Phoenicia Diner

0:00Welcome to the Emerging Brands Podcast. sharing the stories behind brands you'll want to shop next. I'm your host, Kelly Bennett. I am a New York City-based brand strategist for CPG food and beverage brands. In each episode, I'll take you behind the scenes of founders that are building better-for-you products and bringing them to market. Also, I talk to brand builders, retailers, industry experts, and tastemakers who help bring those cool products to your shopping cart. You will hear stories of real life founders, their launch strategies, and practical advice you could use to grow your own brand or simply discover what's next on shelf.

0:42And the best part is you could shop all the brands featured on the show. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator-powered retail activations. They're connecting everyday creators with CPG brands to generate shelf-level awareness, drive in-store momentum, and generate authentic content in markets that matter the most. Go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know I sent you. Now, let's dive into the new episode. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. Today, I have Mike Siafi.

1:27He is the owner of Phoenicia Diner that is iconic in my family. We love Phoenicia Diner. It's such a staple in upstate New York. And Mike, I am so excited to hear how you're taking your iconic diner and going into CPG. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Oh, I am very excited to be here. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm up in the Catskills today. So the leaves are changing. I mean, it is like the perfect time to be up here. It really is. I was up there, what is it, last weekend and it was just stunning and gorgeous. Yeah. So let's talk about it. If someone isn't familiar yet with Phoenicia Diner, can you give us, I know it has such a rich history, but the overview of how this diner came to be.

2:18Yeah. Well, it's been in Phoenicia prior to me from my ownership. It had been here since the early 80s. It originally had a home in Long Island in the Roosevelt Field area from 62 to 82. And then it was moved up here. These things are built in factories and then brought to a site and assembled. So literally they picked it up and brought it? Wow. Correct. Yeah. So they're built in a factory. And again, they're module. And our diner is basically a double wide, if that makes sense. So there's two sections to it. So it was brought here in the 80s. And then I grew up in Brooklyn and my wife and I found a little cabin up here in the Catskills.

3:17That's about a half hour past the diner in a town called Margaretville. And so we had been passing the diner most of our adult lives. Neither of us had a getaway place when we were kids, but we found one up here in the caskills because our work lives were always never intersected. Who was not home for dinner? The kids, everybody was all over the place. So every weekend we'd gather up and come up here to get away and kind of focus on all of the family. Anyway, so the diner had been passing this diner forever. And it wasn't until I had sold my business back in Brooklyn, or I had a business that constructed scenery for Broadway shows and for television shows.

4:16Oh, cool. Yeah. So it was an interesting business. I started it right out of college and grew it. It was in Red Hook, Brooklyn for a while. We moved it out to Long Island City as we grew. I sold it and had a non-compete. And my entire adult life was centered. My schooling was all around theater and television scenery and construction. And so I had a I had a non-compete. And so my friend group was all based in that industry. So my I was a little lost, I would say. And that's like your whole identity. Exactly. So and and the challenge, I think, was to figure out what you know what the next act literally was.

5:04Right. And I had always been interested in the food world. Never, you know, never cooked commercially. I worked in a pizzeria, I think, when I was a teenager on Coney Island Avenue and Avenue U, which I think is still the pizzeria is still there. Not the same ownership, but the pizzeria is still there. And but that was it. And so I had an idea that I met the owner of the of the diner at one point to go and I was having some coffee. It was there was nobody in there. It was not what it what it is today in terms of popularity by any stretch. and I don't know, somehow we started to talk. He was looking to sell and I wasn't looking to buy, but we hit it off really well.

5:57I loved his story. He was a Greek immigrant and I just thought this may be kismet for me in terms of him on the way out. He was willing to share everything that he new and I was looking for a project. Wow. And so, yeah, so that was coffee. Now you're literally and I know, I mean, it's so it's such a blur, Kelly, that it really feels like I had this coffee with him. And like a day later, we I'd signed papers, shook hands. And yeah, you know, So I was the new owner. You had the key for the joint. Yeah, exactly. Amazing. So we shut it down, literally closed it. And I took, the first thing I knew to do was to kind of do the restoration or, you know, and the design side to me was very familiar because that was my previous life, although it was more construction.

6:56But my friend group was all, I had, you know, Broadway designers and friends who would come by and give me, you know, uh, uh, help on color and scheme and, and, and what the place did look like, like what, you know, basically the research on, on the, on the diner. This was a, uh, like I said, I, I found the manufacturer of this diner, which is over, uh, over in Westchester. It's a Dorotheli diner. Uh, so, and I started to learn, get more history about what it, what it looked like, uh, or what it should have looked like. Um, and, um, you know, and these things are not built out of the high end material.

7:35So like, it's, it's crappy for Micah. And, uh, but, but, but obviously it had a, has a lot of history, a lot of patina to it. So I didn't want to do anything that would, uh, detract from that, from the look of the mid-century modern diner. So, so that was my first kind of way of connecting to the food world was like, okay, I have no diners. The concept is familiar to me. Like I wasn't, it wasn't, it was scary, but familiar to some extent. And I started to dive into the look and feel of it. We started to think about the kitchen as a manufacturing space, which was what I used to do for a living.

8:21So I knew it had to be laid out properly, not, you know, not hodgepodge, which, which at the time it was. And, and then the third component for me was just on the branding side. Like I knew I would go into a diner in Brooklyn when I was growing up and anywhere, and you'd have a 40 page, you know, booklet, but always gravitated. I always gravitated, including my family, would gravitate to the four or five things. So we developed this idea that we'd have this placemat that you would always see in a diner, but the perimeter of it would be ad sales. So ours is and still kind of locational. Like if you want to go for a hike, you should go here.

9:09Like they're not paid ads. They're more in line with an information kiosk for the area. So which is fun because I also realized like people would show up and like, hey, I want to go for a hike, but I don't know where to go. So we would be guiding them in those scenarios. So the menu and then the menu, again, you know, kind of went through this idea, like what are the mainstays of diners? And one of the things that struck me, I had a whole year here of restoration. So like I had a lot of time to kind of think some of this or a lot of these parts through. But so you had clothes for a year. Yeah.

9:49Yeah. So one of the things. Yeah, it was so it's interesting because, you know, when you get to a small town area like this, you know, I knew the diner, whatever reputation it had before, you know, me coming into it is going to be different. And so I wanted this, we wanted the break, this idea that, that if we're going to rebrand this or relaunch it, we wanted some time between, you know, when it was open before and this new, and I, and I. Well, to be thoughtful about it, too. That's what I'm. And I and I theater this thing up like my my back, like, you know, did all the papering around the windows, you know, put put up a pretty weird sign.

10:33You know, they didn't have a name yet, but I had an iconic appear. If you're familiar, like there was tubing at the time in the in the river here. So we had a tube, which half of it was a was an inner tube. And the other half was like a bagel and an egg. so so like i just wanted to nod towards like hint towards what was happening but right so it drummed up i think in a lot especially in the town a lot of interest like what is this maniac doing what is he doing so something that really is striking me now because i was just we did um uh camp pickup over the summer and of course we went to finicia diner because the girls went to camp right around that area and it was packed.

11:20I mean, we thought we had a really clever idea of going after camp pickup and then the whole damn camp was there, which was amazing too. And they, the girls saw their friends. It was super cute, but you did a great job with the spillover. And again, I have a restaurant too and the inner restaurant, you know, operator in me, I was like, wow, that was so clever and I'm just even thinking about how you set up a really cool airstream and how it was really well branded and the benches and the picnic tables it felt like it was a really cool set and I had no idea of your background and now I'm thinking I'm going that was all clicking right yeah oh that totally makes sense and it was beautiful it was really well done but it also felt like it was a part of the landscape.

12:10Like it didn't feel like it didn't belong. It felt very much a part of it, but very well done. And there was a huge group of us. There was like 15 of us, I want to say. And everyone loved it. Everyone was able to run around and hang out. And it just had a very nice, chill family atmosphere. And that's not easy to achieve. No, really isn't. No, and just to speak to that real quick. So the all these things come out of necessity. You know, we started the diner started to get busier. We we we had people waiting long periods of time to sit. The diner's only 90 seats, including the bar. and and as as an adult with kids not yet when they were younger same like I knew what I want I I guess what my thought process was like what would I want and when would I want it when you know when we were up there and and exactly kind of like so I figured if I you know knowing what I know or what I went through like I wanted to present this this space in a way that would be comfortable for folks to come in, whether with kids, with just an intimate group.

13:28So the Airstream, and going back to what you were saying before, we follow this North Star, which we always refer back to as authenticity. Like the space has history. I didn't want to do anything that would detract from it. So there's nothing in that. That diner was built in 1962. 62, everything that's in there, even the stuff that we have on the shelves is from that time period. And everything, even the airstream that is on the outside, which we converted into a place where you can place an order so you can sit outside and you can bypass the interior part. Right. Even that was built in 62. So like I.

14:12Oh, cool. Yeah. And if you look at the logo, You can see it. It's a car packed, a car from that era packed with camping gear because that was like the trip out of this. Like you would come up and to the Catskills and do that. So like all these things, which we tried to stay true to and authentic. And I think that's really resonated with with folks. And again, it all stems from like what we all go back to like, what would I want when when I was coming up? Absolutely. So making a pivot because you did so much work reopening, relaunching, making it feel authentic and on brand. And your newest adventure has been now taking this iconic diner with such a great loyal following and going into CPG, which is its own beast and its own adventure.

15:11So I would love to hear, one, what prompted this extension and two, how you're thinking about now expanding into CPG. So that's a great, great question. And it's, you know, I think I said before, like, my midlife crisis in quotes at the diner was also like my inquisitiveness on learning new things. So like on the CPG side, you know, so we have this this diner, which has now passed from like a to like a destination restaurant. So like so we're looking at that from from a from a 30 ,000 foot view and say, OK, like what we can't get there. It's only a limited size. There's only a limited amount of seating.

16:06There's only a limited season. And so we're like, where can we expand this and leverage the brand that we built? Right. And so we started to think through like, you know, obviously there's popular items on the menu, but pancakes always come back, came back to us as like people come back more and more for those. So we thought if we're going to expand and leverage this brand, it would be into the CPG world. So that was my first kind of thought process about when we talked about increasing volume and revenue. It was a way of thinking about it. And the simplistic view is I'm going to have this thing produced right now at a co-packer, buy it for X and sell it for Y.

16:56with not a lot of things happening in between, although that's a naive thinking about it now. But at the time, if you want the inside. Yes, we want the inside. Oh, like, hey, I'm going to buy it for X. I'm going to sell like a T-shirt, right? I buy the T-shirt for X. I put it up on the wall. People buy it for Y. And there's not a lot of labor in between for us. So I thought about it in those terms. And then we started to, with my team here, started to think about like, you know, do we fill bags of pancake mix in the base, you know, in the prep room? And like, obviously that, no, we don't have the scientific wherewithal to do like the measurements like that.

17:41So we went to a, you know, we found a co-packer and just tested the waters and the diner. And again, these are the things that we kind of leaned into because we had available to us. We have this, you know, basically a destination restaurant. We have people that are come in, eaten and leaving, and maybe they're not coming back to the area right away, or they've had such a great experience that on the way out, they're like, I'm going to take a mug. I'm going to, you know, I'd like to buy a t-shirt and oh, you have pancakes. And so, so it's, it is, you know, but it's apparent too. Like, I'm like, okay, well, let's, let's start there.

18:19And then where, you know, then we had buttermilk. Then, you know, when we talked to a few folks, we need, you know, we maybe need a couple of more SKUs. So we went buckwheat, we added buckwheat and vegan. Yeah, probably, you know, and those things when we went back to some some smaller stores are like, OK, what do you have? And we're like, you know, the feedback was you need we need a little bit of variety to make this work. And then on the packaging side, again, our guiding light is, you know, authenticity and in this scenario. And our team was incredible. Internally, the folks working with me here, when we pivoted to this CPG stuff, everybody, you know, came back and we're like, you know, this bag that we have, the packaging right now is really looks like it belongs at the diner.

19:18It's not, it's not a pouch. It's not, you know, all the things that you see today. Even the thread. Exactly. And I have to tell you, my, I was the one in the room going like, I know that, you know, when we, if this thing blows up, we're going to need a pouch and we're going to have to go through it. And then, and then after fancy, we, we tested this out at fancy food and the feedback was so great in terms of like the look of the bag. Like I was not expecting, I was literally expecting at the end of that show to like, okay, we got to change the package. Right. And all the feedback was like, no, like it, it stands out.

19:55It looks and feels rustic. And I had to go back to my team here. And I was like, like, guys, I'm, I'm like, I was sitting here going like, we're going to have to change this. And they were like, like, what's wrong with you? And I'm like, and I came back and apologized to everybody because I was like, this, this is like what's selling. Yeah. You know, so so there there was, you know, and I think and it was, you know, at that show, too, like we're down we're we're down the two two booths down from from Michael's, which is a restaurant that I grew up going to as a kid. Like every every every baptism and wedding was like, you know, or whatever a bachelor party was at Michael's restaurant in the middle of Brooklyn.

20:37And, you know, so they have this also like I was talking to those guys about like same idea, like you have this iconic restaurant that everybody locally knows. But like, how do you expand that to a larger scale? So that's what we're trying to figure out now is like people know the diner. most of our customer base is local but also clearly from the city and and from Brooklyn like you know right so my in my neighborhood I constantly see people working or walking around with our merchandise uh and so it's really exciting to me but I also realize like if we're gonna if this thing's gonna go anywhere we need to kind of leverage the brand past the city right Right.

21:29I told you, my girlfriend grew up in Brooklyn. She went to Ithaca, so she would always go to Phoenicia Diner. And when I told her you were coming on and that we were getting the pancake mix, she's like, oh, my God. She hears about everyone coming on, but like you genuinely, she was like, I am so excited. This is so cool. So that's why we brought the girls also to Panisha Diner. So we had a whole thing. But I think you've done a great job with leveraging your core audience, the people who would be the most excited about supporting, sharing, and starting with your own backyard, literally, and then expanding there.

22:09And I think CCT is such a cool opportunity to grow, especially for restaurants. Especially for restaurants. There's only so much you could do, right? Right, exactly. In your space. What would be the ideal scenario with the CPG brand? Like what is like the North Star of how you see that expanding? Yeah, well, I do. I think the North Star for me is to, you know, just get it,

22:40expand to more SKUs and product lines. I'm not saying stonewall kitchen, right? I'm not, not thinking in those scenarios, but I do think like, there's nothing at the moment that we can see, you know, like that, that there's a lot of pancake mixes out there, but there's also, but I don't think, I don't see anything tied to a diner and my brain is wired. And I think a lot of people are like that, the accessibility, the concept of a diner is always this accessibility. Like, you know, it's not, it's not, you know, high end, it's not, it should be, you know, relatively affordable. It's breakfast and lunch.

23:19So it's not, you know, it's not white tablecloth. So I think that the mindset, if I can figure out a way of connecting, you know, people might not know Phoenicia diner, but they're going to know diner, right so they're going to know that idea right so so I'm hoping like to leverage that somehow because I feel like diner culture has gone through a big shift I'm I'm from Long Island we always went to the diner absolutely right everything was like we'll meet you at the diner after I mean that was literally all of our family friends me as a teenager like everyone went to the diner. But I've noticed just in other places or different cultures, like it's not as much of a thing today.

24:04So I think what's really cool, and I've seen some people try to have their take on diner culture. But I think what you're doing is really cool is that you have an iconic diner. You're not trying to super modernize the actual space, but you're bringing it to a way that you can expand on what makes it unique and also bring that culture, that authenticity, that feeling, that warmth to more consumers across the country, even if they're not in any way close proximity to the physical space. I'm obsessed with it. No, no. And it's funny. And I said, you know, and so am I. And not because I'm trying to, it's a fun puzzle for me to try to figure out.

24:49And look, Like, you know, coming at it from, you know, like I said, the diner, you know, to a large extent has given me a runway to do this. Like, so it's very generous, a generous runway. But also to, you know, figure out like the, and you probably come across this with other founders. Like, there's this pull in every direction. You know, like, hey, you know, you need to open up in the city. Hey, you need, you know, you should blow this thing out and out. And all those polls, like I think from a, I think coming at this at a later date, a later time in life, you know, my, I do have a healthy dose of skepticism and a moment where I need to think this through because, you know, we were looking recently at a space in the city that, you know, just because the lore is there, like, you know, you need to see the space is perfect.

25:45And I went there and I'm like, you know, like, how do I make this authentic? And the answer was, you can't. So like, you know, it's not going to it's not going to work. Like if I was going to do I think the only way we can do this is to kind of, you know, with the brand, try to come up with products that that feel like they would have come out of this diner at some point. Right on the money. I agree with that so much. And again, I love that extension of restaurant to CPG and how to do that really well. Something that you just touched upon that I would love to close out with is advice. You are so experienced in also creating new chapters, new careers, going into a whole new realm that, you know, that you were able to figure out and do really well.

26:37Now going into CPG and something that you also touched upon of being pulled in so many different directions. There's a lot of young entrepreneurs who listen to this podcast who are just getting their feet wet in entrepreneurialism and putting their ideas out there. What piece of advice would you share with them of just something that you've learned over the years? Right. That, you know, I. Over time, I think I think if I was going to blurt out just like a response to that, it's like slow it down. And, and, but I, because like I was saying, like there was an, and even, you know, when, when I get these pulls in these directions, I, I, I go, I follow these roads down.

27:29Like I really do some homework and what makes sense. And then I take a step back and I kind of put it to a few people that know the brand, that, you know, maybe family, maybe friends, maybe people that work with me here and put it out there. And a lot of times it's very funny, you know, like even with this pull to like open up in the city there was a more than a few people's like hey don't not yet like like you're you're you're you've you've done that like you it's going to be really hard to duplicate all the unique components of where of here so like right so so i think um a would be just take a minute and and and don't your gut you should listen to your gut but you should also like like just involve friends and family around you to kind of think through some of these next steps.

28:27Because like right now, even on the CPG side, like I've been wanting to get into these larger locations. So we're in a bunch of boutique places, you know. But again, you know, if we end up in a larger place at some point, you know, those margins start to get smaller. And the pressure, it's so weird because I'm like, I could sell this pancake mix at the diner all day long at a very healthy margin because like I said, I make it for X, I sell it for Y at the diner. Right. And I'm good. I could do this all day, but it's not going to grow the brand quicker. And, you know, when I came to this later on, you know, when we know now we're at this precipice of like, you know, we went to the, we did this fancy food, we got feedback, which was incredible, like giving me a little more momentum.

29:22I think that that was a really good investment, by the way, of just putting it out there. Yeah. And one of the things, Kelly, that really struck me, us and me in particular, there were more people that showed up at the booth and said that they had, they knew the diner. And And then when I questioned further, which I always do, I'm like, have you been there? The answer was more often than not, no, I haven't been there, but I've heard of it. My friends talk about it. You know, it's on my list to go. So to me, that was the fuel for us to go, okay, like this brand has some recognition past somebody who's been here, you know, like physically.

30:07Yeah, I feel like that's kind of been the fuel for us to like keep moving this forward. Yeah, that's I mean, brands spend millions of dollars creating that brand awareness. I know. And look, it's not overnight either. I opened this place in 2012. So like it's like I am only now like about a year and a half to two years of seriously kind of moving this CPG line forward. So so it's taken a while to build it. It's also taken, like I said, a moment in time for me to step back and go, okay, like what's next here? Right. And so I'm not saying that's slow things. Be slow about maneuvering, but slow down.

30:52Like don't just jump at the next brass ring because I think it does – the allure sometimes is not the reality. And when you are an entrepreneur, a founder, an owner, you're going to hear so much feedback all the time. And this is something I really emphasize to my clients because I work with them pre-launch to then launch. So right when they start putting their name, their brand, their product out there, they're almost within the first 24 hours. I know they're going to get inundated with stuff. Right, right. And so I really try to help them stay true to their own point of view so that they feel confident continuing and taking that beat of like, you don't have to listen to everything.

31:36You don't have to move at a rapid pace. Listen to yourself, your gut. So thank you. I'm going to definitely send this episode to clients. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah. Last question. I know I have to let you go, but what are some retailers in the city that has your pancake mix and anywhere else that we could shop? Yeah. Pop-up grocer in the city, Big Night. There are also Poppies, which is a few. Yeah. Yeah. It's over in my neighborhood. So you could find it on shelves there. And it's always fun to go into those places. I don't, I rarely wear, I rarely wear like diner swag, but, but every once in a while I'll have my diner cap on or something and, and I'll run into somebody like, Oh, like I've been to, I've been to that diner and I'm like, did you enjoy it?