#6 - Every Darned Restaurant... (46:07)

Restaurant Reality Show

Lawrence: [00:00:00] I actually first met you when I was bouncing at Off Shore. The after hours club. Yep.

Sam: Oh yes. The after hours club. Cape Henry. Right. That was, uh, that was an interesting time of life, you know, it was, uh, for me, certainly work-wise it was, it was very interesting because I was that time.

I was waiting tables five nights a week and the same five nights a week, I would, you know, I'd get off work there at, you know, nine, 10 o'clock. And then at 1230, the after hours club would open. So I'd have like this little two-hour span during which I'd go around and stop and other places around the beach and say, you know, Hey you guys coming up tonight, et cetera.

And then go and work until seven 30 in the morning

for a bit, and then go to the restaurant the next day.

Interesting life work, go drink, and then go out and get up and go back to the restaurant. Yeah, seriously? It's uh, yeah, so, okay. So yeah. So you cooked at coyote. What else did you work after? Cause I left coyote in 96 when 95, 96. Yeah, I guess there's 96. Where else did you work after that? Or how long did you stay at coyote?

Lawrence: [00:01:51] Um, not too long lunches. And, um, Mike and Corey hired me over at Atlas.

Sam: [00:02:00] Okay.

Lawrence: [00:02:01] Paid me a lot more money, you know, so I didn't have to work too because I was a coyote on balsa doing the catering for Henry's not leave coyote and go over and. We be upstairs room and cater over there. Yep. And then, uh, and then I got into catering with Gary, but then I took some on my own, down at, um, uh, town point park, the TTI,

um, the head of development came and found me at, uh, Atlas. We had Gary and I had done a joint effort down there, but he couldn't make it. So I did the whole thing, which is in both our names. Hmm. He wanted me to do all the, uh, VIP tents. Very cool. So I would do the VIP tents on stage left, and then they would rent out stage.

Right. And tell and tell whoever ran it. I was their preferred caterer. So I used to get a lot of jobs like that.

Sam: [00:03:03] That's not a bad gig, frankly.

Lawrence: [00:03:07] Because I'd be running lunches and Atlas and hunger, a guy to go to five one. They let me use that to prep for that night. Then load up the car with all the food down to town point, get all that done.

Then head up to, uh, one of the bars and Waterside go down to Sidney's place. I hang out there.

Sam: [00:03:35] It's wild. What was it like working at Atlas? I was always, you know, cause I, I then moved out of town and, you know, essentially at 96, um, but came back with some frequency and I always ended up eating it at one of the Atlas diners. And I, I always thought that wouldn't seem to be a smart move. It was kind of like they'd, they'd figured out how to.

To almost standardized to some, to some idea, you know, their location so they could keep opening new ones. Was that kind of the way that one worked or what did you, um,

Lawrence: [00:04:12] they were, they were, pattering patterning that off of, uh, Ruby Tuesdays. Uh, they opened up 17 of those and then sold that off for millions.

And that was their original plan was to. To do exactly that. Just keep opening them until they get to a certain level. They can get bought out, but that went awry. They, they, because of Corey, they were, they were, there was a chef-driven system. Yeah. It had standardized recipes, but you had to have culinary skills to actually pull it all off.

Sam: [00:04:52] True. Yeah, because the level of dining was up high enough. You would need that.

Lawrence: [00:04:57] Right. And that was where the problem came in. Couldn't find enough, you know, like they have today when you couldn't find enough good people to maintain that level. So where their downfall was, I was the last chef in their system when I left and they went to, to, to make an, you know, I made my mashed potatoes.

I made so much as homemade. They went to boil in the bag of potatoes. And in so many of my customers after I left with Tommy, we stopped going there after he left, because they went to all this crap. Yeah. Yup. That eventually, you know, they paid a price for it.

Yeah. That is an interesting one. When you think about it, because, and I guess, um, you know, I talked with, with JT, um, Uh, two, two nights ago for a bit.

And we were talking about the idea of, you know, if you open a restaurant, you know, one, there, there are numerous ways you can make more out of, out of a restaurant business. And one way is to open up numerous ones and, uh, And if you can standardize things enough and if you can get, you know, you'd get a little economy of scale and you're buying and, you know, numerous pieces like that, it can work well.

But what you just brought up is kind of a key piece of the old thing is if you don't have the right talent in it to run it, you know, it's not going to work. That's why McDonald's works is they've removed the need for any sort of talent, you know? Without a doubt. And so, so you did Atlas and then what all came after that?

Well, they actually moved me to, um, during the Atlas thing, they actually moved me to five Oh one, uh, take a little shift shift there for a touch, but for a period of time, until they opened their new Atlas out in Greenbriar, then moved me back out. But I went from there and opened my own restaurant out in Franklin.

Sam: [00:07:02] Tell me that

Lawrence: [00:07:04] I had two investors or actually my old, old boss at Winston's cafe and a customer who loved my food. Uh, they approached me when I was at Atlas. Look, we want to open a restaurant, but we're not going to do it without you. So it costs me nothing to get in. I figured what the hell, you know, that's pretty much working towards, you know what I mean?

And the only problem was it was a beautiful building, but it was out in the middle of the Franklin.

We held our own, well, we started out, everything was good. We had good customers and we love the food.

And, but the problem was, is continuing increases in rent so that he wouldn't have to pay a dime to get to the top end. It was $5,000 a month and there's not business enough to sustain that in Franklin.

Sam: [00:08:01] What kind of food were you all doing? Was it, was it high enough quality? Was it kind of a destination restaurant or was it a little below that,

Lawrence: [00:08:09] um, I was doing my usual, you know, seafood steaks, you know, everything best quality. I did all hand cut steaks. You know, my crab cakes would have almost no filler, um, real crab cakes.

In other words, And if you could add a few Cracker crumbs to hold it together. Exactly. But, um, there are, like you said, the food went over, you know, great. Uh, the whole problem was just the increasing costs, you know? So we wrote the lease that our first year was not guaranteed only after a year. Did we personally guarantee the lease which gave us a year basically to.

See what, see what we could do. So by the time we hit the end of the year, we realized that the increasing costs, you know, we're it just going to kill us. So we, we got out after the, after the first year,

Sam: [00:09:12] I would say, I'm just trying to think. I mean, and I, I was in, I was in the sub shop business for awhile, you know, with numerous.

Uh, numerous ones of those, actually, this was zero subs, which I know, you know, um, you know, did that for awhile. I would say I, without a doubt now, more people who did own restaurants and probably got out because of the costs. It really is interesting. If you just look at your basic overhead and it it's crazy, just the rent, you know, And just crush you.

Lawrence: [00:09:57] Oh, I know guy down here at the beach, he's paying 17,200 a month in his rent goes up 5% a year. That's his lease. It's very, probably the restaurant you'd know it. If I said it. Yeah, they've been around for 20 years, but at some point you hit the law of diminishing returns. That's exactly right. You know, that's hard to increase your profit 5% a year to maintain that same profit level.

Sam: [00:10:29] Yeah, it is. It is interesting because you're right, because you can increase what you're charging, but not by much. And especially if you have regulars that that's a painful piece of it, you know, and you'll folks and. That's uh, yeah, that, so that huge rent is, uh, is a really tough one. And it's, you know, that's, that is the, the downside to running, uh, uh, any retail business is the landlords really hold all the cards, some degree there've been other restaurants that have had to close and move just because their rent got too high.

Lawrence: [00:11:12] So yeah. Well, there's one movement right now that, you know, uh, , they're moving out of that little spot back in, um, chick's beach, moving up here to shore drive and old great neck. It's the old corner market. So they got Cal Casirs. They're bland. Interesting.

Sam: [00:11:37] I do like how, uh, as, as we age. We ended up knowing who most of the landlords are in town.

We ended up now, you know, I mean, it's, it all just kinda gets bought by new folks, but it's all this same little pot of people that are all involved in it, you know? Oh yeah.

Lawrence: [00:11:56] Well, I mean the restaurant world is it's a small world. People don't realize it. You see all their drafts drawn. Once you get into it.

The key players are known to everybody, you know, everybody knows everybody. It's very, very true. But Doug, and matter of fact, a little side note, Cal Casir. He owns the building out where Atlas was in Greenbriar. We're back then we were paying 10 grand a month. Yeah.

Sam: [00:12:27] But at least with, with Atlas, you gotta to use a more sizeable location too, though.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you're filling those couple of hundred seats and you can turn them, you know, then those numbers can work out. But, but even that you still got to, you know, a couple hundred seats is a, is a significant number to, to turn.

Lawrence: [00:12:54] No, we did it zebra, the Greenbrier. So populated it's crazy out there.

Yeah. Yeah. That's winches was in that shop center right next to where they were. Yeah, that little place there for 30 years still going, isn't that amazing.

Sam: [00:13:09] And those, um, I'm always impressed with too. And some of those, you kind of wonder, you know, if they, what sort of, uh, I guess some of them, they own their, their, their building, even

Lawrence: [00:13:23] Greg, he and I are still friends and partners in catering.

Um, he went in there. He, he had a hot dog heaven and opened up Winstons and. Actually sold it for a time, ended up buying it back and running it now with a partner. So it was sort of a funny story, you know what I mean goes by and all that without a doubt.

Sam: [00:13:49] Yeah. The whole idea of, of selling your business.

And I guess we hear that happen in other lines of work too, where somebody sells a business, they, you know, they make a little chunk of money on it. They. Go off happy for a while. And then they ended up looking at what the new owners are doing to that business in the future and they, and it's not working.

Right. And so they come back in and buy their business back and then make it, you know, take it up a few levels at that point.

Lawrence: [00:14:17] Yeah. The most common one I've ever heard is because banks don't like restaurants. It's normally arrests. It's normally an owner finance. Gary Black went through this. That's a coyote when it was on the block, uh, sold it.

When he opened up the new one over on Laskin owner financed it, it didn't had to take it back, you know, twice they, they don't make it work. They can't make the payments, you know? So you gotta be, you end up with a bag even though you want to be relevant. Yeah. Without a doubt. Interesting. So that was actually coyotes.

Inception is when Rick moved a captain's table across the edge, down to the captain's table, the second street, he was stuck with that lease. And so that's when Rob Aderholt Keith Korn and Karen and Rick came up with the idea of coyote. Well, now was actually, he was born.

Sam: [00:15:24] Well coyote when it opened was what?

Like five, six seats. Wasn't it?

Lawrence: [00:15:30] Nine tables total. Okay. So it's not quite that small, but even still nine tables total. That's not a whole lot. No, no, not at all. That's why I remember when they opened up the chef's table, then the kitchen one rank Bauman would come down there and eat, tip her buddy. A gift card to his place.

Frank. Thanks.

Sam: [00:16:02] Seriously. When you think about that as a restaurant, it's not a bad deal. If that's what you're going to tip, cause you can tip something, you know, you're getting the back. Yeah. I mean, they're going to, they're going to come in. They're gonna spend more than you gave them. Plus. You know, $50 worth of foods only costing you, you know, a small percentage of that, right?

Lawrence: [00:16:26] Oh, no. He was a smart man.

Sam: [00:16:29] Yup. I worked for Frank, certainly at Frankie's for, I was always at, Frankie's probably a total of five years waiting tables. Bartending never did a cook in there, but, uh, That was an interesting business to all of these, all these beach businesses are, it's just been, it's been interesting to watch them come and go over the years and who sticks around who doesn't, you know, and as you said, it is a small world.

And so a lot of the same folks are just working. They worked together at one place and they head off somewhere else, worked separately, and then somehow they end up working together again or. They go open something together or, you know, there are a lot of, lot of options.

Yeah. So, so, okay. So you owned that one place. What, what came after that then?

Lawrence: [00:17:28] Oh, after we closed, I came back and went to work for, uh, uh, Mahi Mas, just a grill guy. I met him back when I was at Atlas. Uh, Rob had actually called me, wanted me to come down and be his sushi. Interesting. But they weren't going to pay me as much as I was making.

I was like, well, I'm not going to take a cut in pay to come over for you. Yeah, exactly. Like I like it.

No kidding.

Sam: [00:18:02] Interesting. Okay. So you worked at mahi mas. I always liked that restaurant too. And that was a pretty sizable place also.

Lawrence: [00:18:11] Oh my God. We did, uh, I remember the business day I worked, I was there in the summer. We did. And they blown that they blew that away after I left, but $40,000 one day.

Yeah, it's huge. During the whole beach, the beach music festival. Oh, well, of course AMF the American Music Festival.

Sam: [00:18:36] Yeah. And that is, I guess that's the one interesting part also of working at a, a place like a beach is during the summer, when there are festivals going on, you can do just incredible business and then winter hits and you got to cut your staff. You know, hopefully if you're a staff member you're high enough up that they hold on to.

Yeah. And then the owners go head South somewhere for this, you know, to, to make it through the winter.

Yeah. We're going, we're going on an tourist town is definitely crazy. Yeah. Without a doubt. And yeah. So yeah. So you, you end up with a season that is three months long. And that's it.

Lawrence: [00:19:25] And actually, uh, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but a lot of rents are based around that. A lot of landlords they'll build, do, um, double rent in the summertime when you're doing great.

And then you have nothing to worry about paying in the winter time. Interesting. I did that one.

Sam: [00:19:42] I didn't know. I, uh, cause the only, the only times that I've really played with. You know, with, with landlords and paying rent has been in this area here. I'm in chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina.

Lawrence: [00:20:00] Trust me, I'm jealous.

I'm a huge, a UNC fan.

Sam: [00:20:04] Very nice. Well, my, my wife is a professor at, uh, Kenan Flagler, the grad school now. Um, but, uh, it's also amazing to me how many people. That I talked to over the years are UNC fans or Duke fans. It's like one of those two, it seems almost everyone. And maybe it's just an East coast thing, you know?

But, uh, but where was I heading with that? No, I think it's just a, you know, here it's, I think a, the problem around here and you get to the coast also say, and, uh, I know my sister's in Wilmington is just the rent on any of these new developments are just absolutely ridiculous. You know what they're wanting to charge for tiny little places.

And, uh, it's, it's very difficult to look at.

Lawrence: [00:21:05] Rent's the worst enemy of any restaurant owner. Yeah, it really is. Yeah.

Sam: [00:21:11] Yeah, because you can have a proven concept somewhere and, you know, right. We need better visibility. We need, you know, I mean, there's some things you want to do in a better location, but you might be looking at rent that's twice what you're paid and that just, that's just too hard to deal with.

Kind of, so,

Lawrence: [00:21:32] yeah, it's funny. I used to war for come eat. You remembered Chanel is pizza. Oh yeah. I used to be a DM for them. And I had five stores. The one thing I learned with them is they would always go in these cheaper shopping centers, you know, and they, they would be able to negotiate down their rent because of how much foot traffic the store would bring.

Sam: [00:21:54] No, just because it would be trickled over to the rest of the shopping center.

Lawrence: [00:21:58] Exactly. It was, they were, they were like, uh, an anchor in a shopping center,

Sam: [00:22:04] which is interesting to be a restaurant. And create that much walking traffic. I mean, that's nice rehab, this existing business, and you know that any of our stores in this, in a shopping center, we're going to pull X amount of traffic a month.

You know, that's kind of powerful stuff. Well, we use Oh, very. Yep. Interesting. Well, let's see. So what else? So, you know, Mahi Mas, um, I was trying to think, you know, again, talking with JT, it was, uh, it was interesting looking back at, at, at our time at coyote. And, uh, and I talked with another friend yesterday and he was talking about some of the, uh, the hazing that went on at his restaurants.

Um, I brought up the, the old Bay grinder being centered around the beach, looking to go acquire the old Bay grinder. You know, that that technically doesn't exist, you know, but they you'd still send some, some young new guy from restaurant to restaurant and they'd send them on to the next place. And I was led elsewhere.

You know, do you have any, any of those stories that you recall, uh, along those...