Next Level Pros - #91: Behind the Scenes of a Vegas Restaurant Empire - w/ Elad Assayag

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Welcome to a new episode of the Founder Podcast. In this episode, I’m joined by  Elad Assayag,  the hospitality industry legend whose passion and determination are as infectious as his culinary ventures. From the bustling streets of Miami to the glittering lights of Vegas, Elad takes us on a journey through the challenges and success of building a restaurant empire. With a blend of humility, wisdom, and a dash of humor, Elad shares the secret ingredients to his success, the importance of family, and why he believes retirement is not in his recipe for life. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or simply in search of a dose of inspiration, Elad's story serves up the perfect blend of life lessons and business savvy, all seasoned with love for what he does. Highlights: "The best ingredient here is love. Like if you don't love what you do, this is impossible." "Networking for me too is, and I really enjoy knowing people, understanding them, learning now." "I don't think you can retire from this. It's something in your blood." Timestamps: 00:00 - Elad's Comfort Zone: The Kitchen 01:36 - The Love for Hospitality and Making People Smile 11:46 - The Challenge of Opening Restaurants in Prime Locations 13:26 - Networking: The Key to Success 22:51 - The Consultancy Beyond Restaurants 30:40 - Utilizing Unique Spaces for Maximum Impact 32:29 - Choosing Projects That Excite 36:20 - Dealing with Challenges and Growth 40:21 - The Joy of Customer Satisfaction 44:51 - Future Plans: Beyond Restaurants Live Links:  Join my community - Founder Acceleration ⁠https://www.founderacceleration.com ⁠ Apply for our next Mastermind:h⁠ttps://www.thefoundermastermind.com⁠  Golf with Chris h⁠ttps://www.golfwithchris.com⁠  Watch my latest Podcast Apple- ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281S⁠ Spotify- ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2⁠ YouTube - @thefounderspodcast

Now it's like, you know, you go to Warren Buffett, but I'm going back to this. It's like, this is my family. This is my friends. You know, I, this is my comfort zone. I can sit in a suit and tie with a board wherever you want. And we can hang out with the guys from school that are very successful. But my comfort zone is when I get dirty and dusty and see what's happening here. So maybe one day I won't feel this way. But right now I still I'm still in the kitchen when I need to. What's up, guys? So today I'm joining my good friend Ilad Asayag here in the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

Ilad is an incredible what do you call yourself? Restauranteer? Yeah. a lot is an incredible what do you call yourself restaurant here yeah this guy literally owns restaurants all over in the two most incredible cities in the world Miami and right here in Las Vegas he is known for his ability to take space and generate massive amounts of revenue here we are in front of one of his beautiful restaurants Dona T dude how long how long have you been in the restaurant space uh i was 14 started when i was 14 and then uh 25 six seven years now oh my goodness i've been doing this forever yeah

yeah so 40 years old i know a lot of people from around the world look to you as like help to be able to consult, to be able to do this type of thing. So, I mean, what initially like inspired to get involved in this type of business? People. I love people. I love hospitality. I love the smile on people's face when they're done the service the whole excitement you know i'm dealing with my business is to make people happy so i mean it's not like i'm in a board meetings and

fighting and arguing it's like i make people smile i I see kids smile. I see adults smile. I see stuff happen. You know, and it's wake up in the morning, work hard, open, close. So there's a progress there. So that excites me every morning. It's awesome, man. No, I've known you a lot for a while. So we, our background, we actually attend the Harvard OPM group together. So we've known each other for a couple of years.

Every time I have come to vegas i've had the opportunity to come and and uh eat at your restaurants they're first and foremost fantastic but second the thing that has always stuck out to me about elad is like how well you know your people right like i mean these people are i mean they're high-fiving elad just good to see him like you can see the smiles that this guy is a man of the people and so for those that are joining us on audio i would invite you to jump over to either spotify or youtube to be able to get really a part of this visual experience because we're going to be touring a couple of your restaurants today with the donut teak and then we're also going to be

headed up to one of his really full service restaurants here in the venetian so excited to do that we're going to tell your story kind of along the way but we'd love to get a little bit of a tour of the place for everybody so yeah kind of walk us through uh verbally as you what you're showing us here perfect so tell us kind of the inspiration what was the inspiration of donut you know where where it started with celebrating Hanukkah in Israel. And like the dish in Hanukkah in Israel is donuts, which is Suf Bani Yot. So during Hanukkah, during the holiday season, there's a lot of pop-ups of donut shops in Israel. And some of them became really big. And we had this location.

It was supposed to be a coffee shop, supposed to be other thing, and then when we saw, like, donuts, American Love Donuts, I got the inspiration from another group in Israel, which was amazing. We picked it up and then start playing with it and end up with this. That's pretty awesome. It's kind of like fell on our lap, and, you know, amazing people worked really hard to create this thing. And it probably doesn't hurt that you got two of the most addictive things on the planet.

I'm the best drug dealer in the world. I sell sugar and coffee. Sugar and coffee, baby. The good process. Man, so if you join us once again on YouTube, you're going to have to take a look at some of these beautiful products that he has here. Yeah, no, it's all chef-inspired, you know,

fresh, obviously. We took it to a luxury bakery, luxury donut shop. Price is expensive too. But we took it to the next level. We wanted to make something very unique, very one of a kind. So we have the old traditional stuff with a twist

and then we got our new creative stuff that we made on our own. So you can take a look. There's a lot of chef selections. We create our own chocolate in-house, make the donuts, make everything. An amazing coffee program and just like I said, bring smiles to people. Obviously, there's some beautiful pieces in here. Which ones are your favorites?

Well, I have to start with this one since it's named after my wife, but it's also like the best donut. She kind of came up with this. The Alexis, $11 too. I know, but you know what? There's a lot of fresh ingredients in here and a lot of fresh food. And of course, she's the most valuable. Exactly. She better be the most expensive.

Yeah, but you know, this one is amazing. I go to the old school traditional, the Boston cream, which is my favorite. But you know, tiramisu, the cheesecake, all all unique stuff in here in food it's like easy everything is easy you know you can make food at home but to take it one more level one more level we talk about a lot of research a lot of development a lot of knowledge it's not a it's not a simple process um and the most i know sounds silly, the best ingredient here is love. Like if you don't love what you do, this is impossible. They start at three in the morning here. Right. You know, it's, there's only people not work here like an hour a day. So if you're not really into it.

So tell me about the process. Are you farming this out out are you making this all yeah no no no so we started with trying to do it in-house and then we got too big you know we sell on an average day over a thousand donuts how many a thousand over a thousand a day yeah geez i mean we're talking between five and ten bucks a pop plus coffee yeah we we. We got to our third year numbers pretty quick. But no, this is too small. So we have a bakery downtown. They got all the recipes. They know what they're doing. They have bigger machinery, the bigger ability to do stuff. And they'll... So bring in the fresh donuts like this. Yeah. Is everything kind of decorated? Everything come in this, in our truck. This is a keep it warm keep it fresh they make it all night and then it comes here at five in the morning and then the team is if you see here they're making the creams right now in the

bag awesome they'll do all the creams in the back and then it comes here and then they decorate it here um so to try and do everything here being possible just too small of a space but you you got it hand decorated everything else is done yeah all the creams all the decoration everything is getting done here awesome everything is in in here and i heard something about you guys make your own chocolate yeah we do our own chocolate so um that took a minute to to get to a point where we got the flavors and quality we wanted. It's not as easy process as we thought it is. But we do our own chocolate.

Everything is done in-house. There's nothing come from the outside. And correct me if I'm wrong, this is actual gold plate? This is, yeah. What is it? Gold? Yes, it's gold plated kind of like liquid that we can put on top. It doesn't add any flavor, but it gives it that perfect little pizzazz to make it. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. So for the watchers that weren't able to hear in, but yeah, it's all gold plated, just pizzazz on top which is pretty sweet yeah incredible yeah looking product no and the team

gets creative they do whatever they need they do whatever they want we trust them with the taste we trust them with the flavor um they know the guideline of what we need for this business to be successful but they basically took ownership and uh i couldn't be more proud to have uh this guy's here. Beautiful presentation. We've got a beautiful blocks of donuts in here. As you guys know, I've been off sugar since June of 2023. So I'm going to have you guys give it a taste test.

I even brought my guy Levi on. This is where you come in clutch, baby. Tell me about it. You got to give me, play-by-play. Hold on. Woo, let me mic this for you. Hi, Mike. Hi, Mike.

I got you. You got me? I got you. I'm going to try the blueberry. Everybody keeps talking about it here. The blueberry what? What is it? Yuzu.

Yuzu. Yuzu mousse. We'll see. Okay, we're going to try this one by. Everybody knows the rules. Do we want the munchies and everything? The ASMR? The ASMR.

Tell us about it you're getting this right it's yuzu mousse and blueberry filling right the yuzu is a citrus i should work here at this point i got that i just want to live through you so so you got like this blueberry icing or, and then you got this very soft yuzu mousse in the middle, and you just got this blueberry filling that just punches through. Oh, so good. I give this 9.8 out of 10. I love me some.

What could get it to a 10? Gold. Gold flakes. Gold and blueberry don't work. Yeah, there we go. So good. I don't know if you guys can see. Double fill.

Two different fillings in there. Let's go. And for those that aren't watching this visually, oh, my goodness. It's a purple donut. They've got this lemon garnish on top with fresh blueberries, it looks like. This is crazy. This is next level. And it's nice.

Oh, and next up, what do we got, Elad? What are you going to throw down for us? I can't top it off. I think you guys are good. Oh, no. You, what do we got, Elad? What are you going to throw down for us? I can't top it off. I think you guys are good. Oh, no. I'm going to start the sugar diet. I'm going to go for the sugar diet, too. You know, these young bucks, they can survive.

All right, yeah, we've got to get Ethan on here. All right, cameraman, let's get the cameraman behind the scenes. Mr. Boston Cream. I'm going to squeeze in right here. Woo-wee. Woo-wee. Woo-wee. What are we going to try today, Ethan? I want to try the vanilla one.

Mmm. The vanilla, just a good basic. Oh, yeah. It has a real vanilla bean on top. You can't see that. Look at that. Beautiful. Look at that.

Hey. Are you supposed to eat that vanilla bean? Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. And that's a small bite, man. What's wrong with you? I'm going to finish the rest of it. Get after it.

We want half that thing in here. Come on. That's dope. We need a little description. Imagine you're driving a Prius. Imagine Chef GBT is describing the donut. You're driving a Prius and you think it's great.

No, one day, you go to a dealership, and they give you a Ferrari. This is that Ferrari. Krispy Kreme got nothing. It's a Prius. This is great. That's a good description. Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first. Come and try the Ferraris. So, Elad, one thing that you shared with me before was that it's virtually impossible to open a restaurant in one of these main hub locations in the casino.

So, tell me the story of how you were able to pull that off. Yeah, it's seriously impossible. Think about every chef on the planet, every restaurateur on the planet would love to feature what they got here in Vegas. The traffic, the money, the glamour, everything is in here. So it's really hard. My story is kind of the opposite. I started in this hotel 20 somethingsomething years ago as a bartender, worked my way up, got into management in other hotels,

and along the way kept our relationship. It's a very small town. And, you know, today my beverage manager when I was a bartender now is the CEO of this hotel. So it's all about who you know, today my beverage manager, when I was a bartender, now is the CEO of this hotel. So it's all about who you know and what you do. That's crazy. So the beverage... He was our beverage director, now he's the CEO of this hotel.

Man, it sounds like you both kind of worked your way up from the bottom. He's definitely on the top, man. So he's the CEO of now the Venetian. Yeah this he's the ceo of now the venetian yeah he's a general manager of venetian palazzo that is unbelievable it's unbelievable no so it's a small town it's all about who you know um so i mean you worked those relationships would so would you say that's like one of your core skill sets is networking 100 it was networking um you still need to bring a good quality that's a must you need to do the right thing it's a must but you know you can only mess up once and you're out so you have to keep doing the right thing you have to

bring it's every day bring your a-game your relationship will open the door for you but they're not going to get you success what would you say like are your top three best practices in building a network um first you have to be honest we can't be fake you have to be authentic you have to be who you are um that's the most important thing then don't try to bullshit people yeah you know there's there's you you can bullshit a hundred people but eventually one person is going to tell you bullshitting him and then you're out which really which really is tied up to the first one right yeah be honest yeah do what you said you're gonna do yeah don't over promise nope own your mistakes yeah exactly you you need to know what you're

doing you know my first job i was 14 i was washing dishes and making coffee um i've been through the process of going through this whole thing you really need to know what you're doing if you don't know what you're doing you're you're you're not going to survive here. You can only fake it for a day here. The city is way too demanding to fake it. And then you need to deliver. You need to deliver. But for networking, like I said in the beginning, I love people. I work with people.

I understand people. I connect with people. I enjoy it. It's not like I'm not doing it for... Eventually, the success is a... It's an outcome of doing all the right things and then in the end there's a success. So I enjoy the whole thing. So that's working for me too. It's like I really enjoy knowing people, understanding them, learning them.

So one of the keys... I've talked to a ton of entrepreneurs over my career on this podcast, all different types of things. One of the keys, I've talked to a ton of entrepreneurs over my career on this podcast, all different types of things. One of the keys that I typically have found is that a lot of the great networkers, they don't view relationships as transactional, right? They're not just, you know, ask and return, right? Like just quick or whatnot. And most of them are focused on like just give give give and if eventually i get something back like could you share with me maybe like how that has played into your career oh yeah it's it's a hundred percent so i always tell my wife it's um 20 meetings maybe i'll get one maybe

you have to go through the process so with the relationship is the same thing it's uh i can't be like oh i'm gonna be your friend right now i'm gonna do this because i you can't keep on playing this chess constantly it's back to being authentic it's it's you you you brought your network you understand it and then it's then you may benefit from it one day maybe not and something else will happen or down the line someone else will benefit but you can't constantly like then you're not really you know it's a fake network yeah and you can't have a fake network it doesn't take you anywhere so let's kind of go wrap this thing back to the story so you started here 20 years ago the guy that was you were working

directly under ends up being the general manager of the hotel. And so how did that turn into an incredible opportunity for you to be able to come in here? No, that's not what created the opportunity. What created the opportunity is I know the ins and outs of the hotel. I know the ins and outs of the city. What really created the opportunity, this business or any other business, I'm just a small partner in them.

I'm not like the big guy. I surround myself with, I was fortunate to surround myself, that was a part of the networking, with amazing, talented people. And then we together created something, and then I was able to present it to the hotel. Just me knowing the CEO of this hotel or Caesars or Paris or the Wynn doesn't get you anywhere. The fact that my network is so many good people, many more years experience than me, understand the business a lot more than me, delivered so many good things, you know, 50 restaurants, 100 restaurants, some of them have hotels, that's what sold it.

It wasn't the fact that I know someone. Knowing someone is good. Knowing someone opened the door, like I said. But, you know, my partners is my key to success. And my partners is the network. It's a constant. It's a constant way. Very cool.

Very cool. So here we are outside your other uh restaurant here in the venetian the mercado de la how do you pronounce it mercado de la pescheria it's basically it's a fish market in italian nice nice this is an incredible place if you guys haven't been here it's absolutely phenomenal we're gonna do a quick walk through here in a minute but uh if i if i remember right this is a pretty unique space right that's got like uh something that's pretty unique in all of las vegas tell us a little bit about that so this is basically my first project i've done um i partner with an amazing group on this one this was a dream come true from from location from the partners from

everything about it it was just like a line perfectly this space was built with a hotel so our the infrastructure cannot be done anymore so we have goods going 56 floors up I don't know if you guys heard a hood a kitchen hood that goes up 56 floors from his kitchen we're going to show some of the unique characteristics of that it's pretty amazing yeah so allow us to basically open wood fire and charcoal and do all the great stuff that is very very hard to do today in hotels and casinos um that's really my baby and uh like i said we we did something pretty cool in here yes awesome awesome man it's uh yeah pretty pretty cool spot so uh tell the listeners what what is a a restaurant like this doing revenue per year yeah Yeah. So this is a unique hotel. The Juanina Luxury Hotel in Vegas. Right.

And I get it. It's not your normal restaurant. This is not a normal restaurant in Vegas, but our restaurants do about between a million to two million a month themselves. So we're talking 12 to 24 a year. Yeah. Our restaurants do big numbers, you know.

Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, in a traditional restaurant in the U.S., what kind of money are they doing? Again, it's very hard to compare when you're in the middle of a hotel next to the convention center. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But a good restaurant in the United States will do $3 to $5 million, $7 million. On a year. Again, you know, you take some of the big chains in, you know. But to get to $20 million, that's not a lot in Vegas.

Yeah. And some of our restaurants go over 20. See, I think that's just, like, phenomenal just to show how disproportionate, like, this is to the rest of the world in so many different levels. Yeah, no, we'll, just to give you numbers, we'll serve 7,000 customers just in Vegas a day. A day? A day. 7,000 customers a day. That's an absolute number.

We go through some crazy numbers. Awesome. Well, let's take a look at the kitchen and the spot here real quick. This is how it all started. This is how we got it. We told the hotel we're going to do a fresh seafood market. So this is a a fresh seafood market so this is real fresh seafood market we get our fish delivered from spain from greece caribbean all the shellfish everything gets fluent daily

that's the benefit of being in vegas this hotel the city buys so much product so i think there's nowhere in the world that gets such fresh produce and such fresh. So you're getting in fresh fish and everything daily. How much fish are you going through on a daily basis? I don't know. Like during, like last week when CES was going on. We'll go through 200 lobsters a day. 200 lobsters a day. Yeah, that's wild.

We'll go through some crazy numbers. And then like next week when the construction expo, how many steaks? We'll sell a lot of steaks. We're talking about hundreds of steak yeah big conventions you know they'll we'll we'll have a two-hour wait constant and it's just the whole day yeah unbelievable yeah that's cool let's take a look at the kitchen yeah sissy will do in in this concept that's what i said it's like this one was kind of like uh our our we we went with all our wildest dreams we done everything we got from the seafood but everything is done fresh we do the fresh pasta in here we got this kitchen which we inherit which was like one of a kind very hard to find in vegas

but if you want to see here it's like all done fresh pastas all day long they make everything to to uh to order we get the best stuff and then i'll walk you in the kitchen a little so elad what would you say is so someone calls you up to consult on building a restaurant or whatnot, why are they coming to you? It's more than just a restaurant. I don't just do restaurants. Now we're at the point where we'll do a whole merchandising plan for hotels or development or retail. So I don't do one-off restaurants. But if you go to the beginning of what I do, the core of the business, you can be the best chef on the planet. But to actually own a business, there's a whole process that people don't realize.

It's not just, oh my God, I can make great food. I got this recipe from my grandma. It's the best meatballs in the world. That's amazing. But this is a business. And this business, there's construction, there's engineering, there's marketing, there's finance, there's understanding. There's relationship with the hotel. There's relationship with the landlord, the investors.

It's a whole business. So what I do is I allow whoever owns the business. And it doesn't matter if you own a hotel or you want to own a restaurant, I move all the aspects out of the way for you and allow you to clear on your vision. So if your vision is to open a mall or to open a restaurant or to open a hotel, I'll move all the background noise and let you concentrate on what you need to do.

And that's where the team comes so you're coming in you're you're creating the network the team that are going to alleviate a lot of construction the everything set up we and and that's where the knowledge come yeah designers tend to over design uh kitchen consultant attend you know everyone wants to feature their best of whatever chef wants to have the best dish but sometimes the best dish doesn't make you money yeah the best dish takes a long time and when you have 200 people waiting it's not working so we take everything from everyone and we put it together yeah so what would you what would you say the number one mistake or top two mistakes that people getting into this type of industry make?

Is it overbuilding? Not understanding the exact market. Not understanding what it takes to do it. You know, like I said, the key to success here doesn't mean you can transfer it to New York, Miami, Sydney, Tokyo. That doesn't work. Food is a very personal thing. You know, what you eat in your state, what I eat in my state or country doesn't always translate correctly.

So we do a lot of market research to do it. Building in Miami is a lot cheaper than building in Vegas. Building in Vegas is a lot cheaper than building in New York. People need to understand that. Dealing with the hotel is very different. Like you said before, there's conventions coming. Today's very slow, but next week we're going to be busy. So I'll work with the team for them to understand, give your team vacation this week. Next week, you're not going to be able to. So there's a lot of little things that people forget. They think I'm going to make the best food and give the best service. We're going to be able to so there's a lot of little things that people forget they think i'm going to make the best food and give the best service we're going to be successful

but as a business you're failing right i'm going to get a million likes on one thing on instagram but it doesn't translate to money what's the point right so that's what we do but it's not only the restaurant we do it to all the businesses you know when we build hotels when we build uh shopping centers anything we do it's the same process we just make like different magnitude awesome well uh show us uh some of these unique features you got going on here um so as you see we'll cook everything with wood fire i know it's not a big deal for for most restaurants in the city but when you're in a 56 story hotel it's kind of dangerous so if you don't do it the right way if it's not built the right way it's it's extreme so having

those kind of kitchens in the building there's a lot of responsibility and we're fortunate we got this one so you can see the kitchen you can take some videos but this is just the beginning of our old kitchen yeah so what we're seeing is literally an open wood fire. You got stacks of wood right here. Huge hood. I mean, how long is that hood? It's like a 40-foot hood, 30-foot hood? I would say if you want to try to build something like this today, it would cost you $2 million.

How much? $2 million, easy. $2 million for this hood. And you inherited this thing. We inherited it. That is pretty awesome. What was here before? Wolfgang Puck. Wolfgang Puck. million dollars for this and you inherited this thing we inherited that was pretty awesome what was here before uh wolfgang puck wolfgang puck so if i recall the story correctly wolfgang puck

was here beforehand um you had an opportunity to be able to come in they were shutting the business down you inherited this incredible kitchen with this 56 story hood yeah uh pretty pretty phenomenal and uh really a unique once in a lifetime opportunity yeah that's that's what's so special about vegas it's so it's moving fast really fast so when they opened the hotel he was here and it was amazing and then he opened another restaurant downstairs which is one of the best restaurants in the world and then things just happen in town you know you can't keep on doing the same thing over and over it was a good opportunity for us to come at the right time and take what he did and change it a little and completely go in a different direction so for you to lock down like a lease on a new space in vegas

what is the timeline usually look like and what is the cost usually affiliated with that so we're we have a project right now we're running at the flamingo hotel we've been dealing with this for over three years and we haven't even started construction unbelievable it's uh just just you know and you're looking at like a five to ten million dollar construction cost no we're gonna be i wish five5 to $10 million construction cost? No, we're going to be, I wish, $5 to $10 million. We're going to be probably just construction, around $9 million. $9 million. Hey, I mean, this is a space that you don't own, that you're making this big investment in.

Only a place like Las Vegas where this could actually make sense. Yeah, yeah. It takes 20-year leases, long-term leases. It's an investment. It's an investment. It's an investment with the hotel. Once the hotel hands you the keys, there's a lot of faith in them. It's more damage to them if you fail

than to you financially. Interesting. They don't just give you the keys. They have to trust what you're doing. They trust your vision, trust your operation style, your marketing style. It's a big investment for everyone.

So for a hotel to hand you a keys to something, it's a big deal. And then after that, yeah, you know, but we're looking at 20,000 square foot spaces, 10,000 square foot spaces. You know, our kitchen here is 5,000 square feet. So with that, there's a big investment. I mean, so you're like $700 to $1 to 1200 a foot to build this out thanks to covid oh thanks covid thousand

thousand dollar food became a coffee shop those days wow that's unbelievable cool well uh let's do some quick panning of the the space and then let's head over to your wine spot. Let's do it. So, man, here we are in your beautiful wine room. This is a pretty cool spot. Tell me about this spot. Yeah, so that's the advantage of understanding this hotel, actually. A lot of conventions in here. So there's a big convention space right behind us. And a lot of private meetings happen here yeah i can tell you

at least 20 sap 500 guys had dinner here ceos and you know from amazon to wow governors to whatever you want use this room for dinner so yeah, we made a nice room for private events. And when it's empty, I use it as my office. I love it. I love it. Yeah, it's a great little spot. So right now, so you're kind of expanding. What's driving you as an entrepreneur right now?

My real drive now is the project. I need to be excited. It's not money will come is the project. I need to be excited. It's not... Money will come in the end. We'll do it for money. But the money is always like an outcome of doing the things correctly. It's the project and I want to be excited about the next project. You know, I got to a point, I'm fortunate, fortunate thank god i can say no to projects um i'm not chasing the project so when i get something very exciting like you know like a big retail stuff or hotel or different country or different state um that's my next move i i enjoy um the benefit of being here so learned a lot and you have to be very, very good

to do what you do here. 20 years of the best partners I can ask for. We learned so much from them. They've been in the industry a lot longer than me, and they have a lot of knowledge, all of them, all of them one by one. So now I'm ready to take it to other places. So it's all about the project at this point. So, you know, you've had a lot of success and, you know, you're still very young, right?

And a lot of times, you know, some of the listeners or different people, they think, hey, this person's had so much success, they probably don't deal with much negative. Like, what are some things that you deal with right now that most people would be surprised with that like really bog you down you know there's there's growing pains to everything so you know when you want to grow when you want to push yourself to the limit i can i can stay and be comfy but if you really want to push yourself to the limit um you will deal with stuff you never dealt with you're gonna have different frustration you're I can stay and be comfy, but if you really want to push yourself to the limit, you will deal with stuff you never dealt with.

You're going to have different frustration. You're going to have different politics. You're going to ask for different things from yourself and the people surround you. And in my world, in hospitality or this universe, we're very influenced by what's happening around the world. COVID was an example. Election is an example. War in Ukraine is an example. War in Israel is an example.

There's a constant something you need to deal with. You know, in the end of the day, no one has to come here. You know, you can stay home and have a meal at home or you don't have to go shopping or you don't have to go on vacation. So we're not always in control of what's happening. Is there ever been a time along the way where you've been depressed or felt like giving up?

Not giving up, no. I didn't feel like giving up. I remember when we opened this restaurant, which was the first project that I stopped consulting and became an equity partner. So I have a small equity. But when we opened it, it was a new company. I opened it with three amazing guys from Miami.

And it was tough in the beginning. It was tough. It was my first experience of having equity. First experience with them, which are amazing people. But it was first experience together. And it was their first experience in Vegas. So the first six months for a restaurant are tough. And this was a little tougher. We didn't really understand each other.

We didn't come up with the right solutions quick. And things take time. So I didn't think about giving up because I really believed in it but I won't lie to you I looked at like maybe I need a job on the side or maybe I need to do other things. So what got you through that tough situation? Amazing partners and I really believed in this thing like I saw the end the light in the end of the tunnel I really saw it I know it was coming but you know it was a year of because to to get

this thing from A to Z take about two years so sometimes that's a long investment yeah long invested in time and you know when you don't have other things lined up because I really gave up 100% of myself to this project you get to to a point financially, it's not the same. You know, you're not bringing in bringing the paycheck every month. You're not bringing other projects, you're not doing other things. And for two years and then when we opened, I'm like, Oh my God, it's not performing as I thought it will in the beginning. And I stayed because I believed.

But, you know, you go home and you still have kids and a wife and a family and mortgage and stuff like that. So I was thinking about doing other things. But I'm glad I didn't. It was the second. We all have doubts. Today, I don't feel like this anymore about the project. I really believe in it. I'm okay with making mistakes.

You know, the donut shop. I didn't anticipate truly the success of it. We opened and we're doing numbers right away, but we made some mistakes. So we had to go find a bakery to make donuts. We had to go make the coffee station bigger. There's a lot more investment, but I have more tough skin today than I had before. So do you see yourself being in this industry for a very long time or do you ever see yourself uh you know

walking away and retiring um i don't think you can retire from this it's uh it's something in your blood you know my next meeting right after this is with a gentleman that is 75 years old and creating concepts for disney and i asked him like steven are you gonna retire and he's like i can't i just love the people too much i love the adrenaline i love to go in and sit on the bar and see the success obviously it takes time there i'm not gonna retire but at one point I'm going to be like, I'm done with new projects because it's a hustle. There's definitely a lot of hustle here, but I'm not there yet. I've got at least another 15, 20 years of doing this. I think you share something that's a pretty common thread amongst most entrepreneurs.

It's not the money. You get addicted to different aspects, whether it's not the money there there's you get addicted to different aspects whether it's the people or the just the the return of of energy or whatever it is that you benefit from right like this is this is the reason why warren buffett still goes to work every single day still is involved you know i know a lot of people that haven't made it financially. A lot of times they're like, they don't get it. They don't understand why anybody after essentially winning the lottery would continue to work. Right. Like, and, and quite frankly, I think that's why most people never get to the point of success is because they don't fall in love with the work, right? They, they go and they dread every single day. This is terrible.

This is horrible. Rather than loving what they do every single day, right? Which ultimately yields the best results. Yeah. No, I enjoy it. A few days ago, I had to let go of someone. I don't normally let go of people. Actually, it was the first time I ever, you know, since I partner, since I start taking equity

and partner with people, I'm not in a position of letting go. But it was important for me to go do it because I was very connected to that person. But the success or lack of success of the performance was putting in jeopardy so many other people. So I did that.

And then the only reason why I did that personally is because I wanted to go down later, talk to all the line employees and explain to them that it doesn't matter what position you're in. I'm not going to allow anyone to jeopardize other people's job. You know, I deal with unique people here. It's like the people that work in the kitchen, the people that wash dishes, the servers, the bartenders, they're very, very interesting, unique people with families, with kids, hard working people. Now it's like, you know, you go to Warren Buffett, but I'm going back to this. It's like, this is my you go to Warren Buffett, but I'm going back to this. It's like, this is my family.

This is my friends. You know, this is my comfort zone. Right. I can sit in a suit and tie with a board wherever you want. And we can hang out with the guys from school that are very successful. But my comfort zone is when I get dirty and dusty and see what's happening here. Awesome. So maybe one day I won't feel this way,

but right now I'm still in the kitchen when I need to. So what would you say brings you most joy about what you do on a day-to-day basis? What brings me... No, it's customers. 100% customers. It's, you know, asking my kids kids what do you guys what do you guys want to do for dinner like oh let's go to mercato i want the spaghetti and then seeing my kids smile

here or you know my friends i'm asking them let's go to dinner and they pick one of our restaurants to come to dinner yeah that means we did something right. The fact that the restaurants are making money is great, but the fact that we serve hundreds of people and they leave happy. And I will say it's some of the best food I've ever had. So it's fantastic. The few times that I've been able to eat here, it's been incredible. But that's the team. That's really the team.

You give them freedom. Obviously, they have guidelines because it's a business and the business have to make money. But when you give them freedom and you really treat them with love, they create some special stuff. Yeah. What would you say are some mantras or things that you try to live by on a daily basis that have led to your success? I don't know if it's a mantra, but we're not curing cancer. And I take it in perspective, what I do. It's amazing, but I sell, like you said before, I sell sugar, I sell coffee, I sell food. So, you know, I have the right perspective of what we do. You know, we do big projects.

We do, you know, I've consulted to billions of dollars companies, really. I've done some big projects. But in the end of the day, my thing is, like I said, you need to enjoy it. You need to enjoy it you need to enjoy it it's conversations with with architects with contractor with landlords with investors this is the thing that's my that's what keep me doing i know what i do and i take myself you know i think it's serious but in the end of the day it's like you can have a glass of wine and enjoy it too. Absolutely. So you have two beautiful children. You've been married for how many years? 20 years.

20 years. How have you been able to maintain that balance? Like, what are some best practices you have for running a successful business while raising a family? It's put them first. It's a priority. And how do you do that? You know, it's put them first it's a priority i i and how do you do that you know it's not always easy the sometimes that you want the the business need you more or you take a new project and they need you more sometimes you just need for yourself a break you know um sometimes you need to be alone sometimes your partners require more

from you sometimes the business require more from you but in the end of the day you cannot miss anything with your kids you cannot miss anything with your family date nights are important I know it's silly but we do date nights and then we do stuff with the kids it's not always perfect I don't think that's silly so like what are you some best practices with dating your wife? Constantly we'll do a date night. We'll spend time together. We have to have a date night.

And in the date night, we're kind of like trying to open up and listen to each other and not have the kids and not worry about cooking or cleaning or work. We're trying to do once a week with the kids, like something that they want. So it's not like I'm going to take you here because I want to see it. It's like whatever they want to do. My daughter is a teenage now, so it's a little difficult. She's all over.

But, you know, sometimes just going to the park with my son, play soccer. It's just like the little things. But you have to just be present. Sometimes I wasn't it's hard but overall you know 20 years i cannot be happier as fortunate with a beautiful wife beautiful kids in and out it's amazing uh blessing and um my wife is my real partner she she's pushed me to limits i never thought they even exist in in in what i got in me she she's been everything really it's uh awesome so where a lot where's the best place for listeners to like follow you are you you big on social media? What's the best spot? No, it's so funny.

I have social media. I have social media and I follow restaurants and trends just to see what's happening. All my likes usually are my mom and my siblings. Not big in that space. Not big in that space, I'm not that good. What about your restaurant? Share with us where your restaurant's located.

How can some of the listeners maybe in those areas come and take a look? So we're very strong in Vegas. We're very strong in Miami. Half of the hotels on the Strip, we have something going on. Venetian, Caesars, Paris, now opening at Flamingo. And what are some of the brands? Café Mercano, which is one of our big brands. It's a 24-hour restaurant for the hotels.

Big bars, usually on the lobby. We have them in Miami, too, right on the beach. Great omelets. Great omelets, yeah. Very, very good. Very good spot to just casually have a good meal or drink. We're in Miami. We're at the beach.

Mercado is good. The Donuts is good. We have great Cuban restaurants, Havana. We have Mexican restaurants. I work with, like I said, I work with some local partners. So Harlow and Summerland is great. That's awesome. We got some good brands well man i'm uh what what do you see next is like the the next big move for you um

the next big move look we have some restaurants in the pipeline but i think after that the back next big move is take a whole hotel with my partners have done two small hotels in Miami. Personally, my next move, I want to do a whole hotel. It doesn't have to be on the hotel, but we would like to merchandise the whole plan for restaurants, the whole hospitality aspect of it and entertainment. We want to do it. It can be like a hotel resort or a shopping center or something in that nature I've done it before

and I would like to get back to that that's awesome man well I'm excited for you appreciate your time today and giving us the incredible tours of both the restaurants

everything you're about you're pushing forward I love the fact that you're a good family man a man of my own heart become a really good friend over the last couple of years, man. Appreciate your time so much, my brother.

Appreciate it. Thank you. And good luck, man. You guys are killing it. Until next time.