Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / From Windsurfing Rep to Parisian Café Owner: Laurent Vrignaud's 40-Year Journey to Moulin

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From Windsurfing Rep to Parisian Café Owner: Laurent Vrignaud's 40-Year Journey to Moulin · 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 Cotespodi and
0:17
today's guest is Laurent Vrigno. He is the founder of Mulan, A
0:22
Parisian style cafe in Newport Beach, CA established in 2014.
0:28
Mulan is known for delivering an authentic French experience
0:32
through fresh baked breads. Let's do that again.
0:36
Mulan is known for delivering an authentic French experience
0:40
through fresh baked breads, handmade pastries, and savory
0:44
dishes that transport you straight to Paris.
0:47
They've gained recognition for their dedication to traditional
0:50
French culinary craftsmanship, which has earned them a loyal
0:53
following. Before becoming a successful
0:57
restaurateur, Laurent was a competitive windsurfer who
1:00
became an independent sales representative in the action
1:03
sports world at just 19 years old.
1:06
Working entirely on Commission, he continued to grow his
1:09
business until he was 45. During the explosive growth of
1:14
the action sports business, he expanded from being a single
1:17
sales Rep to hiring multiple reps, eventually representing
1:22
Burton Snowboards for the western half of America.
1:25
As the Internet emerged, he later became responsible for
1:28
managing online accounts like Zoomies, REI, and Amazon.
1:33
While a transition from action sports to French cafes doesn't
1:37
sound like an obvious path, we're going to connect the dots
1:40
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1:43
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2:26
All right, back to our guest today, the founder of Mulan
2:28
Laurent. Thanks for making the time to
2:30
Share your story today. Thank you.
2:32
Welcome. So how poorly did I do on my
2:36
French pronunciations of your name and the name of the cafe?
2:40
I think you cheated. I think you had French in high
2:42
school. I did not, Not a lick.
2:46
All right, so let's get back to the story here.
2:49
Towards the beginning you came to the USA as an 18 year old
2:53
competitive windsurfer because as I understand it, California
2:57
has some of the best conditions in the world.
3:01
Yeah, I landed in the Bay Area in the late 70s, early 80s when
3:05
the sport of windsurfing was a pretty big deal in Europe.
3:08
And Long story short, I just, I was attracted by Northern
3:14
California, the Bay Area, eventually Hawaii, but Hawaii
3:16
was a little further. So I figured let's start in San
3:19
Francisco and what probably I didn't have a time frame, but I
3:25
didn't, I certainly didn't think I was going to spend my entire
3:27
life in California. And 42 years later, I'm still
3:32
here, not windsurfing as much, but I started off and, and, and
3:37
again, windsurfing, I mean, even surely was a very popular sport.
3:41
It was, it was pretty grungy. I mean, this was the early 80s.
3:46
But I, I just, I was passionate about it.
3:49
And I figured if I can, you know, I knew I wasn't going to
3:53
become any kind of world champion or professional, you
3:57
know, I wasn't going to make a living windsurfing all day.
4:01
But I was a good windsurfer. And all of a sudden some of the
4:05
companies and, and I had a little bit of what's called the
4:07
gift of gab and windsurfing being so big in France and
4:10
Europe. A couple of the companies and
4:13
were helping me with equipment said, Hey, why don't you go
4:15
knock on doors and, and see if those were French, French
4:19
companies, see if some of the California stores would be
4:22
interested about buying a product.
4:25
And if you managed to get us some orders, we'll give you a
4:29
Commission. And that's how I learned about
4:31
the Commission business. Now, what happened is it when I,
4:35
when I was figuring that out, because I needed to make a
4:39
living and, and the I was doing two things beside windsurfing
4:44
every single day. I was working in a windsurfing
4:47
shop during the day, mostly in the morning, early afternoon,
4:50
and then off to the water after that.
4:52
And interesting enough, I was waiting tables.
4:54
I was a Buster in a French restaurant in Redwood City, CA
4:57
in the heart of Silicon Valley, a restaurant called lecturers in
5:01
BFL Tower. And that allowed me to have a
5:04
little bit of money. And, and then right as those
5:08
companies started talking to me in, in being in that
5:11
windshifting shop during the day, I noticed reps coming in.
5:16
I didn't know what a sales Rep was, but I noticed some people
5:19
were coming in talking to the store owners.
5:23
And then what happened is this is an interesting story, but
5:26
when I was 18, this guy was a guy kept coming in every few
5:30
weeks. He was 2223 years old and he
5:33
drove a Porsche 9/11. And I would always notice this
5:37
guy coming in to me coming from France, a guy almost my age
5:42
driving a Porsche 9/11. He'd come in, talk to the owner
5:46
of the store for 3045 minutes and he would leave.
5:49
And then that's one day I walked up to the owner.
5:52
I said, what does this guy do? Then he'd come see you on a
5:54
regular basis. And he said he's a sales Rep.
5:57
He talks to me about different product line he represents.
6:01
We eventually place orders for some of the product he
6:03
represents. And he is he makes a Commission.
6:07
The day I heard the Commission based business and I associated
6:12
with this guy driving the Porsche 9/11 my age, I was like,
6:15
you know what, that's what I'm going to do.
6:18
At the same time, French companies were like, why don't
6:21
you go knock on doors and see if.
6:23
So these two things happen simultaneously basically you
6:26
this realization of what a sales Rep was and then the French
6:29
companies coming to you offering you that kind of position.
6:32
And interesting enough in the 80s and prior to that, but as
6:36
far as it might feel, but if you look back in America, a lot of
6:42
people always tell this to friends of mine, everybody's
6:44
selling something. Not in France, but in America,
6:47
everybody's selling something to someone.
6:50
And back then, 50s, sixties, 70s, eighties, 90s, and then it
6:55
kind of went away. But a lot of industries had
6:58
independent sales Rep people had a zone.
7:01
They represent a brand of two, They worked for themselves and
7:04
they made a Commission. Commission only.
7:07
There was no salary, right? Because you're independent,
7:10
you're on your own. Now, now I deal with reps and
7:12
walk into my store to sell me wine, to sell me butter.
7:16
None of them are independent. They're all in house reps that
7:20
can be a Rep for Cisco, for US food, for this butter company,
7:23
for this wine company. The model of in house, the model
7:28
is become an in house model because the nature of most
7:33
industries is different now. And and I'll tell you the number
7:36
one reason, because I was in the sales Rep, independent sales Rep
7:39
business for so long. The margins are so small in
7:42
every industry. Most industries cannot afford to
7:45
bounce 78910 percent to an independent guy being a
7:49
middleman. That's the whole margin game.
7:53
Why? So the brands that had come to
7:55
you, they were French brands. Were were these French brands
7:57
really big in action sports then?
7:59
Is that sort of like an epicenter?
8:01
No, no, no, no. They were not big at all.
8:04
Some of them had set up a little office on the East Coast.
8:06
They were trying to penetrate the US business, New York being
8:11
a lot closer than San Francisco. And so, so they had an office in
8:16
the US so that allowed me. So all of a sudden they were
8:18
like all along, you're in California, you're in the Bay
8:21
Area where windsurfing is, is, is happening.
8:24
Why don't you, on top of getting equipment for free and
8:27
competing, why don't you knock on doors or pay your Commission
8:31
to talk about our sales of boards, fins and blah, blah,
8:34
blah. And what happened is I started
8:36
making a little bit of money and as soon as I made a little bit
8:39
of money and then I went to Hawaii and when I went to Maui,
8:43
that's when windsurfing. That was the debt the the Mecca
8:47
of windsurfing, the North Shore of Maui.
8:49
And I met the founders of some of the most epic Hawaiian
8:54
windsurfing brands. I was a good windsurfer.
8:57
I had the gift of gab. I told them I was a Rep in
8:59
California and some of those brands said, you know what, us
9:03
being based in Hawaii, we could use a guy like you.
9:06
So I ditched. I started ditching the French
9:09
brands out of New York, New Jersey, and I was representing
9:14
Hawaiian brands, which had all the aura, the names and the
9:18
technology. They were more.
9:18
Established, more well known at that point.
9:21
The gear, the gear was just much level.
9:23
And that's how I started making a name for myself.
9:25
I was 19, I was 20. I was 2122 years old.
9:29
The sport of wind surfing was exploding.
9:31
I was representing some of the biggest brands, American brands
9:34
that is, and I was starting to make a pretty good living.
9:38
And so from 19 to age 45, you really blew this thing up.
9:45
Talk to us about some of those in between years because I know
9:48
it's not all up and to the right.
9:49
There's got to be some ups and downs.
9:52
So the, the, you know, if I'd stuck to windsurfing, I would
9:56
have been out of business and back in France by 25 years old.
10:00
Windsurfing is too small of a niche you had to expect.
10:03
Yeah, it was, you know, windsurfing is a hard sport.
10:05
You know, it's got to get wind. It's got to be windy.
10:07
Not everybody is going to the ocean.
10:09
I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's an individual sport.
10:13
But what happened is I went to compete in February, February 88
10:19
in Mexico and I got hurt. And so instead of staying down
10:22
in Baja, Mexico, which we did all every winter for for weeks
10:27
at a time, I came back to the Bay Area and I was doing a
10:32
little rehab on my leg and, and I started visiting some accounts
10:37
and nothing better to do in February.
10:39
And a couple of the accounts were like, hey, we're heading to
10:41
Las Vegas in the next couple of weeks.
10:43
Some of those accounts being in the ski business.
10:45
I never been to Las Vegas. There was no reason for me to go
10:48
to Las Vegas. You know, no, no wind, no water
10:50
really. And I found out there's people
10:53
were heading to something called SIA snow Sport Industry of
10:57
America. The largest ratio in North
10:59
America for the snow sport industry was in Las Vegas.
11:03
So I figured, you know what, I'll go to Las Vegas, I'll go
11:05
check it out. Not being busy in the winter,
11:08
not being in Mexico. And in the back of my head, the
11:12
winter before, I never skied before, but the winter before,
11:14
someone had loaned me a snowboard.
11:16
Someone had loaned me a snowboard and I'd gone to Lake
11:18
Tahoe and I'd done snowboarding for three days at Boil Ski
11:22
Resort on a donor snowboard. And because I like everything,
11:26
then glide, you know, and I'd done it three days the winter
11:29
before and gone back to my wintergun things, blah, blah,
11:32
blah. And I was like, well, I'm the
11:34
ski show. Las Vegas, maybe snowboarding.
11:38
I'll go check it out. So I went over there and this
11:42
was March, March 89th, that's right, March 89th.
11:47
And I walked into the straight show where everything was big.
11:51
There was nothing like a surf show, nothing like a windsurfing
11:54
show, nothing like the crazy apparel California people wear
11:58
in suits. Big brands from Europe,
12:01
Rossignol, Salomon, Nautica, Austrian brands, German brand,
12:05
French brands. I was like, wow, this is this is
12:08
the big, this is the ski industry, right?
12:11
And after a couple hours of walking around, I, I stumbled on
12:15
a booth which had snowboards on the wall and, and, and it would
12:20
cut my eye. Beside the snowboard on the wall
12:22
was the fact that it was a television with a VCR right in
12:25
front of the booth with a snowboard flick.
12:28
And I've never seen snowboard on television.
12:29
I was just like, I mean, but mine this is 1989.
12:33
Not no, no, this is the infancy of the of the Internet.
12:36
You know, I was like, wow, snowboarding and out was
12:39
infatuated by this movie. And on this booth was a retailer
12:44
talking to someone and this retailer saw me And what
12:50
happened is this was the burn snowboard booth out of
12:53
Burlington. I mean, I'm I'm sorry.
12:55
Burn originally was based at Manchester Center in Vermont.
12:58
I never I've never heard of Vermont.
13:00
I've never heard of Burton Snowboards, but this retailer,
13:03
which was buying windshifting products from me, saw me and he
13:06
walked out to the television booth, you know, and he, and he
13:10
said, hello, I'm on the, I'm talking to the people from
13:13
Vermont. I'm ordering a few snowboards
13:15
from a ski shop. And in the conversation, I just
13:19
found out they, they might be looking for a Rep and, and I
13:24
think, I think you should talk with them.
13:26
And I was, I mean, it was like someone putting a coin in the
13:30
machine. I was like, let's go, who do I
13:34
need to talk to? In a 23 year period, I'd be the
13:38
largest agency for Burton Snowboard in the world.
13:41
So at that time, most people didn't know Burton.
13:44
And again, like you said, it was still the early days of
13:46
snowboarding in general, but eventually Burton becomes the
13:50
name in snowboard. Not in the Olympics.
13:52
Nobody had ever heard of Shaun White, which was six years old
13:54
at the time, Flying Tomato. Nobody had heard of Jake Burton.
14:00
5 minutes later, this guy with long hair, 10 years older than
14:04
me, I'm sitting in front of this dude, Jake Burton Carpenter, He
14:08
said, Where are you from? I go out from France because
14:10
yeah, I can tell by your accent, blah, blah, blah, because I'm
14:13
learning to speak French, learning to speak German because
14:15
of European distribution. Then we can buy you a cup of
14:19
coffee and we can rap. And then I rap with a guy for an
14:22
hour and, you know, independent Rep I, I saw.
14:27
So he's like, well, we, we think we need someone for the West
14:30
Coast. You know, well, I said, well,
14:32
the West Coast, that's a pretty big territory.
14:35
And you know, I'm, I'm based in Northern California, Lake Tahoe
14:38
and Brava. And he has this, he said, well,
14:41
I don't want employees. And I said, well, I wouldn't be
14:43
an employee. I would be an independent sales
14:44
Rep. You know, I would represent your
14:46
brand based on Commission and take orders when you ship next
14:50
fall, next winter and you get paid, you pay me a Commission.
14:55
I would not. So you were kind of explaining
14:56
the independent sales? Rep structure to him, he had 0
15:00
reps in North America, he had 0 reps he had distributed.
15:03
Jake had just set up some distribution in Japan.
15:06
In Europe, he had distributors which were buying his product
15:09
and reselling it. But in the US, he had a bunch of
15:13
phone guys in Manchester, Vermont, where he was based out
15:16
of. And he had just opened an office
15:18
in Denver. He had put a couple of employees
15:20
in Denver because of the Colorado market and no
15:23
independence. And so we wrapped for about an
15:27
hour. I extensioned the whole
15:28
Commission and go, you know, the smaller the item, the bigger the
15:30
Commission. The the bigger the item, the
15:34
smaller the Commission. Hard goods, soft goods.
15:36
He goes, OK, you know what, come back.
15:37
Let me think about it. Come back tomorrow morning.
15:39
We'll have coffee again, all in the morning.
15:41
I rolled in nine O clock. He goes, OK, let's try.
15:44
You'll be my guy. Northern California handshake.
15:48
So how many brands did you end up repping?
15:52
Well, so at the time my, my main business was the windsurfing
15:54
business. So I represented a half dozen
15:56
windsurfing companies and then I, I, I, I added Burton
16:00
Snowboard and Burton snowboard. At the time I only had one
16:02
brand, Burton Snowboards. Eventually, as we got into the
16:05
90s and the 2000s, Burton started other brands, grabbed
16:09
his footwear, analog St. wear, hand on optics, back hill kids
16:15
wear and then and then burn bots formed snowboards and a
16:20
competitor acquired it. But Channel Islands serve wards
16:23
out of Santa Barbara acquired it.
16:26
And so you just grew with Burton or were you taking brands
16:29
outside of that? And outside of that, so, so for
16:32
10 years, I was the Northern California Rep.
16:35
I had one employee, 2 employees. I had a half dozen employees in
16:39
Northern California for 10 years, 89 to 99.
16:42
And Burn launched a couple of other brands.
16:45
I was representing all the brands.
16:46
I opened a showroom in downtown San Francisco, which Burn I
16:49
never heard of. So I figured the retailer would
16:51
come to us to look at the product line.
16:53
I would control the environment. So Burn really liked the way I
16:56
was doing things. And then and then Jake was like,
17:00
listen, I like the way you, you're doing your agency that I
17:03
like the way you're hiring people.
17:05
And you start traveling the world with us on our behalf.
17:07
And as we set up distribution in other countries, maybe you can
17:10
talk to other reps in, in, in Italy and France and Japan, you
17:16
know? And so I started flying around
17:18
the world on Jake's dime, you know, with his sales managers as
17:22
an independent Rep saying, listen, I've been the
17:25
independent Rep for Burn in Northern California for 10
17:28
years. This is the way I've set up my
17:30
showroom. This is the way I hire.
17:32
This is the way. This is the way we do business.
17:35
And it works. And so, you know, Burn Corp and
17:39
me as an independent, we're just marching along and Jake and I
17:43
were super close and we were snowboarding all over the world.
17:46
And next thing, I mean, Argentina snowboarding, I mean,
17:48
New Zealand snowboarding with Jake.
17:50
I'm, I'm getting on and off helicopters.
17:53
I mean, it was, life was grand, I mean.
17:57
And the the upside for you on that is just sort of the
18:00
travelling and the kinsmanship with.
18:02
You're travelling and then this was growing.
18:04
I mean, I I was selling. I was selling millions of jobs.
18:07
But were you getting any part of the other sales reps that you
18:11
were helping set? Up.
18:11
I was doing it as Jake's my buddy.
18:14
He gave me a shot in the 80s. We're growing, we're having fun.
18:20
I was paying. Forward.
18:21
Yeah. Help.
18:21
Help some other people get started.
18:23
Yeah, Jake. Was like, hey, I'll put you on
18:25
the plane. We'll stay in the nicest hotel,
18:27
we'll eat the best food, we'll have the best cocktails that and
18:31
we're just going to It was, it was really like, I don't want
18:34
to, I'm not, I'm not a big church guy.
18:37
But you know, if you look at, you know, if you look at a
18:40
painting of, of Jesus and the Last Supper with, with the
18:44
apple, you know, I was, I was one of the guys and went out and
18:48
there was, there wasn't back then.
18:50
A lot of people call it the inner circle.
18:52
Jake had an inner circle and over the 90s there was a half
18:56
dozen of us. Some of the some of the European
18:59
distributors used to call us the Dons.
19:02
So Jake had a half dozen of us, which were there since day one,
19:07
and we traveled the world with him and whatever he preached, we
19:12
just made sure people got it. So you built this, did crazy
19:17
well for a little over 20 years, and then at the age of 45 you
19:22
decide to step away. Why?
19:25
So, OK, so quick, 1999, ten years into it, on my way to
19:30
Europe, Jake's like, hey, stop in Vermont.
19:32
I want to talk to you. I've got a couple ideas.
19:34
I stopped in Vermont on my way to France in the spring after
19:37
the selling season was over. And it's like, I love the way
19:39
you're doing things in North Cal.
19:41
You've been with me for 10 years, independent as ever.
19:44
I want you to take the Western United States.
19:47
I was like, Jake, how can I be the Rep?
19:50
Multiple states, Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada.
19:53
He's like, I want you to be a super Rep.
19:55
I want you to blow your agency. I want you to keep hiring the
19:59
way you're hiring. I want you to open an office in
20:01
Southern California. Go big or go back to France.
20:04
I'm not sure. No problem, Let's go.
20:07
And that was a huge turn around because in 992000I came to
20:12
Southern California. I opened an incredible showroom.
20:15
I hired people and then the business that mean every year we
20:19
thought we cannot do better. And then from 2000.
20:24
To 2008 Olympics, the flying tomato, the business.
20:30
I mean, I could it's I used to tell people it's better than
20:34
selling blow. It was crazy.
20:38
You were in the right place at the right time, at the right.
20:41
Time with the right organization.
20:43
Keep in mind that in a business and, and this will relate to the
20:47
restaurant business later on, in a business which originally was
20:50
a kind of a boys club, let's party, let's have fun, let's
20:55
surf, let's snowboard, let's ride, let's skate, let's dress.
20:59
The way it was very cultish. Wherever we travel the world,
21:03
the way we look, we could recognize people.
21:06
It was, it was a big club and and everybody wanted to be part
21:10
of that club. And we were selling product that
21:12
there was no tomorrow. Retailers would wait in line at
21:16
the trade shows just to be able to place an order.
21:20
We'll be coming off the blackjack table in Vegas.
21:23
We'd be gambling all night, liquored up, and people would
21:27
just wait in line to hand us a hundred, a quarter, $1,000,000
21:31
order for the ski shop going along.
21:33
Just I don't want to worry about the detail.
21:35
Ship me as much goods as you think I can say wow.
21:39
Industry was on fire. The industry was on fire.
21:43
The surf industry was on fire. The skates snow footwear apparel
21:47
shades yes. So.
21:52
One last note and then we go into the rest.
21:54
We go into the break in the restaurant business, 9495, a guy
22:00
that worked at Bird, Andy lots, good friend of mine, head of
22:03
head of hard goods, Burlington, Vt had worked for Jake for 5-6
22:07
years. Calls me out of the blue.
22:08
He goes to law. I just walked out of Jake's
22:10
office. I resigned.
22:12
I'm like, dude, we're just getting started, what's your
22:14
problem? He goes, I'm going back to
22:16
school. I'm going to, I've been
22:17
accepted. I'm going to do a Stanford MB.
22:19
I'm going to Stanford MBA. Keep in mind this is a guy right
22:23
here and then doesn't have a high school diploma, but I know
22:25
a little bit about Stanford. I'm like Stanford's at the end
22:27
of my street. I own a house in Palo Alto
22:29
because that's why I'm calling and I stay on your couch for two
22:32
or three weeks while I figure school out.
22:33
I said sure, and he became my roommate on your two of his MBA
22:38
program. I'm back from a road trip.
22:40
This guy's going to school every day, learning, learning
22:43
everything I didn't learn in school.
22:45
He goes, hey, remember my buddy Chad in Southern California, in
22:47
San Diego? I said, yeah, he's coming next
22:49
week. him and I have an idea. We want to present it to you.
22:53
We met at Cafe. We met at a cafe.
22:54
Cafe Verona, downtown Palo Alto. Italian version of Mula.
22:58
Interesting enough, those two are like, you know what, Laurel?
23:01
There's no cool watch company. There's no cool watch company in
23:04
this business. Everything's been done.
23:05
The T-shirts, the snowboard, the footwear.
23:07
There's. No cool watch company anywhere
23:09
specifically like in the action. Sports space in the action
23:12
sports space there is no cool watch company.
23:15
Chad and I want to start a watch company.
23:17
We have no money. Would you please be the seed
23:21
money I'm like what is that mean?
23:23
OK, so Andy being a scholar says, well, this is the way it
23:26
works. We started Nixon Watches, which
23:29
we sold together bomb in 2000 and.
23:32
Five and and talk about that ride give give us a sense of how
23:36
successful it became. Clearly successful enough that
23:41
somebody wanted to buy it, but helped fill in sort of some of
23:44
the blanks here. Well, I'll put in perspective.
23:47
So, so I was the seed investor, OK?
23:50
And so Andy and Chad with my seed money went to work for a
23:54
few months, 7-8 months and then they came back to me and said,
23:56
OK, the good news is you've not lost your money.
23:59
We are going to start weeks and watches, but now the real work
24:02
starts. All the work we've done to be
24:05
able to launch this brand now and we've done all the homeworks
24:08
we need to raise real money. And Andy being a scholar than he
24:11
was, he said, listen, we're going to sell 38% of the
24:14
company, the company he valued the company at 2.7 million.
24:18
We'd not sold a single watch. We'd not paid a single watch.
24:21
Keep in mind this is in the mid 90s right?
24:23
It's quite a valuation back then.
24:25
Yeah, he said a lot. We need to gather whoever we
24:28
know that has money, we're going to gather them in A room.
24:32
I'm going to talk about the brand.
24:34
That's Andy. Chad's going to talk about the
24:36
marketing and the team and the athletes because that's his
24:39
background. And, you know, being a sales
24:40
Rep, you're going to talk about the distribution and the fact
24:43
that mixing watches can be in all the cool stores overnight.
24:46
So we presented to about 25 people.
24:49
Minimum investment was 50 grand, OK, We needed 1.2 million.
24:53
So we sold seven years later and we didn't earn out.
24:56
Five years and one day after that, every friend of mine in
24:59
the Bay Area, which is still a friend, still a friend of mine,
25:02
probably a better friend now, every friend of mine and give us
25:05
a check for 50 grand the first time around.
25:09
Got a check for 907 years later. And then five years after that
25:14
got a check for 1.29. OK, not too shabby.
25:18
Not too shabby. What was it that you guys did
25:22
that made this the cool brand in the space?
25:25
What was different about it? Chad, Andy, myself and all the
25:28
others were from the we, we were on the inside looking out in
25:34
most industries, people on the outside and they want to get in
25:41
starting with Jake. Andy had worked with for Jake.
25:44
I had worked with Jake and, and I give a lot of credit to Jake
25:47
Byrne Cochranter, which unfortunately passed away four
25:49
years ago next month. You know, we all, we've all
25:54
learned from someone. Some people go to school, some
25:57
people fly next to a pilot and become a pilot.
26:00
A lot of us, myself included, you know, worked for a founder
26:06
such as Jake Burton. And eventually Andy also became
26:10
a founder. And then eventually I became a
26:12
founder. And that's why I started my
26:13
brand in the restaurant business.
26:15
So, you know, some people never, you know, I think all of us have
26:20
things coming in front of us and it's, it's either there's no
26:22
luck. I mean, you know, people meet
26:24
people every day. Are you a good listener?
26:27
Are you paying attention? Are you noticing the wins and
26:32
the losses? And are you learning in the
26:34
process? And if you are and have the
26:37
guts, one day you do your own. Thing that's what what made this
26:41
brand so attractive. I I think a big part of it has
26:44
to be that again, like you said, you were on the inside, you had
26:48
relationships with the cool stores, with the retailers,
26:51
right? So.
26:52
You could you? Could go in and say hey trust
26:55
me, this is good stuff, this is going to go well and a lot of
26:57
people would place orders first time around, but what is it that
27:01
really caused it to gain traction and do so well?
27:04
Product. OK, so, so the product was
27:07
unique in the fact that we launched 5 watches.
27:10
All the watches retail for between 70 and $100, which at
27:13
the time was considered a lot of money for surfers,
27:16
skateboarders, snowboarders, but, and it's interesting, we'll
27:20
get back to it in the restaurant business.
27:22
But we went the team and this is something we had learned for
27:26
Burton. OK, it was the athlete, It's the
27:29
athlete, and we presented the brand because of our
27:32
connections, because of Chad's connection and disconnection, my
27:34
connection, we were able to attract team riders, sponsored
27:39
athletes for very little money, if any.
27:43
But because we were on the inner circle, we were part of the
27:46
inner circle and then we're part of the inner circle, we managed
27:49
to convince some very good athlete in surf, snow and skate
27:54
to have a Nixon logo on their snowboard, to have a Nixon
27:58
T-shirt on the beach, to have a Nixon watch on their wrist.
28:03
NHS And we had the distribution. OK.
28:08
I was the burn wrap in California.
28:11
My friend Andre was the burn wrap in in Quebec.
28:14
My friend Johnny B was the burn wrap in Colorado.
28:18
So between the burn wraps, the Vulcan wraps, we had all the
28:22
right reps talking to all the right retailers.
28:24
So this new watch brand instantly got front and center
28:28
displays in some of the most prominent action sports stores
28:32
in the world. Was there any thought of sort of
28:34
taking this magic elixir that you guys had put together and
28:39
trying to apply it to other products?
28:42
You're on the inside. You can get the athletes to
28:47
represent to where to promote to, to use your product.
28:51
You've got relationships with the key account, so you can get
28:54
the distribution pretty quickly. I mean, those are two pretty
28:57
powerful forces. Was there any thought to to try
28:59
to use that again? Because at the end of the day,
29:03
Andy and Chad were very true to the mission, which was Nixon
29:09
premium accessories, watches and, and driven by the athletes.
29:17
I mean, we made some bags, we made a little bit of apparel and
29:19
so on. But we, we, you know, and, and,
29:22
and it's interesting what you say because in a lot of
29:25
industries and, and I could talk for hours about what happened to
29:28
the surf industry or the action sport industry in general.
29:31
The problem is everybody started putting their names on
29:33
everything. I don't want to name names, OK.
29:36
But if you take some of the biggest brands, which not only
29:38
started putting their names on everything, but next thing they
29:42
got traded publicly, they went to the stock market.
29:44
In the stock market that doesn't care as long as it keeps
29:48
growing. So, you know, Quicksilver boat
29:50
shorts, You know, when I in the late 70s, early 80s, whenever I,
29:54
if I saw someone at an airport with a Quicksilver boat short,
29:57
he was a surfer. There was no doubt he was part
30:00
of the club. OK, Well, 20 years later,
30:03
Quicksilver was being sold at a discount at Costco.
30:06
No wonder it went. It went, became no one became.
30:11
I I want to make sure we leave enough time to talk about the
30:13
restaurant. Is this yes, Yes, there's how
30:16
did you, how did how did the inspiration come about to start
30:19
a restaurant? You were stealing it in action
30:21
sports, yes. But couple things happened, OK,
30:25
when I was 20 years old, OK? Now keep in mind I grew up in
30:28
Paris and as a young teenager, just like most European kids,
30:32
you have a side job on the weekend summer vacation.
30:35
I always served in cafes, OK, I love cafes.
30:39
And growing up in Paris, when you did school, you were sitting
30:42
in the cafe before school had lunch.
30:45
You talk to the girls, you play pinball, you play foosball, a
30:48
gathering. You still go to Paris today, or
30:50
Rome, OK, or Barcelona. People hang out on their in the
30:54
cafes, all that sipping wine, smoking cigarettes, talking
30:59
stories. When I was a kid growing up in
31:02
Paris, the guy or the lady that owned the cafe, to me, they were
31:07
there. They were there.
31:09
I call them the fact that you got here the district, a
31:12
godfather, OK people told them their stories over the counter.
31:16
They toasted me. They made people laugh.
31:18
But they weren't they owned a cafe.
31:19
And then they would they would tell us kids get go back to
31:22
school. You've been at the cafe here.
31:23
So I always wanted to have a cafe and then want to Now Fast
31:26
forward, I'm 20 years old. I'm in San Francisco, 202325.
31:29
I'm killing in an action sport. And all my friends, European
31:32
friends, windsurfer friends in Silicon Valley, all in the high
31:36
tech business. And after all, it's fun
31:38
business. You win, It's not going to last.
31:41
It's it looks too much fun. You have you're making money.
31:45
Then what I said, well, the day, the day it stops, I'll open a
31:48
cafe. OK, I'm 25 years old.
31:51
I don't see this. And then and then I started
31:53
taking my American friends to Paris.
31:56
We started traveling on the coast, going surfing and all
31:58
that, hanging out at the cafes again with my American friends,
32:02
you know, chasing the girls, blah, blah, blah.
32:05
And they were like, that lifestyle is so freaking cool.
32:08
We're eating sandwiches. They don't cost much money out
32:10
of baguette and croissant. I'm like, yeah, that's, that's
32:13
that's what Europeans do. That's what French people do.
32:15
One day, and I always talked about it.
32:17
One day I'll have 120253035 married.
32:23
I moved to Laguna Beach, my daughter.
32:26
The first thing I tell my wife, Laguna Beach, there's no Cafe
32:28
here one day. And then my my daughter was
32:32
growing 8 years old, nine years old.
32:35
The other thing I always tell people, you've got to know your
32:38
place. And I had been in the action
32:39
sport business for so long and I was compared to going to the
32:43
elevator and going to the elevator.
32:45
The elevator goes up and I and I, I felt it.
32:49
I was 40 years old now, 4142 O 8, the global economy crisis.
32:57
I was a middle man Commission guy Commission.
33:00
I had a lot of employees, 40 employees making lots of
33:03
Commission. But the companies were becoming,
33:06
not burned in particular, but companies were changing.
33:09
People were looking at the companies, were looking at
33:11
margins, the retailers were looking at margins and the
33:14
companies. The first guy then saw that and
33:17
I happened to, I met him a couple times in Palo Alto.
33:20
When Steve Jobs opened his Apple stores, he was the first guy to
33:24
realize I got to talk to the consumer first.
33:27
Forget the middle guy, forget the middle independent reps,
33:30
middle retailers. They kill the margins and they
33:33
talk. They don't talk to brand right?
33:36
And they have they have his brand next to their other
33:40
brands. So Long story short, you've got
33:44
to know your place. And I felt for all kinds of
33:47
different reason between the fact that I was, I'm not a big
33:50
number guy, but I was over 40. I had been around the actions
33:53
for business for close to 25 years.
33:56
My daughter was growing. I had a great career.
34:00
The Knicks sent the the Nixon thing that worked out really
34:03
well for to set up my family and I the global crisis.
34:09
I was like, you know what? And I always tell people, you,
34:12
you, you sportsman, musician, actors, business guys.
34:17
Look at how many people do one too many movies, one too many
34:20
songs, one too many games. The last thing you want is
34:23
someone to tell you, you know what?
34:26
You don't cry. You pass, you cry.
34:29
You wanted to go out on top and you're like the elevator is at
34:33
the peak. I think this.
34:34
Is I was on top in 2010 and I surprised a lot of people in the
34:38
industry. I surprised my employees, I
34:40
surprised other distributors in in burn wraps all over the
34:44
world. When I announced and I would
34:46
leave that I would stop working. And the first people I announced
34:50
it to my wife and daughter when my daughter turned 8.
34:53
I stayed in one year from now when we turned 9 years old.
34:55
Next May 30th at the end of the sun season for the winter, I
34:59
will call it quit. I figured it would take me one
35:01
year to dismantle my agency pieced it out.
35:05
I had nothing to sell. I was a service guy, OK, I
35:08
didn't own burden. OK, I didn't own any of the
35:11
brands. I was a Commission based guy.
35:13
But I figured I'll leave, I'll part ways with the companies on
35:17
a great terms. We'll make sure that some of my
35:20
original sales Rep end up with pieces of it.
35:23
So some of my original reps ended up with burning Southern
35:26
California, burning Northern California, Nixon in, you know,
35:28
and so on. And a year later, in 2010, May
35:33
30th, on my daughter's birthday, all my contracts were over and
35:36
my wife, daughter and I traveled the world in and out of Newport
35:39
Beach for 2 1/2, almost almost two years.
35:42
And at what point did you get bored and decide to open the
35:45
cafe? Well, I was it wasn't really
35:47
getting bored. It was it was combination.
35:49
Also, my wife saying, Hey, your daughter, you know, she needs to
35:53
enter a more regular cycle at school.
35:56
You know, there's zigzagging and I was getting a little bored and
35:59
I had, you know, and I had this cafe thing inside me.
36:02
And, and then one day I told my wife and daughter on the kitchen
36:06
counter. I said, you know what?
36:09
I'm, I'm, I'm going to open a cafe.
36:10
I'm going to open a little cafe. And I could call it that.
36:12
I said, I'm going to open a little cafe in Newport Beach.
36:15
And I wanted my daughter, which is born in San Francisco, to
36:18
kind of know this environment. You know, I grew up in, in Paris
36:21
and, and I missed the product. I missed the lifestyle, the
36:25
sandwich with the zombo and the eight players and, and the
36:28
salads and the omelets and all the basic Parisian cafe food.
36:33
And when I said that to my wife, I'm going to open, I want to
36:36
open an old cafe, She said, why? I've known you for a long time.
36:40
You won't be little. And I was convinced it was.
36:43
I would open a little cafe. We opened eleven years ago.
36:47
Two weeks ago I opened with 10 employees, single location here
36:52
right on the street and and then eleven years later we have 8
36:57
locations and 200 employees. So was it a success right out of
37:02
the gate, or did it take a while to get some traction?
37:04
It was. It was a success right out of
37:06
the gate, as a matter of fact. That doesn't happen very often.
37:09
What were you guys doing? Well, couple reasons.
37:13
Number 1, I had the means to open a real establishment, OK.
37:19
You don't have to do it on a shoestring budget.
37:21
You could do it the way that you wanted.
37:23
It was nice. The quality was there, Yeah.
37:26
I, I had the budget to do it right now keep in mind I'm not a
37:30
Baker, I'm not a pastry shop, I'm not a technique a restaurant
37:33
guy. So I figured, OK, and, and I
37:36
figured in Orange County, not so much the French bar, but the the
37:40
restaurant bar and the public as well travel.
37:43
So I'm going to get one shot. And a lot of people were like,
37:46
along this restaurant industry, you're about to turn 50, why?
37:52
You've done great, you can do nothing, you can do other
37:55
things. Why would you want to get into
37:57
the most difficult business of it all when most restaurants
38:00
close within one year? Now, remember, I come from the
38:04
sports background and I'm very competitive.
38:07
Not only back in the day with windsurfing, but the last 25
38:11
years I fell in love with long distance running, in particular
38:13
the marathon. So I've traveled and competed in
38:15
the marathon all over the world, which is why my voice is a
38:19
little weird because I had a great training session this
38:21
morning at 6:00 AM. And I'm just a competitive
38:26
person. And I'm also very few people
38:31
play the long game. I'm I'm a huge fan of the long
38:34
game. Nothing happens instantly.
38:36
The only thing that happens instantly if you're lucky enough
38:38
is to win the lottery. But everything in life you, you
38:41
got to put in some time. OK, hard time, good times.
38:44
But you have to put in some time if you want to make it to the
38:47
Boston Marathon. I can assure you, in there for a
38:49
few years, you got to go run every day.
38:51
OK, especially now, and I'll be in Boston on April 20th and I'd
38:54
go to Boston every year, but that took a, that took a long
38:57
time. The 1st 10 years I could not go
39:00
to Boston. I had to go running every day.
39:02
It took that long to make it to the Boston Marathon.
39:04
It's the same thing in the restaurant business.
39:06
So I had the means to do it well.
39:09
I had the means to hire well, and out of the gate I figured
39:12
I'd got to sell a real deal. My croissant have to be as good
39:16
as a croissant. Terrace.
39:17
My cut, my cock, Monsieur, My sandwich, my taguette, my
39:20
jaunbo. We make the ham.
39:22
No one makes the ham in Southern California.
39:25
No one makes the ham, which is called the jaunbo.
39:28
Bron Paris. What's?
39:30
Different about the ham. Why can't you just get it from?
39:32
I don't. Know low on sodium, Curated all
39:35
night, Low on sodium. Shredded.
39:37
Very thin, very white, not pink. If your ham is pink, walk away.
39:43
Why it should be a very light rose almost on white.
39:50
And when it's pink, what does it mean?
39:52
It's fake. It's industrial.
39:54
Industrial ham. Yeah.
39:56
So the jumbo is a staple. You know, Americans eat Turkey.
39:59
French people, like, eat ham. OK.
40:02
The staple product is a jumble from a strumble cheese, a multi
40:07
Swiss cheese on a baguette. So she sold salami with a little
40:11
Pickles and so on. So I don't want everybody to
40:14
think that your life was just all roses, no struggles, no
40:18
challenges. There had to have been some
40:21
issues that you overcame early on with the restaurant.
40:25
Can we maybe explore one of those and and how you work
40:27
through it? Well, number one, I mean, OK,
40:30
when you build a restaurant, I mean it takes time permitting
40:36
money. If you do it on a shoe string,
40:38
it's not going to work, OK. If they tell you it's going to
40:41
cost a half a million to build it, it's going to cost a
40:42
million. That's called change orders.
40:45
So you've got the whole CD process, health department
40:48
process. I mean, there are a lot of rules
40:50
in regulation. Of course you're going to make
40:52
something people are going to put in their mouth, OK.
40:55
So there's a lot of rules in regulation about how to make
40:57
food and sell food to the public, which is fine.
41:02
Time, money, and then and then the public.
41:05
You know, I mean, as much as I want and I do sell the real deal
41:09
French product. Americans, especially
41:12
Californians, especially Southern California, especially
41:16
Orange County folks, especially Newport Beach customers want it.
41:21
Airway. It's called entitlement.
41:24
People would love to change everything on my menu.
41:27
Welcome to MUNA. You don't get to change
41:29
anything. Whatever you think you want.
41:32
If it's not on my menu, you get to make it at home.
41:35
We sell the real deal. Meaning what?
41:38
Like what? What's something that somebody
41:39
would ask for that you would decline?
41:42
Well, there's a staple French product at a heavy cafe in
41:46
phones called a Coke Monsieur. It's a grill ham and cheese with
41:49
a slice of ham in the middle. It's called a Coke Monsieur.
41:52
When it has a sunny siding on top of it, it's called a Coke
41:54
Madam. There's no such thing as a Coke
41:57
Monsieur. Coke Madam without a ham, OK?
41:59
There's a lot of other things we sell without ham and I respect
42:02
people that don't want to eat ham, OK, Based on whatever they
42:05
general the fact they don't like ham and so on.
42:07
But when you ask for a cock Monsieur in Newport Beach in the
42:10
first two years, people would say I'll take a cock Monsieur
42:13
without him. I would go with.
42:15
That's not. There's no such thing.
42:16
What you want is a grilled cheese.
42:18
I don't sell grilled cheese. The place across the street sell
42:21
grilled cheese. OK, well, I want a Coca-Cola
42:23
because you're being an ass. So give me a Coke.
42:26
But that we don't sell. American sword is here.
42:28
You don't. Why?
42:29
No, we don't. We still don't.
42:31
We only sell French lemonade. French orange.
42:34
Gina French. Pia French A OK, what about
42:37
California wine? You know, I I hear the
42:39
Californians make great wine. OK, well, I don't sell
42:41
California wine. You know what?
42:42
Because the French make great wine.
42:44
I only sell French wine. Water.
42:46
Everything in my place is French.
42:48
But not only that, the decors. Everything is authentic.
42:52
Every table, every chair, every night, every sign on the wall.
42:55
It's from the 30s, forties, 50s, sixties, 70s.
42:58
I'd go to France every year. I'd sell out 40 foot containers
43:01
of objects. We speak history.
43:04
History means experience. It's almost like you want your
43:08
guests walking through a portal where it's like they walked from
43:12
Orange County into a little slice of Paris.
43:15
Everything in there is Parisian. It's French.
43:19
No jet lag, no attitude. There are two things you can
43:23
leave at the door. OK, we're nice.
43:25
I think we're a little nicer than your average cafe guy in
43:27
Paris. And you not jet lag.
43:29
You have not travelled 11 hours to fly to Paris.
43:33
But there are, you know, you. Back to the struggles for the
43:35
consumer, you know, the city officials, and that was fine.
43:40
Rules are the rules and then the consumers and then the
43:44
employees, you know, big difference between action sport
43:47
and the restaurant business. In Action Sport, everybody that
43:51
I hired, every sales Rep or merchandiser that I hired
43:54
ultimately wanted to do what I did for a living.
43:56
OK, in my business, in the restaurant business, except for
44:00
the people in the back, the bakers, pastry chefs, the cooks,
44:04
the lime cooks, the preps, they're professional.
44:07
They want to be in the restaurant business.
44:11
But remember, it doesn't matter what I do to the establishment,
44:14
it doesn't matter what my team and I make as far as the product
44:17
is concerned, service, service, service.
44:22
If a server delivers the product the wrong way, doesn't smile,
44:26
doesn't agree, as I say thank you, you will not come back.
44:29
You will not come back because other product, other people make
44:32
a great product across the street.
44:34
So in order to pull all this off, obviously a lot of things
44:38
have to line up you from the food execution to the service.
44:43
Labor's tough. It's a tough labor market,
44:45
right? It's hard to find good folks.
44:47
When you find them, it's hard to hold on to them.
44:49
What have you found in terms of recruiting retention that works?
44:54
How do you get the right people to to pull off what it is that
44:58
you're creating? So the one thing where I was
45:01
lucky is by growing and keep in mind, and I never, I never
45:06
thought I'd had two stores, but a customer a year and a half
45:10
into it, which would eat lunch on a regular basis at MUNA in
45:14
Newport Beach, stopping my trap one day and said, oh, are you
45:17
familiar with Laguna Beach Forest Ave.
45:19
I said, of course. I raised my family in Laguna
45:21
Beach while we owned the building where Scandia Bakery
45:23
has been for 38 years. They are retiring and leaving in
45:27
a few months. Would you please consider doing
45:30
a second row in Nebula Beach? We met the following day.
45:35
Handshake #3 happened the exact same way #4 I have never left
45:40
Munai Newport Bush looking for another space.
45:43
The reason why I was a little late on this podcast by a minute
45:46
is because as I'm sure you know, Starbucks last weekend closed
45:50
hundreds of stores in North America, 40 of them in Orange
45:54
Town. In the, in the last 7 days, I've
45:58
had five landlords call me and said, can we talk to you about
46:02
taking over the Starbucks location and I'll be open.
46:07
I'd say no 99% of the time this morning because a customer, and
46:12
this is interesting and this is typical of Orange County, a lot
46:16
of customers that I serve every day.
46:18
I, I don't ask people what they do for a living.
46:20
The phone will eventually stop ringing.
46:22
This is the office phone. Hey, this is how this is how it
46:25
goes. We're getting an inside look.
46:27
A lot of our customers, especially in Orange County, are
46:29
property owners, developers and so on.
46:32
I don't ask people what they own or what they do for a living.
46:35
But interesting enough, you know, all of a sudden this guy
46:37
last week, which is a regular said, hey, well, I own the
46:40
building on PCH next door to Sterling BMW or the Starbucks is
46:45
or was, and I talked to you. Would you please consider taking
46:48
it over and doing a moron? And that's how every location's
46:51
happened. Wow, yes.
46:53
Somebody come always comes to you trying to fill a space.
46:57
Yeah. And I say no 99% of the time.
46:59
And I'm the first one you say if I had Bill Mula, 35 years old,
47:03
I'd have 100 of them in the state of.
47:06
Now here's one of the things that's really interesting to me.
47:09
COVID decimated a lot of business, most restaurant
47:13
businesses. You guys actually thrived during
47:17
that time. Why?
47:19
OK, so I didn't finish on your original question.
47:22
Please. The way we retain people is
47:25
because I was able to grow By growing, you're growing your
47:28
revenues. By growing locations.
47:31
You need more help. So what happened is today every
47:36
single location is run by someone that used to be a server
47:40
789 years ago at Munna Newport Beach.
47:43
So someone that was at the time 21/22/23 and might have worked
47:48
at the time for $20.00 an hour give or take, is now a store
47:51
manager in Laguna Beach. Then upon second, any Southwest
47:53
Plaza, Soco, Newport Beach. So when you grow, your people
47:59
can grow. If you don't grow, the good
48:02
people are going to leave. They should, right?
48:04
I'll be the first one to happen and I've had some great people
48:08
work with me, but because I was able to grow.
48:12
You're giving them a chance for advancement.
48:14
They can see a career path. It's not a dead end for them.
48:19
Responsibilities. More money, building a family,
48:25
eventually buying a house, blah, blah, blah.
48:28
So that's, that's a huge part. And again, you know, going back
48:32
to the Nixon thing, what I told you, the big part of the success
48:35
was betting on the team, the athletes at the time.
48:39
Same thing with Burton snowboard.
48:41
Well, in my brand, in my brand, you know, relying on the team.
48:45
I mean, without the right people, there is no growth.
48:47
I don't care what kind of ham you're making.
48:50
You know, you need good pastry chef, good bakers, good
48:54
everything, good servers, good managers, and growth allows you
48:59
to do that. Now, if you go back to COVID,
49:02
what happened with COVID is #1 all my locations at the time, I
49:05
had four and about 75 employees because of Friends Cafe vibe.
49:11
And I had always had huge patios.
49:14
I was a huge fan of, I mean, we're in Southern California
49:16
where it's 80° every day. So I was a big fan of patios.
49:20
I had a little bit of seating inside.
49:22
I had a lot of seating outside. Keep in mind also then you pay
49:24
rent inside. If you're a good negotiator, you
49:27
don't pay rent outside. OK, Keep in mind that when you
49:31
put chairs and tables inside, you're limited with walls.
49:35
But when you go on the sidewalk, just like in Paris, you start
49:40
with 12 chairs. When nobody's looking, you've
49:41
got 16 chairs. When nobody's looking, you've
49:44
got 24 chairs. And next thing in your entire
49:46
sidewalk, you know, and don't quote me on that, with the next
49:49
landlord next. And you've got chairs and tables
49:52
and umbrellas everywhere. OK, That's the business I'm in,
49:55
right? So number one, had huge patios
49:59
#2 everything we did since day one was available for here.
50:03
But you go. So when the government said
50:06
everybody needs to eat outside, and eventually everybody needs
50:10
to not eat outside but take it away and cannot stay on premise,
50:15
I had it all worked out. And on top of that, different
50:19
locations around me, prime location became available and
50:24
landlords were starving for good operators and could make it,
50:29
could be open, could be serving during COVID and pay rent.
50:34
My best deals were all in during COVID because the landlord came
50:40
back running with more offers, better deals.
50:45
They were desperate to fill the space.
50:46
Desperate to fill an existing space, which by the way, I
50:50
learned a lot before COVID, I took over locations, gutted them
50:53
out and spent some time in excess of the $1,000,000 to open
50:58
a cafe. Once COVID hit, it all became
51:02
second generation restaurant. And today, I mean, we just
51:06
talked about Starbucks. You know, many Starbucks can be
51:09
taken over in this country. Thousand, 1200, fifteen, 2000
51:13
square feet. The bones are correct.
51:16
The plumbing is there, the grease traps are there, the
51:18
electricity is there. I can join your Starbucks,
51:22
change the counters, paint my table, my chairs, my art, my
51:26
signs, my croissant, my sandwich, and I'll give
51:29
Starbucks a run for the money. So prior redoing a a location
51:36
might cost you $1,000,000. What is it you're putting in
51:39
now? 40 million at the most.
51:42
Wow, that's a huge savings. That's a lot of croissants.
51:46
And so you know what? It's interesting.
51:49
I mean, and I have the most respectful Starbucks in and out,
51:52
Chipotle and all those huge chains around me.
51:56
But you know, a lot of people talk about Starbucks and I like
51:58
to talk about Starbucks because the CEO of Starbucks as of a
52:01
year ago is someone from Newport Beach.
52:05
He was the CEO of Chipotle was all over the paper about the
52:08
fact that Starbucks had got him for a huge package, blah, blah,
52:10
blah. And the first thing he did in
52:12
the last few months ago, he analyzed what he had worldwide.
52:16
But one of the statement he made is a few months ago, he said
52:19
Starbucks needs to get back into an experienced type of business.
52:23
Obviously, a few months later, he realized, forget the
52:26
experience. I mean, Starbucks is not an
52:29
experienced place. It's a convenient place.
52:32
When I fly somewhere and there's a Starbucks at the airport, I'm
52:34
the first one in line to get my cup of Starbucks a little
52:36
oatmeal and fried. But nobody's hanging out at
52:41
Starbucks anymore, OK? No, no, I'm in the experienced
52:45
business coming to my place. You spend $3 for a drip coffee,
52:50
you know, $4.00 for a cappuccino latte, maybe you add a croissant
52:53
to it. You can sit there for two hours
52:56
on the patio. You're going to hear people
52:58
talking all kinds of different languages.
53:00
This is just getting done on my patios.
53:02
And when you experience business, the music stream
53:05
streams from France, from Paris. The servers, we have servers
53:10
from all over the world, a lot of them in French.
53:13
A lot of non French servers speak French now because they've
53:16
been with me for so long. At least they got the basic
53:18
French and the basic yelling. When I yell in French, I don't
53:21
yell. Fresh state if you get it. 10
53:25
years later, I'm in the experience business and at the
53:29
same time, you know, approaching 60, you know, I'm not chasing,
53:34
not chasing anything. I really want people to have a
53:38
great experience. I want my employees and I had a
53:40
managers meeting this morning. Once again, every management
53:43
meeting I tell them if we have good employees, if we have happy
53:47
employees, we will translate to good customer.
53:50
It all starts with the employees.
53:51
So I take really good care of employees.
53:54
Because of the size we are, we're able to offer health
53:56
insurance. We have maybe a saving plan for
54:01
people that have been with us for a long time and we promote.
54:04
We promote within. That's the hardest thing in my
54:08
business. You know, I can't hire a manager
54:10
from the outside. He's not going to have the
54:12
culture. He's just not, you know, if you
54:15
want to come in and are you willing to pay your dues and
54:18
you're, you know, somewhat street smart and have common
54:20
sense, you can move up pretty quickly.
54:24
You just need to show up. So what's the future of Mulan
54:27
look like? More growth, more locations?
54:31
You retiring? No near retiring.
54:34
Seriously, I love what I do. No, every year I tell my wife
54:40
it's my last marathon. Like, you know, I'm going to
54:42
Boston next day. Boston.
54:43
Yeah, but that'll be my last one.
54:46
It's the same thing. I really love this service
54:49
business. I love talking about Paris to
54:51
customers. It's actually got a lot easier.
54:53
My, my, my daily days are a lot easier.
54:55
I've got a great management team, a direct reports upon
54:58
employees. I mean all the cafes all the
55:01
time serving people, bussing on the patios with their gloves on,
55:04
picking up paper everywhere. I work with everybody at the, at
55:08
the, at the ground level. I actually spend more time at
55:11
the ground level than that. I'm not a big meeting guy.
55:13
I'm not a big, I'm anti Corp Even so I own a small
55:16
corporation now. My wife and I own everything
55:20
except the real estate because where we want to be, the real
55:22
estate's never for sale. We have no debt.
55:27
And our daughter, my, my youngest daughter, the two
55:30
oldest kids have gone back to friends, but my youngest
55:32
daughter daughter is involved with us.
55:36
You know, a lot of people say, hey, is she going to take over?
55:38
She's the first one to say, dad, it's already too big.
55:40
I can't imagine running this place, but she loves being part
55:44
of it. My, my wife is extremely
55:46
involved on the product. her and I having grown in Paris.
55:51
She's very familiar with the product.
55:54
So she's involved with all the chefs.
55:55
Nothing gets into menus and displays unless she's, you know,
55:59
put a veto on it and, and, and approved it and none more.
56:05
I'm more involved with the marketing, the social media.
56:07
The only thing I've never delegated, by the way, is the
56:10
whole social media. If you go to Instagram at MUNA,
56:13
every picture, every video, every word is from me posting,
56:18
filming. That's a huge thing for me.
56:21
Because if you discover us out of New York City or out of Dubai
56:26
and you land on our page, muna.com or Instagram or
56:30
Facebook, I want, I want to be able to kind of, I want you to
56:35
think I got to go there. I got to meet this guy.
56:38
I got to walk in and see what this product is all about.
56:41
You know, I'm serious. And this is one thing I tell all
56:44
our managers and employees. I'm serious.
56:46
We're very serious. But we don't take ourselves
56:48
seriously, OK? I'm known to goof off or the
56:52
customers or the employees. We work hard.
56:55
We play hard. And I learned that from Jaybar.
57:00
Yeah. Laura, what advice would you
57:02
give to entrepreneurs who are looking to trying to build
57:07
something meaningful? OK, so couple advice, if if you
57:13
have it here, you got to do it. I have a lot of friends, you
57:16
know, they turn 50 years old, change of careers, this and
57:20
that, and they come to me and they go to all I'm like, what's
57:22
here? If there's something that's been
57:25
brewing here for I don't care for how long, you've got to do
57:28
it. Maybe you weren't being held
57:30
back like married kids. Now you're 5055.
57:36
Sounds to me that you want to do something else.
57:39
Do what's here. Don't do something because
57:42
someone else has it #1 #2 whatever you do, you got to be
57:46
all in, all in, long game, all in.
57:52
And last. This is very important.
57:55
I've I've only had one partner in life and that's my wife.
57:58
OK. You're better off doing a
58:00
smaller business without a partner.
58:04
So many people walk up to me going, hello, I've got a great
58:06
ID and I present it to you, blah, blah, blah.
58:10
And I'm like, how are you going to do it?
58:11
I'm going to get partners. I'm going to get investors.
58:16
You start writing someone else's check.
58:19
It's not the same. And if that's what you did,
58:21
isn't that what you did with Nixon?
58:24
Yeah, I was young, foolish, and it worked out, but.
58:33
Do as I say, not as I do. Yeah, but with Moolah, my own
58:36
brand and, and, and, and now we've got to relate to the
58:39
restaurant business, the restaurant industry and getting
58:42
into the restaurant industry is, is a high ticket item.
58:45
It's expensive. And you know, I, I started the
58:47
action sport business like most in my garage and most, I don't
58:51
care if it's Bob McKnight with quick shovel or Jake Burden with
58:54
Bird snowboard in a barn. We all started in a barn, in a
58:57
garage, in a, in a kitchen in 2025.
59:02
It's hard to be small, OK? It's really hard to be small.
59:06
So right off the bat, people show up with a quick business
59:09
plan. I'm going to, I'm going to raise
59:11
a million. I'm going to raise 10 million.
59:13
And then next thing you're, you're, you're, you're writing
59:16
checks. But it's, you know, I mean, I
59:20
was neither rich or poor when I started, OK?
59:23
I was somewhere in between. But at the end of the day, I
59:26
mean, I was still writing my checks and, and, and I could
59:29
have jeopardized a bit, you know, my family.
59:33
But that's, I think that's important.
59:35
That's important to put it all on the edge.
59:39
And there has to be risk and you have to be scared.
59:42
I'm scared. I'm going to the Marine Corps
59:44
Marathon in two weeks in Washington, DC I'm scared.
59:49
And I've been running a marathon for 25 years.
59:51
You have to be scared. How do you manage the fear?
59:55
Because I think for a lot of people, the fear is what
59:57
interrupts their progress or interrupts them taking the
1:00:01
chance. Train for that you train this
1:00:04
morning. I went on a run and I target
1:00:06
Pacers to hit. I got up at 5:00 as usual and,
1:00:10
and, and knowing that I would meet a couple guys that I run
1:00:13
with and I'm just as serious as I am and I'm not going to be
1:00:17
able to hit those paces, you know, and he did, but, but I was
1:00:21
scared and I'm scared about the miracle.
1:00:24
So you do it. You do it in spite of the fear,
1:00:28
not because you've overcome it. Yeah, I mean, and as successful
1:00:32
as we are, I show up every day because I'm.
1:00:35
I'm scared that we might not do the right thing, deliver the
1:00:39
right product. A competitor could come in
1:00:42
across the street. You know, I don't take anything
1:00:45
for granted. Yeah, we have not made it.
1:00:49
I I've never showed up here going.
1:00:51
We made it. That's never going to happen.
1:00:54
And on another note, going back to you said, hey, what's the
1:00:57
next thing, blah, blah, blah. People ask me the law, you need
1:00:59
to be in LA, San Diego, Vegas. I'm not.
1:01:02
We're going to be in LA. The day you see them more in Lai
1:01:05
just won't be the owner. The day you see Coca-Cola on the
1:01:09
display, I won't be the owner. We got to stay true.
1:01:15
So Bulan more locations, no more locations.
1:01:19
What are you saying? Yeah, I mean, not ready to
1:01:22
commit either way. No, I'm going to continue when
1:01:26
I'm an opportunist, OK? Am I going to fill up the next
1:01:29
40 Starbucks in North County? No.
1:01:31
No, But if there's a location I can't, I can't pass, I won't be
1:01:36
able to help. It's in my DNA.
1:01:38
I'm French at heart, but I've been here 42 years.
1:01:41
I'm going to be 60 next month. It's in my DNAI can't help it.
1:01:45
OK? I'm a I'm a French kid in an
1:01:49
American adult body. OK, So, so I can't help it not
1:01:54
to be my wife is my sounding board and my wife being very
1:01:57
Francis, hold on, Tiger. OK, just pace yourself, right?
1:02:04
But you never know. I'm also, you know, maybe a
1:02:09
strategic partner will come along, someone that I get along
1:02:12
with and go look, we've got some of the expertise you have and be
1:02:18
more of the process, more of the system.
1:02:20
You know, growing is one thing, but you have to be process
1:02:24
driven, OK? You don't start operating.
1:02:28
You know, we serve 25 to 3000 people daily, every single day
1:02:33
and, and, and 400 employees. It's a it's a little machine.
1:02:36
You know, we're not Disneyland, we're not small either.
1:02:38
OK. And with that, you know, growing
1:02:42
is one thing, but but you, you, yeah, IT process systems.
1:02:47
So maybe an entity will come along and go, hey, can we
1:02:51
partner up with you? You know, am I looking for
1:02:53
someone to write me a check and I go in the sun and go back to
1:02:56
Maui? No, but I'm not against
1:02:59
anything, having had all my adult business life in
1:03:03
California. And I've seen, you know, and
1:03:06
again, I just told you I'm not into partners.
1:03:08
But I also believe that maybe something will come along, you
1:03:13
know, the next couple of years where it'll make sense to, you
1:03:18
know, and, and, and I'd love to see 20 Mulan in Southern
1:03:21
California just starting in. I mean, we're, we're everywhere
1:03:24
in Orange County, but we're nowhere all the, all the Mulan
1:03:28
20 minutes or 20 miles to my house.
1:03:30
It's been my rule since day one. We're not in Long Beach, we're
1:03:33
not in Orange, we're not in Testin, we're not in Corona Del
1:03:35
Mar, we're not in Missionville, we're not in Laguna Hill, we're
1:03:37
not in San Juan Capistrano. Right there I can double my
1:03:40
footprint and I'm still within 20 miles or 20 minutes of my
1:03:43
house. So you're open to interesting
1:03:47
opportunities if if everything's aligned?
1:03:50
Yes, yeah. That's it.
1:03:51
It's all about, you know, but again, I've got, I'm patient,
1:03:56
I'm very patient. So Laron, I've just got one more
1:03:59
question for you. But before I ask it, I want to
1:04:01
do three things. First of all, anybody who wants
1:04:04
to get in touch with the brand or Laron himself, I'm going to
1:04:08
1st direct you to their website, moulin.com. mulan.com.
1:04:14
You can e-mail Laurent directly. He was kind enough to give out
1:04:17
his e-mail Laurent at mulan.com. His first name is spelled
1:04:20
LAURENTLAURENT at MOU lin.com and they've also got the hashtag
1:04:29
#Mulan and Instagram. And Laurent just shared with us
1:04:33
that everything you see on there, all the pictures and
1:04:35
videos, they come right from him.
1:04:37
Second thing is as a reminder, if you want to get more
1:04:39
employees access to benefits that won't hurt them financially
1:04:43
and carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to us
1:04:45
at Add back benefits.com. And finally, if you take just a
1:04:49
moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast
1:04:52
app, we'll hold a special place in my heart forever.
1:04:54
So last question for you, what's your superpower, Laurent?
1:04:58
Well. I mean, I, I, I'm just, I'm very
1:05:06
driven. I'm very driven.
1:05:10
I always show up. I always show up, you know,
1:05:12
there I'm just like everybody else.
1:05:13
I mean, there's days where like, maybe I don't want to go down to
1:05:17
the restaurant, but you know, I just stay home, you know, or
1:05:22
maybe instead of taking a one week vacation, I stay longer or,
1:05:25
or you have to show up. You have to show up when you
1:05:29
don't want to show up. There's days where I don't want
1:05:32
to go running, but I want to make it to the Boston Yard.
1:05:36
So I go running rain or shine. So, you know, I'm not a scholar.
1:05:43
And I think maybe that is the superpower.
1:05:46
The fact that I didn't go to school.
1:05:48
I don't have a high school diploma, no college degrees.
1:05:52
I bailed. I bailed out of school very
1:05:53
young. I've always worked.
1:05:57
I did not. I grew up in boarding school.
1:05:59
I'm 6 or 16. So, you know, my parents were
1:06:03
the word is voyage. My parents were not really there
1:06:06
by my grandparents were always there on both my mother's side
1:06:10
and my father's side. And my grandparents, you know,
1:06:14
being born in the 20s were very, very hard workers.
1:06:17
They had lived through World War Two in France being occupied.
1:06:23
They were both both my grandparents were independent
1:06:26
business people. And I watched that as a kid.
1:06:30
I was eight, I was 10, I was 12, and I just watched hard work pay
1:06:35
off. And so that's the superpower.
1:06:41
Mulan from I'm Sorry, We'll redo that Laurent from Mulan, the The
1:06:49
chain of Parisian cafes in Orange County.
1:06:53
Small chain. Small chain.
1:06:55
We'll do it one more time, Laurent from the small chain of
1:06:58
Parisian cafes in Orange County of Mulan.
1:07:02
Thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us
1:07:05
today. I really appreciate it.
1:07:07
Come to the cafe, ask for Laurent, tell them or ask for
1:07:10
anyone and tell them I know Laurent, where is he at?
1:07:13
I want him in my club this year always.
1:07:16
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
1:07:19
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:07:20
today.