The "How we do small things" Podcast
All things hospitality, most things Countryside.
True hospitality is about making big impacts from small actions. This podcast explores the world of service to others, hospitality, private clubs and everything big and small that makes serving others special and meaningful. Memorable experiences are created in the details, the small things….because “How we do small things is how we do all things”…
What small thing did you see, experience or do recently that made a big impact??
The "How we do small things" Podcast
Chef 2 Chef Jay Herman and Matthew Gilbert
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What does it really take to create an extraordinary hospitality experience?
In the Season 2 premiere of How We Do Small Things, Joe and Executive Chef Jay sit down with Matthew Gilbert of Medinah Country Club for a wide-ranging conversation about food, leadership, creativity, culture, and the relationships that make private clubs special.
Despite operating at very different clubs, the conversation quickly reveals how universal the principles of great hospitality really are. From preparing years in advance for major events like the Presidents Cup to creating unforgettable culinary experiences, the group explores the enormous amount of work that happens behind the scenes to make hospitality look effortless.
But the conversation goes much deeper than food.
Matthew, Jay, and Joe discuss the importance of earning trust before introducing change, balancing a club's traditions with the need to continually evolve, and understanding that creativity only works when it is built on a foundation of consistency and credibility.
They also explore the unique relationship between a chef and general manager, why leaders can't be above doing any job, how positivity and negativity spread throughout an organization, and why authenticity from leadership gives everyone else permission to bring more of themselves to work.
Perhaps most importantly, the conversation comes back again and again to relationships. Members can find great food almost anywhere. What they can't easily find is the feeling of belonging somewhere—of knowing the chef, being remembered by the team, having someone notice the small details, and feeling genuinely cared for.
The episode closes with a conversation about mentorship, developing the next generation of hospitality professionals, and a reminder for young leaders: don't simply chase the biggest name or most prestigious property. Find great people to work for and learn from.
Because ultimately, the moments people remember aren't always the biggest ones.
They're often the small ones.
And how we do small things is how we do all things.
This is the How We Do a Small Things Podcast. Leadership through the lens of hospitality. We love the limits of hospitality and service to others. And it's functionally service through leadership. This podcast explores the world of hospitality, climate clubs, industry trends, and all things big and small that will have a meaningful impact on the lives of others. Because how we do small things is how we do all the things.
SPEAKER_02This is actually the first episode one of season two that we're calling this. Oh okay. Cool. And we've got uh Matthew Gilbert from Medina Country Club up in Chicago, Illinois.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02And Chef J, our executive chef here. Um, and Matthew and I connected on a podcast several weeks ago, and then I was up in your neck of the woods. I grew up in that area, so obviously I'm very familiar with Medina. Um, but I think you and your GM have a lot of the same similarities and relationships that that Jay and I have. We've been together a long time, and I just thought it would be cool to get um get you guys together and kind of brainstorm and just shoot the shit. I think it's fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I do. Yeah. Wait, I caught up with Matt the other day, and I tell you what, I mean, we're uh we we think along the same lines from being this far apart and never you know uh didn't know each other. Right. And and just in the in the conversation that we had, it's our our goals, our end game is uh is is just alike.
SPEAKER_02Well, one one of the things I want to talk about, maybe we use this to just kind of get us kicked off here, is um the more I spend talking to other managers, whether it's GMs or club managers or chefs or golf pros, um, regardless of the level of club and the type of club, the concepts and the the principles and how we operate and how we think as hospitality professionals is all pretty much the same.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's universal. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and you guys, Medina and Matt, why don't you give us a little bit of background uh on Medina? But you guys are looked at, I mean, you're one of the most exclusive storied clubs in the country, you know. Um different, very different club than we're at here at Countryside. But um, I think a lot of you know how we think is is pretty much the same. Um so why why don't you give us a little bit about uh kind of history of Medina, how long you've been there and kind of your background. We've got uh we've got Golf Kitchen magazine here.
SPEAKER_00So oh boy. Nice, nice. Awesome, yeah, totally. Um, I I I think you're totally right. And and Chef was so awesome to talk to you the other day. Well, it gives me, you know, faith and in the world and humanity that, you know, we keep on meeting people of like mind in this way. You know, meeting you, Joe, not long ago, and then you now chef. And I mean, this has just been a great year for exactly that. You know, there's times where I think that in within our club worlds, we're sort of cut, you know, it's like our our heads down uh to use your term in the do the next thing mode. When you're in that mode, sometimes you're not, you know, it's like the your world comes down to this. And it can be, it can sometimes feel discouraging or or overwhelming um to think that you're kind of in this by yourself, even if you're with your big team. Um, and then there's there's other times like like this year for me, where I've just met so many people like you, just awesome, open-minded people who are trying their best uh to create a culture of excellence, but doing it in a way that's that's kind and respectful to everybody. And you know, that's that's very inspiring to me every time I'm reminded of that. Actually, the world is full of people like us too. Uh so yeah, no, Medina, obviously, uh, you know, it's one of those big deals in the golf world clubs. Um, I'm very honored to be a part of it, uh, very proud to be a part of it. The membership here is fantastic. Um, our club was founded in 1924. Uh, a lot of clubs of that age are a little older in our country, but of course, our country being as young as it is, that seems like a very old club. And celebrating our centennial, uh, we pushed it one year. It was going to be in 24, obviously, but we were unveiling course three that year after a long renovation. Uh, course three is the PGA played course, the one that we're about to utilize for the uh President's Cup. So getting that ready in 24 was a big deal. We decided to push the Centennial Party to 1920 uh to uh 2025 in order to be able to really focus on it. It was an awesome year, um, and and the celebration itself was just epic. I probably have never done anything quite as epic as that, um, at least within the club world. So that was really neat. And then this year we're hosting the President's Cup. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that. So within the realm of golf, you know, we're very known nationally and also around the world. And it's neat in F and B to be associated with that. But I have to be honest, um, we don't want to rest on anyone else's laurels, let alone our own. And so, food and beverage wise, I oversee food and beverage, um, food and beverage director in chef. So the service team too. And none of us want to coast on the coattails of the excellence of our golf program alone. Uh, so we're proud of that. We're proud to be adjacent to it, but we aspire just like you do, you know, to be the best in the world as a hospitality team, culinary team, and a service team. And so uh that's the mission that I've been on for the last seven years. I joined in in 2019 in November, uh, just before the COVID pandemic started. So I had just long enough to like get my foot in the door and then boom, you know, that all happened, which was a complicating factor, but in a lot of ways, honestly, it was it was good to be able to redefine certain things and start the program going in a in a different direction. Uh, that I'm very proud of at this point. I'm very proud of the team. At this time of year, we're 230, 240 people in food and beverage, event sales, setups team, dishwashers, you know, the whole the whole group is is quite large. And it's just an honor to be a part of this team that for the most part is really on the right uh on the right track for that hospitality experience, that humanity experience that we aspire to giving our members here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I failed to mention that you know, you are in your season right now. Obviously, we're opposite, right? With with with the times of year. So first of all, thanks for taking the time. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Um but you know, you're you know what it's go ahead. Sorry, go for it. This time of year, normally we would be on the downside. You know, like really last week we did our world of wine, which is you know, 650 people, it's a massive production with lots of you know, 40 vendors in the house, each pouring four to six uh different bottles. So it's an awesome opportunity for our members to try just a crap ton of wine. Um, and we do a lot of really creative food live cooked outside with that, and that's usually kind of the the the signal that we're almost done. You know, it really carries through October, but it starts to the taper down. And this so I felt that relief for a few minutes, you know, the day after that event. And then I was reminded by the specter and the phantom that is this looming uh president's cup. And it's it's gonna be awesome. But that in itself has been the last two and a half years of planning. So normally, yes, we're coming out of, we're beginning to come out of season at this point. November's quite chill for us up until Thanksgiving. We we power up for the holidays just like everybody does. And then um January, February, and March are our strat. We call that the strategy time of year, right? Where we're building, we're working, um, but it's it's not operationally busy. We're we're we're brainstorming, we're creating strategy, we're leveling up for the next season. But that's a time where we also get to breathe. Our children once again remember what we look like and all that stuff. Um, so we're still a ways from that. But uh yeah, it's been an awesome summer. All the things from you know, September got moved into the summer months too, because we're clearing out September for this tournament. So it was even busier than a normal year during these three months. Uh, it's all gone very well. You know, the team is holding up quite well. I can tell they're ready for a little break and they get a little one before the tournament starts, but really not too much.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, it's it's comforting. I think anytime I connect with um managers uh opposite times of year, because we're in our uh planning mode now, but we just had a leadership retreat last week, and and I think all of us are kind of like, oh no, it's coming. You know, we're we're getting ready to gear up. Um, and whenever you can kind of brainstorm with with managers across the country in opposite seasons, it's just it's a little comforting to me because you know, someone like yourself, because we got through it, it's okay, you'll get through yours, you know. Um yes. How much so how much activity comes to the club with with the presence cup? Like what's what's that like?
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's it's completely taken over. Um, and even now, like so officially that handover happens four weeks from today. So we're four weeks out from the handover of our clubhouse and property being handed over fully to the PGA. That'll happen at midnight on the 18th, going into the 19th of September. So at that time, we kind of work for them, right? We're coming to work here, but we're going through their security checkpoints. We're parking off site and taking their shuttles in. So that's four weeks away. But that said, I'm gonna say that the um the disruption or the work that really started physically here was April 1st of this year. And that was like within the first week of April. There were 90 semis that came on property with just tons and tons of stuff to start dropping it. Um, currently, right now, and even when you were here a couple of weeks ago, you saw a lot of the hospitality suites being built. The the stands are for the most part constructed. And so that's been going on over the past four months. Um, in a way that, you know, it's it's pretty funny driving around right now. There's all kinds of different vehicles zipping around and forklifts and you know, scooters and all these different things. So the disruption to the members, you know, that has started uh quite a while ago now. Um, the planning for this, as I mentioned, there is a gentleman who runs the PGA side of it here in Chicago, uh, Joey Chitwood, and he came on property like almost three calendar years prior to the event. So we met him really a long time ago. He had an office in the building for a while. They they built an office here um not long after where they they currently work. Um but I guess my point is the presence of the PGA on a tournament of this size, it's not like they show up the spring before and go for it. It's like the groundwork is being laid down for for literally years. And um, you know, our conversations with them started at that time. So operational, I've made all the menus for it in January, actually. You know, everything for the most part has been written for a long time, which gives us somewhat of a sense of of calm going into this. But that said, you know, it just the the six months before it really just ramps up and and we feel the presence big time and are prepared to hand over very shortly.
SPEAKER_02Right. One of the things that always impresses me about you guys, uh, you know, on the the food end of the business is how far in advance you're you're planning, you know, and really from the outside looking in, I'm always perceiving that the goal is when you get to the day, whatever the day is, everything's done and you're just working your plan and it just happens, it unfolds.
SPEAKER_01That's exactly that's that's the only way to do it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, probably one of the biggest events we did here was uh last November, our grand reopening. We were closed for two years uh to renovate. Um we were working out of trailers.
SPEAKER_01Um 300 square foot kitchen.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, awesome.
SPEAKER_02And then it was, you know, we did this giant blowout event. Um, you know, that you guys really started planning probably two tw two years in advance.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah. As soon as we went into the trailer, we started thinking about how to get back into the clubhouse. Yeah. Because it was we knew after that first week we don't want to stay in this yeah. So uh we had to, yeah. I mean, it was uh yeah, it was two years.
SPEAKER_02And I think I think most most um I think a lot of the members, and uh I might be making this up, but it's just my perception over the years, is like they think that the food service end just happens. Uh-huh. You know, like because because everyone's everyone knows how to cook, right?
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02Everyone eats food, right? You know, so it's like, well, home, I just I stop at Publix on the way home, um, or whatever the grocery store is, and I grab dinner and I go home and I make it. And you guys are thinking like weeks and months and years ahead to uh to you know execute these giant events.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I couldn't imagine a a PGA tour stop because so you do all this work for, like you said, two and a half, three years, and it's it's one week in essence of Yeah, it it is.
SPEAKER_00In this case, it's um we're also hosting the junior presidents cup, which is the week prior. So and then there's a couple outings for the PGA folks, uh the two days after the tournament ends. So Monday and Tuesday. Imagine that operationally, you know, you finish this like crusher week, the tournament ends on Sunday, and you're like, now we get to chill. And it's like the next two days are yeah outings back to back. So it's all in, it's really about a two-week stretch, including those outings, and then the pre-prep for the the junior president's cup, which starts the week prior. Um, and that starts right before we hand the club over to the PGA and then finishes after we have. So we're gonna handle some of the food and beverage for that, but really not very much, to be honest. So it's like we're hosting them both. Um, the work is more on the ground side and the golf side uh for the junior president's cup, but yes, it's a two-week to your point. You know, it's it's two and a half, let's say, years of of planning for just a two-week section. Um, and then and then it's like the circus leaves town. It was that way too. It was a year and a half, it was 18 months for our centennial party last year. And it was a $1.1 million night. So that quantity of money did include our club. Our club has, and it is brilliant. Like so, Nick Novelli, who's our photographer and and a historian here at the club, together with Emily, who you met, she's our our communications director, um, and a bunch of other people were involved, but they really spearheaded it. It was the creation of a centennial book that's just the most beautiful, you know, coffee table book you can imagine. A lot of that couple hundred thousand dollars, probably, maybe three hundred thousand of the one point one went to that book. So to be fair, the party wasn't that entire quantity of money, but all the rest of it was just for that one one crazy night. And it was amazing on the on the food side, you know, since we're kind of we're chefing it up a little bit, I'll talk just for a second about what we did there. Like we did what was called fire in the sky. That was kind of the main attraction. And we put, we have these big 24 by 48 uh Yoder grills, and we lifted those uh with with lifts up onto a 15-foot-high platform, and then we put pyrotechnics. There's a guy, Ron Onesti, who was handling all the music. There was a bunch of big name music acts here, and uh, he loves food, and then I'm a chef that loves music. So when we connected, I was like, brother, can you can you help me turn this? I want this to be just like a rock and roll show too. And so he got like pyrotechnics, which we put up by the grills. So the grill guys up there, they had you know bottles of cheap whiskey that they could pour on the grill at any time to make it blow up, and then they could stomp on this button and it would shoot, it would literally shoot, you know, pyrotechnics on either end. Oh, and then they were grilling beautiful beef cuts up there. We made, we made uh not not not me. I conceptualized it, and then a third-party guy, actually, just wacky genius, made this contraption of like Dutch ovens that were chained on a chain to a large pulley, and you could pull the lever and the Dutch oven would swing over, and so you put the stakes off the grill in the Dutch oven, push the lever back, and it would go over the edge of the platform, and then you let go of the chain and it would slide down, and then the guys at the bottom would pull the stakes out and carve them on at ground level and serve them down there.
unknownOh my god.
SPEAKER_00So we called that fire in the sky. Uh, we had flying fish, which emulated the Pikes Place market in Seattle. So our one of our seafood companies, awesome Wabash seafood, they're they're fantastic. Uh, they agreed to train their guys. It was more likely that they would be able to catch fish than than us. So they trained their team. They wore the yellow overalls that they wear at that market, and they were throwing fish all over the place. So our members were taking pictures of that. There were seven stations, and each one of them had some sort of really extravagant presentation and or experiential aspect to it. Um, so for $1.1 million, I mean, like that was really, we were able to spend that in a way that I'm pretty sure that our members will never, they would probably tell you that in their lives up until now, and very likely until they, you know, kick the bucket, eventually they they won't see anything like that again here. So yeah, it was really neat to be a part of that. But to your point, Chef, 18 months of preparation, and then boy, that whole month, we were looking at the weather apps like three weeks out, because this was in early July, right? Which in Chicago is a time where it's just super volatile with storms. And like every morning it was like, all right, the you know, 12 day, like we look good. And then the 11 day was like, we don't look good. And there's no moving this indoors, there's no way to put it under a tent. Like it was either gonna happen or not. And and down to the morning of like I woke up that morning and it was just really humid, but it was totally clear, and it looked like we might get some light showers in the afternoon, but the evening was looking good, and it's like it clouded up in the afternoon, but it didn't rain. We ended up having this just picture perfect night with like this beautiful sunset. I mean, that's awesome. You know, we were like we were being smiled down upon um when it came down to it. So 18 months, a lot of stress getting getting it there, but executing it. I couldn't, I mean, just afterwards for days, I was like, I can't believe that all worked, you know. Yeah, it's such a great feeling. It's like you put in so much time getting ready for one day, and then it's over.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you know, events like what we do on a regular basis is all about creating experiences and memories. And you know, you and I talked about this, but like I always like to think we're going into our season, like, is there one event that is going to be a core memory for our members? You know, like they're gonna go through six months of season and they're gonna have you know a blast at everything we do. But a lot of it is like, okay, I was at the club last night and it was just it was a great experience, right? But is there one, you know, I always try and think like, is there one event this year that's gonna like that's gonna stay with them forever, you know?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02Um I want to switch gears though because um I want to talk about I'm interested from both of you guys um on the creativity aspect and bringing that into the club environment, okay, and kind of putting your own fingerprint on what we do and how the relationship between your position and my position helps with that. And here's where I'm coming from. Um you guys obviously have a hundred-year history. We're we have a four we're celebrating 40 years this year, which I don't think is anything to shake a stick at. I mean, it's not a hundred years, but um, and you know as well as I do, um, you guys are both, you know, chefs from as in in your nature is is creativity. Um but in the club industry, you often deal with, you know, this is the way we've always dealt with things, and or this is the way we've always done things, and this is the this is how we've always, you know, this is what our menus have looked like, and this is what the these events have always looked like. Right. And one of the things Jay and I I think why we click is uh and Jay's been with me since 2013. Um and you know, when when I met Jay, I'm like, okay, this is the chef that's gonna follow me wherever I go. So um, and really our relationship is, you know, I'll just throw out some crazy idea and and Jay'll throw out crazy ideas, and then we just both we'll we'll shake hands and we'll we'll see at the event. Let's make it happen, you know. However, on the member side, you know, sometimes, you know, there's there's a little bit of anxiety, like, oh, we've never done events like that, or that's not how we used to do those buffets, or that's not how Thanksgiving was, or um, you know, we're kind of going through some of that now where the club is very different than it was 30 years ago. So I wanna, I'm interested in like the relationship between your positions and and the general manager role and how how you view that and how it's important to what you guys do, but also how that can help you kind of bring your own creativity into the into the club and the experience for the members. Um, but also kind of uh keeping the the history of the club, you know, respecting that history of the club and how things have been. You know what I mean? You see what I'm getting to here?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I I yeah, Chef, Chef, you go first. Go first. Yeah, so it's easy. So, you know, with with Joe, it's just, you know, whatever thing you can think of, you know, he'll he'll get behind you. I mean, as long as it's sound, I mean, you know, as long as it's and the creativity is easy because it's I don't know, like I I dream about food. I don't know about you, but I I I literally will dream about food and wake up and be like, oh yeah, I'm gonna try that. And it may be something that is so left field, you know, like we did that dining in the dark, yeah, and and trying to get people to trust that, you know, the membership, they're like, Well, we've never done this. I've never put a sleep mask on and ate anything. And, you know, trying to get the other sensors, sensory uh, you know, perception of what they're eating without looking at it. And so, like, you had to get people to trust you. And, you know, I think that's what you know, Joe gets behind you get behind it, behind my ideas that oh, yeah, we could. To trust you and and you know and you'll talk it up and and and and get the comfort level of the club behind us in the ideas that we're doing. So I mean that's the that's what I like the best.
SPEAKER_02I mean it's just I think it really needs I mean it's a partnership, really. Exactly. Like um uh I I can't do what you do. Well you well I no, I know I can't do what you do, you know. So I think there needs to be a partnership there. But yeah, I mean it's like you know, you guys are you bring the creative idea, you know, and then it's like on the front end when you're trying to explain to members like, oh no, this is gonna be fun. Well, we've never done that before. No, just trust us, it's gonna be fun. Right. Like there's a certain type of element there that needs to, you know, come across.
SPEAKER_01Right. And and the longevity, I think, with us being together and us here at this club is is that trust membership is is is is is the basic you know ingredient to everything. Yeah, for sure. Just trust that word.
SPEAKER_00So no, I I love that. I love that. Well, and I don't want to weird your listeners out, um, but I I'd also dream a lot about food and kitchen scenarios. And I had one real weird one um a few nights ago that that really I think reflects my whatever the word is, uh unease or or paranoia about the future of AI and stuff. And uh so it was a situation in which I was going to or I was like attending it, or maybe I was part of it the first time ever that somebody had a food experience where they like ate food without actually eating it. So somehow AI was delivering a food experience to this group of people, but there was no actual food. And I woke up and I'm just like, whoa. How do we do that? Yeah, exactly. So anyway, that's probably weird and tangential. But uh, my answer to the question, and and it's it's twofold. Um, it's uh for me, it starts with the word that you were saying there, chef, and that's trust. And and I've been through this several times on different podcasts, so I won't go through it in its entirety. But for me, what we owe a membership as chefs when we come on board. And if we come on board with a with a GM that's already a person we've worked with before, that makes it a lot easier. But um, in either case, what I I really believe that we owe our membership is a period in which we don't do a whole lot of change. You know, we do a lot of time, spend a lot of time observing what exists currently, and maybe there's some emergency things that need to be changed quickly, but mostly we're seeing what what resonates, what doesn't resonate, what do members really love? And a lot of times those are things that, like from our chef experience standpoint, like if we looked at things walking in the door and we're like, we should do away with this, this, this, and this. A lot of times that doesn't line up with the member values, right? Like the things that they like or or love may not be the ones that we do, or we would ax things on first glance, but it turns out no, you can never ax that, right? Um, and getting to know the members, asking a lot of questions uh in the first year or six months or however long you want to say for me, it's a year because like this place is is giant and there's a lot of members. And so it took a while for me to be able to confidently say kind of vox populi-wise, this these are the values of the biggest demographic andor the biggest demographics, and then begin to to make some make some changes or adjustments. And so it's like earning that trust is delivering in the that circle part. Like so, I always draw a diagram of two circles. There's a big circle on the outside and a small one on the inside. The small one is the comfort zone that exists within that membership when you arrive.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00And my my approach to that is just drilling that. So here it was meat and potatoes, like they love mashed potatoes. So for the first year, I did like 46 kinds of mashed potato, you know, different cheeses in it, different things in the mashed potatoes, or just really nice moussoline French style, like things that they loved but they hadn't had before. And same with beef. We brought in Meats by Linz, um, all prime program, like beautiful, beautiful stuff. Uh, it was during the uh COVID. And so we were able to do a butcher to go program with access to $2 million worth of dry edge product that they all of a sudden had no home for, Linz. And so we were able to get that at just amazing prices, share it with the membership, educate them, and drill that bullseye. And then the outside circle, like in between the inside circle and the outside circle, is what I refer to with my chefs as like the magic happens in that zone. And so the outside circle, it represents what your the outside edge of what your members would ever try, even if trust existed, right? So they're probably never gonna love balut, they're probably not gonna love pickled Vietnamese snake in a jar, they're probably not gonna love yak meat, right? Right, those are things that are outside of that bigger circle, but in between the the the small one in the center and that one, as a chef, there's if you know, chef, if if if a member comes to you and they tell you five things they like, you can think of 15 more things that they've never had that they'll love.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And they look at you like you're some kind of freaking Gandalf wizard or whatever, right? And so that's what we did is once we earned that year of trust, we began to work outwards. I came here from from China, right? A lot of them were like, Oh, this new chef's gonna serve the chicken with the head on it. And I'm from Montana, so I would never do that. Like, I'm a beef and potatoes guy at heart too, right? But that's what they were worried about. So it was exactly what you said. It was about establishing trust, which takes time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So once you do that, you know, that's that that's where you can begin to introduce things that, like, if you just came in the door and introduced them, they'd be like, nice to meet you. We're gonna pass. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, and uh, there's this element of perception too, like um, because our members were very much the same when he said very meat and potatoes, yep, classic club fair, like club sandwiches, Rubens, hot dogs, like chicken francais. Chicken francais. Oh my god, they love chicken francais, you know. Yeah, um, but then you know, the the first two weeks he was here, I had members saying the food is a hundred times better. This new chef is awesome. I was like, you know, he hasn't even stepped foot on the line. Like the same guys are cooking it.
SPEAKER_01It stood there, the same guys, you know.
SPEAKER_02And from my my position, you know, I very well in that situation could say, okay, chef, they love you. Let her rip. But again, the perception from the members is new chef, the food just tastes better, even though the same team's preparing it. Like nothing, and he was in this observation mode, right? Which was probably a good year, year and a half.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And I think about what we do today now at the club is like off the wall different than what we we inherited here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, from what we I mean, as many menu changes and item changes that that we do compared to the rotation that was here before, like every six weeks, they'd get the same menu from you know five weeks, yeah, four generations ago. But it's the same thing over and over. No, nothing different. So you know that in six weeks it's going to change to this menu because that's what it was after this menu before. And I don't, you know, I just can't operate like that. You know, I just I I that's why I love the clubs because every day can literally be a different day and you can do something different all the time. Yeah, you know, and and it is a different day. Exactly, you know, and it they're not they're accustomed now to to having change, I hope. I mean, there's a few items that you know, like you need to bring back this. You remember that one dish you did three years ago with the sea bass? No, no, I don't because I've done uh 20 different dishes with sea bass since then. So you know, but you you gotta try and remember and bring back some of these old classics that you know they they obviously got some you know core memory from, which is great.
SPEAKER_02One of the one of the things these guys, I don't know how it started, but um I know I didn't start it, but there's there's uh throughout the club, it just naturally is permanent permeated is the quote unquote secret menu. Um so it's like all the old classics that are never gonna be on the menu again, but if you ask about them, we'll do them anyways. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00You know, and we we call that the the off menu menu. Okay, so you so you have one too. Exactly. All right, every club does that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, awesome, awesome.
SPEAKER_00Um, one of the things to your point about the the when you're new, like that's actually hilarious because it works that way for you. Like you haven't done anything, and everyone thinks the new guy's a genius. Yeah, right. But also there's those people that are like, there's always, you know, if it's a big membership or not, there's like one percent that thinks you're a genius no matter what you do. Like you could put mud from the golf course on the on the plate, and they're like, amazing. And then there's the opposite of like you could have the best thing ever, and they're like, the chef we hired is an idiot, right?
unknownExactly.
SPEAKER_00And so, like, I definitely experienced that coming in the door. They're like, the Christmas menus, we were serving some crazy, we were serving like really thin New York strip for 240 people, which they ended up being like bulletproof, and you know, the knives they had were just like they couldn't even cut them. So just picture all these people out there like sawing away. And you know, I had been there for just a little while, and it's like this new chef can't cook steak, you know. And I'm like, no. Um, but the the you know, over time that all gets worked out. The the the one what I want to say about the GM relationship from my perspective. Um, so working with Mark Gallaudet, I mentioned him to you, he's a GM now in Florida too, um, and was the GM of a place out in uh Scottsdale prior. But before that, he was a longtime chef, came up, you know, just super old school. Um, and he was, I met him in Hong Kong, uh, Robert Saraji, who was the reason I ended up in at Medina, he was our GM over in Hong Kong and brought uh Mark in. And so working together, the three of us there, um, when Robert left, he ended up coming to Medina. And between the American Club in Hong Kong and then here, I went with Mark to a resort property uh for just under three years in rural Idaho, uh, Whitetail Club, and then the Shorelodge Resort. We've we managed both at the same time. And then from there, he came here, and then I came here. Uh, and I brought several people from my leadership team from Idaho with me. And so that was very much a situation. My relationship to Mark is a lot like the two of yours. Um, but then we had one rung at the time he was the assistant general manager here. We had one rung higher with Robert, and then we had a couple rungs lower on the headcount chart for me. Uh, and that's what I like to call vertical integration, which is kind of a beverage term. But when you have vertical alignment philosophically, starting from, you know, the Josiah position and then down to the chef or food and beverage director, and then down to maybe the sous chefs, like the ability to operate just becomes so much easier. Like a lot of the friction or a lot of the resistance of needing to explain things. Like if you come into a club as a chef and you need to get to know the GM, the assistant general manager, the clubhouse manager, and you're like trying to explain your reasoning for things, you're working to earn that trust. It's like you guys have already established the trust years ago.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so that alignment uh allows you as a duo or trio to move into a new environment and impact change, affect change super, super fast. And so that here was, I think that kind of still the earning of trust takes as long as it takes. Like you can't speed that process up. It's like getting a haircut, right? Like once your hair is cut, you cannot, if it's too short, you got to grow that back out at the speed that your hair grows. Some of us, some of us.
SPEAKER_02Come in, come on, man. Yeah, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00Sorry about that.
SPEAKER_02Analogy doesn't work with us.
SPEAKER_00Uh but I get it. But but you get my point, right? Like, so so even if you are an aligned team, you still have to earn the trust. But once you do, you know, putting your game plan into place at a new property is so much easier and faster if you guys already have the trust. Because I would need to, like with Dave Schneider, he he replaced uh Robert, and he's a fantastic GM. I couldn't be happier with our GM. He's fantastic, but I still had to earn his trust and he had to earn mine too. Right. And so that was something that it didn't really slow us down too much because we were both just like jamming. But that to answer Joe's uh your question about that relationship, from my point of view, yes, it's crucial, but I need to earn my GM's trust to allow me to do my thing. And the last part of my answer is that it's very the trust is about showing the members that you're doing what you're doing for them.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Like all of what we're here to do is is for them. It's not for me, it's not for us. Like if there's a harmonious win-win situation, then it's also for me too, right? But first, it's for them. And I think that's where a lot of chefs, our industry, as we know, is full of just a-holes, right? Or or people who are very talented, but they're very, they're high on their own stench. You know, they they think that they're God's gift to everybody. And you can't come into a club environment and and thrive, let alone survive, if you're there to tell them what they should want. Like in a club, we're here to give you what you want. You dictate that.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And there are a lot of things on the menu that probably as chefs, we wish we didn't have to cook.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, or a lot of chefs get hung up with like cooking kids' food. For me, the most important dish on the menu is the chicken nuggets. And you guys know why. I don't need to explain why. But showing that in real in a way that feels real to the members, that to me is the key to being able to do elaborate, fun things that allow us to be as creative as we want to is first earning the trust by showing them that everything we do, even when we're excited about it, it's for their well-being. Yeah, you know, it's for their bellies, it's for their visual and old factory enjoyment, all that stuff is for them.
SPEAKER_02So, so follow-up comment and a then a then a a a question on that. So the the follow-up comment is I think um keeping the focus on everything being for the members, you know, and and and providing what they know they want, what the members know they want, allows us to continue to, you know, kind of dabble in the things that they don't know that they want, right? That creative stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02So I think both to your points, like that foundation is that initial trust and saying, okay, look, we know you like this item, we know you like that item, we know you like the format of this event. It's been this way forever, and we're gonna continue to do that and respect the history and whatever, and you know, that's majority likes that, but building that baseline allows us to, there's this whole element of food and experiences that they don't even know that they want because they've never had them before.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And I think oftentimes where we can get ourselves hung up is like, you know, like you know, to your point, Matthew, it's like, well, I've been cooking for years, I'm an executive chef, I I know what I'm doing, I'm creative, like this is what we're gonna do. And if you don't have that trust with them providing what they like the usual stuff, right, you can't step foot into that realm of like, oh, we didn't even know that we wanted this, right? Right. Um, and then the follow-up question I have for both of you is from a um you know a food and beverage chef perception or point of view, what are the members don't what what do they not realize is part of your job?
SPEAKER_01Well, I I I think the number the number one thing is they think that I cook every meal for every person every single time that they walk in the door. I mean, that's that's the baseline. And and unfortunately, that's that's not the job. That's not the executive chef's job. It's you know, I I supervise, I train, I I make sure, I facilitate, you know, everything that you do. I mean, and it's um you know, but that's the biggest misconception from the majority of the membership, I think, is is unfortunately yes, it's my recipes, yes, it's it's the style I want, yes, it's the presentation I want. And and you know, but that comes down to me training my frontline staff that that says this is how we do it. Yeah. So that that to me is probably the biggest, biggest thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I would I would definitely agree with you. I think that I would add to it what goes on beyond, you know, behind the door. Like I think that's one thing for me from since day one here. There was sort of well, I don't I don't want to throw anyone under bus, really, but there was a kind of a feeling when I got here that like members weren't allowed in the kitchen and like they shouldn't come back here. And and I think in a club, the members at any time should be able to go in the kitchen, like it's their kitchen, right? And they need to do that appropriately. Like if they storm the Bastille or whatever, like that wouldn't be cool. But they they also should be able to just from and this is a trust thing too, right? Like, if we're keeping them out, why is it because of cleanliness? Yeah, in in the case of many places, that's why um we're we're embarrassed to show what's going on in there, um, or the behavior of people, and that's why we know uh open open kitchens are a challenge for some teams, right? But an open kitchen forces you to be very honest about things, an open kitchen for forces you to um train your team to have the proper decorum, to do the right things, to know about their volume and the way that that sounds out there. So we treated our our inside kitchen like an open kitchen, uh, prepare to have people come in here a lot. You know, we want them to we want to welcome them in, to show them what we have if they want to look in the coolers, which they never do. They never would, but if they wanted to, we would let them. And uh so part of that was a trust builder. But the other part of it is for me, I'm very motivated as becoming an old guy here to make sure that everybody on the member side understands just what goes into delivering these experiences. It's hard and it's very time consuming. There are a lot of people back there putting to your point, Chef, like you know, you get credit for everything and you're also at fault for everything. So so this is the like benefit and burden of wearing the the crown. You know, we we a lot of times we say, pesa la corona, like in the in the kitchen. It's like the crown is heavy, right? Right. That's something that we say a lot with our with our leadership team because they're everybody wants to be in charge until they're in charge, and then they're like, Oh god, like these are hard decisions, right? Um, but but but so it's cool because like everywhere I go, people are like Shaf, this is awesome. You did this, and uh it's like I always say, how thankful am I that I have 90 incredible people putting their hearts into everything behind the door, right?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And so our interest is to try to get the members to understand what's going on back there. I love when they come in there and see how hard everybody's working because they walk out and they're like, I had no idea. We do these videos. Um, a lot of times I'll do a Mother's Day video where our all of our ladies on the team will like in in their language, their home language, whether that's Spanish or Mongolian or uh English, they'll say happy Mother's Day to the members. And then we'll do a tour of I'll just take footage of people preparing because that's 1,200 people that we feed. And then we do the same for Thanksgiving. So I'll always put together a four to five minute video on Thanksgiving. And it's like it's people working, and it's like just incredible quantities of turkeys and potatoes and sweet potatoes and herbs and bread and stuffing and all this stuff. And then as the video is going, I'll list the weights of what we ordered. So, like 780 pounds of butternut squash, 1300 pounds of Yukon gold potatoes, and then I'll send it out. I always get it out the day after, um, right away. You got to do it right on the on the heels of Thanksgiving, otherwise, people switch into Christmas mode. But they freak out. I get more emails about that video than anything else, where people are just like, thank you so much. We had no idea, you know what I mean, what what what how hard that was. And we do food for 1700 on that day. So wow, for me, it's it's that. I think a lot of times people are sort of to your point, it's like, wow, they just whipped up Easter. Yeah, you know, they just whipped up some some some some you know, a seven-course tablet out menu on New Year's Eve or whatever. And you know, on one hand, I want it, I want us to make it look easy. That's a point of pride if we can do that. But at the same time, big part of my job is to educate our membership on on all the names back there, the the origins that these people come from, right? The things that they they're passionate, right? It's not just me, it's not just our leadership team that are visible. So show them that as much as possible because I I don't think most members understand that.
SPEAKER_02We just recorded a video, it's dropping uh Monday with our um Italian pizza chef who's from Milan. Milan, yeah. Uh he speaks no English. So Jay and I came up with, I mean, well, I mean, Jay translates through or or communicates through Google Translate. Yeah. Um, but I I came up with a list of questions. I translated them all, and we we did a kind of a video interview for the members. Um, and then I'm, you know, I'm doing subtitles and that drops Monday, but I that's such a good point, and we're so big on that. Um, especially this year, um, with the kitchen being brand new. I mean, we've had members tour the kitchen constantly, it's like a revolving door, they want to see what's going on back there. Um, and I worked with a chef probably 15 or 20 years ago who was, you know, you're when you think of a chef, uh, your typical personality in terms of very strong-willed, um, could be very loud, uh, enjoyed staying in the kitchen because that's where the work happened.
SPEAKER_01Comfort zone.
SPEAKER_02And I would say to him, I mean, I was I was a young manager, I was in my 20s, and I'd be like, Chef, you gotta go out in the dining room. He's like, I don't go out in the dining room. I don't think, you know, that's the work happens back here. And I'm like, but you don't understand. When you walk into the dining room, it's like Oz. Like the wizard came out from behind, and it could be the worst night in the world, but when they see the chef, they're like, the chef is here. Yeah, everything is okay. You know, and I think from you guys, like having that personality to one, be personable and want to engage with the members. Um, I don't know that. Every executive chef realizes how much of an impact that makes, you know, and helps us, you know, me and our front house team do their jobs. Um one of the creative things we're doing this year, uh, and I think chef's excited about it, but we just, in fact, just yesterday, we're we're we're selling five, um, five, is it five or six?
SPEAKER_01Five.
SPEAKER_02We've got five dates that we're selling. Uh we're calling it an exhibition table, where we're putting a table of four in the kitchen in front of the line. Um and it's gonna be pricey, uh very pricey.
SPEAKER_05Uh it's gonna be worthwhile. There's no there's a value to it.
SPEAKER_02There's no menu, like we determine the menu. Um, obviously, we're gonna do uh, you know, make sure there's no allergies or anything, but everything's included, all the drinks you can handle, um, nine or ten or maybe more courses. But the idea is that one, they get to see like four lucky members get to see exactly what it looks like on a Friday night where it's when it's chaos in there. And and it and it they will go out and tell the story to the rest of the members. They will say, You have no idea what it takes to do a la carte for three or four hundred, you know? And then two, um, and this is what I'm looking for, is I think it keeps our team on their toes. Oh, absolutely. You know, because again, we don't have an open kitchen. Uh you guys don't have an open kitchen. It is easy to fall into that mode of like, I can say what I need to say. Right.
SPEAKER_01Um, I can just wipe this onto the floor, cut some corners here.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's human nature, it happens, but like we we have these five dates scheduled. Um, and I and I know they're gonna sell out.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's gonna be awesome.
SPEAKER_02And it's one of the things, again, talk about small things. Like we're talking an experience for four people. It's probably the biggest thing I'm looking forward to this year. I think it's gonna be so much fun.
SPEAKER_00No doubt. No, that's that's awesome that you're doing that. That will be very special for the members. Yeah, no doubt. It it's interesting in our in our culture, and and I think we're all kind of old enough to have watched what culinary TV did to the reputation of chefs in general. You know, like we what you said about Oz, it that's totally true. You know, it just for some reason there's a cultural interest in what chefs think. I mean, often we're not certainly me, you know, the smartest person. Um uh, but but everybody's interested in in what is the chef thinking and doing. And that's that's really neat. It creates this sort of vibe, right? And in the club, I mean, just everybody wants to talk about the bear, probably chef. Um, you're tired of talking about it. Yeah, um, just all these shows, you know, it it's awesome. Yeah, I'm not I'm not tired of talking about the bear in that there's interest from the members. So as long as they have interest, I'm happy to talk about it, right? Um, but it but it's very interesting, and not all cultures are like that. Um, you know, Peruvian culture, when I was down there, there's some some Latin cultures where it's like you wouldn't want um, it was like this actually in Hong Kong a bit too. Like those were those were jobs that maybe you as parents you wouldn't want your daughter to marry a cook for the sake of your future, you know, economically and socially. Um, and so we're in a special place where I think we have to be careful with it, you know, it's just like any form of power, there's like a lot of responsibility with how you represent being a chef. And we know that there's just a lot of jackasses out there as chefs doing really things that I'm like, oh my god. But uh in the club environment, yes, I think, and chef, tell me if you agree, like there is a a persona that I for sure have in this in this club. And it it's like you can't be too crazy, you know, like chefs are supposed to be a little bit crazy, right? But in the club environment, you can't be too, too crazy, right? So you need to be a little edgy, but you can't be like, yeah. Um yeah, and so there's like this really interesting, my my kids would call it aura that a chef has to have. And within the club world, it's a little bit different, but it's almost enhanced more too. It's like our chef, right? The membership want to be proud of their chefs and the things that their culinary program does. So there's an outsized interest in in culinary, I think, in our country. Um, and but certainly in in the kitchens here, there's a lot of interest in everything we're doing. I'm thankful for it. Don't I'm not complaining. It's just kind of an interesting phenomenon that results in us having a very active life. And yeah, I do feel like part of the chef's job in a club. Like if you don't want to in a hotel or in a in a freestanding restaurant, if you don't want to touch tables, like, okay.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00But I really think in a club, we that has to be like that would be on the job description. If I was writing the the JD for my replacement, that would definitely be something that you should have to do. And and if you if you're not good at it, a lot of chefs are introverted. You know, I was by nature as a young guy introverted. These are things I had to learn, but you can learn that. And mostly it's just practice, it's getting used to it, approaching tables, talking to them, knowing that it's not a confrontation. You know, a lot of times I think introverted people, it's like I only go to the table when there's a problem, like something's been overcooked, and I go out and I stand tall while they dress me down. Um, no, what to your point, what they want is a story. You know, come tell me a story, tell me about these ingredients. Why are you excited about what's on the menu tonight? And if you embrace that and do it, you are doing a huge service to your club. Yeah. And I think if you're not doing it, it's a bit of a disservice.
SPEAKER_02Well, I that I think that goes into the the intangible piece of what we are here to do. Um, and I, Matthew, I think you and I talked about this when I was up there. Like, you know, you join a club, you're a member, you join a club, you know, you stroke a check for whatever the membership fee is, and then you don't walk away with anything. Like there's nothing that you're leaving with. You know, what you're joining is this feeling, this culture, this atmosphere, this the ability to, as you said, the ability to say our chef. You know, oh, I spoke to Chef Jay last night, or I can call our chef directly and you know, request something special, or our chef came to the table, or you know what I mean? Where you can't you don't do that at just a freestanding operation, you know, you don't have it's not your chef at right.
SPEAKER_01But it's you know what I also think is it's because they signed that check and they they became part of this group, they they are our captive audience, and that's 100%. So we no matter what you do, you're you're gonna have to interact with them because they're here multiple times. You know, it's not a freestanding restaurant where you may go one time and never go back. Yeah, that we're an establishment that they're paying for, so they're gonna use us, right? And and I think any reac any interaction that you have, and and I've had some great interactions, and yes, I've stood at tables and and and taken it, you know, one side down the other side, and and you know, and I we move forward, but they come in the next week and they've had the greatest experience of their life. So I mean it's you you take the good and the bad with that, but it's it's our captive audience. And if you're not present and you're not in that dining room and they don't know who you are, then they've got no respect for you, I think. You know, it's it's it's you gotta be there, you gotta show them. And and the little bit of craziness that you let out, like I tell I literally stood in front of a room of of our uh one of our wine dinners, and I said, This next course, I can't explain it real well, but I had a dream about it, and I want you to experience my dream. And that's all I said about it. And when I came out after that course, they're like, This is the best thing we've ever had. And it's you know, whatever it was, it was just, you know, I was like, okay, that's my crazy. That's that's where my you know, that's how I let it leak out, you know, it's just in a in a controlled environment where it's let's try something different, you know.
SPEAKER_00So I love I love that. And uh really, it's like part of the intangible is the relationships that we have. And imagine saying, like, I love that you said that, Treff. That's the kind of thing I would say too. Um, but imagine if you didn't have a pre-existing rapport with that room and you said that, right?
SPEAKER_01Like that would be like they're gonna be like, what is this guy?
SPEAKER_00Who's this weirdo? You know, like I came here for some beef and carrots, you know, not agreeing. Exactly. Um, but but if you if you develop a rapport, and as we always talk in Medina about the currency, the ultimate currency at Medina is the relationship currency, right? So tenure often reflects that, right? But for me, that's more important than tenure, it's more important than your skill set. It's can you can you have relationships with everybody that feel good, right? And if you can, as the years pass, you become someone who is near and dear to folks in a way that then you can talk like that. And they're like, wow, chef had a dream. Like it was, and they're telling that story long after they leave, right? I'm sure they're talking about your dream right months and years after you stopped even thinking about it, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00But part of that intangible is the relationship aspect. And I fully agree, Joe. Yeah, we did talk about this at length, so I won't uh beat any kind of dead horse, but you know, we know that these folks can get any product they want at any time in any part of the world. Like they have the ability to jet set today, tomorrow, the next day to any place that that we could pull product from. And so what we feel at Medina, you know, we we calibrate each event um with our team going into it based on what's today's feeling. So, so when when you said we're delivering a feeling, we've completely embraced that for the last three years on the front end back of house side to the point where we actually say, okay, today's different than yesterday. Last night was a bit more formal. We needed to facilitate the fun, but we needed to do that in a way that had a little bit of seriousness to it. Today we're gonna be warm. There's a bunch of children here, we're gonna get down on one knee when we see one, we're gonna fist bump the the kids, we're gonna give them a candy cane, whatever it is. Today's vibe is about making the children and the moms happy, let's say, right? And last night it was a bourbon dinner or it was a very high-end wine dinner. And so we were we were more serious, and we were making this group of gentlemen and their guests happy. So the product is the product, and we, of course, as chefs, we procure the best we possibly can. Um, but ultimately we want them to walk away feeling something. Like I experienced something in this club environment that I wouldn't have been able to get anywhere else. That's our our main thing is to to deliver experiences like that. So yeah, it's all intangible from my point of view. They of course you want them to eat good stuff, but they need to walk away feeling something, or else, yeah, is $150,000 worth it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. Right. You gotta deliver something that feels like it's a good value for them.
SPEAKER_02Well, and that, you know, when you said the when you said currency, you know, and and the relationships, um, there are times, and I'm I'm thinking about your series that you're doing, you know, the food, food is humanity, and and how much of a human element um is all about what we do, and humans are imperfect. Like to me, I I say it all the time, like we're gonna try and be excellent, but we like perfection is impossible, right? Like we are humans are imperfect by nature, you know. So if you're focused on building that currency and building those relationships, um the times when you're going to have to ask for forgiveness or where things are subpar, because it's gonna happen. I'm sure you guys have had nights of service where you're like, well, that didn't go great. Um, and the reason for that is because everyone is human. And I mean, one of the things I think about all the time, and Jay's heard me say it a million times, is how many hands, and you know, this isn't gonna sound it's not meant to sound weird, but how many hands are involved in a dish from the time it come, you know, raw product comes in the door, gets inventoried, put away, pulled out, prepared, plated, picked up by a food runner, you know, garnished and to the table, right? Like there's so much that has to line up perfectly for the member to put their fork in that steak, put it in their mouth, and be like, wow, you know what I mean? And oftentimes they forget about that. And all those elements, from you know, the time we receive it to the time it goes into the member's mouth, they're all human elements, right? And there will be a time, probably multiple times a week, maybe, where it's something doesn't work out, you know, and and you're gonna have to go to that member and say, listen, you know that's not the norm for us, you know. I'm sorry, whatever the situation may be, you know. Um, so that human, I just I go back to that human element that is like so, you know, ridiculously like to me, that is the foundation of everything we do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I I think uh food is humanity. I'm loving doing this. I didn't I didn't set out to do anything, but at this point in time, like I'm enjoying it so much. I I got to interview uh Jimmy Koontz the other day. Um, he was here, he's one of our guest chefs for the President's Cup. So he came in advance to see the space and we worked out his menu, which is super ambitious. It's gonna be unreal. But here's a person, uh, so he's the son, everybody probably knows this. He's the son of Gray Koontz from Lespinas and Cafe Gray in New York. Um, you know, the legendary chef he was in Hong Kong too and from Singapore originally. So he comes from an incredible pedigree, um, culinary-wise, uh, and his business is called the Truffleist. So he makes all these truffle products. But more than anything, this is a human being. I've never been around, or I have been around a few in all the years, a few like him on the level of enthusiasm about food and about what he does, and about people too. So, right, like those are, in my opinion, are connected. But sitting there with them, and our interview was two hours long. There were times where I was just like, I was just like laughing uh from joy of watching him talk about something that he was doing, right? And so I say that because I think the part of the club thing, too, and and I know that this is so inside baseball and weird, and and I'm I'm getting older, so I'm probably more sentimental and stuff, but the humanity part of this really inspires me uh so much more than I like two decades, three decades ago. I had I wasn't thinking like this, and now I'm old and I'm a dad, so I can be cringe and not care. But the energy that we give to people, right? So the club environment is also about, and when we would talk about Kikubadi, the handing out of energy, you know, you and I talked about that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think about that a lot. When people come, I think a lot of staff members think when wealthy people come to be a part of a club, we're the help and we give them what they want.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The way I see club membership is a group of people who are actively looking to participate in a human community, doing very human things with people they love and care about, right? And that's all energy oriented. And so one of the things I try, I can't help but be enthusiastic naturally too. So, like when I go to tables, I'm like trying knocking things over because I'm gesturing all wild and just getting really excited about bison or mushrooms or whatever it is, right? I can't help but do that. Um, but a lot of our team, one of the things that I try to get them to do is break out of their shell of maybe they're nervous to act like that in front of people. They feel as though we're here to be serious and we're in fine dining or whatever it is. We need to deliver a serious experience. And it's like there's this perfect pocket of form-wise doing it the right way. Um, but you can also be an enthusiastic person, and that's contagious. So, what I loved about my conversation with Jimmy, we had this whole thing about negativity is contagious, right? And we we live in a in a me over we society in which there's kind of like some reinforcement for the negative, you know, it's cooler to be a crap talker than it is to be a positive person, right? Um, and so it's contagious, but so is positivity. And what I've realized is that any given night, like as the chef, I can walk around to all these tables and and and and be that enthusiastic, passionate person about food, and it leaves the room feeling different, right? And that's not a me being a special person thing, anyone can do that, but it's like giving permission to other people to be excited about something. Like if our service team is excited about any of the food that's on the menu, we'll sell it all, right? Exactly. The description by itself might sell a bunch of dishes, but if one, even if one server really likes it, they could blow through the entire 13 specials or 22 specials on one busy Friday or Saturday night just because of their enthusiasm. And so I feel like that's something in a club too, that people people are like looking for positive energy. People are looking to be, of course, respected and heard and treated well and stuff like that. But more than that, we have the opportunity to to like really invest in those relationships in an enthusiastic and positive way that like people would give almost any amount of money to receive that, yeah, feel that because most places in life, and most places, especially in our me over we society, they don't feel like that. They're they're they're downer places where service is like you're you're you're bothering somebody when you order a sandwich or when you do whatever, it's like, oh, I'm so sorry you have to put your phone down for a second. And so in our environment, it's like, we are so excited that you are here today, you know, like that. We don't have to say it, but that energy says it and it's it's really special. So that's one of the things that I'm trying to really empower our group to do that in a professional way, to your point.
SPEAKER_02But from you, you know, from the leadership standpoint, like when you guys have that type of perception from the top down and you're looking at things that way, it will naturally permeate uh into all everyone else. I mean, for for years, Jave's known me a long time. For years, I came up through a very high-end club. Um, you know, we used to wear jackets and ties, you know, men used to have jackets and ties, and servers wore vests, and I mean it was very high-end. And I am a very personally a very unorthodox general manager, you know. And for years, up and up and really until probably eight or nine years ago, I always personally always felt like, okay, this is the way the industry says I'm supposed to be in my position. And I felt so weird trying to be like this, like, you know, peg in a square hole. And, you know, really when we, you know, we just started uh it was probably a pelican. I was just like, you know what? I'm what makes me enthusiastic is being me and as quirky as I can be, and as uh as non-GM as I as I am. Oh yeah, to watch Joe serve tables is interesting, but but as you know that that that feeling permeates to everyone else, and like when people can be who they are and just kind of be comfortable being who they are, um, they're more enthusiastic about what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01Oh, for sure. You know, like it's just like Yeah, it's no you're comfortable in your own skin, so you might as well share it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, I mean it's so it's so important. I guess my point is it's so important from the the leadership, you know, for from the higher up um, you know, on the hierarchy, like you know, your position. If you're just and especially in your kitchens, um, you guys have very diverse backgrounds, diverse people, right? Like you want them to be enthusiastic about sharing their backgrounds and their culture. And right.
SPEAKER_01Well, and that's and that's I think that's the key word is the culture, you know. Like when we came here, it was to what you were saying, Matt, is it was negative. I mean, it was it was one guy in the kitchen that set the tone or set the mood for the entire day's worth of service. And and when I came in, I was like, man, I I I can't I can't do this. I can't, I can't be put down every single day because one guy is just negative about everything we're doing. And we're an anchor. Yeah, we're doing we're doing great things and we're having fun doing it. And you know, we're all getting along, and you know, yeah, there's it's a team thing, but it's not front of the house against back of the house. You know, it's it's our team. So let's let's work this together and and whatever yesterday happened yesterday, that was yesterday. Today's a new day. You know, and that's the philosophy that I I keep bringing up is with the staff is you know what yesterday I may have come at you because I'm passionate about what I do and how things happen and and what I'm expecting. And and feelings may have gotten hurt, but that was yesterday. Today is a brand new day. Let's start over, let's let's do it again, and let's have fun doing this and not uh and not be negative about it. Let's just, you know, I try and say it's positive and crazy, you know, like sometimes you just gotta come off the wall with some stuff, you know, out of pocket stuff just as somebody, you know, to get a a reaction from somebody to change the world. Yeah, you know, and and and we try I try and do that at lineup, you know, they they all look at me and I I say something that just is so left field that they're all like what? And then and then it just you know it just resets, you know, so we can uh we can move forward and and have a better day about it, you know.
SPEAKER_00So that's what I'm you you're so you're so right. And you know, being the guardians of the energy and and having it be be positive and keep it positive, like the term we use for the the opposite here is an energy vampire. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and going back to my term of um you know the contagion, the contagiousness of energy, be it positive or negative, um, the danger of energy vampires, especially if they're charismatic in any way. If they're a charismatic person that's a shit talker, you've got a big problem because people, it's like two, it's like two hundred percent to one hundred percent the draw of negative to positive in our society. Like it's easy so much easier to be a shit talker, right? Just sit in the peanut gallery and throw eggs at stuff. It's so much easier than being the person that actually has to go do something, right? Um, so if you have a charismatic energy vampire, boy, is that problematic in your kitchen, in your service team, because people are gonna hear the things that that charismatic person says and be like, yeah, you know what? He's right. This is bullshit. And before you know, you've got this growing cancer. It's like the poison in the well spreads through the water. Cancer, right? Yeah, exactly. Great, great analogy. So, you know, counteracting that is so important. And the from the very top level, in our case in the kitchen, us, but then the GM, we we're signaling verbally a certain number of things, right? But non-verbally, we're signaling thousands of things, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00And so our actions throughout the day are modeling the behavior the way we um, you know, get along with other department heads. So it's like, oh, the the freaking grounds guy is an idiot, right? And and so we all think that, and then I talk to him like he's an idiot, he talks to me as an idiot, and the 120 grounds people and 240 F and B people see that as a green light to hate each other. Yeah, right. Um, so all that stuff. I also want to qualify something I said before too. Like, and I uh Chef, I think you probably agree, like when we're talking about a dream going onto a plate or we're being kind of goofy or enthusiastic. And um, I can imagine, Mr. Joe, one of the things I love about you is that you really you talk with your hands, like I'm editing our video, and it's all just of you, right? So it's like I'm trying to change the screen size to accommodate your your Italian in me. I I love it. It's like you just you're so you know magnetic to watch because of the movement. Uh, but I can imagine you out there trying to, you know, you're knocking over water glasses at the end of the day. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, clear, clear a table or whatever.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But but I think like it's a line that I have here, it's part of our internal kitchen medina way um pillars. Um, and it's it's essentially a line that I call capability and credibility. So a lot of times when you're a young manager and you're trying to earn the respect of your team, you're trying to make friends with them. You're trying to maybe you're tit for tatting a little bit, where it's like, well, I'll be lax on this. So, and then you, but you guys respect me as your leader, right? And what I always preach, and I I want to make sure I'm always doing this myself, but in the kitchen, it works no other way. Like the chef has to be better at any kitchen task than everyone else. It's a little bit like warlords, you know, in in in Africa or something like that. Like, if the guy that gets to be the warlord can't beat the rest of them, then they kill him and the next guy's the warlord, right? Like in the kitchen, you have to, as the chef, be able to demonstrate your capability every day. You're only as good as your last hot dog, hamburger, chicken nugget, foie gras, uh, sweetbreads, whatever it may be. And so, capability and credibility, this is a relationship in the kitchen that's very visceral, right? Like, if you're not capable, then you're not credible as my as my chef and as my leader. You may be a good cook, you may have the name on the jacket, but I don't respect you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00I don't want to follow you and I won't call you chef. Like the term chef, we could do a whole episode about yeah what does that actually mean, right? So it's very important when we're when we can only be goofy and have fun and do all these things, like we talked about trust before. So you got to earn that first. But you know what else you have to earn is you have to earn credibility. And that's something that you can lose pretty quickly. You can cash in on existing credit, right? And say, Oh, we made a mistake tonight. I'm so sorry, but you can only do that so many times.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And if you if you start to deliver anything subpar and then you're also goofy, woo, yeah, that will tank you faster than anything else. So I feel like for whoever's listening, it's like I don't want the perception to be like, oh, you know, Matt and Jay and these guys are just goofballs up here. It's like you have to work so hard to earn, first of all, that credibility and maintain the credibility, and then you get to be a bit of a comedian, or then you get to focus on the energy exchange. All that stuff comes after you've built a foundation of quality. That's where the product matters more than anything, right? Like all those things that we're sort of dismissing when we talk about energy, it's like can't lose sight of the importance of those first.
SPEAKER_02And I've I've always seen one of the one of the biggest ways to continue to build and protect that credibility is when I mean when you are not above any job in terms of um listen, when we're when we're in the shit, we're all rolling our sleeves up and getting down there. And if that means, you know, I'm hot to your point, you gotta do any be able to do any job as good as as good as the guy doing it or better, that might mean hopping into the dish pit one night, you know, or you know, I've I've I've spent nights this season expoing, um you know, or busting tables, like that that type I've always found that you know when when your team knows that they can count of count on you because you can do the job to help them in the times of struggle, um, you're you're building credibility that I mean just absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was the that was a big thing when when I first started here was the chef before never would work the line. Or or is as simple as put away product when it came in. And you know, like I was small things, man.
SPEAKER_02Those small things make a big difference, right?
SPEAKER_01Just you know, if it's sitting on the floor, let's pick it up, you know. Let's and you watch me do it a thousand times a day, you know. So it's that's all I'm asking.
SPEAKER_00It's just our RG RGM walks around picking up garbage all day. Like he one of his one of our principles that came from him is it's called keep the campus clean or keep the park clean if we're outside. And this gentleman almost obsessively, it's like constantly just it's like a cigarette butt and a pencil from the scorecards that was over there. And oh, here's a couple broken T's. And anywhere he goes, he's got either a little bag like in Japan, like we talked about, yeah, or just in his hand, like seven or eight pieces of garbage. And so on one line, you know, one level, you're like, why is the GM always holding garbage? But what he's doing is walking around setting the tone of exactly what you just said. Nobody, nobody is above picking up garbage and cleanliness right next to godliness, uh Hemingway, a clean, well-lit place. Like we can look across all of our world at the values of having a clean place. So imagine the person that's the first to aspire towards cleanliness being the one at the top of the chain. For sure, like you, Joe. Um, you know, that's so powerful in the eyes of others in terms of establishing credibility. And all of our team is like, oh God, like if he's out there picking it. So you see that like 17 people like running around picking up garbage.
SPEAKER_02I've I've always I look at the club, I like to say, you know, it's the members' clubs. It's the members' club. They're just letting me borrow it for the time I'm here. And I I hope that I hope that that's a long time. But again, there's this, there's this high level of responsibility um for really it starts at the top and then it permeates down into each level, you know, the executive level, but we are we are caring for the club, we're caring for the property, but we're also caring for the culture and the atmosphere, right? You know, and it's it's it's our duty to um for the time that I'm borrowing it to take care of it. I want to leave this club better than how I found it. I want to leave people better than how I found them. We talked about this at our leadership retreat, you know. People come and go in our culture, in our uh, in our work culture, um, and change sucks. You never want to lose people, especially good ones, but they're gonna move on. As long as we are comfortable and confident knowing that they left the club better than how they joined the club, they got something positive from it from their experience here, then that's all we can do. And it's the same thing with members. Um, and it's even a day-to-day basis. I don't remember which one of you said uh, you know, tomorrow's a new day. We took we've started talking a lot about uh Hakanae, right? The beauty of impermanence, and today will never happen again. Yeah, so whether it was a bad day or a great day, if it was a bad day, learn from it and take comfort knowing that it's over, it's not gonna happen again. If it was a great day, rest in it and appreciate it and be present in it because it was a great day and it's not gonna happen again. Like today, the the the present time is all you have, and tomorrow's a new day. You know, so as long as you're leaving the day better than how you found it, and and and the day left you better than how you were when you started it, like that's all you can ask of people, right? Members and employees. Yeah, 100%. Let me hit you guys with a few rapid fires. You cool?
SPEAKER_01Tear it off.
SPEAKER_02And I I want to be I want to be cognizant of the time, uh Matthew, because I know you you guys got a lot going on. We're in the dead of summer here.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, we got I got to make I gotta make a pizza today.
SPEAKER_02So uh a pizza, one pizza? Probably. All right, um let's do uh um what do you got what do you fear most about being an executive chef in your role? What what scares you most? You go first.
SPEAKER_00Me go first. Yeah, what scares me? Gosh. I don't want to sound like a I don't want to sound weird, but I don't know. I I can't think of anything. Um okay, here's one. Um not scare, but lament a little bit. And chef, there was something you said probably 40 minutes ago that that touched on this too, and it's what an executive chef does. Like, I don't really cook very much anymore.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And a part of that is okay because I'm gonna be 50 in a couple years and my back's all jacked up. Um, you know, it takes it out of you. Like this is my 35th year. This fall will be the beginning of my 35th year of doing this professionally. So on one hand, it's like, okay, if I'm not lugging pork butts out to the smoker, that's that's okay. Um, but I guess I I do fear uh and moving into the food and beverage director role, like that cut down way more, even still on how much I I get to cook. So I won't I won't pose it as fear. You know, the the fear I guess would be that I don't cook anymore. Um, but what I will say is on the occasions that I do get to cook right now, the joy of that is like imagine if you could only eat, like let's say you loved ice cream, and you could only eat a bowl of ice cream once a month. When you eat that bowl of ice cream, you eat it slow, you savor every aspect of it, and you're just like, I remember why I love ice cream so much. You know, so good answer. Anytime I cook, I'm just like, everybody's like, You're so happy, you know. Like, I really am. Like, this is what I got into this for. I didn't get into this for to be a computer guy or a you know, a lot of the things I get to do now are super cool still. They're just a different, it's a different part of the chef experience, right? Yeah, and so like I think fear, I fear, I guess that's it would be fearing losing the hands-on, the actual dough vegetables in the oil, in the you know, fabricating meats, blood everywhere, you know, like uh that's what I got into this for. That's what we get into this for as chefs, and and I love it more than anything. Um, but I don't do it very much anymore. And that's probably something that will continue to taper off. My my hope is that once we have this bloody uh tournament year over after the centennial and after the course through renovation, 2027 might be a year in which I actually can cook more than I did this year. Yeah, you know. Um, but eventually that's that's something that that does come to an end. So back on the Hakanai, you know, fleeting, fleeting existence level. It's like anytime I do cook, I I realize that that's probably somewhat somewhere out there, there's a count of the times I'll get to cook. Right. And they're ticking down.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so scary, but at the same time, so much more enjoyable to recognize that. Sure. And every we talk about being in the present. Boy, every time I get to cook now, I'm just I'm a hundred percent there. All the worries of tomorrow and all the things from yesterday are gone, and I'm just like, yeah. Um, which really, from a Zen sense, is what cooking is about anyway. If you're present when you're cooking, what comes out of that is a magical thing. If you're if you're vacant, your mind is elsewhere, it's the combination of ingredients with heat applied.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's exactly. Yeah, and I and I just to add to that, I mean, it's I I think you you have the same, we we have the same mindset, but the the the one the one ingredient that is on no recipe, but in our world, it's in every recipe is love. And you have to put love into or passion into what you're doing to get the the results that you're looking for, if you ask me. You're right. It's it's ingredients and add heat is is a recipe. But for me to cook for you, it's it's I'm putting my passion, my my persona, my my love of what I do into that dish. So, and I want you to enjoy that. Yeah, you know, so I guess if I lost that, that lost that passion, yeah, that would be my biggest fear. And and I I don't foresee any reason. Yeah, exactly. At that point, I I I'll go sit on a beach someplace and and you know, play in the sand. I don't know what else to do after that, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, and without with without the love, without the passion, also this job is not worth it. Exactly. I think that's why so many, so many people bail out, you know.
SPEAKER_02They're not gonna be able to do is hard.
SPEAKER_00Yes, you know, the job triages. So going to culinary schools, let's say you're talking to a hundred students, and I'm like, seven of you will do this long term.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00And that's not being negative, that's just being realistic. Like, this is something that if you don't have the love and the passion, you're not gonna do this for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Yeah, right. No way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Um, no, and that what I what you just said, I love that, Chef. Here I call that two, two plus two equals five. You know, so when we're talking about cooking, it's and this comes back to Joe's the intangible that we talked about when we were together here, and then already early today. The intangible aspect of making magical food is love. And two plus two can equal five. It has to on the highest level, or otherwise it's not high level, right? But yeah, if if you don't love it, if the people who are doing it are not putting, that's the other thing I call it with our members, is there's so many people behind the door putting their heart into what they do. What I mean by that is exactly what you just said. You wouldn't note this as a layperson or as a diner, you wouldn't note this food as being any more special than the best ingredient present if it wasn't for those people putting the heart. And so as a leader, if if I could cook everything for 1100 families, yeah, so 3,500 people, well, how awesome would that be? They would all feel the love from me. But I don't cook it. We just didn't say we don't cook very much. So how do you get all the other people to two two plus two equals five for you and the members? That's one of the biggest, um, you know, biggest part of the parts of the mission. So I love that you said that. That's totally true. And so and most people don't think about it like that, right? But it's yeah, you take 10 people, same ingredients, you'll end up with 10 different dishes, and you'll know immediately who had that intangible ingredient ingredient on top of the ingredients or not.
SPEAKER_02During small side story, but during COVID, we were doing uh market days where we were selling bread, uh soups that we made here. Um salads, cards, yeah, and we would, you know, we'd we do they were all takeout to go, and Jay would print up uh ingredient stickers to put on everything. And I uh love was always listed as an ingredient on on our you know, takeout soups and all of it. I thought that was cool. Um favorite cuisine or style of cooking? You gotta go first.
SPEAKER_01I went over and and so you know, I I'm I'm from the Midwest also, so meat and potatoes is is my thing, you know. But but style of cooking and and I've had a couple people ask me this, and this is it's gonna sound a little corny, I guess, but my favorite thing to cook is a memory. Okay. And I like I like to make something that you had as a child or as a you know, as a as a an event that brought people together, as as a memory that you had that said, oh, this takes me back to the day that I had this. Okay. And my mom or my grandmother or whoever that cooked in your world, you know, brought that back. That's the dish that I want to make. Yeah. Is is that I can bring back that memory for you. And, you know, with our membership, it's it's an older membership. So if I bring back something that, you know, somebody from the past that is not with us anymore, but it tastes just like how Nana used to make it. Yeah, that that to me is my favorite thing to cook.
SPEAKER_02You know, I don't know if you know this, but you did that for me probably probably 10 or 12 years ago.
SPEAKER_01That awesome.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome. We we we we don't have, I mean, we do now, but it's it's relatively recent. We never had real, true, good Italian beef sandwiches here, right? Like Portillos, dude, like that's my Emma and I went twice when we were there. Like, that's my jam. And we were talking about Italian beef, and and you this was at Pelican, Pelican Reserve. You brought in, I don't know, I don't know where you got it, and and we put on the menu, I think. And I remember having a beef sandwich saying, like, this is it, like you took me home, man.
SPEAKER_00That's that's funny.
SPEAKER_02That just came up. Chef, how about you?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I'm gonna build on that answer first. Love that about the club world, right? Like it again, when we are calibrating our team mindset towards events. So, you know, Easter is one, Mother's Day is one, um, whatever the event may be. We're talking about what the feeling we want to deliver is. In the holidays, that's probably the one that I talk the most about with people. Is like, and there's two aspects of it there's triggering nostalgia. And my my favorite um state dependent memory example in film is ratatouille. And I think all chefs love the that one scene where the a-hole frickin' food critic guy has that one bite and just transforms into a child on the swing and his mom's there. Like, that's like I cried when I when I first saw that. I've watched that a hundred times. I just watch it over and I'm like, that's brilliant. Like that, the way that that was captured was like we talk about it, but that's a visual rep perfect visual representation of what that looks like. And it's like, so we can aspire towards that, we should aspire towards that with Thanksgiving. You know, all throughout Christmas, we'll put cinnamon sticks in our in our in our chafers, like in the water. So it kind of like exudes this like cinnamon aroma. Um, so much of those things are are scent-oriented or flavor-oriented, as we know. Certainly, sounds too with the music. So, like creating that kind of experience, we're trying to like trigger the the cues of nostalgia. Yeah, and in a club, it's like again, that's a feeling that people that's priceless to feel that joy is is worth more than any membership times 10, right? Most people of means would pay anything to feel that, especially repeatedly. And so to be able to deliver that's awesome. The other thing we have the opportunity to do, and I just am I feel so lucky for us and our team to be in the position to do this, is what I call creating future nostalgia. And so that's the members' children. This is a generational club, it's a wonderful place because the grandpa's there. We've got a lot of that too.
SPEAKER_02We've got a ton here.
SPEAKER_00You you have that too. So you you know that should the world not end for one reason or another, the next those kids are gonna be that seven-year-old kid is gonna be the president of this club in 50 years or whatever. Um, and then and his kids are gonna be as the president, he's gonna be bringing them to things. Um, and then he's the grandpa, and that kid's kids, right? So when there's children in any event, what our goal is is to do things for them, subtle and less subtle in certain cases, that will help for them 40 years from now to feel those exact same things and think about what I tell our team is like some person after you're dead could think smell something and think of you, or you're gonna be an old 78-year-old person, and this person now is an adult, and they smell or taste something and they think about you. Like, yeah, that's incredible, right? And so we have this incredible potential to create future nostalgia. So I love that you said that because it is a really special thing, and food to have the ability to deliver that is is incredible. Um, the quick answer to my question, I know these are supposed to be rapid fire, is Thai food. So I I would, if I was on a desert island, um, I would either eat a bowl of forest mushrooms that have been cooked with slivered garlic, thyme, sea salt, black pepper, and blue cheese. That would be one thing. Or I would have the entire Thai menu at my disposal uh for life. So I just love Thai food. Um, I love Vietnamese food. Uh living in China, I like I like regional Chinese food, love Japan Japanese food.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um the Middle East, I the way I think about cooking for myself and for my kids is a little bit like how I think about music. And and a lot of people know I came up in a musical family and not so much of a food family. So Music for me is is the original passion in my heart and and food is right there with it. Um, but that that musical passion for me, it's like, what do I feel like right now? You know, so the mood music is a mood-oriented thing for me. I like so many different kinds of music. When I'm coming here today to get ready for this, I want to get jazzed up, I put on death metal, you know, and I drive 85 miles an hour. Nice. Uh, when I'm driving home, I'm putting on some some down tempo trip hop, you know, and I'm just chilling to some beats and I don't have to think about it. And it, you know, so it's like food for me is very mood-oriented. What do I feel like eating? So living in the Middle East for a long time, like I love Syrian and Lebanese meza, Egyptian food is fantastic, North African, Moroccan, um, Spanish food, I just love so much. Of course, you know, French-oriented anything is awesome. Uh, and then being married into a family, uh, a Latin family for 16 years. Like, I love the flavors of Peru. Um lived in a bunch of places in South America that I just I think those those styles of cuisine are so different, yeah, but also brilliant and very interesting. So, and then of course, yeah, freaking Mexican food I could eat also all the time. I I love I love Latin flavors so much. Um anything, but it's mood, you know, it's sort of mood oriented. If you had me only having one though, it would be it'd be Thailand.
SPEAKER_02So I was gonna ask, you know, last your last meal ever. Yeah. Oh and you may have answered it with your desert desert islands, but your last meal ever, what are you having?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I was just asked this last night, actually. And it was a tomahawk steak sitting on a pepperoni pizza.
SPEAKER_05Whoa. Okay.
SPEAKER_01All right. Yeah, that's that's where I'm at. That's that's that's where I was last night, and I'm still there today. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, how about this?
SPEAKER_01How about this one?
SPEAKER_02Formal training or coming up through the ranks on the job? What do you what what's better? Are is one better? The one that you prefer? You guys were both you guys both went to culinary school. Yep. Um, I I came up through I I always like to ask this question because one of the things I've always been self-confident over is I came up just through the I didn't I didn't finish college. Um, I only went for 15 minutes and uh I just worked my way up. So I'm always curious, like to me I I guess the it depends on the person.
SPEAKER_01If the if the person is uh is is willing to uh is a student of life and and can and can learn and pick up things um without the uh formality of it, then I think that that education is priceless.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think you know, if you need you know, in in my world when I grew up was you have to go to college and it doesn't matter what it is, yeah, you have to do something and get a piece of paper. And so I did. I went to culinary school, which was probably the easiest college because I had a passion for food. You know, I I I've cooked, you know, before I went to school and and ever since. So but I've worked with both and I've worked with uh you know great chefs. My my Sioux chef never went to culinary school, yeah, but I put him hands down with some of the he's probably the top three cooks I've ever worked with in my entire career. And I've worked with some great people that but he he is old school, learned from scratch, came up the hard way, and and is a phenomenal guy. I mean, he's just yeah, you know, so uh it's hard to say. I mean, I it depends on the person. Jeff?
SPEAKER_00That's a that's an awesome question. I couldn't agree more with what you just said, Chef. Um, so Mark Gallaudet, who I mentioned, uh my my mentor of of many years, and my best friend, um, one of my best friends for sure. He came up without any culinary and or you know, just all school of hard knocks. Um, ended up being one of the main chefs at Ocean Reef. You guys know that. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, he was he was chef of the Jonathan Club in Los Angeles. So for me, it's it's absolutely dependent on the person. And there's a type of person that school would not be good for. I think that that he probably wouldn't have that wouldn't have been good for him. Uh, but then if you don't, you have to have good mentors and good teachers that that are you have to be learning the right ways of doing things. Because as we know in this industry, there's all kinds of shoemaking going on. And if you're around a shoemaker chef, um, that's what you're gonna learn to make shoes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I think you really need to have, he had some great mentors coming up, and therefore, combined with the fact that he means he's a marine, you know, that didn't hurt. Like he's a hard-charging guy and was gonna figure it out regardless. Um, and he's a great example of a of a whole category of people that I know who have done it that way. Having gone to school myself, I'm very proud that I went to New England Culinary Institute. It's it's gone now. Um, Neki is what it was called in its day. At the time, it was the main rival of the CEA, which is CIA, which has only thrived, you know, since then and is doing great. Um, while Neki went out. Neki was really based on a Frenchman's sort of personality and personal dream. Um, and so while he was there, it was amazing. Once he retired, that wasn't able to sustain. And I like I was felt lucky to be there while he was there. I was in in the heart of that time. So I had a great experience. I don't talk about it very much really, um, just because I'm freaking old and that was a long time ago. But uh, a lot of the things that happened during that time were um were epic. And I think two things it allows, well, but more than two, but the two that I'll say, it allows you access to a lot of things that without school, it would take a long time for you to experience. So, like learned smoking, um, learned how to make maple syrup. This was in Vermont that I went to school. Learned how to um carve ice, learned, you know, so all these things that like if I didn't go, I wouldn't have learned those probably unless I was around a person who knew or thought it out, you know. Um, so you just have all these resources. You have the Harry Potter library of all the you know culinary stuff that you could ever want, and you have access to that. The second thing are people, you know, you're around a const a concentration of passionate people, at least if it's a good school.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that translates to to the passion in the moment. Um, but also it results in great as long as you don't act stupid. If you, you know, act a fool, you can definitely not get what I'm about to say. But the network or the beginnings, if you're younger, the beginnings of a network, um, the network that I have now, a lot of those core connections started at that school and at that time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that was very valuable. But to Chef's point, a lot of the kids that were at that school, they were spending so much money and they totally sucked. They didn't care about it. Right. They didn't want to, you know what I mean? So, and then here, but the other side of that is uh I used to travel around my last job in Idaho, there was nobody to recruit there. So we we traveled all over the country, going to I was at CIA a bunch of times, Johnson and whales a bunch of times, all over the Johnson and Whale map. And uh, you know, so you're around the best schools, whatever. I would say now we don't recruit from those schools at all. There's five programs here in Chicagoland that we work with. And because of Chef's point about the individual, the people that we bring in from those schools, including one that's a high school program, it's called Technology Center of DuPage for juniors and seniors, those individuals are as good, if not better, than many of the C CIA students and Johnson O'Will students and NECI students that I've had interactions with in the past. So it's about choosing the right individuals. And if any school is big enough, there's gonna be the segment of people who who who are just there. And then there's gonna be the segment of small segment, but if you can tap into it of people who are super passionate and driven, and they're gonna be what they're gonna be regardless. Yeah, school, no school, right? Like they're they're going for it. So you got to find those people. That's that's the key to it, in my opinion, is talent selection is a is a slow and thorough process on whatever level, but definitely within the culinary school world, that's true. So yeah, that long, long-winded answer, as I always am long-winded. It's uh depends on the person, is the fastest way to say it. There's there's merits to both. I'm glad I did go to school, but I wouldn't hang my head on that degree or that experience.
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm finally in, you know, realizing in my 40s and having Emma start high school this week, I was always so kind of self-conscious because I I always found myself in in my professional career in the room, surrounded by so much experience. And um, I was always the young guy in the room. Um, and I was always super self-conscious that I didn't take the college route, but something you said, Chef Matt, um, some people just aren't made for it. And I'm finally realizing like I wasn't designed to be in a classroom, I was designed to be in the rooms that I found myself in because I was I was surrounded by so many awesome mentors. And I'm I'm just thankful that I really um absorbed the the thoughts and the the experience. And um, you know, I'm finally settling into the in into this, like, all right, I can let go, I need to let go of that, right? Yeah, um, I wasn't designed for it, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but you've you've earned your seat at the table.
SPEAKER_02I mean, well, but it's it is something I you know I think about. I'm always interested in, you know, especially you know, when I when I sit with other managers and leaders who you know have really successful careers, like is that something that's important, you know? And I I think you're both right, you know, it depends on the person, you know, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Joe, Joe, have you had uh have you had um great mentors in in your life? What are have you can you talk about a couple mentor experiences that that you had?
SPEAKER_02Oh, I mean, sure. I mean, coming up through the company I worked uh really kind of started my career and spent almost 17 years with. Um, I just had lunch uh a week ago with the former CEO of of that company. And at the height of the the housing market, it was a billion-dollar publicly traded company. Um we developed, we were housing developers. So we we built and managed lifestyle communities all over the state of Florida. Um, some really large ones. Um, and you know, he's one that had a, you know, David Fry had a huge impact on my career. And I met him. Um, I was parking cars. Uh, I was like an 18-year-old valet um at one of the clubs we managed, and he had come in for lunch from the corporate office. Um, and of course, I was like, oh, David's here. Oh, yeah, my best behavior, you know. But the club was dead. It was the middle of summer, and I was out front reading uh Raving Fans, which um was a customer service book, and it was kind of part of the company culture. And he took note of that and sent me a handwritten letter through interoffice mail like a couple weeks later. I still have it.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02Um, and that's something that made a huge, huge impact on me. Um, that I still talk about, I still think about. And one of the things I I just gave one of our food runners a book yesterday. Jay and I were talking. He's I walked through the service area, he's always on his phone. I was like, man, get off your phone. Get off your phone. Like, come on, you're better than that. You've got so much potential. Get off your phone. I was like, Do you read? He's like, Yeah, I guess I read. So I bought a I bought a book for him that you know I loved, um, changed my career, seven habits. And I brought it into him yesterday. I'm like, here's my gift to you. I'm like, here.
SPEAKER_01Read this.
SPEAKER_02I'm like, I was I I was caught reading a book like 30 years ago, and it changed the the direction of my career. I'm like, here you go. I'm I'm giving you, I'm giving you something here. But yeah, I mean, there were so many that that were impactful. And some of them, I'll tell you, some of the ones that were um that were the most difficult to work with. Um, I think about uh gentleman, Eddie Delessandro, who was one of our senior VPs, a really old school golf guy, he was so tough. Um and made like forced us to look at things a different way. But I'll tell you what I learned the most from him. And after he retired, turned out to be one of my best friends. Um, so I think from a mentor standpoint, um, sometimes the people who you think are supposed to be mentors might truly be mentors, but oftentimes the ones who you look at and say, That person's really tough to work with, right? Or or they're hard on me, those are the true mentors. You know, and you just can't see it at the time. Yeah, they see the best in you, they see the best in you, and they want them. Yes, 100%. Yeah, and it's been it's been countless for me. Yeah, countless. Last question I have for you guys. Yeah, it's oh go ahead, Matt. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00No, that was I was gonna say that the if I was given a young person advice right now, that would be it. Find find someone that's good to learn from. Yeah, like that, whether you go to school or not, like seek that out. And if in your town, like I'm from frickin' Bozeman, Montana, you know, there wasn't a whole lot of options there. And so I went outward, right? Like if you if you can't find one within a few blocks of your house, don't be like, Oh, there's nobody. Yeah, go find someone, like it's worth it. If you really want to do this and you think that you're in it to win it, like find a person or a series of people. Like that's such I wish I had that advice when I was young. I had them.
SPEAKER_02To your point, you know, to your point, you know, especially if you're younger looking to get into our industry, there's always so much kind of uh prestige centered around the property or the club. And really what you want to go find is the person you're gonna work for, not necessarily the, you know, and I'm not to pick on Medina, but you know, you obviously are someone that a young person should go work for. But if you weren't, if the wrong guy was in your shoes, someone may be drawn to Medina because it's Medina, but you end up working for the wrong person, you know, that is just for whatever reason, isn't really doesn't have your best interest in mind, you know. So sometimes I think some of the younger professionals or your younger folks getting into our industry, they get so hung up on the the club itself, the name of the club. You know, and there I believe there's something to learn from every situation, no matter what, you know, even the work, even the bad ones. But um go when to your point to go find a mentor. Um when you're when you're getting into the world and you're you're looking at getting that first or second job, um, don't be so focused on the property or the club, be focused on the the leaders, you know, who you're gonna be working for. So last question we ask everybody on on the on the podcast is uh uh podcast called How We Do Small Things. So I always like to ask, what small thing have you seen, experienced, or done recently that made a big impact?
SPEAKER_01Wow. Come on, you can't say wow, you're I know I I've done this a hundred times, and every time it's it it's to me, it's every everything, you know, it's it's everybody jumps in. So it's like all the small things are you know, it's it's almost commonplace now that for for small things to happen that people just yeah, they assume them. They just like, oh that's that's just how we do it now. You know, because it's uh it's the right thing to do. So it's I mean it's it's everything from, you know, we had uh we we had a uh a a girl go on vacation to Columbia two days before the earthquakes hit to the town uh of Khalid, which they happened in. And so I reached out just to see how you're doing. You know, what do you need? And and she was fine, everything was great, her family's great. And she's like, Oh, I need an extra week because we're setting up a restaurant down here and we need to help these people. So the I was like, You got you got it. Whatever you need, you know, just let me know. So I mean it's just it's little things that you know, she's trying to help others and just you know, you find out about things that that people are doing outside, yeah, which is is so great. Yeah, you know, so those that's the little things that we're doing. Matt?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she probably told a lot of people about that too. You know, like that people on your level, you know, you're probably looking the mirror and you're like, it's just me, you know, Chef Jay, or not Chef Jay. You're just like, it's just me, Jay, right? I do that all the time. I'm like, oh, that's goofy ass Matt in the mirror right there. But in the eyes of other people, you know, a card or a phone call or even an email or a text message in a situation like that, it's like that's a big deal. They're they're putting that card on the refrigerator, you know, like they're they're showing that text message to their mom and they're hey, my my boss thought of me, right? Yeah, and I feel like I feel like the at the at the crux of what we're sort of talking about with the small things is a is a recognition of self um somehow on a on a level that matters to that person, you know. And so, yeah, I think my my example, and I have a couple of them. I because you when I interviewed you, you told me that you're gonna do this. I remember that. Um, but it we we went through a whole period, and I'm sure so many clubs have because it's an incredible book by an incredible person. Um, and reasonable hospitality made a big mark on us here. Um, like so many people in the CMAA, we watched him speak in in Las Vegas a few years ago, and that was uh, you know, impactful for sure. And so uh our leadership team read the book shortly thereafter. Um, a lot of the people on the middle leadership team now have too. And there's a couple of terms that we like from that book, and we're just blatantly ripping them off. I don't think he would mind, but um, pulling a legend and then the term dreamweaver. These are ones that we've worked into our vocabulary as well. Um, and it's it's it's cool. Like we're certainly not there on the level I would like to be, and I know that we're capable of because this often feels like extra, you know, doing extra, turning that feeling of extra into normal is where we're at right now with our team. And again, it's a very large team. There's like 24 people in the leadership meeting every Thursday afternoon. And so when I'm talking about this, there's varying levels of like, oh yeah, let's do that, and huh? Um, you know, different reactions. So uh recently we had a really cool one, and it was our our Samolye, um, who's here we're we call him the beverage manager. His name is Taylor Nissen, and he worked together with Nicole O'Neal, who's who's very got the high currency of social um, you know, longevity here. She was a caddy and then worked in the golf team, worked as uh the manager of the banquet service team, and then the aula card service team, and now works in event sales. So just knows how everybody thinks and how everything works. And so we had a um, they just came off the wait list, actually. So the our wait list members have certain access, and and it's like finally when you come off the wait list, because it's like five years, everyone's like, wow. Um, so this gentleman reaches out. I really like him. Uh, and and I was CC'd, but it was too Taylor about making a uh originally it was he found out they they tried to make a reservation in our fine dining restaurant to celebrate his wife's birthday. And uh it happened that that night we were doing, I had mentioned earlier in the podcast, the uh world of wine, which is like 650 members. We plan for it far in advance, and we close our restaurant to do that. Like the all-day dining stays open, but the the fine dining, we use that team to produce that food and also serve all those members. And so they were really disappointed, wanted to celebrate you know her birthday here at the club, really disappointed. So he reached out to Taylor. Hey, you know, we just found out we're not gonna be able to celebrate my wife's birthday at the club. Um, but I heard it's world of wine. Would we be able to bring some friends? And so Taylor's like, yeah, absolutely. What are you what are you looking to do? Oh, 14 people, right? So it's like, oh, that's it's a big group. But yeah, absolutely. So he sets it up and he had mentioned somewhere down in the email chain that what she normally did, this was gonna be the first year that they were there at the club, was have a mastro's um buttercake with uh vanilla bean ice cream, was the way that she liked to set to celebrate. And this year, it was like set way down in the text, and this year we're gonna forego that in order to spend our first year's birthday at the club. And so then she didn't get to do what she wanted. Okay, in that case, fine, we'll still come. Don't worry about the birthday. We'll but we would like to attend. Cool. So we said set it up. And so Taylor, without without telling anybody, you know, he reached out to Nicole and they lined it up. So um they they went and got a uh a Mastro's cake. They they brought it, they did the the whole, you know, birthday candle uh card configuration, and then in front of everybody, as the night uh progressed, and everyone got more or less blitzed on wine, so they're all in a very good mood. The whole team, you know, celebrated her birthday and you know, and she cried and and and he cried, and it was just one of those situations. It's I guess it's almost kind of cliche. Like we can think of a thousand examples like that, but it made a really big deal.
SPEAKER_02Not cliche at all, you know, it's just it. Like, you know, it's something it's a comment that's way down, but far down in the text, and like um it would it wouldn't have been a big deal. I think what's neat with some of the small things is it wouldn't be a big deal if it was if it didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Like it's a bigger deal that it happens than if it doesn't happen. Like, if it didn't happen, it was like uh nope, like it wouldn't even think about it, wouldn't even be a topic of conversation. But the fact that someone picks up on it right and makes it happen, that's what makes it a big deal. That's hospitality, yeah. 100% a couple years ago.
SPEAKER_00Ago, we we had a guy, Mickey, on the team, assistant manager. And uh his brother-in-law or some-in-law um had a baseball card shop in Chicago. And it was in summer, it was close to the all-star weekend. And he worked in the all-day dining area where there's a lot of kids. And so this one kid was gonna and his brother were gonna come and celebrate their birthday, not as a function in the club, but just at the restaurant. And I think that they were asking if they could get like a brookie or one of the desserts with a candle. And they were gonna come in the next week. And uh through the conversation, you know, it was all-star weekend, and so they he he the Mickey figured out that these kids were just obsessed with baseball and and specifically two players. So he asked what were the the players of each, you know, one of them said his, and then he asked the other brother, and then he found out that they were, you know, they're gonna come back later. Cool, let us know. Um, we're so excited to help with the candle for your birthday. And then, of his own volition, without telling anybody, over the weekend, he went to his his family-in-law's uh baseball card shop, got their rookie cards at his own expense, those two players, and then brought them back. And when those two came kids came in, he presented them to him.
SPEAKER_02That's so cool.
SPEAKER_00Uh, to each kid, and the you know, in that case, the kids are excited, it was the yeah, parents that cried, right? It was like the sentiment of that was not, you know, the kids don't understand why that's special. It's just oh, awesome, that's my favorite player. The parents immediately recognized how much probably went into that. And the beautiful thing, again, a lot of times it's like when you know it's happening, it's pretty it's cool. Like for me, it's like I observe these things in action a lot of the times, but sometimes I don't find out about them until afterwards. And I'm just like, holy shit, man, thank you. Like that was that was so awesome. And he's like, I was trying to be a dream weaver and pull a legend, and I'm like, Yeah. Um, so if we could somehow, like if we could somehow get everyone to think like that. The last one I just want to do because it's cool. Uh, so we have a member, I won't, I won't say her name, although she wouldn't mind if I did. She she's so fantastic, she's so unique. And one of the things that that we love about her is she always comes in wearing, you know, like those Kentucky Derby women's hats or like southern, southern bell hats that have like flowers on them. It's like it's a hat, but there's a lot going on up on that hat. And so, and actually, our our policy, we recently um readjusted our our our dress code for the membership. Our policy actually preserved the term fashion forward hats for women because of her. Like there's really no one else in the club that would wear that, but because she wears those, we want her to be able to wear them anywhere, right? Because it's so special. So she was she had a she had a cousin or something in town. She's she's a little bit older and wanted to do a family birthday party and reached out and you know, just it was a reservation in our in our find I new restaurant. That was it. But she's a person that we all just, you know, again, this is a recognition of the self, right? Pulling a legend is all about like finding something about a person's self that is deeply meaningful to them, and then trying to work to deliver an unexpected, intangible experience, or maybe sometimes slightly tangible, that corresponds to that recognition of the self. So in this case, it was just crazy. Uh, our our chef creoso you met, his wife is um a pastry chef as well. She works with our pastry chef as the assistant, and so they made we got a picture of one of her hats from a like unrelated event. They made a cake in the shape of exact shape of her hat.
SPEAKER_02I could see you.
SPEAKER_00And uh and then we also knew her we also knew her favorite um fish. She really likes you know, specific fish. And so that night, again, we had a five-week window to get ready for this or whatever, but on that night, we made the special fish for her, but we also put it on the menu as her name's you know, fish. Like it was it was her name and then the you know, sea bass with and it was the ingredients, artichokes, like the things that she likes with it. And so when we presented the fish dish to her, the first thing that she got was the fish dish. She was belt bowled over, and then I said, The other thing I just want you to know is that the entire dining room tonight is gonna enjoy Mrs. Blank's, you know, and she was just like, What? You know, yeah, that's awesome. And then the cake shows up a couple of courses later, you know what I mean? And it was just like I don't know, it made me so happy to see her so happy. Her family was just astounded, like, you know what I mean? And it was just a it's a recognition. I think those small moments a lot of times are a recognition of a person's inner self. Yeah, that with uh I love that in in unreasonable hospitality, how hard they worked to find information about people. I think we would call it internet stocking at this point, but they would like literally they'd internet stock the people who are on the books for that night to try to find anything. And one of the things I always talk about in clubs is how lucky we are to have access to people's we know about everybody. We know that Mrs. Whatever loves the color you have. You get to build the relationships with them. So it's like you know, you get to build that relationshiping those elements of self.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And even without having the database of our members, you know, the fact that you see them on a regular basis, you get to. I mean, I had uh I had um this is a small thing that I experienced. Um, I've I've had a number of members ask how Emma's first couple weeks of high school is, you know, and I said, uh, you know, it's it's an adjustment, you know, she's adjusting. And one in particular sent me a note um late one night and just said, you know, I I've been thinking about Emma, and you know, I know I'm sure she's overwhelmed, bigger school. I just want to let you know, you know, it'll all work out. She's gonna do great, and just off hours, getting an email. It was like nine o'clock at night, you know. Um, and I was just like, wow, you know, it made me feel like I was being thought about in ways other than just well, Joe's the general manager, and he he works between these hours and these hours, and he has no life away from countryside, you know. Um, yeah, that's it's neat stuff. That's it's neat stuff. So but cool, man.
SPEAKER_01Awesome.
SPEAKER_02Well, this was fun. Thank you for the generous amount of time. Thank you guys.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it's super great to get to know you more and uh and uh hope you two stay in touch.
SPEAKER_02You and I are definitely gonna stay in touch. We're gonna we're gonna talk, we're gonna talk a lot more. Um we will. But no, this was this was cool, man. Yeah, any any any leaving uh anyone anyone want to leave any leave us with any thoughts or do we cover it all? Uh it's so much.
SPEAKER_01No, it's there's so much.
SPEAKER_00I I would just say as a as a leaving thought. Sorry. Go chef, tell them what we kind of talked about the other day about that next generation. I feel like that was something I hope we talk about a little bit today. It doesn't have to be long, but I really respect the the first conversation I had with Chef, you know, included something uh that I really I love to hear, and it matters a lot to me too. Do you want to just talk about your investment in the up and coming generation?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the uh the FGCU event we did with the uh hospitality program and how we did that uh round robin kind of contest of yeah of you know, this is kind of the the different items that you can expect to do in a kitchen and and and to see these kids, you know, like you know, I was telling Matt about flaying fish, and and you can absolutely tell that some people this was their very first time ever seeing a whole fish and flaying it just by the way they uh you know held the knife or or looked at the the fish and they're like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing? And so we just you know, you just take the time to to show them and be like this, you know it it was such a I to me that was a great experience. It it helped my soul to see that these kids you know, the the passion that some of these kids had uh for this industry, which uh which helps me because you know, I'm uh I'm over fifty, and I know that I've probably only got hopefully 10 more years or 15 more years in this business, but I need somebody that's going to do uh what I do it to fill those shoes, you know. So to see that next generation come up is is is awesome for me. And and how many people were at that uh event, you know, there was 25 or 30 kids um that all have that want to get into hospitality, which which to me was was fantastic, you know. Um and and I know that some of them before they left, they're like, How do I how do I become a part of your team? And and you know, and that just says we we only interacted for three hours or four hours, but they knew then that they wanted to to join what we have here because we we I mean I I think we have a special uh club here that we get to do different stuff and and and the leadership here to me is uh is you know it's it's easy, you know, it's not it's not overbearing, it's not micromanaging, it's it's it's an easy situation. So um, you know, I was just so happy to see these kids, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's uh I mean I think that's an unwritten duty of um those of us in in these roles is is to is to think about and invest in that next generation because they have to absolutely have to um they're gonna be needed, right? You know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so good.
SPEAKER_00Cool stuff. No, I I really liked it because I think a lot of chefs, older chefs like us, have a hard time relating to this young generation and they kind of write them off, you know. Yeah, lazy, addicted to the phones and all that stuff. And and my experience is that it takes a little bit different approach, but um, and it may take a little more effort on the front end from the chef. But if you do that, you know, this is an awesome young group. Yeah. And for sure. The future is the future is is secure. We but I also feel as though chefs should focus, especially as they get older, on that mentorship component and on helping um the youngsters to find their footing in this industry because it it's different than it used to be when we were young. And uh in ways it's harder. Um it's a tougher industry to be able to like, I can't afford life if I'm a cook. We're we're very close to that line right now.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Um, so what's in it for them? We have to make sure that they understand. And and uh I I really appreciate that responsibility, take it very seriously. I'm so thankful for the chefs that I have in the kitchen who are doing more of the heavy lifting on that now than me. Um, but I loved hearing you say that, chef. Uh I look forward to being a part with you and a bunch of other, like we started the podcast. There's a bunch of like-minded people out there. Let's let's do this together for the well-being of the next uh the next crop coming up. And I can't wait to see what they do with the world of culinary.
SPEAKER_02Awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, something to look forward to.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's a good uh good way to land land this plane. Cool. Thanks, guys. Thank you. That was awesome. Thanks, appreciate it. Thanks, Jeffs, and uh it was good. Good good stuff. Chefs soon.
unknownSee you later.
SPEAKER_06Thanks for listening. We so very much appreciate the time our listeners give to hearing us ramble about the business we love. Hospitality. And remember, sometimes the best medicine for the challenges of life is simply doing something small for someone else. Something to do with something or experience that made a big impact.