Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / How Chefs Escape Restaurants Without Going Broke : Joey Chavez(Ep. 190)

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How Chefs Escape Restaurants Without Going Broke : Joey Chavez(Ep. 190) · Chef's PSA Podcast

0:00
Sacrifice now, put the work in now so you can reap the benefits
0:03
later because this doesn't happen overnight, this happens
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over years. And if you waited to start or
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whatever, maybe you're just getting started.
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Put the time in now and pick your best foot forward because
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you don't want to waste time, especially if you're really
0:17
passionate about what you're doing.
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Do it with intention, do it the right way, and I promise you
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things will fall into place later on.
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Hello chefs, this is Chef's PSA, and I'm your host Andre Natera.
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Today I'm joined by Joey Chavez of Truffle and Rye.
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Joey's stories about hard work, sacrifice, and knowing when it's
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time to evolve. We talked about building a real
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career in this industry, transitioning from restaurants
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to private dining, financial literacy for chefs, and
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protecting your physical and mental health.
0:45
Stay tuned. I can't envision myself being a
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40 year old chef working on the line still.
1:05
But why not? I mean, think where I'm at when
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I'm 40, I have a certain expectation where my life is
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going to be at, right family home.
1:13
You know, my life shouldn't be about working 12 to 14 hours on
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the line anymore. I should have evolved through my
1:19
career, through life to grow to be, you know, have a bigger
1:23
vision for myself. Yeah.
1:25
So but when you say passion over pay, what what do you mean by
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that? So I I think it's thing you hear
1:30
right coming up to the kitchen. Instead we came up passion over
1:33
paid. I'm going to go work at the best
1:35
places possible and I know I'm not going to get paid.
1:37
I'm going to barely get paid to survive.
1:39
Can I pay my rent? Can I have food like?
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Yeah, you need a couple roommates.
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Exactly. Yeah, you have 5 dudes living in
1:45
a three bedroom house, right? So at what point?
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So now you're saying that you need to grow out of that?
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I think we definitely need to evolve from that.
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I mean, there's a time and a place for it, right?
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When you're younger, when you're grinding, when you need to pick
1:57
those hours and when you're just you.
2:00
But as you start to grow, you got to see, all right, there's a
2:02
lot more gone all in life. There's a lot more to life than
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just cooking. Yeah, right.
2:06
Again, it's all about who you surround yourself with.
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I always made a big effort to make sure that I worked for
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really good guys because I want to not just learn how to cook
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for them. I want to learn how to be
2:17
successful like them, right. I think that's kind of where,
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you know, if you're like, all right, like passion over pay,
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yeah, I'm going to learn. I'm going to learn at some
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certain point, there has to be like growth, right?
2:27
That next step, right? You have to start making a
2:29
little bit of money in life to be able to move up, to move on,
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to do more. At what point in your career did
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you did you think about that when you got into the industry
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or was there a certain moment that you said, OK, something's
2:40
got to change? There's a certain point when it
2:44
hit me that, hey, something's got to change.
2:47
I think the biggest point it hit me was when COVID, yeah, like,
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I'm at home for the first time, right?
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And I didn't have a savings. I fell behind on my mortgage.
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I fell behind my car payments. I never really prepared myself
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for a time like that. I just, oh, we're in
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restaurants. Everybody's always going to eat.
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Like, I'm just going to be able to live paycheck to paycheck for
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the rest of my life. It really hit me then when I was
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like, when am I supposed to do right now?
3:13
Yeah. So what happened?
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We got help from the state, right?
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We were in Texas, thank God, at that point, and we were able to
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catch up on our rent from that. And then that's when I made the
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transition from restaurants to private chef.
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Sticking on the money subject, like if you're, if you're a
3:31
young cook, how do you how do you advise someone right now
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that's not even thinking about that?
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The only thing they're thinking about is I'm out of culinary
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school and I don't know anything like, I'll share a little bit
3:40
about me is that I didn't understand anything about money.
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Yeah, I, I, I grew up in a relatively poor family, a
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relatively poor neighborhood. And so when I got out into the
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world, I, I didn't, I didn't even know how to like open up a
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bank account. Like, I was very naive to the
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world and I had to learn all this on my own.
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And not that that's the the case where.
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And, and keep in mind, you know, this is a long time ago before
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we had the Internet to explain how everything works or an AI
4:09
bot or whatever. Credit card before you even have
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a bank account. Right, right.
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Like this was like, hey, I, I had to walk in with my Social
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Security card and my driver's license to get a bank account
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and my $150.00 paycheck that I got because I was making 650 an
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hour or whatever. There are some people still like
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that that are as naive as I was back then.
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So if you had to start explaining to someone like, hey,
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you're a new cook, here's some things that think about this
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right now. But as you progress in your
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career, start, start evolving your thoughts on that and maybe
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play the long game. So if you had to, if you, if you
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were talking to someone right now, what are some of the things
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you'd say to us? I would say what is, you know,
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something I really think about, say what's your long term goal,
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like kind of reverse engineer it.
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You got to think of where you want to get to.
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I mean, you have I think maybe I'm different than everybody
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else. When when I was 18, I kind of
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had a plan of where I wanted to go with my career.
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So I made sure I stick to that plan right.
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So if I'm approaching a 18 year old that doesn't know anything,
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fresh alcohol and I'm like, man, think about your plan.
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This first thing I want you to do.
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Where do you want to be? Where do you see yourself in 20
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years? Where do you see yourself in 10
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years? Where do you see yourself in
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five years? And start building that plan and
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how you get to those points. And what happens when you don't
5:18
hit those points? You reassess, right?
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Not everything is going to work out.
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Not everything is always going to go to plan.
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But if you're pitting your best foot forward to get there.
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For me, it happened because I, I stuck to my plan.
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I, I willed it. I made sure when I wanted that
5:36
next step, I went out there and I fought for it.
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And you have to, you have to have that drive, that want, that
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need. If you're going to be like, all
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right, passionate or pay, put your head down, buckle down and
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work, work your ass off. Make sure you're the best one in
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the kitchen. You're the first one in your
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last one out. Put that time in, but know that
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time like that you need to move on from eventually you need to
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move up. It's not always going to be like
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that. Yeah, yeah.
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So how long would you advise someone to be in that sort of
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that growth mindset of first one in, first one out?
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Put your head down, burn the skills.
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I would say, you know, depending on your plan, right, like where
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do you work? What what's your plan lead you
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to where you want to get to? For me, I wanted to be a
6:13
Michelin James very level chef. So I felt like I 1 you have to
6:18
be able to out cook everybody and that comes with knowledge,
6:20
experience and what's that? That takes time, right?
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Like to be a steady good, like, you know what somebody's got,
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you know when somebody doesn't. And it doesn't matter how good
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you are, how talented you are, you still need to do the reps.
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You still need to run it. I mean, for me, I would like to
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see somebody at least spend 5 or 8 years doing like doing that.
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I think you do that time period depending on who you are and how
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you pick things up, right? Yeah.
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And a lot of people get stuck. You know, it's I, I think about
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this like you could be a young line cook and you have your plan
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and inevitably you can hit an obstacle and you might not be
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ready or there's no opportunity there where you're at.
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And you know, they kick the can down the road and they tell you
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you're not ready. Stay here another year.
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We promise we'll get you. A year goes by, you're still not
7:03
ready. At a certain point, you have to
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have a little bit of, I don't know if it's common sense or
7:10
like read the group like they're kicking the you're never going
7:12
to get promoted. They're like, they're not.
7:14
They're not. Going along because you're
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showing up day in and day out, doing the right.
7:17
Things they're not ready to lose you, but they're also not,
7:19
they're also not willing to promote you.
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And you got to be smart enough to recognize like, hey, if you
7:25
are invested in yourself at a certain point, like the
7:28
uncomfortable truth is no. One's coming to save you 100%
7:31
Yeah, you got to always come to save.
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You, no one's. You got to do it on your own.
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Yeah. And I think that's something,
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again, put yourself out there, right?
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And this industry is so big, but it's so small.
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You know you're going to, I've circled back to people that I
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met 15 years ago, right? So you always got to keep those
7:46
relationships. You always got to leave on good
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terms, but you have to do what's right for yourself.
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At the end of the day, it's about you again.
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Nobody's coming to save you. You really think they're
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honestly going to care if they're just kicking the can
7:56
down the road? It's time to move on, buddy.
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And what you can do about that is put yourself out there, go
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STAJ, go spend time in other kitchens, take your own time and
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spread yourself out. I always did that.
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You know, when I knew it was my time to move on, I went out, I
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found the opportunities and we moved.
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We moved probably 12 to 13 times and the first couple were on my
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dime. But as I started getting more
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experience, started taking the next job and moving up the
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ladder, people start paying you to move.
8:23
Yeah, Yeah. No, that's true.
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I having that relocation package is always a nice benefit.
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Oh 100% worked it into the contract.
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Hey, I need it upfront. I need a down, I need a down
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payment, I need moving costs, I need gas, I need all all of it
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like. So what people might, may or may
8:40
not know, like if you've worked in a hotel, sometimes if you're
8:42
getting promoted, they'll pay for your relocation.
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So if you're, you know, ready to go and sue chef or executive
8:48
chef or whatever the case might be and you're in a hotel,
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they'll say, hey, we'll give you, I don't know, $20,000 to
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vote or whatever. But then you sign a little
8:55
contract. But that's what people don't
8:57
ever talk about. At least they don't think about
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enough. It's like, OK, you signed this
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contract where if you leave before the agreed upon time, you
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have to pay that relocation. You got to pay that relocation.
9:07
Yeah, that one hurts. Yeah, it does.
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Have you ever had that? Happened to me one time.
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Yeah, it happened to me when I moved to Houston.
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I didn't spend the two years and I was leaving the job.
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I was expecting to get my last paycheck.
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And they're like, Nope, we garnished it.
9:18
Remember that money? We gave it a move.
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You didn't stay your contract. So it is what it is.
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Yeah, it happens. I mean, I've, I've seen, I've
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seen situations where the, the, the hotel, it's like, you know
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what, we kind of want them to leave anyway.
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Let's just let's not make a difference.
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Let's let them leave so we don't ever have to hear from them
9:38
again. And I've also seen situations,
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so it's like no fuck up. Where's our money?
9:43
You better pay us. Yeah.
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Yeah, that would be rough, man. Yeah, but that game, that's the
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importance of like having your plan and and being prepared
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because life happens. Your car is going to break down,
9:51
you're going to break a contract, you're going to need
9:53
money eventually to survive. Yeah.
9:55
And you said something earlier where you said?
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If. If you're taking care of
10:00
financially, you could perform better at work.
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Oh, 100% yeah, yeah. I had the last one of the big
10:05
companies I worked for, Atlas Restaurant Groups.
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That was 1 something the owner was all about.
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He's like, I want to make sure my people are taken care of.
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Because if you're taken care of, you know I'm going to get the
10:15
best out of you. And that's true, right?
10:17
If your, if your home life is in disorder, just like if your muse
10:19
and POS is in disorder, like you're not going to be able to
10:22
take care of service if your home life is this in disorder,
10:24
how are you supposed to be a professional day in and day out?
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It's just going to weigh on and I mean, and it just comes with,
10:30
comes with life. You have family, you have things
10:32
that need to be taken care of. Are you really just going to be
10:35
living a room for the rest of your life and rent when you
10:37
don't have roommates? Yeah.
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Now, do you have any financial negotiation tips for people when
10:44
they're going into first time head chef roles or sous chef
10:46
roles? Again, I think that's where it
10:48
comes in, just making yourself as valuable as possible so you
10:51
have a leg to fall, right? You know, if you're with the
10:54
company, you're going for a promotion or you're going to ask
10:56
for the next raise, Let your actions speak for what you've
11:00
done right. You're the guy that showed up.
11:02
You got a no job was too small, no job was too big.
11:05
Like you did things day in and day out the right way.
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Have you laid that foundation? Why not?
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That should happen if they're good leaders.
11:13
I mean, like we talked about, I think hotels give give you a
11:17
really good opportunity, a lot more secure than an independent
11:21
restaurant. Yeah.
11:22
What would be more funding, more funding, more backing, right?
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Do you have room rates now to help support your food and
11:27
beverage programs? Right.
11:28
Banquets. Banquets.
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Yeah, catering operations where I don't think a lot of people
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realize that like a catering operation in most hotels is
11:36
really what's fun do. Everything.
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Yeah, catering and rooms really that's that's where it's all
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happening, right? Where the restaurant, it's not
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that it's an amenity for the hotels.
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There's a lot people ask just in many like, no, your restaurants
11:48
still, they still want you to make money.
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In fact, they don't want to, they don't want to lose money
11:52
there. But they also understand like
11:55
our money's made. Like if, if your catering sales
11:57
are good, all the other numbers blow in line.
12:01
Yeah, yeah. What people need to, I remember
12:05
was so for people that don't know, sometimes when you're,
12:08
when you're in an exec position, you go into PNL meetings and
12:13
you're sitting there and you're reviewing the PNL and they're
12:19
going line by line. Like why is, why is this number
12:21
bad? Why is this number good?
12:22
This, that and the other. And I remember this dude was a
12:25
gangster. He was the food and beverage
12:27
director at the time where I was working.
12:30
And they said, so what's the problem?
12:32
He's like, just sell more coffee.
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That's it. Like that's our, that's our
12:35
plan. Sell more coffee because in a
12:37
lot of in a lot of hotels, like you're paying 80 to like $120.00
12:42
a gallon for coffee. That's what that's what you're
12:44
retailing it for. Like when you have coffee breaks
12:47
like food cost and everything else falls in line.
12:49
Absolutely, yeah. Did you like your time in
12:52
hotels? Kitchens are brutal right now,
12:53
everyone knows it. Fewer people on the line,
12:56
margins tighter than ever, and somehow the expectations keep
12:59
going up. There's just no room to miss
13:01
anymore. I was talking to a chef recently
13:03
who said the biggest stress wasn't the volume, it was the
13:06
mental load. Babysitting, food, timing
13:08
everything perfectly, trying to be everywhere at once.
13:12
And that's where equipment matters more than people want to
13:14
admit. Rationals technology comes up a
13:17
lot in those conversations. The Icon B Pro, the Ivario Pro
13:21
overnight roast that don't need to be checked, custom programs
13:24
for all your recipes, consistency without hovering,
13:27
completely automated cleaning, monitoring everything from your
13:30
phone. The list goes on.
13:32
And what really buys you the headspace?
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Less standing over pans and more time to leave the kitchen
13:37
instead of constantly putting out tiny fires.
13:39
When you're down to cook, when the prep list is rough, when the
13:43
production ramps up. Think rational.
13:46
I did. I, I that's where hotels were a
13:50
pivotal point for me in my career, right?
13:51
I was young. I was fresh.
13:53
And for people that don't know what you were at, some good
13:54
ones. I worked at so I started at the
13:56
Ritz Carlton in Bachelor Bulge in Colorado.
13:58
They had. A They had a Wolfgang Puck
14:01
restaurant, right? They had.
14:02
The Spago was in there. That's when Spago was still
14:04
there and the guy that was running Spoggle, Jared was an
14:07
amazing chef. He he cut his teeth coming up to
14:10
the the Wolfgang ranks. But anyways, yeah, getting in
14:13
there and and working at Ritz Carlton.
14:14
I started as a cook three bottom of the tumble.
14:17
But there was just like I talked about opportunities.
14:20
The chefs are great, man. Like they found me.
14:22
I was in Louisiana cooking at the point and you know, they
14:24
helped me get there. They didn't pay for me.
14:26
I loaded up my truck and I drove up to to Colorado.
14:29
I didn't have a place to live. I didn't have room mates.
14:31
I didn't have any money at that point.
14:33
Show up to orientation, they're great.
14:36
They took really good care of us.
14:37
They introduced us like, hey, we know you 4 guys don't have a
14:40
place to live. Why don't you guys get something
14:42
together? And they helped us and they
14:43
found us a place. So a lot of support in that
14:46
aspect. And then once work started,
14:49
opportunities just fell on my lap.
14:51
I showed up on time, I did the right things, and I quickly
14:55
moved up the ranks, which I think is awesome about hotels.
14:59
It gives you a lot of opportunity, like I said, a lot
15:01
of security and if you're in a good hotel, there's good
15:04
standards, man, Ritz Carlton is very high in brand and they they
15:08
have standards that they keep, you know what I mean?
15:10
So learning a large operation like that at such a young age,
15:15
you know, working your way through the kitchen, working
15:17
your way through the banquet kitchen.
15:18
The other hotel there's just you have, it's like it's open games.
15:23
And, and it's a wide range of skills that I don't think a lot
15:25
of people realize. Like you could learn how to get
15:27
really good on the omelette station.
15:28
You get really good on the at the fine dining restaurant, you
15:32
get really good at frying wings for room service or, you know,
15:34
whatever the case. Room service.
15:35
Oh man, I always hated them working the room service line
15:38
that's. The worst, So I would imagine at
15:39
Ritz Carlton's 24 hour room service, 24 hour, yeah, it's
15:41
luxury, right? So they got to, they got to hit
15:43
the, they got to hit the standard of running 24 hour room
15:46
service. It's funny, I always thought
15:48
like no offense to anyone that works, overnight room service
15:50
was always the fucking strangest people the overnight.
15:53
Crew. The overnight crew was always
15:54
crazy, yes. Overnight porters, the overnight
15:57
cooks. It was kind of a zombies coming
15:59
in the middle of the night. They banged it out, man.
16:02
You'll show up and they'd be good, yeah.
16:05
And you always wonder like, what the fuck happens on the
16:07
overnight shift. But when you when you get to
16:09
work, it's like everything's clicking all the executives so
16:12
that everyone knows what's going.
16:14
But on the overnight, it's like they they live in their own
16:16
little world. Yeah, they had, they had.
16:17
They're on the barter system. Like I'll make you this.
16:19
You give me that. Yeah.
16:21
Yeah, overnight crew in hotels, it's like if you haven't, if you
16:25
want to, if you want to have a lot of really good stories, work
16:29
the overnight shift. Come in early shift for the
16:33
breakfast too and relieve those guys and working with them for a
16:35
little while. I was at the Beverly Hills
16:38
Peninsula for a little while. Yeah, I did that.
16:40
I mean, I couldn't stand working in Beverly Hills.
16:42
I grew up in Lai, left when I was 18.
16:45
I went back, man, I don't think I lasted four months.
16:48
The drive, the traffic, it just wasn't for me.
16:52
I just couldn't do it. How, how is the how is the I'm?
16:56
I'm assuming working in Beverly Hills as a chef you're seeing a
16:59
lot of things. Yeah, it was, it was different
17:04
to be honest, you know, I because I spent a lot of my time
17:06
in the mountains throughout throughout my career at this
17:08
point. And coming to Beverly Hills, it
17:10
was, yeah, it was a lot of plastic, a lot of fake people,
17:15
man. You know, it was people like
17:17
they're just no, no compassion for you, right?
17:20
There's like, I want it and I want it now.
17:21
I don't care what you need to do.
17:22
It needs to happen now for me. And, you know, workers kind of
17:25
had that mentality. And you working in a union,
17:28
working with. That's my first time ever
17:29
working with a union. I just, you know, these dudes
17:31
would literally be like, all right, time to leave.
17:33
I'm done. Bye.
17:33
Yeah. Can can you for a lot of people
17:35
that have never worked in a union from for the audience
17:39
that's listening, what is it like working in a union when
17:42
you're when you're when you've never worked?
17:45
Like if you were going to explain to something like, hey,
17:46
it's your first time working at union, here's some things that
17:48
you just might not be ready for. I would say it's how much they
17:54
make an hour, They make good money.
17:55
An hour. Yeah, they do.
17:57
And the ability to kind of like control your own schedule,
18:00
control what you do, like you kind of just do what you want
18:03
kind of thing, right? You don't.
18:04
People are scared to yell at you, People are scared to come
18:06
down at you because they don't want you to go and run into the
18:08
union, right. So you have that.
18:09
It's actually. If if you work.
18:12
For the career, cook you. Want to be a line cook forever?
18:15
Go join a union. Right, because like I said, you
18:18
can literally just stop working and walk out if you wanted to.
18:20
Like when your time is done. If you're not done, I've seen
18:23
people just walk out like you got to clean up after me.
18:26
So it's definitely a surprise in that aspect.
18:28
I remember I was I had to go check in on a union property for
18:32
my for my job and it was fucking dirty.
18:35
Like no no one would clean and I'll never forget this.
18:37
They would wrap the the stainless steel table with
18:41
plastic wrap because they weren't allowed.
18:43
They're like, I'm not fucking cleaning it.
18:47
So at the end of the shift. They just pick up the plastic
18:49
wrap and maybe it was clean. Yeah, because, you know, just
18:52
wrap it up. So at the end of it, just clean
18:54
off the plastic wrap. Tables are clean because they're
18:56
like. They don't pay me to clean.
18:58
See those are that's kind of like the the the downside for
19:00
for me with hotels, some of them I mean even yes, you have these
19:03
hotels that are supposed to be here.
19:05
Things like that still happen, right?
19:06
Like the, the, the, the food care, the quality, the
19:10
sanitation. It's a lot of times it's not up
19:12
to par, right? And that's for me, it was one of
19:15
the reasons I ended up leaving and going back into independent
19:17
restaurants is just because I don't feel like people cared as
19:22
much. You can be a chef and you could
19:24
really care, but you're going to beat your head against the wall
19:27
a lot of the times if if you know your team's on board.
19:29
Yeah, Well, I agree with you. Like there, there's restaurants
19:32
and there's hotels and there's good hotels and there's bad
19:34
hotels, good restaurants, there's bad restaurants.
19:37
But if I was looking at a hotel situation, I would normally tell
19:41
people like you want to, if you really want to learn how to cook
19:45
in a hotel, go to a luxury hotel that's large that has multiple
19:49
restaurants. They just go around and, you
19:51
know, do breakfast and do banquets and you do the fine
19:53
dining or the casual dining. But ideally you want to do that
19:57
in a place for me that's not a union.
19:59
That's how hard was that? Yeah.
20:01
If you want to learn to cook, you want to learn to do things
20:03
the right way, go learn. Yeah, exactly.
20:05
And that's what happened for me at the Ritz is.
20:07
You know, I started, like I said, as a cook three and one
20:10
day the sushi guy who was supposed to do in the great room
20:13
didn't show up. I was like, Hey, I know how to
20:15
roll sushi. I did, you know my job before in
20:17
Louisiana. So like, all right, go out there
20:18
and do it. So I'm in the middle of the
20:20
great room and the Ritz Carlton rolling sushi.
20:22
I'm like 22 years old, just like, all right, cool.
20:24
This is fun by myself for all the people come in skiing.
20:26
It was it was a cool experience. And because of that opportunity
20:29
that opened the door for me to go to Spago.
20:31
I ran my own sushi menu every summer.
20:34
The next three years I was there.
20:37
So again, not saying no to opportunities.
20:38
I, I want to ask you about your current business because right
20:42
now you do a lot of private dining and I, I don't have a lot
20:45
of experience in private dining and I think a lot of people are
20:48
very curious about it, especially the money that's made
20:53
in, in private dining. So I've talked to people and I
20:55
and I think your margins are pretty good in private dining
20:58
compared to the typical restaurant. 100%.
21:02
Yeah. Can you can you kind of
21:03
breakdown what some of the perks are?
21:05
Yeah. So I think in, in private
21:08
dining, right, there's obviously different tiers and I've been
21:12
lucky enough to break away into that like ultra high net worth
21:15
clientele. How did you get into it?
21:18
So I was just a restaurant chef and a family had mentioned they
21:21
were looking for a chef and I interviewed with them and did a
21:24
tasting at their home and ended up landing the job.
21:27
So I've been private chefing now for almost 6 years.
21:29
OK, so let me ask you this again, because I don't know a
21:33
lot about private dining and private chef.
21:35
When you're getting a job with a family, what what do they
21:39
typically want to eat and what are you typically prepping in a
21:43
day? Because it's probably not like
21:45
restaurant food. It's probably like maybe they on
21:47
a strict diet or something. Yeah, it obviously depends
21:51
client to client, right? What they want the specific
21:53
diet, but you know, they a lot of these people want clean from
21:58
scratch, cooking healthy food, right?
22:00
You're not, you know, no seed oils, right?
22:02
Use a beef towel, using high end ingredients as much as possible
22:06
coming from farms, right? Especially in Texas.
22:10
I mean, we, we have access to great beef, We have access to
22:13
good vegetables. I mean, so I'm sourcing as much
22:15
as local as possible, eggs, milk, cheeses.
22:20
I'm importing olive oils for these kind of clients.
22:23
I mean, they want the best ingredients, right?
22:25
Even if you're just cooking a chicken breast and a salad, you
22:28
know what I mean? It's really good chicken and
22:29
it's thoughtful ingredients that are going on the plate.
22:32
Typical day for me right now. I work five days a week for the
22:35
family lunch and dinner. So lunch I'll, I'll go go
22:38
shopping in the morning, get whatever I need.
22:41
I'll start prepping like 8-9 o'clock and it typically
22:44
consists of a, a nice soup. We'll do a theme, right?
22:48
So whether it's Mediterranean, Greek, Italian, Mexican, kind of
22:53
light bites, two or three bites after the soup.
22:57
So we'll do like a shared chicken dish, beef dish, salad
23:00
and a starch. That'd be like a typical lunch.
23:04
Yeah. So it's like that throughout the
23:05
week. And then dinner.
23:06
And then dinner, then it's kind of the same thing, right?
23:08
I do all the cooking, all the shopping, all the prep and then
23:13
I'll do all the serving. I set the table, I serve them, I
23:15
clean, I do all the dishes. So it's it's a non-stop.
23:18
They they have a set dinner time.
23:19
They have a set. They have set time a.
23:21
Certain time to have dinner, family or whatever.
23:23
So that's completely different than like, you know, doing the
23:26
private dinners because when you're private chef in it's more
23:29
of a day rate thing. And day rates can be anywhere
23:31
from 500 bucks to, you know, $2000 depending on the time of
23:35
year chef, whatever that looks like, right?
23:37
And that's a specific day rate. Those those, those clients are
23:39
obviously paying for all the groceries that you're using and
23:42
anything else like that. And then when you're doing
23:46
events, so dinner for 10 at someone's house or something
23:49
like that. Yeah, dinner for 10.
23:50
So I'll what I do personally, I charge a per person for food and
23:54
that can be anywhere from 150 to $300 just for the food.
23:58
I'll also charge a chef fee, server fees, bar tender fees,
24:01
Psalm fee, whatever kind of experience they want to offer.
24:04
You got to rent China. You got to charge them.
24:05
To rent, yeah, You know, everything.
24:07
And then, you know, these people are wanting these 4567 course
24:11
menus in their home. So what I like to do is I'll go
24:14
go shop in the morning. I'll show up to the client's
24:16
house about 12, and I'll cook everything from scratch.
24:18
Obviously, if I need to prep some meats, I'll do all that
24:21
beforehand. But then once I get to the
24:23
client's house, I'm making the pastas, finishing the sauces,
24:26
pretty much making everything in front of them.
24:27
They love that they're usually in and out of the kitchen all
24:29
day, smelling everything, tasting it.
24:31
And by the time dinner comes around, I mean, they're, they're
24:34
drooling. Yeah.
24:35
Do you typically go in with help or?
24:37
No, I, I, I do it a lot of times by myself.
24:40
I can do easily up to 18 people comfortably by myself.
24:45
I have servers, right? But I think after that I want to
24:49
bring in help makes it easier. So from a from a business
24:51
standpoint, when you're negotiating with clients on
24:54
dinner, so you said you have like a $300 menu, how many
24:57
courses is on that $300 menu? We'll probably do 7 courses and
25:01
then yeah, we're going to use, probably end up throwing
25:06
truffles on there if they're in season, right, Depending on what
25:08
season it is. Caviar.
25:09
Some kind of really nice Texas Wagyu beef.
25:11
Yeah. So you you want to make sure
25:12
that they're seeing the value with the high luxury. 100% they
25:15
want these people want to see those kind of thing.
25:18
They want the the the top of the top.
25:20
If I mean important, I can import, you know, fish from
25:22
Japan kind of anywhere what I want to do.
25:25
And when you're building that relationship with the clients
25:29
and you have multiple clients now, do you, do you typically
25:32
have a, a set of menus or is everything bespoke when you're
25:34
going in? So I personally, again, it will
25:37
change a lot on the chefs you talked to.
25:39
I personally offer what I like to do is offer experiences.
25:43
So everything I do is tailor made to what you guys want to
25:46
do. I don't have set prices.
25:48
I don't have set menus. I'm creating a menu from scratch
25:51
for you. We're creating your experience
25:53
and how you want it. So what are your favorite
25:55
dishes? What are your favorite desserts?
25:56
What do you like to eat? What do you guys don't like to
25:58
eat? Because in this game of private
25:59
chef and it really blew my mind of like a lot of these guys have
26:02
egos, right? And it's like.
26:05
A lot of what you guys, private chefs, private chefs got it.
26:07
OK, because they're different than your eye.
26:09
Then a lot of these guys come up in in in restaurants nowadays.
26:12
They are they're the transition, right?
26:13
Since COVID, a lot of these mission level chefs are getting
26:15
into private. But before that, you know, a lot
26:18
of private chefs are kind of self-taught, kind of just, I
26:21
started cooking for my friends and, and, and now they're like,
26:23
oh, my power chef, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.
26:26
Or they've been with families their entire career.
26:28
They never really went to a restaurant.
26:30
They're kind of egos. Oh, I'm not going to cook that.
26:32
I'm not going to do that. This is what I want to do.
26:34
This is how I want to do it. If you got clients that are
26:36
paying you thousands of dollars a day to be there, you want hot
26:39
dogs and hamburgers for both meals, Dude, let's do it.
26:42
Whatever you want. I don't care, right?
26:44
It's about what the client wants.
26:45
I want to make you happy. Leave egos out of it.
26:49
What are some of the things that, you know, from a business
26:51
standpoint? I I was, I was talking with
26:53
someone the other day on the show, Francis Pascal, he's he
26:57
runs up and the door up in in Chicago and he was saying, you
27:00
know, some advice for people is like always have a contract.
27:03
Yeah, yeah, always have a always get a certain percent upfront
27:06
and you know, the rest of it a couple days out is there.
27:11
Do you apply the same philosophy with what you do or how do?
27:14
How do you set it up? Yeah, I always get a deposit.
27:17
Yeah. I mean, because we're planning,
27:18
you know, again, it's hard about these events.
27:20
We don't, I don't have like a brick now I do, I have a brick
27:22
and mortar. But beforehand I didn't.
27:24
So I'm buying everything fresh. So you end up spending a little
27:27
bit more money because you, you don't have a lot of times you
27:29
don't have everything you need on hand.
27:31
We're like, where is you have the brick and mortar?
27:32
You know, you typically have your bases, your olive oils,
27:34
your salt, some proteins, some prudery, things like that.
27:38
So that's where it gets challenging is you're buying
27:39
everything right for that specific event.
27:43
So yeah, somebody cancels on you, you're sitting on $1500 for
27:46
the product. You can do that.
27:47
I always like to take a deposit or if we're doing now outside
27:51
those kind of styles, then a new lot of pop ups.
27:54
So now with these private events, we'll go take over a
27:56
restaurant and we sell tickets. We usually sell tickets about a
27:59
month in advance. So from a strategic standpoint,
28:02
if if someone was looking to get into the pop up events, what is
28:06
your how do you sell the tickets?
28:08
Like do you go through like Facebook ads or?
28:11
We use GoDaddy, Godad. So we use GoDaddy and then
28:14
that's our platform and just post on social media, Instagram,
28:17
Facebook. So you didn't want to make sure
28:19
you have a good enough social media following that people know
28:21
you're. Yeah, I don't have AI mean I
28:23
have like 2000 followers on Instagram.
28:24
We sell it every time. But it's because I've gone out
28:27
in the community and I've built relationships and it's always,
28:30
I'm always making strategic moves and meeting the right
28:33
people wherever I'm doing well, whoever I'm with, I'm always
28:35
involving myself in the community.
28:36
I'm getting to know other restaurant owners of restaurant
28:39
businesses, business in my area and just start talking to
28:42
people, right? What what are the margins
28:44
typically on a private dinner? Like not a not a, not a private
28:51
chef, but. Just like you're doing dinner,
28:52
I'm doing a private dinner. So All in all, costs are
28:55
probably 20%, so I could make an 80% profit.
28:58
Private dinner, OK, really good money.
29:00
Yeah, yeah, really good money. What is that?
29:03
You know you got $5000 party, right?
29:05
You're going home with 35435 hundred.
29:08
Bucks I haven't done a lot of these dinners, but I had to pick
29:11
one up for a friend of mine and he called me up and he said
29:13
like, hey, I got this family. They want to do a dinner.
29:16
I was like, well, how much do they charge?
29:17
He gave me a number. I I was like, wow, that's a lot.
29:20
Like I was thinking, that's a lot.
29:21
I wouldn't pay that. I went I set the number like,
29:23
oh, OK, I thought you were going to be more.
29:24
And I was like, shit, yeah, I should I should have said
29:27
something different. But what I didn't realize, and
29:29
this was a yeah, you know, you know, this was a company thing
29:33
that they were doing. So this was like their company
29:36
Christmas party or whatever. So it's like they could pay
29:38
more. Oh, yeah, yeah, 'cause it's like
29:40
they're not paying for it. Their company, their company
29:42
that they own, is paying for it's.
29:43
So you got holiday rates, man. Let's go up during the holidays.
29:46
It gets more expensive if it's double the rate during that
29:47
time. You got chefs?
29:49
They'll be charged $2500 just for their chef fee for those.
29:51
Days Yeah, yeah, that's that's what I realized is like, OK, you
29:54
know and I have a chef fee for things that I do but yeah,
29:56
there's always a chef fee an appearance view or whatever,
29:59
right a. 100% I mean and being able to work in these different
30:03
areas like go up to Aspenvale, those Telluride, those chefs are
30:08
rocking it in man, you know minimum $2000 day rate and then
30:11
these guys will work 6090 days in a row like that.
30:14
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it's true, but
30:17
someone told me a chef friend of mine that lives up in Aspen said
30:20
that there's more billionaires in Aspen than anywhere else in
30:22
the country. I think it's Telluride.
30:24
Yeah, the joke. This is what I've heard.
30:27
I'm not a billionaire or a millionaire, but like, yeah, the
30:30
millionaire's going to ask him. The billionaire go Telluride.
30:32
There you go. Yeah.
30:34
And I guess if you're the private chef, like follow the
30:36
money. The money that's right.
30:39
No, but I think once you get to the the pop ups, pop ups for me
30:44
weren't that profitable. I barely would make a couple 100
30:48
we would make bring in $5000 for an event, but I would make
30:51
myself take home maybe 2 or $300 a lot of times.
30:54
Why? Why are they not profitable?
30:56
So for me, again, it was about the experience.
30:59
I was doing this for fun because I'm just kind of crazy.
31:02
I like doing things, I like learning, I like pushing myself,
31:04
I like creating experiences. And I wanted to get more
31:07
involved in my community. So what I'll do is I'll bring in
31:09
local businesses for the first hour, let them set up shop.
31:12
We'll do like a sipping, shop around, shop, buy stuff.
31:15
I'll do past orders. We'll have some liquor.
31:18
You know the local restaurant where we're hosting the pop up.
31:19
They'll get all the alcohol sales.
31:22
And then I'm usually bringing all the product in.
31:24
I'm bringing all the wine in, I'm bringing all the booze in,
31:25
I'm bringing all the food in. So that costs a lot.
31:28
I'm not tapping into any of the restaurant stuff because it's
31:30
not mine. And then I'm paying all my staff
31:32
to come, paying my song, paying the manager, I'm paying servers,
31:35
I'm paying cooks. So I'm paying everybody good
31:37
wages too because I respect my team and their time.
31:41
So yeah, for me it was more about creating an experience but
31:44
also marketing myself and the relationships I met built
31:48
throughout those pop ups have now led me to open up a brick
31:50
and mortar. So maybe play a little game.
31:53
OK, you've worked in restaurants, you've worked in
31:55
hotels and and private dining. OK, so with one word answers, if
32:02
I ask you the question like which one, what's the best food
32:07
wise? On the day-to-day, food wise,
32:11
day-to-day restaurants. Money.
32:14
Private shipping. Fun.
32:22
Depends on the fun. Restaurants is that crazy party
32:24
fun. Private dining is like I'm
32:26
traveling the world fun. So you got two different
32:28
aspects. Hard work.
32:36
Private, private chefing. Creativity.
32:44
Private chefing. Learning like entrepreneurial
32:51
skills. Private chefing?
32:53
Yeah, for sure. Social aspects of the cooking
32:58
world. The cooking world, yeah,
33:00
Restaurants, restaurants, restaurants for sure.
33:02
Yeah. Feel very disconnected from the
33:05
restaurant world. Yeah, since becoming a private
33:07
chef. Wow.
33:09
And. If there was someone new coming
33:12
into the game and they they're, they're, you're looking at this
33:14
fork in the road with three, three lanes of hotels,
33:18
restaurants and private dining, and they don't know where to
33:22
begin. Could you give like a sales
33:24
pitch for each one? Yeah.
33:26
Like, here's what you would get for private dining, Here's what
33:28
you'd get from hotels, and here's what you're.
33:30
Going to get this is a person that's turning the bait where
33:33
they want to go cooking. They they're, they're brand new
33:35
and they're like, which lane should I go?
33:37
I honestly think restaurants should be the first.
33:40
That's where you're really going to learn to cook because you
33:41
can't be a private chef if you don't know how to cook.
33:43
Yeah, you can cook at home and you can call yourself a chef and
33:46
throw parties, but do you really know how to cook?
33:49
So the the lessons you learn in the restaurant world, right?
33:53
That's where you're really going to learn to cut your teeth, cut
33:54
your work, hard work, grit, team player, all those carry on
33:58
throughout everything else. That's a great foundation.
34:01
Start as a cook, get a strong base, get an understanding.
34:04
Maybe even just spend a year or two in restaurants, go over
34:06
hotels. Continue to learn to cook,
34:09
continue to learn the grill. Now you're learning about
34:11
operations. Now you're getting more
34:12
responsibility in a bigger place.
34:13
Now you're maybe looking through a couple different restaurants,
34:16
banquets, in room dining. You get a little bit more
34:18
experience. Maybe you get promoted to sous
34:20
chef. Great place to have on the
34:21
resume. I was a sous chef at the Ritz
34:23
Carlton. Because now when I apply, you
34:26
know, I can go back to restaurants and move my way up,
34:29
or you can dive right into the private chef.
34:32
But you want to have a strong base before you get to that
34:37
private chef world because now everything is on your shoulders,
34:41
timing, ordering, prep, organization, throwing events.
34:45
So having an understanding of all this and how this all works
34:49
just makes you that much stronger.
34:51
And that's why I think I've been so successful as a private chef
34:54
because of my background and the restaurants and hotels.
34:59
Yeah. Thank you, I appreciate it.
35:01
I think that's good feedback for people that are listening.
35:03
One other thing that I I want to touch on is I feel like health
35:09
and Wellness is not talked about enough in our industry.
35:12
I see a lot of chefs, you know, they they get I well, it's
35:15
really too lanes. I see a lot of chefs that beat
35:17
up their body. I see a lot of chefs that do
35:18
really well, like, you know, they remain fit and there's a
35:22
lot of vices around in the kitchen.
35:24
Yes, every single vice you could, you could, you could love
35:28
whether it's eating too much, eating junk food, drinking too.
35:32
It's all right there and it's all within arm's reach, you
35:35
know? And it takes a lot of
35:37
discipline, I think, to work in an environment and know when to
35:40
say no to no one, to say no when it's within arm's reach, right,
35:45
And choose the healthier option. But what's your take on physical
35:51
health, Mental health in the restaurant industry?
35:55
I think having your, your physical health is kind of the
35:58
basis to everything for me, right?
36:00
I guess I'm still, I'm a big guy.
36:01
I'm 235 lbs, right? At one point I was 320 lbs.
36:06
I just kind of let my health go. I played college football.
36:08
I was always athletic, but I was, I always kind of, I was a
36:12
crush. I was like, ah, I play college
36:13
football. I'm good, I'm good.
36:14
Like whatever I can drink, I can eat, do whatever I want.
36:16
I don't need to work out. And then next thing I know, 10
36:18
years later, I'm 320 lbs, right? And 282930 like that's not
36:24
healthy, you know, so that that like your physical health,
36:28
truly, I think plays in the mental health, plays in the and
36:30
plays in the everything. Obviously, how you perform at
36:33
work, how you perform for your family, your friends, whatever
36:35
it may be, if you're not physically there, you're just
36:38
not going to be able to perform at a high level.
36:40
And this job, we're on our feet all day.
36:42
Your body's going to eventually break down.
36:44
And it took me the last five years to really realize that,
36:47
right? I think that's been a blessing
36:49
for the private chef world is I've been able to slow down and
36:52
focus on my personal growth. And the biggest thing I think I
36:55
needed to do to get to that next level in life was focus on my my
36:59
health. I've lost 80 lbs.
37:01
How did you do it? Diet.
37:03
I don't drink anymore. I don't touch alcohol.
37:06
I mean yes I'll drink some wine if we're going to a nice dinner
37:08
or whatever, but rarely drink and I work out 54456 days a
37:13
week. I'm so in heavy weights and.
37:15
Stuff, Yeah, I did a lot of weight training.
37:16
I did a lot of rocking, you know, that's where you get the
37:19
backpack on and you just go walk.
37:20
I did a 24 hour like rock event two years ago where we went 24
37:24
hours straight, like 40-50 miles.
37:26
And they like beat you up in between.
37:28
So just doing physically hard things, just make sure they're
37:32
that much easier. And then you start showing up
37:34
better for everybody, your employees, your family, the
37:37
people around you, right? Your mental health is strong.
37:39
You can handle now. The stress of the day is so much
37:42
better. That took me a long time to
37:44
learn that. You know, I've always feel like
37:45
I've been chasing something. I thought it was a career and I
37:47
finally got the career. I got the money, I got
37:49
everything I wanted. I still felt like I was missing
37:51
something. I never really looked inward and
37:55
like, man, I need to focus on myself now.
37:57
You need to learn to love myself.
37:58
And that came with working out, taking care of your body, loving
38:01
yourself. Like, hey, I need to focus on
38:04
what's right for me. If I need to make a little bit
38:05
of time in the morning or night, whatever that may be, you got to
38:08
figure it out. You had a lot of broken chefs
38:12
when I was coming up and also probably when you were coming
38:14
up, a lot of broken chefs that weren't, weren't having these
38:20
conversations with the young cooks in their kitchen, like
38:22
saying, Hey, you know, my body's a little bit broken.
38:24
Maybe because they start taking care of yourself for being a
38:26
good example by and, and, and obviously there's exceptions to
38:29
the rule. There are chefs that did that.
38:32
But I, but I think now it's much different.
38:34
I think, you know, chefs like yourself, a lot of other chefs,
38:37
you know, James Avery's a friend of mine has been on the show
38:40
before. You know, it's really big into
38:41
fitness. I think a lot more chefs are now
38:46
doing that and being a positive example for the for the rest of
38:49
the team and the people that they work with and showing like,
38:51
hey, you need to start taking care of yourself.
38:54
And when the young cook comes in and sees, you know, that the
38:57
chef takes care of themselves and creates an environment where
39:00
you could be healthy and being healthy as respected and it's
39:03
not frowned upon. I, I, I mean, I remember like,
39:05
they'd make fun of you if you went to the gym some when I was
39:08
coming up as a cook. Look at that.
39:09
Nerd, right? You never got sick.
39:10
You didn't. You never did.
39:11
You got hurt like, oh, I'm good. You burned the shit out of your
39:14
hand. It's like, oh, I can work
39:15
through service, Jeff. Like you wanted to be that tough
39:17
guy. It was, you know, you didn't
39:18
want to take a day off. You didn't want to do anything
39:20
but be in the kitchen, Right? Right.
39:21
And if you showed weak, if you showed any kind of being hurt or
39:24
anything, it was weakness. You're afraid on it.
39:26
Yeah. Yeah, it was a race to the
39:28
bottom sometimes physically. Yeah.
39:31
And again, I remember this like, because, you know, I was
39:34
athletic when I was younger. I used to, I used to hang out
39:36
and fight gyms and like, they would look at me like, don't
39:41
tell. Like he don't invite him.
39:42
He doesn't drink. Like they would, they would,
39:44
like they would, they would almost, you know, kick me out of
39:47
the cool kid club in the in the kitchens.
39:49
Like now he's he, he, he, he doesn't drink.
39:52
He doesn't, he doesn't like weirdo.
39:53
Yeah. He's the weirdo that likes to
39:54
work out. Yeah, but but I will say because
39:58
of those years that I was physically active and I didn't
40:01
drink, it did allow me, it allowed me to focus at work and
40:06
it also allowed me to have a long healthy career where, you
40:10
know, of course, like my knee sucks and my shoulder sucks and
40:13
my back sucks. But I think it could have been
40:15
worse. You know, if I didn't, if I
40:17
didn't exercise. Yeah, and again, like you, you
40:20
brought up a good point of being that example.
40:22
Yeah, right. You're that example.
40:24
If, if, if chef who has a family, has bills, has all these
40:27
things, is making time for himself to work out and running
40:29
the restaurant, I could do that. And I, and then for me
40:32
personally, I like being that inspiration.
40:34
I'm all about lifting people up around me.
40:36
Now. I'm trying to be a positive
40:37
influence on the community. That's why we open up a brick
40:39
and mortar. I want to elevate people around
40:41
me. Yeah, I'm like, hey, you can be
40:43
a good person and be a chef. You can still work out and be a
40:45
chef. You can still have a life and be
40:47
a chef. Oh, guess what?
40:48
You can also make really good money.
40:50
Can be a chef. Tell me about the brick and
40:53
mortar. Yeah, So it's called truffle,
40:56
right? We're open in Richmond, TX.
40:58
It's a cafe. Started out as a cafe, breakfast
41:01
and lunch, really thoughtful on ingredients.
41:04
So right throughout all my travels as a private chef, I
41:06
kind of brought all that back to to Richmond, right.
41:10
You know, when you travel the world you see where people eat
41:12
and what they do and it's just fresh ingredients.
41:14
It's nothing crazy. Everything is processed right.
41:18
It's made right there, it's grown right there and eaten
41:22
fresh. So I've taken that approach to
41:25
the Cafe. We've imported a lot of gigs
41:27
from the Mediterranean. Olive oils, pastas, sauces.
41:31
Our charcuterie is all small batch made.
41:35
Our breads are all baked locally by cottage bakers.
41:38
There's one woman has her 85 year old sourdough, right.
41:40
She's doing all of our pastries. Our cookies have sourdough in
41:43
her, our brownies, muffins, She's making sour dough
41:45
croissants and then again our Schitada style bread.
41:49
We're gonna do those style sandwiches, right?
41:52
We we get that locally made as well.
41:54
Crazy German Baker who used to make it in New York.
41:56
What was the bread? Called the Schitada.
41:58
Schitada, what is that? That's like a pizza Bianco,
42:01
right? Do you know like the Romanian
42:03
style pizza? Yeah, yeah, it's like that
42:05
style, right? So we're using that for our
42:07
sandwich bread. Wow.
42:09
Yeah, sounds cool. I got like a sandwich on it
42:12
called the Pig. It's pistachio mortadella,
42:14
stracciatella, pistachio pesto for sure.
42:18
A koda with like a truffle honey on one of them.
42:21
The bread. The bread makes sandwiches, man.
42:23
It's it's really good. I.
42:24
I do like that salad pizza, by the way.
42:25
Yeah, yeah. I mean.
42:26
It's good too, yeah. Yeah, that's always delicious.
42:29
I'm hungry. So we're going to do those
42:31
things right. We're also going to have a cool
42:33
wine market, like wines that a lot of a lot of people take
42:36
pride in, like selling Texas wine.
42:38
A not a big fan of Texas wine. You're not a big fan.
42:40
No, I just, I don't, I don't really care for it.
42:43
I, I don't know what. It just doesn't taste good to
42:45
me. So we got, you know, really nice
42:48
Italian wine, French wines. We're going to have a champagne
42:50
by the glass, like just stuff you don't see at a little cafe.
42:53
And then we will run all of my pop ups out of there at night
42:57
time. We'll eventually open for dinner
42:59
on top of this. Gas chef stuff.
43:01
Gas chef, that's the next thing. Absolutely.
43:03
Yeah. Yeah.
43:04
Man, I really want to have residency.
43:06
That's why we're not opening for dinner, right?
43:08
Yes, our bread and butter is breakfast and lunch.
43:10
But I want to create experiences.
43:12
I want to bring cool people in. And do you know residency for
43:15
two or three months an up and coming cook in that area wants
43:18
to do something. Hey, let's run your menu for the
43:19
next three weeks on Wednesday night.
43:21
That's cool. Yeah, yeah.
43:23
And it's cool that you're doing that for, for young cooks in
43:25
residences. I, I, I like, I love the idea of
43:27
I did. I've done a couple of
43:29
residencies as a chef and I, I love it.
43:32
But a big reason I love it is he just gets to leave.
43:34
Yeah. That's not your mess to take.
43:37
Care of Yeah, I, I like it. I like, oh, you know, I don't
43:40
have to. I don't have to lock in for two
43:41
years or however long I get to leave after, you know, when the
43:44
time expires. Yeah, man.
43:46
Yeah. So I just I'm just looking to
43:48
create a community, right and pour in the pour in the.
43:51
People how has the how has the reception from the community?
43:53
Oh, it's been great. Yeah, I wouldn't.
43:55
So the pop ups really helped because it got me in front of a
43:57
lot of people and now people know what to expect when we do
44:01
something, right. When the hidden truffle comes to
44:03
do something, people know it's going to be legit.
44:05
And so we got a lot of, we got a really good social media guy and
44:08
we have a lot of excitement, a lot of excitement.
44:11
Hot take on social media. I'm just I'm just curious what
44:14
your stance is. You know, the other day without
44:17
I got to be careful how I share the story.
44:19
I don't want to, I don't want to out anyone, but I know a very
44:22
talented chef recently lost their job because they weren't
44:27
on social media that that's why they lost their job.
44:29
They were talented. They did everything well, but
44:32
the owner of the restaurant where they were at just said,
44:36
look, we're not filling up seats and you refuse to post on
44:39
Instagram. And we just need someone that we
44:43
just need someone that's going to put themselves out there.
44:46
And you know, we feel like you just wanted to stay behind the
44:50
stove is not helping the restaurant at all.
44:51
Even though the food is good. We can hire someone else that's
44:53
good that maybe can also do that.
44:56
It was kind of, I mean, it's a fucked up situation, but I share
45:00
that because I think it's also a real part of the world now that
45:07
that chefs need to think about because I know a lot of chefs
45:09
don't want to be on social media.
45:10
I do think it's important because I feel like it's part of
45:14
your financial obligation to the restaurant.
45:16
Every chef has a little bit of a marketing responsibility as well
45:19
now in today's world where marketing is accessible and
45:24
everyone lives on their phone. Yeah, I agree.
45:26
I, I think you, I mean you have to like especially with if you
45:30
want more clients, you want more business, you want more
45:32
anything, you need to be on social media.
45:33
Now, for me in the private world, if I would have just
45:35
strictly struck in my lane of being a private chef, I don't
45:38
need to post on social media. I do it just for fun.
45:40
Like, hey, look where I'm at, I'm in Greece.
45:41
Hey, I'm in Italy. Like I've got these cool doing
45:44
these cool things, not trying to make money off of it, just
45:46
trying to share. But if you're a chef of a
45:48
restaurant that you need to fill up, yeah, you got to you got to
45:52
be involved in that social media when we spend a good chunk of
45:54
money every month to have a legit social media person
45:57
because I'm too busy to worry about it.
45:58
But it today, it is such importance, I think for our
46:04
restaurant opening. I mean, yeah, the anticipation
46:06
that we have is purely because of social media.
46:08
I walking down the street and I'm like, hey, you're Chef Joey.
46:10
Like we're ready for you to open.
46:12
Never met yet. Yeah, saw me on social media.
46:14
Right, right. So I think it's it's very big
46:17
piece of the pie now. Yeah, I, I agree.
46:18
And I, I think it's, it's an uncomfortable thing because a
46:20
lot of chefs and IA 100% understand where they're coming,
46:24
want to stay in the kitchen. They want to hone their craft.
46:27
They want to make sure that everything else is running.
46:29
They don't have time to deal with social media.
46:32
I, I mean, when I talk to people, whether I'm mentoring
46:34
them or whatever, I just say, look, I promise you, you
46:36
probably have 1000 good photos of food you could post today.
46:41
Like don't overthink it. Just type food in your phone.
46:45
You yeah, like you'll, you'll find I'm sure beautiful food
46:49
that you've cooked that you have photos of.
46:50
Just post something, anything like put it out there.
46:54
I think they're, they're overcomplicated.
46:55
But yeah, it is difficult when when I sometimes do consultant
47:01
and I go to a place and I see the chef has a private Instagram
47:05
account or doesn't share what they're what they're cooking in
47:11
the restaurant. And the restaurant's like, yeah,
47:12
no one knows we exist. It's like, well, they also have
47:15
a responsibility to let people know that they're cooking here.
47:17
I feel like, yeah, I feel like they have two accounts,
47:20
whatever. No, I mean, it's, again, it's,
47:22
it's part of the experience of going out to eat people,
47:24
especially nowadays, diners are more knowledgeable than ever.
47:28
Everybody's a chef. Everybody knows everything,
47:30
right? Right.
47:30
And people want to see and know where they're going, especially
47:33
when you know, for a lot of people, money's tight.
47:35
So I want to go out to eat. I want to know what's going to
47:37
be a bank and mill. Yeah, yeah, you you kind of want
47:40
a little preview, right? It's the trailer.
47:41
It's the trailer to dinner. Yeah, yeah.
47:43
I mean, when I'm picking a restaurant, that's when I'm.
47:44
I'm looking at the pictures of the food.
47:45
I'm like, all right, where are we going to go tonight?
47:47
Yeah, those pictures look good. Let's go there.
47:48
Yeah, I I do the exact same thing.
47:50
I hit the the tab that shows what they've been tagged in.
47:54
Yeah, because I want to see what they how their food.
47:57
They say it looks, but how does it really?
47:59
Look, how's the food look in person?
48:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll do that if I go look at,
48:02
let's see what the food really looks like and I'll go, OK, that
48:04
looks really good. Like if it's, if it's good on,
48:07
on the on the average Joe's Instagram page that they're
48:09
tagging on, then it must be good, especially if they're
48:13
raving about like, Oh my God, look at whatever, whatever I
48:15
got. Yeah, it's interesting.
48:16
But I, I do feel like social media is a big component to what
48:19
we're doing now. And I think chef's really got to
48:21
think about how do they about about the relationship that they
48:26
have with the restaurant and the responsibility that they have by
48:30
promoting their food in the restaurant where they're the
48:33
chef. Any more than that too.
48:33
Diving into my world like people want to see it.
48:36
Yeah, I've seen a lot of chefs blow up on social media just by
48:39
sharing what they do in their their their daily life.
48:42
Now people are making good money doing that.
48:44
So it's always another Ave. too, right?
48:46
If you're a struggling chef, start posting on Instagram.
48:48
See what happens. We gave social media advice, but
48:50
if you had to give advice to the culinary world right now, that's
48:55
listening. What's the best advice you would
48:57
give them? Sacrifice now, put the work in
49:00
now so you can reap the benefits later because this doesn't
49:05
happen overnight, this happens over years.
49:08
And if you waited to start or whatever, maybe you're just
49:10
getting started. Put the time in now and put your
49:13
best foot forward because you don't want to waste time,
49:15
especially if you're really passionate about what you're
49:17
doing. Do with intention, do it the
49:20
right way, and I promise you things will fall into place
49:24
later on. It may not seem like it now when
49:26
you're in the thick of things, but if you stay true to
49:28
yourself, stay true to being a good person and start to working
49:30
hard, that's going to play itself out.
49:33
How do you, how do you advise someone or how do you I don't
49:37
want, I don't want to say the word motivate because I, I feel
49:39
like that's it's a bad term, but how do you give someone the
49:44
talk? Like, Hey, I know it sucks right
49:45
now because you hit the nail on the head.
49:48
Like we're all going to go through ups and downs, but like,
49:51
put your head down. If you were giving advice to
49:53
someone like hey, you might be in a shitty situation right now,
49:57
what would you say to them? I would just tell them we've
49:59
all, we've all been through it, right?
50:01
Like you may think you're alone on a island, but you're not,
50:04
right? We've all been through hard
50:05
things. And that's where it's good to
50:07
have a community behind you, a workout group, friends, people
50:10
you are doing things with on the regular and who are openly
50:14
talking about what they're going through.
50:15
Like I have a group of men that I work out with at the end of
50:17
the workout. We all share like what's going
50:19
on in the world, right? So having an outlet to share,
50:22
right, like, and when you see people are going through it as
50:25
well, it makes it a little bit easier.
50:26
You don't have to have to fight these battles alone.
50:30
Do you you bring up something interesting?
50:31
I'm just curious, I'm assuming you have a a friend group of
50:35
chefs and you have a friend group of non chefs.
50:39
Did you always have that? Yes, you did.
50:42
Yeah, I've always kind of had that like that, you know, my
50:45
people, my outs, my moguls, we call them the regular people,
50:48
right? And then the chef people.
50:49
Yeah, I've always kind of, I mean, I, I'm friends with
50:51
everybody. I.
50:53
I found it hard, you know, I had, I had my gym friends.
50:56
It's hard to mix them. They don't mix.
50:58
Because your chef friends, you guys love to talk about chef
51:00
shit, right? We're always talking about it
51:02
doesn't matter where we're at, we're always talking about work.
51:04
And we try to bring somebody in that circle.
51:06
What the fuck you guys talking about?
51:07
Are you talking about work all the time?
51:09
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. It's it's very like my my chef.
51:12
I have my chef group friends and then my non chef group friends.
51:15
And there was a point in time where I had my my gym friends
51:18
and they were great, But then I stopped working out for a number
51:21
of years and I didn't have that. I only had my chef friends for a
51:24
number of years. Like it was like a 10 year
51:25
stretch where this was my only friend group.
51:29
And I remember I had a very difficult time transitioning
51:32
back into, you know, the civilian world because like I
51:34
can't have a conversation with you in love.
51:36
It's about like, did you see this?
51:38
Did you read that? Did you watch?
51:39
That's what I felt like getting to the private chef.
51:41
I felt alone. I didn't for a while because you
51:44
go from go from running a forty person team with five chefs
51:48
under me, you know, being in the chef world and and now I'm
51:51
literally by myself day in and day out.
51:55
So after year one I got pretty lonely and that's what working
51:58
out came in. Chef Well, I appreciate you
52:01
jumping on the show, but I typically have some closing
52:04
questions that I like to ask people.
52:06
If you had your Mount Rushmore of chefs that are out there in
52:09
the world, who do you think should be on Mount Rushmore?
52:14
Mount Rushmore, let's see. I would say I Thomas Keller,
52:19
obviously, because he's Thomas Keller.
52:21
Any good kitchen you go into, somebody has worked for him at
52:24
one point in their career. Wolfgang Puck.
52:28
I really enjoyed working for those guys.
52:30
And I think what Wolfgang Puck started with California cuisine
52:32
and everything he does. People still copy his salmon
52:35
pizza till today, right? Wolfgang Puck laid a huge
52:38
foundation. So for me, Wolfgang Puck.
52:41
And and Spogo was like Spogo, it's still great.
52:43
But I mean, it was like, I don't if you didn't grow up in the in
52:48
in the 80s and 90s, like I don't think you realize how big Spogo
52:51
was. Like it was the restaurant the
52:52
only. It was the only restaurant.
52:54
People talked about 100%. So yeah, Wolfgang Puck, I think,
52:57
has to be up there. Who wouldn't want to be?
52:58
I mean, the empire he's built, like, come on.
53:01
And then one person would be, is not Charlie Trotter.
53:06
I have a lot of his cookbooks, a lot of foundation.
53:09
What's your favorite one? No, I don't, man.
53:12
I don't remember the. I don't know the name of it.
53:16
Which color is it? Take the brown.
53:19
Oh, it's the the meat and game. Is that what we?
53:21
Use is it Yeah, yeah, yes it is because I'm a huge I mean I'm a
53:24
huge meat and a game person cook a lot of it so.
53:27
Yeah, yeah. Charlie Trotter's books are the
53:29
best. Yeah, yeah.
53:32
And then is that 4? No, you got one more. 3.
53:35
Yeah, you got Trotter, you got Thomas Keller, you got Wolfgang.
53:38
One more Oh, man, a personal favorite of mine just because he
53:45
he. I don't think I would be where
53:48
I'm at without him. Arthur Durham.
53:54
OK, who's that? He's a guy from Louisiana.
53:57
The guy who looked to cook, learned to cook from.
54:00
This guy is probably one of the most underrated chefs just
54:04
because he's in a smaller town in Louisiana.
54:06
On this restaurant, 40 people a night, maybe Mediterranean white
54:10
linen cloth, does everything, runs or owns a restaurant, runs
54:13
it, does all the cooking, does all the wine, does all the
54:15
serving, does everything. He is a amazing chef and that's
54:19
who I learned to cook from. I would not be the chef I am if
54:23
it wasn't for. When you're in your kitchen and
54:27
you're setting up your station, like what?
54:29
What is the all-purpose salt for seasoning?
54:31
Everything all-purpose salt. So I really been liking this
54:35
floor to sale from France. I came across it when we were in
54:39
Corsica. I can't remember the name of it,
54:41
but it has a Corkscrew top and it's a red label, but I've been
54:45
using that. I think it, the cameraization,
54:47
it gets on it on meat when you're cooking meat, it's like
54:50
not overpowering, like not overpowering, just like the
54:52
perfect amount of seasoning because a lot of these clients
54:55
don't like heavy salt. So I don't really use a lot of
54:57
finishing salt. I kind of cook.
54:59
It's a little bit thicker of a course and I use it to cook with
55:02
a lot. And and do you have like a, a
55:04
finishing acid that you prefer? Yeah, I I like to use a lot of
55:08
vinegar. Red wine vinegar.
55:10
What? Specific brand you like.
55:12
I really like Rosa. Rosa.
55:14
Yeah, yeah, I can have some great vinegar, make a lot of
55:18
dressing marinades with it. Yeah, yeah.
55:22
And if you had something that you do in the kitchen that a lot
55:27
of people don't do, that you think like, hey, you, you could
55:30
make your food exponentially better.
55:33
And here's an easy way to lift flavor.
55:40
Layer, layer season. I think a lot of people don't do
55:43
that, right? Season as you go.
55:44
Like if you're building a soup, season in different layers,
55:47
right? Season when you're sauteing your
55:48
vegetable, season when you're doing searing off your protein.
55:51
I think a lot of people try to add salt at the end and you
55:54
don't get a lot of depth, right? Even like seasoning your pasta
55:56
water when you're cooking pasta. Like there's layers to season.
55:59
Yeah, so I think that helps build a lot of flavour.
56:01
And and taste along the way, right?
56:03
I understand always. Tasting your food?
56:05
Yeah, yeah. It's it's amazing how people
56:07
just don't taste their food. It blows my mind.
56:10
Yeah, but I had a client ask me, he goes, do you taste
56:12
everything? I go 100%.
56:13
I said I would not serve you if I didn't taste it.
56:15
Yeah. How do you know it's?
56:16
Fucking right. You know it's good.
56:17
Yeah, yeah. And it's such a simple thing.
56:20
And and like, we all know taste your food, but you'd be
56:23
surprised, especially like when you're a young cook and like,
56:25
taste is like, oh, I don't need eggs.
56:27
I don't need fish. Yeah, I know.
56:28
I definitely didn't taste all this stuff when I was supposed
56:30
to. Yeah, well, chef, I appreciate
56:34
this. Where can people find you if
56:36
they want to If? If, If they want to cook with
56:38
you? If they want to eat your food?
56:40
If they want to follow you on social media?
56:42
Yeah, Chef Joey, 63 on Instagram and then the the truffle and rye
56:48
will be our brick and mortar that's opening.
56:50
So you can go find that Instagram and well and follow
56:51
along. And see what we're doing.
56:53
Awesome bro. I appreciate you coming out.
56:54
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
56:55
Yeah. All right, that's the show.
56:57
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56:59
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57:02
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57:05
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57:07
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57:09
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57:11
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57:14
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