- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- The state of restaurants in Memphis, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I am Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by four people with extensive experience in the local restaurant industry.

They are Mary Oglesby from Cameo, Mary's B.O.T.E, and a couple more restaurants you're about to open.

Thanks for being here.

- Hi, thank you.

- Monique Williams, Chef Mo from Biscuits & Jams.

Thank you for being here.

- Thank you.

- Tim Barker is a restaurant consultant, hospitality consultant, also been involved with a lot of restaurants, including Edge Alley.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you.

- And Holly Whitfield is with The Daily Memphian and does among many, many things for us, writes about food and the food industry as well as host our podcast Sound Bites.

So thank you for being here again.

- Thanks for having me.

- I think we wanted to talk about this, and we've talked about this in The Daily Memphian and on Holly's podcast, my podcast as well, Tim and Jennifer Chandler, our food writer, joins to talk about every time a restaurant closes and there's some big name ones that have closed in the last year or two, there's a sense for a lot of people that the sky is falling, but there's also the reality that restaurants then reopen and some of those dynamics are complicated.

And so I wanted to talk to you all, but partly what I wanted to talk to you, starting with is, as someone who goes to a lot of restaurants, yours included, why in the world do you all do this just draining, difficult, incredibly hard on you personally and financially business.

And I mean, I'll go to you Chef Mo.

Why do you do this?

And thank you for doing it.

- Well, I question it every day.

Honestly, I question it every day.

I think I've said it many times.

It has to be your passion.

You really have to love what you do.

I mean, it is a very hard industry to be a part of.

You know, it is very taxing.

You know, it takes you away from your family.

Financial, from a financial standpoint, you just don't know from one day to next sometimes.

But I think it comes down to, this is, you know, you really love doing this, you know, and you can't see yourself doing anything else.

So I would say that would be it.

- Same question to you, Mary.

- You know, it's a similar answer, honestly.

Like, it's the kind of industry, and I think there's a lot of different industries like this, but it's the kind of industry where once you get into it, you either love it or you hate it.

And if you love it and you keep on that trajectory, then, like she said, you can't see yourself doing anything else.

And I honestly can't see myself doing anything else than working in hospitality.

- Yeah.

For Tim, it's the same question why you got into it and why you would do this.

But you closed to my utter and complete frustration, and I will never forgive you, Edge Alley, which was one of my favorite restaurants in Memphis, but we've talked about it before and your reasons for doing it were interesting.

So talk about why you do this, why you stayed in the industry, now you're consulting, and then segue into why you closed Edge Alley is not to focus so much on Edge Alley, but just there are reasons that restaurants close.

- Sure.

Like the others said, it's something, it's passion, it's the people, the industry itself has a lot of merit.

There are so many positive, you know, interactions that happen in a restaurant there, it's also really difficult.

And there are days when you think, "Why in the world am I doing this?"

And you know, I closed, we had a 10-year lease.

My 10-year lease was up.

I sort of felt like, you know, costs were at an all time high just across the board, labor and product costs, taxes.

You know, the more you sell the more you get to pay the state and the federal government.

It had just gotten to be kind of unsustainable.

And I didn't really see it changing much in the next three to five years.

So I could have signed an extension and stayed, but I decided the concept maybe had run its course.

And I didn't wanna change the menu and I didn't want to raise the prices.

- Yeah.

And you're one of those restaurants that closed willingly and it was time and you made that decision.

It wasn't sort of a dark of night kind of thing.

Before I go to Holly, personally, we've talked about this before.

You were working 60+ hours a week in that last year or two.

- There were weeks where it was closer to 90.

But, you know, 60's sort of a minimum, no one who owns a restaurant works less than 60 hours a week.

- And I think people don't realize that.

Again, as I go to Holly to ask some questions or comment on this.

And again, we're talking tonight, we may talk about some chains, we may touch on the Houston's thing and all that.

But this is really about local and small businesses of 1, 2, 3, 4, you know, kind of places.

But let me bring in Holly Whitfield.

- Well, I think it's really interesting that you open by saying, you know, when a restaurant closes, people react like the sky's falling, that it's something really negative.

It's something that Mary had said on our Sound Bites episode was like, I mean, it can be sad when a restaurant closes if it's sad.

Sometimes it's actually a story about somebody that owns a restaurant wanting to do something else.

Sometimes it's a lease ending.

Sometimes it's people retiring.

And you may or may not get that real story from those people.

They may not wanna share that they're retiring or something is happening.

It's not always a tragedy, I guess is my point, when a restaurant closes.

And sometimes it, you know, leaves room for something new to come in.

And so I think that is something that people should ask themselves.

Like, is this an opportunity for the next round of restaurants in Memphis?

The next like, leaf to turnover?

Or you know, do we really need to go full doom scroll about [everyone chuckles] a chain restaurant closing?

Decide for yourself, but you know, that's the question I have.

- I mean, I'm going to you Mary, because Knifebird, a restaurant in Cooper-Young, right on the edge of Cooper-Young and public owned, they decided to close and you all are going right in there.

I mean, so those great spaces and people really love those restaurants, but Knifebird was around for quite a while.

It was sad for a lot of people and we'd see in our comments and we'd see it in the commentary, but then it's like, oh, but you know, these people with these other great places are about to take it over.

- Yeah.

So Paul, my business partner and I were, you know, we friends with the owners who had Knifebird and Public Bistro.

And I was a regular at both of those places and absolutely wonderful places, actually to the point now where every time I'm like, I want to go out, I want to go to Knifebird and it's not there.

But yeah, you know, when we were approached about the idea of taking over those spaces, it was kind of a mixed bag because I was sad to see those places go.

But it was for personal reasons on the owner's side.

But at the same time, you know, it means that we can do something different with those spaces and something that, you know, you're not losing necessarily a space.

You're getting something new.

- Yeah.

So you, Monique, just opened downtown, a second location.

Talk about the challenges of opening a restaurant, whether you wanna talk about your first one, or just now, you've done a second time.

I mean, everything from staff to Tim talked about taxes, you talk about code enforcement, you talk about liquor board.

You may not have liquor, actually.

- I do.

- You do.

Yeah.

Okay, so just all the and more.

It is not so simple as, "Hey, I signed a lease "and I've got some eggs and food and I'm cooking and we're open."

- Well, I'll tell you this.

You know, when we opened up Biscuits & Jams in Barlett, there were challenges, of course.

You know, code, you know, prices increasing, trying to find the right staff.

I always say this to anybody that's opening up a restaurant, your first staff, most of the time, it's gonna be the ones you want to get rid of 'cause they're just: "What in the world did I get here?"

Normally by the second, you know, third turn is when you start getting those people like, "Okay, I think we're finding our way."

But downtown has been a beast.

I will not lie to you.

I'm very transparent and very honest when it comes to that, you know, from getting things approved, to delays, you know, thinking we're gonna open it one time and yeah.

"Oh, we smell gas," so that, you know, that happens.

"Oh, we don't get plumbing approved," you know, because this is leaking.

Okay, we didn't know, you know, we kind of went into that with thinking it was kind of gonna be a turnkey.

Definitely did not turn out to be that.

You know, it went from opening probably early April well, I would say like March, early April to mid-May.

So you hit that May month and business is slow.

You know, and it picks up a little bit and then you go into, you know, kids going back to school, then it's slow again.

So from a financial standpoint, it has been just, "What in the world did we do?"

You know, to come from, you know, a place of "Yeah, we're doing really, really good," to a place now like, "Okay, carry the one.

Okay, are we gonna make it?"

You know, and then staffing.

This go around, when I tell you it's been rough, you know, just trying to find people that really just wanna work.

You know, so for us, I think the two biggest things have been staffing and financial, you know, and bringing the cost of food increasing and liquor, you know, and then you got all of that.

And as you said, taxes and all that, you know, to be a small business, we're taxed so much, you know, and on every end, and so many, you get your liquor license with the state, and then the city.

You gotta pay the city to have liquor.

You know, so you're just kind of being pulled at every end.

- You're moving into, well, we talked about two existing restaurant spaces, but there's probably still code.

And I mean, it's not like you can just go in there and fire up the ovens and you're going.

- No, no, we signed.

- And people don't understand that.

- No.

So we signed two leases months ago, and hopefully one of them will be open soon.

But the reality is that like, I mean, she was mentioning taxes, that's a big thing that we'll deal with later.

But like, right now, it feels like every time, every year, there's a new thing put into every code, there's a new thing that you have to get, and they don't tell you about that.

You know, so it's like you have to dig through everything to figure that out.

You know, then you're like, "Okay, well I've done this before, "so I know that everything's perfect.

This place was open very recently."

And so we'll have this code enforcer guy come in and he'll look at everything and then he'll be like, "No, as of this year, you actually have to have this thing."

And then we have to go back and get that thing and have it installed and get that set up, get somebody out to install it, and then make an appointment for that inspector to come back out and that takes weeks.

And you know, and then you can't even apply for your liquor license until all of those things are done.

But it takes weeks for every single one to get done.

And so, like the hoops that you have to jump through, I mean, they're a lot, but they're almost comical.

You know, because there's so many and they seem so unnecessary.

- I think we would benefit, like, as a city and in the restaurant industry, to have a lot more transparency in that as well.

So I'm really glad that we're having this conversation about that.

But I did wanna ask about the spaces that you're going into.

And then Tim, I know that you also work with restaurant spaces, designing them to be pleasant for the guests, but also functional for the people working there.

What are the biggest, you know, what concerns with that and when you're designing a space, what are you doing to make it your own or to make it your client's own?

- I think a lot of what I do is focused on functionality.

Staying on top of code is a big part of it too.

I think one of the most frustrating things, kind of like what Mary is saying, is that the code is left to the interpretation of the inspector.

So it may say one thing, but if the inspector prefers a different standard, then you have to comply with that, and then they have to come back.

And so it, you know, code enforcement, especially here, is really frustrating.

I don't deal with it as much in other cities, but in Memphis specifically, it's always a challenge.

But yeah, I think, to kind of answer the design part of the question, listening to, understanding someone's concept and designing toward that versus just generic "this is a kitchen, make it work."

- Let's talk about why restaurants, we talked a little bit about this, but I wanna go back into why restaurants close, you know, and some of those things that like, you made this choice.

The folks, you made a choice that you're going their spaces.

Sometimes, and we don't have to name names, but you and I have talked about this before, and Holly and I have definitely talked about before, sometimes restaurants need to close, sometimes they've run their course, right?

Sometimes you can tell that the place hasn't really been painted, or there's sinks that don't work and you're paying $150 for dinner.

You know, like in the men's room, like there's things like that that happen.

And so maybe I'll go to you, Mary.

How do you look at this and try to avoid some of those things where you see a really great restaurant decline and it may be sad that it closed, but you kind of knew it needed to close?

- Yeah.

I mean, I don't wanna speak for anybody because you know, restaurants, businesses close for all sorts of different reasons.

But I will say that, you know, it does get frustrating to see people constantly... Holly and I have talked about this.

People, every single time a restaurant closes, people are like, "It's because of crime."

Nintey-nine percent of the time, it's not.

But that's the thing that people jump on automatically, including places that you're referring to, I don't know which places, but you know, that you go into and you're like, you can just kind of tell that people haven't cared in a long time.

And maybe that's because the person who owns it is retiring.

Maybe that's because there's been an illness in the family.

Maybe that's just because it's run its course, and this is just the time.

But that's just kind of how the restaurant industry is.

Restaurants have a lifespan, and I'm not gonna pretend that mine don't.

Mine will close at some point, and maybe it'll be a really upsetting thing, and maybe it'll be because we choose to.

But restaurants have a lifespan and the kind of restaurant that stays open generation after generation after generation is the extreme exception to the rule.

And so, while it is sad for somebody's dream to end, sometimes it's not because their dream ended, it's because they chose to follow something else.

- I see you nodding there.

- Oh, yeah, I'm just agreeing because I think, you know, like Mary said, you know, sometimes it's just run its course.

Sometimes, you know, you're tired.

As a restaurant owner, you know, you've worked, and as you said, you know, sixty is the low end.

- In terms of the hours.

- Hours that the owner is working.

I've had weeks where 70 hours, like last year, I cannot tell you how many family functions I missed or, you know, didn't get a chance to spend time with my mother or different things like that.

And then you kind of get to a place in your life where you're like, "Okay, what's important?"

sometimes, and it's like, I love my dream, but do I let all the rest of this fall to the wayside?

And you know, so it could be something like that as well, you know?

- Yeah, but before I go to Holly, I think you and I have talked about this, Tim, but you know this.

Again, we're not really naming names, but restaurant group or small, you know, handful of restaurants in Memphis and I was talking to one of their owners and they were saying that a bunch of restaurants had closed and they were blaming things and they were kind of like, "Yeah, but they weren't really investing," and their approaches, and I can't exactly remember the number, but it's like every five years, you've gotta take whatever profits you have and you don't get to take that home.

You've gotta paint, you've gotta invest in your building, you've gotta invest in the menu.

You've just gotta invest every five years or else you're going to decline.

- And in the staff.

You know, you really do have to put back into the business just like any other business.

And like what Monique said, at a certain point you think, "What good is having this dream if I don't get to enjoy it?"

And some people close because they're just tired and they don't wanna do it anymore, and they're tired of missing family functions or skipping vacation.

- Yeah, 10 minutes left.

Holly.

- Sure.

I had a couple thoughts while y'all were talking, which mostly my thought was, thank you though, despite all of this, for creating the spaces that you do and working those and providing us with great things to eat and great spaces.

I was at a restaurant last night in Midtown, I'll just tell you, I was at Echo and it was packed.

I could hardly get a table.

I was in there.

Eric comes in, then I have another old friend that comes in and I get to catch up with her and with them.

And I was meeting other friends that it was such a nice night that was made possible because of, you know, those people that work there and that team.

And so I just really appreciate that and thank you.

And I think that is partly why too people do kind of get a gut reaction where they're like, "Ah, no, sad.

I remember some good times that I had."

But on the flip side of that, you know, it's probably a lot easier for people to say, "Hey, it's crime," or, "Hey, this isn't a great neighborhood."

It's a lot easier for people who are sort of leaving the industry to say that than it is for them to explain some of the things that you're talking about and being really transparent.

It's a lot easier to just sort of give an answer that may not be nice, but everyone's like, "Oh yes, agreed."

So I do notice that at times, when people say that.

So, you know, everyone should keep that in mind.

- Well, one place where I will name names was, I was particularly bothered by Houston's closing.

Not that they closed, they'd been here 40 years.

I was not a big Houston's person.

A lot of people were.

That's fine.

It was kind of nice to go and get sort of a comfort food experience there back in the day.

But there is nobody, I mean, we went there maybe a year ago or something like that.

It had declined.

I mean, it was dated, it felt run down.

The staff was, which had always been they've had this kind of really, the staff was just on it.

It was kind of a machine and whether or not you like that, the machine was like, you know, fine tuned.

It was not a fine-tuned machine.

And they came out and said, "Well it was 'cause of crime," or "It was 'cause of Memphis."

And it was just so absolutely absurd that they would say that.

So that's one we can pick on because it's a big corporation.

Okay, everyone's got their fingers up.

Tim, we're gonna go around here.

Full crossfire action here.

- I was gonna say, when, you know, I think Houston's is the only restaurant closure I can think of that actually cited crime as the reason.

Everyone, all of the locally-owned restaurants have valid reasons and the chain comes out and says it's crime and they're in one of the best parts of the city.

I thought that was ridiculous.

- Yeah, so I think that they probably leaned on that because there were rumors that other places that were local places closed because of crime.

But those are rumors.

That's just people talking on the internet.

You know, that's people who want to say the worst thing about their city and then don't support small businesses, you know?

And there's a lot of those people and they're really loud and they have big opinions and I don't respect those opinions.

And when Houston's says that they were closing, I'm sorry, there's nothing to cry about because a chain restaurant was claiming that there was crime in the Whole Foods parking lot.

Like that's just not a thing, you know?

- I just think they took the easy way out.

You know, it would've helped everyone, the small business, local business, if they would've said, "Hey, the job market here is kind of sucky."

You know, if they would've said those things, maybe that puts a spotlight on some of the things that we face as local restaurateurs, the business owners.

That's one of the main issues, trying to find good staffing.

And if they would've said that, that might've helped the community versus saying, "Oh, crime."

Yeah, we know the crime is here, but that's not the case as you stated.

Hospitality, their service, you know, it went down because of labor in hospitality.

We're not a hospitality city anymore.

We want to be that.

We want to say that, but when you look at the people that are in the jobs, it is very few that still possess that quality.

So I think that would've helped us more than to tell that little fib.

- I also think, I mean, I travel a lot.

I mean, it seems to me every city I go to and where my kids are and my family, they're all struggling with staffing.

They're all struggling with high prices.

They're all struggling with... And a lot of these cities are struggling with crime.

You know, I spent a bunch of time in Portland recently and you know, it's a great city, but they're struggling with crime and it's closed.

They're all kinds of factors come together that restaurants there have closed or moved into the suburbs and all that kind of thing.

Five minutes left.

Other thoughts from Holly.

- Yeah, I wanted to ask, when it's going really well, when it's working and it's all clicking, which all of you have had that experience, you're having it now or you will, or you have.

What makes it work?

Like what are the great components that make it work?

And that could either be about when you open, like we do a bunch of media and we have this and we have that.

Or it could be just when you're already open, like what makes it click?

What are some of the good things?

- Teamwork.

I think that's the biggest thing.

If we all, you know, from the front of the house to the back of the house, we all realize that we're just one business and we work together.

That is a beautiful thing.

When you have that, unstoppable.

- Our staff is our biggest asset for sure.

I will brag all day long that Cameo and Mary's B.O.T.E.

have the best staff in the city.

We have almost no turnover.

The people who have left, it's because they've moved or taken a job in the completely different sector.

And we've been very, very lucky.

It is a struggle to find those people like you were talking about.

But once you do, if you can hang onto them, if you can find the way to like, make it so that they wanna be there and they, you know, they feel taken care of and they feel like they're part of the team and not just a cog in the system, then I think that that's where you're gonna thrive, is having the people that are employed by you feeling ownership over the place and wanting to be there and wanting to do a good job.

And that reflects when a customer comes in.

They see that, they feel that.

- And Tim.

- I would echo the staffing.

I mean, having a great staff that really believes in the business and wants to do well, that does translate to the guest experience.

And that's really what the restaurant business is.

You can cook at home, you're here for an experience, and that's what good restaurants provide, great experiences.

And I think that kind of goes back to what Holly was saying about people being disappointed when a restaurant closes because lots of people, you know, celebrate at restaurants or lots of people have memories, core memories, or people write books at restaurants or, you know, it's just, I think people develop such a personal relationship with a restaurant that you don't see kind of in other businesses.

- Yeah, I mean, I joke that I will never forgive you for closing Edge Alley, but there's a little bit of truth in that because it was so much a part of my life and the people there and it was actually kind of a COVID thing is when we got back into restaurants and spent an inordinate amount of time in that.

And so there was this real loss of like, a big part of my weekly, daily routine, you know, when that kind of thing closed.

With just a couple minutes left, do things like, as we tape this, it's Black Restaurant Week, that would be last week as you are watching this, there'll be a Downtown Restaurant Week.

Do those things work?

Do those help?

Are those, and are there other things like that that the city or the chamber or the tourism board could do to help you all as small businesses?

- I think it does.

I think this year, I've seen a decline, you know, versus last year, and the last two years that we've done it.

But I think everybody's a little more frugal right now.

I think spending and the cost of food is so high, a lot of people are eating at home and they're just being very picky about when they spend money.

But I think it does help.

- Do you, Holly, see things that help or ideas or things you hear or just you've experienced that would work to help the restaurants and the small businesses?

- I think, you know, on a normal year, those kinds of special weeks, new things, trying new things, one thing that your business partner Paul said was that we're not gonna die on any hill.

We're not gonna stick to a part of our concept or concept at the detriment of our business.

We're gonna keep trying new things.

We're not gonna like, hang our hat on one trend.

And sometimes I think people can get really, really deep into that trend.

So if you're constantly trying something new or you're willing to start doing brunch, have some music.

If you're willing to change a little bit in a fun way that is still within your vision, then I think that attracts people 'cause people love new stuff.

- And probably last word to Mary, thoughts on those kinds of things that could work, that could be done to help those small businesses.

- You know, it's hard to say what like, the city could do as far as like, different kinds of special weeks and things like that.

But if I'm being honest, the thing that helps the most is for people who love their city to vocally love their city and to support small businesses because the people who have negative things to say are loud, they're so loud and they're constant and they're destructive and it's not helpful.

And so the people who love Memphis, the people that, even if they don't love Memphis yet, but they wanna love Memphis and they want Memphis to be better, they want Memphis to succeed, the best thing for them to do is to be loud, be vocal, and to support small businesses.

- All right, we will leave it there.

Thank you all.

Thanks for what you do.

Thanks for being here.

And thank you for joining us.

If you missed any of the show, you can get the full episode at WKNO.org or The Daily Memphian or YouTube.

You can also download the podcast version of the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks very much and we'll see you next week.

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