FOX Business w/ Jackie D’Angelis & Buddy Foy Jr

Jackie :
Joining us now, Buddy Foy Jr. He is the restaurant owner of Chateau on the Lake in upstate New York, as well as the Chateau Anna Maria in Florida. Buddy, always great to see you.

Buddy Foy:
[crosstalk 00:00:11].

Jackie :
You have these restaurants in Florida and New York as well. And so I just want to talk to you since the last time that you were on the show, get an update on the different experiences that you’re seeing in different states.

Buddy Foy:
Well, I keep saying Florida’s the freedom state, Florida we’re expanding. The difference is we’ve been a business in New York for nine years. This was the most difficult two years we’ve ever had. We go to Florida for less than 10 months and we’re already signing leases for more locations. We got another restaurant opening Sarasota. The difference is very dramatic.

Jackie :
Yeah. And there have been outrage and even lawsuits about the rules imposed here in New York City requiring restaurant owners to essentially enforce the vaccine policy. They’re saying, “We’re not police officers. We’re not equipped to do this. It’s going to kill business.” And then you’ve got president Biden saying, if you’re a corporation and you have, and a hundred employees, you need to mandate that your employees be vaccinated to come back to work. I mean, your thoughts on all these rules as a business owner, it seems almost impossible to do what you need to do.

Buddy Foy:
I honestly don’t think they want us to succeed. I hate saying that and I know it sounds crazy, but I we’re getting out of a pandemic, we’re still in it, we’ve got employee unemployment benefits they gave until recently and now they want to make it even harder. Not just on our restaurant, on our entire industry. We can’t get supplies when we need them we’re driving and meeting drivers because they can only lock so many hours. Now, certain drivers aren’t going to be able to work because they’re want to get a vaccine. It’s mind blowing. I don’t understand the science behind it because it doesn’t support this. And it’s I’m completely… I believe they don’t want us to succeed. Someone’s got to-`

Jackie :
To your point, supplies are one issue we’ve been talking about the supply chain. The second issue is the labor shortage that you’re struggling with. Not just you, but many business owners out there across the country. And so you look at rules like this and you say to yourself, the policies created the labor shortage, which also spurred inflation that Americans are dealing with. That’s a separate conversation, but I don’t anticipate that these new rules are going to make this labor shortage get any better. That makes it harder for you and that makes the inflation problem even worse.

Buddy Foy:
Yeah. That’s the supply chain. We don’t have labor, they don’t have labor. There’s not enough labor currently under the current availability of workers. They’re not there, they’re not working. Now on top of it, they’re going to decrease that number of available or the pool that we could hire. It’s now going to be vaccinated only it’s going to be devastating to the economy and buckle up because it’s not going to be fun.

Jackie :
Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re actually expanding in Florida because the rules are less strict there. That’s a positive sign. I wonder how much longer can you go on? This has been a pandemic that’s run the course of roughly 18 months and we’re not through it just yet. So how much longer do you hang on in New York? Is New York still a place that you want to do business?

Buddy Foy:
It’s a day by day conversation. We served over 45,000 customers in New York in the heat of the pandemic. Not one person got trace COVID back to our restaurant in New York. 45,000, that’s a test case. No one’s talking about the success and how we can prevent the spread without… This is pre-vaccine by the way, 45,000 customers. So Florida is the state, we will expand in. We have our Florida location. It’s one location. And I know one thing for sure, it’s going to be only one location in the state of New York. We will not expand in New York.

Jackie :
Quick question for you regarding conversations that you have with your patrons because I talk to a lot of diners that I encounter when I go to restaurants here, and they don’t necessarily feel better or safer with the vaccine mandate and that people are checking cards and driver’s licenses because there are fakes out there and there are ways around it. I mean, does it really make difference? Do the patrons say that they require that they have to have that if they want to sit down to eat because that’s not what I’m hearing.

Buddy Foy:
Nine out of 10 customers don’t ask us. They have a “it’s none of our business as a consumer what you do at your employees.” Once in a while you get a customer, that’ll leave us a one star review because they heard about an employee that didn’t and have a vaccine. But that’s very, very minute, 99% [crosstalk 00:04:24] issues.

Jackie :
What about the fellow diners because that’s the situation. So I’m walking into an indoor restaurant here and supposedly everybody in there is vaccinated, but we do know that there are breakthrough cases and we do know that people skirt the rules. So does it really matter that we’re trying to enforce this? It almost seems like it’s an impossible thing to do.

Buddy Foy:
Listen, you can’t enforce it, there’s takeout for a reason, there’s curbside for a reason. If you’re that uncomfortable, you’re that panic that a vaccine is actually not a vaccine. Then you got to stay home out of all due respect.

Jackie :
Right. No, you make perfect sense. Buddy Foy, great to see you. We wish you the best of luck. We will continue to have you on and get your updates. Always good talking to you.

Buddy Foy:
Thank you, Jackie.