April 14, 2025 • 46 mins
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The gap between restaurant operator and owner is vast, profound, and often misunderstood—something Austin Carson describes as the difference between "having a puppy and having a kid."
In this candid conversation, the co-owner of Restaurant Olivia takes us behind the curtain of restaurant entrepreneurship, revealing the emotional weight, financial complexities, and strategic decisions that define successful ownership.
This episode is brought to you in proud partnership with Restaurant Technologies—a company that supports restaurants across the country by helping them automate back-of-house operations and reduce risk, labor, and waste. Their smart systems and data-driven insights help operators focus on what really matters: their people, their food, and their guests.
Austin's entrepreneurial journey began with Bistro Georgette, a 160-square-foot shipping container in Denver's Avanti Food Hall—a deliberate choice to minimize financial risk while testing both concept and partnership dynamics. This strategic first step allowed Austin and his partners to bootstrap their way into acquiring Cafe Marmont, which they later transformed into the acclaimed Restaurant Olivia. Now preparing to open their second concept, Amelia, Austin shares hard-earned wisdom about construction challenges, city regulations, and the creative financial strategies that have sustained their growth.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is Austin's transparent discussion of financial realities. From negotiating lease terms to structuring capital stacks, from personal guarantees to the current 1-3% profit margins Denver restaurants face, he provides practical insights rarely discussed in culinary school or management training. He emphasizes the importance of understanding financial statements, creating effective systems, and finding strategic partners whose values align with your mission.
Perhaps most compelling is Austin's perspective on sustaining passion through inevitable challenges. "I need a bigger why," he explains, describing how their commitment to sustainability and hospitality provides the "clean-burning fuel" that powers them through difficult days. For anyone contemplating restaurant ownership or seeking to improve their current operation, Austin's journey offers both practical guidance and inspirational purpose.
Ready to dive deeper into restaurant leadership? Subscribe now and join our community of industry professionals committed to building sustainable, successful restaurants in today's challenging market.
Resources:
Kevin Nguyen/Regular Architecture
Prim + Co /PR
More from Christin:
Grab your free copy of my audiobook, The Hospitality Leader's Roadmap: Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary at christinmarvin.com/audio
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Today I'm speaking with Austin Carson, co-owner of
Restaurant Olivia in Denver,colorado.
Austin is going to take usthrough the challenges and
opportunities of an operatorgoing into owner and the gap of
knowledge that needs to happenin order for operators and
owners in this day and age to besuccessful.
He takes us through his journeyof going from bar manager to
(00:29):
food hall owner, to taking overan existing restaurant and
making it his own and their ownwith his partners and opening a
restaurant five years ago, andthen the challenges of opening a
restaurant in this day and age,especially in a difficult and
costly environment that isDenver, colorado.
There's a ton of resources inthis episode.
(00:49):
You want to make sure youlisten through the whole thing
and I'll put all the show notes,the links, in the show notes
for you.
Hope that you really reallyenjoy this one.
There's a ton of value here.
Welcome to the RestaurantLeadership Podcast, the show
where restaurant leaders learntools, tactics and habits from
the world's greatest operators.
(01:10):
I'm your host, kristen Marvin,with Solutions by Kristen.
I've spent the last two decadesin the restaurant industry and
now partner with restaurantowners to develop their leaders
and scale their businessesthrough powerful one-on-one
coaching, group coaching andleadership workshops.
This show is complete withepisodes around coaching,
(01:34):
leadership development andinterviews with powerful
industry leaders.
You can now engage with me onthe show and share topics you'd
like to hear about, leadershiplessons you want to learn and
any feedback you have.
Simply click the link at thetop of the show notes and I will
give you a shout out on afuture episode.
Thanks so much for listeningand I look forward to connecting
(01:57):
.
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All right, austin, thank you somuch for being here.
Love that we are going to shareyour experience today and
(03:31):
valuable insights into theexperiences that you've had with
opening restaurants.
So you're getting ready to open.
Is this your fourth concept?
Second in the group.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I suppose it would be third Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Okay, so take us back to the first concept.
What tell us a little bit aboutthat opening and your
experience there?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, so we opened Bistro Georgette inside of
Avanti Um.
That was the first kind offoray into uh, entrepreneurship,
I guess, as restaurateurs.
Um was, for those not familiar,avanti's a food hall in Denver
and we had 160 square footshipping container and we did
(04:12):
kind of French inspired streetfood was the original concept.
So it was.
Avanti does a really good jobof kind of walking you through
the process and limiting riskand exposure, which was part of
the appeal for us and the the.
The cost of opening in Avantiis dramatically less than
(04:33):
opening a traditional brick andmortar, so that was, I guess,
another driver of of why wewanted to go that route, and
that was August of 2018 when weopened and launched that concept
.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And were you hoping to with Bistro Georgette?
Were you hoping to kind of getproof of concept there and then
expand?
Was that kind of the goal, ontop of just managing the risk
from a financial standpoint, andjust kind of being in a
community where marketing wassomething that was shared and,
and you know, you had otherconcepts in there that could
(05:08):
help you drive traffic?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah.
So I think and this bleeds intothe, the strategy, I suppose,
behind both Olivia and Amelia Ispecifically wanted to mitigate
financial risk to the extentthat we could, and brick and
mortars are scary.
But I think a lot of people whohave a lot of experience
(05:32):
running restaurants don'tnecessarily understand the leap
from kind of operations toownership, and I certainly
didn't.
I thought I did.
I make this comparison a lotit's.
It's.
It's kind of like going fromhaving a dog or a puppy to
having a kid.
Uh, and as as much as you thinkyou can prepare for the
(05:54):
realities of what that that isand looks like it's, it's almost
impossible.
So I guess I had enoughforesight to put us in a
position to get it open,basically on savings and credit
cards.
And then I felt I felt likesmall enough space, despite it
being two meal periods a day,seven days a week, that the
three of us as owners couldcover the majority of the labor
(06:18):
required to keep the place open,didn't pay ourselves a whole
lot.
We were able to stack up cashand a year or so later rolled
that into the purchase of CafeMarmont.
But, um, again it was.
It was my lack of comfort withthe world of construction?
Um, I didn't, you know, I feltlike I had a pretty good sense
(06:38):
of, um, finance within thecontext of restaurant operations
, but not necessarily theacquisition of external capital.
I didn't think I was savvyenough to really do that well,
um, in a new brick and mortarspace, and so, uh, you know, it
was a lot, but it did what wewanted it to do and I, I guess,
to your, to your question aboutproof of concepts, I, I think
(07:01):
that was the original goal,although it was long enough ago
that I'm um, I'm not sure I'mremembering that accurately we
didn't open a Bistro, georgette.
I think the idea was to open arestaurant in Georgia, and one
thing led to another, we endedup going the direction of what
Olivia is now, which ispasta-focused Italian.
So I think less proof ofconcept and more just proof that
(07:23):
our relationship amongst eachother was sound and that our
kind of alignment with respectto core values and what it is we
wanted to get out of this wasstrong enough that we could take
the leap into the world ofbrick and mortar.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, and you have three business partners.
Would you talk a little bitabout that relationship and kind
of how you guys designed thatin the beginning?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, well, so I'm the third, uh, two business
partners technically there arethree of us, um, and yeah, I
mean, one of them is is my wife,uh, Heather Morrison.
Uh, who is, for my money, thebest um hospitality professional
working in the city of Denver,if not the state of Colorado.
We met all three of us met atMizuna and she and I kind of
(08:09):
immediately started to nerd outon on hospitality just in
general and and what, how ourjob boils down to the way that
we make other people feel.
And she has just this otherworldly ability to deconstruct
the guest experience from apsychological perspective.
That just kind of blew my mindand certainly put me in a
(08:30):
position to grow more as aprofessional and as a person.
And about a year into my beingat Mizuna, ty came on board and
he moved pretty quickly into theexecutive chef role, or CDC
role, I suppose, and he was thefirst chef that either of us had
worked with who wasconsistently willing to say yes
(08:50):
to guest requests and to put usas front of the house staff in a
position to meet the guestswhere they were.
And I think he got why Heatherand I operate the way that we
operate and why we make thedecisions that we make, and he's
immensely talented in his ownright and could go do any type
of cuisine that he wanted.
He's also the hardest workingperson I've ever met.
(09:11):
Um, but it it, I don't know.
I guess it it set theconditions, uh, to put us in a
position to have a conversationabout opening our own place.
And uh, we were about fouryears into our relationship when
we took the leap and opened upat Avanti.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Hey there, podcast friends.
I hope you're enjoying theseimpactful conversations and
leadership insights I'm bringingyou each week.
Before we dive back intotoday's episode, I want to take
a moment and reach out and ask asmall favor.
That would go a long way insupporting the show.
If you've been loving thecontent I'm providing, please
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Wherever you listen to yourpodcasts, not only does it make
(09:53):
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So if you want to be part of myshow's growth journey, hit that
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Thanks a million for beingawesome listeners.
(10:15):
So you knew you knew that youguys shared core values.
You knew you had a strongconnection.
You knew you had similarmindsets and that made you feel
comfortable enough to go intopartnership.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
To the extent that you can know, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
What didn't you know?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
You don't know what you don't know, and I think it's
impossible to really truly knowanother person until you're in
the thick of it.
You're in the weeds, and notjust a busy service, but like
shouldering the weight of beingan owner and all that that
entails, you know, and increasedlevels of responsibility and
increased levels of risk.
And when you can do that andyou can demonstrate an ability
(10:56):
and willingness to do that withone another over a long period
of time, um, you start to getthe sense that, okay, you can do
this for a while.
It's kind of like dating andmoving into marriage, and Bistro
Georgette, in a way, was stillkind of dating.
It isn't that I had doubts orsecond thoughts, but the way
(11:21):
that Avanti structures theirleases, they're short term and
we signed I think it was 24months.
Um had a really tough first year.
Second year actually coincidedwith COVID, uh.
So at the end of the secondyear we signed again for another
two.
So we ended up being there forabout four.
But it's a situation where youcan come in and you can look at
to your point proof of concept,you can look at your
(11:42):
relationship with the peoplethat you're doing it with with
less risk, right.
So you sign a personalguarantee, but it's not like
signing a personal guarantee onwhat we did with Olivia or what
we're doing with Amelia.
So there's kind of a you know,maybe it's like being engaged.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Sure, you can.
You can call it off if you needto call it off, right, but
you're hoping for the best.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yes, and here we are still, happily married.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Did you, and I agree with you on all the points you
said about Heather, of course,and Ty getting to know you all
Did you.
So you knew you wanted to gointo a food hall.
Did you shop around and look atother food halls and leases and
all that?
Or did you know?
Avanti was it?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
We didn't.
We didn't shop around at all.
In fact, we had a relationshipwith Patrick O'Neill, who's one
of the owners.
He was a regular at Mizuna andwe had gotten to know him pretty
well just at Mizuna and a spacecame available or we knew a
space was coming available.
We did a couple of tastingswith them and just decided that
(12:48):
that was a good way for us totake that first step into being
restaurateurs.
But no, we didn't look at anyother food halls At the time.
I'm sure there were one or twomore, but it wasn't like it is
today or has been in the lastfew years.
They weren't everywhere.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Were they looking for a French concept, or were you
able to go in and say, hey,we've got an idea.
Let's pitch this.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
They weren't, in fact the first tasting that we did
with them kind of flopped Notmany people know this.
We did something that was meantto be sort of inspired by
Colorado and the history ofColorado and kind of the
confluence of all of thedifferent types of cuisines but
was driven by Colorado productand we did a tasting and it was,
(13:29):
I think, conceptually just kindof nebulous.
Well, I think the food was good.
It didn't quite land with themand we parted ways that night
and Ty Heather and I continuedto talk and we looked at what
was currently at Abante, what weknew was coming in, and we felt
like you know we were comingfrom.
Mizuno French food and, I guess,ways in which we could
(13:53):
repackage the kind of likeparadigm of French food into
more of a street food centricapproach that would be effective
at Avanti, which was ultimatelyit was not out of the gate, but
neither here nor there.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I want to go back to what you said earlier about the
gap between operator going fromoperator to owner.
Why is that gap so large?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well, some of this is probably pinned to my own
neuroses and potentiallyinsecurity, but just the weight
of everything that you do isheavier, and that goes from you
know being a personal guarantorright and understanding the
existential consequences offailure of a business.
You know you can beunderstanding the existential
consequences of failure of abusiness.
You know you can be an operator.
You can work for another person.
(14:36):
The reality is, especiallynowadays.
I mean, if our restaurantclosed, the vast majority of our
staff would be able to have ajob in 48 hours somewhere else,
right?
So like, the level ofdisruption to your life from a
personal and financialstandpoint while you feel
invested is just it's.
It's apples and oranges.
(14:57):
And then you start to grow andyou put yourself in a position
to have employees who count onyou and depend on you for
various things and, um, youstart to pin your work to, uh, a
bigger mission and vision andpurpose and it just kind of
doubles down on some of thatweight and pressure and stress
and, uh, the mechanics are thesame, right.
(15:18):
I mean I, you know, I'llprobably be busting tables
tonight.
I still wash dishes, ty worksthe line, heather was working
the door last night.
You know that that's kind ofthe easy stuff, yeah, um, but
the, the, the emotional weight,probably more than anything else
, is just it's, it'sexponentially greater when it
(15:39):
becomes yours.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Looking back on that now, how could you give?
Give anybody that's listeningsome advice on how do you
prepare for that transition andthat, that pressure and that
weight that comes along.
I felt it too.
I couldn't sleep at night theminute I had managing partner on
my title.
I had no idea what was coming,and when sales were down, it was
just the most frightening thingI'd ever experienced in my life
.
How would you prepare for thatnow?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, I mean, the flippant part of me says how do
you prepare for having?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
a baby yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
But you can't say.
If I could go back and do itagain.
I would try to put myself in aposition to to um, prepare
myself my central nervous systemin my body for what was going
to be an increased workload andstress load, and everybody has
(16:38):
their own, I think, methods fordoing that.
Having a physical reprieve,going to the gym, whatever your
thing is, I think is reallyimportant.
Having other people to talk to,whether that's in the world of
psychotherapy or just a peergroup of people who are owners,
which I think is a reallyimportant distinction because
(16:58):
they have the ability toempathize with you helps, I have
found, helps lighten the loadand you know what are the things
that you can do to put yourselfin a position to not be
overwhelmed and overcome by thestress.
And I, you know, I mean eightyears in, seven years in, I'm
not going to lie, I'm notnailing any of those things.
So I don't know that I havespecific advice as to what I
(17:19):
would do if I could do it again,but I do know that those would
largely be points of focus and II really enjoy.
I enjoyed learning, I enjoyedreading, I had a lot of
experience before we opened thefirst place, um, getting a
little bit more specific, aboutfinding a pathway to becoming a
(17:40):
better leader.
I would probably develop sometime in that direction and I
would.
I would double down on umfinancial skills and acumen.
Uh, because particularly whenyou, when you put yourself in a
position to grow and openanother restaurant, the skills
required, um are just fargreater than I think what most
operators are used to.
(18:01):
With you know assessing, youknow gross margin and cost of
goods and net profit and thingslike that, you start to look at
terms and the fun thing I thinkabout opening a restaurant is
the deal terms there's, there'skind of a blueprint, but you can
get creative.
When you establishrelationships with angel
investors, even, to some extent,uh, traditional lending
institutions, you can getcreative in the way that you
(18:23):
structure those deals.
And the more knowledge you haveabout, you know, cost of
capital and what your businessneeds to run, the more you can
identify the best partner foryou and then structure a deal
that's positive sum, that's inthe best interest of both
parties and that, frankly, ittakes a lot of financial
(18:44):
knowledge that I didn't have outof the gate, so I don't know
how good any of that advice is,but that's probably what I would
do if I were to do it again.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, I mean you mentioned a lot of resources in
terms of community andsurrounding yourself with owners
and reading, but how did you?
Is there one resource that youreally dug your heels into to
gain that financial acumen?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
You know I don't think so I w I've been really
fortunate.
I have ownership in anothercompany based out of Oklahoma
city and my involvement in thatum business is a lot less
operational.
We get together on a quarterlybasis and we pour over financial
statements and that has been amassive inflection point for me,
just learning, you know, Ithink everybody has a general
(19:34):
working understanding of a P&L,but understanding the ins and
outs and understanding how thatrelates to balance sheet and
then cash flow statements andthen how you look at these
seemingly lagging indicators andput yourself in a position to
make decisions based on strategyand the future has been huge.
(19:54):
And I don't, I guess I'm notsure what that resource would
look like for somebody lookingto learn.
There are a handful of booksthat are really wonderful.
You know, YouTube, universityhas all kinds of resources, but
I guess to get specific, putyourself in a position to really
, truly and deeply understandfinancial statements, is a
really big advantage.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
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How did you know?
I mean, what was the point?
What were the indicators atAvanti that you guys were doing
(21:04):
well and you were ready to takethe leap and go brick and mortar
.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Gosh, I'm not really sure.
I think we were still probablyat a point we felt like we we
had started to develop, we had arelationship that was strong,
we had started to develop somesystems that made some sense.
Um, and we had a chance meetingwith the two gentlemen who
became our brokers uh, zachcitron, who I was talking to
yesterday and they startedshowing us some listings and we
(21:34):
started looking.
I think we started lookingbefore we were truly ready,
which tends to happen inresidential real estate as well.
And you kind of fall in love andyou sort of just make it happen
, make it work, and that's kindof how it played out.
In fact, the deal at CafeMarmont had been lost, I believe
, twice before we came to termsfor what it ultimately ended up
(21:57):
being.
I think we signed that lease onAugust 15th 2019.
The first iteration wasactually partnering with Zach
and Nathan and we were trying tobuy the building.
They were trying to buy thebuilding and we did kind of an
equity swap situation where wetook over the restaurant.
They had a little bit ofownership in the restaurant, we
had a little bit of ownership inthe building and we did kind of
an equity swap situation wherewe took over the restaurant.
They had a little bit ofownership in the restaurant, we
had a little bit of ownership inthe building and that deal fell
(22:19):
through.
But we kept kept working at it,knew it was a spot in a
neighborhood that we were reallyinterested in and and, um,
everything worked out.
But I mean, yeah, we, we gotthe keys on september 1st 2019,
which was a Sunday they wereopen for brunch, which we didn't
have a whole lot of interest inand walked in and just kind of
hit the ground running.
(22:39):
You know we had.
We kept the staff that wantedto stay and then we brought two
or three people on our own andthen three of us and kind of
just you know, took over andwhite knuckled it.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Did you get rid of the Avanti concept at that time,
or were you operating both?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
We didn't.
We operated both for about ayear, if memory serves, maybe a
little bit longer.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
If, if the brokers hadn't approached you with that
deal, do you think you guyswould have expanded?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
We wouldn't have done it as quickly.
No, I think we probably wouldhave gotten nearer to the end of
our lease term and startedlooking.
I didn't have any, you know, Ihad no working relationships
with brokers.
I didn't have any idea whatthat process looks like.
I didn't have any idea how tonegotiate a lease, any of these
things, and I guess I figuredalong the way I would start to
pick up and develop those skills.
And but no, without thatrelationship I don't think we
(23:34):
would have jumped in as quicklyas we did.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So you guys took over cafe Marmont, kept the name and
open the doors and just jumpedin and how?
I mean, how was that for you?
Was there some internalstruggle of like we're going to
take over somebody else's name?
How do we make this ouridentity?
What was that transition like?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah, you know, it's really funny At most.
Every step along the way, thevast majority of people that
we've interacted with have toldus how stupid we were for making
the decisions that we made,going from fine dining to a food
hall and then taking over CafeMarmont and running it as Cafe
Marmont through the end of theyear.
(24:16):
Look at me now, right.
So I mean, again, it came downto money.
We just didn't have it.
What we had was cash that wehad stacked up.
We paid ourselves very little,we worked like crazy people and
then we took that money, plussome savings and credit cards,
and turned it into Cafe Marmont.
And we had had a chance to lookat their financials and knew
that that, you know, the fourthquarter was when they made money
(24:38):
.
We had run a French restaurantbefore Um, so we took it over
and there was a little bit of apress push.
So, people, I think we'regenerally aware that um, there
was new ownership and we had a,you know, a reasonably strong Q4
closed, closed for two weeks,14 days, flipped the restaurant
again just on cash that we hadgenerated in that fourth quarter
(25:00):
and opened up seven weeks tothe day before we closed for
COVID.
But I, I mean again, it comesback to.
It comes back to, at the time,my lack of what I perceived as a
lack of financial acumen that Ididn't want to be taken
advantage of by externalinvestments, especially if I
(25:21):
didn't truly understand it.
Nor was there, you know, Iimagine I could have pressed a
little harder to try to findthose investments, but it
certainly wasn't knocking on thedoor.
Traditional lendinginstitutions had no interest in
what we were doing.
We just weren't proven enoughyet.
None of us really come fromfamilies who could throw a bunch
of money at a restaurant, inparticular given the risk
(25:43):
profile.
So we did what we needed to doand, yeah, I mean it worked out.
We also didn't want to step inand just kind of overnight take
the restaurant from theneighborhood, um, which had
become, you know, uh, reasonablypopular within the neighborhood
.
So made a few minor adjustmentskind of early on and Ty slowly
(26:04):
developed the menu into his menu, um and again we, it went
pretty darn well in hindsight.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
So what happened with Cafe Marmont that then led you
to saying, okay, we're going toopen a restaurant in Olivia.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, so we did have that.
That plan was in place from thebeginning.
It was going to operate throughNew Year's Eve and then we're
going to flip it to restaurantOlivia.
And in fact Ty had gone tostage, so he spent some time at
La Pigeon in Portland butspecifically went to stage at
Lilia and New York city and thenflower and water in San
Francisco.
And we knew, you know, none ofus are Italian, so the idea
(26:42):
wasn't necessarily to be a kindof Italian first restaurant, um,
but you know, if you know, tyTy seems happiest, or at least
certainly at that point, coveredin flour, and I really enjoyed
the process of learning aboutpasta and his kind of moniker
from the beginning was like, ifyou can fit it into a tortelloni
, we want to be able to put iton the menu, whether it's
(27:05):
Italian or not.
And so we did.
You know, we got, we did alittle bit, did a little bit of
pushback and I go the rest ofthe.
The city doesn't need anotherItalian restaurant.
Meanwhile we had put two pastadishes on our menu and those
were the two that sold out everynight.
And you know, I think we maybefirmed up the concept over those
(27:26):
three or four months, but byand large we we entered into it
with a plan to flip it inJanuary of 2020.
Okay, got it.
What happened then?
Yeah, january 14th opened up.
A first night of service wentwell.
I think it was a Thursday.
If I remember correctly, um hadsome pretty solid press out of
(27:48):
the gate.
Uh, you know, as we started toget our feet underneath us,
covid hit and it was seven weeksto the day Shut the restaurant
down and then, I don't know, Ifeel like I kind of blacked out
and about a year later weemerged and sort of had a
restaurant again, but it was agood seven weeks prior to
shutting down.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, you mentioned press a couple times.
Did you guys have a PR firm andwere you going after this press
?
It was a good seven weeks priorto shutting down.
Yeah, you mentioned press acouple of times.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Did you guys have a PR firm and were you going after
this press or was it kind ofcoming in organically?
What did that look like?
A little bit of both.
We had a few relationships fromprevious life and I was
fortunate enough to have a Idon't know a decent career on
the bar side and had a fewarticles written and had gotten
to know members of the media, um, and we were able to reach out
to them.
But we did engage uh primcommunications with um for PR
(28:40):
help and we kind of use themintermittently.
Uh, until about a year ago orso they've been a fixture in our
, in our world Um and there.
I think, uh, gretchen, the ownerof the businesses, I think of
her about as highly as I do anybusiness person in this town and
that was a big part of it.
And I think, as is the casewith um, most of the
(29:00):
relationships that you have andenter into when you're an owner,
you want to find partnershipsand and, uh, we, you know I
think she knew at the time wecouldn't afford to do it, but we
felt compelled to tell ourstory and still feel compelled
to tell our story as it's on, asit's kind of unraveling on a
daily basis.
And, yeah, I mean I that hasbeen a wonderful relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
That's awesome.
So it's been over five years.
You've had Olivia.
You guys are wildly successful.
You're crushing it, going onweights every night.
It's incredible Expansion.
You've just continued to put somuch thought and strategy and
innovation into that space andit's paying off, did you know,
(29:48):
at a certain point you wanted toget ready to open another one.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I think it was on the back of our minds um, I don't,
we weren't actively seeking asecond location when this one
when what is what will becomeamelia popped up.
Uh, one of the things that'stricky about restaurants, you
know, single, single unitrestaurants, especially the size
, the original size of olivia,which was, uh, I mean, we were
doing 60 covers a night,basically sold out and even at a
reasonably high PPA, that's, itjust isn't enough top line
(30:19):
revenue to justify things likehealth insurance.
And we wanted to put ourselvesin a position to complete a kind
of suite of compensatorybenefits for our employees and
also wanted to take advantage of, you know, other types of
economies of scale and deal,start to deal directly with
producers, start to do somethings that furthered our
(30:39):
mission.
And we felt like a secondlocation ultimately, was going
to be the way in which we coulddo that.
And again, we weren't looking.
The people at the Currentreached out to us a few times.
I didn't have a whole lot ofsuccess.
Our broker reached out to us atone point.
I was like, hey, you know,these folks have a bunch of LOIs
offered the space seems reallycompelling to me.
(31:02):
We should just go take a lookat it.
And we went and looked at it.
It turns out we were, I guess,favorite restaurant in Denver of
their capital partners.
So they were pretty intent onsigning us.
And I was really honest from thebeginning.
It wasn't, it wasn't a uhnegotiation necessarily, it was
just hey, here's the reality ofwhere we are.
Um, don't have a whole lot ofcash, we're not general
(31:24):
contractors, um, so if we canstrike a deal that makes sense
on both sides, we're happy tohave that discussion.
But we don't.
You know, we don't want to leadanybody on and you know, one
thing led to another Saw thespace, loved it, loved the
potential of that neighborhood,and we're able to get a deal
done and we're, I think, closeto permitting.
My hope is that September,october of this year, we'll be
(31:46):
able to get it open.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
But you know that's been a process in and of itself.
Yeah, this is completely newfor you.
You're not taking over anexisting spot, you're building
it out.
I mean, what tell you know?
Talk a little bit about some ofthe massive changes here from
you know, as far as the processand the strategy from Cafe
Marmont to or from Olivia toAmelia.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, we were fortunate.
We expanded Restaurant Olivia,which was actually more
financially difficult than COVIDwas.
Truthfully, we went through thatprocess, got a look in a window
into what the process lookslike, particularly dealing with
the city, and we ended up 14months past the original
targeted date of completion,having paid rent the whole time
(32:30):
and having increased staff sizeto accommodate increasing
capacity.
And we did that way too early,very prematurely.
So we learned a lot of reallypainful lessons there.
In fact we at one point, youknow, we liquidated retirement
accounts to keep the placeafloat because we felt so
strongly about the people thatwe had onboarded and we didn't
(32:52):
want to let go of any of thosepeople, despite the fact we were
kind of drowning waiting forthe city to give us approval to
open.
It has since worked out, Isuppose, and the good thing is
we learned a lot of reallypainful lessons that dictated
the way we negotiated the leaseat Amelia and among those
(33:14):
lessons we've tied our CO to ortied the lease commencement to
the CO.
So regardless of how long ittakes, we won't actually be
paying rent until the city givesus permission to open and then
there's rent abatement on theback of that too.
So I think had we not gonethrough that, had we not
expanded the restaurant, or hadwe expanded the restaurant, that
had we not expanded therestaurant, or had we expanded
the restaurant and it had goneflawlessly, we probably would
(33:36):
have been negotiating this muchbigger deal from a place of
relative ignorance.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And talk about the design process.
I mean, the market in Denver isso challenging right now.
Everything is so much more now,Everything is so much more
expensive.
What are some of the hurdlesthat you've had to overcome
going through this process of ofopening your own space?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, I will say that.
Um, so we're working with KevinWynn, uh, who is just a
phenomenal architect here intown, um, and is, as an aside,
he's, he's a hospitality nerd,you know, and we had a
conversation with him the veryfirst time I met him about the
intricacies of how to set up aPOS station.
You know, like, how do you hide, you know, keyboards if you
(34:24):
need them, and I was like, yeah,this is our guy.
He's from the same neuroticplace and yeah he's been
wonderful.
I will say that, uh, the theoriginal design is.
I think what we're rolling outwith when we open is going to be
an amazing restaurant and Ilargely attribute that to him.
But there have been a lot ofconcessions made since that
first kind of design meeting andthe first look at uh renderings
(34:47):
and's.
You're right, it's just it isan incredibly expensive process.
It is, in my opinion,unnecessarily bureaucratic and
overly complex and, mind you, wehaven't even started swinging
hammers.
But I mean we're we'resomewhere between $290,000 and
$350,000 over budget onconstruction, specifically again
(35:09):
not having swung a hammer indollars over budget on
construction, specifically againnot having swung a hammer and
uh, they're energized.
Denver, which is part of thegreen initiative, uh, and moving
towards electric, has been areally big part of that.
Uh, I was actually interactingwith one of our investors who
has a relationship with themayor and we were going over,
you know.
I mean we're north of a hundredthousand dollars in costs
(35:30):
associated with the project.
That doesn't have any bearingon what it is that we are doing
because of these initiatives andI mean our we largely focus on
kind of two pillars of ourrestaurant as sustainability and
hospitality and as the, as aperson who has, you know,
ownership an electrical companyfull disclosure I'm not
self-righteous about that and Ialso understand the downside of
(35:54):
the grid and efficiency.
Within the context ofrestaurants.
We certainly applaud a movetowards a more sustainable
future, but the way in whichit's being rolled out and the
cost associated with opening arestaurant in Denver right now
as a result of these policiesare are very cumbersome.
(36:15):
Let's say yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
What?
Um, there's just so much valuehere.
Thank you so much for sharingum, all that stuff and all these
amazing resources of all thesenames and restaurants and and uh
PR companies and Kevin'scompany.
We'll put all that in the notesbut, looking back on your
career and all the things thatyou've learned and the leaps
(36:38):
that you've taken and the riskthat you've mitigated, if
someone's listening to this andthey're thinking about opening
their first restaurant andthey're coming from an operator
standpoint restaurant andthey're coming from an operator
standpoint, would you advisethem to go the food hall route
or take over an existing space?
What would you?
What would you advise them todo?
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Um, I there.
There's definitely not a onesize fits all, uh, and it
depends on your background.
It depends on on how you'refunding it.
You know, if you have strategicpartners out of the gate who
you're comfortable with andtrust, who have really high
levels of financial acumen andyou feel comfortable adding debt
or giving up equity, there's noreason that you can't get into
(37:22):
a brick and mortar space andthere are opportunities out
there.
You know, despite the number ofclosures and how competitive
it's been, you know, if you'relooking at something in the four
to 6,000 square foot range,there are plenty of deals.
And if you are comfortable withlease negotiation, you have the
right partner on the brokerside and you feel like you can
(37:43):
set the conditions via dealterms to be successful, you can
absolutely, you know, take thatleap.
I, you know we are veryconservative financially and I,
I uh there are a lot ofrestaurants in town right now
that are very quickly going fromone to two and two to three,
three to four.
And you talk to people and youhear these deal terms and
they're terrifying to me.
Um, what our, uh?
(38:05):
I think being reallyintentional with the way that
you construct your capital stackis incredibly important.
And if you're going to bring onpartners or you're going to
bring on individual investors,to the extent that you can make
sure that they're aligned withyou philosophically or with
respect to your values or whatit is you're trying to
(38:26):
accomplish, that is criticallyimportant.
But also, you know, we have, wehave reported, of the
restaurants that are profitablein Denver, the, those that are
reporting a profit.
It's averaging one 2% right now.
It's not, you know, sustainablein any way, shape or form.
You know that you're, you'rewaiting for an externality to
close your restaurant and whenyou're operating on margins that
(38:47):
are that slim, you're, you putyourself in a position to act
and make decisions from a placeof desperation and good people
can often, you know, start tomake different decisions with
respect to labor model, sourcing.
Who knows If you can puttogether a budget, you know,
(39:07):
like a true to form, pro formaand actually a cashflow
projection that allows you ahealthy enough bottom line.
It puts you in a position toaccomplish what you set out to
accomplish.
And the advice that I wouldgive is, like you know, plates
of food and drinks and cocktailsand these sorts of things are
really fun.
I have found that I need abigger why I need a mission, I
(39:28):
need a purpose, I need a visionand I need um need.
On those days when it's reallyhard and there will absolutely
be days where it's it will bringyou to your knees you need to
be able to look up at somethingbigger than yourself and allow
that to be the sort of cleanburning fuel that pushes you
into the next day.
Sustainability and hospitalityhas been that and it's kind of
(39:53):
we're.
We're now navigating what itmeans to sort of coalesce a
culture around that idea, movingforward in service of that
mission and vision.
Um, but all of that being said,you know, when I look at, when I
look at the way that we've puttogether the capital stack for
Amelia, if I am unnecessarilyadding debt for Amelia, if I am
(40:14):
unnecessarily adding debt, ifI'm looking at, you know, like
eight and a half to 10% prettyaverage nowadays as far as
interest back on loans.
And when you look at thatservice principle and interest
and you look at your pro forma,what impact is that having on
your bottom line?
To increase, to increaseoverhead, that much, it's a lot.
And I look at a lot of peoplegiving up a lot of equity in
their business and, um, you know, there comes a point when
(40:35):
you've just bought yourself ajob and that's, that's going to
be really difficult.
It's going to be reallydifficult.
And, uh, man, if it isn'tmanaged in a way that you have a
surplus of cash to absorb theblows and also take advantage of
opportunities, man, man, is ita, is it a tough way to live?
Um, it's also incrediblyrewarding and enriching and
(40:57):
fulfilling if you can putyourself in a position to be
successful in pursuit of thatgoal.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
So, yeah, what's the biggest lesson you've learned
from opening olivia to now goingthrough the process of opening
amelia, five years later?
Speaker 2 (41:09):
yeah, we, we are and you know this because you're
helping with it we are doublingdown on trying to systematize
everything, all of the processesthat put our, put us, in a
position to be successful,particularly when we, as owners,
are not physically present asoften.
And I probably would wouldrewind the clock and be a little
bit more intentional with thatright out of the gate, which is
(41:30):
a really, really difficult thingto do when you're a new owner
and you are everything from theperson who unclogs the toilet at
1am to the person mopping thefloor at 6am the next day and
shaking cocktails and being thehost.
But, to the extent that it'spossible, you got to carve out
some time and be intentional andestablishing the processes to
(41:50):
systematize what it is that youdo and you know, outside of that
, the vast majority of it.
I feel like a broken recordright now, but it's, it's.
It is so, so, so important toput yourself in a position to be
able to negotiate the lease anddeal structure from a, from a
informed place, and a goodbroker and a good attorney are
(42:11):
critical in that which we have.
Uh, both fortunately, and thenhaving a deeper understanding of
the implications of thefinancial decision-making prior
to opening the restaurant, sothat you're not you're not
hamstringing yourself out of thegate, and that comes back to,
you know, tying commencement toCEO, having renovatement out of
the gate.
Um, we had negotiated a verygenerous TI package because
(42:34):
we're not general contractors.
If getting the place open ispinned to my ability to
successfully execute a build-out, we're screwed.
So those are probably the mostimportant takeaways for me at
this point.
It'll be really interesting.
I mean, we plan on opening morerestaurants moving forward, and
if you ask me that samequestion three or four years
(42:55):
from now, I'll be really curiouswhat the answer is.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah yeah, there's so much changing in the Denver
landscape for sure.
What are some of those scarylease terms you mentioned
earlier?
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Well, I mean, you know you're almost always,
especially early on, almostalways going to be a personal
guarantor and that's scary, yeah, that's scary.
I think there are ways in whichyou can negotiate the specific
you know in the event offorfeiture.
There are things you can kindof preemptively place into that
lease structure to make it alittle bit less scary, and a
good broker can kind of givesome insight into that.
(43:28):
I used to be overly fixated onjust total monthly rents and
fixated on occupancy costs, andthat's obviously important, um,
and that, generally speaking,for those people who aren't
aware you're, you're going toget a little bit more money
upfront to build a place out andlower rents, or vice versa.
And so understanding who youare, where your skills and
(43:51):
strengths lie, can help youdictate that decision-making
process.
Um, I am, we don't really useprime in our restaurant.
From a financial dashboarddashboard standpoint, I tend to
hyper fixate on gross margin,because those are the
controllables I think mostimportant to our success.
Uh, which also bleeds into theway in which you you negotiate
(44:11):
the lease.
I always like to have tenantterms on the backend, so like 10
and two fives is what weentered into.
Yeah, I mean, it was a 70, 72,73 page lease which I read
multiple times and I I wouldencourage anybody in a similar
position put your spend themoney to have an attorney review
(44:33):
it.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
And then probably re-review and make sure that
you've got a really good brokeron your side that can point
things out.
You're just unaware of you know, COVID would be a great example
of that right.
You know, the force majeureside of things was never really.
There were a lot of people whogot in a lot of trouble.
You know when COVID hit and allof a sudden, they didn't have
anything to monetize and therewasn't anything written into
their lease that put them in aposition to protect themselves
(44:57):
and their business in the eventof a pandemic.
You know, those are thingsworth being aware of as well.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Yeah, that's.
That's really, really greatadvice.
I know you know, speakingpersonally, I've been in a
couple situations where I'vebeen trying to understand the
jargon.
Look through paperwork right,whether it's partnership or
stock options or whatever goingI just have no idea what to do
with this and it's veryemotional too, right.
And so hiring an attorney andpaying them a couple thousand or
whatever it is definitely takesthe emotion out of it.
(45:25):
Gives you that strategicpartner and that expert that you
really need, so awesome.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Worth every penny.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Yeah, absolutely, austin.
Thank you so much.
This has been incrediblyvaluable.
I can't wait to start gettingall the notes together on all
these amazing resources.
If, if, anyone's listening tothis and wants to get ahold of
you, are you okay with that?
Sure, okay, nice one, throw outan email, or anybody can shoot
me an email.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
I'm just austin at oliviadembercom.
Perfect Social media stuff theAustin.
Carson, you know, keeping thatego in check, yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
So much ego that you've brought onto the
conversation today.
No, I appreciate your humilityand your constant insight and
thoughtfulness and justcuriosity to continue to learn
and grow.
And it's there.
You know, I haven't found aplaybook for how to successfully
open a restaurant from all youknow the behind the scenes
things that you've talked abouttoday and and if there was one,
(46:25):
I feel like it's going to beoutdated every single six months
or every year, depending on youknow, based off what we're
seeing right now, especially inthe Denver market.
So really appreciate yousharing all this knowledge that
you've learned.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yeah, it was my pleasure.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
You bet that's going to do it for us this week.
Everybody, If you know anyonethat could benefit from this
episode, please share it withthem and we'll talk to you next
week.
Today I'm speaking with Austin Carson, co-owner of
Restaurant Olivia in Denver,colorado.
Austin is going to take usthrough the challenges and
opportunities of an operatorgoing into owner and the gap of
knowledge that needs to happenin order for operators and
owners in this day and age to besuccessful.
He takes us through his journeyof going from bar manager to
(00:29):
food hall owner, to taking overan existing restaurant and
making it his own and their ownwith his partners and opening a
restaurant five years ago, andthen the challenges of opening a
restaurant in this day and age,especially in a difficult and
costly environment that isDenver, colorado.
There's a ton of resources inthis episode.
(00:49):
You want to make sure youlisten through the whole thing
and I'll put all the show notes,the links, in the show notes
for you.
Hope that you really reallyenjoy this one.
There's a ton of value here.
Welcome to the RestaurantLeadership Podcast, the show
where restaurant leaders learntools, tactics and habits from
the world's greatest operators.
(01:10):
I'm your host, kristen Marvin,with Solutions by Kristen.
I've spent the last two decadesin the restaurant industry and
now partner with restaurantowners to develop their leaders
and scale their businessesthrough powerful one-on-one
coaching, group coaching andleadership workshops.
This show is complete withepisodes around coaching,
(01:34):
leadership development andinterviews with powerful
industry leaders.
You can now engage with me onthe show and share topics you'd
like to hear about, leadershiplessons you want to learn and
any feedback you have.
Simply click the link at thetop of the show notes and I will
give you a shout out on afuture episode.
Thanks so much for listeningand I look forward to connecting
(01:57):
.
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Again, that's gorti-inccomslash restaurant leadership
podcast.
All right, austin, thank you somuch for being here.
Love that we are going to shareyour experience today and
(03:31):
valuable insights into theexperiences that you've had with
opening restaurants.
So you're getting ready to open.
Is this your fourth concept?
Second in the group.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I suppose it would be third Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Okay, so take us back to the first concept.
What tell us a little bit aboutthat opening and your
experience there?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, so we opened Bistro Georgette inside of
Avanti Um.
That was the first kind offoray into uh, entrepreneurship,
I guess, as restaurateurs.
Um was, for those not familiar,avanti's a food hall in Denver
and we had 160 square footshipping container and we did
(04:12):
kind of French inspired streetfood was the original concept.
So it was.
Avanti does a really good jobof kind of walking you through
the process and limiting riskand exposure, which was part of
the appeal for us and the the.
The cost of opening in Avantiis dramatically less than
(04:33):
opening a traditional brick andmortar, so that was, I guess,
another driver of of why wewanted to go that route, and
that was August of 2018 when weopened and launched that concept
.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And were you hoping to with Bistro Georgette?
Were you hoping to kind of getproof of concept there and then
expand?
Was that kind of the goal, ontop of just managing the risk
from a financial standpoint, andjust kind of being in a
community where marketing wassomething that was shared and,
and you know, you had otherconcepts in there that could
(05:08):
help you drive traffic?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah.
So I think and this bleeds intothe, the strategy, I suppose,
behind both Olivia and Amelia Ispecifically wanted to mitigate
financial risk to the extentthat we could, and brick and
mortars are scary.
But I think a lot of people whohave a lot of experience
(05:32):
running restaurants don'tnecessarily understand the leap
from kind of operations toownership, and I certainly
didn't.
I thought I did.
I make this comparison a lotit's.
It's.
It's kind of like going fromhaving a dog or a puppy to
having a kid.
Uh, and as as much as you thinkyou can prepare for the
(05:54):
realities of what that that isand looks like it's, it's almost
impossible.
So I guess I had enoughforesight to put us in a
position to get it open,basically on savings and credit
cards.
And then I felt I felt likesmall enough space, despite it
being two meal periods a day,seven days a week, that the
three of us as owners couldcover the majority of the labor
(06:18):
required to keep the place open,didn't pay ourselves a whole
lot.
We were able to stack up cashand a year or so later rolled
that into the purchase of CafeMarmont.
But, um, again it was.
It was my lack of comfort withthe world of construction?
Um, I didn't, you know, I feltlike I had a pretty good sense
(06:38):
of, um, finance within thecontext of restaurant operations
, but not necessarily theacquisition of external capital.
I didn't think I was savvyenough to really do that well,
um, in a new brick and mortarspace, and so, uh, you know, it
was a lot, but it did what wewanted it to do and I, I guess,
to your, to your question aboutproof of concepts, I, I think
(07:01):
that was the original goal,although it was long enough ago
that I'm um, I'm not sure I'mremembering that accurately we
didn't open a Bistro, georgette.
I think the idea was to open arestaurant in Georgia, and one
thing led to another, we endedup going the direction of what
Olivia is now, which ispasta-focused Italian.
So I think less proof ofconcept and more just proof that
(07:23):
our relationship amongst eachother was sound and that our
kind of alignment with respectto core values and what it is we
wanted to get out of this wasstrong enough that we could take
the leap into the world ofbrick and mortar.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, and you have three business partners.
Would you talk a little bitabout that relationship and kind
of how you guys designed thatin the beginning?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, well, so I'm the third, uh, two business
partners technically there arethree of us, um, and yeah, I
mean, one of them is is my wife,uh, Heather Morrison.
Uh, who is, for my money, thebest um hospitality professional
working in the city of Denver,if not the state of Colorado.
We met all three of us met atMizuna and she and I kind of
(08:09):
immediately started to nerd outon on hospitality just in
general and and what, how ourjob boils down to the way that
we make other people feel.
And she has just this otherworldly ability to deconstruct
the guest experience from apsychological perspective.
That just kind of blew my mindand certainly put me in a
(08:30):
position to grow more as aprofessional and as a person.
And about a year into my beingat Mizuna, ty came on board and
he moved pretty quickly into theexecutive chef role, or CDC
role, I suppose, and he was thefirst chef that either of us had
worked with who wasconsistently willing to say yes
(08:50):
to guest requests and to put usas front of the house staff in a
position to meet the guestswhere they were.
And I think he got why Heatherand I operate the way that we
operate and why we make thedecisions that we make, and he's
immensely talented in his ownright and could go do any type
of cuisine that he wanted.
He's also the hardest workingperson I've ever met.
(09:11):
Um, but it it, I don't know.
I guess it it set theconditions, uh, to put us in a
position to have a conversationabout opening our own place.
And uh, we were about fouryears into our relationship when
we took the leap and opened upat Avanti.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Hey there, podcast friends.
I hope you're enjoying theseimpactful conversations and
leadership insights I'm bringingyou each week.
Before we dive back intotoday's episode, I want to take
a moment and reach out and ask asmall favor.
That would go a long way insupporting the show.
If you've been loving thecontent I'm providing, please
take a moment to leave a ratingand review.
Wherever you listen to yourpodcasts, not only does it make
(09:53):
my day, but it also plays apivotal role in helping the show
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Your reviews boost myvisibility, attract new
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So if you want to be part of myshow's growth journey, hit that
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Thanks a million for beingawesome listeners.
(10:15):
So you knew you knew that youguys shared core values.
You knew you had a strongconnection.
You knew you had similarmindsets and that made you feel
comfortable enough to go intopartnership.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
To the extent that you can know, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
What didn't you know?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
You don't know what you don't know, and I think it's
impossible to really truly knowanother person until you're in
the thick of it.
You're in the weeds, and notjust a busy service, but like
shouldering the weight of beingan owner and all that that
entails, you know, and increasedlevels of responsibility and
increased levels of risk.
And when you can do that andyou can demonstrate an ability
(10:56):
and willingness to do that withone another over a long period
of time, um, you start to getthe sense that, okay, you can do
this for a while.
It's kind of like dating andmoving into marriage, and Bistro
Georgette, in a way, was stillkind of dating.
It isn't that I had doubts orsecond thoughts, but the way
(11:21):
that Avanti structures theirleases, they're short term and
we signed I think it was 24months.
Um had a really tough first year.
Second year actually coincidedwith COVID, uh.
So at the end of the secondyear we signed again for another
two.
So we ended up being there forabout four.
But it's a situation where youcan come in and you can look at
to your point proof of concept,you can look at your
(11:42):
relationship with the peoplethat you're doing it with with
less risk, right.
So you sign a personalguarantee, but it's not like
signing a personal guarantee onwhat we did with Olivia or what
we're doing with Amelia.
So there's kind of a you know,maybe it's like being engaged.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Sure, you can.
You can call it off if you needto call it off, right, but
you're hoping for the best.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yes, and here we are still, happily married.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Did you, and I agree with you on all the points you
said about Heather, of course,and Ty getting to know you all
Did you.
So you knew you wanted to gointo a food hall.
Did you shop around and look atother food halls and leases and
all that?
Or did you know?
Avanti was it?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
We didn't.
We didn't shop around at all.
In fact, we had a relationshipwith Patrick O'Neill, who's one
of the owners.
He was a regular at Mizuna andwe had gotten to know him pretty
well just at Mizuna and a spacecame available or we knew a
space was coming available.
We did a couple of tastingswith them and just decided that
(12:48):
that was a good way for us totake that first step into being
restaurateurs.
But no, we didn't look at anyother food halls At the time.
I'm sure there were one or twomore, but it wasn't like it is
today or has been in the lastfew years.
They weren't everywhere.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Were they looking for a French concept, or were you
able to go in and say, hey,we've got an idea.
Let's pitch this.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
They weren't, in fact the first tasting that we did
with them kind of flopped Notmany people know this.
We did something that was meantto be sort of inspired by
Colorado and the history ofColorado and kind of the
confluence of all of thedifferent types of cuisines but
was driven by Colorado productand we did a tasting and it was,
(13:29):
I think, conceptually just kindof nebulous.
Well, I think the food was good.
It didn't quite land with themand we parted ways that night
and Ty Heather and I continuedto talk and we looked at what
was currently at Abante, what weknew was coming in, and we felt
like you know we were comingfrom.
Mizuno French food and, I guess,ways in which we could
(13:53):
repackage the kind of likeparadigm of French food into
more of a street food centricapproach that would be effective
at Avanti, which was ultimatelyit was not out of the gate, but
neither here nor there.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I want to go back to what you said earlier about the
gap between operator going fromoperator to owner.
Why is that gap so large?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well, some of this is probably pinned to my own
neuroses and potentiallyinsecurity, but just the weight
of everything that you do isheavier, and that goes from you
know being a personal guarantorright and understanding the
existential consequences offailure of a business.
You know you can beunderstanding the existential
consequences of failure of abusiness.
You know you can be an operator.
You can work for another person.
(14:36):
The reality is, especiallynowadays.
I mean, if our restaurantclosed, the vast majority of our
staff would be able to have ajob in 48 hours somewhere else,
right?
So like, the level ofdisruption to your life from a
personal and financialstandpoint while you feel
invested is just it's.
It's apples and oranges.
(14:57):
And then you start to grow andyou put yourself in a position
to have employees who count onyou and depend on you for
various things and, um, youstart to pin your work to, uh, a
bigger mission and vision andpurpose and it just kind of
doubles down on some of thatweight and pressure and stress
and, uh, the mechanics are thesame, right.
(15:18):
I mean I, you know, I'llprobably be busting tables
tonight.
I still wash dishes, ty worksthe line, heather was working
the door last night.
You know that that's kind ofthe easy stuff, yeah, um, but
the, the, the emotional weight,probably more than anything else
, is just it's, it'sexponentially greater when it
(15:39):
becomes yours.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Looking back on that now, how could you give?
Give anybody that's listeningsome advice on how do you
prepare for that transition andthat, that pressure and that
weight that comes along.
I felt it too.
I couldn't sleep at night theminute I had managing partner on
my title.
I had no idea what was coming,and when sales were down, it was
just the most frightening thingI'd ever experienced in my life
.
How would you prepare for thatnow?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, I mean, the flippant part of me says how do
you prepare for having?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
a baby yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
But you can't say.
If I could go back and do itagain.
I would try to put myself in aposition to to um, prepare
myself my central nervous systemin my body for what was going
to be an increased workload andstress load, and everybody has
(16:38):
their own, I think, methods fordoing that.
Having a physical reprieve,going to the gym, whatever your
thing is, I think is reallyimportant.
Having other people to talk to,whether that's in the world of
psychotherapy or just a peergroup of people who are owners,
which I think is a reallyimportant distinction because
(16:58):
they have the ability toempathize with you helps, I have
found, helps lighten the loadand you know what are the things
that you can do to put yourselfin a position to not be
overwhelmed and overcome by thestress.
And I, you know, I mean eightyears in, seven years in, I'm
not going to lie, I'm notnailing any of those things.
So I don't know that I havespecific advice as to what I
(17:19):
would do if I could do it again,but I do know that those would
largely be points of focus and II really enjoy.
I enjoyed learning, I enjoyedreading, I had a lot of
experience before we opened thefirst place, um, getting a
little bit more specific, aboutfinding a pathway to becoming a
(17:40):
better leader.
I would probably develop sometime in that direction and I
would.
I would double down on umfinancial skills and acumen.
Uh, because particularly whenyou, when you put yourself in a
position to grow and openanother restaurant, the skills
required, um are just fargreater than I think what most
operators are used to.
(18:01):
With you know assessing, youknow gross margin and cost of
goods and net profit and thingslike that, you start to look at
terms and the fun thing I thinkabout opening a restaurant is
the deal terms there's, there'skind of a blueprint, but you can
get creative.
When you establishrelationships with angel
investors, even, to some extent,uh, traditional lending
institutions, you can getcreative in the way that you
(18:23):
structure those deals.
And the more knowledge you haveabout, you know, cost of
capital and what your businessneeds to run, the more you can
identify the best partner foryou and then structure a deal
that's positive sum, that's inthe best interest of both
parties and that, frankly, ittakes a lot of financial
(18:44):
knowledge that I didn't have outof the gate, so I don't know
how good any of that advice is,but that's probably what I would
do if I were to do it again.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, I mean you mentioned a lot of resources in
terms of community andsurrounding yourself with owners
and reading, but how did you?
Is there one resource that youreally dug your heels into to
gain that financial acumen?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
You know I don't think so I w I've been really
fortunate.
I have ownership in anothercompany based out of Oklahoma
city and my involvement in thatum business is a lot less
operational.
We get together on a quarterlybasis and we pour over financial
statements and that has been amassive inflection point for me,
just learning, you know, Ithink everybody has a general
(19:34):
working understanding of a P&L,but understanding the ins and
outs and understanding how thatrelates to balance sheet and
then cash flow statements andthen how you look at these
seemingly lagging indicators andput yourself in a position to
make decisions based on strategyand the future has been huge.
(19:54):
And I don't, I guess I'm notsure what that resource would
look like for somebody lookingto learn.
There are a handful of booksthat are really wonderful.
You know, YouTube, universityhas all kinds of resources, but
I guess to get specific, putyourself in a position to really
, truly and deeply understandfinancial statements, is a
really big advantage.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
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How did you know?
I mean, what was the point?
What were the indicators atAvanti that you guys were doing
(21:04):
well and you were ready to takethe leap and go brick and mortar
.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Gosh, I'm not really sure.
I think we were still probablyat a point we felt like we we
had started to develop, we had arelationship that was strong,
we had started to develop somesystems that made some sense.
Um, and we had a chance meetingwith the two gentlemen who
became our brokers uh, zachcitron, who I was talking to
yesterday and they startedshowing us some listings and we
(21:34):
started looking.
I think we started lookingbefore we were truly ready,
which tends to happen inresidential real estate as well.
And you kind of fall in love andyou sort of just make it happen
, make it work, and that's kindof how it played out.
In fact, the deal at CafeMarmont had been lost, I believe
, twice before we came to termsfor what it ultimately ended up
(21:57):
being.
I think we signed that lease onAugust 15th 2019.
The first iteration wasactually partnering with Zach
and Nathan and we were trying tobuy the building.
They were trying to buy thebuilding and we did kind of an
equity swap situation where wetook over the restaurant.
They had a little bit ofownership in the restaurant, we
had a little bit of ownership inthe building and we did kind of
an equity swap situation wherewe took over the restaurant.
They had a little bit ofownership in the restaurant, we
had a little bit of ownership inthe building and that deal fell
(22:19):
through.
But we kept kept working at it,knew it was a spot in a
neighborhood that we were reallyinterested in and and, um,
everything worked out.
But I mean, yeah, we, we gotthe keys on september 1st 2019,
which was a Sunday they wereopen for brunch, which we didn't
have a whole lot of interest inand walked in and just kind of
hit the ground running.
(22:39):
You know we had.
We kept the staff that wantedto stay and then we brought two
or three people on our own andthen three of us and kind of
just you know, took over andwhite knuckled it.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Did you get rid of the Avanti concept at that time,
or were you operating both?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
We didn't.
We operated both for about ayear, if memory serves, maybe a
little bit longer.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
If, if the brokers hadn't approached you with that
deal, do you think you guyswould have expanded?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
We wouldn't have done it as quickly.
No, I think we probably wouldhave gotten nearer to the end of
our lease term and startedlooking.
I didn't have any, you know, Ihad no working relationships
with brokers.
I didn't have any idea whatthat process looks like.
I didn't have any idea how tonegotiate a lease, any of these
things, and I guess I figuredalong the way I would start to
pick up and develop those skills.
And but no, without thatrelationship I don't think we
(23:34):
would have jumped in as quicklyas we did.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So you guys took over cafe Marmont, kept the name and
open the doors and just jumpedin and how?
I mean, how was that for you?
Was there some internalstruggle of like we're going to
take over somebody else's name?
How do we make this ouridentity?
What was that transition like?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah, you know, it's really funny At most.
Every step along the way, thevast majority of people that
we've interacted with have toldus how stupid we were for making
the decisions that we made,going from fine dining to a food
hall and then taking over CafeMarmont and running it as Cafe
Marmont through the end of theyear.
(24:16):
Look at me now, right.
So I mean, again, it came downto money.
We just didn't have it.
What we had was cash that wehad stacked up.
We paid ourselves very little,we worked like crazy people and
then we took that money, plussome savings and credit cards,
and turned it into Cafe Marmont.
And we had had a chance to lookat their financials and knew
that that, you know, the fourthquarter was when they made money
(24:38):
.
We had run a French restaurantbefore Um, so we took it over
and there was a little bit of apress push.
So, people, I think we'regenerally aware that um, there
was new ownership and we had a,you know, a reasonably strong Q4
closed, closed for two weeks,14 days, flipped the restaurant
again just on cash that we hadgenerated in that fourth quarter
(25:00):
and opened up seven weeks tothe day before we closed for
COVID.
But I, I mean again, it comesback to.
It comes back to, at the time,my lack of what I perceived as a
lack of financial acumen that Ididn't want to be taken
advantage of by externalinvestments, especially if I
(25:21):
didn't truly understand it.
Nor was there, you know, Iimagine I could have pressed a
little harder to try to findthose investments, but it
certainly wasn't knocking on thedoor.
Traditional lendinginstitutions had no interest in
what we were doing.
We just weren't proven enoughyet.
None of us really come fromfamilies who could throw a bunch
of money at a restaurant, inparticular given the risk
(25:43):
profile.
So we did what we needed to doand, yeah, I mean it worked out.
We also didn't want to step inand just kind of overnight take
the restaurant from theneighborhood, um, which had
become, you know, uh, reasonablypopular within the neighborhood
.
So made a few minor adjustmentskind of early on and Ty slowly
(26:04):
developed the menu into his menu, um and again we, it went
pretty darn well in hindsight.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
So what happened with Cafe Marmont that then led you
to saying, okay, we're going toopen a restaurant in Olivia.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, so we did have that.
That plan was in place from thebeginning.
It was going to operate throughNew Year's Eve and then we're
going to flip it to restaurantOlivia.
And in fact Ty had gone tostage, so he spent some time at
La Pigeon in Portland butspecifically went to stage at
Lilia and New York city and thenflower and water in San
Francisco.
And we knew, you know, none ofus are Italian, so the idea
(26:42):
wasn't necessarily to be a kindof Italian first restaurant, um,
but you know, if you know, tyTy seems happiest, or at least
certainly at that point, coveredin flour, and I really enjoyed
the process of learning aboutpasta and his kind of moniker
from the beginning was like, ifyou can fit it into a tortelloni
, we want to be able to put iton the menu, whether it's
(27:05):
Italian or not.
And so we did.
You know, we got, we did alittle bit, did a little bit of
pushback and I go the rest ofthe.
The city doesn't need anotherItalian restaurant.
Meanwhile we had put two pastadishes on our menu and those
were the two that sold out everynight.
And you know, I think we maybefirmed up the concept over those
(27:26):
three or four months, but byand large we we entered into it
with a plan to flip it inJanuary of 2020.
Okay, got it.
What happened then?
Yeah, january 14th opened up.
A first night of service wentwell.
I think it was a Thursday.
If I remember correctly, um hadsome pretty solid press out of
(27:48):
the gate.
Uh, you know, as we started toget our feet underneath us,
covid hit and it was seven weeksto the day Shut the restaurant
down and then, I don't know, Ifeel like I kind of blacked out
and about a year later weemerged and sort of had a
restaurant again, but it was agood seven weeks prior to
shutting down.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, you mentioned press a couple times.
Did you guys have a PR firm andwere you going after this press
?
It was a good seven weeks priorto shutting down.
Yeah, you mentioned press acouple of times.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Did you guys have a PR firm and were you going after
this press or was it kind ofcoming in organically?
What did that look like?
A little bit of both.
We had a few relationships fromprevious life and I was
fortunate enough to have a Idon't know a decent career on
the bar side and had a fewarticles written and had gotten
to know members of the media, um, and we were able to reach out
to them.
But we did engage uh primcommunications with um for PR
(28:40):
help and we kind of use themintermittently.
Uh, until about a year ago orso they've been a fixture in our
, in our world Um and there.
I think, uh, gretchen, the ownerof the businesses, I think of
her about as highly as I do anybusiness person in this town and
that was a big part of it.
And I think, as is the casewith um, most of the
(29:00):
relationships that you have andenter into when you're an owner,
you want to find partnershipsand and, uh, we, you know I
think she knew at the time wecouldn't afford to do it, but we
felt compelled to tell ourstory and still feel compelled
to tell our story as it's on, asit's kind of unraveling on a
daily basis.
And, yeah, I mean I that hasbeen a wonderful relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
That's awesome.
So it's been over five years.
You've had Olivia.
You guys are wildly successful.
You're crushing it, going onweights every night.
It's incredible Expansion.
You've just continued to put somuch thought and strategy and
innovation into that space andit's paying off, did you know,
(29:48):
at a certain point you wanted toget ready to open another one.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I think it was on the back of our minds um, I don't,
we weren't actively seeking asecond location when this one
when what is what will becomeamelia popped up.
Uh, one of the things that'stricky about restaurants, you
know, single, single unitrestaurants, especially the size
, the original size of olivia,which was, uh, I mean, we were
doing 60 covers a night,basically sold out and even at a
reasonably high PPA, that's, itjust isn't enough top line
(30:19):
revenue to justify things likehealth insurance.
And we wanted to put ourselvesin a position to complete a kind
of suite of compensatorybenefits for our employees and
also wanted to take advantage of, you know, other types of
economies of scale and deal,start to deal directly with
producers, start to do somethings that furthered our
(30:39):
mission.
And we felt like a secondlocation ultimately, was going
to be the way in which we coulddo that.
And again, we weren't looking.
The people at the Currentreached out to us a few times.
I didn't have a whole lot ofsuccess.
Our broker reached out to us atone point.
I was like, hey, you know,these folks have a bunch of LOIs
offered the space seems reallycompelling to me.
(31:02):
We should just go take a lookat it.
And we went and looked at it.
It turns out we were, I guess,favorite restaurant in Denver of
their capital partners.
So they were pretty intent onsigning us.
And I was really honest from thebeginning.
It wasn't, it wasn't a uhnegotiation necessarily, it was
just hey, here's the reality ofwhere we are.
Um, don't have a whole lot ofcash, we're not general
(31:24):
contractors, um, so if we canstrike a deal that makes sense
on both sides, we're happy tohave that discussion.
But we don't.
You know, we don't want to leadanybody on and you know, one
thing led to another Saw thespace, loved it, loved the
potential of that neighborhood,and we're able to get a deal
done and we're, I think, closeto permitting.
My hope is that September,october of this year, we'll be
(31:46):
able to get it open.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
But you know that's been a process in and of itself.
Yeah, this is completely newfor you.
You're not taking over anexisting spot, you're building
it out.
I mean, what tell you know?
Talk a little bit about some ofthe massive changes here from
you know, as far as the processand the strategy from Cafe
Marmont to or from Olivia toAmelia.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, we were fortunate.
We expanded Restaurant Olivia,which was actually more
financially difficult than COVIDwas.
Truthfully, we went through thatprocess, got a look in a window
into what the process lookslike, particularly dealing with
the city, and we ended up 14months past the original
targeted date of completion,having paid rent the whole time
(32:30):
and having increased staff sizeto accommodate increasing
capacity.
And we did that way too early,very prematurely.
So we learned a lot of reallypainful lessons there.
In fact we at one point, youknow, we liquidated retirement
accounts to keep the placeafloat because we felt so
strongly about the people thatwe had onboarded and we didn't
(32:52):
want to let go of any of thosepeople, despite the fact we were
kind of drowning waiting forthe city to give us approval to
open.
It has since worked out, Isuppose, and the good thing is
we learned a lot of reallypainful lessons that dictated
the way we negotiated the leaseat Amelia and among those
(33:14):
lessons we've tied our CO to ortied the lease commencement to
the CO.
So regardless of how long ittakes, we won't actually be
paying rent until the city givesus permission to open and then
there's rent abatement on theback of that too.
So I think had we not gonethrough that, had we not
expanded the restaurant, or hadwe expanded the restaurant, that
had we not expanded therestaurant, or had we expanded
the restaurant and it had goneflawlessly, we probably would
(33:36):
have been negotiating this muchbigger deal from a place of
relative ignorance.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And talk about the design process.
I mean, the market in Denver isso challenging right now.
Everything is so much more now,Everything is so much more
expensive.
What are some of the hurdlesthat you've had to overcome
going through this process of ofopening your own space?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, I will say that.
Um, so we're working with KevinWynn, uh, who is just a
phenomenal architect here intown, um, and is, as an aside,
he's, he's a hospitality nerd,you know, and we had a
conversation with him the veryfirst time I met him about the
intricacies of how to set up aPOS station.
You know, like, how do you hide, you know, keyboards if you
(34:24):
need them, and I was like, yeah,this is our guy.
He's from the same neuroticplace and yeah he's been
wonderful.
I will say that, uh, the theoriginal design is.
I think what we're rolling outwith when we open is going to be
an amazing restaurant and Ilargely attribute that to him.
But there have been a lot ofconcessions made since that
first kind of design meeting andthe first look at uh renderings
(34:47):
and's.
You're right, it's just it isan incredibly expensive process.
It is, in my opinion,unnecessarily bureaucratic and
overly complex and, mind you, wehaven't even started swinging
hammers.
But I mean we're we'resomewhere between $290,000 and
$350,000 over budget onconstruction, specifically again
(35:09):
not having swung a hammer indollars over budget on
construction, specifically againnot having swung a hammer and
uh, they're energized.
Denver, which is part of thegreen initiative, uh, and moving
towards electric, has been areally big part of that.
Uh, I was actually interactingwith one of our investors who
has a relationship with themayor and we were going over,
you know.
I mean we're north of a hundredthousand dollars in costs
(35:30):
associated with the project.
That doesn't have any bearingon what it is that we are doing
because of these initiatives andI mean our we largely focus on
kind of two pillars of ourrestaurant as sustainability and
hospitality and as the, as aperson who has, you know,
ownership an electrical companyfull disclosure I'm not
self-righteous about that and Ialso understand the downside of
(35:54):
the grid and efficiency.
Within the context ofrestaurants.
We certainly applaud a movetowards a more sustainable
future, but the way in whichit's being rolled out and the
cost associated with opening arestaurant in Denver right now
as a result of these policiesare are very cumbersome.
(36:15):
Let's say yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
What?
Um, there's just so much valuehere.
Thank you so much for sharingum, all that stuff and all these
amazing resources of all thesenames and restaurants and and uh
PR companies and Kevin'scompany.
We'll put all that in the notesbut, looking back on your
career and all the things thatyou've learned and the leaps
(36:38):
that you've taken and the riskthat you've mitigated, if
someone's listening to this andthey're thinking about opening
their first restaurant andthey're coming from an operator
standpoint restaurant andthey're coming from an operator
standpoint, would you advisethem to go the food hall route
or take over an existing space?
What would you?
What would you advise them todo?
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Um, I there.
There's definitely not a onesize fits all, uh, and it
depends on your background.
It depends on on how you'refunding it.
You know, if you have strategicpartners out of the gate who
you're comfortable with andtrust, who have really high
levels of financial acumen andyou feel comfortable adding debt
or giving up equity, there's noreason that you can't get into
(37:22):
a brick and mortar space andthere are opportunities out
there.
You know, despite the number ofclosures and how competitive
it's been, you know, if you'relooking at something in the four
to 6,000 square foot range,there are plenty of deals.
And if you are comfortable withlease negotiation, you have the
right partner on the brokerside and you feel like you can
(37:43):
set the conditions via dealterms to be successful, you can
absolutely, you know, take thatleap.
I, you know we are veryconservative financially and I,
I uh there are a lot ofrestaurants in town right now
that are very quickly going fromone to two and two to three,
three to four.
And you talk to people and youhear these deal terms and
they're terrifying to me.
Um, what our, uh?
(38:05):
I think being reallyintentional with the way that
you construct your capital stackis incredibly important.
And if you're going to bring onpartners or you're going to
bring on individual investors,to the extent that you can make
sure that they're aligned withyou philosophically or with
respect to your values or whatit is you're trying to
(38:26):
accomplish, that is criticallyimportant.
But also, you know, we have, wehave reported, of the
restaurants that are profitablein Denver, the, those that are
reporting a profit.
It's averaging one 2% right now.
It's not, you know, sustainablein any way, shape or form.
You know that you're, you'rewaiting for an externality to
close your restaurant and whenyou're operating on margins that
(38:47):
are that slim, you're, you putyourself in a position to act
and make decisions from a placeof desperation and good people
can often, you know, start tomake different decisions with
respect to labor model, sourcing.
Who knows If you can puttogether a budget, you know,
(39:07):
like a true to form, pro formaand actually a cashflow
projection that allows you ahealthy enough bottom line.
It puts you in a position toaccomplish what you set out to
accomplish.
And the advice that I wouldgive is, like you know, plates
of food and drinks and cocktailsand these sorts of things are
really fun.
I have found that I need abigger why I need a mission, I
(39:28):
need a purpose, I need a visionand I need um need.
On those days when it's reallyhard and there will absolutely
be days where it's it will bringyou to your knees you need to
be able to look up at somethingbigger than yourself and allow
that to be the sort of cleanburning fuel that pushes you
into the next day.
Sustainability and hospitalityhas been that and it's kind of
(39:53):
we're.
We're now navigating what itmeans to sort of coalesce a
culture around that idea, movingforward in service of that
mission and vision.
Um, but all of that being said,you know, when I look at, when I
look at the way that we've puttogether the capital stack for
Amelia, if I am unnecessarilyadding debt for Amelia, if I am
(40:14):
unnecessarily adding debt, ifI'm looking at, you know, like
eight and a half to 10% prettyaverage nowadays as far as
interest back on loans.
And when you look at thatservice principle and interest
and you look at your pro forma,what impact is that having on
your bottom line?
To increase, to increaseoverhead, that much, it's a lot.
And I look at a lot of peoplegiving up a lot of equity in
their business and, um, you know, there comes a point when
(40:35):
you've just bought yourself ajob and that's, that's going to
be really difficult.
It's going to be reallydifficult.
And, uh, man, if it isn'tmanaged in a way that you have a
surplus of cash to absorb theblows and also take advantage of
opportunities, man, man, is ita, is it a tough way to live?
Um, it's also incrediblyrewarding and enriching and
(40:57):
fulfilling if you can putyourself in a position to be
successful in pursuit of thatgoal.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
So, yeah, what's the biggest lesson you've learned
from opening olivia to now goingthrough the process of opening
amelia, five years later?
Speaker 2 (41:09):
yeah, we, we are and you know this because you're
helping with it we are doublingdown on trying to systematize
everything, all of the processesthat put our, put us, in a
position to be successful,particularly when we, as owners,
are not physically present asoften.
And I probably would wouldrewind the clock and be a little
bit more intentional with thatright out of the gate, which is
(41:30):
a really, really difficult thingto do when you're a new owner
and you are everything from theperson who unclogs the toilet at
1am to the person mopping thefloor at 6am the next day and
shaking cocktails and being thehost.
But, to the extent that it'spossible, you got to carve out
some time and be intentional andestablishing the processes to
(41:50):
systematize what it is that youdo and you know, outside of that
, the vast majority of it.
I feel like a broken recordright now, but it's, it's.
It is so, so, so important toput yourself in a position to be
able to negotiate the lease anddeal structure from a, from a
informed place, and a goodbroker and a good attorney are
(42:11):
critical in that which we have.
Uh, both fortunately, and thenhaving a deeper understanding of
the implications of thefinancial decision-making prior
to opening the restaurant, sothat you're not you're not
hamstringing yourself out of thegate, and that comes back to,
you know, tying commencement toCEO, having renovatement out of
the gate.
Um, we had negotiated a verygenerous TI package because
(42:34):
we're not general contractors.
If getting the place open ispinned to my ability to
successfully execute a build-out, we're screwed.
So those are probably the mostimportant takeaways for me at
this point.
It'll be really interesting.
I mean, we plan on opening morerestaurants moving forward, and
if you ask me that samequestion three or four years
(42:55):
from now, I'll be really curiouswhat the answer is.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah yeah, there's so much changing in the Denver
landscape for sure.
What are some of those scarylease terms you mentioned
earlier?
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Well, I mean, you know you're almost always,
especially early on, almostalways going to be a personal
guarantor and that's scary, yeah, that's scary.
I think there are ways in whichyou can negotiate the specific
you know in the event offorfeiture.
There are things you can kindof preemptively place into that
lease structure to make it alittle bit less scary, and a
good broker can kind of givesome insight into that.
(43:28):
I used to be overly fixated onjust total monthly rents and
fixated on occupancy costs, andthat's obviously important, um,
and that, generally speaking,for those people who aren't
aware you're, you're going toget a little bit more money
upfront to build a place out andlower rents, or vice versa.
And so understanding who youare, where your skills and
(43:51):
strengths lie, can help youdictate that decision-making
process.
Um, I am, we don't really useprime in our restaurant.
From a financial dashboarddashboard standpoint, I tend to
hyper fixate on gross margin,because those are the
controllables I think mostimportant to our success.
Uh, which also bleeds into theway in which you you negotiate
(44:11):
the lease.
I always like to have tenantterms on the backend, so like 10
and two fives is what weentered into.
Yeah, I mean, it was a 70, 72,73 page lease which I read
multiple times and I I wouldencourage anybody in a similar
position put your spend themoney to have an attorney review
(44:33):
it.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
And then probably re-review and make sure that
you've got a really good brokeron your side that can point
things out.
You're just unaware of you know, COVID would be a great example
of that right.
You know, the force majeureside of things was never really.
There were a lot of people whogot in a lot of trouble.
You know when COVID hit and allof a sudden, they didn't have
anything to monetize and therewasn't anything written into
their lease that put them in aposition to protect themselves
(44:57):
and their business in the eventof a pandemic.
You know, those are thingsworth being aware of as well.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Yeah, that's.
That's really, really greatadvice.
I know you know, speakingpersonally, I've been in a
couple situations where I'vebeen trying to understand the
jargon.
Look through paperwork right,whether it's partnership or
stock options or whatever goingI just have no idea what to do
with this and it's veryemotional too, right.
And so hiring an attorney andpaying them a couple thousand or
whatever it is definitely takesthe emotion out of it.
(45:25):
Gives you that strategicpartner and that expert that you
really need, so awesome.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Worth every penny.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Yeah, absolutely, austin.
Thank you so much.
This has been incrediblyvaluable.
I can't wait to start gettingall the notes together on all
these amazing resources.
If, if, anyone's listening tothis and wants to get ahold of
you, are you okay with that?
Sure, okay, nice one, throw outan email, or anybody can shoot
me an email.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
I'm just austin at oliviadembercom.
Perfect Social media stuff theAustin.
Carson, you know, keeping thatego in check, yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
So much ego that you've brought onto the
conversation today.
No, I appreciate your humilityand your constant insight and
thoughtfulness and justcuriosity to continue to learn
and grow.
And it's there.
You know, I haven't found aplaybook for how to successfully
open a restaurant from all youknow the behind the scenes
things that you've talked abouttoday and and if there was one,
(46:25):
I feel like it's going to beoutdated every single six months
or every year, depending on youknow, based off what we're
seeing right now, especially inthe Denver market.
So really appreciate yousharing all this knowledge that
you've learned.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yeah, it was my pleasure.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
You bet that's going to do it for us this week.
Everybody, If you know anyonethat could benefit from this
episode, please share it withthem and we'll talk to you next
week.
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