YouSaid · the spoken record

Stephen Starr

lines on the record: 98
first: 2026-06-22
most recent: 2026-06-22
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

“The walls were cool, they were padded like vinyl walls that were beige, and there were greens, and the girls were extremely good-looking. And I saw these martini glasses. And I didn't even know what a martini was really. I never drank martinis. And there was a DJ there, and I said to this DJ, what is this? He goes, it's a martini bar. And I went back again a couple times and it was packed lined to get in. And then I said, this is something I got to try and do something like this in Philly.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rest of life money? No, no, So again, just through traveling and stuff, I was in New York one night and went to this restaurant called Global 33 on First Avenue. I just was totally blown away by this place. It was so cool.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I had no idea. I pretended I was still in the music business because I kept the office. I would go to work every day and look at my Rolodex and make some calls and then go out to Delhi and have coffee and go back to my office and look at my roller decks. And then it became, it hit me. Oh shit, I'm not in this business anymore. So at that point, I had a child, so I spent a lot of time with my daughter, Sarah, a lot of time going to the gym, a lot of time pretending I was still in business. And then eventually I said I got to do something.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The offer was pretty good. Also I saw the way the music business was going, the bands were getting more, they were sometimes getting a hundred percent of the door. And if we didn't have some sort of ticket master deal, which I didn't have, it was going to be harder and harder to compete. So yeah, I sold my company to my competitor. I felt bad about it, but I felt it was time.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I used to be sad about it because I remember going nightclubs. I went to shows and I'd be like in the back my arms folded watching everybody just watching them. And I thought I was pathetic. You're not having fun. You're not part of the event. But eventually, like you just said, I kind of like that role because I was watching over my little creation and everybody was happy. And that was my satisfaction.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You right and you're wrong. You know, I don't like going to parties and hanging out and let's have dinner. Let's go out for a drink. I hated that part. Yeah. Yeah, but ever since I was a kid and then the music, the nightclub business, the music business, and now the restaurant business, we're always throwing the party, right? I've been throwing the party for years, but I'm never in the party.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was stressful, but it was fun. And when you're watching something that you love happen, music, comedy, it's so satisfying. And you could put up with the other stuff. But it was also a challenge. How do I get this guy who is treating me like shit, who is not giving me the axe that I want, how can I convince him somehow some way that I'm better at this than my competitor? And I was young, so I love that challenge, and by sheer force of my will. I was able to turn people's minds around. I was able to be a nobody in this music business and convince the biggest agents in the world to take me seriously. And that to me was I won.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I'm not even keeled. I lose my temper. The restaurant business is what brings out the temper in people. That's when you become like a dictator, like Saddam Hussein. But the music business, no, I didn't lose my temper.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And never bother me. Honestly, I looked at it like the acts themselves were so bigger than life. They were not even real. They were almost like cartoons. And whatever it is they wanted that was overwhelming or overbearing. It was part of the game. I knew I was playing the game. It was fun to be in the game and have an act tell us, don't look at us when we walk down the hallways on our way to the stage. The people that weren't fun were the people that worked behind the scenes, the agents. Their booking agents, those were the real assholes back then, obnoxious because, you know, there was a food chain. The concert promoter was the lowest on the food chain. We were at the bottom.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, for me, it was different because I was David and there was a Goliath in town who had been there longer and more entrenched. I had to be the good guy. I had to be the schmoozer. Because in the end, the bands only cared about one thing how much you gave em money and what the catering was backstage. It was pretty a simple formula.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think you make after all the expenses are over, you're only making around 15%. So, you know, nowadays, it's a whole different thing. Nowadays, the act gets everything. And then the promoter, which is really basically one promoter, Live Nation now, they own a lot of the venues. They get the parking. And because they own Ticketmaster, they get that ticket charges back then. When I was doing this, we only got the ticket sales. So it'd be a modest profit.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, because the nightclub part of it, the Ripley Music Hall, all that really was, was a way to get the big agencies to do business with you. So they have a new act and they say, listen, we have this new ban in excess or REM. We need you to book them for $3,000. You'll probably lose money, but stick with us because if you do us a solid, when they get big, we're going to take care of you. And so we ended up just losing money to hopefully make money later. It was like a lost leader thing. So the club didn't work out after a while. It was just too much. It was hard to make a living there. And then I continued with the concert promoting and did fairly well with that.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That may have been more of a catalyst for my success than my mother actually dying. In the end, my motivation to open that club was two things, to get her back or to say fuck you, look, I made it. So I have to tell you that because that's such a big part of what motivated me back then.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Girls I always liked and tried to get, but not drugs and all that. No, that wasn't my motivation. And at the end of the day, I was always very, very good to the bands. I gave the bands not just what they asked for, but more. I always felt I had to perform better than my competition because I was younger, not as successful. So I just tried harder. And there's one other thing here that you may have read also that a lot of my motivation when I was in college, I had a girlfriend, you know, my mom had died. And around nine months after my mother died, the girlfriend, who I was in love with, left me, broke up. Messed me up for a long time.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of course, I was obsessed with music. I loved music. Many of the promoters back then were older than me, and they were not in it so much for the music as they were in it for the business of it. You know, I met Bill Graham a couple times. And I think he was the real deal. But a lot of these guys were just in it because it was a good business and they can get chicks and do drugs.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, very little. And if I had been, if I had gone to business school, I never would have done it because none of it made sense. You know, a little of this. Is you're almost an imposter. You're pretending to be something that you're not. You know, I was this promoter bringing in this act, that act. We're doing great, convincing somebody to play for me as opposed to my competitor when at the end of the day what was left over was very little. But a lot of the brands started developing, right? People started knowing that I was this success, but I wasn't.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're able to do that. I did that one initially kind of on my own, similar to stars. But eventually I got an investor who was participated in transitioning to concerts. Because when you did concerts, you needed real money for deposits and stuff like that.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I had this thing in my head that really carried on to the restaurant business that I never wanted to do the same thing every day or all the time. So every night my goal was to have something different. So one night you'd have Ray Charles and the next night you'd have uhrhythmics. It was like my own Ed Sullivan show.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's no, no, but it's true. When people ask me, hey, what's your advice? I feel so bad because the way things are constructed now, there's very little room for entrepreneurship. Unless you have a lot of money or your family has money, I mean, just to have an idea and have virtually no money, it's hard, man. It's hard. It's not the same country.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think so. No. I didn't pay it back. I was too stupid to realize, I just walked away from it. I mean, the building was $150,000. I should have tried to sell it, but I didn't.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It did okay, and it really was the thing that was the catalyst for me to become a real concert promoter. And that motivated me to look for something bigger, which I did, and stars eventually went away.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Call it stars and did some mind blowing shows, man. I mean, great jazz artists, Nina Simone, Buddy Rich and the Four Tops and Temptations, and then the punk thing started. So then we started doing the Ramones, the Clash, and all kinds of punk bands, just very, very memorable shows. And it's such an intimate environment.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it wasn't sustainable. I wasn't making any money. Maybe I was able to eat a couple hundred bucks a week for myself. But I was always getting behind the eight ball. And then eventually that comedy club evolved and morphed into a club that did mainly music.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That first buck. So at one point it got so bad we couldn't pay our bills I had to take the money down off the wall. To use to pay for something that was like COD.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. I mean, I learned as I was going along, and we kept the food light. I mean, we did burgers and fries and whatever we did. So it wasn't very complicated. I remember at one point, this is the sad story, you know how when you open a new business the old days, you put the first dollar, like you hang it on the wall.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I hired a chef. He was a young guy. I don't know how good he was, but we figured it out. This is why even today with all the restaurants I own, I see what we do to open a restaurant. The tens of thousands of dollars we spend on training and this and that and audiovisual and crazy stuff that we do. And I look back at how I did this and I say to myself, what the fuck? I didn't, we never did any of this now. All this training.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Patty Benatari back then was she sang all cabaret songs. It wasn't like rock and roll then. So that was one of our first shows. I booked Jerry Seinfeld played there. He was the host of Amateur Knight. He paid him $75. Bob Saget started in our club. So I tried to run it seriously, but had no idea what I was doing. Classic story is the opening night. We put it sold out, put all the cover charges, which I forgot what they were then $5, $8. We put them on the check as opposed to taking the cash at the window. Put the cover charge on the check and the people drank and they ate on the check. Around 65% of the audience walked out on the check that opening night. So they didn't pay. And I had no money. I remember crying that night. What did I do? Because I didn't have the money to pay the comedians.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, no. She wasn't comedian because the shows consisted of a comedian, a musical act ending with a headlining comedian.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there was catcher rising star in New York, which was really the godfather of all comedy clubs. And I called it stars S-T-A-R-S.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have no idea that I think it was a time that wasn't like I think people still believed in people like bankers still would go on an instinct or a feeling so it was probably sort of a dead building maybe he couldn't lease it or rent it or sell it for a long time and this kid came in that sort of disarmed him to use that word so he lent me $40,000 And then there was someone else. I forgot who it was. I either borrowed or whatever 10. And for fifty or sixty grand, I piecemealed this thing together.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't even know what collateral was. I saw the sign on the building, somehow got the appointment with Continental Bank at the time, met with the man, and told him my idea.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was going to say, you know, fuck him. I'm going to come back and I'll fucking put you out of business. Because I was the one that knew these comics. The people I had befriended. So I started looking for a place to open another club. I found a bankrupt building that was a restaurant somehow commenced the bank. I had no money to sell it to me.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he threw me out. I was devastated. And I then said, you know, kind of like Rocky. I said, you know what? I'm going to, can I curse on this thing”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Became very popular, and then the gentleman who owned the place, and then all of a sudden one day he goes, you know what? This doesn't make any sense for me. You're keeping the door. I could do it. I want you to leave. I'm doing this myself.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I was 16 and 15, 16, 17. Boardwalk in Atlantic City as a salesman. A store that sold everything, it sold watches, rings, stereos, and I learned so much from working on the boardwalk in Atlantic. I learned about human nature. I learned how to talk to people. I learned how to sell. You know, we were paid on commission, and we got paid based upon how much profit we made on each item that we sold In the beginning, we felt terrible. We didn't know how to do that. A ring that was worth 20 bucks, we were being encouraged to try and sell for 200 bucks. And we thought that was wrong. But eventually, just like a Navy SEAL or a Marine, we got to be trained killers. And we learned how to sell and how to convince people. So I think the ability to feel confident, my confidence was being a salesperson on the boardwalk in Atlantic City.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, my kids have asked me that question. My wife has a couple wives have asked me that question. I do believe I must have had charisma. People liked me. You know, I remember one guy in the very beginning when I first opened my first real nightclub. He was the guy who owned the building. And he was a tough guy. And he told me, he says, you know what? You're very disarming. That was the word he used for me. He goes, you're very disarming. I just think I was I had a thing. There's another piece here. I also worked on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, which is a big piece of who I am and how I became who I am.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I wasn't a look older. I wasn't special in that way. You know what I think it is? This is why I heard you're a good interviewer. You're like Barbara Walters.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he said, sure, I mean, I'm open to it. So I started going back to catcher rising star and I'd watched the show and the comedian would get off the stage and you go over to the bar and I'd say, hi, my name's Stephen Starr. I think I'm going to open a comedy club and Philadelphia. Would you be interested? And they all go, yes, of course. And I get their phone numbers. And then we finally had our first show. And I start booking comedy there.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just wanted to do something that could make some money for myself. And not that I thought it was beneath me, but it just wasn't in my DNA to work in a restaurant or be a waiter. So I went to this deli. And the deli was called Grandma Minnie's. And I befriended the owner. And I said, you know what? At night here, what are you doing? He goes, nothing. We closed. I said, I have an idea. What if you did comedy? Because I had been going to New York to see comedy shows at Catch a Rising Star in New York City.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Left early. I left the third year because my sisters were young and I couldn't, I had to be there and help them. So I had no choice at that point.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it was awful. I was 19. I had younger sisters, three younger sisters, six, seven, thirteen, something like that. That was horrible. Definitely did something to me that made me want to work really hard and maybe try and forget. But even prior to that, when I went to college, my goal was to be, I wanted to be rich because we had a middle class family, but we didn't have much. And I wanted to take care of everybody. And I remember sending my typing a letter to my mother telling her that don't worry. By the time I'm 21 mom, I will be a millionaire.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wanted to break out of the normal lifestyle that I was in in New Jersey. It was boring. It didn't satisfy me. I wanted to do big things. I became the student council president of the school. And somehow they allowed us to have a concert once a year. So we had the opportunity to book Moby Grape, Alice Cooper, who wasn't big yet, Rermont the Hoopl, and we chose Mata Hoopal.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Written by David Bowie. I got that bug of wanting to be a concert promoter. I loved it. Became friends with the band. Brought the band to my house. My mom cooked them dinner. So the entertainment bug was now really in me”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I came in like twice a week and he taught me how to edit, splice tape, and all that. And I just made all my little audition tapes. I pretty much mimick the FMDJs at the time, you know, by talking like this. This is Steven Starr at WMMR. And then I wanted to be a concert promoter. And I promoted my first big concert in my high school, which was a band called Mata Hoopal.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I went to the federal courthouse in Philadelphia. I took my test and I passed. And what I used to do I used to go in and sneak into a college radio station and in one part of the station at night the oncology kid who seemed like an old guy to me was on the air and I kind of sneak in and go into the production studio. And then I learned how to do production by myself just by trial and error. And I take the albums from the radio station and I would do my own audition tapes. One day, however, the guy that was on the air caught me and I thought, oh, boy, I'm in big trouble. And he said, listen, you can't just sneak into a radio station like it's not cool. You can get arrested.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So basically loved TV. I used to do my own skits and radio shows, and then I became sort of intrigued by being an announcer on the radio.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was surrounded by televisions because my father was a television repair guy. So the whole house had TVs everywhere. I watched every TV show in the world and very much fell in love with the Dick Van Dyck show back then. And I wanted to also be a comedy writer. What I watched on TV was the shows, but you know what I was more obsessed with? The credits. Like I knew the producers. I knew the writer. I remembered, hey, Sheldon Leonard, he did that other show too. And I had a real to real tape recorder. And I created my own little environment in this room. I know I was obsessed with music, mainly the Beatles and Elvis Presley, so I have my little fantasy imagination periods where I would do beatles versus Elvis, and I do that for three hours. I play one song versus another song and I rate them.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, the more you say what you just said, the more I realize what a stupid business this is to be in. One of our landlords, Seymour Rubin, said to me, goes, Why would you want to be in a business where one guy, a dishwasher, could just stop the whole operation? One guy could decide that's it, I'm leaving The whole restaurant falls apart that night.”
2026-06-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · STARR Restaurants: Stephen Starr. How a Non-Foodie Built Thriving Restaurants on Gut Instinct · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT