We're Live, man. We're live. Let's go. Thank you. Thank you for, for taking the time, man. I'm excited and also grateful and I know I bugged you a bunch of times about this. Alright, so we're gonna jump in 'cause you, I wanna make sure we make the most of, of this time. Yeah. And you're obviously. This incredibly talented chef with a bunch of accolades.
Everybody knows what they are, so I don't need to [00:02:00] sort of dive into them. But what comes up every time I hear your name or I talk about you is, man, he's so helpful. He's so nice. I was chatting with Sean Gail yesterday. Yeah. Just opened in, in Houston. He was on the, on the show and he couldn't stop talking about like, I've never worked with Gavin before, but he's just always been so helpful.
Where does that come from?
Gavin Kaysen: You know, it's funny, my, honestly, it's probably my dad. Like it's the one thing I hear about my father all the time too, is like, I'll be in the restaurants and you know, we'll have a guest at the bar in the dining room and they'll say, oh, I know your, I know your dad. I worked with him 20 years ago at X company.
And I say, oh, that's cool. Yeah. You know, and they're like, he's just so nice. He's like the nicest guy. And I think like hearing that over and over and over again for so long, I just remember as like a kid being like, I. That's a really nice thing for people to say about you. Right? Like it's, it can be an alter, there can certainly be an alternative, but, um, you know, I think also just like [00:03:00] what you expect to get out, you gotta sort of like do the work too.
You know what you want to get out the world. And I think, you know, we, we, we all have questions on like how to get to from point A to point B and we don't necessarily need to know the answer. But if you know somebody who can help you figure it out and you reach out to them and then they give back to you, it's like, pay it forward.
Yeah.
Josh Sharkey: Was there anything that happened, some sort of event that was a catalyst for oh, I gotta be nice and I have to make sure that I'm, that I'm thoughtful to everybody. It's not, it's not that it's not common. Yeah. But the frequency of which I hear it about you means I feel like there's something, you
Gavin Kaysen: know, inner that's like pushing that.
Yeah. That's interesting. No, not necessarily. I don't think anything like necessarily happened. I think a lot of it probably just has to like. Go back to the hospitality bug, you know, I mean, what I do in the restaurants and taking care of the guests and taking care of my team, like, it's no different. You know, I think it's, there's a discipline too.
I was talking to somebody the other day [00:04:00] about this, and they asked me, they said, you know, what's, what's some advice you can give to a young chef? And I was like, look, stay disciplined, stay curious, right? Because just those two traits alone, just start with two. Like, that's really hard to do. It's hard to stay disciplined and it's hard to stay really curious about things.
And, you know, I've had the pleasure and the luxury of traveling and working alongside both Danielle Ballou and Thomas Keller for years. I mean, the last 15 years at least. And the one thing I can say about both of them is that they're always so curious. Still 70 years old, and, and, uh, you know, having what they have, I'm not sure curiosity necessarily needs to be a trait that they hold onto.
Yeah. I,
Josh Sharkey: I, this keeps coming up in every conversation I have about creativity and innovation. It's, and just creating great anything, food, art. It's, uh, it's a prerequisite. Yeah. If you're not curious, you're never gonna really, like, innovate, you know? And I think
Gavin Kaysen: it's harder now to keep curiosity because everything's so instantly at your [00:05:00] fingertips.
So, you know, if you have a question, I mean, listen, like I have three sons, but the age gap is different. It is big. 15, 13, and two and a half. But like my 13-year-old will say, you know, or I'll say to him, Hey, you know, his name's Julius. Call him Juju. Juju. You know what, what's the answer to this question? He grabs his phone, you know, chat, GPT, what's the answer to this question?
Yeah. And it's like, there's no like, struggle to even figure out like, what's the answer?
Josh Sharkey: You know? You know, it's funny. I actually, I, I see the flip side of that. I mean, at least for me, I don't know, I can't think about it for my kids if they do this yet, but like, because everything is already available.
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah.
Josh Sharkey: Almost every night, like after I'm done with work, I'm like. What do I wanna learn tonight? Yeah. You can basically learn anything you want. It's true. Yeah. And now you have chat, GBT, and you know, Gemini and grok, all these things. You can, you can literally become an expert on anything. Yeah. And it's wild.
Yeah. And it's actually created this new spark of curiosity for me because, um, you know, sometimes it's overwhelming. Like, oh, I'd love to learn, you know, [00:06:00] how to, I love, I'd love to learn about like, renaissance painting and, you know, and Yeah. Leonardo da Vinci, and you can read a book, but like, you can get a ton of detail really quick.
Yeah.
Gavin Kaysen: And ask questions. Listen, that's a really good perspective because I think that, that, you know, you have kids but too, so it's like as ra when you raise your children, like, you know, there's always this inevitable, like, ah, generationally they're, it's different and they have this and they have that, or they're spoiled or whatever.
But to your point, like it's there, there is a positive to it. Um, you know, but curiosity, I think is, is something that is like the thorough line of Yeah. Creativity and growth.
Josh Sharkey: I think also having an imagination, I realized from watching my kids is something that you have to teach and nurture. You know, they, we, we read, uh, books to our kids every single night.
You know, they get, like, they each get, they get a book together or two books together, and then they each get their own Once a week we do a makeup story where they get to make it up, but we use GPT. Cool. And so it, I dunno if you've ever done this, but you can basically tell Chacha, [00:07:00] bt tell me a story in the vein of, um, you know, Dr.
Seuss and, uh, there's a unicorn and an elephant and da da da. And you come up with all of these things. And so we have our kids come up with the premise, come up with a characters that's cool. Come up with the problem, and then antagonist. And it's hard. We realize it's actually hard. They, they, they kind of just wanna do the same thing every time.
Yeah. And you have to like, push 'em. Yeah. But that, like, imagination is also a muscle. Yeah. You know? It is. Uh, and it's so cool to see when you, Yeah. You know, it's also, it's, it's also what is so exciting for me of. All the new possibilities there are because of, you know, AI to do, to do things like that.
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah.
Josh Sharkey: Alright. So clearly, really nice person, but you also, I, I, I think this is true. You steal spoons. I,
Gavin Kaysen: I borrowed 'em. Can
Josh Sharkey: You tell me
Gavin Kaysen: About, I just, I just never give 'em back. Alright. Yeah. Tell me about that. So it started early on when I was in Switzerland. I was working at a restaurant called Au de Lavo. And, uh, the, I was the, the only department that spoke enough English for me to understand what was going on was pastries.[00:08:00]
And so I was in the pastry kitchen, I was doing the cans of sorbets and ice creams on the plate. Right. And surreal was our pastry chef. And surreal, ended up moving to Paris probably a couple months after I started. And I was convinced that his spoon was the reason I could do a Cornell correctly. So I just took his spoon.
And as you know, I, we had two days off. We were off Sunday, Monday, and because, you know, when you're in Switzerland, you kind of can go everywhere in Europe pretty quickly on the train. Mm-hmm. So my, in my two days, I would just, I'd go to Italy or I'd go to Paris or wherever and I would just like go around and I realized that when I would go to these restaurants for whatever reason, I would end up taking a spoon as like a memory of the restaurant.
But I wouldn't take the menu. I wouldn't have liked a postcard or like I wouldn't have matches or whatever. And then after a while, I was like, okay, this is like how I remember where I was. And then that just kind of kept growing and growing and growing. And so, yeah. You know, thousands of spoons later, here we are.
I mean, at what point did it [00:09:00] catch on that like, oh, he's here. He will take a spoon. Oh, it was pretty early on. I mean, honestly, I remember having dinner at True. Do you remember that restaurant in Chicago? Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I remember having dinner there and, um, I will never forget it for two reasons.
One, there were these two women sitting sort of across the restaurant from me, but in my eyesight. And I was dining there alone. And, um, do you remember that caviar staircase that Rick used to do? Mm-hmm. It was like that glass caviar staircase. And it was like, so cool and so different from how people would serve caviar in any event.
They both ordered it, but one woman, after she ate the caviar off the staircase, she put it in her purse, the whole staircase. Nice. Okay. To take it, the server says nothing. He takes everything away. And, um, when they go to drop the check, the woman looks at the bill and must have seen that the caviar staircase was also on the bill.
Yeah, because it was in her purse. She closes the bill, takes the caviar staircase out of her purse, and puts it on the [00:10:00] table. A server quickly comes by and grabs the staircase and the check, readjusts the check, and drops it. So I look at him and I said, Hey, can I take a spoon? Like, I'm happy to pay for the spoon.
Yeah. And a friend of mine worked there in the kitchen and when he brought me my, when he brought me the check, he said, Sir. My buddy told us that you'd like to steal spoons, and he opened up the bill, and there was like a spoon, and it was wrapped. Yeah. Yeah. And then it said on the bill, like spoon, $0 gift to the restaurant.
So I've, I've definitely had times in which that's happened. So instead of mid courses, you get spoons. Exactly.
Josh Sharkey: Um, I actually brought you one. All right, let's go. You already have it, I guarantee, but he's my mentor and amazing. I always put, yeah. Fantastic. We give this to everybody, and I put a little note in there, the great charisma for everybody, that if you happen to see this on the video, GK is not Kevin Cason.
It's not, it's a great case.
Gavin Kaysen: This is
Josh Sharkey: beautiful. I don't have this one, so thank you. My favorite is the, is the smaller spoon.
Gavin Kaysen: Mm-hmm. You know, the little tiny one. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. That his spoons are so great. I know. Yeah, it is funny. [00:11:00] Gk, right? Thank you. You're welcome.
Josh Sharkey: You're welcome.
Gavin Kaysen: I mean,
Josh Sharkey: of all the things to bring, I figured that was the Yeah.
Gavin Kaysen: Heck yeah.
Josh Sharkey: So I arrived here in Minneapolis today, and I got to the restaurant and I needed the wifi passport. I was like, what's the network? And I, I dunno if I can tell you the password, but the network is boku. Yeah. Password's an obvious one, but what, what does Boku mean to you? I think he means to a lot of people, but
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah.
You know, I mean, I, I can kind of say through some stories. I mean, you know, the first time that I ever met him was in 2005, and I was, I had just won the International Trophy of Cuisine and pastries, which is not affiliated with Boku Store. Mm-hmm. But Pierre Gagne was the head chef, and he said to me like, You should do the Boku store.
To which I had no idea what he was talking about. I'm like, what is the Boku store? Of course, I looked it up, studied it, understood what it was all about. I saw this is great. So I went to Leon and, and, uh, I had dinner there with, uh, one of my friends, a mentor named Jean Jack Dietrich, and we ate in the kitchen at quote unquote the [00:12:00] chef's table.
It was nothing more than the corner Chef's office. Mm-hmm. But he put us there at the table, and Mr. Boku took care of us. It was just a really, how old was he at that time? Um, so let's see. It's 2025 now. He was probably 20 years ago. He was probably in his late seventies or early eighties. Probably his late seventies.
'cause he died when he was 92. Yeah. Was he like pretty like mobile li? He was active, man. I mean, he was, he laid into one of their com, one of their interns for cutting the melanin correctly. I mean, he was active, running around the kitchen. You know, it was crazy. He, he just had this, like, he just had this innate ability to allow you to feel as though you were the most important person in that restaurant, even though everybody in that restaurant was incredibly important.
And he had this innate ability to inspire literally generations. [00:13:00] I mean, if you think about what he's done for our profession, he trained, he changed the way that we. Serve and present food. Yeah. You know his, he, he was part of the generation that stepped out of the kitchen to show that, hey, it's not the mare D who's making all this food.
There's a chef back there in the kitchen with a team of chefs and a brigade who's making all this food, and let me introduce you to them, uh, and let me be the face of them and, and, and help that out. And it was just really, it was really special. So through the years, um, sorry, I don't wanna interrupt you, but like,
Josh Sharkey: How did he make each person feel like they were the most important person in the room?
Was it just how he listened, or?
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah. He, he, he, you never felt rushed by conversation with him, if that made sense. You know, like, you know, you, you talk to certain people in the restaurant, and like they're looking at you, but they're also like looking behind you. And you can, and you know it, like, you feel that they're looking like we're table 55.
That's table 56. Yeah. So if I'm talking to you, but table [00:14:00] 56 is like really super VIP, and you see my eyes kind of going all the way always to 56, like. It makes you feel a little bit different. He just never did that. Yeah. I think that type of person and that trait that is not a teachable trait.
Mm-hmm. I think that's truly a, like an, like an a genuine spirit. Danielle has the same spirit. Yeah. And so I really fell in love with with the idea of French cuisine and French hospitality early on that only solidified it. And what was pretty crazy, you get to his restaurant, and have you ever eaten his restaurant in Lebanon?
No. Okay. So when you get there from the freeway or from the main road, it kinda looks like a circus. Like it's bocos, massive letters of bouse, you know, and you can't miss it. But you get into the restaurant and, and it's an exceptional meal, but there's an American flag that flies in front of the restaurant.
So at that dinner, I asked Mr. Boku, so I was like, Why do you fly the American flag? And he says, well, I was in World War II and [00:15:00] I was shot and I was left in the field and an American soldier found me and. Gave me a blood transfusion. He says, so jokingly, I always say, I have American blood running through my veins.
He says, but holistically, I want us to never forget why we're here, because the Americans saved us through that time. Mm-hmm. And so I fly the American flag in honor of that. So we have a bakery, Belco, which Belco is the center of Leon, France. It's a square, so it's called Place Belco. And so before Mr.
BECUs died, I asked him, uh, I told him this story and asked him if I could share with others. And he, and he granted me, uh the, the yes to do so. But we named the restaurant in the bakery's Belco because it was one of the first squares to be taken over by the French. So in honor of the French, always teaching, teaching me how to be a hospitalitarian and a chef, we call it Belco on in honor of pocus.
Yeah,
Josh Sharkey: I mean it also sounds like that has an impact on this sort of. Kindness that you have, right? Yeah. Because it's, it's really just being [00:16:00] present. It sounds like he's he's present, he's there with you. Yeah. Which is the kindest thing you can do for somebody Yes. Is be present for them when they're talking to you.
Yes. And um, it sounds like that rubbed rubbed off on you. Yeah. I didn't know the book was, was either when I started, not when I started cooking, but like, I remember I, I traveled to Norway with, um, Eric Repair and Rick Moon and Marco Samuelson when I was very young, like 19. And, um, we traveled the country and then we ate at this restaurant called Oro.
And the guy that had opened it Ness had just won the Yeah. The Bo Huta or, yeah, nine nine. I'm like, what, what, what is this? And I just remember being that, that's what, like, that, that was sort of the turning point for me. Like, oh, this is, this is what I need to do. Yeah. It's amazing. And there is something about, you know, that not just that competition, but like, there's a lot of amazing chefs, but that sort of path of like attempting the boku or does sort of create another kind of, just another direction of how, of how you cook.
You can see it in the, in the food, the precision and kind of of thought. Has that affected how you cook as well? Obviously it affects how you [00:17:00] think and, and, and, and, and how you make people feel. Yeah.
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah. I mean, I think ultimately it, it affects the way that I think about food and how I, how we cook. But, you know, it is, it's a niche.
I mean, Boku store is like in Norway. It changes people's lives in America. Nine and a half people out of 10 have no idea what it is. Why is that? Media, we don't talk about it. It's not, it's also, it's also not relatable. I mean, you know, think about it this way. I mean, was Formula One as big now? Formula One seems very big right now and popular.
Was it as popular prior to the Netflix special? It's true. Probably not. But the media sort of showed us mm-hmm this different world of Formula One, that it was intriguing and if not relatable, was entertaining. Yeah. At the very least, Boku store, you know, you have 24 international chefs from all over the world.
All sorts of different languages happening. We're all wearing a white jacket with [00:18:00] white apron, with black trousers and black shoes and a white toque. It's very old school in that regard. It's sets to, it sets to hold on to like, what does that professionalism mean back then, and what, how does that translate now?
You know, you don't see any chef in a t-shirt, you don't see them with rolled up pants. Um, you don't see 'em with hat, hat backwards. I mean, frankly, like now you can do it now, but like you used to have to be shaven. Mm-hmm. Like totally clean shaven to show up. So I think that that's kind of unrelatable to a lot of people.
Right. And it also is different than what our profession looks like in the media. Yeah. Right. So it's, it's hard to sort of see. But my point being is that the reason I love it and the reason that I'm part of it and have been for so many years is because I love that attention to professionalism. I love that attention to.
History and, and what it means. And I think that institutional knowledge that is brought in and carried on a [00:19:00] daily basis when you're part of that competition mm-hmm. It's, you can't ever get that back. You know? I mean, what, what we learn, what we hear, the connections we have around the world, the people, you know, because of the competition.
Yeah. It's a small group, so,
Josh Sharkey: you know, in a restaurant you can have super delicious food, but it might not actually be the, the most pristinely, well executed. Sure. And maybe it makes people feel a certain way and that and vice versa. And vice versa. I mean, there's a whole spectrum of that, right? Yeah. But how do you win the book?
Whose door? Like what, obviously there's no like, um, environment you're trying to present. I, I, I presume, you know, or you know, this feeling you're trying to do, so it seems not mechanical, but like what are the, the, what are the elements of how you actually win the boku? Or
Gavin Kaysen: like simply said, although it's not this simple, is you have five and a half hours in about 10 bites to determine if you're the best in the world or not.
But it's not just the food, right? It's the platter. It's the presentation, you know? It is the, it is [00:20:00] the, the way in which you can communicate your country's cuisine to 23 chefs. There's 24 down there, but 23 or from a different nation. So how does an American chef put forward their food in a competition and relate it to the Mauritius chef, or, you know, the chef from Columbia mm-hmm.
Or France or Italy, you know, how does, and, and how does the Italian chef, I'll tell you, like I, I judge, I've judged that competition. I think three cycles. I can't remember what year it was that I was judging, but I was sitting next to, I think the Italian chef, and I remember tasting, we were tasting a dish and the competition was done.
The results were already out. And I asked him, I said, did you think that that dish was the winning dish? And he is like, no, not at all. Because of the way he tasted it. I just, to your point, like it's so interesting, like what is that one thing? And I don't think anybody necessarily knows. I think, I think it's a combination of a lot.
[00:21:00] Yeah. You know, you've gotta be able to, you know, what's the main ingredient this year they went, they went really kind of old school in terms of the theme. It was a big head scratcher for a lot of us because for so long the competition had been trying to be like a little bit more avant guard. And in many respects, like more relatable, right?
Like, okay, do one platter, which you never see in a restaurant anymore. Right. And then the second thing we're gonna judge you on is just like a beautifully designed, composed plate of food that you would see in a Michelin star restaurant. Yeah. And while that's like always still available, like there's sort of unspoken rules of what that needs to look like.
Yeah.
Josh Sharkey: What is the most profound, if you can think of the most profound piece of food that you recall from all your years of seeing the Boku were.
Gavin Kaysen: There's definitely dishes and there's definitely platters that change the trajectory of how Boku store went. You know, I remember in, in, uh, 1999 was one of those years when the Norwegian chef put up his food.[00:22:00]
'cause Yani Kino took second place in that one, and their theme was pigeon. It was squab. I remember Yannick food going up and it was slightly overcooked and you could see it, and you could see it on his face, and everybody knew France lost. At least they were like that in tune to like what was happening when Phil Tessier in 2000 and, um, 15 did his platter.
It was a platter that had never really been done before in that competition with sort of this like false bottom and suspension and wires and like it, nobody had ever attempted to create some sort of type of architecture on a platter like that. That changed the way a lot of people then did platters moving forward for years and still even 10 years later, we still see platters now.
Are similar to what Phil's were, but prior to that you never saw those platters. Yeah. So you see things like that. The Japanese chef who took third place in 2007, he did a platter that looked like a book and then he did a Bento box, [00:23:00] which had never been done at Boku store because the fear was always like the majority of the judges won't understand it.
Yeah. And he was gambling that like the majority of these judges have all traveled enough to Japan to understand it. And he was right. But the courage to do something like that in a competition that is otherwise so European centric and traditional was really like mind blowing for a lot of people.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah.
I wanna shift to to to mentoring. 'cause it seems like that's a big part of your life. What does mentor BKB what, what, what is that?
Gavin Kaysen: So it was an organization founded Thomas Keller, myself, Danielle Ballou and Jerome Boku. We started that organization, we're 16 years old now. Um, I was working for Danielle at the time when that all began.
And really the, the. The impetus of why it began was I had just done the Boku store myself. In 2007. I was working in San Diego, so I left San Diego, took my job with Danielle to be the chef at Cafe Blued. And uh, after the competition I was in debt about a quarter million. And so [00:24:00] platters traveling to France.
Wow. You know, food, paying for your food that you have to practice with. The year that I competed, we have to, we had to use Norwegian halibut, which we would ship in overnight from Norway and their king crab. And then we had to use poule of breasts. And the only way I could practice with the chicken was to fly to France.
That's great. And so like, I would go to France and like live there for two weeks and just work with the chicken for two weeks and then come back home. And so,
Josh Sharkey: sorry. So basically if you compete in the Bull Coast, you're just gonna have this massive bill that
Gavin Kaysen: then, I don't know. I mean, not anymore, but that's what mentor does.
That's one of the things mentor does. But certainly in my year. Prior to my year, like if you look at the faces of all of the people that have competed for United States from 1987 till now, prior to, and frankly, I worked at a hotel, so basically everybody up until my year, including me, was in a hotel.
Mm-hmm. And the hotel would typically like, support you. Right. And the hotel I worked for in San Diego, they were very [00:25:00] supportive of me, but there were things that they were simply not going to pay for. Yeah. Understood. So I, I went out and found sponsors and I just cold called people. Yeah. You know, I was 25 years old and I was like, Hey, 26 maybe, you know, could I have free this?
Could I do that? Whatever it takes. And I looked like a race car driver. I mean, my, my chef coach were just like stacked, you know. So when I started to work for Danielle in 2008, he said, do you wanna do Boku store again? I said, yes. Why do you think he wanted you to do it? Why did he want me to do it? I don't know if he wanted, he just thought you could do it.
You work for me now and why not? You can do it. You just did it. He says, what do you need? I said, I need six months off and a half a million bucks. He's like, yeah, that's not gonna work. You're my chef at Cafe Boot. I can't give you that time away. So we went to Paris, we sat down with Regis, Marco and Yani Kaino and just sort of like listened, like how did the French create their organization?
Took a bunch of notes, went back and, and as the story goes, Mr. Boku [00:26:00] asked Danielle to reach out to Chef Keller and asked Thomas if he would be the president for Team USA. 'cause the US had never done well. We had never done better than sixth place. And so we were in, uh, Napa for, uh, an event with Danielle and Regis was there with us, and we asked Thomas if he would, if he would participate, and he was, he, he didn't necessarily say no, but he definitely did not say yes.
He was kinda like reluctant, like, what is this gonna mean? What is his trepidation? What do you think his trepidation was? Well, the simple thing of like, whatever anybody says to us, don't worry, it's not gonna take you any time. Oh yeah,
Josh Sharkey: yeah, right. It's all good.
Gavin Kaysen: Like, I'll take care of everything for you.
Like it's the number one thing where you hear like, like that just in, in itself already took me way more time. So he said, okay, let me think about it. We left lunch, we had lunch at Bouchon. We left lunch. Danielle called Mr. Boku, told him how the lunch went. Mr. Boku called Thomas said, I want you to be the president for Team USA.
Will you accept? And he said, yes, chef. Course. Yeah, that's hard because you're not gonna say no to, it's a hard, [00:27:00] yeah. Yeah. And so he became the president for team USA, and then mentor was then formed. And at the beginning, mentor was formed solely for this intention of training, funding and building a foundation for Team USA.
Uh, now what it does, it does do that. But now what it also does is that it grants scholarships, scholarship money to young culinarian around the country. To live and work in St. Sta anywhere they want in the world. So like, we just granted 20 plus young cooks around the country to live and work around the world, wherever.
It's amazing they want. And the goal of that was like when you and I grew up cooking, you know, how did we st how did we go in St. Sta at a restaurant? You go in the back door, you knock on the back door, you walk in the front door. Or you might know somebody who knows somebody, but A, you're not getting paid.
B the circumstances probably aren't really that great to be in. Uh, and C how much are you really gonna learn? And how much can you really be there? 'cause from an affordability perspective, you still have bills to pay. Yeah. So we decided to take all that away and say, you tell us where you want to go. It's two [00:28:00] months.
We'll pay your salary. You don't get to take a vacation from your, you don't double dip. Right? You don't take PTO from your, from the restaurant you're working at. You go to Japan and you study for two months in Japan at the restaurant you've always dreamt to work at. Then you come back to the restaurant that allowed you to do it, and you stay with them for a while.
At least a year. So there's a minimum of of stay. Yeah. Listen, you can't force anybody to stay. But you know, there, I think that, you know, there's, there's an unspoken, um, rule in that and respect and politeness that, that you should do that. And it's been really, it's been really powerful. Yeah. You know,
Josh Sharkey: so, you know, on the, just sort of in the realm of mentorship, obviously now you are mentoring a lot of people.
You're teaching all these, you know, I mean, across all your restaurants and not just at your restaurants, I'm sure, just generally speaking, but I'm curious what you think the role of the mentee is, because I think that gets overlooked a lot.
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah. I mean, I think mentorship, being a mentor or a mentee, it's, it's such, such a two way street.
[00:29:00] I think if you are a mentee and you're giving your mentor 85% of your best, don't expect more than 50% from them. Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, you really need to work at it, and you really need to be, you really need to show that there is. A reason for them to want to continue to mentor you and teach you. It also doesn't mean that they need to be there for you every single time and to be doing everything for you.
I think also reaching out, everyone, look, I still have mentors, Danielle being one of 'em, and it's nice to just call 'em, Hey, how you doing? How are you doing? I don't need anything. I'm just calling to see, how are you? Yeah. Right. And I think that that is important because it's a relationship and, and, and it's not a one-way relationship like, Hey, get me this, get me that, or I'm out as a mentee.
It's like, what else can we, what else can we learn here? Yeah. So I agree with you. I think it's, and I also think it's hard. I think it's hard to, I think what's [00:30:00] difficult about being a mentee is that you think that you can go and pick your mentor, and that's not always the case. It can be, but it's hard to sort of go out there and actively say like, you are gonna be my mentor.
You know, you need to develop. A relationship and be like, okay, do I vibe with this person? Yeah. You know, and if the answer is yes to that, you can have that candid conversation of saying, Hey, I'd really would love for you to help mentor me through this next stage of my life. And if it takes up too much of your time, please let me know and I'll learn how to back off.
But I'm hungry for it. Yeah. What do I have to do?
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. And I, I, I do think that there's, you know, there, there is a lot of onus on the person that wants to learn one, like show that you take action on the things that you've learned Yeah. From your mentor. And then I had the lesson early on, I think I probably talked about this before, so sorry if I have, but I remember vividly like my first job in New York after Norway, I was working for Rick Moonen and, um, I had to choose between re [00:31:00] repair and Moonen.
Yeah. I chose Moonen. Yeah. I mean, I learned a ton there, by the way. Yeah, of course. But, um, but I remember there was a, there's a dressing for the crab cake. It was basically like this, you know, you make a pepper c feee, and then you emulsify it with egg yolks and all this other stuff. Fish sauce brew up. And, um, really, really delicious.
And he was just gonna show me how to make it. He's like, okay, I'll, you know, I'm gonna show you how to make it today. And so he shows up in the morning and I walk over. I'm like, all right, let's do it. And he is like, where, where's all the meison? Plus let's go. Yeah. I'll like, let's, let's, let's get it. He's like, and, and he, and I mean, he, he said it a little bit mirror than this.
Yeah. Maybe a lot mean than this. Yeah. But basically the gist of it was you don't just get to learn. Yeah. You know, this isn't school. Yeah. Like, you have to earn the right to learn. Yeah. Like, have everything weighed out. Ready. Yeah. Plus think about whatever else you think I might need. Yeah. So that when I come in, I know that you actually, you know, took all the effort to Yeah.
To learn. And I think that's, you know, that for me is one of the most important things. If you have a, if you have a mentor, show them like, you're willing to put in a lot of effort because [00:32:00] it's, it's a lot of effort both ways, you know? Yeah, it is. No, it's an, it's, it's a good lesson.
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah. What do you think you've taught Danielle?
He's taught you a lot, but. He's taught me a lot. I think I've probably taught him, you know, a lot about partnerships and trust and Cafe Ballou in his mind is such an important brand. It's a really personal brand to him. Mm-hmm. And so I think by allowing anybody to be that chef of that restaurant, you know, you have to give them the trust to do so, but you have to earn that.
And it took time, of course it always takes time to earn that. Uh, but I think I've taught him that. I think I've for sure have taught him this whole world of Boku store. 'cause he wasn't involved in it before. We got involved in it together. Um, so that's been a different part. I mean, he knew, of course he knew about it, but involvement in knowing is two different things.
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What are some things that you think people often get wrong? [00:34:00] When they enter into a partnership?
Gavin Kaysen: I think a couple of things. I think one, if you only believe it to be a transactional experience, it's gonna be really tough. There's ebb and flows of partnership, so there's highs and lows, there's relationship driven to it, but they all, everything still stems from respect.
Like, do you respect the person? Do you, like, you don't necessarily have to like the person and at some point you may not, and that's okay. But do you have respect for them and what they bring to the table? And do you respect it enough to invite that criticism that they're going to offer or compliment, you know?
And what does that look like? Partnerships are, partnerships can be really difficult. Michael White told me, I don't know, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, he's like, partnerships and investors are all like snowflakes. They all fall differently. And it's like, it's really true. I mean, you know, like they're all formed differently.
They all fall differently. They all, they all become different. But I, I, I think in general, [00:35:00] especially in our, in our business partnerships have such a short-lived relationship and there tends to be a lot of, not a lot, but there tends to be, can be negativity around it or difficulty or frustration, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. Yeah. I think I found mostly through screwing up often. I mean, I'm married, I have a co-founder for my business. I find that like you don't have to agree that's, that's important. You don't have to agree, but you have to, you don't have to agree on most of the decisions, but you have to be aligned on the values and the vision.
Yeah. Because, and that's the hardest thing. Yeah. To like actually be honest, like, oh yeah, we both agree this is actually how we believe this company should operate. Yeah. Uh, and that this is what good looks like. As long as you have that, I feel like every disagreement is fine. '
Gavin Kaysen: cause Well, and the values will change.
Yeah. That's the other thing, you know, that I think people sort of lose sight on is that. If we entered into a business partnership now and we created our five core values, [00:36:00] you can't put those in a box and lock 'em away and think those are gonna live forever. You need to revisit 'em over and over again and really when's the right time?
'cause people will say, well, how do you know when? Yeah, when you have that first disagreement. Yeah. Because the first disagreement, you're not disagreeing over the, the glass for water. You're disagreeing over the value of why do people need water?
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. So it's different. A hundred percent. It is. It is really hard.
I mean this is, it comes up for me often. We
Gavin Kaysen: just went through it here at Spoon. We just went through a whole, we have these like, you know, these 10 10 sort of what we call the Kitchen Legacy rules at Spoon or at Swan and the whole company. And I, I wanna say this is probably the fourth version, not maybe the third version that we've written.
Yeah. It's not that an argument or a disagreement got us there to rewrite it. It was a recognition of not only the chefs of the restaurant, but even some of the cooks saying. Hey, this is different than when we started. Yeah. We're seeing the new cooks come in and be this way. But when [00:37:00] we brought, when we came in, we were that way.
Mm-hmm. And, and, and by the way, that didn't, there wasn't resentment, it was just an acknowledgement to which it sort of, then we raised our flag up and said, let's revisit these values together as a team to which we did. And it was, and, and I will tell you since, since then, it's just one of those great things.
'cause it's like you feel the area get let out a little bit. Yeah. You know,
Josh Sharkey: not a hundred percent. That happened with, uh, with us recently as well. And I, I try to every year revisit my personal values and also the, the company, what we call, we call them first principles. Mm-hmm. So the one that never changes is what we call operational empathy.
This is at, at me's. 'cause you know, we're servicing restaurants. Yeah. And most of our team Yeah. Is. Engineers and product people and you know, marketing and they've no a fucking idea that you don't call the restaurant 1130. Right. Right. And expect an answer and schedule a thing. And if you schedule something, show up, you know, things that you know, and explaining what operational empathy means is, is something [00:38:00] we do often.
And we always sort of use it on a weekly, monthly basis of explaining, you know, scenarios. But there's other things that, you know, as we grow, you know, it may have been far more collaborative in the beginning and now it's more about radical ownership. Yeah. You know, even bigger company. Yeah. And, you know, people have to be like, you know, taking full ownership and these things, they, they, they, I think they just naturally change as you grow a business.
Mm. They also tend to, you know, for better or for worse, also kind of weed people out, I think. Mm-hmm. I don't know if you've found that, but like, sometimes someone's right for the company at a certain size and then you grow and they're like, no, maybe you need to go, you know, onto someplace small again.
Yeah.
Gavin Kaysen: Has that happened to you? Yeah. And it's, yeah. And it's tough. I mean, that's hard when that happens because you know, those, those people help get you to where you then, then, then are. And, and you know, the empathy is to find a way to put them in a place where they belong. But the reality is, is maybe that's not with you.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. Yeah. And that's a tough place to be. How is, uh, your partnership with Andrew?
Gavin Kaysen: Oh, it's good. Yeah. I mean, we have KZ [00:39:00] provisioning together, our, our sports catering business. How did that, how did, how did you end up partnering with Andrew Zimmerman? So, Andrew's been a dear friend forever. I mean, I knew Andrew before he was on TV and all that stuff.
He used to do a, so he, he came here to go into rehab 30 something years ago. He was then a food, um, he was a chef at a restaurant called Cafe DUIs. Then he was a writer, and when I met Andrew, he was writing for the local magazine and he was doing radio. And so like, I would come home from New York and I would do his radio show with him.
And then, you know, I would do like the plugs, like, yeah, and you're listening to whatever, when Andrew Zimmerman, you know, whatever the plug was. So we've known each other a really, really long time. And so when I opened. When I went to Open Spoon and I was raising money for the restaurant, he came on as an investor with us, kind of a chef block.
It was four chefs that put money in and bought and bought a unit. And so he, he, he owns a small percentage of, of, of spoon. And then I had this idea, so, so then, oh [00:40:00] no. So before, after that we went into Viking Stadium together when the Vikings opened their new stadium and we had I think two or three concession stands there.
And he brought me in and he is like, Hey, do you want to just take 50%? We'll go 50 50 on it. You help develop the recipes with me. This is what we have to do. Not that much work. I'm like, yeah, sure. And it really wasn't, you know, that much work in the, in the grand scheme of things. So once that sort of went away, uh, two of my close friends play pro hockey.
One still plays with the wild, the other one plays in Buffalo. And uh, I went to go visit 'em after practice one day and I'm sitting in the room and we're all having lunch and uh, we're eating fish sticks. Nice. And I'm kind of looking around thinking how much. Hundreds of millions of dollars in payroll.
This is, and I'm like, wow, you're eating fish sticks. I'm like, so are you talking like, you know, commodity fish sticks or they, were they at these like good fish sticks? I mean, they were from a restaurant or from like a catering service. Yeah. I don't know. Restaurant. And they were from a catering service.
So I said, well, what's tomorrow? They're like, well, [00:41:00] tomorrow's what Wednesday? I said, yeah. They're like, burritos. I'm like, Thursday Pizza. I'm like, are you serious? They're like, yeah. Every day we just get it catered in. So I came up with this business plan to effectively take over the practice facilities where all the teams were and cook for the players every single day.
Breakfast, lunch, post-game, pre-game dinner, whatever they wanted. And we would cook for the families during the games in a private suite. And they got, they got me a meeting with the general manager of the wild and he signed us a deal. Wow. And so I, you know, and I said, and I said, do you wanna go in on at 50 50?
I said, I think it'd be fun for us. It's. It's different. It's not like it's not gonna take a lot of time. It's taken so much time. Um, but it's only taken a lot of time because we have found success in it. Yeah. To be honest, I mean that's, that's why it's taken time. So
Josh Sharkey: there was a kitchen there that
Gavin Kaysen: you used, or did you have to find a kitchen?
How does that work? So with the Wild, we got really lucky. Um, the first year, first we were unlucky. The first year there was no kitchen. So we did everything outta spoon and stable. And my team, so Ryan Sulty is our chef, he's our [00:42:00] chef. And we, we actually made, we made him a partner of the business a couple years ago.
He would cook everything outta Spoons Kitchen and then drive it to St. Paul, which is about a 20 minute drive from here, Uhhuh. And then he'd serve the players. But the reason there was no kitchen is 'cause the Minnesota Wild, they were building their new practice facility. Yeah. So when they built that, we went in and helped design that kitchen with them.
Oh, that's great. And so we had, we had, uh, Craig Leopold, who's the owner, was really gracious to us. And it's, it's an incredible organization, honestly, like we've been so lucky to work with them. And then shortly thereafter. Ethan Casson, who's the president for the Timberwolves and the Lynx, but the men's and women's Yep.
Pro Basketball League here in the Twin Cities. Uh, he ended up signing us as well. And so we're on our second round of contract with them. Isn't Mark Lore by then, mark Lori and Alex Rodriguez? They, they just bought, they just bought the majority ownership away from Glen Taylor. Gotcha.
Josh Sharkey: I gotta get, you're gonna get that wonder in there,
Gavin Kaysen: right?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which, I mean, I guess they could probably do in the concessions, right? Yeah.
Josh Sharkey: So I mean, is this like, uh, now something you wanna roll out to, [00:43:00] uh, a bunch of other, like, uh, teams For sure.
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah. I mean, it's hard to get it rolled out completely 'cause uh, professional sports and professional athletes, um, they're secretive as to like what their routines and diets are.
Mm-hmm. Which I respect. Yeah. Yeah. We also have tons of NDAs, so like Yeah. Yeah. Nobody could ask. I mean, everybody can ask me. What does Anthony Edwards eat? And I will never tell you, you know, what is the, what is Caril Capri's routine? Dunno. Ask Caril. Yeah. So there, there's a lot of their secret, which I get, but we would love to be able to roll it out on, on a more nationwide scale.
It's a very niche thing, right? Like we're focusing our, our expertise on the players and the coaches, the people that surround the team, the nucleus of the team the most. And what we're doing is we're, we're enacting what we know best about hospitality and food. So, for example, let's say they have a, let's say they have a late night game in Vegas and they fly home to Minneapolis and they land at two o'clock in the morning, but [00:44:00] they have to be at the rink at 8:00 AM for a skate around.
It's not a lot of sleep. Well, they're gonna be hungry when they get off the plane. So our team might meet them at the tarmac and put hot cups of broth in all their cars. Yeah. So at least on their drive home, they're drinking some warm chicken broth, beef broth, mushroom broth, whatever it is. Just with the intent of, then they don't go to, they don't go to bed on an empty stomach.
They're not gonna go home and eat something that's not healthy for 'em, and they'll wake up revived and ready to go. It's crazy. I mean,
Josh Sharkey: You have a bunch of concepts like Demi Mara Spoon stable. Yep. The, you have Vela Core, which you're running, and then there's another kitchen that you have, you're opening some other spots, which we should talk about.
Yep. Something I'm always curious about, like how do you compartmentalize your brain energy on each of these things? Yeah. You're just telling me that's a, that's a lot of effort, right? Yeah. Of like thinking through like the details of like they're gonna get off the plane. Yeah. Right. That's a whole, you have to think about that.
Yeah. Strategize that or somebody does. Right. And you have this team and you have [00:45:00] Demi, and you have, and they're all very you. They're pretty disparate concepts. Yeah. How do you compartmentalize the way that you, you use your brain power and you have kids? It's discipline. Honestly, a lot of it's just discipline.
But tactically, what do you, is it like scheduling? Is it,
Gavin Kaysen: it is. I mean, there's definitely a scheduling to it. You know, there's certain days that are like my Mara days and certain days that are my spoon days and certain days that are, you know, k provisioning days. But listen, listen, at the end of the day, you know, this, you could walk in and say, this is my plan today.
And something happens. So, you know, I'm thoughtful on how I take my notes, how I categorize my notes, um, how I archive them. I'll go through my office and kind of like clean out all of my stuff to like make sure I'm up to, up to date and up to speed on what's going on. And also it helps when you work for a guy like Danielle for as many years as I did.
'cause I've, I worked that muscle with him for like six years before I really needed to figure out how to work it on my own. Because when I, by the time I left his restaurant group, you know, I [00:46:00] was in charge of Cafe Blue, New York City, Palm Beach and Toronto. Three restaurants, three big restaurants. Mm-hmm.
By the way, all three of them were in a hotel, did breakfast, lunch, dinner, some did food by the pool. They all did room service. So you talk about just like, yeah, these weren't just three dinner only concepts. So I really had to flex that muscle then and I got to watch him do it with all of his different concepts too.
And, and you know, effectively I was listening to this, this guy talk the other day and it was both profound but very, very clear to me. You know, you kind of have order and chaos, you know, and somewhere in between the middle you need to like manage both of those. And to what you're saying, you know, it sounds like it can be chaos 'cause you have all these different concepts.
In my mind, I look at all that chaos and say, okay, where's my order in it all? And then I start to filter into order. Yeah. And I leave some room for chaos, which [00:47:00] is fun. Is, is delegation a big part of it? Oh yeah. I mean, delegation, collaboration.
Josh Sharkey: How do you, uh, delegate the things that you maybe don't want to take off your plate, but have to, because there's the obvious things to delegate, right?
My calendar, things like this. But there's things that you probably are really good at that still don't have time to do. Like, how do you delegate those things and what are
Gavin Kaysen: They? I think, I think part of it starts with, you know, you've gotta trust A, A, you gotta trust the person you're delegating it to. B, you've gotta give it up yourself and recognize that you need to get it done.
And if you hold onto it and thinking that you're gonna be the only one to get it done, it's not a, A, it's not gonna happen. And then B, what are you avoiding to get that one thing done? And if what you're avoiding is actually making those other things worse, you're doing yourself a disservice out of both.
Yeah. Delegation is certainly a part of it also. Like I don't spend a lot of time micromanaging. I don't go to my, my team of managers and leaders and say like, you know, Hey, is this done? 'cause I asked for it to be done an hour ago. [00:48:00] It's like, if it's not done, you know, I'll know. And if it's done, I'll know if it's not
Josh Sharkey: done.
What, what's
Gavin Kaysen: your approach
Josh Sharkey: to why
Gavin Kaysen: is it not done?
Josh Sharkey: What's up? Yeah, but I mean, are you, are you quick to fire? Are you quick to No,
Gavin Kaysen: no. I'll talk through it. And our team in the, in the executive like office, in the home office, I mean, they know, you know, I don't necessarily, like, I don't, I don't expect them to have a set schedule.
I just expect them to get the job done. Yeah. I don't know what their schedules necessarily need to be. And by the way, when I say that, you want, you nod and understand it in a way that most don't, which is it's the restaurant business, which means our life isn't nine to five, eight to four, 10 to six. Like for some of, for some people in my business, definitely morning is better.
Like my accountants, our director of accounting, Maggie, she might get in here some days at 5:00 AM because that's get the work done. Right, be done at three. Like yeah, it's all good. Um, but for somebody like Erin, who's our director of communications, she probably wants to stay a little bit longer and later at night to get photos in the bus, in the restaurants and check the vibe and get the [00:49:00] feeling of the space.
'cause she's dealing with social media and all that. Right? Yeah. So, and as the leader of all of that, I don't find it's my job to manage. Yeah. That right. I think it's my responsibility to give them the tools to, to need what they need to get it done. Yeah.
Josh Sharkey: I I feel the same way. Uh, we're we, you know, we have a culture within me of, first of all, it's unlimited, PTO, unlimited vac.
You work whenever you want. Yeah. Wherever you want, the KPI is what matters. Like, whatever your result that you own is, that's, that's what matters. Yeah. If you wanna do that on a Tuesday or on a Sunday, that's up to you. It doesn't work for everybody, by the way. Yeah. Some people can't, can't operate with that much autonomy.
And the problem I have that I'm, I think I'm slowly starting to learn is how to approach when things don't go right. Yeah. You know, because my immediate reaction is typically, this is some. CO therapy now, um, is like, just to point out like, Hey, you know, that's not, that's not right. It's something we talked about instead of like asking, Hey, why did that happen?
Mm-hmm. What would, you know, what made you like [00:50:00] you do it that way without sounding like a dick? Mm-hmm. It's, I, I don't know if that is a, a product of just being ingrained in being in the kitchen from, you know, I mean, I think part of it must be, I remember like every kitchen, you know, I mean, Rick Moon's a perfect example.
You know, there was none of like, it was just throw the plate at you.
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah.
Josh Sharkey: Why are you here? Yeah. Go home. Yeah. Why do you wanna, why do you wanna be a cook? Yeah. Until one day you're doing things really well and then just, no, nothing, you know, and that's just, that was just sort of the same worse. Yeah. And so maybe it's just, uh, a product of like, you know, unlearning those things.
But I do find, I don't know if you feel this as a leader, one of the most important skills is how do you actually engage when things don't go well and still keep them, you know?
Gavin Kaysen: Uh, productive. So part of it is, is who, what are the personality traits of the person who's doing the work that didn't go right?
You know, so, you know, for example, if you have somebody on your team who is like the task, the task master, [00:51:00] you basically know the job is always gonna get done, right? If you have a person on your team who is like always filled with ideas and creativity, those tend to be the people that actually don't get it done because they become so distracted.
But if you look at it like those two, the task master person and the ideas person actually work the best together. So if you are not the task master person, and that employee is the idea person, you're the wrong person having that conversation with them, you know, and, and we have somebody in our organization who is that?
She, she is that task master. She, she will come up with, she will dissect the business in a way and put it back together. As, as if though it was easy, and it's not for everybody, but if she's helping the person who's the ideas person, which tends to be me a lot of the times, you know, that can, then I can distill all of my information to like, okay, [00:52:00] what am I trying to say here?
What am I really trying to get out there? Yeah. So part of it is, is recognizing which one are you, and then who is everybody else on that team? Yeah. And, and how do you put them together? Because that's really what it is. I mean, if you look at, I mean, just take sports analogy, like we were talking about hockey earlier.
It's like, you know the movie Miracle, right? It's a great movie, but like, break it down. Like, he picked a team, not of the best athletes, he picked a team or best hockey players, right? He picked a team of the right hockey players. So it's, it's, you know, that gets lost in the Disney movie, right? Ultimately, but, but the idea behind it was somebody, the leader of the team, of any team.
Me, my company, whatever. You have to pick a, a group of leaders not knowing they'll, their full, full personality and their traits until they end up working for you. And banking on the fact that you've got enough, enough variety in that group to make sure you [00:53:00] got the ideas, you got the tasks, you got order, you got K, you have all this.
Right. Yeah. That's,
Josh Sharkey: that's hard. Yeah, it is. How do you get unstuck? You know, when you're like stuck on, on something you can't figure out how to solve it. Like how do you get find like, focus or center or, you know, it's
Gavin Kaysen: pretty easy. I just go into the restaurants that I work service and it's like, that's my zen Yeah.
You know, this what, what you and I are doing now. And then after this I'll go into six meetings today or whatever's on the calendar. Yeah. Right. All of which are important, all of which mean a great deal to me. And, and, and I'm excited to do them, but if I just want to be like in my zen state. Let's go in a kitchen, cook with the team, plate, with the team, taste the food, you know, that's the
Josh Sharkey: best.
It's a blessing. You get to, you know, step into any, it's the best step into a, you know, a tasting menu kitchen. You can step into this kitchen, you can step into the bakery. Yeah. That's so funny too. And
Gavin Kaysen: today's, today's Wednesday we're, you know, when we're talking. And so Demi [00:54:00] is open tonight, and so we'll go back and I can go back and forth between the two.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah, that's great, man. How, how do you decide when to do the next thing, right? You, you're opening more businesses, you're, you're, you know, you're, you know, you, you're certainly entrepreneurial. You're, you're now gonna open, you know, some, uh, a spot in Florida. Yeah. What's the sort of, you know, the driver that's like, okay, now I'm gonna do this next
Gavin Kaysen: thing.
I would say step one for me is getting together the group who will help me create and do it, and make sure that we're all in a yes for that, or at least the majority by me saying yes to a new project, it's not just me saying yes to the work. Right. There is gonna be a tremendous amount of workload mm-hmm.
That will be put on everybody's shoulders in order to get where we need to go. So I wanna make sure that they're on, that they're on board for that. Personally, I need to make sure that I have the time and the energy to do it right. And the effort just knowing like, what else is going on in my life, and then creatively making sure that I'm not in that fashion [00:55:00] of being stuck and that I'm ready to sort of say something.
Yeah. You know, the last project we opened was three years ago, which was Mara. Prior to that it was Demi, uh, and Demi would've been three years, but two, probably two years before Mara. So, you know, our, our growth certainly hasn't been fast in that regard. I mean, maybe it seems that way. 'cause yes, there we, we have a fair amount of stuff, but spoons 10 over 10 years old.
Yeah. You know, so we've tried to be, we've tried to be very thoughtful and intentional about the growth, and I think the intent is very important. You know, like. And making sure that we're set up and saying like, okay, if we're gonna grow this, like this is what this means. And you know what I've learned the last couple of years is that when I, when I have leaders who are in our gr in our group, and you know this, right?
Like when you're the chef of a restaurant, actually back up, you're a cook. You go from being a cook to a sous chef. It's different. You go from being a sous chef to [00:56:00] a chef, it's also different, right? And you're like, your blinders have to open up more and you have to start to see more. Okay, well it's the same that goes if somebody who's a bartender and goes from bartending to beverage director.
Yeah. Or general manager to director of operations or director of hospitality or whatever those jobs are. What I've really tried to capture and hold onto now is how do I hold them accountable? But more importantly, how do they go home knowing that they had a successful day? 'cause when you're a sous chef, you just check off the box when you're a chef.
You don't really have as many boxes to check because you're, you got everybody. Mm-hmm. Right. So like, how do you make sure that that's a success? And I don't, I don't pose the question thinking I'll answer it. I pose the question for them to answer. You know, like, Hey, what makes you go home every night saying, now that I'm the beverage director for this group, I have found success today.
What is that? What does that look like? You asked that before you offer 'em the job. Yeah. [00:57:00]
Josh Sharkey: That's a good question to ask.
Gavin Kaysen: It's hard. Yeah. 'cause you know, the, the thing is, is that it's, it's for everybody that success is different. But the truth of the matter is, is that, what I'm trying to understand is, do they understand that maybe out of the 10 things on their to-do list, four of 'em might not get solved for five months.
Yeah. Two might not be for a year. Yeah. And three may never get solved at all.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. Well, and the big I, you know, the biggest transition when you move from sort of a independent contributor of something Yeah. Chef or cook would've to a, to a leader is your metric of success is how well everybody. Below You does.
Yes. And that's the hardest thing I think for most people to see. Yes. Is like, you know, whenever you hear a manager complaining about their team, they don't realize you're actually complaining about yourself. Yes. Right. They're the ones that you ha, you're responsible for. That's, I, I feel like the hardest thing to take, you know, to, to take ownership of is like, no, no, no.
This is what am I doing? You like finding, I have a, you know, two sort of plaques on my wall at home. They're both stoic quotes, but one of [00:58:00] them is, how are you complicit in the environment that you mm-hmm. Say you don't want. Mm-hmm. And it, it is just part of human nature, mm-hmm. That we are always finding yourself in, in that course.
I was like, anytime we're complaining in some way, you are a part of it, right? Yeah. You, and as a leader, that's the most, that's like the most crucial thing. It's like, it's a great question to ask somebody, by the way. It's like, what's your, what, what means success for you? Because if the first thing they say is that I did da, da, da.
It's already like, yeah, my team is,
Gavin Kaysen: You know, it's a very different perspective. Well, and I think it's important to bring up, and we, we talked about this actually a lot a couple weeks ago and I, I still talk about it with them, is that, you know, when we're in a, when we're in a meeting, like, let's say all the restaurants come together and get into a meeting, all the leaders, and it's just an operational meeting.
Nothing, nothing big but important. You know, I think it's important to remind everybody in the meeting that we are the team. So if there is an issue with the company, we are the problem, 'cause we created it. I didn't do [00:59:00] it. You didn't do it. She didn't do it, and he didn't do it. Whatever. We did it. So just remember that when we're talking about the company, we are talking about all of us.
Mm-hmm. Right. And that and, and that in and itself is a, an important thing to remind any leader of. Yeah. And honestly, pretty consistently because. It's not to say that you're doing anything wrong, it's just more to say that Complic don't be complicit in it. Yeah. You know, think about how else can we, how else can we be a better version of what we're trying to do?
And, and hopefully, you know, you have leaders on your team that have sort of gone through the line positions to get to where they are and, and you can rely on their knowledge of being like, well, when I was only a mind cook or a bartender or a server or whatever, this is what I, you know, this is what I felt.
Yeah. So this, if we do X, Y, and Z, this would be better. Yeah. That helps.
Josh Sharkey: It really does trickle [01:00:00] down. It's not just leaders. There are million examples in a kitchen where somebody screws up a sauce or they, they season something poorly and the immediate answer from the sous chef is, ah, they, yeah, they screwed it up.
Mm-hmm. Why did they screw it up? Yeah. Did they have the right recipe? Did you take the time to. Train them on it. Yeah. Did you follow up? Yeah. Did you like make sure that they were clear, you know, did, did they have the right environment? You know, even if it's, you're a cook and your prep cook didn't clean the pedi po and you're, you know, sauteing them and there's, you know, whatever.
Like Yeah. There's always somebody that you can, there's always some way for you to take ownership and I feel like that's something you have to start
Gavin Kaysen: really early. Yeah. And what's hard is that it never goes away.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah.
Gavin Kaysen: You know, so I, and I think that actually that's what makes it more difficult. And I truly believe that, like, the difference between the people that are really good at this profession and iconic is that the iconic ones never let up.
Mm-hmm. On making sure that they're, that they're doing it and that the leaders are, are empowered to [01:01:00] make sure that it's correct. It does not mean that this, that something won't fall through the crack. We're human beings. Of course it will, of course you'll go into X restaurant that is rated as the best, this or that, and you'll have an, an experience or a dish that you're like, this isn't good.
How, you know, and then, so that's it, you know, I mean, it's like one dish just like changes the trajectory of everything you feel. I don't know. I mean, it doesn't, it seems a little aggressive to me. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah, absolutely. But the icon to me, the iconic, both leaders and restaurant groups and like tho those, the qualities that they carry are, you know, that they're always going, they're always staying focused on that.
Mm-hmm.
Josh Sharkey: So I would ask you what's next, but it sounds like I know a little bit about what's next. So what, what's going on in Florida?
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah, so we're, we're gonna open up a restaurant in Naples, Florida. So we're partnering with the Four Seasons down there, uh, and the Naples Beach Club and Yacht Club. When Hurricane Ian came through, it sort of wiped out that part [01:02:00] of, of, of that club.
And so Four Seasons is built there and so we're opening up a new restaurant that should open up this fall. Wow. So it's exciting, you know, new Amer, new American cuisine, focusing on the season, the bounty of what we have down there in Florida, but also understanding that there's a relationship and a tie between Naples and Mid and the Midwest.
We have a lot of people who live in Minnesota in the, in the summer and move down to Naples in the winter. Oh really? Yeah. To escape the snow. We have a lot of snowbirds that live in Naples, so knowing that we have a lot of Midwest snowbirds, there will be elements of dishes that we do and have done at Spoon and Stable that I'd like to bring down to that restaurant as well.
It's
Josh Sharkey: interesting. It's so funny. I was, I met your pastry chef. Yeah. And Erin was, uh, chatting with me and my wife is what, from what I thought was the Midwest. Apparently it's not. Where's she from? She's from this little island off the coast of Lake Erie called Putin Bay. Yeah, it reminded me of that because they all, they all sort of migrate to Florida for the, for the winter they live.
Yeah. We tend
Gavin Kaysen: to see everybody migrate to either Florida or Arizona. Scottsdale in particular. So that's our next spot. That's [01:03:00] our next spot. Yeah. So
Josh Sharkey: that's exciting. Uh, this is great, man. Really, really grateful that you took some time. I know you got a busy schedule. Oh, my pleasure. Oh, you know what, you know what I, I've been doing lately.
I'm gonna put you on the spot. Okay. Because it happened a few shows ago and now I just keep asking everybody. So now I feel like I have to index all of them. Yeah. Top five cookbooks of all time.
Gavin Kaysen: Hmm. That's a great question. Okay. I would say an obvious one is the French Laundry. Michelle Bra. Why is French laundry oven?
Because I said the French laundry, but I got, well, to me, the French laundry because I think it was the first cookbook done by an American chef in the vein of ways we had never seen food done before. Yeah. And, and it sort of, it sort of married this perfection of like nostalgia and fine dining. You know, the lighting was incredible, you know, it just looked like fantasy.
But then at the end of the day, like it looked like fantasy, but then you saw a Baskin Robbins like, you know, con with salmon, and you're like, yeah.
Josh Sharkey: It also had such a utility because so many restaurants then just started like literally Yeah. Using Yeah. That book as like, we're gonna start doing menu items based on it.
Yeah. I agree. No, like, like poaching lobster and butter. I [01:04:00] don't think it happened before.
Gavin Kaysen: No. And yeah, I mean, poaching lobster and butter or the, I mean the gar, the way they would do the garlic chips or the red or the pepper confetti. Yeah. Remember like the pepper confetti mm-hmm. Was like a big deal. But I just think he, he, he was able to, and that team that he was with Susie and Michael Ruman, everybody, I mean, they created something that only lived in that time and it's remarkable that you can still look at that book and still find inspiration.
Yeah. Whereas truthfully, you can look at a lot of other books and be like, Ooh, this just looks really old. Yeah. What's ironic is Boone is actually a great book too. Incredible book, but because it's sort of overshadowed. Yeah. By French Laundry. I mean, the French laundry book is just so, it's so iconic. Yeah.
I mean, it just really is. It's just that book that it's that one-off, you know, lightning strike. Mm-hmm. Like they did it. All right. What else? Michelle Barr bra. I love the Michelle Raw book. It's great one. That was another book that did it for me, just in terms of like, yeah, be nature and just like his artistic ability, the way that he thought about food, the way that he thought about plating was just like beyond anything [01:05:00] that I could ever imagine.
Um, which really inspired me. Um, Charlie Trotter's book, that was all vegetable base. Oh, the vegetable one. Okay. Mainly because I think the vegetable one was 20 years ahead of his time.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah.
Gavin Kaysen: I think he was so forward thinking when it came to that book that it never got the recognition that it probably deserved.
And had he come out, if he was alive and he came out with that book five years ago,
Josh Sharkey: yeah.
Gavin Kaysen: He would be a genius on a different level.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah.
Gavin Kaysen: I mean, I think the meat, the meat one meet and game was also, also good. I mean, so I'll tell you a funny Charlie Trotter story real quick. So when I was 24, 25, 24, I wrote Christmas cards to every famous chef in America every year.
For no other reason than the intention of maybe one day I'll meet these people. Yeah, okay. I'd slip my business card in there. 'cause I was in San Diego and I thought some of 'em probably golf or need to go to the beach. You know, nobody wrote me back except Charlie. He wrote me a letter back, send me every book he ever wrote.
[01:06:00] What? And from that day on until he died, we were pen pals. And I have a three ring binder in my home of every article, newspaper, clipping magazine, article, anything I was ever in his assistant would find it, even if it was local, rip it out, staple it to a ha, a typed out letter from Charlie, which really his assistant did.
Yeah. To congratulate me on the article and what the mention was. But in the bottom right hand corner was his handwriting, which was really awful actually. And he would write a beautiful letter. Saying Congratulations for X, Y, and Z. And I literally have every article that I was ever in, which I already knew I was in, sent to me by him.
That's unreal. Yeah. Wow. Isn't that crazy?
Josh Sharkey: That's so crazy. Yeah. And, and so kind, right? Yeah. Jesus, you, I you would never know that about, about Trotter.
Gavin Kaysen: No, exactly. And I think, you know, I, I, I will say, I think that that's, there's something, you know, generationally [01:07:00] that generation, Danielle's in it, Thomas is in it, j g's in it repairs in it, there is a genuine spirit of hospitality.
Mm-hmm. There's a genuine spirit that they have of making sure that you are learning what it is that they're, that they're passing down to you. And I loved that. I, I really love that. And I think, how old are you?
Josh Sharkey: 44.
Gavin Kaysen: We're, we're, so, we're the same age basically, but you know, we, we, we have a tremendous amount of responsibility.
Because we are a generation in this profession where we basically have one foot in that generation and we have one foot in the generation below us, 'cause we're in the middle now. Yeah. And so we have a tremendous amount of responsibility, not knowing exactly what it is yet, that we're gonna pass off.
Mm-hmm. But, and we don't have to figure it out in this conversation, but it is something we do need to figure out because what that, what that generation did for us, allowed us to do this. Yeah. It never would've existed otherwise. [01:08:00] That's true. But what are we gonna do now for that next generation? And I would say that question keeps me up more at night than most other questions.
I, I, a hundred percent. I think about it a lot.
Josh Sharkey: You know, it's interesting 'cause I, I regret a lot of like the, you know, the, the moving away from, from cooking and I got a lot of slack from it. Uh, I mean, Floyd, I remember vividly just being so disappointed in me for not opening a fine dining restaurant and opening a, you know, a hot dog place.
And, and then when I, you know, was. Getting into this same, and, um, it, it's really hurt me for a, you know, it's really stuck with me for a long time. But, you know, I've recently obviously sort of embraced, you know, there's so much more I that, that I can give. And I think that there is a step function change in, in, in the way in which a chef can exist today in such an amazing way.
Mm-hmm. There were, you know, in, in New York when we, when we were cooking, um, it was like 20 restaurants mm-hmm. To work out, and now there's hundreds of them mm-hmm. That are all, I mean, 20 of them were really good that you wanted to actually go sta and now there's hundreds of them. Yeah. So you have so much optionality, you [01:09:00] have so much information.
And what do you do with that and how do you actually, like, what, what do you do with that new, new, new paradigm? And there's so many options outside of just, you know, we both have friends, I'm sure that are 50, 55, 60 mm-hmm. And they're kind of done, right? Mm-hmm. You know, they're, they've been cooking, they're a chef at that age, and then, and they're not, you know.
Yeah. Um. That's a tough thing. Right? What do you do next? Yeah. Planning for that. Talking about people like, Hey, you can go this route. Yeah. Um, but you don't have to by the way. Yeah. You know, there are other things that you can do with your skill with like what you've learned with your sense of discipline.
I mean, what me plus means that like can apply to a lot of things and I think that's a beautiful thing,
Gavin Kaysen: You know? Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. I agree. And I think it, I think it's definitely, you know, it's definitely going to be a challenge for all of us to figure out what to do and how to do it, but it's important.
Yeah. It's important.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. You got three? You got two more.
Gavin Kaysen: Okay. Letters to a young chef
Josh Sharkey: Okay.
Gavin Kaysen: From Danielle.
Josh Sharkey: All right.
Gavin Kaysen: Great book.
Josh Sharkey: Of course you'd say that,
Gavin Kaysen: You know, [01:10:00] um, it's such a good book. Yeah. Both the first and the second one. Uh, and then let's see, a last one that I love. It's not a cookbook, um, but it's a really incredible story.
Uh, it's called Burgundy Stars. It's about, um, you know, the chef that, that committed suicide when we were younger, 'cause he got 19 out of 20 in the got me low. Mm-hmm. Bernardo, the book follows him before all that happens. And it's all about his stars and him getting the stars. It's a remarkable book. Uh, and written, you know, I don't know how many years ago it was written.
I have it in my office next door, but you should pick it up. It's, it's, uh, I just, you know, maybe I'm a bit of a history bum when it comes to that stuff, but I love reading about the past to sort of understand where we need to go in the future. And Burgundy Stars is kind of one of those books.
Josh Sharkey: All right.
I'm, uh, I'm definitely gonna read it.
Gavin Kaysen: Cool.
Josh Sharkey: All right. Thank you. It's great, man. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks brother.
Gavin Kaysen: Yeah. You got it.
Josh Sharkey: 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 [01:11:00] artist, fresh daily. For show notes and more, visit getmeez.com/podcast.
That's G-E-T-M- double E - Z.com/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. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know.
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