Laura Lendrum Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from the Cherry Bombe office in downtown Manhattan.
Today's guest is Laura Lendrum, CEO of Printemps America. Some of you know the Printemps department store in Paris. Well, they've just opened a fresh new retail concept on Wall Street in New York City that combines fashion, food, and French luxury all in one space. The culinary director of the project is Chef Gregory Gourdet, and he is overseeing five different spaces at the new Printemps, from the Café Jalu coffee shop to the Parisian inspired Salon Vert. Then next week, the fine dining Maison Passerelle restaurant will open its doors. Laura joined me in our studio at Rockefeller Center to talk about the history of Printemps, her impressive career, and why the worlds of food and fashion are colliding more and more. We also talk about her time as the president of Ralph Lauren and how Ralph's Coffee and The Polo Bar restaurant have become such big hits. Stay tuned for our chat.
This Saturday is our Jubilee conference. It is finally here. Jubilee will be taking place at The Glasshouse in Manhattan, and we can't wait to see everyone. The iconic Gloria Steinem is our keynote speaker, and we have other powerhouse women joining us, including Asma Khan, Caroline Chambers, Eden Grinshpan, and Zaynab Issa. It's going to be an inspiring day filled with community connection, and of course, great food and drink. Thank you to our wonderful sponsors, Kerrygold, San Pellegrino, Veuve Clicquot, Lundberg Family Farms, Chase, Ghirardelli, and Nonino. For Jubilee tickets, speaker details, and information on what to eat, drink, and do on the big day, visit cherrybombe.com. If you're coming to Jubilee and you see me running around at The Glasshouse, make sure to stop me and say hello.
Now let's check in with today's guest. Laura Lendrum, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Laura Lendrum:
Thank you so much. I'm so tickled to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
I am so excited to talk to you because I love fashion, I love food. I think you're a girl after my own heart as we're going to find out. But what I want to know is how did a girl from Scottsdale, Arizona who went to Southern Methodist University become a seasoned executive in the luxury fashion space?
Laura Lendrum:
It's a roundabout story, isn't it? But I grew up in Arizona, but I always knew that I wouldn't end up there. SMU was as far as I could get east because I didn't know yet that I wanted to do fashion, but I knew that I didn't want to stay in my hometown. No offense to Arizona, but-
Kerry Diamond:
A lot of us can relate.
Laura Lendrum:
Yeah. Always knew that I somehow wanted to get to New York, so that's as far as I got, and I started into fashion kind of early, was paying attention early.
Kerry Diamond:
New York is like Oz for so many people, right?
Laura Lendrum:
Oh, totally. Totally.
Kerry Diamond:
Were there signs when you were younger that this might be your career path?
Laura Lendrum:
I was reading Seventeen Magazine. Now I'm dating myself, but I read-
Kerry Diamond:
The Bible.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, that was my Bible.
Kerry Diamond:
We're standing the mailbox every August waiting for that September issue.
Laura Lendrum:
Exactly. Please, please, please. And I think the other funny sign is that I was always trying to convince my mother that I was already grown out of this and I needed a new one. I was already looking for the next, whatever the next style was, I think.
Kerry Diamond:
And you were in Arizona. I remember growing up in Staten Island waiting for the September issue of Seventeen. And then, you get your one outfit for the fall. I would have to wear that outfit. It didn't matter if it was 80 degrees out and it was a Fair Isle sweater with some kind of blouse with a bow underneath it, I still had to wear it.
Laura Lendrum:
The same, the same. Immediately, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Immediately. What was your first job in food or fashion?
Laura Lendrum:
So my very first job was folding sweaters in college at Carroll Reed of New England in the Dallas mall, which was very good practice for especially Ralph Lauren days. And then my first official job in fashion was at Chanel on Rodeo Drive.
Kerry Diamond:
What did you study in college?
Laura Lendrum:
Journalism.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, you did? How cool.
Laura Lendrum:
Yeah, and English Lit, and I first went into public relations when I got out of school. That's what I thought I was going to do. I thought it was so, I mean, you could learn about so many different topics, work with such a range of people and get exposed to a lot of different things. I've always been super curious, so it was a good first start. But I also realized that maybe there was more I wanted to do and maybe I wanted to be more creative, so I found my way to Chanel.
Kerry Diamond:
You found your way to Chanel and Los Angeles, right? How did you wind up in Los Angeles?
Laura Lendrum:
I already knew then that I wanted to be in New York. I just didn't know how, yet, to get here. It just seemed so daunting. I ended up saying, "Okay, I'm going to go to California first. I'll land in L.A. and see what happens." And then I landed a job at Chanel on Rodeo Drive and I thought, "Well, okay, this is where I'm supposed to be right now." And-
Kerry Diamond:
And were you folding fancy sweaters? Folding fancy sweaters.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes. I started out in sales and I got very lucky. It's how my career started. The assistant manager left to get married and I was promoted into her job, and I feel like then the rest is history. I really started to get in leadership and the business side of the business. And step-by-step at that store, Rodeo Drive, I learned everything about fashion, fashion shows, have clientele.
Kerry Diamond:
Was this the nineties?
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, it was the nineties.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, it must've been a wild time on Rodeo Drive.
Laura Lendrum:
It was, and I think at the time, Rodeo Drive still had a sort of a bad rep for being snooty, and I was so nice. I was like, "Hi, how are you? What can I do for you?"
Kerry Diamond:
Right. Think “Pretty Woman,” everybody.
Laura Lendrum:
That's exactly-
Kerry Diamond:
When Julia Roberts goes into the store.
Laura Lendrum:
So I was successful in my sales role because I just said yes to everything, "Let me figure it out for you." And that's still how I feel about retail today.
Kerry Diamond:
You can get in through the back door sometimes.
Laura Lendrum:
Totally.
Kerry Diamond:
You can work in a store and make your way into corporate. People might not realize that.
Laura Lendrum:
It's funny. It's really true because I even literally came in the back door. I remember I had my resume and I could see the manager of the store there, and she was sort of saying, "Oh, I don't have an opening right now." And I was determined to get to her and give her my resume. But it is how you can get in, and I don't think that you have to be pigeonholed at all as long as you have the open-mindedness to know what you want next, I think.
Kerry Diamond:
So, your current job is a major one. You're CEO of Printemps America, and you just oversaw the opening of Printemps at One Wall Street, the landmark Art Deco building in the financial district of Manhattan. All the marketing says, quote, "This is not a department store," end quote. If Printemps is not a department store, what is it?
Laura Lendrum:
What is it? We even got Stash to graffiti it on the side of the building because we needed to really be clear that it's-
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I didn't see that. Okay, I need to come back.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, right before we opened. What we wanted people to know is that if you go to Paris, it's 500,000 square feet, three buildings, also a landmark, but departments and shop-in-shops. And we wanted people to know that this was something different. We also think that New York doesn't need another department store and that brands who might be part of a project like this don't need another point of distribution. So we wanted it to be curated and thoughtful and something different. Plus, it's only 55,000 square feet, which is a big flagship-sized store, but it's not a department store size.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's interesting.
Laura Lendrum:
So, much more intimate.
Kerry Diamond:
And I guess when you think about a department store, it's like, "I can get a bra. I can get some pantyhose."
Laura Lendrum:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
"I can get a set of All-Clad."
Laura Lendrum:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Right?
Laura Lendrum:
Exactly. I was very blessed. I had the brief from the CEO. They wanted to sort of think of it as a lab. We didn't call it a lab, but we used that internally in the beginning. So, we landed on it being a hospitality project. The layout is quite interesting. You enter at two different ends and you can't connect on the ground floor across. So, we made it a French apartment in the heart of New York, and-
Kerry Diamond:
I would like to live in that French apartment in the heart of New York.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, me too. Yeah, this is a very big apartment, but also the idea that French savoir-faire meets American hospitality. So, bringing the best of both, but not taking ourselves too seriously, and being playful with it.
Kerry Diamond:
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How did you find that building? It is spectacular. What was in there?
Laura Lendrum:
Well, I think it started with the Red Room, and I think that Printemps was already looking at the space when I started with them. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, "Well, there's just no place else to be able to have that as part of the space."
Kerry Diamond:
Was it empty? Because you've had your job for a few years.
Laura Lendrum:
Four years. I started in June of '21.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, yeah.
Laura Lendrum:
So it was being converted to condos. It was originally Irving Trust built it, almost a hundred years ago, but it was offices and converted to condos. And so they created the retail space, but nobody was sure yet if the Red Room would be part of the retail space, which in my mind it was just, of course, it's part of the retail space. It's just magnificent. It's also a landmark building. Paris, flagship is a landmark building. So, Paris is Art Nouveau, this is Art Deco. It felt like we could create a vocabulary between the two, so that was really important as well. And to do something in a new place that was a neighborhood already in evolution. This is probably the third phase of the evolution of this neighborhood, but something that was already happening there and where we could bring something new and be really community-oriented, too.
Kerry Diamond:
What is the history of Printemps? We have a lot of Francophiles out there who probably know Printemps in Paris but might not know the history of the brand.
Laura Lendrum:
I mean, it's such a fun history. It was founded by a husband and wife, Jules and Augustine Jaluzot. He had been working at Bon Marche, which was around a little bit before Printemps, and his wife, Augustine, was a famous actress. It was her money.
Kerry Diamond:
Good for you, Augustine.
Laura Lendrum:
She decided that this would be great to open their own department store. They did it in a neighborhood that didn't have other retail, which is also interesting about the financial district. It's not a big retail district. She was this famous actress. It was her money that they used to invest. She thought it should be called Printemps, which is French for spring, because it was happy and joyful and the idea of renewal. And so that's a fun story. And then, they were innovative in every single thing that they did. Easy things like the first to have electricity, the first to have elevators, but more importantly, they paid men and women equally at the turn of the last century. And even before women could vote, they wanted women to have the choice of what they would find in the store, what were the subjects that they could learn about? So even now when we think about modern-day programming and education as part of an experiential project, it all goes back to the history. She gave women the vote in the store.
Kerry Diamond:
That must've been fun for you to go back and do all that research knowing that you wanted to be a journalist.
Laura Lendrum:
I had to have five meetings in the archives because one was not enough. I kept going back. It was fascinating. Yeah, really exciting.
Kerry Diamond:
Food and drink are a big part of the Printemps New York story. And you hired Chef Gregory Gourdet as your culinary director. Tell us a little bit about Gregory and why you chose him.
Laura Lendrum:
Gregory's magical, first. I thought a long time about bringing a chef from Paris to New York, but then it made more sense to find somebody in New York who had the French piece. So Gregory is Queens-born, which I love, Haitian background, classically French-trained. He grew up in the Jean-Georges world. His whole resume is so impressive. The last 17 years, he's been living in Portland, Oregon and doing a lot of different things, but most recently, he launched his restaurant, Kann. I met him and instantly really liked him, then tasted all of his food. A small group of us went for two days, ate everything on his menu. Phenomenal. And then, he can be gluten-free and dairy-free. So this project is inclusive. It's meant to celebrate everybody coming together, and so he just was perfect on every front. Plus, he's a fashion guy, too.
Kerry Diamond:
He's so stylish.
Laura Lendrum:
He's so stylish, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I thought it was super sly on your part to have hired him because he wasn't in New York but he's a native New Yorker, and you know how native New Yorkers feel about other native New Yorkers. Point of pride. French-trained, like you said. Had worked for some big names, became a big name himself. It would've been so easy for you to just make this another Jean-Georges project. Sorry, Jean-Georges. No offense, but you can't have everything in New York. Or one of the other hospitality groups that just kind of dominates the scene. So, very cool. Gregory is overseeing five culinary concepts at Printemps. Can you walk us through each?
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, with pleasure. So the first is Café Jalu, short for Jaluzot, the founders. A playful take on their last name, and as Gregory would say, this is the most French of all of the concepts. So, amazing croissant and everything else that you want to see in the pastry case. Although, there are gluten-free choices too, which is amazing. Coffee, our coffee partner is Devocion and the coffee's amazing. Everything still has his little touch. There might be Haitian chocolate in the pain au chocolat, or how we do the milk, et cetera, but it's really the most French. And it's in the Playroom, which feels very indoor-outdoor, and just a magical place to come and spend time before you-
Kerry Diamond:
It's a chic little spot.
Laura Lendrum:
It's a chic little spot, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I would imagine a lot of people route to work stop in there and get their coffee now.
Laura Lendrum:
When we opened early, on purpose, and I think the magical thing was the first day we opened, the café was just full within 15 minutes and it just felt like, "Oh, this is exactly what this is supposed to be." So that's Café Jalu. Then upstairs, so we're traveling through the French apartment, now we go to the Salon. The Salon is like the living room, Le Salon. And my French is-
Kerry Diamond:
Is that the space where you come up the escalators and it's right there?
Laura Lendrum:
Where you see the frescos and you see the-
Kerry Diamond:
It's a gorgeous space, yeah.
Laura Lendrum:
It's just breathtaking. It's the biggest single space in the store, and all of the F&B is just interwoven into the experience on purpose. So you come upstairs and you hear the tinkle of glasses, and then you see this visionary setting in front of you. But Salon Vert is raw bar, is seafood, is really light bites, amazing soup right now that you can't get enough of, and of course, a great selection of wine and champagne. I feel like I talk about champagne all the way through the building.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. It's my favorite drink.
Laura Lendrum:
You can have champagne anywhere. But I think it's really a place where you can pull over, you can meet friends. It's been also really busy since we opened, but I think every time I'm shopping, I'm hungry. And I want something that I don't have to go too far off my mood and my beaten path to be there, and it's perfect.
Kerry Diamond:
That space is so beautiful. You've got the bar that you can sit at, you've got the banquette, you've got tables. Before you even look at the menu, there is so much to look at. Yeah.
Laura Lendrum:
How Laura Gonzalez combines colors is beyond me. It's just amazing. She is maximalist, but the way she does it, there's nobody else.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Color, texture, everything.
Laura Lendrum:
Yeah, everything.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, I interrupted you from our tour.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, that's okay.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Next, where do we go?
Laura Lendrum:
So now we're touring, so we make our little way through the caterpillar, which is the Beauty Corridor, and we arrive at the Salle de Bain on the other side, which is like our powder room. It's sort of we're getting into the inner sanctum of the apartment, and there we have a Champagne Bar, which also has amazing drinks from Gregory. Depends on perpetual renewal. We're in sort of the spa treatment space, so sometimes you might want champagne and sometimes you want a juice or something else that's healthier depending on what you're there to do. And Gregory is so clever with how he mixes flavors in his zero proof drinks as well, so we really have a range there. So far, champagne is the chosen beverage.
Then we travel towards the Red Room on the North side of the project and we go down a gorgeous pink marble staircase to the Red Room Bar. The Red Room Bar, of course, obvious name, but it had to be that, adjacent. It'll be open all day. It has pieces, textures and flavors of the Red Room Bar. Amazing French touches, so it's another Versailles pattern but with travertine circles and a beautiful ceiling. But the menu there, right now it's drinks. When we open the last piece, the Maison Passerelle, which is our fine dining restaurant, the Red Room Bar will also have food adjacent to Maison Passerelle but it'll be open all day. Lighter bites, smaller plates, amazing cocktails. It's been busy.
Kerry Diamond:
It's such a pretty room.
Laura Lendrum:
It's so pretty.
Kerry Diamond:
I know I keep saying everything is beautiful, pretty, chic, sexy, but you have to go and see it because you'll be like, "Oh, Kerry's right. Everything is all those things and more."
Laura Lendrum:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, tell us about the piece de resistance, though. You do have a proper restaurant.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, Maison Passerelle. It's really where Gregory started when he started thinking about being the culinary director of the whole building, and he's been so thoughtful. Really had a sense right away that this is also why we wanted to find somebody with his background. New York has amazing French brasseries. New York has a great selection of places that you can eat that do that. He really wanted to do his own twist on it. So he said, "The classics are the classics, but we can add something different." So if you still want your salmon, then it has this other twist. He did a lot of research, he's so smart on top of everything else, and looked at the spices, the flavors, the colors, the textures of all of the French colonies, bringing a menu that touches literally every part of those worlds. Passerelle means bridge, and the idea is that we're bridging that world and those spices and flavors, and he's reclaiming them in a modern way with a common language, being food.
Kerry Diamond:
When do you anticipate the opening will be?
Laura Lendrum:
It opens April 17th.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, fantastic. Oh, it's right around the corner.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, it's coming up quickly. Coming up quickly.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, good, good. Are you going to be there every night?
Laura Lendrum:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes. I'm so excited. Can't wait.
Kerry Diamond:
Of the places that are open, do you have any favorite dishes so far?
Laura Lendrum:
So at Salon Vert, this is really up my alley. So, the seafood is amazing. The mussels escabeche are incredible oysters. Gregory has a sauce, and I'm not going to do it justice describing of the taste, but I had a friend who didn't like oysters. I said, "Just try the sauce. You can't believe the sauce." And the soup as a sweet potato base, and it's incredible. Gregory can do spice where you don't know exactly what it is, but it just touches you, and the soup is perfectly, perfectly spiced. So I think those are my favorites so far.
Kerry Diamond:
I could see in your face how excited you are about all of this.
Laura Lendrum:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, this is great, and you are a bit of a foodie. We were talking earlier. You love Alice Waters, you love farm-to-table, you love seasonal produce, all the things.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, totally. Yes, that's for sure my base. Yes, totally.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's chat quickly about Laura Gonzalez. She's known for her maximalist style. She's the architect who brought the space to life. Why did you want to work with Laura?
Laura Lendrum:
So, we had a long list. Just like chefs, we had a long list of architects, amazing, amazing architects. And somebody told me about her, so we added her to the mix of people that we were talking to. We wanted this project to be on a human scale, to be very different from how a department store feels, on purpose. Residential, warm. The day that I met her, I was interviewing her on Zoom. She was in Paris and she was opening her gallery that day, and she just had this amazing energy. I could see her waving to someone who came in, but she was fully focused on the conversation. She talked about joyful. She talked about soulful. She talked about this idea of residential and asked just a lot of really great questions as well.
So, I felt immediately like she was the one and needed to then obviously get everybody, not get everybody on board with it, but everybody had their own idea of what this might be because now it was getting physical. But finally, all our stakeholder team in Paris met her and everybody understood. So, she was a phenomenal choice. Maximalist. Retail is always about the product and never about the design. So the idea was that we wanted to be about the space too and what happens to you and how you feel when you're there.
Kerry Diamond:
As we discussed, the interiors are so beautiful, but the Red Room is really a dazzling space. What can you tell us about the room and its late designer, Hildreth Meière.
Laura Lendrum:
She has three generations of her family still alive now. Amazing. Ralph Thomas Walker and she knew each other. He was the architect of the building and considered the architect of the century in the sixties. He knew he wanted a space that was really impressive. She was a muralist and known already, and in fact, she did some work at Rockefeller Center back then.
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to say, you can see some of Hildreth's work here.
Laura Lendrum:
Yeah, yeah. They had this vision together of what it would be and to do a floor to ceiling mosaic in the way that they did. It was for the best clients. It was for their VIP clients. Interestingly, done between 1929 and 1931. So, a rough time, but they soldiered on and-
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, right during the Depression.
Laura Lendrum:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Is it two stories?
Laura Lendrum:
So, it's three stories high.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Laura Lendrum:
Three stories high, and I think it has almost 3 million tiles, if you actually try to calculate the amount of mosaic, and probably 200 different colors, but it's all in the range of red and then it goes into sort of golden flames when you get to the ceiling.
Kerry Diamond:
And it's an interior landmarked space, right? There aren't a lot of interior landmark spaces in the city.
Laura Lendrum:
There are not. So, it was interesting. I thought it was landmarked when I first saw it, but then I learned that to be a landmark, you had to be available to the public. And it hadn't been seen since around 9/11. It had been closed.
Kerry Diamond:
I didn't even know about it.
Laura Lendrum:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I was so shocked when I saw it for the first time.
Laura Lendrum:
It was really, I think, really hidden, and a lot of people hadn't experienced it.
Kerry Diamond:
Hidden in plain sight, though.
Laura Lendrum:
Hidden in plain sight, exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Right, because those windows are huge.
Laura Lendrum:
At the corner of Wall Street and Broadway.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, yeah.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, exactly. But we got it landmarked last June. So Printemps and our landlord worked really closely with the Landmark Preservation Commission and it was official last June, so we were super excited. This is really something that Printemps wants to be a generous brand and to give this landmark back to the city. People can enjoy it now, all day.
Kerry Diamond:
I can't imagine Laura when she saw that space.
Laura Lendrum:
That was the start of everything. It was the base, really, for how she thought about the rest of the project.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. There was no way she could say no to that assignment.
Laura Lendrum:
No, no.
Kerry Diamond:
You know what would be so much fun? To hear her and Gregory in conversation.
Laura Lendrum:
It would be a fabulous conversation.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, maybe they'll have to interview each other for Cherry Bombe or something.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes. They get along so great, too.
Kerry Diamond:
Between the culinary concepts and the interiors, how does the retail component of Printemps not get lost? You can't survive on F&B alone or people coming to admire the design.
Laura Lendrum:
Totally, totally. It's just a different approach. The way that Laura's very first presentation to us, she approached it, she said, "The poetry of shapes and curves. No straight lines." And if you think about a department store or you can think about the IKEA model, which is great, but everything is on a grid. Everything is very organized. There's nothing-
Kerry Diamond:
The first word that popped in my mind was boring.
Laura Lendrum:
Well, let's say straightforward. Yeah, but there's nothing predictable about this. And so the idea was come, discover, spend time, no rush. And I think my take on it is that everything in the world feels so transactional right now more than ever. And it's not just online shopping, everything that you do feels so transactional, so we wanted to create a space where you could have a different experience. So, not only curves and no straight lines, but wander and play, and we'll have different programming and things, but I think it gives you an opportunity to discover in a different way.
I was hosting some people the other night at Salon Vert. I ran to the toilette. We have a toilette time machine. Every toilette is different in the building. You have to check it out. And I saw a clutch that I wanted on my way there. And on the way back, I found a dress for my colleague that she hadn't tried on and said, I brought it back to the table because it was right there and said, "You have to." And everyone was like, "Oh, that's you. You have to." So it's shopping in a different way, and not just coming to shop and leaving, but maybe doing other things while you're there and coming more often as a result.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to talk about one of my favorite subjects, food and fashion. I know it's one of yours as well. I'm amazed how much is going on right now in this intersection of food and fashion. You've got Alaya with food concepts now in their boutiques. Uniqlo just opened a coffee shop, I haven't even gone to see it yet, here in New York City. One of the most successful examples, at least from the outside, seems to be Ralph Lauren with its Ralph Coffee chain and the Ralph Lauren restaurants. You were president of Ralph Lauren from 2013 to 2017. We almost crossed paths because I was actually hired to be the vice president of fashion PR for Ralph Lauren when I was at Coach, and I turned it down.
Laura Lendrum:
Oh.
Kerry Diamond:
Stupidly.
Laura Lendrum:
So we almost cross paths.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes, and I think that was like 2011 or '12.
Laura Lendrum:
Shoot.
Kerry Diamond:
The opening of Ralph's first two restaurants, and Chicago and Paris predated you, but Ralph's Coffee and the wildly popular Polo Bar, which is right around the corner, happened under your watch. How did Ralph's Coffee come to be?
Laura Lendrum:
When I got there, the lease was already signed for the store and the idea for the restaurant, although I think it wasn't fully baked yet. But coffee felt like a natural thing that would animate the store in a different way.
Kerry Diamond:
It was a little ahead of the curve.
Laura Lendrum:
It was.
Kerry Diamond:
Not everybody was doing that.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes. Ralph's designs are so amazing, the store designs, and I think it just felt like we wanted someplace else where you could sit down and you could... Smith Avenue has a lot of tourists and it felt like it was a logical thing. And it started as something for that store. Clearly, it's taken off.
Kerry Diamond:
Shockingly. I mean, I read online, Ralph's Coffee is one of the largest independent coffee companies in the U.S. now and has, I think, more than 30 locations around the world.
Laura Lendrum:
Well, and it's amazing because I think the immediate team that works with Ralph on these things is so talented. Mary Margaret and Charles.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, Mary Margaret. Hi, Mary Margaret.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes. Hi, Mary Margaret. They're so talented, and the attention to detail that they can bring to a Ralph project is incredible. And I learned so much from being in that process of how everything came to life and how thoughtful everything was and how connected it was. I think it's grown because it really resonates with people and it really feels like a space you want to be in. And it's so iconic, it just was immediately iconic. It's the first time that I saw that people coming just because they have to have a coffee and they have to take a picture and it has to be part of the New York trip, et cetera.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, if I remember correctly, it was a hit right away.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, immediately.
Kerry Diamond:
I know you already had the two restaurants, but I mean, it's a little different. You opened a restaurant in Paris, you opened a restaurant in Chicago. I know that's a big deal, but it's not New York. Were there expectations for the coffee? I mean, it wasn't even a brand then. For the coffee spot?
Laura Lendrum:
No, I think in the beginning it was just part of retail. I mean, there were not expectations for it, but I think immediately we saw how well it worked. And so you're thinking, "Can it be at the mansion? Can it be somewhere else in New York? How could it go elsewhere?" And so I think the team started looking at it right away, but in the beginning, it was an idea to test and people just loved it. Just loved it.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned the mansion. That's the landmark space.
Laura Lendrum:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I've been there plenty of times. It's big and elegant, but it's very big, so sometimes it could feel a little sleepy there. We'll use that word. The coffee shop there has completely re-energized that space.
Laura Lendrum:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
It's remarkable.
Laura Lendrum:
Yeah, but it becomes your daily habit. It becomes something that's part of your life, so people come more often. They come all the time and feel really good in that space. It's super casual. And I think about this related to this project, coming to buy a cappuccino feels really easy and you can walk around with it. And so it's an entry point to a brand that might be intimidating, or maybe it doesn't feel like something else is happening right now, but you're instantly a part of the world.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm endlessly fascinated by The Polo Bar. I've only been there a few times. It's the Ralph restaurant on 5th Avenue in Midtown. It is so popular. You cannot even step foot into the place unless you know somebody who's gotten you a reservation or you're regular friends with Ralph, whatever it takes. Do you still go there?
Laura Lendrum:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Can you still get a table?
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, I can still get a table.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm sure people ask you all the time, "Can you get me a reservation?"
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, they do. They do. I actually had a dinner there a week ago Sunday, and it's as lovely and fabulous as ever.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, the shocking part to me is the team essentially took a basement space with no windows in a neighborhood that used to be a restaurant wasteland and turned it into a hit, a huge hit. Every time I step in there, I'm like, "How did they do this?"
Laura Lendrum:
It's the magic of Ralph, first. Also, we had the Chicago restaurant was actually in my P&L as well, so I learned a lot about that business, which was also a very local favorite. A lot of Ralph's customers ate there. But then-
Kerry Diamond:
I think Oprah was a fan, which probably didn't hurt.
Laura Lendrum:
Exactly. The Paris restaurant, though, was also just magical. And the fact that Ralph, of course, could go to Paris and open a restaurant like that.
Kerry Diamond:
Right on Boulevard Saint-Germain, yeah.
Laura Lendrum:
Exactly. So we did also work really closely with that team to understand the magic. And again, you have the people close to Ralph who were creating initially, but we were really thoughtful about how to set it up from start to finish, who was coming and how to think about that dining room. And we had so many great clients that wanted to come, so trying to make room for people who are already part of Ralph's world. So it was a delicate dance every day to figure out how to make it all fit.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I can't even imagine handling the books over there.
Laura Lendrum:
Then we had fantastic people.
Kerry Diamond:
That's true. That's true.
Laura Lendrum:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And you've got Nelly.
Laura Lendrum:
Exactly. I mean, what a secret weapon. She's magic.
Kerry Diamond:
She is fantastic.
Laura Lendrum:
Yeah, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I think it's so inspiring for restaurateurs and food people around the U.S. who maybe have their own space and aren't sure what to do with it. This is a windowless basement, and when you think about transforming spaces, it is possible. You can take a space that doesn't seem very special and make it someplace wildly exciting.
Laura Lendrum:
Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Laura Lendrum:
You can take anything and do that. I think it's really about how you approach it and it's really about, how big is your imagination? In this case, we were able to create a really intimate Ralph's world, which worked, but you could do so many things with a space like this for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
There are so many other examples. Dior just opened a cafe in Dallas with Chef Dominique Crenn. Prada, they own Pasticceria Marchesi. Am I saying that right?
Laura Lendrum:
Yes, which is perfection.
Kerry Diamond:
Milan, Peter Som, the designer, just published a cookbook. I can go on and on and on. I mean, you've got the LV Cafe here in New York City. We had their wonderful pastry chef on the podcast a few weeks ago. You can't get in there either. What is going on? Food and fashion did not used to be friends, as silly as that sounds.
Laura Lendrum:
It's so true. It's so true.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Laura Lendrum:
I think it's a few things, and I keep trying to think who was actually first. Was it Giorgio Armani? Because I think very early on, he had this idea of the food and fashion. But I think our celebrities of today are chefs. We want to know who they are and we follow them and love their food. And all the worlds have merged now, so we can add food to music and art and fashion together. That's powerful when you think about how all that comes together. So I also had a brief stint at Dean & DeLuca. We saw the loyalty of people who were so addicted to Dean & DeLuca and who would come. So it's understanding that loyalty piece, understanding the frequency piece. So people want to come more often because they feel very connected to the brand in a very immediate personal way.
And then there's shopping and everything else that happens on the other side. And when you mix it all together, I think it can be magical. And I can tell you humbly, so far in this project, the fashion is working famously. People are shopping but maybe in a different way, and they say they feel comfortable and at home and they can't believe how long they've been here. And so hopefully, it's a way to approach it in the future. But I think that we're obsessed with chefs, we're obsessed with food, and I feel like in New York, it's also a sport.
Kerry Diamond:
It feels like that sometimes, definitely. What can fashion learn from hospitality and vice versa?
Laura Lendrum:
I think that we both have the customer at the center. Maybe approach it in a bit of a different way, but I think that fashion, when you're working with clients, you're so intimate in a way. And food is the same way. So I think it's understanding each other better, understanding how each other work, but I think that the marriage is a really good one. I've actually, in this project, gotten to go deeper and further, and respecting, on both sides, how hard it is to deliver perfection or the attempt at perfection every time. I'm humbled by Gregory, by the team, by what they're doing. Rachel Green is our pastry chef. Amazing. And we get to produce in-house, which was my dream, and I'm so happy we do. So, I think it's more understanding each other better and how similar the worlds are. Both are ephemeral, both move and change.
Kerry Diamond:
I heard there are lines out the door. What's a good time to come visit and try to get a space at one of the places to eat or drink?
Laura Lendrum:
So, reservation helps. We're on Resy. There are lines, they form. In the beginning opening, it was just crazy and unexpected. There were lines literally all the way around the block the first 10 days. Now it seems to form in the afternoon, but if you have a reservation, now we're more organized and ready. So you can come in if you have a reservation. We're trying to balance, and the part of the reason of the lines is not for the sake of lines, but to make sure that the experience inside is what we want it to be.
Kerry Diamond:
Sure. Understandable.
Laura Lendrum:
So hopefully it will all balance out a little bit.
Kerry Diamond:
Laura, we've run out of time, but please come back. I mean, there's so much. We didn't even talk about the Dean & DeLuca years, and there's so much. Your Gucci years. You've had a really remarkable career and I so appreciate that you took the time to come up and talk to us.
Laura Lendrum:
Thank you. I'm so honored to be here. It's really, really my pleasure, and thank you so much for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer at Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.