Todd Duplechan and Jessica Maher on Austin’s Dining Scene, Building Lenoir, and Balancing Life as Restaurateurs

#65. In this episode of The meez Podcast, host Josh Sharkey catches up with old friends who are also amazing chefs and  restaurateurs. The guests are Jess Maher and Todd Duplechan, a dynamic duo Josh has known for nearly two decades. Their paths first crossed while working together at Bouley and Danube in New York City, and they've remained close ever since.

Listeners will hear them reminisce about their time at renowned restaurants like Bouley, Danube, Gray Kunz’s establishments, and Tabla with Floyd Cardoz. They dive into Jess and Todd's journey to Austin, where they opened their celebrated restaurant, Lenoir. The conversation covers the evolution of the Austin dining scene, the operation of their restaurant, and the challenges and rewards of running a business as a married couple with children.

Josh, Jess, and Todd also touch on their future ventures and how they've adapted to changes in the industry over the years. This episode is filled with insights, laughter, and the warmth of reconnecting with good friends. If you're ever in Austin, a visit to Lenoir is highly recommended—it's truly amazing.

Tune in for an engaging episode that highlights the intersection of friendship, food, and the dynamic world of the restaurant industry.

Where to find Todd Duplechan:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Where to find Jess Maher:

• LinkedIn

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Twitter

In this episode, we cover:

(02:43): Reminiscing all the Austin guests on The meez Podcast
(04:27): How Jess and Todd met & family meals
(17:29): The backstory of Lenoir
(25:57): What makes an Austin diner different than a NYC diner
(28:42): How Jess & Todd describe the food at Lenoir
(37:05): Lenoir's CSR program
(48:02): What it's like working together as a couple
(53:36): When to introduce work to kids
(58:25): Being a mom and a business owner
(1:02:43): Other upcoming projects

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.

[00:00:44] 

Hello everyone. Today's show is one of those opportunities where you, to be honest, I just get to catch up with some old friends of mine who happen to be amazing chefs and incredible restaurateurs. This is Jess and Todd Duplichain. Jess and Todd Dupplechan. And I met many years ago, almost two decades ago, I guess.

[00:01:05] 

We were working together at Bouley. Well, Jess and I were at Bouley, while Todd was next door at the Danube, another one of Bouley's restaurants. And we've been friends ever since. Worked at other restaurants together with Gray Kunz and with her Floyd Cardoz at Tabla. So it was just good to catch up. We see each other every once in a while when I visit Austin, but it had been a while.

[00:01:24] 

But today's conversation, we talk a lot about Austin and why they moved to Austin to open up Lenoir, this incredible restaurant that's been open for, you know what, I don't remember how long, but in a long time, and they're opening up some other spots as well. And we just talked about how they operate their restaurant, how things have changed over the years for the Austin dining scene and as well for them.

[00:01:45] 

And yeah, Of course, because they're a married couple, we talk about what that is like running a business while being married, having children. What's funny is, we had a back to back married couple Austin episode lined up. So Tracy and Arjav from Birdie’s, and then Jess and Todd, and we actually split it up just because.

[00:02:03] 

We wanted to add some variety, but a lot of similar conversations to the one that we had with Tracy and Arjav, but overall, just a lot of fun catching up with some good friends, just good people, really, really, really great operators. And I hope that each of you, if you have a chance to visit Austin, that you check out Lenoir because it is amazing.

[00:02:23] 

And as always, I hope that you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

[00:02:33] Josh Sharkey: 

Welcome to the show. I'm excited. You know, it's funny. It's been like an Austin month. 

[00:02:39] Jessica Maher: 

I know you had Fiore on too. That's what Todd said. 

[00:02:43] Josh Sharkey: Yeah. Yeah. I had Fiore on and, and then Tracy and Arjav were coming yesterday. That was such a great time chatting with them. And just this past week I was chatting with this guy, Brian Stubbs.

I don't, I think he might, you might work with him. 

[00:02:53] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah, we've known him for a very long time. We're like his first client. 

[00:02:59] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, that's right. Yeah, He said that. 

[00:03:00] Jessica Maher: 

Probably his first client. 

[00:03:01] Todd Duplechan: 

We were everybody's first client. 

[00:03:03] Jessica Maher: 

We're old now.

[00:03:04] Josh Sharkey: 

Well, actually, let's just get into that then because you know what's fun about this is like you for I obviously have like a bunch of people that I know as well, but then I get to learn things I didn't know about you.

[00:03:14] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah. 

[00:03:14] Josh Sharkey: 

And I know Jess that you're from Jersey, which always blows my mind that like you're from Jersey, but actually Nevada. 

[00:03:21] Jessica Maher: 

I know, but I wasn't raised there. So I feel like I can't, I'm not like classic Jersey. I don't want to stereotype anybody, but I, they're all in my family. So I have a you know, a strong idea of what people from New Jersey are like.

[00:03:35] Josh Sharkey: 

Well, I mean, it's a big state too. You know, there's, there's some rural parts. 

[00:03:38] Jessica Maher: 

It is a big state. Yeah, 

[00:03:39] Josh Sharkey: 

And Todd, you're from Dallas. I know that. 

[00:03:41] Todd Duplechan: 

Yeah, I grew up in Dallas. 

[00:03:43] Josh Sharkey: 

I didn't know about the Cajun background, by the way. 

[00:03:44] Todd Duplechan: 

Yeah, there's a lot of confusion about me out there on the internet. Everybody's like, you're from Louisiana.

[00:03:50] 

I'm not from Louisiana. My family's from, it's kind of like Jess, like I wasn't even born there, but my family's all from Louisiana and I have a very Cajun last name, but I grew up in Dallas in the suburbs. 

[00:4:00] Josh Sharkey: 

I mean, you know, for the people that are confused, if you just go to Lenoir. com and then you go to the about page, there's a little thing that says Todd's from Dallas. So, 

[00:04:09] Jessica Maher: 

Nobody goes there. 

[00:04:10] Todd Duplechan: 

Those internet people, we definitely know from our restaurant because our restaurant to get into is a little bit confusing. And so we put signs everywhere that say entrance, entrance, entrance, and people still can't find the front door. So, we know that people don't read. Laughter.

[00:04:27] Josh Sharkey: 

Well. I don't actually remember how you two met. Pretty sure. I think I remember how we met, but how did you guys meet? 

[00:04:32] Jessica Maher: 

We met at Bouley. 

[00:04:34] Josh Sharkey: 

I didn't realize that that's actually where you, where you two met. And that was before. Yeah.

[00:04:37] Jessica Maher: 

Todd worked at the Danube and you'll probably remember this. There was a shared locker room in the Danube. Yeah. And 

[00:04:46] Josh Sharkey: 

Lucky if you got an apron. 

[00:04:48] Jessica Maher: 

Well, I was always in like 2XL jackets. 

[00:04:52] Josh Sharkey: 

By the way, do you remember when Joe, like there was no chef coats and he just went shirtless? He had an apron and no shirt. He's like, I don't care. There's no, there's no, I brought a nice shirt today. And there's no chef jackets.

[00:05:03] Jessica Maher: 

The reason why there were no jackets probably is because I was often wearing two jackets because it was so cold in the winter, like, and I, and the pastry area was over by the door. So the door would open and there was nothing to block the wind from coming in. And I thought I was going to die. I was going to turn into an icicle.

[00:05:21] 

Uh, So I was wearing two 2XL jackets, oftentimes, I was just like swimming in my clothes. I would feel actually, you know, for a long time, we had jackets or like dishwasher shirts available for our staff to wear. And we just did away with it because the linen cost was so high. So everybody just wear like we have aprons, but everybody wears their own clothes to work in.

[00:05:46] 

And I get now like how expensive it was and what it Like, I wasn't doing any favors for anyone by wearing all those clothes, but I feel very grateful that they were available to me. I was also living there, you know? Like, those were the clothes that I wore most of the time because I was there for so many hours during the daytime.

[00:06:07] 

And nighttime. Anyway, so Todd and I met there. We were I think the I was often over at the Danube just in between shifts, maybe like early days. I worked in the morning before I started working at night during service. I mean, I worked during the day during service, but nighttime was like a longer shift.

[00:06:27] Josh Sharkey: 

You were stealing our family meal. That's what you're you're over there. 

[00:06:32] Jessica Maher: 

The family meal was way better. When I first started working there, Che Galante was the chef and they had this, this was before you were working there Sharkey, so it was like they assigned a week to each different cook every week to, to design and plan out family meal.

[00:06:50]

Both for lunch and dinner and then at the end of the month they'd have a contest and everybody would vote on whose family meal week was the best and that person would win like dinner for two to the restaurant. Which like god if they could even get a day off, but that was like a lot of money. That was like their salary 

[00:07:12] Josh Sharkey: 

First for how unstructured that place was I can't I mean family meal was pretty horrific, you know, it's crazy 

[00:07:19] Jessica Maher: 

In those days it was amazing because everybody put so much pride into it.

[00:07:25] Josh Sharkey: 

Wait, at Bouley or at Danube? 

[00:07:27] Jessica Maher: 

At Bouley, like when Shea was the chef, because the, that kind of like competition amongst cooks brought out like, you know, people's personalities and like the food that they grew up making. So there was this guy from South Korea and he, I remember he had us all like making dumplings.

[00:07:47] 

in the pastry area for one of the meals. And he said something like, yeah, the, the urban legend basically is if you make ugly dumplings, you're going to have ugly babies. And like, everybody like was on point. It was like, we're making pretty dumplings here. So yeah, that was really great. Yeah. Like after a while I did start going over to the Danube to steal their family meal.

[00:08:12] 

Because it was, uh, significantly, it was very delicious. I don't want to say it's better. It was just so good. Yeah. It felt very wholesome and delicious. 

[00:08:20] Josh Sharkey: 

I mean, most, I feel like most restaurants, at least that I worked at, I think most good restaurants have really good family meal, but Bouley, at least when I was there.

[00:08:28] Jessica Maher: 

Hot dog soup, baby. 

[00:08:29] Josh Sharkey: 

Hot dog soup. 

[00:08:30] Jessica Maher: 

It'd be like, it was like, Oliver Twist. 

[00:08:34] Josh Sharkey: 

I did. Whenever Dave Santos would make his soup, his like, seafood soup, that would be really good. And then, forgot the, one of the prep guys made like this Dominican soup. Chicken. That was really good. 

[00:08:43] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:08:45] Josh Sharkey: 

I waswaiting for that because no one I don't think even the cooks made family meal that much.

[00:08:49] Jessica Maher: 

Well, it's a bummer that you weren't around in those days because the food was excellent. And you just like that was my meal. That was like the only meal I was eating. 

[00:08:57] Josh Sharkey: 

Tabla had great family meal. 

[00:08:59] Todd Duplechan: 

Tabla had great family meal. 

[00:9:00] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. So did Cafe Gray. 

[00:09:02] Todd Duplechan: 

Yeah. I remember a couple of times we got beat up pretty good at Tabla Tabla for not making good enough family meal. Yeah, it was like that was the standard was not only are we making great food for the guests, but we're making great food for us. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember what the family meal, but there was a couple of times there that we got beat up pretty good for random things and that was, it wasn't eye opening, I knew what the standard was and luckily it wasn't my family meal.

[00:09:24] 

But. We, it was one of those all employee meetings. I don't know if you were ever there for one of those where the entire staff came in and then chef beat us up pretty good about standards and quality of life and what we're there for that kind of stuff. 

[00:09:43] Josh Sharkey: 

It's so funny, you know, when you think about it, because family meal is probably the most personal cooking you're doing in the entirety of your, of your time in the restaurant when there isn't care taken in it. It's like. What are you really doing? 

[00:09:54] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah,exactly. What's the point? Do you like to cook? Why are you here? 

[00:09:58] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I would get in trouble for, like, going, you know, too far down. I remember making like all these moles at Tabla and you know, like spending like a couple days on things and I don't know how much money I spent on it.

[00:10:10] Jessica Maher: 

It's just time. Like your time is money. Yeah. At the restaurant. 

[00:10:13] Josh Sharkey: 

Anyways, so you all met at Bouley slash Danube because they're connected. And then you were hitting on Todd all the time, and then finally he gave in? 

[00:10:23] Jessica Maher: 

Well, actually, my friend, you know, Sarah Williams slash Rich, you know, Sarah and Evan. Well, Sarah and I went to college together. 

[00:10:31] Josh Sharkey: Oh, I didn't know that.

[00:10:31] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah, the reason I ended up in New York is because she ended up in New York. And we were on the rowing team together in college. And after she stopped, rowing, we had some classes together and I would go over to her house and she was cooking all the time. She I think she was like she had a job at a restaurant in Austin and was thinking about going and cooking professionally.

[00:10:53] 

And she was making pasta and like much more complicated food than there needed to be at that point. You know, everybody was eating queso like, but we would make queso. We would make like watermelon margaritas and hang out on our porch. And then she moved to New York to go to culinary school. And I kept up with her and after I, she's a little older than me, which, um, we won't tell anybody, but anyway, but still somehow looks younger than me.

[00:11:25] 

Anyway, she was really killing it and I kind of kept up with her. This was before I had a cell phone or anything. So I actually had to like bang rocks together to like get a message to her. And I. Was feeling like I wanted to maybe think about cooking also, and that's what prompted her to say, Why don't you come out and visit?

[00:11:44] 

She was working at Bouley at the time. And I planned on moving, and so I went for, I got off the airplane and went straight to Bouley with all my luggage and everything, and this was just for a visit, and I remember being in there and being really intimidated because I had been working in kitchens at that point for a little bit, she, And I were working together at Bouley many months later, and she said something, she might have said something to Todd and something to me, or maybe just something to me, but the timing was right.

[00:12:21] Josh Sharkey: 

So, like, that was when you started, you know, aggressively going after her. Todd and finally he basically 

[00:12:28] Jessica Maher: 

I was on the prowl. I was going to get me a husband one way or another. 

[00:12:31] Todd Duplechan: 

We would go to the Reed Street pub after after work. And I just she would just buy me drink after drink. And before I knew it, it was like, who's this 

person living in my apartment? Basically, 

[00:12:45] Jessica Maher: 

That's not that far from the truth. 

[00:12:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Was this the apartment that you lived in with Stan, by the way? 

[00:12:50] Jessica Maher: 

Oh, that was before we moved in together with Stan, which is a real testament to our, the strength of our relationship that we withstood living all three of us together because that I was like, this guy's your friend?

[00:13:05] Josh Sharkey: J

esus. Shout out to Stan. 

[00:13:07] Jessica Maher: 

He ate all the food that we had. 

[00:13:09] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh my gosh, yeah. He could eat little. 

[00:13:12] Jessica Maher: 

He’s very hungry. Yeah, growing boy. 

[00:13:14] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, perpetually growing boy. And I think that's actually how I met you guys more formally. We worked together, but then, oh, no, maybe that's how I met Stan. Actually, sorry, we went to a party that you were having, I think.

[00:13:24] 

That's how I met Stan. 

[00:13:25] Jessica Maher: 

No, so you and I worked together at Cafe Gray. 

[00:13:29] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, but before that, I knew you at, oh, yeah, that was from, at Cafe Gray. For some reason, by the way, the only, like, the memory I have of Bouley, Is you making yogurt tweels in the basement. I don't know why, but that's like, every time I think of Bouley and you, all I think of is yogurt tweels.

[00:13:43] Jessica Maher: 

You just had to constantly make them because it was so humid that you'd just be making them and like throwing them away. And then starting over again. Yeah, Stan was Probably at that holiday party that we had in our apartment and, uh, Fort Greene. That's right. Williamsburg and Fort Greene. And the people that owned the place had gone out of town and said that you guys can go ahead and have a run of the entire brownstone, which was really nice.

[00:14:08] Jessica Maher: 

And I remember you brought over foie Oh yeah, 

[00:14:11] Josh Sharkey: 

I made a foie gras terrine for that. Yeah. Why did I do that?

[00:14:15] Jessica Maher:

Well, because you were making mole for family meal. You're like making I forgot about that. I was really impressed. I think you may have even brought it in a weck jar. Or something like that because I remember the jar being so beautiful and that really stuck with me.

[00:14:31] 

We make this salt now at the restaurant and we sell it in weck jars. And when we had the kitchen store also, we started buying weck jars and selling them. 

[00:14:38] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I love that. I still love them. We put it on like fish and vegetables and stuff. 

[00:14:42] Jessica Maher: 

Everything. 

[00:14:43] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:14:44] Jessica Maher: 

It's good on everything. 

[00:14:45] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, it's really good on like roasted vegetable salads.

[00:14:48] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah, I actually, I mean, honestly, I, if it's not around the house, I panic. I don't even know how to make food taste good without it. 

[00:14:56] Josh Sharkey: 

I don't believe that, but it's okay. 

[00:14:58] Jessica Maher: 

Salt. Other salt. 

[00:15:01] Josh Sharkey: 

All right, cool. So we know how you met. That's probably how I met Todd was at that party because I don't think I ever saw you once at Danube. I don't think you were there when I was there.

[00:15:07] Todd Duplechan:

No, because right whenever I left the Danube, you left Tabla. So we were like, Ships in the night you left tabla, and that's where whenever I went to Tabla people were talking about you and how terrible you were And yeah, of course Terrible to work with and just egomaniac Yeah And so that they were very hyped in the fact that one of their people that they were very proud of obviously Was going to Bouley And I was like, I'm sorry for him.

[00:15:37] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, 

[00:15:37] Jessica Maher: 

You didn't know. 

[00:15:38] Todd Duplechan: 

Yeah. And then I was leaving Bouley and going to the promised land of working at USHG and working with Floyd and Dan and, you know, a bunch of wonderful people over there. So that's how I remember you. Initially was Uh, this is your podcast. You probably don't want to talk about yourself too much, but yeah, everybody was like, there's this kid who we're all basically going to work for one day because he is a phenomenal cook.

[00:16:05] 

How old were you at that point? I think I was 12 years old, 13, 20. So it was like he's got started way early. He's super dedicated. He can cook like a maniac. He knows more than you do already. Trust me. And so there was already lore about Sharkey. And then you were going to go to Bouley, which at the time was I don't remember how it was very highly rated restaurant.

[00:16:28] 

And you were going to take over Bouley. And then that would be it. And we'd all be like, I remember the time when I knew that guy once. So the lore of Sharkey is what I was introduced to first at Tabla. I would have never had known that. What's also ironic is that Floyd was fairly disappointed in me for quite a while for Bark Hot Dogs.

[00:16:47] Jessica Maher: 

Oh, really? 

[00:16:47] Josh Sharkey: 

I had a long talk with Barkha about it, and I think maybe less disappointment, but more like what are you doing, man? Why are you not, like, opening a four star, like, fine dining restaurant? And I think it was 

[00:16:58] Jessica Maher: 

Little did he know that you were on to something that standard is just too hard for people to keep up with for a lot of people, at least in like, certainly in Austin and probably a lot of cities.

[00:17:13] 

Maybe there's a little bit of that still in New York, but

[00:17:16] Josh Sharkey: 

It's definitely getting more casual. I want to talk about Lenoir because one, their deductive reasoning of 16 years, I'm going to assume it's 16 years old now. 

[00:17:24] Jessica Maher: 

It's 12. 

[00:17:26] Todd Duplechan: 

Twelve, okay. Twelve and a half. 

[00:17:27] Jessica Maher: 

Twelve and a half. Almost thirteen. 

[00:17:29] Josh Sharkey: 

So, I know some, and obviously I've eaten there, it's fucking delicious, but like, can you just maybe like a little bit of the backstory for everybody about how, you know, how it came to be, the name, and just generally about, you know, what kind of food it is, and just the restaurant in general?

[00:17:43] Todd Duplechan:

Yeah, when we were considering leaving New York in 2007, 2008, we started, we had been there for a while, and we were thinking we're either going to stay here forever, or we're Or we need to leave now because after a certain amount of time, it just, I think it gets hard to leave New York and we really loved it, but we were kind of flirting with this idea.

[00:18:05] 

So we started looking at places. We went to San Francisco, went to Portland. Maybe we went to a couple of other, maybe we go to Denver. Anyway, we were looking for other places that we could potentially go to that would fit and we could get more opportunities because at that time in New York, and this is probably still the same.

[00:18:23]

If you wanted to. Open your own restaurant. It was not really feasible in a lot of ways, and we wanted to open our own restaurant. That's what that's what we really connected on. And so we started looking at other markets. And at that point, the rest of the country hadn't blown up restaurant wise quite a bit as it had now just sold me on this idea of Austin.

[00:18:46] 

She's like, Oh, it's this sleepy little college town. Super fun, quaint. Nobody does anything. 

[00:18:52] Jessica Maher: 

I just remembered before I even left to come to New York to move to New York that Austin was so fiercely loyal to local businesses. And I just felt like there would be a lot of support for mom and pop restaurants.

[00:19:08] 

And there were mom and pop restaurants, but there weren't like, uh, there wasn't a ton of restaurants. Now there are a ton of restaurants, but at the time there weren't a lot. 

[00:19:17] Todd Duplechan:

Yeah, so we were already even in New York, we were sourcing some cool stuff from Texas like wild game things and quail and so we came down and looked at the farm to table situation because that's the style of food that we wanted to do and notice that there were a fair amount of pretty good local farms and ranches and things like that and not a ton of restaurants representing that sort of stuff.

[00:19:41] 

So we ended up moving here. So we moved here in 2007, 2008. I got the job as the chef of the four seasons, which I was like, man, this is gonna be a great job. I'm going to meet every player in town and they're going to be my investors and we're going to open up our own. 15 restaurant group here. And then 2008 happened and everything just kind of fell apart.

[00:20:05] 

The, it was really rough for a bit. I was planning on staying at the Four Seasons for a year, 18 months. We were opening a new restaurant there. I was like, we'll get this up. We'll get it running. And then we'll move on. Didn't you work at the four seasons in Cayman islands as well? I worked at the Hyatt in Cayman islands.

[00:20:21] 

Yeah. And because of that, I, we ended up Staying there. This is why your, your timeline’s off a little bit. I ended up staying there for about four years because there wasn't much opportunity. It was tough. It was tough everywhere, but it was, it was a little less tough here because the, the downturn didn't affect Austin quite as much as it did other places.

[00:20:44] 

But there was really not a lot of money to be had to open restaurants for sure. So it stagnated us for a little while. We worked on it and worked on it and worked on it all the time, Jess and I, looking at properties, putting things together. 

[00:20:58] Jessica Maher: 

We looked at a lot of properties. I think now about a lot of those properties and I'm like, you know, if we could go back in time, I wouldn't want any of them.

[00:21:06] 

I'm so happy with where we ended up. And the place that we ended up was actually an exam by the time we got to like, okay, we had a kid, you're not happy with your job and have it like you're, we want to do this thing and we're getting further and further away from it. So we just put the fire under ourselves by giving ourselves a deadline.

[00:21:28] 

It was like, you know, the beginning of summer of 2011. And I'm like, if we don't have something in the works, like solid by the end of this year, we're moving out of Austin because this just isn't going to happen. So the only, it was like, you can't say something like that and just wait for something to happen.

[00:21:47] 

So we hired a realtor, which we hadn't been doing before. 

[00:21:50] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, really? 

[00:21:51] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah, we were just trying to like backdoor plans and it was getting us nowhere. 

[00:21:57] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:21:58] Jessica Maher: 

And I realize now how important it was to have somebody who actually could negotiate on our behalf. Or like at least introduce us or get us in front of somebody.

[00:22:08] 

So when we sat down with that person, she was asking us, you know, what parts of town have you been thinking about? And we were like, we're looking in East Austin. That's where we have been looking. We lived in East Austin, but like south of the river. But we had been looking north of the river anyway. Now that area is huge and it's blown up, but we just weren't having any luck.

[00:22:32] 

And so she said, well, what do you think about, you know, this area south, south of the river, but like further west to kind of downtown now, what I would consider almost like part of the urban core more, but it's like in a neighborhood. And. I used the restaurant we have now as an example of what I would not want because the parking was terrible and the building was oriented strangely.

[00:22:58] 

We had been in that restaurant before and I was like, it's like so small and, but we were looking for a second generation, at least second generation place. So we didn't have to put in all the money. We didn't have any money. We were like, we were so naive. We were like, we're opening a restaurant and we have no money.

[00:23:15] 

And we don't know how we're doing it, but we're doing it. And she got us in front of, oh, In the process of starting to look, our dear friend Radford was in a car accident and he got this like pretty big settlement from it and he invested in us and that was all of our money. And so we took that money and went to the bank and were able to get double that money, which wasn't a ton of money. And we're talking like $50,000. 

[00:23:45] Josh Sharkey: 

So you got money from the bank to to open. Did you have to get a personal guarantee on that? 

[00:23:49] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah. 

[00:23:50] Josh Sharkey: 

Oof. That's. Yeah. Scary. Wow. That's risky. Well, it was so little money. It wasn't that scary. Really? Yeah. Well, 

[00:23:58] Jessica Maher: 

We had no idea. We had no idea. And we all we knew is that we didn't have money enough to be going through the process of opening for very long.

[00:24:09] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:24:09] Jessica Maher: 

So we gave ourselves three months. Uh, once we found the place and we negotiated with the landlord, who, thank God, was like progressive and thought, Yeah, even though you've never had a place before, I like the idea. Sounds like a place I'd like to eat at. 

[00:24:24] Josh Sharkey: 

You two seem Nice. 

[00:24:25] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah, you guys seem nice. And so we gave ourselves three months and we worked on the tightest budget there ever was.

[00:24:34] 

And we got really lucky because we fell in with a guy who's a now a restaurant designer at the time. He wasn't, he had just moved to Austin. And wanted to get into he has a background in industrial design, he's excellent, but we were his first client, but he didn't even charge us because he was just trying to build a portfolio and he was a friend of a friend and that was kind of like he was starting to make relationships with people who are makers and so nobody really charged us very much money, 

[00:25:05] Josh Sharkey: 

You know, it's funny, like I feel like and I've made this mistake, there's definitely a pattern of when you spend the least amount possible to open up a place.

[00:25:15] 

And then just get revenue in the door and then you can do more from there. It's funny because Tracy and Arjav just yesterday were talking about the same thing. I think they raised like 300 grand and you can't get a bathroom for 300 grand in New York. But 

[00:25:26] Jessica Maher: 

I know 

[00:25:26] Josh Sharkey: 

If you start with like basically nothing and bare bones as possible, then you're forced, you know, to, to just make sure that you, that you operate and get some revenue in the door and then you can start to, you know, make better decisions.

[00:25:40] 

I think when you spend the two, three, four, five, 8 million, you know, on a, on a place and it's either like, it's going to go bust or not, you know, it's a lot scary. 

[00:25:50] Jessica Maher: 

I mean, it's going to go bust cause there's like not enough diners at this point to support that kind of investment. 

[00:25:57] Josh Sharkey: 

How do you think the Austin diner is different from the New York city diner?

[00:26:01] Jessica Maher: 

I think that the Austin diner, no matter where they're coming from, whether they live here or. They're recently moved here or they are just visiting. are mostly expecting something that's a little more casual because that's the vibe and that's a lot of the reason why people want to be here. I think moving from New York I lived here before I went to UT and then I loved it here and then I moved to New York and I loved it there and I loved that too because you could get anything in New York you know it's kind of all over the place and then uh moving back here I think there was a moment Where I thought I, I lamented the loss of real like high end fine dining as time's gone on, it feels like Austin.

[00:26:43] Jessica Maher: 

So it's certainly a place for a lot like young people love to live here. It's got a vibrant like cultural scene and in a lot of ways and outdoors. It's very outdoorsy. I don't miss fine dining. I want to kind of reserve that for the cities where it really, you know, that is something it's not to say like I don't want it, you know, I wouldn't like to go out to a nice dinner, but the the pomp and circumstance of dining, you know, jackets and tablecloths and like all of the very You the niceties that come along, not with the food.

[00:27:17] 

I mean, the food to me, the food quality is very high here, but it's like the style of dining is casual. 

[00:27:24] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:27:24] Jessica Maher: 

So you can come as you are. 

[00:27:27] Josh Sharkey: 

I feel like that's actually now sort of becoming more ubiquitous everywhere. 

[00:27:29] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah. And that's how it was when we left New York, like the places that we were really loving in Brooklyn and stuff. Or more of that, like the food is so good, but it's super casual and you feel you don't feel intimidated going in and eating, 

[00:27:44] Josh Sharkey:

You know, it's funny. I think I think that's actually now it's like the edge case. I think I can't think of places. Where I would, where you go and wear a jacket, you know? Uh huh. I mean, I went, it's, I will not name the place.

[00:27:56] 

It was a three Michelin star spot on the west coast. I said, what's going on? This is, I was not, you know, like, I should be comfortable in a restaurant, going to a restaurant. I'm like, where do I go? What do I do? And I'm like, you know. Yeah. And what's gonna happen next? And I think that, that style is just, you know.

[00:28:14] Jessica Maher: 

The tragedy of it is that some people really do want to dress up and go out because that is a little, like a very special occasion. And I think, you know, they want to be, maybe some of those people want to be amongst other people who don't make them feel uncomfortable being all dressed up. We just gave it up.

[00:28:31] 

I mean, half of our dining now is in a outdoor space and, and there are rocks on the ground. So you better watch your heels if you decide to sit outside. 

[00:28:42] Josh Sharkey: 

So how do you, by the way, I hate this question, like, I hate when I get asked this question, but I'm going to ask you anyways, only because, I mean, there's an answer for it, but only because, you know, it's such a surface level thing, but like, how do you describe the food at Lenoir?

[00:28:58] 

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[00:30:05] Todd Duplechan:

Whenever we first opened, I had this probably way too high concept of hot weather food. So working at Tabla was It's very important. I didn't realize it was going to be at the time because even though I was trying to work at Cafe Gray and they told me, uh, we're full, go, you should check out Tabla. I didn't know what Tabla was.

[00:30:26] 

I thought it was a Mexican restaurant because in my mind, Tabla is a, you know, the word for table in Spanish, right? And so I was like, Oh, well, okay, yeah, so, so I was like, Oh, okay, I don't know what this place is really. So I went there and realized that it really resonated with me what we were doing there.

[00:30:46] 

I really took a lot of that stuff to heart, but we were running a very pretty strict farm to table place, except for a lot of caveats like avocados all the time. And. And certain things that was just like chilies are always on the, on the menu. But we lived in, we were in New York and chilies don't really grow there very well.

[00:31:06] 

Except for a couple of months. And so whenever we moved back to Texas, I was saying, you know, it's really hot. I was actually excited to move back to Texas because I was like, Oh, barbecue and Mexican food and all the Southern kind of food that I really, I grew up with. And I'm looking forward to eating again.

[00:31:24] 

And whenever I started eating it as an adult. I realized you can't survive this way, especially when it's so hot outside and you go eat lunch at a barbecue place and then you're expected to like walk outside and it's 110 degrees outside. You're going to die. You're just going to, it's just going to kill you over and over and over again.

[00:31:46] 

And so I started really thinking about the food stylistically and, and why it is we eat what we eat regionally. Texas is hot. If you look at it globally, you're looking at places like North Africa and Southeast Asia, like as far as climate goes, but we don't eat that food here. We eat the food really because a lot of German people came here and settled when Texas was becoming a state.

[00:32:13] 

We eat a lot like kind of beef heavy and just in general, heavier Northern transitioned into these other, uh, you know, Mexican influenced things. And so what I really wanted to do was say, hey, what is the food that we should be eating here? Which if, if you look at those other places, it's going to be a lot more spiced and spicy, a lot more citrus, acidic.

[00:32:40] 

There'll be proteins, but it's not really super heavy fat proteins. So I came up with this. convoluted idea of hot weather food. And that's what we, that's how we described it to people was hot weather food. So it's all those things, but none of those things pointedly. So it's not, we're just taking influence from those places and saying, Hey, how are we going to incorporate this with our farmers?

[00:33:03] 

And use what they have with the influence of eating geared towards the weather, because really, that's so much of what I whenever I get up in the morning and I'm doing my what do I want? It's a rainy day here. You know, I eat a lot and think about what I want, depending on. What my environment is. And so that's where it all started.

[00:33:27] Jessica Maher: 

Is this why you hate this question, Sharkey? 

[00:33:30] Josh Sharkey: 

No, actually, it's funny. This is like 15 minutes later to the question. But usually the reason why I hate the question is when you have to answer, like, we are new American with the 

[00:33:40] Jessica Maher: 

Elevator pitch. Yeah. Five words. 

[00:33:43] Josh Sharkey: 

But this I love. It's also why it doesn't work very well because people are like, what's the food like?

[00:33:47] Todd Duplechan:

And if you can just say it's French food, even though it's not, then people are like, I know what that is. 

[00:33:52] Jessica Maher: 

Everybody thinks it's going to be French food. That's the problem.

[00:33:54] Josh Sharkey: 

It's funny because, yeah, well, when you hear the name, you might think that and then, but I think if you know, I guess if they know the background of the people doing this and you hear hot weather food.

[00:34:03] Jessica Maher: 

But like people don't choose their restaurants based on the background of the people who are cooking it necessarily, you know? 

[00:34:10] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I just, I, at this point, I'm just, I'm sure. 

[00:34:13] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah. I mean, some people are very interested. It's sort of like when you're serving at any restaurant and you need to gauge the interest of your guest about like how far do they want to go down this road, you know, tell me about the wines on the list. You know, 

[00:34:28] Josh Sharkey: 

I actually do think that hot weather food is a really like smart way to, to talk about it because, you know, yeah, when you think about being in Southeast Asia or, or places in Northern Africa, yeah, there's chili, there's acidity, there's, you know, if you're, if you're like Goa, you know, By the way, that's why I loved Tabla because three days into Tabla, I was like, Oh, this is like Mexican food.

[00:34:49] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah, 

[00:34:49] Josh Sharkey: 

But in India, because there's all these regions and in the south, there's like coconut milk and then in the north. 

[00:34:54] Jessica Maher: 

It’s like flavor so much flavor. Yeah. 

[00:34:56] Josh Sharkey: 

And so many different regions. And yeah, everything has, you know, acidity and heat. Layers. Yeah. 

[00:35:03] Todd Duplechan: 

So if you look at India and specifically South India and North Africa and Northern Mexico and you kind of go around the globe, you just, you start seeing a lot of similar food stylistically.

[00:35:14] 

It all kind of falls within that realm, but it's like, okay, we have mole or we have salsa or we have curry or we have tagine, you know? So it's like, oh, you start to see. similarities and things. And then it's like, oh, okay, we, that is hot weather food. And it realistically is how we should be eating here because that's what grows here.

[00:35:33] 

You know, everybody Texas, everybody's like beef in Texas. Well, cows struggle whenever it's as hot as it is here. And whenever it gets really hot in the summertime and grass doesn't grow, cows want to be in You know, green, cloudy, rainy places. That's where cows, Ireland, Germany. 

[00:35:54] Josh Sharkey:

Well, I mean, the other part of like hot weather is, you know, the reason why there's so much heat and acid is because that Like at least historically that would you know kill like bacteria, you know, and in a lot of those places food would go bad pretty pretty quickly So you you know, so that was just a method that they would use to make sure that things didn't kill them So it makes sense.

[00:36:14] 

I never thought about the parallel with cows. You're right because yeah, they're not Not a lot of green pastures at least, naturally I'm assuming, in really hot dry weather. 

[00:36:20] Todd Duplechan:

In Texas in the winter time we have pastures, in the summertime it all goes away, the whole state for the most part turns kind of brown.

[00:36:29] 

And so historically what people would do is they would raise cattle here, and this is the, the cattle drives of the days of yore, you raise cattle here in the wintertime. And then as summer was coming, you would head north with them to where the slaughterhouses were in Kansas city. And unfortunately for everybody involved, I think way too much about food history and how things Should be working and why it's very interesting food history to me, frankly, like how imperialism has changed, how America has changed. 

[00:37:01] Jessica Maher: 

We’re going down the rabbit hole here.

[00:37:02] Todd Duplechan: 

Jess has never heard this before. 

[00:37:05] Josh Sharkey

I'm the same. I think that's also a part of why I love, you know, the food of Spain because, you know, you have so many different, you know, you have the Carthaginians, you have like the Moors, you have the Jews, you have all of that food impacted. Okay, I have a question. Back to Lenoir.

What's the CSR program? 

[00:37:21] Jessica Maher: 

The CSR program, it's a community supported restaurant. How it currently functions is kind of like a reward system for regular customers, like a house account. We wanted to actually use it as a fundraising effort before we opened. And because we didn't have any, besides Todd working the Four Seasons, We didn't have an, like a, enough of a history.

[00:37:47] 

Like people didn't know what they were going to get from Lenoir. So they couldn't commit. And at the time when we started, it was like, so I'll give you an example of what it was. It's a, you pay in January a thousand dollars and then you get a house card. Like a gift card basically with twelve hundred dollars on it and you can use it whenever you want.

[00:38:08] 

However you want throughout the year for any kind of events or just dinner or come in for drinks. You want to buy somebody else something. So basically you're just getting a 20 percent return on your investment and we're paying it back at cost. And. I was concerned in the beginning that it would be, we tried to do a variety of things with it on top of that.

[00:38:29] 

Then you get all these other perks and my big concern was about selling too many of them because at any given time, maybe everybody wants to come in at the same time, which actually never came to fruition. It's never been a problem. And that was when we were a very, very small restaurant and we couldn't seat more than 30 people at a time ever.

[00:38:48] 

So, you know, what we found was we still have people who are CSR members from when we opened, the year that we opened, and they renew every year. And then we started, but they would like maybe spend all of their house account money halfway through the year and want to renew again. And I'm like, I don't want to, I want to do it once a year when we're lean, you know, like January is the lean time.

[00:39:13] 

We want to, you know, a big bunch of money coming in at once to kind of cushion the blow and then we pay it back at cost, you know, so we started offering higher levels. So we now have three levels, three tiers, so there's the, the traditional one is a thousand, the second tier is $2,500 and you get $3,000 to spend in the restaurant.

[00:39:39] Jessica Maher: 

Plus, Todd does knife sharpening for people. Does he give history lessons? He could. I mean, he does history of knife sharpening. Anyway, and then the third tier is $5,000 and you get $3,000 as a house account card and then you get a private event either at the restaurant or at your house for up to $3,000.

[00:40:04] Josh Sharkey: 

That's awesome. That's awesome. 

[00:40:05] Jessica Maher: 

It is. And actually we have a quite a, not a few, not a lot, but we have, you know, a number of those third tier people who really do, you know, they get to use it for work events or they get to use it for birthdays or they could use it for however they want to. 

[00:40:21] Josh Sharkey: 

So it's really smart.

[00:40:22] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah. And so it's like, it's worked well. I think anybody could do it in any, I mean, I, We've always told people, like, you can figure out how to do this for yourself. Anybody should come up with something, because your customer is going to want something different than our customer is going to want, you know?

[00:40:37] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I love that it's personalized because there's companies now like Table 22 or like InKind. 

[00:40:41] Jessica Maher: 

InKind, yeah. We know one of the guys that works at InKind, I actually run with him. And whenever he talked to me about it, I was like, we already do this. Like, I don't feel like we need to give anybody else any money for helping us do it.

[00:40:55] 

So what we do, I mean, they, they reach in theory, a broader audience, but ours is definitely more hands on. I mean, we know all of the people. We know them well. Our staff know them well. Yeah, we've known 'em for 12 years. Many of them we've known for 12 years. 

[00:41:12] Josh Sharkey: 

It's great that you, or longer you do that, you do that yourself.

[00:41:15] Josh Sharkey: 

Is it, is it Johann that you run with?

[00:41:16] Jessica Maher: 

Uh, no, it's L 

[00:41:18] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, gotcha. That's cool. Yeah, I totally agree. Like restaurants can do so much more than just, you know, the. Booking tables for service each day. I think that's such a smart way of just, you know, getting, you know, cash up front and then they get, you know, these benefits and to your point, there's so many benefits that you could do, you know, it could be classes, there could be, you know, like takeout.

[00:41:40] Jessica Maher: 

We do classes now too. We have this thing called camp Lenoir. We did it last year for the first time, like summer camp classes for adults basically, and we did all kinds of things. And then we kind of kept it going. Through the fall and then sort of fell off and we'll start it up again this summer. 

[00:41:56] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. How have margins changed over the years? It's been like 12 years now. Are your, um, margins like the same because you've had to adjust prices or? 

[00:42:00] Todd Duplechan:

Margins are the same, but they've just moved. All the percentages are just different now, where I've been in the restaurant business long enough to remember, you know, 35 percent food costs being kind of a standard, right?

Whereas like, 35, you're hitting 34. Great. You know, you're doing well, but your labor costs were very small in comparison because you're looking at. Essentially, your cost of goods sold still being in the mid fifties for labor and products. Even back then, it was probably better, frankly, because the labor was so inexpensive.

[00:42:42] 

And now, you know, everybody is. Concerned with good reason about how much food costs. Now you go out to dinner, it's expensive almost everywhere. And that's in my opinion, because the margins on food have decreased like in the restaurant business. We were looking for under thirties for that, but are the labor cost has gone way way.

[00:43:06] 

Yeah. So at the end of the day, you're still, you know, it's still a pie. It only divides up so many ways. So you still have to figure out how to make that. That final profit, but it's the way the percentages stack up within there is your call. So I don't remember. It was somebody at Tabla. It might have been, it might have been Dan that said to me one time, you're either going to do it in house.

[00:43:29] 

We're talking about food production. You're either going to do it in house and have low food cost and high labor costs. Who's going to be paying the people that are skilled to do it, or you're going to outsource it and bring it in and have high food costs and low labor costs. There's no two ways to do it.

[00:43:42] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I think people, very often, I think one of the flaws I see when you think about just food cost percent, right, is the cost to prep a thing is also food cost percent, because I remember at Barkha we would like make our own sauerkraut in these charted A barrels, you know, for the first year or so, and like, sauerkraut cost me like four cents, you know, it's so cheap.

[00:44:04]

It was, it was more than that, but like, It was more than that, because I remember you had to stand on it. Yeah, and I'm not very heavy, so it took longer. You know, but like, you know, and this is also when I realized like, yield is important, because like, oh yeah, when I buy 400 pounds of cabbage, that actually ends up being like, you know, 140 pounds of, of, of sauerkraut.

[00:44:25] 

And it took me, like, a whole day of production, and the whole downstairs is filled, and you're, you know, slicing it, and you had to do, like, slice it by hand, because it was just a better tech, like, and then you realize, oh, no, actually, it cost me, like, two dollars a pound for sauerkraut, not, not twenty cents, and so we started buying Hawthorne Valley Farm sauerkraut, because, It ended up being cheaper and it's still really, really good.

[00:44:46] 

So we're doing this like, my company meez is, I'm working on this initiative with Baldor to sort of folks see the delta between if you bought like peeled onions versus doing them yourself. Yeah, it's like, I think that's part of where things are going is you can outsource some things that are. Not necessarily like accretive to the quality of the food, like buying peeled onions, as long as you get a good quality, like where then now you don't have to store them and things like that.

[00:45:11] 

But did you adjust your labor model at all, like over the years, given, you know, how things have gotten more expensive? 

[00:45:20] Todd Duplechan:

Yeah, for the first, I guess, 10 years of, of, of Lenoir, we, we ran a pretty standard restaurant. So the back of house, got paid hourly, the front of house made tips, and it never really worked out all that well for the back of house.

[00:45:36] 

It worked out really great for the front of house, just kind of classic restaurant problems. And during COVID, once, when, when COVID hit and Jess and I kind of looked at each other and like, well, That's it restaurant’s done and then we kind of started working our way out of it. Luckily, then it was our only chance to really reset and say, Hey, if we're going to come out of this and we want to be running the restaurant that we want to run and that we feel good about and for so many years, it just didn't feel good.

[00:46:04] 

The way that the back house was cut out of everything as far as the profitability of being busy or being slow. And so we changed the labor model to include the back house and the tip pool and increased everybody's hourly rate, which was also better for the front of house because I actually don't remember in New York what the hourly rate was for, for front of house, but here it's still $2.13 an hour.

[00:46:27] 

So Maybe less scrupulous restaurant owners would bring in front of house staff and have them do cleaning stuff and have them do all sorts of chores and pay them $2.13 an hour with the hopes that with tips, things would even out. So now all of our front of house gets a decent hourly rate. So that way, if they are doing extra things and even still, if we do, if they are doing extra things, then we pay them even a higher hourly rate.

[00:46:54] J

So we've evened it out in that way and it feels a lot nicer. We have, I feel like cooks that can afford to live also in Austin. When we moved here it was a very inexpensive place to live and that is not the case anymore by a long margin. So it seems like that. You know, I think that everybody that works with us, and I can say this pretty confidently, everybody that works with us has the ability to live comfortably in Austin.

[00:47:22] 

And we're a small place, you know, we are still, inside we see 20 people, outside we see probably 50 people. Jess could tell you better how many people actually in total work there. 

[00:47:35] Josh Sharkey:

Is that not a finite number? Or is it you just don't know the number? 

[00:47:40] Todd Duplechan:

She's our HR person, so she has a tighter grip on the number of people.

[00:47:41] Josh Sharkey: 

Got it. How many times has she written you up for being inappropriate at work? 

[00:47:45] Todd Duplechan: 

I've actually been fired multiple times. Yeah, yeah, I believe that. But that was 

[00:47:51] Jessica Maher: 

I want to fire him, but I need him. Yeah, it's tough. 

[00:47:54] Josh Sharkey: 

It's a tough scenario. I look past. You know, it's funny. I actually wanted to ask you guys about this because You were like, like literally a mom and pop restaurant.

[00:48:02] 

What have you learned about working together as a, as a married couple? 

[00:48:05] Jessica Maher: 

I don't think that everybody can do it. I think Todd and I are kind of extraordinary in that way. And I don't say that lightly. I think, you know, we know other couples who work together and it's strained. I wouldn't say that our relationship is strained by it because we're really good partners.

[00:48:22] 

I think also both of us have the same work ethic. Like we work. Because we have to, and we know we have to make it work. We also enjoy work, and we're both, we have similar interests. I mean, we have separate interests as well, but we are both interested in putting out something that is quality. We want to have an environment where people want to work.

[00:48:43] 

We want to spend time with our children. We want to have good relationships with our guests. We both want to make money, like, but we're not driven by money. Unfortunately, but it is, it's like we, we know that we have to provide, right? Like we're not putting aside our ideals for money. 

[00:49:04] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:49:04] Jessica Maher: 

So I think that we work together really well, but we both can't do the same thing. And I think that that was kind of where we were getting, especially after our. Second son was born and you know, like we had a store and Todd had a fried chicken place and we were just diversifying like crazy and had young children and I didn't want someone else putting my kids to bed. So that just meant like, either I'm putting them to bed or Todd's putting the bed, but we're never doing that together because one of us always has to be working at night and I got to a point where I just, I, I couldn't do that anymore, probably because I am a very routine driven.

[00:49:44] 

I think most people are, but I needed to be able to get up at the same time every day and go to bed around the same time every day. I needed to have that and, and our kids needed it too, you know, so I think we work really well together, but it is also very challenging to run a business that is a nighttime business and have a family and work together and be able to have time together ourselves, which doesn't happen all that often, honestly, 

[00:50:12] Josh Sharkey: 

I feel like that's the hardest part is because you know, you have the business and then you have the kids.

[00:50:17] 

Then you probably have personal things as well, like, you're like, okay, I want to exercise or do things and like the last thing on the list is like, Oh, yeah. We should have a date night. 

[00:50:26] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah. You know what? Our date night is is a Friday morning family meeting. We have a family meeting every Friday morning.

[00:50:35] 

I think it's helped us a lot because it just gives us a chance. I think when you go out to dinner, I found like going out to dinner was not a bad idea. Giving me what I wanted from our relationship as much as like sitting down and really talking about things and having these like planning meetings that were like, Hey, let's, you know, let's talk about what our goals are financially.

[00:50:57] 

And let's talk about what our goals are for like family lifestyle. And is there anything, you know, Todd was able to tell me like, Hey, I just want, you know, I want to be able to like. fly a plane someday. I'm like, Oh, okay. Like, I don't know if that stuff would have come out if we were just having dinner, you know?

[00:51:18] 

Yeah. So I, and we're probably both a little more fresh during the daytime too. You know, our brains are, you know, where you have like that optimal time during the daytime. 

[00:51:28] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Well, it's also before you start work, right? And then, because at the end of the day, you kind of want to just like unwind. And so it's hard to have those conversations.

[00:51:38] 

And during the day, you know, about you guys, like it's hard for me to stop and like Hannah and I tried to do like coffee walks in the middle of the day and I was like, yeah, I'm thinking about like this thing that I have to get back to. So like doing it in the, in the morning, it's really smart. 

[00:51:51] Jessica Maher: 

It seems to be working for us, you know, our kids also are older now, like our, our oldest is 13 and he's, I know, and he's got sports that go really late.

[00:52:05] 

I mean, like later than feels okay for a kid that's got to get up in the morning. So there really isn't even a wind down time at night. It's like a race to get to bed. 

[00:52:16] Josh Sharkey: 

You two are much farther along than, than we are. I have a three year old and a five year old. 

[00:52:20] Jessica Maher: 

We’ll talk about it. 

[00:52:21] Josh Sharkey: 

How do they, by the way, what's their perception if you had a guess of like your guys I think that at this, we've gotten to a point with both of them that there are so many of the other kids parents have jobs that I think kids don't really understand or ever see.

[00:52:37] 

So it's like, Oh, my dad works on a computer or whatever. So I think we're at a point right now where they're both a little bit proud of us or like happy that we have this thing going. 

[00:52:49] Jessica Maher: 

They're proud of being part of it, like being a family that 

[00:52:52] Josh Sharkey: 

That's so nice, right? It's got to feel good. 

[00:52:54] Jessica Maher: 

I don't want them to work there. I mean, let's say maybe I think it would be good for them to wash dishes at some point. I mean, if they want to like host or something, technically Hollis could come work. Yeah, I don't know when I mean, it's like nighttime, you know, 

[00:53:10] Josh Sharkey: 

I feel like that is just independent of whatever the business is kids at an early age, getting a sense of what a day's work is.

[00:53:18] 

It's kind of, I mean, I don't know what you're supposed to start. I'm always like, all right, you're five now, buddy. Let's go. I don't know when it's supposed to start, but 

[00:53:26] Jessica Maher: 

Better start contributing 

[00:53:28] Josh Sharkey: 

Like, I think that it just instills this, you know, this discipline in you, or at least this understanding of it's just so like valuable, you know, yeah.

[00:53:36] Todd Duplechan:

Our kids right now are both in a stage of development that I remember distinctly, which is like, I can't wait to get out of school and be an adult because there's no homework and you just, it's like, you can do whatever you want. And then I started working and realizing, oh, adult life is way different than what I thought it was.

[00:53:55] 

And so I think, you know, our oldest son has tasks, mowing the lawn and cleaning and things, it. Let's say an hour to two hours long, and he thinks that that's a ton of work, and I think that it's important to also make that change from it's like, okay, so this is the hard work that you, this is as bad as hard as it gets, and now we're going to switch that to six hours of on your feet, consistent, this is work, and I think that's a good motivator.

[00:54:25] 

My first restaurant job was at a barbecue place in Dallas when I was 16. Was that your first job in general? No, it wasn't my first job. I started working when I was 15 at Eckerd express photo. I was a photo. I developed your photos, which is scary to think in retrospect, but that was my first job that I really took pride in because it was a family business once again, and all the kids, all my friends worked in the business and none of them wanted responsibility.

[00:54:52] 

So they'll just work the register. And I didn't want to work the register. I was like, that's a lame job. So. I said, I want to cook. So they gave me a job cooking barbecue at theoretically and really just being a prep cook. I really enjoyed it. I really, I really dug it. But because these people had all their children work in the restaurant business from a very young age, none of them went into the restaurant business.

[00:55:19] 

And I think because once you see the work that goes into it at a young age, they all. We're like, this is a lot of dedication, a lot of work, it's dirty, it's hard, it's hot, all these things, and it really motivated them, they're all very successful now, to be like, I don't want to do this necessarily, but I understand what work is, and I understand I better get focused on what I want to do with my life, if it's not this, to then get myself on that path.

[00:55:49] Josh Sharkey: 

Jess, what was your first job? 

[00:55:51] Jessica Maher: 

My first job, I Babysat, but I did that when I, I started a babysitting business when I was 12 and I did that until I was 15 and then I worked at TCBY. 

[00:56:04] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, yeah. 

[00:56:05] Jessica Maher: 

They made me the closer by the end of the summer while I was working there, because I was like the only teenage kid working there that showed any real interest in not giving away all the product to their friends.

[00:56:19] 

And. Yeah, then I, I worked at a pizza place for two years, washing dishes and making pizzas. And I did that while I was like, obviously still in high school and I would just do it a couple of days a week while playing sports and I was a youth group leader in church. 

[00:56:38] Josh Sharkey: 

There was like no restaurants. Where I, where I grew up, it was all like chains.

[00:56:42] 

So my first restaurant was Roy Rogers. But my first actual job was cause I really wanted a job when I was younger. And my, and like, finally at like 14, my mom let me get a job. And I was, it was crazy. I was working for one of those companies. That raises, I mean, quote unquote, raises money for the Vietnam Veterans of America.

[00:57:00] 

And I was like, in one of these little office spaces, and like, calling people around the country with a script that's like, Hey, I'm Josh, calling on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans of America, and we're talking to the veterans in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. How are you doing today, Mrs. Johnson? That was my job for like, you know six months and the people got like indicted or something And oh, so I lost that job, but now I learned a lot about the telemarketing 

[00:57:23] Jessica Maher: 

Wow Well, it's like a sales job, right?

[00:57:27] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, yeah You feel like 

[00:57:28] Jessica Maher: 

You're just following a script but in theory you're actually like selling this to people It's such a young age. You learn how to talk to all kinds of people. 

[00:57:38] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I mean it was shady I mean, they actually made a documentary about it on HBO I remember I watched it like six months ago and it's, you know, it was just this whole scam.

[00:57:46] 

None of the money went to, you know, anyone. Yeah. Well, you know, another question, which by the way, like, I feel like it must be different now that the kids are older, but, and I was talking about this with Tracy and Arjav and with the Chef Caroline Glover, you know, a few months ago as well, just because it comes up a lot for me.

[00:58:04] 

Cause you know, we have some young kids and like, it's so much harder on the mom. Like it's so much harder. And there's like this inevitable. 

[00:58:11] Jessica Maher: 

Todd is like, Mr. mom.

[00:58:15] Josh Sharkey: 

That's, you know, the first couple of years, that's what I want to understand, like, how it changes as they get older, because, like, the first, you know, couple of years, like the first year and a half, you know, there's not a lot we can do because they're so dependent on the mom.

[00:58:25] 

And then, you know, obviously your body's getting, like, Changing so much of this hormone. It's pretty crazy. Does that go away? 

[00:58:32] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah, 

[00:58:33] Josh Sharkey: 

That's good. 

[00:58:34] Jessica Maher: 

Yeah, there's light at the end of that tunnel, but it took a lot. At least for me, it took a lot of work. 

[00:58:40] Josh Sharkey: 

When you say work, what do you mean? 

[00:58:42] Jessica Maher: 

Well, so I think that I could have spiraled and that my feelings of inadequacy in terms of being a parent in a child. Yeah. working mom and being able to do anything well would have just, I would have continued to feel really inadequate had I not recognized that I was not in a very good place. And part of that was because, so when we, we had the kitchen store, Metier Cook Supply, And we had the restaurant and then Todd opened a fried chicken place and all of these things happened around the time that Remy, our younger son, was probably three or four, like three and a half, four.

[00:59:25] 

And we decided to close the store because I couldn't, we had a, manager leave the store. We had a manager leave the restaurant. Todd was not able to work full time at the restaurant. And I was obviously going to have to take over management duties again at the restaurant. And I couldn't manage that and the store and be a mom.

[00:59:45] 

And I just felt like, you know, the, the easiest thing to do would be to close the store, which is a bummer because I think about it and I really enjoyed the store. It was very hard. So different retail is so different than the restaurant industry. And we honestly, knew nothing when we opened it. So we had a huge learning curve.

[01:00:05] Josh Sharkey: 

Do you think you'll open it again someday? 

[01:00:08] Jessica Maher: 

Much to Todd's chagrin, I've kept all the collateral and everything, like I kept the website name. Because I'm like, I don't know, maybe I'll want to do it again. I just couldn't do it right then. You know, 

[01:00:20] Josh Sharkey: 

Maybe Hollis will want to do it. 

[01:00:21] Jessica Maher: 

Well, I mean, it's like, It requires just like a restaurant all hand.

It requires all of your time and especially because it's too easy to shop online. So you have to develop a strong customer base, which I think that we did have. And I realized it when we decided we made the announcement that we were closing and literally there was a line out the door within an hour.

[01:00:44] 

And I was, I was relieved and depressed, like hardcore depressed that we, you know, I felt like a failure. And so this is all to say that. I think I still had pretty strong hormones from being a pretty new mom again and had a lot of responsibility. And, you know, a three year old is not very old. I mean, you're, you're kind of like, you might think five is old, but then you get like, uh, 13 and a nine year old and you're like, man, a nine year old is Not very old.

[01:01:17] 

Yeah, it's all relative. So it is. It's all relative. So I took a lot of time after we closed to kind of decompress and had to do a lot of things to help myself. And part of that was changing my schedule and making sure that I. Was getting adequate sleep and exercise. I started running again and I run really regularly now.

[01:01:40] 

That's part of my lifestyle and I just slowed down like I tried. I couldn't. I could not do it all. So I think maybe there's a fair amount of pressure on young parents or and I'm by young. I mean, like parents of young children to do everything right and make sure you got everything lined up and and you kind of sacrifice yourself a little bit in the process.

[01:02:06] 

And as they get older, there are more people to help like school helps out a lot. There's a schedule there and maybe sports and I'm like, that's not to say that we don't. We are very active in their lives and there's, they do have pretty rich social calendars. So between sports and everything else, but I don't feel, I don't feel that sense of like overwhelming responsibility like I did.

[01:02:34] 

Like we're, you know, they're taking on some of the responsibility. I say this now, last week I had like the complete meltdown, but I'm cool, this week's great. 

[01:02:43] Josh Sharkey: 

That's funny. Are there other projects that you guys have in the works now? 

[01:02:46] Jessica Maher: 

Todd's been working on stuff for a long, he's got a pizza place, I don't know if you know that.

[01:02:50] Josh Sharkey: 

What? 

[01:02:51] Jessica Maher: 

It's across the street from the restaurant, it's called Dovetail Pizza. 

[01:02:54] Todd Duplechan:

I did not know that. There's a restaurant space that's been across from us. It's a great old building and I've been looking at it for a long time. I just couldn't really ever seem to catch on as a restaurant. And it's a real restaurant.

[01:03:06] 

Like, we were just talking about our place. Our place is um, 

[01:03:10] Jessica Maher: 

A house. 

[01:03:11] Todd Duplechan:

900 square foot old house that's, was never meant to be a restaurant. And all the problems that come along with that are, you know, a lot of my week. I would leave the restaurant and I would, Look across the street and there was this beautiful solid restaurant building across the street, but they just couldn't keep it going for, for whatever reason.

[01:03:30] 

And then it's been through probably six or seven restaurants since we've been across the street. And then finally it came up again. And we decided me and Ben, who I've known for a long time in the restaurant business here, he owns a place called Salt and Thyme, which is like a butcher shop and restaurant.

[01:03:47] 

And Joe Ritchie, who is a partner at a Rosen's Bagels, which is like a bagel place here in Austin. We decided, you know, if we're going to do this, much like what the lessons that we've learned from being mom and pops, because we are all independently independent restaurant, mom and pop restaurants. If we said, you know, what if we all get together and we just take peel off the part that we're good at and then rely on the rest of the team to do their part that they're good at, like probably most restaurant groups do.

[01:04:18]

We just don't do that because we're smaller. And become the people that do everything like, you know, do the electrical work and clean the bathrooms and make a menu and all that other stuff. And so from we opened, we decided to do a neighborhood pizza place, something to really service the neighborhood, because that's.

[01:04:37] 

I feel like the failure of the previous restaurants is that it's a nice neighborhood. So they were always thinking we need to do a fancy restaurant because I think that's a perception problem of just people in general that they think if you're going to put a restaurant in a nice upper middle class neighborhood, then it needs to be a fancy restaurant because people think people that have wealth eat caviar and lobsters every night and they don't, they eat pizza and hamburgers just like everyone else.

[01:05:06] 

And so, We're like, let's just make a great neighborhood pizza place. And so that's what we ended up doing. And then from that is new projects because that relationship has worked out pretty well between the three of us. So we're looking at a lot of new projects. 

[01:05:31] Josh Sharkey: 

That's cool. I love that concept too. You know, it's funny, like with food distributors, a lot of the smaller food distributors are part of like a cooperative. That makes them, you know, they get buying power and things like that, but they're all independent of each other. They just become part of this cooperative for some economy of scale. I wonder why they don't do that with like independent restaurants. You know, you each have your own separate entities.

[01:05:41] Todd Duplechan:

That's one of the projects that we're working on is that we have taken over a commissary, a very nice new commissary kitchen. With the idea with Brian Stubbs, your new friend, to potentially He was talking to me about this. Be able to buy And get better rates on specific products that we all, as Brian is, uh, for those of you who don't know, he is a bookkeeper for restaurants specifically.

[01:06:07] 

And so he has a bunch of clients in Austin and his clients, you know, he would probably tell you some of the better restaurants in Austin, which I would probably, I would agree with very passionate guy to like, you know, like bookkeepers that like, well, most bookkeepers don't come from. Well, however, 20 years experience in the restaurant business, they don't really get.

[01:06:25] 

What we're doing here where he does, we're thinking about working together to. Basically group together loosely a co-op of all the restaurants that kind of feel under his umbrella. So that's something that's that's in the works for the future. It's it's new ground for me. And it's something that actually I know that you have a lot of history with because of Bark and really.

[01:06:49] 

Understanding the food system at a, at a national and maybe even international scale for me, I've always been very small and trying to make it smaller and smaller. So for me, it's, it's interesting to learn about and try and put it all together because I look at all the other restaurants under the umbrella as different restaurants that want different things.

[01:07:08] 

And I think this is the reason why it doesn't work a lot of the times because we want a specific type of chocolate or flour or whatever it is, and not all the restaurants are going to want that same thing. In fact, at the higher end, most of them want distinctive things. So I worry about how are we going to work it in that way?

[01:07:29] Josh Sharkey: 

There's challenges for sure. I mean, there's, there's a company called Nimbus that started in, in Brooklyn, and now they're, they're rolling out across country. Really, really sharp woman running it. Actually, she was on the show a bit ago, and she's, Done a really good job of, of managing some of these challenges with having all these disparate businesses, not just disparate businesses in terms of restaurants, but disparate verticals of food.

[01:07:50] 

So CPG and people like Noma doing R&D, but also, you know, take out only restaurants and, you know, cheesecake factory and fine dining restaurants all working within the same facility. And how do you manage the ordering and, and organization and sort of separating all those things. And. Making sure that everybody has the equipment they need, but there's still enough, you know, economics involved where you don't have to have a lot of redundancy where you can have redundancy.

[01:08:14] 

There's definitely a model that works. It's funny, I was telling Brian, like, I want to learn more because I might be interested in just, you know, investing some, some capital in it because I think it's a really smart idea. If you can get economy scale, like all these really good restaurants under one roof.

[01:08:27] 

Someone's ringing and I think we're close to time now because it's been, because of my fault, we also had a little break with my dog first coming in. I'm sorry about 

[01:08:35] Jessica Maher: 

I want my two minutes back. 

[01:08:36] Josh Sharkey: 

This was awesome. We could talk for a lot longer just to catch up. And Todd, I actually do want to have a separate like food history thing with you at some point.

[01:08:45] 

You want to ruin your podcast twice? This one's already bad enough. Maybe you're gonna do it again another another show. But I'd love to talk more about that, but I have to get back to austin soon I've been meeting too so I will come visit very soon. I miss you guys. 

[01:08:58] Jessica Maher: 

Do you have a plan too? 

[01:08:59] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah Yeah, I think This year. I think I'll be there this year. I don't know exactly when I think in the fall. 

[01:09:05] Jessica Maher: 

We have an extra room now 

[01:09:07] Josh Sharkey: 

There you go 

[01:09:09] Jessica Maher: 

You know, Remy will be excited to see you. 

[01:09:11] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'll certainly be posting Definitely. Let me know if if you guys come up this way again, it sounds like no real plans yet But if you do, let me know.

[01:09:20] Jessica Maher: 

Well, you know, my parents moved from Nevada to Pennsylvania 

[01:09:25] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, where in Pennsylvania. And 

[01:09:26] Jessica Maher: 

They live right, it's called Waynesboro, it's right on the border of Maryland. 

[01:09:31] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[01:09:31] Jessica Maher: 

So we fly into, it's, it's very rural, but we fly into D.C. and then just, they pick us up from the airport there. So we've been going there, they moved three years ago, I think, and so now we completely skip the West Coast and go to the East Coast, which is.

[01:09:49] Jessica Maher: 

Interesting change of events. But I think it's kind of cool for the kids to see a different part of the country. So that's where if we were not that far away, it's just like taking the time to make a point of like, we need to just go there. 

[01:10:04] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, well, let me know. 

[01:10:05] Jessica Maher: 

Will you bring your family here? 

[01:10:07] Josh Sharkey: 

I'd love to. Yeah, they've never been. I don't think any of them have been. So I'm trying to travel more with the family and I'd have to do like work things like bring them with. So yeah, Yeah, I will. 

[01:10:18] Jessica Maher: 

Dan and his family came to visit a couple years ago. And we took like a whole day and we went paddle boarding and kayaking and had barbecue in the park and went on a train ride and stuff.

[01:10:32] Jessica Maher: 

It was really fun. 

[01:10:33] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[01:10:34] Jessica Maher: 

It's good because like you don't get often opportunities to, you know, we've known each other for a very long time, but we don't know each other's families in that way very well or at all. That's right. 

[01:10:44] Josh Sharkey: 

I don't think you've met my kids actually. 

[01:10:46] Jessica Maher: 

I haven't. 

[01:10:46] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, we'll have to we'll have to change that.

[01:10:49] Jessica Maher: 

The invitation is open. 

[01:10:52] Josh Sharkey: 

All right. Well, this was awesome. Thank you I know you have to get back to your meetings and your restaurants and all that jazz But can we post it as well on the thank you for inviting us.

[01:11:02] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, thanks for coming us Thanks for tuning into the meez podcast 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 getmez.com/podcast

[01:11:13] Josh Sharkey: 

That's G E T M double E Z dot com forward slash podcast. 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.

[01:11:31] 

And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.