Trading Secrets - The Secrets of the Restaurant Industry Unlocked! The price of food, alcohol and all aspects of pay are shared. NYC Restaurateur Will Makris tells all.

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

This week Jason is joined by New York City restaurant and nightclub owner, Will Makris!      Will has spent the last two decades thriving in the New York hospitality industry, now owning several restaurants and nightclubs that have turned into some of the city’s hottest spots for celebrities and high profile customers from around the world. His unconventional career route to success has provided inspiration to entrepreneurs everywhere by sharing how to network, take risks, and bet on yourself.    Will gives insight to his best advice for analyzing the people you associate with, the behind the scenes of Zero Bond, how crowds change in the nightlife scene, what goes into a members club, the blueprint he advises from someone interested in getting into the bar, membership, or restaurant space, and what role AI could play in the industry down the line. Will also reveals how the city plays a role in the approach, why the host is the best job to have in a restaurant for networking, his approach to gaining investors, how is love of hospitality keeps him motivated, how quick high quality dining is the way to go these days, and the importance of patience for the consumer. How much does it cost to start something like Zero Bond? How do you market for a membership based club? Who does he get most starstruck by? What is the  hardest job in the restaurant industry? Where do consumers overspend?    Will reveals all that and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!    Be sure to follow the Trading Secrets Podcast on Instagram & join the Facebook   Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.   Sponsors: It’s golf. It’s not golf. It’s Topgolf. Pro-tip, download the app & book ahead of time to Come PlayAround on Half-Price Tuesday, or any other day.   Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today I am joined by New York City restaurant and nightclub owner Will MacRess. Will's has spent the last two decades thriving in the New York hospitality industry, now owning several restaurants and nightclubs that have turned into some of the city's hottest spots for celebrities and high-profile customers from around the world. Even as I'm reading this, I'm thinking some of these spots, they're not just the hottest in the city. They are known all around North America.

He has taken an unconventional career route to success. Will is providing inspiration for entrepreneurs everywhere on how to network, take risks, and bet on yourself and how that can lead to achieving all your goals. Today, we are going to dive into the exciting behind-the-scenes world of New York City Nightlife and the unique entrepreneurial route that Will took to reach the top of his industry. Will, thank you so much for being here on Tray Secrets today. Thank you. That was quite an introduction.

Wow. Also, guys, this is a very rare episode where the Curious Canadian, as you guys know, who only does our recaps with us, is live in the studio. David Ardoin, welcome to the show too. Thank you. I'm not used to the bright lights, but I'm happy to be here. I know you're a big restaurant club guy yourself, so I know you are going to be chopping at the bit with questions as we go behind the scenes of the industry. Yeah, club in parentheses.

It used to be a club guy, but I still like to dabble. Still like to dabble when I get the opportunity. So I'm very excited for this episode. Very excited to have Will here. I love it. Well, David, thank you for being here. Will, thank you for being here. Will, I'm going to come out firing, right?

I read your story. Talk to some people that know you. You're extremely highly regarded in the industry and as a professional. But one of the things that came up was that you once upon a time, We're a truck driver for Tropicana. So as I'm doing the research, I see truck driver for Tropicana. He now owns one of the clubs that is the hardest in the world to get into. In fact, you need to be invited.

You have to have an exclusive membership. And the likes of Kim Kardashian, Tom Brady, Dave Portnoy, I mean, the list is endless, are all members of this club. It's wildly impressive. I'm going to start with this. From all the steps that you've had along the way, which I'm sure a lot from those Tropicana truck driving days, What do you think is the most pivotal moment in your career that got you to where you are today?

So taking it back, a lot of the times I would actually drive for 12 to 14 hours, go home, change, and then I would literally drive an hour and 40 minutes to go into the city and go out at night and try to like network and meet people. So I wasn't sleeping much when I was younger. If I tried to do that now, I'd probably faint in my driver's seat. With my entire career, it's always who you surround yourself with, who you choose to spend your time with. and a lot of it had to do with the people that I started to get to know. So I had a couple of guys who really introduced me to the business, brought me in.

And those were the ones that introduced me to the right people who gave me a shot, who gave me a chance to really start to make my name in the business. Okay, if there are people that are sitting back at home, listen to this. And in our group, we call them the Money Mafia. They're sitting back. They're taking that in. And they're starting to say, all right, I need to kind of look at the group of people that I'm hanging with. I need to start reassessing who I network with, knowing that you never,

network with literally the biggest people in the entire planet. What is one bit of advice you'd give someone as they're analyzing the people they're associating themselves with? I'd say one thing is a lot of times people want to always take care of the people they grew up with. You grew up with them, their family or they're treated like family. You've got to be careful with that sometimes because I see that happen all the time, whether it's athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, things like that.

They always want to take care of everyone. And I've tried to do the same thing. Unfortunately, there are certain people you cannot take care of. and you cannot keep dragging along. You got to let them go. It's a really tough thing to do. But it has to be done. Otherwise, you'll never really achieve where you want to go.

That's a good piece of advice. So I want to get into Zero Bond, though. So a little background, guys. Zero Bond is a very exclusive place to be in New York City. And Caitlin, my fiancé, was just recently there. Her friend, Penny, owns a big management group, and they manage some of the biggest. Very well.

Okay. So there you go, guys. Penny knows literally everything. She's a family member. She's a family member. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome. My fiance and her grew up together and Penny's sister and Caitlin were roommates growing up.

They're all Canadian. They're beauties. But I wanted to give a little context here. So I called Caitlin. I'm like, Kate, tell me about zero bond because I've never been in there. And she's giving me the lay of the land. She's like, you know, it's this, it's quaint, it's beautiful, the food's great. And I was like, where there's celebrities there?

She's like, I don't know. I wasn't looking. And I was like, can you have your camera out? Is it like Soho House? And she's like, I don't know. I was just enjoying my company. company. I'm like, okay, you're not giving me shit. But I was thinking, if I'm confused by this whole thing of exactly what it is, I am sure the listeners back home are like, tell me more. So

who better than you to explain? Like, how would you summarize what Zero Bond is? So it's a members club. So you do have to apply to become a member. It was founded by my partner, Scott Sartiano. He was involved with Nightlife originally. He found the space. He came up with the idea. Kind of came with me like, look, I want to do a members club. I think we'll be ahead of the game in New York. I think this is where the world's going. Would you want to do it with me? And I was like, look, get the space. Let me see it. We'll figure it out. I saw the space I fell in love with that. I could not believe how grand and beautiful it was. I couldn't believe that he found it. And we started working on it. What we did was we came up with basically like a core members group,

our founding members. And we started with that with some of our closest friends in every type of business, whether it was fashion, sports, celebrity, whatever it was. And we just reached out to him and said, look, we're going to do a members club. We'd love to have you. involved. It's going to be something new. They didn't know what to expect. Most people were like, what the heck are you talking about? And we're like, why do we need to join this? And a lot of our friends did have just based on the fact that like they want to support us because we've been in the business for so long. And we opened up in literally the heart of COVID, which was probably the toughest time. It was almost to the point where we were going to close. We could only open a 25%

our landlord was not helping with rent. So we were, our backs were to the wall. And out of nowhere, man it just it turned into something that became bigger than us everybody loved that private feeling everybody loved to get in and went from like us begging people to be members to the point where our our waiting list is probably over 10 000 people now over 10 000 people we've grown tremendously and scott and i sometimes look at each other like is this real you know we've had some of the biggest people throw their giant parties and events there and it's been fantastic to watch and see as that happened going from not being sure if we're going to be open next month to the point where we're like we don't even know what to do with all these people who want to come

Almost broken down to now Tom Brady's a member, 10,000 other people are looking to join in. We talk a lot about money on this show. So when you want to start something like this, New York City is one of the most expensive cities in the entire world now with inflation next to Beijing. When you want to start something like this, because if it's this exclusive, you have to put some big bucks behind it, how much are you guys like thinking you got to come up with to be like, we want to actually pursue this? Like a half million, a million, a hundred grand.

What does it take? Depending on the space, obviously, things are expensive. It's tough to get things passed through the city. The city does not make life that easy. So it becomes a difficult situation there. I would say for certain restaurants I've had, the raises anywhere from $3 to $5 million for something bigger. It's 8 to 10 plus.

So it's real money. You have to have real backers on it. Especially when you're thinking about the only thing that returns that in general is obviously membership sales, but food and booze. Like if you think about it. But the numbers out there for the nightlife industry are insane $3.1 billion in total economic output on an annual basis in New York City nightlife. David, you are behind me,

and I could see him leaning forward, ready for questions. Because you're behind me, just interrupt me anytime talking and you've got a question for Will's, fire away. I got some curious Canadian voice of the viewer rapid fires for you, based off this. How many members total do you have? We have just the right amount.

Just the right amount. Good answer. That's a training secret. I'm curious how much is the membership? Membership ranges, depending on age, from anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000. Okay. A year. A year. Yeah. Okay. And then is it a restaurant? Is it nightclub? And if so, does the membership just get you in the door and then everything else is kind of a la carte or is there, how does it work? We have two restaurants inside. We have a grill, which is fine dining in the back. We have a macase bar. So that's open five days a week. And then we, oh, six days a week now, I think. But and then we also, you can, in our main room, you can also get dinner anytime or lunch. We're open from 12 to 2 a.m. And that's all. And yeah. The membership does not include food.

Right. That's on top of it. Food and drink is on top of it. So it's exclusivity to the max. We also have rooms for private dining. We have a screening room downstairs. We have another bar lounge downstairs that can also be used for events. You can multitask it all over the place. And the last question I got before, I kick it back to Jay,

when you were driving the Tropicana truck and you're going an hour and 40 minutes after a 14-hour shift back into the city to go to nightclubs and network, are you in that mode in your mind? Are you going to those places to the nightclubs? because you want to be in the nightclub industry and restaurant industry, are you just, that's the place where you think that you can meet the most people. So if I'm thinking, if I'm listening to this at home, and I want to get into an industry, do I need to spend all my spare time in that industry?

Is that something you always wanted to get into, or is that just the way that you thought you could meet the most people? That's a great question. So I think you have to remember nightlife was a little bit different about 20 years ago. So this is, if you go back to like 2002, 2003, yes, I am that old. Yeah, we're close. night clubs were like the center of the world right it's like the who's who always went out to the hottest places and you generally speaking if it was a Tuesday night you went to whatever club

that had that party and if you didn't get in there you kind of went home it was like every person tried to get in there and if you didn't get in there back out so it was kind of the center of everything you know you'd meet everyone from every genre of business and everything else in nightlife things have shifted a little bit now where I feel like people are turned off from nightlife I think New York in particular is having the biggest lull of popular nightlife. It's not the best people going all the time. It's dragged a little bit. And thankfully for me and people in the hospitality industry that have restaurants, members clubs, and things that are like a little more light lounges and things like that that

that go earlier. I think that's where things are going more and people are drawn. So I think some of the best restaurants, if you can get reservations in and go to them and mingle around the bars and things like that, would be a more conducive place to meet great people as opposed to going to a nightclub at one in the morning. The crowd's changed and it's not, it's just not the same. With that being said, you can still meet people in my life. I don't go out like I used to, but that's how I started and I kind of met everyone through that. So it was such a benefit to me in my life. It changed my entire thinking on New York and what I want to be and what I want to do. So I think it's shifted a little bit, but for sure it still has its value, but I would

compare it to the way it used to be. It was a much different place. So it sounds like it shifted a little bit. And then I think, David, great question. I always like to take concepts that have been very successful, especially in big places like your members club with Zero Bond, and then relate it back to anyone that's listening wherever they might be. Okay, so when you talked about creating this members club only, I want to just dissect it a little bit because I belong to a member club in Nashville. There's one of the Rascal Flats, David Arquette's there, one of the Cleveland Brown owners is there, Taylor Swift's publicist, stuff like that. And I haven't even asked the owners, but I was thinking, what's the basis of starting this? Because you've now, you've kind of

even like warped my brain that when people are like, what is it? I just rattle. what I just rattled off and I'm repeating what they did. So someone back home, they want to start something that's a members club type group. You guys said you connected with your top people and like asked them to be a part of that. What suggestion would you have? Is it someone like, do you have to go with the biggest name, the biggest credibility, is it people that have big influence within the community? Like what suggestion would you give to someone back home? Depending on the city, I think it would vary. I think if you're doing something in Nashville, I think you'd want to focus on who would be most valuable in Nashville.

And it also depends on what you're looking to do. If you're looking to do a membership based on building around sports or building around food, it could be you'd want to focus on that, right? So maybe get a couple top athletes in the city that you're in, try to get them involved in what you're doing. If it's about food, maybe getting some top chefs involved in it. The reason why we didn't want to focus on one thing is we wanted to be the entire spectrum. So we got a little bit of everyone I picked because we wanted to be a group of so many different

diverse people. And that's basically New York, right? It's everyone. It's diverse. It's a little bit of everything. But if you're trying to do it, I think you'd want to focus, for the most part, focus on one thing and try to get the best out of what you can do in that city and then go from there. That would be the start.

Got it. What kind of marketing do you do for something like that? Is it word of mouth? Is that like the exclusive? For membership? Yeah, for membership. Yeah. Scott and I both made lists.

We took the people that we would love to have. We knew who would bring a great, diverse group to what we were trying to do. And we just called them. Yeah. One by one. And text, hey, you got a minute? We did it. We do in the office.

We had this little tiny office smaller than this. We were like just working him and I in a room and being like, okay, you call so-and-so. And we had a lot of friends because I actually used to work for Scott. I worked for him when he opened, him and his partner opened up Darby on 14th Street. I used to work for him. So we knew a lot of the same people as it was and known each other for about 18, 19 years. It crossed over easily. But yeah, we basically just grinded it out and reached out to people.

And that's how it started for us. Do you suggest when you're reaching out to those people, especially, like, early on, to give out free memberships or equity to just get your base going? Or do you have a stance on that? So we learned very quickly that when you give free memberships away, people don't really appreciate it. So we didn't really do that. We just told everyone, look, trust in us. This is going to be worth it. The value will be there.

Put a couple thousand dollars into this and treat it as an investment and go with us on this one. I've seen a lot of places go the other way where they give a lot of memberships up, whether it's the people that they will feel what will bring value. So we never really went that route. We've asked everyone to believe in us a little bit. And it worked pretty well. I think it's a good piece of advice for anyone back home too. If you are a, let's say a 1099 contractor, you have a skill set.

Sometimes if you bring that rate down to zero, word of mouth becomes a thing, expectations become zero. And like you set the precedent of what your rate is. And that sets the tone for the rest of the business. I think there's a lot to be said for that. Yeah, for sure. You've had some big names come in that restaurant, and I'm sure you guys operate and everything I've heard at like the utmost of professionality.

But have you ever had like a moment where someone was in there, partying or like having a dinner where you were just like geeking out a little bit, like Starstruck? And who is someone that just like gives you the Starstruck? There's been a few that you're like, that's pretty great that we did because we have no relationship with you and, you know, you applied and you came in. And there's been a few moments. We try to keep the names of people. There's been articles about it, so it doesn't, but like an Elon Musk or someone like that.

You're just like looking for him. You know, these guys like that where they're there and you're like, whoa, these are like the biggest business people in the world wanting to be at a place that you started. Like it's a pretty cool feeling. It didn't feel real. It's a surreal feeling. So I get more starstruck by business people just for the simple fact that I've been around a lot of the celebrity stuff for a long time. I've gotten more immune to that. But the big business people to me, I'm like, it's just.

crazy to see some of these guys around and watch what they do. And then they're going to your place is pretty cool. Yeah. Someone back home, they're thinking about maybe getting into the bar business, maybe a membership business, maybe the restaurant space. In general, is there a kind of a blueprint that you follow as far as when you're starting a restaurant, you're starting a bar, you should try and get your investment fully returned by two years, three years, five years. Like, what are some of the standards that people might not know about the restaurant in bar space? So getting started, obviously you want to raise as much capital, get to the capital raise by the time you're opening. You want to have some equity, some money in the bank to run it for a while because in the beginning, you're not going to make money.

Your food costs are going to be all over the road. Your labor is going to be over. You're going to give food away to people, friends and family, things like that. So you kind of want to have a little bit of a cushion in the beginning to start. I'd say you'd want to pay back or at least start to pay back after the first 12 months, 12 to 16 months, getting everyone's money back within. three years in a restaurant, people would be pretty ecstatic if you can do that. I've had restaurants where we got the money back in 14 months. I've got them back where it took three years. So it's a battle sometimes. It's very competitive. And some of my places are boutiquey style where it's not

300 seats making $30 million a year. So they take time and they take a lot of effort and you've got to really, the food industry is not, it's hard. Like the margins are small. So you're really working on small margins. You've got to check your food costs. And food costs right now are astronomical. crazy. I mean, it's insane. Yeah, I mean, like it exits. I mean, the price of all this stuff. Everything is out of control. And sadly, you know, when you go to restaurants, I look at things and I look at the menu, I can see people's reactions of, like, pricing sometimes. I feel bad for all the restaurant tours because we try to keep our prices pretty fair in all our places. But some of these restaurants, like, you know, what they have to do to, they have to raise prices to really

survive and make a little bit of money. So it's a tough thing. But those are the things I would pay the most attention to. Yeah, chicken wings was crushing us for a bit being Western New York guys. Avocados. Yeah. Now eggs. I'm like, I don't even eat eggs anymore. I'm like, this is bullshit. I know. My wife managed, open and managed two restaurants in Rochester, New York, where we live. And COVID was like her opportunity, like eyes wide open to get out of the restaurant industry

being in our mid-30s. What keeps you in it? What keeps you in it after doing it for so long when everyone, you talk about how hard the industry is in the food industry special? Like, what really keeps you in it, keeps you motivated? I love hospitality. I've been doing it for a long time. I love being around people.

I like my places to be relevant. It helps all the relevance of whether it's a restaurant or zero bond or something else helps me build other businesses and build a bigger brand. So I think the core part of it is it comes from the hospitality. You know, when people come to New York, they want to go to my new restaurant that open or they want to see what zero bonds like. And things like that really just push everything else. So it's like the starting point for me and then it moves everything to build bigger.

Very cool. Now one thing we talk about this show is like just pay transparency, salary transparency. So you can't get this information anywhere. And so people back home listening, part of the Money Mafia, they might not have the skill set or desire to own a restaurant. Maybe they want to work in a restaurant. Maybe they even want to do it part-time. They're a college student.

They want to do a part-time. I'm going to just name some, like, areas in the restaurant. And if someone's curious back home, what do you think, let's say, I don't know, maybe either weekly pay, monthly pay or average annual pay, they should target if they're in this role. So let's start with like bartending at like a club. Or you're bartending at like a pretty decent bar that's got, like, decent volume, and you're thinking about doing this as side hustle.

What do you think a weekly basis or annual basis they should expect or try to make? So a good bartender, I mean, I forget exactly what minimum wages now in New York. I think it's 15 or 16, something like that, right? And if you're at a good bar, you're making $500, $600 in tips a week is my guess, sometimes bigger. Some of our restaurants are our waiters do very, very well, pulling out a couple grand a week. Nice. So the best job to have in the restaurant would be the host. Interesting.

Because you're going to be, obviously if you're a manager too, but when you're a host, you greet every single person. Whatever VIP or important person comes in, you're the first person that sees. You see them on the list. You pay extra attention to them. You give them your card or your number. And then that context is kind of yours. That's how I started.

I was a host at a nightclub that was super, super popular. And then I became the guy who, if you wanted to sit a certain table, you got to call Will. You got to call you. So my network got so big, so fast that because everybody was coming. calling me to get the best table or where they want to sit or where they want to be. So I think the host job is a very underrated job. You might make less than a bartender, but in the long haul, that value will go a long way. One handshake could change your life.

Okay, guys, back home, looking for side hustle and trying to build your networking. That's a trading secret of all the guests we've had in all the high places. No one has said potentially become a host, and that'll increase your network. The entire industry, waitress, waiting, bartending is where you'll make some good money. Hosting is good networking. I've heard a rumor out there and tell me if you're wrong, but some waiters and bartenders make more than actual the managers of the entire joint. For sure, yeah.

Managers, it's a great job. It's a great trade, and you always need good managers in whatever place you have, whether it's a club, a restaurant, whatever it is. But waiters and waitresses usually end up making more money per week. Give me a salary range of a pretty good spot. You don't have to use your spot, but a pretty good spot in New York City that's managing a restaurant. What have you seen, like, low-medium high? A good general manager's making.

anywhere from 110 to 150, depending on how good they are and how experience they are. Assistant managers are probably making anywhere from 70 to 95, 70 to 90, 75 to 90, something like that. Okay, got it. Now let's go into the kitchen. Would you say, based on your experience, is that the hardest role in the entire place? A, finding the right chef, which is so important. My partner, Kobe Levy, in the restaurant side, he has the best network of restaurateurs and chefs I've ever seen. So thankfully, he's very linked on that. But it is so hard to find good chefs. It's so hard to find good kitchen staff. You know, the kitchens get hot in the summer. It's just a sweat. And some of our kitchens are so

small. I'm like, how on earth do you guys make this great food in this small space with this amount of people coming to our restaurants? It's pretty impressive. And that, you want to talk about something you have to love. You have to love making food and serving people. That's just something that's built into you. Because compensation wise for like an executive chef or someone on the line, It's pretty minimal, right? On the line, yeah, on the line, really good. Same thing. It would be in or around a 70 to 90,000.

If they're really good, you can go to 100. Okay. An executive chef, if he's doing multiple places anywhere from 120 to 150. Yeah. If he's a partner, it could be 150 plus points in the restaurant, things like that. But yeah, again, it's not an easy business. You've got to love to do what you do. Yeah.

Shout out to Trevor Mooney, good friend of mine. He's full time in business and finance, and he's a brilliant finance mind. But he's so obsessed with cooking that he ended up. working his way into a Michelin two-star restaurant in Chicago. And he works like eight, like about 12 to 16 hours shifts every single Saturday and Sunday. We wear this woup band, right? And he shows me his heart strain. If I run probably a marathon, I'll have less strain on my heart than he gets in two days working on the line. And I said to him, because I know how much he gets paid, it's not much. I was like, what's the motivating factor? And his whole thought process was,

one, I love it. Two, I'm not spending money. And three, I am learning such a skill set that I'll have for the entirety of my life through the best chefs in the world. I don't care about the dollars and sense of it. Just hearing the stress of being in a kitchen, I've back in the day, you're starting to sweats just thinking about it. It'd be like me and Starbucks. If I had to work at Starbucks, I would be so overwhelmed. I can't imagine like the hot kitchen and like sweat pouring over you and having to make those meals. But passion project wise too, like those chefs like love it. That's what they do. I don't know if you guys ever seen that show Bear. It was awesome. I loved it. But it was so stressful watching this guy in the kitchen.

I was like having a melt. I was like, this is what goes on. I'll keep the door close. I was having a full panic attack watching him, like running everything around. So it's a lot back there. And the hours they work. It's absolutely insane. Now, we have people come on from all different industries.

We have comedians, actors, athletes, musicians, all over the board. Restaurant tour, this is the first. But one of the common themes that we're seeing in all these industries, even like when we had Rob Grunkowski on two weeks ago, he's talking about how he's making more money now after being in the NFL than his NFL. contract. In your business, what is the biggest change that you're seeing and how do you think it impacts industry as a whole? I think a lot of these Michelin Star restaurants, some of them do like these 12-course, three-hour, four-hour dinners. I'm not to say that there's not a place for

them there is, but I feel like people are such, like their attention spans are so short now. So you kind of want to get people in and I don't care what restaurant it is. You could be your favorite restaurant in the world. You kind of want to eat, have a drink, get out, move to the next thing. I always make a joke, people's favorite nightclubs are the Uber ride. It's everybody's the best place they go to is the next one, right? It's always, oh, we got to go here. No, we got to go, oh, this is terrible, let's go here. I feel like it's the same way with when people go to dinner, they want to have a great meal, they want to have great service, they want to have a great experience, feel special, and be out. I don't think those four-hour dinners work like they used

to. There's always a place for them, but I think quick, high quality is the best way to go these days. Interesting. So you would be willing to bet that if someone like crazy did all this analysis to say how long are people sitting at a table, you think if there's like a graph year over year, the time that people are sitting at a table is decreasing. Oh, 100%. By the way, and the amount of money they spent has increased. I think they get in, they get their drinks going, they get another round before the first things start coming, and they order more and they eat fast and they're out. And that's happening now, like for sure happening way more. With technology moving at the speed it is, do you think there's ever a world in which that we live in that we see 20, 30 years from now, where you

are in like a restaurant and there are no servers or services, it's like all technology? Or do you think that'll never go away? I think that could happen in fast food where we don't see it so much. I think people really like the person to person. There's for sure going to be restaurants that try this and it's going to be like all robots serving and stuff. And I'm sure that's going to happen. But I think certain things from the old school are always going to stick. I think people love to call someone at a restaurant feel cool. They bring you in. They bring you into your favorite table. We have little things we do. Like I have certain dishes that I know someone likes and we'll bring them out or some special knives with their name on if it's steak. Things like that

where you want to really make people feel like this is my spot. And it's like a talking point at the table. You lose that when you have AI serving your your steak. So I think certain things will stay. But I'm sure people will go that route as well. And it might work. Yeah. And maybe that's one of the things that happens is it starts with fast food. It starts to make it weighted larger chains. And then actually having an individual serve you becomes like the premium highest quality you have to pay exponentially to maybe that's the change of how the industry operates. I don't know. Okay, I want to ask a couple questions about consumers. So some people listen to this might say, listen, I'm never getting the restaurant industry. I'm never

getting the nightclub industry. I'm not going to be a chef or a host. I don't have an interest. But guess what? My ass is there every weekend and I'm doing things like that. From a consumer perspective, you're the owner, you're the operator, you're seeing the bucks, you're seeing behind the scenes, what is one thing that we should know when we are at a restaurant that we don't know? Maybe it's about pricing. Maybe it's something to look for the quality. Maybe it's like a little test we can see to just judge a place. But what is one piece of advice you'd give the consumer? I would say, honestly, be as patient as you possibly can with knowing that you're paying for a service, right? Because staffing is so hard to find. Good management right now is so hard

to find. It went from working at home. Now people are starting to come back a little bit, but it's been so hard to find good staff. And I go out to eat, and not just my restaurants, I have to be patient too, because sometimes this service is insane. This is not okay. But you have to be patient. When you're spending money, nobody wants to be patient. They want things now. They want them exactly the way they did it. It's tough out there. And we're trying to do our best. I would say patience would be key if you can do it. Okay. Patience is a consumer. And then I got to do a dollars and cents one. I always find it funny. not establishments like yours, but when they're like, really trying to sell you an appetizer, really trying to sell you a dessert.

And it gets my little finance, corky brain thinking, where are the biggest margins? Like, where am I probably overspending? And so when I look at a menu, what items do you think have, like, in general, like higher margins than others? Alcohol. It's all that matters. Always, eh? Alcohol. The food margins are so small.

If I'm charging you, let's say it's $150 for some crazy. steak, it's costing me 120. Like it's... It's tight. You're not making crazy money on food. That's the other reason why I was saying with food costs. And by the way, the more places I open with the same type of menus, I can spread out the cost more as well. Yeah.

But yeah. It's all about liquor. It's buying a bottle of wine, buying cocktails, buying drinking. And these cocktail lists, I have become so sucked into them that I'm like, that I'm justifying, like, 30 bucks for a fucking cocktail. It's crazy. I mean, have you noticed how complex these drinks have gotten? Oh, it's like a science experience. It literally sounds like Albert Einstein, Major Margarita.

Just give me a fucking butt in life. It's crazy. I got every flower in the book. Oh, my God. The Ucala is growing out of it. I got bees, honey. I got the whole, I got an animal in my drink now. It's a magic trick.

No, it's crazy. And a lot of that has to do with the fact where they're like, whoa, what's this? Let me order it. It's a new popular thing that's going on is mocktails, where people who don't drink are spending $20 on a drink that doesn't even have alcohol now. So it's, and it's a,

It's a big market. Like one of our new places is going to have a full mocktail list because people still want to have that feeling of drinking, but they don't want to drink. So it's a giant market. And the price that you want to talk about something that's going to be scaled up. You're going to make tons of money on that. Yeah, for sure. It probably costs you 50 cents to make.

What's the human behavior behind that? Drinking in general, I think they're seeing as like a slow decrease of that. Do you think that's a result of like edibles and mushrooms coming in? 100%. Okay. And how does that impact your business? Do you imagine a day where clubs are going to have like, mushroom and edible and marijuana list too just to make up for that lost revenue if it's legal

i'm sure yeah i think the a lot of the young people have steered away from drinking a lot more it's more about taking mushrooms or doing some sort of weed edible or smoking before whatever it is i a lot of times you'll go to if you go to a rave in brooklyn the bars are empty unless they're getting bottles of water so i think that's really moved into it's taken over that market but there's still a place for drinking i don't think yeah yeah come on Yeah, when you go to dinner, people love to have some sort of cocktail and things like that. But I do agree with you. It's definitely changed, especially for the younger generation, really does the other stuff more.

Yeah, David, in the recap, we'll talk more about, like, how that could change the landscape. Like, where would they make the – would you have to pay, like, a $200 cover to get into a place because they're not charging alcohol? That's what happens today. Yeah, because the money isn't coming from the bars. So they have to charge – So that really – in 2023, that's existing. For sure. For sure.

Not even close. There's a place, Brooklyn Mirage in New York, it's giant thousands of people. half the time you can walk up to the bar unless it's not that busy it's they got to make their money other ways they got to sell tickets they got to sell tables things like that imagine that quick rapid fire three questions okay sure you can they can be your places or not number one place to go for dinner in new york city your favorite place my favorite is not my own okay what is it's a four charles prime rib okay i love heard about that place you can't eat it every day it's heavy okay but the food is exceptional services 10 out 10 number two after that you go to four

Charles Prime, where's your favorite place to go for, maybe a nightclub, maybe not, but like an evening spot, New York City? Zero bond. Okay. Great answer. One hundred percent. We're massive foodies. We've talked a lot about the price of expensive places.

You got $20. You got less than 30 minutes. Where are you going for bang for your buck, favorite thing to eat on the go? Could be a fast food spot. Could be a guilty pleasure. Mine is so bad. I'm obsessed with spicy chicken sandwiches from Wendy's. I love it.

From Wendy's, huh? Wait, you think he doesn't like the Chick-fil-A spicy spicy stuff. chicken sandwich. I'm a, I like to say chicken sandwich connoisseur. Wendy's is an OG classic. Oh. Every time I'm in an airport and there's a Wendy's, I might miss this flight. I don't care. I need a spicy chicken. I love it. What would you say is the best spicy chicken? Spicy chicken. I'd probably go Popeye's. Yeah. I haven't had that one. Oh, you got to go. I would go Chick-fil-A and then I go Popeyes right behind. Yeah. And then Wendy's would be my third. All right, I'm going to, we do numbers on this podcast. So I'm going to ask you to make a couple guesses here. 2021. How many total restaurants

do you think there were in the entire New York City area? Oh, my God. I just look at this. Is it 20-something thousand? Damn, the guy's good. 23,650. I was going to say 22,000. Okay, let's do another one.

2021, how many billions of dollars were paid in wages to employees of restaurants in New York City? 10? Damn. Wow. Can you see this screen? 10.7. Holy shit, the guy knows his business. Wow.

All right. In 2021, New York City restaurants in bars saw more than half of their sales decline. What percentage of restaurants in 2021 saw more than half of their sales decline? 75%. Jesus Christ. Literally, read that. No. 75% on the dot. There is no coincidence. This guy is running the entire city.

It's unbelievable. We will talk more about numbers in the nightlife and restaurant industry from New York City and the United States. The recap, stay tuned. David Ardo and the Curious Canadian will be with me. Will, before we let you go, you got to wrap. We've got to get your trading secret. One trading secret. Someone couldn't learn in a classroom, find in a textbook or Google regarding career management.

It could be money management. What are you going to give us? So I would say one of the most important things I learned this from, actually, I didn't learn at a young age, but experience it from a younger age, was choose who you spend your time with wisely. There's a lot of people out there are going to try to suck everything they can get out of you and then throw you to the wayside or get all your connections or get your relationships or try to be around you and take everything from you, you got to let, you got to stay away from that stuff.

I would say choose who you spend years of your time with and who really want to see you grow. And on the opposite side of that, focus on spending time with people who are going to help you. I have many of those who want to see me grow, see me do well and grow in any business, not just hospitality. Those are the guys you want to focus on. Who you surround yourself with is the most important thing. I'm not the smartest person in the world. It's about who you're around and who wants to see you grow

because there's always somebody bigger than you. I love that training secret. I think there are a lot of people in this world that do just giving and don't take. I think there's a lot of people in this world that just take and take and don't give and finding the people that you're spending with to make sure there is a really healthy balance

of give and take is so important. Will Macros, that is one hell of a trading secret. Where can people find you? If they have questions about the industry, they want to reach out, they want to follow you. Where's all your information? I think the easiest one is probably Instagram. Will Macriss, W-I-L-M-A-K-R-I-S.

Beautiful. And all the information regarding your restaurants and everywhere people can go? Attached that as Macris Hospitality, which has all the stuff that I own. So you can click on those things and see it. But that's attached to my normal Instagram. Perfect. Check it all out. Even if you're interested, you might not be able to get into some of those establishments.

Will, thank you so much for being on this episode, Traying Secrets. Thank you for having me. We are closing to the bell to the Will Macris episode. And while we have a lot to talk about, we have to talk about zero bond, the discussion points. We have to talk about the MetGal because I know it's one of David's favorite events. One of the other things we're going to touch on in the recap is just the overall price of food. It is a huge discussion point right now. Year over year in 2022 is a 12-month increase.

It was the highest increase in food in the United States since 1979. So we're going to get into that. But as always, I got the one and only, the Curious Canadian with me. Last episode, he wasn't a father. This episode, he is a father. Last episode, he was below 4,000 followers. With your help, the Money Mafia, he is now over 4,000 followers and did commit to us. He did that he would change his name with the Curious Canadian.

And so David, welcome to the recap, and David, where do we start? Curious Canadian or fatherhood? There's a lot. There's a lot to start on. We can touch on fatherhood really quickly. I'm looking in the camera. I don't look that sleep deprived yet, which is a plus. We're cheers into a drink here.

And it's nice to be back on the recap, man. But what a journey. What an adventure. If we ever get a David-Tell-all episode, this is going to be tell-all number one, because that was just one of the most incredible experiences in my life. We don't want a David tell all episodes. We need a David tell all episode. All right.

Give us, you see that's the most incredible experience of your life. We've seen Carter. If you haven't gone, David's Instagram, follow him. But what would you say is like, if you had to summarize it all in just like a brief synopsis, how do you summarize something like that? What was the biggest takeaway?

Or what was the one moment that forever will always live in you? Yeah, I'll go three things really quick. Number one, women are incredible. What Ashley did and what they go through and seeing life come out of them is incredible. Heroes. Women incredible. Women need to get together and have a little committee

and learn how to like take over the world because... I think they are, by the way. It's happening. It's working. It's happening. If men were responsible for giving birth, the human population would be like 10,000. One quick thing, you can study right now,

the leaders of S&P 500 companies that are run, like the companies are run by women. And when you compare those, that sample size to the similar size companies and industries run by men and the women are kicking ass. So, legends, heroes from start to finish. Number two, and I'm not just saying this because it's our podcast,

and we talk about this on the podcast, the nursing industry is the number one most underpaid industry. It has to be. What those nurses do, what they're capable of, how empathetic they are, the hours that they work, the trauma that they see,

and they do it with the smile on their face, always asking how you are. It's funny, like, Will MacGris, like service industry? Like, the nurse is a service industry, too. They are underpaid. I have all the more love and respect for the nurses. It was insane. One of my biggest takeaways.

Number three. I would say the only that nurses, 100%. I always say nurses and teachers. Those are the two, but I agree. I couldn't agree more. I agree. Nurses just see some and deal with some things that are just that next level of, like, things that make you and I pass out.

like doing a smile in the face. Number three, I would say the craziest part is Carter was born. He's an hour old. He already knows how to breathe. He knows how to eat. He knows how to communicate with what he wants if he's tired or if he's hungry. I'm 36 years old.

I'm staring at Carter and I'm like, I don't know what to do with you. So they're already more advanced almost coming out of the womb than we are. And the last thing I'll say, this might pull some heartstrings at home because every time I say I get emotional. They can't talk, right? Carter can't talk. He's a day old. You're holding him and he's looking in your

eyes and without talking, he's speaking to me through his eyes and he's just looking at me saying, Dad, I need you. Like, I'm depending on you. I need you. And that, like, is the shit that just hits home and, like, makes you a father and, like, you see all, you hear it all the time. Like, it changes. It's different when it's your own kid. And, like, I'll never, ever forget locking eyes with them that first time in the hospital and, like, feeling him speak to me. me like that and yeah he's changed my life already so it's a beautiful thing man it's a really really beautiful thing thank you to everybody for got to me over 4,000 followers i think carter had more to do with it uh than anything because he's a cute little guy so and i now know why

parents turned into their instagrams into their kid spam account because like you just you just can't help it so so get ready to see more cover content i got goosebumps from what you said about carter speaking you through his eyes my hair is standing up i think it's just unbelievable and we are So I could speak for all the money mafia when I said we are so happy for you, Ashley, and your family and Carter. What a legend, one day he'll be on trading secrets. One day when he can talk through his mouth.

We'll have him on. If Carter, if we're still doing trading secrets when Carter's able to be on, that would be a very amazing thing. We'll be in a great, great place. Do a father-son tell all. Exactly. So from Carter to Will Macriss, you know, my wife Ashley was in the restaurant industry.

I actually listened to this episode with her in the car on way to our photo shoot with Carter, and we got out of the car, and she was like, man, I actually was really engaged in that episode. Like, I want to hear more. I want to hear more. We haven't had a restaurant tour on, and typically you don't hear who restaurant tours are unless they are famous from TV, like a Vanderpump or, you know, a famous chef, like a chef, like a chef Ranzi. So to hear, like, a New York kid, a hustler who came up through the scene and networked in the way he did to be a restaurateur of the best and hottest restaurants. and a membership club in New York City. I just found it such a cool story,

and he's a smart guy with all the great takeaways. So I know we were in the room with him, Jay, did you have the same feel and takeaway listening back like a month later? A grinder, an absolute like master networker and was just really impressed by his knowledge. One thing I don't want to skip over, David, though, over 4,000 followers.

You get a way and I'll change it. I'll change it. I don't know if it'll be permanent, but it'll be it'll be you'll be captured out there i have to change it to the cures canadian for a small period of time but we'll have at least a temporary change at least a temporary change we'll take it keep the support coming you got to love yeah all right so money mafia shows support too they're all my dms and congratulated me and it was great let's go and the money mafia we trust it's it's awesome all right david let me ask you about this so will macris there's a million ways that we can go

with this recap. Let's start with this. Ashley was in the restaurant industry. Has she ever talked to it all about what, and this is Rochester, so it's upstate New York, not New York City. So the cost of living is much less. But has she ever talked to you like, what does a GM get paid? What does a host get paid? What do bartenders or waiters and waitresses get paid? What does that look like? Yeah, I actually asked her all those things because we asked Will and I was curious, obviously. So I asked her, she was the GM. So I can confirm the GM salary of her restaurant in Rochester, as you've been many, many times. There's probably the place to go in Rochester.

It was a spot. So she made 60,000, so very conservative salary, but enough, you know, sometimes not having to work the crazy hours of a bartender or a server, but, you know, more of your 9 to 5. But you don't get tipped out. So in that industry, when he talked about GMs making less than other people, her bartenders made the most, you know, usually averaging about $600 per night. Servers, her best servers could make more than a bartender, but average, take. comb was about, you know, anywhere from 250 to 400, with some servers being able to make, you

know, over a thousand. But again, she said without even listening to the episode of prompting her, she said, but the host is the most valuable. They had one host who they make hourly wages and they do not, they did not get tipped out by servers or bartenders. They had one host that they gave like a significantly higher hourly wage because, as she said, they're the first people to pick up the phone and talk to the people who are inquiring about coming to the restaurant, asking questions about the menu were hours or reservations. First person that you see that walks in there

and they kind of connect the bartenders and the GM and they're the ones who kind of are the point person in the restaurant. So it was really interesting to hear her say that like unprompted. Yeah, those numbers are really cool to hear and it's interesting that, again, like you said, that was unprompted and it did align exactly with what Will said.

I think one of the best takeaways I have from Will was when he talked about like side hustle, not just looking at side hustle is dollars and cents, but looking at it like what it could do for your greater network. And when he talked about the fact that, like, being a host, if you want to meet people, would be the best way to do it. And it's how he did it is just fascinating.

And if you guys remember, we had Jake that came on who did the whole, I'm sorry, Jake who did the whole Drake event at the Super Bowl. He was one of our guests. He talked about that is how he got all the big contacts. It was because if he has an event, you had to go through him. And the most powerful people in the world with the biggest dollars and checkbooks go to the Super Bowl and his network built that fast.

So there's something to that. I really love it. What else did you take away from the Will episode? I think just as a personality, like his humbleness, like to be a guy who drove a tropical truck for 12 to 14 hours, then drive almost two hours to go to the city,

truly to network. Some people say they're going to network, but they're lying to themselves. Like he did it to network. He was a host at a restaurant. You have to have a humble quality about you to do those things and do them for the right reasons. And I think that's a good takeaway for people

listening to this, who want to apply themselves in the situations, be humble about doing it and understand why you're doing it and don't be shy about that. I think overall, Jay, my biggest takeaway was his perception of where restaurants and nightclubs are going. And I think he's bang on in terms of not trying to trap you there for the four-hour dinner. And he said there is a time and a place, but he recognized that they want, they want to get in, they want great service, they want good food, they want to get on to the next thing. And that's kind of the way of the world. And I just think that being a restaurant, you have to add something a little different. You got to add a little spice, right? You got to add maybe a, you know, a supper club where there's

live music going on or you got to add the membership quality. And it's just to me, the way I think about it, it's changed so much in the last decade of used to go somewhere so you can be seen by as many people. And now it's like you'd go somewhere so you can be like privacy and hidden from a lot of people. I think in a city like New York City having a membership club such a unique and bang on idea and to hear COVID

struggling to keep the lights on until he said, you know, 10,000 plus members. This is just incredible, man. I was really blown away by him. The change of psychology and behavior is so fascinating. Like when he talked about the fact

that nightclubs used to be the place out until 2, 3 in the morning and how that has changed and the desire to do that has decreased significantly. But like you said, people still want to be seen, but they don't want to be seen,

to be seen by like the greater volume of people. They want to like dialed in and saturated with people of like their level, which is why these private clubs and lounges are taking off. And he referred to that often saying, you know, I'm so glad we're in the lounge and membership space. I also thought it was so fascinating when he talked about how like the 18 year olds aren't even drinking as much. Like they're not drinking. So they'll have to go to clubs where they don't even serve alcohol. Now you look at a whole different business model where clubs don't have to actually have liquor licenses. They're not working on inventory of alcohol, but they'll have to charge like the $100 covers.

Those things are so interesting and how it will continue to change, especially in this industry, will be so, so, so fascinating and intriguing, especially when you look at like franchises. Like, they're turning into such robotic fast food chains now, but they're going to have robots serving you. Like, you're not going to work with people anymore. And so that's a wild changing evolution. The other thing I got to at least address because it's so interesting because it connects

with dating. It connects with everything. how he talked about it all just depends on what city you're in or where you're in of who drives value in that city because I was like if you want to start a membership group what do you do yeah it depends on the value because you know it could be just a local athlete it could be somewhere else you know living in Tennessee I've lived in Texas I've lived in New York I've lived in Ohio I've lived in Seattle my parents are now in Charlotte I've traveled pretty good it's so fascinating to see

in what cities, how they value things, and also just what people find attractive. Like, you know, the qualities of an individual, like the look, the back, everything in Seattle, Washington of like what is defined as like attractive or sexy is night and day from Nashville, which is a whole other night and day from New York. And so it's wild to see what different cities put people on the pedestals of what they do and how they do it and what their backgrounds out. there will be like a, you know, a C-list, I would say, country singer here in Nashville that'll get the attention of like an A-list celebrity in Hollywood and where they wouldn't,

they'd go up to New York to Will's Bar and people be like, who is this person? So it's just, it's so fascinating. So I think moral stories, if you find that you're not having luck in a city that you're in right now with anything, with dating, with business, maybe move because there might be a city that puts more value on what you do and how you do it. Well, and for those of you who you know who saw will and gave this episode to listen and hopefully you got the same takeaways as as as we did i've followed him on instagram since we were there in the room with him this guy is everywhere he's courtsided all the games he's at all the big parties he's at michael reuben's white party he's so networked himself into being like one of those sneaky

like guys you wouldn't notice but he is sneaking up there and getting like included in the scene of what a listers are he had the chain smokers play it zero bond and he actually zero bond was the host of one of the met gala after parties which i thought was incredible like it doesn't get more outrageously high end events in terms of celebrity and status than uh the met gala and now they're going to this membership club which is you know an exclusive spot that he's just morphed into you know by branding and the idea what it is to host these events and he's a he's a genius man like he's you're showing in the biggest city that he is outclassed everybody with his own ideas and her service and truly his humble

personality that he's able to do these things. It's unbelievable. Just in one hour of talking to him and the people that he knows and the way that he said he knew them and the words he used like love, I can make a confidence statement that there's not any person in the United States that if Will wanted to get in front of, he couldn't get in front of. I'm not kidding when I say anyone. I'm confident in that. I'm confident in that. You know that people would willingly introduce him Because he's that type of guy. Because he's that guy and he can connect the dots for people. And when you have that value, it's invaluable and sky's the limit.

Like he said, like one business opportunity connects to the next one and connects to the next one. And he will use the word, it's about branding. David, you mentioned Matt Gala. I can't, I can't pass that up because I know for my money mafia back there, David is a big, big Met Gala guy. So drop some things on me. Like, tell me a little bit about Matt Gale. What do you know? Did you do some research on numbers?

I know you're a Met Gallag guy. I'm a curious Met Gallag guy. I'm not going to even say I'm a fan of it. I actually think it's fucked up in a lot of ways, but I'm like a big curious, like, why are people dressing as cats?

Why is Jared Letto dressing as a cat? Then you learn that there's themes and themes are always dedicated to like past designers. And so the Met Gala is a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Art Museum. It's invite only, 500 and 600 invites go out. A ticket is 50K.

You can buy a table for 500K. that seats 10 people. You'd think with those numbers, it would raise more money. It still raises on average about $25 million a year for the Met Gallo, like, fashion. It's a lot of money.

For one night, that's a lot of money. It is. But if you're thinking, you know, quick math, 500 invites, 50K a ticket, there's a lot of money to go around there. But, you know, some people walk the carpet and don't even go inside. They just do it for a show.

And then they say, though, like, okay, everyone sees the red carpet, happens inside they say it's still like a secret like you've never seen you always see celebrities posting with a red carpet but never what's inside it's a no phone no social media nothing event that goes inside and they keep it relatively tight-lipped but you know when you see them walking and see some of these outfits man and i'm gonna and i'm gonna pivot to something that you just experience the met gala in kentucky derby give me those like outrageously there's got to be something happening here there's a shit ton of money involved the money behind the tickets and the outfits and the

dress and the designers and the and the status and it gives me a little bit of like hunger games uh the capital district vibes where like people are wearing these outrageous things and you're like what the hell is going on so that's my quick hitter on the met gala but i'm going to pivot to you you were at the derby did it feel as outrageous as it looks on tv in terms of like you've just time warped into a place where you're like how what what are we doing what are we wearing why are we doing this it is okay so i don't i don't think they're comparable but it is so comparable in the fact that as far as the curiosities, you're just like, what is happening here?

Why are people coming in with like flowers on their head? I'm talking like straight up, like it looks like peacocks on their head. Literally peacocks and it looked like I was in the Home Depot flower section with just all different things happening. And it was almost like the bigger and the more outrageous your outfit was. It was like a power thing, the more power you had, which was crazy. So we went, I'll tell you a little bit about it, we went with Vineyard Vines, we walked the carpet with the founder, and then we had seats there. And then we also partnered up with Raising Cains. So we were in this suite with Raising Cains, which, you know, Dave Portnoy was in and T. Higgins from like the NFL player. And there was a, I mean, there was a whole young gravy was in there, which my mom was like, he was hitting on my mom, which is hilarious. Mark, Mark Ingram was in there. Jordan was in there. Rich the kid was in there. Maddie Monroe was in there. Joy Taylor was in there.

I mean, there was just a lot of people. It was pretty, pretty wild. There was a few rappers in there. It was just crazy. They're like smoking weed in there. You get your own area to bet. There's like four security guards watching the door. It was just crazy. The outfits were nuts. That just the whole thing that you're just, it's pure stimulation of just looking around everywhere, like what people are wearing and why they're wearing it. And the more outrageous you dress, the more you're commended for it. Hey, how many people do you think are in attendance and how much money do you think is gambled on the Kentucky Derby just from people in attendance, not even taking away like bookies and accounts and things like that? Oh, there's got to be, I would say, you know, well over a hundred million dollars. Like, I mean, close to a billion,

I would say is better on that. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, here are the payouts for the top five places. So for the top five places, the first horse gets 1.86 million. The second place gets 600,000. Third place, 300,000. Fourth place, 150,000. And fifth place, 90,000. And then the percentage to the jockey changes based on the place you get in. So if you come in first place, the jockey will get 10%. So that's 186K for that day for that jockey. And remember, they're racing, you know, in multiple races consistently. 5% to jockey at the 600k. So they'd walk away with 30,000. Third place, they get 300K. So 5% goes the jockey, 15,000. Fourth place, $150,000 payout. So 3% goes to the jockey, 4,500. Fifth place, $90,000 payout. 2.7% goes the

jockey, 2,500. So, man, there's money rolling everywhere. There are, you know, you see like Patrick Mahomes is there. Josh Allen was there. There's, there's all different types of athletes. We walked down the red carpet on the way back. Carly Pierce came out. We were talking to her for while so it was just a wild event man just wild again you could do a whole trading secrets episode about the good the bad and the ugly from the kentucky derby i know i wouldn't need to get into it but a lot of horses who who had passed away right before the derby and almost suspiciously and uh the money behind it like we talked about with the justin jasso episode like the talent is getting just a small piece of the crumb of the big pie when you see and be there firsthand jay what an outrageous event that is

So, you know, you're just a cure in these experiences that are just feeding my curiosity. So, and hopefully the listeners out there, so keep them coming. And the more you go to these events, the more you actually, like, start to look into this stuff. And it's unfortunate that you start to look into this stuff after. But yeah, that's all, like, fucking awful. Like, that's terrible.

And then you start to question, like, why, you know, why was I there? Why was it supporting it would ever go back? And then it's kind of like Dubai, honestly. Like, I knew a lot going into Dubai, came out based on the feedback, learning a whole hell of a lot more you know and it's just it's just crazy

it's just there's so many things that are happening in like the business and events side of things that are just fucking ludicrous like crazy and it gives me a desire to want to know more like once I learn all this and I hear all these facts and I hear all this stuff and there's always three sides right there's the side of criticism there's a side of supporting it like

yeah but these are the animals purposes like they have such a such pride in doing this this is like they're like they know that they're the elite of their kind. And then, you know, so their quality of life is incredible. Then, you know, you just hear all these different perspectives. And all it makes me want to do is, like, dive this whole concept of trading secrets is diving deeper into industries to, like, get the true secrets.

Like, I really want to know. Like, what is it? What is the true answer, you know, with all this stuff? If we had a magic eight ball that could tell us all that, we would be, uh, we got to be rich individuals, but we can find it out. That's the point of trading secrets. The money Macca needs to know. David, one thing I wanted to talk about, too, if it's okay,

well, before we wrap, is just the overall cost of food. I mean, we'll talk about it. We've talked about it. I looked at some information here. 1979, the year-over-year increase on average price of food was 10.7%. We haven't seen anything close to that. I'm looking from like, you know, 1990 until recently. We haven't even seen, you know, just barely a couple of years over 5%.

and then 2022 hits 9.9% year over year on average. This year in 2023, it's another, on top of that 9.9% because that was 2022, another 7.7% increase on food. And what we're seeing is that the major food category expenditures in the last 12 month, the big increase is food at home, 7.1%, cereals and bakery products, 12.4% increase, meat, poultry, fish, and eggs on average, 12 months, April to April, 2.8%. Dairy and related products, 8% increase. Other food at home, 10.4%.

Food away from home, 8.6% increase. So the big takeaway here is that food has increased dramatically, and the average food price in the United States has increased 7.7% if you take all the categories, 7.7% in 12 months. And that's just, I don't know, it's just wild stuff. It's, it's something that we should all be aware of. And I feel like it's something we're all, we're all feeling a little bit, like especially when we look at our credit card statements and especially when we look at the money that's going out, the cost of food has gotten wild. It's, it's scary when you see those numbers because food and eating is something we do three times a day, if not more. So I tell it like

when you have, there's no other industry that we do on a daily basis multiple times a day that we're getting impacted on in inflation like the food industry. So crazy to hear those numbers, a crazy episode. We kind of got off the rails a little bit with the gal and the derby. We got to sign off here, Jay. We got the Mother's Day event. So if you're listening and you want to be live with Jason and David, sign up for the restart, All Access, happy hour events. And we're going to get in the weeds with some mothers because we're doing that's what we do here. We got stuff to give away. Just email us, trading secrets at jason tardick.com. We can get you in the all access group. I think today we're giving away a round trip flight and we're giving away a bunch

of bulgrey perfume that someone can give to their mother for Mother's Day. So you can join us. And then, yeah, David, the thing about food I got to touch on, it's getting more and more expensive. We all have to eat. And I find that the busier we are, the more premium we're paying for food because we're on the go. And the thing is, is like in life the way the internet rolls, the way social media rolls, the way our phones and emails roll, we are forced to become busy. So it's something that, like, literally, it's really tough to supplement. This was a long recap. This was a great recap.

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