WEBVTT

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My name is Stephen Starr, and I was in the music business.

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I was a concert promoter for a long time.

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The music business and the restaurant business I found were similar.

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I said, what if we took the experience of theatre production and incorporated it into

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a restaurant?

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We did that and we’ve gotten tremendous accolades in the food press, we’ve won awards

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– Restaurant of the Year in New York City, and it all started with the Continental in

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Philadelphia.

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My mantra is to be concerned with every little detail.

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That’s the design, the lighting, these little things that I strive for.

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I’m good at building a team.

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I know who the right person is for what project, be it the culinary team, the design team,

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the training team.

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It’s not necessarily experience in the restaurant industry I’m looking for.

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Of course we want that.

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I always strive to find an employee that has something else that they’re interested in

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their lives other than restaurants.

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It makes for a more interesting person.

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I’m looking for passion more than anything.

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I like people who talk.

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I want people to voice their opinion, I want them to play devil’s advocate, I want them

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to challenge me.

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We want to give people a place at the table, that’s very important to us.

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We’re looking for people that want to have a career with us.

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We have a lot of success stories.

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People who started as dishwashers and worked their way up.

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Our philosophy is people should learn all jobs so if you’re a manager, you come in

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and work as a dishwasher for a week or two, you’ll come in as a busboy so you relate

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to what other people are experiencing.

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Everyone should understand what other people do, everyone.

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The general managers, the directors, we’re all one family, and everyone has a contribution.

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People are everything.

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Few people know how to make the magic and to make those memories and that’s what we

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do best.