Dara Mirjahangiry Shares How Networking Built Relationships With Celebrities, Expansion Plans + More
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Its way up with Angela Gee. I'm Angela Gee, and
I'm here with a special guest, Dara. Now I've never
had to say your last name before, Dara. But let's
see if I get this right. Merge Hanjurie, merge Honjurie.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Pretty good? Pretty good?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Okay, okay, they had to spell it phonetically for me,
but it worked out. Now, I've known Daura forever just
from being in the food industry, right, And so originally
this was like way back in the day Philips, correct, right, Philips,
And so you were the person that if we wanted
to go to Phillips, it's like, let's let Dara know,
(00:37):
we need a table, we need to make sure we
go there and eat. And since then, I mean that
was a probably like how long.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Ago, twelve years ago?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, like twelve years ago.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
This is really like when I first started here at iHeart,
when I finally had some money to spend. And now
look at you with your own restaurant, say less, but
not just a restaurant, but like a destination location here
in New York. And so I just want people to
understand journey that you went through to get to where
you are today, and the restaurant business has to be
one of the toughest businesses to be in. So I
(01:07):
want to talk about how you've been able to be successful.
A lot of people want to be where you are,
and I know you're going to share some gems.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
With us today.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I got plenty of them for you.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
But the real thing is I wanted some food and
you did bring some, So thank you so much for that.
From say less, And that's sei less for people who
are listening.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So why the names? Say less? First of all?
Speaker 4 (01:25):
So I always wanted to open my own place and
was trying to think of like a good name that
would be culturally relevant, that was kind of like a
gathering spot for everyone, you know, to dine at. The
name that popped into my head was say no More.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
You know. Wanted to kind of make it, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
A little bit exclusive, not for everyone, you know. I
just realized say no More was too wordy, So I
was like, how do you say say no more without
so many words?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
It would say less?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, say less sounds way better.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I wrote to say less s a Y L e
SS on a piece of paper. I looked at it.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I was like there's no way I could call a
restaurant say less like spelled that way. So I was like,
how do you spell say differently? So sense is sai
sai l e s s And then that still didn't
look right, so changed the a tone and then we
had say.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Less and easily googleable because there's nothing else that you
can google that say less that's spelled like that.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, that's important.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Thing.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Few copycats after the fact, But now were the original And.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Even before you were in the restaurant business, what field
were you and you went to Syracuse University? Yep, okay,
what did you think you were going to do when
you went to Syracuse?
Speaker 4 (02:23):
So I was a finance and marketing major, that's important.
I was looking for a job on Wall Street and
of graduating working in the mortgage business for the first
three years out of college, and then two thousand and
eight there was a financial crisis pretty much the financial
markets got turned upside down, and that's kind of when
I pivoted to hospitality. I had worked in hospitality as
like a college job, but never realized or thought it
(02:44):
would be a career.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
You know, financial crisis, but there was also a restaurant crisis.
During COVID, and so how did you adjust during that period?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So, to be honest, it was, you know, in the
first couple of weeks, it was pretty stressful. You know,
it didn't really really know what was going on. There
wasn't really any guidance, There was no timeline. You know,
at first it was like we thought it was gonna
be a couple of weeks, then it was a month.
Didn't really know what there was no guidance or.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Rules that never happened before.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yeah, so you know, I started thinking that like New
York was done. You know, like you'd come to New
York and there was no cars on the street, there
was no people. Everything was boarded up. Kind of looked
like a movie. So it took about three months for
the restaurant business to get permission to open up for
outdoor dining. So for those three months, I actually ended
up going to California and I was exploring some options
out in LA with different people, but then the riots
(03:34):
broke out in LA so that kind of put a
stop to that.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So I ended up coming back to New York, and.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
You know, we were doing outdoor dining and business was
booming during the pandemic because we had a lot of
space for outdoor dining.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
This was before say less.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, well, yeah, that was a really fortunate thing. Now,
when did you realize you wanted to have your own restaurant.
Was that something that was always in your head?
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Yeah, I'd probably say about ten years ago I had
a vision of having my own restaurant. But as you said,
you know, a restaurant business is not easy. There's a
lot of you know, I think seventy percent of restaurants
fail in the first three years.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, so the success rate is.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Low, and I think just a lot of people don't
understand the economics that go behind the business. You know,
they want to they think about the food and the
design and what the thing looks like, but they don't
think about, you know, everything behind the scenes to make
a business successful.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Let's talk about some of those things behind the scenes,
because you're right, people don't understand. I have a coffee
shop and a juice bar and it's nowhere near like
where you have to go through and even that's like tough,
but the restaurant business is a whole nother level. So
for people who are listening that are like, oh, I
want to open my restaurant one day.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
What are some things that you would tell.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Them that you have to take into consideration when it
comes to like day one of knowing that you want
to open up a restaurant, before you even open, what
are the steps that a person has to take.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
So I think you really have to define your concept,
you know, determine what your advantages are, what makes you
different than the competition. Location is really important, and then
you know part of location is you know, finding a
space and the rent that kind of works for your
business model, right typically you want to keep your rent
to be like ten percent of your you know, revenue
monthly revenue are less, that's.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Kind of your goal. And then you know payroll, you know,
food costs, if you if you have liquor, liquor costs.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
And then there's a lot of you know, expenses that
people don't think about, like insurance and like you know,
the cleaning expense, the garbage expense. You know, there's a
lot of things with the fire department, the building department
that our expenses that pop up that you know you
don't really account for.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
But you know, toilet breaks, you got to get somebody
to fix it. Every little thing that can pass you.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So it's almost like a house, but there's a lot
more moving parts.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Like the door knobs not working. Who's going to fix
the doorknob? But it's great when you have people and say,
Let's is a huge restaurant. By the way, if you've
never been to New York, it is definitely make a
reservation because you can't just a lot of times just
walk in either we're.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
An open table and RESI yeah, you know, so we
definitely recommend reservations. You know, for big groups, you have
to go through our event team. You could do that
through our website through the reservations tab, and then you know, walkins,
you know, it's doorman's discussion. And then if we're book
the capacity, then we don't take door walkins a.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Lot of a lot of nights.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, so on the weekends or when there are special events,
because a lot of athletes and celebrities and artists end
up coming to say less, how did y'all manage to
get that following? Because that is something that I feel
like any business should want to figure out, and it's
not an easy thing to do to build those relationships
where they trust you, but they also feel like all.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Right, let's all.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I know, I can bring like the whole Brooklyn Nets
basketball team here and we're going to have a good time,
or the Knicks. It's not that far from the Garden.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
So we're at one fifty six what's thirty eight Street,
which is pretty much right between Times Square and Madison
Square Garden. So we get a lot of traffic from
the Knicks games, from sporting events, from concerts at the Garden.
But those relationships are relationships that you know, I've built
through probably the last twelve years. As you mentioned, when
I was afleep, that was before there was Instagram, before
there was Uber, So it was a different time in
(06:57):
night life I think, you know, in hospitality where you know,
things were a little bit more organic, and I used
to go out a lot more those before before I
had a family, So you know, I would meet people
at the restaurant that I would go to the club
with them, and then I would get introduced to new
people at the club.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And that's work. People don't look at that.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
They think you're just having fun, Yeah, but that is work.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Yeah, listen, I definitely had a lot of fun, but
it was work, you know, building the relationships, getting the
contact information, following up with people, and then I would
also get out on the road.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I'd go to Vegas for big.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Events, Miami, La. You know, it could be you know,
NBA All Star Weekend, it could be you know, the Grammys,
the Oscars, the you know, Super Bowl. I was always
at those events, networking with different people.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, because for people to understand there's a lot of
restaurants in that area, but the fact that that's the
one that people always choose to go to when there's
a birthday party, when there's a special event, when they
want to rent out the whole restaurant for New Years.
I mean that is you know, say less is definitely
I think the blueprint for if somebody's trying to do something,
you know, like that, you got to I mean, I'm
not telling people to come in and study and still
(07:57):
what you have going on, but if you do want
to have a successful business, to understand what goes into that,
because it's not easy and like you said, it was
a twelve years and then making type of thing. As
far as even building those relationships, it's not like you
can just open the spot and invite people to come.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah, and you know, I'm you know, it's flattering when
people want to copy what you do and you know,
try to emulate in different markets because a lot of
it it's the work that you put in and the relationship.
So as long as you worry about yourself and you know,
you put in the work and you build a brand,
then you're not really worried about what other people are doing.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Okay, well, say, let's it's also Asian food. Now what
makes Asian food so special? And why did you decide?
Why did you and your partners decide this is how
we want to run our restaurant.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
This is the type of cuisine that we're going to have.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, So I've always worked in the Asian cuisine space.
You know, I've built up a following with that. I've
actually tried to, you know, branch off and do some
other concepts in different cuisine. And I quickly realized that,
you know, I'm known for being the guy that you know,
you want good Chinese food in New York, you call Dar.
So you know, we have private dining rooms, we have
you know, we accommodate big groups and we could do
(08:57):
it on the fly. So you know, I get calls
all the time like I'm coming with thirty people.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
And I feel like I've made something.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
In twenty minutes. So that happens a lot where family
styles everything.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
It's for sharing. So it's not your typical, you know,
sit down stuff you meal.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
It's more about you know, obviously the food is a
backbone in the restaurant, but the vibe, the private dining,
the music and just the you know, good energy.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
You know, some people don't like to have a hip
hop crowd or they don't want to have the athlete
type of crowd inside of their restaurants. But you guys
embrace that, right and that's the music that's playing and
people feel comfortable being able to go there. And you know,
sometimes there's places to go and they're like, we don't
want that type of people here. How were you able
to see that vision and make people feel like welcomed
(09:41):
because some places people don't feel welcome when they try
to go. It's like you're playing our music, you're you know,
but you don't want us to come in.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yeah, so there's definitely a fine line there. You know,
I'm going to immigrant myself, so you know, I understand,
you know how sometimes people are wanted, sometimes people aren't wanted.
You know, you can't get the celebrity following without getting
the following that.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Comes with the celebrity following. So you just have to
understand how to deal with the people. You know, we
worry about having good people.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
It doesn't matter if you're famous, if you're if you're
not a good person but you're famous, you know, we
don't really show you love either, Like right, you know,
you got to be respectful to the staff. You got
to be respectful to the venue. Everyone that comes to
the restaurant they pay. We don't comp celebrities just to
get them to come to the restaurant. People genuinely come
there because they want to be there, right, and we
respect their privacy and you know, just try to try
to try to treat people the way you want to
(10:29):
be treated.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
It's pretty simple formula.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Mm hmm. No, that's right.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And when it comes to partners, I want to talk
about that because that's another thing in business, is finding
the right partners. So for anybody out there, it's like, okay,
you know, me and my friends want to do this,
or what goes into finding a good partner because it's
not necessarily your friend. It might be people who have
different skills that you guys have to come together and
form the right team. It could be somebody you don't
even necessarily get along with outside of work, but you
(10:53):
know that you guys can work well together because sometimes
the people closest to you aren't the people that you
can work with. So what's been the balance for you
you as far as finding the right partners for say
less and knowing who you can work with and what's
some advice you could give people?
Speaker 4 (11:06):
So I think you know, as you said, you know,
finding people with different skill sets than you that complement yours.
If you partner with people that are the same as
you and have the same likes and the same network,
then you're not really you know, branching out and building
your network. So find people that you know you could trust,
people that work hard, have good work ethic, people that
don't really have, you know, addictive personalities to bad habits,
(11:28):
and people that are.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Willing to put the work in.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
You know, you know, as long as you put the
work in and you have a plan and you really
stick to it. You know, things don't always go as planned,
you know ever, ever, but you know that being able
to pivot and you know kind of moving in a
different direction and you know, learn from your mistakes and
not really panic when things aren't going great. I think
those those are the things that are important. But at
(11:51):
the end of the day, just you know, having the
work ethic and being able to trust someone, those are
probably the most important things.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Now. I know you were definitely a seven day a
week person working at the restaurant seven days a week,
and like you said, now you have a family, things
are different. How are you able to find that balance
because something like this does require a lot of hands
on responsibility and actually physically being there. So when were
you able to say, Okay, now I can you know,
(12:16):
spend a couple of days with my family and not
have to be here all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Because that is a goal to be able to get
to that point too.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Yeah, so it's definitely something that I struggled with. You know,
I started a family and opened up say Less right
around the same time, and I definitely was there for
seven days a week for you know, probably the first
six months. But as you know, you grow and you know,
your team grows, you find good staff. You're only as
good as your staff and your team, So being able
to put people in positions to succeed and you know,
(12:43):
to really implement the values and the culture that you've started.
And then your partners, you know, being able to you know,
know that if you're not there, that they could run
the business and handle you know, the things that you
do when you're.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Not there is a big part of it.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
So it definitely took probably about six months to you know,
start to really you know, step away a little bit.
But even when I'm not there, I'm always on my phone,
you know, the cameras it doesn't have. I'll be putting
my kids to sleep, and then you know, I'll be
on my phone, you know, making reservations for people or
looking at the cameras. Like you said, so it never stops.
But you know that's that's a blessing. You know. You know,
(13:21):
you could be home five days a week and have
an empty restaurant. So if if you're on seven days
a week, that means you know, there's a reason that
you're there, and you're and you're engaged, and you know,
you never never complained about the work.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
When would you say so?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You said it maybe it took about six months to
find your stride a little bit because I'm also wondering
once you guys did have yeah, grand opening, and then
people have to know it's there. You have to keep
on making sure that you're promoting, doing pr you know,
inviting people to come out.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
So you would say, like maybe about six months in there, So.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
That's when I when I finally was able to like,
you know, maybe take a day or two off. But
in terms of say less, we actually were busy before.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
We even opened.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I had a lot of clients that you know, obviously
would reach out to me on a nightly basis about
where to dine, and we were still putting the finishing
touches on getting the place open. So we opened January fifteenth,
twenty and twenty two, and probably right after New Year's
For those two weeks in January, like I would get
a calls and I'm like, listen, we're not really open,
but if you want to come by, I'd be happy
(14:20):
to serve you.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And you know, we kind of got momentum.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
The Giants did a private event there, James Harden did
a private event there. So a lot of my regular
clients started coming to the restaurant before we opened, and
then Kanye came like February right after we opened, and
you know, got a lot of press for that. So
I just always having you know, we're in New York City,
there's always something going on.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Like yesterday was the WNBA Draft.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Yeah, you know, in a couple of weeks it's the
NFL Draft, even though it's not in New York. There's
a lot you know, between sports and music, you know, fashion,
the culture. We have a lot of people that come
to New York from out of outside of New York,
and then there's a lot of powerful people that live
in New York.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
So we're kind of the I guess we were really
catered toward that ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And it comes to doing pop ups.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I know you guys did some things too, and you've
been doing a lot of pop ups lately. So how
instrumental has that been as far as in promoting the
restaurant and what made you guys decide, Okay, we got
to start doing these pop ups.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
So pop ups is something I did, like I started
doing right before the pandemic, and then the pandemic kind
of really put put that to rest for a little
while because there was no pop ups or traveling or
doing you know, new concepts. But the pop up concept
is very important to what we do because it allows
us to take our brand on the road to a
different market kind of you know, introduce it to the market,
and then it lets us understand, like, you know, will
(15:34):
our brand work well there. We try to do it
around events that there's a high concentration of our clients
already in the market. So that's you know, athletes and
music artists that are there. So like we just did
one in February for NBA All Star Weekend. That's where
we have you know a lot of our clients in town.
And I think we just have the ability to do
things that a lot of other brands don't that you know,
(15:55):
high volume, fast paced, you know, concentration of people in
a market at once that's not in your home market.
You know, a lot of our staff we operated restaurants
in the Hampton's you know, for the last ten years,
so I think being able to deal with that, you know,
where you have to take your staff on the road,
you got to get housing for them, you got to
make sure that everyone's taken care of, and also everyone
(16:17):
wants to come at the same time, so there's that rush.
And I think also the cuisine kind of caters towards
that is where you know, Chinese food, you could cook
it a lot faster than a lot of other cuisines,
and you know, you can get a lot of food
out at once to keep everyone happy. But again, you know,
the customers are the ones that really dictate where we go.
And we will be doing a lot more pop ups,
(16:37):
you know, over the next year, and then obviously the
long term goal is to open.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Up new locations.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Do you know where yet?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
There's a lot of markets that we have a lot
of interest from, but we're not jumping intended thing. I
think the pop up model allows us to do something.
You know, we have a lot of brand sponsors that
come on.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Board help us with those pop ups.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
So I think those are things that we're really looking
into doing. But I think you know, Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Vegas, La,
those are big markets where a lot of our clients
are from already.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Now, I know you've said previously that it's not a
good idea to stay stagnant when it comes to even
your menu and the restaurant business. So what are some
things that you're doing to make sure that you're always
catering to like people is changing taste, What are some
things that you feel like have to be staples on
the menu, And then you know, what do you think
ends up?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Like is it seasonal? How do you guys figure that out?
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yeah, so we we don't really we do seasonal cocktails.
In terms of the food, we don't do anything that's
too seasonal, but we do. You know, there's a lot
of trends in you know, there's gluten free, there's vegan,
there's vegetarian. So you definitely have to make sure that
you touch on all those.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
You know, Asians is.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Good for that too, Chinese food because you can be like,
you know me, first of all, you guys have a
great Low Main. I'm not even like big on Low
Main like that, but every time I come there, for
some reason, I'm like, I got to get the Low Main.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Yeah, that's I was saying that to someone the other day.
I was like, our low Maine is really good.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It is really good.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And that's not even like one of my favorite things
that I normally, but when I come there for some reason,
I really enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
You're not the only one.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yeah, But some of the signature dishes, the chicken saute
with the peanut sauce.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
That's definitely a staple.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
And then we have some new dishes that we've introduced,
Like we have these dish called the Lobster spoons that's
been very popular.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
We have a Krispy Tuna rice.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Mano was talking about the Krispy Tuna rice.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yeah, that's that's a big one.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
We just introduced a five wagu Krispy rice, so that's
that's a new dish. And then we have Pastromi spring rolls,
lobster spring rolls. But there's something for everyone on the
menu and it's great for sharing. So if you come,
even if you're on date night or if you're with
a big group, you know, you could order different dishes
and you know taste. You know, whoever you're with, you
(18:39):
could you could you could share the dishes. So it
allows you to order a bunch of different things and
share it.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
What do you eat when you're outside of there, like
besides you know, because I could imagine you being there
as frequently as you are, there's certain things you're always there.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
You know you eat obviously the food is say let's leap,
but outside of say less like what type of cuisine?
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I like? Everything? So you know, so she Italian, you know, steakhouse.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
But you don't never really have to eat anywhere else.
They could just make stuff for you in the kitchen.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Yeah, but listen, you know you definitely want to get
out there, and you know, part of it is, you know,
doing brand research to try new things. But also you know,
like you said, I was at the restaurant so much
for the last ten years, you know, six nights a
week at least, that I really didn't get the opportunity
to go out to a lot of other restaurants. So
now that I have a little bit more free time,
I'm making a point of getting out to different restaurants
(19:26):
and seeing, you know, trends in the market and what
works and what doesn't, and just you know, understanding, you know,
what kind of dishes that we might want to add
to our menu.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Do you guys think about things like getting a Michelin Star.
I know that's something that people are always like Missionlin Star.
I don't even necessarily even really know the Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Listen, I mean, in the restaurant business, getting a Michelin
Stars obviously the ultimate goal. But I think at the
end of the day, there's a lot of Michelin Star
restaurants that don't make it long term for various reasons.
So for me, it's more about the balance sheet and
making sure that you know, you stay on brand and
you run.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
A profitable business. But I would love to open up
a Michelin Star version of what.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We do one day, all right, And I need you
to be honest about this, Dora. When you're in the
restaurant every day all week and everybody wants to come
in and do a shot with you, are you drinking
water and pretending to do a shot or like, what's
really going on?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Because so I won't take water shots. But I tell
people all the time that I'm not taking a shot.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
You know, Okay, I can imagine like Darra Tarredar, come on,
get us a shot.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Everybody, get Dira's shot.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
So when when I was younger, I would take all
those shots, and I learned the hard way that you know,
you just can't take shots with everyone. So I've I've
moved away from the shots. If I take a shot
with someone, it won't be water. It's the real thing.
But I say no more than yes a lot of
times regarding taking shots.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
And how hard is it to accommodate people that are
you know, people are always asking for you and looking
for you Darra. Like every time I go there, when
I come in, I'm walking.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Past the door. I hear it, Darra. Where's Dara? Is
Dodar here? I'm looking for Darra, you know.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And sometimes it's people who don't even know you, and
they're just trying to make sure they can, you know,
feel I mean, of course, everybody should feel important when
they come into the rest to unt because there's still
customers and clients. But then you also have a lot
that you're juggling and dealing.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
With, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I always tell people if they know me, tell them
they call me. You know, my number is not too
hard to get, so if they really know me, they
have my number, Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And I know you deal with things like and this
is important too, and I've seen you say this before.
To make sure that you know, the customer service that
you can provide for people is one of the most
important things that has made you successful as a business person,
and therefore your business is successful. So even doing things
like opening late for people or you know, at times
when you guys aren't even necessarily serving, just making sure
(21:37):
that you can accommodate you know, your client tele is
an important thing.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Yeah, I think definitely after the pandemic, there was like
a shift where a lot of restaurants closed earlier. And
I think one of our sweet spots is that we
keep our kitchen open later if need be. And there's
always a lot of things going on and they always
end around midnight and they.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Want to go eat something.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
So if it's the right situation, and it's all all
through relationships again, you know, if we know the people
and their clients of ours, why wouldn't we stay open
just to make sure that we continue the relationship and
make them happy.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
And people do really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And I saw whiz Kid did a party there and
then afterward he'd posted on Instagram say less album you know.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Coming, So we're still waiting on the album.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I know that was.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Supposed to being like twenty twenty three or something like that,
but you know, he was so inspired by coming there
and having a good time that he wanted to even
name his album after the restaurant.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
We've gotten a lot of clients from Europe, from Africa,
a lot of the biggest you know, celebrities in the
world that have really gravitated towards the say Let's brand.
So we're definitely proud of that, and we constantly, you know,
try to keep the brand fresh.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
All right, Well, listen, I'm just excited that, you know,
like I said, I've known Darr for such a long
time and always been like amazing to me, and you
don't even know me. Like that was just from being
in the restaurant, and then every time I come Doars,
I was like, oh my god, I haven't seen you
in so long. You make everybody feel so special in
that way, and so I just want to.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Commend you on the work that you've been doing.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Sometimes people don't even appreciate it or notice it, and
I know that's not what you do it for, but
you know, I do appreciate you. The food smells so
good and I haven't eaten anything yet today, so I'm
about to chat out. And we also have our tea
coffee uplifts people people.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Our tea is we've been moving through the tea so yeah,
people love it.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
So I'm excited for that, just because I wanted to
provide that tea experience. Y'all know, I'm half Chinese and
Chinese tea is very big in the Chinese culture and
the Asian culture. So to be able to provide that,
I feel like sometimes people don't think about like the
tea that they serve and make that an experience too.
And that was like a prime place for us to
be able to partner in, to be in, like, you know,
(23:35):
a top notch restaurant like say Let's.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So I appreciate that our pleasure.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
We're happy to have it on the menu.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
All right, Well, Dara, y'all make sure you go to
say Let's when you come to New York. When you
go to the door, say you know Dara. And if
you don't have his number, then I can't help you
with that any further, but make a reservation if need be.
And definitely one of my favorite places to eat. So
thank you so much Daa for coming through.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Thank you Angela Wa
What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Its way up with Angela Gee. I'm Angela Gee, and
I'm here with a special guest, Dara. Now I've never
had to say your last name before, Dara. But let's
see if I get this right. Merge Hanjurie, merge Honjurie.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Pretty good? Pretty good?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Okay, okay, they had to spell it phonetically for me,
but it worked out. Now, I've known Daura forever just
from being in the food industry, right, And so originally
this was like way back in the day Philips, correct, right, Philips,
And so you were the person that if we wanted
to go to Phillips, it's like, let's let Dara know,
(00:37):
we need a table, we need to make sure we
go there and eat. And since then, I mean that
was a probably like how long.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Ago, twelve years ago?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, like twelve years ago.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
This is really like when I first started here at iHeart,
when I finally had some money to spend. And now
look at you with your own restaurant, say less, but
not just a restaurant, but like a destination location here
in New York. And so I just want people to
understand journey that you went through to get to where
you are today, and the restaurant business has to be
one of the toughest businesses to be in. So I
(01:07):
want to talk about how you've been able to be successful.
A lot of people want to be where you are,
and I know you're going to share some gems.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
With us today.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I got plenty of them for you.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
But the real thing is I wanted some food and
you did bring some, So thank you so much for that.
From say less, And that's sei less for people who
are listening.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So why the names? Say less? First of all?
Speaker 4 (01:25):
So I always wanted to open my own place and
was trying to think of like a good name that
would be culturally relevant, that was kind of like a
gathering spot for everyone, you know, to dine at. The
name that popped into my head was say no More.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
You know. Wanted to kind of make it, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
A little bit exclusive, not for everyone, you know. I
just realized say no More was too wordy, So I
was like, how do you say say no more without
so many words?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
It would say less?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, say less sounds way better.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I wrote to say less s a Y L e
SS on a piece of paper. I looked at it.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I was like there's no way I could call a
restaurant say less like spelled that way. So I was like,
how do you spell say differently? So sense is sai
sai l e s s And then that still didn't
look right, so changed the a tone and then we
had say.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Less and easily googleable because there's nothing else that you
can google that say less that's spelled like that.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, that's important.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Thing.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Few copycats after the fact, But now were the original And.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Even before you were in the restaurant business, what field
were you and you went to Syracuse University? Yep, okay,
what did you think you were going to do when
you went to Syracuse?
Speaker 4 (02:23):
So I was a finance and marketing major, that's important.
I was looking for a job on Wall Street and
of graduating working in the mortgage business for the first
three years out of college, and then two thousand and
eight there was a financial crisis pretty much the financial
markets got turned upside down, and that's kind of when
I pivoted to hospitality. I had worked in hospitality as
like a college job, but never realized or thought it
(02:44):
would be a career.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
You know, financial crisis, but there was also a restaurant crisis.
During COVID, and so how did you adjust during that period?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So, to be honest, it was, you know, in the
first couple of weeks, it was pretty stressful. You know,
it didn't really really know what was going on. There
wasn't really any guidance, There was no timeline. You know,
at first it was like we thought it was gonna
be a couple of weeks, then it was a month.
Didn't really know what there was no guidance or.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Rules that never happened before.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yeah, so you know, I started thinking that like New
York was done. You know, like you'd come to New
York and there was no cars on the street, there
was no people. Everything was boarded up. Kind of looked
like a movie. So it took about three months for
the restaurant business to get permission to open up for
outdoor dining. So for those three months, I actually ended
up going to California and I was exploring some options
out in LA with different people, but then the riots
(03:34):
broke out in LA so that kind of put a
stop to that.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So I ended up coming back to New York, and.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
You know, we were doing outdoor dining and business was
booming during the pandemic because we had a lot of
space for outdoor dining.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
This was before say less.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, well, yeah, that was a really fortunate thing. Now,
when did you realize you wanted to have your own restaurant.
Was that something that was always in your head?
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Yeah, I'd probably say about ten years ago I had
a vision of having my own restaurant. But as you said,
you know, a restaurant business is not easy. There's a
lot of you know, I think seventy percent of restaurants
fail in the first three years.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, so the success rate is.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Low, and I think just a lot of people don't
understand the economics that go behind the business. You know,
they want to they think about the food and the
design and what the thing looks like, but they don't
think about, you know, everything behind the scenes to make
a business successful.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Let's talk about some of those things behind the scenes,
because you're right, people don't understand. I have a coffee
shop and a juice bar and it's nowhere near like
where you have to go through and even that's like tough,
but the restaurant business is a whole nother level. So
for people who are listening that are like, oh, I
want to open my restaurant one day.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
What are some things that you would tell.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Them that you have to take into consideration when it
comes to like day one of knowing that you want
to open up a restaurant, before you even open, what
are the steps that a person has to take.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
So I think you really have to define your concept,
you know, determine what your advantages are, what makes you
different than the competition. Location is really important, and then
you know part of location is you know, finding a
space and the rent that kind of works for your
business model, right typically you want to keep your rent
to be like ten percent of your you know, revenue
monthly revenue are less, that's.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Kind of your goal. And then you know payroll, you know,
food costs, if you if you have liquor, liquor costs.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
And then there's a lot of you know, expenses that
people don't think about, like insurance and like you know,
the cleaning expense, the garbage expense. You know, there's a
lot of things with the fire department, the building department
that our expenses that pop up that you know you
don't really account for.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
But you know, toilet breaks, you got to get somebody
to fix it. Every little thing that can pass you.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So it's almost like a house, but there's a lot
more moving parts.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Like the door knobs not working. Who's going to fix
the doorknob? But it's great when you have people and say,
Let's is a huge restaurant. By the way, if you've
never been to New York, it is definitely make a
reservation because you can't just a lot of times just
walk in either we're.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
An open table and RESI yeah, you know, so we
definitely recommend reservations. You know, for big groups, you have
to go through our event team. You could do that
through our website through the reservations tab, and then you know, walkins,
you know, it's doorman's discussion. And then if we're book
the capacity, then we don't take door walkins a.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Lot of a lot of nights.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, so on the weekends or when there are special events,
because a lot of athletes and celebrities and artists end
up coming to say less, how did y'all manage to
get that following? Because that is something that I feel
like any business should want to figure out, and it's
not an easy thing to do to build those relationships
where they trust you, but they also feel like all.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Right, let's all.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I know, I can bring like the whole Brooklyn Nets
basketball team here and we're going to have a good time,
or the Knicks. It's not that far from the Garden.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
So we're at one fifty six what's thirty eight Street,
which is pretty much right between Times Square and Madison
Square Garden. So we get a lot of traffic from
the Knicks games, from sporting events, from concerts at the Garden.
But those relationships are relationships that you know, I've built
through probably the last twelve years. As you mentioned, when
I was afleep, that was before there was Instagram, before
there was Uber, So it was a different time in
(06:57):
night life I think, you know, in hospitality where you know,
things were a little bit more organic, and I used
to go out a lot more those before before I
had a family, So you know, I would meet people
at the restaurant that I would go to the club
with them, and then I would get introduced to new
people at the club.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And that's work. People don't look at that.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
They think you're just having fun, Yeah, but that is work.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Yeah, listen, I definitely had a lot of fun, but
it was work, you know, building the relationships, getting the
contact information, following up with people, and then I would
also get out on the road.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I'd go to Vegas for big.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Events, Miami, La. You know, it could be you know,
NBA All Star Weekend, it could be you know, the Grammys,
the Oscars, the you know, Super Bowl. I was always
at those events, networking with different people.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, because for people to understand there's a lot of
restaurants in that area, but the fact that that's the
one that people always choose to go to when there's
a birthday party, when there's a special event, when they
want to rent out the whole restaurant for New Years.
I mean that is you know, say less is definitely
I think the blueprint for if somebody's trying to do something,
you know, like that, you got to I mean, I'm
not telling people to come in and study and still
(07:57):
what you have going on, but if you do want
to have a successful business, to understand what goes into that,
because it's not easy and like you said, it was
a twelve years and then making type of thing. As
far as even building those relationships, it's not like you
can just open the spot and invite people to come.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah, and you know, I'm you know, it's flattering when
people want to copy what you do and you know,
try to emulate in different markets because a lot of
it it's the work that you put in and the relationship.
So as long as you worry about yourself and you know,
you put in the work and you build a brand,
then you're not really worried about what other people are doing.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Okay, well, say, let's it's also Asian food. Now what
makes Asian food so special? And why did you decide?
Why did you and your partners decide this is how
we want to run our restaurant.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
This is the type of cuisine that we're going to have.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, So I've always worked in the Asian cuisine space.
You know, I've built up a following with that. I've
actually tried to, you know, branch off and do some
other concepts in different cuisine. And I quickly realized that,
you know, I'm known for being the guy that you know,
you want good Chinese food in New York, you call Dar.
So you know, we have private dining rooms, we have
you know, we accommodate big groups and we could do
(08:57):
it on the fly. So you know, I get calls
all the time like I'm coming with thirty people.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
And I feel like I've made something.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
In twenty minutes. So that happens a lot where family
styles everything.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
It's for sharing. So it's not your typical, you know,
sit down stuff you meal.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
It's more about you know, obviously the food is a
backbone in the restaurant, but the vibe, the private dining,
the music and just the you know, good energy.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
You know, some people don't like to have a hip
hop crowd or they don't want to have the athlete
type of crowd inside of their restaurants. But you guys
embrace that, right and that's the music that's playing and
people feel comfortable being able to go there. And you know,
sometimes there's places to go and they're like, we don't
want that type of people here. How were you able
to see that vision and make people feel like welcomed
(09:41):
because some places people don't feel welcome when they try
to go. It's like you're playing our music, you're you know,
but you don't want us to come in.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yeah, so there's definitely a fine line there. You know,
I'm going to immigrant myself, so you know, I understand,
you know how sometimes people are wanted, sometimes people aren't wanted.
You know, you can't get the celebrity following without getting
the following that.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Comes with the celebrity following. So you just have to
understand how to deal with the people. You know, we
worry about having good people.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
It doesn't matter if you're famous, if you're if you're
not a good person but you're famous, you know, we
don't really show you love either, Like right, you know,
you got to be respectful to the staff. You got
to be respectful to the venue. Everyone that comes to
the restaurant they pay. We don't comp celebrities just to
get them to come to the restaurant. People genuinely come
there because they want to be there, right, and we
respect their privacy and you know, just try to try
to try to treat people the way you want to
(10:29):
be treated.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
It's pretty simple formula.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Mm hmm. No, that's right.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And when it comes to partners, I want to talk
about that because that's another thing in business, is finding
the right partners. So for anybody out there, it's like, okay,
you know, me and my friends want to do this,
or what goes into finding a good partner because it's
not necessarily your friend. It might be people who have
different skills that you guys have to come together and
form the right team. It could be somebody you don't
even necessarily get along with outside of work, but you
(10:53):
know that you guys can work well together because sometimes
the people closest to you aren't the people that you
can work with. So what's been the balance for you
you as far as finding the right partners for say
less and knowing who you can work with and what's
some advice you could give people?
Speaker 4 (11:06):
So I think you know, as you said, you know,
finding people with different skill sets than you that complement yours.
If you partner with people that are the same as
you and have the same likes and the same network,
then you're not really you know, branching out and building
your network. So find people that you know you could trust,
people that work hard, have good work ethic, people that
don't really have, you know, addictive personalities to bad habits,
(11:28):
and people that are.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Willing to put the work in.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
You know, you know, as long as you put the
work in and you have a plan and you really
stick to it. You know, things don't always go as planned,
you know ever, ever, but you know that being able
to pivot and you know kind of moving in a
different direction and you know, learn from your mistakes and
not really panic when things aren't going great. I think
those those are the things that are important. But at
(11:51):
the end of the day, just you know, having the
work ethic and being able to trust someone, those are
probably the most important things.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Now. I know you were definitely a seven day a
week person working at the restaurant seven days a week,
and like you said, now you have a family, things
are different. How are you able to find that balance
because something like this does require a lot of hands
on responsibility and actually physically being there. So when were
you able to say, Okay, now I can you know,
(12:16):
spend a couple of days with my family and not
have to be here all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Because that is a goal to be able to get
to that point too.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Yeah, so it's definitely something that I struggled with. You know,
I started a family and opened up say Less right
around the same time, and I definitely was there for
seven days a week for you know, probably the first
six months. But as you know, you grow and you know,
your team grows, you find good staff. You're only as
good as your staff and your team, So being able
to put people in positions to succeed and you know,
(12:43):
to really implement the values and the culture that you've started.
And then your partners, you know, being able to you know,
know that if you're not there, that they could run
the business and handle you know, the things that you
do when you're.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Not there is a big part of it.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
So it definitely took probably about six months to you know,
start to really you know, step away a little bit.
But even when I'm not there, I'm always on my phone,
you know, the cameras it doesn't have. I'll be putting
my kids to sleep, and then you know, I'll be
on my phone, you know, making reservations for people or
looking at the cameras. Like you said, so it never stops.
But you know that's that's a blessing. You know. You know,
(13:21):
you could be home five days a week and have
an empty restaurant. So if if you're on seven days
a week, that means you know, there's a reason that
you're there, and you're and you're engaged, and you know,
you never never complained about the work.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
When would you say so?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You said it maybe it took about six months to
find your stride a little bit because I'm also wondering
once you guys did have yeah, grand opening, and then
people have to know it's there. You have to keep
on making sure that you're promoting, doing pr you know,
inviting people to come out.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
So you would say, like maybe about six months in there, So.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
That's when I when I finally was able to like,
you know, maybe take a day or two off. But
in terms of say less, we actually were busy before.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
We even opened.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I had a lot of clients that you know, obviously
would reach out to me on a nightly basis about
where to dine, and we were still putting the finishing
touches on getting the place open. So we opened January fifteenth,
twenty and twenty two, and probably right after New Year's
For those two weeks in January, like I would get
a calls and I'm like, listen, we're not really open,
but if you want to come by, I'd be happy
(14:20):
to serve you.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And you know, we kind of got momentum.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
The Giants did a private event there, James Harden did
a private event there. So a lot of my regular
clients started coming to the restaurant before we opened, and
then Kanye came like February right after we opened, and
you know, got a lot of press for that. So
I just always having you know, we're in New York City,
there's always something going on.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Like yesterday was the WNBA Draft.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Yeah, you know, in a couple of weeks it's the
NFL Draft, even though it's not in New York. There's
a lot you know, between sports and music, you know, fashion,
the culture. We have a lot of people that come
to New York from out of outside of New York,
and then there's a lot of powerful people that live
in New York.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
So we're kind of the I guess we were really
catered toward that ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And it comes to doing pop ups.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I know you guys did some things too, and you've
been doing a lot of pop ups lately. So how
instrumental has that been as far as in promoting the
restaurant and what made you guys decide, Okay, we got
to start doing these pop ups.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
So pop ups is something I did, like I started
doing right before the pandemic, and then the pandemic kind
of really put put that to rest for a little
while because there was no pop ups or traveling or
doing you know, new concepts. But the pop up concept
is very important to what we do because it allows
us to take our brand on the road to a
different market kind of you know, introduce it to the market,
and then it lets us understand, like, you know, will
(15:34):
our brand work well there. We try to do it
around events that there's a high concentration of our clients
already in the market. So that's you know, athletes and
music artists that are there. So like we just did
one in February for NBA All Star Weekend. That's where
we have you know a lot of our clients in town.
And I think we just have the ability to do
things that a lot of other brands don't that you know,
(15:55):
high volume, fast paced, you know, concentration of people in
a market at once that's not in your home market.
You know, a lot of our staff we operated restaurants
in the Hampton's you know, for the last ten years,
so I think being able to deal with that, you know,
where you have to take your staff on the road,
you got to get housing for them, you got to
make sure that everyone's taken care of, and also everyone
(16:17):
wants to come at the same time, so there's that rush.
And I think also the cuisine kind of caters towards
that is where you know, Chinese food, you could cook
it a lot faster than a lot of other cuisines,
and you know, you can get a lot of food
out at once to keep everyone happy. But again, you know,
the customers are the ones that really dictate where we go.
And we will be doing a lot more pop ups,
(16:37):
you know, over the next year, and then obviously the
long term goal is to open.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Up new locations.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Do you know where yet?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
There's a lot of markets that we have a lot
of interest from, but we're not jumping intended thing. I
think the pop up model allows us to do something.
You know, we have a lot of brand sponsors that
come on.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Board help us with those pop ups.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
So I think those are things that we're really looking
into doing. But I think you know, Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Vegas, La,
those are big markets where a lot of our clients
are from already.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Now, I know you've said previously that it's not a
good idea to stay stagnant when it comes to even
your menu and the restaurant business. So what are some
things that you're doing to make sure that you're always
catering to like people is changing taste, What are some
things that you feel like have to be staples on
the menu, And then you know, what do you think
ends up?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Like is it seasonal? How do you guys figure that out?
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yeah, so we we don't really we do seasonal cocktails.
In terms of the food, we don't do anything that's
too seasonal, but we do. You know, there's a lot
of trends in you know, there's gluten free, there's vegan,
there's vegetarian. So you definitely have to make sure that
you touch on all those.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
You know, Asians is.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Good for that too, Chinese food because you can be like,
you know me, first of all, you guys have a
great Low Main. I'm not even like big on Low
Main like that, but every time I come there, for
some reason, I'm like, I got to get the Low Main.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Yeah, that's I was saying that to someone the other day.
I was like, our low Maine is really good.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It is really good.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And that's not even like one of my favorite things
that I normally, but when I come there for some reason,
I really enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
You're not the only one.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yeah, But some of the signature dishes, the chicken saute
with the peanut sauce.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
That's definitely a staple.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
And then we have some new dishes that we've introduced,
Like we have these dish called the Lobster spoons that's
been very popular.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
We have a Krispy Tuna rice.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Mano was talking about the Krispy Tuna rice.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yeah, that's that's a big one.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
We just introduced a five wagu Krispy rice, so that's
that's a new dish. And then we have Pastromi spring rolls,
lobster spring rolls. But there's something for everyone on the
menu and it's great for sharing. So if you come,
even if you're on date night or if you're with
a big group, you know, you could order different dishes
and you know taste. You know, whoever you're with, you
(18:39):
could you could you could share the dishes. So it
allows you to order a bunch of different things and
share it.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
What do you eat when you're outside of there, like
besides you know, because I could imagine you being there
as frequently as you are, there's certain things you're always there.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
You know you eat obviously the food is say let's leap,
but outside of say less like what type of cuisine?
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I like? Everything? So you know, so she Italian, you know, steakhouse.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
But you don't never really have to eat anywhere else.
They could just make stuff for you in the kitchen.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Yeah, but listen, you know you definitely want to get
out there, and you know, part of it is, you know,
doing brand research to try new things. But also you know,
like you said, I was at the restaurant so much
for the last ten years, you know, six nights a
week at least, that I really didn't get the opportunity
to go out to a lot of other restaurants. So
now that I have a little bit more free time,
I'm making a point of getting out to different restaurants
(19:26):
and seeing, you know, trends in the market and what
works and what doesn't, and just you know, understanding, you know,
what kind of dishes that we might want to add
to our menu.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Do you guys think about things like getting a Michelin Star.
I know that's something that people are always like Missionlin Star.
I don't even necessarily even really know the Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Listen, I mean, in the restaurant business, getting a Michelin
Stars obviously the ultimate goal. But I think at the
end of the day, there's a lot of Michelin Star
restaurants that don't make it long term for various reasons.
So for me, it's more about the balance sheet and
making sure that you know, you stay on brand and
you run.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
A profitable business. But I would love to open up
a Michelin Star version of what.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We do one day, all right, And I need you
to be honest about this, Dora. When you're in the
restaurant every day all week and everybody wants to come
in and do a shot with you, are you drinking
water and pretending to do a shot or like, what's
really going on?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Because so I won't take water shots. But I tell
people all the time that I'm not taking a shot.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
You know, Okay, I can imagine like Darra Tarredar, come on,
get us a shot.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Everybody, get Dira's shot.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
So when when I was younger, I would take all
those shots, and I learned the hard way that you know,
you just can't take shots with everyone. So I've I've
moved away from the shots. If I take a shot
with someone, it won't be water. It's the real thing.
But I say no more than yes a lot of
times regarding taking shots.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
And how hard is it to accommodate people that are
you know, people are always asking for you and looking
for you Darra. Like every time I go there, when
I come in, I'm walking.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Past the door. I hear it, Darra. Where's Dara? Is
Dodar here? I'm looking for Darra, you know.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And sometimes it's people who don't even know you, and
they're just trying to make sure they can, you know,
feel I mean, of course, everybody should feel important when
they come into the rest to unt because there's still
customers and clients. But then you also have a lot
that you're juggling and dealing.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
With, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I always tell people if they know me, tell them
they call me. You know, my number is not too
hard to get, so if they really know me, they
have my number, Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And I know you deal with things like and this
is important too, and I've seen you say this before.
To make sure that you know, the customer service that
you can provide for people is one of the most
important things that has made you successful as a business person,
and therefore your business is successful. So even doing things
like opening late for people or you know, at times
when you guys aren't even necessarily serving, just making sure
(21:37):
that you can accommodate you know, your client tele is
an important thing.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Yeah, I think definitely after the pandemic, there was like
a shift where a lot of restaurants closed earlier. And
I think one of our sweet spots is that we
keep our kitchen open later if need be. And there's
always a lot of things going on and they always
end around midnight and they.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Want to go eat something.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
So if it's the right situation, and it's all all
through relationships again, you know, if we know the people
and their clients of ours, why wouldn't we stay open
just to make sure that we continue the relationship and
make them happy.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
And people do really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And I saw whiz Kid did a party there and
then afterward he'd posted on Instagram say less album you know.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Coming, So we're still waiting on the album.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I know that was.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Supposed to being like twenty twenty three or something like that,
but you know, he was so inspired by coming there
and having a good time that he wanted to even
name his album after the restaurant.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
We've gotten a lot of clients from Europe, from Africa,
a lot of the biggest you know, celebrities in the
world that have really gravitated towards the say Let's brand.
So we're definitely proud of that, and we constantly, you know,
try to keep the brand fresh.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
All right, Well, listen, I'm just excited that, you know,
like I said, I've known Darr for such a long
time and always been like amazing to me, and you
don't even know me. Like that was just from being
in the restaurant, and then every time I come Doars,
I was like, oh my god, I haven't seen you
in so long. You make everybody feel so special in
that way, and so I just want to.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Commend you on the work that you've been doing.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Sometimes people don't even appreciate it or notice it, and
I know that's not what you do it for, but
you know, I do appreciate you. The food smells so
good and I haven't eaten anything yet today, so I'm
about to chat out. And we also have our tea
coffee uplifts people people.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Our tea is we've been moving through the tea so yeah,
people love it.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
So I'm excited for that, just because I wanted to
provide that tea experience. Y'all know, I'm half Chinese and
Chinese tea is very big in the Chinese culture and
the Asian culture. So to be able to provide that,
I feel like sometimes people don't think about like the
tea that they serve and make that an experience too.
And that was like a prime place for us to
be able to partner in, to be in, like, you know,
(23:35):
a top notch restaurant like say Let's.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So I appreciate that our pleasure.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
We're happy to have it on the menu.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
All right, Well, Dara, y'all make sure you go to
say Let's when you come to New York. When you
go to the door, say you know Dara. And if
you don't have his number, then I can't help you
with that any further, but make a reservation if need be.
And definitely one of my favorite places to eat. So
thank you so much Daa for coming through.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Thank you Angela Wa
Way Up With Angela Yee News
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