's too salty, right? You and you didn't know because
15:02
you didn't happen to taste the protein and you didn't know it
15:04
sat in the in the brine, you know, 30 minutes longer than it
15:07
should have. So I think, I think tasting food
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and just, you know, having that acute awareness, situational
15:15
awareness in the dining room and noticing plates that are coming
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back and noticing what people are not eating.
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You know, when, when someone gets their plate and they take a
15:22
bite and they do, they push a little bit forward and they say,
15:25
I'm, I'm fine, I'm full. It's like, no, they don't like
15:27
something. Yeah, pay attention.
15:29
So like thinking about, you know, those, those processes and
15:34
stuff, you know, and, and like as a, as a chef and you
15:38
understand this, you know, you're, you're only as strong as
15:41
your team, right? You know what I mean?
15:43
And so like for the over brining and for the different types of
15:46
things that can be mishaps and you don't get the opportunity to
15:49
taste it, you're you're relying on on other people to be your
15:56
advocate, your ambassador. You know, that's a, that's a, a
16:02
different thing than really kind of what I experienced right now.
16:05
You know what I mean? Now I'm pretty much in charge of
16:07
everything. I have guys that work with me
16:09
and and the cool thing about how it is now versus how it was in
16:12
the restaurant is the guy that guys that work with me now,
16:15
they're all like executive chefs, they're all
16:17
professionals. And it's really cool too,
16:18
because you know, as a chef and you'll remember this in your
16:21
restaurant, you would cut the same fish, you would pretty much
16:26
make this unless you had a revolving menu.
16:27
You're doing the same thing, kind of going through the
16:29
motions and you get to the point where you're not tasting that
16:32
brine meat because you've tasted it 100 times and you know, OK,
16:35
it's been in there for four days.
16:36
It's perfect, you know, but what's cool about what I do now
16:40
is I think I used the word bespoke before, right?
16:44
So like it's always different. It's a, it's a challenge that
16:48
you build, you set up and you move on after you, you, you kill
16:51
it, you know, and that's what I like about it because like, say
16:54
you come and cook with me. You're going to come and do an
16:56
experience that you haven't done before.
16:58
That's different. Maybe you've done it before, but
16:59
it's going to be a different group, a different place, a
17:02
different sort of setup. So it's kind of like re engaging
17:05
with your passion. And that's what I love about
17:09
what I've been able to to set up.
17:11
Leave it to keep it is it creates a forum where we can all
17:14
get together and just get in touch with our passion and our
17:17
our passion is connecting with people and creating great
17:20
whatever it is experiences through food.
17:22
Let let me ask you a little bit about the business simply
17:26
because what you do private shelfing, you know, cooking in
17:31
people's homes and, and put it on these parties.
17:34
I don't have a lot of experience in that.
17:35
I've done it a couple of times. I think we talked about that
17:37
before and it's, it's kind of a foreign world for me.
17:40
And a lot of people always ask me for advice like, Hey, I'm
17:42
starting my catering business. What do I need to know?
17:45
Like, I don't know if you're asking the wrong person.
17:47
I've never, I, I've filled in for people.
17:50
I've never had my own business. But if you were looking back at
17:54
it, because I'm sure when you first started, you got a steep
17:56
learning curve, like, Oh yeah. What were some of the bigger
17:58
failures that you had early early on that you could save
18:01
some people some headaches that are listening?
18:03
I mean, you know, the thing about being a going into
18:06
people's homes and and cooking is you're going into foreign
18:09
territory. You know what I mean?
18:11
You don't know if you're going to show up and there's going to
18:13
be pans that are worth cooking there.
18:15
You don't know if there's going to be a cutting board, you don't
18:19
know if there's going to be gas. Maybe they forgot to pay the gas
18:22
bill. You know, has that ever
18:23
happened? We went to cook a pig at a, at
18:26
a, at a, at a mansion, right? This beautiful home.
18:28
We need to cook a pig there for like 30 people, right?
18:30
So I use a Kahachina, right? So we had the pig set up.
18:33
We were setting up the pig. We built fire, we got
18:34
everything. And it takes 6 hours to cook the
18:37
pig. So that's enough time to go into
18:38
the house and set up in the kitchen and prep all the stuff
18:41
that goes with it. We go in and we turn the stove
18:44
on to start boiling some water. There was no gas, right?
18:48
So we were going to fry bacon wrapped quail.
18:50
We're going to do all these different things.
18:52
Well, we ended up cooking everything over the charcoal on
18:54
the pig, right? So that is.
18:57
So you have to learn how to improvise.
18:59
You've got to be able to overcome and achieve, you know,
19:01
you got to be ready for the unexpected, yeah.
19:04
Right. It's not like a restaurant
19:05
kitchen where you know that oven doesn't work.
19:06
Use the other one. Yeah, totally right.
19:08
You know, or you could call a guy and come and fix it, right.
19:11
So, so I think being able to be agile, you know, the, the saying
19:16
never let him see a sweat, you know, just just prepare for like
19:20
everything. I, I went and did an event a
19:23
couple weeks ago at, at, you know, somebody's house that I
19:25
can't talk about, right. And they didn't want anybody to
19:29
come into their house. There was a security everywhere
19:32
you went. We were like escorted, you know
19:34
what I mean? So it was a, it was a very
19:37
peculiar situation. We're cooking for 2417 year old
19:41
girls and then the family and it was, it was their, their
19:45
daughter's birthday. And it was this beautiful place
19:48
on the lake, right? And so this big backyard.
19:50
So we set up and it was, I was working with a, a company that
19:54
was like a vent company that was setting up like the, the flowers
19:59
and like the table. And I did all the food and I
20:01
brought my wood boards, but I was like, OK, just in case I'm
20:06
going to prepare. So I brought my Blackstone
20:09
grill. I brought my cassette burners.
20:11
I brought. 5 tables with the the spandex covers.
20:15
I brought cutting boards, I brought everything I needed
20:18
other than an oven, right? And we were able to set up a
20:20
table and each table became a station.
20:22
We did 14 different dishes cooking outside under the trees,
20:29
right? But but the only reason that
20:31
that was able to be successful is because I was prepared for
20:36
the unexpected. So you you start to already
20:38
build in mitigation plans and contingency now I do, yeah.
20:41
But early on, you probably. Had to early on, I would have
20:43
been like, you know, I mean, I've showed up to a house before
20:47
where there was like, just like you remember, do you remember?
20:50
Did you ever. I'm sure you read the French
20:52
Laundry cookbook. Yeah.
20:53
Or maybe it was in maybe it was in of a chef or the mind of a
20:57
chef or not the, the, the so you want to be a chef or the reach
20:59
of a chef of this whole of a chef, right.
21:01
Yeah. And talking about Thomas Keller,
21:03
when he started, I think it was, it might have been the
21:06
restaurant that he started in the in the, in the woods, in the
21:09
mountains before the French Laundry, right.
21:11
And he gets maybe it was a French Laundry, but they get
21:13
this place and the only thing they had in there was like beat
21:17
up stock pots. So they were sauteing fish in
21:21
these beat up sock pots, you know what I mean?
21:23
So like that is the unexpected, you know, but you've got to be
21:27
able to overcome and to achieve. Yeah, they still expect
21:30
delicious. Food they still, they don't
21:31
care, right, right. The, the, the, the people that
21:34
come in there, they don't care that you have 45 tickets coming
21:38
in within 10 seconds. They want their food right if
21:41
they order it and they don't care about all the other people
21:43
around them. They care about themselves so.
21:45
Let's say someone is starting at 0.
21:47
The only thing they have is an idea.
21:49
Yeah, I, I want to do this. Where do they start?
21:52
Like like if you said these are like the first five steps to
21:55
getting your business going, what would those first fives?
21:57
Manifest the shit out of it. OK right.
22:00
So I used to sit in a chair and be like, I'm going to cook in
22:04
Airbnb's for the highest level people in the world and guess
22:08
what I do now? Yeah, I, I, I know, I know you
22:10
can't say those names, but I'm curious.
22:12
Like I, I put. That now who?
22:13
Whose house were you at? So.
22:16
Of the ND as do you have to sign them?
22:17
On I mean, you know, I mean, I sign ND as you know, and the
22:19
cool thing about it is like, you know, I worked in these
22:24
restaurants and I cooked for Shaq and I cooked for, you know,
22:26
Nolan Ryan and I cook for all these people.
22:27
And that like my my take on that is I want to treat them like a
22:32
normal person. Yeah, right.
22:33
So they call me back, but the, you know, the, I guess the five
22:37
steps would be like, plan your work and work your plan, you
22:40
know, understand what you're doing.
22:43
Yeah. Learn how to connect with people
22:46
on a high level and have them trust you.
22:48
You've got to build trust. You're going into somebody's
22:50
sacred space. But where do you even start?
22:53
Like how do you even announce that this is your business?
22:57
I mean. How did you like LegalZoom?
22:59
How did you get your first customer?
23:01
LegalZoom. Well, I, I worked in restaurants
23:05
for 30 years, you know, and, and as a chef, like some, you know,
23:10
chefs sometimes have a wall between them and the clients
23:13
sometimes to open kitchen. That's a new kind of thing.
23:15
But I was all would always go out into the dining room, right?
23:18
And, and I would build rapport with the people that I was
23:21
serving and the regulars that would come in, I would always go
23:24
and talk to them. And you, you remember Grant
23:28
Achatz, the guy, right? Right.
23:30
He, he had these, these, these people that he would do that for
23:33
it at the restaurants that he worked at.
23:34
And he would cook them dishes, right?
23:36
And he would always cook them something different, right?
23:39
Never make them the same thing. Yeah.
23:41
Right. And so we send them the styled
23:43
out PX dish. So, So what?
23:44
Yeah. So whatever it is, you know, but
23:46
that person feels like a king, right?
23:49
You know, And I believe as a, as an experienced creator or as a
23:54
chef or as something like that is kind of your, your goal is to
24:00
make people feel like they're the most important.
24:02
They're the. Only person in the dining room
24:03
today. Yeah.
24:04
And if you can do that, then you've got something, you know,
24:08
you've got to believe in yourself.
24:10
You've got to understand how to do it.
24:12
You've got to know how to communicate and to talk with
24:14
people. And you can never show them that
24:15
you're scared. So how did you get your first
24:17
client? There were people that I worked
24:19
with in the restaurant, like clients in the restaurant.
24:21
They'd be like, can you do a dinner for me?
24:22
They sure I. Can do it there for you and so
24:23
did that like is that when the light bulb went off say I want
24:27
to do more of. This I was very fortunate, OK, I
24:29
knew I wanted to do it. Yes.
24:31
OK, so I worked from dishwasher to culinary director, right?
24:35
And all the positions in between and at culinary director, I
24:42
realized I was like, I am, I am creating a lot of opportunity
24:48
for a lot of people. And so, you know, there's,
24:52
there's some things in my life that I've kind of gone through
24:55
some experiences that I've gone through that have really molded
24:58
me and changed me and turned lights on and, and and created
25:02
understanding. And, and in this time of my life
25:05
and my career, I had a couple of those like very profound
25:08
moments. And I was at a level where I
25:12
became kind of stagnant because I was going through the motions.
25:15
I was cutting the same fish every single day.
25:17
I was yelling at the same fry cook every single day.
25:19
I was calling out the same orders.
25:20
I was listening to the same music while I was selling the
25:22
same food every single day. And it was just kind of like,
25:25
like breathing. Groundhog Day.
25:27
Exactly. It's Groundhog Day, and I
25:30
started sitting in this chair and talking to people about how
25:34
I was going to create this, this thing I wanted to cook for
25:39
Airbnb was a was a, was a place where people were coming and I
25:45
saw an opportunity. And the private chef thing at
25:47
the time, this was six years ago.
25:48
The private chef thing at the time was what's the thing?
25:51
But it wasn't a big thing. There was a couple of guys in
25:52
town that were doing it. Yeah.
25:53
Right, it's a big. Thing now it's a big thing.
25:55
Now it's. A big thing, and I know some
25:56
great chefs, yourself included, that are doing it and. 10s of
25:59
billions of dollars a year. Like, OK, so without saying how
26:03
much money you make, Yeah. Are you making more money now?
26:06
I'm. Making more money that I ever
26:07
made. Working as now.
26:09
Now I am AI am, I am I'm a special case, you know.
26:14
Yeah, I know. It's more the exception.
26:15
I'm sure there's a lot of people that struggle.
26:17
I mean, it's hard, you know, it's a daily grind.
26:19
People are like, oh, you're so lucky.
26:20
You own your business. You know, you probably have like
26:22
whatever you want, all the free time.
26:24
I'm working constantly, right? You know, and what it is is I
26:27
believe, and I think I said this, that relationships are the
26:29
fabric of life, right? So you create relationships,
26:33
people trust you, you nurture those relationships, you follow
26:37
through on what you say you're going to do, and you crush.
26:39
It is a lot of your does a lot of your business come from just
26:42
referrals and word of mouth like, oh, I work with so and so
26:44
you need to, you need to cook with him.
26:46
I didn't register my business on Google until this year.
26:49
Oh, really? It was just all word of mouth.
26:50
It's all been word of mouth, you know, now I have, I have made
26:53
relationships with, with certain people that have helped me kind
26:57
of like in a, in AII was OK through a relationship that I
27:02
had with a really good chef. He was leaving town and he did
27:05
these dinners for this person. And whenever he left town, he's
27:08
like, I know somebody you should meet.
27:09
So I went and met that person and that person worked for a
27:11
concierge company. And so their clients that come
27:14
through, they refer them to different chefs.
27:16
Well, I became their best chef and they, I actually charged
27:21
like 10 times the amount of all the other chefs.
27:24
But there was there was this opportunity where they were
27:27
like, we need a chef because the chef came in here and charged
27:30
$150.00 a person and opened up a jar of spaghetti sauce and
27:33
poured it into a pot. Yeah, well, there's a lot of
27:35
that shit too, right? You know what I mean?
27:36
Take pride in your craft. Yeah.
27:39
You know, there's a lot of private chefs sometimes and, you
27:41
know, there's sometimes a lot of people have reached out to me in
27:44
the past, like, do chefs respect private chefs?
27:48
Like, yeah, I mean, if like I don't get into that, but I
27:51
understand where that comes from because a lot of people skipped
27:55
culinary school or graduated culinary school and became
27:58
private chefs. I, I don't, I'm, and I'm not
28:01
saying I don't respect those people, but I understand why
28:03
sometimes they feel insecure where in a lot of other cases
28:06
there's people that were legit chefs that then became private
28:10
chefs. So I, I don't think it's as much
28:13
of an argument as people make it out to be.
28:15
But at the end of the day, just like you have chefs and
28:18
restaurants that are opening up a jar of spaghetti sauce, you
28:21
also have private chefs that are doing that.
28:22
And just like you have chefs and restaurants that are cooking
28:25
beautiful tasting menus, you also have private chefs that are
28:28
cooking beautiful tasting menus. And it's a, it's a, it's a
28:31
sliding scale now. It is and, and, and, you know,
28:34
we talked about this a little bit, but the, the, the, the
28:36
private chef industry here in Austin has like there's so many
28:40
people that have come into the. Game, there's so much.
28:42
Money, but there's so much opportunity and so much there's
28:44
room for just about everybody in the sandbox, you know, and, and
28:48
that I think that the, the, the, the, the level of the private
28:53
chef is also rising. Right.
28:55
And something that's new to the to the private chef world.
28:58
I think it's new to me because I'm understanding it now more
29:02
where I never thought about it, you know, five years ago.
29:05
And that is now as a private chef, at least before, I think
29:09
you were limited to the, to the chefs that you could get for
29:11
private chefing. We're now, I think you get chefs
29:14
at all levels, at the highest levels for private chefing.
29:16
And I think that really changes the game and it creates
29:18
opportunities for chefs that say, Hey, I'm tired of the brick
29:22
and mortar. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm tired of
29:24
doing this. I'm tired of being an employee.
29:26
I'm just going to be private chefing be my own boss and
29:29
probably I mean, is it correct? Probably make more money in a
29:32
lot of. Cases, I mean, look, OK, so you
29:34
know this guy, right? He won the Kusto or yeah, right,
29:37
He has done private events, right?
29:39
And and people will put him on their private jets and fly him
29:42
wherever they are to do these things.
29:45
And the thing about it is it's great is the people that are
29:47
doing that, they don't care. Maybe they care, but they are
29:52
willing to spend the money for the worth of the, you know, the,
29:57
the, the, the juice is worth the squeeze, right?
29:59
You know, and, and so like, yes, all levels, there's going to be,
30:04
there's going to be Bachelorette parties that are coming to stay
30:07
in at Airbnb and they want somebody to come over and cook a
30:10
brunch for them, right? And they're going to pay $50 a
30:11
person. There's going to be chefs that
30:12
are going to do that, right? But then there's also going to
30:14
be a, you know, 16 course wine dinner that has, you know, like
30:20
crazy dishes on it that they're going to pay 500.
30:22
Dollars a person, yeah, here's a crazy story because I don't have
30:25
a lot of experience in, in the private chef world, but when I
30:27
retired as a chef, some people reached out to it like, hey,
30:30
will you come cook for us and, and this other city.
30:33
And I was like, I, I really didn't want to, I was kind of
30:36
done cooking. I didn't feel like it.
30:38
So I threw some crazy number out thinking they would say no and,
30:43
and I said, yeah, I'll do it for $30,000.
30:46
And they're like, OK, I was like, oh shit, I didn't, I
30:48
didn't expect them to say OK, I was like, oh shit, I better
30:51
start get like, I better start thinking about this.
30:54
I didn't end up doing it. You know, something fell through
30:56
with the date or whatever, but I just remember thinking like, oh
30:59
shit, like sometimes people don't even blink.
31:01
And I started thinking about that.
31:02
It's like if you go to a hotel and you rent a ballroom and you
31:06
do the catering, they're going to spend 30,000 anyway.
31:07
So they're used to those pricing.
31:09
And a lot of these people that are doing that own corporations
31:13
or are doing it for business. Yeah.
31:16
And this becomes a tax write off, Right, Right.
31:19
So the money's either gonna go Christmas, it's gonna go
31:21
somewhere, you know, so, but but, you know, I think what you
31:25
do is you align yourself in a way to where, like I said, you
31:30
follow through on what you're gonna say.
31:31
You're gonna do you. You know, you can be anything
31:35
you want, right? You can be anything you want.
31:39
I did this thing talking about experiences, right?
31:42
I did this thing called the Landmark Forum.
31:44
And the Landmark Forum is kind of like a Tony Robbins event,
31:46
right? And it's like this really
31:47
intense. Some people say it's cold,
31:49
right? But it was good for me.
31:50
And the the message in it is you're nothing but your word,
31:56
right? So I would sit in this chair and
32:00
talk about how I was going to be a private chef cooking for the
32:02
highest level people in the world.
32:04
I would stand in the mirror in the morning and I would tell
32:06
myself that I could do whatever I wanted.
32:09
And I believed in it. And it started happening.
32:13
I created relationships, talking about it.
32:16
You know, you were a chef, right?
32:19
You just said that somebody was like, I need you to do this
32:21
dinner. They knew who you were.
32:23
You. You were able to back your word
32:24
up. And they were going to pay
32:25
$30,000 to cook them food. You know, I've gotten tips that
32:31
were $10,000 stacks of hundreds. Yeah, because I did a great job.
32:36
Yeah. You know anything is possible.
32:38
Say the rubber band band. Yeah.
32:40
I mean, it was like I was like, whoa, you know?
32:42
But anything is possible. You know, I think that, you
32:48
know, a good definition of success is found at the
32:55
intersection of opportunity and preparation, right?
32:59
So if you prepare, if you prepare, you believe, and you
33:04
just keep doing it, eventually, if you can see it, that
33:08
opportunity's gonna come across your place.
33:10
The harder I train, the luckier I get.
33:11
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, It is not an accident.
33:17
It is not an accident that people who work hard and believe
33:21
in themselves find opportunity. I want to go back to something
33:24
that you said just because I'm sure a lot of people are like,
33:26
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
33:27
What did he mean? Well, you said like LegalZoom
33:29
and then we just kind of switch subjects.
33:31
So LegalZoom, I went in and I started the LLC, right?
33:34
So you do that like I'm busy LegalZoom all these other
33:36
websites, yeah. Instead of being leave it to
33:38
keepit@gmail.com, Yeah, I'm Danny or info at Leave it to
33:43
keepit.com. I have an entity.
33:45
Yes, I have a website. So you have an LLC, you got the
33:47
website right? You build the business.
33:49
Out build the business and and there's so much power in social
33:53
media. Yeah, right.
33:54
I feel like the largest opportunity as a podcaster or
33:58
author or chef is reach. The more people that know about
34:04
you, the more opportunity, the bigger the pool is right, right.
34:09
And and think about your bait, right?
34:12
Think about your bait, because if you have little bait, you get
34:15
little fish, right? So understand.
34:19
Your worth that a little bit. More understand your worth,
34:22
right? Yeah.
34:24
Think about a plumber, OK? A plumber goes into your house
34:26
that you've been like trying to fix this problem for a month,
34:30
right? You can't fix it.
34:32
So he comes in, fixes it in 20 minutes, charges you $250,
34:37
right? He's like my rate's $250 an
34:40
hour. He charges you $250 for 20
34:42
minute job, right? Well, he has worked for 20 years
34:47
to learn how to. Fix you know to know which.
34:49
One, you know what I mean? So so you said train hard, you
34:53
get lucky. You know what I mean?
34:55
You understand your value, right?
34:57
Right, Because your time is the the only commodity that you'll
34:59
never get. Back and and you know, there's
35:01
that's also a dangerous game to play because a lot of people
35:03
think, well, I know my value, but no one's paying for it.
35:06
So that's really not your value, right?
35:08
So if your value is, if you're saying, well, I'm worth this and
35:12
I'll accept nothing less than this, but no one's buying your
35:14
services, then that might not be your value.
35:16
Well, there's a saying that goes sometimes you got to bend like a
35:18
weed in the wind. Yeah, you know what I mean?
35:20
So that's where like a negotiation comes in, right?
35:25
So you can figure out a way to make it win for both of you.
35:29
So you're not going to go and do a job.
35:31
You're not going to go do a job, right?
35:32
Where they're going to pay you $50 a person to do an event
35:36
because you know that the food is going to cost you $20 a
35:39
person, the taxes are going to cost you $15 a person, and your
35:43
time is not worth $15 a person. Right.
35:46
So what are some of your just on the business side, if we're
35:50
talking negotiation skills, do you have like some of some of
35:54
your negotiation best practices that you could share so some
35:56
people listening could? I have assets, OK?
35:59
I have assets. I have proof of of work.
36:06
I have, I have examples of situations.
36:09
I have testimonials. I have ways for people to know
36:14
that maybe I'm not for everybody, You know what I mean?
36:22
And I also stand firm now. I was, well, I said this
36:24
earlier, I was blessed, right? I went in this, OK, So when I
36:28
started my business, I was also going through a divorce, right?
36:33
I left my job and got a divorce within like 6 months of each
36:38
other. I had worked for 30 years
36:42
building a career in the restaurant industry and I jumped
36:45
off of a tree to hope I could fly in the private chef world.
36:49
I got my degree in entrepreneurship and management,
36:51
so I knew that in my blood I wanted to build something.
36:55
So you're basically burning the ships.
36:57
Yes, yeah, right. And so I started fresh and
37:01
there's a really good story behind all of that.
37:04
I. Mean can you share it?
37:06
So without saying too much, I had a major transformative event
37:14
in my life. A couple of them back-to-back
37:16
month apart. The 1st.
37:18
One, I'd like a spiritual awakening.
37:19
A spiritual. Awakening.
37:20
Yeah, right. There's a, there's a podcaster
37:23
named Joe Rogan, right? And he might talk about this
37:26
spiritual awakening. Yeah.
37:28
OK, OK, so, so I, you know, I was, I was in this, in this, in
37:34
this time in this place with these people.
37:37
And we had an event to where I became to understand a little
37:43
bit more about myself. And what I became to understand
37:45
about myself is everything I had done up until this point was
37:49
give everything I have to everybody else.
37:51
I was a husband, I was a employee, I was a father.
37:56
I was all of these things, right?
38:00
But I saved nothing for myself, right?
38:03
Sure, I had gone to college and I'd gone to culinary school and
38:06
I had built a career and I had done these things right.
38:09
But I did it for the betterment of other other people.
38:13
One time I had a a chef who called me and he's like, I was
38:16
sous chef at the time. And he's like Danny.
38:18
He's like, do you ever lay in bed at night and wonder how
38:20
you're going to support two kids and a wife?
38:23
And I was like, man, yes. And he's like, do you ever
38:27
wonder how bad you want to go be executive chef of the worst
38:30
restaurant in the in the company?
38:31
And I was like, no. And then I talked to one of my
38:35
mentors and he says, Danny, don't go to the best place, go
38:39
to the worst place and make a name for yourself.
38:42
So, you know, these, these like trials and tribulations that
38:47
I've, I've had throughout my life, I've gone through some
38:50
really hard stuff, right? It is all led to where I'm at
38:53
right now. It, it, it made me able to go
38:56
into that house and cook that pig and all of that stuff with
39:00
no gas. You know, one of my favorite
39:04
sayings is a rubber band is not effective unless it's stretched.
39:08
You know what I mean? So, so like there are, there are
39:12
lessons in life and, and, and and you know, if you listen, if
39:19
you listen and you, you, you can, can hear it and can see it,
39:24
then you have opportunity to do whatever the hell you want.
39:29
I want to touch on the current state of the the culinary
39:33
industry and you and I have been cooking roughly around same
39:38
amount of time we probably start our careers.
39:40
I started mine in 95. 95 to 95 dishwasher.
39:43
Same time and times have changed.
39:47
Not only have times changed with what the expectation of the cook
39:50
coming into the industry is now, but times have changed with how
39:53
we manage now. So the way I managed or the way
39:56
I was managed in in 1995 is not the way I would manage people
40:00
today. And even, you know, three years
40:02
ago when I was still actively a chef, I probably wouldn't even
40:06
manage exactly the way I was managing 3 years ago.
40:10
In your personal experience, how did you evolve as a chef from
40:16
when you became like, when you came into the industry, what you
40:18
saw, what you became to what you are now?
40:21
Oh, trial and error, man. You know, like I remember, like
40:26
you said, you know, in that at that time people were smoking
40:28
pot in the walk in's and I maybe they still are, I don't know.
40:31
But there was a lot more freedom, I think.
40:34
And yeah, but now they're vaping walking.
40:36
But you know, and also like like in 95, the the idea of chef was
40:43
still like it wasn't as glamorous as as a position it is
40:47
now, right. There was like, there was like
40:51
in 95, there was like Mario Batali and there's Marco Pierre
40:54
White and there's Gordon Ramsay. I don't even know if those guys
40:56
were making a name for themselves.
40:57
Tonight, I mean, they were like. Yeah, they were like closer to
41:00
the to the end of. So, so yeah, I mean so not.
41:03
Only that, but time moves slower then.
41:04
Yeah, I mean, you only had the Food Network and and Food and
41:07
Wine magazine. And you didn't waste time on
41:09
social media? No, it was none of that.
41:10
And you didn't waste time on Netflix and any of.
41:12
That no, right. I didn't have any of that, I
41:14
mean. You were bored back then
41:15
sometimes. I was working, yeah.
41:17
I was washing dishes, right? And I, like, I realized then
41:21
that I had power because I could make money.
41:25
You know what I mean? I didn't care about, like, the
41:27
glitz and glam. I wanted to make money, right?
41:30
And so I watched, you know, people because I was just
41:35
getting in the industry. OK?
41:36
So when I was when I was 15, I got caught by my mother smoking
41:41
marijuana. I was smoking and not my mom.
41:43
I was smoking it. And she said if you're old
41:45
enough to do that, you're old enough to get a job.
41:48
So I went and got a job where everybody's cooked hot.
41:50
Good. Mom, right?
41:51
Yeah. And so it was kind of like,
41:53
thanks, mom. But in that I learned so much.
41:57
I learned, you know, I fell in love cooking at like, 6 years
42:01
old, right? But whenever I got into this
42:04
magical place and it was a restaurant that floated on the
42:07
lake and it was, you know, busy, all of these people doing these
42:12
things like creating this stuff like rough, rough, you know, it
42:16
wasn't like fancy. It was like people wearing
42:18
bandanas sweating, you know, but I was washing dishes and how
42:22
bust my ass in the in the dish pit, right?
42:26
And I would wash dishes so fast and so hard that I'd finished
42:30
before the kitchen got done wiping everything down.
42:32
And then I'd go into the kitchen and I'd be like Kitty one of
42:34
those and I help them wipe the stuff down.
42:36
So I learned that hard work would would help you grow
42:40
because they were like, we want you to come in and start
42:42
prepping now. So then I got to move out of the
42:44
dish pit and into the kitchen and start prepping, right?
42:46
So I learned that that performance based accountability
42:51
was a thing, right? So that was my first like
42:54
lesson, right? And then I, you know, work my
42:58
way through different restaurants and stuff.
43:00
And I ended up, you know, after college, I ended up in culinary
43:04
school, right? And at culinary school, where'd
43:06
you go? It's it's Culinary Academy of
43:09
Austin. Now it's Escoffier Institute.
43:11
OK, right. So this was back whenever it's
43:13
just like a Little Chef school I was going to go to.
43:18
Well, CCA, what was that called? Or no California.
43:21
Culinary no here. It was the other one.
43:23
It was cordon blue. Cordon blue.
43:25
It's going to go there, right? But they wouldn't let me
43:27
transfer my college credits. So I was going to have to take
43:29
all these classes again, pay all this extra money.
43:31
And then they failed their health inspection.
43:33
And I was like, so then I found this other school.
43:35
I went to those school, but at the, the school, you know, I had
43:38
been working at this point in restaurants for, you know, I
43:41
don't know, 10 years almost, right, Not quite.
43:44
But I knew how to hold a knife. I knew how to, to, to, to, to,
43:49
to do things in the kitchen. So I learned how to mentor,
43:53
right, right. So I and then I somebody told me
43:56
that teaching is the highest level of learning.
44:00
It's true. Like if if you're still not sure
44:03
how to do something and you teach someone, you you retain
44:05
it. It's the.
44:05
Highest level of learning, right?
44:06
Because you have to know it in order to show it correct, you
44:10
know? And before I'd gone to culinary
44:12
school, before I'd gone to college, I read from cover to
44:14
cover. The 7th edition of the CIA.
44:17
Cookbook, the professional chef, or whatever.
44:18
Professional chef that was my I read that I've read that book
44:21
like 5 times, so I like had an idea as technique and all these
44:25
different things I'm. Going to interrupt.
44:27
Isn't it funny how in our era of chefs, like, we used to read
44:30
textbooks? Yeah, like that was sometimes
44:33
the best cookbooks were the textbooks on cooking.
44:35
What is it now TikTok? It's TikTok or YouTube or
44:38
whatever. But on cooking.
44:40
Or Chef's PSA podcast. Right.
44:42
I mean, yeah. Yeah, on cooking, that's what I
44:45
used. I used to read the Professional
44:46
Chef 7th edition or whatever it was and then on Cooking.
44:49
Those were like my 2 most used books.
44:52
And the food lovers companion. Like right like I would.
44:55
We would stand at every chef and quiz this people.
44:57
Like, what does matignon mean? You better fucking know you're
45:01
gonna get sent to clean the freezer.
45:03
I love it. Yeah.
45:04
So back to managing. So going on through that, then I
45:09
got AI was in culinary school. I was working at a restaurant.
45:15
I was working at this restaurant called Castle Hill Cafe.
45:17
Have you heard of Castle Hill Cafe?
45:18
No, So it was this iconic restaurant, right?
45:20
And somebody had to die for you to get in there.
45:22
And this is my first like big restaurant to work in.
45:24
I worked at Jeffrey's, which was fantastic.
45:27
But then I like halfway to culinary school, I was like, I
45:31
was going at night and I was like, I need to go during the
45:34
day because I want to work at night, right?
45:36
So I had them switch my thing. So I took a break from culinary
45:42
school while they built a class that caught up with me.
45:44
So while that was happening, I worked, right?
45:47
And I worked at this place called Castle Hill.
45:49
And what I did to find my job is I picked my 10 favorite
45:53
restaurants in Austin. And week 1, Monday through
45:57
Friday, I'd go to the first five and I'd go in my chef gear with
46:00
my chef bag, my knives ready to go, ready to work.
46:04
Like let me work and then the second week I went to the the
46:08
next next 5. So I and I would just continue
46:10
that week after week after week. And finally I got you know, I
46:13
got like 5 interviews at these great restaurants downtown
46:15
Austin and one of them was Castle Hill Cafe.
46:17
I got a stars there and the chef was a guy named Eric Williams
46:22
and he put me on this station and the clock on the on the
46:25
phone was wrong, but he gave me a timeline and I was looking at
46:28
the clock on the thing and he's like, do you have family
46:29
already? And I was like, yeah, I got an
46:31
hour and a half. He's like, no, you got 12
46:32
minutes. And I was like, oh God.
46:33
So I banged out family mail. Anyways, I won the stars.
46:36
I got the job. I got to work at this place,
46:38
right. And so in that I learned flow
46:44
cuz I had just worked at like, you know, kind of like burger
46:48
places and still like, I mean, the restaurants I worked at were
46:50
like a lake restaurant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:53
But this place was like an iconic high end fine dining
46:56
restaurant that was, you know, rooted in Austin had been around
46:59
since I think 86 and I was there in 2002, I think.
47:03
And so watching the way that worked and this wasn't a
47:06
restaurant that was like, you know, traditional kind of
47:11
kitchen crew. This was, they were all like
47:13
professional cooks, you know, so it was a whole different world.
47:17
Like we didn't have a computer microsystem.
47:19
Everybody like the servers would walk by and they're like, they
47:22
had a baby and they had a mini and the baby was a baby spinach
47:27
salad and the mini was a miniature Caesar.
47:30
And so the servers would walk by and like, I need a baby, I need
47:32
a mini. And you know, so I'm like having
47:35
to remember all of these things plus all of my 5 entree salads
47:38
and like all of the different things, right?
47:40
So this this place like taught me how to like consolidate and
47:45
build speed and understand flow and like know how to, I mean, I
47:49
had a stage how to work. This bit taught me how to work.
47:52
Yeah, right. So that was very good in my sort
47:55
of like development, you know, and then I would like take a
47:59
little bit of like the chef like saw something in me.
48:02
So he'd be like, you know, go help this guy with this, go do
48:04
this with that. So he was kind of like
48:06
delegating me on like little sort of like mentorship type
48:09
things, right. And I worked my way through that
48:11
whole, that whole restaurant and I was able to run the line
48:15
right, which at that position at the head, you have to like
48:19
quarterback every single thing, make sure all of it's in order,
48:23
right? So that learning that order of
48:24
operations, I think once you're going to, you know, if you're
48:27
going to manage somebody, you got to be able to do the job,
48:30
right, right. So learn the job, right.
48:32
So I learned all the jobs there. Then the chef's like, I'm
48:36
leaving, I'm going to quit. And I was like, wow, chef, I
48:40
don't know what to say. And I was graduating from
48:43
culinary school and I was like, here's what I'd like to do.
48:46
I'd like to leave. When you leave, I'm going to put
48:48
my notice in my last day is your last day.
48:50
I was like, will you do me a favor?
48:51
He said, what's that? I was like, will you change me
48:53
to the AM shift and teach me how to roast all the meats and do
48:56
all of the important prep and set up all of your stuff that
48:58
you do. And so for the next two months,
49:01
he taught me his job, right. And then I had got out of
49:04
culinary school and I'd moved to the daytime.
49:06
So at night time I got a job working at a a restaurant called
49:10
Reed Supper Club. And it was a super high end kind
49:12
of like supper club with velvet seeds serving venison and
49:15
beautiful steaks and lobster. And I got a job working saute.
49:20
And so this is a great story, right?
49:24
So when I was at this job, right, I wrote a letter to the
49:27
restaurant to try and get the job.
49:28
They were open a restaurant called capital browser.
49:30
I wrote the capital browser. I'm a budding chef.
49:31
I really want to work with you guys.
49:33
Please hire me and is a little bit more labor than that.
49:36
But they sent that letter to Alex Ralston, who was the chef
49:40
at Reed separate club. He called me and had me in
49:42
Verstage. I got the starch, so I got the
49:44
job. So I was saute 2 saute 1 cooks,
49:47
all the protein, saute 2 cooks, all the setups, all pastas, all
49:50
that stuff. This is my first saute job
49:53
right? So it was intense, but I've made
49:56
it through STAJ my first or second day on the job, I was
49:59
prepping my station, right. So I'm there prepping my
50:01
station, getting all my knife work done, all my knees done,
50:03
getting everything set up. I have to go to the bathroom.
50:06
So I clean my station up and I put my stuff into my my bin and
50:09
I go to the bathroom. Right when I come back,
50:11
somebody's on my station. There's a guy named shows a.
50:14
Shows a. Shows A and shows A was prepping
50:18
because he was doing R&D for a restaurant, Capital Brasserie
50:21
that he was opening up. And I was like, excuse me,
50:25
That's my station. I'm I'm, I need to finish my
50:28
prep. And he turns around and he looks
50:29
at me and he looks down on me. You know what I mean?
50:32
Because Jose is like the chef and I'm just a saute cook.
50:35
And he looks down on me and he says what?
50:38
And I was like, that's my station.
50:42
I have service. I need to continue my prep and
50:45
set my stuff up. He's like, well, I'm here.
50:47
I was like, I, I, I was there just a minute ago.
50:51
He's like, I didn't see you. I was like, I went to the
50:52
bathroom. He's like, well, I didn't know
50:54
you were here. How can I tell you're here?
50:56
And I was like, he's like, let me tell you something.
50:59
He's like, own your fucking station.
51:02
And I was like, wow, on your station.
51:05
So now I know that my station is my fucking station, right?
51:10
And so shows they taught me that I need to have presents and own
51:14
what I'm doing, right? Own what I'm doing.
51:17
Don't don't be timid, right? Have confidence in what you're
51:23
doing in your in your area, on your station.
51:25
I think that was the message, right?
51:28
And so. Was he doing that to get like,
51:31
to teach you a lesson? Yeah.
51:32
Or was he doing that just to be a?
51:34
Dick No, I think he both. Both.
51:36
That was just his way of teaching.
51:37
It shows they was a shows they was a one of those those those
51:42
leaders that was taught to lead in a certain way, you know,
51:46
because he's old school. Yeah, yeah, he's a, he's a
51:48
sweetheart, right? I know him now still right.
51:52
And and and. Shout out to shows.
51:53
They shout out to shows they but you know, that was a very
51:57
important lesson for me, you know, and and then, OK, so
52:01
coming up through the ranks and stuff like that, I've had pans
52:04
thrown at me. I've had, I had a chef that
52:07
would keep his tongs on the on the flat top and it would burn
52:11
you, yeah, if you weren't going fast enough, you know?
52:13
Or, or if they're, if the servers were taking their food
52:15
out the window to, yeah, you know, before it was ready.
52:16
Yeah, yeah. You know, and, and so like the
52:20
chefs coming up were the masters of their domain, they own their
52:24
station and a lot fell. On and they move you off your
52:26
station. Totally.
52:27
They would outwork you and so that's why I say know what
52:30
you're doing, right. But also, I think now the best
52:34
way to do it is what is the saying?
52:35
You get more peas with honey than you do with vinegar or
52:39
whatever, right? Something like that, something
52:42
like that. But you want to lead with love.
52:44
Like Herb Kelleher says, lead with love.
52:46
You want to instruct, you want to show, they say what is it?
52:52
You get the, the mind, then you get the heart, then you get the
52:55
hands. You know what I mean?
52:57
So you, you show them that you can do it, you show them how to
53:01
do it, and then you watch them do it, right?
53:03
And, and teach them. And people are going to be part
53:06
of something that they believe in, something that they feel
53:08
like they're making a difference, right?
53:10
Well, something I was talking about the other day, I was, I
53:12
was doing this leadership seminar and we were talking
53:16
about when people leave jobs. And what people don't understand
53:19
is like, they're leaving you. They.
53:21
Don't leave for money. Yeah, they're not.
53:23
It's not like they're leaving to become doctors.
53:24
They're leaving a cooking job for a cooking job.
53:26
Yeah, unless they're they're changing industries, they're
53:30
usually just leaving in the same industry.
53:32
So what does that tell? You they don't feel important.
53:33
That they are leaving you because they did not feel
53:36
valued. And I, I often tell people like
53:38
when, when your people are leaving to go to the, to a
53:41
similar job in the same industry, it's a real question
53:45
you need to ask yourself, What was in it for them to stay?
53:46
Yeah, there was nothing. There was nothing in it.
53:48
That's why they left. If there was something in it for
53:50
them to stay because they had a relationship with the, you know,
53:52
I've had people work for me for years, even even when I wasn't
53:56
paying them great because they love me.
53:57
They were loyal to me. Or I've had people, you know,
54:00
not leave because they feel like they're a part of the team and
54:03
they're growing and they have a great career trajectory and I'm
54:06
looking out for their vested interest in the future.
54:09
And then I've had other people. It's like, you know, that they
54:12
don't feel a part of team. They leave right away.
54:14
Nothing in it for them. Why would they stay?
54:15
And I think that's a big missing part.
54:18
Like a lot of chefs to there, like everyone quits on me all
54:20
the time. Like, why do you think they're
54:21
quitting? Yeah, like, what's in it for
54:23
them? Why would they work for you if
54:24
there's nothing in it for them? You can't expect people to be
54:27
loyal to you today just because it doesn't work that.
54:31
Way No, it doesn't. They're not lucky to be there,
54:33
right, You know what I mean? And and I feel like in my
54:36
career, I mean I've so you know, at, at I worked at Trulux,
54:39
right, and at Trulux, I worked at every unit in Texas, right?
54:43
I was different levels in the units, but four of them I was
54:50
executive chef, right? And so unfortunately what would
54:54
happen, fortunately for me, unfortunately for somebody else,
54:56
or maybe it was fortunate for them because maybe they just
54:58
weren't in the right place at the right time.
55:00
I would come in and take over their position, right.
55:02
And whenever somebody comes in and you've probably done this,
55:05
takes over a position for somebody else, there's a team
55:08
that was there attached. So you have to go through that,
55:12
you know? And so I think that one of the
55:15
things that I learned in the managing of that is is how to be
55:18
humble. You know, they're there for a
55:22
reason, right? And I think the way that you
55:26
talk to people and the time that you talk to people, the time and
55:29
the place of talking to people is very important, right?
55:32
So if you yell at somebody in front of like I have an example,
55:35
it was New Year's Eve, right? This is my first executive chef
55:38
position. I was, you know, we were running
55:41
the line. It was 1030.
55:43
We closed at 11. One of the cooks went into the
55:46
the walk in and he got the last of the Pontchartrain sauce,
55:49
right? And he heated it up and he put
55:50
it on his line like he thought he should do.
55:52
What's? Pontchartrain sauce, it's like a
55:53
cream sauce with like Peppers. It goes on top of a red fish.
55:56
We put like crab and shrimp. It's like a kind of Creole type
55:59
sauce, right? And so he gets the last of it,
56:05
heats it up, puts it on his saute station, right?
56:08
And then he's like, chef, we need more punch train after he
56:10
ran through that. And I was like, it's in the walk
56:12
in. He's like, no, I used the last
56:14
of it. I'm like you what you know, and
56:17
I'm sure you've experienced this before, you know, so there was
56:20
kind of like as a young chef that feels like you can run the
56:23
line and does everything perfectly.
56:25
Why would that person not tell me or somebody that we needed
56:30
more prepped, right, right. So I laid into him and he took
56:34
his apron off and he threw it in my face and he walked out and
56:37
now I was man down with saute and I had to run the line and
56:40
run some saute and help close the kitchen down before I did
56:43
all my orders and all that other stuff.
56:46
So I learned that if you push somebody into a corner in front
56:52
of their peers, they have no choice but to fight back unless
56:55
they're a coward, which most people in kitchens, as you know,
56:58
are not. There's a lot of machismo in
57:00
there. It's a it's a hot place with
57:02
fire knives. You know, there's going to be
57:04
tempers of flair. And so I learned to go cool off.
57:09
So I take him out of the walk in and yell at him, you know, but
57:13
also you think about like the way to counsel somebody the best
57:17
way is the motivational sandwich, right?
57:20
Hey, you're doing a really great job here.
57:23
I appreciate you coming to work. You look good.
57:26
You know, you're, you're, you're really carrying yourself well,
57:28
but we get busy. You fucking suck, your food goes
57:32
out sloppy, you piss everybody off and you're not doing great.
57:35
I really think that you have what it takes to do this and,
57:38
and let me know what I can do to help you.
57:40
You know, if you need support, I got you.
57:42
But you know, we got to, we got to, we got to bring that up a
57:45
little bit, you know? Chef, as we get closer to the
57:48
end of this great conversation, if you had a Mount Rushmore of
57:52
chefs out there, like who, who's on your who's your top 4 chefs
57:55
that really influenced you? OK, so.
57:58
And they could be people you worked with or just people that
58:00
indirectly influenced. OK, I think #1 for me is Thomas
58:06
Keller, right? He was very like, inspirational
58:14
to me. I read all his books.
58:16
I love his philosophies. I love, you know, the precision
58:19
that he takes, the pursuit of excellence.
58:21
I think that's that's great. Grant Achatz dining experience
58:25
of my life. The story that he has from what
58:29
he went through, you know, work for Charlie Trotter, work for
58:31
Thomas Keller. Thomas Keller sent him to work
58:33
for Front Audria for a week comes back, he's making great
58:38
dishes. Thomas Keller says, if you make
58:39
these great dishes and put them in my restaurant, they're no
58:41
longer your dishes. They're my dishes.
58:43
Great story by the way. Understood that Then he went and
58:45
he started Alinea. At Alinea, he faced cancer.
58:49
He beat cancer, lost his taste buds, learned how to build a
58:52
team because of that because he learned that I need to rely on
58:57
my people to be able to take this.
58:59
So we took it a whole another level, right, right.
59:01
And then continues to push the envelope still today.
59:04
Amazing chef. I went and had dinner there.
59:07
The dining experience of my life.
59:09
I could probably tell you every course still. 3rd chef would be
59:13
Jamie Oliver. I love Jamie Oliver, I think
59:15
he's a sweetheart. Did.
59:16
You see the new Netflix. No, I think we talked about it
59:19
though and. Thomas Cohen.
59:21
I haven't seen the Jamie Oliver fully yet.
59:23
I look forward to that, Yeah. And then I would say the fourth
59:25
chef is Alex Ralston. And and Alex was the chef that I
59:29
came to work for at Reed's Supper Club.
59:33
And then he went to Trulux and then brought me on to Trulux.
59:36
This guy has he still around? He he lives in the Pacific
59:39
Northwest now and he's working at a like a Taco place doing
59:42
some really cool fermentation, Pickles, sauces, all sorts of
59:45
fun stuff. He is a very talented chef,
59:49
right, that believes in, in in food and his his his call sign
59:56
is yes, Chef Alex. Chef Alex And if you had a
59:59
chef's PSA for for people out there listening, what would it?
1:00:02
Be, you know, every day get better.
1:00:04
You know, one of my mentors, Chuck Smith, he's he told me
1:00:08
he's like, once you think you got it, you don't got it, you
1:00:11
know, so like I, I feel like we should always be learning,
1:00:15
right? So push the envelope.
1:00:16
If you if you feel like you can do it, you can.
1:00:19
You know, you just have to believe in yourself and go for
1:00:22
the gold. You know, 100 percent, 100% of
1:00:25
shots not taken don't go in. That's right.
1:00:28
Yeah. And where can people find you?
1:00:30
Leave it to keepit.com. My Instagram is leave it to keep
1:00:33
it. My tattoo is leave it to keep
1:00:35
it. I am keep it and I'm very Google
1:00:39
able. My today is May 20th.
1:00:41
It is my dad's 74th birthday. Happy birthday, Dad.
1:00:46
Awesome, brother. Well, thanks for coming in.
1:00:48
Thank you. Right on.
1:00:51
Well, I hope you enjoyed the show.
1:00:52
You know what to do and make sure you leave five stars if
1:00:54
you're listening on Spotify or anywhere really.
1:00:56
If you're watching on YouTube, hit the like and subscribe
1:00:58
button. I'd completely revamped the
1:01:00
chef's PSA store, shop.chefspsa.com.
1:01:03
My team added a ton of new items.
1:01:06
I advise you to go check it out. Just peruse, look around, maybe
1:01:09
you see something nice that you like.
1:01:10
Keep supporting the show. Go to chefspsa.com.
1:01:13
You get books, obviously the merge, early access to episodes
1:01:17
on Sub stack and Spotify for premium members.
1:01:20
We'll see you next week. Hit the porno music.