The Garnish: A Podcast for Restaurant People

By providing health insurance and adding a 2% kitchen appreciation fee to each bill — and by saying "thank you" every day — Ming Tsai shows the staff of his restaurant that he cares.

For more on Ming, check out our previous episode with him, Season 1, Episode 3, where he told us about his origins and how he went from mechanical engineering student to chef to allergy advocate. 

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Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.

Ashish Alfred is the chef-owner of three restaurants in the Baltimore area: Duck Duck Goose Baltimore, Duck Duck Goose Bethesda, and George’s Chophouse. He’s also over five years sober and extremely open about his lifelong struggle with mental health. 

We chatted about sobriety in the industry, how he manages 65 staff members across three restaurants, how he strives for an outstanding guest experience, and what he’d advise a friend if they told him they were opening a restaurant.

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Sign up for our listener newsletter at bit.ly/thegarnish for bonus content and a message from me whenever we release a new episode.

Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.

Today on The Garnish, we’re talking about restaurant renovations. We spoke to Dala Al-Fuwaires, a restaurant designer at FJI Design, about how to renovate a restaurant on a budget, and how to build your restaurant brand. Then, we also chatted with two restaurateurs — Alex Garcia and Steven Darwin —  who’ve recently built out new locations of their restaurants and have some lessons to share. 

This episode is brought to you by Toast Capital, access to fast, flexible funding for restaurant owners and operators.

Thanks for listening to The Garnish!

Sign up for our listener newsletter at bit.ly/thegarnish for bonus content and a message from me whenever we release a new episode.

Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.

Irene Li, the founder of Mei Mei in Boston, MA, incorporates constant training into the jobs at Mei Mei: staff learn the finances behind the restaurant thanks to open-book management, they run peer trainings on everything from herbs to pronouns, and they also get external trainings, like one on service for those with alzheimers and dementia. She invests in her staff by teaching them everything she knows, and encouraging them to teach each other, and it pays off — average employee tenure at Mei Mei is 2-3 years. 

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Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.

From the moment Ciro Fodera, chef de cuisine of Capo South Boston, joined the team as sous chef three years ago, he's been hell-bent on demolishing the front- and back-of-house divide, and on building a cohesive, happy team. Thanks to his efforts, he hasn’t had to replace a cook in over a year. 

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Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.

This episode is a rebroadcast of our February interview with Erin Wade, founder of Homeroom in Oakland, CA, interviewed by Allie Van Duyne and Tamara Portman. Wade got famous in the industry for how she and her staff created a system to deal with harassment, but Wade is also know for her  commitment to making Homeroom a truly diverse work environment: more than 70% of the company’s leaders are women and people of color.

The audio sounds a little different in this episode because it’s from before we upgraded our audio equipment, but bear with us, because it’s an amazing conversation. 

Heads up that this episode contains discussion of sexual harassment.

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Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.

Steven Darwin is the co-founder of Darwin’s, a four-location cafe in Cambridge, MA. He opened the first location 27 years ago with his wife and co-founder, Isabel, and since then, Darwin and his team of managers have learned a lot about hiring. He says that you can train someone to do just about any job in a cafe, but you can’t train personality — and you can usually tell within a few minutes if someone is right for the job.

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Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.

Leslie Ciccone is the owner of (swah-rey), a two-location (soon to be four location) dessert bar in St Petersburg, Florida. Her whole business model is centered around kindness, and she aims to create a work environment for young women that’s supportive and challenging, and that sets a standard of how they should let themselves be treated by an employer.  

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Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.

Logan Hostettler is the owner of 1894 Lodge in New Washington, Indiana, a town of around 700 people. Hostettler heavily cross-trains his kitchen staff so that everyone knows how to do everything, which really helps on a small team. He also told me about how talking about mental health openly is crucial to the success of his team, and how he’s been able to watch a lot of young people on his staff rise to the occasion when given new responsibilities. 

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Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.

This episode is a rebroadcast of our June interview with Ryan Egozi, director of operations at SuViche restaurant group in Miami, FL. He told us about how he and his team realized that it’s best to hire people whose values align to that of your team, and then train them to do the work well. He also discussed the two different profit-sharing programs at SuViche and other ways they show appreciation to their staff.

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Sign up for our listener newsletter at bit.ly/thegarnish

Our theme song is Leopard, from Filmstro.