debby soo 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 the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine. And each week, I talk to the most interesting women and culinary creatives in and around the world of food.
Today's guest is Debby Soo, CEO of OpenTable, the reservations platform that is home to more than 55,000 restaurants around the world. Debby had been at KAYAK for 10 years when she was tapped to take the top job at OpenTable. She started in August 2020, which as all of you know, was a very challenging time for the restaurant industry. She and I talked about why she took the job, what her parents taught her about entrepreneurship and what her mandate is today at OpenTable. We also chat about ChatGPT. OpenTable has a partnership with ChatGTP's, parent company, OpenAI, and it's going to change how you research and book restaurants. Stay tuned for my interview with Debby Soo.
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Now, let's check in with today's guest. Debby Soo, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Debby Soo:
Thank you. It's great to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
I am such a nerd. Not to freak you out, but I am so excited to interview you. So, we're going to jump right in with young Debby. I'm curious, what was your family's relationship to restaurants when you were growing up?
Debby Soo:
Our relationship to restaurants was, it was a place for all of us to come together, and it was a different place than the apartment we all lived in. So, my family immigrated from Taiwan in the early '80s. I was born in Daly City, which is slightly south of San Francisco. We didn't have very much money, so we all lived in a two-bedroom apartment, my parents, myself, my grandparents, my uncle and my aunt and their spouses.
So, we were together all the time. But going to a restaurant was in some ways an escape. We went every Saturday to this small Chinese restaurant on Geary Street here in San Francisco. And it's not like we didn't get to see enough of each other. We were stacked on top of each other, but there was something very special about that meal every weekend.
Kerry Diamond:
And it was always the same restaurant.
Debby Soo:
It was always the same restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that.
Debby Soo:
It's called Five Happiness. We'd get the Peking duck. I mean, there was the dishes that we'd always get. And I was too young obviously to pick up on this at the time. But looking back, I think it was just a place for us to settle and chat probably for my grandparents. My parents reminded them of their old home. And I think that's why it was such a special place and I still remember it now as a way older adult.
Kerry Diamond:
Your parents were entrepreneurs, right? Can you tell us about them?
Debby Soo:
They were. So, Ken and Carol started a travel agency, a brick and mortar travel agency that specialized in Taiwanese tourists coming to the U.S. My dad ran the Asia part and my mom ran the office here in the Bay Area. I'm the only child. My childhood was largely spent in their office in Foster City, which is a suburb also of San Francisco.
My father grew up very poor in Taiwan. He was abandoned and orphaned and abandoned as a child. So, he's very much self-made. He has that drive. He's very street smart. Carol is almost like Pollyanna-esque in her way. She's very sweet. I'm very much the combination of both and like a walking contradiction. They ran this business. They grew it. It's what we talked about day in, day out at home. It was their life's work, it was their livelihood, it was everything.
And looking back now, it's pretty incredible what they built in the life that they were able to build for each other and for our family. We started off in that tiny apartment and then we moved into a condo, a small condo of our own, and then to a house, and then to a bigger house. And so, he and she were able to achieve their version of the American dream.
And so, for me growing up, I got to see the full gamut of what it's like to live with very little resources and then all the way up to what it's like to be an upper middle class family in a suburb. It's incredible what they built, but it was backbreaking. They were working all the time.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. You're at a front row seat to what it takes to be an entrepreneur. One of my very first jobs was as the hotel's editor for Travel Agent magazine.
Debby Soo:
Wow.
Kerry Diamond:
So, I probably crossed paths with your parents at one of those crazy big conferences that they would have.
Debby Soo:
This convention. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
ASTA remember that. The ASTA conferences, and then I would go to Berlin for the big world travel conferences. But it was very interesting because travel agents became endangered species back then. The internet was about to hit and with it online bookings put lots of travel agents out of business. And the ones who didn't go out of business were forced to radically rethink how they were doing business. Where did your parents fall on that spectrum?
Debby Soo:
They had to pivot actually pretty hard with the rise of companies like KAYAK, funnily enough. So, they ended up in the last, I would say probably 10 years when they were still working. They started going into helping high school and middle school students come to the U.S. for programs like a homestay or an English immersion program at Tufts University. And so, that's really because exactly what you said, the travel agents became this endangered species. So, they really went into one particular niche that wasn't online or on the internet yet.
And so, yeah, so they ended up working directly with schools in Taiwan and in China and bringing students for the summer to the UK or the United States. And so, that was the business for a long time for the last part of their careers, that was the business.
Kerry Diamond:
So interesting. So, you go to Stanford for undergrad. What did you study and what were you thinking career wise?
Debby Soo:
I ended up majoring in East Asian Studies, which was I just studied China's political economy. I thought going in, I wanted to study economics, and I ended up minoring in it, but I sat in some of those classes. I was like, "This is not for me." I found history in sociology and political science to be so much richer and more interesting. Economics always struck me as there were all these theories, but to assume that people are rational players is not always a true thing.
So, it didn't click for me. I knew I wanted to go into business, but I didn't really know what that meant. And those days when an undergrad wanted to go into business at Stanford, either you went into management consulting or banking. And so, I was like, "I guess that's available, so that's what I'll go pursue."
But yeah, studying Asia wasn't necessarily a home run with Ken and Carol. They're like, yeah, we left there. Now we're here and you want to go back and study that? I was like, well, it was awesome. I spent a lot of time in China. There was a summer I spent in the villages of Northern China and living in the villages and interviewing them about township elections. I mean, it was an awesome time period in my life and it's an experience that I would never give up and I think of very fondly. Obviously, very different than where I ended up and what did I ended up doing.
Kerry Diamond:
So, you wind up at Google, was that your first job out of school?
Debby Soo:
No, my first job was at Citigroup as an investment banker, as an analyst. And it was a great training ground, but it was certainly not for me. One of my associates, the person who was managing me when the first review I got as a summer intern, they're like, "She doesn't seem to understand how decimal points work." So, as a banker, you can imagine ... I mean, my learning curve was very steep and it was a great training ground and I ended up persevering and getting a full-time offer and all of that, but it was hard. That did not come naturally to me. I had to really work at it.
So, I did it for two years, which is the program length, and then I went to Google to work on strategic partnerships.
Kerry Diamond:
You did some interesting things at Google. You had a number of jobs there.
Debby Soo:
I did. So, when I joined Google, they had hired me to work on their shopping product. And I was like, "Wow, I love to shop. Google seems cool. It sounds like a great fit." And when I got there, they were like, "Actually, we need more resources on maps." And this was when MapQuest, I don't know if you remember, but MapQuest was still the tool of the day that people were using. No one had heard of Google Maps.
There are some people who are really into maps, they collect maps, and I'm not one of those people. I can barely make my way or I can't read. I mean, it's very ironic that I ended up working on Google Maps, but it was a great training ground. My mandate was basically to source content for Google Maps. So, that could be working with the New York Times to have restaurant reviews, funnily enough, populate into Google Maps.
The landmark of a restaurant came up. You could click in, you could get some snippets of the Times reviews. To sourcing satellite imagery for certain countries, to building out and plotting, manually plotting transit stations for New York City actually, because the New York Transit authorities had their own map tool. They didn't want to work with Google. This is a long time ago.
So, we had people in India and China, when Google was still in China, manually plotting transit stations and entering by hand the timetables for the trains. And that's how we launched Google Transit, like what we use these days to get on buses and trains and subways.
Kerry Diamond:
That's amazing. I rely on Google Maps and the Google Transit info so much today. So, thank you for the early work that you did. You had a realization while you were there. You looked around, you realized most of the folks senior to you had an MBA. What did you decide to do?
Debby Soo:
Everyone around me had an MBA. So, I was like, "Oh, guess I should go get an MBA." So, I applied to business school, ended up going to MIT Sloan. It was a great school for me, but it was not my first choice. My dream, I think my dad's dream was for me to go to Harvard. I talk about this. I've maybe applied to Harvard 15 times, wait list. It's just not meant to be. But I ended up at MIT, which is also a very good school.
When I was at Sloan, I was taking out student loans to go there. I was like, this seems very irresponsible. Because in business school, you also go out on all these trips. A lot of people just borrow money to go on these trips. And I said, "Well, I should probably find a job." This seems not right.
So, I was looking around in the Boston area for companies that were hiring interns and I stumbled upon KAYAK. I emailed one of the co-founders and said, "Hey, I'm at MIT. I used to work at Google. I love KAYAK." And a week later, I had a nice little folding desk with a chair between the printer and the scanner and I was an intern in mobile business development. Basically, my job was to drive free downloads for KAYAK's newly minted travel app.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you attracted to KAYAK at all because of what your parents had done?
Debby Soo:
Yeah. I mean, travel for sure is in my blood. I grew up with it. So, there was that. And then just also KAYAK was such a smart tool. Right before KAYAK, you had to go look on United and Priceline and Orbit, different sites to find the best price or find the best itinerary and KAYAK aggregated all of that together. I just thought it was so smart. So, even before I realized they were in the Boston area, I had been a user. But yeah, travel is very near and dear to my heart. So, it was awesome to get to work in an industry that I had grown up in.
Kerry Diamond:
So, KAYAK eventually becomes a home of sorts for you. You spent 10 successful years there. Did you go there right out of MIT Sloan?
Debby Soo:
I did. By my second year at Sloan, I was already a full-time employee at KAYAK. So, I was working a good 40-hour work week and then going to school as well. And then the summer between my first and second year of business school, I worked at Lauder.
Kerry Diamond:
Estee Lauder.
Debby Soo:
I also did an internship at LVMH, Louis Vuitton, because I really thought that luxury retail is what I wanted to do. And when I graduated, I had some amazing opportunities to go back to Lauder or some other luxury brands. I remember I was talking to Gucci. I mean, just amazing brands or to return to KAYAK and I did some soul searching and I ended up choosing KAYAK because I loved the pace. I loved being in technology. And it was one of those places where you put the work in and you can see the result very quickly, which is very different than beauty, for example.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yes, it's like 18 months.
Debby Soo:
At Lauder, you're planning exactly 18 months, two years out. And for me, I'm impatient by nature and I like to go fast. And so, tech and KAYAK was the right fit for me.
Kerry Diamond:
You're at KAYAK, you thrive at KAYAK, you become, tell us what you become.
Debby Soo:
I ended up becoming the chief commercial officer at KAYAK. The role encompassed any revenue generating activity at the company. So, I had salespeople, business develop people, account managers, analytics, some marketing folks reporting up through me.
Kerry Diamond:
Why do you think you thrived at KAYAK?
Debby Soo:
I think I got very lucky in finding the right company with the right culture and the right temperament for my temperament. It was one of those places where I felt like I could be exactly who I am and it was really embraced. I feel very fortunate that I stumbled upon KAYAK. I'm impatient. I like to go fast. Well, let's test it out and see that mentality is very core to KAYAK's DNA.
We used to say that the brand is part cowboy, part scientist, a little bit irreverent. And I'd say a lot of those traits of the company's DNA and company culture are traits that are me too. And so, that's why I say I feel very lucky that I found a place that naturally embraced a lot of who I am, who I happen to be. And so, I think that's why I really thrive there. I was very successful in navigating and maneuvering through the organization. I understood the business very well. It was easy to get people to follow along and to work and collaborate with me.
Kerry Diamond:
I've read that transparency is also very important to you.
Debby Soo:
I'm very direct. I'm very transparent. I always say this, like I'm not a hard read. You can tell when I'm unhappy or when I am happy or pleased with how something is going. KAYAK's culture is very direct too. I always like it with people I know where I stand. And I find that it's part of why I've really enjoyed my role at OpenTable. Most of the restaurateurs that I've come across, GMs, chefs are very direct. They cut to the chase. I really appreciate that. I find that very refreshing.
Kerry Diamond:
Speaking of OpenTable, now KAYAK and OpenTable share a parent company. You get tapped to be the CEO of OpenTable. The only thing is the timing. It's August 2020.
Debby Soo:
Yes, yes. That's correct. So, it's five months into a global pandemic and restaurants are really suffering. And August of 2020 restaurants are in a really, really rough place. When I came in, OpenTable also along with a lot of other companies, along with a lot of other restaurants, had to let people go. So, that had already happened.
The first mandate was how do we help restaurants? We waived our fees. We ended up seating 135 million diners during the pandemic at no charge. We built features that helped restaurants that were the ones that were still open run their operations more efficiently. So, remember when people were very concerned about social distancing or spraying down counters or spraying down menus, plastic menus.
Kerry Diamond:
All those plastic dividers they put up.
Debby Soo:
All the plastic dividers. So, we built features that would enable restaurants to very clearly communicate to diners what they're doing in terms of safety precautions. We built a takeout product. When the vaccine became available, there were some cities like San Francisco, some restaurants that mandated. You had to be vaccinated. You had to show a proof of vaccination.
So, we built product flows to make that easier for restaurants to do. We partnered and integrated with Clear, so you could just show your app to the restaurant. It was a really rough time and it was just heartbreaking to see. I'm sure you remember some of the restaurants that didn't end up making it. When I came in, it was all hands-on deck and we're just trying to survive and we're trying to help restaurants survive.
Kerry Diamond:
Debby, why did you want the job?
Debby Soo:
From afar, when Booking bought OpenTable, I'd always kept my eye on it. It's such a beloved brand. This is our 25th year. It was an industry pioneer in restaurant reservations, but fundamentally, I think I really loved the product itself really resonated with me as a consumer. And I think throughout my career, you can see that. I don't like or I don't work on things that I don't get as a consumer. I spend a lot of my time working. So, if I'm going to be doing something, it has to be something that I love in a space that I'm passionate about.
And I was and continued to be an avid user of OpenTable. And I think the idea of bringing diners and restaurants together, helping diners find that perfect restaurant and then enabling those really magical moments or mundane moments that happen over a shared meal was really inspiring to me and continues to be inspiring. I love people. I get my energy from being around people. And so, to think that we're helping those moments between people, that makes me really happy.
Kerry Diamond:
So, you told us what your mandate was when you started the job. What is your mandate today?
Debby Soo:
Our mandate is to help restaurants thrive. That's what we are in the business of. It's hard being a restaurateur. I know I don't have to tell you. I'm constantly amazed with the people that I meet. How difficult it is to pull off even when I'm like at a restaurant, not in a capacity of work, but just as a diner, just watching the things that are going on. We're here to help restaurants thrive, to be more productive, to be more efficient. We're here to build products that restaurants need. And for restaurants who want it, we're here to help them fill their seats.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about OpenTable today. How many restaurants are part of OpenTable?
Debby Soo:
We have 55,000 restaurants on our network globally. As I mentioned, we are the industry pioneer in online restaurant reservations. We have over 1,000 employees. We're present in over 110 countries. In the U.S. alone, we seat 32 million diners a month. In the US every second, six tables are reserved, every second-
Kerry Diamond:
I love that.
Debby Soo:
... on OpenTable.
Kerry Diamond:
There we go. Six more.
Debby Soo:
Yeah. Right now, six more. Six more tables were just reserved. So, that's incredible. The scale, the breadth that we operate at, definitely one of our strengths.
Kerry Diamond:
That's fascinating. How is OpenTable different from other reservations platforms? You've got a few competitors now.
Debby Soo:
We do have a few competitors and we're different in three key ways I would say. First is we stand by the product. We continue to invest and iterate in the product. I'm not sure all the table management systems or reservation systems out there right now could say that, but we're in it with our restaurants. We're listening to our restaurants. What do they need? What do they need us to build? That continues to be a very high priority of ours.
Secondly is we have a huge diner network. We are able to put butts in seats if you want us to. I mentioned those numbers before, over 30 million diners here in the U.S. And so, yeah, we have the ability to really change the outcome of your business. If you want to use us for marketing and you want to use our demand, that's at your disposal. We're really in it to help our restaurants and we have great diner demand here are the U.S. and in other markets.
And then the third point I think that differentiates us is that we have so many people at OpenTable who come from restaurants, who get it, who love restaurants, who love the industry, who are so passionate about providing white glove service to our restaurants. We have people on the ground in most cities. So, if you're a restaurateur and it's a busy Friday night and you're worried that your staff isn't fully trained up on the latest feature that went out, we'll send someone to you. We're in hospitality and we provide that hospitality to our restaurant partners. So, I would say that's the third thing that differentiates us from our competitors.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I was curious how you work with chefs and restaurateurs. Do you have an advisory board or a council where you get feedback?
Debby Soo:
We do. We do have an advisory board comprised of some of my favorite people. We have Will Guidara, formerly of Eleven Madison Park. He just came out with a book.
Kerry Diamond:
King of hospitality.
Debby Soo:
He is the king of hospitality and I always smile when I see him. He's wonderful. We have Kevin Boehm of Boka in Chicago. We were just at his recent Le Select just opened in Chicago. It's beautiful. If you're in Chicago and you haven't tried it, highly recommend it. We have Lien Ta in LA and we have Hanson Li who is a restaurateur, an operator here in San Francisco.
It's a diverse group. The geography is diverse experience and backgrounds of the folks are diverse. And it's great for us because we have a breadth of restaurants. We have the greasy spoon down the street, all the way up to the two, three Michelin stars. And so, the advisory board is their different perspectives is very helpful for us in terms of just being that guiding light and that sounding board for how we can be helping restaurants even more.
Kerry Diamond:
Are those the only folks on the board?
Debby Soo:
Those are the folks right now. We're probably going to add one or two more. And then within each city, we have informal sounding boards. People will get together, a group of restaurateurs or operators and hear what's going on, what are their thoughts. We work with various restaurant coalitions like the IRC. We try to be in the places where we can hear and experience the front lines of what restaurants are going through and what they need.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. How often do you eat out in restaurants?
Debby Soo:
Well, I'm really useless in the kitchen, so I eat out a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
You can't cook or don't cook?
Debby Soo:
I can't cook. I don't cook. I mean, it's like a little bit of both. My husband enjoys it. It's this thing I have to do, not something I would want to do. So, we eat out quite a bit, probably a couple times a week.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you ever go work in a restaurant? I've heard about the folks from Uber. The executives have to get it and drive a car every now and then.
Debby Soo:
We have plans to have myself and the rest of the exec team to be at the host stand using our product. So, I'm going to try to do that this summer. It's long overdue. That should have happened when I first took the role. But yeah, we're going to do that and we're going to spend a long time in some of our restaurants just to be with the product, our product, and then also just being in restaurants on the other side, not as a diner.
Kerry Diamond:
Is this going to be like Undercover Boss? Are they going to know?
Debby Soo:
No. I mean, I'm not going to tell diners who I am, nor will diners care. But no, I'm hoping to provide a helpful set of hands to the restaurant I'll be at.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about OpenTable and ChatGPT. I have been using ChatGPT like millions of other people around the world. I am so fascinated by what you can do and what it does. And I was, I don't know, reading something and I was like, "Oh, there's an OpenTable plugin. You can use OpenTable via ChatGPT." I haven't set that up yet. I don't exactly understand how that works, so you're going to have to tell us. But first, how did the partnership with ChatGPT and I guess its parent company, OpenAI, come about?
Debby Soo:
It was a phone call I received from a friend of mine who works at OpenAI. And she said, "Hey, we have a series of plug-ins in various verticals. And in the restaurant vertical, there's no one else that we were looking at, like the skill and breadth you all have. Are you interested?" And I was like, "Why am I interested? Yeah, we're interested." I mean, there's like obvious there is a geeky part of me and our team like yes, that technology is so cool and what's going on with AI and large language models is fascinating.
But then also, we haven't had a product or a piece of technology that's come up where within weeks, the usage is millions and millions of people. And so, for us, we have to be where our diners are. If we're here to make sure we're serving our restaurants and if diners are searching for restaurants and discovering restaurants in one day, perhaps booking restaurants in this way, we need to be there.
So, for us, it was also, yes, a no-brainer. Let's work together and see what this yields. It's very early days. Your experience of not being able to access the plugin is normal because OpenAI is in the process of opening up access to it to more and more users. So, it will come.
Kerry Diamond:
If I have a paid ChatGPT subscription, will I get it?
Debby Soo:
Very soon. It should be a matter of weeks. That is what they have said. I think they're also being careful and making sure they're vetting and QA-ing as they should. But the integration you could ask ChatGPT things like I'm looking for a romantic dinner for a party of two in San Francisco, one of the questions was like with food that's not too salty. I mean, you can ask, I don't like these types of questions and it'll come back with romantic dinners or restaurants in San Francisco for a party of two availability and it'll say something like, "Can't comment on how salty the food is."
It's fascinating the responses it's been given. And we give it real-time availability, so it'll tell you what's available to book. It has access to our blog posts, our reviews, and so it should hopefully give you a pretty smart and comprehensive accurate answer to the query that you've given it.
Kerry Diamond:
I know for those of you out there who haven't used ChatGPT yet, you're probably thinking, I just don't understand what you two are talking about. I cannot recommend highly enough jumping on the free version of ChatGPT and just playing with it because your mind will be blown. You will realize the future is now, and you will see exactly what Debby's talking about.
My family's been using it for travel planning. We're traveling somewhere fun for my mom's 75th birthday and going with my two nieces. And so, I've been putting in there where are good places to take kids, blah, blah, blah. And it's fascinating using it for travel planning. So, I'm super excited for the OpenTable plugin.
Debby Soo:
Yeah. Me too. And I mean, it's not just the plugin. We're also looking at ways of how can this help our business and restaurants. Can we be looking at customer support differently? All sorts of use cases, and we're really in the early days, but the plugin is a first step of hopefully many that will be taking in this space.
Kerry Diamond:
So cool. Okay, that's ChatGPT and OpenTable. Brilliant, Debby. Amazing. Anything else at OpenTable offers diners that your competitors don't?
Debby Soo:
Yes. We offer breadth. Sometimes you're in the mood for a greasy spoon at the corner spot. Sometimes you're celebrating your 20th wedding anniversary at a two to three Michelin star restaurant. We have those experiences as well as everything in between. And so, that breadth of restaurants that we represent is unique to us.
I think we spend a lot of time on our consumer apps and website to make sure they're usable, to make sure they're intuitive. I do think that our user experience on the diner side is wonderful and easy to use. I know I'm biased, but I actually often hear this from our diners. We offer also filtering capabilities. So, if you want minority-owned restaurants, restaurants that are owned by women, you can easily discover those on OpenTable.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. It's so funny, I mean, we interview female chefs all the time. I forget who it was who I was talking to, but they said 10 years ago, they didn't want to be written about as a female chef, and they said, "Because no one's going to come to my restaurant because I'm a female chef." And I was like, okay, that's valid. However, the interesting thing about what we're experiencing today is people will go to your restaurant because you're a female chef. That's the difference today. So, it's nice to be able to find those a little bit easier.
Debby Soo:
Yes. And I love the work that you all do. And it's strange to me, although I guess not really that how few women chefs or restaurateurs there continue to be. I mean, they're a lot and they're more than there used to be, but I view it as corporate America. It's strange to me that there aren't more women CEOs. I mean, obviously I know why, but it's also very encouraging that you're doing what you're doing. It's changing the fact that you're a women chef that'll encourage other people to come dine at your restaurant. That paradigm is shifting.
Kerry Diamond:
If you can't see it, you can't be it. Same for the corner office.
Debby Soo:
That's right.
Kerry Diamond:
Which you've talked about a lot. I mean, it's still shocking how few CEOs there are, the top companies. You've talked about how few Asian American women CEOs there are.
Debby Soo:
Yes. I feel like I know all of them, and I can count them on one hand. It's true.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, on the restaurant side, we're celebrating our 10-year anniversary, like you're celebrating your 25th, and it is so heartening seeing how much more opportunity exists for women in the restaurant space today. When we started Cherry Bombe, I could count on two hands the number of top female chefs in New York City, probably one hand. And today we've got spreadsheets for different cities. You probably aren't allowed to tell me any of your favorite restaurants, but can you tell us?
Debby Soo:
Sure. San Francisco's OpenTable's headquarters. So, the restaurants here are really near and dear to our heart. We've been going as a family. I have kids. We go to this place called Vesta in Redwood City. It's an artisanal pizza place with amazing sides and salads, and so we're there once or twice a week. In San Francisco actually, the OpenTable exec team just went to Che Fico and David does an amazing job there. Boulevard Octavia, I mean, there's so many. Yeah, and because I'm not great in the kitchen, we end up dining out quite often.
Kerry Diamond:
You are blessed with great restaurants out there.
Debby Soo:
We are.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. If a friend of yours was opening a restaurant, what is some advice you would give them aside from joining OpenTable?
Debby Soo:
I would give them the advice that they should read Wil Guidara's book Unreasonable Hospitality. It's all about providing guests with an incredible hospitality experience, but it's also about teamwork and the importance of providing a psychologically safe environment and culture, providing space for people to really step up and contribute ideas and experiment. I found the book to be tremendously inspiring in terms of what they were able to show their guests, those experiences that they were curating for their guests, but also in terms of how they built their team and such a high performing team where people were engaged and happy and inspired.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, Debby, we're going to do a little speed round. Ready?
Debby Soo:
All right. I'm ready. Yup.
Kerry Diamond:
Coffee or tea and how do you take it?
Debby Soo:
Tea with honey.
Kerry Diamond:
What kind of tea?
Debby Soo:
Green tea.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yum. Okay. A treasured cookbook or book on food?
Debby Soo:
Well, I already mentioned Unreasonable Hospitality, but a cookbook that I really like flipping through because I think it's beautiful is Slanted Door here in San Francisco. There's a restaurant. It has a cookbook and I love the food there. And they also have a cookbook where I just flip through longingly. But yeah, don't try to attempt to cook what's in there.
Kerry Diamond:
Iconic Vietnamese restaurant.
Debby Soo:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
What are you streaming right now if you have any time to stream things?
Debby Soo:
I do. What am I streaming right now? I'm restreaming The Bear. I'm watching it with my husband. I watched it a long time when it first came out, but I thought my husband would really like it, and he does, so I'm rewatching it and he's watching it for the first time.
Kerry Diamond:
So brilliant.
Debby Soo:
Amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I'm so excited for season two. Will we see Carmi's restaurant on OpenTable in season two?
Debby Soo:
Man, I hope so.
Kerry Diamond:
It's too late to get on that one but season three.
Debby Soo:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
Season three. All right. Snack food of choice.
Debby Soo:
Potato chips.
Kerry Diamond:
Potato chips. Plain old potato chips?
Debby Soo:
Barbecue. That's the flavor.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. What was your favorite food as a kid?
Debby Soo:
Ramen. Cup of noodles ramen. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
What is a song that makes you smile?
Debby Soo:
I've been listening to Taylor Swift's Anti-Hero on repeat maybe 15 times a day, and it makes me feel good.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you seen her in concert?
Debby Soo:
I haven't.
Kerry Diamond:
Same.
Debby Soo:
I hear she's incredible. I'm like scared to even try because of the tickets and everything you read.
Kerry Diamond:
The tour's headed your way though. You still have a chance to go see it.
Debby Soo:
I know. I know.
Kerry Diamond:
Yup. Okay. Favorite food film?
Debby Soo:
So, I don't know if it would qualify as a food film, but since it's AAPI month, and I was recently at the Gold Gala, which is a celebration of Asian Americans and of the community and the cast of the Joy Luck Club. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie. It was 30 years ago. It was sitting at the table next to me and they were celebrated. I love that movie for many reasons like it was the first time growing up that I felt my family's experience or parts of my experience were told. But there were lots of food scenes or dinner scenes.
And one in particular is when they're all sitting and one of the moms comes out and says, "Oh, this dish is not great. It's not salty enough." She puts it on and the clueless white partner of one of the daughters, it's like, "Ah, no problem. You just need some soy sauce." And douses the fish with soy sauce. That's always stuck in my mind as a faux pas food scene. Yeah. So, that's what came to mind.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I haven't seen that movie in so long. That's a good reminder to watch it. Okay. Debby, I'm so sad to wrap this up, but our last question, if you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Debby Soo:
I would have to say Angie Mar. I don't know if you know her. She's in New York. She's fierce. I feel like she'd tell me exactly what to do, what we'd need to survive. She's good with meats, so I feel like we'd have food. Yeah. If I were on desert island, she'd be the boss and just telling me what to go do and I'd go forage probably.
Kerry Diamond:
We adore Angie Mar at Cherry Bombe, and I certainly noticed that she's now on OpenTable, and I thought that is a really good get. Angie-
Debby Soo:
We love her.
Kerry Diamond:
... I know you've all heard us talk about Angie in the past, but she has Les Trois Chevaux.
Debby Soo:
I love her restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
That is a great answer. And she would be a good person to be trapped on the island with, because she would take care of everybody and she's fun to talk to and yeah, you won't be bored, that's for sure.
Debby Soo:
That's exactly right.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, Debby, thank you. This was so much fun. I really can't wait to meet you in person, and the industry relies on you. So, thank you for the work that you're doing and you know how seriously you take your mandate. We all appreciate it.
Debby Soo:
Thank you. And thank you for telling the stories of this industry and bringing some of these things to light, and I'm so happy and thrilled to be here and talk to you.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. If you are a longtime listener or a new listener and you've enjoyed this interview, subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on your favorite podcast platform. If you're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you listen, just click the little subscribe button and don't miss a single future episode. Thank you in advance for doing that. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center. Our producer is Catherine Baker, and our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu. Thanks to you for listening. You are the Bombe.