Lawrence: [00:00:00 ] I actually first met you when I was bouncing at Off Shore. The after hours club. Yep.

Sam: Oh yes. The after hours club. Cape Henry. Right. That was, uh, that was an interesting time of life, you know, it was, uh, for me, certainly work-wise it was, it was very interesting because I was that time.

I was waiting tables five nights a week and the same five nights a week, I would, you know, I'd get off work there at, you know, nine, 10 o'clock. And then at 1230, the after hours club would open. So I'd have like this little two-hour span during which I'd go around and stop and other places around the beach and say, you know, Hey you guys coming up tonight, et cetera.

And then go and work until seven 30 in the morning

for a bit, and then go to the restaurant the next day.

Interesting life work, go drink, and then go out and get up and go back to the restaurant. Yeah, seriously? It's uh, yeah, so, okay. So yeah. So you cooked at coyote. What else did you work after? Cause I left coyote in 96 when 95, 96. Yeah, I guess there's 96. Where else did you work after that? Or how long did you stay at coyote?

Lawrence: [00:01:51 ] Um, not too long lunches. And, um, Mike and Corey hired me over at Atlas.

Sam: [00:02:00 ] Okay.

Lawrence: [00:02:01 ] Paid me a lot more money, you know, so I didn't have to work too because I was a coyote on balsa doing the catering for Henry's not leave coyote and go over and. We be upstairs room and cater over there. Yep. And then, uh, and then I got into catering with Gary, but then I took some on my own, down at, um, uh, town point park, the TTI,

um, the head of development came and found me at, uh, Atlas. We had Gary and I had done a joint effort down there, but he couldn't make it. So I did the whole thing, which is in both our names. Hmm. He wanted me to do all the, uh, VIP tents. Very cool. So I would do the VIP tents on stage left, and then they would rent out stage.

Right. And tell and tell whoever ran it. I was their preferred caterer. So I used to get a lot of jobs like that.

Sam: [00:03:03 ] That's not a bad gig, frankly.

Lawrence: [00:03:07 ] Because I'd be running lunches and Atlas and hunger, a guy to go to five one. They let me use that to prep for that night. Then load up the car with all the food down to town point, get all that done.

Then head up to, uh, one of the bars and Waterside go down to Sidney's place. I hang out there.

Sam: [00:03:35 ] It's wild. What was it like working at Atlas? I was always, you know, cause I, I then moved out of town and, you know, essentially at 96, um, but came back with some frequency and I always ended up eating it at one of the Atlas diners. And I, I always thought that wouldn't seem to be a smart move. It was kind of like they'd, they'd figured out how to.

To almost standardized to some, to some idea, you know, their location so they could keep opening new ones. Was that kind of the way that one worked or what did you, um,

Lawrence: [00:04:12 ] they were, they were, pattering patterning that off of, uh, Ruby Tuesdays. Uh, they opened up 17 of those and then sold that off for millions.

And that was their original plan was to. To do exactly that. Just keep opening them until they get to a certain level. They can get bought out, but that went awry. They, they, because of Corey, they were, they were, there was a chef-driven system. Yeah. It had standardized recipes, but you had to have culinary skills to actually pull it all off.

Sam: [00:04:52 ] True. Yeah, because the level of dining was up high enough. You would need that.

Lawrence: [00:04:57 ] Right. And that was where the problem came in. Couldn't find enough, you know, like they have today when you couldn't find enough good people to maintain that level. So where their downfall was, I was the last chef in their system when I left and they went to, to, to make an, you know, I made my mashed potatoes.

I made so much as homemade. They went to boil in the bag of potatoes. And in so many of my customers after I left with Tommy, we stopped going there after he left, because they went to all this crap. Yeah. Yup. That eventually, you know, they paid a price for it.

Yeah. That is an interesting one. When you think about it, because, and I guess, um, you know, I talked with, with JT, um, Uh, two, two nights ago for a bit.

And we were talking about the idea of, you know, if you open a restaurant, you know, one, there, there are numerous ways you can make more out of, out of a restaurant business. And one way is to open up numerous ones and, uh, And if you can standardize things enough and if you can get, you know, you'd get a little economy of scale and you're buying and, you know, numerous pieces like that, it can work well.

But what you just brought up is kind of a key piece of the old thing is if you don't have the right talent in it to run it, you know, it's not going to work. That's why McDonald's works is they've removed the need for any sort of talent, you know? Without a doubt. And so, so you did Atlas and then what all came after that?

Well, they actually moved me to, um, during the Atlas thing, they actually moved me to five Oh one, uh, take a little shift shift there for a touch, but for a period of time, until they opened their new Atlas out in Greenbriar, then moved me back out. But I went from there and opened my own restaurant out in Franklin.

Sam: [00:07:02 ] Tell me that

Lawrence: [00:07:04 ] I had two investors or actually my old, old boss at Winston's cafe and a customer who loved my food. Uh, they approached me when I was at Atlas. Look, we want to open a restaurant, but we're not going to do it without you. So it costs me nothing to get in. I figured what the hell, you know, that's pretty much working towards, you know what I mean?

And the only problem was it was a beautiful building, but it was out in the middle of the Franklin.

We held our own, well, we started out, everything was good. We had good customers and we love the food.

And, but the problem was, is continuing increases in rent so that he wouldn't have to pay a dime to get to the top end. It was $5,000 a month and there's not business enough to sustain that in Franklin.

Sam: [00:08:01 ] What kind of food were you all doing? Was it, was it high enough quality? Was it kind of a destination restaurant or was it a little below that,

Lawrence: [00:08:09 ] um, I was doing my usual, you know, seafood steaks, you know, everything best quality. I did all hand cut steaks. You know, my crab cakes would have almost no filler, um, real crab cakes.

In other words, And if you could add a few Cracker crumbs to hold it together. Exactly. But, um, there are, like you said, the food went over, you know, great. Uh, the whole problem was just the increasing costs, you know? So we wrote the lease that our first year was not guaranteed only after a year. Did we personally guarantee the lease which gave us a year basically to.

See what, see what we could do. So by the time we hit the end of the year, we realized that the increasing costs, you know, we're it just going to kill us. So we, we got out after the, after the first year,

Sam: [00:09:12 ] I would say, I'm just trying to think. I mean, and I, I was in, I was in the sub shop business for awhile, you know, with numerous.

Uh, numerous ones of those, actually, this was zero subs, which I know, you know, um, you know, did that for awhile. I would say I, without a doubt now, more people who did own restaurants and probably got out because of the costs. It really is interesting. If you just look at your basic overhead and it it's crazy, just the rent, you know, And just crush you.

Lawrence: [00:09:57 ] Oh, I know guy down here at the beach, he's paying 17,200 a month in his rent goes up 5% a year. That's his lease. It's very, probably the restaurant you'd know it. If I said it. Yeah, they've been around for 20 years, but at some point you hit the law of diminishing returns. That's exactly right. You know, that's hard to increase your profit 5% a year to maintain that same profit level.

Sam: [00:10:29 ] Yeah, it is. It is interesting because you're right, because you can increase what you're charging, but not by much. And especially if you have regulars that that's a painful piece of it, you know, and you'll folks and. That's uh, yeah, that, so that huge rent is, uh, is a really tough one. And it's, you know, that's, that is the, the downside to running, uh, uh, any retail business is the landlords really hold all the cards, some degree there've been other restaurants that have had to close and move just because their rent got too high.

Lawrence: [00:11:12 ] So yeah. Well, there's one movement right now that, you know, uh, , they're moving out of that little spot back in, um, chick's beach, moving up here to shore drive and old great neck. It's the old corner market. So they got Cal Casirs. They're bland. Interesting.

Sam: [00:11:37 ] I do like how, uh, as, as we age. We ended up knowing who most of the landlords are in town.

We ended up now, you know, I mean, it's, it all just kinda gets bought by new folks, but it's all this same little pot of people that are all involved in it, you know? Oh yeah.

Lawrence: [00:11:56 ] Well, I mean the restaurant world is it's a small world. People don't realize it. You see all their drafts drawn. Once you get into it.

The key players are known to every