August 8, 2025 • 39 mins
Chef Eric shares his harrowing journey of rebuilding after a devastating fire destroyed his restaurant Crudo Nudo. His experience reveals critical lessons about insurance coverage, documentation, and community relationships that every restaurant owner needs to know.
• Chef Eric built Crudo Nudo from a struggling concept to a successful Spanish-influenced tapas restaurant before disaster struck
• Most restaurant owners never read their 460+ page insurance policies thoroughly, which can lead to claim disputes
• Business interruption insurance is crucial, but understand how your business structure affects coverage
• Documentation is essential – keep meticulous records of everything and maintain all licenses even when closed
• Building positive relationships with city officials and community stakeholders proved invaluable during recovery
• Fire investigators attributed the blaze to frayed wires, completely destroying the kitchen and causing extensive smoke damage
• Insurance companies often pay claims incrementally, making the recovery process financially challenging
• Having a landlord with favorable lease terms regarding disasters can significantly impact recovery
• Reopening requires going through the entire permitting process again, even with an established business
• Eric's experience demonstrates why restaurant owners should focus on business fundamentals before menu development
If you're a restaurant owner, review your insurance policies with experts who understand the specific language and requirements of these complex contracts. Maintain thorough documentation of all business operations and build community relationships before disaster strikes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hey.
Hey, here we are my man, eric,over here.
Chef, what's up, eric?
Local legend, if you will here.
Yes, it's got a wonderful place.
Well, we call everybody thatwe're all on the same page,
right?
Oh, okay, so awesomerestaurants.
Crudo Nudo goes back what?
How many years?
Seven, seven years.
So I remember when you guysfirst opened you were down in
(00:25):
Norfolk.
I heard about this place, crudoNudo.
I used the terminology.
You know the words Italianlanguage somewhat.
You know there's a little twistin there, right.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, so I'm like interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And that's it.
I heard good news from it eversince and I never really had
anything bad.
I'd never heard anything badabout it, so I was like no shit,
so that's cool.
Then fast forward on to when IChe Secundo, these crudo nudo
guys are coming across thestreet here With chicken, with
chicken.
So I'm like chicken and whiskeycool man.
I've heard of it maybe, butI've never really applied the
thought to it.
You know what I'm saying?
(00:51):
Yeah, Now I'm there last nightliterally, so I'm there pretty
much not as much anymore becauseI cut back on drinking, but I
used to be there.
My staff's there every friggingnight.
Spot for us now.
Yeah.
So, um, eric, you've been achef for a long time.
Yeah, tell us a little bitabout yourself and where you go,
so we can get into what wereally want to talk about today
and and that's preparation yeah,eric had gone through some
(01:12):
nasty shit.
His restaurant caught on firedue to someone else's negligence
in his, in his area.
Is that right?
So you had?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
they're saying accident and that's fine.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You're talking about something from another
storefront, right?
No, that was all us, oh really.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, the fire originated in our building and
they literally just chopped itup to two wires, frayed or
something and whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
No shit.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
So, okay, good.
So like after we talk aboutyour little introduction here,
because I can talk all day aboutthis stuff.
So we've got to kind ofstreamline it a little bit so we
don't lose people, but tell,tell us about your style of
cooking, what influences you,where you started, real quick,
and then we'll.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Then we'll move into how you opened up and where you
went and where you can give usadvice yeah, uh, short story,
did some stuff up in dccorporatey got out of that
because I just hated thecorporate gig.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Um and uh was it the answering to the uh?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
the precision, the uh , or the wannabe precision that
really is never precise you know, surprisingly, like the, the
best part about corporate is allthe things that I still do now,
like the sticking to standards,the all that stuff.
It was the I have to show upevery and just there was rules
but like not, that weren't myrules right, yeah, um, so you
know it was all right and I, uh,I was doing well and uh, I just
(02:30):
quit and was like I'm gonnalearn how to cook again and uh,
so I started cooking in a couplerestaurants in dc and then got
into the party scene a littlebit and then moved down here to
kind of get away from things andgo back to school because
there's any good chef knows ifyou ain't partying you ain't
Speaker 1 (02:46):
learning.
Yeah, at that time in life,yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Those were better days, different days, younger
days, I guess.
So yeah, I came down here toactually go to school and needed
a job, so I started, you know,surprisingly cooking again and
got back into it.
Isn't it weird how we always goback to it.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, I tried a couple times myself to try different
things.
I joined the frigging Navy.
I was a jet mechanic.
I tried opening up.
I worked in the not landscapebut lumber stuff, cutting trees
I've done everything.
Yeah, I always go right back tothe kitchen.
Now it's my home.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
It's where I'm most comfortable, for sure.
Yeah, obviously it's.
It's that's what it is.
It's the comfort that's the.
That's what makes thedifference, the.
Uh, yeah, and then startedworking around this area a
little bit worked for I don'tknow, todd and sam again out in
suffolk and out of the beach andjust you know too many places
at this point but?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
but within those places, though, you, you did
gain something, and, if anything, your own style everything.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, I uh, I'm really good at picking up things
that I like and then sortingout the stuff that I don't, and
uh, and then when we started todo crudo the idea behind it, we
were doing pop-ups called bluetape, and I used to always read
books like that's mostly how Ilearned.
I learned from chess, but Ilearned a lot from, like reading
(04:06):
and studying, and I guess nowit would be more internet.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
These are these biography types on other chefs
or books about recipes.
Everything, anything andeverything, everything yeah, I
loved it all.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Like, my book collection is a little
ridiculous, but it got to apoint where I stopped buying
books and I just started doingmy own thing, right, and I
started saying, well, what isthat, you know?
And I think that's like a biglike what is that?
What is your style?
Right, you know, what do you do?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, well, crudo is a very unique menu.
I mean it's, you know, tapasstyle.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
There's influences from everywhere, mostly Spain,
right.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, a lot of heavy Spanish influence.
I mean, that was super popularwhen I was kind of coming up
with the Ferran Andrea and allthat and the molecular stuff and
that spoke with my chemistrybackground in college, so it
spoke to that.
And it just kind of worked withwhat I was doing.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
And that's a good analogy because a lot of people
don't understand that whenpeople are getting Michelin
stars and stuff they're getting,people ask me all the time when
you get a Michelin star, never,I'm not a molecular chef,
that's that rating system reallyis based off of that style of
cooking and if that does have achemist mindset to it, where it
is a scientific type ofdelicious experiment, right yeah
(05:19):
.
And if you have that and youhave that background, I'm sure
that it's kind of drives youdown that road a little bit,
more so than my comfort style ofeating, right.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, I mean some.
Yeah, you know.
So what we do at Crudo is, Itry to think of dishes in a
four-ingredient thing Like whatcan we do that takes four things
and then that's usually ourfood.
It's like cool, we got gotbeans, we got some scallions.
Like you know, we don't includesalt and pepper, because that's
everything right, but it's likewhat is like the four things we
(05:50):
want to talk about.
Do we want to mess with them?
No, usually I don't.
Um, we kind of got out of alittle bit of that stuff.
I think it just I don't know.
It became like, um, everybodywas doing this thing I never got
into pearls or you know, Inever got into that stuff and we
just try to keep it as simpleas we possibly can.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Four or five ingredients.
I'm happy with that.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
If I have to explain it more than that, those are the
things you're talking about.
That's funny.
I say I don't do molecular andstuff, but I'm big.
You know pearls are essentialhere.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
I have a lot of things that I do do and use that
technique, but I don't pridemyself on it because I don't do
it enough.
I think it's the norm now.
I think it's normal, it's partof it's expected it.
You know, five years, six yearsago you might have caught me
saying xantham should be in yourkitchen right beside salt and
pepper right, it should be partof it, and it's not that it I
takes away from anything, ithelps.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Once you understand it, learn it and know what to do
with it.
It can enhance a lot of thingsand make your life a lot easier,
and the customer's experience alot more exciting, because it's
nothing better than seeingsomething on a plate that you've
never seen before.
That's kind of our goal is togive them something they've
never seen and to createsomething that we've never
created and have it succeed.
That's the thing, is trying toget that success rate.
But so you, you, you took allthose on.
(07:08):
When you opened up Crudo, howdid you open that?
Did you have partners?
Did you have a?
Did you open it Like?
When I opened up Luce Norfolk,I did it on a whim man.
I had the least of everythingpossible.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
So I had.
I had a guy who helped me out,bob Hughes.
Um, some people know him, somepeople don't.
He's a dude that owns a lot ofrestaurants that nobody knows
and I love that about him.
And I came to him and I said,hey, I want to open up this
pasta restaurant 40 seats, blah,blah, blah.
And he was like, well, feed mesome pasta.
So we started talking aboutthat and then it evolved more
(07:39):
and more into, you know, asthings progressed Within a year.
you know it was one of thosethings it's hard to split 50
cents sometimes and uh and so,uh, he actually loaned me the
money to buy him out, which sonow I just pay him every month.
(07:59):
And so it's all mine now, Um noother investors or anything
like that, and that was afterthe first year you know, and
then COVID happened and all thatstuff.
Cool yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So that was somewhat close to my scenario.
I had an, I had a friend ofmine who helped invest with me
and I ended up buying him outand his wife out.
Um, long story short, it wasnecessary for me to continue
moving up forward and moving onyeah because it's a lot of
stress when you have that personyou have to answer to, because
you want to make sure yousatisfy them and you don't fuck
up their arrangement, if you, ifyou're a decent human being-
(08:30):
yeah, right, and there's a lotthere's few of us left.
We're the minority.
But you know, people mistakeour hard work, our lack of
patience for people's bullshit,our um, our quick responses to
things as us being assholes.
But they don't realize thatwe've been through it so much
and we have to protect our assetand our investment so much that
(08:52):
we wake up every day defensive.
You know what I mean, and it'snot that we're assholes, we just
don't want to fucking deal withnonsense, you know?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
and freeloaders and people are doing that shit.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So when you worked into Crudo, you got a good ball
rolling.
I mean that shit yeah.
So when you, when you workedinto crudo, you got a good ball
rolling, I mean everything wasrolling good, almost as I could
say.
Your dream was kind of comingtogether right, yeah, it was.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Uh, crudo was tough and this a lot of people don't
know this story, but crudo, westarted crudo and it was.
We wanted to be seven tables,focus on food.
We wanted to be something thatthis area just didn't have.
I didn't feel like and and itwas good, and we hit one percent
of probably one percenters andthings were going south and I
(09:30):
think I had like 56 dollars inthe bank account.
It was less, it was south of100 bucks in the crudos bank
account right, wow and uh,there's nothing scarier than
less than 10 000.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, imagine 52.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Imagine 52.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, it was bad.
And I was talking to a buddyand he was like, oh I'm.
I was like, dude, I think I'mdone.
I was like I think I'm justgoing to close.
And he was like, well, youcan't do that because I got a
party coming on Saturday.
And I was like, all right, well, I guess we started.
(10:06):
You know the party and then atthis point you're going to this
party totally deflated, yeah,and it just rolled and it rolled
and we ended up closing andrebranding within a week.
Um we had a very spanish heavyinfluence, and so we were like,
why not just be spanish?
Because a lot of people arelike what are you?
That kind of felt like nirvanain the 90s, where I'm like I
don't, I just want to be yeahyeah, um, and, and you know, it
was one of those situationswhere, like fine, we're just
(10:27):
Spanish tapas, it's just easier.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Just throw me in the category and like, let me move.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well then, you can get your ingredients.
Based on that, you can geteverything sourced's different.
Yeah, and it's like I don'twant to follow like a thing, but
we like it.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And now we look through things through the
spanish lens and we kind ofactually focus on it.
Which is successful?
Your food is good.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, it's great, you're putting together some
good things that this areahasn't seen before.
That you know, you're doing thethings like the octopus and
things like that that peopledon't really know how to cook
properly, um, but it's a lot offun once you put it out there
for people.
So, moving on, you open up neatbird and that concept is great.
Food's really good.
(11:14):
Um, I can see the progressionin the food as it's going.
They're figuring it out reallyfast and good, because now I
crave it.
You know you have that, thatchick, that honey chicken
sriracha honey chicken thing,the roasted chicken, that
fucking thing's amazing.
I get that.
I might even get it today forlunch.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
matter of fact, you might, you might.
I think I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So anyway, these are the things I think of now.
So you come over here, you openit.
I see the ups and downs overthere.
It's a very niched idea.
From the outside eye looking in, you don't have to comment.
But from the outside eyelooking in, the more I go there
and find myself having a hardtime finding a bar seat is
coming together.
It's happening more and more sonow at night.
(11:51):
That's a thing that's good,because we don't have anything
going and we close this placedown and we walk over there and
we can barely get a fucking barseat.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's the restaurant's bar.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I would rather see that.
I'd rather see theinconvenience of me not getting
a bar seat.
Yeah, then walking into anempty bar because that's good
for you.
Now, as that's going, you startbeing nervous.
At the beginning there was upsand downs, like we all have
opening, and you startplateauing there and, okay, man,
maybe we're figuring this thingout.
And then all of a sudden,fucking, here comes the fire and
crudo.
So yeah yeah, is that aboutright?
(12:22):
Is that timeline kind of how itworked?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
yeah, things were rolling we were and we were
starting to make some changes.
Like you know, you get theseven year itch or whatever you
want to call it sure where it'slike we started to make some
changes at crudo and we were,you know, gonna step up a little
bit and just, you know, notfundamentals, but just do some
different things yeah sure andthen, you know, I was sitting on
my couch one day at 1030 in themorning and I got a phone call
(12:47):
from the landlord and I was like, eh, you know, it was one of
those like I don't know if Ishould.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
He's going to bitch me to the dumpster.
Well, yeah, it's like somethingyou know.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So I was like, eh, I'll take it.
And I was like, hey, and shegoes, fire department's, at your
front door at Crudeau, there'sa fire, they're breaking in the
glass and I'm like, oh shit.
And it just kind of went intolike fight or flight mode at
that point where it's like I'm apretty laid back guy I don't
know if you can tell that, but Idon't get worked up over much
(13:16):
and I was just like I told mywife, I said I'm out the door,
crudeau's on fire.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
We're gonna go out yeah like and I expected it like
to be on fire, like you'rethinking it's one part of the
kitchen like something's on fireyou think when you?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
pull up, there's gonna be flames coming out of it
and shit.
Is that what you're thinking?
Well, or you think it was just?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
gonna be like a like thing on.
You know, I was like okay, okay, the range is on fire, yeah,
and then you start going throughthe thing where it's like, oh,
maybe it is gonna be like a burnthe building deal and I was
like I don't know what thefuck's going to happen, and so,
uh, you know, we get there andthere's, I think, six ladder
trucks, no-transcript, and I'munderprepared and I'm like you
(13:57):
just jumped out of the house.
I jumped out of the house, I hadlike a hoodie or something and
it was like 30-something degreesout and I'm, like you know, in
shock.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
You're frozen.
You know anxiety, so I'm likeshaking yeah, so like a dog
addict or something, and I waslike you know, like isn't the
owner.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Your meth pipe burnt, like freaking out kind of.
So I start talking and they're,like you know, wanting me to
fill out reports and they, youknow, they start asking you
questions and you know, oh mygod, they want to know like they
.
Everybody wants to know whathappened and I'm like I wasn't
there bro, I don't know.
Yeah, um, but I guess this iswhen the place was empty uh,
yeah, so it happened 10, 30 wewere done, we we stopped doing
(14:33):
lunch so I can stop blaming oneof your cooks that burnt the
place down.
Yeah, yeah, no one was therewhen we started going through.
We said did they take thelinens out at night?
You know like did they forget?
To whatever.
Yeah, I mean anything, Do youremember?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
this.
You know what I always think of.
When I was young, my favoriteshow was Happy Days, and I don't
know if you remember Happy Daysback then, but the way it ended
the season finale is they burntdown Arnold's because Chachi
had to go on a date with Joniand he took his apron off and
threw it and it landed and thebig dramatic scene was the pilot
light lit the fire of the apronand burnt down Arnold's, which
(15:07):
was a fucking tearjerker.
I was like Arnold's no, thiscan't be, Burnt it all down.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
So you didn't even have an Arnold's happy day story
, no, so the thing burned down.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Now you pull up, you're freezing your crack.
Meth pipe is fucking empty.
Shit's going on yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
They think you just wandered up on the scene, right?
They just think you did this.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I'm like, oh, they were talking to Josh, which you
guys know, and John Reynolds,who was there, and they're like
you guys the owner, and they'relike, no, it's him that one, you
know, and I'm like over therein his hoodie, yeah, shaking so
we get there and they, we do thereports and they're like, yeah,
something about the fire in thekitchen is all I kind of really
know.
And so I was like, well, howlong do you think it's going to
(15:48):
take?
And they're like we can'treally tell.
So I'm like, all right, well,fuck it, let's go to, uh, pay
loans and have a couple beers.
Um, while we wait and see whathappens.
So there is a fun photo of likethe four of us and payloads
with the fire trucks behind usdrinking beers uh, well, what do
we?
Speaker 2 (16:03):
you got to make the best out of that.
What the fuck you're gonna do?
That was your yeah, honestlylike yeah, I'm not a fireman, so
I was like I can't help rightand I'm not gonna stand and
watch because I'm not a touristwell, not only that, but you
don't want to watch your wholefucking dream go down.
I'd rather come back to itlater yeah, I did that later.
I like to cry in peace yeah,right, you know exactly and it
must have been talking aboutthat and no matter how tough
anybody wants to sound oranything like that, let's get to
(16:25):
that heartstring part of it.
That's what I'm getting at is,it's all fun and games to sit
there and talk about it, lookback on it, and stuff like that.
But in the heat of it, man,when you crap, when you're all
done and the shock is off, andyou're sitting there looking
around everything, how the didthat feel, man, that sucked, huh
, I mean I can say therapy hasbeen very helpful but, um, it
(16:45):
was a uh.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
You know, I had my moments sure my kid was born in
february and we opened in july,oh you know.
So it's like I attribute a lotof like crudo to her yeah, yeah,
it's the same timeline likeyeah, so it was, you know, seven
years of my life.
Yeah, and crudo wasn't like oneof those things we like built
like, it didn't like pop upright it was like it popped up
(17:08):
as like not much of anything andyou built it involved seven
years of like adding stuff and,like you know, people would
bring us shit and like we put iton the shelves and you know, it
was like oh, that's that guestperrone that her dad got in
argentina that's made out ofleather and they're like you
know, all that stuff was gonedid it burn up that stuff, some
(17:29):
of it yeahum water damage water damage,
the smoke damage is what reallyfucked us the biggest.
I mean minus the kitchen, youknow, obviously completely gone.
But the smoke.
Damage was awful.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
So what do you give?
Now you can give advice.
I'm sure there's things thatyou didn't realize you should
have done.
Or what preparation dorestaurant owners out there,
including myself?
What ideas can you give us thatyou've learned from?
What are a couple takeaways?
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So insurance sucks in general.
But, be patient, but be patientbecause they do pay off.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I will say that, so dealing with them.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
It took a long time for you.
It took a little bit.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, it was.
So we had a lot.
I don't know anybody that readstheir 460 plus page insurance
policy front to cover Correct Idon't know anybody that does.
Obviously my agent didn't, andI didn't know anybody that does.
Obviously my agent didn't and Ididn't either.
He assumed we were good,because typically that's just
the way it works With oursituation.
(18:26):
Our policy was actuallyoverwrote, which they put a
safety precaution in it, whichwe didn't have, so we didn't
have sprinklers.
Most buildings in Norfolk aregrandfathered in.
They don't need sprinklers.
We didn't have them.
Our policy said we did.
So I filed, things were good,and then the dude goes oh,
there's a problem.
And that's when it got worse,because I was like oh shit, what
(18:50):
does problem mean?
Because problems in my worlddon't exist.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
The word problem is a problem.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah, I predict problems.
I don't like to solve themanymore I like to predict them
and cancel them before theyhappen right, right, yeah, and
and so, uh, you know it's likeokay so we started going through
it and, um, eventually itworked itself out like, because
it I didn't overwrite it, Idon't write insurance policies
(19:16):
sure uh, your agent technicallydoesn't write it either, Like
they have an underwriter whodoes all that shit so they had
made a mistake.
They paid out.
You know, one of the biggestones is we do business loss
insurance there like businessinterruption.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Which I recommend for every single person out there
in the world If you have abusiness, get business
interruption insurance.
It's fucking crucial.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I would say I would, I would.
I'll play the other side of itfor me sure it is.
It has been good to pay thebills, I will tell you that.
But I am a single member, llcum, so I take a distribution, so
I'm profit based and theyconsider that a liability, not
part of your business right.
So I have made zero money sincethe fire right, which sucks and
(20:05):
so is that an LLC or is that aseparate?
it's an LLC, so I don't take acheck.
I know I'm not on payroll,right, and because I'm not on
payroll, they were like, hey, wecan pay your staff, but you're
not on payroll and I'm like Idon't have staff.
They all had to find other jobs, like because, I had to
threaten to sue you to pay rightyou know, wow, find a good
lawyer, find a good lawyer, goodlawyer.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So so, a great lawyer , a great accountant and a great
it makes you you're a lawyerand accountant, read your
insurance policy and understandthings about it that you may not
.
So there's legalities in everyprinted printed contract that a
lot of us read and have no ideawhat them words actually mean.
We may think we do and we'resigning on something because
we're fucking trying to act likewe're business savvy all of a
(20:48):
sudden and we really don't knowwhat it says.
So I would say, with whatyou're saying is to really I'm
going to actually go do it, I'mgoing to call my insurance
agency anyway, just because I'min the process of insuring my
new deli downtown.
So I'm going to really go overthese things and you really got
to fine-tooth comb all theselittle things to make sure
you're matching up, because theywill fucking, they will take
from you yeah, I mean even abusiness interruption.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Mine has a 72 hour deductible at crudo right.
I mean, at that point it's like72 hours, like I don't know if
you've had a walk-in go down for24.
Well, here's the problem.
But things will ruin here's thething.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I have one.
Luckily I got one and I wasafraid because we had a power
outage here a month or two agothat happens a lot and lost all
my business, all my fuckingbusiness.
I lost all the business.
Yeah, people walked out we had200 and something reservations
in the book, couldn't pay.
Most of them were already here,other ones were coming, they
couldn't pay.
I lost the whole fucking night,all the fresh food, my fresh
(21:42):
produce, my fresh fish,everything.
So to claim that right now weare just still actually doing it
right now, my sous chef gaveover the stuff yesterday or
today.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Finally, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And they want so much stuff to prove.
Plus want so much stuff toprove.
Plus.
They want me to prove thatthere was a power outage,
correct?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I'm like what the fuck?
I don't, I'm not a powercompany, and for how long?
Right, and it's, it's uh right,and it doesn't matter how long,
I lost everything.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Why is this a problem ?
You didn't ask me how long ittook me to get my payment to you
.
I mean, it was that simple.
Yeah so, but the point is, ifyou're not reading all that
stuff, they will easily hang thephone up on your ass and not
give a shit about anything yougot.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
So that I mean a testament to being a, an owner,
especially in restaurants, ofdocumentation like if there's
ever, but like, startdocumenting right away.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah I.
People are like, oh, I love tocook.
I loved it that.
I'm like dude, How's your papertrail skills?
Like do you have a filingcabinet?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
right, that's, that's our thing, because records
records like you got to keepeverything.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
And you don't just have to keep it, you got to know
where it is right and here'sthe other thing.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
That's funny.
You say that because we talkabout this all the time and we
just talked about today and I'mgoing to say it again because
could be a new listener out here.
But if you're going to open arestaurant in a damn thing and
you know how to cook, againyou're the menu you have and the
way you cook is the last thingyou need to worry about.
If you're going to open arestaurant, obviously you have
the skills to back that up.
That's what you're opening therestaurant for is to put your
food out.
So obviously you have an ideawhat your food and your menu and
(23:05):
everything's going to be.
That shouldn't be your mainfocus.
Your main focus is everythingyou just said.
Can you get the business set up, operate the business, protect
everything you're doing, so youcan then now cook your food.
But if the only thing you'refocusing on, like most new chefs
do when they're opening arestaurant, is the menu and
bragging to their friends andhaving them over to do tastings
all the time and shit like that,and your contractors are in
your restaurant without you,you've already started on the
(23:27):
wrong foot.
Get the fucking restaurantgoing, get your food in there
and then worry about the menu.
You should be able to createyour menu.
Your menu, your menu shouldhave already been the reason why
you're opening a restaurant.
Menus, change Menus change.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, exactly, that's not finite.
You can't change the way youfundamentally run the business.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Correct.
You have to run a system andthat's the end of it.
Like you said, file cabinets,file documentation.
Like you said, kristen, that'sall important stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
So what's next?
Insurance are paying, Are theylocked in?
And that took how long?
It was six months, seven months, yeah, February.
So we got like I think the lastcheck hadn't even come through
yet.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
And they're paying you incrementally.
They're not even giving you allthe money Correct, so you can't
even go to work.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So the business interruption side of it.
Like I said, they do cover yourbills.
So my you know the water damagethey do.
They do pay that, oh good um,you know so yeah you still have
rent.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I mean, yeah, you still have well, so that's.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
That's the other thing.
My landlord's awesome and it'sin the lease wow so part of the
lease is if there's somethingdetrimental fire, a major storm,
hurricane, whatever tornadocomes through rips the place
apart I stop paying rentimmediately.
The space immediately turnsover to them.
They are 100 responsible foreverything.
That was awesome that isawesome.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
That's helpful.
Yeah, that's something to noteif you're going into any kind of
lease or you're a landlord thatwants to work with you.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
It's a partnership for me, not exactly because
there's there's landlords thatwill shut a place down because
the person can't afford a tenthousand dollar aired unit on
the roof, correct?
But your lady says it's yourmaintenance, your problem.
So you want me to go build youa new $10,000 air-conditioned
unit, or else I have to leavehere and they'd rather see you
leave and then fix the unitinstead of give you the unit.
(25:12):
People are hard-headedmotherfuckers, man, and
sometimes they're assholes.
Well they motherfuckers, man,and sometimes they're assholes.
Well, they'll fix the unit andthey'll just charge you for it,
exactly right, and then they'lljust add that ten dollars to
your rent over a ten year periodand you're like, yeah, whatever
they write it off.
Yeah, exactly, so it's findsomebody that works with you
right and it's very important tohave that relationship because
if you have a bad relationshipwith your landlord, that's going
to make life miserable.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Yeah, yeah, big time.
So we're in the middle ofredoing stuff.
Now we have to city permitagain.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
We have to go through the whole process all over.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
We got to go through.
So I have a business license,so that's good, and I've
maintained that which, ifsomething ever happens, maintain
everything.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Pay your ABC license.
Pay your business license.
File your taxes, even thoughit's a zero.
File your taxes, because if youdon't file your taxes, they
assumed that you didn't file andthey will associate a number
with that and bill you.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
And they want their money.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
So files, you know all those things.
And so now we're having to gothrough the conditional use
permit.
You know, crudeau, I'll admit,was not a 14-seat cafe, which is
what our permit said.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Right, but the good news is, though, is the city.
I've worked with the city ofNorfolk a lot.
It's out of the bag now.
And if you're doing the thingsright.
I don't see why they wouldn'twant to be helping you.
They're awesome.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
They're doing a really good job.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You have a great food , a great reputation, Well that
was the easy to get the permitside of things it was like the.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Civic.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
League worked with us .
Speaker 2 (26:39):
The neighborhood, you know, they all wrote letters
and they did the thing.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Nice Plus, I have guys down at the city who are
like if you need anything, callme and they've moved stuff.
They've got me connected to theright people, right.
Like they pushed back my taxes,Right, and they said just pay
us 50 bucks instead of what itwould normally have been, you
know, just to help.
And I'm like, dude, as soon asmy claim comes through, I'll pay
(27:04):
.
And I did, and they were likeawesome.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah good.
So when you sign up for thisstuff and when you go into a new
area, new city, new streets oranything like that, you really
got to learn your community andyour neighborhood and it's very
important you become part of thebusiness world and a lot of
people at the beginning areanti-business and fuck this and
fuck that.
But if you don't want to playthe game, then maybe you
shouldn't be part of the game,because everyone's hand washes
(27:28):
each other's back.
It's a community and if you, ifyou're always going against it,
they are going to against you.
They're not going to be therefor you and they may not even
maliciously go against you.
They're not just gonna.
They're just not gonna be therefor you when you need them yeah
, and that's the important part.
You know, um, I've had someissues with Luce opening at the
beginning and I learned to notlet them bother me and it ended
up being the best decision Imade and now I have a great
(27:50):
relationship with some of thepeople who I thought might have
been out to hurt me, you somesay at the beginning, because I
didn't have that experience.
But once I learned it, I havepeople that I literally thought
were trying to take me down thatnow go out of their way.
They open my deli with noproblem.
They help me.
You know what I'm saying.
So if I would have gave themproblems, man, they would have
gave me problems back, and inyour situation you don't have
(28:10):
time for fucking problems.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
No, I'm a.
You know, the date we'rethrowing around is in October,
which is a maybe it's a maybe.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
It's a maybe We'll follow up on that We'll be there
for that grand reopening.
We'll be there.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Well, so I'll have my permit for ABC by September.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
I'm like let's go, it should only take.
You know, we're small.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, you're small, it's as big as your kitchen but
you're going to have a lot of.
You're going to have a lot ofnew excitement, man.
You're going to have a lot moreenergy, I think, because you
get to recreate and now you'regoing from how are we going to
make this little space better?
Now you're remaking the wholespace brand new, no-transcript
(29:05):
level of inspiration.
This shit's going to havefucking meaning behind it now,
because you have.
Now you're going to bring itall back, man, and I'm.
That's exciting.
That's why I we're pumped.
I mean, it's an exciting thing.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
It's.
You know, I don't think I wasthis excited even when Crudo
opened.
I think Crudo was kind of likewe went through it.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And it was like we survived.
Plus, you have the experiencenow when you opened up Crudo I'd
imagine it was your first placeyou opened- First place by
myself.
By yourself right.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Like first.
First, where I wasn't just likea chef spending somebody else's
money, so you were responsible.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So, with that being said, you didn't really know
what to do.
Now, with the seven years ofexperience, you're reopening
something with knowledge.
So now you know what to beexcited about.
You know what not to do.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
It's my third one now .
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
But it's like real familiar it's like getting
remarried to like your ex-wifeor something that's.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
that's a great way to put it okay, cool sex is
probably good.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
At least it's like super comfortable and you know
what you're getting into rightit's like none of the bullshit
you don't have to hide punchesanymore.
You just go in and you're likethis is it.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I'll try better this time.
The house looks a little bitbetter.
I was wrong last time.
Both times I got it.
This is stuff that again I waswrong last time.
Yeah right, I got it.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Oh, that's funny I think I mean this is stuff that
again, like we try and on theshow, go into all aspects of the
industry.
So this is a side we haven'ttouched on is when shit happens,
when shit hits the fan.
And you don't have the rightinsurance in place and the
things people don't know.
You don't know what you don'tknow, and you said that earlier.
Like you have to learn thesethings and this is a great way.
So, I mean, I know it's not funreliving that every time we ask
(30:41):
you to talk about it, but thankyou for talking about it.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And the biggest thing that gets me is when I hear
somebody whether it's in arestaurant or a car or anything
like that is when someone says Idon't care, it's insured.
When someone says that to me,right away I know that person
has no experience in fuckinglife.
Hey, take my motorcycle for aride.
All right, I'll try not tocrash it, it don't matter, it's
insured.
Obviously.
You've never gone through aninsurance company.
(31:04):
You've never had a heart toheart with that motherfucker
saying that no, it's not whatyou think, it is dude, yeah,
you're not.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
I wasn't riding the bike actually and there's like
people that saw it.
It was this other dude yeah,right is he on your policy no,
he's not sorry.
Oh sorry, dude, exactly.
And then same thing with therestaurant.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
People don't realize, like I said just that shutdown
from the power is giving me somuch trouble.
I almost backed out of it andquit doing it because I was like
fuck him, man, I'm not goingthrough this, I don't have time.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And that's what they hope.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
That's what they hope .
Speaker 2 (31:32):
But I would have lost tens of thousands of dollars.
That want my money, yeah I needto pay you still for insurance.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
So give me some money to pay you back my company took
my uh, my payment out, whilethey were denying my claim.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Nice, that was a good one, that's juicy that was fun
you'll still take my money, butyou won't help me at all.
So that's absolutely terrible,like, like, really terrible.
That is so bad.
Do we want to do one of thereviews?
Okay, I think so.
We do the fun thing sometimesat the end of the show where we
read a bad review and we respondto it.
(32:11):
So, since this, isn't yourrestaurant it's from here.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So it's from here, so we'll do that.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Thank, you, sir.
All right, we got some reviews.
This is the fun stuff becauseyou know, everyone has their own
perception of what a review is.
Me, I use them as a tool whenthey're actually valid.
And there are some valid onesand some of them need addressing
, because if they're, I go onaverages.
If the reviews constantly talkabout the same issue, there's
obviously a fucking issue.
(32:42):
If there's a clown in heretalking about all their bullshit
and they have to glorify theirreview, or just because they
didn't like something so they'regoing to tear apart everything
else just to make their storyvalid, that's.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Those are the ones all right, so which one are you
going to read?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
let me see one star review all here's a great one.
Let's see.
Ready for this I'm down.
Let's see how you relate to thisbecause I want to answer this
guy right here on live, fuckinglive.
Here we go.
So it says we are a few minutesearly and sat in the bar lounge
area until seated Staff wasplentiful and our server was
(33:14):
very attentive.
Appetizers were a challenge tochoose as it was not clear that
some items were not cooked oronly seared.
We had to ask regarding severalitems.
The menu could be clarify this.
Our entrees came out and I wasshocked that the scallops on my
plate were the total of three.
This was a $40 plate.
My wife's halibut order cameout with maybe two ounces of
(33:36):
fish a scallop and was largerthan the three I had in a prawn.
She ordered this dish wantingthe halibut based on the
waitress's recommendation thathad no idea there were
additional seafood items on it.
She was not a fan of the prawn.
I observed the floor manager goto many customers' tables but
we did not get a visit.
(33:56):
My one word summation summation, sorry, would would have been
underwhelming.
This was a special occasion andnoted the staff.
The 170 tab no drinks orderedwas over the top for the meals
we received only one second timeat luche and probably the last.
The decor and noise levels were, but the subwoofer was getting
(34:19):
too much of a workout.
I do not know what the goal isfor their background music, but
the thump of the bass registerwas readily present.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Sweet.
Now let me tell you about thisfucking douche.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Here's the thing he gave me this one star review and
doesn't realize how much thataffects our staff.
You bitched about everythingthat we actually do.
Okay, you bitched about thethumping of the bass and what
they're not trying to do.
So here's the thing the bass ison and the music that we're
playing is the vibe of ourrestaurant, and that's why
people come here.
You happen to not like it,because you wanted Mamma Mia.
(34:55):
Mamma Mia, that's what youwanted.
You wanted Mamma Mia, frankSinatra.
Mamma Mia, that's not what wedo here this is a place that you
go to.
It's upbeat, it's young, it'svibe, the food vibe matches.
The halibut is never two ounces, it's completely weighed by a
professional and it's anywherebetween four and six.
And that prawn you got was a U3fucking prawn, the biggest
(35:16):
prawn you could possibly get.
You know what I mean.
And you got a U fucking eightscallop, which is a buttermilk
biscuit on your plate.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Everything you got there was the most fucking
essential of ocean food.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
I imagine it doesn't just say halibut on the menu.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Of course not.
It's very specific.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It's very specific.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
It says it's a yeah.
It's very specific in how it'sprepared and you have.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
the best part is the $40 plate of scallops.
We're getting robbed.
No, the best part is the $40plate of scallops.
We're getting robbed.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
No one understands how much scallops are in the
store $40 for three scallops.
It costs you almost that to buythe damn things in the store,
of course.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
You ate scallops right now are so expensive and
they're so hard to get, but westill do it and we still get
them to provide it for ourcustomer.
So what bothers me about thisthing here is they started right
here.
We were a few minutes earlylounge area until seated Staff
was plentiful and our server wasvery attentive.
It sounds like everything thatwas supposed to hit here hit and
you just don't know what thefuck you're doing.
That's what this sounds like tome.
(36:09):
They didn't understand whattype of restaurant they were
coming to.
They didn't do their researchbefore they came.
They heard the word on thestreet that the place is busy
and popping and you came in hereand you had no idea what could
actually go on in a restaurantother than your basic bitch
restaurant Google is an amazingtool for anybody who's old
Google is awesome.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
And you can find out things about the menu while
you're on Google, even likemaybe a question you have about
the menu that your attentiveserver couldn't ask for you, I
guess.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
But the whole point for your server is to answer
your questions.
So I'm glad you had to askquestions and they answered them
.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Like they told you it wasn't cooked.
Yeah, I mean, it seemed likethey did everything right.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
So to drop everything down to a one star because of
the things you didn't understand, when you clearly say
everything that was supposed tohappen was good.
You could have at least went toa three or four star.
Come on, you know what I'msaying.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
You just didn't know what you all right, it's also
not an airport.
You don't need to like announceyour departure exactly.
If you're not coming back, bro,just don't come back.
I like spit a one star and thenbe like I'm just not coming
back.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Well, yeah, no shit, man, I don't want you back.
Anyway, it's gonna be a one,it's gonna be a one star.
We'll be back, though.
Yeah, that's the fucker, we maytry again.
You may come back, because hiswife probably loves the shit.
Yeah, right, and?
Speaker 3 (37:21):
it's like he afterwards Right or he didn't
and he's mad at us for it, orhe's pissed off.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
That could have been it.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Jeff Cokie the Jamoke .
Speaker 1 (37:28):
We can't control that you didn't get laid after you
left.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
So that's one of the times where I read a review
online to let people know thatyou have to understand where it
is you're going and what it isyou're getting into before you
tear it apart because you justdon't understand it.
The music we play is if you goanywhere else Las Vegas, miami,
new York City it's more of alounge, younger vibe.
Just because we're an Italianrestaurant doesn't mean we need
(37:51):
to have red and whitetablecloths and free bread, and
you know what I mean and FrankSinatra playing and the
meatballs flying everywhere.
Save that for that type ofplace.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
So throw meatballs in your house, you know what I
mean Throwing meatballs atpitches.
I'm just going to throwmeatballs Slingshot.
Right at the table In the backof their bald-ass head.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
That's what I'll get.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh my God, it's been a pleasure having you on, bro.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
We'd love to talk to you about this stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
When you guys reopen, we would love to be there.
We'd like your journey.
It's a tough journey and I knowwhen you guys reopen you're
going to have a whole newatmosphere and I'm actually
happy for you because I can telland know that your passion is
going to get you into thatposition.
You're going to have a greattime with it.
So where can people find you?
Where's your little restaurant?
Where's your two restaurants?
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Plug it.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Well, I was like so Kneebird is over here in Summit
Point and and then Crudo will.
It's still sitting there overoff of 21st Street we're the
armpit between Mr Schwerma andthe vitamin shop we're not the
furniture store, even though wehave chairs outside.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
I'm sure people come and look at them, but yeah, so
you go there any social mediastuff?
Speaker 3 (38:59):
yeah, I mean we're on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Neatbird yeah, just under Neatbird VA.
And yeah, I mean we're oninstagram like neatberg.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, it's just under the bird va and I think crudo
nudo.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah, we're on instagram, facebook.
I think we got a tick tocksomewhere.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Check it out support hit subscribe on this, like all
that stuff.
Thanks for watching.
Wish my man luck here.
Send him something, send himsome love, some vibes and uh,
we'll see you out there, man.
Ciao for now.
Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hey.
Hey, here we are my man, eric,over here.
Chef, what's up, eric?
Local legend, if you will here.
Yes, it's got a wonderful place.
Well, we call everybody thatwe're all on the same page,
right?
Oh, okay, so awesomerestaurants.
Crudo Nudo goes back what?
How many years?
Seven, seven years.
So I remember when you guysfirst opened you were down in
(00:25):
Norfolk.
I heard about this place, crudoNudo.
I used the terminology.
You know the words Italianlanguage somewhat.
You know there's a little twistin there, right.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, so I'm like interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And that's it.
I heard good news from it eversince and I never really had
anything bad.
I'd never heard anything badabout it, so I was like no shit,
so that's cool.
Then fast forward on to when IChe Secundo, these crudo nudo
guys are coming across thestreet here With chicken, with
chicken.
So I'm like chicken and whiskeycool man.
I've heard of it maybe, butI've never really applied the
thought to it.
You know what I'm saying?
(00:51):
Yeah, Now I'm there last nightliterally, so I'm there pretty
much not as much anymore becauseI cut back on drinking, but I
used to be there.
My staff's there every friggingnight.
Spot for us now.
Yeah.
So, um, eric, you've been achef for a long time.
Yeah, tell us a little bitabout yourself and where you go,
so we can get into what wereally want to talk about today
and and that's preparation yeah,eric had gone through some
(01:12):
nasty shit.
His restaurant caught on firedue to someone else's negligence
in his, in his area.
Is that right?
So you had?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
they're saying accident and that's fine.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You're talking about something from another
storefront, right?
No, that was all us, oh really.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, the fire originated in our building and
they literally just chopped itup to two wires, frayed or
something and whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
No shit.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
So, okay, good.
So like after we talk aboutyour little introduction here,
because I can talk all day aboutthis stuff.
So we've got to kind ofstreamline it a little bit so we
don't lose people, but tell,tell us about your style of
cooking, what influences you,where you started, real quick,
and then we'll.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Then we'll move into how you opened up and where you
went and where you can give usadvice yeah, uh, short story,
did some stuff up in dccorporatey got out of that
because I just hated thecorporate gig.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Um and uh was it the answering to the uh?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
the precision, the uh , or the wannabe precision that
really is never precise you know, surprisingly, like the, the
best part about corporate is allthe things that I still do now,
like the sticking to standards,the all that stuff.
It was the I have to show upevery and just there was rules
but like not, that weren't myrules right, yeah, um, so you
know it was all right and I, uh,I was doing well and uh, I just
(02:30):
quit and was like I'm gonnalearn how to cook again and uh,
so I started cooking in a couplerestaurants in dc and then got
into the party scene a littlebit and then moved down here to
kind of get away from things andgo back to school because
there's any good chef knows ifyou ain't partying you ain't
Speaker 1 (02:46):
learning.
Yeah, at that time in life,yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Those were better days, different days, younger
days, I guess.
So yeah, I came down here toactually go to school and needed
a job, so I started, you know,surprisingly cooking again and
got back into it.
Isn't it weird how we always goback to it.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, I tried a couple times myself to try different
things.
I joined the frigging Navy.
I was a jet mechanic.
I tried opening up.
I worked in the not landscapebut lumber stuff, cutting trees
I've done everything.
Yeah, I always go right back tothe kitchen.
Now it's my home.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
It's where I'm most comfortable, for sure.
Yeah, obviously it's.
It's that's what it is.
It's the comfort that's the.
That's what makes thedifference, the.
Uh, yeah, and then startedworking around this area a
little bit worked for I don'tknow, todd and sam again out in
suffolk and out of the beach andjust you know too many places
at this point but?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
but within those places, though, you, you did
gain something, and, if anything, your own style everything.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, I uh, I'm really good at picking up things
that I like and then sortingout the stuff that I don't, and
uh, and then when we started todo crudo the idea behind it, we
were doing pop-ups called bluetape, and I used to always read
books like that's mostly how Ilearned.
I learned from chess, but Ilearned a lot from, like reading
(04:06):
and studying, and I guess nowit would be more internet.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
These are these biography types on other chefs
or books about recipes.
Everything, anything andeverything, everything yeah, I
loved it all.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Like, my book collection is a little
ridiculous, but it got to apoint where I stopped buying
books and I just started doingmy own thing, right, and I
started saying, well, what isthat, you know?
And I think that's like a biglike what is that?
What is your style?
Right, you know, what do you do?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, well, crudo is a very unique menu.
I mean it's, you know, tapasstyle.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
There's influences from everywhere, mostly Spain,
right.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, a lot of heavy Spanish influence.
I mean, that was super popularwhen I was kind of coming up
with the Ferran Andrea and allthat and the molecular stuff and
that spoke with my chemistrybackground in college, so it
spoke to that.
And it just kind of worked withwhat I was doing.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
And that's a good analogy because a lot of people
don't understand that whenpeople are getting Michelin
stars and stuff they're getting,people ask me all the time when
you get a Michelin star, never,I'm not a molecular chef,
that's that rating system reallyis based off of that style of
cooking and if that does have achemist mindset to it, where it
is a scientific type ofdelicious experiment, right yeah
(05:19):
.
And if you have that and youhave that background, I'm sure
that it's kind of drives youdown that road a little bit,
more so than my comfort style ofeating, right.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, I mean some.
Yeah, you know.
So what we do at Crudo is, Itry to think of dishes in a
four-ingredient thing Like whatcan we do that takes four things
and then that's usually ourfood.
It's like cool, we got gotbeans, we got some scallions.
Like you know, we don't includesalt and pepper, because that's
everything right, but it's likewhat is like the four things we
(05:50):
want to talk about.
Do we want to mess with them?
No, usually I don't.
Um, we kind of got out of alittle bit of that stuff.
I think it just I don't know.
It became like, um, everybodywas doing this thing I never got
into pearls or you know, Inever got into that stuff and we
just try to keep it as simpleas we possibly can.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Four or five ingredients.
I'm happy with that.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
If I have to explain it more than that, those are the
things you're talking about.
That's funny.
I say I don't do molecular andstuff, but I'm big.
You know pearls are essentialhere.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
I have a lot of things that I do do and use that
technique, but I don't pridemyself on it because I don't do
it enough.
I think it's the norm now.
I think it's normal, it's partof it's expected it.
You know, five years, six yearsago you might have caught me
saying xantham should be in yourkitchen right beside salt and
pepper right, it should be partof it, and it's not that it I
takes away from anything, ithelps.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Once you understand it, learn it and know what to do
with it.
It can enhance a lot of thingsand make your life a lot easier,
and the customer's experience alot more exciting, because it's
nothing better than seeingsomething on a plate that you've
never seen before.
That's kind of our goal is togive them something they've
never seen and to createsomething that we've never
created and have it succeed.
That's the thing, is trying toget that success rate.
But so you, you, you took allthose on.
(07:08):
When you opened up Crudo, howdid you open that?
Did you have partners?
Did you have a?
Did you open it Like?
When I opened up Luce Norfolk,I did it on a whim man.
I had the least of everythingpossible.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
So I had.
I had a guy who helped me out,bob Hughes.
Um, some people know him, somepeople don't.
He's a dude that owns a lot ofrestaurants that nobody knows
and I love that about him.
And I came to him and I said,hey, I want to open up this
pasta restaurant 40 seats, blah,blah, blah.
And he was like, well, feed mesome pasta.
So we started talking aboutthat and then it evolved more
(07:39):
and more into, you know, asthings progressed Within a year.
you know it was one of thosethings it's hard to split 50
cents sometimes and uh and so,uh, he actually loaned me the
money to buy him out, which sonow I just pay him every month.
(07:59):
And so it's all mine now, Um noother investors or anything
like that, and that was afterthe first year you know, and
then COVID happened and all thatstuff.
Cool yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So that was somewhat close to my scenario.
I had an, I had a friend ofmine who helped invest with me
and I ended up buying him outand his wife out.
Um, long story short, it wasnecessary for me to continue
moving up forward and moving onyeah because it's a lot of
stress when you have that personyou have to answer to, because
you want to make sure yousatisfy them and you don't fuck
up their arrangement, if you, ifyou're a decent human being-
(08:30):
yeah, right, and there's a lotthere's few of us left.
We're the minority.
But you know, people mistakeour hard work, our lack of
patience for people's bullshit,our um, our quick responses to
things as us being assholes.
But they don't realize thatwe've been through it so much
and we have to protect our assetand our investment so much that
(08:52):
we wake up every day defensive.
You know what I mean, and it'snot that we're assholes, we just
don't want to fucking deal withnonsense, you know?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
and freeloaders and people are doing that shit.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So when you worked into Crudo, you got a good ball
rolling.
I mean that shit yeah.
So when you, when you workedinto crudo, you got a good ball
rolling, I mean everything wasrolling good, almost as I could
say.
Your dream was kind of comingtogether right, yeah, it was.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Uh, crudo was tough and this a lot of people don't
know this story, but crudo, westarted crudo and it was.
We wanted to be seven tables,focus on food.
We wanted to be something thatthis area just didn't have.
I didn't feel like and and itwas good, and we hit one percent
of probably one percenters andthings were going south and I
(09:30):
think I had like 56 dollars inthe bank account.
It was less, it was south of100 bucks in the crudos bank
account right, wow and uh,there's nothing scarier than
less than 10 000.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, imagine 52.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Imagine 52.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, it was bad.
And I was talking to a buddyand he was like, oh I'm.
I was like, dude, I think I'mdone.
I was like I think I'm justgoing to close.
And he was like, well, youcan't do that because I got a
party coming on Saturday.
And I was like, all right, well, I guess we started.
(10:06):
You know the party and then atthis point you're going to this
party totally deflated, yeah,and it just rolled and it rolled
and we ended up closing andrebranding within a week.
Um we had a very spanish heavyinfluence, and so we were like,
why not just be spanish?
Because a lot of people arelike what are you?
That kind of felt like nirvanain the 90s, where I'm like I
don't, I just want to be yeahyeah, um, and, and you know, it
was one of those situationswhere, like fine, we're just
(10:27):
Spanish tapas, it's just easier.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Just throw me in the category and like, let me move.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well then, you can get your ingredients.
Based on that, you can geteverything sourced's different.
Yeah, and it's like I don'twant to follow like a thing, but
we like it.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And now we look through things through the
spanish lens and we kind ofactually focus on it.
Which is successful?
Your food is good.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, it's great, you're putting together some
good things that this areahasn't seen before.
That you know, you're doing thethings like the octopus and
things like that that peopledon't really know how to cook
properly, um, but it's a lot offun once you put it out there
for people.
So, moving on, you open up neatbird and that concept is great.
Food's really good.
(11:14):
Um, I can see the progressionin the food as it's going.
They're figuring it out reallyfast and good, because now I
crave it.
You know you have that, thatchick, that honey chicken
sriracha honey chicken thing,the roasted chicken, that
fucking thing's amazing.
I get that.
I might even get it today forlunch.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
matter of fact, you might, you might.
I think I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So anyway, these are the things I think of now.
So you come over here, you openit.
I see the ups and downs overthere.
It's a very niched idea.
From the outside eye looking in, you don't have to comment.
But from the outside eyelooking in, the more I go there
and find myself having a hardtime finding a bar seat is
coming together.
It's happening more and more sonow at night.
(11:51):
That's a thing that's good,because we don't have anything
going and we close this placedown and we walk over there and
we can barely get a fucking barseat.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's the restaurant's bar.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I would rather see that.
I'd rather see theinconvenience of me not getting
a bar seat.
Yeah, then walking into anempty bar because that's good
for you.
Now, as that's going, you startbeing nervous.
At the beginning there was upsand downs, like we all have
opening, and you startplateauing there and, okay, man,
maybe we're figuring this thingout.
And then all of a sudden,fucking, here comes the fire and
crudo.
So yeah yeah, is that aboutright?
(12:22):
Is that timeline kind of how itworked?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
yeah, things were rolling we were and we were
starting to make some changes.
Like you know, you get theseven year itch or whatever you
want to call it sure where it'slike we started to make some
changes at crudo and we were,you know, gonna step up a little
bit and just, you know, notfundamentals, but just do some
different things yeah sure andthen, you know, I was sitting on
my couch one day at 1030 in themorning and I got a phone call
(12:47):
from the landlord and I was like, eh, you know, it was one of
those like I don't know if Ishould.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
He's going to bitch me to the dumpster.
Well, yeah, it's like somethingyou know.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So I was like, eh, I'll take it.
And I was like, hey, and shegoes, fire department's, at your
front door at Crudeau, there'sa fire, they're breaking in the
glass and I'm like, oh shit.
And it just kind of went intolike fight or flight mode at
that point where it's like I'm apretty laid back guy I don't
know if you can tell that, but Idon't get worked up over much
(13:16):
and I was just like I told mywife, I said I'm out the door,
crudeau's on fire.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
We're gonna go out yeah like and I expected it like
to be on fire, like you'rethinking it's one part of the
kitchen like something's on fireyou think when you?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
pull up, there's gonna be flames coming out of it
and shit.
Is that what you're thinking?
Well, or you think it was just?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
gonna be like a like thing on.
You know, I was like okay, okay, the range is on fire, yeah,
and then you start going throughthe thing where it's like, oh,
maybe it is gonna be like a burnthe building deal and I was
like I don't know what thefuck's going to happen, and so,
uh, you know, we get there andthere's, I think, six ladder
trucks, no-transcript, and I'munderprepared and I'm like you
(13:57):
just jumped out of the house.
I jumped out of the house, I hadlike a hoodie or something and
it was like 30-something degreesout and I'm, like you know, in
shock.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
You're frozen.
You know anxiety, so I'm likeshaking yeah, so like a dog
addict or something, and I waslike you know, like isn't the
owner.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Your meth pipe burnt, like freaking out kind of.
So I start talking and they're,like you know, wanting me to
fill out reports and they, youknow, they start asking you
questions and you know, oh mygod, they want to know like they
.
Everybody wants to know whathappened and I'm like I wasn't
there bro, I don't know.
Yeah, um, but I guess this iswhen the place was empty uh,
yeah, so it happened 10, 30 wewere done, we we stopped doing
(14:33):
lunch so I can stop blaming oneof your cooks that burnt the
place down.
Yeah, yeah, no one was therewhen we started going through.
We said did they take thelinens out at night?
You know like did they forget?
To whatever.
Yeah, I mean anything, Do youremember?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
this.
You know what I always think of.
When I was young, my favoriteshow was Happy Days, and I don't
know if you remember Happy Daysback then, but the way it ended
the season finale is they burntdown Arnold's because Chachi
had to go on a date with Joniand he took his apron off and
threw it and it landed and thebig dramatic scene was the pilot
light lit the fire of the apronand burnt down Arnold's, which
(15:07):
was a fucking tearjerker.
I was like Arnold's no, thiscan't be, Burnt it all down.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
So you didn't even have an Arnold's happy day story
, no, so the thing burned down.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Now you pull up, you're freezing your crack.
Meth pipe is fucking empty.
Shit's going on yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
They think you just wandered up on the scene, right?
They just think you did this.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I'm like, oh, they were talking to Josh, which you
guys know, and John Reynolds,who was there, and they're like
you guys the owner, and they'relike, no, it's him that one, you
know, and I'm like over therein his hoodie, yeah, shaking so
we get there and they, we do thereports and they're like, yeah,
something about the fire in thekitchen is all I kind of really
know.
And so I was like, well, howlong do you think it's going to
(15:48):
take?
And they're like we can'treally tell.
So I'm like, all right, well,fuck it, let's go to, uh, pay
loans and have a couple beers.
Um, while we wait and see whathappens.
So there is a fun photo of likethe four of us and payloads
with the fire trucks behind usdrinking beers uh, well, what do
we?
Speaker 2 (16:03):
you got to make the best out of that.
What the fuck you're gonna do?
That was your yeah, honestlylike yeah, I'm not a fireman, so
I was like I can't help rightand I'm not gonna stand and
watch because I'm not a touristwell, not only that, but you
don't want to watch your wholefucking dream go down.
I'd rather come back to itlater yeah, I did that later.
I like to cry in peace yeah,right, you know exactly and it
must have been talking aboutthat and no matter how tough
anybody wants to sound oranything like that, let's get to
(16:25):
that heartstring part of it.
That's what I'm getting at is,it's all fun and games to sit
there and talk about it, lookback on it, and stuff like that.
But in the heat of it, man,when you crap, when you're all
done and the shock is off, andyou're sitting there looking
around everything, how the didthat feel, man, that sucked, huh
, I mean I can say therapy hasbeen very helpful but, um, it
(16:45):
was a uh.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
You know, I had my moments sure my kid was born in
february and we opened in july,oh you know.
So it's like I attribute a lotof like crudo to her yeah, yeah,
it's the same timeline likeyeah, so it was, you know, seven
years of my life.
Yeah, and crudo wasn't like oneof those things we like built
like, it didn't like pop upright it was like it popped up
(17:08):
as like not much of anything andyou built it involved seven
years of like adding stuff and,like you know, people would
bring us shit and like we put iton the shelves and you know, it
was like oh, that's that guestperrone that her dad got in
argentina that's made out ofleather and they're like you
know, all that stuff was gonedid it burn up that stuff, some
(17:29):
of it yeahum water damage water damage,
the smoke damage is what reallyfucked us the biggest.
I mean minus the kitchen, youknow, obviously completely gone.
But the smoke.
Damage was awful.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
So what do you give?
Now you can give advice.
I'm sure there's things thatyou didn't realize you should
have done.
Or what preparation dorestaurant owners out there,
including myself?
What ideas can you give us thatyou've learned from?
What are a couple takeaways?
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So insurance sucks in general.
But, be patient, but be patientbecause they do pay off.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I will say that, so dealing with them.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
It took a long time for you.
It took a little bit.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, it was.
So we had a lot.
I don't know anybody that readstheir 460 plus page insurance
policy front to cover Correct Idon't know anybody that does.
Obviously my agent didn't, andI didn't know anybody that does.
Obviously my agent didn't and Ididn't either.
He assumed we were good,because typically that's just
the way it works With oursituation.
(18:26):
Our policy was actuallyoverwrote, which they put a
safety precaution in it, whichwe didn't have, so we didn't
have sprinklers.
Most buildings in Norfolk aregrandfathered in.
They don't need sprinklers.
We didn't have them.
Our policy said we did.
So I filed, things were good,and then the dude goes oh,
there's a problem.
And that's when it got worse,because I was like oh shit, what
(18:50):
does problem mean?
Because problems in my worlddon't exist.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
The word problem is a problem.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah, I predict problems.
I don't like to solve themanymore I like to predict them
and cancel them before theyhappen right, right, yeah, and
and so, uh, you know it's likeokay so we started going through
it and, um, eventually itworked itself out like, because
it I didn't overwrite it, Idon't write insurance policies
(19:16):
sure uh, your agent technicallydoesn't write it either, Like
they have an underwriter whodoes all that shit so they had
made a mistake.
They paid out.
You know, one of the biggestones is we do business loss
insurance there like businessinterruption.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Which I recommend for every single person out there
in the world If you have abusiness, get business
interruption insurance.
It's fucking crucial.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I would say I would, I would.
I'll play the other side of itfor me sure it is.
It has been good to pay thebills, I will tell you that.
But I am a single member, llcum, so I take a distribution, so
I'm profit based and theyconsider that a liability, not
part of your business right.
So I have made zero money sincethe fire right, which sucks and
(20:05):
so is that an LLC or is that aseparate?
it's an LLC, so I don't take acheck.
I know I'm not on payroll,right, and because I'm not on
payroll, they were like, hey, wecan pay your staff, but you're
not on payroll and I'm like Idon't have staff.
They all had to find other jobs, like because, I had to
threaten to sue you to pay rightyou know, wow, find a good
lawyer, find a good lawyer, goodlawyer.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So so, a great lawyer , a great accountant and a great
it makes you you're a lawyerand accountant, read your
insurance policy and understandthings about it that you may not
.
So there's legalities in everyprinted printed contract that a
lot of us read and have no ideawhat them words actually mean.
We may think we do and we'resigning on something because
we're fucking trying to act likewe're business savvy all of a
(20:48):
sudden and we really don't knowwhat it says.
So I would say, with whatyou're saying is to really I'm
going to actually go do it, I'mgoing to call my insurance
agency anyway, just because I'min the process of insuring my
new deli downtown.
So I'm going to really go overthese things and you really got
to fine-tooth comb all theselittle things to make sure
you're matching up, because theywill fucking, they will take
from you yeah, I mean even abusiness interruption.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Mine has a 72 hour deductible at crudo right.
I mean, at that point it's like72 hours, like I don't know if
you've had a walk-in go down for24.
Well, here's the problem.
But things will ruin here's thething.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I have one.
Luckily I got one and I wasafraid because we had a power
outage here a month or two agothat happens a lot and lost all
my business, all my fuckingbusiness.
I lost all the business.
Yeah, people walked out we had200 and something reservations
in the book, couldn't pay.
Most of them were already here,other ones were coming, they
couldn't pay.
I lost the whole fucking night,all the fresh food, my fresh
(21:42):
produce, my fresh fish,everything.
So to claim that right now weare just still actually doing it
right now, my sous chef gaveover the stuff yesterday or
today.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Finally, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And they want so much stuff to prove.
Plus want so much stuff toprove.
Plus.
They want me to prove thatthere was a power outage,
correct?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I'm like what the fuck?
I don't, I'm not a powercompany, and for how long?
Right, and it's, it's uh right,and it doesn't matter how long,
I lost everything.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Why is this a problem ?
You didn't ask me how long ittook me to get my payment to you
.
I mean, it was that simple.
Yeah so, but the point is, ifyou're not reading all that
stuff, they will easily hang thephone up on your ass and not
give a shit about anything yougot.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
So that I mean a testament to being a, an owner,
especially in restaurants, ofdocumentation like if there's
ever, but like, startdocumenting right away.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah I.
People are like, oh, I love tocook.
I loved it that.
I'm like dude, How's your papertrail skills?
Like do you have a filingcabinet?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
right, that's, that's our thing, because records
records like you got to keepeverything.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
And you don't just have to keep it, you got to know
where it is right and here'sthe other thing.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
That's funny.
You say that because we talkabout this all the time and we
just talked about today and I'mgoing to say it again because
could be a new listener out here.
But if you're going to open arestaurant in a damn thing and
you know how to cook, againyou're the menu you have and the
way you cook is the last thingyou need to worry about.
If you're going to open arestaurant, obviously you have
the skills to back that up.
That's what you're opening therestaurant for is to put your
food out.
So obviously you have an ideawhat your food and your menu and
(23:05):
everything's going to be.
That shouldn't be your mainfocus.
Your main focus is everythingyou just said.
Can you get the business set up, operate the business, protect
everything you're doing, so youcan then now cook your food.
But if the only thing you'refocusing on, like most new chefs
do when they're opening arestaurant, is the menu and
bragging to their friends andhaving them over to do tastings
all the time and shit like that,and your contractors are in
your restaurant without you,you've already started on the
(23:27):
wrong foot.
Get the fucking restaurantgoing, get your food in there
and then worry about the menu.
You should be able to createyour menu.
Your menu, your menu shouldhave already been the reason why
you're opening a restaurant.
Menus, change Menus change.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, exactly, that's not finite.
You can't change the way youfundamentally run the business.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Correct.
You have to run a system andthat's the end of it.
Like you said, file cabinets,file documentation.
Like you said, kristen, that'sall important stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
So what's next?
Insurance are paying, Are theylocked in?
And that took how long?
It was six months, seven months, yeah, February.
So we got like I think the lastcheck hadn't even come through
yet.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
And they're paying you incrementally.
They're not even giving you allthe money Correct, so you can't
even go to work.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So the business interruption side of it.
Like I said, they do cover yourbills.
So my you know the water damagethey do.
They do pay that, oh good um,you know so yeah you still have
rent.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I mean, yeah, you still have well, so that's.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
That's the other thing.
My landlord's awesome and it'sin the lease wow so part of the
lease is if there's somethingdetrimental fire, a major storm,
hurricane, whatever tornadocomes through rips the place
apart I stop paying rentimmediately.
The space immediately turnsover to them.
They are 100 responsible foreverything.
That was awesome that isawesome.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
That's helpful.
Yeah, that's something to noteif you're going into any kind of
lease or you're a landlord thatwants to work with you.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
It's a partnership for me, not exactly because
there's there's landlords thatwill shut a place down because
the person can't afford a tenthousand dollar aired unit on
the roof, correct?
But your lady says it's yourmaintenance, your problem.
So you want me to go build youa new $10,000 air-conditioned
unit, or else I have to leavehere and they'd rather see you
leave and then fix the unitinstead of give you the unit.
(25:12):
People are hard-headedmotherfuckers, man, and
sometimes they're assholes.
Well they motherfuckers, man,and sometimes they're assholes.
Well, they'll fix the unit andthey'll just charge you for it,
exactly right, and then they'lljust add that ten dollars to
your rent over a ten year periodand you're like, yeah, whatever
they write it off.
Yeah, exactly, so it's findsomebody that works with you
right and it's very important tohave that relationship because
if you have a bad relationshipwith your landlord, that's going
to make life miserable.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Yeah, yeah, big time.
So we're in the middle ofredoing stuff.
Now we have to city permitagain.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
We have to go through the whole process all over.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
We got to go through.
So I have a business license,so that's good, and I've
maintained that which, ifsomething ever happens, maintain
everything.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Pay your ABC license.
Pay your business license.
File your taxes, even thoughit's a zero.
File your taxes, because if youdon't file your taxes, they
assumed that you didn't file andthey will associate a number
with that and bill you.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
And they want their money.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
So files, you know all those things.
And so now we're having to gothrough the conditional use
permit.
You know, crudeau, I'll admit,was not a 14-seat cafe, which is
what our permit said.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Right, but the good news is, though, is the city.
I've worked with the city ofNorfolk a lot.
It's out of the bag now.
And if you're doing the thingsright.
I don't see why they wouldn'twant to be helping you.
They're awesome.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
They're doing a really good job.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You have a great food , a great reputation, Well that
was the easy to get the permitside of things it was like the.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Civic.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
League worked with us .
Speaker 2 (26:39):
The neighborhood, you know, they all wrote letters
and they did the thing.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Nice Plus, I have guys down at the city who are
like if you need anything, callme and they've moved stuff.
They've got me connected to theright people, right.
Like they pushed back my taxes,Right, and they said just pay
us 50 bucks instead of what itwould normally have been, you
know, just to help.
And I'm like, dude, as soon asmy claim comes through, I'll pay
(27:04):
.
And I did, and they were likeawesome.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah good.
So when you sign up for thisstuff and when you go into a new
area, new city, new streets oranything like that, you really
got to learn your community andyour neighborhood and it's very
important you become part of thebusiness world and a lot of
people at the beginning areanti-business and fuck this and
fuck that.
But if you don't want to playthe game, then maybe you
shouldn't be part of the game,because everyone's hand washes
(27:28):
each other's back.
It's a community and if you, ifyou're always going against it,
they are going to against you.
They're not going to be therefor you and they may not even
maliciously go against you.
They're not just gonna.
They're just not gonna be therefor you when you need them yeah
, and that's the important part.
You know, um, I've had someissues with Luce opening at the
beginning and I learned to notlet them bother me and it ended
up being the best decision Imade and now I have a great
(27:50):
relationship with some of thepeople who I thought might have
been out to hurt me, you somesay at the beginning, because I
didn't have that experience.
But once I learned it, I havepeople that I literally thought
were trying to take me down thatnow go out of their way.
They open my deli with noproblem.
They help me.
You know what I'm saying.
So if I would have gave themproblems, man, they would have
gave me problems back, and inyour situation you don't have
(28:10):
time for fucking problems.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
No, I'm a.
You know, the date we'rethrowing around is in October,
which is a maybe it's a maybe.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
It's a maybe We'll follow up on that We'll be there
for that grand reopening.
We'll be there.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Well, so I'll have my permit for ABC by September.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
I'm like let's go, it should only take.
You know, we're small.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, you're small, it's as big as your kitchen but
you're going to have a lot of.
You're going to have a lot ofnew excitement, man.
You're going to have a lot moreenergy, I think, because you
get to recreate and now you'regoing from how are we going to
make this little space better?
Now you're remaking the wholespace brand new, no-transcript
(29:05):
level of inspiration.
This shit's going to havefucking meaning behind it now,
because you have.
Now you're going to bring itall back, man, and I'm.
That's exciting.
That's why I we're pumped.
I mean, it's an exciting thing.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
It's.
You know, I don't think I wasthis excited even when Crudo
opened.
I think Crudo was kind of likewe went through it.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And it was like we survived.
Plus, you have the experiencenow when you opened up Crudo I'd
imagine it was your first placeyou opened- First place by
myself.
By yourself right.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Like first.
First, where I wasn't just likea chef spending somebody else's
money, so you were responsible.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So, with that being said, you didn't really know
what to do.
Now, with the seven years ofexperience, you're reopening
something with knowledge.
So now you know what to beexcited about.
You know what not to do.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
It's my third one now .
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
But it's like real familiar it's like getting
remarried to like your ex-wifeor something that's.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
that's a great way to put it okay, cool sex is
probably good.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
At least it's like super comfortable and you know
what you're getting into rightit's like none of the bullshit
you don't have to hide punchesanymore.
You just go in and you're likethis is it.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I'll try better this time.
The house looks a little bitbetter.
I was wrong last time.
Both times I got it.
This is stuff that again I waswrong last time.
Yeah right, I got it.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Oh, that's funny I think I mean this is stuff that
again, like we try and on theshow, go into all aspects of the
industry.
So this is a side we haven'ttouched on is when shit happens,
when shit hits the fan.
And you don't have the rightinsurance in place and the
things people don't know.
You don't know what you don'tknow, and you said that earlier.
Like you have to learn thesethings and this is a great way.
So, I mean, I know it's not funreliving that every time we ask
(30:41):
you to talk about it, but thankyou for talking about it.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And the biggest thing that gets me is when I hear
somebody whether it's in arestaurant or a car or anything
like that is when someone says Idon't care, it's insured.
When someone says that to me,right away I know that person
has no experience in fuckinglife.
Hey, take my motorcycle for aride.
All right, I'll try not tocrash it, it don't matter, it's
insured.
Obviously.
You've never gone through aninsurance company.
(31:04):
You've never had a heart toheart with that motherfucker
saying that no, it's not whatyou think, it is dude, yeah,
you're not.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
I wasn't riding the bike actually and there's like
people that saw it.
It was this other dude yeah,right is he on your policy no,
he's not sorry.
Oh sorry, dude, exactly.
And then same thing with therestaurant.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
People don't realize, like I said just that shutdown
from the power is giving me somuch trouble.
I almost backed out of it andquit doing it because I was like
fuck him, man, I'm not goingthrough this, I don't have time.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And that's what they hope.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
That's what they hope .
Speaker 2 (31:32):
But I would have lost tens of thousands of dollars.
That want my money, yeah I needto pay you still for insurance.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
So give me some money to pay you back my company took
my uh, my payment out, whilethey were denying my claim.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Nice, that was a good one, that's juicy that was fun
you'll still take my money, butyou won't help me at all.
So that's absolutely terrible,like, like, really terrible.
That is so bad.
Do we want to do one of thereviews?
Okay, I think so.
We do the fun thing sometimesat the end of the show where we
read a bad review and we respondto it.
(32:11):
So, since this, isn't yourrestaurant it's from here.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So it's from here, so we'll do that.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Thank, you, sir.
All right, we got some reviews.
This is the fun stuff becauseyou know, everyone has their own
perception of what a review is.
Me, I use them as a tool whenthey're actually valid.
And there are some valid onesand some of them need addressing
, because if they're, I go onaverages.
If the reviews constantly talkabout the same issue, there's
obviously a fucking issue.
(32:42):
If there's a clown in heretalking about all their bullshit
and they have to glorify theirreview, or just because they
didn't like something so they'regoing to tear apart everything
else just to make their storyvalid, that's.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Those are the ones all right, so which one are you
going to read?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
let me see one star review all here's a great one.
Let's see.
Ready for this I'm down.
Let's see how you relate to thisbecause I want to answer this
guy right here on live, fuckinglive.
Here we go.
So it says we are a few minutesearly and sat in the bar lounge
area until seated Staff wasplentiful and our server was
(33:14):
very attentive.
Appetizers were a challenge tochoose as it was not clear that
some items were not cooked oronly seared.
We had to ask regarding severalitems.
The menu could be clarify this.
Our entrees came out and I wasshocked that the scallops on my
plate were the total of three.
This was a $40 plate.
My wife's halibut order cameout with maybe two ounces of
(33:36):
fish a scallop and was largerthan the three I had in a prawn.
She ordered this dish wantingthe halibut based on the
waitress's recommendation thathad no idea there were
additional seafood items on it.
She was not a fan of the prawn.
I observed the floor manager goto many customers' tables but
we did not get a visit.
(33:56):
My one word summation summation, sorry, would would have been
underwhelming.
This was a special occasion andnoted the staff.
The 170 tab no drinks orderedwas over the top for the meals
we received only one second timeat luche and probably the last.
The decor and noise levels were, but the subwoofer was getting
(34:19):
too much of a workout.
I do not know what the goal isfor their background music, but
the thump of the bass registerwas readily present.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Sweet.
Now let me tell you about thisfucking douche.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Here's the thing he gave me this one star review and
doesn't realize how much thataffects our staff.
You bitched about everythingthat we actually do.
Okay, you bitched about thethumping of the bass and what
they're not trying to do.
So here's the thing the bass ison and the music that we're
playing is the vibe of ourrestaurant, and that's why
people come here.
You happen to not like it,because you wanted Mamma Mia.
(34:55):
Mamma Mia, that's what youwanted.
You wanted Mamma Mia, frankSinatra.
Mamma Mia, that's not what wedo here this is a place that you
go to.
It's upbeat, it's young, it'svibe, the food vibe matches.
The halibut is never two ounces, it's completely weighed by a
professional and it's anywherebetween four and six.
And that prawn you got was a U3fucking prawn, the biggest
(35:16):
prawn you could possibly get.
You know what I mean.
And you got a U fucking eightscallop, which is a buttermilk
biscuit on your plate.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Everything you got there was the most fucking
essential of ocean food.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
I imagine it doesn't just say halibut on the menu.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Of course not.
It's very specific.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It's very specific.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
It says it's a yeah.
It's very specific in how it'sprepared and you have.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
the best part is the $40 plate of scallops.
We're getting robbed.
No, the best part is the $40plate of scallops.
We're getting robbed.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
No one understands how much scallops are in the
store $40 for three scallops.
It costs you almost that to buythe damn things in the store,
of course.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
You ate scallops right now are so expensive and
they're so hard to get, but westill do it and we still get
them to provide it for ourcustomer.
So what bothers me about thisthing here is they started right
here.
We were a few minutes earlylounge area until seated Staff
was plentiful and our server wasvery attentive.
It sounds like everything thatwas supposed to hit here hit and
you just don't know what thefuck you're doing.
That's what this sounds like tome.
(36:09):
They didn't understand whattype of restaurant they were
coming to.
They didn't do their researchbefore they came.
They heard the word on thestreet that the place is busy
and popping and you came in hereand you had no idea what could
actually go on in a restaurantother than your basic bitch
restaurant Google is an amazingtool for anybody who's old
Google is awesome.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
And you can find out things about the menu while
you're on Google, even likemaybe a question you have about
the menu that your attentiveserver couldn't ask for you, I
guess.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
But the whole point for your server is to answer
your questions.
So I'm glad you had to askquestions and they answered them
.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Like they told you it wasn't cooked.
Yeah, I mean, it seemed likethey did everything right.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
So to drop everything down to a one star because of
the things you didn't understand, when you clearly say
everything that was supposed tohappen was good.
You could have at least went toa three or four star.
Come on, you know what I'msaying.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
You just didn't know what you all right, it's also
not an airport.
You don't need to like announceyour departure exactly.
If you're not coming back, bro,just don't come back.
I like spit a one star and thenbe like I'm just not coming
back.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Well, yeah, no shit, man, I don't want you back.
Anyway, it's gonna be a one,it's gonna be a one star.
We'll be back, though.
Yeah, that's the fucker, we maytry again.
You may come back, because hiswife probably loves the shit.
Yeah, right, and?
Speaker 3 (37:21):
it's like he afterwards Right or he didn't
and he's mad at us for it, orhe's pissed off.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
That could have been it.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Jeff Cokie the Jamoke .
Speaker 1 (37:28):
We can't control that you didn't get laid after you
left.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
So that's one of the times where I read a review
online to let people know thatyou have to understand where it
is you're going and what it isyou're getting into before you
tear it apart because you justdon't understand it.
The music we play is if you goanywhere else Las Vegas, miami,
new York City it's more of alounge, younger vibe.
Just because we're an Italianrestaurant doesn't mean we need
(37:51):
to have red and whitetablecloths and free bread, and
you know what I mean and FrankSinatra playing and the
meatballs flying everywhere.
Save that for that type ofplace.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
So throw meatballs in your house, you know what I
mean Throwing meatballs atpitches.
I'm just going to throwmeatballs Slingshot.
Right at the table In the backof their bald-ass head.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
That's what I'll get.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh my God, it's been a pleasure having you on, bro.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
We'd love to talk to you about this stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
When you guys reopen, we would love to be there.
We'd like your journey.
It's a tough journey and I knowwhen you guys reopen you're
going to have a whole newatmosphere and I'm actually
happy for you because I can telland know that your passion is
going to get you into thatposition.
You're going to have a greattime with it.
So where can people find you?
Where's your little restaurant?
Where's your two restaurants?
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Plug it.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Well, I was like so Kneebird is over here in Summit
Point and and then Crudo will.
It's still sitting there overoff of 21st Street we're the
armpit between Mr Schwerma andthe vitamin shop we're not the
furniture store, even though wehave chairs outside.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
I'm sure people come and look at them, but yeah, so
you go there any social mediastuff?
Speaker 3 (38:59):
yeah, I mean we're on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Neatbird yeah, just under Neatbird VA.
And yeah, I mean we're oninstagram like neatberg.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, it's just under the bird va and I think crudo
nudo.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah, we're on instagram, facebook.
I think we got a tick tocksomewhere.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Check it out support hit subscribe on this, like all
that stuff.
Thanks for watching.
Wish my man luck here.
Send him something, send himsome love, some vibes and uh,
we'll see you out there, man.
Ciao for now.
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