Waite a Minute: Resilience Is a Verb

In episode 2 of Waite a Minute, Jessica and Davin take a minute to talk about The Plot. The risks, the mistakes, the wins, the growing pains, and the moments they weren't sure they'd make it through. From scaling up to scaling back and rebuilding stronger, this episode is a quick, honest look at what resilience actually looks like when you're trying to create something that matters. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hi there, this is Jessica and Daven Waite, and you are listening to Wait a Minute. Hi. Hi. You're David Waite. You're a sushi chef. And that's something you've been for a really long time. And when I met you, it was really impressive to me how committed you are to being the kind of chef that uses every little scrap of everything. And you're kind of a badass. And you were getting really well known for it as a sushi chef. And somewhere along the way, we decided to open a plant-based restaurant. Can you tell me what was going through your head around this time?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Um fear.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

What?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Apprehension. What? Anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

That sounds horrible.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

No, I mean it's just it's a ballsy endeavor. I've loved the challenge of plant-based cooking. But I also have loved plants, love the flavors that come from them. I mean, there's plenty of plants at the other restaurants. But it's one thing when you're signing leases and daydreaming about stuff. But when you wake up one morning and you say, Holy shit, I gotta go fight this fight with one arm tied behind my back, it gets real real fast. And it's been real for about six years now, but things are starting to really get better. I think a lot of it's us being able to do the type of plant-based cooking that we've been wanting to do, and just like really kind of honoring the plants from start to finish. I gotta put it out there right there on your screen. The mother banana tree. Just waited until that podcast went live and then it decided to make fruit. I totally stand corrected. Okay, disclaimer. Yeah, I mean, probably ask the farmer friends before I say stuff live. That's why I do it. The the exploration, the the knowledge, the things that you learn, the things you get to experiment with. There's so much so much going on in the sushi world right now, there's less, way less that's never been done before. And I've always liked uncharted territory. And, you know, if you've view the statistics, I mean, only two percent of Americans have really explored plant-based cuisine. And you know, and tot complete, you know, everybody eats plants or everyone should eat plants, but only two percent eats nothing but plants.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah, that sounds about right. It was three percent for a while, and then right around the time we decided to open a big expensive vegan restaurant, it started to decline. And I think that's so interesting. And I look at all the reasons that kind of could have contributed to that, and I think there was a bubble, and I think there was a lot of.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Hopefully it wasn't because of us.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

No, I really don't think it was because of us. Your food is so good. But also, like you see this kind of swelling momentum of people eating more plants, and what I see is kind of pushback from meat and dairy. You see this huge push to eat more protein, but I think what gets lost is what's actually good for us and what balance looks like. And I think you're a really good example of putting more plants on more plates, like whether or not it's at the plot or if it's at wrench, you're still putting more plants on more plates for people, and I feel like that urge to nourish people and actually take care of them and feed them food that's good for them has been something that's guided you as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Oh, definitely. I mean, if someone's putting your food in their their mouth, you gotta do the best to make sure it's as good as possible on on all levels. We forget about it, but it's a responsibility for sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

What do you think the most insightful thing you've learned over the last six years of soul crushing vegan restaurant ownership? Like what is what has been the like if there was like a strong takeaway. Don't say don't do it, but what do you think is the most kind of greatest insight?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

I think the biggest is just food is food. Good food is good food, bad food is bad food. You don't have to put any labels on anything. Eat what you like, you eat what's good. I think in general, any positive change, you gotta make it convenient for people. Because so much of the things we do in life these days, is we we don't do it because it's good, we do it because it's convenient, you know, and a lot of that's what has led to the food system being what it is now. But it's definitely I wouldn't say don't do it, but you know, it it's it's not for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

I think to like, I mean, I guess back that up. Like the reason we joke about this is just because we opened this restaurant, what, six weeks before COVID. Then there was a bubble pop as far as all the plant-based stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

And then we opened two more.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

And then we opened two more because we thought that we we kind of drank the conscious capitalism Kool-Aid and thought that we needed to go out and scale in order to like really create impact, right? And what we forgot is our value proposition or magic or whatever you want to call it as a group, as a couple, is that hands-on community-rooted connection and creating things for people we care about. I don't know, we needed the magic and we lost the magic, and it wasn't any fun. So I think that's the soul crush.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Spread the magic too thin.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, that's that's what happened.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

But you learn a ton, and uh that feeling of coming back to one restaurant, being like, cool, we can make this place as badass as we want, is really what started the uptick again. You know, being able to run in the back and play in a garden, you know, plan dishes with a bunch of other because also when we scaled back, we definitely had an abundance of talent, and now all of that talent is in one place working together collaboratively. We've kind of fallen into our groove where we have a process. That's been amazing. It's been some of the most fun I've had in my career. And I think I can go to any restaurant and put bacon on everything and make food that's gonna make money and people are gonna like might not be good for them. It's definitely not good for me. And the checks a lot of the boxes, but does that make you happy? And I think doing stuff that makes you happy is more important than the way capitalist society rates success.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Okay, so what makes you happy about the plot?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Oh, the beach is four blocks away.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

There's that.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

No, the community that's built up around it. When you mix, and some might call this a mistake, you know, to us, it's in us, it's who we are, and there's no changing it. But mixing activism and business, I'm not gonna call it a mistake. I will say it's very difficult because a lot of times the activism will override the business sense, and you gotta stay in business to pay for the activism. But you attract like-minded people and you egg each other on and you help each other find solutions, and through that adversity, you definitely form a bond, you know, because like you know, you look around, you're like, Yeah, we've been through some shit together, and you get an idea of what you can make it through, it gives you an idea of what you're capable of, and it just puts things into perspective. There's definitely a huge planet with a bunch of people with a bunch of struggles, and we're not saying that our struggle has been any worse. Our struggle at least is at our own hand, right? We we did this, but you know, a little bit of a struggle kind of teaches you who you are, and you come out the other side of it with something that not everybody gets. You can say what you would do in X, Y, or Z situation, but that's just talk until you've actually been in that situation. I've seen some really good, heart-led decisions out of people under some pretty strange circumstances, and that's kind of what I want to surround myself with. And the creativity. Like we have constraints. We don't view them as constraints, but somebody coming from the outside world might look at the plot, and you gotta feed this many people this many menu items, and you don't get to use this, this, or this, and you gotta keep an open door for this allergy, this allergy, and this allergy. It's like a game.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yeah, I'm really thinking about how, first of all, you said once a million years ago when you were being interviewed, something like grit breeds the best arts.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Always.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

And I love that, and I also just love the fact that it's so true for us. I think, you know, I got out of business school and I'm like, okay, we're gonna fundraise and we're gonna scale and we're gonna do all of this stuff. And we kind of took away a piece of the rattly, gritty nature of who we were when we built wrench together. You know, I mean, we built that restaurant from duct tape and apartment furniture, what we found in the alley and the few bucks that you were able to borrow from your dad at that point. We definitely scrapped things together and made something that was really punk and really felt like us. And then we tried to do it a new way, and there's a lot of benefits to that way. But also, I think we kind of forgot a little bit of ourselves, at least I'm speaking for myself. And so when we came back, we tried to scale, we failed. I mean, and that sucks to be working so hard to do something you believe in and fail. And then we came back and tried to save this restaurant, the plot, and and we fought so hard. And it wasn't like okay, we came in and fought hard for like a month. I mean, there was a solid year where every day we just got up and we fought. And I think for a while it might have been a little begrudgingly on your behalf. Like, I don't think you always were the most stoked you've ever been. Wanna weigh in on that?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Well, I don't know. I just had a few friends pass away. Yeah, yeah. But you start noticing that life is shorter than you think, even if you think you're superman or woman. I am at an age where most people at least like consider retirement or start planning for it. And not that I want to do that anyway. It's not a midlife crisis because it comes a little bit after midlife, but you just start thinking about shit. But when you consider the options, honestly, for me, working in restaurants until I just drop is fucking awesome. That that that is exactly how I want to go, but hopefully that's later rather than sooner, you know. So you gotta kind of like well, I mean, thankfully we got a lot of plants to eat, so that should give me a couple more years.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, you're in fighting shape right now, but that's the thing. We came back and we fought, and I think that's the point, and like that gritty nature and the the spirit of who we were when we started, really, I think it made the plot a kind of magic that it hadn't been before. Because for a while it was okay, let's hire this chef and have them make the food and you know, kind of like take your recipes or whatever it was. And then when we came back in and took it back, I think that's when it I mean not to be patting ourselves on the back, but it I think that's when it really started to feel like it was the restaurant it was always meant to be.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Well, when you have that, and of course there's there's something that's yours, there's something that's you, and then there are things that are this thing you did, right? And I mean, wrench is me. It's always been me. Not saying it's not other people too, it's just as much my brother or Alex or Cash at this point, but it's definitely me. Like it was my living room for years, and I think the thing with plot is I really had to love it. It's no secret, it was a mutual dream. We both wanted to do it together, but had Jessica not come along, I might not have come up with that idea all on my own. And we but we did have a lot of shared beliefs that are core components of the plot. So, you know, whatever. We're here now and it's it's ours, it's us. But not not sounding like a wine fest. It's it's more just all of that stuff that we were kind of whining about. Like when you decide to roll up your sleeves and fight it head on, it gives you this intimate relationship with. I mean, some people think of restaurants as an inanimate object. It's like it's a living, it's almost like those jellyfish where it's just a bunch of other little organisms that work together and make this jellyfish. It's a living organism made up of other living organisms. That's what it really is. It takes on a life of its own, it can live way beyond the people who create it, it can also die sooner, but that's not what we want. But that every what's in every corner, financially, physically in the building, and all of that, when you know a building and an organism and a team also like that, it's amazing what you can do, and it's amazing where you can take it and kind of what you can get away with when you when you're working together, what you can pull off. And had COVID not happened and had Plot kept doing those three to four hundred people a night, like the fairy tale beginning it had, we may never have had to go back and look under rocks and and do all of that stuff. And we probably would have had a badass restaurant, but the magic doesn't come from things coming easy. Because humans are kind of lazy. If it's doing its thing and making money, doing alright, most people don't want to disturb the force. You just keep letting it let it do its thing. We're a little different than that, but still it that total kind of come home, tear it apart, study the parts, make each part better, put the parts back together, the whole becomes much greater than the sum of all those new and improved parts. And then in a way, it's not like a one-time event. We're doing it every day. And we somehow started enjoying it.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

That's where I went. I mean, I think when we came back and it was like December of 2024, and we just closed the Plot Express and Costa Mesa was really, really struggling, and we kind of just had this let's save oceanside mentality, and we were in the kitchen and you started doing all of this really cool stuff. And I know I remember one time my family was in town. Do you remember that? And they came in for dinner, and there was no one in the dining room, not a single person. And I you just carry around this like sense of uh tiredness and dread and sadness and all of the things that get kind of bundled together when you are trying to make something work and it's not working, and you, on the other hand, drag some chairs into the kitchen and set me and my parents up for dinner, sitting right in the kitchen with you, so we didn't have to look at the dining room and fed us the most incredible meal. And I feel like you've always done this thing where you come in and you may grumble about it, but you work so hard and you keep your head down, and then you bring light and joy into something. And I kind of feel like that's been happening for the last year and a half now since since that period started where you really, really came back. And I mean it's awesome, and I mean I commend you for that, and I'm grateful for it. But I want to ask, what are you most proud of from your time over this last like year and a half of really being back?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

The fact that we still exist.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yes, I feel that as well. But also, is there anything else? I mean, because last night I'm sitting in the office and you bring me this new thing on the menu, and it's called a bean tartine, and it's just insanely delicious where I'm groaning while I'm eating it. Um sorry if that's awkward if mom and dad listen to this. But anyway, I really, really enjoyed it. And so that kind of food just made me think everything you guys are doing is just so much better than anything I've eaten before. And that's saying a lot because I've been eating your food for what 15 years or so. I are there any techniques, are there any like inspirations that you're just like, wow, this is something that I'm really, really excited about doing right now?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Um not any one thing in particular. I think the thing I'm most proud of is just how the team has grown together. Like, I think there's plenty of record out there that I can do some cool stuff, but when you put anybody with like-minded people that where you challenge each other to do better, yourself included, because when it's not good, you definitely offer your feedback. Oh yeah, sorry. But oh, you've got this, but we're all very much on the same wavelength now, and um that synergy is really kind of starting to take on a life of its own. I think for where I mean, I'm super proud of the tasting menu. The fact that we have one every night and that it relates right back to the garden. It's cool to be able to give some somebody something in its finished form that you grew yourself. And as it stands right now, I mean, it's either Jess, Travis, or me, but it's out here growing stuff. So that's rad. And I think rather than like I don't know, I think things have gotten so fucked up out there, the only way to move forward is to move backwards a little bit. I don't think the solution is 2,000 miles ahead of us. I think it might be 60 to 100 years behind us. Like how things were. The modern version of that. That's kind of where I'm excited about going.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

I'm just sitting out here in the garden and thinking about, I'm thinking about the garden and just what it has meant for all of us. I think it's kind of been something for all of us as we've kind of come back from a couple rough years. And I'm also thinking about how we've all been through a lot with loss recently and not so recently, and seeing people that you love succumb to illnesses that in many ways now we realize are related to diet, are potentially preventable. I don't know about you, but I just it makes me want to fight. It makes me want to fight so hard because these are people that we truly love, and there's a food system that's supposed to serve us just like all of our systems and a schedule. And a food system and a healthcare system. And instead, we see so much, and I'm not blaming everything on our food system, but I know a lot of it could be so much better. So much of the thing. Yeah, and so much of this could be prevented. So I guess it's more of a commentary than a question, but I just I know when we were at Wait and See a little while ago, and this there's this gentleman that comes into Wait and Sea and comes into the plot, and he was just telling us how he'd had a massive heart attack, and he had to change his diet completely, and he still gets to enjoy food because of the plot and because of wrench, because this is the food his doctor is telling us. I mean, how much does that drive you? How much do you think about the impact we're having for people who need to start to eat in a way that supports their bodies?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Oh, that's huge. I mean, that's a that's a main reason that we're doing it. I think I don't think you get into hospitality if you hate people. It's very much the opposite. I think caring for people is in us. I mean, our little drug is that positive reaction from when somebody takes a bite of your food and likes it. And usually it's not what people say, but it's that moment of silence when you know they their eyes are rolling back in their head. You nailed it. Um and taking it further than that and actually being able to do it in a way that keeps people out of the hospital or or the grave. You know, I mean that's the best some of the best things you can do on the planet is show people cool shit, teach them something rad, save a life, improve the quality of a life. And I don't think I mean I think there could be a lot more of that, but it all became about the money out there. And that's one thing about people crazy enough to open up a vegan restaurant is you know they don't give a shit about money.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

We better not. I promise you. So basically, we kicked off this conversation to talk about the plot, and I feel like we talked about how it was hard, sometimes it sucked, we're super proud of it, we love it with all of our heart, and we hope that it makes a difference because we feel like it will. Does that pretty much sum it up? Is there anything else you want to share? I mean, the food's delicious.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Uh I think you said it perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Thanks. Thanks. Cool. Thanks for sitting down. We'll do this again soon.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Thank you.