From Award-Winning Pastry Chef to Corporate Chef - Bill Corbett Talks About the Transition to Salesforce's Head of Culinary

Welcome to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. I'm your host Chris Spear. On the show. I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. They're caterers, research chefs, personal chefs, cookbook authors, food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers and all sorts of culinary renegades. I myself fall into the personal chef category as I started my own personal chef business perfect little bites 11 years ago. And while I started working in kitchens in the early 90s I've literally never worked in a restaurant. This week. My guest is Bill Corbett. Many people know him from his years working as a pastry chef with people like Sam Mason, Wylie Dufresne, Lincoln Carson, Michael Mina and Daniel Patterson. But he left the world of pastry behind and is currently the executive chef and head of culinary at Salesforce. Bill has been recognized as the best pastry chef 2011 from San Francisco magazine, and in 2013, he was selected as one of the top 10 pastry chefs in America by dessert professional magazine. We talked about the transition from being a restaurant pastry chef to overseeing salesforce's ohana floor kitchens and barista programs across the company's global towers. There are a lot of changes that come with a transition like this, and Bill discusses learning how to be a better leader and stepping away from the food. We also talk about punk rock and Brooks Headley, and hear about how the "killed by dessert" events came to be. If you've never heard of them, there were a series of collaborative desert events he did with Christina Tozi, Lincoln Carson, Francisco, Migoya, Michael Laiskonis and Brooks Headley. Man, I wish I could have gone to one of those, I hope they do them again. And if you're a fan of pastry chefs, or want to hear about transitioning into the corporate food world, this episodes for you. And now a word from our sponsor Savory Jobs. Are you shocked at what it costs to post a job ad? Instead, imagine a job site for restaurants only where you could post as many jobs as you wanted. And it only costs 50 bucks. Not for each job you post. But for all the jobs you post for an entire year. Well, my sponsor savory jobs has made that a reality. They've launched a revolutionary. easy to use job site just for restaurants. And it only costs $50 for unlimited job posts for an entire year. Plus, for our loyal listeners, use the code SAVORY10 and get 10% off. So go to savoryjobs.com and discover the job site that's shaking up the restaurant industry. Forget the big corporate sites like indeed and monster, and join the revolution at savoryjobs.com, and remember o use code savory10 for 10% of . And now on with the show. Th nks so much, and have a great we k. Hey, Bill, welcome to the show. Thanks so much.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Man, I guess I know we've never met but I feel like you and I probably connected on Twitter like a decade ago or so I talked about very fondly like old Twitter. You know, like when you got on in 2010 or 11. Like who were the shafts on there at the time. And I feel like I've stayed in touch on and off with so many of those people.

I remember joining around 2009 I joined I think because of Chris Cosentino we had done like Pebble Beach food and wine together. And I ended up helping with a bunch of stuff for his his event and I was doing my own events. And then he ran into some technical difficulties and I ended up helping him out. So we me and him really connected those when we first met and became friends and then and he was very active on Twitter. And so Like, oh, check it out. And I jumped on I think in 2009, Twitter was different animal back then I think it was, it was very collaborative. And I think it was a lot of chefs sharing ideas, and it was pretty amazing. And then somehow, you know, it's not that that's not there anymore. But I can remember, like ideas and food would constantly be just throwing out ideas and interacting and people like you, like, that's how I, you know, heard about you is because of Twitter, you know, we follow each other. And, you know, we've definitely interacted in the past many times, I think, over the years, but never met or talked in person in any way.

I love those days where, you know, I, I'd be sitting at the breakfast table, and I post something and Alex from ideas, and food is one of those guys who would almost always chime in and say, like, Oh, that's great. But like, what if you did this? And then you know, someone else would just add to the conversation, say, Oh, yeah, I like that. But how about that, and you could have this kind of almost like crowdsourcing a dish over Twitter, you know, in the course of an hour, totally with, like, 20 people. And I just thought that was so cool.

And then two days later, somebody would post a photo of like, Hey, here's what we did with it. You know, it's like, I remember Francisco and Nagoya would respond with like, Oh, I saw that idea. And I went and made it happen. Here it is. And you're just like, Oh, cool. And then, honestly, Twitter is the reason we did. I don't know if you ever heard of it. We did an event called killed by desert, about around 2012 2013, or six pastry chefs got involved together, it was me and Lincoln Carson, Francisco Goya, Christina tozi, Brooks Headley, and Michael Jonas. And so we wanted to do this event. And it started honestly, from a Twitter post that Lincoln did, where he kind of just listed his top three favorite things, or top five favorite foods. And one of them was like ice cream right out of the machine, which is like this experience, you can't give your guests right, it's like, because it's just not stable, like unless you run it to them, or you bring them back in the kitchen. You know, they're not ever going to experience that. But the best ice cream you'll ever have is like when you're spinning it out of that carpigiani and like, and you take like a spoonful off it and that's like perfect texture, perfect temperature. And Lincoln talked about that, right? And so then we started talking about like, what if we did an event around these sorts of ideas of things, we can't normally get the gas or our favorite things. And so we ended up the six of us somehow ended up on a call and develop this event called kill by desert, we end up doing about four events. I believe we started in Brooklyn, we did it in the Momofuku milk bar, like bakery, because it was huge. And we could set up tables and cook right next to the guests. And then we and then we took that to we did an Austin, foreign and domestic, they hosted us. And we did it in Washington DC kind of scaled down version on a rooftop for charity events. And then we did a really big one in San Francisco at SF cooking school where we did a two day event or first day was a big bake sale where we were able to incorporate about 15 pastry chefs locally. And the next day was the dinner and we would sort of do this reverse dinner where we'd serve savory hors d'oeuvres from each chef. And then you'd sit down and get two courses from each pastry chef so it was like you get a little bit of savory but then you literally ate like 12 course dessert and it's terrible for you and but really like a really fun event. And we would invite people to come help plate from the crowd and they could come up and help us to assemble the dishes. And it was just a super energetic fun event that we developed and everybody just got really busy. You know, Christina obviously has a lot going on. And Brooks open superiority burger and Michael Leffler, Bernard then, you know Francisco's now with modern cuisine, and Lincoln's, you know, opened one restaurant is in the process of opening, like several more. So yeah, so you know, we often it comes up every six months or so somebody's like, what are we gonna do another one, and we just haven't kind of come around to do it. But I think it'll happen one day, I think. But that was a result of Twitter. Right back in the day, it was this great collaboration tool,

like that inspired Chefs Without Restaurants so much like you're talking about foreign and domestic, like indie chefs week, you know, I thought was so cool, even though I'd never been to one of those events. But watching what Ned and then we're all doing, you know, these kind of under the radar chefs getting together doing collaborative things working together. You know, that was kind of a model for a lot of what I wanted to do. And I'm not at that level yet where I'm doing that. But ideally, I'm going to be traveling around doing kind of pop up collaborative dinners as part of this, but yeah, really, it's awesome. I missed those days. You know, I had a problem with smoking some white chocolate one time and Francisco was like, really great about, you know, going via dm on Twitter, talking through the process, like what did you do? How did you do it? Here's what I would do. You know, someone who's probably got a million things on his plate, who could take some time to just talk to me about how to best smoke white chocolate, you know?

Yeah, totally. I think that was really incredible about that time period. Even still, those people are still like that, you know, if you were to pose a question them online, they would probably at least still answer it in short form. Michael is Jonas is the same way. Like, I can't count the amount of times, you know, I'm trying to figure something out. And I reach out to him and he's got a very technical answer for me, but it all makes sense. It works.

So we jumped kind of right into it. But I'd love to backtrack a little bit. How did you get into the food and beverage industry? Were you always someone who was interested in Did you know early on that you wanted to be a pastry chef?

No, the funny thing is my food knowledge growing up is incredibly lacking. Like, like I was always, once I got into food, I was always jealous of the chefs who were like, my grandma cooked me this and this is how I got into food. And it's just part of my being and blah, blah, blah. You know, it's like, you know, those stories of like, you know, growing up running around the kitchen as a five year old, those are not my stories. My story was, my parents do not cook, they don't really get into cooking. It's not something they cherish. You know, food is just, it's life sustaining. And that's about it. You know what I mean? Like, my dad always makes fun of me for using fancy ingredients and drinking fancy coffee. Like even when he flies here to visit like, I will make him coffee every day, but he will bring his Folgers freeze dried instant coffee. And then he'll make fun of me for grinding beans and taking five minutes to actually make a coffee. But so my family wasn't really isn't, doesn't isn't centered around food at all. I kind of didn't know what I want to do with my life for a long time, I was like stabbing in the dark a lot in my late teens, I had no clue. And then somewhere around my, I worked in a video store, the video store actually closed and that the owners were like, Oh, you can come work with us, you know, we're gonna open another one down the street that never really materialized. I went on sort of unemployment and like, you know, I was collecting my check. And then I had like six or seven months of that, and I was waiting for them to open that store. And then it wasn't didn't seem like it was gonna happen. So a friend of mine was literally a dishwasher at this restaurant called Mongolian grill. All you can eat buffet, you kind of fill a bowl of raw ingredients to bring it up to this massive like seven foot wide round flat top. And you throw the food down there, cook it with sticks and slide it back into a bowl and handle the guests. So I got my start in a kitchen like that I had worked at McDonald's as a teenager as well, which, you know, provided me with skills I didn't realize I even had at the time, you know, just like being organized, staying efficient cleaning. But so so I kind of excelled in this restaurant. And started as a dishwasher and quickly moved into the kitchen just doing prep items making like slicing all the meats that are going on the buffet slicing the vegetables and trying to get really fast with a knife and imitate like Martin and chopping really fast. And obviously I did terribly with like rental knives at the restaurant supplied. But in the end, that restaurant had a kind of a bunch of us ended up working out and knew each other and it became this like camaraderie in the kitchen. And you know, we were like blasting pump music in the back and like and really kind of enjoying our time in the kitchen together. And I realized I really liked food I really like like there's a magic in it for me that like when you transform raw ingredients into this into something else. And I started to learn that there and obviously I realized I wasn't going to really learn what I needed to learn to actually cook well there. So you know, I got really basically ignited something in me for cooking. So I ended up moving to Florida and along after that just to follow like friends who are in punk and, and because there's a really great punk scene in Tampa, Florida in the mid to late 90s. So around 1999, I moved to Florida for a couple years, worked in a random place called seventh heaven psychic cafe, which literally gave psychic readings and then you could order lunch. And I worked in that while I lived in Florida. At the time, honestly, I thought I was gonna go into graphic design because I was really into punk. And I'm still really into punk. So I moved there to live with, you know, these punk friends and it was very community minded. You know, one of the friends I wanted to own a record shop and they were using that as a venue as well. And then, you know, we're friends, we're designing the records and pressing the records and doing fanzines. And it was a very no printing the T shirts. So we have we have a pipeline for all of it, right. And we were like, you know, when bands will go on tour, they'd come and we'd help print shirts, and we'd all just go in and help you know each other out and, and help each other get ready for tour and things like that. I was never in the bands at that time. But so I got into that scene really, you know, worked in Tampa. And then I was like I really, really want to work in kitchens, it clicked and I ended up meeting my wife there. And moving back to Canada for a little bit. I'm originally from Canada, from southwestern Ontario, just to kind of move back to my parents for for a few months, save some money because my wife and I were gonna get married. And then I was moved to New York. And then, you know, at that time, I just really got into like, it sounds cheesy, but watching the Food Network, because at that time the Food Network was actually teaching people how to cook right, it was like, very basic, but it was like going through the basics really well. And so, you know, I would watch all these shows obsessively, and learn about cooking rules and stocks and you know, marijuana and all that sort of stuff and, and then reading every book, I could get my hands on a hands on I was just like, absorb it. And so I ended up moving during or after going back to Canada. This is a bit of a long story. But you know, my wife and I both was going to school at the time in New York for school visual arts. And then I was like, I'm just Going to work in a restaurant and trying to get a job. I literally like, naively, I hadn't gone to college or school and I hadn't spent time in New York kitchen. I dropped off like 75 or 100 resumes, even like it like, I remember like 71, clean, fresh food, like, while you frames earlier a restaurant and like, and I look back and I'm like, man, no one was gonna hire me, what was I even thinking, you know, but like, I ended up working in this bar in the kitchen and the bar. And then this woman came in, saw me, you know, in my chef or my, you know, cooks, whites or whatever. And so she started talking to me and realized, like, I started talking to her saying, I was trying to find something. She was like, why don't you come do a start? And I'd barely known what a start was, I actually just just set up my first one at the Cirque, which is like insane as well, because that was way out of my, my depth at that point to train and go in there. Anyway. So this one was like, Oh, yeah, I work for this great pastry chef, his name is Lincoln, Carson. He's awesome. We're looking for someone, you know, we need someone on the ice cream station. Well, and then, you know, Lincoln was working for Be our guest at that time, which is a huge restaurant group in New York that owns I don't know how many now but at the time, they have like 12 restaurants. And Lincoln was heading up a team at a commissary that was cooking all the doing all the pastry for seven of those restaurants. So Lincoln took me under his wing, and I came in and astonished and, and, you know, Lincoln saw something in me and offered me a job. And I really excelled under Lincoln, and Lincoln kind of, you know, honestly changed my life and is still a mentor to this day. But I started working with him. And he introduced me like Sam Mason and, and Johnny zini. And all them. And you know, I went started with Johnny and Sam. And then and then one point I called Sam up to ask him a technical question about something I was trying to do. And he asked me, you know, what am I up to, because he's actually looking for a cook. And so I ended up going and working for Sam at wd 50. And then Lincoln reached back out and said, Hey, we need someone to head up the pastry kitchen in Michael Mina in San Francisco, and you want to come out. And my wife and I had always wanted to move San Francisco. So we jumped on that came out. Because they're about two and a half years went over to call for a while, help Daniel Patterson with a few of his restaurants, and then went work for a group called the absence group. And then I left and was trying to open my own restaurant and now has landed at Salesforce about four years ago, four and a half years ago.

It sounds like you had the opportunity to work with some amazing people. I mean, just throwing the names out there. I mean, I think those are pretty much if not household names, definitely really well known names in the culinary field. I mean, I can't imagine working with a better group of pastry chefs.

I was really, really fortunate like those, you know, working with Lincoln, and then Sam, and then you know, just like wd 50 alone at that time, just connecting you to so many people and gave you so much skill and sort of open minded thinking about how you can about food and how you can cook and, and about learning like, you know, the hows and whys of cooking. And, you know, so I never ended up going to culinary school. And I ended up just being very fortunate and falling like that, for me not falling into something. But like, definitely, you know, finding the right path for me.

Yeah, we talked about that a lot on the show, like go to culinary school or don't I mean, it depends on what your opportunities are and your drive. But I mean, you probably got a much better education going your path and so many people who would just go to a traditional culinary school for baking and pastry. You know, I would definitely trade culinary school for having those opportunities.

I think I got lucky, to be honest, you know, I mean, I think I think there's value in voluntary school as well. I think it depends on the person, are you going to go out there and make those connections, I was also older, I was like, 29, when I finally figured out what I had figured out a few years before what I want to do, but it took me a few years to get my foot in at any restaurant that would take me you know, or in a kitchen. It wasn't even a restaurant, it was a commissary kitchen, but we're doing things at a restaurant level. So it was like, you know, and because you weren't doing service, you were just cooking like eight to 10 hours a day and really learning the ins and outs of like, of like ice cream and pastry and you know, custards, and whatever, you know, like all the techniques involved with pastry, like temporary chocolate, doing chocolate work and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, I think you know, but I think some people getting those skills will get you that foot in the door, you know, and I think that's important too. I just think like people need to be wary of, you know, are you going to go spend the $100,000 and then get a job where you're making $15 an hour and trying to pay that back like that's, I think I like the way actually SF cooking here approaches it as if cooking school in San Francisco. It's a it's four months in class two months on an externship. And I think it comes in around 25k or something and

that's a lot less than most schools.

And what they've done is really like they've really brought in like the local chefs to connect with, you know, they bring in like Brandon Zhu and, and Daniel Patterson and myself and, you know, there's so many great chefs that go in there. And do amazing work with them. And they connect them into the industry, which is great. And they talk to the industry about what do you need to cook, right. And that's what we want to build how we want to build our cooks, when we're I never had that dialogue with anyone else. Like, it wasn't like what a chef's need today. It was like, we're gonna try to get as much out of them as we can money wise, and then you know, we'll give them the curriculum we think they need and then you you can take them and do what you have to try to reshape them. But this is trying to shape people for the industry, which is great.

We need more of that for sure. And more mentors in the kitchens. It sounds like you've had some really great people to work for. I don't always think that's everyone's experience. So totally, I think if you're fortunate there.

So it's a not so great ones, too. But yeah, we've got some definitely experiences that are, you know, he uses the warning signs for other cooks coming up.

But well, now you're the executive chef at Salesforce. So that's not a restaurant. And it sounds like you're not doing pastry. So what was that transition? Like? Yeah, so

when I was out trying to do my alternate when a restaurant basically, you know, I left, you know, I've wanted to have my own restaurant for years, say a savory restaurant with a heavy pastry element to it. I actually wanted open sort of like a vegetarian version of the soda fountain, you know, with like, comfort foods, but all vege you know, house made veggie burgers and like, a little more elevated still, you know, great cocktails, and then being able to infuse like the soda fountain into the cocktail program. And then, and then having an ice cream shop that was like on the side that you could like, come up in order out of the window thing. So I was working on that business plan. And I've gotten one investor and I thought, Okay, it's time to like, go, I have like a little bit of money in my pocket right now. And I just need to like I was gonna do it in Los Angeles, because my wife was really originally from there. So we went down to Los Angeles, and honestly, like, not because of wants to Los Angeles, but because of like, some landlord problems and things like that we had a terrible time, the only bright spot was our son was born or for son was born in Los Angeles in 2016. But the rest of the year was just terrible. And then I had built a relationship through doing some, some private events and other things. And with actually the CEO from Salesforce, Marc Benioff. And so in the fall of that year, I was actually negotiating purchasing a restaurant back in Oakland to come back to the Bay Area. And he emailed me and was like, Hey, we're doing this thing. And he kind of explained it. No, in a weird way it did. It was like, honestly, I call the email that he sent me, the Haiku because it was very much like, Hey, we're gonna do this kitchen at the top of one of our towers. And it's gonna be for the employees to come and recharge, and they can have a little bite and some coffee. And you know, it's gonna be an interesting little kitchen, it's gonna be open. And you know, and we're looking for an executive chef, would you be interested in interviewing for it? And I said, Yeah, definitely, what's Can you give me a job description? And he was like, Well, I think I just wrote it. So I was like, Okay, so, so I flew up from LA and checked out and got a tour from the report into the real estate department, because it's real estate and workplace services. So that's the department I now report into, but some of the some of the folks in that department gave me a tour at the time. So this was going to be at the top of what's building we have called Salesforce east, which is at the corner of Fremont and mission in Selma in San Francisco really close to like the core of this downtown and then kitty corner for that they were building a not us but there's a building being built called and they were calling Salesforce tower Salesforce has been a you know, but the naming rights it was taking like about around 60 some odd percent of the building. And, you know, the building was not even finished yet. So they put me on a construction elevator and took me up to the 53rd floor. And we got off this construction elevator and to this floor with no windows. And we looked out at this view of the Bay Area like 360 degree view of the Bay Area. And they started going well you know, you know, this is where we would have the kitchen This is where we do this and then and then they're like, it's not gonna be on this floor it's gonna be on the very top floor 61st floor. So this this is what we're looking to do and then they you know, they show me the plans for the other one in Salesforce East which was also under construction, the building was done but they were finishing up this floor. So I thought you know, I've got a caters now like at that point six months old, and when I was doing this tour with them and I was like, you know, I want to be able to enjoy life with him and if I open a restaurant, I'm going to be buried. And so you know, I thought maybe I'll take this. So I ended up like, literally like, squashing the deal the last minute to buy the restaurant and taking this job and and what it was is this this space called an ohana floor that Mark had sort of dreamed up. The idea is they we take our top floors and we give our top floors to the employees as opposed to the executives you know a lot of companies will give that top floor to executive offices. But Mark made them these sort of open spaces that are very comfortable, amazing views. We put a kitchen in them the kitchen, the small beautiful sort of rooms Call them exhibition kitchens. They're open kitchens, but they're really well designed and beautiful. And then the spaces are beautiful tons of plant life, anywhere from 10 to 40,000 plants, depending on which ohana floor, we're talking about, literally, like live planted columns, you know, everywhere. And so the idea is these are places that employees can go and sort of just recharge, take a break, enjoy the view. And then we also use them obviously, for events, you know, they're like, kind of showstopper spaces. So we also, you know, we host community events for, you know, a lot of nonprofits can use our spaces for free and nights and weekends. And then we do you know, obviously, customer dinners and executive dinners and community based dinners and lunches. And then our team does like, we do like during the day, we do like a mix of employee engagement, and then executive and customer support. On the employee engagement side, we'll do things like cookbook events where we'll bring in like, Sean Brock or Rene redzepi are Ottolenghi and do like, my team will cook out of their book and serve a bunch of snacks. And then, you know, anywhere from 70 to 200, people will come sit down and watch a fireside chat between me and those chefs. So those are like our employee engagement, we'll do surprise pop ups, or we'll announce them internally on our sort of internal social channels and be like, you know, oh, we're doing this like booster pop up right now. And everyone will literally have run up there and try to get them before they're gone. And then we just put up snacks on the counter a little hors d'oeuvres snacks, where employees and guests can come by and try snack, we don't feed the employees like lunch, we don't run like a cafeteria. And the great thing is that because we're so small, you know, each of our kitchens maybe has including baristas, like around a team of 11 or 12. And it's like a Chef de Cuisine to sushi chefs, one being a pastry sous chef, and then two line cooks the dishwasher. And then three to five baristas depending on the location. And so they can come up and get a really good coffee, we source great coffee, and we get to like, you know, and we really emphasize hospitality. So, you know, we talk to the guests, the guests come up to the counter dressed snack, they can sit at the counter stools there. And then for the dinners and lunches, we have like a 24 seat dining table, that people can come sit at and, and during the day employees just tend to camp out there and work and hang out and enjoy the view and try to snag the snacks as they come up. But we get to operate like in a way on that restaurant level, right? We you know, the farmers market in San Francisco is a five minute walk away, we can still go down there and get product, some farmers will drop off directly to us, they'll pull the van up on their way to the market, and we'll run down and just pull off the truck. So we still get amazing product. We're small, we're nimble, we just get to like, no, it's really, it's incredibly fun. And I feel incredibly fortunate to do what I do not

sounds like a really cool place to work. I'd like to work in a place like that. I worked at IKEA. And they weren't quite at that level. But they definitely had amenities and things like that, that I've never experienced in any other business before. And I think those are great companies to work for.

And they let me build the program from the ground up and kind of trusted me, which was amazing, you know, and I've never felt that level of trust before where we kind of built it. We've definitely set up like, you know, we're very serious about examining our form of hospitality, because it's not like a restaurant, right? Like it's, you know, we have right now four kitchens around the world. And we have another another five on the way. So we've got one, we've got two kitchens in San Francisco, one in New York and one in London that are all currently, well not currently operational because the pandemic but they were all operational, and will be again soon. But then next year, we open Tokyo, Atlanta, Dublin. And then after that is Chicago, and after that is Sydney.

So do you have your hands on that? Do you go and try? Those

are all Yeah, I oversee the whole program. So we have, we have an amazing kitchen designer, who designs like all of our spaces, so they're all consistent. We work with an amazing architecture firm that helps design the spaces. So we've all kind of we all work very symbiotically, and it's really, it's amazing. Like the spaces we're building. You know, for the chef's it's about, you know, dropping your ego at the door, you know, and that's sort of like how when I interview people, when I talk to them, I'm like, this isn't about you anymore. You know, it's not about like, you're not going to get press here, because not many people want to write about, you know, the corporate chef program because they can't go enjoy it. Right. If you can't go enjoy it. Who wants to write about it?

That's why we have Chefs Without Restaurants. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So there's a so there's just, you know, this sort of mantra of like, drop your ego at the door. It's about facilitating what's going on at the table, right. And so when we first opened, I was thinking, we're in this fancy tower with fancy kitchen and, and we're going to do like coursed out menus. And so we started doing it with core step menus, four to five courses. And then we realized we were kind of making people stay longer than they wanted to, right. They were, they'd all been there since 8am, already working somewhere else in the building, and they had to come up and do some business dinner. And then we realized also, we were interrupting them every 15 to 20 minutes with a new force and stopping the conversation. So we started doing a lot more family style unless they want the if they want the course many will do what they want. But we try to steer them towards like a family style menu because we can drop all these courses on the table at once. And then they can just they have to pass each other food, they connect, they talk to each other more. So if it's a customer and an executive trying to like come to a deal, when you're sharing something, you're actually handing people food and looking them in the eye. Like it changes the dynamic of the conversation. And so for me, it's really about thinking about what, how do we get them to the goal, they want to get to right that that executive, or the salesperson hosting that event? You know, what is their goal? And how do we facilitate that goal? And that's like, that's hospitality to me, right? It's like, it's not about me showing you all the tricks I can put on a plate at once. It's, it's really about like making this like convivial environment where they can connect. And, and that's what we really try to do. And we actually that's sort of like our mission statement is, is we use food and beverage as a tool for connection. And if we're not doing that, then we're not doing our job. And we have to look at what we're doing. And that's sort of sort of where we, where we start over again, if it's like, are we connecting people with this, if not start to get

a lot of chefs who come from restaurants have trouble transitioning into a non restaurant environment? What were some of your biggest challenges when you got there? Did you have any,

we've had a lot. And also we still have them as a team. Most of my team comes from restaurants, I would say 95%, or three places they came from, like, you know, the local roaster, sort of barista bar, I think the challenge was, you know, we stepped into this corporate world. And it was very structured and, and I think anybody else coming in coming from another company would kind of understand the structure more quickly, and understand what resources were available. And I think that was a big thing. Like, as a chef, it took me a while to learn that I can ask for more things than I'm used to, you know, and I can I can say, Listen, this would make our team more viable like, and it's like I can I hired a project planner, because I was, I couldn't keep up with all the projects we're working on. So I hired a project manager that handles the kitchens now and she, you know, funnels the questions to me every week in a weekly meeting now. So it's like, okay, but whereas before, it was like, I was getting all these emails all week long, and I couldn't step away from the kitchen long enough to like, sit down and read them. And then I realized, like, I shouldn't be in the kitchen anymore. You know, we're building all this. And if I'm supposed to be running it, like, I can't, I can't chop the onions and make the decisions on what the cooking suites gonna look like. or what

is that hard stepping out of the kitchen? Because that's something I think so many of us deal with, even in restaurants, when you become an executive chef, and you start cooking, or stop cooking and doing more admin stuff. Was that tougher is

it was super hard at first. So my boss at the time, she's the head of real estate, I basically, you know, we had a one on one meeting. And I brought this sort of thought to her and you know, I was like, I was like, have you ever heard of a Chef de Cuisine and I was like, and she of course hadn't. And so I kind of explained to her. Our company has done a lot of work with Michael Mina. So I just explained to the Michael mean organization, how like a Chef de Cuisine operates and what they do and how they're there to represent the brand and the chef. And I was like, I think we need to hire a chef that was in each one of these kitchens, because like, I'm getting buried, trying to cook and kind of make all the decisions and grow the department. And so she was like, all right, hire one, you know, so we did that. And then I hired Yoni Levy, who's he was the chef at outlands, before coming to us, and then he'd also helped open up also with Daniel Patterson. And he's just an incredibly hard worker, and really a great person and, and really cares about what he does. So it was amazing to pull him in, but like, he would, you know, be running the kitchen, and I would step on the line and then go, what are you doing here? You know, and that's certainly questioning a cook and being like, are you sure you want to do that? Is that the right movie? You know, and I'd start like, picking apart what they're doing, when he only had already talked to them, you know. And then so it was really like it was, you know, it was co managing almost double managing these people. And they were like, Who am I supposed to listen to? And then God pulled me aside, it's like, dude, you gotta not do that, you know? And I was like, Okay, fair enough, you know, so a lot of it was learning to be a better leader, learning to let him lead. And let the other shift of cuisines in the other locations lead. So now we sort of like we building and standardizing the program is what I'm about. And it was hard to step away from the food. You know, I still very much walk by and check it out every time you know, when we are in the kitchen, and I check it out every day and see what they're putting up. And, you know, and if there's an issue I talked to Yoni now and Yoni gets tough, you know, so it's, so it took me a little while to be a better manager. And that way, it's taken me a while to be a better manager overall, because I learned a lot of bad habits. You know, I wasn't the screaming chef at this point, you know, not that I'd never did that in the past because it didn't, it was terrible. But at this point in my career, I'd given up on that, but like, you know, you're still no one teaches you to be a manager in the restaurant world. You know, it's just like, is the food going out on time? And if the food's going out on time, then you're managing, you know, to an extent that's the way it's looked at a lot. And no one teaches like real leadership and the amazing thing about Coming into a corporate company like this, and a company that truly cares, his leadership training is huge. It's honestly the stuff I do as a manager now takes up so much of my time, but it teaches me so much about how I should be managing these people and how I should be helping them grow. And how I should be getting the best out of them and trying to understand, okay, this person works this way. And that, so I have to manage them a little differently and, and try to draw more out of them. But yeah, so in the end, it was it was, it was tough to walk away from the food part of it. But in the end, I think I'm really stoked to be where I'm at, I'm very excited to be building this really what I think is a really special program that I don't think exists anywhere else. Like, I don't think like every other, every other company, but a lot of companies, you know, they, they do the cafeteria thing, which is fine, because employees love it. But I'm lucky that I get to like kind of work at this like very intimate level, because the teams are small, the kitchens are small. And we get to do just amazing work because of it. And, and I get to help build this ship. And I've never been able to build a culture before. Especially as a pastry chef, I was always you always have to fall in line, whatever the culture, the chef is setting, right. So like, as a pastry chef, I was always frustrated with something one way or another, or like bringing problems to management. And they're like, yeah, you're right, that it should change. But it never would change, right? And it was just like, so it's very frustrating on that. And but now it's like, I get to be that change. And when people come to me, I get to say, look at our program, honestly and say, Okay, are we doing the right thing here? Should we change it and, and we have a very open dialogue about like, moving forward as a team. And it's amazing.

I'm excited to see that is becoming also more of a trend in kitchens in general, I mean, so often said, You know, I wanted to start my own business for a long time. But the straw that broke the camel's back is the last job I was at, I felt like, I was not on the same page, as my general manager, there was a really bad culture where I was working, and I was the executive chef, you know, but I still wasn't allowed to run the kitchen, the way I felt that needed to be run. And I was just like, I can't come in every day, kind of executing the orders that I didn't agree with. And then, you know, allowing this toxic culture and I just for me, I had to leave, you know, and it's sad. I had been at that job for 10 years. And this is something I see over and over and kitchens is just the refusal to fix these problems, or just flat out, you know, ignoring them.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think it is changing. Luckily. Now, I think, you know, when I was coming up, that was not the way it is. And we all perpetuated it, you know, we all took part in it. And then, you know, I think we're all learning now at this point that that was not the right way. And there's just like, all these excuses made for why restaurants should be running those ways. And oh, you know, you can't turn a profit, you can't do this, well, then then it's not a viable business. In the end, if you can't turn a profit without abusing people, then it's not viable. Like, yeah,

we always talk about how crazy it is that this wouldn't fly in any other place. Right? Like, if you're an accountant, your boss would never come through and like throw a book at your accounting bucket, you screaming down the middle of the office, like, Yeah, why does that work in kitchens? I don't know.

Right? And you wouldn't be working like, you know, there's, there's one restaurant I worked at was like, we'd show up at eight or 830 in the morning, and we'd worked on midnight, because they didn't want to hire two crews. And we do that Monday through Friday, and then we'd have only dinner service on Saturday. And we'd still come in at noon or want to work at 10 to 12 hour day, and then they'd call that a half day. And then and then you'd have Sunday off and you were just burnt out, you know, and they wondered why they couldn't keep staff and why people didn't care about you know what they were doing. And I was like, but those sorts of things are like, you know, totally taking advantage of people. And then you're told Well, if you can't hack it, then you must not be good enough, you know? And it's like, well, you must not care enough or maybe you're not meant for this industry. And it's like, well, maybe the industry needs to change. And I think I think it is changing and I think it's getting better. And maybe there's gonna be less of that like insanely meticulous chef run restaurant. I think there's enough of them around now. They're they're still there, you know, like, they're still amazing restaurants doing that kind of work still. And also Nathan's? You know,

I don't wanna say like a young man's game. But you know, you mentioned having a child for me, it was the same thing. You know, I have kids and I sacrifice a lot early on, you know, not spending time with my wife. I had parents who were both ill and ultimately passed away. And I felt like I didn't spend enough time with them. While they were literally like on their deathbed. You don't get that time back. And I felt like I got another chance when I had kids. And that was kind of when I was like, No, I just like, I can't do this. I'm not going to be here. 80 hours a week. I'm not going to miss every single thing in my kid's life. What for this cooking job. It's just you know, I'm glad Tony likes it at an earlier age.

Yeah, yeah, I think I got really lucky and had this job sort of, you know, offered to me. And if I didn't have I don't know what to do with the pandemic right now. I'd probably be in a lot of trouble. Because I was like, I was like ready to open this restaurant. And I think right now I'd be suffering pretty hard, as are a lot of people and you know, and there was honestly, there's a guilt factor in that for me, you know, it's like, you know, there's like, feel sort of guilty that like, because it wasn't that long ago that I was in that in that world with them, and in that boat with them. And I've seen so many people struggle around me, and then we've weathered the pandemic, you know, and I've made it, you know, my team, we're still there. And we're, you know, you know, our, our company allowed us to grow, and we sort of like pivoted, and we became this online content team. And now we've published like, we've done like, we did a virtual cookbook, like it's all for internal for employees, but we did we, we publish a virtual cookbook, we're calling it it's basically like a database of like, right now, it's almost 700 recipes in the last year, and then we've done like, 60, some odd cooking videos, and, and we do all these live events for customers and employees in general. And then even customers of the company, we you know, that are, you know, some of our customers are our culinary related. So we started doing these customer spotlight series from my team where we're bringing them in, and we would let that customer tell their story. And then we do a demo together, and then do a q&a afterwards, as a way to sort of encourage our employees to go buy their product. So we've really flipped our team, and our team has suddenly become like, video editors and recipe writers and copywriters, and event managers, and it's totally, and everyone's gotten comfortable in front of a camera, which is amazing to see. And does really great work with videos now. And like, you know, and it's funny to see, like, all the skills they developed. And now we're trying to figure out how do we kind of incorporate that virtual world into our physical world, when we go back?

What seems like everyone needs to be a content creator these days, you know, myself included, and I never thought I'd have a podcast and you know, you're trying to put out the best photos of your food that you can. And then if you want to log in, you have to learn how to ride or at least you should maybe try to get better at writing and all these things that I never had in my toolbox, you know, I figured out and you see so many people now just spending so much of their days working on content.

Yeah, it's funny, all my food photos now or stuff I'm making for my kids,

when I've been there as well, well, where do you find culinary inspiration, like what keeps you going?

So I have a cookbook problem. I buy a lot of cookbooks. Still, even though I'm not the one kind of necessarily creating the food all the time. You know, the people that I've hired are 100% capable and do not need my help. And I should honestly not even offer it unless they ask for it. Because, you know, that's just let them do their thing. But you know, and a lot of it honestly, like, you know, I try to buy friends books. And you know, the Mr. G's book came out a few months ago, and it's pretty incredible and beautiful. I buy more books than I can read. It seems like lately, just because of the two young kids, like every time I try to read a book, my eyes start closing because I'm exhausted half the time. But uh, but i a lot of them centered around work now. Like, you know, we're doing Tokyo in about eight or nine months, we got open Tokyo in February. And I've never been and I can't go because the pandemic can't go and learn the culture. And so I'm buying like a ton of books and trying to read and I've actually hired a Japanese consultant to help help guide me and make sure that you know, I'm not going to mess this one up because it's a solely different than the other kitchens we've opened in the past, you know, but yeah, so yeah, cookbooks a lot online a lot to it, you know, reading things that come across my path. I look at people like Francisco Goya constantly and Michael Jonas. It's obviously a different path for them at this point. Brooks Headley like superiority burger is like, I don't know, I can eat there every day.

I just made a batch of them at home because the cookbook is amazing. And I've been to the restaurant and the first time I had one of the burgers, I was like, Damn, if this is not better than any beef burger I've ever had. And I'm a meat eater, but that is one tasty burger. So I made a batch just two days ago, which makes like 10 of them and I love having those.

Brooks is a he's some sort of magician, you know, he like, he's really great at just like really delivering flavor and umami. And like, you know, the last time I was there was actually it was actually my birthday last. When we opened our New York kitchen in 2019. We were about to open and then you know, we finished on the Sunday which was my birthday. And I was like, all right, who's coming with me and we like eight or nine of us went down to speery burger. They're super busy. And Brooks was like, you know, he came out with like two trays of food and he was like follow me and he set them down on like a tree planter down the street. And he's like, this is table 23 or whatever he called it he had a specific number for it. And he's like he's like a joy weed basically, I'll you know, just around this tree planter all sampled everything and

they've the most weird awkward seats in there. There's like this, sort of like the little folding over kind of swing arm tables there where you can fit like four people up against the wall. Otherwise, you gotta take it outside.

The thing about Brooks is like, I don't know if you know much about his musical career, like in the world, I come from the hardcore punk world. Brooks is a legend. And then and it's kind of it was kind of funny because Michael Jonas introduced me to Brooks. And he just emailed the two of us and said, You both like, punk, you're both pastry chefs, you should know each other. And then Brooks is like, Oh, I'm going to be coming out there and my bands doing a reunion show, you know, in a few months, so we should hang out when I come out. And I was like, oh, what band are you? And he was like, oh, universal order remark, ed. And I will say like, if you're into punk or like anything, kind of like on that level, go check them out. They're incredible. They were on kill rock stars Records, which was a pretty big label back in the day indie label. But Brooks that he was in a band called Bourne against he was in the Wrangler brutes he's been in all these awesome bands. And so Brooks and I just hit it off and kind of both came from the same world and, and I will say superiority burger is. And I don't know feel what he'll say when I say this. But like, he's, to me, it is a punk rock Xen come to life as a restaurant,

what was his his pace his dessert, but before that, definitely had that feel to

totally and that's, I think what he was going for, you know, it was like, he was like, it's this cut and paste feel of like, let's put this together. Let's put a lot of fun things in here. Somewhere inside jokes and weird things. And like, well, Steve albini wrote the foreword, right to his book, like, and Steve albini is one of the like, legendary, you know, recording engineers of you know, he recorded a you know, on one note, he recorded Nirvana, but he recorded so many incredible underground bands. And he was also in like, show ACC and big black. And, you know, he's an incredible musician in his own right. So it's like, you know, the fact that that guy's writing the foreword of books, his book is pretty incredible. Anyway, we could talk about books all day.

Yeah. I love that he's got so much personality, but I that's what I really love a restaurant and a chef that are more than just that, you know, it's not just the food, I find, you know, it's coronary arts, if you want to be, you know, in my opinion, specific about that, I think there's an art component to that. And I really enjoy drawing for me inspiration from places outside of just the food world, like I'm very inspired by going to an art gallery, or, you know, listening to an album.

And I think, you know, that restaurant that's again, like, as I say, like a restaurant, that is a very personal statement. That restaurant is very personal to Brooks, you know, it's a personification of Brooks in restaurant form, and it's pretty amazing to see him pull that off and, and have something like, that'd be so sustainable and so successful.

Yeah, I feel like if I ever had a restaurant, it would be something like that, you know, just like, small kind of awesome food not overly complicated. Like, that's, that's how I like to eat these days, too. I mean, there's a time in place for like that very fancy formal sit down experience, but I just want something that's going to you know, wow, me that doesn't seem like it's overly stuffy.

I just want to sit down with like, 10 people share everything, you know, yeah. It's like the Lazy Susan experience at an amazing Chinese restaurant. And like, you know, there's there's one here called spices, they actually have a few locations in the bay area that we sell go to one me and like, when I worked at quad was like Evan, rich from rich table and Brett Cooper and all these, you know, we all work together at that point, we would always go there and like birthdays and special occasions and just like, order everything and like just have this giant pile on the Lazy Susan and spinning and spinning and eating and eating. And that was awesome. Like, that's how I just love that whole, like sharing, like ordering a bunch of stuff and sharing it together. This is the way to go for me.

Who would you want to work with? Or shadow? If you could? Is there anyone still who would kind of be on your bucket list of people to work with?

There's a lot of people I'm very fascinated with, you know. I don't know if I want to work with anybody anymore. I don't know. Honestly, if I can hack it in a restaurant anymore. You know what I mean? Like,

really just like, hang out and be a fly on the wall just to see, you know,

I love the way Rene redzepi works. I love like, I know, some people are like, Oh, it's just like fancy food for rich people or whatever. But like, he really thinks outside the box. And he really takes things and transforms them. Like I think of things like his, like his celery root Alpes door, and stuff like that. Like it's, it's incredible watching what he does, with vegetables, and I'm vegetarian. So like for me, like, you know, I love people who can do innovative things with vegetables. You know, I always keep an eye on why they do frame, you know, work for him. But like, I still like, you know, he's someone who is always a fascinating person and is just, he's, like, always fun to watch what he's up to. And I'm trying to be Who else? Michael Solomonoff. Like we did a cookbook event with him at work and he's really amazing too. I love his his food and his work his books, and he's, you know, I really like what he does. Yeah, and then People like Shola. You know Shola is incredible following his work. And I listened to his episode here on the podcast. It was it was really great. He's, he's incredibly smart, and not pretentious. You know what I mean? And like when he totally could be, and get away with it, if you want it to be, but he's like, he just seems very down to earth where he does amazing work. And it's watching what he does is pretty incredible. And they're always question everything,

you know, the stuff he does? Yeah, some of it seems. So. You should, you should have thought of it. Right. Like, you see what he does. It's like, Oh, that's so simple. It's stupid, you know, but yeah, nobody else thought of it.

You know, who I think does that really well, too. And this is in a different way, not in that like kind of sort of like that sort of research and development way. But like, I think rich table in San Francisco has an incredible way of taking the the like comfort food dish and elevating it and giving it a twist that you're like, I wish I would have thought of that. And it but it's so it's so tasty and so good. They're they're pretty incredible there. And so that's one of my favorite restaurants in the cities, which table and I haven't

been out there. And like 12 years is before kids. That's one of the last vacations before we had kids. So I'm overdue for a visit. Hopefully, we'll get out there again and

bring a lot of awesome stuff out here. We'll say, you know, it's changing and shifting is like everywhere else right now. It's, so we'll see what happens. But it's there's a lot of amazing chefs and restaurants out here.

Well, I know you've got a lot going on with all the places you're opening. But do you have any other goals, either personally or professionally?

Personally, I always have these ideas of like wanting to do a cookbook in some way. And it's always been like, what what do I have to say? I've always been like, so I definitely want to do a cookbook. At some point, I started thinking about like, honestly, I might do a veggie sandwich or try to put together a veggie sandwich cookbook, because I feel like veggie sandwiches are often terrible in restaurants and then a lot of play. They're like the afterthought. Oh, let's make a garden burger. Let's do the you know, but like the idea of kind of coming and putting together like taking great vegetables and making great sandwiches and doing a whole like book on it to deep dive into it kind of excites me. I haven't done any of the work on that yet. So you know, it's a thought though. And it's something that constantly nags at me. On a personal level. I want to do a podcast like everybody else, I guess but, and centered around musicians who who are serious cooks, not necessarily restaurant cooks, but who take food seriously. But also musicians that are at least at a level where they like, take music seriously. Like people who put out records people actually play like real shows and real venues. Like people like Brooks, right like someone like you know interview someone like Brooks for like, I have friends here that are in this amazing band called Kowloon Walled City. And the bass player he in his vegan grows a ton of food, you know, makes his own pizza dough and breads and just take sell very seriously is not professional anyway, honestly, I think if he wanted to go professional, he probably could probably go and develop those skills pretty well. But uh, and then also the singer guitars in that band, Scott is is sort of like, following in those footsteps a little bit getting really into cooking. We, during the pandemic, the three of us started with a text group, and they've named it ask l cuccio. Because they kept asking me food questions. And so now it's just us goofing around on text all the time now, but like, you know, interviewing those guys about food and music and how they intertwine and food experiences on tour and things like that, like that, sort of, like, there's so many people from the punk world, in the food world. You know, it's a for me, it's music, food, my kids. And so like, I want to get in shape, I want to get back on my bike, things like that, those are goals for me. And then for my team, I just want to see my team grow, you know, we're opening, you know, we're gonna end up with nine kitchens, you know, in a few years. And who knows, you know, and they branch off into other ways with the company like the the food service, you know, outlets, we might create, I don't know, you know, you never know which way it's gonna go. Salesforce is a very fast moving company, and very innovative in the way they think about things. So, you know, we could be overseeing other food projects down the road, but like, for now, it's gonna be nine of these sort of ohana for kitchens. And, and really just, you know, for me becoming more organized a better manager, like building a really strong, like, just like a really great team, which we already have a really strong, great team. It's just, it's going to grow and we got to kind of get our we got to get our ducks in a row to make sure that the next five kitchens can like perform at the same level. And you know, and so that's going to be a big undertaking, and I'm pretty excited about it.

So do you think you're done with restaurants for good?

I would say most likely, I would say I'm, I'm happier than I've ever been at any job in my life. And if it works out and I'm at Salesforce willing to retire, I wouldn't be sad about that. So I can see myself just stay here. You know, I don't really have a bug to go back to restaurants. There's times I miss it. I miss the energy at times and I missed that sort of like, you know that push, but I think I'm pretty happy and I it's allowed me to grow and explore new things that I never would have explored. And it's, you know, it's you know, we've opened, you know, at the end of this will have opened nine kitchens and build nine different teams and you know, around the world and. And that's just not something that's going to happen to me if I go back into restaurants and I don't know if like, yeah, maybe I'm not the person who should open restaurants Anyway, you know, I was trying to do it. And it's, it took me a long time to kind of get to the point of having a business plan and trying to open something, and then I feel like, I'm better suited where I'm at now. It's like, it just it just clicks for me. And I'm super happy.

Yeah, I mean, sometimes you have to realize what your strengths and your weaknesses are. And things happen in interesting and mysterious ways. And just go with that. Right. Yeah. Open being open to things. Well, thanks for coming on the show. I'm so glad we had a chance to catch up.

Yeah, thank you for having me. It was great to finally connecting, you know, somewhat in person.

Yeah, hopefully we can do it in person. At some point. I want to get out that way. And if you ever find yourself out in the DC area, let me know. So to all of our Chefs, Without Restaurants, listeners, this has been Chris and you can find us as always at Chefs ithoutrestaurants.com and .org, nd on all social media latforms. Thanks so much, and ave a great week. Thanks for istening to the Chefs Without estaurants podcast. And if ou're interested in being a uest on the show, or sponsoring he show, please let us know. We an be reached at Chefs Without estaurants@gmail.com Thanks so uch.