How Great Restaurant Brands Stay Relevant for Decades (CEO Lettuce Entertain You, R.J. Melman)

Restaurants don't get tired. Restaurateurs get tired. We're going to run out of cash if we don't change things. Failure—it's not linear—is something that happens every day, and you can fix it. You can work on things to improve it, but there's not a magic bullet to fix it all.

You guys have been able to have these legendary concepts that have gone on for years and years, but also not scared to reinvent yourself.

I mean, I get this question a lot. They're like, "How do you know when to change it?" I think

RJ Melman, the CEO of Lettuce Entertain You, a restaurant group that has over 120 restaurants across the

Starting at Lettuce and you were getting the employee handbook, in there it would talk about what we describe as the culture of caring. Deep belief that if you take care of the people here, that those people will in turn take care of the customers. Just having that attitude hopefully leads to a lot of longevity. At the same time, you can't control what happens on the street. Sometimes restaurants go from being like hot restaurants to institutions, but you have to change. You sort of realize like if you don't love it, It's too hard of a business.

What concept do you have in your head that you think wouldn't work in Chicago but would crush it in New York or LA or Miami?

It's funny, we say 2 things and I think both are true. One—

Hey everyone, it's Steven Galanis, co-founder and CEO of Cameo, and I'm really excited to have my very dear friend RJ Melman here. On the Zeitgeist Podcast today. RJ is the CEO of Lettuce Entertain You, a restaurant group that has over 120 restaurants across the country. And we're here at one of his brand new spots, Kitty Cosmopolitan, a beautiful, beautiful new cocktail bar that he just built in River North in Chicago. RJ, thanks for hosting. So happy to have you.

So glad to be here at Kitty's. This is, yeah, like you said, a brand new place where we've been open probably less than 2 months here. So a little cocktail bar below a restaurant that we have upstairs called Crying Tiger, and it's been really well received so far. So great to be in here to talk to you.

And this space is a very special space to you and your siblings. For those that don't know, Lettuce was founded by your dad, Rich, over 50 years ago.

Yeah, this is our 55th anniversary this year on June 10th. So we are just a few weeks away from from getting there to 55, the double nickel.

And Rich is an absolute legend in the restaurant space. Some have even credited him with opening the very first salad bar of all time. RJ was actually named after RJ Gruntz, the very first restaurant that his dad founded. Legendary concepts like Maggiano's and Ed Debevic's all across the country. And it's been really cool because the first, I believe the first place that you and your siblings did was the legendary Hub 51. That is this exact space we're in right

now. Yeah. So in 2008, uh, my brother and I, uh, I had been working in the organization since the, since really 2000. I was working, uh, my whole career, you know, my whole young life. I was actually doing all sorts of odd jobs. you know, I was busing tables and when I was 17, I actually started cooking. I worked at a restaurant called Heaven on 7, which was a partnership.

Legendary spot.

Yeah, Cajun restaurant. And that was my first cooking job. And I fell in love with cooking at that time. And all through college, I went to the University of Kansas. I cooked in summers. I worked at one of our restaurants called Wildfire. I worked at Chili's. And then, as I got to graduate, I said, I want to work as a chef for a while. And I did that till I was about 25, but I got to go out to Napa Valley and work at a restaurant called Mustard's Grill, which is a really famous restaurant up in Napa.

Best pork chop.

Yeah. I mean, amazing, amazing place owned by a woman named Cindy Paulson, who is a great restaurateur in her own right, but she's also a Lettuce alumni. She worked for us in the '80s, and she was so hospitable and taught me so much about food. and culture. But back to— so through with Lettuce and with my dad, I had the opportunity to probably open about 10 restaurants from, I think, 2000, 2001 up until 2008. But in 2007, my brother and I started working on— I had a little bit of free time, and this was very early 2007. And we were working at a restaurant together called Osteria Viastato. He had just finished college. He was managing the restaurant as an entry-level manager. I was kind of helping out. I had a little bit more— I'm 4 years older, so I had a little bit more training. And we started to formulate ideas for what became our first restaurant, which was Hub 51. And it was right here in this corner, is 51 West Hubbard Street. We were— it was our whole world then. It was incredibly meaningful. Our sister, who was working as a teacher in New York City, she was doing a program called Teach for America.

Amazing program.

And so she said she didn't want to teach anymore, and she came back and joined us right before the opening. So it was truly like the 3 of us working here day in and day out. Upstairs, we had this really big American restaurant. our friends were incredibly supportive of opening it. Our current general counsel and chief development officer, a guy named Ethan Sampson, it was so funny. He was our first bouncer. And by the way, he's 5'10 and about 165 pounds. Yeah. So we weren't the most intimidating bouncing crew, but the place got so busy, we were truly leaning on our friends to open it. And we were I was coming in at 6 in the morning, working till 2 at night, but I only had one restaurant to be responsible for. And it was so fun down in this space, which is now Kitty's, was our first nightclub, and it was called Sub 51. And it was a fun little place. People would dance down the middle here. There was a bar in the ceiling you could hang from. It definitely did not have enough air conditioning for how many people were in here. So every day it would be sweaty and fun, but— I think really learned a lot about the nightlife business, the bar business through this place. And this place is like totally meaningful. But, you know, for 17 years Hub was open and it did pretty well. And then it started to kind of have an end of its life. You know, sometimes restaurants, ideally they go on forever and you can have legendary restaurants or you could have, This almost becomes like a cycle where they, you know, they go from being like hot restaurants to institutions. And Hub was probably somewhere in between those. It was for 17 years is a great run, but we saw it starting to slip and maybe the space was a little bit too big and it was a really hard decision. But we said, we're gonna close it and do 2 new concepts here. It actually ended up being 3. On one-third of the space upstairs, we did a bar called Gus's Sip and Dip. Then we did this restaurant called Crying Tiger with 2 chef partners, Matt Reardon and Ty Dang, who is just 2 incredibly talented Southeast Asian chefs and talented chefs in general, but a Southeast Asian restaurant. And then the third was this bar, Kitty's Cosmopolitan Club, that we have another partner in the business, a guy named Kevin Beery. And Just a complete— I think the best bar drink person in the world, if not the country. He helped certainly create Gus's Sip and Dip with us. Just amazing at doing cocktails, beverage program. And so this was— this is, you know, sort of a high-end, very adult cocktail bar. Where do you get a drink? You know, as I'm getting older, I don't want to go to nightclubs anymore. But where do I want to get a drink after dinner, before dinner? Or even during dinner, which has been cool. So this is an extremely meaningful place.

I think the fact that at the same time, you guys have been able to have these legendary concepts that have gone on for years and years and years, RJ Grunts, 55 years, but also not scared to reinvent yourself. And you've seen that with so many concepts. I mean, just on this block, The Studio Paris, your legendary spot that as things changed, as nightlife changed, as trends changed, you know, that became a great event space now.

Yeah. You know, it's funny, we say 2 things and I think both are true. One, restaurants don't get tired, restaurateurs get tired. And sometimes you, and we are victim to this ourselves, or we don't change, but you have to change. Over time, I think to expect that things are always going to be great or you're always going to be a hotspot or it's always that nothing is— that competition isn't going to come in. You can't control what happens on the street. If you have a great American restaurant, if 2 other American restaurants open around the corner, it could take business from you. And so you always have to be improving. At the same time, and I get this question a lot, they're like, how do you know when a restaurant is Failing, or how do you know when to change it? And you know, the first joke we'll make is like, well, we didn't close because we were too busy. No, we we couldn't serve them all. They were there were so many people banging down our doors. But you know, at a certain point, a place starts to to go down. We had a restaurant down the street for many years, probably twenty years, called Ben Pow. It was a Chinese restaurant here, and it did really well. You start to think, well, is it a good location? Yes. Okay, so we're underperforming what we think is a great location. And, you know, often you can see is a great location. What is the neighborhood doing? Are there 10 busy restaurants in the neighborhood? And we're not that. Maybe the problem, you have to be really self-reflective and say the problem is what we're doing isn't connecting anymore or not connecting enough, or it's not being kept up enough. But that turned into a restaurant that we did called RPM Italian, which is now also 15 years old. So we've had a restaurant for 30-plus years on that corner. But RPM Italian, the day that it opened, and it actually still is about as busy as the day that it opened, did 5 times the business as Ben Pao on an annual basis. And so I think failure, especially in the restaurant business, is not like It's not linear. It's not a destination. I think failure is something that kind of happens every day, and you can fix it. You can work on things to improve it, but you don't. There's not necessarily a golden bullet, a magic bullet to fix it all. And there are days where you have to say, "I need to change the whole concept." But if you're working on your restaurants every day, how do we make a food item better? There's, you know, we were working, we have like the bar Sip and Dip upstairs next door. And we were doing new food items this week. You know, it's— we've won every award for a bar could win, but that doesn't mean we don't want to improve it. And you have to do that every day or else you're going to get caught.

Let's talk about the innovative bar program upstairs. $12 cocktails. It's gone viral. I was in DC 2 weeks ago and somebody was talking to me about that just because they knew that I knew you and they were— they want to do something similar. How did you make that price work? Like, what was the thought about that?

Yeah.

And then the question behind the question, you guys have done loyalty so well for such a long time, not just on the customer side, but also on the staff side, as you mentioned, Ethan started as the 5'10 bouncer and now he's, you know, running a big part of, of the business. How, what, what has it been about the way that your family and Lettuce in general treats both the people, you know, back of house, front of house, as well as all your customers to keep them coming back year after year after year?

So I'll start with the first question, which is how Sip and Dip came about. And I give Kevin We had an idea collectively, and we work in teams, and our creative process is dysfunctional. If you filmed it, you'd be like, this is the craziest thing ever. It usually starts with food items or drink items, and Kevin had made some drinks for us. But I think on a national level, you are reading stories that drinking is at an all-time low. The next generation of young people aren't drinking like they used to. And I think that is true. You know, you are seeing liquor companies pull back. I think you're hearing it from liquor stores that they're hurting probably. And I don't think that there's just one factor in that being true. Maybe it's less cool to do today for some reason. There are way more alternatives to alcohol, like weed is, you know, readily available. But one of the things that we thought is one of the biggest barriers potentially is price. And cocktails, especially in cities, have gotten really expensive. And for a whole host of reasons, there's just inflation in operating in a city. It's more and more expensive to operate a restaurant and other businesses. But One of the premonitions was that people maybe aren't going out for cocktails as much because it's gotten too expensive. And that was Kevin's thought. And so we started with this idea is how do we do a great cocktail bar with $12 drinks and say, how do you make it work that we can be profitable? It's one thing to be busy. It is. There are restaurants all the time that are really busy that aren't profitable. And having that balance is really important. And so we took an approach with how we structured the liquor program, how we worked with the liquor companies to get their best pricing, how we actually have a lot less choice there. There's only one gin. You can either get Tanqueray or Tanqueray 10. You can't get 50 gins. You can get Ketel One vodka. You can't get other ones. And we worked with the brands and said, if we do exclusives and we take really large drops, we can get—

What is your best, best, best price?

What's your best price? But what we're also willing to take instead of a normal restaurant would take a 3-case drop or a 5-case drop, 36 bottles. We'll take 40-case drops or 50-case drops. We'll invest in doing this right. And, worked our way backwards so we can get the costs in line and get it out there. And, what we've seen is that not only has it been really well received, we have lines almost every day down the door that it's easy to get into. We don't take reservations, so you can line up. And at happy hour, the drinks are $6, or the special of the day is $6. And what we're seeing is people are drinking cocktails. And so maybe part of it's right. And how do you get that done when you can? And by the way, we sell more expensive drinks at other restaurants where we do have more choice, but it sort of works itself out.

And real quick, just to give everybody a taste of this menu, you open the cocktail menu, there's 30 different drinks. So if today is the 18th, drink number 18 will be—

that's the happy hour drink of the day.

That's the special for happy hour. It's $6. And they've been so thoughtful. Like, the drink number 5 is the margarita. Is the margarita. Because on Cinco de Mayo, we want—

exactly. We want— we want— the half-price drink during happy hour on Cinco de Mayo to be the margarita.

So what happens on the 31st day of the month?

That's when we do champagne.

Champagne.

So champagne is half price. So yeah, that gets you to New Year's Eve too.

And the other secret about the menu, if you get the cider, you get 2 that come out for—

So you get 2 for 1 basically on the beer itself.

And the cider was $6,

$8? $8, I think is probably right. $8 or $9.

One of the best deals in the city.

Correct. That was really important. Your second question was about both customer loyalty and employee retention and employee loyalty. We certainly don't have zero turnover at Lettuce. It's not been, but I think we're pretty low, especially in an industry that can be transient and turnover. But deep down, when we, if you were starting at Lettuce and you were getting the employee handbook, you would get it in there. It would talk about what we describe as the culture of caring. And our culture of caring really starts with first the ability to care for yourself. If you can't take care of yourself, we are big believers in therapy, in self-help, in improvement. Then you got to take care of your family or your immediate family. Then You know, taking care of yourself at work and your coworkers. And then that spills over to the guests. So we have a lot of deep belief that if you take care of the people here, that those people will in turn take care of the customers, making sure that people make enough money at work, making sure that they have benefits that we do. Yeah. We've had health insurance for probably 40 years here. Well before it was mandated by Obamacare or anything like that, you know, vacation time. So I really, we do believe and want this to be the best restaurant job you can have. And I think even just having that attitude hopefully leads to a lot of longevity. It is every month I write letters to all the employees that have significant anniversaries. Anniversaries. And I, you know, I just did a whole stack of them and there was probably 20 people that had all been here over 30 years or And it's like, it makes me so happy. And more importantly, I know them and it's like, you know, it's like, it feels so nice and it like time goes so fast that it's hard to believe I've been doing this for well over 25 years, you know, full-time since college. And it's like, it goes so fast and it's just amazing that longevity. And I think that really helps with consistency. And the other thing, I think the reason a lot of people stick around, while it is totally great and noble, and we have people who are servers and cooks and work in hourly jobs for long times with us, we obviously, we have a big belief in promoting from within. We love home growing. We consider ourselves a school for entrepreneurs because we're doing new concepts, because we're doing new kinds of things all the time. Our own DNA is creative, and it, I think, helps spur a bunch of people who want to to continue to grow here as a place to learn. And the other thing we're proud of is that we have so many alumni that have left us that have been really successful. And that is just, you know, a guy named David Swinghammer who was a long Les alumni. He went with Danny Meyer and helped do Shake Shack and now has a whole nother career beyond Shake Shack and in the private equity world and growing other restaurant brands. You know, I mean, we could name chef alumni, Ty Deng, who I mentioned was started with us as a young cook, went and had success on his own opening restaurants, came back to work with Lettuce. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of great restaurant alumni, and we're so proud of them. And that's really cool in its own right. And then on the customer side, I don't know, probably 35 years ago, we created something called the Frequent Diner Program. And I know you were a big user. Uh, your mom is a big user. Your mom is a great big user.

Technically, my mom is a big user because I've actually never had my own loyalty account, but my mom gets all my points.

Which is because you're a good— because you're a good son.

She was a very, very heavy— she was already on before we knew each other. She was on the wall at Wildfire before we knew each other. But that has been, you know, my, my thing with my mom.

But I think one of the benefits of having so many brands and so many experiences that you can have You know, in our frequent diner program, I guess if you had to compare it to something global or more national would be like Marriott's Bonvoy program or Hilton Honors program. You know, it looks like something where you get points for dining out and those points turn into rewards dollars to use back at the restaurant. And I don't know, like probably every week, you know, like a business leader or someone who I meet says, I found out about your frequent diner program like 4 or 5 visits in. I missed all these points, or I've not been using it. I'm like, please do. We tell you about it. It's on the table. There's probably a little check presenter. It says it at the bottom. Join the club.

Mother's Day, we had, um, we had a big Mother's Day brunch, uh, my family and Mark Lawrence's family, CEO of SpotHero. And I let Mark pick up the tab now that his business has been acquired by Uber.

So it's very kind of you.

It's very, very, very kind. And he's like, do you want the points? I'm like, Mark,

you're

paying, you should get the points. He had never had a points account. He'd never had a points account. So, and this is probably a top, you know, one of the biggest users in Chicago. So he's now in, so he's gonna be getting some money back.

But no, we're thrilled to reward people who are so great to us and keep dining out. And I love it when people come up to me on the street and they like show me their points account. Look how many times I'm— it's like, what is more flattering than someone telling you that they love your places? Like, that is, I'm sure when you get it and someone says, look, I booked, look how many cameos I've booked. Like, there's truly no greater feeling. And it's like, What we're doing is working. It's like, you know, it's always nice to hear good things.

It's always great too, because people undervalue how important loyalty is. And sometimes they'll come up to me and they'll be like, oh my God, you know, I had the best Cameo experience ever. You know, like, I want to show you the 5 that I've gotten. Or people calling you, oh my God, Crying Tiger or Gus's or Kitty's, I want to go. And one of the things both you and I love, it's like, I would much rather you, you know, buy that Mother's Day gift for me, or you'd rather those people coming eating at your restaurants. So just having that host mentality and that culture of caring is critical.

Yeah, it's so funny. Um, all the time someone meets me and they said, oh, I— it happened. There's the National Restaurant Show is around, uh, this weekend, which is like the big convention and all the Uh, purveyors are here, the people who make the ovens, that make the glassware. And it's a big trade show, probably 100,000 people. One of our busiest weekends, uh, of the year.

Great free samples of food if you can go.

Yeah, you get a lot of slushies, you know, pretzel bites, you know, but no, a lot of, you know, food purveyors are showing items. It's, it's, it's amazing. It takes all 3 sides of the convention center. But I ran into someone, they're a longtime fan. And I really want to go to Crying Tiger. I haven't been able to get in yet. It's not the biggest restaurant, so it's both been popular but small, which is always a challenge. And I'm like, here's my number. Call me when you want to come in and I'll make you a reservation. And they're like, well, I don't want to bother you. And I'm like, well, it's like the greatest honor in the world if you— I don't understand the mentality. If you own something and you're doing something, And if you're not available to help someone use it, then what are you doing in business? Like, it doesn't even register to me that I wouldn't want to be helpful. And I love it when I get a text or when I— for making a reservation. So.

Let's go back to young RJ. And one thing that many people don't know about you is you were an excellent debater. And debated at, uh, at Kansas in college. And there's probably another world where if you didn't go into the restaurant business, you know, I think, may— I think RJ could, if he ever wanted to, be the mayor of Chicago one day.

I do not want to be.

And he doesn't want to be, but that is a path that could have happened. A lot of debaters could end up—

Politics or law.

Politics, law school, et cetera. What did your dad say when You decided, hey, you know, I'm, I'm gonna be cooking at Chili's, or I wanna go to Mustard's. Like, what was his advice to you breaking into the business?

I mean, I think his advice— you had this amazing restaurateur, you know, he created the foundation that my brother, sister, and I have inherited. He's still around, you know, still working, and I have a meeting with him after this.

And if you ever see Rich at a lettuce restaurant, he will always have his little notebook.

Yeah.

And he's walking around and

He

has no hobbies. That care, that level of care.

It's amazing.

It's just incredible.

And he's instilled that in all of us. And I'm so lucky to work with my brother and sister. They're amazing partners. They're so talented. We have this amazing group of people that I get to work with too. We have about 100 partners in Lettuce. But he made the restaurant business fun growing up. I have vivid memories of being 5 years old and getting to go to work with him. You know, it was probably 6, I was probably 6 or 7 when Shaw's opened up down the street, which has now been open for 40 years. I remember playing in the cooler. It's a seafood restaurant and we had live crustaceans, right? Crabs, lobsters, clams. And you're like, as a 5 or 6-year-old, it's like the coolest thing ever. You're like, this whole thing is full of, it's like a refrigerated zoo. And so I think he did a great job of making work seem fun. There was always cool stuff going on when we were kids. But, you know, and I know that sometimes people say, and maybe there's a little corniness to it, like find your passion. But the same advice I would give to someone who said, I want to get into the restaurant business, would be kind of the same thing he did to us, which is like work in the restaurant business. This business is too hard. It's physical. It's nights and weekends. Generally it's holidays. It's serving other people. It's wanting to host Every night. And if you're not connecting with this, and it's not for everyone, like those are kind of the table stakes to be good at it. And I don't think he ever said it like that, but you sort of realize like if you don't love it, it's too hard of a business. And so his, he always encouraged me, us to work. I think he would've been just as proud of us if I went into law or my sister stayed as a teacher. There was never a pressure to do that. But if you're going to be here, not only do you have to be here, but you have to try really hard every day. You can always hustle. You have to work hard. And so that I give him credit for where it wasn't pressure, But yet if you're gonna be here, you gotta be here at a high level. And yeah, that's the thing about this. It's just, it's too tough.

As you guys have had a bunch of concepts, so now, you know, obviously Hub's doing well and the River North area of Chicago specifically, you know, you've got RPM and you're building El Porcelino and Paris Club, you're starting to get clusters. You open a bar called Bub City that does country music, and it's a completely different concept. And I think it had been around previously.

It's funny, we had a big— on Weed Street in Chicago, you know, it was very seedy then, but in 1989, my dad opened a country place, and it was different a little bit than how we did Bub City today, but It was like 30,000 feet. It was this dilapidated warehouse in the middle of Cabrini-Green at the time. But like when it was still Cabrini-Green, I mean, I remember there were, we had off-duty police officers outside because it was like really, you know, fairly seedy and dangerous over there. Sure. 1989 to 1998, it was open and it was, A raucous place, Southern food, barbecue, maybe a little bit more Creole in there too, peel and eat garlic shrimp, probably po'boys, that kind of stuff. So it was like sort of the Southeast barbecue kind of restaurant. And the restaurant ran its course. It's a tough location, was really big, did a lot of parties. Funny enough, my bar mitzvah was there. I worked there as a busser when I was 11 and 12 years old. I would go to work with my dad when it was opening up and I'd actually bus tables and I was— they gave garlic bread out when you sat down and I was the bread boy. I ran the garlic bread to the tables. But in 2000, or I'm sorry, 2011 or so, we said like, we want to do a barbecue restaurant. And I met a guy named Ed Warm here and, you know, he is a legend in the country music world. Ed owns his own bar called Joe's on Weed Street, which actually is right across the street from where the original Bub City was.

Great spot.

My brother and I became great friends with Ed, his partner Tommy, and we started this idea of doing a little country bar. And so sort of Bub City plus barbecue, or I'm sorry, this idea of country bar plus barbecue starts to meld together. Nothing goes kind of better together. And so we have this little, I don't know, holds 300 people. Bub City has really become this amazing discovery stage. The people that have played it have—

And live band country karaoke.

Karaoke on Wednesday nights. Sing-along night on Thursdays, live music 5 nights a week, great barbecue. So it sort of has become this now 15-year-old or so, 13, 14-year-old restaurant and bar that's still fun and busy and pretty cool. And that's what got us kind of going in the country music world. And I think you're probably segueing to— How did you get into a festival?

So I wake up one morning in my condo, which is downtown Chicago, right by kind of Trump Tower, Nordstrom's, River North area. And it's, I believe it was a Saturday or a Sunday. It's noon. We're sitting on the couch hungover after a long night at Paris Club, one of RJ's legendary nightclubs at the time. And all of a sudden I hear music just blasting in the parking lot downstairs. And I look and there's this little stage and there's kind of blocked off in a parking lot that's submerged by Nordstrom's there. So bordering Wabash, Rush, that block. And I decided to walk down and see what's going on. And it turned out it was a brand new music festival called Windy City Smokeout that Bub City, decided to kind of take it outside in the summer. And that is now the beginning of a franchise that 20-some thousand come to a night in Chicago over a decade.

Yeah. So, so the story actually goes back a little bit farther. So I mentioned Shaw's, the seafood restaurant, and Shaw's had something or has something called Oysterfest.

And real quick, if you've never been to Shaw's Oyster Bar, the actual— there's the restaurant and then you go in and you take a right inside and you go to the oyster bar. It's one of the greatest settings that you can have.

It's truly— my brother and I, when we were opening Hub, would eat there all the time. Uh, it's like our favorite bar in the company still. It's so comfortable. We get oysters and They actually have a little sushi and it's just a great place to have a martini. It's fun. Shrimp scampis. It just had its 40th anniversary last year. It's a pretty amazing place and obviously created by my father and Kevin Brown, our past CEO, in 1985. But so Shaw's had created something called the Oysterfest and Oysterfest was like blues music, oyster slurping competitions. It was always right around, it was probably either end of September or early October. And it was maybe 1,000 people, 2,000 people, and it was fun. It wasn't really a moneymaker. It wasn't really a business. It was more like a celebration of oyster season and the water's getting cold in the Northeast. And the music. And the music and blues music, because the Oyster Bar also has blues music sometimes. And it was outside, usually tented and in a parking lot really close to Shaw's, or it was actually on the street sometime. It kind of moved around, but it was always within a couple blocks of Shaw's. And it was always fun. It was usually a Friday night in, like I said, in October. I would say like 1/3 of the time, because it was October, it would snow. 1/3 of the time it was like 80 degrees, and 1/3 of the time it was raining.

Welcome to Chicago.

Yeah, welcome to Chicago in the fall. And I think it was my brother who said, like, what if we did this idea with more popular music and more popular food? And we're like, it spun out of country music and barbecue. We had built Bub City. It was like this idea. And so that same parking lot that is in the shadow of Nordstrom, Right there on, you said Wabash and Hubbard. We had booked some talent, some guys who actually turned out to be big, but, you know, pretty small budget for the weekend. We did 3 days.

Well, and to put it in context, Chicago wasn't exactly this huge country market at the time by any means.

Correct. Like, you know, country music was definitely on the upswing. And US 99, I think at the time there wasn't even 2 country music radio stations. Now there are 2, at least 2, without streaming services and stuff. But they were actually one of the bigger country music stations in the country. But no, country music was not where it is today. So we got ourselves Bub City, We begged 2 other local barbecue teams to do it with us. We, you know, to come do it. And then there's a famous place in Austin, Texas called the Salt Lick that we asked and a barbecue champion named Myron Nixon. And that was our group of barbecue guys. So we had 5 barbecue teams, built a little stage, you know, did some other activations and we did 2,500 or 3,000 people over the weekend. You know, this was not a giant festival by any means. The next year we out— we knew we were gonna outgrow it. We moved to the Chicago Tribune Publishing parking lots, which was—

Where the new casino's going.

Where the new casino's going in Chicago, if you're here. And it probably was there for 4 or 5 years and started to grow organically. The next year it was probably 10,000 people, then it was 20,000. And eventually we outgrew that space and now we're in our permanent home, or at least our current home at the United Center parking lots. We take about 1.5 million square feet. We're actually 5 days this year. It's going to be about 20,000 to 25,000 people a day depending on the day. Truly amazing country talent. Now, you know, and this festival has had Everyone play it. The only— there's only one person that hasn't played it yet. And unfortunately, that person has now outgrown us. But Morgan Wallen was booked to headline the year the pandemic hit, and we had to cancel the festival. And that was a rough one. But Chris Stapleton, Luke Combs, Megan Maroney, Ella Langley, Riley Green, You know, it's really been amazing. Zac Brown Band, Zac Bryan. Incredible. And so like this year you have Lainey Wilson. We actually have Hootie and the Blowfish, Darius Rucker. They're doing a reunion show. Blake Shelton from The Voice is headlining one night, a guy named Jordan Davis, amazing talent, and a great band named Treaty Oak Revival on Wednesday. So it's true. It's like it's become kind of amazing. I think it's hopefully cemented itself in the summers here. And for my brother, sister, and I, and our other founding partner, Ed Warm, and Chris Mears, who is— and Callie Ravel, who— they're like kind of the 6 of us that did this together. Like, it is the most fun thing we get to work on kind of on an annual basis. It's the thing that is super rewarding. It is hard work. It is long days. All of Lettuce comes together to help put it on, which is really cool too. Then we get so much support from some of the other partners in Lettuce and a lot of the employees of lettuce, but it becomes such a very, very fun weekend to do.

And you know, it's big when the Cowboys call and next thing you know, he's hosting Lone Star Season.

Yeah. So we, yeah, we did a soccer one at AT&T Stadium. They came and saw it. We've had a lot of people walk through it and we're just gonna continue to do it. We, there's not a goal to do 20 of anything. You know, our, we like doing new, we don't have grand goals that we need to have X number of restaurants next year or we need to do this, but we just want to do things we can do well. And Lone Star has, has turned out pretty well for 2 years down there at AT&T Stadium. So looks like we'll be back next year to do another one.

You mentioned COVID as something that obviously prevented Morgan Wallen from coming to Smokeout, but obviously Much bigger existential time for you. And as you think about the time that you've been really leading, that period has to be at the very top of, you know, you experienced things in 18 months that your dad didn't experience in 50 years, right?

No. And he, yeah, he was, I'm not saying he was checked out. He was living in Phoenix. Obviously he had health issues, not he, did not get sick, but I'm saying you don't know what's going to happen. You're trying to protect him. He couldn't be in the restaurants. And

so real quick, I want to take us back to that period. Suddenly Chicago shut down. You have thousands of employees, you have millions of dollars of food inventory, right? It's the perfect storm, right? Things are going so well, You know, I remember a weekend before was NBA All-Star Weekend in Chicago.

Yeah, 2 weekends before that.

2 weekends before that.

Probably our best February we ever had.

Like, yeah, it kind of— the city had never been better.

Yeah.

Right? And then you have this like just mother of all storms coming in with COVID Talk to me about living your values through that period and the innovation that ended up coming and how coming out of COVID You guys have adapted to this new reality.

Yeah. And I don't— clearly, I don't think our story is unique. It affected everyone in the world. So I don't think that we were affected, you know, greater than other restaurant companies or—

But I think how you handled it was unique.

Yeah. You know, so you find yourself, on March 15th or 16th or whatever day it is. And that first week we're down 99% from the year before. We're shut everywhere. The only thing we had open, we had some drive-through restaurants in the Pacific Northwest and those could— we had some quick service restaurants that could stay open. And really that's kind of about it 2 or 3 days later. We have 8 restaurants in Vegas. We probably had 6 at the time. The casinos are shuttered, they're closed for the first time, and we're a really healthy and conservative company. And you're sitting and saying, we're going to run out of cash if we don't change things. We're going to be bankrupt. 6 weeks. Remember, you're before government assistance, you're before— every day you don't know what's happening. And so it's a really interesting position because I feel like we all have pretty good instincts. If something's not selling, we know how to change it. If something's not working, you know how to fix it. At least in my career, it was the first time Where you're like, I'm not sure if my next decision is the right decision. Like, you don't know, you can't trust yourself like you used to. But I'll tell you that I learned that we have unbelievable partners here, that people sort of dug in, you know, got dirty. We have unbelievable teams here that said, we, want to be on in the boat with you. And we had like sort of a guiding principle, which is like, how do we look up and whatever that decision that we made, can we like be proud of in 30 days from now or 40 days from now? Did we do the right thing? While we have closed restaurants before, When we closed Hub 51, you give the teams that work here a chance to transfer to other restaurants. So I don't wanna say that we've never eliminated jobs. It's not true. We had never done anything that looked like a reduction in force anywhere in our company.

And it was everywhere.

And you're looking at it and, you know, we have about generally about 8,000 people or so that work at Lennar's. And we had to figure out how to furlough, you know, the servers and the bussers and the cooks and, and, and, or, you know, anyone that wasn't essential to, to kind of keeping the business going. I mean, we didn't even know how to do it. You know what I mean? Like, we are head of HR and we're figuring out how to do this with kindness. What do we do? I said I wanted to make decisions that we were proud of, but it was also untenable to keep 8,000 people working. I mean, like I said, we would've been bankrupt in weeks, not— And

then everybody—

Yeah, this whole thing would've been gone. And that was the worst. We set up like a conference line. We didn't even have a method to communicate to everyone. If you're a server or a cook here, We don't have— you don't get an email address when you start here. You don't get— trying to figure out how to communicate to everyone at once. So we figured out how to set up, I guess, a conference line. And I did a conversation about what we're going to do. And the decisions we made were anyone who's on health insurance, we're going to cover it till the end of the year. Our family started an emergency fund That was managed by my brother and sister that basically if anyone needed cash, you know, I can't pay my rent, I can't do this, you can apply and get a check written to you. We tried to do as much payment out of the shifts that were there. You know, this is a business of cash flow where it's coming in. You also have arrears. You're paying your vendors on 30-day, 60-day, 90-day terms. So we have all of our bills coming due from December, our busiest month. You know, it's, so we do workout plans with the vendors and everyone just started pulling in the same direction. We also, this is a company because we have so many concepts, we work in divisions and we did a, I think a really good job of bringing the divisions together to start sharing our learnings. Learnings. And we ran a conference call of the senior leaders Twice a day, 7 days a week about what we did this morning and then what we did at night. And eventually, you know, over months that switched to 5 days a week or, and then to 3 days a week, you know, it starts to peel off. But everyone was working together. It was amazing to see everyone was pulling in that same direction. And Like I said, there's not a magic bullet to this business. And I think we took that, how do you have small victories approach to doing something? So, you know, I think our first goal was to get back because we're doing delivery and carryout and innovation and the stores are doing this. And I can't say it again. I cannot give more credit to the partners that were here that were creating things. I remember one partner said, hey, there's no traffic on the street. We don't have to just deliver to 3 miles around RPM Italian. Like, we can get to Winnetka in 12 minutes. You know, it was like, so we started delivering to the suburbs. Right. We started doing meal kits, and everyone is fighting for every dollar. And that allowed us to bring people back. We tried to do great rehiring. benefits for people. Even if you left us and didn't want to come back for a year, if you came back within a year after you had left us, you could come back with all your status and benefits, your vacation time. So we tried to make it really appealing as a place to go, even though the industry as a whole was really chaotic. But same, we love setting goals and it was like, okay, let's get back to $1 million a week. Let's get back to between all the restaurants, right? Let's get to $2 million and then $3 million. And that's like, in some ways, while there's nothing fun about it, it was exciting to be fighting that way and then like set a goal and hit it and set a goal and hit it.

And it brought the very best out of you, your team.

Our team. It brought like, yeah, I said like, and It also, there are people that probably aren't here anymore that said, I don't want to be part of this, or I don't, I'm not passionate about this industry. Or, you know, it sort of was like a day of reckoning for, or a month of reckoning or a year of reckoning for people. Um, but I'm so proud of the people that, and, and so thankful actually for the people that, that were here in, in the, in the trenches that, you know, there was, um, It was hard. And I truly teared up with it. There was the moment of social unrest in June of 2020, the George Floyd protests. And I think we had 20, if you recall, there were riots downtown or Damages. I'm not sure. And that week was the week that patios were supposed to reopen, I believe, or there was supposed to be a little bit of indoor dining. I don't remember which one it was, but the social unrest happens and we had 20 restaurants kind of broken into, the glass broken on the street. I don't think that there was There wasn't millions of dollars in damage, but it was replaced windows and maybe some stuff was stolen. It wasn't, as it turns out, maybe not. It was pretty bad, but it wasn't like there wasn't arson or something like that. And we— it happens overnight. And I'm up at 5 in the morning because you know what's happening.

The alarms.

Alarms are on. You can see on the security cameras. I mean, you know what's going on. You know that your places are getting broken into. You know that. And I don't know, getting my car to drive to River North. It's 5:30 in the morning, 6 in the morning. And all these Managers and partners like showed up at the same time and they're like, grab brooms and start cleaning up. And it was like, it was like just unbelievable that people just showed up. No one was called. And, uh, even some neighbors were like, we're gonna help clean up. There's broken glass everywhere. And, uh, like, I just can't be more proud of the teams that showed up that day. It was pretty amazing.

All right. Some rapid-fire fun questions. Number one, what is, uh, think about a restaurant concept that wouldn't work in Chicago but would crush it in kind of New York or LA or Miami that, that is intriguing to you.

Hmm.

We had a lot of people write in that they're waiting for you to open in the 2 markets that you've never, you know, really done anything, New York and California. But the really interesting question was, what concept do you have in your head that you think would crush it there that wouldn't work here?

That would work in—

New York, LA, Miami.

I actually don't think, not to evade the question, I'm not sure that there's something working somewhere else that wouldn't work here. I think, you know, Chicago is a big metropolitan cosmopolitan city. Obviously New York is way denser, London, Miami denser, but I don't know if there's anything that wouldn't work. Sometimes I think maybe in the Midwest, you know, fashion trends go from the coasts to the middle and maybe you're just a couple years ahead here, but I'm not sure that there's something that wouldn't work here. Uh, eventually. I'm trying to think if there's anything I've seen.

Well, and I think good evidence of that is what Brendan's done with Four Charles and Pavette's and a lot of amazing restaurants.

Yeah.

Amazing restaurants. So I think, I think it, it, yeah.

So I don't think that there's a restaurant that—

Obviously couldn't work here.

Well, you, you know, there's a lot of, um, maybe on the coast what you see more is like

More sizzle than steak?

No, I can't even say whether the food is good or bad. You read about, my friend Eugene owns a great restaurant called The Corner Store in 86. Amazing restaurants in New York. And it's like every day it's like Taylor Swift ate there and then a Kardashian and then Timothée Chalamet and then Al Pacino. And it's like, it's like this amazing thing. And it's, well, that doesn't exist here because the industry's not here. So I'm not sure that you can drive that same level of like awareness here.

As much as we've tried, you know.

As much as we tried, but there's not enough filming here to make it work. But, you know, you can, yeah, I don't know if there's something that wouldn't work. So.

Give me, 3 of your most memorable restaurateurs? Like, you walk into their restaurant and just being with them, it just, it just gives you a wow. Is somebody—

Oh yeah, I mean, I've gotten to have meals and spend time with Eric Ripert from Le Bernardin. He is a kind, great person, uh, to spend time with him in his own restaurant, which is, you know, One of the best restaurants in the world. Literally, it is amazing. He—I could not say better things about him. I've loved getting to spend time with Daniel Balud over the years. He is—is like amazingly hospitable. He continues to evolve. As a person, through my dad, I've had the pleasure of meeting so many legendary restaurateurs who have done this for years. Steven Starr is amazing to sit and talk with out of Philadelphia and New York and restaurants. There's a guy named Bob Spivak who's more of my dad's contemporary. He's out of LA. He has a restaurant called The Grill on the Alley or had it. But like, it's so cool. My favorite people to sit with are like the old school restaurateurs that are like thinking about like, I think there's too much coleslaw on that plate. Like you can learn so much from those guys and girls that about the pennies that it takes to this business. This business is not, I think it's glamorous, but there's a lot of A lot of detail that goes into it and a lot of detail that there's, like I said, there's pennies and those pennies add up. And if there's waste and stuff, you gotta be careful. So getting to spend time when you get to meet the older old school restaurateurs, I think is a pleasure. And there's not as, you know, there's less of them around these days.

So, so you just had another kid. Congratulations. Thank you. Violet Margot.

Violet Margot. Yeah.

Beautiful name. You have Will, you have Sloan, my birthday buddy. If the kids want to get into the restaurant business when they grow up and they want to work together as a team like you, Molly, and Jared have done, what advice would you give them if there's anything that's different?

They gotta love it. You know, they gotta, I think, prove it that they're gonna love it. It's too early to tell. My son is the oldest of all of the grandchildren generation. He's 5 and a half. So it's way early to tell if anyone, including my brother's kids and my sister, her daughter, want to get into this industry. But I'm gonna do the same thing I think that our dad did for us, which is try to make it fun. expose them to work and expose them to restaurants. And if they want to be part of it, they're going to have to work their butts off. And if it's not meant to be a family business after our generation, that's okay too. Lettuce will go on. I want Lettuce to be here for our 55th year. I hope I can still see this place or be around to see it at 100. And I would love it if the next generation, including, like I said, my brother and sister's kids are involved in this business, but there's certainly not pressure and they gotta love it and be great at it.

Last question. This is the famous Zeitgeist Podcast ending question. You should probably have the best answer that we've had yet to this question. What is your death row meal? And you could mix and match. So, you could literally think about, you know, you can pull from as many different places. It could be stuff that—

I'm a simple eater, you know, when actually it comes down to it. I don't love 3 Michelin star, you know, meals generally. I don't want— so, I don't see doing any of that. I'm going to want comfort food assuming I'm hungry. I don't know what I did to get on death row, but it sounds like it was pretty bad. I maybe have a California chicken wrap from RJ Grunt, so I'd have some of those chips there. That's like when I'm having a bad day, my wife knows, and I order RJ Grunt, she's like, oh, this is my pacifier.

Yeah.

So, I'm going to get a California chicken wrap. Yeah, I'm going to get some of the buffalo sauce. to dip it in. I think by Feta—

Their buffalo sauce?

Their buffalo. No, their buffalo sauce. Their buffalo sauce. Might have a bowl of pasta, like a bolognese from RPM Italian. I'd probably have a pie. I assume I'm getting dessert here, so I'd have one of the pies from Joe's or maybe the raspberry pie from Shaw's, but I'd probably have the coconut cream and Boston cream from Joe's, which are 2 of my favorites. I think that's what I'd do. I think, I think that's what I'd, what I'd have. And I think I'd go out very full and very happy.

Amazing. RJ, thank you so much. Thank you. It was awesome.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much, guys, for tuning in and subscribe to our page on YouTube, on Amazon, on Spotify, wherever you watch your podcasts to get more amazing content. from incredible entrepreneurs like RJ. Thank you.

Thank you.