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August 13, 2025 41 mins

In this episode of Restaurant Catering Smarts, Michael Attias welcomes Deborah Miller, Founder of Deborah Miller Catering & Events—one of New York City’s most creative and fast-growing catering companies.

Deborah shares her journey from growing up in her father’s “greasy spoon” to building a thriving, full-service catering and events business in the heart of Manhattan. She reveals how her team carved out a lucrative niche in micro weddings and intimate, high-impact events, and why personalization, creativity, and a “hospitality-first” mindset have fueled their growth.

They also dive into:

  • Adapting to shifting event trends, including post-pandemic demand for smaller, more meaningful celebrations.

  • The power of team culture in delivering exceptional client experiences.

  • Creative menu development that blends seasonality, presentation, and storytelling.

  • Operational systems and technology that keep her business running smoothly even during peak wedding season.

Packed with insights on building a brand that stands out in a competitive market, this episode is a must-listen for caterers and event professionals aiming to grow their business while delighting every client.

Restaurant Catering Smarts is powered by CaterZen Catering Software, the all-in-one platform helping restaurants grow catering sales and streamline operations.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
you

(00:30):
Hello again, I am Michael Atias, your host of Restaurant Catering Smarts and today's guestis Deborah Miller, the founder and force behind Deborah Miller Catering and Events, one of
New York City's most creative and fast growing catering companies.
Deborah is leading the charge into new territory, especially in the booming weddingmarket.
Her team has carved out a strong niche in micro weddings, intimate high impact events thatare becoming big business and we're excited to have her on the show today.

(00:59):
But before we get started, let's take a minute to recognize our sponsor, CaterZen CateringSoftware.
They help restaurants turn their catering chaos into calm.
Discover why restaurants trust CaterZen to save them time and increase sales.
Go to caterzen.com and sign up for a walkthrough of the software.
Now let's dive into this episode of Restaurant Catering Smarts.

(01:19):
Welcome Deborah, how are you doing?
I'm great.
Good, good.
Thanks for being here.
I know you're in New York City and I'm down in Florida.
So what is it they say?
People from New York come to Florida to die.
Is that sort of the joke?
I mean, that is kind of true.

(01:40):
Lots of people go there to retire.
Let's say it nicer.
Don't know I I tend to have a little warped sense of humor so we can go for either I toldyou I wasn't as you're probably nicer than I am Probably okay, so I like uh Like an
icebreaker question.

(02:01):
Give me a number between 1 and 300
19.
A gift I can give to others is...
The I can give to others is...
I miss.

(02:21):
Ooh, that's a good one.
And maybe a homemade chocolate chip cookie.
I mean.
too.
I mean a homemade chocolate chip cookie is kindness.
It is.
So it's funny how, I'm sure you in your life, people have come in and out or they'reconnected, you know, one way or another.

(02:42):
So there's this girl that I would go out with in high school.
I mean, it was nothing serious and her mother, I grew up in Memphis.
Her mother's from Arkansas.
She was like a pageant queen.
And anytime I took her daughter out, she would either have a fresh bake plate of cookiesor brownies.
So when I brought her home and I was like,
I loved her mom.

(03:03):
mean, like, how can you not love that?
So fast forward, one of my friends, best friend, I've known him since I was three, he's apoker player.
And he's, he tells me he goes, yeah, I'm playing in a poker game.
Once every couple of weeks with a bunch of old guys, I go, is it high stakes?
He goes, no, it's like 10 bucks, you know, and these guys are all like, they have money.
Turns out that one of the guys in the game is that girl's father.

(03:27):
That's how crazy life is.
Anyway, I get
I get off on these tangents.
So um tell me how you got into the catering business.
how I got into the catering business.
A, I've loved cooking and food from pretty much when I was really tiny, 10, 11.

(03:49):
uh And my dad had a greasy spoon takeout spot in New York City.
And so I grew up in the food business and I loved cooking and I loved.
hospitality, making people happy.
I went to the culinary institute, I joined my family's nightclub business, um then afterover a decade of that, I started a family and decided that maybe the nightclub business in

(04:19):
the late 80s wasn't really the right place to be.
So I took over my dad's greasy spoon and turned it into a higher end sort of
What is now very common and popular then was not fresh food, made daily, menu changing allthe time.

(04:40):
And that just very organically over a very long time grew into what we are today.
I feel like I should be interviewing you about all the good stories you have from thenightclub days.
I know, you know, think people are always like the first thing I think of is when you saynightclub New York studio 54 lines of cocaine, bottles of champagne, crazy stuff without

(05:08):
naming names, unless you feel like it.
What is the craziest story from or memory from the nightclub business?
Without naming names, a very famous actress came into the nightclub very, very high andended up inviting us back to her home.

(05:32):
And the next day she went into rehab.
Wow.
It was crazy.
I mean it was a crazy time.
That's pretty cool.
ah Did she ever come back to the nightclub after that, after rehab?
Well, that's good.

(05:52):
Cause a lot of times it's a revolving door.
They say it takes like five, six, seven, eight.
You know, the only rehab I'd need to go into is for eating too many sweets or, you know,and no one's going to get upset cause you know, you wake up at three o'clock in the
morning and you got cookie crumbs on your stomach.
mean, you know, nobody's going to put you in rehab for that.
Okay.

(06:12):
So you open up,
You took what called the greasy spoon.
So it was like pot roast and me.
Huh?
was a little 400 square foot space and we named it Debs.
Okay.
And uh what made you decide to branch off from the family?
And when you say Greasy Spoon, I'm assuming like, was it like a diner type of place?

(06:37):
tiny little place.
was really just take out with like, you know, a counter with five stools.
uh When my dad was running it, it was in a neighborhood that was the printing district.
And so it was real.
It was a real blue collar kind of spot.
When I took it over, that neighborhood was changing and turning into a neighborhood like aneighborhood in Hatton.

(07:01):
And I completely revamped it, you know, renovated and then
Every day was a different menu, which is insane and stupid for food costs, but it was whatI wanted to do because I just love food and I like to be creative.
so we made, you we had breakfast, we had, it was breakfast and lunch because I had a youngfamily.

(07:21):
And so was Monday through Friday.
It worked for, for the family and for me.
And it was really fun actually.
So what made you decide to go, I don't know if was, you called it, if the term farm totable was even alive then, what made you decide fresh, homemade, change the menu, what

(07:44):
made you decide to go 180 from the family business?
I that was my passion and my dream.
I just was following.
I'm a pretty jump in and figure out what's gonna happen later kind of person.
So I did what I loved and prayed and you know, and it worked.
I mean, I think when you do what you love and you put in the time and the energy and youhave the passion, most of the time, if you're patient, things work out.

(08:14):
Yeah, I've always told people I'm an overnight success after 40 years.
uh
I mean, I started off as a dishwasher.
I wouldn't be in the software business if I didn't start off as a dishwasher.
If I started off in a men's retail clothing store, I would have never known about thechallenges of the restaurant business and started that.

(08:36):
So let's talk about how did you did you do catering?
I'm assuming you didn't have much room to do catering.
When did you get into the catering business?
I never even thought about catering.
To be honest, wasn't like on my radar.
was just, I was in my 30s.
I had this young family.
I was making a living and doing what I loved.

(08:56):
But then the neighborhood really started to change and there were a lot of media companiesmoving into the neighborhood and larger law firms.
And so catering came to me and um then we um opened up a branch.
at a different location than where we just did catering.

(09:18):
So was it mostly corporate drop off, Monday through Friday, breakfast, lunch, afternoon,breaks?
yes.
that location was down at the seaport.
And we were growing beautifully.
The corporate drop-off catering business was just booming.

(09:40):
And then Hurricane Sandy happened and literally washed our kitchen away.
Because we were on the East River and there was no longer a kitchen after Hurricane Sandy.
uh
But we're resilient.
Resilient is a word I use a lot.
So we found a new location and that's where we are today.

(10:00):
5,000 square foot kitchen that we built out and then grew into more...
We slowly started to grow from just the drop off sandwich salads type breakfast type thingto larger corporate events.

(10:20):
Are you still doing the corporate?
Is it still part of the mix?
still doing corporate um and we're still doing a tiny bit of the drop off, um which Idon't know they will ever be able to completely eliminate the drop off, but it's less than
10 % of our business now.
Is that by COVID, by design, by happenstance, by...

(10:47):
So pre-COVID, we were uh literally had our busiest year ever in 2019.
then um corporate drop-off catering really didn't exist, obviously, during COVID.
um It's very rare to have an opportunity to.
be going 90 miles an hour and then just stop and be able to think about what you want to,what it's going to look like next.

(11:13):
And I think it was just a natural progression to grow the business um away from thecorporate drop-off and grow more of the corporate events and the social events.
And we had that opportunity because we literally had nothing post-COVID.

(11:34):
Did you have a sales rep or marketing person when you were doing the corporate drop-off?
We did it.
We had it.
work?
You know, because a lot of my clients, did you still have the restaurant at this time?
At some point, did you shut the restaurant and just focus?
We did have the, I wouldn't call it a restaurant, but we did have the little takeout shop.

(11:55):
But of course that also stopped because nobody was going into the office.
And so there was really, and we tried, we had an incredible landlord who was really,really kind.
um But at some point we realized that it was never gonna be what it was before.
So we gave that up sort of slightly post COVID.
Did your takeout shop feed your corporate drop-off business?

(12:21):
guess initially, think, no, not in the later years, not in late 2017, 2018.
I think the drop off business was different.
It had a different name.
It was different.
So, you I found there's two types of salespeople.

(12:42):
didn't come up with this term.
There's farmers and there's hunters.
The farmers, the phone rings, are good with the relationship.
They're good with the upselling, customer support, that kind of thing.
And then the hunters, they're knocking on doors.
They're making things happen.
They're opening up accounts.
You know, that law firm you you've tried for three years to get, they finally crack inbecause there was a problem with the caterer before.

(13:03):
Did you have a hunter or a farmer working for you?
Or how many did you have?
very hard to find hunters.
Farmers are just to come.
I will tell you that most of them, we had, think, at that time we had three very goodfarmers.

(13:24):
I try very hard and I still, my philosophy is you reach out to people as often as you wantto until they tell you to stop calling them.
even now more than ever this generation they don't even want to get on the phone let alonecall people that don't really want them to be you know don't want to talk to them so

(13:45):
getting people to understand that sales is sales and yes hunting is very very important ahit's a skill
Did you have any hunters or pretty much it was word of mouth and it just expanded.
word of mouth.
mean, you know, we had like low level hunters, let's say.

(14:09):
I gotcha.
So they were hunting uh prey in captivity.
They weren't out in the wild.
let's just say warmly.
They weren't going after anything cold.
They would definitely be comfortable with warm.
You know, if somebody referred us or they were already in a building and they would, youknow, stop in on a different floor, they felt comfortable doing that.

(14:31):
uh But, you know, word of mouth is really all you really need at the end of the day.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
In the beginning, you've got to get your name out there.
But if you do a good job, then word of mouth spreads um and helps you build.
And obviously, you have transitioned from a 400 square foot takeout counter to a wholecatering company.

(15:00):
Yeah, but I would say that now the team we have is exceptional.
We've built a team of, know, operationally, sales, culinary, uh marketing.
The culture is so important, the collaboration, the working together, the love of food,the love of hospitality, the love of...

(15:24):
um
both food, hospitality, and structure and systems because they sort of, without all fourof those, you don't have the continuity and the success of events.
Yeah.
So let's talk about systems because you know, my background is I worked for Corky'sbarbecue in college.

(15:47):
I was one of their first franchisees talk somebody into writing a million dollar check.
I never open run manage a restaurant.
Um, and I'll, and I'll share where I got my systems mindset from, but where did you learnthat?
Cause I'm guessing, I mean, was that taught at the CIA?
Is it something you
you, I am not a systems person.

(16:07):
I am all creative, all like love, kindness, delicious, joy.
I hire people who are systems people because I am not, I am the most not systems personyou'll ever meet.
Yeah, but where did that come from?
Because I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs and let's say they're creative and theyfocus on that.

(16:30):
The minute you even try to introduce systems, they're the bottleneck, right?
They're like, they get in the way of that happening.
So what precipitated you saying like, look, I know what I'm good at and I'm going to hire,I know I need systems and I'm going to hire someone to do that.
Where did that come?
That's not a natural skill, especially for a highly creative person.

(16:52):
guess, you know, yeah, you're right.
It took a while.
I probably was the cog in the wheel for a little while.
But you start to see the light when you want to grow and you want to be high touch and youwant to be bespoke and you want to...
um

(17:13):
really have like a high level of hospitality, you do start to realize that you can't justmake great food.
It doesn't work without the systems.
And I've been really lucky to find the people that aren't like me.
They kind of have the right left brain because I couldn't work with people that didn'tlove food the way I love food.

(17:35):
um But they also have like the brain that understands the systems.
Yeah.
So have you ever heard of a guy named Michael Gerber who wrote the E-Myth Revisited?
now.
So I read his book, you know, I often laugh, I've got some friends and their kids dotravel sports.

(17:57):
And I'm like, you know, the good thing about being a Jewish father, my kids couldn't playsports.
So I didn't have to spend my weekends running around in hotel rooms and stuff.
But when I was younger, you know, I never played sports.
I'd go to the bookstore and get business books and just devour them.
That was always read in magazine.
And I remember reading Michael Gerber, the E-Myth.
And he talked about whether you want

(18:19):
He used McDonald's as an example, whether you want to have one hamburger stand or 10,000,you have to have replicable systems to grow and manage.
And as a result of that, you when I opened up my first restaurant, they didn't havechecklists.
I built checklists on laminated.
I laminated them with a dry erase marker.

(18:40):
And you know, this is how you open the restaurant and you got to hit this on the controlpanel, you know, and turn this on and do this and do that.
And I've always liked systems.
let's see if I can remember what I like to say.
I prefer processes over personalities, because personalities usually equal problems andprocesses equal profits.

(19:04):
You need both.
I feel like you need both.
but what I'm saying is if you're only running off a bunch of personalities, right?
And it's like, the chef knows everything in their head, but if the chef gets run over,we're SOL because the recipes aren't cataloged and we don't know how to do this.

(19:24):
Yes, of course you need both, but without systems, you know, one person's gone, you'reSOL.
agreed and that was definitely for me a learning curve because of my nature of being youcreative and just wanting to like do the fun stuff.
you grow up like, was your mom a great cook?
Was your grandmother?

(19:45):
She was a terrible cook.
I'm the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
apparently from my mother's stories, my grandmother was a fantastic cook.
But my mother, she could maybe make a really good orange juice roasted chicken, meatloaf.
No, she was a terrible cook.
I cooked for the family from when I was like 13, 14 years old.

(20:08):
So we're Jewish, we come from Morocco.
My parents moved to Paris and my mom was like, we cook, well, first of all, she would notlet anybody clean a spoon, but that's my father, you can't clean, you can't help cook.
So I learned through osmosis, like literally, I just absorbed it in the air.

(20:29):
And this is a funny story, like someone says, well, you know, how'd you learn to cook?
I said, watching my mom, but she would never let me cook.
So one day she's at work.
My mom had to go back to work because my dad business failed, it went bankrupt.
So she went to work and I get up on the counter and she had her cookbooks and she had, Idon't know, some better homes and garden, little, you know, it's almost like a, like a

(20:52):
manual type of thing.
And there was a crepe batter.
And I said, oh, made the crepe batter.
And I threw in some crushed almonds.
She had this little thing that made crushed almonds, you know, crushed them up a grinder.
And I said, I'll put some chocolate sauce on there.
So I,
you know, I plus the recipe and she would do the same thing.
She'd take a recipe and look at another recipe, put her own twist.

(21:13):
And then she had some jamoca almond fudge ice cream from Baskin Robbins in the fridge.
I made it the best crepes, cleaned everything up.
She had no idea that I ever did that till years later.
So that's where I learned like you wanted an invitation to my mom's house and people say,did you grow up having Moroccan cooking?
Not really.

(21:33):
She made couscous, but everything else was just a little of this, a little of that.
It's just thing, recipe she found and she doctored up and you know, so I was veryfortunate to have that influence to grow up where food wasn't just like a necessity.
It was definitely something, you know, and even gefilte fish.

(21:55):
I'm guessing you make your own gefilte fish.
So the first time I made gefilte fish, cause I knew how my mom made it and asked her.
I elevated, I did salmon and mahi-mahi, kafilta fish.
You know, make it a little bougie.
course.
Yeah, you look at all the recipes and then you make your own.
That's sort of, I never, I mean, not never, I rarely follow a recipe unless I'm baking.

(22:19):
I kind of love to read, you know, five or six or 10 recipes if it's the same thing.
And then I say, okay, now I know what to do.
And I just go do it.
Which makes.
clues.
If you read five recipes and three of them say these are the base things you need, thenyou know this is the base, right?
It's sort of like mother sauces.
And then you riff off the rest.

(22:39):
Right.
But nothing ever comes out exactly the same when you do it that way.
No, but I mean it still comes out good.
delicious every time, but never the same.
I remember one of my son's friends asked me for the recipe of pork chops that I had made,because we're not going to show, but pork chops that I had made for him, I don't know,
eight years ago or 10 years ago.

(23:00):
And I'm like, I have no idea what I made for you eight years ago.
Probably a lot of lemon and garlic and, you know, whatever.
My favorite cake was German chocolate cake.
My mom would make it most Friday nights for my birthday.
And unfortunately, that was the only recipe I never got from her before she passed.

(23:21):
And I went through all of her stuff.
It wasn't catalogued anywhere.
And I was just like, my God, this is terrible.
Because the cake part, you can make the cake.
That's the easy part.
It's the icing, right?
So I get on the internet and I look like at five, six, eight recipes and I say, okay.
One, which picture looks the same?
No, no, no, this one's too blonde.
You know, my mother's was a little more caramel, a little darker, and what about this andthis?

(23:46):
And I came up, I've got it cataloged, and it's like, I nailed it.
Like it was maybe better.
But, so, uh not that I make it that often.
So you end up transitioning more from corporate into

(24:06):
So what's your book of business now?
Is it mostly weddings?
it uh corporate events?
still corporate.
We're probably about 75, 70 to 75 % corporate and 15 to 20 % social.
We'd like to change that.

(24:27):
We'd like that to be more like a 60, 40 split.
And we're working on that.
But we just did a 1,500 person event for a product launch.
So corporate events are a lot of things.
We have several corporate dining clients where we go in and prepare food in their officesfor their employees, anywhere from 75 to 200 people, three to five days a week.

(25:00):
And that's obviously great business.
And then, of course, there's the social and the weddings.
So going back to the corporate preparing, is that because during COVID a lot of thesecafeterias went out of business so they don't have in-house food service, it left a gap?
I think that the corporate dining is to get people back to the office.

(25:21):
think that people didn't want to go, and they still don't, go back to the office.
So the perk of having an actual hot, delicious meal um that varies every day is a perkthat gets people into the office.
Yeah, my daughter worked in private equity in LA for about two years and they had a chefand they would every day they would make something.

(25:48):
And when she left, she goes, God, now I've got to take off all this weight I gainedbecause you you go in and it's not like you're going to just eat a little salad.
They have a whole spread.
So there's definitely an opportunity or potential opportunity for some of the peoplelistening that have restaurants or catering companies is go to some of these bigger
employers.
and say, are you needing, it might not be all the time, but it could be once a month ortwice a month or once a week, let us bring in something special that people do want to

(26:15):
come into the office for.
Absolutely.
I will tell you that it's difficult because the corporations don't want to tons of moneyon this.
So you really have to have our systems in place so that we can maintain the quality.
Because they do want quality, otherwise they could just order in from Shake Shack.

(26:37):
m So to maintain the quality and still um have some profitability.
Where do you find your inspiration?
You know, cause in the food business, I was telling someone, said, when I was growing up,going out to eat is you went to Shoney's or you went to Chinese.
That was it.
You know, a big celebration.

(26:58):
We're going to Shoney's.
was, was, nobody knew sushi from anything.
They didn't know French cuisine.
I think the first introduction to French cuisine was a French restaurant at Epcot Centerwhen I was 18.
So where do you get your inspiration?
Because you've got to keep it fresh and new and you you can't be selling the same bakedchicken you were selling 40 years ago on the buffet, right?

(27:20):
no, no, your clients want every time it to be different and innovative and special.
I mean, I find my inspiration all over the place.
I go to the farmers market, get inspired.
Social media is somewhat, sometimes inspiring, sometimes not, sometimes it's just fun.

(27:41):
uh I love reading cookbooks.
Everybody who works for us is...
loves food.
Yeah, they love food the same as I do.
we collaborate and we talk, you we make lunch for the entire staff every day and we sitaround and enjoy lunch and talk about the restaurants we've been to.

(28:02):
mean, we're in New York City, so food is a big deal here.
from.
just, um I definitely love great, great restaurants.
I catalog, you know, I catalog them in my iPhone.
I got a whole folder for all these restaurants.
Or if I cook something and it's something that I'm going to want to cook again, I've gotpictures of it so I can refer back to it.

(28:23):
And if I ever cook for friends, put them at the bar and it's like a cooking class, youknow, sit there and pontificate about what I'm, because most people don't understand.
even some of the simplest things.
Absolutely.
don't.
So for me, uh I definitely enjoy that.
So you talk about some place in here I saw or in the intro, micro weddings.

(28:47):
My son got married a year ago.
I probably should have talked to you.
Well, anyway, my daughter-in-law didn't want to, probably wouldn't have wanted to hearanything I had to say because it was her wedding and I respected that.
But tell me about micro weddings.
You know, think micro weddings came about probably during COVID because people werewanting to still get married, but didn't want to be around tons of people.

(29:12):
And then I think maybe that grew post COVID into the, you know, that sense ofintentionality and being surrounded by only the people that really are special and
meaningful to you.
ah But you know, we didn't...
search out micro weddings.
Micro weddings kind of came to us.

(29:33):
um It fits within the culture of the company of wanting to sort of be intentional and be,treat each event with a lot of um high touch and very bespoke.
So it really works for the type of business we're running.
I like the word bespoke.

(29:54):
em And I'm assuming they're spending way more per person for 25 or 30 people than if theyhad a 300 person wedding because they're wanting everything to be the best of the best
because it's such a small intimate gathering.
Yes, and so they're spending less money overall, because obviously, but they're spendingmore money per head for sure.

(30:18):
Yeah, I told so, you know, going through everything with my daughter, my son anddaughter-in-law getting married, I was like, are you sure you want to spend this much
money on a wedding?
You know, half the people at the wedding you don't care about, right?
It's, know, your mom's third cousin that you have to invite.

(30:38):
There's just a lot of that.
said, are you sure you don't want to take that same amount of money?
And everybody goes to Greece or Morocco or.
someplace where you could take it and just have a blowout time.
No, we want to do this.
And so I, you know, and I think my daughter saw all the crazy, you know, the decisions andthe craziness and the, you know, all the stuff that went on, you know, with her parents

(31:05):
and just back and forth and all this stuff.
And I looked at my, and she goes, man, I don't think I want this.
said, after going through this, let me explain what's going to happen.
If you want a big wedding,
you're going to get half as much as a smaller wedding.
Cause I would rather give you more money for 20 people to have this, to use your word,bespoke experience that you're going to really look back on and say, wow, this was a week

(31:32):
of my, you know, the most incredible week of my life.
Or, you know, we went to French laundry last month for my, my birthday.
was late celebration and it was with my son and his wife.
daughter and her boyfriend and then his parents.
The food, there's three or four things that were great.

(31:53):
Three or four things that were just okay.
Like you would expect everything to be wow.
But the service, the atmosphere in the courtyard was like one of the best meals I've everhad from that standpoint.
And I would rather take 10 people to French Laundry for a wedding reception than.
Okay, let's just have a buffet or, you know, just something at a hotel.

(32:15):
But that's me.
I think as I get older, I prefer more intimate gatherings.
um Yeah, the younger the people, the bigger the party they want.
You know, I read something and you know, I don't know if it's true or not.
The stuff that goes around the internet, you don't fact check.
Some things you think are real and if you fact check them you realize they're not.

(32:38):
But I think there was a study and it says, the more money you spend on the wedding, thehigher likelihood of getting divorced.
I'm not sure there's any factual truth to that, but who knows?
Maybe.
Could be.
people care more about the wedding than the marriage.

(33:01):
Yeah, it also depends, I think, on how much money you have.
know, what could seem like to you and I a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a weddingfor somebody whose affluence is different than ours, it doesn't matter.
well, New York has a whole different level of affluence.
know, Nashville might have one billionaire, you know, New York could have 50 billionaires,right?

(33:26):
And, know, when you have multiple billions, whether you spent, you you spend five millionon that wedding, that's interest on your money this month.
I mean, it's like our interest on the interest.
So I get it.
You know, you know, there's levels to the game for sure.
What's the most interesting microwetting you've done?

(33:47):
Particular location, menu, did anybody fly you on a jet someplace cool?
No, no, no.
ah
not even sure I can answer that question.
I don't know that there was anyone that stood out, you know, that's gonna say, wow, thatwas spectacular.

(34:09):
I think, you know, each, it's really so individual.
I mean, it's really what the bride and the groom and the parents want.
I think if we can, as long as we can deliver exactly what they want as flawlessly aspossible.
then that's the best wedding we've done and I think we've really not had any disasters.

(34:34):
That's good.
Do you find that when people come to you to book an event, we'll say the corporate they'veworked with you so they know your reputation and they're not sitting there nickel and
diming you over everything because they've worked with you and they know what to expectand you deliver.
so in a corporate environment, there's that, I just need you not to embarrass me and Iknow what I'm getting.

(34:55):
I'm not going to sit and beat you up over every lie item.
But when you're dealing with brides, do you find that are they, are they
Comparing you or they come in pre-sold they know your reputation and they're just going totrust you to take care of everything What's the positioning?
I think they know our reputation.

(35:16):
I think that we truly do uh sort of differentiate or define ourselves by the fact thatwhether you're a bride or a corporate client having a holiday party or having a board
meeting, we treat you very individually with a lot of respect and a lot of care.

(35:39):
And so I think that's our reputation both in the wedding and the corporate world.
That's good.
um Are you using AI in your business or do you have any thoughts about what AI is going todo to your business in the next two, three, four, five years?
I have lot of thoughts about AI.
We do use AI in our business um to help with like allergens, help with writing menus, tohelp with um email writing, templates, but really that's about it.

(36:18):
As far as, you know, it's funny because I've been talking to lot of friends who are
you know in the film business and they're very frightened by AI because there's no work.
You know we still need chefs to cook the food, still need sales people to talk to you, westill need servers and captains to serve you so I'm not terribly concerned about AI taking

(36:41):
over our world but I am certainly concerned about AI taking over generally in the world.
I have lot of thoughts about AI.
Yeah, I've definitely talked to people about that.
There's part of me who thinks I need to go find a hundred acres in the woods and figureout how to live off the land.
Maybe you can hide in a cave.

(37:02):
I don't know.
But you'd have to literally be so self-sufficient and off the grid.
But even then, it's definitely interesting.
I think there's a lot of things that are going to be miraculous.
I saw something the other day.
You can get a...
There's something like an AI, can put your x-rays in and it'll read your x-rays and it'sreally good.

(37:22):
They're already doing it professionally, but like what's gonna be available for analysisand stuff is, and the self-driving cars, you know, just look at, I feel sorry for all
these Uber drivers, within five years they're all gonna be out of work because...
I think our culture is going to change.
mean, a lot of people are going to be out of work.
think that culturally, I mean, we're in a technological big time of change, but we don'tknow what that's going to look like.

(37:49):
know, we didn't, I mean, I grew up, I didn't have a cell phone.
You know, we didn't, I didn't know that we were going to have like many computers walkingaround with us every day.
And that has changed the culture in our lives a lot.
So I'm hoping that the
really bad things we're thinking about AI are not, I'm a pretty positive person.
So I'm hoping that it's not going to take over in a bad way completely.

(38:12):
to believe it's going to lead, you know, like when factories started, there's probably alot of people like, hey, the factory's making this widget that I was making by hand and
I'm out of work.
But you know, 10 jobs started, right?
You had a secretarial pool, then the word processor put them out of business.
But then there were 10 other things and the standard of living raised.
It'll be interesting.

(38:33):
Or maybe we don't have to work and it just magically appears.
But then you end up.
what I call this sort of debauchery, if you have no purpose in life, you know, and you'rejust consuming and bored, you know, like playing video games in your basement, you've got
to have some wake up with some purpose, you know, whether it's painting, you know, raisingchickens, you got to have something besides looking at a screen and being bored all day.

(39:01):
Yeah, don't think we have to worry about the people who have passion and purpose.
I think it's the people who don't that we need to worry about.
Those are the people that could become problematic.
But I think if you love to paint, or if you love to cook, or if you love to createanything, I think if you didn't have to work as hard, maybe we'd be a happier culture.

(39:26):
Maybe it could be a...
I agree if you have a, if you have passion and purpose, I definitely agree.
So maybe what we need to do to pre-train everybody is do what happened when I was a kid.
No devices, throw you out of the house at 6 a.m.
and tell you to drink out of a garden hose and go figure out what you're going to do.

(39:48):
We went fishing, we built forts, we, you know, we had plenty to keep us excited andoccupied.
So, in sort of closing this out, um any advice for entrepreneurs out there in the cateringindustry?

(40:08):
Any takeaways?
I always say that you should continue to think big, dream, you know, have the biggest,best dreams, um and don't be afraid of making mistakes, because you're gonna make
mistakes.

(40:28):
And just keep going and slow down, think about things before you really make decisions.
Good advice.
Well, Debra, thank you so much.
was a lot of fun.
We went in a lot of different angles, but all, all fine.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Michael.
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