Episode 175： What it Costs to Run a Restaurant by Celebrity Chef Curtis Stone
Episode Stats
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Summary
Celebrity chef Curtis Stone joins us to talk about his multiple restaurants in Beverly Hills, LA, and why he named his restaurants Maud and Gwyn after his grandmother. He also talks about how he got into the restaurant business, why he decided to open multiple restaurants, and what it takes to run a business like his.
Transcript
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30 seconds, one time for the underdog, ignition sequence start, let me see you put em up, reach
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the sky, touch the stars up above, cause it's one time for the underdog, one time for the
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I love me some real good food, and today I had a chance to sit down with celebrity chef
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Curtis Stone, who's had his many, many different reality TV shows, even one time he was with
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Donald Trump on The Apprentice, and we got a little technical today about the restaurant
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side, I asked him, I said, is there any madness behind chefs, is that true, is it just a myth,
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what does it cost to run a business like yours, cause he's got multiple restaurants in Beverly
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Hills, LA, super, super successful, so he breaks down the business side, as well as some stories
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about chefs that may not shock you, or, but will entertain you.
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Curtis Stone brother, thank you for making the time to get together with us, aka the quiet
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So, I'm always looking at restaurants that I go to, I pay attention to how they treat you,
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menus, how they set it up, different, like, Seasons 52 in Dallas, they do, you know, every
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three months they change, as the season changes, the menu changes, and then you have the typical
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ones that you go to, so I want to go into customer service, customer experience, but before,
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before doing that, why don't you first tell us about the two restaurants you have right now
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in LA, with Maud and Gwyn and the story behind it.
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Sure, so Maud was the first one I opened, it's about nearly five years ago now, I took
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a little break from restaurants actually, I worked my whole life as a young chef in great
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restaurants, I moved to Europe and worked there for 10 years or so, and then I got asked to
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do a TV show, and then write a book, and then another TV show, and it just got too crazy to
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do restaurants and that as well, so I sort of, I took five years off, and I missed it, you know,
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restaurants are scrappy professions, you know, like the, to run a restaurant is a really
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difficult, I bet, it's a difficult job, and it's also very hard to stay afloat, it's hard
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to make money, it's hard to break even in the restaurant world, but there was something
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I loved about it, and something I craved it, you know, just as a part of my life, I missed
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it, so I decided to open my first one, which was Maud, five years ago, and it was a tiny little
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place, and I thought if I'm going to spend that much time in one little building, I want it
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to feel special to me, so I sort of started thinking about all the things that were special
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in my life, and my grandma was one of those things, she, she was one of the first people
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How old were you at the time when you were interested?
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She was from Yorkshire, the northern part of England, and she used to make this delicious
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sugary fudge, all kids like something sweet, right, and I was no exception, so I used to
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go to her house, and I'd be like, Grandma, is there fudge in the fridge?
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And if there wasn't, we'd make it together, so that was sort of my very first time in
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the kitchen was with her, and she was a good old duck, my granny, she taught me how to play
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tennis, she taught me how to play cards, she was, she was very funny, and she was a big
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So I decided to name the restaurant after her, she was also the most religious one in our
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family, so I thought if anyone can help me from up there, it's her, so I named it
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She did, yeah, yeah, she moved when she was young, five or six years old, so she grew
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up as an Aussie, but she always had like a tiny bit of an English accent, which was fun.
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And then we're sitting in Gwen right now, this is the second restaurant, this is a joint
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venture with my brother, actually, so we sort of had spoken about doing something together
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for a long time, and we decided we'd eventually do something, I convinced him to move his family
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over here to Los Angeles, and we said, well, you know, what's something we love, and we
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sort of got talking about that, and we wanted to open a European-style butcher shop with
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And we were talking and talking, and we were like, you know, we can't only represent one
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side of the family, we have to do both, so Gwen was my other, she was my nan, my other
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So no one's upset, but both sides, you're representing somebody.
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Okay, so now, having said that, your brother is now partners with you on this one, you got
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So, Celebrity Apprentice, when you did that, how was that entire experience for you?
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Was that the first time when it was kind of coming up for you, were you making a name
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for yourself nationally, or had you already been established prior to that?
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It was a funny time for me, to be honest with you, it was just after the GFC, I moved to
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America to do a TV show, I did a few of them, I wrote a few books, and then I'd sort of built
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a business, I had half a dozen employees, well not half a dozen, but three or four.
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Here in the US, yeah, and then the GFC hit, and all my commercial partners disappeared,
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and I didn't have a TV show at that time, I'd just finished a show, and they were about
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to commission a new one, and then that sort of got put on the back burner, so I was suddenly
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It's the worst way to be unemployed, no customers, no revenue, and right, you've got to pay
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everyone, and I got asked to do Celebrity Apprentice the year prior, and I turned it
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down, because I, you know, I'm a chef, you know, why would I be on The Apprentice?
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But the next time I got asked, I was like, you know what, I've got to do something, you
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know, business is bad, I've got to try and rekindle things a little bit, so I decided
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to do it, but I was very sceptical, I wasn't looking forward to it.
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I got up there to New York, and I found out who the other people were, and they're all
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mad, Britt Michael, Cindy Lauper, Sharon Osbourne, Bogoyevich, the governor who's now in prison
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from Illinois, you know, and I walked into this room, and I thought to myself, I'm the
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only normal person in here, and I was thinking, what a mistake, but you know, we started the
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show, and then of course you meet Trump, and you start the show, and he literally gives
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you a, he gives you a game, right, and as adults, I didn't have kids at that time, when
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you have kids, you get to play again, but as adults, you don't get to play games very
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often, interesting, right, yeah, so we played a game with a bunch of nut jobs every single
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day, and it was so fun, I was there for over a month, and I really enjoyed it, you know,
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it was, it was, you know, the way these people's brains work, very creative, and it was very
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I mean, Brent Michaels was just a fascinating dude, and I got along really well with him,
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and I didn't really expect to, you know, Bill Goldberg was another guy, he was, he was
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in there, the ex-wrestler, we got along well, I worked out with him, he'd slap me around
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And how big is he, is he actually, like, really, is he as big as.
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He's a big dude, yeah, he's a big dude, and he's strong, you know, like, we'd go into
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the gym together, and he'd lift four times what I could lift, it was fun working out with
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And then how was Trump with that whole experience?
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Because this is pre-presidency, there's no politics, it's just regular celebrity Trump.
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Trump was, like, a very interesting character, right?
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Yeah, I mean, when someone's not saying I want to be the president of the country, then
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you have no, you know, like, you don't mind having crazy people in your world, you don't
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mind having someone that's, you know, loose and this big personality like he is.
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I don't know if he should have put his hand up to become the president of the country,
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But, you know, while on the show, I didn't have a lot to do with him, to be honest, but
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he likes things done his way, and he's, you know, he's got opinions on stuff, but yeah,
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I can see him being a control guy, like, everything's got to be under control the way he wants it.
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Okay, when you start a restaurant, you've done two of them, and one of the things I like
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about where you're at, you've had experience, you said in Europe, you worked there for five
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years, I think some number you said, well, you service, so you know the customers in
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Europe are different than the customers in America, than the customers in Australia.
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The treatment I get in South America, or if I go to Colombia, or if I go to, you know,
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Middle East, Qatar, or Dubai, I'm going to get different than I do in U.S. or Europe, for
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But when you look at customer service and customer experience, and you have worked as
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a person behind closed doors, and you have worked as your own restaurant that's representing
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your grandmother, I mean, these are people that mean a lot to you, so you want to protect
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What is on your mind to give me, the customer, whoever that's coming in, a good customer service
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The thing I say to everyone is, when you open the doors to your restaurant, you're really
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opening up an extension of your home and inviting people in.
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So you have to treat them like they're coming into your home.
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And in a way, you get to know your team members so well, you really do become a family.
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We sit down every day and we eat dinner together.
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The cooks get here in the morning and they're here until midnight.
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You know, the least we can do is cook them dinner.
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They'll be downstairs now, probably having their dinner before.
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You know, because we then cook until midnight, right?
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But when you open your doors, you really need to greet people the same way that you would
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And then as they come in, you try and imagine that they're your friends and you take care
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Where it gets tricky is guests come in and they all want something different.
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Some people want you to talk to them a lot and entertain them a little bit and tell them
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And other people really want to be left alone so they can enjoy the company of their companions.
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So you then have to be a good reader of someone, right?
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You need to be able to quickly tap into what these customers want and then to be able to
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try and communicate that to the rest of your team so that we're all on the same page.
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But occasionally, you'll read someone and you'll think, okay, they want us to leave them
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They don't want us to interrupt them all night long.
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But then, you know, you'll read a Yelp review or occasionally you'll get an email that sort
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of says, you know, we didn't get the same service that we were seeing other tables get.
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But I think for the most part, if you're good at your job, you can get it pretty right.
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So the four o'clock dinner that you guys do, what are you talking about?
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Are you talking about the day or are you talking to them or are you talking about preparation?
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We actually, we don't do any work during our dinner.
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If you're a dishwasher or you're a chef or we all sit down together.
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That's just a time to connect with one another.
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And I love seeing the cooks sitting with the front of house and the kitchen porters working
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And I like to see mixed tables because then you're all connecting with one another.
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Because if you care about each other, you'll back each other up, right?
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Then what we do is we have what we call a pre-service or a pre-shift.
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So just before the guests arrive, we then all, we come up into this room actually and we
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stand together and then we run through our night.
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We keep notes on our guests so when guests dine with us, we'll keep a history on them.
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Like you say, tonight we have the Johnson family coming here.
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We'll say what they drank last time they were in.
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You know, maybe she was a lover of white burgundy or talk about what water preferences they
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Do you adjust your waiter or waitress to the customer or it doesn't matter?
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If I'm sectioned off, this is section A, B, C, D. No matter what, if I sit in A, I'm
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Or if I am always good with Larry, you give me Larry even if I'm sitting in section A.
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We'll have certain regular guests that we know what they like.
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They might like to sit in a certain section of the restaurant or they might like a particular
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Like, you know, on certain nights you'll have guests arrive in a big pack.
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So between 7 and 7.15, you might have 30 guests coming through the front door.
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So we'll sort of help prepare our team for that.
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When that's coming, this is how we're going to handle it.
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We've got to get some of those checks in as quickly as we can so that they don't come
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all at once to the kitchen because everyone's waiting for their food.
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So we try and structure the evening in as best way as we can.
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You know, you've got to be ready because sometimes you'll plan it out.
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And the 10 guests after, the 10 guests in the middle arrive early.
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And suddenly you've got 30 people through the door again.
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So, you know, there's ways that you can try and mitigate that.
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You know, because if you do the math, it's quite a difficult task, right?
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Let's say 30 people get ordered into the kitchen within five minutes, which can happen.
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They're not all seeing what everybody else is doing.
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And then they all hit the computer at the same time and put the checks in.
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If it takes me 30 seconds per plate, and it doesn't, it takes me longer.
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But if it took me, that means that the last person waits 15 minutes for his starter, for his appetizer.
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So we've got to somehow figure out how those checks come into the kitchen, how quickly we can move.
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What is the, you know, secret behind that, the secret sauce?
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If you look at a good soccer player, he's running down the field and he's got control of the ball, but he's looking at what's going on.
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He's not looking at the ball as he kicks it, right?
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If you're a captain or if you're the one taking the order, you need to be doing your job, but also keeping your peripheral vision totally open and seeing what he's doing and seeing what he's doing.
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And asking a quick question, run downstairs and just, you know, I noticed a bunch of people came in at once up here.
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So you sort of, those lines of communication need to be really wide open.
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So what is the, and by the way, we're going to come back to the soccer point you made, analogy you made.
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So the difference between Maud and the difference between Gwynn.
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Because that's not the same product base, the philosophy's different, the story's different, right?
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So what is the biggest difference between those two restaurants?
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So Maud is, I hate saying it's a special occasion restaurant because I want people to feel like they can come regularly.
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And I heard you used to do it once a month for five years.
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But it was good fun because we're constantly having to develop and challenge ourself.
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And imagine on the first of the month you implement a new menu, right?
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It takes a few days to get everybody knowing exactly what they're supposed to be doing.
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And then you've got a couple of weeks to develop the new menu because you've got to present it to the wine team so they can taste it and then choose the wine.
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They've got a special order wine and buy stuff at auction and get it all together in time for the new menu, which starts on the first of the next one.
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And now I'm taking the whole team to the wine region.
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We went, we learned, we ate, we drank, we examined the culture, and then we sort of try and bring all those influences back and make a cohesive ten course tasting menu.
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So, yeah, it's good fun, you know, like the guys that work down there really love it.
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We put lots of effort into each plate that we do.
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And because we serve ten courses, it means that that 48 covers by the ten dishes, that's 480 plates of food that have to leave the kitchen within a three- or four-hour window.
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So it also means that we pour 480 wines that night, which means that we wash 480 glasses, we polish 480 glasses, we restock those 480 glasses back into the shelf so that they can be marked.
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Different shaped flutes, different shaped stemware for every single wine that we pour.
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That detail is something that you're either attracted to or you think it's too fussy.
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You know, like we try and keep it as light and we call it fine dining without all the fluff because we try not to talk down to our guests.
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But it is still, you know, people will sit down, they're there for a few hours.
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This model here is built solely around the butcher shop.
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So we have the best protein from anywhere in the world.
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We have grass-fed lamb coming from Northern California.
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We buy grain-fed beef from the middle of the country.
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So we spend it, we buy game from Scotland when it's in season.
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So we really try and focus on this incredible protein.
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So we sort of, we sat around and we're like, what do we want this to be?
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And what we came up with was primitive elegance.
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So, but we want to serve it with real elegance.
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And to me, you can think about all the technology that you can use in a kitchen.
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But if you cook a steak over a fire and the embers are just right and you've cooked it over the right kind of wood and you've got that hint of smokiness.
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I know we've been doing it for centuries, but it's so incredible when you get it right.
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Well, I agree with you on my end as the eater, you know, I want to make sure you get it right.
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So now let's talk a little bit more about, you know, team, team base.
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So a good team that wins a championship, you know, they won the world cup.
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You got a coach, you got offense, you got defense, you got a goalie in the restaurant world.
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If, and I know the typical answer is, well, it's a team environment.
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And I know that's the political, politically right answer to give.
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You want to not undermine anybody in the restaurant.
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But if I am an investor and I'm saying, look, I want to like the other day, I'm talking
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to a restaurant in Dallas, it's called Texas to Brazil and it's Brazilian steakhouse, but
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And I asked the owner, what does it cost to do something with you?
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He says, we just did one in Houston, $7 million.
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But if I have the money and you and I team up together and it's your money and my money,
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and you're not thinking like the chef right now, you're thinking like the business person
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Who plays the most important role to put my money around?
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In basketball, you could say you got to build around a center.
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You got to build around a shooting guard, a point guard.
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You got to build a team around a solid goalie or a coach and to attract the players.
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In the restaurant world, from your experience, who's number one?
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And I don't want the politically correct answer.
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I'm really curious to know who is the most important thing to put your money behind.
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I've just got to check my brother's downstairs because he's my older brother and he's the
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Look, in my humble opinion, and it's not because I'm a chef, but it's because I've been in the
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The chef is the most important person because at the end of the day, the service is super
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And the answer to the question is there's a variety of ways to do it.
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But in my opinion, if the chef doesn't really believe in what he's doing, then the food
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And do you go out for dinner for service or do you go out for dinner for food?
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But you will go somewhere where the food's incredible, even if the service isn't great.
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But if the food's horrible and the service is amazing, you won't go because you're like,
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well, I love you guys and I like being here and the atmosphere, the ambience is all right,
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I also come from a culture of chef-driven restaurants where the chef is always the center of the
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And if the chef suddenly isn't that person, if the chef's just an employee, I've only ever
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worked for an owner-operator and I'm one myself, you know, and I often talk about Australian
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rules football because we have, you know, the old school of Aussie rules, AFL, the coach
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He was a captain coach and he was a playing coach, right?
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So it's an interesting thing because, you know, you don't see it very often.
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I love it because tonight I'll be down there and I won't be wandering around the dining
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I'll be on a section, which in some ways I'm sure the guests would rather.
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They came and touched each table and spoke to everyone and took some photos and signed
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But I would rather them see me behind the grill sweating my ass off and working really
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My team, I always say your job's only as good as how you can describe it to your mate while
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And if my team are in the pub having a beer with a friend of theirs and they're like, what's
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The person opposite of them is like, are you kidding me?
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You know, like that's, to me, that's really important.
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Of course, it means that you can't have 10 restaurants because otherwise you're screwed.
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Especially like, so what I'm thinking about the two different types of restaurant, like it's
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almost like you have two different philosophies.
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Like you have to be able to go in and treat that one in a little bit different way than
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And we have 5,500 insurance agents in 49 states, and we sell life insurance and orders
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My processing initially when I was growing from being a sales guy to a sales manager, to
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a business owner, to a CEO was who is number one?
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Is the customer number one or is the agent number one?
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We agree that for us, the agent who sells insurance policies late at night, at midnight,
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like you're cooking until midnight, just chef, your priority.
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So I'm in agreement with chef being number one.
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Then number two for me, it comes to the clients, then it becomes partners and all that other
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If number one is the chef, who's two, who's three in your world?
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I think the interesting thing about a team is it only, because when I analyze my philosophy
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Am I so good that I'm so important to the restaurant?
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I think the answer is if I behave like that, then my chef de cuisine will behave like that
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or my executive chef down at Maud will behave like that, which means their sous chef will
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So to me, the culture is the most important thing.
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Is it built around a person or is it something unto itself?
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The environment and the culture is so important because, you know, we have another saying in
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But if we're not together, we don't get the result.
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As soon as there's a link broken, you're finished.
00:23:04.980
The customer in the restaurant business is absolutely always right in their own mind.
00:23:11.280
But we have to make sure that we do what we can for it because the system of the restaurant
00:23:18.720
You come in for dinner tonight and you're like, I want my steak well done, please.
00:23:22.500
I don't want to cook your steak well done because I know it's going to dry your steak out.
00:23:26.140
It's not going to be the best eating experience.
00:23:31.220
Because then you say, but that's how I like it.
00:23:33.040
And then I have to say through a server or a captain or a waiter, whoever it is, they have to say to you, we disagree with you.
00:23:45.840
Like if I say, you know, chef's preference, our chef's preference is medium rare.
00:23:54.480
We say, look, the way we like to cook the steak because we buy it from a certain farm.
00:24:00.180
It's been served a certain thing, it's been, you know, it's this kind of breed, it's this kind of feed, it's been aged for a certain amount of time.
00:24:06.760
We dry age our beef as well, which means that it's not as juicy, but it has way more flavor, which again is another choice that you make.
00:24:14.480
So we sort of explain a little bit about the steak and we say, chef really likes to cook the steak medium rare because that's the best eating quality.
00:24:21.440
Nine times out of ten, people go on that journey.
00:24:24.080
But if someone's like, I don't want it that way, we'll then suggest something else.
00:24:27.320
You know what's, you know, if you like that kind of steak, what we do really well, what we can do really well for you is this, this, this, this.
00:24:33.380
So you may make me a recommendation on a different route.
00:24:36.140
To get what, so you're still, so you're not disagreeing.
00:24:38.440
You're maybe saying, you may want to consider doing this instead of this.
00:24:46.760
And like I said before, everybody wants something a little bit differently, right?
00:24:49.880
Like some people, some people love a boisterous, loud restaurant and a really friendly waiter and other people don't want that.
00:24:56.960
They want it to be quiet and romantic and they also want the waiter to be, you know, they want their water filled up but they don't want to see the guy pour it.
00:25:03.740
Like everybody's entitled to their own opinion and we've.
00:25:08.660
Yeah, so Mario would tell you if I go to a restaurant, I am extremely sensitive and I pay attention to so many details.
00:25:14.080
So if I go to a cheesecake and I'm going there because my kids want to go for a cheesecake, my expectation of service is zero.
00:25:24.700
But if I'm going to a legit restaurant, I have high expectations, right?
00:25:29.920
And I think some of the customers may, may be that, you know, if I'm coming with money, I'm a successful guy.
00:25:44.380
Now, whether everybody wants it or even understands it or appreciates it, it doesn't matter.
00:25:48.920
We just have to be, we have to have our standards super high.
00:25:51.960
So that another thing we say in here is never be ashamed of having high standards.
00:25:57.720
You see our guys over there, we have towels that come into the kitchen.
00:26:01.540
They come in a big bag and we could just empty them into a towel bin and grab one.
00:26:07.540
Everybody gets a little stack of towels before we start service.
00:26:10.860
Because I think if you have a system in place for everything, then you get used to there
00:26:17.120
The system can't be, I don't know, I'm not sure.
00:26:22.740
So then when somebody asks you a question like, where does the salt go?
00:26:28.500
Not just chuck it down there or I don't know, just put it in the corner.
00:26:37.240
So movies have done a very great job presenting chefs as very normal, nice people behind closed
00:26:48.240
What was the name of the movie with Bradley Cooper, which was absolutely...
00:26:52.520
Okay, and then you have the other one with Jon Favreau, the chef, right?
00:26:55.260
Where the critic comes and eventually they become partners.
00:27:00.960
If we turn the cameras around and you're behind the camera, is Curtis Stone in the kitchen or
00:27:08.760
Is there an element of craziness behind the creativity of a chef?
00:27:14.820
Yeah, if there's not, you're not good at your job.
00:27:17.880
By the way, in a crazy way, I want to believe there is.
00:27:23.980
I want to believe that the guy running the show behind the whole thing is such a perfectionist,
00:27:28.680
you know, high expectation that delivers a great product for me.
00:27:33.820
I mean, I worked for a guy named Marco Pierre White.
00:27:36.020
That's who Gordon Ramsay spent a lot of time with as a young chef.
00:27:39.380
And Marco was probably, you know, he's famous for being the most intense, one of the craziest,
00:27:47.640
And, you know, people would tell stories about Marco and they'd be like, how could he do
00:27:51.960
Or, you know, were you there when all this stuff went on?
00:27:56.840
Because to me, that passion and that energy was exactly, that's why I went.
00:28:01.840
You know, you don't go to play for Manchester United and they don't say, excuse me, do you
00:28:11.800
You know, like they push you hard, they train you hard and they make you good, you know?
00:28:17.680
There's a reason to work in a great restaurant.
00:28:19.520
There's also a reason to go up the road and work in a cafe.
00:28:21.780
And maybe that reasons the conditions or the easy life or the lack, you know, not too intense.
00:28:28.060
You can't work somewhere intense because you want intensity, you know?
00:28:33.920
So you married a person that we used to watch from 90210, is it Lindsay Price?
00:28:48.760
So now you're married and you said you have kids, right?
00:28:53.420
At one point you were doing this and you weren't married, you don't have kids.
00:28:57.080
And you said, you're going to be till 12 o'clock tonight.
00:29:00.080
So I run a business and I work some crazy hours, right?
00:29:03.460
So what did you and your wife have to talk about for there to be understanding to know,
00:29:10.940
Was that a conversation you guys had prior to, you know, wanting to build a family together
00:29:15.840
for her to know that your life's going to be a little bit of craziness?
00:29:20.700
You know, it has to be, it has to be a decision that you come to together.
00:29:24.540
And I don't think you can have an ego in it, you know?
00:29:30.020
I met her before I was in the restaurant business.
00:29:32.600
I mean, obviously I'd worked my whole life in restaurants, but I met her in that break
00:29:39.620
You know, I sat down with her and I was like, look, I want to do it, but here's what it
00:29:44.480
You know, like it's, it's not like I'm going to do an appearance somewhere and I won't
00:29:54.580
And she sort of said, you know, look, she's an artist and she, she's an actor.
00:29:58.180
And she, she said, I couldn't, I couldn't live with myself if I told you, you couldn't
00:30:02.740
do what you want to do because I want to do what I want to do too, artistically.
00:30:08.460
So, um, we walked into it together and, you know, under the understanding that it wouldn't
00:30:14.400
I'm not going to be in the restaurant business when I was 70 years old.
00:30:17.100
I, you know, like I've got a finite amount of time to do it and I want to do it and I
00:30:23.100
And we, we remind each other often of that conversation.
00:30:28.760
When I say we remind each other, I occasionally remind each other of that conversation.
00:30:34.260
Well, that's at least you're being sincere and authentic about it.
00:30:36.440
You know, but you know what, when she calls me and she says, Hey, listen, there's a pilot.
00:30:41.440
If you say yes, but if I get the job, I shoot in Austin.
00:30:51.280
And I'm like, don't worry about how we'll figure it out.
00:30:54.320
You know, you want to, you want to take that job in Toronto?
00:30:57.380
And meanwhile, I'm like, please take the job in Toronto.
00:31:02.320
Both of you guys are working with each other on that.
00:31:15.700
So, you know, and I make my point behind why we pay $60 for a $10 steak.
00:31:19.940
I can buy it from the same place and they get it from here.
00:31:24.520
And I don't know if you're familiar with Rafi's Place in Glendale, the Mediterranean, you know,
00:31:30.760
And so I'm just fascinated by everything with the business aspect of restaurants.
00:31:38.240
So on the business side of it, how do you figure out pricing?
00:31:42.020
Like, you know, you sit there and you say, is it something where it's, we paid $25 for this, whatever it is.
00:31:58.480
And that $50 I have in here, out of that $50, $35 of it is going to cover our entire cost.
00:32:06.360
Is there a whole math behind the score footage?
00:32:15.000
Your food cost should be somewhere in the vicinity of 30%, meaning your GP is 70, right?
00:32:22.640
Your labor should be somewhere around 35 to 40.
00:32:27.380
Your cam costs are going to be somewhere around 15%.
00:32:34.740
Like we have one restaurant in Beverly Hills and the other one's on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.
00:32:39.720
And you also have to try and figure out how much you're going to spend and then how you amortize those costs back.
00:32:46.460
So if you, you know, you spend $5 million, you mentioned $7 million before about your friend's restaurant.
00:32:50.720
If you spend $7 million on something, you have to figure out, well, what's the lifespan of this restaurant, you know, conservatively?
00:33:01.240
You know, like I don't want to invest in something that I think is going to be around 30 years because there aren't many of them that make it.
00:33:09.500
Because as an investor, a guy came up to me the other day and he says, Ezekiel Elliott, the running back of Cowboys.
00:33:17.020
He wants to open up a restaurant and they're looking for this deal.
00:33:23.660
Then in my mind, before I even said yes, no, or let me look at the numbers.
00:33:36.760
I'm not talking about, you know, like even a Crustaceans that's a on family and the story they have behind it or Maestros.
00:33:45.100
I'm talking about how many restaurants you see that's a one-off comes and gone in four years.
00:33:48.720
What happened to my $6 million or $2 million I put in?
00:33:50.940
So the math behind it, are investors going in knowing, like, do you sell it as this is going to be a five-year restaurant?
00:33:59.200
In the next five years, your $2 million is going to probably make you $3.5 million.
00:34:03.200
So I'm giving you a 75% return in five years if we do this.
00:34:15.680
I made that decision early on and we took a small bite with a small restaurant.
00:34:28.500
You know, to me, it was so important to get it right and to give such a great product.
00:34:32.800
I never wanted to have to sit at a table with a bunch of people and say, I promised you something and now I'm going to renege on it.
00:34:39.360
You know, so to me, it was always, it was way more personal.
00:34:42.500
Different businesses, sure, I'd take on partners.
00:34:46.360
So you make me, just so you know, when I come here, you make me, in my mind, think about that.
00:34:54.020
How important is it going to be for you to come through 100%?
00:34:56.560
Because this is your name on the line, your money on the line.
00:34:59.340
This isn't, if I just lost $600,000, you're going to lose a lot of it.
00:35:07.080
But like I just went through it with you, and that's the optimum goal.
00:35:12.300
Fine dining restaurants, they can get to 35, 37% food cost.
00:35:20.480
And then you quickly say, you ain't got a lot left.
00:35:37.580
You've got to be scrappy in this business, or you don't make it.
00:35:46.460
So last but not least, a couple of fun questions here for you.
00:35:49.520
Yourself with restaurants, I'm assuming you don't just eat here, right?
00:36:08.960
And this lady sitting next to us with her husband, I start talking to them.
00:36:17.580
And when you look at them, do you automatically go like this?
00:36:23.000
She says, no, I just look for it to see the color of it.
00:36:27.740
So you look at the color of the teeth as a dentist.
00:36:30.260
Yourself, you go to a restaurant, you've been on the front end, back end, finance,
00:36:44.800
In some ways, I sort of think, okay, I'm in a ski resort.
00:36:47.740
What kind of chefs, like it's hard for me to get great chefs here in LA that want to
00:36:52.360
I have no idea how hard it is to be up in a ski field where you do very little business
00:36:56.960
for nine months of the year or six months of the year, and then you get slammed.
00:37:01.000
You know, like that to me is going to be really difficult to run that operation.
00:37:05.100
So I sort of look for something that is a little foolproof.
00:37:10.760
It's not that hard to fry some potatoes and cook a nice steak.
00:37:13.880
But if you go somewhere that's doing a slowly cooked rabbit with a blah, blah, blah, you
00:37:18.300
know, because us as chefs, we get a little above ourselves sometimes, and we try and do
00:37:26.300
And, you know, even in a place, you can go to a restaurant, they can have all this stuff,
00:37:31.680
If I look around and I'm like, yeah, this is a pretty simple joint.
00:37:34.280
I'm going to have a steak and a couple of sides.
00:37:36.500
So do you find yourself being more understanding?
00:37:39.120
Like, let's just say your wife says, I cannot believe they took such a long time and this
00:37:42.800
doesn't take, do you find yourself being more understanding?
00:37:54.740
I'm like, you know, someone asked me, your table's not quite ready.
00:38:00.320
So you're more understanding than you are on the opposite side.
00:38:03.600
That's amazing because Armand from Rafi's place is the same way.
00:38:10.780
You know, he says, you don't know what these guys go through.
00:38:20.940
Armand, if you're watching this, you got to come and eat over here at Mott and at Quinn's.
00:38:30.040
What's your favorite restaurants right now that maybe you've been to today?
00:38:36.540
I went to Dominique Crenn's restaurant, Atelier Crenn.
00:38:38.980
And I've got to say, I think it's the best restaurant in the country.
00:38:51.360
There's experimental chefs like Grant Atchett's in Chicago that just blow my mind with their
00:39:00.020
You know, again, they're all chef-driven restaurants.
00:39:02.300
They're chefs that have toiled away in the kitchen for most of their life.
00:39:06.300
Their craft is to turn ingredients into something that just tastes fantastic.
00:39:15.260
I think it's a very, very well put together guide.
00:39:19.160
It has real credibility in the way that they inspect the restaurants.
00:39:22.320
So if the Michelin guides are looking at something that's in contention for two or three stars,
00:39:26.920
they'll visit it five times over a 12-month period by different inspectors.
00:39:32.560
And then at the end of the year, they sit around.
00:39:41.980
You know, if you're totally determined, your fate's totally determined by one critic,
00:39:47.840
that critic might have a little thing about this or that that he likes or dislikes or she likes or dislikes.
00:39:53.040
And through my experience of traveling the world and eating in different restaurants,
00:39:58.960
If it has two Michelin stars, it's really good.
00:40:01.520
That's good to know that you, even in your world, you're banking on that as well.
00:40:07.040
If people want to see what project you're on, you know, what shows you're working on,
00:40:10.940
what next things that are coming up, what are some things you're working on right now?
00:40:13.600
I've got a show called Top Chef Junior, which is the Top Chef, of course, that we all know and love from Bravo.
00:40:19.540
We've done a new one for Universal Kids, so that's there on Universal Kids.
00:40:23.780
I've got a line of kitchenware that we developed, you know, great pots and pans.
00:40:27.520
And, you know, interesting stuff that make your life a bit easier in the kitchen.
00:40:31.600
It's called DuraPan is the name of the cookware, and then the Curtis Stone line is the rest of it.
00:40:37.040
And we sell that at HSN, so you can go and check out the whole assortment there.
00:40:42.280
Well, brother, appreciate you letting us come here.
00:40:45.060
Getting an experience on the behind the scenes.
00:40:46.740
You've got to stick around now and have dinner.
00:40:49.760
I said, I want to try the food before I talk to Curtis.
00:40:53.300
I said, listen, can I order from the dinner menu?
00:41:01.180
I said, give me that bone and ribeye right there.
00:41:10.440
It takes us a couple of hours to light the fires.
00:41:12.240
That's exactly why I said I'm not even going to push it.
00:41:14.260
I said, I'm coming back because I want to go to Maude because she was telling me about
00:41:24.320
Hopefully, I'll get a chance to come by and say hello.
00:41:29.020
And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
00:41:36.660
And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
00:41:44.600
And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.