Angie Mar Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City. Today, we have part three of a mini-series we're doing called Restaurant (R)evolution. I'm talking to folks doing things differently in the world of hospitality.
Today's guest is Angie Mar, chef and owner of Le B, that's the letter B, Le B restaurant in the West Village. And we'll be talking about what it means to embrace change and creativity in an industry that prizes consistency. Angie made her reputation as the chef and owner of The Beatrice Inn in New York City. The Beatrice Inn was best known as a party spot, but Angie turned it into a respected restaurant, and found an enthusiastic following for her menu. When the lease came up for renewal and the rent increased to an amount Angie felt was too high, she shocked everyone by closing The Beatrice and opening a new place right next door, Les Trois Chevaux, a full-on embrace of fine dining. Angie recently announced that she was moving Les Trois Chevaux to a new space uptown, and in its place she opened Le B. Angie joins me to share what Le B is all about and talk about what change, creativity and consistency mean to her. Stay tuned for our chat.
Our Restaurant (R)evolution Minis series is supported by OpenTable. OpenTable is proud to sponsor Cherry Bombe's dinner series, Sit With Us, which highlights amazing female chefs and restaurateurs in the Cherry Bombe Network. Tickets go on sale today for part two of Sit With Us. We'll be at Chef Evelyn Garcia's Jun in Houston on October 23rd, Chef Renee Erickson's The Whale Wins in Seattle on October 25th, Chef Beverly Kim's Parachute in Chicago on November 1st, and Chef Camille Becerra's As You Are in Brooklyn on November 11th. How does it work? You can come solo and sit at a Cherry Bombe community table or bring a friend or two, and we will seat you together. Tickets are available exclusively on OpenTable. Just search the restaurant and go to the experiences tab to purchase a ticket, which includes a welcome drink and a three-course or a family-style meal. A portion of the proceeds from each dinner will benefit a local charity. Learn more about OpenTable and Cherry Bombe's Sit With Us series at cherrybombe.com.
Restaurant (R)evolution is also presented by FOH. If you're a chef, pastry chef, or a restaurateur passionate about what you do, you need to know about FOH. Founded in 2002 by Simone Mayer and Mayda Perez, partners in business and in life, FOH shares your passion for excellence and creativity, and wants to help bring your vision to life. The FOH team designs and manufactures smart commercial-grade and distinctive dinnerware and tabletop collections, serving pieces, buffet essentials, and other tabletop categories for the food service and hospitality industries. Headquartered in Miami, FOH has showrooms and distribution centers conveniently located around the globe with items always in stock and ready to ship. You can visit frontofthehouse.com for catalogs, showroom appointments, and custom capabilities. You can also view products by category from porcelain to flatware, drinkware, and unbreakables. Again, that's frontofthehouse.com.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Angie Mar, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Angie Mar:
Thank you for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to jump right into it. Want to ask you, a lot of people are scared of change, but you seem comfortable with the concept of change. Is that a correct assessment?
Angie Mar:
Yes and no. Change is scary. It's scary for everybody. It's scary for me. I think that I've always just embraced it maybe a little bit easier than other people. And you brought up a point about consistency and I think I am very consistent. I think the quality of my food is consistent. I think that the quality of our service has always been very consistent.
Kerry Diamond:
You are consistent as a human being too-
Angie Mar:
Yeah, I'm consistent as a human being.
Kerry Diamond:
... having known you for several years.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, for sure. But in terms of restaurants, I think you bring that up because we're talking about the fact that I've just decided to move Les Trois Chevaux uptown and open up a different concept in the current space that Les Trois Chevaux was in. So, for me, I think that that kind of change is really, maybe not so much about being comfortable or not scared of change, but really just being about a smart business person and saying, "Look, we've come up with this concept, this vision that is incredibly meaningful and important to me, and that found a core audience somewhere that was not where it was located. So, I think that after two years of being there and really understanding the demographic that loves and is regulars of Les Trois Chevaux, I think it makes a lot of sense to change and move it where it deserves to be, so it can have the proper life that it deserves to have. And then-
Kerry Diamond:
But some folks hang on, they're afraid of change, they're afraid to try a new direction. I think Danny Meyer explained it to me once as the sunk-cost fallacy. You've put so much into this already, how can you change direction?
Angie Mar:
Yeah. No, I mean it's a very valid point and I think that it's not so much changing direction, it's just changing real estate. It's just a relocation of a concept that already exists. The truth is I just didn't want to give up the space that I have. Why would I sell it when I can do something else? That's the great part about being a creative is that as creatives, only we can do what we can do. Nobody else has the same ideas. We're all very individual and thankfully, we're not going to die on the hill. You know what I mean? It's not like, okay, this is the hill we've chosen to die on. We can't change anything.
Kerry Diamond:
What is it about you that things like that don't scare you?
Angie Mar:
I mean, I'm a businesswoman, I always have been. I'm a businesswoman and I think that starting from The Beatrice Inn and having a concept and a vision that really made sense for the space, I don't do things just to do them and just on a whim. I do things that are tremendously meaningful, and I think that that energy is felt very palpably when you walk into any of my restaurants, everybody knows that I'm giving it 110%. They are restaurants that I very much believe in. I just don't do restaurants to fill a niche. I do them because they speak to who I am, or place in time that made sense to me. And I want to create something and share those experiences with my guests.
Kerry Diamond:
I will say everyone who knows you, knows you are very emotionally connected to everything you do.
Angie Mar:
Everything.
Kerry Diamond:
Anyone who knows you, anyone who walks into one of your places or eats your food will realize that. But you are not so emotionally connected that you can't see the forest for the trees, to use that expression.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
You don't let your emotions get in the way of making business decisions.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that it took me a really long time to be able to create a delineation between pouring your emotion into creations, but then also being emotionless when making a business decision and being able to separate those two sides of myself. Because I think when I was very young in my career, I would want to make these business decisions that were emotional decisions versus being able to take a step back and say, "Okay, I can pour all my emotion into the things that I created and into the service and into the creation of a place, but yet, be able to make decisions for the business that are clearheaded, single-minded business decisions, that make sense for the wellbeing and the longevity of whatever we've created."
Kerry Diamond:
How did you learn to be a good business person?
Angie Mar:
Through a lot of mistakes. I think that everybody's so scared of making mistakes, and I think that it's something that has an extremely negative connotation to it, and I think the only negative connotation to a mistake is making the same mistake twice. I think that mistakes are good because that's how we learn and that's how we grow. I think that when we make the same mistake twice, then it's an issue. I made a lot of mistakes in my career and I think it's a good thing. I'm thankful for them. And if you asked me if you could go back and change it so you didn't make that same mistake again, I would say, "Probably not," because it's made me who I am today.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about the different concepts because folks listening might not have had the pleasure of eating at one of your places. So, let's start with what you're doing right now, Le B. Tell us what that concept is all about.
Angie Mar:
I just love it. It's really fun. This year is the 100-year anniversary of The Beatrice Inn, which was my first restaurant. It was this New York iconic restaurant. It's really where I've made my name, and it's the 100-year anniversary, and I didn't really want to open up The Beatrice Inn again because-
Kerry Diamond:
Angie has not been working there all 100 years.
Angie Mar:
No, I'm not that old. I didn't want to open up The Beatrice Inn again. I know that everybody wants me to open it again, but I'm a creative. We move on. You know what I mean? We move on, we evolve. But I did want to open up a restaurant that really paid homage to the energy and the joie de vivre that we created there, but have food that very much speaks to the way I cook now. And I'm a constant student, and so my cooking has very much evolved over the years. I continue to learn every day. So, the cuisine is continental cuisine.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. I don't even know what that means. What is continental?
Angie Mar:
So, when we talk about continental cuisine, we really talk about the era of the '80s and '90s, even really the '70s, where you have this kind of new Americana cuisine, but it was very much borrowing from all different cultures. So, very heavily French because that's a time when a lot of the French chefs were coming over, and really evolving how, as Americans, we viewed cuisine. But for me, continental cuisine is really Americana, but leaning with French technique and a lot of different flavors. So, whether we borrow flavors from Asian cuisine, whether we borrow from British, it really is where Americana found its way because it was during that era where we were coming out of using canned goods and whatever, and Julia was teaching us how to cook, and Jacques Pepin was on TV teaching us how to cook. That really, for me, is continental cuisine.
Kerry Diamond:
And you were a kid in that period.
Angie Mar:
I was.
Kerry Diamond:
So, why is that moment in food history so evocative for you?
Angie Mar:
Yeah, because I think that all of us, as diners, we want to go somewhere where we can have food that really speaks to our memory bank and what we grew up with, what is comforting to us. So, I'm a child of the '80s and '90s, so for me, I had such vast and varied dining experiences and a lot of global influences in my cuisine, which really formulated my palate. But there's also an undertone of just '80s Americana, which is just fun. You know what I mean? It's fun. I think one of my favorite dishes on the menu that kind of speaks to where my head was at when I was writing the menu is this dish called onions Nancy. And Nancy is my mother. She grew up going back and forth between Taipei and Oxford. Could not cook anything American if she tried, but makes the best Taiwanese food ever and a really wonderful shepherd's pie. I think the '80s were like the era where you weren't allowed in the house. As children, you weren't allowed in the house. I don't know if you were, but we were kicked out.
Kerry Diamond:
When summer vacation came along, my mother would say, "Go outside," and she would literally lock the door.
Angie Mar:
Lock the door. Exactly. Nobody knows what that's like anymore.
Kerry Diamond:
No.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, and so my mom, we'd get home from school and she would just give us Lipton's French Onion Dip and Ruffles, and we'd be locked in the backyard until dinner, and that was it. "Go play." She didn't care where we were. She didn't know where we were. Didn't matter.
Kerry Diamond:
My mother did not know where we were.
Angie Mar:
Didn't matter. We would climb over the back fence and we would be down the street and she had no clue. We'd come in at six o'clock for dinner because dinner was always six o'clock on the dot. And we'd come in for dinner and we'd be muddy, and there'd be blackberry bushes stuck in my hair and she didn't know. It didn't matter, but we had onion dip. So, I did a very high low version of that for the hor d'oeuvre section at Le B. Dishes like that really speak to how I grew up.
So, onions Nancy is definitely one of them. And then chicken a la king. Chicken a la king I think is super fun and that just takes me to an era of '60s Pan Am first-class cabin, when they had the gueridon and charcuterie and lobsters. Very glamorous. So, that dish is a lot of fun, and my aunt was actually, she was a flight attendant on Pan Am, so she would always talk to us about how glamorous flying was. That dish I really made in her honor because just to hear the stories and to go through the photos, and it's just a lot of fun.
We did a take on chicken a la king, so it's actually pheasant a la king. It's pheasant, and we did a mousseline, so very classic French technique, but then stuffed it with all of the vegetables that you would normally have in the sauce. And then, instead of that heavy bechamel, we've actually aerated it, so it's quite light. It's just fun. What else do I really like? The sturgeon charlemagne is not... I feel like it's probably not so much a continental dish, but it's my favorite dish on the menu. I wanted this menu to really be a love letter to New York. And I feel like the sturgeon charlamagne is kind of like if Lady M crepe cakes and Russ & Daughters had a baby. It's chive crepes with layers of sturgeon, mousseline and whipped creme fraiche and sturgeon caviar from Lombardy, Italy on top. It's just really nice.
And when I sat down to write the menu, I wanted it to speak to comforting foods that people really love, that people could recognize, but still done with an incredible amount of finesse and technique. Because at this point in my career, I don't know how to do it any other way. I think early on in my career I cooked a lot of very rustic food, which spoke to my skill level then. And just over the years and just studying and reading, I have an incredible cookbook collection, so studying and reading and dining out and travel, really just kind of upped my game and up my game. And so, at this point in my career, everything is just done with an incredible level of finesse and I can't do it any other way now, for better or for worse.
Kerry Diamond:
This still sounds like fine dining to me. So, what exactly is different from Les Trois Chevaux?
Angie Mar:
So Les Trois Chevaux, it's absolutely fine dining, but it's fine dining done in a menu format that is either prix fixe or a 10-course degustation, which is just chef's tasting that changes every single day. That's the format of the menu. We didn't have walk-ins. It was booked a month in advance, with wine pairings, et cetera. But Le B is still fine dining. A lot of people have a negative connotation of fine dining or they have an idea of what fine dining is. When they think of fine dining is what I was doing at Les Trois Chevaux, what TK does at Per Se, what Daniel does at DANIEL proper, having the prix fixe or the degustation menu, that is what they think of fine dining, but there are so many aspects of fine dining that can be very fun and very informal.
The music is louder at Le B, the jackets are off, the lighting is lower. There's still linens that we iron every single day and we iron them in between seatings and everything is plated impeccably, but I don't think it has to be one or the other. I don't think that just because we categorize something as fine dining, it doesn't have to be tasting menu or have a negative connotation to it, or be this old-school thing. It's fine dining service, but in a laid-back environment. I feel very lucky and very fortunate that we've had such a wonderful, wonderful audience. To move Les Trois Chevaux uptown, it's super exciting for me. I can't wait.
Kerry Diamond:
So, tell me about that. Is there a timetable?
Angie Mar:
We're going to be opening next year, probably next September or October.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you ready to have two restaurants?
Angie Mar:
I'm really excited.
Kerry Diamond:
And be running back and forth?
Angie Mar:
Yes, I'm very excited.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's take a quick break and we will be right back.
The brand new issue of Cherry Bombe's print magazine has just launched. The theme is The Future of Food. And video star and cookbook author and brand new mom, Sohla El-Waylly, is on the cover and there is lots to discover inside the magazine. From our Future of Food 50 list of rising stars to a feature on restaurant robots. Yes, the robots are coming, faster than you might think, actually. You can pick up a copy of Cherry Bombe at your favorite bookstore, culinary shop, or magazine stand, like Wedge in Warren, Rhode Island, Bold Fork Books in Washington D.C., and Vivienne Kitchen & Pantry in Portland, Oregon. If you swing by any of those places, tell them Cherry Bombe sent you. Cherry Bombe's print magazine is lush and gorgeous and packed with features, photos, and recipes, of course. The team and I worked so hard on this issue. We can't wait for you to see it, read it and spend some time with it.
Angie would love to go back and talk about how you got into the chef world in the first place. You started out in real estate, right?
Angie Mar:
I did.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you wind up in real estate?
Angie Mar:
I grew up in a restaurant family, and it is like your typical immigrant family story. My aunt was Ruby Chow, and during that time, being an Asian American, especially Chinese, you couldn't own a business unless it was a laundromat or a restaurant, and that was due to the Chinese Exclusionary Act. My aunt opened this restaurant called Ruby Chow's.
Kerry Diamond:
In Seattle?
Angie Mar:
In Seattle, yeah. And she could have opened just any restaurant, but instead she was like, "Okay, great. If I have to do this, we're going to make it the best thing ever," and it was. It was the place to see and be seen and Sidney Poitier and Tommy Dorsey, they were all regulars there. It's kind of a cool thing when you think about it to say America was, and still is, obviously, but was very much at that time in a very, very racist segregated time in the '40s. And to have a Chinese woman who was told that she couldn't do anything except for open a laundromat or a restaurant, and so she really said, "Okay, fine. I will open the restaurant and do what you say I have to do. And I'm going to go make a lot of money and be really famous doing it." That's just so badass, right? That's the family I grew up in and-
Kerry Diamond:
Did you know Ruby well?
Angie Mar:
Oh, yeah. She and I have the same birthday and she lived a block away from us. So, she had a really big part in raising me because I always spent Sundays at her house. And my whole family is very maternal and the whole family is... She was the matriarch, and so the whole family is run by very bossy women, so this is why I turned out the way I am. My family, they completely busted their ass to make sure that everybody was taken care of. And Ruby really made sure that her younger brothers were taken care of. My dad became a dentist. Ruby put him through school and he said to me, "You don't want to do this. You don't want this life. This isn't for you. We have this great life now. We didn't have a great life when we came here, but now we do. You need to go into business because you don't want to be in a restaurant." But I had grown up running around my family's restaurants and frozen food factories and so it's in my DNA.
Kerry Diamond:
When did you know you could cook?
Angie Mar:
I was cooking from a very young age.
Kerry Diamond:
And you knew you were good?
Angie Mar:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was cooking from a very young age, and I knew I was good at it and I knew I loved it.
Kerry Diamond:
But you got into real estate.
Angie Mar:
Because that's what my family wanted, so-
Kerry Diamond:
And you wound up in Los Angeles?
Angie Mar:
I was in LA because there's only so much rain I can take, so I was in LA. I think I just really focused when I was younger on making a lot of money. I was incredibly unfulfilled. I was incredibly bored. And I think when I was really young, maybe about 24, 25, I quit my job and I bought a one-way ticket to Europe and bounced around Spain for a while just by myself, and trying to really figure out what I wanted to do. And it was in Spain that I realized, "Okay, I really love food, so how am I going to find a way to make this work?" I got back and I had a conversation with my family and I said, "I'm going to go to New York and I'm going to cook. I'm going to go to culinary school, and this is what I want to do." My mom was really disappointed in me for many, many years. She was-
Kerry Diamond:
Years?
Angie Mar:
Years. Yeah, years. She was very like, "Oh, God. I can't believe you're doing this. This life is going to be so hard." My dad was really, really supportive, but he was very much of the opinion that I'd be very real and in touch with how hard it was going to be, and he wasn't wrong. Neither of them were wrong. And I think it took years for my mom to really understand how much I loved it. She gets it now and she's amazing and supportive. But I just think that for my family, especially being an immigrant family, to have the idea of, "We've worked so hard to provide a better life for you so you don't have to do this," was really a hard concept for them to grasp that I would want to do it willingly.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have any, "What have I done," moments?
Angie Mar:
All the time. Yeah, all the time. Any business person, any entrepreneur always has the idea of, "God, what have I done? Did I make the right decision?" You second guess yourself all the time. I think especially when you have people around you that are like, "Well, you could have made it easy. You could have made your life easy." But I wouldn't change it. You know what I mean? I wouldn't change it, and I think it's important to have those times where you second guess yourself because when you're really sure about something... You know?
Kerry Diamond:
Let's jump ahead a little. You worked at some very well-regarded places, and then you get offered a job at The Beatrice Inn, not a well-regarded place. They had gone through several chefs. They were not known for their food. They were a party spot. What made you accept that job?
Angie Mar:
The challenge. Yeah, the challenge. You're right, it had a zero-star review in the Times.
Kerry Diamond:
Ouch.
Angie Mar:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Not your food?
Angie Mar:
No, not my food. Yeah, not my food, but you're right. It had a zero-star review in the Times, and it was definitely regarded as a party spot and not for the cuisine and-
Kerry Diamond:
The tiniest kitchen.
Angie Mar:
The tiniest kitchen.
Kerry Diamond:
I still can't believe you cooked out of there as long as you did.
Angie Mar:
It's so small. It's so small. Yeah, I don't know how we did it. Really, it's the challenge and thinking about, "Okay, but if I can change it and if I can change the public's opinion and really build something there, then that's going to make my career." And I wasn't going to take that job. I didn't want that job. And Pat LaFrieda told me I had to take it. He was like, "You have to take that job." He's like, "No one's paying attention. They already got the zero-star review. No one is paying attention to it right now. You're going to be able to learn and make your mistakes without the spotlight on you, and then maybe you can change it and that's going to make your career." And he was right. He was totally right.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a big gamble though, for you to take.
Angie Mar:
It was. It was. Yeah, it's so funny. Everybody always asks me if I gamble and I say, "No, I don't gamble, but I have restaurants. It's the same thing."
Kerry Diamond:
So, you do turn it around. Talk to me about turning around a restaurant. Did you go in with a plan and a timetable?
Angie Mar:
No, I didn't. That was in 2013. That was 10 years ago. I didn't know what I was doing. It was my first executive chef job. Didn't really understand anything about food costing or reservation systems, how to run a book, how to run a kitchen. I was learning. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea. I don't even know why they gave me that job, honestly. I wasn't prepared. That's a real thing. I was not prepared for that job.
Kerry Diamond:
But they knew food was secondary?
Angie Mar:
Yeah, they didn't care. Food was secondary, they just needed somebody in the kitchen to run it, and I just was lucky to figure it out as I went along. Fortunately, I'm a very quick study. But I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a plan. I just knew that I needed to take it and I needed to learn, and I've always had a very distinct point of view on food. That is something that hasn't changed. And so, even though I didn't know the food costing or the business aspects or how to run a reservation book, I didn't know anything about wine back then, I had a strong point of view on food and that's what I needed. And I had a belief in myself that I could learn, and I did.
Kerry Diamond:
You did a lot of on-job learning.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, I did. I really did, and I wouldn't recommend it to a lot of people. It was tough.
Kerry Diamond:
Not only did you turn it around, the owner turned around and asked you if you would like to buy the restaurant from him and the other investors. What did you say?
Angie Mar:
Yeah, I didn't want to do that either. I didn't want to buy the restaurant either. I thought it was a terrible idea. Once again, called Pat and said, "These guys are crazy. They want me to buy The Beatrice." And he was like, "Okay, so what's the problem?" And I was like, "No, they're crazy. Why would I do that?"
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, wait, tell people who Pat is. I realize we didn't even tell them who he is.
Angie Mar:
Pat LaFrieda is one of my very, very dear friends. He is kind of like America's butcher. Also, a very successful entrepreneur, third-generation butcher with LaFrieda Meats. When he took over the business, I think it had 40 restaurants in the city, and now he's a global empire.
Kerry Diamond:
It's good to have a mentor like that.
Angie Mar:
It's great to have a mentor like that.
Kerry Diamond:
So, he tells you to buy it. Did they at least offer you a good price?
Angie Mar:
Oh, it was a great price. I got it on the cheap. Yeah, got it on the cheap. It was great.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, that's good. Did you have to raise money?
Angie Mar:
I scraped together every single penny that I had with me and my cousin, and we bought the restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, we're going to take another leap in time. So, you've turned the place around. It's hopping, getting great reviews. Everybody loves your food. You've really come up with a unique cuisine that is all yours. It is Angie Mar food. Your lease is up for renewal. The landlord raises the rent. What do you do?
Angie Mar:
I was in negotiation with them for about a year before the lease was up. I was in negotiation with them before COVID happened and before the world shut down, and they were unreasonable then. And they remained to be unreasonable even when COVID happened. It's really unfortunate. It's unfortunate because we had a business that was incredibly successful, a business that made money, a business that had name recognition and a business that made their building valuable. My business was an asset to their building. They don't have something that's iconic, a New York icon in their space anymore. And it's sad, but it also just made sense for me, because again, I'm a business woman. And there's no way, as much as I crunched the numbers, there's no way that I could make the numbers work at the rent that they wanted. I have no idea how anybody can make the rent work. I just don't. We ran a multimillion-dollar business out of there.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your advice to people who find themselves in the same situation? Because that's a common story, landlords raising the rent.
Angie Mar:
Everybody gets attached to a location. Everybody gets attached to a location, and what I've learned through the years is it's just real estate. It's just real estate. I'm thankful for my background in real estate because I don't think that I would have that outlook if I didn't have that. The really important thing that I think that we, as tenants, need to understand is that, yes, it is all about the location, but at the end of the day, you can always find another location, if that makes sense. We are creatives. We run the business. We are the asset. And I think if you do it right, you should have landlords vying for your business.
Kerry Diamond:
So, you did have a landlord who wanted your business?
Angie Mar:
I did.
Kerry Diamond:
Who coincidentally was, what, two doors down?
Angie Mar:
Next door.
Kerry Diamond:
Next door? So, you literally moved the business next door?
Angie Mar:
I literally moved the business next door to a better space, to a space that I'd wanted for eight years. You know what? It's really funny because I thought I would be heartbroken giving that space up because it was a part of my life for so long, but the day that I handed the keys back, and I don't drink, I stopped drinking in 2019 and I stopped smoking as well, cigarettes, and the day that I handed the keys back, I thought I was going to be distraught, so distraught. And my lawyer came and we walked the space with them and made sure everything was good. And the day that I handed back the keys, he and I both thought I was going to be distraught, I went home, I popped a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon, then I smoked half a pack of cigarettes, and I felt so good that I'd given the keys back because it was a new beginning.
It was liberating. It was freeing. It was knowing that I had made the right decision for myself, for my team, that I work with every single day, that I would get the opportunity to start fresh and that I wasn't beholden to any form of unreasonable business decision, and that is a really freeing thing, to be in control of your own destiny.
Kerry Diamond:
What advice do you have for folks out there who want to be a little braver and bolder, but are scared?
Angie Mar:
I think that you shouldn't be scared to fail. I think you shouldn't be scared to fail. I think we're all going to fail once, or twice, or three times, four times, whatever. I've had many failures. I'm sure you've had many failures too.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah. You know I closed a few restaurants.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, it's heartbreaking and it's devastating, but you have to go through it. We have to go through it because it puts you on the path to where you're supposed to be. We can't go through life being scared to fail at everything. If you're scared to fail, you're not going to take any chances. You're not only not going to take any chances, but you're also probably not going to be open-minded enough to have the great idea that will be successful if you're so scared of failure. Our attitude at the restaurant, my attitude specifically has always been, "Let's just try it because why not? What's the worst that's going to happen? It's not going to work. We're going to try something else." Because that's really all boils down to. If you fail at something, great, try something else.
Kerry Diamond:
Advice for listeners who want to open their own restaurant one day?
Angie Mar:
There's not one right answer and there's not one right path for everybody. There's just not. And people ask me that all the time, what advice I have for aspiring restaurateurs and aspiring chefs. And the answer is that it's very hard for me to give advice for that because my path is my path, and your path is your path. And there is no right one and there's no wrong one. It really is just about finding the right path that makes sense for you and for your vision and for what you're passionate about, but also, being prepared to embark on that path. Because I think a lot of people want to open a restaurant, but they don't prepare themselves for everything that it entails. Nobody understands how hard it actually is. I think that the best advice that I could give that really kind of spans all paths is to learn as much as you can from everybody around you, to be incredibly humble in the learning process.
We have this saying in my kitchen, which is that we all want to cook and serve with humility, and it took me a really long time to really understand what that means, but I think that in our industry, there's a lot of people who think that they know everything or think like, "Okay, my resume has all these things, and I know." And it's like, but you don't because I don't. My name is on multiple people's checks and I still am learning every single day. Because I come to the restaurant industry with an air of humility, because I know that I will always learn something new. Anyone, from people who've been doing this three times longer than me to somebody who maybe just got out of school, to the dishwasher, I will always learn something new.
If I could give any advice to people who want to start a restaurant, to open a restaurant, or to cook, or any aspect of our industry, it would be to do it with humility, because only when we're humble do we really open ourselves up to actual learning and growth. No matter what path you go down, you can learn something.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you think it would've been easier for you at The Beatrice if you had been more prepared? I mean, obviously it happened the way it was supposed to happen because you're here today, but could it have been an easier experience?
Angie Mar:
It could have. Yeah, it definitely could have been an easier experience for me if I had cooked for other people longer, learned more. Absolutely it could have been an easier experience for me. I just think that I learned a different way. I worked for people who ran their restaurant a very different way than I run my restaurants, and even that was beneficial to me because I went into the restaurant and saw how it was running, and understood that it was not what I was going to do in any of my businesses later on because that's really what learning is. Every job that you work at, it's not just about learning what to do, but it's also about learning what not to do because it doesn't work for you. Yeah, definitely I wasn't prepared for my first job, but in a way, I'm very thankful because it made me prepared for the rest of my career.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a great place to stop. Angie Mar, you're amazing.
Angie Mar:
Thank you so much for having me, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you for your time.
That's it for today's show. Thank you to FOH and OpenTable for supporting Radio Cherry Bombe. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producer is Catherine Baker. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Check back next Wednesday for another episode of Restaurant (R)evolution. Is there someone you think is a Restaurant (R)evolutionary? Leave a rating and review and drop in their name. Thanks for listening everybody. You're the Bombe.