Interviews Drew Nieporent, Myriad Restaurant Group

0:00 Speaker 1 Good morning. This is Mike Stolar for the Stolar real Estatement and on the catch Around Table. This morning, I have the Mister Restaurant Tour, number one restaurant tour in the city and around the country. My good friend Drew in the porn of the New Area restaurant group Mazo Tough.

0:14 First of all, on the sale of Bitard. Thank you okay, which was your baby.

0:20 Speaker 2 My first restaurant of nineteen eighty five.

0:22 Speaker 1 So let’s talk about this nineteen eighty five to twenty twenty three. What’s the world like today and the difficulties of being involved in the restaurant business.

0:33 Speaker 2 It’s more complicated today. Obviously the rents are higher.

0:37 Speaker 1 Today, but the revenues are higher not you know, I.

0:41 Speaker 2 Don’t know why, but I grew up with the crazy Eddy mentality of keeping the lowest prices that I would charge for wine and food and having the best quality, which was a good formula. I’ve been busy, but now I realize that post COVID, especially when people are going out more, that there’s a lot more wealthy people in

1:03 the world that I realized, and they’re not afraid to spend I mean, and the prices and restaurants have gotten extraordinary.

1:10 Speaker 1 I mean, okay, so true the food prices have gone up in certain times, the rent has gone up. But I believe restaurants today are charging more and serving less. That’s correct.

1:22 Speaker 2 You know, I always make a joke about Italian restaurants. You used to go to Italian restaurants, say do you have half portions of pasta? They say, of course, they serve you a half portion. It was half the price.

1:32 Now you asked that question. Guess what, Mike, no half portions. But when you want a full portion, they actually charge you the half portion or the menu price times too. So all all the portions are now are half portions.

1:47 Speaker 1 You know, as I would say with Shelley Fireman, over the years, your babies, let’s talk about some of your babies that you’ve grown up with. You know, as we were saying, Buitar was mantroche. Okay, how old were you when you open up mont Forchew?

2:01 Speaker 2 I opened Marche April nineteen eighty five. I was twenty nine years old. I’m sixty seven now. Thirty eight years is a long time. I think Phantom of the Opera only went for thirty five years. So Andre Saltner cooked thattlu Test for only thirty five years, so to be there for thirty eight years is quite an achievement. Tribeca

2:19 gross now thirty three years. Nobu Nobu is going to be thirty next year. If you can imagine that, they’re fifty four nobles around the world and.

2:28 Speaker 1 Tribeca grew thirty three thirty three years.

2:30 Speaker 2 I mean, my restaurants stand the test of time, which is the greatest thing. There’s just one problem. When I was younger, to achieve the status today, we would have been called an institution. People would have loved us. We’d be like twenty one Club, four Seasons, the Rainbow Room.

2:44 Guess what, those restaurants don’t exist anymore, and nobody gives who about you being around a long time because the market is driven. There’s so many more restaurants now, there’s so much more competition, there’s so much more ethnic everything.

2:58 So you really to be on on your game, you have to be that much better.

3:02 Speaker 1 So which neighborhoods are you? Do you feel the best places for restaurants today? At one time we used to joke with me on Brooklyn and you would say, you know, only a chef and his wife could open up that place, right.

3:14 Speaker 2 I used to go to Hubert’s and that’s what it was. But you know, and you have the River Cafe, maybe Lundy’s handful of places. But listen, I think any neighborhood where you can afford the rent, do you have a fair deal and you can afford the rent, and you have to have a certain price point because keeping your

3:32 prices low. Now, driving a grade volume doesn’t necessarily work anymore. Why because basically in the restaurant business, we spend money three ways. There’s rent, there’s food, and labor. Labor is now off the charts and all the rules about overtime and spread of hours and things like that. So you could have a fifty percent labor number in a restaurant

3:53 these days.

3:54 Speaker 1 So how do you keep the labor over there? Do you offer bonus incentives? Do you add perks, do you encourage back?

4:00 Speaker 2 You do everything? And guess what, it doesn’t matter because the workers are going to go, especially COVID change a lot with the mentality of the worker. They they have the upper They had the upper hand, maybe now a little less so. But like you know, a guy yesterday, you know, all my staff had I wanted to find

4:16 them work since my restaurant just closed, and he said, I only want to work four days. And you know the nobu I got a my job at nobody they want five days? Is it just worked the five days?

4:26 I mean it’s like, you know, beggars can’t be choosy.

4:29 Speaker 1 So what you know today the Michelin starre, how important are the ratings and the reviews?

4:34 Speaker 2 Michelin is very important to a certain group of people. It actually it motivates them to go to that restaurant. But overall Michelin is a tire company, you know, and it’s like so, and also the inspectors are anonymous, so I don’t know how accurate it is to come one time to a restaurant.

4:52 Speaker 1 Well what about zagots okay.

4:54 Speaker 2 Zagus is gone? I saw I saw Tim and Nina at Daniel Blute’s thirtieth anniversary which was a great, great party. But the zagat which was the all powerful, is no longer. I mean, there’s something called the affect infatuation. They don’t even use that at anymore.

5:10 Speaker 1 So way to people, but people are social.

5:13 Speaker 2 You have a phone, people search no, no, Mike. Right now, this is the greatest moment for the consumer. Why you can go on the phone, even like if you don’t like yelp, you can see the food, you can see the prices. You know before you staff to go to the restaurant, look at the window. Most people block the window.

5:29 The menu was never in the window in some restaurants, so you didn’t know what you were getting involved with. Zagat was just two or three lines in a red book and you know some stupid numbers about ratings. Today you can go on Yelp, you can go on the eater and there’s a million places you can go uh

5:45 and and see the food and say, wow, the food looks terrible.

5:47 Speaker 1 I’m not going there. So where what do you? What are you planning to do now that you’re a baby in Mantroche Buitar. Okay, well, I’m.

5:56 Speaker 2 Still I’m still very active. I go to work every day. I have a one store on fifty seventh Street. I do the Hamburgers at Madison Square Garden and I love what I do, So I’m still I’m still quite active.

6:09 Speaker 1 Speaking of them, do you see more better restaurants opening up in venues like Madison Square Garden? Oh? Definitely.

6:16 Speaker 2 It shocks me when I go someplace and I won’t name the arena where the food is that terrible? Like, because most of the sports you know have food. Also met life with the jets. Most of these people are motivated to do a better job. But when you go to a place and the food is you know, they

6:35 can’t even make a good hamber, I mean a good hot dog. That’s ridiculous.

6:38 Speaker 1 So where do you see a young guy wants to go into the business. Where are the opportunities?

6:46 Speaker 2 Well, look, I think basically now what’s in vogue are smaller restaurants with less help so you can control the labor and if you’re working the store, you’re gonna save one sally, whether it’s if you’re the chef or if you’re the front of the house person. So so it’s more if you’re going to be hands on operator with

7:05 an idea, you can do it these days, but just make sure you sign a good real estate deal and keep your your expenses down.

7:11 Speaker 1 What about fast casual fast?

7:14 Speaker 2 I don’t even know what that means. If you want to serve a hamburger someplace, it’s a hamburger joint, you know fast. They create these, you know categories, But to.

7:23 Speaker 1 Me, fast ghost kitchens.

7:25 Speaker 2 Well, that’s that’s awful. Trust me. If you cannot set up, you can’t do these pop ups and make any money. I’m sorry. They sound good. It’s maybe not so bad for the consumer, but it’s not a good id.

7:37 Speaker 1 What about the restaurants is amenities in office buildings so they.

7:40 Speaker 2 Can Yeah, that’s a good idea. I think Daniel Blude is doing the Centurion Club over it Van the build and you know and John John George I think is owned in part by Howard Hughes and they spent two hundred million over the building, God bless them so. And also South Street c Obviously they give restaurateurs like millions

8:03 of dollars to open a restaurant.

8:04 Speaker 1 What about the catering business?

8:06 Speaker 2 Catering is always the best because you can charge twice as much for everything just a given and charge twice as much.

8:15 Speaker 1 So you bullish on that?

8:17 Speaker 2 Oh, I’ve always been bullish about that. We do a huge amount of private events over at Tribeca Grill.

8:25 Speaker 1 Okay, so where do you see Tribeca Grill and Nobu? Do you see any more expansion of.

8:30 Speaker 2 Well a Nobu? I think we’re going to start looking under Manhole covers to expand because Nobu is extraordinary. I mean it just everywhere that we put a Nobu, it does fantastic.

8:42 Speaker 1 So what do you attribute to the success of Nobu.

8:44 Speaker 2 Success of Nobu is that we do the same thing well in different locations and where we thought, innovation, creativity were the things that people want. You know, what people want, they want what they think they know, and they want it at a good price.

8:59 Speaker 1 What about you brought up the fact that the Rainbow Room is gone the Four Seasons. What happened we left with Cipriani. Okay, what happened?

9:09 Speaker 2 I think the motivating people, you know, the brains behind those operations, they got old. And you know, unless there’s somebody to carry the torch, somebody has to, you know, like the Siria Maccioni for instance. You know, there’s three wonderful sons, but nobody could do what he did. And you know when you lose you know, Paul Kobe and

9:31 Tom Margatie at the Four Seasons and twenty one club, you know, and that became I think it was owned by Word the Express and they lost their their compass there too. What about the pom that’s a I love I love the Pom growing up. But that’s a terrible story, right, we’d have to do a whole show on the pomp.

9:49 Speaker 1 Okay, So I’d like to say it’s great to have the king of the restaurant tour business, the legendary Dream Report. And thanks for being here today, Michael.

9:58 Speaker 2 It’s always a pleasure to be with.

10:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, thank you.