Fine Dining with August: Interview with Gavin Fine and August Spier

Thursday, January 04, 2007

By Jake Nichols

What's the secret to their success? Anything other businesses - from restaurants to gift shops - can learn from them? Barely through the appetizer of our candid, sometimes salty conversation with the two illustrious restaurateurs, it became evident the homerun question wouldn't be so much, "How do you do it?" but, "Why?"

Gavin Fine: I'm really nervous right now, because we just opened Q. I have no fingernails.

August Spier: It's very difficult opening a restaurant. It's 16-, 18- hour days, seven days a week. It's a lot of work. The amount of variables, the amount of details, far surpasses 99 percent of all other businesses. That's just a fact. You're dealing with an end product that's being reviewed on a nightly, minute-by-minute basis. There is no other business like this. That is why most restaurants fail.

GF: Give him that line, "You're only as good as your last meal." The restaurant people that end up failing are the ones that, if they get a hot place and people are coming, all of a sudden they relax and rest, and you know what? They're dead. Rest on your laurels and you're dead. My staff hates me for it, I know 'cuz it's non-stop pounding on them but, unfortunately, it really doesn't matter what we did last night or last week.

AS: The reason we have been as successful as we are, and I hope it continues, is we don't take it for granted. We take it very seriously. People walk in here [SRG] with high expectations. And every year we get a letter: "You failed. You failed to meet my high expectations." It destroys you [pantomimes plunging a dagger in his heart].

GF: We're both really sensitive.

AS: [Laughs.] You know what? It kills us.

GF: You come in and you have a good experience and stats say you are going to tell between one and three people. Have a bad experience? You're gonna tell between seven and 12 people. What other kind of business has to deal with that? You go to the GAP and buy a pair of pants and maybe they don't fit or you don't like them but...

AS: Or the cashier was mean to you ? Are you going to badmouth the GAP? Let's say you're walking down the street in New York City and you bump into your friend John, and he mentions he is going to be heading to Jackson Hole next week. "No kidding," you say. "You know what? You gotta eat at such-and-such." That's the only thing people talk about. They're not going to say, "Don't go to this T-shirt store." Never in a fucking million years. There's only one thing people talk about: food.

GF: It's tough. It's not a 9-to-5 job. It's a 24-hour-a-day job because you take it home. You've gotta love it. [August has] been in the business his whole life and loved it, and I'm the same way. Since I was five years old, I can tell you everywhere I ate.

AS: In a way this goes on forever. We have management meetings every single week. We sit at this table... and we talk about the past week, the coming week. What can we do better? How can we fix this? Thirteen-and-a-half years later. We have some pretty good policies here. We have very good ways of doing things that are proven successful, but we'd be idiots if we thought we couldn't do it better. And we'd be idiots if we thought we didn't HAVE to.

A passion for the noble profession of filling patrons' souls and bowls is crucial. Why else would sharp businessmen like Spier and Fine get into an industry with angel-hair profit margins?

GF: The biggest thing about the restaurant business is that people who come from other businesses ? like Fortune 500 guys, they come in and want to open up a restaurant and they are used to dealing on 25 to 30 percent margins ? well, with restaurants, if you are clearing 15 percent you are God's gift to the restaurant industry. Most people, you are talking about 8 to 10 percent. That's what you're fighting for ? and that's doing well. So people come to me and say, "Ah, you're killing it, you're making a fortune." Think about it. Why the hell would I want to work so hard for 10 to 12 percent? That's why it's really about the passion and the love of the game.

AS: You're feeding people. What's better than feeding people? There is somebything noble about feeding people. It's a good thing to do. Eating out is the most personal thing people do in public. It's all about mom and tit.

In the beginning, New Yorker Spier cut his teeth opening nine successful eateries in Los Angeles. Fine grew up emulating hometown hotshot Richard Melman, founder and chairman of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, a Chicago-based corporation that owns over 70 restaurants nationwide.

GF: I used to work here [SRG] for August. He was my boss. He still bosses me around everyday.

AS: I do not. That's a lie. You boss me around.

GF: August gave me my shot almost 11 years ago. I went to hotel and restaurant management school at Cornell University and I came out here two weeks after.

AS: He wanted to work at the Grill. [On the advice of a mutual friend] he wrote me a letter and I said, "Come on out," and he went to work in the pizza pantry. That's what he wanted to do; he wanted to be in the kitchen.

GF: At eight bucks an hour. I mean, I think you tried to give me, like, six-fifty. It was ridiculous.

AS: Whatever. You weren't worth fivefifty. Your first fucking job out of college.

GF: Bullshit! It was crazy. I had to hold four jobs in Jackson at that point.

AS: Let me get the violin out.

GF: It's a small town and August was essentially a pioneer in this town. And, not to knock any of the restaurants that were here before the Snake River Grill - Cadillac, Blue Lion, Stiegler's - but I know it was the first a la carte that came in 13 years ago where you didn't get a super-salad with your entr?e. And people thought, "Holy shit, what the hell is this asshole doing? Coming in here and charging me these prices and I don't get a super-salad?"

I think what SRG did was kind of up the ante of fine dining in Jackson, catering to the more citified folks, if you will. All of us have sort of followed suit, in a way.

AS: When I opened Snake River Grill, I told Roger [Freedman], the chef then, who's a partner in the Q with us and a chef and partner at the Bistro as well - he was asking, "How many dinners we going to do?" "We are going to do 80 dinners the first night," I told him, "and we are going to stick with that a while." And that's exactly what we did. More people wanted to come and I said "Sorry" and told them why: "I don't feel we can do more than that... you'd just leave angry and badmouth us. What is that gonna do for me?"

GF: But you come to the Snake River Grill and you're getting the best cut of meat you can get in this town. That's why you're paying 40 bucks for a steak, as opposed to going down the street and paying $20 for a cut that is not prime grade, it's not raised organic, free-range and hormone-free.

The secret ingredient in Spier's success is his treatment of his employees. Braised in that philosophy under the tutelage of Spier, Fine treasures and teaches his staff in turn.

AS: It's been my philosophy my whole career to not have a revolving door. I've had people with me for years and years, even back in L.A. That pleases our customers. They're always amazed that we have the same help year after year. That helps sustain our business. It's Cheers. People want to be recognized.

GF: To see your employees learn what you've been trying to teach them and being excited about what they're learning and doing, that's what gives me the greatest pleasure in what I do. Satisfied customers are more of an ego stroke, but happy employees really hits home, inside. I imagine that's why teachers teach ? it's about the kids.

AS: Yeah, you're happy when patrons are glad to be here and, yeah, when they leave and tell you how great it was ? that's an ego stroke, but really, deep down, it doesn't mean jackshit. What's important is how your family feels; the people that are with you every day. How is that back-and-forth happening, that reciprocity? [There is a theory] that staff comes before your customers. Your staff is number one, and if the staff believes that, they will take care of your customers and treat them well.

There's such negativity in this business from other restaurateurs. They hate their waiters because all waiters steal from them. That's a tenet. That's what you hear out there. But that's not true in our restaurants. It's not true. If you treat them well, why would they steal from you? If you give them the tools that they need to do their job well, give them benefits and take care of them, why would they steal from you?

GF: My lowest point is when I have an employee that feels wronged. Or feels like we, as management, didn't give them the tools they needed to succeed.

Because then I feel like I've failed them, personally. That's really the toughest. You asked why we do this, and for me, it's the teaching aspect of it. I'd like to be a teacher when I'm done with the restaurant business.

Like all businessmen, Spier and Fine sweat the bottom line, but neither measures success in the almighty dollar.

AS: I'll tell you when I'm happy: when, at the end of a very busy night and I've seen this machine work well and everybody's doing their job and the customers are happy because the staff is happy. It's the staff being happy with their performance that's important. If 99 percent of the staff is happy, I know the customer is going to be happy. It's a given.

GF: One of my biggest pleasures is seeing a young kid waiting tables and learning about food at the same time. Maybe all they drank was PBR at the time ? which is OK, I love PBR ? but now, all of the sudden, they're into wine.

AS: And they have a new girlfriend and they can cook for her... do the dance in the kitchen. We just had a private party with 220 people here for a big buffet holiday party. This company was in town and they came here and they were very food-conscious people, very interested in developing the menu for this party. It was X amount of money and the tip was set at 18 percent. When the people were leaving, the CEO of the company came up to me and said, "I want to raise the tip to 30 percent." I said, "Thanks. It's really not necessary but..." "No, no, your staff was great. I wanna do that." And then, again, right before she left, she told me to add another $1,000 to the tip. That was a high point for me. Because she knew food, this woman ? she really did. She got what we did. And she really appreciated the staff.

Restaurant owners talk about food and other restaurants incessantly. For instance, best Bloody Mary in the country became a topic. We offered Gladstone's (Malibu Beach, California).

AS: I disagree. Best bloodies are at the St. Regis Bar in New York. That's where they invented it. But Gladstone's... well, we don't have an ocean.

GF: I've never been there.

AS: Twenty years ago they were doing $15 million a year. Twenty years ago!

GF: Really?

AS: Uh huh.

GF: God bless 'em.

- editor@planetjh.com

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