Restaurant Legends

I first became aware on Nick Zukin when in early 2011 I was researching the market for Jewish delis. There was a newly born interest in delis happening and I was working with a client in Minneapolis who wanted to jump into the pool. Nick had opened Kenny and Zuke’s in Portland, Oregon about 3 years earlier with partner Ken Gordon. So, over the years I’ve followed Nick on Facebook with the opening of his current restaurant Mi Mero Mole and several well documented and photographed research trips to Mexico. During this time, I got to know and appreciate his irreverent and “tell it like it is” style. I invited him to be guest on my podcast several times for that reason…but something always got in the way.

Then Covid-19 struck and as the weeks went on Nick’s voice on several subjects concerning the devastating affect the shutdown became louder and more focused. The subsequent incomplete and ill managed attempt to help the industry by the government was top of the list but he was out there telling it like it was on several other counts. So finally, I got him to sit down and talk about his experiences.

New York BBQ used to be an oxymoron as true as jumbo shrimp. The mere thought of it came across as the cowboy thought of a replacement salsa in the Pace Picante Sauce commercial of the 80’s with his flummoxed declaration of “Made in “New York City?” But over the last fifteen years or so, the discerning palates of New Yorkers has driven creative Chefs and pit masters to establish New York as a true BBQ town. And Brooklyn its epicenter.

One of the players coming out of the dense smoke is Mighty Quinn’s. A true to BBQ roots style purveyor that started in the massive weekly Smorgasburg food fair of Brooklyn and now has brick and mortar locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Westchester and Dubai along with stadium concessions in Madison Square Garden and Yankee Stadium. They’ve recently entered the franchise market and have one location in construction and several more on the books ready to start. This was the rosy wood fired picture when the Coronavirus turned their world upside down as it did to the other 1 million restaurants around the country.

I talked with Micha Magid, co-founder of Mighty Quinn’s, about how this fledgling franchisor is facing and managing the crisis as conditions seem to change daily. He has an interesting view from the hardest hit city in the country.

Mighty Quinn's Barbeque

As of March 17th, 2020 there were over 700,000 restaurants in the United States. Today all of them are either closed for business for the duration, closed completely and not to re-open or working at 1/8 the volume they were 4 weeks ago. Each restaurant or restaurant group has their story of how they approached the mandated shutdown, what it meant to their way of doing business, how they handled staff or in the lexicon of the restaurant, their family. There were some hard decisions to face. And as we go through this special time there’s even more on the plate of restaurateurs. What will our business be like when the all clear sounds?

These are just some of the issues I discussed recently with Kevin Rathbun. Kevin lives in Atlanta with his wife Melissa, who he often refers to as the Queen. He opened his namesake Rathbun’s American Cuisine in 2004 which was quickly followed right next door by Krog Bar in 2005. Then in 2007, Kevin Rathbun Steak opened followed by KR Steakbar in 2012. Each restaurant cementing Kevin’s position as a leading restaurateur in Atlanta. His humble reply to the accolades says it all, “I try to make them feel as if it’s a family from the staff to the customers. Cooking from the heart is always the answer”.

I quickly realized his feelings about his guests and staff as family was and is the driving theme behind nearly every decision he’s made on steering his company through the pandemic.

Restaurants around the country were asked to close to help curb a looming pandemic in mid March 2020. This is the first (I hope) of several podcasts that will begin to address the affect the mandated closing of all restaurants might have on the way we re-open for business and what that new operating business model may look like. I will try to avoid too many stories about how this has hurt business, we all know how and why. But I will look ahead as best I can to help all of us see what our restaurant industry will look like in the short term, the time just prior to opening and the few days after. And what the long-term changes may be that will ultimately re-shape the industry.

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You can call him Chef, author, a forager, an early farm to table advocate or simply a philosopher and you’d be right on all counts. As a son of a lower income Italian family in New Jersey, Lenny was surrounded by food from an early age, and it stuck.

The NRA projected the restaurant revenue would reach $843 billion in 2020. This is the largest amount ever projected and the biggest increase year over year ever. Attitudes and habits are changing so rapidly and with such culture altering effects as never before. Three out of four families partake in restaurant prepared meals on a regular basis. 41% of all diners will order a meal to be delivered or picked up. The demand for food delivered to the office from simple lunches to elaborate functions is on the increase.