Valuetainment - Did COVID-19 Destroy The Restaurant Industry Overnight

00:00:00.000 30 seconds.

00:00:01.780 Did you ever think you would make it?

00:00:04.200 I feel I'm so close I could take sweet victory.

00:00:07.640 I know this life meant for me.

00:00:10.740 Yeah, why would you bet on Goliath when we got Bet David?

00:00:14.380 Value taming, giving values contagious.

00:00:16.440 This world of entrepreneurs, we get no value to haters.

00:00:19.160 Now they run, homie, look what I've become.

00:00:21.400 I'm the one.

00:00:22.420 I'm Patrick Bedevi, host of iTunes.

00:00:23.920 Today I'm sitting down with Andrew Zimmern.

00:00:25.400 Andrew Zimmern has had many different TV shows.

00:00:27.340 One of them is Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.

00:00:29.700 And you may know it.

00:00:30.320 And now he's got a couple other shows.

00:00:31.500 One on MSNBC, another one that's going to be launched here soon as well.

00:00:34.260 You know, this was very interesting for me because we talked about how the restaurant industry in America that employs every one out of 10 people in America work for the restaurant industry, the food industry.

00:00:42.900 And he showed how 50 million Americans are affected by what's going on with the shutdown of restaurants.

00:00:49.100 And he makes predictions of when he believes everything will go back to normal.

00:00:53.440 This is a very, very unique approach to an interview.

00:00:56.740 And I have a feeling you're going to love this one.

00:00:58.300 Andrew, how are you?

00:00:59.060 I'm great.

00:00:59.860 How are you?

00:01:00.860 Oh, goodness.

00:01:01.440 So what do you think about all these restaurants going out of business?

00:01:04.840 It's a cultural catastrophe.

00:01:07.280 It's an economic catastrophe.

00:01:09.040 It's a one of the saddest things that I've ever seen because like so many of the issues that are turning sideways and going underwater in America right now, the vast majority of it was preventable.

00:01:27.220 The leadership gap coming out of Washington, D.C., is responsible for a lack of money flowing to states.

00:01:40.260 And forget about the different acts that are all trying to help various small businesses, and I do believe in what's now called the Restaurants Act that's specifically designed to bolster the 650,000 independent restaurants around America.

00:01:56.780 By the way, an industry that is second largest in America, second only to the U.S. government, right?

00:02:03.380 A trillion-dollar industry that represents 4% of GDP.

00:02:06.660 So definitely one that is worth aiding.

00:02:11.320 But the lack of money to the states and municipalities means that they can't spread money around to allow for restaurants that can't afford it to begin to reorganize both dining rooms and, most importantly, kitchens, back a house, and take care of workers.

00:02:32.800 So that really any opening right now is jeopardizing human life.

00:02:39.380 I do believe in the 239 scientists that sent a letter to the WHO that asked the body to recognize airborne transmission of COVID-19.

00:02:52.540 And the difference there is that rather than just being transmitted through our respiratory systems, the virus can linger in the air indoors, infecting those nearby.

00:03:04.960 There's so much we don't know about this virus.

00:03:08.620 And so restaurants have been pivoting one way, then pivoting another, then pivoting another way, then pivoting another.

00:03:15.800 Rules are different everywhere.

00:03:16.940 And I think this is where the role, if not during a public health emergency, then when does a government, a national, federal government, have the role to step in and help backstop small businesses, including independent restaurants?

00:03:35.240 So, yeah, I think it's horrific.

00:03:37.980 And quite frankly, if we don't see the Restaurants Act passed, that's the one that Congressman Blumenauer in the House and Wicker and Sinem in the Senate have backed.

00:03:49.560 If we don't see that $120 billion aid package go to restaurants, we will see, without a doubt, an extinction event of about 65 to 70 percent of restaurants that just won't make it.

00:04:01.580 That's a pretty bold statement you just made, right?

00:04:03.400 But that's not a small statement right there.

00:04:04.900 No, it's not.

00:04:06.440 And it's actually the same statement that I've made since the beginning of March.

00:04:11.980 And I'm also not alone.

00:04:13.860 This is, I'm not staring into a crystal ball.

00:04:17.380 This isn't guesswork.

00:04:19.920 By their own admission, restaurateurs, statistically, have come up with a figure of about 80 percent of restaurants not being able to reopen.

00:04:32.580 Now, since that poll came out, that was a James Beard Foundation poll that was quite extensive.

00:04:38.620 Since that poll came out, a lot of people have pivoted and found other resources of income.

00:04:44.640 And, you know, I bet if that poll went out today, I think 70, 65 percent of them would say without additional income or aid, we're not going to be able to survive.

00:04:56.860 So I think that number has gone up a little bit as people have realized that there are other ways to make money with food.

00:05:02.920 But you've got to remember, everyone is locked into rents.

00:05:05.880 They're locked into their insurance packages, their utilities packages, perhaps payments on equipment, loans to banks and investors.

00:05:14.340 So you can't continue to exist on 25, 35, 40, 50 percent of income.

00:05:21.600 And at the same time, if restaurants aren't really, really cautious, and this is where I – it's not that I'm talking out of two sides of my mouth.

00:05:31.240 It's that I want my industry to survive, but to do so, I think it has to shut down.

00:05:36.920 And the reason is, is that if we develop hotspots in restaurants and if the public has a perception because of some less than responsible operators ruining it for everyone, which I'm seeing right now here in Minneapolis, I am worried that a hotspot develops and then consumer demand drops because they think restaurants in general are problematic.

00:06:02.120 When, in fact, it's any place people are gathering is problematic.

00:06:07.080 You know, we just yesterday had the worst day in terms of COVID-19 statistics in the entire history of the pandemic.

00:06:16.240 This is getting worse.

00:06:17.720 It's not getting better.

00:06:19.320 So it puzzles me why we're talking about opening businesses and opening schools.

00:06:24.540 It almost feels like a genocidal betrayal to me.

00:06:30.520 I mean, we are – Americans are dying by the thousands every day in America, and we have a – we're all on a leaderless ship.

00:06:40.360 I'm glad you're not getting very political today.

00:06:42.260 You're sticking to the business.

00:06:43.580 It's very impressive.

00:06:44.680 I sense the diplomatic side of you today.

00:06:47.580 Very impressive.

00:06:48.520 Well, it's – I mean, look, I've got to be honest with you.

00:06:50.560 I mean, it's both – I don't see things through a lens that isn't civic.

00:06:55.680 And, you know, I think civics touches everything that we do.

00:06:59.340 So civic solutions oftentimes are political ones, and I think that's hard for folks to understand.

00:07:05.980 I think people want to avoid talking about politics.

00:07:09.180 I think they want to avoid talking about subjects that make them uncomfortable.

00:07:13.220 It's one of the reasons why I made What's Eating America.

00:07:15.920 I wanted to talk about subjects that made people uncomfortable, but I also wanted people to learn and be entertained while they were being made uncomfortable.

00:07:23.980 I referred to it once in a meeting as a roller coaster.

00:07:31.340 You know, you're scared.

00:07:32.760 It's going up.

00:07:34.020 In the middle of the whole thing, you're saying, I'll never do that again.

00:07:36.500 And you get off and someone says, how was it?

00:07:38.420 And you say, let's go again.

00:07:39.940 I think that it's important that we have these discussions now more than ever.

00:07:44.000 So let me ask you this, because you said a lot of different things there, and a lot of it had to do with leadership at the top, which is directed towards Trump.

00:07:51.940 And it's very obvious you're against businesses opening up due to cases being up.

00:07:58.780 Your concern is if we do open up, it's going to be disastrous.

00:08:01.680 So you want $120 billion to go into the 650,000 restaurants, open, that 80% of them don't shut down, et cetera, et cetera.

00:08:08.680 Great.

00:08:09.040 Fine.

00:08:09.280 We know your position.

00:08:10.420 Here's my question for you.

00:08:12.480 15 million people work in a restaurant business.

00:08:15.060 Okay.

00:08:15.760 Half of all adults at one point worked at a restaurant.

00:08:19.860 I did.

00:08:20.460 Obviously, you're in it.

00:08:21.760 One-third of Americans' first job was at a restaurant.

00:08:25.520 10% of the nation's workforce is employed at a restaurant.

00:08:29.080 This is not a small number.

00:08:30.020 You said a trillion dollars, $900 billion to be exact.

00:08:33.720 It's a very big number we're talking about.

00:08:35.360 My question for you becomes, who takes the biggest hit?

00:08:38.540 Say the $120 billion doesn't go out.

00:08:40.900 Forget the $120 billion.

00:08:42.380 It doesn't pass.

00:08:43.580 It's not going out.

00:08:45.040 Andrew, who takes the biggest hit?

00:08:46.960 Customers?

00:08:48.160 Servers? 0.97

00:08:49.360 Owners?

00:08:50.740 Food suppliers?

00:08:52.680 America?

00:08:53.840 Who ends up taking the biggest hit in this industry, in this situation?

00:08:58.240 America does.

00:08:59.120 And I'll tell you why.

00:09:00.920 And I think that owners almost last.

00:09:07.060 And let me talk about that first.

00:09:10.220 There are a lot of owners in the restaurant business that have other businesses.

00:09:15.340 They're corporate restaurants, chain restaurants, investment groups, etc.

00:09:19.240 They're going to find other projects.

00:09:21.220 Obviously, the independent restaurant owner, you and I are partners.

00:09:26.140 I'm in the kitchen.

00:09:27.020 You're in the front of the house.

00:09:28.080 We put our life savings in.

00:09:29.740 That was 15 years ago.

00:09:31.220 We've made money.

00:09:32.080 We've raised kids.

00:09:33.080 We have a catering business.

00:09:34.180 We have a nice thing going.

00:09:36.000 We've got lots of employees.

00:09:37.920 And we are a stalwart in the community, right?

00:09:40.700 Because remember, restaurants are the ones that are giving everywhere, right?

00:09:44.720 Owners like us would be hit hard.

00:09:47.060 And then so would the rest of America.

00:09:48.780 And let me explain that.

00:09:49.900 You cited a lot of really great statistics there that are super, super important for

00:09:55.900 people to remember.

00:09:56.960 Restaurants are also the number one employer of returning citizens coming out of jails and

00:10:01.060 institutions.

00:10:01.820 Number one employer of single mothers.

00:10:03.480 One of the top two employers of immigrants.

00:10:05.700 I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

00:10:07.540 As I said before, the only industry bigger than restaurants is the U.S. government.

00:10:13.640 So what does that mean?

00:10:16.040 Well, unlike airlines, unlike cruise ship industries, unlike banks, unlike a lot of other businesses

00:10:23.140 that hold on to vast amounts of money, the restaurant industry averages 93% pass-through.

00:10:34.240 Essentially, we keep seven cents of every dollar.

00:10:37.540 And of that seven cents, two and a half cents of every dollar usually goes back into employee

00:10:43.660 subsidy programs like paid sick leave to workers and things like that, as restaurants have begun

00:10:50.620 to see the importance of this.

00:10:52.540 So when these restaurants go, you know who goes along with it?

00:10:56.540 All of those winemakers, all of those clam boats, all the fishermen, all the people who are

00:11:03.240 raising chickens and ducks that have been sold into restaurants.

00:11:06.000 The restaurant boom, especially the independent restaurant boom of the last 20 years, has created

00:11:11.140 communities of producers, suppliers, the napkin vendors.

00:11:16.820 I mean, you name it, it affects it.

00:11:18.940 Then there's the money going out the backside.

00:11:22.380 Since we're the second largest employer in America collectively, think of the economic

00:11:27.980 drain.

00:11:28.300 All those people on unemployment, all those people without health insurance, right?

00:11:33.440 All of those people that are going to put a strain on different segments of our economy,

00:11:41.480 if I am not an economist, but the ones that I speak to when I start to have this conversation

00:11:48.000 with them, look at me and basically tell me that we're looking at an apocalyptic event.

00:11:53.260 Now, I'm not saying that I believe a certain industry should go out of business willingly,

00:12:00.440 but I'm just going to draw a comparison.

00:12:02.340 If an airline went bankrupt, one of 20 domestic carriers in here, others would step into the void,

00:12:10.680 right?

00:12:10.900 That's not the case with restaurants, right?

00:12:14.140 If they're going to go, we're going to go in a massive number because we're all in the exact

00:12:20.180 same economic constraints.

00:12:23.040 And so you're looking at something that will affect Main Street USA.

00:12:26.360 We pay so much in taxes.

00:12:28.420 Remember, cruise ships got backstopped.

00:12:30.940 They pay like one and a half percent in American taxes because all of them have figured out a

00:12:34.680 way to be offshore companies.

00:12:38.960 We collect liquor taxes, pay sales taxes.

00:12:42.160 We are the backbone of tourism.

00:12:44.620 Nobody goes to San Francisco to get a sandwich at Panera.

00:12:47.400 You go to San Francisco to eat at the great restaurants or New York.

00:12:50.860 When I travel to Omaha, I'm going and I'm trying to figure out what the best restaurant

00:12:55.740 is there.

00:12:56.520 So the bottom line is there's so many industries codependent and woven within it.

00:13:02.160 You're looking and while you cited this trillion dollar industry number, it's really multiple

00:13:09.260 trillions of dollars when you add on hotels, hospitality, all the farm workers, et cetera, and you

00:13:14.640 start to get up to about 50 million people that the food and hospitality system employs.

00:13:23.360 And I'm afraid of the ripple effect.

00:13:25.720 For $120 billion, which I know sounds like a lot of money, is a very small price to pay

00:13:32.540 to avoid the multiple trillion dollar problem that we would face if those restaurants went

00:13:39.560 under.

00:13:39.860 So I got a follow-up question for you there.

00:13:42.240 That was very crystal clear on the way you explained that.

00:13:46.560 So the way it's going right now with cases, okay, cases are going up and the level of trust

00:13:52.160 in America is right now not high.

00:13:53.520 If you look at the TSA stats of travel, last year today, we had 2.7 million travelers.

00:13:59.620 Today we have, what, 600,000 according to TSA reports that are coming up.

00:14:03.740 We haven't recovered fully to the 2.7 to 2.2 million.

00:14:07.140 The low we hit was 87,000 back in April, which we've come seven times that, which is great

00:14:12.440 news to see progress in a span of three months.

00:14:15.100 But here's my question for you.

00:14:16.860 Do you think, how long do you think it's going to take until we go back to 100% of restaurants

00:14:25.520 being open and us being able to go back to Friday nights, go to a restaurant?

00:14:30.380 Oh, it's not at 50%, it's at 100%, it's opened up.

00:14:33.600 How long do you think it's going to take until we get there?

00:14:35.340 Three months, six months, four months, or you don't know?

00:14:38.220 I do know.

00:14:40.400 I can tell you almost exactly.

00:14:43.120 About nine months after a vaccine that is effective to 85% of the population.

00:14:50.280 Now, that might, I mean, look, the great thing about capitalism is that we have a global pandemic.

00:15:02.380 If you and I were in any kind of medical device or pharma company right now, we would be going

00:15:08.740 all guns trying to be the first one if we had a part of our business that could help figure

00:15:15.720 out a cure for this because there's money to be made at it, right?

00:15:18.500 And I honestly think, because I'm very pro-business, I honestly think that this is where capitalism

00:15:29.220 serves us so well.

00:15:31.300 If we can come up with a vaccine that works 85% of the time, my fear is we get one with

00:15:39.120 side effects that only works 65% or 70% of the time.

00:15:42.360 Not that I wouldn't take that and it couldn't be improved upon.

00:15:46.140 I certainly would.

00:15:47.400 But if we got one that was effective, 85% of those vaccinated, I'm guessing that it's

00:15:57.300 nine months after that we go through a cycle of seasons in America, which is nine months.

00:16:03.640 I think that you would see consumer demand return.

00:16:09.220 And that's really the core issue here.

00:16:12.960 When does consumer demand match its levels that it was before, right?

00:16:19.600 So you mentioned travel.

00:16:21.860 I mean, well, business has to start picking up there, right?

00:16:25.060 The vast majority of people who are using the airlines are business travelers, right?

00:16:29.860 Top 10% of customers are responsible for like 60% of airline revenue, something like that.

00:16:36.700 But we're looking at business taking on a different shape these days.

00:16:41.860 I have friends that work in Fortune 50 Minnesota companies, like General Mills and Best Buy and

00:16:48.860 stuff like that.

00:16:50.400 3M.

00:16:52.980 Cargill.

00:16:53.740 Every single one of them tells me that they're never going back to work the way they did before.

00:16:59.380 It's all going to be flex time or time at home because these companies are figuring out a way

00:17:04.740 to get things done via tech that they were sort of afraid to do before.

00:17:10.800 You know, the virus forced everyone's hand to get real familiar with how to run a Zoom meeting, right? 0.98

00:17:16.900 And guess what?

00:17:17.980 They figured out it worked.

00:17:19.140 And they found out that even though everyone is working 10% slower, the savings on the real estate is massive.

00:17:25.520 So we'd rather have people have a better lifestyle.

00:17:28.620 Sure, work at home and we will soldier forth.

00:17:33.560 With restaurants, you've got this consumer demand issue that is correlated to how safe we feel being

00:17:41.680 out in public amongst each other and that we feel the places that we're going are custodians of the public health.

00:17:49.600 Restaurants historically for the last two generations have been licensed entities.

00:17:53.940 In other words, health department has to license them.

00:17:56.880 There has to be a licensed health sanitarian on premise at all times.

00:18:00.880 You usually have two or three members of your staff take the health department test.

00:18:04.260 We know what it takes and what it means to serve food and keep the public safe that way.

00:18:11.420 But we have to learn a whole new system here when it comes to a respiratory and what I believe is also an airborne transmission virus like COVID-19.

00:18:25.100 And I think the last thing that I would say to this, and it's why I link it to nine months past a workable vaccine, just over the last five or six days.

00:18:37.300 And I'm on a whole bunch of committees here in the state of Minnesota and actively engaged in talking with health commissioners and so on here in our state as we're working through some of the problems.

00:18:49.480 And I'm on a lot of national committees as well.

00:18:51.740 We're finding, as the pathologists are able to work on people who have passed away from C-19, that all organs are damaged in people who've passed from this disease.

00:19:07.840 It's not just fibroids in the lungs.

00:19:09.780 We also know that people who have recovered, especially young people who have recovered, not only have permanent lung damage, but we're also looking at a neurological effect.

00:19:22.680 Reports out of the UK with some really reliable studies over there are showing that there could be long-term effects on brain function associated with people who contract C-19.

00:19:37.860 Perhaps related to length of illness.

00:19:41.660 You know, some people get better in five weeks.

00:19:43.780 Some people are sick for three or four months.

00:19:46.840 The point being, there's so much we don't know about it.

00:19:50.380 And this affects all businesses where the public gathers.

00:19:54.880 If you and I own a shoe store, we're selling online.

00:19:57.720 Eventually, everyone learns to buy shoes online.

00:20:00.780 It's just, it's eventually going to be the way it happens.

00:20:02.720 I think what you're talking about, though, is that pleasurable aspect where you and I are grabbing a couple friends and going out and socializing and spending a night in a restaurant.

00:20:12.860 I've been addicted to that feeling since I was 14 years old.

00:20:16.660 If I think about it too much, I'll start to cry.

00:20:18.920 I got hooked as an early teen shucking oysters in a clam house in East Hampton, Long Island because I watched what, you know, the tray of icy briny oysters that I set down on the counter was taken by a server to a table.

00:20:37.080 Then you could see how happy it made people.

00:20:39.640 And it flipped a switch inside me that's never left.

00:20:43.180 It's probably even stronger now, 45 years later, that people can't enjoy that feeling is killing me.

00:20:51.000 I can't wait to get back to that Friday night.

00:20:53.660 I'm just worried that we need the type of leadership that says to everyone, line up behind me.

00:21:02.160 We're marching over that hill and we're not going to stop.

00:21:05.320 We're going to spend every dollar, fight every battle until we knock this thing back.

00:21:10.600 And we're going to help every, you know, there's 350 some odd million Americans here today.

00:21:16.440 I mean, you know, I had no favorite in the, you know, in politics.

00:21:23.380 I haven't endorsed a candidate or anything yet.

00:21:25.960 But the mathematics that Andrew Yang was talking about, where we give each American a certain amount of dollars,

00:21:32.480 now in light of the trillions of dollars that the government has given to corporations and all of these different backstopping acts passed by Congress,

00:21:45.520 boy, oh boy, if we had given that out to actual citizens to start to make it through this disease, we might have made a better choice.

00:21:52.980 You know, that is a form of an endorsement, buddy.

00:21:55.340 But I'll tell you something, talking about, you know, the data of the pathologist talking about in Europe that is showing signs and symptoms of long-term effects

00:22:05.740 and, you know, what this could do to somebody in different areas.

00:22:09.700 It's kind of the argument of what some of the anti-vax guys say that, you know, the long-term effects of vaccine has autism.

00:22:15.880 So there's a concern right now about driving the vaccine or forcing people to take it without a lot of testing,

00:22:21.160 especially all the testing that they're going through.

00:22:23.020 But the reason why I was asking this question from you when you said,

00:22:26.140 how long do you think it'll take until we will go back to normal, right?

00:22:31.600 How long it'll take until we go back to normal?

00:22:33.480 So right now, you've got 155 vaccines that are being tested right now, going against coronavirus.

00:22:41.020 22 are in human trials right now.

00:22:43.600 You heard Novavax yesterday, which is good news.

00:22:46.840 Novavax yesterday got a $1.6 billion funding from the government, not yesterday, three days ago,

00:22:53.160 and the stock went up 42%, which is progress.

00:22:55.900 We're going in the right direction.

00:22:57.680 And you're seeing other people that are fighting to get into that conversation.

00:23:01.540 If you're saying nine months after a vaccine comes out, so let's unpack that.

00:23:06.160 The vaccine is not going to be ready for people to take.

00:23:10.400 They're saying fourth quarter, but let's just say Q1.

00:23:13.600 I think Q1 is probably more conservative.

00:23:15.900 And let's just say February Q1.

00:23:18.400 Little aggressive, little conservative will go right in the middle, okay?

00:23:21.160 A year from when we first got out.

00:23:24.060 Absolutely.

00:23:24.720 I'm with you.

00:23:25.720 Okay.

00:23:27.120 Originally, Fauci, if you remember, he said 12 to 18 months.

00:23:29.620 Well, let's just say 12 months.

00:23:30.640 That's aggressive.

00:23:31.300 February, we got it.

00:23:32.380 Fair.

00:23:33.160 Then you're saying nine months.

00:23:35.080 So that's November, okay?

00:23:36.560 So if it's nine months, November, now we're talking from today, July, August, September,

00:23:44.260 October, November for 16 months till we go back to 100%.

00:23:48.220 My mindset is 2022, but we're going fourth quarter of 2021.

00:23:55.800 Fair.

00:23:57.200 Got $120 billion to give to restaurants in an industry that's a $900 billion, trillion

00:24:05.460 dollar industry per year.

00:24:08.140 You're going to have to do another one 90 days later, another one 90 days later, another

00:24:13.700 one 90 days later.

00:24:15.280 So the math, you seem very, one of the things I enjoy about talking to you is the fact that

00:24:19.960 you've done a lot of research about this.

00:24:21.200 And by the way, you sound like you should be sitting on a committee giving advice on

00:24:24.560 restaurants.

00:24:25.180 And I'm talking, I'm talking from the White House because, you know, for someone like

00:24:29.340 me, I want to, I want to learn from you.

00:24:31.060 How do we unpack that $120 billion to not say we need to do another one 90 days later and

00:24:35.800 90 days later?

00:24:37.060 Great question.

00:24:37.880 Um, you know, we, we spent a lot of time at the Independent Restaurant Coalition, a group

00:24:44.220 that I co-founded back in March, you know, about 60 or 70 of us got together and said,

00:24:49.360 we need to, we need to change policy in Washington.

00:24:52.760 We need to have a voice.

00:24:54.880 Independent restaurants are going to be left behind.

00:24:57.100 And we, we, we banded together and we've grown ever since.

00:25:01.240 People can check out, uh, our, uh, policy statements and the Restaurant Act itself.

00:25:07.880 Um, I'm referring to the specific act that, uh, Congressman Blumenauer introduced a couple

00:25:13.300 of weeks ago.

00:25:13.880 We have it on our website at save restaurants.com.

00:25:16.600 And we also have the math on our website at save restaurants.com.

00:25:20.120 The reason that we came up with that number is that there are many restaurants out there,

00:25:25.000 corporate restaurants, places that are already found a successful way to pivot that wouldn't

00:25:31.200 qualify to take as much money as restaurants that have been forced to close in certain areas

00:25:36.760 in certain cities.

00:25:38.220 Okay.

00:25:38.400 That's number one.

00:25:39.420 So it's not all restaurants getting the same amount of money.

00:25:43.500 Number two, uh, restaurants owned by women, restaurants, uh, owned by people of color, 0.99

00:25:51.920 uh, and indigenous communities get first bite at the apple because they have the least amount 1.00

00:25:57.820 of access to the money from the banks, right?

00:26:00.960 Statistically.

00:26:01.440 So we're giving them first bite at the apple.

00:26:03.900 We used a very complex formula, but essentially it is, uh, a sort of minimum amount to keep

00:26:12.980 afloat for 18 months minus your PPP minus your PPP.

00:26:18.960 If you took it is the amount of money that you get so that in that restaurant that you and

00:26:25.040 I own, we can pay our rent, we can pay our utilities, we can pay our insurance so that

00:26:32.680 we are ready when people come back to work to actually hire them when there are customers

00:26:38.540 to be there.

00:26:39.780 If you and I happen to live in Laramie, Wyoming, where we have a successful restaurant, that's

00:26:45.180 much different looking than Houston, Texas or Miami, Florida right now, today in July of

00:26:52.900 2020, right?

00:26:54.640 Um, so, uh, in Laramie, we might have customers, we might have a parking lot, uh, that we can

00:27:01.240 serve, you know, a hundred diners, uh, a night and people willing to sit, uh, socially distanced

00:27:08.040 and wear masks and all the other stuff.

00:27:10.560 We may be able to bring grills outside and grill steaks and serve simple vegetables and

00:27:16.160 have people take advantage of it in the camaraderie of, of small town USA.

00:27:20.500 And with a desire to socialize and be with one another, um, profits from those dollars

00:27:26.940 would then be subtracted from that.

00:27:28.320 So we, we have all the metrics in hand.

00:27:31.260 We know how that 120 billion is going to get spent and we need to get to that money fast

00:27:38.100 before more restaurants quit.

00:27:40.400 One of the issues that, um, we've had, and I'm, I'm sure you've seen it every day.

00:27:45.620 Uh, uh, I'd see it a lot on social media.

00:27:49.220 I follow so many chefs and so many restaurants just over the years, every day I see another

00:27:53.900 three or four that I follow that have said, no, I just can't do this, uh, anymore.

00:28:00.100 And it, it, it really shocks me.

00:28:02.780 Right.

00:28:03.220 But I realized that, you know, restaurants that I'm involved in, I own, co-own, or am a partner

00:28:10.940 in four or five different restaurants here in the twin cities, uh, two have yet to open.

00:28:17.420 One has been doing, uh, takeout and delivery.

00:28:20.680 The other one hasn't, uh, we've opened patio on one because it has one.

00:28:25.780 We haven't opened patio on another cause it doesn't have one.

00:28:28.680 And we're waiting to see if we can open up where we are going to open up if we're allowed

00:28:33.840 to at 50% here in Minnesota, because Minnesota is one of those States that sort of at, at even,

00:28:38.840 we've seen a small uptick, uh, in numbers, uh, but nothing that's taken off.

00:28:44.320 And our governor has shown a lot of leadership.

00:28:46.180 Governor Wall has really been amazing, but so many restaurants are folding already that

00:28:51.340 we have a substantial number of restaurants.

00:28:53.800 That statistical number of, you know, 650,000 independent restaurants that's out there.

00:28:58.840 I, I, I have to imagine there's 75, a hundred thousand of them that aren't even open at all

00:29:04.380 and never will open as of right now.

00:29:06.480 So that number has gone down in terms of who needs the money.

00:29:11.000 I think what's really hurting restaurants.

00:29:12.880 And what we have to remember is a whole network of effects that we're also trying to deal with.

00:29:18.300 Number one, indoor dining in many cities could be a very long way off, right?

00:29:23.380 Cause it's different everywhere.

00:29:24.720 And we have this airborne transmission issue, quarantine orders, travel restrictions, theater

00:29:31.400 closures, you know, movie, I'm not talking, not talking Broadway, you know, movie, all

00:29:35.440 that kind of stuff is going to further dampen restaurant spending, right?

00:29:39.920 People aren't going to be out and about in big major metros where the majority of people

00:29:44.260 are majority of restaurants in America, uh, are, um, the outdoor dining delivery and takeout

00:29:52.400 business isn't a panacea for the industry.

00:29:55.160 We mentioned it before in a long list of things, but it doesn't make up for, I mean, if you're

00:30:00.440 a, if you're a business, that's only taking seven and a half percent to the bottom line,

00:30:04.920 you've got to be at a hundred percent capacity, right?

00:30:09.040 You've got to be back at those pre COVID numbers.

00:30:12.240 And, and look, many restaurants, we haven't even talked about this side, but you know, it's

00:30:17.480 true.

00:30:17.700 Many restaurants were very fragile and brittle to begin with.

00:30:21.660 When I started out in this business, I asked my godfather, Frank Granite, guy that owned

00:30:27.460 a bunch of restaurants and got me jobs when I was 14, 15, 16 restaurants, I wanted to learn

00:30:32.040 from him.

00:30:32.980 And he had a three month prudent reserve at every restaurant, you know, the restaurants

00:30:38.420 that I'm involved in, I mean, and I'm talking about really successful ones, there's no three

00:30:43.300 and a half month prudent reserve.

00:30:45.480 No one has, no one has one.

00:30:48.120 Wait, wait, wait, let me, let me get this straight.

00:30:49.640 So you said seven and a half percent.

00:30:52.060 Is that, is that EBITDA, EBITDA profit?

00:30:54.240 That's like you, 75 grand.

00:30:58.920 Yep.

00:31:01.520 Restaurants are extremely brittle and extremely fragile.

00:31:04.580 And the reason, the reason is this, um, and I'm talking about independent restaurants.

00:31:09.260 You can't, you know, the fair wage, uh, sorry, the, uh, fair trade coffee, uh, movements that

00:31:17.100 causes big coffee boom, right?

00:31:19.060 Everyone was buying 75 cent cup of coffees at the local corner store.

00:31:23.660 And then all of a sudden Starbucks and all these coffee shops started, you know, and now

00:31:27.760 we all drink a $5 cup of coffee, right?

00:31:30.140 And one of the reasons that we do is that everyone really got involved on the social justice

00:31:34.120 side of this, which was the fair trade program for beans, right?

00:31:37.680 Let's help these small communities of farmers on these fincas all over throughout the coffee

00:31:43.420 growing region by paying a fair trade price for the beans so that these villages could

00:31:49.780 actually succeed, not just as a subsistence farmer, but as a successful farmer so that

00:31:56.440 their communities could have schools and a clinic and all the rest of that kind of stuff,

00:32:00.280 right?

00:32:00.800 But we're lagging behind that in the food business.

00:32:03.420 I have a friend, Tracy Desjardins, one of the most famous chefs in the world, Michelin

00:32:08.020 starred restaurant, Jardiniere in San Francisco, her flagship restaurant.

00:32:12.240 She closed it last fall.

00:32:14.120 I was interviewing her on a panel.

00:32:15.920 I said, why did you close?

00:32:17.420 She says, well, you know, we weren't making all that much money.

00:32:20.740 And then at three, three years ago, I, I really felt that I wanted to take a lot of the profits

00:32:27.500 that we had, even though it wasn't much and put it into, uh, programs for my employees.

00:32:33.780 Number one, because I wanted to take care of them, right?

00:32:36.040 Like paid sick leave and stuff like that, uh, a bonus program, et cetera.

00:32:40.920 She said, but also because the economy was getting better and better and better and better.

00:32:45.940 Unemployment was dropping, dropping, dropping.

00:32:48.880 Employee retention was getting harder and harder and harder.

00:32:52.680 And rent was going up, right?

00:32:54.440 We know, you know, I don't have to tell you about rent issues in San Francisco, New York,

00:32:58.760 Seattle, where everything is through the roof.

00:33:00.860 Employees are traveling an hour and a half into work to restaurants in the city.

00:33:04.900 And they're just saying it's killing them.

00:33:06.260 They're not making enough money.

00:33:07.560 So she decided that she was going to raise her prices and actually charge enough money 0.83

00:33:13.060 so that it was profitable.

00:33:14.260 So when she opened, she said her half roast chicken, a really nice roast chicken, by the way,

00:33:19.520 was like $17.

00:33:20.440 Her costs had gone up over 25 years by X number of hundreds of percentage points, right?

00:33:26.500 Rent, payroll, insurance, all the rest of that.

00:33:28.720 25 years she was in business.

00:33:30.300 So you can imagine those costs going up.

00:33:32.560 But the cost of her chicken, she still couldn't charge more than $24.

00:33:36.880 She found that the minute she tried to go up above 20, despite the fact that to put the

00:33:41.580 chicken on the plate and all the costs and, you know, the right fair cost for that chicken

00:33:46.100 was like $32.

00:33:46.940 No one's going to spend $32 for a half a chicken, right?

00:33:51.760 You'll do it.

00:33:52.400 People pay $100 for a steak because they would have a special occasion at a steakhouse, but

00:33:56.780 they're not going to pay more than $24 for a chicken at Jardiniere.

00:34:00.920 And so we have artificially deflated food prices all across our restaurant system.

00:34:08.580 You know, it's that whole dollar menu mentality that has artificially brought down the cost

00:34:15.540 of food.

00:34:15.980 We're addicted to steak in the supermarket being a certain size and a certain color and

00:34:21.660 have a certain, the muscle has to have a certain size to it.

00:34:26.260 And we're not going to pay more than $9.99 a pound.

00:34:29.100 It is, it's causing problems in farming.

00:34:32.500 It's causing problems in restaurants.

00:34:34.040 And you can't make a living on outdoor dining on to go and to take out and deliver.

00:34:43.660 It just, it just doesn't work.

00:34:46.280 Not in the, not with the lease that you and I have in our pretend restaurant and with our

00:34:52.180 costs.

00:34:52.580 Now, if we close that down and we move down the street to a place that's very undesirable

00:35:00.120 from a storefront point of view, but we can do all the takeout and community kitchen and

00:35:06.560 delivery from there because we're not seating customers.

00:35:09.760 Then you and I have come up with a different business model, right?

00:35:13.300 And that's part of the issue as well.

00:35:17.120 Restaurants have to dig themselves out of a rent hole.

00:35:20.080 I mean, the figures that I saw from New York City, from Roar, was that in New York, 73%

00:35:27.480 of landlords did not waive rent in June and 80% of New York restaurants did not pay their

00:35:38.860 full rent in June, according to the surveys that Roar did and the Hospitality Alliance

00:35:44.460 did.

00:35:45.140 I mean, that, that's the, these, the kind of statistics that show you how fragile and

00:35:49.340 brittle the industry is.

00:35:50.480 And, and you have to remember the PPP aid was only designed to be temporary, right?

00:35:55.080 So we need something with a little more heft, uh, to it, uh, like the restaurant stabilization

00:36:00.700 bill that, uh, Blumenauer and Wicker proposed in the house and Senate respectively.

00:36:05.800 And we began this line of questioning by talking about who suffers hospitality, employment in

00:36:13.100 general is going to keep crashing.

00:36:16.600 But I do think, as I said, it's the American people who are going to be the big losers because 0.89

00:36:21.120 Main Street USA, those, those taxes that go to keep the roads paved, put books on school,

00:36:26.940 uh, desks, um, people don't understand how big the collective industry is.

00:36:33.140 And even statewide, like here in Minnesota, our collective restaurants that put a billion

00:36:38.160 dollars into our state's economy, um, you know, that number is down to 200 million.

00:36:44.280 That's a huge, huge, uh, problem for our state lawmakers in terms of meeting budgets.

00:36:51.820 Again, we're the second largest industry in America, second only to the U S government

00:36:56.140 too big to fail.

00:36:58.080 Too big to fail of an industry that there's a, there's a, by the way, I went on your website,

00:37:02.120 yellow and blue color.

00:37:03.240 Uh, we're going to put the link below for others to go see the whole thing about what you're

00:37:06.580 doing with your, uh, restaurants.

00:37:08.660 But, uh, you know, you said a lot there, 73% in New York didn't wave.

00:37:13.640 This is the, the owners didn't wave rent, 80% didn't pay, which is a wash because whether

00:37:19.540 you wave or not, I don't have the money to pay you.

00:37:21.100 So what do you mean?

00:37:21.600 You're not going to wave it.

00:37:22.280 I don't have anything.

00:37:23.060 Yeah.

00:37:23.760 Yep.

00:37:24.740 Customers coming in.

00:37:25.380 So you want me to go out of business?

00:37:26.400 They're not going to get me for two years.

00:37:27.840 Now you've got an empty place sitting there.

00:37:29.480 So commercial industry is taking a massive hit.

00:37:32.380 Huge.

00:37:33.180 You're explaining 50 million people tied to the restaurant.

00:37:36.540 That makes a lot of sense.

00:37:37.720 Let me, let me ask you, how close are you, or who is the most close person right now working

00:37:43.040 to the Trump administration that's showing these types of stats where they're sitting

00:37:46.820 there saying, you know, this makes a lot of sense.

00:37:48.640 We have to save the restaurant business.

00:37:50.360 Who is the main voice that's spearheading that message to them?

00:37:54.140 Great question.

00:37:55.560 Um, about four or five weeks ago, Kudlow, Mnuchin, Vice President Pence, President Trump, Jared

00:38:03.880 Kushner, Ivanka Trump invited a group of restaurant leaders into the White House for a lengthy

00:38:11.480 meeting.

00:38:12.140 I think there were 12 invited guests.

00:38:14.860 Three of them, uh, were co-founding members of our independent restaurant coalition from

00:38:21.440 save restaurants.com.

00:38:23.100 So we actually had a seat at the table there.

00:38:26.780 There were several other, uh, restaurant industry, uh, types.

00:38:31.180 There are people from, uh, big, big giant chains all the way down to single operators.

00:38:37.780 But we got to get our message, uh, across.

00:38:41.460 And it was because of that meeting, uh, that we were able to not only get, uh, it was because

00:38:49.540 of that meeting that Representative, uh, Dean Phillips of Minnesota and Chip Roy, Republican

00:38:54.820 of Texas, were able to introduce the act that was the PPP fix that extended it from eight weeks

00:39:00.700 to 24 weeks.

00:39:01.740 Right.

00:39:02.060 Uh, and the reason that the president signed that bill, uh, was, uh, after it passed was

00:39:10.360 because of that meeting.

00:39:12.160 He heard what he needed to hear at that meeting and turned to Secretary Mnuchin and others and

00:39:19.360 said, you think I should do this?

00:39:20.620 And they were like, well, this is a, you know, we were building a plane in midair and PPP does

00:39:26.260 have some issues and, you know, we want to be able to extend the runway.

00:39:30.100 We don't have to give any more money.

00:39:31.620 We're just extending the runway of forgiveness and reorganizing the, uh, the terms of those

00:39:38.260 forgivable loans, right?

00:39:40.200 To have it make more sense, not just for restaurants, by the way, but for small businesses all across

00:39:44.700 America.

00:39:45.900 One of the problems was the length of the loan.

00:39:47.580 And the other problem was that it was 75%, uh, payroll, 25%, uh, utilities, rent and other

00:39:55.900 costs.

00:39:56.420 And it went to 60, 40 and from eight weeks to 24 weeks.

00:40:00.160 Um, but we had a seat at that table and we got a chance to talk to the secretaries and

00:40:05.280 to the vice president, uh, and for a little bit to the president about the, uh, restaurant

00:40:13.900 stabilization act.

00:40:15.000 So I have, I have cautious optimism, but I still have optimism and I look, I'm not going

00:40:23.000 to lie to you.

00:40:23.540 Anyone had, all anyone has to do is look at my work on MSNBC, look at my social media feeds

00:40:28.660 and, and I think everybody understands that I'm quite left of center.

00:40:32.660 Uh, I I'm not quite on Karl Marx's left knee, but I'm sort of on his right knee while he's

00:40:38.200 reading me a book.

00:40:39.120 That was a joke.

00:40:40.060 Uh, but I'm definitely, I am definitely, uh, uh, left of center.

00:40:46.880 The, uh, the, and, and my point is, is that, you know, at his core, President Trump's business

00:40:54.000 advisors understand that that $120 billion that we're asking for is very small compared to

00:41:02.360 what would happen if, I mean, just the employees on, on, uh, unemployment for another six months

00:41:09.680 dwarfs that number, right?

00:41:11.780 So it's not, can we afford the $120 billion?

00:41:15.820 We definitely can't afford not to give out the $120 billion.

00:41:21.400 So are you full on communist or would you say you're socialist right before communist?

00:41:27.020 Because I'm, I'm neither.

00:41:28.120 I was, I was, I was making a joke.

00:41:30.080 I'm, I'm very socially progressive.

00:41:32.820 I'm, I'm good.

00:41:34.000 Oh, very nice.

00:41:34.960 It was very Marx's communist manifest on Atlas Shrugged.

00:41:39.900 These, uh, these men are sitting here in a vault.

00:41:42.220 They're debating those two books.

00:41:43.820 So I love that.

00:41:44.680 I love that.

00:41:45.720 Um, I'm deaf.

00:41:46.700 I mean, look, I am, uh, I am someone who is a, uh, very civic minded and political person.

00:41:53.020 I've been involved in a lot of social justice activism, uh, since my parents got me involved

00:41:58.580 as a young child in the sixties, um, growing up in New York in a, uh, in a very progressive

00:42:05.800 family.

00:42:07.100 Um, and you know, I believe it's my civic responsibility, uh, to be an active voice.

00:42:13.660 And probably more importantly, um, when my TV career took off, um, I felt that if you have

00:42:21.920 a platform and you don't do something good with it, um, you have, you've left a hole in

00:42:28.820 the ground that can't be filled somewhere else.

00:42:32.420 And, um, you know, I, I was determined to devote 25% of my time and 25% of my money, uh, to social

00:42:43.640 justice causes that I believed in.

00:42:45.560 And I started doing a lot of board work and I started to get involved in a lot of national

00:42:49.360 and international programs.

00:42:51.440 Um, people can go to my website, andrewzimmern.com and click on our resources and our partners

00:42:56.160 page to see the type of groups I'm involved in.

00:42:59.300 But, you know, I'm on the board of services for the underserved in New York, uh, the IRC,

00:43:04.940 not the independent restaurant coalition, the international rescue committee that Einstein

00:43:08.620 founded in 1939 refugee, uh, do a lot of refugee work, work with a lot of organizations.

00:43:15.440 I'm on a lot of boards.

00:43:16.540 I try to work on homelessness and hunger and addiction issues and, and the like.

00:43:22.360 And it, it's really been in the last three years as I've seen the work that my parents

00:43:28.800 undertook for a lifetime away from their businesses, uh, the work that so many people have done

00:43:35.160 for, uh, on the social justice side and to promote equality in America for everyone.

00:43:42.900 And seeing that under attack definitely got me more civically involved and definitely got

00:43:47.840 me more politically involved.

00:43:49.640 And I made a conscious choice, uh, that while, you know, my new show family dinner on Magnolia

00:43:57.720 is definitely a, uh, a treacly sweet piece of entertainment.

00:44:03.020 Um, but it's about connecting with families over food, something that I believe does have

00:44:08.080 healing properties.

00:44:09.000 And I wanted America to see what it looked like for families to spend more time together

00:44:14.520 eating.

00:44:14.920 Cause I believe that, uh, we'd be better off as a nation if we all spent a little more

00:44:19.300 time together over a table of food.

00:44:21.100 But by that same token, I'm also making a show called what's eating America at MSNBC,

00:44:26.160 which is very civic oriented, which is very issue oriented, uh, which does not pull any

00:44:33.760 punches.

00:44:34.160 And we explore everything from voter suppression to climate change, to food and wellness and

00:44:40.080 addiction, et cetera.

00:44:41.600 Well, so again, like I asked you earlier to confirm, it's very important.

00:44:44.840 It's fair to say you don't have a picture of president Trump on that wall anywhere else,

00:44:48.180 right?

00:44:48.400 Uh, that, that, that would be, that would be correct.

00:44:52.480 Um, I have, I have pictures of Joe Namath, uh, during his most anarchy plagued years,

00:44:59.140 uh, the New York jets, when he was the owner of a famous bar in New York called bachelor's

00:45:03.980 three.

00:45:04.560 And he's in the, he signed it to me also.

00:45:07.140 It's, it's, uh, he's in the fur coat, the mink coat sitting on the bench with the sunglasses,

00:45:12.340 the, the Broadway Joe era with the long hair, you know, my heroes, uh,

00:45:18.400 are, uh, are definitely not members of this administration.

00:45:22.100 Very cool.

00:45:22.860 All good.

00:45:23.260 Thank you for sharing that.

00:45:24.460 And I think it's fair to say that Joe Namath has probably partied harder than you and I

00:45:28.180 combined.

00:45:29.140 Although I don't know your background of party.

00:45:30.640 And I know Joe is a hardcore part of some lighthearted questions.

00:45:33.540 We covered a lot of politics.

00:45:34.680 We covered a lot of different business stuff.

00:45:36.220 I'm just curious, you know, for somebody who loves caviar, what is the best kind of caviar

00:45:41.220 for me to look for?

00:45:42.120 If you were to say, let me educate you on caviar for two minutes.

00:45:45.480 What could you educate me on by caviar?

00:45:47.340 I grew up in Iran.

00:45:48.720 I lived there for 10 years, lived at a refugee camp in Germany for two years.

00:45:52.480 I grew up by, uh, my family owned a place by Bandar Pahlavi back in the days, which was

00:45:57.000 by Kaspian Sea.

00:45:58.540 And the caviar there was delicious.

00:46:00.640 But I'm curious to hear your feedback and thoughts on caviar.

00:46:03.280 Well, geez, well, the first thing is, is that why aren't we standing together somewhere

00:46:08.460 in a kitchen, socially distanced, cooking together?

00:46:11.400 What I refer to generically, because it's a broader geographic footprint of Persian cuisine

00:46:16.680 at the, at the, you know, at the height of, uh, that culture's influence, um, in Central

00:46:24.520 Asia and the middle and what is now the Levant and Central Asia.

00:46:27.920 Um, I'm not sure there's a, there's a, a broader and wider cuisines.

00:46:32.560 One of the, one of the world's truly great, great cuisines.

00:46:36.340 And I love Persian food.

00:46:37.440 I don't have to educate you about a caviar.

00:46:39.460 I'm sure you know a lot about it.

00:46:40.740 I often tell people it's whatever you think tastes good.

00:46:44.100 Let's start there.

00:46:45.440 These are salted fish eggs.

00:46:47.260 Not everyone has the flavor for it, but if you do, um, I do try to take people away from

00:46:54.120 lumpfish roe and other things that are sort of like pretend caviars.

00:46:58.360 But then the issue that gets raised is, uh, the cost and what's, uh, you know, I'm hoping

00:47:06.320 as more, and it's part of the reason why I actually promote what caviar eating that I

00:47:11.820 do not to pat myself on the back or to, you know, uh, claim some sort of elitist, uh, position.

00:47:21.240 It's just that my hope is, since it's one of my favorite foods that we can invest more

00:47:26.360 in aquaculture because every year, the, the more companies that get involved in this stuff,

00:47:30.960 the lower the price, uh, drops.

00:47:33.900 Now the caviar industry is like many other food industries boomed over the last 10 years.

00:47:41.540 Uh, whether it's farms, sturgeon farms in Taiwan that I visited, um, or ones in Florida.

00:47:47.740 I mean, I've, I've told stories about caviar production, aquaculture caviar production in

00:47:52.860 six or seven different countries around the world over the course of the last 15 years,

00:47:56.920 but now they have no one to sell to because restaurants are closed.

00:48:00.540 Um, which is very, very sad.

00:48:03.360 I will tell you that while, uh, the great true Mala salt, low salt, uh,

00:48:11.540 beluga caviar, or cetera, whatever your size preference is, something firm, something that

00:48:17.680 really pops in the mouth, something that has a beautiful balance of salinity.

00:48:22.060 While for some people, they automatically assume that costs a lot.

00:48:25.700 I did a story in Oklahoma about five years ago on the Oklahoma department of natural resources.

00:48:35.560 And they were trying to, uh, they have a wild paddlefish population there.

00:48:41.900 Oklahoma and Missouri, the only States in America where wild paddlefish exist and they

00:48:46.120 can be fished.

00:48:46.800 You get a license and you're allowed to pull X number of fish out of the water, but the

00:48:51.360 paddlefish in Oklahoma actually go to go through two egg laying seasons, right?

00:48:57.260 So a lot of these farm, uh, fishermen would open up their fish and fillet them and paddlefish

00:49:04.740 is quite delicious.

00:49:06.780 And, uh, magically they found that people were throwing away these five, six pounds of row

00:49:15.060 that was inside the wild paddlefish.

00:49:17.760 Well, the department of natural resources guys had seen one of my older shows from 10 years

00:49:24.380 ago in Missouri where I was actually with fishermen, fish to the paddlefish, and I actually made

00:49:29.060 homemade caviar by salting the eggs.

00:49:31.760 And then I took whole sets of it.

00:49:33.220 And much of the same way we fry other sets of egg row, sliced it in pieces, lightly floured

00:49:39.000 it, fried it, served it with scrambled eggs and toast and butter.

00:49:42.100 It's delicious.

00:49:42.760 Just fry it medium rare.

00:49:44.020 The same way you would shad row in the, in Maryland and, uh, or smoke cod row in Ireland and England

00:49:52.160 in Scotland and these Oklahoma DNR guys had seen the Missouri show.

00:49:58.180 They sent one of their own to caviar school and now they make wild paddlefish caviar from

00:50:04.460 Oklahoma that is so blank and delicious.

00:50:08.780 99% of the caviar in my pictures, you can see me making reference to it.

00:50:13.900 I think you can go to the Oklahoma DNR, uh, page and make your way to it.

00:50:18.460 Um, it's very inexpensive.

00:50:21.160 It's really good.

00:50:22.340 And all the money that from the caviar program goes to support the, uh, water systems in

00:50:30.400 the state parks in the state of Oklahoma.

00:50:32.800 So if you Google wild Oklahoma paddlefish caviar, it'll probably take you right to, uh, the website

00:50:40.320 where you can order it.

00:50:42.020 Wild Oklahoma paddlefish?

00:50:45.200 Caviar.

00:50:46.160 Caviar.

00:50:46.560 I'm going to look it up and I'm going to order it.

00:50:48.480 And I've, I've sent it to, I mean, there are chefs I've, I've been, I have no financial

00:50:54.420 stake in this.

00:50:55.180 There's no, this is not a sponsored thing at all.

00:50:57.480 I just happen to love this story so much.

00:51:00.400 And all the money goes to help the, the streams and rivers and forests in Oklahoma.

00:51:06.000 And so one of the amazing things I've turned all my chef friends onto it in blind tastings.

00:51:10.800 Then they all go, wow, that's pretty good.

00:51:12.920 I mean, it's, it's, I, I can tell this, you know, we're not talking about, you know, primo,

00:51:18.660 but we're talking about something that's a rock solid B plus.

00:51:21.260 Then I tell them what it is.

00:51:22.680 Then I tell them the price and they lose their minds.

00:51:25.800 There's more restaurants now buying and selling this stuff because I've just been bringing

00:51:30.520 it to food festivals, doing it at, at dinners and all the rest of it.

00:51:34.720 Uh, it's very inexpensive as in, uh, single digit hundreds of dollars for a kilo.

00:51:43.580 Wow.

00:51:44.140 And it's delicious.

00:51:45.820 The article here, April 12th, uh, 2016, how Oklahoma cornered the market in caviar national

00:51:52.300 geographic.

00:51:53.160 There you go.

00:51:54.380 So I'm going to look that up.

00:51:55.420 So that's good to know.

00:51:56.160 Now here's the other thing.

00:51:57.720 I've eaten at a lot of different restaurants worldwide.

00:51:59.720 I'm a foodie myself.

00:52:01.160 I love great food.

00:52:02.520 You know, whether it's from a hole in a wall sushi spot where the chef, the owner makes

00:52:07.100 it, and you can trust his work to a high-end restaurants in Monaco, Le Louis the 15th, or

00:52:12.640 a nice restaurant, hole in a wall, La Vitrola in Cartagena, Colombia, to all these other

00:52:17.320 places.

00:52:17.780 You've been all over the world.

00:52:18.980 By the way, I know, I know both, I've dined in both of those last two restaurants.

00:52:23.920 Thank you.

00:52:25.420 At Cartagena and at Le Louis.

00:52:27.600 The Louis, the Louis cans in Monte Carlo.

00:52:29.820 So I went there when Alain Ducasse was a young chef and arguably the best chef in the world.

00:52:35.600 And he had just gotten three stars for two different restaurants.

00:52:40.680 I was a young cook.

00:52:42.160 This was in the 80s.

00:52:43.200 I was staging in a restaurant in Paris that Alain Cendérin was the chef at called L'Arca

00:52:49.780 Strada, Alain Cendérin's first Michelin three-star.

00:52:52.900 And a whole bunch of us drove down, and for three days, we showed up at 5.30 or 6 o'clock

00:53:00.820 when they opened to see if there was a table in our crappy blazers, you know, and I mean,

00:53:07.220 you know, young grubby cooks. 0.95

00:53:09.320 And it changed my life.

00:53:10.820 That meal, I had never seen, and it was the first time.

00:53:16.200 And now it happens more frequently.

00:53:19.380 I can name up 25 restaurants in America that do it.

00:53:22.520 But at the time, 1982, 83, 84, I had never seen butter churned in a kitchen and the bread

00:53:32.860 baked in the kitchen, both according to the reservation chart.

00:53:38.380 They were churning butter multiple times a day.

00:53:41.540 So the butter was never refrigerated at the Louis Cain's in Monte Carlo.

00:53:46.580 The buildup under the cap of the churning machine was actually whipped away from the separation,

00:53:56.920 right?

00:53:58.000 They would take that way, and they would constantly, every hour, scrape off a few tablespoons,

00:54:04.120 and that's what they would use to delicately saute, use it like a cuisson, just to glaze root

00:54:10.180 vegetables for one of the lamb dishes.

00:54:12.980 When you think of the lengths that restaurant was going to, just with that simplest of ingredients,

00:54:18.740 butter, you get, and bread, you get an idea of what, I had never had an experience like

00:54:24.540 that, and it changed my food life forever.

00:54:28.900 You know, it's crazy you said that.

00:54:30.460 You said, you went there when the chef who went, I read his article that he went at 28

00:54:37.440 years old from a one-star to two-star to a three-star in three years, and he was like

00:54:42.340 the legendary one worldwide that everybody, and by the way, they still do the butter.

00:54:46.400 It's in display.

00:54:47.200 You see the show when they're doing it, when you go into the place.

00:54:49.540 Oh, do they do that now?

00:54:51.100 Because before, it was hidden away in the kitchen.

00:54:53.680 In the middle, really, what you were telling me, I was watching, and I'm like, what are they

00:54:57.100 doing over there, and then they come, and they tell you about it, so you eloquently

00:55:00.220 explained that, but out of all the places you've been, out of all the places you've

00:55:04.980 been, what's your number one where you say, if money's not an issue, if I want to take

00:55:10.900 my friends, if I want to go to a place and sit down and enjoy food, my number one is,

00:55:15.500 dot, dot, dot, what is that place for you?

00:55:20.500 Oh, my gosh.

00:55:21.540 Um, that's a very difficult question to answer, and I would answer it differently

00:55:29.820 today than I did a couple years ago.

00:55:31.840 A couple years ago, I might have said something like, you know, let's go and do the

00:55:37.820 vegetarian tasting menu at Arpege in Paris.

00:55:40.920 Let's go to one of the three-star Michelin restaurants in Tokyo, right?

00:55:47.600 Let, let's go and really celebrate in the, in the private room at, you know, Alinea, and

00:55:55.540 tell them to really put on the feed bag for us, right?

00:55:58.060 I mean, just to have that over-the-top experience.

00:56:00.600 I love that kind of dining.

00:56:02.940 I truly do.

00:56:05.100 Because I love seeing what a chef can do, that kind of chef, at the peak of his powers,

00:56:12.660 with ingredients, the transformational things that they do with food, the, the techniques

00:56:18.680 that are going to be used 30 years later, once it trickles down to, you know, home cooking.

00:56:25.560 But I think what's most, what's notable and powerful for me are the places where I can

00:56:33.640 share more food with more people.

00:56:36.240 On the island of Palawan in the Philippines, there's a bunch of floating restaurants.

00:56:44.560 You, you, somewhere at the end of a dock, they've built a rickety dock half mile out

00:56:50.080 into the water.

00:56:51.400 There's, I wrote about one in, in my first book, you know, a place where I can go, where

00:56:58.000 the fishermen come in and they, they, they lift the fish and the shellfish and the mollusks

00:57:04.420 up into the center of the restaurant through a big hole cut in the middle of it.

00:57:08.220 The restaurant is on stilts in the water where you can watch the sun go down, where

00:57:13.140 you're sitting on the water, where the bananas for frozen banana drinks are cut from a giant

00:57:20.660 ripe banana plant that was tree ripe in that's sitting by the bar, where the limes are grown

00:57:26.140 in the backyard of someone's house and picked and brought in, where everything is so fresh

00:57:30.700 and so simple.

00:57:31.540 And it's really a matter of whether you want your fish or shellfish, you know, grilled

00:57:35.940 raw or sauteed.

00:57:37.340 That's the only way we do it.

00:57:39.020 Pick your poison.

00:57:40.160 Those are the kind of places that really thrill me the most.

00:57:42.960 It has as much to do with location and simplicity of food, um, as it does, uh, with the quality

00:57:52.060 of what's being cooked.

00:57:54.620 Because I think the quality now means something different to me.

00:57:57.620 Um, I've seen all the pyrotechnics.

00:58:00.220 I've seen all the fancy stuff.

00:58:02.160 Um, you know, you talked about Cartagena in Medellin, there's, uh, a pollo carbone,

00:58:11.180 you know, charcoal roasted chicken is what's eaten.

00:58:14.740 Every street has a different pollo carbone place, but there are a couple that do it a lot

00:58:20.140 better than the others, right?

00:58:22.180 You know, give me a good pollo carbone place and a lot of really cold frosty root beer and

00:58:29.940 30 of my closest friends and let us just sit there for hours and get messy with our fingers

00:58:35.320 eating pollo carbone, uh, going out into the street and buying a sugarcane juice with lime

00:58:42.040 and mint crushed with it.

00:58:43.500 I'm happy as a clam there.

00:58:45.220 Last night, I was shooting an episode of family dinner.

00:58:48.320 I was eating with a Nigerian family and, uh, they, they did a version of burning meat on 1.00

00:58:55.360 skewers, something that all over Africa, you go into neighborhoods and it's just people 1.00

00:59:00.040 build a fire, throw a grill on top of it.

00:59:02.000 And you could actually pick your cut.

00:59:03.400 Typically the animal is, uh, they're being butchered on the back table and you can point

00:59:07.780 and say, I want a little shoulder.

00:59:09.500 I want a little luxury cut because everything costs a different price, right?

00:59:13.080 They, they know the luxury cuts are more expensive than cuts from the, the leg or the tendon or

00:59:18.580 the neck or the cheek.

00:59:20.340 Um, and you know, you sit there and you order it.

00:59:24.460 Same thing in the, you know, Jamal Fana in Marrakesh, you know, in the sook there where

00:59:29.920 with lamb, it's the same view.

00:59:31.320 You order the meshwee and they pull a little bit from different parts of the animal and

00:59:35.060 they put it on a piece of newspaper and they spill a little bit of cumin chili and salt

00:59:40.020 mixture on the plate for you to season your own lamb with.

00:59:42.540 And you eat it with your fingers.

00:59:43.920 And if you want bread, they send a kid around the corner of the bread place.

00:59:48.660 And he comes back with that and some hot or cold mint tea.

00:59:52.780 I'd rather eat in a place like that.

00:59:55.620 Almost.

00:59:56.220 If, if you said, Andrew, let's you and I go to one place for dinner tonight, anywhere in

01:00:03.360 the world, it might be to some of the markets that I've been to in small villages, jungle 0.99

01:00:12.120 markets in the Vietnamese countryside where spring rolls and grilled fish and shrimp salads

01:00:18.300 and just, just the food that you just, you want to just keep eating for the rest of your

01:00:23.600 life.

01:00:23.920 You pinch yourself.

01:00:24.760 If it's so good, it's being made fresh.

01:00:26.740 I remember being in Isang, Thailand, up in the north on the Laotian border, just about

01:00:33.380 30 miles from Vientiane, but about five, eight miles in from the Laotian border.

01:00:39.520 And I was on a farm and they told me that they were going to make a shrimp salad, a drunken

01:00:45.600 shrimp salad for dinner.

01:00:46.980 And I knew that, you know, you take the small shrimp and they're live and you drown them

01:00:51.400 in rice wine and then you mix it with toasted rice powder and chili and ginger and garlic

01:00:56.460 and fish sauce and sugar and mint and cilantro and crushed peanuts and tomatoes.

01:01:03.240 And you have this just fantastic shrimp salad.

01:01:05.620 It's one of my favorite dishes in the Vietnamese culinary canon.

01:01:10.840 And grandma went down to the river with her net and started taking these freshwater shrimp 0.95

01:01:15.360 out of the, out of the river.

01:01:18.400 I don't think I'd eaten anything that good.

01:01:20.580 I, you know, I would put that dish up against anything that I've eaten anywhere on planet

01:01:25.400 earth.

01:01:25.960 Right.

01:01:26.960 Um, food is not just about the expensive, you know, that's why the caviar conversation used

01:01:34.460 to make me uncomfortable.

01:01:36.700 Um, and I have it freely with people where I have the opportunity to explain it because

01:01:41.840 the fact of the matter is, is that the food that I find is the most precious is the stuff

01:01:48.300 that's only available on what I call the last stop on the subway.

01:01:52.580 The further away you have to go to get it, the more valuable it is.

01:01:57.800 A year ago, if you and I want to have a great meal in New York, right?

01:02:01.280 I mean, between the two of us, we can call up friends.

01:02:03.740 We can get into any restaurant we want as a deuce, right?

01:02:06.220 We'll eat at the bar.

01:02:07.320 We'll have an amazing meal.

01:02:08.820 The chef will throw all kinds of free stuff at it.

01:02:11.100 The bartender will keep us happy.

01:02:12.820 And we're going to have a good time.

01:02:13.880 You and I, any restaurant.

01:02:15.560 But what we can't do is be out in a village in Botswana with a big fat yellow African moon 0.94

01:02:24.980 rising up over the aha hills while a goat is slowly roasting over the fire, while people

01:02:30.440 are playing the same music that their ancestors played for 40,000 years.

01:02:35.320 We can't, how do we, we can't buy that.

01:02:38.620 That's the precious experience that I got to have for 14 years on the road, making bizarre

01:02:44.960 foods and other shows, um, that I miss.

01:02:48.460 That was an amazing era in my life to be able to have all those experiences and know what

01:02:55.780 that feels like.

01:02:56.880 And by the way, have that same meal, but have it be moose with the Athabascan tribe while 0.71

01:03:02.000 it's 30 degrees below zero in front of a bonfire while they're white, they're spearing white 0.99

01:03:07.200 fish on the very last night of the season before the river freezes for good.

01:03:12.200 I mean, that's, that's the, that's where I'd want to take you and my friends is to eat that 0.92

01:03:18.020 because the look on your face at the fancy restaurant in Paris would be, holy crap, this 0.93

01:03:24.740 is amazing.

01:03:25.640 I take you up to Athabascan country and you're like, you're in so much clothing, you can't

01:03:31.780 move.

01:03:32.140 And someone puts boiled white fish right out of the river in your face, by the way, that

01:03:36.480 you speared and risked your life.

01:03:39.120 Cause if you fall in the water, you're dead.

01:03:41.680 It's so cold.

01:03:42.860 They can't get you to the fire fast enough.

01:03:45.240 They lose a couple of people every season, usually elderly folks who've been drinking

01:03:49.880 too much.

01:03:51.020 Um, you really will enjoy that white fish because the environment in which we're consuming it

01:03:57.360 together is conducive to a real human connection that I don't think you necessarily get in a

01:04:03.560 fancy restaurant.

01:04:04.680 Let me tell you, uh, uh, uh, you know, I wonder how you talk dirty to the ladies because your 1.00

01:04:10.660 last seven minutes of whatever you do with food, I am so hungry, but I can't wait to

01:04:16.860 go eat at any of those places.

01:04:19.140 But it's crazy.

01:04:19.800 You're saying this because it took me back to, uh, a time I went to Guatemala back in

01:04:24.140 2005 and we were driving to Guatemala.

01:04:26.800 Guatemala is not known as a rich place.

01:04:28.360 And then you go to this place and it's called it's amazing.

01:04:31.440 And they say, well, this is a place where European people live.

01:04:34.720 I'm like, European people live in Guatemala.

01:04:36.320 Yeah.

01:04:36.520 Puerto Barrios.

01:04:37.280 And we went to this place, holding them while you ate, but they brought the lobster.

01:04:40.660 They brought the food from the best dish I ever had.

01:04:43.220 Look, I've really enjoyed the conversation with you.

01:04:45.700 And it's interesting to hear a story of somebody who had 14 years old gets inspired by oysters

01:04:50.900 and a man who's born on 4th of July who likes capitalism because improves the restaurant

01:04:56.600 business, what would your final thoughts be to small business owners who own restaurants

01:05:02.120 and folks who are in restaurant business, right?

01:05:04.020 And who are little worded, if you have final words, final thoughts for them, what would

01:05:07.000 you say to them?

01:05:08.420 Um, food people, despite the gloom and doom that I talked about before, I do believe there's

01:05:13.300 going to be a stabilization act passed, but more importantly, the most creative, the most

01:05:20.480 free thinking, the most giving, sharing, coolest people in the world are food people.

01:05:25.760 Uh, with apologies for everyone else out there.

01:05:29.240 I've been around food people my whole life.

01:05:31.460 They have the biggest hearts.

01:05:33.200 They're the, they, they, they have pivoted three or four times already since February.

01:05:38.680 I think, I think the, the, the higher power that I believe in puts the large burdens on

01:05:47.520 the shoulders of people that can handle it.

01:05:49.820 And while this has been a horrific moment for restaurants, it's also been a very freeing

01:05:55.480 one.

01:05:56.360 Our industry was very brittle and fragile, and it was also had a lot of inequity in it.

01:06:03.020 Uh, I mean, people forget three years ago, the, the me too movement that, you know, rampage

01:06:08.960 through our industry.

01:06:10.700 Um, the, the fact that we've mistreated, you know, people of color working in our kitchens 0.99

01:06:16.540 and depressed prices and not paid a fair wage and not been able to offer benefits to these

01:06:23.500 workers and, and dignified the back of the house side of the profession from the dishwasher

01:06:29.340 to the porter to the prep cook.

01:06:31.420 Right.

01:06:31.760 We've, we've deified the chef, right?

01:06:34.740 We've professionalized the server and the mixologist.

01:06:37.860 We don't even call them bartenders anymore, but we have an opportunity now.

01:06:41.600 I would have liked to have take our house apart brick by brick before we rebuilt it.

01:06:46.100 Instead, someone burnt it to the ground.

01:06:48.860 COVID-19 burnt it to the ground. 0.96

01:06:50.920 We would be stupid to rebuild it in the same, uh, format that we did before. 0.89

01:06:56.040 I think there are people, restaurateurs, food people all over this country figuring out 0.98

01:07:01.740 a better, smarter way.

01:07:03.280 I think we will come out of this.

01:07:04.800 We will look back 20 years from now on a 10 year period post COVID-19 that we will call

01:07:13.100 the golden age of restaurants because we will have figured out a way both to honor the food,

01:07:18.340 the farmer, the planter, the picker, the cook.

01:07:22.060 I think we will be able to honor every single person equitably along that whole food chain.

01:07:27.980 And I think we're going to be better off for it as a society.

01:07:31.120 And I think food people will drive that decision-making.

01:07:34.140 I mean, one creative idea that you've seen in the last few months in the restaurant business

01:07:38.180 that other restaurant businesses can implement one creative idea, uh, gather your best, um,

01:07:44.600 uh, purveyors and package their goods in a food box that goes to families.

01:07:52.060 Now, some people have done it based around, uh, there's a local restaurant here called

01:07:56.840 Grand Cafe, which sold you four meals for four people for X number of dollars with everything

01:08:02.120 labeled and all the rest of that, uh, for folks that wanted to cook a little more adventurous,

01:08:06.240 ventrously at home.

01:08:07.460 Other people like Dan Barber up at a blue hill at stone barns has just accumulated cheese from

01:08:12.940 his cheese people, meat from his meat people, seafood from a seafood people, charcuterie from

01:08:18.040 his charcuterie people, you know, tomatoes from his tomato people and put them in a

01:08:22.040 big box and said, every week you're going to get this box for X number of hundreds of

01:08:25.420 dollars.

01:08:25.940 You don't have to go to the supermarket.

01:08:27.220 We're putting in a little bit of everything for you.

01:08:29.920 I think that's an area beyond takeout and delivery that is really, really, really important.

01:08:36.120 A lot of people in America, not all, but a lot would like to be eating cleaner, healthier

01:08:42.040 food, less of it, higher quality.

01:08:44.520 And I think restaurants can provide that for their, uh, neighbors and communities.

01:08:50.940 Andrew, thank you so much for being a guest on by Tim.

01:08:53.220 And I really enjoyed the time with you.

01:08:55.080 I loved having a real conversation with somebody who asked really provocative questions and

01:09:00.500 loves my subject matter as much as I do.

01:09:03.120 And for anyone interested, we have a lot of information at andrewzimmern.com, not only,

01:09:08.020 uh, issues of the day and resources, uh, but incredible, uh, charities to support as well

01:09:15.140 as thousands and thousands of videos and recipes and all that kind of stuff.

01:09:20.380 It's a fun award-winning website.

01:09:22.300 I'm really proud of the people here in my group that put it together.

01:09:25.000 So please go visit andrewzimmern.com.

01:09:27.900 We'll put both the links below.

01:09:30.140 Andrew, again, thank you so much for your time.

01:09:32.140 And I enjoyed it.

01:09:33.020 I appreciate it.

01:09:33.860 Thank you, my friend.

01:09:34.800 Thanks everybody for listening.

01:09:36.000 And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.

01:09:40.640 Give us a five-star, write a review if you haven't already.

01:09:43.520 And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,

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01:09:49.480 Just search my name, Patrick Bid David.

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01:09:56.260 With that being said, have a great day today.

01:09:58.040 Take care, everybody.

01:09:58.780 Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - August 24, 2020

Did COVID-19 Destroy The Restaurant Industry Overnight

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