Turning Crisis Into Opportunity with Anh Mai

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Facebook land, YouTube channel and Periscope. Donald Burns, restaurant coach. I am honored to have with me today a very special guest and also a great friend. An Mai from Houston. ANH is actually one of those kind of cutting edge restaurateurs. He's part of the force behind Prohibition, supper club, conservatory, and the brand new Bravery Chef Hall. An, welcome today. How are you?

I'm good, Donald. Thanks for having me on your show.

Yeah, that's awesome. Houston, tell us about what's the situation in Houston so people can kind of understand where you guys are at.

You know, actually, Houston is pretty lucky, I think, so far. You know, we kind of reacted pretty quickly. You know, Houston's a big place and we're kind of spread out, so. So I think we're kind of lucky and kind of blessed in that regard. So we haven't been hit as hard as other cities, so we've heard, you know, but it's still early, so, you know.

Yeah. Are you guys on full lockdown or.

Yeah, we're still on lockdown, but I think we're about to open up. I think we're one of the first states. Texas is one of the first states to open back up.

Yeah, no, I know. Georgia is opening up like Monday. They're opening restaurants, allowing restaurants to open back up for dining.

That's right. Yeah.

So Bravery Chef Hall. I mean, cool. I mean, talk about cool concepts. Tell them a little bit about what Bravery Chef hall is. You took like a food hall concept and you just like, amped it up.

Yeah, basically. Basically, we just, we created kind of like a hybrid model. You know, the, the chef fine dining with. With the food hall business model, basically just we're curating a food hall, but only for chefs with chef counter seating. And the whole business model, kind of the whole impetus for the whole concept was trying to level the playing field for the wage debate between front of the house and back of the house. And we just felt like chefs and cooks deserved more equal pay. So our solution was just to remove the middleman so that cooks could, you know, make a better wage through their hourly pay, plus tips.

Very cool.

And it's worked really well.

Oh, yeah. How many concepts you have inside Bravery Hall?

We have another one called Railway Heights Market that's opening up probably, you know, later this year. But, you know, obviously it depends on. On this, you know, but it's called Railway Heights. It's a, it's a sustainable market. And, and it's, you know, I think it's needed in Houston and it's, you know, it's 40,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space. 50 different vendors, restaurants, retail, farmer's market, grocery store, dog park, wine bar, beer garden, just all kinds of stuff.

Very cool. How many, how many concepts are at Bravery Chef Hall? How many different chefs are there?

We have five kitchens. Five chefs. Five.

Okay.

You know, there's. There's multiple chefs that works there, but five different restaurants and three bars.

Right.

And so more of an ups. It's more upscale than your typical food hall.

Right, because you have conservatory too, right?

Yes, yes.

Yeah. So that's more of like a traditional kind of food hall.

Yes, yes.

Right, right. So what you did at Bravery, though, you know, so COVID 19 comes to town, you decide what, what's your action plan?

Well, you know, we kind of, you know, like, everyone else was kind of, like, skeptical in the beginning. Like, you know, this is just whatever. And, you know, at some point we just decided, hey, look, this is for real. And, you know, we were one of the first restaurants to close in Houston, and we closed without the, you know, the, you know, the city mandate. We just decided to close on our own. We felt like it was, you know, it's gonna come, it's inevitable. So we decided to go ahead and close and we overnight converted to a ghost kitchen.

Oh, wow.

And. And what we did was we basically just offered free rent for our vendors, and then we decided to do our own delivery and charging, charging, you know, the same amount that UberEats would charge, and we did our own delivery. And so therefore, the. The vendors would actually be able to have a viable business model. Because, you know, that third party delivery business model only works when a restaurant's already in business and doing, you know, a certain amount of percentage of sales and dine in, you know, but it doesn't work. If someone had to pay 30% plus their rent, it wouldn't be feasible.

That's true. So how is that working out? Really well.

Yeah, it's been great. You know, we had to make it super secure. We call it safe and secure delivery.

Okay.

And so we had. We have all these crazy, you know, safety protocols when you walk in, like, like the tsa.

Oh, really?

Yeah, we, we check your temperature, you know, you have to sign in, we ask you a bunch of questions, you know, we sanitize your hands, sanitize your bags, you know, but. But it, you know, it may have been overboard at the time, but I think it allowed people to feel safe to come to work, you know?

Yeah. And then you did A video, too. I saw your website.

Right, yeah, yeah, we did a video explaining it. And, you know, we've been focused on just from the very beginning, trying to help the. The medical. You know, there you go. That's my partnership right there. And we've been doing a lot of donations with the. With the community support to deliver meals to the hospitals, the frontline workers.

Oh, very cool. Yeah. And then you got your little plan here, too. You know, flatten the curve, convert the food hall into a massive ghost kitchen, and then. Duplicate.

Yeah, so duplicate. You know, obviously, you know, everyone else, you know, is obviously doing the same thing too, and that's great. And. And I think Houston, you know, what's great about Houston, you know, we're a small. You know, we're a big city, but we're actually a small community. And, you know, I think a lot of the. The restaurateurs in Houston really stepped up. You know, you got Chris Shepard, you know, raising money for, you know, furloughed, you know, hospitality workers. You got multiple restaurants, you know, delivering to the hospitals. It's just been really great to see. Yeah.

Tell me the person I think is most interesting and I follow her on Facebook, is Christine. Ha. Of the Blind Goat. Tell me a little bit about her and her backstory. She has a really unique story.

So, yeah, Christine, you know, she was on MasterChef, like, I think maybe four or five years ago. And, you know, she, you know, obviously was blind and was able to win and overcome, you know, a lot of obstacles. And, you know, you hear about her, but then once you get to meet her, you know, you find out she's really, really down to earth person.

Yeah.

Super, super talented. Her and her husband are very, very. It kind of surprised me because it was like the first restaurant, you know, endeavor, and I mean, they nailed it out of the park. You know, they were nominated James Beard, you know, before this thing happened.

Mm. Yeah. And if people. If they haven't been to, you know, this Bravery Chef hall is like, the coolest thing in the world. So, yeah, real exciting stuff you're doing there. And I'm excited because you're also, you know, you're. You are actually. You're going to be a speaker at my new online summit. Yeah. Remember, you said you would.

Yeah.

Back out now, man. Yeah.

You got me.

I know. You know, and I was. I was actually. I'm very fortunate. You know, I could call up a lot of friends, and I've got some amazing speakers so far. Wrong screen. But, you know, I've Got some amazing speakers lined up.

I'm sure you do.

Yeah, I've got you. Of course. We got, you know, we got Leanne, you know, your business partner. For how long have you guys been business partners now?

Very long time, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got Kevin Bame, who's, he's a James Beard Award. He won James Beard Award best restaurant tour last year. He's out of the Boca Restaurant Group out of Chicago. Got Craig Shelton, he's another James Beard Award winning chef. Andrew Freeman, Bruce Irving, Beau Bryant. I got Kelly Jones, Kelly Jones Hospitality out of Vegas. I got Eva Ballerin, she's a consultant and a great friend of mine from, you know, from Spain. Candace McDonald, she's also a great PR person. You gotta, I got you, I got Leanne, I got Raymond Dios from Spain. Also another great consultant, Brian, he's like a wine God. He ran bin 36 out of Chicago. We got Julia. I got Doug Ratke out of, out of Canada. He wrote the book Bar Hacks. Paul Baron, who is actually the, you know, CEO and the digital kind of editor of Foodable tv. And then I also just picked up, I picked up also David Cantu, who's actually the founder, co founder of Hot Schedules, is going to speak off on it too, so.

Oh, wow. Very cool.

Pretty exciting. Yeah. If people want to know, you can go over to Conquer Restaurant Summit and grab a ticket if you like. We have a free option available. Of course, we don't. We know people, a lot of people are kind of suffering with the cash flow. But so what do you, what do you think you're going to see things lighten up in Houston? You said you guys are going to open up pretty soon.

Yeah, you know, honestly, I don't think it's going to lighten up. I do think that, you know, there's going to be a long kind of drawn out reopening. I think people have to feel comfortable to go out and I don't think they will until there's a vaccine or a cure, you know, and there's talk of a second wave coming. And, you know, I'm not, not a pessimist, but I do think that, you know, it is, it is something that, you know, we're in for the long haul and it's not going to be something like, oh, all of a sudden it's better, it won't be.

Right.

Yeah.

I'm thinking even if they open up restaurants pretty soon, mean, I ran a poll the other day and I asked people, I said if Restaurants open May 1st and they were given the go ahead to have their dining rooms reopened. Would you go and dine in a restaurant? And I ran the poll on Facebook and I also ran on Twitter and the results were pretty similar. 70% said no, 30% said yes. I think people are still a little hesitant, even if we.

Yeah, well, you know, the problem with that is, you know, that, you know, when you reopen, you know, I mean, like in the restaurant industry, the margins are so low already. So, you know, are you saying that 30%, you get back to 30% of the sales that you had? I mean, that's not good.

Yeah, yeah, that's what, like, what are some of the things that you're looking to do with your concepts about real. You opening up menu or.

Yeah, you know, obviously we have to make some changes. You know, I think the first thing and every restaurateur is probably thinking the same thing is, you know, you got to make people feel safe. So what are you doing? What are you doing to be, you know, responsible?

Right.

Because that's what everyone's looking for. They don't want an operator that's just irresponsible or, you know, put people in harm's way. So, you know, we have a bunch of ideas on how to make people feel safe. And then, you know, we're going to continue doing delivery because we feel like that's still a very big market.

Stay big, I think.

Yeah, it's going to stay. It's gonna be, it's here to stay. And you know, there's gonna be other, other changes too. Like, you know, we feel like monies, you know, cash payments is gonna be less and less. Yeah, you know, I mean, so thanks.

A lot, people switching over to cashless. I see a lot of that happening. I know a couple places in la, before they closed, they were actually already making the move to go to cashless.

Yeah, yeah, they, they try to do it in Houston. You know, I have a couple of friends that try to do it and, you know, we're very conservative here, but I think this is going to push us over the edge.

What do you think you're going to see as far as, like, regulations that the government's going to ask? You think that, you know, our servers have to wear masks and gloves all the time or what do you see?

You know, I think they're, you know, the problem is I just felt like, you know, the government and everyone else is, you know, scrambling and so there's going to be, you know, both sides of the coin. There's Going to be different types of reactions from everyone. And so there will probably be some kind of regulation, and there'll be a different regulation for something else, you know, and so we're just trying to remain calm and try to have, you know, common sense measures that we can do, regardless of what the regulations are. You know, I mean, I think that all restaurant tourists should just look at some common sense things that they can do.

What are some things you would recommend?

So I would recommend looking at some possible technology that will allow you to sanitize your facility a little bit more. Like UV lighting. You know, I mean, something like that.

Oh, yeah, you're huge.

Yeah, yeah. So we'll definitely gonna be installing a bunch of UV lights that we can turn on, you know, at the end of the day.

That'd be cool. Yeah. Have you seen, like, I know, like, a friend of mine sent me a video of, like, restaurants and back in China, actually, and they have like a. They have a machine at the front, and you stand on a mat and it actually. You put your hands out and it actually sanitizes you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just. I saw one of those and I saw another one that. That kind of was video of your. Your body temperature, you know, like.

Oh, really?

Like, like Predator, you know.

Okay, that'd be a little too funky. I don't know about that. Yeah. I don't know if we're ready to be body scanned.

Yeah.

But.

Well, that's the thing, right? So how. How much. How much freedom are you willing to give away for your. For your safety, you know, and that's the big question they're asking over in China right now. Right. So, you know.

Well, I tell you, it's. It's gonna be. It's gonna be interesting. It's gonna be very, very interesting. What are some of your favorite places downtown that you go to?

Man, that's this little. This little, what I call it very Places downtown. There's this little hamburger joint in downtown called Flat. Flat. What do you call it? Hotline, Hotline Burger? Oh, yeah, yeah. That's my buddy Philip Kim, and you can look up him online. I really don't know the information, but, you know, his burgers are amazing.

Oh, cool. You think it's going to change your habits about going out? Are you going to be going out to restaurants once they reopen or are you going to kind of maintain?

I'm definitely going to go out, but I'm not going to go into any restaurant that looks like they're irresponsible or in A situation where it looks out of control, too many people, you know, I think people will probably would do the same. They'll probably go out there and check it out, and if it's too busy, they probably won't. That won't go in.

And what have you guys done as far as a company about your social media? Have you guys just done the same stuff? Have you amped it up? Have you changed the market, the messaging? What have you done a little different?

Yeah. Most of our messaging when this first happened was all about safety.

Mm.

You know, and, you know, I think, you know, this is probably one of the first incidents in modern, you know, history where, you know, pretty much everyone's affected. You know, usually, like, if there's a hurricane, you know, the rest of the country can come and help, but in this situation, everyone. Everyone was affected. So it was. The response was very slow. This response for. For help is very slow. And everyone was basically scared, you know, and trying to figure it out.

Yeah, it's definitely not. We never seen anything like this in our lifetime.

No, no, no. It's like a movie.

Yeah. I mean, We've been through 9, 11. We've been through, you know.

Yeah.

Like recessions, but.

Yeah.

Nothing that just kind of totally crippled. Crippled, you know, Crippled. Not only an industry, but crippled the. Crippled. The world.

The world. Yeah.

Yeah. I have a mastermind group going, and I've got people from all around the world. And, you know, I mean, everyone's. Doesn't matter where you are in the world. Everyone's feeling it in one way or the other. Some. Some countries are feeling it way worse, though.

That's right.

Yeah. All right. On. So what. What do you per. What's kind of. If you could put a magic wand when you say, what do you think, looking at your crystal ball, when you think it's gonna be back to somewhat normal a six months, a year?

I think a year to year and a half year.

Year and a half. Yeah.

Yeah.

So definitely keep the. Keep the to go going delivery going, right?

That's right. You basically have to kind of pivot, Right. So whatever business you're in, you should try to pivot. And, you know, there's two types of people in the world. The ones that are like, you know, hoping that things will go back to normal, and then the other ones who are looking for actual opportunities. And there is opportunities out there, we just got to look for it, and we got to have the right mindset to go after.

What's some opportunities you're looking for?

Well, I mean, there's definitely opportunities. I don't want to say, because.

Show your cards. Right.

I'm just kidding. Well, I mean, there are definitely some opportunities. Like, I think there's more emphasis on health and wellness. There'll be more emphasis on delivery. There'll be more emphasis on, you know, sanitation. Right. There's. There's a. There's a whole new industry that just, you know, came about overnight just because of this, you know, this happening.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Have you been getting, like, email blasts from people that do, like, safety training now?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my God. It's like that. So I'm getting, like, email blast from guy. People who do sanitation, you know, safety training, and people who can tell me how to. How to file my PPP application for loans. Right?

Yeah, all kinds.

Did you guys get in on the PPP stuff?

You know, we haven't been blessed yet to get those, but hopefully, yeah.

But you applied, right?

Yes, we did. Yeah.

All right, well, on. I want to say thanks so much for being on the show today. I mean, I know you're a busy man, and I know you're running a little bitty empire over there in Houston, and when this thing's all kind of calmed down and they let travel back up, I'll stop by and I'll definitely stop by and we'll go to hang out and Chef Brady. Han, I'll go by that burger place with you. That sounds really good.

Yeah, that'd be great, Donald. Awesome.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate you, man.

Thank you, buddy.

Be safe.

You too.