[00:05:12] Michael Mina:
Hey, look, I mean, I think that I think it's really sad. I think it's really something that, like you said, it's been multiple, unfortunately. Now it's been multiple chefs and obviously our industry is hard. You know, it's very demanding. It's very intense. And I think that there's no doubt about it. But I think that the camaraderie that happens in this industry and the respect you have for people with so much talent and that if that works so hard, I think what kind of hits you.
[00:05:44]
What hits people really hard is it's also a lot of people, you know, you're connected with chefs because they're doing something. Right. And so if you've eaten at their restaurants or whatever, so a lot of people are connected. I mean, David Bouley is, you know, that's an icon. That's not, that's not a, oh, I had a three year runner.
[00:06:04]
I had a five year run on top. This is a person that, you know, is one of the people that really shaped the industry. Right. And, you know, I was working at Tribeca grill. When, you know, he had Montrachet and, and I mean, you know, just to even be in a room with him was like, Oh, you know, and it hits hard, you know, and then you see, you know, you see the talent that comes it's really, I think, Josh, I think it's interesting.
[00:06:31]
I think that, sorry, I won't go on a tangent, but I will a little bit just because I think it's really important is like as a chef, I didn't, I never got to work in the, besides doing events together, which was, you know, always great. But as far as like, you know, working under David Bouley, I didn't get to have that privilege.
[00:06:49]
I see a Raj Dixon who, you know, who I worked with for years and I just see how he conducts himself, how he thinks about food and everything else. And so many times when I. A chef Bouley’s food. I can see exactly like why Raj cooks like that, why his mind works like that. And it's, you know, it really shows like how people like that really have shaped our industry and made the U.S.
[00:07:16]
You know, you think about the rise in quality of cooking and restaurants in the U. S. Well, those are the type of people that really started it. Yeah, yeah. Pushing everyone to a totally different level, you know?
[00:07:29] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, you know, when I think about it, I thought about it a lot more last night, too. And it hit me each time, right?
[00:07:35]
I spent the least amount of time with Bouley, actually. I think it was only like eight months. And I mean, I turned, yeah, because I wanted to go work for Kunz and I was like dying to go. I was waiting for his new restaurant to open. But the thing that you must think about this now, I mean, you've been doing this for 30 years or so, I think.
[00:07:49]
Yeah. The thing about chefs that is so different, I think, from so many other industries is that you see the impact that they have because there's so many chefs. That came from them that when it, when something like this happens, and it's a bummer that this only starts to like be talked about when someone passes away, the impact, the number of chefs that came through, you know, Bouley's kitchen and is astounding and same with Kunz and with Floyd, it's astounding and the same with what, you know, with your kitchens and there's something about being a great chef independent of being, of making delicious food.
[00:08:24]
Where you are able to sort of instill this thing in other chefs that it's somewhat rare, you know.
[00:08:28] Michael Mina:
You know, one of the things that I've really kind of linked together of doing this for many years is like, you know, like everyone wants to give you the, these people came from your kitchen or you're their mentor, this or this.
[00:08:42]
I'm not a big believer in that in a lot of ways. And a lot of ways I look at it and say, you look at the relationships that they built with other people in the kitchen. You look at how strong and long those relationships are. And that's where the web really, I think, really starts to take shape. Is like, you know, it's like a Raj Dixon.
[00:09:04]
I'm going to learn just as much from Raj as he's going to learn from me, but it's more about like, then you start to say, okay, well, when a Raj stays with you for many years and then he influences 10 people and those 10 people influence 10 people and they all keep a very tight relationship. I don't get upset when somebody says, you know.
[00:09:27]
That they worked for me in Washington, D.C. and I only got to spend, you know, X amount of days in a kitchen with them as long as they went on to do something great, you know, are, you know, built relationships or I think that's where the web gets really exciting and interesting. And I think that like. When you talk about a David Bouley or a Gray Kunz, I guess what I'm trying to say is it's like minded people attract each other in a certain way.
[00:09:52]
And then they, and then that's how, to me, that's how that flower really grows, right? That's how that plant really grows. Yes, you might be the one creating the base foundation for people to get together. But the reality is, I think when it's really meaningful and it really, you know, I think it's really valuable to our industry is when they all build their own relationships together and you know, and they're all in touch with each other for many years to follow, you know.
[00:10:22]
Yeah, but it is setting that stage because look, there's lots of restaurants where we interact with some really great people, but there's not nearly as many where, you know, there's just so many that go through and that sort of compounds on itself. And you're right. Like a lot of times the person I remember most is the sous chef or the CDC that I was working under, you know, but that's also because they're, you know, they're, it's sort of trickling down, you know, because of the environment that they're in.
[00:10:46] Michael Mina:
Yeah. Totally agree.
[00:10:48] Josh Sharkey:
Something I've been thinking about, just looking at your trajectory of like, how much you're building and growing. I'm generally curious about this, there's a decent amount of chefs that have won awards. You won a James Beard pretty early on, you were the best known chef, a lot of these things, but you could stop there.
[00:11:03]
You could have won two spots and then do your thing. You decided to grow this sort of empire. Why? And what's keeping you, what's driving you to keep building this thing?
[00:11:13] Michael Mina:
You know, I mean, I know that it's going to sound cliche and I know that people will say it's the team. It really is. In our case, like we've, you know, on the first restaurant was awkward and I was young.
[00:11:23]
And so like the whole group of us kind of. Did a lot of this together, like how old were you when you started when you were at AQUA 24 and it, you know, Blossom because of a lot of people and then the second one happened to be Bellagio, right? And so Started to and I had worked at Four Seasons in the past while we were building AQUA I'd worked at Four Seasons and so I kind of understood that model Of like why four seasons was special in the sense I learned that early on, like they were special because of a lot of things, but they didn't take on owning these properties.
[00:11:58]
They've managed them. And so their real focus was in operations was in creativity was in, you know, standards and discipline of the standards and things of that nature. Right? And so, you know, When I had a chance to build Mina group, we really got together a group of us and like, you know, we said, okay, if we're going to grow, let's think about the way that we're going to have, be able to build the type of restaurants that one, we already operate, that we're very comfortable with, that we can push the envelope to what's going to keep us excited.
[00:12:32]
And being able to grow and to partner with hotels. And at that time, you know, hotel dining had started to come back, you know, building really high quality restaurants back in hotels was starting to come back with side. And so. Building those partnerships and then being able to do different concepts and partner with other chefs and do things of that nature.
[00:12:54]
That was exciting. I felt like we had a really strong team in and I mean, a team outside of just the restaurant team, like really strong people, whether it was in HR, whether it was in, you know, marketing or whatever in the disciplines, you need to partner with a hotel to where we could really focus. On operations, we can focus on innovation design.
[00:13:19]
Doing the things that, that are the part of the job that I'm sure you know, this as a chef, all of a sudden you think, you know, you're, you think you're a plumber, you think you're an electrician, you think you know how to do everything, the toilet breaks, everyone asks you how to fix it, right, and you realize that, like, you really aren't great at all that, or maybe you are, but it all takes time, right, so where are you going to put your time?
[00:13:40]
And so that's kind of, I think, where the vision started of saying, okay, well, let's, you know, let's build a few restaurants with this vision. And the vision was to do, you know, when I first started meeting group, the vision was to do eight restaurants. That was kind of the model and it was Andre Agassi was my partner and we set out to do that.
[00:13:59] Michael Mina:
And all of a sudden, you know, we just, you know, we kept getting opportunities. And honestly, I had really good talent. You know, people that were ready to be chefs, they're ready to be general managers and ready to be sommeliers or mixologists. And so just kind of, you know, kept going.
[00:14:18] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah. It's such a great way to be able to have upward mobility for the team. Are the majority of your restaurants? And if this is, if you can't answer this fine, but like, are they, are the majority of them management contracts or are they a mix of corporate owned?
[00:14:31] Michael Mina:
Oh, yeah. Almost all of them. I mean, to this day, I
[00:14:34] Josh Sharkey:
Can you tell people why, by the way, can you just maybe tell people why that's such a better model?
[00:14:37] Michael Mina:
Well, I think it's a lot of what I was saying. Like, what I've learned over the years is pick your partners because you got to put a lot of time and effort into picking the right partners. And so I've been really lucky in the sense that like my first partner while it was Bellagio was bought by MGM. So, I was partnered with MGM, but that's been an amazing experience because we are able to really focus on running a restaurant and I think that's the why, to me, the why is that you think about like why this business is so stressful, right?
[00:15:12]
Well, a lot of the stress comes from things that actually don't have a lot to do with running your restaurant, right? And so I think if you can put all your creativity your energy in the majority of your stress into running actually running your restaurant and what's gonna affect the guests and you have these partner a partnership where they're you're not worried about you know, you know, you're not the one that's doing the initial upfront financing So you're not running around figuring out how to finance the restaurant.
[00:15:40]
You're not That you have an engineering department, you have an HR department, you have. It's really becomes a great team effort, and I think that this has obviously this wasn't by accident that this has taken off in the United States and that it's helped the quality of food isn't by accident that there's a lot of other chefs or restaurateurs partnering in hotels and doing these type of deals because it's a win for both sides where you're going to do the you're bringing something to the hotel that really helps the hotel and As a chef and as a restaurant group or a restaurant, you're able to focus in on what, you know, what is really going to affect your staff and your guests the most, you know, while there might be a more profitable way to do it or whatnot, this is the way I think that, you know, is the best for our group.
[00:16:35]
And so that's like, when we veered off of the track, in all honesty, we've seen, you know, we don't, there's just not as much enjoyment and pleasure.
[00:16:45] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Well, you know, carting and leases are just not normally fun. No. And, you
[00:16:51] Michael Mina:
know, look, we know how to do them because obviously we've had to deal with it, but at this point, it's not what I run out to go figure out, you know, how do I do my next lease?
[00:17:00]
I'd much rather. Partner. And like I said, you know, I think one of the tricks to it is finding great long term partners, you know, whether it's the people that own the hotels or whether it's a brand like a MGM or a Four Seasons or a combination of both. When you find the right partnerships, if you can do more with them, that's a really nice way to grow together.
[00:17:21] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. I have to imagine the things that you're dealing with today are just different from what you were. You, at least maybe you personally 30 years ago. What's the biggest thing on your plate right now? The biggest challenge or stress or hurdle?
[00:17:34] Michael Mina:
Um, you know, I mean, honestly, believe it or not, it actually has stayed fairly consistent over the years in the sense of, you know, I still get to, I still, my main goal is always to be able to spend.
[00:17:50]
A significant amount of time at an opening and be able to be in the kitchen, be able to be in the restaurant. And so I've had to really prioritize my time. Like, I'm not a chef that you're going to find on television a lot. And it's not because I don't believe in it. It's because it's, it actually is a real talent and it takes real effort.
[00:18:10]
Like the first time I did something on television, I was like, you know, wow, like you, you actually have to prepare for this. You've got to put real time into this if you want to be good at it. And there's only X amount of time, right? And to me, it's just important to stay in a rhythm. So the biggest thing that I spend my time on right now, in all honesty is.
[00:18:30]
Is really being in the restaurants and working on the career pathing and because, you know, like right now we put a lot of resources towards learning development and career pathing because, you know, it's people are learning. In a much different way than they used to in the sense that it's hard. Is it going to be a lot harder nowadays to have somebody prep for a year, you know, or be in garde manger for a year or anything like that, right?
[00:19:00] Michael Mina:
People want to, right? What do you think that is? I just think that, um, people want to be able to be. Rewarded for their knowledge and what they think their knowledge could be. And if they're going to work harder, they want to move up quicker than they did before. I mean, I'm seeing it all the time. And so like, you've got to kind of keep up with that.
[00:19:22]
If say it's the only way I'm a firm believer, there isn't only one way to do anything, right. But if you're doing what we're doing, which you have multiple restaurants. You do have to do that. You know, maybe if you have one kitchen and you know, and you know, like you're going to be there every day and everything else and people will still, you know, you're going to have a smaller staff.
[00:19:43]
Yeah, but if you want, you know, to have multiple restaurants or if you have multiple people and you want to use your strengths for us to use our strengths to be the best company we can be and to, you know, be able to build the restaurants we want to build, it is okay, you know, in my opinion, that if people are growing faster to be able to put, we got to put the resources towards being able to help them grow and also being able to notice they're growing, you know, anybody who's worked in kitchen knows how frustrating it is if no one notices that you're growing, or if it's just like, it's this set amount of time you need to be here, even though you have the capacity to grow faster than that.
[00:20:27]
And so I think that's something that is important both in front and back of the house and especially, you know, in front of house now, I mean, you think of the mixology world and you think of, you know, the wine world and the som world that has been, you know, that's been there for a while, but that knowledge comes at a different pace.
[00:20:45] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, it's so interesting. Like, I'm so curious, like the like, what it is like today, if I, if you had to start cooking today, as opposed to 30 years ago. Very different. There's so much more information available. 100%. Like, I wouldn't have been able to Google, like, how to make a valentine. Like, you could probably, like, learn exactly how to make it on YouTube right now.
[00:21:04]
And know, come in and know how to make it. Like, how do you balance that when you have a cook that actually, you see, you see potential and you want them to grow and be like, Hey, you kind of need to make that 50 times to, to know how to really make it. Like, what do you do about that?
[00:21:16] Michael Mina:
So what we do about it, I don't know what everybody does about it.
What we do about it is we lean into it really heavy. So like 12 years ago, I think, no, it was more than that. 15 years ago, we started a recipe exchange and recipe exchange was saying, no, you will never again have to work this long to get this recipe for this soup. From day one, every single thing, we're going to be transparent about everything, every recipe, every dish, every ingredient to the gram, every technique is going to go up on the site and it's going to be there and it all, you know, at that time, I think it was 12 restaurants and I got to be honest with you, I think like six chefs quit
the same time we launched it.
[00:21:57]
Yeah, because it was either they didn't want to, to do the digital work. Or they didn't want to share the recipes, right? Yeah. And what we took the approach of is we're going to share every recipe. So everybody has everything from day one, whether you're a server, whether you're a that whole fear of like, Oh, well, people are going to steal your recipes, whatever, like you just said, it's all out there now, right?
[00:22:24]
It's all out there. So why not organize it in a way where it's the most useful for people so they can learn the fastest so that. You know, like to me, the biggest reward now is someone to say to me, like, oh, my God, I worked here. I worked there. Nobody had anything like this to where I can go if they want.
[00:22:42]
If a person wants to spend 8 hours on their own time doing this, they can go do it and learn a lot. On our platform, right? And I think that, yeah, that to me is what you have, you know, that to me was very important for us. And that was actually what coven helped a lot with because we got the time to actually, because you know, when else you get it, you get to get a time where you got all your shit done, then sit around and do this for two years.
[00:23:12]
So, yeah, so we were able to get a lot done at that time doing it.
[00:23:16] Josh Sharkey:
That's cool. You know, from afar, what I interpret from looking at your operation is like, you're really systems driven. I mean, that means a lot of fucking things, but if you can't have that many restaurants and not create a bunch of systems so that there's consistency, and consistency is basically everything, right?
[00:23:32]
Like, people don't, customers don't want to come get a different dish next time, the same order. I'm so curious. How do you balance You know, creating these systems that, that makes sure that you have consistency, you know, to make sure that like everything is consistently executed the same way every time at scale.
[00:23:51]
But then also balance that with like teaching these cooks like the fundamentals of cooking or techniques or independent thinking, even like, like, do you think about how do you sort of. Where do you sort of like toe the line between this is precisely how you make this thing. And by the way, you don't know that, but that's actually a sauce called Espanola.
[00:24:09] Michael Mina:
Right. You know? Right. So I think those are, you know, the two questions there. The first one would be if it's, it's honestly a lot easier if you have less restaurants, right? Because like thinking about the systems when it was one restaurant, that was great because you were able to. You know, you, you didn't have to think about how do they scale, right?
[00:24:31]
You only had to think about how does it work in this restaurant. And so I think that it's really important that if you only have one restaurant, you really are there. The transparency, I think, is something that you have to, in your stomach, have to feel good about. And I think that different chefs feel different ways about it.
[00:24:47]
Like, not everyone feels great about, like, day one. You know, somebody might not they might stay with you for 2 weeks and you just gave them all your recipes, right? That's hard, but there's no way that there isn't really a way around it. Right? There is if you want to be productive with it. If you want to use it as a tool, you want to use it.
[00:25:07]
And that kind of goes to your 2nd question of if you give them the information. If you give people the information, if you give Jennifer the information, if you give, you know, anyone the information, right? One, they're going to entrust more in you that You really are helping their career. They're going to probably work harder because they have the information and there's definitely a way to utilize that to teach them those fundamentals that you're talking about quicker than they would have learned them without the information.
[00:25:42]
And that's the way that I've always looked at it is I don't know how long it's going to take for Daniela to learn. A, B, or C, right? But the reality is, is what I'm giving her couldn't be hurting it, right? It's not, it's hopefully gonna speed it up, you know?
[00:25:59] Josh Sharkey:
I think about, like, you know, sometimes you obviously have to be really prescriptive about, like, the dish that they're gonna make.
[00:26:04]
You know, they might read a, you know, a recipe that has 200 grams of sherry vinegar and 200 grams of maple syrup and peppercorn and they're making a gastrique, but they don't actually don't know it's a gastrique and that they could do 50 other things with that premise of vinegar and use something sweet and something, you know, acidic.
[00:26:23]
Like, do you, are there other ways independent of like the recipes where you help them understand that? 100%.
[00:26:29] Michael Mina:
So I think that's where the real part of the kind of, of that longevity of having a team that has longevity together, because, you know, yes, you're cooking. I mean, kind of called the 2, 2, 2, 2 rule, right?
[00:26:44]
People, you know, a lot of times the last 2 hours. Cause like they come in and they're there for their two hours and they're like, okay, I'm never coming back because it's just like, there's too much right then it's the first two days are really important, right? First two days, you know, people are terrified when they go into where it doesn't matter where, like, it's just kind of human nature.
[00:27:09]
It's just, you know, the first two days are intense. Then the first two weeks you start talking yourself into, you start talking yourself into what you think, did I make the right decision or not? Right. And then the first two months. You've now talked yourself into it. The first two months are a lot of it is learning where, you know, where do the pots, you know, where do I drop the pots and pans?
[00:27:36]
Where do I do this? Where do I do that? And you're just trying to get through the day. And then after the first two months. When you get there, the goal is to get them through the, through two years. Cause kind of after a couple of years, now they're part of your, you know, they're part of your team. They really are part of your team and might be that they go on at that point, but that's kind of, you know, that point where I see like, as it starts to become that decision, you know, do I stay.
[00:28:05]
And put in the time here, or do I go work for another great restaurant or whatever else? And I don't, there's no, I have no issue with that. When you do that, I want it. I want to see them. If they leave at that point, you want to see them go do something where 1, it's meaningful, but 2, where they go, the chefs there are like, wow, you know, this is just a good person.
[00:28:27]
You know, this person cares. And so I think to answer your question to me that. The tastings every day are really important, and we stay super disciplined with those, and I say to my team all the time, like, if you're the chef, or the sous chef, or whoever it is, and everyone puts up a tasting of every dish, you know, at 5 o'clock before service, right, or
[00:28:52]
4:30, right, and one, it helps them know their station's set, but two, It's It's your time that you have to interact with them about, you know, okay, this needs more acid. This needs more sweet. This needs more spice. You talk to them, you have to talk to them about what they're cooking. And why? And then we do the same thing with all of really like the batch cooking, you know, because as we all know, like it, why the recipe so much harder to deal with when you start larger batches, right?
[00:29:23]
Okay. Well, the corn is not as sweet or it's a little sweeter. This is this. Well, then when you multiply it by 30, because you're making a larger batch, it's multiplied. That flavor profile is multiplied. Right? And so when people are batch cooking, we, I tried it. Okay. Really make sure that as they're working on the techniques and everything else that, that, you know, like as a chef or a sous chef.
[00:29:47]
You gotta know when it's really important to spend that time with them to help them along so they get the wins, honestly. 'cause you need the wins, you know? You definitely need the wins. Yeah. You know, to get their, to build their confidence.
[00:30:02] Josh Sharkey:
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[00:31:20] Josh Sharkey:
Recipes are super important I think part of the recipe process is identifying what are all the things that might go wrong, even though we dialed this in, you know, yes, we have the exact amount of salt and sugar, but what if the bricks on this pear is different? What if the water content in this, you know, and just knowing those things so that when you're, you know, when you're training them, they, you know what to look out for.
[00:31:35]
I think that gets lost a lot in recipes. Talking a little bit about like the, I'm so curious about your process in the company of R&D. First off, like how do you get involved with that process? Or is it just completely empowered to the team now?
[00:31:48] Michael Mina:
That's a great question. So R&D to me is still like obviously the most exciting part of, you know, that will always be the most exciting part, right?
[00:32:01]
It's very rewarding to Make the perfect, you know, vlog about Tureen, right? Or something like that. But it's still so much, you know, like something that takes a lot of technique or whatever, but it's still some rewarding to create, you know, and to innovate. Yeah. Who's Adam Sobel? So he is the head of all of our MDs.
[00:32:22]
He's a partner of mine and the company. And works on all food concepts with me and creates, you know, does a lot of the creation. So there's two, you know, there's two chefs, there's Adam Sobel and Gerald Chin that, and Gerald runs all of culinary. And so the three of us will spend a lot of time and then Veronica, my corporate pastry chef, will spend a lot of time on the R&D.
[00:32:49]
For a new concept. And so when we say, okay, so like what we just launched, you know, really, really fun restaurant and it's called Orla and what it is, is it's a lot of what I grew up eating basically, because I'm Egyptian born in, you know, born in Egypt, but Egyptian household, but Um, Honestly grew up in the United States since I was two.
[00:33:13]
And so a lot of what I grew up eating before I was a chef, I didn't realize how much Greek influence was in Egyptian food. And vice versa, it was really fun process because just in the studies, like we worked on this for about three or four years. I also, it's my cookbook, my next cookbook that's coming out, but, you know, as we spent more and more time in Egypt and kind of understood like the influence from when Alexander the great, when, you know, when Egypt was invaded and.
[00:33:43]
My father is from Alexandria. My mother's Cairo. And so a lot of the food that I grew up eating had a lot of Greek influence in it. And it was, you know, it's really funny to see kind of the crossover. And so. The point of really the menu was like saying, okay, we took this from all the way from food that, you know, I grew up with some of the staples and then, you know, put some product technique and innovation to them and created some really fun dishes to really celebrate some of the storytelling, but the Mediterranean flavor that Eastern Mediterranean and Greek flavors that everyone loves so much.
[00:34:22]
And it feels great when you eat it and, you know, and so it's been really fun, like playing with these, you know, these dishes like that to me, like it's the funnest process, like fatir. It's this dough that, you know, this kind of like a laminated dough that's made where you stretch the dough paper thin and you fold, you know, you fold ashta, which is kind of like a Middle Eastern sour cream.
[00:34:45]
That was good butter and, and it makes this really light dough that I used to, you know, my mom used to make like for breakfast where you pan fry it and it's really not good for you, you know, butter, powdered sugar on it. And so we do it with the ashta. And the dough, and it's the most perfect dough for, it's the most perfect, you know, base for caviar that you've ever had, right?
[00:35:09] Josh Sharkey:
Oh man, that sounds so good.
[00:35:10] Michael Mina:
Yeah, so like, you know, my mom's falafel, we're doing with tahina, very classic, like Salata Baladi, which is like tomatoes, cucumbers, blah, blah, blah. But we're doing that, we do it with ahi tuna.
[00:35:22] Josh Sharkey:
Mm hmm, that's cool
[00:35:23] Michael Mina:
Right, and so. Being able to be innovative like that, and so what we do is, you know, we'll work on these dishes for a long time individually when we're launching a restaurant, and so we work on the dishes together, the culinary team for the launch, and then we'll Really take, you know, wherever we're at and we'll, you know, localize it, obviously, based on product, based on seasonality and whatnot.
[00:35:50]
Then the way we work with the chef in the restaurant is the chef in the restaurant is part of that process. Really like after that, the chef has the freedom to do their own tasting menus, do their own specials, and then. As the menus change seasonally after that, then we start to work a lot more with the chef when the chef really has a good understanding of what the concept of the restaurant is.
[00:36:12] Josh Sharkey:
Uh huh. Yeah. Is there any process of collecting feedback, not from the independent, like collecting feedback from the chefs that are doing R&D with you? Do you have any way in which you're sort of intaking customer feedback? Like do you launch it as a special first and then maybe it goes in the menu after that?
[00:36:29] Josh Sharkey:
And how are you collecting feedback?
[00:36:31] Michael Mina:
For about three years, we had the Mina test kitchen. And what the mean at test kitchen was was pre COVID three years pre COVID what we did is we took a lot of these concepts that we wanted to grow and we had a 50 seat restaurant with a very little kitchen, which was kind of intentional, right?
[00:36:52]
Wasn't And so what we would do is we would sell tickets, we do it as a ticketed event, we'd sell tickets. And so let's say we wanted to do this concept, we actually did it. It was called Middle Terrania. We did it, you know, we'd always put like a little phone name to it, right? So we called it Middle Terrania.
[00:37:09]
And so what we'll do is we'll do about 12 dishes. They're served family style and we'll, you know, for the most part, we would give you like three, you know, three or four starters, three or four meds, fish course, three or four meat course, three or four desserts, whatever it is. Right. And then each month we'll run it for three months and each month.
[00:37:31]
We would change the menu and during that time, we'd collect all the data we would ask guests, you know, because we, we would actually discount, you know, probably what it would normally be like once it became a restaurant, we'd discount it, but we would ask you to give feedback. We didn't force you to, but everyone did it for the most part, honestly.
[00:37:49]
We'd get feedback and then the biggest thing is we would watch ticket sales, like we were so confident, maybe another word for it, but we were so confident we were already out looking for the space, right? And the menu was phenomenal. Raj Parr, who's, you know, that amazing sommelier, it was his mom's, a lot of his mom's recipes.
[00:38:10]
Oh, wow. That's cool. And yeah, and he's a chef, you know, he went to culinary school and he had a really great chef that he was really close friends with. And. Did a great, you know, great menus the whole time, everything else. And I was like, Oh man, this is just going to blow up. And it did blow up right at the beginning, but it was amazing.
[00:38:28] Michael Mina:
Like the sales kind of continually, the ticket sales was
[00:38:32] Josh Sharkey:
Was it elevated? Was it like, was it more street food or more like sort of an elevated approach?
[00:38:37] Michael Mina:
No, it wasn't. Super elevated at all. It was like street is like family food, like what you would eat at the table, thought that we had a real home run. And honestly, even myself, I caught myself where I kind of only went like once or twice or three times.
[00:38:53]
And I love the food, but I attributed it to like, it was kind of like Thanksgiving. I want it once or twice a year, but I don't think I want it every day. Right. Whereas like, you know, middle Terrania or when we did a little Italy or things like that, I. Probably went,
[00:39:09] Josh Sharkey:
You know, yeah, the American palette isn't really, you know, it's tough. We experienced that at, you know, Tabula, like when you have that much spice and in heat or acid, it's a lot. And if you're not used to it, it's not part of your daily diet.
[00:39:21] Michael Mina:
Right. Yeah. That's what I found. And so that was really for us, that was a great way to test concepts and we ended up with multiple concepts.
[00:39:30]
And so we really have just been opening. We're just now at the point like Orla was the last of those and there's one more. That we had tested that we still have to open and so we still haven't really gotten into the market for a new concept. But as far as testing dishes, what we do with that is we do them in the restaurants and so like chefs will run.
[00:39:52]
Like if they really want to put a dish on the menu, they run it for a minimum of three days because you know how chefs are like, you might love it the first day, liked it the second day and hate it by the third day, right?
[00:40:03] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. They run it. It's impossible to pick up and you didn't realize it. Yeah. I'm looking at your menus and I definitely see like sprinkling of, you know, I'm seeing tamarind and things in there.
[00:40:12]
So you definitely, it's sprinkling in there. And I don't know if you can answer this, it's a tough question, but like, when does a dish feel done? You're like, okay, in the books, I don't have to iterate on that anymore.
[00:40:22] Michael Mina:
It's really interesting because some dishes feel done. Sometimes you'll, you know, you'll put that last garnish on there and you're like, this is done and it's done forever.
[00:40:33]
And then there's other dishes that throughout a year you'll tweak and tweak and then they'll get exactly to where you want them, you know? And I don't think that there is a, for me, there has never been an exact science. For how, you know, is it done or not? It's like the dishes that are classics from tuna tartare to caviar parfait to lobster pot pie.
[00:40:54]
Those dishes evolved over a period of time. All three of them, you know, and when is a dish really done? Honestly is when it goes on the road and all of a sudden it becomes a classic and then that's kind of when you can't touch it that much after that.
[00:41:12] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, yeah, that's not an easy thing to create those dishes.
[00:41:16]
You obviously, you think about scale a lot and I guess to your point, it's a little bit different when you have one off concepts where you don't have 12 of the same concept that you have to do that in different places, different altitudes, different equipment. But like. At what point does the scalability of a dish come into play when you're creating the food?
[00:41:34]
Because, you know, to sort of wind you up a little bit, obviously, even if it's not a dish that you have to do in 15 different locations, I mean, you know, you have to execute it every day, you know, the same way in a station and has to, you know, be something you can do with 500 covers or 100 covers. Right.
[00:41:50] Josh Sharkey:
When does that piece of the puzzle come into the, to the R&D for you?
[00:41:53] Michael Mina:
A lot of it does depend on the kitchen itself, the physical kitchen, the physical layout of the kitchen. And, you know, as, as crazy as this is, it depends a lot on the consistency of the business. Right. So when I look at dishes and I look at, can I put the resources towards a certain dish that I really want to put towards it, it's really the restaurants that have the more consistent business of like, it doesn't matter to me as much if you're doing 180 covers or 80 covers, but if you're built to do 80 and you're doing 80 every day.
[00:42:30]
Or if you're built to do 180 and you're doing 180 every day, now I can put the resources towards that dish, whether it's, you know, the right, I mean, I've had dishes where it's your whole station, that one dish, that's all you do is that dish.
[00:42:43] Josh Sharkey:
Now you're talking Bouley. I have nightmares about 15 pans. yeah.
[00:42:48] Michael Mina:
But you know, it worked, right? It worked. That dish, the dish made that statement. It was defying the restaurant. It was, there was a reason that it was working. Putting all that into right into me, it's a science of how do you build a whole menu, not how do you do the one dish because there might be that dish, but then you also have to think about, well, how do I make this killer salt baked sea bream that actually you do nothing on the pickup besides throw it in the oven, right?
[00:43:16]
Yeah, to balance it out, right? And so it's all about how you do the whole menu, not just the one dish. I think that's something that In your younger days is hard, like to get like to understand, and that's where I think the R&D process is really important is because you have if you're working and you're working as a team and you've got chefs like that's why I love when people are running specials and stuff like that, because within your own restaurant, you'll start to see really cool technique that you didn't know about, right?
[00:43:47]
And that technique might be something that ultimately creates a great dish that We always call it front loaded or back loaded, you know, if it's front loaded and a lot of the V's and Pluses up front and you still get the wow factor, then you can do something that's heavier back loaded.
[00:44:04] Josh Sharkey:
I do a lot, not even just in food, to be honest with you, in any, in any industry, we are pretty much, you know, limited in how Innovative we can be relative to like how much people will pay for something, you know, to your point of resources, right?
[00:44:19]
Like you could probably take that dish and do way more, but you can't, right? Cause people won't pay the amount of resources it would take to make that. Do you ever think about a restaurant or something one day where you're like, you know what, this is just going to be, I'm going ham. I'm going to do everything exactly the way, and we're going to charge what we need to charge. And you know, so be it?
[00:44:37] Michael Mina:
I do, obviously we all do, you know, we all want that, but I still would say that. Overall, I get more satisfaction out of being at a restaurant that has a great feeling to it in the dining room where like people are really enjoying themselves and people are really having a great time and it's not that every single person has to come there to worship the food, you know?
[00:44:59]
Yeah. I don't mind the person that has, you know, that will come in and have a perfectly cooked piece of chicken or whatever. And as long as they're having a great time, you know, as long as it's like, if they're mad at the world because they have to eat that piece of chicken, it's not as much fun. But as long as like, you know, to me, it's so much of it, it's about creating, having, you know, restaurants where you're like.
[00:45:24]
People go there and they're getting a wow experience and they're wowed by what it's doing and it's not like I'm not looking to build a clubster on it's not that, but it's that feeling of like. You know, I feel great. Like, I don't feel like this is a whisper joint. I don't feel like I have to whisper. I don't feel like I had to come here to worship the food.
[00:45:44]
And if I don't know everything about the food, then I feel out of place, you know?
[00:45:49] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, no, I totally agree. You know, it takes a while to understand and admit this, but great service can solve a lot of problems. You know, there's a lot of meals that are delicious, but you know, and some are better than others.
[00:46:04]
But if you have, first of all, if you have really bad service, it could ruin everything. But when you have incredible service and that can solve a lot of the, you know, of the sort of downstream things about the food. And it's tough to admit that, but it's true.
[00:46:18] Michael Mina:
Well, it's like I've got my Giovanni, right? And my Giovanni is just amazing. He's the dining room, you know, guru. And, you know, why does the dish taste so much better when he talks about it? And he can be anything, like he could be wrong about 50 percent of the ingredients and it's still going to taste better when he talks to you about it. Cause Giovanni just has this magic about how he talks about this dish.
[00:46:45]
And I think it's really true. Yeah,
[00:46:47] Josh Sharkey:
It really is. And the overall experience, you know. I mean, look, there's just not a place where all you do is close your eyes and eat the food and that's all you need. That just, that doesn't exist. It seems like something that you clearly understand as you're building all these concepts.
[00:47:00]
It's everything. It's the whole, it's the whole package together. Yeah. So I want to sort of move on a little bit from the, you know, we're talking about R&D for a while, but you have to have learned a lot. I'm sure you also made a bunch of mistakes, you know, along the way of like how you're leading this team.
[00:47:15]
But how do you handle big mistakes that your direct team makes, like leadership folks? Like do you have any sort of way in which you or any frameworks of like when a big mistake is made, what you do?
[00:47:27] Michael Mina:
Yeah. Like I said earlier, like. You know, you made mistakes on even wrong concept, wrong place, right? And that's a big mistake.
[00:47:35]
And yet, and that's something that you're going to be fighting the whole time that restaurant is there. And that's probably one of the things that's the hardest to deal with is knowing that. You probably should close this restaurant to re-concept it, you know, it's either a bad location or whatever. And that's a big, you know, that's a big mistake, right?
[00:47:54]
That's going to be a very costly mistake and it's not just costly financially, it's costly emotionally, you know, that emotional investment that you make into a restaurant and when it doesn't work is, yeah, it's personal. It's personal. And I think in, you know, the younger years, you'll keep fighting and keep trying to push the rock up the hill and you finally start to realize that you're neglecting a lot of other things to do that, you know, and I think that's the balancing act of what am I going to neglect?
[00:48:28]
For what I'm going to do, you know, yeah, in our business, like in a lot of businesses, but in our business, especially there's only 48 hours in the day. Right? So, you know, you're already working twice as hard each hour, you know,
[00:48:44] Josh Sharkey:
You know, if you had to think back, what's the biggest mistake you've made and maybe like what good came from that over the last, you know, 30 years, is there anything that comes to mind?
[00:48:52] Michael Mina:
I think probably the biggest mistake I made was we did a concept in San Francisco and it was called International Smoke. And I did it with Ayesha Curry. Just great person and really was a, you know, we did it in the test kitchen and I mean, this thing sold out in like 18 minutes, right? It's barbecue from all over the world.
[00:49:15]
Ayesha’s, you know, kind of her background, ethnicity, everything is the way of her style of cooking. Everything about it was cool and it was great collaboration. We built the first one in San Francisco, massive home run, right? Massive home run. Went out and built three more. Went out and signed three leases, built three more, learned a couple of things real quick.
[00:49:38]
Number one, you don't open in Houston right after the Warriors knock the rockets out of the playoffs.
[00:49:47]
People take sports a lot more serious than they take food. And so we had about, I don't know, 250 Yelp reviews before we opened about rats running through the dining room and we hadn't even opened yet.
[00:49:59]
But number two was, you know, we just grew it way too fast. Thought we had something on our hands, you know, and we got, you know, we got careless, honestly, we got careless with growing it too fast and not building that foundation that you got to build. And I think that it really, it was hard. So the company has had to fight really hard to rebuild from that.
[00:50:24]
But the reality of it is, is we learned a tremendous amount because it is a mistake we don't make now, you know, it's like now. You know, when we build, you build something and you really, you know, like you want to put that time effort into really fully developing the concept and fully vetting it out.
[00:50:47] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a big one. How do you think about the difference between you today as a leader and maybe as a chef, but more so as a leader versus who you were 10, 20, 30 years ago, like what's the biggest difference?
[00:51:02] Michael Mina:
Well, I mean, look, I think that, you know, obviously our industry continues to change, which is great.
[00:51:07]
I think it was important that it did change. I think that a lot of us, you know, grew up being part of an industry that ran a lot different than it's running today. And I think that being able to say, being able to really. Look at today and say, okay, how are you to make sure that people are getting that the information that they need the right way?
[00:51:31]
And how do we continue to do that? And how do I let go? Of really the control that you kind of feel like you need to have you feel like you need to be a control freak and then how do you balance the amount of control that you need to have? Because I think that you can go too far the other way to where you become two hands off and.
[00:51:51]
I think that, you know, that's probably the thing that I've learned the most is like, how do you feel confident enough in what your knowledge where you can step in at the right times versus, I think, either step in all the time or don't step in at all. Yeah. And I don't know.
[00:52:08] Josh Sharkey:
That's the hardest thing, man. It really is. Like, how do you help people feel autonomous, but still the thing that made. Your business, what it is, is part of you. And how do you make sure that doesn't, you know, it's so hard, right?
[00:52:19] Michael Mina:
Yeah, because there's a lot of politics behind it. You know, you have to be patient. And I think patience is something that, that you have to grow into in this business, because you're asked so much pressure is put on you that you, it's hard to find that patience.
[00:52:34]
And of course, like it, like a lot of people. I look back and I wish that I'd had more patience earlier and it's still a constant battle. I mean, you know, 100 tickets come in your printer and you're, you know, like you got to keep working on how do you find that patience? Yeah.
[00:52:53] Josh Sharkey:
Well, selfishly, I just want to know, and apologies, I don't know about Bourbon Steak, but it's opening in my town.
[00:52:59]
Can you tell me a little bit about the concept and when it's planned? Obviously, we don't know exactly when, but when it's opening in New York?
[00:53:04] Michael Mina:
End of March, early April is when we'll open. And it's, you know, it's at the Essex house and we'll be right on that Central Park side. Who did the design based on great designers.
[00:53:15]
Yeah, great designers. Love them. And, you know, Bourbon Steak, as funny as it is, like everybody thinks it's bourbon and steak, but bourbon, the name came, it's 20, you know, I did the first one 20 years ago. The name came from actually Bourbon Stockyard in Chicago, which was the first stockyard in the United States.
[00:53:32]
And so that's where the name came from. We've always been, you know, like early on, it was about, you know, now you see a lot of steakhouses, but when we did it. Early on, it was really about, you know, product and technique, bringing that to a steakhouse, but still keeping modernizing it, but still keeping what makes a steakhouse feel great.
[00:53:52]
But, and I really felt like, you know, as I traveled the world at that time, the U.S. You know, 20 years ago was kind of known for, you know, when people would go and they would say, you know, Western on the menus, right? And the menu that was always the steak part of the menus. And that's kind of what all those, you know, when you'd see these international menus, that's kind of what we were known for.
[00:54:11]
Right. And so it's like, okay, well, how do we up our game for gonna be known for that? Well, how do we up our game? How do we really take really fun plays on classic dishes, whatever it is, you know, how do we up our game with technique? And so started to really just. Experimenting a lot with how to cook steak and how to really have a lot of fun cooking steak and not that we cook them all this way, but started really started using the sous vide machines, the circulators underneath big, giant butter baths to hold butter temperature and then slow poaching butter and then go on to 900 degree with burning grill and so kind of reverse cooking as opposed to grilling something, throwing it in the oven where the juice is all leaking out of it.
[00:54:54]
And you know, the butter doesn't saturate the meat at all, but it just kind of seals it. And so it was a really great, interesting technique that really, I just, as we were tasting, it was like, wow, this is really game changing. And so, so that's kind of what the foundation of it was built around. And then having fun, like the first thing you get is, you know, when you sit down, you're amuses.
[00:55:17]
You know, duck fat fries, three different duck fat fries, three different things, three different sauces. And so it was like, break the formality right away. Yeah. And then what is the perfect twice cooked potato? What is the perfect broccoli and cheddar cheese souffle? How do you create these side dishes that are like this?
[00:55:34]
How do you create great fish dishes that feel like they belong in a steakhouse, you know, then how to and never lose the essence of a steakhouse, but really take it and elevate it in a way in which you're going to get the things that you love. When you go to a steakhouse, but you're really focusing in on product technique and some innovation, you know, a little bit of showmanship, a little bit of table side, a little bit of showmanship.
[00:56:01]
This one will be the first one that will be more of that'll have a little bit more of a supper club feel great lounge, great, probably, you know, live music a few days a week. And that kind of nice little bit of that feel to it as well. That's cool. And so I'm really looking forward to this one. I feel like this is the new wave of Bourbon Steak.
[00:56:21] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, I have a few questions to follow up with that. But first, I was just, what do you do with the butter after you poach that?
[00:56:26] Michael Mina:
Do you strain it? Honestly, like. You know, you'll use it for two or three days. It gets a lot of flavor. Yeah.
[00:56:32] Josh Sharkey:
Do you use it like for anything else after that? Can you use it to emulsify things or is it just done after?
[00:56:37] Michael Mina:
You can use it. You can make yourself a nice Wagyu, uh, hollandaise if you want.
[00:56:42] Josh Sharkey:
That sounds awesome. New York's, uh, it's such a different beast. I have to imagine one, you probably did a tour of all the Lugers and the Keens and the. Sure. But what were you most concerned about? And. What is something that maybe that you had to change a bit with the concept specifically because of New York?
[00:57:01] Michael Mina:
Well, obviously, I mean, it's extremely competitive. New York, you have amazing restaurants. You also have really good clientele.
[00:57:08] Josh Sharkey:
Mm hmm.
[00:57:09] Michael Mina:
That's that balancing act, right? That you're going to balance. And I feel like I feel good about how long I waited for multiple reasons. I feel good because I have a great customer base that eats in my restaurants everywhere else that live in New York.
[00:57:24]
And so I think that, to me, that is really important. I have so much respect for so many of the chefs in New York, because those are the people that I idolized. You know, Jean George, Daniel, Eric Ripert. I mean, you know. Unfortunately, some of the people that we just talked about the passed away. I mean, and so that would be both my concern and my motivation to go to New York.
[00:57:47]
It's like I've become close with all of them over the years, but you know, I want to have a restaurant in the city that they're in and want to have a restaurant where They would want to come and eat, you know, everything else. And so I think that there's that, you know, and obviously the fear is there and it's real about the fact that even though I cooked in New York and have a lot of ties to New York, that's not where I live.
[00:58:09]
So that also plays into it. Even though that great chef, I don't know if you remember, I don't know if you know Bradley Ogden, who was, Oh yeah, wow. Bryan Ogden is going to be the chef and so he's been in many years and he's going to, you know, it's really going to be about him and he is going to do an amazing job.
[00:58:28]
He worked for me at AQUA, really talented chef, very knowledgeable, great technique, but very knowledgeable when it comes to product. And I think this is going to concept as a product is very, very important. So, so I feel really good about a lot of this, but then it's New York. So let me bring me back in nine months and hopefully, you know, hopefully I'll,
[00:58:50] Josh Sharkey:
I think avant garde concepts are really tough to move to New York.
[00:58:54]
Like if you move like on a linear or something, it's like, there's not a lot of like patience for that in New York or time, by the way, but I think that this concept, the approach you have to steakhouse, I think it's going to crush it. Also in that area, there's not a lot of that type of restaurant around there.
[00:59:08] Michael Mina:
I think you should crush it. I feel like, you know, if we keep it, we don't go overboard with a massive menu. We keep it to where people feel comfortable and you know, that way you can change with all the seasonal product and everything, but people don't feel overwhelmed when they come in. Yeah, and it's important to me, I think, as I've seen steakhouses of all, even though they're called steakhouses, you think of the amount of great like you've already got this, you know, this incredible wood burning grill that you've invested so much in this day and age to put a hood in for it and this Jasper oven and all this so you can cook, you know, delicious fish that it's simply prepared.
[00:59:47] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. The thing with steak houses is like, they're also kind of celebratory. That location where you're at, you know, it's like you get, you're going to get all the midtown and the finance folks that like do the expense dinners. But then you also have like Upper West Side, Upper East Side that come down. So I think it's a great, it's also a great location because there's not a most, for some reason, actually farther downtown.
[01:00:06]
There's a couple up there, but I think it's also a really good location for it. I'm excited to see it. I'm excited to check it out when, when we open. I'll bring my wife there. She loves steak. We're sort of wrapping up here. Like, I don't know if you think about this, like, Mina group 10 years from now, what do you see is like the biggest change, if anything?
[01:00:22] Michael Mina:
Yeah. I mean, I think that as we continue to grow, I think that you'll see more Adams getting a concept within Mina group. That is an Italian concept. Lunara that he's doing. Gerald is going to have, has a concept within Mina group. I want to continue to do more of that. I want to continue to see, that's what I want to see.
[01:00:40]
The company become as I, you know, frankly, get older. I mean, no other way to really say it. Right. I mean, we've seen what's happened of late to people and everything else. And it's really important. I think that to me, that's always been one of the funner things to do is like let people use the machine to build their, you know, build themselves.
[01:01:01]
And so if I could see any change. Daniella, who's my chef in San Francisco, she's just amazing. She wants to do a Colombian concept and she's been pitching me and I want to see that come to life. I, she cooks some amazing food, you know,
[01:01:16] Josh Sharkey:
They have so much good. Have you been to like Bogota or that? Yeah. So much good food there.
[01:01:21] Michael Mina:
Yeah. I mean, that would be a dream come true. Like to see the company go forward and have some of these people that have been an intricate part of this company, be able to develop some concepts that are theirs.
[01:01:34] Josh Sharkey:
Obviously now it just seems like you're at a point in your career where the success for you or the feeling of success is when you see these other folks that have been with you for so long start to be really, you know, successful on their own as well.
[01:01:44]
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's great. Great to meet you. And, uh, well, actually, yeah, finally meet you. We hadn't been met before. So this was awesome. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for tuning into The meez Podcast. The music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend. Hip hop artist, Fresh Daily for show notes and more is it?
[01:02:03]
getmeez.com/slashpodcast. That's G E T M E E Z dot com forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it. If you can share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Keep innovating. Don't settle. Make today a little bit better than yesterday.
[01:02:22]
And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.
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