Burnt Hands Perspective
This is a raw and unfiltered look into the state of the restaurant industry as a whole, powered by longtime friends Chef/Owner Antonio Caruana and former bartender turned News Anchor/TV Host Kristen Crowley.
Representing all aspects of the industry from the front to the back of the house we will dig into the juiciest stories and pull from decades of experience in one of the sexiest and most exciting industries in the world...the food and beverage industry.
From international chefs, sommeliers, industry pros, and so much more, this show will cover all of it without a filter. You turn up the volume; we'll turn up the heat.
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Burnt Hands Perspective
The Burnt Kitchen: Rebuilding After Disaster and What Insurance Companies Don't Tell You
Chef Eric shares his harrowing journey of rebuilding after a devastating fire destroyed his restaurant Crudo Nudo. His experience reveals critical lessons about insurance coverage, documentation, and community relationships that every restaurant owner needs to know.
• Chef Eric built Crudo Nudo from a struggling concept to a successful Spanish-influenced tapas restaurant before disaster struck
• Most restaurant owners never read their 460+ page insurance policies thoroughly, which can lead to claim disputes
• Business interruption insurance is crucial, but understand how your business structure affects coverage
• Documentation is essential – keep meticulous records of everything and maintain all licenses even when closed
• Building positive relationships with city officials and community stakeholders proved invaluable during recovery
• Fire investigators attributed the blaze to frayed wires, completely destroying the kitchen and causing extensive smoke damage
• Insurance companies often pay claims incrementally, making the recovery process financially challenging
• Having a landlord with favorable lease terms regarding disasters can significantly impact recovery
• Reopening requires going through the entire permitting process again, even with an established business
• Eric's experience demonstrates why restaurant owners should focus on business fundamentals before menu development
If you're a restaurant owner, review your insurance policies with experts who understand the specific language and requirements of these complex contracts. Maintain thorough documentation of all business operations and build community relationships before disaster strikes.
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Hey.
Speaker 2:Hey. Hey, here we are my man, eric, over here. Chef, what's up, eric? Local legend, if you will here. Yes, it's got a wonderful place. Well, we call everybody that we're all on the same page, right? Oh, okay, so awesome restaurants. Crudo Nudo goes back what? How many years? Seven, seven years. So I remember when you guys first opened you were down in Norfolk. I heard about this place, crudo Nudo. I used the terminology. You know the words Italian language somewhat. You know there's a little twist in there, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm like interesting.
Speaker 2:And that's it. I heard good news from it ever since and I never really had anything bad. I'd never heard anything bad about it, so I was like no shit, so that's cool. Then fast forward on to when I Che Secundo, these crudo nudo guys are coming across the street here With chicken, with chicken. So I'm like chicken and whiskey cool man. I've heard of it maybe, but I've never really applied the thought to it. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Now I'm there last night literally, so I'm there pretty much not as much anymore because I cut back on drinking, but I used to be there. My staff's there every frigging night. Spot for us now. Yeah. So, um, eric, you've been a chef for a long time. Yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you go, so we can get into what we really want to talk about today and and that's preparation yeah, eric had gone through some nasty shit.
Speaker 2:His restaurant caught on fire due to someone else's negligence in his, in his area. Is that right? So you had?
Speaker 3:they're saying accident and that's fine.
Speaker 2:You're talking about something from another storefront, right? No, that was all us, oh really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the fire originated in our building and they literally just chopped it up to two wires, frayed or something and whatever.
Speaker 1:No shit.
Speaker 2:So, okay, good. So like after we talk about your little introduction here, because I can talk all day about this stuff. So we've got to kind of streamline it a little bit so we don't lose people, but tell, tell us about your style of cooking, what influences you, where you started, real quick, and then we'll.
Speaker 3:Then we'll move into how you opened up and where you went and where you can give us advice yeah, uh, short story, did some stuff up in dc corporatey got out of that because I just hated the corporate gig.
Speaker 2:Um and uh was it the answering to the uh?
Speaker 3:the precision, the uh, or the wannabe precision that really is never precise you know, surprisingly, like the, the best part about corporate is all the things that I still do now, like the sticking to standards, the all that stuff. It was the I have to show up every and just there was rules but like not, that weren't my rules right, yeah, um, so you know it was all right and I, uh, I was doing well and uh, I just quit and was like I'm gonna learn how to cook again and uh, so I started cooking in a couple restaurants in dc and then got into the party scene a little bit and then moved down here to kind of get away from things and go back to school because there's any good chef knows if you ain't partying you ain't
Speaker 1:learning. Yeah, at that time in life, yeah.
Speaker 3:Those were better days, different days, younger days, I guess. So yeah, I came down here to actually go to school and needed a job, so I started, you know, surprisingly cooking again and got back into it. Isn't it weird how we always go back to it.
Speaker 2:Yes, I tried a couple times myself to try different things. I joined the frigging Navy. I was a jet mechanic. I tried opening up. I worked in the not landscape but lumber stuff, cutting trees I've done everything. Yeah, I always go right back to the kitchen. Now it's my home.
Speaker 3:It's where I'm most comfortable, for sure. Yeah, obviously it's. It's that's what it is. It's the comfort that's the. That's what makes the difference, the. Uh, yeah, and then started working around this area a little bit worked for I don't know, todd and sam again out in suffolk and out of the beach and just you know too many places at this point but?
Speaker 2:but within those places, though, you, you did gain something, and, if anything, your own style everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I uh, I'm really good at picking up things that I like and then sorting out the stuff that I don't, and uh, and then when we started to do crudo the idea behind it, we were doing pop-ups called blue tape, and I used to always read books like that's mostly how I learned. I learned from chess, but I learned a lot from, like reading and studying, and I guess now it would be more internet.
Speaker 2:These are these biography types on other chefs or books about recipes. Everything, anything and everything, everything yeah, I loved it all.
Speaker 3:Like, my book collection is a little ridiculous, but it got to a point where I stopped buying books and I just started doing my own thing, right, and I started saying, well, what is that, you know? And I think that's like a big like what is that? What is your style? Right, you know, what do you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, crudo is a very unique menu. I mean it's, you know, tapas style.
Speaker 2:There's influences from everywhere, mostly Spain, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of heavy Spanish influence. I mean, that was super popular when I was kind of coming up with the Ferran Andrea and all that and the molecular stuff and that spoke with my chemistry background in college, so it spoke to that. And it just kind of worked with what I was doing.
Speaker 2:And that's a good analogy because a lot of people don't understand that when people are getting Michelin stars and stuff they're getting, people ask me all the time when you get a Michelin star, never, I'm not a molecular chef, that's that rating system really is based off of that style of cooking and if that does have a chemist mindset to it, where it is a scientific type of delicious experiment, right yeah. And if you have that and you have that background, I'm sure that it's kind of drives you down that road a little bit, more so than my comfort style of eating, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean some. Yeah, you know. So what we do at Crudo is, I try to think of dishes in a four-ingredient thing Like what can we do that takes four things and then that's usually our food. It's like cool, we got got beans, we got some scallions.
Speaker 3:Like you know, we don't include salt and pepper, because that's everything right, but it's like what is like the four things we want to talk about. Do we want to mess with them? No, usually I don't. Um, we kind of got out of a little bit of that stuff. I think it just I don't know. It became like, um, everybody was doing this thing I never got into pearls or you know, I never got into that stuff and we just try to keep it as simple as we possibly can.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:Four or five ingredients. I'm happy with that.
Speaker 2:If I have to explain it more than that, those are the things you're talking about. That's funny. I say I don't do molecular and stuff, but I'm big. You know pearls are essential here.
Speaker 3:I have a lot of things that I do do and use that technique, but I don't pride myself on it because I don't do it enough. I think it's the norm now. I think it's normal, it's part of it's expected it. You know, five years, six years ago you might have caught me saying xantham should be in your kitchen right beside salt and pepper right, it should be part of it, and it's not that it I takes away from anything, it helps.
Speaker 2:Once you understand it, learn it and know what to do with it. It can enhance a lot of things and make your life a lot easier, and the customer's experience a lot more exciting, because it's nothing better than seeing something on a plate that you've never seen before. That's kind of our goal is to give them something they've never seen and to create something that we've never created and have it succeed.
Speaker 2:That's the thing, is trying to get that success rate. But so you, you, you took all those on. When you opened up Crudo, how did you open that? Did you have partners? Did you have a? Did you open it Like? When I opened up Luce Norfolk, I did it on a whim man. I had the least of everything possible.
Speaker 3:So I had. I had a guy who helped me out, bob Hughes. Um, some people know him, some people don't. He's a dude that owns a lot of restaurants that nobody knows and I love that about him. And I came to him and I said, hey, I want to open up this pasta restaurant 40 seats, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, well, feed me some pasta. So we started talking about that and then it evolved more and more into, you know, as things progressed Within a year.
Speaker 3:you know it was one of those things it's hard to split 50 cents sometimes and uh and so, uh, he actually loaned me the money to buy him out, which so now I just pay him every month. And so it's all mine now, Um no other investors or anything like that, and that was after the first year you know, and then COVID happened and all that stuff. Cool yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So that was somewhat close to my scenario. I had an, I had a friend of mine who helped invest with me and I ended up buying him out and his wife out. Um, long story short, it was necessary for me to continue moving up forward and moving on yeah because it's a lot of stress when you have that person you have to answer to, because you want to make sure you satisfy them and you don't fuck up their arrangement, if you, if you're a decent human being- yeah, right, and there's a lot there's few of us left.
Speaker 2:We're the minority. But you know, people mistake our hard work, our lack of patience for people's bullshit, our um, our quick responses to things as us being assholes. But they don't realize that we've been through it so much and we have to protect our asset and our investment so much that we wake up every day defensive. You know what I mean, and it's not that we're assholes, we just don't want to fucking deal with nonsense, you know?
Speaker 3:and freeloaders and people are doing that shit.
Speaker 2:So when you worked into Crudo, you got a good ball rolling. I mean that shit yeah. So when you, when you worked into crudo, you got a good ball rolling, I mean everything was rolling good, almost as I could say. Your dream was kind of coming together right, yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:Uh, crudo was tough and this a lot of people don't know this story, but crudo, we started crudo and it was. We wanted to be seven tables, focus on food. We wanted to be something that this area just didn't have. I didn't feel like and and it was good, and we hit one percent of probably one percenters and things were going south and I think I had like 56 dollars in the bank account. It was less, it was south of 100 bucks in the crudos bank account right, wow and uh, there's nothing scarier than less than 10 000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, imagine 52. Yeah, you know what I mean. Imagine 52.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was bad. And I was talking to a buddy and he was like, oh I'm. I was like, dude, I think I'm done. I was like I think I'm just going to close. And he was like, well, you can't do that because I got a party coming on Saturday. And I was like, all right, well, I guess we started. You know the party and then at this point you're going to this party totally deflated, yeah, and it just rolled and it rolled and we ended up closing and rebranding within a week.
Speaker 3:Um we had a very spanish heavy influence, and so we were like, why not just be spanish? Because a lot of people are like what are you? That kind of felt like nirvana in the 90s, where I'm like I don't, I just want to be yeah yeah, um, and, and you know, it was one of those situations where, like fine, we're just Spanish tapas, it's just easier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:Just throw me in the category and like, let me move.
Speaker 2:Well then, you can get your ingredients. Based on that, you can get everything sourced's different. Yeah, and it's like I don't want to follow like a thing, but we like it.
Speaker 3:And now we look through things through the spanish lens and we kind of actually focus on it. Which is successful? Your food is good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great, you're putting together some good things that this area hasn't seen before.
Speaker 2:That you know, you're doing the things like the octopus and things like that that people don't really know how to cook properly, um, but it's a lot of fun once you put it out there for people. So, moving on, you open up neat bird and that concept is great. Food's really good. Um, I can see the progression in the food as it's going. They're figuring it out really fast and good, because now I crave it. You know you have that, that chick, that honey chicken sriracha honey chicken thing, the roasted chicken, that fucking thing's amazing.
Speaker 2:I get that. I might even get it today for lunch.
Speaker 1:matter of fact, you might, you might. I think I'm going to.
Speaker 2:So anyway, these are the things I think of now. So you come over here, you open it. I see the ups and downs over there. It's a very niched idea. From the outside eye looking in, you don't have to comment. But from the outside eye looking in, the more I go there and find myself having a hard time finding a bar seat is coming together. It's happening more and more so now at night. That's a thing that's good, because we don't have anything going and we close this place down and we walk over there and we can barely get a fucking bar seat.
Speaker 1:It's the restaurant's bar.
Speaker 2:I would rather see that. I'd rather see the inconvenience of me not getting a bar seat. Yeah, then walking into an empty bar because that's good for you. Now, as that's going, you start being nervous. At the beginning there was ups and downs, like we all have opening, and you start plateauing there and, okay, man, maybe we're figuring this thing out. And then all of a sudden, fucking, here comes the fire and crudo. So yeah yeah, is that about right? Is that timeline kind of how it worked?
Speaker 3:yeah, things were rolling we were and we were starting to make some changes. Like you know, you get the seven year itch or whatever you want to call it sure where it's like we started to make some changes at crudo and we were, you know, gonna step up a little bit and just, you know, not fundamentals, but just do some different things yeah sure and then, you know, I was sitting on my couch one day at 1030 in the morning and I got a phone call from the landlord and I was like, eh, you know, it was one of those like I don't know if I should.
Speaker 2:He's going to bitch me to the dumpster. Well, yeah, it's like something you know.
Speaker 3:So I was like, eh, I'll take it. And I was like, hey, and she goes, fire department's, at your front door at Crudeau, there's a fire, they're breaking in the glass and I'm like, oh shit. And it just kind of went into like fight or flight mode at that point where it's like I'm a pretty laid back guy I don't know if you can tell that, but I don't get worked up over much and I was just like I told my wife, I said I'm out the door, crudeau's on fire.
Speaker 1:We're gonna go out yeah like and I expected it like to be on fire, like you're thinking it's one part of the kitchen like something's on fire you think when you?
Speaker 2:pull up, there's gonna be flames coming out of it and shit. Is that what you're thinking? Well, or you think it was just?
Speaker 3:gonna be like a like thing on. You know, I was like okay, okay, the range is on fire, yeah, and then you start going through the thing where it's like, oh, maybe it is gonna be like a burn the building deal and I was like I don't know what the fuck's going to happen, and so, uh, you know, we get there and there's, I think, six ladder trucks, no-transcript, and I'm underprepared and I'm like you just jumped out of the house.
Speaker 3:I jumped out of the house, I had like a hoodie or something and it was like 30-something degrees out and I'm, like you know, in shock.
Speaker 2:You're frozen. You know anxiety, so I'm like shaking yeah, so like a dog addict or something, and I was like you know, like isn't the owner.
Speaker 3:Your meth pipe burnt, like freaking out kind of. So I start talking and they're, like you know, wanting me to fill out reports and they, you know, they start asking you questions and you know, oh my god, they want to know like they. Everybody wants to know what happened and I'm like I wasn't there bro, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, but I guess this is when the place was empty uh, yeah, so it happened 10, 30 we were done, we we stopped doing lunch so I can stop blaming one of your cooks that burnt the place down. Yeah, yeah, no one was there when we started going through. We said did they take the linens out at night? You know like did they forget? To whatever. Yeah, I mean anything, Do you remember?
Speaker 2:this. You know what I always think of. When I was young, my favorite show was Happy Days, and I don't know if you remember Happy Days back then, but the way it ended the season finale is they burnt down Arnold's because Chachi had to go on a date with Joni and he took his apron off and threw it and it landed and the big dramatic scene was the pilot light lit the fire of the apron and burnt down Arnold's, which was a fucking tearjerker. I was like Arnold's no, this can't be, Burnt it all down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:So you didn't even have an Arnold's happy day story, no, so the thing burned down.
Speaker 2:Now you pull up, you're freezing your crack. Meth pipe is fucking empty. Shit's going on yeah.
Speaker 1:They think you just wandered up on the scene, right? They just think you did this.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh, they were talking to Josh, which you guys know, and John Reynolds, who was there, and they're like you guys the owner, and they're like, no, it's him that one, you know, and I'm like over there in his hoodie, yeah, shaking so we get there and they, we do the reports and they're like, yeah, something about the fire in the kitchen is all I kind of really know.
Speaker 3:And so I was like, well, how long do you think it's going to take? And they're like we can't really tell. So I'm like, all right, well, fuck it, let's go to, uh, pay loans and have a couple beers. Um, while we wait and see what happens. So there is a fun photo of like the four of us and payloads with the fire trucks behind us drinking beers uh, well, what do we?
Speaker 2:you got to make the best out of that. What the fuck you're gonna do? That was your yeah, honestly like yeah, I'm not a fireman, so I was like I can't help right and I'm not gonna stand and watch because I'm not a tourist well, not only that, but you don't want to watch your whole fucking dream go down. I'd rather come back to it later yeah, I did that later.
Speaker 2:I like to cry in peace yeah, right, you know exactly and it must have been talking about that and no matter how tough anybody wants to sound or anything like that, let's get to that heartstring part of it. That's what I'm getting at is, it's all fun and games to sit there and talk about it, look back on it, and stuff like that. But in the heat of it, man, when you crap, when you're all done and the shock is off, and you're sitting there looking around everything, how the did that feel, man, that sucked, huh, I mean I can say therapy has been very helpful but, um, it was a uh.
Speaker 3:You know, I had my moments sure my kid was born in february and we opened in july, oh you know. So it's like I attribute a lot of like crudo to her yeah, yeah, it's the same timeline like yeah, so it was, you know, seven years of my life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and crudo wasn't like one of those things we like built like, it didn't like pop up right it was like it popped up as like not much of anything and you built it involved seven years of like adding stuff and, like you know, people would bring us shit and like we put it on the shelves and you know, it was like oh, that's that guest perrone that her dad got in argentina that's made out of leather and they're like you know, all that stuff was gone did it burn up that stuff, some of it yeah
Speaker 3:um water damage water damage, the smoke damage is what really fucked us the biggest. I mean minus the kitchen, you know, obviously completely gone. But the smoke. Damage was awful.
Speaker 2:So what do you give? Now you can give advice. I'm sure there's things that you didn't realize you should have done. Or what preparation do restaurant owners out there, including myself? What ideas can you give us that you've learned from? What are a couple takeaways?
Speaker 3:So insurance sucks in general. But, be patient, but be patient because they do pay off.
Speaker 2:I will say that, so dealing with them.
Speaker 1:It took a long time for you. It took a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. So we had a lot. I don't know anybody that reads their 460 plus page insurance policy front to cover Correct I don't know anybody that does. Obviously my agent didn't, and I didn't know anybody that does. Obviously my agent didn't and I didn't either. He assumed we were good, because typically that's just the way it works With our situation. Our policy was actually overwrote, which they put a safety precaution in it, which we didn't have, so we didn't have sprinklers.
Speaker 3:Most buildings in Norfolk are grandfathered in. They don't need sprinklers. We didn't have them. Our policy said we did. So I filed, things were good, and then the dude goes oh, there's a problem. And that's when it got worse, because I was like oh shit, what does problem mean? Because problems in my world don't exist.
Speaker 2:The word problem is a problem.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I predict problems.
Speaker 3:I don't like to solve them anymore I like to predict them and cancel them before they happen right, right, yeah, and and so, uh, you know it's like okay so we started going through it and, um, eventually it worked itself out like, because it I didn't overwrite it, I don't write insurance policies sure uh, your agent technically doesn't write it either, Like they have an underwriter who does all that shit so they had made a mistake. They paid out. You know, one of the biggest ones is we do business loss insurance there like business interruption.
Speaker 2:Which I recommend for every single person out there in the world If you have a business, get business interruption insurance. It's fucking crucial.
Speaker 3:I would say I would, I would. I'll play the other side of it for me sure it is. It has been good to pay the bills, I will tell you that. But I am a single member, llc um, so I take a distribution, so I'm profit based and they consider that a liability, not part of your business right. So I have made zero money since the fire right, which sucks and so is that an LLC or is that a separate?
Speaker 3:it's an LLC, so I don't take a check. I know I'm not on payroll, right, and because I'm not on payroll, they were like, hey, we can pay your staff, but you're not on payroll and I'm like I don't have staff. They all had to find other jobs, like because, I had to threaten to sue you to pay right you know, wow, find a good lawyer, find a good lawyer, good lawyer.
Speaker 2:So so, a great lawyer, a great accountant and a great it makes you you're a lawyer and accountant, read your insurance policy and understand things about it that you may not. So there's legalities in every printed printed contract that a lot of us read and have no idea what them words actually mean.
Speaker 2:We may think we do and we're signing on something because we're fucking trying to act like we're business savvy all of a sudden and we really don't know what it says. So I would say, with what you're saying is to really I'm going to actually go do it, I'm going to call my insurance agency anyway, just because I'm in the process of insuring my new deli downtown. So I'm going to really go over these things and you really got to fine-tooth comb all these little things to make sure you're matching up, because they will fucking, they will take from you yeah, I mean even a business interruption.
Speaker 3:Mine has a 72 hour deductible at crudo right. I mean, at that point it's like 72 hours, like I don't know if you've had a walk-in go down for 24. Well, here's the problem. But things will ruin here's the thing.
Speaker 2:I have one. Luckily I got one and I was afraid because we had a power outage here a month or two ago that happens a lot and lost all my business, all my fucking business. I lost all the business. Yeah, people walked out we had 200 and something reservations in the book, couldn't pay. Most of them were already here, other ones were coming, they couldn't pay. I lost the whole fucking night, all the fresh food, my fresh produce, my fresh fish, everything. So to claim that right now we are just still actually doing it right now, my sous chef gave over the stuff yesterday or today.
Speaker 1:Finally, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And they want so much stuff to prove. Plus want so much stuff to prove. Plus. They want me to prove that there was a power outage, correct?
Speaker 3:I'm like what the fuck? I don't, I'm not a power company, and for how long? Right, and it's, it's uh right, and it doesn't matter how long, I lost everything.
Speaker 2:Why is this a problem? You didn't ask me how long it took me to get my payment to you. I mean, it was that simple. Yeah so, but the point is, if you're not reading all that stuff, they will easily hang the phone up on your ass and not give a shit about anything you got.
Speaker 1:So that I mean a testament to being a, an owner, especially in restaurants, of documentation like if there's ever, but like, start documenting right away.
Speaker 3:Yeah I. People are like, oh, I love to cook. I loved it that. I'm like dude, How's your paper trail skills? Like do you have a filing cabinet?
Speaker 2:right, that's, that's our thing, because records records like you got to keep everything.
Speaker 3:And you don't just have to keep it, you got to know where it is right and here's the other thing.
Speaker 2:That's funny. You say that because we talk about this all the time and we just talked about today and I'm going to say it again because could be a new listener out here. But if you're going to open a restaurant in a damn thing and you know how to cook, again you're the menu you have and the way you cook is the last thing you need to worry about. If you're going to open a restaurant, obviously you have the skills to back that up. That's what you're opening the restaurant for is to put your food out. So obviously you have an idea what your food and your menu and everything's going to be.
Speaker 2:That shouldn't be your main focus. Your main focus is everything you just said. Can you get the business set up, operate the business, protect everything you're doing, so you can then now cook your food. But if the only thing you're focusing on, like most new chefs do when they're opening a restaurant, is the menu and bragging to their friends and having them over to do tastings all the time and shit like that, and your contractors are in your restaurant without you, you've already started on the wrong foot. Get the fucking restaurant going, get your food in there and then worry about the menu. You should be able to create your menu. Your menu, your menu should have already been the reason why you're opening a restaurant. Menus, change Menus change.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, that's not finite. You can't change the way you fundamentally run the business.
Speaker 2:Correct. You have to run a system and that's the end of it. Like you said, file cabinets, file documentation. Like you said, kristen, that's all important stuff.
Speaker 3:So what's next? Insurance are paying, Are they locked in? And that took how long? It was six months, seven months, yeah, February. So we got like I think the last check hadn't even come through yet.
Speaker 2:And they're paying you incrementally. They're not even giving you all the money Correct, so you can't even go to work.
Speaker 3:So the business interruption side of it. Like I said, they do cover your bills. So my you know the water damage they do. They do pay that, oh good um, you know so yeah you still have rent.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, you still have well, so that's.
Speaker 3:That's the other thing. My landlord's awesome and it's in the lease wow so part of the lease is if there's something detrimental fire, a major storm, hurricane, whatever tornado comes through rips the place apart I stop paying rent immediately. The space immediately turns over to them. They are 100 responsible for everything. That was awesome that is awesome.
Speaker 1:That's helpful. Yeah, that's something to note if you're going into any kind of lease or you're a landlord that wants to work with you.
Speaker 2:It's a partnership for me, not exactly because there's there's landlords that will shut a place down because the person can't afford a ten thousand dollar aired unit on the roof, correct? But your lady says it's your maintenance, your problem. So you want me to go build you a new $10,000 air-conditioned unit, or else I have to leave here and they'd rather see you leave and then fix the unit instead of give you the unit. People are hard-headed motherfuckers, man, and sometimes they're assholes. Well they motherfuckers, man, and sometimes they're assholes. Well, they'll fix the unit and they'll just charge you for it, exactly right, and then they'll just add that ten dollars to your rent over a ten year period and you're like, yeah, whatever they write it off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, so it's find somebody that works with you right and it's very important to have that relationship because if you have a bad relationship with your landlord, that's going to make life miserable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, big time. So we're in the middle of redoing stuff. Now we have to city permit again.
Speaker 2:We have to go through the whole process all over.
Speaker 3:We got to go through. So I have a business license, so that's good, and I've maintained that which, if something ever happens, maintain everything.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:Pay your ABC license. Pay your business license. File your taxes, even though it's a zero. File your taxes, because if you don't file your taxes, they assumed that you didn't file and they will associate a number with that and bill you.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And they want their money.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:So files, you know all those things. And so now we're having to go through the conditional use permit. You know, crudeau, I'll admit, was not a 14-seat cafe, which is what our permit said.
Speaker 2:Right, but the good news is, though, is the city. I've worked with the city of Norfolk a lot. It's out of the bag now. And if you're doing the things right. I don't see why they wouldn't want to be helping you. They're awesome.
Speaker 1:They're doing a really good job.
Speaker 3:You have a great food, a great reputation, Well that was the easy to get the permit side of things it was like the.
Speaker 2:Civic.
Speaker 3:League worked with us.
Speaker 2:The neighborhood, you know, they all wrote letters and they did the thing.
Speaker 3:Nice Plus, I have guys down at the city who are like if you need anything, call me and they've moved stuff. They've got me connected to the right people, right. Like they pushed back my taxes, Right, and they said just pay us 50 bucks instead of what it would normally have been, you know, just to help. And I'm like, dude, as soon as my claim comes through, I'll pay. And I did, and they were like awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah good.
Speaker 2:So when you sign up for this stuff and when you go into a new area, new city, new streets or anything like that, you really got to learn your community and your neighborhood and it's very important you become part of the business world and a lot of people at the beginning are anti-business and fuck this and fuck that. But if you don't want to play the game, then maybe you shouldn't be part of the game, because everyone's hand washes each other's back. It's a community and if you, if you're always going against it, they are going to against you. They're not going to be there for you and they may not even maliciously go against you. They're not just gonna. They're just not gonna be there for you when you need them yeah, and that's the important part.
Speaker 2:You know, um, I've had some issues with Luce opening at the beginning and I learned to not let them bother me and it ended up being the best decision I made and now I have a great relationship with some of the people who I thought might have been out to hurt me, you some say at the beginning, because I didn't have that experience. But once I learned it, I have people that I literally thought were trying to take me down that now go out of their way. They open my deli with no problem. They help me. You know what I'm saying. So if I would have gave them problems, man, they would have gave me problems back, and in your situation you don't have time for fucking problems.
Speaker 3:No, I'm a. You know, the date we're throwing around is in October, which is a maybe it's a maybe.
Speaker 1:It's a maybe We'll follow up on that We'll be there for that grand reopening. We'll be there.
Speaker 3:Well, so I'll have my permit for ABC by September.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I'm like let's go, it should only take. You know, we're small.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're small, it's as big as your kitchen but you're going to have a lot of. You're going to have a lot of new excitement, man. You're going to have a lot more energy, I think, because you get to recreate and now you're going from how are we going to make this little space better? Now you're remaking the whole space brand new, no-transcript level of inspiration. This shit's going to have fucking meaning behind it now, because you have. Now you're going to bring it all back, man, and I'm. That's exciting. That's why I we're pumped. I mean, it's an exciting thing.
Speaker 3:It's. You know, I don't think I was this excited even when Crudo opened. I think Crudo was kind of like we went through it.
Speaker 2:And it was like we survived. Plus, you have the experience now when you opened up Crudo I'd imagine it was your first place you opened- First place by myself. By yourself right.
Speaker 3:Like first. First, where I wasn't just like a chef spending somebody else's money, so you were responsible.
Speaker 2:So, with that being said, you didn't really know what to do. Now, with the seven years of experience, you're reopening something with knowledge. So now you know what to be excited about. You know what not to do.
Speaker 3:It's my third one now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 1:But it's like real familiar it's like getting remarried to like your ex-wife or something that's.
Speaker 2:that's a great way to put it okay, cool sex is probably good.
Speaker 3:At least it's like super comfortable and you know what you're getting into right it's like none of the bullshit you don't have to hide punches anymore. You just go in and you're like this is it.
Speaker 2:I'll try better this time. The house looks a little bit better. I was wrong last time. Both times I got it. This is stuff that again I was wrong last time. Yeah right, I got it.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's funny I think I mean this is stuff that again, like we try and on the show, go into all aspects of the industry. So this is a side we haven't touched on is when shit happens, when shit hits the fan. And you don't have the right insurance in place and the things people don't know. You don't know what you don't know, and you said that earlier.
Speaker 1:Like you have to learn these things and this is a great way. So, I mean, I know it's not fun reliving that every time we ask you to talk about it, but thank you for talking about it.
Speaker 2:And the biggest thing that gets me is when I hear somebody whether it's in a restaurant or a car or anything like that is when someone says I don't care, it's insured. When someone says that to me, right away I know that person has no experience in fucking life.
Speaker 2:Hey, take my motorcycle for a ride. All right, I'll try not to crash it, it don't matter, it's insured. Obviously. You've never gone through an insurance company. You've never had a heart to heart with that motherfucker saying that no, it's not what you think, it is dude, yeah, you're not. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:I wasn't riding the bike actually and there's like people that saw it. It was this other dude yeah, right is he on your policy no, he's not sorry. Oh sorry, dude, exactly. And then same thing with the restaurant.
Speaker 2:People don't realize, like I said just that shutdown from the power is giving me so much trouble. I almost backed out of it and quit doing it because I was like fuck him, man, I'm not going through this, I don't have time.
Speaker 1:And that's what they hope.
Speaker 3:That's what they hope.
Speaker 2:But I would have lost tens of thousands of dollars. That want my money, yeah I need to pay you still for insurance.
Speaker 3:So give me some money to pay you back my company took my uh, my payment out, while they were denying my claim.
Speaker 1:Nice, that was a good one, that's juicy that was fun you'll still take my money, but you won't help me at all. So that's absolutely terrible, like, like, really terrible. That is so bad. Do we want to do one of the reviews? Okay, I think so. We do the fun thing sometimes at the end of the show where we read a bad review and we respond to it. So, since this, isn't your restaurant it's from here.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:So it's from here, so we'll do that.
Speaker 2:Thank, you, sir. All right, we got some reviews. This is the fun stuff because you know, everyone has their own perception of what a review is. Me, I use them as a tool when they're actually valid. And there are some valid ones and some of them need addressing, because if they're, I go on averages. If the reviews constantly talk about the same issue, there's obviously a fucking issue. If there's a clown in here talking about all their bullshit and they have to glorify their review, or just because they didn't like something so they're going to tear apart everything else just to make their story valid, that's.
Speaker 1:Those are the ones all right, so which one are you going to read?
Speaker 2:let me see one star review all here's a great one. Let's see. Ready for this I'm down.
Speaker 2:Let's see how you relate to this because I want to answer this guy right here on live, fucking live. Here we go. So it says we are a few minutes early and sat in the bar lounge area until seated Staff was plentiful and our server was very attentive. Appetizers were a challenge to choose as it was not clear that some items were not cooked or only seared. We had to ask regarding several items. The menu could be clarify this.
Speaker 2:Our entrees came out and I was shocked that the scallops on my plate were the total of three. This was a $40 plate. My wife's halibut order came out with maybe two ounces of fish a scallop and was larger than the three I had in a prawn. She ordered this dish wanting the halibut based on the waitress's recommendation that had no idea there were additional seafood items on it. She was not a fan of the prawn. I observed the floor manager go to many customers' tables but we did not get a visit. My one word summation summation, sorry, would would have been underwhelming. This was a special occasion and noted the staff. The 170 tab no drinks ordered was over the top for the meals we received only one second time at luche and probably the last. The decor and noise levels were, but the subwoofer was getting too much of a workout. I do not know what the goal is for their background music, but the thump of the bass register was readily present.
Speaker 3:Sweet. Now let me tell you about this fucking douche.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing he gave me this one star review and doesn't realize how much that affects our staff. You bitched about everything that we actually do. Okay, you bitched about the thumping of the bass and what they're not trying to do. So here's the thing the bass is on and the music that we're playing is the vibe of our restaurant, and that's why people come here. You happen to not like it, because you wanted Mamma Mia. Mamma Mia, that's what you wanted. You wanted Mamma Mia, frank Sinatra. Mamma Mia, that's not what we do here this is a place that you go to.
Speaker 2:It's upbeat, it's young, it's vibe, the food vibe matches. The halibut is never two ounces, it's completely weighed by a professional and it's anywhere between four and six. And that prawn you got was a U3 fucking prawn, the biggest prawn you could possibly get. You know what I mean. And you got a U fucking eight scallop, which is a buttermilk biscuit on your plate.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Everything you got there was the most fucking essential of ocean food.
Speaker 3:I imagine it doesn't just say halibut on the menu.
Speaker 2:Of course not. It's very specific.
Speaker 3:It's very specific.
Speaker 1:It says it's a yeah. It's very specific in how it's prepared and you have.
Speaker 2:the best part is the $40 plate of scallops. We're getting robbed. No, the best part is the $40 plate of scallops. We're getting robbed.
Speaker 1:No one understands how much scallops are in the store $40 for three scallops. It costs you almost that to buy the damn things in the store, of course.
Speaker 2:You ate scallops right now are so expensive and they're so hard to get, but we still do it and we still get them to provide it for our customer. So what bothers me about this thing here is they started right here. We were a few minutes early lounge area until seated Staff was plentiful and our server was very attentive. It sounds like everything that was supposed to hit here hit and you just don't know what the fuck you're doing. That's what this sounds like to me. They didn't understand what type of restaurant they were coming to. They didn't do their research before they came. They heard the word on the street that the place is busy and popping and you came in here and you had no idea what could actually go on in a restaurant other than your basic bitch restaurant Google is an amazing tool for anybody who's old Google is awesome.
Speaker 3:And you can find out things about the menu while you're on Google, even like maybe a question you have about the menu that your attentive server couldn't ask for you, I guess.
Speaker 1:But the whole point for your server is to answer your questions. So I'm glad you had to ask questions and they answered them.
Speaker 3:Like they told you it wasn't cooked. Yeah, I mean, it seemed like they did everything right.
Speaker 2:So to drop everything down to a one star because of the things you didn't understand, when you clearly say everything that was supposed to happen was good. You could have at least went to a three or four star. Come on, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:You just didn't know what you all right, it's also not an airport. You don't need to like announce your departure exactly. If you're not coming back, bro, just don't come back. I like spit a one star and then be like I'm just not coming back.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, no shit, man, I don't want you back. Anyway, it's gonna be a one, it's gonna be a one star. We'll be back, though. Yeah, that's the fucker, we may try again. You may come back, because his wife probably loves the shit. Yeah, right, and?
Speaker 3:it's like he afterwards Right or he didn't and he's mad at us for it, or he's pissed off.
Speaker 1:That could have been it.
Speaker 2:Jeff Cokie the Jamoke.
Speaker 1:We can't control that you didn't get laid after you left.
Speaker 2:So that's one of the times where I read a review online to let people know that you have to understand where it is you're going and what it is you're getting into before you tear it apart because you just don't understand it. The music we play is if you go anywhere else Las Vegas, miami, new York City it's more of a lounge, younger vibe. Just because we're an Italian restaurant doesn't mean we need to have red and white tablecloths and free bread, and you know what I mean and Frank Sinatra playing and the meatballs flying everywhere. Save that for that type of place.
Speaker 1:So throw meatballs in your house, you know what I mean Throwing meatballs at pitches. I'm just going to throw meatballs Slingshot. Right at the table In the back of their bald-ass head.
Speaker 2:That's what I'll get. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it's been a pleasure having you on, bro.
Speaker 3:We'd love to talk to you about this stuff.
Speaker 2:When you guys reopen, we would love to be there. We'd like your journey. It's a tough journey and I know when you guys reopen you're going to have a whole new atmosphere and I'm actually happy for you because I can tell and know that your passion is going to get you into that position. You're going to have a great time with it. So where can people find you? Where's your little restaurant? Where's your two restaurants?
Speaker 3:Plug it.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Well, I was like so Kneebird is over here in Summit Point and and then Crudo will. It's still sitting there over off of 21st Street we're the armpit between Mr Schwerma and the vitamin shop we're not the furniture store, even though we have chairs outside.
Speaker 1:I'm sure people come and look at them, but yeah, so you go there any social media stuff?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean we're on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Neatbird yeah, just under Neatbird VA. And yeah, I mean we're on instagram like neatberg.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just under the bird va and I think crudo nudo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're on instagram, facebook. I think we got a tick tock somewhere.
Speaker 2:Check it out support hit subscribe on this, like all that stuff. Thanks for watching. Wish my man luck here. Send him something, send him some love, some vibes and uh, we'll see you out there, man. Ciao for now.
