#192 – Eddy “Chinese Tuxedo” Buckingham/

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Wait a minute, cross face.

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conversation, sometimes

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worth recording with Josh Janssen and Tommy, daily talk show live from New York City. This is our final episode in New York. Big Smoke This place is forever pumping. And we've got another rz joining us today she's pumper

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Eddie Buckingham. Hello gents

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very happy to be here. May thank you so much for coming on. This is I love you guys do the hard

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work. You've come all the way to New York. You're

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here in Chinatown, my neighbourhood and gave us some amazing hospitality at your bar that you have here in Chinatown.

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Thank you for coming through

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our mutual friend Benny Squires. There I was training with him at the gym. And I I told him that I was coming over here.

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I missed him that day. And

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and the other three massive steps I know. Before so that's good to see. Nothing's changed.

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I asked him who should we get on in New York City? And he said, My mate Eddie. He's your man. Fantastic. is the chief. Definitely the

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penny that day.

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Can you explain where are we in New York City? So right now it's light on a Wednesday night. What is it? It's about just after 9pm. We're down in Chinatown, which for those anybody who knows Manhattan geography. It's kind of in the heart of downtown Manhattan. But it's a really unusual and special neighbourhood. You guys have been here the last few days. I know you've seen a lot of the city. But like Manhattan is such a dynamic and and vital place and so much going on. But Chinatown exists although it's smack bang in the heart of the lower portion the island. It's a little bit different to the rest. It's it's really a true Chinatown developed kind of mid 19th century. And for a long time it was kind of caught in time. As the rest of the city gentrified and developed and changed it. It was stuck in its own little time warp for a long time. And what that means is it's created this remarkable and unique neighbourhood where really close to, you know, the financial district side of the world from World Trade Centre and what Tribeca does to the, to the west, lower east side and Soho above us and to the east. But so it's a little pocket. It's only about the official old school Chinatown is only about eight blocks by six blocks. Yeah, so it's tiny. I'm trying to think of an Australian equivalency, you know, it'd be smaller than then, by the size of a mid size park in Australia, but, but you have 10s of thousands of people who live here. And the last few years, it's undergone a bit of a change. So for a long time, it was really dominated by by Chinese migration. been pulling the last 1015 years the bulk of new migrants to the east coast and actually settling here in Chinatown. They're going out to the outer boroughs areas like flushing, you might have heard of downtown Brooklyn. And so Chinatown, a long way behind the other neighbourhood designed to have this bit of an evolution and undergoing some pretty interesting change. I personally live in this neighbourhood. I've been in New York nine years now. And I've lived in a bunch of different neighbourhoods downtown. But this was one that I think growing up Australian as well, you know, we have such great China towns and Melbourne and Sydney. This one really caught my imagination. And it's a bit unlike anywhere else very special place.

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I tell you what I felt like I was on a bus tour in New York with the best bass guy.

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Yeah, this is legit.

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Come back some histories

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of geography. You launched

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Chinese tuxedo with your business partner in 2016.

3:53
Yes, yes. So I, you guys are just there. I have a restaurant, which we opened a couple of years ago in the house. Chinatown on a street called boys strike.

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I just gonna say I had a heart attack, because I was at the front waiting for you. And post malone was there

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at Tommy was very, I didn't know who post my line is because I'm the official dork of the show. But Tommy lost his mind. And can I say for the first time pulled out his phone for a selfie.

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Cool man, because I never one of my friends.

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I wouldn't post his first name.

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His name, I don't know his real name. But he pumped his name into a random generator, I came up with posting the line that was like, got a better than that we

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need to actually get on our Reddit will put that generator. I want to know what my rap name would be. We know yours is going to be cheap pump.

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2016, Iraq half.

4:52
So a couple of years ago, well, it was actually a long way before 2016. I first kind of said, Yeah, we're going to do this back in 2000 on 14. And it took nearly two and a half years to bring to life. So what happened is, I opened a bar in Midtown years ago, 2011. And my background was more in bars, nightclubs, music venues and the like. And I applied that bar for a few years. And then I want to do something a bit different and pivot a little bit. And the general contractor who built my bar in Midtown was Chinese American, he migrated. Actually, he migrated to Chinatown, back in the 70s, from food jail in southern China. And he and I really missed the great Chinese food that we were spoiled with, that we spoke with in Australia. And so because I hadn't found anywhere that I really liked, and so I spoke to Jeff and I was like you take me to some of the places that you like to go to, and I can see, you know, some places maybe I wouldn't have access to myself. And so we got into a bit of a ritual of just hitting everything from like the dim sum places for lunch to the Cantonese places for dinner. And there are some great restaurant I'm here but they're not, I think typically not really at the standard of some of the great restaurants that you get in Sydney and Melbourne, Hong Kong, Singapore more broadly, Shanghai. And we're up to we actually haven't launched a dim sum place just around the corner from where we are now. It's called golden unicorn, which I wish I thought of that name. First is my favourite time for a restaurant ever. And we're having lunch at Golden unicorn, which is it's what they call them some here waco young cha back in Australia. And so basically having young child picking, you know, dumplings off the charts in the light. And I said, you know, it's a shame that Chinatown doesn't have a restaurant that can stand up with, you know, the great French restaurants or the great Italian restaurants in this city, the great contemporary American, because this is an amazing food town. But Chinese to New Yorkers was really that kind of cheap and cheerful. You know, Sunday night takeout noodle box kind of vibe, which don't get me wrong, I love it. Good example of that is awesome. But that like, it wasn't beautiful dining rooms with top flight service and interesting, you know, crowds and the like, so, so over lunch in 2014, Jeff and I were like, well, let's Why don't we do it, we'll do it. And so that was kind of how it was born.

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Now, it was a great idea over lunch, two and a half years.

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to it, so that we had some challenges and false starts. But But the thing that made the project had such a long gestation period was the space that we found. So it was originally a theatre. It was an opera house. So it was the it was the Chinatown Opera House, the first Chinese language Theatre on the east coast of the US I built in the in the middle 18th century. But over the years, it had lots of different uses. So when we took it was like a small mall, a bunch of different suites was like a fashion boutique at the front and like a travel agent and acupuncture office and accountants stuff like that. There's no legal Mahjong room at the back. But it was a really narrow corridor was really low ceiling. The room now has this big scale because we basically demo it and took everything out. And that was a really exciting couple of weeks as we're doing the demo. And we're discovering things you know, that have been covered up for over 100 years and things like uncovering the decorative columns from the mid 19th century, the original wall day tiles and stuff. So doing the demo and bringing it down. We were like well, this we can't do any better than this. So we tried to retain as many those historical elements as possible. So that's really part of what makes the magic of the restaurant. But it also meant was two years to build, which was a long two years.

8:31
There's a hidden

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field out seem to be I mean, I did like a tiny fit out of an office. It was literally mice I filled out we painted a room. And it was

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exactly and it was it was enough to drive me crazy. What and we also have

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systems to fit 300 people and

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I can't even grasp what that tight like what do you start with on a filled out like that? Like, what's the first like, thing that you demolish?

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Well, I'm lucky as I mentioned, Jeff, my business partner is a very experienced, very capable, general contractor. So I don't I don't want to give myself too much or any credit on this matter. He made some real magic sledgehammer but of course I didn't I

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got the instant storey

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literally happened

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before storeys.

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Like it was supposed Yeah.

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But so.

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So we draw up plans. So obviously to follow everything with the Department of Buildings, so so I sit down with the draughts person who does it all in AutoCAD. And at that stage, it's a bit of a theoretical exercise, like you have a vision or a plan or whatnot. But, but it's a long evolution from there. Jeff and I design the spaces we do ourselves, we don't use a design firm. So we don't use we don't have like fully realised renders and everything. Which means it's an exercise in trial and error to a degree but but it it kind of it's an evolution that comes to life over time. And I love that process. It's a really exciting process. Like,

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I always think about five year plans or thinking projecting in the restaurant business. That's hard to do.

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Because if you don't get people to my door open in five years to

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get people in the door. You're not getting paid. Yeah, yeah. How do you approach that?

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Well, it's it's definitely a week to week proposition for us. We just do a dinner service, we don't do lunch. Because like our neighbourhood and the size of our dining room, we feel a lunch service wouldn't really work and fasting anyway, who eats. But so we're only closed, what is it? Three, four days a year, we're open 361 days a year, we close on New Year's Day, giving over here, Fourth of July. And then Labour Day, which is another holiday over here I am at that day for my annual kind of team outing, or something with the team every year. So so that's what we close then. But we're open on Christmas, we're open through all the other kind of holidays of the year. And it's in part because you you have to, you know, the rent doesn't change every month, the payroll still has to run every week. And so you're really only as good as the last in a service. And some wise, obviously, you come to market with working capital, and you know, your operating income and time should get stronger, and you get a bit more comfortable. Life's a lot better. Now going into year three, you know that first year, it's a little bit less stress inducing. And we were lucky, you know, we had some wins. A great New York Times review early, soon after our open, things like that help. We've been well reviewed and were busy, which is great. But you know, there's seasonality to it. Our restaurant is in the basement with no windows so. So in the fall, like right now or in the in the winter, things are super strong. But in the summer here, it doesn't get dark till like 9pm 930 in the summertime. And people want to be in the rooftops, and the outdoor cafes and garden restaurants in the light rather than in the basement. So you have to manage your payroll, your purchasing your inventory, all in mind to that. But that's why they call it work. And that's what's a job.

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You mentioned payroll, I feel like you're in the perfect position to explain to us as Australians tipping. What like, What's that? What's the deal? Is it something that should be embraced in the sense of like, we know that we have to do it? But the thing is, you have to you have to do it, you have to otherwise you're not.

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If you come to the US or if you're dialling in the us consider the tip as part of your bottom line expense. Yeah, you know, if you're buying $100 dinner, it's 120. And if you can't afford $120, you can't afford the hundred dollar be the mindset.

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This is what I'm confused about. Because I get it that and I will say this,

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it's a damn shame because it is a broken life and model here in the United States. And it's difficult as a small business operator. I would love if it wasn't the case, it hurts my heart the income disparity between my front of house and my back of house. Because by law, I'm not permitted to cut kitchen staff or non client facing staff into the typical if I do I'm you know liable to a lawsuit.

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People in the kitchen are making less

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of a drastically less really

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drastically less so and you can't pay him.

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So we pay above the award white in every department at tuck say that he the minimum wage for AP tip staff members, that's a front of house staff members in New York right now till the end of this year is $8 way pie $9 an hour. But we also have a tip pull across the board and our front of house team do well, very well.

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Meaning if we give a tip to an individual, does that thing go into a group pool that then is shared?

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It does, it does so so every restaurant is different. Some some places, the server who directly services, your table will take the entirety of the tip and discretionary tip out their support staff and the like. That's a very old school model. But you'd find most of the quality restaurants opening in New York now, there's a movement to tip included restaurants, tip inclusive restaurants, but the non tip restaurants would typically be in a tip pole. So So everybody's tips go into one part. And then pending the number of hours that you worked and your role that hence your tip cap, you'll be tipped out based on that. It's unnecessarily complex is not equitable. It's a constant thorn in my side. Because I'm really lucky, I have an amazing time, a really, really good time. I feel like we have a great culture. But everybody remembers the night that they feel the typical broke bad for them. I remember the night where they had a big while in who dropped a massive tip. And they look at the paycheck at the end of the shift or the end of the week. And it doesn't quite reflect that. But nobody ever remembers the night when you did great. Your colleagues kind of carried you. So it's not such an issue for us. Because Also, we're a busy restaurant our guys are doing well. Yeah.

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But then

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the minimum wage here in New York at the moment for non tip the staff. It's currently $13 it's going to $15 on the first of January. There's a huge disparity between what my front of house guys and what my back of house guys will make in those entry level positions. But but like I said by Laura, I'm not allowed to mess with a typical,

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yeah. So uh, three years in into the third year

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of this business as birthdays next month. Yeah,

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so it's coming. Awesome.

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It's a it's a Wednesday night. Sorry, my voice is going and you've been generous enough to give us your time. There would have been a point in this business I can imagine you are on the ground for hours and hours a day. Do I just do any craft because you're a mixologist or you've, you've worked as I've as I

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mentioned, I come from more of a booze background more of a liquor background than a folk background. So I have a business model

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as a professional and personal interest.

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mixologist is that like set calling us video. Like I hate when people call me a videographer. It's because it's like I do video production. I like this. I'm not quite a filmmaker because I don't have enough runs on the board to call myself feels like it's a bit Hollywood is a mixologist. From a rate we talk a lot about re brands pushing away brands. Yeah. What's that? What does that mean to you?

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Well, that was that kind of culinary boom going back late 90s, early 2000s and the rise and rise of the celebrity chef or the other personality chef, and I think the mixologist tag was in some ways the booze world. Yeah, kind of glomming onto that going where barman one colour, person by man by women. I want to you know, elevate the title a little bit. I'm, I'm I don't personally identifies

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Justin Timberlake, that was

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Joe

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mixologist. For a couple of years.

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I told Josh this. And

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there was some confusion. I thought that mixologist I thought you were a DJ or something right. Justin Timberlake, you're much, much cooler.

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What happened with JJ? How the hell does that happen? Um,

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yeah. So I worked with him for a couple of years. Actually, that period I was speaking to before when we were building tuxedo. That was how I was paying my rent, I was spending all the money I had on the development and needed something to cover Cape Cod altogether. So um, yeah, as mentioned, I had a I had a bar previously in Manhattan and you made all kinds of people from all walks of life in New York nightlife. And I was doing a little bit of work with a liquor Group, a big liquor company Suntory beam. So that's the snap Japanese on but you know, who on the whole Jim Beam portfolio, those sorts of things. And they've been on me for a while, they said, Do you want to come on board and help us with some of our recipes and some of you know, maybe a brand ambassador spot or something like that. And while I on the Liberty, I never really had the time to go in and give it the attention it required. But after selling my stake in the Liberty and developing tuxedo, I just had more bandwidth to do it. So I got more involved with those guys. And at about that time, the boom group and Timberlake kind of had a co branded tequila called Mondo one tequila mana ones, the area code of Memphis, which is Justin's hometown, it was tequila that he was developing out of Mexico. And you know, here in the States, every celebrity has a liquor brand now. And, and so I helped them with their cocktail recipe book and, and did a few events in the like, with them and, and then met Justin, we did some events together out in LA initially. And he's a lovely guy, lovely guy, like anybody who wants like celebrity gossip marker, I guess I don't have any, the guy is a massive talent. Like you just put a microphone in his hand. And whether it's singing or just engaging an audience is an absolute natural.

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And it's actually really annoying to be

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I remember we did a conference in Vegas slots, and there's a crowd of about 3000 people. And I'm not gonna lie to you guys. I was misled, nervous as all hell this is.

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Miss mixologist in a conference with Justin Timberlake. What is can you paint the picture? I think I

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sign an NDA a battle this

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just I just realise that

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there's a few thousand tells the public there's nothing bad about that compelling urge. But so it's an internal kind of brand conference, okay. They bring all their salespeople and internal strategy people together and whatnot. And they'll speak two new major initiatives happening within the company. Not one was a new brand. Obviously they had you know, a really exciting

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partnership in that not make I was excited.

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And so and so we were speaking to them, me to speak about the product and the like, and and then Justin the kind of excitement those the labour force for then. So for me, I'm a long way outside my comfort zone in the context like this. And and we're backstage because it was like, like you never sent you, buddy. Thank you, buddy. It was a candid American accent. I've been here nine years.

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And I was like, Yeah, man, I'm not gonna lie. Really? Like, it's cool. Don't worry. I'm really good at this.

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to you. Thanks, man.

21:15
Did you have like a Madonna icon or something like that?

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Yeah, I did. I did. I had a head Mike. Yeah. And he prefers a handheld. So he had a handheld. And then after that, I got to handhelds. Now, I think it's much cool. This was a fun gig, we went to some cool places. Jimmy Fallon lots of golf courses did the tonight show, which, which I was listening was about actually having done having done those a few times with him. He said something he was like, and it's actually a principle I try to take into work now. Where it feels like everybody out there is on your side. Best case scenario in this is for this to go great. Like it. And that's a good principle. You know, so often, I think, I think if we're harbouring anxiety about something in our work life for or anything for that matter, or just when there's a you know, when we're presenting ourselves to a group of people, invariably not in on terms in 100. Yeah, there are haters out there and whatnot. But I think people want what's best for one another, and it's a great result, you know, to let people shine. So I think about that, in the context of other people doing things, just get around them support, pay it forward, you know, do what you can to help and support them to a cool stuff. And also and things I'm doing where I got all this feels risky, or is this a good idea? This is a bad one. We'll just have a crack have a bit. Yeah,

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tell me, this reminds me of what we're talking to Seth Godin about the tall poppy syndrome. As an Australian spending, the last nine plus years in the states is tall, Poppy is this imaginary thing that we that we've created? We need to move away from even talking about do you think

23:00
as an Ozzy principle you lay, or I think there is a bit of a tendency in Australia In Australia, there's an expectation to have a degree of humility, which I think is healthy to a degree. But at the same time, I think when people are doing cool shit, yeah, get around them. Yeah. I look at some instances with like Australian athletes and stuff. And this culture of no lots of credit to the boys and all of that. This is years ago, and it's got to be an obtrusive Australian Football reference. I remember my lover, who played for the West Coast Eagles is a small forward supplies from 12 goals and 12 goals for small forward and contemporary football is unbelievable. I hope somebody listens. Remember, like I went on, I felt calm down. I'm looking at it online. And I look at the post match interview. And the end, the journalist who's interviewing him is like, Well done, Mark, whatever you guys are, it's a credit to the boys know that. Hi.

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And, and I was thinking to myself, an American athlete would have been like,

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I'm just that good. Good. Yeah. And now, and I think that ID, I would have rejected something hit on us. As I mentioned, I would have rejected previously. But now I'm kind of all about it. Yeah, what you get what's yours? Yeah, you know, I something I've struggled with and advice I give to a lot of Australians who come over here is like, if you're going into a job interview environment, you have to act as your greatest advocate, because nobody else will. Yeah. So if you walk into a job interview, it's not the time for false humility, whatever your field is. So in that context, might not a videographer. You're a filmmaker, the best filmmakers in Spielberg

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bloody good.

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Well, and,

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and so

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and look, like all things, there's a

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held the position somewhere in the middle, probably. But uh, but I think trends can have a degree towards a socialised pressure for a false humility, which is a shame. Now, that doesn't mean you should stand on the trade top singing your own praises. And I think you can say through the bullshit pretty quickly, but but I like to, in my friends, community, people doing cool stuff, interesting stuff. I like to champion excellence. So in that weed, I thought I said, I told him about my crab before I tell him my good on the girls, and it's nobody but Yo, yo, yo, to kick them. But nobody,

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damn, people get around you here when you were starting this? Absolutely

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the community, particularly the LGBT community, it's a really special group over here, I think there's a really, because the fact of the matter is, it's not easy. And, you know, you're a long way from home, this is a wonderful city with a lot of opportunity. But it's a challenging one of trying one, everything from you know, it can be things like, cost of living getting that first apartment is a punish. And there's a lot of stuff as a foreign national, the fixation with credit writings and stuff, hey, you know, that don't make it easy for the outsiders coming in. Which means anybody no matter the context, you're coming over here with whether you've come over transferred with a job or you've come over looking one chasing a dream, whatever your field is, you're doing that hard graft early. And, and a lot of us pending depending on how long we've been here, like you can remember back to that hard graft, and you still doing the draught up. And you know, I mean, is there still stuff you put up with, it's a long, cold winter, for instance. And so when you're in that first one, when it gets too bad, I feel like feels like it's been, you know, freezing cold for six months. It's a hard it's a hard graft. So for me, my first couple of years, the support I got from new friends was there. special and important in my kind of early period here. And so when you see the young guys or young guys and girls, not even that young, necessarily arriving, I like to get around them and support them and and that culture has is, is really established and propagates which is not

27:20
business partnerships, Tommy and I are in the process of merging all of our stuff. We've had two separate businesses, we've done a big merger, we've done a company's called big media company, to to honour the fact that we're we're merging two small companies Stop being so

27:40
I've always wanted to start a company called Global mega Corp. That would be done. I don't know what the company is yet.

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I love domain names, and we've got big media company.com. And that was enough for us to get excited about it. But what advice can you give us? You know, like, obviously, we're in the honeymoon phase things are great. We're live and we're having a great time with Eddie. When when chicken to hit the fan? How can we prepare?

28:05
Well, I think the

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the ferocity with which the shit hits the fan depends on your own guys preparation and business. Partnership is like any and all relationships, we always enter into them with the best intention. I've had a business relationship disintegrate first business partnership disintegrate, which was a difficult time. Yeah. And nobody goes into it going, Well, I want to Hell do this when we go bankrupt. And we didn't go bankrupt or anything. But but but you, you

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any

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business partnership, like any relationship is started with a eternal optimism to start, which is great. And that's necessary. And that's how cool stuff happens. So that's not a bad thing. It's just the reality of the matter. And what's important, so this kind of like a relationship, a romantic relationship, or partnership is the foundation you establish. And its capacity for communication, understanding one another, and so understanding one other's strengths and probably more importantly, one another's weaknesses, and having a capacity and a space to talk through issues and challenges. So, so at the first sign of trial or tribulation, you know, somebody doesn't just throw a shit fit and throw their toys out of the pram or whatnot, or maybe one partner does and maybe that's their

29:26
style. What's the difference? was reading a ship fit and having the conversation what it what's what's, what's the productive way of doing it says destructive way?

29:36
Well, I'll say two things to this. Jeff and I spoke a lot when we established about what our informant principles were. And it was very good, we've written them down, and we have them. And it's a great asset for us, as individuals as partners and for the business, because it makes a lot of decisions much easier. You have myriad decisions that you have to make in the development of any business. And you can get almost like a decision fatigue in some ways. But if you have these informant principles that you can return to, very often man times out of 10, there's a simple solution there. And then so you can save your real creative bandwidth, your real problem solving skills for the stuff that really is a challenge. So having an easy will just just a Why are we doing this because it can be easy to forget sometimes. And then another thing that Jeff and I, and my team more broadly with my head chef Paul, my general manager, Dan, my events coordinator, Laura, with a lot of talented people around us. But we're just trying to stay solution orientated. Things will come up there will be challenges, but engaging in a blame game or dwelling on the problem. We've had some crazy stuff, we've had a fire in the space. We had a sprinkler head phrase in the winter, and then when I thought blew out the sprinkler and father that kitchen, and they just like building issues. We had the city electrical grid, there was a fire under the street, outside of our restaurant, there was an intake into our basement, filled our basement and blacked out the restaurant on Friday night. Like stuff like this happens. That's the beauty of you know, working in a 200 year old neighbourhood. electrical grid. But But staying solution orientated, you know, when, when your sprinkler head is is pissing water in the places flooding, if you stand around going, getting wet, this sucks. You're not helping any Yeah. So so I think establishing understanding your informing principles. And retaining a solution orientation is a really valuable thing. After the fact after you found your solutions after you've worked through your challenges, you can sit around and have a beer and go man, that sucks.

31:54
That sucked. Past tense. Yeah.

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But But when you're in it, it's good if you're moving forward and

32:01
drinking more.

32:04
And so and so or seltzer.

32:08
So do you think that it's like how productive is pinpointing the exact issues? Like how do you do you find that? Because I find that I need to say okay, well, if I'm going to bring a problem, I need to be very specific. And that can come across as pedantic and nitpicky. Yeah. How do you balance? You know, when do you communicate versus when you like, actually, this is a, this is a personal insecurity that I have versus an issue that I need to address. It's a fascinating

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question. I think everybody's different in that regard. And I think it speaks to, like a team structure you want to

32:49
a team

32:50
is best when it's an assortment of strengths and skill sets. You know, a basketball team has point guards and powerful it's, I don't know why I'm a little disappointed. Hey, guys, big sports podcast. And so, so it's great if you can consider and partner with people with complementary skill sets. And so because you want to, we want to be both micro and macro. So you were speaking about your specificity, and amazing quality and strength. But it has to remain and exist within context. Yeah. So I don't probably don't have your same attention to detail that degree. I tend to be more macro in in my thinking in some ways. But I have team members and teammates who hold me to account to ensure that we, you know, were executing on the detail as well. Yeah. So that's letting go of my ego a little bit on a tues sometimes. And go, Okay, this isn't my, this isn't my strong suit. This isn't my strength, I need to surround myself with people who are better at this than me. And us, empower them and in turn, trust them. Does that make sense? Yeah,

34:02
roundabout answer, I love it. And you bbg guy,

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you know, vision, big vision.

34:10
Typically, I'm the guy I think I you know, frustrate a lot of my team where I go, got this great idea will do. And then this is this is the next idea of what you'll miss love. But, you know, I tend to be more of a macro perspective perspective on things. But then there are some things where you have to get down in the weeds on it, you have the end of the day tile. But But yet, naturally, I would characterise myself as more of a zoom out, taught,

34:38
we spoke with Seth Godin, today, my voice is really going about personal brands. And, you know, you being here as an Ozzy, you know, thinking about how you're coming across what your brand is, it was top of mind when you moved here. Look,

34:55
definitely not when I moved here. I took a job here, just as I really, really love New York, I came here on vacation, and I was living in Sydney at the time. And I'm going back to Sydney. And you know, different people have different places that they love and that speak to them. And I was really lucky that I think that I that I found New York when I did, I was 26 years old and love that. And so I was just there was no thought. Big Picture big players, big picture guy. This was not none of this was scripted. But I think in some ways, this idea of personal brand is a very 2018 thing to talk about. I don't know that there are people who are better at this industry than I am who would attest that it's an imperative and everything. I try to stick to the formula. do good work. And let the work speak. For you.

35:48
Yeah. Perfect, good balance in some regards to that tall poppy syndrome that you told me about, which is like, I pump yourself up when you need to, but also put your head down and actually have have something to back up those words. Yeah.

36:02
Yeah. No question. And look, there might be some opportunities I've missed out on by by not trying to feel the the personal brand side of things. And I think for you know, food and beverage is a creative industry. And the cult of personality around creatives is pretty powerful. I think that applies more to the chefs in the field and the operators. At the end of the day, a really good operator for good operators doing a good job. You shouldn't know who they are. You don't need to know their night. Yeah, you know. And maybe if you pump up your profile, it's a little easier to to get investment or more things like that. But I think if you do good work, set a culture set a tone with the attain, then I suppose that's personal branding to a degree, but not the kind of thing that is faster than format of violence. The grant

36:55
doesn't come across gross.

36:56
Yeah, yeah. You don't be too well. Look, I say it only took thirsty with it. Go be thirsty. Thirsty is a demo. Like it's 2018 we're all supposed to be super thirsty. The Kardashians, the most famous people in the world. You know, there's no shame in being thirsty. Yeah, but I'm 35 years old. So I'm not like I'm a millennial. Just Yeah,

37:14
you hydrate up a little bit this little.

37:19
This being all means to an end. Really? Yeah. And the truth is, I'm trying to use my phone less. So things like the social media outreach and everything not helping. I don't want to make that part of my job.

37:31
at Buckingham, my you've got to go back to what you do best.

37:37
Bill Clinton might be there.

37:39
Exactly.

37:43
I think people should definitely go and check out what you're doing. What's one other place that you'd recommend? Other than your join? The people should go and go and say New York City restaurant. Yeah, you're

37:53
visiting and you're here for the first time or the 10th time for that matter. I think a fabulous a spot that really speaks to what's interesting and happening in New York food right now is a little spot called a Stella on house and street in in Soho. Small dining room, maybe 40 seats, contemporary kind of Spanish inflexion, great head chef. They're really thoughtful whitelist beautiful spot. Awesome. Oh, thanks

38:21
for the thoughtful chat. It's a daily talk show. Hi, the daily talk show.com if you want to send us an email, or go to reddit.com forward slash, forward slash the data talk show. Have a good one.
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