Lee Brian Schrager, Founder - South Beach Wine & Food Festival

Some guests build buildings. This one built an appetite for a whole city.

Lee Brian Schrager sat down with us at Buró over Pimm's Cups and took us all the way back, to Massapequa, Long Island, where he was bagging Chinese takeout on weekend nights by the age of ten. His father had left the garment business, retired young, moved to Florida, and opened restaurants with his brother that, in Lee's own words, did everything wrong and lost a lot of money. Lee has spent a career doing the opposite.

We got the whole arc: the Culinary Institute of America, opening Torpedo as one of the first bars in South Beach in the late 80s, and seventeen years at InterContinental Hotels, room service manager to VP. Then Southern Glazer's handed him a sleepy one-day FIU wine tasting in 2000, and he decided it could be something enormous. By 2002 it was the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, today a five-day, sixty-thousand-person event that has raised close to forty million dollars for FIU's Chaplin School. The part he's proudest of isn't the star power, it's the 1,200 students who work it every year.

Thanks as always to Vinya for the cocktails and to Buró for podcast studio and coworking space.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

We're good? We're good. We're all right. We're rolling.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

We got Lee Brian Schrager here.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Thanks for coming down, Lee.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

It was a big schlup from my office in Woodwood.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yeah. Is that where your office is?

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Yeah, Woodwood.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Took me six minutes. Okay, yeah. Cool. Well, um, we want to uh thank you for coming out here. Um, we're tricking Pim's Cup. First time. First time. My first time. Yeah. Shout out to Vinya for being our drink sponsor as well. Have you ever been to Vinya on Keep Escape? I have. You have? Sure. Okay, cool. Sure. Uh, it's a pretty cool spot, right? It is cool. And uh, I mean, you you're you're in the the liquor business too, so I think it's your business to know everyone, huh? Uh or everything. Everything everything. Um, well, cool. Uh, first time drinking Pimps Cup. It's this is kind of like a it's a it's like a British drink, isn't it? It is a British drink, a British drink in the summer. Yeah, so it's I feel refined. Yeah, I was reading it's like the Wimbledon drink. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

It's in the in Europe in the Riviera, it's what people drink in the summertime. Since I'm leaving tomorrow for vacation, I thought I'd get in the mood.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah, class it up a bit. And where are you going, by the way?

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Well, actually, I'm going to Stad tomorrow for a week in Switzerland, then I'm heading to a wedding in Portugal, and then I'm heading on a boat a week in Greece, and then heading for a week in the Amalfi coast. So it sounds terrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

I know. Yeah, tough summer.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Cheers. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Well, we'll we'll wish you the best. Hopefully, it's not too painful.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Nope, I'm sure I'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Let's start with the cheers, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Cheers, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Thank you guys. My pleasure. My pleasure. Happy to do it. Happy to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

A great selection for a summer drink.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I feel like we should be outside with this thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, right. So uh welcome to Bureau and uh thank you for for doing this. Uh we we got connected by our our good friend Lyle Stern. Oh, this is a Lyle connection. Yeah, this is the Lyle connection. And uh a lot Lyle is is is a huge fan of the podcast, and he's always connected us with some great guests. So uh shout out to Lyle. Um Lyle's gonna want a free advertising on this podcast. He is, right? Well, not free. I mean he's yeah, he he he deserves it. He does, actually. We're gonna take our 3% still. Uh Lyle. There we go. But um well, thanks for thanks for coming on the podcast. I mean, I've I've heard your name, you know, I've been in Miami 25 years, and I feel like as long as I've been here, uh your name has popped up. I don't think we've ever crossed paths. I lived on the beach, um, but uh you're also uh a New Yorker, but you're one of like the the good early gentrifiers from New York, like myself. You came down here what year?

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Well, initially I came down and during my freshman year of high school. We lived in Fort Lauderdale, and then I went back up to New York to go to college and then came down here after college. So I I'm gonna say I've lived in Miami 50 years.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

50 years. Yeah, okay. Um, you're you you were born in New York. Born on Long Island. Long Island. What town in Long Island? Massapequa. Okay. How far is that from the city? Uh probably a 65-minute train ride. Okay. And what what kind of town was Massapequa like?

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Middle, middle class, Italian, and Jewish. Yeah. Yeah. So that's uh kind of uh we used to be called Mozza Pizza. Matza pizza.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

I like that. Um, and uh it's kind of like town center, suburbs, what was it like? Main street? Yeah, just like that.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Just like you'd see in a movie with a parade, you know. Um there was you know, an all-American, which was like a hamburger place and a Carvel next door to it. Oh, yeah, Carvel. I love Carvel. Yeah, Chris's ice, Kirchha's ice cream. Um yeah, it was a very nice, you know, fun place to grow up, safe in, you know, in those years, probably hopefully still is. I've not been back there in 50 years. Wow. Yeah, I don't go back. Um, I drive by it because I live now in the Hamptons in the summer. So uh I drive by, you know, the highway, but we never get off.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah. Um, and so your your parents are we'd like to bring it back. I mean, where are your parents from? Where did they grow up?

SPEAKER_03 4:17

My mom uh was from Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Um, born and raised in Philadelphia, and my dad was from the Bronx.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

So they met at a summer camp where they were both working, and they were married uh about 63 years. My dad passed away about seven, eight years ago, and my mom just a few months ago.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Oh wow, sorry to hear that. So they they they both both lived until here.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

They they lived in they lived in my they lived in Fort Lauderdale.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah, but I mean they lived until how old were they when they passed away?

SPEAKER_03 4:46

My dad was 87, about eight, nine years ago, and my mom was eighty-nine just a few months ago. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

So you're you're you're on the path of good genes and living to your 80s and 90s, possibly. I hope so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

It doesn't seem that old anymore. But yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Nice. Um, and so growing up uh in Massapequa, uh what kind of business were your parents in?

SPEAKER_03 5:09

My dad was in the garment business. So he used to go take a train every morning from Massapequa Park and take a train into New York City. He worked on Broadway and 32nd Street, which was the heart of the garment business. And my mom was really just a work-at-home mom or a housewife, I guess, until she moved down to uh Florida and ended up working for Lenar Homes and uh first started as a secretary and many years later really ran their community um all of the community relations and all of their uh development buildings. So yeah, yeah, yeah. They were both my mom was a very hard worker.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Bit of a real estate edge there, too. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

I I I guess so. That's right. My mom was very involved in real estate and very involved, and Lenar in the early stages worked directly for uh um Stuart Miller.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

And so what was growing up in Massapique was like? Like what were you into as a kid?

SPEAKER_03 6:04

You know, I I don't think I didn't know any different. Um you know, I had great friends. I had best friends we grew up with, and uh, you know, we used to cut school and take the train into Manhattan. And um do you know it was it was uh, you know, I guess a nice place to raise a kid. I I think my parents raised, there were three boys, we're three boys, I'm the middle of three boys, and uh we just you know didn't know differently. I don't think I'd want to live there today or raise a family there today. I don't know that for a fact, but um, you know, I always wanted out. I think a lot of kids want out from where they grew up or want nothing to do with it. And um, I was happy to get out and see the world. And uh my parents were happy that I, you know, was able to do better than they did and uh built a very different life.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

But you uh I mean, you what were you into as a kid? Were you into sports? I mean, you were you into breeding? Were you into travel?

SPEAKER_03 6:54

I well, not travel. We didn't travel, we didn't have money to travel, but I was into cooking. My mom was a great cook, so I had an early love of food. So I was cooking and baking from the time I was very young. I had Suzy Homemaker ovens and I was making cakes and selling them in the neighborhood, um, clamming in the summertime and selling clams in the neighborhood and cutting flowers and selling food was something that you were into from a from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Very early stages. Were you like the did you have like the best desserts at the at the bake sales?

SPEAKER_03 7:25

You know, I don't remember bake sales, but I remember that I, as I said, I had Susie Homemaker ovens and I would sell cakes in the neighborhood. Oh, yeah? Yeah. So um I always had a love of food. And when my parents went away in the summer for like 10 days, whatever they did every June or July, we had a lady take care of us, who was an Italian lady who taught me the love of baking and you know, yeast and Italian cooking. And that was really, you know, my mom was a good cook, but this lady really taught us, taught me how to bake that. An Italian woman. Her name was Mrs. Catanzero. We used to call her Mrs. C. So she was a relative of a relative of a relative. And uh, you know, she seemed like a little old lady. She probably, you know, not was not, but she seemed like it then. And and what did your mom like to cook? My mom was an adventurous cook, but her husband was not an adventurous either. Okay. So she was limited. But my mom was always experimenting in the kitchen. I mean, always from a cookbook. I can still see her three or four cookbooks up on the shelves in those days, like the art of the joy of cooking or German cooking or the art of Jewish cooking. And uh she was experimentative. Um was her mom German? No, or not her mom was I I guess we're Eastern European sense.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

So I I guess on both sides of the family?

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Probably. Yeah, you know, when I did my um 23 or whatever it's called in me, I was 99% Eastern European. Yeah. So I guess mostly that was uh we were probably from that part of the world. Yeah. But no, that we did we, you know, German was just a part of it. It's probably German, Portugal. I mean German Russia, yeah, um, Hungary, Poland.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

But your your love for for food really came from this Italian woman.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

My love of food came from this Italian lady. And every Sunday night we would go out for dinner growing up. Um you know, uh every Sunday night we went to this Chinese restaurant or an Italian restaurant and had the same food every Sunday night for you know 12, 13 years, and that's really where my love of food came from.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Yeah. What was the you were doing a lot of selling, it sounded like what was the the early hustles? Where did that come from?

SPEAKER_03 9:29

You know, my dad was a salesman, so probably that's probably very right. He was a good salesperson in the garment industry. Um, I worked in a Chinese restaurant very young at take doing takeout. I worked at a um my first job was working at a Win Dixie when I was probably 14 or 15 years old and in Fort Lauderdale uh on Oakland Park Boulevard. And my first day of work after school, they gave me a razor blade and I used to scrape bubblegum off the floor in Windixie. Uh, then I worked at a Swenson's ice cream parlor, then I worked at Marina Bay, then I worked as a car hopper at Eduardo's 2400, a great restaurant. Then I uh kind of started getting into food. Um I always liked food, but I started getting into food and experimenting and cooking. I was a midnight shift waiter, midnight shift chef or cook at the Broward General Hospital. Um I worked at a great restaurant called the Box Tree Inn in Fort Lauderdale. I worked at TGI Fridays.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

And this was all in high school.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

This is all in high school or when I came back after college. But I was always I never did anything outside of the culinary world or hospitality world, I should say.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

And so you guys were living in New York. Um, you moved down. How old were you when you moved into Fort Lauderdale?

SPEAKER_03 10:45

I'm gonna say 15 because I started driving right after that.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Okay. Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

And your parents moved down why? My dad retired young in Fort Lauderdale. Uh, I mean, we moved down here, he retired. Him and his brother opened or bought a very famous restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. They both had no culinary experience, and they bought a very popular restaurant called Dante's 2400, and they ran it into the ground and lost all their money. Did you did you work there at all? I I don't recall working there. I I remember going in there and hanging out there, but I think I was probably too young.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Uh how old were you when he bought the restaurant?

SPEAKER_03 11:22

15. Okay. But you know, we lived all the way west in sunrise, and his restaurant was on Federal Highway. Um, I I probably went in with him on the weekends and hung out in the restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

Yeah. But um, you know, so they bought this very fancy restaurant that was incredibly popular. They had no knowledge of hospitality or food and beverage, and they ran the restaurant into the ground and lost two million dollars, which 50 years ago was a lot of money. Yeah. So probably why I went into uh hospitality management.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Why? Because you you don't want to see that happen. I didn't want to see that happen to me, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Yeah, I did not want to see that happen to me.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Were you a good student in school? Average. Average, yeah, very average.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

I like average C or average D, like Ben. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

Um average C, a B was a really treat if I got them. Um I got A's in um culinary in hot in home ec. Yeah. I was allowed to go to home ec because I didn't like wood shop class because I was afraid of getting my fingers cut off. And my mom got me into uh home ec and I thrived in there. And uh, but I was never a great student. Yeah, I I always passed, but nothing more.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah, but I mean it seems like you you you you worked a lot in throughout high school. Like you always had a job. You always had a job.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

I always I was making money from the time growing up in Long Island, I was delivering a newspaper in the morning, a newspaper in the afternoon, working on weekends. I bought my first house in Victoria Park, Fort Lauderdale in cash for $96,000 when I was 20-something years old. I had saved it. Um, so I always hustled. Yeah, I always worked. I knew that if I wanted something that I had to do it for myself. I bought my first car. I paid for my first teen tour that I went on. So I always loved money. I loved making it.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

So you paid for your own teen tour in high school?

SPEAKER_03 13:09

In high school, yeah. I think I was 13 or 14, maybe younger. Uh Baron teen tour left out of uh Rosalind, Long Island with all the rich kids, and we weren't rich, but I saved $995 for my first teen tour. That's how much they were that 50 something years ago.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

So for for our listeners that that are part of the tribe, can you tell them what the what the teen tour is?

SPEAKER_03 13:33

A teen tour is what kind of wealthier Jewish people did it with their kids in the summertime. They sent them on a teen tour. Now they're much more extravagant today. Now they go to Europe and they go all over the world today. My teen tour left from Long Island, I great Nick Long Island, for 31 days, and we traveled across the country in a bus, and every night we were in a different state. So we went to Niagara Falls. We went all around, we I don't remember how many states, but it was 31 days on the road in a bus, stopping every night in a different location. It was great. That's awesome. And you would stay at a hotel every night. Every night, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Um what were the coolest cities that you went to that that that you were like, oh, this this this town speaks to me?

SPEAKER_03 14:17

You know, that I I loved California. Yeah. Yeah. Um I still love it. I like Las Vegas at that time or Lake Tahoe. Um, those are the ones that real New Mexico I kind of remember going to. Um you know, there probably were 15, 16 cities that we went to. Uh, and again, as I said, now, you know, you look at them and they go to Paris, they go to London, they go to yeah, it's it's it's amazing. No one does the US anymore.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

So travel was something that really you you wanted to do at a very young age, and you made it happen, even though your parents couldn't necessarily afford to do that. They could not afford to do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

And if I wanted to do it, I knew I had to work and I always worked. Um, I worked my way through college on a work study program, cleaning apartments, and uh I was a waiter on the weekends in New York City and I did a graveyard shift. So I always was working. It was very much installed in me that if I wanted it, I'd have to work for it. Yeah, there was no free ride for me ever.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

When you when you went to college, did you have an idea of that you wanted to be in culinary at that time? Sure. I I didn't get to culinary school, didn't you?

SPEAKER_03 15:21

I went to the culinary institute of America. So yes, I definitely wanted that culinary background. I did not want to be a chef, but I wanted that culinary background, knowing that at one point in my life I would need that. I needed it in every job I ever had. So it was a great background for me.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

What did you did you have an idea of what you wanted to do at that point?

SPEAKER_03 15:39

No, because it didn't exist in my mind, you know, event planning or what I do now for Southern Glazers is communication. So I kind of uh, you know, I I worked hard and worked my way up. You know, I uh my first real job was a uh room service manager at the Baja Bahia Mar Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. I was the midnight room service manager, which meant I took the order, I cooked it, and I delivered it.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

That's uh that's and this was before culinary school or after culinary school.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

Okay, yeah, after culinary school. So I, you know, I never did not have a job or two jobs.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I was always up in New York.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Poughkeepsie, right? About a 90 minutes outside of the year. And how many years did you spend at Poughkeepsie? Two years. Two years. Yep. And I did an internship program or an externship program in between. And that kind of was a job that kind of opened my mind and my eyes to a lot of different things. And what was that job? I worked for a caterer called Glorious Food, which was the caterer. And they did every big society event and everything for the Met and the Studio 54 parties that you see, famous pictures of with Hoston and Bianca Jagger and Liza Minnelli. I was at all those parties catering with the the party, or catering those parties. And I was up at Halston Showroom in the Olympic Towers or at the um Kennedy Center in DC. We did the opening of that, and that really kind of introduced me to a whole nother world of wealth that I didn't see, which made me work harder.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

And so you were hanging out at Studio 54. This is late 70s?

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Well, I graduated from college in 79. I was working there during school and after school. So yes, it was 77, 78, 79.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

And so you start going to these parties, you're working for this caterer, you're doing events in DC as well. Yep. And you're all of a sudden you're you're exposed to this wealth that you've never seen on Long Island.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

Well, I never did. I didn't know it existed. Yeah. Yeah, I just didn't know. You know, we, you know, people getting dressed up and wearing black ties and beautiful women and with big jewelry and giving away big money and buying tickets. And, you know, as I said, we weren't exposed to that. But when it exposed, you know, once I was exposed, it kind of like I want to live like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

As the uh room service manager, how long uh how long did you spend in that role?

SPEAKER_03 17:58

So it's a great story because I guess that story is really something that helped me propel myself. Um as a room service manager at the Bahia Mar Hotel, it was a big kitchen, and also in that kitchen was the catering kitchen. And the catering kitchen did all the parties. So I was the midnight shift, which meant I used to come in like 10 o'clock, 10:30 and watch what was going on, and all the parties were happening there. And I would sneak in the room and see people in black tie and beautiful women all dressed up. And there was a lady who was the catering director there. Her name was Laverne Yeomans, and she was a middle-aged woman at that point, and every night she was having a fight with the chef or the banquet manager, always threatening to walk out. And one night she walked out in the middle of a big party. And um that Monday morning, this is a sat or Friday or Saturday night. That Monday morning, I went to meet the general manager of the hotel who I'd never met since I was working in the midnight shift, and he wasn't around. And his name was Manny Garza or Garcia, whatever. Um and I made an appointment to go see him. And I said, you know, I'm you know, I've been watching her, I think I could do that. He goes, How can you do that? He goes, You have no experience. I said, Well, well, let me try it for three months. And in three months, if you you know, don't pay me any more money than I'm making now. I said, But in three months, if you're happy with me, give me the job. And that was the beginning. I had no experience whatsoever. Not not one thing, not one bit of experience.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

And so you you there was something about events and and catering events that that that intrigued you.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Putting things together always intrigued me. Yeah, not putting a map together, not working on a puzzle or anything like that, but in event planning, putting it all together intrigued me a lot. And I just knew that I can do it with no experience whatsoever. I just said, I'm sure I can do that. And I built an amazing following. I mean, I really built the Behemoth into like one of the social places in Fort Lauderdale. And I was uh, you know, the people really liked me, and I it was an Omni hotel. And Omni, it was a the behemoth was owned by Omni. They bought the hotel in Miami on 16th in Biscayne, and I had never been to Miami. I was living in Fort Lauderdale, I had never been up here. This is whatever year, late 80s or mid eight, early 80s, probably. You never really been to Miami, never. There was no reason, you know. Um and I went to they offered me a job up at the Omni Hotel in Miami, and um that was that was it for me. Yeah. That was really, you know, every you know, the Omni Hotel from the room service waiter to the catering director to then running the catering at the Omni, which was the premier property. And then from there, my career really took off.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

How was the what was the Omni like back then? Because that was a way different area.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

It was it. I mean, every big charity event. Really? Oh, yeah, it was great. I mean, it's a dump now, or I didn't even I didn't what is it, a a Hilton now? I think so. I haven't been there.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

It might be a double tree. Is it a double tree?

SPEAKER_03 21:12

I haven't been there in 20 inside that property in 20 years, but uh, you know, it was really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yeah, it was a great the suites were great, the event space was great, the self-parking was great. It was a well-run property, really great. And um, you know, I I remember from there, I was there for a few years, and then Ted Gould was opening up the what is now the Intercontinental Hotel downtown at 100 Chopin Plaza. And um, it was opening and it was called the Pavillon Hotel. And he called me one day and offered me a job. And I don't know how old I was, you know, mid to late 20s. And he offered me like $100,000 a long time ago when $100,000 was a lot of money. Yeah. And that kind of, you know, was uh Just another step in my career.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

And what what was the job that he offered you?

SPEAKER_03 22:03

Running catering for the property.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

For the Intercontrol.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

For the Intercontinental. Yeah. And that's before there were really premier hotels in town. It was like the Fountain Blue, the Omni, and I was able to attract all those social weddings, bar mitzvahs, galas to the hotel. And you know, when the hotel was going through early financial problems, bankruptcy went into chapter 13, it was catering that kept that property open for many years. Dang. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

It's an interesting uh position in a hotel because it almost seems a bit entrepreneurial as well. You're bringing in a lot of business, it sounds like it was. You're selling, you're bringing people in, you're listening you're the face of the property.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

No one knew the general manager, no one knew the sales director, everyone knew the catering director because I was out there hustling building. I was uh hustling business.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

And how are you doing that? How were you finding people to bring in?

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Just networking. I would go out and I'd meet somebody, and this is before internet, imagine, but Wi-Fi. I, you know, I would write personal letters. I when I was at the it was called the Pavion at the time. I had friends, I I, you know, had beginning to get friends who who were in a much higher place than I was. And they would go out with them, I'd go to the theater, I'd go to different places, and I'd see people. And I used to write to them. I used to find out their address, and I started something called Lee's Leading Ladies. And I did a leading ladies luncheon every year where you were invited. It was the the invitation was hand-delivered with like a dozen red roses, and I built the Intercontinental into being like the social gathering, and everyone wanted to do their events there.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

Yeah, it's a long time. I don't just remember that.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Giving it a personal and exclusive touch. They felt honored to be invited, and it felt like this.

SPEAKER_03 23:46

They felt, you know, that somebody cared about their business and I was going to take care of them. And I was, you know, young and smart and aggressive and you know, uh hustler. And you know, people appreciated that.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Do you think that still exists today? Because I feel like in so many places that's so lost. No one gives a shit anymore about the guest. It's like all about making money.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Do you know? I mean, I'm I'm in a really different position today. And I um I still handle events, you know, for Southern Glazers all over the country. And I, you know, I I met my boss Wayne Chaplin, the CEO of Southern, doing his wedding. Oh, really? That's how I met him. At the Intercontinental or where? I I was working at the Intercontinental. He married the daughter of friends of mine. He was a developer, Tibor Hollow. Um, East Coast Realty, I think, was his company. Yep. And her parents, Arlene Chaplin, Arlene Hollow's parents were friends of mine, and he owned the Eden Rock at the time. And they wanted me to cater the wedding at the Eden Rock because they didn't have an open kitchen, whatever it was, I catered their wedding from the Intercontinental at the Eden Rock Hotel because they wanted me to do it. And that's how I met the Chaplin family who I went to work for many years later. Dang it.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

How long were you at the Intercontinental for?

SPEAKER_03 25:02

From 20. Well, here's exactly I was there for 20 years. Wow. From my from the time I was 20 to the time I was 39. Wow. I left there at 39 to go work for Southern Glazers. I did leave the Intercontinental at one point. I I went, I left and I went to work for David Paul. David Paul, you know the Centrust building, the building that changes color every night downtown? I went to go work for David Paul at the Centrust building, and I was the vice president of administrative services, which meant I did all, they had an amazing dining room, the executive dining room, private dining rooms, and we had a public dining space designed by IMP. The whole building was designed by IMP, and I opened the cafeteria in the building and uh oversee all of the private dining until the RTC sent him to jail. And I I I I I almost went right behind him.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Right back, right back down the block to kind of know.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

They took my car, I had nothing. Yeah, and I went, I did, I did go back to Pavillon.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Wow. Wow, what a story. Yeah. And so you met the uh Southern Glazers guy and he brought you on. What did he initially hire you for there?

SPEAKER_03 26:16

I wrote him a letter. This is before Wi-Fi or cell phones, and I wrote him a letter saying that I'd been here for almost 20 years and I was ready for a change. And uh, you know, keep me in mind. And I didn't hear from him for a while. Uh, I forgot about the letter. And one day I got a phone call in my office that he wanted to have breakfast with me, and we had breakfast actually at the hotel. And after that, I didn't hear from him for a few months. And then one day I get a phone call from somebody who worked for Southern, and he said, Let's have lunch. And we went to the Delano Hotel, and the Delano Hotel opened 35 years ago. So this is probably right after they opened, um, since I'm at Southern 27 years. So the timing is right around there. And we had lunch at a Delano Hotel, and he said to me, So this is mid 90s? I can't, yeah. Well, this is yeah, probably 89. I mean 99, 89, 90, 91 around that time. And we had lunch at the Delano Hotel. And this gentleman says to me, Well, when are you starting? I said, Starting what? He said, Well, Wayne Chaplin says you're hired and you're gonna join us. I said, Well, he never made me an offer. We never talked about anything. He says, Well, you're starting, you're hired.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

It's hard, it's been decided.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

Yeah, yeah. That was it.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

No, no salary discussion.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

There was no salary discussion. Just nope, nope. Uh I must have had a salary discussion at one point. Right. Um uh I I definitely had a salary discussion.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Uh not knowing you're background. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but I I left there and uh uh you didn't give me, I mean, it was I was making very good money at the Intercontinental. I was commission-based, so I had a salary plus a commission uh in those days, and I made a lot of money. I mean, a lot of money. I did all the big events and I made commission off every piece of catering on that bill, you know, I was in charge of it.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

And that incentivizes you to bring in all that business.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

I don't need to be incentivized. I'm just I'm just a hustler. I always worked, and um yeah, I mean I but I I was making a lot of money and Wayne matched it, or probably did a little more. And that's kind of my how I joined Southern. So and so what'd you go do at Southern? What were you hired to do? My initial title was Special Events Manager for Florida. Then I became special events manager for when I joined Southern, we were in six states. Now we're in 47 states.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Well, tell us a little bit about what's who what what Southern is.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Southern, now Southern Glazers Wine and Spirits is the largest distributor of alcohol in the world. We distribute in 47 states. Uh, it's a privately held family-owned business. Um, we distribute only in the U.S., but even doing that with the largest distributor in the world, volume-wise.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

And where are they based out of? Here, right down the street.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

I mean, Miami, North Miami.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

My their headquarters are here in Miami.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Yep. Yeah, family-owned in Miami. Yeah. Um, and it's just been the most extraordinary ride working for the nicest people who are as hardworking or harder working than I am.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

And so you get you get hired to be their what was the position for Florida? Special event manager. And what does that mean? What are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 29:21

There was I did nothing. Yeah. I they didn't know what to do with me. I started, I showed up, and there was no office for me. And I'm like, oh, I made a big mistake. Uh I I I just think, what am I doing with my life? I was 40, just turned 40. I'm like, how did I leave this beautiful office at the Intercontinental with staff? And they shoved me into a little cubby hole. And I'm like, I don't, I think it's a mistake. And then Friday came and I had nothing to do all weekend because I was used to working my entire life on weekends. So all of a sudden I'm like, what am I gonna do on Friday night, all day, Saturday, and Sunday? Um I had no place to go. Um, and I really had no defined responsibility at Southern at that time.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

You're you're single at this time.

SPEAKER_03 30:03

I'm um yeah, probably. Yeah, yeah, probably. Um and I just, you know, I said, I better do something here. I said, I better figure out what I'm gonna do. They're paying me, you know, good money. I have to do something. And that's how I created the South Beach Wine and Food Festival.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Oh, so that's what it was. Out of boredom, you created this. Out of boredom and a need to work. Yeah. I I was afraid, you know, I was afraid that I wasn't doing it. But you get hired and they're like, there's no direction whatsoever.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Zero. Zero direction, no meeting, no, you know, I didn't even think we had an HR department at that time. Yeah. I I maybe, but it was very small. Yeah. As I said, we were in six states, we did six billion dollars, and you know, it was a big company, you know, but now it's 47 states.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

So uh so you're you can't sit still, you're itching to do something. How does how does this idea come up come up?

SPEAKER_03 30:57

The idea came up because I went to the Aspen Food and Wine Classic, which is considered the granddaddy of wine and food festivals, and the only one. In Aspen or in Aspen. And I went there for my 40th birthday. Good friends took me, and I was flying home. So this is right when I joined. I joined in December, January, and June of that year. I went to the Aspen Classic. This is 2000, right? 2000. And I went to the Aspen Classic. And on the plane home, I remember on back of like the vomit bag taking notes, because again, no cell phone, no iPhone. And I drew out what I thought the festival should look like. And the next morning I called the mayor of Miami Beach, Neeson Kasden, who I knew, and I um told him this is what I wanted to do. And he said, Great. And I went to talk to my boss at Southern. He says, Great, do it. That was it.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

So Neeson, Neeson's been on the podcast. He's great. He's he's awesome. He's great. Um, and I've known Neeson for a long time. What is it? What what was that? What did you what was kind of like the game plan that you drew on that on that barf bag? I I kind of just what was the vision? The vision, I took what Aspen did in the mountains. And what did they do well there?

SPEAKER_03 32:03

What did you like about it? I'd never seen anything like that. All the celebrity chefs had celebrity chefs. Yeah, set the scene for us.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

We've never been.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

Yeah. Well, the the um it's very small. They had 1,500 people. You know, uh, I had 6,000 people at South Beach the first year. So we all grew Aspen in year one. Um, so there were dinners, there were lunches, there were big tastings, there were seminars, uh, and Amex American Express has a bunch of uh programming there. And I kind of took it and I went to Amex, I got them as a sponsor. I went to Food and Wine, who owns the classic, I got them as a sponsor, and I created the South Beach Wine and Food Festival.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

So you went to the people that own the Aspen Classic event and said, I want to do this in Miami.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

Exactly. And I got them as sponsors to pay me to do it.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Amazing. Yep. So that was the very beginning of the And so what'd the barf bags say that would make it better if that would Aspen?

SPEAKER_03 32:52

It didn't make I didn't want it to be better.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

I it didn't need to be better. I just wanted to do it. Yeah. Once I started doing it, I wanted it to be different. Sure. I didn't, you know, it didn't be being better wasn't the answer. It was just doing something. Got it. And making it happen.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

So you you draw this on the barf bag 2000, you get back to Miami, you call Neeson, you called who you you called uh Neeson. I went, then I went to see my boss, and then I made a he says, okay, go ahead and do it. All right. And so what a cool boss, by the way. He's great. I'm gonna hire this guy based on his character.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

We'll figure out something for him to do. Yeah, or he'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

From from from Aspen to the first fet uh wine and South Beach Wine and Food Festival, how how long was that? Well, Aspen was June.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

I can't imagine it was that same February. Maybe it was a year. I I don't remember it. Yeah, if it wasn't six months later, it was 18 months later. Gotcha. Um, and that's how I started it. And and what was what was what was the first event like? Kind of describe Well, there were six events. Now we have 125 events. Um, we did something called the bubble cue, which was champagne and barbecue, and we had six or seven chefs doing great barbecue from all over the world. We had Indians from Alaska doing salmon and the sand, baked in the sand, and Stephen Reichland, the barbecue bible guy who lives in Miami, or who are the people who took me to Aspen, was doing a big station and Dean Farring. And um uh, you know, we kind of did that, it was our big signature event. Then we had a grand, the grand tasting, which we do now, and we had some culinary demos, and maybe we did a brunch or something like that. Uh, but it was very, very small. Yeah, very small.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

And how does it work from a guest perspective? They pay an entrance fee and then they can just kind of go crazy.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

Every event is separately ticketed. Okay. Yeah. You can't go to, you know, we have a hundred and something events now. There's a pass that can get you into 20 events, maybe or 15, but no pass gets you into 120 events. Got it. You just couldn't physically do it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

You can't eat and drink that much.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

No, no. No, you couldn't you can't move around. Yeah, yeah, you can't move around. We're all over the city now.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Got it. But that first year, where what was the venue? The was it the beach? Same place. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:04

We've been at the same place for 26 years.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 35:07

Yeah. Same exact place. We've just grown and grown and grown, you know, significantly more space rather than a quarter block. Now we're four or five blocks long.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

That's crazy. Yeah. That's crazy. And um, how did your role with Southern evolve from that?

SPEAKER_03 35:22

Well, I think people looked at me differently. I finally had a role. I was doing something promoting our brands. It was exclusive to our brands only. Um, so it was a great marketing value, and I think people get began to understand what I could do and the value that I could bring to the company and to our brands. And I think from there it kind of changed. I became director of special events for the company, and I then I became director of marketing, and then I became the vice president of communications, and I became the chief communications officer overseeing uh internal external communications and corporate social responsibility, and I just kind of created my own job.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Dang. Um, so what uh to today I mean this event, how many people show up to the event every year? 70,000. 70,000. Um I was talking to Lyle today, um getting a little background on you, digging up your your skeletons in the closet as uh as Lyle put it. Um he he referred to you as let me see what the what the note was here, that you are the culinary ambassador of the US. Um that you probably know more people in the food industry than anyone um in in the industry, and that one of the reasons why Miami has kind of become this um center of food and beverage is has a lot to do with you. Um how did you start making these connections with with all these people from across the world?

SPEAKER_03 37:05

When did internet when did we start having Wi-Fi? Probably 2000-ish, right? So which one is so right around the same time I started the festival. I I guess um you know, I have a philosophy in six emails you can get to anybody, and in six emails I got to everybody I wanted to. Yeah, you know, through a friend you get to somebody, you know. Listen, I still to this day I have that philosophy. If I want to reach somebody, I um last week was uh I know nothing about the Knicks except that they won the play, whatever they want. And um, I know that one of the big players, what's it, whatever his name is, is very entwined. Um like the big superstar player.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Uh Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

Josh Hart. Um Jalen Bronson I got to or his wife already. Oh, nice. Yeah, uh, because she kind of became the face of uh the wives. And I already got her for I already got her for New York to do a j be a judge at the Burger Bash and three emails I got to her.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 38:03

And Jalen Um I got to today.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Uh no, excuse me, Josh Hart.

SPEAKER_03 38:07

Josh Hart. And uh and so what are you doing with Josh? Well, we don't know yet because they don't know when the uh the schedule's gonna be. Oh, but he's gonna come down for the wine and he'll be in New York for the festival. So um you know, I don't know, but he'll do something for sure.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Got it.

SPEAKER_03 38:25

Yeah, you know, I just you email people, you get they don't know, and they connect you to someone who doesn't know, then all of a sudden they connect you to someone who knows and has to ask if you can be connected to Jay, you know, Jay Lynn, and that's how it happened for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

You you did uh you you also host a festival in New York, too, don't you?

SPEAKER_03 38:41

I do a festival in New York City. In 08, you spun that up? Well, it's 19 years this year, so 19 and 827, that sounds right. And then um that and I just it's just been in all over the news that we're launching a festival in Stad, Switzerland, which where I'm leaving for tomorrow. So this exactly this time next year, there'll be the first ever Stad Wine and Food Festival.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Are you going to scope out locations?

SPEAKER_03 39:03

Going to finalize. I've been there about five times already. Okay, awesome. So kind of finalize everything, putting my team together. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

And is this all backed by Southern?

SPEAKER_03 39:10

This is not backed by Southern, but this is backed by a guy named Sasha LaSheen who discovered Whispering Angel Rose, one of the first projects I worked on at Southern, launched it, and we became friends. And um, he asked me to do the festival, and I asked my boss if I could work on it. I said, I'm not taking any money from Sasha, I'll do it just for the experience and uh great connections, and that's why I'm doing it. Wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

So, how many? So, this is your you have the South Beach, um, New York City, and Stad. And Stad, those are the three wine and fill uh exactly one food festivals that you did. Are you still doing anything with Aspen or no?

SPEAKER_03 39:47

No, I I never did anything with Aspen. I was never involved.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Gotcha. Yep. Dang.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Just uh inspired by them.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Just inspired by them. Yeah, yes. I haven't even been in years. I probably haven't been in ten years.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

To Aspen in general or the food festival?

SPEAKER_03 39:59

Either. Oh, okay. Yeah, I just stopped. You know, uh, you know, I got what I needed out of it and I moved on.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Aspen, yeah, it's blown up now. Yeah, it I love Aspen.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

It's just it's a pain in the ass to get to, and sure is. Unless you're flying on a fret friend's plane, you know, it's two planes and the one's always late or or delayed or canceled. Oh, yeah. Because of the weather, it's too hot and the air, it's too much weight on the plane, so I stopped going.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Did we skip over the part? Did you ever own a bar in Miami Beach?

SPEAKER_03 40:26

I did. I did. I owned a bar, I owned two bars and a restaurant. Sometimes during in that intercontinental period, um, I had invested on a bar in call at 634 Collins Avenue called Torpedo, and I invested in it. Um, and right after the bar opened, my partner who I invested in it with, somebody who I didn't know, but we were connected with, and I liked him a lot, he passed away. Oh wow. Then I got stuck running a bar, which I knew nothing about. Did he?

SPEAKER_00 40:57

He knew he knew okay.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

No, it was a recipe for disaster. So I didn't learn a lot. Um, but um that you know, I had the first, you know, really gay bar on South Beach. Very incredibly popular. This is the Versace days and Versace and Terry Mugler and Jean-Paul Gautier and Cynthia, you know. Um so this is mid-90s. Probably late, yeah, probably early 90s. Early 90s. Yeah, Cindy Crawford and you know, all of those um supermodels were hanging out because Versace was doing all the um photo shoots down here. Yeah, yeah. And then I opened up uh a health food restaurant next door called um Chow. And then I opened a bar with Mickey Rourke on Miami Beach called uh ESP, um with Gary James and Mickey Rourke. So I had three places going, and I was working full-time at the Intercontinental, and then going to the bars and restaurants at nighttime. Did you sleep? I don't sleep. No, you're not asleep. No, I'm not a great sleeper. More now today than ever, but uh I'm not a great sleeper. So I was always at the bars and uh working on weekends or you know, doing it.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

But are you are you much of a drinker? No, I don't drink.

SPEAKER_03 42:04

You don't very seldom.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Very seldom.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

Yeah. Um, I mean I can count on two hands how many times I've been drunk in my life. Oh wow, yeah, and probably eight of those times were during college. Yeah. Yeah, I just don't drink. And uh I I don't drink uh excessively. Yeah, I mean I enjoy a drink. I I like great wine, yeah. You know, but I know my limits and I don't like to be removed of my you know uh senses or my glasses, like two and a half glasses of wine at dinner, is it? Yeah, it's fine. A cocktail with dinner and then two drinks of wine. Yeah, um, you know, I just I love wine, but I just don't be I'd rather eat.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

You'd rather you'd rather eat I'd rather eat my calories, yeah. What uh let's talk about food. Like what's what's your favorite food? My favorite food? Yeah, so let's say uh you're on death row and you know you have your last meal. What's it gonna be? Fried chicken. Fried chicken.

SPEAKER_03 42:56

Yeah, wow. I wrote a New York Times bestselling cookbook called Fried and True. I've written three cookbooks. So uh Fried and True was one of my favorite cookbooks. So people know that that's how we do a big fried chicken event at the festival called Chicken Coop. Coop meaning like a coop that you serve champagne in. Yeah, so that's a fried chicken event, one of our most popular events. Um so that's how, you know, uh fried chicken would definitely be my last meal. Wow, love that.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Where where's your fried go-to fried chicken spot here in Miami?

SPEAKER_03 43:26

Yesterday I was driving to pick, I had to leave the office to pick up my dog at the vet, and I drove by Raisin Canes and I uh I hadn't been there yet. So I drove into Raisin Canes. Yeah, yeah, had that. It was good. Um I love Publix fried chicken sandwich. Yeah, it's great. Um, I love Joe's fried chicken. A yard bird on the beach used to have great, maybe still has great fried chicken. Um, everywhere has fried chicken. It's like a you know, highbrow, lowbrow, everyone does fried chicken today.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Interesting. Fried chicken. Yeah, I don't know if that would be what I would have on my Last meal. No. I don't know what it would be.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Me either. I have no idea. What um how did the bars turn out that you started while you're working at the Intercontinental? Did they were they successful? Like what was no?

SPEAKER_03 44:10

We were we were robbed. Well, you know, the bartender, you know, you have another partner with bartenders. I wasn't there enough. Um, but I made my money because I had a lease on the building at 634 Collins Avenue, and I had a lease option to buy the building. And the city was trying, the city of Miami Beach was trying to have me shut down. The nuisance abatement board was trying to have me shut down. It later turned out through court and everything that they were trying to shut me down so that they could buy the property and that they could build a parking. So they were trying to get me out of the lease because if I wasn't in abiding by the lease, I could be in default of my lease and I couldn't buy the property. So I sued the city of Miami Beach. Um uh and every all the officials of Miami Beach, I sued them and I put my house, I lived on North Bay Road, put my house up for sale to get the money to sue the city and uh hired a great attorney. What year was this? I don't know, but early 90s, I'm guessing. Oh, okay. Yeah. Um Neeson wasn't in office, I don't think. Um, but we were able to prove that the city was in cahoots to drop to buy the building so that they can buy the parking lot. And I um uh was able to exercise a lease option. And at the closing, I flipped it at the same, you know, in one signature. I sold it and I bought it. I bought it and I sold it. Yeah, got it in one signature.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

And who did you sell it to?

SPEAKER_03 45:39

It wasn't the city that you sold it to. Oh, no, no, no. I was no, no, I sold it to someone that bothered them immensely, which would stop their parking.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Gotcha. They eventually built their parking, didn't they? Yeah. I just googled the address. That's a giant parking garage.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

Yeah, yeah, it's a big parking garage. But I, you know, I we sold it for $290,000. I mean, I bought it for $290,000. Um and I I I sold it for probably like 10 times that at closing. Oh nice. This was a long time ago when that was a lot, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yeah, yeah. Good. Fuck those bureaucrats. I love it when people can stick it to those guys.

SPEAKER_03 46:17

No, I did. I took them all to uh, yeah. I mean, they would show up in court to take me nuisance abatement court. They would always, they were always shutting down the bar because of drug, you know, for bullshit reasons. Right. And yeah, I think they were very surprised when I uh took them to court and they had to take off their masks. The judge demanded they take off their masks because they were protecting themselves from whatever. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Were you were you living on the beach in the 90s? Yep. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 46:43

I live my first apartment was at 1491 Lincoln Terrace, which was one block south of Lincoln Road on the bay, in the an amazing building, uh, three stories. I had the penthouse with its own elevator and its own rooftop terrace. Oh wow with a view of downtown. Incredible. I was paying twelve hundred dollars, which was crazy on the beach at those times. Today it would be $20,000. But they they leveled the building. Yeah, we should have bought it. Um then I moved to North Bay Road, 59th and North Bay Road. Then I moved to 1235 Collins Avenue, which is that building called the Islander, and I had the penthouse there. Got it. So yeah, I had great, great homes on the beach.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

I mean, it must have what a what a time to be growing up in Miami Beach, right? I mean, it's the the nice peak beach, yeah. It was beach beach, yeah. It is it's it's really when the historic preservation movement really started.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Barbara Cabotman was there where I was on the board with Barbara Cabotman and helped start the Art Deco um Preservation League, Design Preservation League. Nancy Liebmann. Nancy Liebman was great. Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Nancy Liebman's a good woman.

SPEAKER_03 47:47

Yeah, she's still around? I don't know. I'm guessing not.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

No, but she was fabulous. Nancy Liebman was great.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

She she was a terrific woman. Um she was great. Yeah, I worked with her a little bit in the MIMO historic district.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

Yeah, great, great, great. Yeah, her and Barbara Cabinet were extraordinary. Tony Goldman. Yeah. Um Tony Goldman was my landlord. Uh when was he my landlord? Uh probably for the restaurant that I had next to Torpedo Chow, he probably owned that property. Got it. So he was an early, early, you know, we were early friends and supporters of each other.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

People are so drawn to the business, the hospitality, restaurants, bars. It's such a sexy business to be a part of, but it's notoriously hard to make money. I mean, what do you think is a profit margin for a an your average bar?

SPEAKER_03 48:33

I I have zero idea, and I wouldn't open a restaurant or a bar again with your money at a five million dollar year payroll salary. And why? Why? You know what? You need to be there. When you own a bar and a restaurant, people expect you to be there. They want to come see you, you know, they want to go see David Gruppman at Poppy Steakhouse, they want to see, you know, whoever at their restaurants, and people expect that.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

What do you think drives people to like what's so alluring about owning these businesses if they're so hard to make money at? Ego. Ego.

SPEAKER_03 49:06

Yeah, I I I think so. I mean, I never wanted to do it. I just happened to do it. I was able to get into Torpedo, my first venture. Then it was successful, and all the models were looking for healthy food. So I opened up Chow, and then I was friendly with Gary James, who introduced me to Mickey Rourke, and they wanted me. And uh, so I never wanted to do it, I just did it. Interesting. You fell into it. I fell into it.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Did you learn anything from seeing your dad blow up the the bar up north? Not to get into business. Not to do it. Not to go into the hospital business.

SPEAKER_03 49:35

Don't just don't do it. Yeah, do what I say, not what I do.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

I mean, we have a we have a restaurant in our hotel, and I think, you know, from our experience between the bar and the restaurant, I think profit margins are anywhere between 12 to 18 percent if you're good.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

I was gonna say if you can get 18% out of a restaurant doing a, you know, hopefully the restaurant does decent business and you're okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Maybe if you can punch 20 if you're like really charging crazy numbers, but it's well, that's what's happened to the city.

SPEAKER_03 50:02

People are charging crazy numbers and it will be the death of the city. What do you think of the current scene with restaurants in Miami? I think that it's outpriced itself. I think that if things don't change in Miami, people can't afford to move here. Um, I think people uh can't afford to eat out. Listen, there's always that 1%, you know, the good, you know, that's always busy Daniels or Boyade or Sonny's or uh Fuchs that are gonna be busy. Um, but I think it's that kind of hardworking restaurant that doesn't have that, you know, 1% eating at it, they're really struggling. And I think it's gonna be a very tough summer for them. And I think that people should support local and independent restaurants.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

I totally agree. We it's I I find it just anecdotally, you go to a mid-tier restaurant, the prices are almost the same as if you go to Joe's or somewhere crazy. It's almost the prices are kind of you might as well go to the super expensive place because it's all the same now.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

No, it let me tell you, I I mean, you go to restaurants now and you see steaks in the menu for $135. I I I mean, I'm amazed. I get, you know, I eat at restaurants, you know, fortunately, that I can eat at that I'm even I'm amazed at pricing. Right. And I'm like, I I just can't believe how much this is. Right. I used to think the Hamptons was expensive. Now I think the Hamptons is cheap.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

Really? Yeah. Compared to Miami.

SPEAKER_03 51:20

Compared to significantly less expensive. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 51:23

I would never have guessed that.

SPEAKER_03 51:24

No, nor would I. Wow. But you know, we're out there, and uh, I I said last week we're out there. I'm like, I you prices used to be crazy here. Now they don't seem crazy. So it's amazing to me. The Hamptons, I mean, Miami has really, really need they need to take take a step back, but people only do it because they can get away with it. And I don't begrudge anyone charging top dollar, but I think there's a difference between top dollar and taking advantage of people. That's you know my problem here. And you think they're taking advantage at this point? I think some people are taking advantage at this point. Again, good for them. I'd probably do it if I was in business, but uh I think that there'll be a problem. You know, I think it's gonna be a very rough summer ahead, like it was last year.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

And we've seen so many big groups come from New York, kind of plant their flags.

SPEAKER_03 52:11

Sure. I mean, most, you know, the bigger place, you know, you look at these all these restaurants. I mean, I used to know every restaurant in town or go to every restaurant. I can't even keep track of, no. I have to go to Eater when I when I want to and I eat out six nights a week. And I have to go to Eater and say, what is new here? Yeah. And I don't know ten things. You know, I'll look and like, when did that open?

SPEAKER_01 52:29

You you eat out six nights a week. Five nights. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 52:32

Yeah. Some nights seven, some weeks seven nights, some weeks three nights, but I eat out twenty times a month.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

So what's the what's the best new restaurant? What do you think is the hottest place right now? It's your favorite.

SPEAKER_03 52:47

The hot new place. Uh oh God, where have I been? I mean, I don't, you know, it doesn't have to be that new.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

What's your favorite restaurant in Miami?

SPEAKER_03 52:54

You know, we moved to the Gables, and when I moved there, there was nothing. Nothing. I mean, I remember literally being sad, thinking there was nothing good to eat the first three nights I moved there. I I was really, I mean, Houston's or Hillstone was still my go-to place. It's consistently good food. But that was it. We were eating there three nights a week. Now you can eat anywhere. I mean, uh Michael White's Mika, um uh uh boy not um what do I love there? Uh uh Mika, uh Zapora de Mari and Coconut Grove, Bellini at the Mystice. Uh I love um uh Luca on Geralda, I love uh Zuka on Ponce, uh I love Senora Martinez, I love uh I think Boucan that just opened up on Miracle Mile is extraordinary. The pricing was great. Um, you know, there's no reason to have an average meal. There are too many good restaurants today that just have an average meal.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

And how how long have you been in the Gables? 12 years. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 53:53

So in the last 12 years, it's changed. In the last seven years it's changed. Yeah, it's it's crazy. I mean, Boukan is one of the best meals I've had in the city.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

What kind of food is Bukan? It sounds like everything.

SPEAKER_03 54:03

He has a Clay Connolly is a great chef. He used to work at the Mandarin for Michelle Bernstein. He took over when Michelle left Azul, and then he opened in Palm Beach and he has very successful. I've not had his food for 10 years, and now he opened here and I love it. That's awesome. It's an amazing restaurant, and he's there every night cooking, and that makes a difference.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

Is it true you've never had a beer in your life?

SPEAKER_03 54:24

I've never had a beer. I don't like the taste of uh it's just a flavor. Just a flavor. Okay. Yeah. Just like I didn't like your initial pimps cups could have had uh ginger, yeah, which I don't like. I don't like the taste of uh fermentation.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Oh, okay. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 54:37

Nothing against beer.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

So you don't you don't like ginger at all? And you're I like ginger ale. Yeah, yeah, but I don't like ginger. So you don't like in in your food, you don't particularly like the taste of ginger? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

Maybe it's some Asian food. Yeah, yeah, but not heavy. Yeah, yeah. Not heavy, yeah. Ginger. I'm a very picky eater.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

I think we should highlight something about the the festival that's really interesting that I didn't know was that it's uh a big civic push as well, right? Like the festival raised close to 40 million for FIU's Chaplin School of Hospitality.

SPEAKER_03 55:09

Almost 50 million. You're you're reading an old release. So yeah, 48 or 49 million dollars we've raised for student scholarships at the Chaplin School of Hospitality.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

And the one in New York has raised more than, I guess, 15 million for hunger relief groups.

SPEAKER_03 55:22

For hunger relief groups, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

No kid hungry in the food bank.

SPEAKER_03 55:24

No kid hungry, the food bank, and now the James Beard Foundation for the next generation of chefs. So uh collectively about sixty-five million dollars for um not for profits. Damn.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Yeah, so let's talk about the Chapman uh school at FIU. What when when was it established? How did you get involved? Because uh there's a certain percentage of the wine and food festival proceeds that goes 100%.

SPEAKER_03 55:46

100. 100% of the net proceeds. That's the $50 million that we've raised. Yeah. So the Chaplin family owns Southern Glazers that I work for. Yeah. And um the money we've decided, Wayne brought me into the picture about where the money should go. And we we thought that the name being in that building would be very helpful to the school to help get other big sponsors, which it has.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

You didn't direct the money into your pocket? I'm not sure. No, no, no, I did not. That's not very Miami event.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

No, I I have never taken, I have despite what everyone thinks, I've never made a penny from the festival. I'm not paid for the festival. I identify as a volunteer, I've never taken a kickback, a commission, regardless of what anybody may say. It's not true.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 56:28

And I've had plenty of opportunities. It's just never my never been mine.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

No, I guess that's where that two-way street comes with uh Southern.

SPEAKER_03 56:38

Well, the trust goes both ways. It does go both ways, and they they trusted me and they empowered me to do something that I'm passionate about. They empowered me to do something that has given me a great life and a great reputation, and uh I would never take advantage of it. It's just not my style. That's amazing. That's it's rare in Miami.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Yeah, very rare. And your husband is a pediatric radiologist.

SPEAKER_03 57:04

He's a pediatric interventional radiologist, okay, which means he does procedures. He's a very highly skilled, you know, uh pediatric radiologists are hard to come by to begin with, but interventional are even harder.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

Who's more social, you or him?

SPEAKER_03 57:18

You know, he wasn't social at all when I met him. Yeah, he he just uh it was very funny. Is he going out to dinner with you seven days a week? He would go out eight days. He loves to eat. Um, he swims for an hour over an hour every day when he gets home from the hospital. Um and he's hungry right when we get out, uh, right when he gets out of the pool. Um, but he's the hardest worker. You know, he makes me look like I'm, you know, slouch. Yeah. He's a very hard worker. He comes from a family of uh his parents were doctors, and he had five brothers and sisters, all doctors. And he grew up where? In Bogota.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 57:52

Yeah, but he's been here in Miami 22 years. We met right after he moved here.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

And is he as much, he's as much of a foodie as you are?

SPEAKER_03 57:57

He wasn't a foodie when I met him. Yeah. I mean, the first party I went to at his house, I said, This is gonna be over. He had like Costco platters. I'm like, I don't think I could do this. True story. I don't think I could do this. He had like a platter of bad shrimp and you know, cruditees and cheap tequenos or whatever, you like rolled cheese things. I'm like, really.

SPEAKER_01 58:20

I was I I think I was listening to an interview with uh Chef Andres, and he was like, someone was telling him, hey, you know, why don't you eat a Chick-fil-A sandwich? And he was like, he's like, why would I do that? I have, you know, according to me, I'm living to 80. You know, I have, you know, 1,562 meals left. He's like, I'm not gonna waste those calories on a Chick-fil-A sandwich.

SPEAKER_03 58:44

I I wouldn't waste it on a Chick-fil-A either, but I would might waste it on a uh, you know, Popeye's chicken sandwich. Oh Popeye's yeah, much better. Yeah, much much better.

SPEAKER_00 58:54

Yeah. So what's the future for for you and for the the wine festival look like? Are you gonna try to grow it anymore? I mean, you're gonna start.

SPEAKER_03 59:01

No, I I I'm not looking to grow it. I'm looking just to fine-tune it and continue to keep it fresh and make it exciting. I mean, I have to be excited to be excited. Of course. I need, you know, I uh I yeah, I'm the motivator who has to motivate a team. And if you do the same thing every year, uh people get bored and I get bored. So I'm always looking and challenging my people to come up with ideas how to keep it fresh. We just had a six-hour meeting yesterday about doing different things.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

And what kind of fresh ideas are you guys thinking about doing this year?

SPEAKER_03 59:29

Uh what are we talking about doing? We might do a mahjong, something with mahjong since it's become so popular. Okay. Um, we're definitely gonna do something with empanadas from all over South America.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

Um we're going to introduce hot dogs to the Burger Bash, our signature event. Rather than launch a hot dog event, we're gonna launch like have six of the world's best hot dogs at the Burger Bash. Oh, nice. You're hearing that first.

SPEAKER_01 59:53

Um let's talk about the Burger Bash because uh who won it this with this last year? It was a Bureau Burger, were they yes, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:02

I don't I you know, I only tried one burger this year because I'm running around. It's hard to eat with cameras in your face. Um whatever the burger was, I happened to try it. The Bureau Burger because there was a long line there, which normally means it's a famous chef or a great burger. Yeah. And I saw I didn't know who the chef was, and I went and grabbed it and I said, This is a winner. And it won. A few hours later, I learned that it won. Yeah, I actually the burger was so good when I grabbed it, I didn't look to see who it was. And when I took a bite, I went back to look at it and I said, They're gonna win.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

Yeah, I I we went and had the burgers meeting my wife like a few months ago. They have they have several locations in my area. I've never been to one. Yeah, and uh there's one in North Miami. Oh, okay. Um, it was exceptional. I think it was like the Dubai burger that one it was called, something like that. But it was it was exceptional.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:50

It was I I remember how good it was. I mean, I I don't eat I love burgers, but I don't tend to uh I mean I go to Shake Shack and you know uh I don't go alpha burgers really, but although I love burgers.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:01

Yeah, what's that place called? The Brah Burger.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:03

I think it's B-I-R-A. Yeah, right, yeah. Bera burger? Yeah, I actually I like Skinny Louis. Yeah, Skinny Louis is good. Uh what my team will order burgers in there from once in a while. I think it's uh on Tuesday you get two for once, so one of the kids gives me his burger.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

Yeah, an extra burger. Nice. Oh, it's probably down close to your office, isn't it? I think so. Yeah, there's one on like 23rd street.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:23

Yeah, and I'm on 21st. So yeah, I'm sure, yeah. I've actually been there once.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

Uh is there is there anything? I mean, you're obviously a person that gets inspired by seeing other things like the Aspen Food and Wine Festival. Have you seen any other concepts when you've been traveling that you think need to come to Miami that's not here yet?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

Yes, actually. Um I went a few weeks ago in New York on my birthday. I happened to be up in Connecticut, and I heard about this event called the Great Cake Picnic. And to enter, you have to bring a cake. It's $50, and you have to bring a cake, a homemade cake. It can't be store bought. And six over six, six and above, six years of age, you have to bring a cake. So if you're five people, you have to bring five cakes. Oh wow. Um they put all the cakes out on long tables, and for like two and a half hours, everyone tastes thousands of cakes. Um, and I like that idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:13

Yeah, I'll probably, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:14

What's it in the winter when it's not it's not melting the shit out of the cake?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:17

Well, it's gonna have to probably be inside. Right. Yeah, probably have to be inside. Uh, but I just yesterday said I want to do something like that. That's cool here. Um, I'm always looking at the cake off. The cake off, something like that. Cool. Yeah, something like that. Very cool. How about pizza? Are you into pizza? I love pizza. We have a commercial pizza oven at our home here and in the Hamptons. Um that neither of us neither of us know how to use. We don't make great pizza, so we have to hire talent all the time to come cook for us. Um, but it's very hard to do a pizza event because the pizza, you know, uh Maraforney has the best pizza ovens. They made our pizza ovens, and they're very heavy and very even that with them donating the pizza ovens, the transportation is very hard and expensive to back and forth. So they would love for me to do a big pizza event with them. I just it's it's it's it's very time consuming.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

And every chef has a different, you know, they want to do it with wood. They want there's a million like anything else. Chefs are very particular. They want it, you know, the right quality.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

I had one other question on the tip of my tongue, and I just lost it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:20

How about donuts? You like donuts?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:22

Are we just gonna go every food category? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:24

I'm with it. Like my favorite foods are pizza, donuts, and I think pretzels, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

Yeah, um, you know, I like donuts. Yeah, I mean, I don't go eat donuts. Like, I wouldn't stop at a donut place the way I would stop at a Dairy Queen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:36

Um you'd stop at a Dairy Queen, huh?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:38

I would, but they don't exist anymore. They closed the one south by uh Did those start in Minnesota? I don't know where they started.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

They might have, because where I'm from and there. They live some.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:46

They were really good. I love their um what are they called? Like the milk, the uh the blizzards. Blizzards, yeah. The Oreo Cookie Blizzard. That was my favorite. Yeah, mine too.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:55

I think, but and there used to be one in South Miami that I would cheat and go to, but now they're gone. Now it's like one of those bubble tea places. Well, they're still in Minnesota, so that's a long way for a shake. Yeah, although it's a great city.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

Has there been a food recently that you've tried that you've been like, where has this been my entire life? Um, you know, something that you're like, something so unusual that you you you didn't realize, like, how did you live without this before? I had this experience with a pistachio croissant in Italy. I'm like, how did I know not know this existed before?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:29

Well, listen, all these flavored croissants, whether it's strawberry or blackberry or black and white, you know, and pistachio, like you said, you know, they're all doing all those. Or the um what's that Dominique? The um he he didn't do a croissant, he did a take a cronut, a cronut, which is a croissant dough donut. Um yeah, I you know, I don't like fatty things like that. Yeah, I mean, I I not that I wouldn't eat one. I would certainly eat one, I just wouldn't go out of my way to get one. Yeah. And I like donuts, but I think they've become over the top where you can't even totally bite a donut without it, you know, it's this thick.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

I mean, it's got 30 different flavors. My favorite's always just the glaze. Yeah, it's you know what?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:09

I hear you. I I haven't had a what's that place where you drive through into hot donuts? They have, say, 30 minutes of crispy cream. Krispy Kreme. I have not had one in a long time, but I love crispy cream donuts. It's like eating air. Are you uh are you a dessert guy? More savory. I mean, if I had to decide if you know whether it was pasta or dessert, I would definitely have pasta. Yeah, yeah. Although I like dessert, yeah. Yeah, and I could not eat dessert, but my husband has to have dessert every night. So uh even though I can go out and not have dessert, yeah, and when we don't order, like the other night, we didn't order and they sent over dessert. So that's everyone always sends everyone always sends us desserts for some reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:51

Um why is breakfast the hardest meal to serve?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:56

Because when you go and order lunch, you order a BLT with French fries and a Diet Coke. Okay. When you go to order breakfast, oh, I want scrambled, I want eggs. How do you want them? Scrambled. Do you want potatoes, home fries, grits, sliced tomato? Do you want fresh fruit? I want my toast. Do you want an English muffin? Do you want a bagel? Do you want rye bread? Do you want sourdough? It's 50 questions to take a breakfast order. Wow. How do you want your coffee? Oh, I want latte. I want it with non-fat milk. And I want it with extra. Ordering breakfast is the hardest meal of the day. You make the least amount of money, and it's so time consuming. It is. I mean, no one just orders a number two. It's a number two, but I don't want bacon. Can I have french fries and stuff? Or can I have sausage patties and I don't like maple sausage?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:42

It's so picky.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:43

It's crazy. So breakfast as a as a breakfast, somebody who was a breakfast waiter, I think that they should make triple the amount of money just for getting up that early and taking a breakfast order.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

Are you a breakfast guy or no? I wrote a breakfast cookbook.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:55

Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I only eat breakfast on vacation. Yeah. Um, like I'll have breakfast every morning in a hotel, like a great hotel, uh, and read the paper or read my emails. Um, but no, home, I never ever have breakfast. No, never. You just go straight to lunch. I didn't have, you know, and most times I don't eat lunch. Oh, really? No, I haven't had uh a thing today. Wow. So you're just a dinner guy?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:19

I'm a dinner guy. Um you pretty much eat one meal a day?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:23

Not on vacation. Yeah. Um or in the summer when I'm in the Hamptons, I'll cook. Um but I can go all day with a yogurt in the morning and a coffee and go for dinner.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

Do you like to cook?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:35

I love to cook. You like to cook? Yeah. I don't do it, but I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:38

What's your favorite thing to cook?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:42

You know, I don't know. I mean, I love to barbecue, it's easy and not a mess. You know, I don't make fried chicken because it's too messy. Yeah. Um, but I entertain. I entertain in the Hamptons. I don't entertain here at all. I mean, if we're here, we have a cater or a cook come in and, you know, do a party. Um, I'm gonna do Thanksgiving in the Hamptons this year for the first time, and I'll probably cook.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

It's a serious mission. It's a big undertaking.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:04

Yeah, I used to do I used to do Thanksgiving for 100 people. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:07

Dang.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:08

Yeah, now I have a caterer for 40. Yeah, too much work.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:11

Yeah, why not? Yeah, too much work. You have a secret radio life. What's that? You have a secret radio life.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:17

No, I don't, it's not a secret. It's not a secret. Elvis Duran is one of my best friends. Oh wow. Um, he just bought a house in Miami right by me. And uh I do I don't go to New York without uh going on the show. And uh I actually I'm gonna do every Monday um in August. I could listen to Elvis Duran. Oh, really? That's funny. You know what? I say that to him all the time, although it can't be true because I'm older, I'm a few years older than him. Elvis is on the air for 30 years, exactly 30. So obviously, I was significantly past growing up when he started, but I feel like I've listened to Elvis my whole life.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

He's only been on air for 30 years.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:50

30 years. He's the longest going morning host, 30 years. So you if you grew up listening, how old are you? 42? No, I I'm 52. Oh, 52. Okay, so you were 22, but we listened to him in the car.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

Yeah, I thought I thought it I I guess I probably only listened to him for a couple of years. I thought I listened to him.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:08

I thought he was in my in high school. Nope. So did I. I I you know, I always joke with him. I've been listening to him since I'm 10. There's like a Mandela effect. Right, exactly. And uh how did you get connected with him? Because Ricardo, my husband, listens to him every morning on the way to the hospital. And he said, You know, you should and I stopped, I had stopped listening to him. I listened to serious radio in the car. And he said, You know, do you know Elvis? And I said, No, I've met him over the years and passed, and we have mutual friends. But and I emailed Elvis and I said, Oh, let's get together for a coffee. And we did, and we became best friends. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah, we you know, I'm on the show all the time. So, like a good New Yorker, he's moving down here now. He's like he has a place for here. You know, he lives in Santa Fe also, and he has a home, uh farm in New Jersey and in Manhattan. And um, he loves Miami. Yeah, he just loves he's he's gonna be the biggest booster for Miami. Yeah, yeah, he's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:59

He's a but he's he's still doing the show, still doing the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:02

Just signed another three-year deal. Okay, yeah. So no way, uh I love going on the show. It's my favorite time.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:07

He does the show from wherever, or is the studio up in New York?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:10

He has a studio everywhere house he lives in. Oh, really? Yeah, but he does the show in New York City. Right right around the block from us. I live in Central Park, he's on 55th Street. Okay. So it's really fun to do. How fun. Yeah, it is fun. That's amazing. I love doing the show. I I can I tell you, I have so much fun um, you know, doing the show because I love everyone on it. Uh, you know, I'm like one of the few people who um can really give it to Elvis. You know, uh yeah, they always say that. They that the team says, I love having you on, you give it to Elvis.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:38

So you're going on when?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

Mondays? I'm gonna do every Monday in August.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

Amazing. Yeah, we'll have to tune in.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:43

Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Yeah, I always uh I I I told him I'm gonna be reporting from Hampton Life or Hampton Life for his listeners.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:50

Love that. Yeah. What uh what time do you wake up in the morning?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

5 30.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:55

5 30.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:56

Yeah, I don't get out of bed till 6 30.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:58

What time do you go to bed at night?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:00

11. Okay. Yeah. So you really don't sleep much? I don't sleep much. And I normally wake up at 3 15 for some reason. I don't know. Wow. Yeah. So uh and I'll fall back asleep.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:11

Do you do anything to to stay fit? I I think I read that you ride bike and play pickleball.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:16

Yes, I mean I uh do if no, I'm not fit. You know, uh I guess considering how much I eat, I'm fit. Well, it doesn't sound like you eat that much. You just I don't eat much. You you you you have one big meal a day. That is, yeah, that's really it. Yeah, yeah. I I I don't uh you savor it. I do, yeah. Yeah, no, I you know, uh eating out to me is my you know one of my favorite things. And what what is what is it that you like so much about eating out? Socializing. Yeah. It's not a meal, you know. Uh uh I don't need another meal, but it allows me to meet people, talk people, learn about trends, listen to people, watch what people are eating and drinking. Yeah. Um you know, to me, it's the most important decisions you'll ever make in your life are done over a meal. Agreed. If you think about it in the morning, what do you do? You talk about where you ate last night, and at four o'clock today, what do you do? You talk about where you're going.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:03

And when you usually go out to dinner, I mean, you you go out five, six nights a week. Do you usually go out with your husband? Do you go out with colleagues or friends, or is it Friends, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:14

Friends. I mean, we'll eat out by ourselves two or three nights a week, and on the weekends, like Friday, Saturday, or Sunday brunch, we eat out with friends. Yeah. It's hard because he Ricardo gets home from the hospital at seven, then he swims for an hour. Yeah. So we can't do dinner till 8 30. Yeah. So it's, you know, people, my friends, you know, it's too late for them.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

Yeah. And uh do you uh do you tend to to go to different restaurants or or do you do you like you like trying different things? I love trying new things.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:45

Yeah, I'll try anything. Yeah, yeah. I don't care what a review says about it, I'll try anything. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:50

Yeah. I think it's important. You know, you gotta try new things.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:54

I I I'm a creature of habit. We go to our favorite places a lot, but I'll also, you know, I'll say, I want to try something new tonight. Yeah. And I'll go to eater and look what's new and I'll try it. Where are you going tonight? Nowhere because I have to pack for tomorrow. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:07

So I may have no meal the entire day. And so you uh you're off to Europe. I'm off to Stad tomorrow for a week. Then I'm going to Portugal for my best friend's daughter's wedding. And then uh the same best friend has a boat and we'll be in Greece, and then we're going to go to the Amalfi. What are you looking forward to eating in Europe? You know, I just love clean, fresh food. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to not having reservations, to just doing whatever you want to do and going wherever you want to do. And if we're not hungry, staying on the boat, if we're not hungry and we don't want to go out, staying on the boat and have a great cook and just staying on home. I don't need to go out. You know, I'm with friends and I love it, love staying at home and not getting dressed and just staying home and eating casually.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:49

Sounds epic.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:51

Well, Lee, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Thank you. It's really fun to hear your story and how you built everything. And we wish you the best on your travels this week. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:59

Thanks, guys, for having me on. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, thank you for sharing your story with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:02

My pleasure, of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:04

Have a great evening. Thank you, guys. Cheers. Cheers.