Kennedy:
Here with me tonight, Chateau on the Lake owner and star of Food Networks, Summer Rush. It is Buddy Foy Jr. Buddy, welcome to the show.
Buddy Foy Jr:
Thank you Kennedy.
Kennedy:
So what is going on in New York, because Andrew Cuomo says, “we have compensated in other ways” he’s talking about restaurant owners, business owners, and employees. What other ways?
Buddy Foy Jr:
I don’t see any other ways, either you’re in business and you can operate or you can’t.
Kennedy:
Yeah.
Buddy Foy Jr:
And outdoor dining, like you said, we got a big snow storm coming. It’s cold and the outdoor program, it’s nice to have when you can have it, but we need our indoor seating, even if it’s limited.
Kennedy:
Yeah, and you know what people are going to do? They’re going to tune in the Food Network and they’re going to make some delicious stuff that they see on TV, and then they’re going to burn it and then they’re going to get Uber eats. So it really doesn’t help anyone, but you have the best comparison. You said, “restaurants with indoor dining are at 25% capacity, try running a marathon with a 25% lung capacity.” I think that’s such a great analogy.
Buddy Foy Jr:
Yeah. Imagine that, it won’t happen, and at the end of the day, we have to figure out how we can stay alive as long as we can. The vaccine’s here, you just talked about that with the doctor. That’s fantastic news, and we got to figure out as an industry how we’re going to stay alive. We’re turning a corner and to not allow some type of capacity inside, when other industries and big box retailers are inside-
There’s not outdoor parking lot shopping. Yeah, I went shopping after Thanksgiving and I wasn’t in a tent shopping with fired garbage cans. [crosstalk 00:01:28]
Kennedy:
I did not get stopped going into Target, multiple times.
Buddy Foy Jr:
That’s right.
Kennedy:
And –
Buddy Foy Jr:
That’s right, so-
Kennedy:
There are plenty of places where you can still go, but there is a low transmission rate from places like gyms and restaurants, and so you have taken one of your restaurants to Florida. What are you seeing in Florida? Is it so much better there than it is in New York right now?
Buddy Foy Jr:
Well, look it depends where you are, they’re allowed to operate. So yeah, it’s a lot better, because they can operate, there’s different mask mandates depending where you are, but you’re allowed to figure it out and practice this new normal.
At the end of the day, we are in the restaurant industry. I have employees that need to feed their families. We made a decision, I reached out to some very dear friends in a local Florida community, as well as my brother. I said, “find me a place I’m coming to Florida”.
Kennedy:
Yeah.
Buddy Foy Jr:
So we shut down our dining, we focused on online meal kits with Chateau at Home in New York. So we are functioning in our kitchen up there, with a limited staff to send packages via FedEx all over the country.
Kennedy:
Nice.
Buddy Foy Jr:
Cause I had to make money somehow.
Kennedy:
Yeah, I’ve been saying this the entire time, more than any other industry, restaurants and bars are figuring out ways to survive, and now it occurs to me that you guys have always had to. There’s so much competition and it’s so difficult to make a profit, you have such narrow margins, that it’s always been tough for you guys. So it takes a lot of grit to run a restaurant, and it’s no surprise that a lot of you who are tough and smart are going to survive, but the tragic thing is there are restaurants, the mom-and-pop businesses, that don’t have the cash, they just can’t stay open and they may never open again.
Buddy Foy Jr:
We can’t afford it, we’re at the waterline beach resort marina resort [crosstalk 00:03:14] . We met with the owners, they were looking for a partner. We met with the local mayor. People are motivated, there are cities that want your business, there are cities that are willing to play ball, as long as you’re safe. We served 45,000 customers this summer, 45,000, not one COVID case was traced back to our restaurant and not a single employee came down with COVID, 45,000, my family owns three restaurants in Bolton in New York. The three of us serve over a hundred thousand customers, not a single one of us came down COVID [crosstalk 00:03:47] or employees.
Kennedy:
What is your secret that you would tell other restaurants about?
Buddy Foy Jr:
We follow the guidelines. We had masks on, customers had the mask on their tables, it wasn’t easy at first but people practiced. We didn’t send people to the dungeon when they didn’t get off their table with their mask, we politely handed them one. It took a while to get used to it, our employees got comfortable with it, our chefs. We just took it to another level of cleanliness, we respected each other because we understood if we do not do this right, we’re not going to be able to feed our families.
Kennedy:
Yep.
Buddy Foy Jr:
We happen to be very serious about what we do, we love what we do. The food of businesses is already, and always has been monitored by a health department, we had that step it up a notch, which frankly, we should be. Right?
Kennedy:
All right.
Buddy Foy Jr:
You should always focus on cleanliness. We focused on it, it worked, we served a ton of people and we’re taking that same concept to Anna Maria Island, we opening up a restaurant down here, it opened this weekend, we did it in 60 days.
Kennedy:
Yep.
Buddy Foy Jr:
And we’re excited to keep our employees employed.
Kennedy:
A lot of people are going to come to restaurants because they feel comfortable, they don’t feel judged, they feel safe. It is a balance, we all have to find it. You’ve gotten there faster than many others. Continued success, and thank you for the advice that you’re giving to other people, just trying to survive this crazy crazy season, Buddy Foy Jr. Thanks again.