$2,500/Month Rent & 300 Sq Ft: How Sam Saverance Built NYC’s First Sloppy Joe Diner

Sam Saverance is the co-founder of Bunna Cafe in Bushwick and the creator of Farley’s Sloppy Joes in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Before opening restaurants, Sam worked as a freelance designer, spent time in finance, and began hosting food pop-ups, one of which evolved into Bunna Cafe, a beloved Ethiopian vegan restaurant that’s been a neighborhood fixture since 2011.

In 2024, Sam launched Farley’s, a 300-square-foot diner-style concept dedicated entirely to the sloppy joe, America’s most nostalgic sandwich. Built for just $2,500 a month in rent, Farley’s runs a lean, efficient operation serving sloppy joes, chips, and sodas while keeping prices affordable and margins healthy.

Over the past decade, Sam has seen the Brooklyn dining landscape transform, from the early days of Smorgasburg pop-ups to a post-COVID world where consumer habits, rent pressures, and oversaturation have changed the rules of running restaurants. Rather than chasing trends, Sam focuses on neighborhood-first growth, organic marketing, and owner presence, building goodwill the old-fashioned way, one customer at a time.

In this episode, Sam breaks down how he opened Farley’s on a shoestring budget, what it takes to survive as a small operator in NYC today, and how to create a concept that feels fresh, fun, and deeply local.

We cover:

• How Bunna Cafe went from pop-up to a Brooklyn institution
• Letting the space shape the concept instead of forcing an idea
• The post-COVID reality of NYC dining and consumer behavior
• Opening Farley’s for under $2,500/month rent with minimal buildout
• How to price affordably without killing margins
• The operational playbook: warmers over fryers, chips over fries
• Neighborhood-first growth and building goodwill as an asset
• Collaborating with local food makers and small brands
• Why Sloppy Joes might be the next big nostalgia food trend
• How to test concepts through pop-ups before going permanent

If you’ve ever dreamed of turning a pop-up into a permanent restaurant, opening in a tiny footprint, or experimenting with low-cost, high-creativity food concepts, this episode is a refreshing, first-hand look at how to do it without losing your mind or your money.

Resources & Links
Farley's Sloppy Joes Website: https://www.farleysnyc.com/
Farley’s Sloppy Joes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farleyssloppyjoes

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Transcript

Alan Li (00:02)
Sam, thanks so much for joining the opening soon podcast. We're really excited to you here today.

Sam Saverance (00:06)
Happy to hear you.

Alan Li (00:08)
Awesome, so ⁓ we'd love to hear a little bit more about your background before we dive into Bunna Cafe and Farley's. ⁓ What got you interested in brick and mortar and ⁓ what brought you here today?

Sam Saverance (00:22)
It's a good question. honestly, so my first restaurant was Bunna Cafe. When we started, actually it's a pop-up restaurant. were part of the early pop-up wave in like late, early 2010s. We did a lot of like dinner parties, like popping up in bars, or bars in places with not much food or any food. And also doing Smorgasburg and other like market events.

And at the time we weren't really convinced we wanted to be a pop-up. I mean, a brick and mortar because of the extra liability. And it's just the outlet. I mean, we were actually doing pretty decently as a pop-up. It was fluid. We didn't have to really put out any money to do it. It's lot of freedom. after about a couple of years, once you build your following, you start really thinking, we gotta have home for them to come to. And also you start getting really tired of.

So we did eventually look for a spot, but it was pretty organic. We didn't actively search for it in terms of hitting up a bunch of brokers. And we did, but we didn't like, we were fine with taking our time. weren't like, we were fine for waiting for the place to come to us. ⁓ so we did actually. We ended up popping up in a bar. ⁓

Alan Li (01:40)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (01:48)
in Bushwick that was, it wasn't open for lunch. It was like a greasy spoon, like divey Southern food bar with $4 rolling rock and shots, which happened back then, way back, yeah. And they were closed for lunch, so I asked the owner if we ⁓ could do a lunch pop-up there during the day, and he was excited about that. So we did that. ⁓ So it was like, you know, wow.

Alan Li (02:00)
on that.

Sam Saverance (02:16)
Diary, Southern oriented, stuff by dinner and very quaint Ethiopian vegan food by lunch. Mash made in heaven. But they went out of business like three years later or three months later. And so he asked me, he gave me first steps on the lease. I was like, yeah, sure. So we did it really, really fast. Like six week build out, change it up and opened up right away. And that's kind of how, from that point forward, like every time we talked about expanding, it's always been just like more about like not

what we wanna do, but what's available for us to do. I don't like putting things in empty boxes. I don't like putting ⁓ anything I have in mind of doing. I don't really like putting an empty box there. I think there's a lot of ⁓ merit to seeing what's already existing and modifying your vision to fit that. Because you'll see things you didn't normally see. Like with this place, had, it was never really, mean, the place actually had a kind of a layout to,

Alan Li (02:54)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Sam Saverance (03:17)
what we were interested in, but we never thought it would be that kind of place, like the divey kind of bar place. And it had a huge bar, like enormous bar. We never expected to have that big of a bar in a restaurant, but it worked out. mean, it ended up being our identity, you know? Like 10 years on, it's what Boone Cafe looks like. It's in it's fit at work. And so for Farley, it's just kind of the same thing. Like I didn't...

Alan Li (03:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam Saverance (03:46)
we weren't actively looking for a place to do a Slawy Joe restaurant. Actually, one of my partners approached me and he's like, hey, I have this place. It used to be like a fried chicken place and it's tiny, but the landlord is super, super cool. He is, by the way, super cool. ⁓ And he's giving me a really good deal for if I'm gonna put something in there. He's like, what would you wanna do? I was like, I don't know. ⁓ And he was like, we could do smash burgers. I was like, yeah, maybe, maybe. And then I just remember one day, was like, my gosh, I've been talking about this.

for the past four years, like, why isn't anybody doing a sloppy joe restaurant? Like, why is it not out there, you know? Like, and it's just a pattern, every month or so I'm like, in a conversation with somebody, was like, you know what, why isn't anybody doing sloppy joes? And it just, one day it just like hit me, it's like, wait, I've been talking about this. And so I was like, dude, we gotta do sloppy joes in this place. And it just, it fit, you know?

Alan Li (04:18)
Hmm. Yeah.

That's good.

Yeah.

So just going back to Buna Cafe, talk to me about what

Sam Saverance (04:41)
Mm-hmm. Sorry,

it's Boona Cafe. Everybody uses Bonara Boona, but officially it's Boona Cafe.

Alan Li (04:47)
Yeah, OK, so going going back to Boona Cafe, ⁓ what were you doing before then and what got you even inspired to do those initial pop-ups going to Smorgsburg and all that beforehand?

Sam Saverance (04:50)
Uh-huh.

I was

doing a little bit of everything. I was a graphic designer. I was in finance industry for a little while. I was traveling a lot. I had ideas for like development organizations in Ethiopia and other places in East Africa. Just kind of my feet in a lot of different things. As far as money though, I was a freelance designer. I was designing for publishing companies, publishing services, and

Alan Li (05:20)
Yeah.

Okay.

Sam Saverance (05:28)
most of them were African. one of the main ones was like owned by a person from Eritrea. So that's what got me into the community among other things. ⁓ And the idea for an Ethiopian restaurant was just really just going to Ethiopia, having a wonderful time, having crazy adventures, and then coming back and meeting Ethiopians and hanging out with them and chatting with them about how do you like rep that culture in the appropriate way, you know?

like in a place like New York. And I ended up finding my partners through that conversation, you know, and just trying things out. Just like super fluid trying things out. Why did we want to do Smorgasburg? I mean, just like, we started out very like basic, I I lived in Bushwick, so we started out just doing things in Bushwick, like rooftop parties, know, popping up in bars, like anything creative we could think of, which at that time, this was like early 2012, 2013, that was like,

the Haiti to do those kind of things in neighborhood like this. So it was super well received. And then we decided to focus on vegan, the Ethiopian vegan cuisine, it's unique, it's delicious, it appeals to vegans and non-vegans alike. And so it endeared us to the vegan community at the time, which was really growing fast. And so we just thought, it was a ⁓ organic, awesome, very intimate growth.

Alan Li (06:28)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (06:55)
And so when you grow you're like, well, what else can I do? We're gonna people actually smorgasburg approach us. I recall. Yeah, I think it's like it was at one point I think we were doing Hester Street Fair at the time and they approached us like hey, you want to come over here? And yeah, we're like sure why not? Yeah

Alan Li (07:08)
I see.

And now it's been what, almost 10, 12 years since you've opened?

Sam Saverance (07:15)
Since we

started Pop-Up, our first Pop-Up was in 2011, so it's 14 years, and then the brick and mortar was in 2014, so it was just over 11 years, 11 and a half years.

Alan Li (07:24)
Okay, so

I mean you got the space as you took it over from you know the prior bar. How has that journey been over the last 12 years since you've had the Brigham Order?

Sam Saverance (07:29)
Mm-hmm.

Well,

if you're talking about the brick and mortar itself, it's been a constant battle with the elements, because it's a pretty old building. As far as the actual intrinsic journey of being a restaurant, it's been unbelievable. We opened up in the perfect time. I don't want to brag. was an institution for a little while. were saying, everybody in the neighborhood would come, they would bring their... The most, biggest...

Alan Li (07:42)
Hmm.

Sam Saverance (08:05)
endearing thing to me is that they'd always bring their parents. know, like I said, if their parents are visiting from out of town, they would always bring their parents to Buna, I think to show them they were doing okay. It was always an experience.

Alan Li (08:12)
I see.

I actually,

I brought my parents to eat Ethiopian food for the first time back in Berkeley. And it's just, don't know why Ethiopian food is like the place to bring your parents, but I think it's something that they just haven't tried before and it's interesting.

Sam Saverance (08:23)
yeah?

It's a thing, absolutely.

Berkeley has amazing Ethiopian food too. I've been to a couple of restaurants there, Air Train restaurants, yeah. It's a thing, yeah. It's like bringing friends, know, any kind of gathering. It's like, I mean, it's our bread and butter.

Alan Li (08:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, because I think it's to like, eat

and it's communal, it's like a different. Yeah.

Sam Saverance (08:47)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So in terms of, are you talking more like brick and mortar in terms of like being in the space physically or does, yeah.

Alan Li (08:56)
Yeah, like being in the

space physically, I mean, if you've survived over, you know, 12 years, it must mean you're doing something right because New York for food is highly competitive as you know.

Sam Saverance (09:08)
yeah,

yeah, it's, ⁓ it was great. ⁓ 12 years on, it's since COVID, it's been more of a struggle. COVID was weird, because I mean, I'm sure a lot of I mean, every every restaurateur I've talked to about this, talked about this, but a COVID ⁓ at least, depending on the event, but COVID definitely changed the fabric of what a restaurant does, but also what its client

the fabric of his clientele, you know, like during COVID it was a struggle, but there was this like motivation to try new things. Like we tried a whole bunch of new things during COVID, like, you know, experimented, really kicked off delivery, which was a real hit. We actually did pretty well during COVID. And then after COVID, the buildup after COVID was so big, like by 2023, like we were

doing more sales than we did even before COVID, was like, it was really like, it's huge. Cause people were just like, it's really happy to be back and out and about. And then ever since it's just been a downhill trip, like since 2023, it's been big, more of a struggle. And I think it is definitely like this neighborhood, but I think it's also a lot of other neighborhoods in New York and not, mean, I guess you hear these all over the country, but people just, they approach dining differently, you know? And,

Alan Li (10:11)
Yeah.

Hmm. What

do you mean specifically by that?

Sam Saverance (10:31)
I don't know. think... ⁓

I think the, ⁓ people are going out less, or if they're going out, they're going out and spending less, or they're trying, I think that people are making it more of special occasion than maybe they would have done in the past, at least from my experience in talking to other people. Do they still go out? Absolutely. ⁓ Do they, ⁓ I think, but it's more than just that, I think in,

Alan Li (10:38)
like people are going out less or

Yeah.

Sam Saverance (11:04)
there's definitely a lot more competition. We're in a neighborhood that's grown really, really, really fast. And it's always a lag time between like the anticipation of growth and then like what's actually happening when you open your doors, you know? So like if people see that the rest of the neighborhood is growing, you get a thousand people wanting to start a restaurant there. You know, they scoop up all the property and open it, but they open all at the same time. So all of sudden there's too many restaurants and not enough people, you know? And then they all start, a lot of them start closing down.

And then it's just weird like up and down and up and down. But right now it's definitely like, there's definitely, I think there's some over saturation. mean, even with Farley's I've seen like, know, Bedside's always like booming and up and coming and great neighborhood, great like supportive neighborhood for new stuff. But I've seen just like three block radius from where we opened, there's like four new restaurants in the past month that have opened at the same time. Yeah.

⁓ so I think there's just, I think there's just an oversaturation probably of restaurants right now and establishments and the clientele has either stayed the same or it's like, become a little more like, frugal. I think like the overall demeanor attitude, like the state of like the tempo, tempo of the temperament of the city affects that, you know, like

Alan Li (12:19)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Saverance (12:31)
There's a of negativity in the news, a lot of stuff that's going on that people are worried about. And think that definitely affects their dining habits. And I think a lot of people just don't want to leave the house, honestly. Yeah, not, yeah.

Alan Li (12:44)
That's really interesting, especially like coming from

a business owner perspective because you have sort of unique insights into people's behavior and eating out is one of the biggest behaviors of people and their friends.

Sam Saverance (12:54)
Mm-hmm.

again.

Yeah, I mean, like for instance, our delivery has been great, honestly, like this whole time, like since we started it and delivery is still pretty strong. People are ordering food, but before COVID, our restaurant would be packed to the brim on a Tuesday, you know, like it would be busy. also, we also, actually a few things, we also kept the prices super low. We were cash only, we kept the prices low, very low.

Alan Li (13:20)
⁓ really?

Sam Saverance (13:28)
And then we also like we made it very affordable, but also was like a really good buy. We felt like you're like mid-level dining. But we had like after COVID, after like switching to credit cards and just the overall like cost of everything going up. Like we've had every price is like crazy and it's still low comparatively speaking for what you get. But everywhere in the city, like prices are like, ashen off the higher and

Restaurant prices and input prices are astronomically higher than they were before COVID. Absolutely.

Alan Li (14:01)
Yeah,

what's a typical meal cost now, you know, at Burna?

Sam Saverance (14:06)
Oh, so you can still get our like basic like five item meal for and we're at where we are. think we're at $17 right now. $17. will fill you up. It'll get you full. You might even have some leftovers. And we still have our like first our feast for two, which is like a big, big plate for two people. Right now that's like 50, I think. But that's still that's like a meal with leftovers for two people. So

you're getting out, you know, spending, can still get out spend less than 20 bucks. But before COVID, like even like when we started, it was like you can get out places in most places, you can get out and spend less than $15, you know, or you can really get Yeah. And that now we're talking about how $20 is a deal for dinner, you know, which is strange. Right.

Alan Li (14:52)
Yeah, no, as

a New York diner, I've definitely noticed that as well.

Sam Saverance (14:57)
Yeah, totally.

Everywhere.

Alan Li (15:00)
⁓ So knowing sort of, you know, the, I guess the headwinds in the restaurant industry and what's going on, you still started another restaurant with Farley's. ⁓ Talk about the decision process.

Sam Saverance (15:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, crazy.

Alan Li (15:18)
And this is like the complete opposite of guess Boonek

Sam Saverance (15:20)
Yeah.

sloppy high school, middle school sandwiches. Yeah, cafeteria

sandwiches. Ironically, it's actually like, as far as like the actual method of cooking and all, it's very similar. I took so many operational aspects of Buna and applied it to this and it works perfectly. Because this, like Buna's also, our Ethiopian food is very like stewy, saucy, right? Like you heat it up, you cook it early, you put it in warmers, keep it warm.

Make sure the consistency is good. You know, it's not too runny, not too thick. And it's exact same with sloppy joes, exact same. So it's just more like a man. like everything that's cooked, you know, ahead of time, but you're, all more about managing the like consistency of the flavor when you're actually serving it. But as far as why, Ethiopian, so Bunna's me and two Ethiopian partners. And, you know, it's been, it's been a, ⁓

Alan Li (15:58)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Sam Saverance (16:20)
sanctimonious journey for me. It's been unbelievable. I feel like Ethiopia is my second home. feel like these people are my second family and I them to death. But I'm from Texas. I grew up in suburb of Dallas. I'm from a completely different culture. And I'm a part of that culture to a degree. So I always treated Boona with a little bit of a gentleness. I don't wanna...

Like I thought it's sacred to me. I don't want to mess with like the cultural nor I don't want to like get too creative from my perspective on things because I don't want to like mess with that. the beauty of what the culture is right. Sloppy jokes. I don't care. Like I'll mess with sloppy jokes like sloppy. It is ironically Sega.

Alan Li (17:01)
Yeah.

This is more of your playground.

Sam Saverance (17:11)
Playground,

yeah, yeah, yeah. But also tastefully, know, like it is, joes is a cultural staple in America. Like whether we realize it or not, I literally like sat here and asked every customer once the last time you had a sloppy joe and they're like, good question. And they're like, oh, and then tell me a story like middle school, yeah, high school. Like, but they all know, you know, like, like they.

Alan Li (17:27)
Let's go.

Sam Saverance (17:35)
Like I put it, I put flyers out and I asked that question, my flyers and like people respond to me. They're like, actually I get, mean, I could actually start a podcast, like Slop Talk. We could do this. We could have talks, whole conversation with people about Sloppy Joe experiences, which would be kind of cool. I mean, it's, it's, it's, yeah, we can talk about it if you want, but it's, it's interesting because yeah, there's no, no, it's not, it's not really found in restaurants very much. It's at all.

Alan Li (17:48)
Huh. Yeah?

Sam Saverance (18:03)
But it's like, it's an institutional staple of American society, whether we realize it or not. Like every, if you grew up in this country, more chances than not, you've had a sloppy job, you know, like, and it's always been considered like a simple, like, you know, like afterthought of the sandwich. And so, but I wanted to like bring in kind of the forefront and like make it still taste like a, that afterschool, like delight thing, but like a little more elevated, a little better ingredients, you know.

I say like not healthy, but not necessarily unhealthy, you know? And then take that and then go and dive deep in other cultural influences and figure out how to swap that as well. So like we're basically, swap, we'll take the culture, we'll swap a culture. Like you give us a origin story, we'll figure out how to swap it, you know? So we've talked to like, I've talked to Iranians about doing a farzijo, I've talked to like Polish people about doing a slawijo, you know?

Alan Li (18:36)
Yeah.

I see.

Sam Saverance (19:03)
Of Ethiopian Joe, we have a good Ethiopian Joe. We already have like a Mekong Joe, which is like a Southeast Asian influence, the Cambodian Thai flavors, Vietnamese flavors. Yeah, Cuban Joe, Cubano, take the Cubano sandwich, disintegrated into a slop. And that's one of our slops. Cajun Joe, Texas style barbecue Joe, like with brisket.

Alan Li (19:12)
Interesting.

Yeah.

And I know like when your friend presented you with the opportunity to open something here, you know, you were also considering Smash Burgers, which is, you know, going through a trend right now and it's super hot. ⁓ How do you work very much? ⁓

Sam Saverance (19:37)
Not very, I wasn't considering it very much. Nah,

it was just mentioned. was like, ⁓ it could, but we should try something unique, know, like something different. Yeah. Go ahead, sorry.

Alan Li (19:46)
Yeah.

No, no. So I'm curious when you like, you know, when you're opening a new restaurant, like what is the goal for you? Is it to be innovative? Is it to make money? Is it to express your passion? I'm curious for you, what is the goal?

Sam Saverance (20:01)
Mm-hmm.

I don't think you're going to be able to be successful unless you incorporate a little bit of all of those things. You that's a bit of everything. Like you definitely need to make money. mean, let's not be stupid. Of course, that's going to always be there. Doesn't have to be the, you know, that's not good. Like, here's the thing, like I think if you, if you keep that in the back of your mind, but focus on the other things, the passion, the inspiration, the, the, uh,

creativity, the money comes afterwards. you know, like if you don't think about it, you're gonna get it, you know, just just be smart and you know, run a run a tight ship, run a good ship. It's efficient. But if you get to just like really dive into the other parts, which are actually a lot more fun, then you'll make the money, the money will come. And then even the times of financial pressure, I really don't, I really avoid trying to think about it on a dollar, like on money, like dollar costs kind of situation. Like I definitely like, make sure that

we stay as efficient as possible, but I don't want to just focus on churning out stuff to make money. I want to maintain a level of consistency, creativity, fun, have a good time with it. Because also if you're running a restaurant, it's gonna suck up most of your, like, you're not gonna have much else that you can do. It's gonna take a very huge chunk of your life, so you have to enjoy it. You have to enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it, you're gonna get burnt out so, quickly.

Alan Li (21:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, for the initial investment to open the restaurant, where did this come from? Did you have to raise money? Was it bootstrapped?

Sam Saverance (21:39)
For Farley's, we boost wrapped it. I mean, we, yeah, we pulled in a little bit of money. We pulled money here and there, not much, just a few tens of thousands. Cause the place was already, it's a hole in the wall. It's a small like 300 square foot spot. was already had a good head and it had a lot of stuff in it already. It definitely needed a ton of cosmetic improvements and equipment. But yeah, it was a pretty cheap build out really and quick, know, and

Alan Li (21:59)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (22:08)
We just spent a lot on like mainly just like cosmetic stuff, making sure I like the diner style that we like, you know? But yeah, it's all our own personal funding. I have two partners, so it's the three of us, yeah.

Alan Li (22:18)
Okay,

I see. And then how do you divvy up the responsibility between you and your two partners?

Sam Saverance (22:26)
Pretty, pretty solid. Like I have ⁓ one of them is the builder. He's, he's, he's worked on the contracting, getting everything together, HVAC, everything, you know, he's, he's really focused on that, you know. And then the other is managing the kitchen. He comes from a kitchen management background. So he was actually in there like working on operations and I do, I do like everything else, like business setup, payroll, marketing.

you know, putting the money together, like anything that involves.

not actually, this is all the other stuff that the halo that goes around that. And it's my same responsibility, mainly with Boona too, like it's what I always did, know, like back burner, like focusing on make sure the business side of it's running well. And then also marketing, create like social media, marketing, business relations, know, opportunities and yeah, behind the scenes, behind the scenes stuff, know, it's like.

Alan Li (23:05)
Yeah. Yeah.

That makes sense. ⁓

For the design and the sort of diner field, is that a concept that you came up with and executed yourself or did you have to bring in outside help to get that off the ground too?

Sam Saverance (23:41)
I mean, we bought in contractors, you we bought in our friends to build it, but it was our it was me and my partner's idea. We all put it together ourselves.

Alan Li (23:49)
the design, the

aesthetic you guys put together yourselves.

Sam Saverance (23:52)
Absolutely,

yeah. It was a collaborative thing.

Alan Li (23:56)
I see. And for, you mentioned 300 square feet. How much is that for rent in Bed-Stuy?

Sam Saverance (24:03)
I mean, we have a pretty good deal. We're paying like less than 2500 for it, so that way. yeah, we don't have a basement, it's just like good, you know, it's, it's, it's, I mean, honestly, for the square footage, I don't know. It's, but it's for what we need, you know, it's great. Like it's, it's exactly like, cause we don't, the other beautiful thing about sloppy Joe's is you can keep the menu simple because we're

Alan Li (24:08)
⁓ that's pretty great.

Sam Saverance (24:30)
introducing a new product. So we don't have to throw a bunch of new stuff on there that's going to take more space, know, and like storage. So we just keep it simple like our set of sloppy joes, some chips, some delicious sodas, you know, maybe a couple like desserts. And so our storage, we don't require much storage at all. can keep it all in place and ⁓ it works, you know, so we were able to get away with paying that kind of a rent and not having to worry about having a basement, you know, having

Alan Li (24:35)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (25:00)
Like we just figured out how to make it fit. ⁓ So it just works for us.

Alan Li (25:02)
Yeah. And how

is it currently staffed up? Is it a cook and a cash register? Are you working in the business or?

Sam Saverance (25:11)
We're, we're,

we're, yeah, we're, we're putting our time in, you know, like my partner is running operations. He's putting a lot of time in. I put in a few hours here and there. We do have a one employee, staff that we were keeping on for now, but it's as long as while we're building, you know, while we're growing and while like slow most of the time, there's no point in having like employees necessarily. I'm actually, I'm actually happy to be there because I get to interact with the customers. You know, I get to rep the company.

I think it's really important when you first start a restaurant having like owner presence, know, like seeing that the owner is actually there running the place. ⁓ And then when you bring in employees, make sure that they see that too, you that you're ripping it and that you're willing to do the same job that they're doing.

Alan Li (25:47)
Yeah.

Yeah. I'm

curious with opening Buna and then also opening Farley's, what were some of the differences that you've noticed in the, yeah.

Sam Saverance (26:05)
⁓

biggest thing is the timeframe. I Farley's was, mean, Buna was a two and a half year adventure before we had our actual restaurant, you know. So we had a long time to build our customer base, to figure out our brand, we had a ton of time. It worked on it was on a turtle's pace. I mean, it was was it was solid growth, but it was still like there was plenty of time for us to like, get that going. This one, I mean, came up with the idea late last year. So

Alan Li (26:15)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (26:35)
We started, mean, it was about six months from concept to opening doors. So having a lot faster, which means we had to push a lot harder. I mean, I actually tried to do pop-ups for a month and a half or so, like five days a week in different places just to get some momentum. And it was actually great. It built up nicely, but we all got burnt out doing it. We didn't because we couldn't. Yeah, that plus running other running Boona plus.

Alan Li (26:39)
Hmm. Yeah.

firing.

Sam Saverance (27:03)
Building the place out, yeah, this is too much. ⁓ yes. Reception? It's been good, it's been positive. ⁓ There are always gonna be haters, especially for something like sloppy joes, they just don't really, they stay on Reddit. So it's fine. The feedback in Bedside has been amazing. Like everybody, especially the,

Alan Li (27:06)
Yeah. What's the reception been so far at Farley's? Yeah.

Sam Saverance (27:32)
old school OG neighborhood folks are just like, yeah, like, this is awesome. Like, they're like, you know, they're talking about their child. I mean, it's great. It's like really, really like supportive. I really love being in a bedside, like, you know, I mean, having conversations, you know, everybody all my neighbors, my places, you know, the other restaurants, the bars, the barbershops, all of it. And we sit and we talk, we talk about random stuff. And then, you know, I've talked to them about like,

their feedback on the sloppy joke. What do you think about the pricing for the neighborhoods? get their feedback, but everybody's super, super supportive. I think there is a, I'm trying to remember my business school lingo, my MBA lingo, but being a, what is it when you're like a leading, like you're introducing a new concept or a new industry, know, like that business, you're the, what's the word?

Alan Li (28:30)
An error.

Sam Saverance (28:32)
Yeah, there's actually a word business school, but like being the first to do this, you're introducing a new concept. so they're, yeah, first to market. So like, there's always going to be a lag because people are going to have to like dive into the pool, you know, like, so they might say, this sounds really good. But then actually coming over and like trying one is a different story, you know? So I think we're experiencing a bit of that lag, but it's getting better. Like we're getting...

Alan Li (28:38)
of First to Market.

Sam Saverance (29:00)
know, every week is getting slightly better, slightly better. We've had some great media articles written on us from Time Out and The Reader. I guess we were on Fox News too, I didn't even know. Like my neighbor told me you guys are on Fox News like our first week, I was like, okay. Just to show you how many people actually watch TV anymore. But so we've had, it's been good momentum and I've been trying to do like, I'm gonna do, we're doing like a street party this weekend, know, bringing in performers.

Alan Li (29:16)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (29:30)
So I'm trying to do some stuff that makes the presence more known. But it's been a slow growth. think there is a money crunch, but I think I'm okay with it though, because I found that the organic growth is so much more lasting than the fast flash in the pan, what is it, sweep you off the feet kind of like Instagram bolting, that kind of.

Alan Li (29:35)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Saverance (29:58)
⁓ loyalty is like very fleeting and can disappear like snap of a finger, know, but this is like, like focusing more on just like talking to the neighborhood, talking to your neighbors, you know, identifying the ones that become regular is like that's kind of thing. We'll keep you going for a long time, long, especially in neighborhood like Bed-Stuy.

Alan Li (30:03)
Hmm.

I see. mean,

how many customers are you getting per day or how many sloppy joes do you get to sell per day now?

Sam Saverance (30:26)
We're

up to like, let's see, we're doing like, we're doing about 30 customers right now. We're only up for like eight hours right now, but like, yeah, it's like 30, on average about 30 or so, but it's been, it's up like a few every week, you know, so.

Alan Li (30:42)
Yeah. Okay.

And then for the media mentions, I saw that there were some articles in AIDR and Time Out. How did you get those? Were those all organic or did you reach out? Do you work with VR?

Sam Saverance (30:49)
Mm-hmm.

They

reached out to me, or mean, either they reached out to me and then time out this lady Morgan, she actually wrote an article on Boona and I asked her, hey, by the way, I'm doing this. So you want to write about that as well. Yeah, I don't really, I don't really, don't, also with Boona, I didn't really reach out too much because like they'll find you. Like if you have an interesting concept, like it's their job to find you, you know?

Alan Li (31:04)
Yeah.

I see.

me.

Sam Saverance (31:21)
It's their job. So all you have to do is make sure your social media is solid and you're posting cool stuff and they will find you. If you build it, they will come. ⁓

Alan Li (31:28)
Yeah,

I like your style. It's a lot of sort of go with the flow and ⁓ you know, just as things are, there's like a natural pace. Whereas a lot of people I've spoken to, you know, have hired PR agencies months before they open to make sure it's prepped and they've spent, you know, a million dollars on the build outs for their restaurant. And it sort of needs to be the success. But you're I think you've kind of taken the opposite approach.

Sam Saverance (31:34)
Yeah

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I mean, if I had a million dollars to drop and not worry about it, I'd probably do that. But we're not all so lucky. I mean, I've never really felt comfortable hiring a PR agency. And I'm not saying that's a good thing, because I think I might be missing out on a lot by doing so. But just the idea of spending money to have someone rep your brand is super scary. It's like having a, I don't know.

Alan Li (32:01)
Hahaha

Sam Saverance (32:25)
It's like your brand, your business, it's your thing, it's your child. having spent spending money on somebody to take care of it the same way you would is scary. And I think, are they able to provide new insights and ideas on how to do things? Absolutely. I just don't really like a lot of media, like brand PR firm or

Alan Li (32:36)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (32:52)
related media, I don't really like it. don't know. It seems kind of cliche and tacky. Yeah, cliche and tacky. I'd rather be stupid and create. I'd be like, I'd rather be goofy, funny, and you know, like make people laugh or roll their eyes than do this standard thing. the stuff I do, like the posts I do are kind of like, yeah, they're kind of goofy. They're silly, you know, like purposely a little like, old school, I don't know. But it's like,

Alan Li (32:56)
Fair.

Sam Saverance (33:23)
It's just more fun to do it that way. people, at least you have to know your neighborhood, but people seem to like get it. They get that we're being like, messing around.

Alan Li (33:33)
Okay. So I guess.

Sam Saverance (33:36)
I want to

say one more thing. I'll say one more thing. mean, sloppy joes are not unattractive. I mean, they're not beautiful sandwich, right? I would say they're like, they have a great personality. They're not like, it's not the most Instagramable thing. So like, I just decided to go with that, really honest. let's let, let's videotape people eating them and just like the slop falling off them, you into their lap. Let's just, let's get, let's be honest for what it is, you know, like, and not shy away from

Alan Li (34:03)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, no, no, no. That's interesting, too. For the Slavijos and the recipes and doing a different type of slop, who comes up with all those concepts?

Sam Saverance (34:06)
I feel like that's working pretty well. Sorry, go ahead.

So when we first started, I am not a chef. I trust myself in the kitchen. I don't necessarily trust myself in the kitchen with other people. ⁓ I'm getting better. Anyway, I've had my moments, but I don't know. I would never like try to be the one to make this food. But we did a good friend of mine, Fred, who owns a really good Vietnamese place in Bushra called Nha Minh.

Alan Li (34:48)
Hmm.

Sam Saverance (34:48)
and

I've known him for a long time. He's a really good chef. He's got great culinary creativity. So I reached out to him to help us with the original recipes and he did, he like blew it away. And every time I thought of a new concept, I'd reach out to him and we'd have like a two hour, you know, like bang up cooking session, some stuff in, like do a second round and then put it out. So he's been, he's been an amazing part of our journey. He's been awesome. I have been able to like, for the later recipes, kind of like take

Alan Li (34:55)
I see.

Sam Saverance (35:18)
from his influence and go on my own a little bit. We still use them, he's still there, he's super awesome as a consultant for us. But it's been kind of more of a collaborative thing between the three of us now about how we're gonna do these. we're learning ourselves by doing them. ⁓ Every sloppy joke that we have has the same base, we use the same like,

Alan Li (35:31)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (35:48)
base of veggies and the whole point is to like be able to have that base that actually wraps the sloppy Joe and then add the different ingredients to make it taste. Have it have a homage to like a different place, you know, a different culture or a different culinary style. So it's.

Alan Li (35:59)
Yeah.

What's been your

favourite sloppy joe or different type of flop?

Sam Saverance (36:07)
Oof.

You're gonna make me choose between my children? How dare you? My babies. I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm terrible at favorites. I will tell you what's unique about a father. I'll tell you what's unique about all of them. I mean, right now, okay, I'll tell you. My favorite right now is prior to the barbecue, it does have a, we got a really good brisket from this food truck called a.

Alan Li (36:11)
Yeah. ⁓

you

Sam Saverance (36:36)
Empire barbecue that's in this bar called Hanks nearby. I'm collaborating with them and they gave us like really solid brisket. So it has a really awesome like, it does taste like like a chopped brisket sandwich you might get in Texas, you know, it has that same flavor. I think it's really hitting really well. But all of ours have kind of a unique, awesome flavor to it. Our vegan Joe is actually really good. We're just using Beyond Meat and ⁓ smother sauce and tamari. And, it's, I mean,

everybody that has it, it's like, actually tastes more like a sloppy joke than anything I've ever had, you know? So it's good. And we're also doing...

Alan Li (37:10)
Really? Is there Ethiopian

version yet?

Sam Saverance (37:15)
No, I haven't done it yet. I've been putting that off because I need it to, I need, first of all, I got to, I need to get a couple of my staff at Buna down like on it so that, cause I want it to make it, I want it to be able to like, I have a couple of really amazing staff at Buna that I've won in particular that's like ran restaurants in Ethiopia. So like he's, very knowledgeable and he's like trying to make it over here. So I want, I want to spend time with him to actually sit down and like really, really dive deep into the recipe.

Alan Li (37:42)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Sam Saverance (37:44)
I just, since we've opened, haven't really had time, like once things settle down, we have a really good flow. I can go back to doing that. But. ⁓

Alan Li (37:50)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (37:54)
What was the question?

Alan Li (37:56)
I think you were going to talk about another sloppy Joe.

Sam Saverance (38:01)
Oh, yeah, we're also doing dogs. We're doing like sloppy dogs. It's a new concept. we like it's like a chili dog, basically. But we get a good hot dog. We put slop on top, every stop you want. And we do a vegan version too. Yeah, it's kind of a no brainer, but it's perfect. It works really well. Like, yeah, really, really good. People get to choose also choose like what type of like this cool. have all these slops, you can choose your, you know, like seven, eight different varieties, like how you can make your dog, which is pretty awesome. Yeah.

Alan Li (38:12)
I found solutions.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's

cool. I'm curious, know, because this is so new, but where do you hope to be in a year or two? you know, tell me about the menu, tell me about the space, tell me about how many sloppy joes you're hoping to sell. ⁓

Sam Saverance (38:45)
I mean, honestly, this concept is definitely expandable. if you can get the momentum where it needs to be, where it's running on its own. then, you talk about PR team. mean, honestly, like, if we get to a certain level, yeah, I'll hire a PR team. But like, this is a very, like, replicable concept. in a year or two, in two years, I would be disappointed if we didn't have, like, a couple more open in the city.

Alan Li (39:15)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (39:15)
And we'll see from there. This is definitely a thing that could go pretty far. ⁓ Be specific, but it could go better.

Alan Li (39:23)
Yeah, I mean, are there, yeah,

are there restaurants that only focus on sloppy joes like yours?

Sam Saverance (39:31)
Not yet. They will be soon probably, but no, we're probably the first. I mean, I've done some research and I haven't found one. Definitely not in like the Northeast. I think there might be one in South Carolina, but like, if we're not the first, we're like the second or the third. That focuses just on sloppy jokes in America. Yeah.

Alan Li (39:40)
Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. How

did you come up with the name Farley's? ⁓

Sam Saverance (39:52)
It's just a simple name. It's an homage to nothing really. They wanted to call it, we messed around with it, like Slop Shop, or putting my name on it, Sammy. And I just like, nah, I don't want it to... I just want a name that someone can just say, hey, let's go to Farley's, and not really mean anything. It's like saying, I don't know, what's it saying? Well, mean, McDonald's was like that.

Alan Li (40:13)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (40:21)
I forgot, I mean, guess the founders were McDonald's, but like, it's just, I think there's a merit to just like, especially when expanding nationwide or whatever, just like keep it a simple name.

Alan Li (40:30)
I mean the name's great, but it's, I mean you literally just thought of it, I guess.

Sam Saverance (40:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, we went through a bunch of things and I was just like, you know what, let's just call it Farley's. Farley's sounds good. And then we just went with it.

Alan Li (40:42)
It's, yeah,

I mean, it reminds me of watching probably like a 90s movie and maybe like you're coming back from a football game with your friends driving in a car. Like it's like, yeah.

Sam Saverance (40:56)
Let's go to Farley's. Yeah. Man, I'm starving. What's open?

Let's go to Farley's. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't know. mean, names are like, I know. Sometimes there's a name, you have a name and it hits. Sometimes you just call it anything, it doesn't matter.

Alan Li (41:16)
It's true. you're first, yeah, sometimes the company makes the name versus the other way around anyways.

Sam Saverance (41:17)
Keep this stuff open.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Alan Li (41:25)
⁓ Cool. I'm curious, how are you spending your time between Buna and Farley's right now?

Sam Saverance (41:33)
Um, like how am I divvying it up? Uh, it's hard. It's like 50, 50 probably. mean, like probably 60, 40 right now. I mean, I have, I have a family, I have a child too. So I'm, I'm burning, I'm burning, I'm burning a like triangular candle on three ends. It's a weird, a weird, like one of those by candles, you know, and they're all on fire. Yeah. Yeah. And I got a little sleep here and there, pretty busy. Pretty, pretty busy.

Alan Li (41:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely if Marlee's bitten. Yeah.

I see.

⁓ Well, yeah, this has been super neat. I'm excited to see where Farleys goes and I'll have to stop by next time I'm in Bushwick.

Sam Saverance (42:14)
When's the last time you had a Stocky Joe?

Alan Li (42:18)
I mean, I can't even remember, but I think it's in the cafeteria in high school. Yeah.

Sam Saverance (42:23)
cafeteria.

Do you remember what it tasted like?

Alan Li (42:28)
I do remember what it tastes like. I feel like it has hints of barbecue to it but it's not like totally barbecue ⁓ and I remember the one I had is like more stringy meat so it was like a little bit longer. Yeah well I grew up in Atlanta Georgia. ⁓

Sam Saverance (42:35)
Yeah.

Alright. Where did you grow up? In West Coast?

Oh wow, okay. Oh yeah,

they do a lot of sloppy jokes. Interesting. I wonder.

Alan Li (42:54)
for, yeah,

13 years.

Sam Saverance (42:57)
I wonder if it was like a pull port thing or something.

Alan Li (42:59)
I think the one I had is a pulled pork one. I don't know what the classic sloppy joe is. Is it pulled pork or it ground beef?

Sam Saverance (43:02)
Probably, yeah.

No, it's ground beef.

It's just ground beef, like tomato stuff, like paste, bunch of condiments, celery. It's not that complicated. it's like eating spaghetti sauce on a bun, or bolognese on a bun.

Alan Li (43:28)
interesting. For some reason, when I think of sloppy joes, it's more of the pulled pork style. I don't know if that's considered a sloppy joe, but...

Sam Saverance (43:29)
Yeah.

I don't know. I think,

I don't know what they call that. I mean, you can call anything a sloppy show, I guess. Origin story is, two origin stories. One is like Sioux City, Iowa in the early twenties. It's had a greasy spoon diner and a guy in the bad game show made these awesome like loose meat sandwiches with tomato sauce on it. And the other origin story is Miami, or no, it's Cuba, Havana, pre Castro and... ⁓

Alan Li (43:55)
Mm.

Yeah.

Sam Saverance (44:03)
Ernest Hemingway used to go down to Havana and there's this guy Jose who made an awesome Pica de Luz sandwich there and he brought it back to where told the owner of this bar in Key West, which still exists, the real name is Bar Sloppy Joe's and sell the Sloppy Joe. So there's a Sioux City, Iowa origin story and a Havana origin story, which is why our first two drawers was the original and the Cubano and much to both.

Alan Li (44:19)
Mm.

Yeah.

I see, I like that.

Does the sloppy Joe travel well given it's so saucy? How do you deliver?

Sam Saverance (44:37)
That's a very

good question. we had a really troubleshoot that. And the answer is no, it doesn't troubleshoot well. So what we do is, even if it gets little soggy, it still tastes delicious. So a lot of people are okay with that. But we do give people the option when they do delivery that we can separate it. Basically, you can slop it. So we'll put the slop in a souffle cup.

Alan Li (44:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam Saverance (45:06)
heat resistant

and then toast the buns, give you directions on how to put it on, do it yourself. But most people have still chosen for us to do it. they're like, think they're okay with that reality. That system would be a little soggy, but it hasn't been terrible. Like we made a point to try to like make sure the water consistency in our sloughs are not too much, you know? So that again, this is like, this is, and I learned all this from Buna, like same thing that deal with a Buna, you know, like.

Alan Li (45:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam Saverance (45:32)
And when we package our stuff, our delivery of Buna, we also separate all the different sauces so you can do it yourself to like maintain that feel, you know? So in this case, but in this case, like, yeah, it's just a matter of like, like the cooking part happens before, like it's very easy to like put these things together and cook it in the store, it lasts forever. It lasts a very long time, not too long, but a decent amount of time for restaurant food.

Alan Li (45:38)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (46:01)
So you can, ⁓ it's more about maintaining this texture, you know, when you're warming it, when keeping, when you're still warmers, make sure you have a solid texture, not too runny, not too dry. And make sure every, we use like ice cream scoop, make sure every scoop looks like it should.

Alan Li (46:23)
Yeah. And you guys pair it with chips right now too, right?

Sam Saverance (46:27)
That's all,

People are asking us about fries and I'm like, maybe eventually, but like we're in a small space in the middle of summer. I really don't want a fryer. I really don't want a fryer going on there. And honestly, like.

Alan Li (46:38)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (46:41)
I'm a firm believer in keeping simple menus. I don't hate like 10 page menus, especially when you're starting out. Like you have a new concept, just try everything we have. We'll talk about fries later, it's fine. We'll go with chips for now. I chips are great because you can scoop with them. So the whole point is you're in, you have the sloppy Joe in one of those like triangular cone, like paper ⁓ sleeves.

Alan Li (46:46)
same. Yeah.

Sam Saverance (47:09)
and you eat it in that and while you're eating it, the meat's falling out of the bottom and then you just grab your chips and scoop the meat out and you're done. Or we can make a Frito pie. We've made Frito pies out of it. Like rip open the chips, put them on the bottom and scoop and slop on top. Instant Frito pie or Chippy pie, whatever. Like nachos, yeah. So yeah. Well, we have cheese too.

Alan Li (47:26)
Like a nachos?

I love nachos, so I gotta try that too at some point.

What do people drink? ⁓ What's the go-to drink with the sloppy joe?

Sam Saverance (47:41)
So we do some nice sodas. We've done like, I mean, the biggest celery. We do Mexican Coke. Everybody loves Mexican Coke. It's a big seller. But we do like try to New York. We do like stewards. We do like the celery. We have like the New York celery, which you know what that is, right? The celery soda. You had that before? I used to try it. It's what is it? Dr. Brown's, think. It's celery soda, which sounds not good, but it's actually amazing.

Alan Li (47:48)
Yeah.

No.

It's you buy at

the supermarket or what do mean?

Sam Saverance (48:06)
⁓ Our

distributor you can find it at the supermarket. I mean sometimes like certain specialty, but yeah, you can definitely find it ⁓ Yeah, dr. Brown's so it's they do like celery they do like black cherry ⁓ So we do that we have a good root beer. We have an orange cream I think I'm do like a I want to do like an OJ combo where it's like the original Joe with an orange cream soda As for some reason that makes that works really well But yeah ⁓

Alan Li (48:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, my wife is a fan

of celery drinks, I'm excited to introduce her to this. Yeah.

Sam Saverance (48:38)
Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

Yes. It's a New York. It's an old New York staple. Like, Cell Ray. They even mentioned it in Seinfeld. Like, there is an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry is suffering. Like, yeah, I was drinking a cell ray and blah, blah, blah. So it's a cell ray. Yeah, C-E-L-R-A-Y.

Alan Li (48:54)
That's very interesting.

Okay, yeah, I'll check it out.

Sam Saverance (48:59)
That's good. We do. So yeah, we do that. I mean, we don't. We're just doing sodas right now. You know, we do topo chico if you don't want sugar diet.

Alan Li (49:13)
and

Sam Saverance (49:14)
Bottle sodas. I'm not like, again, as it grows, maybe we can try juices and stuff. just don't, we have very limited space. I'm just, I'm here to like, kind of like, rep that, that burger. You know, that, that basic, that kind of fast food-y feel thing for now. ⁓ We'll see where it goes from there. Desserts, we have a, we have a nice, we just do, we do Klondike bars and Italian ices for now. Yeah. Can't, can't, can't go with the Klondike bar.

Alan Li (49:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I love fun.

Sam Saverance (49:43)
I'm trying to connect with this amazing ice cream sandwich maker called Nightingale. They're in a lot of supermarkets, they're really good. They're based in Virginia, think. Nightingale, yeah, really good sandwiches. And I'm gonna work with them on a partnership. They're kind of hard to reach, but for now it's a fond egg bar.

Alan Li (49:54)
Night. Check that out.

Yeah, that's cool.

Sam Saverance (50:07)
And we're doing a lot of collabs. I'm starting to do a lot of collabs. Like, yeah, like you said, we're our brisket from, we're getting our brisket from ⁓ this great barbecue truck in Bushwick, Empire BBQ and ⁓ Stop Your Mama for the occasion Joe, Stop Your Mama Seasoning. We're using that. Yeah, I'm always tagging them on our posts so they can see us. Like, hey, you guys wanna send us some over? I can work it out.

And then I have a friend who's gonna help me list with some of the ingredients in our Mee Con Joe, who has a couple of restaurants. She's super cool. So I'm trying, I'm big on collaborations for sure, you with other restaurants with ingredients, know, win-win.

Alan Li (50:47)
Yeah, no, it's cool because

with this you are able to collab so much and like switch it up. Just keep the same bass, which is...

Sam Saverance (50:52)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's really fun. mean, the more slops we do, the more joes we do, the more opportunities we have to collab with people.

Alan Li (51:04)
Sorry, say

that again, the more slops you do, the more joes you do. What does that mean?

Sam Saverance (51:07)
Sorry,

the more like sandwiches we do, I call them slops. I don't know, this actually does not sound pretty appetite. I guess the more joes we make, invent, know, like the more sandwiches, the more opportunities we have to collab with other places, you know, especially if we're like focusing on different cultures, you know, that's like, that's golden opportunity to like, rep or like, to like collab with like a restaurant that serves that kind of food or food vendor that.

Alan Li (51:18)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (51:37)
does it kind of food, you know? I mean, this is a women situation, like collaborations are great, like it's not a quality thing, like you get their customers find out about you, your customers find out about them. So it's great.

Alan Li (51:38)
Yeah. Cool.

Yeah.

Have you, you, did you do that with Boona a bunch? Collapse?

Sam Saverance (51:56)
No, I didn't really have a chance with tuna because it was such, was Ethiopian food, know, like it's just, it's a, it's its own thing, right? So like, and we were trying to stay super traditional and like super like authentic. So, but this is again, like Saffy Joe's is it's a, it's a mishmash. It's a, it's a melting pot. It's the most American sandwich ever. Like it's the melting pot of different ingredients and like different things. And so it's a lot easier since there's no like,

Alan Li (52:09)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (52:25)
hardcore, like, I mean, real cultural identifier and a sloppy joke, except, you know, or we already wrapped that in our original joke and we're having, we're making the other ones. have license to kind of bring anybody in,

Alan Li (52:33)
Yeah. Plus,

you're from Texas too. can switch it up if you want. What are the haters on Reddit saying about you?

Sam Saverance (52:41)
Hell yeah. Absolutely.

I don't know what, well, it's honestly not that bad. They're like, you know, mostly it's like, ew, that's disgusting or oh great, look what's happening in Bed-Stuy, know, justification, justification. I've had a few people defend me, particularly be like, give it a shot, you know, it's pretty cool. I mean, like I am very sensitive about like going into this thing. I've lived in Bushwick for 20 years, I haven't lived in Bed-Stuy before and like I don't,

I think it is absolutely important to like, if you're gonna bring a new establishment into a neighborhood that's like transforming, that you become, you make sure the neighborhood's cool with you first before you do anything else. That's why I'm saying like, don't, I wanna make sure I know my neighbors, but also like, I wanna make sure they like this before I go out and bring people from, you know, other areas to come try it. You know, like, I want them to feel like this part of their, like they can.

Alan Li (53:25)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Saverance (53:47)
I wouldn't feel like happy to have this year, you know, I'm like where they can like always feel comfortable coming in, hanging out, you know. So, but of course, like, you know, I read it's like, it's just funny. It's just funny to read. Like, I don't care. Like I literally don't care. Like these people are not like,

Alan Li (54:05)
Yeah, yeah, that's fair. mean,

yeah. For opening restaurants, is that a big thing of, you know, I'm in this neighborhood or is that more specific to Brooklyn, Bedside, Bushwick? Like I'm in this neighborhood. I want to make sure like, you know, if I was in Manhattan, I want to make sure like the people in Flatiron are okay with it before expanding or this seems like more of a Brooklyn thing. Okay.

Sam Saverance (54:25)
Yeah,

or more of a by neighborhood. mean, we're in an area that's been ⁓ very much been the focal point for gentrification. The G word's been happening for a very long time, know, 10, 15. And like, I mean, when I started doing it, like it was happening then. like, it's a very, it's a very, it's an overused word, you know, like not everything is gentrification, but ⁓ a few parts of it. mean, like when people, know,

Alan Li (54:46)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (54:54)
previously under ⁓ lower income neighborhood gets an influx of people from higher income areas. Then the biggest problem with that is that it's going to like, there are going to problems with that. It's going to raise the rents, it's going to make things less affordable for the people that live there. Does that mean nobody should move in there? No, not necessarily because the people also bring a lot of goods and services that that neighborhood never had before. that's then people in neighborhoods are not complaining about that. They love that.

Alan Li (55:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam Saverance (55:24)
So, it's just, it's not, it's not a matter of just don't go, don't do it. Just like be a human being about it. Like, be cool about it. Like, pay attention. Like, do your research. Like, find out what people actually can afford, you know? Find out, like, what people like and how, understand, like, how the flow of the neighborhood already is. And then just, just

Alan Li (55:37)
Yeah.

Sam Saverance (55:53)
Build your, you can still do your own thing. Just make sure you respect that, know, show respect to it. like, like I think it's important to like going back to like making money. Yeah, we absolutely need to make money, but I also don't want to like over make our sandwiches unaffordable to the person that's lived in the block for the past 40 years, you know, like, and like, so we do our original Joe's is $10 with a bag of chips included.

Alan Li (56:13)
Yeah. How much is the sandwich right now?

$10 with the direct chips included. Pretty good.

Sam Saverance (56:24)
Yeah, small buyer chips. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, again, I make sure that like the inputs are like, not too expensive. So we can still make our nice profit margin. But yeah. And then we also do the other ones are $12, the specialty ones. And then we also do like Junior Joe's little Joe's on a little slider buns for $4. you can even sample or feel like the kids want one still like $4 Junior Joe. And

Alan Li (56:38)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Saverance (56:51)
Can we raise the price? Yeah. And maybe we will at some point, but for now, no. Like if you're going to open a new place and bring people in, like keep it cheap. We'll we'll feel it out as we go along. If we can, if we can make our profits and keep it cheap. And that's how I did Buna. Like Buna was very cheap. Very afford, not cheap, affordable, very affordable, you know? But we still made very good profits, you know? We figured out other ways to make sure the costs kept the costs low. And so we didn't have to like.

Alan Li (56:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam Saverance (57:20)
Raise the price and we figured it out

Alan Li (57:22)
Yeah. Okay. I mean, I like your approach to business. It's ⁓ different from, I think, a lot of people I've heard from. ⁓ And ⁓ you're interested about ⁓ the actual neighborhood and the culture. And I think that's not usually on the forefront of people's

Sam Saverance (57:34)
Thank you.

Look, it's, I don't know. I don't understand why people wouldn't want to do that. Like, there's a, I mean, I do understand why people want to do that. I just like, I prefer to explore the middle ground between like making something that is affordable, but not very good and making something that's like not affordable, but are really, really good, but just like way over the price range of a lot of people there, you know, and just focusing on a niche market. mean, like,

Why wouldn't you capitalize on goodwill? I'm a big proponent of goodwill as like an income as a source of like an asset in your balance sheet. Like think goodwill is huge, you know? And like, because goodwill gets you through the hard times. Goodwill gets you through the hard times because you're gonna have hard times, right? And also goodwill helps you start new shit, start new stuff. Goodwill helps you start like gives you reputation where you can start other things and build new concepts with people that know you before but like, this guy's starting it. Absolutely want to try this, you know?

Alan Li (58:18)
Yeah. That's a way to say it.

Sam Saverance (58:39)
And goodwill just makes you also like you never know when you're have to like be in a situation where you need your neighbors to step up, know, or like need someone to like back you up, you know, I mean, like with Buna, I mean, like we've had we've had some haters before a Buna but like they get drowned out by the lovers, you know, like, why wouldn't you want that? Like, if I if I can run a restaurant and not have to say a word, you know, like

Alan Li (58:40)
I like that.

Sam Saverance (59:06)
then that's, if other people can talk for me, then that's it. That's golden. Like I can just focus on doing it, yeah.

Alan Li (59:11)
I love that.

That's cool. Sam, I wish you all the best with both Anna and Farley's and I'm definitely gonna stop by and send you a note about what I think about the sloppy joes.

Sam Saverance (59:18)
Thanks Alan.

Thank you so much. Well, we'll have to ⁓ reconnect your subconscious, child-based subconscious to, culinary subconscious to ⁓ back to high school. Maybe we can pull some stuff out and talk about that in another podcast. ⁓ Thanks, Alan. This is nice, thank you. All right.

Alan Li (59:33)
You

Yeah, yeah, sounds great. Alright, thanks. Of course.