Nick Spinelli: 0:08

Hello and welcome to the no Hesitations podcast. We are your co-hosts.

Christin Marvin: 0:14

Christin Marvin with Solutions by Christin.

Nick Spinelli: 0:16

And Nick Spinelli, that's me.

Christin Marvin: 0:18

We talk about all things leadership, successes, challenges and every topic in between, with the goal of helping you become a better leader.

Nick Spinelli: 0:25

So join the conversation each week, wherever you find your podcasts, because there's no time like the present to listen in and level up. Christin, what have we got?

Christin Marvin: 0:35

This week we are chatting with Michael Seznec. Michael, thank you for being here. Michael was born and raised in Ithaca, New York. He grew up in a family that valued food, travel and education. Michael's father was a professor and administrator at Cornell University who had immigrated from France during World War II. As a result of his father's family and research sabbaticals, Michael was fortunate to travel extensively through Europe. When he was a child, his mother taught him about the importance of healthy, market-based cooking, with a rule that you always had to try at least what was on the table, and if you tried it and you didn't like it, you were pretty much out of luck. This early exposure to travel, hospitality and food proved to set a passion and path forward for Michael's career. By the time he graduated from high school, Michael had worked as a pot washer, dishwasher, cook, bartender and as a self-taught pastry maker. This is the first time I've heard anyone talk about a pot maker or pot washer. I meant to talk about that.

Christin Marvin: 1:36

Following graduation from Cornell School of Hotel Administration, Michael set off on a 30-plus-year hospitality career, working in hotels, resorts and freestanding restaurants. He has worked in a wide variety of cities, including New York City, Pittsburgh, Boston, Paris, Quechee, las Vegas and other various stops, harnessing experiences at companies including Vista International Hotels, Walt Disney Company, the Russian Tea Room, Union Square Cafe and Craft Steak. Michael enjoyed learning and blending the best of all of these worlds to hone his skills and tactics. Currently, as the Senior Vice President and partner of Boston-based Himmel Hospitality Group, Michael oversees and directs all aspects of operations for four award-winning restaurants the Wine Spectator, grand Award-winning Grill 23 and Bar the 45-year vulnerable harvest in Cambridge's Harvard Square, Bistro du Mini and Banks Fish House. Michael, thanks so much for being here. That's quite a bio there, my friend.

Michael Seznec: 2:41

Thank you. It's lovely to be with both of you and to see an old friend and colleague and to meet Nick.

Christin Marvin: 2:47

Awesome. When Nick and I were chatting about starting the podcast, we were having conversations around who do we want to have on, what is the order going to look like? And this is a podcast for leaders about leadership. We thought how great would it be to have leaders on. That made a huge impact in our careers back in the early days and just in any time during our career. For me, you are that Just super excited to be able to have you on today and share your story.

Christin Marvin: 3:19

Michael and I had the pleasure of working together for a brief time about a year or so at the Broadmoor at a restaurant called Summit that was opening, which at the time opened as a brassery. I think they've reconcepted since then, but it was designed by world-renowned designer Adam Tihany. The restaurant featured a beautiful brassery menu and we had this million-dollar wine tour that was temperature-controlled behind the bar that spun that we would tour guests through before and after their meals. We were fortunate to host Jacques Pepin's I think 60th birthday party there. We had a Michelin star chef at the helm, Bertrand Bouquin. We worked with mixologists out of New York, Steve Olsen and Andy Seymour, to put this beautiful craft cocktail program together and it was just something that Colorado Springs hadn't seen before just a huge game changer. It was a beautiful restaurant. It was a beautiful experience.

Christin Marvin: 4:16

I learned so much about food and wine and mixology and management there and it really shaped who I am and who I became for the rest of my career. I'll never forget the first time I had Duck Confit and Cassoulet and Hanger Steak, which is now my favorite steak that I'm actually having for dinner tonight, which is amazing. You really were the first manager who, I think, saw a promise in me and I really appreciated your approach around being present but also really direct and firm. You really took the time to develop me and I remember some funny stories that we can kind of talk about through the course of the time here together. But yeah, it's an honor to reconnect and just appreciate you spending this time with us today.

Michael Seznec: 5:08

It's an absolute pleasure and, yeah, I knew you way back when.

Christin Marvin: 5:14

I was a young pup, very green-eyed, for sure.

Nick Spinelli: 5:18

Christin, am I allowed to ask Michael for his first impression of you, the very first time I met you.

Christin Marvin: 5:23

Please let's air it all out.

Nick Spinelli: 5:25

No pressure, but I want to know what did you think when you met young Christin for the first time?

Michael Seznec: 5:31

I think the very first time that I kind of remember as you're asking that question, I'm flashing back and I could be totally wrong but I believe working in the lounge of the hotel, in this cocktail lounge. That was kind of a disaster and she was a whirling dervish of energy trying to make everything right and everything was not right at the time and her just clear tenacity to do things right and work hard and make guests happy was instantly imprinted on me.

Christin Marvin: 6:14

That's awesome, thank you. Yeah, there was a lot that needed to happen. I think I had been a manager for three months and I tell the story that I went through the management training program, got my binder, I was super excited and I thought, okay, I'm ready to be a GM. And then, three months in, they threw me in and Craig, the food and beverage director, very graciously came over and talked to me one day and said, would you be interested in going over and opening a restaurant in a different position? And I was like, yeah, this sounds great. So it all worked out in the end.

Christin Marvin: 6:46

But yeah, nick has not seen that side of me. I'm very calm and different here, for sure, and being out of the restaurant world, I think one of the things that we really wanted to talk about today is some of the leaders that have made a huge impact on you, michael, and your career, and I'd love to dive into a little bit more into why you've chosen the restaurant industry to be a career. A lot of people don't look at it that way, and I know Nick wants to dive into your background too, so we can start. I think my question for you would be when did you really first have that moment of insight that this is what you wanted to do for the rest of your career.

Michael Seznec: 7:33

I knew I wanted to start it really really early, like when I was a kid growing up, when I was having these experiences of traveling, having these experiences of seeing cool hotels or restaurants and by no means were we being in super fancy places, but they were all super exciting to me and sophisticated and cool because mostly they were. As you read in my bio, a lot of it was travel in Europe, so everything was new and different and just very fancy to me as a little kid. So I thought that was very influential to me, I thought that would be fun to do and then I started to cook and I love to cook and one of the jobs that's not on here is my parents had a certain way with five kids, which I was one, and we actually my sister who's next up for me and I used to serve them breakfast in bed Monday through Friday, which people are horrified by Looking back on semi-horrified.

Nick Spinelli: 8:48

People can't see Christin and I's faces right now, but there was a long pause there where I think you could see our brains, the wheels turning.

Christin Marvin: 8:55

We're like, should we laugh?

Nick Spinelli: 8:57

Do we keep a straight face? What's the vibe Like? What's the-.

Michael Seznec: 9:01

People think that's crazy, and what I thought was that, well, these are really lovely people who do an awful lot for me, so why wouldn't I do something nice for them every day?

Christin Marvin: 9:11

So cute.

Michael Seznec: 9:12

And I think that's probably my first entry into hospitality taking care of people. My sister quit the job for both of us when she decided that she would drop a pot of coffee in their bed, and we were summarily dismissed.

Nick Spinelli: 9:30

That is one way out for sure.

Michael Seznec: 9:33

But truly, I think that you know I love serving people and I like making people happy with food and beverage and service and hospitality. I always have. I enjoyed it as a young kid traveling and I enjoy it today. As far as staying in the business, I think it's hard. You know it's a very demanding business. It doesn't pay well for a long time and you have to. You're working when other people aren't and that's tough. But I think just at some point there was an accumulation of the number of people that I've worked with and the number of people that I've met as guests that it just became too much to leave, like I wouldn't want to leave all of those people and do something else. I want to keep working with those people even if the people change, and I want to keep working with those guests even if those guests change, because it's what I love to do.

Nick Spinelli: 10:36

Thanks, Michael. I'm wondering back in those early days you know well I want to ask you so many questions about Europe and traveling and what the value of that was for you. But you mentioned that experience with your family. What was another really formative experience for you with hospitality but maybe you on the receiving end, if that makes sense right when you walked into a restaurant or a bar and something that you really feel helped to shape the professional that you would later become that you are now?

Michael Seznec: 11:07

I think, about a time during college I was doing it we were in a food and beverage class and we went and visited restaurants and then we'd, quote unquote, do a mini consulting for them, which was, you know, probably worthless.

Nick Spinelli: 11:24

But you didn't bring a copy of that with you today.

Michael Seznec: 11:28

It was an assignment and I remember going to Lesiak in New York where the venerable Ciro Macioni held court, and here is this guy who was, you know, an industry leader and he was, you know, everywhere in that dining room and talking to every single guest, and it didn't matter who you were. You got you, he held court in that dining room and he cared so much about it and clearly got so much joy out of it. While giving joy, that reciprocal relationship just was pretty impressive and overwhelming. And so I took away from that, you know, this guy who you know didn't need to be doing that every day, absolutely did that every single day.

Michael Seznec: 12:21

What's your advice to him to keep up the good work when so we did a very detailed analysis of revenue and in his restaurant and the number of seats that we had, and we suggested that he add another table of four Wow For which there was probably no room, but we thought that would be increasing. You know, we showed him how much revenue that would increase. This is a guy who literally had would snap his fingers and the old school snap his fingers and a table would appear for a guest, you know, out of the blue if they've had a walk-in or something. So he really didn't need our advice very much.

Christin Marvin: 12:57

I was gonna say what was his response to that.

Michael Seznec: 12:59

I don't think he gave a response to that. He was very polite and charming.

Nick Spinelli: 13:04

He just smiled and nodded yeah, that's so cute, that's amazing.

Christin Marvin: 13:11

Yeah, did you know? Yeah, go ahead. No, no, no, you're good.

Nick Spinelli: 13:14

Incomplete thought.

Christin Marvin: 13:15

Yep, I was going to just ask you know, given your background, your dad's background, did you know? Did you ever think about going into academia? Or was it just you caught that moment of hospitality when you were younger and you were like that's where I'm going.

Michael Seznec: 13:31

So I knew I wanted to go into business and not go into academia, but I love to teach and I know I got a lot of that from my dad, because my dad wanted his most important things that he loved as a professor was actually doing teaching, not just research and so forth. He loved to teach. And you get to teach all day in the restaurant business. You know you're constantly training the team and hopefully you're hiring a team that wants to be, that wants to learn. That's curious, so you know. And food and beverage and wine are limitless in terms of how much you can learn about them. So I got to. You get to teach a lot. My dad was also into theater and there's an awful lot of theater. That's in the restaurant business, as you well know also.

Christin Marvin: 14:21

Absolutely yeah. Who were some of the mentors that you had in your career in the restaurant world that have really made an impact and kind of shaped your management style, leadership style?

Michael Seznec: 14:32

So early on working in the hotel business, that was pretty helpful to me in that there was such a range of good, great, not so good and really really not good types of managers, from general manager all the way down to assistant front office manager or whatever just a huge variety and that was impactful to me and helpful to me in that you saw it all and if you took the attitude that even from the worst of them that you would try and learn something, try and if nothing else, I don't wanna do that or I don't wanna be that way, but you can learn from everybody and I think that that's served me well into all the way to today, where you're just trying to figure out what people do really well and maybe I can steal some ideas from that and what people don't do so well, and I'll take some ideas from that as well. So that was really really important early on. And I would say sports and participating in a lot of sports and having a lot of different types of coaches through the years, I always found that the ones that I was kind of like a non-jock mentality kind of guy, even though I was a jock, I didn't have the attitude of rah, rah, rah. That wasn't my feel, and so coaches who would have dealt with me like that wouldn't have been very successful. And I was lucky to have a bunch of coaches who really individualized their way of speaking to people, finding out how to motivate individuals. And that's huge in restaurant business and probably all business, but certainly in the restaurant business, where we have so many different types of players on our team, you gotta figure out how to motivate all of them and they don't all have the same approach. You can't take a one size fits all approach to motivating your team. It just doesn't work.

Michael Seznec: 16:48

Obviously, I had some great individuals. Danny Meyer is probably highest on my list. I had the wonderful opportunity of working with Danny and working with him at a really critical time, which was when Gramercy Tavern had been open his second restaurant for a pretty short period of time, and it wasn't going well in terms of it wasn't, it wasn't walking the walk of enlightened hospitality and all that is super important to Danny and that he's written about and spoken about and lots of people have adopted. And so I was able I was, he was going to not be spending every day at Union Square Cafe anymore, and he was kind enough to hire me as a service manager at first and ultimately as general manager of that restaurant, and I was literally walking in his shoes every day and that was incredible experience for me. I would say it was very affirming because all of everything that I'd learned up to that point, that I hoped could be true, I found out could be true.

Christin Marvin: 17:59

I am obsessed with Danny Meyer. I always have been, and that was one of the big things that drew me, I think when Craig Reed said, hey, we're opening summit, We've got Michael coming over from moving out from New York work for Danny Meyer and I was like, sign me up, I'm there, Like everything else sounded really good, but that was it for me and I felt a connection to Danny just being from Missouri. When I was young I was kind of looking for somebody that came from a small town and even though he's from the St Louis area. But I just read that book page by page. I've read it a few more times. I'm in the process of reading it again because it just fills my soul.

Christin Marvin: 18:39

But I bought so many copies and later, when I left the Broadmoor and started opening restaurants, I was luckily given the autonomy to buy a million copies and train all my teams with that book. Just everybody resonated with it and got it and, like you said earlier, those people that were really curious about how to offer great hospitality and service just really soaked it up. And luckily it had been my dream to meet him and when Shake Shack opened their first location in Denver, he came out and did a little meet and greet thing and at a restaurant right across the street and everything that you read and everything that you hear and everything like stories that you just shared about him and just everything that he does, he just emulates that so much. When you just meet him, he's just warm and he doesn't even have to say anything. He just stands there and you're just like you just get it. You just get this like warm hug of hospitality. It's amazing.

Nick Spinelli: 19:37

So I'm getting this very enlightened picture of some of these people in your industry where you were talking about that chef earlier, michael and the restaurant you were in and undergrad and Kristen, this other person. Neither of them spoke, they just had this very like warm Zen aura around them once they've achieved masterhood in their profession. On a slightly more serious note, for people that aren't foodies or don't know who Danny Meyer is, how would you describe him and his work for those folks listening?

Michael Seznec: 20:05

I would describe him as no exaggeration the creator of the modern American restaurant. And by American I'm not talking about cuisine. I'm talking about the way in which we operate good restaurants today in this country, which is to say that we take really good care of our staff, that we have an incredible focus on making guests happy, seems obvious. Plenty of restaurants out there that ain't so obvious. Yeah, yeah, then and now, but that was in 1985, I believe it was when Union Square Cafe first opened. Pretty sure that's when it was.

Michael Seznec: 20:52

That was not the standard in New York City. New York City for those of you who are listeners who aren't from New York, please don't take offense New York City is often seen by many as sort of the ultimate, penultimate restaurant city in America. There are certainly many, many more today. Back in those days, all of the top restaurants in New York when Union Square Cafe opened probably started there. The name started with Le or La or Il. They were either French very fancy French, very fancy Italian and that was it.

Michael Seznec: 21:33

This was a restaurant that was going to break that mold and was also not going to have. It was gonna have just the opposite of kind of the arrogant matriodine type at the front door was nearing down their nose at their guests who were lucky enough to be allowed in. That was not the approach. It was just the opposite, and that was very new. I think today, because of the proliferation of books that Kristen is somewhat responsible for across the country, a lot of people have figured out that the way of running a restaurant today, if you really want a great restaurant, is to follow the basics that Danny created, that we were formed at that restaurant, or at least were very well articulated at that restaurant and became. You know, it flowed everywhere and it's to our betterment today where we can go to lots and lots of good restaurants where people are thoughtful and caring and when something goes wrong it's an opportunity for it to be made even better. You know A lot of good stuff came out of there.

Christin Marvin: 22:49

Mm-hmm. Yeah, michael, there's been, as you know, and I'm sure it's being felt nationwide. There's such a shift right now happening. You know people are saying fine dining is dead, full service restaurants are dying right. There's so many challenges right now with labor costs, cost of goods, you know, rent increasing everything, how. One of the things that I heard I just spoke to a client about this today is he just said five, 10 years ago there were so many people that wanted to work in the restaurant business. It was so easy to find people. We had stacks of resumes and now no one is coming forward saying that they wanna work in the restaurant business or that they wanna be here long-term. Are you finding that's the case in Boston?

Michael Seznec: 23:31

Yes and no. I think I completely disagree with the fact that fine dining is dead or that great restaurants are gonna go away. I think there'll always be space for all types of restaurants. I think that you know it is a human thing to like to go out and have an experience in a restaurant, be it fine dining, be it upscale, casual, be it casual. There are all types of restaurants I think will continue to survive and be successful. The staff I think obviously COVID was pretty rough for lots of industries and probably roughest of all in the restaurant industry. Things have come back a lot. Labor has come back quite a bit. It is still hard. There are more applicants. I would say there aren't as many really great applicants around.

Michael Seznec: 24:34

And then there's some roles that are, I think, nationwide, are probably terrible. But I talk to friends and colleagues around and that host is rough. Host position for is that is a hard person to find for some reason, or impossible person. People still wanna cook, people still wanna serve people still. You know it's a. One of the wonderful things about this industry is that it provides for a lot of people their first job and okay, maybe they're not gonna stay in it and maybe they will, but it's an excellent employer for first time workers in this country. So I think that'll always be our strength for us.

Christin Marvin: 25:23

What would you say to people that we've heard this for years, that don't believe that the restaurant industry can provide is a real career?

Michael Seznec: 25:35

Yeah, I don't have any idea how to respond to that. I think it's a. I know a lot of people for whom it's a fantastic career, who have fun doing it, who get joy out of it, who make money doing it, who learn stuff doing it, whether it's part time, that they're able to do something else while they're doing the restaurant work. They might be students, they might be studying something else that they're gonna get into artists, actors, singers, any number of folks that I've worked with who do other stuff as well but it is a career that allows them to do that and many of them stay in it forever, either as an addition to their other thing or as their main thing, as they figure out that, hey, I really like this and I'm really good at it, so it's definitely. I think it's an excellent career opportunity for people. I think it's a fun job. It's hard and it's fun at equal amounts overall.

Nick Spinelli: 26:48

Michael, from the lens of someone again who is maybe less familiar with all of this, from an experienced standpoint, or even just for listeners who are listening and maybe wondering I had an opportunity to take a job years ago and I didn't or maybe there's something on the table for me now and I'm thinking about getting into this industry, even part time. From your perspective as a manager and a leader, where do typically people start Like you mentioned the host position, for example. Where might someone start in a restaurant and knowing that this, of course, would look different depending on where they are, it's contextual how do folks move up? What's a really inspiring story that you've seen of someone who came in and then eventually ended up in a place much different? I mean, of course, we could talk about your own career, but I'd like to hear a little bit about an example of that and what that might look like.

Michael Seznec: 27:38

Sure, so it looks a lot like me. I mean we have a fellow that in one of our restaurants that we just promoted very recently to a sous chef position. So he's in the kitchen and he's one of the main managers in that kitchen and he started off with us as a dishwasher some 15 years ago. It went and worked at other places, went and cooked at other places, came back, did some more with us, cooked more, and he's gonna have a he's salary successful sous chef today. I think if you talk to pretty much anybody on my management entire management team, pardon me, front or back of house they probably all have very similar career paths and from either starting off as a dishwasher, starting off as a host, starting off as maybe a server, maybe a cook, and they've gone up the ranks until they're, you know, managers and earning good salaries and have great benefits and they're doing what they like.

Michael Seznec: 28:44

I put on my in my that bio, the pot washer, because I think that's by best jobs.

Nick Spinelli: 28:50

I read my mind as I was thinking. Anybody can start as a dishwasher.

Michael Seznec: 28:53

Anybody can start as a dishwasher. You gotta be, you gotta really get down into the muck to start as a pot washer. And that's exactly what I did, because I wasn't qualified to be a dishwasher. I didn't know how to run the dish machine, but I knew how to scrub a pot.

Christin Marvin: 29:07

Wow, how long were you a pot washer before you were promoted to dishwasher?

Michael Seznec: 29:11

Very fortunate that I worked very hard and I think somebody quit and I got to move up like a month Nice, but I was still the pot. I was actually promoted to pot washer, slash dishwasher because I was the only one.

Christin Marvin: 29:27

Got it Okay, I'd love it.

Nick Spinelli: 29:30

This sounds like all those times with Parmesan cheese and meatloaf, and I could probably name a couple other things where you don't realize. I'm thinking about my experience working in a camp kitchen, right, you don't realize how messy those things are until the dishes come back and there were 150 students that just ate dinner and you've got 20 minutes to flip over the entire dining hall before the next meal and you need those trays.

Michael Seznec: 29:55

And gotta be willing to get it dirty.

Christin Marvin: 29:58

Yeah and Nick, we're talking about stock pots that are like so large that Michael, at 15 or however old you were, probably could crawl inside of it and scrub it from the inside out.

Nick Spinelli: 30:07

I bet they are massive.

Christin Marvin: 30:09

We have one at home and I can't like I have to get Tyler to help me carry it out of the garage into the house, because anyone that's full forget about it. That's when it's empty. I can't. I have a hard time just picking it up on my own and carrying it through the house.

Nick Spinelli: 30:22

Yeah, so that's a big challenge. Hot washer.

Christin Marvin: 30:25

Hot washer.

Nick Spinelli: 30:25

That's a trip.

Christin Marvin: 30:27

Michael, would you speak a little bit too? This is one question I often get from operators and friends and clients Like how do I develop my managers, how do I keep people happy? How do I, when I have a restaurant group that necessarily isn't growing and expanding and opening more locations, how do I keep those general managers happy and keep them around? Will you speak a little bit to your approach there?

Michael Seznec: 30:52

Yeah, it's really hard. It's not just focusing on people, what that? The stuff that they're not doing well, and just relentlessly working on that, but hopefully trying to get them to develop more is challenging and I'll say that we were getting pretty good at it pre-pandemic and then a lot of that slid out. That's one of the first thing that falls off the edge of the table. So I think you just need to. You have to provide ways, vehicles for them to do more and learn more if they want.

Michael Seznec: 31:31

We're very lucky in our company. We have an awful lot of fantastic wine knowledge. You know our Grill 23,. As you mentioned, grill 23 and Bar is a grand, award winning restaurant. Wine list makes it one of you know about a hundred and some restaurants in the world best wine list. That comes not just with a wine list of. You know buying bottles and sticking in, reprinting them on a piece of paper and serving them. It comes a lot from the training that goes along with that and we have some fantastic people in our team, from Brom Callahan, who's a master sommelier, we have another master sommelier on our team. We have a number of advanced sommeliers that's the next level in the quarter master sommeliers, several of those and we do a lot because of that.

Michael Seznec: 32:26

We do the introductory level class and exam in our restaurant and we do the certified level in our restaurant and we open that up to all of our team members to be part of.

Michael Seznec: 32:41

We offer, we do it for the court, as a service to the court, and you know they don't have to pay for that, and so we're doing that and in order for that to happen, we get a few seats every cycle for people to take part in that. So I've got a pastry chef who's done the intro. We've got servers lots of servers who've done intro and certified. We've got chefs who've done it and managers obviously have the front of house. Managers have the ability to do that as well, even if you're not on the wine team. So that's an example of, you know, putting an opportunity in front of people, making it super accessible and if they want to go after it, you know they can get those certifications and obviously it's more knowledge for them and more power to them when they walk up to a table and have that wine knowledge with them. But it's also something that they can put on their resume and keep going with and move on to other things if they wish.

Christin Marvin: 33:40

Yeah, I mean, the whole wine world is so amazing because it changes every single year, right, there's so many wonderful labels out there. There's so many stories to be able to tell. Tyler and I both took the intro some course and it was, you know, again to see four or five master, small ea's up in front of you, you know, teaching you about this very fundamental basic, you know, wine knowledge was just beautiful. And Tyler actually went on to take the certified exam. We were up in Aspen and I remember I, like, walked him to the room, you know, gave him a hug, kissed, wished him luck and went and sat down and grabbed a breakfast in the little like restaurant in the hotel and I had just gotten my food. It was maybe like 15 or 20 minutes and he came, like, running down the hallway, like a child, you know, and he had, he was, you know, the studying for all of this is just insane, you know. If you've seen Psalm it's, you know how intense it is.

Christin Marvin: 34:35

But the night before the test we were at a restaurant and there were three or four other people at the bar and they were all taking the tests and so we were sampling wines and talking about it, right, just trying to cram last minute as much as possible. And so he was worried about, like, brushing his teeth the next morning, right, and how that was going to impact his palate and all these things. So, anyway, I'm sitting there eating breakfast and he like runs down the hall and I was like what's wrong? What happened? He's like I'm done, I finished, and I was like something is wrong here. This is way too quick. But he ended up getting first in the class and for that, which was amazing.

Christin Marvin: 35:08

So, anyway, it's just, it's such a fun thing to study and it is just you can. You know I love to talk to managers that are constantly learning and constantly growing, and wine is such a wonderful way to do that. Would you speak a little bit about the biggest challenge that you've had in your career? Like, has there ever been a time where you're like I can't do this, I want to get out of the industry, because I've never seen you sweat before. You're always very calm, cool and collected, so what makes you sweat?

Michael Seznec: 35:36

I have certainly sweat. All of our restaurants, except for one, happen to have two floors, so that's one way of making you sweat.

Nick Spinelli: 35:46

That's a relief. We know you're hydrated.

Christin Marvin: 35:48

You're going to have to go deeper than that.

Michael Seznec: 35:52

Obviously, you know, when we were forced, in March 2020, to close all of our restaurants, that was, that was rough, rough on lots and lots of people, and I certainly sweat and didn't sleep a lot for several months, you know, I being being the somewhat of a pessimist that I can sometimes be, I remember sitting with my team at, you know, very early on the first few days of this thing, going, hey, you know, guys, this could, this could last like six weeks, which is, of course, in hindsight ridiculous Pessimistic outlook indeed, yeah.

Michael Seznec: 36:35

None of us had ever obviously experienced such a thing and didn't know that it was going to last, exactly how long it lasted, you know. Which is to say, probably it's going to be with us forever in some, some way. But that was definitely a crisis moment, but I never thought for a second I wasn't going to stick with it. Unless it didn't, unless the industry didn't stick with me. I was not, I was not going anywhere. I wanted to figure out how we were going to reopen our restaurants, what it was going to take to do that safely, to take care of our team and have them, you know, thrive and be healthy. And I did a lot of thinking and a lot of research and studying and fortunately I have, you know, an ownership group that was far more aware, tuned into and pessimistic than I was, and we made a very we came to a decision very early on that we were not going to reopen for several months, that we were going to take our time, we were not going to try this the takeout stuff, the putting people in a kitchen, you know, you know at all we were going to. We were going to button, button up and hunker down and and try and see what was going to go on. We took examples from the Far East quite a bit because they were kind of ahead of things in terms of how they were handling it, got a lot of good ideas from some restaurant companies in Japan and other other other locations that kind of informed our way forward of bringing back people and how we were going to do that. We took a lot of time to have conversations with our landlords, renegotiate our our, our deals with them so that we could prosper and move forward if we were going to reopen.

Michael Seznec: 38:39

We reopened two of the restaurants in August of that year. The same year we reopened one of them after doing a renovation to part of the restaurant. We reopened it in March of the following year, almost a year to the day when we closed it. And another restaurant we rebranded entirely and change it over to the bank's fish house and did a far more substantial renovation to that restaurant and opened that in, I believe, july, mid July of 21. So we took our time. We did a lot of sweating. We were, you know, obviously kind of disbanding a fantastic team of people. We were lucky to bring a lot of them back. We kept we kept a good chunk of our management team on board throughout and weathered the storm that way. But yeah, we did a lot of sweating and sleepiness nights, but we never wanted to give up, never wanted to quit.

Christin Marvin: 39:46

Were some of these renovations already in the works and planned and you just said this is the perfect time? Or was this part because I was going to ask you if you'd made any huge operational changes?

Michael Seznec: 39:56

Yeah. So the partial renovation of Beestra de Mede we already had planned and we decided to move forward with it despite being closed. We decided we would do it just the same. The other one, the rebranding we'd been we've been toying around with the concept that was in there previously. We've been open for I think now 10 years or so. It had been a restaurant called post 390. And we had been thinking about doing something there different and we took the opportunity of the shutdown to move forward. But certainly you know my ownership, you know I give them Ken and Chris Himmel. We give them a ton of credit for, you know, being stalwart, brave and believing in us.

Christin Marvin: 40:47

That's awesome, mom. That's an incredible story. And how I mean? With the renovations, how's everything going now?

Michael Seznec: 40:54

So fantastic. All four of our restaurants last year had all time record setting years, which was just amazing. It started on because I don't know if you remember, but we had, you know, kind of a big uptick in the December before that, before last year, december of 21,. We had there was a pretty big uptick, a big big surge, and that went into January and it went into February and my sense by feeling was that at least in Boston on Valentine's Day, February 2021, the mass of the restaurant goers decided we are going out, we are going out to dinner period, even if the COVID numbers are high, we are going out right now and they didn't stop throughout through the rest of the year, which was fantastic and we appreciated it a lot.

Christin Marvin: 41:54

Yeah.

Michael Seznec: 41:56

And this year is very strong as well. So it's worked out well. We're very fortunate and yes, I am knocking on with literally.

Christin Marvin: 42:05

That's great. Well, we I mean just incredible and congratulations to you and your team and all the effort and work that you've put in. I was sending Nick some links today to some of the restaurants on your bio and he said when we make it big, we're going to take a trip out there.

Nick Spinelli: 42:21

Yes, we'll. We'll have one of our press conferences in the Russian room when we get there, but I thought that we might need a month or two to build up to that.

Michael Seznec: 42:28

So we will. We'll go to the dry cleaners and get our red carpet out and we will roll that sucker out for you guys.

Nick Spinelli: 42:36

I'm here for it.

Christin Marvin: 42:37

Nick, do you have any other questions before we wrap up?

Nick Spinelli: 42:41

I actually have two and I thought of these just while we were talking. Michael, maybe just to wrap up our discussion about challenges, you've seen the way that Kristen has reinvented herself as a coach and a consultant. I'm wondering if you have any experience working with coaches or consultants in the restaurant industry and what that was like for you. Yeah, I've.

Michael Seznec: 43:04

I've worked with a coach myself a few years ago and it was fantastic. It was. It was a great experience and the person helped me look at a lot of the ways that I react and learn and and both positively and negatively and help me put that in a much better place for myself, and I think that's incredibly useful and valuable. And I've actually run a couple of different challenges with team members a few years back. I use the same person and helped put him in touch with these, these team members, and they found success through it too, and I think we should all be in therapy, I think. I think I think it's an awfully helpful, useful thing for potentially for every single person on the planet.

Nick Spinelli: 44:10

I wouldn't be inclined to disagree. Therapy literally saved my life, and I've been in weekly or twice weekly sessions for well over a year now, and there's a million reasons why it took me as long as it did to get into it. I'm really grateful for that opportunity. Yes, sneaky plug for solutions by Kristen.

Christin Marvin: 44:28

Also, I haven't met any.

Nick Spinelli: 44:31

I, you did not tell me to say that.

Nick Spinelli: 44:33

I was also just genuinely curious, because it's a really to your point. It's a hardworking industry. There's a lot of stress involved. You know resources and tools available to you to do what you do better. Okay, last question I had a little bit more straightforward what's next for you? You're emerging from the pandemic. I feel like you're on top of the figurative mountain, so to speak. Right, I'm sure you have many opportunities, many doors open to you. Just generally the rest of your career. Do you still have any goals that you're still trying to hit peaks? You're still trying to climb highlights you haven't had yet?

Michael Seznec: 45:11

What's next? I, you know, I love my job, I love the people I work with, and I hope to keep doing that, and I hope that we will grow our company to an extent. We're never going to be a company that's going to have a restaurant on every street corner. That's not our mission. We like to have individual, independent restaurants. They all operate differently, they all look differently, and we love that about them, and I would hope that, but I would hope that we might grow a couple.

Michael Seznec: 45:44

We always are looking at opportunities for that. First off, this. This fall, we're going to celebrate, though, where we've been, and that is the 40th anniversary of Grill 23 and Bar. Wow, so it's quite a run. So we're going to celebrate that with a series of really fantastic wine dinners and a big, huge gala party and invite, invite our bunch of our most loyal guests from the years throughout the years, as well as our investors, invite them in and celebrate with them and some of our suppliers who make it happen, and we're pretty excited about that. So that's that's that'll be this November and December.

Christin Marvin: 46:30

That's awesome. 40 years Wow, and that's incredible, for sure.

Nick Spinelli: 46:33

Restaurant is older than some of the people that work there. Unbelievable yeah.

Christin Marvin: 46:40

Well, I'll close this out here with a story I I remember. So we would do lineup every day, right? And Michael, you always asked me or told me to go make you a cappuccino to get ready for lineup. I was really good at making cappuccinos on that machine that we had around the corner of the service station and you were asking me I think training me or developing me on how to run lineup. And I just remember one one day I was sitting there and I was I was probably nervous and I was trying to get my words out and you just started screaming in my ear Like in front of the entire staff, and I had no idea. I don't know if you remember that, but I was just like laughing and hysterical and I had no idea what you were trying to do, and I don't know if I still do today, but I it really helped me find my voice then and I really appreciate that.

Michael Seznec: 47:28

And semi abusive.

Christin Marvin: 47:32

No, no, no, I would never cross that line, but but it's just one of those funny memories. So just thank you for helping me find my voice. I appreciate it. That's all we've got today. So listen in each week on Spotify and Apple podcasts and be sure to follow myself, kristen Marvin and Nick Spinelli on LinkedIn and subscribe to the solutions by Kristen newsletter and we will talk to you very soon. Thanks, everybody.

Michael Seznec: 47:59

Thanks, all, thank you.