759: Andrew Tarlow Waited 25 Years to Open in Manhattan. Then Came Borgo.

24:23Andrew Tarlow:And I'd love to have her on the show. I actually reached out one time and never heard back, but maybe we can make that happen. Take us to the time at Odeon. I'd love to see her on the show. That'd be incredible. I would love it. I have so many questions. I really, I thought the memoir was decent. I thought she, like her role in it, keeping it all together, it's like she's the hero of that book. Yeah. What are you taking away from your time at Odeon that is kind of pushing you towards the opening of Diner in 1998? You know, this, and we'll get to that section, but what's Odeon like and what are you learning about the industry?

24:56I really met most, it's really mostly about connections of people. For sure, in terms of service and taking care of guests, in terms of like returning guests, we learned a lot. I think the spirit of Odeon being in Tribeca at the time, like how it opened and it being sort of a destination, we really felt that when we opened Diner. We felt this sort of like transition to from Tribeca, which already become this thing at Williamsburg at that time, especially on the south side, was so desolate. For sure, even more desolate than what Tribeca was. But we felt like we were carrying on a kind of torch of the place in that capacity.

25:35It's cool.

25:35Andrew Tarlow:Making that connection to late 70s Tribeca when it opened and then south of Williamsburg. Yeah, even like I can reflect on like Lynn coming. I had a loft down there with my business partner, Mark, and she came down to the loft and she'd be like, oh, yeah, this is like what our loft was like when we had two little kids trying to play soccer in the in the main room. You know, it's like we were living in a very bohemian kind of way that like I think people in Jamaica were also living in back in the 70s and early 80s. Well, let's stick with Diner. I spoke with you about 10 years ago, actually, for a piece I wrote on Taze.

26:10That's right.

26:11Andrew Tarlow:I love this line, a quote you had. We had no heat, no power, no cooking instruments, and it was one of the best meals of my life. You said this of the first night of service at Diner. you know take us back to that moment of this friends and family like getting things started in south Williamsburg in the late 90s yeah so we all built this restaurant together um we didn't really have we had a few paid carpenters and one person who is now still my best friend in this thing that we met during that process um and we huddled in the back room of diner in the back corner again no heat we're all cold we're wearing two sweaters and caroline brought this cassoulet that she had cooked in my house down the street and a big pot for you know and um kept it warm kept it really hot and we put it down and we had never tasted our food before right so we had hired a chef that we hadn't actually even asked to cook for us and that was the first bite of food and i remember just looking around at the table at those people and i was like almost teary right like you You can almost just feel it.

27:19It's just such an emotional moment. And I knew, I turned to my wife at that time, and I was like, you know, in my eyes, I was like basically like, oh, we're going to be okay. Like it's going to go, right? It's going to work. Was it having food in the space for the first time? Because it's such a unique space. Oh, yeah. I mean, eating hot, that was the first time we ever ate hot food in the space. Yeah. I mean, that's the first time we've tasted Caroline's food, like all the things. And then Caroline ended up, you know, being the chef at Diner, and then even at Marlin's Owns for 10 years, right?

27:48So like our legacy together was a very long tenure. Absolutely. Of course, Salty as well. I mean, Salty.

27:54Andrew Tarlow:Can't forget that place. Can't forget Salty. I feel like we've written so many Salty tributes and we will continue to write that. Oh man, forever. Forever. Yeah. What's the first couple of years like a diner in terms of figuring out the menu? You know, the style of service, still to this day, truly one of the most joyous events. You walk in, you've got a great server who's literally drawing the menu on a piece of paper, which to this day, it's not novel, it's canon, and I love it. Thank you. The first years were so much fun. You know, we all worked together. We worked, in essence, five to six days a week.

28:30We had a strong community of people who were really responding well to it. So I think when you're making something from your heart and people are coming back for it and really, you know, engaging it and like asking for it, it's super fulfilling, you know? And yeah, reflecting on those times, it was just like, and we obviously learned a lot. We didn't know how to run a business, you know? How do you use QuickBooks? How do you even use a computer? I mean, again, we wrote the menu on the paper and I know it feels like a cliche and weird, but we did it because I actually forgot and we all forgot that we needed printed menus, right?

29:08This was a solution that we had at 5.45 when we were going to open at 6 o 'clock day one. Crazy. Right? So, and we thought we were actually going to put in the very beginning, we did the checks on the table. So we would write the dollar amount and then your total bill. And then if we were going to comp something, we'd put a heart on it. And then we realized after like a couple of weeks, we didn't have any receipts. Yeah. So we had no way of knowing if we had gotten an audit or someone asked me, can I have a receipt for my dinner? We didn't actually have it.

29:42Andrew Tarlow:Yeah, like the P &L, you know the T &E would be hard to find out. Yeah, so that kind of solution-based on-the-ground thinking has really informed a lot of the work that we've done over the years. It's really cool. it's like the ingenuity and like working with the resources you had and that all tracks. I think the diner clearly got on the radar of many. I think you had a clientele of a lot of artists living in those like South Williamsburg, like Orthodox Williamsburg kind of. And in the late 90s, again, very different from even a decade later. And of course, 20 years later, it's very different.

30:23Andrew Tarlow:Like I know like James Murphy and DFA, those guys are always there. You see it in some of those documentaries about those guys. but you had our interesting clientele, and it probably helped grow the mystique of Diner. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we had lots of artists there, still have lots of artists there, carpenters, musicians, I mean, everybody, really. Yeah. I mean, I don't like to name names, but, yeah, we've had everybody in the room for sure. Yeah, you're humble about that. I named the names, but I think that's a cool thing. Very humble operator. You're not doing a lot of media. that's why I've always respected you.

31:00Andrew Tarlow:I think you just really engender a lot of love within staff, and I think it's something that I've always respected. I want to talk about farm to table, man, like creating this ethic at Marlowe and Sons, and really today we see Marlowe's fingerprints from Seattle to Soul. You're seeing natural wine. You're seeing handwritten menus. You're seeing all these things that you kind of innovated with this restaurant. What does that feel like? It's almost like a global cliche at this point, like the farm to table. But you, like, started that. Yeah. I mean, I think, well, I mean, I would say for a farm to table, I feel like you have to give your hats to Alice Chapanese, obviously, Alice Waters.

31:48And I also have to say Caroline Fidanza really coming from Savoy. And Peter Hoffman really is the one who brought that to our world. I would probably have just served eggs all day with French fries. I could have easily diverged in a field at that point. So I think that stuff all really came through Caroline and through a lineage of those people that I mentioned.

32:19Andrew Tarlow:there's like an element I guess farm to table you're so right like of course Peter Hoffman you have to give him credit and you have to give obviously going back to the west coast yeah it's almost like maybe I'll recast it a little bit like it's not just farm to table but it's like Brooklyn farm to table yeah I think the thing that we've yeah I think the thing we really did that's maybe a little different is that we started sourcing whole animals once we really got the vegetables down yeah and then building the butcher shop first the butcher shop was in front Marlon Suns in that little store and then opening our own butcher shop.

32:51And, you know, we still source, you know, about two cows a week, a cow and a half a week, at least one to two pigs. And all that work that happens, the craft of like breaking down that animal and turning it into all these different cuts, that I think was the one thing that we really did innovate and start, at least, you know, in those restaurants. And for sure, like the Meat Hook guys, all three of them came out of working at diner and working at marlon sons and i'm sorry working at marlon daughters um and that was you know learning that stuff and like having teams of people learning how to do that work was i think very um informative for how we approach food yeah

33:37Andrew Tarlow:i mean you've got the caroline era and you've got the dave gold and sean remboldt era too sure that's huge when they teamed up like maybe 07, 08 I'm paraphrasing and like that was a that was a different era I felt like that having those two chefs there I loved I loved that restaurant that's great yeah yeah me too so yeah Caroline so Dave and Sean worked under Caroline and then when Caroline left after 10 years they both came up and then took over yeah and they did an incredible job and obviously I'm still very close to Sean and Dave and also Caroline so it's it's great to have these people do that work and still have them in my life.

34:13It's cool.

34:14Andrew Tarlow:It does a lot. And then Dave went ahead and opened Romans. And now Sean has opened Inga's. Yeah, Inga's. And he's about to open a second restaurant. Oh, really? I mean, Inga's in Brooklyn Heights, like the true neighborhood restaurant. Yeah, you should get Sean on the show. I feel like I remember talking to Sean a lot in that era when I was writing it. He would love to come talk to you. Yeah, it's a good reminder. I haven't seen Sean in years. And it's a great reminder. And why are you all still close? Is it just like clearly you just kept. I mean, we work so close together. We were just bonded, you know.

34:48Also, I think at that time, it's like the people who stick around you. You obviously are connected to you want to see each other in some way. You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense? It's like if you worked for only two years, yeah, we would still be friends. and maybe we'd go to dinner and we would like stay in touch, but it's more like staying in touch versus like those people we worked for so long together. We're just like, we're just like sandwiched, you know?

35:19Andrew Tarlow:I mean, and also it's a very unique job. It's an intimate job. It's a lot of highs and lows. Yeah. Dave also now works. I mean, there's also some connection. Dave now works on a farm that I'm very close to in Long Island called the Hog Farm. And he works with another guy, Sean, who runs that farm. And we buy a lot of organic produce in the summer from Sean. And Dave actually works on that farm and does a lot of the value-added products for that farm. Well, let's talk about the opening of Borgo. It's your first opening in a decade. And I just want to get into it. It's definitely one of my favorite new restaurants, many on the show, as I mentioned.

35:56Andrew Tarlow:And I think it all really holds up. And it's on a really unique block. Did you always seek out a location, an address in Manhattan for your Manhattan debut that was maybe a little bit not in the West Village? Yeah, I mean, I think that restaurant, Borgo, for sure hit a lot of the buttons for me. For sure, it being in that location, I like that. 27th? On 27th. I like that when I would tell people, they were like, what are you thinking? You know, like that actually was like, oh, maybe I'm on to something. But also I want to give props to you. Truly, you know, they were there for 25 years. Running a restaurant for 25 years is, you know, very difficult.

36:42I'm on your 28th diner, so for sure I know what that means. And people got married there. People got engaged there. People, you know, like so much love had happened in those 25 years as a restaurant. It had a huge courtyard in the back. It has a wood-burning oven. in the kitchen and it has a working fireplace. So, I mean, I would sort of take those three things and a 25-year history, and I think you can kind of put me almost anywhere. Maybe.

37:12Andrew Tarlow:Yeah. You'll take those over the address. I take that over the address any day of the week, personally. That's really neat, man. Also, when I first walked in, I got chills. Yeah, it was empty. It had been empty through COVID. I just kind of felt it. So you saw the space after, So each really closed during. Yeah, it was closed down. And it was just an empty space. Yeah. Yeah, you situated it. And I've mentioned the show a couple times. And I think folks in the industry, when they dine there, they recognize the layout is really unique for Manhattan. It's like you're giving space to the tables, which is so rare.

37:50Andrew Tarlow:I mean, did you see that right away? Your ability to transform that space and giving each a table kind of some breathing room? You know, I designed it with my wife. So we built it and I act as my own general contractor and building the restaurant. So it's sort of like informative. It sort of like comes out as like a little bit of a story. We start and then we keep going, keep going, keep going. And then we kind of find the answer at the end. So I wouldn't, I knew I didn't want banquettes. And we debated that for a long time. And sort of once you remove the banquette storyline, you kind of can say like, well, how tight do you want the tables?

38:27Right. The banquettes force you to actually put tables a little bit close because it's awkward to have a banquette and then have an empty banquette seat and then the next seat.

38:38Andrew Tarlow:And that's usually done just because of tightness. It's much more efficient. You can get much more people in the room. Narrow spaces up in Manhattan. You see that a lot. I also am not trying to – I want to have a long arc with this restaurant, and I want it to be important for people who are in the culinary world, who are interested in food. Obviously, I want it to be important for New York. So I'm not trying to squeeze that lemon. I'm not trying to dig all the juice out of it. I'd actually like it to, like, have a longer life, right? So I think making sure that, say, the 100 people who come in today can really be taken care of and we know that 99 of them are walking out really happy is more important than serving 200 people.

39:24Andrew Tarlow:I mean, that's just a really great strategy for growth. You just want word of mouth and buzz. That's right. And you opened the restaurant kind of quietly, right, last year? I tried to. Yeah, that's the cool thing about having this long pause is you can kind of have a lot of intention, open up quietly. And then we got to talk about Jordan Fusilone, your chef. Got to chat with him recently. Really cool guy and comes from Momofuku and has a really interesting background. And how did you guys link up and collaborate on the menu? Because you work with chefs. I think you obviously – you may call yourself a chef.

40:00Andrew Tarlow:I'm not sure. No. You don't. Definitely not a chef. Yeah, and you are an operator. You have vision, but you also have a lot of opinions about food, right? Yeah, yeah. How did you collaborate with Jordan on this menu? You know, through conversation, we were pretty like-minded pretty quickly. And he was really able to sort of like translate some of these thoughts and ideas that I had about what I wanted the restaurant to be. and then he also added his own piece to the puzzle. There's also, yeah, I'm also very used to having a collaborative relationship with creative people. So working with chefs is like very much in my wheelhouse.

40:45Like working with Caroline all those years, working with Sean, working with Dave, has really taught me a lot about how to do that work and how to like really be open to other people's ideas and also like be an editor, right? Like say, okay, that's great, but maybe we should take out this component or there's one too many components. But I feel like I really, yeah, we really, we just really clicked in the end.

41:12Andrew Tarlow:I mean, Italy is a route, obviously, but it's not regional. You see Puglia, you see the North, you see the Mediterranean writ large, you see Germany. So, yeah, we take it more as an approach. So it's more like how would, how do you keep things pretty straightforward and simple? And how is the food based on olive oil mostly? You know, obviously when we get to the north, we use butter. We do brown butter sauces sometimes. Yeah, I was talking to this woman from Tuscany the other day. It's like, and I served her a chicory salad with hazelnuts and gouda. And she was like, wow, you know, we would never have this in Tuscany, even though these are our greens.

41:54right they would only make it in the traditional way yeah but it's she's like i love it so much more this way right like so we are approaching it as you know with italian ingredients and sort of like with the same vision but we also have all this other information that we're bringing to it without it feeling like fusion right how does it actually translate to new york in 2026 2027 right now.

42:21Andrew Tarlow:You said it well. I mean, it's a very straightforward approach with menu, verbiage, with just intention on the plate. I mean, that salad with chicories and aged gouda and apples. Apples, yeah. Apples in there sometimes. You've got fava on toast, which I think is a tribute to Iltich Rulli. Yeah. It's definitely a dish from Puglia. It's actually a tribute from also to Romans because it's a dish that we've been running at Romans since the beginning. Oh, okay. And that's actually the one dish that we haven't – we rotate Roman's menu kind of every three days, and it's the one dish we haven't taken off.

42:57It's nice. Yeah. That consistent toast.

42:59Andrew Tarlow:I think that – and the mushroom toast, too, is just for lunch a great – Oh, yeah. It's the egg on top. Incredible. So good, man. The food there is just terrific. I mean, the sausages, the schnitzel. I've only had lunch, actually. I've been there twice for lunch. Please come for dinner. I think I will. I mean, I just think I like having a Midtown lunch spot, like, of that caliber. I think a lot of listeners maybe struggle to find a place that you can just like pop in and eat at the bar and have just a terrific meal without too much, I would say, fancify. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

43:31Andrew Tarlow:I love your bartenders. I've sat at the bar a couple times and chatted with them. I love that. Yeah, yeah. It's just a really cool restaurant. And like for you, you're a guy who really is focused on aesthetics and spaces. You know, you ran a journal. Like you're about food writing. And then there's the food. I mean, are you like geeking out about food or are you leaving that to the chef? I mean, I'm involved. Like I taste all the new dishes that they put up. Of course. So I'm involved in the R &D of it. But yeah, I'm pretty passionate about food. I'm passionate about the whole thing. Yeah. Fair.

44:10Yeah. I don't think there's like one piece of it. It's all.

44:14Andrew Tarlow:You're all in. Yeah, it's all in. I get it. And it's a unique collaboration when you can have a chef like Sean and Dave or Caroline. And now you've got Jordan and let them do the work. But you're like clearly there. Like an Andrew Tarlow restaurant means something to a lot of us. Like it means like precise vision. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome, man. It's a family affair now, which I didn't know until recently. Your son is a sous chef. tell me about that like bringing raising him in diner obviously in restaurants and now that he's in the industry what's that been like i mean it's been so it's been incredible honestly i think um i mean he's been working in the restaurant since he's about 13 obviously not full-time he's had to go to school and on and off and then um he's been he helped open borgo with us with his best friend aiden they were both sous chefs now they actually are both the co-cdc of the business just under Jordan.

45:14So they do a lot of the R &D. And him and Aiden were also the chef at Mimi's for I would say maybe two years before it closed.

45:24Andrew Tarlow:Wow. Yeah. They were at Mimi's, that crazy little restaurant. Yeah. Subterranean. They were the chef there. Oh, that's cool. So they were not working. They both met at Roman's. Yeah, yeah. And then they both left Roman's at a chef transition and went and took that job at Mimi's. So interesting. And then they came, they made me close sort of at the same timing as we were about to get Borgo open. And they came on as sous chefs. And now they're both CDC. It's incredible. It's been incredible. So gratifying, you know. Also, my older daughter works the door two to three nights a week. Major D walking host.

46:02but it's been amazing to have my son there making the food that he grew up with and eating all those years because he actually worked for Sean and worked under Dave for a little bit and worked with Caroline it's been so amazing to see it come back and taste it right? yeah it's like a real dream come true It's a family business.

46:32Andrew Tarlow:Yeah. And like you've articulated, it wasn't just like throwing him in for his first job. I mean, this is a decade long. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he was a chef on his own right and was responsible for P &Ls with Aiden and did all that work. So I think this is the biggest restaurant I've owned. So it's obviously the biggest operation he's been in. It's cool. It's been really great. It's been super gratifying. Speaking of P &Ls, how's business? How are you doing? it's been good yeah Borgo's been very successful um knock on wood and um yeah it's been very gratifying to see the you know that people respond to it and people really like can feel the energy and love that we're putting into it on a daily basis that really like obviously Jordan Aiden and the whole team and Elijah are putting into it all every day as well as the front of the house from Britt and Scott and Matt and Jason, you know, everyone's putting so much into it.

47:32Andrew Tarlow:Yeah. It's interesting. Let's tap into that. When you say everyone's into it, is that, I mean, you can get a job in New York working at restaurants. There's lots of jobs available, but you've created, you have this environment. Why do they stay and why do they thrive? Because I really do believe that. Like you've got this great core team here. What is it about your restaurants? yeah it's really hard to pinpoint i think um i can't say we care more than other people because that would be like wrong but i think um maybe it goes back to not squeezing the lemon so hard like we're very intentional about like the work and trying to get like most of the cooks in the company work a four-day work week you know most of the managers work five-day work week but you We really do try to control how much time people are at work and how much time they are outside of work.

48:25So we're thinking about all those pieces of the puzzle all the time and trying to be very conscious about the work that people put into it. And can they be there for the long haul? How do you, like even me, how do I age in this business? How do I continue to do this work, you know, for a long period of time versus having to, like, just be like, oh, yeah, this job's only for a young person. And now.

48:51Andrew Tarlow:Yeah. Right. Were you ever nervous about Borgo? About the prospects? Oh, 100%. Yeah. You have to be. Yeah. Spend that much money and make something that big. You have to be. And in this day and age. Yeah. For sure. We haven't talked about food costs and we haven't talked about the margins. I mean, I said to my wife, like, I think we joked, like, if it didn't work, that would just, you know, maybe we just close up shop. Like, it would just, it's sort of like, I don't want to say we bet the farm on it, but we kind of bet the farm on it a little bit. Yeah. But I was pretty stressed out. Yeah. Yeah.

49:21Also, at the same time, we were building the new bread facility for SheWolf, new manufacturing facility for SheWolf. So there was a lot of moving parts happening at the same moment.

49:31Andrew Tarlow:owning a retail slash wholesale baking business yeah has that been able to offset the the restaurant p &l a little bit and also make you vertically integrated for all your other restaurants i mean i i know some chefs who have their own baking facilities and do wholesale it seems to be a pretty good move i mean it was for sure a good move during covid i mean it was already up and running but you know during covid she wolf never closed the day marlon daughters never closed the day and stranger wines never closed today so those three businesses were open the whole time so for sure at that moment and post that i would say i was tap myself i would say yes to that answer i would say it's complicated trying to run different types of businesses because the the needs are different um and i think opening borgo showed me recently like oh yeah i feel very comfortable in the dining room.

50:29I know how to do this work really well after 35 years or 40 years of doing it. Right. And it's like, once the door is open, I can just kind of move around and do that. Whereas, you know, running She-Wolf is just, it's just a different, different. Yeah. Cause it's wholesale. You have like lots of accounts, right? It's very, I mean, only recently we only really did the farmer's markets. We did 10 city farmer's markets and then we would wholesale to ourselves um and now that we've moved to the navy yard we've added more businesses but the complexity of having that big baking operation especially with you know lots of cogs cost of goods changing totally and also three vans and like it's very complicated work

51:14Andrew Tarlow:yeah the wholesale business is it's complicated yeah but it but it can it run well work yeah it does work yeah yeah also you know we're very committed to i mean there's another example of the farm table like you know 60 of our flour is local the other 40 is coming from canada just outside montreal um farmer ground flour is our main source of of the flour and then we are also selling in the farmer's market so like it really is a i don't want to say it's a self-fulfilling prophecy but it really is actually like doing doing the work that we set out to do in the very beginning yeah which all started with caroline yeah um and yeah and a lot of the employees there are coming from places that are training people to do that work so like bread alone and um emma's torch and things like that places that are really doing um worker training for new york for real New York City residents who need these jobs and can take them.

52:18Andrew Tarlow:That's great that you work with those organizations or you recruit out of Emma's Torch. Great organization. Incredible. Glad you mentioned that name. I have to ask you, you know, you really haven't chased the TV circuit or even big expansion. This is your first restaurant in 10 years. It's my first podcast. And it's your first podcast. I mean, it's kind of remarkable because you're, like, you are part of New York City dining lore. I mean, you've run these iconic restaurants. Has that been a conscious decision to kind of stay low-key? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's conscious. People haven't really asked me, but I probably would say no if people asked anyway.

52:59Why haven't they asked you? I don't really know. You're a nice guy, man. Yeah, I'm more interested in the work and I'm more interested in the people at work than I am probably talking to strangers and or talking out into the world.

53:15Andrew Tarlow:But you're fascinating. You've got like cool friends and you've got like point of view. Anyways, I just had to ask that question. I appreciate it. Yeah, I think there's definitely. Yeah, I'm not open for the TV business though. Yeah, all good. I don't think anyone really should be. Yeah. There's not much of a business there anymore. I have to ask you about the closing of Achilles' heel. Yeah. Was this a difficult decision? I mean, it was probably one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make in a very long time. We've had a lot of long-term employees there. And it was just so hard. I mean, it's always hard, but it's particularly hard there.

53:52And also hard at Marlon Sons. I mean, just like very difficult to stop something that you love. and when it financially just doesn't make sense anymore.

54:04Andrew Tarlow:Yeah, when finances catch up to you on these iconic places and you have these long leases, I mean, especially Marlowe, that's like 20 years. Yeah, we actually opened 22 years. Yeah. I think one thing I've been really kind of pondering without going too deep is, when you build something that feels and becomes iconic, should there be actually, like is there like a good way to exit that right i would almost say like doing it abruptly doesn't feel right and so like you know is should it be like oh yeah we're gonna do this for 20 years and at the end of 20 we're just gonna stop so everybody actually knows yeah the last two years are coming versus like oh no we're gonna do this indefinitely it's a hard it's sort of something that's really like new in my brain like thinking about it yeah you know even like for borgo we're in a year and half like do i stop at year 15 like when does it when does it make sense to end right you truly was 25 years yeah i'm sure the last i'm sure 24 and 25 didn't feel great yeah so how do you how do you know right i think i mean this is like weirdly morbid but like it's sort of like how do you pass like how like how do the like these are tough tough questions to ask ourselves and we don't talk about it enough or think about it we just think it's going to be forever yeah i know and then we when it's abrupt you have the the kind of the outrage yeah wtf yeah wtf and it's like i i what you know and it becomes even more difficult for the operator when you see i wish i would have gone you see all that stuff but then like the long goodbye you know also very hard no one wants to like you know keep talking about the end talking about salty like i remember when caroline closed salty she was like she called me she's like it's so busy this last week and she was actually like kind of angry she was like well where were you guys common refrain from restaurants so like okay so now i get to go work my ass out for three weeks while you guys all get your like last nostalgic moment yeah and like bottom line probably doesn't really mean you know you're just working it's just work harder day work harder right like it's a tricky it's a very tricky um i mean you could put established 2025 and just like put your dates on the on the on the menu for borgo and just put you know put 2040 yeah 2025 i mean it's a funny it's a you see when you talk about it like we don't actually talk about it we don't think about it we don't right we just think they either fail or they succeed and then you know a place like the odian still resonates and makes sense so i mean lynn owns the real estate there so she's in a very sure does that's in a different different spot.

56:46Owning real estate. Do you own real estate at Diner? I do actually now own the Diner. That's wonderful. But, yeah. Yeah.

56:53Andrew Tarlow:That's great. It's great. I mean, that means that it changes the economics in that place. I mean, I'm thinking just talking about your son, Elijah. I think one thing when you have a family business, it's a succession. Yeah, there is that for sure. I think it's also hard to know. For sure, he's happy to be the CDC. I also don't want to impose this idea that they need to go run the business that I built. So I think if people want to, I'm open to that conversation for sure. But I don't want to feel like it's a burden. You know, he's only 24. Like I can imagine him wanting to open his own restaurant and his own ideas, right?

57:30Whether he wanted my help or didn't want my help. And having his own equity and it being like his own thing. Yeah, his own thing and like starting it and doing it his own way, right? Like owning a diner that's been around for 28 years, now I still have to make this thing that we thought of so long ago, right? Like it's a bit of a burden. It can be a burden. Yeah, are you ever just like kind of over it with Diner?

57:53Andrew Tarlow:Be honest, like be honest. Like, I mean, it's like 28 years is a long time. Yeah, I mean, of course you go through ups and downs, but I tell you what, like when I sit there at 5.30 before, or let's say 4.45 and no one's in the room yet. And like, it's like that moment right before and I sit at the one table. I'm just like, it just gets me every time. And then you pour like a Cotarone or something. Yeah, and then I'm just like, then I'm there. I'm just like, I'm in it so fast. Yeah. No better place to drink wine. When I was a drinker of alcohol, I loved just ordering a bottle at Diner. It just felt something about it.

58:26Andrew Tarlow:I mean, it just felt really like, it's obviously like it has roots in like Europe. It just feels like it's the kind of place. You know you need fiber for a healthy gut. But do you actually know how to get it? Quaker's been serving up fiber since 1877, with over 100 great-tasting, good source of fiber options to choose from. Whether you like old-fashioned oats, instant oatmeal, granola, or oatmeal squares, Quaker makes it delicious. Mmm, so good. Get your fiber with Quaker. Shop Quaker's good source of fiber products at a store near you. K-pop Demon Hunters, Haja Boys Breakfast Meal, and Huntrix Meal have just dropped at McDonald's.

59:06They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day. It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor. It is our larger honor. No, really. Stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side. Hey, participate in McDonald's while supplies last. You tell yourself no one wants your college-era band tees. But on Depop, people are searching for exactly what you've got. You once paid a small fortune for them at merch stands. Now, a teenager who calls them vintage will offer that same small fortune back.

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1:00:08Andrew Tarlow:Rapid fire, let's go. Let's do it. The best fruit. Let's go date. Love that. It hasn't come up in a while. Yeah, let's go date. Good call. Such a special fruit. Why do you like it? Well, there's so many different varieties. It's so symbolic. It feels so ancient. Yeah. And they're obviously so sweet and so good. Yeah. The worst vegetable. That's easy. True Samari joke. I had to eat too many of those in my day. Oh, you did? It was on your table? No, it was like, you know, something we bought from farmers like this time of year when they were like dig up the ground and find some roots to sell us.

1:00:49Andrew Tarlow:Always a challenge. What is your typical breakfast? I don't really eat so much breakfast, but if I was, you know, I would say yogurt for sure. You know, if it's a little later and I'm actually home, I might fry myself some eggs or make some eggs for the kids. Yeah. the best dessert chocolate caramel tart from merlin sons yo was that in the first cookbook uh i feel like it i feel like it sounds familiar it was in the i think we only did it every day in the diner journal yeah diner journal we didn't even talk about your books which we talked off mike a bit yeah love your cookbooks thank you so much love the diner book in particular a very like photo driven just love that style really cool book we did here yeah i mean we were lucky that Julia was a bartender at dinner for at least 10 years, maybe eight years.

1:01:35And she had been documenting behind the scenes. We had this trove of imagery that we really wanted to highlight her work. And yeah.

1:01:45Andrew Tarlow:I love it. I'll link to those in the show notes, those two books. Thank you. When you're craving fast food, Andrew, where are you going? It's going to sound horrible. I don't actually crave fast food. I'm going to really be honest. I respect it. Yeah. Being honest. I mean, I go eat pizza in New York City, things like that, but I'm not really, yeah, you won't catch me at fast food. I mean, if my kids forced me to eat Chipotle, I would, if I was with them, but I don't really crave it. I'm sorry if that happens, Zephyr. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, too. All right. This question we ask a lot. I'm going to say excluding Marlowe and excluding Salty and a restaurant you wish you could bring back for the dead.

1:02:30Let's do Bar Tartine. Oh, very cool. Yeah, my friend Chris. Yeah, it's a good call. Your favorite city outside America to visit for food? I mean, I haven't really found it yet. I think I'm still in search of. I mean, obviously, Kyoto is incredible. I mean, there's so many incredible ones. but I recently was in Kyoto it was incredible I'm going with my older daughter to Venice and Milan next week so hopefully I'll find it there

1:02:58Andrew Tarlow:that's fun what's the occasion? just trip yeah I've never been oh really? yeah and she's never been both those cities both those cities that's really cool yeah oh wonderful yeah I'm excited to go that would be great I'll have to give you a Milan wreck yeah please yeah absolutely maybe that would be my new favorite city yeah yeah absolutely last one your favorite sandwich I mean, we're going to go salty scuttlebutt. Come on. We have to. Have to. Have to give it to Caroline. It has to be scuttlebutt. That is truly one of the iconic sandwiches. Yeah, yeah. She invented it. She made it happen. She made it happen.

1:03:31Andrew Tarlow, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you.

1:03:39This Is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Episode portraits by Louise Zergon Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skrzat and Ian Dingham. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste. The right window treatments change everything.

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