David Grutman: How Biohacking Helped Build a Hospitality Empire | TUH #003

I'm in better health than I was when I was 19. And once you start seeing the different blood results month after month and you see the results in your body, oh.

Dude, you're so in it.

You don't want to go back. You're like, you break it down so easily. So I could understand it and it makes sense to me. It's not about sacrificing. I'm not sacrificing, I'm enjoying. I know I have so much farther to go. I love that. Ultimate human.

Hey guys, welcome to the Ultimate Human podcast. I'm your host, Gary Bareca, human biologist. Where we go down the road of everything that makes human beings ultimate human beings. Not just, not just longevity, anti aging and functional medicine and biohacking, everything that makes regular humans ultimate humans. And I have an ultimate human on the podcast today. Dave Grotman. It's been a long time in the making.

So excited to be here with you, man.

Yeah, I'm jacked that you're here too. So you've got a really interesting story, you know, from graduating with a, with a finance degree.

Yep.

You started bartending at 21.

Started bartending, became passionate about the business and I, you know, I'm from Naples, Florida. Same.

Yeah.

From your stomping ground as well. Very small retirement community. All my friends are dead.

Way outgrew that.

Yeah, they were 90 years old when I grew up with them and it's, they're, they're gone.

Yeah.

But it was a, it was a great place to, to grow up. Small town, coming here to Miami, being in the hospitality business. Exciting.

Yeah, but the global hospitality magnet from 21 year old bartender.

Sure.

I mean, there's a lot of distance there. Right? I mean, and I got to say that probably every 21 year old bartender wants to be a global hospitality magnet.

You know, listen, I don't know, A lot of people love to get in the hospitality business as the in between before they become an actor, before they be or other in medical school or law school or this or that. And for me, it's not just a profession, it's, it's what I'm passionate about. It's my lifestyle. Everything revolves around it, you know, and it's in my home as well. So it's not just do I want to take care of you in my places, but if you come to my home, it's the same kind of venue.

You're absolutely, you're absolutely straight honest about that.

I mean, I live and breathe.

It's just who you are. So you're, you're 21 year old bartender, you're not necessarily in a nightclub business, you're not in the restaurant.

And I'm not super good looking, right? I'm not super good looking.

You are now though.

I mean, obviously now, but. And you know what's great about it is I was making, you know, I talk about this all the time. I was making 100 grand a year bartending, but I wanted to be a leader. It's very good. Great job in the Aventura mall. The owner of the mall today is my partner in all my nightclubs. So you never know where the relationship's going to start. And I always preach to people, relationships, relationships, relationships. Because it's been the superpower of my success.

You know, it's funny that you say that because I talk about you behind the scenes a lot. And you gave me one of the best pieces of advice that I've ever gotten. And I don't know if you remember this, but I was working with a very well known celebrity and there was a kerfuffle about a picture that made its way onto social media and you called me and you said, gary, this is not good. And you said, the best piece of advice I can give you and it's the simplest piece of advice, but I've applied it every single day since then. You said with these people that are a listers, celebrities, entertainers at the top of the food chain, always play the long game. Always, always play the long game. Just get into their flow. Don't ask for anything, just add value, add value, add value. Otherwise they'll have no time for you. And as long as you continue to add value, you'll get into your, their flow and, and, and the rest. No, I mean, I literally follow that advice every day.

Listen, Gary, to your, listen. You know, very quickly you started seeing and had a client list of amazing a lister celebrities. People that constantly have the finances and the, and the, and the will to seek out answers. Right? And I see it all the time, Right. Because of my business. And people are always so scary to get the picture, get this or get that. And it's not that, it's just like, it's, it's fun, it's sizzling. But if you play the long ball, it'll happen organically. Right. Naturally. And I think you took that and right away and I remember the person was like, you know, you were like, yeah, they're upset at me and this and that. And I said, just be honest, you're not going to fool anybody.

Right, right.

It's always to say, you know what, I made a mistake. I understand why you're upset. It's never going to happen again. And once you say that, it's over.

Yeah. And that's exactly what happened. It was over. And since then the trajectory has been.

Happened to me, listen, in my business it, because you know, these people are letting their inhibitions go down. They're having the best time of their lives. Everybody knows it's the most press worthy thing out there. But I don't go for the, the short press with it. I try to go for the long ball press with it. And it's worked out a lot now. A lot of my competitors will go for interest, try to get the terrible press on the person, blah, blah, blah. And what they've done is not only they burn that celebrity, but they burned the publicist, the agent, the manager, the whole team who control 10, 20 other people.

What's astounding is the connectivity at that level.

They all know and everybody talks and everybody knows.

Everybody know, each knows each other. That's why I never ever open my mouth.

Yeah, it's just, it's just better.

Best piece of advice ever. So I want to get back to this, this journey. Because know when we talk about what makes ultimate humans ultimate humans, it's, it's sometimes those little things. The, the, the failures you recovered from, you know, the, the passion that you never gave up, you know, the business partner that actually taught you a lesson out of some kind of negative event in your life. So talk about, you know, how you evolved from being a bartender to going into the hospitality industry. Because I actually remember you in, in the mansion days with, with the Opium group, of course. Right. You were with, working for Eric Milan.

Eric Milan, Roman Jones, all those, Roman.

Jones and all those guys. And they're, they're still around.

Well, and the Milan aren't around, but Roman Jones. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kikis and, and his partner Eris. Great, great guys, Great guys, Great guys. Aris is one of the kindest human beings, Roman.

To his credit, this guy, Roman Jones. Guys, I was working in a, in a very small cool place at the time, but, but doing these big events with sponsors and stuff like that. And Roman came to me and said, I want you to run my nightlife group. And I, and I remember his two partners were like, we never heard of this guy before. This is the guy you want to run our nightlife group? And they came and sat me down and I said, yeah, I want this much money. I think at the Time it was whatever. And they said, we've never heard of you. We've been burned by so many people, we don't want to pay you that. And I go, I'll tell you what, what do you want to pay? And they said this. And I said, I'll tell you what, I'm going to work for you for one month for that amount. But if you want to keep me after that, it's going to be this amount and you're going to pay me the difference of that one month that I did this compromise with you. After two weeks, they were like, we're good, man. Thank you so much. We're so happy.

That's awesome. Would you say that was a tipping point?

It was a big tipping point because it gave me a platform to do what I do. Having opium guard and preve at that time and being able to. It had kind of started to go down a little bit, but still had this really great aspirational thing. And it gave me a platform to really say, okay, let me go to work now and do things and bring sponsors and be able to do events that were bigger than that, that venue should have ever done in a million years. And to help build my name and by building a great brand within that. I wasn't a front of the house guy then. I wasn't such a guy that was out there. I was always behind the scenes creating.

But what made. What made what you did different? Right, Because I got to think that the industry's full of great hosts.

At that time, people at that time, I was just very event. How can I bring DJs and, and people to do events and use other people's brand equity, marketing equity to, to grow my brands.

And so you already had this mindset that. Yeah, because this is going to be a brand of my own.

Because people just inviting someone to a Friday night at the nightclub is cool. But if you invite somebody to Friday night at that time to a big Playboy event or a big Mercedes Benz event or Versace or whatever it is, it gave them a reason to go out. It made it feel more special than just being in a regular nightclub. And that. That's how I kind of took that and tried to. And try to magnify the out of that.

So you started building this list. You're always thinking, I'm going to other.

Brands, Brands, brands, brands. Building brands and building brands together.

Yeah.

So I use their brand equity to build my brand.

And I think too, you know, one of the things I've gotten to know about you Is that, you know, you're known for the hospitality industry, the nightlift life business, the restaurant business. But it's really, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Alcohol, brands. I mean, you're just reviving the Prince brand. Yeah, I still remember Prince as a kid, just a big tennis brand. And I felt like it was kind of like an old stodgy dinosaur. So you came in and started to reinvent it. Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, like almost five years ago, friends of mine at ABG said, hey, Dave, we have a bunch of brands here. It's a authentic brand group. And I said, well, you have this Prince brand that was just out of. It was just bankrupt. We just got it. I said, I want to do that. I love how iconic the brand is. It reminds me of my childhood. To me, it's Country Club America. It's an American iconic brand. To me that resonated with me because of those days of Andre Agassi and that for me, that was the best time of my childhood.

Wasn't that McEnroe too?

Not macro. He was before. Yeah, it was Michael Chang, all these guys. But if you look back in the archives, everybody played with Prince. Yeah, and then they didn't.

Yeah, and then they didn't.

So bringing it back has been one of the greatest experience of my life.

And what's the. What's the plan for that brand?

I mean, so keep going. Going more fashion forward. We know we're not going to have the budget to have players like everybody else, but we want to just give great hardware, which is the technical stuff, the rackets and all that, and then give you the coolest aesthetic to. To be able to play tennis or lifestyle.

Right.

And I didn't even like tennis when I. When I did this. I take up tennis during COVID I'm so obsessed with COVID I mean, with tennis. Now that I play two hours every morning, eight to ten. Obsessed with tennis, as you know.

Yeah, you're crazy.

I live and breathe tennis.

Yeah. And I actually just sent you an article, a clinical study that people that play racket sports live longer than. Than. Than the average.

I. I never had a sport that I was so excited about every. And if it rains, I get pissed off. I'm like, so I've played in the rain. I've done whatever I can. But I have to tell you, it's just for me to have something. My wife is always. Yeah, my wife is always like, I wish you like this, like you like tennis. And she always refers to what she wants to change in me or for me to do, like the way I like tennis.

You know, I think. I think people. One of the things they don't realize about exercise is exercise is actually a form of meditation. Oh. And so for people like you and me, that type A's that the mind's always going. You know, when our environment quiets, our mind wakes up. We got a thousand ideas, we have a thousand meetings, we got a thousand projects. So it's really hard to just sit down and sort of own. Quiet your mind.

So listen, after many years of. Of this kind of stuff is. Dave, when you, when you sit and relax, how do you feel? Well, here's the thing is, and I'm sure you're going to find it with a lot of guys like myself. They probably just don't want to be alone in their own heads. Like. Like where people.

I don't like vacations.

Yeah. Like where people are so happy to just be by themselves and I can't be by myself and I can't just stop thinking. I just can't stop doing. And it could be that maybe, you know, I have some traumas that I had to deal with as a kid or what. Whatever it is. Right. But I'm so happy to be busy and to be going and figuring things out and, and what's the next. And how do I make it great that I don't really want to sit back? And that's not relaxing to me.

Right, right, right.

It's the opposite of no.

I see it every time I go into your place. It's like there's another meeting with skinny dip. There's another alcohol brand, there's another fashion brand. So you're branching out not just from hospitality and.

Well, I try to create an ecosystem for myself. Right. So I try to invest in brands from Liquid Death to Google's Mac and Cheese to Last Crumb Cookies, and now this new one, Skinny Dipped, which I'm so excited about, as you got it too. It's a better for, you know, snack and candy. Every girl loves it.

One gram of sugar in a lot of them.

It's. It's amazing. And for me, it's like now that I've gone on this mission, on this journey to try to better myself, I don't want to just put in my body.

Right. So, so much different. I mean, so. So you and I, we. We've known each other for a while, but we really started to get going in around May of 2021.

Well, okay. You were actually let Me just get a blood test. Oh, let me just do an exosome and a blood test on you and a cheek swab. And a cheek swab in my DNA. And it, it really changed my whole life. Now I have a great trainer that I, I went on this mission during COVID to try to get. I was 2 4.

Anthony.

Anthony Rhodes, best trainer ever. Still my trainer every day. I went from 240 to 190 and I couldn't get past 190. And I also wanted my levels to be correct and my endurance and my energy. And you, you changed all that for me.

Thank you.

And not only did you change it all for me that I weigh 170 now, but I have great muscle mass and, and I feel like I have a team around me. Right. With, with you guys. What's so great is I, I can't wait to tell other people about you. Not so everyone that comes to my house.

You're probably 60% of my business right now.

I mean, 60 is a little low, I think, to be honest, with 72. Okay, 72. So what I think is so cool about it is once I put you in front of somebody, they're like, what's this biohacking? I'm like, listen, let me just get a blood test and a swab and we'll go from there.

Just happened five minutes ago.

It happened yesterday, it happened today. It happens every day. I can't wait for people to see what all this is about because it's just crazy to me that not so many people know about it.

Well, you know, a lot of people, they, they think they feel great, right? They're, they, they have a feeling of, you know, how well they're thinking, how well they're sleeping, their energy level, their response to exercise, but they actually have no idea whether true baseline sense of normalcy is. And I remind people about this all the time because a lot of times they'll go, oh, my God, Gary, I feel amazing. And I'm like, you don't really feel amazing. You're like, what do you mean you feel normal? That's how normal supposed to feel, right? Like you feel normal now. Like, you know, you say, I feel great and I have, I have more energy and I'm thinking more clearly, and I sleep more deeply. And you have, you know, probably the most up schedule of, of anyone. Right? I mean, when you're not traveling, your schedule is still off, right? Just based on, on, on your career. And now for you to say that you feel amazing, it's because your Baseline sense of normalcy is so much higher. I mean, human beings have no idea how well they can thrive when you replace the right raw material.

So, you know, when you get a level of success and you're in this busy business, your health, your, this, it's the second thought on your list. You're. And you think you're unstoppable. But after having my blood test and seeing my Testosterone level was 97, and I remember this and that and that I could be better.

Sugars were high.

Well, my cholesterol was. And of course I blamed it. I eat a poppy steak every night. So that, of course caused it. But you're like, we could fix this. You could still have your lifestyle that you're looking to do, but at the same time, let us fix the inside of you out. And once you start seeing the different blood results month after month, and you see the results in your body, you're so in it, you don't want to go back.

Yeah, you're like, you're so into it.

And that's how it is, I think, for most. Once you see a little bit of a result, that's what changes everything.

And, and the nice thing is you see the results on the outside, right? I'm losing weight. You know, I'm thinking, oh, I'm shopping.

I'm buying clothes that I can never buy before because they didn't make it an extra, extra large.

But when you see what's happening on the inside, when your blood start to change and you're like, wow, my triglycerides are down, my sugars are down, my insulin's down, my calories, cholesterol is down. You know, my immune system's improved, my red blood cell count's higher. Now you realize the real impact because you're super into it, man.

I'm real like, like, I'm like, this.

Guy calls me 24 hours after his blood works in my blood back. Is my blood back. Is my blood back.

Because I feel like it's passing an exam. I feel like, listen, I, I, I, I was. Because, listen, at the end of the day, you do have to be disciplined with making sure you take your stuff daily. You have to make sure you stay on it and it's okay. And now it's okay if I have a slice of pizza or this or it's okay, right?

How much of a chore is it for you to stay in shape, to stay on the protocol, you know, supplements, nutrients, and, and, and to kind of stay within the guardrails of the, you Know, the. The diet, and that's not really a diet.

It's not really a diet because let me tell you guys, at the end of the day, when you get to your.

Your.

Your desired weight and muscle mass and all that kind of stuff, it's okay. You know what I mean? You know that tomorrow you're just going to do. You're going to work a little bit harder and you're just going to get it off. And I think it's. It's not about sacrificing. I'm not sacrificing. I'm enjoying. I'm, like, so excited to. To go play tennis. Before my glutes weren't firing. This wasn't good. That.

Right.

The fact that I'm able to go at. I'm almost 49 and, like, let's say a week or two, and I'm in better health than I was when I was 19.

Oh, you look amazing, man. We're going to run some before and after picks.

Oh, no.

So astounding. I saw a video with you and Mark Wahlberg. You were doing a fight scene.

Yeah.

The other day. Yeah. How long ago was that?

That was in 2018.

So that's 2018, so not that long ago. And you were. You were.

No, no, that was probably one of the heaviest. I was probably closer to 250 at that.

You're a big boy. You were doing this, your fight scene. I don't know where I saw it. And I was like, wow, that is an astounding transformation. Talk a little bit about after you made this transformation. You got to your targeted weight. Like, what kind of things are you seeing in your life as a byproduct of just feeling better, thinking more clearly?

Unfortunately, I can't keep my shirt on now. I want to keep my shirt off at all times.

I noticed that, too.

And even my friends are like, okay, man, we get it. Can you put your shirt on now? And I'm like, I can't put my shirt on. I've been a chubby Jewish guy my whole life. I never once had a muscle.

I've been to meetings that. Where he shows up shirtless. Literally shows up shirtless.

I don't ever want to wear a shirt. Yeah, it's not good. My. My friends and my family, everyone, they're like, can you just put a shirt on, man? And I'm like, no, no. I spent my whole life with shirts on.

Yeah.

Let me at least live a little bit.

Right?

And that, to me, is the best part. You know, friends of mine have Been friends of mine for 20, 30 years. They're just like, we never thought this would be possible. I used to smoke two packs of cigarettes, eat fat food, fried this, do that, didn't matter. You're drinking, drinking everything you could imagine. And now I don't do any of that, man. I. And I. And yeah, I still have a desire to have fried chicken. I still have a desire to eat this and that. And you know, once in a while I'll have a bite of that, but I won't eat the whole thing of that. And I won't make it my lifestyle to do that. But you know, it's amazing.

I, I refer to some of the things I do as my drug of choice. Like cold plunge right now is my drug of choice.

That's a great idea.

And the reason why I say it's my drug of choice is because nothing makes you feel that good, right? I mean, I get in there for three to six minutes. When I get out, I feel like I won the fricking lottery. And I'm in that mood for seven hours and I'm like, if I could just tell the world how good you could feel by just doing something as simple as an ice cold shower or a cold plunge, you wouldn't want the other things that you're trying to use to get you to that same feeling.

I couldn't agree more. Like, as this journey has been in, listen, again, it didn't happen overnight. It's been years now that I've been doing this, but every time it keeps getting better and better. And I love just seeing the results and the results and the results. And when I'm like, this is kind of it, I know I have so much farther to go. I love that.

So, so let's get, let's get back to your journey a little bit. Where is Dave Grotman in five years?

You know, people always ask me, what's your five year plan?

Yeah, where are you in three years?

And you know, listen, I have like 22 openings in the next few years. Restaurants, restaurants, hotels, resorts, nightclub, a dayclub. And, and that's kind of, for me, that's where I am. But also on the venture capital size, investing in founders and really pushing these, these investments in these, these, these products that people are. I love working with founders to make their dreams come true too. To use my network, to use my resources to be able to grow brands.

I know you're close to the gopuff guys and obviously they're exploding and they're.

Great guys, are the Best guys ever. Guys that founded Gopuff, Raf and Yak.

Yeah.

My favorite people in the world.

Best guys.

But I'm lucky enough to have some of these. I call them the masters of the universe because I get to be around some of the greatest business minds in my life. And I think it's so great for my daughters because they get to be around it and they. And they're inquiring about it.

My daughters love your daughters. In fact, my daughter's down with your daughter right now.

And you know, to see my wife, who's now such an entrepreneur.

Yeah.

And she won't take her jewelry brand, her jewelry brand, her clothing brand. But, but she's also. She won't take fees a lot of the time. She rather take equity in a brand because she knows she's going to help turn the needle for that brand and she thinks like an entrepreneur. And, you know, we've, we've done this, this restaurant thing together. When she came in my life is when we opened our first restaurant, which was Komodo. Highest grossing restaurant in the country, Right? Country. That's insane.

So how old is Komodo?

Seven years old. Wow.

And it's still going strong.

And we just opened Dallas. We just opened Dallas two months ago. Crushing. Doing great. The brand is going to grow now to another big city, which I can't talk about, but that'll be in December. And it's. It's great to see one of your brands live outside of Miami. You know, in Miami, of course, it has a better shot than not with. With for me to be able to do a brand. But when you take your brand and you take it out of Miami to Dallas and it's working so well, you. That's one of the best feelings ever.

Now, do you take the same team there? Do you have a local partner? Do you have different partners, different in the same restaurant, different places?

You want to. We've found is you really want to know the landscape and whatever market you go to. So you definitely want to hire local. That's the biggest thing. Because. And you want to have like we have. What about partnerships?

I mean, are partners local?

So we have a couple investors that are from Dallas and, and that's great. But you want to make sure, like, we have a quail on our menu in Dallas, but we would never have quail in the menu in Miami. That's sure. But maybe now. But you always want to know what, what, what's going to make that city identify with your brand and not just be the big shot from it out of town, that's coming on in. So those.

So those investors are strategic because they've got local market knowledge, obviously. I mean, at this stage, money can't be that difficult for you to raise. But at some point, it had to be a real issue.

Yeah. In the beginning, capital was the hardest thing. People like when I first did Komodo, people thought it was going to be. At that time, Brickell was not that busy. I had seen that all those condos that the condo crash had happened with that were all filling up with young professional rentals that were coming to my nightclubs and stuff, like coming to live, coming to story, doing all that, that this was going to be where they're going to live. I knew that this area was going to be full of young professionals. Yeah, yeah. So I had some data telling me this, which was great. We opened Komodo, but my friends were like, I don't. I don't know, but we want to invest in you, Dave. Blah, blah, blah. Jeff Sofer, owns the Fountain Blue. Didn't, but didn't see me as a restaurateur. Did invest in me. I'm like, Jeff, I've made you, made you so much money, man. He's like, yeah, but you're a club guy. And I go, okay. So meanwhile, now Kodo is going to be going into one of his. His hotels coming up. I love it. I think it's all about hospitality, Whether it's a restaurant, car wash, whatever it is. Hospitality is hospitality.

Yeah. You know, you. You kind of remind me, there's my favorite sports quote of all time. It was Wayne Gretzky's famous quote. I never skated to where the puck was. I always skated to where the puck was going to be.

It's. It's 100%.

And I feel like you're that foreshadowing guy in. In the hospitality industry to say, it's not where the hospitality industry is today, it's where the hospitality industry is going. So where does that come from? Because when you're like the lead rhino in the herd, there's no one to give you advice. There's no one to say, this is the spot, Dave. You know, the city's creeping that way. You know, you could be ahead of the tide.

I mean, like anything else, that. That's you. You get a feeling and a sense, and you kind of have great instincts and instincts a big part of this business. But I am lucky enough to have people around me like Noah Tepperberg, who has Tao Group, and you Know, even Jeff Sofer and I talk and, and I, even my, my, my own team. So as great as I am, I'm, I'm good. But as good as I am is because of the guys that I work with, right? Like the Chris Como's, the Purples, the edible. Like I have great teams around me, lots of great people that work with my company or I wouldn't be here today with you sitting in this chair, man.

Yeah, no question.

I mean like everyone's always like, you know, oh, you're, you do this and you do that. No, I, our company is able to accomplish this because I have some of the greatest individuals around me and is.

The idea to just keep going, growing Groot Entertainment Group and continue to do lifestyle type projects where you're doing the hospitality, you're doing the nightlife, you're doing the restaurant, you're doing.

Yeah, I mean we just want to do super cool right now. At this point in our, in my life and my company, we just want to do the coolest stuff you can imagine. And that's why, you know, in, in a few years ago we, we partnered with Live Nation, who's the number one entertainment company in the world. Michael Rapinoe, best CEO ever President and you know, he bought into my company. We have a great partnership and it's being able to partner with people that are going to grow your brand and help really accelerate what you do and give you that guidance and help and.

Kind of along the way, you know, obviously you're known for all this, this record of successes. But talk a little bit about the, the things that didn't work out.

Oh my God.

Like what was a concept that you were like holy shit. That really never saw that coming.

Yeah, I opened this amazing diner on an old architectural Firestone, very vintage. I remember I went to the open coolest winkers. Named after my one eyed cat. Best food.

My favorite food legit named after his one eyed cat.

Total failure. Total, total failure.

And so what do you do when you recognize it? How fast do you switch gears?

I mean listen, you have to be able to say I'm not going to put good money over bad. And you have to know when to say it's going to burn. So much of my time working on this when I could apply it to things that's going to 10x, you know, 10 to 10 times my money on something else. So, you know, after three, four months we said no thank you sugar factory. A very good friend of mine now took over the space and I'm partnering With him on the space.

Okay.

And I.

So it's going to be Sugar factory.

It just opened a sugar factory. Oh, training. He's doing great. And. And I love that someone else can make a space work that I just couldn't make it work. And there's sometimes where I just can't make it work, man.

So. So is that one of the things you'd say you've learned along this journey is, like, when to put your ego aside and say, I'm not just going to keep pushing this and pushing this so that Dave Grupman doesn't have a failure on his records to say, hey, we're going to shut the lights off.

I have. Listen, by the way, I'm going to have more failures on my roll. Because as if you're. If. If you're not afraid to swing for the fences, you know you're going to strike out. Sometimes it just. It's just life. It sucks when it happens.

Yeah.

And everyone's like, oh, but it's a learning lesson. Da, da, da. It just sucks. No matter if they say, whoever tells you it's not a failure, it's just, okay, I get it. Yeah. But it's still. It's still. It's. It's just not a great feeling.

Right.

And I have an ego like anybody else, maybe even more so. And it sucks to get a black eye, but that kind of, you know, everyone's like, oh, but you know what? I pick myself up right away, and I go attack. And then I have a gecko or I have another big hit. Right, Right. So you want to make sure that you follow it up with something great. And people have short memories.

Yeah. You know, another thing I feel that a lot of people might not know about you is you're an amazing father.

Well, talk to my wife. She'll tell me that I need to be more present. I'm sure.

Like, see, I was just going to say, you're so present every time that I'm there, because I'm around you quite a bit behind the scenes. There's no cameras rolling. There's no fanfare. We're not at your clubs or not at your restaurants. We're in your living rooms. But the time, the dedication, the bond I see you have with the little girls, I can tell that they just own your heart.

Yeah. Listen, I have two daughters, Kaya and Vita. My wife, Isabelle. And thank God I have my wife, because she's really made sure these kids are not entitled kids. They're not spoiled kids. They're sweet Kids or polite kids? They're respectful kids.

Yeah. I feel like you and Isabella are kind of the yin and yang, you.

Know, she tells the kids, one. One toy each, and I say, I want to buy the whole store. She's like, if you buy the whole store, we're going to have real issues later on. And she's right. And, you know, my. One of my daughters yesterday said, I want a Happy Meal. And I was like, no, we're going to get this for dinner, not a Happy Meal. And she started crying so badly and throwing such a temper tantrum. And I was like, should we just get her the Happy Meal? My wife's like, if you get her to this Happy Meal, I'm going to kill you. And I'm like, okay, no Happy Meal. Right? Then she's right, because later on it would be very bad.

And then they learned that that's the way to get dad to give in.

But listen, it's. It takes work to be present. Everyone loves to say, oh, I'm the best father. I'm always with my. And I see this with, with, with. With my friends. You're trying to go for it, right? For me, it's just like, it takes. It takes a little bit of effort. Of course I want to cuddle my daughters and love my daughters and, and, and, And I do. But to be present in their lives is, Is very. It's. It's. You got to do it. And it doesn't come so easy for me. I have to really focus on it because I want to check my phone. I want to see what's going on. I. I want to talk to this person, that person on the phone, and that they don't really care about.

Kind of, you kind of detach a little bit in the summertime. I mean, you're going over, you're going overseas, you're going on the boat. You know, you're doing a little European tour. But the girls are going with you?

Yeah, of course. We bring our kids with us everywhere. They've been to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel.

Dude, that's everywhere.

Paris, we go to school.

Our youngest, too, because they're just on this journey with us.

I think it's the coolest thing to see my daughters run around the pyramids in Egypt or be around jr, the artist who's one of the most amazing people in the world. And we just did Tokyo and Korea together. And to see my kids running around and having the best and really taking in the different environments that they get to experience. And yeah, they're young and they may never remember any of this, but I think it's gonna leave some kind of imprint on them, that it's gonna help them for the rest of their lives.

Yeah. You know, when you peruse your social media, you see a lot of. A lot of Isabella. So how did you guys. How did you guys meet?

Met her in New York at. A mutual friend of ours was dating one of her best friends, another Brazilian. My wife's Brazilian, and I met her for a few minutes. She put a flower in my head.

She's one of the calm Brazilians.

She's very calm. She left Brazil when she was 14 to go model in Korea. Okay. But she is one of the most smartest, stable people I know. And I took her for lunch the next day, and I convinced her to come to Miami a week later, New York, from New York. And. And I'm just so lucky to have her, man. I can't. Every day I'm like, I wake up with, grateful. I'm just so grateful. I have a lot of gratitude for.

Your kids are like mini me of your wife. Literally just shrunken versions of. Of your wife.

And listen, I. Guy, as you know, I. We do. I do some of the coolest shit in the world. I get to be. Do the most fun things. Adventures, this, that. Meet coolest people. There's nothing that even comes close to how cool it is to have kids.

I know. I totally agree, man. My oldest two work for me. You know, both of my, you know, Madison and Cole, they're both in school full time. They both work with me full time. We travel together, we see clients together. Like, they caught the bug. Because I. I feel like you can teach your kids anything, but you can't give them a passion.

No.

Right. That's got to come from them. And I always hope they catch the science bug. And then they both did, because we make science fun.

Yeah. You know what you guys do is you guys break down science so the Joe Schmo can understand it. I don't know what a neutron is and this and that. Whatever. Whatever we talk about in this stuff. I don't know about any of that stuff, but you break it down so easily so I could understand it. And it makes sense to me. Oh, it doesn't. You. You can't process that. Process this because your body doesn't allow you to process this. You have to be able to process it a different way. So let me. Let's. Let's go over this. And, and, and this is going to help you process it. And Be able to take it in and just something simple like this. Being able to understand the chemistry of your body or whatever it is. And I don't feel like you're making me feel like an idiot for not knowing it. Right. That's the best part.

I think that's my superpower. Ultra complicated. And explain it in a way that people understand. I mean, I really want to get that message out. I mean, my passion is to change the face of humanity.

That's why I'm sitting here giving them that information. I, I turned down so many pot. Of course, I've done a couple great ones. But I'm so happy to sit with you and be able to get this message out because I think the more people like my friend's father has Parkinson's, the fact that you're helping him and he's now showing insane results. And, and of course, a mutual friend that was going to get a kidney transplant. He doesn't need the kidney transplant anymore. I, I think it's just.

Oh, that's Chicken Soup for the Soul stuff.

It's the coolest thing ever. And when I bring you downstairs or I bring people to your place and, and you just talk with them, it helps me win deals.

Does it?

Yeah, of course. People love it, man. People think it's when you change someone's life. Yeah. You build a relationship with them that's gonna, that's you're gonna have with them for forever. They're always going. That's why every, everybody that calls me and says, hey, you know, my kid is gonna go to University of Miami. Amazing. Yeah. I meet with the kid, I make sure the kid could get a haircut, dinners, whatever that kid wants. I make sure that if the kid gets sick, he has the best doctors or she gets the best doctors. It changes your relationship with people when you do something great for someone's kid. You love people a different way. And I make sure of it, man. Because I know if I was a father and my kids were going to a different city, I would feel so happy to have a friend like myself to be able to look after them and make sure if God forbid, something happens that they're there. And that even if the kid just wants to feel like they have a home cooked meal or whatever it is that they come over and see with Isabella and my daughters and whatever it is. But it's. It changes people when someone does something for your kid. It's just like, I love it. Yeah.

You know, that's another thing I noticed about you is that behind the scenes. It's not just a. A bunch of superficial relationships. Like, these people are in your home, they're your friends, they're your family. You vacation with them, you go to their weddings, you break bread with them.

Well, I show up. Yeah, that's the main thing. You know, no matter what, whether it's. Whoever it is, you just want to be able to show up for people. When you show up for people, people, it means so much. People, you know, listen, when people show up for me, I'm like, wow, thank you for showing up. Like, I know how busy you guys are.

I know you have your knowledge.

It's just like, it's the most genuine, nicest thing you could do.

Yeah, the same thing for my kids for their 21st birthday. I mean, every time that I need a reservation, I mean, you guys go out, you go out of your way. I mean, it's, it's, it's astounding to me how involved you are in the details.

It's all about the details. What do you mean it's all details? Yeah, my business is all details. That's what people understand. They're like, yeah, I'm like, I'm eating dinner, but I'm seeing the table next to me with a dirty plate. Or I'm seeing it must drive you crazy. No, no, the whole thing's crazy. It's, it's, it's, it's a nightmare.

Is it worth going to your own restaurant or is it worth going to somebody else?

Like, if I go to someone else's and I know, and I listen, I know I don't want to be disrespectful and say anything, but sometimes I have to be like, listen, this is, you.

Know, whatever, but can you bring the manager over here? I have a list.

No, it's just like this, like, just your own knowledge. But the more thing is, like, I'm looking at social media, people tagging my restaurants and stuff like that. And I'll see on there if, if, if there's an app, like if there's sushi with like a duck and, and, and different stuff. And I'm like, wait a second, why is there sushi with a duck? That means the server just ordered everything at once and didn't, didn't take them on a journey, just brought it all out. And the person may not say anything, but the person will never come back again because they felt like they got rushed out of your place. Place. So you always want to see how the sequence of service is at your places. And social media And I'll call the manager, be like, tell me what's going on with this table, this name right now. And they're like, you're right, David. The server ordered everything at once.

And when you do that to your team, it lets your team know that you're watching.

Always watching. You're watching. And they know when I walk in the restaurant, the energy is going to change right away. They know they better be on their game.

Right.

Because I'm looking at everything.

But it's just as important that they're on their game when you're not there.

Obviously, by the way, that's the best leadership is everyone's great when you're there, but how does your leadership when you're not there? Yeah, I'm not able to travel and do all this if I don't have a great team.

So what's like a typical Thursday, Friday, Saturday night look for you. You do your, do you do your thing at home? You've got Shabbat tonight?

Yeah, I do 8 to 10. I do the tennis, as you know. Yeah. Usually do a little bit of therapy or something like that one day a week just to, you know, get this, the soul.

Right, that's great.

Yeah. And then meetings, meetings, meetings all day long. I break for an hour or two and then I go into my restaurants and then sometimes my nightclub.

And so you go into your restaurants, you hop from restaurant to restaurant, just keep an eye on.

And so I try to focus in on one a night instead of trying to hit five a night. I rather have great quality time in one of them and, and go around to the different ones, you know, nightly.

You're touching the management team, you're touching the wait staff, you're just.

Yeah, but I love to have the experience inside my restaurants and I love, and I, and I, and I, you know, when I first started going, it would be like the managers with this managers making on. I don't want a manager to ever serve me. I want to know what the experience is for, for my guests. I want the servers to serve and, and to see what the whole experience is. If you just have your manager on top of you, I don't get a good sense of it.

So what's the difference between a good weight service and bad weight service? What's the difference between good and great?

So I think being able to anticipate their desires and their needs before they ask for it. You make sure that that water is full. You make sure that that cocktail, the second one's on the way right before they Finish their first one. You make sure that the food is coming out timely and when it's supposed to and they don't feel, like rushed or they feel like it's taking too long for certain things. You have to really be able to. And I don't want someone really talking my ear off and doing the whole thing. I really just want great service so they could have. So they feel like they're being taken care of and they could have their best experience.

That's amazing. And when you go into your restaurant at night and you look around and you see that some of these things are off, do you go right to.

The waiter or do you go to you right. I'm not one of these guys that writes things down on notes. And then we'll send an email the next day about it. I hit it right away. I grab the manager, I grab the server. I see an issue. I wish I could because some people say it's better to then, you know, make notes, send it later on. No way, man. And if the food is not great, I make sure they send it right back to the chef in the back and whatever it is and say, this is the issue. Take a look at this. Because I don't want someone else to have the same issue.

And part of that's got to be your experience. Starting as a bartender, you're probably a bar back. You're probably way.

Everything I've done, every job from host server to manager to assistant manager to general manager, director of operations, all that marketing.

Do it all.

Yeah. I never. I never have to be handcuffed by anybody because they think I'm not going to do the job myself. They all know that I know what I'm talking about. I'm not some guy that inherits some money. And I said, let me open up a spot.

Right?

They know that I know what the I'm doing.

You ran the POs.

Yeah, they know. They know what I'm doing.

David, this was amazing, man. I super appreciate everything you do for my business. Of course I appreciate everything you do for my family, personally and professionally. It was amazing having you on.

I love you. I love your family. I love what. I love what you're doing, and I think it's important the world knows.

Love you too, brother.

Thank you for having me.