YouSaid · the spoken record

Sean Feeney

lines on the record: 113
first: 2025-09-05
most recent: 2025-09-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Away enough money to save so I could retire early and just be with the family. And I think about my father who retired 65 and he had his own business. He was an oral surgeon and always telling me like do what you love, do what you love. And all I want to do is be him. I knew early on in my finance career that crazy reality of retiring early just wasn't going to happen for me. And even if it did, what would I possibly be happy doing at 45 years old when I don't have a job? I got into that mindset. But luckily when Lilia opened it, I walked through it and Missy and Feeny and Red Hook Tavern and Missy Posts, I'll never want to retire. I'll never want to stop doing this thing. That doesn't mean opening restaurants all the time. It's how do you impact someone's day in a positive way? And there's so many ways to do that. And I want to do that forever.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it was just such an inspiring day, and everything that I've read about Brunello and his brand, I hope that I can leave the world that I'm a part of in a place that's better, just like he's done. I think it's an awesome feat. And it's something that does drive me now. And I think about success. And it's only possible if you're doing this thing that you truly love every day. And those goals that used to be set, whether they're financial or promotions, those are just byproducts. Those are great byproducts when you're doing something that you can just love to do every day. I remember thinking about and finance when I was in my 20s. If I'm good at this, maybe I can get married to Maria really fast and we could have kids really fast.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Reason why we've been able to grow to now lead other people who come to our restaurants every day to trail and stage and want to try us out. I feel like that is an exciting thing to do and to be in a neighborhood like Williamsburg now for businesses and getting so involved in the community there to make it better to live there. It's definitely not Solomeo, I hope. Someday, but someday. It's my version of it.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you get email permission, and I saw this beautiful city that was built around doing what you love to do, but also having time to do what you care about as well. And I think about that day all the time. I cannot wait to have tours around Williamsburg with people who have now worked with us for eight years that have started as a host who now is the director of our content, who have started as a backrunner, who's now the head of our HR, who I recruited for two years to be our psalm at Lilia, who's now, she's now the COO of our company. We have these humans that started in one job and found something they truly are just passionate about.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“25 yards away who are artisans, are masters of crafts, and they're opening boxes looking at these beautiful garments, looking for flaws and doing it with smiles. And I saw people excited to dine together every day at one o'clock. The lights get shut off. The power goes down. Emails shut off. Everybody has to go to the cantina, which is like a three Michelin star restaurant and you have a four course meal and you sit together and you talk about stuff other than work. And two o'clock, you go back to work for another three hours really hard together and collaborate together and build beautiful things together. And at five o'clock, the lights go off and you leave to go home for the night. And on weekends, you're not allowed in. The only time you're allowed to work more.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Brand that was built for a reason and a mission and not just about what it was. Never was I inspired the way I was when I walked around Solemeao with team members of Brunello Cucinelli and the pride that they had for the stories that they told about Brunello, about the history of the brand and him and his family, but also about what they do for it and how excited they were. I remember watching people in the warehouse, the headquarters, working so hard in this beautiful bright airy, healthy environment. And people were working so hard. And some of these tasks, their jobs, looking at garments that were put together by people.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it hit me right in the face that I get inspired by people love brands when they understand why those brands exist, not what they are. And when I walked around Salomeo that day in May of 23, I got hit in the face with why they do this. I read about it. I listened about it. I saw in the stores in New York, but I was able to experience this authentic.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can say, I'm going to go be a jewelry maker because that's what I really want to do. I'm going to go be an artist because that's what I really want to do. I'm going to go to law school. It's always just trying to find the balance of what we're really trying to do at the end of the day.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we'll never have the discussion of putting on a cheeseburger or a grilled chicken onto this Italian menu. Like a lot of other people have to do because they have to be safe. And it has always been how do we find that perfect balance between art and commerce? How do we find the perfect balance between guest satisfaction and restaurant operations? How do we find the perfect balance between the accountability of team members, but also having a place that they're coming to every day proud, knowing that it might not be the thing that they do forever, but while they're with us, can they get inspired like we did to do something that they want to do forever? That could be to be in this industry forever, which we're fortunate to have. But it could also be while they're with us to get inspired in a way and to feel in a good place that they.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think about in life the reason why we call it a perfect turn is a turn is of You have 60 seats in a restaurant. Your first turn is 60, your second turn is 120 on the night. And I was thinking about this perfect turn. Nothing in life is perfect. But to me, perfect turn is that counterpoint of guest satisfaction and restaurant operation. And how do you marry that? The same way we've tried desperately to marry the balance of art and commerce. And it's been a huge trust thing between Missy and I or Billy Durney and I as partners or Will Unseldenay as partners. They are the artists. I needed them to believe me that if we can be this business, this healthy business, you will have the biggest canvas, the most blank, biggest canvas to paint on you could ever imagine.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In five minutes, you are you are person. But this is the framework. If you believe in it, then let's go. That has been a big thing for us to just be able to give a framework. It taught us on how to lead people, get people inspired, and see who's going to follow us.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the same time being operationally efficient as a restaurant business, and that would maximize the amount of covers we could do. And it turned out we were able to track all that on these systems we had. We could see the average cover times for two tops, four tops, six tops, eight tops. Then we could look at all of our team members that were on those tables in sections and see who was the best server on two tops on average, who was the best at four tops and six tops, and then be able to coach in family meal and lineup. How do you move four tops? How do you get your order in in 15 minutes? Tell us. It was almost like giving the framework to our team and saying, if you believe in this framework, get us there. I'm not telling you how to get the drinks on the table.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“See in the restaurant somebody doing the check signal, that's imperfect. So I just started obsessing about this idea of if we could nail this perfect turn, the perfect turn was not getting people in and out as quickly as possible so we could do as many covers. It was getting people the perfect experience that they wanted.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“90 percent of the people said fifteen minutes after we sit down our orders in. Great. So to me, the perfect turn was the hello, the experience and the goodbye. The hello is the first fifteen minutes. The experience was then letting our back of house, the artists, the reason why people loved to consume, let them do their thing and not put any pressure on them, so that when the dessert menu was put on the table at the end, that goodbye started. How many minutes do you want to leave after that dessert menu is put on? ninety three percent of the five hundred people said within twenty minutes we want to be out of there. Great. So in 20 minutes, how do we put that dessert menu on the table, get the dessert on the table, put the check on the table, have it signed so that they're out. And anytime I would ever.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At what point are you upset about not being sat on time? Is it five minutes after your reservation, ten minutes after your reservation, fifteen twenty? eighty five percent of the people said after fifteen minutes I'm upset. We had the control then to see on our technology of resi, our floor management system, when we would tell people to go back to our cafe to get ready for their dining experience, we could see the timer starts. If it was getting to that 15 minute moment and we were still not ready to seat them, we were going up to talk to them. We did not want people coming up to the host stand asking us what time. Once they sat down, when do you want your first drink? Two minutes after we sit down, our drink order should be in. We want to drink in five minutes. When do you want your order to be put in?”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So let's do that. Let's find someone who is amazing at wine and like invest in our wine program. Number two, are we the perfect version of ourselves? Are we truly the perfect balance between art and commerce? Are we maximizing our operational efficiency? I did not know if that was the case. We were very profitable. We were extremely acclaimed. But operationally, I did not know if we were the most efficient operation. So I sent out a survey to 500 people, most of them closest friends, and it was a 15-question survey where it really was structured around the entire dining experience. From the moment you entered our space until you left.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think there are modes that can exist, whether that's sending text messages leading up to their dining experience with us, sending surveys after their dining experience with us. All those things exist. You get a lot of great information that way after the first year of Lilia being opened. It was a wild success in anyone's mind Missy and mine included. Having said that, we sat down and said, okay, what could we focus on year two on? Number one, we were very honest with each other that we were not going to be a wine destination. We knew we could grow into that.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Your rehearsal dinner, you're going to come here to celebrate great news, but you're also going to come here when you need to be picked up, like a funeral or an election that is really scary for people or bad news. You got fired. There's that part of a relationship we have with people. And it has been amazing to watch people that come in to celebrate and people that need to get picked up. And I think realizing that, it makes that awesome responsibility we have to make it bigger than just a two-hour dining experience transactional. It's really going through this journey of life. And I think that is what gives us joy. And I think there's just so many cool ways to do it through modes that currently exist.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and are excited to come back. What do we do with that time? Because that could be another year. It could be a couple months. It could be next week. And so I've always thought about this opportunity we have building a community in these four walls as not just a two hour dining experience. It's a much bigger investment for people than that. It's an investment in time, energy, and financial. And that is our awesome responsibility to respect that and to be excited about that and to make people understand that it's not a transaction. This is something that we truly love to do where if we do this the right way, you're going to come here on your first date. You're going to come here when you get engaged. You're going to come here when you get married.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“secured. We got thirty days to begin that journey with you. I don't think about it as it starts when you enter our doors. It starts when you do that reservation. What can we do in thirty days leading up until that point to find out a little bit more about you, why you're coming here, how we're going to make it special? Maybe you find out a little bit more about us. What can we do in creative ways to let you know that we're as excited about you coming to see us as you're excited to see us? I think that's awesome. And then when you do get there, hopefully we have as much information as possible on you. And we will learn more just by being extremely great listeners and asking the right questions and doing our best job at making you happy. And once you do actually leave.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a relationship to me and it's a long relationship. Restaurants in general, you think about the experience of dining. The person comes in to check in and they sit down and for two hours you have them captive and then they leave. And I think that is a dining experience. But we've always thought about the experience where it starts with the reservation being made. We are so fortunate that we have people who will spend months and years trying to get a reservation at our restaurants. I do not say that to boast. It is the reality of what we've created. That is an enormous responsibility of ours. It's awesome to understand that people will wait up till midnight every single night until they possibly get a reservation at your restaurant thirty days later. Once they do have that reservation.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is people will flex as hard as they flexed early on at Lily, eating that bowl of pasta, now they're making it in their home. And when you hear the video, they're playing the songs that they listen to while they were having at Lilia. And now you're giving people that beautiful gift to create that inspiring experience that they had at Lilia in their home. And I never would have thought that was going to be the case.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Beautiful. It glistened. It's pink. And when we opened, everybody would take pictures of it and post it on Instagram, and every single night at Lilia there was like a little bit more people coming, a little bit more buzz. But what was going viral was this shot of someone taking a fork into the bowl of Mafaladini with this pink fluorescent peppercorn and this light and it went crazy to the point where we now sell two hundred bowls of Malfodini, pink peppercorn, and parmesan cheese every single night. And we know every day we have to make enough Malfadini nests to feed everybody and never eighty six it. When we started the pasta company, it was the first thing we did. We were like, well, we're going to give people the tools to make that dish in people's homes. And what's so cool about it now.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've learned not to ask her about the menu until three days before we open. That is extremely stressful, but I have now become very comfortable around this. And that is her creative genius. So about three nights before we were opening Lilia, I was like, hey, you make that spaghetti with the pink peppercorn and parmesan. She's like, oh, yeah, that's right. Well, I don't want to do spaghetti. We got something else. I actually got this dye, this like shape of pasta, like mafladini. Let me see. She did it. And it was just serendipitous where it was this weird shape of pasta. It looks like the end of a lasagna, where it's like a ribbon. And she made the parmesan pink peppercorn, butter, pasta water simple. And we had it. And oh my God, it was so delicious. And then extremely.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the process of us opening Lilia, there were nights where Missy would test in our apartment kitchen. And one night she was going to just make a spaghetti ketchuppeppi. And she called me up and she's like, hey, you got any black pepper. I don't have any black pepper. And I'm like, Maria, do you have any black pepper? And she said, no, we actually don't. It's like, I think we got pink peppercorn or maybe Missy was like, I got pink peppercorn, but I just, I don't know. I just want catchy peppi. So she ended up using this pink peppercorn and she called me back in five minutes. She's like, get down here right now. So I go down. She makes this catch you of peppi with pink peppercorn instead of black peppercorn. And I was like, God, this is incredible. She's like, I know it's so floral. It's not spicy. I think we got something here. Now Missy is a chef, a creative that does not plan her menu in advance. So when we open restaurants.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hard at social media. And I'll never forget for the first two years of doing Instagram for the restaurants, we would always get these comments of like, who's the 25-year-old girl who does your Instagram? Because she does it in a great way. So I would always be like, I guess my Instagram voice is 25-year-old female.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It wasn't just a face to face interaction that could change somebody's day. It was what else, what other modes of communication or connection can really change the course of someone's day for the positive. And that just fills me up. It just is the thing I believe every day is a good day. None of them are easy. For me, the thing that makes a good day is like seeing somebody that crosses my path. seeing someone changed just by saying i like those shoes just knowing that i can go to bed it could be the failing 15 times during the day but at least i know that i said something to someone about their shoes that made him feel good it gets me through that tough day but brian that struck up a beautiful friendship and it certainly gave me the confidence to go hard”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And said my flight got canceled. Is there any shot tonight works for a party of two? I said, yeah. So we made the reservation. And the friend that was dining with him was running late. So I sat down with this person and we just started chatting. What were you doing in Brooklyn? I was filming something. Oh, wow, what do you film? And he said, one of the co-creators of chef's table, my name is Brian McGinn. I was like, oh my God. It changed my life episode one, season one, Masimo Batura, the Parmesan, like he saved an entire industry. And like, that changed my life. I remember hitting stop running downstairs to Missy and saying, you have to watch this with me. We have to watch this. And from that moment on, Brian and I just built a great friendship. And it was also a time where I felt like Instagram, social media.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah. So Brian McGinn, I remember when Lilia opened, this was now july seventeenth, twenty sixteen. I woke up on my way in to Anchorage. I was on my Instagram of Lilia, and I did all the Instagram. I miss you would always yell at me for taking pictures. The food was getting cold, but I knew it was building something. I saw somebody post a friend of ours, Adam Saxe, who was the editor in chief of Savore magazine, a picture of the Moffadini. And I commented great shot. Thanks. And I also saw in that thread a comment from someone who said, I tried to get in last night and I couldn't. I'm going to try next time I'm in town. So I DM'd him and I said, hey, here's my email. Let me know. Turns out later that day because of weather, his flight got canceled. And he emailed me.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's always blown me away. I am a professional diner. I've gone out to restaurants my entire life. I have never made a reservation after an amazing dining experience for the next one. I'm like, get me out of here. I'm going right to bed. I can't think about my next meal. Every single night in our restaurants, there's people who make reservations for the next time, and that is what I study a lot.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There for a party of two, and it's a business dinner. We might not even know that, but we have to feel it. We have to hear it. So then I'm not going to go to your table and tell you the story about the Mafodini. You're not there for that. You're there to do something with someone else in business. And we're just going to make sure we don't screw anything up for you that night. But then when I see a table of six, 26 year olds with a lot of LED lights and cameras taking a ton of pictures, I'm going to tell you every story about every dish because I know you're there to be entertained in a different way. And that feeling you're going to get is going to be way different. But those two situations, they're still going to leave excited to come back. And at the end of the night, we have a list of all the restaurants we have. How many people are making reservations for the next time?”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I remember standing in front of everybody and saying the way we are going to measure success of Lily is not by profitability, it's not by stars or reviews and acclaim. It's if you are proud to be a part of this. You have to feel safe when you enter our doors, not in a physical sense, but mentally safe where you can then become comfortable when you're in our presence. You could be your best self. So that when you do leave, you're excited to come back. To me, that goes for the people that work with us just like it is for our guests. So any moment they walk in feeling safe so that they can enjoy and feel comfortable of the reason why they're there and they maximize that. And we have to read that. So if you're a guest and you're”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, to me, the definition of hospitality is creativity plus compassion. So hospitality, it's how you make someone feel. And I think that it starts with understanding who you're dealing with every single night, who's walking into your door and trying to figure out why they're there and what is going to make that experience the greatest and exactly why they're there. That's the ingredient. It's compassion and then creativity and understanding that every single person that comes in is different and they're all there for a reason. Every single table is different, but they all should leave excited to come back. To me, we've said from the start, the first night we opened Lilia.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That comes in. How do we make them feel just accepted? You're one of us. You are one of us. Whether you work with us or you're dining with us.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's also very inspiring for me as I think about a hospitality brand that can be bigger than just inside four walls. And now so many other companies around the world want to be attached to hospitality brands and experiences. That's what we create every day experiences. We are the best at creating experiences. How do you think about creating longstanding relationships with brands that haven't been a part of the hospitality industry? I think it's a really exciting time to think about that. And Ronnie taught me don't think about it as a one-time event. I get asked a lot, who's your hero or who's your biggest inspiration in the restaurant industry? And there's so many, but really I look at people like Ronnie. What are they doing? I like that. We could use that with our brand, the storytelling, certainly the way we treat people. Every single person.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was a part of them and they made me feel comfortable. And I remember buying my first jacket at Kith that I felt like I could wear to Anchorage. I felt comfortable in it. And I think that was a big inspiration for me with Ronnie is that we were truly aligned on just trying to make others feel a part of something. And the way he's been able to do that, people that work for him are proud to be there. They're excited to come back tomorrow. The people that come to shop there, they're really proud to walk into that store and they're more excited to come back the next time to hopefully get something because it always sells out. Those are the things. And the way he tells the story about what he's doing, the collaborations, the relationships that he builds are longstanding. He never does something for one time.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I saw collaborations. I saw sneakers. I saw a few pieces of kith designed products. I saw a lot of other brands that he was selling at the store. But I'm watching something happening. So when action told me that he wanted to come to our restaurant, I was like, whoa, that's awesome. Yes. So I remember he came with Victor Cruz and I sat down with them for a little bit. And from that day on, was so inspired by what he was building because I started asking him why he was doing it. And I watched him add content and storytelling. And I would go into his stores knowing that I was the least cool person to walk into that store. I should not feel comfortable in that store. But every single person that worked for Kith would come up to me like.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We became friends and one night in June he called me up and was like hey you gotta let this guy Ronnie into your restaurant He lives in the neighborhood I'm like okay who? Who's Ronnie? And he goes he started Kith. Now Anchorage's offices were right on the same block as the original Kith. And I remember leaving Anchorage for lunch during most days to get some mental clarity, and I would walk to Kith. I didn't even know what Kith was. It was just a sneaker store at the time in this place called Atrium. I did not get this concept at all, but I kept on going back because I liked the music, I liked just the way it broke up my day. And then little by little, I saw a pair of pants that said kith on it. And then there was a tea.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I was like, okay, I went up to him, started talking. And I remember that night he had Moki with black truffles and he put it on Instagram. This is 2016. I think at that time he had maybe 200,000 followers, which was a lot. And he put it out. And that night we got 2,000 followers because of that picture. And I'm like, who is that guy?”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In a New York Knicks jersey, Patrick Ewing, shorts and flip-flops. And I walk by him. I was coming from Anchorage. I walked in. Service was going. And it just fell off. Every single night we were opened until then. It was just, the energy was intense and great. And it seemed oddly quiet that night. Everybody was there. It was just quiet. So I remember looking at Missy, what's going on? She's like, that guy is very famous. And I'm like, who the guy with the flip-flops on? She's like, yeah, everybody's going crazy. I'm like yelling at all the cooks. Like, do your job. They all want to stare at him. So I was like, who is he? And she's like, I don't know, some guy action. He's a rapper.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, bam, bam. He lives across the street from Lillia. And six months after we opened Lillia, he became a huge supporter. And I didn't know him at all. I'll never forget the first night I walked into Lillia and he was there. It was January 23rd, 2016. It was 14 degrees outside and action was at the bar by himself.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we've set those road maps, but in between, how do we build that out in a thoughtful way that's authentic in us so that people are chasing the brand versus the brand chasing the guests? That's definitely something I never thought I would say out loud before, but it is something that we think about every single day. And we're grateful for.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Same thing that happened with our restaurants is now happening with this little brand. And although I want to always feed every single human, I have realized the preciousness and almost like obsession around not filling the demand. But how do we find that right balance? And I've just thought about as we grow even that pasta brand, what more can we offer to our community of guests in a thoughtful way that everybody will always say, oh, that makes sense. And I think just playing the long game has always helped with this too, knowing the things that we've wanted to do. We've written all these things down in 2014, these little things that we've wanted to do, open a few restaurants, do aposta company, someday hopefully have a place where we can curate an entire experience where we pick you up at your home and bring you back when you're done with us after a few days.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In order to feed more people, instead of opening another restaurant that takes two years to do, start to finish, maybe we could take a year to create our own company that would feed the people who were putting their names on the waitlist that maybe couldn't get into our restaurants, but would be able to get our products and bring it home. And the way we launch that was through basically a drop, just how Kith and Supreme do these sneaker drops. We thought we had the community that would want that. And we started that early in 2020 where on Friday nights, on Instagram, we would put the flavor of the sauce and the shape of the pasta on Instagram two o'clock the next day, pick it up. We would make one hundred and two hundred fifty people would line up. And it was just, oh my gosh.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thinking, like, how are we going to make it here? Manhattan will kill it, but I don't know. Are we going to fit in? But then when we did open, it was not about what we looked like. It was about who we were and how we treated others and understanding people aligned well with how we were trying to do it. And I started obsessing about that brand and understanding that every single night at Lilia, eight years later, we have 5,000 people on our waitlist and Missy, our second restaurant, five years old, is 2,500 people a night on our waitlist. And not to say that to boast, but to try to understand why. As we think about expansion after Missy was opened in 2018, what's next? We believed that.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, Missy and I are not cool. I remember the first day we were walking around Williamsburg to look at this space and we were certainly out of water. I was wearing Gucci loafers and a trader vest, and she certainly was not looking that cool either. And I remember”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The landlord partner is more excited to make sure that the space looks amazing, that the sidewalk's clean, and every time something happens, they're willing to help out. I think it's a healthier relationship. It certainly helped us during the pandemic where all of our restaurants were tied to a percentage of our sales and we had zero. So I didn't have to have these awkward conversations with landlords that a lot of people in New York City did. And since then, I think landlords in New York have become more comfortable with this model. I hope that that will continue to be the case. It is a huge challenge for our industry in New York City to pay fixed rent all the time, especially when January and February and March, those are really slow months. A lot of businesses will try to not bleed as much in those months and try to.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or we had to sell it. We had to sell it. And I pitched it like crazy. But what was great about it was the first time I did it, I thought we were going to do $3.5 million in sales in the first year. And I agreed to a percentage of sales. And we doubled that in the first year of sales. So the rent was even greater. And I was able to use that case of this is a partnership. And I feel like that is a true partnership, that deal versus here's the price per square foot. This is what you owe me every single month for the remainder. Good luck. I've just felt like it was more aligned and both sides were incentivized. And every time I've given, this is what I think.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Done like any other industry that you're in for ever, it sets in. And I think that's what allowed me to think with just a clear lens of, I don't know anything. I'm going to ask the dumbest questions and hopefully I get some great answers and I'll figure out the rest.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of sales in your rent. That was the first thing. I was like, well, we're just going to tie it to sales. And we looked at 38 places in Manhattan. Oh, we're just awful. We struck out left and right. They were too expensive. Probably 50 operators that were known said no-do before us. Nobody really knew us. And I just couldn't feel comfortable signing leases like that until we finally found this location in North Williamsburg that we lucked out on and we were able to do a rent that I hoped we could do and afford. And my finance background, nothing in high yield bond markets helped me be a better restaurateur. It allowed me to think with a clear lens and try to keep it simple. I know a lot of people that are in the restaurant business have been in it forever. And I think the mode of this is the way it's always been.”
2025-09-05 · Invest Like the Best · Sean Feeney - Reinventing the Restaurant Business - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source