Join host Greg Boulos on this engaging episode of The Boulos Beat for an in-depth conversation with Chef Harding Lee Smith, a renowned Portland-based chef and restaurateur. Chef Smith shares his remarkable journey, from his introduction to the restaurant industry at the age of seven to his formal training at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America. Together, they explore the vision, inspiration, and challenges behind Smith’s five celebrated establishments: The Front Room, The Corner Room, The Grill Room, The Mountain Room, and The Last Run Room. The discussion also delves into the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, persistent staffing challenges, and the complexities of rising operational costs. Looking to the future, Chef Smith reveals his exciting plans for a new restaurant in Bethel.
Join host Greg Boulos on this engaging episode of The Boulos Beat for an in-depth conversation with Chef Harding Lee Smith, a renowned Portland-based chef and restaurateur.
Chef Smith shares his remarkable journey, from his introduction to the restaurant industry at the age of seven to his formal training at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America. Together, they explore the vision, inspiration, and challenges behind Smith’s five celebrated establishments: The Front Room, The Corner Room, The Grill Room, The Mountain Room, and The Last Run Room.
The discussion also delves into the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, persistent staffing challenges, and the complexities of rising operational costs. Looking to the future, Chef Smith reveals his exciting plans for a new restaurant in Bethel.
SPEAKERS
Greg Boulos, Harding Lee Smith, Speaker 1
Greg Boulos00:00
I'd like to welcome our listeners to the Boulos Beat podcast. I'm your host, Greg Boulos. Boulos company is northern New England's largest commercial real estate services firm with offices in Portland, Maine as well as Manchester and Portsmouth New Hampshire. We've been selling and leasing real estate in Maine and New Hampshire since 1975 This podcast is designed to provide insight into Maine's leaders, its movers and shakers. And speaking of leaders, I'd like to welcome Harding Lee Smith Harding is a renowned restaurant owner and chef based in Portland. Maine, known for his work at the rooms, a collection of restaurants, including the front room, the corner room and the grill room in Portland, and the mountain room and the ski in, ski out last run room at Sunday River. He's a Culinary Institute of America graduate with a reputation for rustic, approachable cuisine, a commitment to local ingredients and a strong presence in the main culinary seed. Harding was born in Brunswick, and during his childhood years. Lived in West bath for years. Harding occupied the apartment above the front room on Congress Street in 2019 he moved to North Yarmouth. Harding is 56, years old, and has been married to his second wife, Sarah for 11 years. He has a son, Griffin, who is 12, and a daughter, Dylan who is 17. Welcome to the bowl of speed. Harding. Welcome. Harding, thanks. Good to see you, Greg, good to see you too. Let's start at the beginning. How did you first get into the restaurant business? Weren't you working in a restaurant your father ran when you were seven years old? Yes,
Harding Lee Smith 01:34
it's in my blood. But during the 70s, my dad was an educator for the state of Maine and city of Bath, and in the summertime, his college buddy ran a resort in a gunque with a restaurant. So my dad for extra money, as teachers would do, he worked there in the summer times. So sometimes they had nothing to do with me. Nobody to watch me or whatever. So he'd bring me with him, and I'd sit on his stool over in the corner. And eventually somebody would order lobsters, like, I know how to do that, and I'd get up and get the lobster in the pot at that time, 17 minutes. I've learned since it's a lot less time than that, but I got to cook the lobsters and then cut them and plate them. Learn to use a knife at that point. And forever since, I've always been in the kitchen
Greg Boulos02:16
at seven. Did you get paid?
Speaker 102:17
No, not really. And then I think it was a buck 25 an hour when I was 10 or something like that.
Greg Boulos02:26
Early in your career, you worked as far away as Hawaii, you and your girlfriend or then girlfriend also traveled route 66 West. What was that chapter in your life all about?
Speaker 102:37
Well, I went to BU for college. I went to hotel food management for four years. Actually took five years. Graduated 92 and I wanted to go to culinary school, so I matriculated at the Culinary California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, and we finished up our jobs, bought an f2 50, packed everything we could in the back of it, and drove across country,
Greg Boulos03:02
and when you landed in San Francisco, one of your jobs involved delivering wood to restaurants. How did that experience influence your interest in hospitality?
Speaker 103:10
Well, when I got to San Francisco, I didn't find a job that I really wanted, so I had a pickup truck. So I'm like, What am I going to do? So I started looking in the want ads. Remember want ads when you went to a piece of paper and you circled what you want to do, and it said, have a truck deliver wood. So I went and met this guy, and he took the cab off the back of the truck, and I would deliver firewood all around the Bay Area. So it was great way to learn the Bay Area and see everything driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, San Rafael bridge, all these things, but it turns out that they also delivered firewood into the restaurants in San Francisco for wood burning ovens and so forth. So I would always try to take that, take that, that run. So I got into North Beach, got to know people at mooses and all these different places. And that's when I started to make connections. Of where do you find a job?
Greg Boulos03:58
Was there one particular impactful lesson you learned early on that still guides your business philosophy today.
Speaker 104:06
Keep driving. Never shortcut, always try to keep moving forward. I think one of the biggest things that people do is they rest on their laurels and they start shortcutting things, and rather than going that extra step each time, every time I do a dish or do a restaurant like, what can I do more? What's the next thing that I can do to make this a little make this a little bit better than what I did before or
Greg Boulos04:27
or what somebody else might be doing? Where do you think that came from?
Speaker 104:31
Fear failure? Probably it's quite a motivator. Yeah, it really is.
Greg Boulos04:37
You've opened five distinct restaurants. Let's go through each would you briefly describe six? Well, we'll get to that. Okay. Would you briefly describe when you open them and what sets each one apart? Corner Room in Portland.
Speaker 104:53
The corner room was the third of the three rooms, 2009 and I would. Remember working on the line at the grill room during lunch, and my daytime sous chef, Mark actually, Mark toughenhart, he we were just shooting the breeze. And I knew that this place I had, it was a gallery at the time, only a gallery at the corner and building the old Masonic temple with big windows and so forth. And one of my neighbors up on monjoy Hill was running the gallery, and she asked me to do some appetizers for her for one of the parties she was having. So I went up there, and, wow, this make a great restaurant. And then suddenly it became available. So I said to them, I said, what did we need? And instead, what don't we have? And at that time, we didn't really have any sort of artisanal Italian doing salumi and cheeses and house made pasta and so forth. We have those things, sort of things now. So I think that's what it needs. It kind of led itself with the bright, big, tall windows and so forth to sort of a tracheria style wines by the carafe, inexpensive, you know, that sort of thing,
Greg Boulos05:56
the front room, which was your first one. What's the back story on that?
Speaker 106:01
So we went to 2003 2004 Larry with the understanding that I was going to be moving on trying to open my own place. I was walking my dogs, and saw this for lease sign on the building. I'm like, I gotta go back there. And then it was a snowstorm. A couple weeks later, I was walking my dogs again. They were from Hawaii. The dogs had come from Hawaii. They didn't like the snow at all. They had a really hard time with the snow, but this release sign was gone. I'm like, oh my god, no. Oh no. So I made it my mission to the next day when I started knocking on all the doors in the apartment building, and eventually knocked on the correct door, and the owner was out of town and down in German Shepherd actually entered the door for me, and the owner was in Baltimore, and they gave me his phone number, so I called him. He said, You're welcome to try. I'd love to see you put a restaurant here, but it's not zoned for it. People have tried, but they've all failed. And so he agreed to let me put one there. It was an empty basement. Had been a super rat for years and years, but they had fallen into just sort of doing nothing. It was an exercise machine down there, and a couple hood ornaments off of antique cars really kind of fascinating, and a couch. So I went about trying to change the zoning, and a very nice city councilman named Will Gorham put me under his wing and really helped me get that, get the liquor license, get the zoning changed, all in one shot. And next thing you know, December 7, 2005 we opened, scared out of my gourd.
Greg Boulos07:27
Well, that's a good way to operate, actually, isn't it? Yeah. And then you also opened up the grill room on exchange
Speaker 107:33
street. That was second so that was the former Natasha's restaurant, which funny twist of fate I had worked as my first job when I moved back from Hawaii in 2003 I got hired as a lunch chef, but to be the opening chef at Mims, which is where Elevation Burger is down there, her second or third restaurant, French inspired Brasserie. And so I worked there, and I was running the front room, and I this great guy who's actually in his 19th year, uh, today would be the end of his his anniversary month of 19 years, Greg Wilson, I hired him. He came from in by the sea, and he took over a chef de cuisine, and that enabled me to be free to open another place. And I found that the grill that Natasha's was going to be closing, and I took over that space, and we made some major renovations and opened the grill room as a steakhouse, kind of in inspiration of F parkarities Right across the street, where black cow is now. I wanted it to be that sort of big bar the it was the day, the three Martini lunch and so forth. You know, obviously lunch business has dissipated quite a lot since covid and so forth. But that's kind of what it was. It was kind of that gentlemanly dark brick, you know, wood fired grill, steak, Smokey, that sort of thing. And we're still chugging along. And what year was that? That was we opened May of 2008
Greg Boulos08:59
stepping out of Portland, the mountain room at Sunday
Speaker 109:01
River. Yep, that debating when the actual opening day is for that we are going to be entering our 10th season this year. So we think it was 2016 there is much debate about when this happened. A lot of things were going on at the time, and I still had boons at that point. So there was a there was a lot going on. But my wife, Sarah, and I, we were actually, we're not married at the time. When we opened it, we started going to sunny river skiing. It was actually our first date. Was at sunny River and I got to know the President, Dana Bowen, through Fred forsley for getting rooms to stay over and so forth. And we eventually, Dana says, you want to open a restaurant. And I said, What? Next thing you know, mountain room is open, and it really sort of set the town on its on its ear. I think we do really proud of the food and the bar scene, but it's lively, a sense of community that we created up there. Everybody's become family and friends really get a lot of press. Yes, we got voted best on snow mountain restaurant in North America two years and three years in a row, and got a really nice article in Down East and it's been really rewarding and a lot of fun. So
Greg Boulos10:11
that award you got for it was all the on mountain
Speaker 110:13
Restaurants today. Poll on snow dining in North America, and we finished second to someplace in Vancouver, but we got we got United States.
Greg Boulos10:24
That's quite an honor. Pretty cool. So I believe you and your former wife reopened Boone's restaurant on the waterfront in 2013 Yes, but you sold your share in 2000 17,018. 2018 what led to that decision
Speaker 110:40
Boone's was is a beast. We created this two floor restaurant, absolutely gorgeous, very proud of the build out my friends, John Sampson and Walt juvie. They crafted the bars and the woodwork and the wainscoting, and really made this thing look like the inside of a yacht. Just absolutely beautiful. Huge kitchen. It just was really, really big, and it was kind of like an anchor that helped me there. I couldn't, like I said, you got to keep moving forward and so forth. And I didn't feel that I could really keep moving forward in this place. And my ex wife and I were divorcing, and it just made a lot of sense to sell my share to her
Greg Boulos11:17
when launching restaurants. Do you self fund the ventures, or do you have investors involved? And if it's investors, can you tell us a little bit how you structure the deals? Sure
Speaker 111:30
it's both. Boone's was self financed. The front room was investors. The Grill room was done in loans, and the corner room was also done as with investors. They've all been bought out, with the exception of my sister and my my mother at this point. But it's basically an LLC. I be the operator, the managing member of the LLC, and they're equity investors. They, for everybody gets a pro rata share, depending on how much money you raise. It gets divided for that, and that's where their capital account either goes up or goes down depending on the year that we've had.
Greg Boulos12:11
So each of your restaurants, and I've been to, virtually all of them, have a unique personality. How do you develop the concepts and define the vibe for each
Speaker 112:19
one? Well, I think it's kind of started when I've been trying to open restaurants for years and years and years, back to the, you know, early 1990s when I first moved to San Francisco, that was the goal, was to try to open a restaurant. And never succeeded quite then, but knocked the doors a lot, sort of got leases involved, and found places. And it just seems to me I'm an active diner. I love the restaurant business. I love eating out. I love the whole drama of it. I love the theater of it. And I think each place has to be unique for what's needed in the environment. You know, you're probably not going to put a seafood restaurant in the middle of Iowa, though you might, but, you know, I think you got to, you need to see what the area needs. So when I saw the front room, immediately, the thing spoke to me is this needs a neighborhood spot. This is a place where you can have a pint, watch the red sauce game, eat a pork chop, and not worry about your credit card balance that you know. And then eventually becomes neighborhood spot where everybody knows your name, kind of like the cheers thing. Everybody wants to be where they know their name, and it becomes sort of convivial like that. You know, loud. All our restaurants are kind of loud and bustling and so forth, like that. Some people complain about that. I say, Well, it's a lot better than the alternative, because that means there's nobody in there and they're quiet. This is a very eerie feeling being in a restaurant with no music playing or anything like that. We play our music pretty loud. We like the conversation to be loud. We keep the vibe, sort of the vibe going. So with the front army was clearly a neighborhood spot where the grill room at the time, other than Fourth Street, there was almost no place to get a good steak in town. I don't think there was any place to get a good steak in town. I mean, valleys had closed, not that that was a, you know, necessarily a fantastic Steakhouse, but they were, they had that, you know, that kind of thing. And it just spoke to me that this needs to be a steakhouse. And like I said, you know, with the inspiration, F parkerides, that's right across the street, there wasn't a kind of place for that, that sort of dark, smoky kind of environment. Same thing with the corner. I was like, What is What do you see here? This is another convivial, loud, bustling, you know, fast paced kind of thing. And then with the mountain room, at the time, with Sunday river, there wasn't a place, really to get a good bite to eat. You could get, you know, chicken fingers or a burger that had been sitting out for a while. They've since that's evolved dramatically. Since then, I like to think that we've had a lot to do with that of evolving the evolving the whole culinary scene up there. But we needed a place. My wife and I were skiers, and we wanted a place that we wanted to go to. You know, seems like we screwed ourselves, because now we get to enjoy it. The place that we created is the place that we would want to go now we're there instead of enjoying it ourselves, but that's kind of the thing we want to you know, what are people that are like us? What do they want? And turns out we were right. They want a lively bar with nice, loud music. We play a lot of Grateful Dead and rock and roll so forth, like that, like minded people serving free flowing, different local beers and cool cocktails and so forth. But it's loud. Everybody knows each other. We scream at each other across the bar. We have just a fantastic time. We have bands out on the deck. And then the other place that we've opened up there called the last run room, which is down in the ski ski and ski house called, we call it an on snow lounge. It started because of covid. We needed some more dining space, and nobody could be inside. So we created these, these igloos outside, and fire pits and so forth, so everybody could be outside and still be convivial, but keeping their distance from each other, etc, etc. And it just seemed like that's what was needed in that spot. And it what my wife and I created, particularly her, with the tin ceiling and the all the stainless steel on the shelves. And we built this beautiful white bar. My friend John Sampson made it just so this is, this is an oyster bar. So we created an oyster bar with a heavy Asian influence and so forth. But we do six varieties oysters, shrimp, cocktail, lobster, and really beautiful local bluefin tuna and things like that, things you just don't get in Bethel or get anywhere. So in each time I do this, I want to try to do something I've never done before. So when we're up there, we try to cook things that we've never cooked before and that our friends, our guests, have never eaten before, and to try to wow them like that, we always try to wow their expectations over exceed their expectations. There's a book by will guardia called unreasonable service. So it's unreasonable. You're going beyond and beyond the best you possibly can meet
Greg Boulos16:37
or beat expectations. Yes, as you know, the restaurant business is tough, and there's a lot of people about a restaurant, and unfortunately, they don't make it, but you've got five very successful restaurants. How is that possible? Don't know, it's you have a horseshoe somewhere.
Speaker 116:57
It's a struggle every day. Be perfectly honest, you have to watch everything. You know, I'm sure I could watch things a lot more, but that, you know, penny pinching and watching every dollar and so forth really is extremely important, but you also have to have a sort of a calm demeanor and not stress out, because there are moments when it gets really challenging. We've been through a lot in the past five to six years, and it wasn't always 100% that we were going to make it. You know, in fact, sometimes you wish some sometimes that you just closed. And a lot of people didn't make it. They might have made it through covid, but then they didn't make it on the outcome, on the on the next round. You know, we had the challenges of being told we had to close and then being told we could partially open. So we made the decision, Sarah and I made the decision to shut down completely rather than try to do limited service or partial service. We figured if we close now and open when they let us be fully back, we know we can make that, but if we only open part way, we might lose so much money that we'll never open again. So we chose the really hard path of shutting down completely, and that was all your restaurants, all the restaurants. We ended up opening the front room for takeout in November of 2020, where Greg Wilson, who I spoke about before, did take out. We didn't make any money, but we kept the neighborhood fed the best we could. We had a little takeout window where they'd come and take it. They all ordered online. And so it was very weird. It was very, very peculiar. You know, you're cooking for people you can't see, which is just strange in our world. You know, you cook to see the smiles on people's faces and see them go, wow. And they take their first bite and see the room, you actually get quiet when they all get their food. That's one of the, you know, things that brings the joy about it. And it was very hard. I'm gonna get a little emotional about it's really
Greg Boulos18:46
hard. Did you get help from your landlords during covid? Or did they say, hey, it's full rent. Or
Speaker 118:51
one of my we made offers overtures to our landlords to we wanted to pay upfront with a discount, one of my landlords, the front end landlord, actually took that we paid our rent in advance for six months and for a small discount, and the other landlords chose not to do so.
Greg Boulos19:13
So you got emotional about the what the landlords did? Or
Speaker 119:18
did I get emotional about covid in general? It was really hard, really hard time. Yeah, you're sitting in your driveway, you're looking at your car, you go, well, that's going back tomorrow. You know, you're sitting in your house you just bought six months before, going, Well, wonder where we'd be living six weeks. You know, you got your children. You're trying to homeschool your kids and keep them active. And it was just really brutal.
Greg Boulos19:41
You're talking about stress, stress. That's stress, worry, fear. So Marty, walk us through a typical day. I mean, you've got five restaurants. How do you manage that? And where do you cook? How do you decide which restaurant to cook in? Typically, the
Speaker 119:56
grill room is the biggest, the biggest monster moving. Thing. So during the summertime, I'm typically you'll find me at the grill room cooking. I'm actually gonna be at the front room for a couple of weeks covering vacations. I kind of go where I'm needed. Somebody needs some time off or needs a vacation. I kind of fill in there. If I'm have to be on the line cooking. Every day, something's gone wrong, and I'm not doing it right. I, like we were talking about the other day, Greg, sort of when I find a place and get a concept and so forth, I sort of dedicate myself to that spot and work straight through, trying to get that concept in place, get the systems in place, how things function, how things flow. And then the job is trying to keep that going, keeping everybody on task and making sure that they're following those systems that you put into place, not just like a, you know, like a McDonald's or a chain like that, but you know, how the orders come in, how orders go out, what the recipes are, all that sort of thing. So it really is just kind of where I'm needed. I mean, at the mountain, at sunny River, I cooked mostly at the last run room. I created this little, cool little kitchen with my sous chef, Stephen Flint, who've been with me for going on 10 years now, nine years we cooked together. We have a great time together. We where he's my right hand, I'm his left hand. We juke and jive and duck and twist and turn, figure out the way through this little kitchen, and we just have a great time doing it. And like I said, like to cook, so I challenged myself to cook things I haven't cooked before. So it's kind of fun to do that in the wintertime, and it's nice because it's, it's three to four days a week. Get to ski one day most of the time anyway, and that's kind of how I balance my day. I mean, I wake up, I get on the computer, see what I need to do, as far as that goes, answering emails, you know, but always kind of looking for my brain constantly is running around with food in my head. It's like I have trouble sleeping. I try to find something that I listen to, A to A noise machine, and I lock my brain on what kind of what am I going to cook tomorrow? My wife likes to say, Oh, is it to be about food? I'm like, Well, you know who you married, right? Because after you finished breakfast, it's like, Okay, what's going to be dinner?
Greg Boulos22:14
Food is what we do. That's food is what we do. So tell me, or tell our audience a time when everything went to hell in a restaurant in one day. I mean, everything went wrong. I'm sure this never happened to you, but if it did
Speaker 122:29
well, currently, one of our three air conditioners is working perfectly. We just replaced one at the front room. There's water all over the floor and the annex that's adjacent to the grill room, and there's water dripping out of the ceiling at the bar at the grill room, because the ACs are overwhelmed because of the humidity. So those things can go wrong. The ice machine at the front, at the corner room is broken. The ice machine at the grill room, which is less than two years old, it needs a new water pan, so it's being fixed tomorrow. Ice is on the floor, so that's kind of an example. It's constantly doing like that. And you just kind of, some days, just breathe and go, Okay, what's next? I can fix anything as long as I know about it. For the most part. You know, you gotta trust the people that do these jobs. You get a good refrigeration guy, and you make sure you're paying them, and you you know that they're on top of it, they're coming to do their maintenance, but it's just, it's that's the constant battle. I kind of like that in some ways. And sometimes you look like, Jesus Christ, really, that's gonna break today.
Greg Boulos23:30
Okay, in most restaurants I've heard, there's conflicts between the kitchen and the front of the house staff. Oftentimes, how do you resolve those conflicts?
Speaker 123:42
Kitchens are very much restaurants are very much like high school. There are there's constant drama and constant things. Try not to get too involved with it, realizing that a lot of things are interpersonal and so forth. You try to hire good people that are not going to have huge conflicts. They do happen Nate. Life is like that, because you end up spending more time with these people than you do with your own family. Be perfectly honest. I mean, I definitely do that without question. And our kitchens and restaurants are all open and what that is open concept kitchen, so there you see everything that's going on. So the fact that there's no wall, I think, lends itself. We don't have a whole lot of these problems. I've worked in kitchens when I was younger, where there was constant drama back and forth between the front of the house and back of the house, and that being the, you know, the servers and the cooks, and because everybody's sort of on the same plane, and everybody's right there in front of the guest, I think that that helps limit that a little bit. But just to try to, you know, part of our job, my wife and I's job these days is we're cheerleaders. You know, you're going to rah, rah, rah, even we could have the crappiest day in the planet earth. You get to work, you got to put that beside behind you, you know, hopefully communicating that well to the management and the staff. Just trying to keep it light. There are times when it gets or it gets really challenging and difficult, and sometimes people have to leave. Sometimes, you know, you have to fire people. Sometimes people have to, have to move on to the next thing, and not necessarily because they're doing a bad job, just because sometimes it's time to time to move on. You know, when I was younger, when I was working, I didn't my my mentors were like, don't spend more than a year and a year and a half, you know, year and a half, keep learning, keep reaching, and so forth like that. And I think that once you reach a certain age, you want to settle in. You want to be in one spot that's very it's very, you know, comforting to know where you're going, what you're doing becomes very familiar. But I think that sometimes, like our younger people, it's important for them to continue to keep moving.
Greg Boulos25:39
You mentioned to me that when the doors open, it's like Showtime.
25:44
Yes,
Greg Boulos25:45
theater. And how do you play? How do you impart that on the employees,
Speaker 125:53
I think, kind of by doing themselves. Like, if I'm working the line and working at the grill room, for instance, I do countdowns like we open at four o'clock when we're not open for lunch, we open at four o'clock for happy hour. So at 330 I'll call out 330 and that sort of keeps people on their toes, as far as that goes. And then at, you know, quarter of four, okay, 345 we're opening open in 15 minutes, which means we're open in five minutes. Everybody in the uniform, let's get ready. And knowing that, particularly at the grill room, because it is such a dramatic, special occasion kind of restaurant that we have to be in uniform. The lights are set where they need to be, the music set where it needs to be, because at five o'clock or four o'clock, that curtain goes up. We're all actors in a play. We're wearing costumes. I'm wearing a costume. The server's wearing a costume. We really are actors in a play, not that we're being disingenuous, because we really this is our passion, what we like to do, but realizing that these people are here for an experience and not It's not like you're going to the burger joint and just grabbing a quick burger, you know that has an experience to it as well. I'm thinking, Where am I thinking of Harmons? It's not like you're going to Harmons and picking up a burger in a box and going out and picking a table to eat. You're sitting in a dining room that has been curated by these wonderful craftsman carpenters, has been cleaned every single day for the last 17 years by servers, wiping the corners, cleaning all the detail, polishing the glasses, making sure there's no spots on the knives and the forces. Those are our props, right? And that everything that's on the pot racks. We have pot racks in our kitchen. The things are on there that they're not dusty because these dusty, because these are our props. These are, and not only that, are they're our tools as well. They were using and just making sure that you're ready for these guys to come in. Because there's nothing worse than having to scramble and being behind the whole day. I always like to get online as soon as I can. I move as fast as I can. When I walk in the door, I'm going back and forth in the kitchen as fast as I can. I keep my hands full. We have that saying, full hands in, full hands out. So you never have an empty hand, because it's always something to do. And just making sure you're setting that environment of of that because you think about a theater and you have behind the scenes, behind the stage, there's people doing all kinds of things, lifting curtains, moving, changing costumes, doing all that thing. It's a constant, moving, breathing, breathing thing. And I just You imparted by them, hopefully, by doing it yourself and then seeing it. It rubs off on them. Doesn't always work. Setting an example, setting example by doing yourself. You know, you know how you treat people. I'm sure you know in your business, real estate business, you treat your clients like they're the most important thing too, that they're that you don't have any other clients. You only have them. That's not true. You have 1000s of clients, but they need to feel that you're only it's them. Like I say we have this. I say the same thing at the pre shift over and over again. Absolutely sound like a broken record, but I say it so that they'll people, hopefully will have it wrote in their brain, but that these guests at this table are the most important person in your life. Put your phone away, put your troubles away for these next four hours, because they need to be the most important person in your life. They need to feel that way because they're paying your wage. We're paying your taxes. They're paying your wage. So how much you make, how much you ring, is what you bring. So you you take care of them very well. They're going to take care of you very well. You know, you treat them like they're just an average Joe or whatever that you're not going to do as well. You know, our servers can make very good money for themselves, but because they take care of their guests.
Greg Boulos29:17
I've never worked in the restaurant business, but I've heard enough that chefs are notorious for having tempers your chef, and in the past, I know you've acknowledged having a fiery side. How have you worked to manage that aspect of your personality in high pressure environments?
Speaker 129:37
I think just simply growing up, getting older, realizing what's important, what's not important, having kids, settling down, I think in my younger days, when we first had a lot of stress, and I think when, when you lash out as a chef or as anybody does, it's probably because you're I don't know what the word is that I'm looking for, but you're either insecure or you don't really know what you're. What you're up against. You don't have the answers, and you're trying to not pretend, but to portend that you have the answers. And it can get really stressful. I mean, there's definitely days I've had saute pans thrown at my head. I had a duck one time with a chef in San Francisco threw a saute pan because it wasn't sauteing the John Dory correctly, and he slung the pan in my head, and somebody yelled, duck. And I ducked in. The saute pan hit the walk in, still a dent to this day, I guarantee it. And the piece of fish and the pan hit the ground, and I turned my back, biting my lip, trying my very best not to cry, and I said, Yes, chef, that is a completely different environment. Now you can't get away with that a with social media cameras, but just the way we and the open kitchens, and the open kitchens, exactly. But I think just growing up, you know, mellowing out a little bit. I mean, there's been times when I've gotten so mellow that some of my managers, or every like, what happened to you? You need, we need you all the Harding back where were, you know, just to get everybody in line. Like, which way do you want it? Now, come on, folks. But you know, I've acknowledged in the past that you know definitely had had a temper. Still do at times. It gets very frustrating. But you know, you talk to anybody who's worked with with me or for me over the course of the years, and if you do your job, you're not going to hear a whole lot from me in a negative way, it's when you're not doing your job, not fulfilling your expectations, and it's not that I will acknowledge that somebody doesn't have the skills yet they haven't been that's our fault for not training them properly. But when you've been training you have the answers and you know how to do the job and you don't, it gets really frustrating. That's that's in any business, I'm sure, when you know that they can do the job and you've seen them do the job, and then they don't, that gets very difficult. It's very challenging. And the same thing for myself, if I if I miss something one day, or I forget to order something or put something somewhere, I get very frustrated. I'll go back and do it. I'm the kind of person that if I have a list that I'm making for the day, whatever I'm prepping it with, or what errands I need to run and I'm crossing, I love crossing things off a list, best part, best part. But if I do something that wasn't on the list, I'll go back, write it on the list and then cross it
Greg Boulos32:07
out. You're not a type A personality
32:09
guy. Perhaps,
Greg Boulos32:12
during the pandemic, many employees found that they earned as much on unemployment than working. How did that affect your staffing and operations? Now, I know you didn't open a lot of restaurants, but you did open up the was it the corner
Speaker 132:26
room, the front room for well, the front room was just Greg there. Greg and our longtime employee, Ryan grass, front of the house, manager and bar manager at the front room. He's been with us 19 years. Greg has been with us 19 years they Greg ran the kitchen, and he would create some cool specials and cool things and put them on the menu. And the menu would change, you know, weekly or daily, sometimes. And Ryan would do cocktails to go and run the pickup window so they didn't Greg didn't want to collect unemployment. Greg wanted to work, so Greg immediately worked. He worked at a different restaurant, and he asked if we could, if we were on to open the front room for takeout so he could stay with us. And thank goodness we did so, because he's still with us to this day. The restaffing was very, very, very difficult. Is we have a five man line at the grill room. For instance, it was two people there, was me and I got another one of my chefs, or was maybe sometimes three, only open Friday and Saturday to start with, then open Thursday, Friday, Saturday, then Wednesday, and I was back. Finally, five years later, seven days a week. But it definitely was very, very, very difficult that nobody came back to work. And it wasn't that they were just saying, No, I'm not coming back. We couldn't even find them. There was nobody. It was bizarre. Front of the house a little bit different. There was servers, because it's kind of a more transient thing. They were a little bit easier to find, but still not there were days when we, you know, I know this, many of my peers had the same thing happen, when you would have to put a sign they were closed due to staffing. And there were days when we just couldn't open because that day didn't have enough staff. There were days when I would do the line myself with one guy, one guy on the grill, and just scrambling to get it done. So labor cost was great.
Greg Boulos34:10
But So has that changed now or gone? Gone back to normal, where you could hire people within a reasonable amount of time, qualified people,
Speaker 134:19
reasonable front of the house is much better. A lot of people, whether you know, we have a lot of our front of the house employees at the corner room, at the front room and at the grill room, are mature adults. This is their job. This is their vocation. They enjoy it. They make a solid living for themselves. So we have a good core of those people that have been with us for quite a long time that came back after covid that stayed with us. We had a fire at the grill room into the summer of 2003 so we were closed for nearly six months, five months for that. It's another one of those challenges that we've had to overcome. So we have a lot of that. Those those staff members, the kitchen staff, has been. Very challenging. It's now much better than it was, but it was nearly impossible post covid. I don't know people were some, one of our guys was playing video games for a living. Swear to God, making 10 grand a month, video games. Playing video games. Unbelievable. Yeah, the online personality is playing video games. My son was, is gonna listen to this, because, of course, he was playing video games for money. Makes all kinds of money. I think that's his aspiration. The but now we have, there's a new immigrant population in in Portland, of Guatemalans, a lot of Latino men and women who are just tremendous workers. They you show them once. They're very prideful, very humble, humble. And we've managed to staff our kitchens with a lot of these people that are some of the best cooks I've ever worked with. No two of the guys that are working in our kitchen, three of the guys that are working in our kitchens right now are Guatemalan guys that started as dishwashers for us, that showed an aptitude for it, and now they love it, and now they're creating good dishes. They've learned English, we've learned a little bit of Spanish. Could always learn more. And they're making really good money for themselves. It's expensive labor, but they're great. They're great guys. And they show up. They show up every single day. No matter what. We have to send them home if they use like, you know, you're sick today. No, I'm okay. He's like, No, you're going home. You're sick. It's, it's, which is not something you you see typically, you know, we the days of when I first opened the front room, my staff was high school kids. Kid named Tim Anderson started dishwasher. Then became such I ended up being sous chef at the corner room. He's now out of the business, but he was great kid. He started me when he was 16 years old. Got himself emancipated from his from his from his father, and ended up just learning to cook and learning. Ended up getting a tattoo of a of a pig and a knife on his arm and just really falling in love with it. Another kid that worked with him named David. I can't remember David's last name at the time, he called out sick twice because it was grandmother's funeral. She died twice. She's never had passed away, but he, you know, and he learned, like, you can't do this, buddy, you gotta, you know, he grew up and so forth. I ended up sitting, I was at a restaurant in Kenmore Square. It was called Great Bay. Jeremy. I can't remember the guy's last name, Jeremy, something or other had it. And I'm sitting there with a group of friends before a Red Sox game, and suddenly a bunch of food comes to the table. I'm like, What's this? Chef Smith, this is from David. I'm like, who like, is David? He worked for he was a line cook for you in front room in Portland, like what that never would have thought in a million years, this kid would have made it up to he was a sous chef in Boston, working at this really, really high end restaurant. It was pretty, pretty rewarding, pretty
Greg Boulos37:49
cool. Are his grandmother's still dying?
Speaker 137:52
It's just 20 years ago. So they probably, probably yes, probably have passed
Greg Boulos37:59
What's the biggest challenge running a restaurant today. Do you think, I mean, we're past covid Now,
Speaker 138:06
prices, we just the tariffs have finally just hit. Actually, not that this, you know, linen, like napkins. You see it like the front room uses them. They're not a cotton napkin, but a paper napkin, but a higher quality. They just went up 30 bucks a case, and when they're only within $55 and now $85 and I asked my guy, I'm like, What's the deal? He goes tariffs. I'm like, holy moly. So they come from China, a lot of the paper products, a lot of those kind of things. You wouldn't think that that's your big expense, right? You think your food costs you get what's your steak costing you? What's your what's your carrots costing you? They're not coming they're coming from here. They're grown. We use local products, but the paper products, the to go silverware, the to go cups, that kind of thing, we're starting to really see that it's what's difficult now, prior to covid, profit margins are always slim in the restaurant, but now they're razor thin, and it's the cost of labor is very high. But it's not just labor. The utilities are quadruple like they used to be, electricity, gas, water, sewer. You know, when I see a faucet running at one of the restaurants, like, why we need to thaw the shrimp? Like, don't thaw it like that, pull it out the night before, because we pay for that water coming out of the tap and what's going down the drain. You know, we use like when our water pitchers at the end of the night, we don't pour them down the drain. We pour them on the plants. Because, let's not, you know, we don't need to water the plants more. Let's water with these things. The cost of health insurance is through the roof. It's 75% more than it used to be. The cost of our liability insurance, workman's comp insurance, all of it has gone skyrocketed. You know, everybody thinks it's labor, yes, labor is expensive, but it's everything else is so incredibly expensive. I
Greg Boulos39:48
know when I go, I go out eat a lot, because I don't know how to cook, but it just seems like prices now are maybe double what they were pre
Speaker 139:56
covid. Yeah, and they should, and they should be triple, really, more than.
Greg Boulos40:00
The restaurants have tried to keep the prices down, otherwise
Speaker 140:02
it won't help the customers. That's that's kind of the thing like the front room. It was a it was an affordable neighborhood restaurant. We up until, I can't remember exactly the year, but we my philosophy and goal was nothing over $20 I mean, scallops, $19 steak, $19 $20 and then it had to go up to nothing over $25 I was pre covid Because, just because just because things were starting to creep up, and now it's nothing over $30 we might have one or two things that are a little bit more than $30 but that's neighborhood restaurant. So in the 20 years we 20 years this December, prices have doubled on the menu. You know, I think somebody said during covid, when it first happened, well, the days of the $30 cheeseburger aren't far behind. Well, the cheeseburger at the grill, and while huge, magnificent and fantastic, is 35 bucks. But like so our steaks, we have $70 steaks. We have $185 steaks. We also have a $36 steak. We got a $29 chicken. Do you try to have things on the menu that can be that your cost can be low enough to make a small profit, but that is sticker shock. So everybody can come in and have that, you know, smoked half chicken, or the roasted salmon, as opposed to the $70 ribeye. But our business model is a steakhouse. Steaks are expensive and costs a lot. We house that inventory. We're holding $10,000 worth of inventory of steaks because it costs a lot of money. Like the steak, you know, you think, well, $70 or just a rip off. We can't believe you're charging so much for filet or ribeye. Well, we are. Food costs should be around 25% 30% on a menu item, on the steak, it's more like 50% because you can't charge so much, but you're still making that dollar out of the seat. So like the ribeye to get on the plate is costing us like 29 $30 and it's not like, you know that would mean we need to charge 110 to make that 25% so Steakhouse, the profit is more about what you're getting out of that chair, the dollar amount, as opposed to that. So we're trying to provide relative value where the New York sirloin with a ribeye with a filet, because it costs us a lot of money to do this.
Greg Boulos42:02
I've heard that I was talking to Josh Miranda, who sat in that seat, and he was telling me that people don't drink as much as they used to in bars. And would you agree with that? And it's almost like they're doing pre gaming at home or whatever. Maybe they'll because the cost of alcohol is so expensive it may have a drink at home, and then
Speaker 142:25
I think that's probably true. I mean, I don't that's a big profit much. I don't have any numbers to back that up. You know, it's all be anecdotal. I can see that the bars are definitely bars. And restaurants, I can see are a little bit slower than they were. The Happy Hour scene is still pretty good, but it's, it's brief. They don't necessarily stick around after happy hour is over. They get that last 559 order of, you know, whatever discounted menu item we're having at the time they get that last order in. I see this at places I go up in Bethel too that you see 559 Okay, last call for happy hour stuff, and they get it, and then everybody scoots as soon as happy hours over. We have a, you know, people dying at our bars and that sort of thing. But I think it's probably true that people are spending less on alcohol. It's, I mean, how many $16 cocktails Can you drink? And unfortunately, we have to charge that so we can get, make, make profit. But I mean, seriously, how many $16 martinis Are you going to have? First of all, you shouldn't have more than a couple anyway, but you know. But you also see the other bars like downtown, where the 25 year olds are going, or who, you know, whatever age you want to say, they're just as busy as ever.
Greg Boulos43:35
Yeah. Do you for yourself? Ever worry about burnout? You got five restaurants.
43:41
I've burned out so many times.
Greg Boulos43:44
You probably over it all. How do
43:47
you get buddy? You want to buy a restaurant?
Greg Boulos43:49
How do you Well, you put your compulsive restaurant, restaurant here, and we're going to get into a little more of that here in a minute. But how do you keep it all together.
Speaker 144:01
I try my downtime to relax, to breathe. I like to spend time with my family. I like to spend time with my friends. I like to spend time with my dogs. I have three dogs currently, they have a giant 175 pound English Mastiff named Willie, who is like the light of our lives. I just really try to find downtime, shut your brain off for a little bit. Can you do that? I can I trust like I, you know, you asked me a couple days ago, how do you do it? And you kind of just have to let go a little bit, because, if you can't, because there's always something going on that you'd want to be different if you're not there, you know darn well, you can walk in the door and immediately I can do it anybody's restaurant, not just my own. That's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong. We have to realize that it's not they're not inside your brain. They're not exactly seeing it the way you're seeing it. And that not ever saying that that's good enough, but realizing that it can't always be exactly perfect, that you have to be able to let it go. Little bit, shut your brain off and just enjoy life like enjoy a sunset, enjoy seeing an eagle fly, you know,
Greg Boulos45:08
you know, somebody told me they said perfect is the enemy of good. Enough
45:14
as a good phrase, I like that.
Greg Boulos45:18
So you've been in this career for basically your whole life. What's the biggest mistake you've seen other restaurant owners make?
Speaker 145:29
Well, I think that the ones that fail, I mean, they fit. Restaurants can fail for all sorts of different reasons. You know, covid was not the best fires can happen. But a lot of people, I didn't get into it because it's a romantic idea. It seems like it would be fun, and it's not necessarily. You can have fun doing it, but you got to do it because you love it. You got to do it because you like taking care of people and you like making people smile. If you're doing it for to get rich, you're screwed, because you're not going to get rich. Sometimes people strike goals and come up with some beautiful concept that gets franchised and things like that, or, you know, somebody's really good at tick tock and gets 5 million views on some silly hack that they figured out, which I probably should get more into. It's not my forte, but you can't get you have to get into it because you love doing it, knowing that it's going to be a lot of work. It's hard work, knowing that you're going to cut yourself. I mean, I have a callus on my finger that's, you know, just hard as rock, but not being afraid of getting dirty, getting down your hands and knees, scrubbing the corners, scrubbing the walls. You need to do that. I need to do more of that. Everybody needs to do more of that. But mistake that people make is just thinking this romantic thing. It's constant. You're fixing pipes. You're screwing something into the wall that don't call the plumber, because I can fix that myself. It's you got to know that that's what you're getting. You're signing up for. Is that situation. I mean, it can be overwhelm people. It can be a nightmare when, like I said, three different air conditioners aren't working, two ice machines aren't working properly. That can really overwhelm you. But you got to just be able to roll with the punches. Put out the fires where you can
Greg Boulos47:04
so with so many high quality restaurants in Portland, someone's thinking of opening up a restaurant. What advice would you give them? Run? I thought you were going to say that.
Speaker 147:19
Well, I think Portland is somewhat saturated. I definitely would say that. I think there's some absolutely fantastic restaurants, and some newer, newer concepts are coming up all the time, much more in a casual thing. I think that sort of, my business model of the fine dining, casual fine dining is kind of going away. Sadly, we're trying to keep it alive. But if somebody is trying to open a restaurant now, I mean, honestly, seriously, run think about what you have, do your research and your thing, but make sure your concept is tight, that you know what you're doing. You're not mirroring somebody else's concept. You're not You're not going in underfunded, you're not going in under capitalized, that you've got enough money in the bank to do it, and that you're willing to do it yourself, not you think you're gonna I can't imagine how somebody does it. Is not a food person like I know people are open restaurants that are front of the house people and bar people and so forth. And they can do that because they can control that part of it, but without knowing how the food works, or being in charge of the food, or having somebody that you know distinctly can do this and watch their costs and do this thing like somebody like Greg Wilson that's going to take care of the food costs and going to be high quality. I can't imagine going into it, into a restaurant business, without being the back of the house person and knowing that you at least can control that part of it.
Greg Boulos48:41
We talk about restaurant portions the size of them. A few years ago, I brought some international visitors to a local restaurant, and we were all kind of shocked by the size of the desserts. You know, as you imagine, in Europe, portions seem to be relatively small. Why are portions so large here in the US, and is that trend changing?
Speaker 149:04
Depends on the restaurant. Certainly, I think that we are, our portions are large. That's kind of what we you know, we want you to take some home. We always want to feel that you're getting, getting what you need. I have an old chef of my Patricio from San Francisco. You put a little bit of sauce, because what are you doing? I'm like, What do you mean? Saucing dish. Give it to them. They do not get it at home. You burn in your brain, you know, give them ample stuff. They do not get it at home. They're here because they don't want to cook. You don't want to, you know, they don't want to go home and have to make a mac and cheese when they get home. So some of our portions are big. Some of them are probably larger than they need to be, but you want to have that value on the plate looking at it. I mean, we have our smaller first courses and so forth. We've done many times. Have done tasting menus for special events, where we do small plates and so forth, where. It's a small bite of this, a small bite of that. And that fits in some places you go to, like Mr. Tuner, you're gonna get a small bite of this. You go to miyaki Sushi, you're gonna get a little tight bite of this. You're gonna have multiple things. You know, we have quick hits, so we want big flavor and a lot for your lot for your value, for your dollar. I think that that, I think that portion sizes are staying kind of the same, like if you go to a burger joint, you're going to get your burger, you're going to be full. I think that there are not so much in Portland, necessarily, but big cities and other places where there are multiple courses of small plates, there's a fine line to me anyway, where you're doing a small plate tasting menu, where you get a bite and it's not enough, because you're like, Damn, that was really good, but I want to make sure. But there's no more on the plate for me to have another bite. You want to have two or three bites of something so that you can make sure it was good. I mean, I really enjoy that. But at some points you don't want to have 19 courses. You'd like four or five courses. You know, I think that it all depends on the restaurant about the portion size. But I think the minuscule, tiny food, there's a commercial for, I think, military insurance, my little my big sister, makes tiny food, you know, little things like that. There's a place for that. But I think that in this market nowadays, you need to have a big, bit bigger thing.
Greg Boulos51:24
Since this is the bullet Boulos beat a real estate podcast. Let's talk about your locations. What do you look for when selecting a location?
Speaker 151:34
Well, I, one of my curses is every time I see a location or a place that's available for rent, like, oh, that's to make a great restaurant there. Let's do that. Like, I'd have a restaurant on every street corner if I could, because each corner will fill a certain need. But I think it's just, you know, you look for, what is it? What is it in this building? What is, you know, the front room is the front room. That's so that's sort of where that concept came and it just was in the neighborhood, and it needed to become a neighborhood spa. I think I just look for, what does it look like? What does it feel like, and what is the area need? Because you're really trying to, we're there for the community. We're that's sort of the concept of the front room was to provide something for the neighbors, for the community, a gathering place, a place to gather, a place to nosh, a place to break bread, clean glasses and that sort of thing. And just sort of what is needed at that at that moment.
Greg Boulos52:23
So I know in the Old Port, rents are rising. How do you manage those rent increases? And is there a rent to sales ratio you or other restaurants try to stay within? I couldn't answer that at all. There's a lot of a gut feel. Yeah,
Speaker 152:40
you kind of gut feel of what you can do. It's rents are very high. The square footage rent is very high downtown, not so much in the outskirts. But I think that's why he's starting to see a lot of restaurants, good restaurants, opening in Falmouth, opening in even in Westbrook and Gorham and
Greg Boulos53:00
Windham Indian restaurant that opened up Taj, fabulous.
Speaker 153:04
Fantastic. Was there with my family, my son and my wife. We were there. We went to one of those escape rooms. We did the wizarding one. We didn't make it all the way to the end, everybody, but it was a lot of fun. But we went to Taj afterwards, and it was fantastic. It was so good.
Greg Boulos53:20
Looking ahead, what are your long term goals for your restaurant group? Are you planning to expand further, perhaps in Bethel, as room suggest, with a Restaurant and Lodging project on Mayville road? Any truth to that? That is
Speaker 153:31
true for that we are currently, this will air by the time this airs, hopefully it'll be well, well wrapped up, and we will be operating. But there is a place on 174 Mayville road that my wife and I are have put together a real estate investment group that has purchased the building and land. It's a beautiful it was an old farmhouse that was renovated meticulously. So there's six very, very beautiful guest rooms, and we're making a restaurant and bar on two sections of the downstairs. It's going to be sort of, I wouldn't say farmhouse would not be the right word, just really solid food, concentrating on dry aged steaks. We're going to dry aged steaks in house. Really comforting, quality food, convivial, nice bar scene. Mug club, once again, providing sort of what the area needs. There's lots of restaurants in Bethel, lots of restaurants doing really nice things, but a place that sets solid American sit down, eat your food, get your cool bar snacks prepared with care. That's that's the concept of that unnamed as of yet, hopefully, by the time this airs, there will be a name. But
Greg Boulos54:49
how do you select that name? This is something that you come up with, or is there my wife and a committee of you and your wife?
Speaker 154:54
Yeah, the last the last two were named by my wife. Wife, Sarah, and we sort of knock, knock things around. We'll go out on the on the pontoon boat with our dogs, and just start riffing ideas off each other. The last run room name came. I forget what the original name was that we had. I can't remember now. It's been been so long, but all of a sudden she's just rattling off a bunch of names. She goes the last run room, and I went, That's it. And you got to know when you hear it, yeah, you know what it's going to be. And that, you know, she kind of does that just by knocking ideas around. You know, what is the place? What are we looking at here? You know, like the the new place up at Sunday in Bethel is a sort of conjunction of everything. You know you're on your way to the mountain, you're on your way up from Massachusetts or Rhode Island, or wherever you're coming from. And so that's sort of where the name is evolving to. We're not quite there yet, but it'll be fair to say it will end with room. It will not end with room. Actually, it might end with house, but it's not going to end with room. This is, this is the final one I want to say. My wife said to make sure that I say that this is the final room,
Greg Boulos56:03
because we can pull this back out of the files, and when you open up your seventh
Speaker 156:08
right the but this is kind of kind of the idea of, this is a being part of the ownership group that's owning the actual land that we're going to be standing on, cooking and really doing a complete thing where it's going To have guest rooms, and it's going to be a wedding venue, and this is sort of like the last hurrah, so to speak. I'm 56 and I hope I have about 10 years left standing behind the stoves, cooking and creating, and I think that that's, that's gonna, that's gonna do it. Hopefully this is kind of a retirement thing where this is, hopefully it's a very successful restaurant and and guest house is built out beautifully. We're going to be sort of that, hopefully that will be sort of custodians of this beautiful spot for sending it into the long into the future of the dining, dining in Bethel,
Greg Boulos57:01
looking back at your career, what would you do differently? I
57:07
would have gone to law school.
Greg Boulos57:10
Would you say that? But you have a passion for it
Speaker 157:12
to do I do. I don't think I would have done all that much differently. Honestly, you know, maybe treated a couple of relationships along the way a little bit differently. Perhaps, I think that having more of a sense of humor like I have always had a good sense of humor about it, but having that sense of humor earlier on in my career, and not, I wouldn't say, taking myself so seriously, but, you know, realizing that it is, it is just food, after all, and that sort of thing, I feel like I've always taken care of my employees the best I can. Treated them all very fairly. And I think that's sort of legacy that I'd like to leave, is that I've done that always, always done the absolute level best I can. I don't think I would change a lot. This is kind of what I set out to do when I went to went to school at BU was to have a small restaurant company, and that's what I got,
Greg Boulos58:02
a very successful one. What's been a career high point for you that you said, I've made it
Speaker 158:10
well, a mutual friend of ours, David Shaw, he dined at Boone's several years ago and wanted to have his birthday party there, which was great. And he said, I'm gonna bring my friend Alice. And I went, who's Alice? And he said, Alice Waters. Alice Waters is the godmother of California cuisine, my absolute hero. Her and Julia Child are my absolute heroes. And he brought her in. They sat down at one of the banquettes, and I got to wait on Alice Waters. And she said, Harding, what should I eat tonight? And I said, Well, we have something. She goes, No, what should I eat tonight? I went, Wow, this is Alice Waters asking me this question. I made a big stuffed haddock, believe it or not, it was haddock had just come off the boat with beautiful crab meat stuffing, and she devoured it and loved and I sat down and chatted with her. She signed my book, and that was the absolute highlight of my career.
Greg Boulos59:00
And low point
Speaker 159:04
covid, yeah? Having to shut down my restaurants and tell my employees they didn't have a job anymore. Yeah, that must be really difficult. It was very hard sitting in my basement with my mother in law, my wife and our director of operation at the time on the Zoom call, saying, we're screwed. This is really happening. He's day by day, going, what's going to happen next? What's the governor going to do next? What's the President going to do next? About what are we doing? Are we really going to shut down? Don't worry, it'll be open in a couple days, only a couple weeks. Friend of mine says, I've been researching pandemics. This is going to be like, six months. Like now. Sure enough, he was right. Michael Smith, that's him, if he listens.
Greg Boulos59:42
But I remember they said two weeks. I said, Well, good. Does two weeks do? That's crazy. Last question for Harding, what's your exit strategy? Do you see yourself staying in the kitchen indefinitely, or is there a plan to step
Speaker 159:56
back? I think I'll always be focused on the kitchen. I. I think my exit strategy is maybe this new place that will hopefully be running by the time everybody's listening to this is to have it's kind of why the intriguing part of having the guest rooms built into this is that there's an income stream coming that's not necessarily dependent on my hands. I'd like to go out sort of gracefully, but leave a nice legacy behind, whether that's, you know, selling the restaurants at some point down the road, whether it's to employees or to whoever, hopefully not having to just close and saying, I'm done, but that they they continue on to live and breathe. I think that they're, you know, like I said, they're kind of iconic neighborhoody, part of the part of the Lexion of dining. I guess you know that they're they were built to be here for a long time. It wasn't a concept restaurant that we're going to do this for three years and then change it to a new thing, which is great. I know a lot of people that do that, and I think that's awesome too. But what we tried to do was provide something that was really needed in the in the area, like to take the steakhouse, the Italian place serving the house made pasta, then the neighborhood comfort, comfort food spot, and then the ones up at the mountain too. Hopefully those live beyond us.
Greg Boulos1:01:14
You know, you're really part of the fabric of the neighborhood, I think, like when I think of the Eastern prom area or Sunday River,
Speaker 11:01:22
yeah. And that's kind of, was the goal to be part of the neighborhood, you know, it's, it's a place that I'd want to go. And that's what when we, when I created them, it was, you know, what do we need? You know, I lived around the corner from the front room on Waterville Street at the time, and I wanted a place to go have a pint, watch Red Sox game and eat a pork chop, good pork chop, not a dry, you know, true leather pork chop. And I knew I had the skill to do that. And if I put myself to it, I knew I could do it. And fortunately, I went to sleep the night before the front room opened. I had negative, like, 100 and something dollars in the bank. And I'm like, a scared, crapless and so what if they don't come? I could barely sleep. What if they don't come? Fortunately, five o'clock, there's a line out the door. A lot of good friends, a lot of the workers that worked in the building and so forth supported us, but there's line out the door, and that lasted for a really long time. You know, there's a lot of competition now, so that maybe we don't have quite a line out the door every single day, but they're still coming. And that's testament to the employees that we've had, people who try every day to follow the concept and to cook with passion and wait on people with passion. And I think that hopefully the exit strategy is is leaving that legacy of people still wanting to do that.
Greg Boulos1:02:42
Hardy, thank you for sitting down with us. Enjoyed a lot of fun. Thank you Harding, thank you for being our guest today on the Boulos beat the Boulos company podcast. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. You can learn more about Harding's restaurants@theroomsportland.com and if you'd like to learn more about the Boulos company, please be sure to visit us@Boulos.com you can also find us at the Boulos company on Facebook and LinkedIn and at the Boulos CO on Instagram and x and lastly, if you'd like to know the secret to owning real estate, it's pretty simple, just be sure to outlive your debt.