Eli Sussman On Memes, Mistakes, and Making Fun of Restaurant Life!!

Viral Chef Eli Sussman joins Adrienne and Joe to talk about how he became a hero to line cooks everywhere. They discuss his relatable kitchen humor, how he gained such a large and devoted social media following, and why certain things are true no matter what restaurant you work in. In this episode, we discuss: Eli’s biggest lessons from opening (and closing) restaurants, including gertrude's in Brooklyn Eli’s upcoming satire book – and the shortcomings of the self-help industry Learning the ropes as a chef (and how to manage a team) The mistakes all restaurant owners make when they’re new Hosting a show at the James Beard awards Turn and Burn: Sandwich bread, too many knives, and fine dining snobbery Walk In Confession: Eli’s biggest regret and the story of his Samesa chain of restaurants Follow Eli: @thesussmans Follow the show: @chefscutpod Follow Adrienne: @chefadriennecheatham Follow Joe: @insta.flamm

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  This week on The Chef's Cut, we're joined by Eli Sussman. He is the chef and partner of Gertrude's and Gertie's in Brooklyn. He's also a cookbook author and food industry meme lord. On this episode, we ask Eli about being a hero to line cooks everywhere.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  You wouldn't believe how many people between the ages of 29 and 40 that are degenerates want to talk to me when I am at their restaurant.

• 0:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Catching Michelin star heat from some of the biggest names in the world.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Would Daniel Hum want to hang out with me? Like, probably not.

• 0:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  And how his satire is reaching a new level with his upcoming book.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  There's a chapter on how to cook your books.

• 0:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Your social media is hilarious and we feel like you capture so much of the industry, so much of like the perspective of chefs, current day, modern sentiment, like your memes with waiting for somebody to show up for an interview, just everything, everything.

• 0:59Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I saw that one the other day and I was like, this is, this hits too close right now. Like, I can't, you know what I mean? I just opened a new restaurant like six weeks ago and just like the waiting for somebody to show up for an interview, I was like, oof.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  I know, it's brutal. Thank you.

• 1:12Joe Flamm?

  The truth cuts too deep.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  I appreciate that and it's, it's, it's fun that they're universal and that seems that everyone can identify with them. I hope that what that means that everybody doesn't feel like they're doing this all by themselves. We are all unfortunately going through the same rituals daily and the same hardships daily. And so I use the memes and the reels to kind of centralize everybody's angst about what they're doing with their jobs. And everyone's like, oh my God, the same thing happened to me. And so we are all going through it together, even if we are alone while we're going through it.

• 1:47Joe Flamm?

  Right. And it's funny because like a kitchen is a kitchen everywhere, right? It's the same shit, you know? If you go stag in another country, if you're here, you're in Chicago, you're in New York, it's just funny how like it's the same thing. It's like everybody's bitching about the same problems. The front of the house is always the front of the house, you know what I mean?

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 2:01Joe Flamm?

  Line cooks are always line cooks and like, the weird shit is just like always the weird shit. So it's just like, I think that's why.

• 2:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  The same cast of characters exist everywhere.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  I find it incredibly satisfying when people from like a small independent restaurant where there's like four back of house and it's in, you know, whatever, a small, really small market in the middle of nowhere. And then you've got someone who works like two, three Michelin star in a huge city and they're telling the same story. And it's like, how does this happen in, you know, these totally different environments as these same sort of levels and stopping points and the same things happen to everybody, which is pretty miserable, but it's true.

• 2:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  So we're gonna do turn and burn and then we'll get into some deeper questions about what you do. Okay, are you ready?

• 2:49Speaker 01

  I'm ready.

• 2:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, so what is a kitchen tool that you swear by that you think more people should use?

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Fish spatula.

• 2:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Do you call it a fish spat or a peltex?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  I call it a fish spat. I actually never heard of a peltex.

• 3:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, we'll get, we'll get into that later.

• 3:07Joe Flamm?

  What in the three Michelin stars?

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

• 3:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  What is?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Don't make me look stupid on your podcast, alright?

• 3:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's a very niche, like we talk about niche shit, like that's very niche. But what is one ingredient that you always keep stocked at home?

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Salt.

• 3:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Ah, okay.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  I chili crisp.

• 3:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Chili crisp, okay. I mean, salt, that's a, that's a damn good one. You can't live without that shit.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  I keep a five pound box of diamond crystal at my house. So, you know.

• 3:38Joe Flamm?

  Keep this, keep this shit on.

• 3:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I think the, the, the box of kosher salt is ubiquitous in every chef's home.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 3:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  What is the best meal that you had in the last month?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  This is tough. Um, I love Faccio Italian Specialties and I had a sandwich from there. I think that place is like the perfect sandwich shop. Uh, that's my go-to if I'm in that part of Manhattan. So, yeah.

• 4:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Nice. What is one assumption about the food industry that you are irrationally tired of?

• 4:11Speaker 01

  That because you work at a fine dining restaurant, you are more skilled than someone who does not work at a fine dining restaurant.

• 4:20Joe Flamm?

  Oh, hundred percent agree.

• 4:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 4:23Joe Flamm?

  Hundred percent agree.

• 4:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's great.

• 4:25Joe Flamm?

  That's such a good one.

• 4:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Great answer. What is the worst advice you were ever given as a young chef?

• 4:35Speaker 01

  That you need a bunch of knives in order to do your job properly. Don't over, like over stocking your toolkit before you know how to properly use these things. Like you don't need eight knives if you don't know how to use eight knives. If you do, great, buy them. But, um, you know, my first year, I didn't need like a, you know, a, a fish knife to break down fish. Cause I was never doing that.

• 5:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 5:00Joe Flamm?

  Right. Cause no one was gonna let you touch a fish.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  We didn't even do that where I worked. So what was the point, you know?

• 5:07Joe Flamm?

  I, I mean, like those, those early years, it felt like you're like, if I just had the right knife, that's gonna change everything.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  I was like, well, if they ask me to do anything and it's in my toolkit, like they'll know that I'm serious, you know?

• 5:17Joe Flamm?

  Right, right. They'll know that I'm ready. Like I belong here.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  I've got three peelers in case my other two peelers go, go down during service. I've got a backup to my backup.

• 5:27Joe Flamm?

  Did somebody say mini offset? Did somebody need a mini offset? I got, I got, I got three.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  I can plate that. I can plate that. I've got a mini offset. Yeah.

• 5:33Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. It's a, it's a rosewood handle. It's a little more expensive, but I think it's a little more comfortable in the grip. I don't know.

• 5:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Mahogany.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:39Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  And last one, Eli, since you are such a sandwich aficionado, what makes a great sandwich to you?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  The bread.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Great bread, okay meat, good sandwich. Great meat, bad bread, terrible sandwich.

• 5:54Joe Flamm?

  That's facts.

• 5:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 5:57Joe Flamm?

  That's, yeah.

• 5:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Spitting knowledge today, Eli. I like this.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  I could talk about sandwiches for an hour, but you know.

• 6:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay. So I'm going to introduce a new segment, Joe. I know you love when I do this. This one is going to be called in the weeds. Okay. So Eli, we're going to get in the weeds a little bit because there is a lot that you do. And there's a lot that we want to ask you about and hear your perspective on. So let's start with this one that I'm always curious about. If you're at an event as a guest, you're not hosting, you're not on the red carpet there. You're talking to someone who doesn't know what you do. When they ask you what you do, what do you tell them?

• 6:36Speaker 01

  I say that I'm the executive chef and partner at a restaurant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, because that feels like something that they can wrap their head around. I usually don't jump into the social media stuff.

• 6:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 6:48Joe Flamm?

  Right. You're like, I'm the king. I'm the king of the line cooks. I'm the king of the memes for all line cooks everywhere. Everything the light touches, that is my kingdom.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm like, you wouldn't believe how many people between the ages of 29 and 40 that are degenerates want to talk to me when I am at their restaurant. That's, that's what happens. Yeah.

• 7:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  We're all dirtbag line cooks.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:10Joe Flamm?

  Right. I feel like it's like you wildly become like one of the most well-known chefs, like among line cooks, like through, you know, be like what you've built, which is just awesome and like hilarious. You know what I mean? Because it's like the number one thing I see like my cooks like share. You know what I mean? Like they post your videos all the time and it's like hilarious.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  That's awesome. I mean, that makes me feel good. That's who I'm doing it for. I'm doing it for people in the industry who are having a crappy day and want a little bit of levity before service. And it makes me feel good when people say like, oh, you know, at lineup or like during staff meal, somebody watched your video and we all thought it was funny. And the same thing happened during service, you know, last week. I think that means that I'm doing my job properly, you know, and I do consider it a job. Honestly, I do feel like a certain amount of responsibility and I do treat it like a second job.

• 8:00Joe Flamm?

  It is.

• 8:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, you really, you really do a great job of nailing it. It seems like there's a lot of thought that goes into them. It's not just, you know, they're well done, they're well thought out, they're well articulated. It's like you hit the nail on the head so well. And I want to know, like, be honest, did the memes start as a creative outlet or like as a coping mechanism? Because you were going through these things.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, those are the same, one in the same, honestly. Like the creative outlet was a COVID-based coping mechanism, which was I was standing in my apartment and I was about to join a Zoom call that was like 50 restaurant owners that were talking to some lawyers and it was.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  You know, whatever, April, probably. And I was like, I don't think, am I gonna ever open up my restaurant again? Am I gonna be a chef again? Like, what am I gonna, what's my next job gonna be? And then I got on the Zoom call and I was at the bottom of the totem pole on this call. I'm telling you, people with like 20, 30 restaurants on the call. And nobody knew what the hell they were doing and no one understood what was gonna happen next. And everyone was basically just flying blind and everyone was totally scared. And I thought, wow, if these people that have decades more experience than me have no idea what they're doing. I'm really screwed. I'm really in it deep. And I had this like deep overwhelming sense of fear about winding down my business.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  And all these things that I had never done before, finding a new job for the first time in a decade. And I had made a meme and I put it online because I was frustrated and I was scared and I didn't know what else to do. And then the feedback seemed to be that other people were feeling the exact same thing. And with any kind of like dopamine hit, you're like, oh, somebody like this, that's nice. And so you keep making more. And then I just kind of thought, oh, I'm gonna hone my own voice. And also try to capture the voices of other people that were going through similar things with their own businesses and at their own jobs during COVID. And that's really what happened. I was just, you know, trying to articulate what everyone was feeling during the shutdown.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  And then once we reopened, there was just even more material. Like, there was just always new material because I was just going with the waves of what was happening in the industry. And basically trying to ride that wave to stay topical.

• 10:23Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, and I mean, it's, that's the thing of our business, right? Like, every day, something happens.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:28Joe Flamm?

  Like, there's never a day I get home from work and my wife's like, what happened today? And I'm like, oh, nothing. Everything just went totally to plan. Like, we just showed up. We, everybody showed up. We cooked lunch, then we cooked dinner, and then, you know, we all said goodnight and went home.

• 10:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  It was smooth.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  I actually like to say that at my restaurant, a perfect day is a B+. Because like, we don't actually really do A+ days, you know? And I'll take B+ days because even on a perfect day.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Customer didn't enjoy something, a staff member has an emotional problem, there was an issue with equipment. It's like you never really bat a hundred, you know, you never bat a thousand at a restaurant.

• 11:05Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, a hundred sometimes.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, you definitely, you bet, you bet, you know, I would actually take a two twenty-five every single day. But um, but yeah, it's, it's a constant uh, rolling a boulder uphill experience. And, and that's just what it is day in, day out.

• 11:23Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. And I thought, you know, I was really surprised when I kind of came across you, but I saw like, I was like, oh, this dude's like actually like a chef or a restaurant. Cause whenever I see somebody like doing a lot of social media, I obviously go to the, the first thing in my head. I'm like, well, they must be front of the house, right? Um, you know what I mean? Cause they got a lot of time and you know what I mean? Like they're like, try to be a famous actor probably. And like, this is what they're doing.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:43Joe Flamm?

  But it was so poignant and so like good. It was like, no, you like actually know what's going on. Like you have to, like you wouldn't have this information. You know what I mean? You would have to like either weirdly be the weirdest student of the game. Like I'm like the deepest like.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  I'm very, I'm so method that I decided to go to work in a restaurant. I opened up a restaurant. It wasn't successful just for the purpose of making the memes good. Like I'm really, I'm very, very method. You know, I've dug in here in a real serious way.

• 12:13Joe Flamm?

  You're on your Christian Bale shit. You're like, I lost forty pounds for this role. You know what I mean?

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I started drinking. I don't even drink, you know?

• 12:21Joe Flamm?

  Just ripping cigarettes.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. The funniest DMs I get are um, wow, you're like, your videos are funny. Like, how do you capture this without even being in the industry at all? And I'm like, how do you think that I would know this information? Like this, I feel like it's very insider baseball. And uh, and so every once in a while, someone will be like, I work in a restaurant. It's so crazy that like, you know, you're a comedian and you could come up with this stuff. And I'm like, I'm not at all.

• 12:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  A lot of the people are comedians doing a lot of these. There's a hundred comedians doing cooking videos and doing podcast interviews. And all these comedians interviewing chefs, but the chef voice comes through so differently with yours. You can tell. That like you're living this in real time.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Totally. I I came in it from the from the opposite direction. And the truth is, is that I was always first into the restaurant. And so the space was empty. So I just started making videos because I would get there at eight in the morning. And I was like, this is great. None of my line cooks are going to make fun of me. They're not coming in for another like three hours. And so I'll just like, you know, set up a tripod and mess around a little bit and make some reels. And the most embarrassing thing is like, you know, I'm making some stupid video and it's like the third take and I've fumbled whatever. And like the linen guy comes in and he's like, he's like, what are you doing? Like you're, you should be embarrassed for yourself right now, you know?

• 13:41Joe Flamm?

  You're like, you know what, Sergio, mind your business.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, the meat, the meat guy is like, the meat guy is like waiting on the side because he like doesn't want to ruin the audio. And he's like, I need you to sign the invoice like whenever you're done with your bullshit. Like, I need to get out of here.

• 13:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  You guys remember like when you used to see people taking selfies out on the street like way back, you know, people like, oh, what kind of selfish? Like ego centric person is this nowadays is just par for the course. You don't even bat an eye. So I feel like that's where it should be with people in all spaces, like shooting video, like you're shooting a video, whatever. I'll wait for you to sign the invoice. But Eli, your audience has grown so much, right? When you started off, I've been following you for years. Joe's been following you for years. All of our friends have been following you for years. And we feel like it did start off a little more niche. It was smaller, but you're up to like 102,000 followers. Do you see your audience having expanded beyond just people who work in the industry?

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Sure. And I think that I have the bear to thank for that because that has dragged more of our concepts and terminology into the mainstream. So there are food lovers and restaurant.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Customers that are, you know, food aficionados that follow me now because they like the industry. They worship chefs and they want to be in the mix and they like the bear and Top Chef and they know the lingo. So that has dramatically helped because if I'm using verbiage or I'm talking about something that is like very much an industry term, it's now in the public sphere. It's in the normal vernacular of people that are walking around. Everybody knows eighty-six, everybody knows like, you know, going down in, in the weeds, you know, fire this, fire that. So like, that has opened up my audience a little bit. I still try, you were talking earlier about comedians that are in the space.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  I think there's sort of like a lot of low hanging fruit that some comedians grab. And I definitely do reels that are like more accessible, but I do try to stay a little bit more niche. Like, I think I know who my audience, core audience is, and also I really am pandering to them. So it's like, I want to make the stuff that they like, even if it's at the expense of doing something that like might not be that big. Um, I want to do a video where like cooks and chefs are going to be like, this guy sees me. He really, really sees me. And then I'll do stuff around Thanksgiving that's like for everybody, you know, like the Thanksgiving video performed really, really well because it's like everyone eats Thanksgiving dinner with their family, so everybody gets that one.

• 16:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Was that the video where you were calling out orders in the kitchen?

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my God.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  I've done, I've done it two years in a row with different variations. It's basically like I'm bossing around my family, like I'm a chef and I'm running service and everyone kind of identifies that, you know?

• 16:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  When you said, "Mom, I need a callback," I lost it.

• 16:41Joe Flamm?

  Some of the, you know, like really neat shit, it's like, like the Noma shit is like fucking sends me, dude. You know what I mean? Like, it's so funny to me and I'm like, and it's so niche and it's like, you know what it'd be? Cause it's like, how many people really know about Noma? It's like, if you have any like... Knowledge of it, like all that shit is hysterical. And it's just like, it's just like every time it's like, I was reading, I think it was your ins and outs of the year. And it was like ins, it was like no more organic, like cleaning ware for home.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:10Joe Flamm?

  It's so fucking funny.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Well, wait, wait, they like, you know, a lot of this stuff starts as satire and then unfortunately it turns into reality. I'm not saying I predict the future is just like, that's the way the winds blow. Like a couple of years ago, you know, the joke was that they were going to try to cram protein into everything. And look, look what they did. They crammed protein into like every single possible thing. And so, you know, there are some trends that you can actually predict for real. And it's because our industry is sort of obvious. At the same time that people are innovating, you do know what will trickle down and what will, who the innovators will be. And who will kind of copy them 18 months later.

• 17:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. And it seems like things that would have been so absurd, totally out of left field. It's like, no, people are actually thinking about developing those and doing those.

• 17:58Joe Flamm?

  Right. Cause it's that stuff in our industry that where it's like, somebody grabs it. They're like, we're going to hammer this. We're just going to hammer it till it's dead. And now you can get a Dunkachino with, you know, 19 grams of protein in it.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

• 18:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  So Eli, you do go after people like, you know, Thomas Keller, Renee Redzepi, everybody. I mean, everybody is like fair game and I love that. It's very democratic. Is there ever something you've posted that you're like, oh shit, that might actually get me uninvited from some events?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  I'm not worried at all about not being invited to events or like somebody banning me from their restaurant. I will say that I feel like I only punch up. And sure, I have like an okay following, but I'm a guy who runs a, oh, pretty good restaurant, a neighborhood restaurant. I am not a Michelin guy and I don't have a restaurant group, nor do I have venture capital funding. So like me going after the Chipotle's or the Balood groups or the Dan Barbers of the world. Like first off, I'm doing it in fun. I think if I saw those guys, I could have a good conversation with them because like I do know ball. So like I can talk about Right, it's not me. I can talk about restaurants and like I can probably bullshit around with anyone from any restaurant.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Would Daniel Hum want to hang out with me? Like probably not, but I think, but I think that, you know, I think in the grand scheme of things, what they need to understand is like they are at that level. And so they are allowed to be scrutinized because they are like the top 10 people in our industry. So in a way, it's like, you know, I'm on the bench and I'm making fun of Michael Jordan. It's like, I think Jordan can take it, you know, like he gets paid the big bucks and he performs at a high level. So I hope that they don't take it too personally. I think some of them have actually taken it as like a compliment. And like Renee has definitely DM me. He thinks it's funny. Can't tell you what TK thinks about it. He might not have as good a sense of humor as Renee, but um, but I think generally it's about punching up.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  And it's also like, if I want people to understand the joke, I have to use somebody that they know. And who do they know? They know like the main five, seven guys that sort of have They've cornered, they've cornered the industry. And so that's actually something that I'm like subversively commenting on, which is that it's the same guys. It's been the same guys for 20 years. There hasn't been a lot of space made for, at least up until very recently, for some of this younger talent to percolate up and get the, you know, awards and get the sort of media attention that I think that they deserve. And I think to a certain extent, some of those guys have not used their platform to platform other people that are beneath them.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  And so I'm trying to kind of make light of that and make comment of that, that they slightly need to, you know, give some other people a shot at the spotlight.

• 20:46Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. Well, and I think it's also, it's like with, with some of those guys, it's like, it's so serious with them and everyone around them treats it so serious. You know what I mean? And it's all like holier than thou. And it's like, you can't even use their name. You have to call them chef. And like, why would you even think to use their government name to speak to them and not call them chef? Even though you don't work for them. It's like, yo, that's not my fucking dad. I'm not calling him dad. I don't care. Like, you know, and so it's like, that's why I love it. It's like, and I think it was, uh, the, the TK one and it was like, you know, like people get like upset about it. It's like, bro chill. Like, bro chill. Like, it should be, everybody should be fair game. We should be able to laugh at each other.

• 21:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  I wonder if it's more them or the people around them.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  I think it's, I think it's people like protecting their brand because what we have to remember is like, these are businesses now. These are people, but they are businesses in the same way that a Taylor Swift is definitely a person, but she is a business. And hundreds of people rely on the entity that is Dynex and like, these are big companies and right. So like I poke fun, but there are people that are like, this is my livelihood. But the thing is like, I'm not going to do any damage to their livelihood. I'm just sort of like, you know, needling the industry to a certain extent. It's not like me making fun of, um, a Linea losing their star is the reason that a Linea lost their star. Like I have nothing to do with that. And I'm not going to make it so that they lose an additional star. But I think people were really upset about that one.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  People slid into my DMs because they thought that I was like piling on in a way when something had already happened negatively. But the truth is, is like, there are just food media stories that I feel like I want to comment on because they are the story of the day. Um, and I don't like do that about everything, but I thought that that was a substantial piece of food news. And so I, I took a swing at it and people didn't necessarily love it that much. And, and I kind of see their perspective, but they also have to lighten up a little bit.

• 22:47Joe Flamm?

  Right. It's like you gotta lighten the fuck up. We're making future poop. Like, you know what I mean? Like, everybody's gotta calm the fuck down.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm making like literal garbage on the internet and you're making some turned carrots that I'm going to put in my body and never think about again. So, you know, we can, we can all move on, you know?

• 23:01Joe Flamm?

  Right. But that's, you know, it's, it's just funny. And it's like, yeah, I get it's a business, but it's like, nobody's canceling the reservation at French Laundry because like you made fun of Thomas Keller, like losing a golf club.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Oh my God. No, no chance. No chance at all.

• 23:13Joe Flamm?

  You know, like, oh, what? He's, he's like, the, the guy who runs French Laundry is super fucking serious. It's like, that's shocking.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:21Joe Flamm?

  That's shocking to me. I would no longer like to spend $5,000 there.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  I, I don't think the French Laundry clientele, I don't think Napa clientele is really like waking up in the morning and be like, can't wait to see what Eli Sussman's meme is about, you know?

• 23:35Joe Flamm?

  I love the idea of that, you know, Nick Cottos and his beard.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  He's like putting on his Rolex and he's like, hilarious meme about putting away the, putting away the order. I loved that one, you know?

• 23:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  So when did you realize, because this has grown so much, and I think that like it's opened up, you've already got a strong resume. You've been in the business for a long time. You've got several cookbooks that you wrote back in the day for Williams Sonoma with your brother. It's not like you just woke up and started cooking and started doing this. It has opened up a lot of new opportunities for you and hopefully continues to. But when did you realize that the social media side of it could be more than just a side hustle and just a way to kind of vent what goes on in the industry?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think when I pitched the idea of Talking in the Walk-In and when James Beard asked me to host it live from the award show, that was a real solidifying moment for me that this was perhaps something more than me just messing around on the internet and that it could be something that, you know, my knees, my back, I don't know how much longer I got in me. Like there's a real world in which I'm privileged and lucky enough to have the ability to potentially cultivate something that exists outside of the four walls of the restaurant. And part of that is being in the right place at the right time. Part of it is hard work, but knowing that James Beard thought that what I did was either relevant enough to the community or funny enough

• 25:06Speaker 01

  that they said, we want you to be a red carpet correspondent. We want you to host Talking in the Walk-In from the award show where people are going to come in right after they win. They're going to talk to some traditional media for two minutes and then you get them for 10 minutes. And I was like, wow, what an amazing responsibility to be kind of a conduit for these people that are winning perhaps the greatest award in our industry to then come and schmooze with me in the back of a refrigerated truck. So that felt very real. And you know, the follower count is cool and I'm not going to lie, like I pay attention. I'm trying to grow my audience, but that felt like a really like formidable moment of the industry. Saying we like what you do and you know I'm on the red carpet and I've got these

• 25:49Speaker 01

  heavy hitters coming by and people being like we love your memes and I'm like oh my god like I've I have your cookbook like I had your cookbook a decade ago like when I used to wake up in the morning and work brunch and perform badly I used to flip through your cookbook when I went home and now you're like hey you're funny I'll stop and talk to you and like I don't care to be known for one thing in particular it is nice to have your peers acknowledge that they like what you do whether it's culinary whether it's media um it feels good to have people that you respect recognize that so that felt like a really formidable moment for me um and you know the restaurant stuff it happens

• 26:31Speaker 01

  simultaneously so I do straddle this bizarre world where it's like I am serious and I do have a normal job and I own a restaurant and I go through all the same problems as you and then also I really mess around hard on the internet and I'm a shit talker and I stir things up but I do both at the same time and a lot of people have trouble wrapping their head around that.

• 26:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  We want to talk a little bit about not the books that you did in the past but you actually have another one coming out right?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  I do yeah so I'm writing a new book and it is a hospitality business book satire that's going to make fun of and reference Danny Meyer's book and Wogadera's book and also I've been listening to a lot of self-help podcasters and a lot of financial bro podcasters and I've been reading a lot of self-help books and I'm going to weave all of that information together in hopefully a very hilarious way and it's going to be a hospitality business primer book um but actually all the advice is going to be quite bad um so there's a

• 27:44Speaker 01

  chapter on how to cook your books there's a chapter on how to uh you know squeeze every last drop out of your employees. How to leverage AI and autonomous robotic function at your restaurant so that you never have to have human employees ever again. So I'm trying to take on all of these topics that a normal business book would take on. How to be a good leader, but basically the advice is, you know, all counterintuitive to what a normal leadership book would recommend you do. It's really fun to write because I don't have to be correct at all about anything. Right.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  I don't have to fact check anything. There's no like, oh gosh, I wonder if that quote is correct. I'm just like making up quotes from, you know, Charles Schwab and from Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. I'm just like, Steve Jobs said the most effective way to lead a workplace is to scream at your employees 24/7, you know. So it's given me a great freedom to, uh, to make jokes in sort of a longer essay format. And then there's going to be a lot of visuals and games interspersed as well. So I think it should be really cool.

• 29:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's kind of different. I was expecting you to say that it was going to be framed in that way, but it was actually, you know, like a lot of experience and truth behind it. So my mind is, my mind is blown. I'm looking forward to this.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that. There's more, there's more anger and disgust behind it than truth, but I think like, um, if you've ever, you know, for those that have read Unreasonable Hospitality and for those that have read, you know, Setting the Table, I do believe, I want to go on record here, there are some really good pieces of wisdom there. And there are some things that you can utilize in those books that you can layer on to your life and to your business. But I do think the general self-help genre is a crock of shit. And I think a lot of the advice is sort of preposterous. Like, you know, how do I make more money at my restaurants? Like, well, you know, no book is going to properly prepare you to how to

• 29:55Speaker 01

  make. There's no one size fits all. And the idea that you could, you know, read one of these books and change the dynamic of who you are as a person, I think is sort of A false pretense when you're picking up these books. And so, uh, similar to like what Stephen Colbert did on the Colbert Report. This is I've been trying to explain it, which is maybe a little outdated. It's like, I'm sort of inhabiting this personality of someone who is this know it all business person. But maybe in reality, they're not that smart and maybe they haven't been that successful, but they just can't stop expounding on the wisdom that they have to deliver.

• 30:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  So it's like if Ron Burgundy were to write a book on how to open restaurants.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I hope what I do on the meme page, but in book form so that you can, you know, read it on your commute to work and I want people to pick it up and be like, oh my God, I was a server in college. And this really speaks to me, even though I haven't been in the industry for 10 years. And then I think it's going to play really well with folks like us who are, you know, ingrained in the minutia every day of operating a business and working at a restaurant.

• 31:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  I feel like all satire comes from a place of love. You know, it's like you can't properly make fun of something if you don't have a deep, deep connection to it and love for it.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  That's the thing is that I am, I am obsessed with this industry. I said I could talk about sandwiches for an hour, but I could probably talk about them for 10, you know? Like I could talk about tools for hours. Like this is what I live and eat and breathe, you know? I have been doing it for 15 years professionally. And before that, it was the thing that I was into and I spent my money on before I got into this industry and took it on as a job. So I do think that I've earned the right to talk about it and make fun of it. And I do know what I'm talking about because I don't really have any other hobbies. Like this is all I do. I work at the restaurant and then I make fun of the hospitality industry and then I eat food out.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  And so this is what I like to do and what I do professionally and recreationally. So, um, I feel like I'm the right person to talk about it. Yeah.

• 32:07Joe Flamm?

  You know, I had a cook asked me one time, he's like, what's your Roman empire? And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, what is, what is the thing you never stop thinking about? And I was like, this dude, like you're sitting, you're sitting in my restaurant. Like I go, this is the thing I'm obsessed with. This is all I think about all the time. I'm like, I don't have any hobbies. I don't do any other stuff. I have no other skillset whatsoever. Like, so I'm like, this is it. And I go, why? What's yours? And he's like, Uh, I was gonna say Pokemon.

• 32:39Joe Flamm?

  I was like.

• 32:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  Can you make a job out of it? Okay, then get back to work.

• 32:44Joe Flamm?

  There was just another cook sitting there and he goes, dude, bro, that was your answer?

• 32:50Speaker 01

  He's like, at least tell your boss that you want to open up a restaurant.

• 32:53Joe Flamm?

  He's like, he's like, why would you ask that question if that was your answer?

• 32:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Damn, because Eli, before, so you currently are the chef and partner at Gertrude's. And before that, you've had other restaurants. Can you take us through a little bit about the restaurants you've owned and all that?

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah, I moved to New York to become a line cook. I had been living in Los Angeles and I had been working in the advertising and marketing industry adjacent to the, to record labels. So that was our clients. I really loved working with musicians and music. And that was something that I was super passionate about straight out of college. So I lived in LA. I did that. I did catering on the weekends to earn extra money because I cooked in high school and college as well. And the catering companies turned into me hosting dinner parties on weekends with my friends in Los Angeles, just like for ourselves, not to sell tickets. And I realized that I liked cooking more than I liked sitting at a desk. My brother was a cook in New York and said, come crash on my floor. He worked at the Breslin at that point for April Bloomfield.

• 33:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Ah, we went there, Joe.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  And I moved to New York. I got a trail. My brother set some up for me. I was unaware that you were supposed to attend all the trails that someone sets up for you before accepting the job. So I accepted the job at my first trail while on the trail. And I, it was the right decision, but I think I sort of burned my brother a little bit because he had like gone out on a limb and been like, my brother doesn't know how to cook. And can he come mess around in your restaurant?

• 34:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  So you blew off the other ones?

• 34:31Speaker 01

  I did and I feel bad about it, but I was just like, well, I accepted a job. So like, I don't need to go to these other ones.

• 34:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Where else did he set up trails for? Do you remember?

• 34:40Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna say, because he's still mad at me about it. He has literally held a grudge to this day. And then another place has since closed. But so I started at Mile End. I started as a prep cook. And it was like the most magical experience of my entire life. I walked into our production kitchen. There's someone over there baking bread. Somebody was curing meat. Someone was making hot dogs. And I was like, I found my people. I wanted to be deeply immersed in like hands-on production of large-scale meat smoking and fabrication. So it was like the perfect place for me to be because they were doing some butchering, a lot of curing, smoking.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  And I love sandwiches. I love meat and I wanted to learn how to make pastrami and smoke turkey and make hot dogs. So this was like my dream job. It was amazing. I worked my way up the ladder there. I ended up becoming the executive chef of both locations that were open. So I really just stayed, you know? I became a brunch cook, dinner lime cook, sous chef. Like I went through all the stations there. And while we were opening these new locations, my boss was incubating black seed bagels along with our head baker at the time. So I got to see what bagel operation looked like. It was very thrilling to be a part of something that was both popular

• 36:04Speaker 01

  and also a satisfying culinary pursuit. I did that for a long time. My brother and I branched off to open up Samisa, which is our, was our Middle Eastern fast casual concept. And we did that for eight and a half years, multiple locations around New York, various permutations.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  In between opening up Samisa and leaving Myalend Deli, I ran the restaurant at Rushmires in Montauk, which was like a very high-end seafood operation at a hotel. Chelsea Hotels owned that at the time. And that was an insane operation that I kind of got thrown into the the fire because I went from managing Myalend, which was like a lunchtime spot, and we had about forty-ish employees total and never did more than like 200 covers at a brunch. And Rushmires was seventy-five employees and some days we did like 600 covers.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  And it was like, there were like celebrities and the tickets were higher and the turn times were insane. And like, you know, people would sit down with a 12-top and they would order like all their food at once. Like, it was an insane operation. And I really truthfully like didn't really know what I was doing. And I leaned a lot on sous chefs and people that I had brought in that were either friends of friends. And I was just like, hey, I'm doing this thing. I know I can make food taste good, but I need help with, just I need you to step up in a real dramatic way. And like, I'm not ashamed to admit even now and then, like, I don't know how to do everything. I'm not the most technically proficient chef in the entire

• 37:47Speaker 01

  world. But what I can do is like, I can lead people. And I can get people to do what I want them to do. And I can stay on budget, which are two important skills.

• 37:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, hugely, hugely important.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  So I know what I'm good at. I know what I'm not good at. And I'm really good at delegating things out that I'm not good at in a way where those people feel empowered to do the work. So I did that. And then we opened up Samisa and ran that for many years. Covid happened, a real big challenge. We opened up in Rockefeller Center. And that was like my last big swing at fast casual. I thought, I'm gonna open up in Rockefeller Center. I'm gonna attract venture capital. I'm gonna get that big infusion of cash and I'm gonna open up a bunch of Samisas. That did not happen. It was sort of. A big failure from my perspective and something that I will have to sit with for forever.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  But that just did not work. I ran something for a really long time and it just, it never got to the level of where I wanted it. And around the last year that Samisa was open, I got a drink with my now business partner and he said, I've got a space and it, I'm percolating on the idea. And that's how Gertrudes was kind of born.

• 39:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Nice. I mean, eight and a half years, you may, you know, obviously, closing a restaurant is hard. I, you know, I was by my mother's side when she opened and closed restaurants when I was growing up. It's never easy, but running a restaurant for eight and a half years, like you can't see that as a failure. That's got like, there's a lot of success in that, that a lot of people don't reach.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Totally. I think the short answer is that it was, um, it was both at the same time. Sure. But there are a lot of things that I can hang my hat on there, but it never, you know, you're talking about Roman Empire, like I can't actually say that it materialized into the thing that I desperately wanted it to be. And I saw some other, you know, you're, you shouldn't compare yourself to others, but we always are in this industry. And I saw some, uh, fast casual concepts that I think have like an inferior product and not as diverse flavor profiles, really excelling from a marketing and expansion standpoint. And the back of my head, I'm thinking like, Samisa's better. It tastes better. It looks better. We just, we couldn't connect with the right people. We couldn't capture the right audience. And I think what ends up happening

• 40:06Speaker 01

  is like, there's a lot of restaurants like that. We all know really talented chefs and really talented operators and their restaurants closed. And one of the best pieces of advice that I've ever got in this entire industry is you have to know when to close. And the thing is, is like, it was my child before I had children. I went there every day. I opened and closed it. I did everything, you know? And so it's almost impossible to say, well, this thing isn't working anymore because you're too in the weeds about it. You're too head down being like, if I just tweak one more thing, I think that'll be the thing that will make it work. And I really just started to realize that that was echoing in the back of my brain, that this person that I knew who had closed

• 40:51Speaker 01

  things before. He said, you gotta know when to close it. And I just thought it's, this is not working. This is silly. Um, I gotta stop putting all of this time and effort and money into something that I'm truly not getting anything back out of, you know?

• 41:06Joe Flamm?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  So we, so we shut it down, which is incredibly sad, but it allowed me to focus full time at Gertrude's. Cause when Gertrude's opened, I would wake up in the morning, I would drive to Rockefeller Center. I would work a couple hours at Rockefeller Center for Samisa. I would get to Gertrude's around one o'clock. I would prep until service. I would expo until close. And then I would wake up and do that the next day. And that is not a reasonable thing to ask of yourself. And it is also an insane thing mentally to manage. Physically, it was like I was okay, but mentally I was probably breaking down. And you could only do like so much of that before they both start to suffer.

• 41:47Joe Flamm?

  Right. And I think like the emotional weight of it all too, right? It's like something we undervalue so much. Like, you know, like I was talking about chefs before openings. I'm like, the emotional weight of it, like the capacity you have to have like during an opening or running multiple spots is so tremendous. And it's so, so hard to like, you know, quantify, right? Like the toll that takes on you.

• 42:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. After I left La Bernardette and I went to work for Marcus, I would open at Street Bird, his fast casual concept, make sure operates. I would get there like between five and six. Make sure people showed up, make sure the prep was getting started. When the sous chef came in, um, linens were delivered, grease trap got cleaned, all that. Then I would spend the rest of my day at Red Rooster closing. And I would get maybe four hours of sleep a night if I were lucky, but I usually had prep, packing and planning to do for Marcus's off sites. So I'm going over prepless in my head all night. So I might've actually gotten two hours of sleep a night. And this was like two years. I, I, you know, it's not sustainable, even though physically you're like, I got this, I can push through.

• 42:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  You look back on it and you're like, I probably shaved like three years off of my life.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and the thing is about our industry is you tell that story to a bunch of people and a bunch of people are going to be like, wow, you are incredible. You're a heavy hitter. They're going to like, give you a lot of positive reinforcement and you are, and that's incredible that you did that. But I think it's also important to note that what we're talking about is completely psychotic.

• 43:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  There is nothing about that that is logical. And also there's no way that you or I or anyone who tells that same sort of story. Like, we probably weren't doing as good a job as we could have been doing. If we would have just slept seven hours a night and been laser focused on one thing. And it's like, you know, a hedge fund guy sits at his desk for nine hours a day and he makes a million dollars a year. And you were working 16 hours, 17 hours a day. You were not making that type of money. You're putting everything you can into something, whether it's your concept or someone else's concept. And it's like, the return on investment is poor for your body, for your mind, truly financially, like all of these things suffer. And then at the end of the day, all we really have is like,

• 44:02Speaker 01

  a good story to brag about it. And I'm kind of over brag, I'm brag, I'm, I'm over bragging about the good story. It's like, I want to be known as someone who can do something successful. And also, one of the smartest things my brother ever told me is a restaurant is not successful until the owners do not have to be there every second of operation. If you have to be there every second of operation, your restaurant is not successful because you don't actually know how to run a business when you're not there. And I think about that all the time. It's like, it's, I thought at first when he told me that, I was like, that just sounds like a lazy person. But actually it's someone who, it's just someone who's really wise and values their personal time in a way so that when they are at the business,

• 44:45Speaker 01

  you can be totally present for the business. You can't really do that when you work 17 hours a day.

• 44:49Joe Flamm?

  Right. But I feel like that's how we came up in this industry was like, if you were a chef and you weren't there seven days a week and 17 hours a day, like you weren't serious. You know what I mean? You were some bullshit, you know, just name on the door and you're not really committed. And you're, you know, like a lackadaisical owner and all that. And it's like wrapping your head around of like, no, you could run a good business. You can build a good culture. And then like you can hire people to do their jobs and then get the fuck out of their way. So they can do the thing that you're paying them to do. And so they can experience the growth you've experienced. You know what I mean? You could give them the trust that somebody gave you at some point to say like, hey, you got this, right? I'm gonna leave. You got this. And like, but it's hard.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  People want to be empowered and no one likes to be micromanaged. And also, no one wants to feel like they are not trusted in their job. And look, some people are new and some people aren't good and they need to be handheld to a certain extent for some of the time. But there are quality people and if you can delegate to them, they will be happier because they will feel like they have some value within the business. And that they provide, uh, you know, a positive benefit on the operations. And then you don't have to close every single night. You don't have to be there at 12:30 at night, like doing inventory. When somebody else who's hungry and younger wants to learn how to do that, teach them how to do it so that they can do it. And then pay them a little bit more money and like, everybody wins. Just pay them what they're worth. And then you don't have to be there all the time because they'll work hard, you know?

• 46:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Eli, I really think that I know your new book. What is it? It's called what? Me chef, you chef, we chef?

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 46:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  Which is hilarious. I know people who have like we chef tattooed on their knuckles. Um, I think that like, yes, this is satire and it's totally not serious, but you have such a mature perspective on so much of this. I think maybe your next book should be a little bit more serious, um, because you have a lot of good info to share.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Bleed into the satire as well.

• 46:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, Eli, we are going to, we're gonna skip talking in the walk-in because we are just gonna go into the walk-in for a confession.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  We want to hear, this is our segment. So, you know, we all love walk-ins in our industry. You go there to cry, you go there to vent, to scream, whatever. We go to the walk-in to confess something that we have either not fessed up to before. We have not admitted a mistake that we made back in our younger days, but you know, we're here now, we learned from it and we moved on. So we want to take you to the walk-in so we can get your confession.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Okay, well, you know, when I was opening up these businesses, the Samisa and another operation that called Ed and Bebs, when we had this thing in the Rockaways, we had locations in Brooklyn and then locations down in the far Rockaways. And I was sort of, it was intoxicating to have multiple locations. And what I didn't really realize is that if you don't create systems and you're bopping around from location to location, it's real cool and it looks great to own a bunch of spots, but you're not really doing a good job at any of them. So what I

• 48:08Speaker 01

  didn't do was basically make any of them work properly. And that is something that really wore on me as I looked back and I was like, all I really cared about was the fact that I had multiple locations. Instead of doing one thing well, I was just like, let's open stuff, let's open stuff. And what I would basically do is we would run out of stuff all the time. And so I was like a chicken with my head cut off and it made it so that I had to drive in my car and buy stuff. I had to go to Restaurant Depot because we never ordered properly and we would run out of stuff in the middle of service. And I was running back and forth and I kind of glamorized this like owner chef where I would like come in to save the day. But I wasn't really coming in to save the day. I was mostly

• 48:53Speaker 01

  just causing more problems for myself and then being the only guy, I'd be like, I'm the only guy that could fix it, you know? Right, right, right. Put myself on this pedestal as being this like amazing operator. And then I clear, I very clearly realized when I looked over at other people's operations and I never saw the owner there and they always had their stuff stocked. If they were selling more product than me and they never run out, I was like, wow, I really don't know what I'm doing here. And a bit more off than I can chew. And I think about that a lot, which is that people rush into opening things. They rush into leaving a position to chase a new position or open their own business.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  And they haven't really stopped to think about whether they're ready for it. And at a lot of junctures in my career, I've moved way too quickly. And the advice that I would give to people is actually slow it down, make a plan, formulate a plan, bounce it off some people who have more experience than you and not let your ego do the driving, which is for the beginning of my career, I really let my ego do a lot of the driving. And I think it ended up to the detriment of, of a lot of things that I did. And so that is my, that is my confession that I really wasn't doing a very good job for the first several years that I was in operation. And I look back and I'm just like, you know, what was I thinking, you know?

• 50:16Joe Flamm?

  Oh dude, there's so many of those moments where I think about it, you're just like, oh man, like what? Like you like cringe, you know, it's like those things, like weird things you remember from like, where you're just like, you're like, you're like showed up with a case of chicken like, oh yeah, I got you guys, don't worry. It's like, well, you're the asshole didn't order enough chicken. And you're like, right, no, I know, but I got the chicken now. So like, I solved the problem.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  To save the day. And they're like, we've been standing around for two hours because you don't know how to do your job.

• 50:43Joe Flamm?

  Right, right. You're like, and nobody's even thankful that I showed up. I drove all the way across town with this fucking chicken. You know what I mean? You guys aren't, you guys aren't pumped? Like, you know, it's like, you're the reason we don't have chickens. It's like, right. But I'm also the reason you do have chickens. So like,

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Hero complex.

• 50:58Joe Flamm?

  You know, let's give me, let's throw me some fucking flowers here, huh?

• 51:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's such a valid confession because I think a lot of people can learn from that. Cause we've all been there, we've all done that. And hopefully we've all learned from that as well, you know? At some point in our careers, we're like,

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Hope so.

• 51:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, I didn't even realize at the time how many mistakes I was making.

• 51:17Joe Flamm?

  Well, I think the amount of like chef friends too, I've had who I've talked to where it's like, when they opened their first restaurant and it was something where they weren't ready for it. Or they, you know, and they've told me over the years, like, they just got so obsessed with the idea of like, I need to own my own place and I wasn't ready and I didn't do all the work ahead of it. But I just was, I couldn't get this obsession out of my head that it just had to be mine. So then I compromised on way too many things on the way in. And then, so when I got there, I wasn't really. Ready for it. And like, those are usually the ones I feel like where it doesn't work out, or they figure it out over time if they're fortunate enough to have that time, right?

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:52Joe Flamm?

  But it's like, everybody doesn't get all the time to figure it out. Sometimes you gotta, you know what I mean? Packing in and move on to the next thing.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Totally. Open a restaurant should have gone to therapy, you know?

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Open a restaurant should have just done one more year at another restaurant.

• 52:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, you know, I mean, the the Sussman's IG account, that is therapy for a lot of us. So Eli, thank you so, so much for joining us today. This has been so great talking to you.

• 52:19Joe Flamm?

  Just a blast. Thank you for coming on. My line cooks are gonna be super fucking geeked about this one. Oh, man, fucking sauce. They're losing their shit. So.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  I'm really thrilled that you that you asked me to come on. It's it's an honor and I've been listening and watching. And it's really cool what you what you guys are doing with this program. And thanks for including me. I appreciate it.

• 52:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's it for this episode of The Chef's Cut. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening, and especially if you're watching us on YouTube, where you can find full length video of every episode of the show. And be sure to follow us at The Chef's Cut Pod on IG. On behalf of Joe Flamm, I'm Adrian Cheatham, and this has been The Chef's Cut. Life beyond the past.