I first learned about these winemakers about ten years ago when I was a server at Bestia in Los Angeles. Being a server there was one of the most demanding jobs I’ve had in any field including running production on sets with multiple client partners and A list celebrity talent. The fitness tracker I wore at the time alerted me that I would regularly walk 7 miles during a shift which on average began at 3:30/4:30 pm and concluded around 12:30 am, longer if Mariah Carey and her pals were there having a good time. When I first started we got tipped in cash and I would make between $250-$500/cash just in tips per night. While I would never want to return, I am grateful for the experience— it taught me a lot about resilience, hard work, striving for excellence, teamwork and of course, food and wine. Because it was such a demanding restaurant the servers were required to know about all of the wine by the glass offerings, which frequently changed and it was quite an extensive list. At the time it overwhelmed me but it also gave me a solid foundation of wine knowledge and I’ve been curious and comfortable navigating a wine list ever since.

The food at Bestia is rich Italian cuisine peppered with fresh California influence so a lot of the wine was crisp with good minerality to balance out the richness of the food. Much of it came from Italy of course but there was also a good amount of California producers because local, bio-dynamic, low intervention wine making was especially trendy in 2018. I think we hit peak orange wine around Covid when people were getting neon signs for their apartments that said “orange wine” from etsy. *Orange wine does not automatically equal bio-dynamic low intervention but birds of a feather flock together might apply here. And real quick, for the uninitiated, bio dynamic low intervention is a style of wine making that has gotten more popular in recent years and it is just how it sounds: less intervention on the part of the winemaker, more of nature doing it’s thing and working with respect to that rather than trying to force a certain outcome.

Anyhow, I first learned about the artistry of Cos and Occhipinti way back then so when we decided to take our vacation to Sicily this year it felt essential to make a stop at these legendary wineries. The vineyards are located deep in Sicily’s wine country where there is nothing besides a whole lot of agriculture happening so by visiting them you’re really making it a priority. We decided to stay at the Baglio Occhipinti which is Ariana’s hospitality project— she restored an old (you guessed it) winery into accommodations for travelers visiting her winery. Smart idea. Would love to do something similar myself one day though I don’t see viticulture on my bucket list.

We arrived the night before our scheduled (and somewhat difficult to book!) tastings at magic hour after a visit to Mt. Etna. We marveled at the pink light blessing the crops alongside the Sicilian back roads and finally arrived at the Baglio’s unassuming gate. My New York clock had not yet re-calibrated to Sicilian time and I aggressively pressed the button to let us in after not getting any feedback. Eventually someone answered and the gates opened.

I’m going to take you through our day of tastings at the two wineries. The whole visit inspired me to get my Level 2 certification here in New York for no reason other than it’s something I love learning about. There is real artistry, craftsmanship and romance in wine. *Disclaimer: I am a wine enthusiast, I am not a sommelier and I am not a reporter. I am sharing what was interesting to me about MY experience. There are plenty of well researched articles about these places and their specific processes if that interests you.

9:30 AM Breakfast

Can’t go to a wine tasting on an empty stomach. A buffet of fresh fruits, Italian cheeses and cured meats, fresh pressed pineapple juice, cappuccino, cornetto. This pea quiche was a real highlight. It is apparently gauche to order to a cappuccino after 11 AM in Italy so I took advantage of my AM capp!

10:30 AM COS

COS is a group of three guys, Giambattista Cilia, Cirino Strano and Giusto Occhipinti (Giusto is Arianna’s uncle) who brought new life to this depressed agricultural region of Sicily in the 1980s when they began their project COS which was a return to an ancient way of wine making that involved less intervention and deviated from norms at the time.

Our tour guide Fabio met us at the entrance and began a private tour for us starting with the first fermentation room where the wine ages for up to a year in amfora (clay pots). In the first few weeks there is just a piece of cheesecloth over it, they remove that and then the rig shown here is put on top of the clay pots and kept that way for varying amounts of time. There is a spout on each pot so they can taste the wine and check it’s fermentation progress. If it’s not going well they will turn it into vinegar.

Fabio politely paused to take a phone call and said that friends of Giusto were in the area and wanted to join the tour. A group of three middle aged Swedes joined in. Fabio brought us downstairs to the aging chamber where the wine goes throug a secondary fermentation in concrete before it is bottled. All throughout the winery there are pictures of the history of the place; from the build to notable visitors. Finally we made it to the tasting room where Fabio showed us where we were on the map. Sicily is the same latitude as Northern Africa and therefore shares a similar climate and is at the mercy of Saharan winds known as sirocco, which depending on the year can greatly affect the harvest as the depth of the top layer of clay like soil changes based on the winds.

We tasted six delicious wines. He started us on Pithos, which only sees the clay, no second fermentation in concrete and it’s quite funky. We ended with a taste of their DOCG Cerasuolo di Vittoria which is their most premium product. I tend to stay away from red wine (I KNOW, wine people relax) but this was really light and fruit forward, structured but not aggressively so. You can see the bright color in Chris’ glass, which I’m drinking red wine it needs to be in this palette. We really loved the Rami which we are considering selling at our restaurants as our house white. It’s really approachable with nice minerality and not too funky.

12 PM Back to the Baglio

The plan was to laze about in the pool under the hot Sicilian sun but vicious flies prevented us from being outside so we sat by the hearth and played cards until it was time for lunch. Yaniv is the perfect two player game.

1:30 PM Lunch at Baglio

Wondering how we could possibly eat another meal including bread and cheese we decided to share one serving of lunch because honestly I was full the entire trip. When we asked the concierge about the portion size before committing to the lunch they said, “I don’t think anything is small in Sicily” and I would concur. I feel like usually coming to Europe from America I expect small portion sizes but this was not the case in Sicily. The eggplant below was really tender and delicious.

3:30 PM Occhipinti

The grounds were much more imposing here and the crowds as well. While Cos felt like an intimate visit, Occhipinti felt like a serious operation optimized for visitors. There were two tours going on simultaneously, one for industry and one for curious non-industry folks. Our tour included a group of ten women who all worked at the same wine bar in Ghent. The wine bar where they worked had asked them to do a team bonding trip. Chris and I wondered how the wine bar commanded such a big staff and how all of them could afford to take off at the same time but nonetheless they were a pleasant group to share the tour with.

Our guide Claudio told us all about the circular economy Arianna has going. It’s rare that people in viticulture and enology are employed year round but because of the various projects happening on the land like growing grains and herbs she is able to keep a team employed all year, not just at harvest. Claudio described this as an effective way of giving people ownership and making everyone feel like they have a piece of it. The stakes in the ground are from ancient chestnut trees on Mt. Etna and the twine used to guide the vines is made from local rubber (?). Cover crops of calendula and fava beans prevent the soil from getting overworked by growing one crop. There is no plastic on the vineyard and nothing that isn’t local. There are three selections of grapes before they go into fermentation, two of which are done by hand. It is really a remarkable art and commitment to sustainability and it inspired us to strive for excellence even more than we already do. While we aren’t going back to buying, butchering and using the whole pig snout to tail it was a nice opportunity to re-check in with the ethics of our own business. I said to Chris, Arianna makes me feel like we’re not actually perfectionists because of the high standard to which everything at Azienda Agricola Occhipinti is done. There’s a lot more I could tell you but there’s tons of interesting information about Arianna and her wine operations on the internet.

6 PM: Return to the Baglio, attempt to sit by pool, too many flies, jump in for a quick dip

7 PM: Quick lie down, shower, robe time and reset

8 PM: Walk ten steps to dinner at the Baglio

10 PM: Bedtime!

I would definitely recommend checking out these wineries if you get the chance to and I’m happy to share more about our itinerary and answer any questions you might have!

Leave a comment

If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Subscribe now

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, Silver Lake, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

We can be furious about the same thing. We can be elated by the same thing. When there is a need for a big push as there was this summer, we both bring 150% no questions. We take turns having bad days and when we both have one we usually go out to an indulgent meal and vent about the current frustrations, looking at you, Inga’s. There’s always tomorrow.

Where we need to be careful, and where it can get tricky, is finding and upholding the boundary of when work stops. When we find ourselves discussing a scheduling issue whilst in our bed at 10 PM we know that we’ve crossed the boundary. That we can even recognize when this is happening is growth, tbh. These extreme examples are actually easier to catch than when we’re having a relaxed breakfast at home and suddenly we start troubleshooting a staffing issue before we’ve finished our morning coffee.

The Challenges

The primary challenge is that it never stops and there are many fires to put out seemingly on a daily basis. I don’t see this changing, but I do see my relationship to said fires and perceived injustices and inconveniences changing and I’m actively seeking executive coaching around this, so if you know somebody please feel free to drop their name.

A perfect example: a few nights ago we were meeting friends who were visiting from LA for dinner at hot table Le Veau d’Or (lmk if you want my honest review) and JUST as we were walking into the restaurant Chris said hold on, I have to order a convection oven, the one at Salt’s just broke. So the first ten minutes of our dinner Chris was researching the best $5,000 convection oven option. Luckily he is experienced so it didn’t take long and he only missed some initial catch-up convo. This kind of thing cannot wait and a purchase this large needs to be made by us rather than our team. One time we lost ~$7k related to the purchase of a commercial mixer a team member found on Craigslist. Chalking that up to one of the many mistakes we can learn from. He did not get frustrated or even annoyed and neither did I, because this is the life we signed up for and it was quickly fixed.

Another challenge is that it can be really difficult to move from the busyness of doing into the humanness of feeling and being truly present with one another. We spend so much time with one another and we’re talking constantly throughout the day about personal and business so it might come as a surprise to learn that sometimes it’s difficult to really feel connected. This requires intentional time away from work, without distractions, where we really give one another our full attention. No phones. How are you feeling? What are you needing?

If we’re really stuck and rusty we’ll whip out the NVC (Nonviolent Communication) needs and feelings list. Highly, highly recommend this even if you don’t work with your partner! Sometimes it’s just a lot easier to pick something from a list than it is to find new words yourself and it can be a really helpful jumping-off point that then leads to a bunch of unexpected pathways. I’ve never left one of these intentional feelings and needs conversations NOT feeling better. It always works.

It can be difficult to define roles, though in the past year as we’ve really committed to building the brand we’ve aligned on co-founder titles with Chris as CEO and me as COO. Truthfully, we each do a lot of both of those things but at the end of the day if it’s something that must be done in support of operations it falls to me and Chris functions as CEO, taking the lead on long-term decisions and communicating with stakeholders. For us this works well and it’s not a source of conflict because we really both just show up and do what needs to be done. Chris started the company before he knew me and while I have been instrumental in scaling it and feel confident in my co-founder title, he is absolutely the CEO.

Some Solutions

I have yet to implement some of these ideas but here are some things I have done with success and also some that I would like to try.

1. A dedicated physical space where the work occurs. When your office is also your home it’s even harder to step out of that mode. Even having a little area or room that is dedicated to work can help feel at least like an intentional step toward not having it bleed into every area of your life. If the dining table is your desk I’d suggest trying to find another spot. We used to have an office but unfortunately just as it was completed there was a significant issue with the space so we haven’t been able to use it. This was one of our ideas of how to create more of a clear container around work — that is, having a physical space where most of it happens.

2. Co-founder meetings with an agenda. I find that creating a container around the work with a clear goal to accomplish, or at least make progress on, in the allotted amount of time helps. We might go to a coffee shop and make a massive list of everything we need to do and that was the meeting. Or we might pick a specific topic, check in about it and decide next steps. We are not huge on meetings because we’ve both been in many that were complete wastes of time but sometimes it does help to set a time and make it happen.

3. Date night. Much like parents with young kids often talk about the importance of making intentional time for one another, it’s the same when you run a business together. Recently, I planned a date to Radio City Music Hall to see the Alabama Shakes. We went to our fave Midtown steakhouse, Keens, beforehand and agreed not to talk about work during the meal. We discussed values — I’ve been obsessed with them lately, check out Suzy Welch’s Becoming You — things we want to do on our upcoming trip to Sicily and some general life goal stuff. It was really nice and important for the health of our marriage.

4. Getting a work phone. I got a separate work line so that when I leave that phone behind when we go out to do something for ourselves I’m not bothered by a contractor or scheduling request. I always check it first thing and last thing to find out if someone is calling out of work but it’s not glued to my hip and it helps create some sense of separation and reduces the sense of urgency to respond. OG team members still text me on my personal phone but that’s alright. It’s also nice to just have a sort of throwaway number in case someone gets weird, which has happened. It’s not coming straight to the place where my friends and family find me.

5. Get really honest about how you want to spend your time. I’ve been reflecting and visioning a lot as my birthday approaches and as I contemplate the value in working with a coach as mentioned before, and it has been brought to my attention that my ambition is perhaps larger than my energy although I think I can do it ;). But one thing that became clear to me was that if we do open for dinner, it’s not something I’m going to play a large role in. I will support of course and I’ll probably be there quite a bit in the early days and I’ll be in charge of the wine program because that is fun for me, but it’s not something that I want to consume my days. Both of us are aligned that whatever it is will be simple and not require us to be there often. I am currently defining what it is that I want to spend my days doing, more to come there. In the past I would have just gone along with Chris’ momentum and sacrificed my other interests in the process of opening it but I’m becoming more conscious of how I want to spend my time. I have communicated this need clearly and it’s helped both of us understand the endeavor with clarity.

   Subscribe now

General Advice

I wouldn’t suggest getting into business with a new romantic partner, unless maybe it’s an early-stage product or idea and it’s just all new and fun and low stakes if it doesn’t work out, though you should have an operating agreement in case it doesn’t.

Chris and I had been some variation of dating and cohabitating for six years before I joined the company in an official capacity. While I’ve been around for the better part of Salt’s Cure history and supported periodically, even worked as a server at Highland while I was in between jobs for a few months!, it’s an entirely different thing to be a supportive partner than it is to be a literal partner in the business.

I believe that the way we did it was really important to our success too. It was an experiment, a trial with no pressure, with the understanding that I might not like it, especially as I was reluctant to get back into restaurants having just spent a few years in production. It wasn’t binding. So we navigated it that way without the pressure of it having to look a certain way, and 2027 will start my sixth year doing this which is absolutely wild. I evolved, he evolved, the business evolved and now it’s something really amazing that we both are happy to orient our lives around.

If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, Silver Lake, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

Share

For all of the new people here, my name is Lula Phelps and I own and operate Breakfast by Salt’s Cure alongside my husband and chef/founder of our growing restaurant group, Chris Phelps. We are a modern quick service diner with six locations across New York City and Los Angeles and we are famous for our oatmeal griddle cakes. Usually I talk about what that is like but I’m also interested in travel, culture, arts, fashion, of course food and dining, and just generally how to wake up each day and give my best shot at being a decent human being.

Thanks for hanging out with me while I experiment with different “content pillars”. My last post was rather fashion forward with a subtle link to the restaurant and I always try to expound on my personal experience/feelings on the topic which recently included self esteem.

Today’s dispatch is for owner/operators/restaurant people. I’m sharing my secrets of how I prepare to be away from my six children for 10 days with minimal disruption to my attempt at relaxing. These are the five unsexy things that five years in I have determined *actually* matter and nobody else can do them so it’s crucial that they’re buttoned up before I go. It’s nerdy and deep divey but I wish I had somebody to explain this to me when I first started before AI was a thing so here ya go from someone who has lived it.

1. Overall group insurance check in

Operating restaurants requires you to have a litany of different types of insurance–

• BOP (business owners policy which includes general liability), you definitely need/want this one. Premium is based on sales, business personal property, and TI (tenant improvements) aka things you’ve done to the space.

• Workers’ Comp (in case a team member gets injured on the job– you can’t renew your restaurant permit without it). Premium is based on payroll.

and then depending on your lease you might also need—

• An umbrella policy which fills in any gaps that the BOP might leave. I’m on the fence if you should have this if it’s not required by your lease, could just be a great way to burn a couple thousand dollars. We are currently getting quotes for one location and it’s coming out to $12k/annually to add the umbrella policy. Premium is based on your BOP.

then there’s also:

• EPLI (employment practices liability insurance), not required but good to have– protects you in the event of an employment related claim. This type of insurance is becoming increasingly common and I would recommend getting it. Premium is calculated on headcount and location. Lucky for us NY and CA are the most expensive states :)

With multiple locations in different states managing these policies can become a messy, daunting task that I try to audit once a quarter to ensure everything is just the way it should be. Each quarter I ask our broker for an updated spreadsheet that lists the type of policy, the policy number (for easy reference should I need it), the vendor, the basics of coverage, the term and the annual premium. I put renewal dates in my RED “compliance & renewals calendar” so I never miss one. I put all payments on auto so a policy doesn’t accidentally get cancelled because I missed a piece of mail. In my opinion, this job should have one owner and I trust only myself with the task.

Pro tip 1: link your workers comp to your payroll provider to avoid audits. I hate workers’ comp audits more than anything and this makes it easy, all in one place, one provider even if they do ask to do an audit.

Pro tip 2: check out Rainbow insurance. I never thought I’d be promoting an insurance group but they are far better in paying out claims and offer lower premiums than Hartford, Hanover, Berkshire Hathaway or any of the other big players.

2. General maintenance

It wouldn’t be an article from me unless I spoke about my janitorial prowess. In addition to the many problems relating to the original restaurant build not being done to spec, Court St has an undersized grease trap which means it needs to be serviced with more regularity than is “normal”. Every 6 weeks is the schedule we aim for at that location while the others are more like 8-12 weeks. If we don’t get it cleaned AND snake it every six weeks it overflows and creates a difficult mess in the basement. I personally have cleaned up the mess many times before we identified the problem and it’s not something I want my team to have to do in my absence.

Also in New York I got some damaged drywall patched and painted at Vanderbilt due to a pesky leak the landlord insists is not related to the facade, we installed a larger stainless steel griddle to optimize our kitchen flow, we got a big junk pick up, I’m getting what I hope will be some hardy ass plants for the garden at Vanderbilt after versions 1 and 2 failed, our plumber is installing a new water filter and repairing the ice machine. Lockboxes allowing for easy access in case of emergency will be available at each place and a shift lead will know the passcode! Whoever invented the lockbox, I love you.

In LA I’m getting quotes to replace the front door at one location, repair the hot water heater, install hand dryers at all three locations, tile the floor at Silver Lake which someone kindly mentioned in a review the other day that the space looks bad. Silver Lake is not a finished space but we are serving delicious, high quality food. We needed to get the doors open to pay our rent and keep a full team whole while we moved locations… The renovations will continue into this year and rest assured we’re working on making it more “aesthetic” for you.

As a final step in general maintenance I will update the list of emergency contacts, print and laminate it to be hung at each place before I go and empower the team to call a trusted vendor directly should an issue arise.

3. Exhaust Cleaning and Fire Suppression

It is known and also understandable that in New York City the FDNY is king. When they tell you to do something you do it right away. I finally understand now that quarterly hood cleaning is mandatory (unclear why no single group could just say that right off the bat). This means a group of brave, hard working guys come and open up all of the “access panels” which are carefully constructed throughout the restaurant so they can scrape the insides of a metal tunnel filled with cooking grease. They have to do this all the way up to the roof.

Separately, we have a monthly service that comes to swap out the grates above the griddle— these guys are some of the fastest bat out of hell workers I’ve ever seen. While we are open, they pull out the existing grates to bring back to Astoria for cleaning and swap in clean new ones from a different restaurant all in under five minutes.

The hood cleaners start by cleaning the vent above the griddles in the kitchen. Then they go to the roof and clean the blower fan and the equipment up there. At Morton St that’s about 7 flights up. At the other two it’s about 3 flights. I have been to every roof and seen it all in action. This cleaning takes several hours and cannot be done during regular hours of operation. Usually someone gets locked out, leaves a door open, or gets stuck on the roof. Even though it’s “passive” for me it’s proven to be better that I stay on site during the cleaning. It’s not something I look forward to but it always feels like a big checkmark on the list when it’s done. This costs about $10k/year per location and that doesn’t include necessary repairs that may be discovered during the service.

Fire suppression testing must happen twice a year. Every 6 months a certified company needs to come and test your fire suppression system which in the event of a fire shuts all cooking equipment down and activates the chemicals that would be needed to put it out. A representative of the business must be there to pull the switch and witness the test aka me. After a successful test the ansul system above the griddles gets tagged along with any fire extinguishers that need to be serviced and then you are compliant.

Fire suppression is really expensive and any time you change equipment you must hire a certified company to repipe the system to match it and file plans with the city. An accurate diagram of the equipment must hang on the wall in the kitchen and the fire department issues a separate permit which must also be kept on site (I also have to check these).

If you miss either of these two things you get serious fines from the FDNY. Then you have to submit a notarized certificate of corrections within two weeks of the citation (I just learned there’s a penalty for not submitting it on time– even by a few days). Then if you miss all of that you have to go to an OATH hearing which are (always?) done virtually however you must request the virtual hearing no MORE than one week and no LESS than 3 days prior to your hearing in order to attend. Chris showed up in person once and they told him to go home because we did something wrong with our (lack) of request.

If you miss the request to attend your own hearing you automatically go into default. We have paid the city $5,000 on a decision that was defaulted because no matter how many times I read that piece of mail I did not get it right. Finally I think I know when and how to request the hearing. I guess the city needs to make money somehow…

Subscribe now

4. Permits & State Filings

Restaurant permits expire yearly and it’s one of the first things DOH checks upon inspection after they’ve confirmed there is a team member on premise who is in possession of their NYC food handler’s card. Mine is coming in the mail imminently. I finally sat for the test about a month ago. It was way uptown in a very cool orange lacquer mid century building and the proctor basically gave us a stand up comedy show containing all of the answers before we took the test. Someone got kicked out during the test for cheating! An expired permit is a waste of a point on your health score so I am going to brave the city’s portal to ensure that they are all up to date before I leave. While I’m in the portal I’ll take care of any fines and just ensure that everything looks good. The liquor license is good for two years so I know we’re ok there.

Filings with the secretary of state that keep the entities in good standing by submitting your statement of information and paying your dues are essential and difficult to stay on top of because it seems like one is always expiring and you’re never reminded or notified to renew. I will login to each state portal and check everything is up to snuff before I go. Though my password hygiene has gotten better thanks to leaning into apple passwords and letting go of my attempt to be a OnePassword user it’s still a slog to try to get into all of these portals.

5. The schedule, like 6 weeks out

Before I leave I will publish the restaurant schedule well in advance including after we get back so I am not scrambling with jet lag brain trying to fill in missing pieces of the puzzle. I will give it time to land and process so that someone can alert me BEFORE I leave that they have a conflict. I have been on trips before where I have to try and figure out how to staff the restaurant from thousands of miles away and it realllyyyy sucks. Nothing like texting with four different people to pull you out of the moment.

While I am there I will have to do payroll and I will likely get some calls/texts/emails that spike my cortisol but at least I know that major things have been taken care of and I did my best not waste a precious Sicilian afternoon on my laptop trying to get in to the California SOS portal.

I hope this helps someone!

Your friend,

Lula

If you’re an operator, did I miss anything? What do you do to prepare before you go away?

If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, Silver Lake, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

I said I wasn’t sure and told her that it was weighing on me because nothing in my closet felt suitable.

“Come over! Borrow something!”

I sat on the offer for a few weeks because who am I to borrow clothing from the queen Stacy London? While she had been coming to the restaurant regularly for years and we had built a friendly rapport I didn’t think she could really mean it. I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone and texted her to ask when might be a good time to come by and see if she had anything that might work for my event.

I was first introduced to the genius of Stacy when I was a tween watching TLC’s What Not to Wear on repeat with my Dad’s girlfriend at the time. She could transform the mousiest of women into goddesses just by changing the shape, color or accessories of what they were wearing so you can imagine how excited I was to have her full attention! Since then she has gone on to write a NYT bestselling book, create a clothing line, and she has produced and starred in several other series. She’s here on substack, too. She is an all around impressive, accomplished and kind human.

A few days later on a hot September afternoon that threatened rain I headed over to Stacy’s extremely cool design forward apartment filled with original art and unexpected antiques. She led me down to her dressing area on the bottom floor after quickly introducing me to an assistant who was doing something for her clothing line. The floors were painted a lacquered bright green, the white walls covered with a feminine black decal, a dressing table to sit down and do your makeup was on the left which also housed lots of accessories. Behind the door was a bulletin board filled with love letters, thank you notes and other memorabilia from cool things she’s done. It was very clearly Stacy’s lair. The built in closets revealed scores of dresses on hangers, drawers filled with every cut and color of pant and shirt you could imagine. Further back shoes lined a wall organized by color. Bags lived in that area too. While the dressing chambers were brimming with fullness it was still somehow organized. When we were looking for a ring she pulled out a case containing dozens of beautiful rings and picked just the right one in a matter of seconds.

It seemed she had given this session a little thought ahead of time and had pulled a few choice pieces before I arrived, but as we went on the direction really expanded and soon we were trying on all kinds of things I don’t think she had planned for.

What proceeded over the next two hours far exceeded my expectations. I came out with two stunning looks styled from head to toe and a glowing sense of self. In looking back on the texts with my group chat it’s clear that none of us thought she was going to let me borrow her ACTUAL items, that this styling session was meant to give me a sense of what could be cool and then I would go off on my own to find something similar.

After playing dress up for 90 minutes, we landed on the piece de résistance. We both knew it right away. An archival quality one of a kind, golden antique Hungarian silk dress with hand embroidery from the 1930s. It looked incredible on me especially when styled with patent leather nude Louboutins and dangling ruby and sterling silver earrings seen in the first image. As I looked at myself in the mirror I thought I am pretty and I do look fabulous.

Look 2 featured this sweet, flowy, pink Ulla Johnson number to be worn at the brunch following the birthday dinner party at Hotel Cipriani on Giudecca. This was a more casual event than the birthday the evening before so we paired it with my off white patent leather Carels I wore to my courthouse elopement and some really cute clip on floral earrings also borrowed from Stacy. It was the perfect choice for this relaxed day of eating on the docks and then frolicking in the gardens of the Belmond Hotel with my friends.

I left Stacy’s home with two beautiful dresses, a pair of Louboutins, Victorian ruby earrings, a couple of cool rings and a fabulous burgundy ostrich feather clutch from DKNY. She also gave me instructions for less glamorous things like silicone nipple covers and boob tape. She truly had me covered from head to toe!

Stacy is queen of high-low and I was astounded by the contrast of designer items she owns with fun and inexpensive things that give a lot of character to an outfit. In the world of The Row this, capsule wardrobe that, quiet luxury… it was a refreshing reminder that one can still look fucking chic in clothes that have personality and come without a designer label.

The Venice parties were at the end of our ten day trip to Italy and I was soooo nervous about staining or ruining any of it that I didn’t even open anything she had lent me until the time of the event. Somehow the fashion gods protected me that night although a LOT of incredible food and expensive wine was consumed. The count and countess of Venice dined in the room next door and later we all danced to music played on a piano that Mozart or Beethoven had played. It really was a magical evening.

The next day on our way to the luncheon, extremely hungover, I asked the man at the dock ticketing station if we could walk to Giudecca from Venice and he asked if I was Jesus. I didn’t get the joke until later. Google maps made it look like you could walk? LMAO.

Subscribe now

The only damage incurred was to the heels of the Louboutins from the gravel garden at the Aman and on my way to the party I tripped on the dock which I think resulted in one of the nicks on the stiletto heel! I was so nervous to return the mildly damaged shoes to Stacy that I had rehearsed what I would say– I would offer to buy her a new pair of whatever she wanted in the same price range. Because why not get exactly what you want when your budget is $1k for a pair of shoes. She dismissed the nick in the heel and was so gracious about it, laughed and said why would you get me a new pair? I think they’ll go to the sale anyway (she was planning an upcoming closet sale). I bought them for $100 on the spot. I haven’t worn them since to be honest but I know they are the perfect neutral heel, I have nothing like them and 35 year old me is going to have a lot of events to go to! Plus they are strangely comfortable for a heel of that height.

Just for fun here are some outtakes of looks we didn’t end up going with:

A few weeks after I returned the dress (in pristine condition mind you) Stacy decided to put the beautiful gold dress in her closet sale and so I ended up buying it too because it really felt like it was meant for me and the story of how I came to acquire it is too good.

Even though this all happened a year ago, I still remember feeling so special and cared for during and after our styling session. When I sent her pictures from Venice she was effusive in her compliments. The styling session felt like hanging out with your best friend who wants you to be so happy and also has an incredible eye and just knows how things should look. When I was culling through the photos for this post I watched some on live mode and heard her saying “I just want you to feel fancy and pretty”. The way she would put unexpected pairings together in an instant or immediately look at something and say no we can do better without hesitation. And that she has a closet overflowing with the goods and that we are the same size in most things including shoes.

I feel so lucky to have been taken under Stacy’s expansive maternal wing especially at a time when I was feeling too insecure even to post here on Substack– I didn’t start posting until about a month after this experience which I am certain helped nudge me in the direction of putting myself out there. It was also an affirmation that sometimes people really do mean to extend their surprisingly generous offer. I was on cloud 9 at the party both because I was so happy to be around friends in Italy but also because I knew that I was serving looks and I absolutely nailed the adage dress to impress.

Your friend,

Lula

Share

Usually I write about my life as a restaurant person growing a business with my life partner but today I wanted to share something that was just really fun and meaningful to me. I hope you enjoyed!

I had something else planned for today but I’m feeling like riffing maybe because of the eclipse? There was a period when I lived in LA (as is wont to happen when you live there long enough) where I was pretty into astrology but it doesn’t interest me as much anymore because truly no behavior can be reduced to oh it’s because he’s an Aries… though it can be fun to think about and I did enjoy having my chart read in 2020 by a top astrologer Heidi Rose Robbins so no shade to the astrologically minded. I am partially still with you.

I met with a someone a few weeks ago to try and hash out the mystery of what this newsletter should be as I continue to trudge along feeling unclear on what it is myself. They suggested I do some journaling on how it feels. How does it feel to run Breakfast by Salt’s Cure? What feelings come up for me when I think about it?

I experienced some resistance in beginning this exercise as it seems the answer should be obvious considering I live it everyday but I was surprised by what surfaced. And reminded once again that approaching life from an angle of curiosity is the closest thing I’ve ever found to a happiness hack or more like a hack to becoming less bothered. My therapist is always encouraging me to poke holes in my beliefs, to ask myself how something feels emotionally and also notice how it takes hold in my body. Every week she challenges me to “get curious” about my experience rather than decide hard and fast that something is or is not the way I THINK IT SHOULD BE aka good or bad.

The words I wrote this morning in response to the prompt: How does Breakfast by Salt’s Cure make me feel?

Energized. Focused. Excited. Like a builder. Challenged. Authentic. Creative. Limitless. Clear.

Authentic.

Sounds like I’ve got my dream job and my whole career figured out by the looks of that response so I reckon it’s safe to say I’m living my truth. Each day I wake up and I feel aligned with how I’m going to spend it. I’m thinking of doing a how I got here post geared toward the lost 20 somethings who feel like they’re so far away from having any clear direction in life. You may be surprised that I spent my 20s doing everything I could to avoid working in restaurants and now it’s my career that I’m extremely passionate about. The lesson is to stay open and trust the process. It probably won’t look like you thought it would.

Challenged.

I’ve written at length about the challenges of restaurant life as there are many and sometimes it feels like they outweigh the positives, but truth is I love a good challenge. Keeps me sharp. Without it I would be bored so I tend to think of challenges as positive.

One of the heavier challenges of running a business for me is attempting to lead people; trying to find a balance of honoring their needs and desires with what makes sense and what is realistic for the business. The downright managerial aspects like keeping track of people’s schedules and personal issues that affect their ability to work, attempting to handle all of that with grace and care and an essential sense of separateness. Walking the line between dictator: we’ve spent years developing this system so do it this way and Jesus: I want to be a good leader who listens and hears new ideas. These are some of the most edgy parts to navigate that require a lot of patience with myself and with others and I’m first to say I don’t always succeed.

Focused.

My title in addition to being co-founder of this empire we’re building is COO. I do all operations for the six places as well as for what we’re building with the franchise. I will give credit where it’s due— for example I don’t make the schedule in LA and I’m not the first line of defense for LA maintenance but once it gets to a certain point I am looped in and I keep an eye on labor which in turn affects the schedule. Anything bureaucratic or annoying falls to me, every notice from the city or state finds its way to me! I’ve learned that most things are not that serious and you have time to figure out even the scariest of notices. The powers that be just want to know that you’re attempting to address their concern. Sometimes I feel bogged down by paperwork and routine audits and insurance policies and compliance and payroll and taxes. For instance I have to remember that on October 1st 2026 sales tax in LA county goes up by .5% and I need to make that adjustment in our POS. Square, you should do this automatically (Donny, I know you’re here)! I’ll write myself a calendar reminder and I’m dabbling in AI to make the admin of my life easier thanks to my teacher Grace Clarke but honestly it’s not that good yet for becoming a personal assistant or I haven’t cracked how to set it up well.

Creative.

Coming in hot on the heels of an AI mention, the other side of what I do is deeply creative. From the near constant problem solving of tasks that can feel impossible, to designing the menu, producing merch, designing the physical restaurants— we’re getting our new logo painted on the facade of Silver Lake next week and I can’t wait!, to curating the lighting and music (lots of improvements to be made here depending on which location you visit), to maybe the most creative decisions of all: how do we want to grow? How do we want to feel while we grow?

About a year ago Chris and I decided to dial down the speed of the path to franchise against the advice of our consultants. The decision was also contradictory to what we were initially thinking when we started the process a few years ago: we thought there wouldn’t be much of a difference between 250 and 500 units…

Reader, the difference between 250 and 500 stores IS a big deal– the difference between 5 and 6 is a big deal. Getting the six we have now to all be the same has been a herculean challenge that has taken years of micro adjustments and is still ongoing. We are still moving ahead with the franchise in earnest, just not killing ourselves while doing it. We’ve put in so much time at the actual restaurants these last few years to make it a truly franchiseable concept.

With our existing units, most of which have been open for at least several years and have a strong presence in the community, we have to consider every change we make against guest expectations. If someone has been coming in for a specific dish for years but we only sell one a week or it is too labor intensive to sustain then we have to weigh the cost of one person’s disappointment upon removal of said item if we determine it is worth the operational gains. Making these difficult decisions now ensures future success of the franchise.

Energized.

I believe business is especially creative, something I didn’t believe not long ago. I thought creativity was reserved for true artists whatever that means. But running a business means constant pivoting and flexibility and literally creating solutions to new problems that crop up every day. I consider myself very lucky to feel energized by my work.

Clear.

For years I so badly wanted to be a specialist, to have that 1 in a million eye or talent for something but more time on earth has shown me again and again that is not my truth. I am a generalist capable of many different things at a fine aptitude and that is another reason I feel clear, authentic and focused by this path. The unpredictability of each day falls well within my natural wheelhouse of being a highly effective generalist. I genuinely enjoy the unpredictable nature of my day to day. I love being in control of my schedule and being in a different place everyday. I have always been able to accomplish the necessary work for the day in a short amount of time and I used to find it torturous to sit behind the desk and stay at the office until 6 or 7 or even 8 when the day was officially considered over even though I had long been finished. I no longer have to consider the optics of that and sometimes I work late or I start early or I take a break to do pilates in the middle of the day or wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for something I want to pursue and it’s all the same. It’s all in service of this thing my husband and I are building to sustain us and our future family and so it’s easy to feel clear, focused and energized.

Limitless & Excited.

Lastly, the limitless part. We don’t do anything on social media or by way of PR and our restaurants are packed every weekend and it’s been this way for years. Yes we are lucky but it’s mostly the result of prioritizing consistent excellence in our offering and a continuous striving to improve. The reason I feel limitless when I think about Breakfast is I know we’re only just getting started. The social media example is not meant to sound braggadocious but to illustrate an example of something that is completely untapped and ripe for the taking. Our packaged oatmeal griddle cake mix will be its own CPG business that we haven’t even grazed the surface of. We don’t yet sell it in New York stores because we haven’t figured out the right permit YET. The people are dying for a packaged GF version that we have to continue recipe testing to optimize the shelf life. Before we even really turn up the temperature on marketing the product we have to figure out how to scale distribution and fulfillment because right now it’s Madelyn hand packing the bags to ship out from LA in addition to her regular duties—so many new challenges! Our franchise training program needs to be finalized and we probably have to attend some conventions to start selling but we have been putting in the work every single day so that it is a successful endeavor and when the ceiling is leaking the franchisee calls their landlord, not me.

We’re going to the moon on pancakes baby!

Your friend,

Lula

If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, Silver Lake, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

I’m no art critic and I don’t consider myself an artist so I won’t attempt to analyze the show from any kind of expert lens but I would like to share what felt poignant and relevant to my life now one hundred years after he was working.

The man was rejected more times than he was celebrated in his lifetime (even for works that were commissioned!) and yet he continued to evolve and create. While the show didn’t contain angsty journals filled with fears and insecurities that would challenge my perception of unflappable confidence, it was plain to see from the timelines and annotations of the work that he didn’t take things personally or view anything as a reflection of his self worth or talent. At the beginning of the show, one of his earliest and most famous paintings from 1913 “Nude Descending a Staircase No.2”, there was an accompanying showcase full of negative press clippings around the reception of the painting. All were cheeky and all denounced his talent. The energy from the critics was “who do you think you are to present this painting as art”? The painting is now considered a Modernist masterpiece and certainly worth millions of dollars.

Duchamp wasn’t interested in making “good” art or “perfect” art he was interested in pushing the boundaries of how we think about art and who can make it. He worked under an alter ego Rrose Selavy to produce many works at the beginning of his step away from painting and into the more experimental formats like sculpture and readymades (found objects that Duchamp decided to present as art). I love the idea of an alter ego allowing for a space that is free from the constraints of the real you. Of course artists have used alter egos for time immemorial— Ziggy Stardust & Sasha Fierce— but it was a good reminder that it’s a powerful tool available to all of us, potentially useful to my fellow perfectionists. I think a lot of putting yourself out there online in a way that feels tolerable to the psyche is in a sense a form of alter ego. The freedom to share a version of yourself that is not defined by the constraints of the real you and therefore the real you is not the one having to face the inevitable consequences that come with being vulnerable.

It’s a question I have been wrestling with for years: what is the purpose of putting oneself out there online? What is the end game? We see creators buying million dollar homes and living lifestyles we could only dream of and surely that’s part of it. The Kardashian Effect. But I think it’s older than that. Humans have always sought power and status. Power = access = opportunity = status. If you weren’t born with a seat at the table the internet is the quickest way to get one in 2026. Even though it can feel impossible to gain traction and most creators talk about posting consistently for a tiny audience for years before anything happens, it is easier and more democratic than ever to share your ideas and creations with a wide audience. I think that’s part of what Duchamp was playing with and inspired by with his readymades– the new ability to proliferate information faster and wider than before. Even from the beginning of his lifetime (1887) to the end (1968) he witnessed vast technological change with the widespread introduction of cinema and telephones, not to mention major developments in printing.

Coming back to how this affects my own life now, I wonder how many of you can relate to this desire to be seen, to matter, to have your voice heard but this simultaneous terror of being perceived and for me a deep shame in wanting that in the first place. I’ve been exploring the question: why is it bad to want this? For me, a small part of it, at least that I’ve been able to identify, is that I hold negative opinions of people whose sole motive for doing something is to gain attention. How does that change if you are making a worthwhile contribution? That’s where I feel safe and that’s how I’ve been able to hit publish somewhat regularly for the last 10 months because I am mostly sharing what I consider good information. I hope that I am helping my small audience understand more about how and what it is like to run restaurants. I don’t get very personal on the internet but as I think about it more both in terms of my own consumption habits and where I want this to go (and grow), I think I have to get more personal. We are such a curious species. I want to know your morning routine, what you eat for breakfast, what your home looks like, how your Claude projects are set up. Why would I assume no one wants to know that about me? Because I’m not that interesting? Says who?

All of this to say, get ready for my first day in the life video. I’m half joking. If I don’t have a total meltdown in CapCut there might be one coming for you soon. I filmed one yesterday but things get hard for me in the edit and that’s usually where they die. I used to hide behind the notion that filming my life or taking pictures of things with the intent to share was taking me out of the present moment but I don’t really think that’s true. I’ve been so conscious of this for so many years I don’t believe I’ll ever have that problem as I really trained that instinct out of myself. I do think this is probably a huge problem for young creators who grew up with a phone glued to their hand. For example yesterday at the exhibit I got two shots that I may use for the video but the rest of the hour + I was in the space I wasn’t filming or experiencing it from the lens of content capture.

I am fascinated by these questions around the value and ethics of being visible online and how authentic we really are when we share ourselves and if authenticity matters or if there is anything wrong with embodying an alter ego. Where do you sit?

Thanks for reading.

Your friend,

Lula

Leave a comment

To kick us off I’m going to respond to a question from my dear friend, Lara, who does not have social media but texts me an in depth response to pretty much every letter. She always has an interesting take on things as she is someone who loves to dine out and also notices operational decisions. The other day after finishing a luxurious Sunday lunch at Crevette (long lunches may be better than long dinners?) she asked what I thought about hand dryers vs. hand towels. She knew that I would have a passionate take.

First, let’s get one thing out of the way for those unfamiliar with the term c-fold. This is a c-fold.

$$$ Matters

The foundational pillar of this take is that the price point of the restaurant matters. If you’re under $50 per person* then hand dryers are totally fine and expected for me. Breakfast by Salt’s Cure falls in this category and I’ll share more about the operational decision behind that in a minute. If your establishment averages $50+ per person you should have something besides a hand dryer, an ordinary c-fold is fine. If you’re $100+ per person I want either a VERY clean and clearly single use washcloth (for environmental reasons) though really I’d prefer a cute branded, thick paper towel. *The only exception to this I guess is a New England clam shack. However, at $50/lobster roll I sort of feel entitled to a working bathroom with at least a hand dryer. If you’re selling merch you need to offer more than a port-a-potty with no hand wash station available at all. People are eating messy mayo-y, buttery, salty items with their hands for God’s sake.

Our Switch to Hand Dryers

Back in the day I used to walk in to the bathroom at the West Village during Sunday brunch and see wads of c-folds balled up around the trash can on the floor. Inevitably and not really anyone’s fault, because of the way they cling together, a guest would go to take one c-fold to dry their hands and end up with 20. In part due to carelessness and in part due to the way the c-fold stack comes out of the box. The sheer waste of so much paper, not to mention the cost made me angry.

Another thing no one is talking about that is one of my biggest gripes about operating restaurants is bulk to go packaging. It is close to impossible to manage. One day you have 10,000 coffee sleeves and nowhere to put them and suddenly you have none at all and you’re trying to hand someone a piping hot cup of to go coffee and have to resort back to double cupping. All of the different kinds of packaging are only available in quantities of 250/500/1000+ and they have to live somewhere. You never seem to go through lids and cups at the same rate. Then the vendor sends a different kind of cup that doesn’t match the 164 remaining lids from the previous order. Then you have to order more lids that fit the new cups but what do you do with the 164 remaining lids without a cup? Dry pantry is overflowing again. Getting the team to properly cut open the boxes so you can easily access the contents without making a mess has proven to be a Herculean task. Placing an exacto knife that is dedicated to this station has helped a little bit but that little exacto still finds its’ way around the restaurant. Sounds small but this is a real operational headache. I would love to eliminate to go packaging and food in general for a few reasons - maybe that’s a later column, but bulk packaging is a big contributor. Of course we would and should always provide boxes for leftovers.

So back when we had c-folds in the bathroom we were stocking SO many. Multiple orders (of bulk) per week. Installing hand dryers has been one of the best things we’ve ever done. We don’t go through nearly as many c-folds now that they are just for staff. I know some guests hate it because sometimes they go into the staff only storage cabinet and dig around for the c folds or come out of the bathroom and remove napkins from the pre-set silverware baskets on the tables. However, I would rather that than go back to buying thousands of c-folds per week. My mom who has a hawk eyed sense for detail has also lamented awkward placement of the hand dryer. When it is too high on the wall the water drips down your arms so we have tried to consider the placement here.

Right now in August 2026 one case of c-fold’s or 2400 individual c-folds costs $19.50 so about 1 cent per c fold.

The paper towel with a thousand lifetimes

When I shared my thoughts on this with Elena and Lara they said they can make a single paper towel last them from hand drying to opening the door. I am the same way (you should see how much use I can get out of a single half sheet of Bounty) but we all work in operations so I am sad to say that most of the public is not that considerate. They also brought up germs– I don’t know how true this is that the hand dryer moves fecal matter around the air. By the time you’re at that part of your bathroom trip the stuff you don’t want flying around the air should already be down the pipes. And the noise. As a person who is literally wearing earplugs in a public space as I write this I very much empathize with the noise aspect. But it’s 10 seconds of your life and a forest saved and reduces my COGS so we’re all gonna have to deal with it.

Share

Bonus hot take: garbage can placement matters. If it’s not in a convenient spot to the door so I can use the c-fold to open the door after I wash my hands, sorry but it might end up on your floor. Also if you have a trash can that requires me to physically touch and open the top of it with my bare hands due to it being broken or just a poor design choice for a restaurant - again the paper towel is probably going to end up on TOP of the closed can or worse on the floor and I don’t think that’s bad behavior on my part. You as the operator should replace it with something the guest doesn’t have to handle after washing their hands.

So what do you think: are hand dryers as only choice ever acceptable?

Your friend,

Lula

If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, Silver Lake, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

Though I am allergic to sitting still, these last few months have been a lot even for me and I think my body and brain were telling me to chill hence not opening this document for over a month. Which brings me to the first thing I learned about opening a new store and closing one at the same time. GRACE. Give yourself tons of it. Bathe in it, drink it, eat it up. Give yourself permission to not respond right away. Because no one else is gonna give it to you and the opening/closing period is a demanding one.

I wish I were one of those people who under duress forgets to eat. I am the opposite. I take comfort in chicken parm, baked ziti and wine. My waistline tends to expand in proportion to my stress. About a week into our LA trip I felt like all my pants were too tight and too hard so I allowed myself to Doordash two pairs of oversized 100% cotton men’s sweatpants from Target to the hotel to wear over the next few days while we continued to clean and construct. Chris doesn’t know that he wants things like this until he sees mine so without asking him I got a pair for him too which he really appreciated. Could I have gone to Target myself (for the sixth time in a week), yes? Did giving myself the grace to be indulgent and Doordash the sweatpants make me feel taken care of? Also, yes and it was worth it. So, restaurateurs, be sure to give yourself a healthy dose of grace. And really everyone should be doing more of this. I’m extremely hard on myself all of the time and I can confirm it doesn’t yield great results.

Without further ado here are 14 things I learned from opening a new restaurant and closing an old one:

1. It’s going to cost more than you think it will. Even the second gen space that you’re “just going to paint”. We ended up having to replace several types of heavy machinery to the tune of 5 digit repairs/replacements each in addition to a general refresh. The only guarantee is that there WILL be surprises.

2. That said, a coat of paint can really do wonders. Kilz 2 primer is a godsend of a product– removes odors and years of grossness that might be living on your walls. Though I wouldn’t bring it on a desert island because presumably I’d have bigger fish to fry in the scenario, it’s a desert island product in terms of construction and building. Choosing a shade of white paint can be harrowing and can invoke your deepest insecurities and self doubt. Start by understanding which direction most of your light comes from. There are a lot of North facing windows in my life and I am partial to Benjamin Moore ‘Navajo White’

   

3. It’s going to be more work than you think. I thought we were cleaned up and close to opening. We had closed for two days mid project to give the contractors space to apply finishing touches. They had supposedly been applying a two step treatment to the floors— really it seems like they came in at midnight the prior evening and slapped on a coat of sealant that was still drying. When we left on Sunday night everything else was ready to go. We came into complete mayhem on Wednesday morning and had to clean up everything for a third time, dust again, move heavy shit etc. We did not open that day.

4. Put a lockbox on the door. Give out the code freely. This will save you many, many trips and hours of waiting for people stuck across town. Don’t leave anything valuable in the place and just let people work on their own schedule (within the agreed upon timeline). Each of our locations has a lockbox for this purpose. I have spent too many hours waiting for someone who was just a “few minutes away”. Also the work might get done quicker if your contractor prefers working at night for example.

5. Just get the doors open. We have been open for almost 6 weeks and there is still no art on the walls, no window treatments, no decorative lighting, the “final” chairs have not been ordered, the bar is not built and the final layout has not been decided. But we are open, we are paying our rent, we are keeping our team employed, and we are getting comfortable in the space. Perfect is the enemy of good. This was a hard one for me to grasp, opening before you’re really ready, but Chris is right once again. This is totally the way to go. If your product is good people aren’t going to be paying attention to the lack of decorative lighting and art.

6. 3 months of rent abatement might sound cushy but it goes by quickly. So get those doors open!

7. The team around you is either going to sink or swim. This was the first time we had real help opening something and it was both inspiring and impressive to see longtime team leaders Jonathan and Zenai tackle things head on with little instruction. They made this opening significantly easier and it went so much faster than when Chris and I do it ourselves as we did the last two.

8. Not everyone is going to be happy for you. Truthfully most of the reactions I was made aware of were extremely enthusiastic and supportive but a handful of downers made it known they were not happy about Breakfast by Salt’s Cure coming to Silver Lake. There were also some haters who came out of the woodwork about how pissed they were about WeHo closing or Highland changing to counter service. Even though I took the time to write 2,000 words explaining the careful and considered thought that went into each decision… you can’t win ‘em all.

9. Press is not going to organically find you. I reached out to a handful of publications, journalists and influencers. I even offered Eater the exclusive about our opening (in response to their initial outreach) but no one really wrote about this opening except for a small mention here or there. Happy to say we’re doing just fine without the press and it confirms the fact that almost all press is pay to play. Do not compare your insides to others’ outsides— everything comes with a cost!!! To everyone who has enthusiastically shared the news or been in to eat already, we thank you kindly!

10. People move on quickly. It already feels like “old news” both for me personally in the sense that if I’m catching up with a friend and they mention the new opening I’m like oh yeah… right! And also, the window has passed that I think anyone would publish it as NEWS. One has to imagine that even ten or twenty years ago six weeks wouldn’t be old for a restaurant’s tenure… but things move quickly these days!

11. If you post something for free on facebook marketplace or craigslist you can probably get someone to take it off your hands within a day or so. We spent several thousand on various junk pick ups because no repairs or renovations had been done to this space for 25 years. Toward the end of the renovation proejct, for things that had some life left and inherent value like commercial refrigeration, I was able to give these away pretty much same day. Pro tip: confirm the person has moving help before giving the address.

12. Don’t even try to understand the logic of what the city says you need to do. Just do it and play along like it makes sense.

13. Take the opportunity to reset and implement better systems. A new location is a new opportunity to right the ship. We corrected for overstaffing, a menu that had gotten too big and redundant, we swapped out a predatory POS system, and improved for inefficient floor operations. There’s nothing like a new space to get things right and it’s important to take advantage of the freshness and inevitable but fleeting beginners’ mindset that the team has at this point.

14. It is actually possible to get your security deposit back. We had considered not removing anything from WeHo and just losing our deposit but because I am me I decided to add that to the plate and do a massive push to empty it per the landlord’s request with a lot of help from Zenai. I was shocked when I saw the check! If you’re closing, do a walk through with LL and find out what they consider good condition to be, deliver it that way and maybe you’ll see your money back which can help to offset a bunch of those unforeseen opening costs.

15. Best laid plans. I really wanted to convert a service area into a seating area and we had figured out a way we thought we could do it but it turned out that we couldn’t for a multitude of reasons. Remain flexible. Pivot. Keep going.

It feels good to be back in the saddle. I was dreading writing this thinking I had nothing to say but I’m already feeling better and happy to be back. Stay on the look out next week for a new monthly column called Hot Plates where I present a spicy topic in dining and restaurants and open up the comments for discussion.

Your friend,

Lula

If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, Silver Lake, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

Share Walk-Ins Only

Hello everyone and happy long weekend! Hope you’re staying cool if you find yourself in the city this weekend and please enjoy the always perfect weather in LA on our behalf as we melt.

Lot’s of changes around these parts the last few weeks. We opened Silver Lake(!!), we were kicked out of West Hollywood (in the process of selling a commercial fridge as of this writing), and we’ve begun the process of turning Salt’s Cure on Highland into a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure to try to make the most people happy that we can. Originally we were going to wait a few weeks/months to do this so as not to overwhelm the team with change but they actually led the charge to begin now and it’s really important to us that our WeHo regulars have a place to go and feel comfortable. After hearing some feedback and sadness from the WeHo cohort in these past few weeks I’d like to clarify that it wasn’t a decision to leave because we didn’t like the location or the space. The building was literally re-zoned from a restaurant into a hotel and it was a matter of time before we got kicked out so it was crucial for us to act in order to preserve the team at this location. More on that here, I’d especially recommend reading it if you’re feeling upset about the closure at WeHo. It wasn’t an easy decision or process. And if you’ve been to the restaurant only to find it closed after seeing that it is still open on Google please accept our apologies. It was one of the first things we did upon closing and since the week of it being closed we have asked all of our friends and family to report it permanently closed… and yet it still shows open.

I didn’t know there was a difference amongst the Salt’s Cures

Breakfast by Salt’s Cure is a refined concept consisting of only the top selling menu items from Salt’s Cure brunch. It is optimized for speed, efficiency, and fair pricing so you can access our high quality food multiple times a week and get on with your day. It is the result of years of experimentation, of trial and error and listening to staff and guest feedback. Some folks are OG’s and have never been to a Breakfast and fondly remember the chalkboard at original Salt’s with handwritten specials featuring unique cuts of meat Chef Chris was using that day from the snout to tail butcher program and whatever veggies were in season at the market that week.

Some Breakfast fans think Salt’s Cure on Highland is already a Breakfast and some people don’t notice there is a difference as long as the oatmeal griddle cakes are there. Some people think we started in New York and are shocked to hear about the LA locations. Some New Yorkers are mad about LA concepts coming to NY and let us know their feelings in the comments. Marketing, PR and comms have never been our strength though we are working on developing the ~*brand*!~ Maybe I should do an introduction post and share our actual story to set the record straight. This food influencer actually did his research and told parts of our story quite well in this video. Mental note to put a placard by the register at each place that communicates we have other locations.

The core difference between original Salt’s Cure at 1155 Highland Ave, of which there is only one location and the five Breakfast by Salt’s Cures that exist in NY and LA is felt mostly around the smaller menu and the counter service. We typically don’t serve alcohol at a Breakfast though that’s not a hard and fast rule. The Vanderbilt location has a full liquor license– try the Irish Iced Coffee if you haven’t yet!-- and the West Village has beer and wine. A spritz program is in the works. Is alcohol at Breakfast something you want more of?

I’m a Salt’s Cure regular, what does this mean for me?

Same beautiful space, same beautiful people (no one is losing their job as a result of this transition), mostly the same menu items but we will switch to counter service. We will no longer offer table service or reservations. This speeds things up, allows us to serve more guests and frankly allows us to sustain running this restaurant in 2026. We still strive to offer the same friendly service you’re used to; it’ll just be a briefer interaction than multiple table touches throughout your meal. Unpopular menu items will be cut so we can more efficiently manage the operation and control our costs. Additional oatmeal griddle cake flavors will be available which is a first for the Highland location which during its 10 year run has only ever served the OG flavor.

Counter service also helps clarify how the no reservation seating works as we know some guests have understandably been confused by the system the last few years as a dedicated host position is no longer viable at a restaurant with pricing like ours.

Here’s how it’ll work:

Your complete party will order and pay for all of your food and drink at the counter, preferably on one check (this helps the kitchen understand you are all dining at the same table). When it’s busy we will help you find a seat based on party size, if it’s quiet you can sit wherever you like. We will take care of everything else from this point on, you just sit back and relax. We will bring your food and drink out, bus your table and when you’re ready to go you can just get up! That’s one of my favorite parts, not waiting to receive the check, then more waiting for the card to be run and returned for a tip and signature. You did it all up front. If you need something during your meal, our staff will be available around the restaurant and will be happy to get you something. You can also add on to your meal from your table if needed just in case you forgot something.

We will have some of our best selling signature cocktails available but we will not have a dedicated bartender so this may be a difference to you. We’re opening an hour earlier at 8 AM because it is breakfast after all. The All Star is still available with no substitutions or modifications (it is and always will be pork sausage and OG cakes) but it is not printed on the menu to avoid confusion with the customizable 2x2x2 in the West Village. This would completely scramble Highland kitchen flow— it is a firm ops decision. If you have never been to Salt’s Cure this doesn’t concern you but if you are a regular this is important to you! Secret menus are fun and if you’ve been around for this long you deserve something extra special.

I’m a WeHo regular, what does this mean for me?

An expanded menu with better lunch options during the week including a weekly special that is currently a grain bowl with the option to add curry crusted salmon (YUM!). A more attractive dining room–Highland was our most expensive and most robust restaurant build out to date. Even ten years later I still think it’s really pretty. It’s also more spacious than any of the Breakfast locations so get comfortable. The AC works. A proper patio with more seating and thriving succulents so you can sit outside with your pets. Please, please do not bring pets to dine with you inside of the restaurant– the health department doesn’t allow it and it makes some guests and staff uncomfortable! Our goal is to make all guests and staff comfortable and happy.

We will have a few cocktails available, the Wild Hare with fresh carrot juice, ginger, lime and vodka. An espresso martini, Bloody Mary, Watermelon Sunday and mimosas. We will not offer the Pink Lady Apple griddle cakes anymore. They are the least popular flavor as well as the most prep intensive. We dice the apples, roast them and the quality of the apple is just not consistent. Sometimes it tastes like nothing at all! I am sorry if you were a fan but I promise the blueberry or the banana or the OG are just as good, if not better IMO. Otherwise, not much will be different. And Marlene from WeHo will be there! She’s also in Silver Lake.

Why are you doing all of this?

You’ve probably noticed the rampant closures of restaurants all over Los Angeles since Covid. Of course high rents, high labor and high food costs are all classic contributors and we’ve noticed the density and volume in LA is just not the same as in NYC. That’s not to say NYC is better than LA by any means, LA is just a more challenging place to run a restaurant. The city of Los Angeles makes it extremely challenging to open quickly; the process is much more streamlined in NYC. I also have a theory that the abundance of incredible produce and food from the farmer’s market, larger apartments with nicer kitchens and homes with outdoor space make dining out a less appealing option especially given the high cost of going out to eat.

We celebrated our anniversary dinner at a high end LA institution last week and couldn’t believe what the check came out to–and we didn’t even get dessert. The cost of running a restaurant is certainly being passed on to the customer. By making these changes to our business model we are hopeful that we can continue to serve affordable delicious food, that Highland can remain open and possibly even thrive– to be perfectly honest it is a miracle that Highland is still open after Covid and various other challenges but that’s a story for another day. The Breakfast by Salt’s Cure concept showed us what is possible and it’s time to make some difficult choices and do the same thing to the Highland restaurant. It’s a matter of sustainability so we do hope you’ll understand and adjust to the changes with us. We get that change is hard but we’re here to hold your hand.

Your friend,

Lula

If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, Silver Lake, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

Subscribe now

WeHo regulars – know that we love you so much and we’re not going anywhere. We just won’t be at 7494 Santa Monica Blvd anymore. This letter is for you. If you read nothing beyond this point please know you can still find Breakfast by Salt’s Cure less than a mile away at 1155 Highland Ave. or join us at our new location in Silver Lake at 4348 Fountain Ave!!!

While this change may seem abrupt and potentially scary I’m writing to share how we got here, where we’re going and I’ll attempt to assuage any fears and concerns that our beloved regulars may have.

The Back Story

About a year ago we learned that there was an item on the agenda at City Hall in regards to the zoning of 7494 Santa Monica Blvd. Being familiar with the glacial pace of West Hollywood City Hall we were not immediately concerned. However, last winter it escalated and we learned that the request to rezone the building as a hotel was approved. After consulting with our longstanding, hardworking team the consensus was clear: the show must go on and we needed to find a new home. We started the search in earnest at the top of the year and have spent the last few months attempting to create a smooth transition out of Operation: Relocate WeHo.

The search was narrowed down to only second gen restaurants because we needed to find a space quickly as the timeline of when we might have to vacate has always been unclear. Plus it wasn’t in our business plan to invest potentially hundreds of thousands into building a new restaurant from scratch and taking possibly years to do so— LA is notoriously brutal with restaurant openings taking forever mostly due to bureaucracy. We thought about trying to stay close to West Hollywood to make it easier for our regulars to come but then we remembered that Salt’s Cure on Highland is a mere mile away (.9 to be exact!) and the WeHo regulars can easily make it over there. Let’s be real, very few people in LA are walking but I am truly sorry for the handful of customers who did walk to WeHo! It’s a 5 minute drive up Santa Monica Blvd or Fountain.

In addition to the changes at Breakfast, starting this week Highland will move from table service to counter service and will offer a simplified menu. We still aim to offer the friendly service you’re used to, but we hope that this will be more efficient and streamline operations. After many years of operating, we have found the counter service is best for our model. With the changes at Highland you’ll hardly be able to tell that it only recently became a “Breakfast” by Salt’s Cure besides it being a more attractive dining room with more outdoor seating, a full bar and better air conditioning.

The Search

Earlier this year we came very close to opening in Culver City and still think it’s an attractive option but this particular deal got weird when the landlord started asking for a 6 month deposit because the principals (us) were based in NY, not CA, and it would be more costly to sue us in the event of unpaid rent lol. We were feeling backed into a corner a little bit as we knew our time in WeHo was coming to an end and we had to find a place ASAP to keep our team employed. One of the most difficult parts of this whole endeavor has been navigating the timeline, one lever is pulled and it triggers another, you’re in limbo, you can’t open because of x, then you miraculously can. A hail mary arrived just before we were about to wire money into escrow for the Culver City spot in the form of a mass email from a realtor for a listing in Silver Lake. It was on a corner we’re very familiar with having lived down the street for several years. Because I didn’t really think it was going to work out and we’d seen dozens of spaces at this point, many asking exorbitant rents and/or significant key money, I wrote a one sentence reply to the email blast

“What is the rent?” I liked her answer so I wrote back again asking; “Key money?”I liked her reply.

We were so far along on the other deal I thought Chris might not be interested in exploring it but I insisted that we just check it out to see if it really was too good to be true. So we sent Zenai and Michael from our team to see it a day later and put in our LOI that same day. It was most importantly an existing and operational restaurant that happened to be the perfect size in the perfect neighborhood with reasonable rent and a parking lot out back. We could have closed the deal the same day if it were up to us but of course there was competition and other groups started to offer more than the asking rent. There was a tense week of will-they-won’t-they. Hallelujah the landlords believed in our concept and were prioritizing a stable long term tenant so we met in the middle and signed the lease 3 weeks later. The realtor sent another email blast about leasing this rare corner space in record time, thankfully to us.

What the Next Couple of Days Look Like

We opened Silver Lake in record time and I think I’m going to do a multi part series on how to open a restaurant in Los Angeles in 3 weeks but this letter is about the closing of WeHo and what happens next to that specific restaurant so I’ll leave out those details for now. But we are very excited and have a lot to say about it!!!

Starting Thursday June 27, 2026 the entire team from West Hollywood will be migrating over to the new Silver Lake spot as well as to Salt’s Cure on Highland. You’ll still be able to receive the same friendly service from Marlene and Sara, along with newer faces Luke and Isaac. Eliseo, Honorio, Chris and Sandra will still be cooking your food. We’re introducing a new style of egg that we hope you’ll love as much as we do: the little omelette. Broccoli florets and sharp cheddar folded into two farm fresh eggs topped with brown butter. We hope to end the war between soft and hard scramble with this menu item. We will eventually, over the next few weeks, add sidewalk seating so you can bring your dogs. Please help us observe LA health code and do not bring dogs inside of the restaurant. It is really upsetting to some diners which result in complaints and violations from the city (which we have gotten). So please help us be respectful of everyone’s wishes. Signed, a huge dog lover.

The menu will start out small as we get our feet wet in the new space. This is the LA team’s first time using Square, we used to be on Toast. So there are going to be learning curves of course. We will add menu items as we go to satisfy all of your cravings. We’re really excited to eventually bring the chicken cutlet we have in New York to LA. The chicken cutlet with a side of arugula is a bomb lunch! While the oatmeal griddle cakes are that girl there is more to us than breakfast. ;)

Chris and myself will be there on Thursday before we head back to New York. If you’d like to come say hi we’d love to meet you.

This feels really abrupt, I don’t get it?

The last few months have required a ton of flexibility on our end and from our team. There has been a lot of discomfort sitting with the unknown. I designed the space from New York (it’s very much still a work in progress btw) and had contractors working before we got here with the hopes that we could open late June even though there was no guarantee that could happen. Chris and I saw the space for the first time exactly a week ago as of this writing and we found out two days later on Thursday afternoon that the city would allow us to open without going through the Department of Building and Safety or plan check. If they had not allowed this, which they almost didn’t because we had to replace broken equipment, we could have been delayed by 3-4 months. If it sounds confusing, it’s because it is and we didn’t want to confuse our guests and mire everyone in these details or share information that ended up not panning out.

We have clarity now so we are sharing what went into all of this and hoping to give some insight into what may seem like an abrupt closure. We soft opened Silver Lake last weekend, filled the space with some incredible friends and family and hot food came out of the kitchen. There’s a tag on the window still, we are getting quotes to replace the glass and I’m taking measurements for custom cafe curtains and searching for better chairs and contemplating what I want to hang on the walls. We’re building a custom bar workspace that will eventually change the layout of the room. Decorative pendant lights will be hung. The bathroom sink, faucet and light still need to be replaced. We learned there are some ventilation issues we’re working on, we came into a plumbing problem on Sunday AM that has since been repaired but all in all we’re in good enough shape to open the restaurant this week. You can find endless reasons to delay if you want to but we’ve got approval from LA county public health department, the food is dialed in and the team is in place to cook it and serve it to you. We hope you’ll join us.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for being a part of our journey. And please if you feel inspired to share a West Hollywood memory, do so in the comments!

Your friend,

Lula

Share

Hi, I’m Lula, one of the co-founders of Breakfast by Salt’s Cure. I’m so glad you’re here. I write about restaurants (I run six of them in NYC & LA!), I’m passionate about business operations and I occasionally try to make sense about what it means to be alive.

Subscribe now

If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, Silver Lake, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

Let’s Get a Few Things Straight

First of all we never set out to have a line. It drives me crazy when people suggestively ask if we do it for the hype. No, we do it because it is the most efficient way for us to serve the most customers everyday. We have tried taking names and letting people know when their table is ready, we briefly took reservations at other concepts we’ve operated and we have concluded the line system is the fastest and most efficient way resulting in the best experience for guests and for us as operators.

I’d also like to clarify that we do not have a line at every single place at every hour of every day. The amount of times I meet someone who is like oh yeah I’ve been meaning to come by but I don’t wanna wait in that line! Just last night this happened. If you come to the Brooklyn or the LA locations, especially during the week, you likely can just walk right on in without much of a wait if any at all. The West Village is a prime spot and it is busy pretty much all of the time but if you come right at opening or in the last two hours around 1-3 PM during the week you likely won’t have to wait much either. Even though we serve the same menu all day you don’t have to get breakfast per se. You could get our delicious buttermilk soaked crispy chicken sandwich and a side of arugula or home fries for example. Of course you would be remiss to not get the oatmeal griddle cakes but you can ask for a single cake of any flavor for $5 (this is an off menu item and I guess a perk of being a Walk-In’s Only subscriber!).

It makes me cringe when people call us the “viral pancake place” or say that we’re “instagram famous” because to me it sounds like our success is a passing trend when in reality we have been doing this for 16 years come August. The viral pancake place didn’t just pop up overnight and it wasn’t successful overnight either. Investors didn’t get it when we were trying to raise— nobody was interested in the breakfast space. People said we’d never make it with counter service. People said we needed splashy PR and a big social presence. Nothing we make is for a viral cheese pull or a disgustingly oversized can-you-believe-how-nasty-that-is video. We relentlessly test and research everything before putting it on the menu.

Line Lore

I remember the first time the line formed at the West Village during a weekend in mid 2022. The too cool for school Dimes Square server said “dude it’s crazy, there were just all of these people in here at once and I didn’t know where to put them”. So people lined up along the bar but that got too tight and hazardous so then we moved it outside. We all thought the line was just a fluke and we continued to be surprised for the next several dozen times. We didn’t know the line would become the line.

It is never fun to be told you’re not standing in the right place. If you’ve ever been to a busy concert venue or sports arena chances are someone has yelled at you to stand somewhere else. It’s a humbling experience because you’re just sort of minding your business and then someone tells you you’re doing it wrong and all you’re doing is standing. So I always try to be sensitive around this when I’m communicating with guests where they should stand. At the same time, it is important that we are respectful of neighboring businesses and keep their entrances clear as well as leave enough room on the sidewalk for passersby to walk freely. The line helps us orchestrate the chaos and keep things moving along. There are some neighborhood folks who feel extremely passionate about lines and sidewalk space as well and periodically call the city to complain about it. So please help us keep them happy and keep the sidewalk clear!

Why Don’t You Take Names for a List?

We used to do this when Carroll Gardens first got busy. We had a clipboard and a piece of paper that said “Kendra party of 6- 2 babies/4 adults.” The problem was that we’d give Kendra a semi-accurate estimate of when her table would be ready and then she would understandably take her family to play in the park across the street and we’d be waiting 15 minutes for them to return. So we had 6 empty seats during what became a 20 minute window. This is pretty uncommon but it’s not unheard of for a party of 4 to have ordered, dined and left all within 20 minutes. Our average ticket time is 8 minutes. Chris kept the ticket of the 4 top dining in and leaving within 20 minutes like a trophy.

It was not a stroke of my genius that we stopped the name system but a consequence of being understaffed one weekend and the team just had people line up and it turned out to be way faster for everyone and a much smoother experience of navigating service for the team. At first people were alarmed by the change. Guests who had become accustomed to the name system were confused and somewhat annoyed to be relegated to line waiters. But a few years later everyone knows this is the way. We have a stanchion which begins the line and has a notice explaining the system. This does not stop some of the most earnest guests from inquiring about a BFA in line management but it helps a lot.

My Savior: The Stanchion

“For dine in please wait in line. We will come get the next complete party when a table is available. For take out you may skip the line but please be patient while we assist other guests”.

People skim, of course, and they’re not really thinking about these two sentences that actually have a lot packed into them.

The first one politely addresses the issue of an incomplete party. For example, if you sit in a booth for four and sip a coffee waiting for your friends to arrive, we could have sat two complete turns in that time. The economics just don’t work and it would make the line move slower. The times I have heard that someone’s friend is down the block only for the friend to arrive an hour later… The times someone has placed the order for their whole table even after having been told the food comes out quickly and it sits cold on the table makes me sad. If your party is incomplete we will move on to seat the next complete party based on the size of the available tables. Our staff is carefully trained in how to optimize the space and manage the line. We value your cooperation and respect and trust in us.We try not to have too many rules because you’re here to have a good time but the complete party rule is in everyone’s best interest. And if it’s during the week at a slow location where there isn’t a line then we’re happy to have you sit with a coffee and wait your friend! We strive to be flexible.

The take out bit is meant to communicate that while you don’t have to wait in line to place a take out order, our priority is assisting dine in guests (which is what we are staffed for) and we may not be able to help you right away so just be chill if you’re doing take out lol.

So, we are very grateful for our line and I believe that it is a result of our commitment to excellent food, efficient operations, and a very fair price point. I appreciate all of you who wait in it and all of you who share about us on social media (the positive ones of course ;)). We have been doing Breakfast by Salt’s Cure since 2017. This line was not born overnight.

Hi, I’m Lula, one of the co-founders of Breakfast by Salt’s Cure. I’m so glad you’re here. I write about restaurants (I run six of them in NYC & LA!), I’m passionate about business operations and I occasionally try to make sense about what it means to be alive.

If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Subscribe now

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, West Hollywood, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

I really would like to be more casual about my posts here and increase the frequency of publishing but the combination of crippling perfectionism and running six restaurants keeps me pretty busy. I have a Substack because I like to write and it has genuinely been fun to connect with different folks on here– I really like the ability to be long winded. I want to skip ahead to the good part where I get to make the exciting announcement I’ve been teasing out to my 14 followers but right now I’m in the really sticky part that requires a ton of flexibility and a lot of sitting with uncertainty. At the end of last week I thought I had everything tied up in a neat little bow a week ahead of an already aggressive schedule… all from 3,000 miles away. I was feeling pretty good about myself, high on extreme capability and flawless optimization. Then a potential grenade dropped and exploded the prior plan. I am being vague because I genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen. It all might go according to the original plan and the big good news may come sooner than later or it might be delayed by a few months.

Anyhow, one of my main interests besides building a hospitality empire is nervous system regulation. How can I do all of this with a regulated nervous system and stay cool under pressure? If you’re unfamiliar with the concepts of regulation and dysregulation in regards to your nervous system there’s a refresher here and The Body Keeps the Score (if you’re not buying your books used, what are you doing?) is a great source text for more info on this. Full disclosure today my therapy session began by slamming a wooden dowel against a yoga bolster. I walked in sniffling from a recent cry and opened the session with laughter because before I even began speaking my beloved Rachel knew that I was in rough shape. I shared that I was frustrated, angry, furious even and I felt that we should take the opportunity to work with this raw material rather than tamp down and wait for it to pass like I usually would. I told her I felt uncomfortable expressing my anger in front of her because anger to me is not a “safe” emotion to feel. My story around it includes that it is unattractive and makes other people shirk away from you, a ripe trigger for the old abandonment wound. Rachel broke the ice and slammed the dowel against the bolster to inspire me and the ice was broken. It felt so good. I’d highly recommend doing this if you have some anger to process. This type of therapy is called somatic therapy and it’s the most effective one I have found.

Last night I tried to go to sleep after a pretty long wind down period but my mind was racing to create tomorrow’s to do list which extends in all directions of the business and my home which I completely decided to redecorate and have a handyman here for seven days making repairs and upgrades we’ve wanted to do for years. We sold our dining room table a few days ago because why not?! Let’s do all of this and have nowhere to sit and eat breakfast (sarcasm). I’m currently scheduling a delivery of a new one I found on Marketplace for tomorrow morning. One might say we’re adrenaline junkies or masochists. You have to be a little bit crazy to get into the restaurant business. But the mayhem is also why I love it. It’s really challenging and I love being challenged and I’m never bored! My life is very full. The cup runneth over just a little too much. In addition to the usual hum drum, last week included a flood in our office, last minute shift covering, quarterly hood cleaning with building access issues at multiple locations, plumbing emergencies, fire department code work, landlord harassment, some incredible friend time, some really nice meals out, a couple of meltdowns around hanging curtains.

I could try and make this go somewhere and tell you what I’ve learned about not taking on too much but the truth is that I have not learned that lesson yet and I don’t think I’m ready for it. I am in a season of biting off way more than I can chew and seeing what happens. So this is a dispatch of sorts of what I’ve been up to. What I’ve discovered and what I would recommend.

Watching: Friday Night Lights

I don’t watch football but this show has always been used as a gold standard reference in screenwriting books and it is really good. I love a Southern small town drama. The Dillon Panthers couldn’t be further away from my reality and it’s a wonderful dose of escapism. Plus it’s that sweet spot of television where there’s dozens of episodes per season so you can really just dive in and be in the world of Dillon for a long while.

Reading: Heart the Lover by Lily King

While it’s been a prolific year for reading the last few weeks slowed down a little bit after the Famesick/Strangers spring we all had. This is my first experience reading on a Kindle. I think I like it. I love Libby but I still love real books. I am in a big fiction phase after being a non-fiction self help addict throughout my 20s.

Eating: Bar Ferdinando

Sal and family are regulars at Court St. He is a reliable peer– always willing to share a vendor or to commiserate around the evil that is a bad google review from a customer who came in one time and had a bad experience. His new place in Carroll Gardens feels like you’re being transported straight to Sicily. We came for an aperitivo and ended up staying for dinner and getting the entire menu. There were no misses. Sal was the perfect person to take over this 100+ year old business.

Shopping: Monogrammed Etsy Pill Case

Have some travel coming up and I can’t resist sterling silver or a monogram. This will make me happy every day that I open it and keep me organized during my travels.

Biggest home upgrade: Pooky Rechargeable Sconce

This thing is so cool! It looks so high end but requires no electrical work. I’ve only had it for a few days so I can’t speak to battery longevity but I got a backup one and I just love the soft lighting it gives my bathroom. This is a no big light household.

External Self Care: Massage

All Seasons. Grand Nature. Doesn’t have to be fancy. In fact the massage is usually better the dingier the place. Don’t go to Grand Nature unless you want a really intense massage that borders on painful. Bring cash and tip generously!

Internal Self Care:

Renee Sills somatic meditations especially when trying to fall asleep.

Essential: The Pause

This one is big. I don’t always remember to do it. Before you make the call, send the text, log on to the zoom… pause and check in with yourself. If you’re feeling dysregulated take a few deep breaths and contemplate if it needs to be said right now by you. If you’re able to reschedule or wait this practice can be a literal life raft for preserving relationships.

Warm Take: tardiness from expensive consultants is unacceptable

Two different consultants I had appointments with in the last ten days were either late and unprepared or didn’t show up and hours later made a tepid excuse as to why. I believe if you are billing your time as an expert and your job is literally to talk to someone you should be there ready to go exactly at the start time! Review my notes beforehand. Make sure your tech is working before our meeting is scheduled to start.

Questionable Behavior: taking on an additional project that is not urgent

While I think the home upgrades are going to be amazing once styled and organized this was definitely not the right time to do it. When you have too many plates spinning don’t add one that is totally optional and not urgent. Would I do it this way again? Probably, yes.

P.S. This is a weird post to send after a bunch of you subscribed for restaurant content after the Prospect Heights anniversary post but I’m just trying to keep it real and show you the multitudes I contain, just like you do, too. Thanks for being here!! Next post is more thoughtful and less chaotic. I tend to publish 1-2x a month.

P.P.S. Would you be interested in a day in the life of a restaurant owner? I feel like it can be kind of surprising. Maybe better as a vlog but I have a phobia of making vlogs… this is where I want the whip smart young person to come in and help me make video content.

Until next time.

Your friend,

Lula

It truly means so much to me that you are here. If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, West Hollywood, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

How We Got Here

This location was born from a fear that our fire suppression system at another location was not up to code and could cause a potential shutdown so we jumped into action with a backup plan in case worst case came to be. We had originally inquired about the former Patti Ann’s space but were quickly turned off by the huge size and the astronomical rent. The broker had an off market space he wanted to show us and it turned out to be LaLou, one of our most frequented restaurants when we first moved to Park Slope in 2021. We had always loved the minimalist design of the space, the back garden, the natural textures from the concrete bar to the section of wide plank original pine flooring. While I may have said no more new restaurants at the end of 2024 that is exactly what we did in 2025: open another restaurant.

This was Chris’ 8th opening and only my second, second and a half, because while I was involved in the set up of the West Village it was in more of a supporting role than that of a leading lady. When we assumed the lease at Vanderbilt we figured it was more or less turn key and it wouldn’t be that much work to reopen it as a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure. We’d put in some elbow grease to spruce it up, swap out kitchen equipment, add the location to our insurance policies, set up Square, make a couple of new hires and voila we’d be open! While we managed to partially open it about 6 weeks into paying rent it was a much bigger lift than we anticipated. Everything from changing the lock on the front door, to ripping out the dead plants in the garden, to selling/donating equipment, organizing the table ware, cleaning and repairing the broken hood, rearranging the ansul system to comply with our equipment, obtaining permits from the city… The surprise sales tax bill in addition to the not insignificant key money purchase price. It took a little bit more than some elbow grease.

The Positives

Buckle up for one of my favorite stories of my hospitality career. We had hired a friend of a friend and while he was helpful enough in the very beginning with things like breaking down boxes it quickly became clear that his patience for guests was limited. No sooner than our literal first Saturday of being open, within the first two hours at that, a guest had a complaint… both about the food and then about the server. Being that we’d been open for a total of less than 12 hours I was anticipating hiccups so I calmly went over to the table to find out what was wrong. A piece of cling wrap was in their sausage. No problem, these things happen, let’s refire it or refund– whatever the guest prefers. I listened to her, she felt safe and seen and she shared that the server had a very off putting way about him. He had essentially gaslit her about the piece of plastic and made her feel bad about it. I profusely apologized, made it right in terms of getting them the right food and on their way out communicated my hope that they would give us another chance. It turns Elise and Janine did give us another chance and have become some of our most stalwart regulars– when they don’t come in on Saturday between 8 and 9 AM we notice but that means they’ll be there on Sunday. Just last weekend I had a great conversation with them about the challenges of maintaining an outdoor space. So there are two morals here – one it is possible to salvage a sour guest interaction and two hiring is soooo important. If I hadn’t gone to rectify the situation with these guests we would have lost an opportunity to cultivate some very important regulars!

A year later I am proud to say that we still have four employees from the opening team. They are on a first name basis with much of the neighborhood. Opening here was definitely a net positive though with Vanderbilt Ave being ripped apart for sewer work literally in front of us that will extend through the summer, sometimes it’s slow during the week. While Wednesdays and Thursdays still need to fill out, the weekends are consistently solid, sometimes outdoing our other Brooklyn location (it’s a bigger restaurant). We have addressed a food quality issue linked to a specific type of baking powder and we continue to refine our product. We have beloved regulars, we have an A from DOH and most things are working well besides one of the AC units which is going to cost $12,000 to repair but with years left on the lease it’s not really an option to skip it. We just launched cocktails which are proving to be very popular– people are loving both the Bloody Carrie and the Irish Coffee, the fresh whipped cream is chef’s kiss if I do say so myself. Round 2 of landscaping the back and learning how to garden is underway. Yesterday I pulled apart a dying banana plant and rescued a few pups and repotted them at home. If these come back to life then I am a plant whisperer though you could hardly tell given the state of the back garden this past winter.

We go to Verde Market on Dean St when we run out of things. Yesterday I bought a bunch of carrots, ginger and lime to juice for cocktails and the cashier who is there most days says she never goes “that way” down Vanderbilt. I don’t really blame her. It is a weird strip as you get closer to Atlantic. I’ve spoken to some folks who live on the other side of Atlantic into Fort Greene/Clinton Hill and they say there is a mental block in regards to crossing Atlantic. It feels like a bigger deal than it is. Our strategy of straddling these 3-4 neighborhoods works well on the weekends but I am hoping we find a way to develop more of a lunch crowd during the week.

Some Negatives

A guy I remember personally serving (because his daughter’s name is similar to mine) and getting positive feedback from on one of our first weekends recently referred to us on instagram as “the gross pancake place down the street” in a post where he made fun of people waiting in line at the newly opened Canyon Coffee. I had reached out to Feed Me to get the exclusive of our opening because they had written about the closure of LaLou in a previous newsletter so I figured the publication might be interested in what is coming to the space. No official press outlet has covered this location and many of our Carroll Gardens regulars are surprised to learn that we have a Prospect Heights location. I’ve been pontificating a cute postcard to put by the register at each location with all of our (six!) addresses but the perfectionist in me shuts it down every time and then I get distracted by some other issue.

Another unexpected challenge came in the form of a mentally unstable neighbor who literally screamed obscenities at me every time he saw me which was multiple times a day because he lived upstairs and just posted up outside our front door chain smoking. If you’ve ever thought our bathroom at Vanderbilt smelled like cigarettes it’s courtesy of the man upstairs. Last Mother’s Day he screamed at one of our lovely regulars, Mimi, while she was holding her granddaughter in her arms waiting for a table. This was a real low because I personally felt threatened and so were my guests. It did give me pause about this location. The neighbor has since chilled out thank god. Dealing with that definitely wasn’t easy. This is the first and last location I will have with outdoor space. It’s basically like managing another place with endless maintenance issues. Guests maintain strong opinions about sitting out there or not sitting out there depending on the weather. It requires it’s own heating and cooling system, the plants require a lot of attention.

All’s Well that End’s Well

On my worst days I feel bitter that we don’t get more media attention but then I think of all of the places that get a ton of press and close a few years or even months later. I also put very little energy into socials so how can I expect a big return? I write this newsletter because I like writing and it’s been a real joy to connect with people here. On my best days, like today, I feel really confident and proud of what we have built. We have been operating our restaurants for 15+ years in LA & NYC without any venture capital. I’m just gonna say that’s fuckin’ hard man. I can’t think of many places that have been able to do that. So today I’m going to stay in gratitude to my partner in love and business, our wonderful team and our little pancake shop that makes it all possible. I am proud of us.

Your friend,

Lula

It truly means so much to me that you are here. If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, West Hollywood, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

Gift article here.

I have been selling furniture on the internet since college. My lifetime sales from FB marketplace and Craigslist are probably somewhere around $25k. I am a passionate collector of antiques and I try to learn as much as I can about the history and provenance of a piece (where are my roadshow heads at?) I’m a collector and I love to rearrange my home. I also have a ton of interests and tend to dive headfirst into something that often gets abandoned. I have no chill and so when I start to knit it’s not to keep knitting scarves forever but to become an advanced knitter who makes beautiful one of a kind sweaters with premium wool. But then of course I hit a wall and it becomes challenging and then I think I suck and I should know how to do this already and then I inevitably give up and I have a bunch of knitting supplies to give away or sell. Our home is kind of a rotating showcase of different things but sometimes it gets cluttered and so I frequently resell things online.

We have tons of patio furniture leftover from when we bought Lalou and we’re trying to clear out our storage unit. Dozens if not hundreds of people have messaged me about these Ikea patio chairs and tables but only a few understand marketplace etiquette and received a response. There are best practices of buying and selling on the internet and I would be happy to share my knowledge if that is of interest to you. A guy named Max happened to follow up when I was near our storage unit in Red Hook. He came in and we both paused… we recognized each other. We live literally next door to each other but have never exchanged more than a hello when walking the dogs. We made the connection and laughed and vowed to hang out with some of our other neighbors.

A few days later he texted me asking if I would be interested in talking to his friend, a reporter at the NYT, about the new website Damn Lines in which Breakfast by Salt’s Cure is featured. When the Times calls, you answer. This was my first exposure to Damn Lines which is a funny concept of live streaming the line that is often in front of busy places. My feeling is that if it helps people plan their visit, especially neighborhood locals who would like to dine with us but are understandably inconvenienced by the line, that’s great. There’s already so much surveillance in Manhattan I don’t really view it as a further invasion of privacy any more than all of the cameras that already exist everywhere. I spoke with the journalist for a couple of minutes and a few days later our friend and attorney texted us that we made the Times!

The synchronicity continues. This morning in Bodycraft, my all time favorite workout, during our check in I shared the news of our surprise write up in NYT and our wonderful trainer, Kat, who also trains my upstairs neighbor said that my neighbor had been in the Times just the day before. Before class I met a woman who also went to Tulane and another to LSU. She held a fleur-de-lys patterned tumbler and I pointed to the fleur-de-lys tattoo on my foot that I got on Frenchmen St a month before I turned 18 with a fake ID. For me it’s hard to deny that there is some kind of synchronicity happening in all of this. It’s one of my favorite concepts first defined by Carl Jung as “meaningful coincidences” and in my experience it only happens when you’re paying attention. We are all much more connected than we think. What if there is a greater reason we were all brought together at this very moment and what happens when we slow down enough to notice it?

I saw something on here about placing yourself in situations to put yourself in positions where the luck will find you. The idea being that if you hide in your home and just hope that good things will happen to you is flawed because you’re not increasing your exposure to all of the myriad good things that could happen out there in the big old world. Ina Garten’s fabulous memoir is called Be Ready When the Luck Happens and she’s right. Keep showing up, keep putting yourself out there and eventually some luck will find you at just the right time and you’ll be in the right place. This is coming from someone who typically feels like luck (and press) are something that happens to other people. But I really am lucky and good things do happen to me and we are being recognized for what we built. I’m going to take this good energy and positivity into my week and bask in gratitude of the wonderful life I have built.

Your friend,

Lula

It truly means so much to me that you are here. If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, West Hollywood, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

Today we’re looking at glassware. Seemingly innocuous but actually quite important. One must consider cost, volume, temperature, storage, durability, aesthetic and replaceability.

When we bought the wine bar LaLou we inherited a bunch of high end glassware, much of it too fussy for our use. We took a few things home, sold some things on FB marketplace, put a few out front with a sign that said “please take”. A year later we landed on a winner, the Bormioli Rocco Cantina 13.5 oz.

We almost got rid of these because the CPU was higher than we’d usually take on being that we are high volume and our spaces get a lot of wear and tear. We also have a fair amount of younger guests who are prone to dropping things on the floor. When a young server doing a trail, who was definitely not meant for restaurant work, dropped a tray of seven of them in one fell swoop I thought well we won’t be keeping those anyway so no big deal.

I’ve been wanting to replace the iced beverage glasses at the West Village for a few years now. Why not just pull the trigger you ask? Well, the ones we have now are fine, so whatever we decide has to be an upgrade and not just a lateral move. With six locations we’ve tried out a fair bit of glassware. As we develop our franchise offering we have to dial in every single detail like this.

For the last few years we have been using cups that were also an inheritance from someone else’s beverage project. They’re just your standard 12oz clear cup. I’ve seen beer served in them and they’re frequently used as water glasses. Though thin they are surprisingly durable. I just don’t really feel like they are the right size for an iced drink once the liquid is displaced from the ice and they never sparkle.

I originally said we should go stackable but Chris made a good point that most stackable glasses feel cheap to hold due to a weird ridge in the middle that allow for stacking. From the guest perspective that’s not ideal and also from the staff perspective it makes it feel like what you’re doing doesn’t really matter. Enter the Bormioli Cortina. It feels substantial in your hand like you don’t want it to break. It demands respect.

We almost pulled the trigger on buying more but when I shared the anecdote of the girl dropping the tray of seven we paused to ask our team for feedback on durability. Another lesson I’ve learned over the years is that anything I put in a restaurant means I need to be ok with it being broken. Don’t ask me about the antique ceramic poodle salt and pepper shaker…

For hot beverages we are feeling pretty good about the diner mug. There’s something about it to me that just feels good to hold. They are solid. They are classic. I don’t know if I’ve ever broken one and they stand up to frequent use. The only downside is the insides get stained by coffee which adds an extra step in cleaning but I think that would happen with almost any coffee cup regardless of design.

We use the same cups for water and for fresh squeezed orange juice– anything you can get multiple uses out of is a big win in a restaurant where bulk quantity makes storage a Sisyphean battle. They stack. They can be dropped and sometimes bounce off the floor. They can tolerate thousands of washes in high heat with commercial sanitizer. The cost is good. The look is classic. We have tried pretty much every size. These are a clear winner and a keeper. The only downside to the Duralex is that when they do break the tempered glass shatters into a million little pieces that you will continue to find over the next few weeks no matter how much you sweep. We have these at all the New York restaurants and will soon replace all of LA’s water glasses with these. These are coming with us on the journey to franchise.

Our team has since confirmed the Bormioli’s are tough, so we will begin the process of phasing out the old ones and introducing the new ones. Surely there will be some broken on arrival and some new storage considerations but we will adapt to it like we do to everything else.

It truly means so much to me that you are here. If you enjoyed this letter please give it a “like” to help more people discover my work. And I loveeee reading all of your comments so don’t be shy :)

Your friend,

Lula

Leave a comment

Come say hi IRL and visit a Breakfast by Salt’s Cure if you are in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights, West Hollywood, Hollywood, or Santa Monica! If you’re not local you can try our oatmeal griddle cake mix here.

Now when someone is on vacation or calls out and I am needed to work service at the restaurant I enjoy it. While I still try to visit each NYC location at least once a week, I have not mastered the art of being there without a clear task in mind. I have my usual duties like making change in the cash drawer (side note: how do you feel about cashless restaurants?). I might magic erase a hard to reach or gross thing like the interior of a trash can that I just know nobody else is gonna do. I have a hard time just being there without something to do.

I might water the plants or prune the ones that have seen better days. I wish I felt more like I got to take care of the plants but right now they represent failure to me. Almost all of the ones we got for the Vanderbilt patio last fall have died during this brutal winter and they are currently in varying states of convalescence. We knew there was an inherent risk to putting houseplants in a partially temperature controlled garden but we felt like we had to have something out there to open the back patio for guests. We weren’t up for the task of becoming experts at multi season commercial gardening so we set a budget of $500 and bought a bunch of houseplants from Hooked on Plants in Red Hook which is sadly no longer. I feel really bad that I let them die (not the plant store, I can’t take responsibility for them). It surprised me how well the plants did after the first chilly days and then I sort of figured we had lucked out and if we kept it temperate enough back there they would survive. But we all experienced this winter. A few $3,000/mo ConEd bills later it didn’t make much sense to keep the heat going 24/7– the plants also don’t like too much heat. I digress… Are you a gardener? Do you want a plot of land to till in Prospect Heights? Haha.

Plants aside, I really felt inspired to write about my revelation with working service. I fucking love diving into a busy service these days. Because I know exactly what I am meant to be doing and there is no time to think about anything else. There is only a simple hierarchy of tasks: greet & serve guests, run food & drink, bus and reset tables, wash dishes. Make sure the dining room is clean and guests have what they need. If any station or team member needs help, ask how I can best support them. There is just a flow that happens when the choreography is tight that is clarifying enough to sate my anxious brain.

I used to resent working service in a way. If you pay for this blog you can see some of my posts from 2021 and 2022 where I talk about how challenging it was. How I grappled with the feeling that I was meant for more in my life than asking people how they want their eggs. I was having a hard time seeing the light at the top of our burgeoning breakfast empire just feeling like I was a glorified janitor with little to show for it. Always working, always sweaty, always dirty, always waking up early. It was a grind in the early years. We were still proving ourselves and building our reputation. I didn’t see an end in sight to all of the difficult dirty work. I still don’t know how or when we will become homeowners but our quality of life has improved as a result of our labor.

We operate with the ethos of never asking our team to do something that we wouldn’t do. We will still always remain on the bike as Chris likes to say but now when I get to work service I feel this crystalline clarity and this beautiful flow. It is so satisfying to just know what I need to do for the next few hours, rinse and repeat, close the loops. I get to see the systems we have worked so hard to develop working in real time. There isn’t a need to invent or develop or learn a new skill. I just do it by rote. Service allows me to find a groove. I welcome the clarity amidst so much uncertainty.

Interestingly I don’t feel this way when I do more “real” work though I think that’s probably what I should be spending my time on these days. To think about how to really develop our Brand or strategize growth plans. This kind of work is open ended and I don’t get that hit of satisfaction related to completion of a task even though I always say I am craving more creativity. I think it comes down to fear of not being good enough combined with crippling perfectionism and a fucking serious commitment to being the best person I can be in all aspects of my life. While part of my success can certainly be attributed to these qualities it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for play. Another part of me believes the best creative work is born out of a sense of wonder and play. How do you experience those things in your own life?

Leave a comment

I’ve been working on developing a growth mindset rather than a fixed one. I am training myself to enjoy learning and to get comfortable with failure. To not get it right on the first shot and allow it to mean nothing more than that– that I didn’t get it right on the first try. Mindset work is one of my most powerful tools, let me know if you are interested in hearing more about it!

Your friend,

Lula

While the space is undoubtedly beautiful, my mom was lamenting the slow the service. I was secretly thinking the same thing but trying to practice patience and not be a cranky New Yorker. My mom suggested they hire more people to solve their problem with lack of efficient service. Adding labor is a common first action in a business if something isn’t happening the way you want it to. After spending a few hours here over the course of a few days I believe that if the business had better systems in place they could do actually operate with less labor.

There are inefficiencies everywhere from confusion around people picking up drinks to seating not being maximized to a lack of bus tubs. The prosciutto and provolone croissant cost more than the same item at one of the most popular bakeries in NYC and that to me points to a struggle to make the numbers work. I told my mom I can’t wait to start consulting because I already have a dozen ideas of how they could increase profitability and deliver a better customer experience and I haven’t even seen their books.

Subscribe now

One of the first things I always notice when I dine out is how many people are working and which of those people seem engaged, who seems swamped or who is very relaxed and seemingly without a task. I frequently observe that most places are overstaffed and inefficient and one of the most commonly cited reasons for a restaurant going out of business is the high cost of labor. Part of this issue could be solved by simplifying your offering.

One of the main reasons our business works is because we do one thing very well. We offer breakfast from 8 AM to 3 PM. We specialize in oatmeal griddle cakes and a couple of high quality breakfast classics like eggs, sausage and potatoes to go along with your cakes. We only have drip coffee and that is a very intentional choice. It is not because we hate espresso drinks, actually we are coffee fiends and we celebrate the bean in all of its’ glorious forms.

The choice to not have espresso drinks is in line with our value of efficiency. If we introduced a full coffee program that could be executed to our standards it would mean additional labor and an increased likelihood that your food would come out before your drinks, which can happen even when we run out of a simple ingredient like ice or almond milk. Over the years we have made improvements to our space such as installing an ice machine right next to all of the beverage stuff so our team doesn’t have to run downstairs during a busy service.

This cafe is potentially doing too many things. There’s a GF vegan carrot cake, a prosciutto and cheese croissant as well as a ham and cheese croissant — why have both when it’s the exact same customer who would order the two marginally different items? Customers are learning that a small menu is usually a good thing and frankly I think people are overwhelmed by the amount of choice out there, I know I am. Trying to be everything to everyone is impossible!

Subscribe now

I asked an employee standing by the front for a plate which she seemed really annoyed by. I was curious as to why it was such an inconvenience and then I realized she is not part of the coffee shop but she is part of the florist team. The flower register shouldn’t be right in front of where they drop drinks at the coffee shop if staff is not cross trained. I don’t necessarily recommend cross training the staff as I think these are two entirely different businesses from a payroll POV. Clarity for the customer is super important and right now they don’t have clear demarcations in the space.

Even super small things like placing bus tubs and trash bins strategically throughout the space can make operations more efficient. We had an employee once who was like a machine but he refused to use any tools. I.e. the bus tub. He would clear a table like a tornado—in and out before you could even register him—carrying an ungodly amount of plates at a time but this style wasn’t transferable or trainable and it made others think they could do the same when very few people can do that. So he always ended up feeling like he was doing more than other teammates and it didn’t bother him until it did. It also made us realize how a bus tub can transform a regular human into a bussing tornado.

As I shared some of these thoughts with my mom she said “it’s hard to see the forest through the trees” and she’s right. When you’re so deeply in it you can’t necessarily see what could be improved. You’re accustomed to contorting your body every time you walk by that weird pole where there’s not really enough space because fixing it is more than you can handle right now. There are issues in my own restaurants from painting projects to weird handicaps I have just accepted because nobody can seem to fix it and my team and I have learned to work around it. Sometimes when I step away for a longer while like on a vacation or something I can come back with fresh eyes and renewed energy to tackle the problem.

Share

Anyhow, this means that we go out to eat on the early side, usually when a place opens. The vibes may not be as sexy at 5 PM but it is certainly easier to get a seat at opening without a reservation and we want to eat well even if it’s not a meal we planned to have. Plus eating early is good for digestion and sleep.

It always offends me when a host greets me like a second class citizen because I didn’t make a reservation– the pitying apologetic smile that comes along with “unfortunately we’re fully committed tonight”. Like you are somehow a less valuable guest because you didn’t plan to dine at the restaurant weeks in advance. There is something punishing about it and in my opinion the spontaneous guest is overdue for celebration. One of two things happen when we walk into a place that is empty at opening:

1. They reluctantly sit us at a shitty table and tell us how long we have (I don’t mind an out time to be clear). We pay our bill before the restaurant fills up so we could have sat at a comfortable table and been treated like good guests and the restaurant can still honor its reservations. Half of the place is empty by the time we’re leaving at 6:30.

2. We ask to sit at the bar and are told the bar is reserved as well.

Subscribe now

Number two really provokes my ire. Looking at the empty bar that is apparently full of reservations. Why even have a bar if you are going to reserve it? Bars are meant for spontaneity, for drinking, for fun interactions with strangers, for getting to know the staff. You don’t sit at the bar to have an unbothered quiet dinner for two that you’ve been planning for months. The bar can actually be very romantic when used in a solo dining kind of way, ideally with a book or a journal but the bar is not a place for rules. Not to get all Jane Jacobs about it but it is precisely this lack of spontaneity that kills cities and probably contributes to the difficulty of dating in the city.

Now I will transition and put on my operator glasses and explain the flaws to this bar reserving approach. By reserving the bar you are alienating the immediate neighborhood because it makes it impossible for them to come in without a reservation. You are not a reliable option for the people who live nearby and don’t feel like cooking tonight. The people who, if they could, would be the ones keeping you in business because they are your immediate customers who don’t have to travel to get to you. Reliability is so important in this business and it is the primary reason we do not offer private events during our regular hours of operation. How much does it suck to arrive at your destination and see a surprise sign taped on the door saying closed for a private event? We’re working on a PDR (private dining room) but more on that soon.

Here is my list of offensive bar reservation systems in order from most offensive to least offensive:

1. A casual neighborhood spot with a dining room & separate bar area with everything reserved including the bar.

2. A place that randomly decides to reserve some seats at the bar for a favorite or VIP customer. If you do it once it sets off a chain reaction and then every night part of the bar is reserved without rhyme or reason… “just because” is never a satisfying answer to receive as a customer.

3. Brunch reservations in general. Ok if it’s large parties, 6 or more, but I don’t want a 10:30 AM res to meet a friend and it breaks my heart when I try to eat brunch and am told no because I don’t have a res.

4. Fancy schmancy places where everything is carefully choreographed and controlled to a tee. I’m pretty sure even The Grill lets you just walk into the bar without a reservation which I very much appreciate.

Don’t get me wrong I love to be greeted by a maitre’d in a suit and have my table guaranteed. There is definitely a time and a place for reservations but it is not at the bar.

Mildred Pierce is a fascinating study of obsession with class, ambition and also of toxic mother-daughter dynamics. Mildred’s daughter, Veda, longs to be a woman of high society and Mildred is willing to do whatever it takes to give Veda what she wants. After her husband loses his job and they separate, Mildred moonlights as a waitress in a diner keeping it a secret from Veda knowing it would embarrass Veda for her mother to have a “working class job”. Mildred immediately falls in love with the dynamism of the restaurant industry and goes on to establish a successful chain of restaurants in Southern California.

I absolutely loved seeing Mildred prepare to open her new restaurant – unwrapping plates, standing on a ladder dusting (in heels!). She says that she installed a bar because why make people go somewhere else to drink when they’re already there to eat? Smart and weirdly unthinkable that this wouldn’t be automatic given that most restaurants heavily rely on their liquor license to pay the bills. The film also shows her hosting and seating guests, bussing tables and frying chicken in the kitchen. And she is doing it all while looking extremely chic. She goes on to open more restaurants and in voiceover tells the viewer that she is making a profit. Shortly after this montage showing all of Mildred’s success, Veda taunts her in an absolutely cruel scene shouting that she doesn’t want her mother’s money that “smells of grease” and that Mildred will never escape her working class roots even in spite of her new hairdo and fine clothes. The idea of chasing success and craving external validation to feel like we are enough, to feel like we finally belong, is nothing new.

Subscribe now

I have been chasing success probably for my whole life or at least since I internalized somewhere along the way that success means other people think you are great, think that you are worthy of not only existing but of being in the conversation, of having a seat at the table. While there are many definitions of success and I wish that mine were simpler, the fact is that it is simply not: I want it all. Even though our restaurants have lines out the door every weekend and they have for years that does not make me an instant success on Substack. In fact I’ve been surprised by the frosty reception of my restaurant peers on this platform. I sometimes think that because we are “just breakfast” other restaurateurs don’t take us seriously which is hilarious when you compare metrics like years in business, number of locations, profitability and plans for growth. Even though we support ourselves, employ around 50 people and never miss a payday, I still don’t feel like we are successful in the way I wish to be. Even though yesterday I did about 30 hours of work in just 8 hours, I still feel like I should be doing more to get me closer to this promised land that I don’t yet know.

I have been thinking a lot about my WHY beyond wanting to buy a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights where I can raise my future family and renovate it with an open hearth in my kitchen a la Alison Roman. I have been contemplating envy as an expander and getting curious around my feelings of jealousy when I see someone else doing something I want to do or getting the recognition I want. I’ve been noticing that I’m putting pressure on my WHY to be moralistic and pure but I’m starting to question if it really has to be. The virtuous angle of my WHY is something around community. So if you also operate restaurants in the same markets please feel free to drop me a DM as I am craving community! Martha Stewart, who is on my personal board of directors (IYKYK shout out Grace Clark planners), doesn’t seem to have a problem owning her WHY which isn’t particularly altruistic. Every choice Martha makes leads to her having complete authorship of her own life by becoming the bona fide expert in the domestic arts and by writing her own narrative. I will not be sharing my WHY (beyond community) because it’s very much a work in progress and I think there can be both a personal and a public version. It’s something I’m putting a lot of energy into figuring out and I would love to hear some of your why’s or practices that have helped you get closer to identifying it.

In Keith McNally’s excellent memoir I Regret Almost Everything he writes about how anti-climactic it was every time he achieved a new success. When he finally got something that he had longed for he was already moving on to the next thing. Looking for the next person to prove wrong. The next even bigger accomplishment. I think that is the curse of being an ambitious entrepreneur but perhaps also the thing that propels us forward. In Mildred’s case she couldn’t earn the validation she wanted most in spite of her successes. My takeaway from McNally’s book is that he is still waiting for that ultimate validation even though he is a New York Times best selling author and widely credited with building Manhattan’s downtown dining and nightlife scene. In my case, it remains to be seen.

My first and foremost observation is that right now LA is most definitely a renters market. There is a ton of available inventory. If you’ve been there recently you have probably noticed the high volume of vacant storefronts. Even in spite of this it seems that most landlords are not budging and responding to the lack of demand in the market but we’re hopeful that will change. Because we are a desirable tenant in the sense that our concept is proven both in terms of scale and longevity aka ability to pay rent— our plan is to offer what we think a space is worth considering its location, condition, parking, square footage etc. I really love the idea of an empty building tax that would motivate landlords to lease their buildings for reasonable rents but I’m saving the city council chapter of my life for later. It’s so wild to learn that a space that has been vacant for several years, has zero foot traffic or parking and someone is sleeping out front in a tent is asking $20k/month.

What we are contemplating and why:

1. 2nd Gen Space.

The most important thing to us is that the space is a 2nd gen restaurant meaning the space is already zoned for restaurant use. It must be vented with a large enough hood and existing grease lines. Additionally, we will be engaging a plumber to put a camera down the drain lines so we don’t get stuck with another $50k plumbing problem that is related to old pipes in the building connected to the city water main. It must not require major construction and permits with the department of building and safety. The only permits we are willing to pull are with DOH. If we were going to get into zoning something that wasn’t already a restaurant that could take God knows how long. Submitting plans to the city would require an architect and a GC and then lots and lots of time for them to review, send back notes and finally approve… all of that is before you can start building. We took this on with the Court St. space in Brooklyn— turning it into a restaurant after it was vacant for 8+ years and we’re not looking to take something like that on again, at least for now… never say never.

2. Neighborhood.

Chris said something wise that LA is a bunch of micro neighborhoods rather than a traditional true city so we should always err on the side of a smaller dining room because we’re pretty much catering to the neighborhood we’re in, not to the greater city of Los Angeles. Due to the sprawl of LA and the lack of reliable public transit I very much agree with this. Wherever we land needs to have a relatively thick population density. Some tourism would be nice but I’m not really sure where tourists go in LA besides Griffith Observatory and Malibu and maybe the Sunset Strip. Tourism doesn’t pay our rent. LA is a difficult place to be a tourist, don’t you think?

Subscribe now

3. Parking. This one feels pretty LA specific. But if there is nowhere to park and you’re not surrounded by residential buildings then you’re going to have a hard time putting butts in seats no matter how good you are. We used to operate a valet but for a casual daytime breakfast space this seems like an unnecessary expense. Delivery apps comprise a decent component of our sales in LA and we would love to go without the predatory apps but we can’t because of everything I already said. In NYC we don’t do any delivery and it’s awesome. A few of the spaces we looked at came with their own parking lots. Our own parking lot would be a welcome luxury!

4. Cannibalization of our own business. If it’s too close to one of our other locations then we’d be taking business from ourselves. Our Hollywood and West Hollywood locations are borderline too close to one another at the moment.

5. City of West Hollywood and City of Santa Monica are no gos. For reasons I think I’ve expounded on before we do not wish to operate under these jurisdictions. I don’t think there’s a single business owner on the West Hollywood City Council and probably not on the Santa Monica board either. We have never operated in Beverly Hills but I would rule that out too because I would bet money that there are a lot of rules in addition to what city of LA and the state of California dictates. Plus, I learned of a BH space going for $20k+/mo. No thanks!

6. No or low key money.

   Key money is sometimes asked for when the previous restaurant went out of business and wants to sell its fixtures and equipment and/or has a desirable long term lease with years left on it. Or if you’re buying the IP of the previous concept. We paid key money to buy Lalou. In our case we liked the location and it was fairly plug and play in terms of re-opening it for our needs– no major construction requiring permits. We liked the layout and even the tables and chairs. Finally, the terms and length of the lease we assumed made it worth it to us. In LA we are not looking to pay key money.

When you buy a restaurant in addition to key money you are looking at legal closing costs and sales tax on an asset sale. You’ll also likely have to sign a personal guarantee that says they can come after you personally if you fail to pay rent. Annie of King talked about the personal guarantee this week in her blog. It will take longer than you think it will. Our record of fastest lease signed was within 48 hours of seeing our West Village location. Chris is a wild cowboy and I think he’s sexy for that. The man is not risk averse. We tend to sign 10+ year leases because we are confident and experienced and it takes a lot of investment to open a restaurant. A retail store for example you could get away with some clothing racks and pretty lights– less of an investment and less of a tragedy if you decide to close one year later.

The NNN Lease

Most restaurant leases are NNN, which means the rent you see is not the rent you pay. In addition to base rent, the tenant covers three major categories of costs: a portion of the building’s property taxes, the landlord’s building insurance, and CAM (common area maintenance).

CAM is where you need to have your attorney dig into the language. It can include exterior repairs, lighting, parking lots, landscaping, snow removal, and sometimes management or administrative fees. It’s critical that CAM charges are clearly defined in the lease so you’re not subsidizing things like vacant units or capital improvements that don’t benefit your business. At one of our spaces the CAM is almost equal to the rent, which is low, but still I don’t love it. You should never be paying to repair the roof on your space if you don’t own the building.

Property taxes typically increase year over year at the city’s discretion and insurance costs have risen dramatically. All of this means your occupancy cost can increase even if your sales don’t.

So if a space is listed at $10,000 per month plus NNN, your actual monthly cost could be closer to $13,000–$15,000 depending on the square footage and how the triple nets are calculated. I’m simplifying here, but the takeaway is that NNN makes rent a moving target and Loopnet shows you the price of rent per sf per year. Realtors don’t love it when you ask what the average monthly is probably because they don’t know precisely but I do it anyway because it helps me understand what we’re looking at.

Field Notes:

We looked at a former donut shop on Melrose (pictured above) that was a little bit small and dirty and not like a super happening part of Melrose but the rent was appealing at ~$6k/mo. We looked at another space that was beautifully built out and had 3 phase power which excites us but later found out that it would be a sublease from a coffee company next door that has an overall 15 year lease on the building. This wasn’t disclosed until pretty late in the conversation and we’d rather not have two landlords for the price of one. If it seems too good to be true it probably is. There is another space we love that used to be a Taco Bell but we can’t contact the realtor. The one listed on the marketing brochure says it’s not his property and it has been on the market for years.

A realtor who we worked with last year and almost rented us a space in the Pacific Palisades right before the fires said “you’re dumb if you think you’re going to get key money in this market”. That made us love her.

If you’re wondering where to get started open up Loopnet.com and adjust your filters. The app is terrible and cumbersome but it’s the industry standard. Be prepared to see a lot of spaces that aren’t it. Be prepared for no one to call you back if you’re unknown and testing out a new concept. And be prepared to be caught off guard and unawares regarding just about anything— it’s the wild west out there when it comes to commercial real estate.