Alon Shaya on Innovating Philanthropy and Sustainable Culture at Pomegranate Hospitality

#60. For this week's episode, we are thrilled to welcome chef Alon Shaya. Alon is a two-time James Beard Award winner, having earned accolades for Best Chef in the South and Best New Restaurant. He's also the author of the acclaimed book "Shaya," a book that traces the evolution of a cuisine and the transformative power of cooking throughout Alon's personal life and career.

Alon has made significant strides in the culinary world. He is the chef-partner, and founder of Pomegranate Hospitality, a venture he started with his wife, Emily. Alon is deeply involved in philanthropy. One of his notable initiatives is Rescuing Recipes, inspired by a moving story from the Holocaust Museum about a Yugoslavian Jewish family and their preserved recipe book. Alon has been recreating these recipes and sharing them across the country with Steven Fenves.

Additionally, Alon co-founded the Shaya Barnett Foundation with Donna Barnett, contributing further to his legacy of giving back. In this episode, we delve into Alon's philanthropic efforts, his innovative approach to building a supportive and sustainable company culture at Pomegranate Hospitality, and his commitment to ensuring his team has access to health insurance and a safe working environment.

Join us as we explore the fascinating journey of Chef Alon Shaya, his impactful work beyond the kitchen, and the experiences that have shaped his remarkable career.

Where to find Alon Shaya:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Twitter

In this episode, we cover:

(03:57): Alon's experience coming from Israel to Philadelphia
(09:09): Does suffering make for an entrepreneurial spirit?
(16:26): A Cookbook's purpose in the past vs. now
(21:18): How does Alon have time for fly fishing?
(27:54): How Alon manages the culture part of his business
(39:14): How core values manifest in day-to-day business
(51:14): Shaya Barnett Foundation

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Sharkey: 

You're listening to season two of The meez Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals. On the show, we're going to talk to high performers in the food business, everything from chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more about how they innovate.

[00:00:19] 

And operate and how they consistently execute at a high level day after day. And I would really love it if you could drop us a five star review anywhere that you listen to your podcast. That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky Anywhere works, but I really appreciate the support and as always, I hope you enjoy the show.

[00:00:46] 

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, today's guest is chef Alon Shaya. Wow, so Alon is a two time James Beard award winner. He won best chef in the south. He won best new restaurant. He's also the author of the book Shaya, which is sort of half memoir, half cookbook about his time traveling through Israel. He is an Israeli American.

[00:01:09] 

He's the chef, partner, founder, along with his wife of Pomegranate Hospitality. He also has a bunch of initiatives, mostly philanthropic, one of which is called Rescuing Recipes. It's really cool. Uh, the backstory is really that he, you know, he was traveling to the Holocaust Museum and learned about the son of this Yugoslavian Jewish family that were displaced from their home, the cook in their home had saved the recipe book, and he's been cooking all of these recipes.

[00:01:36] 

So dish by dish and traveling the country telling the stories with the son named Steven Fen. I think Fenves is how you pronounce it. He also founded an organization called the Shaya Barnett Foundation along with Donna Barnett who is a big part of his past. Anyways, he's an incredible chef, but we don't actually talk too much about cooking today because I was just so fascinated with the work that he's doing, both philanthropically and also the way that he's built his company from the ground up, Pomegranate Hospitality with.

[00:02:04] 

the team in mind and with longevity and creating careers and supporting the team and making sure that they have health insurance and they have a safe working environment. And a lot of that probably comes from his experiences in the past with other places that he's worked, which we'll talk about.

[00:02:18] 

Anyways, it was an incredible conversation and I do apologize. It seemed like his internet might've been a little bit shaky at times. So we did our best to make sure that the sound quality is as good as it could be. And as always, I really hope that you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.

[00:02:44] Alon Shaya: 

Thanks for having me on the show. 

[00:02:45] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Thanks for coming on. And thanks to Gia for setting this up. Always. You were on Eli's podcast a little bit ago. Actually, that must have been like a year ago. It was a year ago. Yeah. 

[00:02:56] Alon Shaya: 

for Philly Chefs Conference. Yeah. Are you going this year, by the way?

[00:03:00] 

I'm not. No, I think it's actually happening right now. We just came off of a, um, restaurant opening in Las Vegas and We have French Quarter Festival this weekend in New Orleans that I'm doing a bunch of stuff for, so. 

[00:03:13] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh yeah, so you're jammed. Yeah. All right. This is my first time going to the uh, Chef Conference.

[00:03:19] Alon Shaya: 

Oh it is, it's great. I was the, yeah, last year I was there, it was a lot of fun, a lot of great people there. 

[00:03:24] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, yeah, I'm moderating a panel on menu development with some of the folks from Noma and a couple, you know, cocktail person and Ariel Johnson, it should be a lot of fun. That sounds like fun.

[00:03:32] 

 Anyways, let's talk about you. I want to start, if it's cool, with a little bit of your background and not too much because if it's okay. I want to, I have a lot of questions on some of the work you're doing with the Rescue Recipes and stuff like that. But maybe just, just if you don't mind teeing up a little bit of, of your background coming to the States.

[00:03:47] 

I know you didn't speak English when you got here, grew up in Philly from what I've heard, but maybe just a little winding us up on your background up until getting to where you are now. 

[00:03:57] Alon Shaya: 

Yeah. I, um, was born in Israel when I was four when my family immigrated to America. You know, I grew up outside of Philly, outside of downtown Philly.

[00:04:08] 

And I'm a very young age, you know, really connected the foods that my grandmother was cooking in our, in our kitchen with my feeling like normal again, you know, like everything was kind of up in the air when we first came to America, I didn't speak English, you know, being four years old, being put into a new school by the time I was five, my parents split up.

[00:04:35] 

So. My mom was working two jobs and raising my sister and I on her own. 

[00:04:42] Josh Sharkey: 

That's nuts, man. I can't imagine, I can't imagine being four and having all that, that happen all at once. I mean, I'm worried about my kid, you know, just going from pre k to kindergarten. You're talking about going to a new country and your parents splitting up all at the same time. That's insane. 

[00:04:57] Alon Shaya: 

Yeah. We have a three year old and you know, everything is just so, so fragile when it comes to feelings and like understanding what's happening. And so. You know, I was just being put through the ringer at that age and when my Saba and my Safta, uh, which are my grandparents, when they would come to, to visit us from Israel to really to take care of my mom and to help her kind of navigate through this crazy time in her life, you know, my grandmother would cook my Safta that we cook.

[00:05:28] 

And in those moments, I felt like life was. Back to the way I felt comfortable with it being, because the smells and the flavors and all of the things that I remembered from like when life was, you know, normal in Israel were coming back to me and they would like, you know, we were so poor, you know, there would be like an influx of money into the house.

[00:05:52] 

Like, you know, we would get an air conditioner or. They would take us out for Chinese food, or something would happen every time they would come to visit that made our lives better. So from a really young age, I really connected my grandmother and her cooking to feeling like I could be myself again, and I could, you know, feel a sense of normalcy and comfort and family again.

[00:06:25] 

That's kind of how I fell in love with food from a really young age, and, you know, grew up in Philly, began working in restaurants when I was 13 years old, got into a lot of trouble in high school, really kind of created a lot of problems for people, including myself, and barely was able to stay in school, but my home economics teacher Donna Barnett really came along and saved my life and helped me navigate my way towards my career in culinary arts.

[00:07:01] 

So, you know, I ended up going to the Culinary Institute of America right after high school, but it was a really windy road getting there. And once I, you know, I almost flunked out of high school, but I graduated, you know, with almost straight A's and perfect attendance in culinary school. So, I just needed to, you know, be guided to the right place.

[00:07:26] 

And once I was, there was really no turning back. 

[00:07:29] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. It is interesting how there's this common thread of when there's enough suffering, it does tend to sort of create this, this more entrepreneurial spirit. And then when you couple that with like, you know, food being some sort of safety net when you're younger.

[00:07:45] 

It's a really interesting formula of how you get to wear someone like you are today. I resonate a lot with it. My father passed away when I was young. I got into drugs, probably almost died a number of times from doing way too much ecstasy and all kinds of other things. Almost went to jail a couple times and then ended up, you know, entering a contest, got into culinary school.

[00:08:04] 

You know, if I hadn't gone to culinary school, I probably would not be where I am today. But that, like, struggle also created this, like, you know, this constant need for, like, for continuing to do more so I don't get back to the place. I'm curious if you ever think about how much you went through as a kid, because you know, it's funny, you talk about like, oh, my Safta came and cooked, and so it reminded me of, you know, the, the early days, but like, You were still four or five years old, man.

[00:08:34]

So, like, your life was basically still kind of starting, so you had a lot of, you know, strife from a, from a pretty early age. And you are, you know, as I look at your background and, and also all the things that you've done, all these restaurants you've created, but not just restaurants, but, you know, books, you know, and the, and philanthropy that you're doing.

[00:08:52] 

And just the way that you go about, you know, a lot of people go to the Holocaust Museum, a lot of people see all of that, you know, suffering in something like that, a lot of us have family in Israel or had family in the Holocaust, not many people would see that and say, Hey, you know what? I'm going to actually do something about this.

[00:09:09] 

I'm going to start this whole new, you know, organization. So there's something in you that's, that's like this catalyst to keep creating and doing more of these things. I'm curious if you think that. Part of that is because of all the you know, the suffering went through when you well 

[00:09:23] Alon Shaya: 

I think that for me I always used my love of food and cooking as my one way ticket whether it was Into something out of something where I wanted to go, you know, like I have always used my ability to cook and make people happy with food to my advantage in a way, and my advantage with the experience with rescued recipes and beginning my friendship with, with Steven Fenves and, and now we've raised, you know, a lot of money for, for the holocaust museum, about $750,000, my advantage.

[00:10:07]

And that scenario is that it brings me joy and it makes me happy, you know, and it creates a relationship and it makes me feel like, um, I'm doing something greater than, you know, just cooking dinner for someone or, you know, talking to a reporter or, you know, opening a restaurant. Like, those things are all great and that's what I do for a living and it's, you know, I don't discount that at all.

[00:10:32] 

I've always seen my ability to cook and connect through food as a way to get to get more out of life and to get more out of my experiences in life. You know, I didn't realize when I came across the Fenves family cookbook at the Holocaust Museum that, you know, we were going to start a national tour and raise all this money.

[00:10:57] 

Really, my, my goal out of it was. I wanted to cook Steven Fenves, his, his mother's recipes for the first time in 80 years, you know, for him to taste. And that was all that I was looking for. to do was to just kind of create a connection because I felt passionate about it. How did you get a hold of him?

[00:11:18] 

Years and years ago, I was in Israel and I was at the Yad Vashem museum and I saw an exhibit while we were shown, we were there with like a culinary group. They showed us all of these kind of culinary artifacts from the Holocaust, and one of them was this kind of ripped up cloth that had all of these women's signatures on it and little pictures of like radishes and Shabbat candles and like a little pot of steaming food of soup or something like that.

[00:11:49] 

And it was all hand drawn and I was like, where is this from? What is this about? And it, it turned out that it was, uh, kind of like a cooking club in a concentration camp of women that would get together and fantasize about, yeah, about like having a meal, right. And like cooking their family's favorite dinner or serving their son his favorite.

[00:12:17] 

dessert or using their grandmothers, uh, China and silver and they would sit around and like, while they were starving to death and concentration camp, they would have these fantasy meals and they would journal all of it. They would write it down and all these women would get together. And they would do this regularly, routinely, and they were part of this kind of like, you know, cooking club, if you will, at the same time that they were being killed, you know, and so it just was a moment that really moved me and thought made me think.

[00:12:53] 

About just the power of food and it made me think a lot about the power of food in my life and like what, you know, what food and in my love of cooking and my love of food has been able to what doors it's been able to open for me and what paths it's been able to create for me. And so I was telling this to a friend of mine at a party in New Orleans.

[00:13:16] 

And she said, I have a friend at the museum and in D.C. and you should call them and see what they have. And so I did. And a week later, we were in D.C. and we were looking at all of their culinary artifacts, if you will, and they're in their collections department. Yeah. And we came across the Fenves family cookbook and they said, You know, Steven is still alive.

[00:13:43] 

He contributes regularly to the museum. If you'd like, we can put you in touch with him. And so I was like, yeah, I would love to because I really would love like a first person narrative around his experiences. And, and why this cookbook exists in, in, in his life. And so we started talking and became friends and I learned the story of how this family heirloom was able to survive the war.

[00:14:12] 

Their family cook, you know, saved it from their apartment when they were being sent off to Auschwitz. And after he survived, the book was returned to him and his sister. And then when his sister passed away in 2012. Decades and decades after the war, they donated the book to the museum and it was there in a filing cabinet, you know, being preserved, but not looked at.

[00:14:37] 

And then I come across it and I connect with Steven and he begins translating the recipes from Hungarian to English and I began cooking the food and sending it to him. And he was eating his mother's cooking for the first time in 80 years, and his mother said, wait, what do you mean sending it to him? When we began collaborating together on this cookbook, it was during COVID, so I had to pretty much prep everything, put it in a box, and mail it to him.

[00:15:11] 

In Maryland, because, uh, you know, there was no being together in person and sharing a meal together in person during the heat of Covid. So we had an idea to do like an event together at the museum and create some of the recipes or cook some of the recipes and, and bring people in and have Steven share a story and share the story of Maresh

[00:15:34] 

Who was, who was their family cook that saved. The book and then COVID happened and we had to instead pivot to doing a Facebook live event, which in one way was a real blessing because, you know, I think it's gotten close to 200,000 views or so on Facebook and that moment with Steven tasting the food on Facebook live was the first time he was, he was tasting those recipes and in 80 years and his, his mother didn't survive Auschwitz.

[00:16:08] Josh Sharkey:

Wow, that's so crazy. You know, the cool thing, man, is like, there's a couple of things, you know, I think I wanted to ask you about in terms of like, you know, this technical cooking of what we do as chefs versus sort of historically what, you know, what you experienced, but like cookbooks a lot of times, especially nowadays are a different purpose.

[00:16:26] 

Maybe they're, you know, for a chef, it might be a coffee table type thing of like, here's me, here's what I can do. Here's my techniques and things like that. Right. Or they're like quick tip type things, but historically, you know, they're a story, right? They are like, these are the things that we had, and these are the, you know, the ways in which we, you know, cooked them together, and oftentimes, you know, who we cooked them with.

[00:16:49] 

And I feel like, I might be just making assumptions here, but, Like, that must have also had an impact on how you think about writing cookbooks and also creating, you know, your business because so much of, you know, what I love about what you've built with your business, Alon, is chefs, it's very easy to become narcissistic because you kind of like, here's this thing I created, look, and you get this self gratification of like, look, I made this thing, you know, and try it, it's delicious.

[00:17:14] 

But there's not as much substance to that of like, you know, um, creating, you know, more purpose around not just your food, but the business and the people that are working for you. And that's very clear. In Pomegranate Hospitality, it's very clear in the book that you wrote that is not just a cookbook, but you know, a story of your experience and things like that.

[00:17:33] 

Do you feel like that time had an impact on how you think about being a chef? 

[00:17:36] Alon Shaya: 

Yeah, I mean, 100%. You know, I don't look at being a chef as my job. I, you know, it is completely intertwined with my, my entire life and my entire existence. And so there's no, like, you know, get dressed and go to work for me. It is definitely, you know, all encompassing.

[00:17:57] 

And, you know, I'm a father, I'm a husband, you know, I like to fish, you know, there's other things that I do in life. I also won't say that I'm a workaholic. I definitely cherish balance and I cherish moments of reflection and I enjoy sharing and I enjoy, you know, being, you know, being all the things that I am outside of like working in the kitchen, but food and my, my work and my job and my life, they intersect in every, every step along the way.

[00:18:36] 

You know, my wife. Emily, runs the business with me. So, you know, her office is right next to my office and, you know, we make the big decisions together along with our executive team at Pomegranate Hospitality. And then, you know, we go home and have dinner together, you know, and, and wake up Get our daughter dressed for school.

[00:18:59] 

And, and so we have to find ways to like, separate, you know, our work talk from our home talk, but it's all connected and it's all 100 percent intertwined. So I've have worked on navigating that and, and trying to understand it. And I, you know, I try not to pigeonhole, you know, You know, my life into one thing or another.

[00:19:26] 

And so I definitely have just been the type of person that says, here is the reality. Here's what I love. Here's what makes me happy. Here's what we do. And how we do that and live out our values of, you know, positivity, reliability, and respect and education, all the things that the same core values we have for our company are, are the same values that Emily and I share in our life together.

[00:19:59] 

So, you know, it's, it's all jumbled up and, and I, I don't know that there's like a way to untangle any of it, but that's kind of, Where we're at and it's what I actually enjoy, you know, I've, I've found a lot of joy and happiness in that. 

[00:20:18] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, to be candid, I didn't know a ton about your background or even your food so much because we're in a very different world, like I'm in New York, you're in Philly, New Orleans, things like that, so it was kind of nice to do a little background on this, and to be honest, I mean, you have James Beard Awards, you got a lot of, you know, accolades, clearly, you know, you're a great chef, but what was like, most striking to me was like, You know, to be honest, I would love to just pick your brain about it.

[00:20:40]

It's like, you found a way to find time to do a lot. And it doesn't seem like that you're doing a lot in that you're sort of, you know, this is the hustle, but this is just sort of what, you know, Each of these are a part of your world, and a lot of them I can understand how it happens, right? You have a business, and right, so part of that business, there's an arm of that, that's philanthropy.

[00:21:00] 

I want to talk a little bit about the other, you know, the other organizations that you started. And a lot of that, obviously, you work with your wife, which, you know, there's a dynamic there where you both kind of can, can be together doing these things. The one I couldn't figure out, because I have two kids, And I own a business and I own some restaurants and fly fishing.

[00:21:18] 

How do you find time to do that with all of this? Like, do you bring your kids with? Does your wife do it? Yeah, Emily. Okay, but when? When do you, when do you fly fish? And who comes with? 

[00:21:31] Alon Shaya: 

You know, to talk about like our pursuit of personal happiness, which is like, Fly fishing is one example of something that brings me a lot of like immense personal joy and a moment of calm and peace.

[00:21:46] 

And, you know, we opened a restaurant in Colorado specifically so we could go out and spend time in Colorado and be outdoors and, and do the things that we love in Colorado. Oh really? That's, that's why you chose Colorado? Wow. We opened Safta so that we could balance our, our time, balance our lives.

[00:22:06] 

Diversify our business, but at the same time, give us an opportunity to enjoy what we love about being in Colorado because we've been going to Colorado for a decade to fish and to ski and to, and just enjoy the outdoors and go on hikes. So, because our lives of personal lives and our business life, it's so intertwined.

[00:22:33] 

You know, the fact that we have a restaurant in Colorado now gives us a chance to go out there regularly, get some work done and work with our team out there. But then also take a moment to get out and enjoy the things in life that we love to enjoy. So, you know, where we decide to put our businesses and where we decide to do our work it a big part of that is also where we want to be in life and that provides us the opportunity to kind of like continue to, to balance.

[00:23:12] 

So does Emily fly fish? She does. Oh, yeah. 

[00:23:18] Josh Sharkey: 

She's really good at it. That's awesome. I love that. I've been chatting with a bunch of buddies about like, because I live in up in northern Westchester near the Catskills and Like shame on me. I haven't started fly fishing yet, but we're like working, you know, my neighbor has a bunch of fly fishing rods He's teaching me how to do it We sort of practice the lake and you know I want to create a ritual out of it because you know, how is there not time?

[00:23:41] 

And that's but you know, you've created a life around that which I which I love. I think that's 

[00:23:47] Alon Shaya: 

My wife Emily really opened my eyes up to balance, because for a very long time I was like a intense workaholic. And, you know, I Missed my grandparents funerals. I didn't show up for my family. I didn't, you know, I had a engagement fall apart at one point when I was younger, you know, like there was a lot of things that as I was putting my career and my work first, everything else just kind of like personally fell apart.

[00:24:19] 

So, you know, I've had to work at it. It's been something that has been a work in progress, but. You know, and I still, I would love to fish more than I currently do, you know, like I still, it comes in, it comes in seasons, right? Like you have seasons that are busy, you have seasons that are slow and, and life comes in seasons where we're expecting another baby in July, you know, so there's plenty of things that I have to juggle and I have to prioritize and I can't just go fishing anytime I want to go fishing, but we definitely, you know, Work on I'm continuing to balance our our personal happiness with our professional happiness 

[00:25:06] Josh Sharkey: 

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[00:26:14] 

Yeah, I love that, man. You know, I worked in restaurants and I was a chef for most of my life, 20 some odd years, and then started a tech company and doing the same. Always worked, like, insane hours. And it wasn't until I had my first kid, I have two kids now. After my first kid, I was like, OK. This doesn't work now.

[00:26:30] 

You have to, you know, there's another part of life. And I've figured out how to compartmentalize so that I make sure that, you know, there's just as much time for my family and for my kids and for my wife, which is, you know, like you also have to have time to date nights and things like that. The part I haven't really nailed yet that I'm grateful for this conversation because it at least lets me know, like, hey, this is, this is possible.

[00:26:52] 

It's finding that time for Our own personal things that we enjoy outside of, you know, work and family, especially when you have kids, you know, obviously, as you know, it can become a lot, but I love that. You've just sort of like built it into your into your life. Anyways, I want to move on from that for a little bit to talk about pomegranate hospitality because, It seems like it's like such a, like a, an extension of what we just talked about.

[00:27:14] 

Right. And I loved your parable of there's 613 seeds in a pomegranate. If one seed, you know, isn't thriving, then all of them, all of them die in the pomegranate dies. I didn't know that. I also didn't know there was 613 seeds. It seems crazy that there's always that many seeds in a pomegranate. But anyways, it looks like that's sort of a symbol for, for the business that you've built.

[00:27:34] 

Which is really cool. What I'm curious about is, how do you hire for this? Because you built this culture and you decided, okay, I want to have a place that, like, where people are happy and where, yes, the food needs to be delicious, but a place where, like, it's more than just the food, like, a place where people want to work and that there's a community.

[00:27:54] Josh Sharkey: 

How do you hire for that? And then how do you maintain that culture and weed out it? When there are, I'm sure there are times when if you don't take action, that's probably very hard action to take the culture could start to call like, how do you manage that part of your business? 

[00:28:09] Alon Shaya: 

We have a great team, you know, we, we surround ourselves with people that believe in our goals in that really buy into the core values of our company.

[00:28:20]

And that's how we do it. There's really no 1 person or 1 answer to it. It is a collective effort. We. When we started Pomegranate Hospitality, we didn't have any restaurants. It was after I left Shaya restaurant in Dominica and we pretty much, it was just Emily and I in our living room and you know, we're like, all right, let's, we got to start over.

[00:28:47] 

You know, I have to start my career over, so let's begin. We created this company that we, we wanted to be a part of, right? Like we, we wanted to surround ourselves with people that were in the business for the right reasons. And for a long, long time, I was surrounded by people who were You know, horrible, horrible people that, like you said, like narcissistic and all abusive and just really toxic.

[00:29:22] 

And as I grew and matured in life, I decided that these are not people I like, people I want to be around. I have to, I have to do better for myself personally, because, like, I feel like I'm not able to express my values. And sharing my values with people that I surround myself with every day at work. And that was a huge turning point for me that when we started Pomegranate, you know, we created these core values and we built essentially a blueprint for how those core values were going to come to life every day.

[00:30:01] 

And we spent 6 months. You know, with a director of people and culture as part of our team, you know, we hired a director of people and culture, but we had our, our director of operations, our director of culinary. And we, we began the process of, you know, building out how the restaurants would operate, what days we were going to close, what holidays we were going to close, how we were going to create.

[00:30:28] 

Work life balance for our team, how we were going to bring accountability into people's behaviors and how they treat each other and how they show up for each other. And we wrote it all out, and then we opened Saba, and then we open Safta And then we kept growing the business built around those core values, and they're still there and we still talk about them.

[00:30:55] 

Every day in their part of how we recruit their part of how we evaluate their part of how we do exit interviews after people leave their their part of how we define our structure for profitability and and all of it works together and and it's also just. Daily hard work. Like you can never check that box and be like, Hey, we got it figured out.

[00:31:25] 

Like we're a great company. Yay. We have a great culture. Awesome. Like it's not, it's, it's not something that you can just pat yourself on the back and say, Hey, we did it. You know, it's an everyday thing. And, and we invest in it. We invest a lot of money into it. And. And that's just a commitment as a business owner that you either make or don't make to say, you know, we're always going to have a director of people and culture on our executive team.

[00:31:55] 

We're always going to, you know, choose our wellness for our team over over profitability and that comes up and down and there's times that we have to, you know, we still have to be profitable. We still have to keep the lights on. We still have to be able to buy food, but it's really no different if you say, like, Hey, I'm going to buy heirloom tomatoes because it's going to taste better in this dish versus I'm going to go by like under ripe Roma tomatoes from restaurant depot to serve.

[00:32:36] 

You make a choice to say. I'm going to spend more money because I want this. I want our guests to enjoy this tomato more. And we make that same decision when it comes to like how we treat our team and the resources that we give them to do their jobs the right way. You know, it's hard. It's a struggle.

[00:33:00] 

We still, there are times we have to say, look, you know, that had good intentions, but it's not realistic. Like we really can't keep, we can't keep that going all the time. Let's just maybe try to do that once a year or twice a year versus four times a year or whatever, whatever it might be. I mean, there's still a lot of like business decisions that have to happen, but I think the most important thing from what Pomegranate has been able to create when our team has been able to create together is that we really set the tone and when you set the tone for your non negotiables for the things that you truly believe in, then the team as a whole buys into that either they do or they don't and the ones that do stick around and then then it becomes kind of muscle memory of like, yeah, we're not going to be assholes to each other.

[00:33:59] 

Yeah, we're not gonna, you know, tolerate someone's ego getting in the way of like having a great day at work. Yeah, we're like, absolutely. We wouldn't allow someone to like, you know, get away with harassment just because they're in a position of power, you know, or like, we definitely aren't going to celebrate that, you know, and you see that happening.

[00:34:25] 

All the time in this business, and I've seen it happen for with a lot of people that I've worked with over the years, where, you know, like, the more narcissistic and abusive you are, the more you're celebrated, you know, the more the more you're you're given free reign, because I think that there's a lot of people out there that like that and want to be a part of that kind of environment, and they tend to surround themselves with people that are like that as well.

[00:34:53] 

So, you know, you have a choice to make of like, well, who do you, who do you want your friends to be, you know, and who do you want your coworkers to be? And if you want, you know, loud noise and. You want chaos and you want all that loud noise and chaos to drown out your own deficiencies, whatever they might be, so you can kind of get away with them, then great.

[00:35:19] 

There's plenty of restaurants in this world to go work at where you can be the person you want to be do as much damage as you want. And no one will pay attention because they're all doing their own damage in one way or another. Or you can say, I love to cook. I love to serve. I like to make people happy.

[00:35:42]

And I want to do that without feeling like I'm going to be physically, sexually, mentally, verbally abused at work every day by some, you know, egotistical maniac who gains power by doing that for themselves. And you say to yourself, I'm not going to tolerate that. And there's also plenty of places to work where that exists as well.

[00:36:09] 

And so we all have choices to make. And, you know, I've had to make some tough choices in my career to, put myself in a place where I feel more balanced and more comfortable with my surroundings and who I am, and I encourage everyone to think about that. I've, I've done several commencement speeches at graduations for culinary schools, and that's my number 1 message is, is that, like, you're going to want to chase.

[00:36:41] 

The best food, you're going to want to chase the most stars or the most, you know, highly lauded and regarded. Famous places that you read about and are inspired by, but when you get there, if it's not a good place to work, you don't have to put up with it because the food's not worth it. And the, and the, and whatever that recipe might be, or that technique might be, or whatever, whatever it might be, is not worth it.

[00:37:10] 

Compromising who you are as a person, and if that is who you are, then you're going to find a lot of people that are just like you that want to, that want to create chaos and that's out there. But if it's not, don't feel like it's a right of passage to kind of have to go through that kind of environment to get to where you want to be.

[00:37:34] 

So. That's my number one message, you know, that I'm trying to give to people, and it's based off my own experience.

[00:37:39] Josh Sharkey: 

I agree, uh, although I do feel like, I don't think that many people actually want that chaos. I think that for a very long time That was just the norm. I mean, I'm in my 40s, growing up in kitchens, working for chefs, like Bouley, where it was that, and it was toxic, and it was terrible, but there wasn't that many options of great places.

[00:38:01] 

I think, and this might just be, uh, just sort of blind optimism, that like, most people don't want that, but humans assimilate to where they're at, and it's incumbent upon, uh, Us, as chefs, or as owners, or whatever business you're in, it's top down, is to make that decision. I think you, you slightly discount saying, like, comparing it to buying the heirloom tomato, because you can mark up an heirloom tomato, you can't mark up the decision to commit to invest in that kind of culture and, and sticking to it, because it is an investment, and it's a harder investment, it's a more difficult decision, because there is not a direct correlation to, you know, I can charge more, For this, there's a, you know, there's obviously like downstream, a lot more success that a business could have as it thrives because you build that culture, but it is hard, but I think that it's, it's probably less of like, there are people that want that.

[00:38:59] 

Toxic environment, but more that as long as there are people creating those toxic environments, there'll be more people, you know, participating in it, you know, I'm curious for like how you've built this business that you have, you know, you have this culture that you're, you invested in upfront, which is costly, right?

[00:39:14] 

Spent six months working on this before you ever even start bringing dollars in the door. Are there rituals or processes or things that, or, um, policies that you could think of or just maybe just one that helps you to kind of maintain this, where, how, how this manifests in your, in your business to maintain this over time?

[00:39:32] 

Because putting core values on a wall doesn't do it, right? Having orientation where like, here's our core values doesn't do it. I'm sure you can talk about them every day, but like, how does that manifest itself in, in the day to day of your business? 

[00:39:45] Alon Shaya: 

Yeah, so. All of our core values are how we evaluate our team.

[00:39:51] 

You're evaluated on reliability, positivity, uh, empowerment. Education and each 1 of those values translates to standard operating procedures that we have throughout our day. So, you know, empowerment is 1 example. We empower our team to challenge what we do. We ask our team to disagree with us when they feel like we're doing something that.

[00:40:21] 

Goes against their belief and we encourage that and so we, you know, we have times with managers where we set up mandatory check ins, you know, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 6 months, 1 year, where we ask you those questions of like, are we living up to. Our core values are we showing up the way that we said we would for you have we lived up to our promises that we made for you and we empower the team to speak up about it.

[00:40:56] 

We do exit interviews where. Even when you're on your way on to another opportunity, whether you've quit or you've been fired or, you know, you graduated college and you're, you're on to your next journey in life. We have an exit interview where we say, tell us how we did tell us. You know, what made you leave was, was there something that you now feel comfortable talking to us about that?

[00:41:25] 

You're not currently employed with us that you didn't before. Or, you know, what did you leave on the table that you want to get off your chest? You know, and we use that information to reflect and, and be better as a company. 

[00:41:41] Josh Sharkey: 

Anything that comes to mind from an exit interview that you've now implemented into your business?

[00:41:45] Alon Shaya: 

You know, we look for patterns where, you know, we might be, you know, not doing something as much as we, we could have, and a lot of the. The feedback that we were getting was in the very beginning of our company was that we, we weren't organized enough and how we were laying out expectations from the team.

[00:42:08] 

And so with that, you know, because my go to is like, have fun, be passionate, get in there, you know, like, do it. And then I think a lot of people and that's good enough for me. Whereas a lot of other people need, like, a lot more structure and how they're being instructed. And so, you know, our vice president, Amanda Quintal, is, like, incredible at clearly communicating expectations.

[00:42:40] 

And so, like, rewriting our job descriptions, our handbook, re Organizing the way that we teach and how we do pre meal and what, what we talk about in pre meal and ensuring that like, we're hitting on these, like, very important subjects in a way that really can connect with our team. You know, that's all.

[00:43:05] 

Based on feedback that we've, we've gotten feedback that we were taking on too much that, you know, Saba has a small kitchen in a small walk-in and we really shouldn't be trying to do a wedding for 350 people. While we have 200 people in our dining room. And the way that I came up was like, oh, my gosh, you got a wedding for 350.

[00:43:30] 

Say yes. And figure out what to do over time, you know, get a refrigerated truck in the parking lot, you know, to increase cooler space, like, and You know, it became really clear that a lot of the things that we were saying yes to were not benefiting us, not benefiting our team aside from, like, the profitability standpoint, like, we would pay so much to make those things happen aside from what our normal system would be that we wouldn't really even see that money.

[00:44:07] 

Come down to the bottom line, it just created a lot more work for people and a lot more headache for people. And so we scaled back on undoing offsite events because we were not at a place where we could do it right. We closed down the restaurant for, you know, We originally were open 5 days a week, and then we opened 6 days a week, and then after COVID, it was really hard to hire people, and our team was being stretched too thin, and so we shut down for a year.

[00:44:43] 

More services so that our team could have more balance and, you know, that cost us a lot of money to do, but that was the, that was where we were at, you know, to make sure that we were taking care of our team at the time and now. We're busier and it's easier to hire people and and so we can push the gas pedal a little bit and we're just like, in a season now of like, let's try to do more.

[00:45:07] 

Let's try to take on some more because. We've grown to a point where our team is confident and they can handle it. And so, you know, that's just empowerment, but you know, like education, we, we invest in our team to be educated. We do lunch and learns where we bring in people from the community or coworkers to, to stand up and teach our team stuff.

[00:45:30] 

It could be about anything they're passionate about. We close on Christmas day and on Thanksgiving day. And in New Orleans, we close on Mardi Gras day. And it's not because we wouldn't be busy on those days. It's because we want our team to, you know, enjoy those times with their families. And, and that's something that you and I probably never had a lot of time to do growing up in this industry.

[00:45:53] 

And so for the same reason that I like to go and fly fish and go to Colorado and make sure I'm taking a day or two to, to spend on myself and my own personal happiness, like We encourage our team to do those same things, and we close down on holidays specifically so they can do that with their friends and family.

[00:46:14] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I mean, it's so funny, the parallels of just, I totally feel you. I'm very similar, like I want to give so much autonomy to my team, and just be very clear, like, okay, here's the result we're looking for, and just do whatever you Whatever feels comfortable on the time that feels comfortable for you and just, but people often need a lot more structure and we, I think as, as owners, we, we sometimes underestimate and overlook that it actually, it creates a safety net that's important where they feel like, Hey, there's somebody driving this boat and they're giving us some, some boundaries.

[00:46:45] 

What I'm hearing from you, which is so smart is people aren't just, you know, a very important part of your business, the people are your business. And you, you know, you're investing in, in that as much as in the same way that you have to invest in if you're going to, you know, cure a piece of salmon and it's going to be better to cure it for 48 hours than to do it in, you know, in four hours, you know, you have to, you have to take the time, you know, to invest in these people and it pays off.

[00:47:12] 

It might not pay off in the short term. But it pays off in the long term. And I think, I hope that more people see that by doing this, it can actually still hit the bottom line, even though it might seem like in the short term, it can cost more. 

[00:47:25] Alon Shaya: 

It does. You know, we provide paid time off. We provide health benefits.

We provide our managers with luxury vacations. You know, we work with a company called inspirado where we, you know, we pay up accommodations. We put like money in a bank that they can then take and use to go and like, stay and like, take a vacation. And and we. We learn a lot of these things from our partners that we work with, you know, like one thing that we learned at the Four Seasons with our partnership there is that a lot of the team members that work at Four Seasons love working there because they get free hotel room nights at Four Seasons all over the world.

[00:48:10] 

So everyone is like, Hey, I'm going to Hawaii, you know, on my vacation, or I'm going to the Maldives, you know. And all they have to do is buy their plane ticket and, you know, they get four nights or however many nights of staying in a five star resort for free. And that creates a sense of like a safety net loyalty creates people thinking that like this company goes out of their way to, to provide me with something that another company necessarily wouldn't be able to.

[00:48:45] 

And so we signed up with Inspirato so that If you want to go on vacation, you know, you have thousands of places to choose from. It doesn't have to be four seasons. It could be, there's all these Inspirato homes and, and, and vacation spots all around the world that you can go and stay at for free. And that's because we want our team to take the time to go and enjoy their lives, and feel like they can find balance.

[00:49:10] 

So there's all of these little things that we do to try to create excitement for our team and something that seems. More than just having to show up for work and some things work better than others and we've learned along the way. And, you know, we're always kind of like pivoting to see, like, what, what is our team looking for?

[00:49:30] 

What do they want? How are we able to provide it? And we're all bought into that. You know, everyone at Pomegranate sits around the table and we. We talk about that, we say, like, what can we do to make people happier? How do we provide more joy for our team members? Like, what is it that is important to them?

[00:49:48] 

What's not important to them? What should we stop doing? What should we start doing? And just those conversations alone surrounded around a table of people that all truly care and believe in these values goes a long way for how the company, how the company works. And it's, it's not just Emily or myself, that's.

[00:50:08] 

You know, we've set the tone, but now our team has taken this ball and has been running with it and, and that's the beauty, that's the beautiful thing to see, you know, the, the most beautiful. Thing about our companies, when you see a server, 

[00:50:23] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, it's a snowball effect. 

[00:50:24] Alon Shaya: 

Yeah. It's when you see a server tell a cook, Hey, I don't appreciate you talking to me that way.

[00:50:31] 

And I'd like you to be more professional. And the cook says, I'm sorry, I'll, I'll do better. You know, like, like it's, you know, we, we still, we still have like people working for us, right. People are going to have bad days. We're going to have people, you know, that do great in their interviews and really sell us.

[00:50:50]

On them and they join the team, they turn out to be not, not a good fit for our company. And so we still deal with, you know, stuff all the time, but it's really in how you deal with it and what people are willing to tolerate. It within those spaces that make all the difference and that that's really the most beautiful thing that I've that I've witnessed happen.

[00:51:14] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It's such a great representation of how altruism can actually be economically viable, you know, in the long run, you know, so speaking about another mitzvah that you've done. Coupled with just, it's so cool that, you know, full circle, this woman Donna Barnett who helped you many, many years ago with, you know, as your home ec teacher to help you sort of like turn your life around a bit, you've partnered with her for this Shaya Barnett Foundation.

[00:51:40] 

What is that foundation and what is it, what is the purpose of it and what, you know, what are you trying to achieve with the, with the organization that you built? Was that novel to you, that she helped you? Because, Who goes out of their way to just help somebody like that? Did she do that with a lot of people?

[00:51:54] 

Donna was that just, she happened to, to, to, to see something in you. 

[00:51:57] Alon Shaya: 

Donna touched a lot of people and positively, she was just one of those unicorn teachers who went above and beyond to make people's lives better. And she did that for me. And for me, I really needed it at the time. Like I was, you know, Getting arrested, stealing cars, selling drugs, like getting into knife fights, like you name it.

[00:52:24] 

I was, I was heading right towards, you know, jail or death or just, you know, ruining my life. And she saw that I had a passion for cooking because I took her class. I took her home ec class and I was like, you know, cooking up linguine a la vongole while everyone else was, you know, You know, making blueberry, blueberry muffins.

[00:52:46] 

And so she helped me get my first job at like a fine dining restaurant. She became like a mother figure to me, and she helped me find my way into culinary school. She got me set up at Botech, which I, which I took while I was in high school. Which is like a career in technical science school, and she introduced me to Seth Schramm, who was the culinary instructor there, who was a CIA grad, who wrote my recommendation letter to get in the CIA, and the two of them, really, together, joined forces to, like, help me, Find scholarships and grants to get into school, help me get a job at a restaurant, made sure I had a chef coat, made sure that I took it seriously, followed up with me, and even after I graduated and would come home from school for spring break or winter break, Donna would, like, pick me up from my house and take me to all these fancy restaurants in Philly that, you know, I would have never been able to afford to go to.

[00:53:48] 

It was amazing, and she always, her and Seth really always Stayed in touch and looked out for me and when I would reach milestones in my career, you know, I would call them and tell them and now the three of us all work together at the shy of our foundation to help make a difference in someone's life the way that they made in my life.

[00:54:10] 

And we work with local career and technical science programs to help raise money for them to help provide mentorship for the students to help contribute to curriculum and guidance and, and how the program can be better. And, and it's amazing. We were able to write a check for a hundred thousand dollars not long ago to give to the New Orleans Career Center for their culinary arts program and you know that

[00:54:43] Josh Sharkey: 

Amazing. 

[00:54:43] Alon Shaya: 

That to me is giving back in a way that isn't just trying to make my community better, but it's giving back in a way that also, like, shows my appreciation and gratitude to my teachers who, like, helped me when I needed help the most. So, again, like, through food, like, this all exists, and these roads are often blocked by, you know, Debris or baggage or destruction from a storm that went through and it's up to us to go and find those paths and clear and take them to where they can lead us.

[00:55:29] 

And so it takes. None of this stuff just happens, right? You got to go out there and you got to start breaking branches and moving things out of the way to find these paths. But if you take the time to do it, they're there and they're there for everybody. And you can turn them into things that are very, very beautiful.

[00:55:49] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, look man, I gotta be honest, I'm super grateful that there are people like you, you know, in our industry, or really any industry, doing all these things, and I really, truly, genuinely hope that, like, other people listening see that everybody can have an impact, you know, we're about an hour in, and I would love to, like, dig into you.

[00:56:10] 

Emilia Romagna because it sounds like we both have a passion for that and have spent a lot of time there. And a lot of other, you know, food and cooking that we probably have need to hop soon. So maybe another time. We didn't get much into that part, but this was more than I even bargained for, for sure, in terms of learning more about like your approach to just creating really meaningful and substantive businesses that create meaningful change.

[00:56:34] 

So it's awesome to see and I hope we can actually connect again because I'd love to learn more. 

[00:56:38] Alon Shaya: 

Yeah, I would love to. 

[00:56:40] Josh Sharkey: 

Also, I will probably, I mean, I've been talking with a couple of buddies and I've gotten some books on fly fishing, but I will probably ping you about that as well as I'm, as I'm starting that.

[00:56:48] 

Put it on your calendar. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I actually did a buddy of mine. We're doing like mornings. You know what I didn't realize is like, you don't necessarily need to, I picture fly fishing, I'm standing in waiters. You know, in a brook and, you know, like, you know, catching trout, but like, actually you can do it anywhere, you know, as long as there's not too many trees in a way 

[00:57:09] Alon Shaya: 

And you could sign up with a guide. You know, it seems so like daunting, but you get a guide and they'll walk you through it and show you how to do it all. And it will be super frustrating at first because you'll be tangled up all the time. And like, you know, you don't have the moves down yet, but over time you find the You're in nature and it's just like the most gorgeous thing in the world.

[00:57:31] 

And so you just gotta make time for it. I push myself to try to make time for things too. And luckily, you know, my wife, Emily really also appreciates making time for things that we love to do. And so I think I owe a lot of it to her for, you know, not letting me just, you know, keep my head down. And, and she really helps me. Yeah. See the bigger picture. 

[00:57:56] Josh Sharkey: 

Well, thanks to Emily as well there for that. Thanks for tuning into The meez )odcast. The music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist Fresh Daily. For show notes and more, visit getmeez.com/podcast. That's G E T M double E Z dot com forward slash podcast.

[00:58:17] 

If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros. And give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Keep innovating. Don't settle. Make today a little bit better than yesterday. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.