In this interview, host Joe Apfelbaum talks with longtime friend and Blaze founder Robin Fisher about Blaze’s new partnership with Resident, a Michelin‑grade culinary experience company. The collaboration expands Blaze’s vendor‑booking platform into an “asset‑light” hospitality model that leverages under‑utilized Manhattan spaces and Michelin‑trained chefs to deliver highly customized, non‑traditional event experiences. Fisher explains how the combined offering serves a wide range of corporate clients—from large Fortune 500 firms to small law practices—by providing flexible event sizes (intimate 7‑12‑person dinners up to 1,500‑guest receptions in venues like Hudson Yards). He highlights the ROI of “return on entertainment,” the importance of unique, memorable experiences for stakeholder engagement, and the high repeat‑business rate driven by word‑of‑mouth referrals. The conversation also covers ideal referral sources (event planners, chief of staff, executive assistants, experiential agencies) and practical details for contacting Fisher (rfisher@blaze.com, LinkedIn). The interview ends with a gratitude note and a brief plug for Evvy AI.
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I have one of my dearest friends here with me, Robin Fisher. As soon as I met Robin, I fell in love right away.
I started a company called Blaze, a vendor booking platform. We are thrilled to confirm that we have become a—
So I have one of my dearest friends here with me, Robin Fisher. Me and Robin have known each other for, I would say for sure, over 10 years, maybe almost 15 years. Robin, thank you for being in this interview.
It is delightful to see you, Joe, as always.
As you know, I adore you. I adore you. And when I hear good news happening, I am— my heart goes out and I am so proud with so much joy whenever something good happens in your life. So can you share with us this good news So that we can share it with the world.
Absolutely. As you know, I started a company called Ablaze. So Ablaze, as you remember, is a blank space or a beautiful space. The company was designed to be a space and vendor booking platform for corporate America, for film television activation, for all of the short-term event-driven needs that brands and corporations have. And we have built an incredible base of clients. And these clients, as you know, clients' needs evolve and change over time. And we are thrilled to confirm that we are become— that we have become a Resident company. Resident is a Michelin-grade culinary experience company that is allowing our clients to access Michelin-trained talent to achieve all of their entertaining objectives. And we're allowing the resident client base to expand their experience with this talent straight through into the large format events that Blaze has been executing for the last 7 and a half years.
Wow, that's incredible news. Congratulations. That's so cool. Why is this so significant for clients that are already using Blaze and for all the relationships? Like, how did this enhance the whole Blaze experience?
Well, similar to Blaze, Resident has identified underutilized and/or vacant spaces throughout Manhattan to entertain at the highest levels of corporate consumption with this Michelin-trained talent. So whereas— so Blaze has been offering clients the ability to book their space and their vendors and create an experience. This is now giving the Blaze clients the ability to entertain at a different culinary consumption level, which is very exciting in the context of these non-traditional spaces where brands can truly interact with their clients outside the framework of a restaurant. And what Resident can offer is this exceptional experience for for 10 people straight through up to 200 people and allow the brands to interact with their product, with their brand ambassadors, with their influencers to whatever degree they— whatever objectives they need to accomplish. If they want to promote a new product or they want to entertain their VIP clients, all of it can be done highly customized without the restrictions that a restaurant might impose.
Wow, that's really interesting because often businesses that want to entertain at a very high level, a restaurant's not gonna be able to accommodate certain things that they would wanna do at the venue or certain types of food or like, gimme an example of what you foresee, how you foresee helping either a very large law firm or maybe someone in corporate finance, like an organization, maybe a Fortune 500 company. How do you help them? How does this new relationship help them?
Well, the experience of interacting with this Michelin-trained chef and the energy and quality of experience that they bring to these stakeholder dinners, which you're discussing, is very— is impossible to replicate, truthfully. I mean, if you go to the restaurants where they were trained, a buyout of that restaurant is going to be cost prohibitive.
Mm-hmm.
And yet we can offer a similar experience, again, within the framework of a non-traditional space, And the— it's something I have to get you to one, uh, in the coming weeks because it is something that conceptually you might understand, but until you walk into a space that you didn't know existed and have this type of engaging experience that is also, you know, broken into 5 courses, so it also really promotes the connectivity and the engagement within the room. So that's kind of on the stakeholder dinner side. But then on the luxury product side, it doesn't matter if it's a luxury, if it's jewelry or a beauty brand or a fashion brand or a CPG brand, it's just taking the concept of return on entertainment to a different level. Because we all know that the value and the return in marketing spend can be very hard to chase and to confirm. But if you are spending $30,000 to $50,000 on an event and you're driving $200,000 to $500,000 worth sales into your product, it's quite, um, obvious and compelling in my opinion.
And it doesn't have to cost that. It can cost as much as renting out a small room in a restaurant. So it's just insane the level of quality and the ability of what experience you can create for your clients, which will be a once-in-a-lifetime event that can never be recreated. That is just so incredibly important to get your people involved. So If you're working within a company, let's say, you know, you wanna talk to somebody within a company that can get you in the door to be able to provide this very important service that can really change business development, client retention, employee retention. Who would be an ideal person that you would need to have a conversation with in order for you to show them what you're capable of doing now with this new venture?
Well, certainly anyone that's responsible for booking dinners and/or events. So could be a chief of staff or an executive assistant, but really they're being driven by the partner that needs to impress the group. group to a different level. So my access point can really be anyone at a company that understands the value of engaging entertainment. And everyone struggles to get people to show up, and when they show up, what they experience and how they walk away from that event is incredibly valuable. So investor relations, client relations, um, certainly marketing, sales, anyone that is looking to attract and retain either their customer base or their talent, to your point.
You're like, where am I? How have I entered this space? And it's just so incredible that you were able to create these spaces. And like you said, that are branded for a company. It's just so valuable. Who would be in the position to refer business to you? I would imagine like experiential marketing agencies and consultants, like business consultants that work with companies. Who would you say has sent you the most business? Or that should be sending you a lot of business?
So certainly event production companies and event planners for sure. The value of the platform does rest in the versatility of its portfolio and the range of events from intimate straight through to 1,500-person cocktail receptions that we are able to deliver. But to your point, it's people that have the responsibility and the pressure to deliver that truly exceptional level of satisfaction on behalf of the guest.
So if somebody's considering doing this, what are some of the key benefits that an organization— you've seen, you've done this for so many clients over the past several years— what have you seen some of the key benefits when you put together an event like this for 100, 200, or 500 people?
Well, the novelty, to your point, of being in a place you've never been at before and having an experience that stands out. We all get invited to hundreds and hundreds of events a year, and what is something that is going to make someone show up and stay longer than they would have? That is part of the value add and part of what I, I was referring to with that return on entertainment. And that's really what we're trying to drive for our clients so that they can see a very clear, um, a very clear connection between our product and the results/feedback that they get from their stakeholders. And luckily, we've developed a business where 80% of our client base is recurring and/or coming to us because of a word-of-mouth referral, which is why opportunities like this to share this combination of place and resident is so powerful, and I'm so appreciative of it.
Wow. So beautiful. The combination of getting the spaces and then getting the chefs and the talent and all that. It just sounds like a real natural thing that would add so much value to both companies. In terms of the size of the spaces, I heard that you were able to get people a place in Hudson Yards that can fit almost 1,500 guests with a grand hall that can Almost 800 people. Can you make big events like conferences like this at crazy places like a 24th floor of the most iconic skyscraper in New York City? Like, are you able to do— like, what's the, the size of the events that you're able to do?
Portfolio ranges from intimate spaces straight through to guest counts of, you know, 1,500. And we certainly are eager to to accommodate those short-term customers that need multi-day and even multi-week space. So if you think about art shows and trade shows and conferences and fashion shows, of course, uh, there is a huge group of customers out there that struggle to find great space, and that is part of the solution we're looking to deliver. We are very blessed to have an extensive vendor network, uh, that will also continue to grow with us as this Resident and Blaze partnership evolves. So our, our services extend way beyond just space and just Michelin-grade culinary talent, uh, to include a vast network of experts in the, um, event and planning space.
Yeah, like the talent that you have at your events to be able to bring those mixologists and to bring those artists that the people that hang from the hoops and that do all types of magical things is just really, really powerful. I've experienced some incredible things over the years that you guys have been able to produce, some incredible events that you've been able to produce. I do have a question related to a small business. Let's say somebody has 100 lawyers. They're not a massive company. How would you work with an organization like that? They have, let's say, 100 different people within their organization, and they want to be able to— they do host events on a regular basis. Can you work with someone smaller? Because this sounds like a grand thing, but I remember you saying that sometimes you'll put together a dinner for 7 people or 12 people or something. Can you talk more about that?
Well, that's the beauty of the Resident portfolio, is there, there are spaces which you can see at meetresident.com Our smaller in format and perfectly sized for a 12 to 26 person dinner in some venues. And larger dinners, certainly in the 40 to 60 person range, are easily accommodated. And in those spaces, you can fit 100 to 125 in a cocktail environment, in a cocktail scenario that feels very well suited for the group. So you're not swimming in excess space, but it's also private. So you're not, you know, competing with the traffic in a restaurant, for example. A lot of restaurants have entertaining spaces, but they're not as, as exclusive. The diversity and scale of what the business has been able to create can be a huge value add because dealing with one-off businesses can be a real challenge relative to hospitality options. So that is also a That's very powerful.
So if you're listening to this and you want to get in touch with Robin Fisher from Blaze, and you want to be able to make a party or an event or make an introduction to somebody who is an event manager or an executive assistant or a chief executive officer at a company that they know they need to make a difference for that company, or somebody who owns an agency that does experiential marketing, Or someone that runs a conference like Summit or like the Office Moving Alliance, or maybe a YPO forum that wants to do something crazy, or an EO forum, or maybe a Vistage group that wants to do something for dinner or something exciting, or some type of retreat that you want to do for your organization, Robin's the person to reach out to. Robin, what's the best way for someone to call you or to reach out to you?
Email or text, always.
You can find her on LinkedIn, Robin Fisher Blais. And is it robin@blaze.co?
It's rfisher@blaze.com.
Okay. rfisher@blaze.com. We'll have the link below this.
Joe, thank you for all of those things. It has been an incredible ride and we're just getting started.
We're just getting started. Any final words that you want to share with anybody listening before we wrap up?
Just really grateful for the opportunity to celebrate this, the beginning of this next new phase with you and with your audience.
All right. Thank you for watching everyone. And make sure if you're watching this till the very end, go ahead and comment on this and let me know below that you watched till the very end and what you got out of it. Want to make networking easier and more effective? Try Evvy AI, your AI-powered sidekick that helps you connect, engage, and grow your network faster than ever. Click the link and start building smarter relationships today.
