Don't bother starting the 10,000th restaurant in Manhattan. Find something to do that if you don't do it, it won't get done.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It's a very, very difficult space to operate in, the restaurant business-it requires a lot of human beings to intersect at just the right place to make it all work out.
In one respect, it's easier to open a restaurant in New York because you get more media attention than anywhere else. Almost everyone will try a new place once, irrespective of the reviews, because it's a spectator sport.
You cannot open a major New York restaurant today and not be aware that showbiz will play a role.
It's not easy to have success with restaurants in different cities, but I like the challenge.
One of the things I love about New York is that it's one of the only places where you could have an entire restaurant dedicated to macaroni and cheese.
In a city, it's very hard to do a restaurant, an avant-garde-cuisine restaurant, where each year you need to change the whole menu.
The restaurant business is something that you have to treat like a baby. You have to constantly be there. You can't trust it to anybody else, because no one's going to love it like you do.
I have 20 restaurants. And if one doesn't work, it doesn't work.
I only have the restaurant. If I do other things, it's only to do with the restaurant.
No one knows restaurants like a New Yorker - they're incredibly discerning and restaurant savvy.