Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to lead the team.

A question for you.

What if the best meal of your life didn't just happen once, but kept happening over and over again at the same place?

You'd go back a lot, wouldn't you?

Well, that's what we do in Charleston, because for me, that place is Fig and time and time again, it delivers meals that aren't just memorable, but they are purely transformative.

And that's the magic of chef Mike Lada, a James Beard award winning chef, co owner of Fig and the ordinary and the powerful, powerful force behind Charleston, South Carolina's rise to a world class culinary destination.

He doesn't just build restaurants, he is building legacies and chefs that come through his kitchen on to win and win big time, including other James Beard awards of their own.

And the culture he's created is that strong.

And y'all, let me tell you, come to Charleston, South Carolina.

You got to get this on your docket.

You will probably find me there too.

And today you're going to discover his best stories and leadership insights.

Mike.

Welcome to lead the team, sir.

Oh, that's very kind of you.

Thank you.

I'm gonna ask for the transcript for that intro and.

And that'll be my bio.

Yeah.

Please recruit me.

Anytime you're speaking, bring me up there.

I'll introduce you truly special meals, and I might weave in a few today and talk about some of those, but it is a really, you.

You've built something special.

And we're excited to get some behind the scenes today.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

So one of the darkest times for all restaurants in the world was the pandemic.

How did you approach that as a leader?

How did and recover from it so incredibly?

Well, ultimately, it's, you know, it's interesting because I don't know if I had, if we had any experience leading up to the pandemic, managing that kind of a event.

Right.

So if you know anything about Charles and I know you do, we opened in 2020-22-2003.

And the City has been getting busier ever since, and food has been, you know, kind of at the forefront of the conversation almost the entire time that I've been here.

So every year with the city growing and its reputation of being a culinary destination, we've had some pretty smooth seas for a long time.

Right.

So year over year growth, you know, we are.

Our company philosophy is like, well, what I always say is like, if it's easier to raise the bar than it is to maintain it or hold it up.

So we're always trying to get a little bit better.

Right.

And it's that.

That philosophy of, you know, well, here we are.

There's two things happening at the same time.

A lot of what we do is repetitive.

So that's the hamster wheel, and then.

Then there's like, well, we've got to make sure that we hover a little bit above what we're doing and see how we can do it better all the time.

And in turn, that kind of creates a mentality of like, pushing yourself, challenging yourself to see if you can make that brush stroke every day.

That kind of.

That kind of pushes the restaurant forward.

So in 2003, Fig was a neighborhood bistro.

Very modest, if not, we need to be honest with you, and entree.

Hard to remember those days.

We wanted to be a restaurant where you could come in casually, respectfully, and order a great bottle of wine, have a server that had sneaky, great knowledge of the menu and how in our philosophy.

And then the food was printed so simply on the menu with very few descriptors.

All of it was local.

I mean, for the most part, it's, you know, certainly all the.

Everything that was featured in any one dish or the center of any one dish was a local product.

And the meals were like.

The entrees were like 14 to $19.

And we wanted to be the kind of place that didn't exist in Charleston.

So that philosophy of getting a little bit better every day, you know, helped us get a big write up in the New York Times in 2005, which.

Front page of the food section.

We were sold out for, I don't know, a long time after that.

And then the James Beard nomination started coming, and then we had to live up to all of those expectations.

So the pressure must have been immense.

Yeah, because it all happened back then.

Obviously, we had the Internet, but we weren't as tapped into it.

So we were getting phone calls, and we were, you know.

You know, we still took reservations with a pad and paper.

And the feedback that, you know, it just.

It was a different time.

So the expectation we.

I guess what I'm saying is that there was.

You weren't getting the feedback immediately.

Right.

Of whether you were doing a job or not at the table.

Sometimes you do, but not always.

Most people don't give you feedback, to be honest with you.

So we just had to imagine that the expectations had gone through the roof, and we had to figure out a gear or a way to be able to handle that as young, young restaurateurs.

And then Honor it.

So we took some lumps and thank God that the city back then did not have a lot of options.

And thank God that the people that read the New York Times were coming from all over the world, frankly, to try the restaurant.

So we had, we, we had, we were able to make mistakes, but the, the goal had been the entire time, can we, what are we doing?

How do we do it?

Our vision is not only to be to, to.

To.

To showcase local products in ways.

You said transformative, I think a little bit a while ago.

It's when you have something you've had before and something that you're familiar with, done a little bit differently with a high level of craftsmanship, it redefines what you think of it.

Right.

Especially if the product is amazing.

So, you know, that's the goal.

And how do we get better every day and how do we get the servers to be in step with that philosophy, which I think is the X factor of fig that the service and the food match up so beautifully.

And you know, they know that menu.

In and out when you go.

And it is so refreshing to have a server that's totally, totally bought into the menu and can speak about it from all these angles.

And going back to the pandemic, we reserved a table outdoors.

That was our first big post Covid meal, my wife and I, and we were nervous and I'm not sure if we should have been so nervous about going out, but just like, okay, we're.

We've been to fig a bunch, but we don't know what this is going to be like.

And that server, I wish I could remember her name, made us feel so at home.

We sat, we sat outdoors.

Even though people, some people were sitting indoors.

They're like, no, no, no, no, we're sitting outdoors.

And it was just a super special experience.

And I think you.

One of the.

What do you do to cult.

Because you're obviously.

And I've listened to a lot of your.

You really put a lot into your.

You.

But how do you educate and get the buy in of servers?

That can be a high, can be high turnover.

They're under a lot of pressure to convey the menu to people who may not get it really, you know, h.

How.

How are you approaching that, that development and conveying your vision to them?

That's a great question.

And just to put a period because I know we're coming back to it on the end of that sentence before, it's like we didn't really have any hardships for 17 years.

So anyway, to the servers right from the get go.

My business partner and I, you know, co own the restaurant.

He was front of the house, I was back at the house.

And he was really great about telling people that came in, you know, guests or employees, that this was a culinary driven restaurant.

And then it was up to the servers to understand the menu, to speak to the menu, to be educated, to be not robots, to be themselves, to highlight things that they're interested in, highlight things that are popular, but kind of like treat each table as if it was, you know, like read the table and guide them accordingly.

And then so we develop systems of which is very common for restaurants that we have a lineup every day, but we take it a little bit further than that, right?

We have our menu tests and you know, at the lineup every day, what happens is we talk about the menu, we talk about changes, because it changes all the time.

But then we look at dishes that we haven't touched on that might have been on the menu for a little while and look around the room and like, how many people in here have heard me talk about this one ingredient, the inspiration for the dish.

So I would always approach lineup, like, here's my chance to.

To give them the sales language, the information they need, and the inspiration that they.

That they need to really to.

To.

To have the buy in.

Right?

And so I always put a lot of.

A lot of.

I would, I would think about the lineup beforehand when I walked out.

I would try my best to energize and.

And like, literally, you can see the servers becoming passionate as you carefully choose the words for them to hang on.

So when we're finished talking and they taste the food, the changes that we're making, they hit the floor and they're like, let me tell you about this new thing that we're doing.

Or let me tell you about soft shell crabs, right?

And here's the story behind soft shell grabs.

And I think in so many restaurants prior to that, which is, this is not a novel idea that we had, but we had that.

We.

We had two owner operators that split the duties of the restaurant.

Front of the house, back of the house.

We shared the business decisions, of course, and manage the facility and all that kind of stuff together.

But his goal, and my goal was, hey, it's pretty commonplace for there to be animosity between the front and back.

Not here.

As cooks, we have to respect that the server is going to be our voice, and how they approach the table is going to set the stage to receive what we've done.

If they don't do a good job at that, all the work that we've done in the kitchen that we find important will go unnoticed or, you know, totally missed.

And so there's a lot of work daily to support that.

But the one thing that we do that we think is the most important thing is that everybody that works in the restaurant is invited to dine in the restaurant.

You know, some sometime after they start, and then some with some frequency which has not really been formalized.

But imagine a line cook who's 23 years old who has never been able to afford a fine dining restaurant, and here you are trying to speak to this person in the kitchen who's cooking your fish that doesn't understand what it means when you've jockeyed for a reservation, driven or flown to get that reservation, then you sit down.

I can only eat three things, right?

This is.

Most people aren't going to order the entire menu, although some do.

I'm going to order.

I'm going to.

I'm going to painstakingly look at the menu and try to make my decision.

I'm going to get input from the server.

I'm going to get input from the.

Per.

The clerk at the.

The retail store that recommended that I go there.

What should I get?

And then they get to the restaurant and they have to make a selection.

And I don't think there's a ton of anxiety about this, but it's a reality that they don't want to pick the wrong thing.

If they don't.

If they don't know the restaurant they want to pick, what's the best thing?

What's the best thing for me?

That's me.

That's me.

You're describing me like I want to know.

And then you sure don't want to be on the short end of the stick.

When the person across from you has a dish that you're like, I wish I ordered that, and they won't share it.

That's a big part of the experience, right?

So how can you tell a line cook who cooks two different pieces of fish 75 times a night that, oh, by the way, that dish is somebody's decision, Somebody has worked hard to get here, let alone be at a celebration of any kind.

You have to stop and think about that every time you put it, to be, you know, into the window where we put the food before it gets, you know, taken out of the kitchen to put to the table.

Have to find a way to connect to that.

So after years of talking about this, we finally said, well, you know what?

They just need to come and have dinner.

So when they.

So at this point happens with the servers and the cooks, they're able to sit down.

The most important thing is that they're not scheduled to work that day.

They walk in the door like a guest would.

If you walk from the kitchen, put a jacket on or a nice sweater or whatever, and then walk directly to a table, you're still in work mode.

You still.

You can see behind the curtain.

You can see the mistakes.

But for some reason, when you walk in the front door after having not been there, there's a lot of.

I don't know what's happening going on.

And you can feel like a regular guest.

It happens to me as well.

Like, I don't want to, like, nitpick everything around me.

I want to.

I'm there to have dinner with somebody, and I want to enjoy that person.

I want to be edible in a good company.

So I'm not focused on looking for problems.

I'm like, how does it feel to be here?

Am I being taken care of?

How's the hospitality?

Like, do I.

Do I feel good?

And then looking at the menu, hearing the present, the servers and the.

And the cooks need to feel that experience because they're.

They're.

They're providing it for everybody.

And I think that that really.

That came out of the pandemic, and that was a really good move for us.

And what we didn't realize is now that we make.

When they do that, people come in the next day or Saturdays is the day we do it, and they describe the meal that they had, the highs and the lows and the feedback that we've gotten from it has been amazing because they're also sitting next to people and they're listening to conversations, and they're hearing what people are saying about how they got there.

This is their fifth anniversary, or this is my first date.

And they're talking.

They're sitting in relative close proximity to these folks, and they're.

They're hearing them, you know, talk about the texture of the potato puree or the crispness of the.

The arugula on the salad.

And it really is, aha.

Moment for everybody.

And.

And then somehow, some way, it has strengthened the team.

Right, Because I think, oh, I get what we're doing and where we're going.

All the things that I've been hearing make total sense to me now.

And it's.

It's interesting that.

That most restaurants traditionally.

Now I can't speak for, obviously, what's happening now.

But as I was coming up, you weren't allowed in the restaurant.

You weren't even allowed to eat in the restaurant.

And what an interesting thing, right?

To be so disconnected from such an intimate experience.

I love that.

And I think about the power of reading a positive, like, diner review, but that brings it on such a more personal level.

And if you want your cooks to really take pride, then, like, yeah, I was dining.

I saw that, like, it's an experience that it's just so much more powerful.

It looks like your secret shopper hearing people beside you talk about the food that you might be cooking the next night.

Correct.

Or night before.

Wow.

And so then the conversations sometimes go from which are totally normal.

You know, it's like, it's a busy night and I've had to do X amount of yokis and to, you know, hey, is this gnocchi the right texture?

I think I'm right.

But I want you to double check, because when it's just right, that's when the magic happens.

And there's a little secret handshake to how we make it.

And then the person sauteing the fish would say, like, I like the color on this, but do you think that it could be a little less or a little more?

Because I saw one at the table the other day, and it really struck me as being, you know, so like, the details and the attention to detail and people striving to hit the right bullseye or smaller bullseye even has organically come out of this.

And the result is that when you walk in the door of the restaurants, both big and the ordinary, the cooks have their heads down.

There's no, like, hey, let's remember, you know, how important what we do is.

We don't have to talk about that very often.

They're given two tasks, right?

It's to, like, create a memory and to get better every day.

And those two things have really helped us, like, weed out a lot of the drama that comes with complacency or lack of vision or direction.

We say create a memory.

How does that show up?

Well, so that's my whole.

I threw some soul searching and.

Writing.

A proposal for my cookbook.

I've had a lot of.

I've had a lot of time to think about what I want to say and how I want and what makes me me, right?

And I've realized that my.

I was my DNA.

And I think DNA, when I say that, I mean kind of like your.

Your personality.

Most people in kitchens may or may not know It.

But they were almost predetermined to be there because there's.

There's such.

It's such a unique environment that appeals to certain people.

And when you find it, if you're in the kitchen, you don't have that.

We all know that you're not going to last a certain.

It could be a few years, it could be.

It could be 10 years.

But we just know that what you do is know that you're not going to take this to the next level.

You're going to like, it's fun and interesting for a time in your life.

But in other people, you can say though, this is what they're going to do because, because of all the things that happen.

But for me, I fit the personality.

But all through my life, I would remember food that I had, be it my grandmother or mostly my family.

At first because I was pretty blue collar.

Not a lot of dining, but it could have been a sub from, from the one place I love to get subs.

And why did I love it so much was the crackle of the crust.

The, the extra mayonnaise on the roast beef.

The.

I would ask them to flash it in the pizza oven and the lettuce and the tomato would catch a little bit of heat, but not too much.

And they put it together and there was like the right amount of mayonnaise and meat and the cheese was slightly melted and the lettuce was a little bit warm.

And I like the way that made it taste.

And like, so.

You're making me so hungry.

Talking about I would make a sandwich.

I was like, I want to make the sandwich that I love.

Of course you can't do that.

You can never make for yourself the things that gave you the memories.

I've also realized why.

So you're trying to capture a moment and you're.

I'm trying to capture a moment in my life.

Okay.

Because it meant so much to me.

My grandmother's omelette lives on in our house to this very day.

And, and I imposed it on my, my 13 year old Henry.

He probably ate an omelet five days a week for seven years.

What is the omelet?

Because he wanted it.

Because he wanted it.

Okay, well, we make them a couple different ways, but the bottom line is that I wanted my son to have that memory.

I wanted him to grow up thinking that his dad's omelets made it like I wanna.

And like that he would remember that the way that I remembered my grandmother's omelets, which as I grew up became more technical and more precise and more unattainable.

But when I was actually writing the intro to my cookbook, which is not near.

Anywhere near publishing.

Publishing, or maybe closer than I think, but I wanted to hone in on that idea of that omelette and that.

That.

That memory.

I'm striving to give you that memory.

With every plate that I give you, I want you to remember the meal that you had.

How do I do that?

Well, I find the best ingredients.

I create a good system, good team, obviously, but I'm relentlessly pursuing what are the ingredients conceptually of that omelette that made it memorable.

And I realized that I'm chasing a memory, and I can't really recreate that omelette.

And that omelette may not have been that great to begin with, for all I know, because I was so young.

But what it is is that there was a lot of love and a lot of care in my grand.

Like, her kitchen was like my big.

Everything that she did was delicious every single time to me.

I was a kid.

I don't know.

She was definitely a great cook, but that's what I took from it.

So my idea was what.

My realization was that, like, well, that's what I want fig to be.

I want you to walk in the door, and I want to feel like you're guaranteed to have something that's going to be delicious that you'll remember.

And so my number one priority from day one was like, okay, who.

Who am I as a chef?

And the first thing that I thought to myself was, I can't ever serve a bad plate of food.

How do I do that?

Well, I create systems which are way too complicated to talk about.

Well, what's your.

You don't have to go in great detail, but people like me who haven't worked in the industry, like, what is the backbone system that, you know, as a leader, like, that system has to be perfected every time to or.

Or be run smoothly to get the end result that you're going for.

So let's put it this way.

The system that I've developed is why anybody that's ever been with me has any had any success, if they buy into it, it's that we receive product from about 30 different purveyors.

That's a lot of time on the telephone.

Unfortunately, the younger generation is texting, which I strongly.

You have to have a phone conversation when you're talking about fish and you're talking to the.

The sales rep.

You know, when did the Fish come in, who caught it, exactly what doc did it come in on, as opposed to seeing a text.

I've got great black bass.

You'll love it.

I want to know more about it because I know the landings for the fish, I know the boats, I know how the boats handle the fish post harvest, so.

And that sales rep may or may not be having a good day, may be motivated to sell me that fish for some other reason.

We have trust that we built together, but I've got phone conversation.

Well, we have to manage products.

How was that trust built?

So one of the things I think about is you as a chef and I, I understand you started this system in Georgia, right?

When you were working, you were in Atlanta, you would go out and that's how you got in the Atlantic Journal Constitution food section a whole bunch.

Right, because people weren't.

You were, you were early on that trend, I guess, or whatever.

It happens to be the, that, that farm to table.

And now you're like sea to table, farm to table.

But I'll think about these purveyors, like the fishermen, people on farms, they speak a different language than you in the restaurant business.

They have different lives, they had different problems.

How are you developing these, these vital relationships for your business so quickly and effectively when they, they're kind of from a different, different part of the world?

It's an incredible question and we could do a four part series on that.

The farmer sees things differently than a chef.

A chef is very particular about a good chef, about everything that walks in the back door.

And traditionally you're buying commodity product, traditionally.

So you can say to your wholesaler, I would like, number one, zucchini.

Those are all the same size.

There, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, a measurement for the diameter and the length and the color and the lack of bruising.

And there's some consistency.

And there's some wholesalers that specialize in specialty produce.

So baby carrots, baby beets, they have specs.

But when you're dealing with a farmer, they have more trouble and more difficult things going on in their world than you do as a chef.

And they're at, they're, they're at the mercy of mother nature.

So what we say is this, we share values and we wouldn't go down the road if we didn't.

So I share your values and I make that very clear with the grower.

They want to grow sustainably or organically or they want to provide to restaurants because for whatever reason and they want to, you know, to sum it up, they want to have the best product.

And there's farmers out there that feel the same way about food, about growing food, that I feel about receiving, cooking and selling food.

So if we have the same values, then there's going to, there's going to be.

And they're pretty consistent problems, right?

It's like, well, they were out on the field, their tractor broke or it rained too much and the rain kicked up a bunch of sand on the lettuce and the lettuce became very sandy.

Or a new grower harvest something in the middle of the day.

But, you know, and that's not good because the summer heat wilted it.

And kind of by the time they get to the restaurant, it's not very good.

So you have to make a commitment to these growers.

So many variables.

We're in a relationship.

But you have to know that I'm, I want you to succeed.

I want you to succeed.

So when you make a mistake, I would say now you've just harvested 10 pounds of arugula that probably took you four hours and you picked it at noon and it's come wilted.

That was for a salad, but I can't use it for a salad anymore.

Most chefs back then would say, take it away.

Well, what is that farmer going to think?

Right?

The farmer is going to say, I don't want to deal with chefs.

Whereas what I would say was, I'm going to buy it, I'm going to, I'm a chef, I'm going to figure out, I'm going to make a ravioli and I'm going to grind it all up for that.

Or I'm going to serve it to my staff because they haven't tasted hand picked, you know, field grown arugula in, you know, late March.

It's the best time, whatever.

So I'll do something with it.

I'll eat it if I have to, literally.

But I just want financially and I'll just literally eat it.

But I just want you to know when you go back out to the field, I'm going to tell you what we're looking for.

And then I'm going to like, if I can communicate, like, you know how it works with communication, you can't expect just because you have a desire that they can, they could accommodate it.

Just because you articulated the first time, there's, there's some growing pains in there or some like trust building, what the question was.

So every time they would come in, I would take the position of like, I'm here to help you grow your business because I believe in what you can do.

And even though I was not so, you know, we weren't like, we were making a ton of money back then.

However, I.

I was like, what I really want to do is I want the growers to succeed because there aren't that many of them that are that.

That we share that many values.

We have a lot.

Yes.

But, like, it's not like they're everywhere.

How are you discovering?

Because you.

There are a lot of options.

What do you do to discover if someone has the same values?

Can you, like, show up at their farm and say, based on what I'm saying, you're my people.

Or is this like a word of mouth thing?

Or.

They will.

For the longest time, they, like, we had the reputation and still do, I hope, where new growers would come to us.

Okay.

And hear about you times.

Oftentimes, then we'd have a conversation when they brought their first samples or whatever.

Well, how do you do what you do?

Why do you do what you do?

And in those conversations, there's a bunch of buzzwords or just a general attitude that you can kind of, like, realize that, okay, this person's super passionate.

And we've got several examples of people.

Yeah.

What's one that's just blowing, like, would blow our mind in terms of.

Or surprise us?

Terms of.

There's one of my favorite.

One of my favorites.

I've got two favorites, but one of them is a woman named Rita Bachman.

She was a young girl, maybe in her 20s, and wanted to be a grower.

And she might be the arugula story.

And she is to this day an amazing woman and an amazing businesswoman.

Now she's.

This is 20 years now, probably she would, you know, she's like, I want to grow you the best product, you know, and I want.

I want to make a go of it as a farmer.

And she would come in with the arugula, and I would say, okay, next time, let's do a little bit better.

And her spunk and zest for doing well and passion for what she did, which we look for in young people, is sometimes, you know, like, we would argue a little bit and I would say, rita, I'm on your side, you know, and like.

And we eventually, almost immediately had a really, I think, wonderful relationship.

But as we went along together, because, of course, we're learning too all the time, we developed, you know, I could tell that she.

Her desire to do well and do it the Right way was obvious to me.

So I'm like, if you, if you'll be patient, I'll be patient.

Let's see if we can help each other.

And my end goal really was to get more farmers acclimated to selling chefs.

And then I would turn those farmers onto chefs that I know weren't the kind of chefs that would kick back the carrots if they all weren't the exact same size.

Like, do you want, do you want 25 pounds of flavorful carrots where you've got to kind of grade them yourself, or do you want some from California that were picked 45 days ago that are all the same size?

And I would then take the growers like Rita and send them to different restaurants.

Back then, like Frank Lee, there was a kid named Craig Deal who's no longer in the, in the community, Kevin Johnson, who took my job at Anson, and at one point.

And I would, I would send the growers, that's okay, now go try this person.

They're.

They're going to be kind of similar to us in, in the way that they talk to you and handle you.

So then we felt like, okay, let's get them established because we like what they do.

Let's.

Let's learn to do the business together, which was the hard part.

Like, don't drop the food off at 9:00 at night.

Know that we have to inspect it when it walks in and give you feedback.

Right, right, right away.

And how can we, how can we create a relationship that's beneficial for both of us?

And at the end of the day, my real goal and this to this day, is like, I want the people that sell to us grow for us, sketch for us to feel like they have somebody that's supporting them in a way that's just beyond the dollar and that really want them to succeed and with the hope that they feel the same way about us.

So when I call and I say, hey, I've got a, you know, I'm looking for this, they're like, oh, I've got a field.

You know, we're gonna stay on the arugula train if you want to.

I've got a field of arugula that just came up.

So.

And like we talked about, the texture that you're looking for is just right.

And the heat from, you know, the heat on the arugula is just right.

I know what you want and I want.

And I want to pick it for you.

And then I would say, well, if you pick it early, are you going to lose money.

And they would say, yeah, if I let it grow for a week, I could probably make twice as much on it by the pound.

And I'd say, well, why don't I give you an extra buck or two a pound for it?

And so then it would just be this, you know, how do we, how do we, how do we have the beneficial relate.

How are we going to be partners?

Be partners, right.

And there's another fisherman named Mark Marhevka who was the only, and still is the only person that.

Well, I don't know that for sure, is one of the only people that goes out, catches the fish and then can sell it directly to the chefs.

And everybody in Charleston's been on the receiving side of this amazing fish for a very long time.

Mark and I worked for years on because he was the same way.

How do I be the best fisherman?

How do I bring you the best fish?

And we would analyze his post harvest handling.

Same thing as the arugula in the hot field.

How are you catching, what happens to the fish after you catch it?

You just throw it in the, throw it in the hole with a bunch of ice.

Which turned into him hand packing every fish in the cavity with ice and lining them up like soldiers so the meat would retain the integrity and like.

So over the course of a couple of years, Mark and I worked very closely together to where I would buy, you know, he, in being his small and independent, I would buy a lot of his product, spread the word.

And then together we're like, well, how do we have the best opportunity?

You love fish.

He's got incredible philosophies about hunting for seafood being the only wild fish that we eat, which is true and amazing, right?

And how he wants to have the premier product.

So then we would be on the receiving side of that product through our relationship.

And then we would then in turn bring product to the market that had never been eaten before.

Or teaching people that actually amberjack is not garbage.

And there's species that we used.

We've, we've introduced species over the last 20 years together.

Because if the fish came off a Mark's boat, it was handled in such a way that we, myself and then my team on this, on the floor had the confidence that you were about to try something that was truly remarkable.

And that's kind of how we've always dealt with our purveyors.

So then Mark and I would always say to each other that we're, we're in business together and I'll do whatever I Can to keep you on the water.

And he'll say, I'll do whatever I can to keep people having the same kind of seafood experience at your restaurant.

Which I would argue whether, I mean, let's say we did our jobs properly in the kitchen on any given night.

How could you replicate that experience easily anywhere else?

Anywhere else?

Let's just say the east coast, you know, that kind of relationship, that kind of attention to detail from both sides and then.

But I think the desire to see each person succeed, I think really is what helped, gave us an edge, honestly.

So that is like an MBA course in creating win win relationships where, you know, you're not negotiating with your suppliers to get an edge and to beat them up on price and to just, you know, have a win lose relationship.

You're setting, you're having a, you have a mindset of abundance and hey, there's enough in this world for all of us to win and to become strong.

And also, I'm pointing out the listeners, you, you aren't just trying to keep your suppliers to yourself.

You've actually made introductions to other restaurants to help them grow too.

And so when you go to eat it figure the ordinary, you're eating the win win relationship right there.

And that probably shows up in the food.

Yeah, I could even, I could even.

I'm not going to, but like, I could get teary eyed thinking about if you really kind of step back and sit on that idea for a little while.

And the length of time that that's been happening in the city with ourselves and other chefs and other purveyors.

And you think about.

And there's a third leg to the stool when it comes to why our town is so successful that way.

But you think about that, the size of our city, the resources that we have, the relationships that we've built to produce that kind of a product.

It's like, I'm so proud of that.

I'm so proud of my fellow chefs.

The guests that trust us, which is the third leg of the stool.

They're demanding.

Not demanding, they are.

Their desire to have an experience that may be a little uncomfortable.

To eat a piece of amberjack or rudderfish, or to be honest with you, in 1998, that word, that fish was trigger fish.

No, was eating triggerfish.

When I moved to town, that was my first, you know, discovery.

And how that has affected so many people.

Right.

Our community at large.

Right.

And then, you know, and then out from there.

Well, I want to go back to the pandemic in a minute, but I.

There's a quote that I read or that I heard you say you've said that food can erase prejudices.

Where has that shown up for you?

So I say a lot of stuff and, and I feel without remembering back.

To what it was.

No, no.

Well, when you say the word prejudice, I think you think differently.

Well, well, I can think of it a lot of different ways.

The prejudice here is.

So when you're in a creative field, you come up at a certain time when certain things are popular and certain things are certain ways.

Right.

And, and I'll give you an example.

The flourless chocolate cake.

Have you ever had the molten lava chocolate cake before?

Yes, recently.

So this cake was invented or at least discovered.

However, there's a little bit of controversy about where maybe, let's say the late 80s or something like that, or maybe even the 90s, but, oh, 30 years ago or whatever.

And this cake is very easy to make and it's just a half baked chocolate cake is what it is.

And if you cook it right, the chocolate will come out oozing and warm.

If you've ever had one, you'll know that it's delicious.

But when Applebee's starts to put it on the menu, then you're like, well, there's no way I can sell that anymore.

I can't sell the same thing Applebee's is selling.

And there's a.

There's so many of those things that you might.

Well, any creative medium is going to produce things that are happening now that become stayed or trite or whatever for a certain amount of time with food.

I could give you another great example would be when I first moved to town, only the touristy restaurants were serving shrimp and grits.

There was a number of things that I wouldn't cook at Fig because they were, because what people understood them as were, you know, a pile of grits that were pulled out of a steam table covered with a thick cream, which, you know, can be fine shrimp that were imported.

And then, then whatever else the chef thought might go on top of that, with no context to why that dish exists to begin with, why it's important to our community.

And it's like it become a caricature of itself.

So then creatively, as you go to approach your menu, and there's a whole part of my career where we just rediscovered heirloom grains and reintroduced cultural and, you know, culinary ingredient like ingredients that were important to Charleston.

When you go to put a shrimp and grits on the menu, you're like, well, you know, I've got it.

And the answer is like, no, no, no.

Cook with your heart.

Cook.

Do what you think is right.

Don't let the.

Don't let the reputation or the.

You know, don't be prejudiced about what this dish represents, right?

Take the ingredients and put.

If you believe in it, do it and erase your preconception or your prejudice, your own prejudices about the dish.

Don't let that get in your way, because then you start closing doors.

And when you close those doors, you become less creative, less free.

And I think you kind of muffle your own voice a little bit and suppress it.

And all of those things, I think, are very negative when it comes to creating.

I think you want to open as many doors and open as many windows as possible and believe in your ability to do it better and different or do it in a way that you're proud of.

And I think that the creative process has a lot of things that challenge your confidence.

You know, anybody that writes feels that way.

It seems to me, all the time when you create something permanent.

I'm sure painters that way with food, it has to be replicated.

The difference about food is that it is a creative endeavor, at least for a lot of us.

But everybody's an expert on what they like to put in their mouth.

So.

And everybody's got a grandmother who made an omelette or something like that.

So we have to compete with whether or not it's sophisticated or not.

It's the reality of what people want to eat so creatively, or they're.

Or them thinking shrimp and grits should be a certain way, you know, or, you know, that it should be like the touristy versions that I came into the city eating.

So I think you just have to ignore all of that.

So that's where that comes from.

Um, do you feel like you have a.

Do you.

Do you create and cook with, like, a chip on your shoulder sometimes of, like, hey, people do not see this the way I see the possibility.

And you're, like, tackling that fish.

You're tackling shrimp and grits, and you're gonna drive down with the restaurant.

You're like, does that drive you?

I don't know, but I think that triple grips is going to pop on our menu in the ordinary probably a couple weeks after this conversation, because I got excited about it.

Does that drive you?

So as you're Any.

Anybody that has to express themselves goes through a metamorphosis from their, let's say, early years until they're.

Until they've you know, they realize there's no real secret handshake or mystery to it.

Right.

That there's no magic that you need to capture.

It's just like hard work, repetition, honing your skill and.

And getting better at what you.

And realizing who you are and how you want to express yourself.

When you don't have that vision, I think you have a chip on your shoulder.

I think that you don't understand yourself so much and.

But you see yourself a little bit like, I'm a man of integrity.

I'm a chef with integrity.

I.

I find the best products.

But if you can't quite get to the finish line, the way that your brain in the way that you envision is a very frustrating situation.

And there's.

I don't know if there's a way to really talk through that with anybody, because they have to kind of go through that, I think be in any.

Any, like, music or.

Or, you know, art of any kind.

So I think that you go with being frustrated that your mind might be ahead of your hands.

And then, you know, the chip.

And I think the chip on the show.

If I had a chip on my shoulder, it would be that nowadays.

And I don't.

If I ever had one.

It probably really came from, like, we have created a menu with lots of options, with lots of alternatives, be it dietary, be it making sure that even at the ordinary, that if you didn't eat seafood, that you would be.

Find some craveable things to want to come back to.

We've thought about it all from a business standpoint.

We don't want to isolate or exclude.

We want to have a vision, and we want to differentiate.

So we have to have a point of view.

It's when you.

You put all of that work into intellectually and then physically into.

We're about to open for dinner.

Here we go.

And the first order comes in, and it's like every dish, they want some other different way as opposed to.

I don't reimagine it.

The grouper has pork on it.

There's a pork broth with a roasted grouper.

But over next to it is a piece of snapper that was sauteed in brown butter with lemon and capers.

That is 100% pescatarian.

Yes.

And an excellent dish.

Example.

Make my meat dish.

They want the grouper without the pork.

And you're like, why would you want that?

It's not going to work the same way.

And then like, when I'm finished with.

Yeah, when I'm finished with it.

You're going to have a piece of plain fish on the plate that's going to be cooked with love, I promise.

Well, with love.

But it's your.

Like, what gets you up in the morning is like, how do I.

How do I play this chess match?

How do I position myself strategically to be competitive and then inspired?

How do I inspire myself?

How do I look forward to getting to work in the morning?

How do I build on what I'm building on?

Let's talk about inspiration.

So that's, that's.

That sometimes.

Yeah.

You know, there was a point in my career where that was really.

I don't.

It doesn't.

Doesn't bother me anymore.

So inspiration, since we're, since, since you mentioned that, two points of inspiration that I can.

That I'm curious, like, what inspires you?

Because I, I remember you sharing with me about Julia Child in that role.

And I understand you took a trip to France at one point in your career, and you had one meal in France that sparked the idea for a restaurant where.

And maybe, maybe touch on those.

But also, where are you going today to get inspired?

Where people know you.

They.

I mean, you're sort of like a celebrity chef.

Like, where, where are you going to get inspired now in a city where you're kind of already well known in that way?

Two very different places.

Right.

Where we.

Where do we start and where are we now?

I think, you know, so originally.

So by the time I was ready to do fig, I was 20.

Well, when I, when I decided to do Fig, I was night.

It was 2001, so I was 29 years old and I went to France.

I already had a perspective.

I'd already been in Atlanta cooking.

And you mentioned about, you know, I got some recognition.

That recognition brought me to Charleston.

I got recruited to come to Charleston to continue that work at, at Anson.

And when I realized that, I was inhibited to realizing what I was doing because the restaurant had an ownership dynamic that didn't allow for me to really exercise my vision, which was totally fine.

So I was like, I'm going to go do my own thing.

And so.

And my vision was, it's like, I live on the coast.

I have beautiful produce, I have beautiful fish.

But most restaurants in town are, are, are seem to be like, so beholden to their, their signature dishes.

So if it was a flounder dish or a grouper dish or an asparagus dish, and they wanted to have that year round, that asparagus would be coming from, you know, from Nicaragua, Chile, you Know, potentially, you know, somewhere, you know, that covers the whole north, the Americas, you know, somewhere from the Americas the grouper might come from.

The grouper might come from Thailand sometimes or it might come from South America where we don't know what the fishing regulations are, if the practices are good.

And I was like, I hated that, right?

And I was like, so in order for me to express myself, my vision, I, I need to be running my own restaurant.

So I was, I had a clear vision about at least that simple food, the freshest possible because that's how I built my, my, that's how I built my, my self guided career.

While in, in Nice, I saw a restaurant called La Miranda and there's a big article about it in Savor magazine when I was, you know, 1995 or so.

And I kept the article because what they, the way they wrote about it was very impressive to me.

And so I decided to go to work in Nice.

Cold call, sight unseen, just took a flight there, knocked on some doors, knocked on that one.

That didn't happen, but I really wanted to eat there.

And then what.

This is like, this is like what I was excited about before and this is what I'm still excited about now.

That restaurant was a small 30 seat restaurant, no reservation, no telephone, no credit cards back in 2001.

It was a shotgun place with a beaded door.

And inside behind the stove was a classically trained chef who was on a trajectory to be the next celebrity chef in France.

He at probably in his mid-30s, early-30s, said I don't want to cook like this anymore.

I don't want to cook precious food.

I want to cook the food of my people, which is from Nice.

I want to cook nicoise food.

I want to cook traditional Nice SW food, kind of like the shrimp and grits I was talking about.

And I want to do it in a way that is like you've never had it before.

And how is that?

Well, with integrity, with good ingredients, the ingredients from my area.

But I'm not just going to buy the olives for my commodity guy.

I'm going to have the olives for my neighbor and I'm going to have the, the lamb from so and so and you know, and so on and so forth.

So when you walk in the door, the menu is very simple and the food you were familiar with for the most part, especially if you're French.

And it was the traditional nicoise food which was being sold everywhere in touristy restaurants.

His version was prepared with technic for technique and the quality of ingredients were so elevated that I was like, oh, I get it.

This is amazing.

And it was like, oh, there's a really magic thing that happens when you give somebody something that they're familiar with, but you do it in a way that they've never had it before.

Not by reinventing it, by breaking it down and looking at every step and ingredient along the way and making sure that every part of it feeds this.

Like, this is the best version of this you could possibly have.

You know, obviously, that's subjective.

And I was like, there's something that gets me excited about that moment.

What's that?

So it's not like the light bulb went off while you were having the meal.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes, it certainly did.

And then on top of that, it created a sense of place, which I was very passionate about already.

You know, like, when I talk about soft shell crabs from Charleston, I was like, oh, by the way, do you know that those crabs come from a shedder in Shem Creek?

And as soon as that they peel, you know, the shell comes off, they bring them directly to the restaurant.

We clean them and cook them that night.

Not much of a better expression than that.

And I think that if you fill your restaurant with those ingredients and the city has those ingredients available, you're creating a sense of place.

And I think that's a very powerful thing to somebody who doesn't live in Charleston.

Wow.

Well, to those that live there, but those that don't come in and they eat at the best restaurants in town, they go, well, there's something happening here.

It's like, oh, yeah, by the way, we're all using the same people, the same growers, and all that stuff is, like, incredibly special.

And whether you know it or not, consciously, you're going to leave town saying, that was a unique expression, you know, and I think that's very powerful.

Wow.

So we all of those things kind of fed into the inspiration.

And nowadays, honestly, like, I put so much, so many years and thought into it, we're still trying to, like, find ways to refine our cooking, but the formula for how we look for new dishes, which could be whimsical, could be traditional, and we have our inspiration, you know, generally, is, you know, is it the best product?

Are we, you know, let's show some restraint.

Let's make sure technique is involved in finesse.

But nowadays, I want to see cooks progress under my mentorship.

I want to see them go from uncertain or they can't quite put it together themselves.

Like, I'm more interested, I Want the food that comes out of the kitchen to feel and be the same.

But ultimately I want to do it with somebody.

I want to.

I want to help other people do it.

Wow.

Well, I'm inspired to share that I've climbed that mountain.

I still, I'm up there grinding on it.

But it's.

To me, many of the lessons that I'm teaching now could seem somewhat remedial.

Like what.

What's remedial to me or what I might assume you should know.

I'm like, no, let's teach those things and make sure that we, we all, you know, so we spent a lot of time talking about how did Fig get to where it is or the ordinary and, you know, what's important about our culinary philosophy.

And, you know, let's make sure that you're looking at it the way that I'm looking at it so you understand the value of it.

And I believe that if you do it, if you cook with integrity, heart.

Right.

If you cook with love, that definitely translates to the plate, no matter how big of a mistake you've made.

Well, you know what I mean.

I think if you cook with love and intention, that comes through, even if you've made some errors.

And I think that if you, if you put technique and ingredients and sensibility first, that's your foundation.

From there, you can go anywhere you want to go.

Oh, I love that.

And building on that.

So a friend of mine who I've coached a lot of rec league sports with, Trey Dutton, who, Who used to work on your.

Oh, yeah.

He sent me a picture of, of a sign, I think at the ordinary.

Cleanliness and ordealous or orderliness are outward indicators of those larger inward feelings of pride and self esteem.

And don't try to be original.

Be simple.

Be good technically.

And if there is something in you, it will come out what those are.

That is bold.

That sounds like a leadership vision for all leadership visions.

Where did that, when did that crystallize for you and your career?

And when you share that with somebody for the first time, what's the response you get?

I think both of those things need time to sit.

You know, the, the first quote about cleanliness and orderliness, I think that's pretty cut and dry.

It's, it's, it's a, a very wordy way for me to communicate that you're part of this team.

Let your presentation and the way that you approach your responsibilities in your, you know, what we call a station, your area, let that show us that you are part of progress and that you're paying attention to the culture around you that we're all striving for.

And so take a minute before you show up to work and get yourself in order.

And while you're there, if you're naturally organized, then great.

If you're not, identify that and work towards it, and that will perpetuate that behavior.

I think as you have a team of people that buy into that, when somebody walks in the door, they're going to be pulled in that direction.

And the other one really doesn't apply to everybody right away because they're not always in a position to be creative.

And I think that is me.

I always try to.

To talk about the creative process to people and how individual it is.

The process itself is individual because it's like, how do you take the idea and then how does it become realized?

I think that's very individual, and I try to talk about that.

The process is how important the process is, and the outcome is, you know, sometimes not as important or you have to learn to love the process.

And that is a personal thing.

And, and like I said earlier about the prejudices, it's like, get out of your own way.

Don't think about the roadblocks.

Don't think about your insecurities.

Don't work on your technique.

Right.

And I, and I've.

And I always say, like, if you put a perfect plate of food and if you put a beautiful plate of food in front of somebody and it's not original at all, I don't think they're going to look at that plate of food and wish they were somewhere else.

I think they're going to think about, I'm hungry and this is delicious.

I find a lot of value in that care that's been put in this plate.

And I think from a restaurant tour perspective, if you're able to string four dishes together, that, that, that do that, then there's no way you're going to go out of business.

Right.

Or at least there's no way that you're going to turn people off from your restaurant because of the food experience.

And so as you understand the craft, you.

Then you'll be amazed at how inspiration, you know, and songwriters say this all the time.

My greatest songs were written in 15 seconds, so.

And you never know when that, that lightning is going to strike.

If you strive for it, you have to, you have to understand creatively that there's going to be peaks and valleys.

Season.

Seasons.

Right.

Not quite literally of, of creativity.

And when it's the winter metaphorically you have to rely on the things that you've done and your technique or things that have been done.

You can, you know, make a potato leak soup that's ethereal.

Right.

That's like an old recipe that's been around for a million years.

If you do it right, it's going to provide the experience that I just mentioned.

It's like, it's.

The texture is amazing, the color is amazing.

It's hot and, you know, seasoned beautifully.

It's like they'll be satisfied with that selection.

And so the creativity, when you become prolific, you know, you never know when it's going to come.

And it comes, you know, it's kind of like a golf game.

You struggle all the time to make it happen, and then all of a sudden you're just like, wow, where's all this coming from?

Yeah, if there.

I love that last line.

If there's something in you, it will come out, but it's like, put the work in, stay focused.

And there's a.

And you don't say that in this expression, but when I think of.

You're like, encouraging them to put the time in and trust yourself, trust that it will come.

And there can be so much encouragement in that.

Now we don't have a lot of time left, but I want to bring you back to the pandemic and.

And maybe finish that sort of show talking, maybe talk to them about the vision that you had and how maybe it shifted a bit during that and where.

Where it's led you today and your two successful businesses.

Well, a lot of things happened post pandemic.

Right.

Right.

We all.

We were all uneasy on March 17, like, oh, my God, are we gonna lose our restaurants?

Like, what is happening, really?

I mean, looking back on it, I would strip down.

My wife was pregnant.

I would strip down because this is what we were told we needed to do, and take my clothes off in the front door and walk in naked.

And immediately in the shower, the FedEx guy would throw a box at me from halfway across the lawn.

We didn't know what was going on, but it didn't take long before we realized that there was going to be some support and stimulus in the PPP and some incentives to retain employees, etc.

So at one point in time, we were like, okay, I think it's going to be okay.

And we seem to live in an area unlike LA or New York, where we can get back to business pretty quickly.

And we did about eight weeks later.

And then you're in this honeymoon period, which maybe There's a better word for it of like, we're back, we're in it.

How do we figure it out?

You said you dined, you were anxious about dining.

Well, nobody in our team got Covid for, for, I don't know, eight months.

So we were waiting for the chew to drop.

Every day I'm washing dishes every night, getting splashed up with people's food scraps.

And I couldn't help it.

You know, I wipe my, wipe my forehead with my hand after I cleaned a plate and go, oh, there it is, I've got Covid.

And it didn't happen for years, but it wasn't until 2022 when that pent up demand was in full swing.

And Charleston couldn't have been busier.

Weddings seven days a week because of the backlogging of, of, you know, what happened during COVID We couldn't have been busier.

No restrictions were in place at that time.

And the labor market completely dried up and we had to.

It was very difficult to maintain a good attitude every day when people would just not show up for work that had been employees for some time or they're a brand new hire, applicants that express an interest in working for us would make an appointment to work with us for the day to see if we were a good fit, which is called a stage.

We do that, it's a working interview.

They would not show up for that.

And then we would find with just regular, our loyal, good employees, there's going to be an attrition.

For how long is a 22 year old going to stay in Charleston as a line cook?

Like, maybe they want to move to California, maybe they want to move to New Orleans or somebody's mother got sick, they had to go back home.

So the natural things of that, you know, the attrition that happens normally with staffing, you know, mind you, we have 100 people for the two restaurants, you know, 10 are just kind of flowing out, you know, often.

But we couldn't replace anybody because there was no resumes.

And this is like when people, there's so many things that you get older.

Like when I tell my son he can do anything he wants to do.

I heard that same story.

I didn't believe a word of it, right?

Didn't believe a word of it when I was a kid because I had too many things that I wasn't good at.

But one day we walked in and we had done so many things to generate resumes.

Every Monday morning we would look at all the outlets online, LinkedIn, you know, Craigslist.

There's a company called Culinary Agents that we used, and there was like this.

These clearinghouse websites where if you put the ad out there, they would populate all of the places where ads went.

Those were flooded with ads.

So every Monday, we rewrite our ads, rename our positions up the hourly wage, which was like, every two weeks, we're like, I guess we're not paying enough.

There's somebody paying a dollar more an hour.

We can't be.

How do we get people in the door?

We have to make sure that we're offering the most amount of money.

Check that box.

We can't let the fact that we want to charge a dollar less slow us down.

So we're going to.

We're going to make sure that we're offering the most money, you know, or at least close to it.

We're going to make sure that we change the wording so we can make the job sound more inviting.

Every Monday morning, we flood the market or the Internet with all these new ads.

It could be for a fishmonger one day, pastry chef, pastry cook, am culinary position, generically, team member, whatever you want to call it.

And this wasn't really working.

It was helping, but it was the day that really, I was so flabbergasted and frustrated and questioning the sustainability.

I have two kids, two young kids, three kids all together, two babies.

I can't do this anymore.

And then one day I just walked in.

I said, well, you know, well, first of all, I was like, what the hell else am I going to do?

And the second, I was like, am I going to let this beat me?

And I was like.

I said, from this point forward, I'm done with the worry part of it, because it can't get much worse than this.

So what am I worried about?

And then I kind of like, for a couple of days, that incubated with me.

And then I showed up one day and I addressed the team, and I said, we're no longer going to talk about how hard it is to find employees.

We're no longer going to talk about how these.

These entitled people want to have it their way when they walk in the door.

We're no longer going to judge people.

We're no longer going to look at the situation.

And I say judge people.

That's kind of just what I mentioned about the generation that doesn't want to work.

I was like, all of that stuff is just noise that is preventing us from enjoying ourselves.

Now there's some.

There's some reality to, like, you know, the days were longer.

I was washing dishes all the time.

You know, I was working in my business very much, not on my business business.

And I just said, I'm done.

I'm done with it.

I don't hear it.

I don't hear it anywhere.

I said, we get to.

Still, we're.

We're supporting more than ever local farmers, local fishermen.

We are providing a much needed respite from all the stress in the world to people that are coming back to our restaurants, and they're eagerly doing so.

And they were so joyful to be there.

And it was always evident in the way they express themselves, you know, and we work in a beautiful.

Two beautiful, you know, kitchens or restaurants, because this was an message to everybody.

And we're providing.

We're consistently providing experience that are making people very happy.

I was like, God, it could be so much worse.

Couldn't it be so much worse?

And we're making a living, right?

It's like we're doing all of the things that we want to do, we need to do, and it's.

And we're safe, right?

You're working for a company that cares.

So if you don't feel well, you don't have to come in.

And if somebody doesn't feel well and doesn't come in, we're not going to talk about how they should be here or that they're faking it or whatever.

It's like no more feeling sorry for ourselves.

Let's just focus on the things that we love.

And in hindsight, you know, as I'm telling you this, it sounds like something that anybody might come to that conclusion.

But at that moment in time, it was.

It was a seismic shift for us.

And, and we had reevaluated our systems to, To.

To.

Well, first of all, we had to do like, you know, our, you know, we had to do some auditing.

Right.

Me too.

Okay, we're good.

You know, we had been providing health care already.

We had been doing a lot of things right from an employee perspective at that time, the bear came out.

The restaurant industry is being vilified at the same time all this was happening.

And we're like, oh, how about the $5 million that we've raised last year as a community for all the charities?

Who's the first person you call when you want money for your charity?

It's your favorite restaurant.

Who's been doing that forever?

Where's the stories about?

To this very day, those stories are still coming out about the restaurant industry being toxic.

And it's like, there are so many amazing things about the business.

Yeah.

And the conversation generally is.

It's not tenable for anybody.

Which is a crock of shit.

Sorry.

But we just went.

We focused on the positive.

We addressed those things internally to make sure that we were in good shape.

And then we just pointed our compass north.

And I swear to God, I don't know if a bunch of people moved to Charleston at that time or what happened or the word got out that we were having a good time, but it was a very quick pivot.

I didn't want to use that word.

We shifted so quickly from what was me to look at us go.

And I don't know if I can put my finger on anything else other than it was an.

It was a perspective adjustment.

And if there's something good, it will come out.

Yeah.

Apparently it did.

Three years later, right to the.

To.

Well, just about three years later.

We have the most.

We've evolved.

We've leapfrogged where we were and where we would be if that never happened.

Not because there was negative things happening, because we had to be innovative in the way that we thought about.

Yeah.

I want to be a competitive too.

And I want the customers to say the food at our restaurants is better.

That's why they want to go there.

But maybe nowadays, more importantly, I want the word in the street to be like, this company is so great to work for.

How could I think about leaving or going anywhere else?

Or I want to be part of it.

And that.

That is because if you can get that done, and I think a lot of people understand this, making it happen is a different story.

That if, if, if, if.

If your people are at home excited to come to work, you.

That what isn't possible.

Right.

If, you know, if you're.

If you've got chaos in your organization, it's just a matter of time before it blows up.

Right.

So that's kind of how we looked at it and the lessons we learned through that first real test of ours and the length of time we had to endure it has really made us.

Has made us all happier, more fulfilled.

And we still have issues like any business has issues.

But honestly, it's never been better.

So compelling.

And to bring it full circle, that night when my wife and I were sitting outside for our first pandemic dining experience at fig, I had just launched this podcast.

No kidding.

I was just talking about.

Was talking about, hey, I just interviewed.

You know, that's my first guest on this show.

And we were making a pandemic with our leadership training on that.

But, yeah, an incredible story today of vision.

And I had a couple of wild card responses I wanted to get from you.

Number one, when I throw out French toast, and I remember I heard a story about your mom and you improving upon her recipe as a.

When you were young.

What is the best way to cook French toast at home now, based on your perspective?

Well, lots of, you know, for the.

Common man like me, what kind of.

Bread do you have?

Is the first question.

Right.

You really need to figure out what you like best.

Right.

So the story you're referring to is that, you know, when we.

So let's say that I cook my French toast in an iron skillet.

I have one that I like.

It's got the right depth in the sides, and it holds the right amount of toast for the size of my family.

So I can do two runs.

Two, Two full pans will feed everybody.

You know, slicing the bread the night before makes you feel like you win when you wake up for some reason.

And putting it in the casserole dish that you're going to use to pour the egg mixture over the top of the custard mixture.

So figuring out, you know, like, don't put too much milk or cream in there.

We like to use sourdough bread.

We like to use good bread.

But you can anything.

But what you're referring to is that when you put the butter, we do it in whole butter.

So put the butter in the pan, and when you melt the butter, it's ready to go.

You put the French toast in the butter that's in the pan.

While the French toast is browning, the butter browns with it.

And when it does that, it kind of crisps the first side.

And conversely, at the same time, it soaks up all the butter.

And so when you flip it, you see this golden brown, nutty, crispy, beautiful.

The backside is always, like spotty, mostly yellow with a couple of points where the toast.

So you've soaked all the butter up.

So the bread's.

If it's curved at all, only where it's touching the pan is it going to catch any color.

It never looks as good as the first side.

And I identified that as a young kid and I said to my grand.

It was.

My grandmother actually said, what if you had a second pan going and you put butter in the second pan and then you flipped from one pan to the next and.

And we used to do that.

But the trick is, the trick is you got to put a little salt on top of the Toast when it comes out.

Okay, duly noted.

Tiny bit of sea salt.

Because when it hits that maple syrup.

Good, good, good culinary tip.

Location for best soft serve.

I understand your culinary star was serving soft serve ice cream, is that right?

Yeah.

Where do you go nowadays or.

Or what?

Makes not a lot of good.

Like there's not a lot of options that I can think of.

Turbo cone makes us all very good.

Shout out to turbocone.

One of our favorites too.

That's all I get.

The summer.

So putting a cherry on top of the center of you might.

What's your parting thought for our listeners and thank you for spending so much darn time with us today.

Know well in the context of.

Of.

Of leadership, I guess would be the.

Sounds great.

Well, this is what I say to everybody.

And I don't know if this is a routine answer or, or a.

You know, it's like when you're a leader, first of all, you have to be true to yourself.

You have to believe in what you're doing and you have to love what you're doing.

And I think to sustain that throughout your career, you have to ask yourself, how do I make it fun?

And you have to be willing to think about new ways to do that.

Right.

So if you're having a good time, everything else is so much easier.

If you're getting close to.

If you feel like you're grinding and it's got this relentless kind of vibe to it.

I think that it's just a matter of time before you're standing in a place that you don't recognize I don't want to be involved in.

So I think you have to ask yourself, what do I need to do to make this fun?

And you have to be creative about that.

But I think one thing that you have to continue to do, you know, and you mentioned it before about articulating the vision, is you have to have some people on your side that.

That can help you articulate that vision, that buy into your vision.

And then what I tend to say, the people who find the value in working alongside of you that are have permission to challenge you respectfully.

Because we all know that when you're making decisions all the time, sometimes you get a little fatigue and that they believe in what they believe in too, and that they have permission to challenge you.

And I think that when you share that responsibility of leadership, it becomes more fun when you do it.

When you, when you can help, when you can lean on somebody else to help you through the day that you're maybe not feeling so great about it, but somebody has to be breathing, has to fill the room with, with, with air pressure, positive pressure.

That positive pressure is kind of like what happened with the, the pandemic when we started to say no more.

We feel sorry for ourselves every day.

Fill the room with positive air.

If you don't just like your house in the summertime, that, that, that, that crappy humid air is going to start coming in and getting things all mucky, like, you know, that's when the quote, unquote cancer shows up is when the negative pressure, which is in everybody, right?

The negative voice, the negative ideas, the complaining, the change that's part of everybody that's so consistent.

So I don't resent people for that, but I know that I have to act proactively to make sure that doesn't exist.

And if the messaging is good enough, people don't feel comfortable sharing the negative things as much and they eventually, you know, buy into it.

And sometimes it takes them leaving to know what they were in.

But overall, that's kind of my vibe.

Wow, what an interview.

And I'm starving.

I need to go to figure or the Ordinary.

Love them both.

Thank you for being so generous with your personal stories, insights and I hope everybody gets to try Fig and the Ordinary.

It's something special.

Appreciate it.