Rose Previte: Restaurateur and Entrepreneur

21:58Rose Previte:So I quickly learned very hard to get loans when you have no experience and no name. So we were just pulling money from everywhere. I had some angel investor friends and family. My business partner did end up getting a small business loan by putting his house on the line as collateral. really scary, but the cost kept adding up to beyond what we expected. And then, yeah, I mean, we were scraping for pennies by the end and the engagement ring was kind of the only thing I had at the time, but that was where we were at. And I wanted it so badly that there was nothing you could say that was too much at the time.

22:30Rose Previte:I was like, I will do anything to get this off the ground. I should also mention my first restaurant was in 150 year old row house. So it was a complicated build out, which is why the overages were so, so much. If I told you what I paid for it. Now it seemed cheap, but at the time, 12 years ago, nothing felt cheap to me. So because it was in a row house, the kitchen is very tiny. So part of the menu was actually decided on by the limitations of the kitchen. Like we can only do so much because it was so small. So I think your kitchen determines a lot of your menu as well as your cost of goods. Of course, like it wasn't like we were ever like, well, yes, I lived in Russia, but we ain't putting caviar on this menu, you know?

23:05Rose Previte:And it was also supposed to be more casual. It was more of a casual restaurant. It was actually meant to be a bar when we started. But when the chef and I got going, the food kept going up and up and up and it landed where it was supposed to be. It was still a casual restaurant, but it was kind of meant to be even more casual than it ended up being. Got it. Okay. So talk to me about opening day. I think I blacked out for most of it. I don't even know if I remember it, but I do remember the first early weeks. I was unknown. So I was just relying on friends, family, neighbors. We had had a very difficult opening in getting our liquor license.

23:36Rose Previte:So I had ended up taking six to eight months of just fighting for it. But what actually ended up happening was the community who I kept having to reach out to for help, letters of support, come to the community meeting and support me. A lot of people I had never met before had become friends and become invested in the success of the business. So I kind of had this accidental base that like through the fight, I had found friends and allies and they were our base as well. And then, you know, David had to make up to me all of this living in Russia. So he basically got NPR folks to show up like every day.

24:07Rose Previte:And I think they were like the majority of the people that showed up for the first few months. And by word of mouth, it started to spread. But it took years to really get to, you know, where we ended up being, which was, you know, very busy and brunches and all this stuff. At the beginning, you are just like opening the doors and hoping they come in. It's hard. Did social media play a role in any of your marketing at that point in time? Yeah, I will say, of course, we had Facebook was much bigger and And Twitter, the NPR folks and the journalist friends coming in really helped because they had Twitter accounts and they would tweet like, you know, hey, at Rose Privates, you know, David Green's wife's like new place.

24:41Rose Previte:So that really helped. But Instagram was in its infancy. So really, it was still like Facebook, word of mouth, specials, happy hours, just trying to get people in the door. That's incredible. So as Compass Rose continues to grow, as you're like getting solidified, at what point did you start thinking about opening another restaurant? A couple of years. We opened in 2014. I opened Maidon in 2017. So three years. Walk me through that. I wasn't thinking about it really, except a developer came in and then he said, Hey, I really love your aesthetic. I love what you're doing. I have this building you might like.

25:19Rose Previte:And no one had ever said that to me. So I'm like, I'm curious. It's down the street. I'll go. And so when I saw this building that's now Maidon, And I knew that in the back of my head, I wanted a fire-based concept because in all of this traveling, we were always eating street food. We were always outside. I was not allowed to have fire at Compass Rose. I couldn't get that past the city. So I was looking for a place that would let me have fire. And this old warehouse had big high ceilings. And I thought that's where I could put the fire. And so as I looked into it, it turned out I could. And also found a couple of chefs that were like-minded kindred spirits, told them I wanted to represent my culture.

25:53Rose Previte:the best way to do that would be with an ancestral way of cooking. And we started to build a hearth and this crazy little fire concept. I took them traveling around the Middle East so they could meet grandmothers like mine and cook with them in their homes so they could learn not just the recipes, but like the families and the stories and like the passion that's in it. And they absorbed it and we came back and created this menu from our five country tour that had Lebanese at its core and Levantine food. but we also went to Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, and Georgia, as well as Lebanon. I like to say the menu goes from Batumi to Beirut and from Tangiers to Tehran.

26:30Rose Previte:So if you think of that region, that's all represented on the menu. It was kind of, again, sort of a chemistry. Everything was sort of magic at the time and came together to create what is now Medan, but was not like something I had been creating for years in my head. It was, again, very organic. That's so interesting too. And also this was reactive to some extent because you had the developer come to you and say like, this is a different opportunity. Is the financial situation different because they want you to develop this concept? And is a developer helpful with that? Yes. They did give us the money to help us.

26:59Rose Previte:I don't ever take what in LA we call second generation spaces, right? Like they were restaurants before. I try to completely convert old buildings that were never intended. So it is a much bigger build out. Why? I think they come with a lot more soul, a lot more energy of the people and the lives that live there. Just to give you an idea, Compass Rose, I knew I loved the building. It was exactly what I wanted. I lived upstairs for the first three years. I lived in my restaurant. That was my goal. I wanted to live in my business like my grandfather had lived above his Italian grocery store. Only thing is my grandfather did not see any problem with working day and night.

27:31Rose Previte:And I was doing the same thing until David one day was like, I think we've had enough of this, like living in the restaurant. And we moved across the street. But that's how deeply I felt about this being my home and extending my home to other people. I actually lived in it. And when I was doing research on the building, I went to the public library to look up the history of the house, just to tell you how I knew this was my house. When I found the building permit, it was stamped on my birthday in 1887, October 18th, 1887. I was like, this is my house. So when I tell you I connect to these buildings, I'm not lying.

27:59Rose Previte:And the same thing with Maidon, I just walked in and I knew it was going to be my building. And then I had to make it work, which means an enormous build out, but I love construction and I love design. And so, you know, all these buildings are old and they come with constraints, but I've always found the constraints like part of the opportunity. And I think, you know, the history adds to what it becomes and people feel it, even if they don't have this vocabulary, the words they use, like it's transportive. I was like, yeah, it's because of the energy that was already there. So was it easier the second time around?

28:29Were there new complications? At this point, you have a track record. At this point, you have a developer. Did that make the process easier with Maidon?

28:39Rose Previte:Some things were easier, of course, and some things were harder. Like harder, we had to find more money because it was bigger, right? It was a big girl project. So as much as the landlord helps, more money had to be found. And then one of the nice things that came with being known was that instead of having to build the clientele, like I did a compass, the reverse happened. And when I opened the doors, we were actually busier than I expected. So we were wildly understaffed and overwhelmed. So that lesson was completely new, which was, again, a huge blessing. but like I was the host for the first six months.

29:10Rose Previte:I didn't leave the door because we had so many people, which again, like everyone says is what you want, but if you don't know how to deal with it. It's a problem. It's a problem. And until we could get ahold of it and got the right staffing and everything, it was wild. So I learned a lot in that side of it too. Talk to me about the staffing piece of it. Are you good at hiring? How have you learned to do that piece of it over time? Yeah, next to money, staffing is the hardest thing in my opinion. And I think most of us would say the same thing. I also got a very rude awakening with Maidon as far as staffy went.

29:39Rose Previte:I had done something at Compass Rose I see a lot of younger managers do, which is until you know how to manage, you befriend everyone. And Compass was kind of lightning in a bottle as far as like the people that came to work there. And we were very close. And so it did run like a family atmosphere. That only works very rarely. And it didn't work off the bat at Maidon. And so I had to learn to manage very quickly. And then what I also learned and would recommend anyone else do is quickly hire people that know more about it than you do. And that is what I've done. And to this day, I have some amazing managers who are just so good with staffing and with managing the staff.

30:18Rose Previte:And so now I rely on them greatly. So I've learned a lot, but I've also learned to teach and then not have that be my job anymore. So that's kind of my answer is find someone that already knows how to do it. Yep. I get it. Okay. So then as if you don't have enough on your plate, then a few years later, you started go there wines. Talk to me about the ethos behind that and what it's become. And we still have a lot to cover. Where does this energy come from? Comes from my mama. I swear, you met the woman in my family. There is a lot of energy. Like they're in their 80s now and still like running.

30:51Rose Previte:Yeah. So I do think there's some genetics, probably some equal parts anxiety that we're just channeling into positivity here with like a good work ethic. but it was also COVID. So two years after Maidon opens, we're living large and we're hitting on all cylinders, all the awards, Michelin star, and then boom, it's COVID. And so those years were when I started go there because I wasn't working the way I was used to. We were working in a horrible other way. We were in a survival mode, but it was a very different type of work. And I think we found a lot of joy in creating a wine company because I'm very proud of our wine programs, all the restaurants, they had been formed also out of my Russia experience.

31:28Rose Previte:See, David will tell you, complain all you want, but look how much you learned, right? I keep saying, and I know he's going to hear this. So here you go. I said it. But we discovered living in Moscow, this whole Georgia thing comes up again, where every expat was like, you've got to drink Georgia wine. It's the best wine. It's cheap. It's great. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And then we discovered it when we went to Georgia and it was great, but we couldn't get it in Moscow because it was embargoed. Hillary, going back to policy, this is where my policy brain and my food and beverage being mixed.

31:54Rose Previte:And I was like, boom, wine is geopolitical. Like, duh, why didn't I think of this? Why didn't I do this in school? But now I'm realizing big countries can punish little countries that rely on wine as like a huge part of their economy. So Georgia was spiraling. They had lost an enormous amount of income. Positive twist, they pivoted and started turning towards Europe. European winemakers moved there. Now they're producing for a Western market. But I've realized that I can make a difference going right back to why I moved to DC in the world if I sell wine from lesser known regions of the world and support lesser known winemakers, primarily women and people of color.

32:31Rose Previte:And I'm like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. So all the wine lists since the inception of Compass Rose have always had this mission, but now it's COVID. No one can come in the restaurant. I also believe coming from the Midwest that people in the middle need to know these stories and these wines because we have so much more access on the coast. Really the people that need to learn about amber wine and how much the Soviets screwed over Georgia for all those decades and destroy their wine industry, all that stuff we don't know. And so I wanted to tell those stories. And by opening Go There, I put everything online as a direct-to-consumer platform so that now you can get Georgian and Lebanese wine mailed to you in Ohio.

33:11Rose Previte:And the story behind it. The winemaker stories is a huge part of the company. And hopefully little by little, everyone understands each other better. Right. And that was the mission of what I do in the restaurants. But then with Go There, I was able to get it even farther afield. And it's been really exciting. And like I said, Lebanese wine has a similar story to Georgia. Like they've been making wine for generations, my ancestral homeland, but nobody knows about it because of war and economy and things like that. So I'm just trying to just be a little part of the system that gets a little bit of a voice for people that don't have one.

33:42I mean, it's really smart. As awful as the pandemic has been and continues to be, there are some like new businesses that have come out of it that I think would not have necessarily been the pivot otherwise that are ultimately like really wonderful and bright lights. And that's one of them. also you decided to open another concept in 2022 kirby club so at what point did you start ideating what made you decide to keep pushing forward during this like complicated time i'll

34:16Rose Previte:still have to probably work on that in therapy for a while too before i know the really whole answer but the part of the answer is i think we had just been going so fast and furious and then it was this shutdown so there was a part of like getting time to sit and talk about things that weren't just the day-to-day because the day-to-day was pretty like nothing compared to what we were used to. We went from 200 people a night to just takeout boxes. Like it was just such a dramatic shift that like we were sitting there. It was actually also a COVID realization. My business partner was from Northern Virginia.

34:45Rose Previte:I had said like, Hey, people are moving to the suburbs to get out of the city. Maybe there's an opportunity to make this concept a little bit more casual and put it out in the suburbs. So I was really more supporting someone else's vision on that one. That was my first time doing that where it was not totally my idea. You know, I helped and I was able to get creative in the process. But yeah, it was not originally my idea. So that was a different thing too. And I think definitely a product of COVID. Got it. And then talk to me about when you finally decided to make a proper restaurant group for all of your concepts.

35:14Rose Previte:Yeah. You don't actually open thinking I'm going to have this many restaurants and I need an overarching, you know, company. None of that was on the schedule. So now here we are with a few restaurants and I feel like every time I'm going to an event or being interviewed, I'm like, Rose Previta, Compass Rose, Maidon. It just started to list the things. And I'm like, that's too many names. Like, let's just put it under one. We started, you know, to have some employees that would help in different places. And so I was like, you know what, let's start to put this under one umbrella. And I chose the name No White Plates because this goes to my roots.

35:45Rose Previte:My early chef at Compass Rose was very formally trained. and you know, week one that he's there, he's like, where are the white plates, Rose? Where are the white plates? And I was like, we don't have any, Sam. Like, I don't believe in white plates. They're boring. There's all these colors. Everything is bohemian. I'm a maximalist. Like, why would I have a white plate? And he's like, oh, bro, chefs like white plates because they highlight the artistry of the food. And I was like, that is not what I'm about. You know? And I think that was the first moment though I realized that I was doing things differently.

36:14Rose Previte:I wasn't doing it by the way culinary school would have taught me to do it. And I'm proud of that, but it does take some explaining often because people like to silo everything and like you're a chef, so you're this way and you're a restaurateur and you're this way. And I'm like, I'm just this way. And it might be a whole different category. And so no way place like summed that up for me. I am a restaurant group, but I want you to know that we do things differently. I love that. Also, but just because you are literally the busiest person ever at the same time, you were also working on and then released your cookbook, Maidan, Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond.

36:45I am an owner of it. I love it. I cook from it on a regular basis. That obviously seems like a natural next step, but I also have interviewed so many cookbook authors on this podcast. I am very well aware of the enormity of that project, of the expense of the project between recipe testing and photography and design and all of that. So talk to me about what that process was like for you.

37:10Rose Previte:Nothing that I did was any different than all the things you just said, but it was something I had always wanted. My dad and I, he was a many, many year subscriber of Gourmet Magazine, and he bought all of the cookbooks. And while we had this strong food background, it was very specific and limited to Italian and Lebanese. So Gourmet Magazine was this world of French cuisine in Europe and things, and we would study it together and I would bake. And, you know, cookbooks were just this portal to worlds that I did not know. And we had always talked about also writing down all the family recipes that we all only know by heart.

37:44Rose Previte:So all the Lebanese dishes that I just make that I have never written down, that I also wanted to make sure were recorded for the family. So that was super important to me. But also getting the restaurant recipes was super important. So I wanted it. I didn't care how hard it was, but it was so hard. And I also did not know how hard it was going to be. And to your point, the timing, never in my favor. Kirby Club was opening right as we were in the final stretches of editing and photography. So I was like running from my photographer's house to Kirby Club to open it for days. And it was just a wild couple of weeks, but it got done.

38:19Rose Previte:You don't make any money off of it. True. But if you are really passionate about it, it feels like something that will live on after me. It was worth all the work. Well, it's beautiful. And as I said, like I do cook from it on a regular basis. It's excellent for anyone who's listening who doesn't have it. It's a wonderful gift. Thank you. It's for yourself or for someone else. So again, like all of these things going on, you're also then opening a bar in DC. Why a bar? Oh, well, again, another COVID. God, so much of the like, really this last decade, I think we're all going to do this, but wow, I keep saying it.

38:53Rose Previte:In COVID, this building that houses Maidon is a bigger building. It's called Manhattan Laundry. And there was another business that had been a gym that had to exit during COVID. and the space opened up. The landlord said, Hey, do you want a little bit more space? So we really did need space. The idea was just to get more kitchen space. Then he's like, well, then there's like a thousand more square feet. Would you want that? And I was like, why not have a few more seats? And so I had never done a cocktail bar. I have deep bartender roots. So I thought it'd be cool to have a little annex of Maidon where people could sit, wait for their table, come late night after Maidon is done.

39:29Rose Previte:They could go over there and have drinks and continue their night. You know, there's a lot of reasons for it, but yeah, I love a bar. I do like that idea, though, of like, this is capturing more of the experience, whether it's a pre-drink or a post-drink or spillover or whatever it is. It's like you can be that full destination and capture them both before and after their meal, which is kind of genius. I love it. Okay, so then maybe, what was it, like a year and change ago, you decided to transform Compass, your very first restaurant. Talk to me about why you decided to do that. Yeah. So Compass was intended the lease to be 10 years.

40:08Rose Previte:We went 11. So, you know, at the end of a lease, you have to start thinking about, is this time? Is it time to go? And I really believe that Compass Rose has always personified me. Like we are connected. We are the same. I know that sounds ridiculous, but she is a nomad. She was based on travel and it was time to move. 11 years in one place is a long time for a nomad and Compass came to LA with me. So she's going strong in a different form here, but it had to vacate that space. I just knew it had run its course basically. And there were a lot of people that did not agree with me and a lot of loyal customers that were upset, but I said, look, I have the building.

40:44Rose Previte:We did renew the lease, but I decided those years needed to be filled with something else. And All Day Cafe had always been something I wanted to do. the neighborhood had changed a lot from when I opened. When I opened in 2014, it was much younger. There were still kids down the street in group houses coming to drink, drink, like it was a bar. They're gone. And now the neighborhood is all families and stuff. So, you know, you also evolve with what your guests want and the neighborhood and Gen Z has different likes than the millennials that were coming in 2014. And so we went into coffee shop all day cafe, a lighter touch for the 150-year-old house.

41:18Rose Previte:I closed for a few months, renovated. We had beat her up for 11 years. I mean, this place was destroyed. So I had to just redo the kitchen and all the stuff. And then, yeah, it's reopened as a coffee shop, souk. And then in the evening, we're a little bit of a wine bar. We have cocktails as well, but you can just snack. Again, boards, the Hadjipori, we kept it. The most signature dish that I had originally opened, Compass Rose Round, is still there for breakfast or dinner now. And so yeah, it has a different life. And you also expanded into CPG, right? Yes. Souk is also the brand that houses my spice, olive oil, tahini company that is just starting, but also has an online presence.

41:56Rose Previte:Same reason. I want people everywhere to be able to experience sumac from Kurdistan and tahini from Kurdistan and za 'atar from Palestine. And all of these cool things that I have to source for the restaurants, but are hard to get, especially to get regularly and from a safe source and all this stuff. So I just started packaging it. One, so if you're using the cookbook, you can find the products more easily. Two, if you have a cool experience at Maidon and you want to take it home, it's right there at the door, or you can order it from Souk when you get home, or we can ship them to you online.

42:26Rose Previte:Again, there's an education in every one of these items. Who's heard of blue fenugreek? Nobody. But I rely on it for so many of my recipes. It's a Georgian spice. I use it on a couple items that are staples to our menu. So I just thought, why not share it with everybody? I also love it because that's also scale for hospitality in a way. It's like you can be anywhere and you can experience it. It feels like it goes very nicely with the cookbook. Oh, it does. It all correlates to the cookbook. A lot of people ask me where to get some of the things. So you can get them from me. And a lot of the products too, we know the farmers as much like the wine.

43:00Rose Previte:I know my winemakers. I know the folks who made the olive oil, like their family, olive groves. We press them in Lebanon. We've put a little bit of money back into the economy, which is again, the policy side where we're trying to help people and change communities. So by buying from small villages in Lebanon, it's a little bit of microeconomic development as well. So everything there has meaning or a family behind it that we know. So talk to me about your most recent project expanding to LA. It just made me so thrilled. Oh, thank you for saying that. It has been in my head for 10 years and it took, took really from the day I found the building until now.

43:35Rose Previte:It was six years, but I found the building in 2019. Same story. That was the building. I just knew it when I walked in. I was like, it has to be here. Love West Adams. Love the neighborhood. Had every element I thought my market needed to have. So I found in 2019, COVID, cold stop for a few years, and then really started back up in 2022. Got another big delay because of the supply chain. So I'd say 18 months of construction got us to an October 2025 opening. It has been a dream realized. I wanted Compass Rose to be the market. My early architectural plans had the tables looking like vendor stalls, but it's 1800 square feet.

44:15Rose Previte:There was no way it was ever going to have that market energy and vibe. So I kept the idea in my head that I would mimic the great markets that I was able to go to in the world. The night markets in Seoul, South Korea, Mexico City has tons of them all over the Middle East. Every part of the world has these cool marketplaces except us. So I instead have seven businesses, three I run, four rent from me, and we created this 10 ,000 square foot global village of my personal dreams. I love it. So how has it been for you building outside of DC? New challenges. Can't stop with the challenges, Hillary.

44:49Rose Previte:All of the things that I was warned of, much more regulation, much more limitations. That is all true. Fortunately is my fifth opening. So it wasn't as traumatic. I will say the difference between Compass and the others has also been like, Compass was so emotional because it was like, if I don't open this, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. So I had my whole future riding on it. I didn't know how much I was going to like it. I didn't know it was going to lead to other restaurants. But as you become a little more detached emotionally, you can also handle things better. Every delay does not make you think you're losing your life's work.

45:22Rose Previte:You're like, I know I'll get past it. You can kind of measure it and you know it will be okay in the end. So you can handle the obstacles a little bit better. But yeah, things here are tough. I will say I have been welcomed by an amazing community of female chefs and restaurateurs. I have found in LA, everyone was so welcoming. The East Coast cities, you still think of male chefs first. I will wager that most people when I think about LA, think of the female chefs first. So Suzanne Going and Mary Sue Mulligan and Susan Feniger, or like literally just reach out. I'm like, what do you need? How can we help?

45:52Rose Previte:That was so cool. I was like, you girls are so nice. Everyone is openly shared and it has been such a lovely experience. And I'm so grateful. It does feel like LA is like generally like nicer than DC. You know, not that I don't have a lot of support in DC. I would say the restaurant community in DC has always been tight, but it's just a friendlier city. So everyone's like, yeah, yeah, have this, have that, you know, so it's been really, really nice. So I have been able to find any resource I needed, even though I am from out of town. The only thing I miss maybe is like, I didn't have a network of like people to pull from.

46:25Rose Previte:So I've had to rely on the managers that I hire who have all been working here for years. So they've brought some people with them and stuff, but yeah, not having worked in a restaurant in LA is my biggest obstacle. I had worked in restaurants in DC, but again, like I said, we were able to find everything and overcome the challenges of regulatory things that later when I have some time, I'm going to go down to city hall and tell them with my policy voice that there are a few things we need to change if you would like small businesses to exist. And in fact, the nature of the entire project is lowering the barrier to entry for the small businesses that I invited in.

46:54Rose Previte:That was intentional because I truly believe that small businesses will not exist in cities like LA and DC for much longer if we don't pull our resources because it is becoming untenable, truly. And I don't want to live in a city that doesn't have these businesses. And like my mom told me, don't complain about a problem if you're not going to be part of the fix. So this project to me is my answer to at least try to group us together, share things, joint resources like the cleaning company, valet, security, in the hopes that we can all afford to do this and give to our communities. Because otherwise we don't all want to be going to chain restaurants, but that is how it is tracking.

47:30Rose Previte:If cities like LA and DC do not make it a little bit easier for us to exist. Yeah. Like what's next? Because you have done so much and I honestly feel a little bit overwhelmed by the scope of how much you have done. And so I don't even want to ask you what's next. But then at the same time, I can't look at your track record and not say, what are you thinking about next? Yeah. That's like the curse of the entrepreneur. Your brain is always like, you can't turn it off. So you are correct. It's not turned off as far as what else can I build? This was such truly an accomplishment that I like needed to finish and it's only seven months old.

48:02Rose Previte:So I've never had anything this big. So the amount of time to get it right is definitely a much longer one than I'm used to. Everything takes a little time when you open it, but 3 ,200 square feet compared to 10 is like night and day. I'm trying to take a breath and just enjoy it. But the Souk brand is actually what I really want to spend the next couple of years growing. I think there is a need for these products. We are still shopping the same brands. My mother and I shopped when I was a little girl at the Middle Eastern markets. They have not evolved and they haven't become boutique or more organic and all these things.

48:37Rose Previte:So I am trying to fill that gap with these products. and grow it online a little bit. That doesn't require a contractor, but I want to start building that and finding the people that are interested in getting these products out further into the world while I grow the two brick and mortar souks in DC and LA because it just feels good. I love bringing the community together. The LA souk has a lot of products made by the diasporas of all the Middle Eastern countries. So a lot of female entrepreneurs, like the Hot Girl Pickles, they are Tunisian. They're based here in LA and they're making these cool harissa pickles and stuff like that.

49:09Rose Previte:I sell their products. It just happens to be mainly women that are coming and saying, Hey, we look at what I make. It's in line with the MENA products that you sell. We sell them here in your market. And so I'm really enjoying the retail side and getting back to my grocer roots with my grandfather actually. So yeah, that's what's next. Good. Okay. And I also like this for you because I feel like that's an easier scale than opening something that involves construction. No construction for at least a year. You have my word. Okay. Okay, so we like to ask everyone on this podcast the same three final questions.

49:44The first one is about mistakes because everyone makes them over the course of their career. We don't always talk about it. I think we tend to all give like highlight reel, but I think it's important to talk about the mistakes because that's how people learn. So can you tell me about a mistake that you've made at any point in your career and what you've learned from it?

50:04Rose Previte:I think I actually made the same mistake over the course of the last 10 years. It's going to sound very simple, but it has taken this entire decade for me to realize that I needed to believe in myself more. I didn't. And when you don't believe in yourself and you don't have the strong core of belief in your own voice, you will listen to everybody else's and be led astray or be convinced that you're not valuable enough. So there are a lot of folks who listen to this podcast who are in their first lives, and they want to do something different. Maybe it's in the same industry, but just a different aspect of it.

50:40Or maybe they want to be like you, and they want to switch industries entirely. But they're scared. They're standing sort of on the precipice of doing something new, but they're nervous about making that leap. What advice would you give someone who's thinking about it, but just hasn't leapt quite yet?

50:56Rose Previte:What I said about my time in the Trans-Siberian, that the later is now. that you might die tomorrow. Why not act like it? What I do find is this self-doubt of it has to be perfect before I take the step. I hear it all of the time. And the best thing I can tell you is just start. You will figure it out. My sister-in-law has called me the most, what did she call it? Free-spirited person. Because we're opposites in this way. She's like, I can never have that much risk. I can never have that much unknown. You do have to find peace with that. But no matter what you do or how prepared you are, there's so much stuff you're not going to know.

51:31Rose Previte:It's like people say with having a baby, you can read all the books, but you still are going to learn all this different stuff because your baby is going to be different than everybody else's. So it's just start. Stop doubting yourself. Stop waiting for everything to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. You will figure it out as you go. That makes sense. Okay. My last question is, if you could take a time machine, go back in time and visit your younger self and give younger Rose some advice, what would you say? I'm going to still repeat what I just said, because that is the main thing I would have said is like, believe in yourself, girl, you've already got the skills.

52:02Rose Previte:You just don't even know that you've got them yet. That's the obvious one, right? Based on what we started with. And then, you know, maybe the other ones would just be keep saying yes. I said yes to a lot and I still do. If there's no like clear danger to like say no, I just say yes. I didn't do that for a long time. My dad talks to be very cautious, say no more than yes. and, you know, DC Rose and meeting David who taught me like, no, like anything is possible. I had just assumed nothing was possible, but you have to get there by saying yes to a lot of things, a lot of people, a lot of experiences, the experience that seems a little scary or might break your bank account, but like do it anyway.

52:41Rose, this was such a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down. I know me too. You are even greater than I had heard and I'd heard really great things about you. So thank you so much for making the time.

52:54Rose Previte:Well, thank you. It's so nice talking to you. Let's have some wine soon. I would love that.

53:06That was restaurateur and entrepreneur, Rose Prevett. For more inspiring interviews with women like Rose, head on over to secondlifepod.com where we have so many more for you to peruse. If you like today's show, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review us. We love seeing you spread the word on social. And now you can tag us in your posts. We are at Second Life Pod on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We always want to know who you're interested in hearing from on the show. So send in your requests to hello at secondlifepod.com or you can DM us on Instagram.

53:46I'm at Hilary Kerr. The show is at Second Life Pod. Our DMs are always open. I'm Hilary Kerr, and you've been listening to Second Life. This episode was produced by Hilary Kerr, Summer Hammeris, and Natalie Thurman. Our production assistant is Grace Ingram. Our audio engineers are at Treehouse Recording in Los Angeles, California, and our music is by Jonathan Leahy.