Chef Ezra Shapiro: From Conventional Success to Personal Fulfillment

What does it take to walk away from a successful career because you know it is not the life you want to build?

In this episode, Greg Weimer sits down with Chef Ezra Shapiro, a private chef based in Western Pennsylvania who traded a career in commercial real estate and finance for restaurant kitchens. After graduating from Penn State with an economics degree and spending four years managing a commercial real estate investment fund, Ezra took a solo trip to South America that changed the direction of his life. What started as three months of thinking and food tours through Lima and Buenos Aires became the foundation for an entirely new career path.

CHAPTERS

01:10 Welcome to Living Your Legacy
01:48 Meet Chef Ezra Shapiro
03:30 Growing Up Around Food
05:15 Penn State and Economics
06:40 The Mentor in Commercial Real Estate
10:15 Leaving the Office Behind
12:30 The Wine Company and Getting Laid Off
16:20 Three Months in South America
20:45 Discovering the Culinary World
24:30 The Risk Analysis That Changed Everything
27:00 First Kitchen Job in Philadelphia
29:30 The Sourdough Story
33:15 Falling in Love with the Kitchen
35:40 Working Your Way Up Through Stages
38:00 Single Thread: A Three Michelin Star Restaurant
42:00 Leaving Single Thread for Family
46:20 Building a Private Chef Business in Pittsburgh
49:30 The Connection Between Food and Relationships
52:00 Three Defining Moments
54:20 Closing

GUEST
Ezra Shapiro -- Private Chef

HOST
Greg Weimer -- Founder and CEO, Confluence Financial Partners

TOPICS
Passion & Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Leadership

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello and welcome to Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host, Greg Weimer, founder and CEO of Confluence Financial Partners, where our mission is to help people maximize their lives and shape their legacies. On this podcast, we will unpack the stories, strategies, and mindsets of individuals who are intentionally shaping their lives and the impact they leave behind. Learn what drives these individuals to push forward, to create, and to give back. Today we're here with Ezra Shapiro. Just let me give you some of Ezra's background as a chef. I should have said that. Chef, Ezra Shapiro, sorry, Ezra. Um, sort of an unconventional, you had an I love this because you had an unconventional path to being a chef. Go to Penn State, get into the business world. You're like, okay, that's not it. You go into, you take a different path, you become a chef. You are the chef at a three-star Michelin right restaurant called Single Thread in California. And today you go from that to you maybe found tonight somewhere in western Pennsylvania, creating a wonderful experience and becoming a private chef for six to ten people. A lot in there. Why don't you go through a little bit and just give us a little background on how do you go to Penn State and end up becoming a chef? Like what took you and what what made you find that passion?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Um sure, yeah. Thanks for having me here. I really appreciate it. Um so Penn State, I grew up and had no idea that I wanted to be a chef. I could guess I could start there. Um growing up and even like through college, I didn't even it didn't occur to me that being a chef was a crazy cook trajectory. Yeah. Yeah. I so I have like food memories of cooking when I'm seven years old.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Okay, so I have no food memories of cooking when I was seven, so that's unique. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I don't know that that's yeah, maybe that is unique. Yeah. Yeah, I have an a six-inch all-clad stainless steel pan that I still have in my kitchen now and I still use it every day that I remember making scrambled eggs on when I was six. Yeah. And I would stand like on a stool above my mom's on my mom's stove. And she had this cool like it's called an Aga. It's like this old wood-burning stove that's like made in France or something. Okay. We had this in the house growing up, and I would make scrambled eggs on it.

unknown 2:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

And I so yeah. And it we weren't like a huge, you know, I I don't have a huge cooking background, but we didn't really go out to eat when I was growing up, so we cooked a lot. I was home eating the majority of my life, um, and food was around. Um, but being a chef wasn't something that my family, nobody in my family is involved in this industry. None of my friends really were. And especially when I went to college, uh, the people I'm friends with, they're lawyers or doctors, or just in the general business world, in places like this, probably in financial services firms. Um or two people that I know at all had some peripheral tie to the restaurant industry.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, we made them we made that in college. You made those noodles that you just had water. What were they called? Yeah, cup of noodles. Well, yeah, yeah. But they were what were they called? Do you remember?

unknown 3:11

Ramenan.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Ramenand, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's so I have memories of that.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

That's like the cheapest food you can have, so in college it's perfect. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I did that too. Yep. At this point, I had no idea that I could even be a chef as something to do. Um so, you know, like I went to Penn State and I was an undecided major. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I ended up doing majoring in economics, which is why I'm a chef now, which makes no sense at all. But economics, I looking back on it, I do think it's applicable to anything. So I like that as a major for people who don't have a very specific skill set in mind or you know exactly what they want to do.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Um if you're in business, you don't know what to do, major in accounting. That's enough said on that. That's my belief. Good.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Yep, I mean, I would totally agree with that now. Um and I kind of got that accounting education later. Um so the first job I got out of school at this point, chef, is not on my mind at all. Um I kind of just sort of went with the flow. Like I I met somebody who was a guy probably, you know, in the heart of his career, very successful. And I met him through a fraternity relationship. I was in a fraternity at Penn State. Um, and he's, you know, he had his own company. He was entrepreneurial, very small, but at a point where he was very established already. Um and he was looking for somebody who was like young and hungry and didn't have to pay very much and just wanted to learn and could help him out with anything and everything in his business. Um so he hired me. Kind of on a long shot, and I still, to this day, he I'm not as frequently in touch with him as I used to be, but I consider him in my life as an amazing mentor. Um, and I do reach out to him from time to time when I you know want to talk about things. I just r respect everything about his life and business and family life and everything. Uh great guy. Um so I worked for him for four years, and I'm I'm sure that going through that time, he uh manages a commercial real estate um investment fund. Mostly high net worth individuals invest with him andor institutional partners. Um I think over the four years working with him, I got what I would consider far better than going an education than even going to master's getting a master's program or anything like that. Um so eternally grateful to Gary and you know what I got to learn there. Um But at the end of the day, I was I kinda after four years of doing it, I just thought, well, he's like totally financially independent, you know, he's got a great career in life, and I can't really see like anything going better than what he has. So if I go on this trajectory, do I really want to end up where he is? And I kind of thought, well, I I don't love being in an office every day. It's just not for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

By the way, there's a lesson there. If you're if you are associating with people, I got to this at one point in my career, and the people that you're associating with that you if there's not anyone to look up to, you may want to find a different room. Right? If there if you're looking at the people above you and you're like, yeah, but that's not what I aspire to be, then it could be the wrong room.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, completely. And at this at the same on the same account, I don't want to take anything at all away from like in by anyone else's standards, and probably like most normal people entering the business world, this is an ideal situation.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah, it just wasn't your thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

It just wasn't for me. Exactly. Um, and even leaving was hard because we had such a good relationship. Um he was great. I got an amazing education, which now I use in my business life.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Um, so that was great. Um so from there, the catalyst for leaving him was that my friend's dad had this online uh wine retail business. Um and they needed somebody to do like analyst work and help out with a lot of things. It was past a startup, but that's sort of venture. Um and so I went and I took the job before I could kind of like dig my teeth in too far with my my my former boss to the point where I would feel like it was impossible to get out. Um so that was important to me. Um so I took this job. They sold the company to a private equity firm um based in California, and they brought in this whole new management team. Um and I was good at the work I was given um uh doing very well, but I didn't get along with the uh this new team of people, so to speak. And I'm not great at uh I guess like just biting my tongue and going to work and doing my job and doing what they want without if I see something wrong, I usually say something. Um or if I see something that can be done better, I say something. Uh so anyway, after less than a year, this was very short-lived, they decided unexpectedly and against what they had previously told us that they were gonna pick up the company and move it to California. And they laid off a ton of people. I wasn't one of them in their like they did a large round of layoffs, and then I'm still sitting there with my one friend on my team, and then they had a meeting with everyone who was remaining and said, Hey, we're gonna we're gonna move the cal company to California in uh four months, you know. Um basically none of you have jobs at the end of that four months at all. Um so uh I had a big thinking moment um and kind of like my brain kicked into gear on, well, okay, how am I gonna handle this? They kept me for this, so they want me for this next three months, so obviously they see some value in me, and I thought about what to do, and I didn't want to be there. I'm not gonna stick around and waste three months of my time for someone who's gonna kick me out the door uh at the end of this, you know, just so I can train their company, you know, that I'm gonna have nothing to do with in the future. So I kind of I negotiated a g a good severance package for myself. Um and then decided this seems like a good point where I have a little bit of money and I'm not, you know, I have a huge career ahead of me and I don't know what, but I need to decide now, and this is a great time to do it, because I don't have another job at the exact moment. Um so that's when I took that trip. Uh I took a big trip to um by myself to South America. I flew to Lima, Peru. And what is now looking back on is how long was the trip? Uh I was there for two and a half or almost three months.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, so if you were one how old were you?

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Uh 27. 27.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah. So I was trying to put myself in dad mode.

unknown 10:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Right? It's like, okay, so you're an analyst with real estate, you're an analyst with a wine company. I got an idea. Dad, I'm going to South America for three months. I would be like, or we could get another job. Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was a pivotable moment for a pivotal moment for you.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

That trip. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um I knew I didn't want to go back and get another office job immediately. But I didn't, at the same time, I still didn't know what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

And you were gonna get you were, it felt it seems to me like this can happen to people, right? You could have got caught in the vortex. The vortex of the next office job. Yeah, absolutely. Or the first job that you had, while the leader tended to be, it sounds like it was amazing. If you would have stayed there, you would have got caught in a vortex.

unknown 10:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

And yeah, and you would have never been willing to make the changes necessary to find your passion. And that happens a lot with people. And then they fast forward 10 years, they look back and go like, well, I didn't love that.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

That's exactly the way I felt. I didn't want I looked, I looked ahead into the future, sort of just in my mind, and thought, is this something I will have wanted to have done for the past 20 years? And or am I gonna be happy with my day-to-day work at that point when I'm 47 or 50, whatever it is, um, am I still gonna be wanting to be doing this? I was like, I'm sure I don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

So you were thinking differently than most 27-year-olds when you're saying, like, okay, now if you were my son, I would be like, hey, the whole South America thing sounds nice. Can we just go for a walk on the trail and figure this out, maybe? Like, let's go for a little walk. Um But you were you had the presence to say, wait, I got a vision. I don't know what it is, but I know when I'm 50 or 60, on this current path, I end up not being the Ezra I want to be.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yeah. So what did you look what did you learn when you were on this trip? Um so I went on this trip and I kind of I was by myself. I did everything on a very shoestring budget, um, and I had a lot of time to think, basically, because I was by myself. So, you know, I would meet people along the way and have come up with you know good but very short-term relationships, um, traveling buddies for a day or two here and there, but I had a lot of time to think to myself, which I also think is incredibly valuable, just the time to think, because that doesn't really happen in today's world, I feel like. Even now that I'm back home, like there's always something to do, or you know. For sure. You're on your phone and it just takes over your brain, and having like a real extended period of time of say a couple months where you don't have to think about work and your everyday life, and you can just think about you know, more higher-level concepts, like what do you want your life to be, or whatever it is, whether that's whether that's just doesn't occur.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, whether that means being like, okay, wait, what type of dad do I want to be? Or it could be like, okay, if you're running a business, I see so many people running businesses, they don't take time to think about what they want their business to be or how they want to serve people. I mean, you know, I spend I spend at least half hour in the morning thinking every morning, just thinking about the business and where we're going. You have the ultimate three-month to think about a lot of stuff. One, what do I want my life to be? Yeah.

unknown 13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

But we didn't still didn't make anything other than eggs.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

No. I mean, you know, I cooked. I cooked here and there, but yes. For the most part, no. Um, so then on this trip, you know, right away I kind of like I had been I had been thinking, like, instead of, okay, let's put office job aside, what else is there, right? And what do I like doing? Well, I like as a general thing, I like working with my hands and doing something physical. I don't like sitting all day. I want to, you know, I want to hopefully have a career where I can be active, um, so to speak, just physically. Um and being a chef seemed cool, but I didn't know so much about it. You know, like there's sh TV chefs are cool, whatever that means. But any that motivated you? The chefs? Yes, absolutely. Now I have like a long list, but at that point, I was like just dipping my toe into the water. So I got some books and started reading things. I read like a couple books on like the making of a chef, and I might have read one chef's um autobiography. I think it was like uh Eric Rapert, who's the chef of La Bernadette in New York City. Um Three Michelin star. Like it's arguably one of the best restaurants in the entire world, and it's been that way for forever, and it's in Manhattan. And later in my life, I actually went and stodged there. Uh I worked there for a night, um, which was really not a great experience. But so I had read his and I thought, well, this sounds like a really interesting thing that maybe I can get into it.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Did you do this on your you started doing this on your trip?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah. I think I read those two books like starting a day or two before I left and on the plane. And then when I by the time I had gotten down there, I had read those books, and then I wasn't really reading more on my trip, but it inspired me enough to at least sign up for cooking classes in different cities that I went to and do food tours in different cities that I went to. So whenever I'd get to a new city, like I started in Lima, I would sign up for a walking tour, which is usually free in every major city, um, and or if it was like in association with a food tour of the city, and it was fantastic. Like I mean, just an amazing way to see the city. And you walk into these food markets in South American cities, and they're we don't really have a great example of it like here in Pittsburgh, but you know, if you go to Europe, there's things like big wide open food halls with you know 40-foot ceilings and a million fruit and vegetable vendors, and in South America it looks really raw and like um sometimes dirty, even like there's meat, chickens hanging, you know, everywhere, and it looks, you know, it's not in refrigeration, but it's exciting. And there's so much life and like color, and it was really exciting. So that became a big part of my trip as I went from city to city. I would immediately just go seek out food activities to do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Like I can tell you like you you have a passion. Yeah, it's I mean And I will say that like probably what I've what I found in people the more they study something, the more they learn about something, the more passionate they are about it.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Uh that is exactly the case with me. I would say, yeah. And that's probably I I can't imagine how that would not be the case for anyone. Right. Um because why would you continue to study something and say it if you're not at least a little bit interested in it?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Things tend to get more interesting.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Right. Right? Yeah. So at the beginning of this, I so then, you know, so as I'm going through this trip and I'm thinking, by the time I got back, I was like, okay, I'm definitely gonna try this. I'm gonna try it out. And I kind of did like a just the way my brain operates is that I did like a sort of life risk analysis. I'll try this out for one month. I'll see if I can get a job somewhere, low on the totem pole, just work and learn and see if I like it. Right. Exactly, pay my dues. And if I don't like it, how can I get back to at a minimum where I was before? And it honestly didn't seem that hard. It seemed pretty doable. I hate this after a month, okay. I could get another job in real estate. Sure. I'll be back to where I started and I'm still 28 years old. Not a lot has been lost here in the grand scheme of things. So, you know, kind of with that in mind, I'll be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

You know what's funny because you have that attitude of 28, like, hey, I'll figure it out. I'm investing a month. If it doesn't work, so many people, I I so many so many 20-somethings feel like they have to have their whole career figured out by like forget about 28. You'll find people, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to be at 18? What do you want to be growing up? And it's just putting so much pressure in led of trying to let it evolve and just continue to learn and try different things and find your passion.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah. Yeah, totally. When I'm when I was growing up, it's like they they everybody in your life kind of tries to make you narrow down to something, and I don't know if that's even the best approach. When you're 18, you don't know the millions of different jobs that are in the world. You just can't. And there's so many different things you can do. You kind of sometimes just the people in your life influence you to take a certain path that isn't even doesn't have to be one specific thing like doctor, but it can be a sort of group of things like, well, this is the business world. Well, or this is the you know, if you would have told me 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Right. I've been in the wealth management business since I was 20, but if you would have told me 15 years ago, I'd have a wealth management firm, I'd have bet you any amount of money that would have been true.

unknown 18:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

It just wasn't money, it wasn't on, it wasn't it wasn't the direction I was headed at all. And uh you let it evolve, and now thank gosh, goodness, I wouldn't have it any other way. Now you're happy.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

So there was something there that made you, whether it was your own decision or Or being keep your eyes open to change.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

That's one of the things as I listen to you. You're not you're willing to take action. Yeah, for sure. Right? Um I mean you're willing to make changes.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Right. And I didn't do it willy-nilly, you know, I was kind of oh, I'll just go work in a restaurant. I thought about it. If it doesn't work out, I'll get back to here and it'll be fine. Um so I did. I thought about going to culinary school, decided I'll work first, then decide, hey, okay, this is what it is. Do I like it? Yes. Should I go to culinary school or should I just continue and work? And I chose continue to work because I learn I found that I learn so much better, and I think really this is the case for 99% of the world is you'll learn more in a work environment than you will in a school environment. For sure. You know, everyone teaches own. I'm again I'm not saying there's not value in school.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

No, no, me either. Like it like I look at it as like you go to the gym, it trains your muscles, you go to college, maybe it trains your brain on how to think, but um so many people that come out of school thinking they're gonna be a financial advisor, they learn way more work in here.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Right. You get a master's in business, but then you work here for three months and you're like, oh, this is what the master business.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Like it's yeah, it's something different.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

So you're learning along the way.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

I'm learning along the way. And at this point, as soon as I got back from that trip, also like alongside my learn learning in a restaurant where I got a job through just a friend I knew gave me a peeling potatoes job in a restaurant, but a nice one in Philadelphia, that's where I'm from. Um I'm reading all the time. Everything. Um I hope people are listening to that. I this is the most important thing. If I could give anyone who wants to do any sort of like skill or craft or trade job or life. Really? Probably anything. Just read everything and anything you can and do the topic in your spare time. So I was cooking in my spare time, and I wasn't good at all. I mean, I made some I look I have funny pictures of like food picks. I was like, oh wow, this looks good. I'll take a picture of it. And I look back at now and I'm like, that looks terrible. Right. I can't believe I took a picture of that. Right. Um, but yeah, so like reading, I was reading everything from chef biographies to tons of cookbooks, restaurant tour biographies, how to open a restaurant books, like the business side of things, anything that's gonna be a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

But I but I think learning is so important, it's one of our core values. Um it's so important. Are you done learning?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Oh no. Not even close. That's it. I don't and I don't think there I don't think there's a close to Me either. I don't think there's an end.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

No, I think people I think when you start to deteriorize when you think, I don't want to, I don't want to work with any

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Well if you figured it out already, then I'll just take what I can to know what you know and then I'm done with you because you're done there.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So go ahead. So you're learning. I love that. So it's certainly it's you were in the learning phase, but I but I love the fact that you continue to learn, and I think that's successful people. The people that stop learning, I think they're beginning to die. But go ahead. Yeah. So you're learning. So you're going from peeling potatoes.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Yeah. I'm I'm working and I'm working a lot, and my hours are different than they used to be, and I'm getting paid less, but I'm fine with it. You know, it's enough money, whatever. Um, but I'm working a lot and I'm putting in a lot of effort to learn more at work, too. So like I there was a day when in this first kitchen that I worked at, I was there like four and a half, five hours before I was supposed to be there, and the chef wasn't even there yet, and he showed up and he's like, What the hell are you doing here in the ESI? Like, your shift doesn't start for four hours. And I was like, Well, the pastry chef, uh I wanted to do the bread.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

So, yeah, no, I didn't clock in and get paid for four hours, but I got to learn about sourdough.

unknown 23:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

This like long term is crazy thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

By the way, which long term learning about sourdough is more than the $10 an hour times four.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Well, yeah, I mean, it's not even close. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Like the value of the sourdough, I guess, versus 40 bucks.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Getting to handle like in the in the you know, in the kitchen there, there's so much going on. And when you first start in the kitchen when I was there, it's completely overwhelming to anyone who's never been in worked in a restaurant before. There's a million things going on all around you, and you're so focused on just trying to do your one specific little task right, everything is like going a million miles an hour around you, but you see this like huge, massive mountain of sourdough every day that grows on its own for some reason in the walk-in refrigerator overnight, and sometimes it grows too much and goes onto the floor. Right. And every day this woman is just shaping out loaves at a speed that nobody I mean you would not imagine if you don't work in a restaurant, and they're coming out perfect, and they're going in and out of the oven right behind you, and the steam is like hitting you in the back while you're trying to cut something very particularly. And so I wanted I was very curious. Yeah. So, you know, I would go in early and talk to her and say, Hey, like, I don't know how to do this, but I'll help you do anything if you just let me work with you for a little and show me what you're doing. So I would I would measure I would measure dough balls while I got to then stand with her and ask her questions and stuff. And I'd ask her a lot of questions, probably to the point of being annoying. Um, but incredible. Uh, you know, she taught me a lot. Right and as much as annoying as maybe I was, uh, I think she appreciated it. Because now when people ask me questions while I'm trying to do something else as a chef and I'm managing them, I like it. Uh you know, it can be distracting, but I like it. I like when you're talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Like they don't want to ask you and they don't want to learn.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Absolutely. Yeah. Put yourself around those people.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

So Alright, so we've made eggs, we've peeled potatoes, a little bit of sourdough.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

You get a little more responsibility every day at the restaurant. You're showing up early, you're working hard, you're, you know, you're doing your best. And you get a little more responsibility week after week. It's slow, it's really slow at first. That learning curve is like straight up trajectory, and it's really hard at first. But then, you know, as you sort of learn how to operate in a kitchen and speak the language and how to move around well, you know, you get the learning curve is still very high, but you can handle more and more, you know, day by day, and then they give you more responsibility and you learn more. Um and I fell in love with it. It I didn't care at all that I was being paid twelve dollars an hour after just coming from an office job. I didn't uh you know, every night I would go home thinking about what I did that day and what I was gonna do tomorrow and who could I go ask questions from, and I saw something and I want to learn more. Um and I was so excited about it. I I was like, this is I think I could learn things in a kitchen, whether it's here or another kitchen for the rest of my life and still not be done. And I was really excited about that. Um and I knew like, yeah, I don't want to make $12 an hour for the rest of my life. Of course, you know that's something I think about, but it it'll come with time. So I was I was hooked and I stayed and loved it, and it brought me to another restaurant and another restaurant and another restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

How many restaurants did you have in the in the sequence?

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Um so in my career, I've now worked at five five different restaurants. Okay. Um I've also been in through stages. A stage is like um a stage is like a not an internship exactly, but restaurants will when you interview somewhere to work at a restaurant, they'll have you stage, which means you'll come in and have like a working day. Okay. So you'll you know, you'll have your sit-down interview with whoever's hiring you and you'll talk to them, and then if they like you, you can come and work for a day. It's like a tryout. It's like a tryout. Yeah, exactly. You're not cooking a whole menu for them, like to see if you know how to cook. They're seeing if what your attitude is like and how you work. Are you clean? Are you organized? Are you easy to get along with, things like this, and you work side by side with the chef or whoever's gonna manage you, and then at the end of it, they talk to you, you know. Hey, we'll give you a job, hey, uh, this isn't really for you. Um, you know, and it's you interviewing the kitchen too, to see if it's a place where you would like to work. Um so that's what a stage is, and that's a big thing in the restaurant industry um that happens everywhere. So I would do these whenever I could from time to time, even if I wasn't really trying to get a job. I would kind of just maybe a little white lie, or you know, just if I had a connection and just be honest with them, and they were cool with having a stosh who didn't really want a job. But I've been in probably it's about 20 kitchens.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Um so 15 of those I never actually ended up working in, but some fantastic places around the world. Um that even just being there for a night or a week for a stage.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

How do you go from being you know, the guy learning and learn to being the chef? Like how do you how do you make that jump?

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Um that's a great question. You g I guess you get to a certain point where you know enough of your actual skill. Like so you're developing a skill at first. Um just like the craft of there's so many things that go into cooking technically. Um so I think you get to a certain point of that where you know more than the majority of people, other people. You don't have to know everything. Nobody expects you to know everything when you become a manager in a kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

But so how long from when you were going to the you know, peeling potatoes to when you were working at single thread?

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Uh so that would be I think that's about five years, four years ago. No. No. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, no, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Because single thread, you want to explain? It's a three-star Michelin restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Yeah. Um single thread is uh it's in Sonoma County in California, right in the middle of wine country. They are a hotel, restaurant, and farm. All under the same ownership umbrella. The farm is eight minutes away from the restaurant, which is an uber fine dining, luxury. You know, I don't want to use price to explain how fantastic this place is, but just for a general sense of people, it's $500 a person. This is a special occasion type of dinner. Um, and then they have a boutique, four-room hotel in the same building above the restaurant. And if you stay in the hotel for $1,000 a night, you know, you get dinner in the restaurant. You can also get dinner by the same chef team as uh room service, a very special experience. And this is like the peak of you know, anything in the world hospitality goes. Uh the places, it's really like they take a lot of influence from Japanese customs of hospitality, you know, and they translate it to an American uh audience. So this is the penal extremely well. This is yeah, they're on they're on every list of accolade that there is in the world. There are three Michelin stars, you know, they're on the world's 50 best list, they're tied for the number one spot on La Liste, which is like a comparable French-based uh, you know, sort of ranking of restaurants in the world. Um and it's incredible. And they're not what I there's a lot of things I love about it, but they're not doing what they do there to be on these lists. It's just sort of a factor of, you know, well, we do things this way, and yeah, people have noticed. But they're not one of these places where they're competitively trying to just reach these lists. Um and I I like that about them. Um they're doing things for what I think of as the right.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

First be the best and then you will be first.

unknown 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Be the best.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

That's that's a that's a great way to put it.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

First be the best, then you'll be first.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Just do your job. So how long do your jobs are?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

That's the Bill Belichick thing. Just do your job. Yeah, yeah. So um how long were you there? Um so only a little bit less than a year. Um and I would have stayed maybe forever. Uh I don't know, forever. Right. But a long way to go. My guess is you would. But yeah, yeah. Yeah, I probably wouldn't stay forever, but I wasn't really ready to leave yet. And it was a hu that was a huge um, I guess, sort of decision and transition point in my life and career was ha making the decision to leave. Um I loved it there, learning every day so much. And not just learning, but it's a huge team. There's 80 people who service about 75 guests a night. So compared to a normal restaurant. Really?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Yeah. So you have 70 people like kitchen.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, it's about half and half front of house and back of house. So about 40 kitchen staff and about 40 uh front of house staff who are dealing directly with the guests. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Um, and but the difference between like that restaurant and you know, a very nice restaurant that's maybe in Pittsburgh, but not at that sort of Uber fine dining level and price point is that everyone there is no it's nobody's like side job. Like this is where we go to make money, but really I'm an artist. Right. Right. Right. Which is very common in the restaurant industry. Everyone there is a hospitality professional, right? And everyone there is has made a decision to go there, especially there because it's kind of in the middle of nowhere. Like nobody lives in Healdsburg unless you're, you know, unless you're one of the 200 people who grew up on a farm there. Um so people have traveled to work to be there and worked there for a reason, and so you're surrounded by a team of people who are.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Do people come to a place like that to train and go elsewhere? Or do people come there because they want to stay there because it's the pinnacle?

SPEAKER_00 33:10

I think a little of both. Okay. Um, yeah, for sure. When I set out there, I didn't have one or the other in mind. I liked both aspects of it. I'm gonna go there because I know I'll learn. I know I'll be surrounded around people by people who are better than me and I can learn from. And it looks like a fantastic place that I could work long term if that's how it goes. Um, you know, I'm not, I didn't sign up there to put it on my resume.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

I think that's a great attitude because, you know, including my son when he came here and some other people I've talked about in their career. If you're going somewhere with the intention of leaving, you've already left. So you you know what I mean? You so you have to go there with the intention of I could stay here forever. If life happens that you end up leaving and you that's different. But I think if you go somewhere and you're only looking at it as a stepping stone, I I don't think you ever give it the commitment you need.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Yeah, and so for me, like this place kind of was you you used the word pinnacle, but it it kind of is like that. Like I would totally be happy just working there. Um, it's a great place. You know, maybe you know, down the road I'd want to fulfill other things in my life, like being an owner of something, and that wouldn't be available in that respect. But as far, you know, I could be there long term, and I didn't set out like this is a stepping stone. And you left because I left because in very short terms uh family decision. I yeah. Uh my wife got pregnant with our first child. Wonderful. Yep. Um, yeah, so unexpectedly. Um, and that was a big deal for me. People, you know, like uh that made me so nervous. I I don't come from a big family. I think I had even like seen up close or touched a baby once in my entire life.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

It's funny like walking through South America, like changing about going on, like no big deal. Baby? What?

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Yeah, and I'm like, oh my god, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't know how I can do this. Like, I don't know anything about babies, but yeah, but walking around South America, yeah. Uh lost my credit card and didn't have any money for two weeks in Argentina. I'll figure it out. It's fine. I don't care. Diaper? Baby, I this is this seems whoa above my head. Um yeah. So now looking back on it, very happy I made this decision, which was to listen to my wife, and you know, we need to be near family. Right. Um, you know, now my my son is three years old and we have another kid, but um so happy that we moved back to be be around family because it be having a kid is over my head. Um and it still is. I'm good at it now, but um but when they're really little, the family support system it is unbelievable. And I figured out a way to, you know, still do what I love to do and cook, but if we had stayed in Sonoma County in California, like we were living in a I had us living in a studio apartment above somebody else's garage. Right. And their cars are coming in and out, and it's not our house. Yeah, gone for 12 hours at a time every day.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Um yeah, you know, having a family, it's when you say it's I remember the sport system so important. I remember when we had we have four children, the last were twins, so we have two twins. We have twins. I don't think I don't think you need to say two. We have twins. And I remember my mom and dad lived in Johnstown then. They're like, okay, we're gonna get going. It would be like six o'clock. I'm like, I guess we looked okay. Okay, we weren't okay. Like it was like it was like, no, no, no, no. They go to bed at nine, like, hang in. And those three hours from like six to nine were as long as I'll get out, right? So, yeah, so having the support system is key. So you come back to Pittsburgh for that support system, yeah, yeah. Um and then let's I think I love your current business. Michelin three-star, coal. I I love your current business.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Do you want to just talk about um yeah? So what I do now is basically that sort of level of fine dining doesn't exist in Pittsburgh. And it's not because there isn't talent here, you know, there there isn't nearly as big of a food scene here. Um so it just hasn't made its way from New York to Philly to Pittsburgh, and I think it'll get there eventually, but it's not it's not a food city like that. Um so for burgers. Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with it. I love burgers. Why I'm here. Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like my last meal would be a cheeseburger. Yeah, um, even though I know how to cook, you know, fish with scales on it, you know, in the most complicated way that I couldn't even get into explaining to a normal person. They'd think I was a lunatic, but yeah, cheeseburger. Yep, for sure. Um but so you know, I didn't see a restaurant or another path in the hospitality industry in Pittsburgh where I would be learning a lot um and challenging myself every day. So I kind of took it into my own hands, I guess, so to speak, and decided, well, I'll work for myself and create that since it doesn't exist for me. Um so I started being a private chef after a little bit of work, being a chef here in at a nice restaurant in Pittsburgh, Morsilla, shout out to them. Um, fantastic, fantastic place in Lawrenceville. Um, but so being a private chef now, I do private events for special occasions in people's homes or in an event rental space. Um, and it's completely personalized and unique experience that you can have anywhere from four or six guests up to about 20. Um and I'll, you know, I have staff with me for a little bit, little bigger events, but the smaller ones I do by myself, and we come up with a completely personalized experience for you and your guests. So it's your husband's 50th birthday party, you hire me, we build a menu that's gonna blow your husband's mind. Um, exactly what he wants to eat. Um, you know, I have experience doing a lot of different cuisines, so and I like the challenge of doing new cuisines. Um, and I can kind of, you know, I go to my sort of RD board and write a menu based on what will make you guys have the best time ever.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Okay, just so um, because I don't want people to tune out saying, like, oh, private chef, that sounds crazy. We do it all the time as a family, and I'll get into that. That's why I'm a raving fan. Uh we in Florida were with mom, dad, siblings, their spouses, um, brought in a private chef. There is zero chance, cumulative zero, that um we could have had the same experience that if we went out to eat. When we go on vacation as a family, multiple nights, three or four nights, we bring in a chef, kids get to stay in the pool until it's time to eat. It's wonderful. And tell us how much more expensive it is than going out to a really nice restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Um, it's not. It's not. It's not. Yeah. So I'm not, you know, people aren't necessarily gonna hire me for I'm not gonna, you hear private chef, I'm not gonna come over on a Wednesday night and cook you a regular family dinner. Yeah, that would be more expensive. I get it. But for a special occasion, when you're gonna go out to a restaurant where you might rent out a room, or you know, you're gonna spend a lot of upcharged money on wine service, you know, you're gonna end up net even or even saving money on an experience with me with you know, an upfront price tag of $150 a person might seem like a lot, but when you go out to a nice restaurant, Mom's 80th birthday. Right. For your exactly, for your mom's 80th birthday, what do you spend on a bottle of wine at a nice steakhouse downtown?

unknown 40:59

You know.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Or or or how are you gonna get a table in a restaurant?

SPEAKER_00 41:04

How do you get a table for 14 people?

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Yeah, right. Yeah, so I I just think the moments that we've had by bringing in private chefs. Now, do we do it every night? No. Do we do it on Wednesday night for dinner? No. Point well taken. But if you do it four times a year for very, very special occasions, I found it, I found it to be a great experience that we talk a lot about legacy in here, that really does, they're memories. Like it creates the legacy. The videos that we have of my mom and dad and siblings singing Sweet Caroline Arnarai with the chef in Naples, in my mind, that's priceless. It's absolutely priceless. We wouldn't have had that experience. What do you love about it? So, like when you deal with these families, like tell me, um, I I have a thought, and just just hearing you, but it feels like you've connected some dots with this with this new business.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Yeah, for sure. Um, so this differs from being in a restaurant in that, and something that I love about it now, um, that I've been doing it for a little while, is that I'm very up close and personal with the actual guests who are on the receiving end of the food I make. So I'm not just a chef in a basement cooking food that I'll never see again once I make sure that the plate is perfect. Now I make sure the plate is perfect, and then I hand it right to someone, and I watch their eyes light up and I watch them eat it, and then I watch them look at their friend and go, oh, this is good. Yeah. Um, you know, and they appreciate it, and you see it, the result immediate results, right? Which is great. Like where what other business do you get that in? Um so that's exciting, and you know, and now I'm starting to build regular clients who are happy to see me again. I'm happy to see them again. You know, we talk about things, I know what they like to eat, I know you know what their kind of parties like to feel like, and I can just make their experience better and better and better every time I go back. And I like to see them. It's it's like a fun part of it. It add it has added a whole new element to being a chef.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Yeah. Um than just making food. For the last several years we went to 30A on vacation with our kids, and um it was great. And there was there's a certain chef in his and his wife that they came over the last couple years. And when we were leaving, we knew we weren't coming back to 30 A next year. And uh they were like, We'll see you. And I and I think, dang, like the thing I'm gonna miss, one of the things I'm gonna miss about not going this year is those two people. Right. Like they were you know what I mean? They got to know us, we got to know them, it was fun. Yeah, it was it was great. So you you so you actually have a relationship.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

And I never thought about it. The chefs doesn't really get to see the satisfaction.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Right. Um depending on what kind of restaurant you work in, yeah, um how it's set up physically, where the kitchen is in front of the guests, you know, determines a lot of that. But yeah, a lot of restaurants you never see that immediate. uh you know whether you did well or not. Right. Which is nice. And it's you know it's satisfying to know that I've made people happy immediately, but also at the end of the night, I can very physically witness firsthand that I've created a memory and something special for people. Right. Which is which is incredibly satisfying for me.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

They're the dots I know I thought you may connect, right? You're about family, you're about relationships. Even when you were walking for those three months in South America, you would you would have short-term relationships and you you pointed that out and here you are you're coming back and you're mixing you're mix you're matching your passion for food with the relationship and families. Yeah. Right? Okay. So when you were walking around when you were 27 is this what you thought you'd be doing?

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Oh my God, no.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

No.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

I had no idea.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

No.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

No. And then I just thought it was cool to be a chef. I mean I'm gonna learn how to cook. I'm gonna learn how to cook and I'm gonna be totally like food independent no I can do this now like I have a real skill. Yeah. That's it. That's for now. Nothing so where do you see yourself?

SPEAKER_01 45:06

You're a person that thinks like so where do you see yourself in 20 years? When you look back where do you think you'll be in 20 years? Where do you look forward?

SPEAKER_00 45:15

Career wise, you know, I'd like to have I'd like to still be cooking. I don't ever want to be a type of chef who is uh like a sort of passive income chef um who's not physically there and doing real cooking work um every day. Like I like still now I like peeling potatoes. It's enjoyable. It's like a zen activity for me to skim stock perfectly think little things like that. So I I like the physical tasks of it which is great because that's day-to-day work. So I want to be doing that in 20 years in whatever sort of application that might be whether it's a private chef in people's homes or if it's in a restaurant again or if it's in something else that I haven't thought of yet.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

So you said something about ownership earlier uh do you so do you see yourself owning a restaurant? Yeah absolutely um I wonder if there's a I wonder if there's a way to bring them together where you where you have a restaurant where the chef has more of a connection with the tables.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Yeah um so there is and this actually was something I learned at one of the in-between restaurants um where I worked at in Philadelphia it's a place called Hiroki and it's a high-end Japanese uh omakase restaurant so that's omakase Japanese word for you know like a tasting menu the chef sets the menu you come in and you get that right you don't choose off of a menu what you'd like but the what's important about it is that it's a chef's counter so there are 12 seats and the chef is standing right behind a it's like the size of a kitchen counter me to you right now and he hands you every bite of food and you can talk to them and you can watch exactly what they're doing and you can see them as they react through every single bite that they take throughout the night. Yeah so that sort of introduced me more to like experiential dining and getting that satisfaction of seeing somebody's eyes light up when they when you know you've done your job well. Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

So it's such a big part of me it's like okay let's go do it. I'm in. I'll do it with you. But like I I'm continually reminded that the the quickest way to lose money is getting into that business. Well I'll be able to get some strong opinions on that too right right so that so that already does exist.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah so it you know things like this do exist in a lot of forms. You know not so much in Pittsburgh which maybe is just opportunity awaiting um but around the world things like this exist very much so where you can I can still manage that relationship part of my job which I love and not just be a chef in it in you know in a basement cooking.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Okay so when we look back um you've had such an interesting road if you could boil it down to three moments or three things and you go like dang I'm glad that happened what were the three in my life like that shape who you are today.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Definitely uh taking that trip. Yep. To anyone like considering travel whether you're alone or with somebody else a hundred percent of me thinks that you should do this and this will be a valuable life experience in some form or another that you will never forget.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

It's like a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience to just go travel anywhere I'd say internationally you know outside of I yeah and for those people that don't want to take three months and I do think seeing different cultures when you travel into different parts of the world it just expands your vision expands your view. It just I I think it changes perspectives dramatically absolutely that's the most important part of it.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

It changed my perspective on things seeing a different culture.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

And I remember you saying to me you saw people that had little be very very happy.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

Yeah uh-huh that was a huge part of of being down there and kind of shifting my perspective exactly like you know I grew up in one culture with in one class you know and I'm you don't maybe you don't want to say it but everyone kind of grows up like in a bubble in America whatever your specific bubble is and when you see go somewhere to East Asia or the Middle East or South America things are so unbelievably different um that it changes your perspective.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

And you say oh life can actually be like this I haven't I haven't even considered that yeah even for a little bit like I'm not like in the United States like just change like get a greater perspective of what's going on in the country in the world.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

Okay that's one so any travel short or long it's worth it. So that's that would be one and then you know two I'd say just becoming honestly changing my career path to being something that I enjoyed um and sticking with it. I mean sticking with it has been no problem at all because I'm so excited about it all the time but making that decision to actually do that and not just fall back on the caught in the vortex. Right vortex like you said like I could have you know taken this trip and thought about things and and then just taken up cooking as a hobby or something and gone back to real estate. But I'm so happy now that I took that step uh to actually get into something that I would enjoy for the rest of my life. You know so that you know great that that would be the second most probably important thing I'd say. And a third one you know now I'm really happy and I feel like I'm in like the middle of this like career and I don't have to worry about making decisions about what to do with my life um and now I can kind of enjoy it and I'd say like family is the third thing you know that's most important to me. Like just being with my wife and having kids now it's like uh you know I don't know this is like corny or cliche to say but I'm so proud of my three-year-old son and I want to show him that all the things that you and I have just talked about like how important learning about different perspectives are in the world and like finding a path that you're excited about. That you can do like everyone has to I want to show my three year old son that you're gonna work from you know ages 18 to whatever 70 that's the majority of your life don't spend that doing something that you don't enjoy. So I you know I'm so happy about having a family and my wife is incredible and she supports me in all this and she supports that I am sort of you know have these values which are a little bit you know kind of out there in terms of the norms of you know what people go through in life. But she likes that I you know teach my son how to cook and he doesn't know he he holds a little plastic knife but like it's it's fun. Right. We're doing something physical and we're doing something together and that's important. And he doesn't have to be a chef but just that he's you know we're exposing him to things that you know aren't the typical like this this this this for this culture that we live in.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Yeah you your journey I find fascinating and while while I'm not sure we have a big percentage of the folks listening maybe aspire to bec aspire to become a chef as I'm listening to you regardless of what passion you're trying to find, whether it's an athlete, chef, um business person, dad, your blueprint is chock full of lessons and of tidbits that I think the listeners can learn from. So um I love that you're willing to take action I love that you're looking for something passionate. I love that you continually learn um I love that you're trading the legacy hearing you talk about your son and I gotta tell you I know your children are it's hard to explain I know it's corny but every day truly it does get better. There was never a period of my life that I didn't wish I could freeze my children at their current ages that's true today by the way. So um I love your passion I've learned a lot and I just thank you so much for the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Yeah no thank you for having me I mean it's felt like an easy conversation and yeah the the passion thing and liking enjoying what you do every day is you know I think it's the most important thing. I can't wait to have you over the house to to uh make some fabulous meals for our guests well I can't wait to serve you we'll come up with something that you love I didn't even ask you what you like to eat.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

Pizza pizza we can have a pizza no my guess is your ideas on food are better than mine I'd I'd defer. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

Yeah no thank you too it's been a pleasure