Keith McNally

Live from WSA, this is Expense Account. As you can see, today I'm not wearing a hat. And it's because our guest, Keith McNally, hates hats. It's been said that Keith created downtown New York, which I thought was a bit of an exaggeration, but he kind of did. When he opened the Odeon in 1980 with his ex-wife Lynn, Tribeca barely existed. It was wild to have a lobster and a burger existing on the same menu. His restaurants Balthazar, Pastis, and Mineta Tavern are icons. And it's that hyperbolic to say that Keith changed the way we eat in New York City. In 2016, Keith suffered a stroke that affected his speech and motor skills. In his book, I Regret Almost Everything, he discusses his life with restaurants and his road to recovery. We recorded this video in 2016. In this episode, it is Beautiful Apartment, and I suggest you watch it if you have the time. I hope you enjoy the season one finale of Expense Account. See you next season. Cheers. So, Keith, what do you love about restaurants? Nothing. You love nothing about restaurants? I'm actually sick of restaurants. I am. On one hand, I'm sick. But on the other hand, I like them because it brings life to people. It gives life to the senses. Especially now that everybody seems to be online. It's more special. It works. Lots of times, my places don't actually work. But there are a few times that they do. They're good. How do you deal with the failures of the restaurants that didn't work versus the restaurants that do? You have restaurants that are successful. Yeah, I have a lot of failures. But I didn't have one failure until 2010 when I opened Pelino's. The flops have more impact. Spiritually? I don't believe it, but it's inside. Yeah. I mean, Pelino's, that corner is cursed anyhow. It's easy to recognize them now. But at that time, I thought it would work. But I like the space inside. But you're right. I always wondered, like, I'm noticing your cabinet's stocked with Marmite. Like, you're obviously British. Yeah, I'm English, so I'm British. Yeah, I was always like, why no British restaurant? I want some good fish and chips. I hate the food. You hate the food. Except Marmite. But also because when I live in Paris, I went to Paris when I was young, I really like the look of the place. Most of the cafes, but I love it. The first time you went to Paris was, what year, 1970? No, 67. 67. I was 16 and went to see a horse race in Paris. You went? No, it was since I came third. I lost all the money. I saved up for one year. I mean, that's how you're so good at dealing with the wins and dealing with the losses. I mean, you still remember that your horse came in third. No, I don't even remember my name. When you go there now, how do you find the restaurant scene compared to when you were going there before? Because I'm probably more conscious of restaurants now, but I like them. But also, seeing England, the food in England and London is good. Yeah, it's a great restaurant city right now. I'm jealous as a New Yorker of all the stuff that's going on in London at the moment. One always is jealous. Of things far away. I know, the grass is always greener. And that's what's so special about traveling. That we can always hop on a plane. Yeah, but the thing is, I noticed when Frank, what's his name, the former, if I'm correct, he would always give extra stars for places inaccessible. If it was a green point, it's for places far away. Isn't it like heaven? And an extra piece on the dashboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dashboard. So, I think the times were slightly biased in favor of Queens restaurant and Brooklyn restaurant. I mean, it's. Now it's different. When you have to take, when you have to, I just moved to the city recently. Where are you from? I mean, I'm from Chicago, but I've lived here for 19 years. But I moved to this, I've been living in Brooklyn. And I just moved to Manhattan recently. And I walked to REI to look at a bike helmet. And it used to be like, if I wanted to go to REI and get a bike helmet, I'd have to take the train an hour. No, no. And then, because I took the train an hour, I was like, I guess I have to buy one that I see here. I guess I have to like the helmet that I see, because I took the train here. And it was restaurants, like, if you have to take a train an hour, you better like the food. Yes, exactly. Too well. I was wondering, I kind of. I wasn't even really aware until the book about all of your restaurants or your endeavors in opening restaurants outside of New York. Did you, like, it seems like it was maybe a kind of bad experience for you. Yeah, mostly. Especially in London. I mean, I didn't like them. It's funny, because I made it look identical to everyone here. But it has no spirit, no soul. Yeah. It's a void. It's inside, it's a void. There's nothing to it. But it does it fairly well. But I didn't, I don't see, I only see 25% of the restaurant, but I never see a penny. Yeah. Because my partner, Richard Cairn, doesn't care at all. I mean, do you feel like the, that your spirit, or like the spirit of your restaurants is something that's New York specific? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. The spirit, I think the most important thing when you open a place is actually the spirit. Yeah, yeah. It's so hard to recreate. Like, they have the Corner Bistro in the West Village. They just opened one by my new place in the East Village. It looks pretty good, but it's not the same place. They mentioned the spirit, the soul. Yeah, yeah. That happens. I opened lots of the past these years around. But the New York one is soul, but another, the other two. Yeah, yeah. I really don't like, I'm never opened a place in Las Vegas. Oh, yeah. With the restaurant that they look at, I didn't do it. But they missed soul. I mean, Las Vegas as a whole is just like a facsimile. It's like a weird dystopian facsimile of reality where you go to throw money in the trash, basically. I wonder when this idea to open more restaurants happened. I can't bear to change. Yeah, like a place like Carbone. It was terrible. Yeah. When it first opened, I was like, wow, this place, this theater. I brought my mother-in-law, and she's being charmed by the waiter. Like he's an extra from Goodfellas, you know? Like, wow, so cool. They've elevated Italian-American food in a way that felt novel at the time when it first opened. And now. It feels like empty soul. It's for people with empty souls. I don't know if it's too badly about that restaurant. No, no. But I can't bear Colombo. Yeah, yeah. It's such a macho, fake theater. I was with Waiters, so fake macho. Yeah. I just can't bear it. I talked to Mario Carbone recently, a recent interview. And he was talking about Carbone as a lifestyle. For a certain type of men. Moth bullshit. Yeah, yeah. Moth bullshit. Lifestyle. I can't bear this. It's like it's a plate of rigatoni. It made me feel ashamed to be the same business. But I will say, I ate this week at the Grill, and I like this beautiful room that they inherited. And they did a good job upholding it. And it's a nice show there. But that's enough. That's enough. It's the same thing. That's changed. Yeah. By many women. I'm sure they're saying the same. But my place is. No one is saying that about Balthazar. You could have Balthazar in Doha if you wanted. Surely you could. But you would never. I never would. Yeah, you never would. And that's why Balthazar is a special place. That's why, like, it's just, like, it's a place that's soulful because it exists in the place that it exists. It's not like, it's not a formula. It's a restaurant that's living and breathing. I hope so. This episode of Expense Account is brought to you by Silver Oak. Sometimes I just want to drink a nice bottle of wine. Not because it's my birthday. It's not a holiday. It's not my anniversary. It's just a Wednesday night. I ordered takeout and I'm probably going to eat it on the couch. But I still want to eat it. to feel special a bottle of silver oak can make any night feel special once you've removed that foil and popped that cork you've accomplished something and you should be proud this is your life and you should savor every moment of it silver oak the official wine of expense account the restaurant of yours that uh that meant a lot to me that i missed is lucky strike that's what new york needs right now new york needs a lucky strike bring back lucky strike it's we don't need a late night place with good food the thing is i mean you can't bring back anything yeah it worked really well because it's never saying it where you bring it around it like an opening of another one it looks something everybody says about the past you see i liked it but i prefer the old one yeah that happens so you better luck is right it lives on in your memory well maybe that's better boy in your memory yeah i mean i would be lucky in a special place but the things that only become special after they're close i mean either what is it you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain yeah yeah that's happened to you i mean yeah i'm a miss a lucky is there um is there a restaurant that you always dreamt of or something that was like failed to launch but something that was like your dream that you could never really get off the floor one restaurant i would like to build a small one of 10 tables and make the food really cheap so it's an idea i have everything under ten dollars all the main courses under maybe more than 10 tables but i would like to open my place where all their main courses at least under 15 my favorite restaurant of the year that maybe i'm going to get banned now because i'm not supposed to talk about it but hand hospitality group has a secret restaurant that you have to be referred to be able to go there it's an izakaya that's like an it's kind of like a speakeasy izakaya but everything costs like six dollars no i love it it's so amazing i love the idea but i don't like the idea of having to be referred to yeah i know it's a member one thing it's just you don't want a members only club no that's a sharper thing and it was just scared to the i mean no reservations at lucky strike no i mean we are in a new era now where i feel like so much restaurant discourse is about uh reservations like how to deal with them and the scarcity like started by places like carbone how do you manage this in your restaurants or what is your philosophy behind reservations and how people should be have access to restaurants um i believe obviously a reservation because people older you need to know that you can sit down but the thing is it's okay to have a reservation but you must always reserve for tables for walk-ins and maybe i know that because we talk about this once a week it will it will always try to take in people look interesting but interesting they're older or younger yeah they're nice people always take walk-ins yeah they're nice people and they say yes to but the way they say no to the customer yeah the fights make people feel okay about not coming in but if you've been but go overboard to give them the the special number or uh apologizing very crazy and um giving them your number do anything to make them say feel okay but not getting in because where i'm from in england i in my history if you when i first came here then there's a good restaurant i have a french restaurant it was good fun how arrogant they made sure it was but that's how good the restaurant would be defined and you were at the mater d yeah so your job was today were you turning people how would you turn people away actually that that was a very good job i have everything the only job i was okay because i was so sick it's fancy that's that's amazing uh yes but um if there's something nice over the back of the line uh we've left the brush on because it makes you a duty couldn't reach them i would run it then into the street and you've called about my matrix no to always look at the back of the line because of the comfort in new york is always going to get a table the people i really would like and want them the insecure less confident customers uh older maybe from out of town maybe yeah they're too shy to push them themselves onto their maturity they they those who are the people i want some of the people that i remember most from my youth in new york are the door people that like let me into the club like i said standard um it's called dumpling i wonder what her real name was why do you think why do you think they let you in that was cool but they knew but the thing is what makes a restaurant for me is a legend of the uncool people yeah yeah yeah i mean i wasn't actually cool i just mean that they wanted to bring in different types of people into this they wanted a lot of different types of people into this everyone is cool or everyone can be cool once you bring a bunch of different types of people into a room then that's the diversity in the room is and that's something that in your book that i never had even really considered about the way that odeon the high and low of the someone wearing a tuxedo and someone wearing a t-shirt and there being a lobster and a burger on the same menu remember remember that's work for what yeah to me that that is something that i've taken for granted in new york or i thought that that was just what new york city meant that's what it means that's what it means new york city dining means to me but i didn't realize that that was an anomaly when when the odeon opened and i guess we have to thank you for that but it was a bit less lucky with the odin because it was it i didn't know this cliche but it was the right taste for the right time yeah but but what was it like at what was the restaurant called one fifth yeah great was it was it like that as well like you know many things right about the one thing they got wrong it was a attitude of the staff. The staff are really nice but the only place that looked great but it's slightly too out of echo. It's too arched. And it's a spirit that nobody was happy working there. I did like them a lot. It was a big space. I remember one room, two rooms. The main room in the back. With your restaurants I feel like you build something and it's like a monolith. It's like an institution instantly. How do you think a restaurant should evolve? Do you think about evolution when you think about building? The menu never changes. Only people in restaurants for one customer remember only me. Because I want to be able to I would like to do it. And then I would say, "No, no, no." That's all. So how often are you eating at your own restaurants? I remember, perhaps it's after last night, the night before. The night before that, Manhattan. I'm lucky because I can eat there. And it's your favorite restaurant that you built for yourself. Yeah. But what other restaurants are you liking in the city? I remember Rowell's, a lot of Rowell's. Rowell's, of course. Yeah, a lovely place. A lot of other restaurants. If you don't go to many new restaurants, which I should do, I'm now rewriting the book. Because I have sections out of the book I don't actually like. So when I finish rewriting the book, I'm going to go to other restaurants a lot. I was going to ask you because I feel like your influence, especially in the last year or two, is like, you can feel it. It's so palpable in all of the new, every restaurant that opens is a bistro. You know? Every restaurant has the burger. Every restaurant is trying to be a mini all-desire type of thing. When we opened the beverage hotel, the one argument I got into was the chefs over the burger. Because the chefs were great. The chefs were nice people. So I really, really, really liked it. And they leave it. They didn't want a burger on the menu. That was crazy. The New York was like that then. Not every place had a burger. Burger was really frowned upon. I was going to ask you about the burger thing because it's so funny. Every menu needs to have a burger and every chef hates putting a burger on the menu. Lee and Ria just put the burger on the. It's a very good burger. I'm a big fan. They've made. The big contribution. The Minetta Burger. Iconic New York City burgers. And you, of course, I don't know. You invented burgers and you invented Easter. Not the Minetta Burger. You mean the Black Label Burger. Black Label Burger, sorry. That's true. I actually prefer the Minetta Burger. When you look at this new generation of restaurateurs, what are you thinking? I'm definitely thinking about that. You don't think about that? You're like the d'entrée for me. My problem is I'm so easily jealous of good places. But my thing is I want to go out more. At least to be able to answer your questions. Are you a competitive guy? Honestly, on the surface, I was telling everyone I'm not. But inside, I'm really competitive. Which I wasn't. I just imagine, who are the restaurateurs of your generation? They were dead now. You're the last one standing. I'm so old. One man who was around when I first opened my restaurant was a French man called Escoffier. Escoffier, yeah. No, I'm joking. He's 200 years old. The Expense Account Podcast is built in partnership with Substack. I've been spending a lot more time on the Substack app. It's become my favorite escape to scroll productively, and it's also where I've built my business. Substack is where I read link in bio by Rachel Carton to learn what brands are actually doing right on social media, and where writers like Jaleel Johnson are reinventing real-time fashion reporting. A few weeks ago, I went live with Derek Thompson, and it felt like thousands of us were hanging out and talking about the state of parties. Everything for Feed Me lives there, too. My daily newsletter, chats about New York City, live videos with pop stars, like Audrey Hobert, and, of course, there's always debates in the comments section. In fact, while I'm here reading this ad to all of you, my readers are talking to each other about where guys on Wall Street have been taking their lunch meetings. Go to substack.com slash emily to get a free month of Feed Me in the Substack app. When I was reading your book, that was like tearing up when you were talking about your friend Po Ming. Yeah, yeah. Really. That was real. I honestly teared up. But I was thinking about how, I think this all the time, because I've worked in restaurants, just that I think it's kind of the last place where you can achieve the American dream. Like people, like immigrants, like work up from being dishwashers to being head chef. If they vote to get shot dead by us. Yeah, if they don't, yeah. But they can become like waiters making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And there's not many, any other careers in America where you can do that anymore. One busboy was working for me at Boutazan. He's been working with me for 44 years. 44 years. He owns three houses in the city. Yeah. He's rich. He has so much more money than me. It's the last, I really feel like it's the last industry where you can truly work your way up by the, pull yourself up by the bootstraps. And I didn't want to be a bootstrap person. I don't know. I think it's a really special place. But Boutazan, after the Boutazan, how long he's been there. Yeah. Also, now it's funny because I feel like there's a new generation of people who work at restaurants and they all like went to Bard College. No, no, no. It's like a. No, that's the thing is, when you look back, you look back on when you first came into the business. Yeah. It becomes a golden age. That happens to everybody. Yeah. But everybody, so the only golden age is the people now have been in the restaurant would look back in 20 years, this period. That was a golden period. It's not the period, you were not the restaurant. I can't, people will ask me the same thing. Is it different now? Was it better then? I can't believe people say it was better then. Things have changed naturally. It didn't change. It's very awful. I mean, but I think that you're one person who can like actually say that it was a golden period in that people, your restaurants are still packed every night. So maybe there was something special happening back then. But it's funny because my son George, I wrote to you about that in the book a little, it's 20 soon, is about to open his own place in Tribeca. What's it going to be called? I don't know in the name, but it wouldn't tell me. But it didn't ask me for any money, it didn't ask me if I needed to buy it, but not if I could, but I'm not proud of him about the fact that he didn't lean into me so much. Yeah, but truly he saw you and that's, I mean, that must be so amazing as a father to see, like he's not taking your money or whatever, he just saw you and he gets, he absorbs your knowledge from you. Yeah, but we've worked at the barter drop for the last four years and it was the best barter, you know, and it's, I don't know, but when we talk, we rarely talk about the place, you know, we've talked about other things, but I'm actually seeing how well he does. I hope he does much better than me. I would hate to admit this as a fail. I guess something we need to talk about is social media. You love social media. I do, I love it and I hate it. Instagram was the only thing I'm in. What is it that you love about it so much? Because my voice is impaired, badly impaired, so Instagram became my voice. That's the reason. There are other reasons. I didn't know anything about social media six years ago, but after I tried to commit suicide, and I remember I was building a pastiche in the Minn Peck area, and the manager there was always on her phone. I said, what are you doing there all the time? She said, Instagram. I didn't know a thing about Instagram. I didn't know the difference between Twitter and Instagram. So she taught me how to use it. So before I actually posted one, I looked at other people's posts, and I was shocked how bad, how fictitious they were. It was all so phony. Everybody has the best life. Everybody has the best education. So there's no honesty there. So I decided to be myself. Something I want to clearly air with you about, is the infamous Chinese restaurant posts. Do you know what I'm talking about? There's the thing that everyone is mad at you about, where there was a photo of Chinese food, and you said it looked gross. Or did it look good on advertising? Yes, but I'm missing out. Was it the New York Times guy? Somebody. Pete Wells. Oh, yeah. He was our last guest on the podcast. I like him, actually. He's a great guy. He's brilliant. I was just being honest. Yeah. I'm not saying everything— But do you like Chinese food? Yeah, a lot. That's what I wanted to clear up. Also, I've made mistakes often. I'm not really far from perfect. Most of the things, when I look back, half of my posts, I cringe. Yeah, I know. I can't believe I'm— Unfiltered in a way that's so refreshing. Because I'm writing my posts quickly, which shouldn't be. I'm really impulsive in person. So, the air is clear. You like Chinese food. Your favorite restaurant is Mr. Chow. No, no. I'm just kidding. The thing is, I like Chinese food, but not fancy Chinese food. Em, your best friend. But Mr. Chow was an okay restaurant. He was a terrible man to work at. Yeah, that was my joke. But I admire him. He's got great glasses. He's a terrible boy. Speaking of Mr. Chow, you have a love for art and painting in particular. Did you ever miss your child's paints? Did you ever feel like you could be a painter? Some of the paintings are actually mine. I've started painting. A very late love. Yeah. At six years, I've started. Oh, so some of these paintings are yours. Yeah. That one, the small one. Oh, the small one. Yeah. It's great. What is the school of the British art movement that you service from in your neighborhood? It was in London. London School. It's in London. Yeah, yeah. I feel like that feels like-- No, no. They're not allowed in there, but that's my journey. German Expressionists. Oh, yeah, that's the other one. Constructivism. But I like the Cubists a lot. Anything, mostly 20th century. There's another one there. But, yes, I do paint a little bit. I miss that. It's nice. I think everyone should paint. I can't do it now because I'm right-handed. You've got to learn to do it with your mouth. I like painting more than I like painting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the painting itself. Yeah, yeah. Going back to what we were talking about before, about how restaurants have changed with reservation systems in so many ways, the big thing that I have trouble having perspective on and not having worked in the industry for as long as you, like now every restaurant, PR is such a driving force behind so much of how restaurants operate now. Was it always like that? When I first opened, I hate PR, but in the journey, we went once or twice in my 44 years. But the first restaurant I opened. You hate PR. Yeah, yeah. I hate all the interior designers. Because you're a great interior designer. I hate this phrase. I'm a designer for myself, but I can never do it for anybody else. The thing is, PR is necessary, even. But when Lynn and I first opened, and my brother, Brian, the three of us opened the Odin, a good friend, Micah Stone, who came down through the Odin just before we opened, about a week before we opened, and he looked at the place, it was right back then, it was London, it was London, it was a lonely area, but nobody went there. So he said, how would you plan to fill it up? It's a large restaurant, you must have a PR person. He said, let me, the same with a woman, it's really good to have a PR. So I said, yes. So the next day, the New Yorker came down, and he gave me a spiel about how much, a good spiel was good to me, but if I hired him, she knew all the right people, the right places. But I was sort of pulled off by her personality. But I'd never have a PR. But I did have PR when I opened a bar, a Lucy Mercy bar in the D.C. last year. It worked well. But in general, in general, I can't pay a PR, but it's necessary. You've never had trouble getting celebrities to go to your restaurant, and paying. You don't have to send people free meals. Another thing in your restaurants that I guess is maybe your thing, or something that you think about is the music. What is your philosophy behind the music that you play in your restaurants? I've got about 20 songs. Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift. No, just one song. Sometimes when it's late, and the girls are dancing. And the song is called, I forget the song. It's a just-wrong song for her. I like it. What's it called? This was your opportunity to come out as a Swifty. Everyone would. No, I love the song. It's all too well. All too well. Yeah. Seven-minute version? No, no. You mean the 10-minute version. 10-minute version, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. It goes between the two. Jake Gyllenhaal is not allowed at the restaurant. It is, actually. I needed to know. But I love it. For some reason, I love the song. But I liked, obviously, "Day to Bed" by Ruby. I loved the "Rugged in the Stones." I liked her Latin music. I loved Chinese music. Chinese music. I'm with the DJ. Her house was out twice in a week. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to go to the restaurant." I would like to laugh in the music, laugh in Chinese music. Chinese music. I met the DJ about twice in a week. I was just sitting in the corner and in the laptop, I would do the music. But it's fun because I enjoy it. Yeah, is that often that the restaurateur is taking such a hands-on approach to music? I don't know. But I only did it because I liked it. But somehow, as a DJ, you can tell the mood of the place. If I'm good at one thing, it's knowing the mood of the place. I've got to ask you, ideal meal at Balthazar, two people? I would like maybe onion soup. Onion soup to start? Two onion soups or one onion soup to share? One to share. One to share, yeah. Because it's quite rich. It's rich, yeah. Then I really like the halibut when the menu. It's been on the menu from day one. We've talked about it once. We've had crash beet taters, olives and diced and made it. It was really nice. I often have it. Onion soup, halibut. After that, maybe the profiteroles. That's not what I would have, I guess you like the deep cuts. Something in the book that was funny is the way that you actually hands-on addressed rude customers. I feel like in this day and age, especially with people like Yelp people and people on TikTok, it's like everyone has to be so subservient to their rude customers. And some customers, like if you've worked at a restaurant, you know that some of those people don't deserve your respect. Or they're mean people sometimes. The danger is it becomes a schtick. Yeah. I don't do it too much because I don't want to be self-conscious about the taste of penne myself. Yeah. I've given a drum when that's been the penne name makes the thing like Gordon Ramsay. It makes the thing about being rude. But the one thing about Instagram is that it gives you the right to say what you think is right and what you think is wrong. And I think that's the power of restaurants. Because if somebody's rude to myself and they're wrong, I'm going to write about it on Instagram. And really, because it's so powerful a tool, I use it carefully. I can't do it in a cab. I've been banned from about 10 people in 30 years. Do you have a photo of them up in the restaurant? No. But I also allow them back. You love a second chance. Yeah, I'm big on second chances. Because I'm always fucking up on myself. I cannot give this to people with a second chance. What do you think that you would be doing if you weren't doing this? I'm being a restaurateur. I really like sports a lot. I love football, rugby, and tennis. Football means soccer, right? Yeah. So I would really like to be a sports writer. Sports writer? That's cool. You should do it. What's your team? I quite like Arsenal, but they're awesome. But the thing is, I would rather see them play well and lose and not play well and win. I'm not crazy about my team. Yeah. I like my team winning. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm not going to ask who your favorite child is, but I have to ask you, what's your favorite restaurant? Your restaurant. I've disliked them all the same. Okay. We're wrapping up, and I'm going to ask something that's kind of annoying. I know this question is, what's next? What's next? You've read the book. Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm rewriting the book, I suppose. Yeah. Because half the book I dislike. Luckily, my publisher, Sam, she's allowed me to rewrite the book. I'm not about 20% different, but I've liked it so much more now. So I want to make sure I'm happy with it. I'm writing a book, and I'm going to write a book. I'm going to write a book. a mediocre one. The thing is, I'm quite a possessive person. If they do it, I want to make sure it's great. Right now, I can't see how it can work. Yeah, yeah. Do you think it'll work? I think it'd be great. I don't know. There's all these shows that people like The Bear and all that kind of thing. I don't like The Bear. I will go on record saying that. I don't like The Bear much, but I can't bear The Bear. I can't either. One of the worst shows ever. I think that it's a great story. I loved it. It's an interesting life, obviously. Maybe not, but what makes a book interesting? Not the life. The way you write about things. I think the best books of people who write fairly mundane things make them mundane and interesting. I didn't want to include all of them in a restaurant. My books are not a restaurant book. I want this to be a real family book. Being real means not excited, because most of my 90% of my life is just like buying. Yeah. You've got to get a Julian Schnabel to direct. The last person I'm on. I thought I was done, but I guess I'm not. Do you think that it was easier to open restaurants when you started opening restaurants than it is to open restaurants now? Me, personally, I'm much harder. It's much harder now or before? No. There's two things. I'm much harder because of the world. There's paperwork now. In terms of my psyche, it was much easier when I did it earlier. But now, I'm so nervous about all sorts of things. It's hard for me to open a restaurant. Everything's a little easier when you're younger. Yeah, you tell me. How much was the rent on the Odeon? I don't. You can't remember offhand, but it must have been nothing. I don't know. I must have asked. But I'm not being coy about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't remember every number. I'll give you another analogy. Odeon, when it opened, cost us $150,000 to build. Yeah, and that is. I actually looked it up. $600,000 in 2025 money. When we built it 29 years ago, it cost me $2,000. Two million and a half. Two million, yeah. And change. Yeah, yeah. That seems like even not really. I've had friends who've opened bars and they've been like, it's like $1.2 million for a cut-style bar. The last one I opened in two restaurants at the same time, it cost $6 million. And if it passed this eight years ago, seven years ago, it would have cost $10 million. What is the best meal you've ever had? One sandwich when I was working at the meat market in England is roast beef sandwich on toast. Because I think the food is more situational. Situational, yeah. What was the situation? Working early hours at the meat market between labor and I was with a friend at five o'clock and at seven o'clock I got half an hour of break. So then. It tasted so good on your break. Food on a break is just like the best food in the entire world. Even if it was kind of a mountain, Coca-Cola. Yeah. Like wine. Okay, so now we'll wrap up. But the last thing is do you think that New York City is the best city in the world? More and more. More and more. I'm going to say more on each day. Yeah. The best thing that happened to New York in the last decade is Mondami. Yeah. Yeah, shout out Mondami. He. I feel so full of hope. Yeah, me too. I think that, I mean, not to make it about us, but I think that he will make restaurants become better because of him. I don't care. I don't care. I mean, just like with immigration, helping with immigration, hopefully health care and child care. That's the whole. That's the whole. Housing. Housing. It all helps restaurants. No, not. Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying maybe. Some tax rich people like me. I'm not rich, rich. But I've got my money and money and other resources. I would have really liked to pay more taxes if it was the right people to house in medical or education. Yeah. Yeah. I would have to pay double. Yeah. I wouldn't pay so much. He's got so much integrity. Yeah, yeah. He's like the first thing that has made me feel really hopeful in so long. I love the fact that he stands up for Trump. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He charmed Trump. No, no, no. Trump would be phony. Yeah, yeah. Trump would be nice to him so he would be a nice guy. Then he's going to send us to New York. Yeah, yeah. I would love to met him. I can't say enough about him. There were good things about him. He's the best. I can't wait to see what he does. I hope he can be our mayor forever. Yeah, me too. Well, thank you so much, Keith. This is really special, honestly. And just for helping me, you couldn't understand my terrible voice. No, we got you. This was amazing. Thank you so much. Expense Account is a production of Feed Me in partnership with Public Sound and Substack. Our executive producers are Emily Sundberg, Jason Gauntlet, and Ryan Woodhull. Our associate producer is Kami Fatteh. Our audio engineer is Luke Moldoff. Our video editor is Izzy Cross. And our graphic designer is Justin Sloan. Expense Account is recorded at WSA in Washington, D.C. For more episodes, visit us at feedme.substack.com. See you next week.