EP 43: Steve Palmer

Transcript

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Welcome to Hospitality On The Rise, the podcast about the people shaping the hospitality industry and their journeys. I'm your host, Alice Cheng, founder and CEO of Culinary Agents, hospitality's go-to hiring platform. And I'm here to give you your dose of virtual mentorship.
Here, we'll be sharing the stories, lessons learned, and advice from hospitality leaders who've carved out their own path to success. After all, this industry is where many get their start and go on to do incredible things.
Whether you're a pro, starting out, or just love the hustle, this podcast highlights what makes hospitality extraordinary, the people.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
I'm so excited to have Steve Palmer here with us today. Steve is the Founder, Managing Director, and Chief Vision Officer of the Indigo Road Restaurant Group, which is Charleston-based but operates across Southeast and DC, and many different concepts and hotels and independent restaurants. And we'll talk about that in a bit. He is also the Co-Founder of Ben's Friends, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping industry people get the help they need to stay sober. And the host of Say Grace, Food for Thought and Hospitality podcast, which is something I've been really enjoying. And of course, the author of the book, Say Grace: How the Restaurant Business Saved My Life. So Steve, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to hear more about all of these exciting projects if we have enough time to cram it into 30 minutes.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Well, thank you, Alice, for having me on. It's an honor and it's good to see you again.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yes, likewise. I was actually just thinking the last time I saw you was at the Fellows’ Dinner in Nashville pre-COVID, when I got a chance to hear you talk a little bit about your book. That was really moving and it was wonderful. We are going to get to that, but I want to roll it back a little bit and hear how you got into the hospitality industry.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Oh goodness. So I started dish washing when I was 13. I worked at a Chinese restaurant near my house called Yin's Chinese. I was the only American there and I was getting paid $3 an hour cash under the table and I thought I had struck gold. But the even more important thing about that job is it was– so every night I would be fed, and I had no idea about Chinese food. This was a full-service Chinese restaurant. And no one was really giving me menu descriptions, but that was sort of my first food memory where I was like, “Wow, I don't know what this is, but it's really, really good.” I always say that was kind of my first food memory.
From there just kind of line cook, Alice, mediocre at best, worked in back of the house, but eventually figured out–I mean, this was the 80s–eventually figured out that out in that dining room, they weren't getting yelled at by a chef, they weren't getting burned, they weren't covered in grease, maybe I should go out there, and kind of found my way to the front of the house. And very quickly, I've been so fortunate that I have had wonderful mentors. Going all the way back to the early 90s who said to me, “Steve,”–and this is, just contextually, before the internet, before Top Chef, before foodies, before Instagram, before influencers, right? And I was told by Chris Goss, somebody that I love dearly and still talk to, “Hey, people go out to dinner to have an experience. They go out to feel something. First date, engagement dinner, old friends dinner, divorce date, maybe the date you're not supposed to be on. You know, there's all these girlfriends catching up. I mean, there's all these things, and we get a front row to their lives’ most intimate moments and what an honor that is.”
And so I remember very early, I knew that there was nobility. Will Guidara says there's nobility in service. I never felt like I was doing a secondary job, even though back then, you would hear it in the restaurants all the time, “Well, I'm just doing this till I get a real job.” And I was working 14 hours a day and I was like, “I don't know, this feels pretty real. My back hurts, my feet hurt,” you know?
But what I loved then and what I have loved even more now is the level of acceptance. We have a saying at the Indigo Road, everyone is welcome at our table, even the people we disagree with. But just that it was the first time in my life that I felt like I had found my people. And that it didn't matter how you grew up, poor, you know, I was homeless at one point as a kid, struggled with addiction for a long time, but I felt welcome.
I was 22 and by 24, I was like, this is it, this is what I'm gonna do. And I started learning about wine and became a somm until the addiction sort of outweighed all of that, and I ended up going to rehab, thank God. But yeah, I got into the business because really I didn't know what else to do, Alice. And I'm so glad I found this industry. I was just at the Welcome Conference on Monday and…

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Ah, I missed you.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
… I got to speak at it last year which was, like, total fanboy dork moment, but we really are the most wonderful people in the world. I mean, we're generous, we're kind, we're inclusive. I don't know, but yeah, I just found the magic of creating experiences for other people.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, I mean, that sums up. That's a wonderful way to sum it up because that's really the industry, all welcoming. I mean, it's highly forgiving. There's something for everyone. It's not for everyone. At the same time, there's something for everyone.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Right. You know, I do this talk called Coffee and Culture in our company, and whether it's a new restaurant or a new hotel or an old one, just as a reminder of these are our values. And I always talk about the thing I love, about if you're willing to work hard and be a part of a team, there's a place for you in hospitality. And not just a place, there's somewhere that you can thrive. And I love that. I've always loved that because our world, our ecosystem, it's so beautifully diverse, and it's all walks of life. So I think you end up with this really this interesting perspective about our differences and how fun that can be, and I don't know, I just don't know another industry that that equally invites you to move around the world. “Oh, I'm going to open the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Shanghai,” “I'm going to the Montage in Cabo San Lucas.” I don't know. I think we're the cool kids, I guess is what I'm saying

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah. And hospitality clearly is global and universal. And you have certainly continued to do many things right, because I don't want to gloss over the fact that you have a major, major restaurant group. You kind of said “I fell into it. It's great. I stayed.” And I'm like, OK, well, take me back. When you first started building this wonderful restaurant group, how did that come about? Because, you know, of course success builds upon itself, but getting started in the beginning can be really brutal.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Yeah, I think in some ways, I've said before I'm the accidental entrepreneur. So it was 2009. So I was 40, right? I started the Indigo Road much later in my life. I had worked for other people. I had worked in mostly predominantly independent restaurants, but also Ritz Carlton Hotel. So I'd done some hotel F&B. I got laid off. I was the Vice President of Food and Beverage for Ginn Resorts, and I was living in Florida. I'd left Charleston, and I got laid off. This is a true story. It sounds like some Eat Pray Love stuff, but it's really a true story. I was hiking by a waterfall, and I had my manifest journal, and I was writing–you know, I was about to turn 40, so I was sort of like alright, I want to do more than just earn a paycheck. I want to share the positive impact that hospitality has had on me with others. So I wrote down, “I want to make an impact. I want this, I want that.” And about 15 or 20 minutes later, Michael Meyer, who's still my business partner today, called me and said, “Hey, we've got this restaurant. It's full, but we're financially not where we need to be. Can you come help us?” And so that brought me back to Charleston, to the original Oak Steakhouse.
O-Ku, our sushi concept, which is now 15 ½ old, that was the first one where I raised money, like begged people, and it all came about... I had a meal at Nobu in Tribeca. This was when Nobu, I think they had London and Tribeca open. And I went in, and I was a solo diner. I went in on a Sunday, they were completely booked. They said, “If you show up at five o'clock, we'll see you.” So they sat me, and I said, “How long have you worked here?” She said, “Three years and I love it.” I said, “Well, I don't know what this food is, just order stuff.” I remember Alice, she brought nine plates, and not one was a sushi roll, and that was like a light bulb food moment for me. And so that was the inspiration behind O-Ku, but those early days I raised seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to build O-Ku. I couldn't build O-Ku for less than three million now, but in 2010…
And I just followed the things that I was passionate about. I'm passionate about Japanese culture. I'm passionate about Japanese food. I traveled to Japan. I traveled to Italy. So I had no idea we were going to be 38 restaurants and seven hotels. Everybody's always asked me, “What's the strategy?”

HOST: ALICE CHENG
What's your secret sauce?

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
And I'm like, “I don't have a strategy. There is no strategy.” And so I just started doing it one thing at a time. But I think the thing that I did that was really profound–because look, I mean, there are lots of great restaurateurs in our country and all over the world. We were at four restaurants, and I had imposter syndrome really, really bad. I think it was the old attic tapes in my mind, like, “You're going to screw this up. You don't deserve success.” Like all of that, those really negative tapes. And, and I was like, well, who, who do I respect and the way they operate and obviously Danny Meyer came to mind. And so they have that teaching school Hospitality Quotient that I immediately signed up for, went to New York, met Danny.
And what I really started doing, I think, well was working on the idea of culture. The idea of in order for your guests to have a great experience, your employees have to have a great experience. I would argue we have worked harder on our culture. I don't know another company–and we are not perfect. And I am certain there are days that our employees feel like we've fallen short of where we should be, but taking care of our employees and all that that means is one of our highest priorities. And I think people for the most part feel that when they work for us, with us. We have a home loan buying program where we give the employee the down payment to their own. We make no money on it; they have to pay us back, but it's interest-free. Free mental health– you know, I think success obviously has to be measured in finance because I borrow, I have investors, like, it is a business. But it should also be measured in creating opportunities for other people, creating growth opportunities, you know and creating a place where you say, if this is your career, you don't have to leave. You can move to Nashville if you're in Charleston. There's lots for you to do. We kind of grew this company now, and it's big.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
It's big.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Then some days I'm like, wow, this is big. But I believe that you can grow a company and still keep your soul, and that's sort of the grand experiment, isn't it? Right? That for me is like, how do we still grow? We have to make money, and so how do you have a for-profit company that doesn't lose its soul, and that's the big experiment. And I think some days we're nailing it right on, and then other days I'm like, we got a lot of work to do

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, I mean, it's incredible on many different levels. And I know you joked around that you don't have a strategy, clearly focusing on people first, your team and the things that you all do not just say, but you do, absolutely, I think, is a part of your brilliant strategy.
We talk a lot at Culinary Agents, and have known you now for over a decade, that we want to provide the tools to help people. This is a career. That can be a career for you if that's what you want it to be. If you don't want it to be, nobody's forcing you to do anything. Like I said, this industry is really welcoming to all. It's not for everyone. It's also kind of like the center of gravity, sometimes where you can leave and do your thing. But sometimes you just get pulled right back in. And as we see more people seriously looking at how do I navigate my career path, how have other people who I admire, like you said, how have they done it, and how can I kind of chart that path for myself or chart a different path that looks like that fits what I want? And we're seeing more and more people do that and stay in the industry and find employers that match what their priorities are and thrive, right? And do their thing.
No industry is easy. This industry has unique additional challenges than others. But I think what's wonderful that we've seen more and more is that leaders like yourself, and you in particular, just being really vocal about what you're doing, sharing, making resources available, giving examples. And the more locations you have and the more you expand, the more opportunities you're creating for people who are like, “I would love to move so and so, but who do I work with and for?” So congrats and thank you. There, we've revealed your strategy.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Yeah, work really hard on your culture. Yeah, that's my strategy. And my employees, look, they let me know how I'm doing on that. And some days, they let me know that I have a lot of work to do. But then you get that text, you get that note, that thank you… Or not even thank you, but like you see somebody that the light bulb comes on for, and they're like, “Wow, this is what I’m meant to do.” That's the most rewarding thing there is, it really is. When you see somebody thriving, I just love that. That trumps pretty much everything.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah. That makes the people part of the business really, really obvious. And as you're growing–because not only do you have multiple concepts within the multiple locations per concept–so I'm curious for those restaurateurs or folks who are dreaming or having a goal of opening their own restaurant group one day with multi-city and multi-concept. As you were growing, did you have kind of your own guiding principles of like, these are the types of partners I will work with, or these are the types of opportunities that I'm more attracted to? Just curious.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
I'm glad you brought that up. And it's easy for me to say, because now I've sort of gotten over that hump. When you're out there trying to raise your first money, and maybe you didn't come from a family that your family can invest. I was not in that situation. You're literally out there trying to ask strangers to give you money.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Very humbling.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
It is, good lord. And that hill, and then the panic attacks, and the anxiety, and God… And O-Ku, we opened, the first year we were slow, and I was like, “Oh my God, I have taken money or agreed to partnerships that values were not aligned.” Those have never ended well, both with the financial result that I had hoped or emotionally. No matter how big someone's checkbook is, you need to know who you’re partners with, because things like COVID happen, and you really learn a lot about who your landlord is and who your partners are when the music stops.
And look, we've opened things that haven't worked. There are so many things that have to go right for a restaurant not only to work, but to return the money to the investors. I don't think we talk enough about that in our world because it's sort of like what we do is art, but it intersects with commerce, right? And when art and commerce intersect, it can be tricky. That's why most artists don't sell their own paintings. They give them to a gallery, and they let somebody else sell them. Being in a bad partnership, Alice, there's nothing that you're going to do that will overcome that. So I totally appreciate when you're young and you're starting and you're trying to raise money. But man, if I had to say one thing, it would be: know who it is you're getting into business with.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, that is great advice. We hear a lot of, especially folks who I've been interviewing on this leadership series, where when they think back and they're like, “Yeah, took the bad deal.” And it's easy to do, especially when you're driven, and it's your dream project and you finally have somebody who's ready and willing. But grass isn't so green on the other side.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
No, no, it is often not.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
That probably holds true to other things as well, but life lessons here.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Yes, yes. Life lessons with Alice.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, exactly. Well aside from all of your restaurants, and obviously you have great leadership and teams in place here, you have many other projects going on as well. So how do you balance all of these different things? I mean, you have a book. I wouldn't be surprised if you were having more books coming, but you know, we'll keep that out in the mystery ether. But then came book tours, and you have a podcast which I've been recently putting on auto-notify. So tell me a little bit about how you kind of manage all the different things and prioritize.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
I have a very supportive wife, let me start by that. And a beautiful daughter that I love very much. I have endless optimism and excitement for what we do. I'm somebody that is always curious. I am perpetually a student. Whether it's in our world or not, I'll be like, “Tell me about that. What's the P&L like? How did you run that business? How did you come to this?”
The podcast was born out of… It's funny, I don't know about you, but post-COVID, I was really in a lot of ways disappointed with the media, specifically the food media, that they just seemed like they were just feeding on negative stories. “This is why you shouldn't go back to the industry.” When we couldn't find people, if you were paying people more–and you're well aware of how much our labor costs have gone up over the last couple years. And I was talking to Katie Button in Asheville at Curate, and she said what I felt, and she was like, “I just wish there were more positive stories about the industry” because our experience is what I said earlier. Our experiences of these wonderful, beautiful people.
So that was what I told my PR team and all that. I don't wanna know stats, I don't wanna know users. I want the podcast to be something that there is no ROI, I didn't have to borrow money from somebody to. But you asked about balance, I don't know that I know how to spell that word, Alice, I mean, I'm not gonna…

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Harmony. I call it work-life harmony.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Yeah, work-life harmony, have basically said that, right? I love every aspect of what I do. I get physically tired. I mean, I get anxious, of course, but I don't ever get burned out. Like, I don't know. I don't have a hard time unplugging. People are like, “Oh, do you take vacations?” I'm like, I take a lot of it. I mean, I took four or five weeks off last year. And I'm a big proponent of my teams. Like, hey, every 90 days, every 120 days, take four days off. Obviously, take the week long, but don't wait for your annual vacation. So, I think in that way, I'm balanced. I mean, look, reality is when I am off, I'm in a hotel, at a restaurant.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
I know, right?

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
But I think that's important, I think it's important to receive hospitality if you are in the business of giving hospitality. So yeah, I think I have work-life harmony.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, I love that.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
We'll use the Bezos term. Balance, I don't know. Do you have work-life balance?

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, I don't. I've accepted harmony. I've accepted harmony, and same as you, when I'm not doing something specific for work, I'm visiting, I'm going to dine in a restaurant, I’m saying hi to the team. I'm checking out the kitchen.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Right. Because when you love what you do, I don't know, you just… it's exciting, you know?

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, it is. That's the fuel that fills the bucket, you know, that keeps it going.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
That's right.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
And like you, I was at dinner last night at Essential by Christophe here in New York. And the whole team, people one by one were like, “I got my job through Culinary Agents.” Like, “Everybody here is from Culinary Agents.” And I was just like, I don't need anything else. I don't even need the caviar. I'm like, this is enough for me.


GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Right, right. Yeah.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
But I do want to highlight what you said about why or the impetus of your podcast is I'm 100% there with you. You know, for me, during COVID, I was really vocal about–because I was also getting called in to talk to culinary students on Zoom, you know, giving them motivation. “Don't worry. There's opportunities for you. You can do all sorts of things,” you know? And it was unfortunate. It was leading up to COVID, the media, everything was clickbait, negative. And I get it. Stories need to come out and all that stuff.
And then during COVID and then post-COVID, it was just all negative thread. And I'm like, where are the inspiring stories? Where are the examples? We need to motivate people to want to come back to or to remember what's so wonderful about this work, how noble it is, how other people have thrived.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Thank you. Yes.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
And so we that's why we also took our static Hospitality Career Paths that we've been doing for over a decade, and we created this podcast. Same thing. This is a pure, like, let me just send some emails to leaders I know and say “Will you just talk about how you got into the industry, why you love it,” exciting things, right? And the feedback that we've gotten from our podcast, and I'm sure you're probably getting them about yours as well. It's just like, thank you. Like, “I didn't know. So I looked up to this person for so many years. I didn't know that they started as a dishwasher. I didn't know that they didn't appear with a bucket of money with their first restaurant or whatever.” So thank you for sharing that. And I agree 100%.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Yeah, I love our industry. And I want more people to– we need more people to love it, And we need more people to see it as a career, because it is, it is. It's 100% a career.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
It is, it is. And we need people who love eating and dining to also understand why people love working in this industry as well. All right. On that note–that could be a whole other podcast–but on that note, we're going to go to quick-fire. Well, let me take a step back. What's next for you?

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
You know, we're having a lot of fun right now. We're growing into Florida, O-Ku, our sushi concept, we're opening a lot of those. So any sushi chefs that are looking for work, come call Alice, come our way.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
I got you. I'll put a call into your team.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Yeah. We've got four or five hotels in the works. I mean, those are obviously much longer development. That is probably ‘28, ‘29. But yeah, continuing to grow, continuing to serve our employees, our community. Ben's Friends, our nonprofit that you mentioned, we're in 29 cities, largely due to Mickey Bass, my co-founder. Yeah, it's a great time to be in our industry right now. It is.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
It is. It is. On THAT note, we will move to quick-fire. All right. What advice would you tell your younger self?

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Don't worry, it's all going to be okay– Don't worry, it's going to be so much better than you possibly could imagine.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
What's your advice for someone struggling in the industry?

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Community. I'm such a big believer. You know, Ben's Friends is a community. Don't struggle alone. Life is not meant to be alone, done alone. Sobriety, depression, mental health, like, don't do it alone. And unfortunately, a lot of the dynamics of that kind of stuff is isolation. Man, go for a walk, get outside, get some sunshine. Like if you're struggling, this community is filled with generous souls. Hospitality is generous, right? You're not alone.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
What's your advice for fellow hospitality leaders?

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
Lead with your heart. Remember what Danny Meyer and of course Will Guidara have both so eloquently, “Service is the transaction, hospitality is how we make you feel about it.” That's true of your employees' experience. The work is the transaction, it's how you make them feel about it, and lead with your heart. Lead with your heart

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Wonderful. On that note, thank you so much, Steve, for taking the time to share a little bit more about yourself and your advice. So nice to see you. Thank you.

GUEST: STEVE PALMER
You're welcome, Alice. Great to see you. Thank you.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Remember, success looks different for everyone in hospitality. No two paths are the same. If you have a leader or a topic you want to hear about, email [email protected].
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