Simon Zatyrka [00:00:00]:

Some of his methods were just a little bit weird to me. But, man, when I started cooking, the way he cooked, like, things just tasted a little better. His sense of seasoning was like, he's the first guy that, like, had a tray of vinegars on his station, and he always had acid as much as he had salt and pepper when he was seasoning. Right. Like, he's the first guy that really pushed it on me that was like. He's like, seasoning isn't salt and pepper, and maybe something else. Seasoning is salt, pepper, acid, foreign.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:40]:

Welcome to another episode of WISKing It All. We're joined today by Simon Zatyrka, the founder and CEO of Culinary Mechanics. Simon, thanks for joining us.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:00:51]:

Thanks, man. It's a pleasure to be here.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:53]:

Yeah. So. So really, it's. It's always fun to talk to people in the industry. As you know, on the show, we have people from all. All angles, whether it's food side, beverage side, tech side, operations side, marketing side, you name it. And we try to just get different angles. And I know you got quite a bit of culinary experience.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:13]:

So, first of all, I want to get the story behind the nickname Culinary Mechanic. How did it come. How did it come about?

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Simon Zatyrka [00:01:21]:

You know, honestly, I was in a. I was in a period of my career, and I would say now, that was about 10. No, almost 14 years ago. Wow.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:30]:

Okay.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:01:31]:

And at that. At that point, I'd been in the. Been in the game for about 18, almost 20 years. Right. More, give or take. You know, I'd worked my way up, and I'd run multiple restaurants. The executive chef. I was the chef de cuisine of a couple places.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:01:43]:

Zek Su Chef all the way up. And I just got to this place where I didn't feel inspired about a lot of things, and I was just. It was just sort of a grinding operation. And one day I just kind of screamed, and I hope it's okay, but I just kind of screamed, fuck. I am not even a chef anymore. I'm just. I'm just like a mechanic. I rip it down, I tear it apart, and I build it back up, and it runs better than it did yesterday.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:02:09]:

And all of a sudden, I was like, huh, that's cool. And so shortly after that, I left my job because it was clearly not working. And I was just messing around with the idea of, like. Like, what is that? That, you know? And it's. It's. I think if you take away some of the creative aspects of being a chef, it's pretty nuts and bolts. It's it's make sure that systems are running. It makes sure that, that, you know, the people that, that are interfacing with those systems are given what they need.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:02:46]:

And all those. All those little systems building into bigger systems. So fast forward to fall of 2022. I had quit my job and I decided that I was going to do something else.

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Angelo Esposito [00:03:00]:

Okay.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:03:01]:

And I'll be honest, I didn't really know what else was. And I got, you know, I got a couple of calls and, and I think this is for. For a lot of consultants that I talk to in the, in the restaurant industry especially, yeah, this happens. It's like, hey, I heard you're available. You want to come do a project with me? Boom. So it's one and then I got a second one. All referrals, all just in my network and people just calling me. And, you know, before I know it, I've got three different clients and it's time to like, start billing.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:03:33]:

And I'm like, well, I should probably set up a company. You know, I'm like. And I'm like, what am I going to call it? And I've got all these names and I'm doing word mapping and I'm doing all this stuff. And then I looked at my wife and I was like, I know what it is. And she says, well, what is it? I said, it's culinary mechanic. And she's like, of course it is. She goes, that was, that was something that, that idea and that concept that you loved way back when. I was like, totally.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:03:59]:

And then it was just. It just started to roll. Like, I. I got on the computer and I started playing with logos and I was like, mechanic. And so you, what do you do? You Google mechanic logo. It's always a gear, right? And then there's like cross wrenches. And I'm like, well, I don't use wrenches, but I do use spoons and I do use knives. So boom, before I know it, I've got a gear with a cross spoon and a knife and that's it, man.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:04:24]:

Now I like that. I've sort of honed that.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:27]:

Yeah.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:04:27]:

And you know, just trying to. Trying to give back to an industry that I've loved for three decades.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:35]:

Yeah, No, I think it's a great name, especially because WISK, we help with everything cogs related. And the first thing that comes to mind is exactly that. The higher you get up in the kind of culinary side, so to speak, it's like, usually the less you're actually cooking and then the more you're actually creating and costing and figuring things out and processizing. And so really the idea of mechanic becomes more and more important, so to speak. You know, people think, okay, I'm a chef. I'm just gonna cook. But it's, like, rarely that it's a kind of. Or whatever you want to call it a kitchen measure, whatever.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:12]:

But the higher you get, the less you're actually physically, you know, cooking and more you're more strategizing and building.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:05:20]:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I heard an interview the other day of a chef, and he's now a chef owner. And he goes, I used to focus all on the food and now when I'm opening a new restaurant, it's like the last thing we get. We get all the other things together. We figure out how much money we're gonna need, we get all the systems, we make sure we have people in place, and then we get to create the food because that's the fun part. and that's what, like, propels us forward. He goes, but it's like, less than 20.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:51]:

Wow. No, well said. Well said. It's funny, something similar that I remember. I forget who I was speaking to, but we're just talking about, like, restaurants, and the idea became just food.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:06:04]:

The. The.

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Angelo Esposito [00:06:05]:

The food is almost like table stakes. You know what I mean? Like, meaning everyone assumes the food's good. No one's going to a restaurant being like, ah, yeah, I love this place because it's cheap, but the food is like. People assume the food's good, and obviously there's levels to that. But it's like table stakes. Like, of course the food's good. Why else would I pay for something if it's not good? And so it's important. But what people have to realize, it's.

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Angelo Esposito [00:06:25]:

It's. It's like, it's not the differentiation, because you got to see how many. Every restaurant has good food. Of course, we're Michelin star, this, that, whatever. But in general, like, if for the majority, unless you are that Michelin star in the majority of restaurants should be offering a good product. Right? But that's not your differentiator. And it's less obvious in food in the restaurant industry, because people. Oh, but the food here is amazing.

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Angelo Esposito [00:06:49]:

But it's more obvious in other spaces, because in other spaces, you were just, like, talking about your something that was table stakes. Like, I don't know if you're a retail store and you're just like, oh, man, our. Our retail, like, it's. It's nice and organized. It's neat. It's very neat. You'd be like, well, I hope it's neat. I want to be able to shop, you know, like, it's, it's, that's, that's almost what it's become there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:07]:

But I love, I love to maybe just always start with getting a background because obviously you have culinary experience, I think from my research, 30 plus years. But correct me if I'm wrong. So I'd like to understand. I always like to get people's story of how they got into the space. So just going back, you know, mini timeline. Let's hear the story of Simon. What attracted you to get into it?

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Simon Zatyrka [00:07:34]:

Okay. Yeah, man. You know, I, I, there's a little bit of the cliche of like, I, I come from Ukrainian and Mexican roots.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:45]:

That's an interesting.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:07:46]:

You spent time. Right.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:48]:

I think you're the first UK Mexican person. I, I created friends. I got Mexican friends. But you might be the first half. Half.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:07:56]:

Yeah, yeah. I'm a Ukrainian, let me tell you.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:59]:

No Mexican. Or a Mexicrain.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:08:02]:

I'm a Mexicrainian, sure. My wife and I kind of use them interchangeably, but I really spent most of my youth with my mom and my, and the Mexican side of the family. Right. So grandma was an amazing cook. No surprise. Like, you know, hospitality. They came up as migrant pickers out of, yeah, the Abuela. And you know, so I think that was always in the background.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:08:28]:

I wouldn't say that I was like the kid who was always in the kitchen. I was just, I'm a kind of a fat kid. I like. So that was a good start. And so somewhere around 16, I looked at my mom and I said, hey, mom, I want, she said, no, boy, you want a job. And I was like, wow, what do you mean? And she said, you need a job. So there's a restaurant down. And we were living on the north side of Albuquerque and little tiny sort of village off the, off the map a little bit.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:08:56]:

Okay. She says, there's a restaurant down the road. Go, go talk to them. And you know, see? And so I go, they didn't have anything. And they of course, took my application. And like, I don't know, like two months later, I get a call. And the guy, he goes, you have no experience. I said, no, sir, I don't.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:09:16]:

I said, but I really dig food and I'm a fast learner. And he said, okay, so let me call you back. And so he, I, I was a nerd, right? Like, I'm a great student. I was an A student all the way through. And so I think I put down, like, one or two teachers as references. What else do I have? Right.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:33]:

Amazing.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:09:34]:

So he calls my teachers and they're like, oh, my God, like, don't worry, like, whatever you asked, I'm going to do. He's going to do. Probably going to do it well. And so he calls me back and he goes, okay, so you're a good student. He goes, come in. We'll do a thing. And so, you know, I look around and I'm like, ah, none of these people. It's all close to my high school.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:09:55]:

So I was expecting to see somebody I knew, and I didn't really at first. And, you know, he walks me through the. Explains that this is the dish room. And then he, like, turns and he goes to the left, and he says, follow me. And he takes me up into the kitchen, and he goes, you're gonna be in here. And I was like, okay. He goes, normally I start kids like you in the dish room. He goes, but everybody tell.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:10:14]:

Everybody I talk to says, you're smart and you're a fast learner, so here's what you're going to do. And literally, for the first year of my existence in restaurants, I was the garnish guy. And it was. It was lettuce, tomato, cheese, olive, lettuce, tomato, cheese, olive. Okay? And then if it was fajitas, it was lettuce, tomato, cheese, scoop of guac, sour, scoop of pico de gallo, and an olive.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:37]:

Okay?

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Simon Zatyrka [00:10:38]:

Right. And that was it. That's all I did. The guy. There was a guy behind me who was. Who was reading tickets, and he would pull things out of this massive cheese warmer, like, salamander thing, and lay the plates down in order. And all I had to do just lettuce, tomato, cheese, olive, maybe wipe a little bit of the plate and then put them up in the order. He gave them to me.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:10:56]:

All I did.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:58]:

That's not easy for a full year. That's.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:11:01]:

Oh, my God. No, but it was. It was great because it was like, I didn't. I didn't have to think that much. I learned how to, like, I learned how to clean equipment. I learned how to do all, like, the fundamentals, right? With a bunch of. Bunch of hoodlums running around me. And.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:11:14]:

And that was fun, right? Like, I found that I love the community.

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Angelo Esposito [00:11:17]:

That's cool.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:11:18]:

Fast forward about a year and a half, two years, and I'm going to college. I go to UMass, and I'm going for engineering now and you know, I, I like, I tested out a. Tested out of first year calculus and first year physics and into third year Spanish and like I'm just, I'm in all these classes with all these older kids, you know, and I'm, I'm getting A's and B's and it's great. And I hate it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:11:42]:

Really.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:11:42]:

I mean I hated it. You, these were not my people. Just. I just.

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Angelo Esposito [00:11:48]:

Oh, I was gonna ask why, you know, I was gonna ask the why, why you hate. It was more because of your, your surroundings, like more of your peers type of thing.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:11:56]:

I, I resented the fact. So I was going to UMass in Amherst, right? Which is where my father taught for 30 something years, I think 38 years. And, and I had been outside of Massachusetts for a long time. So it was a little bit of culture shock to be back in New England. And so that was a little bit of it. I resented the fact that I was getting A's and paying to take classes that I found easy.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:24]:

Okay. Like it's not.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:12:27]:

No, no. I, I was in second. I was in like sophomore and junior year stuff and I was killing them. Right. I was in the there with these juniors in Spanish who were just like, hey, can you help me? So we, we work on our Spanish together, you know. And I, I was hanging out with this like couple group of guys that helped me with my physics and we were, helped each other but like, I don't know, man, I just didn't dig it. And then just overall I was like, I missed. I, I was cooking.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:12:55]:

I was also cooking full time. I had a probably 35 hour a week job in my hometown, so a couple maybe 25 miles away.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:03]:

Wow.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:13:03]:

Okay. Right. So here I am, I'm going to school full time. I'm killing it. I'm paying a ton of money to go there and I like cooking more. And so I did one year and then I looked at my mom, actually called her on the phone. I said, hey, I'm going to drop out. She's like, do whatever you want, but you're going to have to tell your father, you know.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:13:23]:

And so I told him and he was, he, I think he was more disappointed than pissed. Right. And I don't want to get stuck in this part of the story, but it especially because I guess he was after that conversation.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:34]:

Okay. And I was gonna say especially taught. There he was.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:13:36]:

And he wasn't a professor, he was a, he was a technical specialist. He was the guy. This is the important part part. He was the Guy that you sent graduate students to in environmental engineering and environmental sciences. When you need to get an answer, right? When you need to prove something in your research, you go to him and he figures out the methodology that you're going to use. He figures out the equipment and the test that you're going to do, right? Like, he's the research. He's the methodology and research guy that basically helps you prove your thesis or your theories or do the research, right? Like, this is the test that gives you the answer that this is the this, and this is the data, and this is how you do that. So I was a process kid from a very young age, right? And so I get into restaurants and it's like, do this, do that, do this, do that.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:14:26]:

And like, well, wouldn't it be faster if you did this and then that? And they go, oh, yeah, right. So I went back. I dropped out of school. I moved back to New Mexico, and I cooked and I cooked and I cooked and I read. And about three, four months after, I quit school and was back to working, and my mom calls me up and she goes, so, what's going on? And I tell her, I'm like, yeah, I'm cooking in the morning, I'm cooking at night. She goes, okay, so what's your plan? I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, you can drop out of school, but that doesn't mean that you're just going to float free in the universe. You're. You're going to have a plan and you're.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:15:02]:

You're going to. You're going to achieve whatever it is you choose to achieve. But, like, just because you don't go to school doesn't mean that you don't, like, move forward. And I was like, oh. So about two weeks later, she calls me back and she goes, so, what's your plan? I'm going to work a lot. And she goes, nope, going to need to do better than that. Let me know in two weeks. And so, way to hold me accountable, mom.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:15:25]:

And so finally, I was like, okay, I'm going to start to read. Like, I'm going to start to buy cookbooks. I'm going to start to read. And I was buying at the time, I was buying Bon Appetit magazine and Gourmet magazine, because those were the two, like, shiniest ones. And, you know, I remember, like, pictures of tall white hats and European guys in their fancy chef coats. And I was like, okay, that's. This is the angle, right? This is where I'm going to go And I just started again. Cooking in the morning, cooking at night, cooking in the morning, cooking at night.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:15:56]:

All of a sudden, fast forward probably a year, and now I'm working for a hotel. It's the Albuquerque Hilton. It's probably one of the poshest restaurants in Albuquerque. High end steakhouse kind of thing. And now I'm looking around going, huh, there's a restaurant and there's another restaurant. Like, the lines are connected, but they're doing totally different food. And like, that dining room's over there. And there's a way to do things.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:16:19]:

It's like I was kind of scrappy and I'd never really worn a chef coat up until that point. Now I'm wearing a chef coat and I got a paper, paper toque. And like, it's moving, you know. And now, like, oh, I'm good on the grill. Because I'd already been like, I figured out, like, I'm. I'm a pretty good grill cook. And so now everywhere I went, I'm a grill cook. And so now, let's see, timestamp, that's 1994.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:16:42]:

And then, boom, I just kept cooking. I got into a fancier place. And then I moved myself to Florida, where I got into a Sheridan Hotel that was probably one of the best restaurants in the area. And again, I'm cooking and reading and cooking and reading. My mom comes to me probably three years later and says, you need to get your ass out to California. Your grandparents are. They're getting old and they've got a. They got an old garage apartment that you're gonna live in and you're gonna live rent free.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:17:13]:

You just need to pay them a little bit of money for expenses and such. And you're going to watch over them. You're going to make sure they get up in the morning, make sure they go to bed at night. Going to make sure they have everything they need, okay? She goes, you'll work. It's a good town to work in for restaurants. So now I'm in Santa Barbara, California, and I'm going, it's like I. I'm at the Four Seasons and I'm. I'm working on the hardest line I've ever seen.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:17:34]:

There's five outlets coming off of one line. It's getting bumpy. Crazy. I got this guy yelling at me. And here's the crazy part. For the first time in my life, I'm the only white guy anywhere, right? Like, there's Koreans and Japanese dudes, there's Hawaiian guys, you know, they don't and they're mostly Japanese Hawaiian, so they're not speaking a ton of English on the line. It's. There's like a Salvadorian.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:18:00]:

There's a guy from Peru. There's a. There's a little Mexican guy. There's one other white guy for a little while, but he doesn't hang. He. He, like. He's like, nah, this. This is too hard.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:18:09]:

He leaves, you know, finally another white guy comes in, and my. My. My sous chef, who got promoted to executive sous chef, this guy is just beaten on me. I mean, he's just whipped. Like, I couldn't do it, right? There's nothing I could do that would be right. Because he'd say, are you ready? I'd say, oh, yeah, I'm ready. And then I would miss something or I didn't have something. I thought you were ready.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:18:30]:

So if I said and then he'd say, are you ready? I'd say, oh, I'm not ready. Why aren't you ready on time? What's going on? Are you. Are you like. You know, it was just beat on me, and, man, I was like, oh, what is this? And he had come from la and he'd been a part of some pretty big restaurants. And so that was always in the back of my mind. So I left and I went to another high end, like, smaller hotel that was like where JFK had, like, spent his honeymoon and, you know, all cottages. So it's like 40 cottages instead of a big old resort, right? Again, high end food. That was cool.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:19:04]:

And then a buddy of mine calls me one day and he goes, hey, I'm about to leave and go be with my girlfriend in Australia. Come be the sous chef of this restaurant. I'm the sous chef right now. And so I come and I meet the chef, and, like, we hit it off. And now it's like 45 seats. We're in Santa Barbara Wine country. It's the Santa Barbara Wine country experience. It's slow.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:19:25]:

It's like, you know, a busy night is like 80. Like, you're. You're. Your hair is on fire. And now it's like the food is a little bit better. I really got to kind of hone my technique on. On sauces. I was in charge of all the ordering.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:19:39]:

So, like, now I'm starting to do more stuff and more things, right? And then it happens. I meet this woman and I'm just like, almost instantly, right? Like, we are in. And she's like, okay, so I'm here for another month, and now I'm Then I'm moving to la because that's what I'm going to graduate school. I was like, okay. And. And so I kept on with her, we dating. And then like six months later, I. I looked at my chef and I was like, I gotta go, man.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:04]:

Oh.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:20:05]:

He goes, what? He goes, he goes. He goes. I was gonna open a second restaurant probably in a year, and you were gonna run it. And I was like, I know, and I would love that idea. I really do. Like, that would be, like, dreamy to me. But, like, love calls, man, you know? And so little footnote, I've been married to that woman now for 22 years.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:23]:

I was gonna ask.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:20:24]:

This is. This is the right step. So I moved to la, and all of a sudden, I'm working for the patina, and I'm starting to put two and two together. And now I'm. I'm. I'm working for. And with the people where that chef at the Four Seasons had worked. Okay.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:20:40]:

Because now I'm getting beaten. Like, now I'm seeing that attitude and that style of management, which is just like, whip. It was all whip and stick.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:48]:

Okay, so you're like, you're like, add a bit of, I guess, a little bit of understanding, meaning, like, I get it where this guy got it from.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:20:56]:

Totally. And so, like, I already knew how to do that. It was a little deluded. The chef that I ended up working with, we became great friends and. And we just, we started to, like. He really taught me how to just like, have hands on everything. Like, his whole thing was like, if you spend 20 minutes every day and you walk through every piece of your storage and you put hands on everything and you know where everything is, your short term and your long term memory will start to work together. And so when someone says, hey, I can't find the gorgonzola cheese, you're gonna look at them and go, oh, it's on the top shelf on the left.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:21:32]:

Because you put hands on everything that day. And so that was how I started to, like, really learn how to run a restaurant from, you know, from the ground up. And, like, we ran the best, some of the best food costs in the company. And our. Our food was always just getting a little bit better and a little bit better. That's cool.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:48]:

We actually had.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:21:49]:

I got ground out, I was gonna.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:51]:

Say real quick, a patina group we actually had, but I'm sure this was later in, maybe, maybe didn't cross over. But a couple weeks back, we had the. The vice president of patina Group on the podcast, Olivier, his last name is slipping me ldv.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:22:10]:

Oh, yeah, he's new.

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Angelo Esposito [00:22:11]:

Yeah, I'm sure he's new.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:22:12]:

You realize I left them in 2004.

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Angelo Esposito [00:22:15]:

Okay, that makes sense. No, I figured. But no, all this to say, the group seems quite impressive.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:22:21]:

Oh, my gosh. They're like, I got to work with Joaquim. Like, I. I did a few dinners with him side by side, you know, and he was just crazy. He'd already had, like, some heart stuff and some. He had, like. I think he had some sort of aneurysm or something and whatever. So he way slowed down by the time I got to him.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:22:39]:

But to see how he was with people, right? It was like, oh, this is where all that other stuff comes from, right? Because, you know, I remember talking to the. I remember talking to the corporate catering chef and for Patina Group, and he's like, within our ranks, if you're. If you're genius is tolerated, right? It's like, if you're amazing and you are, like, really producing great food and you're really pushing things forward, then you're. You're gonna get away with. With being a jerk, you know? And it was really interesting because if you didn't produce, if you didn't really lay it down, it didn't matter who you were. It didn't matter if you were nice or not. Like, it was all results. It was all, like, great food, great product, great service.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:23:29]:

Oh, and, like, keep your people around so that they could do it. But I feel like those are the days when Patina Group was really known to, like, chew people up and spit them out. After two, three years after that, I went to work for the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica. And this is back when there was only two Viceroys. Long before they became the Viceroy Hotel Group, they were still owned by the core hotel, K O R, which was, like, the owner, the owner's, like, little hotel company that eventually became the Viceroy. Like, yeah, I got Viceroys all over the world, man. Right? But we were in. I was in the second or in the first one, and that was great.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:24:03]:

And again, starting to hone it and, like, push people and learn it. Learning what works and doesn't work as a manager. Did that for a couple years. Found myself working for something that was really odd to me at the time, and it was called the Jonathan Club. And this is like, one of those private clubs you think of, like a country club. Well, this is a city club, right? It's a hotel. It's got 120 rooms. It's got, like, multiple levels of banquet.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:24:29]:

Banquet rooms. Does all the stuff that a hotel does, but you got to be a member to get in.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:24:34]:

Got it?

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:24:35]:

Right. Or you got to be with a member to get in. And so I was the chef de cuisine. So I had the. I had the bar. I had. Let's see, I had the bar. I had the lunchtime cafeteria, which was on the roof, right? Which is just a.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:24:48]:

Literally, like the old men would go up there and they'd kind of have their salad bar sort of thing. The old members that had been around for a long time, and nobody really, like. Like, nobody ever brought guests up there. It was very, like, old school, like, lunch club kind of thing. And then the dining room where we did breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And that was. That was my baby. I really got a lot.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:25:07]:

A lot of creative freedom. The. The executive chef of the place was third generation French. So, like, his grandpa was a chef, dad was a chef. He was a chef. And that's when, like, all of a sudden, I. I just. I don't know, man.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:25:21]:

Like, my. My food education just catapulted for that year and a half because it was like, oh, my God, this guy is like. All the things I've learned were very good and very. I would describe as almost industrial, right? Like, I'm in the standard kitchen industry, and this guy, like, lived it and breathed it all the way down to, like, his toes, right? So his stocks were just a. Than everybody else's, and some of his methods were just a little bit weird to me. But, man, when I started cooking, the way he cooked, like, things just tasted a little better. His sense of seasoning was like. He's the first guy that, like, had a tray of vinegars on his station, and he always had acid as much as he had salt and pepper when he was seasoning, right? Like, he.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:26:06]:

He's the first guy that really pushed it on me that was like, he's like, seasoning isn't salt and pepper and maybe something else. Seasoning is salt, pepper, acid, you know, and he would. He would make me taste things like with just salt or with just pepper or, you know, like, we would really go through it slow and then. And then. He sounds like a great meditation. Was that, oh, he was amazing. He's amazing. I still talk to him to this day, and, like, he.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:26:34]:

He just. But he also was great at the business end, right? He's just. He's super fast with numbers. He's like, oh, he could look at something and go, Your food cost is going to be high on that. You need to, like, you need to cut the protein back by, like, an ounce. And sure enough, when it was time for me to, like, figure out things.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:26:50]:

You'Re like, he was right.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:26:51]:

He'd be right. He'd be just dead on. That's awesome. Oh, my God. Okay. And then we decided that it was time to move to San Francisco area. You know, the Bay Area. We wanted, wanted something different.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:27:03]:

My wife had lived in San Francisco in the, in, in her former existence, and so that thought that would be good. So we moved up to Oakland, and I got a job working for a place called Town hall there, which has been. I think it's still open. And it had been around for a while. And two brothers, the Rosenthal brothers, they had worked back. They had worked at Postrio back in the day with Wolfgang Puck and Jeremiah Tower and all that kind of stuff. And they ran such a great restaurant. And I signed on as a sous chef.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:27:30]:

And I realized that at 35, I was too old for them. Like, I just couldn't do. I was like, man, this is, like, rough, you know, I, I, I, Yeah, I enj. Enjoyed it, but it was, it was rough on my body. And they, they were pretty old school. And then somebody like, I don't know, family, friend, friend of my wife's, just that, that, like, telephone game of, hey, I have a friend who has a friend kind of thing. Like, hey, I understand you're, you might be looking for a job. Well, my friend needs an executive chef in, in the, in the company she works for.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:28:00]:

And so I sign up, and this is a company called Restaurants Unlimited. And they don't exist anymore. They got bought out by Levy. But back in the 80s and 90s, this was like a company that was really all about development. And their performance management systems were really, really, like, their training was top notch, right? They developed their people, and they taught managers, like, both front of house and back house to really, like, this is how you, this is how you manage a person. This is how you delegate. This is, you know, and they had checklists for everything. Everything.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:28:34]:

Had a checklist. Everything, everything, everything. And I feel like I remember starting there, looking around, I was like, oh, that's what you call that? Okay. Right? Like, they had a menu engineering program. And I was like, oh, I just called that ideal food cost, bro. Like, that's boom, right? And it was like, it was like graduate schools, like, bringing all the things that I'd learned, and I'd set up costing systems for restaurants up until that point, they had, like, great tools. So I did that for a few years and I made them money, man. I was just south of the San Francisco airport, business clients tell and they had a big menu, but I was also allowed some creativity.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:29:12]:

And I was running best in brand food cost, and I was running some of the better labor. But better than that, this was 2008, 9, 10. We were positive when everybody else in the world was in the red, we were positive year over year. We were positive profit over.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:31]:

Like, just to zoom in on that because again, we have a lot of restaurant operators, maybe kitchen managers, etc. This and that, and they're listening to this and go, okay, tell me how. So any advice? I mean, obviously things change, but generally, like, you know, strategy, strategy. So, like, if you look back at that era, what lessons can you share that you were doing, right? To keep labor costs in check, to keep food costs in check.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:29:55]:

It's interesting because I've been thinking about that time period a lot lately, but from the food cost standpoint, it was that the, the interesting thing was it was you're. We're a restaurant that's right on the water. It's right south of the airport, and it's surrounded by all hotels, okay? So if you think about a businessman and you think about somebody on an expense account, they're just spending, right? Like, so the steak section of that menu would just get slaughtered. Like, they, they would just. If I didn't do anything about it, they would just eat. So I was tasked with bringing in, like, I was doing these different sirloins and like, I would, you know, different cuts of sirloin and the baseball cuts and the, like, flat irons and all those other things that I could get at a good price, I would, I would smoke them in house or I would do all this stuff and I would, I. I found ways to, like, get the businessmen off the heavy duty stuff, right? But I think the lesson here is that I learned how to direct my servers.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:30:58]:

Interesting.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:30:59]:

I learned that with great education. Like, obviously you got. When you roll out a special menu, right? You gotta. You gotta have a lot of information for them. The food training for them, they got to taste it and they knew to ask questions. And the more, the more that they sold of my specials, the more money they would make because people were really digging it. And I'm proud to say it made an impact.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:31:22]:

That's cool.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:31:22]:

And so for me, if I knew that my halibut dish was just gonna slay me, like, I wanted to sell 1520 of those a not night, not 50. Right. I wanted them to buy the salmon, right? Because salmon was that, like. Like, I had to learn how to really, like, be the quarterback of the service.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:31:40]:

Interesting.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:31:41]:

And really, like. Like, know where my food cost was at all times. Right? That's the basics. But now I need them to understand. And so I not only learned how to run my team, but also interact with the front of the house. And I think that sometimes that's a lost art nowadays. Sometimes I look around and I see chefs, and they're just back there creating. But I'm like, no, no, no, man.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:32:04]:

Like, create. Do your. Run your business. And now understand that if you're. If your ambassadors don't fully believe in the product and understand what you need from them, they're not going to get it. Okay, so that's. That's piece one. That's food costs now back up labor costs.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:32:22]:

How did I do it when everybody else is laying off? I looked at the numbers, and I allowed natural attrition to happen, right? But I also pulled my team together and said, hey, there's gonna be some cuts, okay? Like, it's gonna get tight. But I promise you, if you stick with me, I'll get you your hours. It might. You might be accustomed to 38 hours now you're gonna get 36 hours or 35 hours. But stick with me. As the sales are. You know, the sales are gonna contract, but they didn't contract. So then.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:32:54]:

Now. Now sales haven't contracted, but the team has contracted a little bit. Now it's like, everybody's got to work together, right? Like, I made. We made sure. And I was lucky. I had a lead cook at night who. The two lead cooks who really, really, really believed in me, right? And so I got their buy in. So they.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:33:15]:

I would say, hey, we get, like, we're a little high on labor this week, man. Like, I need to send somebody home. And the lead cook would say, chef, if I get everybody out 20 minutes early, can we keep everybody? And I would be like, I'd look at the math real fast and go, yes, yes, do that. And so he pull everybody together and go, all right, start cleaning now. We gotta be out. Chef needs us to save some money, right?

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:33:39]:

That's so cool.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:33:40]:

And so it was, like, really going after the team. And I tried to listen too. I tried to really, like, what do you need? Oh, I. I need. You know, like, I was doing so many fish specials, and I. Most of the chefs in the company would run six specials, and I Was running eight again. I needed to control what the, what the guests were eating. So a little bit more fish, right? They had been learning to, they had learned to, to do it.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:34:07]:

All their fish seared in a, in aluminum pans. But we had this great flat top and I got to know the, the guy who came in and was my tech. And so he opened up the aperture a little bit, get a flat top that was running 550. I had a plancha man, right? So now, now I'm teaching these guys. I'm like, okay, you're gonna need to manage all your, all your seared fish on the flat top. And I'm watching them and it's like, huh. So the next day I go to the restaurant supply store and I snipped a, a cooling rack that would normally go in a full size sheet pan. And I asked the guy, I said, can you weld some angle iron on this? Like just like, you know, not like, not heavy duty but like, like half inch stuff, you know, like boom.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:34:51]:

And so he created this three tier shelf for me and I stuck it on the back of the flat top. And now the guys could sear fish, drop them in the pie pan, the aluminum pie pans that we use to move things around. And then they could like let it rest different intervals. And all of a sudden we were fast, you know, so it was like listening to my team, right, Making sure that they had what they needed in a contraction period, right, and really taking care of them. And they'd say, oh well, this is the time of year where we normally get raises. I'm like, honestly, you think there's going to be a raise right now? I'm like, read the news. There's a recession on, right? Like mid-2009. I was like, stick with me, man.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:35:30]:

Like, just stick with me. And as we came into the end of 2010, like the company started handing out raises and I was, I was like slapping dollars on people all over the place. And you know, all of a sudden I'm, now they're doing good, but my, my ends are not meeting. And so my wife and I were like, we should probably get out of here. Like Bay Area was crazy back then. It was just hard for her to find work. She's in non profit stuff. So we looked around, we're like, maybe we'll go to Seattle.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:35:58]:

And so company moved me to Seattle because I had made them a lot of money, right? The c, the CFO of the company came into town for business and he sits down and he goes do you know that we have a nine unit chain called Stanfords? It's mostly on the west coast. There's like one or two in California and really Oregon centered and a couple in Washington. Because those nine restaurants, you brought more to the bottom line than those nine restaurants in this restaurant. Wow. He goes, you. I will. He goes, I heard you're moving to Seattle. Anywhere you want to go, I'll help you.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:36:30]:

That says a lot, right? So did that for a couple years. Did a rebrand on a restaurant that had been around since the 80s, right? Like it was, it was called Cutters and it was Cutter's Bay House. And it had been there and in the lore of Seattle restaurants, it kind of was the archetype for the 80s and night for the big seafood house, Seafood house restaurants here in Seattle. So I did a rebrand on that and that's about the time the culinary mechanic came along. And then fast forward about a year, year and a half later, I signed up with this company and they're doing southwestern food. Mexican based, but southwestern Tex. Mexico. And you want to talk about shrewd operators, dude, these guys are bad to the bone.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:37:12]:

I've never seen restaurants move so fast, right? Like you're turning and burning and just all day long and like it's, you know, when you think about Mexican food and margaritas and tacos, right? It's a sun based thing. So in the summer it was just booming. And the joke was it's like, not if you're not. Not. Are you going to get busy? Not what time were you gonna get busy? None of that. It's like how many hours are you gonna get full and stable, right? And one of the restaurants that I was running for, for about a year and a half, man, it was like we would open up at 10 o'clock on Sunday after Sunday morning and you would stay full from like 10:30 until 10:30 that night. Just folds, turning tables hour after hour, hour. And so I did that for about a year and a half and my, my boss called me and he said, hey man, you ready for the next level? And I was like, bring it on, what do you got? He goes, I want you to run three of these restaurants.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:38:11]:

I want you to be the, the sort of the mini regional chef. And that's where my education and business and, and all the things really started. They, they all came together. Everything I'd been doing up until that point just came together at a different level.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:38:25]:

Right.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:38:25]:

Like why I'm a manager of managers.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:38:26]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a multi Venue. Now you're really thinking about processes and scalable things.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:38:32]:

Totally. And now I have, like, the middle restaurant, which I had been running, and now I have the biggest restaurant in the company. This sucker was, like, 350 seats. And it was. It was a megalith. I mean, the rushes that would come in that place. Oh, my God. And it was.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:38:49]:

And it was in those years that I really, like, developing people had always been important to me, but it was like, this was life. If I didn't farm sous chefs, if I didn't identify who the next lead cook was so that I could then identify who the next sous chef was, who I could then identify because they were wanting to grow. When I got there, when I left, it was seven. Totally. And it became like, not only are you looking at the lead cook, but, like, can that prep cook write a prep list? Right? Can that prep cook step up and be the lead prep? You know, and, like, some of the restaurants had lead preps. And so it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom. All these steps of. And then, like, I don't know, man.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:39:32]:

That was just. That was. That was the jam for all those years. So there you go. You got 30, 34 years wrapped up in about, what, 12, 20 minutes?

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:39:40]:

That's awesome. That's really cool to hear. And it's. It's. What's super cool is to hear even just the lessons along the way, right? Like, I love the. You spoke about the food cost, spoke about labor cost, about leadership, about training your team, the importance of building your bench, which you just went through now, and a different, you know, the difference between one venue and three venues. So a lot. Lot of really, really cool things.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:40:00]:

And so I gotta ask you now the question comes down to. Sounds like you're crushing. It sounds like you were growing. So then what was the transition of I don't want to work in the restaurant shift to helping many different restaurants and, like, the. The idea behind culinary mechanics?

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:40:17]:

Honestly, as much as all that is invigorating and exciting, some of the joy had slipped out of it. For me, it wasn't as much fun. I can easily say that the pandemic made developing people harder than it had ever been. We were blessed or lucky that we had a lot of systems in place just before. In the year or two before the pandemic, where our to go business had been had gone from like 10% of our sales to up to 25 in some of our restaurants. So to. To then shift gears and just be all to go was like, got it here My chefs were like, yeah, no problem. You know, I walked into one restaurant and.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:41:06]:

And to. To witness all of the cooks to getting together, wrapping plates in. In stacks of 10 and taking them into the dining room tables, which. Or not being utilized because there was no right. And they just restocked the line with all to go containers. And that was like one hour. And boom, it was done.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:41:25]:

That's so right.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:41:25]:

It was like, okay, we're there. That's. We've transitioned. But coming out, we did such a good job of that coming out. Now we kept a lot of that to go business and open the doors. And so like 2021 was one of the most crushing, soul crushing years of my life because I couldn't get enough people. We had to hold the door in some of our restaurants because there wasn't enough servers, there weren't enough busboys. There weren't enough.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:41:52]:

Weren't enough cooks to handle what was happening. We had to, like, there were days where. Where we would have a, like front and back. Front of the house and back. House manager would get together at the beginning of the shift and go, do you have enough staff, like, to go full bore? Like, no, I only have three out of my five cooks.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:42:08]:

That's crazy, right?

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:42:09]:

Or I only have two servers.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:42:11]:

Yeah, because.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:42:11]:

And so we would shut half the dining room.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:42:13]:

Ye. Because usually in restaurants, right, it's like the biggest problem is getting people in the door. And then the sec. Another big problem. And it sounds like you nailed it. There is finding staff. So what did you guys do?

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:42:24]:

So here's. Here's the thing. I want people to hear the sound of my voice when I say we didn't sacrifice the quality of who we were. We didn't sacrifice the service. We weren't willing to sacrifice the food. If we could only serve a hundred covers that day, then that's what we did. Right? And that made it so that there was always desire for that brand. Right? There was.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:42:52]:

All right, yeah.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:42:53]:

More demand.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:42:54]:

We didn't just let people in and then. And then say, ah, you're kind of.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:42:58]:

Yeah, yeah, right.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:42:59]:

Like, we didn't let them come in and sit for 20 minutes. If service was supposed to be that they were greeted in three minutes, then we went with what we had. Now, does that mean that behind the scenes, we were like, you know, I'd get off. I'd get on the phone at the end of lunch service and go, all right, I'm going to need some cooks. And so I was moving like. Like, we did what was right. That's what I liked about that company. We did what was right for the guests, but there was lots of back.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:43:28]:

Backroom urgency to, like, fix it. Like, okay, you can. You can shut the dining room for a couple days, but how are you going to fix that right? Like, what are you going to do? You know, I had. I had a couple of cooks who were willing to work some overtime. It was one of the first times I'd ever been able to, like, authorize overtime. And I had this one cook, she would work 40 hours in one restaurant and then another, like, 20 in another by working three morning shifts because she was a night cook. Right. She'd get 20 hours overtime in that other restaurant.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:43:57]:

And as hard as that was to pay overtime, it was the right thing for the guests because we kept the doors open. We kept them. We kept our guests knowing that they could count on us.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:44:10]:

That's really.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:44:10]:

Right. Now, all those things. All those things meant that I was running like a. Like a damn chick exhausted, and it wasn't as much fun. And then little things happened, like my boss, little things, big things. My boss of who I'd worked with in the previous company and this company, so we've been together for about 14 years. He said, I'm sorry, I gotta go. I've got this opportunity down the road.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:44:35]:

And so he moved to another company. And I knew that I didn't. I wasn't really the right guy to move into his position. Like, he had a number of skills, skill sets that I just don't possess. I'm not quite that diplomat. And so the owners saw that too, and they brought in this guy. And I had worked with this guy in my previous company, and I didn't like it then, and I tried. I tried, and it wasn't the right thing.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:45:01]:

And so now all these things are aligning. And I'll be honest, my wife in the pandemic had started to work from home, and so now she's pushing on me a little bit, going, hey, you know, I'm working from home. Maybe you could work from home. Maybe you can find a job that brings you a little bit more smile and that isn't quite as intense. And maybe, like, we've now been married 20 years, she goes, maybe we could spend a little more time together. And I thought, that is the best thing I've ever heard. And I don't know how to do that, but I'm gonna figure it out. Here we are.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:45:34]:

I love that.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:45:35]:

Right?

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:45:35]:

I love that. And so I know not culinary mechanic. And so. And so for people listening now, like, they're like, hey, this guy's got experience. He's, he's lived it. He's not just, you know, it's not theoretical. It's real experience. So they are listening in.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:45:48]:

They're like, I could use some, I could use a hand in my restaurant or in my restaurant group. Tell, tell me, how do they find you? How do they find culinary mechanic? And then what does the process typically look like if they want to, like getting, you know, work with you?

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:46:02]:

The way, the best way to find me is to either drop me a direct email and that is Simon culinarymechanic.com go to the website culinarymechanic.com. click on the little link that says, I think it says start today. And it'll, it'll drop you to my calendar link. We'll get on a phone call. You know, what I do, What I really focus on is not being the generalist consultant guy. I work on advising chefs and restaurant owners, to really get their ducks in a row. And if that means that they need to make sure they have the right system for food costs, whether it's a tool like WISK or. I also have clients who, their chefs were never given much in the way of leadership training or leadership coaching.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:46:50]:

And so I have one client where I meet with the chef and sous chef once a month. And we sit and talk about their people problems. We talk about how they can best do that. And in that we then talk about like how they're scheduling themselves, how they can maximize themselves. You know, are they delegating enough? Are they doing all those things? So we talk about leadership and systems.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:47:10]:

I love that.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:47:11]:

And that's really where I stop.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:47:12]:

I love it. And is there a typical, again, for people listening in, are there, is there a typical type of restaurant establishment that you really do well with, like more full service side, more hospitality groups or, or like anything and everything?

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:47:25]:

It's kind of anything and everything.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:47:27]:

Okay.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:47:28]:

I have, I would have said a couple. If you'd asked me this question five years ago, I'd say, oh, totally full service restaurants. But the quick serve joints I tend to work with, I've worked with a couple groups now that are smaller. Like the one that always comes to my mind is this guy, he had four restaurants and a commissary and he's, he's like, I just need to get my operations a little bit more dialed. I need to know my food cost numbers a little bit better. So we put some systems in place for that and that Helped him feel better about like working less so that his operations, his hands on operations people could do their job. I'm working with a company right now that's about to extend, expanding. He's got two taquerias and they are busy.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:48:13]:

Every time you go to these places, they are busy. He's going to go, he's going to go from two to five units. Like he's opening up a ghost kitchen. This morning was his live day, live, open.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:48:24]:

Okay.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:48:25]:

Right. In two weeks he's got a, he's got a location that he's been chasing months on and he's now finally going to open that's going to give him four locations. He just signed a lease on another one. And so with that guy, I'm helping him hire an operations director. I'm helping him really create the position plans for what all of his managers should look like. Right. Like this is what they should be doing. We're working on SOPs, we're working on standard operating procedures so that they can run those restaurants.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:48:52]:

And it's clear and there's no questions. And we stop saying, well, Ruben said or Robin said. Instead we say this is how we do it. Because here it is, it's written down. Right. We're getting recipe books in place and we're making and eventually we'll, we'll really nail the costing. But they're not. Profit is not their issue right now.

‍

Simon Zatyrka [00:49:11]:

Right. It's, it's keeping up with demand. Yeah.

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Angelo Esposito [00:49:13]:

And it's funny, especially that number of establishments because even when I speak to other operators and stuff, they, a lot of them agree that basically one of the biggest shifts is 1 to 2. And then the other biggest shift and maybe arguably bigger is the two to like five. Like, because that's where it's like, you know, I mean like 5 to 10. Not that it's easy, but it's easy or compared to like a 2 to 5. Because you're going from, if you've done.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:49:38]:

Your homework in the, in the, in the sprawl from 2 to 5. That means the systems are in place. And then maybe there's a little bit more of upper level infrastructure that needs to happen. But your operations should be pretty dialed by the time you hit 5 and.

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Angelo Esposito [00:49:54]:

2 to 5, you're really starting the transition of like I go into both stores every day or a couple times a week. Like it's, it's not as feasible. So like you have to start really taking SOPs and then these kind of more scalable approaches.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:50:10]:

I would say that it's interesting. I do a little bit more systems on the QSR side and a little bit more leadership. When we start to go up the level of food, it's like a lot of the chefs that are coming up nowadays, and this is a generalization, so if I'm pissing anybody off, I apologize. But what I'm seeing is that as you go up the level of food, there's more focus on food and product and less on people. And so these are the guys who have got great ideas. They might even be good at running their business, but they struggle a little bit with leadership and buy in and change management and all those things that nobody really teaches us. You got to know to pull away and grab that. And I've been blessed to have the experiences where that's a thing.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:50:55]:

Right. And so that's what I've been doing. And it's, It's. It's fun, you know, I, I don't take on too many clients. Like, if I feel like I'm stressed, then I know that it's time to pull back and, and make sure that I've, I'm nailing them. Yeah, their results. But also I'm making sure that I'm not, like, I don't. I don't want to be so stressed anymore.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:51:20]:

I want to make sure that this stage of my life is about my wife and I and, you know, being able to, To. To really have the. It's not even a balanced life. It's the more fulfilling, fulfilling working on.

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Angelo Esposito [00:51:34]:

More of the stuff you want to work on. Not, you know, you did. You did your time, you did the 350 seats and you enjoyed it. But. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think there's a lesson in that itself, is like, sometimes people feel like, oh, what if I'm passionate about something or I really enjoy it? And then I. What happens if people know me as that thing and then I don't? It's like, it's not that big of a deal, you know, and it's like, it's something I adapted really well because, like, when I was younger, I used to get into so many different hobbies, but my philosophy was simple. It's like, sometimes a hobby can last two months and sometimes it can last 10 years, but it's okay.

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Angelo Esposito [00:52:05]:

It's like when you stop liking it, like, like not liking it, like, oh, one day, two days, when you really stop, over time, enjoying it, it's okay. And my family knows. But as an example, it's like I picked up the saxophone sucked at. It lasted like three months. You know, used to dj. That was really fun. And I actually did it for like 10 years and, like, did some really big clubs and this and that. So it's like.

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Angelo Esposito [00:52:26]:

It's like some things just last longer. Something. You know, WISK has been 10 years. Some startups I had failed in two years. So it's, It's. It's about just accepting. It's okay. You could change your mind.

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Angelo Esposito [00:52:37]:

It's okay. If you're branded as a chef and this and, you know, executive chef, whatever it was, and you worked at fine dining, it's cool. You're in a different chapter of your life. And it's nothing wrong with being like, I loved what I did until I stopped loving it. And so now I'm moving on to something else. And like, cool.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:52:52]:

I tell you, it was challenging. It's still challenging.

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Angelo Esposito [00:52:55]:

It's hard because you associate your personality to it. So then it's hard, like, at least.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:52:58]:

Are you kidding? When you're. When you're a chef, so. So you're the CEO, but nobody walks up to you and says, good morning, CEO. Right. When you're the chef. Right? Yeah. People don't even know your names. It's true.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:53:10]:

You're chef, chef, chef. I would walk in the back door, and before I could get 10 steps in, it was just from every direction, you know, but like, it's chef, chef, chef, chef, chef. And I swear I had employees who didn't ever know my name, you know, so identity is there. It's been a challenge. I'm not gonna lie. Right. But I'm getting there. Like, the question for me now is like, am I a former chef or am I still a chef that does this other stuff? And so it's always that balance, right?

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Angelo Esposito [00:53:40]:

Yeah.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:53:40]:

I think people ask me, like, what do you do? What are you. And I'm like, at this point, I'm a restaurant advisor, you know, because consultant just brings up. I don't know.

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Angelo Esposito [00:53:51]:

Yeah, no, no, because you.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:53:52]:

It's got some dirty words.

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Angelo Esposito [00:53:53]:

I know what you mean. Because, like, sometimes could be skewed to just think, like, like you said, maybe a generalist or whatever. But no, it's really cool what you're doing. And. And I love it. I think, like, you have a wealth of experience, obviously, in the space as a chef and. And more as a leader in the. In the culinary space.

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Angelo Esposito [00:54:10]:

And so being able to kind of transfer what you learn in 30 years and help guide people both leadership wise and system wise makes A ton of sense. And so keep doing it. I wouldn't worry about the semantics. I don't worry if people think you're a chef, not your, like, experience speaks when you meet with someone. It's like, can't fake it. You've done it. You've been around 30 years, you've been doing it. So it's like, if your passion's in the right place, which it looks like it, and you're pushing people to act, you're helping people with what you know.

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Angelo Esposito [00:54:34]:

Cool. You'll figure, like, the other stuff will evolve. The naming, the this that, like, that's that. Don't worry about that. You're doing the right thing. And so as we wrap up, I know we mentioned the website, but how can people find you? I know you also have a podcast, so this is a chance to just plug away. We'll put it in the description too. But feel free to plug your name, your email, where people connect the.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:54:53]:

The be all and end all is culinary mechanic.

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Angelo Esposito [00:54:56]:

So Culinary mechanic dot com. Okay, cool.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:54:58]:

Yeah, you. You can find my podcast there. I've. I've got it housed there as well. You know, you click on a little thing and it takes you to the. The sort of. The leadership and the systems programs that I've been doing and.

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Angelo Esposito [00:55:11]:

Perfect.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:55:12]:

And the coaching that I've been doing. And then honestly, I. I really like just getting on a. Getting on a zoom call or a phone call with prospective people and just talking through what. What. What's happening with them. You know, I'm not the guy who has, like, the packages. Right.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:55:29]:

Like, we figure out what makes sense for you and then we do that.

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Angelo Esposito [00:55:32]:

That's cool.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:55:32]:

You know, that's cool. And I'll give the one example real quick is I was. I was brought in by this lady to help her chefs, and about three months in, she goes, can you meet with me once a month? Because I think that the stuff you're doing with them is great, and I think that I could benefit from it too. And so, you know, it's like, oh, okay, yeah, absolutely. You know, and so we've got her to a place that's just better. She's able to push things off and understand, like, where the lines are.

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Angelo Esposito [00:56:04]:

I love that. So once again, for people looking who maybe need a hand in their restaurant when it comes to, you know, especially the. The culinary side, but thinking of leadership, thinking of systems, you can reach out to Simon. Culinarymechanic.com is the website. We'll make sure to follow the link. So with that said Simon or Chef. It was great to have you on the show. It was great to hear your story.

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Angelo Esposito [00:56:29]:

So thank you for sharing and thank you for joining the WISKing and All podcast.

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Simon Zatyrka [00:56:32]:

Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks for being a platform and letting me blab for a good long time. I appreciate it. It was great having great stuff, man.

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Angelo Esposito [00:56:40]:

If you want to learn more about WISK, head to WISK AI and book a demo.

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