Ashish Tulsian:

Welcome to Restrocast. Today, my guest is Stratis Morfogen. He is the founder and CEO of Brooklyn Chop House and Brooklyn Dumpling Shop. Stratis is, in his own words, a restaurateur from the womb, somebody who decided at the age of six that he’s going to be a restaurateur. Comes from a family where his father owned multiple iconic restaurants in New York. Talking to Stratis felt like, you know, I’m almost like watching a Hollywood flick, you know, which had, I don’t know if it was it was comedy, but there was a lot of drama. There was a lot of emotions, a lot of wins, a lot of fails. But the hero was emerging out as a hero at the end each time. This was really crazy conversation. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Welcome to this Restrocast. Stratis, Thanks. Welcome to Restrocast. And thanks for doing this.

Stratis Morfogen:

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Ashish Tulsian:

I want to, you know, when we were having this conversation earlier, you you know, you talked about that you were an restaurateur from the womb. Tell me about that. What were your early years where did it all start?

Stratis Morfogen:

I mean, I was going there’s a story in my book, and it’s a true story that, you know, at the age of six, my mother said, hey, you know, because my father worked every weekend, he had about at any given time, he had nine restaurants. My mother’s like, we’re going to Disney World. And my brother and sister are jumping up and down. They’re three years older than me. They were nine and ten, jumping up and down, going to Disney World. I’m like, Dad, what’s the do you have Uncle Peter? Or you who has the truck this weekend? He’s like I have the truck. I said, Mom, I am not going, I want to go to the Fulton Fish Market with dad. And she’s like, What? My father’s like, What? Disney World, Mickey Mouse. I said, my Disney World is the Fulton Fish Market. Oh, I love the Fulton Fish Market.

Ashish Tulsian:

Wow.

Stratis Morfogen:

And at six years old, I would jump in the truck with him at four in the morning, go to the Fulton Fish Market, see all the all the guys there, all the energy, the you know, I learned my first math lesson at the Fulton Fish Market when Herb Slavitt, who was an icon in the fish market, was fighting over my dad for a nickel. And I thought I popped out a nickel and I handed it to my father. I said, Why are you guys fighting? You guys are friends. Here’s the nickel. My father puts me on the dirty fish box and says, Hey, it’s not a nickel. It’s an 800 pound box of halibut, 800 nickels is what we’re talking about. That was my first math lesson. You know, you’re not going to learn that in school. You know, I knew what 800 nickels are when it’s an 800 pound box and they’re fighting over $85 and $0.80. So from the womb. Yeah. And it went right into my bloodstream as soon as I came out. And it’s never stopped, I knew what I wanted to do at the age of six. It affected my schooling because I didn’t want to. I don’t want to learn about algebra and calculus and all this crap. But to me it was not a part of my life. I wanted to learn how many nickels it’s going to take to get an 800 pound box of halibut. And that’s how I was brought up. And my father at first was resistant, but then realized that, you know what? This is what you know, this makes him happy. He’s happy at the fish market instead of Disney World. He’s happy being a busboy at midnight instead of, you know, being tucked in like his friends are watching cartoons with chocolate milk. I’m sitting there running a restaurant at ten years old, at nine years old as a busboy, and that was in my blood. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I never wavered from it. It was like turbo mode.

Ashish Tulsian:

What was your what is your memory of like, what is fascinating for you as a kid, given that you knew that you would you’re going to run the restaurant? Maybe there must be the parts of your father’s journey, your uncle’s journey that you you just loved. You just want to do that.

Stratis Morfogen:

I wanted to be part of the energy. The energy was phenomenal to me. If you’ve ever been to the Fulton Fish Market in the olden days, you know, there’s fire burning and there’s, you know, people, you know, keeping their hands warm, fish being flung around. I mean, you see like, you know, big swordfish being put in. And as far as I went, they were bringing the tractor trailers in and the tuna was almost alive. I mean, it was so cool for me. I mean, I just to me, it was like National Geographic, because I still to this day.

Ashish Tulsian:

I can almost see the scene right now.

Stratis Morfogen:

It was incredible. And today I have a view of the whole seaport. But obviously it’s not the way I remember it, except for the two ships. To me, it was like I wanted to be nowhere else but there. And I learned about I learned about this life from the Fulton Fish Market. And I always said it should be a movie because it was such a glamorous place, but such a dirty place. It’s such a corrupt place. But to me it was like Hollywood. Hollywood East was the Fulton Fish Market had the biggest gangsters running it. You had the action of the fish. My uncle was the buyer of the Grand Central Oyster Bar on top of it. He was the largest single fish buyer, excuse me, in the market. He bought for the whole Grand Central Oyster Bar and George Morfogen, he walked in. You know, we were just a bunch of Greeks, you know. Meanwhile, the Italian mob ran the whole market. They showed my father and my uncles such respect that, you know, their biggest customers. And I saw that, you know, I was looking at people and I called them Uncle Ali and this and that. And as I’m getting 13 and 14, you can see the being arrested or seeing them with the news. I’m like, wow, this guy runs a crime family. Well, I know him as like my my, my uncle, you know, my pal, my adopted uncle. Not blood uncle, but, you know, I grew up in that field and I got to applaud my father because it’s a very unconventional way to bring up a child. But I will tell you, it’s the best education you could ever have.

Ashish Tulsian:

What was what was his restaurant about?

Stratis Morfogen:

He had everything. He had six Chelsea house restaurants. He was the first spokesperson. He was the first spokesperson for American Express in 1975. I could even how I was so into his work, I could recite you the whole commercial. You know, my name is John Morfogen, CEO of the Chelsea Chophouse. When you come to the Chelsea Chophouse, we only accept one card, the American Express card. And when you bring your American Express card, you can have anything on the menu except for the fish mounted on the wall. Last time I heard that, I was ten years old. And that’s you know, that was the impact he had on me. And and, you know, that was the beginning of my journey.

Ashish Tulsian:

So six Chelsea’s Chophouses and?

Stratis Morfogen:

He had another seafood restaurant on South Shore Manor Catering Hall called the Reef Diner. Hilltop Diner. It’s, you know, if you ever saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding, that’s pretty much my biography. You know, my dad at every type of restaurant you could imagine. We lived it all. 200 year old Colonial, and we had the Greek flag hanging from a good old 200 year old classic home. But the Greek flag was 20 feet high.

Ashish Tulsian:

Fascinating. And you know, what is your first experience as a restaurant and what at what age? You know, did you did you join him early on?

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, I always work with my dad. I don’t think I had I don’t think I had a full weekend off from six years old to 18. I think the first weekend I had a full weekend off was my prom. I worked every weekend and then I’d work three or four days after school and my father was a type like, Hey, you want that drum set? You want that stereo work an extra day as a busboy, work an extra day as a waiter, work as. And that’s how we grew up. And I do try to do the same with my kids, but I’m failing at that. Yeah, pretty much failing at that point. I try to. I try to do that. But now that’s that’s, you know. You know, so my my first real experience was, you know, seven years old and I write about it in my book. I want to know why my dad treats this old little man with such respect. The older man comes in, he’s got like three bodyguards. I don’t know who he is, you know? Then I hear them saying, Get Mr. Gambino his drink, get Mr. Gambino this. Get Mr. Gambino his table. This is like 1973. And you know, I’m a little chubby busboy. I come to the table, he’s there with all his mafiosi and all his capos, and I walk over and he’s being extremely discreet, doesn’t want anybody to know who he is. And I go. Good evening, Mr. Gambino. And I’m six years old. The guys, like the whole table, just froze like, what did I do wrong? You know? And then he goes, C’mere, kid, Sit over here. Sit on his lap. He goes, Hi is good enough. I said, Okay. And he puts a $20 bill in my pocket. I’m like, That’s cool. I’ll take that all day long. And and that was my first lesson in discretion. Restaurateurs, you need to know a lot of things, not just food service and atmosphere. You need to understand discretion. You need to understand your clients. There’s a lot of moving parts that can sink you or make you a master restaurateur. And again, you can’t read a lot of this out of a book. Who’s going to read that out of a book? And with that lesson, he would come in every week and I would say hi, and I’d get my 20 bucks.

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s a good hi.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah. I mean, it was Carlo Gambino, the boss of the Gambino family, and he would come in like every Thursday and Sunday to my dad’s restaurant in Howard Beach. And he was the most nicest little old man, You know, it was to me, I felt like it was an extended family member. But that was my lesson in discretion. Then if you fast forward to 2009, I write in my book, I go downstairs to say hi to John Paulson, who’s a big hedge fund, you know, takeover king. I go down let me say hi to Mr. Paulson. They reserve the basement, a private room, and for some reason they didn’t want the waiters there. They just wanted the food to come out and everybody to leave the room. I didn’t know that. So I just went downstairs. I said, Mr. Paulson, how are you? How’s everybody? Great. I look up and they know they have. Tomorrow they’re doing a hostile takeover of Bank of America. So these are the things that we see as restaurateurs. Now, if I was corrupt, I’d be buying warrants and options as soon as I got out of that room. But no, this is just part of our life as a restaurateur.

Ashish Tulsian:

So what is your full time restaurant experience like? When did you you join your dad? You know, for. For how long?

Stratis Morfogen:

Yes, I finished high school a year early. Not that I was good at school. I was like 361 out of 363. But I finished school in 11th grade because I knew I wanted to get the hell out of here. And then when I got a taste of a fraternity in my 11th year of high school, in school I got a taste of a fraternity, you know, playing beer pong and this and that. I was just a different kid. You know, I told my dad I came home that day and I said, Dad, is this going to a frat party? I’m not doing it. I’m not going to college. I’m not going to university because they don’t teach entrepreneurship. And it’s funny, that was a bold statement in 1984, but it’s true today, too. They don’t teach entrepreneurship. 90% of what they teach is something that you’re never going to use for entrepreneurship. I know too many that have went to like Ivy League business schools that are selling cars, and there’s nothing wrong with selling cars. Yeah, and there’s nothing wrong with selling insurance. I don’t know if you have to do four years of like Ivy League school to get there.

Ashish Tulsian:

I, I personally think that all the B-schools and, you know, maybe the Ivy Leagues or any of these B-schools in the world, I think these are manufacturing units for consulting companies.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yes. What they are is they groom you to live someone else’s dream. They groom you to be a VP of the status quo. They don’t they don’t groom you to be an entrepreneur.

Ashish Tulsian:

And those are required. Those are required in the world. Everybody. Everyone is not going to be an entrepreneur.

Stratis Morfogen:

No, no, no. And of course, listen, not everybody is going to be an entrepreneur. I mean, I mean, I look at some people with the they work their 9 to 5 job. They come home, they have weekends off, they go on their vacations and they look 20 years younger than me. And we’re the same age. And I say maybe I’m wrong. I mean, they have a better they might have a better life than me because I work 120 hours a week and there are times I haven’t taken a vacation in seven years because things are jumping on me. Books, author, over 100 restaurants. I mean, you know, it’s not easy to be an entrepreneur, but it’s the only thing I know. It’s all that I wanted to do. I’ve never worked for anyone in my life. Well, it’s funny. So I did work for someone once. So my dad went to buy a diner and I think I was 16. He said, You know what I want you to do? I want you to go work with Mr. Spears at his diner just so you can learn the diner business. (I was) 16. He says go, go spend a few weeks there, learn the diner business, because we’re going to open a diner in about six months, and I want you to be the manager of it. So within the first three days, I found out the kid, the owner’s son, was robbing the cash register. So my father calls me back because he goes, I just asked you to learn. I just asked you to go and learn. Now, the whole Spears family is up in arms because you caught the son stealing them from the register and you busted him. Couldn’t you just go and learn and shut your mouth? I said, No, that’s only one way I know he was stealing. Yeah, I honestly, I thought I was being set up because it was on my watch, too. You had me there as an assistant manager. Well, the son of the owner who is the manager is stealing. I’m not going to accept it.

Ashish Tulsian:

I think ownership is a curse. The sense of ownership is a curse.

Stratis Morfogen:

To your health.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. I mean, it’s like.

Stratis Morfogen:

We don’t do this for our health.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, it doesn’t matter what the designation is. Who cares?

Stratis Morfogen:

We don’t do it for health, but we do it for our creative juices. I mean, I love what I do because I create something from nothing and I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, I smoke cigars, and I will tell you that is my drug. But I can create something that’s from nothing and watch it blossom. Oh, there’s no better drug in the world.

Ashish Tulsian:

Damn. Absolutely. Absolutely. I you know, when we had, like, the Zoom call, I, you know, I kept that call and I was like, all right, You know, of all the conversations, I’m looking forward to this one for sure because and what you just said is something that, you know, I wish my wife was here, because because I and I ask this question to a lot of people, you know, people who are, you know, in a similar frequency. I’ll ask you that as well with what you know about yourself, what you just said, If you are not doing what you’re doing, if you’re not doing restaurants with exactly the same personality and the skill set and the and the, you know, mind, what else you would have chosen as a profession.

Stratis Morfogen:

It’s funny. So half the Morfogens are lawyers and judges and the other half for restaurateurs. So I will tell you it did cross my mind from being a lawyer. So at 15 years old, I went to all the Howard Beach trials and the famous my uncle was the judge and that was a famous case like that was when it was protest, it was riots. Where in Howard Beach, few white kids chased an innocent black kid on the street and he was killed. And it was like the it was it was a really bad part of New York City. I think it was 1986. So I went I actually went to the trial every day because I was interested in the process. And then, you know, it came to a conclusion that my my grades are my S.A.T.s are not going to happen. I actually went to do my pre SATs, I didn’t know what they were. And I got to the gym to do my pre SATs. And I asked the teacher, What is this for? She said, Well, this is your pre SATs, and then you’re going to take your SATs next month. What’s a SATs for? Well, it’s for getting it for your university. I said here you go. And I walked up and I left the gym saying, No, no, you have to do it. I said, No, I don’t, because I’m not going to university. I’m done. And that’s that’s how I walked out of my SATs.

Ashish Tulsian:

And lawyers are pretty creative.

Stratis Morfogen:

But if I had to get a law degree, it would have to be in a third world country or like in Central America somewhere because there’s no shot I was getting I was getting through law school.

Ashish Tulsian:

Now I you know, I ask this question to myself and I was like, you know, I run a tech company and I’ve been always been running tech companies. But, you know, when I ask myself this question, it was for me, the answer was movies. Yeah, you know, if I am, I actually feel that, you know, when we are building technology, when we are building software, especially products, it’s almost like, you know, you think about something you.

Stratis Morfogen:

It’s cinematic.

Ashish Tulsian:

It. Yeah, you think about something, you gather the team, you paint the vision, it works. You release it, the audience applauds, you move on. If it doesn’t, they don’t applaud. You move on. Right?

Stratis Morfogen:

It becomes a drug.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, it’s.

Stratis Morfogen:

And that drug can be addictive.

Ashish Tulsian:

It is addictive. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t.

Stratis Morfogen:

I don’t have an addictive personality. Any vice I’ve tried in my life. It might have been one time I had no interest in trying it again. So the only addictive personality I have is creating something from nothing that’s only addictive trait I have in my character.

Ashish Tulsian:

Absolutely. I think. I think. And. But does that does it also make you get bored?

Stratis Morfogen:

I have ADHD.

Ashish Tulsian:

I think, all entrepreneurs have it, I think it’s not a problem. It is a weapon.

Stratis Morfogen:

It’s a gift. It’s a gift. If anyone medicates it, they don’t understand the true, the true benefits of ADHD. I can multitask at a high level. While I’m talking to you, I’m thinking of three things. And I can do it at the same level. And that’s what makes you a good entrepreneur, but it makes you horrible school because, you know, there I am looking at a math quiz and I’m like, How does this relate to the halibut in that box? You know, Are you out of your I’m not doing this. And my parents would go crazy cause I used to sit at the desk and say, I can’t do this. But one thing I did remember is I love Russian studies. In 10th grade. I got like an A-plus and I got an F and a D and everything. Russian studies and American history. Flawless because I was interested in the subject. So when you’re interested in the subject and you have ADHD, you’ll hone in on it and you’ll do well. But with ADHD, if you’re not interested, I might as well just not write on the papers.

Ashish Tulsian:

I think for entrepreneurs, I think ADHD is a requirement.

Stratis Morfogen:

It’s a gift.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah.

Stratis Morfogen:

I when I hear people that want it medicated.

Ashish Tulsian:

Multitasking is not even an option. In fact, if you know that you’re multitasking, then you’re screwed. It is supposed to be our natural. Yeah, it has to be natural.

Stratis Morfogen:

This happens to me all day long. So sometimes I’ll find myself while I be in a brain freeze and forget what I started the conversation with. Because four more topics are hitting my head. And it’s true. It happens all the time. People and people, see me when I’m speaking, all of a sudden I forgot where I was because other thoughts came into my head. And I will tell you, if you can multitask at a high level, you could be a top entrepreneur.

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s that’s absolutely, that resonates. And I’m sure, you know, almost everybody who’s supposed to agree will agree.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah. I mean, it’s all I said horrible at school. But there’s a funny story. When I was ten years old, my, my, my school, my my guidance counselor, my teachers brought me in. It’s a very interesting story. It’s a fun story to know. And they brought me in and they told my mother and father that we think Stratis has special needs and we don’t think that this fifth grade class is. This fifth grade class is not, he’s not going to benefit from this. He needs that. We think he needs to go to special needs. So there’s my Greek father with the big, heavy Greek accent, almost like a Tony Soprano type, because he’s like, I saw that in the Soprano. What do you mean? He fidgets? I think I was out of the movie. And he goes, okay, So he fidgets and he looks out the window and you’re telling me he’s not interested? Maybe, maybe what? Maybe he’s not interested in what you’re teaching you ever think of that? The teacher shocked. And this is like 1977.

Ashish Tulsian:

It’s like they’re.

Stratis Morfogen:

How dare you, you immigrant Greek. You’re going to question us. I got I got a master’s degree in education and my father barely graduated high school. And he’s like, Well, maybe you guys should teach this kid. My father was so ahead of his time, naturally, because they don’t teach us what we’re interested in. They teach us how to take a test alone. When do you ever solve a problem alone in the real world? Test is supposed to be you’re supposed to have help when you do a test, you’re supposed to. If they would do testing with three people at a time and give them broad problems to solve, testing would be genius, but they don’t do that. When do you ever solve a problem on your own? You don’t. You know, you have people around you and you work it out together. But anyway, getting back to, see my ADHD kicking in? Getting back to that, so my dad looks at them and says, okay, let’s I heard all of you complain about my son and I’m not doing this to complain. The complaint was, is that I’m not benefiting from being in school. I am not doing the homework or the lessons. And I always question a question with a question. They hated that they would make a question and I would challenge it. They didn’t like that. Not at ten years old. And I was I did that all the way through school. They would asked me a question. I said, Oh, no, what about this? No, be quiet and listen. No, I’m not going to be quiet. So putting that aside, my father goes, listen, this is what I’m going to offer you all. A heavy Greek accent, I’ll actually imitate him. I wish he was around. Listen, I don’t care if you’re gay or straight or whatever you are. All of you are going to come to the Chelsea Chophouse Friday night. As my treat. Bring your significant others gay, straight, I don’t care. He’s already like he’s already like putting them down. He goes, I’m going to hold the table for eight and I want you to come Friday night at the Chelsea Chophouse at my 200 seat restaurant. And I want you to see him perform and then we’ll have a talk after you see. So when they got there, they saw me. He goes, I’m going, he finished it off by saying, Let me tell you what you’re going to see on Friday. The bussers are going to be taught how to bus. The waiters are going to be taught how to serve. The bartenders are going to be taught how to hold the glass. The hosts are going to be taught how to serve and host and the managers are going to be taught how to hold the menu when they present it to the guests. And let me tell you, you’re going to see a whole bunch of other guests that are not going to order until he shows up to the table and tells them what to eat tonight. And guess what? If he has to go back in the kitchen to break it up a little bit, he’s going to be working with the chef behind the broiler and then you’re going to tell me that he’s got learning disabilities. I don’t know, another ten year old that can do that. And if he was 17 years old, as I would make him a manager. But I can’t because of liquor license laws and things like that. But what this kid does at ten years old, while his little friends are getting tucked in with their chocolate milk at midnight, he’s counting his tips at one in the morning and walking out of there with $100 in tips because he’s running a 200 seat restaurant.

Ashish Tulsian:

This was this was being said while you were in the room?

Stratis Morfogen:

Yes, And that’s the support I had, you know. And he even said because he was fair, we’ll try to work on this education stuff. But you guys got to start teaching things he’s interested in. And my father was a big believer, like in BOCES, where we were taught to like, laugh at those kids that went to BOCES. BOCES is a business education school where they teach you how to be an electrician, teach you how to be a plumber. Honestly, to me that makes more sense than going to an A school because you’re learning your trade, you’re learning how to be an entrepreneur.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, it’s a vocational.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, Yeah. Those schools are great, but we’re taught to laugh at those kids. He’s wanted to be a mechanic, you know? I know a few of those kids now. One owns a mercedes dealership in Southampton. You know, Greg Burns, you know? Yeah, those are beautiful stories. And that was like my journey when it came to my father supporting me.

Ashish Tulsian:

What was the first restaurant that you synthesized that you created?

Stratis Morfogen:

So that’s fun. It was Kid’s Kingdom. It was an amusement park in Long Island. It was my first business. My dad lent me $25,000 to buy the rights to the food and beverage of the amusement park, which included a 5000 square foot building. It was like a Nathan’s style pizza and hot dogs. So when I bought it, I gave the guy $25,000. This is 1987. I was like 19 years old and it was doing about $3,000 a week in sales. Hotdogs and pizza and some birthday parties. I said, okay, I played drums at the time. I said, okay, no problem. This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to make a team night on Friday and Saturday. We’re going to battle of the bands on Friday and Battle of the DJs on Saturday just for kids because it’s a kid’s place. I’m going to charge $20 up the door, unlimited pizza and soda. And that’s what we’re going to do on Friday and Saturday. I went from 3,000 to 40,000 a week like that. Yeah, I even had my 13 year old nephew take your $20 at the door. And it was going like this all day long.

Ashish Tulsian:

Wow.

Stratis Morfogen:

We went from 3000 to 40000 a week. And that’s what, you know, the Toyota became a Porsche. And and all of a sudden I bought my first I bought my first piece of real estate. I bought a four story, you know, four store building. I wasn’t even 20 years old because I hit it. Now, my father my father couldn’t compete because, you know, I went from making $700 a week to, you know, eight or $9,000 a week.

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s wild.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, I was I was not even 20 years old. I turned it into a kid’s nightclub. Battle of the Bands Friday Battle of the DJ is on Saturday.

Ashish Tulsian:

And where did you go from there?

Stratis Morfogen:

From there I bought property and then I opened Hilltop Diner. Hilltop Diner was my dad’s diner, who then made me a partner. And with that I was the first. The first diner put in a three star New York Times chef in a diner in Queens. And it was actually covered on the cover of Daily News magazine, Sunday newspaper. I was on the cover with my dad. And it said two generations fighting over what a Greek diner should be. And my option was, you know, the food sucks in a diner. We can improve, we can do better. Let’s disrupt it. Let’s tear it down and let’s rebuild it. My father was like you’re not going to be a spokesperson for the diner. The diner has been around for 100 years, you know, And I said that then I’m out. I’ll go do something on my own. I had enough money at that time. I don’t need to be here. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it my way, He said to the reporter. I had to bend because I wanted him to be around me. So what we did was we brought Gabrielle Moran in. He just got three stars from the New York Times. I can imagine how hard that was to convince him to come to a Queens diner from, like, Varick street in Manhattan. And all his job was fish, vegetables, salads and pasta. That’s his job. You got the omelets and the burgers and the Greek diner cooks with the cigarette and doing the eggs. Keep all that crap, because I’m not changing it. But these are we’re going to where are we going to improve. It was the only diner in the industry that you could not get in without a reservation on Friday and Saturday night, at a diner. So from there it became so successful, me and Gabrielle went to Manhattan. We opened Gotham Diner in ‘93, and it just kept on going. And I opened my first nightclub in ‘94, and then I was off to the races.

Ashish Tulsian:

Wow. That’s that’s quite a that’s quite a story for New York. Yeah, But then then what after ‘94? So I want to I want to know that, you know, how did we reach Brooklyn Chophouse in.

Stratis Morfogen:

‘94 is a funny story, and it’s actually very relative to what happened this week. So in ‘94, I opened my first nightclub called Rouge and it was on 54th and Park Avenue. You know, that was my dream when I used to sneak out of my house at 15 to go to Manhattan nightclubs. My father never showed me that part of the business. My dream was always when I went to my first nightclub was Stringfellow’s when I was 15, and when I saw a nightclub in Manhattan that wasn’t the Irish Bar and Garden City where I grew up. It was like smoke and mirrors. And then I got to the bar and it’s $20 for a drink, this is 1983. And I’m like, Most kids would have had a heart attack. I was like, Wow, 20 bucks. That’s incredible. It made my night that it was 20 bucks because in my house it was $2. The possibilities. This is what I’m thinking right away. Yeah, what it could be. So I opened up this the night of the opening of the grand opening became where I really cemented my name. It was very, very by by mistake. So it was the birthday party. Yeah, it was the birthday party of David Koch, the energy conglomerate. David Jr. Koch was throwing a birthday party for David Koch, and I met them through a friend of a friend, Henry Kissinger, was there, huge celebrities. And that was the opening of my nightclub, which was pretty cool because I didn’t know what a celebrity was. You know, the only celebrity I knew was Susan Lucci from All My Children who lived down the block from us in Garden City. So at the opening, I told all the security. I have 60 first cousins. None of them are coming in tonight. They can come tomorrow when we open for the general public tonight, it’s Mr. Koch’s birthday and everybody’s got black tie. So my my next cell phone beep. And that was the next era. 1994, June. They say you got to make the call on this. I can’t tell them they can’t come in. I said, Well, I had a few drinks at this time and.

Ashish Tulsian:

That always helps.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah. And then so I go, then I get to the front door. It’s a black guy with a durag and a blond girl with the Yankee bomber jacket with a Yankee hat. And I’m looking at them and I’m like, No, no way, no way. And I just like, shout when I hear it. We got Henry Kissinger here. I have like, A-list, Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue like this. No way. And I walk back in. So my next cell is going off at six in the morning when the New York Post comes out. What did you do? You’re crazy. What did you do? Did you just ruin your business? Like, what did I do? It was a great night. Kochs were, everything was fabulous. So I run down, this is before the Internet, run down in my pajamas down to the corner to get the New York Post. I opened it up and there’s a picture of me going like this, and it says, New Kid on the block rejects Tupac and Madonna and that was my entry into the press. New Kid on the block rejects Tupac and Madonna. Oh, and that was my that’s when I first met him. And he came back again. We actually were friendly for about a year, but it said New Kid on the block rejects Tupac and Madonna, which were the hottest couple at the time. And it was all by accident. I didn’t recognize them. I had no idea. And so all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I.

Ashish Tulsian:

Tell me that was a plan.

Stratis Morfogen:

There was no plan. It was a mistake. But I became really cool. I was not cool at all. I became cool, though. Who is this guy who rejects a couple that gets paid 20-30,000 just to walk in a big nightclub and I’m not letting him in. So I’m thinking maybe I killed my business. Oh, a nightclub was.

Ashish Tulsian:

But everybody wanted to come to your nightclub.

Stratis Morfogen:

Lines all the way from Lexington to Park Avenue. We were in the middle of the block lines all night. It was like almost Studio 54 vibe. Everybody wanted to get into this club that Madonna and Tupac couldn’t get into, and it was all done by mistake. And then Nile Rodgers calls me about two weeks later, the producer, Nile Rodgers, and he says, listen, Madonna wants to come back. He actually produced Like a Virgin for Madonna. And meanwhile, I’ve been in an office with like four people in the office, and I have to put it on mute for a second. I’m like, I am not worthy. I’m not worthy. And then and then everybody’s laughing at the office. I like, can she come back? I don’t care what the hell she wears. Of course she could come in. I didn’t say that. I get back on the phone and I say, Listen, Nile, as long as she dresses cool, we’re cool. And it’s like, No, she’s coming. So I guess when she comes with Sam Cassell, Sam Cassell is a basketball player, the Houston Rockets are playing the Knicks. She comes in, she wants to, I come with an apology. I put them on a table, a bottle of champagne on me. You know, I just wanted to make amends, amends, blah, blah, blah. So two days later, everybody’s beeping on my phone again and they go put on Channel two Entertainment tonight. So what did I do now? I turn on the TV. Sam Cassell’s wife of the Houston suburban home is throwing all his clothes out the second story window at the house because he spent the weekend with Madonna at Rouge nightclub instead of practicing for his first playoff game against the Knicks, he was out rendezvousing with Madonna. Never saw Madonna again. All the paparazzi were outside. Yeah.

Ashish Tulsian:

That was not a good place for Madonna. 

Stratis Morfogen:

It wasn’t a good fit. But that was my entree into PR.

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s awesome.

Stratis Morfogen:

To PR That was my entree.

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s full gangster. That’s awesome. And where did the life, like, how did life move from there?

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah. So in 1996, I brought the Fulton Fish Market onto the Internet. Talk about full circle. I had the blessing of all the gangsters.

Ashish Tulsian:

96?

Stratis Morfogen:

1996. I was number five on AOL after Ted Lyons is the founder of AOL. I had like the fifth email 1995. So I do this thing called the Internet was really cool. I knew that this was the future, but I didn’t know there was a ball under the mouse. I’d never used a computer before, so I just learned this all on my own quickly because I knew that this thing, this screen is going to be the thing.

Ashish Tulsian:

I don’t think people nowadays know that there used to be a ball under the mouse.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, yeah. I didn’t know it either the phones were for all the wrong reasons. I didn’t know that there was a ball. I go, What? This a ball? I never touched a computer before.

Ashish Tulsian:

I didn’t think kids can imagine that there was a ball.

Stratis Morfogen:

But I didn’t. I guess I didn’t know for the wrong reason. I was just completely computer illiterate. So I taught myself really quick. I brought the Fulton Fish Market onto the Internet, and I went from basically, you know, five orders a day to a thousand orders a day just by buying keywords. I went on AOL Excite and Yahoo! And I bought a thousand keywords for about $3,000 a month. That’s my investment in the business. I bought lobster, steak, legal, seafood, Omaha, Steaks everywhere there was a competition. They didn’t know what keywords search terms were. I bought everything, but I bought the word flower. And this was a pivotal part of my life. I get a call from Jim McCann, the founder of 1-800-Flowers. He says, I’m sorry there was a mix up, but we have the trademark for 1-800-Flowers. You’ve got to return the word flower. I said you owned 1-800 flowers. I own flowers. I own flower and flowers, plural. He goes you want to litigate, you know. I mean, I’ll bury you? I said, bring it on. I said, Let’s go. I own it.

Ashish Tulsian:

You bought the dot com?

Stratis Morfogen:

Well, I bought the keyword keyword. If you went to Yahoo, this is before Google, I went to Yahoo, Excite and AOL and if you typed in flower Fulton market dot com popped up on the screen.

Ashish Tulsian:

Got it.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah and it had a really cool logo it was a fishing net said from the net to your home. So my investor at the time was Mitchell Modell who actually put up money to take me to the next phase. He owned Modell sporting goods then now they’re not around. And he goes, What’s going on? Jimmy McCann just called me. He’s like, Why are you being an asshole to this guy? This guy is an important friend of mine. I said, He just accused me of stealing his word. He owned Flower the way I owned water. What do you mean he owned Flower?

Ashish Tulsian:

But why did you buy that keyword?

Stratis Morfogen:

Because it was something that you buy for gift giving. Yeah, and I had gift giving items. So the word flower, you use it for gift giving. You see flowers? My my stuff is popping up a lot. I do a lot of crazy things. YouBid. I put 1000 lobsters up for auction like the old Fulton fish market. That’s how they used to buy from the ships. I did a thousand lobsters for $2, and those things jumped up to $160 for two lobsters. And it was called YouBid become the trade off was you put me on the screen on their home page which used to get millions of visitors a day and I’ll give you the lobsters for free. I actually made money on the lobsters because everybody, when they start auctioning, they always want to beat each other. But here I am with the ADHD. I just got off the topic again. So Jim McCann, me and Mitch Modell go to Westbury. We go to his office. I sit down with him and I said, okay. He was like, Oh, you’re ready to give us the word back. I said, No, it’s a negotiation. Why would I give it back? And make a long story short, I said, How are you doing that Father’s Day? And he said to me, That’s a real wiseass comment as because I know you don’t do well on Father’s Day, but I got a solution for you. Let’s do two lobster tails, to filet mignon, steak knife, a Peter Luger steak sauce, a tiramisu cake with big fat steak knives. Let’s do a masculine gift for Father’s Day. He’s like I like that he brought in, like three of his people. And I said, in exchange, you’re going to put Fulton’s Fulton’s Fulton Market dot com on the home page, and let’s try it for Father’s day. And then if it works, I will give you the words back until that if I give you anything and he goes, Deal. So he came in and re-did all my systems where the FedEx instead of me putting them on the box one by one, the machines just putting them on the boxes, systemize everything probably gave me like 50- $60,000 in 1996 of all systems, all of a sudden, tractor trailers pull up at the bay because we’re at the Modell’s return warehouse. Two tractor trailers pull up and it’s it’s FedEx. I’m like, What is that? And then they go, look at the screen. Wow. There’s 9000 orders from 1-800 flowers. And the 9000 orders came out to like $600,000. I don’t think I did more than 40,000 a month. And that was all leveraging those stupid $20 keywords. Wow. It became so big. I went from like eight employees to 185 employees. And this is during the dotcom days where there was no profiting. We were extremely profitable. And and then he said, Let’s keep it going. This is incredible. We went Mother’s Day, another 9000 orders for, you know, Valentine’s every holiday we were on.

Ashish Tulsian:

And while this was going on your nightclub?

Stratis Morfogen:

My nightclub was still running, but it was on its own, you know, and and I stopped the nightclub in 99, and all of a sudden, I gave back his $40 keywords, flower and flowers. And that was a lesson about what what search engine optimization means in 1996. Yeah.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, that is big. That’s 1996. But then what happened to the business? So through the dot com.

Stratis Morfogen:

So what happened was I took venture capital. I was the biggest mistake I made. They put like $4 million in and they just, they said, we’re making 800,000 a year profit.

Ashish Tulsian:

Was it a Silicon Valley firm or somebody?

Stratis Morfogen:

No New York, New York, New York City fund and Modell’s. You know, we had a fund that was offering us $35 million for a $100 million valuation. But Modell’s is like, you’re doing that just for business plans. We want 200,000 million. You guys only make 800,000 a year. These numbers were insane. So we went with this other firm, which was like a New York City based sponsored by New York City, and we took a few dollars from it, a few million dollars, but that was the worst thing I ever did because the dotcom crash, they told us, don’t worry about profits, we don’t want to see profits.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, burn money.

Stratis Morfogen:

Burn the money, top line revenue, top line revenue so we can go public. And we burned the money, we burned our credit. And then with the dot com crash, they told us we can come back for more. They said no. Now we’re going B2B without doing direct to consumer anymore. And that was like 2000. Such a shame. I should have stuck to my laurels. My, my, my, my, my principles that that company could have still been around today.

Ashish Tulsian:

Wow. Yeah, that was powerful.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, we were we were making we were doing like $6 million a year off a website that people didn’t know what a website was.

Ashish Tulsian:

In 2000, 2000, Amazon was still a baby.

Stratis Morfogen:

There was the cover of Barron’s Amazon.org a Non profit company or Amazon dot fraud. Oh they got destroyed. They thought Jeff Bezos should be in prison. You got to look at the old Barron’s articles. They destroyed Amazon. They said Amazon is the biggest fraud. Their model is lose money per every item. But we’ll make it up in volume.

Stratis Morfogen:

You know they they they they they treated him like a fraud.

Ashish Tulsian:

But I think I think the business of venture capital you know, back in those days, even today honestly it’s not really understood well by, you know the common people anyway because you are like when you start doing business with negative margins. I mean, you look at almost even in the food industry, if you go back to the restaurants, you know how many tech companies in the restaurant space, they are continuously losing money on the unit. Yeah, right. And they you know, it’s very hard for hardworking profit churning businesses to really understand what the hell is going on there.

Stratis Morfogen:

Correct. I mean, and that’s that’s part of the journey. You have to decide what you want to be, though, and you have to fund it accordingly. There are businesses where you should lose money. You know, till you grow the infrastructure and the and the and the R&D and get everything in place and have, you know, grow into your payroll. It’s a beautiful luxury to have. You got to burn a few million dollars to get there.

Ashish Tulsian:

So you know you’re you know that shutdown in 2000.

Stratis Morfogen:

Shutdown in 2000. A lot of lessons because, you know, at the end of the day, it was a failure. And you have to embrace your failures, even though it was a great ride. You know, I should never have taken that venture capital. I should have just stayed true to the model.

Ashish Tulsian:

What are you doing with all the creative energy?

Stratis Morfogen:

I was writing this plan, so my wife and I went to Peter Luger Steak House, and she doesn’t eat beef, She doesn’t eat meat. And she’s like, Oh, I go, What I love, but I love my porterhouse steak. But and then all of a sudden I realized, put my feet in her shoes, I’m eating a porterhouse steak. And she says, Cream of spinach baked potato on a piece of fish with some parsley. I could do better at home. So she’s miserable and I’m really happy. So I said, Wouldn’t it be cool? I’m always I’m always driving. I said, Wouldn’t it be cool to take Phillipe Chow menu and marry it to the steakhouse? And we create LSD. She’s like LSD? What now you talk about drugs. I said LSD will be the ultimate surf and turf. And she goes. What the fuck are you talking about? I said salt and pepper, ginger, garlic, lobster, a la Chow, dry age porterhouse steak, 35 days, dry age with some sea salt like every other steakhouse in front of it. Married to Peking Duck, lobster, steak, duck, LSD. She’s like, she’s like, How did you come up with LSD? I said, I don’t know. I just got a picture in my head that the ultimate surf and turf, which needs to be disrupted at the steak house menu. You the chocolate?

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. These three generally don’t marry.

Stratis Morfogen:

I’s the same menu for a 150 years. Cream of spinach, baked potato, shrimp cocktail, great steak. Everything else sucks. I said, Can you imagine if I marry the two cultures together? The co-stars, which will be the Chinese food, will be just as good as the star. Well, it will be the 35 day dry age porterhouse steak. And that’s where the concept came with LSD. I have it on all the uniforms. LSD, culinary trip. Let’s take a culinary trip.

Ashish Tulsian:

That is awesome.

Stratis Morfogen:

And then it came down to doing the dumplings. I said, I don’t want to do pork, crab, shrimp, veggie. Let’s do pastrami. When you go to a great chop house, what do you get? They have a great burger. Let’s do bacon cheeseburgers. Let’s do lamb Udon dumplings. Let’s do the Reuben. Let’s do pastrami. Let’s go Let’s keep that. Let’s keep that model going.

Ashish Tulsian:

So you have pastrami dumpling?

Stratis Morfogen:

And French onion soup dumplings and matzo ball soup dumplings and fry and soup dumplings like Zaban, which is traditional soup dumpling. I put lobster bisque in it, traditional chop house, marries soup dumpling. So that was became really fun.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, I read I read that you have the chop house is a play on chopsticks and the chops.

Stratis Morfogen:

Or chopsticks chopsticks. So when I asked Chef Skinny Mai was really my go to chef at Phillipe. Now he’s with me again. I said, What do you think? A chophouse? What do you think of it? He knows it stinks. Three words of English is like chop suey, chopper hacker. Chop chop. This hack this, chopstick. I am like, Wow. When I think of chop, I was, I think lamb chop, pork chop. Isn’t that interesting? Two cultures with two completely definitions of the word chophouse, which remember, how did it change for 150 years? So it was funny. So I knew that was going to be called Chophouse because on my dad’s deathbed I promised him that I was going to bring back the Chelsea Chophouse. So I used his font and his logo and I said, It’s going to be chophouse, but I don’t know what the name is going to be. Of my steakhouse. So when we were at the place, which is, you know, literally looking at it right 30 feet from the Brooklyn Bridge, I said, What do we call this thing? City Hall Chophouse or Spruce Street Chophouse? Oh, the bridge. The Bridge Chophouse. And I. That’s it. I know. Brooklyn Chophouse. That’s it. And I’m like, about ripping my pad from my credit card. I’m looking at Google, Brooklyn Chophouse. Nothing. I go on Cheap domains dot com, Brooklyn Chophouse available $9 credit card down at this That’s it $9 Brooklyn Chophouse was born. My highest projection there was 4 million a year and it’s the worst location I’ve been by far the worst location very hard to get to on the side of the Brooklyn Bridge. You have to go around.

Ashish Tulsian:

It’s on The Manhattan side?

Stratis Morfogen:

Been outside of the Brooklyn Bridge, but it’s a horrible location. It was a Denny’s. I converted a Denny’s into my version of a steakhouse, and the highest projection we had was like $3 million a year.

Ashish Tulsian:

How large is it?

Stratis Morfogen:

200 seats, 4500 square feet. All right. $9 million in that space.

Ashish Tulsian:

Wow.

Stratis Morfogen:

It has never gone down.

Ashish Tulsian:

Wow. How long has it been?

Stratis Morfogen:

So we opened 2017. And I remember going because now, you know, I went through some bad times right before that, 13, 15 to 16 got robbed a lot of money by ex-partners. And I remember now I was high up on my horse again. I’ve had like three roller coasters in my career. That’s the life of an entrepreneur. I signed up for it. So I go to my doctor January 2020. I said, Doc, my marriage is good, my business is booming. So it’s got to be my health because I never had a trifecta. It’s either my marriage sucked and my business was great or my business sucked and my marriage was possible. I’ve never had all three at the same time, so I’m telling you, I’m a paranoid and I know the law of averages. My health has to be bad. Something has to be wrong.

Ashish Tulsian:

You basically went to your doctor proactively? Like, there was no health problems?

Stratis Morfogen:

January 2020. I said, I want a full physical. I want an MRI. There is something wrong with me. And he goes, I’ll do it. It’s fine. Because, you know, at that age I was 48 years old. 50 years old? Yeah. No, 52. Sorry. I said, he goes, I’ll do it. It’s preventive. You haven’t been to the doctor in a couple of years. Let’s do it. So he goes Stratislisten, you know, you had a rough couple of years. I went through like a bad divorce or whatever, and he goes, You know what? Enjoy it, man. You know, you’re on a good ride. Accept it. Don’t worry. You’re good. Business is good. Your health is good, marriage is good. Then came March 2020. I called him back and I said, I told you. COVID hits. And when COVID hits, I shut down a $9 million, eight and a half million dollar restaurant. And I told you I can’t have all three at the same time as an entrepreneur. And when COVID hit, it turned my life upside down. But what we did was.

Ashish Tulsian:

Did you shut down?

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, we shut down. I mean, I’ll tell you what we did. We shut down just for a week. And I said, You know what? I want to tell my grandkids one day what I did during COVID. So I called Cisco and all the restaurant supply companies. Junior’s cheesecake, the fish guys, what can I do, they had excess food products. I said, let’s start donating stuff to the hospitals. So I, I started donating like lobsters and steaks and wine to New York Presbyterian, which is a block away. They start posting on Instagram, which I saved everything. Brooklyn Chophouse. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you then. And I don’t believe stuff like this should be exposed to charity, but because of this Instagram like catching viral because this is March eight, 2020, no one thought about this. You know, everybody was in a state of shock and I’m just donating food away, which we couldn’t afford, but we were doing it. And then the New York Post, as you know, they they me as Hero of the day for feeding health health care workers so then it just blows up. People are calling me for GoFundMe pages donations this and that. And I’m like I don’t do go fund me because I don’t we’re all hurting. I don’t want it. But the big guys, the restaurant supply guys, start sending me stuff. Let’s up this. I had it so big. I was doing about four or 500 meals a week out of like 6 to 7 SUVs were pulling up. I was loading it up with free food and going to every different hospital. And I did that for six months straight. And then what happened was six months. Yeah, we did. We did 8900 meals from March to July 8900.

Ashish Tulsian:

All this while you were not I mean, the restaurant was shut.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, but I got to tell you, it built our morale because we saw the things on Instagram. These thank you Instagram posts were really impactful, especially to my staff. They were like, All right, now we have a purpose. Let’s keep going, let’s keep going. And then I became an advocate against government, when they really shut us down. When it was time to open, they shut us down again. They weren’t following the science. And meanwhile, every shopping mall is open. So if you’ve seen me on Instagram, you’ll see that I was on from Tucker Carlson to and I don’t take a political side, I just go wherever there’s a pro business platform. But I became a huge advocate. I told Governor Hochul on Tucker Carlson, Come and arrest me. I’m not firing anyone for a jab for a job because these same people that worked for me were feeding health care heroes. Instead of taking on employment, they were taking they were feeding our health care heroes. Can’t even say the word workers. Health care heroes because they’re in a war zone. I think it was what they did is, yeah, not angelic, it’s bravery. I mean, I don’t know if I could do it. Yeah, And I’m going to go fire my server because you guys two vaccines or one vaccine. So I went down, I grabbed my guy. Alex. Alex has one vaccine. I did this on Instagram live. Alex just got COVID. Two weeks later, he recovered from COVID. Technically, I can’t give him his job back because he didn’t get the second the third vaccine. But his doctor said he should not get another vaccine for at least six months because he has natural antibodies. I’m not firing. So Tucker Carlson got a hold of that. It’s like you got to come on the show. So I come on the show and it’s there. You can watch it on my Instagram. He goes, I think you’re going to say something. I can’t believe you’re going to say it is how he starts it off. I said, I’ll tell you right now, I’m not following the mandates. I’m not saying I’m pro-vaccine or not vaccine. The truth is I’m vaccinated. But I am going to tell you right now, I’m not firing my staff a jab for a job. Goverenor Hochul, come and arrest me. And I did this in front of like 4 million viewers and Tucker Carlson was great is like, hey, when she shows up, just call us so we can send the cameras when you’re being arrested. I found a purpose now, I was a very loud advocate for this Follow the science bullshit and the whole thing is bullshit. And you have people that never ran a lemonade stand or created a one single job in the private sector are deciding on what small businesses should do. Wait a second. Did you say I called Comrade Cuomo on Fox. I didn’t say Governor Cuomo is a comrade Comrade, my communist leader and Mayor de Blasio. I said, Didn’t you guys say 74.5% of the spread is based on home gatherings? And didn’t you say 1.5% of the spread is restaurants? But you’re going to close restaurants in December, the most celebratory month for every culture. And you’re going to you’re going to shut us down. Where is the logic to that?

Ashish Tulsian:

But trust me, you know, I mean, from my from from my vantage point, I think we saw COVID reactions, you know, across the world because, you know, we had restaurants. You know, we work with restaurants in 50 plus countries. And and I can tell you that I think COVID was just a shit show, you know, when it comes to restrictions and, you know, authorities in almost every country and every state.

Stratis Morfogen:

I think they’re the only state that got it right was Florida. Hate them or love them. I don’t care what you think is I don’t care about politics. Last time I voted was Ross Perot. I don’t vote. I don’t believe it either side because I don’t want to vote. I do think they’re both full of shit. But I voted for Ross Perot in 1992 is the last time I voted because we need a businessman in the White House now. First he was the last businessman that should have been in the White House since that it’s all full of B.S. I remember you kind of think about this. I can’t run $1,000,000,000,000 budget and I think I’m pretty good at business. You got guys that have never ran a lemonade stand and you want them to balance the budget. You want them to cut out the pork, you want them to run this business. They never ran a small business. And that’s why I attacked. I attacked on every front until I was hurt. And Cuomo Well, man, he had so much to say about me. You know, he’d say misguided. No, no. I got debate. I asked him on on Fox with Steve Forbes, you know, from Forbes magazine. I said, I’m telling you, Governor, come and debate me. I want to talk about your averages and how you’re treating us as small business owners. Why don’t you shut the shopping malls down? Why don’t you shut CVS down and all the big box retailers? Why are you always picking on the restaurants where, by the way, the consumer is safest in a restaurant. Why? You made us get HEPA filters, you made us get dividers, you made us get all these things, and then you shut us down. Did you do that at CVS? You’ll never win that debate. That’s what I said on Fox multiple times.

Ashish Tulsian:

So did you shut down?

Stratis Morfogen:

We had to shut down. But at that point now, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop was about to open. And I defied all of it. I never shut down when they said shut down. I never fired my staff. I said, Come and arrest me, I am not doing this, not doing it again. And that’s where I took a very strong stand. And, you know, I just thought it was a complete injustice. On humanity and business.

Ashish Tulsian:

Absolutely. I think. But post-COVID?

Stratis Morfogen:

You know, there’s a great story about, you know, now I now have taken down by charitable hat and I put my entrepreneurship hat. So I get a call from David Freeland. Freeland is the largest real estate developers in Times Square, and he says Stratis, Buffalo Wild Wings just handed in the keys for 25,000 square foot restaurant on 47th Street, Broadway and eighth. He goes, Would you convert that to a Brooklyn Chophouse? This is now May 2020. Now I’m in the Hamptons right now with my wife she’s got a hazmat suit on hiding under the covers. And I said, David, I’ll be in I’ll be in the city in an hour and a half. My wife said, Where are you going? I said, I know there might be a deal. I got to go. I got to get.

Ashish Tulsian:

To Times Square?

Stratis Morfogen:

In Times Square. So I get to Times Square and I’m the only one in Times Square. It’s a Friday afternoon. Fast forward four weeks later, we’re ready to sign the lease, 25,000 square feet. I wrote a deal that was just unfair, but I did it. May 2020. It was such a one sided deal. I actually got paid to own a 25,000 square foot, 700 seat restaurant. I got paid by the time all the construction was done. I had three years rent free. I had a $3 million check from the landlord to convert an existing $50 million restaurant. So what are these things going to happen to a small guy like me? They’re not. Those are for public companies. But I signed the lease in May 2020. In Times Square, there was my lawyer, myself and the landlord, and we were the only ones in Times Square on a Friday at 2:00.

Ashish Tulsian:

Rent free for the last three years? Wow.

Stratis Morfogen:

He asked me what? Because we really want Brooklyn Chophouse here. What is it going to take? Get it? I said, I’m going to write these things down. I’m almost embarrassed to tell you, but you’re not going to like it. Three years rent free, $3 million, 8% lease capped at $1,000,000 COVID, clause for any socialist leader that shuts us down again, it reverts to 8% with no base. I said, and I told the lawyer, Put socialist leader, let’s get that on paper because I want to say that. And I just wrote down these incredibly one sided terms, 25 year lease. I wrote all these terms down. I said, Mr. Freeland, I’m putting my jacket on. I said, Here it is. I thought I was trying to talk him out of it.

Ashish Tulsian:

And that’s a star restaurant today?

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, we do what we do, like three or 4000 people a week.

Ashish Tulsian:

3-4000 people a week?

Stratis Morfogen:

700 seats, five stories with a rooftop. And it’s a massive crowd. It’s Brooklyn Chophouse, and I never would have got that deal again if the opportunities Buffalo Wild Wings handed in the keys. So Mayor Adams was there at the grand opening. We had Fat Joe and Mary J. Blige did a concert in the restaurant and so I saw I saw Mayor Adams. I said, You owe me the key to the city. He said for what? He said it for what? I got rid of the only Denny’s and only Buffalo Wild Wings in Manhattan, you owe me a key to the city. I got rid of Denny’s, at chophouse number one. I got rid of Buffalo Wild Wings Chophouse Number two. You owe me a key to the city, he’s not a laughing. And Brooklyn Chophouse opened in May 21.

Ashish Tulsian:

And what are you doing with Dumpling House?

Stratis Morfogen:

So we’re up to about 250 franchises territories sold. We are going to announce the next seven days two celebrity investors. They are household names. We haven’t closed yet. We’re at the last stage of closing. And that’s going to be super exciting because they’re buying a third of my company for a substantial amount of money. But it’s not really the money per se. Their influence and power, let’s put it this way, I have three billionaires as my partners and their resources that come with it as their glamor. It’s each one of them. But we’ve sold about three hundred major franchises. It’s the first contactless restaurant, and three employees can service 2 to 300 customers a day.

Ashish Tulsian:

But this is more like a shop in shop model?

Stratis Morfogen:

It’s a fast casual. They range from 200 square feet to 1200 square feet. Average is about 800 square feet. And what I’ve got now, like I took a page out of chop house because that’s where this concept came from. Anything that was once a diner classic or a sandwich, I converted it to a dumpling and people say, Well, how did you get to a pastrami dumpling? I said, Well, I’m a Greek diner background owner, and I’ve had Chinese restaurants for 15 years hence. Pastrami dumpling.

Ashish Tulsian:

And how how’s that? How’s that been?

Stratis Morfogen:

Again, Well, we did this through COVID, so there are a lot of challenges. It looks like we see the light at the end of the tunnel. Store economics are great, franchise sales are great. And we just got into 1600 Wal-Mart stores.

Ashish Tulsian:

Wow.

Stratis Morfogen:

1600.

Ashish Tulsian:

So you’re going to have like like a 200 or 400 square feet space in every Walmart?

Stratis Morfogen:

No. So it’s funny you said that we just got that offer yesterday that. They’re offering us 200 stores to take over the Subway’s inside the store, but now our dumplings, our frozen dumplings in an eight pack are now available at over 1600 Walmarts. $5 at $5 for 8 dumplings.

Ashish Tulsian:

Stratis Your your story is worth making you know a trilogy level movie on. Each each story and each phase was was actually and of course the storyteller that you are I could almost see all of the scenes happening like that each time.

Stratis Morfogen:

So there’s two movie options for the book. There are.

Ashish Tulsian:

Perfect. So you’re.

Stratis Morfogen:

It’s funny. You’re good at what you do because you just said something that I haven’t told anyone. So just to be funny for transparency, I’ve never told anyone but two big movie houses. I’m waiting any day for a letter of intent to make that book into a movie.

Ashish Tulsian:

I am not surprised by this. That’s awesome.

Stratis Morfogen:

But you’re the first one that’s ever said. Actually, the reviews on Amazon, it’s kind of common. I could see this as a movie, but you just say that during an interview. It’s kind of funny because I’m just waiting any day right now for two then.

Ashish Tulsian:

That is super. As I said, I could, I could. I was a part of every scene that you painted and that’s that’s brilliant. You also wrote this book, Be a Disruptor.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, that’s what that’s what the movie options are. It’s for the book.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. I’m going I’m going to take this back, you know, I’m going to ask you to sign it

Stratis Morfogen:

Humbled to do so.

Ashish Tulsian:

Stratis, you know, on the ending note, what what is it that you, you know, feel that you would want to say to entrepreneurs in the food space and the restaurant space today. Three things you know that you believe that entrepreneurs looking at restaurants space or are already working in the restaurant space should really you know, be doing what you don’t see a lot.

Stratis Morfogen:

Yeah, it’s a great question and this is how I answer it. And, you know, when I looked at a Greek diner, I could have just taken the diner and make a couple hundred grand a year and live a decent life. But I disrupted it. I, I totally dissected the concept of my dad’s Greek diner. I reimagined it I rebuilt it and I did it my way. I’ve done that with everything I’ve done from the kids Kingdom amusement park to the nightclub. I see things in a different way and it’s part of my ADHD. And when I look at it, I tear it down. I never take status quo. I tear it down, I rebuild it, I reimagine it, and I do it sort of my way. And in the later years, I have a team around me, which is great. So I always welcome people that are smarter than me. And with that, you’re disrupting. I’ve disrupted the chophouse, I’ve disrupted the diner, I’ve disrupted the nightclubs, I’ve disrupted everything I’ve done. And What happens with that is that you have have to have a little bit thicker skin of for failure. So when you disrupt something and this is what I teach all entrepreneurs, I teach seven universities now, I couldn’t even get into college. And I’m really excited to I mean, that’s something exciting for me. I love teaching university students and I give them a lot of credit that professors that invite me because I’m very unconventional. I tell them stories that they’re not teaching them in school and it’s almost anti-education.

Ashish Tulsian:

I think most of the universities are teaching about people who did not go to universities themselves.

Stratis Morfogen:

And I’ll end it with this. So when you disrupt something, you’re going to fail. More often than not, you’re going to fail. Your ratio for failure will be higher because you’re doing something new. The market just may not be ready for it, but if you hit it, you’re never going to hit a single or a double. I’ll use baseball analogy, it’ll be a bases loaded grand slam. like I did in Fulton street, like I did at Phillipe Chow, like I did in Brooklyn dumplings, Like there were Grand Slams. There were a couple failures in between which really didn’t get into you. But that’s the trade off. If you can stomach the failure, which I think everybody should process, everybody should go through failure. There’s no path to success without it. You have to basically accept when you hit it, it’s going to be big. And this is what I teach to the college students, I’ll end with this. This is a young girl said to me, I feel like a loser. My parents spent a quarter million dollars on my education. I’m a senior. You know, it was Georgetown. It was fairly DICKINSON, It was Fordham University. They all say the same thing. I feel like a loser because I don’t know what I want to do. And I’m being told that I have finished university now. I’ve got to get job because I got to retire in my sixties. I said, Well, who teaches you that? They’re like, My teachers teach me that. And I said, Well, that law was written in 1900 when the average life expectancy was 57, and they’re telling you to retire in your sixties because that law was written over 100 years ago. Here’s the new law. If I’m going to say it point blank, I need you to fuck it up in your twenties. Fuck it up. It’s exactly what I say in front of all the students. I want you to fail, continuously fail until you find something that you love. And once you find something that you love or that you’re passionate about, fix it in your thirties. Start making real money in your forties and retire in your eighties. That’s the new law.

Ashish Tulsian:

And that that’s that’s awesome. I resonate with every word. I can’t resonate enough with that. But that was a great conversation. This is this is a great journey and the journey is on your you’re doing much, much bigger things. So yeah, you know, best of all the best for all the disruption that is that is going to happen happen from here on. And thank you for doing this conversation.

Stratis Morfogen:

No this was fun. Thank you for having me.