Confessions Beyond the Food
Confessions Beyond the Food is a podcast about working in the Food Industry. People who work in the Food Industry have grit and lots of stories to tell. W3 Sales, a sales & marketing company, will host this podcast with their confessions on how they have a new, fresh approach and invite guests to confess their secrets to their sauce.
Confessions Beyond the Food
From Cake Pops to Culinary Fame: Chef David Burke's Journey
How did Chef David Burke rise from a time when being a chef wasn't highly regarded to become an international culinary ambassador? Listen as we promise to reveal the secrets behind his remarkable journey. From his inventive cake pop creations to his travels across 30 countries, Chef Burke's story is a testament to passion and perseverance in the culinary world.
Managing multiple restaurants across states is no small feat, especially with the intense work hours and extensive travel. Hear firsthand about the evolving dynamics within the culinary industry, including the impact of the pandemic on wages and workforce attitudes, the rise of celebrity chefs, and the generational shift in chef culture. Chef Burke shares his candid insights into the resilience required to thrive, touching upon the demanding lifestyle of a restaurateur and the challenges of keeping up with a changing industry.
He also reveals the lighter side of the restaurant industry by including his sense of humor, playful attitude and philanthropic efforts.
For more information on Chef David Burke:
David Burke Website
Ted Talk - Food is Joy, April 2022
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_burke_food_is_joy/transcript?subtitle=en
Mixed & Edited by Next Day Podcast
info@nextdaypodcast.com
Welcome to Confessions Beyond the Food. I'm your host, Nancy Redland. Let's dig in and get inspired. Hi, everyone, Welcome back to Confessions Beyond the Food. Today we've got a celebrity chef in the studio. Chef David Burke is welcoming us. Hi, Chef David.
Speaker 2:How are you? Nice to see you.
Speaker 1:Oh, good, good. It's good to have you here from New Jersey, right or NYC.
Speaker 2:I'm in New Jersey, Atlantic Highlands, down by the border.
Speaker 1:Is that God's country? Not?
Speaker 2:far from New York.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. Well, we're excited because we're going to get to talk to the guy that takes everyday dishes and turns them into something amazing with a playful twist. He's opened a ton of restaurants. He's an international chef that has major accolades and was on TED Talks. You were on TED Talks. That's amazing. How was that TED Talks? You were on TED Talks. That's amazing. How was that?
Speaker 2:That was good, actually, it was really good. It was hard to do actually. It's hard to talk for 10, I think it was 20 minutes, 10 minutes. You only talk for 10 minutes. I went 18 minutes because I had too much to say. I was nervous about it. It's hard to tell a story in 10 minutes. It was excellent and I spent time trying to condense what I wanted to say into that particular time, but I had a good time doing it. It was heartfelt. The theme was joy and joy in what we do for a living, et cetera, et cetera. That was a good topic actually, so if you get a chance you should check it out.
Speaker 1:I did. It was amazing. I mean, everybody needs to go check that out. In fact, I might link it to this podcast description so you can check it out. But he gave you gave so much insight to your journey and also, like you said, the joy of food and taking chances and turning the what, if to not a question, but an action. You know and I just love that about you, and so you've done so many awesome things what's the most, what's your most favorite thing that you've got to do as a chef?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a lot of favorite things. I think the best, one of the surprising and unique things about being a chef at my level is the amount of traveling I've got to do because of my craft or my talent. You know, I've been to 30 countries. Probably 20 of those countries were because I was invited to cook, or I worked there, or I staged there, or I lectured, or I on a cruise ship that takes you to three countries while you're being paid, you know. So it's kind of.
Speaker 2:You know, you would not think that, as a young cook trying to become a chef and again I became a chef my decision was in the late 70s, when being a chef was really not looked upon as a high profile job, to say the least, nor was it a celebrity job, nor was it a entrepreneurial job. It was a job, it was a hard working job. So it was. So if you look at 1975 to 2025, 50 years, 50 years what has happened in the food industry is amazing, amazing. What has happened to food in America, food around the world and the profession. And the profession got shaped at the high level into something special. But it's still a profession of roadblocks and pitfalls and tough work and failure and successes, but it's a grind. There's nothing romantic or sexy Maybe it's sexy at times about working the hours that a good chef has to put in. It's a lifestyle, it's not a job and that's basically it.
Speaker 1:You're giving up so much of life to put into the lifestyle of uh being a chef, a celebrity chef, especially yeah, and especially when you put everything you know into something and it's not received or it doesn't land the way it should or you wanted it to. Did that happen many times for you?
Speaker 2:Listen everybody, failures lead to successes. You know you're going to have to. If you don't, if you're not out there trying things and learning from mistakes, you're not really getting better. There are examples of, you know, partnerships and deals that you make and they hit grand slams, and then there's things that don't necessarily work out, for whatever reason Locations, partnerships, timing, economy, bad chef, bad manager, too busy, couldn't adjust quick enough, bad lease, whatever it is. I mean, you know there's so many things that go into a deal and or a restaurant and there's a lot of things that go into, you know, a failure.
Speaker 2:Creating a dish is nothing. It's only a dish of food, a menu that isn't as good as the other. Right, I mean we, you know we create it. I always think about a winemaker. A winemaker has once a year to make wine. He's got to get it right.
Speaker 2:Now, the technology is helpful these days, but a dish of food we can create. It costs a little money and a little time. But if it doesn't work, we fix it, we edit it, we tweak it, we change it and then you keep crashing like a sculpture. You're molding and molding, and molding, but we're using much more than our hands and our eyes. We're going to use our taste and our sense of smell and texture, seasonality, geographic restrictions, dietary things, all of that and it has to be beautiful. Not necessarily beautiful every dish, but there needs to be a sense of style in what you put out. I mean, if you put short ribs on a plate, you know, are they going to be as beautiful as a red snapper with this? And I think maybe you know I uh beauty's in the eye that we hold it. But then you know we're we're dealing with all the senses, so we have a good opportunity to impress.
Speaker 1:Right, especially in this day and age, I mean with reality TV and Instagram. I like how you talk about the phenomenon of the Instagram chef. Can you describe, like, what an Instagram chef is and maybe what filter they have that everybody doesn't see? Because I think in social we kind of put out our best faces, right, and then you know, but what's really behind the you know, behind the scenes is I'm sweating and schlepping stuff all over the place and so what, what does that lens um?
Speaker 2:there's. There's this falseness or misleading um the media, I mean the team. Food tv has been very good for the industry for some reason, in many, in many, in many regards and has been very good for the industry in many regards and also not so good for the young chef that wants to be a chef, because the reality of TV is not necessarily the reality of what that person might be doing when they pursue a career in the kitchen. For example, if you watch a Food Network show or a, you know you don't see the real sweat and grind, you don't see the 12-hour days, you don't see the worn-out sneakers and shoes and the scars and the sweat and the depression and the late nights and the holidays and the family problems. The divorce rate is crazy. The drug and alcohol use is high. The uh, the stress is tremendous. You know the failure rate or the turnover.
Speaker 2:There's very few chefs that have been with a company for 20 years super low, I don't, you know, unless it's their own right or you know, because you don't. You know there's no pensions, there's no 401ks, very few. So it's a transient business With transient business, turnover, inconsistency. So there's a lot of that. In fact, many people drop out of the business after their culinary degrees have been earned, just due to lifestyle. So five years after getting out of culinary school, for example, many people have changed careers. So five years after getting out of culinary school, for example, many people have changed careers. So that is the negative side of it. The great side of it is if you really love it, like an artist or an athlete or an entrepreneur or someone that's like a Broadway think about Broadway performers, fantastic talent, right, and artists that aren't really famous but are still out there enjoying their art, that are underneath that economic bubble of hitting it big. They're still doing what they love. And then you know the backup people in broadway. They're working their butts off, but they're doing what they love, and that's what a chef is really doing. They're doing what they love. They're paid not necessarily what a tech person will be getting paid, not necessarily what a corporate person will be paid for the amount of time you put in, but you're doing something that brings you joy and satisfaction and it's a cool business, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:It's fun, it's hard, but it's also. There's instant gratification. On a daily basis. You learn a lot. The journey is cool, but you're paying the price for it with the hours that you put into that. So it becomes a lifestyle. It's part of your life. It's not a job, it is your lifestyle. That's how I look at it.
Speaker 2:When you get up on a Sunday and you're going to work, brunch and dinner, to me it's not Sunday, it's just another day, because we're not missing golf, we're not missing this. We try to go to church here and there, but that's what you do. It's not like oh shit, I've got to work Sunday. No, that's what you do. It's just you don't fight it, that's what you do, what you have to do. And, uh, you know, and I'm in a pretty good position to work, work less if I want to work more, but I find myself working the same amount, if not more, when you become the owner, because you've got, uh, now you gotta really manage multiple properties. So you know, but the journey to get here has been tremendously eye-opening. And, man, what a ride, right, what a ride. And the changes and keeping up with things, the industry is on fire, right? You would know, because you see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it is, it's constantly changing and that's probably in its fast pace and for my brain it's it's, it's a good thing. But, um, I know that some of the people that look at what I do and they're like, oh, that looks like really like a lot of fun. But um, then they really get to know me and get to see my every day and they're like, why do you do that? And that's really hard and you have to love it. You have to love the grind, you have to find your passion and and there's so many, like you said, highs and lows. I mean within an hour, not like you know every, you know once a week. It's like I mean you can be here and then you know here and everything is blown up and it's just crazy. You know here and everything is blown up and it's just crazy.
Speaker 1:And the way you guys handle stress is unbelievable. I mean the pressure cooker that you're kind of on, you know under. So I like how you also mentioned you know just what it takes emotionally, you know, to be in this industry and the hard parts of it, the depression, and that's one of the reasons I'm doing this podcast is to expose some of this and give some practical advice and encouragement to people that feel despair, like losing their family or things like that, and so that's really cool. So you, you mentioned also managing a business and that, as a business owner, I totally get it Like it's not just going out and doing your craft right, and so you manage businesses, you, you have a cookware line, you have, you know, your the all the engagements you probably do as a chef and also keeping up with trends and innovation. So when do you sleep?
Speaker 2:Sleep is. You know I get home. You know, if I can get six hours sleep solid, I'm pretty good. Sometimes I nap. I'll take a nap in my office and we're in my home office now, so I have restaurants close to home. I'm an hour from New York City but I'll get up early usually and get going at the table and then take off to the restaurants. My day starts 7 am, no later than 8, and sometimes earlier, and it ends probably at 9 or 10. Sometimes it's six, seven days. Some days are less, some days are more.
Speaker 2:Yesterday I opened a bakery. I was here at 530. I got home last night. I got home, took a nap for an hour and then I get back at 9 o'clock. Yesterday was a long day because the bakery is four miles away. Someone didn't show up. I had to go.
Speaker 2:So it's a lot of work. I'm in my car a lot. I drive 1,000 miles a week because I have restaurants all over the state of Jersey and New York and sometimes I go to North Carolina. But I sleep, you need sleep. It's important to get good sleep and get up positive.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we have some restaurants that are not doing well this summer and that stresses you out and we have some that are doing well. And then there's a lot of you know the employee situation. The workforce has changed quite a bit in the last few years. Pandemic wasn't helpful. The wages went up and the hustle went down, and that's how I look at it. And also there are a lot of people that are in the industry that really, honestly, don't want to be great chefs. They want to be chefs, they want to be cool, they want to be liked.
Speaker 2:The chef world right now is adored. Right, people like chefs. Right, you see them on Instagram. Who doesn't like food? So you watch the shows.
Speaker 2:And what other profession do you get called by chef? You get called chef on the street. They don't call people doctor on the street. They don't call people astronaut on the street or inventor or you know. So it's like, hey, chef, you know what I mean. It's great. It's great for us, it's great for the industry to a certain degree, but it's also that balloon. Is that balloon? You know one of the things? So there's chefs. There's chefs that are running businesses and working restaurants, like the ones you're familiar with, that you do business with, and then there's a chef who wins a cupcake war and goes on a season of one of these shows and becomes a celebrity without ever really running a restaurant or being a chef in a restaurant. Follow. So they become a personality chef on TV, which means they can cook, but they're not chef running businesses, right? So there's no levels here. So you know. Also there is. You know, when a really good chef is let go from a restaurant for economic reasons, they make the sous chef the chef, they promote it. It doesn't mean he's really qualified or she, so all of a sudden it's a quick rise. So, for example, there's another thing that one of the things that bothers me about the chef world If I get my hair cut, my fingernails cut or my grass cut, all of those people need a license and a chef does not Think about that. Someone that's feeding people, all these people, right. So it's an industry that's just these people, right. So there's a. It's an industry that's just loosey, goosey, right. And that's where a lot of people hide in this business. Because there are. You don't need the college degree. I never. I look at tons of resumes. I don't look for where they went to school. I look at what they have done, what they can do. I need a good baseball hitter. I don't need someone that went six years of college. I need someone that cook someone. I don't need someone that went six years of college. I need someone that cook, someone that can learn, someone that works hard, someone that has stamina and that has desire and that wants to be real. I want someone that wants my job, but there's a lot of people that just want to be in the industry Because it's such an adoring industry now. Now it's cool to be a chef. Slap a few tattoos on, don't shave, put your hair in a ponytail right, look rough and tough and you're off to the races right Now. That was never the case. Fifty years ago. You had to be clean, shaven, cut your hair, no nose rings, no, this, no that, blah, blah, blah. But the culture changes. You wore a white coat. A white coat was clean, right. That was like a surgeon, so you couldn't hide the dirt or the stains, right, which you know. I wear a white coat. I'm old-fashioned and I respect the history of the chef coat, but again I wear a black one here and there. I'm not anti that, but I just. You know, that was, that's my generation, but it's become this kind of like cool thing now, as opposed to saying, the discipline of doing things in the hierarchy and working away. So we need as many people as we can, but I don't find that some of the younger people come in wanting to really learn and get to the next level as much as as in the 80s, where the, where the, where the boom of what american cuisine is today was happening and the people coming out of the cooking schools and working all wanted to be chefs, not just cook. You know, there's people we have that just want to cook, and there's a lot of uh, or they want, or the 30 years old, they have a chef job and they're done. Learning like this is this is my repertoire, this is what I do and this is what I'm going to continue to do, which I find a little baffling, and the amount of chefs that also don't want to do pastry. They don't know, they don't, they don't think it's their job. It's like, well, that's a pastry chef job. I'm a chef chef. That means so there's been a lot of change and it's only in certain cases. I'm not saying it's rampant At the higher end level and the best restaurants in each city around America. You do have that to get into those restaurants and work. You have that desire to be one of the leaders in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think about when I go into a property and I say where's chef? I don't even have to know the chef's name, I just say where's chef and everyone points me to, you know, to the executive chef, to the leader. There's never like they don't point me to the sous chef or you know the chef de cuisine. It's chef, that's all I have to say. I mean, it's definitely a title well-earned, and the leadership qualities that go into that and the grit and the grind. I mean you have to work your way up. It doesn't happen overnight. So that's one thing I respect.
Speaker 1:I think, it's interesting, though, that you brought up the whole licensing. That is kind of scary to think about. I mean that you brought up the whole licensing, that is kind of scary to think about. I mean, yeah, that's kind of wild.
Speaker 2:Well. Well, therefore, you can really, behind the scenes, we don't know who's cooking the food. I mean, yes, there's a board of health that has to be cleaned, right, but there's no certification for the level of the chef, right? So you go in and again, there's often the chef quits, no-transcript. There's a lot of different people from different cultures and they're hard workers and everyone, everyone that works in a kitchen usually has to work hard, right, unless it's a quiet restaurant, um, but you don't need, like I said, you don't need a college degree, you don't need.
Speaker 2:There's really very few background checks. You know it's not corporate corporate, yes, in some of the hotels and some of the other things are. You know, drug testing and this and that the restaurant business, if you had a drug test, all the employees, you wouldn't have no employees. And we went through this years ago, one of our, one of our uh restaurants that we were in a high, high end building department store and they required us to test every employee and we were like we can't. You know, 50 percent. Now it costs 200 bucks for the test, the hair and the whatever, and half people fail. So we were like this you know, we're spending all this money doing the test because everybody lies about it, and so we wind up changing that requirement to soften it up so that we can get more employees.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So if there's a chef that has, you know, maybe has accelerated and is just has a burning desire to open his or her own new restaurant, what do you? I mean what do you think that requires? And I mean when? When should they make that jump?
Speaker 2:Well, I think they know. You know there's certain you have to be really good and recognized by the ownership of the building or me or someone else. Most of the chefs and I've got some of them that want they want to open their own restaurants. You've got to be recognized somehow and have a brand name to get there or be able to put an investor group together or somebody. Or somebody came to me and said, listen, I'm ready to, I want to be a partner or I have to move on. We would consider that if they were with us making and they knew the numbers and knew how to make us money, why wouldn't we want to lose? Right, we would, we would figure that out or we would say we can't. But right now, if you get the chef, can find a really good paying job and the right package.
Speaker 2:It's not very friendly for small businesses to be in business. It's very hard, right, the employees that go to the benefits you know the PTO days, the sick days and everybody deserves that. But the margins in a restaurant are very hard. Food prices are up, labor is up, rent is up and the worker these days, compared to 10 years ago, wants to work less. They don't want to work more. They want to work less for more. So now your payroll is our enemy. Right now, the food cost is crazy. So how much are you willing to pay for chicken dinner when you go to a good restaurant, a roast chicken or a steak? Right, because I can tell you right now, in New York City, you're in Dallas. If you're in New York City, I'm going to be in Dallas next month cooking with Dean Fury, so I have. If you go to New York City right now and you eat a salad at a bistro and a roast chicken, it's going to cost you 60 bucks.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:The salad is about $20. Just a plain salad, if you want something a little, it's called. The average appetizer in a bistro is $20, $25. Any chicken dish is $35, $45. 20 25. Any chicken dish is 35 45. Now if you want something you want to sit, tuna tartare is an app 26 27. You want a filet, mignon is 60 bucks. So steak hat to go to a steakhouse you spend 125 a head, no matter what. Even that's what. One glass of wine, maybe two tax tip. So you do the math on that.
Speaker 2:It's very expensive to eat out. Corporate cards pick up some of it, but myself even I live in the suburbs I go out to dinner alone and have an appetizer and a main course and a beverage. No dessert. Bread's $5. It's cost me $80, $90 with tax and tip. That's a lot of money. It's $5. It's costing me $80, $90 with tax and tip. That's a lot of money.
Speaker 2:If you go to a fast food restaurant and have a quarter pound, or whatever you call it, a meal the fries and a burger or something it's about $13 or $14. That's a quarter. That's four ounces of meat. Four ounces of meat at $14. Now if you go for an eight-ounce burger that we serve right with fries. Why don't we charge $28? These $28 is a lot for a burger in people's minds but it's the equivalent of doubling the meat. And even if you charge $22, it still expensive. Right for a burger 24.
Speaker 2:But now the burger prices in a restaurant are above 20 bucks. For most for a quality patty. Right, an eight ounce burger or seven ounce burger, it's got to be $24, otherwise can't make money. Because then you got the bread, you got the pickle, the fries, the ketchup, and then you and then you have a burger at $25, a glass of wine at $15. You're at $40 for a burger, tax and tip $50. Burger and a beer. That's the reality of the world we live in now. So now people are going to go out less. They're going to order pizza, deliver it, they're going to make their own food at home. So instead of going out on Tuesdays and Fridays for dinner, you might only go out on Friday, and that's what we're looking at.
Speaker 1:That's a burger.
Speaker 2:That's a burger Fifty bucks Burger and a beer. So I mean, now think about it, how much would you spend a month on eating out? So we have to figure out how to keep the labor costs low so that and because the food cost is high, so that we can. You know, it's a juggling act and any of the veteran restaurant tours will tell you that it's harder to make money now than ever. And then there's lawsuits and there's this and that and I don't want to paint a grim picture on your podcast everything. But there's all kinds of stuff. We need protection for everything Sexual harassment, age discrimination, and even if one of our other employees harasses another employee, we're responsible for it. So it goes on and on and on. So if a chef can find a really great job and get really good at it, you've got to be careful about what you wish for and being an entrepreneur, or make sure you go in with the right deals 100% strong deal, protect yourself and go in with the right group and don't rush it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and before you went into your own restaurant did you talk to other people? I mean to get the picture. I mean I think that would help if they went out and talked about it.
Speaker 2:Well, my first venture as a partner was with a big group that you know. They had founded TGI Fridays in the 60s and they owned Smith Wrenski and so I was a 10% minor partner, which allowed me to learn some of the business of it and make some money. And then I went on my own after that, had some bad partnerships, had some good ones mostly good and learned a lot. But I'm telling you it's so difficult, you know, because it's you know it's ever-changing and it's competitive. You know, once you get there, get there doesn't mean you stay there. Once you get to a top rank position, you still got to work. You're as good as your last meal and your last yelp and your last this and and then again, listen to the word yelp, listen to, we're under a microscope. Every meal right and an opinion of someone that might their opinion might not be valid. The average person eats 90,000 meals in their lifetime. 90,000. Three meals a day, living to maybe 80, 85. I forgot how I did the math 90,000 meals right.
Speaker 2:Somebody has an overcooked burger and they try to strangle you. It's one meal. The room for error is there and it's an opinion too. So when people get so upset about a human error, whether it's the waiter's fault for not ordering it right, or the cook didn't do it right or something along the way, or it took too long I mean, there's very few professions. You wait for a table in a restaurant for 45 minutes. They're going to give you a bad review. If the food took too long, bad review. You wait. Go to a doctor's office. You wait an hour. Nobody gives them a bad review.
Speaker 2:It's not fair, nobody gives a dentist a bad review for waiting. Well, it's just that we're held to a different standard.
Speaker 2:You know If the dentist had. You know you go to the dentist, they get six rooms, one guy working, a girl, woman, and they sit you in a chair and they go from room to room and it's like you know, it's like a waiter. They get six tables. All right, I'm going to drill you here, I'm going to do this one. It's a magical thing to see when you're good but you're waiting while other people are being served too. But you know, it's just a comparison. So, yeah, the restaurant business gets criticized a lot and there's high expectations and you've got to deliver.
Speaker 2:And when people are opinionated about their food and and the ambiance because they're spending, they're spending real money. You know, let's say, you go to dentists, it's expensive, but you know you don't know how to compare that. You know you can't compare the dentist to your. Like, you compare a crab cake to the other crab cake down the street, right, but that's. You know, everyone's an expert in what they like and food and the music and the drink. And then there's the price tag, right. So and people go out to eat, they drink. So during the pandemic they were drinking more than they were eating. And certain nights of the week people will spend as much on alcohol as food.
Speaker 1:Wow, I know, and certain nights of the week, people will spend as much on alcohol as food. Wow, I know that's. That's okay for us, because we make more money selling alcohol than food. Well, when you're stuck at home with two um gardener twin boys, um yeah, drinks became really important to all of us parents that had to be homeschool teachers. So yeah, but I mean the struggle is definitely real. So I mean with like, in these challenging times, and I find it, as you know, on the other side, as being a vendor I'm like speaking to the choir right now. So where do you find your joy? And amidst all these struggles, well, you uh.
Speaker 2:well, there's also triumphs too. I mean, you know, you wake up and you see a restaurant. Did you know? Fifteen thousand dollars? Last night we had a good night. Numbers are in line, people are happy, good reviews.
Speaker 2:I walk through a dining room, people take pictures. They, uh, they want to say hi. They tell you that I was in one of my restaurants last night. Guys, I had the tilefish. It was so good I'm like I didn't know we had tilefish, it's special. So finally, I said that the chef has been listening. And another guy came up to me and goes oh, and I saw the tilefish come out because I got there real late and it was a beautiful dish and there's a sense of okay. Now he's listening and things are working.
Speaker 2:So when something starts working and you're getting good feedback, um, and you're in. You know, august is tough for us up here, uh, so the numbers are hard. But when you see the chef and the manager working together and the reviews getting stronger, you know that the fourth quarter should be really good. And again, we, we want harmony, we put out fires all the time and we want, uh, teamwork, communication, and when something hits, it hits, you know it's, and that's the way it is. We're oftentimes and during this podcast I don't want to sound like everything is boom and doom. It's not, not. But I like to get the reality of the the situation out there, because we're riding this high as the chef world, you know, and I get all these people coming up and they want jobs and this, and they go to school and they're watching tv and that's really, you know.
Speaker 2:I tell people that. You know, put your son or daughter in the kitchen for three months before you spend $150,000 on culinary food and make sure that they understand what they're giving up. And some people it's great and some people it's not. But that's that the joy is in a lot of things. The joy for me is creating good dishes and designing restaurants and making sure they work, and also the triumphs. But also there were our defeats. You know we'll close a place here or there and again you can't get that attached to it, and one of the things I don't like to do this. But it's not necessarily a failure because we didn't give it a good effort. You know Babe Ruth struck out a few times You're not always hitting the home run.
Speaker 2:It's business is business is business when it gets quiet. You've got to adjust. Sometimes getting up and staying motivated is very important. Discouragement is not first of all, it's not allowed. You don't have time. You get up, you coffee up, you get going and today's a new day.
Speaker 2:The energy of a kitchen is tremendous, hearing those hoods going and the clackety-clack and this and that and people, and then the sizzles and this and that. Food brings joy anyway usually and there's high energy in kitchens and waitstaff and this and that. But when it's good, it's good. When it's good, it's good. It's like three-point shots going in all day long. But when it's bad, you're hitting a rim and you've got to fix it. You mentioned something earlier.
Speaker 2:The amount of stress that you learn to deal with is crazy. And people say, oh, you must be so stressed out. I haven't so stressed out. I haven't been stressed out. I've been stressed out for 45 years. But it's just something you're used to. It's you know, you deal with it. You know there's a fire in a restaurant. Someone didn't show up and I'm like OK, it's a day Today. We're going to have to get through and we will, and then we'll find somebody better to do this position and we have experienced that this week. But you know people get discouraged. Oh, someone in the open. Okay, we lost a few dollars. This and that, let's get, we'll make it up and let's make an adjustment. But you need therapists. Not that we have them on our payroll, but we are.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of issues and scheduling and everyone has a problem A lot of part-time workers, a lot of single moms and single parents that have obligations on certain days, and this happened. You know it's a juggle. It's a juggle but you figure it out. I have a high school friend and she lives down the street from where I live and she's in the tech business and she made a lot of money and she was helping us out with some admin stuff. She's like I cannot believe this business. This is the craziest business I've ever seen. She goes. I can't believe. First of all, she goes. I can't believe how many hours somebody works for that pay and this was a highly paid chef. She goes, but for that many hours they make that it doesn't add up.
Speaker 2:And also there's, you know, and and the chaos, and the chaos and the drama, because it's a drama, business and artistic, and the there's sometimes not very respectful. You're in a corporate office. You don't walk into a corporate office with a McDonald's cup of soda, right, with a straw. You don't go into your office building. I don't think so. But people walk into restaurants with bottles of water, like canteens and stuff now, and I'm like I want a coffee cup and they'll leave it somewhere, like in the dining room, right, they'll leave it somewhere. And my kids and I'll be like listen, we have water, we have coffee, we have soda, we have liquor. I asked the chef. He came in with a canteen. I don't know what was in. It Could have been vodka, could have been Gatorade, I don't know. I said are you going hiking? He said we got nine sinks in the kitchen. We got, you got 16 refrigerators. You can drink all the water and soda you want. I don't know why, but maybe I had a special form, this new culture. I was like I got to bring my own beverage into a restaurant.
Speaker 2:It's crazy. Most of it is. We don't want people bringing things in and taking things out, because why would someone bring a knapsack to work and put in a locker room? The only thing you can do is fill it up and leave. So there's a lot of that too. Right you gotta. We have things that people need at home silverware, wine glasses. So look at china. Somebody moves to new york city from ohio and gets their first apartment or works in a restaurant. Guess, guess what, why, what? Why buy China glassware, silverware if you can take a few home every night and that happens all the time Toilet paper, you know? So there's theft, there's this, there's so many things it's like, but at the end of the day, it's a wildly beautiful business when you dial it in correctly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you have. I mean your story. I mean there's so much more that I want to ask you about. I mean because there's a whole nother story of your heart, like in a society of, you know, being promoting self and things like that, like you really help the community through philanthropies, and I'd love to talk to you at another time about that, because it's just amazing and it's really cool to for for chefs, for people in the industry, you know are just patrons, you know, to listen and hear the stories, the real stories. You know the confessions beyond, you know what they just, you know, sit down and have, you know, their $40 chicken. So that is just crazy. So, but it's true, it is true it's getting very expensive here in Texas too. But so before you leave, I have to ask you what is your confession today? Do you have a confession, something that we might not know about you hobby?
Speaker 2:uh what? Yeah, I'll show you. Well, I have a couple confessions I like okay I, my, my, uh, my uh. Guilty treat is Frozen White Castle.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:One of them I don't really Brenda's with me. My sister, she's never seen me eat them, but and this is my, this is my sidekick.
Speaker 1:I see the trash can.
Speaker 2:This is left.
Speaker 1:If you are listening through our, you know Spotify or Apple Music you guys need to go and look at the video.
Speaker 2:Maybe Lefto Lefto's got a girlfriend now.
Speaker 1:Oh, she's beautiful.
Speaker 2:That's nutmeg. She's a little crazy. She likes her wine. This guy during the pandemic helped me raise money to see the heroes. He was my left-hand man, his name is lefto and he cooks with leftovers hi hi, it's nice to meet you this is, uh, I'm a little, I'm a little funny, much funnier than I was on your podcast, and we're usually much more upbeat, so I don't I feel like I was just talking about all the negative, but we can do it no, right, but he helped me cook during the pandemic.
Speaker 2:We raised money for a couple of charities and he's he's my sous chef. But again, this kind of the joking stuff that goes on with the kitchen Kitchen is very much some in the restaurant business. If you don't have a sense of humor, it's very hard. So one minute, like you said, the the ups and down, one minute you're yelling about something, so the next minute you joke. So we're a little, there's a, there's a, there's an amusement park in the, in the minds of most chefs, especially the creative ones, because you're going uphill, that, you're going around, and then you go through the water and then you know, and it's a crazy ride.
Speaker 2:I was with one of my dear chef friends named Dennis Gavin. We went on a cruise together for a week. I worked for that cruise company, holland America, and he was helping me as my sous chef and we were doing all these things and we spent a week together, went all over Europe and at the you know, and I'm always writing things down creating the dishes. So at the end I was, he was getting in his taxi in New York and I was leaving. I gave him a hug, he gave me a hug and he said he goes. Burke, thank you for inviting me on a trip. He goes. It was great hanging out with all three of you Because we're all over the map. You know we're having three conversations in our head at once sometimes, and this and that, and we might be talking about something. It goes away five minutes and we come back to it. That's the kind of brain you need to be able to juggle everything that goes on in the restaurant business.
Speaker 1:Got to be a little crazy.
Speaker 2:Got to be a little crazy.
Speaker 1:And I have fun. That's a great.
Speaker 2:T-shirt. You definitely have to be a little off-center because it's too stressful and it's too hard to do base. If you counted the hours you work for the money you make, you would be like this is nuts. But you know, like I said, you can't look at it that way.
Speaker 2:You otherwise waiters, make more money than chefs if you looked at it by the hour, and now that waiters won't have to pay taxes, they'll make more, which is another crazy idea, like, like what I mean, you know that's. Is it great for the waiter? Yes, great for the waiter. What happened to the cook? Why is the cook paying taxes and the waiter doesn't? I don't, I disagree with that whole platform, but that's politics, so stay away from that no, I mean there's there's so many things so and I have so many more questions.
Speaker 1:But let's politics Just stay away from that. No, I mean, there's so many things and I have so many more questions.
Speaker 2:Let's do it again. By the way, if you want to meet, I'm going to be cooking with Dean Fearing. I don't know what day, but Franda will let you know. Come to the dinner.
Speaker 1:Well, you guys need to check Chef David out on his. He's on LinkedIn. He has a website chefdavidburkecom. Is that right?
Speaker 2:That is it, chefdavidburkecom. And that's Instagram. And Chef David Burke. Yeah, that's our tag. Nice to meet you.
Speaker 1:No, nice to nice to have you. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2:Bye-bye.
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